in himself to maintain her interests." After searching every corner of the human breast '2 we have found our own satisfaction to be the sole spring of all our actions and the ultimate end of all our contrivances.2 How, then, are we to escape from the dilemma? for Tucker begs his readers not to imagine, even for a time, that this atrocious condemnation of all self-sacrifice is really his last word. To discover a satisfactory solution of the enigma, Tucker has to lead us through all the labyrinths of his theological system. Ultimately he emerges with a discovery which is made known to us in a chapter on the 'Re-enlargement of Virtue.' After explaining its nature, we may now, he says, ' do ample justice to Regulus, whom we left under a sentence of folly for throwing away life with all its enjoyments for a phantom of honour. For he may allege that he had not a fair trial before, his principal evidence being out of the way, which, having since collected in the course of his second book, he moves for a rehearing.' In fact, Regulus now pleads that he was doing great good by his example. He was persuaded, likewise, that all the good a man does stands placed to his account, to be repaid him in full value when it will be most useful to him; so that whoever works for another works for himself, and by working for numbers, earns more than he possibly could by working for himself alone. Therefore he acted like a thrifty merchant, who scruples not to advance considerable sums, and even to exhaust his coffers, for gaining a large advantage to the common stock in partnership.'" Regulus, therefore, is acquitted with flying colours. The mode in which Regulus is repaid appears very plainly by the comparison of heaven to a 'universal bank, where accounts are regularly kept and every man debited or credited for the least farthing he takes out or brings in.' The bank of heaven has many advantages, indeed, over the Bank of England; not only is the security perfect, but the rate of interest is enormous; whenever and wherever I may be in want, 'the runner angel' will 'privately slip the proper sum into my hand at a time when I least expect it; and, finally, we can have no reason to be jealous of

94

the larger balances of other customers, for we are all dealing in partnership and we shall all profit equally.

129. This last phrase suggests one curious whim of the worthy Tucker, with which I may conclude my account of his system. He persuades himself that, since God gives everything, he must give an equal share to everybody; or that, as he puts it, 'the value of each person's existence, computed throughout the whole extent of his being,' must be 'precisely the same.' 1 This singular reference would appear to cut at the very roots of Tucker's theory; for it would prove that, as in the long run all actions are indifferent, rational self-love could not prompt one course of conduct more than another. Tucker succeeds in reconciling himself to the conclusion by various ingenious devices, resting on the general principle that the mind can only take into account a certain length of time; we can see far enough before us to realise that vice will be punished in the next world, and not far enough to realise that the punishment will be finally compensated after some indefinitely vast lapse of time. A thousand ⚫ years or so of torment would, he thinks, be enough to deter a man from wickedness, though they might be followed by an eternity of happiness. The strange whim, characteristic of a solitary and half-trained thinker, had the recommendation to him that it enables him to get rid of eternal punishment. He takes a view of our destinies almost as cheerful as that of Hartley. By a queer series of calculations, founded on certain hypothetical statistics as to the vehicular state, he persuades himself that our whole amount of suffering may be equivalent to a 'minute of pain once in every twenty-two years.' The minutes of trouble, however, often come so thick together' that they prevent us from seeing beyond them to the remoter ages of happiness.

2

130. Let us hope that this kindly' extravagance solaced the good Tucker, when the evil of the world pressed too heavily on his soul; if it rather shakes our belief in his intellectual vigour, it helps to complete the portrait of a singularly innocent, cheerful, and kindly temperament. The moral theory which, in other hands, seems to involve a deTucker, Equality,' sec. 2, i. 597.

2 Ib. Divine Economy,' sec. 39, ii. 364.

grading view of human nature, seems with him to be the natural expression of cheerful common sense.

131. Paley, in the preface to his 'Moral and Political Philosophy,' candidly acknowledges his great obligations to Tucker. Their theories are, in fact, nearly identical. The whimsical fancies which adorn or disfigure Tucker's pages have indeed disappeared. We hear nothing of the mundane soul, the vehicular state, or the equality of all human lives. Paley is a hard-headed North-countryman, whose chief mental sustenance has been a severe course of Cambridge mathematics. He is throughout a systematiser, not an original thinker; and his system begins by expelling as far as possible everything that is not as solid and tangible as a proposition in Euclid. Moreover, his ethical treatise is, in fact, intended for educational purposes. In such works, clearness and order are the cardinal virtues, and originality, if not a vice, is of equivocal advantage. Paley primarily is a condenser and a compiler; though he modestly enough claims to be more than a mere compiler.'' He gives a lucid summary of the most generally accepted system; and if there is any gleam of originality in his writing, it is, for the most part, such as occasionally results from a rearrangement of old materials. Law, afterwards Bishop of Carlisle, and Waterland, were both heads of houses, and Rutherforth a professor of divinity at Cambridge. Paley was an intimate friend and colleague in the tuition of Christ College of John Law, son of the Bishop of Carlisle, and it was from the Bishop that he received his first preferment. Locke's Essay was the main authority upon which he relied in his college lectures. Thus, the influences under which he was placed were all favourable to that phase of utilitarianism which we are considering; and Paley, with his undeniable merits as a reasoner, was not the man to desert the paths into which he had been guided. He has simply given a compact statement of what may be called the orthodox theory.

