NOTE TO CHAPTER IV.

[This note should come after the next chapter; but included, as it now is, in the copies of an edition printed from stereotype plates, it is put before the chapter because the typographical arrangements do not permit insertion at the end of it. The chapter should, of course, be read first.]

DOES the reader understand the argument of the foregoing chapter to constitute "a negation of the natural supremacy of Reason over impulse"? Does any part of it imply that "in short, Reason is to abdicate in favour of Instinct"? He will perhaps be startled at so strange a question; but he will be more startled on learning that the outcome of the argument has been described in the words above quoted; and that, too, by a writer of reputeMr. Sidgwick. See his Methods of Ethics, pp. 166-7.

In Mr. Sidgwick's statement are involved two grave misrepresentations. For one of them I can see but little excuse; and for the other I can find none. I will take first that which is least serious.

The title of the chapter is "Derivation of a First Principle.” Both the positive and negative elements of this first principle, are deduced from the laws of sentient life as carried on under social conditions. Primarily affirming the claims of the desires to satisfaction, the chapter secondarily affirms a fundamental limit to be recognized in the pursuit of satisfaction-a restraint upon impulse that is, on no plea whatever, public or private, to be relaxed.

In the argument defending this first principle, I have admitted "that the restriction it puts on the free exercise of faculties, though the chief, is not the sole restriction, and must be received without prejudice to further ones." But I have asserted that (To face p. 90.)

"these supplementary restrictions are of quite inferior authority to the original law": (again restrictions, be it observed, and not, as any one would suppose from the above description, relaxations). I have gone on to show that within the limits of equal freedom, which the original law formulates, the settling of these supplementary restrictions involves us in "complicated estimates of pleasures and pains." I have pointed out that while, in certain cases (as drunkenness), calculation of results is easy; in other cases (as in amount of mental labour) ascertainment by reason of the line between due and undue, is difficult. But I have contended that, kept within the rigid bounds set by the law of equal freedom, the individual may advantageously be left to restrain himself as best he can; because even where the guidance by conscious observation of results fails, it will be supplemented by the guidance of accumulated experiences not consciously reasoned about but unconsciously registered. I have argued that—

"although it may be impossible in such cases for the intellect to estimate the respective amounts of pleasure and pain consequent upon each alternative, yet will experience enable the constitution itself to do this; and will further cause it instinctively to shun that course which produces on the whole most suffering."

The clear meaning of this statement is that the reason of the individual, where it fails to estimate rightly, will have its judgments supplemented by the intuitive judgments which perpetuallyrepeated experiences generate. My assertion that the free play of the whole nature within the assigned limits, may safely be left to mould the character by adaptation, does not in the least imply that "reason is to abdicate in favour of instinct." The manifest aim of the chapter is to show what claims of the individual to act as he pleases, are to be held valid against the claims of other individuals to control him; and to show that, subject to the fundamental limitation necessitated by their equal claims, other individuals may most advantageously leave him to self-guidance, rational and instinctive. The conclusion is that, left free within these bounds which are never to be violated, each citizen, suffering and benefiting by his own conduct, and checking himself by his own judgments (wise or foolish as the case may be) will become adapted to the requirements of social life more

REASON VERSUS SENTIMENT.

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rapidly than when subject to additional restraints by the reason of Society, as embodied in law; since the reason of Society is inevitably vitiated by the ignorance and defective sentiment of the time, and its decisions, when legislatively established, are far less modifiable than are such decisions when left unestablished, and subject to correction by individual experiences.

Thus much for the first of these misrepresentations. Strange as it is, it is less strange than the further one embodied with it. Mr. Sidgwick says

"In short, it is so paradoxical to put forward, as the dernier mot of ethical philosophy, a negation of the natural supremacy of Reason over impulse; that I am perhaps wrong in understanding Mr. Spencer to take up so extreme a position. But I have examined the paradox carefully, because it only expresses, in an extreme form," etc.

I do not doubt that Mr. Sidgwick's argument gains clearness by presenting this paradox, even in a hypotheticallyqualified way; but I question the propriety of gaining clearness by representing me as holding, or apparently holding, so foolish a doctrine. I have shown that his statement is unwarranted, even when considered in connexion only with the subordinate argument above described. I have still to point out that it is diametrically opposed to the larger argument of which that forms a part. For the most conspicuous trait of the chapter quoted from, is the endeavour to establish by reason, a definite and absolute principle of restraint. And the aim of the work as a whole, is to deduce by reason, from this fundamental principle reached by reason, a set of derivative restraints. Instead of being true that "the dernier mot of ethical philosophy" as uttered by me, is "a negation of the natural supremacy of Reason over impulse"; it is, contrariwise, true that Reason, asserting the law of equal freedom and drawing inferences from it, is placed as supreme over all impulse, egoistic or altruistic, prompting breach of that law. The entire motive of the work is that of establishing judgments rationally formed, in place of unenlightened moral intuitions and vague estimations of results. For guidance by mere unaided sentiment it would substitute guidance by a definitely-formulated fundamental principle to which that sentiment emphatically responds; and for guidance

by the unscientific non-quantitative reasoning of mere empirical utilitarianism, it would substitute guidance by scientific or quantitative reasoning-reasoning pervaded by that cardinal idea of equalness, which alone makes possible exact conclusions.

I feel it needful to rebut these misrepresentations because they are more injurious than they would be did they come from a critic of no weight. Mr. Sidgwick's work has throughout an appearance of care, and candour, and discrimination, such as will lead his readers to assume that his description of my view is correct; or, at any rate, that it cannot be so wide of the truth as I have shown it to be.

April, 1875.

P.S.-It seems well to say that were I now to re-write this chapter the theological implications of the argument would be avoided. But exclusion of these would leave the ethical doctrine unshaken.