society of men, or we may
mean the happiness of the members of that society. And when we speak of
morality, we may mean two things also; and these two things must be kept
distinct. We may mean what Professor Huxley calls '_social morality_,'
and of this the test and object is the happiness of societies; or we may
mean what he calls '_personal morality_,' and of this the test and
object is the happiness of individuals. And the answers which our
positive moralists make to us divide themselves into two classes,
according to the sort of happiness they refer to.

It is before all things important that this division be understood, and
be kept quite clear in our minds, if we would see honestly what our
positive modern systems amount to. For what makes them at present so
very hard to deal with, is the fact that their exponents are perpetually
perplexing themselves between these two classes of answers, first
giving one, and then the other, and imagining that, by a kind of
confusion of substance, they can both afford solutions of the same
questions. Thus they continually speak of life as though its crowning
achievement were some kind of personal happiness; and then being asked
to explain the nature and basis of this, they at once shift their
ground, and talk to us of the laws and conditions of social happiness.
Professor Huxley will again supply us with a very excellent example. He
starts with the thesis that _both_ sorts of morality are strong enough
to hold their own, without supernatural aid; and when we look to see on
what ground he holds they are, we find it to consist in the following
explanation that _one_ is. '_Given_,' he says, '_a society of human
beings under certain circumstances, and the question whether a
particular action on the part of one of its members will tend to
increase the general happiness or not, is a question of natural
knowledge, and as such is a perfectly legitimate subject of scientific
inquiry.... If it can be shown by observation or experiment, that theft,
murder, and adultery do not tend to diminish the happiness of society,
then, in the absence of any but natural knowledge, they are not social
immoralities._'

Now, in the above passage we have at least one thing. We have a short
epitome of one of those classes of answers that our positive moralists
are offering us. It is with this class that I shall deal in the
following chapter; and point out as briefly as may be its complete
irrelevance. After