On Mr. Spencer's Data of Ethics

by Malcolm Guthrie

At the outset, we distinguish the province of Reason, in which is included the calculation of the results of actions, and the devising of the best means for accomplishing a desired end without incurring pains and inconveniences. If a certain end is desired, the intellect has to forecast the outcome of different modes for effecting the desired result, and to discern that which secures the end with the fewest drawbacks. The end may be good or bad; the motives may be of the most elevated and generous character or they may be of the worst; but all the same, it must be duly considered what is the best means of securing it. What would be the result if I did this? on the other hand, would it not be better to do that? It will be seen that here there is no choice between motives, no dispute to settle between conflicting principles and passions, but only a kind of mental calculus or intellectual engineering. This state of the mind is sometimes taken to be the exercise of a choice, and it may be so; but it is of a different kind to that involved in self-rule, which we now approach.

As a power of very gradual growth must we regard that cognition, (with its subsequent establishment as an object and a motive in the human organism) which recognises the Self as a whole—as a whole at any given time, and as a whole extending over seventy years, and perhaps indefinitely longer!

Man's total self can become an object of thought and that object a motive, as distinguished from any of the particular motives of which it is made up. Man's future self may be an object of thought as well as the present; and man's Continuous Self may become a constant and all-predominating object of regard and interest—an all-absorbing motive. Indeed, so far may this go, that the long continuous self prospected after death may and has been so much an object of motive as to overshadow and dwarf every interest of the present. And if this Continuous Self is recognised by the Reason as the complete object, the one and chief motive—and it must be so since it includes every motive at every instant of time—then the Reason accords to it and claims for it a ruling position, a claim before which every other must give way. There is no doubt that this is substantially taught, although in different terms of exposition, in all ethical books and in all verbal precepts of good counsel.

The psychogeny of this development of the continuous self into an object and a motive is to be found in the intellectual recognition of the actual order displayed by nature in the processes of life. It is the harmonising of the volitional actions with the laws of natural change. We have seen that the process of life is the continuous adaptation of organism to environment. But this is a natural, non-volitional process. Change in the environment produces change of organism to correspond with it. When cognitions are developed the sequences of action are foreseen, the changes of environment are foreseen, the developments of organism are foreseen; a generalisation is made of all the factors, and logical conclusions drawn as to the necessary adaptations. Then follows a rational or intentional adaptation of organism and environment, due to the motive of Self which we have just considered; this rational or intentional adaptation may be either incidental or continuous, and the adaptation may be either of organism or of environment. And in this calculus the relation of the individual to the mass of individuals constituting society must be taken into account.

A man having regard to his continuous self finds himself in a certain position. The motive relating to the continuous self determines that his conduct shall be regulated by the best regard for that continuous self. And it must be admitted at once that technically it is not qualitatively related to any abstraction, such as virtue, &c., unless, indeed, virtue be interpreted as the establishment of such a harmony, but has regard purely to the establishment of the most harmonious correspondence between himself and his environment for the remainder of his life. It might be that such a resolve would result in a system of ethics, but we wish to limit the consideration to our special subject.

And, in the first place, we must recognise the quantitative character of such an adaptation. The self is surrounded by an enormous and highly complex environment; but it may, from heredity, or want of education, or perverse education, be a very narrow, poor, meagre, little self, having very few, weak, feeble correspondences with the environment. A pig in his stye may be well adjusted to his environment; but his correspondences with the external world are few in number and of small intensity. We would therefore assert with Mr. Spencer as a corollary from the continuous adjustment of the organism and the environment, not merely the establishment of a convenient modus vivendi, but an adjustment of the organism by enlargement of the number of its correspondences with the environment, so as to render the adjustment between organism and environment more perfect by making the former co-extensive with the latter. In proportion to the number of points of interest or correspondences established between organism and environment, so is the perfection of the continuous self. In this manner then Free Will or Self-Rule in its very nature is related to the conception of a continuous self towards which it acts as the object of a motive, and possesses also an ethical bearing with regard to the enlargement of the correspondences with the external world. For what is there of greater interest in the external world than the subjective individuals of our surroundings, the society of which we form a part, the mysterious past out of which we came and the dependent nations of the future which we are helping to make?

It is evident that in thus setting up the continuous self as an object, whose realisation is to be the ruling power in the regulation of conduct, (whether this self be the complete self we have just contemplated, or the incomplete self which we may happen to be, and to be pretty well contented with,) a certain amount of self-regulation will always be necessary in order to effect the object in view, and at occasional crises a very great amount of struggle and effort will have to be exerted in order to put down the influence of some active motive which would, by its hasty and blind gratification, mar the result of that line of conduct already decided upon as the best. Here will come in the conflict of passion with reason, and of impulse with prudence, which is really of the greatest practical interest in our study.

And here we find, as one of the chief motives in such a conflict, the motive of regard for the continuous self. It is not always a ruling motive. It is best that it should be so. The object of education and self-culture is to make it so. But at any rate it is a motive, and a strong one. In proportion to its predominance is the amount of self-rule, of self-control, and, as we read it, of Free Will.

Thus the rational regard for self becomes recognised as a motive. The Rational Volitional becomes the Emotional Volitional. It has been recognised in many philosophies under various names, advanced sometimes as a motive, sometimes as the very self of self, and sometimes designated by the term "self-determining power," &c.; but its true character and genesis is best explained by Evolution.

The great practical question is this: Has man the power of choice amongst motives? Has he the vaunted power of self-rule? and can he cultivate it?