A MODERN "SYMPOSIUM." 



49 



If the religious foundations and sanctions of 

 morality are given up, what is to be substituted 

 for thern ? 



First : will the modern notion of a duty to 

 act so as may conduce to the greatest happiness 

 of the greatest number of men be sufficient ? I 

 think, certainly not. The idea of duty is not, to 

 my mind, practical or intelligible without religious 

 conceptions ; and this particular conception of 

 duty depends entirely upon a test extrinsic, and 

 not personal, to the individual — a test, too, which 

 it is difficult (not to say impossible) for each in- 

 dividual to verify for himself; though it may be 

 verified, to their own satisfaction, by philosophi- 

 cal students of casuistry or political economy. 

 Those motives are of necessity strongest- which 

 directly concern the man himself: and a moral 

 principle which attempts to counteract influences 

 operating directly and immediately upon the will 

 by others which are speculative and remote, with- 

 out any higher sanctions realized by and reacting 

 upon the individual, must necessarily be weak. 



But, secondly : will this idea be sufficient, if 

 so modified as to present to the man the pursuit 

 of his own happiness in this world as the rule of 

 life, but teach him to discover it by observing 

 and doing those things which most conduce to 

 the happiness of men in general ? In this form it 

 is older and more plausible ; but the difficulties 

 of making it practical are really very much the 

 same. This doctrine, as Aristotle observes, de- 

 pends upon a general induction: it deals only 

 with general truths and general conclusions, to 

 which there are many apparent and (if there were 

 no law of moral retribution and adjustment be- 

 hind) many real exceptions. The foundations of 

 a man's moral character and habits must be laid 

 in his youth : when (as Aristotle also says) he is 

 inexperienced, naturally inclined to follow his 

 passions, and not predisposed to accept the dis- 

 quisitions of philosophers as proof that his own 

 happiness will not be promoted by seeking it in 

 his own way. The temperament most likely to 

 act consciously on such a rule of life is not the 

 most generous ; it is rather that which is cold and 

 calculating, and which values the reputation more 

 than the reality of virtue. Upon such men, at 

 the best, its influence is to establish a low stand- 

 ard of virtue ; perhaps only to check and impose 

 'limits on their tendencies to vice. Over others 

 it can have little or no power, except when oper- 

 ating in combination with, and subordination to, 

 higher principles. 



Not only did the ethical systems of the an- 

 cients which were based upon this principle fail 



to make men moral, but we sec its impotence 

 constantly exemplified among those whom we 

 call " men of the world " — a class of persons who 

 are by no means indifferent to their own hap- 

 piness, or to the good opinion of the world, but 

 by whom the influence of religious belief is not 

 practically felt ; exemplified, too, on points of 

 morality of which the reasonableness seems most 

 manifest. There are no virtues, I suppose, which 

 can more readily be shown to be conducive to 

 happiness, whether particular or general, than 

 that which the Greeks called i^Kpareia, and that 

 of benevolence. What can be more contrary, to 

 both at once of these, than the irregular indul- 

 gence of sensual appetite at the cost of the per- 

 manent degradation, and almost certain misery, 

 of human beings who are its instruments and vic- 

 tims, and of innumerable physical as well as moral 

 evils to individuals, families, and mankind at 

 large ? Yet how very common is this sort of im- 

 morality, even among cultivated men, living on 

 good terms with society ! How little is it re- 

 proved, how seldom restrained, except by the 

 authority, or through the influence, direct or in- 

 direct, of religion ! All readers of Horace remem- 

 ber the sententia dia Catonin, and I doubt whether 

 non-religious opinion among ourselves is much 

 stricter on this subject, though it may be less 

 freely expressed. If it is otherwise as to some 

 of the more abnormal forms of oucpcurla, I have al- 

 ready said that this is specifically due to Chris- 

 tianity. The cultivated Greeks and Romans 

 spoke and wrote lightly and familiarly of vices 

 of which we do not speak at all : they regarded 

 them, indeed, as effeminate, but not as infamous, 

 and certainly did not visit them with grave social 

 penalties. So tainted was their moral atmos- 

 phere, that even such really religious men among 

 them as Socrates and Plato (to whom, however, 

 a religion teaching morals with definiteness and 

 authority was unknown) surprise us by their 

 want of sensitiveness on these points, as mani- 

 fested in some passages of the Socratic Dialogues. 



I will next inquire whether a sufficient rule of 

 morality is to be found, when religion is set aside, 

 in any law of our nature: first, regarding the 

 constitution of our nature apart from, and, sec- 

 ondly, taking into account, the existence in it of 

 a moral instinct or sense. 



If any one calls the application of right reason 

 to human conduct generally a law of our nature, 

 from which such a rule is to be derived, without 

 taking into account the moral sense — this, as it 

 seems to me, would be only a different and more 

 indefinite mode of expressing substantially the 



