05 Happiness and the Good

CHAPTER V. HAPPINESS AND THE GOOD. IN The Descent of Man Darwin sets forth the following proposition which seems to him " in a high degree probable ": " That any animal whatever endowed with well-marked social instincts, the parental and filial affections being here included, would inevitably acquire a moral sense or conscience, as soon as its intellectual powers had become as well, or nearly as well developed as in man." His reasons he sets forth thus:

"Firstly, the social instincts lead an animal to take pleasure in the society of his fellows, to feel a certain amount of sympathy with them, and to perform various services for them. The services may be of a definite and evidently instinctive nature; or there may be only a wish and readiness, as with most of the higher social animals to aid their fellows in certain general ways. But these feelings and services are by no means extended to all the individuals of the same species, only to those of the same association.

Secondly, as soon as the mental faculties had become highly developed, images of all past actions and motives would be incessantly passing through the brain of each individual ; and that feeling of dissatisfaction, or even misery, which invariably results, as we shall hereafter see, from any unsatisfied instinct, would arise, as often as it was perceived that the enduring and always present social instinct had yielded to some other instinct, at the time stronger, but neither enduring in its nature nor leaving behind it a very vivid impression. It is clear that many instinctive desires, such as that of hunger, are in their nature of short duration, and after being satisfied are not readily or vividly recalled.

Thirdly, after the power of language had been acquired, and the wishes of the community could be expressed, the common opinion how each member ought to act for the general public good would naturally become in a paramount degree the guide to action. But it should be borne in mind that however great weight we may attribute to public opinion, our regard for the approbation and disapprobation of our fellows depends on sympathy, which as we shall see forms an essential part of the social instinct, and is indeed its foundation stone.

Lastly, habit in the individual would ultimately play a very important part in guiding the conduct of each member; for the social instinct, together with sympathy, is, like any other instinct, greatly strengthened by habit, and so consequently would be obedience to the wishes and judgment of the community." [Descent of Man, chap. iv.]

These four propositions on which the main proposition is made to depend are proved by Darwin, and proved as I cannot but acknowledge convincingly. But what I cannot see is that the main proposition is established. For I cannot under any of these four headings see a trace of conscience as I understand it. Darwin has not proved how man could thus have come to have a cognition of a moral ought; if he has established any ’ought’ at all it is only a prudential one: I ought to live for others if I want to be happy. There is no categorical ought: I ought to live for others. It may be that in speaking of the "mental faculties" Darwin meant to include what is here called moral reason, but this does not seem clear.

What is wanted before we can hope ever to get at the rationale of the conscience is that a perfectly clear idea should be formed of the function of moral reason. It is not enough to say that our happiness depends upon being in harmony with our fellowmen, or even upon our promoting the happiness of others, though this seems to me strictly true. The moral reason discerns the appropriateness of this fact, and not simply the fact itself. Experience may prove that the greatest happiness is found in contributing to the happiness of others; moral reason justifies this and tells us that it ought to be so. But in saying this I am making use of the expression ’ ought to be ’ which, as I have said in the second chapter, I think it better to avoid. I will then say that moral reason enables us to discern the fitness of the dependence of truest happiness on deliberate service and promotion of the happiness of others.

It seems desirable, as we have come to speak of happiness, to say something about Hedonism and Utilitarianism, and to point out what, as it seems to me, is deficient in both of them, and what is needed before the problem of the Good can be properly solved.

Hedonism says: " Seek your own happiness, not necessarily a selfish happiness, do those things which give you real satisfaction ; this is that which it is reasonable to do." Of course Hedonism can be made to seem contemptible, especially if we use the word ’pleasure’ instead of the word ’happiness,’ but it is my desire to see the best that Hedonism has to offer, and therefore I will make use of the word ’happiness,’ which sets the system in a more favourable light.

Utilitarianism says: "Seek to promote as much happiness in the world as you can. Let not the thought of your own happiness blind you to the need that others feel for happiness. Remember that you are only one among many. Seek the general happiness. This is reasonable."

