138 The End Pleasure or Good? 



there is much in it besides pleasure), it, and not 

 happiness either of self or others, is the end 

 which utilitarianism pure and simple, the utili 

 tarianism of Mill divorced from his more than 

 dubious psychology, might set up as the ultimate 

 end for every moral agent. And this, in fact, is 

 the supreme principle of the ethics of Darwin, 

 though he directs attention rather to the gene 

 sis of moral rules than to the reason for our ob 

 serving them. And though Mr. Spencer is too 

 strongly influenced by the national ethics to fore 

 go the final reduction of morality to pleasure 

 and even the agent s own pleasure he yet main 

 tains that those acts are good which conduce 

 to the welfare of self, of offspring, and of soci 

 ety. The same end is recognized by Mr. Leslie 

 Stephen in his explanation of moral rules as 

 means of social preservation ; yet Mr. Stephen 

 has not been so unfaithful to what he calls his 

 own &quot; school &quot; Bentham, Mill, etc. as to sep 

 arate its psychology of self-seeking from its 

 ethics of self-sacrifice. 



When this divorce does take place, however 

 and already it is heralded in Darwin there will 

 be no longer in this respect a fundamental oppo 

 sition between evolutionary ethics and common- 

 sense morals. Attempts to patch up a truce, on 





