ETHICS. 



himself into the consciousness and sensibilities 

 of others, and he cannot, if he would, forget how 

 these will be affected by his actions ; for a jar of 

 pain or a tingle of joy in their nerves, will, through 

 the sympathetic bond, vibrate in his own frame. 

 This capacity of having present with us the feel- 

 ings of others, and of being affected by them, is 

 necessary as a foundation on which to rest the 

 obligation of having regard to the happiness of 

 others in our actions. If we wanted the intel- 

 lectual and emotional faculties involved in sym- 

 pathy, no teaching, no injunction of authority, no 

 calculation of merely individual interests, could 

 beget the response which social duty finds more 

 or less in the human breast. As it is, the maxim 

 of doing to others as we would have them do to us, 

 or of putting our neighbour's happiness on the 

 same footing as our own, is universally assented 

 to as the very voice of reason and of nature. 



As in the case of actions involving the happi- 

 ness of the individual, so in those that involve 

 the happiness of others, there is always a conflict 

 or a comparison between two impulses ; and it 

 is out of this relation that the moral quality of 

 the action arises in both cases. A prudential 

 virtue consists in weighing a present pleasure or 

 pain with the idea of a future pleasure or pain, 

 and in holding the balance fairly between our 

 present self and our future self; a social virtue 

 consists in weighing a gratification or a pain in 

 our own persons, with a gratification or a pain in 

 the persons of others, and in allowing the latter 

 the same consideration as if it were our own. To 

 give way to the impulse of the moment, and 

 snatch a present gratification, which we know 

 will cost too dear, is weakness and folly a sin 

 against self. To seek our own personal gratifica- 

 tion at the expense or to the neglect of the feel- 

 ings of others, is weakness and selfishness a 

 sin against our neighbour. Both sins consist 

 essentially in allowing what is bodily present to 

 triumph over what is present if present at all 

 only in idea and to reason ; in short, the sensuous 

 and narrow part of man's nature, which he has 

 in common with the lower animals, is made to 

 overbear those distinctive intellectual and emo- 

 tional faculties which constitute him a man, and 

 which instinctively claim superiority. The essence 

 of human dignity and virtue would seem to con- 

 sist in giving the ideal and rational part of man 

 the rule over the lower impulses. 



If all men had perfect knowledge, and perfect 

 human sympathies, there would be no need for 

 laws of morality in the usual sense. We should 

 see, and feel, and will the right thing, without 

 thinking of any law. The first impulse would 

 be the right one, and there being no conflict, 

 such words as ought, obligation, duty, would be- 

 come meaningless. A man in this condition 

 would have attained ' the perfect law of liberty,' 

 which is represented by St Paul as the con- 

 summation of the sanctified nature. Such a beau- 

 ide*al of human nature is doubtless sufficiently 

 Utopian as regards the actual condition of men 

 in general. Yet we see approaches made to this 

 moral freedom. Some men, with respect to some 

 duties at least, are constitutionally virtuous ; what 

 it costs others a struggle to do, they do spontane- 

 ously, and with no inclination to do otherwise. 

 Of such virtue we are apt to say that it is without 



merit so prominent in our notion of duty is the 

 element of contest or struggle. Yet that virtue 

 is really more perfect in proportion to the absence 

 of conflict, appears from the fact, that a consistent 

 course of duty, though begun in struggle, has a 

 tendency to end in being easy and spontaneous. 

 Duty is thus virtue in an imperfect state, while it 

 is yet difficult and requires support 



From this point of view, rules or laws of con- 

 duct are aids from without supplements to the 

 individual's knowledge and moral strength. The 

 experience of the longest life would go but a short 

 way to teach a man how to make the most of 

 his individual existence. His life would be lost 

 before he had learned how to preserve it. But 

 the experience of generations has been handed 

 down in the form of history and of prudential 

 maxims, which, like charts, warn him of the 

 sunken rocks on which others have made ship- 

 wreck. He finds from his own experience that 

 it is safer to follow these general rules than to 

 trust to his own judgment, disturbed by passion 

 at the very moment he ought to decide. In cool 

 reason he promises to himself to follow them ; 

 and when he feels tempted to depart from them, 

 he 'appeals from Philip drunk to Philip sober.' 

 In like manner, the laws and maxims of social 

 morality are the results of ages of experience, 

 teaching how the individual ought to act so as 

 to secure the greatest happiness of the whole 

 society. The experience of the evil results to all, 

 when individuals transgress these laws, begets 

 a strong sentiment in their favour, and of resent- 

 ment against transgressors. All without excep- 

 tion partake of this feeling, for even the selfish 

 dislike others that are selfish ; and when an 

 individual is tempted by his selfishness to do 

 what will injure others, this sentiment reacts upon 

 himself; he cannot help reprobating his own 

 conduct This echo of public opinion which is 

 heard more or less loudly in the breast of every 

 man, comes to the aid of the more generous im- 

 pulses of his nature, when struggling with those 

 of selfishness ; and although often too feeble to 

 secure the victory, it does not fail to protest and 

 make itself a source of permanent uneasiness 

 it is the social conscience speaking in the in- 

 dividual. Few are aware how much of their moral 

 strength they thus derive from without ; and how 

 principles of action that seemed innate and strong, 

 break down and disappear when the outward sup- 

 port is withdrawn. 



Selfishness Disinterestedness. To make happi- 

 ness the end of virtue, reduces it, we are told, to 

 a system of 'refined selfishness.' Now, if to seek 

 gratification in any form be selfishness, then 

 virtue is the highest form of selfishness, for it is 

 to seek the utmost gratification of which human 

 nature is capable ; it is the art of making the 

 most of human life in this respect. In fact, 

 throughout the above reasoning we have assumed, 

 and indeed every one that reasons about human 

 conduct does, either expressly or tacitly, assume, 

 that conscious and sentient beings necessarily 

 seek pleasure, and avoid pain. In other words, 

 they act, and can act, from no other motive than 

 some impulse or requirement of their nature, the 

 non-gratification of which would leave them un- 

 easy and unhappy ; it being understood, of course, 

 that under impulses and requirements of their 

 nature are included, not merely those of the 



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