408 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



eration is much needed by our girls we have 

 fair evidence among women in Washington, 

 where so many are stranded without homes, 

 friends, or fortune. Sixty women have been 

 known to apply at a private school as teach- 

 ers during the summer months, and most 

 of them ill fitted for earning their living 

 in any position. The political changes in 

 Washington conduce strongly to this state 

 of affairs. It is well known that great im- 

 providence exists among the families of the 

 male and female clerks in the departments 

 in Washington as to their manner of living. 

 Many a clerk receiving eighteen hundred or 

 two thousand dollars a year will die, after 

 twenty years or more, without having saved 

 a cent, even for his own funeral expenses, 

 leaving a family with extravagant habits to 

 battle with the world as best they can. 

 This is no uncommon case ; to be saving and 

 buy a home is the exception. 



I can only give out a few hints on this 

 great subject ; but I venture to hope that 

 reflective minds may be impressed with its 

 importance, and may exert their influence 

 to encourage the teaching of the underlying 

 principles of economy and moderation to 

 our children in the public schools. 



Laura Osborne Talbott. 



THE BASIS OF MORALITY. 



Editor Popular Science Monthly : 



Sir : I have read Herbert Spencer's The 

 Data of Ethics, and, if I have not misunder- 

 stood the work, it teaches that the object to 

 be gained by pursuing morality is happiness, 

 and that a nation's happiness increases as 

 does its morality. If by the term happiness 

 we mean surplus of pleasure over pain, I 

 think that the happiness of savage nations 

 is greater than that of civilized ones. The 

 former are certainly healthier. By our defi- 

 nition this fact alone indicates greater hap- 

 piness. But savage nations are notoriously 

 immoral. People, whether religious or not, 

 when they argue against immorality, gener- 

 ally give reasons for its avoidance which 

 issue from the heart and sentiment rather 

 than from the mind. 



Here are some instances : We say that 

 a man who has been a miser all his lifetime 

 is wretched and unhappy ; yet he may have 

 been in perfect health, bodily and mental, 

 which we must assume to indicate that he 

 has been able to exercise all his faculties : 

 and the exercise of faculties, according to 

 Siencer, constitutes pleasure. Persons un- 

 able to stick to one occupation for any 



length of time are often spoken of in terms 

 of pity, yet they also may have led lives of 

 perfect activity. In the former case the 

 means by which the miser accumulated his 

 fortune are held up to us as directly causing 

 pain to the user of them, and we are warned 

 not to follow his steps, for he must have 

 suffered. In reality, however, he could not 

 have suffered so terribly, for if he had he 

 would not have been left in the possession 

 of the power to exercise all his faculties. 

 By similar reasoning we can come to a like 

 conclusion in regard to the vacillating kind 

 of people I have spoken of. People make 

 a mistake in looking at such things through 

 only their own eyes. 



An instance of the opposite kind in be- 

 half of the pursuit of morality is as follows : 

 After hearing the biography of two persons, 

 one of whom led a long, healthy, selfish life, 

 and the other, having all the advantages of 

 education, was possessed of a sympathetic 

 and an emotional nature which recognized 

 and met the wants of others, and who dur- 

 ing his lifetime was universally loved but 

 constantly suffered, most of us would pre- 

 fer the life of the latter. 



With the idea of happiness in mind we 

 started with, I think the above instances 

 show that the cultivation of morality is not 

 necessarily accompanied by increased happi- 

 ness. Now, if what I have said is true, it 

 seems to me that the logic of the book in 

 question is destroyed, and that all those who 

 are interested in the furtherance of morality 

 and the scientific discussion of ethics are 

 obliged to face a disagreeable conclusion. 

 It is this : Philosophic thinkers can really 

 give no adequate reason for the pursuit of 

 morality, and they, too, as well as professed 

 believers in other-world motives for doing 

 right, must often argue from the heart and 

 according to their ideals and not as inexor- 

 able reason and logic demand ; and must be 

 content to live somewhat under a contradic- 

 tion. I use the word professed not unthink- 

 ingly, as I believe that most really honorable 

 people find their motives for rectitude in the 

 present life. 



To the possible objection to my argu- 

 ment that I have forgotten to take into 

 account the increase of complexity of the 

 pleasures which takes place as an organism 

 becomes more moral, I may say that so do 

 the pains become more complex. 



I might also ask the question, Which 

 pleasures are the greater, the simple ones 

 of childhood, or the complex pleasures of 

 maturity ? It seems to me that there is no 

 difference. K. 



Someeville, Mass., November, 1S90. 



