convert morality into a mean and calculating prudence. By prudence they mean a calculation of the external conditions of life which assumes that the motives of life are once for all simple. Such indeed is precisely the intelligence assumed by the utilitarian school of ethics. By this school morality is conceived as a process of developing the means of life's satisfactions while the motives to be satisfied remain for ever fixed; and fixed, therefore, at the point of simple sense-gratification.

A grim insistence upon the unchangeable baseness of human nature is the distinctive characteristic of the moral philosophy of Hobbes. On one occasion Hobbes created a difficulty for himself by giving sixpence to a beggar. "Would you have done this if it had not been Christ's command?" he was asked. 'Yea,' said he. 'Why?' quoth the other. 'Because,' said he, 'I was in pain to consider the condition of the old man; and now my alms, giving him relief, doth also ease me.'" I suspect that Hobbes was here risking his immortal soul on behalf of philosophical consistency. But such at any rate is the theory of prudence. What it means is that whatever light Hobbes might get upon the outer world nothing could possibly throw further light upon himself or reveal a more generous motive than "ease". A curiously arbitrary limitation of intelligence, if you stop to think of it, and hardly to be identified with an "enlightened" self-interest; yet undeniably convenient. It is not true, alas! that the comforts and advantages of prudence are for the intelligent; they are reserved for the self-satisfied stupid.

To those who are accustomed to formulate morality as "doing good to others", "loving your neighbour", or "trusting your fellow-man", this view of the moral as the critical attitude will, I dare say, seem repellent. Yet what is meant by a love and confidence which dispenses with critical insight-what the spiritual realities are here conceived to be -is more than I can comprehend. I should like to be able to offer a more intimate illustration. But I recall, as it happens, a schoolmaster, the proprietor of a small school,

who once said to me, "I must admit that I am not impartially just to my boys. I am often compelled to grant the requests of influential parents, releasing their sons from obligations to which the other boys are held. But I try to be just as I can." Does such a confession repel or attract? I must confess that this piece of confidence has left me with a deep respect for this gentleman and with a warm sense of personal understanding. He was, by the way, a true gentleman, a conscientious and effective teacher, much respected by his boys, and the profits of his school were probably little more than a living. And I compare my feeling with regard to him with my distrust of the more usual schoolmaster, who never admits injustice, and is probably never aware of it, because his sense of justice is not too highly developed.

It is often said, when other justification seems lacking, that we love our friends for their weaknesses. "Weaknesses" I suspect to be a mark of deference to authoritarian morality. I should prefer to say that we love our friends for what they are. And we love them-we are close to them-just because we know so well what they are, because we know that they know, and that they know that we know --because, in one word, there is intelligence between us.

CHAPTER X

THE BEAUTY OF VIRTUE

§ 37. Aesthetic taste and moral law. § 38. The experience of beauty and virtue. §39. The beauty of utility. § 40. The moral ground of aesthetic criticism.

M

ORALITY, truth, beauty; or conscience, intelligence, taste in saying that among the values morality is everywhere, my thesis is that any of these conceptions when critically interpreted-with a view to the meaning underlying the conventional form-will be found also to mean each of the others. And thus to say that morality, or conscience, is everywhere in life is also to say that intelligence and taste are everywhere.

In this chapter the centre of attention will be beauty, or taste. It is not my intention to demonstrate a theory of beauty; for which indeed I have too little experience in fields specifically aesthetic. I shall be content, in this direction, with what may be suggested in the course of dealing with some of the customary arguments for regarding morality as one thing and beauty as another.

$ 37

Prominent among the arguments for demonstrating this irrelevance of beauty and virtue is the argument which links the two conventions, namely, that there is no disputing about tastes-de gustibus nil disputandum—and that “what is right for one is right for all", into the doctrine that judgments of beauty are subjective, and therefore not to be questioned, while judgments of morality are objective and are therefore to be enforced by law.

That there is no disputing about tastes I take to be plainly false, together with the implication that there ought to be no disputing about tastes; for if we must dispute about anything I wonder what other material for dispute is so well worth while. As a matter of fact people are constantly disputing about tastes, and with hardly less animus than in their disputes about morals. It may be doubted whether the sternest Puritan hates the evil-doer quite so sincerely as the professional aesthete loathes those who prefer the banal and the vulgar. The aesthete closes the discussion with the cool and verbally modest retort, "Well, our tastes differ", while the Puritan consigns his opponent to the world below; but their meaning is the same.

And if it be urged that the aesthetic point of view tolerates different genres, or types of beauty, Mozart and Wagner, Watteau and Leonardo da Vinci, finding each in its own way beautiful, then we must ask, repeating the question of earlier chapters, whether the moral point of view does otherwise. It is supposed somehow to mark the disinterestedness and liberality peculiar to the aesthetic point of view to say, for example, that the lover of Mozart need not quarrel with the lover of Wagner. Not, I should reply, until it becomes a practical question of arranging the programme of a concert. But it is only upon some practical question, concerning the possession of land, or money, or the like, that the Anglo-Saxon finds any real need of quarrelling with a Russian, the Gentile with the Jew, or the capitalist with the labourer. Art as conventionally conceived is likely to be artificially restricted to such expressions as pictures, music, and the like. We forget that art may cover the whole of life. In the conventionally restricted application, different aesthetic tastes can live more comfortably in the world together than different moral ideals, because they can more easily keep out of one another's way. Logically and essentially, however, the aesthetic point of view is not more a matter of privacy than the moral.

Persons of taste very commonly distinguish good and

bad taste and quite as properly, it seems, as when these adjectives are applied to differences of moral character. For even in the field of taste it is not enough for a man to take his stand upon the simple assertion, This is my taste. If he cares to have his assertion respected-and if not why should he utter it ?—he must justify his taste; not indeed by reference to a standard of taste, but certainly by showing that when the meaning of his taste is developed (suppose it to be a cubist or futurist taste) there is revealed a consistency and significance of motive of which any interest in the world of taste must at least take account. This is to give to his assertion an objective significance, objective in just the sense in which moral assertions are objective (see § 44). But it is also to incur an obligation. You cannot take a stand or make a claim without incurring an obligation, and moral obligations rest upon nothing more.

Persons of taste have also a way of condemning as "bad taste" conduct which moralistic persons, if they pass any judgment on such conduct, would call "wrong"; such as wilful disregard of the sensibilities of other persons present in the choice of a subject of conversation. What they mean by bad taste is, however, really a disregard of moral considerations. And if you or I prefer the term "taste" in this connection, it is not for the purpose of ignoring the moral aspect of the issue, and of calling it purely aesthetic, but simply to claim for the expression of taste a finer and deeper insight into the moral values.

Nor, on the other hand, shall we find many persons to assent to "What is right for one is right for all" if this principle is to be taken literally to the extent of an absolute disregard of the individual conscience. Even Kant, who embodied the principle in his "categorical imperative”, had to assume that the individual conscience would of its own accord ratify the principle. During the World War, when absolutism was in the saddle, the principle was applied to military service; yet by virtually universal consent exemption was accorded to conscientious objectors who could