is difficult to see what can restrain the selfishness of an ordinary man, and induce him, in the absence of actual coercion, to sacrifice his personal desires to the public good. The service of humanity is the sentiment of a refined mind conversant with history; within no calculable time is it likely to overrule the passions and direct the conduct of the mass. And after all, without God or spirit, what is 'humanity'? One school of science reckons a hundred and fifty different species of man. What is the bond of unity between all these species, and wherein consists the obligation to mutual love and help? A zealous servant of science told Agassiz that the age of real civilisation would have begun when you could go out and shoot a man for scientific purposes; and in the controversy respecting the Jamaica massacre we had proof enough that the ascendency of science and a strong sense of human brotherhood might be very different things. 'Apparent diræ facies.' We begin to perceive, looming through the mist, the lineaments of an epoch of selfishness compressed by a government of force.

In fact, even in the present early stage of the English antitheistic philosophy, if its adherents are directly asked what is man's reasonable rule of life, I know of no other answer they will theoretically give except one. They will say that any given person's one reasonable pursuit on earth is to aim at his own earthly happiness-to obtain for himself out of life the greatest amount he can of gratification. No doubt they will make confident statements, on the indissoluble connection between happiness and virtue.' Still, according to their speculative theory, the only reasonable ground for practising 'virtue' is its conduciveness to the agent's happiness.

6

Now let us suppose a generation to grow up, profoundly imbued with this principle, carrying it consistently into detail, emancipated from the unconscious influence of (what I must be allowed to call) a more respectable creed. What would be the result? Evidently a man so trained, in calculating for himself the balance of pleasure and pain, will give no credit on the former side to such gratifications as might arise from consciousness of conquest over his lower nature, or from the pursuit of lofty and generous aims. These, I say, will have no place in his list of pleasures: because he will have duly learned his lesson, that there is no 'lower' or higher' nature; that no one aim can be loftier' than any other; that there is nothing more admirable in generosity than in selfishness. On the other hand, neither will he include, under his catalogue of pains, any feeling of remorse for evil committed, or any dread of possible punishment in some future life; for he will look with simple contempt on those doctrines, which are required as the foundation for such pains. His commonsense course will be to make this world as comfortable a place as he can, by bringing every possible prudential calculation to bear on his purpose. Before all things he will keep his digestion in good order. He will keep at arm's length (indeed at many arms' lengths) every disquieting consideration, such, e.g., as might arise from a remembrance of other men's misery, or from a thought of that repulsive spectre which the superstitious call moral obligation.

5

It is plain that duly to pursue the subject thus opened would carry me indefinitely beyond my limits; and I will only therefore make one concluding observation. If the term 'virtue' be retained by those of whom I am speaking, it will be used, I suppose, to express any habitual practice, which solidly conduces to the agent's balance of earthly enjoyment. I am confident that,—should this be the recognised terminology, and should the new school be permitted to arrive at its legitimate development, there is one habit which would be very prominent among its catalogue of virtues.' The habit to which I refer is indulgence in licentiousness-licentiousness practised no doubt prudently, discreetly, calculatingly, but at the same time habitually, perseveringly, and with keen zest.

6

PROFESSOR HUXLEY.

We are led to do this thing, and to avoid that, partly by instinct and partly by conscious motives; and our conduct is said to be moral or the reverse, partly on the ground of its effects upon other beings, partly upon that of its operation upon ourselves.

Social morality relates to that course of action which tends to increase the happiness or diminish the misery of other beings; personal morality relates to that which has the like effect upon ourselves.

If this be so, the foundation of morality must needs lie in the constitution of nature, and must depend on the mental construction of ourselves and of other sentient beings.

The constitution of man remaining what it is, his capacity for the pleasures and pains afforded by sense, by sympathy, or by the contemplation of moral beauty and ugliness, is obviously in no way affected by the abbreviation or the prolongation of his conscious life; nor by the mere existence or non-existence of anything not included in nature; nor, so long as he believes that actions have consequences, does it matter to him what connection there may be between these actions and other phenomena of nature.

The assertion that morality is in any way dependent upon the views respecting certain philosophical problems a person may chance to hold, produces the same effect upon my mind as if one should say that a man's vision depends on his theory of light; or that he has no business to be sure that ginger is hot in the mouth unless he has formed definite views, in the first place, as to the nature of ginger, and, secondly, as to whether he has or has not a sensitive soul.

I have treated it at somewhat greater length in an article which I contributed to the Dublin Review of last January, pp. 15–21.

Social morality belongs to the realm of inductive and deductive investigation. Given a society of human beings under certain circumstances; and the question whether a particular action on the part of one of the members of that society will tend to the increase of the general happiness or not, is a question of natural knowledge, and, as such, is a perfectly legitimate subject of scientific inquiry. And the morality or immorality of the action will depend upon the answer which the question receives.

If it can be shown by observation or experiment that theft, murder, and adultery do not tend to diminish the happiness of society, then, in the absence of any but natural knowledge, they are not social immoralities.

It does not follow, however, that they might not be personal immoralities. Without committing myself to any theory of the origin of the moral sense, or even as to the existence of any such special sense, I may suggest that it is quite conceivable that discords and harmonies may affect the congeries of feelings to which we give the name, as they do others.

I see no reason for doubting that the beauty of holiness and the ugliness of sin are, to a great many minds, no mere metaphors, but feelings as real and as intense as those with which the beauty or ugliness of form or colour fills the artist mind, and that they are as independent of intellectual beliefs, and even of education, as are all the true æsthetic powers and impulses.

