IV.—Utilitarianism.
In some respects Mill's Essays, published under the title "Utilitarianism," are among his best writings. They have, in the first place, the excellence of brevity. Ninety-six pages, printed in handsome type, make but a light task for the student who wishes to enter into the intricacies of moral doctrine. Moreover, the last Essay consists of a digression concerning the nature and origin of the idea of Justice, and it occupies nearly one-third of the whole book. Thus Mill managed to compress his discussion of so important a subject as the foundations of Moral Right and Wrong into some sixty pleasant pages.
And pleasant pages they certainly are, for they are written in Mill's very best style. Now Mill, even when he is most prolix, when he is pursuing the intricacies of the most involved points of logic and philosophy, can seldom or never be charged with dulness and heaviness. His language is too easy, polished, and apparently lucid. In these Essays on Utilitarianism, he reaches his own highest standard of style. There is hardly any other book in the range of philosophy, so far as my reading has gone, which can be read with less effort. There is something enticing in the easy flow of sentences and ideas, and without apparent difficulty the reader finds himself agreeably borne into the midst of the most profound questions of ethical philosophy, questions which have been the battle-ground of the human intellect for two thousand five hundred years.
Partly to this excellence of style, partly to Mill's immense reputation, acquired by other works and in other ways, must we attribute the importance which has been generally attached to these ninety-six pages. Probably no other modern work of the same small typographical extent has been equally discussed, criticized, and admired, unless, indeed, it be the Essay on Liberty of the same author. The result is, that Mill has been generally regarded as the latest and best expounder of the great Utilitarian Doctrine—that doctrine which is, by one and no doubt the preponderating school, regarded as the foundation of all moral and legislative progress. Many there are who think that, what Hume and Paley and Jeremy Bentham began, Mill has carried nearly to perfection in these agreeable Essays.
Nothing can be more plain, too, than that Mill himself believed he was dutifully expounding the doctrines of his father, of his father's friend, the great Bentham, and of the other unquestionable Utilitarians among whom he grew up. Mill seems to pride himself upon having been the first, not indeed to invent, but to bring into general acceptance the name of the school to which he supposed himself to belong. He says:[76] "The author of this essay has reason for believing himself to be the first person who brought the word utilitarian into use. He did not invent it, but adopted it from a passing expression in Mr. Galt's 'Annals of the Parish.' After using it as a designation for several years, he and others abandoned it from a growing dislike to anything resembling a badge or watchword of sectarian distinction. But as a name for one single opinion, not a set of opinions—to denote the recognition of utility as a standard, not any particular way of applying it—the term supplies a want in the language, and offers, in many cases, a convenient mode of avoiding tiresome circumlocution."
In the Autobiography (p. 79), Mill makes a statement to the same effect, saying—
"I did not invent the word, but found it in one of Galt's novels, the 'Annals of the Parish,' in which the Scotch clergyman, of whom the book is a supposed autobiography, is represented as warning his parishioners not to leave the Gospel and become utilitarians. With a boy's fondness for a name and a banner I seized on the word, and for some years called myself and others by it as a sectarian appellation; and it came to be occasionally used by some others holding the opinions it was intended to designate. As those opinions attracted more notice, the term was repeated by strangers and opponents, and got into rather common use just about the time when those who had originally assumed it, laid down that along with other sectarian characteristics."
It is pointed out, however, by Mr. Sidgwick in his article on Benthamism,[77] that Bentham himself suggested the name "Utilitarian," in a letter to Dumont, as far back as June, 1802.
Mill explicitly states that it was his purpose in these Essays on Utilitarianism to expound a previously received doctrine of utility. Towards the close of his first chapter, containing General Remarks, he says (p. 6): "On the present occasion, I shall, without further discussion of the other theories, attempt to contribute something towards the understanding and appreciation of the Utilitarian or Happiness theory, and towards such proof as it is susceptible of." He proceeds to explain that a preliminary condition of the rational acceptance or rejection of a doctrine is that its formula should be correctly understood. The very imperfect notion ordinarily formed of the Utilitarian formula was the chief obstacle which impeded its reception; the main work to be done, therefore, by a Utilitarian writer was to clear the doctrine from the grosser misconceptions. Thus the question would be greatly simplified, and a large proportion of its difficulties removed. His Essays purport throughout to be a defence and exposition of the Utilitarian doctrine.
But one characteristic of Mill's writings is that there is often a wide gulf between what he intends and what he achieves. There is even a want of security that what he is at any moment urging may not be the logical contrary of what he thinks he is urging. This happens to be palpably the case with the celebrated Essays before us. Mill explains and defends his favourite doctrine with so much affection and so much candour that he finally explains himself into the opposite doctrine. Yet with that simplicity which is a pleasing feature of his personal character, Mill continues to regard himself as a Utilitarian long after he has left the grounds of Paley and Bentham. Lines of logical distinction and questions of logical consistency are of little account to one who cannot distinguish between fact and feeling, between sense and sentiment. It is possible that no small part of the favour with which these Essays have always been received by the general public is due to the happy way in which Mill has combined the bitter and the sweet. The uncompromising rigidity of the Benthamist formulas is softened and toned down. An apparently scientific treatment is combined with so many noble sentiments and high aspirations, that almost any one except a logician may be disarmed.
