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These moralists press the analogy of mathematical truth. It must be
confessed, however, that a row of text-books on geometry, with so
scattering and indefinite a collection of axioms, would do little to
support one another; and little to convince us that they represented a
coherent and consistent body of truth in which we might have
unquestioning faith.

(3) It is not unnatural that some thoughtful intuitionists, dissatisfied
with a considerable number of independent moral principles, should aim at
a further simplification. Such a simplification Kant finds in the
Categorical Imperative, or unconditional command of the Practical Reason:
"Act only on that maxim whereby thou canst at the same time will that it
should become a universal law." [Footnote: _Fundamental Principles of
the Metaphysic of Morals_, Sec 2.] And Henry Sidgwick, refusing to
regard all intuitions as of equal authority, selects two only as
ultimately and independently valid--that which recommends a far-seeing
prudence, and that which urges a rational benevolence. [Footnote: _The
Methods of Ethics_, Book III, chapter xiii, Sec 3.] Those who make their
ultimate moral rules so broad and inclusive base upon them the multitude
of minor maxims to which men are apt to have recourse in justifying their
actions. Whether their doctrine may be called philosophical in a sense
implying commendation is matter for discussion.

92. ARGUMENTS FOR INTUITIONISM.--What may be said in favor of
intuitionism?

(1) It may be urged that it is the doctrine which appeals most directly
to common sense, and that it is found reasonably satisfactory in practice
by men generally.

Intuition appears to be, in fact, man's guide in an overwhelming majority
of the situations in which he is called upon to act. In the face of the
concrete situation he _feels_ that he should say a kind word, help a
neighbor, stand his ground courageously, speak the truth, and a thousand
other things which a moralist might, upon reflection, approve.

That he "feels" this does not mean merely that he is influenced by an
emotion. We constantly employ the word to indicate the presence of a
judgment which presents itself spontaneously and for which men cannot or
do not seek support by having recourse to reasons.

He who, without reflection, affirms, "this action is right," has framed a
moral judgment. He has in a given instance distinguished between right
and wrong, although he has not raised the general problem of what
constitutes right and wrong. He has exercised the prerogative of a moral
being, though not of a very thoughtful one.

We have seen above, that perceptional intuitionism tends to pass over
into dogmatic intuitionism of some sort, even in the case of minds little
developed. The egoistic rustic may defend his selfishness by citing the
proverb, "my shirt is closer to me than my coat." If he does so, it means
that a doubt has been suggested, a conflict of some sort called into
being. Were such conflicts, causing hesitation and deliberation, of very
frequent occurrence, life could scarcely go on at all. Conversation would
be impossible were no word placed and no inflection chosen without
conscious reference to the rules of grammar. No man could conduct himself
properly in a drawing-room or at a table, were his mind harking back at
every moment to the instructions contained in some volume on etiquette.
He who must justify every act by reflection is condemned to the jerkiest
and most hesitant of moral lives. Perceptional moral intuition must stand
our friend, if there is to be a flow of conduct worthy of the name.

There are, however, occasions for checking the flow by reflection. Then
men are forced to think, and we find them appealing to custom, citing
proverbs, quoting maxims, taking their stand upon principles. Recourse
may be had to generalizations of a very low or of a very high degree of
generality.

But low or high, it is upon intuitions that men actually fall back in
justifying their actions. Benevolence, justice, honesty, truthfulness,
purity, honor, modesty, courtesy, and what not, are intuitively perceived
to be right, and an effort is made to bring the individual act under some
one of these headings. The mass of men, even in enlightened communities,
do not feel impelled to justify these general moral maxims, to reduce
them to a harmonious system, or to reconcile with each other the
different lists of them which have been drawn up. They find it possible
in practice to resolve most of their doubts by an appeal to this maxim or
to that. From such doubts as refuse to be resolved they are apt to turn
away their attention. But the moral life goes on, and to intuitions it
owes its guidance.

As to the few who reduce the moral intuitions to a minimum, and, like
Kant and Sidgwick, end with one or two ultimate intuitional moral
principles, we may say that they, like other men, are compelled, in the
actual conduct of life, to turn to intuitions of lower orders. All sorts
of moral intuitions are actually found helpful by all sorts of men.

