Chapter XXV: Part 25

It might perhaps be objected to the principle of welfare, that we should really be obliged, in consistency with it, to make ourselves all little vessels, and that agreeably to the principle an existence limited to the primitive necessities of life and to purely elementary feelings, would stand just as high as a life taken up with intellectual labor and the activity of culture, or even higher, since an existence of the latter kind could scarcely be accompanied with so unmixed and secure a well-being, but would be united with trials and efforts constantly renewed and with unrest ever recurring. If—as it might be suggested—an existence like that of the Fuegians appears poor and wretched to us, since they often suffer from scarcity and want, let us take another example. Alexander von Humboldt came across a tribe in South America that lived from banana trees,—trees so fruitful that an acre of land planted with them would supply food for fifty human beings. The trees require no real expenditure of labor; only the earth about their roots must be broken with implements once or twice a year. The consequence is that the tribe is stupid and uncivilised. But the wants that it has are satisfied.

That which would make such a life unendurable for us, _the strong desire for activity, development, and progress_, this desire does not exist at such stages. It is,—a fact that must be remarked,—_itself a consequence of development and progress_.

Whereas Lamarck assumed an inner, innate impulse to development in all living creatures,[126] Darwin maintains, on the ground of experience, that development is invariably introduced by the influence of external causes. It was a difficulty to Lamarck how the very lowest forms of life could continue their existence, why they had not long since developed to higher stages. In Darwin's theory, which takes into consideration the external conditions of development, there is no difficulty on this point. A development that is favored _in no way_ by external circumstances is simply impossible. As regards human beings, the anthropologist Th. Waitz has clearly proved, that the impulse and desire of development is itself a product of development. To this effect he speaks in his treatise "The Indians of North America," page 69: "A people without intercourse and not in competition with other peoples, a people which supplies its natural wants with relative ease or only by overcoming long accustomed difficulties regarded as inevitable, directly from its natural environment, and that feels satisfied therewith and lives a happy life: from such a people it is not to be expected that it will make any endeavors to civilise itself. He that has what he needs and therefore feels satisfied in all respects, will not work; people do not civilise themselves voluntarily in following some noble instinct of the heart. Is it different in fact in our modern society? Is not a long period of schooling and culture previously necessary to instil in man an interest for work as work? How many are there among the so-called learned and cultured that make endeavors in behalf of the education of themselves and others without they are required!"

[126] The theory of Lamarck is made the subject of an
interesting criticism by Herbert Spencer in his _Principles of
Biology_, Part iii, Chap. 3.

It is peculiar to the state of nature in contrast to the state of civilisation, (in so far as a distinct contrast may be asserted,) that in the former the impulse to change of manner of life and thought must come from without, whereas in the latter an impulse to progress operates which be it now powerful be it now feeble never ceases entirely to operate. This difference is analogous to that that prevails between inorganic and organic existence. It is the peculiar character of an organism that the play of forces is preserved in it with a certain independence of the effects of the moment and of its immediate environment. So in civilised peoples an impulse is aroused to change life in all directions, to differentiate, to shape it, and to bring it to a point in every single direction. Spiritual antennæ are grown which are in never ceasing movement. Through this a new species of feeling also is possible, _a feeling that is determined not only by the definite ends that are attained but which links itself with the work, with the activity itself which is requisite to the acquisition of these ends_. Man is thereby become more independent and more free, and his mental life, especially his emotional life, has gained in depth and intensity, it now being no longer determined merely by the external world, but essentially by the forces that are awakened in the inner world. Now ideal, and not merely elementary feelings act, and higher demands are made in life.

What I wish to maintain here is that _the rise of the impulse to development is in perfect accord with the principle of welfare_. That stability of the "state of nature" which now appears to us wretched now paradisian, is itself dependent on the stability of external conditions. Absolute stability, however, is not found in nature. If the immediate surroundings do not change, changes yet occur in other localities of nature and among other creatures, and the struggle for existence then either causes them to perish or to change in a corresponding manner. The beings that have changed by adaptation will obtain a decided advantage in the struggle for life over those that have remained stationary. This is the fate of many primitive peoples, or indeed civilised peoples, that have remained stationary or in a low state of culture. Extinction awaits them when a higher civilisation approaches.

What is true of peoples and races also holds good for individuals. A perfect adaptation to limited circumstances always involves a danger,—the danger that the individual when its conditions of life are changed and its horizon is enlarged will lack the inner conditions necessary to self-assertion. Childish _naïveté_, dreaming phantasy, sensual enjoyment, have each their rights, but they easily lead to a condition of somnambulism; security and happiness are always precarious here, and on awakening the greatest helplessness may take their place. Here, let us add, we leave entirely out of consideration the fact that such a condition often exists only at the cost of other individuals.