Now it is most important to be perfectly clear what we mean when we speak of acting reasonably or according to reason. If I have made up my mind to some end, and I deliberate what means will bring it about, and adopt such as seem to me most likely to accomplish it, I so far act reasonably. It is reason- able to do that which will bring about a result which we desire and which will not effect some other result which we should desire to avoid. This action may be called reasonable. Only a being endowed with reason is capable of such deliberation as to means to an end. But this reason is not moral reason ; it is not what Kant calls " practical reason." It is reason determining action but not conduct. The end chosen and sought for is not dictated by reason, but the means thereto are known by reason. In this sense the Hedonistic system may be called reasonable. The Hedonist says: You desire happiness all of you. Make sure then what will produce it. Profit by the experience of past ages and by the experience of your own generation and learn which is the path of happiness, and then steadily follow it. What, it may be said, can be more reasonable than this? We must be meant to be happy, only we have to find out the conditions of happiness. Make these your study and you will then have a knowledge of life which will lead you into that which you desire.

Now this sort of argument is plausible. But let us be perfectly clear as to this point, that the quest for happiness, while it may be natural, has not its root in reason. Our own happiness as an end of our action is not, I maintain, prescribed by reason.

Reason which determines the end of conduct as distinguished from the means whereby that end can be reached is moral reason. Moral reason sets before us the worth or dignity of being. And I contend that a being who merely sought his happiness in indifference as to what would produce it, if only he could find it in the end, would appear to one endowed with moral reason as a being of a low order. The Hedonist’s advice is excellent for one who has made up his mind that all he cares for is to find his own happiness. But the Hedonist does not prescribe an end of life and human endeavour which justifies itself to the moral reason. The quest for happiness does not arise from the demands of reason. I do not say that it is unreasonable to seek for happiness. That indeed is a point which I do not attempt now to speak of, for it seems to me that it would be impossible to answer the question whether it is un- reasonable to seek for happiness or anything else unless we had it clearly stated what the word ’un- reasonable ’ was intended to mean. When we come to Utilitarianism the case is different. Utilitarianism by some of its upholders has laid claim to be based on reason. The end prescribed by the Utilitarian philosopher, namely universal happiness, is said to be in this sense reasonable. We must enquire then whether the Utilitarian formula of universal happiness is supported by the moral reason. In The Methods of Ethics [Book III. chap. xiii.] Professor Sidgwick has propounded two axioms of moral duty which are, according to him, ultimately reasonable. They are these: 1. I ought not to prefer a present lesser good to a future greater good. 2. I ought not to prefer my own lesser good to the greater good of another. These are, according to Professor Sidgwick, intuitively known moral duties.

Now when we come to examine them we must bear in mind first of all that ’ good ’ here means happiness. For I cannot find that the ultimate good is, according to Professor Sidgwick, other than happiness. We must then take these axioms to be: 1. I ought not to prefer a present lesser happiness to a future greater happiness. 2. I ought not to prefer my own lesser happiness to the greater happiness of another.

We have here an attempt on Professor Sidgwick’s part to meet the difficulty involved in the Utilitarian formula, as to how much of the general happiness that it is our duty to produce is to be our own happiness, and how much is to be the happiness of others. But here I find a great difficulty, for I fail entirely to see how the promotion of my own happiness is a moral duty. It may be prudent to promote my own happiness and to look for means for doing this, but I do not see that my moral reason makes any demand upon me to seek my own happiness. I do not see that a being who seeks his own happiness, even though he sacrifices present lesser happiness for the prospect of greater happiness to come afterwards, is on this account a being of greater worth or dignity. I can see that a being who seeks to promote the happiness of others is one whom the moral reason commends. I may admire a being who can calculate the happiness.-producing effects of certain kinds of conduct as clever, but he is not a higher moral being for all his cleverness When then I am confronted by Professor Sidgwick’s two axioms above quoted, I cannot assent to the first as a moral axiom, for the ’ ought ’ seems to be purely prudential, and the second does not seem to me at all obvious for reasons which I will now try to explain.

