Nov. 9, 1883.] 



♦ KNOWLEDGE * 



283 



1'^ 



AN ILLUSTRATED 



MAGAZINE oVsCifUCE 



PLAINLTyf ORDED -EXACTLY DESCRIBED 



LONDON : FRIDAY, NOV. 9, 1883, 



Contents of No. 106. 



The Morality of Happiuess. Br 



Thomas Foster '.. '. 



The Sua'3 Distance. By Professor 



R. S. Ball, LLD ; 



The Chemistry of Cookery. XSII. 



Bv W. Mattieu Williams ; 



Mathematics of the Imaginary. By 



Richard A. Proctor ! 



Eicllter's Dream 



The Ring of Small Planets. ByR.A. 



Proctor 



Editorial Gossip i 



The Face of the Sky. By P.R.A.S. i 

 Correspondence : The Green Sun 

 in India — A Curious Phenomenon 

 — Brilliant Rainbow — New Moon 

 on Saturday ; Day of Week — 

 Mnd-Guarda for Tricycles — Chest- 

 nuts and Beechmast — Total Absti- 

 nence — Internal Parasites, &c. ... ! 



Our Whist Column ; 



Our Chess Column : 



THE MORALITY OF HAPPINESS. 



By Thomas Foster. 



(Continued from page 254.) 



THERE is only one way of escape from the conclusion 

 reached in onr last, — that conduct is good or bad 

 according; as its total etl'ect are pleasurable or painful, — in 

 which statement be it understood the word total means 

 total and is not limited in its application to the person 

 whose conduct is spoken of. If it is supposed that men 

 were created to sufi'er, that a power which they were 

 bound to obey had planned such suffering, so that any 

 attempt either to take pleasure or to avoid pain was an 

 offence, then of course the conclusion indicated is an 

 erroneous one. 



No system of religion has ever definitely taught so hideous 

 a doctrine. Even where sorrow and suflTering are recog- 

 nised as the lot of man, and even where self-inflicted 

 anguish and misery are enjoined as suitable ways of 

 pleasing Deity, it is never said that such sufierings are 

 the ultimate desire of the Supreme Power. These tribu- 

 lations are all intended for our good : we are to torture 

 ourselves here and now that hereafter we may avoid much 

 greater pains or enjoy much greater pleasures than here 

 and now we could possibly experience. 



Net underlying this doctrine of greater and longer- 

 lasting happiness as the result of temporary suB'ering 

 or privation, there has been and is in many so-called 

 religions the doctrine that pain and suffering are pleasing 

 to the gods of inferior creeds and even to the Supreme 

 Power of liigher beliefs. The offerings made sy.steniati- 

 cally by some races to their deities imply obviously 

 the belief that the gods are pleased when men deprive 

 themselves of something more or less valued. Sacri- 

 fices involving slaughter, whether of domestic animals or 

 of human beings, mean more, for they imply that suf- 

 {(^ring and death are essentially pleasing to deity. Even 

 when such gross ideas are removed and religion has 

 been purified, the synibolisation of sacrifice in most cases 

 takes the place of sacrifice itself. The conception may and 

 often does remain as an actually vital part of religious 

 ■tloctrine that pleasure is offensive to the Supreme Power 

 and pain pleasing. 



If tJiis conception is really recognised and any men 



definitely hold that to enjoy or to give pleasure is sinful, 

 because displeasing to God, while the suffering or infliction 

 of pain is commendable, then for them — but for them 

 only — the doctrine is not established that conduct is good 

 or bad according as its total effects are pleasurable or 

 painful. But it' there are such men, then they are 

 mentally and morally the direct descendants of the savage 

 of most brutal type, who because he himself delights to 

 inflict pain deems his gods to be of kindred nature and 

 immolates \ictims to them (or if necessary to gain his 

 ends, shows the reality of his belief by self-torture) to 

 obtain their assistance against his enemies. 



If there are such men among us still, then as Mr. Herbert 

 Spencer says, " we can only recognise the fact that devil- 

 worshippers are not yet extinct." The generality of our 

 conclusions is no more affected by such exceptions as these 

 than it is by the ideas which prevail in Bedlam or 

 Earlswood. 



But on the one hand the doctrine thus reached may be 

 passed over as a truism (which it ought to be and indeed is, 

 though like many truisms, unrecognised) ; and on the other 

 it may be scouted as Epicurean (which is unmeaning 

 nonsense, however) and as mere pig-philosophy. For it 

 sets happiness as the aim of conduct, and whether self- 

 happiness or the happiness of others is in question, many 

 find in the mere idea of pleasure as a motive for conduct 

 something unworthy, — thereby unconsciously adopting the 

 religious doctrine which has been justly compared with 

 devil-worship. 



This expression — Pig -philosophy — has indeed been 

 applied to the doctrine we are considering, by a philo- 

 sopher who, with ilr. Ruskin and Mr. Matthew Arnold, 

 may be regarded as chief among the wonders of our age — ■ 

 and standing proof of the charm which the British race 

 finds in Constant Grunt, Continual Growl, and Chronic 

 Groan. It must be considered, therefore, as certain that 

 to some minds a philosophy which sets the happiness of 

 self and others as a worthy end, must appear unworthy. 

 Sucii minds find something pig-like in the desire to see 

 the happiness of the world increased. Yet grunting and 

 groaning are at least as characteristic of the porcine 

 race as any desire to increase the comfort of their 

 fellow-creatures or even their own. Mr. Herbert Spencer's 

 lightsome pleasure-doctrine, the essence of which is that we 

 should strive to diminish pain and sorrow (our own in- 

 cluded) and to increase joy and happiness, is less suggestive 

 of porcine ways (at least to those who have noted what 

 such ways are) than — for instance — the following cheerful 

 address to Man, " Despicable biped ! what is the sum 

 total of the worst that lies before thee 1 D(>ath ? Well, 

 Death ; and say the pangs of Tophet, too, and all that 

 the Devil and Man may, will, or can do against thee ! 

 Hast thou not a heart ; canst thou not suffer whatsoever it 

 be ; and, as a Child of Freedom, though outcast, trample 

 Tophet itself under thy feet, while it consumes thee T' 

 Were this but stern resolution to endure patiently, and 

 even cheerfully such sorrows as befall man, it were well. 

 Nay it would fall in with the philosophy of happiness, 

 whicli enjoins that for their own sake as for the sake of 

 those around them men should bear as lightly as they may 

 their burd.en of inevitable sorrow. But what Carlyle calls 

 the New-birth or Baphomctic Fire-baptism is not Patience 

 but Indignation and Defiance. This is the veritable Pig- 

 philosophy : the " Everlasting No ' {das cinge Nein) is in 

 truth the I'verlasting Grunt of dyspeptic disgust, the 

 constant Oh-Goroo (Joroo of a jaundiced soul. 



Are the teacliings of living professors of the Everlasting 

 Groan school brighter than those of the gloomy Scotsman 1 

 Here are some of the latest utterings of the chief among 