Welfare, accordingly, cannot be conceived as a passive state of things produced once for all and that is not itself in turn the point of departure of new and progressive development. Welfare, in the highest conception of it, must consist of a condition in which power is gathered and rich possibilities gained for the future, and which generates an impulse to frame new ends and to begin new endeavors. It is a condition that is desirable in and of itself as well as one that contains the germ of new desirable conditions,—a condition therefore that is not only an end but also a means, that has value not only as effect but also as cause. The feeling of pleasure is here directly bound up with activity, work, development, the unfolding of forces themselves, and not merely with the result that is obtained by the employment of the forces. Where such feeling of pleasure is possible there much suffering is endurable that at a lower stage would be the sign of the dissolution of all life. Expectation and longing, privation and disappointment will not be lacking; they will accompany with definite rhythmical alternation the joyful advancement toward the aim that man has set himself; but amid all oscillations the fundamental direction and the fundamental activity will be asserted. We will not work to live, we will not live to work; but _in_ work will we find life.

This is the ideal that the principle of welfare holds up to us when thoroughly reasoned out. In how far it can be realised is a question that can only be answered experimentally for the time and the individual in question. It demands not only a change of the nature of individuals but also of the relations of society. The essential thing however is, that we here have a criterion by which we are able to test actions and institutions. This criterion corresponds to a tendency that leads throughout all organic nature, in that pleasure as a rule means life and progress, pain, retrogression and death. The principle of welfare asserts the right of life: every creature has the right to exist, to develop, and to obtain its full satisfaction, unless greater pain is thereby produced to itself or to others. The ethics that builds upon the principle of welfare seeks accordingly to continue the evolution of nature in a conscious and harmonious manner. It demands that means be found which the unconscious development of nature have not supplied, and it strives to mitigate or to exclude the unnecessary pain which the struggle for existence brings with it. It embraces a series of problems from compassionate alleviation and assistance up to the highest social, intellectual, and æsthetical endeavors. It is the business of special ethics to treat these questions in detail.

5) From the fact, however, that welfare, properly understood, consists in activity and development, it does not follow that _vice versa_ activity and development are always joined with welfare or lead to welfare. Because limitation of wants does not always lead to the aim set, unlimited variety of wants is not necessarily the proper state. Civilisation can assume forms and enter on paths that do not harmonise with the principle of welfare. We find in history accordingly, at times, distinct and decisive warnings against existing civilisations. Thus it was in Greece on the part of Socrates, the Cynics, and the Stoics, in the eighteenth century on the part of Rousseau, and in our day on the part of Leo Tolstoï. The opposition of such great minds should surely make us watchful.

I leave out of consideration here the question in how far that which we call civilisation can be imparted to a people forthwith. The capacity for civilisation has, it is true, been prematurely and overhastily denied many primitive peoples.[127] But it is not therefore necessarily a good thing for a people to give up the forms of life that it has developed by its own fortunes and endeavors to allow itself to be regulated in accordance with forms and ideals that have been developed under entirely different circumstances. Thus directly, even the best-founded and most perfect civilisation cannot be communicated. Waitz who expressly maintains that no proof has been brought forward of the Indian's incapacity for civilisation, praises nevertheless the Indian chieftains who oppose the obtrusion of civilisation on their people, for their love to their people and their just comprehension of its true well-being.

[127] Compare my article in the _International Journal of
Ethics_, No. I. p. 60.

The reason why conflict can arise between civilisation and welfare lies in the restiveness and restlessness of the aspirations of civilisation. It is the same with it as with that spontaneous, involuntary impulse to movement that leads to the use of forces and of the members merely because sufficient energy is present, without their use being guided by the consideration of a more valuable end, so that the results are accidental. The effort that goes with civilisation may lead in part to over-exertion, to an overstraining of forces; in part (in the case of extreme differentiation) to a one-sided direction of effort; and partly to isolation, to the fragmentary elimination of individual activities. In the single individual certain faculties are fostered (in the one intelligence, in the other physical power for work) at the cost of other faculties; the harmony, the capacity of feeling oneself as totality and unity is lacking. By such one-sidedness the individual becomes of value only as a wheel in a great machine: he serves merely as a means, not as an end. And such a one-sided individual development is connected with a one-sided social development. The suppression of certain features of the nature of the individual goes hand in hand with the suppression of single estates and classes of society. If we identify civilisation and ethics, without qualification, and regard progress as a safer criterion than welfare, we should overlook the fact that there exists also a _social question_. The social question is an ethical question and at the same time a question of the correction of civilisation,—both by means of the principle of welfare. Would it be right that the products of material and ideal civilisation should only fall to the share of a small minority, while all the rest should not be able to participate therein? This would clash completely with the ideal of society that flows from the principle of welfare. For the greatest welfare is present when every single individual so develops himself in an independent manner that just by this independent development of his own he assists others to a similar development from their point of view. Then does there exist _a harmonious society of independent personalities_. The idea of such a society is the highest ethical idea that flows from the principle of welfare. Every individual is then a little world for himself and yet stands in the most intimate reciprocal connection with the great world of which he is a part. The individual serves the race and the race serves the individual. Every position of isolation, every inequality in the distribution of possessions and of employments must be founded in the demands of the various circumstances and problems of life, and the faculties and impulses of each individual shall be developed as fully and richly as is compatible with the conditions of life of the whole race.

