P.S.—Much of the substance of the following book you have seen already, in two Essays of mine that were published in the 'Contemporary Review,' and in five Essays that were published in the 'Nineteenth Century.' It had at one time been my intention, by the kindness of the respective Editors, to have reprinted these Essays in their original form. But there was so much to add, to omit, to rearrange, and to join together, that I have found it necessary to rewrite nearly the whole; and thus you will find the present volume virtually new.
Torquay, May, 1879.
CONTENTS
[CHAPTER I.]
THE NEW IMPORT OF THE QUESTION.
| The question may seem vague and useless; but if we consider its real meaning we shall see that it is not so | [1] |
| In the present day it has acquired a new importance | [2] |
| Its exact meaning. It does not question the fact of human happiness | [3] |
| But the nature of happiness, and the permanence of its basis | [4] |
| For what we call the higher happiness is essentially a complex thing | [5] |
| We cannot be sure that all its elements are permanent | [7] |
| Without certain of its elements it has been declared by the wisest men to be valueless | [8] |
| And it is precisely the elements in question that modern thought is eliminating | [11] |
| It is contended that they have often been eliminated before; and that yet the worth of life has not suffered | [13] |
| But this contention is entirely false. They were never before eliminated as modern thought is eliminating them now | [17] |
| The present age can find no genuine parallels in the past | [19] |
| Its position is made peculiar by three facts | [19] |
| Firstly, by the existence of Christianity | [19] |
| Secondly, the insignificance to which science has reduced the earth | [23] |
| Thirdly, the intense self-consciousness that has been developed in the modern world | [25] |
| It is often said that a parallel to our present case is to be found in Buddhism | [27] |
| But this is absolutely false. Buddhist positivism is the exact reverse of Western positivism | [29] |
| In short, the life-problem of our day is distinctly a new and an as yet unanswered one | [31] |
[CHAPTER II.]
MORALITY AND THE PRIZE OF LIFE.
| The worth the positive school claim for life, is essentially a moral worth | [33] |
| As its most celebrated exponents explicitly tell us | [34] |
| This means that life contains some special prize, to which morality is the only road | [34] |
| And the value of life depends on the value of this prize | [35] |
| J. S. Mill, G. Eliot, and Professor Huxley admit that this is a correct way of stating the case | [36] |
| But all this language as it stands at present is too vague to be of any use to us | [38] |
| The prize in question is to be won in this life, if anywhere; and must therefore be more or less describable | [39] |
| What then is it? | [40] |
| Unless it is describable it cannot be a moral end at all | [41] |
| As a consideration of the raison d'être of all moral systems will show us | [42] |
| The value of the prize must be verifiable by positive methods | [43] |
| And be verifiably greater, beyond all comparison, than that of all other prizes | [44] |
| Has such a prize any real existence? This is our question | [44] |
| It has never yet been answered properly | [45] |
| And though two sets of answers have been given it, neither of them are satisfactory | [45] |
| I shall deal with these two questions in order | [47] |
[CHAPTER III.]
SOCIOLOGY AS THE FOUNDATION OF MORALITY.