explanations. Obviously Descartes' great disciple had no clear conception of the essence of Morality and held either consecutively, or may be even simultaneously, divers views on the subject, amongst which those of all schools of thought are either quite clearly expressed or at least implied. "By Good," he says, "I mean that which we know for certain to be useful to us."[1]

And again: "To act absolutely virtuously is merely to act, live, preserve one's being (these three mean the same thing) in accordance with the dictates of Reason, because one seeks one's own interest."

According to that Morality is synonymous with egoism, and its aim is man's individual profit or interest. Even the most pronounced Utilitarians among ethical theorists have not ventured to go to such lengths. True, they have contended that the aim of moral action is happiness, but at least they define it as the happiness of the whole community and not that of the individual, except in so far as he is a member of the community and has his fair share of its well-being. Spinoza foresees the objection that the pursuit of one's own happiness cannot possibly deserve the universal esteem in which virtue is held, and he tries to adduce reasons whereby the egoism which he characterizes as moral may be justified and palliated:

"Everyone exists according to the supreme law of Nature, and consequently everyone does, according to the supreme law of Nature, that which results from the necessities of his own nature; and therefore every man forms his judgment as to what is good and bad according to the supreme law of Nature, pursues his own interest according to his lights, seeks revenge, strives to preserve what he loves and to destroy what he hates." That is possibly the most audacious and at the same time the most ill-founded statement that has ever been written on the subject of Morality. Morality means behaviour calculated to further one's own interest. Morality is therefore utility. But man cannot act otherwise than morally, since he always acts as he is compelled to do by his own nature. There is no sense in discriminating between good and bad, moral and immoral, since one always acts in accordance with the behests of Nature. Man automatically executes the dictates of Nature which is alone responsible for his deeds.

For the Stoics, too, Morality is action in accordance with the law of Nature, but Spinoza goes further than the Stoics, in that he does away with any universally applicable standard of moral conduct, and sets up instead of Nature pure and simple, which is the same for all, each man's individual nature as the authority which shall lay down rules of behaviour for him. So Morality is something individual and subjective. Man acts according to the requirements of his interest; his own nature shows him what his interest requires; no other person has any right or any qualification to form a judgment upon the worth of his conduct, to call it good or bad, for he cannot know what course of action the man's personal nature, peculiar to himself and to no other, may prescribe to him. This is the doctrine of anarchy and amorality put in a nutshell, a more wordy paraphrase of the Fais ce que vouldras (please yourself), the terse inscription that Rabelais put over the entrance to his Abbey of Thélème, as the only law governing that abode of alluring wantonness. Spinoza certainly does half-heartedly concede to Reason the rôle which Aristotle positively assigns to it ("To act in an absolutely virtuous manner is merely to act according to the guidance of Reason," etc.), but it is impossible to see how Reason can exercise guidance and control if "everyone does according to the supreme law of Nature that which results from the necessities of his nature." This can surely only mean that everyone may yield to the unbridled desires of his natural instincts, which is the very reverse of self-control by Reason. If Nature is to rule despotically, there is obviously no place for a constitutional limitation of her sole power by the effective counsel and protests of Reason.

But Spinoza renounces in a much more definite way his views recognizing the right of every individual "to form his judgment as to what is good and bad according to the supreme law of Nature," for he calmly adds: "Society can be founded, if it reserves to itself the right possessed by the individual to take revenge, and to pronounce a verdict on what is good and what is bad; thereby it acquires the power to prescribe rules of conduct for the community, to make laws, and to enforce them, not by means of Reason, which cannot restrict passions, but by threats.... Hence in a state of Nature, sin cannot even be imagined."

This concession to Society most emphatically contradicts his first definition of Morality. It does away with the right claimed for the individual "to do according to the supreme law of Nature that which results from the necessities of his own nature," and by the same "supreme law of Nature" to "judge what is good and what is bad." It subjects conduct to the restraint, not of Nature, but of Society. It bears witness to the admission that "Reason cannot restrict passions," although Spinoza has just required the virtuous man to "act according to the guidance of Reason." Spinoza admits that Morality is not the consequence of a law inherent in the individual, but of an extraneous law forced upon him by society; that it is not an individual but a social phenomenon. In this he agrees with the conclusions of modern sociological thought, but his merit is much diminished by the fact that he skims lightly over the one great difficulty which sociological ethics is struggling to overcome. He says, society "reserves to itself the right ... to pronounce a verdict on what is good and what is bad, and thereby acquires the power to prescribe rules of conduct to the community," etc.

It has the power right enough; police, judge, prison and gallows bear witness to that; but has it the right? That is not clear without further investigation. It requires to be proved. The amoralist can emphatically deny this, basing his conclusion on Spinoza's own definition. He can legitimately declare that he need submit to no dictates of society, that he owes obedience only to his own nature and his own inner needs, and the moral philosopher can only prove to him that he is wrong by scornfully indicating the penal code and its stalwart minions.

Spinoza, we see, has already given a whole series of mutually destructive and contradictory definitions of Morality: it is the law of life and conduct which society lays down for the individual, though we do not learn from him on what principles it is based; it is the pursuit of one's own interest as indicated by Reason; it is obedience to necessity—that is to say, to the demands of one's own nature. All this does not suffice him. He discovers a new aspect of Morality. "Recognition of Good and Evil is nothing but a pleasurable or a disagreeable emotion in so far as we are conscious of it." And again, "Pleasure is not actually bad (as the ascetics probably contend), but good; pain, on the contrary, is actually bad."

In this case