But nothing can endure if it be not logical. These Essays may be very agreeable reading; they may make readers congratulate themselves on so easily becoming moral philosophers; but they cannot really advance moral science if they represent one thing as being another thing. I make it my business therefore in this article to show that Mill was intellectually unfitted to decide what was utilitarian and what was not. In removing the obstacles to the reception of his favourite doctrine he removed its landmarks too, and confused everything. It is true that I come rather late in the day to show this. Some scores, if not hundreds, of critics have shown the same fact more or less clearly. Eminent men of the most different schools and tones of thought—such as the Rev. Dr. Martineau, Mr. Sidgwick, Dr. Ward, Professor Birks, the late Professor Grote—have criticized and refuted Mill time after time.
Since commencing my analysis of Mill's Philosophy, I have been surprised to find, too, that some who were supposed to support Mill's school through thick and thin, have long since discovered the inconsistencies which I would now expose, at such wearisome length as if they were new discoveries. Such is the ground which my friend, Professor Croom Robertson, takes in his quarterly review, Mind, which must be considered our best authority on philosophical questions. As to this matter of Utilitarianism, a very eminent author, formerly a friend of Mill himself, assures me that the subject is quite threshed out, and implies that there is no need for me to trouble the public any more about it. In fact, it would seem to be allowed within philosophical circles that Mill's works are often wrongheaded and unphilosophical. Yet these works are supposed to have done so much good that obloquy attaches to any one who would seek to diminish the respect paid to them by the public at large. Philosophers, and teachers of the last generation at least, have done their best to give Mill's groundless philosophy a hold upon all the schools and all the press, and yet we of this generation are to wait calmly until this influence dissolves of its own accord. We are to do nothing to lessen the natural respect paid to the memory of the dead, especially of the dead who have unquestionably laboured with single-minded purpose for what they considered the good of their fellow-creatures. But in nothing is it more true than in philosophy, that "the evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones." Words and false arguments cannot be recalled. Throw a stone into the surface of the still sea, and you are powerless to prevent the circle of disturbance from spreading more and more widely. True it is, that one disturbance may be overcome and apparently obliterated by other deeper disturbances; but Mill's works and opinions were disseminated by the immense former influence of the united band of Benthamist philosophers. He is criticized and discussed and repeated, in almost every philosophical work of the last thirty or forty years. He is taken throughout the world as the representative of British philosophy, and it is not sufficient for a few eminent thinkers in Oxford, or Cambridge, or London, or Edinburgh, or Aberdeen, to acknowledge in a tacit sort of way that this doctrine and that doctrine is wrong. Eventually, no doubt, the opinion of the Lecture Halls and Combination Rooms will guide the public opinion; but it may take a generation for tacit opinions to permeate society. We must have them distinctly and boldly expressed. It is especially to be remembered that the public press throughout the English-speaking countries is mostly conducted by men educated in the time when Mill's works were entirely predominant. These men are now for the most part cut off, by geographical or professional obstacles, from the direct influence of Oxford or Cambridge. The circle of disturbance has spread beyond the immediate reach of those centres of thought. To be brief, I do not believe that Mill's immense philosophical influence, founded as it is on confusion of thought, will readily collapse. I fear that it may remain as a permanent obstacle in the way of sound thinking. Citius emergit veritas ex errore, quam ex confusione. Had Mill simply erred as did Hobbes about elementary geometry, and Berkeley about infinitesimals, it would be necessary merely to point out the errors and consign them to merciful oblivion. But it is not so easy to consign to oblivion ponderous works so full of confusion of thought that every inexperienced and unwarned reader is sure to lose his way in them, and to take for profound philosophy that which is really a kind of kaleidoscopic presentation of philosophic ideas and phrases, in a succession of various but usually inconsistent combinations. To the public at large, Mill's works still undoubtedly remain as the standard of accurate thinking, and the most esteemed repertory of philosophy. I cannot therefore consider my criticism superfluous, and at the risk of repeating much that has been said by the eminent critics already mentioned, or by others, I must show that Mill has thrown ethical philosophy into confusion as far as could well be done in ninety-six pages.
The nature of the Utilitarian doctrine is explained by Mill with sufficient accuracy in pp. 9 and 10, where he says—
"The creed which accepts as the foundation of morals, Utility, or the Greatest Happiness Principle, holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure, and the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain, and the privation of pleasure. To give a clear view of the moral standard set up by the theory, much more requires to be said; in particular, what things it includes in the ideas of pain and pleasure; and to what extent this is left an open question. But these supplementary explanations do not affect the theory of life on which this theory of morality is grounded—namely, that pleasure, and freedom from pain, are the only things desirable as ends; and that all desirable things (which are as numerous in the utilitarian as any other scheme) are desirable either for the pleasure inherent in themselves, or as means to the promotion of pleasure and the prevention of pain."
