obtain in other stages of civilization than our own; which is what all modern utilitarians are perfectly ready to admit.

The conceptions of well-being of society, fuller life of society, and so on, seem to be too vague and indeterminate to afford any definite criteria. After an immense parade of scientific precision the practical outcome of the new teaching is little other that that of a conservative utilitarianism :-Never break a received moral rule, but in doubtful cases, where the rule is uncertain, fall back on moral arithmetic.

CHAPTER V.

INTUITIONIST THEORIES.

§ 1. The word Intuition.

THE word intuition has been a source of constant bewilderment to students, and a few words of explanation may well be given to it.

If

If a traveller sees a building of a certain kind in a place where his map tells him Ely Cathedral stands, and recognizes the building as Ely Cathedral, here there is clearly a process of conscious inference. next day he sees the same building, and again recognizes it as Ely Cathedral, although the recognition is now practically instantaneous, there is still present an element of inference. The inference is unconscious; it takes the form of a spontaneous synthesis not requiring a special concentration of attention. But it is there. But it is there. Our perceptions are not, as they appear to be, immediate knowledge; psychological analysis shows that they are in a high degree complex and inferential. To recognize a colour involves unconscious inference; all localization of sensations involves unconscious inference. These inferences, however, must have a starting-point. This

ultimate datum which gives occasion for the activity of the mind must be known by an act of immediate cognition. If we subtract all the representative elements in the percept we shall come to something which is immediately presented; whose presentation is the cause of the presence of the representative elements. It may be conceded that such a purely presentative element is never known as such; we only infer its existence. It is, as Dr. Ward says, a " psychological myth." But we have to assume that it exists. The words "intuition" and "inference," however, are not always used so strictly. Conscious inference differs so much from the unconscious inference, or classification of ideas, which occurs in perception, that we sometimes find writers declining to call them both by the same name. Inference with them means only fully conscious inference. And the word intuition is often used to denote the whole process of perception; we are said to intuite an object, because the representative or inferential factors in the process are unconscious. And by a further extension, we are said to form certain judgments intuitively because we are not conscious of the train of inference which led to them.

Ordinary judgments of perception belong to this class. As a matter of fact such judgments, though involving no process of conscious inference, are in a high degree inferential. Other judgments are called intuitive because we cannot assign an inferential origin to them. Such, for instance, are some of the axioms of mathematics, and of physics. We are obliged to

assume some truths as ultimate, because we want for our reasonings starting-points which shall be independent of reasoning.1 Such independent truths we call intuitive. Their validity is guaranteed by merely looking at them, by simple inspection. We know that two straight lines cannot enclose a space, and that every event must have a cause, without experience and without deduction. And it is further guaranteed by the agreement of the results deduced from them with our general experience.

§ 2. Relation between Intuitionism and Hedonism.

It is now obvious that the ordinary and convenient distinction between intuitionism and hedonism is not a perfectly logical one. There are two fundamenta divisionis. The intuitionist, as such, is simply committed to the view that the ultimate standards or criteria of conduct cannot be guaranteed by any process of inference, and must therefore rest on intuitions. The hedonist, as such, merely asserts that pleasure is the ultimate good. But the hedonist may have arrived at this result by intuition; may be able to reach it in no other way.

The antithesis, however, is not without justification. With the average intuitionist the important fact is not what he discovers by intuition, for his results are

1 Sully, "Outlines of Psychology," p. 283; "Human Mind,” vol. i., p. 458.

sense

usually in close agreement with common morality; but how he reaches them. For on this how he usually bases their claim. His principles commend themselves to general acceptance; what he has to do is to theoretically justify their acceptance. On the other hand, the hedonist is advancing a new basis of morality more or less at variance with common sense and naturally dwells more on the principle itself, showing its meaning, its limitations, its results, than on the process by which he arrived at it. The content of the principle is the matter of chief importance with him; and in nine cases out of ten he does not know by what logical method it can be adequately demonstrated.

The student must then remember that some intuitionists may be hedonists, and that some hedonistsmay be intuitionists. He must remember that some intuitionists are deductive and some inductive in their methods; and so with non-intuitionists, if indeed we can assume that any method which entirely excludes an intuitional starting-point is possible.

§ 3. Intuitionism.

We have already explained what is usually meant by intuitionism. The name is given to any theory which assumes that there are certain ethical propositions of a more or less general character, the truth of which is perceived on mere inspection, without any process of reasoning, or which assumes that the rightness of