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the outset by the fatal error of incomplete observation. He has 
specified a large class of cases in which the words good and 
bad are applied to actions ; and it would seem as if he were too 
much attracted by the manner in which these instances suited his 
hypothesis to examine the meaning of the words any further. 
But let us recur for a moment to the passage already quoted, 
in which he urges that “ goodness, standing by itself, suggests, 
above all other things, the conduct of one who aids the sick 
in re-acquiring normal vitality, assists the unfortunate to 
recover the means of maintaining themselves,” and so on. But 
further reflection cannot fail to point out that the relative 
goodness, at all events, which we ascribe to such acts depends 
on something beyond their tendency u to improve the living 
of a mam’s fellows.” It would depend in a very large degree 
upon their motive. At the annual dinner of a charitable 
corporation, a distinguished city magistrate was once presid- 
ing ; and he urged with much impressiveness a remarkable 
argument to stimulate the benevolence of the guests. “ In 
the course of a long life,” he said, “ I have observed that any 
money a man may bestow in charity has the most curious way 
of coming back to him.” Now supposing two men, equal in 
all other respects, putting the same sum into the plate, but 
the one doing so out of sheer benevolence, the other for the 
sake of “ the curious way ” in which it would come back to 
him, would not our judgment of the relative goodness of the 
two acts be entirely different ? The point may be put even 
more strongly. Cases, it cannot be doubted, have occurred, 
in which benevolent institutions, which have conferred in- 
calculable good on posterity, have been founded in pursuance 
of a positively evil motive, in consequence, for instance, of 
hatred of a relative, or perhaps from an ignominious endeavour 
to escape the consequences of a life of sin. Whatever the 
advantages which result from such an act, we condemn it 
morally by sole reference to its motive. It is as intrinsically 
wrong as a false calculation or a bad syllogism ; and we may 
thus call precisely the same act good or bad according to the 
motive which prompts it. These momentous considerations 
are indissolubly intertwined with our conceptions of good- 
ness ; and a book on Ethics would appear self-condemned 
which starts by disregarding them. 
11. But these maimed notions of goodness and badness 
form Mr. Spencer’s preliminary data; and it would be 
very strange if satisfactory conclusions were reached from 
such premises. It is difficult, in fact, to discern any ethical 
data whatever, properly speaking, in a treatise which rejects 
any other ultimate test of goodness than that of pleasure. 
