Volume I Part 13 (1/2)

104 Lord Kames' _Essays on Morality_ (1st edition), pp. 55-56.

105 See Butler's _Three Sermons on Human Nature_, and the preface.

106 Speaking of the animated statue which he regarded as a representative of man, Condillac says, ”Le gout peut ordinairement contribuer plus que l'odorat a son bonheur et a son malheur.... Il y contribue meme encore plus que les sons harmonieux, parce que le besoin de nourriture lui rend les saveurs plus necessaires, et par consequent les lui fait gouter avec plus de vivacite. La faim pourra la rendre malheureuse, mais des qu'elle aura remarque les sensations propres a l'apaiser, elle y determinera davantage son attention, les desirera avec plus de violence et en jouira avec plus de delire.”-_Traite des Sensations_, 1re partie ch. x.

107 This is one of the favourite thoughts of Pascal, who, however, in his usual fas.h.i.+on dwells upon it in a somewhat morbid and exaggerated strain. ”C'est une bien grande misere que de pouvoir prendre plaisir a des choses si ba.s.ses et si meprisables ... l'homme est encore plus a plaindre de ce qu'il peut se divertir a ces choses si frivoles et si ba.s.ses, que de ce qu'il s'afflige de ses miseres effectives.... D'ou vient que cet homme, qui a perdu depuis peu son fils unique, et qui, accable de proces et de querelles, etait ce matin si trouble, n'y pense plus maintenant? Ne vous en etonnez pas; il est tout occupe a voir par ou pa.s.sera un cerf que ses chiens poursuivent.... C'est une joie de malade et de frenetique.”-_Pensees_ (Misere de l'homme).

108 ”Quae singula improvidam mortalitatem involvunt, solum ut inter ista certum sit, nihil esse certi, nec miserius quidquam homine, aut superbius. Caeteris quippe animantium sola victus cura est, in quo sponte naturae benignitas sufficit: uno quidem vel praeferenda cunctis bonis, quod de gloria, de pecunia, ambitione, superque de morte, non cogitant.”-Plin. _Hist. Nat._ ii. 5.

109 Paley, in his very ingenious, and in some respects admirable, chapter on happiness tries to prove the inferiority of animal pleasures, by showing the short time their enjoyment actually lasts, the extent to which they are dulled by repet.i.tion, and the cases in which they incapacitate men for other pleasures. But this calculation omits the influence of some animal enjoyments upon health and temperament. The fact, however, that health, which is a condition of body, is the chief source of happiness, Paley fully admits. ”Health,” he says, ”is the one thing needful ... when we are in perfect health and spirits, we feel in ourselves a happiness independent of any particular outward gratification.... This is an enjoyment which the Deity has annexed to life, and probably const.i.tutes in a great measure the happiness of infants and brutes ... of oysters, periwinkles, and the like; for which I have sometimes been at a loss to find out amus.e.m.e.nt.” On the test of happiness he very fairly says, ”All that can be said is that there remains a presumption in favour of those conditions of life in which men generally appear most cheerful and contented; for though the apparent happiness of mankind be not always a true measure of their real happiness, it is the best measure we have.”-_Moral Philosophy_, i. 6.

110 A writer who devoted a great part of his life to studying the deaths of men in different countries, cla.s.ses, and churches, and to collecting from other physicians information on the subject, says: ”a mesure qu'on s'eloigne des grands foyers de civilisation, qu'on se rapproche des plaines et des montagnes, le caractere de la mort prend de plus en plus l'aspect calme du ciel par un beau crepuscule du soir.... En general la mort s'accomplit d'une maniere d'autant plus simple et naturelle qu'on est plus libre des innombrables liens de la civilisation.”-Lauvergne, _De l'agonie de la Mort_, tome i.

pp. 131-132.

111 ”I will omit much usual declamation upon the dignity and capacity of our nature, the superiority of the soul to the body, of the rational to the animal part of our const.i.tution, upon the worthiness, refinement, and delicacy of some satisfactions, or the meanness, grossness, and sensuality of others; because I hold that pleasures differ in nothing but in continuance and intensity.”-Paley's _Moral Philosophy_, book i. ch. vi. Bentham in like manner said, ”Quant.i.ty of pleasure being equal, pushpin is as good as poetry,” and he maintained that the value of a pleasure depends on-its (1) intensity, (2) duration, (3) certainty, (4) propinquity, (5) purity, (6) fecundity, (7) extent (_Springs of Action_). The recognition of the ”purity” of a pleasure might seem to imply the distinction for which I have contended in the text, but this is not so. The purity of a pleasure or pain, according to Bentham, is ”the chance it has of not being followed by sensations of the opposite kind: that is pain if it be a pleasure, pleasure if it be a pain.”-_Morals and Legislation_, i. -- 8. Mr. Buckle (_Hist. of Civilisation_, vol. ii.

pp. 399-400) writes in a somewhat similar strain, but less unequivocally, for he admits that mental pleasures are ”more enn.o.bling” than physical ones. The older utilitarians, as far as I have observed, did not even advert to the question. This being the case, it must have been a matter of surprise as well as of gratification to most intuitive moralists to find Mr. Mill fully recognising the existence of different kinds of pleasure, and admitting that the superiority of the higher kinds does not spring from their being greater in amount.-_Utilitarianism_, pp. 11-12. If it be meant by this that we have the power of recognising some pleasures as superior to others in kind, irrespective of all consideration of their intensity, their cost, and their consequences, I submit that the admission is completely incompatible with the utilitarian theory, and that Mr. Mill has only succeeded in introducing Stoical elements into his system by loosening its very foundation. The impossibility of establis.h.i.+ng an aristocracy of enjoyments in which, apart from all considerations of consequences, some which give less pleasure and are less widely diffused are regarded as intrinsically superior to others which give more pleasure and are more general, without admitting into our estimate a moral element, which on utilitarian principles is wholly illegitimate, has been powerfully shown since the first edition of this book by Professor Grote, in his _Examination of the Utilitarian Philosophy_, chap. iii.