(2) To the minds of men differing in their education and traditions, and
at different stages of intellectual and moral development, very different
moral judgments spontaneously present themselves. It is not a matter of
accident that this man may "feel" an action to be right, and that man may
"feel" it to be wrong. There is evident adaptation of the judgments to
history and environment. They spring into being because the men are what
they are and are situated as they are.

It is this adaptation that renders the moral intuitions serviceable in
carrying on the actual business of life. It is more complete, the less
abstract the moral intuitions which come into play. Plato, who in his
"Laws" enters very minutely into the question of the permissible and the
forbidden in the life of the citizens of his ideal state, finds it
necessary to leave some things to the judgment of the individual. Thus,
he finds it impossible to determine exhaustively what things are, and
what things are not, worthy of a freeman. He leaves it to the virtuous to
give judgments "in accordance with their feelings of right and wrong."
[Footnote: Book XI; see the account of the occupations permissible to the
landed proprietor.] The intuitions of the mediaeval saint, of the upright
modern European, of the virtuous Chinaman, would have impressed him as
without rhyme or reason. He appealed to the Greek gentleman, whose sense
of propriety was Greek, and might be expected to be adjusted to the
situation.

(3) The intuitive judgment of a sensitive moral nature may often be more
nearly right than moral judgments based upon the most subtle of
reasonings.

It is not hard to find, with a little ingenuity, apparent justification
for actions which the consciences of the enlightened condemn at first
sight. Scarcely any action may not be brought under some moral rule, if
one deliberately sets out to do so. A narrow selfishness is defended as
caring for one's own; a refusal of aid to the needy is justified by a
reference to the evils of pauperization; patriotism becomes the excuse
for hatred, wilful blindness and untruthful vilification. To the
sophistries of those who would thus make the worse appear the better, the
intuitive judgment of the moral man opposes its unreasoned conviction.
That the conviction is not supported by arguments does not prove that it
is not a just one.

93. ARGUMENTS AGAINST INTUITIONISM.--What may be urged against
Intuitionism?

(1) It may be pointed out that such considerations as the above
constitute an argument to prove the value of moral intuitions, and not
one to prove the value of intuitionism as an ethical theory. That moral
intuitions are indispensable may be freely admitted even by one who
demurs to the doctrine that intuitionism in some one of its forms may be
accepted as a satisfactory theory of morals.

(2) Perceptional Intuitionism, at least, cannot be regarded as embodying
a rational theory or furnishing a science of any sort. Its one and only
dogma must be that whatever actions reveal themselves to this man or that
as right, are right, and there is no going behind the judgment of the
individual.

Shall we say to men: "In order to know what is right and what is wrong in
human conduct, we need only to listen to the dictates of conscience when
the mind is calm and unruffled"? [Footnote: THOMAS REID, _Essays on the
Active Powers of Man_, v, Sec 4.] As well say: "The right time is the
time indicated by your watch, when you are not shaking it." If men are to
keep appointments with each other, they must have some other standard of
time than that carried by each man in his vest-pocket.

Perceptional Intuitionism ignores the fact that consciences may sometimes
disagree, and that there may be a choice in consciences. The consistent
perceptional intuitionist is, however, scarcely to be found, as has been
said above; and we actually find those, some of whose utterances read as
though the authors ought to be adherents of such a school, dwelling upon
the desirability of the education of the conscience, i.e., upon the
desirability of acquiring a capacity for having the right intuitions. In
other words, they tell us to follow our noses--but to make sure that they
point in the right direction. [Footnote: See THOMAS REID, _Essays on
the Active Powers of Man_, iii, Part 3, Sec 8] In which case the
determination of the right direction is not left to perceptional
intuition.

(3) The Dogmatic Intuitionist has difficulties of his own with which to
cope. It is not enough to possess a collection of valid and authoritative
rules. The rules must be applied; there is room for the exercise of
judgment and for the possibility of error. Error is not excluded even
when the rule appears to be at only one or two removes from the
individual instance; where the rule is one of great generality the
problem of its application becomes correspondingly difficult. The
interpretation of the rule is not given intuitively with the rule. This
means that the rule must, in practice, be supplemented.

