yet persist in the form of an undercurrent of dissatisfaction and remorse. The only possible solution of the deadlock lies in the killing-off of the selfish impulses.

This is not a fantastic dream. We see in the ideal mother, father, husband, wife, in the ardent patriot and religious devotee, this sloughing-off of the egoistic nature already accomplished. Love, and joy in service, are not alien to us; they are as instinctive as self-seeking; the hope of ultimate peace lies in the strengthening of these impulses till they so dominate us that we no longer care for the selfish and narrow aims. We must cultivate the masculine aspect of unselfishness, the loyalty of the Greeks, the impulse to stand by and fight for others; and we must cultivate its more feminine side, the caritas of I Corinthians XIII, the love that suffereth long and is kind, the sympathy and tenderness infused into a rough and rugged world by Christianity. In this highest developed life there will then be no dualism of motive; at the top of the ladder of moral progress individual and social goods coincide. It is joy to the righteous to do righteousness; it is the keenest delight in life for the lover of men to serve.

The unselfish impulse has thus a double value; it blesseth him that gives and him that takes. It is more blessed to give than to receive, when the giver has reached the moral level where giving is his greatest joy. The development of sympathy and the spirit of service in modern times gives great hope that the time will come when men will universally find a rich and satisfying life in ways which bring no harm but only good to others.

H. Spencer, Data of Ethics, chaps. XI-XIV. R. B. Perry, Moral Economy, chap. II, secs. IV, V.; chap. III., secs. v, vi. F. Paulsen, System of Ethics, bk. 11, chap. 1, sec. 6; chap. vi; bk. III, chap. x, sec. 1. Dewey and Tufts, Ethics, chap. XVIII, sec. e. W. K. Clifford, Right and Wrong, On the Scientific Basis of Morals, in Lectures and Essays, vol. 1. R. M. McConnell, Duty of Altruism. B. Russell, Philosophical Essays, chap. 1, sec. v. J. Royce, Prob lem of Christianity, vol. I, chap. III.

CHAPTER XII

OBJECTIONS AND MISUNDERSTANDINGS

HAVING now outlined the eudæmonistic account of morality, we may note certain objections that are commonly raised to it, and certain misunderstandings that constantly

recur.

Do men always act for pleasure or to avoid pain?

Many of the earlier theorists, not content with showing that the good consists ultimately in a quality of conscious states, asserted that all of men's actions are actually directed toward the attainment of agreeable states of experience or avoidance of disagreeable states. There is no act but is aimed for pleasure of some sort or away from pain; men differ, then, only in their wisdom in selecting the more important pleasures and their skill in attaining what they aim for. This assertion, easily refuted, has seemed to some opponents of the eudæmonistic account of morality so bound up with it as to involve its downfall.

The classic statement of this erroneous psychology, which has been the source of much satisfaction to anti-eudæmonistic philosophers, is to be found in the fourth chapter of Mill's Utilitarianism. "There is in reality nothing desired except happiness. Whatever is desired otherwise than as a means to some end beyond itself, and ultimately to happiness, is desired as itself a part of happiness, and is not desired for itself until it has become so. Human nature is so constituted as to desire nothing which is not either a part of happiness or a means to happiness. . . ." A careful reading

of Mill shows that he did not mean these statements without qualification. But since they, and similar sweeping assertions,1 have been a stumbling-block to many, we must pause to note their inaccuracy, while insisting that they are no part of a sound utilitarian, or eudæmonistic, theory.