On the other hand, I do not doubt the existence of persons, like the hero of the Fatal Boots, devoid of any sense of moral beauty or ugliness, and for them personal morality has no existence. They may offend, but they cannot sin; they may be sorry for having stolen or murdered, because society punishes them for their social immoralities, but they are incapable of repentance.

Before going further, I think it may be needful to discriminate between religion and theology.

I object to the very general use of the terms Religion and Theology as if they were synonymous, or indeed had anything whatever to do with one another. Religion is the affair of the affections, theology of the intellect. The religious man loves an ideal perfection, which may be natural or non-natural; the theologian expounds the attributes of what he terms supernatural' Being as so many scientific truths, the consequences of which work into the general scheme of nature, and are there discernible by ordinary methods of investigation. What the theologian affirms may be put in this way that beyond the natura naturata, mirrored or made by the natural operations of the human mind, there is a natura naturans, sufficient knowledge of which is attainable only through the channel of revelation.

Now I think it cannot be doubted that both religion and theo

logy, as thus defined, have exercised, and must exercise, a profound influence on morality. For it may be that the object of a man's religion-the ideal which he worships-is an ideal of sensual enjoyment, or of domination, or of the development of all his faculties towards perfection, or of self-annihilation, or of benevolence; and his personal morality will, in part, contribute largely to the formation of his ideal, and will, in part, be swayed and bent until it harmonises with that ideal.

Moreover, it is clear that a man's theology may give him such views of the action of the natura naturans as will profoundly modify or even reverse his social morality.

He may see ground for believing that conduct of evil effect upon society, which is part of the natura naturata, is in harmony with the laws of action of the natura naturans; and that, as the rewards and punishments of men are but slight and temporary, while those inflicted by the greater power behind the natura naturata are grievous and endless, common prudence may dictate obedience to the stronger. And history proves that there is no social crime that man can commit which has not been dictated by theology and committed on theological grounds. On the other hand, the belief that the divine commands are identical with the laws of social morality has lent infinite strength to the latter in all ages.

In like manner it seems to me impossible to overestimate the influence of speculative beliefs as to the nature of the Deity, apart from all idea of rewards and punishments, upon personal morality. The lover of moral beauty, struggling through a world full of sorrow and sin, is surely as much the stronger for believing that sooner or later a vision of perfect peace and goodness will burst upon him, as the toiler up a mountain for the belief that beyond crag and snow lies home and rest. For the other side of the picture, who shall exaggerate the deadly influence on personal morality of those theologies which have represented the Deity as vainglorious, irritable, and revengeful as a sort of pedantic drill-sergeant of mankind, to whom no valour, no long-tried loyalty, could atone for the misplacement of a button of the uniform, or the misunderstanding of a paragraph of the regulations and instructions'?

While no one can dare history, or even look about him, without admitting the enormous influence of theology on morality, it would perhaps be hard to say whether it has been greater or less than the influence of morality on theology. But the latter topic is not at present under discussion; and the only further remark I would venture to add is this-that the intensity and reality of the action of theological beliefs upon morality are precisely measured by the conviction of those who hold them that they are true. That such and such a doctrine conduces to morality, and disbelief in it to immorality, may be demonstrated by an endless array of convincing

syllogisms; but unless the doctrine is true, the practical result of this expenditure of logic is not apparent. I have not the slightest doubt that if mankind could be got to believe that every socially immoral act would be instantly followed by three months' severe toothache, such acts would soon cease to be perpetrated. It would be a faith charged with most beneficent works, but unfortunately this faith can so easily be shown to be disaccordant with fact that it is not worth while to become its prophet.

For my part I do not for one moment admit that morality is not strong enough to hold its own. But if it is demonstrated to me that I am wrong, and that without this or that theological dogma the human race will lapse into bipedal cattle, more brutal than the beasts by the measure of their greater cleverness, my next question is to ask for the proof of the truth of the dogma.

If this proof is forthcoming, it is my conviction that no drowning sailor ever clutched a hencoop more tenaciously than mankind will hold by such dogma, whatever it may be. But if not, then I verily believe that the human race will go its evil way; and my only consolation lies in the reflection that, however bad our posterity may become, so long as they hold by the plain rule of not pretending to believe what they have no reason to believe because it may be to their advantage so to pretend, they will not have reached the lowest depths. of immorality.

MR. R. H. HUTTON.

That has happened to us which happened to the disputants in that Attic Symposium from which, I suppose, the name for our discussion was taken. We have been interrupted by a great knocking at the door' and the entrance of an unbidden guest, who, however, shows no sign either of Alcibiades' intoxication, or of that generous disposition to crown the most deserving with garlands, which may perhaps have had some connection with the excesses of the brilliant Athenian's potations. The Saturday Reviewer, who, without dropping his mask, has thrust upon us his own criticism on our discussion,6 has certainly not conferred the most meagre of wreaths on any one, unless indeed it may be said that he grudgingly crowns the Dean of St. Paul's and the Duke of Argyll with a withered sprig or two of parsley, for pointing out that our subject is much too vague, and for trying to narrow a discussion so 'abstract and ill-defined.' His general criticism is contained in the harsh remark that all the fine talk of the chosen illuminati is a mass of words with very little

• See Saturday Review for March 31, art. A Modern Symposium.'