When I was thirty years of age I had an attack of bronchitis from which I nearly died. When very ill and not expecting to recover, I reflected that while my own life had been made happy and strong by the faith which had been given to me, I had done nothing to help any other human soul to find that solution of the dread problem which had brought such peace to me. I felt, as Mrs. Browning says, that a Truth was “like bread at Sacrament” to be passed on. When, unexpectedly to myself, I slowly recovered after a sojourn in Devonshire, I resolved to set about writing something which should convey as much as possible of my own convictions to whosoever should read it. For a time I thought of enlarging and completing my MS. Essay on True Religion, written for my own instruction; but the more I reflected the less I cared to labour to pull down hastily the crumbling walls which yet sheltered millions of souls, and the more I longed to build up anew on solid base a stronghold of refuge for those driven like myself from the old ground of faith in God and Duty. Especially I felt that as the worst dangers of such transitions lay in the sudden snapping of the supposed bond of Morality, and collapse of the hopes of heaven and terrors of hell which had been used as motives of virtue and deterrents from vice; so the most urgent need lay in the direction of a system of ethics which should base Duty on ground absolutely apart from that of the supposed supernatural revelation and supply sanctions and motives unconnected therewith. As it happened at this very time, my good (orthodox) friend, Miss Felicia Skene, had recommended me to read Kant’s Metaphysic of Ethics, and I had procured Semple’s translation and found it almost dazzlingly enlightening to my mind. It would be presumptuous for me to say that then, or at any time, I have thoroughly mastered either this book or the Reinun Vernunft of this greatest of thinkers; but, so far as I have been able to do so, I can say for my own individual mind (as his German disciples were wont to do for themselves), “God said, Let there be Light! and there was—the Kantian Philosophy.” It has been, and no doubt will be still further, modified by succeeding metaphysicians and sometimes it may appear to have been superseded, but I cannot think otherwise than that Kant was and will finally be recognised to have been the Newton of the laws of Mind.

I shall now endeavour to explain the purpose of my first book (which is also my magnum opus) by quoting the Preface at some length; and, as the third edition has long been out of print and is unattainable in England or America, I shall permit myself to embody in this chapter a general account of the drift of it, with extracts sufficient to serve as samples of the whole. Looking over it now, after the lapse of just forty years, I can see that my reading at that time had lain so much among old books that the style is almost that of a didactic Treatise of the seventeenth century; and the ideas, likewise, are necessarily exclusively those of the pre-Darwinian Era. Conceptions so familiar to us now as that of an “hereditary set of the brain,” and of the “Capitalised experience of the tribe,” were then utterly unthought of. I have been well aware that it would, consequently, have been necessary,—had the book been republished any time during the last twenty years,—to rewrite much of it and define the standpoint of an Intuitionist as regards the theory of Evolution in its bearing on the foundation of ethics. For this task, however, I have always lacked leisure: and my article on “Darwinism in Morals” (reprinted in the book of that name) has been the best effort I have made in such direction. I may here, perhaps, nevertheless be allowed to say as a last word in favour of this Essay, namely, that such as it is, it has served me, personally, as a scaffolding for all my life-work, a key to open most of the locks which might have barred my way. If now I feel (as men and women are wont to do at three-score years and ten), that I hold all philosophic opinions with less tenacious grasp, less “cocksureness” than in earlier days, and know that the great realities to which they led, will remain realities for me still should those opinions prove here and there unstable,—it is not that I am disposed in any way to abandon them, still less that I have found any other systems of ethics or theology more, or equally, sound and self-consistent.

I wrote the “Essay on the Theory of Intuitive Morals” between my thirtieth and thirty-third years. I had a great deal else to do—to amuse and help my father (then growing old); to direct our household, entertain our guests, carry on the feminine correspondence of the family, teach in my village school twice a week or so, and to attend every case of illness or other tribulation in Donabate and Balisk. My leisure for writing and for the preliminary reading for writing, was principally at night or in the early morning; and at last it was accomplished. No one but my dear old friend, Harriet St. Leger, had seen any part of the MS., and, as I have said, nobody belonging to my family had ever (so far as I know) employed a printer or publisher before. I took the MS. with me to London, where my father and I were fortunately going for a holiday, and called with it in Paternoster Row, on Mr. William Longman, to whom I had a letter of business introduction from my Dublin bookseller. When I opened my affair to Mr. Longman, it was truly a case of Byron’s address to Murray—

Mr. Longman politely veiled a smile, and adopted the voice of friendly dissuasion from my enterprise, looking no doubt on a young lady (as I still was) as a very unpromising author for a treatise on Kantian ethics! My spirit, however, rose with the challenge. I poured out for some minutes much that I had been thinking over for years, and as I paused at last, Mr. Longman said briefly, but decidedly, “I’ll publish your book.”