6) It follows from the considerations presented, that it is by no means always easy to apply the principle of welfare in individual cases. The particular relations of the affairs in question can be so complicated that we are not able to take a broad survey of them and foresee the results of our interference. We cannot deduce _a priori_ from the principle of welfare any system of particular acts, any determinate order of society, any civilisation. Its value (like that of the principle of causality in the theoretical field) is to present and to formulate problems, and to serve as a guide to their treatment. It is regulative, not constructive. It presumes the immediate involuntary life of the individual and of society, and its function does not begin until the conscious discussion and treatment occurs of the value on the one hand of that which has thus been developed, and on the other of the manner in which the development shall be conducted in the future. All ethics thus acquires an _historical_ character. We never—either in our own individuality or in society—commence from the very beginning, but are always obliged to start with a definite foundation and to work our way further under the guidance of the principles and ideals that spring from our nature.

III.

1) In the previous remarks I have essayed a discussion of the principle of welfare which may perhaps make clearer what was not so distinct in my former expositions ("Ethik," Chapters III and VII). The difficulty always occurs in the enunciation of a principle, that a direct demonstration of its validity cannot be given. Of so much greater significance is it then if an indirect proof can be adduced by showing that the very ones who contest it are themselves forced to employ it and actually to employ it without being aware of it.

I maintain now that Dr. Paul Carus in his book "The Ethical Problem," in which he combats the principle of welfare, has not been able to avoid giving such an indirect confirmation of the validity of this principle. Before attempting to show this in detail I shall make a few remarks concerning the criticism of my "Ethics" which Dr. Carus wrote in the first number of _The Monist_, and which in an abbreviated form is also embodied in the treatise above mentioned.

Dr. Carus thinks that I have practically surrendered the principle of welfare when I define welfare to consist in activity. His words are:

"If welfare is to be interpreted as activity, work,
development; if this kind of active welfare is the greatest
good, whatever admixture of pain and whatever absence of
pleasurable feeling it may have; if the greatest amount of a
state of continuous pleasurable feeling is not welfare in an
ethical sense, what becomes of the utilitarian definition of
welfare as pleasurable feeling? If, however, welfare is 'the
state of a continuous pleasurable feeling,' how can we declare
that the life of a pessimistic philosopher is preferable to
that of a joyful fool?"

To this I answer, that _if_ it could be proved that increasing pain followed necessarily on _all_ advancement of civilisation (without this pain being compensated for, as Clara's philosophy demanded, by new and proportionately greater feelings of pleasure), in that case it would be impossible to combine civilisation and welfare. But only a pessimistic dogmatism—which is just as current in the atmosphere of to-day as optimistic dogmatism—could assert this. What experience teaches us is this, that we find ourselves amid a development, in a line of tendencies the final results of which we cannot foresee but which hitherto have evoked at many points new forces and have thereby opened new sources of satisfaction. Everything that arouses our greatest and most permanent pleasurable feeling has arisen within this development. This justifies our courage and our hope in behalf of further progress, although conflict and pain will as we may foresee not be wanting, and although the way leads through many deserts. Experience alone can show how far we shall be able to get. I agree with Dr. Carus that "this world of ours is not a world suited to the taste of a pleasure-seeker," if we understand by pleasure passive sensual enjoyment, an enjoyment which is not united with the rest and nourishment with which not only an immediate pleasurable feeling is connected but whereby power is also gathered for continued endeavor. If so many pleasure-seekers go through life without having their eyes opened to its true significance and purpose, this fact is precisely one of the things that clash with the principle of welfare, for the latter claims all faculties and powers, and demands that they that sleep be awakened,—that is if they really possess useful faculties. For perhaps the "joyful fool" cannot accomplish more than he does. Wherefore then disturb him, if his pleasure harms neither himself nor others and if his awakening will only lead to unrest and pain for himself and perhaps also for others? I pointed out the fact in my "Ethics,"[128] that we can determine by the principle of welfare alone in what cases we are to destroy a state of equilibrium or shatter an illusion.

[128] Danish edition, p. 94. German edition, p. 109.

I have admitted the _possibility_ of a conflict between civilisation and welfare. Wherever such a conflict arises, there, according to my conception, appears an ethical problem, which must be determined by the principle of welfare, since any order of things or any development that brought with it permanent and everlasting pain would be in effect a dissolution of life itself. Such pain, however, (as even pessimistic philosophers are optimistic enough to hope,) would destroy the will to live. If we live in spite of pain it is because there is always a surplus of satisfaction.

