Only by its effects do we know the power. We form by inferences our conclusions as to what takes place in the mind of a man, his motives and his capacity. Goodness or greatness that never expressed itself in action could never become the object of ethical approbation; it would not even exist in fact, but would rest upon a self-deception, upon an illusion. At least some inner activity, a longing and endeavor in the direction demanded by the ethical principle must manifest itself. The individual in self-judgment must often take refuge in this inner activity, and any deep-going, unpharisaical ethical estimation will have to follow him there;[122] but just here do we have a beginning of that which is demanded by the principle of welfare, except that in consequence of individual circumstances its prosecution is impossible.
[122] Compare my article "The Law of Relativity in Ethics" in the International Journal of Ethics, Vol. I. p. 37, et seqq.
Equally important as the principle that we can know the power only from the effects is the other principle that the effect need not appear at once. When good and great men are so often mistaken by their contemporaries the fact is explained by the circumstance that only a very wide-embracing glance can measure the significance of their efforts and activity. Their goodness and greatness is founded in the fact that their thought, their feeling, their will, comprehend far more than their short-sighted and narrow-minded contemporaries see. A long time may elapse before it is possible for them to be generally understood, and for what they have done to be assimilated. It is therefore by no means implied in the principle of welfare that people are to direct their conduct so as to be in accord with impulses and wants which men have at the moment. The principle of welfare demands in very fact that we should not shrink from the battle with prejudice and with inertia. The best thing, often, that we can do for others is to make them feel that they stand on entirely too low a level in their wishes and wants and do not make adequate demands generally. Thus, to take a single instance, the great artist often treads a solitary path ununderstood or even mistaken by the great mass. Yet in so doing he follows, perhaps without being aware of it, the principle of welfare,—if he rigorously observes the demands of art. He increases the mental capital of the species, and gives it a power which later on can operate in broad spheres. Only a short-sighted conception and application of the principle of welfare stops with the need of the moment and dismisses the consideration of the permanent conditions of life and the permanent sources of new life and new activity.[123]
[123] This last argument is taken from my Ethics (Danish edition, p. 94, German edition, p. 110).
2) The principle of welfare simply furnishes a norm which may be laid at the foundation of the testing of all classes of actions. But it by no means demands, as has at times been supposed, that consideration for welfare should also be the ground and motive for every act. We have recourse to general principles only in order to be able to set ourselves aright in cases in which direct judgment, instinctive feeling cannot determine the question presented, that is in cases of doubt, or when we have in view a systematic treatment of ethical questions. The ethical feeling may operate quite involuntarily and without real ratiocination, in that we can be moved directly by the act (whether possible or real) as it appears to us, just as in our æsthetical feeling we may without æsthetical reasoning be struck by the beauty of a work of art or of a landscape. Or, we follow with confidence the "unwritten laws" that are contained in custom, in tradition, and generally in so-called "positive morality." And in agreement precisely with the principle of welfare, is immediacy of this kind to be recommended and maintained, so long as it does not lead to the neglect of real problems and questions. It is the state of innocence out of which no one dare be wrested unnecessarily. Abstract principles become necessary aids when direct reliance fails; but frequently they can only be applied to individual concrete cases by the employment of a great number of complicated intermediary steps, and do not easily acquire a practical influence upon the will. Indeed, the principle of welfare may even demand quite different motives from ethical feeling or devotion to the requirements of positive morality. It is in fact most beautiful and best that a man should care for his wife and children because he loves them and not because his ethical instinct requires it. Where conscious duty has to be invoked in the innermost relations between man and man, it is as a rule a sign of an unfortunate state of affairs. Perfect love dispels not only fear but also duty.
In his "Ethics," at page 339, Wundt advances the following objection to the principle of welfare: "It is conceivable that a person should sacrifice himself for another; it is conceivable that a person should yield up life and possessions for definite ideal ends, for his country, for freedom, for religion, for science. But it has never come to pass, and never will, that people shall renounce a thing solely to increase the sum of happiness of the world." This objection overlooks the fact that the principle of the valuation of an act that is regarded as good need not be the motive to this act. The thought and feeling of the person acting may stop very properly at country, freedom, or any other ideal object, without the person's instituting any formal reflections whatsoever with regard to the reasons of the value of the ideal ends for which he sacrifices himself. But in systematic ethics or in practical cases of doubt we inquire what value and importance love of country, freedom, poetry, and science possess for human life. If, for example, freedom were not a good for a people, the individual would do wrong to sacrifice his life for it. It is never of course a question of the abstract notion of welfare of and in itself, just as in a single theoretical problem it is never a question of the abstract idea of cause. But in ethics we lay down the principle of welfare and in the theory of knowledge the principle of causality; endeavoring, thus, to go back through analysis to the final assumptions of our practical and theoretical intellectual activity.
3) It is no argument against the principle of welfare that pleasure must be so often bought with pain. Pain is in that case only the necessary transitional step, and the significance of the principle of welfare is precisely the requirement it makes that the duty of demonstration shall rest on those who maintain the necessity of such an intermediary step. Any infliction of pain must be supplied with a motive, whereas the feeling of pleasure in and of itself (that is if its causes do not at the same time produce additional painful effects) is justified. The principle of welfare simply says: Produce by thy conduct as much pleasure and as little pain as is possible! The degree to which it is possible to realise this demand, of this the principle in and of itself says nothing. A principle is not subverted by the difficulties of its application.
As experience teaches, there is a happiness that is not bought too dearly with pain. Clara's song in Goethe's "Egmont":
"Himmelhoch jauchzend, zum Tode betrübt!"
has been cited in disproof of the principle of welfare. But let us hear Clara to the end and note the last line of the song, in which she gives the result of the entire train of her emotion. She says: