PEARSON'S GRAMMAR OF SCIENCE. 299 



ence, generalized obedience, conformity to an external exemplar, action 

 for the sake of an object regarded as external, the adoption of a motive 

 centering on something which is partially opposed to what is present, 

 the balancing of one consideration against another, until we reach such 

 motives as unrestrained desire, the pursuit of pleasure, individualism, 

 sentimentalism, rationalism, educationalism, religionism, in which the 

 element of otherness is reduced to a minimum. Again, we might ar- 

 range the classes of motives according to the degree in which imme- 

 diate qualities of feeling appear in them, from unrestrained desire, 

 through desire present but restrained, action for self, action for 

 pleasure generalized beyond self, motives involving a retro-conscious- 

 ness of self in outward things, the personification of the community, 

 to such motives as direct obedience, reverence, naturalism, evolution- 

 ism, experimentalism, pancratism, religionism, in which the element of 

 self-feeling is reduced to a minimum. But the important thing is to 

 make ourselves thoroughly acquainted, as far as possible from the 

 inside, with a variety of human motives ranging over the whole field 

 of ethics. 



I will not go further into ethics than simply to remark that all 

 motives that are directed toward pleasure or self-satisfaction, of how- 

 ever high a type, will be pronounced by every experienced person to 

 be inevitably destined to miss the satisfaction at which they aim. This 

 is true even of the highest of such motives, that which Josiah Eoyce 

 develops in his 'World and Individual/ On the other hand, every 

 motive involving dependence on some other leads us to ask for some 

 ulterior reason. The only desirable object which is quite satisfactory 

 in itself without any ulterior reason for desiring it, is the reasonable 

 itself. I do not mean to put this forward as a demonstration; because, 

 like all demonstrations about such matters, it would be a mere quibble, 

 a sheaf of fallacies. I maintain simply that it is an experiential truth. 



The only ethically sound motive is the most general one; and the 

 motive that actually inspires the man of science, if not quite that, 

 is very near to it — nearer, I venture to believe, than that of any other 

 equally common type of humanity. On the other hand, Professor Pear- 

 son's aim, 'the stability of society/ which is nothing but a narrow British 

 patriotism, prompts the cui bono at once. I am willing to grant that 

 England has been for two or three centuries a most precious factor of 

 human development. But there were and are reasons for this. To 

 demand that man should aim at the stability of British society, or of 

 society at large, or the perpetuation of the race, as an ultimate end, is 

 too much. The human species will be extirpated sometime; and when 

 the time comes the universe will, no doubt, be well rid of it. Professor 

 Pearson's ethics are not at all improved by being adulterated with 

 utilitarianism, which is a lower motive still. Utilitarianism is one of 



