feriority, from the evils it entails-any arrangements which tend to make it as well to be inferior as to be superior, are arrangements diametrically opposed to the progress of organisation and the reaching of a higher life. But to say that each individual shall reap the benefits brought to him by his own powers, inherited and acquired, is to enunciate egoism as an ultimate principle of conduct." Hence one vague rule:— "the pursuit of individual happiness within those limits prescribed by social conditions, is the first requisite to the attainment of the greatest general happiness." 1) But

2o, "in the course of evolution from first to last there has been sacrifice involving a loss of bodily substance. . . Selfsacrifice, then, is no less primordial than self-preservation. Being in its simple physical form absolutely necessary for the continuance of life from the beginning; and being extended under its automatic form, as indispensable to maintenance of race in types considerably advanced; and being developed to its semi-conscious and conscious forms along with the continued and complicated attendance by which the offspring of superior creatures are brought to maturity; altruism has been evolving simultaneously with egoism. The same superiorities which have enabled the individual to preserve itself better, have enabled it better to preserve the individuals derived from it; and each higher species, using its improved faculties for egoistic benefit, has spread in proportion as it has used them secondarily for altruistic benefit.") But neither principle must be pushed to an extreme: the need for a compromise is thus made conspicuous.

"Our conclusion must be that general happiness is to be achieved mainly through the adequate pursuit of their own happiness by individuals; while, reciprocally, the happinesses of individuals are to be achieved in part by their pursuit of the general happiness.") The conditions for the carrying out of this reciprocity in conduct are not wanting: for the whole tendency of evolution is, on its social side, towards the equal

distribution of the conditions under which happiness may be pursued—and this is nothing but a roundabout insistance on equity; and as far as concerns the individual he is to judge between his own happiness and that of others as an impartical spectator would do-equity is again the sole content of the principles of conduct. So that, in Spencer's system, the ideal turns out to be Justice, quantitatively determined. § 2. Leslie Stephen.

Stephen's pet aversion is metaphysics. His "Science of Ethics" is an attempt to establish the science on an empirical basis. Abandoning the enquiry into the origin of this or that faculty he takes the case as it stands, formulates its implications, and points out in what direction the line of progress lies and how most smoothly it can be traversed. Two characteristics he insists on: (a) every state of desire is marked by feeling, and it is this state of feeling that determines conduct; (b) man lives in society; man independent of society is a nonentity; hence the need of the science of sociology, which however as yet "consists of nothing more than a collection of unverified guesses and vague generalities, disguised under a more or less. pretentious apparatus of quasi-scientific terminology."1) Stephen is further interesting as being one of the most candid exponents of the biological view of ethics: he is not blind to its shortcomings, and in transcending his system he approaches very near to the phase of ethical thought represented by the late Prof. Green.

Looking at society as we find it we observe that there are in existence a set of rules which, as a matter of fact, is respected in the given society. This set of rules Stephen calls the moral code; and the very fact of their being respected so far determines the ordinary approvals and disapprovals as to be an effective force in governing conduct. Accordingly ethical speculation must be implicated in psychological and sociological enquiries: in the former we have mainly to do with emotion, in the latter with the activity of reason.

(a) Feeling and Emotion. Conduct is determined by feeling;

1) Science of Ethics, pp. 10, II.

we fly from pain; we seek pleasure; life is a continuous struggle to minimise suffering and to lay a firm grasp upon happiness. "Good" means everything which favours happiness, and "bad" everything which is conducive to misery: nor can any other intelligible meaning be assigned to the words. Happiness guides us when we are eating our dinners, or studying metaphysics, or feeding the hungry. It must be equally good for saints, martyrs, heroes, cowards, debauchees, ascetics, mystics, cynics, misers, prodigals, men, women, and babes in arms. Pain and pleasure are, then, the determining causes of action. It may even be said that they are the sole and ultimate causes. They are the sole causes in this sense, that where two courses of conduct are otherwise possible, and the choice of one depends upon the agent's own decision, his will is always determined by the actual painfulness or pleasureableness of the choice at the moment of choosing, and that there is no different kind of motive. They are ultimate in this sense, that it is impossible to analyse pain and pleasure into any simpler elements. It may happen, but it may also not happen, that the passions may be so regulated that the conduct dictated by our immediate feelings may coincide with that which would be dictated by a judgment of our total happiness. And this leads us to our next problem. We can only be affected by the prospect of the future in so far as we are reasoning beings. We must, therefore, consider in what sense the mere blind action of immediate feeling is governed and regulated by the reason.