After this fateful interview, I remember going into St. Paul’s and sitting there a long while alone.

The sheets of the book passed rapidly through the press, and I usually took them to the British Museum to verify quotations and work quietly over difficulties, for in the house which we occupied in Connaught Square I had no study to myself. The foot-notes to the book (collected some in the Museum, some from my own books and some from old works in Archbishop Marsh’s Library) were themselves a heavy part of the work. Glancing over the pages as I write, I see extracts, for example, from the following:—Cudworth (I had got at some inedited MSS. of his in the British Museum), Montesquieu, Philo, Hooker, Proclus, Thomas Aquinas, Aristotle, Descartes, Müller, Whewell, Mozley, Leibnitz, St. Augustine, Phillipsohn, Strabo, St. Chrysostom, Morell, Lewes, Dugald Stewart, Mill, Oërsted, the Adée-Grunt’h (sacred book of the Sikhs), Herbert Spencer, Hume, Maximus Tyriensis, Institutes of Menu, Victor Cousin, Sir William Hamilton, Lucian, Seneca, Cory’s Fragments, St. Gregory the Great, Justin Martyr, Jeremy Taylor, the Yajur Veda, Shaftesbury, Plato, Marcus Aurelius, Diogenes Laertius, Cicero, Confucius, and many more. There are also in the Notes sketches of the history of the doctrines of Predestination, and of Original Sin, which involved very considerable research.

At last the proofs were corrected, the Notes verified, and the time had come when the Preface must be written! How was I to find a quiet hour to compose it? Like most women I was bound hand and foot by a fine web of little duties and attentions, which men never feel or brush aside remorselessly, (it was only Hooker, who rocked a cradle with his foot while he wrote the Ecclesiastical Polity!); and it was a serious question for me when I could find leisure and solitude. Luckily, just on the critical day, my father was seized with a fancy to go to the play, and, equally luckily, I had so bad a cold that it was out of question that I should, as usual, accompany him. Accordingly I had an evening all alone, and wrote fast and hard the pages which I shall presently quote, finishing the last sentence of my Preface as I heard my father’s knock at the hall door.

I had all along told my father (though, alas; to his displeasure), that I was going to publish a book; of course, anonymously, to save him annoyance. When the printing was completed, the torn and defaced sheets of the MS. lay together in a heap for removal by the housemaid. Pointing to this, my poor father said solemnly to me: “Don’t leave those about; you don’t know into whose hands they may fall.” It was needless to observe to him, that I was on the point of publishing the “perilous stuff”!

The book was brought out by Longmans that year (1855) and afterwards by Crosby and Nichols in Boston, and again by Trübner in London. It was reviewed rather largely and, on the whole, very kindly, considering it was by an unknown and altogether unfriended author; but sometimes also in a manner which it is pleasant to know has gone out of fashion in these latter days. It was amusing to see that not one of my critics had a suspicion they were dealing with a woman’s work. They all said, “He reasons clearly.” “His spirit and manner are particularly well suited to ethical discussion.” “His treatment of morals” (said the Guardian) “is often both true and beautiful.” “It is a most noble performance,” (said the Caledonian Mercury), “the work of a masculine and lofty mind.” “It is impossible,” (said the Scotsman), “to deny the ability of the writer, or not to admire his high moral tone, his earnestness and the fulness of his knowledge.” But the heresy of the book brought down heavy denunciation from the “religious” papers on the audacious writer who, “instead of walking softly and humbly on the firm ground and taking the Word of God as a lamp,” &c., had indulged in “insect reasonings.” A rumour at last went out that a woman was the author of this “able and attractive but deceptive and dangerous work,” and then the criticisms were barbed with sharper teeth. “The writer” (says the Christian Observer), “we are told, is a lady, but there is nothing feeble or even feminine in the tone of the work.... Our dislike is increased when we are told it is a female (!) who has propounded so unfeminine and stoical a theory ... and has contradicted openly the true sayings of the living God!” The Guardian (November 21st, 1855) finally had this delightful paragraph: “The author professes great admiration for Theodore Parker and Francis Newman, but his own pages are not disfigured by the arrogance of the one or the shallow levity of the other” (think of the shallow levity of Newman’s book of the Soul!). “He writes gravely, not defiantly, as befits a man giving utterance to thoughts which he knows will be generally regarded as impious.”

