law is counteracted. Hence we see, first, why epicureanism has always had, practically, in ordinary minds, a tendency to sensualism, which it certainly has not theoretically, because sensual pleasures are least of all diminished by directly pursuing them; and, secondly, why it has not had this tendency in philosophic minds, because in them the intellectual impulse is so strong originally as to resist the corrosive effect of the epicurean principle. But of a great part of our more refined enjoyments, intellectual and emotional, it seems true to say that in order to attain them, at any rate in their best form, the direction of our impulse must be objective, extra-regarding, not fixed upon our own sensations as its end. The activities upon which the pleasures attend seem to require a certain self-abandonment, incompatible with the conscious predominance of self-love. For example, the pleasures of thought and study (which the materialist Hobbes declares to be "far exceeding all carnal delights") can only be enjoyed by those who have an ardour of curiosity which carries the mind temporarily away from self and its sensations. In all kinds of Art, again, the exercise of the creative faculty is attended by intense and exquisite pleasures; but in order to get them, one must forget them; the gaze of the artist is always said to be rapt and fixed upon his ideal of beauty. Still more clearly does the law appear when we contemplate the sympathetic activities and susceptibilities. Even Professor Bain admits that the desire to give pleasure to, and remove pain from, others constitutes an exception to his general theory that each individual's volition is determined by his own pleasures and pains, actual or ideal; and it is upon the existence of this strictly unselfish impulse that the much-commended pleasures of benevolence depend.

So far I have insisted on the felt incompatibility of the self-regarding and extra-regarding impulses only as a means of proving their essential distinctness. I do not wish to overstate it, as it has been not unfrequently overstated by the anti-hedonistic moralists who have been perfectly right in drawing attention to it. I believe that in the commonest state of our activity the incompatibility is only momentary, and does not prevent a real harmony from being attained by means of a sort of alternating rhythm of the two impulses in consciousness. Desire is, I think, not ordinarily a conscious impulse towards pleasure; but where there is strong desire in any direction, there is commonly keen susceptibility to the corresponding pleasures; and the most devoted enthusiast is sustained in his work by the recurrent consciousness of such pleasures. But it is important to point out that the familiar and obvious instances of real conflict between self-love and some extra-regarding impulses are not paradoxes and puzzles to be explained away, but occasional phenomena,

which the analysis of our appetitive consciousness in the normal state, when there is no such conflict, would lead us to expect. Such conflict is generically the same, from a psychological point of view, whatever be the quality of the impulse which comes into collision with selflove; but the very important distinction introduced when we apply the ethical notions "higher" and "lower," and consider some impulses superior, others inferior in grade to self-love, has caused this resemblance to be overlooked. In the case of the appetites we consider (as Butler says) that self-love has a natural claim to rule; and if, yielding to a sensual impulse we take the course of action which is attended with less pleasure on the whole,* we condemn ourselves afterwards. But a similar result may occur in the case of a higher impulse, the subordination of which to self-love is not equally recognised by common sense; this involves us in a certain perplexity, which however is not due to any psychological anomaly but purely ethical, because the conduct appears to us in a certain sense irrational, and yet we do not condemn it. Let us represent to ourselves a case in detail. Suppose a man to have been for some time under the influence of a ruling passion of a noble kind: love of truth, love of beauty, or personal affection, or devotion to a cause, or desire to achieve any particular laudable end. For some time, perhaps, he has been borne along by a feeling in which the selfish and unselfish elements are not yet distinguished: he could not tell if asked whether he did what he was doing from a disinterested impulse or because he found his pleasure in it. But suddenly this passion or enthusiasm is thrown by circumstances into collision with other impulses and needs: the man is thus put into the attitude of prudential reflection, and finds, on estimation of probable resulting pleasures and pains, that the course of action to which his habitual impulse tends is distinctly opposed to the judgment of self-love. In fact, his enthusiasm demands a sacrifice; and he is at once able to distinguish clearly the proper external object of the impulse from the pleasure which normally attends its pursuit and attainment. He can ask the two distinct questions, "Is the sacrifice intrinsically worth making?" and "Will it repay me?" He is conscious that he can answer the second question in the negative, and yet the first in the affirmative. He can say, "It will not repay me, but it is worth it, and it shall take place."

I have been describing a phenomenon of by no means unfrequent occurrence even outside the sphere of properly moral impulses.