Far from the desire for happiness being the universal motive, it is one of the less common springs of conduct. Habit, inertia, instinct, ideals drive us this way and that; we do a thousand things daily without any thought of happiness, because our minds are so made that they naturally run off into such action. We desire concrete things, without reference to their bearing on our happiness. We even go directly and consciously counter to our happiness at times, deliberately sacrifice it, perhaps for some foolish fancy. The idealist in politics expects to get no pleasure out of what his associates deem his pigheadedness; but he has seen a vision and he keeps true to it. Regulus did not go back to Carthage to be tortured to death for the pleasure of it, or to avoid the greater pain of an uneasy conscience; he went in spite of foreseen pain and the allurement of possible pleasure. When a man endures privations for the sake of posthumous fame, it is not that he expects to enjoy that fame when it comes, or expects others to enjoy it; he is simply so made that he cannot resist the sway of that ambition which will bring him no good. The pursuit of pleasure is a sophisticated impulse which appears in marked degree only in a few selfconscious and idle individuals.

William James gave the death-blow to this pleasureseeking psychology. "Important as is the influence of pleasures and pains upon our movements, they are far from

1 Cf. Leslie Stephen, Science of Ethics, p. 44: "The love of happiness must express the sole possible motive of Judas Iscariot and of his Master; it must explain the conduct of Stylites on his pillar, of Tiberius at Capræ, of â Kempis in his cell, and of Nelson in the cockpit of the Victory.

being our only stimuli. With the manifestations of instinct and emotional expression, for example, they have absolutely nothing to do. Who smiles for the pleasure of smiling, or frowns for the pleasure of the frown? Who blushes to escape the discomfort of not blushing? Or who in anger, grief, or fear is actuated to the movements which he makes by the pleasures which they yield? In all these cases the movements are discharged fatally by the vis a tergo which the stimulus exerts upon a nervous system framed to respond in just that way. ... The impulsive quality of mental states is an attribute behind which we cannot go."

It is not true, then, that love of pleasure and fear of pain are the universal motives. It is not true that we inevitably act along the line of least hedonic resistance, that pain necessarily veers us off and pleasure irresistibly attracts. By force of will, by "suggestion" or training, we can go directly counter to the pull of pleasure. It is true that we should not have the instincts and habits and impulses that we do were they not in general useful for our existence or happiness. But the evolutionary process has been clumsy; we are not properly adjusted; we become the victims of idées fixes; ideas and activities obsess us quite without relation to their hedonic value. So pleasure and pain are not usually the impelling force or conscious motive behind conduct. What they are is the touchstone, the criterion, the justification.

We do not act in ways that bring the greatest happiness, but we ought to. We do not consciously seek happiness, and we ought not to. We ought to continue to care for things and for ideals; but the things and ideals we care and work for ought to be such that through them man's welfare is advanced.

1 W. James, Psychology, vol. II, p. 550.

Are pleasures and pains incommensurable?

An objection commonly raised is that pleasures and pains of various sorts are incommensurable; that therefore no calculation of relative advantage is possible; and that the eudæmonistic criterion for action is thereby made impracticable and useless.

(1) To this we may reply that the estimation of the relative worth of different kinds of experience is, indeed, often very difficult. But on any theory the decision as to the right is equally complicated and puzzling. The fact that the criterion is difficult to use is no evidence that it is not the right criterion. Which set of consequences will be of most intrinsic worth, it is sometimes impossible to know. But one set is, nevertheless, of more intrinsic worth, and the act that secures them is the best act, even though we do not recognize it as such. There will continue to be many differences of judgment as to which of alternative possible experiences is the more desirable. But that uncertainty does not alter the fundamental fact that some experiences are intrinsically more desirable than others and more deserving of pursuit. "A debtor who cannot pay me offers to compound for his debt by making over one of sundry things he possesses a diamond ornament, a silver vase, a picture, a carriage. Other questions being set aside, I assert it to be my pecuniary interest to choose the most valuable of these, but I cannot say which is the most valuable. Does the proposition that it is my pecuniary interest to choose the most valuable, therefore, become doubtful? Must I not choose as well as I can, and if I choose wrongly, must I give up my ground of choice? Must I infer that in matters of business I may not act on the principle that, other things equal, the more profitable transaction is to be preferred, because, in many cases, I cannot say which is the more profitable and have often