CHAP, x "SCIENCE OF ETHICS" 99 



Morality then it is a hypothesis, but a strong one 

 consists in the recognised and approved conditions of 

 social efficiency. There are, however, some qualifica- 

 tions. So far as social well-being implies individual 

 physical well-being, we do not (unless in a secondary 

 degree) count the observance of such conditions among 

 moral duties. It is not a moral act to eat when one is 

 hungry it is natural. Nature secures our doing that ; 

 society need not trouble about the matter; and morality 

 which is the voice of society, protecting the interests 

 of the race if it speaks of prudential regard to one's 

 health and interests as a duty, gives prudence a com- 

 paratively low position among the virtues. Whatever 

 is the outcome of organic natural impulse forms rather 

 a presupposition than a part of morality. Further 

 consulting, as I understand him, the usage of language 

 Mr. Stephen is inclined to confine the epithet " moral " 

 to altruistic actions. Ordinary conscious action in one's 

 own interest seems independent of the moral spur. It 

 seems to stand almost, though not quite, on the same 

 level with natural instinct. But with these two quali- 

 fications that morality does not include those condi- 

 tions of social efficiency which are taken care of by 

 instinct, nor yet those in which the social demand 

 coincides exactly with the promptings of rational self- 

 interest Mr. Stephen holds that morality means the 

 law of the social weal, or the conditions of maximum 

 social efficiency. The law of nature is summed up in 

 one terse injunction : "Be strong ! " The law of 

 morality is similar : " Let society be strong ! " And 

 social strength or welfare is found to lie in the indi- 

 vidual virtues of courage, temperance, and truthfulness, 

 along with the more directly social or altruistic virtue 

 which is sometimes hailed as "justice," and again as 



