Connected with exaggerated class-feeling are abuses of-esprit de corps_. Unlike class-feeling, _esprit de corps_ is, in itself, a good. It binds men together, as in a vessel or a regiment, a school or a college, an institution or a municipality, and leads them to sacrifice their ease or their selfish aims, and to act loyally and cordially with one another in view of the common interest. It is only when it sacrifices to the interests of its own body wider interests still, and subordinates patriotism or morality to the narrower sentiment attaching to a special law of honour, that it incurs the reprobation of the moralist. But that it does sometimes deservedly incur this reprobation, admits of no question. A man, to save the honour of his regiment, may impair the efficiency of an army, or, to promote the interests of his college or school, may inflict a lasting injury on education, or, to protect his associates, may withhold or pervert evidence, or, to aggrandize his trade, may ruin his country. It is the special province of the moralist, in these cases, to intervene, and point out how the more general is being sacrificed to the more special interest, the wider to the narrower sentiment, morality itself to a point of honour or etiquette. But, at the same time, he must recollect that the _esprit de corps_ of any small aggregate of men is, as such, always an ennobling and inspiriting sentiment, and that, unless it plainly detach them from the rest of the community, and is attended with pernicious consequences to society at large, it is unwise, if not reckless, to seek to impair it.

To descend to a subject of less, though still of considerable, importance, I may notice that cowardice and fear of 'what people will say' lies at the bottom of much ill-considered charity and of that facility with which men, often to the injury of themselves or their families, if not of the very objects pleaded for, listen to the solicitations of the inconsiderate or interested subscription-monger. It has now become a truism that enormous mischief is done by the indiscriminate distribution of alms to beggars or paupers. It is no less true, though not so obvious, that much unintentional harm is often done by subscriptions for what are called public objects. People ought to have sufficient mental independence to ask themselves what will be the ultimate effects of subscribing their money, and, if they honestly believe that those effects will be pernicious or of doubtful utility, they ought to have the courage to refuse it. There is no good reason, simply because a man asks me and I find that others are yielding to him, why I should subscribe a guinea towards disfiguring a church, or erecting an ugly and useless building, or extending pauperism, or encouraging the growth of luxurious habits, or spreading opinions which I do not believe. And I may be the more emboldened in my refusal, when I consider how mixed, or how selfish, are often the motives of those who solicit me, and that the love of notoriety, or the gratification of a feeling of self-importance, or a fussy restlessness, or the craving for preferment is frequently quite as powerful an incentive of their activity as a desire to promote the objects explicitly avowed. There is, moreover, an important consideration, connected with this subject, which often escapes notice, namely, the extent to which new and multiplied appeals to charity often interfere with older, nearer, and more pressing claims. Thus, the managers of the local hospital or dispensary or charity organisation have often too good cause to regret the enthusiastic philanthropy, which is sending help, of questionable utility, to distant parts of the world. People cannot subscribe to everything, and they are too apt to fall in with the most recent and most fashionable movement. In venturing on these remarks, I trust it is needless to say that I am far from deprecating the general practice of subscribing to charities and public objects, a form of co-operation which has been rendered indispensable by the habits and circumstances of modern life. I am simply insisting on the importance and responsibility of ascertaining whether the aims proposed are likely to be productive of good or evil, and deprecating the cowardice or listlessness which yields to a solicitation, irrespectively of the merits of the proposal.

These solicitations often take the offensive form, which is intentionally embarrassing to the person solicited, of an appeal to relieve the purveyor of the subscription-list himself from the obligation incurred by a 'guarantee.' The issue is thus ingeniously and unfairly transferred from the claims of the object, which it is designed to promote, to the question of relieving a friend or a neighbour from a heavy pecuniary obligation. 'Surely you will never allow me to pay all this money myself.' But why not, unless I approve of the object, and, even if I do, why should I increase my subscription, on account of an obligation voluntarily incurred by you, without any encouragement from me? In a case of this kind, the 'guarantee' ought to be regarded as simply irrelevant, and the question decided solely on the merits of the result to be attained. Of course, I must be understood to be speaking here only of those cases in which the 'guarantee' is used as an additional argument for eliciting subscriptions, not of those cases in which, for convenience sake, or in order to secure celerity of execution, a few wealthy persons generously advance the whole sum required for a project, being quite willing to pay it themselves, unless they meet with ready and cheerful co-operation.

