SCIENCE AND MORALITY. 759 



mammal, and in that case the hypothesis will be true. The present 

 question is, whether it affords a new basis for morality. 



Applying the tests, then, to the cases mentioned, we find that the 

 action of the Italian physician is at least partly wrong : it gives him 

 pain, and, instead of prolonging or intensifying, terminates his own 

 life ; it is ethically inferior to that of a Caffre woman suckling her 

 child. On the other hand, the action of the murderer is at least partly 

 right : to himself it is unquestionably productive of a great deal of 

 pleasure, and, by releasing him from toil which might have been in- 

 jurious to his health, it very likely prolongs his life, and certainly in- 

 tensifies his enjoyment. The benefit extends to his family, and to all 

 those who will profit by his judicious and liberal use of the wealth 

 which comes into his hands. If the murdered man was a fool, a nig- 

 gard, or a selfish voluptuary, who would have made no use of his riches 

 or have used them ill, it really may be said that all the visible and cal- 

 culable consequences of the action are good. One human life, indeed, 

 is sacrificed, but from Mr. Spencer's point of view nothing can be said 

 about the indefeasible sacredness of human life. Sacredness in general, 

 and the sacredness of human life in particular, are religious concep- 

 tions, and as such have no place in his philosophy. Man may be " the 

 highest of mammals," but is there any assignable reason why you should 

 not put him, as well as any other inconvenient mammal, out of your 

 way ? When a stag gores his fellow-stag to death, that he may have 

 exclusive possession of the does, we do not think that he does anything 

 wrong, but, on the contrary, regard his action as a striking instance of 

 the law of natural selection carried into effect through the struggle for 

 existence. Mr. Spencer may say, and does say, that a few aeons hence, 

 by the progress of evolution, or, to use his own formula, by " our ad- 

 vance toward heterogeneity," matters will be so adjusted, and men 

 will have become so sensible of altruistic pleasure, that it will be not 

 less disagreeable to you to kill your neighbor than to be killed yourself. 

 But the murderer, if this is pressed upon him, will say : " A few seons 

 hence I shall be out of the way ; I will do that which, as it brings me 

 present pleasure, with increased duration and intensity of life, is, as 

 far as I am concerned, right." It is not very apparent what answer 

 could be made. We are in quest, be it observed, at present, not of a 

 moral horoscope of humanity, but of motives which, by making the 

 men of our day not the Herbert Spencers, but the ordinary men 

 do good and abstain from evil, shall save the world from a moral in- 

 terregnum. 



Pleasure is relative to the organism. There is no such thing as a 

 type or ideal of perfection. This also Mr. Spencer lays down with 

 the same distinctness with which he lays it down that pleasure and 

 pain are the sole and universal tests of right and wrong in conduct. 

 The master will perhaps be somewhat startled by seeing his twofold 

 doctrine developed under the fearless hands of one of his disciples. 



