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was from 30 to 35 per cent. per annum—nearly the same that is
found in England and other countries in Europe; but such has been
the success of his method, that for the last three years there has not
been even one re-committal to it , and for the ten previous years
they did not, on an average, exceed 1 per cent.” And how has this
marvellous change been brought about? By diminished restraint and
industrial discipline. The following extracts, taken irregularly from Mr.
Hoskins’s Account of the Public Prison at Valencia , will prove this:―
“When first the convict enters the establishment he wears chains, but on his
application to the commander they are taken off, unless he has not conducted
himself well.”
“There are a thousand prisoners, and in the whole establishment I did not see
above three or four guardians to keep them in order. They say there are only a
dozen old soldiers, and not a bar or bolt that might not be easily broken—
apparently not more fastenings than in any private house.”
“When a convict enters, he is asked what trade or employment he will work at
or learn, and above forty are open to him. . . . . There are weavers and spinners
of every description; . . . . blacksmiths, shoemakers, basketmakers, ropemakers,
joiners, cabinetmakers, making handsome mahogany drawers; and they had also
a printing machine hard at work.”
“The labour of every description for the repair, rebuilding, and cleaning the
establishment, is supplied by the convicts. They were all most respectful in
demeanour, and certainly I never saw such a good-looking set of prisoners, useful
occupations (and other considerate treatment) having apparently improved their
countenances. . . . . [And besides a] garden for exercise planted with orange
trees, there was also a poultry yard for their amusement, with pheasants and
various other kinds of birds; washing-houses, where they wash their clothes; and
a shop, where they can purchase, if they wish, tobacco and other little comforts
out of one-fourth of the profits of their labour, which is given to them. Another
fourth they are entitled to when they leave; the other half goes to the
establishment, and often this is sufficient for all expenses, without any assistance
from the Government .”
Thus the highest success, regarded by Mr. Hoskins as {178} “really
a miracle,” is achieved by a system most nearly conforming to those
dictates of absolute morality on which we have insisted. The convicts
are almost, if not quite, self-supporting. They are subject neither to
gratuitous penalties nor unnecessary restrictions. While made to
earn their living, they are allowed to purchase such enjoyments as
consist with their confinement: the avowed principle being, in the
words of Colonel Montesinos, to “give as much latitude to their free
agency as can be made conformable to discipline at all.” Thus they
are (as we found that equity required they should be) allowed to live
as satisfactorily as they can, under such restraints only as are
needful for the safety of their fellow-citizens.
To us it appears extremely significant that there should be so close
a correspondence between a priori conclusions, and the results of
experiments tried without reference to such conclusions. On the one
hand, neither in the doctrines of pure equity with which we set out,
nor in the corollaries drawn from them, is there any mention of
criminal-reformation: our concern has been solely with the rights of
citizens and convicts in their mutual relations. On the other hand,
those who have carried out the improved penal systems above
described, have had almost solely in view the improvement of the
offender: the just claims of society, and of those who sin against it,
having been left out of the question. Yet the methods which have
succeeded so marvellously in decreasing criminality, are the methods
which most nearly fulfil the requirements of abstract justice.
That the most equitable system is the one best calculated to
reform the offender, may indeed be deductively shown. The internal
experience of every one must prove to him, that excessive
punishment begets, not penitence, but indignation and hatred. So
long as an aggressor suffers nothing beyond the evils which have
naturally resulted from his misconduct—so long as he perceives that
his fellow-men have done no more than was needful for self-defence
—he {179} has no excuse for anger; and is led to contemplate his
crime and his punishment as cause and effect. But if gratuitous
sufferings are inflicted on him, a sense of injustice is produced. He
regards himself as an injured man. He cherishes animosity against
all who have brought this harsh treatment on him. Glad of any plea
for forgetting the injury he has done to others, he dwells instead on
the injury others have done to him. Thus nurturing a desire for
revenge rather than atonement, he re-enters society not better but
worse; and if he does not commit further crimes, as he often does,
he is restrained by the lowest of motives—fear. Again, this industrial
discipline, to which criminals subject themselves under a purely
equitable system, is the discipline they especially need. Speaking
generally, we are all compelled to work by the necessities of our
social existence. For most of us this compulsion suffices; but there
are some whose aversion to labour cannot be thus overcome. Not
labouring, and yet needing sustenance, they are compelled to obtain
it in illegitimate ways; and so bring on themselves the legal
penalties. The criminal class being thus in great part recruited from
the idle class; and the idleness being the source of the criminality; it
follows that a successful discipline must be one which shall cure the
idleness. The natural compulsions to labour having been eluded, the
thing required is that the offender shall be so placed that he cannot
elude them. And this is just what is done under the system we
advocate. Its action is such that men whose natures are ill-adapted
to the conditions of social life, bring themselves into a position in
which a better adaptation is forced on them by the alternative of
starvation. Lastly, let us not forget that this discipline which absolute
morality dictates, is salutary, not only because it is industrial, but
because it is voluntarily industrial. As we have shown, equity
requires that the confined criminal shall be left to maintain himself—
that is, shall be {180} left to work much or little, and to take the
consequent plenitude or hunger. When, therefore, under this sharp
but natural spur, a prisoner begins to exert himself, he does so by his
own will. The process which leads him into habits of labour, is a
process by which his self-control is strengthened; and this is what is
wanted to make him a better citizen. It is to no purpose that you
make him work by external coercion; for when he is again free, and
the coercion absent, he will be what he was before. The coercion
must be an internal one, which he shall carry with him out of prison.
It avails little that you force him to work; he must force himself to
work. And this he will do, only when placed in those conditions
which equity dictates.
Here, then, we find a third order of evidences. Psychology
supports our conclusion. The various experiments above detailed,
carried out by men who had no political or ethical theories to
propagate, have established facts which we find to be quite
concordant, not only with the deductions of absolute morality, but
also with the deductions of mental science. Such a combination of
different kinds of proof, cannot, we think, be resisted.