I shall now offer the reader a few extracts; and first from the Preface:—

“It cannot surely be questioned but that we want a System of Morals better than any of those which are current amongst us. We want a system which shall neither be too shallow for the requirements of thinking men, nor too abstruse for popular acceptation; but which shall be based upon the ultimate grounds of philosophy, and be developed with such distinctness as to be understood by every one capable of studying the subject. We want a System of Morals which shall not entangle itself with sectarian creeds, nor imperil its authority with that of tottering Churches, but which shall be indissolubly blended with a Theology fulfilling all the demands of the Religious Sentiment—a Theology forming a part, and the one living part, of all the theologies which ever have been or shall be. We want a system which shall not degrade the Law of the Eternal Right by announcing it as a mere contrivance for the production of human happiness, or by tracing our knowledge of it to the experience of the senses, or by cajoling us into obeying it as a matter of expediency; but a system which shall ascribe to that Law its own sublime office in the universe, which shall recognise in man the faculties by which he obtains a supersensible knowledge of it, and which shall inculcate obedience to it on motives so pure and holy, that the mere statement of them shall awaken in every breast that higher and better self which can never be aroused by the call of interest or expediency.

“It would be in itself a presumption for me to disclaim the ability necessary for supplying such a want as this. In writing this book, I have aimed chiefly at two objects. First. I have sought to unite into one homogeneous and self-consistent whole the purest and most enlarged theories hitherto propounded on ethical science. Especially I have endeavoured to popularise those of Kant, by giving the simplest possible presentation to his doctrines regarding the Freedom of the Will and the supersensible source of our knowledge of all Necessary Truths, including those of Morals. I do not claim however, even so far as regards these doctrines, to be an exact exponent of Kant’s opinions.... Secondly. I have sought (and this has been my chief aim) to place for the first time, at the foundation of ethics, the great but neglected truth that the End of Creation is not the Happiness, but the Virtue, of Rational Souls. I believe that this truth will be found to throw most valuable light, not only upon the Theory, but upon all the details of Practical Morals. Nay, more, I believe that we must look to it for such a solution of the ‘Riddle of the World’ as shall satisfy the demands of the Intellect while presenting to the Religious Sentiment that same God of perfect Justice and Goodness whose ideal it intuitively conceives and spontaneously adores. Only with this view of the Designs of God can we understand how His Moral Attributes are consistent with the creation of a race which is indeed ‘groaning in sin’ and ‘travailing in sorrow’; but by whose freedom to sin and trial of sorrow shall be worked out at last the most blessed End which Infinite Love could devise. With this clew, we shall also see how (as the Virtue of each individual must be produced by himself, and is the share committed to him in the grand end of creation) all Duties must necessarily range themselves accordingly—the Personal before the Social—in a sequence entirely different from that which is comformable with the hypothesis that Happiness is ‘our being’s end and aim’; but which is, nevertheless, precisely the sequence in which Intuition has always peremptorily demanded that they should be arranged. We shall see how (as the bestowal of Happiness on man must always be postponed by God to the still more blessed aim of conducing to his Virtue) the greatest outward woes and trials, so far from inspiring us with doubts of His Goodness, must be taken as evidences of the glory of that End of Virtue to which they lead, even as the depths of the foundations of a cathedral may show how high the towers and spires will one day ascend.”—Pref., pp. V.–X.

In the first chapter, entitled What is the Moral Law? I take for motto Antigone’s great speech:—

I begin by defining Moral actions and sentiments as those of Rational Free Agents, to which alone may be applied the terms of Right or Wrong, Good or Evil, Virtuous or Vicious. I then proceed to say:—

“This moral character of good or evil is a real, universal and eternal distinction, existing through all worlds and for ever, wherever there are rational creatures and free agents. As one kind of line is a straight line, and another a crooked line, and as no line can be both straight and crooked, so one kind of action or sentiment is right, and another is wrong, and no action or sentiment can be both right or wrong. And as the same line which is straight on this planet would be straight in Sirius or Alcyone, and what constitutes straightness in the nineteenth century will constitute straightness in the nineteenth millennium, so that sentiment or action which is right in our world, is right in all worlds; and that which constitutes righteousness now will constitute righteousness through all eternity. And as the character of straightness belongs to the line, by whatsoever hand it may have been traced, so the character of righteousness belongs to the sentiment or action, by what rational free agent soever it may have been felt or performed.”