132. Thus he attacks the moral sense theory by the arguments of Locke, with some additions from later writers Caius Toranius, he says, betrayed his father to the exccutioners under circumstances of special atrocity. Would the

Works, i. xlix.

wild boy who was caught in the woods of Hanover have disapproved the action? Paley's answer is that he would not have disapproved it. His reasons are that, in the first place, the moral sense varies indefinitely; that, in the second place, its growth is sufficiently explained by the theory of association, which causes us to transfer to actions generally useful, the sentiment which is excited by actions useful to ourselves; and, thirdly, because there are no moral laws 'absolutely and universally true,' and we, therefore, cannot have an intuitive perception of their truth; moreover, the moral sense, if it exists, must be justified by some external test, or how can we arbitrate between different moral intuitions? That test, of course, is the production of happiness, and happiness consists, not in the sensual pleasures, or in the mere absence of pain, or in rank and power, but in the exercise of the social affections, in the devotion of our faculties to some engaging end,' in the prudent arrangement of our habits, and in health. Happiness, therefore, is equally distributed throughout all ranks, and the vicious have no advantage-even in this world-over the virtuous.

133. Having thus cleared the ground, Paley proposes, with somewhat amazing calmness, his definition of virtue. 'Virtue is the doing good to mankind, in obedience to the will of God, and for the sake of everlasting happiness.' It is characteristic that this doctrine is propounded as though it were a self-evident truth. Paley proclaims it as calmly as if he were giving Euclid's definition of parallel straight lines, as though the statement bore its own evidence with it. To most later thinkers it has appeared to be as palpably false as to him it appeared to be palpably true; and there can be no more curious proof of the firmness with which the doctrine of theological utilitarianism had established itself than the calm enunciation of its most questionable tenet as an ultimate truth by a singularly clear-headed thinker, and that at the very time when he is maintaining the necessity of basing all moral theories on experience. His argument, indeed, betrays a halfconscious sense that some justification of the doctrine is needed; for he proceeds to explain, in the spirit of Tucker, that the thought of divine rewards and punishments need not Paley's Works, i. 7.

* Ib. i. 27.

be present to our mind in every action, inasmuch as we generally act from habit; but that thought must have been the foundation of our habits. The best servants learn to act for their master's interests, without thinking of his wishes; but a regard for his wishes must have been the first motive to the formation of the habit. The doctrine is expanded in the chapter on Obligation. A man is 'obliged,' 'when he is urged by a violent motive resulting from the command of another,'' whence it follows that we can be obliged to nothing but what we ourselves can gain or lose something by.'2 To say that we are 'obliged' to keep our words means simply that we shall go to hell if we don't; and 'the difference, and the only difference,' between prudence and virtue is 'that, in the one case, we consider what we shall gain or lose in the present world; in the other case, we consider also what we shall gain or lose in the world to come.' 3

134. To complete the ground-plan of Paley's system, one other doctrine must be added. The moral sanction is the theological; what is the criterion? Paley's answer is, that the rule is the will of God. But how is the will of God to be known? First, by the Scriptures; and, secondly, by the light of nature. But how do we interpret the teaching of nature? By the help of the doctrine that God wishes the happiness of his creatures; whence it follows that, to determine the morality of an action, we must enquire into the tendency of the action to promote or diminish the general happiness.' In carrying out his system, Paley, of course, makes far greater use of this test than of the Scripture test. The primary duties, such as respect for private property and fidelity to promises, are defended purely and simply on utilitarian grounds. Scripture is only invoked where it is necessary to fill up gaps in the code. Thus, for example, Paley, though a keen sportsman, has some difficulty in defending our right over the lives of animals; and he ultimately defends it simply by the permission recorded in the ninth chapter of the Book of Genesis." Wanton cruelty, he says, is certainly wrong; and possibly he would have had some difficulty in defending, on theoretical grounds, his love of fishing.

1 Paley, i. 37.

2 Ib. i. 38.

Ib. i. 40. ♦ Ib. i. 42.

Ib. i. 61.