e of 'humanity,' in fact, as a
governing principle is not only impracticable, but often mischievous. A
man does more good, as a rule, by working for himself and his family,
than by acting like a 'moral Don Quixote,[157] who is capable of making
love for men in general the ground of all sorts of violence against men
in particular.' Indeed, there are many men whom we ought not to love. It
is hypocrisy to pretend to love the thoroughly vicious. 'I do not love
such people, but hate them,' says Fitzjames; and I do not want to make
them happy, because I could only do so by 'pampering their vices.'[158]

Here, therefore, he reaches the point at which his utilitarian and his
Puritanical prepossessions coincide. All law, says the utilitarian,
implies 'sanctions'--motives equally operative upon all members of
society; and, as the last resort, so far as criminal law is concerned,
the sanction of physical suffering. What is the corresponding element in
the moral law? To this, says Fitzjames, no positivist can give a fair
answer. He has no reply to anyone who says boldly, 'I am bad and
selfish, and I mean to be bad and selfish.'[159] The positivists can
only reply, 'Our tastes differ.' The great religions have answered
differently. We all know the Christian answer, and 'even the Buddhists
had, after a time, to set up a hell.' The reason is simple. You can
never persuade the mass of men till you can threaten them. Religions
which cannot threaten the selfish have no power at all; and till the
positivists can threaten, they will remain a mere 'Ritualistic Social
Science Association.' Briefly, the utilitarian asks, What is the
sanction of morality? And the Puritan gives the answer, Hell. Here,
then, apparently, we have the keystone of the arch. What is the good of
government in general? To maintain the law? And what is the end of the
law? To maintain morality. And why should we maintain morality? To
escape hell. This, according to some of his critics, was Fitzjames's
own conclusion. It represents, perhaps in a coarse form, an argument
which Fitzjames was never tired of putting since the days when he worked
out the theory of hell at school.

It would, however, be the grossest injustice to him if I left it to be
supposed for a moment that he accepted this version of his doctrine. He
repudiated it emphatically; and, in fact, he modifies the doctrine so
much that the real question is, whether he does not deprive it of all
force. No one was