THE MORALITY OF HAPPINESS. 809 



now, that hereafter we may avoid much greater pains or enjoy much 

 greater pleasures than here and now we could possibly experience. 



Yet underlying this doctrine of greater and longer-lasting happi- 

 ness as the result of temporary suffering 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 higher beliefs. The offerings made systematically by some 

 races to their deities imply obviously the belief that the gods are 

 pleased when men deprive themselves of something more or less val- 

 ued. Sacrifices involving slaughter, whether of domestic animals or 

 of human beings, mean more, for they imply that suffering and death 

 are essentially pleasing to Deity. Even when such gross ideas are 

 removed and religion has been purified, the symbolization 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 doctrine 

 that pleasure is offensive to the Supreme Power and pain pleasing. 



If this conception is really recognized, and any men definitely hold 

 that to enjoy or to give pleasure is sinful, because displeasing to God, 

 while the suffering or infiiction 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 if 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 victims 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 recognize the fact that devil-worshipers 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 Earls wood. 



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, unrecognized) ; and on the other it may be scouted as Epi- 

 curean (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 philosopher who, with Mr. Ruskin 

 and Mr. Matthew Arnold, may be regarded as chief among the won- 

 ders of our age — and standing proof of the charm which the British 

 race finds in Constant Grunt, Continual Growl, and Chronic Groan. 