I give the idea of welfare no arbitrary extension when I deny that it should be limited to denote a passive condition produced once for all time. For our nature is at no stage wholly complete; no one condition can stand therefore as definitive. The future, and the new horizons opened, will make new demands on our capacities and our will, and in the testing of any state of things it must accordingly be a necessary point of view to establish whether in addition to the direct satisfaction which it probably affords it at the same time prepares the capacities and the possibilities of a continued development answering to the new relations. It may be necessary to choose some arduous employment which later necessarily brings with it long continued rest and inactivity. Darwin's struggle with his feeble health is a good example. The man who from love of country or to save a fellow-being risks his life, prefers the active satisfaction of a single moment (the satisfaction, namely, which he feels beforehand at the thought of saving his country or a human life) to the passive joys of years and years. It was such a moment in which Faust saw himself living in mind

"Auf freiem Grund mit freiem Volk"

and which thereby made life of value to him, which all the earthly gratifications that the demon was able to obtain for him could not accomplish. In the face of the pleasure that such a moment can produce the thought of pain and death vanishes. Thus alone is self-sacrifice psychologically intelligible.

2) While I cannot see that Dr. Carus has pointed out a contradiction in my theory of welfare, I may further assert that he himself cannot without a self-contradiction escape recognising the principle of welfare. Dr. Carus indeed, in a certain sense, himself enunciates this very principle. He says, in the preface to "The Ethical Problem," page iii, "The aim of ethics is neither the welfare of self nor that of other individuals, but of those interests that are superindividual." The aim therefore is to be welfare, not however the welfare of individuals but of "superindividual interests." This strange expression is defined in certain subsequent passages of the book. Dr. Carus speaks, namely, later on, of "that superindividual soul-life which we call society."[129] It is admitted in this, that when we speak of welfare we speak impliedly of soul-life. But how can we give to society as such a soul-life that is different from the soul-life of the single individuals that have their existence simultaneously and successively in that society? This is merely a mythical and mystical personification of society, which may have arisen in the comparison, in many respects instructive, between society and an organism, which however can possess at best a poetical, but no scientific, value. The idea of society, if it is to be scientifically employed, must always be so applied that at every point the definite group of individuals which it represents may be established. The great importance of this idea consists in the fact that it expresses the common and permanent interests of individuals simultaneously and successively existing, in opposition to the interests of single individuals, or of a smaller group, or of a limited period of time. Ethical perception, (unless it starts from the point of view of egoistical individualism,) must apply its test from the point of view of society. It leads in this case to the consideration of our own and others' actions not only with respect to our own individual circumstances but _sub specie æterni_ so to speak, that is with respect to their relation to the great whole of which not only we, but also other human beings are parts. Along with the educative power of authorities, it is due to the sympathy in virtue of which the individual causes to re-echo in his own bosom the feelings of others, that ethical ideals have been formed in the human mind. But as soon as it is made impossible to transpose the idea of society into the idea of individuals that live under certain definite conditions, this idea contains no instruction for us in ethical respects. No ethical norms can in this case be deduced from it. Emotional mysticism takes the place of ethical thought and volition.

[129] Pages 33, 38, and 40.

Such a mysticism has of course its value. Powerful emotion leads naturally to a state in which all definite ideas recede, the mind becoming entirely occupied by emotional feeling. It will furthermore be difficult to represent by any adequate conception the great multitude of human characters on which our conduct in given circumstances can acquire decisive influence. The expression 'society,' or 'race,' characterises very well the unconcluded and the unsurveyable in so many of the consequences of human methods of action and order of life, and it will therefore not be possible to dispense with it. But transposition into concrete conceptions must always be possible. A welfare that at one or another stage is not the welfare of definite individuals is a self-contradiction, and any act that at one period or another does not lead to the welfare of definite individuals has no value.

In Wundt's "Ethics," pages 429 to 431, the same line of thought is found as this of Dr. Carus. Public well-being and progress, according to Wundt, do not consist in the well-being of the greatest possible number of individuals: for the individual is ephemeral! "However richly blest and however perfect the individual existence may be, it is but a drop in the ocean of life. What can individual happiness and individual pain mean to the world?" I should say to this: Yes, it is true, the ocean does not exist for the sake of the individual drops; but what is an ocean that does not consist of drops? And is not the whole ocean clear if every single drop is clear? And only then is it _wholly_ clear.

Just as there are people who cannot see the woods for the trees, so there are also people who cannot see the trees for the woods. In ethics this method of conception leads to the consideration of human aspiration as the means of superhuman ends. Every ethics that seeks to stand on a basis of experience and remain within the possibility of progressive verification, must cling to the standpoint of "man with men." It need not for this reason overlook the fact, that ethical conduct, like all unfolding of power, is connected with the universal world-process.

3) Dr. Carus also approaches the principle of welfare upon another, less mystical path. He maintains, with great emphasis, that ethics must be based on facts, on insight into the real, the actual, order of nature. Our ideals—this is the opinion of Dr. Carus—arise through the wants which the relations of reality awaken in us, and must be realised by the means which the relations of reality supply.

"The new ethics is based upon facts and is applied to facts"
(p. 18).

"Man wants something, so he conceives the idea how good it
would be if he had it.... Only by studying facts will he be
enabled to realise his ideals" (pp. 19 and 20).

"If you wish to exist, obey reason. Reason teaches us how to
regulate our actions in conformity with the order of natural
laws. If we do regulate them in conformity with the order of
natural laws, they will stand; otherwise not. In the former
case they will be good, they will agree with the cosmical
conditions of existence; in the latter case they are bad, they
will not agree with the cosmical conditions of existence;
therefore they will necessarily produce disorder and evil"
(pp. 31, 32).

