298 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



A man may act with reference only to the momentary occasion, 

 either from unrestrained desire, or from preference for one desideratum 

 over another, or from provision against future desires, or from persua- 

 sion, or from imitative instinct, or from dread of blame, or in awed 

 obedience to an instant command; or he may act according to some 

 general rule restricted to his own wishes, such as the pursuit of pleasure, 

 or self-preservation, or good-will toward an acquaintance, or attachment 

 to home and surroundings, or conformity to the customs of his tribe, 

 or reverence for a law; or, becoming a moralist, he may aim at bringing 

 about an ideal state of things definitely conceived, such as one in 

 which everybody attends exclusively to his own business and interest 

 (individualism), or in which the maximum total pleasure of all beings 

 capable of pleasure is attained (utilitarianism), or in which altruistic 

 sentiments universally prevail (altruism), or in which his community 

 is placed out of all danger (patriotism), or in which the ways of nature 

 are as little modified as possible (naturalism); or he may aim at hasten- 

 ing some result not otherwise known in advance than as that, what- 

 ever it may turn out to be, to which some process seeming to him good 

 must inevitably lead, such as whatever the dictates of the human heart 

 may approve (sentimentalism), or whatever would result from every 

 man's duly weighing, before action, the advantages of his every pur- 

 pose (to which I will attach the nonce-name entelism, distinguishing it 

 and others below by italics), or whatever the historical evolution of 

 public sentiment may decree (historicism), or whatever the operation 

 of cosmical causes may be destined to bring about (evolutionism); or 

 he may be devoted to truth, and may be determined to do nothing not 

 pronounced reasonable, either by his own cogitations (rationalism), or 

 by public discussion (dialecticism), or by crucial experiment; or he may 

 feel that the only thing really worth striving for is the generalizing 

 or assimilating elements in truth, and that either as the sole object 

 in which the mind can ultimately recognize its veritable aim (educa- 

 tionalism), or that which alone is destined to gain universal sway 

 (pancratism); or, finally, he may be filled with the idea that the only 

 reason that can reasonably be admitted as ultimate is that living reason 

 for the sake of which the psychical and physical universe is in process 

 of creation (religionism). 



This list of ethical classes of motives may, it is hoped, serve as a 

 tolerable sample upon which to base reflections upon the acceptability 

 as ultimate of different kinds of human motives; and it makes no pre- 

 tension to any higher value. The enumeration has been so ordered as 

 to bring into view the various degrees of generality of motives. It 

 would conduce to our purpose, however, to compare them in other 

 respects. Thus, we might arrange them in reference to the degree to 

 which an impulse of dependence enters into them, from express obedi- 



