CHAP, x "SCIENCE OF ETHICS" 109 



out of obedience to conscience. But, if the moral judg- 

 ment be disputed, and if any soul prefers his own private 

 weal, Mr. Stephen gives no help. To call selfish men 

 "idiots" merely because they distinguish meum from 

 tuum is not helpful. Tastes differ that is the last 

 word on these questions, if we adopt Mr. Stephen's 

 premises. 



One thing more we might be tempted to inquire, 

 How far is this whole mode of looking at morals 

 true and serviceable ? But hitherto we have raised no 

 such issue, and it would hardly be wise to discuss it at 

 this particular point. Only so much we may say : if 

 the community is to be the authority in ethics it must 

 not be narrowly identified with any external society ; 

 and that which it lays down as duty must not be merely 

 what is socially convenient still less, what is convenient 

 for society and costly to the individual ; duty must in- 

 clude absolute and ideal elements, whose fulfilment is 

 quite as much for the interest (in the true sense) of the 

 individual as for that of society. But, granted some such 

 deeper view of society, it may be useful to have a state- 

 ment of morality as the single or continuous human 

 ideal, and to have this in terms of biology. It is well, 

 too, that one of the biologising moralists should em- 

 phasise, not obscure subconscious possibilities of organic 

 change, but the knowable influences of human education 

 and historic culture. We shall quote Mr. Stephen for 

 this at a later point. 