“And of this distinction language affords a reliable exponent. When we have designated one kind of figure by the word Circle, and another by the word Triangle, those terms, having become the names of the respective figures, cannot be transposed without transgression of the laws of language. Thus it would be absurd to argue that the figure we call a circle, may not be a circle; that a ‘plane figure, containing a point from which all right lines drawn to the circumference shall be equal,’ may not be a circle, but a triangle. In like manner, when we have designated one kind of sentiment or action as Right, and another as Wrong, it becomes an absurdity to say that the kind of sentiments or actions we call Right may, perhaps, be Wrong. If a figure be not a circle, according to our sense of the word, it is not a circle at all, but an Ellipse, a Triangle, Trapezium, or something else. If a sentiment or action be not Right, according to our sense of the word, it is not Right at all, but, according to the laws of language, must be called Wrong.

“It is not maintained that we can commit no error in affixing the name of Circle to a particular figure, or of Right to a particular sentiment or action. We may at a hasty glance pronounce an ellipse to be a circle; but when we have proved the radii to be unequal, needs must we arrive at a better judgment. Our error was caused by our first haste and misjudgment, not by our inability to decide whether an object presented to us bears or does not bear a character to which we have agreed to affix a certain name. In like manner, from haste or prejudice, we may pronounce a faulty sentiment or action to be Right; but when we have examined it in all its bearings, we ourselves are the first to call it Wrong.”—Pp. 4–7.

After much more on the positive nature of Good, and the negative nature of Evil, and on the relation of the Moral Law to God as impersonated in His Will, and not the result (as Ockham taught) of his arbitrary decree,—I sum up the argument of this first chapter. To the question, What is the Moral Law? I answer:—

“The Moral Law is the embodiment of the eternal Necessary obligation of all Rational Free Agents to do and feel those actions and sentiments which are Right. The identification of this law with His will constitutes the Holiness of the infinite God. Voluntary and disinterested obedience to this law constitutes the Virtue of all finite creatures. Virtue is capable of infinite growth, of endless approach to the Divine nature, and to perfect conformity with the law. God has made all rational free agents for virtue, and (doubtless) all worlds for rational free agents. The Moral Law, therefore, not only reigns throughout His creation (its behests being finally enforced therein by His power), but is itself the reason why that creation exists. The material universe, with all its laws, and all the events which result therefrom, has one great purpose, and tends to one great end. It is that end which infinite Love has designed, and which infinite Power shall surely accomplish,—the everlasting approximation of all created souls to Goodness and to God.”—(Pp. 62, 63.)

The second chapter undertakes to answer the question, Where is the Moral Law Found? and begins by a brief analysis of the two great classes of human knowledge as a preliminary to ascertaining to which of these our knowledge of ethics belongs.

“All sciences are either Exact or Physical (or are applications of Exact to Physical science).

“Exact sciences are deduced from axiomatic Necessary truths and results in universal propositions, each of which is a Necessary Truth.

“Physical sciences are induced from Experimental Contingent truths, and result in General Propositions, each of which is a contingent truth.

“We obtain our knowledge of the Experimental Contingent Truths from which Physical science is induced, by the united action of our bodily senses and of our minds themselves, which must both in each case contribute their proper quota to make knowledge possible. Every perception necessitates this double element of sensation and intuition,—the objective and subjective factor in combination.

“We obtain our knowledge of the axiomatic Necessary Truths from which Exact science is deduced, by the à priori operation of the mind alone, and (quoad the exact science in question) without the aid of sensation (not, indeed, by à priori operation of a mind which has never worked with sensation, for such a mind would be altogether barren; but of one which has reached normal development under normal conditions; which conditions involve the continual united action productive of perceptions of contingent truths).

“In this distinction between the sources of our knowledge lies the most important discovery of philosophy. Into whatsoever knowledge the element of Sensation necessarily enters as a constituent part, therein there can be no absolute certainty of truth; the fallibility of Sensation being recognised on all hands, and neutralising the certainty of the pure mental element. But when we discover an order of sciences which, without aid from sensation, are deduced by the mind’s own operation from those Necessary truths which we hold on a tenure marking indelibly their distinction from all contingent truths whatsoever, then we obtain footing in a new realm....

