Darwinism in Ethics. 125 



fessor Bain s suggestion that pleasure is accom 

 panied by an increase of some or all of the vital 

 functions, his arguments are not so much deduc 

 tions from evolutionary science as postulates of 

 a foregone psychological and ethical hedonism. 

 Even, however, where hedonism is theoretically 

 held to, it is no longer the real vital moment of 

 evolutiono-utilitarianism. Instead of the greatest 

 happiness of the greatest number, you have an 

 other standard ; and morality, as with Mr. Leslie 

 Stephen, is defined as &quot; the means of social vital 

 ity,&quot; &quot; the conditions of social welfare,&quot; &quot; the sum 

 of the preservative instincts of a society.&quot; In 

 the last phase of its development, as in the ear 

 lier, utilitarianism retains the conception of mo 

 rality as something relative, a means to an end 

 beyond itself, and as a product of physical or 

 psychological compulsion rather than the self- 

 imposed law of a free moral agent. It has for 

 feited none of the essential attributes of a system 

 of utility. But, in spite of the protests of its 

 leading advocates, it is casting the slough of 

 pleasure, which seemed a vital part of its earlier 

 life. It still holds that the moral is identical 

 with the useful, though when you ask, &quot; Useful 

 for what ? &quot; the answer is no longer &quot; For pleas 

 ure,&quot; but &quot;For preservation&quot; i.e., for social 



