764 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



discharged when it lias produced the warrant for its requirements as generally 

 expressed [i. e., that the individual should so promote his own pleasure as not 

 to mar the pleasure of others] ; when it has shown the imperativeness of obedi- 

 ence to them ; and when it has thus taught the need for deliberately considering 

 whether the conduct fulfills them as well as may be." 



While Spencer gives away reluctantly nearly his whole position here (for of 

 what value is an ethical system which can shed no light on the path of private 

 duty?), yet the small portion he retains is retained unjustly, and must be sur- 

 rendered. An ethical system which boils down into an exhortation to all men 

 to promote their own interests has no ethical quality left in it; for, as we have 

 seen, the mere doing of that which is clearly essential to self-preservation per- 

 tains to business and not to morals; since, to have a moral quality, an act must 

 raise the question, Is it right ? which mere attention to business does not raise 

 any more than the flight of birds, the falling of water, or the explosion of gases. 



The nearest thing to an authoritative and universal rule which we 

 get in the " Data of Ethics " is the assertion that " the life of the social 

 organism must, as a rule, rank above the lives of its units." Suppos- 

 ing even that society is in any but a figurative sense an organism with 

 a life of its own distinct from those of its members, this canon, as it 

 stands in Mr. Spencer's pages, appears to be almost as much a dogma 

 and as little supported by demonstration as anything in the Athana- 

 sian Creed. Prove to a man, if you can, that to enjoy his own pleas- 

 ure he must avoid interfering with the pleasure of others, obtain the 

 co-operation of his fellows, and pay a certain tribute to the interests 

 of society. But to tell him that, where there is a question between the 

 life or the pleasure of the social organism and his life or pleasure, the 

 claim of the social organism must rank first, is to tell him what, we 

 venture to think, you will not be able to prove with any arguments 

 supplied by the "Data of Ethics," the reasoning of which, like the 

 promptings of Nature apart from theism, point rather the other way. 

 The chapter on the " Sociological View of Ethics " is not, at least I 

 have not found it, the clearest in a book generally remarkable for per- 

 spicuity : but, if I do not mistake, it forecasts a diminution of the 

 claims of society on the allegiance of the individual man, in propor- 

 tion as militarism gives way to industry, and the need of protection 

 against the violence of other social organisms becomes less. 



In one remarkable passage Mr. Spencer seems practically to avow 

 the inability of his principle to settle what have hitherto been deemed 

 the plainest questions of morality : 



In men's wider relations frequently occur circumstances under which a de- 

 cision one or other way is imperative, and yet under which not even the most 

 sensitive conscience, helped by the clearest judgment, can decide which of the 

 alternatives is relatively right. Two examples will suffice. . . . Here is a mer- 

 chant who loses by the failure of a man indebted to him. Unless he gets help 

 he himself will fail ; and if he fails he will bring disaster not only on his family 

 but on all who have given him credit. Even if by borrowing he is enabled to 

 mee.t immediate engagements, he is not sate; for the time is one of panic, and 