(b) Reason as determining conduct. Reason, whatever its nature, is the faculty which enables us to act with a view to the distant and the future. Consequently, in so far as man is reasonable, he is under the influence of motives which would not otherwise be operative. Now man's reasonable interests may in the main be classified into (1) those which have regard to his own future pleasures and pains, and (2) those which have regard to the condition of the social organism of which he forms a part. In relation to the former man may be regarded as a hierarchy of numerous and conflicting passions, each of

which has ends of its own, and each of which, separately considered, would give a different law of conduct; it is the reason that brings the whole conduct into harmony and unity; it forbids us to pursue trifling objects at the expence of important; for instead of allowing each instinct to operate exclusively in turn, it subjects each to the implicit and explicit control of the others. But reason further enables us after a time to judge even of our own character as a whole, to rehearse not only particular acts but moods, and so become spectators of ourselves, and regard our own feelings with disgust or complacency; every such reflection tends to modify future action by revealing to us more distinctly its social consequences, and by investing it with certain associations of approval or disapproval. Thus the function of reason is twofold-it regulates the selfregarding impulses, and the relation of the individual to society. In cases of conflict between feelings inclining now towards the individual's welfare, now towards that of society, who is to decide? what is the criterion by which we can judge of feelings? what has evolution to say to the matter? So far as adaptation has taken place the line of progress has been "useful" in the sense of pleasure-giving; so far as the type thus formed represents a favourable adjustment of organism to conditions, the result is "useful" in the sense of life-preserving: and a fundamental doctrine from the evolutionist point of view is that pleasure-giving actions must likewise be selfpreserving. And this, thinks Stephen, we may certainly say, that there is as close a connection between health and happiness as between disease and misery, and that the anomalies which present themselves in attempting to generalise this theory might be cleared up by a more accurate investigation. Races survive in virtue of this correlation between pleasure-giving and lifepreserving actions. But the quality which makes a race survive may not always be a source of advantage to every individual, nor even, if we look closer, to the average individual. Since the race has no existence apart from the individual, qualities essential to the existence of each unit are of course essential to the existence of the whole. But the converse pro

position does not hold. Hence the necessity of considering the relation of the race to the individual.

Every man is both an individual and a social product, and every instinct both social and self-regarding. The individual is the product of the race; and the race the sum of the individuals. Our ancestors have created a new world for us; and each individual, in whatever department he labours, assumes that others are labouring in tacit or express cooperation. Thus society is a vast organisation, and it exists as it exists in virtue of this organisation, which is as real as the organisation of any material instrument, though it depends upon habits and instincts instead of arrangements of tangible and visible objects; for instance, in the social organisation we find political, ecclesiastical, and industrial organs, growing more and more distinct and more interdependent as society advances. But there is another form of association, viz, the family, which is frequently mentioned as though it were a coordinate group alongside of the state, the church, and industrial bodies. This mode of speech leads to confusion. The sentiment of loyalty to a state, e.g., is clearly a derivative sentiment; it is the product of many instincts or modes of feeling, each of which has its own laws, independently of this special application. The family, on the contrary, depends at once upon the most primitive instincts of our nature, which are the direct products of our organic constitution. The family tie is more or less the ground of every other, an antecedent assumption in all human society, and therefore not explicable as a product of other modes of association. Clearly then, we must regard the family as the social unit. For a great part of every one's life the family is the whole world. It is the true school of morality. Family affections are both the type and the root of all truly altruistic feeling: here we have the raw material of the moral sense, which will afterwards be developed and regulated by our position in the whole social organism. What then are the constituents of this raw material, found in the family, and afterwards built up into the whole structure of society? To answer this question is to give

The Contents of the Moral Law.

The law of nature has