'*?
 
 UCSB LIBRARY 
 
 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. 
 
 BY DB. ADOLF WUTTKE, 
 
 LATE PBOFESSOB OF THEOLOGY AT HALLE. 
 
 WITH A SPECIAL PREFACE, 
 BY DR. RIEHM, 
 
 EDITOR OF THE "STUDIEN UND KBITIKEN." 
 
 TKANSLATED BY 
 
 JOHN P. LACROIX. 
 
 VOLUME I- HISTORY OF ETHICS. 
 
 EDINBURGH : 
 T. & T. CLARK, GEORGE STREET. 
 
 MDCCCLXXIII.
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, by 
 
 NELSON & PHILLIPS, 
 In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.
 
 LETTER OF AUTHORIZATION. 
 
 DECLARATION. 
 
 WE, the representatives of the family of the late Dr. 
 Adolf WuttJce, Professor of Theology at Halle on the Saale, 
 have thankfully accepted the proposition of Professor 
 JOHN P. LACROI^: to translate into English the deceased 
 author's Christliche Bittenlehre (Wiegandt & Grieben, Berlin, 
 1864-5), and we gladly second the wish of the esteemed 
 translator by expressly and formally authorizing him, on 
 our part, to publish the work in the English language. 
 
 MRS. PROFESSOR WUTTKE, 
 
 DR. EDTJARD RIEHM, 
 (as Guardian of the children). 
 
 HALLE, March 8, 1872.
 
 NOTE OF TKANSLATOB. 
 
 IN my labor upon this translation I have aimed at the 
 truest practical reproduction, sentence by sentence, of the 
 thoughts of the author. This method I deliberately preferred, 
 rather than incur the risk of impairing the clearness of thought 
 by entirely recasting the forms of speech. In a few cases I 
 have employed unusual compounds, rather than resort to para- 
 phrases or to an undue multiplication of subordinate clauses. 
 On the whole, I am persuaded that those who are best ac- 
 quainted with the difficulties of the original will be most 
 indulgent toward the style of the version. This first volume, 
 although only the Introduction to the entire work, is yet a 
 complete whole in itself, viz., a survey of the whole current 
 of the ethical thought of humanity from the earliest dawn 
 of scientific reflection down to the latest results in Christian 
 theology. 
 
 The motives that led me to undertake the translation have 
 been various. Esteemed teachers exhorted me thereto, as 
 soon as notices of the work began to appear. German 
 scholars spoke to me enthusiastically of its unparalleled 
 excellence. My chief motive, however, has been a com- 
 pound of gratitude and hope, gratitude to the devout 
 thinker whose work had been, to me, the medium of so 
 much spiritual good, and a hope of helping others to the 
 same good. For, in fact, no other human production has 
 lifted, for me, so many vails from shadowy places in Revela- 
 tion and Providence; none has worked so effectually in defin- 
 itively directing my mind and heart toward that Light 
 which stands, serene and ever-brightening, over against the 
 comfortless spectacle of the successive and rapid extinguish- 
 ment of every effort at social reform which does not kindle 
 its torch at the central Source of all light. And no labor
 
 VI NOTE OF TRANSLATOR. 
 
 that I have ever performed has been attended with such a joy- 
 ous consciousness that the very toil itself was self -rewarding. 
 As to the specific merits of the work, I am happy to refer 
 the reader to the considerate words of the distinguished the- 
 ologian of Halle, Dr. Riehm, in the special preface which he 
 has prepared for this translation. I could also, were it desir- 
 able, fill many pages with words of highest praise from the most 
 respectable and the most diverse sources. And the praise is 
 bestowed not only upon its scientific worth, but largely also 
 upon the spirit of its author. All critics accord in testifying 
 that we have to do here with a man singularly endowed 
 with keenness of philosophic insight and with devoutness of 
 Christian faith. 
 
 Whether, however, there is need here in America where 
 there is so strong a proclivity to run away after every glitter- 
 ing theological or social novelty, and where there are so many 
 evidences that the general consciousness both of preachers 
 and of people is not thoroughly enough grounded upon the 
 central truths of the Gospel of a work such as this (a work 
 which, in so masterly a manner, brings the whole moral life 
 into vital relation to its only possible Source, and which sweeps 
 away so thoroughly every social or religious theory which 
 does not stand the touch-stone of plain Bible-truth), it is for 
 others to judge. We have been led to augur favorably, how- 
 ever, both from our own studies in the field and also" from the 
 expressed views of many of our most progressive teachers of 
 ethics, viz., that there is a loud call for something more solidly 
 philosophical and more thoroughly evangelical than is afforded 
 by our common text-books on Moral Science ;* and we feel 
 pretty confident that few who once drink of the fresh thought- 
 stream here opened will be disposed to dissent from the well- 
 known utterance t of Dr. Hengstenberg, that Wuttke's Ethics 
 ought to have its place in every pastor's library. 
 
 J. P. L. 
 
 * See Dr. Warren's Introduction to Vol. II. 
 
 t See Evangelhche Kirchenzettung, (Berlin), Sept. 4, 1861.
 
 SPECIAL PREFACE TO THIS TRANSLATION.' 
 
 THE author of the work which here appears in English, Dr. 
 Carl Friedrich Adolf Wuttke, has won for himself a disl^n- 
 guished place in the evangelical Church and theology of Ger- 
 many. A few items as to his life and activity, and as to the 
 spirit and character of his endeavors, may serve to call atten- 
 tion to a work which is widely circulated and much read 
 throughout Germany. 
 
 Born in Breslau, November 10, 1819, in humble life, the 
 young Wuttke obtained his preparatory education under cir- 
 cumstances of great difficulty and self-denial. In 1840 he 
 entered the University of Breslau in view of studying the- 
 ology, but he found very little satisfaction in the theology that 
 was there taught. The superficial Rationalism which then pre- 
 vailed in Breslau violently repelled him, and drove him at once 
 and forever to a position of 'antagonism to this stand-point. As 
 neither his religious nor his scientific wants found satisfaction 
 in his theological teachers, he endeavored to satisfy the latter, 
 at least, by turning- his attention primarily and chit- fly to phi- 
 losophy. To this end he possessed dialectic talents of unu- 
 sual excellence, and he received from the celebrated and, then, 
 fully mature Braniss fruitful inspiration. His academic 
 career he bega.ii in 1848, in Breslau, as Doctor and pritat- 
 docent of philosophy. His preferred field was the Philosophy 
 of Religion. This led him to thorough studies in the history 
 of religions. A fruit of his studies he has embodied in his 
 ''History of Heathenism in respect to religion, knowledge, art, 
 
 * Dr. Riehm, who has kindly famished me this general preface, and 
 to whom I am indebted for many valuable suggestions in regard to my 
 undertaking, is one of the professors of theology at Halle, and also 
 editor-in-chief of the Studien itnd Kritiken. TR.
 
 via SPECIAL PREFACE TO THIS TRANSLATION. 
 
 Morals and Politics, (Breslau, 1852-53), a work which estab- 
 lished his reputation as a scholar. Utilizing his extensive 
 acquaintance with the historical material, his chief endeavor 
 was to give here a faithful objective presentation of the sub- 
 ject-matter, and to avoid doing it violence by forcing it into 
 harmony with preconceived theories, and his success was so 
 great as to obtain for him the warm recognition, among others, 
 of that master of Indian antiquities, Dr. A. Weber of Berlin. 
 At the same time, however,, he was also able to present the 
 religiose-historical matter in a clear synoptical order, and to 
 elucidate it from higher religioso-philosophical stand-points. 
 
 The more he pursued his studies in the history and phi- 
 losophy of religions, so much the more fully and renewedly 
 he became convinced that the highest and the only soul-satis- 
 fying knowledge of the truth is to be found only by merging 
 one's self into the Holy Scriptures and into the therein-wit- 
 nessed revelations of the living God; hence he felt himself 
 more and more attracted back to the field of theology. In 
 1853 he obtained the degree of Licentiate in Theology, and 
 changed his field of instruction from philosophy to that of 
 theology; having been called to Berlin, in November, 1854, to 
 an extraordinary professorship of theology, he found an en- 
 larged and appreciative sphere for the exercise of his gifts. 
 In virtue of his firm and independent nature partly inborn and 
 partly developed in the severe school of experience he felt 
 also a pressing need of a firmly-based construction of his theo- 
 logical views, and of a clear, distinct, and unambiguous ex- 
 pression of the same. This need was in part met by the 
 Lutheran form of doctrine. It is true, he saw very clearly the 
 defects and imperfections which a scientific construction and 
 demonstration of this doctrinal formula bring to light ; taking 
 into consideration, however, its essential features, he found in 
 it the purest and truest didactic presentation of evangelical 
 truth.* To preserve this form of the truth in its main features, 
 
 * As a Gennan Protestant, Dr. Wuttke had practically only two choices 
 in his Church-relations, namely, between the Lutheran Church and the 
 Reformed or Calvinistic Church. The so-called "United" Church of 
 Prussia has little more than a legal existence, the individual societies 
 having mostly remained essentially Lutheran or Reformed, as before 
 the union. TB.
 
 SPECIAL PEEFAGE TO THIS TRANSLATION. IX 
 
 and by his own deeper study of the Scriptures as well as by 
 earnest systematic thought so to raise it to a new scientific 
 construction that it should express the truth of the Bible in a 
 still richer degree, and that in its form and demonstration it 
 should answer the requirements made upon it by the present 
 stand-point of theology and philosophy, and that it might be 
 raised to a more full development also in fields wherein it had 
 as yet attained only to an imperfect and very inadequate ex- 
 pression, such was the life-task to which Dr. Wuttke felt 
 himself, with ever- deepening conviction, called by God. And 
 this life-task'he endeavored, in the greatest conscientiousness 
 and in the most unwearied and exhausting labor, to fulfill* 
 And the animating spring of his labor was the consciousness so 
 repeatedly expressed by him, that theology is intrusted with 
 the preservation of sacred treasures. Fidelity in preserving the 
 intrusted truth-treasure, such is the animating spirit of his 
 theologico-scieutific labor ; and with this fidelity are connected 
 the limits and imperfections of the same. In this fidelity 
 he was earnestly resolute, even in the face of the coryphei of 
 theological and philosophical speculation, in rejecting all 
 views and thought-constructions which seemed to him foreign 
 to the spirit of the Holy Scriptures, however much they might 
 seem to be characterized by profundity or by loftiness of 
 thought, and however much they might bedazzle by brilliant 
 ingenuity and by their artful application to Biblical ideas. This 
 fidelity made him a decided opponent of all efforts which he 
 regarded as bent on seeking an accommodation between faith 
 and unbelief. In this fidelity he deliberately consented to 
 sacrifice the favor and approbation of the majority of his con- 
 temporaries ; and he neglected no opportunity, where he felt 
 the duty of champidning the pure evangelical truth and of 
 assailing perversions and misrepresentations of the same, man- 
 fully and with open visor to enter the lists, and to fight it 
 out with keen weapons and without respect of persons. It 
 is true he has, in his earnestness-, not always awarded due honor 
 to the views of the ideally-inclined theologians, , nor to the 
 results of historical and critical Scripture-examination. For his 
 own person, however, he was, in this work, never concerned, 
 nor for the interests of any party, but solely and simply for 
 Christian truth and for the kingdom of God.
 
 X SPECIAL PREFACE TO THIS TRANSLATION. 
 
 In this sense and spirit he exercised his office of theological 
 teacher in Berlin. One can well imagine how glad the late 
 Dr. Hengstenberg was to have found in him so able a co- 
 laborer, and also that he became warmly and intimately at- 
 tached to his younger colleague.* But also the other mem- 
 bers of the Berlin faculty, though in part of different churchly 
 and theological tendencies, fully appreciated his scientific 
 ability and his faithful and fruitful academic activity; and 
 they expressed their esteem publicly by conferring upon him, 
 in 1860, the doctorate of theology. 
 
 In the autumn of 1861 he accepted a call to an ordinary 
 professorship of systematic theology in our university at 
 Halle. Although, as the representative of a strictly churchly 
 theology, he stood here somewhat isolated, still the positive 
 evangelical tendency (a tendency based on faith in the reve- 
 lations and redemptive acts of God as witnessed in the Script- 
 ures) of the other members of .the faculty (and among them 
 the universally known and revered Dr. Tholuck} afforded a 
 broad and firm basis for a richly productive official co-opera- 
 tion. Highly esteemed by his colleagues for his straight-for- 
 wardness, reliableness, punctuality, and conscientious fidel- 
 ity in all his official duties, he ^xercised, here, his calling 
 as teacher in a circle of hearers, at first relatively narrow, 
 but which soon grew visibly larger, especially in the case of 
 his lectures on Christian^ ethics ; and he had the joy of seeing 
 the seed, he had sown, spring up and bear fruit in many youth- 
 ful hearts, until on the 12th of April, 1870, after a brief 
 sickness, it pleased the Lord whom he served- to permit him, 
 unexpectedly early, to pass from faith to sight. 
 
 Along-side of his more specific professional activity, Dr. 
 Wuttke was always ready to serve the church by special ad- 
 dresses, in ecclesiastical and other assemblies, on weighty 
 questions of the day. Quite a number of these addresses 
 have been published in Hengstenberg's ' ' Evangelical Church 
 Journal." To one of them, which was delivered in 1858, at 
 a church-diet at Hamburg,- is due the preparation of his 
 widely-popular and excellent work, "The German Popular 
 
 * Dr. Wuttke, however, was free from the ultra-confessionalism of 
 Hengstenberg ; he even favored the " Union." See Neue evangelischt 
 Kirchenzeitung of May 7, 1870. TR.
 
 SPECIAL PREFACE TO THIS TRANSLATION. XI 
 
 Superstition of the Present," which appeared in 1860 in its 
 first, and in 1869 in a new and enlarged second, edition. 
 This work combines laborious selection with a lucid grouping 
 of the abundant material, and is inspired by a vital interest 
 for the health of the German national life and for the healing 
 of its defects by the divine power of the Gospel. 
 
 For the judgment and appreciation of some portions of the 
 work here presented to the public, it will not be out of place 
 to observe that the author took a lively and active part also 
 in the political life of the nation. As early as during the 
 revolutionary storm of 1848 he defended for a while, as editor 
 of a conservative journal in KSnigsberg, the cause of legal 
 order and of the government. And during his activity among 
 us, though in other respects living in the greatest seclu- 
 sion, he frequently appeared publicly, in political meetings 
 in Halle and in other towns of the province of Saxony, as the 
 spokesman of the constitutional party ; and once he took part 
 also in the labors of the national diet, to which the confidence 
 of his fellow-citizens had called him. 
 
 The work here given to the English-reading public, Chris~ 
 tian Ethics, which appeared in 1861-'62 in its first, and in 
 1864-'65 in its second, revised and enlarged, edition, is Dr. 
 Wuttke's only considerable theological work. He has here 
 entered upon a field, the cultivation of which, his special life- 
 task as above indicated, must have, pressed upon him with 
 very great urgency. Upon no other field had the scientific 
 treatment of the theology he represented, remained to such a 
 degree imperfect and unsatisfactory. Although Christian 
 ethics, after the precedent of Danoeus on the Calvinistic side, 
 had been raised by Calixtus to the dignity of an independent 
 theological science, nevertheless the prevalent one-sidedly 
 dogmatic interest hindered and prevented its thorough de- 
 velopment. And when finally, sinfce the last decade of the 
 last century, a more lively scientific interest was turned to 
 the subject, then, unfortunately, Christian ethics became in- 
 volved in an almost slavish dependence. upon the philosophic- 
 al systems of a Kant, a Fichte, a Fries, a Hegel, and a Herbart, 
 as they successively rose and followed each other. From 
 this cramping pupilage, ethics was indeed emancipated by 
 the Reconstructor of the collective body of German theology,
 
 Xli SPECIAL PREFACE TO THIS TRANSLATION. 
 
 Schleiermacher, and also radically renovated from the basis of 
 the specifically Christiarily-etliical principle. But in Schleier- 
 macher, as well as in Rothe, Christian ethics appeared rather 
 in the garb of theologico-philosophical speculation ; it was not 
 based directly upon the Holy Scriptures ; on the contrary, these 
 highly deserving men endeavored to be just to the positive 
 Biblical basis of evangelical Protestantism by undertaking to 
 reconstruct the contents of the Holy Scriptures directly out of 
 the Christian consciousness^ in a word, these ethical systems 
 stood in no manner of close connection with ecclesiastical 
 dogmatics. On the other hand, Harless had produced an 
 ethics based directly upon, and derived from, the Scriptures ; 
 but in his method he had disdained the learned structure 
 and the dialectical procedure of modern science. WuttTce 
 was the first theologian who made the attempt, upon the 
 foundation* of the Lutheran dogmatical ground-views as 
 enriched and vitalized by personal self-immersion in the 
 study of the Scriptures, to carry out, by means of the dialec-^ 
 tical method, (which theology had assumed at the time of the 
 supremacy of philosophy), a strictly scientific, organic struct- 
 ure of Christian ethics, which should embody in itself the 
 fruits of precedent labors upon this field, and also polemic- 
 ally elucidate its relation to the various other ethical sys- 
 tems. In this work, however, he makes no other use of this 
 dialectical method than simply to purify theological ethics 
 from all elements foreign or hostile to the Biblico-ecclesias- 
 tical ground-thoughts, and to bring these ground-thoughts to 
 more complete expression by process of inner self-develop- 
 ment. Hence the great majority of churchly-minded theolo- 
 gians could, with great reason, welcome in Wuttke the, until 
 then, lacking scientific standard-bearer upon the field of 
 
 * That in the construction of his ethical system, Dr. Wuttke did not 
 allow the Lutheran symbols to construe the Bible, but on the contrary 
 measured them by the Bible, and freely criticized them where found 
 defective, we have both his own reiterated avowal (as where, 80, he 
 declares it his purpose to write, not on ethics of this or that Church, 
 but a Christian Ethics ; and where, in his preface, p. 4, he declares the 
 governing principles of his labors to be ''honest loyalty to the Gos- 
 pel ") ; and also his actual contrasting of the Lutheran and the Reformed 
 ground-views (see 87), and his ample admission that the Lutheran 
 view needs to be complemented. TB.
 
 SPECIAL PREFACE TO THIS TRANSLATION. Xlll 
 
 ethics ; and consequently his work met with an astonishingly 
 rapid circulation and a thankful reception. But also those 
 who as the writer of this preface * stand in many respects 
 upon the ground of other theological convictions, and who do 
 not fully agree with many views and judgments expressed in 
 the work, have every reason highly to prize tfiis system of 
 Ethics, and for the following reasons: because of its firm 
 Biblical foundation, because of its sharp and clear vindica- 
 tion and presentation of the ethical ground-thoughts of the 
 Holy Scriptures against, and in the face of, various wide- 
 spread errors and prevalent thought-currents of the day, 
 because of its thoroughly carried-out aim, in connection with 
 all the rigor of a scientific method, to present in broad and 
 clear light the sublime directness and simplicity of the truth 
 of the Gospel, because of the richness of the subject-matter 
 which it presents, and to mention especially one single 
 feature because of the exceedingly valuable, and hitherto 
 almost entirely lacking, history both of the science of ethics 
 and also of the ethical consciousness itself. 
 
 I doubt not, therefore, that this work, will meet with a 
 heai-ty welome also in America and in England, and that 
 too in theological circles which, while not sharing the special 
 ecclesiastical views of the author, will yet not fail worthily 
 to appreciate his conscientious fidelity to Scripture-truth and 
 the scientific significancy of his labors ; and I feel confident 
 that the work will prove serviceable in the promotion of a 
 healthy and practically-fruitful theological knowledge. 
 
 DK. EDUAKB RIEHM:, 
 Professor, in ordinary, of Theology at Halle. 
 
 HALLE, March 1A, 1872. 
 
 * I am indebted to Dr. P. Schafffor the following: " Dr. Riehm is a 
 liberal Unionist of the critical school of Hupfeld, his predecessor." TB.
 
 AUTHOR'S PREFACE 
 TO THE FIEST EDITION 
 
 THE theology of the nineteenth century has aimed 
 at giving special prominence to the ethical phase of 
 Christianity ; and yet, strangely enough, the scientific 
 treatment of Christian ethics has shown, as com- 
 pared to the other branches of theology, a far infe- 
 rior productiveness, and in fact a degree of barren- 
 ness. This phenomenon is not explainable from 
 any precedent over-fruitfulness. nor from any un- 
 questioning satisfaction with any already-attained 
 relatively- definitive perfection of the science, nor 
 from the imposing pre-eminence of any exceptionally 
 great author; on the contrary, every competent 
 theologian knows perfectly well that no other branch 
 of theology is so far from having reached any, even 
 relatively, settled completeness and generally-ac- 
 cepted form and contents, as precisely the science of 
 ethics. Even the very idea, contents, and bounda- 
 ries of ethics, are as yet in many respects so unsettled 
 that the different presentations of the science have 
 often only very remote resemblances to each other;
 
 2 A.UTHOK'S PEEFACE TO FIKST EDITION. 
 
 and there are some recent theologians who look upon 
 the ethical field as something like an ownerless pri- 
 meval forest wherein they are at liberty to roam at 
 simple discretion and to give free scope to all sorts 
 of pet speculations. We would of course not wish 
 to shut the field of theology against philosophical 
 thought; on the contrary, we regard its scientific 
 completion as possible only on condition of its per- 
 meation with mature philosophical thought-labor. 
 In view, however, of the not only manifold, but also 
 (in very deep-reaching and essential ground-princi- 
 ples) self-contradicting philosophical systems of the 
 time, we could not advise Theology that guardian 
 of sacred treasures to cast itself away, in character- 
 less self-forgetfulness, into the arms of the first tran- 
 siently-shining philosophical system, and to seek its 
 glory only in a pliable self-conformity to the rapidly- 
 passing Protean forms of the philosophies of the day. 
 Remarkable indeed, though not precisely very praise- 
 worthy, is the metamorphic capability of those theo- 
 logians who have kept pace in their theology with 
 the entire history of philosophy from Kant down to 
 Hegel, afad have furnished the public at each decade 
 with an entirely different form of theology. It is 
 not scientific truthfulness to attempt violently to 
 force together irreconcilable elements ; and it is high 
 time that the day were past when men presume to 
 introduce Spinozistic and other kindred Hegelian
 
 AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION. 3 
 
 conceptions into Christian ethics as its own contents 
 proper. We fully recognize the high services of 
 precisely the latest forms of philosophy, for the sci- 
 ence of ethics ; but we must guard against allowing 
 theological ethics, as conscious of its divinely re- 
 vealed contents, and as basing itself upon the holy 
 Scriptures, to be cramped and thrown into the back- 
 ground by these philosophical systems. Precisely the 
 most recent developments in this field justify us in 
 entertaining, at this point, a prudent distrust. The 
 manner in which some have introduced philosoph- 
 ical, or a so-called " theological, speculation " into the 
 field of Christian ethics, reminds one only too much 
 of the feats of the suitors of Penelope in the house 
 of Ulysses, who presume to cast their footstools at 
 the head of the returning master, and yet prove 
 incapable even of bending the bow of the hero, to say 
 nothing of shooting through the twelvefold target. 
 
 What we attempt in the present work is neither 
 speculative ethics nor yet Biblical ethics in the 
 sense of a purely exegetico-historical science, but, 
 in fact, a system of theological ethics based on 
 the substance and spirit of the Bible, and con- 
 structed into a scientific form, not by the help of 
 a philosophy foreign to that spirit, but by the 
 inner self-development of the spirit itself. Whether 
 we have properly comprehended this spirit, and 
 
 whether we have faithfully learned from the general 
 
 2
 
 4 AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION". 
 
 history of science, including also philosophy, others 
 will have to judge; this much, however, we know, 
 that we have endeavored to acquire such learning 
 only in honest loyalty to the Gospel. And the fact 
 that we have omitted to employ many technical 
 forms that have been imposed upon this science by 
 ingenious authors, will, we hope, be regarded, by 
 those who have grown familiar with said forms, as at 
 least an indication of a sincere endeavor on our part 
 to avoid breaking the impression of simple evan- 
 gelical truth by any element foreign to the spirit of 
 the Scriptures, however much it may enjoy the pres- 
 tige of profundity, and however artfully it may have 
 been fitted upon Christian ideas. 
 BERLIN, Dec. 31, 1860.
 
 AUTHOR'S PREFACE 
 
 TO THE SECOND EDITION. 
 
 WITHIN" a surprisingly brief period a new edition 
 of this System of Ethics has become necessary. 
 
 To many critics of the work we feel ourselves 
 thankfully indebted ; of others, however, we regret 
 to have to say that, instead of scientific earnestness, 
 they have manifested only passionate hostility. It 
 is true, we have gone at our work with honesty aad 
 plainness of speech, and have touched somewhat 
 ungently upon certain sore places in the more recent 
 forms of theology ; and the tone of ill-will in which 
 the opposers have indulged would seem to indicate 
 that the right spot has been probed ; and we are 
 in fact cheerfully ready to be subjected to the most 
 searching criticism. There is an immense difference, 
 however, between actual confutation and unworthy 
 abuse. Some critics have charged this work with 
 being an "attentat" against the "inalienable" con-
 
 6 AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION. 
 
 quests of modern science ; this sounds almost as 
 badly as when, in times past, a certain class of the- 
 ologians spoke of "attentats" against the teachings 
 of the Church and against the symbolical books. 
 There is, in- fact, in the field of contemporary un- 
 belief both an "orthodoxy" which does not stand 
 a whit behind the intolerance of former and much- 
 despised ages in its hereticating of dissenters, and 
 an authority-faith in the so-called " heroes " of con- 
 temporary science, which exalts the preventions of 
 the said science to infallibility in exact proportion 
 as it is zealous against a real faith in the Scriptures, 
 and tramples their claims into the dust. Just such 
 a .deference to writers who let only their own light 
 shine, (a light kindled not at the divine light, but 
 only at the faintly-shining wisdom of the anti-Chris- 
 tian world,) still weighs down like an Alp upon the 
 theology of the present day, and especially upon 
 ethics ; and to do battle against a spiritual despotism 
 of this character, must be to take a step in the 
 direction of true progress. Incredulity constitutes, 
 in fact, in our day no slight recommendation ; will 
 the public, therefore, not let us enjoy the advantage 
 of a little incredulity as to the Apostolical calling
 
 AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION. 7 
 
 of certain recent authors who have forced the Pan- 
 theism of Spinoza into the doctrines of Christianity? 
 We are not unaware, however, that only that one 
 can hope for favor and popularity with the multitude 
 of to-day, who makes amends for his faith in the 
 living Christ by strewing incense upon the altars of 
 the divinities of recent literature, who fuses to- 
 gether the Apostolical doctrines with the unqaestion- 
 ingly infallible-assumed " results of modern culture," 
 in a word, who selects the golden middle-way 
 between simple evangelical faith and God-denying 
 unbelief: the tints just now in vogue are indefinite 
 and indesignable. We frankly confess that, in scien- 
 tific respects, we can less readily come to an under- 
 standing with this nondescript olla-podrida theology 
 than with those who make a clean sweep of Chris- 
 tianity at once. Upon firm earth one can walk erect, 
 in water one can swim ; but in a miry marsh, which 
 mingles earth and water together, one can neither 
 walk nor swim. We must submit to let those who 
 imagine that they stand or swim upon the heights 
 of " modern " culture look disdainfully down upon 
 us, and reproach us with not being abreast with the 
 times ; let them do that to which they are called ;
 
 8 AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION. 
 
 we, however, have a sure prophetic word, and we 
 think we do well to give heed to it as to a light that 
 shines in a dark place, until the day dawn and the 
 morning-star arise in the hearts of all, [2 Peter i, 19] ; 
 and we feel confident that in so doing we have chosen 
 the "good part, which will not be taken from us" 
 when the specious fruits of the un-Christian culture 
 of the day shall be swept away, without leaving a 
 trace, by the streams of still newer progress. To 
 those to whom appreciation for recent science is 
 synonymous with an unconditional homage to every 
 pretentiously-rising system, we must be content to 
 appear as non-appreciative; meantime, however, 
 may we not suggest that these gentlemen would do 
 well to come to an understanding among themselves 
 as to precisely which of the more recent and vio- 
 lently inter-contradictory systems represents the real 
 progress proper, and as to how long it will do so, 
 before we be peremptorily required to disregard the 
 exhortation of the Holy One, to "hold that fast 
 which thou hast, that no man take thy crown " 
 [Rev. iii, 11]. We regard it as the first scientific 
 duty of a true truth-seeker not to suffer himself to 
 be captivated by the flickering glare of great names
 
 AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION. 9 
 
 and by the sham-gold of pretended latest discoveries, 
 and not to let himself be intoxicated and carried 
 away by the indiscriminate applause of the multi- 
 tude. We greatly rejoice to see that precisely the 
 most recent productions upon the field of ethics 
 (Harless, Schmid, Palmer) give proof of evangelical 
 soundness, and we shall anxiously await to see 
 whether the rapidly-erring and deteriorating "the- 
 ology of progress " will not, in its turn, enter upon 
 this field, whether Rothe, who (encouraged and 
 urged on by the well-calculated applause of this 
 party) shows as yet no signs of hesitation to do 
 service in the ranks of the sympathizers with Strauss 
 and Renan, will not make up his mind to turn to 
 the service of sound words, or whether in the interest 
 of an erroneous system he will drive even still 
 deeper the wounds which he has already inflicted 
 upon evangelical faith, to which at bottom his 
 heart belongs. . 
 HALLE, August, 1864.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAOK 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 I. THE IDEA OF ETHICS, AND THE POSITION OF THIS SCIENCE IN 
 
 THE FIELD OF SCIENCE IN GENERAL 13 
 
 1. THE IDEA 13 
 
 2. PHILOSOPHICAL ETHICS 16 
 
 3. THEOLOGICAL ETHICS 21 
 
 II. THE SCIENTIFIC TREATMENT OF ETHICS, 4 27 
 
 III. THE HISTORY OF ETHICS AND OF THE MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS 
 
 IN GENERAL, 5 35 
 
 A. THE MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE ETHICS OF HEA- 
 
 THEN NATIONS, 6 37 
 
 7. THE UNHISTORICAL NATIONS; THE CHINESE 43 
 
 8. THE INDIANS 47 
 
 9. THE EGYPTIANS AND THE SEMITIC NATIONS 54 
 
 10. THE PERSIANS 58 
 
 1 1. THE GREEKS 62 
 
 1 2. SOCRATES 69 
 
 13. THE CYNICS AND THE CYRENAICS 72 
 
 14-15. PLATO 75 
 
 16-21. ARISTOTLE ' 02 
 
 22-25. THE EPICUREANS AND THE STOICS 126 
 
 26. THE SKEPTICS AND THE NEO-PLATONISTS ; THE ROMANS 144 
 
 B. OLD TESTAMENT AND JEWISH ETHICS. 
 
 27. THE CANON OF THE OLD^TESTAMENT 151 
 
 28. THE APOCRYPHAL BOOKS, THE TALMUD. 169 
 
 [ISLAMISM] 171 
 
 C. CHRISTIAN ETHICS, 29 173
 
 12 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAQB 
 
 1. THE ANCIENT CHURCH, 30, 31 180 
 
 2. THE MIDDLE AGES. 32 199 
 
 33, 34. SCHOLASTICS AND CASUISTICS. 200 
 
 35. THE MYSTICS AND THE PHOTO- REFORMERS 223 
 
 3. THE EPOCH OP REFORM, 36 233 
 
 37. THE EVANGELICAL ETHICS OF THE SIXTEENTH AND 
 
 SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES 2i:5 
 
 38, 39. ROMISH ETHICS 255, OT3 
 
 40. PHILOSOPHICAL ETHICS BEFORE KANT 217 
 
 41. DEISTIC AND NATURALISTIC ETHICS 301 
 
 42. THE EVANGELICAL ETHICS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CEV- 
 
 TDRY 324 
 
 43. KANT ,. 327 
 
 44. FICHTE 338 
 
 45. SCHELLING ; JACOBI 341 
 
 46. HEGEL AND HIS SCHOOL 345 
 
 47. THE MOST RECENT PHILOSOPHY 355 
 
 48. THE EVANGELICAL ETHICS OF THE NINETEENTH CEN- 
 TURY 359 
 
 49. ROMISH ETHICS . .375
 
 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. 
 
 HSTTKODUCTIOlsr. 
 
 I. IDEA OF ETHICS, AND THE POSITION OF THIS SCIENCE 
 IN THE FIELD OF SCIENCE IN GENERAL. 
 
 SECTION I. 
 
 ETHICS, as belonging to the sphere both of philoso- 
 phy and of theology, is the science of the moral, and 
 hence Christian ethics is the science of Christian mor- 
 als. But the moral lies in the sphere of the freedom 
 of rational creatures, as in contrast to mere nature- 
 objects. Man, as a rational being, has the end of his 
 life, not as one realizing itself in him spontaneously 
 and with unconditional necessity, but, on the contrary, 
 he has it primarily only ideally, in his rational con- 
 sciousness, so that he cannot attain to it by a mere 
 unconscious letting himself alone, but only by a per- 
 sonally and freely-willed life-activity ; but also, for 
 that very reason, he can fail of it by his own fault ; 
 and the essence of this life-development of man, as 
 relating to the realizing of his rational life-purpose, is 
 the moral / that is, when normal, the morally-good, 
 and when guiltily-perverted, the morally-<5w7. 
 
 So much merely preliminarily ; the more complete demonstra- 
 tion can be given only further on. The sphere of freedom is 
 that of the moral ; whatever is moral is essentially free, and 
 whatever is free is moral. There is, indeed, an immorally-
 
 14 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 1. 
 
 incurred unfreeclom, but even this unfreedom is essentially 
 different from the unfreedom of nature. He who, in contradic- 
 tion to the Christian as well as to the universally-human con- 
 sciousness, denies moral freedom in general, and places even 
 man's moral activity into the sphere of unconditional necessity, 
 may indeed give a description of the seemingly-moral, but he 
 cannot place upon man a moral requirement; in the presence of 
 the "must" the "should" disappears. Such a denier would at 
 least have to regard the contradictory and almost universal con- 
 sciousness of freedom as also posited by unconditional necessity 
 thus surrendering all right to assail the same. We may there- 
 fore here preliminarily presuppose it as the utterance of the 
 general human consciousness when not perverted by one-sided 
 theories, that the moral lies neither in the sphere of cognition 
 nor of natural necessity, but in the sphere of the freedom of the 
 rational will. Where there is no freedom of will, there we speak 
 neither of the morally-good nor of the morally-evil. Moral 
 willing, however, is not of a blind, fortuitous, but of a rational, 
 character; that is, it wills a rational something, something 
 willed by God, and that too in a rational manner or, indeed, 
 it wills it not ; but also this non- willing, that is, the morally- 
 evil, relates, though negatively, to a rational end. 
 
 In the Scriptures, the ethical phase of Christian doctrine is 
 designated as " the knowledge of God's will in all wisdom and 
 spiritual understanding " (Col. i, 9) ; that is, of that which God 
 "requires" of us (Deut. x, 12; comp. Phil, iv, 8). Of other 
 definitions of ethics we will mention but the more important. 
 Unquestionably all such are to be rejected as express merely an 
 outward collection of single moral thoughts, as, e. g., "an ordered 
 digest of rules by which man, and, more specifically, a Chris- 
 tian, is to shape his life;" this would not be a science, but only 
 a collection of material for a science ; moreover, rules are only 
 one phase of the moral thought, for rules must have a basis, an 
 end, and an inner logical unity, all of which lies outside of this 
 definition. Many writers designate ethics as the description of 
 a morally normal development. But, properly speaking, only 
 that can be described which is real ; not, however, that which 
 simply ought, but is not necessitated, to become real. Even the 
 describing of the person of Christ as the ideal of the moral, 
 gives only a part of Christian ethics, inasmuch as Christ could
 
 1.] DEFINITIONS OF ETHICS. 15 
 
 not, in his actual life, represent all the phases of the moral. 
 And besides, ethics has not merely to do with the morally- 
 normal, but it has also to treat of sin and the contest with it as 
 an actual power ; and, moreover, it has not merely to describe, 
 but also to prove and to establish. 
 
 The majority of theological moralists present at once the def- 
 inition of Christian ethics ; but this more restricted notion can- 
 not be understood without the more comprehensive notion of 
 ethics in general. The declaration (Harless and others) that 
 ethics is the theoretical presentation of the Christianly-normal 
 life-course, or the development-history of man as redeemed by 
 Christ, is both too narrow and too broad at the same time: too 
 narrow, inasmuch as ethics must unquestionably speak also of 
 the non-normal life-course, and that, too, not merely incidentally 
 and introductorily, but as of one of its essential elements; and too 
 broad, because, in fact, many things belong to such a life-course 
 which belong not to the sphere of the moral, but to the objective 
 workings of divine grace upon the moral subject. Such a def- 
 inition is rather that of the order of Christian salvation, which, 
 however, is not wholly embraced in the notion of the moral. It 
 is true, Christian ethics must take into consideration the work- 
 ings of divine grace, but only, however, as its presupposition ; 
 the becoming seized upon by the influence of divine grace leads, 
 indeed, to morality, but lies not itself in the moral sphere. Ac- 
 cording to Schleierm acker, Christian ethics is " the presentation 
 of communion With God as conditioned by communion with 
 Christ, the Redeemer, in so far as this communion with God is 
 the motive of all the actions of the Christian, or the description 
 of that manner of action which springs from the domination of 
 the Christianly-determined self-consciousness;"* this, however, 
 is "two mutually complementing definitions, each of which ex- 
 presses by itself only one phase of ethics. 
 
 As to the name applied to the science, the German expression 
 " Sittenlehre," usual since the time of Mosheim, is ambiguous, 
 being capable of being understood as the doctrine of customs 
 instead of the doctrine of the moral. The term ethics is the 
 most ancient, as dating from Aristotle himself; r)6of- radically 
 related to edof, from the root ew, "to set" and "to sit," signifies 
 in Homer the seat, the dwelling-place, the home, and hence, at 
 * Christl. Sitte, pp. 32, 33.
 
 16 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 2. 
 
 a later period, that which has become the fixed definite home 
 of the spirit that wherein the spirit feels itself at home as in 
 its own peculiar element, and hence manner, primarily in the 
 sense of habit ; that is, a manner of action as having become 
 second nature. In this sense the word f/dij occurs also in the 
 New Testament (1 Cor. xv, 33.) But the signification of the 
 word advances, further, to that of the moral proper, as objective- 
 grown custom, which presents itself to the individual with the 
 authority of law ; i)6of is therefore a spiritual power to which 
 the individual subordinates himself, as in contradistinction to 
 the rude lawlessness of man as uncultured and savage, and 
 which, in so far as it is no longer a power foreign and opposed 
 to man, appears as character.* The Romans used generally, for 
 this idea, the term mores, and hence Cicero and Seneca speak of 
 a philosophia moralis. In Germany this science was formerly 
 called " Moral " theologia s. philosophia moralis and frequently 
 also theologia s. philosophia practica. But after the word " Mor- 
 al " had been appropriated by the advocates of deistic illumin- 
 ism, and degraded into the most spiritless superficiality, the 
 term became involved in such prejudicial associations that later 
 writers preferred to avoid it, and resorted again to the German 
 term used by Mosheim, or to the one originally used by Aristotle. 
 
 SECTION II. 
 
 As a philosophical science, ethics forms a part of 
 the philosophy of the spirit, has as presuppositions 
 speculative theology and psychology, and stands in 
 the closest relation to the science of history as the 
 objective realization of the moral life. As standing 
 within the science of spirit, it presents, as in contrast to 
 knowledge, the active phase of the rational spirit-life, 
 whereby man, as having come to rational self-con- 
 sciousness, makes into reality that which exists in 
 him primarily only as an idea,- makes his spiritually- 
 rational nature as existing objectively to him into a 
 nature freely-willed and posited by himself. 
 
 *Aristot., Eth. Nic., i, 13.
 
 2.] SCOPE OF ETHICS. 17 
 
 A.11 philosophy has to do essentially with three objects : the 
 thoughts of God, of nature, and of the human spirit. Ethics, as 
 belonging to the third sphere, has, co-ordinate to itself within 
 this sphere, the science of psychology as treating of the nature 
 of the individual mind and of its development, and the science 
 of history as portraying the development of the collective spirit ; 
 it is in some sense the unity of the two ; it is psychology, in that 
 it presents, in fact, the highest form of the soul-life, the ration- 
 ally-free life ; and it is history, in that it embraces man not as 
 isolated, but as an organic member of the whole, and considers 
 his activity as directed toward the rational shaping of collective 
 humanity. Ethics gives to history its rational goal; and all 
 morality has the perfect shaping of universal history as its ulti- 
 mate end. A real understanding of history is not possible with- 
 out ethics ; universal history is the realization of the moral the 
 good and also the evil within humanity ; hence history, the 
 actual contents of which lie of course outside of the sphere of 
 purely philosophical knowledge, is an important teacher of 
 morality teaching by example in sacred history, and by cau- 
 tion and warning in profane. 
 
 The position here assigned to philosophical ethics takes the 
 definition of that science in its widest sense, and embraces also 
 right and art. While the view which merges morality essen- 
 tially into either right or art is very one-sided and a mistaking 
 of the nature of the moral in general, it would not be less erro- 
 neous entirely to shut out the moral from these two spheres, and 
 to place it simply along-side of them ; the moral is rather, as the 
 superior element, above them, and right and art have truth only 
 in so far as they are special realization-forms of the moral ; 
 there is, in truth, no immoral right and no immoral beauty, al- 
 though by sinful man the wrong is often regarded as right, and 
 the un-beautiful as beautiful. 
 
 Schleiermacher, in his Philosophical Ethics, gives a definition 
 of philosophical ethics, based on the views of Fichte and Schel- 
 ling, which entirely differs from the usual one. In assuming two 
 chief sciences, that of nature and that of reason, whereof each 
 may be treated either empirically or speculatively, according as 
 the reality or the essence of the object is more directly taken into 
 view, he obtains four sciences in all. The empirical science of 
 nature is natural history; the speculative science of nature is
 
 18 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 2. 
 
 physics; the empirical science of reason is history; the specu- 
 lative science of reason is ethics. Hence ethics "is the knowl- 
 edge of the essence of reason," and stands in the same relation 
 to history as speculation to experience, and is hence essentially 
 the philosophy of history. Under such conditions it would be 
 more correct to call ethics the philosophy of the spirit; but 
 Schleiermacher evades this, no less manifest than necessary, 
 consequence ; logic and psychology belong, according to him, 
 not to ethics, for psychology corresponds to natural history, and 
 hence is " the empirical knowledge of the activity of the spirit- 
 ual ;" and logic belongs, empirically-treated, to psychology, and, 
 speculatively-treated, to physics.* Though, by means of this 
 strange conception of logic and psychology, the immeasurable 
 sphere of ethics as fixed by the first definition is somewhat re- 
 duced, still there yet remains for it a very unusually wide field, 
 and it embraces, with the exception of physics, the whole of 
 philosophical theology and of the philosophy of history ; and 
 as natural history and physics have like extent of field, differing 
 only in point of view taken, so the fields of empirical history 
 and of ethics are also co-extensive, and ethics is nothing other 
 than the speculative consideration of history. " History is the 
 example-book of ethics, and ethics is the form-book of history ;" 
 but history is, when so viewed, every thing which is not mere 
 nature ; and as, in the highest instance, nature and reason are es- 
 sentially identical, nature being reason, and reason nature, hence 
 " in the highest view of the matter ethics is physics and physics 
 ethics," whereas in a lower view of the matter ethics is condi- 
 tioned, as to contents and form, by physics, and physics by ethics. 
 It is evident at once that according to these definitions ethics is 
 something entirely other than what is usually understood there- 
 by in the scientific world; and it involves not a little courage 
 to undertake to justify the applying of the term ethics to this 
 extensive field. This scientifically-unjustifiable extension of the 
 field of ethics has occasioned much confusion ; and Rothe's 
 "Theological Ethics" suffers also from this lack of limitation, 
 whereas Schleiermacher himself carefully avoided applying to 
 theological ethics this philosophical conception, which in fact 
 sprang more from an ingenious thought-play than from an inner 
 consequential development of the ground-principle. Indeed, 
 * System der EtJMc, edited by Schweizer, 1835, 55, tqq., 60, 61, 87.
 
 2.] SCHLEIERMACHER'S VIEW. 19 
 
 even in his philosophical ethics, Schleiermacher very soon intro- 
 duces a much narrower notion, without any logical justification 
 thereto in his system. Thus ethics is, presently, made to ap- 
 pear as " the scientific presentation of human action" which 
 manifestly cannot be regarded as identical with the notion of 
 the " speculative knowledge of the essence of reason." But also 
 this new declaration is much too indefinite ; it is not action in 
 general, but moral action, that belongs to ethics. Should we 
 thus find this narrower definition too comprehensive still, then 
 we are relieved by the declaration that ethics is the " specula- 
 tive knowledge of the collective activity of reason upon nature," 
 and are at once thrown into a field so narrow as to be obliged 
 to exclude from ethics a very essential, nay, the most essential, 
 part of this science. For all morality is not embraced in an 
 activity of reason upon nature; in however wide a sense "na- 
 ture " be taken, still it always stands over against reason as of a 
 different character, is that which, in empirical respects, consti- 
 tutes the field of natural science, natural history, etc. The 
 moral cultivation of the heart humility, truthfulness, the moral 
 disposition in general, the whole sphere of the purely spiritual 
 life belongs not at all to this activity upon nature. On the 
 other hand, this definition is also much too comprehensive, in- 
 asmuch as there may be also an extra-moral and an immoral 
 interpenetration of reason and nature, and an immoral activity 
 of reason upon nature ; but should it be said that this, now, 
 would not be the true moral reason, then this would vir- 
 tually imply that the moral is to be sought elsewhere than in 
 this activity of reason upon nature, would place it in reason as 
 such. As, in the view of Schleiermacher, ethics is only the 
 speculative reverse-side of history, hence he requires, consequen- 
 tially enough, that it be presented essentially historically. " The 
 style of ethics is the historical; for only where manifestation 
 and law are given as the same is the view taken a scientific one. 
 Hence the style can be neither imperative nor consultative. The 
 form of ethics is the development of a theoretical view. The 
 formula of the ' should ' is entirely inadmissible, as this formula 
 rests upon an antagonism to the law, whereas it is the part of 
 science to present this antagonism as a mere appearance." This 
 position, (harmonizing with the view expressed in his " Dis- 
 courses on Religion,") which, from the stand-point of Panthe- 
 
 3
 
 20 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 2. 
 
 istic determinism, is quite consequential, we simply mention in 
 passing, in order to explain, in some manner, this position of 
 ethics in Schleiermacher. Even as the other speculative science, 
 namely, physics, does not present what should be, but what 
 really is and must be, so also Pantheistic ethics has to do only 
 with the " is" and the "must be," but not with the " should ;" all 
 reality is here rational ; all disagreement with the law is mere 
 appearance ; there exists nothing else than what must be ; hence 
 ethics has simply to present for the reason-life the laws, even as 
 physics, for the nature-life, and is just as certain of the agree- 
 ment of reality with these laws as astronomy is certain of the 
 occurrence of a calculated eclipse of the moon. On the con- 
 trary, so soon as by the admission of moral will-freedom, even 
 the possibility of an antagonism of moral reality to the moral 
 law is conceded, ethics presents itself at once with the should; 
 for the moral law has unconditional validity, whether man really 
 fulfills it or not. Ethics is only in so far purely historical as 
 perfect morality is also personal reality ; hence Christian ethics 
 bears, indeed, essentially also a historical character, because 
 Christ is, for it, the moral ideal ; for others, however, it bears 
 the form of the " should." Pantheistic ethics makes collective 
 humanity the real expression of the moral idea, makes human- 
 ity its Christ. And that Schleiermacher's philosophical ethics 
 is by no means free of a Pantheistic character, is undeniable. 
 
 Hegel conceives of ethics as one of the phases of the Philoso- 
 phy of the Spirit, and more specifically as the sphere of the 
 objective spirit in contradistinction to that of the subjective, 
 which embraces anthropology, the phenomenology of the spirit, 
 and psychology. The spirit, as having come to itself and be- 
 come free, realizes itself, in that, as free rational will, it posits 
 itself outwardly, forms for itself a world corresponding to itself, 
 which i*the expression of the spirit. This objective reality of 
 the free spirit, which becomes for the individual subject an 
 objective power whereby the subject is determined in his free- 
 dom, and which consequently is to be recognized by the indi- 
 vidual, is, as of a universal character, for the individual, law. 
 Hence this will of objective rationality is right, which becomes 
 for the individual, duty. But in that right does not remain a 
 merely objective power, but makes itself immanent in the indi- 
 vidual subject, so that the individual will becomes an expres-
 
 3.] 
 
 HEGEL'S VIEW. 21 
 
 sion of the general will, and right finds in the subject free 
 recognition becomes subjective disposition so the notion of 
 right transforms itself into that of morality, which in its turn 
 by not remaining merely subjective, but by forming for itself in 
 the spheres of the family, of civil society, and of the state, a 
 complete rational reality, wherein the free spirit finds its self- 
 created and perfectly self-answering home exalts itself to eus- 
 tomariness* Hegel styles this development of the objective 
 spirit, not ethics to which he surely had a higher right than 
 Schleiermacher for his much more comprehensive notion, (inas- 
 much as the ethical is the highest phase of this development,) 
 but the philosophy of right. The entire contents of this phi- 
 losophy of right fall indeed into the sphere of ethics in the wider 
 sense of the term, though the entire contents of Christian ethics 
 do not fall into the sphere of this philosophy of right. Ethics 
 has, according to the Christian view, not merely to create an 
 objective world of rationality, but also to make the moral per- 
 sonality itself a perfect expression of rationality ; hence many 
 things which Hegel treats of in the philosophy of the subjective 
 spirit belong to ethics ; and this is doubtless the principal reason 
 why Hegel (much more cautious and less arbitrary in his notions 
 and their definitions than Schleiermacher) designates the science 
 of the objective spirit, not ethics, but the doctrine of right. 
 
 SECTION III. 
 
 As a theological science ethics forms a part of 
 systematic theology, in which it stands in closest 
 connection with dogmatics, and has dogmatics as its 
 immediate presupposition. The two sciences belong 
 together in organic unity, and cannot be entirely 
 separated from each other. Dogmatics presents the 
 essence, the contents, and the object of the religious 
 consciousness ; ethics presents this consciousness as a 
 power determining the human will. Dogmatics em- 
 braces the good as reality, that is, as it, through God, 
 is, or becomes, or, by the fault of moral creatures, is 
 
 *PMlosophie des Geistet, 481, sqq. ; RecTitsphilosophie, p. 22, sqq.
 
 22 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 3. 
 
 not ; ethics, on the contrary, embraces this good as a 
 task for the free, and hence moral, activity of man ; 
 that is, as, on the basis of the religious consciousness, 
 it should become in reality. Dogmatics presents real- 
 ity, in the sphere of the divine and religious, for man, 
 as an object of the religious consciousness ; on the 
 contrary, ethics presents the religions consciousness as 
 a power creating a. spiritual reality ; that is, it pre- 
 sents a reality as going out from man as a religious 
 subject. Hence dogmatics bears predominantly an ob- 
 jective character relates toknowledge; and ethics pre- 
 dominantly a subjective character relates to loilling. 
 
 Theoretical theology in contradistinction to practical theol- 
 ogy, -which presents the ecclesiastico-pastoral application of the 
 subject-matter given in theoretical theology is partly historical 
 and partly systematic. Ethics has indeed a historical founda- 
 tion, and stands in constant relation to history, but in itself it 
 is no more history than is dogmatics ; exegesis and Church his- 
 tory furnish only the material for ethics. The separating of 
 ethics from dogmatics, with which it was formerly, and up to 
 the time of Danseus and (^alixtus, intimately involved, is diffi- 
 cult, and, in fact, not without violence, entirely practicable; 
 both sciences reach over into each other like two intersecting 
 circles, and have, under all circumstances, some territory in com- 
 mon ; the general foundations of ethics are based in the corre- 
 sponding thoughts of dogmatics. 
 
 The usual and quite natural statement, that dogmatics shows 
 what we should believe, and ethics what we should do, is only 
 proximatively correct, and is inadequate ; for also the moral laws 
 and maxims are an object of faith ; and " what we should be- 
 lieve " bears, even in the correct expression itself, the character 
 of a moral requirement. Believing, itself, is of a moral character; 
 ethics cannot confine itself to the mere outward action, but must 
 have to do also with the inward, with the disposition. Accord- 
 ing to Harless, dogmatics presents the essence of the objective 
 ground of salvation, and of the objective mediation of salvation, 
 whereas ethics presents the subjective realization of the life-goal
 
 3.] RELATION TO DOGMATICS- 23 
 
 as established by Christ; dogmatics presents the objective sal- 
 vation-power as determining the Christian ; ethics presents the 
 personal life-movement of the Christian toward his highest life- 
 goal ; ethics gives answer to the question, What thinkest thou 
 of Christ ? dogmatics to the question, What thinkest thou of 
 the right manner of the Christian's life in the world ? This 
 declaration limits the two sciences quite too much : dogmatics 
 must in fact speak also of man and of the order of salvation ; 
 and ethics must speak also of the objective law and of sin. 
 According to Schleiermacher's theological ethics, ethics pre- 
 sents the Christian self-consciousness in its relative motion, while 
 dogmatics presents the same in its relative rest ; dogmatics an- 
 swers the question, What must fo, because the religious heart- 
 state it? ethics the question, What must become out of the 
 religious self-consciousness and through the same, because the 
 religious self-consciousness is? This antithesis is not entirely 
 to the point, for, on the one hand, dogmatics treats not merely 
 of what is, but also of what becomes, as, e. g., in the doctrines 
 of regeneration and of eschatology ; as, on the other hand, ethics 
 treats not only of what becomes, but necessarily also of what 
 morally is, as well normally as abnormally. Virtue is not a 
 mere becoming, but an ens, as Schleiermacher himself admits ; 
 the good when attained, certainly does not for that reason cease 
 to be an object of ethics. The antithesis of motion and rest is 
 in this sphere utterly unapt. Schleiermacher presents the mat- 
 ter also thus : the dogmatical propositions are those which 
 express the relation of man to God as an interest, namely, as, 
 under its manifold modifications, it passes over into conceptions; 
 whereas the ethical propositions express the same thing, but as 
 an inner impetus, op/z^, an impulse, which goes out into a cycle 
 of actions. But also this is not quite correct; for also ethics 
 expresses a relation of man to God in conceptions or thoughts, 
 which do not per se include in themselves an inner impetus, as, 
 e. g., in the questions as to the moral essence of man, as to the 
 moral idea per se, and in the entire doctrine of goods. 
 
 The difficulty in defining the difference lies less in the general 
 antithesis than rather in those points where both sciences must 
 treat of the same topics. The doctrines of the moral essence of 
 man, of the divine law, of sin, of sanctification, of the Church, 
 belong strictly to dogmatics ; but ethics must necessarily treat
 
 24 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 3. 
 
 also of all these things, so that it might after all seem advisable, 
 in order to avoid repetitions, to unite both into one science 
 again, as was formerly the case, and as has been done recently 
 by Nitzsch, and in part also by Sartorius. But the separate 
 treatment of ethics rests in fact, aside from weighty practical 
 reasons, upon a wide-reaching inner difference ; and those points 
 which fall within the scope of both sciences, are nevertheless 
 treated, in each, from a different stand-point, and in a very dif- 
 ferent manner. Both of them present a life of the spirit of God 
 or of man but dogmatics views this life as an objective fact, 
 while ethics views it as a task for the free activity of the rational 
 subject; hence dogmatics has essentially an objective and real 
 character, while ethics has a subjective and ideal one. Dog- 
 matics has constantly to do with an object transcending the 
 individual, with God, with Christ, with man in general; ethics 
 has to do primarily always with the individual moral person, 
 and with the totality only in so far as it rests upon the moral 
 action of the individual personality. What dogmatics teaches 
 relates not to me as this single person, but as a human being in 
 general ; - what ethics teaches concerns me precisely as a person. 
 Dogmatics treats of sin per se, as an objective something and as 
 an historical fact ; ethics treats of the same as a personal malady 
 and as guilt. Dogmatics treats of the kingdom of God as an 
 objective organism ; ethics treats of the same in so far as the 
 moral subject is an organic member thereof. Dogmatics treats 
 of sanctification as a manifestation-form of the kingdom of God ; 
 ethics treats of the same as a subjective life-manifestation of the 
 person. "The kingdom of God comes indeed without our 
 prayer" that is dogmatical; "but we ask in this prayer that 
 it come also to us" this is ethical. Dogmatics sketches the 
 physical chart of the kingdom of God ; ethics sketches the ways 
 and dwelling-places therein. The object of dogmatics is abso- 
 lutely independent of the freedom of the individual subject is 
 either eternal or an historical fact is in nowise within the power 
 of man ; the object of ethics is, in its reality, absolutely depend- 
 ent on the free resolution of the subject is per se a pure idea, 
 the realization of which is a requirement upon the free activity 
 of man. Dogmatics presents that which is, or was, or will be; 
 ethics presents that which should be or should not be ; hence 
 dogmatics presents always an unconditionally-secured result,
 
 3.] ROTHE'S VIEW. 25 
 
 either of an accomplished or of a destined movement ; ethics, 
 however, presents a task, the accomplishing of which is condi- 
 tioned on the free assent of man. The contents of dogmatics 
 relate essentially to knowledge and faith; those of ethics to 
 volition. Dogmatics wills that man accept the truth ; ethics 
 wills that he do it. Hence man's relation to dogmatics is rather 
 passive womanly ; and to ethics rather active manly. In the 
 sphere of dogmatics there is a revelation of the divine for man ; 
 in that of ethics a revelation of the divine through man, who 
 has received this element into himself. In dogmatics the move- 
 ment of the divine goes out from the divine middle-point toward 
 the created periphery ; in ethics, on the contrary, it goes back 
 from the periphery toward God as the middle-point. In dog- 
 matics God is conceived of as the ground, as the point of 
 departure ; in ethics as the goal of the life-movement ; in dog- 
 matics man's relation is more epic; in ethics more dramatic. 
 Dogmatics is predominantly ontological and historical ; ethics 
 is predominantly teleological. Both sciences treat of man and 
 his activity dogmatics, however, in so far as man is an object 
 for God ; ethics, in so far as God is an aimed-at object for man. 
 Dogmatics is related to ethics, as psychology to pedagogy, as 
 physiology to dietetics, as botany to horticulture, as animal 
 sensation to motion.* 
 
 From all this it is apparent that ethics has dogmatics neces- 
 sarily as its presupposition that it is the second and not the 
 first. Ethics is faith as having become a subjective life-power 
 faith in so far as it is an operative force. The popular in- 
 struction in the Scriptures implies, throughout, this relative 
 position of dogmatics and ethics, in that it presents the moral 
 command after the subject-matter of faith, and bases it thereon; 
 thus already in the Mosaic legislation (Exod. xx, 2, sqq.), and 
 thus again in most of the New Testament epistles. (Comp. also 
 Matt, vii, 21, 24, sqq. ; John xiii, 17 ; xv, 1, sqq. ; 1 Cor. xiii, 2 ; 
 Col. i, 4-10 ; 2 Tim. iii, 14, sqq. ; Titus i, 1 ; James i, 22, sqq. ; 
 ii, 14, sqq. ; 1 John ii, 4.) 
 
 Deviating entirely from this view, BotJie places ethics in a 
 wholly different field from dogmatics. In his view ethics be- 
 longs to speculative, and dogmatics to historical, theology ; they 
 do not stand along-side of each other, do not run parallel to each 
 * Comp. Palmer: Moral, 1864, p. 21, sqq.
 
 26 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 3. 
 
 other, but belong to entirely different forms of theology. The 
 difference of the two sciences lies not in their respective objects, 
 for these objects are in fact essentially the same, but in the 
 manner of their scientific treatment. Dogmatics is the science 
 of dogmas, that is, of the ecclesiastically-authorized articles of 
 faith, and hence has an empirically-given historical object, and 
 is therefore essentially historical, and not at all speculative; 
 speculative theology is, on the contrary, the presupposition of 
 dogmatics. But ethics has nothing whatever to do with eccle- 
 siastical doctrines, but must be treated purely speculatively, and 
 is, as a speculative science, a presupposition of dogmatics. The 
 theology of the evangelical Church has had from the very be- 
 ginning, in the introduction of moral theology, no intention of 
 creating a second science along-side of dogmatics, but has tended, 
 though without being clearly conscious of it, toward a specula- 
 tive theology ; and this science would necessarily lead out beyond 
 the hitherto-observed ecclesiastical rut would progressively 
 metamorphose the dogmas.* This view, constituting one of the 
 many eccentricities of the Rothean theology, is utterly without 
 sufficient ground. It is entirely arbitrary to place speculative 
 theology along-side of dogmatics, and to declare ethics as be- 
 longing exclusively to the former. Both sciences admit of being 
 treated purely theologically or purely specnlatively, though in- 
 deed all their contents cannot be embraced speculatively ; and 
 with the same right whereby the speculative doctrine of God 
 and of the world is excluded from dogmatics, may also the 
 speculative portions of ethics be excluded from this science, and 
 ethics be, then, declared as a purely empirical science. A large 
 portion of ethics proper lies without the scope of a purely spec- 
 ulative treatment, as is in fact sufficiently evinced by the third 
 part of Rothe's ethics. It may indeed be questioned whether 
 speculation is admissible at all in theology ; if it is, however, 
 once admitted, then it is quite as much in place in dogmatics as 
 in ethics as indeed not an insignificant portion of the Rothean 
 ethics is nothing other than speculative dogmatics ; and there 
 is no manner of justification for degrading dogmatics, as in con- 
 trast to the historical development of the science, into a merely 
 dogmatico-historical statement of the doctrines of the Church. . 
 
 * Ethik, i, 88, tqg. All references to Rothe are to the first edition of 
 his Ethik.
 
 4.] THREE FORMS OF ETHICS. 27 
 
 And in that Rothe regards the dogmatical field as not at all 
 bordering upon the ethical, he obtains full liberty to extend im- 
 measurably the boundaries of ethics, so that this science thus 
 receives a compass elsewhere unparalleled, even in Schleier- 
 macher's philosophical system. Not merely does Rothe preface 
 his ethics with a thorough presentation of the whole of specula- 
 tive theology by way of introduction (in which connection he 
 reaches far over, and not any too aptly, into the field of natural 
 philosophy), but also he receives into ethics itself many entirely 
 foreign subjects, e. g., eschatology. Moreover, also the facts of 
 redemption through Christ are presupposed in this ethics, as a 
 Christian one, not however as furnished by dogmatics, but by 
 the immediate religious consciousness. Under such circum- 
 stances it seems more than arbitrary to declare the scientific 
 presentation of this consciousness, not as the scientific presup- 
 position, but as a sequence of ethics. 
 
 H. SCIENTIFIC TREATMENT OF ETHICS. 
 
 SECTION IV, 
 
 OF the three possible methods of presenting ethics, 
 the empirical, the philosophical, and the theological, 
 the first and most ancient is to be regarded as the 
 mere fore'-court to the science itself. And philosoph- 
 ical ethics, as resting upon the inner necessity of 
 rational thinking, can never, even when it is inspired 
 by a Christian spirit, entirely assume the place of 
 theological ethics, and displace the latter as a lower 
 stage of the science ; rather can it only be the scien- 
 tific presupposition and support of the same, without, 
 however, taking up into itself its actual collective 
 .contents; for theological ethics bears in its founda- 
 tion and essence predominantly an historical character 
 < has for its source the historical revelation, and for
 
 28 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [4. 
 
 its essential contents the (not philosophically neces- 
 sary) thoughts of the actual existence of sin and of 
 the collective history of salvation, whereof the cen- 
 tral point is the historical Christ (who is at the same 
 time the perfect ideal of the moral), and it treats also 
 of the circumstances of humanity and of individual 
 man, as having become real within the scope of Chris- 
 tian history, which also, as the results of free action, 
 are not to be regarded as philosophically necessary. 
 
 A merely empirical ethics, furnishing only a series of observa- 
 tions and rules, as with the Chinese, the Indians, the older 
 Grecian sages, and also to a large extent inside of the scope of 
 Christian history, is only a collection of material for scientific 
 ethics, but not ethics itself. In the sphere of science we have 
 to do only with the antithesis of philosophical and theological 
 ethics, in the place of which, however, we may not, as Schleier- 
 macher does,* substitute the antithesis of Christian and philo- 
 sophical ethics. Over against Christian ethics stands, not 
 philosophical, but non-Christian ethics; also a philosophical 
 ethics may be Christian, and a Christian ethics philosophical ; 
 a believing Christian will in fact never otherwise philosophize 
 than in a Christian spirit. 
 
 The antithesis between philosophical and theological ethics 
 is in itself simple and clear ; for philosophical ethics, only that 
 is valid which is developed from the per se necessary thought, 
 with inner necessity ; it presents the moral as a pure revelation 
 of reason ; theological ethics, on the contrary, conceives it as a 
 revelation of faith in the personal God and in the historical 
 Christ as an expression of obedience to the revealed will of 
 God ; hence between the two methods of presentation there is 
 in fact not merely an antithesis of method and source, but also 
 of compass. Theological ethics, embracing also the sphere of 
 the historical facts of free will-determination, transcends the 
 limits of philosophical ethics. The two could only then be per- 
 fectly co-extensive when the sphere of moral freedom should be 
 merged into that of unconditional necessity ; that is, when the 
 * Christl. Sitte, p. 24.
 
 4.] THEOLOGICAL ETHICS. 29 
 
 rational ground and presupposition of the ethical itself should 
 be denied. The ethical thoughts which relate to the realized 
 free acts of man and of Christ can be treated of in philosophical 
 ethics only hypothetically, so that philosophy shall apply the 
 results obtained in the sphere of pure thought to the, not phil- 
 osophically, but historico-empirically ascertained conditions; 
 that is, not as pure but, in some sense, as mixed philosophy. 
 But if also the historical facts of Christianity are to be taken up 
 into philosophical ethics, as Palmer assumes,* then its difference 
 from theological ethics is at least, not to be placed in the fact 
 that the latter bases itself upon Scripture ; for indeed philosophy 
 cannot come at these facts otherwise than from the Scriptures, 
 and is then in fact no longer purely philosophical. 
 
 While purely philosophical ethics can develop only the general 
 moral ideas, but not their application to definite historically- 
 arisen relations, on the other hand, a purely theological ethics, 
 as absolutely excluding all philosophical treatment, is defective, 
 at least, in scientific respects. Theological ethics can appropri- 
 ate to itself philosophy, and it is all the more scientific the more 
 it does this ; but it cannot take philosophy as its exclusive ground 
 and source without ceasing to be theological. Hence theolog- 
 ical ethics is, in respect to extent of contents and to the means 
 at its disposal, richer than purely philosophical ethics. The 
 highest perfection of Christian ethics is a vital union of the phil- 
 osophical and the theological manner of treatment, namely, in 
 that the ideas given in the moral reason itself are treated and 
 speculatively developed as such, and receive from Christian rev- 
 elation their religious confirmation ; while, on the other hand, 
 the actual truths lying in the sphere of the free activity of man 
 himself are taken up from revelation and from historical expe- 
 rience. Such a presentation of ethics preserves its Christianly- 
 theological character by the fact that, in view of the constantly- 
 renewed alternation of philosophical systems, and of their not 
 unfrequently weighty and essential mutual contradictions, it 
 does not make the validity of the firmly-established truths of 
 revelation dependent on their agreement with a particular phil- 
 osophical system, but, on the contrary, makes the acceptance 
 of philosophical thoughts and of their sequences dependent on 
 their harmonizing with the certain truths of revelation. If this 
 * Moral, p. 19.
 
 30 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 4. 
 
 relation is otherwise understood, then it is in fact no longer a 
 theological, but a philosophical, system. 
 
 This antithesis between philosophical and theological ethics 
 is entirely rejected by Rothe, in that he presents a theological 
 ethics which is essentially speculative, and in that he definitely 
 distinguishes theological speculation from philosophical, and re- 
 quires of theological ethics that it must, as a science, be also 
 speculative, whereas dogmatics cannot in the nature of things 
 be such. Every speculation begins with a proto-datum, philo- 
 sophical speculation with the self-consciousness. But this self- 
 consciousness is not mere self-consciousness, but is at the same 
 time in some manner a determined one, is also a God-conscious- 
 ness; the religious subject recognizes his self-consciousness not 
 as an absolutely pure one, but as always at the same time affect- 
 ed by an objective determinateness, namely, the religious. Man 
 is never otherwise conscious of himself than as being conscious 
 at the same time also of his relation to God. This point may, 
 says Rothe, be in itself controverted, but in the sphere of piety, 
 , that is, in the theological sphere, it is not controverted : " we 
 deny to no one the right to question the reality of piety itself, 
 but with impiety we have, as a matter of principle, nothing to 
 do ; there can be a system of theology only on the presupposi- 
 tion of piety ; for all who are impious our system of speculation 
 has no validity, and, as related to them, we must continue in 
 error." According to this, there are two kinds of speculation, 
 a religious and a philosophical ; the latter has its point of de- 
 parture in simple self-consciousness, the former in the pious self- 
 consciousness ; philosophical speculation conceives the "All" 
 through the idea of the ego, theological speculation through the 
 idea of God, but both are d priori ; hence theological specula- 
 tion is theosophy ; it begins with the idea of God, with which 
 idea philosophical speculation ends; the evidence is the same 
 in both. Speculative theology must be essentially different for 
 every peculiar form of piety, inasmuch as the starting-point, 
 namely, the peculiarly-determined pious consciousness, is differ- 
 ent. Hence there is also a peculiarly Chnstianly- speculative 
 theology, and likewise for every Church a special one, and hence 
 also a special evangelico-Christi&n theology; and this special 
 speculative theology has in fact validity only for this particular 
 Church is for the others without significancy. This theolog-
 
 4,] ROTHE'S METHOD. 31 
 
 ical speculation, however, is not in any way bound by the dog- 
 mas of the Church in which it originates, but is independent of 
 them knows itself as co-etaneous with them ; nay, it must in its 
 every nature be Jieterodax ; its purpose is in fact to develop the 
 consciousness of the Church still further, and to reconstruct the 
 existing dogmatical definition?. In the circle of theological 
 sciences speculation occupies the first and highest place. The 
 difference between theological and philosophical ethics becomes, 
 now, perfectly plain. Both are speculative ; but philosophical 
 ethics proceeds from the moral consciousness purely as such ; 
 whereas theological ethics proceeds from the same as it exists 
 in the Christian individual belonging to a particular Christian 
 Church, that is, as a peculiarly-determined religious conscious- 
 ness, and from the historically-given ideal of morality in the 
 person of Christ. 
 
 This view appears to us entirely erroneous. We cannot possi- 
 bly admit any other than a purely philosophical speculation, at 
 least as of a scientific character. In the first place it is incor- 
 rect, in point of fact, that philosophical speculation always 
 proceeds from self-consciousness as in contradistinction to theo- 
 logical speculation, which is made to proceed from the God- 
 consciousness. Spinoza starts directly from the idea of God, 
 and his philosophy will surely not be called a theological spec- 
 ulation; in like manner also Schelling. Hegel begins with the 
 idea of pure being; and this is certainly also not identical with 
 self-consciousness. Theological speculation, Rothe holds, differs 
 only in its beginning, from philosophical, in that this beginning 
 is, in it, somewhat more determined and more rich in contents, 
 namely, as being already a religiously-determined self-conscious- 
 ness. This is the view of Schleiermacher, who also proceeds 
 from the religiously-determined self-consciousness; however, 
 Schleiermacher does not undertake to base thereon a system of 
 speculation, but simply a theological description of the pious 
 conditions of the soul, and to argue toward their presupposi- 
 tions, which in fact cannot, in any sense, be called speculation. 
 Rothe herein less consequential than Schleiermacher goes 
 beyond him in two respects : first, in that he carries the relig- 
 ious detenninateness, the self-consciousness, even into the con- 
 fessional phase ; and, secondly, in that he undertakes to make 
 this purely empirical fact the foundation of a system of specu-
 
 32 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 4. 
 
 lation. The original self-consciousness upon which Rothe bases 
 speculative theology, and more specifically ethics, is not merely 
 religiously determined in general (as, e. g., with Schleiermacher, 
 a feeling of absolute dependence), but also Christianly-relig- 
 iously, nay, even evangelically-Christianly, etc., and only on the 
 basis of such a quite specific determinedness is, in his view, a 
 theological speculation possible. This, however, is, properly 
 speaking, not a theological speculation, but a Christian, a Prot- 
 estant, a Lutheran, or a Reformed speculation, and has in fact 
 validity only for this special ecclesiastical circle ; others, belong- 
 ing to another Church, may construct their own peculiar specu- 
 lations with the speculations of others they have no concern, 
 nor others with theirs ; and yet all this is assumed to be not 
 merely science, but in fact speculative science. We can find in 
 it, however, only arbitrary assumption, and can recognize such 
 products neither as speculative nor as scientific, neither as Chris- 
 tian nor as evangelical. In the first place, a real science, and 
 hence above all a true speculation, cannot rest upon a merely 
 fortuitous ground, but only upon an absolutely certain one. A 
 speculation which concerns itself not as to whether its starting- 
 point, its foundation, is certain and true, is manifestly worthless. 
 Now the pretended theological speculation of Rothe bases itself 
 upon an entirely fortuitously-determined religious consciousness, 
 without inquiring as to its legitimacy, and then speculates there- 
 upon unsuspectingly, further. Again, as the starting-point of 
 this speculation is of a fortuitously-determined character, hence 
 it can never have any validity save for the definite and limited 
 circle of persons who in fact chance to recognize this starting- 
 point, has, in fact, no general significancy, as indeed Rothe him- 
 self expressly admits ; and hence there is absolutely no possibility 
 of harmony between the speculative theologians of different 
 Churches ; they must simply let each other alone, and deliver 
 themselves in monologues; and he who speculates from the 
 Protestant consciousness must renounce all hope that a Roman 
 Catholic Christian may understand him, and in any degree enter, 
 into his line of thought for he cannot do so. But this is a 
 positive contradiction not merely to all speculation, but in fact 
 to all science ; nay, to the very nature of truth in general, and 
 to morality itself. Truth and every science claims to be its 
 expression can never be particular, but necessarily claims vnir
 
 4.] ROT11E CRITICISED. 33 
 
 versal validity ; every real science purposes to convince all men 
 who are rational and at all capable of scientific thought; hence 
 to renounce all hope of convincing other men, for the reason 
 that they chance to find themselves otherwise confessionally- 
 determined, would be positively immoral. No real science in 
 general is at liberty to construct itself upon a fortuitously-given 
 basis, and to regard other equally fortuitous bases as equally 
 valid and unassailable. I cannot, without treason to the truth, 
 speculate evangelically-Cliristiauly simply because I find myself 
 in my earlier religious self-consciousness evangelically-Chris- 
 tianly determined, but only for the reason that, for convincing 
 grounds, I have recognized this evangelically-Christian conscious- 
 ness as per se true, as universally valid truth, and which there- 
 fore excludes, as erroneous, every contradictory view. And for 
 the simple reason that the truth, in its very idea and essence, 
 can and may never be merely subjective, but must have objective 
 and universal validity, and because all men should come to a 
 knowledge of the truth (1 Tim. ii, 4), I absolutely dare not con- 
 struct a system of speculation which, on principle, excludes the 
 hope of persuading other persons of different confessions, which 
 purposes to have for such no convincing power, and does not 
 regard them as called equally with me to recognize the truth, 
 which as truth must be absolutely valid for them also. Without 
 a firm and absolutely verified basis there can be no science. A 
 speculation upon a chance, fortuitous basis is idle play without 
 purpose and without worth. There would, in fact, be as m:my 
 mutually-excluding and equally-entitled speculations as there 
 are such chance presuppositions; and what would be the sig- 
 nificancy of a science which aims not at convincing those in 
 error, but only at furnishing an interesting entertainment for 
 the already convinced ? If the assumed foundation is not to be 
 itself an object of a preliminary scientific examination, then in 
 fact any and every one would be fully entitled to say : I find 
 myself not merely so or so religiously, but also so or so morally, 
 determined, I find in my moral self-consciousness this particu- 
 lar desire and this particular aversion, and on the basis of this 
 determinedness I propose to construct a system of speculative 
 ethics! The distinction between philosophical and theological 
 speculation in Rothe's sense would in fact be simply the dis- 
 tinction between science and unscientific arbitrariness. We
 
 34 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 4. 
 
 fully admit that only a moral spirit caji truly speculate upon 
 the moral, and only a Christianly-pious spirit upon religion ; 
 but that a person is moral or pious is only an individual fact, 
 but not a scientific basis of a system, is a moral presupposition, 
 but not a material principle of the speculation itself; piety is 
 only the subjective condition, the impulse toward and the power 
 for speculation, but not the scientific foundation thereof. The 
 strange contradiction, that this speculation, though proceeding 
 from a determined ecclesiastical consciousness as the unassaila- 
 ble and unquestionable basis, yet at the same time claims to be 
 entitled to pass out beyond the ecclesiastical consciousness, and 
 even sets up heterodoxy as one of its requirements (a require- 
 ment which Rothe himself meets in a high degree), we need not 
 here further elucidate. 
 
 Rothe presents theological speculation as co-etaneous, along- 
 side of philosophical. Now, however, if, as he expressly affirms, 
 philosophical speculation in proceeding in its development nec- 
 essarily arrives at the idea of God, and there ends, that is, pre- 
 cisely at the point where theological speculation begins, then, 
 in fact, speculation may, from this idea of God as obtained in a 
 purely scientific manner, simply advance further, so that conse- 
 quently we now have a theological speculation resting not upon 
 a fortuitous and empirical presupposition, but upon a scientific 
 result, to which the one assumed by Rothe bears only a rela- 
 tion of premature over-haste. The entire distinction between 
 theological and philosophical speculation, we must consequently 
 declare as scientifically unfounded ; and we cannot, with Rothe, 
 look upon the difference between philosophical and theological 
 ethics as the 1 difference between a speculation without presup- 
 positions and a speculation with presuppositions, but only as 
 the difference between a speculative and a non-speculative ethics, 
 or an ethics resting essentially on history. Purely philosophical 
 ethics knows nothing of Christ, of redemption, nor even of sin 
 as a reality, and hence cannot possibly answer the full idea of a 
 Christian ethics, although it may and should, in that which it is 
 competent to embrace, be of a very Christian character: and as 
 the entire moral life of the Christian rests upon redemption and 
 spiritual regeneration, hence there is not a single point in this 
 life, where a purely philosophical ethics could suffice. Hence 
 the view of Schleiermucher, that Christian and philosophical
 
 5.] METHOD OF THE AUTHOR. 35 
 
 ethics are of exactly of the same compass, we must regard as 
 incorrect.* In his Philosophical Ethics he himself expressly de- 
 clares that the notion of evil has no place in it, but is only 
 obtained from the experience of real life ; but in Christian ethics 
 this notion is an essentially co-deter mining element of the whole.! 
 
 Theological and philosophical ethics do not mutually exclude 
 each other, but stand in intimate connection, and may go hand 
 in hand ; we must admit both of them, each in its own field, 
 and each with the task of combining the other as much as pos- 
 sible in itself. But for each of the two manners of treatment, 
 we must lay claim to universal validity. Whether we have 
 recognized a truth philosophically or theologically, we regard 
 this much as settled, that it is a truth not merely for us Protest- 
 ant or Roman Christians, but for all men who seek truth at all ; 
 and those who do not admit it, we can regard only as in error. 
 This is not intolerance, but simple fidelity to the truth ; every 
 truth is, in this sense, intolerant, claims the right to be accepted 
 of all men. 
 
 Ethics is frequently so treated that philosophical ethics, as 
 pure, precedes, and Christian ethics as applied ethics, follows. 
 This is not correct ; Christian ethics is not a mere application 
 of philosophical, but has, in so far as it rests on history, an 
 essentially other character, and other ground-thoughts peculiar 
 to itself. We purpose here to present a System of Christian 
 ethics, which, for the reason that it is to embrace all the phases 
 of the Christianly-moral, must be essentially theological; but in 
 the inner organizing and in the developing of the ground- 
 thoughts, philosophical considerations must furnish the deeper 
 scientific foundation. 
 
 HI. HISTORY OF ETHICS AND OF THE MORAL CON- 
 SCIOUSNESS IN GENERAL, 
 
 SECTION V. 
 
 CHRISTIAN ethics cannot be understood without its 
 history, nor the latter without the history of the sys- 
 tems lying anterior to and outside of Christianity. 
 
 * Christl. Sitte, JSeil, p. 4. t Ibid., pp. 35, 36. 
 
 4
 
 36 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 5. 
 
 But the history of ethics presupposes a knowledge of 
 the historical development of the moral consciousness 
 in general, whereof ethics proper is simply the scien- 
 tific fruit. 
 
 The mistakes committed in a large portion of the field of 
 more recent ethics, spring largely from non-attention to the his- 
 tory of this science ; and yet no other theological science has so 
 long and rich a history, and so many relations to the history of 
 the human mind anterior to and outside of Christianity, as, in 
 fact, this very one ; Greek philosophy has had, upon the devel- 
 opment of Christian ethics, a wide-reaching influence. But the 
 history of ethics cannot be separated from the history of the 
 moral spirit in general, out of which ethics sprang, and of which 
 it is simply the scientific form ; also the moral consciousness it- 
 self has a history, the knowledge of which is of much higher 
 importance than that of the history of mere ethics. Not every 
 moral consciousness has produced an ethical system, for only 
 the more gifted nations have risen to science at all, and ethics 
 is one of the most difficult ; but the moral consciousness of a 
 people, even though not developed into a scientific form, is to 
 be looked upon as the historical basis for another higher and 
 ultimately scientific national consciousness. Even as botany 
 considers the germination and foliation no less than the blos- 
 soms and fruit, as the history of religious doctrines presupposes 
 the history of the religious^ life, as the history of philosophy pre- 
 supposes and develops further the history of civilization, so also 
 the history of ethics cannot be given without, at the same time, 
 taking into consideration the history of the moral consciousness 
 itself; the ethical thoughts of Plato and Aristotle are not to be 
 understood merely from themselves, but largely only in the light 
 of the moral spirit of the Greeks in general. 
 
 The history of ethics itself,, though frequently touched upon, 
 has not as yet been sufficiently presented. The most complete 
 work is that of Stdudlin .* u History of the Ethics of Jesus," 
 1799-1823, 4 vols., of which the work, "History of Christian 
 Morals since the Revival of the Sciences," which appeared as 
 early as 1808, is to be regarded as a continuation; and to it is 
 to be added the same author's " History of Moral Philosophy," 
 1822 (and, as a short compendium, the "History of Philosoph-
 
 6.] HISTORIES OF ETHICS. 37 
 
 ical, Hebrew, and Christian Ethics," 1816). The rich body of 
 matter scattered through these works, is much diluted and not 
 always reliable, and is constructed into no vital unity. The 
 superficial Rationalistic stand-point precludes a proper under- 
 standing whether of philosophical or of theological ethics. It 
 is stated as a high merit of the ethics of Jesus, that, in it, are 
 combined the " better elements of the Platonic and Stoic sys- 
 tems;" the portraiture of the "wise Teacher" of morals, Jesus, 
 is about as insipid as well possible. Rousseau's " excellent " 
 moral discussions are lauded to the skies, while Luther is treated 
 as a person of narrow prejudice; the doctrine of the inspiration 
 of the Scriptures is repeatedly declared as dangerous to moral- 
 ity. The "History of Moral Philosophy" and several minor 
 treatises on the history of special ethical subjects (the oath, 
 marriage, the conscience) are very superficial and inaccurate. 
 
 De Wette wrote a " Christian Ethics," 1819 ; (more briefly pre- 
 sented in his " Compendium of Christian Ethics," 1833, in which 
 the history of ethics constitutes far more than half of the whole 
 book ; the first work, because of the negligent printing, is almost 
 useless for unprofessional persons, and is very dependent on 
 Staudlin, even to his typographical errors, though in particular 
 parts surpassing him). (Meiner's "History of Ethics," 1800, 
 utterly worthless. Marheineke's " History of Christian Ethics," 
 etc., 1806, only a fragment.) E. Feuerlein's " Ethics of Chris- 
 tianity in its Historical Chief-Forms," 1855, furnishes only un- 
 equal and often unclear or inadequate outlines ; the same author 
 published a " Philosophical Ethics in its Historical Chief- 
 Forms," 1856-59. Neander's "History of Christian Ethics," 
 1864, enters also upon Greek ethics, though here from a some- 
 what antiquated stand-point, and is somewhat ununiform, break- 
 ing off the historical development by an unhappy classification, 
 and furnishing rather single points than a connected pres- 
 entation. 
 
 A. MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS AND ETHICS OF HEA- 
 THEN NATIONS. 
 
 SECTION VI. 
 
 The most of historical heathen nations have indeed 
 collections of ethical life-rules, based almost always
 
 38 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 6. 
 
 upon religion, but before the golden age of Greek 
 philosophy they had no ethics proper. The ground- 
 character of all heathen ethical consciousness and of 
 heathen ethics is, that the starting-point and the goal 
 of the moral is not an infinite spirit, but either the 
 impersonal nature-entity, or a merely individually- 
 personal being. The starting-point is not the infinite 
 God, and the goal is not the perfection of the moral 
 personality in a kingdom of God as resting upon the 
 moral perfection of the individual person, and in the 
 communion of the person with the infinite personality 
 of God, but it is always merely a limited something, 
 either a merely earthly civic perfection with the rejec- 
 tion of a trans-mundane goal (the Chinese), or the 
 giving-up of personal existence altogether (the In- 
 dians), or a merely individual perfection irrespective 
 of the idea of a kingdom of God embracing the indi- 
 vidual personality as a vital member (the Egyptians, 
 Persians, Greeks, and Germans). There is through- 
 out a lack of the knowledge of true moral freedom; 
 either it is rejected on principle, or it is ascribed only 
 to a few specially-gifted ones, while the rest of man- 
 kind are, as barbarians, incapable of any moral free- 
 dom and perfection. Hence there is, further, a general 
 lack of a knowledge of humanity as called, in its total- 
 ity, to the accomplishing of a moral task. It is uni- 
 formly only one people, or an aristocratic class of a 
 people, that is morally active ; the slave is incapable 
 of true morality. But where humanity itself is 
 regarded as called to morality with the Buddhists 
 there the moral task is an essentially negating one, 
 is directed to the annihilating of personal existence. 
 There is throughout a lack of the knowledge of the 
 moral depravity of the natural man, and hence of the
 
 6.] ESSENCE OF HEATHENISM. 39 
 
 necessity of a spiritual new-birth ; morality is not so 
 much a struggle, as rather a simple development. 
 There is indeed a consciousness of immoral conditions 
 of humanity, yea, of a natural unaptness for the good ; 
 but these conditions are almost always attributed to 
 mere civic and individual degeneracy, and this unapt- 
 ness is confined to barbarians and slaves. And the 
 idea of the highest good is embraced either merely 
 negatively, or is referred to earthly weal, or is left 
 entirely in doubt, at best is sought in merely indi- 
 vidual perfection. 
 
 The heathen moral consciousness can be understood, evidently, 
 only in the light of the religious consciousness upon which it 
 always rests. That, of the majority of heathen nations, we 
 possess only loosely-connected moral precepts and observations, 
 moral adages and practical life-rules, but not ethical systems 
 proper, is no obstacle to our knowledge of their moral conscious- 
 ness, inasmuch as systems always bear in fact traces of the sub- 
 jective character of their authors, whereas, the popular collec- 
 tions in question, based, for the most part, on divine authority, 
 are an objective unclouded expression of the consciousness 
 dominant in a people. 
 
 It is the essence of heathenism to possess the idea of God only 
 under some form of limitation, to conceive of God as a being in 
 some degree limited ;* and to this corresponds also the moral 
 consciousness. Where God is conceived of as an unspiritual 
 nature-being, there morality bears essentially the character of 
 un-freedom, as it were of impersonality, is either a mechanical 
 adapting of self to universal nature, an absolutely goal-less 
 passive subordinating of self to the ever-uniform unchangeable 
 order of the world (China), or a subordinating of the personal 
 human spirit to the divine being conceived of as nature, with 
 which the free personality is in essential contradiction (India). 
 Wliere God, however, is conceived of as a limited individual 
 spirit, and then consequentially as plurality, there the personal 
 human spirit stands not in perfect moral dependence upon Him, 
 * See the author's OescTi. d. Heidentums, i, 11 sqq.
 
 40 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 6. 
 
 but is relatively co-ordinate with Him, has not God's will as 
 its unconditional law ; the foundation of the moral becomes 
 predominantly subjective and unsettled ; the self-love and the 
 self-seeking pride of the strong subject appears as the legitimate 
 chief-motive of the moral life (West-Asia and Europe). 
 
 With the prevalence of such views the goal of moral effort, 
 the highest good, can also be embraced only as a limited some- 
 thing. Among the naturalistic nations, the Chinese and the 
 Indians, this goal has no positive contents at all, for the personal 
 spirit as placed under the dominion of an impersonal nature- 
 power cannot aim to attain to any thing positive which did not 
 already exist; its goal can only be the greatest possible self- 
 denial of the personal spirit as over against nature. In China 
 the moral spirit can attain to nothing which has not already 
 always existed by nature and hence with necessity ; it behooves 
 not to create a spiritual, moral kingdom, but to uphold the 
 eternal kingdom of necessarily-determined order as already ex- 
 isting by nature without any personal act, to subordinate to, 
 and keep in passive harmony with, it, one's own worthless indi- 
 vidual existence. In India, with the Brahmins as well as with 
 the Buddhists, where the consciousness of the personal spirit 
 has awakened to a much higher validity, moral effort assumes a 
 truly tragic character, in that the total, violent contradiction of 
 the personal spirit to the personality-overwhelming divine 
 nature-entity comes to consciousness. The ultimate goal of the 
 moral spirit is here not only not a positive entity, nor indeed 
 even the upholding of an eternally-uniform world-order, but the 
 passing away of personal existence into the general indetermi- 
 nate nature-existence ; the highest good is complete self-annihi- 
 lation through moral effort. With the Occidental Indo-Germanic 
 nations the personal spirit is indeed no longer merged into the 
 impersonal nature-existence, for the divine is itself conceived of 
 as personality. But because of the merely limited individuality 
 of the divine, which rises to the height of an infinite personal 
 spirit only ifl the last results of philosophy, not recognized by 
 the masses of the people, the certainty of the moral goal falls 
 away also. The personal spirit looks not to cease to be, to 
 vanish in the mechanical whirl-din of the great world-machine, 
 as in China, nor to melt away into the incomprehensible and 
 ineffable proto-Brahnia or nirvana as in India, on the contrary,
 
 6.] IDEA OF HUMANITY OBSCURED. 41 
 
 it looks to attain to a positive result, but it finds therefor no 
 assured, firm footing ; and, as in this life the moral hero sinks 
 tragically under the envious disfavor of the gods or of fate, so 
 also is the lot he has earned in the next world of an entirely 
 doubtful character ; Achilles would fain exchange his lot in the 
 lower world for the position of a servant upon earlh, and Soc- 
 rates is not fully confident whether for his philosophical virtue 
 he will attain to the enjoyment of converse with the great dead. 
 At best, doubting hope looks only to a merely individual well- 
 being, and the idea of a real kingdom of God, which has its 
 roots in the earthly life of moral man, and its crown in a trans- 
 mundane perfection, and of which the essence is the history of 
 humanity, remains unknown even to the most highly enlight- 
 ened heathendom. 
 
 The moral freedom of the person is indeed actually denied 
 only by a few of the more consequential philosophers of India, 
 but yet it ia nowhere recognized in its full truth. With the 
 Chinese, it is smothered under the weight of all-dictating State- 
 law ; with the Brahminic Indians a radical Pantheism admits , 
 only for the less-clearly and less-logically thinking classes of the 
 masses, a very limited form of freedom ; but to the more edu- 
 cated consciousness all initiatorily-active freedom appears as ille- 
 gitimate, as per se sinful, or, more consequentially still, as mere 
 appearance. Impersonal Brahma is the solely real existence, 
 and all individuality is but an absolutely dependent, immediate 
 manifestation-form of this One, utterly devoid of free self- 
 determination. The Greek even in the highest philosophy, far 
 beyond the limits of the national consciousness, concedes free 
 moral self-determination not to man as man, but only to the 
 free Greek ; the barbarian has only a half-humanity, is utterly 
 incapable of true virtue, and is not called to free service under 
 the moral idea, but' only to an unfree service under the free 
 Greek. Even Aristotle knows nothing of a general morality 
 for all men. 
 
