[230] Spencer, Data of Ethics, p. 280. [231] Spencer, Biology, i. 149. [232] ibid., i. 144. [233] Spencer, Data of Ethics, p. 71: "Briefly, then, if the conduct is the best possible on every occasion, it follows that as the occasions are endlessly varied the acts will be endlessly varied to suit--the heterogeneity in the combination of motions will be extreme." [234] Spencer, Data of Ethics, p. 106: "The acts characterised by the more complex motives and the more involved thoughts, have all along been of higher authority for guidance." [235] Cf. Clifford, Lectures and Essays, i. 94 f., where a similar definition is given in answer to the question, "What is the meaning of _better_?" [236] Spencer, Data of Ethics, p. 63. [237] Cf. Spencer, First Principles, p. 566. [238] So far as the following criticism may appear to apply to Mr Spencer, and not merely to a possible way of defining moral conduct, it is necessary to bear in mind the words of his preface to the 'Data of Ethics': "With a view to clearness, I have treated separately some correlative aspects of conduct, drawing conclusions either of which becomes untrue if divorced from the other." [239] Spencer, Data of Ethics, p. 75 f. [240] Data of Ethics, p. 106. [241] Although Mr Spencer holds that representativeness varies as definiteness, and measures complexity, including that complexity implied by increasing heterogeneity.--Principles of Psychology, ii. 516 f. [242] Data of Ethics, p. 113. [243] Cf. Principles of Sociology, ii. 725. [244] Data of Ethics, p. 123. [245] Data of Ethics, pp. 107, 129. [246] Ibid., p. 110. [247] Data of Ethics, p. 25; cf. Lange, Ges. d. Mat., ii. 247. Lange's statement is noteworthy: "Die menschliche Vernunft kennt kein anderes Ideal, als die möglichste Erhaltung und Vervollkommnung des Lebens, welches einmal begonnen hat, verbunden mit der Einschränkung von Geburt und Tod." [248] The "endeavour to further evolution, especially that of the human race," is put forward as a "new duty" by Mr F. Galton, Inquiries into Human Faculty and its Development (1883), p. 337. [249] Darwin, Descent of Man, p. 121; Stephen, Science of Ethics, p. 366. Earlier than either of these writers, Dr Hutchison Stirling suggested Health as a practical principle to be set against the anarchy of individualism. But with him, it is not an empirical generalisation of the tendency of evolution. It is as "the outward sign of freedom, the realisation of the universal will," that "health may be set at once as sign and as goal of the harmonious operation of the whole system--as sign and as goal of a realisation of life."--Secret of Hegel, ii. 554. [250] Naturrecht auf dem Grunde der Ethik, 2d ed., 1868. [251] Cf. E. Simcox, Natural Law, p. 97. [252] Simcox, Natural Law, p. 86. [253] Ibid., p. 87. [254] Ibid., p. 90. [255] Ibid., p. 99. [256] Simcox, Natural Law, p. 104. [257] Ibid., p. 87. [258] Science of Ethics, p. 76. [259] Science of Ethics, p. 74.