25. Stated generally, the reason for imitation is that it serves to secure for the alien variety the same advantages as the variety it imitates. The good ideal is that which maintains itself under its conditions, whatever those conditions may be. In the instance of imitation cited from the animal world, the advantage to the mimicking insect is that it escapes destruction by a higher type of animal, birds, to which the insects it imitates are distasteful. But security from destruction by a higher type is only one form of the advantages of successful species. Amongst men, the commonest cases of interest are those in which a bad man imitates a good in order to save himself from being punished by the good themselves, by the type he imitates. But this is a phenomenon of the same kind, and instances will show the gradations which lead up to it. When the Gibeonites came to Joshua, with old sacks on their asses, and old and patched-up shoes upon their feet, and old garments upon themselves, and the bread of their provision dry and mouldy, pretending to come from a far-off country, they imitated those tribes which the conquering people were content to let alone. They offer an exact parallel to the action of the Leptalis in imitating the Ithomia. Another example is like this, but stands nearer to the ordinary motive for pretending to be good. A prisoner who is ill is treated with care and relieved of punishment for the time: society lets him be. But another may seek to save himself from punishment by malingering and imitating the sick prisoner; and if he can cheat the prison doctor, it is to his interest. Lastly, all reference to a type higher than that of both the imitated and the imitator disappears, and thus a bad man puts on the appearance of being good in order, while he pursues his own schemes, to have the forces of society upon his side.

CHAPTER III.

THE MAINTENANCE OF MORAL IDEALS.

I.-PUNISHMENT.

1. (a.) Moral Sanctions.-There are two ways in which the moral ideal is maintained-by education and by punishment. Both of these are forms of moral discipline, but they operate differently. In education we raise the individual from a lower to a higher place within the society itself. By punishment we enforce the ideal against the resistance of the wrong-doer. The process of education, and other cognate processes which are the means of individual progress, I will take later, for they concern growth within the sphere of goodness. At present I will deal with the institution of punishment, by which good endeavours to enforce its victory over evil through suffering inflicted upon those who offend against the law.

Punishment as a moral institution is the condemnation of wrong-doing, which either is effected by simple moral censure, or, in cases where it is found necessary, is enforced by legal penalties. The unpleasant consequences of imprudence, like the indigestion or headache which follows upon a debauch, are not punishment in the proper sense; and we have a moral censure for such sins in addition to the natural pains they bring upon the wrong-doer. But punishment is as natural a result of wrong-doing as a cold is of sitting in wet shoes. It is the reaction of the good forces of society against the evil. Accordingly, it is something which grows and

exists with morality itself, and is a necessary incident of the predominance of the ideal.

2. But though punishment comes into existence with morality, it does not constitute morality. Morality means a code of conduct which formulates the social equilibrium. But in its birth it creates a distinction between good and bad, which finds effective expression in punishment. Here we have at once the significance. and the defects of the traditional English doctrine of the moral sanctions, according to which morality is conformity to a law to which penalties are attached by the lawgiver, whether that lawgiver is society, or the law of the land, or God. As a description of the growth of morality, the doctrine is strictly true. Morality is conduct which is enforced by punishments or by rewards. If you wish to know whether conduct is wrong, find out whether blame attaches to it. The doctrine fails of representing the whole truth, because it puts a necessary incident in the place of the essence. It makes morality dependent on punishment instead of the reverse. The reason of this mistake lies in the atomistic conception of society, which leaves the individuals accessible to the moral law only through the external infliction of pain. In this way morality comes to bear in the theory the aspect of an artificial product instead of being a growth. It seems to be imposed by a superior force. When once we recognise the social character of the individual and his growth along with the growth of society, we see how every law impressed from above is nothing more than an expression of the will of the whole society, it may be through the medium of the king or of the priest whom the society obeys. Morality and punishment thus appear in their true relation. The penalties imposed by the lawgiver take the form of conscious enactment, because they are the reaction of conscious persons. It is strange that Bentham, who introduced the physical sanction into the circle of authorities, did not perceive its

bearing upon his theory. If he had conceived of it as the necessary reaction of nature upon those who violate her laws, he would have seen that all other punishments are equally incidents in the victory of right over wrong, but do not account for the real nature of the distinction itself.

3. Accordingly, if the question, what is the moral sanction?' means 'what reason is there why morality exists?' the answer lies not in enumerating the penalties of wrong-doing, but in tracing the origin of morality as an equilibrium of the forces of society. We are moral because morality represents our strivings as organised under our conditions. All supposed ulterior reasons of pleasure and avoidance of pain are comprised within good conduct itself. The pleasures we seek are those which are connected with good conduct; the pains we avoid are those which accrue to us from the reaction of the moral ideal upon its assailants.

But the question, 'why should I be moral?' means most naturally and usually, what inducements are there to me to do right? Given a particular man, why should he not pursue his interest rather than morality? The answer, as we have already seen, must be different for different persons. To the wicked the pains and penalties of wrong-doing may be a sufficient deterrent, and the sanctions have their value in this connection. But to a good man they will make no appeal. The only sanction which will induce him to be moral is to reflect upon the unhappiness produced by the wrong act, an unhappiness which means the thwarting of good character and the violation of rights. This intrinsic unhappiness will be reproduced in the disapprobation of his own conscience. It is right to shrink from the pains of conscience, and these are the only personal pains from which a good man will shrink. But whether, in thinking of the consequences of an act, we think of its bad effect upon character, or whether we seek after the appro

bation and shrink from the stings of our own conscience, will depend upon the temperament. Both are intrinsic inducements to morality: though there are practical dangers connected with the reference to the personal pleasures and pains of conscience, the dangers of spiritual pride and of morbid introspection, which make the contemplation of the objective consequences the more serviceable rule of life.

The approbation and disapprobation of conscience are felt as the pleasures and pains of the idea of an action, and they stand on a different footing from mere rewards or punishments. They are inducements felt at the moment, and are different from the prospective pleasures of approbation and the prospective pains of remorse. These prospective pains are punishments which ensue upon the performance of the act, and though they are internal, not external, the man who does right because he shrinks from them is not a good man. He is intermediate between the bad man who seeks only to escape legal punishment, and the good man whose pains of conscience felt at the idea of a wrong act prevent his performing it.1

4. (b.) Nature of Punishment. - What, then, is the nature of punishment? Is it retributive, as might be supposed from describing it as the reaction of the good against the evil, or is its real character preventive, or reformatory? It appears to me that punishment wears these different shapes in turn according to the point of view from which it is regarded, but that in the distinc

1 We must distinguish such cases of doing right merely through shrinking from remorse, which means a moral defect, from certain morbid cases of men who shrink from any action from fear of their future feelings. A man might beg to be released from serving as a juryman because the prospect of what he would suffer, whichever way he decided, would render him unable to decide. Such a man might be a good man, and he would have shown his honesty by declaring himself unfit for the office; though of course such morbid nervousness would constitute a painful impediment upon him through the whole of his life. (See, on the subject of the paragraph, the discussion of prospective pleasures and pains in Bk. II. ch. v. pp. 219-222.)