 One of the most hampering limits of heathen morality, is its 
 total lack of the idea of humanity. The religion of the Bud- 
 dhists, the sole one which transcends the limits of nationality, 
 and even in many respects approximates Christian views, has 
 indeed conceived the thought of humanity as equally called in 
 all its representatives to truth and morality, and has sent out
 
 42 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 6. 
 
 missions beyond its national boundaries, but it has done this 
 only because, religiously and morally, it bears a predominantly 
 negating character ; in the consciousness of the nullity of all 
 being, fall away also, as null, the limits between nations; but 
 this morality aims not to build up a spiritual kingdom of moral 
 reality, but, on the contrary, to liberate the moral spirit from all 
 reality as being per se null, even from its own personal exist- 
 ence. 
 
 The consciousness of a guiltily-incurred moral depravity of 
 unredeemed humanity, which gives to Christian morality a so 
 deeply earnest back-ground, finds in heathendom but faint and 
 even delusory echoes. To the Chinese all reality is good; the sea 
 of life is mirror-smooth, at worst, is but superficially disturbed 
 by light waves \vhich the shortest calm suffices to settle again. 
 To the Indian all existence is equally good and equally evil, 
 equally good, in that all reality is the divine existence itself, 
 equally evil, in that it is at the same time an untrue and an 
 illegitimate self-alienation of the solely-existing Brahma, or, 
 with the Buddhists, an expression of absolute, nullity. The 
 guilt lies not on man, but on God and on existence in general ; 
 man suffers from the untruthfulness of reality, but has not him- 
 self guiltily occasioned it. The Persian conceives of evil in the 
 world much more earnestly and with higher moral truthfulness. 
 Humanity is really morally corrupted, and is so because of a 
 moral guilt, because of a fall from the good ; and man has the 
 task of morally battling against the evil and for the good. But 
 this fall lies yon-side of human action and of human guilt, lies 
 in the sphere of the divine itself. Not the rational creature, not 
 man, has guiltily fallen, but a god ; the divine is itself hostilely 
 dualistic, the good god is from the beginning opposed by the 
 guilty evil one, and the real world not merely the moral one, 
 but also nature is the work of two mutually morally-opposing 
 divine creative powers. In this no longer naturalistic, but 
 moral dualism there lies a much higher truth than in the 
 Indian doctrine of unity, according to which the distinction of 
 the world from God is explained away into a mere appearance, 
 into a self-deception, either of Brahma, or, and more consequen- 
 tially, of man; and man has, in the Persian view, a much higher 
 personal moral task. But in that this view throws the weight 
 of the guilt from man and upon the divinity, the moral struggle
 
 7.] IDEA OF THE MORAL OBSCURED. 43 
 
 lacks, after all, its true ground and truth. With the Greek even 
 this (in its principal nerve paralyzed) earnestness of the Persian 
 is thrown into the shade by the, in other respects, higher theory 
 of an inner harmony of existence. That which in the Christian 
 world-view is the moral goal, is conceived here as the essence 
 indestructibly inherent in reality, so that the moral activity has 
 only to develop the per se essentially faultless germ of the spir- 
 itual essence of man, in order to attain to the highest good. 
 Of a positive struggle against a potent reality of evil in man, 
 even the most enlightened philosophers have no consciousness ; 
 and whatever reality of such an evil in existence forces itself 
 upon the sound feelings and judgment, is sought for, by the in- 
 tensified self-complacence of the most highly-cultivated Greeks, 
 not in the moral essence proper of man, but yon-side of man 
 in the world of the gods, which world appears itself in the 
 morally better-feeling poets as morally tarnished, as an object ot 
 just censure, or yon-side of the god-world in irrationally dom- 
 inating fate, or in the extra-Greek world of mankind, which, 
 as barbarous, is also involved in moral degradation. By far the 
 highest view of the moral and of guilt, appears among the an- 
 cient Germanic nations, the world-view of whom was indeed 
 more fully developed only in Christian times, and not unaffected 
 by Christian influences. 
 
 SECTION VII. 
 
 The obscured and only very partially developed 
 moral consciousness of savage nations lies outside of 
 the field of history ; * the more tender consciousness 
 of the half-civilized nations, especially of the Peruvi- 
 ans and Mexicans the former of whom especially 
 developed social morality to a degree of one-sided 
 maturity,! appears rather as potent custom than as 
 a clearly self-conscious consciousness. The very defi- 
 nitely and detailedly developed moral consciousness 
 of the Chinese, as expressed in numerous and in part 
 sacred-esteemed writings, is devoid of higher ideas, 
 
 * Gesch. des ffeident., i, p. 40 sgq., p. 163 sqq. 
 t Ibid., 251 sqq., 303 sqq.
 
 44 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 7. 
 
 and .is rather merely soberly empirical, purely polit- 
 ical, and directed predominantly onl} r to outward pur- 
 poses. The essence of this morality is an effortless 
 conformance to an eternally-changeless world-order, 
 a remaining in the just middle-course ; there is no 
 consciousness of a forfeited perfection of the human 
 race, nor of a perfection yet morally to be attained 
 to. There is pre-supposed the unclouded goodness of 
 human nature, the entire agreement of the ideal and 
 of reality. There is no call for a sanctifying of an 
 unholy reality, there needs only that the individual 
 existence of man be modeled upon pure human pat- 
 terns, and conformed to never entirely erroneous, arid 
 always uniform common custom. The bright point 
 in Chinese morality is obedience, in the family and in 
 the State; its ground-character is passive persistence 
 in the constantly homogeneous, goal-less movement of 
 the universe, a steady pulse-beat the significance of 
 which lies not in the goal, but in the movement itself. 
 
 The Chinese, whose religious views constitute a barren and 
 tame, but clear and consequential Naturalism, have special in- 
 terest for moral life-rules ; the ancient books of their religion, 
 the Kings, which were collected and digested by Confucius in 
 the sixth century before Christ, contain in the main simply a 
 very detailed system of morals ; so also nearly all their later re- 
 ligious, philosophical, and historical writings. 
 
 The life of the All bears every-where, even in its spiritual 
 phase, a nature-character; there is no history with a spiritual 
 goal to be attained to by moral activity, but only a nature- 
 course with a constantly uniform character manifesting itself in 
 constant, unvaried repetition ; morality looks not forward, but 
 simply backward to that which has been and will always remain 
 as it is, and all reformatory action upon an occasionally some- 
 what deteriorated present is but a mere return to the previous 
 better. Instead of progress the goal of moral effort is uniformly 
 simply a conserving, or a return to the past. There is no ideal
 
 7.] CHINESE MORALITY. 45 
 
 yet to be reached, but the ideal has already always existed, and 
 has never suffered but slight becloudings ; humanity is already 
 perfect from the very beginning, without history and without 
 development ; morality never looks to the creating of something 
 which has not already been, at best aims only at remedying a 
 slight but never deeply seated disorder. Good is not that which 
 in the nature of things ought first to become, but that which 
 already is from the beginning ; the highest good is not a goal 
 and end, but it is that itself which eternally is ; man has and 
 enjoys it as already given from the start ; it is the Paradise into 
 which he is placed by nature herself, and which he has never 
 really lost, at the worst, only a few thorns and thistles have 
 insinuated themselves into it, which however can only render 
 the Paradisaical life of the " Celestial Kingdom " only a little 
 more incommodious for man, but not by any means banish him 
 out of it, and in fact are very readily to be got rid of. The 
 stream of world-history flows on of itself without the co-opera- 
 tion of man ; man has simply to yield himself to it, to adapt 
 himself unresistingly to the eternally-unvarying order of the 
 world, to join himself, as a passively revolved wheel, into the 
 constantly uniform-moving clock-work. Hence morality has no 
 high goal, but requires only repose and order, and a passive 
 submission to the minutely-tutorial civil law and to the equally 
 valid laws of custom ; there is no violent struggle, but only a 
 quiet persisting and laboring. The highest symbol of morality 
 is the natural sky, with its eternally-unvarying orderly revolu- 
 tion. As the real world is the mutual interpenetration of the 
 two primitive principles, heaven and earth, and the equilibrium 
 and mean between the two, so consists ajso morality in the pre- 
 serving of equilibrium, in the observing of the just mean; the 
 middle way is always the best. Hence ethics is by no means 
 rigid and severe, aims not at high reality-transcending ideals, 
 is of a mild gentle nature, sober, practical, temperate, without 
 high inspiration ; it requires of man scarcely any thing which 
 could be difficult to him, or which would involve much self- 
 denial; he is not required to divest himself of his natural char- 
 acter, but has only to observe measure in all things. Man, that 
 is, of course, only the Chinaman, is consequently already capac- 
 itated by nature to fulfill perfectly all the requirements of 
 morality, and there are in fact also absolutely perfect, sinless
 
 46 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 7. 
 
 men. Virtue is of easy practice, for it is the natural expression 
 of the soul-life, and has not to contend against any evil rooted 
 in the heart, and it meets in fact with no actual hostility to it- 
 self in the world ; it awakens not displeasure, but always love, 
 esteem, and honor; for mankind is in fact generally and, as a 
 whole, good ; actual evil is always a mere exception ; the gate 
 is wide, and the way is broad which leads to life, and many 
 are those who walk upon it. 
 
 As being a mere expression of general, natural world-order, 
 morality stands in direct connection with the course of nature. 
 The observance of the just mean preserves equilibrium in the 
 All, and every disturbance of this equilibrium by sin re-echoes 
 through the whole, and effects, directly, disturbances in nature, 
 especially when the offending one is the vicegerent of heaven, 
 the emperor, who is called by his very office to the presenting 
 of a moral ideal, of a pattern of virtue. Drought, famine, inun- 
 dations, pestilence, and the like, are not so much positively in- 
 flicted punishments of a personally-ruling God, as rather direct 
 natural consequences of the sins of the emperor, and of the peo- 
 ple as imitating him. Instead of an historical connection and an 
 historical working of sin upon coming generations, as in the 
 Christian world-theory, there is here a natural connection and a 
 natural working of sin upon contemporary nature and the con- 
 temporary generation. This naturalistic parallel to the Chris- 
 tian doctrine of inherited sin, has a deeply earnest significancy. 
 Man in his moral activity has to do not merely with himself, 
 but with the totality of the universe ; by sinning, he disturbs 
 the order and the harmony of existence in general ; every sin is 
 an outrage against the All, and consequently also against the 
 highest manifestation thereof, namely, the Middle Kingdom ; all 
 sins are crimes, all are hurtful to the public weal ; in the Chinese 
 view nature suffers by sin ; in the Christian, history. 
 
 The focus of the moral life is the family; in it manifests it- 
 self directly the divine life, which consists in the antithesis of 
 the male or active and of the female or passive, in heaven-force 
 and earth-material, and in the union of the two. The family 
 life is a living worship of God, and the family duties are the 
 highest, and have the unconditional precedence of all others ; 
 to the obedience of children to parents all other obedience must 
 give way. What heaven is for the world, that the father is for
 
 8.] THE CHINESE STATE. 47 
 
 the children, and reverence toward parents is a religious virtue. 
 Hence marriage is a moral duty from which no virtuous man 
 can excuse himself; the celibate interrupts the ranks of the 
 family and commits an outrage on his ancestors. 
 
 But the full realization of morality appears in the state, which 
 is simply the all-sidedly developed family. The emperor, as the 
 son and vicegerent of heaven not governing arbitrarily but by 
 eternally valid heavenly laws, is the father and teacher of the 
 people, not merely protecting right, but also, as a pattern of 
 virtue, guiding and conserving the morality of the people. In 
 China every thing is the State, and the State is everything ; it is 
 the great ocean into which all the streams of the spirit-life ulti- 
 .raate, and morality itself stands absolutely under the guardian- 
 ship of the State. Not as man, but only as a citizen of the State 
 and a member of the family, has the Chinaman a moral life ; all 
 morality is accomplished by obedience to the laws of the State ; 
 and between civil and moral law there is no distinction. 
 
 SECTION VIII. 
 
 The Indians, the Brahminic as also the Buddhistic, 
 conceived morality, on the basis of their consequen- 
 tially developed Pantheism, essentially negatively. 
 All finite reality, and above all, that of the human 
 personality, is null, untrue, and illegitimate, either 
 because, with the Brahmins, it is only the self- 
 estranged divinity, or because, with the Buddhists, 
 the essence of all existence in general is nihility; 
 hence the ground-character of morality is self-denial, 
 world-renunciation, a passive endurance instead of 
 creative activity. The moral goal, the highest good, 
 is not a personal possession, but a surrendering of 
 personality to the impersonal divine essence or to 
 nihility. There is no realizing and no shaping of a 
 moral kingdom based on personality, nor even a pre- 
 serving of existing reality, but a dissolving of the 
 same. All reality, in so far as it is a finite formation,
 
 48 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 8. 
 
 is evil, not, however, through the guilt of man, but 
 in virtue of its very essence from the beginning ; and 
 there is no other redemption than its annihilation. 
 But while, in the purely Pantheistic doctrine of the 
 Brahmins, the thought of the development of the 
 world out of God recognizes in fact in existence a 
 divine and hence relatively good substratum, and re- 
 gards mankind as emanated from God, as participant 
 in this divine substance in different degrees, accord- 
 ing as they stand at different distances from the divine 
 pro to-foun tain, the distinctions of caste, on the other 
 hand, the doctrine of the Buddhists annihilates, to- 
 gether with the divine proto-Brahma, also these con- 
 centric circles around the ungodded middle-point, 
 and requires equal, absolutely world-renouncing mo- 
 rality of all men, even irrespective of the limits of 
 nationality, and changes the positive self-torture, 
 which appears among the Brahmins as the acme of 
 pious morality, into a quietistic, self-denying patience 
 resting upon hopeless grief at the nihility of all 
 existence. 
 
 s 
 
 The Brahminic Indians have, in their books of law, ancient 
 and rich collections of moral doctrines. Almost equally esteemed 
 with the Vedas, and attributed to a divine origin, is the book 
 of the Laws of Manu, the parts of which belong to very differ- 
 ent ages, though the most recent belong certainly anterior to 
 the fourth century before Christ ; the moral precepts proper are 
 as yet unseparated from the religious and civil. Also the Vedas 
 and the later philosophical and legal writings contain much 
 moral matter. 
 
 Basing himself, in contrast to the nature-dualism of the Chi- 
 nese, upon the unity of the universe as divine, the Brahmin 
 regards the real world merely as a, neither necessary nor strictly 
 legitimate, but rather mere dream-like self-alienation of primi- 
 tive Brahma, which is destined, after an essentially purposeless
 
 8.] BEAHMINIC MORALITY. 49 
 
 continuance, to be absorbed back into its source. Hence moral- 
 ity has no positive aim, but rather simply looks to an escaping 
 from individual existence, a dissolving of personality into the 
 impersonal. The continuance of personality through metemp- 
 sychosis is punishment, not reward. Existing reality is not, as 
 in China, good as such, but, as separate existence, is evil, and 
 is good only in its general divine substance ; only the latter, but 
 not the former, may be held fast to. The moral subject is not 
 man as such ; there is in fact no unitary humanity, but only dif- 
 ferent, narrower or wider, circles around the divine middle- 
 point, classes of men differing essentially by nature both spirit- 
 ually and morally, and of whom the lowest stand even below 
 many brutes, and are absolutely incapable of the moral life ; to 
 teach to these latter the Vedas or the Laws, is a crime worthy 
 of the deepest damnation. Only the three highest castes are 
 capable of a knowledge of the truth, and hence also of morality. 
 But also with these the moral duties and capacities are very 
 different, and the Indian speaks not of the moral duties of man, 
 but always only of the duties of the castes. The vaifja's highest 
 good is riches ; his virtue, industrious acquiring ; the xatrija's 
 highest good is power, and his highest virtue, courage; and 
 onlv the Brahmin is capable of the highest morality ; but this 
 morality directs itself, not transformingly and productively, 
 upon reality, but only, disdainingly and renouncingly, away 
 from the same, not, however, in order to virtualize a free, self- 
 conscious personality as over against nature, but in order to 
 merge back the personal spirit, as illegitimate, into the imper- 
 sonal essence of the universe. The highest virtue is renuncia- 
 tion, not indeed merely of sensuous enjoyment, of earthly weal, 
 but of one's own self-conscious personality ; and the acme of 
 this morality is, consequently, self-annihilation as sought through 
 persistent self-torture, to the end that Brahma alone may exist. 
 The highest good of the true man, that is, of the Brahmin, is to 
 become at one with Brahma, not in the sense of a moral life- 
 communion of the personal spirit with a personal God, but as 
 a dissolving of the per se illegitimate personal spirit into the 
 general, the impersonal. That which is in the present state the 
 sum and substance of all wisdom, namely, to know that "-I am 
 Brahma," attains to full truth by the dissolving of the ego into 
 Brahma ; the goal of morality is, " Brahma alone is, not I ;"
 
 50 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 8. 
 
 and as man, even now, while in deepest sleep, wherein he 
 knows nothing of the world and of himself, is nearer to divin- 
 ity than when in his waking hours, so the goal of virtue is the 
 total falling to sleep of the personal spirit, the exhaling of the 
 dew-drop that trembles on the lotus-leaf. The holding fast to 
 personality is the essence of all evil. Nothing can nor should 
 permanently endure but the divine essence alone, which tolerates 
 nothing other than itself, and for which all reality of the world 
 is, at best, only a dream-phantom, a transient hallucination ; 
 even in the eyes of the deeper instructed of men, the world in 
 general is only a false imagination of the foolish, and does not 
 really exist at all. The Chinese aim, in morality, simply to con- 
 serve the already-existing ; the higher nations aim at transform- 
 ing it into a more spiritual reality ; the Indians aim at dissolving 
 it into nonentity. The West-Asiatic nations see the truth in the 
 future, and long, hopefully, and through moral effort, for a bet- 
 ter reality than is offered by the present ; the Indians look sadly 
 into the present, with indifference into the future, and with sat- 
 isfaction only into the past, when as yet nothing else existed 
 but unitary Brahma, and into that future which simply returns 
 to the condition of this past. The Chinese work for the present ; 
 the higher nations, for the future ; the Indians work not at all, 
 but simply endure and perish ; they aim not at implanting the 
 free moral spirit into reality, but at tearing it away from the 
 same, not at transfiguring reality by the spirit, but at emanci- 
 pating the spirit from the same. Indian morality is less a crea- 
 tive working than a sacrificing, and hence is essentially identical 
 with the practice of religion, of which the highest phase is self- 
 mortification aiming at a total annihilation of personal exist- 
 ence. The way which the world has traveled out from primitive 
 Brahma, this way it must travel back again; nature herself 
 accomplishes this by death; man accomplishes it by morally- 
 pious self-annihilation. That which is with nature the natural 
 goal, is with man a moral end. Even as Brahma developed 
 himself out of his pure transparent unity into the world of 
 plurality, so must man fold himself back out of his isolated 
 existence again into unity ; man, the highest fruit of mundane 
 existence, must gather himself out of the dispersion of Brahma 
 in the world, back into unity, must give up his separate exist- 
 ence. Man must die away, not indeed to sin, or merely to
 
 8.] MORTIFICATION ASCETICISM. 51 
 
 sensuousness, but to himself, must cease to be a real person- 
 ality, must renounce every feeling, every volition, every thought, 
 which contains any thing whatever other than Brahma alone. 
 The fearful self-tortures of the Indians are not penance for sins, 
 but the highest virtue-exercises of saints. A vital consciousness 
 of guilt, the Indian is utterly devoid of; the evil of existence is 
 not his own, is not the fault of man in general. Whatever is 
 and transpires, is directly Brahma's act. It is true, evil inheres 
 by nature in all existence, but it is not to be imputed to man, 
 and there is no other redemption from the same than the de- 
 struction of the finite, even of one's own being. The entire 
 scope of morality bears a negating character ; the truly know- 
 ing one needs not merely not to do any positive works, but he 
 avoids them from principle, because they belong simply to the 
 realm of folly. 
 
 For man, even in so far as he is an object of the moral activity, 
 the Indian has no concern ; he has a higher love for nature, 
 which stands nearer related to the nature-divinity, and consti- 
 tutes the narrowest circle around the divine center-point. In 
 nature he beholds his mother, and he loves it reverently as the 
 most direct and most unclouded revelation of Brahma. The 
 same Indian who can heartlessly see a pariah famish without so 
 much as stretching out to him a helping hand, reverently avoids, 
 as a severe sin, the breaking of a grass-blade, or the swallowing 
 of a gnat ; a Brahmin allows himself not, without ground, to 
 break even an earth-clod. Marriage and the family-life in gen- 
 eral can only be a transition-stage for the, as yet, morally imma- 
 ture. The Brahmin who has risen to true knowledge must 
 leave father and mother, wife and child, and, dead to the world 
 and to himself, live henceforth only in solitary contemplation 
 of Brahma, standing for years, in the forest, upon the same 
 spot, emotionless as a tree-trunk, and seeking or accepting only 
 the scantiest food ; every thing finite must have become abso- 
 lutely indifferent to him, until, vegetating on like a plant, and 
 fading away, he attains to the long-sought death. For society 
 and politics, only those who belong to the inferior castes can 
 have any further interest, for the Brahmin himself these things 
 have no attraction, and, higher than the warrior-hero and than 
 the zealously-ruling prince, is he who exchanges a crown for the 
 life of the hermit.
 
 52 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 8. 
 
 More remarkable still is the moral consciousness of the Bud- 
 dhists, whose world-historical and influential religion an off-shoot 
 of the Brahminic was founded by the Indian prince Sakya- 
 Mvni in the sixth century before Christ, the sole heathen 
 religion which sent out missions beyond the national limits, 
 so that within a few centuries it extended itself throughout all 
 middle, southern, and eastern Asia, as far as into Japan. The 
 sacred books of the Buddhists are chiefly of moral contents, for 
 here religion passes over almost entirely into morality. 
 
 While in Brahminisni the ground and essence of all existence 
 is the one absolutely indeterminate and un-positive proto- 
 Brahma, Buddhism goes a step further, and declares this inde- 
 terminate, empty substratum to be nonentity itself. All things 
 are sprung of nonentity ; hence nonentity is the contents of all 
 being, hence all reality is per se null, and finds its truth only 
 in that it returns to nothing. As the beginning, so is also the 
 end of all being, and hence also that of man and of his moral 
 efforts, nonentity. Every thing is vain, in heaven and upon 
 earth ; heaven and earth themselves are vain, and upon the 
 ruins of a crumbling world sits, eternally enthroned, empty 
 Naught. The moral element of this atheistical religion lies in 
 the fact that the Buddhist is really and truly in earnest with 
 the comfortless thought, and, in striking contrast to the lust- 
 ful, pleasure-seeking atheism of modern times, presents to man 
 the God-forsaken world as in fact really such, and forbids to 
 him all enjoyment of the same, that he has no joy in it, but 
 makes deep grief at all existence the foundation of all morality. 
 The Buddhist is fully conscious of what it signifies to place na- 
 ture above spirit, to seek God only in nature and in the world 
 in general. Not being able to rise to the- conception of a per- 
 sonal God, he disdains the impersonal nature-God, and chooses 
 rather to live without God in the world, only, however, as one 
 who has no hope at all. Buddhism in its pure form is a religion 
 of despair, and its ethics answers to this character, and is essen- 
 tially different from the Brahminic. Here no divine proto- 
 Brahma unfolds himself into a world ; and hence the different 
 castes of mankind have no longer any essential meaning ; no 
 one man stands, by nature, nearer to the divinity than another, 
 but all men are equal ; there is no plant-like branching-out of 
 a divine proto-germ, but only a homogeneous sea of equally-
 
 8.] BUDDHISTIC MORALITY. 53 
 
 worthless sand-grains. With the Brahmin moral freedom is 
 essentially trammeled, and in fact, consequentially regarded, 
 annihilated, by the fact that Brahma alone works all and in all ; 
 but for the Buddhist no such limitation exists. No divinity 
 forcibly interferes with human action. Moral effort, however, 
 has no reality, as a highest good, for its goal; the ultimate goal 
 is annihilation ; and this thought is here much more deeply and 
 sadly embraced than with the Brahmins. While with the Brah- 
 mins, man and the entire world sink back into the divine 
 essence, with the Buddhists they fall into utter annihilation ; 
 and the goal of all life and effort is a traceless extinguishment 
 nirvana. The Buddhist strives not ; he only patiently endures 
 the pain of inner nothingness, that falls to the lot of all living 
 existence. The entire history of the world is but one grand 
 tragedy ; in deep pain worries on all that lives, until it succumbs 
 to death, and the consciousness of this pain is the beginning 
 and the end of all wisdom. In comparison with this acme of 
 all wisdom, namely, the knowledge of the four-fold misery in- 
 herent in the world, that is, birth, old age, disease, and death, 
 all other questions lose their importance. All reality is vain 
 and irrational; this is the basis of all morality. Hence, man 
 should break loose from all love to real existence, should re- 
 nounce all earthly pleasure ; the only feeling that beseems the 
 sage is that of pain and compassion. For a positive moral -act- 
 ing, aiming at the production of a reality, there is here no place ; 
 man strives only to urge his way out of this world of pain, for 
 misery is the essence of the world, and all moral wisdom con- 
 sists in the greatest possible breaking away from all liking for 
 the same. In the God-void world, man feels homeless, finds 
 therein no rest and no satisfaction ; his future is annihilation ; 
 his present, the renouncing of all joy. The world-renunciation 
 of the Brahmin is rather active and manly, for by the throwing 
 off of his finite existence he returns into Brahma. The world- 
 renunciation of the Buddhist is rather passive and womanly, 
 does not rise to positive self-torture and to real self-destruction ; 
 on the contrary, the Buddhist waits, still and patient, supports 
 the misery of life in unmurmuring pain, until his existence falls 
 away ; the characteristic of this world-theory is a quiet, gentle 
 grief, for the thought of the empty nothingness of all things 
 cannot inspire to manly action ; and the pain of existence should
 
 54 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 9. 
 
 not be additionally heightened by voluntary act. Man is simply 
 to disdain the world, not because he compares it with a better 
 sinless one, but because evil and misery are inseparable from it. 
 Separated from all the world, and as a homeless wanderer, or as 
 a hermit in forest or desert, the pious man should live in beggar- 
 garb, devoid of adornment, utterly possessionless, entirely isolat- 
 ed, indifferent to joy and grief, and dead to all emotions. Mar- 
 riage, as productive of new existence, is per se of evil, and is 
 absolutely forbidden to the saint; the family bonds have no 
 significancy for him, and sensuous enjoyment is in his eyes a 
 pure folly. The most ancient and pure doctrine of Buddhism 
 requires such renunciation of all men, and it is only a deteriorated 
 form of later times that conceded that all did not need to lead 
 this spiritual life, but that a portion of the people might con- 
 tent themselves with an inferior severity. 
 
 Buddhistic ethics contains but few positive precepts ; almost 
 all of them are negative ; virtue consists essentially in omitting ; 
 " thou shalt not," is the almost unvarying beginning of the pre- 
 cepts; all of them aim simply at preventing the spirit from 
 taking delight in existence, forbid worldly pleasure, but do 
 not create a moral reality ; and, as relating to other living crea- 
 tures, beast as well as man, they guard against all multiplication 
 of the already so widely-prevalent misery. Hence there goes 
 here, hand in hand, with the intensest world-despising, the 
 greatest gentleness toward all living beings; no creature may 
 be tormented, nor even slaughtered; in order to alleviate the 
 pain of another creature, man should rather himself endure it. 
 Hence the Buddhists have been, in fact, the gentlest of heathen 
 nations; but their gentleness is not so much an expression of 
 active love as rather merely of compassion, is simply a non- 
 interfering, a sparing, but not a positive helping. The dumb, 
 patient enduring of pain, a complete indifference to joy and sor- 
 row, is not the heroic pride of a deeply self-conscious personal- 
 ity, but the womanly, submissive patience of a heart broken 
 with pain. 
 
 SECTION IX. 
 
 The moral consciousness of the Egyptians and of 
 the Semitic nations, especially of the Assyrians and 
 Rulnjlonians, is, as yet, only very imperfectly and par-
 
 9.] EGYPTIAN THEOLOGY. 55 
 
 tially known, so that a very definite characterizing of 
 it is not yet possible. So much appears to be reliably 
 ascertained, that among these nations (which consti- 
 tute the transition from naturalistic East- Asia to the 
 Occidental nations among whom the divine is con- 
 ceived of as a personal spirit) both the moral bases 
 and the essence of the moral subject and of the moral 
 task, are conceived in a higher and more spiritual 
 manner than was the case among the earlier nations, 
 in a manner which brings personality to a greater 
 validity. The Pantheistico-naturalistic character of 
 the religious and moral world-theory is overcome, and 
 a morally dualistic one struggles more definitely into 
 the fore-ground. Morality passes over from the mere 
 preserving and persisting of the Chinese, and .from 
 the self-renouncing of the Indians, into a struggle 
 against evil, as super-humanly originated, though not 
 exclusively dominant, and as in fact ultimately to be 
 overcome. 
 
 Egypt stands on the dividing-line between the naturalistic 
 and the personally-spiritual world-theory ; the divine is indeed 
 primarily and originally, as yet, a pure nature-power, but it 
 struggles up into spiritual personality, and such a personality is 
 recognized also in man ; among the Semitic nations this con- 
 sciousness comes into the fore-ground more prominently still. 
 The presupposition of the moral is no longer the perfect and 
 uniform goodness of existence, as -with the Chinese, nor the 
 essential evilness of the same, as with the Indians, but an inner 
 moral antagonism of existence. Over against the personal- 
 become good divinities, stands evil as a divine entity different 
 from them, and which is primarily less spiritual, and expressive 
 rather of mere nature-character; and man in his moral struggle 
 stands in the midst of this antagonism, has to determine him- 
 self for the divine good, and against the not less divine evil. 
 Thus, in virtue of the contest of the antagonism dominant in 
 the world, the moral subject becomes more nearly independent.
 
 56 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 9. 
 
 and free, than among the purely naturalistic nations ; his moral 
 task becomes, by far, more earnest and arduous, calls far more 
 emphatically for personal self-determination. Hence these na- 
 tions have produced grander world-historical characters than 
 the earlier ones, have become world-historically militant na- 
 tions. And the goal of the militant struggle is the ultimate 
 victory of the good over the evil ~by the personal spirit, which is 
 also itself not destined to be dissolved back into a general im- 
 personal nature-existence, but, triumphing over mere nature, 
 preserves its own personality. 
 
 But this breaking-forth of the rational spirit and of its moral 
 task into greater distinctness, manifests itself otherwise among 
 the Egyptians than among the Semitic nations. It is among 
 the Egyptians that the personal nature of the moral spirit comes 
 first to full self-consciousness. The spirit is a something other 
 than nature and higher than it, is not destined to servitude 
 under it, but to personal, free moral self-determination and to 
 personal immortality, over against death-dominated nature. 
 But this antithesis of the moral personal spirit to nature does 
 not as yet rise, in the earthly life, to complete victory. Even as 
 Osiris succumbs to the evil divinity, Typhon, so must man ulti- 
 mately succumb in the struggle with unspiritual nature, only, 
 however, in order to attain in the yon-side to. the full enjoyment 
 of spiritual personality. The morning-twilight of the freedom 
 of the rational spirit dawns in Egypt, but it is not as yet day. 
 It is only through struggle, through suffering and dying, that 
 the spirit becomes free, in the world of the gods as well as in 
 the world of man. Osiris becomes a true ruler only in the next 
 world, and so with man also ; only out of death spring forth life 
 and victory. Also over the Egyptian's moral life a dusky vail 
 is thrown, a melancholy breath poured out, as with the Indi- 
 ans, though relieved by a brighter hope. To the Indian all 
 moral life is but a rapidly passing meteor, vanishing away with- 
 out trace ; to the Egyptian it is a conflict, painful indeed, but 
 resulting in an ultimate permanent victory of the moral person. 
 Man has not as yet complete freedom and complete personal 
 validity, but he will have them after death if lie only struggles 
 manfully here below ; and he is conscious of entire personal re- 
 sponsibility for his life and his fortune after death. His per- 
 sonally-moral life falls not a prey to a universally-dominating
 
 9.] EGYPTIAN MORALITY. 57 
 
 nature-necessity, but to the personal decision of the first personal 
 victor (Osiris) over nature and over death. By Osiris, the 
 king of the yon-side world, where alone true life first begins, 
 man's moral life is judged weighed in the scales of righteous- 
 ness. In personal communion with Osiris, the just man lives, 
 happy thenceforth. Osiris, the highest representative of spirit- 
 ual divinity, the forerunner and pledge of immortality, the first- 
 born among those who have died and are now living after death, 
 is also the highest representative of Egyptian morality, the 
 ground-character of which is, a persistent battling for righteous- 
 ness. The ostrich-feather, the symbol of truth and righteous- 
 ness, is one of the highest badges of honor. But it is only in 
 the next world that true righteousness is realized ; here upon 
 earth rule as yet, invincibly, the powers of evil. Hence the 
 Egyptian, in contrast to the Chinese, turns all his love and his 
 interest to the yon-side life. The dwellings of the living were 
 for the most part paltry huts ; the dwellings of the dead are 
 monuments of the highest art and of an unparalleled zeal for 
 labor; the tombs hewn out the rocks, and the pyramids intended 
 for the sepulchers of kings, belong among the wonders of the 
 ancient world, and bid defiance to the ravages of time. The 
 present life is, as with the Indians, lightly esteemed, not, how- 
 ever, because of the nullity of all existence in general, but be- 
 cause it is contrasted with a higher life, which, as the highest 
 good, is a richly promising moral goal. Reminders of death 
 attend the Egyptian wherever he turns, and the mummies and 
 the images of the dead were an eloquent memento mori even at 
 his most convivial banquets). " The Egyptians," says Diodorus 
 (i, 51), "regard the time of this life with very little esteem ; the 
 dwellings of life they designate as inns, but the graves as ever- 
 lasting mansions." 
 
 The heathen Semitic nations, especially the Assyrians and 
 Babylonians, base themselves, in religion and morality, entirely 
 on the ground of the subjective spirit, of the individual person- 
 ality. The general unity of naturalism they have given up, but 
 they have not as yet risen to that of the infinite spirit. The 
 spirit appears only in the multiplicity of single forms ; hence 
 these nations never appear in history as a unity, but always as 
 a plurality. In religion as well as in morality there is manifested 
 the reckless independence of the (now, for the first time, vigor-
 
 58 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 10. 
 
 ously and mightily self-conscious) subjective spirit, from any 
 and all unconditional objective authority, whether of nature or 
 of spirit, an untaniedness and intractableness of the strong in- 
 dividual will, daring deeds, but also a violent wildness of the 
 unbent will and of the passions, a highly excited turmoil with- 
 out goal or purpose. Man, as a personal individual, comes into 
 the fore-ground as possessed of paramount rights. Morality is 
 devoid of any certain basis and rule ; the strong individual will 
 breaks through all barriers. It is the era of great heroes, and 
 of great tyrants and God-despisers, from Nimrod who began 
 to be a mighty one upon earth, a mighty hunter before Jehovah 
 (Gen. x, 8), to Nebuchadnezzar, who daringly exalted himself 
 against God. The moral consciousness, as bewildered by an 
 over-intense self-consciousness, manifests predominantly a defi- 
 ance on the part of this strongly egotistical subject against all 
 objective power, even against God; cruelty and coarse sensu- 
 ousness characterize even the rites of religion, and hence much 
 more also the moral life. Nineveh and Babylon attained, in 
 ante-Christian times, to the culminating-point of the godless, 
 pleasure-seeking, luxurious life. Eeligion and morality stand 
 here in the most violent contrast to those of India ; the rude, 
 the violent, the tumultuous, tolerates no law, no regulated order. 
 
 SECTION X. 
 
 To a higher stand-point, though not to a higher 
 development thereof, than the earlier nations, rise the 
 merely transitorily world-historical Persians. The 
 violent dualism of two mutually morally-opposed per- 
 sonal gods, calls also morality to an earnest moral 
 struggle against ante-mundane, god-sprung evil ; the 
 moral personality comes much more emphatically into 
 the fore-ground than ever before ; the moral task be- 
 comes more difficult, but it has the certain promise 
 of ultimate victory over evil, not merely in a yon-side 
 life, but within the scope of history itself. Morality 
 has here, for the first time in heathendom, a positive 
 goal inside of the field of history, namely, the realiz-
 
 ]Q.] PERSIAN THEOLOGY. 59 
 
 ing of a kingdom of the good upon earth ; and the 
 Persians are the sole heathen people who make a 
 definite prophecy the foundation of their religiously- 
 moral striving. Hence the essence of Persian moral- 
 ity consists in a definitely hope-inspired conscious 
 struggle against evil as potent in the world, as well as 
 in, and upon, man himself, and which, both in its 
 guilty origin and in its effects, appears as a not nat- 
 ural but moral and utterly illegitimate corruption, 
 in a progressive purification of man from every thing 
 which springs from all-invading and all-infecting evil, 
 in a word, in struggling against the world of Angra- 
 mainyus. Man stands forth with his moral will, legit- 
 imated and victorious, over against a potently ruling 
 divinity. 
 
 The Persians, whose world-historical sigriificancy proper ex- 
 tends from Cyrus to Alexander the Great, have not been able 
 within this short period to develop their religiously-moral con- 
 sciousness into a scientifically matured form. The chief source 
 for the same the Avesta is far inferior in contents and devel- 
 opment of thought to the so-rich and deeply-suggestive sacred 
 writings of the Indians ; and yet the moral view, as a whole, is 
 a higher one. The real world, in which man has morally to 
 work, is here no longer the immediate divine essence itself, but 
 it has come into existence essentially by a personal, divine act. 
 The spirit, in its personal reality, is no longer a mere moment- 
 ary phenomenon upon the alone-eternal nature-ground, as in 
 China and India, nor is it fettered and hemmed by nature, as 
 over-potent in this life, as is the case in Egypt ; but it is already 
 the higher creative power over nature, although not as yet a 
 perfectly free and omnipotent Creator. Hence the world, in its 
 relation to the moral spirit, is no longer a foreign and hetero- 
 geneous element, but as a spirit product, is unhostile and even 
 congenial to the spirit ; man begins to feel at home in the world, 
 and hence he places no longer the goal of his moral striving 
 merely in the yon-side, but he conceives it as to-be-attained-to
 
 60 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 10. 
 
 within the field of history. This goal of moral effort is, however, 
 not to be reached by a mere simple, natural development of 
 man, but by a constant and earnest struggle against positively 
 extant evil. Evil is no longer, as with the Buddhists and, in 
 part already, with the Brahmins, the substance of the world, 
 inheres not in the essence of existence as inseparable therefrom, 
 but has in fact become, through the moral fault of the personal 
 spirit, is a guilty fall from the originally good. This is a 
 thought more strongly approximative of the Christian world- 
 theory than we have as yet met with in our development of the 
 history of the moral consciousness. Wherever evil is regarded 
 as naturally necessary, there the vitality of the morally evil is 
 paralyzed ; the Chinese entertain not this view, simply because 
 they conceive of evil in general only very superficially ; the In- 
 dians conceive of it far more profoundly and earnestly, but they 
 recognize not the moral root of the same ; the Persians regard 
 all evil as springing exclusively from personal act. This act, 
 however, is not an historical one, but a pre-historical one ; not a 
 human act, but a divine one. The unitary divinity per se, how- 
 ever, cannot do evil, as is attributed to the Indian Brahma, but 
 the good God, Ahura-Mazda, remains free of all evil ; it is an- 
 other no less personal god, that by free self-determination, chose 
 the evil and now thrusts his world into the world of Ahura- 
 Mazda, and is involved in all real evil whose proto-source he is, 
 namely, Angra-mainyua, that is, "the evilly disposed," the 
 author of death, of falsehood, of all impurity, and of all hurtful 
 creatures, the spirit which constantly denies the good. 
 
 Although, according to this, man has thrown off the guilt of 
 evil reality from himself upon the world of the gods, still he 
 conceives of his moral nature and life-task, in regard to this 
 evil, more highly thap did the earlier nations. Man, as created 
 good by the good god, is placed, with complete personal free- 
 dom, in the midst of the moral antagonism of the world, and 
 has now actually to accomplish in his own person the moral 
 task of coming constantly into closer communion with Ahura- 
 Mazda, and to contend against Angra-mainyus and all his 
 works. Morality is a struggle, and rests not upon mere natural 
 feelings and impulses, but upon the distinct consciousness of 
 the holy will of the good god, upon the Word expressly re- 
 vealed to men. By this view, morality is made to throw off all
 
 10.] PERSIAN MORALITY. 61 
 
 nature-character, and is placed in the purely spiritual sphere, 
 and at the same time the subjective caprice of the Semitic na- 
 tions is overcome, and, for the moral, an objective law obtained, 
 a law that is to be received purely spiritually. The revealed 
 holy Word is the mightiest weapon against Angra-mainyus. 
 This moral struggle is a much more vigorous one than in Egypt, 
 for it is joyously and hopefully conscious of final victory, even 
 within the sphere of history. The Egyptian regards his god 
 who is at the same time his moral example as defeated for the 
 present world, and driven to the future world ; the Persian feels 
 himself called even here to a courageous co-militancy with 
 Ahura-Mazda, who persistently struggles against evil, and does 
 not succumb to it, not even in the present world. The Persian 
 regards himself as a co-worker with God, and does not mourn- 
 fully long for the next world; for his moral effort, he has a 
 high object, namely, to combat against a god and the evil crea- 
 tion of that god, also a high goal, namely, the redemption of 
 a world from evil, and also a high confidence in victory, for 
 there will ultimately come the Rescuer, aoschyan9, that is, the 
 Helper, who will accomplish the victory. It is not by mere 
 chance that the Persians who usually showed themselves hos- 
 tile to foreign religions, and especially to all sensuous idolatry 
 manifested constantly a high regard for the Jews, in whose higher 
 idea of God they met in fact with a somewhat related element. 
 
 In correspondence to its religious presupposition, Persian 
 morality bears primarily a negating character, though in a 
 wholly different manner than among the Indians. While the 
 system of the latter is directed against existence, and especially 
 against the personal nature of man, Persian morality on the con- 
 trary directs itself, with the most complete consciousness of the 
 validity of the personality, negatingly against every thing which 
 belongs to the world of Angra-mainyus. Self-purification from 
 every thing which stands really, or even merely symbolically, in 
 relation with evil, death, or corruption, the killing of poison- 
 ous and hurtful animals, and the like, are not merely moral 
 requirements, but even acts of worship, and the Avesta gives, 
 on these points, very precise and detailed directions. 
 
 But also the positive phase of the moral life is much more 
 highly developed in the moral consciousness of the Persians 
 than in that of the earlier nations. The Persians acquired
 
 62 CHRISTIAN ETHICS.* [11. 
 
 among their contemporaries the reputation of high moral ear- 
 nestness as in contrast to the luxuriousness of the Semitic 
 nations. They were, in their prime, a very vivacious and vigor- 
 ously active people ; indolence springs of Angra-rnainyus ; labor, 
 especially agriculture, internal improvements, etc., are required 
 by the good god, and are sacred duties ; this is somewhat as it 
 is in Chinese morality, but from a different reason ; the Chinese 
 labor for the present, the Persians for the future. The moral 
 relation to other men is here kindly and noble ; a high esteem 
 for the personality, in every respect, forms the basis of social 
 virtue. Honesty, strict truthfulness, and a high feeling of per- 
 sonal honor, distinguish Persian morality very widely from 
 East-Asiatic. It is a morality of vigor and manliness. 
 
 Where evil is no longer regarded as a merely abstract some- 
 thing, as a quality of existence in general, but as a concrete 
 guilt reality, not a mere neutrum, but as borne by personality, 
 there only can the moral struggle against the same be really 
 earnest. The Chinaman labors quietly and busily in mechan- 
 ical persistence; the Indian patiently endures; the Egyptian 
 mourns, and longs to pass out of this world ; the Shemite riots 
 and enjoys ; but the Persian battles with a manfully-moral ear- 
 nestness. The defective phase of his moral consciousness is 
 essentially this, that he throws evil off from himself upon the 
 sphere of the gods, that he has not recognized the evil of his 
 own heart. 
 
 SECTION XI. 
 
 The moral consciousness of the Greeks is very dif- 
 ferent from that of the Persians ; though rising above 
 it, it yet seems to throw the approximation to the 
 Christian view, that lay in the Persian consciousness, 
 farther again into the back-ground. The heathen 
 mind could not remain stationary at Persian dualism ; 
 the Greeks endeavor to bring about a reconciliation 
 of the antagonism of the universe, by throwing this 
 antagonism into the past, and by regarding the pres- 
 ent ae an expression of the harmony of existence as 
 effected at the very beginning of history by a victory
 
 11.] GREEK VIEWS. 63 
 
 of the persona] spirit over the nature-powers that op- 
 posed it; the dualism of hostile antagonism gives 
 place to a dualism of love. No evil god and no 
 nature-power hostile to the personal spirit, offer ob- 
 struction to the moral activity. Morality is not a 
 struggle, but a progressive development of man as 
 per se good and pure ; by following his own inwardly 
 harmonious nature, by enjoying the intrinsically beau- 
 tiful existence of the world, and by exalting sensu- 
 ous enjoyment by means of spiritual culture, and by 
 equally developing all the phases both of his sensuous 
 and of his spiritual life, man arrives at the harmoni- 
 ous perfection of his personality, at the highest goal 
 of moral effort. The beautiful is per se the good ; in 
 enjoying and creating the beautiful, man is moral. 
 The battle is not against a world of evil that is to be 
 destroyed, nor in championship of a moral idea that 
 is to be realized ; but its end is simply to develop the 
 full personality of the hero. The Greek battles for 
 the sake of battling ; the battle is even enjoyment, is 
 heroic play. The Greek ideal is the vigorous, youth- 
 ful personality, in the world of gods, the youthful 
 Apollo, in the world of heroes, Achilles, until, at the 
 close of Grecian history, it assumes a world-historical 
 form in Alexander the Great. But the entire ideal 
 element inheres in the person of the hero ; a perma- 
 nent moral world-historical reality, the Greeks could 
 not create; they lacked the positively world-historical 
 purpose; Alexander's world-conquering deeds aimed 
 at, and were able to effect, only an exaltation of the 
 person of the hero, and necessarily ended in anarchy 
 at his death, and the Greeks became an easy prey to 
 that nation which aimed with iron-persistency at the 
 positive purpose of a unitary historical reality, and
 
 64 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 11. 
 
 absolutely subordinated the person to the same. The 
 moral idea is, with the Greeks, more an object of 
 artistic enjoyment than of moral realization. For the 
 positive basis of the higher moral life, the family, 
 their moral consciousness is extremely defective, and 
 the idea of man as man, has not as yet come to con- 
 sciousness ; only the Hellene, but not the barbarian, 
 is regarded as a truly moral personality. Slavery is 
 the indispensable foundation of the free state. 
 
 The precedent antagonism of existence, which conies to con- 
 sciousness in all heathen religions, primarily as an antithesis 
 of nature and spirit, which rises with the Persians to a moral 
 character, is, with the Greeks, not indeed entirely overcome 
 (heathenism in fact never rises beyond it), but in fact reduced 
 to harmony, a harmony, however, which, as viewed from a Chris- 
 tian stand-point, must be regarded as delusive. The conscious- 
 ness of this antagonism comes to expression in myths concerning 
 ancient combats between the spiritual gods and Titanic nature- 
 powers; the gods came off victorious, and the present world 
 expresses the peaceful reconciliation of the earlier antagonisms ; 
 every-where, both in the world of gods and of men, spirit and 
 nature are in harmonious union ; there is nowhere mere spirit, 
 and nowhere mere nature. What appears as a hostile power 
 over the personal spirit, was already vanquished anterior to 
 human history; no inimical, evil god disturbs the beautiful 
 harmony of existence ; the Titans have been thrust into Tar- 
 tarus. The foundation of Greek morality is therefore joy in 
 existence, love as enjoyment ; man has not to sacrifice his ex- 
 istence and his wishes, but only to heighten the former, and to 
 fulfill the latter, in so far as they express the character of har- 
 mony, of the beautiful; he has not, as with the Indians, to 
 renounce the world, but on the contrary to enjoy it, as bearing 
 every-where the stamp of the beautiful, and to remain in genial 
 peace therewith, has not, as the Persian, to battle against its 
 reality as permeated with evil, but simply to pluck from it the 
 fruits of happiness. Greek morality is the morality of him who 
 is complacently self-satisfied, without any severe inner struggle. 
 
 The Hellene has, in his consciousness of the harmony of ex-
 
 11.] IDEAL VERSUS REAL. 65 
 
 istence, on the one hand a powerful stimulus to virtue; he 
 endeavors to preserve this harmony, and hence is in general 
 amiable, frank, and honorable ; to a certain degree he shows also 
 magnanimity toward his enemies, respects the moral personal- 
 ity ; but, on the other hand, he has in this consciousness also 
 the tendency to make light with the moral ; he believes himself 
 already to have attained to the good, and not to need to under- 
 go a severe struggle for its possession, believes himself to have 
 already, in his natural proclivities, also the right. Hence he is 
 inclined to take life unseriously ; even unnatural lusts pass for 
 allowed, if they only appear under the form of the beautiful. 
 The beauty of the manner beautifies the sin, and the worship 
 of Aphrodite lends to sensuality itself a religious sanction. 
 Greek effeminacy and luxuriousness despised only by the Spar- 
 tans became even a by-word among the Romans ; and even 
 the dark passions of hate and revenge found in the Greek con- 
 sciousness little condemnation ; no Greek took offense at the 
 barbarous mistreatment of the hero Hector. The most virtuous 
 citizens were not respected, but banished; sycophants were 
 honored, and the friends of truth hated or killed. 
 
 A high sense for beauty raises indeed the moral consciousness 
 to a high and harmonious conception of moral beauty, and the 
 poets sketch moral ideals with master-hand; but these ideals 
 are more for esthetic enjoyment than for moral imitation. Even 
 morality becomes to the Hellene a matter of mere spectacle, and 
 in no heathen nation is the contrast between the ideal and the 
 real life so great, as in that one which conceived the ideal the 
 highest. For the practical life the requirements of the moral 
 consciousness were other than for poetry;, the same people 
 which admired female ideals, such as Penelope, Antigone, and 
 Electra, as presented in song and upon the stage, placed woman- 
 hood and marriage, and the family-life in general, much lower 
 in real life than did the Chinese or the ancient Germans ; and it 
 was not merely in the censured license of the frivolous world, 
 but also in the moral views of the most highly cultured, that 
 talented concubines (especially after the example of Aspasia, 
 notorious for her connection with Pericles, and also honored by 
 Socrates) stood higher than house-wives proper, and became the 
 real representatives of female culture, and ideals of female grace. 
 Sparta, by its legislation, overthrew on principle the proper life
 
 66 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 1L 
 
 of the family ; the penal laws against bachelors which finally 
 became a necessity, furnish proof, how popular this anti-family 
 legislation was.* Solon found it necessary in the interest of the 
 State to protect by penal enactments the merest natural duties 
 of the marriage-state, at least within the bounds of a minimum 
 requirement ; t so great was already in his day the general dis- 
 inclination to wedlock, which, though forming the foundation 
 of all true morality, was regarded in the Golden Age of Greece 
 as little better than a necessary evil. The bringing about of 
 abortion and the exposing of new-born children, was a right of 
 parents, which was not only protected by laws, but even defend- 
 ed by the most esteemed philosophers. The perverseness not 
 only of frivolous practice, but of the general moral conscious- 
 ness, is manifested most strikingly in the prevalence of unnatural 
 vice, as apologized for even by philosophers themselves ; and 
 the dark picture of St. Paul not merely of Greek morality it- 
 self, but also of the moral consciousness of the Greeks (Rom. i, 
 21 tqq.~), is perfectly corroborated by historical reality. In cer- 
 tain efforts of recent date to clarify the Christian world-view by 
 the help of the "classical" one, these facts ought not to be left 
 out of sight. The heathen Germans stand in this respect very 
 much higher than the Greeks. 
 
 However fully the moral consciousness of the worth and dig- 
 nity of the personality is developed, still the dignity of true 
 manhood is conceded only to the free Hellenes, who constituted 
 by far the smallest number of the Greek population. (In Attica 
 at its highest prosperity there were 400,000 slaves, in Corinth 
 460,000). The barbarian and the slave have no right to the full 
 dignity of personality. Freedom without slavery is, in the eyes 
 of a Greek, an absurdity. The generally prevalent mild treat- 
 ment of their slaves was more an expression of natural kind- 
 heartedness and of personal interest than of conceded right ; the 
 Spartan slave-massacres were the expression of an undisputed 
 right of the State and of the free citizens ; even Plato and Aris- 
 totle are unable to conceive of a State and of political freedom 
 without the personal unfreedom of slavery. The so-called no- 
 tion of " humanitarianism " limits the practice of this virtue to 
 the possessors of slaves ; and the higher the right and the might 
 of the free citizens are placed, so much the more complete and 
 * Plato: Symp., p. 192. f Plutarch: Solon, c. 20.
 
 11.] IDEAL ADVANCE. 67 
 
 striking becomes also the rightlessness of the slaves. That 
 slaves are but domestic animals possessed of intelligence was a. 
 general maxim, recognized even by philosophers. 
 
 Though the reality of the moral consciousness and of the 
 moral life of the Greek is in many respects far below that of 
 other heathen nations, still the moral idea that underlies this 
 reality is a higher one. That which, in the Christian world- 
 view, forms the presupposition of all truly moral life, namely, 
 the reconciliation of the contradiction and of the antagonism in 
 the world of reality, the higher right and the higher power of 
 the personal spirit over unfree nature, this is recognized by the 
 Greeks, though indeed with heathen perversions, in a higher 
 manner than is the case among the earlier heathen nations. 
 Only man as redeemed by the historical redemption-act from 
 the power of his sinful naturalness, and as now for the first 
 having risen to a truly free moral personality, is capable, accord- 
 ing to the Christian view, of accomplishing true morality; 
 also the Hellene makes the reconciliation of the antagonism, the 
 actual harmony of human nature and of existence in general, 
 the presupposition of morality, and conceives this reconciliation 
 as one that falls indeed before human history, but yet is accom- 
 plished by the free act of the personal spirit; whereas with the 
 earlier nations (where the consciousness of the inner antagonism 
 and contradiction is also recognized) the right of the personal 
 spirit is either rejected, or else thrown for its realization into 
 the far future, either into the life after death, or at least toward 
 the close of the world's history. It is true, this thought of a 
 reconciliation is made possible only by the fact that the con- 
 sciousness of moral guilt is kept away from the antagonism that 
 is to be reconciled, and that this antagonism is conceived rather 
 as of a primitive cosmical character, and moreover that not man 
 but the personal gods enter into the sphere thereof, and, bat- 
 tling, overcome, so that there is left for man nothing further 
 than the enjoyable repetition of the same in artistic pl<iy ; the 
 Olympic games are a commemoration of the battles of the 
 Titans ; and, accordingly, the entire moral life becomes to the 
 Greek an artistic play ; nevertheless the ground-thought is still 
 of high significancy, the thought that only man as having 
 become free through the reconciliation of the antagonism of real 
 existence is capable of morality. But that the carrying-out of 
 
 6
 
 68 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 11. 
 
 this thought is weakened down on all sides, that the Greek does 
 not in his moral consciousness rise out of his esthetic play to 
 full earnestness of life, this is in fact simply the heathen charac- 
 ter of this consciousness. And even in the fact that to the 
 Hellene,rnorality appears so easy, there lies a presentiment of 
 the true thought, that to the morally emancipated man the 
 moral law appears no longer as a yoke or burden, but is, on the 
 contrary, the direct, unforced, bliss-inspired and blissful life- 
 outgush of sanctified human nature. To no nation of heathen- 
 dom does morality become so light a task as to the Hellenes. 
 The Hellene knows no moral code of laws compelling the moral 
 subject to obedience, with objective authority; and even the 
 moralizing philosophers themselves, in striking contrast to the 
 Chinese, the Indians, and even the Persians, tarry almost exclu- 
 sively in the sphere of general thoughts, and give only seldom 
 definite precepts for the details of life. The moral subject bears 
 the law within himself, and bows himself under no foreign 
 objective law. And this is in fact but a heathen perversion of 
 the per se true thought, that with the spiritually-regenerated the 
 law of God is written in their hearts, that to them liis yoke is 
 easy and his burden light. As the Chinese and Persian con- 
 sciousness shows some resemblance to that of the Hebrews, so 
 the Greek consciousness has analogies to the Christian, espe- 
 cially as the latter is presented by that Apostle who labored 
 among the Greeks. That with the Greeks the analogical thought 
 rests upon an untrue foundation, and worked hurtfully in its 
 carrying-out, that it led to sinful presumption, and created a 
 morality actually inferior in many respects to that of the Chi- 
 nese, the Indians and Persians, this evinces not the fallacious- 
 ness of the thought per se, but only the perversity of the natural 
 man, who turns all the truth attainable by him into the service 
 of sin, and thus confirms the weighty utterance that only he 
 "whom the Son makes free is free indeed." He who is in- 
 wardly unfree, and yet imagines himself free, is morally in 
 greater danger than he who is unfree and also knows himself as 
 such. -The Greek appears morally more responsible and more 
 guilty than the other heathen, because he has a higher knowl- 
 edge; and the Apostle's moral sentence upon the heathen 
 [Rom. i, 18 sqq.] falls upon the Greeks with much greater force 
 than upon the other heathen.
 
 12.] PRINCIPLES OF SOCKATES. 69 
 
 SECTION XII. 
 
 To a philosophical form,* the moral consciousness 
 of the Greeks rose, with some distinctness, for the 
 first, through Socrates / before him we find little more 
 than a practical morality expressed in. disconnected 
 moral maxims, without further proof or development. 
 Socrates, who speculated less on metaphysical ques- 
 tions than simply on the good, not only bases the 
 moral upon philosophical knowledge, but finds in fact 
 in this knowledge the essence and the highest degree 
 of the moral. To know is the highest virtue, and out 
 
 O j 
 
 of this virtue follow directly and with inner necessity 
 all the others ; a contradiction between knowledge 
 and volition is inconceivable; practically, morality 
 manifests itself in the subordinating of the irrational 
 desires to rational knowledge, and especially in obe- 
 dience^to civil laws. Unconscious of the might of evil 
 in the natural man, Socrates conceives the moral es- 
 sentially only as measured by a rational calculating 
 of outward fitness to ends. His significancy for moral 
 philosophy lies in his calling attention to rational 
 knowledge as the source of the moral, and to the no 
 longer arbitrarily subjectively-determined good as the 
 end of rational effort. 
 
 The Greeks occupy themselves very early with the nature of 
 the moral ; the most ancient so-called Wise Men are, for the 
 most part, moralists. It was very long, however, before the 
 Greeks reduced their isolatedly-presented, and rather empiric- 
 ally-based, moral maxims to any sort of unity and order. Phi- 
 losophy proper occupied itself primarily with purely metaphys- 
 ical questions, and the moral views expressed were, with the 
 earlier philosophers, for the most part, a mere supplement of 
 
 * Wehr en pfennig : Verschiedenlieit d. eth. Princ. b. d. Hdlenen, 1856.
 
 70 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 12. 
 
 observations and life-rules but loosely connected with their spec- 
 ulations proper. 
 
 Socrates was the first who, as it was said, called philosophy 
 from heaven to the sphere of the earth ; it is with him essen- 
 tially moral, and, from merely metaphysical speculations, he 
 turns away with a certain displeasure ; even in his consideration 
 of the idea of God, greater prominence is given to the moral 
 phase of the divine activity. With him the knowledge of the 
 good is the chief end of philosophy; but, for the simple reason 
 that here ethics springs exclusively from philosophy, the element 
 of knowledge far outweighs in it the element of the heart. The 
 ethics of Socrates is a coldly rational calculating ; it has not, as 
 has Christian ethics, an historical basis and presupposition, but 
 is invented purely d priori. Man is by nature thoroughly good, 
 is, in his freedom, not simply at first as yet undecided, but he 
 has by nature a decided tendency to the good, just as reason has 
 a natural affinity for the truth. Evil is by no means to be ex- 
 plained from mere volition, but only from error. The human 
 understanding can err, and the act resulting from error is the 
 evil ; without error there would be no evil, and it is absolutely 
 impossible that man should not also will that which he has rec- 
 ognized as good. It needs, therefore, only that men be brought 
 to a knowledge of the good, and then they will also act virtu- 
 ously. The motive to the moral is not love, but knowledge; to 
 instruct is to make better ; the philosopher is also the virtuous 
 man, and only the philosopher can practice true virtue; the 
 ignorant man is also immoral. Self-knowledge the yvudi 
 aeavrdv is the presupposition of all morality, not, however, in 
 the sense familiar to Christians, of a knowledge of the heart as 
 inclined to sin, but only in the sense of a knowledge of the log- 
 ical nature of the thinking spirit; in his dialogues, Socrates 
 does not think of bringing men to a knowledge of their moral 
 guilt, he simply aims to convince them as to how little they 
 as yet leiww. Hence ethics is with him a one-sided doctrine of 
 knowledge. There is properly-speaking only one virtue, and 
 this is wisdom, that is, knowledge ; and all other virtues are 
 only different forms of this one virtue.* 
 
 * Aristotle : Eth. Me., vi, 13 ; iii, 6, 7 ; Eth. Hud., i, 5 ; vii, 13 ; Magn. 
 Mor., i, 1, 9; ii, 6; Xen. : Mem., i, 1, 16 ; iii, 9, 4, 5; iv, 6, 6; Plato: 
 Lack., p. 194 qq. ; Apol., p 26; Diog. L., ii, 31.
 
 12.] PLATO ON THE GOOD. 71 
 
 Practically, wisdom manifests itself mainly in self-mastery, 
 that is, in governing by knowledge all appetites, dispositions, 
 feelings, and passions. Man must always remain master of him- 
 self, must in all circumstances, however different, always act 
 strictly according to his knowledge and in harmony with him- 
 self, must not let himself be led by unconscious desires ; and, 
 inasmuch as a man's knowledge cannot be taken from him, and 
 as the changeable movements of feeling are under the control of 
 knowledge, hence man has in this faculty of knowledge also 
 complete hajyiness, and the wise man is necessarily also happy; 
 and this happiness depends exclusively on himself. Therein 
 consists the freedom of the sage. Knowledge, virtue, and hap- 
 piness are consequently not essentially different from each other, 
 are simply different phases of the same thing. In that Soc- 
 rates essentially identifies the good with knowledge, he raises it 
 above the arbitrary caprice of the individual subject, seeing 
 that truth is not dependent on the good pleasure of said subject. 
 Thus the good has a validity independently of the individual, and 
 all rational men must recognize the same thing as good. Hence 
 the moral idea has attained to contents of a general and neces- 
 sary character; and Socrates recognizes the objective signifi- 
 cancy of the same, in that he ascribes right wisdom to God 
 alone.* 
 
 These general thoughts form the scientific basis of the subse- 
 quent currents of philosophy. Socrates himself does not rise 
 beyond them and enter into details. Whenever the question is 
 as to giving to these general thoughts more definite contents, 
 he refers to the laws of the State, in the fulfilling of which man 
 fulfills the requirements of morality. Hence his morality is 
 merely Greek civic virtue, has no higher ideal contents. To 
 obey the laws of the State is the sum of all duties ; a diKaiog is 
 the same as a vo^t/xog. To do good to one's friends, and evil to 
 one's enemies, is a moral requirement,! though indeed to suffer 
 wrong is better than to do it, the doing of evil to one's enemies 
 being in fact not a wrong, but a legitimate retaliation.! 
 
 In general the tendency of Socrates is toward a dry, prosaic 
 utilitarianism. His moral views, in so far as they are not ideal- 
 ized by Plato, are devoid of all ideal enthusiasm. And in his 
 
 * Plato: Apol., p. 23. t Xen. : Mem., ii, 6, 35. 
 
 t Plato : Rep., i, p. 335 ; Onto, p. 49.
 
 72 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 13. 
 
 own moral life he by no means rises beyond ordinary Greek 
 morality ; and it required all the superficiality of modern deistic 
 " illuininisni," to undertake to place Socrates as a moral ideal 
 by the side of Christ. In Plato's Symposium, Socrates surpasses 
 all the others in drinking, and even outquaffs the whole com- 
 pany without getting intoxicated himself; and yet even this 
 Platonic Socrates is already considerably idealized. In Xeno- 
 phon* he goes with a friend to a hetaera, who is sitting as a 
 model for a painter, and instructs her in the art of enticing men. 
 The manner in which it has been attempted to justify this, is 
 not of the most happy. If, in such a case, Socrates knows of 
 nothing better than to indulge in plays of dialectical skill, evi- 
 dently his judgment of the matter itself is not very condemna- 
 tory. And in other respects his bearing toward lasciviousness,t 
 gives evidence of deep erroneousness of moral consciousness even 
 in the philosopher himself. Of moral and family love, Socrates 
 has, so far as our knowledge of him goes, scarcely a presenti- 
 ment. When his wife comes, with her child, into the prison, to 
 take leave of her husband after his condemnation to death, 
 Socrates simply turns to his friends, and says dryly, " Let some 
 one, I pray you, take the woman away from here, to her house;" 
 and she is led out by a slave; and in his last long farewell 
 speech to the world, Socrates bestows upon wife and children 
 not a single word. For his virtues, such as they were, he is 
 worthy of praise, but still he manifestly does not rise above mere 
 Greek virtue. 
 
 SECTION XIII. 
 
 From Socrates there sprang np several mutually- 
 differing schools, the peculiarity and difference of 
 Avhich lie especially in their ethical views. The 
 Cynics (through Antisthenes) develop the doctrine of 
 Socrates as to the ethical significancy of knowledge, 
 into one-sided prominence in its practical application. 
 Knowledge works directly the good ; virtue, as rest- 
 ing exclusively on knowledge, is the highest goal of 
 human life. It manifests itself essentially in the 
 
 * Mem., iii, 11. t 2bid., i, 3, U, 15.
 
 13.] THE CYNICS AND CYRENAICS. 73 
 
 struggle against irrational desires ; desirelessness is 
 the highest virtue. Over against the Cynics, the 
 Cyrenaics (through Aristippus) emphasize the other 
 phase of the wisdom-life, namely, happiness. Happi- 
 ness is the highest good, and therefore the highest 
 goal of the moral ; virtue is only a means to this end. 
 And happiness consists in the feeling of pleasure, in 
 enjoyment. Hence enjoyment is the goal of the moral 
 striving ; in it alone man becomes free, because in it 
 the desires that press and disturb him come to quiet. 
 
 Both of these schools undertake to find an objective ground 
 for the moral; in fact, however, neither of them finds any thing 
 more than a strictly subjective one ; the Cynics take their start- 
 ing-point in subjective knowledge, and in the will as determined 
 thereby; the Cyrenaics, in feeling. Both schools are equally 
 one-sided developments of tendencies that existed in germ in 
 Socrates. If knowledge, virtue, and happiness are essentially 
 the same thing, then it is indifferent which of these phases is 
 made the starting-point, whether it be said that virtue consists 
 in an unconditional obedience to knowledge, or in the striving 
 after happiness ; and hence the Cynic is right when he asserts, 
 that in following knowledge we need not inquire as to the 
 sensation of pleasure or displeasure, for true happiness follows 
 from virtue of necessity ; and if sensation should seem to con- 
 tradict this, then it is simply to be despised as a false one. The 
 Cyrenaic is likewise consequential when he asserts, that in fol- 
 lowing the feeling of happiness we need not inquire as to philo- 
 sophical knowledge, for as happiness follows from virtue of 
 necessity, hence in the feeling of pleasure we have certain proof 
 that we are practicing virtue, and hence also that we correctly 
 understand the good. 
 
 The Cynics give exclusive predominance to the rational tend- 
 ency in Socrates ; there is for the good in the widest sense of 
 the word no other decisive criterion than knowledge. And the 
 knowledge of the good and the manner of action that rests ex- 
 clusively upon this knowledge, are the sole thing which has real 
 worth for man. Only the good in this sense is beautiful, and
 
 74 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 13. 
 
 only evil is deformed ; whatever else is pleasant for the senses 
 or feelings is entirely worthless ; and even all knowledge that 
 does not relate to the good is useless. True freedom consists 
 in perfect indifference to whatever lies outside of the individual 
 spirit. All evil rests upon error, has its source in false impres- 
 sions and ideas, but not at all in the heart. The wise man is, 
 in virtue of his knowledge, free from all evil. The independ- 
 ence of the personal spirit is here most one-sidedly conceived 
 of, as a contemptuous turning-away from all objective reality, 
 as an over-confident trusting in one's (evidently very immature 
 and fortuitous) subjective knowledge, as a complete self-isolation 
 of the persistently opinionated subject. Hence there result an 
 absolute indifference to all outer existence, even to all historical 
 reality and to social custom, a throwing off of all reverence for 
 the Objective reality of the spirit as developing itself in history. 
 However much of truth may lie in the ground-thought of Cyn- 
 icism, still its practical development on the basis of its defective 
 presuppositions leads almost necessarily to a caricature, to an 
 unbridled insolence of the immature spirit, giving birth to such 
 phenomena as that of Diogenes. There is manifested in this 
 school the pride of easily-satisfied self-righteousness, the haughty 
 self-isolation of the subject as breaking loose from all objective 
 realization of the rational spirit. 
 
 The Cyrenuics pushed to its extreme the other phase. A 
 happiness which I do not feel as pleasure, is none at all. If 
 virtue makes happy, then I must at once also feel it. Hence 
 that whick is truly good, must at once evince itself as such in 
 the sphere of the sensibilities ; and, conversely, -that which im- 
 presses me pleasurably must be good, otherwise there would be 
 another form of happiness than that produced by virtue. Hence 
 between one pleasure and another there can be no essential moral 
 difference ; consequently the feeling of pleasure or of displeasure 
 is a perfectly safe guide in the sphere of the moral. Hence the 
 chief point in practical wisdom is, to procure for one's self the 
 feeling of pleasure; from this principle the inquiry must first 
 take its^start. By observation, for example, I find that temper- 
 ateness is a virtue, because intemperateness occasions suffering. 
 Hence true wisdom as founded on this basis consists in the 
 rational governing of the measure of each particular pleasure, 
 and not in the knowledge of any general principles ; such prin-
 
 14.] PRINCIPLES OF PLATO. 75 
 
 ciples, other than the one just given, do not exist, but each en- 
 joyment is governed by its own particular measure, which is 
 discovered for the most part simply through experience. 
 
 SECTION XIV. 
 
 Plato gives to Greek ethics a deeply suggestive 
 scientific basis and form. The world is an expression 
 of the divine ideas, a thing of beauty. That which 
 answers to the divine idea, namely, the god like, is 
 good. Man has the task, in virtue of his rational 
 spirituality, to realize the good, consciously and with 
 freedom ; the essence of virtue is, pleasure in the good 
 as being the truly beautiful, love. As expressing in 
 itself the harmony of the soul, virtue is also the con- 
 dition of true happiness ; not the direct pleasure-feel- 
 ing, however, but rational knowledge, decides as to the 
 good, and such knowledge works the same directly. 
 Hence virtue is neither indifferent to pleasure, nor 
 does it consist therein, but it produces it. However, 
 all virtue, because of the imperfection essentially in- 
 herent in existence, remains ever imperfect in the 
 earthly life ; the corporeal nature of man itself is a 
 hinderance. Virtue is in its essence unitary, but be- 
 cause of its relation to the manifold soul-powers and 
 life-manifestations, it manifests itself fourfoldly, as 
 wisdom, manliness, temper ateness, and justness, of 
 which the first is the fundamental one, and dominates 
 the others. Morality, however, is not a something be- 
 longing merely to the individual person, but has its 
 full reality only in the moral community-life, the 
 State, which rests not so much on the family and on 
 moral society, as rather constitutes, itself, the exclu- 
 sive form of the moral society-life, and in fact itself 
 produces the family and all other moral forms of
 
 76 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 14. 
 
 communion, out of itself, and dominates them with 
 unconditional authority. The absolutism of the State 
 swallows up into itself every right of the moral per- 
 sonality and of the family, and it is not as man, nor 
 as a member of the family, but solely as citizen, that 
 the individual is capable of realizing true morality. 
 But also only an inferior number arc capacitated 
 thereto ; and therefore these few who are capable of 
 true wisdom are called, by this very fact, to the unlim- 
 ited governing of the others. The moral task is 
 consequently not a general one for humanity, is 
 not the same for all, and is in its full truth not 
 po&ible for all. 
 
 Plato, far surpassing Socrates in spiritual profundity, devel- 
 oped with creative originality the thoughts which his master 
 had possessed rather only as mere presentiments, into a scheme 
 of profound speculation, very different from the popular moral- 
 izing of the son of Sophroniscus. His ethical thoughts, which 
 are not shaped into a rounded system, are expressed more es- 
 pecially in the following of his works : Protagoras, Laches. Ghar- 
 mides, Euthyphron, Gorgias, Menon, Philebus, Puliticus, and in 
 his work which presents the realized moral organism, the 
 Republic or State. 
 
 In the thought of the rational spirit, which Plato conceives 
 more deeply than was ever done before, he obtains a much more 
 solid foundation for the moral than did the earlier philosophy. 
 The world is in its essence, not indeed created, but formed by 
 God, the absolute, rational spirit, is the most perfect possible 
 expression of his thoughts, a copy of the divine eternal ideas. 
 The realization of an idea is the beautiful ; hence the cosmos is 
 an object of beauty.* The rational immortal spirit of man his 
 ideal phase has the task of realizing the beautiful, the ideal, 
 and the highest end of human life is ideality, that is, it is, to 
 become like God; this God-likeness, which consists in justness 
 and in sincere piety, is the good, and the highest good is God 
 
 * Especially iu his Timaeus,
 
 14.] MORALITY OF SOCRATES. 77 
 
 himself.* This thought of God-likeness, however, Plato does 
 not further develop, nor indeed could he do so, seeing that the 
 God-idea itself, as embraced from a heathen stand-point, was 
 too unclear. The idea of the good is here not derived from the 
 idea of God, but conversely it is undertaken to determine the 
 idea of God from the idea of the good, as being fundamental 
 and per se certain. Evidently we have not to do here with the 
 Christian thought of God-likeness. The thought of a divine 
 command falls back behind the thought of the idea of the good 
 as innate in reason itself. This mode of viewing the matter lies 
 in the nature of the case, seeing that in fact there could be here 
 no question of any other revelation of the divine will. The 
 good which is conceived merely in a general and rather indef- 
 inite manner as the inner harmony and order or beauty of the 
 soul, as the untrammeled domination of reason, and hence rather 
 under a formal than a material aspect,f is per se a something 
 divine and true, and as such to be aspired to ; and the individ- 
 ual pleasure-feeling is not the measure of virtue, nor the good 
 itself. J It is true, virtue alone renders truly happy, that is, works 
 complete inner harmony of soul, and there is no happiness with- 
 out virtue, for virtue itself is simply such a harmony or beauty 
 of soul, and to do wrong is the greatest of all evils, greater 
 than to suffer wrongs,! but happiness is not one and the same 
 with every chance pleasure-feeling. IF It is not this feeling, in 
 its dependence on the accidentalities of outer circumstances and 
 of the frame-of-niind, but only the idea of the good, that can be 
 known and truly identified ;** hence the pleasure-feeling cannot 
 be the decisive criterion as to the good, and the good cannot 
 be aspired to merely for the sake of the pleasure. The knowl- 
 edge of the idea of the good which, like the consciousness of 
 any and of every idea, is not the product" of a reflective course 
 of thought, that is, not derived knowledge, but on the contrary 
 
 * Rep., pp. 500, 505 sqq., 613 (Steph.); Thecet., 176; Menon, p. 99; 
 EutJiyphron, p. 13. 
 
 t Gorgias, p. 504 sqq. ; Phileb., 64, 65. 
 
 \ Gorgias, p. 4!>5 sqq. ; Phaed., p. 237 sqq. 
 
 Gorgias, 470 sqq., 504-509 ; Menon, p. 87 sqq./ Rep., pp. 352, 444, 563, 
 585; Phil., pp. 40, 64. 
 
 | Gorgias, pp. 4'>9 sqq., 477, 527. 
 
 If PMl., p. 11 sqq. ; Gorgias, p. 494 sqq. 
 
 * Gorgias, pp. 464, 500 ; Menon, p. 87 sqq.
 
 78 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 14. 
 
 a direct reason-knowledge, and the highest of all that can be 
 known is the foundation and presupposition of virtue; with- 
 out knowledge there is no virtue ; virtue is not a natural quality 
 of man, but is learned and appropriated by learning.* And the 
 knowledge of the good leads with inner necessity to the prac- 
 ticing of that which is recognized as good ; evil rests essentially 
 upon error, and is never committed with consciousness and in- 
 tentionally ;t herein Plato perfectly harmonizes with Socrates. 
 The will has, over against knowledge, no discretion whatever, 
 but is the direct and necessary expression thereof. The lower, 
 sensuous desires can indeed withstand reason, but the will of 
 the spirit itself cannot do so. That also the heart the spirit- 
 ual essence of man himself may have a natural tendency to 
 evil, Plato has not the least conscious suspicion. Nevertheless 
 an obscure presentiment of the entrance of corruption into the 
 universe does find expression in his notion, that the present en- 
 chainment of the spirit to a body is not an original and normal, 
 but a guiltily-incurred state of things. In fact, according to 
 Plato, the soul existed as a rational personality once before in a 
 bodiless state, and only in consequence of a moral transgression 
 was it joined to a trammeling corporeality, so that it is now, as^ 
 it were, fettered in a cell or a dark cavern.J Also for still an- 
 other reason, the good, though indeed the highest end, is yet 
 never fully attainable in the earthly life. For inasmuch as the 
 real world is not solely and purely the work of the absolute 
 God-will, but, on the contrary, a product of two factors, 
 whereof the one is the formless proto-material which is in fact 
 a relative nonentity (jaj 6v), and the other the ideal God-will, 
 and as the former, because not posited by God himself, does not 
 perfectly yield to the formative working of God when impress- 
 ing his ideas upon it (even as the impress of a seal never reflects 
 perfectly clearly every feature of the same), so the world is 
 not an absolutely perfect one, but only the best possible one, 
 is not the pure and mere expression of the rational spirit, but 
 there lingers in it a never entirely-overcomable irrational resid- 
 . unm, an evil . lying in the essence of the world itself, which 
 though not sprung from the fault of moral creatures, is yet the 
 
 * Menon, p. 87 qq. 
 
 t/Vxtf., pp. 345, 352 sqq., 358; Menon,p. 95; Gory., p. 468. 
 
 $ Timaeus, p. 41 ; Phaedrus, p. 246 sqq. ; Rep., p. 514 sqq.
 
 14.] PLATONIC LOVE. 79 
 
 ground and source of all moral guilt, a proto-evil.* So also is 
 there in man himself a primitive antagonism never entirely 
 overcomable in the present life, namely, between reason and the 
 lower animal desires, which latter should in fact be morally 
 dominated by reason.f In Plato, therefore, there is lacking to 
 the moral consciousness that joyous confidence which character- 
 izes Christian morality. "Evil can never be annihilated, for 
 there must always be something over against the good; it can- 
 not, however, have its seat among the gods, but it inheres in 
 mortal nature ; therefore man should strive as soon as possible 
 to flee hence and to escape thither." f " True philosophers are 
 minded to strive after nothing other than to decease and be 
 dead, seeing 'that, so long as we still have the body, and our 
 soul is united with this evil [the body], we can never attain to 
 that whereafter we aspire ;" and they lay not violent hands upon 
 themselves simply because they are placed by God in this life as 
 upon a watch, which they are not at liberty to abandon at will.|| 
 Hence morality consists primarily in this, that man turns 
 himself to the ideal, the spiritual, and away from the merely 
 sensuous. This is, however, only one phase of morality, the 
 ideal ; the other phase is the real one. Even as God, in im- 
 pressing his ideas upon matter, shaped the world into an object 
 of beauty, so must also man actively merge and imprint himself 
 into the actual world-existence, and shape it into beauty. Hence 
 virtuousness is delight in the beautiful. And the beautiful is 
 harmony, not merely sensuous but also spiritual. The essence 
 of virtue is, as this delight in the beautiful, love, or eras, a 
 thought that is developed by Plato with very great emphasis 
 (especially in his Phaedrus, Lysis, and Symposium). This is, 
 however, by no means the Christian idea of love that love in 
 which man knows himself at one with another in virtue of com- 
 munion with God, but it is a love to the manifestation, to the 
 beautiful. Not the divine per se is loved, but the concrete, and 
 even essentially sensuous manifestation. It is not a love of soul 
 to soul, but one that clings- to the sensuous form. Hence it has 
 in Plato's state no significancy for the family. It is true, eras 
 exalts itself from the sensuous to the spiritual, to soul-beauty ;T 
 
 * Tim., p. 46 sqg., 54; PoUt., 269; Rep.> 611 sqq. ; PAaedrus, 246 sqq. 
 t Rep., 436 sqq., 589 ; Gorg., 505. J Theaet., p. 176. 
 
 Phaedo, p. 63 sqq. \ Ibid., p. 62. Tf Symp., 209 sqq.
 
 80 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ H. 
 
 the sensuous element, however, remains the basis, and does not 
 receive its worth simply from the spiritual. The beautiful is 
 per se, and in all of its manifestations, a revelation of the divine, 
 and the divine is accessible to us only under the form of the 
 beautiful ; where beauty is, there is also the divine. This is the 
 characteristically Greek stand-point ; beauty and grace excuse 
 all sin ; even the frivolous is recognized as good, provided it is 
 only beautiful. The recognition of love under every form, even 
 under that of unnatural vice, is so characteristic of the Greek, 
 that even Plato attempts a philosophical justification thereof, 
 which is far from complimentary to Greek ethics.* In love, here, 
 predominates by no means self-denial, as is the case with Chris- 
 tian love, but simply pleasure; I love another not for his sake, 
 but for my own sake. This love knows nothing of a self-sacri- 
 ficing suffering, but only a self-enjoying, at farthest only a suf- 
 fering of longing and jealousy. It is true, mere sensuous love as 
 directed to merely fleshly enjoyment, is blamed :f but where a 
 higher spiritual love, not merely to the body but also to the 
 soul, exists, and in the beautiful the divine element is recog- 
 nized, there sensuous love, even when it assumes the form of a 
 misuse of sex, finds its justification, and becomes a virtue, and 
 even a religious enthusiasm.! " Beautifully enacted, it is beau- 
 tiful; otherwise, however, shameful." The very circumstance 
 that Plato speaks so repeatedly and so extensively and with 
 visible approval of this absolutely vicious love [Rom. i, 27], 
 while at the same time he scarcely touches upon the morally 
 close-related mere sexual love, and, in his long discourses on 
 eros, honors wedlock love with not a single word, and further 
 that he attempts to repress | the feeling that instinctively im- 
 presses itself upon him, that there is something shameful there- 
 in, by the help of strangely ingenious turns of thought and 
 disguises and enthusiastically poetical expressions, which can- 
 not but make upon the modern reader a truly distressful 
 impression, all this is a notable and significant index of the 
 moral bewilderment of the Greek spirit. 
 
 Plato's development of the idea of the moral is as follows : 
 
 * Symp., p. 181 sqq., 216 sqq. ; Phaedrus, p. 250 sqq. 
 
 t Gorg., p. 494; Pkaedrus, p. 250; Symj>., p. 180 gqq. 
 
 J Phaedrm, p. 251 sqq. Symp., p. 183. 
 
 | PAaedrus, p. 237 sqq. ; comp. 230, 242 ; Symp., p. 183.
 
 14.] THE PLATONIC VIRTUES. 81 
 
 Virtue, as essentially constituting a unity, appears primarily as 
 wisdom, aoittia, consisting in a knowledge of the truth and of the 
 good ; upon wisdom as the chief virtue, depend all the othei 
 virtues. Now, in that wisdom brings to the consciousness what 
 really is, and what is not, to be feared in our moral efforts and 
 in our struggle against hostile powers, it develops our natural 
 zeal in acting into the virtue of manliness or courage, avSpeia. 
 And in that it teaches us what is the inner harmony of the soul, 
 and what is the proper subordination of sensuous and irrational 
 desires to reason, it develops the virtue of temperateness or prn- 
 dence, autypcxrvvri, which preserves the right inner order of the 
 soul through the domination of reason over all lower life-forces 
 and pleasure-desires ; these lower desires are not crushed out, 
 but simply kept within proper limits, and placed in the service 
 of reason. In that wisdom guides to outward activity the har- 
 mony of the inner soul-life in its relation to other men, it 
 develops the virtue of justness, which preserves harmony with 
 and among men, in that it respects the rights of each individ- 
 ual; it presupposes the other three virtues, and indeed gives 
 them their proper force and significancy.* To justness belongs 
 also piety or holiness, OGIOTW, which preserves man in his proper 
 relation to the gods; Plato uses here, constantly, the plural.f 
 A more full development of the virtues Plato has not given ; 
 and the necessity of precisely the four ones actually given is 
 based more on the nature of the State than on that of the moral 
 person. A special treatise on duties is not given ; and, in con- 
 sideration of the notion that an inwardly harmonious and hence 
 virtuous soul finds, of itself, the proper course in each particular 
 conjuncture,! such a treatise appears indeed as superfluous. 
 That morality is not conceived of as of a merely individual 
 character, but, on the contrary, as realizing itself essentially 
 in moral communion, is a great advance of the moral con- 
 sciousness; but in that this thought is carried out in the 
 most rigid one-sidedness, and, as it were, with a theoretical 
 passionateness, and in that it lacks the proper historical and re- 
 ligious bases, Plato has arrived, in his enthusiastically and per- 
 sistently pursued ideal of a State, at a positive caricature, which 
 has brought upon the great philosopher, in the .eyes of those 
 
 * Protag., pp. 332, 349 ; Sep., p. 428 qq., 442 sqq., 591. 
 
 t Euthyphron, p. 6 sqq. ; Gorg., pp. 507, 522. J Potit., pp. 294, 297.
 
 82 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 14. 
 
 who look upon the real world with practical sobriety, the ap- 
 pearance of ridiculousness, or at least the reproach of an utterly 
 unpractical theorizing ;* and it has often been undertaken to 
 rescue the reputation of the great man by simply holding his 
 state-theory as a mere ideal not in the least designed for realiza- 
 tion. But both this reproach, and also this attempt at vindi- 
 cating his honor, do injustice to the philosopher. Unquestion- 
 ably his work on the -State is the most mature and the most 
 fully perfected of his writings, one upon which he wrought 
 with the highest and most enthusiastic preference. (His work 
 on the Laws has greater reference to the real world, which as 
 yet was very different from his ideal State, and expresses rather 
 a preliminary expedient, until the true state finds a bold crea- 
 tor.) That his ideal of a state was not intended by him for 
 realization, has no good evidence in its favor, and is on the 
 whole incredible; on the contrary, it cannot be doubted but 
 that Plato made repeated attempts, and with well-grounded 
 hopes, at realizing his state-theory by the help of Dionysius the 
 Younger in Syracuse ;t and his own declarations as to the prac- 
 ticability of his state-theory confirm thi^.J From our own social 
 views these theories differ very widely, it is true; but to a Greek, 
 and especially to the state-institutions of the Doric tribes, which 
 were regarded by Plato with great admiration, they were by no 
 means foreign, and they have already in the laws of Sparta an 
 actual prototype in very essential points. Precisely in its con- 
 trasts to the Christian view of moral communion, to the idea of 
 the Christian Church and of the Christian state, the Platonic 
 state is very instructive. 
 
 Not individual man, but the state, is the moral person proper, 
 by which all the morality of the individuals is conditioned, pro- 
 duced, and sustained. Not the moral individual persons mak'e 
 the state, but the state makes the moral persons. Without the 
 state, and outside of it, there is no morality proper, but only 
 unculture. Hence the task of the state is to make its citizens 
 into morally good persons, to undertake the cure of souls. 
 The state, which in its inner constitution as a harmonious 
 
 * Made as early as by Aristophanes, and even by Aristotle : FblM. ii, 
 1-5, 12. 
 
 t See K. F. Hermann: Gesch. u. Syst. d.plat. Phil, 1S39, i, 67. 
 1 Hep., p. 471 tqq. ; 499, 502, 540; Legg., 709. Gorg., p. 464.
 
 14.] STATE-ABSOLUTISM. 83 
 
 moral organism, answers to the three phases of the soul-life of 
 man, and represents (1) reason or thought and knowledge, and 
 (2) courage or zeal, 6v/j.og, and (8) sensuousness, in the three 
 classes of society, namely, (1) the savans, who therefore rule, 
 (2) the warriors, and (3) the producers, that is, the instructing, 
 the protecting, and the providing classes,* realizes inner har- 
 mony, and hence at the same time justness and happiness, in 
 that it does not permit each individual to act and work at his 
 personal discretion, and to select his own life-calling, but on the 
 contrary in that it assigns to each his special and appropriate 
 position in the whole, a position which the individual must 
 unquestioningly accept and fulfill, without intermeddling in any 
 manner in any other form of activity. A rigorous separation 
 of ranks and of professions by the state itself, is the uncondi- 
 tional presupposition of a healthy state-life. The rulers have 
 the task of assigning the individuals to the particular classes, 
 according to their capabilities.! The productive class, which 
 corresponds to sensuous desire, has as its special virtue, temper- 
 ateness or modesty, which it realizes by keeping itself within 
 its proper bounds. Courage and wisdom belong to the two 
 higher classes; these two are the gold and silver, while the pro- 
 ductive class is but ignoble brass. The producer is not to con- 
 cern himself, with state matters, but simply to attend to handi- 
 craft and agriculture.^ Slavery is presupposed as a mere matter 
 of course ; however, where practicable, only non-Greeks are to 
 be sold as slaves. 
 
 The rulers have wisdom as their essential virtue ; there can 
 never be in the state but a few of them, and it is best when 
 there is but one, and this one a philosopher. The good of the 
 whole requires the exclusive dominion of the best, an absolute 
 aristocracy or a monarchy. | And as wisdom can find the right 
 course in each particular case, whereas laws must always be 
 merely general, and often do not apply to particular conjunc- 
 tures, hence the power of those who rule should not be cramped 
 by many laws, but must have scope for free movement, and 
 must decide in each particular case with entire discretion ; and 
 the wise ruler will often, without law and against the will of the 
 
 * Sep., p. 369 sqq., 412 sqq., 435. t Ibid., pp. 412-415. 
 
 \Polit., p. -289 sqq. ; Sep., pp. 374, 397. Rep., p. 469. 
 
 | Polit., p. 292 sqq., 297 ; Rep., pp. 473, 540. 
 
 7
 
 84 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 14. 
 
 citizens, and hence with force, realize the weal of the state, and 
 force the citizens to let themselves be made happy.* 
 
 The truly free personality is conceded accordingly only to the 
 sage, who is at the same time the ruler ; all the other citizens 
 of the state are, in their entire life, absolutely subject to the 
 state, the spiritual essence of which finds its expression not so 
 much in abstract law as in the perfected personality of the rul- 
 ing sage. Though the members of the third class are left more 
 free, still this is done only out of contempt ; u even if shoe- 
 cobblers are bad, still they bring little danger to the state."! 
 The true citizen, the one possessing the virtue of wisdom and 
 manliness, is under the absolute guidance of the state ; the ab- 
 solutism of the state is without limitation. The two higher 
 classes, as the proper and complete representatives of the spirit- 
 ual essence of the state, the sentinels of the same, are reared and 
 educated, and determined in their collective life by the state. 
 In their education first importance is given to music and gym- 
 nastics, in order that they may learn to love and practice har- 
 mony; the education of the future rulers who can become 
 rulers only at the age of fifty years, after having passed the test 
 of severe trials requires, additionally, special acquaintance with 
 mathematics and philosophy.^ To any other religious culture 
 than that given by philosophy, Plato, who clearly saw the 
 worthlessness of the popular religion, could not refer. 
 
 The state as including in itself and guiding all morality, and 
 as realizing justness, has all and every right; the individual 
 citizen of the state has rights only in so far as the state concedes 
 them to him ; even to his life he has no right, so soon as he is 
 no longer capable of benefiting the state; the physicians are 
 charged with the duty of letting the incurably sick perish with- 
 out help.] The state alone is entitled to property; private 
 property is not to be allowed. The producing class labors not 
 for itself, but solely for the state. IT With this principle Plato 
 supposes himself to have quenched at once all the sources of 
 contention and disquiet. Even the act of poesy stands under 
 the rigid censorship of the state ; and dramatic poetry is not to 
 be tolerated at all.** The appropriate meters to be used in 
 
 *Pblit., pp. 293-296; Sep., pp. 473, 540. i Ibid., p. 421. 
 
 J Ibid., p. 402 sqq., 424, 519 sqq., 535. Ibid., p. 386 sqq. 
 
 d; P- 405 qq. t 409. U Ibid., pp. 416, 464. ** Ibid., p. 391 sqq. , 568.
 
