THE MORALITY OF HAPPINESS. 471 



nize sinfulness in all who did not share their views and follow their 

 practices. Here we find evidence of the law of moral philosophy that 

 a system of ethics, with recognition of moral rightness and wrongness, 

 only begins to be formed where the best conduct (so far as fullness 

 of life is concerned) runs the chance, for whatever reason, of being 

 neglected, and inferior conduct followed. In this case, the best con- 

 duct is apt to be neglected because the increased fullness of life to 

 which it conduces is more remote than the temporary increase of life 

 fullness to which inferior conduct tends. 



Yet, speaking generally, it may be said that, as Mr. Herbert Spencer 

 puts it : "The ethical judgments we pass on self -regarding acts are 

 ordinarily little emphasized ; partly because the promptings of the 

 self-regarding desires, generally strong enough, do not need moral 

 enforcement, and partly because the promptings of the other self- 

 regarding desires, less strong, and often overridden, do need moral 

 enforcement." 



When we turn to the life-regarding actions of the second class, 

 those which relate to the rearing of offspring, we no longer find the 

 words good and bad, right and wrong, used with doubtful meaning. 

 Here the question of duty is clearly recognized. The conduct of par- 

 ents, who, by neglecting to provide for their children's wants in in- 

 fancy, diminish their chances of full and active life, or of life itself, 

 is called bad and wrong not solely or chiefly because it is not favor- 

 able to the increase of life, but as open to moral censure. In like 

 manner, men blame as really wrong, not merely unwise or ill-adjusted, 

 such conduct as tends to make the physical and mental training of 

 children imperfect or inadequate. 



Still clearer, however, is the use of the words right and wrong as 

 applied to conduct by which men influence in various ways the lives 

 of their fellows. Here the adjustments suitable for increasing the full- 

 ness of individual life, or for fostering the lives of offspring (alike in 

 quantity and fullness), are often inconsistent with the corresponding 

 adjustments of others. The development by evolution of conduct 

 tending to the advancement of individual lives or lives of offspring 

 would of itself tend constantly to acts inconsistent with the well-being 

 or even with the existence of others, were it not for the development 

 (also brought about, as we have seen, by processes of evolution) of 

 conduct tending to the increase of the quantity and fullness of life 

 in the community. But there arises a constant conflict between tend- 

 encies to opposite lines of conduct. It is so essential for the welfare 

 of the community that tendencies to advance the life interests of self 

 and children should be in due subordination (which is not the same 

 thing, be it noticed, as complete subordination) to tendencies leading 

 to the furtherance of the fullness of life in others, that rules of con- 

 duct toward others than self or children have to be emphatic and per- 

 emptory in tone. Hence it is, as Mr. Spencer justly remarks, that the 