“In the ensuing pages I shall endeavour to demonstrate that the science of Morals belongs to the class of Exact sciences, and that it has consequently a right to that credence wherewith we hold the truths of arithmetic and geometry....”

The test which divides the two classes is as follows:—

“What truth soever is Necessary and of universal extent is derived by the mind from its own operation, and does not rest on observation or experience; as, conversely, what truth or perception soever is present to the mind with a consciousness, not of its Necessity, but of its Contingency, is ascribable not to the original agency of the mind itself, but derives its origin from observation and experience.”

After lengthened discussion on this head and on the supposed mistakes of moral intuition, I go on to say:

“The consciousness of the Contingency, or the consciousness of the Necessity (i.e., the consciousness that the truth cannot be contingent, but must hold good in all worlds for ever), these consciousnesses are to be relied on, for they have their origin in, and are the marks of, the different elements from which they have been derived.^[9] We may apply them to the fundamental truths of any science, and by observing whether the reception of such truths into our minds be accompanied by the consciousness of Necessity or of Contingency, we may decide whether the science be rightfully Exact or Physical, deductive or inductive.

“For example, we take the axioms of arithmetic and geometry, and we find that we have distinct consciousness that they are Necessary truths. We cannot conceive them altered any where or at any time. The sciences which are deduced from these and from similar axioms are then, Exact sciences.

“Again: we take the ultimate facts of geology and anatomy, and we find that we have distinct consciousness that they are Contingent truths. We can readily suppose them other than we find them. The sciences, then, which are induced from these and similar facts are not Exact sciences.

“If, then, morals can be shown to bear this test equally with mathematics,—if there be any fundamental truths of morals holding in our minds the status of those axioms of geometry and arithmetic of whose Necessity we are conscious, then these fundamental truths of morals are entitled to be made the basis of an Exact science the subsequent theorems of which must all be deduced from them.—(P. 76.)...

“Men like Hume traverse the history of our race, to collect all the piteous instances of aberrations which have resulted from neglect or imperfect study of the moral consciousness; and then they cry, ‘Behold what it teaches!’ Yet I suppose that it will be admitted that Man is an animal capable of knowing geometry; though, if we were to go up and down the world, asking rich and poor, Englishman and Esquimaux, what are the ratios of solidity and superficies of a sphere, a right cylinder and an equilateral cone circumscribed about it, there are sundry chances that we should hear of other ratios besides the sesquialterate.

“He who should argue that, because people ignorant of geometry did not know the sesquialterate ratio of the sphere, cylinder and cone, therefore no man could know it, or that because they disputed it, that therefore it was uncertain, would argue no more absurdly than he who urges the divergencies of half civilised and barbarian nations as a reason why no man could know, or know with certainty, the higher propositions of morals.”

After analysing the Utilitarian and other theories which derive Morality from Contingent truths, I conclude that “the truths of Morals are Necessary Truths. The origin of our knowledge of them is Intuitive, and their proper treatment is Deductive.”

The third Chapter treats of the proposition, “That the Moral Law can be obeyed,” and discusses the doctrine of Kant, that the true self of Man, the Homo Noumenon, is free, self-legislative of Law fit for Law Universal; while as the Homo Phenomenon, an inhabitant of the world of sense, he is a mere link in the chain of causes and effects, and his actions are locked up in mechanic laws which, had he no other rank, would ensue exactly according to the physical impulses given by the instincts and solicitations in the sensory. But as an inhabitant (also) of the supersensitive world his position is among the causalities which taking their rise therein, are the intimate ground of phenomena. The discussion in this chapter on the above proposition cannot be condensed into any space admissible here.

The fourth Chapter seeks to determine Why the Moral Law should be Obeyed. It begins thus:—

“In the last Chapter (Chapter III.) I endeavoured to demonstrate that the pure Will, the true self of man, is by nature righteous; self-legislative of the only Universal Law, viz., the Moral; and that by this spontaneous autonomy would all his actions be squared, were it not for his lower nature, which is by its constitution unmoral, neither righteous nor unrighteous, but capable only of determining its choice by its instinctive propensities and the gratifications offered to them. Thus these two are contrary one to another, ‘and the spirit lusteth against the flesh, and the flesh against the spirit.’ In the valour of the higher nature acquired by its victory over the lower, in the virtue of the tried and conquering soul, we look for the glorious end of creation, the sublime result contemplated by Infinite Benevolence in calling man into existence and fitting him with the complicated nature capable of developing that Virtue which alone can be the crown of finite intelligences. The great practical problem of human life is this: ‘How is the Moral Will to gain the victory over the unmoral instincts, the Homo Noumenon over the Homo Phenomenon, Michael over the Evil One, Mithras over Hyle?’”

