554 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



LITERARY NOTICES. 



THE PRINCIPLES OF ETHICS. By HERBERT 

 SPENCER. Vol. II. New York : D. Ap- 

 pleton & Co. 



OF the three portions into which Mr. 

 Spencer's new volume is divided, the first 

 was published separately two years ago, un- 

 der the title of Justice, and dealt with those 

 things which human beings may claim as 

 rights. The two latter portions now appear 

 for the first time, and deal respectively with 

 Negative Beneficence and Positive Benefi- 

 cence. Mr. Spencer recognizes the senti- 

 ment of justice no less than the sentiment of 

 beneficence as altruistic, the first implying a 

 voluntary concession of the claims of others 

 to free activity and the products or results 

 of free activity, and the second a disposition 

 to aid others in obtaining the objects of their 

 legitimate desires. In the preface to the 

 present volume the author acknowledges 

 that the new parts fall short of his expecta- 

 tions. He has not been able to affiliate them 

 to the extent that he hoped to the doctrine 

 of evolution. " Most of the conclusions," he 

 says, " drawn empirically, are such as right 

 feelings enlightened by cultivated intelligence 

 have already sufficed to establish." It is in 

 ethics very much the same as in purely 

 scientific theory. Specially gifted individuals 

 will, by their deeper intuitions, anticipate the 

 results of later experience or reasoning, and 

 will thus succeed in formulating principles 

 in advance of their definitive establishment. 

 That the principal conclusions of ethics should 

 not stand in very direct relation to the theory 

 of evolution is not, however, surprising, inas- 

 much as these conclusions would in all proba- 

 bility be the same even if the history of hu- 

 man development had been materially differ- 

 ent in its earlier stages from what it has been. 

 What the evolutionist philosopher has to 

 show, as it seems to us, is that there is no 

 conflict between the principles of ethics and 

 any of the deductions from the doctrine of 

 evolution. If that doctrine were fundament- 

 ally unsound, the proof of its unsoundness 

 might lie in the region of ethics, but the at- 

 tentive reader of Mr. Spencer's last volume 

 will at least be convinced that this is not so. 



The warrant for beneficence as distin- 

 guished from justice lies hi the fact that like 



justice it tends, if properly regulated, to 

 promote life and happiness; but being in 

 excess of justice, and therefore a more or 

 less indefinite thing, the need for its proper 

 regulation is very obvious. Mr. Spencer, as 

 we have seen, deals with it under the two 

 heads of Negative and Positive. A man is 

 negatively beneficent if he abstains from 

 actions which might promote his private in- 

 terests, because he sees that such abstinence 

 will promote the interests of another, his 

 own being already sufficiently secured. Some 

 of the examples which Mr. Spencer gives 

 under this head may seem a little trite ; but 

 there are different ways of being familiar 

 with a principle or rule of action, as John 

 Stuart Mill once remarked. It is one thing 

 to assent to a truth in a general way, and an- 

 other to accept it with a full perception of 

 all that it either presupposes or involves. 

 Some of Mr. Spencer's counsels under the 

 head of Negative Beneficence seem to resolve 

 themselves into the familiar formula, "Live 

 and let live " ; but how many carry out that 

 formula as fully as they should ? It is an 

 easy thing to repeat such a motto as " Live 

 and let live " ; but when it comes to fore- 

 going a business advantage clearly within 

 reach, in order that another individual may 

 not unduly or undeservedly suffer, the motto 

 is very apt to go to the wall, which, as every 

 one knows, is a favorite place for mottoes. 

 The question, therefore, is not whether the 

 specific counsels given by Mr. Spencer have 

 previously been given by others Mr. Spen- 

 cer admits that to a large extent they have 

 been but whether they are severally sound, 

 and whether they are in harmony with his 

 general system of philosophy. A motto or 

 maxim floating in a kind of disengaged 

 way in the moral atmosphere of the age 

 does not carry at all the same authority 

 as a rule of action forming part of a well- 

 established system of thought ; and the hope 

 may therefore be indulged that an attentive 

 reading of Mr. Spencer's new volume will 

 lead many to see that maxims of conduct 

 which heretofore they have felt themselves 

 free to act upon or set aside according to the 

 humor of the moment have a sanction which 

 can not rightly be disregarded. Under the 

 several heads of Restraints on Free Competi- 

 tion, Restraints on Free Contract, Restraints 

 on Undeserved Payments, Restraints on Dis- 