But

* The victorious sensual impulse in this case is in general consciously directed towards pleasure; and the case is one of preference of a less pleasure to a greater, not of some external object to pleasure. Still it equally constitutes an exception to Mr. Mill's supposed universal law that desire is always proportioned to anticipated pleasure.

it is no doubt most common in the case of these latter; the sacrifice is generally demanded in the name of what is right, reasonable, virtuous. And here I would again appeal to Mr. Mill himself as a witness on my side; referring in this case to his Examination of Sir W. Hamilton's Philosophy. Readers may recall the passage in which he speaks of the supposed religious duty of worshipping as "good" a Deity to whom the term is not applicable in any intelligible sense; rather than do so, he says, "If such a Being can sentence me to hell for not so calling him, to hell I will go." The case is of course purely hypothetical, being intended as a reductio ad absurdum of the belief in an incognizable God. But a hypothetical instance does just as well as a real one to test a principle; and this supplies me with just the hypothesis most perfectly adapted to illustrate my view. Mr. Mill avows, we may say, a hypothetical preference for hell. Now he can hardly maintain that such preference would involve "finding hell most pleasant," even in idea; as it is understood in the very notion of hell, that it is more painful to be there than to be anywhere else. He therefore recognizes the conceivability of a practical impulse tending in the direction of maximum infelicity; and even asserts that such an impulse could and would determine his volition.

To sum up, in contravention of the doctrine that our conscious active impulses are always directed towards the production of agreeable sensations in ourselves, I would maintain that we find everywhere in consciousness extra-regarding impulse, directed towards something that is not pleasure; that in many cases this impulse is so far incompatible with the self-regarding that the two do not easily coexist in the same moment of consciousness; and that more occasionally (but by no means rarely) the two come into irreconcileable conflict, and prompt to opposite courses of action. And this incompatibility (though it is important to notice it in other instances) is no doubt specially prominent in the case of the impulse towards the end which competes in ethical controversy with pleasure-the love of virtue for its own sake, or desire to do what is right as such, which in the view of stoicism is essential to right conduct.

It may be said that whatever be the case with our present adult consciousness, our original impulses were all directed towards pleasure, and that any impulses otherwise directed are derived from these by "association of ideas." I do not think this can be proved; and the results of observation, as far as we can carry it, seem to tend in the opposite way; as preponderant objectivity seems characteristic of the earlier stages of our consciousness, and the subjective attitude does.

* Mr. Mill, no doubt, draws a distinction between Desire and Will. But I think he means to imply, in the case supposed, a preference as well as a determination.

not become habitual till later in life. But supposing the assertion were proved, it would have little bearing on the present question. The Hedonist says, "I prove Pleasure to be intrinsically desirable by showing that all men actually do desire it." It is answered that all men do not now desire pleasure, but rather other things: some in particular having impulses towards virtue, which may and do conflict with their desire for their own pleasure. It is no reply to this to say that all once desired pleasure, except on the assumption that our earlier impulses have a prerogative in validity over our later. But no one appeals from the artist's sense of beauty to the child's; nor are the truths of the higher mathematics thought to be less certainly true, because they can be only apprehended by a highly developed intellect. In fact, this disposition to attribute some strange importance and special authority to what was first felt or thought belongs to an antiquated point of view. In politics we have quite abandoned the idea that even if we could establish irrefragably the original condition of the human family, it would at all help to determine jural obligations in our existing societies. The corresponding opinion still lingers in psychology and ethics, but it may be expected not to linger very long; as the assumption that our earliest consciousness is most trustworthy is not only baseless, but opposed to the current theories of the Evolution and Progress.

H. SIDGWICK.

MORALITY AND IMMORTALITY.

THE general result arrived at in my former paper on “Science and

Immortality," may be summed up as follows:

1. The desires and opinions of men upon the subject of their ultimate destiny do not amount to such an absolute demonstration of the truth of immortality as science demands, whereas the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, assumed to be true, is an actual instance of the fact requiring to be proved, i.e., that men can live after death.

2. There is enough evidence to satisfy a reasonable man of the truth of the history of the Resurrection, provided there was nothing miraculous in that history.

3. Minds that are already deeply concerned with the miracle of their own immortality will find no difficulty in accepting the narrative, even though it includes a miraculous element, whereas minds that are not so concerned will find no difficulty in rejecting it.

4. Hence it follows that the controversy will ultimately turn upon the question, whether the doctrine of immortality can or cannot be recommended to the minds of men as necessary to, and necessitated by, human morality in its widest sense. If it can, then men will continue to believe the Resurrection, the evidence of which is, apart from the miraculous, sufficient and reasonable; if it cannot, then they will cease to believe that which has no moral value for them.

It now becomes my duty to abandon the neutral position I have