fond of beer. There is enough cider for one. I, who discover this tragic fact first, say nothing about it, leave you the cider and content myself with beer. Now the common opinion of mankind holds that I there perform an estimable action. Why? In either case one would have got cider, the other beer, and the total amounts of pleasure produced would have been the same. Why is it then considered better to make the distribution adverse to myself, rather than adverse to my friend? Let no one say that I secure an additional pleasure, the pleasure of benevolence in giving up something for another. If we once embark on these subtleties, could it not be urged that my friend might have had the additional benevolent pleasure of reflecting that I had enjoyed a better drink than his? In any case we could only call the pleasure of benevolence good if benevolence itself were good. And on the theory we are examining why should benevolence be supposed good? It would not result in the production of any more good than egoism: if then the good will is the will set towards good objects, the benevolent will would here have been no better than the egoistic. Such a conclusion is a monstrous paradox. Unselfishness may become a nuisance but it is usually at any rate a virtue. And if we pass from these trivial instances to the high forms of self-sacrifice we still find popular opinion proclaiming the goodness of acts which cannot possibly be shown to produce a balance of pleasure or any other nameable good. The moralist who refuses to give any account of this familiar fact is turning away from the most remarkable point of ordinary ethics. The moralist who explains it as a reaction from our natural disposition to favour ourselves in the first place will have to condemn many heroic acts as foolish exaggerations of a sound

principle in the second place he ignores or rejects the usual tendency to find in these acts not merely a wholesome precedent but some intrinsic nobility.

There seems to me no other conclusion possible except that it is right to prefer someone else's pleasure to your own even though the pleasures are equal: and if that is so the reason must be that there exists a sort of goodness that is not merely a product, a result secured, but like the good will expressed in the act rather than springing from it. Now benevolence or devotion to others is a good of this kind. There is a certain attitude of mind towards other persons possible which is in itself good apart from the good it produces: this attitude of mind is not the same as will directed towards pleasure, which might be found either in myself or in others, it is therefore not barely good will in the sense of will directed towards an object of intrinsic value: it is a devotion towards others which you may express in preferring their pleasure to your own, by 'thinking of them first'.

This regard for other people when raised to a sufficient intensity is called love: and the thesis that has been sustained might be at least in part summarized by saying that love is the best thing we know, and that it is impossible except in a society of persons. But in the first place 'love' is a simple expression for a very complex state of mind. It issues in very various acts of will, it expresses itself in innumerable thoughts: and it seems to contain an emotional element which accompanies these acts and thoughts. This last element has, indeed, been whittled away by some analyses, but I think without sufficient reason.1 When you consider the thoughts of

1 e.g. Croce, La Philosophie de la Pratique, p. 15: Le sentiment de l'amour ou celui de la patrie se dévoilent-ils pour elle [la philosophie]

a lover about the loved you find that they are coloured by a peculiar emotional tinge which you do not explain by stating the contents of the thought. This emotional colour cannot be stated in any simpler terms, though it may be contrasted with other feelings such as admiration that may be bound up with thoughts of the same object : their difference is indicated by the fact that love may accompany the thought of some defect that could not seriously be admired. Now in this emotional element many see so plainly the caprice of Nature that they are unwilling to attribute to it any great value. So far as it is physical passion men seem inclined to urge its suppression rather than its indulgence. So far as it is more than that, it may be recognized as desirable, but it still seems something so entirely outside any one's power, so much a matter of natural endowment, that it would be absurd, we are told, to talk of a duty to love men, if by love the emotional disposition is meant. Now I have given some reasons above for distrusting the argument that nothing can have moral value which is not capable of being produced at will. But it is sufficient for my purposes here to notice that the value of the state of mind in which another's happiness is sought at the expense of one's own need not depend altogether on the presence of this emotional condition. To my mind the warmth. of feeling is itself good. But cold-blooded philanthropy is still better than selfishness. If you cannot in any emotional sense love your fellow-men, it is still good to regard their pleasure more highly than your own, to comme des séries d'actes de pensée et de volonté diversement entrelacés.' He says on p. 20 that not only are thought and will the only two forms of spiritual life: 'il s'agit de montrer non seulement qu'il n'y a pas de troisième forme, mais qu'il ne peut y en avoir.' I cannot see that the demonstration here promised is ever given.

consider them in a way that you do not consider yourself. Wherever this is done good will is present not in the mere sense of rational endeavour to secure some desirable object but in the sense of personal devotion towards persons. Kant's conception of the good will has often been criticised as barren and devoid of content. But it is not to be amended simply by providing the will with some intrinsically valuable object such as pleasure or knowledge: it has to be expanded to mean 'good will towards men', a proper disposition of mind with regard to your fellow creatures. Love for others is in fact the most picturesque, the most romantic, perhaps also the best of a series of dispositions which depend on and consist in one person's relations with another. Respect for others, compassion with others, trust in others, love for others in all these phrases we sum up complex dispositions of mind in which, on analysis, thought, will, and feeling may all be detected. All of them imply right estimation of persons, and right behaviour towards persons, which must be considered good things in themselves: the goodness of these dispositions is not resolvable into the production of amounts of some abstract good thing like pleasure which ought to be promoted in itself, whoever may be the subject to enjoy it. My pleasure regarded abstractly may be as intense, as valuable as anyone else's. If it is still better to give the other man a pleasure I might equally have enjoyed myself, that is because in so doing I show if not love for him, at least a regard for him as a person which in itself is good. It may perhaps be objected, Can I not have regard for myself? Are there not such things as self-respect, selfconfidence, self-love? Why is it then any better to respect, trust, and love others than myself? But there is

no real analogy between dispositions of mind which imply a relation to others, and dispositions in which we seem to stand related to ourselves. Self-love for example will turn out in the long run to be the gratification of a desire for some cherished enjoyment, the indulgence of my tastes or caprices: it is not an attitude towards my person as a whole, as is love for others, love in the true sense of the term.1 Self-respect again means a variety of things, including undoubtedly the thought of myself as occupying a distinguished place in the hierarchy of mankind. But though in this sense it is analogous to a respectful opinion of others, it is in no sense analogous to that due consideration for others which makes one careful of their rights and feelings: I might be said thus to show consideration for my 'higher self', but this again is really a metaphor, and means in concrete terms devotion towards certain ideals. Self-confidence may seem more nearly akin to the trust I have in others: but that too in the long run will turn out to be a belief in

1 Mr. McDougall would not agree with this. He writes (Social Psychology, p. 161): 'Self-love is the self-regarding sentiment of the thoroughly selfish man, the meaner sort of egoist. Such a man feels a tender emotion for himself, he indulges in self-pity.' Here the thorough selfishness means, it appears to me, preoccupation with private pleasures and enjoyments. Self-pity is partly regret at losing them, or annoyance at not receiving sufficient: partly the thought that others are more favoured which then makes the regret more intense. 'Tender emotion' towards myself seems an impossibility: in Mr. McDougall's own account it accompanies altruistic impulses which cannot be interpreted as self-regarding (Social Psychology, pp. 66 and 79). I agree with John Grote, who writes: "Neither actually nor ideally, neither looking at what is nor at what should be is there or can there be any resemblance between our love of self, so to call it, and our love of any one else: I do not mean that the former is necessarily greater than the latter, but it is quite different in kind. It is only by a very ill-applying metaphor that we can speak of self-love.' (Treatise on the Moral Ideals, p. 198.)