have to use a rough and ready method, taking advantage of the best knowledge we can get, but your act is none the less bad, because society is deluded and thinks you good. In the moral judgment everything which affects the nature of the act is supposed known, and it is because in practice this is impossible that we tend to throw the source of the moral enactment inwards into each one's conscience, and that morality keeps pointing to religion which leaves the ultimate judgment with God, " to whom all hearts are open." But, I repeat, the moral judgment is independent of our power of using it accurately. And if again it is answered that in fact we never do judge action in this stringent fashion, and that some of these volitions are really praised and their authors applauded, then we must insist that we are not merely concerned with what people as a matter of fact do, but with what they mean by passing the judgments that such and such acts are good or bad; and if when the motive is known the act is condemned, then it is no less bad when the motive is not known, 18. But it is with purely indifferent action that most doubt would be felt as to the truth of the proposition advanced. To quote some examples from Mr. Spencer, it is thought indifferent whether I walk to the waterfall to-day or ramble along the sea-shore; or again, “as currently conceived, stirring the fire, or reading a newspaper, or eating a meal, are acts with which morality has no concern; "2 and there are thousands of actions like these which seem at first sight indifferent. It is to be observed that such actions are not always called indifferent in quite the same sense: in the first case the indifference is between alternative ends, or alternative means to the same end; in the latter cases there is no question of an alternative, unless we suppose that in all moral action there is an alternative between doing and forbearing.3 Mr. Spencer 2 Ibid., p. 5. 1 Data of Ethics, p. 6. rightly points out that a very little difference may make the act confessedly moral; if I have a friend who has not. seen the fall, I must take him there. But the difference is impalpable between such acts and the ordinary routine. acts of our daily life which are confessedly duties. And in reality they are all moral, either good or bad, supposing they are willed; and when they are not willed but are merely impulses, they are moral in so far as the agent is responsible for his impulse. 19. Premising that these acts if moral at all are moral, not as mere outward acts, but as conduct, we may remark that most of them are singly of so trivial a character that it would be no wonder if they rarely are praised when they are performed, and when they are omitted are condemned with slight severity. But the same thing may be said of the "thousand nameless unremembered acts" which make up the life of a good man. We are not perpetually pronouncing our approval or disapproval of acts that are done around us: the world not being made up of gossips. Moreover the inducements to many such acts are so strong, being the simple natural feelings, that moral judgment is called for only to prevent their omission, and we certainly hold a man responsible not merely for cleanliness, but for a proper regard for his health. But it is further to be observed that in most of such instances the acts are not performed for their own sakes, but either as means to some further end or as conditions of it. I poke the fire usually to warm myself and to promote my comfort: I may even do so for its own sake, because I find amusement in it; again I walk for the sake of walking, but that is because I need it for health or for pleasure. I read the newspaper to get the information which is necessary for an intelligent man. Thus such acts are always elements in the system of acts required for our health, or our amusement, or our pleasure, and they share as means in the moral value which attaches to the ends, since the nature of the means affects the character of the whole action. The cases of really indifferent means may be dismissed at once: they arise out of the mere mechanism of action: that I can go to London by the road or the river is a fact which, we will suppose, makes no difference to my volition. That I am to go to London is not indifferent. But the act may be performed in either of two ways. When once the so-called indifferent acts are shown in their true character, as part of health or happiness or the like, their moral nature becomes evident.1 The moral judgment says it is right to regard your health, and caeteris paribus it is right to amuse yourself or promote your happiness, or more generally still to do what pleases you. And it is only the austerity we attach to the word, which prevents us from adding that it is your duty also. Here we have the foundation of that quaint doctrine of the English philosophers, that man is under a natural obligation to seek his happiness. Some would indeed deny amusement to be right, and might declare the conscious pursuit of happiness immoral. But it is enough for the purpose if they have thereby admitted the so-called indifferent actions to rank along with other moral or immoral activities. 20. The admission of such conduct to a place in the moral system destroys at once the unreal distinction between virtue and prudence. Prudence means in common language either of two things. It may mean simply taking right means to an end, and it is then praised or blamed according to the worthiness of the object. It is true we may admire a prudent though ignoble action, but we do so for the same reason as makes us give a man credit for the good motive with which he did a bad act: because that is, the discernment of the right means is a necessary 1 It is strange that Mr. Spencer should consent to regard the acts he instances as indifferent, because he is distinguished by insisting on the obligations we are under to maintain in vigour our more directly natural functions. By such insistence he has both been true to the spirit of his philosophy, and, in my opinion, made an important contribution to our conscious ethical practice. quality of a good character. But prudence more usually denotes the habit of performing the more self-regarding acts (those, e.g., which concern health and safety), and sometimes in a bad sense the undue regard of self, and as a comprehensive term for such acts it is convenient. But so long as the regard for self is compatible with and due to the social requirements of morality, prudence is a duty and a virtue. One word may be added as to the practical bearing of the proposition I am enforcing. It does not of course prescribe any hard and fast rule of life: it is still left to the common sense of mankind to balance the claims of health and happiness against the claims of others, where these claims conflict. Still less does it require a constant and painful attention to trivial routine; it does not do so any more than we are required to be for ever prying into our admittedly 'moral' conduct. It only asserts that, whenever we use our human privilege of conscious conduct, in the minutest observances of life as much as in our most ideal and elevated actions, we are bound in the kindly bondage of duty.1 1 This must be understood in the light of subsequent conclusions as to the claim of duty to be regarded as the supreme principle of conduct. (Conclusion, sec. ii.). A question of casuistry of the kind mentioned above is suggested by the following interesting incident in the life of Strafford. Strafford's health had given way while he was executing the policy which he thought was to save the crown; but he was recovering. "On the 24th the King visited him, to congratulate him on his convalescence. In the presence of the King, Strafford had no eyes for the vacillation of the man. True to his ceremonious loyalty, the convalescent threw off his warm gown to receive his sovereign in befitting guise. His imprudence went near to cost him his life. Struck down again by the chill, it was only after a week, in which the physicians despaired of recovery, that hope could again be spoken of to his friends." (Gardiner, History of England, vol. ix. p. 139.) CHAPTER III. SCIENTIFIC ASPECTS OF CONDUCT. 1.-CONDUCT AS A CONCRETE THING-ETHICS AND 1. CONDUCT presents certain characteristics or aspects. which form convenient points of view from which to consider the method of ethics; and discussion of method, it may be observed, is fruitful only when it helps to explain some element in the subject matter of a science. The present chapter then will attempt to draw out these characteristics of conduct, and by taking advantage of them to contrast the ethical method with other scientific methods which might be thought appropriate to ethics as well. It is under the form of right conduct or right action that morality is by preference regarded in what I will call the physical method or method of natural science, which treats morality as an object to be investigated in the same way as all other objects in the world. Morality is taken. as something to be explained and brought under general laws, as the chemist or the physicist finds substances and forces to his hand of which he has to explain the action. Among the facts of our experience are human actions, and these do not stand alone, but take their place along with all other things of the world, and especially with all the facts of life. Now, under the form of conduct, morality presents itself in a tangible shape, and it is thus that it naturally appears to the method described. So |