mony yet cannot be preferred, from an ethical point of view, where it exists merely as easy-going conformity to an unprogressive moral average. Even some singularity of zeal, some unprepossessing energy, is better than æsthetic sloth. It is for this reason that, in comparing Stoicism with Epicureanism, we must give preference to the former. In its principle of individual subjection to the moral law of general welfare lies the condition of progress, since only by such subjection can that modification of habit and instinct take place which constitutes the advancement of character in the direction of a state of general social harmony and general happiness. Epicureanism, as such, must, on the contrary, always remain egoism; and only the accidents of conditions-accidents of environments and of individual tendencies, through which immoral action may involve greater pleasure than moral-determine whether that egoism shall or shall not constitute a narrow selfishness.

I said, at the opening of this essay, that, granted the extreme premises assumed in the long array of opposing adjectives mustered by the author whose paragraphs we are considering, one could not well refuse his conclusions regarding the inapplicability of the equally extreme terms “saint" and "villain." Our argument has hitherto examined to what extent the premises are actually admissible in any general sense, and, proceeding on this ground, has up to this point assumed, in the type of moral lingerer considered, a certain sensibility of temperament, which leads to conformity with an average code. It has regarded him as a representative of Epicureanism in its better sense,-an Epicureanism which lends attributes of grace and companionability, and restrains by what may be termed a standard of moral taste. On the other hand, we have regarded the representative of self-control as devoid of this grace and companionability. The possibilities which we have thus admitted as possibilities arise, in one direction, from the fact that the man who is especially companionable naturally feels a strong inclination to follow the standard which will give him most companionship,—that is, the standard of the majority, except as his love of fellowship is dominated

by stronger motives of principle. That a strong instinct of association may thus exist, dominated by principle, is a fact; and so we have yet to add that a strict code of morals is perfectly compatible with the most lovable temperament; as also that it is equally true that not by any means all who fail to control their appetites are representatives of a finer Epicureanism. The latter may, on the contrary, be of the most evil-speaking, evil-thinking, bitter-hearted" class, may be "narrow-minded, narrow-hearted, narrow-souled, selfish and hard and cruel and weak." Want of self-contol in sexual matters certainly involves selfishness, and, too, in its complex social results, cruelty.

I wish to emphasize these last points especially, because the paragraphs quoted give me, as I believe they must give all who read them, the impression that the author is inclined to the opinion that the man whose appetites are not always under control is rather the more manly man, and likely to be the more genial and generally admirable. I infer this not merely from the very extreme character of the adjectives with which he shows favor to the incontinent, and disfavor to the continent man, but also and more especially from his designation of temperance and sexual purity as "miserable little affectations," and from his analogy of the lion and the oyster.

As regards this point of view, I may here repeat what I have said elsewhere more in detail,* namely, that as society progresses, the emotions of men are gradually moulded to higher types, just as animal forms are gradually moulded into higher species; but that this does not in the least imply that emotional capacity is lessened in force with social progress. Most men of so-called civilized societies are able to restrain themselves, in anger, from homicide, but this fact does not signify that they are less manly or less capable of emotion than their savage ancestors of the period when murder was common and unrebuked. The Australian savage wooes his bride with a club, and our European ancestors may once have ex

*"A Review of Evolutional Ethics," Part II., Chapters VI. and IX. (Macmillan & Co., 1893).

pressed their emotions towards the other sex in a similar manner; but though social evolution has led to the establishment of other ideals of courtship, yet it would be difficult to maintain that the human lover has developed in the direction of the oyster. On the contrary: the history of the whole of evolution is the history of the growth of more complex conditions, and the emotion of the civilized lover has gained, in its process of refinement, through a many-sided addition of intellectual modes and motives which the savage does not possess. If this is true of the whole past course of adjustment to higher ideals, it must be true, also, of the present and future continuation of that adjustment. The easy-going sensualist may be, indeed, a veritable oyster in comparison with the lover whose passion, hemmed by moral refinement from lower expression, finds vent, at last, in a channel to which a thousand streams of emotion unknown to the more primitive stand-point, converge. The fact of a progressive alteration of even fundamental instincts, though it is a necessary implication involved in the general law of evolution, is not sufficiently realized. As higher species are evolved from lower, so higher forms of instinct arise out of lower. If it is not always true of individual cases, it is true in the long run, that the man who fails to control himself sexually in accordance with the welfare of others represents the inferior type. He is one degree nearer the savage, and his emotion is of a more primitive character; but it is not necessarily stronger. This is particularly true because of the intimate connection which love between the sexes necessarily attains, in the course of social evolution, with the other desires and aspirations that are evolved with it, the intellectual and moral desires and aspirations by the development of which the progress of mankind is chiefly marked.