Always and everywhere, a straight line appears to be the shortest
distance between two points. What is meant by shortness hardly seems to
be legitimate matter for dispute. But the man convinced that he ought to
pay his workman a fair wage, and that he ought to do his duty by his son,
may be in no little perplexity when he attempts to define that fair wage
or that parental duty. If he turns for advice to others, he will find
that history and tradition, time, place and circumstance, very
perceptibly color the advice they offer.

The application of the general rule is, hence, quite as important as the
rule. There is no such thing as conduct in the abstract. Let us admit
that benevolence is morally obligatory. How shall we be benevolent? Shall
we follow Cicero, and give only that which costs us nothing? or shall we
emulate St. Francis? The general rule may be a faultless skeleton, but it
is, after all, only a skeleton, and it cannot walk of itself.

Again. The dogmatic intuitionist has quite a collection of rules by which
he must judge of his actions. They are severally independent and
authoritative. Suppose an act appears to be commanded by one rule and
forbidden by another? Who shall decide between them? Prudence and
benevolence may urge him in opposite directions. Benevolence and justice
may not obviously be in harmony. The rule of veracity may seem, at times,
to prescribe conduct which will entail much suffering on the part of the
innocent. To what court of appeal can we refer the conflicts which may
arise when ultimate authorities disagree? He who, in war time, can
conscientiously shoot a sentry, but cannot conscientiously lie to him,
may, later, have his misgivings, when the Golden Rule knocks at the gate
of his mind.

(4) Nor does he leave all difficulties behind him, who abandons Dogmatic
Intuitionism and takes refuge in Philosophical.

Kant's maxim needs a vast amount of interpretation. As it stands, it is
little more than an empty formula. What I can wish to be the law of the
universe must depend very much upon what I am. The lion and the lamb do
not thirst for the same law. To the quarrelsome heroes of Walhalla a
world of perpetual fighting and feasting must seem a very good world, in
spite of knocks received as well as given. Kant's fundamental maxim
scarcely appears to be a moral rule at all, unless we make it read: "Act
on a maxim which a _wise and good man_ can will to be a universal
law." But how decide who is the wise and good man?

The philosophical intuitionist who accepts more than one ultimate moral
rule must face the possibility that he will meet with a conflict of the
higher intuitions to which he has had recourse. Shall his intuitions be
those recommending a rational self-interest and a rational benevolence?
Can he be sure that the two are necessarily in accord? Can there be a
rational adjustment of the claims of each? Not if there be no court of
appeal to which both intuitions are subject. [Footnote: With his usual
candor, SIDGWICK admits this difficulty. He leaves it unresolved. See,
_The Methods of Ethics_, in the concluding chapter.]

Furthermore, between the philosophical and the dogmatic intuitionist
serious differences of opinion may be expected to arise. He who makes,
let us say, benevolence the supreme law naturally allows to other
intuitions, such as justice and veracity, but a derivative authority. It
appears, then, that there may be occasions on which they are not valid.
To some famous intuitionists this has seemed to be a pernicious doctrine.

"We are," writes Bishop Butler, "constituted so as to condemn falsehood,
unprovoked violence, injustice, and to approve of benevolence to some
preferably to others, abstracted from all consideration, which conduct is
likeliest to produce an overbalance of happiness or misery." [Footnote:
Dissertations appended to the "Analogy," II, _Of the Nature of
Virtue_. Cf. DUGALD STEWART, _Outlines of Moral Philosophy_, Part
2, Sec 348.]

Butler thought that justice should be done though the heavens fall; the
philosophical intuitionist must maintain that the danger of bringing down
the heavens is never to be lost sight of. But this doctrine that there
are intuitions and intuitions, some ultimately authoritative and others
not so, raises the whole question of the validity of intuitions. How are
we to distinguish those that are always valid from others? By intuition?
Intuition appears to be discredited. And if it is proper to demand proof
that justice should be done and the truth spoken, why may one not demand
proof that men should be prudent and benevolent? One may talk of "an
immediate discernment of the nature of things by the understanding" in
the one case as in the other. If error is possible there, why not here?

94. THE VALUE OF MORAL INTUITIONS.--It would not be fair to close this
chapter on intuitionism, an ethical theory competing with others for our
approval, without emphasizing the value of the role played by the moral
intuitions.

