[Footnote: _The Descent of Man_, chapter
iv, concluding remarks. ]
Spencer maintains that the evolution of conduct becomes the highest
possible when the conduct "simultaneously achieves the greatest totality
of life in self, in offspring, and in fellow-men." "The conduct called
good," he writes, "rises to the conduct conceived as best, when it
fulfills all three classes of ends at the same time." But life he does
not regard as necessarily a good. He judges it to be good or bad
"according as it has or has not a surplus of agreeable feeling." Hence,
"conduct is good or bad according as its total effects are pleasurable or
painful." [Footnote: _The Data of Ethics,_ chapter in, Sec Sec 8 and 10.
]
To be sure, Spencer criticises the utilitarians, and thinks little of the
Benthamic calculus of pleasures. He believes that we should substitute
for it something more scientific, a study of the processes of life. In
his earlier writings he appears to be largely in accord with the
intuitionists in judging of conduct, regarding intuitions as having their
origin in the experiences of the race.
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