“I pointed, in a letter appearing in your July number, to Mr. Spencer’s express declaration, in the _Data of Ethics_, that the elements out of which the conceptions of right and wrong are framed are pleasures and pains, and that ‘conduct is considered by us as good or bad, according as its aggregate results to self or others, or both, are pleasurable or painful.’ I concluded, therefore, that if we are to go by Mr. Spencer’s ‘scientific ethics,’ Isabella ought to have been willing to make the sacrifice of her virginity in order to prevent the disagreeable feeling which would be caused to herself through the loss of a beloved brother, to Claudio through the process of decapitation, and to Angelo through disappointed desire, and thus to have procured, as ‘aggregate results,’ a great balance of pleasure over pain to all concerned” (_Fortnightly Review_, September, 1906). Dr. Saleeby’s answer to this is the obvious one that the Spencerian ethics do not contemplate immediate personal pleasures and pains, but rather ultimate utility to the race at large, and that “Isabella’s virtue, if merely by example alone, would make for the strengthening of the society in which she found herself.” Mr. Lilly then practically surrenders his first position—he admits that Spencer’s “scientific ethics” are intended to have little or no concern with the immediate sensations of Isabella, Claudio, and Angelo, but he turns to confront Dr. Saleeby and Spencer from a new and much stronger position. What claim, he asks, have “scientific ethics” on the individual? Ultimate utility for the race might (if one could estimate it correctly) be taken as giving us the _what_ of moral action, but can it ever give us the _why_? Isabella was not thinking of “ultimate utility” in her refusal, but of the laws that Sophocles wrote of so memorably, “unwritten and invincible laws which ever live, and no man knows their birthplace.” She was not thinking of the effect of her example—her action would have been, and ought to have been, just the same though she had had the most complete assurance that none but Angelo and herself would ever know the reason for Claudio’s pardon. The motive which constrained her was derived from the system of ethics which Spencer’s was constructed to replace. This new system has never succeeded in supplying an answer to the demand of the individual man or woman, ‘What is the advantage of the race to me that I should sacrifice the least of my inclinations for its sake?’ But till that piercing question is answered, all hedonistic systems, however elaborate and perfect their fabric, are building on “wood, hay, stubble.” Touch their foundations with the pitiless edge of that question, and in a moment they are in the dust. So far, in effect, Mr. Lilly.