Mill proceeds to say that such a theory of life excites inveterate dislike in many minds, and among them some of the most estimable in feeling and purpose. To hold forth no better end than pleasure is felt to be utterly mean and grovelling—a doctrine worthy only of swine. Mill accordingly proceeds to inquire whether there is anything really grovelling in the doctrine—whether, on the contrary, we may not include under pleasure, feelings and motives which are in the highest degree noble and elevating. The whole inquiry turns upon this question—Do pleasures differ in quality as well as in quantity? Can a small amount of pleasure of very elevated character outweigh a large amount of pleasure of low quality? We should never think of estimating pictures by their size and number. The productions of West and Fuseli, which were the wonder and admiration of our grandparents, can now be bought by the square yard, to cover the bare walls of eating-houses and music-halls. Sic transit gloria mundi. But a choice sketch by Turner sometimes sells for many pounds per square inch. It is clear, then, that in the opinion of connoisseurs, which must, for our present purpose, be considered final, high art is almost wholly a matter of quality. Two great pictures by West may be nearly twice as valuable as one; and two equally choice sketches by Turner are twice as good as one; but it would seem hardly possible in the present day for the disciple of "high art" to bring West and Turner into the same category of thought. I suppose that even Turner will presently begin to wane before "the higher criticism."
A corresponding difficulty lies at the very basis of the Utilitarian theory of ethics. The tippler may esteem two pints of beer doubly as much as one; the hero may feel double satisfaction in saving two lives instead of one; but who shall weigh the pleasure of a pint of beer against the pleasure of saving a fellow-creature's life.
Paley, indeed, cut the Gordian knot of this difficulty in a summary manner; he denied altogether that there is any difference between pleasures, except in continuance and intensity. It must have required some moral courage to write the paragraph to be next quoted; yet Paley, however much he may be said to have temporized and equivocated about oaths and subscription to Articles, cannot be accused of want of explicitness in this passage. There is a directness and clear-hitting of the point in Paley's writings which always charms me.
"In strictness, any condition may be denominated happy, in which the amount or aggregate of pleasure exceeds that of pain; and the degree of happiness depends upon the quantity of this excess. And the greatest quantity of it ordinarily attainable in human life, is what we mean by happiness, when we inquire or pronounce what human happiness consists in. In which inquiry I will omit much usual declamation on the dignity and capacity of our nature; the superiority of the soul to the body, of the rational to the animal part of our constitution; upon the worthiness, refinement, and delicacy of some satisfactions, or the meanness, grossness, and sensuality of others; because I hold that pleasures differ in nothing, but in continuance and intensity: from a just computation of which, confirmed by what we observe of the apparent cheerfulness, tranquillity, and contentment, of men of different tastes, tempers, stations, and pursuits, every question concerning human happiness must receive its decision."[78]
Bentham, it need hardly be said, adopted the same idea as the basis of his ethical and legislative theories. In his uncompromising style he tells us[79] that
"Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do. On the one hand the standard of right and wrong, on the other the chain of causes and effects, are fastened to their throne. They govern us in all we do, in all we say, in all we think: every effort we can make to throw off our subjection will serve but to demonstrate and confirm it. In words a man may pretend to abjure their empire: but in reality he will remain subject to it all the while. The principle of utility recognises this subjection, and assumes it for the foundation of that system, the object of which is to rear the fabric of felicity by the hands of reason and of law. Systems which attempt to question it, deal in sounds instead of sense, in caprice instead of reason, in darkness instead of light."
Elsewhere Bentham proceeds to show how we may estimate the values of pleasures and pains, meaning obviously by values the quantities or forces. As these feelings are both the ends and the instruments of the moralist and legislator, it especially behoves us to learn how to estimate these values aright, and Bentham tells us most distinctly.[80]
To a person, he says, considered by himself, the value of a pleasure or pain considered by itself, will be greater or less, according to the four following circumstances. 1. Its intensity. 2. Its duration. 3. Its certainty or uncertainty. 4. Its propinquity or remoteness. But when the value of any pleasure or pain is to be considered for the purpose of estimating the general tendency of the act, we have to take into account also, 5. The fecundity, or the chance it has of being followed by sensations of the same kind, that is, pleasures, if it be a pleasure; pains, if it be a pain. 6. Its purity, or the chance it has of not being followed by sensations of the opposite kind: that is, pains, if it be a pleasure; pleasures, if it be a pain. Finally, when we consider the interests of a number of persons, we must also estimate a pleasure or pain with reference to, 7. Its extent; that is the number of persons to whom it extends, or who are affected by it.
Thus did Bentham clearly and explicitly lay the foundations of the moral and political sciences, and to impress these fundamental propositions on the memory he framed the following curious mnemonic lines, which may be quoted for the sake of their quaintness:—
"Intense, long, certain, speedy, fruitful, pure——
Such marks in pleasures and in pains endure.
Such pleasures seek, if private be thy end:
If it be public, wide let them extend.
Such pains avoid, whichever be thy view:
If pains must come, let them extend to few."
In all that Bentham says about pleasure and pain, there is not a word about the intrinsic superiority of one pleasure to another. He advocates our seeking pure pleasures; but with him a pure pleasure was clearly defined as one not likely to be followed by feelings of the opposite kind; the pleasure of opium-eating, for instance, would be called impure, simply because it is likely to lead to bad health and consequent pain; if not so followed by evil consequences, the pleasure would be as pure as any other pleasure. With Bentham morality became, as it were, a question of the ledger and the balance-sheet; all feelings were reduced to the same denomination of value, and whenever we indulge in a little enjoyment, or endure a pain, the consequences in regard to subsequent enjoyment or suffering are to be inexorably scored for or against us, as the case may be. Our conduct must be judged wise or foolish according as, in the long-run, we find a favourable "hedonic" balance-sheet.
