4>o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



aspect increase, while in another aspect it may diminish, the fullness 

 and quantity of life : but our definition of good and bad conduct is 

 not affected by such considerations. Just as a knife may be a good 

 knife for cutting bread, and a bad knife for cutting wood, just as a 

 business transaction may be good in relation to some immediate pur- 

 pose, yet bad when remoter effects are considered, so can we truly 

 apply to conduct the terms good and bad in reference to one set of 

 considerations, even though we may have to invert the terms when 

 conduct is considered in reference to another set of considerations. 

 But always, in its scientific aspect, conduct is to be regarded as good 

 where it increases life or the fullness of life, and bad where it tends 

 the contrary way. 



When we separate conduct ethically indifferent from conduct in 

 its strict ethical aspect, it is convenient to substitute for the words 

 good and bad the words right and wrong. But the change is slighter 

 than at first sight it appears. Indeed, the more carefully the question 

 of rightness or wrongness — the question of duty — is considered, the 

 more thoroughly does the kind of conduct judged to be morally in- 

 different merge into that which we regard as praiseworthy or cen- 

 surable. 



Taking first those parts of conduct which relate directly to the 

 quantity or to the fullness of individual life, we find that while the 

 terms good and bad are freely applied to them, and even the terms 

 right and wrong, they are, for the most part, regarded as morally 

 indifferent. When we say you ought to do this or to refrain from 

 that, the idea of duty is often not really present, so long as the act 

 in question relates to a man's own life or its fullness. Even when we 

 nse words of praise or censure in relation to such acts, they do not 

 imply that a moral obligation has been discharged or neglected. The 

 reason doubtless is that, as a rule, men need little encouragement to 

 look after those parts of their conduct which affect themselves and 

 their own interests. For it may be observed that where it is likely 

 there may be want of due care or wisdom in such matters, there we 

 find distinct exceptions to the general rule just indicated. So far as 

 quantity and fullness of life are concerned, the man who crosses a 

 crowded thoroughfare carelessly, he who neglects his business, and he 

 who wears insuflScient or unsuitable clothes in cold and wet weather, 

 act with as little propriety in their adjustments as is shown by the 

 man who steadily drinks intoxicating liquors. But while none preach 

 such duties as caution in street-crossing, prudence and energy in busi- 

 ness, and care about clothing, at least as duties morally obligatory, 

 quite a number of persons preach against steady and heavy drinking 

 as against a moral offense. The Bible, indeed, does not, though it ha^ 

 many a word of advice against wine-bibbing ; yet even in the Bible 

 we find evidence of the early existence of total abstainers, and it is al- 

 together unlikely that those ancient Blue-Ribbonists omitted to recog- 