It appears to me clear from this, that the reason why we must regulate our actions to conform with natural laws, must be the fact that otherwise they cannot "stand," which is explained more in detail in what follows, to mean that they are constituted to produce "disorder and evil,"—which in its turn must be surely understood as meaning that disorder is itself an evil. If disorder were no evil, and if no further evils resulted from actions which are not "in conformity with the order of natural laws," what foundation would Dr. Carus in that case be able to give his ethics? I wholly agree with Dr. Carus that our conduct if it is to be ethical must support itself upon as profound a comprehension of the relations of reality as physical science, psychology, and social science alone can furnish. But _this requirement can only be made good through and by the principle of welfare_. It has validity only for the person who wills that his conduct shall "stand" and produce no evil, either in extended or in limited circles. If pain and death were not evils, this requirement would have no validity.

To judge from his somewhat indefinite expressions one might suspect in Dr. Carus here a votary of egoistic hedonism, were it not that a number of other passages in his book exclude this suspicion.

However, it seems quite clear to me that his final criterion must coincide with the principle of welfare. His ethics is an ethics of expediency, in that his ultimate criterion is the influence of actions on the life of mankind.

4) Dr. Carus justly emphasises the relation of ethics to our world-conception at large. But this connection does not mean that ethics can be derived by deduction from a philosophical system previously given. Ethics is an independent discipline which starts from its own peculiar assumptions (which cannot of course stand in contradiction to other established assumptions), although it is obliged to make much use of the results furnished by other sciences. Ethics has an independent foundation in the laws of feeling and volitional life, just as the theory of knowledge has its foundation in the laws of sensations and perceptions. In conformity with the law of economy, (which must prevail in science even though it should not prevail in nature,) we must restrict the established postulates of the single sciences to the least possible limit. If after doing this agreement between the single sciences finally occurs, this result will be all the more valuable.

According to Dr. Carus ethics is to be derived now from a philosophical total world-conception, as according to his view ("The Ethical Problem," p. 71) it originally arose through the influence of the positive religions.[130] Very weighty objections can be made in my opinion against this latter assumption. It is a fact that the lower a religion stands the less ethical character it possesses, and the very lowest religions it is probable possess no ethical value whatever. The question then arises how religion gradually acquired its ethical character. The ethical ideas which were perceived in the nature of the deity must have had a natural origin, and this origin can be sought only in the life of man with men. The ethical norms and ideas developed themselves here spontaneously and have been just as spontaneously projected or hypostatised as the attributes of divinity. In the history of the religion of Greece we can see clearly exhibited the development of gods as powers of nature to gods as the expression of an ethical order of nature. Compare for instance, the Dodonæan and the Homeric Zeus with the Zeus that appears in the ideal belief of Æschylus. The experiences are made in human life that lead to the formation of divine ideals. Gods grow better and more gentle according as men themselves grow better and gentler. Religious conceptions are idealised experiences. If religion is a factor in the development of ethics it is because man conceives and represents his essential ideals in a religious form. The movement proceeds therefore from experience to experience; that which acts on nature is, as Shakespeare says, always an art that has been produced by nature itself. How could man understand the meaning of the ethical qualities attributed to his deities if he were not acquainted to some extent with these qualities through experience?

[130] Dr. Carus expresses himself differently in _The Open
Court_ (1890, p. 2549), where religion and ethics are called
twins; whereas in _The Ethical Problem_ the latter is the
daughter of the former.

That which distinguishes philosophical from theological ethics is not the fact that the former is constructed on the basis of some philosophical system and the latter upon ecclesiastical dogmatism, but the fact that philosophical ethics brings out into full consciousness the psychological basis upon which ethical life has actually always more or less indirectly builded, and draws all the consequences implied in this. In this it furnishes an independent contribution to a philosophical system.

5) It seems to me to be perfectly justified, that the distinguished men who lead the Ethical Societies keep these institutions as independent as possible not only of all definite dogmatic tendency of thought but also of all unnecessary philosophical hypotheses and speculations. With respect to what concerns the first principles of ethics itself, it is not necessary for the practical ethicist to occupy any definite point of view, although it would be very fortunate if he were acquainted with the discussion of these principles and could take part in an independent manner in the same. He who proposes to teach applied mathematics or employ it in practice need not begin with a definite position with respect to the nature and origin of mathematical principles. So also in ethics there is a complete group of ideas and endeavors which are independent of the manner in which the first principles are conceived. The essential thing for the Ethical Societies is, (as Dr. Stanton Coit has said in his beautiful book "Die Ethische Bewegung in der Religion,") agreement as to the methods of development of character and as to the type of character to be developed.