What Mill in his earlier life thought about these foundations of the utilitarian doctrine, and the elaborate structure reared therefrom by Bentham, he has told us in his Autobiography, pp. 64 to 70. Subsequently Mill revolted, as we all know, against the narrowness of the Benthamist creed. While wishing to retain[81] the precision of expression, the definiteness of meaning, the contempt of declamatory phrases and vague generalities, which were so honourably characteristic both of Bentham and of his own father, James Mill, John Stuart decided to give a wider basis and a more free and "genial" character to the utilitarian speculations.
Let us consider how Mill proceeded to give this "genial" character to the utilitarian philosophy. It must be admitted, he says,[82] that utilitarian writers in general have placed the superiority of mental over bodily pleasures chiefly in the greater permanency, safety, uncostliness, &c., of the former—that is, in their circumstantial advantages rather than in their intrinsic nature. As regards Bentham, at least, Mill might have omitted the word chiefly. But according to Mill, there is no need why they should have taken such a ground.
"They might have taken the other, and, as it may be called, higher ground, with entire consistency. It is quite compatible with the principle of utility to recognise the fact, that some kinds of pleasure are more desirable and more valuable than others. It would be absurd, that while, in estimating all other things, quality is considered as well as quantity, the estimation of pleasures should be supposed to depend on quantity alone."
Then Mill proceeds to point out, with all the persuasiveness of his best style, that there are higher feelings which we would not sacrifice for any quantity of a lower feeling. Few human creatures, he holds, would consent to be changed into any of the lower animals for a promise of the fullest allowance of a beast's pleasures; no intelligent human being would consent to be a fool, no instructed person would be an ignoramus, no person of feeling and conscience would be selfish and base, and so forth. Mill, in fact, treats us to a good deal of what Paley so cynically called the "usual declamation," on the dignity and capacity of our nature, and the worthiness of some satisfactions compared with the grossness and sensuality of others. It must be allowed that Mill has the best of it, at least with the majority of readers. Paley is simply brutal as to the way in which he depresses everything to the same level of apparent sensuality. Mill overflows with genial and noble aspirations; he hardly deigns to count the lower pleasures as worth putting in the scale; it is better, he thinks, to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. If the pig or the fool is of a different opinion, it is because they only know their own side of the question. The other party to the comparison knows both sides. In the pages which follow there is much nobleness and elevation of thought. But where is the logic? We are nothing if we are not logical. But does Mill, in the fervour of his revolt against the cold, narrow restraints of the Benthamist formulas, consider the consistency and stability of his position? Let us examine in some detail the position to which he has brought himself.
It is plain, in the first place, that pleasure is with Mill the ultimate purpose of existence; for the philosophy is that of utilitarianism, and Mill distinctly assures us (Autobiography, p. 178) that he "never ceased to be a utilitarian." We must, of course, distinguish between the pleasure of the individual and the pleasure of other individuals of the race, between Egoistic and Universalistic Hedonism, as Mr. Sidgwick calls these very different doctrines. But the happiness of the race is, of course, made up of the happiness of its units, so that unless most of the individuals pursue a course ensuring happiness, the race cannot be happy in the aggregate. Now, to acquire happiness the individual must, of course, select that line of conduct which is likely to—that is, will in the majority of cases—bring happiness. He must aim at something which is capable of being reached. Mill tells us (p. 18) that if by happiness be meant a continuity of highly pleasurable excitement, it is evident enough that this is impossible to attain.
"A state of exalted pleasure lasts only moments, or in some cases, and with some intermissions, hours or days, and is the occasional brilliant flash of enjoyment, not its permanent and steady flame. Of this the philosophers who have taught that happiness is the end of life were as fully aware as those who taunt them. The happiness which they meant was not a life of rapture; but moments of such, in an existence made up of few and transitory pains, many and various pleasures, with a decided predominance of the actual over the passive, and having as the foundation of the whole, not to expect more from life than it is capable of bestowing.[83] A life thus composed, to those who have been fortunate enough to obtain it, has always appeared worthy of the name of happiness."
Then Mill goes on to point out what he considers has been sufficient to satisfy great numbers of mankind (p. 19):
"The main constituents of a satisfied life appear to be two, either of which by itself is often found sufficient for the purpose: tranquillity, and excitement. With much tranquillity, many find that they can be content with very little pleasure: with much excitement, many can reconcile themselves to a considerable quantity of pain. There is assuredly no inherent impossibility in enabling even the mass of mankind to unite both."
From these passages we must gather that at any rate the mass of mankind will attain happiness if they are satisfied with these main constituents, and we are especially told that the foundation of the whole utilitarian philosophy (Mill does not specify the substantive to which the adjective whole applies in the above quotation, but it must from the context be either "utilitarian philosophy," "search for happiness," or some closely equivalent idea) is not to expect from life more than it is capable of bestowing.
The question, then, may fairly arise whether upon a fair calculation of probabilities they are not wise, upon Mill's own showing, who aim at moderate achievements in life, so that in accomplishing these they may insure a satisfied life. This seems the more reasonable, if, as Mill elsewhere tells us, the nobler feelings are very apt to be killed off by the chilly realities of life.
