Chapter III: The Conversion of Rome (5)

1 The opinions of Hume on moral questions are grossly misrepresented
by many writers, who persist in describing them as substantially
identical with those of Bentham. How far Hume was from denying the
existence of a moral sense, the following passages will show:—“The
final sentence, it is probable, which pronounces characters and
actions amiable or odious, praiseworthy or blameable ... depends on
some internal sense or feeling which nature has made universal in
the whole species.”—_Enquiry Concerning Morals_, § 1. “The
hypothesis we embrace ... defines virtue to be whatever mental
action or quality gives to the spectator the pleasing sentiment of
approbation.”—Ibid. Append. I. “The crime or immorality is no
particular fact or relation which can be the object of the
understanding, but arises entirely from the sentiment of
disapprobation, which, by the structure of human nature, we
unavoidably feel on the apprehension of barbarity or
treachery.”—Ibid. “Reason instructs us in the several tendencies of
actions, and humanity makes a distinction in favour of those which
are useful and beneficial.”—Ibid. “As virtue is an end, and is
desirable on its own account without fee or reward, merely for the
immediate satisfaction it conveys, it is requisite that there should
be some sentiment which it touches, some internal taste or feeling,
or whatever you please to call it, which distinguishes moral good
and evil, and which embraces the one and rejects the other.”—Ibid.
The two writers to whom Hume was most indebted were Hutcheson and
Butler. In some interesting letters to the former (Burton’s _Life of
Hume_, vol. i.), he discusses the points on which he differed from
them.

2 “The chief thing therefore which lawgivers and other wise men that
have laboured for the establishment of society have endeavoured, has
been to make the people they were to govern believe that it was more
beneficial for everybody to conquer than to indulge his appetites,
and much better to mind the public than what seemed his private
interest ... observing that none were either so savage as not to be
charmed with praise, or so despicable as patiently to bear contempt,
they justly concluded that flattery must be the most powerful
argument that could be used to human creatures. Making use of this
bewitching engine, they extolled the excellency of our nature above
other animals ... by the help of which we were capable of performing
the most noble achievements. Having, by this artful flattery,
insinuated themselves into the hearts of men, they began to instruct
them in the notions of honour and shame, &c.”—_Enquiry into the
Origin of Moral Virtue._

3 “I conceive that when a man deliberates whether he shall do a thing
or not do it, he does nothing else but consider whether it be better
for himself to do it or not to do it.”—Hobbes _On Liberty and
Necessity._ “Good and evil are names that signify our appetites and
aversions.”—Ibid. _Leviathan_, part i. ch. xvi. “Obligation is the
necessity of doing or omitting any action in order to be
happy.”—Gay’s dissertation prefixed to King’s _Origin of Evil_, p.
36. “The only reason or motive by which individuals can possibly be
induced to the practice of virtue, must be the feeling immediate or
the prospect of future private happiness.”—Brown _On the
Characteristics_, p. 159. “En tout temps, en tout lieu, tant en
matière de morale qu’en matière d’esprit, c’est l’intérêt personnel
qui dicte le jugement des particuliers, et l’intérêt général qui
dicte celui des nations.... Tout homme ne prend dans ses jugements
conseil que de son intérêt.”—Helvétius _De l’Esprit_, discours ii.
“Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign
masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what
we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do.... The
principle of utility recognises this subjection, and assumes it for
the foundation of that system, the object of which is to rear the
fabric of felicity by the hands of reason and of law. Systems which
attempt to question it, deal in sounds instead of sense, in caprice
instead of reason, in darkness instead of light.”—Bentham’s
_Principles of Morals and Legislation_, ch. i. “By the principle of
utility is meant that principle which approves or disapproves of
every action whatsoever, according to the tendency which it appears
to have to augment or diminish the happiness of the party whose
interest is in question.”—Ibid. “Je regarde l’amour éclairé de
nous-mêmes comme le principe de tout sacrifice moral.”—D’Alembert
quoted by D. Stewart, _Active and Moral Powers_, vol. i. p. 220.

4 “Pleasure is in itself a good; nay, even setting aside immunity from
pain, the only good; pain is in itself an evil, and, indeed, without
exception, the only evil, or else the words good and evil have no
meaning.”—Bentham’s _Principles of Morals and Legislation_, ch. x.

5 “Good and evil are nothing but pleasure and pain, or that which
occasions or procures pleasure or pain to us. Moral good and evil
then is only the conformity or disagreement of our voluntary actions
to some law whereby good or evil is drawn on us by the will and
power of the law maker, which good and evil, pleasure or pain,
attending our observance or breach of the law by the decree of the
law maker, is that we call reward or punishment.”—Locke’s _Essay_,
book ii. ch. xxviii. “Take away pleasures and pains, not only
happiness, but justice, and duty, and obligation, and virtue, all of
which have been so elaborately held up to view as independent of
them, are so many empty sounds.”—Bentham’s _Springs of Action_, ch.
i. § 15.

6 “Il lui est aussi impossible d’aimer le bien pour le bien, que
d’aimer le mal pour le mal.”—Helvétius _De l’Esprit_, disc. ii. ch.
v.

7 “Even the goodness which we apprehend in God Almighty, is his
goodness to us.”—Hobbes _On Human Nature_, ch. vii. § 3. So
Waterland, “To love God is in effect the same thing as to love
happiness, eternal happiness; and the love of happiness is still the
love of ourselves.”—_Third Sermon on Self-love._

8 “Reverence is the conception we have concerning another, that he
hath the power to do unto us both good and hurt, but not the will to
do us hurt.”—Hobbes _On Human Nature_, ch. viii. § 7.

9 “The pleasures of piety are the pleasures that accompany the belief
of a man’s being in the acquisition, or in possession of the
goodwill or favour of the Supreme Being; and as a fruit of it, of
his being in the way of enjoying pleasures to be received by God’s
special appointment either in this life or in a life to
come.”—Bentham’s _Principles of Morals and Legislation_, ch. v. “The
pains of piety are the pains that accompany the belief of a man’s
being obnoxious to the displeasure of the Supreme Being, and in
consequence to certain pains to be inflicted by His especial
appointment, either in this life or in a life to come. These may be
also called the pains of religion.”—Ibid.

