Mr. John Stuart Mill, in his examination of "Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy," says: " If I am informed that the world is ruled by a being whose attributes are infinite, but what they are we cannot learn, nor what the principles of his government, except that the highest human morality which we are capable of conceiving' does not sanction them; convince me of it, and I will bear my fate as I may. But when I am told that I must believe this, and at the same time call this being by the names which express and affirm the highest human morality, I say in plain terms that I will not. Whatever power such a being may have over me, there is one thing which he shall not do: he shall not compel me to worship him. I will call no being good, who is not what I mean when I apply that epithet to my fellow-creatures; and if such a being can sentence me to hell for not so calling him, to hell I will go.”

This is unquestionably an admirable sentiment on the part of Mr. Mill (with which every absolute moralist will agree), but it contains a complete refutation of his own position, and is a capital instance 2 of the vigorous life of moral intuition in one who professes to have eliminated any fundamental distinction between the "right" and the expedient." For if an action is morally good, and to be done merely in proportion to the amount of pleasure it secures, and morally bad and to be avoided as tending to misery, and if it could be proved that by calling God

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2 I have not the merit of detecting this inconsistency; it was pointed out to me by my friend the Rev. W. W. Roberts. It is a good example of the refutations which Mr. Mill, every now and then, gives himself— much the kind of thing which Professor Masson calls "a trap-door opened by Mr. Mill himself in the floor of his own philosophy."—Recent British Philosophy, p. 339.

good-whether He is so or not, in our sense of the term,— we could secure a maximum of pleasure, and by refusing to do so we should incur endless torment, clearly, on utilitarian principles, the flattery would be good.

Mr. Mill, of course, must also mean that, in the matter in question, all men would do well to act with him. Therefore, he must mean that it would be well for all to accept (on the hypothesis above given) infinite and final misery for all as the result of the pursuit of happiness. as the only end.

It must be recollected that in consenting to worship this unholy God, Mr. Mill is not asked to do harm to his neighbour, so that his refusal reposes simply on his perception of the immorality of the requisition.

It is also noteworthy that an omnipotent Deity is supposed incapable of altering Mr. Mill's mind and moral perceptions!

Mr. Mill's decision is right, but it is difficult indeed to see how, without the recognition of an "absolute morality," he can justify so utter and final an abandonment of all utility in favour of a clear moral perception,

These two ideas, the "right" and the "useful," being so distinct here and now, a greater difficulty meets us with regard to their origin from some common source, than met us when considering the difficulties as to the incipient stages of certain bodily structures. For the distinction between the "right" and the "useful" is so fundamental and essential, that not only does the idea of benefit not enter into the idea of duty, but we see that the very fact of an act not being beneficial to us makes it the more praiseworthy, while gain tends to diminish the merit of an action. Yet this idea, "right," thus excluding, as it does,

all reference to utility or pleasure, has nevertheless to be constructed and evolved from utility and pleasure, and ultimately from pleasurable sensations, if we are to accept pure Darwinianism: if we are to accept, that is, the evolution of man's psychical nature and highest powers, by the exclusive action of "Natural Selection," from such faculties as are possessed by brutes; in other words, if we are to believe that the conceptions of the highest human morality arose through minute and fortuitous variations of brutal desires and appetites in all conceivable directions.

It is here contended, on the other hand, that no conservation of any such variations could ever have given rise to the faintest beginning of any such moral perceptions; that by "Natural Selection" alone the maxim fiat justitia, ruat cœlum, could not have been excogitated, still less have found a widespread acceptance; that it is impotent to suggest even an approach towards an explanation of the first beginning of the idea of "right." It need hardly be remarked that acts may be distinguished not only as pleasurable, useful, or beautiful, but also as good, in two different senses: (1) materially moral acts, and (2) acts which are formally moral. The first are acts good in themselves, as acts, apart from any intention of the agent which may or may not have been directed towards "right." The second are acts which are good not only in themselves, as acts, but also in the deliberate intention of the agent who recognizes his actions as being "right." Thus acts may be materially moral or immoral, in a very high degree, without being in the least formally so. For example, a person may tend and minister to a sick man with scrupulous care and exactness, having in view all the time nothing but the

future reception of a good legacy. Another may, in the dark, shoot his own father, taking him to be an assassin, and so commit what is materially an act of parricide, though formally it is only an act of self-defence of more or less culpable rashness. A woman may innocently, because ignorantly, marry a married man, and so commit a material act of adultery. She may discover the facts, and persist, and so make her act formal also.

Actions of brutes, such as those of the bee, the ant, or the beaver, however materially good as regards their relation to the community to which such animals belong, are absolutely destitute of the most incipient degree of real, i.e. formal "goodness," because unaccompanied by mental acts of conscious will directed towards the fulfilment of duty. Apology is due for thus stating so elementary a distinction, but the statement is not superfluous, for confusion of thought, resulting from confounding together these very distinct things, is unfortunately far from

uncommon.

Thus, some Darwinians assert that the germs of morality exist in brutes, and we have seen that Mr. Darwin himself speculates on the subject as regards the highest apes. It may safely be affirmed, however, that there is no trace in brutes of any actions simulating morality which are not explicable by the fear of punishment, by the hope of pleasure, or by personal affection. No sign of moral reprobation is given by any brute, and yet had such existed in germ through Darwinian abysses of past time, some evidence of its existence must surely have been rendered perceptible through "survival of the fittest" in other forms

1 Since the publication of Mr. Darwin's "Descent of Man," it has become evident that this apology was an unnecessary one.

besides man, if that "survival" has alone and exclusively produced it in him.

Abundant examples may indeed be brought forward of useful acts which simulate morality, such as parental care of the young, &c. But did the most undeviating habits guide all brutes in such matters, were even aged and infirm members of a community of insects or birds carefully tended by young which benefited by their experience, such acts would not indicate even the faintest rudiment of real, i. e. formal, morality. "Natural Selection" would, of course, often lead to the prevalence of acts beneficial to a community, and to acts materially good; but unless they can be shown to be formally so, they are not in the least to the point, they do not offer any explanation of the origin of an altogether new and fundamentally different motive and conception.

It is interesting, on the other hand, to note Mr. Darwin's statement as to the existence of a distinct moral feeling even in perhaps the very lowest and most degraded of all the human races known to us. Thus, in the same "Journal of Researches "1 before quoted, bearing witness to the existence of moral reprobation on the part of the Fuegians, he says: "The nearest approach to religious feeling which I heard of was shown by York Minster (a Fuegian so named), who, when Mr. Bynoe shot some very young ducklings as specimens, declared in the most solemn manner, 'Oh, Mr. Bynoe, much rain, snow, blow much.' This was evidently a retributive punishment for wasting human food."

Mr. Wallace gives valuable testimony, in his "Malay Archipelago," to the existence of a very distinct, and even 1 Vol. i. p. 215.