I. Introductory

CHAPTER. I. INTRODUC'l'ORY. § 193. The foregoing fourteen· chapters have:shown that ethical sentiments and ideas are, in each place and time," determined 'by' the ;local. 'form 'of,', human nature, the social antecedents, ..... and ·thesurronnding ··'circumstances. Hence the .questionarises~HowfroJnall:which is '.' special and temporary 'shall'we 'separate ,that: which is general' and permaneut1 We have been 'showh, if· not overtly yet ~tacitly,thatthe very language used' in . speaking of moralqnestions,so involves the .' currenfbeliefs that men aTe.scarcely able'to think:awayfrom·them: thewordsnsed are' qnestion.;.beg ging:words. "Duty" and "6bligation,"Jorexample,carry with them the thought'Tjf< obedience,subordination,subjec tioD to authority; and thus, imply that right and wrong conduct are not such by '. their intrinsic .natures,' bntare' such by their' extrinsic enactments. How, then, shall we free 'onr..

selves from the influence of the' particular code we have '. been brollghtup under; and, the '. misleading 'connotations of 'our terms .~ Evidently we must for' a't~me 'ignore 'established' doctrines and expressions; .··We .Iunst .' go direct to the facts'Rndstudy them afresh, apart from all pre"'conceptions~I do-notmean that· the old ideas and the old words . are to ,. be rejected. Far from it .' We shall find that the greater part of them are well warranted and have to' be reinstated :iu' soniecases 478 THE ETHICS OF INDIVIDUAL LIFE. with added authority, and ill other cases with more or less of qualification. Ethical ideas and sentiments have to be considered as parts o£ the phenolnena o£ life at large. )Ve have to deal with !llan as a product o£ evolution, with Society as a pro duct o£ evolution, and with Moral Phenomena as products o£ evolution. Let no one anticipate any loss of authority.

Instead of finding that evolutionary ethics gives countenance to lower forms of conduct than those at present enjoined, we shall find that, contrariwise, evolutionary ethics is intolerant of much which those who profess to have the highest guid ance think harmless or justifiable. § 194. Integration being the primary process of evolution, we may expect that the aggregate of conceptions .constitut ing ethics enlarges, at the same tin1e that its cornponents acquire heterogeneity, definiteness, and that kind of cohesion 'which system gives to them. As fulfilling this exp'ectation, we may first note that while drawing within its range· of judgment numerous actions of men towards one another which at first were not recognized as right or wrong, it finally takes into its sphere the various divisions of private conduct-those actions of each individual which directly concern himself only, and in but remote ways concern his fellows.

Nearly all these actions are usually supposed to lie beyond ethical rule: not only those multitudinous ones which are indifferent, and, like onr movements from minute to minute, Inay be as well one way as another, but those numerous ones which bring some good or evil to self. But a theory of right and wrong which takes no cognizance of nine-tenths of the conduct by which life is carried on, is a folly. Life in general is a desideratum or it is not. If it is a desideratum, then all those modes o£ con duct which are conductive to a conlplete form of it are to be ,morally appro~ed. If,c~ntrariwise, life is not a desideratum, INTRODUCTORY. 47'9 the subject lapses: life should not be maintained, and an questions concerning maintenance of it, including the. ethical, disappear. As conlmonly conceived, ethics consists solely of interdicts on 'certain kinds of acts 'which men would like to do and of injunctions to perform, certain acts which they would like not to do. It says nothing about the great mass of acts constituting normal life; just as though these are neither warranted nor unwarranted. So influential are traditional sentiments and expressions, that the mass of readers will even now be unable to conceive that there can be an' ethical justification for the pursuit of positive gratifications. '"

Such private conduct as errs in the direction of sensual excess, li~e drunkenness, they do indeed include as subject to ethical· judgment and resulting condemnation: a perceived' injury, primarily to self and seconda;rily to others, being the ground for the condelnnation. But they ignore the truth that if injury to self is, in this case, a reason for Inoral repro bation, then benefit to self (so long .as there is no contingent injury to others or rernote injury to self) is a reason" for moral approbation. § 195. Far above other creatures though he is, Man re mains, in common with theIn, subject to the laws of life; and , the requirement for him, as fortheln, is conformity to these lavvs. By him, as by every living thing, self-preservation is the 'first. requisite; since without self-preservation, the dis charge of all other obligations, altruistic as well as egoistic, becomes impossible.

