[22] See Book iii. chap. [xiv.], where I explain my reasons for only giving a subordinate place to the conception of Perfection as Ultimate End.
[23] It may be doubted whether the latter ought properly to be termed a “good citizen,” and not rather a “faithful subject of the Czar of Russia.” But this doubt only illustrates the divergence to which I am drawing attention.
[24] Sometimes, as before observed, Politics appears to be used in a wider sense, to denote the theory of ideal social relations, whether conceived to be established through governmental coercion or otherwise.
[25] In writing this section I had primarily in view the doctrine set forth in Mr. Spencer’s Social Statics. As Mr. Spencer has restated his view and replied to my arguments in his Data of Ethics, it is necessary for me to point out that the first paragraph of this section is not directed against such a view of ‘Absolute’ and ‘Relative’ Ethics as is given in the later treatise—which seems to me to differ materially from the doctrine of Social Statics. In Social Statics it is maintained not merely—as in the Data of Ethics—that Absolute Ethics which “formulates normal conduct in an ideal society” ought to “take precedence of Relative Ethics”; but that Absolute Ethics is the only kind of Ethics with which a philosophical moralist can possibly concern himself. To quote Mr. Spencer’s words:—“Any proposed system of morals which recognises existing defects, and countenances acts made needful by them, stands self-condemned.... Moral law ... requires as its postulate that human beings be perfect. The philosophical moralist treats solely of the straight man ... shows in what relationship he stands to other straight men ... a problem in which a crooked man forms one of the elements, is insoluble by him.” Social Statics (chap. i.). Still more definitely is Relative Ethics excluded in the following passage of the concluding chapter of the same treatise (the italics are mine):—“It will very likely be urged that, whereas the perfect moral code is confessedly beyond the fulfilment of imperfect men, some other code is needful for our present guidance ... to say that the imperfect man requires a moral code which recognises his imperfection and allows for it, seems at first sight reasonable. But it is not really so ... a system of morals which shall recognise man’s present imperfections and allow for them cannot be devised; and would be useless if it could be devised.”
[26] I omit, for the present, the consideration of the method which takes Perfection as an ultimate end: since, as has been before observed, it is hardly possible to discuss this satisfactorily, in relation to the present question, until it has been somewhat more clearly distinguished from the ordinary Intuitional Method.
[27] Some further consideration of this question will be found in a subsequent chapter. Cf. Book iv. chap. iv. § [2].
[28] The difference between the significations of the two words is discussed later.
[29] As, for instance, when Bentham explains (Principles of Morals and Legislation, chap. i. § i. note) that his fundamental principle “states the greatest happiness of all those whose interest is in question as being the right and proper end of human action,” we cannot understand him really to mean by the word “right” “conducive to the general happiness,” though his language in other passages of the same chapter (§§ ix. and x.) would seem to imply this; for the proposition that it is conducive to general happiness to take general happiness as an end of action, though not exactly a tautology, can hardly serve as the fundamental principle of a moral system.
[30] See Book iii. chap. xi. § [1].
[31] ‘Ought’ is here inapplicable, for a reason presently explained.