In the department of social intercourse, there are several applications of existing moral principles, and specially of the softer virtues of kindness, courtesy, and consideration for others, the observance of which would sensibly sweeten our relations to our fellow-men and, to persons of a sensitive temperament, render life far more agreeable and better worth living than it actually is. A few of these applications I shall attempt to point out. Amongst savage races, and in the less polished ranks of civilized life, men who disagree, or have any grudge against one another, resort to physical blows or coarse invective. In polite and educated circles, these weapons are replaced by sarcasm and innuendo. There are, of course, many advantages gained by the substitution of this more refined mode of warfare, but the mere fact that the intellectual skill which it displays gives pleasure to the bystanders, and wins social applause, renders its employment far more frequent than, on cool reflexion, could be justified by the occasions for it. There can be no doubt that it gives pain, often intense pain, especially where the victim is not ready enough to retaliate effectively in kind. And there can be no more justification for inflicting this peculiar kind of pain than any other, unless the circumstances are such as to demand it. Any one, who will take the trouble to analyse his acts and motives, will generally find, when he employs these weapons, that he is actuated not so much by any desire to reform the object of his attack or to deter, by these means, him or others from wrong-doing, as by a desire to show off his own cleverness and to leave behind him a mark of his power in the smart which he inflicts. These unamiable motives are least justifiable, when the victim is a social inferior, or a person who, by his age or position, is unable to retaliate on equal terms. To vanity and cruelty are then added cowardice, and, though all these vices may only be displayed on a very small scale, they are none the less really present. It may be laid down, however difficult, with our present social habits, it may be to keep the rule, that sarcasm should never be employed, except deliberately, and as a punishment, and that for innuendo, if justifiable by facts, men should always have the courage to substitute direct assertion.

Of the minor social vices, one of the commonest is a disregard, in conversation, of other persons' feelings. Men who lay claim to the character of gentlemen are specially bound to shew their tact and delicacy of feeling by avoiding all subjects which have a disagreeable personal reference or are likely to revive unpleasant associations in the minds of any of those who are present. And yet these are qualities which are often strangely conspicuous by their absence even in educated and cultivated society. One of the most repulsive and least excusable forms which this indifference to other persons' feelings takes is in impertinent curiosity. There are some people who, for the sake of satisfying a purposeless curiosity, will ask questions which they know it cannot be agreeable to answer. In all cases, curiosity of this kind is evidence of want of real refinement, and is a breach of the finer rules of social morality; but, when the questions asked are intended to extract, directly or indirectly, unwilling information on a man's private life or circumstances, they assume the character of sheer vulgarity. A man's private affairs, providing his conduct of them does not injuriously affect society, are no one's business but his own, and much pain and vexation of the smaller kind would be saved, if this very plain fact were duly recognised in social intercourse.

It may be noticed in passing, that there still lingers on in society a minor form of persecution, a sort of inquisition on a small scale, which consists in attempting to extract from a man a frank statement of his religious, social, or political opinions, though it is known or suspected all the time, that, if he responds to the invitation, it will be to his social or material disadvantage. In cases of this kind, it becomes a casuistical question how far a man is called on to disclose his real sentiments at the bidding of any impertinent questioner. That the free expression of opinion should be attended with this danger is, of course, a proof how far removed we still are from perfect intellectual toleration.

