satisfied, and so far as you are satisfied, do see whether it is not because, and so far as, you are false to your theory; so far as you are living not directly with a view to the pleasant, but with a view to something else, or with no view at all, but, as you would call it, without any ‘reason.’ We believe that, in your heart, your end is what ours is, but that about this end you not only are sorely mistaken, but in your heart you feel and know it; or at least would do so, if you would only reflect. And more than this I think we ought not to say.
What more are we to say? If a man asserts total scepticism, you can not argue with him. You can show that he contradicts himself; but if he says, ‘I do not care’—there is an end of it. So, too, if a man says, ‘I shall do what I like, because I happen to like it; and as for ends, I recognize none’—you may indeed show him that his conduct is in fact otherwise; and if he will assert anything as an end, if he will but say, ‘I have no end but myself,’ then you may argue with him, and try to prove that he is making a mistake as to the nature of the end he alleges. But if he says, ‘I care not whether I am moral or rational, nor how much I contradict myself,’ then argument ceases. We, who have the power, believe that what is rational (if it is not yet) at least is to be real,
moral philosophy, unless that has to do with the means whereby we are simply to get pleasure or avoid pain. The theory not only confuses morality and religion, but reduces them both to deliberate selfishness. Fear of criminal proceedings in the other world does not tell us what is morally right in this world. It merely gives a selfish motive for obedience to those who believe, and leaves those who do not believe, in all cases with less motive, in some cases with none. I can not forbear remarking that, so far as my experience goes, where future punishments are firmly believed in, the fear of them has, in most cases, but little influence on the mind. And the facts do not allow us to consider the fear of punishment in this world as the main motive to morality. In most cases there is, properly speaking, no ulterior motive. A man is moral because he likes being moral; and he likes it, partly because he has been brought up to the habit of liking it, and partly because he finds it gives him what he wants, while its opposite does not do so. He is not as a rule kept ‘straight’ by the contemplation of evils to be inflicted on him from the outside; and the shame he feels at the bad opinion of others is not a mere external evil, and is not feared simply as such. In short, a man is a human being, something larger than the abstraction of an actual or possible criminal.