And now let us try whether, by pursuing somewhat further the

method thus far followed, we can see our way to the development of
certain improved systems which are coming into use.
Equity requires that the restraint of the criminal shall be as great
as is needful for the safety of society; but not greater. In respect to
the quality of the restraint, there is little difficulty in interpreting this
requirement; but there is considerable difficulty in deciding on the
duration of the restraint. No obvious mode presents itself of finding
out how long a transgressor must be held in legal bondage, to insure
society against further injury from him. A longer period than is
necessary, implies an actual injustice to {181} the offender. A shorter
period than is necessary, implies a potential injustice to society. And
yet, without good guidance, one or other of these extremes is
almost sure to be fallen into.
At present, the lengths of penal sentences are fixed in a manner
that is wholly empirical. For offences defined in certain technical
ways, Acts of Parliament assign transportations and imprisonments,
having durations not greater than so much nor less than so much:
these partially-determined periods being arbitrarily fixed by
legislators, under the promptings of moral feeling. Within the
assigned limits the judge exercises his discretion; and in deciding on
the time over which the restraint shall extend, he is swayed, partly
by the special quality of the offence, partly by the circumstances
under which it was committed, partly by the prisoner’s appearance
and behaviour, partly by the character given to him. And the
conclusion he arrives at after consideration of these data, depends
very much on his individual nature—his moral bias and his theories
of human conduct. Thus the mode of fixing the lengths of penal
restraints, is from beginning to end, little else than guessing. How ill
this system of guessing works, we have abundant proofs. “Justices’
justice,” which illustrates it in its simplest form, has become a bye-
word; and the decisions of higher criminal court frequently err in the
directions of both undue severity and undue lenity. Daily there occur
cases of extremely-trifling transgressions visited with imprisonments
of considerable lengths; and daily there occur cases in which the
punishments are so inadequate, that the offenders time after time
commit new crimes, when time after time discharged from custody.
Now the question is whether, in place of this purely empirical
method which answers so ill, equity can guide us to a method which
shall more correctly adjust the period of restraint to the requirement.
We believe it can. We believe that by following out its dictates, we
shall arrive {182} at a method that is in great measure self-acting;
and therefore less liable to be vitiated by errors of individual
judgment or feeling.
We have seen that were the injunctions of absolute morality
obeyed, every transgressor would be compelled to make restitution
or compensation. Throughout a considerable range of cases, this
would itself involve a period of restraint varying in proportion to the
magnitude of the offence. It is true that when the malefactor
possessed ample means, the making restitution or compensation
would usually be to him but a slight punishment. But though in
these comparatively few cases, the regulation would fall short of its
object, in so far as its effect on the criminal was concerned, yet in
the immense majority of cases—in all cases of aggressions
committed by the poorer members of the community—it would act
with efficiency. It would involve periods of detention that would be
longer or shorter according as the injury done was greater or less,
and according as the transgressor was idle or industrious. And
although between the injury done by an offender and his moral
turpitude, there is no constant and exact proportion, yet the
greatness of the injury done, affords, on the average of cases, a
better measure of the discipline required, than do the votes of
Parliamentary majorities and the guesses of judges.
But our guidance does not end here. An endeavour still further to
do that which is strictly equitable, will carry us still nearer to a
correct adjustment of discipline to delinquency. When, having
enforced restitution, we insist on some adequate guarantee that
society shall not again be injured, and accept any guarantee that is
sufficient, we open the way to a self-acting regulator of the period of
detention. Already our laws are in many cases satisfied with
securities for future good behaviour. Already this system manifestly
tends to separate the more vicious from the less vicious; seeing that,
on the average, the difficulty of {183} finding securities is great in
proportion as the character is bad. And what we propose is that this
system, now confined to particular kinds of offences, shall be made
general. But let us be more specific.
A prisoner on his trial calls witnesses to testify to his previous
character—that is, if his character has been tolerably good. The
evidence thus given weighs more or less in his favour, according to
the respectability of the witnesses, their number, and the nature of
their testimony. Taking into account these several elements, the
judge forms his conception of the delinquent’s general disposition,
and modifies the length of punishment accordingly. Now, may we
not fairly say that if the current opinion respecting a convict’s
character could be brought directly to bear in qualifying the
statutory sentence, instead of being brought indirectly to bear, as at
present, it would be a great improvement? Clearly the estimate
made by a judge from such testimony, must be less accurate than
the estimate made by the prisoner’s neighbours and employers.
Clearly, too, the opinion expressed by such neighbours and
employers in the witness-box, is less trustworthy than an opinion
which entails on them serious responsibility. The desideratum is, that
a prisoner’s sentence shall be qualified by the judgment of those
who have had life-long experience of him; and that the sincerity of
this judgment shall be tested by their readiness to act on it.
But how is this to be done? A very simple method of doing it has
8
been suggested. When a convict has fulfilled his task of making
restitution or compensation, let it be possible for one or other of
those who have known him, to take him out of confinement, on
giving adequate bail for his good behaviour. Always premising that
such an arrangement shall be possible only under an official permit,
to be withheld if the prisoner’s conduct has been unsatisfactory; and
always premising that the person who offers bail shall {184} be of
good character and means; let it be competent for such a one to
liberate a prisoner by being bound on his behalf for a specific sum,
or by undertaking to make good any injury which he may do to his
fellow-citizens within a specified period. This will doubtless be
thought a startling proposal. We shall, however, find good reasons to
believe it might be safely acted on—nay, we shall find facts proving
the success of a plan that is obviously less safe.
8
We owe the suggestion to the late Mr. Octavius H. Smith.