But self-preservation is effected only by the performance of actions which are prompted by desires. Therefore the satisfaction of these desires is to be enjoined if life should be maintained. That this is so with the sensations which prompt breathing, eating, drinking, and avoidance of extrenles of temperature, needs no proof: pain and death result from disobedience and pleasure from obedience. And as taking 82 480 THE ETHICS OF INDIVIDUAL LIFE. each or our primary pleasures directly furthers the vital activities, so, taking each of our secondary pleasures furthers them indirectly. Unquestionably, then, there is a division of ethics which yields sanctions to all the normal actions of individual life, while it forbids the abnorrnal ones. This Dlost general view, at once evolutionary and hedonistic, harmonizes with several more special views. § 196. As was pointed out in the preface, a disastrous effect is produced on the majority of minds by presenting ethics as a stern monitor, denouncing certain kinds of pleasures while giving no countenance to pleasures of other kinds. If it does not openly assert that all grati fications are improper, yet, by forbidding a nUlnber of thmn and saying nothing about the rest, it leaves the im pression that the rest, if not to be condemned, are not to be approved. By this one-sided treatment of conduct it alienates lnultitudes who ,,'"ould otherwise accept its teachings.

Assunling that general happiness is to be the aim (for if indifference or misery ·were to be the aim, non-existence would be preferable), then the implication is that the happiness of each unit is a fit aim; and a sequent implica tion is that for each individual, as a unit, his own happiness is a fit aim. Happiness as experienced by him, as much adds to the total amount as does happiness experienced by another; and if happiness may not be pursued for self, why may it be pursued for anyone else ~ If the totality of happiness could be made greater by each pursuing another's happiness, vvhile his own was pursued for hirn by others, something might be said for the theory of absolute altruisrn. But, in the first place, the greater part of the grateful consciousness possible for each is achievable only by himself--is a consciousness accompanying certain activities,and cannot exist without them. In the second INTRODUCTORY. 481 place, even were it otherwise, loss would arise if each pursued only the happiness of others; since as each of the others would have to do the like, there would be required the same amount of effort joined with a further alnount of effort consequent on misunderstandings from cross-purposes.

Imagine A feeding B while B fed A·, and so on ,vith C, D, &c., and instead of increase of satisfactions there would be decrease. The like would happen with the majority of other wants to be satisfied. As shown at the outset (§§ 82, 91), a system of ethics which insists on altruism and ignores egoism, is suicidal. Such a systelll' is, if the expression may be admitted, doubly suicidal; since, while its hnmediate operation must be detrimental, its remote operation must be still more detrimental. A' loss of capacity for happiness must be the effect produced on all. ]"01' lnany of our pleasures are organically bound up with performance of functions needful for bodily \velfare; and non-acceptance of them involves a lower degree of life, a decreased' strength, and a diminished ability to fulfil all duties. § 197. A further implication, almost universally ignored, must be here again emphasized. Already, in § 71, I have drawn attention to the obvious truth that the individual is not alone concerned in the matter, but that all his descend ants are concerned.

In the utter disregard of this truth we see more clearly than· usual how low is the average human intelligence. Sometimes, when observing on the Continent how the women, with faces unshaded, are, to keep out the bright sunlight, obliged to half-close their eyes and wrinkle up the corners of them, so producing, by daily repetition, crows-feet some ten or twenty years earlier than need be; I have thought it astonishing that, anxious though these women are to preserve beauty, they should have failed to perceive so silnple a relation between cause and effect.

