III Individualism
Individual morality—History of two brothers brought up in same circumstances, but whose conduct was quite different—Late development of the sense of life—Evolution of sympathy—The sphere of egoism in moral conduct—Christian morality—Morality of Herbert Spencer—Danger of exalted altruism
Although moral conduct refers specially to the relations between men, there exists a morality of the individual. As this latter is simpler, I shall consider it first in my investigation of rational morality.
When a man, seeking his individual happiness, gives way to his inclinations without restraint, he often comes to behave in a way that is generally regarded as immoral. Following his inclination, he may become idle and drunken. Idleness may depend on some irregularity of the brain, and may thus be as natural as is the wish to take drink in the case of a man to whom alcohol brings a feeling of well-being and gaiety. Why is it that idleness and alcoholism are immoral? Is it because they prevent the living of life in its completest and widest sense, according to the theory of Herbert Spencer? But it is precisely in this way that the adherents of the theory justify all kinds of excess without which fullness and width of life seem to them impossible.
Whilst vices such as idleness and drunkenness arise directly from qualities of the human constitution, they must be regarded as immoral because they prevent the completion of the ideal cycle of human life. I knew two brothers, almost the same age, subject to the same influences, and brought up in the same environment. None the less, their tastes and conduct were very different. The older brother, although very intelligent, during his college career devoted himself eagerly to bodily exercises and indulged in every way his inclination for pleasure. “As the chief end of life is happiness,” he said, “one must try to get as much of it as possible,” and so he got into the habit of visiting places where there was most amusement. Cards, good living, and women furnished for him the means of pleasure. As his ability was unusual, he passed his examinations almost without having worked. The example of his younger brother, always a devoted student, did not attract him. “It is all very well for you,” he said, “as you find your happiness in work; as for me, I detest books, and I am happy only when I am giving myself up to pleasure. Everyone must take his own road to the goal of life.” As a result, the health of the older brother was seriously affected by his mode of life. He acquired some disease of the circulatory system, had to face the end, and died at the age of fifty-six. The last years of his life were very unhappy, as the instinct of life developed in him extremely strongly. He was a victim of his own ignorance because when he was young he did not know that the sense of life would develop later on, and would become much stronger than in his youth. His brother was equally unaware of this fact, but, absorbed in scientific study, he kept himself apart from the indulgences of youth and lived a sober life. In this way he found that his strength and activity were fully preserved at a time of life when his older brother was already a physical wreck.
I have quoted this example, not to repeat the banal idea that a sober life is followed by a healthier old age than an intemperate life, but because I wish to insist on the importance of the development of the instinct of life in the course of each individual life. I see that this idea is very little known. I was present at the last moments of my older brother (he was called Ivan Ilyitch, and he was the subject of the famous story of Tolstoi: The Death of Ivan Ilyitch). Knowing that he was going to die from pyemia, at the age of forty-five, my brother preserved his great intelligence in all its clearness. As I sat by his bedside he told me his reflections in the most objective fashion possible. The idea of his death was for long very terrible to him, but “as we all die” he came to “resign himself, saying that after all there was only a quantitative difference between death at the age of forty-five and later on.” This reflection, which relieved the moral sufferings of my brother, is none the less untrue. The sense of life is very different at different ages, and a man who lives beyond the age of forty-five experiences many sensations which he did not know before. There is a great evolution of the mind during the advance of age.
Even if we do not accept the existence of an instinct of natural death as the crown of normal life, we cannot deny that youth is only a preparatory stage and that the mind does not acquire its final development until later on. This conception should be the fundamental principle of the science of life and the guide for education and practical philosophy.
Individual morality consists of conduct permitting the accomplishment of the normal cycle of life and ending in a feeling of satisfaction as complete as possible and which can be reached only in advanced age. And so, when we see a man wasting his health and strength and youth, and thus making himself incapable of feeling the most complete pleasure in life, we call him immoral.
A man entirely isolated does not exist in nature. We are born weak and incapable of satisfying our needs and at once come into relations with the human being who feeds us and protects us. The child, although egoistic, becomes attached to his protector, and in this way the feeling of sympathy is born. Guided by this feeling as well as by the sense of his own interest, the child soon begins to employ his will in restraining some of his instincts, which, none the less, are quite natural. Thus, the fear of being deprived of food makes him obedient to his protectors. The child cannot complete his normal cycle without pursuing a certain moral conduct.
When he becomes adult, man experiences the instinctive need of relations with someone of the other sex. This need lays certain duties on him, and although the love of a young man is less egoistical than that of the child, it is far from presenting the characters of self-abnegation and sacrifice.
A young woman, after having passed through the usual cycle of life with her mother and with a man, becomes herself a mother. Maternal instinct furnishes her with certain rules of conduct, but this natural instinct is not enough to fulfil its object, that is to say, to rear the child until an age when it can live independently. Directed by a feeling of sympathy for her child, the young mother learns from women with more experience to ward off dangers from her child. In the first years, moral conduct on the part of the mother consists almost entirely in bringing up the child in a healthy way. For this purpose she must acquire much knowledge. If she remains ignorant, her conduct must be regarded as immoral.