They are the very guide of life, and without them our reasonings would be
of little service. They should be treated gently, gratefully, with
reverence. To them human societies owe their stability, their capacity
for an orderly development, the smooth working of the machinery of daily
life. Their presence does not exclude the employment of reasoning, but
they furnish a basis upon which the reason can occupy itself with profit.
They are a safeguard against those utopian schemes which would shatter
our world and try experiments in creation out of nothing.

Nevertheless, he who busies himself with ethics as science must study
them critically and strive to estimate justly their true significance. He
may come to regard them, not as something fixed and changeless, but as
living and developing, coming into being, and modifying themselves, in
the service of life. Does he dishonor them who so views them?

CHAPTER XXIV

EGOISM

95. WHAT IS EGOISM?--Egoism has been defined as "any ethical system in
which the happiness or good of the individual is made the main criterion
of moral action," [Footnote: _Encyclopedia Britannica_, 11th
edition.] or as "the doing or seeking of that which affords pleasure or
advantage to oneself, in distinction to that which affords pleasure or
advantage to others." [Footnote: _Century Dictionary_.]

It may strike the average reader as odd to be told that such definitions
bristle with ambiguities, and that it is by no means easy to draw a sharp
line between doctrines which everyone would admit to be egoistic, and
others which seem more doubtfully to fall under that head. "Happiness,"
"good," "advantage," "self," all are terms which call for scrutiny, and
which set pitfalls for the unwary.

96. CRASS EGOISMS.--We may best approach the subject of what may properly
be regarded as constituting egoism, by turning first to one or two
"terrible examples."

No one would hesitate to call egoistic the doctrine of Aristippus, the
Cyrenaic, the errant disciple of Socrates. He made pleasure the end of
life, and taught that it might be sought without a greater regard to
customary morality than was made prudent by the penalties to be feared as
a consequence of its violation. Where the centre of gravity of the system
of the Cyrenaics falls is evident from their holding that "corporeal
pleasures are superior to mental ones," and that "a friend is desirable
for the use which we can make of him." [Footnote: Diogenes Laertius,
_Lives of the Philosophers,_ "Aristippus," viii.]

The doctrine of the English philosopher, Thomas Hobbes, is as
unequivocally egoistic.

"Of the voluntary acts of every man," he writes, [Footnote:
_Leviathan,_ Part I, xiv.] "the object is some good to himself;" and
again, [Footnote _Ibid_. xv.] "no man giveth, but with intention of
good to himself; because gift is voluntary; and of all voluntary acts the
object is to every man his own good."

He leaves us in no doubt as to the sort of good which he conceives men to
seek when they practice what has the appearance of generosity. Contract
he calls a mutual transference of rights, and he distinguishes gift from
contract as follows:

"When the transferring of right is not mutual, but one of the parties
transferreth, in hope to gain thereby friendship, or service from
another, or from his friends, or in hope to gain the reputation of
charity or magnanimity, _or to deliver his mind from the pain of
compassion_, or in hope of reward in heaven, this is not contract but
gift, free gift, grace, which words signify the same thing." [Footnote:
_Ibid_. I, xiv. The italics are mine. It was thus that Hobbes
accounted for his giving a sixpence to a beggar: "I was in pain to
consider the miserable condition of the old man; and now my alms, giving
him some relief, doth also ease me." _Hobbes_, by G. C. ROBERTSON,
Edinburgh, 1886, p. 206.]

There is a passage from the pen of the British divine, Paley, which
appears to merit a place alongside of the citations from Hobbes, widely
as the men differ in many of their views. It reads:

"We can be obliged to nothing but what we ourselves are to gain or lose
something by; for nothing else can be a 'violent motion' to us. As we
should not be obliged to obey the laws, or the magistrate, unless rewards
or punishments, pleasure or pain, somehow or other, depended upon our
obedience; so neither should we, without the same reason, be obliged to
do what is right, to practice virtue, or to obey the commandments of
God." [Footnote: _Moral Philosophy,_ Book II, chapter ii.]

97. EQUIVOCAL EGOISM?--The above is unquestionably egoism. The man who
accepts such a doctrine and consistently walks in the light must be set
down as self-seeking. But self-seeking, as understood by different men,
appears to take on different aspects. Shall we class all those who
frankly accept it as man's only ultimate motive with Aristippus and
Epicurus and Hobbes?