 14.] PLATONIC SEX-RELATIONS. 85 
 
 poetry are carefully prescribed, and of musical instruments only 
 the cithara and the lyre are allowed.* 
 
 The family is not the foundation, but only a branch of the 
 state, and merges itself into it. Personality has here no right 
 of its own. No one consort belongs to the other, but both be- 
 long exclusively to the state. Wedlock proper is consequently 
 inadmissible, on the contrary the citizen is obligated to the be- 
 getting of children in the interest of the state ; in this connec- 
 tion personal love to the sex has no validity, but only civic 
 duty. The citizen is not permitted to choose for himself the 
 wife (who is conceded to him only temporarily), but the state 
 gives her to him, ostensibly by lot, but in reality the rulers are 
 to "make use of falsehood and deception," and cunningly to 
 guide the lot according to their own judgment, so as always to 
 bring together the most suitable pairs. Men are under obliga- 
 tion to beget from their thirtieth to their fifty-fifth year ; women 
 to bear from their twentieth to their fortieth year. This of it- 
 self implies that there is to be no permanent marriage relation ; 
 on the contrary a change of wives is expressly required ; no one 
 is permitted to regard any woman as his own exclusive posses- 
 sion.f It is laid down as a principle for the free and active 
 citizens proper, " that all the women should be in common to 
 all the men, and that no woman should live solely with one 
 man, and that also the children are to be in common, so that no 
 father shall know the child begotten by him, and no child its 
 own father."! Hence the children are, immediately after their 
 birth, to be taken away from their mothers, and to be reared in 
 common on the part of the state, and the greatest possible care 
 is to be taken that the mother shall never again recognize her 
 child. The children are nursed by the women in common and 
 interchangeably ; feeble and physically imperfect children arc 
 to be exposed. After the lapse of the determined period of 
 life, the procreation with the persons specifically assigned by 
 the state, and as having taken place at the order of the state, is 
 to cease, and, from this time on, both the men and the women 
 may fqrm temporary connections with each other on the princi- 
 ple of elective affinity, with the one proviso that births must be 
 prevented, or, where this cannot be done, the child must be left 
 
 * Rep., pp. 398, 399. t Ibid., 449 sqq. 
 
 t Ibid. ,457. Ibid. , 457 sq q.
 
 86 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 14 
 
 to perish without food.* The woman is not a family-mother, 
 but only a state-citizen, and she has political duties, in real and 
 even magisterial state-offices, to fulfill. The women must per- 
 form the same work as the men, must even take part, entirely 
 nude, in the gymnastic exercises, must march out in war, 
 though in battle they are to occupy only the rear-ranks ; for in- 
 deed between men and women there is no other difference than 
 simply that the former beget, and the latter bear, and that the 
 former are stronger than the latter.f 
 
 This family-undermining absolutism of the state has to do, 
 however, only with the first two classes, while the producing 
 class are less affected by this care of the state for them, and 
 may act with greater freedom. The great task toward which 
 all moral community-life is directed, namely, to realize the idea 
 of the body politic, by means of the moral freedom of the indi- 
 vidual, Plato was unable to accomplish otherwise than by an 
 unconditional and unquestioning non-permission of the free 
 personal self-determination of the individual. Objective moral- 
 ity entirely swallows up the subjective. This is, however, not 
 peculiar to the view of Plato, but is the Greek tendency in gen- 
 eral. Plato manifests rather a decided progress toward the 
 development of the free moral personality. While in the legis- 
 lation of Sparta, somewhat as in that of the Chinese, the imper- 
 sonal law held ruthless domination, and disallowed of the 
 personal self-determination of the individual in very essential 
 things, and while in the democracy of Athens the irrational 
 caprice of the masses was the predominant power over the in- 
 dividual, in the Platonic state the personal spirit of the wisely 
 taught and tested regent attains to domination. From -the 
 stand-point of heathen antiquity, which knows of no right of 
 the person over against the state, but concedes the absolute right 
 of the state over the individual, this is a progress; and that, 
 which appears therein as unnatural and as a harsh one-sidedness 
 indicates not so much the untruthfulness of the consequential 
 pr< >gress, as rather the untruthfulness of the fundamental view 
 common to all the Greeks. 
 
 That the spirit of wisdom and power can be and is to be 
 poured out upon all flesh [Joel iii, 1], and that there is no dif- 
 ference before God, but that all are equally called to be children 
 *.%>., 461. Mbid., 451 sqq., 471, 540.
 
 15.] PLATONIC CASTE. 87 
 
 of the truth and of wisdom, this thought is unknown to entire 
 heathendom, and therefore also to the greatest of heathen phi- 
 losophers. Of a morality absolutely valid for all men and with- 
 out exception, Plato knows nothing ; without slavery, society 
 does not appear to the Greek as possible ; but the slave is not 
 called to, nor capable of, free self-determination, and hence also 
 not of true morality; and even of the free, only a relatively 
 small number are accessible to true wisdom and virtue. Capa- 
 bility and incapability for the good are transmitted through 
 natural generation from parents to children.* The reason for 
 this dividing of humanity into a minority who represent reason, 
 and into an irrational, passive multitude who require absolute 
 guidance, lies not exclusively in the general Greek national con- 
 sciousness, but also in the philosophical world-theory of Plato 
 in general. The primitive dualism of existence manifests itself 
 also in humanity. Even as the world is not an absolutely pure 
 and perfect expression of the spirit, and as the rational spirit is 
 not an absolute power, but has simply to shape a formless proto- 
 material not created by it, and to impress itself upon it, without 
 however being able entirely to master and spiritually transfigure 
 it, so also in humanity the men of the rational spirit, namely, 
 the philosophers, stand over against the spiritually dependent 
 and relatively unspiritual multitude, whose destination it is to 
 be absolutely guided and shaped by the former. 
 
 SECTION XV. 
 
 The essential advance of the ethical view of Plato 
 beyond earlier theories consists in this, that he eman- 
 cipated the idea of the good from all dependence on 
 the individual pleasure-feeling, that he conceived it as 
 unconditionally valid and lying in God himself, and 
 that consequently he regarded morality as God-like- 
 ness, as an image of God in man, and hence as a phase 
 of the ^spiritual life constituting an essential part of 
 rationality itself, and that in consequence thereof he 
 conceived morality as a per se perfectly unitary life, 
 and reduced the plurality of moral forms of action to 
 
 *Rep., 459 ^., 546.
 
 88 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 15. 
 
 a single principle, namely wisdom. But the charac- 
 teristically heathen dualism, which (though reduced 
 by him to its minimum) is yet not entirely overcome, 
 rendered it impossible for him to rise to the full free- 
 dom of the personal spirit in God and in man, and 
 hence to the full knowledge of the moral idea. The 
 real personality is recognized neither in its rights and 
 power, nor in its guilt. There remains in all exist- 
 ence, even in the most highly developed moral life, a 
 never entirely overcomable residuum of an unfree, un- 
 spiritual, and morally spirit-trammeling matter, over 
 which God himself is not absolutely master. But the 
 limitation of the moral lies not in the guilt of the per- 
 sonal spirit, but in the unspiritual (and not by it 
 entirely controllable) nature-ground of things. The 
 possibility, and therefore also the requirements, of the 
 moral are different for the different classes of men, 
 but even the most free is not entirely free. The moral 
 freedom of the freest, namely, the philosophers, is tram- 
 meled by the fetters of a corporeality not in harmony 
 with the moral task, that of the rest of men by lack 
 of knowledge and of moral capacity, and that of the 
 free Greek citizens, additionally, by the power of the 
 rulers as extending beyond the expressed laws, and 
 that of the unfree Greek citizens, still additionally, by 
 the weight of the entire mass that presses upon them 
 from above. From this progressively and descend- 
 ingly increasing unfreedom there is no redemption 
 within the sphere of historical reality, but only yon- 
 side of history, through death. Morality bears, neither 
 in its progressive realization nor in its guilty perver- 
 sion, the character of historicalness, is in no respect 
 a power essentially modificatory of universal history, 
 and consciously aiming at such modification as its
 
 15.] PLATONISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 89 
 
 end ; and even the ideal state is and remains simply 
 the very limited activity-sphere of a special moral 
 virtuosity of the governing individual spirit, without 
 a higher world-historical purpose in relation to the 
 totality of humanity. Also the moral consciousness 
 itself rises not entirely above the character of the 
 merely individual ; the connection of the same with 
 the God-consciousness is only of a loose character, 
 is not really based in the same. 
 
 The gain accruing to moral knowledge through the labors of 
 Plato is not to be lightly estimated. Light and order are given 
 to the previously dark and confused mass. There is henceforth 
 no more question of merely isolated and not deeper-grounded 
 moral rules, but morality has acquired a firmer basis, has come 
 here for the first to serious self-examination. In fact, Plato oc- 
 cupies himself so predominantly with the foundation-laying 
 thoughts that he does not reach the task of carrying out a 
 special doctrine of virtue or duty. In these ground-thoughts 
 there are, in so far as is possible from a heathen stand-point, 
 some approximations to a Christianly-moral consciousness; and 
 they would have been more marked still, had the philosopher 
 only succeeded in severing the chain which still held the already 
 floating ship fast anchored to the soil of naturalism, namely, by 
 overcoming the thought of an unspiritual pro to-material as 
 oflering a hinderance to the personal God, in a word, had he 
 succeeded in changing the fttj w which lies at the basis of the 
 real world, into an OVK bv. But neither Plato nor the heathen 
 spirit in general was able to do this. Even Aristotle was able 
 only silently to vail the, also to him, troublesome thought of 
 dualism, but not scientifically to master it. But wherever the 
 rational spirit is not absolutely the ground and life of every 
 thing, there also the full idea of morality is not possible ; for 
 only the thought of the complete mastery of the spirit over 
 every thing unspiritual, and the confidence of untrnmineled lib- 
 erty, assure to'morality foundation-ground and courage. 
 
 Though in the recognition of the limits of freedom there lies 
 an approximation to the Christian thought of the natural de-
 
 90 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 15. 
 
 pravity of the human race, yet there lies in it, on the other 
 hand, also an all the greater departure from the same ; for these 
 limits are not placed in the sphere of moral guilt, and hence of 
 moral freedom, but yon-side of morality in the sphere of a 
 nature-substratum not to be overcome by the moral spirit. The 
 hampering of morality has not sprung from an historical act, 
 and hence is not to be overcome by an historical act. The con- 
 sciousness of the moral imperfection of the world, which despite 
 all the idealism of the Platonic world- view comes often to pain- 
 ful expression, leads not to the thought of a needed redemption. 
 The sage emancipates himself, so far as, in view of the imper- 
 fection inherent in the essence of all existence, it is possible, 
 from the limitations of his moral life, and he emancipates others 
 only through philosophical instruction and through absolutistic 
 state-guidance, but not through a sanctifying communion- 
 grounding historical act. 
 
 In the idea of the state there lies indeed the presentiment, 
 that morality, in its true character, is not a merely individual 
 quality, but, on the contrary, has an historical signiflcancy and 
 task, but Plato does not rise beyond the mere presentiment; 
 and when he is on the very point of passing beyond the limits 
 of a merely individual morality, and into the sphere of an his- 
 torical one, he hesitatingly checks his step^nd turns back. His 
 State forms no link in history, and has no history as its goal. 
 As it is not sprung of history, but only of the ingenious intellect 
 of a theoretical philosopher, so it is designed to be nothing 
 other than the platform upon which the geniality of the indi- 
 vidual personality of the philosophic regent may find scope for 
 itself. Neither people nor ruler are to be the representatives 
 of an historical idea; on the contrary, the people is only the 
 passive material for the formative hand of the state-artist, and 
 the ruler only the executor of a philosophic theory. The state 
 itself is to be only an individual organism along-side of many 
 other state-organisms, likewise ruled by individual geniality. 
 Hence it must also be only very small ; even a thousand citizens 
 suffice. The thought of regarding the state as a vital member 
 in an historical collective organism, lies very far from Plato. 
 Hence, though his state is a moral organic system, yet it has no 
 world-historical character ; it has neither behind it an historical 
 presupposition, nor before itself an historical goal. That hu-
 
 15.] RELIGIOUS DEFECTIVENESS. 91 
 
 inanity in general is a goal of the moral striving, that it may be 
 brought together into a moral unity, that a state of peace among 
 all nations is to be aimed at of all this Plato has not the remot- 
 est presentiment; rather does war appear, even for his ideal 
 state, as in accordance with order, and as a necessary matter of 
 course ; for in fact Greeks and non-Greeks are enemies by na- 
 ture.* Let this state-ideal of the profoundest Greek philoso- 
 pher, as presented without any trammeling from a resisting 
 real world, be compared with the Old Testament theocratic 
 state as brought to realization among a stubbornly resisting 
 people, and which had, from the very beginning, a world-his- 
 torical goal, and which kept in view, and had as the basis of 
 its entire organization, the thought of the salvation, and hence 
 also of the peace'and unity, of entire humanity, and the result 
 will be very suggestive. 
 
 Most manifestly appears the weakness of Platonic ethics in 
 its relation to the religious consciousness. The beautiful con- 
 ception of the God-likeness of the moral man, Plato is not able 
 to carry out ; the founding of the moral upon the divine will is 
 foreign to him, and must have been so, for the Greek knows 
 nothing of a revelation of this will, and the philosopher could 
 not invent one ; he was only able to refer to the rational con- 
 sciousness of man himself; but to raise this consciousness to a 
 universally-extant and valid one Plato did not venture to hope, 
 and hence he placed simply the authority and even the strong 
 dictatorial power of the philosophers, in the stead of the author- 
 ity of a divine revelation. Also his profoundly-conceived God- 
 idea, which far surpassed all previous results of heathenism, 
 Plato did not venture to carry out in its entire ethical signifi- 
 cancy, and to make it consequentially the basis of the moral. 
 It is true he is far removed from the folly of certain modern 
 theories, which present morality as entirely independent of 
 piety ; he in fact makes piety a very essential element of all 
 moral life, and derives even from the idea of a divine judgment 
 after death, a very potent motive for morality ;f still, piety is 
 with him not the foundation of all the virtues, but only a single 
 one of the same, and that too not the first one, but only a form 
 of justness ; and even such as it is he ventures not to refer it 
 djrectly to the philosophically-recognized God-idea, but only to 
 * Rep., p. 373, 469 seq. t Gorg., p. 523 sgq.
 
 92 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 16. 
 
 the gods of the popular religion. But as he himself exposes the 
 immoral character of the Greek mythology with a noble indig- 
 nation, and on that account, bitterly censures the so highly and 
 universally-revered Homer, nay, even would have his poems, for 
 moral reasons, banished from his ideal state,* it is consequently 
 difficult to say how he could justify and require piety toward 
 these gods. There remains here a wide-reaching and unbridged 
 chasm in his ethical teachings. 
 
 SECTION XVI. 
 
 The completer of the Platonic philosophy, and of 
 Greek philosophy in general, namely, Aristotle, who 
 in many respects passed independently beyond Plato, 
 and who was less idealistic than he, and more devoted 
 to the study of sober reality, presented ethics for the 
 first time as a special systematically carried-out science, 
 in connection with Physics on the one hand, and with 
 Politics on the other. The greatest possible repres- 
 sion of the dualism of the primitive elements of exist- 
 ence, as still yet admitted by Plato, leads Aristotle 
 not to a deriving of the moral idea from his more 
 fully developed God-idea, but to a still more confident 
 grounding of the same in the rational self-conscious- 
 ness, which appears here less clogged than in Plato. 
 A sound psychology affords for ethics a scientifically 
 firm basis, but the repression of the Platonic antith- 
 esis of the ideal and of reality gives it a morally 
 feebler character. 
 
 Of the three different presentations of Aristotelian ethics, 
 only the Ethica NicomacTieia (that is, ad Nicomachum) is, in the 
 eyes of the trustworthy results of criticism,t to be regarded as 
 
 * Sep., p. 377 tqq., 386 tqq., 598 sgq., 605. 
 
 t Spengel, in his Abhandl. d. Kgl. Baierschen Akad., philos.-philol. 
 l<us, 1841, iii, 2; 1846, p. 171 tqq. Brandis : Aristotdes, 1851, i, 
 p. Ill tqq. ; ii, p. 1555 tqq.
 
 16.] GOD-IDEA OF ARISTOTLE. 93 
 
 a genuine work of Aristotle, though probably not prepared by 
 himself for publication, but only sketched for personal use in 
 his lectures ; while the Endemic ethics (Eid^ta) is very probably 
 a work of Eudemus, a disciple of Aristotle, and is derived 
 mostly from the first-mentioned work, with some original addi- 
 tions, the so-called large ethics (//eydAa) being a digest from 
 both. In his Politics, which Aristotle separates from ethics, 
 though as subordinate thereto, morality is contemplated in its 
 complete realization in the state as the moral community-life. 
 Hence this work is evidently to be reckoned to his Ethics, and 
 to be regarded as its carrying-out. 
 
 Aristotle gives to ethics its name which it has ever since 
 borne and a scientific form which served as a model for the 
 entire Christian Middle Ages. His comprehensive Sthica, con- 
 sisting of ten books, contains indeed many excellent thoughts, 
 and, above all, gives evidence of a close observation of reality, 
 and in this respect is by far more sober and less idealistic than 
 Plato ; as a system, however, it is still very defective, and con- 
 tains chasms on very essential points. Only relatively few gen- 
 eral thoughts are really scientifically developed ; by far the 
 larger part is treated rather empirically and aphoristically ; 
 Aristotle expressly renounces all attempts at scientific strictness 
 of demonstration and development, for the reason that, in his 
 view, the subject does not admit of this, but only of probability. 
 Hence the form of presentation in direct contrast to Plato's 
 uniformly spirited and either scientifically or poetically inspired 
 style, sinks not unfrequently to dry common-sense observa- 
 tions, and lingers for the most part entirely within the sphere 
 of the popular grasp.* 
 
 Aristotle does not rise to the full idea of the absolute God 
 an idea which is attained to only in the thought of creation 
 but he halts immediately before reaching it; he pushes, how- 
 ever, still further into the back-ground the primitive antithesis 
 between God and the not truly real proto-material of things, 
 which was already very much enfeebled in Plato, without, how- 
 ever, entirely overcoming it. He is loth to admit a primitive 
 
 * Compare Biese : Philos. des Arist., 1838 sgq., 2 vols., a studious 
 presentation, though not sufficiently digested philosophically. Bran- 
 dis: Arist., 2 AbtTi., 1857 (especially pp. 1335-1682); profound but too 
 detailed. Trendelenburg : Histor. Bletr. z. PMl., ii, 1855, p. 852 sqq.
 
 94 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 16. 
 
 antithesis of being, but he also fails to pronounce the word 
 which alone leads beyond it, the word with which the Old 
 Testament begins. The world is in his view not merely the 
 best possible one, but it is the absolutely perfect expression of 
 the will of the rational spirit. Hence he gets rid also of that 
 notion of Plato, of an evil that pervades all real existence, and 
 especially humanity. All reality is, on the contrary, good ; also 
 the corporeality of man is no longer an imprisonment inflicted 
 for a previous guilt, but it is the normal organ of the soul. And 
 of an historically-originated depravity, Aristotle has no notion 
 whatever. It is true, the great mass of the populace are so 
 qualified by nature that they have no inner tendency toward 
 virtue, but are guided by sensuous impulses and fear (Eth. 
 Nic., x, 10), but the better-gifted free-born man is by nature 
 thoroughly good, and hence has in his own reason the pure 
 fountain of moral knowledge. On this presupposition Aristotle 
 can have perfectly free and confident scope on the basis of the 
 subjective spirit ; and notwithstanding that he conceives the 
 idea of God as the rational absolute spirit, more profoundly 
 than Plato, still he connects the study of nature and of the 
 moral spirit much less closely with the God-idea than does 
 Plato. From the very circumstance that he finds in the real 
 world a much more pure expression of the divine thought than 
 Plato, he is enabled to confide himself more unquestioningly to 
 reality, to merge himself trustingly into the real world, to read 
 in its traces the words of divine truth ; and he has also much 
 less need of the supernatural element, which, because of the 
 God-opposed undivine substratum of the universe, was highly 
 necessary in the system of Plato. 
 
 Hence in Aristotle morality is entirely rooted in the soil of 
 the subject; it appears less as the holy will of God to man, than 
 as the absolutely normal essence of the spiritual life, as called- 
 for by the rational human spirit itself. While there was in 
 Plato at least the foreshadowing of the truth, that the goal of 
 the moral striving lies in God-likeness and in the pleasure of 
 God in man, and hence bears an objective character, in Aristotle 
 the subjective character comes decidedly into the fore-ground, 
 namely, in the thought that this goal is the personal well-being 
 of the moral subject. In Plato the highest and truest is and 
 remains an object of the yon-side, an absolutely ideal somewhat
 
 16.] ARISTOTLE ON THE HEREAFTER. 95 
 
 that is never perfectly presented in reality, and never entirely 
 to be attained to, in Aristotle all ideality becomes also real, 
 and all that is true a quality of the tins-side, and that, too, not 
 as brought into reality from without, but as wrought out from 
 within. The real world is also in moral respects a perfect ex- 
 pression of the idea, and no longer a mere feeble impression 
 thereof, is the original, is an organism that potentially unfolds 
 itself with its own inherent power. Hence we find no longer 
 any longing and thirsting after a better and ideal world, no 
 poetical contemplating, no painful consciousness that the spirit 
 is fettered and bound in bands of unfreedom by an uhspiritual 
 substratum of the universe ; with Aristotle life has no longer a 
 tragical character; from his world-theory there spring no longer 
 any dark and mysterious tragedies ; his theory is a quieting, 
 genial one ; and with the falling away of the longings of unsat- 
 isfaction. falls away also poetry; the sober prose of the spirit as 
 contenting itself with the world as it is, takes its place. And 
 in this very contentedness there lies a greater antithesis to the 
 Christian world-theory than is presented in the Platonic con- 
 sciousness of an inner antagonism of existence. The rather 
 mystical contemplativeness of Plato gives place to a calculatingly 
 rationalistic view. 
 
 The psychological examination of the presuppositions of eth- 
 ics, is much more largely and deeply carried out by Aristotle 
 than by Plato, and constitutes the bright point in his philoso- 
 phy ; but that his ethics Jias, in fact, predominantly only a psy- 
 chological character, and is rooted neither in religion nor in 
 history, is its weak side. While Plato makes at least an effort 
 to give to morality an ideal character transcending reality, the 
 ethics of Aristotle rather confines itself with unquestioning sat- 
 isfaction to the sphere of the reality of man, without even rais- 
 ing the query, whether this reality is in a state of normal purity, 
 or on the contrary of deterioration ; and it is characteristic of 
 their respective views of the moral, that the thought of personal 
 immortality which stands forth so prominently in Plato, and 
 which gives to the moral striving its proper tone and consecra- 
 tion, retires in Aristotle into a very dubious back-ground. In 
 fact, he directly declares it as absurd (uTonov) to affirm, that no 
 one is happy until after he has died (Eth. Nic., i, c. 11, 13) ; he 
 'snows only of a morality of the this-side. And he expressly
 
 96 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 17. 
 
 declares death as the greatest of all evils (lio/Sfpuror 
 "for it is the end of every thing; and for the deceased there 
 appears to be no longer either any good or any evil " (Eth. Nic., 
 iii, 9), and hence death robs man of the highest goods (iii, 12). 
 
 SECTION XVII. 
 
 All striving has a goal, and this goal is for the ra- 
 tional striving a good, and hence the highest goal is 
 the highest good ; and this highest good is a perfect 
 felt well-being, which is not a merely passive state, 
 but a perfect active life of the rational spirit ; and 
 hence it consists essentially in virtue, which in its 
 turn includes per se in itself the feeling of happiness. 
 Virtue itself is either thought-virtue or ethical vir- 
 tue, according as it relates to reason or to sensuous- 
 ness. Thought-virtue is acquired by learning, ethical 
 virtue by practice. As the good consists in harmony, 
 and hence in a proper measure, hence the non-good 
 consists in a too-much or a too-little. Hence virtue 
 is always the observance of the proper mean between 
 two unvirtues. The presupposition of all moral action 
 is the perfect freedom of the will, a doctrine to which 
 Aristotle, in opposition to the view of Socrates that 
 the knowledge of the right necessarily leads to its 
 practice, holds distinctly fast. 
 
 The rational spirit is not a reposing or merely passively moved 
 entity, but an activity. The thinking spirit is at the same time 
 a volitionating, an acting, and a working spirit. All volition- 
 ating aims at something as an end, namely, in all cases, that 
 which appears to him, who volitionates, as a good. Hence the 
 good (TO a-yaOoi') is primarily that whereon the striving is direct- 
 ed in view to its attainment. Now there are many and different 
 ends and goods, whereof some are related to others merely as 
 co-adjutant, as means to higher ends and goods. But if the 
 striving is a rational one, that is, a sure and consistent one, then 
 there must be a last end, a highest good, which is not a mere
 
 17.] ARISTOTLE ON EUDAEMONISM. 97 
 
 means to another end, but which is aimed at for its own sake, 
 and for the sake of which alone we" aim at all other goods, and 
 which is hence an absolutely perfect end, a TeXetov, which has 
 its end, TO re/of, within itself. Honor, riches, knowledge, etc., 
 are goods, though they are not sought for their own sake, but 
 ahvays for a higher purpose to which they are but the means, are 
 but the partial goods of one perfect good ; and this good is 
 the perfection of one's own existence and life, the well-being, 
 ev6ai/j.ovia, that is, the vitality of the life as perfect in itself, and 
 as being its own end, C^W rifaiag evep-yeia. This well-being is 
 not sought in the interest of another good, but for its own sake, 
 and is hence the highest good (Nic., i, c. 1 sqq.; comp. Eud., i, 1). 
 This "eudaemonia" is by no means one and the same with our 
 notion of happiness, but includes the same in itself. Happiness 
 is only the one, the subjective phase, namely, the happiness- 
 feeling that is connected with this u eudaemonia," whereas the 
 "eudaemonia" itself has essentially and primarily an objective 
 significancy, namely, the being well-conditioned or blessed, the 
 possession of the all-sidedly perfect life. Hence it is not with- 
 out meaning when a special examination is entered upon as to 
 whether the pleasure-feeling is included in the "eudaemonia" 
 (Me., i, c. 9). The good is accordingly by no means a mere 
 idea never entirely realizable in the this-side, as with Plato, but 
 it is a full reality already in the present life, finds this reality 
 in the actual being and life of the sage ; it is not a merely ab- 
 stract general something, but a definite quality inherent in indi- 
 vidual existence; not a yon-side something transcending all 
 special goods, but one that is realized in the totality itself of 
 these goods (Nic., i, 4). This totality, however, is not a mere 
 sum, for were this the case the highest good might be increased 
 by some newly added good, but it is a unitary whole, whereof 
 the different goods are but the special forms (Nic., i, 5). 
 
 Well-being as a purely human good is not mere life, for life 
 exists also with plants and animals, nor yet the mere sentient 
 life, for this exists also with animals ; but it is the rationally- 
 active life, and hence the perfectly active life of the rational 
 spirit, is not mere being and determinatedness, but a self- 
 determining, an ivepyeia, is not merely a good, but works the 
 good on and on (Nic., i, 6, 7). This implies of itself that the 
 highest good, well-being, is not outside of or merely subsequent
 
 98 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 17. 
 
 to virtue; on the contrary, virtue itself constitutes a part of the 
 essence of the highest good, which in fact consists in activity, 
 though it is not per se the whole highest good ; for to perfect 
 well-being belongs also the happiness-feeling, the feeling of ^ 
 pleasure, which results upon the successful issuing of the virtu- 
 ous activity. Hence this happiness-feeling is not a something 
 independent of virtue, and existing outside of and along-side 
 of it ; on the contrary the virtuous life already contains happi- 
 ness as its necessary constituent ; for only he is virtuous who 
 does the good gladly, who has joy in virtue. In so far, there- 
 fore, one may indeed say that the highest good consists in the 
 practicing of virtue, and of all the virtues (Nic., i, 7-9). How- 
 ever, Aristotle admits that to perfect well-being belong also 
 such goods as are not already directly given in virtue itself, such 
 as are even independent thereof, as, e. g., earthly affluence, good 
 descent, beauty, health, a happy close of life, etc. (Nic., i, 9-11). 
 With this very true concession to the natural consciousness as 
 unprejudiced by any one-sided system, the consequentiality of 
 Aristotle's ethical system is manifestly broken. For if there are 
 real goods, and conditions of the highest good, which are inde- 
 pendent of moral perfection, and if consequently the truly vir- 
 tuous man may possibly be without the highest good, then there 
 prevails no moral world-order, and morality is deprived of its 
 assurance ; and as it is a legitimate goal to strive for the high- 
 est good, hence it follows that man must strive after still other 
 possessions outside of morality, and which do not depend there- 
 on, and which he can consequently acquire only in extra-moral 
 and hence immoral ways. But as Aristotle does not recognize 
 any guilty corruption of human nature, hence the above conces- 
 sion involves him in an absolutely insolvable dilemma, in a vio- 
 lent contradiction with his own system. He prefers, however, 
 to be in contradiction with himself, rather than, in the interests 
 of his system, to deny manifest experience, to the true under- 
 standing of which he does not possess the key. 
 
 But wherein now consists virtue, and hence the most essential 
 element of well-being ? In man there is a two-phased life, sen- 
 suousness and reason, which are often in conflict with each other. 
 Sensuousness, in so far as it is not purely vegetative, namely, 
 the nutritive activity of the physical life, but sensuous desire, 
 may be and should be governed by the reason. Virtue assumes
 
 17.] ARISTOTLE ON VIRTUE. 99 
 
 accordingly a twofold form ; in the first place it relates to the 
 proper condition of reason itself, and in the second place to the 
 proper condition of the sensuous nature, as consisting in the 
 subordination of the same to reason; in the first sense it is 
 thought-virtue, in the second ethical virtue (aperi) iiavorjuicr/ and 
 ri6iK.fi). The former is mainly wisdom ; the latter includes tem- 
 perateness, liberality, etc. That the former belongs among the 
 virtues, appears from this, that we praise it in a person as his 
 merit (Xic., i, 13). The word ethical as applied here to virtue 
 is taken in its narrower sense, as relating to practical habits. It 
 is clear at a glance, that this division of the virtues is entirely 
 inadequate, unless the one or the other class of virtues is taken 
 in a wider sense than is strictly admissible. For there are purely 
 spiritual virtues, e, g., humility, truthfulness, fidelity, thankful- 
 ness, which are in no way connected with sensuousness, and are 
 yet not intellectual or thought-virtues. But if we take wisdom, 
 as in Plato, in the wide sense of an inner harmony of the rational 
 soul in general, then very manifestly the ethical virtues which 
 consist in the controlling of the sensuous nature, would not be 
 co-ordinate but subordinate thereto. The thought-virtue can 
 be taught or learned, especially by abundance of life-experience ; 
 on the contrary, the ethical virtues are acquired by frequent 
 repetitions of the same actions, that is, by habituation, are es- 
 sentially facilities in acting, acquired by practice. By nature 
 we have no virtue, but only the possibility and capability there- 
 of; and the capability becomes a real virtue only by practice 
 and habit. Hence virtuous actions are primarily not the conse- 
 quence, but the ground and presupposition of virtue. It is only 
 by repeatedly acting virtuously that man becomes virtuous (Nic., 
 ii, 1, 2). How it is possible to act virtuously before one has 
 virtue, and what motive man can have to act virtuously before 
 he is virtuous, Aristotle asks indeed, and he recognizes the dif- 
 ficulty of the question, but he does not solve it. The indication 
 that we possess virtue is this, that in our virtuous acting we 
 feel also delight. Virtue is neither a passion, such as anger, 
 fear, love, hatred, etc., because the passions are natural move- 
 ments not springing from our will, nor bearing as yet per se any 
 moral character, nor is it a faculty, for this is given by nature, 
 but it is a facility (e&c), that is, the moral manner of our bear- 
 ing toward the passions ; and indeed it is that particular facility 
 
 8
 
 100 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 17. 
 
 whereby man becomes a good man, and his work a good work 
 (Nic., ii, 5).* This is of course as yet a very insignificant and 
 purely formal definition. In order to give it some contents, 
 Aristotle resorts to this course : In every matter there is only a 
 single form of the right, but manifold forms of the wrong, 
 even as in regard to a mark there are many directions for shoot- 
 ing by it, but only one for hitting it, for which reason also the 
 right is much more difficult to find and to do than is the un- 
 right. The unright in a manner of acting is either a defect or 
 an excess ; the right is the correct measure, and hence the mean 
 between the two. Hence virtue is (and this is its complete def- 
 inition) a freely-willed facility in observing the middle-way 
 (fieaoTijf) as correctly determined for us by reason and by the 
 judgment of the judicious (Nic., ii, 6; iii, 8; comp. Eucl., ii, 3). 
 [That in this connection only the ethical virtues are meant, ap- 
 pears from the entire context. But by this circumstance the 
 general definition of virtue becomes again more unclear.] The 
 middle-way is in all things the best. Virtue aims consequently 
 not at a mean between good and evil, but at the best, and the 
 best is the mean between too much and too little. Thus, brav- 
 ery is the mean between cowardice and fool-hardiness; temper- 
 ateness, the mean between dissoluteness and insensibility to 
 pleasure-sensations ; liberality the mean between prodigality 
 and niggardliness; love of honor stands mid-way between un- 
 bounded ambitiousness of fame and an absolute indifference to 
 the opinion of others ; evenness of temper, between irascibility 
 and stupidity, etc. (Nic., ii, 7). From this it follows that any 
 two mutually-opposed faults stand to each other in a much more 
 violent contrast, than does either of the two to the correspond- 
 ing virtue (Nic., ii, 8). 
 
 It is very manifest that this merely quantitative distinguish- 
 ing of good and evil does not touch the essence of morality at 
 all, and in its practical application undermines all certainty of 
 the moral judgment, which is thereby transferred from the 
 sphere of the conscience into that of the calculating understand- 
 ing. In this view evil is not qualitatively, that is, essentially, 
 different from the good, but it differs only in number and de- 
 gree; hence there is between the two no radical antithesis, but 
 only a gradual transition ; in fact the transition from one vice 
 Comp. Trendelenburg : Histor. eitr., i, pp. 95, 174.
 
 17 -] DEFECTIVE VIRTUE-CONCEPTION. 101 
 
 to the opposite one passes necessarily through the corresponding 
 virtue. Aristotle himself becomes conscious of the defectiveness 
 of his definition of virtue ; he concedes that there are also ac- 
 tions and tempers in regard to which the notion of the too-much 
 or too-little is not at all applicable, as, e. g., delight in misfor- 
 tune, envy, murder, theft, adultery, which are all per se and in 
 their essence wrong, and do not simply become so by rising to 
 a certain height; there can be, for example, no permissible de- 
 gree of adultery, and so of the other cases (Nic., ii, 7). And if 
 notwithstanding this he is still unwilling to discard his defini- 
 tion of virtue, this only evinces the utter perplexity of the the- 
 orist ; for by making this concession, his definition is completely 
 undermined, inasmuch as it is thereby implied that the differ- 
 ence between good and evil is not a quantitative but a qualita- 
 tive one. And the matter is made much worse still by the 
 express admission, that virtue is often not in the actual middle 
 between the two opposite-standing faults, but stands nearer to 
 the one extreme than to the other, that bravery, e. ff., stands 
 nearer to fool-hardiness than to cowardice, liberality nearer to 
 prodigality than to niggardliness, etc., and that of two errors 
 the one is usually less hurtful than the other (Nic., ii, 8), for 
 by this admission not only is the ground-principle entirely over- 
 thrown, but also all possibility of a certain judgment as to 
 morality is cut off. By what rule is one to find in the diagonal 
 the correct virtue-point, if this point is an eccentric one? Aris- 
 totle himself feels the great difficulty which results from charg- 
 ing the moral consciousness of the individual with the duty of 
 such a calculation ; and he knows no better counsel to give than 
 that given by Circe to Ulysses in regard to his sailing between 
 Scylla and Charybdis, namely, to steer nearer the less dangerous 
 Scylla, to go nearer the extreme that is less remote from the 
 mean virtue, than to the other, and to incur the risk of the less 
 fault of the two ; and in order most easily to find the middle- 
 way, one must sometimes deviate (airoK^iveiv) on the side of ex- 
 cess, and sometimes on the side of defectiveness (Nic., ii, 9). 
 More patently than this, Aristotle could hardly possibly have 
 confessed the insufficiency of his definition of virtue. 
 
 Morality presupposes the freedom of the will ; only that which 
 takes place from free self-determination is morally imputed to a 
 man, is praised or blamed. Virtue belongs exclusively to the
 
 102 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 17. 
 
 sphere of freedom ; that is unfree which is either forced or which 
 is done from ignorance ; passionate movements of feeling, such 
 as anger or sensuous desire, do not destroy the freedom of the 
 will, for man can and should control them by reason ; even in 
 case of moral violence, by the excitement of fear, etc., the free- 
 dom of volition remains ; involuntary is only the forced action 
 which takes place with inner resistance (Nic., iii, 1-3 ; comp. 
 Eud., ii, 6). From willingness as the more comprehensive no- 
 tion, the resolution is, as the narrower, to be distinguished, 
 namely, the will as deliberately directed to a definite and possi- 
 ble-regarded goal (Nic., iii, 4, 5). A resolution is free also in 
 regard to the recognized good or evil. Every resolution is, it 
 is true, directed to a good, with the sage always to the truly 
 good, but with others to that which to them seems to be good ; 
 from this it does not follow, however, that men always sin sim- 
 ply from error, and that where there is a real knowledge of the 
 good, the resolution must necessarily be directed to this, as is 
 taught by Socrates and Plato. Such a view is contradicted 
 even by the genjeral moral judgment both of individuals and of 
 the State, which makes man, as soon as he has come to under- 
 standing, responsible for all the evil which he does, and imputes 
 it to him as guilt. It is true, many do evil simply from the 
 error of their moral judgment or from the worthlessness of their 
 character, but both that error and this worthlessness are their 
 own fault, and do not excuse them ; in fact man can even pur- 
 posely do what he has recognized as evil, namely, by inquiring 
 not after the good, but only after the agreeable ; and the opinion, 
 that no one does evil voluntarily and consciously, conflicts with 
 undeniable experience and with the essence of will-freedom 
 (Nic., iii, 6, 7 ; v, 12 ; vii, 2, 3). In this connection Aristotle 
 makes the significant and almost surprising observation, that 
 the character which has become evil by guilt can just as little 
 be thrown off again at mere volition, as the person who has 
 made himself sick by his own fault, can become well again at 
 mere volition ; once become evil or sick, it stands no longer 
 within his discretion to cease to be so; a stone when once 
 cast cannot be caught back from its flight; and so is it also 
 with the character which has become evil. This thought might 
 have led further ; Aristotle, however, does not follow it out, and 
 he leaves unanswered the closely related question, as to how,
 
 18.] ARISTOTELIAN VIRTUES. 103 
 
 then, a reformation in character is possible. Moreover, he does 
 not concede to evil any other than an individual effect, knows 
 nothing of any natural solidarity of evil in self-propagating, 
 morally-degenerated races. Every man, at least the free-born 
 Greek, is, on the contrary, perfectly good by nature, and the 
 sensuous nature with which every one is born has, in reason, its 
 perfectly sufficient counterpoise. 
 
 SECTION XVIII. 
 
 In carrying out his system into details Aristotle 
 treats first the ethical virtues, and as their chief rep- 
 resentatives : courage, temperateness, liberality, mag- 
 nanimity (from which the love of honor is, as of a 
 lower quality, to be distinguished), the proper control 
 of temper, and, as predominantly social virtues : ami- 
 ability, truthfulness, readiness in good-natured wit, 
 shame, but especially justness and, as closely-related 
 therewith, fairness or equity. As intellectual or 
 thought-virtues are examined, more largely, prudence 
 and wisdom ; and their significancy is more closely 
 defined than in Socrates and Plato. As considered 
 under another phase, namely, in respect to the degree 
 of the moral power virtualizing itself in the doing 
 of the good, the moral character is distinguished into 
 virtuousness in the narrower sense, into temper ateness, 
 and into heroic or divine virtue. 
 
 The carrying-out of the ethical matter proper, though rich in 
 suggestive thoughts and observations, is devoid of a general 
 scientific development from one central principle; nor do we 
 find as yet any strict organic classification. The Platonic divis- 
 ion of the virtues ( 14), though made the basis, is neither 
 strictly observed nor further developed. Differing from Plato, 
 Aristotle does not first discuss wisdom as the root of all the 
 other virtues, but, on the contrary, manliness or courage (av6pia) 
 which stands mid-way between fool-hardy daring and coward-
 
 104 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 18. 
 
 ice. It relates not to all the evils that are to be assailed, but 
 essentially to death ; and also not to every mortal danger, but 
 more especially to the most honorable of these dangers, danger 
 upon the battle-field, and besides also to mortal danger by sea 
 and in sickness (Nic., iii, 9-12). This limitation, though ex- 
 plainable from the warlike national character, is not based in 
 the moral idea ; and for courage in the full sense of the word in 
 the face of all evils, Aristotle finds no place at all in his system 
 of virtue. The motive to courage is not the thought of an 
 eternal crown, for death is for the virtuous man the most fear- 
 ful of all evils, for precisely for him life has the greatest worth, 
 but this motive is only a delight in duty and in the beautiful 
 (Nic., iii, 12). The second virtue is temperateness or modera- 
 tion (aufypoavvrj), which consists in the observance of the right 
 mean in regard to sensuous pleasure, even as, on the other 
 hand, courage relates to evil, that is, pain. The extending 
 of this virtue to other than the sensuous, and that too the low- 
 est sensuous feelings of taste and of sensibility, is expressly 
 disallowed ; and hence there remain moral phenomena, both 
 virtues and vices, which find no place whatever in the classes 
 of virtue admitted by Aristotle. As to the question, by what 
 rule the proper measure is to be judged, we are not answered ; 
 virtue is simply placed in the middle between the immodera- 
 tion which surrenders itself passionately to sensuous pleasure, 
 and which sinks man to the brute, and an entire desireless- 
 ness or insensibility to sensuous pleasure, which, however, 
 only rarely or in fact strictly speaking never exists, for 
 then man would be no longer human (Nic., iii, 13-15); in 
 which case the finding of the virtuous mean between the 
 two faults would be a rather difficult matter. Liberality or 
 generosity, as the third virtue, is the observance of the mid- 
 dle-way in the use of property. It gives cheerfully, out of 
 delight in the beauty of the action, but only to such as de- 
 serve it ; that it rests on love is not stated. As especially im- 
 portant, is extensively discussed, liberality for public and 
 generally useful ends, for theatrical entertainments, for pop- 
 ular diversions, for the feasting of the collective citizenship, 
 for the outfitting of war-ships, and for the keeping up of a 
 state of luxury in the interest of the dignity of the person, 
 the virtue of fie-ya^onp^fia (Nic., iv, 1-6). Of the moral dan-
 
 18.] MAGNANIMITY, EQUANIMITY. 105 
 
 gers of riches for the moral disposition itself, aside from the 
 two errors of prodigality and niggardliness, nothing is said ; 
 on the contrary, riches is regarded as a high and much to be 
 desired good. Magnanimity (neyahotyvxin) belongs only to 
 men of high gifts, and is, as opposed to empty pretense, on 
 the one hand, and to self-disparaging pusillanimousness, on 
 the other, the proper respecting of self, the moral pride of 
 the great man, while the proper self-respect of the ordinary 
 person is not magnanimity, but only modesty ; the former 
 virtue stands higher than the latter. Only he can be mag- 
 nanimous who is adorned with all the virtues, that is, the 
 truly great man ; and he puts this virtue into practice, in that 
 he strives after true honor, that is, after the esteem of the 
 great and noble, as the highest of external goods, while he 
 disdains the honor and reproach which come from unimport- 
 ant men. But proper magnanimity is only possible when, with 
 the inner virtue-merit there is associated also an outwardly 
 happy and eminent condition, such as rich possessions, a high- 
 born family, power, etc., for this brings honor; hence the 
 magnanimous man will seek, though not primarily and chief- 
 ly, after these things, not so much for their own sake, as 
 simply for the honor associated with them. In less great 
 souls the virtue of magnanimity gives place to the lone of 
 honor which looks only to inferior degrees of honor, and 
 which holds the mean between immoderate ambition and 
 pusillanimity (Nic., iv, 7-10). The virtue of equanimity or 
 gentleness, (irpaorrif) occupies the mean between irascibility 
 and phlegmatic insensibility, and hence consists in the proper 
 tempering of anger, and is practically of difficult observ- 
 ance. Not to indulge in anger at all is stolidity, and not to 
 defend one's self against offenses is dishonorable and cow- 
 ardly. It is advisable not to repress wrath, but to let it 
 come to expression ; the indulging of vengeance stills wrath. 
 Aristotle regards revenge as a something entirely legitimate, 
 and simply warns against over-indulgence. More specific 
 limitations of this dangerous virtue he regards as impractica- 
 ble, holding that feeling decides this best in each particular 
 case, and that minor deviations from the right mean are here 
 not to be censured (Nic., iv, 11). 
 
 Without any strict logical connection, Aristotle now passes
 
 106 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 18. 
 
 to treat of the social virtues. Between the vices of a fawning 
 seeking for approbation and a yielding to the wishes of every 
 one, on the one hand, and an unsocial abruptness, on the 
 other, stands the virtue of friendly and polite amiability, a 
 virtue which (in distinction from personal love) relates not to 
 definite loved persons, but to all with whom we come into 
 association, and does not rest on love (Nic., iv, 12). Be- 
 tween vain-boastf ulness and ironical self-disparagement, lies 
 the virtue of truthfulness of discourse, especially in relation 
 to the speaker himself, in other words, straightforwardness 
 and honesty. But inasmuch as too strong self-praise is more 
 offensive to others than self-disparagement, hence it is ad- 
 visable to speak rather too humbly than too highly of one's 
 self (Nic., iv, 13). A third social virtue relates to social in- 
 tercourse and jesting, and is, in contrast to buffoonery and 
 excessive irony, on the one hand, and sardonic moroseness on 
 the other, cheerful facetiousness and gracious aptness in wit 
 (evrpaneMa) (Nic., iv, 14; comp. Eud., iii, 7). Aristotle 
 speaks here merely incidentally of shame, that is, the fear of 
 disgrace, which is indeed not per se a virtue, but only an in- 
 stinct ; it becomes a virtue only under special circumstances, 
 namely, when a mature person has really done something of 
 which he must feel ashamed, and also in youth, because here 
 the passions are violent, and shame is a check against them. 
 The morally matured man, however, is never to have occasion 
 to feel ashamed, for he is not by any means to think of him- 
 self as being so constituted as to be capable of doing any- 
 thing shameful (Nic., iv, 15). Of the true moral significancy 
 of shame, which is so suggestively indicated in Gen. iii, 7, 
 Aristotle has no conception. 
 
 The most important social virtue, the one which in fact in- 
 cludes all the others in so far as they relate to our conduct 
 toward others, is justness, which consists in respecting the 
 laws of the State and the rights of others, so that every man 
 is treated as he deserves and as he has a right to claim. In 
 a narrower sense justness relates only to the "mine" and the 
 "thine," to property and earnings. The principle of the just 
 mean is here of difficult application, as there is manifestly no 
 immoral form of conduct which can contain too great an ob- 
 servance of the rights of others (Nic. v, 1-14.)
 
 18.] FAIRNESS, PRUDENCE, WISDOM. 107 
 
 Related to justness, and belonging thereto in the wider 
 sense of the word, is the subordinate virtue of equitableness 
 or fairness. It accomplishes in contrast to the rigid observ- 
 ance of the letter of the civil law true justness outside of 
 the requirements of the law, which can in fact only express 
 the general, and cannot apply to every individual case ; hence 
 it is an improving and perfecting of the law, in that in the 
 interest of justness one does not in certain cases insist on a 
 right which the outward law concedes (Nic., v, 15). Against 
 his own self man cannot, properly speaking, do injustice ; 
 even suicide, as being voluntary, is not an injustice to one's 
 self, but only to the State. 
 
 In respect to the intellectual or thought-virtues, of which 
 only prudence and wisdom are more especially treated (Nic., 
 vi, 1-13), the thought of the middle-way is of course no lon- 
 ger applicable ; they, do not themselves observe the just 
 mean, rather is it they themselves that discover it. Prudence 
 or sensibleness (^povj/trtf, more than prudence as the word is 
 usually taken, but also not synonymous with reasonableness, 
 as Brandis would have it) is the spiritual facility of making in 
 each particular case suitable practical decisions in regard to 
 what is good or evil for the actor. Wisdom (ao$ia) is of a 
 higher character, and gives to prudence its right basis. It is 
 the proper knowledge of the ultimate grounds of true knowl- 
 edge, and the deriving of the same from these grounds, and 
 hence refers to the immutable, whereas prudence has to do 
 with the mutable and transitory ; wisdom relates to the uni- 
 versally valid ; prudence, to that which is befitting for the 
 individual ; and hence prudence is the specific practical ap- 
 plication of wisdom, which latter expresses rather the moral 
 idea per se. Hence prudence or sensibleness is the applying 
 of moral wisdom in the ethical virtues. Wisdom and pru- 
 dence do not constitute the whole of virtue itself, as Socrates 
 affirms, but they are, as 6p06f ?.oy6f, the necessary presupposi- 
 tion of all the other virtues. 
 
 Aristotle passes now to another manner of considering the 
 moral bearing, namely, not, as thus far, in reference to its 
 material quality, but in reference to the degree of moral en- 
 ergy therein virtualized. Over against the threefold grada- 
 tion qf the immoral that is to be distinguished in this respect,
 
 108 CHRISTIAN" ETHICS. [ 18. 
 
 namely, viciousness, incontinence, and brutality, wherein 
 the moral consciousness and the moral will are either badly 
 constituted or feeble, or entirely wanting, stands the three- 
 fold gradation of the moral, namely, mrtuouaness in the nar- 
 rower sense, continence, and heroic or divine virtue ; the latter 
 makes man entirely like the gods, but is attained to only sel- 
 dom; but equally seldom is also the opposite extreme, brutal- 
 ity. Incontinence is a weakness of the moral witt, for the 
 person knows that his desires are evil, nevertheless he follows 
 them, and hence sins (what Socrates declares as impossible) 
 consciously and from passionateness. On the contrary, he 
 who is continent or firm in character acts constantly in har- 
 mony with his rational insight. The feeble and hesitative 
 manner in which Aristotle attempts to answer the perplexing 
 questions which present themselves in this connection, indi- 
 cates very clearly, how little knowledge he has of the per- 
 versity of a corrupted heart (Me., vii, 1-7). "While Socrates 
 covers the majority of sins with ignorance and error, and 
 thus palliates their guilt, Aristotle, who recognizes the mani- 
 fold contradiction between knowledge and volition, goes so 
 far in the other direction, as to admit inborn faults and pas- 
 sions, and even inborn unnatural vices, and to find therein 
 a degree of excuse for the deviating of those who are thus 
 afflicted, from better knowledge; "the fact of having such 
 proclivities, lies outside of the sphere of the morally evil ;" 
 and when man is dominated by such evil proclivities, it is only 
 in an improper sense that his conduct is to be called immoral 
 (Nic., vii, 6). How such an innateness of evil proclivities is 
 to be explained, we are not informed. The proclivity to an- 
 ger especially is to be judged very mildly, there lies in it 
 even something rational, as in contrast to the sensuous desires, 
 and at all events no presumption ; and its justification lies in 
 its universal prevalence. In general it is excusable to follow 
 one's natural proclivities, and this all the more so the more 
 they are universal (Me., vii, 7). The incontinent are not 
 properly speaking vicious, but only similar to the vicious, 
 and for the reason that in them there is no evil purpose 
 (Me., vii, 9.) 
 
 After an extended consideration of friendship as a special 
 field of the moral activity, Aristotle concludes with an ex-
 
 18.] IDEAL SAGE-LIFE. 109 
 
 tensive discussion of pleasure (r^Sovif) and well-being (evdai/j.ovia) 
 as results of virtuous conduct. Pleasure is not identical with 
 the good, is not the highest good, but many kinds of pleas- 
 ure are goods, and hence to be aimed at, while others are 
 not so. Pleasure is the result of a power-exertion in coming 
 to its goal, and hence is an attendant of life-development 
 per se; now, according as this power-exertion is good or evil, 
 so is also the pleasure attending it, and only the pleasure 
 which is connected with an exercise of virtue is true pleasure 
 (Nic., x, 1-5). Well-being is not a mere condition, but is es- 
 sentially life-activity, and indeed such a life-activity as is not 
 a purposeless play, but a rational practicing of virtue. Now 
 as cognition is the highest spiritual exertion of power, hence 
 the acquiring of the knowledge of wisdom is coincident with 
 the highest well-being ; all other activity is less constant and 
 permanent, less free and independent, rests less upon itself 
 and has its end less within itself. Hence the practically-act- 
 ing life stands only in secondary importance, as in fact also 
 the life and the happiness of the gods, or of God, consists not 
 in such an outward-working activity, but only in reflection. 
 In third importance stand the outward goods of fortune : 
 health, riches, etc. Now, though such goods are indeed also 
 necessary to well-being, still they are needed only in a mod- 
 erate degree, and the sage can be happy even with relatively 
 small goods of fortune ; for he who develops and perfects the 
 thinking spirit with great zeal is the most beloved of the 
 gods, and is the happiest, for he is most like the gods (Nic., 
 x, 6-9). Herein this ethical system returns to its starting- 
 point, though we cannot say that this return results from a 
 natural and organic development. Indeed, the fact that well- 
 being is indicated as the highest good, at the outset of the 
 ethical development, and that now it presents itself in the 
 end as the result of the moral life-activity, would seem to 
 present an excellently rounded development-course of the 
 system ; but Aristotle essentially disturbs this organic devel- 
 opment of his thoughts by his preference (surprising, in view 
 of his previous discussions) of the contemplative life to the 
 outwardly-active life, and for the assumed reason that the 
 former, as being the truly divine life, far transcends the lat- 
 ter ; and when he is at the very point of making the transi-
 
 110 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 19 
 
 tion from merely individual morality into the consideration 
 of the moral community-life, which rests quite predominant- 
 ly on the practically-working activity of all the individuals 
 and is primarily the result thereof, he throws this activity 
 with a strange disdain into the background, behind the 
 purely intellectual activity of the unsocial individual spirit. 
 In this connection Plato is at least more consequential, in that 
 he by no means directs the philosopher to the merely contem- 
 plative life, but concedes to him political domination as his 
 peculiar right and his highest calling. It is evidently no 
 very virtue-encouraging thought, that the highest well-being 
 should be one-sidedly placed in an activity, for which only 
 the fewest virtues are requisite. 
 
 SECTION XIX. 
 
 The idea, already so strongly emphasized by Plato, 
 of a moral community-life, is developed by Aristotle 
 further still, and more judiciously, without his being 
 able, however, fully to divest it of the one-sidedness of 
 the general Graeco-heathen world-view. The idea of 
 humanity as a moral whole is entirely wanting to him 
 also ; individual morality has absolute predominance. 
 The family is indeed somewhat more highly con- 
 ceived of than in Plato, because the reality of life is 
 more impartially observed, but yet it is not recog- 
 nized as the basis of the moral whole, but only as a 
 subordinate manifestation-form of morality as bearing 
 upon the moral community-life. Wedlock-love and 
 family-love in general is only a special form of friend- 
 ship as expressive of individual morality. Friend- 
 ship, however, is not so much a duty as an expression 
 of the striving after individual well-being, bears not 
 an objective but a subjective character. But also 
 friendship forms neither the basis nor the transition to 
 a moral community-life ; the community-life, on the
 
 19.] FRIENDSHIP, LOVE. Ill 
 
 contrary, is based directly upon the laws as express- 
 ive of the moral idea, and as constituting the state, 
 the task of which is, under the guidance of the moral- 
 ly higher-gifted, to tutor and direct the great multi- 
 tude of the morally-immature, and to habituate them 
 to the good. 
 
 To the examination of friendship Aristotle devotes two en- 
 tire books of his Ethics, in great detail. Friendship is in- 
 deed virtue, but not a special virtue along-side of the others ; 
 it is rather a special manifestation-form of virtue in general. 
 Its definition is more comprehensive than is usual in modern 
 times, and includes in itself love in general, but it is by no 
 means identical with the Christian idea of love ; it has not 
 an objective and general, but only a subjective and individ- 
 ual significancy ; it loves not for the sake of the loved one, 
 but for the happiness of the lover, seeks primarily not the 
 weal of the other, but its own, loves not man as man, but 
 only this or that person according to individual election, to 
 the exclusion of others. The idea of general love to man, as 
 a duty, is to Aristotle also as well as to the Greek in general, 
 utterly foreign. The highest attainment consists in true 
 friendship to one or to a few chosen ones. Toward the rest 
 of mankind there is shown only a very feeble and luke-warm 
 good-will, a justness and fairness which respect essentially 
 only particular rights, humaneness in the usual sense of the 
 word. Aristotle connects the examination of friendship di- 
 rectly and expressly with that of pleasure, and places it be- 
 fore the more particular development of the latter, and con- 
 siders it also under such a phase as that it appears not so 
 much as duty as rather as a virtualization of the striving 
 after happiness. Friendship seeks indeed also the weal of 
 the other, but first of all it seeks reciprocal love, and can ex- 
 ist only where it finds this ; nevertheless, that friendship 
 which loves only for the sake of the pleasure and the benefit, 
 is not the true and lasting love, but only that which exists 
 between those who are good and resemblant in virtue, inas- 
 much as here the per se lasting good and the person himself 
 are loved ; in the friend I love, at the same time, that which
 
 112 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 19. 
 
 is for myself a good ; such true friendship, however, is sel- 
 doni, and can never exist at the same time with many per- 
 sons (Nic., viii, 1-7; ix, 4, 5). Friendship in the narrower 
 sense presupposes a certain moral similarity between its sub- 
 jects ; but in a wider sense it may also exist between the dis- 
 similar, especially where the one person has a spiritual pre- 
 eminence over the other, and where consequently the kind of 
 the love is with each party a different one. Under this cate- 
 gory belongs the love between husband and wife, parents 
 and children, and between the higher and the lower in rank. 
 The higher of two persons will, and ought to, be more loved 
 in this relation, than he himself loves, because loving is 
 measured by the worth of the beloved object (Me., viii, 8, 9). 
 This feature is characteristic of the predominantly individual 
 and subjective character of love, in Aristotle's system. Even 
 parents and children stand to each other only in this individ- 
 ual relation, they adapt the degree of their love according 
 to the individual worth of the other ; the family has not an 
 objective character which is to be held sacred under all cir- 
 cumstances, and which is superior to all individual choice ; 
 the degree of love diminishes with the increase of the worth 
 of the subject as compared with the worth of the object; and 
 for self-sacrificing maternal love, Aristotle, although he ob- 
 serves it, has no just appreciation. 
 
 Of wedlock and of sexual love, Aristotle speaks on the whole 
 only incidentally and very inadequately. Wedlock is the 
 most natural of all friendships, and lias for its end not merely 
 the generation of children, but also the aiding and comple- 
 menting of each other in all the relations of life (Nic., viii, 
 14; coinp. Oecon., i, 3). The husband, as the stronger, has 
 the duty of protecting the wife and remaining faithful to 
 her (Oecon., i, 4), and the right to rule over her, not abso- 
 lutely, however, but only in the sphere belonging to him 
 (Nic., viii, 12). Children stand to their parents in a perma- 
 nent debt-relation, cannot divest themselves of their obli- 
 gation to them, though the father may cast off his son (Nic., 
 vii, 16). The obligation of children to fulfill the will of the 
 parents is not, however, unlimited, because other obligations 
 may modify it ; the chief duty of children is to show rever-
 
 19.] THE STATE VERSUS THE MASSES. 113 
 
 ence to their parents, and when they need it, to assure them 
 sustenance (Nic., ix, 2). 
 
 In his further discussion of friendship Aristotle makes 
 many ingenious observations. Those to whom one has shown 
 benefits, one is accustomed to love more than those from 
 whom one has received benefits, because every one esteems 
 especially highly that which himself has done, whereas he 
 feels the debt-relation as in some sense disagreeable (Nic., 
 ix, 7). It is true, Aristotle does not exactly praise this feel- 
 ing, but he finds it very natural, and has for it no blame. 
 The truly good man loves himself perfectly, but this legiti- 
 mate self-love is not an enjoyment-seeking selfishness, for he 
 loves in himself only the better part, and he promotes his 
 own weal, in that he loves and works the good ; and even 
 when he makes sacrifices for others, he wins for himself the 
 higher good (Me., ix, 9). 
 
 In conceiving of the essence of the family as a mere friend- 
 ship, it is natural that Aristotle should not make it the basis 
 of the wider community-life, the State, but that he should 
 place it rather in the sphere of individual morality, and that 
 he should make the transition to the discussion of the state, 
 neither from friendship nor from the family, but rather de- 
 rive the thought of the state immediately from the general 
 thought of morality, and transfer all the moral significancy 
 of the family to the thus self-based state. This transition 
 Aristotle makes thus : the teaching of virtue suffices not for 
 the great multitude to induce them to virtue, seeing that 
 they are guided almost exclusively by fear and not by knowl- 
 edge. The multitude must be trained to virtue and con- 
 stantly guided, and hence stand in need of laws ; the training 
 of a father suffices not for this, because it lacks the necessary 
 authority and coercive power; only the rationally-governed 
 state has both of these, and is hence the ^necessary condition 
 of a more general realization of morality (Nic., x, 10). 
 
 Aristotle is too judicious an observer of reality, idealistic- 
 ally to expect all salvation from mere instruction, and not to 
 admit the moral unimpressibility of the great multitude ; he 
 speaks thereof in the strongest expressions; "the great mul- 
 titude obeys force rather than reason, and punishment rather 
 than morality;" "the majority abstain from evil not because
 
 114 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 19. 
 
 it is disgraceful, but because they fear punishment ; guided 
 only by their passions they aim. at nothing but sensuous pleas- 
 ure, and shun nothing but the pains that are contrary there- 
 to ; but of the morally beautiful, and of the true joy therein 
 contained, they have not the least notion, seeing that they 
 have never tasted it" (Nic., x, 10); and this moral incapa- 
 bility he expressly refers to the nature that is inborn in them, 
 and only a few happy ones are free of this innate imperfec- 
 tion; "this nature itself lies evidently not within our own 
 power, but is by some kind of divine causality conferred 
 on the truly happy." To explain this broad difference of 
 natural endowment, he does not make the least attempt, and 
 in this he stands far below Plato, who derives the imperfec- 
 tion of human nature (which he also admitted, but conceived 
 of as universal), from a previous guilt in a life antecedent to 
 the earthly life. Aristotle renounces also all hope of radi- 
 cally bettering the morally unreceptive multitude, as indeed 
 he knows of no possibility of doing it ; he contents himself 
 with keeping them in check, and with placing them under 
 the discipline of an objective moral reality, the state, or at 
 least with accustoming them, by force and by potent custom, 
 to order and to obedience, and with restraining them from 
 the outbreaks of inborn passion ; to be truly free in moral re- 
 spects, however, is the exclusive privilege of the few who are 
 naturally-gifted. 
 
 Aristotle recognizes thus the necessity of a moral commu- 
 nity-life, which, as upheld by the pre-eminent moral spirit of 
 the few specially-endowed individuals, furnishes, itself, the 
 basis of the morality of individuals in general, and develops, 
 and guides, and keeps it in bounds. This is a weighty 
 thought far transcending the shallowness of modern rational- 
 istic liberalism, which recognizes no other objective form of 
 the moral community-life, than that which has grown up on 
 the broad basis of the morality of the great multitude, a 
 merely abstract product without any power and effectiveness 
 of its own. Aristotle regards it as absurd to base a moral 
 community-life upon the disposition and the spiritual sover- 
 eignty of the masses; We calls for the sovereignty of the 
 spiritual and moral heroes, the exclusive authority of the 
 most highly gifted personalities ; but he is, as yet, too deeply
 
 20.] REFUGE IN ABSOLUTISM. 115 
 
 involved in the peculiarities of the heathen world-view, to 
 penetrate to the bottom of the def ectiveness of human nature, 
 as partially recognized by him, and to find the true solution 
 of the enigma, and to divine the nature of the true remedy ; 
 he knows only man's outward phase, but not the depths of 
 the human heart. He ventures not to entertain any doubt as 
 to the moral nature of the state-sages and philosophers, and 
 he knows no other redemption, than (as in contrast to the 
 profound spiritual blindness and the moral stupidity of the 
 masses) in an immeasurable exaltation of the insight and the 
 moral strength of the state-leaders and the sages. Aristotle 
 sees, in the state, not a remedial institution actually realizing 
 true morality, but only a police-organism acting outwardly, 
 checking the evil, and restoring outward discipline. The 
 state can only ameliorate, but not radically cure ; true wis- 
 dom and morality are not imparted by it to those who are by 
 nature incapable thereof. This view throws light upon the 
 decided preference of Aristotle for a contemplative life, un- 
 involved in any political activity. The highest goods can 
 fall to the lot only of the few ; the fact is not, that many are 
 called while but few are chosen, but that only a few are called 
 and chosen; there prevails here an absolute predestination, 
 not, however, from a monotheistic, but from a fatalistic 
 ground. 
 
 SECTION XX. 
 
 The State is related to the individual citizens of the 
 state and to the smaller social organisms the house- 
 hold-life and the local community as the absolutely 
 determining and enlivening whole to the members, 
 is not so much the product as rather the ground of 
 all morality. The threefold gradation of dependence 
 in the household-life, and above all, the relation of 
 master and slave, as resting upon a primitive nature- 
 destination, is the presupposition of the state. Plac- 
 ing a higher worth upon the natural social relations 
 than Plato, and confining himself more fully to his-
 
 116 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 20. 
 
 torical reality, Aristotle escapes the unpractical ideal- 
 ism of Plato, but also attains to less definite results, 
 and furnishes rather a criticism than a self-consistent 
 theory of the nature of the state. Emphasizing the 
 development of the individual citizen to free self- 
 determination more strongly than Plato, he modifies 
 the despotic absolutism of the latter, and presents as 
 the moral chief-task of the state the moral disciplin- 
 ing of the free citizens. But the state-idea attains to 
 a universally-human significancy neither in its out- 
 ward nor its inward relation ; humanity both in the 
 barbarian and in the slave, is of an imperfect grade, 
 and capable of no moral emancipation. 
 
 Of the Politics of Aristotle we have to do only with the 
 more strictly ethical contents. He does not connect this 
 work directly with his Ethics, but treats of its subject-matter 
 from a more practical stand-point; hence he gives, on the 
 one hand, in his Ethics, the more general thoughts of the 
 doctrine of the state, and, on the other, he repeats in his 
 Politics some of the thoughts of his Ethics. 
 
 The state is the highest moral communion, and hence real- 
 izes the highest of all goods. Its type is the household-life ; 
 its task is not merely to afford' protection and help for the 
 life of the individuals, but essentially to found and promote 
 the true life, that is, the spiritually moral life, of the whole. 
 The state is not itself the product of the already developed 
 moral life of the individuals, but it is the presupposition 
 thereof; outside of the state there is- rio : moral development; 
 only he who belongs to the state can be moral ; the whole is 
 antecedent to the parts, and the rational man is a part of the 
 state ; the state is the first, the citizen of the state the second ; 
 outside of the state lives only the animal or God (Pol., i, 1, 2). 
 Hence the moral relation of the household-life is a presuppo- 
 sition of the state only in so far as it is a constituent element 
 of the same, but not in such a sense as to imply that it al- 
 ready existed before the state and independently of the same.
 
 20.] ENSLAVEMENT OF LABOR. 117 
 
 It is peculiarly characteristic that of the threefold foundation 
 of the household-life, as stated by Aristotle, namely, the re- 
 lation of man t'o wife, of father to children, and of master to 
 slave, he treats of the first two only merely incidentally and 
 briefly, but of the third chiefly, and very thoroughly. Aris- 
 totle furnishes for the first time, and in its entirety, a formal 
 theory of slavery, a phenomenon very significant for the his- 
 tory of ethics. 
 
 The opinion that slavery is not a something entirely natural, 
 but is based only upon violence and arbitrary laws, Aristotle 
 emphatically rejects. A household-life without possessions 
 and without serving instruments is not conceivable, and 
 hence also not without slaves, which are in fact living in- 
 struments and possessions. Even as the artist and artisan 
 stand in need of instruments, so the housefather, of slaves, 
 which are consequently absolutely his property, and subject 
 to his discretion; this is a natural, and not a merely legal 
 relation, strictly analogous to the relation of soul and body, 
 the former as the absolutely dominating, the latter as the 
 absolutely dominated factor. And reality corresponds to the 
 want. Men differ in fact from each other in such a manner 
 that the ones, as being really rational, possess themselves, 
 and represent the soul of humanity, whereas the others rep- 
 resent the body of humanity, are corporeally strong, and 
 adapted for bodily toil, but are spiritually unfree and ignoble, 
 and, though distinguished by reason from the brute, are yet 
 not governed by reason but by sensuous desires. These are 
 destined by nature to be slaves, and it is well for them tliat, 
 as the property of others, they are spiritually dominated 
 (Pol., i, 8-5). And Aristotle expressly says that those who 
 are destined by nature to slavery are the non-Greeks, the 
 barbarians. Greek prisoners-of-war are slaves not indeed by 
 nature, but by law, and hence legitimately. What the sig- 
 nificance of slavery is, appears clear from the fact that it is 
 a characteristic of a slave that he may be injured with im- 
 punity (Nic., v, 8), that the notion of justness holds good 
 only between such persons as have rights, and hence not be- 
 tween master and slave ; that the legitimate and uncensurable 
 manner of ruling over slaves is the tyrannical, the end of 
 which is simply the profit of the master (Nic., viii, 12; Pol.,
 
 118 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 20. 
 
 i, 8, 9), and that to a slave as such a relation of love or friend- 
 ship can as little have place as to a horse or ox, in which 
 connection, however, it is to be observed, that in so far as 
 the slave is also a human being a certain inferior form of love 
 is admissible. The slave has indeed also a degree of virtue, 
 for he is required to obey and to be modest and temperate, 
 but his morality differs from that of the master, not merely 
 in degree but in essence ; while the master is capable of all 
 virtue, the slave is utterly incapable of the power of delib- 
 eration (ro fiovlevTiKov) and hence evidently of the thought- 
 virtues prudence and wisdom (Pol., i, 9). The more humane 
 directions as to the treatment of slaves (Oecon., i, 5; of 
 questionable authenticity) are to be interpreted in the light 
 of these principles. 
 
 Aristotle subjects the Platonic state to a very keen and 
 sound criticism; the community of goods and of wives he 
 rejects, as both unnatural and morally corrupting, and even 
 impossible (Oecon., ii, 2 sqq.}. Of his own views Aristotle 
 is more reticent than Plato, and he gives rather merely gen- 
 eral thoughts than specific details. Only that one should 
 take active part in political life who possesses all civic vir- 
 tue, and especially far-seeing insight; but such virtue can 
 exist only where there is leisure for its development, that is, 
 in such persons as are free from the necessity of laboring for 
 the common wants of life, and hence not in day-laborers, 
 artisans, or farmers (Oecon., iii, 5; vii, 9). The soil must be 
 cultivated by slaves. Leisure stands higher than labor, and 
 is indeed per se happiness. A proper state-constitution must 
 have for its end the weal of all the free citizens constituting 
 the state ; it may be equally well monarchic, or aristocratic, 
 or republican (the latter being that wherein all the truly free 
 citizens take part), and over against these stand as their per- 
 versions: tyranny, oligarchy, and democracy, all of which 
 look to the good, not of the whole, but only of individual 
 persons, or of classes in society (Oecon., iii, 6-8; iv, 1 sqq.). 
 It is best for the State when the best citizens bear rule ; and 
 the best one is not to be bound by trammeling laws, but 
 stands free above the law, although in general Aristotle places 
 the validity of the law higher than Plato, and is not hopeful 
 of finding such "best" ones very frequently. The mass of
 
 20.] MARRIAGE AND ABORTION. 119 
 
 free citizens are indeed to have part in deliberating upon the 
 laws and in promoting justice, but not in actually governing 
 (Oecon., iii, 9 qq.). Aristotle inclines most strongly to a 
 monarchy limited by laws, and, in this, has his eye mani- 
 festly upon Alexander the Great. 
 
 The state provides for the public worship and for the moral 
 culture of the citizens ; hence it prescribes, in order to the 
 obtaining of a vigorous population, the institution of mar- 
 riage. Maidens are to marry at their eighteenth year, and 
 men at about the age of thirty-seven, in order that the chil- 
 dren may stand in a proper relation to the age of the parents, 
 and in order that the differing duration of the productive 
 period of the two sexes may stand in some degree of har- 
 mony, and the children be robust. The laws are to prescribe 
 the manner of life of the woman while pregnant, and the 
 physical and spiritual training of the children. In relation 
 to the exposing of children, the maxim holds good, "that 
 no physically imperfect (ne-jrrjpufievov) child is to be raised." 
 Where, however, the traditional usages forbid the exposing 
 of children, there the excessive increase of the population is 
 to be prevented by forbidding the procreating of more than 
 a legally fixed number, and the fetus is to be destroyed be- 
 fore the period of sensation and quickening (Oecon., vii, 15, 
 16). The education of* the children stands, as a matter of 
 high importance, under the care of the state ; overseeing this 
 education up to the seventh year, the state then actually 
 undertakes it itself ; for the citizens belong not to them- 
 selves, but to the state. The boys and the question is 
 only as to these are to be instructed in grammar and draw- 
 ing, because of the utility of these sciences, and in gymnas- 
 tics in order to the development of courage, and in music 
 in order to the employment of the leisure which becomes 
 the free citizen (labor being confined to the slave), and 
 in order to the awakening of the sense for harmony 
 (Oecon., viii, 3-7). 
 
 Though Aristotle presents numerous forms of state-consti- 
 tution as possible, and as good and appropriate according to 
 existing circumstances, yet to the state of true human free- 
 dom he is not capable of rising. Even his most free and 
 most democratic constitution rests absolutely on the basis of
 
 120 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 20. 
 
 slavery, and on the antithesis of the Greeks, as true men, to 
 the slave-like barbarians. The education of the citizens is, 
 in Aristotle, quite similar to the education of a cavalier in 
 the age of Louis XIV. and XV. It is easy enough to be 
 liberal-minded when all the labor falls to the lot of those 
 who, as unfree, have no share in political life. The fact that 
 a so-called anti-Christian "humanistic" culture of modern 
 times regards the Greeks as the champions of true humanity, 
 of humanitarianism in the broadest sense of the word, and 
 their age and their world-theory as "the paradise of the hu- 
 man mind," from which we of modern times have to learn 
 and receive true humanitarian notions, is no striking evi- 
 dence of great impartiality of view. Though Aristotle con- 
 cedes to the different classes of citizens in the state a some- 
 what greater freedom and independency of development than 
 Plato, in that he does not attribute all right exclusively to 
 the absolutism of the state, still this recognition of a rela- 
 tively free self-development does not by any means reach 
 down to the laboring classes ; the laborers are absolutely 
 passive and for the most part personally rightless members 
 of the state, are but the immovably soil-bound roots of the 
 tree whose richly-developed branches and leaves wave freely 
 in the air above. The distinction and the classification of 
 the ranks in society are not a moral ordinance, but a merely 
 natural and hence unfree one, rests not upon a moral self- 
 subordination to a moral idea, but upon the compulsory 
 necessity of extra-moral nature-differences, springs not from 
 a like moral dignity and task, but from the naturally differ- 
 ent moral nature of the different classes of mankind. The 
 slave and the laborer are morally entirely different and inferior 
 beings, and have neither the task nor the capability of even 
 comprehending the full moral idea, much less that of realiz- 
 ing it ; this is the privilege of the higher classes of free citi- 
 zens. A moral redemption of the great multitude from this 
 ban of moral unfreedorn and incapacity is an utterly foreign 
 thought even to the philosopher ; nay, he would feel called 
 upon, should he conceive of even the possibility of such a 
 redemption, to assail and prevent it with all his might, for 
 with it would fall to the ground, for the Greek, not merely 
 all reality of the state, but also all possibility of a social coin-
 
 20.] ARISTOTLE ON CASTE. 121 
 
 munity-life. It is only among the rudest barbarians that he 
 can conceive of a moral equality of the individuals ; and the 
 Christian idea of humanity, as moral, must have appeared to 
 the Greek as well as to the Roman as a falling back into rude 
 barbarism ; and the war of life and death as carried on against 
 Christianity by the otherwise so tolerant Romans, had, at 
 fbttom, not so much a religious as rather a social motive ; 
 it was the perfectly correct consciousness, that Christianity, 
 although essentially a purely religiously-moral power, would 
 inevitably radically undermine the foundation-principles of 
 the heathen state, and shatter to pieces the entire absolutely 
 slave-based social fabric. The thought of recognizing the 
 slave and the barbarian as morally equal to the freeman, and 
 as called to equal moral dignity and eternal glory, appeared 
 to the Greek, no less than to the Roman, as a treason to human 
 society, as a high crime against the solely possible founda- 
 tions of a rational state. Beyond this world-theory Plato and 
 Aristotle did not rise. 
 
 As in relation to those within the Greek state, so also in 
 relation to the non-Greeks, is the thought of humanity, in 
 Aristotle, radically defective. The non-Greeks belong only 
 in a very loose sense to humanity at all, are really but half- 
 men, destined by nature to be dominated over by the Greeks, 
 as born for ruling. War upon them is treated of by Aristotle, 
 unhesitatingly, under the head of the legitimate occupations 
 of life, and more specifically under that of the chase: "War 
 is, in its very nature, a branch of industry ; for the chase is 
 a form of the industrial activity, which comes to application 
 as well in relation to wild beasts, as also in relation to those 
 men who are destined by nature to be ruled over (n-f^vicoTSf 
 apxeadai) but are not willing thereto, so that consequently 
 such a war is a just one " (Oecon., i, 8). War is regarded by 
 no means as an evil, but as a normal life-manifestation of the 
 nations, as a necessary condition of the virtualizing of one of 
 the most essential of the virtues. The relation of the moral 
 community-life to the rest of mankind is consequently in no 
 sense one which looks to the realizing of a moral communion, 
 but is a purely negating and destructive one. Ethics pro- 
 claims not peace but war, aims not at emancipating and 
 redeeming, but at subjugating; non-Greek humanity is not
 
 122 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 21. 
 
 an object of moral influencing, but of violent subjugating. 
 The Greek knows no mission of the word, but only of the 
 sword. 
 
 , SECTION XXI. 
 
 The- form of Grecian and heathen ethics which at- 
 tained in Aristotle to its highest' perfection, is that of th* 
 natural man as contented in and with himself; it lacks 
 the consciousness of the historical reality and of the 
 historical development of sin, of the antagonism of 
 the reality of natural man, as sprung from an historical 
 act, to the moral idea, and of the earnestness of the 
 moral struggle against sin ; instead thereof we find 
 the introduction of a proud distinction between a 
 multitude incapable by nature of true morality, and 
 an elect minority of free-born men capable of all 
 wisdom and virtue, and among the latter a lofty 
 virtue-pride of man as having attained without severe 
 inner struggle to an easily-won self-satisfaction. Hu- 
 mility is not a virtue of a free sage, but only of the 
 slave and plebeian, as born unto serving obedience. 
 Morality rests only upon the knowledge (independent 
 of the religious consciousness) of the per se good, but 
 not upon love, neither upon love to God nor upon 
 love to man ; love is not the ground, but only a 
 co-ordinate manifestation-form of virtue. Hence 
 also the solely true moral community-life is only a 
 product of wise and rational calculation, but not 
 of love; and the primitive community-life of moral 
 love, namely, the family, is not the basis, but only 
 one phase of the state-life. The moral view of 
 Aristotle, and indeed of the Greeks in general, is 
 consequently not merely manifoldly different from 
 the Christian view, but indeed radically opposed 
 thereto.
 
 2lT] ARISTOTLE VERSUS C1IRIST. 123 
 
 It is very important clearly to realize this inn^r antithesis 
 of Aristotelian and Christian ethics, and all the more so as 
 Aristotle has had, even up to the latest times, a so great and 
 so largely bewildering influence upon the shaping of Chris- 
 tian ethics. Though not wishing to undervalue the high 
 scientific significancy of the Aristotelian system, we are yet 
 not at liberty to find in it thoughts which are really for- 
 eign to it. 
 
 The Christian consciousness rests entirely upon the recog- 
 nition of the general necessity of redemption, and indeed 
 not simply in reference to a moral defectiveness inborn in 
 man, but to one that has fallen to all men through historical 
 guilt. Of this Aristotle knows nothing. When Brandis 
 says: "The doctrine of hereditary sin would not have 
 seemed foreign to him, " inasmuch as he saw very clearly the 
 corruption of human nature,* we think he is quite incorrect. 
 It is true Aristotle ascribes to the great multitude, and above 
 all to those who are born for service and labor, an inborn 
 badness, and he describes it in the strongest colors and as a 
 real insuperable incapacity for true virtue ; and it is under 
 this head that falls the confirmatory utterance cited by 
 Brandis, namely, that it is good, in the state, to be depend- 
 ent, and not to be at liberty to do whatever one may please, 
 ' ' for the liberty to do what one pleases cannot hold in check 
 the evil that is inborn in all men" (TOfveKdaTuruvuvOpu-^uv^av'^ov) 
 (Pol., vi, 4). Were this to be taken in its full and unlimited 
 sense, Aristotle would thereby come into contradiction with 
 his other so definite and repeated declarations as to the per- 
 fect will-freedom of those who are capable of true virtue, 
 and thus overturn his entire ethical system, which rests ab- 
 solutely on the presupposition of this freedom. The fact is, 
 he is speaking here as a statesman and not as a moralist, and 
 alludes therein to the great multitude of those who, though 
 arriving at magisterial offices, are yet not philosophers nor 
 truly free. Indeed, he expressly says that the truly good 
 should not by any means be limited by laws, but stand abso- 
 lutely above all law ; t and though he admits that such persons 
 are very rare, yet he presupposes that there are actually 
 
 *Aritt., ii, p. 1682. 
 
 t Polit., iii, 13 : KO.TU <Je TOIOVTUV oi>K ?<m vojiof, avrol yap elai vopof
 
 124 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. ^ 21. 
 
 some such., Now the fact that Aristotle unquestionably ex- 
 cepts the true philosophers as the elect few, from the other- 
 wise all-prevalent moral corruption, does not offer any tiling 
 similar, to the Christian doctrine of natural sinfulness, but 
 indeed the very opposite, is not, as the Christian doctrine, 
 an expression of deep humility, but on the contrary, of un- 
 measured pride, as despisingly conscious of a superiority to 
 the rest of mankind. To make exceptions to the general 
 prevalence of sinfulness limits not merely the thought of this 
 sinfulness, but entirely overthrows it; the virtue-merit of the 
 few chosen ones and these are of course always the philoso- 
 phizing moralists themselves stands forth all the more glar- 
 ingly the deeper the rest of mankind are degraded. It 
 affords no similarity to the Christian consciousness when, to 
 the few philosophers, that character is attributed which Chris- 
 tianity ascribes exclusively to the God-man. 
 
 To what height the proud self-consciousness of the philoso- 
 pher, as pretendedly perfect in his virtue, rises, some idea may 
 be obtained from the following description of the virtue of 
 magnanimity : " Magnanimous is he, who, being worthy of 
 great things, esteems himself as in fact worthy of them. . . . 
 The greatest of outward goods is honor; hence the magnani- 
 mous man has to act with propriety in respect to honor and 
 dishonor. ... As the magnanimous man is worthy of the 
 greatest things, he must necessarily be a perfectly good one ; to 
 him belong whatever is great in every virtue ; . . . hence it is 
 difficult to be really magnanimous. ... In great honors, and 
 honors shown him by eminent men, the magnanimous man re- 
 joices moderately, as at that which he deserves, or which even 
 falls below his desert ; for, for a perfect virtue there is no entirely 
 sufficient honor. Nevertheless he accepts it, because there is no 
 greater one for him. But the honor shown him by ordinary 
 men, or for inferior things, he disdains, for they are not worthy 
 of him." After having observed, that in order to true mag- 
 nanimity also outward gifts of fortune are requisite, and that 
 the magnanimous man thinks only very lightly of meri and 
 things, and regards only few things so highly as to expose him- 
 self to danger for them, Aristotle says of him further: "He 
 is inclined to do good, but disdains to receive benefits, for the 
 former is characteristic of the eminent, and the latter, of the
 
 rfl 
 
 THE GREEK IDEAL SAGE. 125 
 
 inferior; and he gives more liberally in return, for thereby lie 
 who was before a creditor is made a debtor. Also he gladly 
 recollects those to whom he has done favors, but not those from 
 whom he has received benefits ! for the receiver of a benefit 
 becomes subordinate to him who renders it, whereas Tie is fond 
 of being superior to others ; therefore he also hears mention, 
 with pleasure, of the former (his own good deeds), but with 
 displeasure of the latter (the received benefits); ... he re- 
 mains inactive and hesitating when no great honor or great 
 work is involved ; he does only a little, but that little is great 
 and honor-bringing; ... he acts boldly and openly, for he 
 cherishes contempt for others; he speaks the truth, save when 
 he speaks with irony ; and he does this when lie has to do with 
 the great multitude ; ... he admires nothing, for nothing ap- 
 pears to him as great. . . . The movements of a magnanimous 
 man are slow, his voice restrained and his pronunciation meas- 
 ured. For he who is interested in few things, is not in haste ; 
 and he who regards nothing as great, is not zealous." (Nic., iv, 
 8, 9). This portraiture of one who, as judged from a Chris- 
 tian stand-point, is but a courtly fool, is the virtue-ideal of 
 Aristotle. 
 
 A very essential defect of Aristotelian ethics is the falling 
 into the back-ground of the religious character of the moral ; 
 and in this respect it is far inferior to that of Plato. The moral 
 stands out alone in entire self-sufficiency, not needing any other 
 ground or basis than itself; the good is good without reference 
 to .God, is good in and of itself, and is at the same time the 
 motive of its own realization. - That the moral is essentially 
 God's will, that it brings man into life-communion with God, 
 that man has an immediate moral life-relation to God, that 
 piety is the ground and life of all virtue, of all this we find 
 in Aristotle but a few very faint and wavering hints. And this 
 is especially surprising in view of the fact that the world-the- 
 ory of Aristotle is, in other respects, by no means inimical to a 
 close connecting of the moral with the religious, seeing that his 
 God-idea is a very highly developed one, and that he derives 
 all life of the world and of its contents absolutely from the 
 proto-causality of the highest self-conscious reason, that is, the 
 personal God. It is not so much the consequentiality of his 
 philosophical system, as the feebleness of the religious con-
 
 126 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 21. 
 
 sciousness and life in Aristotle himself, that occasioned him to 
 develop the religious phase of the moral so imperfectly ; he 
 does not reject this phase, he even alludes to it, but he does not 
 develop it. 
 
 Morality in Aristotle lacks therefore its essential motive ; for, 
 in that he himself expressly and repeatedly declares, against 
 Socrates, that from the knowledge of the good the willing of 
 the same does not necessarily follow, but, on the contrary, a 
 contradiction may occur between willing and knowing, he 
 thereby indeed evidently shows that he has observed real life 
 with greater impartiality than Socrates, but he has also thereby 
 rendered impossible any clear understanding of the moral life. 
 For if knowledge does not invariably result in willing, what 
 then is the impelling power which calls forth willing, or the. 
 lack of which works non-willing ? It is not love, for love ap- 
 pears not as directed toward the good per se, or toward God 
 as the highest good, but only toward the individual manifesta- 
 tion, as individual friendship, not as a motive to virtue, but 
 as one particular virtue along-side of many others. The willing 
 of the good springs not from love, but appears as something 
 entirely independent and unbased, along-side of knowledge and 
 along-side of love ; and for the very reason that Aristotle knows 
 not the moral power of love, he can discover for the civic vir- 
 tue of the great multitude no other motive than fear. 
 
 SECTION XXII. 
 
 After the time of Aristotle, philosophy declined 
 with accelerating rapidity, degenerating more and 
 more into a shallow popular moralizing, loosely 
 grouped around a few superficial foundation-thoughts, 
 and consisting, for the most part, simply in uncon- 
 nected observations on isolated topics. The decline 
 of thought manifests itself in a constantly growing in- 
 appreciation of the objective significancy and valid- 
 ity of the moral idea, which latter assumes more and 
 more an individually-subjective character, even in 
 cases where it seemingly subordinates the subject to
 
 22.] POST-SOCRATIC DECLINE. 127 
 
 itself, as in Stoicism, or subordinates the same to 
 nature, as in Epicureanism, and the decline reaches 
 its lowest point in the total doing away with all gen- 
 eral and objective significancy of the moral idea, in 
 Skepticism. 
 
 The moral theories that rise after Aristotle are in no sense 
 vigorous and truly philosophical products of thought ; they 
 are but feeble out-shoots of the antecedent, more vigorous 
 spirit-life, without bloom and without fruit. Moreover they 
 stand less closely connected with Plato and Aristotle than 
 with certain other tendencies of thought that sprang from 
 the influence of Socrates. On the basis of the Cyrenaics 
 sprang up Epicureanism ; on that of the Cynics, Stoicism ; 
 while the last form of Greek philosophy, also in the sphere 
 of ethics, namely, Skepticism, may be regarded as a further 
 development of the tendency of the Sophists. 
 
 By Socrates this much was gained, that the moral, rational 
 subject was recognized in his freedom and rights, that the 
 moral idea in general had come to consciousness. With 
 Plato and Aristotle, however, this freedom and this idea are 
 not of a merely individual, subjective character, but they are 
 brought into relation to the living whole of rational reality. 
 A course of action is not good for the reason that I regard it 
 as such, but I must regard it as good because it is good per 
 se; the moral has essentially a general and objective validity. 
 The later philosophy holds one-sidedly fast to the position 
 gained by Socrates, makes of the subjective consciousness 
 the highest criterion of truth, even in moral things, and that 
 too in its individual, absolutely self-dependent character, 
 apart from any organic union with the rational whole. The 
 good is good because I recognize it as such. In this subject- 
 ivistic tendency, philosophy turns away from Aristotle and 
 falls into the channel rather of the earlier schools, but with a 
 still stronger emphasizing of the subject. Hence also the in- 
 terest for general and for natural philosophy grows less, and 
 attention is concentrated on the subjective, on morality, and 
 this consists now essentially in subjective opinions ; lacking 
 in fundamental ideas, it becomes feeble, lax, shallow; it
 
 128 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 23. 
 
 comes into the hands of the masses, and, in this marsh-like 
 out-spreading, it becomes stagnant and spiritless ; in the 
 place of philosophical schools proper we find hostile parties, 
 as it were, confessional sects of the mass of the cultured, a 
 party spirit which supplies for these sects the place of their 
 already-vanished religion; every cultured person sought to 
 belong to some such philosophical sect, and he selected and 
 molded it according to his own taste, and the choice itself 
 of the school became really simply a matter of taste. The 
 original antithesis of Greek philosophy, as Materialism and 
 Spiritualism, as Ionic and Eleatic philosophy, which appeared 
 later as the antithesis of the Cyrenaics and the Cynics, re- 
 peats itself, especially in the sphere of ethics, as Epicurean- 
 ism and Stoicism ; the former regards the spirit as determined 
 by nature ; the latter, nature as determined by the spirit. 
 
 SECTION XXIIL 
 
 The doctrine of the Epicureans, which was wide- 
 spread among the mass of the cultured, and which 
 subsequently became even the dominant spirit of the 
 age, but which still remained without any scientific 
 development, as, in fact, it was incapable of such, is 
 the consequential unfolding of the individual pleasure- 
 principle, the theoretical expression of irreligion and 
 immorality. The subjective pleasure-feeling is the 
 highest criterion of truth and of the good ; the yield- 
 ing to natural proclivities, even the sensuous, and the 
 greatest possible enjoyment of the present, are the 
 highest virtue, prudent calculating for prolonged 
 pleasure, the highest wisdom, anxious concern as to 
 a future retribution and a divine world-government, 
 the greatest folly ; our striving and thinking should 
 regard only this life. 
 
 Epicurus, (06.271 B. C., see Diog. L., x, 1 sqq.), who stood 
 most closely related with the school of the Cyrenaics, ob- 
 tained very soon for his doctrine which has so much to
 
 23.] EPICUREANISM. 129 
 
 recommend itself to worldlings a wide acceptance ; and 
 while the solid thinking of Aristotle became almost forgotten, 
 this thought-sparing, self-styled philosophy continued to 
 spread wider and wider, formed, in fact, by far the most nu- 
 merous of the sects, and sustained itself until long after the 
 advent of Christ. The more superficial the wisdom, so much 
 the greater the party that clings to it. This doctrine, as com- 
 prehended in a very few thoughts and forms of expression, 
 soon became fixed and stationary and received no further de- 
 velopment, but nevertheless an all the wider practical appli- 
 cation. From the so wide-spread sect there have not come 
 down to posterity even the names of self-styled philoso- 
 phers of any great eminence, to say nothing of systems of 
 thought. 
 
