448 
Natural Science and Morality. 
[July, 
If instead of preaching the “ wickedness attendant on 
breaches of the law, society were to take care to inculcate 
on its members the advantage which accrues to each from 
the general practice of honesty, and to point out the efficacy 
of the arrangements it has made accordingly to prevent an 
occasional selfish man, residing among unselfish neighbours 
from advancing himself at their expense, —in short, if it were 
taught that the question of honesty and dishonesty was one 
of profit and loss (or that knaves in thetong run «rafoolsfi, 
—then probably less machinery would suffice for the re- 
pression of crime. Unfortunately, however, popular reli- 
gious dodtrine seems to dissociate rather than to identify 
the path of virtue with that of self-interest ; as, for example, 
we have the saying about the “ thorny and difficult path of 
Virtue,” and the “ broad and easy path of Vice, — ' which, 
of course, is tantamount to setting a premium on vice. And 
yet what could be more contrary to the truth than s P‘ r ‘‘ 
of this kind of dotti'ine ? Also there can be no doubt that 
the holding out of rewards and punishments in a future 
world is a strong incentive to crime ; for it is justly 
by the would-be delinquent that if virtue require a future 
reward, it cannot therefore be remunerative in this life, or 
the praaice of virtue cannot be consistent with self-interest. 
Since, therefore, the belief in a future world is necessan y 
very shadowy, the criminal naturally infers that it is desir- 
able to tread the “ broad and easy ” path of Vice More- 
over, when it is commonly taught that such and such a 
course is “ wicked,” one may be inevitably led to conclude 
that in the absence of any more tangible reason than this 
against it the course must be advantageous. 
• There can be little doubt that one of the main causes for war may be .rea- 
vdiereby a'sort^oVattra^on ^ th^faftpushed 
ForTncr t^Vnncip'e ofco-op^ration 
fnd associaUon is the very essence of the morality of self-interest, it would be 
seen that from the fadt that war strikes diredtly at the root of this principle, it 
violates the fundamental groundwork of the self-interest morality. Indee 
men have already learnt this fadt in their individual relations, and its influence 
has always been ^reading wider and wider. We know that formerly, in feudal 
times people inhabiting small trafts of country, or even families and near 
neighbours^ used to arm themselves and be in continual war with each other , 
and even the croakers [or “ parrots of society,” as the late Charles Dickens 
called theml who think the world goes backwards, and say that disarmament 
^impossible, laugh at the folly of the feudal times. It can only be a question 
‘V Se of time for an appreciation of this folly to extend to larger tradts of 
country (or nations). Certainly the self-interest morality will hayea great 
field here The total violation of interests indicated by the self-infhdted 
ounishment of the crushing armaments under which nations groan at present, 
affords a pitUblelnKance of the absence of self-help in reasomng be.ngs (or 