In pursuing this enquiry of how the Moral Will is to be rendered victorious, I am led back to the question: Is Happiness “our end and aim?” What relation does it bear to Morality as a motive?

“I have already argued, in Chapter I., that Happiness, properly speaking, is the gratification of all the desires of our compound nature, and that moral, intellectual, affectional, and sensual pleasures are all to be considered as integers, whose sum, when complete, would constitute perfect Happiness. From this multiform nature of Happiness it has arisen, that those systems of ethics which set it forth as the proper motive of Virtue have differed immensely from one another, according as the Happiness they respectively contemplated was thought of as consisting in the pleasures of our Moral, or of our Intellectual, Affectional, and Sensual natures; whether the pleasures were to be sought by the virtuous man for his own enjoyment, or for the general happiness of the community.

“The pursuit of Virtue for the sake of its intrinsic, i.e., Moral pleasure, is designated Euthumism.

“The pursuit of Virtue for the sake of the extrinsic Affectional, Intellectual, and Sensual pleasure resulting from it, is designated Eudaimonism.

“Euthumism is of one kind only, for the individual can only seek the intrinsic pleasure of Virtue for his own enjoyment thereof.

“Eudaimonism, on the contrary, is of two most distinct lands. That which I have called Public Eudaimonism sets forth the intellectual, affectional, and sensual pleasures of all mankind as the proper object of the Virtue of each individual. Private Eudaimonism sets forth the same pleasures of the individual himself as the proper object of his Virtue.

“These two latter systems are commonly confounded under the name of ‘Utilitarian Ethics.’ Their principles, as I have stated them, will be seen to be wide asunder; yet there are few of the advocates of either who have not endeavoured to stand on the grounds of both, and even to borrow elevation from those of the Euthumist. Thus, by appealing alternately to philanthropy^[10] and to a gross and a refined Selfishness, they suit the purpose of the moment, and prevent their scheme from deviating too far from the intuitive conscience of mankind. It may be remarked, also, that the Private Eudaimonists insist more particularly on the pleasure of a Future Life; and in the exposition of them necessarily approach nearer to the Euthumists.”

I here proceeded to discuss the three systems which have arisen from the above-defined different views of Happiness; each contemplating it as the proper motive of Virtue: namely, 1st, Euthumism; 2nd, Public Eudaimonism; and 3rd, Private Eudaimonism.

“1st. Euthumism. This system, as I have said, sets forth the Moral Pleasure, the peace and cheerfulness of mind, and applause of conscience enjoyed in Virtue, as the proper motive for its practice. Conversely, it sets forth as the dissuadent from Vice, the pain of remorse, the inward uneasiness and self-contempt which belong to it.

“Democritus appears to have been the first who gave clear utterance to this doctrine, maintaining that Εύθυμία was the proper End of human actions, and sharply distinguishing it from the ‘Ηδονή’ proposed as such by Aristippus. The claims of a ‘mens conscia recti’ to be the ‘Summum Bonum,’ occupied, as is well known, a large portion of the subsequent disputes of the Epicureans, Cynics, Stoics and Academics, and were eagerly argued by Cicero, and even down to the time of Boethius. Many of these sects, however, and in particular the Stoics, though maintaining that Virtue alone is sufficient for Happiness (that is, that the inward joy of Virtue is enough to constitute Happiness in the midst of torments), yet by no means set forth that Happiness as the sole motive of Virtue. They held, on the contrary, the noblest ideas of ‘living according to Nature,’ that is, as Chrysippus explained it, according to the ‘Nature of the universe, the common Law of all, which is the right reason spread everywhere, the same by which Jupiter governs the world’; and that both Virtue and Happiness consisted in so regulating our actions that they should produce harmony between the Spirit in each of us, and the Will of Him who rules the universe. There is little or no trace of Euthumism in the Jewish or Christian Scriptures, or (to my knowledge) in the sacred books of the Brahmins, Buddhists, or Parsees. The ethical problems argued by the mediæval Schoolmen do not, so far as I am aware, embrace the subject in question. The doctrine was revived, however, in the seventeenth century, and besides blending with more or less distinctness with the views of a vast number of lesser moralists, it reckons among its professed adherents no less names than Henry More and Bishop Cumberland. Euthumism, philosophically considered, will be found to affix itself most properly on the doctrine of the ‘Moral Sense’ laid down by Shaftesbury as the origin of our knowledge of moral distinctions, which, if it were, it would naturally follow that it must afford also the right motive of Virtue. Hutcheson, also, still more distinctly stated that this Moral Pleasure in Virtue (which both he and Shaftesbury likened to the æsthetic Pleasure in Beauty) was the true ground of our choice. To this Balguy replied, that ‘to make the rectitude of moral actions depend upon instinct, and, in proportion to the warmth and strength of the Moral Sense, rise and fall like spirits in a thermometer, is depreciating the most sacred thing in the world, and almost exposing it to ridicule.’ And Whewell has shown that the doctrine of the Moral Sense as the foundation of Morals must always fail, whether understood as meaning a sense like that of Beauty (which may or may not be merely a modification of the Agreeable), or a sense like those of Touch or Taste (which no one can fairly maintain that any of our moral perceptions really resemble).