10 “There can be no greater argument to a man of his own power, than to
find himself able not only to accomplish his own desires, but also
to assist other men in theirs; and this is that conception wherein
consisteth charity.”—Hobbes _On Hum. Nat._ ch. ix. § 17. “No man
giveth but with intention of good to himself, because gift is
voluntary; and of all voluntary acts, the object to every man is his
own good.”—Hobbes’ _Leviathan_, part i. ch. xv. “Dream not that men
will move their little finger to serve you, unless their advantage
in so doing be obvious to them. Men never did so, and never will
while human nature is made of its present materials.”—Bentham’s
_Deontology_, vol. ii. p. 133.

11 “Pity is imagination or fiction of future calamity to ourselves,
proceeding from the sense of another man’s calamity. But when it
lighteth on such as we think have not deserved the same, the
compassion is greater, because there then appeareth more probability
that the same may happen to us; for the evil that happeneth to an
innocent man may happen to every man.”—Hobbes _On Hum. Nat._ ch. ix.
§ 10. “La pitié est souvent un sentiment de nos propres maux dans
les maux d’autrui. C’est une habile prévoyance des malheurs où nous
pouvons tomber. Nous donnons des secours aux autres pour les engager
à nous en donner en de semblables occasions, et ces services que
nous leur rendons sont, à proprement parler, des biens que nous nous
faisons à nous-mêmes par avance.”—La Rochefoucauld, _Maximes_, 264.
Butler has remarked that if Hobbes’ account were true, the most
fearful would be the most compassionate nature; but this is perhaps
not quite just, for Hobbes’ notion of pity implies the union of two
not absolutely identical, though nearly allied, influences, timidity
and imagination. The theory of Adam Smith, though closely connected
with, differs totally in consequences from that of Hobbes on this
point. He says, “When I condole with you for the loss of your son,
in order to enter into your grief, I do not consider what I, a
person of such a character and profession, should suffer if I had a
son, and if that son should die—I consider what I should suffer if I
was really you. I not only change circumstances with you, but I
change persons and characters. My grief, therefore, is entirely upon
your account.... A man may sympathise with a woman in child-bed,
though it is impossible he should conceive himself suffering her
pains in his own proper person and character.”—_Moral Sentiments_,
part vii. ch. i. §3.

12 “Ce que les hommes ont nommé amitié n’est qu’une société, qu’un
ménagement réciproque d’intérêts et qu’un échange de bons offices.
Ce n’est enfin qu’un commerce où l’amour-propre se propose toujours
quelque chose à gagner.”—La Rochefoucauld, _Max._ 83. See this idea
developed at large in Helvétius.

13 “La science de la morale n’est autre chose que la science même de la
législation.”—Helvétius _De l’Esprit_, ii. 17.

14 This doctrine is expounded at length in all the moral works of
Hobbes and his school. The following passage is a fair specimen of
their meaning:—“Moral philosophy is nothing else but the science of
what is good and evil in the conversation and society of mankind.
Good and evil are names that signify our appetites and aversions,
which in different tempers, customs, and doctrines of men are
different ... from whence arise disputes, controversies, and at last
war. And therefore, so long as man is in this condition of mere
nature (which is a condition of war), his private appetite is the
measure of good and evil. And consequently all men agree in this,
that peace is good, and therefore also that the ways or means of
peace, (which, as I have showed before) are justice, gratitude,
modesty, equity, mercy, and the rest of the laws of nature are good
... and their contrary vices evil.”—Hobbes’ _Leviathan_, part i. ch.
xvi. See, too, a striking passage in Bentham’s _Deontology_, vol.
ii. p. 132.

15 As an ingenious writer in the _Saturday Review_ (Aug. 10, 1867)
expresses it: “Chastity is merely a social law created to encourage
the alliances that most promote the permanent welfare of the race,
and to maintain woman in a social position which it is thought
advisable she should hold.” See, too, on this view, Hume’s _Inquiry
concerning Morals_, § 4, and also _note_ x.: “To what other purpose
do all the ideas of chastity and modesty serve? Nisi utile est quod
facimus, frustra est gloria.”

16 “All pleasure is necessarily self-regarding, for it is impossible to
have any feelings out of our own mind. But there are modes of
delight that bring also satisfaction to others, from the round that
they take in their course. Such are the pleasures of benevolence.
Others imply no participation by any second party, as, for example,
eating, drinking, bodily warmth, property, and power; while a third
class are fed by the pains and privations of fellow-beings, as the
delights of sport and tyranny. The condemnatory phrase, selfishness,
applies with especial emphasis to the last-mentioned class, and, in
a qualified degree, to the second group; while such terms as
unselfishness, disinterestedness, self-devotion, are applied to the
vicarious position wherein we seek our own satisfaction in that of
others.”—Bain _On the Emotions and Will_, p. 113.

17 “Vice may be defined to be a miscalculation of chances, a mistake in
estimating the value of pleasures and pains. It is false moral
arithmetic.”—Bentham’s _Deontology_, vol. i. p. 131.

18 “La récompense, la punition, la gloire et l’infamie soumises à ses
volontés sont quatre espèces de divinités avec lesquelles le
législateur peut toujours opérer le bien public et créer des hommes
illustres en tous les genres. Toute l’étude des moralistes consiste
à déterminer l’usage qu’on doit faire de ces récompenses et de ces
punitions et les secours qu’on peut tirer pour lier l’intérêt
personnel à l’intérêt général.”—Helvétius _De l’Esprit_, ii. 22. “La
justice de nos jugements et de nos actions n’est jamais que la
rencontre heureuse de notre intérêt avec l’intérêt public.”—Ibid.
ii. 7. “To prove that the immoral action is a miscalculation of
self-interest, to show how erroneous an estimate the vicious man
makes of pains and pleasures, is the purpose of the intelligent
moralist. Unless he can do this he does nothing; for, as has been
stated above, for a man not to pursue what he deems likely to
produce to him the greatest sum of enjoyment, is, in the very nature
of things, impossible.”—Bentham’s _Deontology_.