"Many," he says (p. 14), "who begin with youthful enthusiasm for everything noble, as they advance in years sink into indolence and selfishness. But I do not believe that those who undergo this very common change, voluntarily choose the lower description of pleasure in preference to the higher, I believe that before they devote themselves exclusively to the one, they have already become incapable of the other. Capacity for the nobler feelings is in most natures a very tender plant, easily killed, not only by hostile influences, but by mere want of sustenance; and in the majority of young persons it speedily dies away if the occupations to which their position in life has devoted them, and the society into which it has thrown them, are not favourable to keeping that higher capacity in exercise. Men lose their high aspirations as they lose their intellectual tastes, because they have not time or opportunity for indulging them; and they addict themselves to inferior pleasures, not because they deliberately prefer them, but because they are either the only ones to which they have access, or the only ones which they are any longer capable of enjoying. It may be questioned whether any one who has remained equally susceptible to both classes of pleasure, ever knowingly and calmly preferred the lower; though many, in all ages, have broken down in an ineffectual attempt to combine both."
It would seem, then, that for the mass of mankind there is small prospect indeed of achieving happiness through high aspirations. They will not have time nor opportunity for indulging them. If they look for happiness solely to such aspirations they must be disappointed, and cannot have a satisfied life; if they attempt to combine the higher and lower lives they are likely to "break down in the ineffectual attempt." Now, I submit that, under these circumstances, it is folly, according to Mill's scheme of morality, to aim high; it is equivalent to going into a life-lottery, in which there are no doubt high prizes to be gained, but few and far between. It is simply gambling with hedonic stakes; preferring a small chance of high enjoyment to comparative certainty of moderate pleasures. Mill clearly admits this when he says (p. 14), "It is indisputable that the being whose capacities of enjoyment are low has the greatest chance of having them fully satisfied; and a highly endowed being will always feel that any happiness which he can look for, as the world is constituted, is imperfect."
Although, then, "the foundation of the whole" is not to expect from life more than it is capable of bestowing, we are actually to prefer becoming highly endowed, although we cannot expect life to satisfy the corresponding aspirations. That is to say, although seeking for happiness, we are to prefer the course in which we are approximately certain of not obtaining it.
But Mill goes on to give some explanations. He says that the highly endowed being can learn to bear the imperfections of his happiness, "if they are at all bearable" (p. 14). This is small comfort if they happen to be not at all bearable, an alternative which is not further pursued by Mill. And will not this intolerable fate be most likely to befall those whose aspirations have been pitched most highly? But Mill goes on:
"They (that is, the imperfections of life or happiness?) will not make him envy the being who is indeed unconscious of the imperfections, but only because he feels not at all the good which those imperfections qualify. It is better to be a human being dissatisfied, than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied, than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, is of a different opinion, it is because they only know their own side of the question. The other party to the comparison knows both sides."
Concerning this position of affairs the most apposite remark I can make is contained in the somewhat trite and vulgar saying, "Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise." If Socrates is pretty sure to be dissatisfied, and yet, owing to his wisdom, cannot help wishing to be Socrates, he seems to have no chance of that individual happiness which depends on being satisfied, and not expecting from life more than it is capable of bestowing. The great majority of people who do not know what it is like to be Socrates, are surely to be congratulated that they can, without scruple or remorse, seek a prize of happiness which there is a fair prospect of securing. But Mill tells us that those who choose the lower life do so "because they only know their own side of the question. The other party to the comparison knows both sides." Then Mill introduces a paragraph, already partially quoted, in which he allows that men often do, from infirmity of character, make their selection for the nearer good, though they know it to be the less valuable. Many who begin with youthful enthusiasm for everything noble, sink in later years into indolence and selfishness. The capacity for the nobler feelings is easily killed, and men lose their high aspirations because they have not time and opportunity for indulging them. I submit that, from Mill's point of view, these are all valid reasons why they should not choose the higher life. We are considering here, not those who have always been devoid of the nobler feelings, but those who have in earlier life been full of enthusiasm and high aspirations. If such men, with few exceptions, decide eventually in favour of the lower life, they are parties who do know both sides of the comparison, and deliberately choose not to be Socrates, with the prospect of the very imperfect happiness (probably involving short rations) which is incident to the life of Socrates.
Mill, indeed, calmly assumes that the vote goes in his own and Socrates' favour. He says (p. 15):
"From this verdict of the only competent judges, I apprehend there can be no appeal. On a question which is the best worth having of two pleasures, or which of two modes of existence is the most grateful to the feelings, apart from its moral attributes and from its consequences, the judgment of those who are qualified by knowledge of both, or, if they differ, that of the majority among them, must be admitted as final. And there need be the less hesitation to accept this judgment respecting the quality of pleasures, since there is no other tribunal to be referred to, even on the question of quantity. What means are there of determining which is the acutest of two pains, or the intensest of two pleasurable sensations, except the general suffrage of those who are familiar with both?"
Now, were we dealing with a writer of average logical accuracy there would be considerable presumption that when he adduces evidence and claims a result in his own favour in this confident way, there would be some ground for the claim. But my scrutiny of Mill's "System of Logic" has taught me caution in admitting such presumptions in respect of his writings, and here is a case in point. He claims that the suffrage of the majority is in favour of Socrates' life, although he has admitted that the vast majority of men somehow or other elect not to be Socrates. He assumes, indeed, that this is because their aspirations have been first killed off by unfavourable circumstances; his only residuum of fact is contained in this somewhat hesitating conclusion already quoted:—
"It may be questioned whether any one who has remained equally susceptible to both classes of pleasures, ever knowingly and calmly preferred the lower; though many, in all ages, have broken down in an ineffectual attempt to combine both."
