222 Biological Controversy and its Laws. [April, 
conduct ; whilst conduct whose total results, immediate and 
remote, are injurious, is bad conduct.” * This passage, we 
submit, completely refutes the charge brought against 
modern philosophy — that it teaches man to indulge any 
desire, no matter at what cost to others, or with what future 
consequences to himself, Ultimate as well as immediate 
results are considered, and the effedts — not upon the adtor 
alone, but upon all persons whom the adtion can possibly 
influence — are fully weighed. 
To Mr. Spencer’s criterion it has been objected that it 
leaves motives out of the question. But we are not sure 
that the consideration of motives can be, generally speaking, 
anything but delusive. What may be the motives which 
have led to any particular line of condudt we may guess 
with more or less of correctness, but we can never know 
with certainty. Nor in many cases can motives, however 
accurately known, be allowed to weigh in the same scale 
as results, or in any manner to affedt our judgment. We 
should surely not show any more mercy to a Thug, or to a 
judge of the “ Holy Office,” who murders men “ for their 
soul’s health ” or for the pretended honour of his God, than 
we would to a Greek brigand or a Chinese pirate. If any- 
thing, the latter are the less dangerous criminals. Mr. 
Mivart dispenses with every criterion, holding man’s notions 
of right and wrong to be intuitive : his manner of dealing 
with the innumerable fadts that prove, on the contrary, that 
man has no such innate standard, is saddening. The 
strangest scepticism, on the one hand, is blended with a 
credulity no less strange on the other. The fadt that no 
authenticated instance of remorse on the part of a savage 
can be adduced is left in the background. The outrages of 
wild men are sought to be explained away with a wonderful 
amount of misplaced ingenuity. We quote the following 
passage : — “ Thus the most revolting adt that can well be 
cited, that of the deliberate murder of aged parents, mon- 
strous as the adt in itself is, may really be one of filial piety, 
if, as is asserted, the savage perpetrators do it at the wish 
of such parents themselves, and from a convidtion that 
thereby they not only save them from suffering in this world, 
but also confer upon them prolonged happiness in the next.” 
It is a known fadt that the murder of aged relatives is often 
effedted in such a way that the vidtims would never solicit 
it as a favour. Sometimes they are disposed of not by being 
promptly slain, but by being simply abandoned to die of 
* Essay on Education, p. 114. 
