SCIENCE OF RECTITUDE AS DISTINCT FROM EXPEDIENCE. 123 
of view what reason can be perceived, in the nature of things, 
why the brutality which, as it would seem, is proper to such 
creatures at the stage of development where they still linger, 
should excite in us any other feeling than that with which 
we contemplate the disgusting habits and the ferocity which 
characterise gorillas? Further, it must be taken into con- 
sideration that the conditions of well-being are not the same 
for every genus or species in animated nature, but are de- 
termined in some measure by the degree which has been 
reached in the scale of sentient existence. Very narrow 
limits in respect to both perceptivity and activity are, in such 
creatures as an oyster or a snail may be taken to typify, con- 
sistent with well-being. On the contrary, in mammals of the 
higher ranks below the human, and not least in those animals 
whose forms: most nearly resemble that of man, well-being 
presupposes in association with the more advanced morpho- 
logical development the exercise of superior intelligence duly 
matched with all needful facility in adapting volitional action 
to varying conditions. But at the same time characteristics 
which are repulsive, both to our senses and to our sentiments, 
are far from being necessarily unfavourable to well-being ; 
indeed, the subjugation of truculent instincts and the 
supremacy of such propensities as are congenial with our 
best feelings would prove destructive to many races of 
undomesticated animals. 
Whether on the whole, and in the average of cases, the 
experiences of an animal in which natural ferocity has been 
subdued or mitigated by taming, are more pleasurable than 
those which were incident to its former mode of life, may be 
a question. No moralist, at any rate, advocates the taming 
of wild beasts with a view to their well-being. What 
reason, then, can the utilitarian assign why savages should 
be, if possible, civilised, except that whatever trouble and 
expense are thereby incurred by their civilised neighbours 
will prove ultimately to have been a profitable investment ? 
I am not taking for granted that he accepts the theory of 
Evolution, although he cannot do so and at the same time 
deny the pertinency of the illustrations | have just been 
using; but in either case | fail to perceive that a further and 
a nobler reason is producible from his necessarily indeter- 
minate conception of a state of existence which is at all 
times and under all circumstances to be desired for all sorts 
and conditions of men, that is to say, for every human being 
in whom it has not yet begun, or, it begun, still falls short of 
perfection. 