 Happiness is the highest good, and hence to strive after it 
 the highest wisdom and morality ; all cognition looks to it as 
 its end. For man only that is true which he feel*, which he 
 becomes acquainted with through the senses, namely, con- 
 crete sensuous reality. Whatever transcends this is at least 
 doubtful, and to fear the doubtful and supersensuous dis- 
 turbs happiness. Fear of the gods and of a life after death 
 must vanish away, for of them we have no knowledge. 
 Sensuous feeling, and hence the individual pleasure-feeling, 
 is the highest criterion of all truth, and hence also of the 
 morally-true, the good. But we feel only the sensuous, the 
 corporeal, hence only this is for us true and real. Individ- 
 ual being, and hence multiplicity, is the solely true exist- 
 ence, and hence, first of all, the individual subject ; con- 
 sequently to carry out the rights of the subject is the moral- 
 task. This task looks in no sense whatever to the realizing 
 of a something transcendent to the individual, of an idea; 
 man is. not to follow an all-prevalent law, but, on the con- 
 trary, his individual nature, is not, in any sense whatever, 
 to deny himself, but in fact to cling to and assert this his 
 particular existence, such as it is. Man is not an upholder 
 of a spiritual world, on the contrary, 'he is himself absolutely 
 supported and guided by nature, should merge himself har- 
 moniously into nature, should therein feel himself well. 
 This feeling of one's self-well is the chief end of life, and 
 therefore the solely true measure of the good. Enjoyment
 
 130 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 23. 
 
 is the end ; the yielding of one's self over to one's own natu- 
 ralness, is the means. 
 
 Now, for this manner of life there was of course no great 
 degree of wisdom requisite ; nevertheless direct unconscious 
 desire may lead astray, and hence it must be guided by con- 
 siderateness. Man must consider in each separate case 
 whether an immediately inviting pleasure is not connected 
 with a subsequent greater pain, and in this case he must 
 avoid it, or at least confine it within the necessary limits, and 
 that simply in order to render the pleasure-feeling a lasting 
 one. The pleasure of the soul is greater than that of the 
 body, because it is more lasting, and hence it is more to be 
 sought after; however, the difference is not essential, inas- 
 much as the soul itself is but a refined body. Higher than 
 the pleasure which consists in the present gratifying of a nat- 
 ural impulse, is the pleasure of being satisfied, that is, when 
 desire and the soul are in a state of comfortable repose ; for 
 this reason a certain degree of temperateness and moderation 
 are among the conditions of happiness. Hence virtue is in- 
 deed an element of a wise life, not for its own sake, however, 
 but as a means to a higher pleasure-enjoyment, even as one 
 takes medicine as a means to health. Right and wrong, to 
 which the virtue of justness relates, are nothing per se ; right 
 is only the contents of mutual compacts that are entered into 
 for reciprocal benefit ; their violation is the wrong. Where 
 there are no compacts there is neither right nor wrong, 
 and hence also no justness or righteousness. Moreover, only 
 so far as it redounds to my utility, have I to practice just- 
 ness ; and the evil of unjustness is simply the damage I in- 
 cur, especially through judicial infliction. Friendship is of 
 much value, wedlock-love properly of none at all. From 
 offices of state the wise man keeps himself aloof ; he acquires 
 for himself wealth as far as practicable, and thus provides 
 for his future. 
 
 An essential condition of happiness is the being free from 
 all fear of spiritual powers of the gods and their displeasure, 
 of death and a retribution in the "yon-side." Gods there 
 may indeed be, but as they are to be conceived of as in a 
 state of bliss, hence they cannot possibly have any concern 
 for the world and for men. Deatli does not fall within the
 
 24.] STOICISM. 131 
 
 scope of feeling, and hence does not exist for us at all, does 
 not concern us in the least. So long as we have feeling, 
 death does not exist, and when death does exist, then we 
 have no feeling ; hence it disturbs our happiness only when 
 we foolishly harbor a fear of it. But, that with death, all is 
 over with man, is a matter of course, as in fact the soul also 
 is but a fortuitous combination of manifold atoms which, at 
 death, again fall apart. In order to get rid of the torment- 
 ing superstition of a life after death, one needs but to study 
 physics. The all-comprehending and dominating chief-con- 
 dition of happiness is, therefore, prudence, which in each 
 particular case chooses and determines the proper measure 
 and the proper means of pleasure. Man is, consequently, 
 lord of his own fate, and herein consists his freedom ; for- 
 tune, as mere chance, has but a minor share in our destiny. 
 But that perfect happiness is not to be reached in the way 
 recommended Epicurus knew very well, and he himself de- 
 picts the miseries of humanity in very dark colors ; he does 
 not, however, throw the blame for them upon man, but upon 
 the imperfectness of the fortuitously-arisen universe itself; 
 and, by this course, he does not fall out with his system, but 
 in fact finds for it a fresh justification-, the more numerous 
 the miseries to which man, without his own fault, is exposed, 
 so much the stronger stimulus, and so much the greater right 
 has he, to strive' after the enjoyment of life. 
 
 SECTION XXIV. 
 
 The subjectively-idealistic Stoicism which took its 
 start from Zeno, teaches a morality of conflict, of 
 struggle on the part of the rational spirit (as being 
 alone, of worth, and as being absolutely a law unto it- 
 self) against sensuousness, of thought against pleasure, 
 as belonging to a lower sphere. Virtue is the solely 
 true good, and all other seeming goods are either in- 
 different or irrational. But this struggle rests simply 
 on the thought of an unreconciled and irreconcilable 
 antagonism of existence, knows not the higher 
 
 10
 
 132 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 24. 
 
 thought of the inner unity of all veritable existence, 
 rests on the pride of the subjective understanding and 
 of the absolutely self-legislating individual will, over 
 against all objective reality, even over against a moral 
 commonalty with laws binding on the individual sub- 
 ject. Stoicism leads, therefore, on the one. hand, to 
 an unbounded virtue-pride, and on the other, to a 
 querulous despising of reality, also to a disregarding 
 of caprice-checking custom, nay. even to a. suicidal 
 non-esteeming of one's own temporal life, pretend- 
 ing to an inner peace, but really betraying evidence 
 of un-peace. Any moral significance, and any even 
 slight presentiment of absolute ethical truth, re to be 
 found only in the more general thoughts of the Sto- 
 ics; but all the more dubious, arbitrary, nay, even per- 
 verted, is the particular application of these thoughts 
 to definite life-relations. 
 
 Stoicism stands on the one hand incomparably higher in 
 spiritual vigor and dignity than Epicureanism, and forms a 
 direct antagonism thereto, but, on the other hand, it passes 
 far beyond the truth in the direction of the opposite extreme, 
 and its one-sided uWnaturalness manifests even more clearly 
 than Epicureanism the insufficiency of heathen principles for 
 arriving at true moral wisdom. Zeno, a contemporary of 
 Epicurus, illustrated the teachings of his system (see Diog. 
 Laert. viii) by moral strictness of life, and by the commis- 
 sion of suicide at an advanced age; his writings are lost. 
 His school, which collected within itself the nobler class of 
 minds, and which, while less numerous than that of the Epi- 
 cureans, yet exhibited far more spiritual activity than the 
 latter, continued to exist until the downfall of paganism, 
 especially among the Romans, where, though much toned- 
 down and transformed, it was represented not only by the 
 rather eclectic Cicero, but also by Seneca* by Epictetits 
 
 * From him are extant numerous moral writings in popular rhetorical 
 style.
 
 24.] STOIC GROUND-PRINCIPLES. 133 
 
 (toward the close of the first century A. D.)>* and by Marcus 
 Aurelius Antoninus.^ 
 
 On the dualistic antithesis of matter and spirit rests the cor- 
 responding ethical antithesis between merely sensuously-natu- 
 ral objective existence and the rational spirit in the individual 
 free subject. Not the mere nature-entity, but the spirit, is 
 the true entity, and it is such in full, freely self-legislating 
 self-sufficiency ; its destination is to manifest itself as inde- 
 pendent in relation to nature, and to base itself entirely upon 
 itself. Not the passive, but the active entity is the solely 
 true one, not enjoyment but activity; it is only as active 
 that the spirit is in its true reality, whereas, as merely enjoy- 
 ing, it sinks below spirituality. Man, as related to objective 
 existence, is a self-poised absolutely freely self-determining 
 being, is, as a rational spirit, perfectly self-sufficient, needs 
 nothing outside of himself in order to be a spirit, to be free, 
 to be happy; he should not let himself be determined by 
 any thing whatever external to himself. Whatever is to have 
 worth for man, and hence is to form a part of, and to con- 
 tribute to, his perfection and happiness, must proceed from 
 and depend upon himself alone ; every thing else, whatever 
 it may be, concerns him not, is indifferent to him, can, and 
 may, neither hinder nor promote his perfection and happi- 
 ness. It is in being self-dependent that the wise man is 
 truly free. The essence of man, in distinction from the brute, 
 is not enjoying and feeling, but thinking ; it is not in enjoy- 
 ing, but in thinking, that he is free, that he is a rational 
 spirit; and the more he seeks to enjoy external objects and 
 finds pleasure therein, so much the more is he dependent and 
 unfree, so much the more is he irrational, and hence so much 
 the less a true man. Thinking and not feeling is, therefore, 
 the decisive criterion of the truth and of the good ; hence 
 there should be first judging and then acting. All rational, 
 and hence moral, activity must rest on knowledge ; to act 
 
 * His lectures, for the most part merely popular moral exhortations, 
 are preserved in Arrian ; besides these we have the Enchiridion Epic- 
 teti, Which has lieen much used even in Christian times. 
 
 t From him we have Tu etf eavrov , (moral meditations) disconnect- 
 ed, and, in many cases, merely suggested thoughts and life rules, with 
 much repetition and without regular development.
 
 134 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [24: 
 
 from mere feeling is irrational ; there is no virtue without 
 knowledge. Philosophy itself is a practice of virtue, and 
 knowledge is the first and highest virtue. Out of the knowl- 
 edge of the good springs, of itself and from inner necessity, 
 pleasure in the good and a striving after it, just as from a 
 knowledge of the evil springs an abhorrence of the same. 
 But these movements of the sensibilities are not the ground, 
 but only the attendants of the moral activity ; the ground 
 thereof is knowledge alone. From erroneous knowledge, 
 however, spring irrational sensibility-movements and striv- 
 ings of the soul, that is, the passions, which are consequent- 
 ly to be regarded as a soul-disease. Now, though all evil 
 springs from error, yet is man nevertheless responsible there- 
 for, for the error itself is guiltily incurred. It is by the 
 knowledge of the good, that is, by perfect consciousness, 
 that volition is distinguished from impulse or instinct. The 
 will aims at the truly-known good, impulse at the merely 
 seemingly good. Knowledge, as an essential manifestation 
 of rationality, is, like the latter itself, germinally innate in 
 man, and hence it is in all men essentially the same ; simply 
 the further development and the particular application of 
 the same is left to one's own judgment. 
 
 The essence and the fundamental thought of the good is 
 conformity to nature (6/zoAoym, convenientia, TO Kara Qvatv, conven- 
 ienter natures vivere). Nature is taken here, not as outer 
 sensuous nature in contradistinction to the self-conscious 
 spirit, but as the general order of the world, as the natura 
 rerum, the inner conformity-to-law of the All, and, above all, 
 the rational nature and conformity-to-law of one's oVn spir- 
 itual existence and life. Hence conformity to nature is agree- 
 ment with one's self the inner order and spiritual health of 
 the life. Even the brute puts forth effort primarily not from 
 pleasure and for pleasure, but for natural self-preservation 
 and self-development. The true nature of man, however, is 
 not the sensuous nature but the reason. To live right signi- 
 fies, therefore, to live according to reason. Hence evil is a 
 contradiction to the rational nature of man, and the direct 
 opposite of the good, differs from the good not merely 
 quantitatively, but also qualitatively and essentially, is the 
 anti-natural and anti-rational.
 
 (24. STOIC VIRTUE. 135 
 
 Virtue is, therefore, in its very essence, a "being well ;" 
 hence it has a feeling of happiness as its immediate and 
 necessary consequence, and thus it is itself per se the highest 
 good. He who is truly virtuous is happy in the same man- 
 ner as God ; he who is vicious is necessarily wretched. Not 
 this happiness-feeling, however, but the good as such, is the 
 rational end of the moral activity ; virtue is to be sought for 
 its own sake without reference to the happiness-feeling ; the 
 pleasure-sensation is indeed the consequence, but not the end 
 of moral action. There are, in fact, other pleasure-sensations 
 than those which flow from virtue, and other pain-sensations 
 than those which follow from vice ; also external things, 
 things not dependent on us and our free determination, such 
 as health, riches, etc., may excite pleasure-sensations, and 
 hence contribute to our external happiness. Now, if the end 
 of our striving were not the good per se, but happiness, then 
 our effort would be directed toward a something that is not 
 fully within our power ; but nothing can be truly good, and 
 hence truly to be sought after, which is not dependent upon 
 us and within the scope of our will. The pleasure which 
 arises independently of us from external things may be 
 agreeable, and hence these things may be useful, but real 
 goods they are not. Hence the antithesis of the honestum 
 (TO KaOfjKov, TO naAov) and the utile. Thus the happiness and per- 
 fection of the sage rests entirely upon himself ; he is the free 
 creator of his well-being; all that is really* good depends 
 solely upon himself ; all that is not dependent upon him af- 
 fects and disturbs him not. Every wise man is a rich man, a 
 king. \s the good differs from the evil, not in degree but 
 in essence, hence all the virtues are essentially equal to and 
 homogeneous with each other ; for* a virtue inferior to another 
 could be possible only by its being somewhat participant in 
 evil ; but this is impossible from its very idea. Hence who- 
 ever has one virtue has them all ; and they are all intimately 
 involved in each other. Likewise, all vices are essentially 
 equal to each other, and, e. g., to kill a cock needlessly is 
 just as bad as to commit parricide. 
 
 From the Stoic notion of the self-based freedom of the 
 sage, as well as from their view of the essence of virtue, it 
 follows that there may be entirely perfect men, men who are
 
 136 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [24. 
 
 free of all error and of all immorality, fully possessed of all 
 knowledge and virtue and happiness. That there really are 
 such is taken for granted ; and delineations of this self- 
 acquired glory are given in the most glowing colors, and 
 form a favorite topic of Stoic philosophy. On the other 
 hand, we find not the least trace of the notion of a natural 
 corruption of mankind ; there is admitted (as was the case in 
 Aristotle's system) simply a difference between the rude mul- 
 titude little inclined to, and little capable of, the good, and 
 the more happily-gifted ones, the latter being of course the 
 Stoics themselves ; and it is given as an essential character- 
 istic of a sage, never to repent of any thing.* In consequence 
 of the diametrical antagonism between good and evil, there 
 is no mean moral sphere between the two, no sphere of moral 
 indifference. There are indeed things that are per se indiffer- 
 ent to man, and which can hence per se neither increase nor 
 diminish his worth and happiness, but their 'actual applica- 
 tion is in each particular case either good or bad. In classi- 
 fying the virtues, the Stoics, for the most part, follow Plato. 
 Zeno himself based the moral on religion; also some of 
 his disciples understand by the "nature" with which man is 
 to be in harmony, the divine contents and the 'divine con- 
 formity-to-law of nature, and hence that which harmo- 
 nizes with the divine will ; and they conceive of reason as a 
 manifestation of the divine activity in things. But the later 
 Stoics, for the iHost part, lost sight of this religious character 
 of the moral, and presented it as quite independent of re- 
 ligion, as a spiritual life-sphere resting strictly and inde- 
 pendently upon itself. In Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius 
 the religious element comes again more into the fore-ground ; 
 they recognize reverence fo"r the gods, or for God, as a virtue 
 and as a ground of the moral, conceive of virtuousness as 
 God-likeness, and viciousness as godlessness, and even at- 
 tribute high worth to prayer, though here, of course, there is 
 no trace of penitential prayer, but for the most part, only the 
 spirit qf the Pharisee's prayer : "God, I thank thee that -I 
 am not as other men."t It is' in fact not impossible that in 
 
 * Cic. : Pro Murcena, 29. 
 
 1 Arrian : Dissert. Epict., iii, 24, 96 tqq. ; iv, 10, 14 sqq., (ed. Schweigh.) ; 
 M. Aurel. Ant. : f iavrov, ix, 40.
 
 24.] STOIC PRACTICE. 137 
 
 the more religious tendency of later Stoicism there is a de- 
 gree of influence from Christianity. 
 
 This view of the moral produced in fact among the Stoics 
 an earnest moral striving, though without enthusiasm or 
 heart, and only in the manner of a cold logical calculating. 
 Feeling amounts to nothing at all ; of the potency of love 
 there is not a trace ; thought passes directly over into action, 
 and feeling merely accompanies the act as a something en- 
 tirely indifferent. The love of neighbor is regarded only as 
 a mode of action, but not as an aifair of the heart. The 
 sage ought indeed to help the wretched according to his 
 means and according to their worthiness, but to feel compas- 
 sion, or even to act as if one felt it, would be unworthy of a 
 wise man ; for the truly wise man is above all suffering ; and 
 the wretched suffer only from lack of knowledge, because 
 they regard external things, which are not within their own 
 control, as reai goods.* The friendliness to man which is so 
 earnestly recommended by the Stoics flows not from love, 
 and their patience under received injustice springs only from 
 contemptuous pride. Hence, while, on the one hand, wrath, 
 revenge, envy, slander, etc., are condemned as unworthy of 
 the sage, partly because every passive feeling-movement is 
 immoral, and in part because the sage is too proud to allow 
 himself to be disturbed by the acts and manners of others, 
 yet, on the other hand, it is held as an unworthy weakness to 
 forgive others for their injustice, for that jvould be equiva- 
 lent to declaring the injustice as indifferent, and to lightly" 
 esteeming justice. f The Christian principle, "Forgive and 
 ye shall be forgiven," has no force for a Stoic, because he 
 believes himself never to be in circumstances to need 
 forgiveness. 
 
 The morality of the Stoics is a constant contest of the spirit 
 against sensuous nature and against the unspiritual and irra- 
 tional in the objective world in general ; but as this contest 
 is directed against a primordial and never entirely-overcome- 
 able antagonism in existence itself, and hence can never lead 
 
 *Epict. : EncJiir., 16; M. Anton., v, 36; vii, 43 ; Diog. L., vii, 123; 
 Cicero : Pro MuranM, c. 29 ; Seneca : De dementia, ii, 5, 6. 
 
 t Stobsous : Echffce etkicce, ii, 7, p. 190 (Heeren) ; Diog. L., vii, 123 ; 
 Cic. : Pro Mur., 23.
 
 138 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [24. 
 
 to an objective victory, it assumes consequently not so much 
 an actively outward-working character, as rather that of a 
 passive resistance against irrational reality. The sage does 
 not undertake to produce a real world of the moral spirit ; on 
 the contrary, he retreats within himself in proud contempt of 
 the actual world ; only himself, but not the outer world, can 
 he make perfect ; the real struggle is carried on not by a 
 victory-confident assaulting of immoral reality, but by a con- 
 temptuous turning away from the same, by an indifference 
 to pleasure and pain, the depicting of which is given again 
 and again in endless reiteration. This blunt, indifferent en- 
 during of pain is not the fruit of a pious faith in a divine 
 world-government or of love toward mankind, but it is the 
 proud defiance of the absolutely self-relying subject as against 
 a world imbued with a primitive and essential irrationality. 
 This indifference toward all that excites the sensibilities re- 
 strains indeed the Stoic from Epicurean senguality, but is 
 very far from leading to a true resistance of one's self ; the 
 sensuous is only despised, but not positively assailed. Stoic 
 ethics requires no severe self-denial, no fasting, no jenuncia- 
 tion of sensual enjoyment ; it only requires that one be mod- 
 erate and that one place no value on the enjoyment ; but after 
 all, this restraint was, for the most part, but a mere flourish- 
 ing of rhetoric ; Seneca accepted, with the greatest suavity, 
 riches upon riches, which his pupil Nero conferred upon him. 
 The lightly esteeming of the non-spiritual extends also to 
 'the physical life. The Stoics indeed regard the instinct of 
 self-preservation as a fundamental impulse of human nature, 
 and as a strictly normal expression of the law which requires 
 harmony with one's self and with nature, but it is not incon- 
 sistent therewith that they should regard life itself as an 
 object of indifference seeing that it is not within man's own 
 control. Death must not be feared, but must as a power 
 not within our control be despised ; and in so far as it is a 
 nature-law, and one that liberates us from a painful bodily 
 life, it is to be regarded even with pleasure. The thought 
 of immortality is, in this connection, regarded merely as a 
 possibility ; if the life of the soul continues on, then the wise 
 man is happy ; but if it ceases, then ceases for him also all 
 pain; in neither case is there the least ground for fear. But
 
 24.] CHAMPIONSHIP OF SUICIDE. 139 
 
 the Stoic goes still further. The wise roan is a free lord over 
 himself ; but in death he is overcome by an external power. 
 It does not become the sage, therefore, to let the close of his 
 life depend merely on any such extraneous power ; it is but 
 a visualization of his own self-dependent freedom, that he 
 should close his life when it pleases himself, that is, when he 
 has satisfactory reasons therefor. To the Stoic, suicide is, 
 under certain circumstances, not only allowed, but even a 
 duty, a heroic virtue. Among the circumstances that justify 
 suicide, irrespective of self-sacrifice for country or friends, 
 are the following: great distress, poverty, incurable disease, 
 physical maiming, and other oppressive afflictions, depriva- 
 tion of liberty, and in general, any essential hinderance to 
 living freely and in conformity to reason, such as infirmity 
 from age ; all these are divine hints that it is time to take 
 one's voluntary departure; "The door is open," is a saying 
 which the Stoic fondly reiterates as an expression of his per- 
 fect liberty, even in regard to the ending of his life.* Sui- 
 cide is defended with great zeal, and almost with enthusiasm, 
 by Seneca, on the ground that it is an assertion of the true 
 self-dependence and freedom of man ; for this reason man 
 may and should proceed to suicide even when the above 
 freedom-hindering evils are merely in threatening prospect, 
 inasmuch as, if he does not, he may in the end be hindered 
 from the accomplishment of this self-liberation. Only a 
 single way leads into life, but thousands lead out of it. No 
 one is wretched save through his own fault ; for if misfor- 
 tune falls upon him, he is at liberty to depart; life keeps 
 none back. The wise man lives only so long as life pleases 
 him ; the lancing of an artery opens to him the way to free- 
 dom. Death is, after all, unavoidable, why then adjourn it 
 till the evil day ? The foulest death is better than the clean- 
 est slavery ; the prudent man seeks the easiest death ; yet if it 
 cannot be otherwise, he does not shun even a painful suicide. t 
 And the practice corresponded to the theory. Zeno himself 
 is said to have hanged himself at an advanced age, because 
 he had broken one of his fingers ; his disciple Cleanthes 
 
 * Diog. L. , vii, 130 ; Arrian, i, 9, 20 ; i, 24, 20 ; i, 25, 18 tqq. ; ii, 1, 20 ; 
 $A. Anton.,v, 29 ; Cic. : De Finibus, iii, 18. 
 t Epiat. ii, 5 (17) ; vi, 6 (58) ; viii, 1 (70) ; De ira, iii, 15, (ed. Fickert).
 
 140 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [24 
 
 starved himself to death because his gums became sore. The 
 frequent suicides among the Roman Stoics are a matter of 
 notoriety. This doctrine and this practice are often regarded 
 as in conflict with the general view of the Stoics, which, in 
 fact, denies that pain is a real evil. The inconsistency is 
 only apparent, and contains, at all events, a very true con- 
 fession. If man has no higher consolation against the mis- 
 eries of existence than the pride of the self-centered, self- 
 satisfied individual spirit, then it is simply mere truthfulness 
 when he confesses that he is not equal to the misery of real 
 life, that he has not the moral power entirely to overcome 
 it by morality, and to say with joy, "We glory also in tribu- 
 lations." The Stoic knows nothing of an almighty father- 
 love of God, and less still of any personal guilt ; he lacks 
 the entire basis upon which the courage of a Christian heart 
 can even grow stronger amid all the buffetings of life ; he 
 rises only to a defiance of the miseries of reality ; but this 
 defiance, seeing that it is not exalted to moral courage by the 
 pious confidence of a God-thirsting heart, is not equal to the 
 task of humbly bowing itself under suffering, but only to 
 that of destroying itself in bitter accusation against the 
 moral order of the world, and in the consciousness that the 
 real world is not worthy longer to contain such a sage. 
 
 Stoic morality is of a purely individual character, aims only 
 at virtualizing the free self-dependence and self-sufficiency of 
 the individual subject. For an objective reality of the moral 
 thought, and for a moral community-life, the Stoic has no ap- 
 preciation, and hence also none for the naturally-moral basis of 
 society, namely, marriage, which, in fact, as requiring self- 
 submission to an objective moral reality, appears as a trammel- 
 ing fetter for the individual subject; and it is doubtless only 
 from the striving after the maintenance of the complete self- 
 sufficiency of the wise subject in the face of all objective moral 
 reality, that are to be explained the strangely perverted views 
 of the sexual relations that prevailed among the Stoics. By 
 them marriage itself was lightly esteemed, and, while passion- 
 ate love and lustfulness were condemned, sexual communion 
 outside of marriage was expressly defended against all crit- 
 icism ; * and of Zeno and Chrysippus, it is made out with a 
 * Epict. : Enchir. 33.
 
 24.] DISESTEEM OF MARRIAGE. 141 
 
 good degree of certainty, that they required community of 
 wives among the wise, and that they declared allowable, sexual 
 communion between nearest blood-relatives (even between par- 
 ents and children), and also whoredom, self-pollution and ped- 
 erasty.* It must not be forgotten that in these opinions with 
 the exception of incest, which is readily explainable from their 
 one-sided, calculating spirit, the Stoics had the moral con- 
 sciousness of the Greeks on their side, and that for their com- 
 munity of wives they were countenanced by the teachings of 
 Plato. Also in other respects their moral relations to other 
 men are neither frank nor pure. The lofty contempt which the 
 sage indulges in toward all non-sages, disengages him also from 
 many moral duties toward them; thus he is not under obliga- 
 tion always to tell them the truth, ; falsehood is allowable not 
 only in war, to the enemy, but also in many other cases, 
 especially in view of attaining an advantage.! 
 
 The morality of the Stoic is the pride of the natural man 
 who is conscious of being a moral creature, but who has no 
 suspicion of a morality higher than and transcending the indi- 
 vidual subject, nor of a personal moral depravity. His oft- 
 repeated high-sounding descriptions of self-complacency make 
 any thing but an agreeable impression. This pride restrains 
 him, it is true, from many unworthy acts; in consequence, how- 
 ever, of his total lack of an objective standard, it did not guard 
 him from grave moral errors, nor from an almost fanatical hate 
 against a higher world-theory, which, at a later period, offered 
 itself to him in Christianity ; and Marcus Aurelius was not in 
 the least deterred by his so high-sounding discourses on kind- 
 ness, tolerance, and charity, from letting loose a fearful perse- 
 cution upon the Christians, in whose martyr-courage he 
 could discover only criminal obstinacy. Though Stoic ethics 
 was distinguished from the essentially-related ethics of the 
 Cynics by the fact that it discarded the unspiritual and unre- 
 fined form of the latter, and that it respected the spiritual 
 under every phase, and hence also in art, and placed a high 
 estimate upon the worthy appearance of the body and upon 
 cleanliness, nevertheless at bottom it does not really transcend 
 
 * Diog. L., vii, 13, 33, 131, 188; Sext. Emp. : 'TCirorvTruofif, iii, 24. 
 fStob. : Ed. eth., ii, 7, p. 230 (Heeren).
 
 142 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 25 - 
 
 the same. It does not rise beyond the mere formal notion of 
 the moral as a conformity to nature ; the material constructions 
 to be put upon the contents of the moral idea are left to the 
 subjective discretion of the individual; and though it really 
 stands higher than Epicurean ethics, still it did not spiritually 
 vanquish the same. Instead of an absolutely and objectively 
 valid moral idea, and of the expression of a divine will, we 
 find only man's subjective knowledge of his own nature ; the 
 contents of the moral law, the Stoic discovers only by the 
 observation of his own personal peculiarities ; and the possi- 
 bility that this self of his might be a morally perverted one 
 he does not even remotely suspect. 
 
 SECTION XXV. 
 
 Epicureanism and Stoicism are two diametrically 
 opposed but also mutually requiring and complement- 
 ing phases of the Greek spirit ; both are equally one- 
 sided, both are equally remote from the Christian 
 ethical idea ; both refer all moral truth back to the 
 individual subject. In the place of Christian moral- 
 ity, the Epicureans offer joyous voluptuousness; the 
 Stoics offer the high-minded pride of complete self- 
 righteousness ; neither party feels the least need of 
 redemption, of divine grace ; "for the Epicureans 
 regard the per se sinful as right, while the Stoics im- 
 agine themselves to have overcome the same through 
 their per se pure individual will. 
 
 Epicurean ethics emphasizes the nature-phase in man ; Stoic 
 the spirit- phase ; the former teaches an unresisting, voluptuous 
 giving-over of self to sensuous nature, the latter an earnest but 
 only partially successful resisting of the same; the former is 
 absolutely indiifeient as to moral knowledge, natural instinct 
 supplies the place of knowledge ; the latter manifests a busy 
 seeking after knowledge, and esteems it as a virtue ; the former 
 is a crude realism, in all essential features a materialistic 
 naturalism ; the latter is a one-sided idealism, in all essential
 
 25.] EPICUREANISM VERSUS STOICISM. 143 
 
 features a ploddingly-calculating spiritualism; the former bears 
 a feminine character, is passive, yielding, lax ; the latter bears 
 a masculine character, is active, earnest, rigorous; the former 
 suited better the effeminate Ionic tribe and the Orient, the latter 
 rather the stern Doric tribe and the Romans. 
 
 The Epicurean seemingly gives sway to the universal, namely, 
 to nature, to which the individual subordinates himself; in 
 reality, however, the individual subject is set free from the bonds 
 of the universal, of the spiritual, of rationality; the Stoic also 
 seemingly subordinates the individual subject to a general 
 thought, namely, the moral idea; in reality, however, also here 
 the universal is made to yield to the individual subject; in the 
 place of a general moral idea we find, strictly speaking, only 
 the calculating opinion of the individual ; it is the self-will of 
 the subject in the face of the spiritual objective world, namely, 
 history, that asserts itself as rational freedom; According to 
 both systems, therefore, the truth is found only within the sub- 
 ject ; nature and existence in general have value for the Epicu- 
 rean only in so far as they can be enjoyed, that is, in so far as 
 they are for the individual subject, in every other respect 
 existence is indifferent ; in the eyes of the Stoic, existence is 
 truth only in so far as it appears in the subject ; the sage is the 
 embodiment of the moral order of the universe, which, apart 
 from him, exists but very imperfectly. In both systems the 
 higher thought of Plato, namely, that, by the moral, the real 
 harmony of existence, the harmony between nature and spirit, 
 is realized, is one-sidedly perverted ; the Epicurean effects this 
 harmony only by sacrificing the rationally-personal spirit to 
 nature, the Stoic by sacrificing nature to the individual per- 
 sonal spirit ; it is no longer a harmonizing, but a giving up, of 
 one of the two phases of existence. 
 
 Though Stoic ethics is in many respects graver and more 
 worthy of man than Epicurean, nevertheless both systems are 
 equally remote from the Christian view. The Epicurean does 
 not recognize the spiritual personality as the highest factor ; the 
 Stoic does not recognize the rights of objective reality; but 
 Christianity recognizes both as absolutely belonging to each 
 other. In both systems, the natural man, the individual sub- 
 ject, thrusts himself in his fortuitous reality into the fore- 
 ground, as having the highest claims ; in both the subject is of
 
 144 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [26. 
 
 himself perfectly competent to attain to all perfection, has no 
 need, in this work, either of God or of history ; neither -has 
 even the faintest presentiment of the moral signifieancy of his- 
 tory, of humanity as a unity. In both, therefore, there is abso- 
 lutely no humility of moral self-denial, but either a mere 
 lustful devotion to world-enjoyment, or a haughty contempt of 
 the external world, and hence in neither of them is there the 
 least felt need of redemption ; the sole redemption from the 
 burden, not of guilt but of an evil world of reality, is, suicide 
 with the Stoic, and sensuous intoxication with the Epicurean. 
 In neither system is there manifest the least approximation 
 to the Christian principle, no progress beyond Plato and 
 Aristotle, but rather simply the moral consciousness of hea- 
 thenism in its incipient dissolution, which is consummated in 
 Skepticism. 
 
 
 
 SECTION XXVI. 
 
 The subjectivism that predominated in Epicurean 
 and Stoic ethics finds its consequential and scientific- 
 ally-rigorous carrying-out, and at the same time 
 Greek and heathen ethics in general, its dissolution 
 and honorable self-destruction, in Skepticism, which 
 declares all judging of good and evil as futile, and 
 all modes of action as indifferent. Neo-Platonic 
 philosophy, which seeks to rescue heathenism as 
 against Christianity, and which perverts Christian 
 ideas to heathen purposes, presents in its but par- 
 tially developed ethics little more than a dreamy 
 mysticism a quietistic self-merging into the one uni- 
 versal divine essence ; and it is only for non-philoso- 
 phers that there is need of a, not scientific but, 
 practical code of morals. 
 
 Roman philosophy made no original contributions 
 to ethics. Apart from a but slightly independent 
 adoption of the doctrines of Stoicism, it presents 
 nothing more than a feebly eclectic character, and
 
 26.] SKEPTICISM. 145 
 
 does not rise beyond superficial calculating observa- 
 tions and opinions. 
 
 Skepticism lias often been misunderstood not only in its 
 scientific, but also in its world-historical significancy ; it arose 
 gradually and, as it were, spontaneously, without any one spe- 
 cially prominent founder, as a protest of the general rational 
 consciousness against the self-sufficiency and presumption of the 
 previously existing philosophies, and, in the sphere of ethics, 
 as the scientific conscience of heathenism. Subjectivism, when 
 consequentially carried out, leads inevitably to skepticism. 
 Socrates had contended with moral earnestness against the 
 subjectivism of the Sophists, and had attempted to find a solid 
 basis also for ethical philosophy ; in this commendable effort, 
 however, he succeeded as little as did, after him, Plato and 
 Aristotle and the Stoics. In these efforts they did not rise be- 
 yond mere formal definitions of the moral, and were obliged 
 to derive the material contents of the same from the primarily 
 merely fortuitously-determined essence of the individual sub- 
 ject. The sole thought that leads to a true basing of the moral 
 consciousness, namely, that the moral is the will of God, was 
 only dimly caught sight of, and could not in fact, from the 
 heathen stand-point, be carried out with any degree of cer- 
 tainty. That, now, the vail was torn off from the false method 
 of taking the finite subject as the criterion and the infallible 
 source of universally-valid and objective truth, and of attrib- 
 uting to subjective opinion an absolutely valid objective sig- 
 nificancy, and that subjectivism was exposed in all its naked- 
 ness and invalidity, this was the scientific service of Skepti- 
 cism, which, having shown traces of itself as early as in the 
 age of Aristotle (Pyrrhd), attained to greater prevalence in the 
 century before Christ (^ffinesidemus of Alexandria), and fully 
 developed itself in the second century after Christ (Sextus Em- 
 piricus), and thus like a devouring rust gradually undermined 
 the last self-confidence of heathen philosophy, save in so far 
 as it did not seek refuge behind the mystical nebula? of Neo- 
 Platonicism. 
 
 Skepticism is in fact simply the product of the antithesis 
 between Epicureanism and Stoicism. The former said: the 
 feeling of pleasure and displeasure alone decide as to the
 
 146 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 26. 
 
 morally-good ; the latter said : not feeling but thinking decides ; 
 Skepticism lets the two cancel each other, and says: neither 
 feeling nor thinking is capable of any real decision as to what 
 is good. Man cannot at all know what is per se good ; all our 
 feelings, experiences and thoughts have merely and exclusively 
 a subjective significancy, furnish no truth in regard to things 
 per se. This is not a mere feeble courting of doubt, not a mere, 
 *' I know not whether this or that is good," but a decisive, " I 
 know positively that I cannot know it, and I know also that 
 there is nothing that is per se good ; " and this knowledge of 
 the lack of knowledge is the true wisdom and the true virtue. 
 What is good or not good is determined solely by civil law and 
 by adopted custom, and there is no occasion for seeking for an- 
 other or higher basis therefor. Nothing is per se, and in its 
 essence good or evil. This consideration furnishes the basis 
 for true soul-repose and happiness, seeing that we then need 
 no longer be disturbed by feelings of desire or of disgust, but 
 that we look upon every thing with calm indifference. The 
 true and highest good consists therefore in this, that we be ab- 
 solutely indifferent toward all things that are usually regarded 
 as goods. As, on one occasion, during a storm, Pyrrho saw some 
 swine very unconsciously devouring their food, he is said to 
 have exclaimed: "The wise man must also be equally imper- 
 turbable I" If there were any thing that is good or evil per se, 
 all men would be found to see it ; whereas in fact the judgments 
 of men differ in all things, and the opposing philosophic schools 
 proclaim the most opposite things as good or evil. The truth 
 is, that in every case, the judgment as to good or evil is de- 
 termined by the spiritual or bodily peculiarity of the person 
 judging, and hence gives no certainty as to the essence of the 
 thing per se, but is always simply indicative as to what chances 
 to seem good or evil to him. Hence a science of the moral, a sys- 
 tem of ethics, is absolutely impossible, and all teaching as to 
 the moral is futile. But, as now, notwithstanding this, it is 
 necessary to live and act in some manner, so it is most advisable 
 to act according to the existing laws and customs, not, how- 
 ever, because they are good, but because this course is most ad- 
 vantageous. Though Sextus Empiricus, who has said most 
 on this head, does not show his best powers on the field of 
 ethics, yet it is not to be denied that liis attacks against the re-
 
 26.] NEO-PLATONISM. 147 
 
 suits of all previous ethics contain much truth, and that from 
 the heathen stand-point the Skeptics were, on the whole, justi- 
 fied in their doubts. Their skepticism gives evidence of a sig- 
 nificant self-consciousness in heathen science ; and even though 
 its results were unsatisfactory, still there was need of just such 
 a radical sifting and exposure in order to bring to sober reflec- 
 tion the falsely-secure and self-deluding spirit of heathenism, 
 and to render it more receptive for a better-founded world- 
 theory. 
 
 Neo-Platonic ethics can hardly be regarded as a genuine phase 
 of Greek thought proper. Entering the lists in antagonism to 
 the new world-power of Christianity for the purpose of rescuing 
 heathenism, mingling together into a nebulous conglomerate all 
 the fragmentary notions of Oriental and Occidental religions 
 and philosophies, and supplementing them with Christian 
 thoughts, Neo-Platonic philosophy manifests also in its but 
 crudely-formed ethics little more than the distressful features 
 of a spirit slowly and painfully dying of the mere senility of 
 age, a spirit which, without considerate choice of its means, is 
 feverishly possessed with the one desire of arousing up by arti- 
 ficial nerve-stimuli its already half-dead life-forces to one last 
 desperate up-flickering into life, a tragically-grand desperation- 
 effort of a mortally-wounded combatant, the titanic rebound- 
 ing of the spirit of antiquity when pierced through the heart 
 by the arrow of a higher form of truth ; (Plotinus, the greater 
 disciple of Ammonius Saccas, the founder of the school, living 
 mostly in Rome, ob. A. D. 270 ; his disciple Porphyry, ob, A. D. 
 304 ; Proclus, who lived mostly at Athens, ob. A. D. 485, the 
 last philosopher of Occidental heathenism.) 
 
 Deviating from all previous Greek philosophy, the Neo-Pla- 
 tonists place the idea of God in the fore-ground, and deduce 
 from it, and bring in relation to it, all principles of morality. 
 But this God-idea itself is further remote from the Biblical idea 
 of God than is even that of Plato and Aristotle. God is no 
 longer the infinite "personal Reason, but the absolutely unde- 
 termined abstract Unity, which unfolds itself, in Pantheistic em- 
 anation, into the world of multiplicity, which world is conse- 
 quently not a separate reality different from God, but simply 
 the shadow of God himself, the reverse-side of the divine, the 
 fading-away of the pure divine light, and hence of essentially 
 
 11
 
 148 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [26. 
 
 negative essence. Now as all knowledge must aim at behold- 
 ing all things in God and God in all things, hence also all moral 
 activity is directed exclusively to this one end, namely, to unite 
 one's self with God, to press one's self out of the world of plu- 
 rality, to renounce one's self as an individual being, to wish to 
 be and actually to be nothing more than a transient phase of 
 the alone truly-existing unitary divine essence. The moral 
 activity aims not at the producing of a real world of the good 
 different from God, aims not at realizing any thing which is 
 not already real and perfect from eternity, but, on the contrary, 
 aims at reducing back the soul from its immersion in the world 
 of reality into the solely and the alone-existing good, that is, into 
 God. God is not merely the highest good, but in fact the ab- 
 solutely sole good ; and whatever is different from God is, in so 
 far as it is so, not truly good. Hence the sole path of salvation 
 is the return from plurality to unity, and the first and most es- 
 sential condition thereto is the beholding of God, an indulging 
 in a mystical speculation, which is possible only in that one for- 
 gets one's self, spiritually dies away, so as to permit God 
 alone to prevail. The more I am a particular self-hood claim- 
 ing personality, so much the more remote am I from God. 
 Morality consists, therefore, not in a developing of this person- 
 ality, but in a suppressing of it, not in a becoming like God, 
 but in fact in becoming God himself. The self-conscious per- 
 sonality is not the God-like, but the God-foreign ; for God him- 
 self is not a personality is not this or that has no manner of 
 determinateness, but is that which is sublime above all cleter- 
 minateness, all quality, and hence also above spiritual person- 
 ality ; whatever is in any manner determined is not God, but 
 has gone out from God, and' hence is, in so far, extra-divine ; 
 and the same path which reality has traversed in passing from 
 undetermined unity to manifoldly-determined plurality, moral- 
 ity traverses again in the opposite direction, passes back from 
 plurality and determinateness to the unitary and undetermined. 
 In all these phases of thought, an Indian influence is unmistak- 
 able. 
 
 As true cognizing is not dialectical but contemplative, name- 
 ly, a spiritual beholding of God, so also true morality is not an 
 outward-going activity, but rather a non-acting, a restraining 
 of active volition, a dissolving of all particular personal voli-
 
 26.] ROMAN ETHICS. 149 
 
 tionating into the one divine essence. Whoever has the high- 
 est good needs and wishes for no other good. But the highest 
 good exists in no sense whatever apart from God, in the world, 
 but solely in the reality-transcending and indeterminate God. 
 For such an outward working, such a creating of a real king- 
 dom of the good, there is no occasion whatever; for all that 
 really exists is good already in so far as it is the divine essence, 
 and hence cannot be an object of change or resistance ; and in 
 so far as it is the divine essence as self-estranged, it is evil, and 
 hence should not be loved and confirmed ; there remains, there- 
 fore, for the moral activity no other work than simply to with- 
 draw itself from the world and, not so much int > itself as 
 much rather, into God. Hence there is no need of striving, of 
 combatting, and of laboring, but only of reposing ; to the eter- 
 nal keeping-silence, the eternal repose, of God, corresponds the 
 silent repose of the sage and moral man. Active virtue is not 
 the highest form of morality, but is only a praiseworthy moral 
 quality of such as have not yet risen to the stage of true wis- 
 dom. Such are the chief fundamental thoughts of this Keo- 
 Platonic philosophy, the influence of which made itself felt as 
 late as in the Christian mysticism of the Middle Ages. On the 
 whole, we could not properly expect from this last attempt of 
 heathen philosophy at self-preservation, any rigorous conse- 
 quential carrying-out of fundamental principles ; and hence we 
 in fact often find thoughts in it which hut imperfec ly harmo- 
 nize with it as a system. Still, the most of these seemingly irrec- 
 oncilable views are doubtless to be accounted for in the light 
 of the distinction which it made between wisdom proper (which 
 is attainable only for the elect few) and the moral instruction 
 of the populace at large. For the latter there is in fact need of 
 other moral precepts, seeing that men at large are not yet in 
 such a condition as to be able, through beholding and yielding, 
 to merge themselves into the absolutely One. 
 
 Roman philosophy, though enjoying high repute in the Mid- 
 dle Ages, and even as late as in the last century, has, however, 
 for the philosophical development of the science of ethics scarce- 
 ly any significance. The Stoic Romans did little more than in- 
 dulge in general popular discussions on the philosophy they 
 had adopted from the Greeks ; the Epicurean Romans simply 
 applied their views practically. Cicero is simply a discreet
 
 150 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 26. 
 
 Eclectic, though without speculative genius. He discusses 
 moral questions in clear but superficial processes of reasoning, 
 without finding for them a firm philosophical ground, or a real- 
 ly, scientific solution. The rhetorical form of his ethico- philo- 
 sophical writings does not redeem them from that tediousness 
 which inheres in any verbose display of unprofound observa- 
 tions. Zealously opposing Epicureanism, Cicero holds fast in 
 general to the Stoic system, modifying it with Platonic, Aris- 
 totelian and other elements, and this too not without many in- 
 stances of misunderstanding. His most important ethical work 
 is his De officiis, which is based mostly on the Stoic Panaetius. 
 In this work he examines, first, the notion of the morally-good 
 (honestum), then that of the useful (utile), and the mutual rela- 
 tion of these so often conflicting principles. The ' useful " he 
 finds to be only seemingly different from the good ; the fact is, 
 whatever is good is also useful, and whatever is truly useful is 
 also good, not, however, for the reason that it is useful, but the 
 converse ; hence to strive after the good renders necessarily at 
 the same time also happy. Of the other writings of Cicero, be- 
 long also here the Quaestion.es academ., the Disputationes Tus- 
 culante, and his essays: De senectute, De amicitia, De legibus, De 
 finibus. Cicero blames, in the Stoics, that they conceive of the 
 good only partially, that they regard not the entire man, but 
 only his spiritual phase, and lightly esteem the corporeal, so 
 that in fact while professing to follow nature they do not do 
 her justice, that they place on an equal footing all the virtues 
 as well as all the vices, and admit no intermediate gradations, 
 and also that because of their one-sidedness they involve them- 
 selves in many contradictions. Though finding the source of 
 the moral consciousness in reason, which is an efflux from the 
 divine reason, and by which therefore we become like God, 
 he yet derives ethics only in a very slight degree from the es- 
 sence of reason itself, but rather from the experience of life. 
 From this lack of a firm philosophical foundation, we can un- 
 derstand why Cicero placed an especially high value on his dis- 
 cussion upon the collision of duties. On the condition of a real 
 deduction of the various forms of duty from one fundamental 
 principle, there would be no possible place for such a discus- 
 sion ; but to the moralist who takes his starting-point from em- 
 pirical observation, this field appears as of especial difficulty and
 
 27.] OLD TESTAMENT ETHICS. 151 
 
 importance. The question: Which of several morally good 
 actions which cannot be reconciled with each other is to be 
 chosen as the better? Cicero answers very unsatisfactorily and 
 unphilosophically, on the mere ground of the social comfort- 
 ableness resulting therefrom (De off., i, 43 sqq.) Nor does he 
 succeed in all his sonorous periods on universal benevolence, 
 etc., in rising beyond the narrow views characteristic of 
 heathen ethics. Plutarch, a Greek with Roman education 
 (about A. D. 100,) furnishes in his numerous moral writings 
 many good observations on the moral life, and gives evidence 
 of a noble disposition of soul, though he does not rise be- 
 yond popular essays and observations, relating for the most 
 part to particular moral topics, gives neither a system, nor 
 rigorous, clear principles. In general he follows Plato, *and 
 rejects the extremes both of Epicureanism and Stoicism. 
 
 B. OLD-TESTAMENT AND JEWISH ETHICS. 
 
 SECTION XXVII. 
 
 The ethics of the Old Testament presents, in its 
 entire essence, a direct contrast to all heathen ethics. 
 Without systematic form and without scientific de- 
 velopment, it is yet perfectly self-consistent in its 
 ground, its essence, and its end. In harmony with 
 the idea of God as a spirit absolutely independent of 
 nature, and himself omnipotently conditioning the 
 whole sphere of nature, the ground of all morality is 
 absolutely and exclusively God's holy will as revealed 
 to the free personal creature ; the essence of the moral 
 is free, loving obedience to the revealed divine will ; 
 the ultimate end of morality is the realizing of per- 
 fect God-likeness, and hence also of perfect God-son- 
 ship and bliss, not merely for the individual, not 
 merely for the people Israel, but for all humanity, 
 and hence the realization of a humanity-embracing 
 kingdom of God ; the most immediate historical end,
 
 152 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 2T. 
 
 however, is to impart a knowledge of the need of 
 redemption from depravity as incurred by the sin of 
 man himself. Hence the law appears in fact pre- 
 dominantly, not as an inner natural one, but as a 
 purely positive, objective, historically-revealed one, 
 in order that man may become conscious of his natu- 
 ral estrangement from the truth. In this form it does 
 not have an ultimately definitive, but a transitory 
 and essentially disciplinary end ; and the realization 
 of the kingdom of God can only be prepared for, but 
 not fully accomplished, by the Israelitic people ; it is 
 a morality of hope. 
 
 As in the presentation of Christian ethics, further on, we shall 
 have to glance in considerable detail also at its historical ante- 
 cedent, namely, Old Testament ethics, hence we need here give 
 only the general characteristics of the latter.* 
 
 The antagonism of the moral idea of the Old Testament to 
 the views of collective heathenism, is radical and fundamental ; 
 there is here no shadow of a transition from the latter to the 
 former. Pre-Christian revealed ethics did not, however, have a 
 scientific, systematic form, and indeed could not have it, inas- 
 much as the key to its correct understanding was to be given 
 only in the days of the Messiah, and as the Hebrews were not 
 to be a perfect, independently-developed nation, but to find 
 their full truth only in Christianity. The Hebrews do not un- 
 dertake to find the ground of the moral consciousness in the 
 human spirit itself, for the man whom they know as real is no 
 longer the pure image of God, has no longer the unobscured 
 natural consciousness of God and of the moral. and even un- 
 fallen man needed to be awakened to this consciousness by the 
 revelation of God. The entire ground of the moral conscious- 
 ness is therefore sought in God's positive revelation to man, as 
 
 *In addition to general works on Old Testament theology, which 
 treat mostly of the ethical phase only incidentally, and to the works 
 mentioned in 5, may be cited, G. L. Bauer: Bibl. Moral des A. T., 
 1803, 2 vols., extremely Rationalistic; (Imm. Berger : Prakt. Einl. ins 
 A. 7*., continued by Augiitti, 1799-1808, 4 vols.)
 
 27.] NORM OF RIGHT. 153 
 
 indeed the ground of the moral on the whole is absolutely the 
 holy will of God, not as "an abstract law immanent in, though 
 partially hidden from, human reason, but as an express com- 
 mand of the personal God and made known to man by a his- 
 torical act of revelation. God speaks and man hearkens ; and 
 the moral activity is in its entire essence a child-like obeying 
 of the divine command made upon man. Here there is no 
 longer any room for a doubt, unless it be. a sinful one, no need 
 of a philosophical analysis. In case there is need in particular 
 conjunctures for a more definite decision, then God gives it him- 
 self, either directly, as with the patriarchs and the divinely- 
 called and enlightened prophets, or, mediately, through the 
 same, or indeed also through specific signs, such as the lot 
 [Num. xxvi, 55, 56; xxxiii, 54; xxxiv, 13; Josh, vii, 14 sqq. ; 
 xiii, 6; xiv, 2; xviii, 6 sqq.; xix, 1 sqq.; xxi, 4 sqq.; 1 Sam. 
 x, 20 sqq.; Prov. xvi, 33; xviii, 18], the high-priestly Urim and 
 Thummim [Ex. xxviii, 30 ; Num. xxvii, 21 ; 1 Sam. xxiii, 6 sqq.; 
 xxviii, 6; xxx, 7, 8; comp. 2 Sam. ii, 1; v, 19, 23 sqq.], and 
 others [1 Sam. xiv, 8 sqq., cornp. Gen. xxiv, 12 sqq.]. The 
 command of God to man presents itself in a strictly positive 
 definite form: "thou shalt," "thou shalt not," "thou mayest." 
 For any other reason than God's will, man has no right to ask ; 
 he is simply to believe the word of God this alone leads him 
 to righteousness. To personal free self-determination and ma- 
 turity, man is to attain simply and solely through child-like 
 faith-obedience to the word of the Father. He who questions 
 and hesitates where God speaks, cannot possibly be moral, 
 since he is lacking in faith. Unhesitating, unreluctant, joyous 
 submission to God's definite command, is the beginning, the 
 end and the essence of all morality. Types of such faith-obedi- 
 ence are Noah [Gen. vi, 22 ; vii, 5], Abraham [xii, 4], Jacob, 
 Moses, Samuel. David, and others. The simple fact that God 
 wills it, is the absolutely sufficient reason ; the fear of God is 
 the beginning of wisdom. The antecedent condition of the 
 moral, as lying in the bosom of man himself, is, however, the 
 image of God the pure knowledge and the untrammeled 
 will of moral freedom. Man should, but he is not compelled ; 
 his salvation is placed within his own hand ; the thought, 
 "If thou hearkenest to my word, it shall go well with thee," 
 pervades the entire Old Testament from beginning to end.,
 
 154 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 27. 
 
 Between God and man there subsists an absolutely person- 
 ally-moral relation. Even as God, 'as the true and perfect 
 personality, is the holy prototype of all morality, and as the 
 simple thought of this God is directly presented as the per- 
 fectly sufficient ground for all moral life : "Ye shall be holy, 
 for /the Lord your God am holy" [Lev. xi, 45; xix, 2], "I 
 am the almighty God, walk before me and be thou perfect " 
 [Gen. xvii, 1], so also is man's complete personality recog- 
 nized and respected by God even in the already sin-corrupted 
 race. God does not himself immediately work all willing 
 and acting in man, does not force him to obedience, but He 
 makes a cocenant with man, with his people, comes as a holy 
 personality into moral relation to man as a free moral person- 
 ality. The fulfillment of the covenant-promise is conditioned 
 on the covenant-fidelity of man. 
 
 The purpose, the goal of the moral is not the merely indi- 
 vidual perfection of the moral subject, but it is, on the one 
 hand, the salvation and perfection of the whole human race, 
 a thought entirely unknown to heathendom and, on the 
 other, the full and blissful life-communion of the person with 
 God; "I will be your God, and ye shall be my people" [Lev. 
 xxvi, 12; Jer. vii, 23]; not merely the individual subject 
 but the moral community, the people of God (entire humanity 
 is to become this people), is to be received into this com- 
 munion with God. 
 
 Immediately upon the creation of man the thought of the 
 moral presents itself clearly and definitely [Gen. i, 26-ii, 24]. 
 (1.) The objective presupposition of the moral is presented, 
 namely, the living personal God as the prototype of man and 
 of his life, and nature as good and normal and as existing 
 independently over against man, and, then, the subjective 
 presupposition, namely, man as a personal spirit like unto 
 his Creator. (2.) The goal of morality as a task, a duty, 
 namely, the realizing and completing of the divine image, is 
 expressed under one of its phases, as the dominion of man 
 over nature; this implies the realization of free personal 
 spirituality in likeness to God the legitimate "being as 
 God." In the strong emphasizing of this dominion over 
 nature, (so utterly in contrast to all actual experience,) there 
 is plainly indicated the ideal essence of the moral task ; its
 
 27.] CONDITIONS OF MORALITY. 155 
 
 full realization however is not to be attained to at once, but is 
 the final goal, and lies in the future. In striking contrast to 
 all heathen views, according to which man is either abso- 
 lutely subject to nature, or at least has nature before him as 
 a cramping, and never-entirely-to-be-overcome power, we 
 have here the true relation of the rational spirit to nature, 
 namely, his complete freedom, his destination to entire 
 mastery over it, that is, we have the full personality of man 
 as the key-stone of the collective morally-religious world- 
 theory. That this dominion of the spirit over nature is not 
 to be a childish magical interfering with nature, is evident 
 from the simple fact that man is called to it only as being un 
 image of the nature-dominating God, and that immediately 
 before and after his call thereto the God-established perma- 
 nent regularity of nature is alluded to as in some sense a right 
 of nature, and that man is at once directed to the orderly 
 and conserving culture of nature [ii, 15]. The dominion 
 o /er nature is not the entire goal of the moral striving, it is, 
 however, a very expressive suggestion of the same, and is 
 within the comprehension of the child-like and as yet imma- 
 ture spirit. (3.) The legitimate freedom of choice and its en- 
 joyment are guaranteed to man. as a right, in the sphere of 
 the discretionary [i, 28-30; ii, 16]. (4.) The unambiguous dec- 
 laration is made that morality is not a something belonging 
 merely to the individual person, but that on the contrary 
 man can accomplish his task only as a member of a moral 
 community ; it is not good that man should be alone ; he ought 
 not to remain in isolation, but should form a part of a family, 
 should enter into association with moral humanity, and it is 
 only on this condition that the good is truly realizable for the 
 subject. (5.) In the anticipatory allusion to the observance 
 of the Sabbath as based on the divine example [ii, 2, 3] is 
 presented the ideal phase of human activity, the re-collect- 
 ing of the personal spirit from the distractions of the outer 
 life into the calm of meditation ; man is not at liberty com- 
 pletely to merge himself into earthly temporal cares, should 
 constantly have before him, in all his temporal activity, also 
 the eternal as the true and highest good. The heathen either 
 buries himself up in temporal activity and enjoyment, or con- 
 temptuously turns himself entirely away from the same ; .the
 
 156 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 2T. 
 
 saint of the Old Testament lives and acts in God's good- 
 created world, but does not merge himself into it, with- 
 draws himself from it into the Sabbath repose of a heart 
 in communion with its God. In the simple feature of Sab- 
 bath observance itself, Old Testament morality presents itself 
 in sharp and definite contrast to all heathen ethics, and places 
 the moral task of man higher than the latter. 
 
 Hebrew ethics, however, does not linger, as was almost 
 exclusively the case with heathen ethics, in the purely ideal 
 sphere, in the consideration of the good per se, does not 
 conceive of evil as a mere possibility or as a merely excep- 
 tional or isolated reality, or as a nature-necessity back of all 
 human guilt (which are all, in fact, heathen views) but looks 
 evil earnestly and squarely in the face, and regards it as a 
 sad, all-prevalent reality, the guilt of which lies in the free 
 act of man, and is participated in by all without exception. 
 The morality of the chosen people of God looks, therefore, 
 not merely to a warding off and an avoiding of evil as a 
 something as yet external to our heart, and merely threaten- 
 ing us, but to a zealous, constant combating of the same, 
 not outside of us in an originally defective world, but within 
 in the inmost guilt-laden heart of the subject himself. Sin 
 is of historical origin, an historical reality and power; and 
 morality, the nature of which presents itself now quite pre- 
 dominantly as a vigorous combating against sin, appears 
 , also itself in a uniformly historical character, is promoted 
 and guided by a divine history-chain of ever richer-unfolding 
 gracious guidances, and gives rise to a moral history, to a 
 redemption-history, to a kingdom of God here upon earth 
 inside of humanity, at first, in faith and hope, and after- 
 wards (after it has reached the goal promised by God from the 
 very start, and embraced by the people with pious confidence, 
 and kept constantly in view) in full, blissful reality. Hea- 
 thenism knows indeed evil, knows vice, but it does not know 
 *t/i, for sin is of a morally-historical character ; hence it knows 
 also of no historical overcoming of the same, no expecting, 
 no preparing for, nor realization of, a kingdom of God in 
 humanity; the Persians alone have an obscure presentiment 
 thereof, perhaps not without a ray of light received from the 
 people of God, with whom they were in contact, and whom,
 
 27.] WORLD-HISTORICAL GOAL. 157 
 
 from their residence among them, they learned highly to 
 esteem. 
 
 On the entrance of sin into the world there arises at once 
 a separation among men between those who permit them- 
 selves to be fettered by sin and those who retain God and his 
 salvation in view, between the children of the world and the 
 children of God ; God, however, looks in compassionate love 
 also upon the former and plans for them a redemption, the 
 world-historical preparation of which is confided to that peo- 
 ple which He separates out from among the men of sin, and 
 paternally guides ; God separates to himself the man of 
 faith, him who trusts in God with rock-like firmness and 
 cheerfully and unconditionally obeys his word even where 
 he is unable to comprehend it and where it diametrically 
 contradicts his own natural consciousness. God places be- 
 fore Abraham, from the very start, not a merely personal, 
 but a world-historical goal: "In thee shall all the families 
 of the earth be blessed" [Gen. xii, 3], and he repeats this 
 promise again and again in progressively more definite feat- 
 ures ; as in Adam all die, so in Abraham are all nations to be 
 blessed and to be brought to the Acconiplisher of Salvation. 
 For the first time in the history of humanity we find here, 
 and in contrast to all heathendom, a definite world-historical 
 goal of the moral life ; not man, but God has established it 
 in compassionating grace, and has sealed it in successive and 
 progressively richer promises ; and an individual man is 
 elected to co-operate in the fulfilling of this promise, which 
 is not given to him as an individual but to humanity, to co- 
 operate in such a sense as that this man, that this people 
 itself, may become capable of really participating in the fruit 
 of the redemption accomplished by the act of grace, by be- 
 coming the maternal womb which is to bear and give birth 
 to the Saviour. But the individual has part in this moral 
 work only when he accepts the promise in faith, and it is 
 only when he accepts the promise in faith, and only on the 
 basis of this faith, that he is able to attain to true obedience 
 of life. 
 
 This people, so strictly cut off from all the rest of the race, 
 this people hated, oppressed, down-trodden by the rest of 
 mankind, becomes thus, from the very beginning, of world-
 
 158 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 27. 
 
 hixtorical significance, in a much higher sense than any other 
 pre-Christian people. The heathen nations which actively 
 entered into and shaped history sought only themselves but 
 not humanity; the Israelitic people, shut up exclusively to 
 the promise and to faith, a people already spiritually de- 
 veloped and molded into a moral organism before it had as 
 yet where to lay its head, and which was as yet seeking its 
 earthly home, a spiritual people without any nature-basis, 
 and which received its earthly home only as a gracious gift 
 of God, conferred on moral conditions [Lev. xxv, 23], this 
 people, in its God-willed and commanded separation from all 
 heathen nations, in its so often, even up to the present day, 
 reproached "particularism," was, after all, absolutely the 
 only people which had in view, from the beginning, the true 
 " universalism, " (namely, the salvation of collective hu- 
 manity), as its highest goal, and which sought to do nothing 
 else than to prepare the way for this salvation of humanity 
 [Gen. xii, 3; ^viii, 18; xxii, 18; xxvi, 4; Deut. xxxii, 43; 
 1 Chron. xvi, 23, 28; Isa. ii, 2 sqq.; xi, 10 sqq.; xxv, 6 sqq.; 
 xlii, 1, 6; xlv, 20, 22, 23; xlix, 6; lii, 15; liv, 3; Iv, 5; Ix; 
 Ixi, 11; Ixii, 2; Ixv, 1; Ixvi, 18 sqq.; Jer. iv, 2; xvi, 19; 
 Amos ix, 11, 12 ; Hag. ii, 7 (8) ; Zech.ii, 11 ; vi, 15 ; viii, 20 sqq.; 
 xiv, 16 ; Micah iv, 1 sqq.; Mai. i, 11 ; Psa. ii, 8 ; xviii, 49 ; Ixvii, 
 2; Ixxii, 8 sqq.; lxxxvi,9,10; xcvi,7,10; cii, 15; cxvii, 1]. The 
 Israelites had therefore, from the very beginning, the deepest 
 interest for history, and for the goal of history as clearly 
 presented by prophetic promise ; the divine prophetic bene- 
 dictions upon the patriarchs relate much less to their own 
 person than to the history of humanity as proceeding from 
 them; the Hebrew is clearly conscious that all his moral 
 striving contributes to conduct the God-guided current of 
 history to the God-promised realization of salvation ; instead 
 of the gloomy, despairing tragic consciousness of the most 
 highly cultured of all the heathen nations, we find here a 
 full confidence in the ultimate fulfillment of the redemption 
 longed-for by man and promised by God. 
 
 The Israelites have and could have this high world-his- 
 torical mission only because they were made to conceive of 
 themselves from the very beginning as, not a nature-people, 
 but as a spiritual people which obtained for itself its natural
 
 27.] A SPIRITUAL PEOPLE. 159 
 
 prosperity only through moral fidelity. As the people of 
 God, they name themselves not Hebrews, from their natural 
 descent, nor yet from Abraham, nor from Isaac, nor indeed 
 from Jacob's first name, but from his later God-given name, 
 Israel, which he received after he had wrestled with the angel 
 [Gen. xxx, 24 sqq]. From Abraham and Isaac descend also 
 other tribes, which do not belong to the people of God ; only 
 Jacob's descendants belong all thereto. Nor is Jacob the 
 progenitor of the people of God in his earlier self-willed and 
 self-confiding life, but solely in his spiritually-transformed 
 life, after that, praying and beseeching, he had wrestled, in 
 bitter repentance, with Jehovah as offended at his many sins 
 and deceits, and after that, in self-denying humility having 
 put off all self-righteousness, he had thrown himself child-like 
 at the feet of God and confided all his well-being to His 
 blessing. It becomes the people of Israel, as a spiritual peo- 
 ple, to have also a spiritual and not a merely natural man as 
 their father, and the true bearing of this father to God is ex- 
 pressed in the words : "I will not let thee go unless thou bless 
 me." Whoever would belong to this spiritual people of God 
 must divest himself of all his mere naturalness ; this is sym- 
 bolized by the covenant-token of the people with God, cir- 
 cumcision. 
 
 The Israelite, in his moral strivings, has the highest good 
 hopefully and confidently in view, and not for the individual 
 person 'alone, but for humanity. The idea of the highest 
 good, the fundamental thought of all morality, has, in the 
 Old Testament history, a very distinct development. It ap- 
 pears in God's promises, on the one hand, as a grace, and, on 
 the other, as a reward for trusting fidelity, neither of which 
 is by any means to be separated from, or regarded as contra- 
 dictory to, the other. In the first blessing after the creation, 
 as we have already seen, the thought of the highest good is 
 already indicated ; by sin, however, the blessing is changed 
 into a curse, the highest good is thrown into the far distant, 
 and is only obscurely alluded to in the promise of the ulti- 
 mate victory of the seed of the woman over the seed of the 
 serpent [Gen. iii, 15], and henceforth the thought of the 
 highest good is associated with the victory over evil-, with 
 redemption. And though mankind, originally destined to
 
 160 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 2f . 
 
 possess the whole earth [Gen. i, 28; Matt, v, 5], receive now 
 merely in small numbers, as members of the people of God, 
 only a very small space of the earth for their possession, yet 
 is also this typical foretaste of the possession of the highest 
 good associated at the same time with promises of victory 
 over the sin-symbolizing heathen inhabitants thereof; the 
 highest good even in its feeblest foretastes is conditioned on 
 trustful struggle and victory. In the blessing upon Noah 
 [Gen. ix] there are indicated as the highest good, in the first 
 place, the multiplication of the human race through Noah, 
 and the dominion over nature (now, after the fall into sin, 
 under a somewhat changed form), and, then, in the express 
 covenant of God with Noah, the full personal communion of 
 believing man with God. To Abraham, the prophetic bene- 
 diction is essentially enlarged, including the multiplication 
 of his family under God's guidance, the guaranteeing of an 
 earthly father-land as a gift of God, and the blessing of en- 
 tire humanity through the people of God as springing from 
 him. God had expressly called Abraham away from his 
 natural father-land ; he is to receive another one in its stead, 
 one that is morally acquired from God's hand through be- 
 lieving submission to God ; all earthly good is to bear also a 
 spiritual character, is to be an outgrowth from spiritual 
 good ; even the most natural earthly good, the home, is to be 
 obtained as a grace in reward of faith. Homeless upon earth 
 for several centuries, the people Israel are to find, first, 
 their eternal home, so as, then, after having been trained 
 by God's hand, and ripened for his service through sufferings 
 and submission, to receive an earthly one as a gift of grace ; 
 and this home is to be for them a symbol of the eternal one, 
 a shadow of the highest good. Even in the first promise to 
 Abraham, there beams out through this earthly good a faint 
 gleam of the heavenly one : " in thee shall all families of the 
 earth be blessed ; " Abraham is to be, not merely by his ex- 
 ample of faith, but also really, by his family, the beginning 
 of a kingdom of God for entire humanity ; to be himself in 
 this kingdom of blessing, and this kingdom in him, this is, 
 for him, the highest good. Exactly similar promises of tem- 
 poral and likewise spiritual goods, God gives to Isaac and to 
 Jacob [Gen. xxvi, 3-5; xxviii, 13-15; comp. xxxv, 9-11;
 
 27.] LIFE AFTER DEATH. 161 
 
 xlviii, 4] ; Isaac's blessing upon his son Jacob relates, it is 
 true, primarily only to temporal good [xxvii, 28,29]; xxviii, 
 3, 4], but nevertheless with allusion to the higher good. It 
 is true, temporal well-being [Gen. xxxix, 2, 3, 5, 23; Lev. 
 xxvi, 3 sqq.; Deut. v, 29; vi, 3, 18, 24; vii, 13 sqq.; viii, 
 6 sqq.; xi, 9 sqq., 21 sqq.; xii, 28; xv, 4-6, 10; xxviii, I sqq., 
 comp. Psa. Ixxxi, 13, 14], and a continuance in the land, and 
 long life [Exod. xx, 12 ; xxiii, 26 ; Deut. iv, 40 ; v, 33 ; vi, 2 ; 
 xxx, 2 sqq.; xxxii, 47], are very often presented, not indeed 
 with reference merely to the individual, but also to the na- 
 tion, as a divine blessing for pious fidelity, as a high good 
 and end ; but as early as at the time of the actual conclusion 
 of the covenant of God with the people on Sinai, the highest 
 good appears as of a spiritual character: "If ye will obey 
 my voice indeed and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a 
 peculiar treasure unto me above all people ; for all the earth 
 is mine ; and ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests and a 
 holy nation " [Exod. xix, 5, 6] ; the highest blessing is the peace 
 of God [Num. vi, 26 ; Psa. xxix, 11], the love of God, the com- 
 passion of God, and his covenant with men [Deut. vii, 9, 
 12, 13; xiii, 17, 18], so that they "may live long" [Deut. 
 v, 33] and that God might be their "righteousness" [vi, 25] ; 
 and in the first commandment : " I am the Lord thy God, thou 
 shalt have no other gods before me " [Exod. xx, 2, 3], the ob- 
 jective phase of the highest good is definitely expressed ; 
 any thing else, save God, that man might regard as the 
 highest good, is in fact but a worthless idol ; and hence the 
 rejection of the covenant of grace works an everlasting rejection 
 of him who rejects it [1 Chron. xxviii, 9]. 
 
 In view of this high spiritual conception of the highest good, 
 it appears as in the highest degrge a surprising fact that the 
 thought of a life after death is not directly brought to bear 
 upon the moral life, is not presented as a motive of action, or 
 as a phase of the highest good, a peculiarity that is all the 
 more striking when we consider that the children of Israel had 
 lived for four centuries in Egypt, and that Moses had been edu- 
 cated in the wisdom of this country, where precisely this 
 thought of immortality very powerfully shaped the entire moral 
 and religious life, and when we further consider that this 
 thought itself was most unquestionably recognized among the
 
 162 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 27. 
 
 children of Israel [Gen. v, 24 ; xv, 15 ; xxv, 8 ; xxxvii, 35 ; xlix, 
 26, 29,33; Deut. xxxi, 16; xxxii, 50; 1 Sam. xxviii; Job 
 xxvi, 5; 2 Kings ii; Psa. xvi, 10; xlix, 15; Prov. xv, 24], as 
 it would also be naturally presumable that a people which 
 places so high a value upon the personality, could not be igno- 
 rant of this thought, which so largely prevailed throughout 
 heathendom. This manifestly intentional placing in the 
 back-ground of the thought of immortality as bearing upon 
 the moral life, is to be explained from the peculiarity of the 
 purpose which God had with this nation, in view of the salva- 
 tion of mankind. (1.) The people of Israel is a world-historical 
 one as no other ante-Christian people was; the entire hopes and 
 striving of the nation are directed toward the ultimate salva- 
 tion of the human race as the highest goal ; the primarily 
 feeble, but constantly more definite-growing Messianic thought 
 throws temporarily into the back-ground the interest in future 
 life of the individual person. The entire hope of Israel looks 
 forward to the highest good, the true salvation, but this high- 
 est good consists, even for the pious Israelite, only in the future 
 redemption that is to be accomplished by a world-historical 
 divine act ; the Redeemer had first to spring from the line of 
 David before the life after death could have real worth for the 
 saint, or be his highest good ; before this event, the transmun- 
 dane life was a beclouded one, not only for the consciousness, 
 Ttmt also per se, was not as yet a truly blissful life in the pres- 
 ence of God [Psa. vi, 5; xlix, 15 sqq . ; Ixxxviii, 10-13; cxv, 
 17; Isa. xxxviii, 18]. As Abraham rejoiced that he should see 
 the day of the Lord [John viii, 56], so also longed Abraham's 
 seed for this day, from which time forth, only, the life after 
 death could be a truly blessed one. The saints of the Old 
 Covenant did not pass their lives as having no hope, but their 
 hope was primarily an historical one, was fixed upon the his- 
 torical fulfillment of the promises, and aspired toward a heav- 
 enly home only from, and on the basis of, this fulfillment. 
 (2.) Though for the redeemed Christian the thought of a 
 future life is a very important element of his moral conscious- 
 ness, nevertheless for the as yet not truly regenerated man there 
 lies in the same no inconsiderable danger, namely, the danger 
 of selfish reward-seeking, of a narrow-hearted directing of 
 his moral striving exclusively toward his personal well-being
 
 27.] ANTI-HERO -WORSHIP. 163 
 
 instead of toward the salvation of humanity. Though the 
 saints of the Old Covenant participated in many gracious 
 gifts, so that they cannot be regarded as merely natural men, 
 still, they were not as yet in the highest sense spiritually 
 regenerated ; and, in fact, in the necessary redemption-prepar- 
 ing requirement of strict obedience to the objectively-given 
 law, they stood all the more exposed Jo this danger of regard- 
 ing their future salvation as a reward for good works, as is 
 actually evinced by the rise of Pharisaism. From this danger 
 God preserved the Hebrews, in that while He indeed promised 
 them a gracious reward for their fidelity, He yet presented as 
 such reward, on the one hand, only such goods as most evi- 
 dently could not be, for the pious, the highest good, and, on 
 the other hand, the fulfillment of the divine promises within 
 the sphere of history, namely, redemption, so that they were 
 necessarily brought to the consciousness that the highest good 
 was not the reward of their own works, but the fruit of a future 
 divine act of grace. 
 
 Although the law had essentially also the purpose of awak- 
 ening the consciousness of the antagonism of the sinful nature 
 of man against the holy will of God, thus implying that the 
 full consciousness of the sinful perversion of human nature was 
 a state that had as yet to be attained to, nevertheless this con- 
 sciousness exists from the very beginning, and that too very 
 vividly, as we shall hereafter see ; and it is especially note- 
 worthy that notwithstanding the high reverence which the 
 Israelites had for their patriarchs and for the prophets of God, 
 still they were very far from regarding them as moral ideals. It 
 is true, there are mentioned pious and just men, such as Enoch 
 and Noah; and the faithfulness of Abraham shines forth 
 typically even into the New Covenant ; but they are never pre- 
 sented as real holy types of morality, (not even in Gen. xxvi, 
 4, 5 ; 2 Chron. vii, 17 ; Mai. ii, 15) ; on the contrary, the his- 
 torical records relate, even of the most revered characters, 
 manifold sins, and sins which the Israelites unquestionably 
 regarded as such; thus, for example, of Abraham [Gen. xii, 11 
 sqq. ; xx, 2 sqg.], and of Jacob [xxvii, 14 sqq. ; xxxi, 20], and 
 of Reuben, of Simeon and Levi [xxxiv, 14 sqq. ; xxxv, 22; 
 xlix, 14 sqq.] ; and of the other sons of Jacob [xxxvii] ; and 
 of Judah, the ancestor of the kings, there is recorded scarcely 
 
 12
 
 164 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 27. 
 
 any thing but evil ; he even begets Pharez from whom David, 
 and hence also the Messiah, were to descend in unconscious 
 incest and conscious whoredom [xxxviii] ; Moses slays the 
 Egyptian and buries him secretly, and this was also certainly 
 regarded as a crime [Exod. ii, 11 sqq.] ; he resists faint-heartedly 
 the divine call, [Exod. iii and iv] and subsequently wavers in his 
 faith, and is, for that reason, shut out from the Land of Prom- 
 ise [Num. xx, 7 sqq. ; Deut. xxxii, 49 sqq.] ; and that which is 
 said to him holds good in another sense of all the saints of 
 the Old Covenant, namely : " thou shalt see the land before 
 thee, but thou shalt not enter into it ; " and however pre-eminent 
 David and Solomon are in courageous faith and in wisdom, 
 still they were not pure examples even for the Israelites ; the 
 Israelites knew of only one Servant of God who was perfect 
 and pure and holy, namely, the longed-for Anointed of the Lord. 
 And accordingly the saints of the Old Covenant kept them- 
 selves far from all self-glorification, and aspired to a higher 
 goal. The undevout self-righteousness and work -holiness of the 
 later Pharisaism is totally repugnant to the spirit of the Old 
 Covenant ; for the law requires most certainly not merely the 
 outward work, but above all and essentially also a morally-pious 
 disposition, bears, in contradistinction to the later Jewish out- 
 ward legality, a very positive character of inwardliness. The 
 basis and essence of all morality are the requirement, that man 
 " should love God with all his heart, with all his soul, and with 
 all his might " [Deut. vi, 5 ; x, 12 ; xiii, 3] ; he is to take the 
 divine law to his heart, and to observe it with his whole heart 
 and his whole soul [Deut. v, 29; vi, 6; xi, 13; 18 sqq. ; xxvi, 
 16 ; xxx, 2 ; Josh, xxii, 5] ; God desires not merely the external 
 works, he requires our heart [1 Chron. xxii, 19 ; Prov. xxiii, 26] ; 
 the saint not only fulfills the law, but " his delight is in the law of 
 the Lord " [Psa. i, 2 ; cxii, 1 ; cxix, 24, 35, 70 ; Job xxii, 22, 26 ; 
 Deut. xxviii, 47] ; and all obedience is simply joyous thankful- 
 ness for God's gracious guidance [Exod. xx, 2 sqq. ; Deut. iv 
 and v; vi, 20 s^.; viii, 3 sqq. ; x, 19 sqq. ; xi, 1; xv, 15; xvi, 
 12 ; 1 Chron. xxix, 9 and others] ; and therefore not merely the 
 sinful act, but equally also the lust to evil, is sinful and damna- 
 ble [Exod. xx, 17 ; Prov. vi, 25]. 
 
 Old Testament morality has essentially a preparatory charac- 
 ter, refers forward to a higher and as yet to be acquired
 
 27.] "CLEAN" AND "UNCLEAN." 165 
 
 morality ; hence it bears in part a symbolical form, expressing 
 by external signs, that, the full realization of which, was pos- 
 sible only after the time of the accomplishment of redemption, 
 and thereby constantly keeping before the eyes of the people 
 what the ultimate moral purpose of the divine economy with 
 Israel was, although this purpose could not as yet be fully 
 realized. In order to keep constantly awake and to intensify 
 the moral consciousness of the antagonism of the divine will to 
 the sinful nature which had now become natural to actual man, 
 the antagonism of the " clean " and the " unclean " is rigor- 
 ously insisted upon and carried out, and that too not merely in 
 the sphere of the purely spiritual and moral, but also in that 
 of nature, where the moral is only symbolically prefigured. 
 Man is required to learn, in free obedience, to distinguish and 
 choose between the godly and the ungodly, and that too not 
 according to his natural impulses and feelings, nor by the merely 
 reflective observation and examination of things, but solely by 
 the minutely-particularizing positive divine law. To man, as 
 not yet actually redeemed and sanctifiecl, but as yet involved 
 and entangled in the bonds of sinfulness, the law presents 
 itself, and properly so, as of an objectively-revealed character, 
 as foreign to his natural state, and to which there is nothing 
 correspondent in his inner nature unless it be a loving willing- 
 ness to unconditional obedience. Educative disciplining to 
 obedience is the essential end of many of the positive laws, 
 which must consequently appear to the truly emancipated 
 and redeemed as a yoke, whereas, for him who is only as yet 
 struggling toward freedom, they are a wholesome discipline. 
 
 Old Testament morality presents a moral task not only to the 
 individual person, but it also keeps in view, from the very 
 start, the necessity of moral communion. It conceives of the 
 moral significance of the family more highly than any of the 
 heathen systems ; in giving to reverence for parents a religious 
 ground, it guarantees at the same time the moral rights of 
 children as against sinful parents ; and if it is not as yet able to 
 raise marriage to the height of the Christian view, inasmuch as 
 only the truly spiritually-regenerated are in a condition to appre- 
 ciate and fulfill its full significance [Matt, v, 31 ; xix, 8], nev- 
 ertheless it does give to it the truly religious and moral basis. 
 It changes the slavery of Israelites into a very mild service-rela-
 
 166 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 27. 
 
 tion, and protects, by extremely humane regulations, that o 
 non-Israelites from arbitrary and severe oppressiveness. The 
 differences among mankind are no longer natural, but spirit- 
 ually -moral ; even foreign slaves have part in the worship and 
 in the blessings of the people of God. The moral organization 
 of society into the state is presented in the Old Testament, from 
 the very start, in its highest moral significancy, as a unity of 
 church and state as a theocracy in which the entire moral 
 community-life of the people rests on a religious basis, in 
 which Jehovah alone is Jdng, and the God-called and enlight- 
 ened prophets the organs of his will, organs to whom the peo- 
 ple submit themselves in believingly joyous obedience. But here 
 also, as well as in the case of marriage, God gives simply the 
 unambiguous idea, and, because of the hardness of the hearts, 
 concedes another state-organization more correspondent to the 
 sinful circumstances of the people, namely, the purely human 
 institution of an earthly monarchy, reserving the full realiza- 
 tion of the higher idea, for the future. But even this earthly 
 kingdom is to be an image of the divine kingdom, and the 
 kings, the faithful instruments of the holy will of God kings 
 "after God's own heart;" the Old Testament recognizes neither 
 despotic nor democratic caprice-domination as morally admissi- 
 ble. Of all this we must speak again further on. 
 
 As Old Testament redemption-history presents essentially an 
 educative preparation for the historical accomplishing of the 
 redemption-act, hence it is clearly manifest that this prepara- 
 tion must be a historically-progressive one, and that conse- 
 quently Old Testament ethics itself must have an historical devel- 
 opment. This, as yet, very unsatisfactorily-treated portion of 
 Biblical theology cannot, however, be fully presented in the 
 brief space to which the plan of our historical Introduction 
 confines us ; we therefore remark here only two points, (1), that 
 the essential character of the moral view (and the question is 
 here simply as to essential features) is contradictory to the 
 heathen view, and different from the Christian, and, throughout 
 all the writings of the Old Testament, self-consistent and the 
 same : and, (2), that the prophetic redemption-history is closely 
 connected with the legislative, seeing that Moses himself was 
 the greatest among the prophets. The prophets, in the nar- 
 rower sense of the word, do not give an essentially new moral
 
 27.] ETHICS OF THE PROPHETS. 167 
 
 revelation, but, on the contrary, uniformly proceed on the basis 
 of that of Moses, referring, on the one hand, exhortingly to its 
 requirements, and rebuking the unfaithfulness of the people to 
 its spirit, but, on the other, directing attention with constantly 
 greater distinctness to the goal of this moral development- 
 process of the people of Israel, that is, to their world historical 
 destination, and, above all, they seek to ward against the 
 danger of legal holiness and self-sufficiency, the danger of the 
 selfish contentment of the single moral subject with his own 
 individual development, which lies in every strictly-developed 
 system of laws, that is, against the danger of a merely external 
 performing of the works of the law, as was at a later period 
 actually presented in Pharisaism ; they earnestly urged to the 
 inner purity of the heart, and bring to an increasingly clearer 
 consciousness, the morality that transcends that of the mere in- 
 dividual, namely, the general moral task of the totality, of the 
 people of God. While the earlier ethics has more the character 
 of a doctrine of laws and duties, the ethics of the prophets 
 bears rather that of a doctrine of goods. The Proverbs of Sol- 
 omon, in contrast to the Mosaic Laws which present themselves 
 as direct revelations from God, consist predominantly in rules 
 of practical life-wisdom and life-prudence, drawn from the rich 
 life-experience of a heart pious, though indeed often erring, and 
 strengthened and ripened in the true fear of God ; they appeal 
 therefore less to a believing submission to an express divine 
 command than rather to the free spontaneous assent, natural to 
 a pious God-consciousness ; they aim not at the disciplining of 
 a, as yet, morally immature spirit by a legal yoke, but at the 
 purifying, ripening and moral strengthening of the spirit as al- 
 ready consciously dwelling in God; they are not the sternly 
 demanding voice of a prophet, but the witness of a preacher; 
 it is not directly Jehovah, but it is the pious servant of God, 
 who speaks to the pious. In Moses the question is every-where 
 as to obedience ; with Solomon the constant theme is wisdom, a 
 quality which is scarcely mentioned by Moses, and for the sim- 
 ple reason that the discipline of the law needed to precede and 
 prepare the way, before the free subjectivity of wisdom could 
 come to realization. This coming into the fore-ground of the 
 thought of wisdom evinces the progress of the moral conscious- 
 ness out of the child-like condition of subjection to an objective
 
 168 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 27. 
 
 law, to the riper manhood of a freer self-determination on the 
 basis of personal moral knowledge. Wisdom is here by no 
 means mere worldly prudence, but its beginning and essence is 
 the "fear of the Lord" [Prov. i, 7], and complete, hearty, God- 
 confiding is its life-spring [iii, 5; xvi], and soul-repose and 
 God's approbation its fruit [iii, 12, 18, 22 sqq.; viii, 17, 35 ; xv, 
 24; xxviii] ; and hence for individual man it is the highest 
 good [iii, 13 sqq]. This wisdom is very far removed from the 
 "magnanimous" wisdom of the Greeks; it takes cognizance 
 above all things of the sinfulness of the natural heart, and re- 
 quires watchfulness over the same [iv, 23] and humility before 
 God and man [iii, 34 ; xi, 2 ; xvi, 18 ; xviii, 12 ; xxvii, 2 ; xxix, 
 23]. While in the Solomonic Proverbs there is a manifest ele- 
 vating of Mosaic legality toward the personal freedom of the 
 pious sage, still it is not to be overlooked that there lies in the 
 stand-point they assume, as in contrast to the Mosaic, also the 
 danger that the subjective presumption of the individual per- 
 son may rise to an unwarranted height, and work detriment to 
 the true heart-humility that springs from a consciousness of 
 one's own want of conformity to the law. And it is not 
 unworthy of note that the Christian consciousness of the Apos- 
 tles found much less occasion to appeal to the wisdom of man ; 
 they discourse far preferably of self-denying, humbly loving 
 faith. The Ecclesiastes of Solomon, after referring to the com- 
 fortless experience of a heart temporarily immersed in world- 
 enjoyment, totally overthrows all world-pleasure and the vain 
 hope of finding in the finite any real good ; the mere negative 
 knowledge that " all is vanity " prepares the way for a seeking 
 after the true, the highest good, which, however, is but remotely 
 suggested [Eccles. xii, 7, 13] but not fully presented ; the skepti- 
 cism, at first sight so seemingly wide-reaching and so entirely 
 despairing of satisfaction, has a back-ground of very profound 
 educative wisdom. 
 
 In the fact that the moral is not derived from the natural 
 conscience of man, seeing that the conscience is no longer 
 the pure expression of the original God-consciousness, but 
 that, on the contrary, the historically-revealed will of God is 
 the exclusive source of the moral command, there lies an es- 
 sential reason why Hebrew ethics did not develop itself into 
 a philosophy ; the very thought of such a philosophy conflicts
 
 28.] ETHICS OF THE APOCRYPHA. 169 
 
 with the fundamental presuppositions of the Old Testament 
 consciousness. The time had not yet come when the con- 
 science, and human knowledge in general, had so far become 
 free as to derive truth also from within themselves. As yet 
 man was called simply believingly to obey, but not freely 
 and philosophically to create. 
 
 SECTION XXVIII. 
 
 The Old Testament Apocryphal Books* abandon- 
 ed by the fire of the prophetic spirit, and in part affect- 
 ed by foreign philosophical influences, treat predomi- 
 nantly of morality. The moral law, in the Old 
 Testament canon an essential element of the educa- 
 tive divine revelation as a whole, is here considered 
 rather in itself and as unconnected with the world- 
 historical goal of the Theocracy, and is thereby de- 
 graded into a merely individual, empirically-grounded 
 moral system. In the Talmud the law appears aa 
 entirely unspiritualized, as fallen into complete life- 
 less externality, dissolved into its ultimate atoms. 
 
 The moral thoughts of the Apocrypha give clear evidence 
 of some degree of obscuration of the consciousness of re- 
 demption-history, both in respect to its presupposition, 
 namely, the fall and its consequences, and in regard to its 
 true nature in the Ancient Covenant, and also in regard to its 
 historical goal the expected redemption-act by Christ. 
 With the obscuration of this thought go naturally enough 
 hand in hand a manifest coming into the fore-ground of a 
 certain holiness by works, in the manner of the heathen mor- 
 alists [comp. Sirach iii, 16, 17 (14, 15), 33 (30) ; xxix, 15-17 
 (12, 13); xvii, 18 (22) sqq.], a one-sided laudation of wisdom 
 and righteousness in obliviousness of the question whether 
 
 * Comp. Staudlin : Gesch. der Sittenl. Jesu, i, 358 ; Cramer : Moral 
 der Apokr., 1814; (also in Keil and Tzschirner's Analekten, 1814, 5i, 1, 
 2,); Babiger: Ethica libe apocr., 1838 ; Kcerl : Die Apokr. d. A. T., 
 1852, somewhat unfair ; comp. Heugstenberg : Fur BeHtehaltung der 
 Apokr.
 
 170 CHKISTIAN ETHICS. [28. 
 
 indeed there are any such wise and righteous persons to be 
 found, and also in many respects a proud self-satisfaction 
 with one's own wisdom and virtue, together with a censori- 
 ous and contemptuous looking-down upon the unwise and 
 unrighteous many, a certain coldly-rational self-complacent 
 tone, especially in Sirach, a suspicious complaining and an 
 almost bigoted abstaining from true love -communion with 
 others [comp. Sirach xi, 30 (29) sqq.; xii; xiii; xxv, 10 (7); 
 xxx, 6; xxxiii, 25; sqq.], a zealous cautioning against the 
 wickedness and falseness of others instead of a warning 
 against the wickedness and deceptiveness of one's own heart ; 
 and there is frequently a manifest lack of the proper humil- 
 ity of the truly self-understanding conscience ; and the ob- 
 taining of personal happiness is often presented too one- 
 sidedly as a direct motive to virtue, so that the ethical view 
 is sometimes tinged with a shallow utilitarianism [comp. 
 Sirach xiv, 14 tqq.]. The book of Wisdom, showing traces of 
 Alexandrine-Platonic influences, and accordingly containing 
 the four Greek virtues [viii, 7], does not keep far clear of 
 work-holy boasting [e. g. vii and viii] ; and though it admits 
 the sinful corruption and weakness of all men [ix; xii, 10 
 sqq.; xiii, 1 sqq.; ii, 24], it yet brings them into a false con- 
 nection with theories from other sources [viii, 19, 20 ; ix, 15 ; 
 e. g., pre-existence of the soul, and dualistic relation of the 
 body as an essential trammeling of the soul]. The book of 
 Sirach gives expression both to a deep piety and to a rich 
 practical life-experience, and though in the eyes of Rational- 
 ism it is the most valuable book of j;he Old Testament, it is still 
 very far superior to modern Rationalistic shallowness [comp. 
 xxv, 32 (24) ; xl, 15,16 ; xii, 8 (5), sqq. ; viii, 6 (5)] ; it manifests, 
 however, on the other hand, also a want of depth in its view of 
 sinfulness and of the need of redemption [comp. xv, 15-17; 
 xxxii, 27 (Septuagint, xxxv, 23) ; xxx vii, 17 (13) ; li, 18 (13) 
 sqq.], and often places the outward ungenerous prudence- 
 rules of a distrustful understanding in the stead of higher 
 moral ideas [e. g. viii, 1 sqq.; xiii, 6, 7], and, as differing 
 from the book of Wisdom, alludes to no supernatural goal of 
 morality in a transmundane life; it may indeed teach the 
 spiritually regenerated much moral life-wisdom and prudent 
 rational foresight, but it cannot bring the natural man to
 
 28.] TALMUDISM, ISLAMISM. 171 
 
 self-acquaintance and humility. From the stand-point of 
 Christian ethics, this book is very far remote ; the essence of 
 love is unknown to it. The book of Judith presents in narra- 
 tive form a highly questionable morality [ix, 2 sqq.; comp. 
 Gen. xxxiv; xlix, 5-7]. 
 