I contend that in promoting happiness in others in preference to the promotion of our own supposed happiness we really gain happiness ourselves far greater than any that we forfeit. And therefore in preferring the greater happiness of another to my own lesser happiness, I am all the while adding to my own happiness. In other words, the axiom is meaningless. And here, as it seems to me, lies the weakness of the whole Utilitarian philosophy. In so far as it insists on universal happiness, and on the duty of contributing to it, it really does appeal to the moral reason ; it is thus far reasonable. But when it begins to compare our own happiness with the happiness which we promote in others, it seems to me to go wrong. In fact the error of the system lies in interpreting the Good as happiness. It ignores the fact that what really appeals to the moral reason is not happiness itself, but the promoting of happiness in others. I recognise fully that I ought, actively and of deliberate choice, to increase the happiness of my fellowmen, but this increasing of the happiness of others does not detract in any way from my own happiness; quite the contrary, it adds to it. And in promoting the happiness of another I am all the while realising happiness for myself. This is the purest happiness that is to be experienced, and our moral reason tells us that it is fitting that it should be so.

According to many moral philosophers, and Professor Sidgwick is of the number, rational self-love is conceived of as a moral duty. Now it seems to me that it all depends on what you mean by self-love, as to whether it deserves to be called rational and whether it can be called a duty. If self-love means calculating what will produce most happiness for oneself and doing it because it will produce most happiness regardless of what it is save only that it be productive of happiness, I do not see that there is anything here that commends itself to the moral reason. I do not hold that there is any moral duty to me to realise my happiness or to exchange a lesser happiness for a greater one by prudential calculations.

Rational self-love, as I understand it, is a self-love which has its basis in the moral reason. It is essentially not selfishness. Too often by rational love is meant a sort of calculating by the aid of reason other than moral what will produce what result, and then doing that which will produce some result which we desire, and which will not bring about some result we do not desire. This may be prudence, but it is not the prudence of virtue. It does not proceed from self- respect. It has no moral quality, though it may show cleverness. It is not morally rational.

It may be said, Surely if you know that a certain course of conduct will bring you into eternal condemnation you ought to abstain from it? I would allow that it would be prudent so to do, but I fail to see that the ’ ought ’ is here anything but prudential. I have no cognition of a moral duty to save myself from eternal condemnation. I naturally desire not to be eternally condemned. It is not of the least use for instruction in morality to appeal to men and say, " You ought to do so and so, or you will suffer for it." You may teach them prudence of a kind, but not morality. I do not mean by this to imply that prudence is useless, only that it is not a moral quality. It may have utility, but it does not provoke our moral admiration independently of the end to which it is put. But to return once more to Utilitarianism. I recognise that this is the most Christian attempt to rationalise and to reduce to system human duty. John Stuart Mill held that in propounding Utilitarianism as a philosophy "of ethics he was all the while adopting the principles of Christ’s moral teaching. He was right, as it seems to me, in so far as Utilitarianism sets forth the happiness of all man- kind as worthy of our active consideration ; but I think that Utilitarian philosophy is wrong, and will come to see itself to be wrong as regards its interpretation of the Good in terms of happiness alone. At the same time I recognise that you cannot state the Good except by means of the term ’ happiness.’ I regard happiness as a necessary factor in any definition of ultimate Good, but, as I have already said at the end of the third chapter, the Good must contain an activity as well as a passivity. Happiness describes the state of the person affected by it. It is not there- fore the whole of the Good, lacking as it does the content of activity. The question that has to be answered in order to reach a conclusion as to man’s summum bonum is: What activity producing happi- ness is a perfect satisfaction to the moral reason? In setting myself in opposition to Utilitarian teaching I wish emphatically to state that I do not do so because I regard the whole as radically wrong. I do not at all. I think that in the form in which it has been so ably developed by Professor Sidgwick it is of great use and value in the systematising of ethical thought. But I am persuaded that as a philosophy of human life it is deficient, and this is shewn, as I contend, by its inability to interpret the Good save in terms of happiness, which is in itself suggestive of passivity and not of activity. Nor can I acquiesce in any view that the rationale of man’s moral nature lies in its being a contrivance for making human life happier only. It must, as I conceive it, have for its end the promotion of the Good, inclusive of happiness. But if happiness regarded, as a passivity only, be intended, why could not this have been brought about by infallible instincts, and why need there have been the dualism of man’s nature, which is that which is the cause of his dissatisfaction and general unhappiness? I cannot regard morality as merely a means for making the wheels of human life revolve more smoothly. At the same time, believing as I do in an absolutely Benevolent Creator such belief seems to me to be a demand of the moral reason I am convinced that man’s moral nature is a necessary step whereby he may be brought into perfect happiness a happiness which could not be experienced but for the preliminary discords from which we now suffer. Man’s slowness to read the mystery of his own nature seems to me to arise largely from his slowness to grasp the Perfection of Divine Being, by which alone that nature can be explained.

