By the word absolute as thus applied, Mr. Spencer does not mean to imply a right and wrong existing apart from Humanity and its relations. Agreeing with Utilitarians in the belief that happiness is the end, and that the conduct called moral is simply the best means of attaining it, he of course does not assert that there is a morality which is absolute in the sense of being true out of relation to human existence. By absolute morality as distinguished from relative, he here means the mode of conduct which, under the conditions arising from social union, must be pursued to achieve the greatest welfare of each and all. He holds, that the laws of Life, physiologically considered, being fixed, it necessarily follows that when a number of individuals have to live in social union, which necessarily involves fixity of conditions in the shape of mutual interferences and limitations, there result certain fixed principles by which conduct must be restricted, before the greatest sum of happiness can be achieved. These principles constitute what Mr. Spencer distinguishes as absolute Morality; and the absolutely moral man is the man who conforms to these principles, not by external coercion nor self-coercion, but who acts them out spontaneously.
To be fully understood, this conception must be taken along with the general theory of Evolution. Mr. Spencer argues that all things whatever are inevitably tending towards equilibrium; and that consequently the progress of mankind cannot cease until there is equilibrium between the human constitution and the conditions of human existence. Or, as he argues in First Principles (Second Edition, p. 512), 'The adaptation of man's nature to the conditions of his existence cannot cease until the internal forces which we know as feelings are in equilibrium with the external forces they encounter. And the establishment of this equilibrium, is the arrival at a state of human nature and social organization, such that the individual has no desires but those which may be satisfied without exceeding his proper sphere of action, while society maintains no restraints but those which the individual voluntarily respects. The progressive extension of the liberty of citizens, and the reciprocal removal of political restrictions, are the steps by which we advance towards this state. And the ultimate abolition of all limits to the freedom of each, save those imposed by the like freedom of all, must, result from the complete equilibration between man's desires and the conduct necessitated by surrounding conditions.'
The conduct proper to such a state, which Mr. Spencer thus conceives to be the subject-matter of Moral Science, truly so-called, he proposes, in the Prospectus to his System of Philosophy, to treat under the following heads.
PERSONAL MORALS.—The principles of private conduct—physical, intellectual, moral, and religious—that follow from the conditions to complete individual life; or, what is the same thing, those modes of private action which must result from the eventual equilibration of internal desires and external needs.
JUSTICE.—The mutual limitation of men's actions necessitated by their co-existence as units of a society—limitations, the perfect observance of which constitutes that state of equilibrium forming the goal of political progress.
NEGATIVE BENEFICENCE.—Those secondary limitations, similarly necessitated, which, though less important and not cognizable by law, are yet requisite to prevent mutual destruction of happiness in various indirect ways: in other words—those minor self-restraints dictated by what may be called passive sympathy.
POSITIVE BENEFICENCE.—Comprehending all modes of conduct, dictated by active sympathy, which imply pleasure in giving pleasure—modes of conduct that social adaptation has induced and must render ever more general; and which, in becoming universal, must fill to the full the possible measure of human happiness.
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This completes the long succession of British moralists during the three last centuries. It has been possible, and even necessary, to present them thus in an unbroken line, because the insular movement in ethical philosophy has been hardly, if at all, affected by anything done abroad. In the earlier part of the modern period, little of any kind was done in ethics by the great continental thinkers. Descartes has only a few allusions to the subject; the 'Ethica' of Spinoza is chiefly a work of speculative philosophy; Leibnitz has no systematic treatment of moral questions. The case is very different; in the new German philosophy since the time of Kant; besides Kant himself, Fichte, Hegel, Schleiermacher, and many later and contemporary thinkers having devoted a large amount of attention to practical philosophy. But unless it be Kant—and he not to any great extent—none of these has influenced the later attempts at ethical speculation amongst ourselves: nor, again with the exception of Kant, are we as yet in a position properly to deal with them. One reason, for proceeding to expound the ethical system of the founder of the later German philosophy, without regard to his successors, lies in the fact that he stood, on the practical side, in as definite a relation to the English moralists of last century, as, in his speculative philosophy, to Locke and Hume.