Page:The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885).djvu/202

Rh what we can to get rid of them out of the world. And all experiences, however painful, that certainly tend to the increase of the power of moral insight, are good for men; and if we see no other experiences more suitable for this purpose, we ought to do what we can to increase among men the number and the definiteness of these pains.

Yet of course it will at once appear, when we examine human emotional experiences in the light of what we know of men, that there is a decided limit to the morally educative power of painful experiences, and that, on the other hand, very many pleasant experiences are useful to the moral insight, either by directly aiding it, or by preparing a man to attain it. In considering this branch of the subject, we at last reach the point where a scientific psychology can give us a great deal of help. We rejected the so-called “scientific basis” for morals because it founds the ought to be upon brutal physical facts. Now, however, we can turn to science to help us in our present task, because, having defined our ought to be, we are dealing with applied ethics, and are asking how this moral insight is to be attained. Psychology must tell us what it can as to this matter. And here such suggestions as those in Mr. Spencer’s “Data of Ethics” are indeed a useful aid to applied moral doctrine. We reject wholly the notion that Mr. Spencer or any like teacher has even caught a glimpse of the fundamental ethical problem. Mr. Spencer seems to be in the most childlike ignorance that there is any such problem at all. But we are glad to find that Mr. Spencer once having very