19 “If the effect of virtue were to prevent or destroy more pleasure
than it produced, or to produce more pain than it prevented, its
more appropriate name would be wickedness and folly; wickedness as
it affected others, folly as respected him who practised
it.”—Bentham’s _Deontology_, vol. i. p. 142. “Weigh pains, weigh
pleasures, and as the balance stands will stand the question of
right and wrong.”—Ibid. vol. i. p. 137. “Moralis philosophiæ caput
est, Faustine fili, ut scias quibus ad beatam vitam perveniri
rationibus possit.”—Apuleius, _Ad Doct. Platonis_, ii. “Atque ipsa
utilitas, justi prope mater et æqui.”—Horace, _Sat._ I. iii. 98.

20 “We can be obliged to nothing but what we ourselves are to gain or
lose something by; for nothing else can be ‘violent motive’ to us.
As we should not be obliged to obey the laws or the magistrate
unless rewards or punishments, pleasure or pain, somehow or other,
depended upon our obedience; so neither should we, without the same
reason, be obliged to do what is right, to practise virtue, or to
obey the commands of God.”—Paley’s _Moral Philosophy_, book ii. ch.
ii.

21 See Gassendi _Philosophiæ Epicuri Syntagma_. These four canons are a
skilful condensation of the argument of Torquatus in Cicero, _De
Fin._ i. 2. See, too, a very striking letter by Epicurus himself,
given in his life by Diogenes Laërtius.

22 “Sanus igitur non est, qui nulla spe majore proposita, iis bonis
quibus cæteri utuntur in vita, labores et cruciatus et miserias
anteponat.... Non aliter his bonis præsentibus abstinendum est quam
si sint aliqua majora, propter quæ tanti sit et voluptates omittere
et mala omnia sustinere.”—Lactantius, _Div. Inst._ vi. 9. Macaulay,
in some youthful essays against the Utilitarian theory (which he
characteristically described as “Not much more laughable than
phrenology, and immeasurably more humane than cock-fighting”),
maintains the theological form of selfishness in very strong terms.
“What proposition is there respecting human nature which is
absolutely and universally true? We know of only one, and that is
not only true but identical, that men always act from
self-interest.”—Review of Mill’s _Essay on Government_. “Of this we
may be sure, that the words ‘greatest happiness’ will never in any
man’s mouth mean more than the greatest happiness of others, which
is consistent with what he thinks his own.... This direction (Do as
you would be done by) would be utterly unmeaning, as it actually is
in Mr. Bentham’s philosophy, unless it were accompanied by a
sanction. In the Christian scheme accordingly it is accompanied by a
sanction of immense force. To a man whose greatest happiness in this
world is inconsistent with the greatest happiness of the greatest
number, is held out the prospect of an infinite happiness hereafter,
from which he excludes himself by wronging his fellow-creatures
here.”—_Answer to the Westminster Review’s Defence of Mill._

23 “All virtue and piety are thus resolvable into a principle of
self-love. It is what Scripture itself resolves them into by
founding them upon faith in God’s promises, and hope in things
unseen. In this way it may be rightly said that there is no such
thing as disinterested virtue. It is with reference to ourselves and
for our own sakes that we love even God Himself.”—Waterland, _Third
Sermon on Self-love_. “To risk the happiness of the whole duration
of our being in any case whatever, were it possible, would be
foolish.”—Robert Hall’s _Sermon on Modern Infidelity_. “In the moral
system the means are virtuous practice; the end, happiness.”—
Warburton’s _Divine Legation_, book ii. Appendix.

24 “There is always understood to be a difference between an act of
prudence and an act of duty. Thus, if I distrusted a man who owed me
a sum of money, I should reckon it an act of prudence to get another
person bound with him; but I should hardly call it an act of
duty.... Now in what, you will ask, does the difference consist,
inasmuch as, according to our account of the matter, both in the one
case and the other, in acts of duty as well as acts of prudence, we
consider solely what we ourselves shall gain or lose by the act? The
difference, and the only difference, is this: that in the one case
we consider what we shall gain or lose in the present world; in the
other case, we consider also what we shall gain or lose in the world
to come.”—Paley’s _Moral Philosophy_, ii. 3.

25 “Hence we may see the weakness and mistake of those falsely
religious ... who are scandalised at our being determined to the
pursuit of virtue through any degree of regard to its happy
consequences in this life.... For it is evident that the religious
motive is precisely of the same kind, only stronger, as the
happiness expected is greater and more lasting.”—Brown’s _Essays on
the Characteristics_, p. 220.

26 “If a Christian, who has the view of happiness and misery in another
life, be asked why a man must keep his word, he will give this as a
reason, because God, who has the power of eternal life and death,
requires it of us. But if an Hobbist be asked why, he will answer,
because the public requires it, and the Leviathan will punish you if
you do not. And if one of the old heathen philosophers had been
asked, he would have answered, because it was dishonest, below the
dignity of man, and opposite to virtue, the highest perfection of
human nature, to do otherwise.”—Locke’s _Essay_, i. 3.

27 Thus Paley remarks that—“The Christian religion hath not ascertained
the precise quantity of virtue necessary to salvation,” and he then
proceeds to urge the probability of graduated scales of rewards and
punishments. (_Moral Philosophy_, book i. ch. vii.)

28 This view was developed by Locke (_Essay on the Human
Understanding_, book ii. ch. xxi.) Pascal, in a well-known passage,
applied the same argument to Christianity, urging that the rewards
and punishments it promises are so great, that it is the part of a
wise man to embrace the creed, even though he believes it
improbable, if there be but a possibility in its favour.

29 Cudworth, in his _Immutable Morals_, has collected the names of a
number of the schoolmen who held this view. See, too, an interesting
note in Miss Cobbe’s very learned _Essay on Intuitive Morals_, pp.
18, 19.

