mine what is right. Let me recall the vagaries in the life of Goethe, whose great genius was so often in conflict with the morality of his time. Was he wrong in giving up Frederique and Lili from the fear that a permanent bond would damage his poetic productivity? Then there is the moral question of the marriage of men affected with syphilis, or other diseases which might influence the offspring. The problems of the continence of young peopie before marriage, of prostitution and of means of preventing conception are without doubt questions of great importance, the solution of which is extremely difficult from the point of view of morality. Differences of opinion are revealed in nearly everything relating to punishment. The question of the death penalty is much in dispute and requires numerous investigations of different kinds. Statistics have been collected to give information as to the utility or inutility of the death penalty. According to some results, capital punishment does not diminish the number of crimes, whilst according to others it has a real preventive effect. Punishments less violent than death, and particularly the punishments of children, are equally troublesome, and schoolmasters have difficulty in finding a solution.

The utilitarian theory of morality often finds it impossible to prove the advantage of the conduct it prescribes, and this the more because in many cases we do not exactly know who is to profit by it. Is the utility of any particular act to be considered so far as it affects relatives, members of the same religion, of the same country, or of the same race, or all humanity?

In face of these difficulties, many moral philosophers have given up the utilitarian theory and declared for an intuitive theory. The basis of morality is to be found in a

feeling innate in every man, a sort of social instinct urging him to do good to his neighbour, and which, by the voice of his own conscience, dictates how he ought to act much more precisely than could be done by any comprehension of the utility of his conduct.

It is certainly true that man is an animal living in society because of his need for association with other human beings. But whilst in the animal world the members of societies are actuated by an instinct which is blind and generally very precise, in man we find nothing of the kind. The social instinct appears in him in endless variety. In some of us love of neighbours is extremely highly developed, so that some persons are only happy when sacrificing themselves for the public good. They give all that they have to the poor, and often die for some ideal which is necessarily altruistic. Such examples are rare. Many men, however, profess an affection for some of their kind, devote themselves to their relations, their friends, or their compatriots, and remain practically indifferent to all others. Other individuals, again, have an even narrower sphere of affection, and take advantage of their fellows, either in their own interest or in that of their own family. Still more rare are the really wicked persons who have no love for anyone but themselves and who take pleasure in doing harm to those about them. Notwithstanding this diversity in the development of the social instinct, all men have to live together.

If it were possible to know the inner motives of men, these might be used as a basis for classifying conduct. Those acts might be described as moral which were inspired by neighbourly love, and those as immoral the motive of which was egoism. But it is seldom that the real motives are discovered; they lie deep down in the

individual mind, sometimes unknown even to the man himself. We can nearly always harmonise our acts with the dictates of our consciences and find reasons for the harm we inflict upon others. It is only rare natures that possess a conscience so delicate as to be always tormented lest they are not doing good to their neighbours.

In the course of life, men are disposed to attribute bad motives to their opponents. Such an attitude makes criticism easier and panders to the common wish to speak evil of one's neighbours. Notwithstanding the numerous precedents for such an attitude amongst politicians and journalists, it must be discarded from any serious study of morality.

The motives and the conscience are elusive elements of little use in any attempt to value human conduct. We have to fall back on the consequences of action. Now it is easy to show that the social instinct often leads to action which is not good. It frequently happens that men, acting with the highest and best intentions, do much harm. Schopenhauer long ago pointed out that morality based on sentiment is a mere caricature of real morality. Impelled by the altruistic wish to do good, men often lavish unreflecting charity and do harm to others and to themselves. In Timon of Athens Shakespeare depicted

A most incomparable man; breathed, as it were,

To an untirable and continuate goodness,

and who gave away to the right and the left, creating around him a cloud of parasites. He finally ruined him. self and became a hopeless misanthrope. Shakespeare put his verdict in the mouth of Flavius:

Undone by goodness. Strange, unusual blood,
When man's worst sin is, he does too much good.

Morality, founded purely on sentiment, has inspired the attacks on vivisectors which in all confidence spread evil amongst men.

It is a surprising result of the great complexity of human affairs, that society is sometimes better served by wicked acts than by acts inspired by the most generous feelings. Thus extremely rigorous measures of repression are often more successful than the half-measures employed by humane and charitable administrators.

The intuitive theory of morality has had no greater success than utilitarianism. Even if the sentiment of society were a true basis of moral conduct, it fails in actual practice. On the other hand, although utility is the object of all morality, it is in most cases so difficult to determine what is really useful, that utilitarianism breaks down as the foundation of morality.

We must look elsewhere for principles which can guide us towards right conduct.

II

MORALITY AND HUMAN NATURE

Attempts to found morality on the laws of human nature-
Kant's theory of moral obligation-Some criticisms of the
Kantian theory-Moral conduct must be guided by reason

EVEN in antiquity, there were efforts to find a basis for morality other than the precepts of religion based on revelation, but the failure of such attempts has long been admitted. In the first chapter of The Nature of Man, I described such efforts to find a basis for morality in human nature itself. The Epicureans and the Stoics, although their doctrines were opposed, each claimed to set out from human nature. The principle is too vague for practical use, as human nature can be interpreted in very different fashions.

When several attempts to find a rational basis for morality had failed, Kant's theory appeared and was hailed by many as a real advance. None the less, it has not met with general approval and may be taken as a supreme instance of the failure to solve the great problem of morality by reason. I do not wish to deal with it at length, but a review of its main outlines is pertinent to my argument. According to Kant, morality cannot be founded on the feeling of sympathy, nor can it have as its object the happiness of men. Nature would have been an unskilful work