Impertinent curiosity is offensive, not only because it shews an indifference to the feelings of the person questioned, but because it savours of gratuitous interference in his affairs. This quality it shares with another of the minor social vices, the tendering of unasked for advice, or, in brief, impertinent advice. There are certain circumstances and relations in which men have the right, even if they are not under the obligation, to give unsolicited advice, as where a man is incurring an unknown danger or foregoing some unsuspected advantage, or to their servants, or children, or wards, or pupils; but, in all these cases, either the special circumstance or the special relation implies superiority of knowledge or superiority of position on the part of the person tendering the advice, and to assume this superiority, where it does not plainly exist, is an act of impertinence. Just as the assumption of superiority wounds a man's self-respect, so does the disposition to meddle in his affairs, which is generally founded on that assumption, affect his sense of independence, and, hence, an act which includes both grounds of offence seems to be a peculiarly legitimate object of resentment. The lesson of letting other people alone is one which men are slow to learn, though there are few who, in their own case, do not resent any attack on their liberty of judgment or action. This is emphatically one of the cases in which we should try to put ourselves in the place of others, and act to them as we would that they should act towards us.

Excessive, and often ill-natured, criticism of others is one of the minor vices which seem to grow up with advancing civilisation and intelligence rather than to retreat before them. It seems, as a rule, to prevail much more in educated than in uneducated society. The reason is not difficult to find. Education naturally makes men more fastidious and more keenly alive to the defects of those with whom they associate. And then, when educated men converse together, they are apt, merely from the facility with which they deal with language, to express in an exaggerated form the unfavourable estimate which they have formed of others, especially if this exaggerated form can be compressed into an epigram. But it requires little reflexion to see that this keen and exaggerated habit of criticism must be productive of much discomfort in a society in which it is general, and that, when applied to literary work, even though it may be a protection against inaccuracy and breaches of taste, it must be a great discouragement to the young and repressive of much honest and valuable effort. To restrain the critical spirit, whether applied to mind or conduct, with proper limits, it is necessary, keeping these considerations in view, to ask how much we can reasonably or profitably require of men, and, above all, never to lose that sympathetic touch with others which renders us as keenly alive to their difficulties as their errors, to their aspirations as their failure to fulfil them.

I shall say nothing here of detraction, backbiting, or malicious representation, because these are social vices which are too obvious and too generally acknowledged to be of any service as illustrations of those extensions or new applications of morality which I have in view in the present chapter. I may, however, notice in passing, that the invention or exaggeration of stories, which have a tendency to bring men into ridicule or contempt, is a practice which, from the entertainment it affords, is too easily tolerated by society, and usually fails to meet with the reprobation it deserves.