Dr. Carus can have really nothing to object to in this method of conception, inasmuch as it is his conviction that in the passage from the supernatural to the natural establishment of ethics the "substance of our morality" will not be changed. In an article in _The Open Court_, at page 2575, he says: "The most important moral rules are not to be altered.... Some of them will be altered as little as our arithmetical table can be changed." In this passage less importance for the _contents_ of ethics is attributed to the various points of view than I should be obliged to assign. Yet all the sooner should Dr. Carus really admit that the Ethical Societies have added to their other services that of holding a proper course between the different dogmatic and philosophical systems.

6) This last dispute it appears to me also testifies to the expediency of distinguishing between the different ethical problems. By so doing Dr. Carus would also have been more just in his position with regard to utilitarianism. The latter has not arisen so much from the impulse to supply a _motive_ for ethical conduct as from the impulse to acquire an absolute criterion. It is true the powerful influence of Hobbes and Locke brought it about that many of the later utilitarians embraced the egoistic theory; but by their side marched another group of utilitarian ethicists (among the earlier, Bacon, Cumberland, Shaftesbury, and Hutcheson) who did not subscribe to this theory. So far as I know, Hutcheson was the first with whom the formula occurs: "The greatest happiness of the greatest number." These very historical facts show how important it is in the treatment of ethical problems to apply the maxim "Divide et impera!" I have therefore prefaced this my apology for the principle of welfare by calling attention to the relative and mutual independence of ethical problems.

HARALD HÖFFDING.

THE CRITERION OF ETHICS AN OBJECTIVE REALITY.

I. TWO DEFINITIONS OF GOOD.

While Mr. Herbert Spencer in his "Data of Ethics" may be considered as the most persuasive and popular, Prof. Harald Höffding, it appears to me, is the most scholarly and learned expounder of that ethical theory which bases morality upon the principle of the greatest happiness for the greatest number. _The Monist_ No. 1 contained (pp. 139-141) a criticism of Professor Höffding's work on Ethics, and Professor Höffding's article in this number is in part a further exposition of his views, and in part an answer to the criticism of _The Monist_.

Professor Höffding proposes, as pointed out in the criticism of _The Monist_, two criteria of ethics, (1) that which promotes the life-totality, and (2) that which produces a continuous and permanent state of pleasurable feelings. These two criteria happen to come in conflict. John Stuart Mill calls attention to the fact that a well fed pig is more satisfied than man and a jolly fool is happier than Socrates. When Professor Höffding considers the state of man preferable to that of a pig, while granting that the latter, and not the former, enjoys a continuous state of pleasurable feelings, when he similarly prefers the doleful disposition of a sombre philosopher to the empty merriness of a happy fool, he does in my opinion unquestionably surrender the second criterion in favor of the first.

Professor Höffding's present explanation of the subject does not satisfy me. The main point of my criticism, it seems to me, has not been answered, and the difficulty is not overcome. Professor Höffding declares that the strong desire for activity, development, and progress does not exist at all stages. It is itself a consequence of development and progress (p. 537). This, it may be granted, explains why a civilised society cannot help developing workers that plod and toil, finding no satisfaction unless they plod and toil; but it does not explain why (if after all the criterion of our ethical judgment remains happiness or the continuous state of pleasurable feelings) their state is preferable to that of indolent and happy savages.

Professor Höffding says:

"_If_ it could be proved that increasing pain followed
necessarily on all advancement of civilisation ... in that
case it would be impossible to combine civilisation and
welfare" (i. e. a continuous state of pleasurable feelings).

Well, _if_ that be so,—as Professor Höffding himself in the comparison of man to a pig and of Socrates to a fool has actually conceded to be true,—if we stand between the dilemma of civilisation and welfare, or in other words if we have the choice only between a higher stage of life and a happier state of existence, which is preferable? That which Professor Höffding considers as preferable is his true criterion of what he calls good. The other one holds only so long as it agrees with his true and final criterion, so long as it does not come in conflict with it.

Suppose we select as the final criterion of ethics not the growth and development of the life-totality, but that of procuring to the greatest number of men, as much as possible, a continuous state of pleasurable feelings,—what will be the outcome of it? Can we suppose that, if these two principles collide, we shall be able to stop growth? Can we expect to overcome nature and to curtail natural evolution so as to bring about a more favorable balance between our pleasures and pains? If we do, we shall soon find out that we have reckoned without our host.

A conflict between civilisation and welfare, (i. e. between natural evolution and our pleasurable feelings,) would not discontinue civilisation as Professor Höffding supposes, it would rather produce a change in what we have to consider as welfare. We _have to_ be pleased with the development of our race according to the laws of nature, and those who are displeased might just as well commit suicide at once, for they will go to the wall, they will disappear from the stage of life. Those alone will survive who are pleased with that which the laws of nature demand.

Our pleasurable feelings are subjective, nature and the laws of evolution are objective. The criterion of ethics is not subjective but objective. The question is not what produces pleasurable feelings, but what is the unalterable order of the world with which we have to be pleased.

The question of ethics, in my mind, is not what we wish to do or what we think we ought to do, but _what we must do_. Nature prescribes a definite course. If we choose another one, we shall not reach our aim, and if we reach it, it will be for a short time only.

