There seems to be a cycle in the fortunes of most theories, the law of which is a "law of three stages." Beginning with the bare and abstract statement of a half truth, they take up bit by bit its complementary truth, and emerge from the state of perplexity or vacillation thus produced into the stage where all the parts are held together in an impartial regard. The impartial doctrine in our present case rightly holds with Mr. Stephen that before we can tell what will suit the ends of the individual we must consider the qualities he actually derives from the organism. It is true that each person seeks his own happiness, but what that happiness is is determined by the sentiments he possesses owing to his functions in society. His character varies with the "social factor," and it is his character which decides what he shall perform. This conception of the determination of the moral individual by his social. function Mr. Stephen embodies in the idea of the "social tissue," which is the connecting medium between the individuals—a term invented in order to distinguish the permanent social properties from their special or definite organisations, such as parliament or church, which may, he thinks, vary within the limits of the same social tissue. This tissue, like the connective tissue of the human body, becomes modified into various organs for different purposes. What this tissue really is, is a matter of some uncertainty, but at any rate it is the qualities and sentiments which a man possesses through sharing in this tissue which make him moral, and it is the qualities of the social tissue which the moral law defines.1 I offer here no criticism of this doctrine: whatever reservations may be needed before all of its details are accepted, it is certain, even from this meagre description, that the problem is here rightly conceived, and a solution given of the difficulty of reconciling the attractive and repulsive forces of the individual man.2 1 Stephen, Science of Ethics, chap. iii., iv., 'Social Tissue.' 2 The same is true of the conception of an extended or tribal self, which 10. Such are the gradations by which the mere abstract problem of individualism is expanded and becomes a real expression of the vital question of ethics-a process which is of all the greater interest because it represents the main current of English moral theory. A similar gradation might be traced in the question proposed to itself by universalism. If the difficulty for individualism was to show the connection of the atom with the whole, for universalism the difficulty is to show how a universal law is embodied in those shifting and multiform duties of highly dissimilar persons which make up the real moral life we know. Towards this problem of what may be described as the articulation of the moral law, the decisive step is taken when the moral law ceases to be regarded as merely something superior to the individual, and acquires the character of a social formula. The first appeal to the facts which make for universalism leaves the moralist with the bare conception that good is something absolutely binding irrespective of the individual's inclinations. In its extremest form this binding law is the dictate of a superior power or governor: reduced to human terms, it dictates to the individual through the conscience or some form of internal sense. In this stage the particular duties which make up life are themselves given by this external or internal monitor-the conscience does not give W. K. Clifford uses to explain the nature of morality. In so far as the individual man represents the tribal self he is good; in so far as he judges himself or others it is the voice of the tribal self which speaks through him. The conception of an extended self is, however, not elaborated by Clifford, and is altogether in too imperfect and vague a form to be accepted without question; the very phrase "an extended self" implies ideas as to the nature of self which require justification. It is interesting to observe the coincidence of this view with one put forward formerly by Strauss. "Moral action," says Strauss (Der alte und der neue Glaube, § 74, p. 159), "is the self-determination of the individual according to the idea of the genus." Strauss represents the Hegelian philosophy in the act of putting off its elaborate and rigid majesty, and submitting to be partial and popular. That one of the highest expressions given to English ethics proper should coincide with a remnant of the Hegelian philosophy is curious in itself, but the strangeness of it ceases when we reflect that the central note of Hegel's idealism was that very principle of development which in a different form has been extended over the natural world by evolution. general formulas, but pronounces particular enactments. So occupied are the minds of such thinkers with the authoritative character of the law that mere authority seems to carry with it the actual concrete duties, just as the beginnings of individualism subordinated the social good to the central point of interest, the mere individual. Such a solution is too easy to satisfy the mind for long, and a second stage is reached when, the universal or authoritative character of morality as such being retained, its particular enactments are left to be discovered by experience, and the conscience approves what the necessities of life demand.1 The internal voice and the stronger persuasiveness of actual life are left side by side to settle. their differences as they can. Most intuitionist and many idealistic theories are in this condition of peaceful diplomacy between two independent powers. II. The problem receives its definite shape when the notion that the authority of the law arises from its mere universal form is abandoned. To realise the social character of morality is to seek the explanation of its authority, not in some categorical imperative such as Kant's, but in the very nature of society itself. The change is part of that movement which I have already attempted to describe. Accordingly, in the universalism of our own day it is as fully recognised that the observances of morality are the work of individuals, as that they have a character which is more than merely relative to the person who has to perform them. The moral law is a law of society; but that law has no existence except in the characters of the members of society. "In saying that the human spirit can only realise itself, that the divine idea of man can only be fulfilled, in and through persons, we are not denying but affirming that the realisation and fulfilment can only take place in and through society. Without society no 1 I have quoted already the use which is made by Dr. Martineau of the consequences of conduct to explain why we do particular acts, while at the same time it is always conscience which supplies authority. persons: this is as true as that without persons, without self-objectifying agents, there would be no such society as we know."1 "There can be nothing in a nation however exalted its mission, or in a society however perfectly organised, which is not in the persons composing the nation or the society." 2 12. It is thus by availing themselves of that commonplace of to-day, the dependence of the individual on the race, that both individualism and universalism have arrived at a statement of their problems which is not one-sided but complete. Goodness is something in which both the individual and society have a part. If, then, we are to profit by the history of ethical theory, it is clear what we must not do, in examining the meaning of moral epithets. We must neither assume that the individual is an independent atom, nor that there is an authoritative and binding command which is given irrespectively of him. On the contrary, we must take society and the individual as we find them in fact, the latter with ties that bind him to others, the former as something which we have never known to be formed by the mere coalescence of separate and independent individuals. The inquiry breaks up into two parts; according as we consider the meaning of right and wrong for any one individual taken by himself, or for society as comprising many individuals; and these two views must be connected one with the other. An analysis of this kind will not set out with the hope of finding any one spring of action like benevolence, or sympathy, under which the whole of our moral action may be grouped; but will aim only at describing what are the facts to which we refer when we call an action or a person good or bad. 1 Green, Prolegomena, p. 199. Cp. p. 192. 2 Ibid., p. 193. CHAPTER II. GOOD AND BAD. I. IN THE INDIVIDUAL. 1. (a.) The equilibrium of functions. In taking the life of the individual by itself in provisional isolation from society we are making an assumption which is perfectly justifiable. No matter how complex the social connections into which he enters, his own share in them belongs peculiarly to himself. He is indeed dependent on his fellows at every step and turn, and a large part of his inclinations arise directly out of his connection with them: the most permanent and important of all, the feelings of kinship, belong to him as a merely physical being. But these social impulses all have a point of attachment in the individual, and are felt by himself as much as the more obviously self-regarding impulses, which in their turn are properly termed self-regarding, not because they are without effect upon others, but because they are suggested from within rather than from without. For instance, an act of kindness which is felt by the patient as alleviation is felt by the agent himself as sympathy. The individual's life is thus composed of acts which depend on a multitude of feelings, emotions, and impulses-the pressure of hunger and thirst, the need of love, the sympathy which is excited in him by the joys and pains of his fellows, feelings like duty, or self-respect, which are the product of moral development itself, lastly, the impulses to artistic and scientific creation, or the aspirations of religion. Supposing what is not the fact, that all these feelings and the G |