III.-VITALITY.

40. More than once I have had occasion to note how, in the history of ethics, the idea of life or vitality has displaced that of pleasure. It remains, then, to determine the place of vitality in the end. Reverting to a form

under which the order of good conduct, so far verified. to be the end, was presented, we found it to be an adjustment of the parts of conduct to one another, implying an equilibrium both in the individual and in society. Every duty is the proper performance of a function in the organism. The most natural way to describe this state of things is to say that each person has to do efficiently what is required of him for the work of the society as a whole. But because of the equilibration of the elements in the society or the individual we may properly hold that the end of morality is the health or vitality of the society, the individual's vitality being always regulated by the condition that it is to be compatible with the vitality of the whole. It would seem there was nothing more to do than to note the extended use of the conception of vitality and to pass on. This, however, we cannot do, because the idea of vitality is perplexed with difficulties which raise questions of importance.

Vitality is in strictness the energy to live, and it has therefore two different aspects. It is the force which keeps a creature alive, or it is the force which keeps it well. These two conceptions seem to be interchanged when the end is described as vitality, the one that of the healthy condition of the organism, the other that of the continuation or preservation of life. It is in this latter form that the moral end falls into line with the rest of development as ordinarily conceived in the theory of evolution. Good conduct helps a society to maintain its existence, and it is a common and instructive method to exhibit the virtues as they contribute to this

end. We have then the two questions, first, how far can the end be described as a preservation of life or the continuance of existence? and secondly, the question, under what reservations is the end of morality identical with health? The idea of preserving life is the more prominent, and it even sheds an influence on that of health, for the impression is often left that vitality is nothing. more than the physical or bodily life, which is that life which stands nearest to mere existence.

41. There is one sense in which continued existence is really the end, namely, when it is understood merely as keeping up the vital functions without any further implications. So understood, it merely takes the end in its lowest aspect, or in its least and poorest signification; and it is an insufficient description, for though every creature aims at maintaining its existence, we cannot describe the end as existence unless we add what sort of existence we intend. Existence, in fact, is an abstraction to which nothing corresponds in experience: nothing exists except upon certain terms. Given the type, the end of a creature is to continue the existence of that type, but continuance of existence is nothing more nor less than the performance of those functions which constitute the type of life in question it is not separable from those functions as something which they subserve. If, then, the functions of an animal or of man are said to be determined by the need of maintaining his existence in this merely formal sense, it must be answered that his existence is nothing but the functions which it is said to determine. Just as in a former connection vitality was declared actually to consist in the acts which are said to conduce towards it,1 so continued existence is nothing over and above the energies of life, but is these energies. Obvious as this truth is when put into words, and plainly as the mere formal idea of continued existence is nothing but one aspect of life, and not a further end, we must advert to

:

1 Above, Bk. I., ch. iii., p. 59.

1

certain facts which seem to suggest another conclusion. Courage is a function which seems specially intended to defend the rest of life against intrusion. But life depends on contact with foreign influences and reaction upon them, on assimilating certain parts of the surroundings (say foods) and rejecting others. Courage, therefore, is not in itself a means to life, but an integral part of it: it is the performance of function as exhibited in repelling unsuitable elements. Courage is therefore no more in a special sense an action which maintains life than temperance. Life consists, among other acts, of those of eating and drinking and resistance, and an existence into which courage did not enter would be an existence of a different order. Accordingly, when it is shown that courage, chastity, and veracity are necessary to the existence of society, we merely imply that there is a kind of existence in which the conduct represented by those virtues is a constituent element.

42. In this formal signification of continued existence as the repetition of vital functions in their order, it is true, though only secondarily true, that the end is to preserve life. But the doctrine of evolution, though it always takes advantage of this formal sense, implies much more. Sometimes indeed the conception of the end as preservation of life, as "being with the promise of future being," has been thought to stand in contrast with and to be insufficient for the specially moral idea of life as desirable.1 But this old Aristotelian antithesis of mere life and good life is not here to the point. For the good life, or the really or objectively desirable life, it is maintained by the doctrine of evolution, is that life which is able to maintain itself.

Dismissing this objection, what we have to note is that the theory of evolution means by preservation of life the victorious continuance of life, the assertion of life against its enemies. Now this is not a formal 1 Mr. Sidgwick's History of Ethics, p. 245.

conception, but then it is not a true representation of the end. Granting for a moment (what I shall hereafter verify) that human society follows the same law as natural species, the meaning of the generalisation called the struggle for existence is not, as I understand, that the end of each creature is to overpower its rivals, but simply that each creature establishes its existence by such a victory. The end of the animal is to live according to its type: its type is selected by exterminating its rivals. The end of the dog is to do what a dog should do: that opportunity is secured by the dog by its victory over other animals. We cannot conclude

that because the canine type is victorious, the end of the dog is to maintain its victorious existence: nor that because the moral society (let us assume) prevails, that its end is simply to maintain its prevalence. To do so is to confuse the causal order with the order of our discovery. We know that the moral society is the fittest because it proves its fitness by survival. But its survival, though it is the reason of our knowledge of its fitness, is not the cause of its fitness, but is in fact caused by the qualities which make the society moral. If we hold that the end of every species is to maintain its existence. in the important sense of successful existence, we are committing a mistake, reading into the end of each. species a theory of how the species comes into being. An illustration will explain. The end of the conservative party in the state is to govern by conservative principles, the end of the liberal party by liberal principles. Either party comes into power by defeating its rival, and in effecting its ideas maintains its victory. But the mere victory is not the true end of either party: it is only the proof that the end of the party is gained. Similarly the end of any kind of life is different from. the struggle for life, and victory in the struggle, by which that end is accomplished. To preserve life' in the signification without which the theory that the moral end is

to preserve the social life would be pointless, is a positively false interpretation of the end, the result of a confusion of an effect with a cause, of a reason for our knowing with a reason of existence.

At the same time this condemnation is quite consistent with admitting that the ultimate tendency of evolution is to produce greater duration of life, a form in which the end of conduct is sometimes stated.1 This is altogether different from the proposition that the end is to continue life, and is an attempt to combine the stages of growth into a single formula. Length of life is dif ferent from the continuance of life: it is part of the character of the species, and implies its greater complexity, which requires a greater length of time for complete exercise. How far it is valuable as a law of progress I have not to inquire. But, even supposing it to be a real law, on the other hand, it is not true that the end of life is to maintain its existence in the sense of aiming at victory, and the plausibility of the assertion depends on the tacit reference to the merely secondary truth that all life implies its maintenance.

43. Vitality, then, as the continuance of existence, either substitutes for a description of the end a theory of the genesis of morality, or else it states a merely formal element in the end. Vitality as health is a more fruitful conception: for health means that very fact of equilibrium which constitutes good conduct good. A healthy body is one whose organs are in adjustment one with the other, a healthy mind is one whose thoughts and feelings are never disproportioned. Vitality, then, instead of a bare idea of continued life, expresses a real and important feature of the end, and it has the advantage that it connects good life in man with efficient life throughout the animal creation. And instead of victorious existence it assigns the cause why existence is victorious.

1 Spencer's Data of Ethics, pp. 10-14. Cp. p. 14, "that increased duration of life which constitutes the supreme end."