Although, then, millions and millions are continually deciding against Socrates' life, for one reason or another (and many in all ages who make the ineffectual attempt at a combination break down), Mill gratuitously assumes that they are none of them competent witnesses, because they must have lost their higher feelings before they could have descended to the lower level; then the comparatively few who do choose the higher life and succeed in attaining it are adduced as giving a large majority, or even a unanimous vote in favour of their own choice. I submit that this is a fallacy probably to be best classed as a petitio principii; Mill entirely begs the question when he assumes that every witness against him is an incapacitated witness, because he must have lost his capacity for the nobler feelings before he could have decided in favour of the lower.
The verdict which Mill takes in favour of his high-quality pleasures is entirely that of a packed jury. It is on a par with the verdict which would be given by vegetarians in favour of a vegetable diet. No doubt, those who call themselves vegetarians would almost unanimously say that it is the best and highest diet; but then, all those who have tried such diet and found it impracticable have disappeared from the jury, together with all those whose common sense, or scientific knowledge, or weak state of health, or other circumstances, have prevented them from attempting the experiment. By the same method of decision, we might all be required to get up at five o'clock in the morning and do four hours of head-work before breakfast, because the few hard-headed and hard-bodied individuals who do this sort of thing are unanimously of opinion that it is a healthly and profitable way of beginning the day.
Of course, it will be understood that I am not denying the moral superiority of some pleasures and courses of life over others. I am only showing that Mill's attempt to reconcile his ideas on the subject with the Utilitarian theory hopelessly fails. The few pleasant pages in which he makes this attempt (Utilitarianism, pp. 8-28), form, in fact, a most notable piece of sophistical reasoning. Much of the interest of these undoubtedly interesting passages arises from the kaleidoscopic way in which the standing difficulties of ethical science are woven together, as if they were logically coherent in Mill's mode of presentation. The ideas involved are as old as Plato and Aristotle. The high aspirations correspond to τὸ καλὸν of Plato. The superior man who can judge both sides of the question is the βέλτιστος ἀνήρ of Aristotle. The Utilitarian doctrine is that of Epicurus. Now, Mill managed to persuade himself that he could in twenty pages reconcile the controversies of ages.
Nor is it to be supposed that Bentham, in making his analysis of the conditions of pleasure, overlooked the difference of high and low; he did not overlook it at all—he analyzed it. A pleasure to be high must have the marks of intensity, length, certainty, fruitfulness, and purity, or of some of these at least; and when we take Altruism into account, the feelings must be of wide extent—that is, fruitful of pleasure and devoid of evil to great numbers of people. It is a higher pleasure to build a Free Library than to establish a new Race Course; not because there is a Free-Library-building emotion, which is essentially better than a Race-Course-establishing emotion, each being a simple unanalyzable feeling; but because we may, after the model of inquiry given by Bentham, resolve into its elements the effect of one action and the other upon the happiness of the community. Thus, we should find that Mill proposed to give "geniality" to the Utilitarian philosophy by throwing into confusion what it was the very merit of Bentham to have distinguished and arranged scientifically. We must hold to the dry old Jeremy, if we are to have any chance of progress in Ethics. Mill, at some "crisis in his mental history," decided in favour of a genial instead of a logical and scientific Ethics, and the result is the mixture of sentiment and sophistry contained in the attractive pages under review.
In order to treat adequately of Mill's ethical doctrines it would no doubt be necessary to go on to other parts of the Essays, and to inquire how he treats other moral elements, such as the Social or Altruistic Feelings. The existence of such feelings is admitted on p. 46, and, indeed, insisted on as a basis of powerful natural sentiment, constituting the strength of the Utilitarian morality. But it would be an endless work to examine all phases of Mill's doctrines, and to show whether or not they are logically consistent inter se. They are really not worth the trouble. Just let us notice, however, how he treats the question whether moral feelings are innate or not. On this point Mill gives (p. 45) the following characteristic deliverance:—"If, as is my own belief, the moral feelings are not innate, but acquired, they are not for that reason the less natural. It is natural to man to speak, to reason, to build cities, to cultivate the ground, though these are acquired faculties. The moral feelings are not indeed a part of our nature, in the sense of being in any perceptible degree present in all of us; but this, unhappily, is a fact admitted by those who believe the most strenuously in their transcendental origin. Like the other acquired capacities above referred to, the moral faculty, if not a part of our nature, is a natural outgrowth from it; capable, like them, in a certain small degree, of springing up spontaneously; and susceptible of being brought by cultivation to a high degree of development." If life were long enough, I should like, with the assistance of the "Methods of Ethics," to analyze the ideas involved in this passage. I can merely suggest the following questions:—If acquired capacities are equally natural with those not acquired, what is the use of introducing a distinction without a difference? If moral feelings can spring up spontaneously, even in the smallest degree, and then be developed by "natural outgrowths," how do any of our feelings differ from natural ones? What does Mill mean, at the top of the next page, by speaking of "moral associations which are wholly of artificial creation?" Are these also not the less natural because they are of artificial creation? If not, we should like to know how to draw the line between acquired and artificial capacities. How, again, are we to interpret the use of the word natural, on p. 50, where, speaking of the deeply-rooted conception which every individual even now has of himself as a social being, he says—
"This feeling in most individuals is much inferior in strength to their selfish feelings, and is often wanting altogether. But to those who have it, it possesses all the characters of a natural feeling. It does not present itself to their minds as a superstition of education," &c.