Under such an arrangement, the liberator and the convict would

usually stand in the relation of employer and employed. Those to be
thus conditionally released, would be ready to work for somewhat
lower wages than were usual in their occupation; and those who
became bound for them, besides having this economy of wages as
an incentive, would be in a manner guaranteed by it against the risk
undertaken. In working for less money, and in being under the
surveillance of his master, the convict would still be undergoing a
mitigated discipline. And while, on the one hand, he would be put on
his good behaviour by the consciousness that his master might at
any time cancel the contract and surrender him back to the
authorities, he would, on the other hand, have a remedy against his
master’s harshness, in the option of returning to prison, and there
maintaining himself for the remainder of his term.
Observe, next, that the difficulty of obtaining such conditional
release would vary with the gravity of the offence which had been
committed. Men guilty of heinous crimes would remain in prison; for
none would dare to become responsible for their good behaviour.
Any one convicted a second time would remain unbailed for a much
longer period than before; seeing that having once inflicted loss on
some one bound for him, he would not again be so soon offered the
opportunity of doing the like: only after a long period of good
behaviour testified to by prison-officers, would he be likely to get
another chance. Conversely, those whose transgressions were not
serious, and who had usually been {185} well-conducted, would
readily obtain recognizances; while to venial offenders this qualified
liberation would come as soon as they had made restitution.
Moreover, when innocent persons had been pronounced guilty, as
well as when solitary misdeeds had been committed by those of
really superior natures, the system we have described would supply
a remedy. From the wrong verdicts of the law and its mistaken
estimates of turpitude, there would be an appeal; and long-proved
worth would bring its reward in the mitigation of grievous injustices.
A further advantage would by implication result, in the shape of a
long industrial discipline for those who most needed it. Speaking
generally, diligent and skilful workmen, who were on the whole
useful members of society, would, if their offences were not serious,
soon obtain employers to give bail for them. Whereas members of
the criminal class—the idle and the dissolute—would remain long in
confinement; since, until they had been brought by habitual self-
maintenance under restraint, to something like industrial efficiency,
employers would not be tempted to become responsible for them.
 We should thus have a self-acting test, not only of the length of
restraint required for social safety, but also of that apprenticeship to
labour which many convicts need; while there would be supplied a
means of rectifying sundry failures and excesses of our present
system. The plan would practically amount to an extension of trial by
jury. At present, the State calls in certain of a prisoner’s fellow-
citizens to decide whether he is guilty or not guilty: the judge, under
guidance of the penal laws, being left to decide what punishment he
deserves, if guilty. Under the arrangement we have described, the
judge’s decision would admit of modification by a jury of the
convict’s neighbours. And this natural jury, while it would be best
fitted by previous knowledge of the man to form an opinion, would
be rendered cautious by the sense of grave responsibility; inasmuch
as {186} any one of its number who gave a conditional release, would
do so at his own peril.
And now mark that all the evidence forthcoming to prove the
safety and advantages of the “intermediate system,” proves, still
more conclusively, the safety and advantages of this system which
we would substitute for it. What we have described, is nothing more
than an intermediate system reduced to a natural instead of an
artificial form—carried out with natural checks instead of artificial
checks. If, as Captain Crofton has experimentally shown, it is safe to
give a prisoner conditional liberation, on the strength of good
conduct during a certain period of prison-discipline; it is evidently
safer to let his conditional liberation depend not alone on good
conduct while under the eyes of his jailors, but also on the character
he had earned during his previous life. If it is safe to act on the
judgments of officials whose experience of a convict’s behaviour is
comparatively limited, and who do not suffer penalties when their
judgments are mistaken; then, manifestly, it is safer (when such
officials can show no reason to the contrary), to act on the additional
judgment of one who has not only had better opportunities of
knowing the convict, but who will be a serious loser if his judgment
proves erroneous. Further, that surveillance over each conditionally-