“But though neither the true source of our Knowledge of Moral Distinctions nor yet the right Motive why we are to choose the Good, this Moral Sense of Pleasure in Virtue, and Pain in Vice, is a psychological fact demanding the investigation of the Moralist. Moreover, the error of allowing our moral choice to be decided by a regard to the pure joy of Virtue or awful pangs of self-condemnation, is an error so venial in comparison of other moral heresies, and so easily to be confounded with a truer principle of Morals, that it is particularly necessary to warn generous natures against it. ‘It is quite beyond the grasp of human thought,’ says Kant, ‘to explain how reason can be practical; how the mere Morality of the law, independently of every object man can be interested in, can itself beget an interest which is purely Ethical; how a naked thought, containing in it nothing of the sensory, can bring forth an emotion of pleasure or pain.’

“Unconsciously this Sense of Pleasure in a Virtuous Act, the thought of the peace of conscience which will follow it, or the dread of remorse for its neglect, must mingle with our motives. But we can never be permitted, consciously to exhibit them to ourselves as the ground of our resolution to obey the Law. That Law is not valid for man because it interests him, but it interests him because it has validity for him—because it springs from his true being, his proper self. The interest he feels is an Effect, not a Cause; a Contingency, not a Necessity. Were he to obey the Law merely from this Interest, it would not be free Self-legislation (autonomy), but (heteronomy) subservience of the Pure Will to a lower faculty—a Sense of Pleasure. And, practically, we may perceive that all manner of mischiefs and absurdities must arise if a man set forth Moral Pleasure as the determinator of his Will....

“Thus, the maxim of Euthumism, ‘Be virtuous for the sake of the Moral Pleasure of Virtue,’ may be pronounced false.

“2nd. Public Eudaimonism sets forth, both as the ground of our knowledge of Virtue and the motive for our practice of it, ‘The Greatest Happiness of the Greatest Number.’ This Happiness, as Paley understood it, is composed of Pleasures to be estimated only by their Intensity and Duration; or, as Bentham added, by their Certainty, Propinquity, Fecundity, and Purity (or freedom from admixture of evil).

“Let it be granted for argument’s sake, that the calculable Happiness resulting from actions can determine their Virtue (although all experience teaches that resulting Happiness is not calculable, and that the Virtue must at least be one of the items determining the resulting Happiness). On the Utilitarian’s own assumption, what sort of motive for Virtue can be his end of ‘The Greatest Happiness of the Greatest Number?’

“No sooner had Paley laid down the grand principle of his system, ‘Whatever is Expedient is Right,’ than he proceeds (as he thinks) to guard against its malapplication by arguing that nothing is expedient which produces, along with particular good consequences, general bad ones, and that this is done by the violation of any general rule. ‘You cannot,’ says he, ‘permit one action, and forbid another without showing a difference between them. Consequently the same sort of actions must be generally permitted or generally forbidden. Where therefore, the general permission of them would be pernicious, it becomes necessary to lay down and support the rule which generally forbids them.’

“Now, let the number of experienced consequences of actions be ever so great, it must be admitted that the Inductions we draw therefrom can, at the utmost, be only provisional, and subject to revision should new facts be brought in to bear in an opposite scale....

“Further, the rules induced by experience must be not only provisional, but partial. The lax term ‘general’ misleads us. A Moral Rule must be either universal and open to no exception, or, properly speaking, no rule at all. Each case of Morals stands alone.