Here a natural feeling is contrasted to the product of education, although we were before told that acquired capacities, like speaking, building, cultivating, were none the less natural. But I must candidly confess that when Mill introduces the words nature and natural, I am completely baffled. I give it up. I can no longer find any logical marks to assist me in tracking out his course of thought. The word nature may be Mill's key to a profound philosophy; but I rather think it is the key to many of his fallacies.
I often amuse myself by trying to imagine what Bentham would have said of Benthamism expounded by Mill. Especially would it be interesting to hear Bentham on Mill's use of the word "natural." No passage in which Bentham analyzes the meaning of "nature," or "natural," occurs to me, but the following is his treatment of the word "unnatural," as employed in Ethics:—
"Unnatural, when it means anything, means unfrequent: and there it means something; although nothing to the present purpose. But here it means no such thing: for the frequency of such acts is perhaps the great complaint. It therefore means nothing; nothing, I mean, which there is in the act itself. All it can serve to express is, the disposition of the person who is talking of it: the disposition he is in to be angry at the thoughts of it."[84]
Would that the grand old man, as he still sits benignly pondering in his own proper bones and clothes, in the upper regions of a well-known institution, could be got to deliver himself in like style about feelings which are not the less natural because they are acquired.
Before passing on, however, I must point out, in the extract from p. 45, the characteristic habit which Mill has of minimizing things which he is obliged to admit. Instead of denying straightforwardly that we have moral feelings, he says they are not present in all of us in any "perceptible degree." The moral faculty is capable of springing up spontaneously "in a certain small degree." This will remind every reader of the way in which, in his "Essays on Religion," instead of flatly adopting Atheism or Theism, which are clear logical negatives each of the other, he concludes that though God is almost proved not to exist, He may possibly exist, and we must "imagine" this chance to be as large as we can, though it belongs only "to one of the lower degrees of probability." Exactly the same manner of meeting a weighty question will be discovered again in his demonstration of the non-existence of necessary truths. I shall hope to examine carefully his treatment of this important part of philosophy on a future occasion. We shall then find, I believe, that his argument proves non-existence of such things as necessary truths, because those truths which cannot be explained on the association principle are very few indeed. I beg pardon for introducing an incongruous illustration, but Mill's manner of minimizing an all-important admission often irresistibly reminds me of the young woman who, being taxed with having borne a child, replied that it was only a very small one.
Such are the intricacies and wide extent of ethical questions, that it is not practicable to pursue the analysis of Mill's doctrine in at all a full manner. We cannot detect the fallacious reasoning with the same precision as in matters of geometric and logical science. This analysis is the less needful too, because, since Mill's Essays appeared, Moral Philosophy has undergone a revolution. I do not so much allude to the reform effected by Mr. Sidgwick's "Methods of Ethics," though that is a great one, introducing as it does a precision of thought and nomenclature which was previously wanting. I allude, of course, to the establishment of the Spencerian Theory of Morals, which has made a new era in philosophy.[85] Mill has been singularly unfortunate from this point of view. He might be defined as the last great philosophic writer conspicuous for his ignorance of the principles of evolution. He brought to confusion the philosophy of his master, Bentham; he ignored that which was partly to replace, partly to complete it.
I am aware that, in her Introductory Notice to the Essays on Religion (p. viii.), Miss Helen Taylor apologizes for Mill having omitted any references to the works of Mr. Darwin and Sir Henry Maine "in passages where there is coincidence of thought with those writers, or where subjects are treated which they have since discussed in a manner to which the Author of these Essays would certainly have referred had their works been published before these were written."[86] Here it is implied that Mill anticipated the authors of the Evolution philosophy in some of their thoughts, and it is a most amiable and pardonable bias which leads Miss Taylor to find in the works of one so dear to her that which is not there. The fact is that the whole tone of Mill's moral and political writings is totally opposed to the teaching of Darwin and Spencer, Taylor and Maine. Mill's idea of human nature was that we came into the world like lumps of soft clay, to be shaped by the accidents of life, or the care of those who educate us. Austin insisted on the evidence which history and daily experience afford of "the extraordinary pliability of human nature," and Mill borrowed the phrase from him.[87] No phrase could better express the misapprehensions of human nature which, it is to be hoped, will cease for ever with the last generation of writers. Human nature is one of the last things which can be called "pliable." Granite rocks can be more easily moulded than the poor savages that hide among them. We are all of us full of deep springs of unconquerable character, which education may in some degree soften or develop, but can neither create nor destroy. The mind can be shaped about as much as the body; it may be starved into feebleness, or fed and exercised into vigour and fulness; but we start always with inherent hereditary powers of growth. The non-recognition of this fact is the great defect in the moral system of Bentham. The great Jeremy was accustomed to make short work with the things which he did not understand, and it is thus he disposes of "the pretended system" of a moral sense:[88]
"One man says he has a thing made on purpose to tell him what is right and what is wrong, and that it is called a moral sense; and then he goes to his work at his ease, and says such a thing is right and such a thing is wrong—Why? because my moral sense tells me it is."