482 THE ETHICS OF INDIVIDUAL LIFE. But it may be held that an instance of stupidity even more extreme (if the expression may pass), is furnished by the inability of people to see that disregard of self involves disregard of offspring. There are two ways in which it does this. Inability to proviqe for thelll adequately is one evil con sequence. Without bodily welfare in parents there cannot be effectual snstentation of children; and if the race should be maintained, then care of self with a vie"w to care of progeny becomes an obligation. This normal egoism must be such as results not merely in continued life, but in that vigorous life which gives efficiency. Nor is due care of self dernanded only because the duties of the bread-winner can not otherwise be fulfilled; but it is demanded also by regard for educational duties. Ill-health brings irritability and de pression; incapacities for right behaviour to children; and, by souring their tempers and deadening their sympathies, injures them for life.

Still more closely, however, is the welfare of descend ants bound up with self-welfare. Good or ill treatment of his or her body or mind by each person, influences for good or ill the constitutions of his or her progeny. Unless it be held that stalwart and robust men may be expected to come from stunted and unhealthy parents, or that high intelligences and noble characters are likely to be inherited from stupid and criIninal fathers and mothers, it must be admitted that any treatment of self which furthers bodily or mental development tends towards the benefit of the next generation (I say "tends" because there are com plicating influences due to atavism), and that any treat ment of self which undermines bodily health or injures the mind intellectually or emotionally, tends towards a lower ing of the nature in the next generation. Yet while people daily make· remarks about the likenesses of children to parents, and note the inheritance of this or that defect of mind or body, their criticisms on conduct entirely disregard INTRODUCTORY.

the implication. They iail to draw the inference that if constitutiolls are transmitted, the actions which damage constitutions or improve them influence for good or ill the physical· and m~ntal characters of. children and of children's children. In certain extreme cases there is, indeed, a distinct recognition of the mischiefs entailed by the transgressions of parents. Though reprobation ot those who have trans mitted acquired diseases to their children is not often heard, yet there can be no doubt that it is strongly felt . .Probably IHost will agree that, if the amount of suffering inflicted be used as a measure, murder is a smaller crime than is the .. giving· to offspring infected constitutions and consequent life-long· miseries. But even in its grossest form this transgression· is thought little of by the transgressors. There are, indeed, kindred cases in which the· sense of re-· sponsibility· sometimes serves as a deterrent-cases, for ex ample, ","here knowledge of the existence of insanity in the farnily causes abstentation froin 11larriage. Very generally, however, where the ",'"eaknesses,or disorders, or taints they are likely to communicate, are. of less conspicuous kinds, ·peo pIe, in a light-hearted way, are ready to inflict uncounted evils on descendants.

Still less is an allied consciousness of responsibility. There is no recognition of the truth that such persistent misuse·of body or mind as injures it,involves the injury of descendants·; and there·is consequently no recognition of the truth that it is a duty so to carryon life as to preserve all parts of the system in their normal states. These further reasons for due care of self have to be insisted upon. Each man's constitution should be regarded by him as an entailed estate, which he is bound to pass on in as good a condition as he received it, if not better. § 198. Beyond this special altruisln which n1akes in1pera tive a nornlal egoism, there is a general altruism which also 484 THE ETHICS OF INDIVIDUAL I.IFE. makes it in a measure obligatory. The obligation has both a negative and a positive aspect. Such care of self as is needful to exclude the risk of burdening others, is implied in a proper regard for others.

As, from those rude groups in which men lead lives so in dependent that they severally take the entire results of their own conduct, we advance to developed nations, fellow men become more and lllore inlplicated in our actions. Under a social system carried on by exchange of services, those on "w.,.hom undue self-sacrifice has brought incapacity are commonly obliged to break contracts partially or wholly, and so to inflict evil; and then any such incapacity as negatives bread-winning, ordinarily ilnposes, first on relatives and then on friends, or else on the pnblic, a tax in1plying extra labour. Everyone, therefore, is bound to avoid that thoughtless unselfishness which is apt to bring evils on others -evils that are often greater than those which entire selfish ness produces. The altruistic justification of egoism referred to as of a positive kind, results, firstly, from the obligation to expend some effort for the benefit of particular persons or for the benefit of society-an obligation which cannot be properly discharged if health has been ·undennined. And it results, secondly, fro"m the obligation to become, so far as inherited nature permits, a source of social pleasure to those around; to fulfil this requirement there must ordinarily be a flow of mental energy such as the invalid cannot maintain.