C. M. WILLIAMS.

DISCUSSION

ON THE MEANING OF THE TERM "MOTIVE," AND ON THE ETHICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF MOTIVES.

In the two admirable and (as teachers of philosophy will gratefully acknowledge) most useful manuals on Ethics by Mr. J. H. Muirhead and Mr. J. S. Mackenzie, I notice a certain agreement in what seems to me an unfortunate and mistaken use of the term "motive."

Mr. Muirhead writes as follows ("Elements of Ethics," p. 56):

"For whatever else a motive is, it is agreed by all that it is equivalent to an end or aim representing something that is to be realized, ―e.g., a future pleasure to ourselves, a good to others, or a truth to be discovered, not something that is already realized as is the feeling in question [viz., the feeling of pleasure in the thought of a future pleasure, etc.]. This may be otherwise expressed by saying that, while feeling as an element in desire may be said to be the efficient cause of action, a motive is universally admitted to be a final cause."

Mr. Mackenzie, who in a foot-note refers to this page of Mr. Muirhead's book, gives the following account of the meaning of motive ("A Manual of Ethics," pp. 37, 38):

"The term 'motive' is not less ambiguous than intention.' The motive means, of course, what moves us or causes us to act in a particular way. Now, there is an ambiguity in the term 'cause.' A cause may be either efficient or final. The efficient cause of a man's movements, for instance, is the action of certain nerves, muscles, etc.; the final cause is the desire of reaching a certain destination or producing a certain result. There is a similar ambiguity in the use of the term 'motive.' A motive may be understood to mean that which impels or that which induces us to act in a particular way. . . . The motive [in the second and more correct sense'] that which induces us to act, is the thought of a desirable end" (cf. p. 231, note 5).

Now, of course, any writer on technical subjects—and ethics treated scientifically is a technical subject-requires to give to terms greater precision than belongs to them in ordinary use, and is at liberty to give his own meanings to ordinary terms, provided he does so explicitly. But, in the first place, it is at

least very inexpedient to use terms in a way that deviates too much from their ordinary literary use, especially in subjects of such concrete interest as ethics. Now, it seems to me very inexpedient to limit the term motive to the final cause, or even to regard it as less correctly applied to the efficient cause; for the efficient cause is the apyǹ zvýσews, the beginning or source of movement. As a matter of etymology and of history (for it is from Aristotle that we derive this distinction between efficient and final causes), and also as a matter of general literary and popular usage, motive is the efficient cause of voluntary action. It is true that sometimes (most certainly not "universally") motive is used for the end or object of action, ―e.g., when Bancroft writes (I am quoting from the Century Dictionary, s. v.), "The conversion of the heathen was the motive to the settlement." But in such an expression are we not aware of a certain looseness, or at least abbreviation, of language? "The desire or wish to convert the heathen was the motive" would be the more strictly accurate manner of expressing the idea. When we speak of a person's motives we generally mean the feelings which influence his conduct, and not simply the ends or objects of his action, apart from their mental existence as constituting the content of his feelings,-e.g., we talk of a person acting from motives of ambition, of envy, of religious sentiment, etc.,-all such motives being feelings and not ends.

But, secondly, the error in the statements of Mr. Muirhead and Mr. Mackenzie seems to me to lie deeper than in a preference for the less usual and less accurate over the more usual and more accurate meaning of the term. It affects the conception of causality as applied to human conduct. Mr. Mackenzie says, "The efficient cause of a man's movements is the action of certain nerves, muscles," etc. Now, the action of certain nerves may, indeed, be described as the efficient cause of a man's movements; but the action of certain muscles is just these movements themselves, in their physical aspect. If we are considering a man's movements not merely as physical events, but, ethically, as part of his "conduct," it would be more correct to say that the action of certain nerves