Bentham then bluntly ignored the validity of innate feelings, but this omission, though a great defect, did not much diminish the value of his analysis of the good and bad effects of actions. Mill discarded the admirable Benthamist analysis, but failed to introduce the true Evolutionist principles; thus he falls between the two. It is to Herbert Spencer we must look for a more truthful philosophy of morals than was possible before his time.
The publication of the first part of his Principles of Morality, under the title "The Data of Ethics," gives us, in a definite form, and in his form, what we could previously only infer from the general course of his philosophy and from his brief letter on Utilitarianism addressed to Mill. Although but fragments, these writings enable us to see that a definite step has been made in a matter debated since the dawn of intellect. The moral sense doctrine, so rudely treated by Bentham, is no longer incapable of reconciliation with the greatest happiness principle, only it now becomes a moving and developable moral sense. An absolute and unalterable moral standard was opposed to the palpable fact that customs and feelings differ widely, and Paley, on this ground, was induced to reject it. Now we perceive that we all have a moral sense; but the moral sense of one individual, and still more of one race, may differ from that of another individual or race. Each is more or less fitted to its circumstances, and the best is ascertained by eventual success.
At the tail end of an article it is, of course, impossible to discuss the grounds or results of the Spencerian philosophy. To me it presents itself, in its main features, as unquestionably true; indeed, it is already difficult to look back and imagine how philosophers could have denied of the human mind and actions what is so obviously true of the animal races generally. As a reaction from the old views about innate ideas, the philosophers of the eighteenth century wished to believe that the human mind was a kind of tabula rasa, or carte blanche, upon which education could impress any character. But if so, why not harness the lion, and teach the sheep to drive away the wolf? If the moral, not to speak of the physical characteristics of the lower animals, are so distinct, why should there not be moral and mental differences among ourselves, descending, as we obviously do, from different stocks with different physical characteristics? Notice what Mr. Darwin says on this point:—
"Mr. J. S. Mill speaks, in his celebrated work, 'Utilitarianism' (1864, p. 46), of the social feelings as a 'powerful natural sentiment,' and as 'the natural basis of sentiment for utilitarian morality;' but on the previous page he says, 'if, as is my own belief, the moral feelings are not innate, but acquired, they are not for that reason less natural.' It is with hesitation that I venture to differ from so profound a thinker, but it can hardly be disputed that the social feelings are instinctive or innate in the lower animals; and why should they not be so in man? Mr. Bain and others believe that the moral sense is acquired by each individual during his lifetime. On the general theory of evolution this is at least extremely improbable."[89]
Many persons may be inclined to like the philosophy of Spencer no better than that of Mill. But, if the one be true and the other false, liking and disliking have no place in the matter. There may be many things which we cannot possibly like; but if they are, they are. It is possible that the Principles of Evolution, as expounded by Mr. Herbert Spencer, may seem as wanting in "geniality" as the formulas of Bentham. There is nothing genial, it must be confessed, about the mollusca and other cold-blooded organisms with which Mr. Spencer perpetually illustrates his principles. Heaven forbid that any one should try to give geniality to Mr. Spencer's views of ethics by any operation comparable to that which Mill performed upon Benthamism.
Nevertheless, I fully believe that all which is sinister and ungenial in the Philosophy of Evolution is either the expression of unquestionable facts, or else it is the outcome of misinterpretation. It is impossible to see how Mr. Spencer, any more than other people, can explain away the existence of pain and evil. Nobody has done this; perhaps nobody ever shall do it; certainly systems of Theology will not do it. A true philosopher will not expect to solve everything. But if we admit the patent fact that pain exists, let us observe also the tendency which Spencer and Darwin establish towards its minimization. Evolution is a striving ever towards the better and the happier. There may be almost infinite powers against us, but at least there is a deep-laid scheme working towards goodness and happiness. So profound and wide-spread is this confederacy of the powers of good, that no failure and no series of failures can disconcert it. Let mankind be thrown back a hundred times, and a hundred times the better tendencies of evolution will re-assert themselves. Paley pointed out how many beautiful contrivances there are in the human form, tending to our benefit. Spencer has pointed out that the Universe is one deep-laid framework for the production of such beneficent contrivances. Paley called upon us to admire such exquisite inventions as a hand or an eye. Spencer calls upon us to admire a machine which is the most comprehensive of all machines, because it is ever engaged in inventing beneficial inventions ad infinitum. Such at least is my way of regarding his Philosophy.
Darwin, indeed, cautions us against supposing that natural selection always leads towards the production of higher and happier types of life. Retrogression may result as well as progression. But I apprehend that retrogression can only occur where the environment of a living species is altered to its detriment. Mankind degenerates when forced, like the Esquimaux, to inhabit the Arctic regions. Still in retrograding, in a sense, the being becomes more suited to its circumstances—more capable therefore of happiness. The inventing machine of Evolution would be working badly if it worked otherwise. But, however this may be, we must accept the philosophy if it be true, and, for my part, I do so without reluctance.
According to Mill, we are little self-dependent gods, fighting with a malignant and murderous power called Nature, sure, one would think, to be worsted in the struggle. According to Spencer, as I venture to interpret his theory, we are the latest manifestation of an all-prevailing tendency towards the good—the happy. Creation is not yet concluded, and there is no one of us who may not become conscious in his heart that he is no Automaton, no mere lump of Protoplasm, but the Creature of a Creator.
W. Stanley Jevons.