HERBERT SPENCER'S 'DATA OF ETHICS.

THE

HE publication, two years ago, of Mr. Herbert Spencer's "Data of Ethics" was an event of real importance in the history of the philosophy of Evolution, and the book at once established its claim to be reckoned with by all who should thenceforth undertake to discuss the grounds and principles of morality. It had been looked forward to, both by Mr. Spencer's own followers and by those who were by no means prepared to subscribe to all the methods and conclusions of his philosophy, with an interest proportionate to the supreme importance of this branch of his work.

To establish the laws of right and wrong on a scientific basis would be to render the greatest service to humanity, and to require this of any philosophical system is to put it to the severest test. The Synthetic Philosophy would have been a column without a capital if it had not culminated in some systematic declaration of the outcome of the principles of Evolution in that which is its highest field, the motives and rules of human conduct. Mr. Spencer was wise, therefore, in deferring the second and third parts of his Sociology till he had given us the essential points of his Principles of Morality.

It was with hope, as well as interest, that we awaited his exposition of these principles. Mr. Spencer enjoys a wellearned reputation for the ingenious disentanglement of many knotty problems, for industrious collection of facts, and for comprehensive and thorough systematisation. His Social Statics exhibited a moral enthusiasm and a compre

hension of the shortcomings of the Utilitarian School, which seemed as though they must save him from its errors; while his scientific and philosophic studies would lead him to find in physical and human nature more solid foundations for our motives of right and wrong, than many popular representatives of the Intuitive School had cared to search for. While there are many points in Mr. Spencer's Synthetic Philosophy from which I entirely dissent, it is undoubtedly full of acute argumentation and luminous explanations. It contains many brilliant and valuable expositions, which have thrown new light upon Biology, Psychology, and Sociology. The new theories, that have been so successful in these domains, might well give us some fresh guidance in the labyrinth of Ethics. Mr. Spencer's leading principle, that of Evolution, seemed especially likely to render good service in supplying a law, inductively determined, for the normal course of human nature, and the rightful end of all actions; a law and an end substantially the same as those which the clearest school of Intuitive Morals had so long ago divined.

It is true that several years ago, in his well-known letter to John Stuart Mill, Mr. Spencer had thrown out, in hasty outline, a theory of the origin of the moral sense which claimed to supersede both the Association theory and the Intuitive theory, and which, if accepted, would thoroughly unsettle the present foundations of morality. But this derivation of the moral sense from man's former experiences of utility, consolidated and transmuted by heredity, is by no means necessarily connected with, or required by, the theory of Evolution. To make such a connection is to confound assistance with production, occasion with cause; and as there are very many other weighty objections to such a derivation of conscience, I trusted that when Mr. Spencer came to treat with more deliberation the basis of morality, he would either, on the one hand, withdraw, or modify this

suggestion, or, on the other hand, so explain and substantiate it that it would not be a stumbling-block in the way of the acceptance of his ethical system. We find, however, that this derivation of our ethical intuitions from our ancestors' experiences of utility is not only retained in the "Data of Ethics," but has a permanent and foremost place assigned to it henceforth in Mr. Spencer's theory of morals. It is neither modified, nor demonstrated by any adequate inductions, nor are the objections to it removed; but it is made a primary assumption, the substructure upon which the several stories of the Ethical system are built up.

Mr. Spencer could hardly write a book on any subject, least of all upon the principles of morality, without saying something strong and fresh and acute. The "Data of Ethics" contains not a little which is of incontestable value and importance. The author recognises, as he says, a truth in the orthodox ethical system. We can quite cordially return the compliment, and recognise a truth in his system. Heredity has certainly played an important part in strengthening the moral sense. Experiences of pleasure and pain, of the expedient and the inexpedient, have doubtless assisted to unfold human intelligence, until it became capable of apprehending the higher ideas of right and duty. Happiness is an object of general desire, and is a usual incident of virtuous life, and it is ever attained much more readily and surely when we do not consciously make it our aim than when we do. To estimate directly the useful, or that which will, in a given case, supply the greatest happiness to the greatest number, is most certainly a calculation too uncertain, and open to too much personal and class bias, to be made the standard of morality. The current axioms of Ethics have been approved by the experience of many generations, and the wise man will accept their authority, rather than essay to draw his own moral inductions.

So far as this, every advocate of Intuitive Morals would gladly go with Mr. Spencer. The factors in every ethical system are the same. The difference lies in the relative rank given to each. The fatal defect of the new Ethics is that it would elevate the incidental concomitants to the supreme place, while the higher essential features it would either degrade to subordinate rôles, or ignore altogether. Though Mr. Spencer's ambition to harmonise the Intuitive and Utilitarian Schools has saved him from sinning as badly in these respects as some others who have essayed to expound to us the moral teachings of modern science; nevertheless he has not avoided, it seems to me, many noticeable and capital errors. Even his special admirers, I think, must admit that the "Data of Ethics" is, in some respects, the weakest volume that he has given us.

Such, in general, is my estimate of the "Data of Ethics." But the reader, of course, desires specifications and proofs. Let me begin at once, then, by a statement of the particular points which seem to me to be open to objection.

(1.) At the outset I take issue upon the statement that the ultimate moral aim is happiness. Here is a fundamental error that vitiates Mr. Spencer's whole system of morals. He opens the "Data of Ethics" with a survey of conduct and its course. Moral conduct is a part of conduct at large. As we ascend up the scale of creation we find the adjustments of ends to means better and more numerous. There is a greater elaboration of life. It is prolonged in time. It becomes broader, embracing more varied activities. Thus the quantity of life is increased. The evolution of conduct is measured by that adjustment of means to ends by which the aggregate of the actions of the developed being is both widened and elongated. But the individual cannot reach his completest life alone. His highest development depends upon that of the race, upon that of society. "Evolution becomes the highest possible when the conduct simul

taneously achieves the greatest totality of life in self, in offspring, and in fellow-men." Good conduct is that which conduces to any one of these three forms of life. Good conduct becomes the best "when it fulfils all three classes of ends at the same time" (p. 25).

This is not a bad beginning. It is a logical outcome of the evolution theory. It is a path which, consistently pursued, would have led to the discernment and enunciation of an ultimate end of Nature's ascending path, a consummate fruit of all the kosmic effort, which would rightfully present itself as the supreme end of all moral agents-viz., the highest perfection of the highest class of beings that we have to deal with. This would have constituted a noble object as the goal of the Ethics of evolution. Mr. Spencer seemed almost to have advanced to it, having progressed as far as to "totality of life, special and general," as the end toward which the development process moves. He needed only to add the further but most important element -elevation or quality of life, to its length and breadth, as a measure of the evolution of conduct, and he would have given the new Ethics a worthy key-stone.

But suddenly he stops short and faces in quite another direction. Why should we promote life? There is no reason for so doing, he says, unless life has a surplus of pleasure, a surplus which is larger the greater the totality of life. "Taking into account immediate and remote effects on all persons, the good is universally the pleasurable " (p. 30). "Conduciveness to happiness is the ultimate test of perfection in a man's nature" (p. 34). "Acts are good or bad according as their aggregate effects increase men's happiness or increase their misery" (p. 40). "The absolutely right in conduct can be that only which produces pure pleasure-pleasure unalloyed with pain anywhere. By implication, conduct which has any concomitant of pain, or any painful consequence, is partially wrong" (p. 261).