THE STORY OF PHILOSOPHY2 The Lives and Opinions

HERBERT SPENCER 291
dbe association of pleasure and pain, on the average, with good or evii
conduct, indicates a measure of truth in the idea; and it may very weU
be that certain moral conceptions, acquired by the race, become heredi-
tary with the individual. 83 Here Spencer uses his favorite formula to
reconcile the intuitionist and the utilitarian, and falls back once more
upon the inheritance of acquired characters.
Surely, however, the innate moral sense, if it exists,
is in difficulties
for never were ethical notions more confused. It is notorious that
today;
the principles which we apply in our actual living are largely opposite to
those which \>*e preach in our churches and our books. The professed ethic
of Europe and America is a pacifistic Christianity; the actual ethic is the
militaristic code of the marauding Teutons from whom the ruling strata,
almost everywhere in Europe, are derived. The practice of duelling, in
Catholic France and Protestant Germany, is a tenacious relic of the
original Teutonic code. 84 Our moralists are kept busy apologizing for
these contradictions, just as the moralists of a later monogamic Greece
and India were hard put to it to explain the conduct of gods who had
been fashioned in a semi-promiscuous age. 85
Whether a nation develops its citizens on the lines of Christian morality
or the Teutonic code depends on whether industry or war is its dominant
concern. A militant society exalts certain virtues and condones what other
peoples might call crimes; aggression and robbery and treachery are not
so unequivocally denounced among peoples accustomed to them by war,
as among peoples who have learned the value of honesty and non-aggression
through industry and peace. Generosity and humanity flourish better
where war is infrequent and long periods of productive tranquillity inculcate
the advantages of mutual aid. 86 The patriotic member of a
militant society will look upon bravery and strength as the highest virtues
of a man; upon obedience as the highest virtue of the citizen; and upon
silent submission to multiple motherhood as the highest virtue of a
woman. 87 The Kaiser thought of God as the leader of the German army,
and followed up his approbation of duelling by attending divine service. 83
The North American Indians "regarded the use of the bow and arrow,
the war-club and spear, as the noblest employments of man. . . . They
looked upon agricultural and mechanical labor as degrading. . . . Only
during recent times only now that national welfare is becoming more
and more dependent on superior powers of production," and these "on
the higher mental faculties, are other occupations than militant ones rising
into respectability." 89
Now war is merely wholesale cannibalism; and there is no reason why
it should not be classed with cannibalism and unequivocally denounced.
"The sentiment and the idea of justice can grow only as fast as the
"I, 471- "I, 323. *% 458. *% 39i f.
"Of. the philosophy of Nietzsche. **!, 318. % 423-4-