liberated prisoner, which the “intermediate system” exercises, would
be still better exercised when, instead of going to a strange master
in a strange district, the prisoner went to some master in his own
district; and, under such circumstances, it would be easier to get
information respecting his after-career. There is every reason to
think that this method would be workable. If, on the
recommendation of the officers, Captain Crofton’s prisoners obtain
employers “who have on many occasions returned for others, in
consequence of the good conduct of those at first engaged;” still
better would be the action of the system when, instead of the
employers having “every {187} facility placed at their disposal for
satisfying themselves as to the antecedents of the convict,” they
were already familiar with his antecedents.
Finally, let us not overlook the fact, that this course is the only one
which, while duly consulting social safety, is also entirely just to the
prisoner. As we have shown, the restraints imposed on a criminal are
warranted by absolute equity, only to the extent needful to prevent
further aggressions on his fellow-men; and when his fellow-men
impose greater restraints than these, they trespass against him.
Hence, when a prisoner has worked out his task of making
restitution, and, so far as is possible, undone the wrong he had
done, society is, in strict justice, bound to accept any arrangement
which adequately protects its members against further injury. And if,
moved by the expectation of profit, or other motive, any citizen
sufficiently substantial and trustworthy, will take on himself to hold
society harmless, society must agree to his proposal. All it can rightly
require is, that the guarantee against contingent injury shall be
adequate; which, of course, it never can be where the contingent
injury is of the gravest kind. No bail could compensate for murder;
and therefore against this, and other extreme crimes, society would
rightly refuse any such guarantee, even if offered, which it would be
very unlikely to be.
 Such, then, is our code of prison-ethics. Such is the ideal which
we ought to keep ever in view when modifying our penal system.
Again we say, as we said at the outset, that the realization of such
an ideal wholly depends on the advance of civilization. Let no one
carry away the impression that we regard all these purely equitable
regulations as immediately practicable. Though they may be partially
carried out, we think it highly improbable that they could at present
be carried out in full. The number of offenders, the low average of
enlightenment, the ill-working of {188} administrative machinery, and
above all, the difficulty of obtaining officials of adequate intelligence,
good feeling, and self-control, are obstacles which must long stand
in the way of a system so complex as that which morality dictates.
And we here assert, as emphatically as before, that the harshest
penal system is ethically justified if it is as good as the circumstances
of the time permit. However great the cruelties it inflicts, yet if a
system theoretically more equitable would not be a sufficient terror
to evil-doers, or could not be worked, from lack of officers
sufficiently judicious, honest, and humane—if less rigorous methods
would entail a diminution of social security; then the methods in use
are extrinsically good though intrinsically bad. They are, as before
said, the least wrong, and therefore relatively right.
Nevertheless, as we have endeavoured to prove, it is immensely
important that, while duly considering the relatively right, we should
keep the absolutely right constantly in view. True as it is that, in this
transition state, our conceptions of the ultimately expedient must
ever be qualified by our experience of the proximately expedient; it
is not the less true that the proximately expedient cannot be
determined unless the ultimately expedient is known. Before we can
say what is as good as the time permits, we must say what is
abstractedly good; for the first idea involves the last. We must have
some fixed standard, some invariable measure, some constant clue;
otherwise we shall inevitably be misled by the suggestions of
immediate policy, and wander away from the right rather than
advance towards it. This conclusion is fully borne out by the facts we
have cited. In other cases, as well as in the case of penal discipline,
the evidence shows how terribly we have erred from obstinately
refusing to consult first principles and clinging to an unreasoning
empiricism. Though, during civilization, grievous evils have
occasionally arisen from attempts suddenly to realize absolute
rectitude, yet a {189} greater sum total of evils has arisen from the
more usual course of ignoring absolute rectitude. Age after age,
effete institutions have been maintained far longer than they would
else have been, and equitable arrangements have been needlessly
postponed. Is it not time for us to profit by past lessons?

