LITERARY NOTICES. 



555 



plays of Ability, Restraints on Blame, and 

 Restraints on Praise, Mr. Spencer makes 

 many excellent remarks bearing on every-day 

 conduct. We regard these chapters, indeed, 

 as moral discourses of the highest value, and 

 commend them to the earnest attention of 

 all whose duty it is to give moral instruction 

 to old or young. Many a Christian minister 

 might, we are convinced, infuse new life into 

 his teaching by simply assimilating the con- 

 tents of this volume and thus acquiring a 

 fresh sense of the truth, the authority, and 

 the interdependence of moral precepts which 

 have heretofore had the warrant only of dog- 

 ma or of sentiment. 



To illustrate the class of matters with 

 which Mr. Spencer here deals, we may quote 

 the following from the chapter on Re- 

 straints on Displays of Ability : 



" In nearly all cases the intrusion of per- 

 sonal feeling makes controversy of small 

 value for its ostensible purpose the estab- 

 lishment of truth. Desire for the eclat which 

 victory brings often causes a mercilessness 

 and a dishonesty which hinder the arrival 

 at right conclusions. Negative beneficence 

 here conduces to public benefit while it miti- 

 gates private injury. Usually the evidence 

 may be marshaled, and a valid argument set 

 forth, without discrediting an opponent hi 

 too conspicuous a manner. Small slips of 

 statement and reasoning, which do not affect 

 the general issue, may be generously passed 

 over. A due negative beneficence will re- 

 spect an antagonist's amour propre ; save, 

 perhaps, in cases where his dishonesty and 

 his consequent endeavor to obscure the truth 

 demand exposure. Lack of right feeling in 

 this sphere has disastrous public effects. It 

 needs but to glance around at the courses of 

 political and of theological controversy to see 

 how extreme are the perversions of men's 

 beliefs caused by absence of that sympa- 

 thetic interpretation which negative benefi- 

 cence enjoins." 



If any have heretofore supposed that the 

 evolution philosophy leaves but a very re- 

 stricted field, if any, for the exercise of prac- 

 tical benevolence, the volume before us should 

 suffice to banish the idea. There is a wide 

 scope, as Mr. Spencer shows, for negative 

 beneficence, or self-restraint in the interest 

 of weaker individuals, and there is also a 

 wide scope for the exercise of positive benefi- 



cence or the active assistance to those less 

 favorably circumstanced than ourselves. The 

 one condition to be kept in view is that our 

 assistance be not of a nature to cause subse- 

 quently more serious trouble or suffering 

 than it alleviates in the present. The sub- 

 divisions of Positive Beneficence treated by 

 Mr. Spencer are Marital Beneficence, Pa- 

 rental Beneficence, Filial Beneficence, Aid- 

 ing the Sick and Injured, Succor to the Ill- 

 used and the Endangered, Pecuniary Aid to 

 Relatives and Friends, Relief of the Poor, 

 Social Beneficence, and Political Beneficence. 

 Here and there in reading these chapters, as 

 also indeed in the section on Negative Be- 

 neficence, we find the line of demarcation be- 

 tween Beneficence and Justice a little shad- 

 owy. Both, of course, are subdivisions of 

 Ethical Conduct in general, and that the two 

 aspects, which Mr. Spencer for convenience 

 of exposition tries to keep separate, should 

 now and then seem to merge in a higher 

 unity is not surprising. The man who has 

 it in his power to be just or unjust, and who 

 decides, against his own immediate inter- 

 est, in favor of justice, must in general be 

 moved by a sentiment of beneficence ; and, 

 on the other hand, the man who exercises a 

 wise, rational, and restrained beneficence will 

 probably regard his own conduct as, on a 

 broad view of the matter, scarcely going be- 

 yond the limits of justice. 



It might possibly puzzle some fairly in- 

 formed readers to understand in advance 

 what Mr. Spencer means by " political benefi- 

 cence " : the virtue is certainly one not much 

 understood in political circles. Let the fol- 

 lowing sentence give the key to the puzzle : 

 " Under a political regime like that into which 

 we have grown, taking a share in political 

 life is the duty of every citizen ; and not to 

 do so is at once short-sighted, ungrateful, and 

 mean: short-sighted, because abstention, if 

 general, must bring decay of any good insti- 

 tutions which exist ; ungrateful, because to 

 leave uncared for these good institutions 

 which patriotic ancestors established is to 

 ignore our indebtedness to them ; mean, be- 

 cause to benefit by such institutions and de- 

 volve the maintenance and improvement of 

 them entirely upon others implies a readiness 

 to receive an advantage and give nothing hi 

 return." A passage which has special appli- 

 cation to this country is the following : "In 



