CHAP, x "SCIENCE OF ETHICS" 1 1/ 



or else covering the whole field. If Mr. Stephen has 

 a struggle in view at all it is that between morality 

 and selfishness, social tissue and personal organisms, 

 society and individuals a dreary conflict, to which 

 there seems no discernible limit on the farthest 

 horizon. 



Finally, how does he differ from -Utilitarianism ? 

 There is one very important practical difference. 

 The Utilitarian, as a moralist or spiritual director, 

 defines right and wrong, and urges men to define 

 right and wrong, by a computation of visible results, 

 in the light of the present tastes and faculties of liv- 

 ing men. Mr. Stephen on the other hand, when he 

 speaks as an expert upon moral points, as a con- 

 sulting moral physician, or the giver of "counsel's 

 opinions " in morals, Mr. Stephen remembers what 

 evolutionism has taught him, that the race has changed 

 and is changing. Therefore he keeps in mind the 

 probability that results, which we think highly advan- 

 tageous, may be judged very differently by a future 

 society when it measures them by its new standards 

 and altered tastes. And therefore Mr. Stephen 

 appeals to recognised moral duties and maxims as 

 guides to social welfare. He distrusts the most acute 

 calculation of the consequences which we can foresee. 

 Morality has been evolved on the lines of social ad- 

 vance, and points us on to the true line of further 

 progress. Not pleasure, but health or vitality, is to 

 be our test. Now this is good and wholesome teach- 

 ing, far better than hedonism, however universalistic. 

 But with Mr. Stephen this is all a technical thing. 

 He speaks thus as a moralist to moral minds. But, 

 when he speaks as a man to individual men, there is 