P OSTSCRIPT .—Since the publication of this essay in 1860 further

evidence supporting its conclusions has been made public. Dr. F.J.
Mouat, late Inspector-General of Gaols in Lower Bengal, has given,
in various pamphlets and articles, dating from 1872, accounts of his
experiences, which entirely harmonize with the foregoing general
argument. Speaking of three leading systems of prison-discipline,
“based on opposite theories,” he says:―
“The oldest is, that a prison should be rendered a terror to evil doers by the
infliction of as much pain as can be inflicted, without direct injury to health or risk
to life. The second plan is a graduated system of punishment, from which the
direct infliction of pain is eliminated, and the prisoner is allowed to work his way to
freedom and mitigation of sentence, by mere good conduct in jail. The third, and
in my humble judgment the best, is to convert every prison into a school of
industry, labour being used as an instrument of punishment, discipline, and
reformation.”—Prison Industry in its Primitive, Reformatory, and Economic Aspects
(London, Nov. 1889).
In his pamphlet on the Prison System of India , published in 1872,
Dr. Mouat contends:―
“That remunerative prison labour is an efficient instrument of punishment and
reformation by occupying the whole available time of criminals in uncongenial and
compulsory employments; by teaching them the means of gaining an honest
livelihood on release; by the inculcation of habits of order and industry, to the
displacement of the irregularity and idleness which are the sources of so much
vice and crime; and by repaying to the State the whole or part of the cost of
repression of crime by the compulsory industry of the unproductive classes, and
thus relieving the community at large from a burden which it is at present
compelled to bear.
“That the economic objections to the remunerative employment of convicts are
unsound and untenable; and that even if they were true as respects individuals
and small sections of the community, the interests of the minority should yield to
the general welfare.”
Once more, under the title Prison Discipline and its Results in
Bengal , first published in the Journal of the {190} Society of Arts in
1872, Dr. Mouat, after describing an exhibition of gaol-manufactures
held in Calcutta in 1856, urges “that every prisoner sentenced to
labour should be made to repay to the State the whole cost of his
punishment in gaol; . . . and that prisons should be made, as much
as possible, schools of industry, as combining, more completely than
can be effected by any other system, the punishment of the
offender, with the protection of society.” He then goes on to show
what have been the results of the self-supporting system:―
“The net profits realized from the labour of the convicts actually employed in
handicrafts, after deducting the cost of production, were, in round numbers, as
follows:―

