A MODERN "SYMPOSIUM." 



127 



by strong class organizations; though the decay 

 of morality will perhaps be more complete and 

 disastrous in the latter than in the former. God 

 and future retribution being out of the question, it 

 is difficult to see what can restrain the selfishness 

 of an ordinary man, and induce him, in the ab- 

 sence of actual coercion, to sacrifice his personal 

 desires to the public good. The service of hu- 

 manity is the sentiment of a refined mind conver- 

 sant with history; within no calculable time is it 

 likely to overrule the passions and direct the con- 

 duct of the mass. And after all, without God or 

 spirit, what is ' humanity I ' One school of sci- 

 ence reckons a hundred and fifty different species 

 of man. What is the bond of unity between all 

 these species, and wherein consists the obligation 

 to mutual love and help 1 A zealous servant of 

 science told Agassiz that the age of real civiliza- 

 tion would have begun when you could go out and 

 shoot a man for scientific purposes ; and in the 

 controversy respecting the Jamaica massacre we 

 had proof enough that the ascendency of science 

 and a strong sense of human brotherhood might 

 be very different things. ' Apparent dine facies.' 

 We begin to perceive, looming through the mist, 

 the lineaments of an epoch of selfishness com- 

 pressed by a government of force." 



In fact, even in the present early stage of the 

 English antitheistic philosophy, if its adherents 

 are directly asked what is man's reasonable rule 

 of life, I know of no other answer they will theo- 

 retically give except one. They will say that any 

 given person's one reasonable pursuit on earth 

 is to aim at his own earthly happiness — to ob- 

 tain for himself out of life the greatest amount 

 he can of gratification. No doubt they will make 

 confident statements on the indissoluble connec- 

 tion between happiness and " virtue." Still, ac- 

 cording to their speculative theory, the only 

 reasonable ground for practising " virtue " is its 

 conduciveness to the agent's happiness. 



Now, let us suppose a generation to grow up, 

 profoundly imbued with this principle, carrying 

 it consistently into detail, emancipated from the 

 unconscious influence of (what I must be allowed 

 to call) a more respectable creed. What would 

 be the result ? Evidently a man so trained, in 

 calculating for himself the balance of pleasure 

 and pain, will give no credit on the former side 

 to such gratifications as might arise from con- 

 sciousness of conquest over his lower nature, or 

 from the pursuit of lofty and generous aims. 

 These, I say, will have no place in his list of 

 pleasures : because he will have duly learned his 

 lesson, that there is no "lower" or "higher" 

 nature; that no one aim can be "loftier" than 

 any other ; that there is nothing more admirable 



in generosity than in selfishness. On the other 

 hand, neither will he include, under his catalogue 

 of pains, any feeling of remorse for evil com- 

 mitted, or any dread of possible punishment in 

 some future life ; for he will look with simple 

 contempt on those doctrines, which are required 

 as the foundation for such pains. His common- 

 sense course will be to make this world as com- 

 fortable a place as he can, by bringing every 

 possible prudential calculation to bear on his 

 purpose. Before all things, he will keep his 

 digestion in good order. He will keep at arm's- 

 length (indeed at many arms'-lengths) every dis- 

 quieting consideration, such, e. g., as might arise 

 from a remembrance of other men's misery, or 

 from a thought of that repulsive spectre which 

 the superstitious call moral obligation. 



It is plain that duly to pursue the subject 

 thus opened would carry me indefinitely beyond 

 my limits ; ' and I will only, therefore, make one 

 concluding observation. If the term "virtue" 

 be retained by those of whom I am speaking, it 

 will be used, I suppose, to express any habitual 

 practice which solidly conduces to the agent's 

 balance of earthly enjoyment. I am confident 

 that — should this be the recognized terminology, 

 and should the new school be permitted to arrive 

 at its legitimate development — there is one habit 

 which would be very prominent among its cata- 

 logue of " virtues." The habit to which I refer 

 is indulgence in licentiousness — licentiousness 

 practised, no doubt, prudently, discreetly, calcula- 

 tingly, but at the same time habitually, persever- 

 ingly, and with keen zest. 



Prof. HUXLEY.— We are led to do this thing, 

 and to avoid that, partly by instinct and partly 

 by conscious motives ; and our conduct is said to 

 be moral or the reverse, partly on the ground of 

 its effects upon other beings, partly upon that of 

 its operation upon ourselves. 



Social morality relates to that course of ac- 

 tion which tends to increase the happiness or 

 diminish the misery of other beings; personal 

 morality relates to that which has the like effect 

 upon ourselves. 



If this be so, the foundation of morality 

 must needs lie in the constitution of Nature, and 

 must depend on the mental construction of our- 

 selves and of other sentient beings. 



The constitution of man remaining what it is, 

 his capacity for the pleasures and pains afforded 

 by sense, by sympathy, or by the contemplation 



1 I have treated it at somewhat greater length in an 

 article which I contributed to the Dublin Review of last 

 January, pp. 15-21. 