So far as concerns the bringing up of a child, the moral problem is quite simple, because we are all agreed that the object is to rear the child to maturity in the healthiest possible condition. When the child exhibits any habits harmful to this object, although due to natural instincts, the mother applies her knowledge to restrain them without paying attention to the theory that happiness consists in the fulfilment of everything that is natural. When a child has passed through the perilous first period of its life, the mother has to ask what general object she is to follow in its education. She wishes her child to be as happy as possible. Here the conception of orthobiosis will serve her, and it will teach her that the greatest happiness consists in the normal evolution of the sense of life, leading to serene old age, and finally reaching the fulness of satiety of life. Man, who has passed his apprenticeship to life from his birth, with his protectors, and, later on, with persons of the other sex, inevitably acquires certain elements necessary for social life. Persuaded that in order to succeed in his individual life he must have help from his fellows, he learns to subdue his anti-social tendencies, at first in his own interests. Let me take an example of this. When a man has reached a certain stage of civilisation, it generally becomes impossible to him to supply his bodily wants without the help of persons less cultured than himself. He takes into his house one or more servants, with whom he enters into definite relations. He wishes for himself and those about him a normal life, such as I have described in The Nature of Man. To attain this it is indispensable in his own interest and in that of his family, that his domestic servants should be well treated. The health of the family very often depends on the conduct of the servants, who will follow conscientiously the hygienic rules only if they themselves are living in good conditions. The custom according to which the masters live in luxuriously furnished rooms, while their servants have mean quarters in the attics, is immoral from the point of view of the well-being of the masters themselves. The crowded servants’ quarters are a nest of all sorts of infection, which may spread in the families of the masters. Very often people who think that they are following the rules of exact hygiene contract diseases without knowing that the infection has come from their servants.
Anger gives us another example. It is certainly harmful to the health, and so should be controlled in the interest of the bad-tempered person himself. Fits of rage are frequently followed by ruptures of blood-vessels, and by diabetes, and even cataracts have developed after some violent passion.
Luxurious habits are also well known to be harmful to the health. Heavy meals, evenings passed in the theatre and in society may seriously affect activity of the organs. Moreover, the luxury of some people is often the cause of misery to others. The knowledge that luxurious habits shorten life and prevent man from reaching the greatest happiness may warn people against luxury better than the appeal to the feeling of sympathy.
As it is a fact that most men guide their lives generally from egoistic motives, any theory of morality which is to be put into practice must reckon seriously with this factor. All other systems have recognised it. In the Sermon on the Mount, which is a summary of Christian morality, each moral act is recognised on the ground that it will bring some reward or obviate some punishment. “Rejoice,” said Jesus, “and be exceeding glad; for great is your reward in heaven” (Matt. v., 12). “Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them; otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven” (Matt. vi., 1). “That thine alms may be in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly” (Matt. vi., 4). “Judge not, that ye be not judged” (Matt. vii., 1). “But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses” (Matt. vi., 15). Jesus had no high opinion of the influence of altruism on human conduct.
Herbert Spencer in his treatise on morality (The Data of Ethics) also insists that laws of conduct, to be of general application, must not require men to make too great sacrifices, as otherwise the best teaching would remain a dead letter. He imagines, however, that in the future the human race will be so much improved that moral conduct will become instinctive, needing no compulsion. The English philosopher presents a view of the future of the human race totally at variance with the Kantian conception. Instead of human beings becoming filled with a sense of duty opposed to their natural instincts, the world will be peopled with men acting morally from inclination, so making the world delightful.
The ideal is so far removed from existing conditions that the possibility of its attainment is hardly worth considering. It is probable that a world whose inhabitants had the feeling of sympathy very highly developed would not be so delightful. For sympathy is generally a reaction against evil. When evil disappears, sympathy would be not merely useless, but annoying and harmful.
George Eliot in Middlemarch describes a young woman enthusiastically anxious to do good to her fellows. When she came to live in a village, she made great plans to succour its poor. Her disillusion and annoyance were great when she found that the villagers were quite comfortably off, and had no need of her charity.
John Stuart Mill in his Autobiography relates that when he was young he dreamed of reforming society and making everyone happy. But when he asked himself if the accomplishment of his beautiful ideas would make him happy, he was compelled to answer “No!” and this discovery plunged the young philosopher into a lamentable condition. He described himself as quite overcome, all that supported him in life crumbling away. His happiness could lie only in the constant pursuit of his object, and the charm seemed broken, because if attainment were not to please him, how could the means be of any interest to him? It seemed to him that nothing was left to which he could dedicate his life.
As it is highly probable that with the advance of civilisation the greatest evils of humanity will become lessened, and may even disappear, the sacrifices to be made will also become less. Now that there is a serum which protects against plague, there is no room for the heroism of the doctors who used to incur the greatest danger in fighting epidemics. Until lately doctors used to risk their life in treating the throats of diphtheric patients. A young doctor who was a friend of mine, of high ability and promise, died from diphtheria contracted under these conditions. He met his death, in isolation from his friends in case of infecting them, with the utmost heroism. Now that the anti-diphtheric serum has been discovered, such heroism would be unnecessary. The advance of science has removed the occasion of such sacrifices.
It is now very long since there has been opportunity for the heroism which steeled the hand of Abraham to sacrifice his only son to his religion. Human sacrifice, based on the highest morality, has become more and more rare, and will finally disappear. Rational morality, although it may admire such conduct, has no use for it. So also, it may foresee a time when men will be so highly developed that instead of being delighted to take advantage of the sympathy of their fellows, they will refuse it absolutely. Neither the Kantian idea of virtue, doing good as a pure duty, nor that of Herbert Spencer, according to which men have an instinctive need to help their fellows, will be realised in the future. The ideal will rather be that of men who will be self-sufficient and who will no longer permit others to do them good.