30 E.g. Soame Jenyns, Dr. Johnson, Crusius, Pascal, Paley, and Austin.
Warburton is generally quoted in the list, but not I think quite
fairly. See his theory, which is rather complicated (_Divine
Legation_, i. 4). Waterland appears to have held this view, and also
Condillac. See a very remarkable chapter on morals, in his _Traité
des Animaux_, part ii. ch. vii. Closely connected with this doctrine
is the notion that the morality of God is generically different from
the morality of men, which having been held with more or less
distinctness by many theologians (Archbishop King being perhaps the
most prominent), has found in our own day an able defender in Dr.
Mansel. Much information on the history of this doctrine will be
found in Dr. Mansel’s _Second Letter_ to Professor Goldwin Smith
(Oxford, 1862).

31 Leibnitz noticed the frequency with which Supralapsarian Calvinists
adopt this doctrine. (_Théodicée_, part ii. § 176.) Archbishop
Whately, who from his connection with the Irish Clergy had admirable
opportunities of studying the tendencies of Calvinism, makes a
similar remark as the result of his own experience. (_Whately’s
Life_, vol. ii. p. 339.)

32 “God designs the happiness of all His sentient creatures.... Knowing
the tendencies of our actions, and knowing His benevolent purpose,
we know His tacit commands.”—Austin’s _Lectures on Jurisprudence_,
vol. i. p. 31. “The commands which He has revealed we must gather
from the terms wherein they are promulgated. The commands which He
has not revealed we must construe by the principle of
utility.”—Ibid. p. 96. So Paley’s _Moral Philosophy_, book ii. ch.
iv. v.

33 Paley’s _Moral Philosophy_, book i. ch. vii. The question of the
disinterestedness of the love we should bear to God was agitated in
the Catholic Church, Bossuet taking the selfish, and Fénelon the
unselfish side. The opinions of Fénelon and Molinos on the subject
were authoritatively condemned. In England, the less dogmatic
character of the national faith, and also the fact that the great
anti-Christian writer, Hobbes, was the advocate of extreme
selfishness in morals, had, I think, a favourable influence upon the
ethics of the church. Hobbes gave the first great impulse to moral
philosophy in England, and his opponents were naturally impelled to
an unselfish theory. Bishop Cumberland led the way, resolving virtue
(like Hutcheson) into benevolence. The majority of divines, however,
till the present century, have, I think, been on the selfish side.

_ 34 Moral Philosophy_, ii. 3.

_ 35 Essay on the Human Understanding_, ii. 28.

_ 36 Principles of Morals and Legislation_, ch. iii. Mr. Mill observes
that, “Bentham’s idea of the world is that of a collection of
persons pursuing each his separate interest or pleasure, and the
prevention of whom from jostling one another more than is
unavoidable, may be attempted by hopes and fears derived from three
sources—the law, religion, and public opinion. To these three
powers, considered as binding human conduct, he gave the name of
sanctions; the political sanction operating by the rewards and
penalties of the law; the religious sanction by those expected from
the ruler of the universe; and the popular, which he
characteristically calls also the moral sanction, operating through
the pains and pleasures arising from the favour or disfavour of our
fellow-creatures.”—_Dissertations_, vol. i. pp. 362-363.

37 Hume on this, as on most other points, was emphatically opposed to
the school of Hobbes, and even declared that no one could honestly
and in good faith deny the reality of an unselfish element in man.
Following in the steps of Butler, he explained it in the following
passage:—“Hunger and thirst have eating and drinking for their end,
and from the gratification of these primary appetites arises a
pleasure which may become the object of another species of desire or
inclination that is secondary and interested. In the same manner
there are mental passions by which we are impelled immediately to
seek particular objects, such as fame or power or vengeance, without
any regard to interest, and when these objects are attained a
pleasing enjoyment ensues.... Now where is the difficulty of
conceiving that this may likewise be the case with benevolence and
friendship, and that from the original frame of our temper we may
feel a desire of another’s happiness or good, which by means of that
affection becomes our own good, and is afterwards pursued, from the
combined motives of benevolence and self-enjoyment?”—Hume’s _Enquiry
concerning Morals_, Appendix II. Compare Butler, “If there be any
appetite or any inward principle besides self-love, why may there
not be an affection towards the good of our fellow-creatures, and
delight from that affection’s being gratified and uneasiness from
things going contrary to it?”—_Sermon on Compassion._

38 “By sympathetic sensibility is to be understood the propensity that
a man has to derive pleasure from the happiness, and pain from the
unhappiness, of other sensitive beings.”—Bentham’s _Principles of
Morals and Legislation_, ch. vi. “The sense of sympathy is
universal. Perhaps there never existed a human being who had reached
full age without the experience of pleasure at another’s pleasure,
of uneasiness at another’s pain.... Community of interests,
similarity of opinion, are sources from whence it
springs.”—_Deontology_, vol. i. pp. 169-170.

39 “The idea of the pain of another is naturally painful. The idea of
the pleasure of another is naturally pleasurable.... In this, the
unselfish part of our nature, lies a foundation, even independently
of inculcation from without, for the generation of moral
feelings”—Mill’s _Dissertations_, vol. i. p. 137. See, too, Bain’s
_Emotions and the Will_, pp. 289, 313; and especially Austin’s
_Lectures on Jurisprudence_. The first volume of this brilliant work
contains, I think without exception, the best modern statement of
the utilitarian theory in its most plausible form—a statement
equally remarkable for its ability, its candour, and its uniform
courtesy to opponents.

40 See a collection of passages from Aristotle, bearing on the subject,
in Mackintosh’s _Dissertation_.

41 Cic. _De Finibus_, i. 5. This view is adopted in Tucker’s _Light of
Nature_ (ed. 1842), vol. i. p. 167. See, too, Mill’s _Analysis of
the Human Mind_, vol. ii. p. 174.

_ 42 Essay_, book ii. ch. xxxiii.

