justice—all these, which a conscience sensitive to Morality thinks it derives from itself and from itself alone, have nevertheless a social origin"; and Feuerbach expresses the same view in an entertainingly melodramatic fashion when he calls the voice of conscience "An echo of the cry of revenge uttered by the injured party." This cry of revenge would never wake an echo in us if we did not possess a sounding board which cries of distress and lamentation cause to vibrate. Schopenhauer, digging deeper than his predecessor, clearly recognizes this sounding board, and describes its characteristics when he says that the foundation of ethics is pity, which in its passive form warns us: "Neminem laede! Do harm to no one!" And in its active form gives the order: "Imo omnes quantum potes juva! Assist everyone with all your might!"

The assumption, that sympathy with his neighbour must be present in man's consciousness before he is capable of moral action, is one that need not be made by subjective moral philosophers, who hold with Kant and his school that the moral law is an inborn categorical imperative, which proclaims its commands without reference to any extraneous object, or to the world, or mankind.

In the same way the theologians have no need of it, for they consider that what is morally good is the Will of God.

But he who holds with the moral philosophers of sociological tendencies that Morality is regard for one's fellow men, and the recognition that the claims of the real or supposed interest of the community are superior to those of the comfort of the individual, must admit that sympathy is a necessary preliminary to moral action; i.e. that the individual must have the ability to picture the sufferings of others so vividly that he feels their sorrows as his own, and with all his might and all his will strives to prevent, alleviate and heal them. The lack of this ability, psychic anæsthesia, is a symptom of disease. It renders the person affected incapable of moral action. It is a characteristic of the born criminal, and is the essential symptom of that state of mind which alienists term moral insanity. Even in this condition, if reason and the power of judgment are not affected, great offences against current moral law can be avoided. But this results from the fear of the painful and ruinous results which a collision with public opinion entails, even if the offender is not actually haled into court. It is not due to any inner necessity, nor to the prompting of one's own feelings.

Only the Rationalists have any cause or reason to inquire into the aims of Morality, whether they look upon the moral law as dictated by society or are of the opinion that it is the sum total of the rules by which Reason, of its own initiative, successfully combats the urging of Instinct. If the moral law is a creation of society, and is obeyed by the individual out of sympathy with his fellow-men or consideration for society, the logical conclusion is that society has set up the moral law to satisfy some real or imagined need. Its aim in this case can only be the real or supposed welfare of the community. This is the most widely accepted view.

"Morality and universal welfare," says Macchiavelli, "are conceptions which coincide." In his calm assurance this apodictic writer, who doubtlessly slept well and had an excellent digestion, is never troubled by a doubt as to whether there is such a thing as an absolutely reliable measure of universal welfare, and therefore whether Morality, which is termed its equivalent, can provide us with a perfectly unimpeachable standard. He whose ethical conscience is more tender and timid will inevitably anxiously ask himself: Who decides what universal welfare demands and what is conducive to it? Is it to be the masses? Is the mob, incapable of thought, ignorant, swayed by momentary and shifting impulses, to make moral laws for the select few who are its natural guides? What tragedies would necessarily result from this definition! How often a strong personality, trained to come to independent conclusions, refuses to obey the voice of the mob! Is the sheep who trots bleating along with the herd to be taken as the type of a moral being? Must we necessarily condemn as immoral those who swim against the stream, enlightened tyrants who force upon their people hateful innovations calculated to ensure their welfare,—such men as Peter the Great, the Emperor Joseph II, the reformer who comes into violent conflict with the majority who are creatures of habit? "The aim of Morality is the welfare of society; this is indeed the essence of Morality." A sufficiently safe and most soothing formula this seems; but really the security it gives is most deceptive, and it leaves unsolved the most important problems relating to the phenomenon of Morality.

A numerous group of moral philosophers seeks the aim of moral conduct in the individual himself, not outside him. In spite of Schopenhauer's sympathy, they doubt that consideration for the well-being of the community would act forcibly enough upon the individual to induce him to wage unceasing war on his impulses and struggle to overcome them. Rather they hold that the individual must find in his inner consciousness not only the spur to moral action, but also the reward for the same, and they characterize this driving force as pleasurable emotions in every sense of the words. According to them man acts morally because, and in so far as, he anticipates pleasurable results from so doing. Epicurus considers the aim of Morality always to be Pleasure. He makes only the one reservation, that a reasonable man will renounce an immediate pleasure for the sake of a greater one in the future, and that he may delight in the anticipation of pleasurable emotions which defeat and dull present pains. Thus the martyr may be a true Epicurean, even if by his actions he exposes himself to most cruel torture and the most painful death, for he is convinced that the everlasting joys of paradise will more than indemnify him for his temporary sufferings.

I have already shown that Aristotle considers Morality the activity of practical Reason, which is accompanied by pleasurable emotions. He makes these pleasurable emotions an essential part of Morality, and Spinoza shares this view, for he says: "Knowledge of good and evil is nothing but a pleasurable or a disagreeable emotion in so far as we are conscious of it."

No less roundly, one might almost say brutally, Leibnitz declares: "We term good that which gives us pleasure; evil that which gives us pain," while Feuerbach expresses himself rather more carefully and indefinitely thus: "The instinct for happiness is the most potent of all instincts. Where existence always occurs together with volition, volition and the will to be happy are inseparable; they are, indeed, essentially one. 'I will,' means 'I have the will not to suffer, not to be hindered and destroyed, but, on the contrary, to be assisted and preserved; that is, I have the will to be happy.'" This is a wordy paraphrase of Spinoza's: "All existence is self-assertion, and Morality is only the highest and purest form of this fundamental instinct in a reasonable being."

Among those moral philosophers who see in pleasurable emotions the aim of Morality, its reward and its incentive, we must distinguish two groups: those who understand by pleasurable emotions such as appeal to the senses—the Hedonists; and those who spiritualize the meaning of the word and expect of Morality not an immediate bodily gratification, a pleasure, or an insipid satisfaction of the sense, but lasting happiness—the Eudæmonists. At the first glance the Eudæmonists seem to have a higher and more worthy conception of the subjective reaction of moral conduct