“Thus, the Experimentalist’s conclusion, for example, that ‘Lying does more harm than good,’ may be quite remodelled by the fortunate discovery of so prudent a kind of falsification as shall obviate the mischief and leave the advantage. No doubt can remain on the mind of any student of Paley, that this would have been his own line of argument: ‘If we can only prove that a lie be expedient, then it becomes a duty to lie.’ As he says himself of the rule (which if any rule may do so may surely claim to be general) ‘Do not do evil that good may come,’ that it is ‘salutary, for the most part, the advantage seldom compensating for the violation of the rule.’ So to do evil is sometimes salutary, and does now and then compensate for disregarding even the Eudaimonist’s last resource—a General Rule!

“2nd. Private Eudaimonism. There are several formulas, in which this system, (the lowest, but the most logical, of Moral heresies) is embodied. Rutherford puts it thus: ‘Every man’s Happiness is the ultimate end which Reason teaches him to pursue, and the constant and uniform practice of Virtue towards all mankind becomes our duty, when Revelation has informed us that God will make us finally happy in a life after this.’ Paley (who properly belongs to this school, but endeavours frequently to seat himself on the corners of the stools of Euthumism and Public Eudaimonism), Paley, the standard Moralist of England,^[11] defines Virtue thus: ‘Virtue is the doing good to mankind in obedience to the will of God, and for the sake of Everlasting Happiness. According to which definition, the good of mankind is the subject; the will of God the rule; and Everlasting Happiness the motive of Virtue.’

“Yet it seems to me, that if there be any one truth which intuition does teach us more clearly than another, it is precisely this one—that Virtue to be Virtue must be disinterested. The moment we picture any species of reward becoming the bait of our Morality, that moment we see the holy flame of Virtue annihilated in the noxious gas. A man is not Virtuous at all who is honest because it is ‘good policy,’ beneficent from love of approbation, pious for the sake of heaven. All this is prudence not virtue, selfishness not self-sacrifice. If he be honest for sake of policy, would he be dishonest, if it could be proved that it were more politic? If he would not, then he is not really honest from policy but from some deeper principle thrust into the background of his consciousness. If he would, then it is idlest mockery to call that honesty Virtuous which only waits a bribe to become dishonest.

“But there are many Eudaimonists who will be ready to acknowledge that a prudent postponement of our happiness in this world cannot constitute virtue. But wherefore do they say we are to postpone it? Not for present pleasure or pain, that would be base; but for that anticipation of future pleasure or pain which we call Hope and Fear. And this, not for the Hope and Fear of this world, which are still admitted to be base motives; but for Hope and Fear extended one step beyond the tomb—the Hope of Heaven and the Fear of Hell.”

After a general glance at the doctrine of Future Rewards and Punishments as held by Christians and heathens, I go on to argue:

“But in truth this doctrine of the Hope of Heaven being the true Motive of Virtue is (at least in theory) just as destructive of Virtue as that which makes the rewards of this life—health, wealth, or reputation—the motive of it. Well says brave Kingsley:

“If to act for a small reward cannot be virtuous, to act for a large one can certainly merit no more. To be bribed by a guinea is surely no better than to be bribed by a penny. To be deterred from ruin by fear of transportation for life, is no more noble than to be deterred by fear of twenty-four hours in prison. There is no use multiplying illustrations. He who can think that Virtue is the doing right for pay, may think himself very judicious to leave his pay in the savings-bank now and come into a fortune all at once by and by; but he who thinks that Virtue is the doing right for Right’s own sake, cannot possibly draw a distinction between small bribes and large ones; a reward to be given to-day, and a reward to be given in eternity.

“Nevertheless it cannot be denied that the belief in immortal progress is of incalculable value. Such belief, and that in an ever-present God, may be called the two wings of human Virtue. I look on the advantages of a faith in immortality to be two-fold. First, it cuts the knot of the world, and gives to our apprehension a God whose providence need no longer perplex us, and whose immeasurable and never-ending goodness shines ever brighter before our contemplating souls. Secondly, it gives an importance to personal progress which we can hardly attribute to it so long as we deem it is to be arrested for ever by death. The man who does not believe in Immortality may be, and often actually is, more virtuous than his neighbour; and it is quite certain that his Virtue is of far purer character than that which bargains for Heaven as its pay. But his task is a very hard one, a task without a result; and his road a dreary one, unenlightened even by the distant dawn of