43 Hutcheson _On the Passions_, § 1. The “secondary desires” of
Hutcheson are closely related to the “reflex affections” of
Shaftesbury. “Not only the outward beings which offer themselves to
the sense are the objects of the affection; but the very actions
themselves, and the affections of pity, kindness, gratitude, and
their contraries, being brought into the mind by reflection, become
objects. So that by means of this reflected sense, there arises
another kind of affection towards those very affections
themselves.”—Shaftesbury’s _Enquiry concerning Virtue_, book i. part
ii. § 3.

44 See the preface to Hartley _On Man_. Gay’s essay is prefixed to
Law’s translation of Archbishop King _On the Origin of Evil_.

45 “The case is this. We first perceive or imagine some real good; i.e.
fitness to promote our happiness in those things which we love or
approve of.... Hence those things and pleasures are so tied together
and associated in our minds, that one cannot present itself, but the
other will also occur. And the association remains even after that
which at first gave them the connection is quite forgotten, or
perhaps does not exist, but the contrary.”—Gay’s _Essay_, p. lii.
“All affections whatsoever are finally resolvable into reason,
pointing out private happiness, and are conversant only about things
apprehended to be means tending to this end; and whenever this end
is not perceived, they are to be accounted for from the association
of ideas, and may properly enough be called habits.”—Ibid. p. xxxi.

46 Principally by Mr. James Mill, whose chapter on association, in his
_Analysis of the Human Mind_, may probably rank with Paley’s
beautiful chapter on happiness, at the head of all modern writings
on the utilitarian side,—either of them, I think, being far more
valuable than anything Bentham ever wrote on morals. This last
writer—whose contempt for his predecessors was only equalled by his
ignorance of their works, and who has added surprisingly little to
moral science (considering the reputation he attained), except a
barbarous nomenclature and an interminable series of classifications
evincing no real subtlety of thought—makes, as far as I am aware, no
use of the doctrine of association. Paley states it with his usual
admirable clearness. “Having experienced in some instances a
particular conduct to be beneficial to ourselves, or observed that
it would be so, a sentiment of approbation rises up in our minds,
which sentiment afterwards accompanies the idea or mention of the
same conduct, although the private advantage which first existed no
longer exist.”—Paley, _Moral Philos_. i. 5. Paley, however, made
less use of this doctrine than might have been expected from so
enthusiastic an admirer of Tucker. In our own day it has been much
used by Mr. J. S. Mill.

47 This illustration, which was first employed by Hutcheson, is very
happily developed by Gay (p. lii.). It was then used by Hartley, and
finally Tucker reproduced the whole theory with the usual
illustration without any acknowledgment of the works of his
predecessors, employing however, the term “translation” instead of
“association” of ideas. See his curious chapter on the subject,
_Light of Nature_, book i. ch. xviii.

48 “It is the nature of translation to throw desire from the end upon
the means, which thenceforward become an end capable of exciting an
appetite without prospect of the consequences whereto they lead. Our
habits and most of the desires that occupy human life are of this
translated kind.”—Tucker’s _Light of Nature_, vol. ii. (ed. 1842),
p. 281.

49 Mill’s _Analysis of the Human Mind_. The desire for posthumous fame
is usually cited by intuitive moralists as a proof of a naturally
disinterested element in man.

50 Mill’s _Analysis_.

51 Hartley _On Man_, vol. i. pp. 474-475.

52 “Benevolence ... has also a high degree of honour and esteem annexed
to it, procures us many advantages and returns of kindness, both
from the person obliged and others, and is most closely connected
with the hopes of reward in a future state, and of self-approbation
or the moral sense; and the same things hold with respect to
generosity in a much higher degree. It is easy therefore to see how
such associations may be formed as to engage us to forego great
pleasure, or endure great pain for the sake of others, how these
associations may be attended with so great a degree of pleasure as
to overrule the positive pain endured or the negative one from the
foregoing of a pleasure, and yet how there may be no direct explicit
expectation of reward either from God or man, by natural consequence
or express appointment, not even of the concomitant pleasure that
engages the agent to undertake the benevolent and generous action;
and this I take to be a proof from the doctrine of association that
there is and must be such a thing as pure disinterested benevolence;
also a just account of the origin and nature of it.”—Hartley _On
Man_, vol. i. pp. 473-474. See too Mill’s _Analysis_, vol. ii. p.
252.

53 Mill’s _Analysis_, vol. ii. pp. 244-247.

54 “With self-interest,” said Hartley, “man must begin; he may end in
self-annihilation;” or as Coleridge happily puts it, “Legality
precedes morality in every individual, even as the Jewish
dispensation preceded the Christian in the world at large.”—_Notes
Theological and Political_, p. 340. It might be retorted with much
truth, that we begin by practising morality as a duty—we end by
practising it as a pleasure, without any reference to duty.
Coleridge, who expressed for the Benthamite theories a very cordial
detestation, sometimes glided into them himself. “The happiness of
man,” he says, “is the end of virtue, and truth is the knowledge of
the means.” (_The Friend_, ed. 1850, vol. ii. p. 192.) “What can be
the object of human virtue but the happiness of sentient, still more
of moral beings?” (_Notes Theol. and Polit._ p. 351.) Leibnitz says,
“Quand on aura appris à faire des actions louables par ambition, on
les fera après par inclination.” (_Sur l’ Art de connaître les
Hommes._)

55 E.g. Mackintosh and James Mill. Coleridge in his younger days was an
enthusiastic admirer of Hartley; but chiefly, I believe, on account
of his theory of vibrations. He named his son after him, and
described him in one of his poems as:—

“He of mortal kind
Wisest, the first who marked the ideal tribes
Up the fine fibres through the sentient brain.”

_Religious Musings._

56 This position is elaborated in a passage too long for quotation by
Mr. Austin. (_Lectures on Jurisprudence_, vol. i. p. 44.)

