136 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



only governmental agencies could be adequate. There was doubt- 

 less a field for legislative action in the repeal of bad existing laws, 

 but there was a still wider one in the enactment of good ones 

 adapted to the needs of society. 



Mr. Ward, in reply to numerous inquiries and objections made 

 during the* discussion of the paper, explained that for the sake 

 of brevity he had omitted any precise definition of the term 

 Moral Progress as used in the paper. He said that the term 

 was often employed in two quite distinct senses, and that much of 

 the discussion had considered it in the other sense from that clearly 

 implied in the paper. There is a subjective sense which relates to 

 individual character and an objective sense which relates to col- 

 lective well-being. The paper did not pretend to discuss the 

 question whether human character had advanced, or how much it 

 had advanced. It aimed only to consider the relation of material 

 civilization to social well-being, the sole test of moral progress in 

 this objective sense being the condition attained with respect to the 

 enjoyment of life. This progress might be either positive, consist- 

 ing in an increase in the pleasures of life; or it might be negative, 

 and consist in the reduction of the pains of life. In fact this 

 negative progress has been by far the most observable, the chief 

 improvement in man's condition thus far being some slight mitiga- 

 tion of the evils of existence. In view of this criterion of moral 

 progress as measured by the degree of collective happiness, all that 

 had been said respecting higher standards of taste in literature and 

 social life was irrelevant to the discussion, since it simply con- 

 founded refinement with enjoyment, which are two entirely distinct 

 things. Admitting that finer sensibilities are capable of higher en- 

 joyment, this is far from proving that they necessarily enjoy more, 

 for they are also capable of more acute suffering, and the whole 

 c|uestion originally was whether material civilization prevents more 

 of the latter than it occasions. 



Mr. Ward in conclusion expressed surprise that Dr. Welling 

 should have seemed to regard his paper at all in the light of a 

 jeremiad. On the contrary, he tried to take such a view of the 

 future as should be philosophic rather than either pessimistic or 

 optimistic, but had sometimes been accused of expecting results 

 that were not likely to be soon realized. 