Any philosophy of human life which seeks to explain that life in terms of itself alone, and not in reference to God Himself, is I believe doomed to failure. Any attempt to harmonise its mysteries except by a knowledge of God is futile. Of course if the agnostic position be taken up and it be assumed as an axiom of philosophic thought that God is un- knowable by finite creatures such as man, the problem of the Good seems utterly hopeless. But the fact that our moral reason gives us the power to discern goodness, and to check and refuse to accept unworthy thoughts of God, seems to me to argue further that God is knowable, and that our knowledge of Him can be checked and purified by this same moral reason. That which gives us the ability to discern nobility of human life gives us also the power to welcome a message of the Perfection of the Divine Being which is brought to us in the form of a Perfect Human Character Whose words and life command the admiration of man’s moral reason to-day as they have done these now nearly nineteen centuries. But I doubt whether we have yet got to the real meaning of the Christian Revelation. It is surprising that the sublimity of its appeal to the moral reason of man should have been so often lost sight of, that it should have been even presented to man by its own professed teachers in a form little better than Hedonism. The theological thought of our day, how- ever, gives promise of better things. The grandeur of the Christian Revelation is being revealed to us I believe as it has never been seen before, and the modern doctrine of evolution enables us to understand much that has hitherto been obscure. But we must give up talking of the " sanctions of religion" as if these were but a system of rewards and punishments. We must cease to be Hedonists in spirit, for the Hedonistic spirit is cosmic and carnal, and it is this spirit which it is the function of the moral reason to correct. Moralists, if they would establish a philosophy of moral life, must take account of the Christian philosophy and try to understand what the Gospel really is. And it is, as it seems to me, quite useless to attempt to set up any system of moral philosophy without a metaphysical basis. Here lies I think a great deficiency in Professor Sidgwick’s Methods of Ethics. He owns that he purposely avoids metaphysics ; but how can the problem of the Good be solved without some theory of the meaning of life?

Before proceeding to set forth, as I intend to do in the remaining chapters of this essay, the Christian philosophy of life so far as it explains man’s moral nature, I think it will be well to collect together the results of this and the three preceding chapters. I have been trying to lay hold of some clear idea of what we mean by man’s moral nature, so as to understand what are the facts of which we have to give an explanation. It is not man’s social nature that we are seeking to explain; it is not his prudence, nor his cleverness, nor his marvellous instincts whereby human progress in civilisation is secured. By man’s moral nature I understand the possession by him of moral reason whereby he judges of the dignity of his own being. This moral reason which man holds in possession (some men have it more highly developed than others) makes its demands upon us in the conscience, calling upon us not to be led by the instinct of the moment, but to rationalise our instincts to a higher end than the enjoyment of the moment. The gratification of every instinct promises enjoyment, other- wise instinct would not be instinct. It is a property of instinct that when it asserts itself, some pain and discomfort is felt in the suppression of it. Man’s moral reason tells him that the mere gratification of instinct is not the end of his being. Reason requires of him to realise himself in some better way. Moral reason when it operates does not make man more clever or more prudent but benevolent. And we must ever bear in mind that Benevolence or Love is not the same as altruism. Altruism is instinctive, and has not its origin in the moral reason. It has utility and it may even furnish material for reflection on the part of the moral reason. But so far as it is not deliberate, not indulged for the sake of the end, but only for the gratification of the instinct of the moment, it is not moral.