57 Hobbes defines conscience as “the opinion of evidence” (_On Human
Nature_, ch. vi. §8). Locke as “our own opinion or judgment of the
moral rectitude or pravity of our own actions” (_Essay_, book i. ch.
iii. § 8). In Bentham there is very little on the subject; but in
one place he informs us that “conscience is a thing of fictitious
existence, supposed to occupy a seat in the mind” (_Deontology_,
vol. i. p. 137); and in another he ranks “love of duty” (which he
describes as an “impossible motive, in so far as duty is synonymous
to obligation”) as a variety of the “love of power” (_Springs of
Action_, ii.) Mr. Bain says, “conscience is an imitation within
ourselves of the government without us.” (_Emotions and Will_, p.
313.)

58 “However much they [utilitarians] may believe (as they do) that
actions and dispositions are only virtuous because they promote
another end than virtue, yet this being granted ... they not only
place virtue at the very head of the things which are good as means
to the ultimate end, but they also recognise as a psychological fact
the possibility of its being to the individual a good in itself....
Virtue, according to the utilitarian doctrine, is not naturally and
originally part of the end, but it is capable of becoming so....
What was once desired as an instrument for the attainment of
happiness has come to be desired ... as part of happiness.... Human
nature is so constituted as to desire nothing which is not either a
part of happiness or a means of happiness.”—J. S. Mill’s
_Utilitarianism_, pp. 54, 55, 56, 58.

59 “A man is tempted to commit adultery with the wife of his friend.
The composition of the motive is obvious. He does not obey the
motive. Why? He obeys other motives which are stronger. Though
pleasures are associated with the immoral act, pains are associated
with it also—the pains of the injured husband, the pains of the
wife, the moral indignation of mankind, the future reproaches of his
own mind. Some men obey the first rather than the second motive. The
reason is obvious. In these the association of the act with the
pleasure is from habit unduly strong, the association of the act
with pains is from want of habit unduly weak. This is the case of a
bad education.... Among the different classes of motives, there are
men who are more easily and strongly operated on by some, others by
others. We have also seen that this is entirely owing to habits of
association. This facility of being acted upon by motives of a
particular description, is that which we call disposition.”—Mill’s
_Analysis_, vol. ii. pp. 212, 213, &c. Adam Smith says, I think with
much wisdom, that “the great secret of education is to direct vanity
to proper objects.”—_Moral Sentiments_, part vi. § 3.

60 “Goodness in ourselves is the prospect of satisfaction annexed to
the welfare of others, so that we please them for the pleasure we
receive ourselves in so doing, or to avoid the uneasiness we should
feel in omitting it. But God is completely happy in Himself, nor can
His happiness receive increase or diminution from anything befalling
His creatures; wherefore His goodness is pure, disinterested bounty,
without any return of joy or satisfaction to Himself. Therefore it
is no wonder we have imperfect notions of a quality whereof we have
no experience in our own nature.”—Tucker’s _Light of Nature_, vol.
i. p. 355. “It is the privilege of God alone to act upon pure,
disinterested bounty, without the least addition thereby to His own
enjoyment.”—Ibid. vol. ii. p. 279. On the other hand, Hutcheson
asks, “If there be such disposition in the Deity, where is the
impossibility of some small degree of this public love in His
creatures, and why must they be supposed incapable of acting but
from self-love?”—_Enquiry concerning Moral Good_, § 2.

61 “We gradually, through the influence of association, come to desire
the means without thinking of the end; the action itself becomes an
object of desire, and is performed without reference to any motive
beyond itself. Thus far, it may still be objected that the action
having, through association, become pleasurable, we are as much as
before moved to act by the anticipation of pleasure, namely, the
pleasure of the action itself. But granting this, the matter does
not end here. As we proceed in the formation of habits, and become
accustomed to will a particular act ... because it is pleasurable,
we at last continue to will it without any reference to its being
pleasurable.... In this manner it is that habits of hurtful excess
continue to be practised, although they have ceased to be
pleasurable, and in this manner also it is that the habit of willing
to persevere in the course which he has chosen, does not desert the
moral hero, even when the reward ... is anything but an equivalent
for the suffering he undergoes, or the wishes he may have to
renounce.”—Mill’s _Logic_ (4th edition), vol. ii. pp. 416, 417.

62 “In regard to interest in the most extended, which is the original
and only strictly proper sense of the word disinterested, no human
act has ever been or ever can be disinterested.... In the only sense
in which disinterestedness can with truth be predicated of human
actions, it is employed ... to denote, not the absence of all
interest ... but only the absence of all interest of the
self-regarding class. Not but that it is very frequently predicated
of human action in cases in which divers interests, to no one of
which the appellation of self-regarding can with propriety be
denied, have been exercising their influence, and in particular fear
of God, or hope from God, and fear of ill-repute, or hope of good
repute. If what is above be correct, the most disinterested of men
is not less under the dominion of interest than the most interested.
The only cause of his being styled disinterested, is its not having
been observed that the sort of motive (suppose it sympathy for an
individual or class) has as truly a corresponding interest belonging
to it as any other species of motive has. Of this contradiction
between the truth of the case and the language employed in speaking
of it, the cause is that in the one case men have not been in the
habit of making—as in point of consistency they ought to have
made—of the word interest that use which in the other case they have
been in the habit of making of it.”—Bentham’s _Springs of Action_,
ii. § 2.

63 Among others Bishop Butler, who draws some very subtle distinctions
on the subject in his first sermon “on the love of our neighbour.”
Dugald Stewart remarks that “although we apply the epithet selfish
to avarice and to low and private sensuality, we never apply it to
the desire of knowledge or to the pursuits of virtue, which are
certainly sources of more exquisite pleasure than riches or
sensuality can bestow.”—_Active and Moral Powers_, vol. i. p. 19.