 As in Sirach the vigorously-growing tree of Old Testament 
 ethics begins to show signs of failing vitality, so in the Talmud 
 (A. D. 200-600) We find the dead and decayed or petrified 
 trunk.* Abandoned by the spirit of faith and hope, the Jews, 
 in their faithlessness to their Redeemer, lost also the spirit of 
 love; and human ingenuity changed the law which was readily 
 enough borne by hoping faith, into an unspiritual yoke utterly 
 subversive of moral freedom. The strictly objective character 
 of the Old Testament law, so necessary for disciplinary purposes, 
 had its vital complement in an expectant faith. This latter ele- 
 ment becomes in the Talmud deceptive and wavering, and 
 gives place almost entirely to the doctrine of the law ; and the 
 lifeless, idealess law, multiplied thousaudfoldly by the ingenuity 
 of human exegesis and inference, takes even the most insignifi- 
 cant and external actions into a dictatorially-regulative tutelage. 
 Man acts no longer as prompted by his inner consciousness, for 
 his inner life-source is dried up, but according to the outward 
 law as multiplying its branches through all the channels of 
 human life. The Talmud contains, besides its more spiritual 
 elements, which are mostly taken from the Old Testament, a 
 system of casuistry unparalleled for its trivial and childish en- 
 tering into minutiae, such as was possible in fact only on just 
 such a soil, namely, matured Pharisaism. For the Jew, the 
 authority of the Scribes takes the place of the moral conscience ; 
 to him who honestly holds fast to the law, the multiplicity of 
 precepts becomes a yoke subversive of true morality, while to 
 those who are less sincere the manifold contradictions in the 
 same give pretext for a disingenuous relaxation of duty. 
 
 Observation. Islami&m, which finds its place in the history 
 of the religious and moral spirit not as a vital organic member, 
 but as violently interrupting the course of this history, and 
 
 * Mishna translated by Rabe, "1760, 6 vote. Talmud Eabli, the Baby- 
 lonian Talmud, by Pinner, 1842. Schulchan Arueh by Lowe, 1836, 
 4 vols. Fassel: Die mosaisch-rabbin. Tugend-u. Iflichtenl., 2 ed., 
 1842.
 
 172 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 28. 
 
 which is to be regarded as an attempt of heathenism to main- 
 tain itself erect, under an outward monotheistic form, against 
 Christianity, and to arm the entire unbroken essence of the nat- 
 ural man against the spirit of an inner new-birth, has indeed 
 given rise to a peculiar ethical system, though one which has 
 so little of deptli peculiar to itself, that we need here only allude 
 to it in passing.* The ethics of Islam bears the character of an 
 outwardly and crudely conceived doctrine of righteousness ; 
 conscientiousness in the sphere of the social relations, faithful- 
 ness to conviction and to one's word, and the bringing of all 
 action into relation to God, are its bright points ; but there is a 
 lack of heart-depth, of a basing of the moral in love. The highest 
 good is the very outwardly and very sensuously conceived 
 happiness of the individual. The potency of sin is not recog- 
 nized ; evil is only an individual, not an historical power ; 
 hence there is no need of redemption, but only of personal 
 works on the basis of prophetic instruction ; Mohammed is 
 only a teacher, not an atoner. God and man remain strictly 
 external to, and separate from, each other ; God no less in- 
 dividually conceived of than man comes into no real com- 
 munion with man ; and man, as moral, acts not as influenced 
 by such a communion, but only as an isolated individual. The 
 ideal basis of the moral is faith in God and in his Prophet ; the 
 moral life, conceived as mainly consisting in external works, is 
 not a fruit of received salvation, but a means for the attainment 
 of the same; pious works, and particularly prayer, fasting and 
 almsgiving, and pilgrimaging to Mecca, work salvation directly 
 of themselves. Man has nothing to receive from God but the 
 Word, and nothing to do for God but good works ; of inner 
 sanctification there is no thought ; the essential point is simply 
 to let the per se good nature of man manifest itself in works ; 
 there is no inner struggle in order to attain to the true life, no 
 penitence-struggle against inner sinfulness ; and instead of true 
 humility we find only proud work-righteousness. To the nat- 
 ural propensions of man there is consequently but little refused, 
 nothing but the enjoyment of wine, of swine-flesh, of blood, 
 of strangled animals, and of games of chance, and this, too, for 
 
 * Imm. Berger : Ueber die Moral des Koran in Staudlin's Beitrage zur 
 PMl., v, 250, (1799), superficial. Weil: Mohammed, 1843. Sprenger : 
 Ltben u. Lehre des Moh., 1862.
 
 29.] MARRIAGE AND POLYGAMY. 173 
 
 insufficient (assigned) reasons. The merely individual character 
 of the morality manifests itself especially in the low conception 
 that is formed of marriage, in which polygamy is expressly 
 conceded, woman degraded to a very low position, and the dis- 
 solution of the marriage bond placed in the unlimited discretion 
 of the man ; there hence results a very superficial view of the 
 family in general; the moral community-life is conceived of 
 throughout in a very crude manner. Unquestionably this form 
 of ethics is not an advancing on the part of humanity, but a 
 guilty retrograding from that which had already been attained. 
 
 C. CHRISTIAN ETHICS. 
 SECTION XXIX. 
 
 In Christianity alone morality and ethics are en- 
 abled to reach their perfection, the former being 
 perfected in the person of Christ himself, the latter 
 being in process of self-perfection in the progressive 
 intellectual activity of the church. The subjective 
 and the objective grounds of morality are given, in 
 Christianity, in full sufficiency. On the one hand, the 
 moral subject has attained to a full consciousness of 
 sin, of its general sway, of its historical significancy, 
 and of its guilt ; on the other, he has, by redemption, 
 become free from his bondage under sin. and risen 
 again to moral freedom, has again attained to the 
 possibility of accomplishing his moral task. On the 
 one hand, the objective ground of the moral God 
 is now for the first, perfectly, personally and historic- 
 ally revealed to man. and God's will not merely man- 
 ifested in unclouded clearness in his Word and 
 through the historical appearance of the Redeemer 
 himself, but also, by the holy, divine Spirit as im- 
 parted to the redeemed, written into their hearts ; on 
 the other, this God stands no longer in violent antith-
 
 174 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [29. 
 
 esis to the sin-estranged creature, but is in Christ rec- 
 onciled with him, and, as a graciously loving Father, 
 is present to him and in constant sanctifying and 
 strengthening lite-communion with him. 
 
 The goal of morality has become an other, has 
 risen from the state of hope to a constantly-growing 
 reality. God-sonship is not placed simply at the 
 remote termination of the moral career, but is from 
 the very beginning already present ; the Christian 
 strives not merely in moral aspiration toward it, but 
 lives and acts in it and as inspired by it ; he cannot 
 possibly live or act morally if he is not already God's 
 child ; he has his goal already from the very begin- 
 ning as a blessed reality, and his further goal is in 
 fact simply fidelity in this God-sonship, a sinking 
 deeper into it, a strengthening and purifying of it by 
 a constantly greater triumphing over the sinful nature 
 which yet clings to the Christian, namely, the "flesh" 
 which lusts against the spirit ; and for collective 
 humanity the moral goal is and has been realizing 
 itself from the beginning in ever increasing fullness, 
 namely, in the fact that all nation-separating barriers 
 progressively fall away, arid that the Word of life in- 
 creasingly assumes form in the God-fearing of all 
 nationalities, constituting the kingdom of God in its 
 gradual rising to full historical reality in a universal 
 Christian church. 
 
 The essence of morality has risen from the stage of 
 the obedience of a faithful servant to that of the lov- 
 ing, confiding freedom of the children of God. Man 
 has the command no longer as a merely outward, 
 purely objective one, uncongenial to his subjective 
 nature, but as an inward one dwelling within him, 
 and as become his personal possession, and hence as
 
 29.] CHRISTIANITY A PROGRESS. 175 
 
 no longer a yoke, a burden, but as an inner power at 
 one with his personality itself. Man lives and acts 
 no longer as a mere individual subject, but he lives 
 and acts in full life-communion with the Redeemer, 
 and through him with God, by virtue, on the one 
 hand, of the love of faith, and, on the other, of the gift 
 of the Spirit : I live, and yet not I, but Christ lives iu 
 me. The moral idea is not a mere revealed Word, it 
 is the Son of God as become man, the personal Re- 
 deemer himself, not merely in his truth-unvailing 
 doctrine, not merely in his truth-revealing Spirit, but 
 pre-eminently in his person itself, both as the histor- 
 ical, pure example of all holiness, as also as the One 
 who is with us always even to the end of the world. 
 Love to that God who is manifested in redemption as 
 himself the highest love, is the motive of the moral 
 life its essence and its power ; it is a life of holy com- 
 munion in every respect, a life in and with God, a 
 life with the children of God and in the communion 
 of the redeemed. The morality of hope has passed 
 over into a morality of the joyous victory-conscious- 
 ness, i s rather an actual manifestation of the already- 
 attained, grace-awarded highest good, than a mere 
 longing, aspiring after it. The ideal goal of morality 
 is not in the least of a doubtful character, but is ab- 
 solutely assured. While the fundamental feeling of 
 the heathen virtue-sage is that of a proud self-con- 
 sciousness of personal merit, the fundamental feeling 
 of the Christian is the feeling of grace-accepting, 
 thankful, loving humility / while the fundamental 
 virtue of the Greeks is self - acquired wisdom, 
 that of Christian morality is child-like faith in 
 God's loving revelation both in Word and in histor- 
 ical act.
 
 176 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [29. 
 
 There is no need here of detailed developments or proofs ; 
 we desire simply to present the ground-character of Christian 
 ethics as in contrast to heathen ethics. This much is clear 
 from what we have already said, that morality must assume 
 here an entirely other form than in heathendom, and even in 
 many respects a different one from that in the Old Testa- 
 ment. No heathen ethical system looks to the formation of 
 a kingdom of God embracing all mankind ; the freedom of 
 the will is either denied or restricted to a very few favored 
 ones, and with these it is regarded as unaffected by the his- 
 torical power of sin ; heathenism knows nothing of personal 
 love to God as a moral motive, and of the personal love of 
 God to all men as its antecedent condition. Christianity 
 takes it just as earnestly with the reality, the power and the 
 guilt of sin, as with the real, historical, overcoming of the 
 same through Christ. Man, as not from nature free, but as 
 become free by historical redemption-act and by the personal 
 appropriation of the same, is the true subject, capable of all 
 true morality ; and hence the realization of this morality de- 
 pends no longer on a mere nature-conditionment, but solely 
 on man's free self-determination for or against his redemp- 
 tion. That which is presumptuously presupposed by the 
 Greek philosophers as already possessed by the elect few who 
 are capable of true morality, namely, true will-freedom and 
 a personal moral consciousness springing from the inner es- 
 sence of the soul, all this has attained to its full truth only 
 in Christianity, namely, in that the false security of a merely 
 natural freedom and power is overcome and remedied. Both 
 freedom and power are procured for all who wish them, and 
 that not by self-deception, but by a real moral redemption- 
 act of the alone holy One. 
 
 That the highest good is not a something to be attained to 
 exclusively by moral action, but, on the contrary, in its es- 
 sence a power graciously conferred on the willing heart, a 
 power which has true morality simply as its fruit and sub- 
 jective perfection, and which manifests this morality essen- 
 tially as faithfulness, as a preserving and virtualizing of the 
 received grace, this is a thought utterly foreign to all 
 heathendom, and which is placed, even in the Old Testa- 
 ment, only in the promised future ; and upon this thought,
 
 29.] LOVE AND PRAYER. 177 
 
 as upon the consciousness of personal guilt and divine grace, 
 rests the so distinctively Christian virtue of humility, as that 
 of a pardoned sinner. There is scarcely anywhere to be 
 found so violent an ethical antithesis as that between the 
 high-esteemed virtue of magnanimity in Aristotle (which 
 corresponds to the pride of the Pharisee in the parable of 
 Christ,) and the Christian humility of that Publican who ven- 
 tures no other prayer than this : "God be merciful to me a 
 sinner." Such magnanimity appears to the Christian as 
 mere self-blinding pride, while this humility appears to the 
 Greek as servile-mindedness. 
 
 Heathen ethics is always simply of a purely individual 
 character, or, if it relates to a moral community-life, then 
 only of a merely civil character, as consisting in obedience to 
 laws purely human, and valid only for a particular people ; 
 or where, as in China, the state is regarded as of divine ori- 
 gin and essence, there individual morality becomes essential- 
 ly a mere mechanical self-conforming to an eternally on-re- 
 volving unspiritual world-order ; Christian morality is, on the 
 contrary, never of a merely individual character, but abso- 
 lutely and always an expression of moral communion on the 
 one hand, with the personal Saviour and God, and, on the 
 other, with the Christian society ; its essential nature is there- 
 fore love in the fullest sense of the word, and it is never of a 
 merely civil character but belongs to a purely moral commun- 
 ity-life, a life that rests in no respect on nature -limits or on 
 unfreedom, namely, that of the Church as the historical king- 
 dom of God. In contradistinction to worldward-turned 
 heathenism, Christians make the foundation and essence of 
 all moral life to consist in the constant direction of the heart 
 to God ; and especially in prayer (which, as exalted by the 
 communion of devotion, becomes the principal phase of the 
 entire religious life, and conditions and preserves a direct 
 personal life-communion with God) the entire moral life 
 shapes itself into an expression of the religious consciousness 
 as certain of its reconciliation with God. The Christian 
 stands not alone in his moral life, nor is he merely a member 
 of a moral society, but he stands in constant vital personal 
 life-communion with God, and derives therefrom constantly 
 new moral power. And precisely because Christian morality
 
 178 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [g 29. 
 
 is not of a merely individual character, but is rooted in and 
 grows out of the holiest of communions, is it truly free ; the 
 law stands no longer simply over against man, so that his re- 
 lation to it becomes one of mere service, but, as in contrast 
 to the self-sufficiency of the heathen mind (which finds in the 
 natural man the pure fountain of the moral consciousness), it 
 has become a perfectly inward personal law, one that con- 
 stantly generates itself anew out of the sanctified heart of the 
 spiritually regenerated. 
 
 But prayer, wherein man enters into communion with God, is, 
 as also the example of the ancient church shows, essentially in- 
 tercession, implies moral communion. The development of 
 morality into a collective life of the moral society, into a col- 
 lective morality, is an essentially new phenomenon. Heathen- 
 dom knew indeed the indefinite and merely impersonal, abstract 
 power of national custom, as well as the very definite but un- 
 free-working power of the civil law and of political rulers, but 
 it knew nothing of a free moral power of the truly moral com- 
 munity. The Christian community itself is the clearly duty- 
 conscious ^upholder, promoter and conservator of the morality 
 of the individuals ; it has the duty of the moral overseeing, 
 furthering and guiding of all its members, and hence also of 
 moral discipline, and, as involved hi this, also the power of in- 
 flicting moral discipline upon the unfaithful, consisting essen- 
 tially in the withdrawing of communion with them, in the 
 excluding of them from the moral whole as being non-tolerant 
 of any immoral element. The community-life is of so purely 
 moral, so intensely unitary, a character, that the unfaithfulness 
 of a single member thrills through the moral whole, and, because 
 of the intimate love of the whole for all the individuals, is pain- 
 fully felt and reproved and rejected by the society. The total- 
 ity stands surety for the morality of the individual, and the in- 
 dividual for that of totality ; the moral life of the spiritual 
 organism has attained to its truth. The thought of church- 
 discipline, which raises morality above the sphere of mere 
 individuality, without, however, giving to the community- 
 life the power of outward coercion, such as that of the 
 state, but on the contrary preserves and gives effect to this 
 life as a purely spiritual power, is an essentially Christian 
 thought, and is only there practical where the moral idea
 
 29.] TASK OF THE CHURCH. 179 
 
 and its realization in the community-life are taken really in 
 earnest. 
 
 In the emancipation of the human spirit by redemption, in 
 the'taking up of the moral idea into the inner heart of the con- 
 sciousness, there lie, now, the possibility of, and the incentive 
 to, a scientific development of the moral consciousness. Hea- 
 thendom developed an ethical science only on the basis of a 
 presumed freedom and autonomy of the spirit of the natural 
 man ; the Old Testament religion developed none at all, because 
 in it the divine law was as yet an absolutely objective and 
 merely passively-given one, to v which man could stand only in 
 an obeying relation. But Christianity regains for the human 
 spirit its true freedom, makes the merely objective law into 
 an also perfectly subjective one, into one that lives in the heart 
 of the regenerated as his real property, one that enlightens the 
 reason and becomes thereby truly rational ; and hence there is 
 here given the possibility of shaping this pure moral subject- 
 matter as embraced in the divinely enlightened conscience, into 
 free scientific self-development. But Cliristian ethics, naturally 
 enough, developed itself as a science only after its presupposi- 
 tions, namely, the dogmatical questions in regard to God, to 
 Christ and to man had attained to some degree of ripeness in 
 the dogmatic consciousness of the church, and hence it appears 
 for a long while predominantly only in closest involution with 
 dogmatics, and in popular ecclesiastical instruction in the form 
 of rules and exhortations, and hi part also hi ecclesiastically- 
 defined life-regulations enforced by ecclesiastical discipline. 
 The notion that the ancient church could and should have 
 passed over the great dogmatic questions and devoted itself pri- 
 marily and predominantly, or hi fact exclusively, to the devel- 
 opment of a system of morals as the essence proper of Chris- 
 tianity, is very erroneous. If we once perceive and admit that 
 the Christian world-theory in general, in respect to God, to the 
 creature, and especially to the nature of man, is of a character 
 diametrically opposed to the heathen view, and if we admit 
 that morality cannot be of an unconscious and merely instinct- 
 ive character, but must rest on a rational consciousness, then it 
 is perfectly clear that the consciousness must first be scientific- 
 ally informed in regard to the reality of existence, before that 
 the consciousness of that which, in virtue of the character of 
 
 13
 
 180 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 30. 
 
 this reality, becomes moral duty, can be further developed 
 The religious consciousness of" the moral was indeed given in 
 high perfection in the first form of Christianity, but the scien- 
 tific development of the moral could realize itself only very 
 gradually and subsequently to the development of dogmatics. 
 
 The three natural chief epochs of church history constitute also 
 those of the history of Christian ethics. 
 
 I. THE ANCIENT CHURCH UP TO THE SEVENTH 
 CENTURY. 
 
 SECTION XXX. 
 
 Morality, as never separated from piety, and as 
 uniformly based on loving faith in the Redeemer, and 
 as upheld, fostered and watched over by the church- 
 communion, appears in its inner phase as essentially 
 love to God, and to Christ and to his disciples as 
 brethren, and in its outer phase as a strict rejection 
 of heathen customs, which latter feature, both in con- 
 sequence of the persecutions suffered and because of 
 the deep corruption of the extra-Christian world, as- 
 sumes the form not unfrequently of a painfully-anx- 
 ious self-seclusion from the same ; and when, with the 
 victory of Christianity over heathenism, from the time 
 of Constantine on, worldliness pressed into the church 
 itself, then, as a natural counterpoise against this 
 worldliness, world-renunciation was made to apply, 
 among the more pious-minded Christians, even to the 
 sensuously-worldly phase of the Christian life, and 
 was intensified, in the hermit-life, even to morbidness ; 
 and in consequence of the distinction which gradually 
 sprang up in the church itself out of this antithesis 
 in the Christian life, namely, between the moral com-
 
 30.] INCIPIENT MONASTICISM. 181 
 
 mands, on the one hand, and the evangelical counsels 
 on the other (which latter were thought to condition 
 a superior degree of holiness), the moral consciousness 
 was essentially beclouded. 
 
 The moral views of the early Church are at once distin- 
 guishable from those of later Judaism by their profound 
 grasping into the pious heart as the living fountain of a true 
 and free morality, and from those of heathenism by the pu- 
 rity and rigor of the fundamental principles involved ; and 
 the unavoidable militant resistance against the demoralized 
 heathen world naturally enough heightened this rigor to a de- 
 gree which, but for this, seems no longer required. The es- 
 sential difference of the Christian moral law from that of the 
 Old Testament is fully recognized as early as from the time 
 of Barnabas (Ep. c. 19). The rigorous element shows itself 
 especially in respect to all sensuous pleasure and all worldly 
 diversion, to marriage, to temporal possessions, and to polit- 
 ical power, and to whatever is in any manner implicated with 
 heathenism. In contrast to heathen laxity, the ancient Chris- 
 tians were all the more anxiously watchful against all domin- 
 ion of sensuous desire, esteeming fasting very highly, though 
 not as a commanded duty, and eschewing the demoralizing 
 and religion-periling influence of the heathen stage and of 
 other amusements ; and the severity of their sufferings under 
 the hatred of the world naturally enough made all worldly 
 pleasure appear as in diametrical antagonism to Christian- 
 mindedness. In a well-grounded persuasion of the dangers 
 involved, the Christians declined to accept official positions 
 in the heathen State. Chasteness even in thought was rigor- 
 ously insisted upon ; marriage was held more sacred than had 
 ever been done before, and the sensuous element of the same 
 was guarded within strict limits ; and in view of the troubles 
 of the times, and of the expectation of a near second-coming 
 of Christ (which pretty generally prevailed in the first two 
 centuries), very many inclined to a preference of celibacy, 
 without, however, regarding it as a specially-meritorious 
 course of conduct; second marriages, however, were general- 
 ly viewed as an infidelity to the first consort. Riches were
 
 182 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [30. 
 
 mostly looked on as of questionable desirableness ; the tak- 
 ing of interest was regarded (in harmony with the Old Testa- 
 ment view) as not permissible ; beneficence and generosity 
 to the brethren on a wide-reaching scale, was held as one. of 
 the most essential virtues ; fidelity to truth, especially in con- 
 fessing the faith, even in the face of threatening death, was 
 a sacred duty, and its faithful fulfillment was the Christian's 
 brightest testimony before his heathen persecutors. The 
 oath was generally regarded as not allowable. Tender love 
 toward each other, and a noble love of enemies, were the 
 Christian's honor. The moral and warmly-fraternal com- 
 munity-life of the believers was a matter of astonishment 
 even to the passionate enemies of Christianity. Slavery was 
 at once essentially done away with by being transformed into 
 a fraternally-affectionate service-relation ; and when the State 
 and laws became Christian, it was also greatly mitigated 
 legally. 
 
 Notwithstanding the rigor of the moral view of the Chris- 
 tians, it nevertheless differs essentially from that of the Stoics, 
 because of its fundamental character of joyous faith and love ; 
 it is in no respect a harsh, stiff or dismal, but, on the con- 
 trary, a thoroughly vigorous, youthful and joyous self-sacri- 
 ficing life, in the full enjoyment of inner peace and of a con- 
 scious blessedness. These features were measurably lost only 
 when the Christian Church itself ceased to be the pure moral 
 antithesis of the un-Christian world, and when, having be- 
 come a State-Church, it admitted into itself even worldly, 
 and in so far, also, heathen elements. And it was now an es- 
 sentially correct consciousness which inspired the more pious 
 of the believers with a disinclination to the life and pursuits 
 of the great mass of Christians, and drove them into separat- 
 ing themselves from them. The error, however, was this, that 
 instead of separating the unpiousfrom the Church itself, they 
 chose the separation, within the Church, of the pious from 
 communion with the mass of the Church, and thereby ren- 
 dered the exclusion of the immoral from the Church more 
 impracticable than ever, in other words, that, instead of 
 morally purifying the natural elements that inhered both in' 
 themselves and in the society, they despisingly withdrew the 
 spiritual from all contact with the natural.
 
 30.] ASCETICISM. 183 
 
 The first theoretical as well as practical separation of the 
 ascetes (as imitated from the distinction, prevalent in the 
 heathen world, between philosophers and the unphilosophical 
 multitude, and as extending even to their costume), who 
 thought by extreme world-renunciation to attain to an es- 
 pecially high moral perfection, and, as consequent thereon, 
 also the distinguishing of a general Christian morality from 
 a higher (and in some sense voluntary) ascetic morality, man- 
 ifests itself in the third century in the currents of Alexan- 
 drian thought which had been so largely influenced by 
 heathen philosophy, as yet but feebly in Clemens Alexan- 
 drinus,* but already very damagingly in Origen.f The vic- 
 tory of Christianity over the heathen state in the fourth cen- 
 tury, and the in-rushing both of the great and also of the 
 populace into the Church, occasioned, on the one hand, a 
 progressively growing relaxation of ecclesiastical discipline 
 and a darkening of the moral consciousness in the great 
 masses, and, on the other, in natural antithesis thereto, an 
 increasingly radical exalting of the monastic life, in which 
 the Christian conscience of the multitude found, as it were, 
 an atoning complementing of their own imperfect secularized 
 life. The ordinary requirements made upon the life of the or- 
 dinary Christian became less deep-reaching ; but all the more 
 rigorous were those made upon the ascetic life wherein 
 Christian morality was now thought to exist in its highest 
 perfection. The distinguishing of mere ordinary moral duty, 
 as the inferior, from moral perfection, became increasingly 
 more familiar to the general Christian consciousness. The 
 two true elements of Christian morality, namely, the turning 
 away from the sinful world, and the aggressive living and 
 working in and for the same, fell apart into two different 
 channels, which respectively served, for the sum total of 
 moral merit, as complements to each other; the superabun- 
 dant merit of the sanctity of the ascetes fell to the good of 
 the little-meriting world-Christians. In the sphere of moral- 
 ity a division of labor, so to speak, took place, and, in conse- 
 quence thereof, t .there was subsequently developed in the 
 sphere of moral merits a system of labor and traffic so artfully 
 
 * Strom., p. 775, 825 (Potter). 
 
 t Comm. in Ep. ad Bom., 507 (De la Rue).
 
 184 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [31. 
 
 organized that it required all the boldly initiatory vigor of 
 the Eeformation to bring again to the light of day the plain 
 fundamental principles of evangelical morality. To the pres- 
 ent period of the history of Christian ethics belong, however, 
 only the feebler beginnings of this corruption. 
 
 The development of monasticism introduced a dualism into 
 Christian morality, in that it proposed for the ascetes a mo- 
 rality essentially different from that of the rest of the Chris- 
 tian world, the latter being based upon the divine command, 
 and the former \npf>n pretended divine counsels ; with this error 
 were more or less affected Lactantius, Ambrose, Chrysostom, 
 Jerome, and Augustine. In consequence of this, general 
 Christian morality was degraded to a mere minimum ; the 
 truly good was made to be different from the divine com- 
 mand, and this good was considered no longer as the imper- 
 ative will of God, but only, as it were, a divine wish, the ful- 
 filling of which procures for man a special extraordinary 
 merit, but the non-fulfilling of which awakens no divine dis- 
 pleasure. The more general prevalence of this view involved 
 the overthrow of purely evangelical ethics, and the begin- 
 ning of the perversion of the moral life of the Chnrch in 
 practical respects. By far the greatest portion even of the 
 dogmatic and ecclesiastical errors of the Romish and Greek 
 Churches has sprung from this very notion of a special sanc- 
 tity in monasticism. 
 
 SECTION XXXI. 
 
 Ethics itself appears not as yet in scientific form 
 and apart from the presentation of the subject-matter 
 of dogmatics ; it appears more in the popular edifi- 
 catory than in the scientific writings, and approaches 
 more nearly a scientific form in the works written in 
 self-defense against the heathen. The first connected 
 and somewhat comprehensive presentation of ethics 
 by Ambrose in the manner of Cicero, is scientifically 
 of little value; while the brilliant, penetrative, and 
 ingenious moral thoughts of Augustine, (which, along 
 with Aristotle, formed the foundation of Mediaeval
 
 31.] THE EARLIER FATHERS. 185 
 
 ethics), deviate sometimes in daring originality from 
 the earlier ecclesiastical view, and also bring some 
 confusion into purely evangelical ethics by an over- 
 valuing of monkish asceticism. After the time of 
 Augustine, ethics is for the most part limited to the 
 mere collecting of the views of earlier writers, and to 
 popular instruction. The mystical thoughts of the 
 pseudo-Dionyaius the Areopagite became influential 
 onty in the Middle Ages.* 
 
 The strict moral life of the early Christians furnished in- 
 deed in its inner experiences weighty matter for ethics; 
 ethics proper, however, confined itself at first to the framing 
 of life-rules, which, resting on the fundamental thought of 
 faith and love, were enforced and supported by Scripture 
 texts and by apostolical tradition, by the example of Christ 
 and of the saints of sacred history, and by spiritual experi- 
 ence, and, at a later period, also by the example and authority 
 of the martyrs, and by the definitions [canones] qf the synods, 
 but they were not as yet digested into a scientific whole. 
 From the moral philosophy of the heathen the Church 
 Fathers kept themselves substantially clear, though they 
 adopted from the Platonic and Stoic, and from the later pop- 
 ular philosophy of the Eclectics, many forms and thoughts. 
 The earlier Fathers, also Irenaeus, involved themselves in 
 perplexities by the fact that, basing themselves primarily on 
 the Old Testament writings, they often presented the moral 
 life of the Patriarchs too fully as a pattern for Christians, al- 
 though they recognized, throughout, the merely preparatory 
 purpose of the Old Testament law. 
 
 In their genuine writings the apostolical Fathers confine 
 themselves to simple evangelically-earnest exhortations, t 
 
 * The ethical views of the Ebionites and Gnostics offer many interest- 
 ing phases, but they have too little influence in the shaping of the 
 ethics of the church, and are, without a fuller examination, too obscure 
 to justify us in entering upon the subject here at all : comp. Neander : 
 Geseh. d. christl. Sittenl., pp. Ill, 137. 
 
 t Heyns: Depatrum op. doctrina morali, 1833; Van Gilse, the same 
 subject, 1833.
 
 186 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 31. 
 
 At a very early date there was manifested an antithesis of 
 such on the one hand, as with full fidelity to the Christian 
 faith yet used in the service of Christianity the best results 
 of heathen culture, and, of such on the other, as regarded it 
 as the primary duty of the Church to emphasize and insist 
 on the total contrariety of Christianity to heathenism, and, 
 above all things, also in the morally-practical life, to break 
 off all yet-existing relations with the heathen world, and to 
 present the holy society as, in itself, a totally new worid. 
 Both tendencies the former prevailing more among Greek, 
 the latter more among Latin Christians were equally legiti- 
 mate, but both in equal danger of one-sidedness ; the former 
 with the aid of Greek philosophy laid rather the foundation 
 for a scientific construction of the moral consciousness, the 
 latter developed rather a rigorous, and even harsh, legality of 
 the moral life ; Origen and Tertullian respectively, are prom- 
 inent representatives of this antithesis. 
 
 The philosophically educated Justin the Martyr gives spe- 
 cial emphasis, in defense of Christianity, to its high moral 
 (and by him very earnestly conceived) views and practical 
 workings, and to its difference from the merely preparatory 
 Old Testament law ; he insists very strongly on the freedom 
 of the will as a condition of the moral ; but he manifests al- 
 ready a preference for celibacy as a higher perfection, doubt- 
 less not without being somewhat influenced thereto by the 
 Platonic notion of the nature of matter. Clemens Alex- 
 andrinus enters more direct upon the nature of the moral. 
 In his Exhortation to the Heathen (Logos protreptikos, cohorta- 
 tio), he exposes the defectiveness of heathen ethics, and in 
 single characterizing strokes contrasts with it Christian ethics 
 as the higher; in his Paedagogos, designed for beginners in 
 Christianity, he gives a more specific but at the same time 
 more popular presentation of the subject ; but in his Stromctta 
 he raises the Christian faith-consciousness and morality-con- 
 sciousness to a much higher scientific form, evidencing truly 
 philosophic ability. The divine Logos, who manifests him- 
 self in fact in all true philosophy of the heathen, but in a 
 still higher degree in the Old Testament, and most fully and 
 purely in the New Testament, is also the pure fountain of 
 the moral consciousness ; with the Hebrews the divine law
 
 31.] CLEMENS ORIGEN. 187 
 
 was essentially objective ; but in Christianity it is, by virtue 
 of the activity of the divine Logos, written into the hearts 
 of all believers. The highest law is love to God, and, as 
 based thereon, love to our neighbor ; the highest goal is like- 
 ness to, and life-communion with, God ; the condition of the 
 moral is will-freedom, which, although hampered, yet not 
 destroyed, by the fall, is now restored in Christianity ; the 
 Logos, that is, Christ, is the pattern of salvation and the 
 leader thereto. In his very detailed inquiries in the sphere 
 of the moral life, Clemens shows himself both earnest and 
 judicious ; he esteems marriage very highly, and manifests no 
 preference for celibacy. A visible fondness for the rational 
 contemplation of the divine, as in contrast to the lower 
 sphere of mere faith (corresponding to the prevalent Greek 
 distinguishing between philosophers and ordinary men), in- 
 terferes somewhat, however, with his interest in active out- 
 ward life. On the use of earthly goods, he treats in detail 
 in his work : Quiz dives salvetur. 
 
 Origen has rich thoughts on the moral, scattered through 
 his many writings, but especially in his Homilies and Com- 
 mentaries and in his work against Celsus. His Scripture- 
 exegesis is always pregnant with thought, though often 
 venturesomely interpreting and allegorizing, especially in the 
 Old Testament. Freedom of will he insists on fully as 
 strongly as does Clemens, with whom in other respects he 
 essentially harmonizes. His moral views are rigid, but not 
 harsh ; the moral disposition alone constitutes, in his view, 
 the worth of the deed ; but his over-estimation of the monk- 
 ish life and of martyrdom, and his doctrine that man can do 
 more of the good and meritorious than is commanded of him, 
 becloud somewhat the otherwise evangelical character of his 
 ethics. His well-known dogmatical tendency to un-churchly 
 opinion shows itself less prominently in the sphere of ethics, 
 and even his notion of the pre-existence of souls does not 
 essentially interfere with his moral ideas. 
 
 In striking contrast to the freer idealistic tendency of the 
 Alexandrians, and in harshest Occidental realism, stands the 
 African theologian Tertullian. Greatly delighting in spiritual 
 eccentricities, and inclined to daring exaggerations of per se 
 true ^oughts, this writer presents Christian ethics in his
 
 188 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 31. 
 
 numerous moral writings on special topics (especially in his 
 De idololatria, De pudicitia, Ad uxorem, De monogamia, De ex- 
 hortatione castitatis, De spectaculis, De oratwne, etc.), in a very 
 rigorously legal spirit, especially insisting upon its self-deny- 
 ing, world-renouncing, ascetic phase, already far leaning 
 toward the monkish view, and exerting a wide-spread influ- 
 ence on the Occident. And this juristic-minded man, with 
 his strong inclination to rigorous formulae, is true to himself 
 also in the sphere of morality. His passing over to Montan- 
 ist views does not essentially modify his previous moral 
 views, as they were in fact from the first not inconsistent 
 therewith. While, on the one hand, he emphasizes more 
 strongly than the Greek Fathers the natural corruption of all 
 men as resulting from the fall, without, however, doing away 
 with moral freedom, on the other hand, he raises (though 
 not without having the precedent of the church in his favor) 
 the requirement of holiness in Christians so high that he re- 
 gards as admissible, at farthest, only a single repentance after 
 baptism, and, for reiterated severe sins, such as defection 
 from the faith, adultery, whoredom, murder, knows of no 
 forgiveness whatever ; * the distinction here appearing more 
 strongly than ever before between venial and mortal sins, 
 received subsequently a somewhat different significancy. 
 The greatest sin is defection from the true faith idolatry ; t 
 hence the Christian must avoid in word and deed every thing 
 which is connected with heathenism, e. g., he may not 
 crown himself, may not visit theatrical spectacles, etc. Ter- 
 tullian insists also, and with almost painful anxiety, on at- 
 tention to all outward actions and manners, e. g., he gives 
 long and detailed disquisitions on the clothing and decoration 
 of women, whom he would like to see attired in a natural 
 and modest simplicity, not without many theoretical whims 
 (De halitu, muliebri, De cultu foeminarum, De velandis vi/rgini- 
 bu8). Marriage he regards indeed as a divine institution, al- 
 though, in view of the expectation of a speedy second coming 
 of Christ, he prefers celibacy as the more perfect and pure 
 state ; and second marriages he unconditionally forbids as a 
 heavy sin, in the face of the utterances of Paul. Fasting 
 
 * Depoenit., c. 2, 6 ; Depudicitia, c. 2, 19 ; comp. Adv. Marc,, 4, 9. 
 f- De idolol. , c. 1 sqq.
 
 31.] TERTULLIAN CYPRIAN. 189 
 
 he requires -not merely as a penance, but as a protective means 
 of virtue, conducive to a higher perfection, namely, in that 
 it turns the soul away from the earthly and toward the heav- 
 enly ; and he attempts to reduce it to definite rigorous rules 
 (De jejunio). To accept political offices and to wear the in- 
 signa thereof, conflicts per se with Christian humility, seeing 
 that because of their connection with heathen religion they 
 are inconsistent with Christian sincerity, as also, because of 
 the function of officers to execute and to torture, inconsistent 
 with Christian gentleness ; * military service, the Christian 
 must unconditionally refuse.! The notion of a Christian 
 state is utterly foreign to Tertullian; he knows only of the 
 heathen state. The enduring of martyrdom may, as the 
 highest victory of Christian virtue, by no means be evaded 
 by flight or otherwise ; all shrinking is here unworthy coward- 
 ice (Defuga in persecutione ; Scorpiacum). Unshaken patience 
 in all manner of suffering in general, he describes and dis- 
 cusses with great ability (De patientia). 
 
 Cyprian, a great admirer of Tertullian, but more churchly 
 than he, and in his moral judgments more mild, developed, 
 one-sidedly, still further, the ascetic phase of Christian 
 morality; abstinence from enjoyment, steadfastness in suffer- 
 ing, martyrdom, and beneficence to the poor, appear, to him, 
 as the highest virtues ; strict churchliness, obedient submis- 
 sion to the visible church and its episcopal guides, as the 
 foundation of all Christian morality ; heretical opinions and 
 schismatic separation, as the ground of all moral corruption. 
 While in Tertullian morality appears more as an individual 
 manifestation of the religious personality, in Cyprian it is 
 rather an expression of the community-life of the church. 
 As to marriage and celibacy, he judges as Tertullian. (De 
 unitate eeclesm; Exhort, ad martyrium ; De tono patientice De 
 opere et eleemosynis ; De zelo et liwre; De oratione dominica; 
 and many letters). 
 
 The severe dogmatic conflicts of the fourth century which so 
 deeply rent the Oriental church, turned the current of thought 
 somewhat away from ethics, so that we here find scarcely any 
 thing but merely popular and not scientific presentations of the 
 
 * De idol., c. 17, 18, 21. t De corona miUtis, c. 11 ; De idol., e. 19.
 
 190 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 31. 
 
 ethical, and that too for the most part simply in homilies and 
 practical elucidations of Scripture. Basil the Great :is yet 
 largely devoted to ethical questions gives (besides his homi- 
 lies and several other writings of kindred nature) in his Ethica 
 a short, popular, little-digested, but plain and Gospel-inspired 
 synopsis of New Testament ethics, comprised in eighty rules 
 expressed in strictly Biblical forms. In other respects he man- 
 ifests indeed an over-estimation of monasticism and of outward 
 works in general, as well as an under-estimation of the natural 
 corruption of man. His brother, Gregory of Nyssa, likewise 
 emphasized moral freedom quite strongly, even in man while as 
 yet unregenerate, and applied many of the ideas of Greek phi- 
 losophy to Christian ethics, and moreover found also the moral 
 ideal in the monkish life. This life was still more exalted by 
 Gregory of Nasiamus, who also presents already quite definitely 
 the doctrine of the evangelical counsels as distinguished from 
 the universally-binding moral laws,* although in other respects 
 he gives expression to many excellent thoughts on Christian 
 ethics. The liberally-cultured, John Chrysostom, who was no 
 less profound in feeling than rich in thoughts and in acquaint- 
 ance with man, and who was inspired with high moral earnest- 
 ness and moral love, presents in his masterly Homilies an es- 
 sentially pure, evangelical and deep-reaching moral view, in a 
 striking, warm and clear style, to such an extent as no other 
 Church Father has done ; and even where, in the delineation 
 of the natural conscience and of its freedom, he presents, by the 
 help of philosophical examples, the favorable phases rather too 
 prominently, and where he treats over-fondly of monasticism 
 and the monkish life, and ascribes, in repentance, too high a 
 value to outward works, especially to fasting and alms-giving, 
 still the evangelical ground-thought is by no means pushed 
 into the back-ground. Love to God is, with him, the ground, 
 the beginning, the essence of all morality. His somewhat ideal- 
 istic turn of mind betrays him sometimes into unpractical 
 views, e. g., into the wish (born of his love to monasticism) for 
 the introduction of a community of goods. t Imitating Chrys- 
 ostom also in his weaker points, the likewise philosophically 
 
 * Orat. Ill, invect. in JuL, p. 94 sqq. (ed. Col.); Orat. iv, c. 97 sqq. 
 (ed. Bened.) 
 t HomiL in Act., opp. (ed. Montf.) ix, 93.
 
 31.] LACTANTIUS AMBROSE. 191 
 
 educated abbot, Isidore of Pelmium, treated, in numerous epis- 
 tles, largely of special topics in ethics, and sometimes bordered 
 on Pelagian views. 
 
 In the more practically-inclined and less dogmatically-rent 
 Occident, we find, already in the fourth century, more compre- 
 hensive treatises on the moral subject-matter of Christianity, 
 but as differing from the more idealistic and philosophic 
 Greek doctors in a rather realistic, legal, juridical manner; 
 and it is characteristic that precisely the most excellent of the 
 ethical writers among the Latin Fathers were originally jurists 
 and rhetoricians. Lactantius, in his Institutiones divirue (III- 
 VI), treats of the ethical quite largely, critically assailing hea- 
 then ethics, and defending spiritedly the ethics of Christianity. 
 The highest good, as the ground-question of ethics, he finds in 
 the blissful communion of the immortal spirit with God, a com- 
 munion which is to be attained to only in the Christian religion, 
 and of which, in heathendom, not even the conception is to be 
 found. Christianity alone, but not heathen philosophy, affords 
 a knowledge of the moral goal, and of the moral way, and fur- 
 nishes also in Christ the moral example, and moral strength, 
 and lastly, in pure unselfish love, the true moral motive. The 
 unchurchly and dualistically-iuclining notion entertained by 
 Lactantius, of a certain primitively-ordained necessity of evil 
 (ii, 8, 9, 12; vi, 15; De ira Dei, 55) has not much interfered 
 with his other moral thoughts. Ethics attains, in a feeble and 
 ill-adapted outward imitation of Cicero, to a scientific form, 
 though without really scientific development, through the labors 
 of Ambrose, whose work De affici.s ministrorum, though for a 
 long time highly prized, is yet rhetorical in style, and feeble in 
 scientific contents ; and yet, notwithstanding that it introduces, 
 undigested, many foreign thoughts and forms into the field of 
 Christian thought in order to conceal a manifest lack of theo- 
 logical culture, it still commends itself by the warmth of a 
 sincere heart, by its enthusiasm for active piety and by ingen- 
 ious trains of thought. Though treating in this work primarily 
 of the duties of clergymen, Ambrose yet considers also pretty 
 extensively those of Christians in general ; as a whole, however, 
 it has little order and consecutiveness, and, notwithstanding its 
 frequent prolixity and repetitions, leaves many points but 
 slightly touched. He cites many Biblical examples, especially
 
 192 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 31. 
 
 from the Old Testament ; in his exegetical method he is quite 
 faulty ; that which is not expressly taught in Scripture either 
 by word or example, he regards as unallowed, e. g., jesting. 
 The four virtutes pr'mcipales (the expression virtutes cardinalea 
 occurs only in the manifestly unauthentic work, De sacramentis), 
 he adopts from Plato ; he gives them, however, a much higher 
 significancy ; and, by finding for them a greater unity in piety 
 and love, as also by penetrating deeper into the subjectivity of 
 the love-inspired and morally-acting heart, he demonstrates, 
 despite all his defectiveness in scientific construction, the great 
 superiority of Christian ethics over heathen. He places the 
 highest good in the bliss resulting from a knowledge of God, 
 and in moral perfection, the two being inseparably connected 
 with each other. A preference for celibacy he shares with his 
 contemporaries, but in enthusiastic laudations thereof he even 
 outdoes most of them. The" duty of beneficence he pushes so 
 far that, like Chrysostom, he passes over into advocacy of a vol- 
 untary community of goods (i, 28) ; and he regards self-defense, 
 even in case of murderous assault, as unallowable. The scien- 
 tifically-insignificant exegetical writings of Ambrose deal also 
 very largely with ethical questions. St. Jerome, in such of his 
 writings as treat of the moral, is, for the most part, intent on 
 exalting the, by him, fanatically espoused monastic life, but 
 rather rhetorically than scientifically, and with frequent incon- 
 sistencies ; treating marriage disdainfully, and in fact hostilely, 
 he finds any good in it at all only because it produces children 
 who may devote themselves to the unmarried life (Ep. 22, 20, 
 ad Eustoch., ed Veron., t. i) ; his passionately violent assailing 
 of Jovinian (in Rome) who contested the meritoriousness of the 
 monastic life and of ascetic works, found in the spirit of the age 
 great applause. 
 
 Much higher in spirit and penetration than the views of the 
 other Latin Fathers, stand St. Augustine's ethical disquisi- 
 tions, De doctrina Christiana, De civitate dei, De moribus ec- 
 clexice catholicce, De libero arbitrio, and other works without, 
 however, presenting a connected ethical system. In Augus- 
 tine the Occidental church not only manifests her radical 
 antithesis to the fundamental and dangerous errors of the 
 Pelagian school, but she further develops at the same time 
 the ethically-significant and healthful antithesis to the more
 
 31.] ST. AUGUSTINE. 193 
 
 dogmatically and theosophico-speculatively inclined Greek 
 church, namely, in that this Father emphasized much more 
 strongly than did the Greek church the antagonism of the 
 natural man to God as well as man's moral impotency, and 
 hence his need of redemption, and also in that he conceived 
 the Christianly-moral life as the expression of a complete 
 spiritual transformation, whereas the Greek Fathers tended 
 to regard it rather as a bettering of the, in his moral essence, 
 but slightly-disordered natural man. Occidental ethics makes 
 more reference to the Saviour ; Oriental, more to the Creator ; 
 the former has therefore conceived more deeply, than the 
 latter, the moral consciousness of Christianity, and has de- 
 veloped it more fully. And from this time on, the history 
 of Christian ethics finds but little that is worthy of attention 
 outside of the current of Occidental thought. As it was the 
 special task of the Greek church to ward off from the Chris- 
 tian doctrine of God and of Christ, all heathen and Judaistic 
 notions, and definitively to refute them, so was it the task 
 of the Latin church to confute and overcome these same ele- 
 ments in the field of ethics; and this task was in the main 
 accomplished by St. Augustine. The freedom of the will as 
 it appears in the Greek church, and especially also in Chrys- 
 ostooi, is by no means identical with the freedom of the 
 regenerated Christian as insisted upon by the evangelical 
 church, and the confidence which many of the Greek Fathers 
 place in the moral inclination of the piously-stirred heart, is 
 not yet free from every trace of that over-estimation of the 
 purity of human nature so characteristic of heathenism ; also 
 moral action is as yet obscured by the thought of the meri- 
 toriousness of the same. These remaining traces of heathen 
 and Jewish views were, in their ground-thought at least, 
 eradicated by Augustine ; the thought of unmerited grace 
 whereby man attained to the capability of a moral life, and 
 to the highest good, was placed by him in the foreground, 
 and thus the foundation was laid for a true evangelical ethical 
 system. His doctrine (far exceeding Scripture warrant) of 
 the total unfreedom, for good, of the natural will and of an 
 unconditional election of grace, has a less misleading influ- 
 ence on his moral views than might have been expected, it 
 simply gives to them the character of deep earnestness, but
 
 194 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 31. 
 
 does not dampen the power of moral admonition. Man in 
 his enslavement under sin to moral unfreedom is raised to 
 real moral freedom only on the basis of a divine election of 
 grace, by means of a spiritual regeneration through faith in 
 Christ. Natural man is not able to will and to accomplish 
 the truly good ; the virtues of heathen and of unbelievers, 
 though indeed often very admirable, have yet no real merit, 
 no truly moral worth. Between virtue and vice there lies no 
 medium ground ; whatever is not virtue, and hence whatever 
 springs not from faith, from the right intentio, is necessarily 
 sinful ; natural man is free only to evil ; even the desire for 
 redemption is lacking to him, and is purely a work of gra- 
 cious influence. Still there are among sin-dominated hu- 
 manity great differences of personal guilt, and even the 
 heathen have yet a free choice between the more, and the 
 less, evil ; to true righteousness, however, they cannot attain. 
 The destination of man, and hence his moral goal and the 
 highest good, is to return to God from whom he has fallen 
 away, to become reunited with Him by God-likeness. This 
 is possible only through love to God, which is consequently 
 the ground and essence of all good. The world and what- 
 ever belongs to it, is not the goal of moral effort, is not the 
 highest good itself, but only a means to this end. Lve to 
 the world in itself is therefore not true moral love, but is only 
 lust ; spirit never has true love save to spirit. But man is 
 not to himself the highest end, because he is not per se capa- 
 ble of blessedness ; the highest end, and hence the highest 
 object of love, is God, upon whom all -blessedness rests. All 
 true love rests on love to God, and to love men otherwise 
 than in God, is sinful ; also self-love is only then moral when 
 it flows from love to God. Hence love to God is the first and 
 highest command, and the one from which all others spring ; 
 this love works obedience to God's command, wherein alone 
 rests all the moral worth of an action ; love is the sole true 
 motive to the good, fear is only a feeble incipiency of 
 wisdom. Hence virtue is in its essence simply love to God, 
 is nothing other than ordo amoris* and therefore obedience to 
 the divine will, which will is the eternal law of all morality. 
 
 * De civ. dei, xv, 22.
 
 31.J SEVEN VIRTUES. 195 
 
 Love to God as the ground-virtue unfolds itself into the 
 four cardinal virtues : TEMPERANTIA, amor integrum se prac- 
 lens ei, quod amatur ; FORTITUDO, amor facile tolerans omnia 
 propter quod amatur; JUSTITIA, amor soli amato serciens et 
 proptcrea recte dominant; PRUDENTIA, amor ea, quibus adju- 
 vatur, db eis, quibus impeditur, sagaciter seligens* It is with 
 great ingenuity that the Greek classification of virtue is thus 
 embraced and presented in higher unity, as an unfolding of love 
 under four forms, but the violence of the process is too mani- 
 fest not to make felt at once the unadaptedness of the Greek 
 classification for the Christian idea ; it is new wine in old ves- 
 sels. To these virtues, borrowed from Greek philosophy, 
 Augustine adds, as superordinate thereto, the three virtues 
 subsequently known as the theological virtues : faith, love and 
 hope, without succeeding in placing them into a clear relation 
 to the other four; t and this unclear and clumsy twofold 
 classification prevails from now henceforth and until the 
 close of the Middle Ages. Faith springs from the merely 
 germinal love to God ; but only from faith springs the true 
 all-dominating love to God, and from faith and love springs 
 hope, namely, a longing for the highest good, for the blissful 
 enjoyment of God in union with Him, in the vision of Him, 
 in perfected love ; objectively therefore the highest good is 
 God himself as the perfect truth, the infinite eternal life 
 itself. 
 
 Evil or sin is in essence and origin a lack of true love, that 
 is, a love not to God but to the world and its lusts, and 
 primarily a love to self that does not rest on love to God, 
 that is self-seeking. From self-seeking springs evil desire 
 (concupiscentia) which becomes a power over the spirit. Evil 
 become real in no sense whatever from God, but through the 
 free choice, through the guilt, of free creatures, is a guilty 
 ruining of the originally good. The distinction (referring 
 primarily to the administration and practice of penance) be- 
 tween venial and mortal sins (peccata venalia et mortifera 8. 
 mortulia), Augustine defines in the thenceforth prevailing 
 sense, thus, that the latter include all sins consciously and 
 
 * De moribus eccl., c. 15 (25) sqq., 25 (46) ; De lib. arl., 1, 13 ; 2, 10. 
 t Enchiridion, s. deflde, spe et cMritate / de doctr. christ., 1, 37 ; 3, 10, 
 ft al. 
 
 14
 
 196 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 31. 
 
 voluntarily committed against the Decalogue, and particu- 
 larly idolatry, adultery, and murder, which, unless atoned for 
 by ecclesiastical penance, involve damnation, whereas the 
 former may be atoned for, or gotten rid of, by the repentant 
 person himself, without special church-penance, through 
 prayer, alms-giving and fasting.* 
 
 As to the requirements of morality in detail, Augustine is 
 no less earnest than judicious, forming quite a contrast to 
 the manifold laxities of the age, and to many errors and ex- 
 treme views of earlier Church Fathers, and, on the whole, he 
 conceived of Christian morality much more profoundly than 
 had yet been done by church writers ; but his more especial 
 merit consists in this, that he brought clearly and definitely 
 into prominence the foundation of all morality, namely, faith 
 and the essence of faith, to wit, love to God, and that he 
 referred the validity of outward works more definitely than 
 had been done before to the inner disposition of the actor. 
 A truly evangelical spirit breathes through the greater part 
 of his moral views ; and even where, in harmony with" the 
 spirit of the times, he laudingly emphasizes outward good 
 works, and particularly fasting, alms-giving and monastic 
 asceticism, he still always lays greater stress on the state of 
 the heart than on the work itself. His greatest departure 
 from a purely evangelical consciousness is the recognition of 
 the, then, already long-prevalent distinction between the di- 
 vine commands and the divine counsels; the latter refer es- 
 sentially to the giving up of allowed enjoyments, and espe- 
 cially to the abstaining from marriage. The man who leaves 
 the counsels unobserved, sins not ; he who fulfills them, ac- 
 quires for himself higher virtue ; wedlock-virtue is merely 
 human virtue, but virginal chastity is angelic virtue. Mar- 
 riage is indeed per se holy and pure, and prevailed also in the 
 state of sinlessness,t but for the state of sinfulness, from 
 which in fact the redeemed are not as yet totally free, celib- 
 acy is higher than marriage ; and if all men would but live 
 unmarried, there would thereby be straightway brought 
 about the end of the world and the perfection of the king- 
 
 * Sermo, 351 ; EncTiir.^ 70, 11 ; comp. Defideet op., c. 19 (34) ; He civ. 
 dei, 21, 27. 
 t D Geneti ad litt., 9, 3 iqg. t 1.
 
 31.] ST. AUGUSTINE BOETHIUS. 197 
 
 dom of God.* But Augustine wisely avoids the self-contra- 
 dictory extremes of Jerome, and tolerates even second mar- 
 riages. In contrast to heathen ethics, which looks, for all 
 salvation, to the State and to its unlimited sway, Christians, 
 even in the days of Augustine, placed (not without very good 
 reasons) very little confidence in the worldly State. The 
 Christian state to the realization of which the Germanic na- 
 tions were more especially called had not yet become real ; 
 and the nominally-Christian Roman State lingered as yet es- 
 sentially in heathen forms. In his ingenious work De civitate 
 dei, Augustine contrasts with the earthly State the purely 
 spiritual divine State, deriving the former from the self-seek- 
 ing of God-forsaking man, as prevailing since the brother- 
 murder of Cain, since which time the earthly and heavenly 
 State have been in a condition of divorce (xv, 5). "The two 
 kinds of love produced two kinds of state : the earthly state 
 springs from self-love which ripens into contempt of God ; 
 the heavenly, from love to God which ripens into contempt 
 of self." (xiv, 28). The divine State develops itself inde- 
 pendently of the sinful earthly one, until it attains to its true 
 manifestation in Christ ; this state is not an outwardly force- 
 exercising one, but a spiritual kingdom, and is indeed des- 
 tined to sanctify and transfigure the earthly State, to change 
 it from a merely world-state into an organ of the divine state, 
 but not to merge itself into it. 
 
 The great decline of the scientific life in the Occident from 
 and after the close of the fifth century, manifested its effects 
 also in the field of ethics. Little more was done than to 
 make collections of the opinions (sententice) of the Fathers, 
 and to apply them to purposes of Church-discipline and of 
 popular instruction. But there was no further creative pro- 
 duction. In reducing to greater system the discipline of 
 penance, the interest was turned rather to the discriminating, 
 defining and classifying of sins than to the scientific exami- 
 nation of the moral in general. The knowledge of Greek 
 ethics disappeared almost entirely, and the work of Boethius, 
 De consolatione philosophies (about A.D. 542) t, which is but 
 feebly touched with Christian influence, and which for the 
 
 * De Sancta mrginitate ; De bono conjugali ; De nuptiis et con&ipis. 
 
 t Fr. Mtzsch : System des Soeth., 1860, p. 42 sqq.
 
 198 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 31. 
 
 most part expresses, eclectively, mere Graeco-Roman philos- 
 ophy, passed in the earlier Middle Ages for an excellent 
 work of Christian philosophy. Gregory the Great, basing 
 himself on Augustine, wrote moral expositions (Mornlid) of 
 the Book of Job, of Solomon's Song, etc., and other rather 
 edificatory than scientific works of the same class ; most in- 
 fluential was his Regula pastoralis, which treated of the cler- 
 ical calling more especially under its moral phase. Isidore 
 of Hispalis (Seville) (ob. 636) treats, especially in his Sententice, 
 on many moral points, mostly, however, by way of judicious 
 digesting from preceding Fathers, especially from Augus- 
 tine and Gregory the Great, furnishing for the early Mid- 
 dle Ages a principal help in ethical study. In the Greek 
 Church Maximus the Confessor (ob. 622) gives in his " Chapters 
 on Love " * a tolerably complete presentation of ethics ; John 
 Damascenus (ob. 754) furnishes, in his chief work, the ground 
 thoughts for an ethical treatise, and in his "Holy Parallels " 
 a rich collection of patristic sentences. 
 
 Standing entirely apart, and of influence only in the Middle 
 Ages, is the pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite (fifth century) 
 .who introduced Neo-Platonic mysticism into Christianity, and 
 whose Pantheistically-inclined world-theory invades here and 
 there also the moral sphere, f God is all in all, is the being 
 in all being, the life in all that lives, is the good absolutely. 
 Hence evil cannot exist by itself, but must always be a negating 
 something on the good, is not an existing something, but es- 
 sentially only a lack and more an appearance than a reality, 
 and it turns again into the good. The goal of all life, and hence 
 also of the moral, is the returning into God, the changing into 
 God, of whatever is as yet distinct from God ; the highest wis- 
 dom is therefore the turning-away of the spirit from whatever 
 is not God, the unclouded beholding of the one, the nameless, 
 the pure divine light, in which God directly imparts himself to 
 man. An outwardly active morality is, according to this view, 
 the opposite of true wisdom. 
 
 * Kftydhaia irepi aydirrjf. 
 
 t Especially in De divinis nominibus ; De ccelesti hierarchia ; D 
 mygt. theol.
 
 32.] CASUISTIC ETHICS. 199 
 
 II. THE MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 SECTION XXXH. 
 
 The ecclesiastical consciousness, as having arrived 
 now at greater repose, but as also in a state of spirit- 
 ual paralysis, limits itself primarily to the preserving 
 and digesting of the views already-attained to, and to 
 the constructing of systems of life-rules on the basis 
 of the decisions of the Fathers and of church councils, 
 at best elucidated anew by examples from the 
 Scriptures or from the legends of the saints. The 
 practical decisions on the subject of church penance 
 gave rise gradually, in connection with these collec- 
 tions of rules, to a very minutely-specifying system of 
 casuistry, which, however, related primarily chiefly 
 to transgressions. The moral views themselves were 
 already largely estranged from evangelical purity, and 
 an ascetic monk-morality, not binding upon all, passed 
 as the ideal of Christian virtue, while the general 
 morality, binding upon all, .was to a large degree 
 neglected. 
 
 The libri pcenitentiales, for the use of confessors, are based for 
 the most part on the decisions of synods and on ancient practice, 
 but are also in some degree complemented by their respective 
 authors; they give for the most part little more than imper- 
 fectly classified and illogically connected registers of single sins 
 and of the church-penances and penalties imposed therefor, 
 the latter of course without established and certain norms 
 (Theodore of Canterbury, Bede, Halitgarius and others). These 
 books form the beginning of a casuistical treatment of ethics, 
 which was subsequently extended to other questions than sins, 
 especially to cases of conscience. Attempts at a more inde- 
 pendent and more connected, but yet, on the whole, purely
 
 200 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [32. 
 
 practical treatment of ethics mostly simply on single points, 
 were made by Alcuin (De mrtutibus et vitiis ; De ratione ani- 
 mce), largely borrowing from Augustine; also by Rhdbanua 
 Maurus, by Jonas, Bishop of Orleans (about 828), by the earnest- 
 ly sin-rebuking Ratherius of Verona (ol. 974), by Damiani (ob. 
 1072), the excessive eulogist of self-castigation, and by the 
 learned FuTbert of Chartres (ob. 1029). 
 
 In proportion as the zeal of love abated, and worldly- 
 mindedness increased in the church at large, in the same 
 proportion arose, as in antithesis to this secularism of the 
 church, a zeal for a special holiness transcending the general 
 morality required of all. Directions for the monkish life 
 form a favorite topic for ecclesiastical moralists ; the merits 
 of the ascetic life are more warmly lauded than the practical 
 Christian life in the civil or domestic spheres, and wedlock 
 is progressively more deeply disparaged as in contrast to en- 
 tire renunciation ; consorts are loaded with praise, who divorce 
 themselves in order to practice such renunciation ; and accord- 
 ing to Damiani's assertion, even St. Peter had to undergo 
 the martyr-death in order to wash away the stains of hia 
 wedlock-life (De perfect ione monach, c. 6). 
 
 SECTION XXXIII. 
 
 The philosophy of the Middle Ages, and especially 
 Scholasticism, was occupied for a long while almost 
 exclusively with speculations on dogmatical and 
 metaphysical questions, leaving ethics almost un- 
 touched ; wherever, however, it brought ethics within 
 the sphere of its intellectual activity, there it treated 
 the same merely in connection with dogmatics, and 
 for the most part in the light of the opinions of 
 Augustine, and, later, of those of Plato and Aristotle, 
 often buuglingly combining the latter with the 
 former. The brilliant but idealistico-Pantheistieally 
 inclined mystical philosophy of John Scotus Erigena, 
 which threw its lights, as well as its shades, into the
 
 33.] ERIGENA'S PANTHEISM. 201 
 
 field of morality, seems as not understood to have 
 had little influence on subsequent ethics, save in the 
 mystical school. 
 
 The spiritualistico-idealistic tendency of the Schoolmen 
 could primarily treat of the moral only collaterally, at least 
 until the dogmatical and metaphysical fields had attained to 
 some degree of philosophical maturity and self-consciousness. 
 The potent influence of Augustine made itself felt also in the 
 ethical field, and his ground-thoughts re-appear in almost all 
 the Schoolmen. The freedom of the will is, however, dis- 
 tinctly recognized, although, in man after the fall, as in a 
 trammeled condition ; but also Greek philosophy was power- 
 fully influential on ethics, not merely as to the form, but also 
 as to the subject-matter. The Platonic classification of the 
 virtues was already early combined with the three theological 
 virtues, notwithstanding the inconsistency and impractica- 
 bility of such a uniting of two entirely different stand-points. 
 In how far John Scotus' attempted translation of Aristotle's 
 Ethics into Latin was of influence, is doubtful ; the applica- 
 tion of Aristotle to Christian ethics appears in a more direct ' 
 form, first, in the thirteenth century. 
 
 The deep-thinking John Scotus Erigena (at the court of 
 Charles the Bald, then at Oxford, ob. 886), who was not un- 
 derstood by his own age, and who had but little connection 
 with it even in his errors, touches in his chief work, De di- 
 visione natures, also upon the more general ethical topics, 
 and molds them to his idealistico-Pantheistical system, a 
 system based on the Neo-Platonic views of Dionysius the 
 Areopagite, and which very different from recent natural- 
 istic Pantheism denies not the absolute personal God, but 
 on the contrary the independent reality of the world. The 
 world is only another existence-form of the eternal God him- 
 self ; God alone is real ; the creature, in so far as it is con- 
 ceived as distinct from God, is nothing ; it exists only in so 
 far as it is wholly identical with God. God is whatever 
 truly exists, because He himself does all and is in all; G. d 
 in not merely the most excellent part of the creature, but He 
 is its beginning, its middle and its end the essence and true 
 being in all things. The coming into being of the world is
 
 202 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 33. 
 
 a self-outpouring of God, a theophany. God is manifest not 
 only in Christ, but also in the entire universe, in the highest 
 degree in the rational creature, and here indeed most purely 
 in the saints. The believing and cognizing of the saints 
 take place solely through God ; God cognizes himself in man 
 as cognizing Him. Man is therefore God's image, because 
 God himself conies to manifestation in him. As now every 
 thing ideal, and hence the ideal world, precedes, in the 
 mind of God, its outward realization, so is also the spirit of 
 man earlier than his body, which latter is but the shadow 
 of the spirit, and is in fact by it created, and that too as a 
 perfect and immortal one (ii, 24). Man, however, is now no 
 longer in the condition in which he originally was ; the body 
 is frail and subject to death; this condition can have been 
 brought about only by sin. But how is sin possible if God 
 is in fact all in all ? Answer: every thing is real only in so 
 far as it is good ; but in so far as it is not good, it exists 
 not. Hence evil is a mere non-being, a merely negative 
 something, but in no sense a real entity. God can cognize 
 only that which is, not that which is not, hence He cognizes 
 and knows not evil ; for if He knew it, then it would be real, 
 and hence would not be evil (ii, 28). This normal Dei igno- 
 rantia banishes evil from the sphere of being into that of 
 mere appearance. All evil is merely the shadow of the good, 
 and is accordingly only upon the good, is essentially only a 
 lack, a non-being, not a positive entity. Sin consists in 
 this, that man, as on the one hand identical with, and, on 
 the other, distinct from God, fixes his attention solely upon 
 this distinctness from God, directs himself toward himself 
 and toward nature, and not toward God (i, 68; ii, 12, 25). 
 Only by this confessedly per se inexplicable (v. 36) fall into 
 sin, is it that the body of man became material and mortal 
 and a clog to the spiritual life (ii, 25, 26; comp. iv, 12, 14, 
 15, 20); man thereby ceased to be truly a spirit, became 
 subject to natural desires ; previously the lord of nature, he 
 now became a slave to it. The ultimate goal of all life, and 
 hence also of the moral, is the return into God (ii, 2, 11), 
 namely, so that this differentness from God, all corporeality 
 and individuality, ceases and passes over into God himself, 
 is transformed into Him (i, 10 ; v, 20, 27, 37, 38). Hence all
 
 34.] SCHOLASTICISM. 203 
 
 moral effort is directed toward this uniting of one's self with 
 God, toward the breaking down of the hampering limits of 
 individual naturality, and realizes itself in a gradually pro- 
 gressive development (v, 8, 39). Morality must accordingly 
 bear a predominantly spiritualistic and ascetic, negating 
 character, must disdainfully turn itself away from finite 
 reality (iv, 5). Into details Erigena enters but little. It is 
 perfectly consequential in him that he regards marriage, 
 which rests on the difference of the sexes, as having origi- 
 nated solely in consequence of sin, whereas sinless man was 
 sexless (ii, 6; iv, 12, 28). And yet marriage is now allow- 
 able, only, however, in view of the propagation of the race, 
 irrespective of sensuous pleasure. Though the mystico- 
 speculative bases of these ethical thoughts were of a very 
 unchurchly character, still the thoughts themselves answered 
 very well to the ascetic spirit of the then prevalent morality. 
 
 SECTION XXXIV. 
 
 It is only in the twelfth century that ethics is 
 seriously treated of by scholastic science; first by 
 ffildebert of Tours (ob. 1134), for the most part in 
 the light of the Roman Eclectic and Stoic philoso- 
 phies ; then by Abelard, who, however, treats, mostly 
 in a mere preliminary manner, of the more general 
 questions, giving proof of great acumen, but also 
 sometimes enfeebling the significancy of sin ; very 
 fruitfully by Peter Lombard, who presents, in the 
 light of Augustinian thoughts, and with the help of 
 ancient philosophy, a very clear and well-arranged 
 total of Christian doctrine, of which ethics, though 
 but briefly presented, constitutes an essential part ; 
 but with greatest thoroughness and fullness by 
 Thomas Aquinas, who made large use of the Aristo- 
 telian philosophy in perfecting a system of Christian 
 speculation, and that, too, without thereby working 
 serious detriment to the Christian idea. In Duns
 
 204 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 34. 
 
 Sootus a sophistico-skeptical treatment of ethics began 
 already to effect, in many respects, an enfeebling of 
 the moral idea, and to prepare the way for the double- 
 dealing morality of the Jesuits. Through almost all 
 the scholastic presentations of ethics there prevails a 
 pretty great uniformity of spirit and manner of treat- 
 ment, springing mostly from Augustine and Aristotle, 
 and subsequently from Peter Lombard and Thomas 
 Aquinas ; evangelico-theological and ethnico-philo- 
 sophical elements are often brought together, without 
 that the latter element is always successfully mastered 
 and molded into a Christian character. Ingenious 
 arid often truly speculative processes of thought, but 
 frequently also trivial and fruitless hair-splittings, 
 also a pedantic carrying out of particular schemata, 
 and a preference for certain typical numbers in the 
 distribution of the subject-matter, such are the gen- 
 eral characteristics of scholastic ethics. 
 
 Contemporaneously with scholasticism prevailed also 
 the science of casuistry, which had also to do with 
 practical life ; this science was in fact influenced by 
 scholasticism to a higher development, and it attained 
 to its highest perfection in the fourteenth and fifteenth 
 centuries. 
 
 Hildeb&rt of Tours (about 1100) treated ethics for the first 
 time in a special work : Philosophia inoralis de honesto et utili 
 (Opp. Par. 1708, p. 961 sqq). In philosophical contents it is as 
 yet feeble and dependent, and belongs rather to the sphere of 
 Roman popular philosophy, especially that of Cicero and Sen- 
 eca, than to speculative science proper; and the Christian ele- 
 ment is thrown largely into the shade by that which is borrowed 
 from heathen moralists ; the four Greek virtues are servilely car- 
 ried out ; the relation of the honestum and utile is extensively 
 discussed ; and as a whole the work is immature and superficial. 
 Nearly cotemporaneously appears Abelard^ Ethica, s. Scito te
 
 34.] ABELARD. 205 
 
 ipsum, not a comprehensive system, but properly only a phil- 
 osopliico-theological introduction to ethics ; it treats somewhat 
 un-uniformly of general questions, and particularly of the essence 
 of sin and of its imputation. The toning-down of Christian 
 thoughts, elsewhere observable in Abelard, in his over-estimat- 
 ing the natural capability of man, shows itself also here. He 
 distinguishes between a natural tendency to evil (called by him 
 a " will ") and the freely-resolved approving of the same ; the 
 former is not per se sinful and forbidden of God, for it has its 
 seat in the sensuous and fragile nature of man, and it is not 
 even yet a sin when it overcomes the reason ; it becomes sin 
 only by a real approving of sin ; and it is for the simple reason 
 that there is a natural tendency to evil in us, that the virtuous 
 opposing of it becomes a moral desert. From this it follows, 
 on the one hand, that man, in virtue of his very nature, cannot 
 avoid all evil, though indeed this unavoidable evil is not im- 
 puted to him as guilt, and, on the other, that the essence of sin 
 consists wholly and alone in the conscious choosing of it, and 
 neither in the evil tendency preceding it, nor in the act pro- 
 ceeding therefrom. By the carrying-out of an evil intention 
 the guilt of that intention becomes not greater, and by the 
 omitting of its carrying-out, not less. Moral merit and guilt 
 lie consequently entirely and alone in the disposition ; actions 
 themselves, per se considered, are morally indifferent. Hence 
 he who does a bad act without a bad intention, does not sin. 
 True, there is necessary also in order to the truly good not 
 merely a well-meaning, but also a correctly-cognizing intention. 
 Therefore it is that, while, because of the heathens' lack of a 
 correct knowledge of the law and the truth, their unbelief and 
 even their persecuting of the Christian martyrs cannot be im- 
 puted to them as real sins, yet, on the other hand, they cannot 
 without faith become really saved ; and the prayer of Christ on 
 the cross for his persecutors shows that they did wrong in 
 ignorance, and were in need of forgiveness. There are thoughts 
 here in Abelard which, while per se true, are yet one-sidedly 
 pushed into the extreme, and thereby become erroneous. Thus, 
 he explains the distinction, prevalent in the ethics of the Middle 
 Ages, between mortal and venial sins, to mean this, that under 
 the latter we are to understand those the immorality of which 
 is indeed known to us in general, but is not clearly conscious
 
 206 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 34. 
 
 and present to our mind at the moment of our consenting to 
 them, and which are consequently committed rather in a state 
 of forgetfulness. The ethics of Abelard was, not without rea- 
 son, severely assailed by Bernard of Clairvaux, and is in many 
 respects a fore-runner of the system of the Jesuits ; but in his 
 own day the conscience of the church' was as yet somewhat 
 quick and tender, and the synod of Sens (1140) expressly con- 
 demned the more questionable features of the same. 
 
 The subject of ethics was treated with great skill, but rather 
 ingeniously than profoundly, by Peter Lombard (ob. 1160), more 
 especially in the third book of his Libri sententiarum, a work 
 which was for later schoolmen a very influential model and a 
 high authority, though the relatively brief manner of treatment 
 touches only upon the principal points. With a fully-developed 
 system we are not as yet furnished ; it is rather a dialectical 
 analysis and examination of ideas than a profound speculative 
 development from a fundamental principle. The ethical notions 
 are presented first in definitions, then proved and illustrated by 
 texts from Scripture and from the Fathers, and thereupon fol- 
 low dialectical inquiries, comparisons of opposed views, and a 
 definitive judgment. 
 
 The notion "good" has both an objective and a subjective 
 significancy. The good as object is the goal of the subjective 
 good, the good will ; this good object is blessedness, eternal 
 life in God, and hence God himself in so far as he comes into 
 communion with man (II, Dftt. 38, 40). The presupposition 
 of all morally good is will-freedom. This freedom is primarily 
 a threefold one : freedom from necessity, freedom from sin as a 
 dominating power, and freedom from misery. The first is un- 
 forfeitable, exists also in sinful man ; the second is enjoyed by 
 the redeemed, the third by the saved. Before the fall man had 
 perfect freedom, could, by his own strength, keep free from 
 sin, though not attain to perfection save as aided by divine 
 grace, as, on the other hand, he could in his own strength also 
 turn to sin. Hence will-freedom is that capacity of the rational 
 will whereby it, by the assistance of divine grace (gracia assist- 
 ente), chooses the good, or, by not sharing in the same (eadcm de- 
 sistente), the evil. In the rational will there is a natural striving, 
 though but feeble (licet tenuiter el exiliter), to choose the good ; 
 but, by the assistance of grace, it becomes powerful and effica-
 
 34.] PETER LOMBARD. 207 
 
 cious (efficaciter), whereas man per se can effectually turn to 
 evil. By the possibility of choice in the two directions, human 
 liberty differs from divine liberty, which latter can eternally 
 choose only the good. After the fall into sin, the truth : poterat 
 peecare et not peccare, was changed into, potest peccare et non 
 potest non peccare; that is, into a freedom very much tram- 
 meled indeed, though not yet sunk to necessity ; the inwardly 
 enfeebled and corrupted nature of man impels him constantly 
 to sin, and allows him not to will and to accomplish the truly 
 good. The redeemed, however, is free from this predominancy 
 of evil desire, has indeed as yet moral weakness, but also the 
 assistance of divine grace ; hence he can also yet sin, in fact 
 it is still true of him : non posse non peccare, but only as to venial 
 sins, not as to mortal sins. In his ultimate perfection, however, 
 the redeemed attains to a condition transcending the condition 
 of unfallen man, namely : non posse peccare, where all weakness 
 is overcome, and man has risen to a moral impossibility of 
 choosing evil; thus the threefold freedom becomes a fourfold 
 one (II, Dist. 24, 25). 
 
 Virtue is the right quality of the human will as turned toward 
 the good. The ground-virtue is, therefore, love to Gorl, as the 
 substance of all good ; and all virtues are closely involved in 
 each other, so that he who truly possesses one, possesses them 
 all, and he to whom one is lacking, lacks them all ; no one can 
 have simply one virtue, for love is the mother of all the virtues, 
 and he who has the mother has* also the children (III, Dist. 36). 
 In agreement with Augustine, Peter Lombard presents three 
 chief-virtues, which, however, are only different phases of the 
 one love to God, namely : faith, hope, love (fides, spes, charitas). 
 (1) FIDES est virtus, qua creduntur, qua non videntur, namely, in 
 the sphere of the religious ; this faith is threefold : (a) credere 
 DEO, to believe the word of God ; (&) credere DEUM, to believe in 
 the existence of God ; both these forms of faith are possible to 
 the evil ; (<) credere IN DETTM, to love God in faith, and to unite 
 one's self with him ; this is true faith, which leads also to truly 
 good works (III, Dist. 23). (2) SPES est virtus, qua, spiritualia 
 et ceterna *bona sperantur, i. e., cum fiducia exspectantur. This 
 virtue is only briefly and insufficiently developed, and is not 
 clearly enough distinguished from the first; for the statement 
 that hope refers only to future good, while faith refers also to
 
 208 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 34. 
 
 evil and to the past and to the present (III, Dist., 26), gives, 
 after all, only the difference of a part from the whole. (3) CHAR- 
 IT AS eat dilectio, qua diligitur deus propter se, et proximus prop- 
 ter deum Tel in deo; God must be loved for his own sake, but 
 our neighbor (and every human being is such) only for God's 
 sake (III, Dist. 27 sqq.). From another point of view, and 
 which is not properly brought into harmony with the first, but 
 only joined to it four other virtues (virtutes principals vel 
 cardinales) are adopted, after the example of Plato and Augus- 
 tine, and presented, namely: just itia, fortitudo (which manifests 
 itself in suffering), prudentia, and temperantia (III, 33) ; after 
 which, without any further development of these four virtues, 
 are given the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit (taken from Isa. xi, 
 2, 3, in the Vulgate version, namely : wisdom, understanding, 
 counsel, strength, knowledge, piety, God-fearing), as the condi- 
 tions of the practice of virtue, and as spiritual virtues. Some 
 further discussion of special points is given in connection with 
 a presentation of the ten commandments and of the sacraments. 
 
 In the steps of Peter Lombard follows, in all essential points, 
 Alexander Hales (ob. 1245), though he develops some points 
 more fully, and contributes thereto original matter, especially 
 is this the case in his discussion of the moral law, which he 
 distinguishes into the natural, the Mosaic, and the evangelical 
 (Summa univ. theol., pars III). He separates the moral part of 
 theology more distinctly than had yet been done from the dog- 
 matical, as the "doctrine of manners," and distributes it into 
 the doctrine, first, of the divine law, second, of grace and the 
 virtues, and, third, of the fruit of virtue. (William of Paris 
 [ob. 1249] discussed the more important points of morality in 
 separate treatises grounded on Augustine and Aristotle). More 
 learned, and especially distinguished by extensive use of Aris- 
 totle, are the ethical portions of the writings of Albertus 
 Magnus (ob. 1280), though in other respects they do not con- 
 tain very much original speculation, and in some respects 
 they show already a strong casuistical tendency. 
 
 It is through Thomas Aquinas that scholastic ethics was 
 most highly perfected both in form and in substance, and 
 raised to a system of profound speculation. His great work, 
 Summa theologies, prima et secunda secunda, combines, in com- 
 prehensive thoroughness, a clear intellectual insight with
 
 34.] THOMAS AQUINAS. 209 
 
 deep religious knowledge and moral life experience. The 
 style of presentation is indeed somewhat discursive, especially 
 in the citing and refuting of opposite opinions, and runs often 
 into unprofitable distinctions and splittings of ideas, but the 
 substantial contents are in the main so sound and excellent, 
 that the almost autocratical authority enjoyed by Thomas 
 Aquinas, especially in the field of ethics (an authority which 
 has maintained itself unabated in the Romish Church up to 
 the present day) is essentially a well-merited one ; the later 
 ethics of the Romish Church could indeed fall below this 
 model, but it has not surpassed it ; and also for Protestant 
 ethics have the works of this author been of great influence, 
 and they are even yet of weighty import. 
 
 The ethics of Thomas Aquinas, which is directly connected 
 with his dogmatics, is distributed into a general and a special 
 part, of which the former treats of the virtues and vices in 
 general, and the latter of the same in detail, so that the 
 whole is made to appear predominantly, though not exclu- 
 sively, as the doctrine of virtue. Man is the image of God 
 principally in virtue of his reason ; but an essential element 
 of reason is the freedom of the will, namely, the free deter- 
 mining of our own activity. All activity, and hence also 
 that of irrational creatures, has an end ; hence human activ- 
 ity must have a rational end, and one which man knows as 
 such, and which is aimed at by free will-determination, 
 whereas irrational creatures seek their end unconsciously and 
 from natural instinct. But rational ends are such only in so 
 far as they do not constitute a mere interminable plurality, 
 but converge and terminate in one last and highest good, 
 upon which consequently all rational activity is directed. 
 This one highest end, and hence the highest good, which the 
 rational creature seeks to attain to, cannot consist in outward, 
 perishable, and hence unessential things, but only in the one 
 absolutely imperishable, the divine, namely, in communion 
 with God, and hence in the absolutely perfect life of the 
 rational creature, in blessedness. God is the objective, bless- 
 edness the subjective, phase of the highest good. The human 
 soul per se, and without being united with God, cannot be 
 happy ; hence the highest good is not a something belonging 
 to the soul per se, has its ground not in the soul but in God;
 
 210 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 34. 
 
 the highest good in its objective phase, considered as an ob- 
 ject, is not a created, but an uncreated and divine entity, 
 which, however, is appropriated to himself by man. But 
 this uncreated entity cannot be appropriated by sensuous 
 perception, but solely through a spiritual grasping, through 
 cognizing, through spiritual beholding or intuiting. Hence 
 blessedness rests on an. intuiting of God, and toward this, 
 therefore, the rational activity of the soul is directed. This 
 blessedness, as resting on the highest activity of the reason, 
 cannot be wholly reached in this earthly, manifoldly-limited 
 and dependent life, and, moreover, as being of an unending 
 nature, it cannot be merited by finite actions, it can only be 
 appropriated by religious intuition, by contemplation, namely, 
 in jthat God lovingly imparts himself, and therewith at the 
 same time blessedness, to man. This appropriating is, how- 
 ever, not a merely passive bearing, not a will-less beholding, 
 but a willing, loving, and love-enjoying embracing of the 
 divine. In that the rational striving attains to perfect satis- 
 faction and rest in God as the highest good, blessedness is 
 enjoyment, the feeling of delight; this is, however, but one 
 of the phases of blessedness, the other is the visional cog- 
 nizing. The will of man, ever directed toward a good, 
 is indeed free, can be forced neither through an outward 
 nor through an inward power to a given choice, nor is it so 
 forced by God, for God leaves every created being to act 
 according to its inborn nature ; and hence the will can direct 
 itself as well to a false and merely seeming good, as to the 
 true good, but this true good itself stands not within the 
 free determination of man, but is absolutely determined by 
 God and by the inner necessity of the case itself ; man can, 
 freely-willing, strive for it or fail of it, but he cannot posit 
 any other good than the true one. There is no other highest 
 good than God. The will is good when it hearkens to the 
 reason ; but the reason is truthful only when it hearkens to 
 God and accepts illumination from him. Hence every action 
 is evil which deviates from reason, and is evil also when this 
 reason is in error (II, 1, 19) ; whatever does not spring from 
 the conscience is sin ; but the will that follows an erring rea- 
 son is also not good, but evil, in so far as the error was avoid- 
 able. Hence only that action is truly good which follows,
 
 34.] THOMAS AQUINAS. 211 
 
 not merely reason in general as fortuitously determined in 
 this or that particular person, but true reason, which is con- 
 scious of the divine will, and determines itself thereafter. 
 
 The readiness of the soul for well-acting is virtue, which is 
 consequently to be conceived of not as mere action, but as a 
 permanent power and tendency for acting, as a habitus, as a 
 power of the rational will. The virtues are primarily of a nat- 
 ural character; that is, such as belong to man as such, to his 
 natural rational being, and are developed by exercise and ha- 
 bituation, although they cannot in themselves attain to perfec- 
 tion (ii, 1, qu. 55-59, 63). They are distinguished as knowledge- 
 virtues and moral virtues (comp. 17, 18) ; the former are wis- 
 dom, science, understanding and, connected therewith, prudence, 
 and, in a somewhat peculiar sense, also art-skill. The moral 
 virtues relate to desire; they fall into four cardinal virtues 
 (ii, 1, qu. 60. 61 ; ii, 2, 47 sqq). (1) Virtue considered as a good 
 of the reason, and as expressing the essence of the same, is 
 prudence ; this virtue is, as distinguished from wisdom, not the 
 lord, but the servant of morality, gives not the end proper, 
 but only the means to the end of the practical reason. 
 (2) The virtue which expresses the practical will-direction of the 
 reason toward moral actions, is justness or righteousness ; it re- 
 lates to the realizing of the right, is the constant and fixed 
 will to give to each his right, and hence has to do with what 
 we owe to others. It is true, man can in a certain sense be just 
 also toward himself, namely, when reason holds in proper con- 
 trol the passions. Justness is the highest of the moral virtues, 
 and includes in itself also piety, thankfulness, etc. (3) The vir- 
 tue which expresses the practical will-direction of the reason 
 toward the checking of all reason-resisting desires and passions, 
 is temperateness. It holds within rational bounds all desires 
 and pleasure-feelings which relate to sensuous goods, and all dis- 
 pleasure-feelings which spring from the lack of such goods. 
 Modifications of this virtue are shame, reverentiality, abstinence, 
 gentleness, modesty, humility, etc. (4) The virtue which ex- 
 presses the practical will-direction of the reason toward the car- 
 rying-out of rational purposes as against opposing natural 
 inclinations and affections, especially against fear in the face of 
 dangers, is courage. It wards off whatever would hinder the ac- 
 tivity of the reason, and thus preserves man, as against all 
 15
 
 212 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. C 34 - 
 
 sensuous and irrational impulses, within the limits of rational- 
 ity ; it is, on the one hand, defensive, a firm calm enduring of 
 hostile influences, and, on the other, offensive, in that it actually 
 assaults the dangers ; the first phase, however, is, for Christian 
 morality, the predominant. The highest stage of Christian 
 courage is martyrdom, wherein the main element is love. The 
 several chief virtues are subdivided by Thomas Aquinas in a 
 very far-reaching and excessively detailed manner, into very nu- 
 merous special manifestation-forms. 
 
 Above all the moral virtues, stand (not as co-ordinate there- 
 with, but as in fact exalting them into a Christian character) 
 the theological virtues, that is, the supernatural ones those 
 which have for their object the divine, the supernatural, and 
 are not grounded in us by nature, but given (infusce) to us by 
 God (ii, 1, 62 sqq.; ii, 2, 1-46); through these alone is per- 
 fection possible to man, even in the other or moral virtues. 
 (1) Faith; this virtae relates not to the finite, but to God, 
 and has as its presupposition, divine revelation. It is'a think- 
 ing with an inner assent of the will, and must manifest itself 
 also outwardly in confession. The object of faith is, in part, 
 purely supernatural, transcending our knowledge and reason, 
 and in part it can be discovered even through natural reason ; 
 but also that which is discoverable through reason has in 
 fact been revealed by God out of love, and for purposes of 
 culture. Faith is raised to a vital form only by the incre- 
 ment of love (fides formata) ; without love it is crude (in- 
 formis). As faith is the foundation of all morality, so is un- 
 belief the greatest sin ; but as faith is a virtue, hence it is 
 not allowable to bring a non-Christian to faith by force. 
 The matter is, however, very different with heretics and apos- 
 tates, for these have broken their vow, and hence fall under 
 punishment ; heresy deserves capital punishment (ii, 2, 10, 
 art. 8, 9) ; and when a prince falls from faith and in conse- 
 quence thereof, incurs the ban of the Church, then are his 
 subjects ipso facto free and absolved from his dominions and 
 from their oath of fealty (ii, 2, 12, art. 2). (2) Hope has for 
 its object eternal blessedness, that is, the subjective phase 
 of the highest good ; it pre-supposes faith inasmuch as it is 
 only by faith that eternal blessedness becomes known to us. 
 With hope must be associated God-fearing, inasmuch as God
 
 34.] THOMAS AQUINAS. m 213 
 
 is the executor of just punishments. (3) Love is the most 
 perfect of the virtues, and its presupposition is faith and 
 hope. It is an intimate union of man with God, a possessing 
 of God, and the shaping-form of all the other virtues, inas- 
 much as man is to do all good out of love to God ; it endures 
 forever, whereas faith ultimately passes over into sight, and 
 hope into the possession of blessedness. This love, which is 
 primarily love to God, and as such is not in us by nature, but ia 
 a divine grace-gift, enlarges itself spontaneously into love to 
 men and to all creatures, as also into a love of man for him- 
 self and for his own body as created by God. But all love 
 to the created must spring exclusively from our love to God, 
 and it cannot relate approvingly to the evil that is in crea- 
 tures, but rathej seeks to eradicate it. Our enemies and bad 
 men in general we are to love, not as bad, but as men, and 
 for the sake of their rational nature. The degree of our love 
 to creatures is to be in proportion to the union of the same 
 with God. God himself is to be loved above all things, 
 above even ourselves. 
 
 This double classification of the virtues is doubtless the 
 weakest side of the ethics of Thomas Aquinas and of the 
 schoolmen in general. The theological and the natural vir- 
 tues do not possibly admit of being brought into any clear 
 relation to each other ; they are based upon two utterly foreign 
 and heterogeneous stand-points, and can be reduced neither to 
 a condition of co-ordinatiun nor of subordination, but on the 
 contrary, they constantly cross and cramp each other, and lead, 
 on the one hand, to many repetitions, and, on the other, to 
 an arbitrary distribution of the special virtue-manifestations. 
 That love, even love to the creature, should appear solely 
 as a theological virtue, is entirely unnatural. The separating 
 of faith from wisdom is no less erroneous, inasmuch as Chris- 
 tian wisdom rests essentially on faith in God. The distinc- 
 tion made between knowledge-virtues and moral virtues suf- 
 fers not only under all the defects of its prototype in Aris- 
 totle, but becomes more perplexed still by the distinguishing 
 of both these classes from the theological virtues, inasmuch 
 as a very essential part of that which Aristotle ascribes to 
 wisdom must here be transferred to faith. And the matter 
 is made still worse by the fact that the moral virtues are not
 
 214 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 34. 
 
 presented strictly according to Aristotle, but according to 
 the four chief virtues of Plato, who does not find any place 
 for special knowledge-virtues, so that while, now, wisdom 
 does not, yet prudence does, appear as a moral cardinal viV- 
 tue, whereas in fact prudence belongs unquestionably along 
 with wisdom to the knowledge-virtues, as is the case in Aris- 
 totle ( 17). The fact is, the entire Greek schema is totally 
 inadequate for the expression of the Christian virtues, and 
 the violence of the process is felt at every step of the attempt. 
 Even the utterly untenable position of Aristotle, that virtue 
 always lies in the middle between two opposite aberrations 
 ( 17), is adopted by Thomas Aquinas, and applied even to 
 the knowledge-virtues ; to the theological virtues he applies 
 it only in this respect, that, in them, we are* to reach a defi- 
 nite measure corresponding to our nature (ii, 1, 64), to say 
 the least, a strange application of the middle-way of Aris- 
 totle. 
 