£ £
1855–56 11,019 1864–65 32,988
’56–57 12,300 ’65–66 35,543
’57–58 10,841 ’66 14,287
’59–60 14,065 ’67 41,168
’60–61 23,124 ’68 56,817
’61–62 54,542 ’69 46,588
’62–63 30,604 ’70 45,274
’63–64 54,542

In all, nearly half a million of money. In 1866, the accounts were made up for only
eight months, to introduce the calendar in place of the official year, which ended
on the 30th of April.
 “If the limits of time and space permitted, I could show you in minute detail that
each skilled prisoner employed in handicrafts, striking the average of all the jails,
earned considerably more than he cost; that five of the prisons under my charge
were at various times self-supporting, and that one of them, the great industrial
prison at Alipore, a suburb of Calcutta, has repaid very considerably more than its
cost, for the last ten years continuously.”
As Dr. Mouat held the position of Inspector-General of Gaols in
Lower Bengal for 15 years, and as, during that period, he had under
his control an average of 20,000 prisoners, it may, I think, be held
that his experiences have been tolerably extensive, and that a
system justified by such experiences is worthy of adoption.
Unfortunately, however, men pooh-pooh those experiences which do
not accord with their foregone conclusions.
I have occasionally vented the paradox that mankind go {191} right
only when they have tried all possible ways of going wrong:
intending it to be taken with some qualification. Of late, however, I
have observed that in some respects this paradox falls short of the
truth. Sundry instances have shown me that even when mankind
have at length stumbled into the right course, they often deliberately
return to the wrong.
 {192}

THE ETHICS OF KANT.

[From the Fortnightly Review for July 1888. This essay was called forth by attacks
on me made in essays published in preceding numbers of the Fortnightly Review—
essays in which the Kantian system of ethics was lauded as immensely superior to
the system of ethics defended by me. The last section now appears for the first
time. ]

If, before Kant uttered that often-quoted saying in which, with the
stars of Heaven he coupled the conscience of Man, as being the two
things that excited his awe, he had known more of Man than he did,
he would probably have expressed himself somewhat otherwise.
Not, indeed, that the conscience of Man is not wonderful enough,
whatever be its supposed genesis; but the wonderfulness of it is of a
different kind according as we assume it to have been supernaturally
given or infer that it has been naturally evolved. The knowledge of
Man in that large sense which Anthropology expresses, had made, in
Kant’s day, but small advances. The books of travel were relatively
few, and the facts which they contained concerning the human mind
as existing in different races, had not been gathered together and
generalized. In our days the conscience of Man, as inductively
known, has none of that universality of presence and unity of
nature, which Kant’s saying tacitly assumes. Sir John Lubbock
writes:―
“In fact, I believe that the lower races of men may be said to be deficient {193}

