538 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



not increase sympathy with mankind at large without strengthen- 

 ing the sense of duty and prompting to deeds which — whether 

 they take the form of promoting happiness or averting misery — 

 will themselves be a source of blessedness to the doers. What is 

 wanted is simply such a development of sympathy as will best 

 subserve the interests of society ; and Mr. Mallock's idea that a 

 power of sympathy sufficient to prompt men to lead virtuous lives 

 would also be sufficient to fill them with anguish at the thought 

 of all the past sufferings of mankind, is altogether fanciful and 

 hollow. 



An assumption which vitiates much of Mr Mallock's reason- 

 ing on this whole subject is that right conduct is, in the human 

 sphere, a kind of rare and frail exotic, requiring the services of a 

 theological gardener and the warm, heavy-laden atmosphere of 

 some ecclesiastical hot-house in order to live at all. But that is 

 a view which we are under no obligation to accept, and which 

 the facts of life are very far from suggesting. Why should the 

 relations of man with man be, in their own nature, everlastingly 

 wrong ? Surely there is sunlight enough, and air enough, and 

 earth enough, and water enough, for a good many of us to live 

 together on this earth in peace and concord and mutual helpful- 

 ness ! Surely men have need of one another, and it is difficult to 

 imagine how they could long work together without the develop- 

 ment in their minds of the conception of justice. In point of 

 fact, the idea of justice is in the world and has been in it in one 

 form or another for many ages. The task that is set before us 

 to-day, with our widened experience and deepened reflection, is to 

 realize that idea more and more perfectly in all social relations. 

 Why should we wish to do it ? Because we know that justice is 

 good, and because our sympathies, aided by a certain diffused 

 feeling of self-interest, prompt us to strive for the perfecting of 

 society. But, apart from all voluntary or deliberate effort, the 

 idea of justice acts as a powerful leaven in the society into which 

 it enters, and we may hope that by and by it will leaven the 

 whole lump. When Mr. Mallock says that "the problem is to 

 construct a life of superlative happiness," he makes a complete 

 misstatement so far as any problem contemplated by the thinkers 

 he criticises is concerned. Theologians promise a life of superla- 

 tive happiness in another world, but non-theological reformers 

 are more moderate in their expectations. What the fortunes of 

 the human race may be in the far-distant future they do not 

 undertake to predict. They may sometimes, like the poet, dream 

 their dream of good ; but, if so, it is a good such as the conditions 

 of human nature and its environment are capable of supplying. 

 It is hard to understand how Mr. Mallock could bring himself to 

 make such a statement as that just quoted. Admitting that theo- 