 On the virtues in general, Thomas Aquinas makes also the 
 following observations, mostly in the spirit of Aristotle : 
 every virtue is heightened in its power by exercise ; all of 
 them stand in connection with each other, and when they ap- 
 pear in their perfection, no one of them is without all the 
 others. The virtues, according as they are viewed under dif- 
 ferent aspects, are, as to worth, in part equal and in part un- 
 equal ; the knowledge-virtues are per se nobler than the moral 
 virtues, inasmuch as reason is nobler than desire ; but in re- 
 spect to their activity, the moral virtues stand higher, as they 
 are more fruitful in results. The perfect practice of virtue 
 depends on the directly God-conferred seven gifts of the Spirit 
 (ii, 1, 68), which make the person willing to follow the 
 promptings of the Holy Spirit, a thought which occurs al- 
 ready in Ambrose and in Gregory I. , but in respect to which, 
 even the intellectual acumen of a Thomas Aquinas does not 
 succeed in making clear the relation of these gifts to the cor- 
 responding virtdes, especially the theological. 
 
 The moral activity determines itself according to a law ; 
 this law belongs to the sphere of reason. The eternal law is 
 the universe-ruling divine reason, not the fortuitous reason 
 of the individual. The laws of nature, and also those of the 
 practical reason (ratio practica) are an efflux from the eternal
 
 34.] THOMAS AQUINAS. 215 
 
 law, and the human laws of the state and of society are in 
 turn an efflux from both. The laws which lie merely in the 
 natural reason do not suffice for morality ; but there is needed, 
 in order to the supernatural end of blessedness, also a positive 
 divine law, which is made known and evidenced to all bv 
 revelation, and which at the same time also preserves the 
 natural consciousness from all doubt (ii, 1, 90 sgq). In the 
 field of Christian morality the law proper, which is absolutely 
 binding on all Christians, is to be distinguished from the 
 counsels, which are left to free choice, though the following 
 of them works a higher perfection and leads more speedily to 
 the goal of salvation. The Old Testament law, as a law of 
 servitude, had no such counsels ; but the Gospel as a law of 
 freedom has them, in order to bring men rightly to a con- 
 sciousness of their freedom. The clinging to the earthly 
 hinders our arriving at the heavenly; hence the counsels 
 hasten this arriving, in that they free man as far as possible 
 from earthly enjoyments which are otherwise not forbidden 
 to him; they therefore require poverty, perpetual chastity 
 (that is, non-marriage), and the yoke of obedience (obedientice 
 servitus), the latter very erroneously based on Matt, xix, 21 
 ("follow me,") and on John x, 27 (ii, 1, 108, art. 4; comp. 
 ii, 2, 186). The Christian law as distinguished from the nat- 
 ural law cannot be fulfilled by our own natural power, but 
 only in virtue of the grace-gifts infused into the hearts of be- 
 lievers ; and in so far man acquires for himself, by his virtue, 
 no merit before God. Without grace no one can acquire the 
 life of blessedness ; on the presupposition of grace, however, 
 man can in fact acquire a merit before God, and thereby an 
 increase of grace and of the love of God, and hence also a 
 heightening of his blessedness (meritum condigni) (ii, 1, 114). 
 Opposed to the morally-good stands evil; to the virtuous 
 act, sin; and to virtue as a habit, vice (ii, 1, 71 sqq.); sin and 
 vice are in contradiction to true reason, and hence in general 
 to the essence or nature of man. In reference to the kind of 
 pleasure felt or sought in sin, sins are divided into spiritual 
 and fleshly sins. In reference to their guilt and punishable- 
 ness, they are classed into venial and mortal (peccata venalia et 
 mortalid) ; the former consist in the turning to the finite 
 without a conscious and designed turning-away from God,
 
 216 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 34 
 
 and they involve finite punishments, either here upon earth 
 or in purgatory; mortal sins consist in a conscious and de- 
 signed turning-away from, and hence in a conscious rebell- 
 ing against, God and his will, are contrary to the order of 
 love, and hence involve eternal punishment. The gravity of 
 the guilt is measured by the importance of the object, by the 
 motives, by the degree of consciousness and of freedom, and 
 by the spiritual character and position of the subject in so- 
 ciety. In reference to the positive or negative contents of 
 the action, sins fall into sins of commission and of omission 
 (peccata commissionis et omissi&nis). In reference to their man- 
 ner of commission, sins are sins of the heart, of the mouth, 
 and of act {peccata cardis, oris, operis). In sin there is to be 
 distinguished a twofold consent of the rational will, namely, 
 to the pleasure in the sin, and to the sinful deed itself, the latter 
 being the more criminal. The causes of sin, as act, are in 
 part direct, namely, erring cognition and volition the re- 
 garding a seeming good as a real one, and the willing it, 
 and, in part, indirect, namely, first, inner ones, such as im- 
 agination, sensuousness, ignorance,, passion, and other al- 
 ready committed sins; and, second, outward or tempting 
 ones, such as evil spirits and bad men ; temptation, however, 
 presupposes, in order to its effectualness, a sinful welcoming 
 of it. God is not the cause of sin, though indeed, in virtue 
 of his righteousness, He is the mediate cause of the conse- 
 quences of sin, e. <?., of the hardening of the heart. The 
 sinful corruption which transmits itself from the first man to 
 all following generations, that is, original sin, is, formally, 
 the being destitute of original righteousness, and, materially, 
 the tending of the soul-powers to false goods, concupiscentia 
 (75 sqq). The particular sins are severally treated of in con- 
 nection with the virtues of which they are the violation. 
 
 In his, not seldom very casuistical carrying out of details, 
 Thomas Aquinas, notwithstanding his moral earnestness, does 
 not, on the whole, incline to theoretical rigor, but leaves 
 pretty free scope for personal determination in particular 
 cases, and even in the face of outward human law. The 
 right of property, for example, is, in his opinion, not uncon- 
 ditional ; and in extreme cases of necessity, where the saving 
 of life is involved, the right of self-preservation takes pre-
 
 34.] DUNS SCOTUS. 217 
 
 cedence of the right of property, and a person sins not when, 
 in such a case, he openly or secretly takes from the refused 
 superfluity of another that which he needs (ii, 2, sq. 66, 7). 
 To take interest for money loaned, he regards, in agreement 
 with general ancient-Christian and Mediteval opinion, as 
 unallowable ; otherwise the same thing would be paid for 
 twice ; he who sells a loaf of bread, may not demand another 
 special payment for the eating of the same; he who lends 
 receives, in fact, -the purchase price with the return of the 
 simple sum lent ; however, it is not unallowable, in case of 
 need, to pay interest to others for money. The duty of 
 truthfulness admits, indeed, of saying less than one knows to 
 be the truth', but not more ; for the little is a part of the 
 whole. All -lies are sins, though in different degrees ; a con- 
 scious lie for the injury of another is a mortal sin, but a lie 
 said in sport or a lie of courtesy (mendacium qfficiosum) in 
 indifferent things, and where it injures no one, is a venial one 
 (ii, 2, sq. 110, 4). 
 
 Duns Scotus (ob. 1308), whose really speculative acumen 
 went but too often astray into sophistical and skeptical rea- 
 sonings, involved the moral idea, and above all its special 
 application, in more than one respect, in uncertainty, namely, 
 by his -sophist-delight in the discovering and in the ingen- 
 ious solving of contradictions and difficulties. A minutely 
 spun-out quatenus makes room for the most opposite assump- 
 tions, and opens the way, to subjective discretion, for a lax 
 construing of the law. Many elements in Scotus remind us 
 strikingly of the later aberrations of the Jesuitical view. 
 The notion of the freedom of the will he conceives, in oppo- 
 sition to Thomas Aquinas, as essentially a mere norm-less 
 discretion, both in man and in God ; while Aquinas held that 
 man, as really rational, has, in his rational knowledge of the 
 good, a motive not a compelling one, it is true, but a mo- 
 tive to the good, so that he cannot determine himself 
 equally easily for the rational and the irrational, but has in 
 fact a primitive, a constitutional inclination to the good, 
 and that consequently the will does not by any means stand 
 entirely neutral (ii, 1, 9, 13, 17, 58), Duns Scotus maintains, 
 on the contrary, that according to this view the will is not at 
 all free, but is determined by knowledge ; according to his
 
 218 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 34. 
 
 view, the will, as free, is not in the least bound by rational 
 knowledge, but stands perfectly neutral, and can with like 
 facility decide for, or against, the known good.* Likewise, 
 also, is the freedom of the divine will in nowise to be con- 
 ceived of as characterized by any inner necessity, so that, for 
 example, God could not equally well will the opposite of 
 that which he actually does will. A course of order is not 
 willed by God and established as a law because it is good 
 per se, but it is good simply and solely because God has willed 
 it precisely so; but He might just as readily have willed the 
 opposite thereof. Hence also God is not bound by his 
 commands, and He can in fact annul them, not merely the 
 positive laws of Revelation, but also the natural laws of 
 morals ; only from the two first laws of the Decalogue, as re- 
 sulting directly from the essence of God, can God not dis- 
 pense, t It is evidently in the interest of this lax notion of 
 liberty that Duns Scotus admits also of morally indifferent 
 actions not merely such manners of action, as, being neither 
 commended nor forbidden, constitute the sphere of 'the al- 
 lowed, but also real, positive actions which are neither good 
 nor evil, that is, which are not done out of love to God, but 
 also not in opposition to Him. J Hence in regard to particular 
 moral cases, Duns Scotus shows himself often very lax. 
 Falsehood and misrepresentation he declares as, under cer- 
 tain circumstances, allowable. An oath of promise obligates 
 to its fulfillment only when the person had at the time of 
 swearing it the intention of fulfilling it, though of course 
 an oath in which one did not have this intention, is a moral 
 sin. 1 
 
 Scholastic ethics as a whole bears a pretty unvarying out- 
 ward form. The method is, as the several points present 
 themselves, first, to state the various opposing views with 
 the reasons in their favor, and then to pass a decision upon 
 the point itself ; mere dicta of the Fathers, especially of Au- 
 gustine and of Dionysius the Areopagite, and often also of the 
 Philasophus, that is, Aristotle, suffice in and t>f themselves as 
 conclusive proofs ; texts from the Scriptures fall rather into 
 
 * Quastt. in Ubr. Sentent. ii, dist. 25, ed. Lugd., 1639, t. 6, p. 873 sqq. 
 
 t Ibid. Hi, dist. 37, t. 7, p. 857. \ Ibid, ii, dist. 41. 
 
 Ibid, iii, dist. 38, p. 917. | Ibid, iii, dist. 39, p. 980.
 
 34.] SPIRIT OF SCHOLASTICISM. 219 
 
 the back-ground. Despite the undeniable acumen shown by 
 the schoolmen in the development of processes of reason- 
 ing, there is yet manifest also a lack of the courage to derive 
 their philosophical systems purely and simply from the Chris- 
 tian consciousness. Graeco-Roman ethics was in fact, to the 
 schoolmen, not a merely preliminary and preparatory study, 
 but it was with them of quite too determining an influence, 
 also in respect to the subject-matter" of their science. They 
 endeavor, indeed, with great earnestness to exalt extra-Chris- 
 tian philosophy into the sphere of Christian thought; it 
 proves, however, an element too mighty for them, and they do 
 not wholly escape entangling the Christian consciousness in 
 the heathen, and thus robbing it of its peculiarity. They 
 felt indeed the antagonism, but did not overcome it, and the 
 prevalent lifeless juxtaposing of the two elements shows only 
 their embarrassment, but not their ability to dominate the 
 foreign material. The almost universal resorting to certain 
 favorite numbers in the division and classification of the 
 subject-thatter, particularly to three and seven, and also to 
 four and twelve, is indeed based on an obscure consciousness 
 of an inner order of the spiritual life ; but this order does not 
 come to a scientific consciousness, and the real reason for its 
 observance is, after all, the typical significance of these num- 
 bers as sacred. That there should be presented precisely 
 seven beatitudes, seven (diversely-stated) mortal sins, etc., 
 seems without inner ground ; and frequently this using of 
 numbers sinks to jejune play, as, e. g., when a certain writer 
 introduces every-where the number twelve, in the dividing 
 of his subject, in assigning reasons, in citing objections, etc. 
 The ethical subject-matter treated of by the schoolmen was 
 subsequently wrought over in large, though but little system- 
 etized summaries in connection with appropriate citations 
 from the Fathers, and placed within reach of the wider cir- 
 cles of the ecclesiastical world. To the period of Thomas 
 Aquinas himself belongs the Summa of William Peraldus,* an 
 essentially casuistical and pretty well digested appreciation 
 of scholastic science ; after which we may mention the Spee- 
 
 * Summa s. tractatus de mrtictibus et vitiis, from the fifteenth century, 
 (without date or place of printing, then at Col. Agr., 1479 fol. ; Basle, 
 1497, 8vo.) often reprinted.
 
 220 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 34. 
 
 ulum morale, attributed to Vincent of Beauvais (ob. 1264), but 
 originating in the fourteenth century ;* and also the much 
 used and very complete and erudite Summa of Antony of 
 Florence (ob. 1459). t 
 
 John of Salisbury (ob. 1180, as Bishop of Chartres), who op- 
 posed scholasticism proper with brilliant ability, but was 
 rather empirical in regard to the source of knowledge, though 
 in other respects of rich philosophical culture, undertook to 
 give to the moral views of the Church a scientific expression ; 
 in his efforts he based himself most largely on Gregory the 
 Great. To be perfect is God's essence, to become perfect is the 
 task of man as God's image ; man becomes perfect, and hence 
 happy only by moral activity, which activity rests, on the 
 one hand, on the knowledge of the truth, and, on the other, 
 on love to God. Since the fall into sin man can know the 
 truth only in virtue of divine revelation and illumination, 
 and he can realize the good only by the assistance of divine 
 grace. Because of the evil desire inborn in all men, there is 
 no virtue without a constant struggle of our love tf> right- 
 eousness, as strengthened by redemption, against our innate 
 evil desires. Even as the essence and source of all sins is 
 the natural desire as developed into pride and presumption 
 (so that consequently all virtuous effort directs itself prima- 
 rily against the pride of the heart), so the essence of all Chris- 
 tian virtue is that humility which springs from love to God, 
 and which seeks to lay aside all self-will and to give God 
 the glory in all things. Hence the moral worth of actions 
 lies not in the work, but in the disposition ; but from the 
 right disposition there follows with moral necessity also the 
 right work. Morality is not, however, a merely individual 
 task, it finds its full truth only in the moral community-life, 
 which comes to expression in the church and in the closely 
 therewith-connected Christian state. The State has, as a 
 real moral organism, also a moral task, namely, to execute 
 righteousness according to the divine will, and not only to 
 protect the morality of the people, but also to foster and 
 guide it. Hence the law which governs the state is to be 
 
 * Not in his Opp., 1431, but separately printed as a part of the great 
 Speculum naturale, etc., 1473, and subsequently. 
 t Summa, theol., 1477, 1476, 1480, 1496; 1740, 4 vols.
 
 34.] JOHN OF SALISBURY. 221 
 
 an expression, not of human discretion, but only of the di- 
 vine will, to which even the prince must absolutely subordin- 
 ate himself ; hence it must rest on God's revealed Word, and 
 the vicegerents of God, that is, the representatives of the 
 religious community-life the Church, must be also the ani- 
 mating soul of the Christian state ; for, in fact, in its moral 
 task, the Christian state is identical with the church. God- 
 fearing is the life-power of the Christian state, and this state 
 must therefore above all things recognize and honor both the 
 moral right of the church and also the priests as the higher 
 and, so to speak, divine element in worldly society. The 
 priests indeed should not and may not themselves guide and 
 administer the state ; they are rather simply by their moral 
 example, by doctrine, by exhortation, and by reproof, to in- 
 fluence the same, but the princes to whom by divine ordi- 
 nance the guidance of the state belongs, have received the 
 sword only from the higher moral community, the church, in 
 order to execute justice in the name of the Christian idea ; 
 and so likewise stands the military order, knighthood, not 
 merely in the service of the prince, but quite as fully, and in 
 fact primarily, in the service of God, and hence of the church. 
 A prince who breaks away from divine law, who rebels against 
 the divine ordinances, and hence also against the church, has, 
 as a tyrant, forfeited his moral right to the crown, and it is 
 not merely legitimate to offer resistance to him, but also in 
 any manner whatever, even by treachery or assassination, to 
 get rid of him [Policraticus iv, 2]. The political doctrine of 
 John of Salisbury is a Mediaeval Christian counterpart to 
 Plato's doctrine of the state, with which he was not acquaint- 
 ed, and is in fact an attempt to introduce Augustine's Civitas 
 Dei into the worldly state.* 
 
 The fondness of Schoolmen for proposing difficult contro- 
 versial questions led them inevitably into the province of 
 casuistry; and this science which had sustained itself along- 
 side of scholasticism subsequently borrowed from scholastic 
 science much congenial material, and in part also a scientific 
 form. Hence at the decline of scholasticism in the fourteenth 
 century, casuistry entered in fact upon its brightest days. 
 
 * Especially in his Policraticus. (Reuter : Joh. v. S., 1842). Schaar- 
 Bchmidt: Joh. Saresb., 1862.
 
 222 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 34. 
 
 The works entitled Summce casuum conscientice, were very 
 much used in connection with confession and penance, and, 
 as they generally contained also much matter relative to 
 church law, also in ecclesiastical administration. In them 
 we find a very imperfectly digested, and often merely alpha- 
 betical, summary of specific single moral questions, which 
 relate in the main to what is allowed or disallowed, and the 
 decision of which is given less from general principles than 
 on the basis of the utterances of the more highly esteemed 
 Fathers. The questions are often not taken from -life at all, 
 but are simply invented in order to exercise ingenuity, as in 
 riddle-solving ; and in some of these works there is manifest- 
 ed a peculiarly fond lingering over extremely impure sub- 
 jects. In the presence of the too exclusively considered 
 individual case, the general principles involved in it are 
 often wholly lost sight of, and ethics is in danger of degen- 
 erating into a sophistry of special-pleading, into a treating 
 of the moral merely empirically and skeptically ; thus we 
 find questions often extensively discussed, as doubtful, which 
 cannot be in the least practically doubtful for the unsophis- 
 ticated moral consciousness. The best known of these works 
 are the Summce of Raymund of Pennaforti in the thirteenth 
 century,* and of Astesanus in the fourteenth! (the Astesana, 
 is cautious and judicious, contains also many general consid- 
 erations, and is pretty systematic and comprehensive) ; Angelus 
 of Clavasio in the fifteenth century J (the Angelica, perhaps 
 the most extensively used ; alphabetical, with much worth- 
 less matter, and often treating of indelicate questions) ; Syl- 
 vester Prierias, General of the Dominicans, the well-known 
 opponent of Luther, gave in his Summa moralis, generally 
 called Summa summarum, an alphabetical compilation from 
 others. (The Pisanella [1470 and often], revised by Nicolas 
 of Ausmo, 1471, '73, '74, '75, '78; Galensis, 1475; Rosella, 
 1516; Pacifica, 1574. The BiUia aurea, 1475, '81, also in 
 
 * Summa de casibue panitentice, Verona, 1744; upon this is based the 
 work of John of Freiburg, Augsb., 1472, and frequently. 
 
 t <S T . d. cos. consc. (at first without date or place) 'about 1468-72 fol. ; 
 then at Col., 1479 ; Norimb., 1482, and often later. 
 
 % S. cos. consc., 1486 without place, fol. ; Venet., 1487 4to. ; Norimb., 
 1488, and often. 
 
 Printed in 1515 4to. ; Argent, 1518 fol.
 
 35.] THE MYSTICS. 223 
 
 German, alphabetical.) Also the Decretum of Qratian con- 
 tains, in its first part, much that appertains to casuistical 
 ethics. 
 
 SECTION XXXV. 
 
 The writings of the Mystics contain in the field of 
 ethics many profound thoughts, though without rig- 
 idly scientific form. This is the case with Richard 
 of St. Victor and Sonaventura. Less mystical than 
 simply practical, and strongly emphasizing the sub- 
 jective phase of morality, was the influence of Ber- 
 nard of Clairvaux, and later, of Thomas d Kempis ; 
 while Eckart, and in part even Tauler, conceive the 
 moral in the main negatively and quietistically (in 
 the spirit of a Pantheistically-infected mysticism) as 
 spiritual poverty, as the turning-avvay of the spirit 
 from all that is created. Occupying a mediating 
 position between mysticism and scholasticism, also 
 John Gerson seeks to give form to ethics, but he al- 
 ready begins to show signs of that paralysis of the 
 moral spirit which had spread into the widest circles 
 previously to the Reformation ; Raymund de Sabunde 
 deals in more popularly-practical modes of thought. 
 In the spirit of the Reformation, and as its precursors, 
 worked, in the field of ethics, also Wickliffe, Huss, 
 John of Goch, and Savonarola. 
 
 In contrast to the growingly- Aristotelian, dialectical treat- 
 ment of ethics, the mystical anti-scholastic current of theol- 
 ogy clings, more or less closely, to the writings of the sup- 
 posed Areopagite ( 31), but keeps for the most part clear 
 from the daring speculations of John Scotus Erigena, and 
 gives, in general, thoughtful meditations and profound glances 
 of insight rather than rigorous and clear processes of reason- 
 ing. The freedom of the will is, by most of the Mediaeval 
 mystics, pretty strongly emphasized ; but the active working
 
 224 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 35. 
 
 in the outer world is made largely to give place to the purely 
 contemplative life. 
 
 Richard of St. Victor (about 1150) treats, in several special 
 works, of the inner life of the pious heart in its union with 
 God, a life which through contemplatio as distinguished 
 from cogitatio and meditatio, passes over into self-forgetting 
 love. The divine is not attained to by laborious thinking 
 and doing, but by an immediate and spiritual, freely self- 
 devoting vision or beholding, to which receptive state of the 
 soul God lovingly manifests himself as in-streaming light. 
 And the soul becomes receptive by the progressive cleansing 
 of it from the dross of the earthly life, from the striving after 
 the creature, by self -immersion into itself, not in order to 
 hold fast to itself in antithesis to God, but in order to aspire 
 toward him in ardent love-desire ; the goal is perfect, bliss- 
 ful rest in God ; the condition is the operation of grace and 
 the willing, joyous laying-hold upon the same on the part of 
 the subject. Bonaventura (ob. 1274) attempts to fuse dialec- 
 tics with mysticism, but, notwithstanding his frequently al- 
 most overflowing subjectivity of feeling, his mysticism is less 
 sustained and less deep than that of Richard St. Victor, and 
 lingers more in the sphere of practical piety. Bernard of 
 Clairvaux (ob. 1153), opposing scholasticism in many respects 
 not without good grounds, and confining himself mainly to 
 the practical sphere, has also carefully examined the sub- 
 ject of ethics in some of its parts; (De diligendo deo ; De 
 gradibus Jiumilitatis et superb.; De gratia et liber o arbitrio ; 
 De consider atione.) To true virtue belong two things : divine 
 grace and a free, active embracing of the same ; without free- 
 dom there is no responsibility. But freedom is threefold: 
 first, freedom of nature as opposed to necessity ; second, free- 
 dom of grace, attained to through Christ, that is, emanci- 
 pation from the bondage of sin ; and, third, freedom of glory 
 which is realized in eternal blessedness, but enjoyed here 
 only in moments of spiritual vision. Freedom of choice is 
 from nature, but by grace it is regulated and attracted toward 
 the good, though not forced. By simple free-will we belong 
 to ourselves ; by the willing of the good we belong to God ; 
 by the willing of evil, to Satan. The decision lies in our 
 own hand ; no one is forced to salvation. Love, as constitut-
 
 35.] BERNARD, ECKART. 
 
 ing the essence of the moral, has four degrees: first, man 
 loves himself for his own sake ; second, he loves God, not, 
 however, for God's but for his own sake, because without 
 God he can do nothing; third, he loves God for God's sake, 
 out of thankfulness for experienced love ; fourth, he loves 
 also himself solely for God's sake ; this highest stage, that of 
 true morality, is, however, but seldom enjoyed in this life. 
 The essence of wisdom, on the whole, is, to behold and to 
 love the invisible essence of God in all things, to give up all 
 that we have to God, and to live only in God and for God. 
 All true virtue is an expression of humility, whereby, in true 
 self-knowledge man becomes nothing in his own eyes; humil- 
 ity leads in twelve stages to the truth, which truth in turn 
 develops itself in three stages, the highest of which is the 
 direct spiritual beholding of God. Humility, love, and the 
 beholding of the truth, are the three aliments of the soul, cor- 
 responding to the Son, the Spirit, and the Father. The mys- 
 tical element in Bernard shows itself mainly in the develop- 
 ment of the doctrine of contemplation. Many of his principles 
 he borrows from the ethics prevalent in his day, as, e. g., the 
 four cardinal virtues, and also the notion of the middle-way 
 as the essence of virtue. 
 
 Master Eckart (a Dominican at Cologne, db. 1329),* distin- 
 guished for profound insight, but not unfrequently overpass- 
 ing, in his fervid soarings, the limits of the Christian world- 
 theory, was of very great influence on subsequent mystics; 
 taking his departure from Dionysius the Areopagite, he pushes 
 the thought of the union of the soul with God, as the highest 
 good to such a height as almost to lose sight of the individ- 
 ual existence of the creature, and of its distinctness from 
 God, not, however, in the sense qf modern Pantheism, but 
 in that of John Scotus Erigena. The world is, strictly speak- 
 ing, nothing at all, is rather mere appearance than reality; 
 God alone is real in whatever exists ; God alone is the object 
 of true love, and in this love all morality is comprehended. 
 Hence the entire striving of man must be directed to this end, 
 namely, to becoming at one with God, to laying aside his 
 
 * Schriften, edited by Pfeiffer, 1847, (mostly sermons ; larger scien- 
 tific works of his appear to be lost. C. Schmidt in Stud. u. Krit., 1839 ; 
 Martensen, 1842 ; J. Back, 1864.
 
 226 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 35. 
 
 separate existence, to turning away from all that is created, 
 to wishing nothing, loving nothing, knowing nothing but 
 God alone to merging himself into God, to transforming 
 himself into God. If God is to come into the soul, then the 
 creature must be driven out ; if man is to become rich in God, 
 then he must become poor in the creature. When man turns 
 himself away from all that is finite, when he forgets himself 
 and the world, and directs his soul exclusively toward God, 
 then God pours himself into his soul, God is born in the 
 soul, and the soul has eternal rest in God. Virtuous working 
 in the world is not the highest working, for in it man dis- 
 perses himself into the multiplicity of the finite ; he who has 
 found God, who has God dwelling in himself, divests himself 
 also of works, seeks only the inner work, reposes in God 
 alone ; nay, he aims not at his own blessedness, for in fact this 
 is also a clinging to self, to the created, he aims only at giv- 
 ing himself wholly np to God, at sacrificing himself to God, at 
 reducing himself to nothing, at cutting off and throwing away 
 from himself whatever is finite or creature-like, or different 
 from God ; he breaks himself loose not only from sin, but also 
 from the world and from his own self. Not man is to work, 
 but he is to let God exclusively and alone work in him ; such 
 purity of heart, such freedom from all self, also from all per- 
 sonal volition, is the highest good, is the spiritual birth of 
 God in the soul ; we possess all good when we are united with 
 God's nature, and a single glance at God " in his nakedness " 
 is of more avail, and unites the soul more with God, than all 
 the works of Christendom could accomplish. 
 
 In a similar spirit, although less bold in emphasizing the 
 mystical element, wrote and lived Tauler, Eckart's disciple 
 (a Dominican at Cologne and Strasburg, 6b. 1361). He pre- 
 sented, in his "Imitation of the humble Life of Christ,"* a 
 system of pure mysticism, and which, for that very reason, 
 was one-sided and dangerous to the Christian consciousness. 
 The essence of morality is spiritual poverty ; the way to life, 
 to "equality with God," is to become spiritually poor, to be 
 separated from all that belongs to the creature, to cling to 
 
 * Edited by Schlosser, 1833 (in modern German) ; his sermons are 
 mostly practico-ediflcntory. The work, Medulla amnux, is not by Tauler 
 C. Schmidt: J. Tender, 1841.
 
 35.] TATTLER. 227 
 
 nothing among finite things ; as, however, all that is finite 
 must cling to something, hence man is to cling only to that 
 which is above himself, to God. % The poorer man is in the 
 creature, so much the richer is he in God ; God is intuited 
 only immediately, without any intervention of the creature ; 
 in so far as man looks to the creature he is distant from God. 
 Man must put off from himself all that is multiple, manifold, 
 in order to become rich in the One, must be poor in knowl- 
 edge in so far as knowledge relates to the finite and is in- 
 volved in finite forms, poor in virtue in so far as it is an 
 acting in the finite (only the disposition is divine), poor 
 even in grace in so far as the soul in its union with God stands 
 no longer in a mere relation of grace to God, but is actively 
 led by God in harmony with himself in a divine manner. 
 The sole true knowledge is the direct spiritual beholding 
 of God. The sole virtue is simple love to God. God is free 
 from every thing that is creatural ; in spiritual poverty man 
 becomes also free from and divested of all things, presses, 
 as a free soul, into the uncreated good, into God, and is no 
 longer affected by earthly pleasure or by pain. Hence true 
 divine freedom springs from poverty and humility; false 
 freedom, from pride. God is a pure activity a mere work- 
 ing ; therefore also poverty is a pure working with God ; now 
 there are three kinds of work : (1) natural work, in part bodily 
 and sensuous ; this work must take place with moderation 
 and in the Holy Ghost, and the senses must be indulged in 
 their necessary wants ; and in part, spiritual, as knowledge 
 and love ; also this work must take place only in so far as 
 necessary, must be turned aside from all not absolutely essen- 
 tial things ; otherwise it leads to pride. (2) Grace-work ; in 
 man, this work is primarily learning, namely, acquiring a 
 knowledge of the Scriptures and of all the efficacy of the 
 Holy Spirit, and hence also a knowledge of good and evil. 
 When man permits himself to be guided by the divine Spirit 
 that dwells within him, then he becomes a friend of God ; as 
 such, he must divest himself of all temporal things, and re- 
 nounce them, for they are all null and void ; he must simply 
 follow Christ, and in so doing he attains (3) to the divine 
 work in man; man is now one spirit with God, and seeks 
 nothing but God ; his work is God's work, and God's work 
 
 16
 
 228 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 35. 
 
 is his own work ; and God's spirit speaks to him no more in 
 symbol and form, but in full life, light, and truth. All the 
 powers of the soul keep holiday, and are at rest, and let God 
 alone work, and this is the highest work of which they are 
 capable. The human spirit loses finally its own self, loses 
 itself in God and knows no longer any thing but God ; God 
 puts himself in the place of reason in man, and works man's 
 works ; the soul merges itself into God and remains eternally 
 hovering in God, drowns itself in the unfathomable sea of 
 divinity. Hence by the renouncing of all that is temporal, 
 by true poverty, man becomes divested also of outward 
 works. He who has no longer any thing wherewith to help 
 his fellow-man, is in fact no longer required to do so ; also 
 external works belong to the sphere of the temporal, and 
 hence man must pass through them and beyond them up to 
 true poverty and vision ; in this one work he works all works, 
 and in this one virtue he has all virtues. In Tauler the one 
 phase of the, moral, namely, union with God, is pushed one- 
 sidedly into untruth, so that the right of the creatural indi- 
 viduality is relatively lost sight of, and hence we find in 
 many respects Pantheistical forms of thought. John Ruis- 
 broch of Brussels (6b. 1381) wrote in a similar spirit, but 
 strayed into a still more transcendental heart-mysticism, 
 though his works abound rather in allegorizing portrayals 
 and confident assertions than in scientific demonstration. 
 
 The comprehensiveness of a &erson (ob. 1429) could not 
 bring to a check the decline of the inner spirit of the church, 
 which was now seriously affecting also the general moral 
 consciousness. Scholasticism and casuistry had, by their 
 interminable subtleties, largely obscured the more simple 
 moral modes of thought; and while puzzling themselves in 
 fruitless speculation over the imaginary difficulties of cun- 
 ningly-invented cases of conscience, they lost all sense for 
 moral straightforwardness, and found abundant pretexts for 
 making exceptions from the moral rule. The Franciscan, 
 Jean Petit of Paris, was able, on occasion of the murder of 
 the regent, the Duke of Orleans, in 1407, to find reasons for 
 openly justifying the murder of tyrants, and the Council of 
 Constance did not venture to pronounce a decided disapproval 
 of this doctrine ; and not only that, but it gave, for the first
 
 35.] GERSOISr, KEMPIS. 229 
 
 time, serious countenance to the notion of moral probabilism, 
 that is, the doctrine that a morally doubtful action is per- 
 missible on condition that several esteemed Fathers can be 
 cited in its favor.* Gerson, who opposed the doctrine of 
 Petit with but half-heart, was also himself involved in the 
 general laxity of the moral consciousness ; he also counte- 
 nanced probabilism. He held that the vow of celibacy was 
 violated only by actual marriage but not by fornication, and 
 for this sin he shows an excessive leniency. t The notorious 
 morality of the Jesuits is not peculiar to them, but is only 
 the further development of a spirit that was already powerful 
 in the Romish church before the time of the Reformation. 
 In other respects Gerson seeks, in his numerous writings on 
 specific moral topics, to mitigate the erroneousjiess of the 
 prevailing moral views ; the monastic life and the doctrine of 
 the divine counsels, he does not esteem so highly as did the 
 spirit of his age ; he finds the difference between venial and 
 mortal sins rather in the subjective intention than in the ob- 
 jective nature of the sin. The mystical element appears in 
 Gerson under a very moderated form. 
 
 Thomas a Kempis (ob. 1471), the author of the most widely 
 known of all books of devotion : De imitatione Christi (trans- 
 lated into all European languages, and published nearly two 
 thousand times), shows himself in this book as a thoroughly 
 practical, moderated mystic, of deep moral life-experience, 
 and of genuine, heart-felt, morally- vigorous piety ; and hence 
 his work is not less prized in the Protestant than in the 
 Romish church. The thoughts are presented in a clear, 
 genuinely-popular style, and the rich heart-depth is thereby 
 thrown all the more brightly into relief. The book known 
 as German Theology, published fijst by Luther in 1516, but 
 springing from an unknown author of the fifteenth century, 
 is based on Tauler, and is characterized by a somewhat more 
 strongly speculative mysticism than that of Kempis, em- 
 phasizing in an almost one-sided manner the turning-away 
 from self and from the world, and the becoming united with 
 
 * Marheinecke : Gesch. d. chrwil. Moral, etc., 1806, p. 161 sqq. ; 
 Standlin: Gesch. d. ch. Mor. seit. d. Wiederaufl,, etc., p. 63 sqq. ; Wes- 
 senberg: Kirschenversamnil., 2, 247. 
 
 t Opp., Antv., 1706, t. iii, 917 sqg.
 
 230 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 35. 
 
 God as the one eternal good, so that the moral right of the 
 personality is thrown quite too far into the back-ground, and 
 too little distinction is made between the personality itself 
 and the "selfhood " that is to be done away with. 
 
 Less peculiar in contents than in>form, and differing equal- 
 ly from scholasticism and from mysticism, are the moral 
 views of Raymund de Sabunde (of Toulouse, about 1430).* 
 Appropriating to himself the results of preceding theological 
 and philosophical thought, he undertook, rather from the 
 stand-point of experience, of the observation of nature, and 
 of the common sense of mankind, to place these results with- 
 in reach of the understanding of the masses. The freedom 
 of the will as directed toward the good is the highest posses- 
 sion of reason ; called to the highest place in the scale of 
 created beings, man should, by free conduct, show himself 
 worthy of this calling, should establish and preserve the 
 harmony of the created. As man has received nothing from 
 himself, but every thing from God alone, hence his first duty 
 is thankful love to God who first loved him (tit. 96 sqq., 109 
 sqq.}; love to self becomes moral only through love to God. 
 Other creatures give us good only in so far as God works 
 through them, and hence our love to them must be subordi- 
 nated to our love to God ; but out of this love to God follows 
 also a love to that which He has created, and hence, first of 
 all, to man as God's image ; hence the requirement to love 
 one's neighbor as one's self (120 sqq). Through love to God, 
 man constantly grows in God -likeness, for amor convertit 
 amdntem in rem amatam (129 sqq.), though this is not to be 
 taken in the sweeping sense of the Mystics. Evil consists in 
 this, that we honor and love the creature not in God but for 
 itself, and is consequently idolatry ; the root of all evil is 
 this impious love to self, that is, it is self-seeking and self- 
 will; the devil seeks nothing but himself. As in consequence 
 of sin a general corruption of man's nature has been brought 
 about, and as the power of sin over man is paralyzed only by 
 redemption, hence Christian morality rests entirely on loving 
 thankfulness to Christ, and involves a constant struggle 
 against the remains of sin that still infect us. 
 
 The evangelical tendency which during the time of the 
 * Theologia naturalis, Solisb., 1852. Matzke : B. t>. S., 1846.
 
 35.] PRE-REFORMERS. 231 
 
 universal domination of the Romish church had never entire- 
 ly disappeared, and which, especially since the appearance 
 of the Waldenses, had been growing more positive in its 
 opposition to the corrupted church, directed its efforts from 
 the very first against the anti-scriptural and arbitrary ordi- 
 nances of said church, especially against the work -holiness 
 of monastic morality, in order to vindicate the moral free- 
 dom of the Christian personality, and also against the sophis- 
 tical laxity of the more recent period ; this tendency insists 
 above all upon faith-born love as the source and essence of 
 all true morality, and rejects the notion of supererogatory 
 merit as arising from the observance of the so-called evan- 
 gelical counsels. So taught Wickliffe in his Trialogus, but 
 rather as assailing than as positively building up ; all sin, he 
 refers to a lack in true faith ; a correct knowledge of faith 
 precludes sin ; true virtue is not possible without true faith ; 
 a correct knowledge of faith precludes sin ; true virtue is not 
 possible without true faith ; hence by a man's virtue one can 
 judge of his faith. Wickliffe's over-rigid and almost de- 
 terministic predestinarianism simply stands, unmediated, 
 along-side of his moral views, and merely impedes their freer 
 scope. Also Huss combats, in the ethical field, chiefly only 
 against the errors of Romish dogmas and morals, without 
 himself establishing any thing essentially new. Violent and 
 keen, and generally, though not always, purely evangelical 
 are also the assaults of Nicolas de Clamengis [Clemangis] in 
 France ob. about 1440 against the corruption of the moral 
 consciousness of the church).* John of Goch, of Malines (pb. 
 1475) assailed, from an Augustinian stand-point, the com- 
 mingling of the evangelical with the Mosaic law, also the sys- 
 tem of vows, and outward work-holiness in general ; faith as 
 working by love is the essence of Christian freedom and moral- 
 ity.f The influence of Savonarola in Florence lay more in his 
 fiery zeal for pure evangelical morality than in fruits of scientific 
 thought ; in his mode of thinking, the phase of the God-pos- 
 sessed affections stands forth with most prominence ; a mysti- 
 cal subjectiveness is combined with a fervent work-activity. J 
 
 * De corrupto eccl. statu, and in briefer essays and letters, Opp. t 1613. 
 t Ullmann : Bef&rmatoren vor d. Ref., 1841, i. 
 JRudelbach: Sav., 1835; F. C. Meier, 1836.
 
 232 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [35. 
 
 If we leave out of view these teachers of the church who 
 were forerunners of the Reformation, we find in general in the 
 ecclesiastical ethics prevailing before the opening of this Refor- 
 mation a threefold character : a casuistical, a scholastic, and a 
 mystical one, corresponding to the three phases of the soul-life, 
 namely, to the empirical understanding, to the speculative rea- 
 son and to the loving heart. The mystical form of ethics is 
 the pure antithesis to the casuistical ; the former rests on heart- 
 union with God, the latter on the analyzing understanding ; the 
 former, upon an inward ineffable vision, the latter, upon out- 
 ward calculating observation ; the former strays at times into 
 the borders of Pantheism, and hence has some points of con- 
 tact with the cosmic theory of India ; the latter is rather in 
 danger of repeating, in the Christian sphere, the Jewish ex- 
 ternality and chicanery of Pharisaism and Talmudisin ; the 
 former reduces all plurality, all heterogeneousness, to a homo- 
 geneous unity, endangers the practically moral working-life 
 in the world ; the latter dissolves the moral idea into an atom- 
 istic plurality of single cases devoid of uniting bond ; mysti- 
 cism turns itself away disdainfully from all objective reality 
 even of the moral life ; casuistry threatens to bind up and to 
 smother the moral in narrow legal forms ; mysticism turns away 
 from the circumference toward the center, but does not return 
 again from the center to the circumference ; casuistry proceeds 
 and stumbles by a reverse course ; the former tends to a lightly- 
 esteeming of the active life, the latter to a hypocritical and ex- 
 ternal work-holiness. Speculative ethics, especially in Thomas 
 Aquinas, stands higher than in either of the other two forms, but 
 lacks too much in evangelical directness and simplicity; and 
 because of its double dependence on Greek ethics, on the one 
 hand, and on the evangelical church-creed, on the other, it has 
 not only compromised its legitimate and essential freedom, but, 
 at the same time, also its truth. Notwithstanding this, how- 
 ever, it stands (especially in its highest perfection in Thomas 
 Aquinas) far more closely to the evangelical consciousness than 
 the later form of Roman Catholic ethics as presented by the 
 zealous champion of the Romish church, the Jesuits.
 
 36.] PROTESTANT ETHICS. 233 
 
 IIL THE EPOCH OP REFORM. 
 SECTION XXXVI. 
 
 The antagonism of the evangelical ground-thought 
 to that of Romanism manifested itself also in ethics. 
 In the evangelical or Protestant church the sinful 
 corruption of the natural man was conceived much 
 more deeply, and consequently the moral task of the 
 Christian much more earnestly ; and, as a consequence 
 of the impossibility of meriting salvation by our 
 works, Christian virtue was conceived, in much 
 greater freedom from self-seeking, as the simple fruit 
 of faith ; and the notion of supererogatory works be- 
 came impossible in view of the decided recognition, 
 that the life even of the most holy always falls short 
 of moral perfection. The Scriptural view excludes 
 a very essential portion of Romish ethics from that 
 of the evangelical church.* 
 
 The semi-Pelagian enfeebling of the effects of sin that pre- 
 vailed in the Romish church, deprived ethics of its proper 
 deep-reaching foundation. The more deeply the moral corrup- 
 tion of man is conceived of, so much the greater becomes also 
 the significancy of redemption, and likewise also of the moral 
 struggle of the regenerated Christian against sin. Hence the, 
 at first thought, surprising phenomenon that the rigid predes- 
 tinarianism of Calvin did not lead to a decline in moral effort, 
 but on the contrary to a very vigorous moral life. In the deep 
 earnestness- of their conception of the moral task, both evan- 
 gelical churches, the Lutheran and the Reformed, stand alike. 
 
 The Holy Scriptures are the sole fountain of Christian ethics, 
 just as, living faith in Christ as the sole cause of salvation, is 
 
 * Comp. H. Merz : System der christl. Sittenlehre in seiner Gestaltung 
 nach den Orundsetzen des Protestantismus im Gegensatze zum KatJioUcis- 
 mtw, Tub., 1841, ingenious, but prepossessed by speculative theories, 
 arid doing inj ustice to both sides.
 
 234 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 36. 
 
 also the subjective ground and the living fountain of morality. 
 All blessedness is imparted to us without our meriting it, and 
 solely of grace ; but good works, as the necessary effects of true 
 faith, are the certain verification of the same. The moral law 
 is not. as in the Romish church, predominantly objective, but 
 is of a strictly inward character. No one can do more than 
 what God requires of him, for man is called to perfection ; all 
 that is truly good is a requirement of the divine law and not 
 of any mere counsels, which, without the forfeiture of a God- 
 pleasing life, might in so far be left undone, all the good that 
 we can do, we are also under obligation to do. The so-called 
 counsels of the Romish church are rather a hindering than a 
 furthering of the good, for they stand in the way of active love, 
 and nourish the delusion of personal merit. Monastic vows are 
 not consistent with vital faith. As man is saved only in virtue 
 of redemption through Christ, hence his salvation rests solely 
 on the worthiness of Christ, and not on personal merit ; all true 
 virtue must be simply a fruit of faith, and hence of an already- 
 acquired divine sonship, and consequently, though it may verify 
 this sonship, it cannot first acquire or heighten it. 
 
 Evangelical ethics is therefore apparently much less compre- 
 hensive in its subject-matter than that of the Romish church, 
 treats a not inconsiderable portion of the latter merely con- 
 demnatorily, as, e. g., the entire subject of asceticism, and of 
 opera supererogatoria as fulfilling the counsels; on the other 
 hand, however, it has a deeper ground and a higher earnest- 
 ness. Romish asceticism simply hides from view the inner 
 lack of a truly evangelically moral depth. He who has under- 
 stood the entire and profound earnestness of the moral life-task, 
 and is conscious, how far the reality still falls below the moral 
 prototype, can never come upon the thought of attempting, 
 in addition to the moral task proposed to us by God, to per- 
 form still other additional works, in order to attain to a still 
 higher degree of sanctity. All these self-imposed works are 
 really an implication that God placed the moral goal of man 
 too low, and that He is thankfully pleased to accept the 
 voluntary and non-owed over-payment of those who feel them- 
 selves superior to the ordinary assessment.
 
 37.] LUTHER. 235 
 
 SECTION XXXVII. 
 
 The Reformers themselves treat the moral con- 
 tents of the Christian consciousness for the most part 
 only practically ; Melanchthon develops in his Loci 
 merely the ground-thoughts, though he also attempts, 
 on the basis of Aristotle, a philosophical establishing 
 of the foundations of ethics ; Calvin gives only 
 brief outlines, independently of the earlier scholastic 
 method. The antithesis of the two evangelical 
 churches manifested itself also in wide-reaching dif- 
 ferences of ethical views. As an independent theo- 
 logical science, ethics was somewhat earlier treated 
 in the Reformed than in the Lutheran church. In 
 the latter, it was at first either combined, in its mere 
 ground-principles, with dogmatics, or treated merely 
 practically and popularly ; G. Calixtus, however, 
 treated it as a science distinctly separate from dog- 
 matics, though only in its scanty beginnings. From 
 this time forward it was frequently treated independ- 
 ently, though for the most part, even as late as into 
 the eighteenth century, only as casuistry; and Pietism, 
 which embraced so earnestly the ethical contents of 
 Christianity, although with some formal narrowness, 
 prepared the way for a profounder scientific treat- 
 ment of ethics. 
 
 Luther himself, who embraced the evangelical ground-truths 
 so clearly and distinctly, was not called by the general scope of 
 his activity to the preparing of a system of scientific ethics 
 proper. His warfare against Romish work-holiness, and against 
 the formal, subtle and freedom-hampering casuistry of the Ro- 
 manists, must have awakened in him a certain disinclination to 
 a rigidly-scientific development of ethics, and an anxiety lest 
 such a work might sink the free moral activity of the Christian
 
 236 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [37. 
 
 from the sphere of faith-communion with Christ into unfree 
 and juridical forms. He expressed it repeatedly, that the true 
 believer needs no law at all, because faith itself is both law and 
 power, and spontaneously works the God-pleasing out of free 
 love without being hampered by an objective law. As the 
 apple-tree bears its fruit not in virtue of a law given to it, but 
 out of its own proper nature, so are all Christians so tempered 
 by faith that they spontaneously do well and righteously better 
 than all laws could teach them to do. Even as the tree must 
 exist antecedently to its fruit, and as the fruit does not make a 
 tree good or bad, but the tree makes the fruit, so must man be 
 good or bad before he does good or bad works. The Christian's 
 love is to be an outward-gushing love, flowing from within out 
 of the heart, out of his own little fountain ; the spring and the 
 stream are themselves to be good, are not to derive their waters 
 from without. Christ was a Redeemer, not a Lawgiver, and 
 the Gospel is not to be turned into a book of laws. With such 
 views, so directly antagonistic to the common Romish teach- 
 ing, if we except the Mystics, it was natural that a rigidly- 
 drawn-up system of ethics might seem a hampering to faith- 
 born freedom, might seem like an adulterating of the teachings 
 of the Gospel with the doctrine of the law. This period of 
 agitated contest was therefore little adapted to the scientific 
 development of a system of ethics ; this science was in fact the 
 fruit of the evangelical life as having come to inner peace 
 and stability, and as grown ripe through long experience in 
 faith. 
 
 Of the chief Reformers, only Melanchthon, who was of solid 
 classic culture, and who gave proof, at the time of his scientific 
 maturity, both of decided fondness for, and of a thorough un- 
 derstanding of, Aristotle, indicated, in his theological writings 
 not only the ground- thoughts of 'evangelical ethics, but gave 
 even the outlines of a system of philosophical ethics. Besides 
 his valuable comments on the Ethics and Politics of Aristotle,* 
 he wrote, on -the basis of Aristotelian principles, Philosophies 
 
 * InEthica Arist. comment., 1529, treating only the 1st and 2d books ; 
 in 1532 were added the 3d and 5th ; re-written in 1545 as Enarratio 
 aliquot tibrorum Efh. Ar., etc., in the Corpus Reformatorum of Bret- 
 schneider and Bindseil, t. xvi, p. 277-41 H. Comment, in aliquot polU- 
 icos Ubros Aristot., 1530, in Corp. Ref., ib., p. 417 sqq.
 
 37.J MELANCHTHON. 237 
 
 moralis epitome, 1538.* In this work Melanchthon keeps phil- 
 osophical ethics and the Christian knowledge of the moral 
 strictly separate. The former is capable of comprehending and 
 presenting only a part of the divine law ; it gives only the nat- 
 ural law ; but this is also a true divine law, which is implanted 
 in human reason ; and the philosophical knowledge of the same 
 is a legitimate requirement and is an education toward the 
 higher truth, as also the true foundation of all civil legislation, 
 and is consequently by no means to be despised ; moral reason 
 is the mirror from which the wisdom of God is reflected forth 
 [Corp. Be/., pp. 21-27 ; comp. 277]. The method of the work 
 follows the plan of the ethics of Aristotle, but presents far more 
 solid principles. Man is the image of God, and his goal is the 
 true development and manifestation of this image. Hence the 
 end of man is to know and to recognize God, his prototype, 
 and to manifest, in and through himself, the glory of God, by 
 willing and complete obedience [28 sqq~\. Of the virtues that 
 fall within the scope of philosophical ethics, righteousness or 
 justness takes first rank, and this virtue is pretty fully discussed 
 [63 sqq.~], especially in its civic significancy ; more briefly are 
 treated the virtues of truthfulness, beneficence, thankfulness, and 
 friendship. His philosophical ethics appeared, in 1550, entirely 
 re-written and more independent of Aristotle, as Ethicm doctrines 
 elementa et enarratio libri quinti Ethicorum, and afterward in 
 1554, '57, '60, and frequently after Melanchthon's death. f This 
 excellent work, though not comprehensive, shorter even than 
 the previous work, and presenting only the general bases of the 
 moral, and examining more fully only certain special and, in 
 part, civic questions, is written in a clear, concise, and beauti- 
 ful style, and is a worthy commencement toward a system of 
 evangelical and, in fact, essentially philosophical ethics, since 
 the seventeenth century undeservedly laid aside, and also in 
 more recent times almost forgotten. A knowledge of the vir- 
 tues is necessary, because it shows that God is ; for the eternal 
 and immutable distinction of the moral and the immoral in our 
 reason cannot be fortuitous, but must proceed from the eternal, 
 prescribing reason itself; it shows also how God is, namely, 
 
 * Corp. Ref., xvi, pp. 21-164. The following editions, 1539, '40, are 
 largely changed ; three later ones, 1542-'46, are like that of 1540. 
 t Corp. Ref., xvi, pp. 165-276 ; not printed in the earlier Opp.
 
 238 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 37. 
 
 wise, free, truthful, just, beneficent, merciful, etc. ; it is a witness 
 of God's justly retributing judgments, and is a life-norm for 
 men in outward (not spiritual) actions and in discipline. Nat- 
 ural reason, however, can discover neither the ground of the 
 enfeehleinent which has resulted from sin, nor the means of sal- 
 vation therefrom ; hence philosophy, without the Gospel, does 
 not suffice [Corp. Ref., 165-167]. Moral philosophy is the sci- 
 entific presentation of the moral law of nature in the sphere of 
 external morals and discipline, and is, in this field, in harmony 
 with the Decalogue, and in so far also with the Gospel ; for the 
 moral law is the eternal and immutable wisdom and measure 
 of the justice of God, obligating all rational creatures, and con- 
 demning those who come into conflict with it ; but the Gospel 
 preaches repentance, and promises forgiveness of sins on the 
 ground of redemption by grace. Now, though moral philoso- 
 phy knows nothing of this promise, yet, as being a part of the 
 law, it also, on its part, leads toward the Gospel, and is there- 
 fore not to be despised [C. JR., 167-170]. Ethics inquires first 
 of all after the goal of the moral course. This goal or end is 
 God himself, who lovingly communicates himself to us, and 
 hence the true knowledge and reverencing of God. God created 
 man unto his image, hence He wills that He should himself be 
 manifested in and through man, namely, in that man becomes 
 morally like unto Him ; only in a derived sense can it be said 
 that virtue is the end of man, as the highest good. The good 
 is that which harmonizes with the God-set goal ; hence evil is 
 a disturbing of the divine plan ; and evil is primarily a malum 
 culpee, in pure antagonism to the divine will, and then, second- 
 arily, a malum poence, which by the divine, righteous will is 
 madeT to follow upon the guilty malum culpce; God is in no 
 sense whatever the author or accomplice of sin, to affirm this 
 would be blasphemy, though He is indeed the author of the 
 punishment [C. R., 170-183].' Virtue, as an acquired tendency 
 to obey right reason, is conditioned on the fact that, on the one 
 hand, reason guides the will by a right judgment, and that on 
 the other the will freely, persistently and firmly lays hold upon 
 this judgment, and has pleasure in so doing. A knowledge of 
 the law and a free-will are the characteristics of the divine 
 image as created in man by divine love; virtue is the moral 
 realization of this image, is thankful, answering love for re-
 
 37.] MELA1STCHTHON. 239 
 
 ceivecl love. In reason, as darkened by sin, this knowledge and 
 freedom are indeed enfeebled, but not annihilated, and there 
 remained in man a moral consciousness of right and wrong, and 
 some degree of freedom to act conformably to this conscious- 
 ness. Hence, the will is then truly good when it corresponds 
 to the moral consciousness in so far as this consciousness har- 
 monizes with the divine will. Hence virtue more definitely 
 stated is the tendency of the will constantly to hearken to the 
 moral consciousness for God's sake and out of thankfulness 
 toward him [183 sqq\. The thought of the moral freedom of 
 the will is, now, thoroughly, carefully, and very emphatically 
 developed by Melanchthon, and an attempt made to establish 
 it by Scripture (in harmony with Loci, iv, edition of 1559). 
 Man as man, and hence even unredeemed man, has in the moral 
 sphere a free discretion to prefer morality to crime, to perform 
 outward moral works and to preserve discipline, and it is God's 
 will that such discipline and order be freely preserved not 
 merely from fear, but also for conscience' sake. Indeed, genuine 
 God-fearing, right trust and right love to God, steadfastness in 
 confession, and hence, in fact, all the truly God-pleasing spiritual 
 virtues, are impossible without the assistance of the Holy Spirit ; 
 in this assistance, however, man is not purely inactive like a 
 statue, but reason must attentively lay hold on the Word of 
 God, and the will must not resist, but must yield to the gracious 
 workings of the Holy Spirit, and aspire after divine support. 
 Absolute predestination and Stoic fatality are equally to be 
 rejected. The passions by which Melanchthon understands 
 both the impulses of feeling and the desires are not to be sup- 
 pressed as irrational, as the Stoics teach, but are to be taken 
 into the service of the moral reason, and those that have become 
 evil by sin are to be resisted [201-207]. The distribution of 
 the virtues is best made according to the Decalogue. But the 
 commands of the first table cannot be adequately known in a 
 purely philosophical manner; nevertheless, some points may be 
 made. Every effect is dependent on its cause, and must remain 
 in harmony therewith ; man is an effect of God, consequently 
 he ought to remain in harmony with God, and not break off 
 the bond that unites him with God. Moreover, as the image 
 of God, man has the duty of remaining in likeness and harmony 
 with God [214, 215]. In the commandments of the second
 
 240 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 37. 
 
 table appears, first, the virtue of justness, and in fact primarily 
 in a general character, in the relation of those who guide and 
 those who are guided, in which relation obedience to parents 
 and to the magistracy, and piety in general, appear as a moral 
 law of nature. Justness in its special form that which gives 
 to every one his dues appears in the three following command- 
 ments, which require the preserving of every one in his rights, 
 in respect to life, to wedlock-fidelity and to property. The 
 second chief virtue, as expressed in the eighth commandment, 
 is truthfulness, which is a necessary requirement of the rational 
 nature of man ; for in fact reason consists essentially in a knowl- 
 edge of the truth, and consequently it also requires the truth. 
 The two last commandments enjoin temperateness, but they are 
 not developed in detail. To these three chief virtues the others 
 are joined as branches, namely, steadfastness to truthfulness, 
 and thankfulness, beneficence, diligence, etc., to justness, espe- 
 cially justness toward God [215-222]. In his second book, 
 Melanchthon gives a development of the virtue of justness in 
 detail, with the omission of the other virtues. Justness, of 
 righteousness in the evangelical sense the virtue which acquires 
 for man eternal salvation cannot be attained to by mere human 
 effort because of the prevalence of sin, but is imparted to man 
 by grace in virtue of redemption; in moral philosophy the 
 question is therefore only as to the justness which consists in 
 the outward fulfilling of positive laws. This justness is, in 
 part, of a general character, consisting in obedience to law 
 both human and divine [as in Rom. ii, 13; Psa. cxix, 121], and 
 in part of a special character; the latter is, in its turn, of a dis- 
 tributive and of an exchanging character ; as distributive it 
 relates to social order, as well to social superordination and 
 subordination as to the calling of the proper persons to par- 
 ticular offices, and to rewarding and punishing, and hence, 
 in general, to the upholding of proper discipline, as exchang- 
 ing it relates to the moral intercourse and commerce of men 
 among each other as equals. The practice of justness, and 
 hence also obedience toward those holding oflice and author- 
 ity, takes place not merely in virtue of human laws, but also 
 in the fulfilling of the divine will ; the proper human ordi- 
 nances of society are God's ordinances. A violation of the 
 law of nature, and hence also disobedience toward the legit-
 
 37.] MELANCHTHON'S LOCI. 241 
 
 imate ordinances of civil authority, is consequently not merely 
 a civil misdemeanor, but also a sin against God, a mortal sin. 
 The ordinances of the natural law are in part unconditional, 
 and hence divine and perpetually-valid commands, such as 
 obedience toward God, parental duties, the virtue of truth- 
 fulness ; and, in part, only conditionally-valid, such as the 
 keeping of peace and the communistic use of property ; the 
 latter feature, in fact, would be obligatory only on condition 
 that mankind were not corrupted by sin ; in consequence of 
 sin, however, the forcible protection and distinct separation 
 of property become necessary [223-234] . The guilt of trans- 
 gressions of the law is different according as the person does 
 or does not act with a clear consciousness of the law and of 
 the deed ; guiltily-incurred error excuses not the deed, but 
 rather heightens the guilt, inasmuch as it is our duty to seek 
 after the truth. Also violent passions do not make the un- 
 lawful action an involuntary one, for man may and ought to 
 control his passions [237-240]. Hereupon, and apropos to 
 the assumption of power on the part of the Pope over sec- 
 ular governments, Melanchthon treats of the nature of, and 
 the difference between, the spiritual and the temporal pow- 
 ers, in essential agreement with what he had said in his 
 Loci [20, 21] ; this is followed by disquisitions on questions 
 of civil right, on taxes and contracts. 
 
 In his Loci Melanchthon gives the general bases of the moral 
 consciousness in strictly Biblical form [Loci 3-6; 8-11]. The 
 Old Testament law is not identical with the eternal moral law, 
 but contains besides this law (which is indeed not fully included 
 in the Decalogue, but only indicated in its chief features) also 
 the ceremonial and the civil law, both of which had validity 
 only until the advent of Christianity. The moral law is the 
 immediate and pure expression of the divine wisdom and just- 
 ness themselves, and hence was not first given by Moses, but 
 was always valid from the very beginning. Melanchthon's some- 
 what extensive examination of the several divine laws in the 
 order of the Decalogue, may serve in many respects to comple- 
 ment his philosophical ethics. He writes, here, free from the 
 cramping fetters of the long-observed schemata, and reckons 
 among the " works " of the first commandment : a proper knowl- 
 edge of God, God-fearing, faith, love, hope, patience, and hu-
 
 242 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 37. 
 
 mility. The Romish doctrine of the counsels he refutes and 
 rejects. The distinction between mortal and venial sins he 
 indeed retains, but he conceives it much more deeply, under- 
 standing under the latter such sins as are committed by Chris- 
 tians without evil intention and with inner resistance to the 
 evil, and are followed by honest repentance, and under the latter 
 those which are committed premeditatedly and against con- 
 science [Loc., 11]. In addition to this, Melanchthon examines 
 in special treaties and letters many particular, and especially 
 practico-moral, questions,* in a very judicious manner. 
 
 In his scientific conception of the ethical task, Melanchthon 
 furnishes an essential complement to that of Luther, who fixed 
 his attention simply on the fact of the moral life of the regener- 
 ated as such, without shaping the development of this fact out 
 of the inner heart of the Christian life, into an ethical science. 
 Melanchthon himself, however, did not complete this task, but 
 simply began it ; and although we find in him frequently a slight 
 over-estimation of Aristotle, still we perceive in the vigorous 
 manner in which, in his last ethical writings, he breaks loose 
 from all cramping and foreign forms and thoughts, and lays an 
 entirely new, purely Christian foundation, how clearly he com- 
 prehended his task, the carrying-out of which was delayed 
 by the soon-following inner struggles of the evangelical church ; 
 only a few writers Chytrwus, Victorin Strigel and Nicholas 
 Hemming followed, in, as yet, feeble attempts, upon the path 
 marked out by Melanchthon.f 
 
 The rigid predestinarianism of Calvin seems at first thought 
 still more unfavorable for the development of ethics than the 
 stand-point of Luther ; in reality, however, the Reformed church 
 developed an independent system of ethics earlier than the 
 Lutheran. The juridically-dialectic ground-character of the 
 Calvinistic world-conception necessarily led sooner than the 
 more mystically-inclined subjective Lutheran view, to a rigor- 
 ous development of the practical phase of religion. In his In- 
 stitutio [iii, 6-10] Calvin gives a short, plainly- biblical pres- 
 entation of the bases of Christian morality, which, of course, 
 can be actually practiced only by the predestinated, but which 
 
 * De conjugio ; quaestiones aliquot ethic(e,dejuramentis, etc., 1552; in 
 Corp. lief., xvi, 453 sqq. Consilia 8. judicia theol., ed. Pezellii. 1(360. 
 t J. C. E. Schwarz in Stud. u. Krit., 1853 ; Pelt., ib., 1848.
 
 37.] CALVIN'S ETHICS. 243 
 
 is however for them, as being called to purity, an unconditional 
 duty. That virtue cannot actually obtain for us salvation 
 communion with God but is simply the necessary fruit of the 
 salvation already obtained by grace, and the constant bond of 
 this communion as established by grace, Calvin affirms very 
 definitely. Therein, precisely, consists, in his view, the essential 
 superiority of Christian to philosophical ethics, namely, that the 
 former gives much deeper-reaching motives for the good than 
 the latter, to wit, thankful love in return for God's love as re- 
 vealed in redemption, and confiding love to the Redeemer, in 
 whom we have at the same time the perfect personal pattern 
 of the moral life. Out of this love to God in Christ flows a 
 love of justness or righteousness (in the Biblical sense of the 
 word) as the basis of the entire religious life. But the essence 
 of Christian righteousness consists in perfect self-denial, that is, 
 in the renunciation of all self-will and self-reason as opposed to 
 God, in an unreserved surrender to God and his will ; it draws 
 us away from love to the world, but must not sink into self- 
 mortification and false asceticism. Man must not, by arbitrary 
 non- Scriptural ordinances, impose upon himself a yoke. The 
 moral life manifests itself [according to Titus ii, 12] in three 
 chief virtues : soberness, righteousness and piety*; to the .first 
 (sobrietas), which relates to the subject himself, belong also 
 chastity, temperateness and the enduring of privation; the 
 second relates to other men, and gives to each his dues ; the 
 third separates us from the impurity of the world and unites 
 us with God. Calvin gives expression, on the whole, also in 
 his other numerous moral essays, especially in his exegetical 
 writings, to a moral view which is no less earnest than sound, 
 and generally keeps clear of all un-Biblical austerity. To the 
 Romish seeking of holiness by abnegation, he opposes the 
 thought, that the goods of this world are designed not merely 
 for our absolute wants, but also for our moral delight; their 
 enjoyment is not forbidden, but it should be made to contribute 
 to the glory of God. The strict church discipline established 
 and exercised by Calvin was indeed an offense to a gainsaying 
 world, but was morally perfectly justifiable. His unevangelical 
 view of the right of capital punishment against heretics, belongs 
 less to the sphere of ethics proper than to that of civil right. 
 In all essential points the ethical systems of the Reformed 
 17
 
 244 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 37. 
 
 and of the Lutheran churches are in harmony; there is manifest 
 throughout, however, a general characterizing difference in the 
 coloring given to the otherwise essentially harmonizing forms ; 
 this difference we cannot here follow into its finer shades;* a 
 few of the more general traits will suffice. The ethics of the 
 Lutheran church bears predominantly an anthropologico-sub- 
 jective character, that of the Reformed a theologico-objective 
 character ; the former proceeds from the inner life-source of the 
 regenerated heart, and constructs, therefore, only hesitatingly 
 an ethical system proper, as, in some degree, superfluous; the 
 latter sets out from the unconditional will of God to man, and 
 hence felt much earlier the need of a scientific expression of the 
 moral law, objective to the consciousness; the former wears 
 rather a Paulino-free stamp, the latter rather an Old Testament 
 stamp ; in the Reformed church sermons on morals have a much 
 more prominent place than in the Lutheran. Lutheran ethics 
 expresses, also in its christology, the transfiguration of the hu- 
 man through indwelling grace, Reformed ethics, rather the 
 glorifying of God in and through the elect. With both, the 
 goal of morality is the glory of God, in the Lutheran church, 
 however, more through the witness of the salvation-experience 
 of the redeemed, in the Reformed, more through the offering 
 of willing obedience under the law ; in the former predominates 
 rather the manifestation of the filial relation, in the latter, 
 rather that of submissive service ; in the former there is greater 
 freedom in the self-determination of the believing subject, even 
 to the danger of Antinoniianism, in the latter greater rigor of 
 outward discipline, incurring danger of Puritanic rigorism and 
 pedantic externality. The moral life of the Lutheran church 
 bears, so to speak, a lyric character, that of the Reformed a 
 practice-juridical one; hence the former expressed itself, natu- 
 rally enough, in the sublimest soaring of church hymnology, 
 the latter crystallized itself into a sharply-defined and regular 
 church discipline; in the former predominates the mystical 
 heart-element of union with God, in the latter predominates a 
 rational contrasting of God and man. In the former all that is 
 natural is ethically exalted and taken into the service of the 
 
 * Comp. Schneckenburger: Vergleichende Darstellung des luth. u. ref. 
 Lehrbegriffs, 1855; Tholuck: Das Hrchl Leben des 17 Jahrh., i, 199 sqq., 
 218 sqq., 301 sqq. ; ii, 140 sqq., 239 sqq.
 
 37.] LUTHERAN TEBSUS REFORMED. 245 
 
 holy ; whereas, in the latter, the spiritual is exalted by being 
 divested of the natural. The morality of the Lutheran 
 church develops itself rather from the fullness of inner life 
 toward knowledge, that of the Reformed rather from knowl- 
 edge toward life-fullness ; the former is more immediate, 
 natural and unconscious, the latter is more mediate, calcu- 
 lating, doctrinary ; the former is directed more inwardly, the 
 latter more outwardly ; the former is more an outgush out of 
 the deep and overflowing feeling of love and bliss, the latter, 
 more an intentional act of the earnest but calm will, as also, 
 in the Lutheran view of salvation, the attention is fixed more 
 upon the all-embracing love of God, and in the Reformed 
 more upon the decrees of the will of God ; Mary and Martha 
 are types of the respective ethical tendencies. The Lutheran 
 Christian does good works because he is certain of his salva- 
 tion through faith ; the Reformed does them in order that he 
 may become certain of his saving faith, and hence of his 
 election, good works are to him necessary unto salvation, 
 though not its cause. The Lutheran needs the law and its 
 discipline, strictly speaking, only in so far as he has as yet 
 in himself sinful elements which need to be taken into disci- 
 pline ; but to the Reformed, the law is a real and necessary 
 guide for the regenerated heart itself. Hence, to the Re- 
 formed, the Gospel wears essentially also the character of law 
 in the Old Testament sense, and the Old Testament law is 
 taken literally as yet binding, hence the rigid observance 
 of the Sabbath and the prohibition of statues and pictures. 
 In the Lutheran catechism the ten commandments precede 
 the confession of faith ; in most of the Reformed churches 
 they stand after the same, and constitute, in the French and 
 English service, an essential part of the liturgy. This seem- 
 ingly insignificant circumstance is in fact very significant ; in 
 the Lutheran view the law has essentially the purpose of edu- 
 cating toward the true freedom of the children of God, which 
 freedom itself, when once attained to, has no longer any need 
 of an outward law; in the Reformed view the law is an 
 essential part of the Christian faith-life itself, but an objec- 
 tive, purely-divine element still external to the regenerated 
 subject. The Lutheran is fearful rather of work-holiness, the 
 Reformed rather of non-conformity to the law ; the former
 
 246 CHEISTIAN ETHICS. [ 37. 
 
 has the law rather as his inward personal property, the latter 
 rather as a categorical imperative external to his own sub- 
 jective will. To the Lutheran, Moses and Christ stand in 
 sharp contrast to each other ; to the Reformed they are most 
 intimately united; "one must live as if there were no Gospel, 
 and die as if there were no law," says, very significantly, the 
 Reformed divine Baile (Praxis pietatis, 1635). To the Lu- 
 theran, Christ is, in ethical respects, rather the beloved 
 Saviour, out of love to whom and in communion with whom 
 he lives in holiness ; to the Reformed he is more the moral 
 pattern by which man is constantly learning, and which 
 he endeavors to imitate. Hence Lutheran ethics appears 
 predominantly as the doctrine of virtue and of goods, Re- 
 formed ethics as the doctrine of the law. The Lutheran 
 Christian conceives the good essentially as the morally-feaw- 
 tiful, and hence he has also appreciation and love for the 
 beautiful in general, gives expression to art, and makes it 
 even a moral agency ; the Reformed conceives the good essen- 
 tially as the right, and hence he has little taste or love for 
 art as a moral power, but all the higher an appreciation for 
 the legally-disciplined development of the church and of 
 moral society ; to the former the highest virtue is believing 
 love ; to the latter, righteousness. The moral consciousness 
 of the Lutheran conceives the highest good rather as a power 
 directly given by grace and reflecting from itself the moral 
 life; the Reformed consciousness makes the moral life an 
 essential factor in the obtaining of the highest good. Hence, 
 in the ethical sphere, the antithesis of the Lutheran doctrine 
 to the Romish is more violent than that of the Reformed ; 
 hence also the Reformed church, but not the Lutheran, de- 
 veloped a theocratical form of the church, and placed in 
 general much greater emphasis on the legal and govern- 
 mental development of the purely moral community of the 
 church as in contrast to the state, and as a determining 
 power for and over the same, whereas the subjective inward- 
 liness of Lutheran Christians manifested little interest for 
 such development. Such are the differences which, while 
 they indeed manifest a general ethical antithesis of the two 
 forms of doctrine, yet in fact constitute only two correspond- 
 ing and manifoldly-complementing, but not rnutually-ex-
 
 37.] DANAEUS, ETC. 247 
 
 eluding phases of the same unitary evangelical conscious- 
 ness. 
 
 The theological ethics of the evangelical church was 
 treated as a separate science,* first by the learned Reformed 
 divine Dancem (Daneau, ob. 1596) in his Ethica Christiana 
 (1577, '79, '88 and 1601), in a rigidly Calrtnistic sense, with a 
 large using of Augustine, Aristotle, and the Schoolmen, in 
 strong opposition, however, sometimes to the two latter 
 sources, resulting in a learned and thoughtful work, though 
 as yet somewhat immature. He endeavors especially to solve 
 the apparent contradiction between the doctrine of predesti- 
 nation and the requirements of the moral consciousness, 
 though not with very happy results; the special treatment of 
 duties he bases on the Decalogue ; in respect to Church-dis- 
 cipline he requires the greatest rigor, for heretics, capital 
 punishment. (In connection with this ethics stands his 
 Politico, Christiana, 1596-1606). The antithesis which Danaeus 
 makes between Christian ethics and Aristotelian philosophi- 
 cal ethics, was rejected by JZeckermann (ob. 1609 in Heidel- 
 berg), who considered ethics as essentially a philosophical 
 science, and Aristotle as its true founder ; t while the severely 
 Puritanical Amesius (in Holland, ob. 1634) emphasized again 
 very strongly the distinction of Christian from philosophical 
 ethics, placing Christian ethics along-side of dogmatics, f 
 (The distinguishing pf ethics and dogmatics as the two parts 
 of the body of Christian doctrine, appears also in the Re- 
 formed divine, Polanus of Basle. ) Walceus (in Holland, ob. 
 1639) attempted in his compendium of the ethics of Aristotle 
 (1620) to imbue this work with a Christian spirit. More im- 
 portant, despite its rather popular style, is the peculiar work 
 of the moderate Calvinist Amyraud (Amyraldus, at Saumur, 
 ob. 1664). I He distributes ethics historically, into the ethics 
 of the pure unfallen state, into that of heathenism, and of 
 
 * On the history of the earlier Reformed ethics, see Schweizer in 
 Stud. u. Krit., 1850. 
 
 t Systema etMcce, in his Opp., 1614. 
 
 J Medulla theolagia, 1630, and frequently, a brief compendium; De 
 conscientice et ej.jure vel casibvs, 1630, and subsequently, casuistical. 
 
 Syntagma theol., 1610. 
 
 J La morale chrestienne, 1652 sqq., 6 1., rare in Germany ; see Staudlin 
 v, 404 qq.; Schweizer in Stud. u. Krit., 1683.
 
 248 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [37. 
 
 Judaism and of Christianity ; the first part contains the gen- 
 eral philosophical considerations. The historical treatment 
 of the subject gives a just appreciation also of heathen 
 ethics, -without intermingling Christian ethics therewith. 
 The ethics of the Reformed church was casuistically treated 
 by the Puritan Perkins (of Cambridge, 1611), also by the 
 above-mentioned Amesius, and by the German Alsted (1621, 
 1630), who distributed the subject-matter according to the 
 chief heads of the Catechism. A.lsoJForbesius d Corse treated 
 the subject in the order of the Decalogue, in his learned 
 though quite practically-written work on moral theology, 
 considered as the special doctrine of duties.* Ethics was 
 treated in a popular, edifying manner by La Placette, Pictet, 
 Basnage, and by the Englishman Richard Baxter. The sci- 
 entific and purely theological form of Reformed ethics was 
 still further developed, in the eighteenth century, by Hoorn- 
 beek (1663), by Peter of Mastricht (1699), who follows Ame- 
 sius, by Heidegger (1711), by Lampe (1727), and by others. 
 In the middle of the eighteenth century the rigid form of 
 Calvinistic ethics begins to give way, and the influence of the 
 philosophy of Wolf commences to break down the confes- 
 sional antithesis in the field of morals. 
 
 In the Lutheran church there was at first but little done 
 beyond the already-mentioned further developments of the 
 philosophical ethics of Melanchthon, with the exception of a 
 single, though not purely theological, attempt of the Me- 
 lanchthonian Hamburger, Von Eitzen;\ theology is so in- 
 volved in dogmatical controversies as to have in general but 
 little inclination toward a scientific development of ethics ; 
 it treated the weightier and more general questions only 
 briefly, in dogmatics, in connection with the doctrines of 
 free-will, of sin, of the law, and of sanctification, leaving 
 the more detailed treatment of the subject rather for such 
 practical writers as worked toward the Christian edification 
 of the masses, writers who were in some respects related to 
 the Mystics, and among whom two deserve especial attention. 
 The first of these, John Valentine Andreas, of Wurtemberg 
 (ob. 1654), is a very morally-earnest spirit, thoroughly do- 
 voted to practical Christianity, of slightly mystical tenden- 
 
 * Opp., Amst., 1703. t Comp. Pelt in Stud. u. Krit., 1848.
 
 37.] ANDREAE AARNDT. 249 
 
 cies, of thorough scientific culture, and of deep acquaintance 
 with human nature. Strongly impressed with the Calvinistic 
 church discipline in Geneva, Andreae devoted his unwearying 
 efforts to the bringing about of moral discipline also in the 
 German church, though he found a rather unreceptive age, 
 and was much deceived in his, at times, somewhat idealistic 
 hopes. His numerous moral writings, often clothed in poet- 
 ical and especially allegorical forms, and sometimes satirical, 
 though always hiding, even in hilarity, a very deep and often 
 melancholy earnestness, are always directed to definite 
 special objects, and hence present no connected whole. 
 Holding fast to the faith of the church, he yet rebuked in- 
 dignantly the unfruitful hair-splitting spirit of dogmatic con- 
 troversy, and insisted on the one thing needful ; at the same 
 time, it is true, he occasionally too lightly esteemed man's 
 scientific right to a clear knowledge of the contents of faith, 
 as well as the significancy of the doctrinal differences between 
 the churches ; and, in his desire for a moral reformation of 
 the church, he too little considered the importance of pure 
 doctrine, and was too indulgent toward many opposers of the 
 same. The second, John Arndt, (ob. 1621), was spiritually 
 kindred to Andreae and held him in high esteem ; Arndt was 
 an evangelical Thomas a Kempis, and combined evangelical 
 fidelity of faith with mystical subjectivity and practical zeal 
 for morality, and exerted a deep-reaching, beneficent influ- 
 ence on the evangelical churches. His work entitled Four 
 Books of True Christianity (at first in 1605-10) with the ex- 
 ception of the Imitation of Christ, the most widespread of 
 German books of devotion bears indeed sometimes a rather 
 strong mystical coloring (in this respect following somewhat 
 in the path of Tauler and of the "German Theology"), and 
 under-estimates, in many respects, the significancy of the 
 objective means of grace, and lays chief emphasis on the 
 mystical, direct union of the soul with God ; nevertheless it 
 constituted so essential and so salutary a complementing of 
 the somewhat one-sidedly theorizing theological spirit of the 
 age, and so powerfully stirred up the partially-dormant moral 
 consciousness, that Arndt will always occupy an eminent 
 place in the history of morality and of practical ethics. 
 
 A per se unimportant and yet fruitful attempt at a purely
 
 250 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [37. 
 
 theological system of ethics, unconnected with dogmatics, 
 was made by George Calixt of Helmstadt ; his Epitome theol- 
 ogicB moralis (p. I, 1634; 1662,) is only a short, incomplete 
 outline, giving in fact only an introduction. The purpose of 
 ethics is, to describe the way to blessedness, the life of the 
 already spiritually-regenerated Christian ; regeneration itself 
 is presupposed ; the foundation, even of Christian morality, 
 is the ten commandments, which are a revealed re-establish- 
 ment of the original law of nature ; but the difference of Chris- 
 tian ethics from Old Testament ethics is not made prominent 
 enough. In the footsteps of Calixt followed J. C. Diirr of Alt- 
 dorf, who, for the first, gave a tolerably complete and learned 
 treatise on ethics ; * he distinguishes between virtues toward 
 God, toward others, and toward ourselves; in regard to 
 theatrical spectacles, to jesting, etc., he shows a less rigid 
 severity than the ethical writers of the Reformed church ; and 
 this difference of view is manifest also among the other 
 Lutheran moralists, if we except the Pietists. Of the same 
 tendency was also G. T. Meier, of Helmstadt, whose erudite 
 and profound introduction to ethics t examines, for the first 
 time, with critical discrimination the presuppositions of this 
 science. (H. Rixner, in a briefer work in 1690.) Aristotle 
 is used- also in these theological treatises on ethics, without, 
 however, damagingly influencing their theological character. 
 The ethics of the Lutheran church was treated more fre- 
 quently casuistically than in a systematic form ; it bore this 
 character even as late as into the eighteenth century, and 
 forms, properly speaking, only an amassment of material for 
 a subsequent scientific development. As occasioned by the 
 casuistry of the Romish church, the casuistry of the evan- 
 gelical church, in express antithesis thereto, manifests, on 
 the basis of Scripture and of spiritual experience, a greater 
 certainty and simplicity, and preserves a middle-ground be- 
 tween the sophistical laxity of the Jesuitical view and the 
 rigid severity of the Calvinistic. Many of these works con- 
 tain also many dogmatic questions together with their decis- 
 ions. The distribution of the subject-matter follows, for the 
 
 * Enchiridion theol. mor., 1662 ; later as : Compend., 1675-98 4to. 
 t Introd. in univ. theol. mor. studium, 1671. And as the beginning 
 of a development of ethics itself: Bisputt. theol., 1679.
 
 37.] OLEARUS OSIANDER. 251 
 
 most part, the order of the catechism ; the answer is given on 
 the basis of the Scriptures, and then confirmed by the decis- 
 ions of the Fathers and of later writers, especially of Luther 
 and of the other Reformers. The first work of this kind, 
 after the already-mentioned Gonsilia of Melanchthon, is by 
 Baldwin of Wittenberg,* and obtained great popularity; it 
 treats chiefly of the casus conscientia, that is, of such moral 
 questions as the common conscience cannot immediately and 
 satisfactorily decide, but in regard to which it may fall into 
 doubt, and which consequently can be decided only by a 
 careful weighing of the word of God. He classifies these 
 cases according to the moral objects : God, angels, the sub- 
 ject himself, and other men. (L. Dunte of Reval, gave a 
 thousand and six decisions on conscience-questions of a moral 
 and dogmatical character, in 1643.) Olearius of Leipzig, 
 who had already previously presented ethics in tabular form, 
 examined thoroughly, and with the most minute and dis- 
 criminating exactness, the purpose and the nature of casu- 
 istry ; f casuistry was more fully carried out by Dannhauer, J 
 by G. Kb'nig, but especially circumstantially by John Adam 
 Osiander, \ who introduces into the subject almost the entire 
 body of dogmatics ; he classifies the cases in the order of the 
 Decalogue; under the sixth commandment, e. g., he proposes 
 the question whether in a case of extreme necessity it is al- 
 lowable to eat human flesh, and, in opposition to the Jesuits, 
 negatives it (ii, p. 1367). The work of Mmgering (superin- 
 tendent in Halle) Scrutinium conscientias catecheticum, that is, 
 a "Reproving of Sin and Searching of the Conscience," etc. 
 (3 ed. 1686, 4to.), more especially intended for moral self- 
 examination, is classified minutely and circumstantially ac- 
 cording to the Decalogue, and is morally earnest and judi- 
 cious, though it presents also a few peculiarities (e. (7., p. 752, 
 as to the inadmissibility of tobacco-smoking, then called 
 tobacco-drinking). Only in part, belongs in this place the 
 voluminous work: ConsUia theologica Witebergensia, that is, 
 
 * Tractatus luculentus, etc., 1628, '35, and later. 
 
 t Introd. brevis in theol. casuisticam, 1694. 
 
 J Liber conscientice, 2 ed. 1679, 2 t., and Theologia casualit, 1706. 
 
 Cams consc., Altdorf, 1676, 4to. 
 
 |j Theol, casualu, 1680, 6 t., 4to.
 
 252 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 3T. 
 
 "Wittenberg's Spiritual Counsels," etc. (Frankfort on the 
 Main, 1664) which contains, in an immense folio, judg- 
 ments of Luther and of his co-laborers, and decisions of the 
 Wittenberg faculty on doctrinal points, moral and ecclesi- 
 astico-legal questions (also matrimonial questions). Of a 
 similar character is the Opus novum qucestionum Practico-Theo- 
 logicum (Frankfort, 1667, fol.), which treats, in the order of 
 the common Loci, sixteen hundred and sixty-seven questions, 
 also that of Dedekenn : Thesaurus consiliorum theol. etjurid. 
 (1623), revised by John C. Gerhard (Jena, 1671, 4 vols. 
 fol.). 
 
 Also the theological " Bedenken " of the eighteenth century 
 belong to the sphere of this casuistical ethics. Among these 
 works those of Spener occupy a peculiar and significant place, 
 and constitute, together with his other more or less ethical 
 writings, a turning-point in the development of the evangelical 
 moral consciousness. Their significancy rests less in their sin- 
 gle judgments than in their peculiar ground-thoughts. Spener, 
 who was imbued with the spirit of Thomas & Kempis/of 
 Andreae and of Arndt, and in part, even of Tauler, and who 
 restlessly labored in the path trod by these men for a moral 
 bettering of the Christian church, called forth by the Pietism 
 which proceeded from him, a deep-reaching, beneficent move- 
 ment in the moral life and in the moral views of the evangelical 
 church, although indeed in consequence of his one-sided em- 
 phasizing of the practical, he treated science itself somewhat 
 too lightly, and set too high an estimate on certain outward 
 forms of devout morality, and thus needlessly limited the legiti- 
 mate liberty of a regenerated Christian. Spener's Pia desideria * 
 are directed essentially to an improving of the ecclesiastical 
 life, to a stronger emphasizing of holiness in the spiritual ac- 
 tivity of the church, to a stirring-up of the church-member- 
 ship to churchly spontaneity, to the bringing about of a more 
 edifying manner of doctrinal preaching, and, on the other 
 hand, against the misuse of the doctrine of justification by 
 faith. His ethical works proper, though only bearing on par- 
 ticular cases, especially of the inner life, are found in his Theo- 
 
 * Appearing first in 1675 as a preface to Arndt' s Pastille, afterward 
 separately, often printed.
 
 37.] SPENER AND PIETISM. 253 
 
 logical Considerations* which exercised a wide-reaching and 
 wholesome influence on the church. Spener insisted with much 
 more earnestness on the significancy of spiritual regeneration 
 for the moral life than did the orthodoxy of the day, in its one- 
 sided emphasizing of theoretical faith. The man of the Holy 
 Spirit has nothing in common with the sinful world and its 
 lusts; his total life-stream flows from a new and absolutely 
 holy fountain ; worldly pleasure is foreign and uncongenial to 
 him, and therefore to be avoided. The morality of the Pietists 
 was distinguished primarily by an especial rigor in regard to 
 the sphere of the allowed, inasmuch as it viewed as absolutely 
 unallowable many worldly enjoyments which in the Evangelical 
 Lutheran church had, thus far, been regarded (too unsuspi- 
 ciously, it is true) as adiaphora, and consequently as not strictly 
 unallowable, especially such as dancing, card-playing, theater- 
 visiting, banqueting, gayness of dress, and the like; it denied 
 altogether that there are any morally indifferent things; what- 
 ever is not done to the glory of God, and springs not of faith, 
 is sin ; and these amusements cannot consist with a pious frame 
 of the heart, cannot take place in faith, and to the glory of 
 God. This is. however, only an outer manifestation of a very 
 deep-reaching antithesis of Pietism to the hitherto prevalent 
 views of the Lutheran church. The high evangelical thought 
 of Gospel-freedom and of justification by faith alone, had in 
 fact, in the time of the declining church-life, led, in many 
 respects, to erroneous courses, and had often allowed the moral 
 earnestness of holiness to give place to mere formal orthodoxy, 
 and also sometimes occasioned, in contrast to the severe earn- 
 estness of the discipline of the Reformed church, too careless a 
 regard for the outward forms of the moral life, and had en- 
 larged beyond measure the sphere of morally-indifferent things. 
 The notion had obtained for itself vogue, that whatever is not 
 forbidden in Scripture is allowable. It was the reaction of a 
 truly. Christian conscience, which caused Pietism to discard 
 this somewhat presuming maxim, and, in any case, the thought 
 which it opposed thereto was strictly legitimate, namely, that 
 there is nothing indifferent in the entire life-sphere of a regen- 
 
 * Theologische Bedenken, 1700, 1712, 4 vols. ; Letzte theol. Btdenken, 
 1711, 3 vols. ; Consilia etjudicia theol., 1709, 3 vols., and many other 
 smaller works.
 
 \ 
 
 254 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 37. 
 
 erated person, but that every thing without exception must 
 stand in living relation to the new spiritual life-principle, and 
 that whatever does not admit of a true association with the 
 same is not simply indifferent, but is un-Christian. Pietism 
 may have made many mistakes in the application of this 
 thought, but the thought itself had, as in contrast to the 
 one-sided orthodoxy then prevalent, its own good right. Fur- 
 thermore, Spener brought again into the fore-ground the thought 
 which, while indeed dogmatically admitted, had yet never been 
 sufficiently emphasized morally, namely, that faith without 
 works is dead ; the sanctification of the heart and life does not 
 simply follow upon, and stand in connection with, true faith, but 
 is in such faith already itself directly contained; there are not 
 two spiritual life- streams, but only one ; the moral personality 
 itself as justified by faith admits of no falling apart of faith 
 and morality ; all religious life is immediately and necessarily 
 at the same time moral, is not simply followed by the moral 
 as a second collateral element. In the eyes of declining ortho- 
 doxy, religion had become too much a mere objective something 
 by which the religious subject is simply embraced and influ- 
 enced, but not thoroughly permeated ; Pietism brought religion 
 and its divine spirit-principle again entirely within the Chris- 
 tian subject, and caused the subject, as now transformed, to 
 create a new Spirit-witnessing, objective morality. The Chris- 
 tian conscience is quickened and made more vigorously active by 
 Pietism ; the views thus far prevalent in the Lutheran church 
 are, in the eyes of Pietism, not strictly conscientious, seeing 
 that they tolerate many manners of action which do not flow 
 from the Christian conscience, and are not consistent with it. 
 The morality of Pietism is by no means of a predominantly 
 outwardly-active working character, is in fact very different 
 from the more recent activity of the " inner mission," but is 
 predominantly subjective, is one-sidedly directed toward the 
 morally-pions heart-condition of the subject, and sustains to 
 the outer world rather a rejecting, negating and uninterested 
 relation ; the ascetic tendency which constantly grew more 
 prominent, especially among Spener's followers, rose even to a 
 manifest preference of celibacy to marriage, and to an avoid- 
 ance of political offices (in the spirit of Tertullian), and to a 
 refusing of military service. When its orthodox opponents re-
 
 38.] EOMISH ETHICS. 255 
 
 proached Pietism with an unevai.gelical seeking of sanctiflca- 
 tion by works, with a tendency to the monkish spirit and the 
 like, they did not do it full justice ; and it was in vain that 
 they undertook to check the historically-justified movement, 
 and, notwithstanding all their hostile exaggerations, they saw 
 very clearly the questionable narrownesses of the movement 
 they opposed more clearly than they saw their own ; and it is 
 not exclusively through Pietism, but also in virtue of the oppo- 
 sition which it awoke, that the religiously-moral consciousness 
 of the church was stimulated to a higher life. The Pietistic 
 tendency proper, because of its disinclination to abstract sci- 
 ence, produced no ethical works of importance ; most im- 
 portant are: Breithaupt: Theol. moralis (1732, 4to. ; Institt 
 theol., 3 parts, 1716), and the moral parts of Joachin Lange's 
 (Economia salutis (1728.) But the popular Pietistic works, 
 written for the masses of the church, were more influential. 
 
 SECTION XXXVIII. 
 
 The ethics of the Roman Catholic church, after 
 the Reformation, was treated for the most part as a 
 constantly increasing and more minute-growing body 
 of casuistry. The highest development of the same, 
 and at the same time the greatest perversion of Chris- 
 tian ethics, also in regard to its moral contents, ap- 
 peared in the semi-Pelagianizing ethics of the Jesuits. 
 The place of the unconditional validity of the moral 
 idea is here largely usurped by outward adaptability 
 to the weal of the visible church, as the highest end ; 
 the place of the unshaken authority of the Scriptures 
 and of early Christian tradition, by the authority of 
 certain special Doctors ; the place of moral convic- 
 tion, by probabilisni; the place of moral honesty, 
 by a sophistical construing of the moral law to the 
 present fortuitous advantage of the church and of the 
 individual, and by the falsehood of reservationes 
 mentales ; and the place of the moral conscience, by
 
 256 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 38. 
 
 rational and cunning calculation ; thus the essence 
 of the moral law becomes entirely unsettled; and 
 the practical application of moral principles, an un- 
 serious exercise of sophistry. 
 
