2O Mr. Spencer s Demonstrative Method. 



pies. In the meantime, one who sees in the un 

 dertaking merely a repetition of the fruitless 

 attempt of Locke may be allowed to recall 

 Hume s deprecation of the application of deduc 

 tion to ethics on the ground that this method, 

 though in itself more perfect, was less suited to 

 the imperfection of human nature, and was a 

 common source of illusion and mistake in this as 

 well as in other subjects. But whatever the 

 future may disclose regarding the deducibility of 

 rules of conduct, it is clear that deductive ethics, 

 if it is to be a science, must not start with as- 

 sumptions unwarranted by, or even opposed to, the 

 common-sense of mankind. The first principles 

 of astronomy and physics are indisputable; if 

 ethics is to take rank with them, its first principles 

 must be equally axiomatic. But Mr. Spencer, 

 under the influence of what Mill has called an a 

 priori fallacy, the offspring of hedonism and 

 utilitarianism, lays the foundation of his science 

 of rational, deductive, absolute ethics in the dog 

 matic identification of goodness with pleasure. 

 He holds it &quot; to be the business of moral science 

 to deduce, from the laws of life and the condi 

 tions of existence, what kinds of action necessarily 

 tend to produce happiness, and what kinds to pro 

 duce unhappiness. Having done this, its deduc- 