The aim of nature is not the happiness of living beings, the aim of nature, in the realm of organised life, is growth, development, evolution. Pleasures and pains are phases in the household of life, they are not life's aim. Experience shows that in reaching a higher stage we acquire an additional sensibility for both, for new pleasures and new pains. The pleasures of human existence in comparison with those of animals have been as much intensified and increased as the pains. The ratio has on the average remained about the same and it has rarely risen in favor of pleasures. Rather the reverse takes place: the higher man loses the taste of enjoying himself without losing the sensitiveness of pain.

Ethics, as a science and from the standpoint of positivism, has to inquire what according to the nature of things we must do. It has to study facts and from facts it has to derive rules (the moral prescripts) which will assist us in doing at once what we shall after all _have to_ do. The criterion of ethics is not some standard which we put up ourselves, the criterion of ethics is agreement with facts.

II. THE AUTHORITY OF MORAL COMMANDS.

Professor Höffding emphasises "the fact that there is not merely one single ethical problem but many"—a fact which cannot be denied, for there are, indeed, innumerable problems of an ethical nature. However, we must bear in mind that all the ethical problems are closely interconnected. The better we understand them, the more shall we recognise that all together form one great system of problems, and that one problem lies at the bottom of all. This one basic problem I have called _the_ ethical problem.

The solution of the basic problem of ethics will not involve the ready solution of all the rest, but we can be sure that it will throw light upon any question that is of an ethical nature.

Professor Höffding recognises the importance of system in ethics. He says:

"The systematism of ethical science is still so little
advanced that it is necessary to draw out a general outline
before we pass on to any single feature. The value of
systematism is namely this, that we are immediately enabled to
see the connection of the single questions with one another as
well as their distinctive peculiarity."

It appears almost unfair toward the present state of ethical science when Professor Höffding adds:

"In ethics we are not yet so far advanced."

If we were not, we should do our best to advance so as to recognise the unity of all ethical problems. We must first recognise _the_ ethical problem, before we can with any hope of success approach the many, which are dependent upon the one.

Which is the one basic problem of ethics?

We read in Matthew, xxi. 23:

"And when Jesus was come into the temple, the chief priests
and the elders of the people came unto him as he was teaching
and said, By what authority doest thou these things? and who
gave thee this authority?"

This question is legitimate and all our ethical conceptions must necessarily depend upon the answer which we accept as satisfactory. The basic problem of ethics is the foundation of ethics, it is the justification of the ethical prescripts, it is the discovery of the authority upon which ethical rules are based. If there were no power that enforces a certain line of conduct, ethics in my opinion would have no right of existence; and if any one preaches certain commands, he is bound to give satisfactory reasons why we must obey his commands.

Professor Höffding says that ethics "starts from its own assumptions" (p. 111). Ethics should not start from any assumptions.

If we are to come to a mutual understanding we must drop all subjectivism, we must not study ethics from special points of view, from the principles or standards of any individual or group of individuals. There is not the slightest use of a person making himself any "highest and only aim" which, it may be true, "from his point of view can never be refuted." So long as ethics starts from assumptions or principles, it will be no science; for truly, as Professor Höffding says in excuse of the inability to prove principles, "The difficulty always occurs in the enunciation of a principle that a direct demonstration of its validity cannot be given."

The requirement of ethics is to arrive at statements of fact. Let us build upon facts and we shall stand upon solid ground.

Ethics in order to be scientific must be based upon the objective and unalterable order of things, upon the ascertainable data of experience, upon the laws of nature.

Professor Höffding says:

"Religious ethics is founded on authority. Its _contents_
are the revealed commands of authority; the _feeling_ which
impels us _to pass ethical judgments_ is the fear or reverence
or love with which men are filled in the presence of divine
authority."

Scientific ethics can in this respect not be different from religious ethics, for it is also based upon authority. A scientific ethicist has to proceed like any other naturalist; he must observe the course of events and attempt to discover the laws in accordance with which the events take place. These laws are no less unalterable than any other natural laws, and we may appropriately call them the natural laws of ethics. The moral commands of ethical teachers have been derived, either instinctively or with a clear scientific insight, from the natural laws of ethics. The authority of the natural laws of ethics has been decked out by different religious teachers with more or less mythological tinsel or wrapped in mystic darkness; for practical purposes it remained to some limited extent the same and will to some extent always remain the same, for we shall have to obey the moral law, be it from fear, or reverence, or love.

The unity of all the ethical problems will be preserved, however much they may be differentiated. Indeed Professor Höffding in his enumeration sufficiently indicates their interconnection. He speaks of (1) the motive principle of judgment, (2) the test-principle of judgment, and (3) of the motive to action. Whatever difference he makes between these three terms, it is obvious that whether and how far judgments, tests, or motives are sound will depend upon their agreement with the authority of the natural law of ethics. The pedagogic problem is also connected with the ethical problem because upon our solution of the latter will directly depend the aim and indirectly also the method of education. Such complex motives as "ambition or the instinct of acquisition" will become "the means of attaining to true ethical self-assertion" in the degree proportional to the elements they contain which will strengthen our efforts of setting us at one with the natural law of ethics.