112 Buchner, _Force et Matiere_, pp. 163-164. There is a very curious collection of the speculations of the ancient philosophers on this subject in Plutarch's treatise, _De Placitis Philos._

113 Aulus Gellius, _Noctes_, x. 23. The law is given by Dion. Halicarn.

Valerius Maximus says, ”Vini usus olim Romanis feminis ignotus fuit, ne scilicet in aliquod dedecus prolaberentur: quia proximus a Libero patre intemperantiae gradus ad inconcessam Venerem esse consuevit”

(Val. Max. ii. 1, -- 5). This is also noticed by Pliny (_Hist. Nat._ xiv. 14), who ascribes the law to Romulus, and who mentions two cases in which women were said to have been put to death for this offence, and a third in which the offender was deprived of her dowry. Cato said that the ancient Romans were accustomed to kiss their wives for the purpose of discovering whether they had been drinking wine. The Bona Dea, it is said, was originally a woman named Fatua, who was famous for her modesty and fidelity to her husband, but who, unfortunately, having once found a cask of wine in the house, got drunk, and was in consequence scourged to death by her husband. He afterwards repented of his act, and paid divine honours to her memory, and as a memorial of her death, a cask of wine was always placed upon the altar during the rites. (Lactantius, _Div. Inst._ i. 22.) The Milesians, also, and the inhabitants of Ma.r.s.eilles are said to have had laws forbidding women to drink wine (aelian, _Hist. Var._ ii. 38). Tertullian describes the prohibition of wine among the Roman women as in his time obsolete, and a taste for it was one of the great trials of St. Monica (_Aug. Conf._ x.

8).

114 ”La loi fondamentale de la morale agit sur toutes les nations bien connues. Il y a mille differences dans les interpretations de cette loi en mille circonstances; mais le fond subsiste toujours le meme, et ce fond est l'idee du juste et de l'injuste.”-Voltaire, _Le Philosophe ignorant_.

115 The feeling in its favour being often intensified by filial affection. ”What is the most beautiful thing on the earth?” said Osiris to Horus. ”To avenge a parent's wrongs,” was the reply.-Plutarch _De Iside et Osiride_.

116 Hence the Justinian code and also St. Augustine (_De Civ. Dei_, xix.

15) derived servus from ”servare,” to preserve, because the victor preserved his prisoners alive.

117 ”Les habitants du Congo tuent les malades qu'ils imaginent ne pouvoir en revenir; _c'est, disentils, pour leur epargner les douleurs de l'agonie_. Dans l'ile Formose, lorsqu'un homme est dangereus.e.m.e.nt malade, on lui pa.s.se un nud coulant au col et on l'etrangle, _pour l'arracher a la douleur_.”-Helvetius, _De l'Esprit_, ii. 13. A similar explanation may be often found for customs which are quoted to prove that the nations where they existed had no sense of chast.i.ty. ”C'est pareillement sous la sauvegarde des lois que les Siamoises, la gorge et les cuisses a moitie decouvertes, portees dans les rues sur les palanquins, s'y presentent dans des att.i.tudes tres-lascives. Cette loi fut etablie par une de leurs reines nommee Tirada, qui, _pour degouter les hommes d'un amour plus deshonnete_, crut devoir employer toute la puissance de la beaute.”-_De l'Esprit_, ii. 14.

118 ”The contest between the morality which appeals to an external standard, and that which grounds itself on internal conviction, is the contest of progressive morality against stationary, of reason and argument against the deification of mere opinion and habit.”

(Mill's _Dissertations_, vol. ii. p. 472); a pa.s.sage with a true Bentham ring. See, too, vol. i. p. 158. There is, however, a schism on this point in the utilitarian camp. The views which Mr. Buckle has expressed in his most eloquent chapter on the comparative influence of intellectual and moral agencies in civilisation diverge widely from those of Mr. Mill.

119 ”Est enim sensualitas quaedam vis animae inferior.... Ratio vero vis animae est superior.”-Peter Lombard, _Sent._ ii. 24.

120 Helvetius, _De l'Esprit_, discours iv. See too, Dr. Draper's extremely remarkable _History of Intellectual Development in Europe_ (New York, 1864), pp. 48, 53.

121 Plutarch, _De Cohibenda Ira._

122 Lactantius, _Div. Inst._ i. 22. The mysteries of the Bona Dea became, however, after a time, the occasion of great disorders. See Juvenal, Sat. vi. M. Magnin has examined the nature of these rites (_Origines du Theatre_, pp. 257-259).

123 The history of the vestals, which forms one of the most curious pages in the moral history of Rome, has been fully treated by the Abbe Nadal, in an extremely interesting and well-written memoir, read before the Academie des Belles-lettres, and republished in 1725. It was believed that the prayer of a vestal could arrest a fugitive slave in his flight, provided he had not got past the city walls. Pliny mentions this belief as general in his time. The records of the order contained many miracles wrought at different times to save the vestals or to vindicate their questioned purity, and also one miracle which is very remarkable as furnis.h.i.+ng a precise parallel to that of the Jew who was struck dead for touching the ark to prevent its falling.

124 As for example the Sibyls and Ca.s.sandra. The same prophetic power was attributed in India to virgins.-Clem. Alexandrin. _Strom._ iii.

7.