334 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



stance, though not in form, the answer commonly made to moral re- 

 monstrance by people who can not understand the grounds of the 

 remonstrance. It matters not whether you come in the name of a sci- 

 entific morality or of a traditional theology, the man who "will have 

 none of your reproofs " replies promptly, " I see no harm in it. " Talk 

 to bim of God : he has, comme tout le monde, one of his own, who per- 

 mits that wherein be indulges ; and you will have much work to per- 

 suade bim that your God is of higher authority than his. It will be as 

 tough a task as explaining to him a chapter of " The Data of Ethics." 



Professor Calderwood, writing in the January number of the " Con- 

 temporary Review," raises the objection that, whereas it is admitted 

 by Mr. Spencer that the words good and bad are most emphatically 

 applied to those deeds by which men affect one another, this ought 

 not to be so, upon Mr. Spencer's own principles : on the contrary, "no 

 ethical judgments should be so direct, unhesitating, or emphatic as 

 those which pronounce upon the actions contributing to personal satis- 

 faction." The answer to this is simple enough. The historical ante- 

 cedents or the remote types of moral actions are not themselves neces- 

 sarily moral. Purposive action in the lower animals is not moral, 

 though it may be said to be a preparation for morality. We pro- 

 nounce our most emphatic judgments upon those acts by which men 

 affect one another, because in them we see most conspicuously the 

 conflict of higher and lower impulses, and because members of society 

 must have an especial interest in what men do as members of society. 

 Every right action done adds to the security and happiness of life, 

 every wrong action implies some diminution of happiness, and seems 

 to threaten the general welfare. The whole of morality is based upon 

 the fact that " there is a lower and a higher " ; and wherever the two 

 come plainly into conflict our feelings are more or less strongly en- 

 gaged. Thus, if we see a man struggling with intemperance and 

 enduring keen suffering in the attempt to conquer the vice, we com- 

 mend him even though he may have no wife and children to excite 

 our interest as much as if we saw him performing, at great cost to 

 himself, an act of social justice. And why ? Because we feel so 

 deeply that the struggle is one in the interest of higher, fuller life 

 and happiness. 



Professor Calderwood appears to think that he raises a serious dif- 

 ficulty when he asks, " How comes it to pass that actions most com- 

 monly and most emphatically commended are actions which most need 

 to be enforced ? " I observe that a recent critic * of Professor Calder- 

 wood's work on " The Relations of Mind and Brain," while giving the 

 author credit for general intelligence, says that upon occasions he is 

 positively "obtuse." I should certainly be inclined to say that he was 

 in one of his " obtuse " moods when he put the above question. We 

 commend certain actions more than others because the motives that 



* London " Spectator," March 6, 1880. 