To sum up: The natural law of ethics has to be derived from facts like all other natural laws. The natural law of ethics is the authority upon which all moral commands are based, and agreement with the natural law of ethics is the final criterion of ethics.

III. ETHICS AND WELFARE.

I have no objection to an ethics of welfare; on the contrary, I consider every ethics as an ethics of welfare. My objection to Professor Höffding's ethics is solely directed against his definition of welfare as "a continuous state of pleasurable feelings." Welfare is according to my terminology that state of things which is in accord with the natural law of ethics, and it so happens that welfare must as a rule not only be bought, but also constantly maintained with many pains, troubles, anxieties, and sacrifices. It is true that upon the whole there may be a surplus of happiness and of satisfaction, if not of pleasures; but the surplus of happiness (important though it is) does not constitute that which is morally good in welfare. Morally good (the characteristic feature of the ethical idea of welfare) is that which is in accord with the natural law of ethics.

If the term "utility" were defined by Utilitarians in the sense in which I define welfare, I should also have no objection to utilitarianism. The Utilitarians, however, define their theory as "the Greatest Happiness Principle," and if "useful" is taken in its ordinary sense as that which is profitable or advantageous, it makes of utilitarianism an ethics of expediency.

IV. FEELINGS AND JUDGMENTS.

The fundamental difference between Professor Höffding and myself, and as it seems to me his πρῶτον ψεῦδος, lies in his definition of ethical judgments. He says:

"Ethical judgments, judgments concerning good and bad, in
their simplest form are expressions of feeling, and never
lose that character however much influence clear and reasoned
knowledge may acquire with respect to them."

I am very well aware of the fact that all thinking beings are first feeling beings. Thought cannot develop in the absence of feeling. Without feeling there is no thought; but thought is not feeling, and feeling is not thought.[131] By thought I understand the operations that take place among representative feelings, and the essential feature of these feelings is not whether they are pleasurable or painful, but that they are correct representations. Judgments are perhaps the most important mental operations. There are logical judgments, legal judgments, ethical judgments, etc. In none of them is the feeling element of mental activity of any account. That which makes of them judgments is the reasoning or the thought-activity. Whether a judgment is correct or not does not depend upon the feeling that may be associated with it, but it depends upon the truth of its several ideas and the propriety of their connection.

[131] See the chapter "The Nature of Thought" in _The Soul of
Man_, p. 354.

A judgment, be it logical, juridical, ethical, or any other, is the more liable to be wrong, the more we allow the feeling element to play a part in it. Judgments swayed by strong feelings become biassed; they can attain to the ideal of truth only by an entire elimination of feeling.[132]

[132] Professor Höffding says: "The feeling of pleasure is the
only psychological criterion of health and power of life."
Every physician knows the insufficiency of this criterion.
Many consumptives declare that they feel perfectly well even a
few hours before their death.

Ethics in which the feeling element is the main spring of action, is called sentimentalism. Sentimental ethics have no more right to exist than a sentimental logic or a sentimental jurisprudence.

The philosophy of Clärchen in "Egmont" appears to be very strong sentimentalism, and I do not believe that her demeanor can be set up as an example for imitation. Her love happiness is an intoxication. She vacillates between two extremes, now _himmelhoch jauchzend_ and now _zum Tode betrübt_, and her life ends in insanity.

To consider ethical or any other judgments as feelings, and to explain their nature accordingly, seems to me no better than to speak of concepts as consisting of vowels and consonants, and to explain the nature of conceptual thought from the sounds of the letters. We cannot speak without uttering sounds, but the laws of speech or of grammar have nothing to do with sound and cannot be explained in terms of sound. When we think and judge, we are most assuredly feeling, but the feeling is of no account, and whether the feeling is pleasurable, or painful, or indifferent, has nothing to do whatever with the correctness or the ethical value of judgments.

V. PLEASURE AND PAIN.

It is very strange that, so far as I am aware, no ethicist who bases ethics upon the Happiness Principle has ever investigated the nature of pleasure and pain. It is generally assumed that pleasure is an indication of growth and pain of decay, but it has never been proved, and after a careful consideration of this theory I have come to the conclusion that it is based upon an error. Growth is rarely accompanied with pleasure and decay is mostly painless.

Optimistic philosophers look upon pleasure as positive and pain as negative, while the great pessimist Schopenhauer turns the tables and says pleasure is negative and pain positive.

An impartial consideration of the subject will show that both pleasure and pain are positive. Pain is felt whenever disturbances take place, pleasure is felt whenever wants are satisfied, and unsatisfied wants are perhaps the most prominent among the disturbances that produce pain.[133]

[133] See the chapter "Pleasure and Pain" in _The Soul of
Man_, p. 338.

Professor Höffding says:

"I agree with Dr. Carus that "this world of ours is not
a world suited to the taste of a pleasure-seeker," if we
understand by pleasure passive sensual enjoyment, an enjoyment
which is not united with the rest and nourishment with which
not only an immediate pleasurable feeling is connected, but
whereby power is also gathered for continued endeavor."