in the idea of right. . . . . That there should be any races of men so deficient in
moral feeling, was altogether opposed to the preconceived ideas with which I
commenced the study of savage life, and I have arrived at the conviction by slow
degrees, and even with reluctance.”—Origin of Civilization , 1882, pp. 404–5.
But now let us look at the evidence from which this impression is
derived, as we find it in the testimonies of travellers and
missionaries.
Praising his deceased son, Tui Thakau, a Fijian Chief, concluded “by speaking of
his daring spirit and consummate cruelty, as he could kill his own wives if they
offended him, and eat them afterwards.”—Western Pacific. J. E. Erskine, p. 248.
“Shedding of blood is to him no crime, but a glory . . . . to be somehow an
acknowledged murderer is the object of the Fijian’s restless ambition.”—Fiji and
the Fijians. Rev. T. Williams, i., p. 112.
“It is a melancholy fact that when they [the Zulu boys] have arrived at a very
early age, should their mothers attempt to chastise them, such is the law, that
these lads are at the moment allowed to kill their mothers.”—Travels and
Adventures in Southern Africa. G. Thompson, ii., p. 418.
“Murther, adultery, thievery, and all other such like crimes, are here [Gold Coast]
accounted no sins.”—Description of the Coast of Guinea. W. Bosman, p. 130.
“The accusing conscience is unknown to him [the East African]. His only fear
after committing a treacherous murder is that of being haunted by the angry
ghost of the dead.”—Lake Regions of Central Africa. R. F. Burton, ii., p. 336.
“I never could make them [East Africans] understand the existence of good
principle.”—The Albert N’Yanza. S. W. Baker, i., pp. 241.
“The Damaras kill useless and worn-out people; even sons smother their sick
fathers.”—Narrative of an Explorer in Tropical South Africa. F. Galton, p. 112.
The Damaras “seem to have no perceptible notion of right and wrong.”—Ibid. p.
72.
Against these we may set some converse facts. At the other
extreme we have a few Eastern tribes—pagans they are called—who
practise the virtues which Western nations—Christians they are
called—do but teach. While Europeans thirst for blood-revenge in
much the same way as the lowest savages, there are some simple
peoples of the Indian Hills, as the Lepchas, who “are singularly
9
forgiving of injuries;” and Campbell exemplifies “the effect of a {194}
10
very strong sense of duty on this savage.” That character which the
creed of Christendom is supposed to foster is exhibited in high
degree by the Arafuras (Papuans) who live in “peace and brotherly
11
love with one another” to such extent that government is but
nominal. And concerning various of the Indian Hill-tribes, as the
Santáls, Sowrahs, Marias, Lepchas, Bodo and Dhimáls, different
observers testify of them severally that “they were the most truthful
12
set of men I ever met,” “crime and criminal officers are almost
13
unknown,” “a pleasing feature in their character is their complete
14
truthfulness,” “they bear a singular character for truthfulness and
15 16
honesty,” they are “wonderfully honest,” “honest and truthful in
deed and word.”17 Irrespective of race, we find these traits in men
who are, and have long been, absolutely peaceful (the uniform
antecedent), be they the Jakuns of the South Malayan Peninsula,
who “are never known to steal anything, not even the most
insignificant trifle,”18 or be it in the Hos of the Himalaya, among
whom “a reflection on a man’s honesty or veracity may be sufficient
19
to send him to self-destruction.” So that in respect of conscience
these uncivilized people are as superior to average Europeans, as
average Europeans are superior to the brutal savages previously
described.
9
Campbell in Journal of the Ethnological Society , July, N. S. vol. i., 1869, p.
150.
10
Ibid. p. 154.
11
Dr. H. Kolff, Voyages of the Dutch brig “Dourga.” Earl’s translation, pp. 161.
12
W. W. Hunter, Annals of Rural Bengal , p. 248.
13
Ibid. p. 217.
14
Dr. J. Shortt, Hill Ranges of Southern India , pt. iii., p. 38.
15
Glasfind in Selections from the Records of Government of India (Foreign
Department), No. xxxix., p. 41.
16
Campbell in Journal of the Ethnological Society , N. S. vol. i., 1869, p. 150.
17
B. H. Hodgson in Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal , xviii., p. 745.
18
Rev. P. Favre in Journal of the Indian Archipelago , ii., p. 266.
19
Col. E. T. Dalton, Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal , p. 206.

Had Kant had these and kindred facts before him, {195} his
conception of the human mind, and consequently his ethical
conception, would scarcely have been what they were. Believing, as
he did, that one object of his awe—the stellar Universe—has been
evolved, he might by evidence like the foregoing have been led to
suspect that the other object of his awe—the human conscience—
has been evolved, and has consequently a real nature unlike its
apparent nature.