Thomas Hill Green writes: "Anything conceived as good in such a way that
the agent acts for the sake of it, must be conceived as his own good."
[Footnote: _Prolegomena to Ethics,_ Sec 92.] The motive to action is,
he maintains, always "some idea of the man's personal good." [Footnote: Sec
Sec 95, 97.] He does not hesitate to say that a man necessarily lives for
himself; [Footnote: Sec 138.] and he calls "the human self or the man"
[Footnote: Sec 99.] a self-seeking ego, a self-seeking subject, and a self-
seeking person. [Footnote: Sec Sec 98, 100, 145.]

Were Green's book a lost work, only preserved to the memories of men by
such citations as the above, the author would certainly be relegated to a
class of moralists with which he had, in fact, little sympathy.

But the book is not lost, and by turning to it we find Green continuing
the first of the above citations with the words: "Though he may conceive
it as his own good only on account of his interest in others, and in
spite of any amount of suffering on his own part incidental to its
attainment." He is willing to grant the self-seeking ego an eye single to
its own interests, but he is careful to explain that: "These are not
merely interests dependent on other persons for the means to their
gratification, but interests in the good of those other persons,
interests which cannot be satisfied without the consciousness that those
other persons are satisfied." [Footnote: Sec 199.]

When Hobbes gave an account of "the passions that incline men to peace,"
[Footnote: _Leviathan,_ I, xiii.] he made no mention of the social
nature of man. That nature Green conceives to be so essentially social
that the individual cannot disentangle his own good from the good of his
fellows. To live "for himself," since that self is a social self, means
to live for others. May this fairly be called egoistic doctrine?

98. WHAT IS MEANT BY THE SELF?--It is sufficiently clear that the
happiness, or good, or advantage, or interests of the individual or self
may mean many things. It is equally clear that in our interpretation of
all such terms our notions of the nature of the self will play no
inconsiderable role. What is the self?

In his famous chapter on the Consciousness of Self, [Footnote:
_Psychology,_ New York, 1890, I, chapter x.] William James
enumerates four senses of the word. With three of these we may profitably
occupy ourselves here. He calls them the Material Self, the Social Self
and the Spiritual Self.

The innermost part of the material self he makes our body, and next to
it, in their order, he places our clothes, our family, our home, and our
property. They contribute to our being what we are in our own eyes, we
identify ourselves with them, and we experience "a sense of the shrinkage
of our personality" when even the more outlying elements, such as our
possessions, are lost. "Our immediate family," he writes, "is a part of
ourselves. Our father and mother, our wife and babes, are bone of our
bone and flesh of our flesh. When they die, a part of our very selves is
gone. If they do anything wrong, it is our shame. If they are insulted,
our anger flashes forth as readily as if we stood in their place."

It is obvious that the limits of the material self, as above understood,
may be indefinitely extended. There are men who feel about their country
as the average normal man feels about his home; and doubtless the
suffering of a stray beggar tugged at the heart of St. Francis as the
misfortune of wife or child does in the case of other men. How far abroad
our "interests" are to be found, and just what "interests" we shall
regard as intimately and peculiarly our own, depends upon what we are.

The Social Self James describes as the recognition a man gets from his
mates: "We are not only gregarious animals, liking to be in the sight of
our fellows, but we have an innate propensity to get ourselves noticed,
and noticed favorably, by our kind." Men certainly regard their fame or
honor as to be included among their interests, and they may value and
seek to obtain the good opinion of a very little clique or of a much
wider circle.

By the Spiritual Self is meant our qualities of mind and character--"the
most enduring and intimate part of the Self, that which we most verily
seem to be." Our interest in these it is impossible to overlook, and
their cultivation and development may become a ruling passion.

James's illuminating pages make clear that he who speaks of the advantage
or interest of the individual may have in mind predominantly any one of
these aspects of the Self, or all of them conjointly. The Self as he
conceives it may be a narrow one, or it may be a very broad one.

99. EGOISM AND THE BROADER SELF.--It may with some plausibility be
maintained that he who lives for himself may not properly be regarded as
an egoist and called selfish, if his Self is sufficiently expanded. May
it not, theoretically, include as much of the universe as is known to
man? And where can a man seek ends of any sort beyond this broad field?
On this view, all men are, in a sense, self-seeking, but only those are
reprehensibly self-seeking who have narrow and scanty selves.

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