 At first thought we are surprised at the exceeding fruitfulness 
 of the Romish theology of the sixteenth and seventeenth cen- 
 turies in ethical writings, in comparison with which the evan- 
 gelical church, and especially the Lutheran, is very barren. 
 Opposition to the faith-principle of the Evangelical church, 
 led the Romish church to an especial development of the prac- 
 tical phase of religion, as in fact, in the order of the Jesuits, a 
 vigor of activity hitherto unknown in the Romish church makes 
 at this time its appearance ; and precisely this order was the 
 chief representative of Romish ethics. The more purely scien- 
 fic form of ethics lingered in general strictly within the limits 
 of the scholastico- Aristotelian rut. Francis Piccolomini, a much- 
 lauded Aristotelian, in Italy (ob. 1604) produced a comprehen- 
 sive and discursive moral philosophy * based on Aristotle and 
 Plato ; but his writings do not give proof of any independence, 
 and fail to satisfy the Christian consciousness. 
 
 The Order of the Jesuits, as calculated in its very nature for 
 action, for the championship of the endangered Romish church, 
 was called by its fundamental principle to the development of 
 a special system of morality, a system the highest end of which 
 is the glory of God through the exaltation of the visible church. 
 The majority of the Jesuitical presentations of ethics treat, for 
 the most part, enly of the more or less classified circle of single 
 cases, while the more rare systematic works follow very closely 
 the traditions of scholasticism.! Very soon after the Reforma- 
 tion the Jesuits appeared in the field of ethics ; we will men- 
 tion only the more important. Among the Spaniards were: 
 Francis Tolet (a cardinal, ob. 1596, Summa casuum comcientim, 
 often printed) ; Azorio (Institutiones morales, 1600, 3t. ; 1625, 2t.) ; 
 Vtisquez (Opuso. mor., 1617); Henriquez (Summa, 1613fol.); 
 
 * Uhiver8aphilogop7iiamoribv8,Venct.l5SS; Frkf., 1595, 1627. 
 
 tPerrault: Morale des Jes., 1667, 3t. ; Ellendorf: Die Moral und 
 Politik der Jcsuiten, 1840-^-not sufficiently scientific ; Pragm. Gesch. d. 
 Monschsorden, 1770, vols. 9 and 10.
 
 38.] JESUIT MORALISTS. * 257 
 
 Thomas Sanchez, whose learned work, De matrimonio* was 
 highly esteemed, (but which, in the invention and discussion 
 of indelicate questions, transgresses the bounds of all propriety), 
 and who by his sweeping doctrine of probabilism deeply un- 
 settles the foundations of all morality; (of him are further: 
 Opus morale s. Summa casuum, Col. 1614, 2t. ; Consilia s. opu- 
 scula mor., Lugd. 1635, 2 fol.) ; Francis Suarez, in numerous 
 very ingenious works ; Alphonso Rodriguez (Exercitium perfec- 
 tionis, etc., 1641); Antonio de Escobar, one of the most impor- 
 tant of the casuists (Liber tlieol. moral., etc., Ludg., 1646; 
 Uniterm theol. moral, problemata, Ludg., 1663, 7 fol.); and 
 Gonzalez (Fundamentum theol. moralis., 1694, 4to.) Among the 
 Italians were: Tamburini, and Filliucci (Moral, qucest., 1622, 
 2 fol.) Among the French : Bauny, and Raynauld. Among 
 the Germans: Layman (Theol. mor., 1625, 3 4to.); Busenbaum, 
 of Munster, whose Medulla casuum consc. has had, since 1645, 
 more than fifty editions,t an able, clear, compact manual in 
 tolerably systematic order, and authoritative almost throughout 
 the whole Order, although in many respects assailed, even by 
 popes, and in some countries proscribed. Among the Nether- 
 landers : Leonard Less (in several works), and Besser (De con- 
 scientia, 1638, 4to.) The contents and manner of treatment of 
 most of these work.s are very similar. 
 
 The peculiar character of Jesuitical ethics rests on the funda- 
 mental purpose of the order as a whole, namely, the rescuing 
 of the Church, the bride of Christ, as endangered by the Ref- 
 ormation in its very foundations, and hence the rescuing of the 
 honor of God from a most pressing danger. In a struggle of 
 life and death one is not very careful in the choice of means, 
 and in all warfare the sentiment holds good, though involving 
 manifold violations of ordinary right, that the end sanctifies 
 the means. The rescuing of the Romish church at any price 
 is the task, even should it involve an entering into alliance with 
 the dark powers of this sinful world, and with the passions 
 and sinful proclivities of the unsanctified multitude. The one 
 
 * Genuse, 1592? 1602; Antv. 1607, 1612, 1614, 1617, 3 fol. ; Norimb. 
 1706 ; the first edition has become rare ; in the later editions, after 1612, 
 the smuttiest passages are omitted or modified. 
 
 t Eewritten and enlarged by Lacroix, 1710, 9t., Col. 1729, 2 fol., and 
 frequently.
 
 258 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 38. 
 
 exclusively aimed-at end makes use of the systematized totality 
 of moral ends as mere means, and the morally-contracted view 
 taken of this one end leads naturally and of itself to morally 
 unallowable means. The real, visible church is not measured 
 by the idea of the true or ideal church, but all moral ideas are 
 measured by the visible church. The Jesuits were well aware 
 that they were an essentially new phenomenon of the churchly 
 life, that they stood upon purely human invention and power; 
 we need not be surprised therefore to find that in their moral 
 system human invention and human authority stand in the fore- 
 ground. The expressed opinion of a church doctor forms a 
 sufficient basis for a legitimate moral decision. The eternal 
 and objective foundations of the moral are exchanged for the 
 subjective view of individual persons of eminence. The con- 
 tradictions thereby resulting render the single subject all the 
 less trammeled, enable him to follow the decision which he 
 most prefers. Another of their peculiarities is their discipline ; 
 the required unconditional obedience to the commands of superi- 
 ors takes the place of the personal conscience, and paralyzes its 
 power; it becomes a duty of the members of the order to have 
 no personal conscience whatever, and to subordinate the indi- 
 vidual conscience unconditionally and blindly to the general 
 conscience of the order ; a collective conscience, however, is a 
 poor one, and poorest of all when it is represented by one single 
 person. Thus the Jesuit accustoms himself from the very start, 
 blindly to follow the authority of a single eminent man, and 
 Probabilism is, in his moral theory, an inevitable matter of 
 course. 
 
 This, then, is the distinguishing characteristic of Jesuitical 
 ethics, that in the place of the eternal objective ground and 
 criterion of the moral, it substitutes subjective opinion, and in 
 the place of an unconditional eternal end, a merely condi- 
 tionally valid one, namely, the defending of the actual, visible 
 church against all forms of opposition, that in the place of 
 the moral conscience, it substitutes the human calculating of 
 circumstantial and fortuitous adaptation to the promotion of 
 this its highest end, that it attempts to realize that which is 
 per se and absolutely valid by a wide-reaching isolating of the 
 means, but in so doing subordinates morality to the discretion 
 of the single subject. While the ethics of the Jesuits appears
 
 38.] SPIRIT OF JESUITISM. 259 
 
 as lax and quite too indulgent toward worldly, sinful proclivi- 
 ties and fashions, yet this is only one phase of the matter. A 
 merely worldly-lax moral system, in the usual sense, seems but 
 little applicable to the members of a brotherhood the first rule 
 of which is a perfect renunciation of personal will and personal 
 opinion and self-determination, in a word, unconditional obe- 
 dience to every command of superiors, and which has actually 
 accomplished in the missionary field the grandest of deeds, and 
 numbers, among its members, multitudes of heroic martyrs. This 
 lack of strictness in one direction rests by no means on mere world- 
 15 ness, on pleasure in the delights of this life, but follows, on the 
 one hand, of necessity (as well as does also the rigor of obedience) 
 from the subjectively-arbitrary presupposition of the entire or- 
 der, from the lack of an objective, unshaken foundation, and 
 rests, on the other hand, strictly on calculation, is itself a 
 cunningly-devised means to the end, is intended to awaken, 
 especially in the great and mighty of the earth (and the masses 
 of the people are such under some circumstances), a love to the 
 church, to the mild, friendly, indulgent mother ; and these con- 
 cessions to the world formed a contrast to the severer moral 
 views of the evangelical church, and especially to the over-rigid 
 discipline of the Reformed church ; and the contrast was tempt- 
 ing. The purpose zealously pursued by the Jesuits in the 
 interest of Romish domination of becoming soul-guarding 
 fathers and conscience-counselors, especially for men and 
 women of eminence, required, on the one hand, that the Jesuits 
 themselves should acquire for themselves the highest possible 
 repute in ethics, and hence it was requisite that they should 
 become the literary representatives thereof, and, on the other, 
 that this ethics should bft molded in adaptation to this end, 
 should make itself not disagreeable and burdensome, but 
 should become as elastic as possible in view of different wants, 
 should be a " golden net for catching souls," as the Jesuits 
 themselves were wont to call their own pliableness. The more 
 ramified and complex the net-work of casuistic ethics became, 
 so much the more indispensable were the practiced conscience- 
 counselors, or more properly, conscience-advocates; the more 
 stairways and back doors they were able to turn attention to 
 in conscience affairs, so much the more prized and influential 
 they became. This explains the great compass and the peculiar 
 
 18
 
 260 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [38. 
 
 character of Jesuitical ethics. The becoming accustomed to 
 slippery and precipitous ways, and the pleasure in the ready- 
 finding of sophistical authority for morally novel positions, led 
 of itself unconsciously into still deeper error. ' ' Accommoda- 
 tion " was the magic word which opened the way for a surpris- 
 ingly-rich storehouse of moral rules. Confession, where made 
 to Jesuits, lost much of its seriousness, and nowhere else was 
 absolution so easily obtainable for those who were to be won 
 over, nowhere penance and satisfaction so readily done with, 
 and this not merely in fact, but also from principle. Penance 
 is to be chosen as light as possible ; the confessor may impose 
 as penance, on the confessing one, the good or evil which he 
 can do or suffer on the same day or in the same week ; the 
 penance may, when there exists a sufficient reason, be even per- 
 formed for oue person by another, etc.* Also in most cases it is 
 not a very serious matter even if the absolved one neglects en- 
 tirely the imposed penance. 
 
 The development of Jesuitical ethics is by no means a phe- 
 nomenon essentially new ; the bases therefor were already long 
 extant ; it is only a further building upon the same foundations. 
 The Pelagianizing view of the moral ability of the human will 
 and of the meritoriousness of outward works lay already at the 
 basis of the entire system of monkish holiness, and the Jesuits 
 went only one step further when they, in contradiction to 
 Thomas Aquinas, taught often almost entirely as Pelagius. 
 The earlier casuistry in its lack of fixed principles had already 
 shaken the moral foundation ; and the too great indulgence in 
 sophistry on particular, and, in part, entirely imaginary, cases, 
 had beclouded the unsophisticated moral consciousness; the 
 doctrine of probabilism had been already sanctioned at Con- 
 stance, and in many respects practically applied. The entan- 
 glement of the church with the then so manifoldly-complicated 
 state of European politics, with worldly passions and rancors, 
 and its very worldly struggles against the worldly state, had 
 already long since undermined the purity of the ecclesiastical 
 conscience, and the maxim, that the end sanctifies the means, 
 had already been long practiced and approved by the church 
 before it was, by the Jesuits (if not sanctioned in express words, 
 
 * Filliucci : Moral, quast., 7, tract. 6 c. 7 ; Escobar: Liber th., VII, 
 4 c. 7 (especially n. 181,182), comp. Ellendorf, 263 sqq., 312 sqq.
 
 38.] PROBABILISM. 261 
 
 yet in fact on the largest scale) put into practice ; the per se 
 not incorrect distinguishing of venial from mortal sins offered 
 easy opportunity of indefinitely enlarging the sphere of the 
 former by a limitation or a ready transforming of the sphere of 
 the latter, while at the same time the ever-growing readiness 
 in granting indulgences was making the sphere even of mortal 
 sins of a less terrifying character, especially for those at whose 
 command stood the keys to the treasure-chambers of indul- 
 gence ; and in fact it was these especially, namely, the rich and 
 noble, who enjoyed the advantages of the generosity of Jesuitic 
 ethics. Jesuitic ethics did not indeed harmonize with the 
 moral consciousness of the ancient church ; its representatives 
 were also well aware of this, and they hesitated not to admit 
 that they did not recognize ancient church tradition as a crite- 
 rion for morality, but wished rather to lay the foundations for 
 a new tradition. 
 
 The chief means used for the purpose of lightening moral 
 duty was the so-called moral probabilism, namely, the principle 
 that in morally-doubtful cases the authority of a few eminent 
 church-teachers, or also even of a single one (if he is a doctor 
 grams et probus), suffices to furnish a sententia probaMlis as to a 
 moral course of action, and hence to justify the performing of 
 it, even if the opinion followed were per se false ; nay, accord- 
 ing to some, even if this teacher himself had declared it as 
 only morally possible, without really approving of it. Hence, 
 as soon as I can hunt up for an action which seems to me of 
 doubtful propriety, or even positively wrong, a consenting opin- 
 ion of an ecclesiastical authority (and of course it is best if I 
 find it among the Jesuit doctors themselves), then am I perfectly 
 screened by the same ;* in which connection it is to be taken 
 into account that there is scarcely any one moral question which 
 is not answered by different doctors in an entirely contrary 
 sense. That thus the most opposite manners of action may be 
 equally readily justified, the Jesuits knew very well ; and Esco- 
 bar even found, in the actual variety of views as to the moral, 
 an amazing trace of Divine Providence, inasmuch as thereby 
 the yoke of Christ is in so agreeable a manner rendered 
 
 *Laymann: TJieol. mor. 1625, i, p. 9; Escobar: Liber th., proceem., 
 exam. 3; Bresser: De consc. iii, c. 1 $$., and in almost all the 
 others.
 
 262 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 38. 
 
 easy.* Although probabilism was not so immoderately extended 
 by all the Jesuits, nevertheless it was the decidedly dominant 
 teaching; and when the general of the order, Gonzales, in 1694, 
 disapproved of it, many were minded to regard him as thereby 
 deposed because of heresy, and only the protection of the 
 Pope saved him.f 
 
 Probabilism is not a merely fortuitously discovered expe- 
 dient, but it is in fact an almost inevitable consequence of the 
 historical essence of Jesuitism. As the order itself arose 
 neither on the basis of Scripture nor of ancient church-tradi- 
 tion, but sprang absolutely from the daring inventive power 
 of a single man breaking through the limits of ecclesiastical 
 actuality, hence it is not at all unnatural that it should make 
 the authority of a single spiritually preeminent man its highest 
 determining power, and subordinate to this the historical, 
 objective form of the moral consciousness. "When the learned 
 moralists came to be regarded as the determining authority 
 in morals, then the Jesuits were the masters of the world, for 
 they were themselves the most excellent doctors. Though 
 they absolved the inquirer from so many burdensome chains 
 of commanding duty, though they led him in the selection 
 between opposed authorities to a subjective discretion of de- 
 cision, yet at least this point was reached, that he recognized 
 the Jesuit priests as his liberating masters. The doctrine of 
 probabilism can by no means be explained as a simple sequence 
 of the Roniish tradition-principle ; for here the deciding ele- 
 ment is not the authority of the church, but simply individual 
 teachers and in fact not, the majority of authorities, but it 
 is expressly permitted to follow f the lesser authority in face 
 of the greater, and to select among several authorities the 
 one which best pleases, even if it be the less probable one. 
 Hence also the father-confessor is not at liberty, as against 
 the probable opinions of those who confess to him, to appeal 
 to other and higher authorities, but he must admit the former 
 
 * Quia ex opinionum varietatejugum Christi suavita sustinetur ( Univ. 
 theol. mor., t. i, lib. 2, 1, c. 2 in Crome, x, 182.) 
 t Wolf: Gesch. d. Jesuit., 1, 173. 
 
 J Escobar: Th. mor., proceem., iii, n. 9, and many others. 
 Sanchez: Of. mor., i, 9, n. 12 sqq., n. 24.
 
 38.] PROBABILISM. 263 
 
 even should he hold them for entirely false,* and a doctor, 
 when asked for moral advice needs not to impart the same 
 exclusively according to his own judgment, but may also 
 suggest the judgment of another though contradictory to his 
 own, in case it is more favorable to, or more desired by, the 
 inquirer (si forte hoc illi favorcibilior sen exoptatior sit); hence 
 he may give to different persons a directly contrary answer to 
 the same question, "only he must in this matter use discre- 
 tion and prudence."! Many go so far as to maintain that I 
 not only need not follow the opinion most probable to me, 
 but that I may even follow that one of which I hold only that 
 it is probable that it may be probable (Tamburini). But how 
 is the doctrine of probability to be reconciled with the Cath- 
 olic doctrine that the assent of the church is necessary in 
 order that any course of action may be ecclesiastically valid? 
 Bauny gives the answer: All that doctors teach in printed 
 books has, in fact, the assent and approval of the church, 
 provided that the church has not expressly declared it as 
 invalid. 
 
 Though probabilism per se, as a mere formal principle, en- 
 dangers morality in a high degree, substituting in the place 
 of the moral conscience individual and arbitrary authority, 
 and rocking the soul into false security, still it were possible 
 that the danger of this principle should not actually realize 
 itself, in that it might be presupposed that the theological 
 authorities would, in all essential moral thoughts, harmonize 
 with each other and with the Scriptures, and would show 
 some difference only in regard to more external, unimportant 
 questions. In this case the erroneousness of the formal prin- 
 ciple would in some measure be remedied by the correctness 
 of the material contents. The question rises therefore : What 
 do the doctors who are presented as moral oracles, positively 
 teach as to the moral? 
 
 One would be largely deceived were one to expect to find 
 in the moral writings in question merely the loose world- 
 morality of moral indifference, selfishness, and pleasure-seek- 
 ing; on the contrary, they often present anxiously, minute 
 
 Escobar: TJi. mor. proaem., iii, n. 27; Laymann, i, p. 12; so also 
 Diana : Besol. mor., ii, tract., 13,11 tqq., Antv., 1637 ; Summa, 1652, p. 210. 
 t Laymann, i, p. 11.
 
 264 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 38. 
 
 and strict prescriptions, especially in churchly relations, so 
 that the evangelical liberty of a Christian man would feel 
 itself thereby in many respects largely cramped. One must 
 here distinguish, however, between the ordinary popular 
 morality as it were, for home use, and indeed also for show 
 and the higher morality which relates to the fundamental 
 purposes of the Jesuit order, that is, to the furtherance of the 
 Romish church, and which is chiefly practiced by the great, 
 in church and state, and hence also by the Jesuits them- 
 selves. To the semi-Pelagianizing explaining-away of the 
 sinful corruption of human nature, corresponds, on the other 
 hand, a lowering of the moral requirements made of man ; 
 for the natural man, downy cushions are spread. We are 
 not obligated to love God throughout our whole life, in the 
 full sense of the word, nor even every five years, but more 
 especially only toward the close of life.* In fact, the French 
 Jesuit Sirmond denies the obligation of love to God on the 
 whole ; it is sufficient if we fulfill the other commandments 
 and do not hate God ; t and he found in his Order warm con- 
 currence. So also is the love of neighbor, and especially of 
 enemies, lowered to a degree corresponding to anti-Christian, 
 heathen ways of thinking. And even the duties of children 
 are placed lower than is the case among the Chinese. The 
 fourth commandment is fulfilled by the fact that one shows 
 due honor to his parents, though without loving them ; for 
 love is not required in the commandment. To be ashamed 
 of one's parents, to banish them from one's presence, to treat 
 them as strangers and the like, is not a severe sin ; but, on 
 the contrary, it is allowable for the son to accuse his father 
 of heresy before the Inquisition (Busenbaum), and according 
 to a majority of the Jesuits, as also in the opinion of Diana, 
 he is obligated thereto ; and the same holds true of brothers 
 and sisters, and of consorts. J Some of them declare it even 
 as allowable that a son should wish his father's death, or 
 should rejoice at the occurrence of his death, because he 
 has now the happiness of coming into his inheritance (Tam- 
 burini, Vasquez), or that a mother should wish the death of 
 her daughter, in case the latter is ugly (Azorius). Malignant 
 
 * Escobar : i, 2, n. 7 sqq. ; v, 4, n. 1 sqq. t Defensio virtutis, i, 1. 
 
 J Diana : Resol. mor. i, tract., 4, 4, 5,
 
 38.] JESUITIC DEPRAVITY. 265 
 
 revenge is indeed forbidden, but not the taking revenge in 
 vindication of one's honor. 
 
 In respect to moral imputation and condemnation, most of 
 the teachers make in view of rendering moral desert easy 
 the remarkable distinction, that the action answering to the 
 divine law is good and meritorious as such, without it being 
 requisite thereto that the intention should be good ; and that, on 
 the contrary, sin exists only where there is really an intention 
 of sinning. Hence if the intention is a good one, that is, pro- 
 motive of the weal of the church, then the act which serves 
 to its carrying-out cannot be sinful ; and there can be a mortal 
 sin only where the person in the moment of the act had the 
 definite intention of doing evil, and a perfect knowledge of 
 the same. But passion and evil habit becloud one's knowl- 
 edge and hence render the sin venial, as does also weighty 
 evil example ; * and a probable opinion entirely excuses even 
 a mortal sin. In an unimportant matter even the transgres- 
 sion of a divine law is not a mortal sin. Ignorance of the law 
 excuses the mortal sin ; and inveterate ignorance, the father- 
 confessor may overlook in silence. Repentance over a com- 
 mitted sin is indeed necessary to the forgiveness of the same, 
 but a very slight degree of repentance suffices, or even a de- 
 sire to have repentance, or the fear of eternal punishment ; 
 and, in case of repeated sins, it is enough to feel repentance 
 for only one of them, provided that all are confessed ; nay, 
 it even suffices that I should feel pained, not because of the 
 sin, but because of its bad consequences, e. g,, disease, 
 dishonor ; t it is therefore not to be wondered at when some 
 of the doctors assert, in contradiction to others, that it is suf- 
 ficient in order to the obtaining of absolution that we feel a 
 regret at our lack of repentance (Sa, Navarra). An actual 
 bettering of one's life needs not to follow immediately upon 
 repentance, as in fact the habit of sinning renders the sin itself 
 venial. Venial sins (and in the eyes of the Jesuits this field is 
 uncommonly large) need not to be confessed, and it is not 
 even necessary, in connection with the sacrament of penance, 
 to repent of them, and to form a resolution to avoid them. 
 
 * E. g., Laymann : i, 2, c. 3 ; i, 9, 3 ; Escob. : i, 3, n. 28 ; Conseuetudo 
 dbsque advertentia letale peccatum non,facit. 
 t Escobar : Tr. V, 4, c. 7.
 
 266 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [38. 
 
 Not undeserved is the notoriety of the chapters in 
 Jesuitical ethics on falsehood, on the sexual sin, and on 
 murder. One may intentionally use ambiguous words in 
 one sense though knowing that the hearer understands 
 him otherwise; and one may for a legitimate end, e. g., for 
 self-defense, or to protect one's family, or to practice a 
 virtue, utter words, which, as uttered, are entirely false, and 
 which express the true sense (which may be the opposite to 
 the sense really expressed) only through mental additions 
 restrictio s. reservatio mentalis) ; of such cases the moralists 
 abound in remarkable illustrations;* e. g., when some one 
 wishes to borrow something of me which I do not like to let 
 him have, I am at liberty to say, "I have it not," namely, 
 by adding mentally, "in order to give it to thee;" if some 
 one asks of me something which I do not wish to tell, I am 
 at liberty to answer, "I know it not, "namely, as obligated 
 to communicate it ; if I am asked as to a crime of which I am 
 the sole witness, I am at liberty to say, ' ' I know it not, " 
 mentally adding, "as a thing publicly known;" if I have 
 hidden away a quantity of provision of which I have need, 
 then I may swear before the court, "I have nothing," men- 
 tally adding, "which I am bound to disclose." A priest 
 threatened with death may, without real intentio, that is, 
 merely in appearance, pronounce absolution, administer sac- 
 raments, etc. An adulterous wife, when questioned by her 
 husband, may swear that she did not commit adultery, adding 
 mentally: "on this or that day," or "in order to reveal it to 
 thee." He who conies from a scene of pestilence, but is con- 
 vinced that he is not infected, may swear that he does not 
 come from such a place. When a poor debtor is pressed by 
 a hard creditor, he may swear before the court that he owes 
 nothing to the other, in that he adds mentally, "in order to 
 pay it right away." I may deny, before the court, every 
 trespass or crime which has any manner of excuse, namely, 
 by adding mentally, "as a crime." Is, qui ex necessitate vel 
 aliqua utilitate offert se ad jurandum nemine petente, pote&t uti 
 amphibologiis, nam habet justam causam Us utendi (Sanchez, 
 
 * Sanchez: Opusmor., iii, 6, 12 sqq. / Summa : i, 3, 6 ; Diana: ii, tr. 
 15, 25 sqq.,' iii, tr. 6, 30, where many cases are cited and approved ; El- 
 lendorf: pp. 42 sqq., 52 sqq., 124 sqq., 157 sqq.; Crome: x, 142 sqq.
 
 38.] SEXUAL LAXITY. 267 
 
 Diana). In general, all such untruths are allowed EX JUSTA 
 CAUSA, namely, quando id necessario est, vel utile ad salutem 
 corporis, honoris aut rerum familiarum, or when an improper 
 question is addressed to us ; on the contrary, to swear falsely 
 without a good reason is a mortal sin (Diana) ; this is 
 though not in express words yet certainly in sense the 
 maxim which is disavowed by the more recent Jesuits, 
 namely, that the end sanctifies the means. A promise obli- 
 gates to its fulfillment only when one actually had, at the 
 time of promising, the intention of fulfilling it.* Hence an 
 oath is binding only when one meant it earnestly ; otherwise 
 it is to be regarded as a mere blame-worthy indeed, though 
 not obligating, piece of trifling (Sanchez, Busenbaum, Es- 
 cobar, Less, Diana), and it obligates only in the sense in 
 which, by mental reservations, it was intended, and not in 
 that in which, by its form of expression, it would have to be 
 understood by the other ; and knowingly to mislead any one 
 into a false oath, who, however, acts in good faith, is no sin, 
 since in fact he who unknowingly swears falsely does no evil 
 thereby ; f to swear falsely from bad habit, is only a venial 
 sin. If any one swears that he will never drink wine, then 
 he seriously sins only when he drinks much, but not when he 
 drinks but little (Escobar). He who swears before a court 
 that he will tell all that he knows, is not bound to tell that 
 which he alone knows (Less).f 
 
 The sexual relations are discussed by the Jesuits in a so im- 
 morally-detailed circumstantiality that the laxity of moral 
 judgment (elsewhere without parallel) is rendered thereby all 
 the more pernicious and condemnable. A maiden who has 
 committed unchastity for the first time is not required, even 
 when she is, as yet, unfjer the oversight of her parents, to give, 
 in making her confession, this circumstance, namely, that it ia 
 the first and hence more serious case, for the freely consenting 
 virgin does a wrong neither to herself nor to her parents, inas- 
 much as she has discretionary power over her virginal purity. 
 
 * Escobar : iii, 3, n. 48. t Ibid., i, 3, n. 81. 
 
 J Compare Diana : iii, t. 5, 100 sqq. 
 
 Escobar : i, 8 ; v, 2 ; Busenbaum : iii, 4 ; especially Sanchez ; D 
 matrim.; so also Diana; comp. Ellendorf: 30 sqq., 95 sqq., 28$. sqq., 
 331 sqq.
 
 268 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 38. 
 
 (Quum sit domina suce integritatis mrginalis)* For all possible 
 kinds of unchastity, apologies and excuses are invented ; t and 
 Tamburini even fixes with great exactness the taxes for public 
 women. The discussions of the moralists on these subjects are, 
 in many respects, of so indelicate a character, that the judg- 
 ment of the Episcopal censor, printed in the work of Sanchez, 
 (t. 2.), namely, summa voluptate perlegi, sounds almost too 
 naive. Under the head of murder, the Jesuits had the task of 
 accommodating themselves to the then prevalent moral notions 
 of the South-European nations, and the result of their labors 
 was an ingeniously constructed code of murder.J The murder- 
 ing of a person, even of an innocent one, may under circum- 
 stances be allowable, not indeed simply in case of self-defense, 
 but also in other cases, for example, in case of severe insult, 
 inasmuch as the insulted one would otherwise pass as dishon- 
 ored ; and even when the insulted one is a monk or priest, he 
 may, according to some authorities, kill his opposer (Escobar i, 
 c. 3, Less, and others) ; and several Jesuits directly maintained 
 that any one, even a priest or monk, is entitled to anticipate 
 an intended slander or false accusation by secret murder ; for 
 this would not amount to murder, but simply to self-defense ; 
 and this was expressly applied to the case where a monk 
 should have reason to fear the disclosures of his mistress. 
 When a knight, in fleeing from the enemy, cannot otherwise 
 rescue himself than by riding over an infant child or a beggar, 
 then is the killing of these innocent persons allowable, save 
 only in case that the child is not as yet baptized (Escobar, c. 3, 
 52), which would apparently be rather difficult for the knight 
 to know. Killing in self-defense is allowable even where the 
 self-defender is caught in a crime, and that, too, where the kill- 
 ing is beforehand intended, e. g., whpn he who is caught in- 
 adultery kills the injured husband (Escobar i, 7, c. 2, 5, 13 ; 
 3, 35 ; i, 8, n. 61). A woman may stiletto her husband when 
 she knows definitely that this same fate threatens her from him, 
 and when she knows no other escape (Less). He who has secretly 
 
 * Escobar: Liber, etc., princ. ii, n. 41 ; so also Bauny. 
 
 ^ E.g., Diana : ii, 1. 16, 54 ; 17, 62 sqq. ; iii, 5, 87 sqq. ; iv, 4, 36, 37, 
 in the spirit of many of the Jesuits. 
 
 \ Especially Escobar : i, 7 ; comp. Ellendorf : 72 sqq. 
 
 Sanchez : Summa, t. i, 2, 39, 7 ; Amicus : Dejure etjustitia, v, sec. 
 7, 118 ; comp. Diana: iii, tr. 5, 97, ed. Antv. 1637.
 
 38.] CODE OF MURDER. 269 
 
 committed adultery may kill the single witness thereof who is 
 on the point of accusing him, for this witness is not under ob- 
 ligation to make this accusation ; however, adds the Jesuit, 
 civil law has unfortunately not assented to this probable opin- 
 ion (Escobar i, 7, n. 39). He who without his own fault is re- 
 quired to accept, or to challenge to, a duel, does wisely to put 
 his opponent out of the way by secret murder, for thereby he 
 protects himself from the assault, and his opponent from a 
 serious sin.* Escobar is unwilling to see him who murders 
 his enemy secretly shut out, just like a common murderer, 
 from the right of asylum (6, 4, n. 26). According to some 
 teachers the majority, however, think otherwise a pregnant 
 maiden may procure an abortion in order to escape the shame, t 
 According to Azor, a physician may administer a less certainly 
 effectual medicine although he has with him a more certain 
 one, and even, when it is more probable that the less effectual 
 one may do harm ; for he has after all some probability on his 
 side.}: Tamburini justifies the castration of singers for the 
 service of the church. The doctrine notorious in church-his- 
 tory of the justifiableness of tyrant-murder, we need only 
 mention in passing, as well as also the almost demagogic doc- 
 trine of the merely-relatively valid and purely human right of 
 princes, and of the right to disobey law on the part of the 
 people, as being themselves sovereign. In this political 
 respect is especially notorious the work of the Spanish Jesuit, 
 Mariana, (De rege. 1598, 1605), according to which, a king 
 who oppresses religion or violates the laws of the state may 
 be killed by any of his subjects, openly or by poison ; the 
 murderer, even if his attempt fails, renders himself meritori- 
 ous in the eyes of God and man, and wins immortal renown 
 (cornp. the view of John of Salisbury, 34). It is chiefly 
 these revolutionary doctrines that brought the order to its 
 fall ; with its other moral views the secular world could have 
 put up with much better grace. 
 
 The maxims of the Jesuits disseminated themselves like 
 
 * Sanchez : Opus mor. ii, 39, 7. 
 t Crome, x, 229 ; Escobar, i, Y, n. 59, 64. 
 
 Jin Escobar: Princ. iii, n. 25, who, however, himself disapproves 
 thereof. 
 Perrault, ii, 804 tqq.; Staudlin, 503 ; Ellendorf, 360 sqq.
 
 270 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 38. 
 
 an infectious disease far beyond the circle of their own Order, 
 as is shown by the comprehensive works of the already men- 
 tioned Sicilian, Antony Diana (clericus regular is),* who 
 taught, under the express approbatio of his ecclesiastical su- 
 periors, and also of the Jesuits, the doctrine of probabilism 
 in its worst forms. One may act according to a probable 
 opinion and disregard the more probable one ; man is not 
 under obligation to follow the more perfect and the more 
 certain, but it suffices to .follow simply the certain and per- 
 fect ; it would be an unendurable burden were one required 
 to hunt out the more probable opinions ; t the most of the 
 Jesuits taught the same thing. In relation to murder, he 
 teaches like Escobar ; I am at liberty to kill even him who 
 assails my honor, if my honor cannot otherwise be rescued. J 
 When some one has resolved upon a great sin, then one is at 
 liberty to recommend to him a lesser one, because such ad- 
 vice does not relate absolutely to an evil, but to a good, 
 namely, the avoiding of the worse ; for example, if I cannot 
 otherwise dissuade a person from an intended adultery than 
 recommending to him fornication instead thereof, then it is 
 allowable to recommend this to him, not, however, in so far 
 as it is a sin, but in so far as it prevents the sin of adultery; 
 Diana appeals in this connection to many like-judging Jesuit 
 doctors. If a priest commissions Peter to kill Caius, who is 
 weaker than Peter, but nevertheless Peter comes out second 
 best and gets killed himself, still the priest incurs no guilt, 
 and may continue in the administration of his office. | He who 
 resolves upon committing all possible venial sins, does not 
 thereby involve himself in any mortal sin. IT He who ex aliqua 
 justa causa rents a house to another for purposes of prostitu- 
 tion, commits no sin.** To eat human flesh, in case of neces- 
 sity, he holds with the majority of the Jesuits, as allowable, ft 
 He who in virtue of a promise of marriage induces a maiden 
 to yield to him, is not bound by his promise, in case he is of 
 higher rank or richer than she, or in case he can persuade 
 himself that she will not take his promise in serious ear- 
 
 * Resolutions morales, Antv., 1629-37, 4 fol., Lugd. 1667, Venet., 1728. 
 t Res. mor., Antv., 1637, ii, tract. 13 ; iv, tr. 3 ; Summa, 1652, p. 214. 
 I Ibid., iii, 5, 90 ; Summa, pp. 210, 212. Res. mor., Antv., 1637, 
 iii, tract. 5, 37. || Ibid., ii, t-act. 15, 17. 1 Ibid., iii, tr. 6, 24. 
 
 ** Ibid., iii, tr. 6, 45. ft Ibid., 6, 48.
 
 38.] JESUITISM AND TALMUDISM. 271 
 
 nest. * Marriage between brother and sister can be made legit- 
 imate by Papal dispensation.! In such moral perversity of 
 view Diana seems only to have been surpassed by the Spanish 
 Netherlander Cistercian, Lobkowitz,l who, in his skepticism, 
 entirely breaks down the moral consciousness, and declares 
 that nothing is evil per se, but only because it is positively 
 forbidden; hence God can dispense even from all the com- 
 mandments (comp. the views of Duns Scotus, 34), can, 
 e. <7., allow whoredom and other like sins, for none of these 
 are evil per se. Monks and priests are at liberty to kill the 
 female misused by them, when they fear, on her account, for 
 their honor. This writer declares himself expressly and de- 
 cidedly in favor of the views of the Jesuits. Also the Fran- 
 ciscan order became infected with the maxims of the Jesuits, 
 as is proved by the very voluminous work of Barthol. Mastrius 
 de Mandida,^ which was published under the express sanction 
 of the officers of the order, and who justifies restrictiones men- 
 tales even in oaths, || and also the murder of tyrants, IT the 
 murders of the slanderers of an important person, castration 
 and similar things,** as well as also probabilism. 
 
 The moral system of the Jesuits is not, strictly speaking, 
 that of the Romish church; many of their more extreme 
 maxims the church has condemned, and the more recent 
 Jesuits themselves find it advisable no longer fully to avow 
 their former principles. Nevertheless Jesuitism, together 
 with its system of morals, is the ultimate consequential goal 
 of the -church in its turning-aside from the Gospel, just as 
 (though in other respects widely different therefrom) Tal- 
 mudism was the necessary goal of Judaism in its rejection of 
 the Saviour. The error consists in the placing of human 
 discretion and authority in the stead of the unconditionally 
 valid, revealed will of God. Even as earlier Catholicism had 
 intensified the divine command by self-invented, ascetic 
 work-holiness into a seemingly greater severity, had aimed 
 
 * Besol. mor., Antv., iii, 6, 81 ; in the spirit of Sanchez and Less, 
 t Ibid., iv, tr., 4, 94; sanctioned by several Jesuits. 
 J Theol. mor., 1645, 1652 ; the work itself 1 have not been able to 
 find ; comp. Perrault : i, 331 sqq. Ibid., 1626. 
 
 | Disp., xi, 5-2, 171, 172, 183, (ed. Ven. 1723.) H Ibid., viii, 27. 
 
 ** Ibid., viii, 25, 28 ; xi, 110 sqq.
 
 272 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 38. 
 
 at a higher moral perfection than that required by God, so 
 Jesuitism with like presumption lowered the moral law, out 
 of consideration to temporal relations, to a merest minimum 
 requirement, contented itself with a much lower moral per- 
 fection than the divine law calls for, and sought out cunning 
 means for lightening even this minimum. Jesuitical ethics is 
 the opposite pole of monastic ethics ; what the latter requires 
 too much, the former requires too little. Monastic morality 
 sought to win God for the sinful world ; Jesuitical morality 
 seeks to win the sinful world, not indeed for God, but at 
 least for the church. Monasticism said to God, though not 
 in an evangelical sense : " if I have only thee, then I ask for 
 nothing else in heaven or earth ; " Jesuitism says about the 
 same thing, but says it to the world, and particularly to the 
 distinguished and powerful. The former turns away in in- 
 dignant contempt from the worldly life, because the world 
 is immersed in sin ; the latter generously receives the same 
 into itself, and turns attention away from guilt, by denying 
 it. It is true, the Jesuits represent also a monastic Order, 
 but this order is only a means to an end, and resembles the 
 other nobler orders about as much as wily Renard resem- 
 bles the pious Pilgrim ; and the well-known hostility of the 
 older orders to this brilliantly rising new one, Avas not mere 
 jealousy, but a very natural, and, for the most part, moral 
 protest against the spirit of the same. 
 
 Other casuists are: Jacobus h Graffiis, a Benedictine (Con- 
 siliorum s. respons. cas. consc. 1610, 2, 4to.) ; Pontas of Paris 
 (Examen general de conscience, 1728; Latin, 1731, 3 fol., alpha- 
 betical) ; the French bishop Qenettus (ob. 1702, Theologie mo- 
 rale ; also in Latin, 1706, 2, 4to., earnest and rigid); the 
 Dominican Perazzo, in his Thomisticus ecdesiastes (1700, 3 fol.), 
 digested the ethics of Thomas Aquinas into an alphabetical 
 register; Malder of Antwerp treated it more systematically 
 (De virtutibus theologicis, 1616). 
 
 In a more systematic form, a purer Christian spirit, and, in 
 many respects, opposed to Jesuitical views, and correspond- 
 ing rather to Mediaeval ethics, is the moral treatise of the 
 French bishop Godeau (1709) ; Natalis Alexander (1693) treated 
 the same subject in a similar spirit, in connection with dog- 
 matics.
 
 39.] JANSENISM. 273 
 
 SECTION XXXIX. 
 
 In striking antithesis to the morals of the Jesuits, 
 stand the teachings of the Augustine-inspired Jansen- 
 ists, who, in opposition to the subjectively-individual 
 character of the Jesuitical system, hold fast to the 
 immutable objectivity of the moral law, and teach 
 the latter in a very rigid manner, much resembling 
 that of Calvinists; but yet because of their leaning 
 upon the earlier mysticism of the church they come 
 short of carrying fully out the Reformatory principle. 
 The mystical theology present in Jansenism only 
 as a co-ordinate element perpetuated itself in the 
 Romish church, in natural antagonism to the cold casu- 
 istic morality of the Jesuits, but rather in a popularly 
 devotional than in a scientific form, and rose, in the 
 Quietism of Molinos, to a one-sided turning-aside 
 from all vigorous moral activity, while F'anelon 
 shaped a modified and moderated mysticism into a 
 noble, moral system of devout contemplation. 
 
 Jansen of Louvain (afterward bishop of Ypres)j presses, in 
 his Augustinus (1640), the doctrine of Augustine against the 
 semi-Pelagian system of the Jesuits, and occasioned thereby 
 a powerful theological movement which led almost to schism, 
 and which demonstrated again by historical results that even 
 the most rigid teaching of predestination brings about higher 
 moral views than the doctrine of Pelagianism and semi-Pela- 
 gianism, and for this simple reason, that, in the former sys- 
 tem God is brought absolutely into the fore-ground, while, 
 in the latter, the individual subject is put forward into a false 
 position. Love to God and to his will is the essence of all 
 morality ; where God is not loved in an action, there the 
 action is not moral ; mere love to created things is sinful ; but 
 our love to God is poured out into our hearts by God him- 
 self, and hence stands in need of grace, which inclines the 
 will directly and irresistibly to the working of the good.
 
 274 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 39. 
 
 The four chief virtues and the three theological virtues, as 
 adopted from Augustine, are only different manners of loving 
 God ; God is their ultimate goal, as also their source ; his 
 gracious working and our love, both inseparably united, con- 
 stitute their impelling power ; fear does indeed bring about 
 order, but not virtue. Although the book of Jansen was 
 burned at Rome, and forbidden by Papal bulls, still his 
 opinions continued to disseminate themselves in the Nether- 
 lands and in France, and bade defiance to Jesuitism. The 
 writings of Arnauld, Pascal, Nicole, Quesnel, developed the 
 moral principles of Jansen still further, and though they in 
 fact remained far remote from evangelical purity of faith, 
 and even defended as a high virtue the afflicting of the body 
 by fasting and other severe acts of penance, even to self- 
 mortification, still they were thoroughly in earnest for moral 
 purity, required complete moral self-denial out of love of 
 God, and placed the moral worth of all actions, and even of 
 their ascetic practices, essentially in the disposition of the 
 heart ; and their ground-principles were definite and clear, 
 and proof against all sophistry.* Arnauld assailed effectu- 
 ally the ethics of the Jesuits. Pascal's (ob. 1662) "Pensees" 
 (1669 and later), consisting of thoughts on religion without 
 any very close connection, attained to a very wide circula- 
 tion. That the presentation of these quite plain thoughts 
 could produce so great an impression, is evidence of how 
 deeply had sunk the Christian life, and of how great was the 
 necessity of reformation. Peter Nicole (ob. 1695) worked ef- 
 fectually, through his numerous popular and essentially Scrip- 
 ture-inspired writings on special moral topics, toward a purer 
 form of ethics ; t and this was done in still wider circles by 
 QuesneVs "Moral Reflections" (at first in 1671, on the Pour 
 Gospels, afterward on the entire New Testament) which were 
 affected with a slight tinge of mysticism ; (Sainte-Beuve : 
 "Resolutions," etc., 1689, 3, 4to.). The open or under- 
 handed opposition of the Jesuits to these writings simply 
 awakened the attention of the people all the more to the 
 great difference between the parties, and that, too, not to the 
 
 * Comp. Reuchlin: Geschichte von Portrayal, 1839, and the same au- 
 thor's Pascals Leben, 1840, neither work entirely unprejudiced, 
 t Rirchenhistor. Archiv. v. Stiiudlin, etc., 1824, 1, 127.
 
 39.] QUIETISM. 275 
 
 advantage of the Jesuits. The chief strength of Jansenism 
 lay in its opposition to the Jesuits ; its own positive contents, 
 as an emphasizing of the practical phase of Augustinianism, 
 was not consequentially carried out ; it was not able to disen- 
 thrall itself from the unevangelical ground-thoughts of the 
 corrupted church, but halted at half- ways ; and hence though 
 it had a wide-reaching, it did not have a permanent and pro- 
 found, influence. Discarding the system of external work- 
 holiness and insisting on the inner element of the moral life, 
 it yet did not clearly and purely embrace the evangelical 
 thought of faith, which first lays hold on grace and then 
 freely carries out the life of grace ; but it regarded morality 
 not merely as an evidence of salvation, but also, though 
 without merit in itself, as a means of salvation ; hence its in- 
 sisting on painfully-anxious ascetic practices. 
 
 The mystical current of ethics, with which the Jansenists 
 always manifested a sympathy, was represented by Francis 
 de Sales (bishop of Geneva, ob. 1622, and subsequently canon- 
 ized) in several works;* \>yVergier (abbot of St. Cyr, ob. 1643) 
 a Jansenist, who was already powerfully working in the direc- 
 tion of Quietism, and who encouraged the severest, and even 
 cruel, self-mortifications; t and by Cardinal Bona (ob. 1674.) J 
 Most remarkable, however, though quite consequential, was 
 the manner in which mysticism was transformed into Quiet- 
 ism by the Spaniard, Michael Molinos (afterward in Rome,) 
 whose work entitled "Spiritual Guide," originally (1675) in 
 Spanish, soon disseminated itself throughout Romish Europe. 
 As the goal of morality is union with God through an entire 
 turning away from the creature, hence true morality must 
 manifest itself, not in acting in the outer world, but in turn- 
 ing away from it. Such is the doctrine which Molinos de- 
 rives from his favorites among the earlier mystics, from 
 Dionysius the Areopagite down. In contemplation, in the 
 path of faith, in immediate spiritual vision of God, without 
 the intervention of an inferential process of thought, the 
 soul already possesses eternal truth. True vision, inward 
 
 * (Euvres, Paris, 1821, 16 t., 1834. t Opp. theol., 1642, 1653. 
 
 J Manuductio ad calum, 1664, and frequently ; Opp. Antv., 1673,1789. 
 Walch : Einl. in d. Bd. ttreit. ausser. d. ev. K; 1^24, ii, p. 982 ; 
 Staudlin u. Tschirner : ArcMv., i, 2, 175. 
 
 19
 
 276 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 39. 
 
 rest and inward composure, the remaining silent in the 
 presence of God, the beholding of God without figure or 
 form, and without distinguishing between his attributes, as 
 the absolutely One, all this is not a self-acquired active 
 state, but a passive one imparted by God himself to the soul, 
 so that consequently God alone works in man, and the soul 
 itself remains motionless and inactive, yields itself entirely 
 to the solely-working divine activity, is entirely united 
 with God ; this is the true, pure manner of prayer, which 
 cannot be uttered in words, but is a holy, keeping-silence of 
 the soul. Satiated in this union with God the soul is entire- 
 ly filled with the divine, and hates all worldly things, feels 
 a repugnance to every thing earthly, forgets every thing 
 created, is divested, in its inner solitude, of all affections 
 and thoughts, of all inclinations and all creature-will, with- 
 draws itself into its most innermost depths, and enjoys, in 
 its total self-forgetfulness (entirely merged into God), perfect 
 inner rest, and holy peace ; self-mortification and self-denial 
 are but disciplinary helps for beginners in the acquiring of 
 salvation, but do not themselves lead to perfection ; this is 
 attained only through sinking into one's own nothingness, 
 through "self-annihilation," through the putting on of, and 
 becoming united with, God. Molinos, though at first favored 
 by the Pope, was afterward delivered over, by the influence 
 of the Jesuits, to the Inquisition, and was required to disa- 
 vow his doctrines (1687), and died in prison. Many of the 
 propositions condemned were only inferences drawn from 
 his writings, though not expressly taught by himself. In 
 spite of this and other persecutions, mysticism still continued 
 to exist, also in its quietistic form, in the Latin nations. 
 (Madam Bouvier de la Mothe Guion ob. 1717 represented it 
 in numerous writings, mostly published by Poiret, in which 
 she sometimes goes in fervent mystical depth of love, even 
 beyond Molinos, the out-gush of a glowingly enthusiastic 
 womanly heart.) Fenelon, archbishop of Cambray, favored 
 the doctrine of Madame Guion, and endeavoreti by moderating 
 her quietistic views to conjure the opposition; and his writ- 
 ings, which portray in simple, noble eloquence the pious life 
 of the Christian, and keep free from the extremes of one- 
 sided mysticism, and uniformly place love to God in the fore-
 
 40.] HUMANISM. 277 
 
 ground as the essence of the moral, offer and propose, in op- 
 position to the pettifogging dialectics of Jesuitical morality, 
 the Christian spirituality of the heart. His mystical master- 
 piece (Explication des Maxims des Saintes, 1697, and often sub- 
 sequently) was condemned by the Pope and proscribed; 
 Fenelon yielded. 
 
 SECTION XL. 
 
 Independently pf the Reformation, because averse 
 to Christianity itself, and standing rather in connec- 
 tion with the already previously existing breaking- 
 loose from the evangelically-moral consciousness 
 which showed itself, as godlessness on the one hand, 
 and as humanism on the other, there was developed, 
 in antithesis to the Christian religion and to Mediaeval 
 philosophy (as also in antithesis to the riper Greek 
 philosophy, and consequently to the historical spirit in 
 general) an essentially new philosophical movement, 
 which, while moving forward under manifold modi- 
 h'cations of form, gradually won a progressively 
 greater influence on theology, and in fact chiefly also 
 on theological ethics, leading the same astray, on the 
 one hand, into deep-reaching errors, but also, on the 
 other (and in fact because of these errors) bringing it 
 to a riper self-examination and to a clearer self-con- 
 sciousness. Showing a preference, in contrast to 
 the precedent of the better form of scholasticism, 
 to those ancient moralists who already represented 
 the decadence of Greek thought, namely, to the Epi- 
 cureans, the Stoics, and the Skeptics, or indeed also, 
 merely in a general way, to the so-called humanistic 
 spirit of antiquity, this movement (which found 
 favor especially in Italy and France, because of the 
 there-increasing demoralization of the higher classes), 
 shows itself at first, for the most part, simply in the
 
 278 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 40. 
 
 form of general maxims and sentiments, and attained 
 only rarely to a more scientific shape. Scarcely any- 
 where save in Germany did this current of thought 
 rise to scientific earnestness and philosophical devel- 
 opment, and thereby to a more substantial moral 
 character. Spinoza broke off all connection with 
 ancient and Mediaeval philosophy, and developed a 
 consequential Pantheistic system, in which ethics 
 assumes the form of an objective describing of the 
 absolutely unfree, purely mechanically-conceived 
 moral life, as determined with unconditional nature- 
 necessity by the life of the universe, although, be- 
 cause of the unhistorical originality of his manner of 
 thinking, he exerted but little influence upon his (for 
 this element, yet unreceptive) age. All the greater, 
 however, became the influence of the philosophy of 
 Leibnitz, representing as it did a world-theory the 
 opposite of that of Spinoza, and placing itself rigidly 
 on monotheistic ground, and standing in a much 
 ^closer connection with history; especially was this 
 influence extended through the labors of his some- 
 what independent disciple, Christian Wolf, who cre- 
 ated a very detailed and morally earnest system of 
 ethics, essentially under the form of the doctrine of 
 duties, which, as a purely philosophical opposition- 
 movement to the above-mentioned non-Christian and 
 anti-Christian current, attained to a not undeserved in- 
 fluence on Christian ethics in Germany, and gave rise 
 in Crusius to an evangelically deeper, though not phil- 
 osophically carried-out, development of moral science. 
 
 It is utterly incorrect and -anti-historical to deduce the 
 collective, and (as some have done) even the anti-Christian 
 philosophy of modern times from the Reformation, or even 
 to regard it as standing in any close connection therewith.
 
 40.] ERASMUS. 279 
 
 The essence of the Reformation is not the freeing of the in- 
 dividual subject from all objective authority. Historically, 
 we are forced to hold fast to the fact that both before, and 
 during, and after, the time of the Reformation, there were 
 prevailing still other entirely different spiritual influences 
 than the religiously-evangelical one, influences which were 
 in part entirely independent of the Reformation and of its 
 spirit, nay, even utterly opposed thereto, and in part, though 
 occasioned in their development by the movement of thought 
 going out from the Reformation, were yet not caused thereby. 
 The renewed cultivation of ancient classical literature, espe- 
 cially of the belletristic as distinguished from the philosophy 
 of Plato and Aristotle, played, in the Reformation-move- 
 ment, only a very subordinate and essentially negative role, 
 namely, in that it undermined the credit of scholasticism. 
 The deep earnestness of the religious life in the evangelical 
 church, the required inward purity, and the repentance of 
 regeneration, consisted but illy with a love for the exaltation 
 of the natural man, as exhibited in Greek literature ; and it 
 was much easier for humanism to find an undisturbed patron- 
 age within the Romish church, which, though indeed not 
 theoretically approving of the movement, had yet practically 
 already long since accorded it favor. Humanism was the 
 name self-assumed by this movement, which in antithesis to 
 the Christian world-theory placed man, in his natural devel- 
 opment, into the fore-ground even of its moral world-the- 
 ory, and threw as far as possible into the back-ground his 
 need of redemption, and which had consequently in Chris- 
 tianity only a scientific and aesthetic interest. The unbeliev- 
 ing impiety which prevailed widely in the Romish church of 
 that age, and which found its way even into the Papal chair, 
 had a much more lively sympathy for heathen literature 
 than the evangelical church, The Pelagian character of hu- 
 manism stood in fact nearer to the view of the Romish church 
 than to that of the evangelical. Luther turned the un- 
 evangelical Erasmus indignantly away ; Rome offered him a 
 cardinals hat. 
 
 It was quite natural, although it had nothing at all to do 
 with the evangelical Reformation, that there should now rise 
 in opposition to the one-sided idealism and spiritualism of
 
 280 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [40. 
 
 scholasticism, an equally one-sided realism and naturalism, 
 which would naturally enough find encouragement in the 
 spirit of the age as weaned off from the Mediaeval ideals of 
 chivalry and poetry, and as immersed in material interests 
 and in the prose of politics. This thoroughly non-Christian 
 naturalistic tendency, which attained to a more spiritual 
 content only in the sphere of German thought, manifested 
 from the very start a decided aversion to all history, an aver- 
 sion which constantly grew more marked and positive. This 
 anti-historical spirit began already to show itself in the at- 
 tempt to call again into life, in disregard to the entire his- 
 tory of Christian thought, an ante-Christian world-theory, 
 namely, to effect a rehabilitation of the spirit of the heathen 
 thought of Greece and Rome. At a later period the move- 
 ment went still further, broke even with the history of phi- 
 losophy, pushing it entirely aside even in its ancient form, 
 and the "philosophical" century thought to display its 
 strength in speaking disdainfully of the spiritual products 
 of a Plato and an Aristotle, and in regarding as philosophers 
 only third and fourth rate minds, such as Cicero, and in 
 basing itself, in boundless self-sufficiency, purely and simply 
 upon itself. It required all the pretension of the so-called 
 philosophical century to accept men, such as Rousseau and 
 Voltaire (who had in fact scarcely the faintest conception of 
 solid philosophical thought-work), as the greatest philoso- 
 phers of the world's history. From the history of thought, 
 these men were unwilling to learn any thing, but solely 
 from nature ; every one wanted to philosophize on his own 
 responsibility ; every thing had to be entirely new ; the new era 
 wished to owe nothing to the past, but contemptuously to 
 tread it under foot ; and the reaction from this anti-historical, 
 and hence unspiritual tendency, begins only quite late with 
 Schelling. Now as the Christianly-moral world-theory has a 
 thoroughly historical character, hence the history of this es- 
 sentially naturalistic form of ethics admits of no possible 
 organic incorporation into the history of Christian ethics ; it 
 simply moves side by side with the Christian current, 
 breaks, especially at a later period, disturbing, confusing, 
 and perverting, into it, but is with only slight exception 
 not a furthering element of its development.
 
 40.] ERASMUS SPINOZA. 281 
 
 Erasmus, who enters the ethical field in several treatises,* 
 does not as yet himself directly assail the Christianly-inoral 
 consciousness, but only presents with prudent reserve the 
 ethics of Plato and Cicero as very closely related to Christian 
 ethics, and mingles faint Christian views with Grecian, and 
 thereby reduces them to the level of Pelagianism. His as- 
 saults on the moral abuses of the church are devoid of Chris- 
 tian depth. Pomponatiw (of Padua and Bologna, ob. about 
 1525), f who, under the patronage of the Papal court, assailed 
 the doctrine of personal immortality, professed, in point of 
 ethics, to belong to the Stoic school, taught absolute deter- 
 minism, and presented the Christian view only ambiguously 
 along-side of the heathen. Lipsius, in the Netherlands (ob. > 
 1606) went still further in the exaltation of Stoicism, \ though 
 his opinions received no very favorable commendation from 
 his unbridled life and from his threefold change of faith 
 Romish, Lutheran, Eeformed, and then Romish again. In 
 all essential features belongs here also the Socinian ethics of 
 Crell, which is in many respects kindred to the later Ration- 
 alistic system, and presents (in a spirit of pure Pelagianism) 
 Christian ethics simply as improved Aristotelian ethics, and 
 prefers the latter to the ethics of the Old Testament. 
 Agrippa of Nettesheim (of Cologne, ob. 1535), undermined, by 
 a far-reaching skepticism, the certainty of all moral con- 
 sciousness, and explained this consciousness simply by mere 
 fortuitous habit and by fortuitously-adopted public man- 
 ners ; I his magico-alchemistic superstitiousness forms the 
 back-ground thereto. (Giordano Bruno, the forerunner of 
 Spinoza, produced no system of ethics.) 
 
 Less influential upon his own age than upon recent times, 
 was the philosophy of Spinoza. His chief work, Ethica 
 (1677), which appeared only after his death, constitutes al- 
 most an entire philosophical, system, of which the ethical 
 
 * Enchiridion militia christ. ; Motrimonii chrigt. institt. ; Institt. prin- 
 cipis christ. ; and others. 
 
 t Opp., Bas. 1567, 3 t. 
 
 I ManuHuctio ad Stoicam philosophiam, 2d ed., 1610. 
 
 Ethica Arietotelica, etc., Selenoburgi, s. a., 4to., later : Cosmopoli, 
 1681, 4to. 
 
 ij De incertitudine et vanitate scientiarum, 1527 (?) then in Col., 1531.
 
 282 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [40. 
 
 part proper forms indeed the largest but not the most philo- 
 sophical and important. This perspicuous arid mathemati- 
 cally-exact treatise presents not so strictly a speculative devel- 
 opment of the subject-matter as, rather, rational elucidations 
 and proofs of assumed propositions, among which, however, 
 some very important ones, which needed to be demonstrated, 
 are presented merely as axioms not needing proof, or are dis- 
 guised in definitions. That the Jewish, but also Judaism- 
 rejecting, philosopher should feel himself obliged also to 
 ignore the history of the human spirit in general, was nat- 
 urally to be expected ; his system (if we except the philosophy 
 of Descartes, which had likewise but little connection with 
 earlier philosophy, and whose monotheistical character Spi- 
 noza assails) has no historical antecedents proper, but in 
 fact begins anew the philosophical thought-work from the 
 very beginning, and develops the Pantheistic world-theory 
 so consequentially and undisguisedly as is nowhere else to be 
 found. God, as the solely existing substance whose two at- 
 tributes are thought and extension, has not a world different 
 from and outside of himself, but is this world himself, as 
 considered simply under a particular aspect. All particular 
 being is only a mode of the existence of God ; and all these 
 modes are conditioned by the absolute necessity of the divine 
 life, and cannot be otherwise than as they really are ; all that 
 is, is what, and as, it is, from necessity ; of every thing which 
 is or takes place the principle holds absolutely good : omnia 
 sunt ex necessitate natures divines determinata. Hence tins holds 
 good equally also of man, who is likewise a particular mode 
 of the being of God. When we say : " the human soul thinks 
 something," this is the same as to say: "God thinks," not 
 however in so far as God is infinite, but in so far as he con- 
 stitutes the essence of the human spirit. Hence human 
 thought is just as necessarily determined as is all being in 
 general, and hence knows per se, and necessarily, the truth. 
 Now, thinking has two phases : knowing and willing. Of 
 willing the same holds good as of knowing, namely, it is ab- 
 solutely determined in all its activity. Every will-act has a 
 definite cause, by which it is absolutely determined. Will- 
 ing can never contradict knowing, but is the immediate and 
 necessary product of the same, an.d is, strictly speaking,
 
 40.] SPINOZA. 283 
 
 identical therewith ; willing is affirming, and non-willing is 
 denying. He who believes that he speaks, or keeps silent, or 
 does any thing else, by free choice, dreams with open eyes. 
 Men delude themselves into thinking that they are free in 
 their volitions, only because they are not conscious of the 
 cause which absolutely determines them ; all that takes place 
 through the activity of the will is necessary, and therefore 
 good. This doctrine renders the heart calm and makes us 
 happy ; with it we have no longer any occasion for fear, for 
 we know that every thing takes place according to the ever- 
 lasting decree of God, with the same necessity as it follows 
 from the idea of a triangle, that its three angles are equal to 
 two right angles, teaches us to hate, to despise, to mock no 
 one, teaches us unlimited contentment (ii, prop. 48, 49). 
 
 All this is clear and consequential ; but how can the exist- 
 ence of a moral consciousness be reconciled therewith ? 
 How can any thing be morally required or done, if every thing 
 takes place with unconditional necessity, and if will-freedom 
 is only a false appearance ? That there can be no question 
 of a moral command proper, of an "ought," Spinoza himself 
 virtually admits, inasmuch as he declares it his purpose to 
 speak of human actions just as if the matter in question 
 were lines, surfaces, and solids (iii. prowm.) We are active 
 in so far as any thing takes place within or without us, 
 of which we are the perfect cause ; and the more we are act- 
 ive, and the less we are passive, so much the more perfect 
 are we. Even as all other things, so also the spirit strives to 
 retain and to enlarge its reality ; its striving is its willing ; 
 the end is not different from the cause from the unf ree- 
 acting impulse of nature ; the passing-over to a higher real- 
 ity awakens the feeling of pleasure ; the opposite, that of 
 displeasure. Pleasure in connection with the consciousness 
 of its cause, is love; the opposite is hate. For a real differ- 
 ence between good and evil there is, in this world-theory, no 
 place whatever. Neither good nor evil is a reality in things 
 themselves, but both are simply subjective conceptions and 
 notions, which we form by a comparison of things, and are 
 hence only relative relations having their basis not in things 
 but in ourselves, are only modes of oar thinking; for exam- 
 ple, a particular piece of music is good for a melancholic
 
 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 40. 
 
 person, not good for a different one, and is of no significancy 
 at all for a deaf one ; hence it is per se neither good nor bad, 
 (iv, prcef.) Hence we cannot say in general that any thing 
 at all is good per se ; it is only by comparing one thing with 
 another higher entity, or with a notion formed by ourselves, 
 that we find any thing to be good ; good and evil are only 
 expressions of our subjective judgment as to that for or 
 against which we have a desire or an aversion. Per se, how- 
 ever, every thing is good, because necessary ; nothing is or 
 transpires without God or against his will ; every thing is 
 just as, according to eternal, divine destination and necessi- 
 ty, it ought to be ; hence the notion of evil is only a limited 
 and ungrounded manner of thinking on the part of our own 
 understanding, is nothing on the part of God. Evil is in 
 fact, even in our own conception, only a negative something, 
 a privation ; but God knows no mere negative something, 
 hence God knows absolutely nothing of evil (comp. the view 
 of Erigena, 83), and hence there is in reality no such thing as 
 evil ; for what God does not know does not exist, and outside 
 of God's thinking there is no other thinking. Moreover, 
 were evil or sin a real something, God would necessarily not 
 only know it, but also be the cause of it, for God is the sub- 
 stance and the cause of all that is ; and what is of God can- 
 not be evil. Hence it is- only a false manner of looking at 
 things, an imagination, when we find anything evil in the 
 real world, false, in that we bring things into relation to 
 ourselves, to our fortuitous feelings of pleasure and displeas- 
 ure, instead of contemplating them in their own nature ; in 
 and of itself, and hence in truth, every thing real is good and 
 perfect. In all seemingly free action nothing else can take 
 place than what results with necessity from the existing cir- 
 cumstances of the acting subject. Even the stings of con- 
 science are a self-deception, and are nothing other than a 
 sadness or chagrin which we feel over some kind of a failure. 
 Let it not be objected to this, that if men do every thing 
 from necessity, and hence, also, sin from necessity, they can- 
 not consequently be blamed therefor, but that all men would 
 then be necessarily happy. On the contrary, man can be 
 without guilt, and, notwithstanding that, be also devoid of 
 happiness. The horse is not guilty for its not being man,
 
 40.] SPINOZA. 285 
 
 and nevertheless it still remains a horse ; and he who is bitten 
 by a mad-dog is also not guilty therefor, and yet he goes 
 mad ; he who is blind was in fact destined in the concatena- 
 tion of beings to be blind and not seeing (Ep., 32, 34.) This 
 is surely the most wonderful justification of the moral order 
 of the universe which one could possibly fall upon ; for, in 
 fact, whence can mad-dogs originate in an absolutely neces- 
 sary and good world ? If every thing is necessary, and the 
 entirely innocent can be made mad by mad-dogs, this is evi- 
 dently a very bad sort of world-order. And we must ask : 
 if all human thinking is the thinking of God himself, and is 
 absolutely necessary, how is there in fact possible any man- 
 ner of false thinking and imagining ? If men really regard 
 evil as real, then this is, in fact, an error on the part of God 
 himself, which our philosopher should endeavor to account 
 for; but if there is no evil, then there is also no error, and 
 the system thus entangles itself in its own meshes. And 
 when Spinoza makes error to be just as necessary as truth 
 (ii, prop., 35, 36), he still cannot evade this contradiction by 
 declaring error to be merely relative, for a merely seeming 
 error would yet in reality be the truth, and hence would not 
 admit of the turn here taken by Spinoza. 
 
 Hence so infers Spinoza all is good which is useful; 
 and all is evil which hinders from a good (iv, def., 
 1, 2.) Hence virtue is the power or capacity of acting in 
 conformity to our own nature ; virtus nihil aliud est, quam ex 
 legibus proprice natures agere; hence every one must follow the 
 necessity of his nature, and by it judge of good and evil. 
 Hence sin is avoided for the simple reason that it is contrary 
 to our nature ; but why sin is yet in fact committed, Spinoza 
 needs not to answer, because sin in the proper sense of the 
 word cannot be committed at all ; of sin there can be any 
 question only in the State, and, there, it is disobedience to 
 civil law (iv, 37, schol. 2). As reason can require nothing 
 which would be against nature, hence it requires that each 
 should strive for that which is useful to himself ; and useful 
 is that which brings each to a higher reality. Hence morali- 
 ty requires that each should love himself, should seek to 
 preserve as much as possible his existence, and to bring it 
 to higher perfection and reality ; and man is all the more
 
 286 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [40. 
 
 virtuous the more he seeks after that which is useful to him, 
 (iv, prop. 18). As the essence of reason is knowledge, hence 
 knowledge is the most useful of things, and the rational man 
 holds nothing for truly useful save that which contributes to 
 knowledge. Hence the highest good is the knowledge of 
 God, and the highest virtue is the striving thereafter; and 
 every man has the strength necessary thereto ; and as the body 
 is directly connected with the spirit, and as the spirit is all 
 the more vigorous the more vigorous the body is, hence it is 
 useful and virtuou^ to make the body skillful. 
 
 The good always awakens delight ; hence delight is per se 
 necessarily good, and sadness necessarily evil, as well as 
 whatever leads to sadness. Hence compassion is, for the 
 rational man, evil and irrational ; true, it often inclines us to 
 beneficence, but this we should do at any rate even without 
 compassion, (this is the virtue of generositas) ; and the truly 
 wise man knows indeed that nothing is or takes place in the 
 world over which we could grieve ; moreover compassion 
 easily leads astray to false acting (Efh. iv, 50). Also humility 
 as including a feeling of sadness is not a virtue, and springs 
 not from reason, but from error, inasmuch as in it man recog- 
 nizes himself as, in some respect, powerless, whereas, in vir- 
 tue of the prevalence of universal necessity, he has all the 
 power necessary to his destination (iv, 53). Repentance over 
 committed sin is not only not virtuous, but it is irrational, be- 
 cause it rests on the delusion of having done a free and, that 
 too, evil action, whereas the action was in reality necessary, 
 and hence good ; he who feels repentance is consequently 
 doubly miserable. However, our moralist appears to shrink 
 back from the practical consequences of this doctrine ; he 
 declares it as very dangerous when the great masses are not 
 kept in bounds by humility, repentance and fear (iii, 59, def. 
 27; iv, prop. 54), an apprehension which is, of course, en- 
 tirely inexplicable from the ground-principle of his system, 
 and must be banished, as a mere "imagination," into the 
 sphere of unreason ; for how can there be, in Spinoza's 
 world, a dangerous populace to be curbed only by false no- 
 tions, seeing that indeed every thing that takes place is abso- 
 lutely a necessary divine act ? The notion that any thing is 
 bad or evil is, according to Spinoza, per se already an evil ;
 
 40.] SPINOZA. 287 
 
 if man is truly rational and has only correct ideas, then he 
 can have no notion of evil at all, for it in fact does not exist ; 
 whatever affects us as pain or suffering, is such only in vir- 
 tue of an erroneous, confused conception, an "imagination;" 
 if we have correct knowledge, then are we free from all 
 pain ; the more we recognize all things as necessary, so much 
 the less are we subject to suffering ; every painful state of 
 the emotions disappears so soon as we form to ourselves a clear 
 notion thereof. Hence, according to Spinoza, the sole evil 
 is false conceptions, but how these could arise we are not in- 
 formed. He who truly knows himself and his circumstances, 
 has necessarily joy ; and as in all true knowing he also knows 
 God, and as this knowing is attended with joy, hence he also 
 loves God ; hence in the knowledge and love of God consists 
 the highest joy. God himself, however, (conceived as the 
 universe) is without states of emotion, without love or aver- 
 sion. God can neither love nor hate, save in the love or 
 hate of man himself ; and when any one who loves God de- 
 sires to be loved in turn by God, he desires in fact that God 
 should cease to be God. True, we may indeed speak of 
 God's love, but not in such a manner as that God as a per- 
 sonal spirit should love man, but only that God loves in our 
 love ; God loves not me but God loves himself, namely, in 
 that I love Him. 
 
 Spinoza's ethics appears at once as very widely different 
 from all preceding ethics ; its essential characteristic is, un- 
 historicalness. Greek philosophy, and also scholasticism, are 
 the fruit of a long and vigorous development of an historical 
 current of human thought, presuppose an already historical 
 moral consciousness, for which they aim to create a scientific 
 form. Spinoza's ethics sprang, in no sense whatever, from 
 the spirit of an historical people, has no historical antece- 
 dents, no historical consecration, and hence wears in its lofty, 
 reality-spurning bearing, also the character of historical im- 
 possibility. Plato's idealistic state is historically possible 
 on a Greek basis ; Spinoza's ethics can absolutely never and 
 nowhere be the expression of the moral consciousness of a 
 people, can be appropriated only as their isolated moral 
 consciousness by single persons, who in proud selfishness 
 imagine themselves far above the morally-religious conscious-
 
 288 -CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [40. 
 
 ness of the masses, whereas in fact they owe the very possi- 
 bility of their moral existence in society simply to this con- 
 sciousness of the masses. Spinoza has learned nothing, 
 whether from the philosophers of Greece, from the Middle 
 Ages, from the religion of the Old Testament, or from Chris- 
 tianity ; his ethical speculations are devoid of preparatory 
 antecedents, are an absolutely revolutionary breaking-off 
 from all historical spirit-development, base themselves 
 purely upon individual thinking. His unimportant depend- 
 ence on Descartes^is not in conflict therewith. If he had 
 had even the slightest appreciation for the significance and 
 the rights of history, he would have been required, on the 
 very ground of his own system, to recognize the Christian 
 world-theory as a highly important revelation of the alone- 
 ruling God, and to regard history in general as a normal and 
 necessary life-manifestation of God. Whereas in fact he turns 
 himself contemptuously away from all history- of thought, 
 as if God had come to true self-consciousness alone and sole- 
 ly in himself. He does not free himself in any sense from 
 the contradiction of declaring, on the one hand, all reality as 
 necessary and good, and all evil as mere appearance, and of 
 regarding on the other hand, all previously-existing spiritual 
 reality as absolutely wrong, senseless, and irrational. 
 
 Plato and Aristotle, for the reason that they stand more 
 within the current of histo'ry, stand also far nearer the Chris- 
 tian consciousness than Spinoza. In his wide-reaching antith- 
 esis to the real essence of spirit, which is in fact necessarily 
 history, he is the father of the Naturalism of more recent 
 times. Only the unf ree, the nature-entity, is real ; the free, 
 the spiritual, and hence also the moral, in general has no ex- 
 istence whatever. Though indeed he contrasts thought and 
 extension in space, as being of different nature, yet this 
 thinking is in fact not free and spiritual, but bears absolute- 
 ly a nature-character, has not ends before it, but simply 
 presents manifestations of a necessary ground ; so in the case 
 of God, so in the case of man. Ethics is therefore degraded 
 to a mere describing of necessary nature-phenomena; and 
 where it falls into the tone of moral exhortation in view of 
 rational ends, then this is to be understood either in a mere- 
 ly improper sense, and is indulged in simply in view of the
 
 40.] SPINOZA. 289 
 
 unwise multitude, or it comes into irreconcilable contradic- 
 tion with the ground-thought of the system. The Jew contin- 
 ues a Jew, in this Christian age, only through hatred against 
 history, which has in fact pronounced his condemnation ; he 
 is either the petrified guest in the midst of living society, 
 or the insolently mocking despiser of all historical reality, 
 utterly devoid of reverence and respect for the historical 
 spirit, a champion of the wildest radicalism. Spinoza, 
 breaking loose from the petrified form of Talmudic Juda- 
 ism, stands entirely isolated in the worle^ of the historical 
 spirit; he can find for himself no proper place in this world, 
 makes only an attempt to build up an entirely new world 
 out of himself. The same self-delusion which prevails 
 throughout post-Christian Judaism, namely, in that it dreams 
 of still having an historical character, whereas it has in fact 
 sunk utterly into mere lifeless matter, is also potent in Spi- 
 noza. He dreams of creating a system of ethics, whereas it 
 proves to be really nothing else than the theoretical describ- 
 ing of a moral instinct devoid of a rational end. Where 
 the "must" dominates, there all "should" and "would" 
 cease. In sharp contrast to the pure idealistic Pantheism of 
 Erigena, who really recognizes only God and not the world, 
 and who, like the Indians, finds evil only in the distinguishing 
 of the worldly and finite from God, Spinoza holds in fact fast 
 to the reality and divinity of the finite, merges God into the 
 world, and regards the real, simply as it is, in its isolated 
 separateness, as good and perfect. The Pantheism of Erige- 
 na leads to an ascetic turning-away from the world ; that of 
 Spinoza, to a contented and absolutely satisfied merging of 
 self into the world; and the "akosmism" which Hegel 
 thinks he discovers in Spinoza is not to be found in him, 
 but rather in the nobler and far more spiritual John Scotus 
 Erigena. 
 
 Spinoza exerted in his own age but little influence. Not- 
 withstanding the deep spiritually-moral declension of that 
 'dark period, the religious God-consciousness was as yet too 
 vital to fall in with this naturalistic Pantheism ; and the re- 
 quirement to recognize all reality as necessary and good, 
 could find little response at a time of profound disorganiza- 
 tion and far-reaching material, misfortune in Germany. It
 
 290 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [40. 
 
 was reserved for a later age, when a wide-spread irreligious 
 sentiment was attempting to create for itself a scientific jus- 
 tification, to emphasize the doctrine of Spinoza not merely in 
 its undeniable (though yet not to be overestimated) philo- 
 sophical significancy, but also to attempt to exalt it to a 
 religious character, nay, even to a pretended transfiguration 
 of Christianity, and "to offer a lock to the manes of the holy 
 Spinoza" (Schleierni., Reden; 2 ed.. p. 68). 
 
 That from this doctrine there could arise for the moral life 
 itself only a perverting influence, needs for the unpreju- 
 diced mind no proof. The letting of one's self alone in his 
 immediate naturalness and reality, is here even lauded as 
 wisdom ; repentance and sanctification within, and sanctify- 
 ing activity without, become folly, because no one has 
 either the right or the ability initiatively to interfere with 
 the eternally necessary course of things. That Spinoza him- 
 self was an upright man, proves nothing in favor of his 
 system; the weight of custom and the natural moral senti- 
 ments are often stronger than a perverse theory ; nor is, in 
 fact, mere uprightness in our social relations the full mani- 
 festation of the moral. 
 
 Leibnitz, though also stimulated by Descartes, but op- 
 posed to Spinoza in his fundamental thoughts, and more 
 imbued with an historical spirit, and standing in closer con- 
 nection with the results of precedent spiritual development, 
 did not produce a system of ethics proper, though he broke 
 the way for the development of such. Though highly re- 
 specting the Christian consciousness, he yet had no very deep 
 appreciation for the same, and hence his thoughts in relation 
 to religion and morality are of a somewhat external character. 
 He is unable to comprehend evil in the purely spiritual 
 sphere, but seeks for its roots, beyond this sphere, in the 
 essence of the creature as such. God as the absolutely per- 
 fect rational spirit has indeed realized, among all possible 
 conceptions of a world, the best one ; but as the world does 
 not contain the fullness of all perfection, which in fact exists 
 in God alone, nor yet all possible perfections, as in fact all 
 that is possible has not become real, hence there lies in the 
 conception even of the best world still at the same time the 
 necessity of a certain imperfection, without which a World is
 
 40.] LEIBNITZ. 291 
 
 in fact not conceivable, and which consequently belongs to 
 the essence of the world as such, and is a malum metaphysi- 
 cum ; this is, however, not per se a reality, but only a non- 
 being, a limit. The reality of the morally evil is fortuitous, 
 is the fault of man ; only the possibility of it is necessary. 
 In his popularly- written work " Theodicee" (1710), he further 
 develops this thought, although elucidatorily rather than 
 scientifically. Though Leibnitz recognizes the freedom of 
 the will and the guilt of man in relation to sin, still he does 
 not sufficiently deeply conceive of this guilt, and above all 
 of the significancy and workings of sin as an historical world- 
 power, otherwise he would have constructed his theory quite 
 differently. He constantly seeks the roots of evil elsewhere 
 than in committed sin. The naturalistic determinism of 
 Spinoza, however, he utterly rejects; to the free personal 
 God, corresponds the freedom of the rational creature. The 
 rational man never acts from mere fortuitous fancies, but 
 only from rational grounds. But this moral necessity does 
 not interfere with liberty, because the possibility of irrational 
 determinations still remains. Leibnitz conceives of ethics 
 essentially as the doctrine of right, inasmuch as moral duty 
 is a right of God upon us. Right, in the wide sense of the 
 word, has three stages : mere right, which requires that we 
 injure no one ; equitableness, which leaves and imparts to 
 every one his own ; and piety, which fulfills the will of God 
 and thereby preserves the harmony of the world. Hence 
 faith in the personal, almighty and all- wise God is the found- 
 ation of all right ; and the essence of piety is love to God, 
 from which all other forms of love, constituting the essence 
 of justness, receive their power. To love signifies to be re- 
 joiced by the happiness of another, or to make that happi- 
 ness one's own. The proper object of love is the beautiful, 
 that is, that, the contemplation of which delights ; but God 
 is the highest beautiful. Piety as the highest stage of right, 
 creates also the highest moral communion the church which 
 is destined to embrace entire humanity. The three forms of 
 society, corresponding to the three stages of right, have also 
 a threefold uniting-bond : mere power, and reverence, and 
 conscience ; but also the first two receive their real character 
 of right, only through the latter. Love to God leads us into 
 
 20
 
 292 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 40. 
 
 the way of the highest happiness, is in itself already the 
 beginning of the same in the "this-side," and works a con- 
 stant progress in perfection also in the "yon-side." * 
 
 In an original spirit, and, in the moral sphere, almost in- 
 dependently of Leibnitz, wrote Christian Wolf. He created 
 a complete ethical systern.f His great reputation, and the 
 authoritative character which he enjoyed with his contem- 
 poraries, were, however, almost entirely overthrown in the 
 Kantian period ; that over-estimation, as also the subsequent 
 under-estimation, were equally unjust. A many-sided boldly- 
 exploring spirit, and, though in many respects deceiving 
 himself as to the scientific value of propositions which he 
 uttered with the greatest confidence, and attempted to dem- 
 onstrate in a not unfrequently stiff mathematical form, he 
 yet attained to an extraordinary influence, because of the 
 clearness and precision of his ideas, and of their manner of 
 presentation, and gave rise, also in the sphere of ethics, to a 
 very vigorous scientific movement ; and though his com- 
 mendable effort to remain in harmony with Christian revela- 
 tion was not by any means always realized, yet it helped to 
 preserve for a long while in Germany, as in contrast to the 
 frivolous hatred of Revelation prevalent in France and in 
 England, a more earnest Christian and scientific spirit. 
 Precisely in the field of morals Wolf was greatly influential 
 toward the independent shaping of German science; and he 
 broke off the excessive dependence, also of theological 
 ethics, on Aristotle. While Wolf, in his decided, scientifi- 
 cally-grounded recognition of the personal God whom he 
 conceives of indeed rather merely, in his relation to the 
 world, as Creator and Governor, and less, in relation to him- 
 self, in his inner essence holds fast to the objectively- 
 religious basis of ethics-, he yet at first view seems to en- 
 
 *In various essays, especially fn the preface to Cod. juris diplom., 
 1693; Gubrauer: Leibnitz, 1842, i, p. 226 sqq. 
 
 t Verniinft. Gedanken v. d. Metischen Tfvun n. Lassen (1720) ; more 
 elaborate is : PMlosopMa moralis s. EtMca, methodo scientifico pertractata 
 (1750), both works forming the first part of a whole which he presented 
 in his PMlos. prac. univ. (1738), the second part of which embraces the 
 doctrine of society or politics ; also in his Jus natures (1740) there is 
 much ethical matter.
 
 40.] WOLF. 293 
 
 danger the subjective foundation thereof, namely, the moral 
 freedom of the will, by his determinism. 
 
 Whatever takes place, also the seemingly fortuitous, has a 
 sufficient ground, either in itself or in its connection with 
 other things, and is in so far determined ; there takes place 
 no change whatever which is not conditioned in the pecul- 
 iarity of the concatenation of the universe, and determined 
 by the antecedent circumstances thereof, just as a clock, set 
 in motion for a whole year, is determined in each moment of 
 its movement by this its first starting ; the world is just such 
 an absolutely, determined clock-work, is a machine. Also 
 in the freedom of the human will, every real determination 
 has its sufficient ground, and is not arbitrary. This freedom 
 consists in the possibility of choosing and doing the opposite 
 of what we really do, but that the opposite possible should 
 become real pre-supposes motives, and in so far as the motive 
 is sufficient, this determination to realization is also condi- 
 tioned by the motive. It is impossible that a person who 
 knows something as better, should prefer to it the worse, and 
 hence in such a case it is necessary that he should choose the 
 better ; but the will is free in this nevertheless, as in fact 
 man has the ground of his determination of will in himself. 
 This sounds at once very questionable, and, as is well 
 known, Wolf was, because of this doctrine, driven from the 
 Prussian states, as politically dangerous. However, it is not 
 to be overlooked that when man is considered as a rational 
 creature per se irrespective of the already-existing depravity, 
 his freedom is in faet not a groundless and irrational caprice, 
 but is determined by rational knowledge, and that, for the 
 really moral man in possession of correct' knowledge, there 
 does in fact exist a moral necessity of following the rational. 
 Hence Wolf's thought is not per se incorrect, but only too 
 unguarded, and therefore liable to misunderstanding. As, 
 however, Wolf expressly declares himself against determin- 
 ism as held by Spinoza, and as he distinctly and repeatedly 
 asserts the real, free will -determination of man, though in- 
 deed not as irrational caprice,* we are consequently not at 
 liberty to attribute to him the full determinism of Spinoza. 
 The question as to whether, and in how far, our knowledge is 
 
 * Introduction to the 2d ed. of his Moral.
 
 294 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 40. 
 
 conditioned by and dependent on our moral nature, and hence 
 as to whether this knowledge is freely, or absolutely unfree- 
 ly, determined, Wolf does not answer, but simply holds, 
 that our willing is conditioned and determined by our knowl- 
 edge ; and with him, as with Socrates, the essential point is 
 simply to correct and disseminate knowledge, and then the 
 corresponding moral action follows of itself with inner 
 necessity. Hence we can explain the almost unbounded 
 pretensions which the Wolfian ethics makes, and hence also 
 the per se correct, but (in view of the actual condition of 
 humanity) erroneous thought that ethics is not simply a sci- 
 entific consciousness of the moral life, but also an essential 
 motive to the moral life itself, that, properly understood, 
 ethics is the source of virtue. This thought stands forth 
 more or less clearly throughout Wolf's writings; practice 
 follows theory of necessity. The moral life is like a mathe- 
 matical question proposed for solution ; it is only necessary 
 to have clear notions of virtue and vice and of duty, and 
 then evil disappears of itself, and man becomes virtuous. 
 "I have," says Wolf, (in the preface to his second edition), 
 "not a little lightened the entire practice of the good and 
 the avoidance of the evil, by the fact that I have shown that 
 when one wishes to turn the will, it is just the same as when 
 one disputes, namely, in that one has at all times in the 
 one case, as in the other, simply to answer to one of the prem- 
 ises of an inference; " and later (in the preface to the third 
 edition) he says: "When my writings on world-wisdom and, 
 among them, the present one on what men are to do and 
 what not to do, appeared, those who are able to understand 
 and judge of the matter for themselves, and who were not 
 prepossessed by unfavorable prejudices, judged that thence- 
 forth reason and virtue would become universal, and that 
 every tody would strive, by this means, to attain to happiness 
 of life." Wolf, however, expressly deprecates the miscon- 
 ception, that in his ethics he ' ' ascribes too much to nature 
 and leaves no room for grace; the doctrines taught by me," 
 says he, "serve much rather to make clearly understood the 
 difference between nature and grace, and especially the great 
 help which the latter is to the former, so that consequently 
 they are guides to grace ; " the Christian religion offers more
 
 40.] WOLF. 295 
 
 than world-wisdom can do ; rather does man learn by this 
 rational morality, that his natural powers do not suffice, and 
 hence he perceives all the better the necessity and excellency 
 of the grace which is offered to us in the Christian religion, 
 and which supplies that which nature lacks. How it can be 
 that the natural powers do not suffice, and how, on the pre- 
 sumption of such a lack of strength, the philosophical ethics 
 of "Wolf can yet be, independently, effectual in itself, we are 
 not informed. 
 
 Ethics has to do with the free actions of men as distin- 
 guished from the necessary ones ; and freedom consists in the 
 possibility of choice between several possible things. The 
 condition of a man is perfect when his earlier and later 
 conditions agree with each other, and all of them with the 
 essence and nature of man. The free actions of man pro- 
 mote or diminish this perfection, that is, they are either good 
 or lad. When, therefore, actions are to be judged according 
 to their moral worth, then we must inquire what change they 
 bring about in the condition of our body or soul. Hence 
 free actions become good or evil in virtue of their effect ; and 
 as the effect follows from them necessarily and cannot fail, 
 hence actions are good or evil in and of themselves, and are 
 not made so simply by God's will ; hence if it were possible 
 that there were no God, and that the present inter-depend- 
 ence of things could exist without him, still the free actions 
 of men would nevertheless remain good or evil. Here the 
 per so correct ground-thought of the moral receives an ex- 
 ternal and therefore misleading application, inasmuch as the 
 result of our actions is dependent on other powers than these 
 actions themselves ; only in an ideal and as yet not sin-per- 
 verted condition of humanity, would such a judging of the 
 moral worth of actions from their result, hold good, though 
 even then it would be certainly more appropriate to deter- 
 mine this worth from the essence of the action itself and not 
 simply from its result. In this respect Wolf clings so fast 
 to the merely-outward that he says : "Thus, he who is 
 tempted to steal learns that stealing is wrong, because it is 
 followed by the gallows." Equally one-sided is the con- 
 trasting of the goodness per se of an action and of the will 
 of God. The general maxim of ethics is therefore this: "Do
 
 296 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [40. 
 
 that which renders thee and thy condition, or that of others, 
 more perfect ; avoid that which makes it more imperfect ; " 
 this is a universal rule of nature. [This "or that of o'thers" 
 is only thrust in, and is not at all derived from the ground- 
 thought ; the dualism involved therein, and the possible con- 
 tradiction, are in no manner reconciled.] The sufficient 
 motive of the will is the knowledge of the good ; and it is 
 impossible that one should not will a per se good action, when 
 one only clearly comprehends it ; hence when we do not will 
 it, it is for no other reason than that we do not comprehend 
 it." Likewise is the knowledge of evil the motive of non- 
 willing or aversion, and hence it is likewise impossible that 
 one should will a per se evil action when one clearly under- 
 stands it. Hence all moral willing and doing of the good or 
 of the evil rests absolutely on our knowing or non-knowing. 
 True, man can indeed act contrary to his conscience, but this 
 takes place only when, because of special circumstances, he 
 regards the good as evil, or the 'fevil as good, and hence, 
 after all, from error. The ultimate end of all moral actions, 
 and hence of our entire life, is the perfection of ourselves and 
 of our condition, or happiness, which is consequently the 
 highest good for man. 
 
 Ethics proper, Wolf treats as the doctrine of duties. Duty 
 is an action which conforms to law. Law is a rule to which 
 we are bound to conform our free actions ; it is either a nat- 
 ural, a divine, or a human law. Reason is the teacher of the 
 law of nature ; this law fully embraces the whole moral life, 
 and is, for this life, sufficient and absolutely valid and un- 
 changeable, for it rests on the harmonizing of our actions 
 with our nature. But as this our nature is established by the 
 divine creative will, hence the law of nature is at the same 
 time also a divine law, an expression of the divine will, 
 though this will is not to be conceived of as an arbitrary 
 one, so that, for example, God's will might declare the per se 
 good for evil, and the per te evil for good. The duties are : 
 (1) duties of man toward himself, and more specifically, 
 toward his understanding, toward his will, toward his 
 body, and the duty in regard to our outward condition 
 (that is, our social position) ; (2) duties toward God, and 
 more specifically, love to God, fear and reverence, trust,
 
 40.] WOLF. . 297 
 
 prayer and thankfulness, and outward worship; (3) duties 
 toward other men, and more specifically, toward friends and 
 enemies, duties in regard to property, and duties in speech 
 and in contracts. This general classification of duties became 
 subsequently very usual. Upon ethics is based natural right, 
 which treats of the allowable, as ethics proper treats of the 
 obligatory; all rights rest on duties. The ground-thought 
 of right is : thou mayest do whatever sustains and promotes 
 the perfection of thy own condition and that of the condition 
 of others, and, thou mayest do nothing which is contrary 
 thereto. In- the further application of right to society, and 
 hence as politics, the welfare of society is the norm of action. 
 Wolfian ethics has manifestly, both in form and in contents, 
 great defects. In respect to form, it may be reproached with 
 a manifold commingling of empirical maxims with specula- 
 tion ; notions derived from experience are often simply ana- 
 lyzed and then used as bases for further inferences, and that, 
 too, with the pretension of philosophical validity ; also there 
 is abundant philosophical dogmatism, inasmuch as the 
 thoughts are very frequently not really developed in regular 
 process from the ground-thought, but are only associated and 
 joined with it. In respect to matter, there prevails through- 
 out this ethics, despite all its monotheistic presuppositions, 
 a naturalistic tendency; Wolf knows only the immediate 
 natural existence of the moral spirit, but not the history 
 thereof, that is, the life proper of the same. His ethics has 
 a history of the spirit neither as its presupposition nor as its 
 goal ; there is created by the moral activity not a moral his- 
 tory of humanity, but only a state of the individual. Hence 
 the question as to whether indeed the actual nature of man 
 is not already in some respects a product of such a moral 
 history of humanity, whether or not it is a pure unchanged 
 original nature, falls outside of this circle of thought, and 
 in fact remained unheeded by philosophical ethics, and hence 
 also to a large degree by theological ethics, throughout 
 the eighteenth and a part of the nineteenth century ; and in 
 this respect Wolf was, in fact, the forerunner of the modern 
 Rationalistic school. And what he says of sinfulness, of 
 divine grace and of Christianity, by way of guarding against 
 this naturalistic ground-tendency, is rather mere personal
 
 298 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 40. 
 
 good-will than a consequential result of his system. All real 
 interest is directed here to the sufficient reason, and not to 
 the end ; there is lacking to morality and to history the vital 
 heart-blood of free spiritual productive creation. Chris- 
 tianity can be, to this world-theory, at best only a higher 
 revelation of the truth, a furthering of knowledge, but not 
 an historical history-creating fact. Hence in the further 
 theological development of this stand-point, Christianity 
 constantly sunk more and more to a mere revealed system of 
 morals, which, however, contained and could contain nothing 
 other than the Wolfian doctrine itself. Positive contents 
 proper, Wolf does not really give to the moral law ; he does 
 not rise beyond mere formal definitions. What the good is, 
 in and of itself, we are not informed ; we learn only that it 
 stands in harmony with reason and makes us happy ; hence 
 it is embraced only in its relations to something else, but 
 not in its inner contents. 
 