I shall advert to only one other topic, namely, the treatment of the lower animals. With rare exceptions, it is only of late that this subject has been regarded as falling within the sphere of ethics, and it is greatly to the credit of Bentham that he was amongst the first to recognise its importance and to commend it to the consideration of the legislator. That the lower animals, as sentient beings, have a claim on our sympathies, and that, consequently, we have duties in respect of them, I can no more doubt than that we have duties in respect to the inferior members of our own race. But, at the same time, considering their place in the economy of nature, I cannot doubt that man has a right, within certain limits, to use them, and even to kill them, for his own advantage. What these limits are is a question by no means devoid of difficulty. There are those who maintain that we have no right to kill animals for food, while there are those who, without maintaining this extreme position, hold that we have no right to cause them pain for the purposes of our own amusement, or even for the alleviation of human suffering by means of the advancement of physiological and medical science. It will be seen that the three questions here raised are the legitimacy of the use of animal food, of field sports, and of vivisection. As respects the first, I do not doubt that, considering their relative places in the scale of being, man is morally justified in sacrificing the lives of the lower animals to the maintenance of his own health and vigour, let alone the probability that, if he did not, they would multiply to such an extent as to endanger his existence, and would themselves, in the aggregate, experience more suffering from the privation caused by the struggle for life than they now do by incurring violent deaths. At the same time, though man may kill the lower animals for his own convenience, he is bound not to inflict needless suffering on them. The torture of an animal, for no adequate purpose, is absolutely indefensible. Cock-fights, bull-fights, and the like seem to me to admit of no more justification than the gladiatorial shows. Are field-sports, then, in the same category? The answer, I think, depends on three considerations: (1) would the animal be killed any way, either for food, or as a beast of prey; (2) what is the amount of suffering inflicted on it, in addition to that which would be inflicted by killing it instantaneously; (3) for what purpose is this additional suffering inflicted. I shall not attempt to apply these considerations in detail, but I shall simply state as my opinion that, amongst the results of a legitimate application of them, would be the conclusions that worrying a dog or a cat is altogether unjustifiable; that fox-hunting might be justified on the ground that the additional suffering caused to the fox is far more than counterbalanced by the beneficial effects, in health and enjoyment, to the hunter; that shooting, if the sportsman be skilful, is one of the most painless ways of putting a bird or a stag to death, and, therefore, requires no justification, whereas, if the sportsman be unskilful, the sufferings which he is liable to cause, through a lingering and painful death, ought to deter him from practising his art. With regard to the much-debated question of vivisection, it seems to me utterly untenable, and eminently inconsistent on the part of those who eat animal food or indulge in field-sports, to maintain that, under no circumstances, is it morally justifiable to inflict pain on the lower animals for the purpose of ascertaining the causes or remedies of disease. But, having once made this admission, I should insist on the necessity of guarding it by confining the power of operating on the living animal to persons duly authorised, and by limiting it to cases of research as distinct from demonstration. Those, moreover, who are invested with this serious responsibility, ought to feel morally bound to inflict no superfluous suffering, and ought, consequently, to employ anaesthetics, wherever they would not unduly interfere with the conduct of the experiment; to resort, as far as possible, to the lower rather than the higher organisms, as being less susceptible of pain; and to limit their experiments, both in number and duration, as far as is consistent with the objects for which they are permitted to perform them. This whole question, however, of our relation to the lower animals is one which is fraught with much difficulty, and supplies a good instance of the range of subjects within which the moral sentiment is probably in the course of development. Recent researches, and, still more, recent speculations, have tended to impress us with the nearness of our kinship to other animals, and, hence, our sympathies with them and our interest in their welfare have been sensibly quickened. The word philanthropy no longer expresses the most general of the sympathetic feelings, and we seem to require some new term which shall denote our fellow-feeling with the whole sentient creation.

Such is a sample, and I must repeat that it is intended only as a sample, of the class of questions to which, as it seems to me, the moral test still admits of further application. Morality, or the science and art of conduct, had its small beginnings, I conceive, in the primeval household and has only attained its present grand proportions by gradual increments, derived partly from the semi-conscious operations of the human intelligence adapting itself to the circumstances in which it is placed, partly from the conscious meditations of reflective men. That it is likely to advance in the future, as it has done in the past, notwithstanding the many hindrances to its progress which confessedly exist, is, I think, an obvious inference from experience. We may not unreasonably hope that there will be a stricter sense of justice, a more complete realisation of duty, more delicacy of feeling, a greater refinement of manners, more kindliness, quicker and wider sympathies in the coming generations than there are amongst ourselves. I have attempted, in this Essay, briefly to delineate the nature of the feelings on which this progress depends, and of the considerations by which it is guided, as well as to indicate some few out of the many directions which it is likely to take in the future. In the former part of my task, I am aware that I have run counter to many prejudices of long standing, and that the theories which I consider to be alone consistent with the fact of the progress of morality, may by some be thought to impair its authority. But if morality has its foundations in the constitution of human nature, which itself proceeds from the Divine Source of all things, I conceive that its credentials are sufficiently assured. In the present chapter, I have, in attempting to illustrate the possibility of future improvements in the art and theory of conduct, been necessarily led to note some deficiencies in the existing moral sentiment. This is always an unwelcome and invidious task. Men do not like to be reminded of their moral failings, and there is hardly any man, however critical he may be of others, who, in the actual conduct of life, does not appear to delude himself with the idea that his own moral practice is perfect. I appeal, however, from the unconscious assumptions of men to their powers of reflexion, and I ask each man who reads this book to consider carefully within himself whether, on the principles here set out, much of the conduct and many of the ethical maxims which are now generally accepted do not admit of refinement and improvement. In the sphere of morals, as in all other departments of human activity, we are bound to do for our successors what our predecessors were bound to do, and mostly did, for us—transmit the heritage we have received with all the additions and adaptations which the new experiences and changing conditions of life have rendered necessary or desirable.

THE END