64 Sir W. Hamilton.

65 Cic. _De Fin._ lib. ii.

66 “As there is not any sort of pleasure that is not itself a good, nor
any sort of pain the exemption from which is not a good, and as
nothing but the expectation of the eventual enjoyment of pleasure in
some shape, or of exemption from pain in some shape, can operate in
the character of a motive, a necessary consequence is that if by
motive be meant _sort_ of motive, there is not any such thing as a
bad motive.”—Bentham’s _Springs of Action_, ii. § 4. The first
clauses of the following passage I have already quoted: “Pleasure is
itself a good, nay, setting aside immunity from pain, the only good.
Pain is in itself an evil, and indeed, without exception, the only
evil, or else the words good and evil have no meaning. And this is
alike true of every sort of pain, and of every sort of pleasure. It
follows therefore immediately and incontestably that there is no
such thing as any sort of motive that is in itself a bad
one.”—_Principles of Morals and Legislation_, ch. ix. “The search
after motive is one of the prominent causes of men’s bewilderment in
the investigation of questions of morals.... But this is a pursuit
in which every moment employed is a moment wasted. All motives are
abstractedly good. No man has ever had, can, or could have a motive
different from the pursuit of pleasure or of shunning
pain.”—_Deontology_, vol. i. p. 126. Mr. Mill’s doctrine appears
somewhat different from this, but the difference is I think only
apparent. He says: “The motive has nothing to do with the morality
of the action, though much with the worth of the agent,” and he
afterwards explains this last statement by saying that the “motive
makes a great difference in our moral estimation of the agent,
especially if it indicates a good or a bad habitual disposition, a
bent of character from which useful or from which hurtful actions
are likely to arise.”—_Utilitarianism_, 2nd ed. pp. 26-27.

67 This truth has been admirably illustrated by Mr. Herbert Spencer
(_Social Statics_, pp. 1-8).

68 “On évalue la grandeur de la vertu en comparant les biens obtenus
aux maux au prix desquels on les achète: l’excédant en bien mesure
la valeur de la vertu, comme l’excédant en mal mesure le degré de
haine que doit inspirer le vice.”—Ch. Comte, _Traité de
Législation_, liv. ii. ch. xii.

69 M. Dumont, the translator of Bentham, has elaborated in a rather
famous passage the utilitarian notions about vengeance. “Toute
espèce de satisfaction entraînant une peine pour le délinquant
produit naturellement un plaisir de vengeance pour la partie lésée.
Ce plaisir est un gain. Il rappelle la parabole de Samson. C’est le
doux qui sort du terrible. C’est le miel recueilli dans la gueule du
lion. Produit sans frais, résultat net d’une opération nécessaire à
d’autres titres, c’est une jouissance à cultiver comme toute autre;
car le plaisir de la vengeance considérée abstraitement n’est comme
tout autre plaisir qu’un bien en lui-même.”—_Principes du Code
pénal_, 2me partie, ch. xvi. According to a very acute living writer
of this school, “The criminal law stands to the passion of revenge
in much the same relation as marriage to the sexual appetite” (J. F.
Stephen, _On the Criminal Law of England_, p. 99). Mr. Mill observes
that, “In the golden rule of Jesus of Nazareth, we read the complete
spirit of the ethics of utility” (_Utilitarianism_, p. 24). It is
but fair to give a specimen of the opposite order of extravagance.
“So well convinced was Father Claver of the eternal happiness of
almost all whom he assisted,” says this saintly missionary’s
biographer, “that speaking once of some persons who had delivered a
criminal into the hands of justice, he said, God _forgive_ them; but
they have secured the salvation of this man at _the probable risk of
their own_.”—Newman’s _Anglican Difficulties_, p. 205.

_ 70 De Ordine_, ii. 4. The experiment has more than once been tried at
Venice, Pisa, &c., and always with the results St. Augustine
predicted.

71 The reader will here observe the very transparent sophistry of an
assertion which is repeated ad nauseam by utilitarians. They tell us
that a regard to the remote consequences of our actions would lead
us to the conclusion that we should never perform an act which would
not be conducive to human happiness if it were universally
performed, or, as Mr. Austin expresses it, that “the question is if
acts of this class were generally done or generally forborne or
omitted, what would be the probable effect on the general happiness
or good?” (_Lectures on Jurisprudence_, vol. i. p. 32.) The question
is nothing of the kind. If I am convinced that utility alone
constitutes virtue, and if I am meditating any particular act, the
sole question of morality must be whether that act is on the whole
useful, produces a net result of happiness. To determine this
question I must consider both the immediate and the remote
consequences of the act; but the latter are not ascertained by
asking what would be the result if every one did as I do, but by
asking how far, as a matter of fact, my act is likely to produce
imitators, or affect the conduct and future acts of others. It may
no doubt be convenient and useful to form classifications based on
the general tendency of different courses to promote or diminish
happiness, but such classifications cannot alter the morality of
particular acts. It is quite clear that no act which produces on the
whole more pleasure than pain can on utilitarian principles be
vicious. It is, I think, equally clear that no one could act
consistently on such a principle without being led to consequences
which in the common judgment of mankind are grossly and scandalously
immoral.

72 There are some very good remarks on the possibility of living a life
of imagination wholly distinct from the life of action in Mr. Bain’s
_Emotions and Will_, p. 246.

73 Bentham especially recurs to this subject frequently. See Sir J.
Bowring’s edition of his works (Edinburgh, 1843), vol. i. pp. 142,
143, 562; vol. x. pp. 549-550.

74 “Granted that any practice causes more pain to animals than it gives
pleasure to man; is that practice moral or immoral? And if exactly
in proportion as human beings raise their heads out of the slough of
selfishness they do not with one voice answer ‘immoral,’ let the
morality of the principle of utility be for ever condemned.”—Mill’s
_Dissert_. vol. ii. p. 485. “We deprive them [animals] of life, and
this is justifiable—their pains do not equal our enjoyments. There
is a balance of good.”—Bentham’s _Deontology_, vol. i. p. 14. Mr.
Mill accordingly defines the principle of utility, without any
special reference to man. “The creed which accepts as the foundation
of morals, utility or the great happiness principle, holds that
actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness,
wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of
happiness.”—_Utilitarianism_, pp. 9-10.

75 The exception of course being domestic animals, which may be injured
by ill treatment, but even this exception is a very partial one. No
selfish reason could prevent any amount of cruelty to animals that
were about to be killed, and even in the case of previous ill-usage
the calculations of selfishness will depend greatly upon the price
of the animal. I have been told that on some parts of the continent
diligence horses are systematically under-fed, and worked to a
speedy death, their cheapness rendering such a course the most
economical.

