tissue by effort, and the need for those cessations of effort during which repair may overtake waste. Nor is it less clear that between the rate of mortality and the rate of multiplication in any society, there is a relation such that the last must reach a certain level before it can balance the first, and prevent disappearance of the society. And it may be inferred that pursuits of other leading ends are, in like manner, determined by certain natural necessities, and from these derive their ethical sanctions. That it will ever be practicable to lay down precise rules for private conduct in conformity with such requirements, may be doubted. But the function of absolute ethics in relation to private conduct will have been discharged, when it has produced the warrant for its requirements as generally expressed; when it has shown the imperativeness of obedience to them; and when it has thus taught the need for deliberately considering whether the conduct fulfills them as well as may be."
Mr. Spencer's great advantage, then, consists in the primary. and constant reference to the physical side of our being. For a very large part of our happiness, physical tests may be assigned; and the problem is transferred from the purely subjective estimates, which are so vague, to objective conditions which are comparatively well defined—from the inward and spiritual grace to the outward and visible symbol. The author's antagonism is not toward the utilitarians as such, but toward the almost universal disregard of physical conditions by our forefathers. He is not the first to call attention to this great desideratum; but he makes a more thorough and systematic employment of it for the ends of happiness. Lord Shaftesbury said long ago that there were among us human creatures in such vile physical conditions that even religion was not possible to them. It would not be difficult to assign the lowest pitch of worldly means compatible with the fair requirements of a human being. The settlement of this point precedes all computations of pleasures and pains; or rather it is a short cut to the goal. The utilitarian has more or less enjoyed the advantage, without being so fully aware of it as he might be; for he has not scrupled to use worldly abundance as a first rough test of well being; and. if the test were only rigorous and thorough, there would be nothing perplexing in the Hedonistic calculation; it would be as simple as common arithmetic. Personal ethics would be, Make a sufficient amount of money: social ethics. Do not defraud any one, and be ready, on suitable opportunity, to help those that are in need. The Hedonistic difficulties begin where money gained and expended is not commensurate with happiness. Moralists in all ages (Aristotle perhaps excepted) have delighted to dwell upon the occasions where the two things are incommensurable. A better consideration of the human organism, supplying a better knowledge of physical conditions, explains many of the exceptions, and helps to reinstate the problem on a definite basis.