For the disciples of Kant living in our day there can be made no
such defence as that which may be made for their master. On all
sides of them lie classes of facts of various kinds, which might
suffice to make them hesitate, if nothing more. Here are a few such
classes of facts.
Though, unlike the uncultured, who suppose everything to be
what it appears, chemists had for many generations known that
multitudinous substances which seem simple are really compound,
and often highly compound; yet, until the time of Sir Humphrey
Davy, even chemists had believed that certain substances which
resisted all their powers of decomposition, were to be classed
among the elements. Davy, however, by subjecting the alkalies to a
force not before applied, proved that they are oxides of metals; and,
suspecting the like to be the case with the earths, similarly proved
the composite nature of these also. Not only the common sense of
the uncultured, but the common sense of the cultured was shown to
be wrong. Wider knowledge has, as usual, led to greater modesty,
and, since Davy’s day, chemists have felt less certain that the so-
called elements are elementary. Contrariwise, increasing evidence of
sundry kinds leads them to suspect more and more strongly that
they are all compound.
Alike to the labourer who digs it out and to the carpenter who
uses it in his workshop, a piece of chalk appears a thing than which
nothing can be simpler; and ninety-nine people out of a hundred
would agree with them. Yet a {196} piece of chalk is highly complex.
A microscope shows it to consist of myriads of shells of
Foraminifera ; shows, further, that it contains more kinds than one;
and shows, further still, that each minute shell, whole or broken, is
formed of many chambers, every one of which once contained a
living unit. Thus by ordinary inspection, however close, the true
nature of chalk cannot be known; and to one who has absolute
confidence in his eyes the assertion of its true nature appears
absurd.
Take again a living body of a seemingly uncomplicated kind—say a
potato. Cut it through and observe how structureless is its
substance. But though unaided vision gives this verdict, aided vision
gives a widely different one. Aided vision discovers, in the first place,
that the mass is everywhere permeated by vessels of complex
formation. Further, that it is made up of innumerable units called
cells, each of which has walls composed of several layers. Further
still, that each cell contains a number of starch-grains. And yet still
further, that each of these grains is formed of layer within layer, like
the coats of an onion. So that where there appears perfect simplicity
there is really complexity within complexity.
From these examples which the objective world furnishes, let us
turn to some examples furnished by the subjective world—some of
our states of consciousness. Up to modern times any one who,
looking out on the snow, was told that the impression of whiteness it
gave him was composed of impressions such as those given by the
rainbow, would have regarded his informant as a lunatic; as would
even now the great mass of mankind. But since Newton’s day, it has
become well known to a relatively small number that this is literal
fact. Not only may white light be resolved by a prism into a number
of brilliant colours, but, by an appropriate arrangement, these
colours can be re-combined into white light: the visual sensation
which seems perfectly simple proves to be highly compound. Those
who {197} habitually suppose that things are what they seem, are
wrong here as in multitudinous other cases.
Another example is supplied by the sensation of sound. A solitary
note struck on the piano, or a blast from a horn, yields through the
ear a feeling which appears homogeneous; and the uninstructed are
incredulous if told that it is an intricate combination of noises. In the
first place, that which constitutes the more voluminous part of the
tone is accompanied by a number of over-tones, producing what is
known as its timbre : instead of one note, there are half a dozen
notes, of which the chief has its character specialized by the others.
In the second place, each of these notes, consisting objectively of a
rapid series of aërial waves, produces subjectively a rapid series of
impressions on the auditory nerve. Either by the appliance of Hooke
or by Savart’s machine or by the siren, it is proved to demonstration
that every musical sound is the product of successive units of sound,
each in itself unmusical, which, as they succeed one another with
increasing rapidity, produce a tone which progressively rises in pitch.
Here again, then, under an apparent simplicity there is a double
complexity.
Most of these examples of the illusiveness of unaided perception,
whether exercised upon objective or subjective existences, were
unknown to Kant. Had they been known to him they might have
suggested other views concerning certain of our states of
consciousness, and might have given a different character to his
philosophy. Let us observe what would possibly have been the
changes in two of his cardinal conceptions—metaphysical and
ethical.

Our consciousness of Time and Space appeared to him, as they

appear to everyone, perfectly simple; and the apparent simplicity he
accepted as actual simplicity. Had he suspected that, just as the
seemingly homogeneous and undecomposable consciousness of
Sound really consists of multitudinous units of consciousness, so
might the {198} apparently homogeneous and undecomposable
consciousness of Space, he would possibly have been led to inquire
whether the consciousness of Space is not wholly composed of
infinitely numerous relations of position, such as those which every
portion of it presents. And finding that every portion of Space,
immense or minute, cannot be either known or conceived save in
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