i88o.] 
Natural Science and Morality. 
449 
A little power of penetration should suffice to discover 
that a civilised man (or a man of high intellect) is capable 
of more happiness than a savage, and that in a civilised 
society an individual is more or less direftly dependent upon 
the goodwill of his neighbours for almost all his pleasure in 
life ; whence it follows that desire for happiness on the 
Earth alone would itself induce all intelligent people so to 
condudf their lives as to secure the friendship of their fellows. 
For this purpose the stridfest honesty and sincerity, practised 
as an undeviating principle, is obviously indispensable. For 
where would be friendship without sincerity ? When one 
considers that a man must have a character for honesty and 
sincerity in order to secure the pleasure of the real esteem 
and goodwill of his fellows, and that a single adt of dis- 
honesty or deceit may destroy his entire character (or 
reputation), one may see how utterly insignificant the tem- 
porary gain due to such an adl would be compared with the 
prospective loss attendant thereon, and therefore on how 
firm and impregnable a basis stands the morality of self- 
interest.* * 
It is only to the absence of adequate appreciation of this 
fadf, and the sort of fear that society rests upon a fidtion, 
that some of those monstrous and terrifying dodlrines un- 
fortunately identified with religion can be attributed. To 
seledt a single example as a representative case : could any 
greater incongruity be imagined than the coupling of a God 
of Love with eternal punishment ? i.e a punishment which 
(measured by its duration) is infinitely greater in amount 
than that which the most implacable hatred could devise or 
the absence of power to come to an agreement for their own advantage). The 
time may not be far distant when such a state of things will come to be looked 
back upon with something like contempt. 
* It is a noteworthy fad that if the lives of those men who have accumulated 
such exceptional fortunes as to call for biographies be examined, it will be found 
that exceptional integrity and honesty were the main characteristics of all their 
transadions, which was the secret of the unbounded confidence inspired in 
their business relations. These men possessed sufficient power of penetration 
to see that that superficial sharpness which imagines an advantage in a little 
deceit or duplicity is in reality no more than stupidity. The parable of the 
unjust steward, who attempted to deceive by inducing his lord’s debtors to 
falsify their accounts, contains exadly that exterior of superficial shrewdness 
which may be well adapted to mislead the unthinking ; but it will scarcely 
injure a man of intelled. He will see plainly enough that, so far from unjust 
stewards being “ wiser in their genet ationy they are in reality fools (irrespective 
of any time or epoch). Nevertheless, can we wonder that dishonesty and 
underhand dealings are still so rife, when doCtrine of this kind is actually 
included in the code of moral instruction. 
2 12 