Man’s moral reason does not set Happiness before him as the sole end of life. According to my view of the matter the deliberate promotion of happiness is as important as the happiness itself. This indeed is the demand of the moral reason, so far as it interrupts the ordinary course of instinctive action. It calls upon us to realise ourselves in the promotion of the happiness of others. It sets this before us as a worthy end of life and makes us see that to turn away from this is to turn away from a high and noble form of self-realisation. The Hedonist may ask whether it is worth while to adopt this form of self-realisation considering the extreme uncertainty and the shortness of life. He may argue that it is of no use to realise ourselves temporarily in such a way. Certainly I allow that the moral reason demands immortality as necessary for the explanation of man’s moral nature. But while I hold that Benevolence or Love is the end prescribed by the moral reason I do not hold that in the exercise of this man is forfeiting happiness for himself. Quite the contrary. I think he is finding a happiness which can nowhere else be found. But I should not think it right to appeal to men and to say that this is what they ought to do because it brings them happiness. I hold that the moral reason forbids us to set our happiness first, regardless of that whereby the happiness is to be found. The moral reason requires us to set before us as an end not merely the feeling of happiness but the activity whereby that happiness is produced. While the Hedonist is content with the maxim, ’ Seek your happiness,’ the moral reason says ’ Seek your happiness in the promotion of the happiness of others.’ In other words I take it that the Good does not only contain happiness but also the deliberate activity of its production.

It was Christian teaching that first solved the apparent contradiction between love of others and self-love. But this teaching is utterly obscured as often as love, which is rightly interpreted as pro- motion of good in the person loved, is taken to mean the promotion of the happiness of that person regard- less of the active cause of the happiness. In other- words when the Good is interpreted as Happiness only, the old contradiction returns in full force and cannot be evaded. Self-love, if it means only the promotion of the happiness of self, is not a moral quality at all. But if self-love be the realisation of the Good for self it may well be that there is no ultimate contradiction between self-love and love of others. The real problem then is: What is the Good? And the answer must be supported by moral reason and not merely by instinctive desires for happiness. Can the summum bonum be determined? I contend that it can, and that it is all the while contained in the teaching of Jesus Christ. But the cosmic spirit has so invaded the Church in the course of her history, and the selfishness and self-seeking of men have so often obscured the real teaching about God and man contained in the Christian Revelation, that mere travesties of the truth are set forth as if they were the truth itself, and serious enquirers into the principles of ethical philosophy have even been deterred from Christianity itself.

It is time that the old " Moral Governor of the Universe " theory should come to an end. This is not the Christian Gospel, which rather gives a Revelation of God Himself as an absolutely Perfect Being worthy to be loved and obeyed. The character of the Divine Being revealed by Jesus Christ perfectly corresponds with the demands of our moral reason. If it did not, Christianity could not be the final religion.

I spoke in an earlier chapter of the instinct of holiness that instinct of awe and reverence which primitive man has for the unseen causes of things seen. That somewhat blind instinct of holiness is capable of being purified and becoming the very highest of which man is capable. Men have not a crude belief in God or gods at first, only that it may at length be taken away from them altogether, but that it may be purified. This can only come about through knowledge the knowledge of God Himself. Can we know God? Has He revealed Himself? Can we find such a thought of Him as will perfectly satisfy the moral reason? If so, it may be that, as we use the epithet ’ good ’ of man as well as of God, and judge the goodness of God by the ethical qualities of man, the answer to the question, What is man’s Good? will be found in the knowledge of God Him- self. Such I contend is the case, and the remaining chapters of this essay must be devoted to this point.

I shall devote the next chapter to a general outline of the growth of the ethical conception of holiness in the Old Testament. Then I shall treat of the teaching of Jesus Christ on the Divine Fatherhood and the Kingdom of Heaven ; from this in the eighth chapter will follow a thought about God which, if true, solves the problem of the contradiction of man’s carnal and spiritual natures. Whether this thought is in keeping with the New Testament theology generally will be considered in the concluding chapters of the essay.

I think it will come to be recognised that the enlightened moral reason of our day is nothing less than the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Who is all the while taking of the things of Christ and shewing them to us.