76 Bentham, as we have seen, is of opinion that the gastronomic
pleasure would produce the requisite excess of enjoyment. Hartley,
who has some amiable and beautiful remarks on the duty of kindness
to animals, without absolutely condemning, speaks with much aversion
of the custom of eating “our brothers and sisters,” the animals.
(_On Man_, vol. ii. pp. 222-223.) Paley, observing that it is quite
possible for men to live without flesh-diet, concludes that the only
sufficient justification for eating meat is an express divine
revelation in the Book of Genesis. (_Moral Philos._ book ii. ch.
11.) Some reasoners evade the main issue by contending that they
kill animals because they would otherwise overrun the earth; but
this, as Windham said, “is an indifferent reason for killing fish.”

77 In commenting upon the French licentiousness of the eighteenth
century, Hume says, in a passage which has excited a great deal of
animadversion:—“Our neighbours, it seems, have resolved to sacrifice
some of the domestic to the social pleasures; and to prefer ease,
freedom, and an open commerce, to strict fidelity and constancy.
These ends are both good, and are somewhat difficult to reconcile;
nor must we be surprised if the customs of nations incline too much
sometimes to the one side, and sometimes to the other.”—_Dialogue._

78 There are few things more pitiable than the blunders into which
writers have fallen when trying to base the plain virtue of chastity
on utilitarian calculations. Thus since the writings of Malthus it
has been generally recognised that one of the very first conditions
of all material prosperity is to check early marriages, to restrain
the tendency of population to multiply more rapidly than the means
of subsistence. Knowing this, what can be more deplorable than to
find moralists making such arguments as these the very foundation of
morals?—“The first and great mischief, and by consequence the guilt,
of promiscuous concubinage consists in its tendency to diminish
marriages.” (Paley’s _Moral Philosophy_, book iii. part iii. ch.
ii.) “That is always the most happy condition of a nation, and that
nation is most accurately obeying the laws of our constitution, in
which the number of the human race is most rapidly increasing. Now
it is certain that under the law of chastity, that is, when
individuals are exclusively united to each other, the increase of
population will be more rapid than under any other circumstances.”
(Wayland’s _Elements of Moral Science_, p. 298, 11th ed., Boston,
1839.) I am sorry to bring such subjects before the reader, but it
is impossible to write a history of morals without doing so.

79 See Luther’s _Table Talk_.

80 Tillemont, _Mém. pour servir à l’Hist. ecclésiastique_, tome x. p.
57.

81 Τό τε ἀληθεύειν καὶ τὸ εὐεργετεῖν. (Ælian, _Var. Hist._ xii. 59.)
Longinus in like manner divides virtue into εὐεργεσία καὶ ἀλήθεια.
(_De Sublim._ § 1.) The opposite view in England is continually
expressed in the saying, “You should never pull down an opinion
until you have something to put in its place,” which can only mean,
if you are convinced that some religious or other hypothesis is
false, you are morally bound to repress or conceal your conviction
until you have discovered positive affirmations or explanations as
unqualified and consolatory as those you have destroyed.

82 See this powerfully stated by Shaftesbury. (_Inquiry concerning
Virtue_, book i. part iii.) The same objection applies to Dr.
Mansel’s modification of the theological doctrine—viz. that the
origin of morals is not the will but the nature of God.

83 “The one great and binding ground of the belief of God and a
hereafter is the law of conscience.”—Coleridge, _Notes Theological
and Political_, p. 367. That our moral faculty is our one reason for
maintaining the supreme benevolence of the Deity was a favourite
position of Kant.

84 “Nescio quomodo inhæret in mentibus quasi sæculorum quoddam augurium
futurorum; idque in maximis ingeniis altissimisque animis et
exsistit maxime et apparet facillime.”—Cic. _Tusc. Disp._ i. 14.

85 “It is a calumny to say that men are roused to heroic actions by
ease, hope of pleasure, recompense—sugar-plums of any kind in this
world or the next. In the meanest mortal there lies something
nobler. The poor swearing soldier hired to be shot has his ‘honour
of a soldier,’ different from drill, regulations, and the shilling a
day. It is not to taste sweet things, but to do noble and true
things, and vindicate himself under God’s heaven as a God-made man,
that the poorest son of Adam dimly longs. Show him the way of doing
that, the dullest day-drudge kindles into a hero. They wrong man
greatly who say he is to be seduced by ease. Difficulty, abnegation,
martyrdom, death, are the allurements that act on the heart of man.
Kindle the inner genial life of him, you have a flame that burns up
all lower considerations.”—Carlyle’s _Hero-worship_, p. 237 (ed.
1858).

86 “Clamat Epicurus, is quem vos nimis voluptatibus esse deditum
dicitis, non posse jucunde vivi nisi sapienter, honeste, justeque
vivatur, nec sapienter, honeste, juste nisi jucunde.”—Cicero, _De
Fin._ i. 18.

87 “The virtues to be complete must have fixed their residence in the
heart and become appetites impelling to actions without further
thought than the gratification of them; so that after their
expedience ceases they still continue to operate by the desire they
raise.... I knew a mercer who having gotten a competency of fortune,
thought to retire and enjoy himself in quiet; but finding he could
not be easy without business was forced to return to the shop and
assist his former partners gratis, in the nature of a journeyman.
Why then should it be thought strange that a man long inured to the
practice of moral duties should persevere in them out of liking,
when they can yield him no further advantage?”—Tucker’s _Light of
Nature_, vol. i. p. 269. Mr. J. S. Mill in his _Utilitarianism_
dwells much on the heroism which he thinks this view of morals may
produce.

88 See Lactantius, _Inst. Div._ vi. 9. Montesquieu, in his _Décadence
de l’Empire romain_, has shown in detail the manner in which the
crimes of Roman politicians contributed to the greatness of their
nation. Modern history furnishes only too many illustrations of the
same truth.