 In the spirit of Wolf, though with some independence, 
 Cans labored further, in Tubingen ; his Discipline morales 
 omnes, 1739, is an able survey of the entire ethical field as 
 then known ; more theological is his Instruction in the Duties 
 of Christians, (1745, 4to., presenting ethics as "duty-impos- 
 ing God-acquaintance " and prefacing the doctrine of duties 
 simply by an essay on the four chief springs of all human 
 action and omission, namely, the flesh, nature, reason, and 
 the gracious workings of the Holy Spirit). Alexander Baum- 
 garten (a brother of the noted theologian) perfected, in his 
 PhilosopTiia ethica (1740, 1751), the Wolfian ethics, especially 
 in formal respects ; he places our duties toward Ged (as those 
 which condition all the others) at the head. G. F. Meier of 
 Halle wrote, on the basis of Baumgarten's book, a fuller and 
 more popular work : Philosophical Ethics (1753). (The volu- 
 minous and superficial Eberhard appears in his Ethics of Rea- 
 fnn (1781) merely as a feeble, barren imitator of Wolf.) 
 
 Nearly contemporaneously with Wolf, had Thomasius (of 
 Leipzig and Halle) presented ethics from the stand-point of 
 u. ere common sense in a very popular form,* offering indeed 
 
 * Von der Kunst verniinftig. u. tugenhaft zu LIEBBN, etc., 1710 ; Von 
 der Artzenei wider die unvernunftige Liebe, 1704 ; comp. Fiilleborn : 
 Betir. z. Gesch. d. "Phil, 1791, iv.
 
 40.] CRUSIUS. 299 
 
 many good observations, but containing neither precision 
 of thought nor a really scientific development. He places 
 Christian ethics higher than philosophical, but conceives of 
 the former very superficially; Aristotle and the schoolmen 
 he despises and combats without understanding them. The 
 essence of virtue is love, or the desire naturally inherent in 
 man to unite himself to, and to remain in union with, that 
 which the understanding recognizes as good ; in this love lies 
 blessedness, that is, repose of soul and absence of pain, as 
 the highest good ; love is irrational when it aims at vain, 
 transitory, and hurtful things, or when it is too violent, or 
 wills the impossible ; from such love spring all the vices. 
 General love to man, as the essence of morality, embraces five 
 chief virtues: sociableness, truthfulness, modesty, forbear- 
 ance, patience ; self-love should rest only on love to man. 
 The necessity of revelation, Thomasius recognizes ; philoso- 
 phy does not supply its place, but leads to it, in that it leads 
 to self-acquaintance. 
 
 Clear-headedly and with deep Christian knowledge, Chris- 
 tian August Crusius (of Leipzig, ob. 1776) opposed the Wolfian 
 philosophy, but was abler in criticizing than in creating, and 
 hence of more limited influence than Wolf, ("Directions for 
 Living Rationally,"* etc., 1744; third edition, 1767). He 
 declares himself very definitely against the determinism of 
 Wolf ; the human will is not absolutely determined by its 
 knowledge, but remains, in relation thereto, free, and can 
 act contrarily thereto ; he appeals in proof thereof to the per- 
 fectly unambiguous evidence of consciousness, and to the 
 full responsibility of man for his sins. The determinations of 
 the will are indeed, as rational, not arbitrary and fortuitous, 
 but have, on the contrary, a sufficient reason ; but this reason 
 ifl by no means a necessarily-determining one, but the will 
 has always the possibility of acting contrarily even to a suffi- 
 cient reason ; and Crusius goes, in this respect, so far as to 
 find perfect freedom only in holding that the will can deter- 
 mine itself as easily for the one course as for the other. All 
 duties he considers as contained in our duty toward God, and 
 hence he does not co-ordinate, but subordinates, them to this 
 duty. Moral effort has indeed happiness and perfection for 
 
 * Anweisutig vernilnftig zu leben.
 
 800 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [40. 
 
 its goal, but it has its law in the divine will, which likewise 
 aims thereat. Man's relation of dependence to his Creator 
 directs him to make his entire life dependent on the holy will 
 of God; our striving toward the rational God-willed goal, 
 becomes truly moral only when it is the expression of loving 
 obedience to the revealed divine will. Hence it is incorrect 
 that the good is good per se even without reference to God's 
 will ; rather is it good simply because God wills it, though 
 this divine willing is not irrational caprice, but a morally 
 necessary act of his holy essence. Hence morality rests in 
 its very essence on religion ; and the moral law may not, as 
 in Wolf's system, stand apart from the religious conscious- 
 ness, but requires a free God-obeying course of acting answer- 
 ing to the divine will, and therefore also to the end of the 
 perfection of the creature. A natural, though not absolutely 
 sufficing manifestation of the divine will, is given in the con- 
 science, which, however, does not, as with Wolf, simply form 
 a theoretical judgment, but contains also at the same time a 
 feeling of joy or anguish, and hence an impulse. Crusius 
 separates prudence from the doctrine of morality proper, .as 
 the ability of finding, for rational ends, also the special ap- 
 propriate means. A more popular presentation of this view 
 is contained in the so-long-esteemed, widely-read, and influ- 
 ential "Moral Lectures"* of Gellert (1770), which, however, 
 are estimable more for their noble sentiments and warmth 
 of feeling than for depth of thought; and which, in their 
 rhetorically verbose and often dull and tedious manner could 
 have made so great an impression only in an age which had 
 lost all taste for strong food ; discursive discussions on "the 
 utility of health," etc., were then regarded as interesting 
 reading. Gellert addresses himself more to the feelings 
 than to the cognizing understanding, but the former are not 
 embraced in Christian depth, but rather as mere feeble senti- 
 mentality. 
 
 Since the middle of this century the taste for really philo- 
 sophical thinking had been declining in Germany, in the pre- 
 cise measure in which the pretension to the name of ' ' philo- 
 sophical century " was put forward ; instead of a spiritually- 
 vigorous, constantly-progressing development of thought, we 
 
 * Moralische V&rleaungen.
 
 41.] ENGLISH ETHICS. 301 
 
 find, for the most part, only a self-complacent superficial 
 criticising tendency and arbitrarily-brought-together, un- 
 grounded assertions and observations, derived more from 
 outward experience than from reason, and often delighting 
 in rhetorical bombast. The voluminous Feder of Gottingen 
 (Pralct. Philos., 1776; Unters. ub. d. menschlichen Willen, 
 1779-85), reminds indeed often of Wolf by his pedantic 
 minuteness, but not by depth of thought ; and he bases him- 
 self in the main on the empiricism of Locke. Game, who 
 Avas highly esteemed by his contemporaries, derived the most 
 of his matter from the English moralists, and limited his own 
 moral thoughts to annotations on other writers (Cicero), and 
 to disconnected but clear and elegantly written, though 
 neither profound nor ingenious, dissertations. 
 
 SECTION XLI. 
 
 In England and France an anti-Christian tendency 
 gave rise to a progressively-degenerating moralism, 
 which, resting on an idealess empiricism, and, though 
 vigorously resisted, yet maintaining a rising influence 
 for a long time, based itself in part on a superficial 
 deism, but also in part, and more consequentially, 
 advanced to pure atheism and materialism, and ex- 
 alted into a moral law the lowest form of Epicurean 
 self-seeking. But it was especially reserved to the 
 French mind to draw the ultimate consequences of 
 these premises, and to seek in the wildest demoral- 
 ization the highest civilization and "philosophy," 
 and, through a destruction-loving dissolution of all 
 moral consciousness in the higher classes (a dissolu- 
 tion which swept over devastatingly into the un- 
 German circles of the German literary world) to 
 prepare the way for that general convulsion in 
 Europe which at length attained, only through 
 horrors and anarchy, to some presence of mind and 
 to some degree of calm. English moralism lingered
 
 302 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [41. 
 
 iD general in a state of capricious wavering between 
 the principle of happiness and the principle of spirit- 
 ual perfection, between the principle of subjective 
 eudemonism arid the principle of objective spiritual- 
 ism. The reaction of this freethinking on Germany 
 shows itself mostly in the superficial utilitarian 
 morality of the period of self-styled " illuminisrn" 
 
 Quite otherwise than in Germany was philosophical ethics 
 shaped in England and France. While in Germany, notwith- 
 standing the deep spiritual and moral disorder consequent 
 upon the Thirty Years' war, there prevailed, for a long 
 while still, a predominantly Christian spirit, (which remained 
 proof against the Spinozistic Pantheism, and sought to de- 
 velop philosophy in harmony with Christianity, and only 
 gradually and at a late hour was enervated by French free- 
 thinking through the un-German culture of the higher 
 classes), in England the religious contests had resulted in a 
 deep spiritual laxity and in a growing aversion to Christianity 
 and to the spiritual in general. The unspiritual empiricism 
 of Bacon and Locke seconded this superficial empirical turn- 
 ing-away to the immediately visible and prosaic reality of the 
 world. At first it was regarded as a progress to disregard 
 the doctrinal contents of Christianity and to insist only on 
 its morals; then it followed very naturally that this morality, 
 as divorced from its doctrinal basis, should be divorced also 
 from its historical presuppositions in general, and be derived 
 only from the consciousness of the natural man, and that re- 
 ligion in general, as in contrast to the Christian religion, 
 should be conceived simply as a system of moralism, over 
 which then, not as a foundation but as a protecting super- 
 structure, a superficial deism was constructed; or, indeed, 
 this tendency was followed out further, and men rejected 
 also this deism, and contented themselves with the superficial 
 morality of individual self-love ; and it must be regarded as 
 a real progress (as in contrast to this spiritual superficiality), 
 when clearer thinkers skeptically undermined also this pre- 
 tended natural religion and natural morality, and insisted on 
 the vanity of all human knowledge.
 
 41.] BACON LOCKE. 303 
 
 Bacon of Verulam, though not himself constructing an 
 ethical system, opened, by his empiricism (which opposed all 
 previous philosophy, and according to which, there is abso- 
 lutely no knowledge h priori, but only such as springs from 
 immediate and primarily sensuous experience), a current of 
 thought which was dangerous to the Christian world-theory, 
 although he himself did not in the least oppose the Chris- 
 tian consciousness, but rather placed Christian faith above 
 all philosophical knowledge. However, he was not clearly 
 conscious of the tendency of his fundamental thoughts. On 
 this basis, Locke (ob. 1704) subsequently developed a system 
 of philosophy which attained, especially in England, to a 
 wide-reaching influence, but which is in fact, properly speak- 
 ing, the very opposite of all speculation. True knowledge 
 arises only from the experience of our sensuous existence ; 
 general notions are not the first but the last ; the human mind 
 per se has and produces neither notions nor ideas, but is 
 rather a tabula rasa upon which the experience of the object- 
 ive world first writes its characters ; and it is only through 
 impressions from objective existence that the spirit attains, 
 through abstraction, comparison, and analysis, to ideas. Out 
 of this empiricism, however harmless and pretentionless it 
 might seem at first examination, was destined logically to 
 result a system of religion and morality essentially different 
 from the Christian world-theory ; and historical facts realized 
 this logical sequence. It sweeps away, in fact, at a single 
 blow all ideal contents of the scientific and religious con- 
 sciousness, in so far as these lie outside of sensuous experi- 
 ence. But experience furnishes not ideas, but only impres- 
 sions ; and at furthest one attains only to abstracted notions, 
 which, however, have no general and unconditional validity ; 
 for the ideas of the divine and eternal, there is no place. 
 But man must have something ideal ; if he has it not in and 
 above himself, so that he has simply to accept it in his ra- 
 tional self-consciousness and in religious faith, then he must 
 have it before himself, must practically and productively 
 create it, in action ; the ideal is indeed not yet real, but it is 
 to become so. It is consequently, at least, a presentiment of 
 reason which turned this idealess empiricism toward ethics. 
 But precisely this one-sided moralism shows most evidently,
 
 304: CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [41. 
 
 the incorrectness of the ground-principles ; an idealess mo- 
 rality sinks at once to a morality of the most ignoble self- 
 seeking and materialism. A moral consciousness is, accord- 
 ing to this system, derived only from direct experience ; 
 what is good I know only from the fact that it makes upon 
 me a pleasant impression, affects me, as a particular individual, 
 with the feeling of pleasure ; individual happiness becomes 
 the measure of the moral, and thus Epicureanism has again 
 attained to validity. 
 
 Already before "the more complete development of the 
 Baconian empiricism by Locke, Thomas Hobbes had drawn 
 the natural and clear consequences of the same.* Only what 
 we experience is true ; but we can experience only through 
 the senses, and hence only the sensuous ; only this is true and 
 real, even in man himself. Human action has not a purpose, 
 for a purpose is a mere idea without reality, but only a ground, 
 namely, in his sensuously-material reality, and, in virtue of 
 this ground, it is also fully determined ; hence the moral law 
 -is in no respect different from the law of nature. Good or 
 evil is the agreeable or disagreeable state of the individual 
 person, and hence is determined by our immediate feelings, 
 and has in no sense a general significancy beyond the indi- 
 vidual being; what is good for me is not so for another; 
 hence, in regard to the good there can be no general decision ; 
 every one determines this according to his feelings and ex- 
 perience ; every one strives, and rightly too, to have the most 
 possible feelings of pleasure, and in this he is rational and 
 moral. Self-love in this sense, namely, of referring every 
 thing to one's own enjoyment of the agreeable, is the highest 
 moral law ; each has a right to all. From this it follows, in- 
 deed, that through mere morality no harmonious life of men 
 in common is possible, but that, on the contrary, all strive 
 against each other, a war of all against all; but this leads 
 not to a proof of the unreality of the moral law, but only to 
 the necessity of the State; but also the state, because of the 
 lack of a universally-valid objective norm of morality, can 
 rest only on the individual will of the strong. The unlimited 
 despotism of a single person is alone capable of bringing 
 
 * Especially in Ms Leviathan, 1651, and in his De cive. 1647; comp. 
 Lechler : Gesch. de engl. Deismw, 1841, p. 67 sqq.
 
 , 41.] HOBBES CUMBERLAND. 305 
 
 order and harmony into the chaos of individual strivings; 
 and all individuals must submit themselves unconditionally 
 to the will of this ruler, a will which knows no other law 
 than its own pleasure, and which consequently is alwaya 
 right, let the ruler decree what he will, and which is for all 
 the citizens of that state the unassailable law and conscience, 
 aud which has consequently to determine what shall consti- 
 tute right and morality. Also all religion in the state de- 
 pends exclusively on the will of the ruler ; and he alone has 
 to determine what shall be believed and not believed ; no one 
 has a right, in the state, to hold any thing else for good and 
 true in the moral and religious sphere, than what the king 
 declares as good and true ; sin is only a contradiction to the 
 king's will. Whatever is not by him prescribed or forbidden, 
 is morally indifferent. We cannot deny to this system full 
 consequentiality, and the unabashed nakedness of the same 
 is at least more honest than those more recent views, which 
 seek to bemantle the very same ground-thoughts with more 
 moral forms and disguises. 
 
 In express antagonism to this materialism, Cumberland 
 made general benevolence the principle of morality ; * but he 
 rendered it difficult for himself to refute the consequential 
 Hobbes, by the fact that he placed himself essentially upon 
 the stand-point of sensuous experience, and undertook there- 
 from to rise to higher religious and moral ideas. He attains 
 thus to the principle which he makes the foundation of all 
 morality, namely, that the striving for the common good of 
 the entire system of rational creatures leads to the good of 
 all the single parts of the same, whereof our own happiness 
 constitutes a portion. Hence the chief end of moral effort 
 is not one's own but the general good, although the former 
 is contained in the latter. This moral law, to the observ- 
 ance of which man is obligated by nature itself, is especially 
 seconded by religion, and sanctified by the will of pod, as 
 Lawgiver, who associates with the law rewards and punish- 
 ments. But the idea of God is not already pre-supposed in 
 the moral consciousness, but this idea pre-supposes this con- 
 sciousness. Hobbes was opposed from a stand-point diamet- 
 rically opposed to this, and related to that of Plato, and 
 * D6 legibus naturae, 1672, 83, 94.
 
 306 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 41. 
 
 hence also more effectually and consequentially, by Citdicorth,* 
 who entirely rejected the empirical basis of the moral, and 
 appealed to original moral ideas given in reason itself. He 
 assails materialism and atheism in a learned and ingenious 
 manner, and declares the moral ideas which transcend all 
 experience, and which can never be adequately explained by 
 experience, as a seH-revelation of God himself, impressed 
 upon finite reason; and in his opposition to empiricism, he 
 goes so far as to hold that the moral idea stands even above 
 the will of God, so that this will does not determine the 
 good, but is determined by the per se valid idea of the good 
 as existing in God. A complete moral system Cudworth did 
 not carry out ; and his influence was less extensive, because of 
 the prevalent tendency of the English mind toward empirical 
 reality, than it deserved to be. Basing himself upon Cud- 
 worth's theory, Henry More presented a brief but compre- 
 hensive treatise on philosophical ethics, t (The end of mo- 
 rality is the perfection, and therefore the happiness, of man, 
 which rests essentially on virtue ; sensuousness has no right 
 in itself, but stands under the dominion of moral reason ; the 
 antecedent condition of morality is the freedom of the will, 
 as itself not determined by any thing, not even by knowl- 
 edge.) In a similar spirit, Samuel Clarice (1708) insisted on 
 the view, that creatures are for each other. Morality con- 
 sists in conducting one's self, by virtue of free rationality, in 
 harmony with the universe, and in the proper relation to 
 one's self and to the rest of the world, even as irrational 
 creatures do from inner impulse. This relation cannot be 
 arbitrarily fixed by man, but is fixed by the nature itself of 
 things, and man is morally to conform himself to this rela- 
 tion ; thereby he realizes his happiness. 
 
 Locke endeavored to avoid the inferences which Hobbes 
 had drawn from the ground-thought of empiricism, at least 
 in the moral sphere. J Inborn moral ideas, or ideas that lie 
 in the essence of reason itself and in the conscience, do not 
 exist ; all moral laws are derived simply from the observation 
 of real life, are inferred from the benefit which certain 
 
 * Sygtema intelleetvale, etc., in English in 1678. 
 
 f Enchiridion ethicvm, in his Opp. omn., 1670, 2 fol. 
 
 J Essay on the Human Understanding, 1690.
 
 41.] LOCKE. 307 
 
 modes of action have for the well-being of the actor or of 
 others, and hence may, under different circumstances, be 
 very different ; and the actual differences, nay, even contra- 
 dictions, of moral views that do exist, prove that these views 
 do not lie in reason itself. It is only through education and 
 dominant custom that moral opinions rise into pretended 
 fixed moral principles, into laws of conscience ; there is no 
 innate primitive conscience ; the approval or disapproval of a 
 particular organized society is the sole sufficient measure of 
 virtue and vice. Here, however, it is natural that such 
 modes of action as are useful not merely to the subject him- 
 self, but also to others and to the community, should also be 
 regarded in general as praiseworthy, and hence virtuous, so 
 that for a certain circle of actions, there may indeed be found 
 an essential agreement of moral judgment, and hence a cer- 
 tain natural law lying in the nature of the thing, which is to 
 be regarded as also God's law. However, Locke derives this 
 law not from the nature of the moral thought itself, but in 
 fact, simply from public opinion, and hence from experience, 
 and he rises only through inferences from facts of experience 
 to more general notions, which, however, have by no means 
 a validity absolutely and per se. Hence the moral idea does 
 not transcend reality, does not so much say what should be, 
 as rather what already is; a moral judgment upon the actual 
 moral consciousness of a society is, according to Locke's 
 theory, impossible ; for not the idea is the measure for reality, 
 but reality is the measure for the ide-i. The question whether 
 indeed the condition and the moral consciousness of society 
 themselves might not be perverted and untrue, is entirely 
 out of place, is indeed absurd, as it would assume to 
 measure moral reality by an idea independent thereof ; the 
 moral consciousness of society is always right. The limiting 
 of these far-reaching assertions by the interposing of a super- 
 ficially-conceived divine revelation is without any sufficient 
 foundation in Locke's system. The Lockian view has in- 
 deed, as compared with that of Hobbes, a somewhat more 
 respectable tone, but it has on the other hand less inner con- 
 sequentially. The thought of self-love, or, more properly, 
 self-seeking, is at least intelligible and clear ; but the taking, 
 as a basis, the judgment of society must be regarded as en- 
 
 21
 
 308 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [41. 
 
 tirely ungrounded, and is in reality utterly meaningless, in- 
 asmuch as, in every society, moral views the very opposite of 
 each other are represented, so that consequently the indi- 
 vidual is, after all, referred to his own private judgment, 
 which, as it rests upon no per se valid idea, can in fact be 
 based only on the feeling of pleasure or displeasure. 
 
 The consequences of this unspiritual ethics showed them- 
 selves very soon. The position of Wollaston * is as yet moder- 
 ate, but for that reason all the more indefinite and unclear. 
 He reduces all religion to morality ; religion is only the obliga- 
 tion to do the good and avoid the evil. The good is identical 
 with the true ; every action is good which gives expression to 
 a true proposition, that is, which actually recognizes that a 
 thing is as it really is, and which hence corresponds to the na- 
 ture or end of a thing ; things should be treated as being what 
 they are. The destination of man himself is happiness ; but 
 happiness is pleasure, the consciousness of something agree- 
 able, of that which is in harmony with the nature of man ; 
 hence true pleasure springs only from that which corresponds 
 to the destination of man, and consequently to reason. Moral- 
 ity or religion is, therefore, the seeking of happiness through 
 the realizing of truth and of reason. The next advancement 
 of this tendency consisted in this, that the thought of happi- 
 ness was fixed more definitely in view. Man wills by his very 
 nature to be happy, that is, he has inclinations the fulfillment 
 of which renders him happy. These inclinations man does not 
 give to himself, but he has them from nature, finds them in a 
 definite form existing within himself ; they are the norms of 
 man's actions, that is, he is good when he follows his natural 
 inclinations. This advance to Epicurean ethics is made by the 
 plausible and fashionable writer, Lord 8haftebury.^ Every 
 action springs from an inner determinateness of the actor, from 
 a proclivity or propensity ; hence the moral worth of an action 
 lies essentially in this propensity ; the propensity aims at that 
 which gives pleasure, and avoids that which gives displeasure ; 
 that which by its presence gives pleasure, and by its absence 
 displeasure, is good ; the opposite thereof is evil; as objects of 
 effort, the former is the good, the latter the evil ; between these 
 
 * The Religion of Nature Delineated, 1724. 
 
 t Characteristic^, (1711), 1714; comp. Lechler, p. 240 aqq.
 
 41.] LOCKE. 309 
 
 there lies the sphere of the indifferent. The decision as to 
 good and evil is not arbitrary ; but that is good which corre- 
 sponds to the peculiarity of a being, and, for that very reason, 
 gives pleasure to the being experiencing it. Happiness is the 
 greatest possible sum of satisfactions or experiences of pleas- 
 ure ; spiritual pleasure-impressions stand higher, however, than 
 the merely sensuous; and the generally-useful or benevolent 
 propensities are, in turn, the better among the spiritual ones, 
 for they duplicate the enjoyment by the participation of others ; 
 and they do not stand in contradiction to our own personal 
 good, because they relate to the whole of which we ourselves 
 form a part. Hence true morality consists in the striving after 
 the proper relation and harmony of the individual and of the 
 whole ; the one is not to be merged into the other, for man is 
 just as much an individual as he is a member of the whole, 
 and self-love is per se just as legitimate as the propensity of 
 general benevolence. Hence virtue consists in a rationally- 
 calculated weighing out of the measure of the reciprocally lim- 
 iting propensities, that is, in preserving a proper equilibrium. 
 The decision in this case is given primarily by our innate feel- 
 ing for good and evil, by the moral sense or instinct, not taken 
 in the sense of a conscious thought, but of a feeling, a feeling 
 of pleasure in the presence of the good, and of displeasure in 
 the presence of the evil. This moral sense is developed by ex- 
 ercise and reflection into a moral judgment. Virtue is indeed 
 independent of religion, and even atheism does not directly 
 endanger it ; but yet it receives its proper force and life only 
 in the belief in a good, all-wise and justly-governing God. 
 Shaftesbury endeavors to rise above the fortuitousness of the 
 determination of the moral in Hobbes and Locke, and to attain 
 to a per se valid determination of the same ; but after all, he also 
 finds the deciding voice only in the fortuitous feeling of pleasure 
 or displeasure ; his empiricism is essentially subjective. That, 
 as differing from Locke, he regards the moral feeling as innate, 
 does not yet guarantee its objective truth, and, at all events, the 
 objection of Locke holds good against it, namely, the actually- 
 existing diversity of moral views. But this moral feeling is 
 not a moral idea ; it has no contents, but utters itself only in 
 each separate case, when it is stimulated by an action or an ob- 
 ject, even as a piano gives a note only when it is struck , other-
 
 310 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [41. 
 
 wise this feeling is silent and dead, whereas an idea is living 
 and conscious even in the absence of any reality affecting it ; 
 this subjective feeling itself is moreover incapable of being 
 tested by a per se and absolutely valid idea. 
 
 While Collins, the eulogist of Epicurus, a disciple and friend 
 of Locke, and the first who called himself Freethinker, denied 
 the freedom of the will and regarded human action as abso- 
 lutely determined by the influences surrounding us, Hutcheson 
 (of Glasgow) endeavored to rectify the moral system of Shnftes- 
 bury by assuming good-will toAvard others, in contradistinction 
 to self-love, as the contents proper of the innate moral sense. 
 To the purely empirical foundation of ethics, however, he held 
 fast in his " System of Moral Philosophy " (1755). We find that 
 certain actions in men, even when these men are not affected by 
 the consequences of the same, meet with approbation or disap- 
 probation; from this it follows that the ground of this judg- 
 ment is not personal advantage or disadvantage, but a natural 
 moral sense, which perceives the moral irrespective of personal 
 interest, and has therein pleasure, and which therefore also, equal- 
 ly disinterestedly, impels to moral action. This inborn moral 
 sense is not a conscious idea, but an immediate feeling which 
 differs from the interested self-feeling, just as we have an im- 
 mediate pleasure in a beautiful, regular form, without being 
 conscious of the mathematical laws thereof, or having any 
 benefit therefrom. The moral approbation and striving are con- 
 sequently also all the purer the less our personal interest is in- 
 volved in the case. The selfish and the benevolent propensi- 
 ties mutually exclude each other, for benevolence begins only 
 where personal interest ceases. Therefore we have to make 
 our choice between the two propensities, and as the benevolent 
 one is the purer, hence the moral proper consists exclusively in 
 it. Virtue is not practiced for the sake of a benefit or an en- 
 joyment, but purely out of inner pleasure in it; our nature lias 
 an inner innate tendency to promote the welfare of others with- 
 out having any regard therein to personal benefit. This benev- 
 olence toward others is the essence of all the virtues ; for 
 even our care for our own welfare is exercised in order to pre- 
 serve ourselves for the good of others ; the degree of virtue 
 rises in proportion to the happiness procured for others, and to 
 the number of persons benefited by us. The preliminarily-
 
 41.] SMITH HUME. 311 
 
 ignored moral relation of man to God, Hutcheson afterward 
 brings not without violence into his system, by holding that 
 the moral sense leads also to the union of the moral creature 
 with the Author of all perfection. The fundamental thoughts 
 of this ethical system are indeed well meant, but they are sci- 
 entifically weak and arbitrary ; from the Christian view they 
 are far remote, for the self-complacent mirroring of self in the 
 pretendedly pure virtuousness of one's own benevolent heart, 
 and the easy contenting of self in a certain circle of benevolent 
 outward actions, are, in one direction, quite as dangerous for 
 correct self-knowledge, as is the system of pure self-seeking in 
 the other. A related system, but one manifoldly complicated 
 in unclear originality, was developed by Adam Smith (1759, 
 and later). He emphasized, more strongly still, the element of 
 feeling for others in the innate moral sense, and conceived of it 
 as the feeling of sympathy, in virtue of which we share in nat- 
 ural participation in the joy and in the pains of others, and 
 strive for the participation and harmony of others with our 
 own feelings and actions ; in this harmony we find the good, 
 and in the opposite the evil. The morality of our action we 
 recognize by the fact that it is adapted to awaken the sympa- 
 thies of others; a perfectly isolated man could not possibly 
 have a moral judgment as to himself, because he would lack 
 the criterion, the mirror. Hence man must always so act that 
 others not standing in the same fortuitous relations, that is, 
 impartial persons, can sympathize with him. The obscure con- 
 viction that the moral consciousness must rest on a per se valid 
 idea, brings the empiric to this strange and certainly very diffi- 
 cult and inadequate procedure, which, however, though ex- 
 pressly intended to throw off the accidentality of individual 
 being, yet cannot, after all, get rid of it. 
 
 Also David Hume treats of the subject of ethics, thovjgh 
 with less acumen than that wherewith, in the sphere of religion 
 and of theoretical philosophy, he skeptically undermines the 
 certainty of all knowledge.* While, in the field of philosophy, 
 he ingeniously exposed the feeble superficiality of the preva- 
 lent empiricism, he yet hesitated to- introduce his skepticism, 
 with like consequentiality into the practical sphere of morals. 
 A real science of the moral there cannot, be, in the opinion of 
 * Treatise of Human Nature, 1730 ; Essays, etc., 1742.
 
 312 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [41. 
 
 Hume, seeing that the moral is not an object of the cognizing 
 understanding, but only of mere feeling or sensation. The 
 ultimate end of all action is happiness ; but that which renders 
 happy can be determined only by sensation ; hence a sense, or 
 tact, or feeling innate in all men, decides as to good a,nd evil, 
 in that the good excites a pleasant, and the evil an unpleasant 
 feeling. Hence we must learn by way of pure observation 
 what actions violate, or answer to, the moral feeling ; and we 
 find, now, that the useful excites moral approbation, and more 
 particularly, that which is useful to the community. General 
 and necessary moral ideas there are none ; and even the moral 
 feeling is veiy different in different nations ; hence moral con- 
 ceptions have always only a varying worth and rest essentially 
 upon custom. The obligation to virtue rests on the fact that in 
 virtue there is furnished the greatest guarantee for actual hap- 
 piness ; and also the working for the good of others reacts in 
 the end upon our own good. Thus Hume coincides essentially 
 with Locke. That he regards suicide as allowable is easily 
 explainable from his ground-thoughts. By means of a feeble 
 and unfounded eclecticism, Adam Ferguson (of Edinburgh)* 
 endeavors to avoid the one-sidedness of other moralists, but 
 only involves himself in worse confusion. To the moral he 
 gives three fundamental laws : the law of self-preservation, the 
 law of community or society, and the " law of estimation," 
 (the latter relating to the per se excellent), without reducing 
 this threefoldness to any kind of clear unity, He attains to 
 an unpredjudiced consideration of the moral in detail only at 
 the expense of the consequentially of his system. 
 
 The ultimate consequences of empiricism were not drawn by 
 the systematic moralists, but by other so-called Freethinkers 
 who wrote more for the general public. Such was the case 
 especially with the most influential among them, Lord Boling- 
 ~broke, the chief representative of deism (ob. lT51),t who de- 
 clared Plato to be half crazy, and all philosophy proper to be 
 mere narrow-mindedness. The moral law is, as the law of na- 
 ture, clearly revealed to all men through the observation of 
 existence. All morality rests on self-love ; this law incites 'to 
 marriage, to the family, and to society, and to" the duties that 
 result therefrom. The end of all effort is the greatest possible 
 * Institutes of Moral Philosophy, 1769. t Works, 1754.
 
 41.] BOLINGBROKE. 313 
 
 happiness, that is, the greatest possible number of pleasure- 
 sensations. But this natural law teaches Bolingbroke some 
 very strange things ; shamefulness, e. g., is only an aspiration 
 of man to be something better than the brute, or it is a mere 
 social prejudice; polygamy is not immoral; on the contrary, it 
 harmonizes with the law of nature, because it effects a greater 
 increase of the race ; wedlock-communion is disallowable only 
 between parents and children ; all other degrees of relationship 
 admit of it, for the highest law and end of marriage is propa- 
 gation. The pretentious superficiality of this writer obtained 
 for him in the " cultured " world the highest repute. 
 
 English moralism checked itself, for the m< st part, at half- 
 ways; it found as yet too much moral consciousness alive 
 among the masses, not to feel bound in general to hold fast 
 still to a respectable code of morality, even though at the cost 
 of the consequentially of the system. In France, on the con- 
 trary, the demoralization had made sufficient progress among 
 the cultivated classes to be enabled to throw off all reserve, 
 also in the sphere of theory. The scanty remnants of religious 
 and moral contents still retained in the freethinking ethics of 
 Englishmen, had to be thrown out, in the further fermenting 
 process, as discoloring dregs, in order that the unmingled 
 wisdom-beverage of the natural man might attain to its life- 
 giving purity; deistic moralism had to pass over into atheistic 
 materialism. The French ethics of frivolity became, also for 
 German ears, a sweet-sounding music ; and French parasites at 
 the little German ducal courts charged themselves with the 
 task of distilling the decoction of trans-Rhenane moral notions 
 also into the lower strata of the German population. 
 
 Shaftesbury and Hutcheson had endeavored to secure the 
 innate moral feeling- against the threatening overthrow of all 
 morality, by placing over against the feeling for self, a feeling 
 for the social whole, either as of 'like worth, or as of a still 
 higher validity. This course was arbitrary, and not grounded 
 in their fundamental principle ; for every man is, as an individ- 
 ual, the nearest to himself. And a feeling inborn in me relates, 
 after all, first and last, always to myself ; as a merely natural 
 being inspired by no higher idea, I feel for others only in so far 
 as I am myself interested in them. Feeling clings absolutely 
 to the subject, and egotism is the inner essence of any natural
 
 314 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [41. 
 
 moral feeling which is not willing to be dominated by an idea. 
 In order to this further development of ethics, there was need 
 of a still further carrying out of empiricism as a theory. This 
 we meet with in Condittac, a French, nobleman, an abbot and 
 prince-educator, one of the most superficial and, therefore, 
 most preferred authors of the middle of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury. All knowledge rests on sensuous impressions; man is 
 acted upon and filled with spiritual contents, simply as a ma- 
 chine, through outward impressions ; of all the senses the sense 
 of touch is the highest ; it alone gives us certainty as to the 
 objective reality of things, and raises man above the brute. 
 with whom in other respects he is essentially identical. The 
 pleasure and displeasure of impressions work desire and repug- 
 nance, and hence awaken and determine the will. It is incred- 
 ible what stupid absurdities Condillac offers in the name of 
 metaphysics ; and it is a significant index of the spirit of the 
 age, that he was one of the most influential and feted writers 
 of France. The ethics of this world-theory was easily inferred, 
 and was pronounced with open boldness. Long previously 
 Gassendi (of Paris, ob. 1655) had presented the satisfaction of 
 desire as the end of human life ; this satisfying is rational when 
 it is orderly, natural, and not excessive ; and it effects peace of 
 heart and painlessness of bpdy. He recommended, consequen- 
 tially enough, the doctrine of Epicurus as the highest wisdom. 
 The full and clear consequence of empiricism, however, was 
 drawn by Helvetius, who expressly based his doctrine on the, 
 by him, highly esteemed theory of Locke. As an affluent gen- 
 tleman of leisure, and living only for his pleasures, he became 
 greatly renowned by his work, De Pesprit (1758), throughout 
 the luxurious fashionable circles of Europe. His book was 
 proscribed in France, but all the more circulated throughout 
 Europe ; and the author, in his gravels to different courts, espe- 
 cially the German ones, was feted as a great philosopher. His 
 second more important work, (a further development of the 
 first one,) De rhomme, appeared only after his death (1772). The 
 highly-colored and daring tone of his writings, with their rich 
 setting of wit, and of indelicate anecdotes, furnishes a clear 
 image of the then prevalent spirit of the higher classes of cul- 
 tivated Europe. All thoughts, according to Helvetius, spring 
 from sensuous perceptions, and our knowledge extends only so
 
 41.] FRENCH SENSUALISM. 315 
 
 far as the senses extend ; of any thing super-sensuous, and 
 hence also of God, we know nothing. The motives to activity 
 are essentially the passions, which spring from our inclination 
 to pleasure and our aversion to displeasure. The fundamental 
 stimulus of all moral activity is self-love, the expression of 
 which is, in fact, the passions ; nothing great is accomplished 
 without great passion ; he who is not passionate is stupid. As, 
 now, all thoughts rest on sensuous impressions, so rest also all 
 self-love and all passion, and hence all morality, on the impulses 
 of sensuous pleasure ; and even the decision as to truth is en- 
 tirely dependent on the interest of the self-loving subject. 
 Should the case arise, says Helvetius, that it would be more ad- 
 vantageous for me to regard the part as greater than the whole, 
 then I would in fact assume this to be the case. The good, or 
 the moral, is neither an absolutely valid idea, nor is it any thing 
 arbitrarily assumed, but the determination as to it rests in the 
 experience of the individual ; but experience teaches that each 
 regards as good that which is useful to him ; and consequently 
 each judges of the morality of actions simply according to his 
 own interest ; hence the best actions would be such as corre- 
 sponded to the interest of all men ; but there are no such ac- 
 tions. Hence we must limit our view ; and, on closer exami- 
 nation, we find to be truly good that which promotes the inter- 
 est not merely of the individual but of our nation ; the political 
 virtue is the highest, and the 'political transgression, the high- 
 est sin ; that which does not contribute to the public good of 
 the nation, as, for example, the so-called religious virtues, is 
 not a virtue, and what does not conflict therewith is not a sin ; 
 virtues which profit nothing must be regarded as virtues of 
 delusion, and be discarded. Hence, true ethics has its norm 
 essentially in the civil law-book and in public utility ; that 
 which lies outside of these is, for the most part, morally indif- 
 ferent ; when it is useful to the public weal, even inhumanity is 
 just. The motive to moral activity remains, even in this^so 
 narrowly limited sphere, self-love ; the thought of doing the 
 good for the good's sake, is antiquated and exploded. To 
 sacrifice my own private advantage to that of the public, I am 
 under no obligation ; rather must I seek in the best manner pos- 
 sible to combine the two. When any one helps an unfortunate, 
 out of compassion, this is only self-love, for he simply aims to
 
 316 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 41. 
 
 rid himself of the sight of misery, which is unpleasant to him. 
 Ethics is utterly fruitless and vain so long as it does not defi- 
 nitely regard personal interest, and hence sensuous pleasure and 
 the avoidance of sensuous pain, as the highest principle of 
 morality ; nothing is forbidden but what causes us pain ; with 
 religion, ethics has nothing whatever to do. Morality is there- 
 fore also, at different times and under different relations, essen- 
 tially different ; there is no crime which under some circum- 
 stances (when it should be useful) would not also be right. 
 True, the vicious man seeks also his own advantage, and the 
 only trouble in the matter is that he deceives himself as to the 
 means thereto ; hence, he is to be pitied because of his error, 
 but not to be despised. The fact that among all nations, some 
 actions are regarded as virtuous which offer no profit whatever 
 for this life, is simply a hurtful delusion. As self-interest is the 
 ground of all virtue, hence it is also entirely legitimate that 
 the state should stimulate its citizens to obedience by rewards 
 and punishments ; in fact, it thereby hits upon the solely cor- 
 rect moral motives to the good ; rewards and punishments are 
 the gods which create virtue. All statesmanship consists in 
 awakening the self-love and self-interest of men, and in thereby 
 stimulating them to virtue. 
 
 The intellectual revolution represented by great names 
 made sweeping advances in France and also in the fashion- 
 able world servilely dependent on France, at the courts of 
 the rest of Europe, and especially of Germany, and had al- 
 ready long since reached its ultimate results, before the 
 political revolution enabled also the lower classes to speak 
 their word in the same sense. It was fashionable at this 
 period to designate by the word "esprit" (as the privilege 
 of the giddy, freethinking world) that which was subse- 
 quently called "revolution" among the great masses, and 
 which was, in fact, simply the consequence of the former. 
 Every thing which hitherto had passed as philosophy, (with 
 the exception of the Epicurean), was regarded as nonsense ; 
 the most stupid superficiality, provided only that it ridiculed 
 sacred things, passed as philosophy ; wit and frivolous fan- 
 cies took the place of earnest science. The " philosophical " 
 century sank, in the appreciation of really philosophical 
 thought, deeper than even the earlier and as yet barbarous
 
 41.] ROUSSEAU'S ETHICS. 317 
 
 Middle Ages had sunk. The higher the encomiums they 
 heaped upon what they called "spirit," so much the more 
 utter became the spiritual vacuity ; men extolled reason more 
 pretentiously than ever, and yet they placed in her temple, 
 as goddess, a public woman. Rousseau and Voltaire passed 
 as the profoundest thinkers of all ages ; their spiritual tri- 
 umphs and attainments were unparalleled, and Voltaire's re- 
 nown transcended in glory all renown ever heaped upon an 
 author. The history of the human mind has no second 
 century to refer to in which un-reason dominated with such 
 complete omnipotence. 
 
 Jean Jacques Rousseau produced indeed no system of 
 ethics, but he exerted in the sphere of moral opinion an 
 influence such as no author before or after him ever exerted, 
 and felt even up to the present day, not indeed because he 
 uttered deep thoughts, but because he gave expression to 
 what lay in the spirit of the age, himself an utterly un- 
 genuine character under the form of a severe moralist 
 undermining all morality, under the form of earnest thought 
 bidding defiance to all philosophy and science, under the 
 form of a censorious sage, in hermit-like seclusion from the 
 world, preparing soft cushions for the vices of the "cultured " 
 great. And precisely in this his peculiar character he chimed 
 in with the tastes and desires of the age ; he simply made, in 
 the dike of the as yet somewhat cramped current of the age, 
 the little breach through which its pent-up waters dispersed 
 themselves over the low-lands so as subsequently, as morasses, 
 to exhale the pestilential miasma of revolution. Of scientific 
 ground-thoughts there can in Rousseau be no question ; bold 
 assertions and rhetorical phrases take almost every -where the 
 place of scientific demonstration. The writings of Locke 
 exerted upon him the greatest influence ; sensuous experience 
 is also for him the source of all ideas. His moral views re- 
 ceive their proper commentary in his utterly immoral life. 
 His Ccmtrat social (1761) became the theoretical basis of the 
 French Revolution; his narrow-minded sophistical work, 
 Emile (1762) had an immeasurable and bewildering influence 
 on education, and is yet to-day the catechism of all un-Chris- 
 tian schemes of education. Rousseau's religion of nature, as 
 he called it, is a shallow idealess deism grouped around the
 
 318 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 41. 
 
 three thoughts : God, virtue, and immortality, in high sound- 
 ing rhetorical phrase. He bases morality upon the natural 
 conscience, which, as a direct feeling for the moral, renders 
 unnecessary all instruction and all science as to the moral, 
 and guides man with unerring certainty. All immorality 
 springs simply from "civilization," and from perverted edu- 
 cation ; true education consists in non-educating. Let -the 
 child be simply let alone in its naturalness ; let it be guarded 
 against perverting influences, and then it will spontaneously 
 develop, itself as normally as a tree in a good soil. In the 
 nature of man there lies nothing evil whatever; all natural 
 impulses are good; every child is by nature still just as 
 good as the first man was in coming from the hands of the 
 Creator. The sole inborn passion is self-love, and this is 
 good. The child should learn every thing through per- 
 sunal experience, and nothing through obedience ; the words 
 "obey" and "command" must be erased from its diction- 
 ary, as also the words- "duty" and obligation;" the child 
 must by all means be kept in the belief that it is its own 
 lord, and that its educator is subordinate to it. Make the 
 child strong, and it will be good ; for all defects, the edu- 
 cator alone is to blame. The sole moral instruction for the 
 child is: "Do wrong to no one ; " of love and religion there 
 should, in education, be no question whatever. Instruction 
 should by no means be imparted before the twelfth year, and 
 even after this period only at the desire of the pupil; at 
 twelve years it should yet be incapable of distinguishing its 
 right hand from its left. It should never believe or do any 
 thing on the mere word of another, but must always do 
 simply what it has found to be good from personal experi- 
 ence. The end of this "inactive" method of education, as 
 Rousseau himself designates it, is the end of human life, 
 namely, freedom ; but true freedom consists in this, that we 
 wish nothing other than what we can do or obtain ; and in 
 this case we will also do nothing other than what pleases us ; 
 and this is always the right. Hence the essence of .all mo- 
 rality is the giving free scope to our natural propensities. 
 The highest moral law is; "seek thine own highest welfare 
 with the least possible detriment to others." Christianity is 
 the natural enemy of true morality and of human society, for
 
 41.] VOLTAIRE DIDEROT. 319 
 
 it desires the absolute purity of human nature, directs man 
 away from the earthly, and preaches only servitude and 
 tyranny. These were sweet words for the ears of the great 
 multitude, and they did not die away unheeded, but found 
 enthusiastic welcome. Although the almost apotheosized 
 prince of the "philosophical" century, Voltaire, whose pre- 
 tended philosophy rests almost exclusively on Locke, wrote 
 both moral phrases and un-nioral poems, yet in neither case 
 has he produced any thing peculiar or original, much less 
 philosophical, notwithstanding his frequent allusion to his 
 "metaphysics." Morality, he repeats time and again in the 
 strongest affirmations, is entirely independent of religious 
 faith, rests upon a natural innate impulse, and is conse- 
 quently in all men and in all ages, so soon as they use t*heir 
 reason, uniform and the same.* Virtue or vice, the morally 
 good or evil, is always and every-where that which is either 
 useful or hurtful to society; incest between father and 
 daughter may, under circumstances, be allowable, and even 
 a duty, as, for example, when a single family constitutes an 
 isolated colony ; falsehoods uttered out of a good purpose 
 are legitimate, and the same holds good of almost every 
 thing that is in ordinary cases unallowable. Divinely-re- 
 vealed moral laws there are none ; but a certain benevolence 
 toward others is inborn in man, at the same time with self- 
 love. To the objection, that with so uncertain a basis, one 
 might seek his own welfare by stealing, robbing, etc., Vol- 
 taire has the ready answer: then he would get hanged.f 
 And all this he calls metaphysics. 
 
 What little of a superficial religious consciousness had yet 
 remained with Rousseau and Voltaire, entirely vanished with 
 the Encyclopedists, and especially with Diderot (ob. 1784). 
 Diderot endeavored, above all things, entirely to divorce 
 morality from religion ; the latter is for the former rather a 
 hindrance than a help. In morality itself he wavers, unde- 
 cided, between naturalistic determinism and a very super- 
 ficial society-morality. The Epicurean view he regards as 
 the most true. All the vices spring from covetousness, and 
 hence they can all be got rid of by the abolition of property, 
 
 * (Euvres, Paris, 1830, t. 31, p. 262 ; t. 12, p. 160 ; t. 42, p. 583. 
 t Ibid., t 37, p. 336 ; t. 38, p. 4.0.
 
 320 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [41. 
 
 by a community of goods ; for the discovery of this universal 
 panacea of human ills, he- takes to himself great credit. 
 Naturalistic morality appears in its most gross form and in 
 shameless nakedness in La Mettrie (ob. 1751),* whom even 
 Voltaire despised, but whom Frederick the Great, from some 
 incomprehensible caprice, made his reader and daily com- 
 panion (from 1748 on), and even nominated him, ignoramus 
 that he was, to membership in the Academy of Sciences. 
 Religion and morality stand in irreconcilable antagonism to 
 philosophy ; they rest only in politics, and serve for the 
 bridling of the masses who are yet unable to rise to philosophy, 
 just as, for a similar reason, there is as yet need also of hang- 
 man and death-penalties. But humanity as a whole cannot 
 be happy until all the world embraces atheism. Religion has 
 poisoned nature and cheated her out of her rights. Where 
 the truth, that is, atheism, prevails, there man follows no 
 other law than that of his particular natural propensity. 
 And thus alone can he be happy. Man is not essentially dif- 
 ferent from the brute, not even by any peculiar moral con- 
 sciousness ; he stands in many respects below the brute, and 
 has only this advantage, that he has a greater number of 
 wants, whereby a greater culture becomes possible. Man as 
 sprung from the mingling of different races of animals, and 
 as formed from matter of the same kind as that constituting 
 the brute, save only that it has simply gone through a higher 
 fermentation-process, and as being of a merely material or- 
 ganism (for the soul is only the brain, which is itself only a 
 slightly organized piece of dirt), is simply a mere machine, 
 and is set into motion by outward impressions, and hence he 
 is necessarily determined in all his volitions, and is not re- 
 sponsible for any of his actions. Repentance is folly; for 
 individual man is not at fault for his being a poorly con- 
 structed machine. Hence also we should not despise the 
 seemingly vicious, nor judge them severely. As, at death, 
 all is over, hence we should enjoy the present as much as we 
 possibly can. To defer an enjoyment when it offers itself, is 
 the same as waiting at a banquet without eating, until all are 
 done ; enjoyment, and indeed primarily and principally, sen- 
 suous enjoyment, is our highest and sole destination. It was 
 * IShomme machine; Dart dejouir., 1751.
 
 41.] LA METTRIE D'HOLBACH. 321 
 
 precisely during his stay in Potsdam that La Mettrie wrote his 
 most audacious glorification of the wildest and even unnatural 
 wantonness. His writings were very much sought after in 
 the higher circles of society. 
 
 The total result of materialistic ethics is summed up in a 
 work written very probably by Baron Holbach with the co- 
 operation of Diderot and other Encyclopedists : System de la 
 nature, par Mirabaud (1770), constituting the gospel proper 
 of atheism, and presenting nakedly and undisguisedly, in a 
 dull and spiritless form, the results of the philosophy of 
 Locke, Hobbes, and Condillac, who are in fact expressly cited 
 as sources. As man is only a material machine, hence there 
 is between the physical and the moral life no difference ; all 
 thinking and willing consist simply in modifications of the 
 brain. All propensities and passions are purely corporeal 
 states are either hatred or love, that is " repulsion or attrac- 
 tion ; " the absurd doctrine of the freedom of the will has 
 been invented simply to justify the equally absurd one of 
 divine providence. Man is only a part of the great world- 
 machine, determined in all his movements, a blind instru- 
 ment in the hands of necessity; the concession of freedom 
 even to a single creature would bring the whole universe into 
 confusion'; hence whatever takes place takes place neces- 
 sarily. Religion and its ethics are the greatest enemies of 
 man, and occasion him only torment. The system of nature 
 alone makes man truly happy, teaches him to enjoy the 
 present as fully as possible, and gives him, in relation to 
 every thing which is not an object of enjoyment, the indiffer- 
 ence that is essential to his happiness. Hence there is no 
 need of a special moral system. Its fundamental principle 
 would necessarily be : "enjoy life as much as thou canst;" 
 but every man does this already of himself without instruc- 
 tion. Self-love, one of the manifestations of the law of grav- 
 itation, is the highest moral law. The chief condition of 
 happiness is bodily health ; the true key of the human heart 
 is medicine ; the most effectual moralists are the physicians ; 
 he who makes the body sound, makes the man moral. Every 
 man follows by nature and necessarily his own special in- 
 terest, a course of conduct which in fact follows immediately 
 and necessarily from his bodily organization ; vice and crime
 
 322 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [41. 
 
 are but consequences of morbid corporeality, are not guilt 
 but necessity. Hence only the unwise can repent; in any 
 case repentance is only a pain arising from the fact that an 
 act has had bad consequences for us. Now as the instincts 
 and passions are the sole motive of human action, hence we 
 can influence other men only by working upon their passions. 
 Each is obligated only to that which procures him an advan- 
 tage. Hence a good man is he who satisfies his passions in 
 such a manner that other persons must contribute to this 
 satisfaction so as that they also thereby satisfy their own pas- 
 sions and interests. Hence the atheist is necessarily a good 
 man, whereas religion makes men bad in that it embitters to 
 them the passions. That suicide is held as legitimate for 
 those who are weary of life, is a matter of course. This 
 godless world-theory disseminated itself in rapid develop- 
 ment deeper and deeper among the masses; and the ten 
 years of the French Revolution are the practical realization 
 of this ethics as a social power. 
 
 It is characteristic of the difference of national spirit that 
 the naturalistic tendency could not, in its stark crudity, take 
 hold upon the German people, but came to expression only in 
 association with other higher principles, with Christ ianly-moral 
 elements, namely, in the Rationalistic " illuminism " of the 
 eighteenth century. Open unbelief proper and materialistic 
 morals spoke, in Germany, almost exclusively French ; and the 
 sycophant court-atheists were too much despised to find hearty 
 favor with the masses. The demoralizing revolution which pro- 
 ceeded from the upper classes, met with a powerful opposition 
 in the German national spirit. Even while a popular gchool of 
 poetry divorced itself from the Christian consciousness, still 
 this school held fast to the antithesis of the spiritual and the 
 naturalistic world-theories, recognizing the former as the high- 
 er ; l% let him who cannot believe, enjoy ; let him who can be- 
 lieve, deny himself.''' The superficial deistic ethics attains to 
 greater influence in Germany than the materialistic, though 
 without giving rise to any important scientific works. On the 
 basis of the uncorrupted purity of human nature there was 
 developed a superficial utilitarian morality without deeper con- 
 tents;- and this morality was looked upon as the essence proper 
 of Christianity. Basedoic's demagogic attempt at world-reno-
 
 41.] BASEDOW STEINBART. 323 
 
 vation by a new system of education based on Rousseau, became 
 very soon too ridiculous to exert any enduring influence, 
 Steinbart * (professor of theology at Frankfort on the Oder) in 
 his utterly superficial but greatly lauded System of Pure Philos- 
 ophy or Christian Doctrine of Happiness (1778, '80, '86, '94), 
 regarded the chief contents'of the Christian religion and of 
 Christian ethics as simply the answering of the question : 
 " What have I to learn, and to do, in order to have the great- 
 est possible sum of pleasure ? " " Happiness is the end of the 
 entire human life, and consists in the heart-state of a continuous 
 contentment and of frequently recurring enjoyment." Every 
 man is by nature perfectly good and pure, though indeed not 
 as a spirit but as an animal, and he rises only gradually from the 
 animal to the man. Self-love is the ground of all morality, 
 and morality is the infallible way to a state of enjoyment ; of a 
 checking of self-love there can be no occasion ; hence Christian 
 virtue is " nothing else than a preparedness to enjoy one's exist- 
 ence to the highest degree, under all circumstances " ; the high- 
 est state of enjoyment is of course only in the life after death, 
 where alone we can really survey the consequences of our benefi- 
 cent, meritorious actions ; " but our glimpses into that life en- 
 courage us to a better using of the present one, and the fullest 
 enjoyment of this life enlarges our receptivity for higher degrees 
 of happiness in the future world." This is the pure doctrine 
 of Jesus, which unfortunately has, for eighteen centuries, been 
 lost sight of. Steinbart was favored in the highest degree by 
 the Prussian government, and aided in his plan of founding a 
 " general normal school in which teachers might be educated 
 for the true enlightenment of the nations." 
 
 It was only the revival of the Pantheism of Spinoza in the 
 nineteenth century that gave rise, in Germany, to a scientific 
 form of ethics ; but also this system, though of a far higher 
 character than the freethinking of France, yet, in its later un- 
 scientific offshoots, ultimated in like results ; and the fact that 
 in our own day a resuscitated materialism, resting, however, 
 more on natural science than on philosophy, presents us again 
 with the ethics of the " System of Nature," is certainly no indi- 
 cation of progress in spiritual development, though indeed an 
 
 * System der reinen Phil, oder GliickseliglceUslehre dee CJtristen- 
 t&ums. 
 
 22
 
 324 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 42 
 
 evidence of a progress of the intellectual blight consequent on 
 the too great stagnation of the religious and philosophical 
 spirit in the present age. 
 
 SECTION XLII. 
 * 
 
 The theological ethics of the evangelical church of 
 the eighteenth century made but a quite temperate 
 use of German philosophy before the time of Kant, 
 and insisted but little (not without some influence 
 from Pietism) on the antithesis of the two evan- 
 gelical churches in the sphere of ethics. JBuddceus 
 furnished the first scientific system of ethics, though 
 in its philosophical elements it is rather eclectic. 
 Stapfer, Bauingarten and others, applied the Wolfian 
 philosophy in pedantic minuteness to Christian ethics ; 
 while Mosheim constructed it more upon a purely 
 Biblical basis, and upon that of practical life-experi- 
 ence. Toward'the close of the century the superfic- 
 iality of Rationalism began already to make itself felt. 
 
 Francis Buddceus of Jena, one of the most learned and sound 
 theologians of the eighteenth century, a man of comprehensive 
 philosophical culture and who wrote also a thoughtful, evangel- 
 ically-inspired system of practical philosophy (Elementa phi- 
 losophic practices, 1697, and often), prepared the way, with his 
 Institut. theologies moralis (1712, '23, 4to. ; in German as "In- 
 troduction to Moral Theology," 1719), for a more thorough, 
 systematic treatment of ethics. The rich, carefully and some 
 times rather lengthily treated subject-matter rests upon sound 
 Scripture exegesis and careful observation of human life. Influ- 
 enced somewhat by Spener, this writer combines practical sense 
 with a scientific spirit. He begins at once with the thought 
 of the corruption of human nature and with that of divine 
 grace, and hence gives not a general philosophical, but only a 
 specifically-Christian system of ethics, in view of man as regen- 
 erated. The ground-thought of morality is : man must do 
 every thing which is essential to a constant union with God
 
 42.] BUDD^US BAUMGARTON. 325 
 
 and to the restoration of God's image, and must avoid the 
 contrary thereof. The whole subject-matter is distributed, 
 (1), into moral theology (in the narrower sense of the word),which 
 treats of the nature of regeneration and sanctification in their 
 collective development, (2) into jurisprudentia dimna, which 
 treats of the divine laws and of the duties resting thereupon, 
 and (3) into the doctrine of Christian prudence, which presents 
 the practical carrying out of the moral in detail, and especially 
 by clergymen. For the future development of evangelical 
 ethics, the thorough treatment of the first part is especially 
 valuable ; Buddseus finds in Christian ethics not merely the 
 manifestation, but also the progressive development of the 
 spiritual life of the regenerated. He presents as chief virtues : 
 piety, ternperatenesfc and justness. (Budda3us has been much 
 used by other writers, also by J. J. Rambach, 1739, and by 
 J. G. Walch, 1747). 
 
 The Reformed* divine, John F. Stapfer of Bern made, in his 
 rather comprehensive than scientifically-important system of 
 ethics (1757), a very moderate use of the Wolfian philosophy. 
 The earlier Calvinistically-rigorous spirit is here already very 
 much modified. Sigismund Jacob Baumgarten (of Halle, a 
 brother of the philosopher) follows, in his discursive " Theolog- 
 ical Ethics " (1767, 4to.), the painfully-minute manner of Wolf, 
 which is applied also in his numerous other writings, and which 
 leaves absolutely nothing unsaid, not even that which every 
 reader could supply for himself; and this pedantic discursive- 
 ness detracts considerably from the otherwise real thoroughness 
 of the treatment. (The "Wolfian philosophy was applied to 
 theological ethics by Cam ( 40), by Bertling [1753], and by 
 Reusch [1760] ; J. C. Schubert [1759, '60, '62] is more indepen- 
 dent.) The not sufficiently prized P. Hanssen (of Schleswig- 
 Holstein) gave in his " Christian Ethics " (1739, '49) a very 
 clear and sound presentation of the evangelical doctrine, a 
 work which gives evidence of a truly philosophical spirit, and 
 protests against the one-sidedness of Wolf; in the first general 
 part, he develops the threefold form of the moral life in the 
 state of innocence or perfection, in the state of sin, and in 
 that of regeneration. T. Criiger (of Chemnitz) develops, in his 
 Apparatus theol. moral. Ohristi et renatorum (1747, 4to.), the 
 thought of the moral pattern as found in Christ, and hence of
 
 326 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 42. 
 
 an ethical Christology and of its application to the life of Chris- 
 tians, with great profoundness and uncommon erudition, though 
 in a somewhat stiff, over-carefully-classified, scholastic form. 
 
 Mosheim's comprehensive " Ethics of the Holy Scriptures," * 
 though in its sometimes almost hortatory discursiveness, often 
 unnecessarily detailed, yet differs from works of the Wolfian 
 and the earlier schools by a beautiful, animated and popular 
 form, free of all stiff scholastic-elements, and gives evidence of 
 a close observation of life, of impartial and profound study of 
 the Scriptures, of a simple, mild, evangelical spirit, and of a 
 thorough and careful attention to details ; but the scientific 
 demonstration and development are frequently feeble, and, 
 despite all his insisting on the rationality of Christian morality, 
 the philosophical element is almost entirely overlooked ; the 
 antitheses of view, as developed in the two churches, are not 
 made prominent. The whole subject is distributed into the 
 consideration of the inner holiness of the soul, and into that 
 of the outer holiness of the walk. Miller's continuation of the 
 work, though furnished with more learned apparatus, is less 
 mature and also less inviting in form. Crusius, whom we have 
 already mentioned as a philosophical moralist, wrote also a 
 " Moral Theology " (1772) which is inspired with a philosophic- 
 al spirit, and gives evidence of deeply Christian knowledge. 
 Ttillner, 1762, wrote rather on the treatment of ethics than on 
 ethics itself, already quite Rationalistic; Reuss, 1767, uncom- 
 pleted ; the work of G. Less, (1777, and subsequently), is not 
 important; H. C. Tittmann, 1783, '94, endeavors to be strictly 
 Biblical but is without depth ; 'Morns' work, 1794, is imper- 
 fectly edited from his lectures, partially based on Crusius, 
 frequently rationalistic. The Englishman, Thomas Stackhouse, 
 wrote on Christian ethics in a plain and Biblical spirit, treating 
 mainly only of general questions. The Reformed divine, End&- 
 mann of Marburg, closes the series of Reformed moralists 
 (1780), but he bears the distinctively Reformed character only 
 in very feeble traits. 
 
 * 1735-70 ; continued by Miller, 1762; Miller -wrote also a special 
 Einleit, in die theol. Moral, 1772, and a short Lehrbuch, i?7S.
 
 43.] KANT. 327 
 
 SECTION XLIH. 
 
 In the system of Kant philosophical ethics put 
 off the naturalistic or subjectivistic character; the 
 moral idea attained, on the basis of the freedom of 
 the will, to an objective significancy, and became an 
 end per se, and not simply a means to the end of in- 
 dividual happiness. Independently of the theoretical 
 reason and of the God-consciousness, the moral idea 
 became the presupposition and basis of all specula- 
 tion on the supersensuous, and hence also of rational 
 religion. The universal validity of the moral law 
 became the formal, and, pretendedly also, the mate- 
 rial principaf of morality. But the one-sided rational 
 character of this morality left essential phases of the 
 moral unaccounted for ; and the merely formal char- 
 acter of the moral law admitted of no consequential 
 carrying-out in detail. The application of Kantian 
 ground-thoughts to theological ethics was of two-fold 
 effect, raising it indeed above the utilitarian ethics 
 of the "illuministic " current, but robbing it, in its 
 divorce from religion, of a part of its Christian char- 
 acter. 
 
 Previous philosophical ethics had gone astray in two respects. 
 The two equally true and necessary thoughts, that, on the one 
 hand, the moral idea has a universally valid significancy, that 
 it cannot be dependent in its obligating character on the chance 
 caprice of the individual subject, and that yet, on the other, it 
 has in fact for its end the perfection of the person, and hence 
 also his happiness, had been one-sidedly held fast to, each for it- 
 self. Naturalistic Pantheism gave validity simply to the objec- 
 tive significancy of the moral, absolutely annihilated the free- 
 dom of the will, and conceived by the moral law as a mere fatal- 
 ism unalterably determining every individual ; and when, with 
 the champions of materialistic atheism, this notion of the unfree
 
 328 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 43. 
 
 determination of the individual, ultimated practically in an 
 entire letting-loose of the passions, it was not without the 
 countenance of strict consistency with the ground principle. 
 The opposite tendency proceeded from the subject, emphasizing 
 his free will, and hence looking less to the ground than to the 
 end of the moral activity ; man was to be determined by noth- 
 ing which does not leave him absolutely free, which does not 
 contribute to his own individual advantage, in other words, 
 by the thought of individual happiness. While the first ten- 
 dency undermined morality by the fact that it annihilated the 
 moral subject, sinking him into a mere unfree member of the 
 great world-machine, the other tendency imperiled morality 
 in its innermost essence, in a no less degree, by the fact that it 
 required no self-subordination of the subject under a per se 
 valid idea,, but emphasized the absolute claims of the individ- 
 ual personality, so that in fact in their ultimate consequences 
 the two opposite tendencies resulted, equally, in the letting- 
 loose of the individual in his unbridled naturalness. Christian 
 ethics could not, save by letting itself be led astray by philos- 
 ophy, fall into either of these errors. That the moral idea is 
 valid per se, that it has an unconditional, universally-obligating 
 significancy, is here a point settled from the very start, inas- 
 much as it conceives this idea as the holy will of God. He 
 who inquires first as to himself, and only afterward as to the will 
 of God, has absolutely reversed the moral relation. On the 
 other hand, it is, in Christian ethics, not in the least doubtful, 
 that this will of God has in view the perfection of man, and 
 hence also his perfect happiness, that man, in fulfilling God's 
 will becomes also truly happy, and does not lose his freedom 
 but brings it to perfection. It was high time, toward the end 
 of the eighteenth century, to set bounds to the decline of 
 philosophical ethics ; the two opposed currents had attained to 
 their last corrupt consequences, subversive of all morality. 
 The " eudemonistic " tendency could oppose nothing else to 
 the frivolous enjoyment-seeking and conscienceless self-seeking 
 of the materialistic tendency, than an insipid utilitarian moral- 
 ity essentially identical at bottom with the other, and which 
 differed from it only by an air of external decency, but not by 
 profundity of th'ought or moral worthiness. It was a great 
 forward-step of philosophical thought-development when
 
 43.] KANTIAN ETHICS. 329 
 
 Kant, with mighty hand, dashed to atoms both these moral 
 structures, and built up a new firmer-based system ; although 
 his own age, in its enthusiasm for him, no less than he himself, 
 sadly deceived themselves as to the perfection and durability 
 of the same. 
 
 His first and by no means unimportant service consists in 
 the fact that basing himself primarily on the skepticism of 
 Hume, he annihilated, at a single stroke, all confidence in pre- 
 vious methods of philosophizing, whether speculative or em- 
 pirical, and deprived both empiricism and the pure theoretical 
 reason, in so far as it had thus far been developed, of all right 
 to pretend to establish, in respect to the supersensuous, or 
 the ideal, any thing whatever as philosophical knowledge. 
 Though in his "Critique of the Pure Reason" (1781) Kant 
 had ascribed to the speculative reason, in the sphere of 
 theoretical knowledge, really only the function of formal 
 thought or logic, he yet attained in fact to a positive knowl-- 
 edge of reality in the sphere of the practical reason, that is, 
 in that of morality.* Reason is not merely a cognizing, but 
 also a volitionating power; hence there is not merely a ra- 
 tional knowledge of that which is, namely, theoretical or 
 pure reason, but also of that which, through rational volition, 
 ought to be, namely, practical reason; the former seeks in 
 every given reality for the rational beginning, the ground ; 
 the practical reason seeks for the rational goal, the end. This 
 end can, as a rational one, not be fortuitous, arbitrary, or 
 doubtful, but must have an unconditional absolutely-valid 
 character. The office of reason is here entirely other than in 
 the sphere of pure theoretical cognition ; the practical reason 
 directs itself toward something which is not yet real, but 
 which should through reason become real, and which, conse- 
 quently depends upon reason; hence reason is here, as in 
 contrast to the other sphere, in its own sphere proper, where 
 it itself actively creates its own object, is free and responsi- 
 ble. Man, as a spirit, can choose whatever object of action 
 he pleases, but as a rational spirit he should set before hiin- 
 
 * Qrundlegung sur Metaphysik der Sitten, 1785; Krittie der prakti- 
 scTien Vernunft, 1788, the chief work of the Kantian form of ethics ; 
 Metaph. Anfangtgrilttde der RecTitslehre, 1797; Metaph. Anf. der Tit- 
 gendlehre, 1797.
 
 330 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [43. 
 
 self only a rational, and hence absolutely valid object. As 
 he acts here in a sphere determined by himself, hence he is 
 dependent only upon himself ; in willing and acting, man is 
 free. A rational end is such a one as must be recognized by 
 every rational man, as his own end ; for reason is not a merely 
 individual quality, but is in all men the same ; hence the ra- 
 tionality of the end consists in its universal validity. Hence 
 the highest principle of all rational moral action is the law : 
 "act in such a manner that the maxim of thy conduct is 
 adapted to become a universal law for all men." (Maxim is 
 here taken as the subjective principle of moral action in con- 
 tradistinction to the objectively-valid law.) The obligatori- 
 ness of such action lies exclusively in my rationality, and is 
 hence entirely unconditional ; should I act otherwise I would 
 not be rational; hence this law of the reason is the "cate- 
 gorical imperative.'" 1 I am here to inquire not after my own 
 happiness, but only after that which is rational ; I ought to be 
 rational ; to this end I need no other motive than my own ra- 
 tional nature itself. To make my own happiness the end of 
 my moral activity eudemonism is irrational and immoral ; 
 for, because of the fortuity of the outward conditions of hap- 
 piness, and of the heterogeneousness of claims upon happi- 
 ness, the moral would be rendered dependent upon accident 
 and caprice. The moral reason is absolutely free only when 
 it has absolutely within itself the law and the motive of ac- 
 tion, and where it makes itself dependent on no other con- 
 ditions not given within itself. kl Autonomy" constitutes 
 the essence of reason and the dignity of human nature. 
 Reason, in a practical law, determines the will directly, and 
 not by means of an intervening feeling of pleasure or dis- 
 pleasure. To be happy is indeed the legitimate and naturally- 
 necessary striving of every rational being, but such a ground 
 for action can be known and recognized only empirically, 
 whereas the moral law must necessarily have objective un- 
 conditional validity. What is good or evil cannot be known 
 through any thing outside of reason, but only through reason 
 itself ; but feelings of pleasure and displeasure belong not to 
 reason, but to the lower'sphere of the spirit-life. 
 
 Though morality as resting exclusively upon the categori- 
 cal imperative of the reason has not happiness for its motive,
 
 43.] KANTIAN ETHICS. 331 
 
 yet it earns a right to happiness ; virtue is the subjective fit- 
 ness for and worthiness of happiness, that is, for that condi- 
 tion of a rational being to whom, in its entire existence, 
 every thing goes according to wish and will, and where 
 consequently also the outward relations, including those of 
 nature, harmonize with the spiritual and moral reality of the 
 person. Neither virtue per se, nor happiness per se, but hap- 
 piness as attendant upon virtue, constitutes the true, perfect 
 life-condition of man his highest good. The moral law per sc 
 is the sole true motive of the will, while the idea of the 
 highest good is an object of reason. Happiness depends not 
 merely upon our rational will, but also upon outer conditions 
 which lie not within our power. Hence happiness and virtue 
 are not identical (as the Greek moralists taught), but have 
 primarily nothing whatever to do with each other ; the virtu- 
 ous man may possibly be very unhappy, namely, in so far as 
 his condition is not dependent upon himself, which is in 
 fact another proof that the striving after virtue and the 
 striving after happiness are not one and the same thing, and 
 that the striving after happiness per se is neither moral nor 
 leads to morality. In this distinction lies the dialectics of 
 the practical reason; happiness is not already included in 
 virtue itself, stands therewith not in analytical but in syn- 
 thetic connection ; and hence we are brought to the important 
 question : how is the highest good practically possible f that 
 is, how can the two essentially different elements of this good 
 be brought into perfect harmony? The highest good is a 
 demand of the practical reason; the demand of happiness for 
 the virtuous is just as rational as that of virtue itself ; but its 
 realization rests not (as that of virtue) within our free power, 
 but is rather a morally necessary demand upon the moral gov- 
 ernment of the world, a " postulate of the practical reason." 
 The demand, the postulate, of a perfect morality which is 
 not fully to be attained to in this temporal, sensuously-limited 
 life, and of a correspondent happiness, that is, the demand 
 of the highest good, finds its fulfillment only in the assump- 
 tion of an immortality of the rational personality, and of a 
 universal government of an all-wise, just and almighty Q-od. 
 These postulates have, in virtue of the moral nature of man, 
 entire moral certainty, because it is only on the assumption
 
 332 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 43. 
 
 of their truth that the morally-rational life can attain to its 
 goal. Thus the moral law leads, through the idea of the 
 highest good as the object and end of the practical reason, 
 to religion, that is, to the conceiving of all duties as divine 
 commands, not indeed as arbitrary prescriptions of an ex- 
 ternal will, but as essential and morally-necessary laws of 
 every free rational will per se, which, however, must be 
 looked upon as divine commands, because it is only on the 
 supposition of a moral Infinite Will that we can attain to the 
 highest good. Thus the moral striving is preserved from 
 becoming selfish, and the thought of happiness is not made 
 the motive of morality, but this motive is and remains abso- 
 lutely nothing else but the moral law; but, through the 
 religious consciousness, our reason attains to certainty and 
 confidence in its moral aspirations. Ethics will never be- 
 come a doctrine of happiness, an art of becoming happy ; it 
 becomes simply the doctrine as to how we may make our- 
 selves worthy of happiness. Hence the moral idea rests not 
 upon religion, but, conversely, religion rests upon the pe>' se 
 certain and necessary moral idea, follows by moral neces- 
 sity from this idea. Man is not moral because he is pious, 
 but he is pious because he is moral. Morality in so far as it 
 'rests upon the idea of a free and rational creature, has no 
 need, per se, of religion, because it has no end nor motive 
 outside of itself, but it leads necessarily to religion, and thus 
 gives rise to the idea of an almighty moral Lawgiver and 
 world-Governor. A special carrying-out of philosophical 
 ethics, Kant has not really given ; we find only a scanty ap- 
 proach thereto in his "Doctrine of Virtue," a work of no 
 great importance, and which already betrays marks of intel- 
 lectual senility. He contents himself mostly with the mere 
 general foundation-laying, whereas in fact, the chief question 
 is : in how far the general thoughts admit also of being car- 
 ried out in detail? Duties toward God belong, according to 
 Kant, not to ethics proper, but to the doctrine of religion.* 
 
 Unquestionably there lies in the ethics of Kant a decided 
 advance beyond antecedent philosophical ethics, and espe- 
 cially beyond the empirical and naturalistic. He raised it 
 from the low region of a self-seeking or external utilitarian 
 . * * Met. d. Sitten, ed. 1838, p. 355 sqq.
 
 43.] KANT CRITICIZED. 333 
 
 morality into the dignity of the science of a purely rational 
 idea transcending all mere reality, rejected all inferior self- 
 seeking motives to morality, and insisted on the unconditional 
 validity and obligatoriness of the moral law. While there 
 lies in this a decided approximation to the Christian concep- 
 tion of the moral, still the great difference of this from the 
 Christian view, and the inner weakness of the Kantian system 
 as a whole, are unmistakable. The independence of morality 
 on religion which follows from Kant's theory of rational 
 knowledge, makes it impossible for the moral principle to ob- 
 tain positive contents ; his much admired moral law, and for 
 which he puts forth such high claims, says in fact absolutely 
 nothing, and does not lead, save by arbitrarily calling in aid 
 from without, a single step further ; and it is manifestly not 
 without good reason, that Kant developed no system of ethics 
 proper. The above-mentioned formula expresses not, properly 
 speaking, the moral law itself, but only the universal validity 
 of the law which is yet to be discovered, says, in fact, noth- 
 ing else than: "act according to rational, and hence univer- 
 sally-valid law ; " but if we now ask, what then is this law, we 
 are left entirely without answer. The application of this 
 formal principle becomes in each particular case an experi- 
 ment, an examination of the question : can I will that all men 
 should act according to the same maxim by which I act? But 
 we have absolutely no clue or criterion as to whence and on 
 what basis the answer is to be given, inasmuch as the moral 
 law is utterly destitute of positive contents ; we could at best 
 only start the inquiry as to what the result would be in case 
 all men acted as we ; but this, as a judging of morality by 
 the result, would be in contradiction to the other moral views 
 of Kant, and would be the worst of all empiricism, as in fact 
 not the real, but only the possible or probable result could 
 be taken into consideration. But in case, now, some one 
 should, in view of some per se immoral action, come to the 
 manifestly possible, though erroneous conviction, that such 
 action is adapted to be practiced universally, then such a 
 person would be entirely unassailable and unreformable from 
 the stand-point of Kant, and thus an error in the calculating 
 understanding would jeopardize the entire moral conduct of 
 the person. And in fact Helvetius and La Mettrie affirmed
 
 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 43. 
 
 without hesitation, that their own maxim was adapted to be 
 a universally valid law ; what could Kant then object to them, 
 seeing that they recognized his formal principle ? The Kantian 
 moral law, which he himself declared to be purely formal, is 
 moreover incorrect even in formal respects. Inasmuch as, 
 according to Kant, a maxim is the subjective rule which lies 
 at the basis of my conduct, hence it is for that very reason 
 per se utterly unadapted to be made into a universal law for 
 all men ; a maxim is the law as subjectively conditioned and 
 shaped, and has in fact, in its subjective form, validity only 
 for this particular subject. The moral maxim of an educator 
 and guide is not adapted to be also the maxim of him who is 
 to be guided and led, that of a warrior cannot be that of a 
 clergyman. Although it is true that the law which forms the 
 basis of my maxim must be universally valid, yet I cannot 
 derive the law from the maxim, but only the maxim from the 
 law. Kant gives not the contents of the law, but only the 
 way in which the contents may be found ; this way, however, 
 is in contradiction to his entire system, and is not merely a 
 purely empirical or rather experimental one, but also an en- 
 tirely false one. In the very attempt at rejecting every 
 merely individual element as determinative, Kant exalts it in 
 fact to the solely determining one. 
 
 Kant undertakes, now, actually to advance further by the 
 aid of this formal principle, and infers from it, as a second 
 formula, the principle: "act in such a manner as to consider 
 and use rational nature, that is, humanity in general, both in 
 thy own person and also in the person of every other one, 
 always, at the same time, as an end, and never merely as a 
 means," namely, because rational nature is personality, and 
 personality is an end in itself. Kant himself admits that 
 this formula is merely formal ; but precisely in this fact lies 
 its defectiveness, for it is just as impossible to attain to posi- 
 tive contents from merely formal principles as to obtain a 
 real value from a purely algebraic equation. When the prin- 
 ciple is only a mere empty space which is first to be filled 
 from without, and not the fountain which unfolds itself into 
 a stream, there is no possibility of advancing a step further. 
 And hence, the above formula may be applied equally well 
 morally and immorally ; the whole question depends on, what
 
 43.] KANT CRITICIZED. 335 
 
 the end is, for which I consider the person ; it might in fact ' 
 be an end of Satanic malice. This second principle is, in its 
 arbitrarily-determined form (and which in fact embraces only 
 a limited part of morality) still less adapted to its purpose 
 than the first, with which in fact it stands in no logical con- 
 nection. 
 
 Another wide-reaching defect of Kantian ethics is this, that 
 morality appears as a mere one-sided affair of the understand- 
 ing, while the heart entirely disappears, and is left utterly 
 unexplained. This one-sidedness results of course from the 
 divorce of morality from religion. It sounds plausibly, and 
 is likewise very easily said, that the good must be done for 
 its own sake, that the law of the reason must be per se the 
 direct motive to moral action ; but as Kant positively admits 
 elsewhere the possibility that man can act also against his 
 better knowledge, and consequently against his conscience, 
 hence this undenjable fact proves that rational knowledge is 
 not per se a sufficient motive to moral action. The thought 
 of love is wanting ; man can indeed act against his knowledge, 
 but not against his love. It is only in a love of the good that 
 a sufficient motive for moral action is found; but in this God- 
 ignoring morality of the understanding, love has no ground 
 and no place. The love of the living God can enkindle love, 
 but an abstract thought cannot. Kant demands simply un- 
 conditional obedience, but not love ; he expressly declares 
 that the law must often be fulfilled even against our inclina- 
 tions, yea, in the face of decided repugnance ; but this would 
 amount only to an outward fulfilling of duty. Kant's mo- 
 rality is possible only for beings who have in themselves no 
 manner of sin and no germ of sin ; but so soon as even the 
 mere possibility of an already-existing sinfulness is admitted, 
 this ethical system loses all foundation ; for both the certainty 
 and also the potency of the rational law as a motive, are there- 
 by undermined. And now Kant in fact admits, in his re- 
 ma'rkable work: " Religion within the Limits of Pure Rea- 
 son " (1792, '94) (which, with the exception of the one point 
 here in question, became the catechism of Rationalism) the 
 indwelling of an evil principle in man along-side of the good 
 one, a " radical evil in human nature," existing there already 
 anterior to any exercise of freedom, a tendency to evil in-
 
 336 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 43. 
 
 hering in all men without exception, as a subjective motive- 
 power antecedent to all action, apeccatum originarium, which 
 he describes with such dark colors that even the strongest 
 presentations of the orthodox doctrine of hereditary sin would 
 fail to depict the natural man so unfavorably ; but by this admis- 
 sion, Kant undermines his entire moral system, for he thereby 
 renders it entirely incomprehensible, how the mere knowledge 
 of the moral law (if indeed, under such circumstances, such a 
 knowledge could in fact be certain and unclouded) could be 
 the motive to a willing fulfillment of the same, seeing that, 
 in fact, the love of man is turned in the direction of evil. 
 And though it is true that often precisely in the contradic- 
 tions of a system, the deeper presentiment of the truth is in 
 fact contained, still the system itself is thereby overturned 
 and proven untrue. And in general the antithesis of reason 
 and sensuousness, which extends through Kant's entire world- 
 theory, is in no respect rendered comprehensible, nor concili- 
 ated; it appears simply as a fact, broadly prominent and 
 defying all comprehension. Another peculiarity of Kantian 
 ethics is its utter lack of appreciation for history, although 
 this was in fact characteristic of the entire epoch ; his ethics 
 has history neither as its presupposition, nor as its end, nor 
 as its contents. Each man stands unconnected with the his- 
 torical development of the spirit, is considered only as a 
 rational unity, and acts only as such ; and there is also a lack 
 of all appreciation for an historical goal of the moral, for a 
 morality of humanity, for the rational moral significancy of 
 universal history. 
 
 The Kantian ground-principles of ethics were further carried 
 out and applied, with partial modifications, by Kiesewetter 
 (1789), by K. C. E. Schmid (1790), by the Roman Catholic 
 Mutschelle (1788, '94), by Snell (1805) in smooth, popular style, 
 by L. H. Jacob (1794), by Heydenreich (1794), by Tief trunk 
 (1789 and later), and by others. 
 
 Kant's moral system was, in its general character, very poorly 
 adapted to be applied to Christian ethics. Its absolutely un- 
 historical character, its merely formal principle the application 
 of which rests simply on reflective calculation, its lack of any 
 other moral motive than the authority of an abstract law, and 
 above all the reversing of the Christian relation between mor-
 
 43.] KANT AND CHRIST. 337 
 
 ality and religion, all this could not, on its application to 
 theological ethics, fail to endanger the Christian character 
 thereof, notwithstanding the fact that it opposed with moral 
 earnestness the insipid utilitarian morality of deistical " illu- 
 minism." Precisely this divorcing of morality from religion 
 a direct contradiction to the Christian view was very much 
 in harmony with the dominant spirit of the age ; and this in 
 fact accounts in part for the warm welcome which Kant's 
 moral system met with also within the sphere of the already 
 deeply sunken theological world ; and upon this adoption of 
 Kantian views rests the general development of the system 
 of Rationalism. The dogmatic element of the Christian 
 religion, reduced now to the ideas of God, of immortality 
 and of Christ as the ideal of virtue, sank into secondary im- 
 portance into dependence on the morality given with full 
 certainty in reason itself; the historical phase of Christianity 
 was without worth ; Christ himself was admired only in so far 
 as he had realized in himself the moral law given already in 
 reason, only as a teacher of " illuministic " morality, and as a 
 living exemplification of the same. It was not evangelical 
 faith that could lean with confidence upon Kant, but rather 
 only the anti-Christian tendency, which had thus far been 
 represented in " illuminism, " and which now, in fact, received 
 from Kant a more earnestly-ethical and scientific character. 
 We have no wish to deny this scientific impulse given to the- 
 ology ; but when (as is done by Daniel Schenkel in his Dog- 
 matics) Kant is exalted into an essential and necessary reformer 
 of the whole field of evangelical theology, through whom there 
 has been wrought " a deep-reaching reaction on the part of the 
 ethical factor against the fanatical-grown doctrinism of the 
 dogmatics of the seventeenth century " which had annihilated 
 all interest in ethics, such a manner of viewing the matter sim- 
 ply indicates a forgetfulness of the fact that this orthodoxy in 
 question had been already for almost a century devoid of 
 vitality, and that in the meantime the philosophy of Wolf and 
 the movement of Pietism had given theology an entirely other 
 direction, and that Pietism especially had in fact almost one- 
 sidedly emphasized he moral phase of Christianity, so that 
 there could hardly have been need of the Kantian moralism as 
 the sole salvation against said doctrinal " fanaticism."
 
 338 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [44. 
 
 The most important theological presentations of ethics from 
 the Kantian stand-point are : J. W. Schmid (" Spirit of the 
 Ethics of Jesus," 1790; "Theological Ethics," 1793; "Chris- 
 tian Ethics," 1797), who presents the founding of ethics on 
 Kantian principles as the sole mission of Jesus ; J. E. C. Schmidt 
 (1799), in a similar spirit; S. G. Lange ; S. Vogel. Staudlin 
 treated theological ethics (from and after 1798) with constant 
 changing of title and stand-point, until in his " New Treatise 
 on Ethics" (1813, third edition, 1825) he despaired of any su- 
 perior principle at all, and brought together, in a wavering 
 eclecticism of heterogeneous thoughts, a feeble whole. The 
 self-metamorphosing C. F. von Amman repeated at first 
 (1795-'98) simply the ethics of Kant, but soon after (1800) 
 broke entirely away from him, without yet getting rid of his 
 own superficiality. 
 
 SECTION XLIV. 
 
 The philosophy of Fichte, resting upon Kant, but, 
 with rigid consequentially, proceeding beyond him, 
 manifested itself predominantly upon the ethical 
 field. Fichte endeavored indeed to complement the 
 formal principle by a material one, but both of them 
 are so absolutely devoid of ethical contents, and the 
 material principle stands even so positively in antag- 
 onism to the contents of a really moral conscious- 
 ness, that an actual ethical development of these 
 principles became impossible; and the occasionally 
 sound and morally-earnest contents of the develop- 
 ment in detail could only be loosely associated with 
 these principles, but not scientifically developed from 
 them. The immaturity of the entire stand-point 
 rendered it also impossible that any important 
 ethical tendency in philosophy or theology should 
 arise therefrom. Fichte labored indeed fruitfully in 
 a time which had lost all solid philosophical foot 
 hold, but he formed no school.
 
 44.] FICHTEAN ETHICS. 839 
 
 Fichte's " System of Ethics according to the Principles of 
 the Doctrine of Science " (1798) is the most important attempt 
 to apply tlie ground-thoughts of the " Doctrine of Science " to 
 one particular science. We would do injustice to the Fichtean 
 philosophy were we to consider its unfruitful eccentricities 
 apart from their connection with the immediately-preceding 
 philosophy; his philosophy is a scientifically-justified and 
 necessary advance beyond Kant. As Kant had denied to the 
 pure reason all objective knowledge, and also placed all con- 
 tents of the practical reason exclusively in the subject, and 
 derived the objective validity of the law of reason simply from 
 the subject ; so Fichte simply made the validity of the indi- 
 vidual subject, the ego, all-predominant, conceived all object- 
 ive existence merely negatively as the non-ego, and based cog- 
 nition and volitionating absolutely on the individual ego. The 
 ego and the non-ego reciprocally determine each other, and 
 hence stand in reciprocal relation. The ego posits itself as 
 determined by the non-ego, that is, it cognizes ; and it posits 
 itself, on the other hand, as determining in relation to the non- 
 ego, that is, it wlitionates. The two are only two phases of 
 the same thing, inasmuch as the non-ego in its entire being ex- 
 ists only in so far as it is posited by the ego, so that, strictly 
 speaking, the ego is its own object. The ego should in all its 
 determinations be posited only by itself, should be absolutely 
 independent of all non-ego. Only as volitiouating, as abso- 
 lutely determining the non-ego, is the ego free and independ- 
 ent. The ego as rational, should not permit itself to be deter- 
 mined by any non-ego independent of it, should be absolutely 
 independent, should make all non-ego absolutely dependent on 
 itself, should exercise absolute causality upon the same. In 
 freedom, in volitionating, I am rational ; and in that I deter- 
 mine my freedom as an absolutely self-poised power, that is. 
 affirm my freedom, I am moral ; hence morality is self-determi- 
 nation to freedom. I should act freely in order that I may 
 become free, that is, I should act with the consciousness that I 
 determine myself in absolute independence. Hence the formal 
 principle of morality is : " act according to thy conscience," or 
 " act always according to the best conviction of thy duty ; " 
 and as material principle of ethics, there results this: " make 
 thyself into an independent or free being." "I should be a 
 
 23
 
 340 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 44. 
 
 self-dependent being ; this is my destination ; and the destination 
 of things is, that I use them in furthering my independence." 
 
 So absolutely void a principle of morality was probably 
 never before proposed. The formal principle expresses nothing 
 other than : act according to a yet unknown material principle. 
 As to what the " conscience " is and contains, we are as yet 
 utterly uninformed ; and the material principle gives only the 
 formal presupposition of morality, but not its contents proper ; 
 I must in fact already be free, in order to be able to act morally ; 
 freedom is not the contents, but the form, of moral action. If 
 this material principle is to be taken in its entire significancy 
 (and according to the philosophical presupposition this is 
 strictly consequential), then the very opposite of all morality 
 would be thereby expressed, namely, the acting absolutely with- 
 out law, the virtualizing of freedom in its simple form without 
 contents, and hence as mere individual caprice amounting to 
 a radical absolutism of the individual subject, whereas all 
 morality consists in fact most essentially in a determining of 
 individual freedom by an unconditionally and objectively valid 
 law, is- a subordinating of the subject to a universally-obligat- 
 ing idea standing above the subject. From Fichte's principle 
 there results, not a system of ethics, but, consequentially, only 
 a theory of license. While it is true that in his examinations 
 of particular moral questions only loosely connected with his 
 system, Fichte shows himself, for the most part, high-minded 
 and earnest, though indeed often strangely unpractical, still 
 there lies, at least in his ground-principle and in his general 
 system, no justification thereof. Th*e cold, heartless, non-los- 
 ing, intellectual character of his- discussions, is moreover not 
 very well adapted to awaken a moral interest. 
 
 What Fichte. says on moral questions in his later, more 
 rhetorical than scientific, writings-, bears in general the same 
 unfruitful stamp, often widely misunderstanding the reality 
 of life ; we need only call' to mind the new system of education 
 proposed in his much admired " Addresses to the German Na- 
 tion," which was presented with the assumption of world- 
 regenerating significancy, but at which, in fact, no experienced 
 educator can avoid smiling, and also his " Doctrine of the 
 State " which is even more than fantastical. The public 
 often allowed itself to be deceived by the ring of his periods,
 
 45.] FICHTEAN RELIGION. 341 
 
 and by the loftily enigmatic character of the expression. And 
 it is doubtful whether the fanaticism of the philosopher him- 
 self, or that entertained for him by others, was the greater; 
 certain it is, however, that very soon there was a vast sobering- 
 down of both. We will here only refer to the fact that Fichte 
 was personally very far from drawing the very natural conse- 
 quences of his dangerous moral principle, but that on the con- 
 trary in his rhetorical " Direction for a Holy Life " (1807), in 
 which he already largely departs from his earlier views, and 
 takes a rather mystico-Pantheistic turn, he expressly presents, 
 as the goal of morality, complete " self-annihilation " not, 
 however, in the Christian sense of moral self-denial, but rather 
 in the sense of the religion of India. The belief in our self- 
 existence must be absolutely destroyed ; by this course the ego 
 that was, sinks away into the pure divine essence ; we should 
 not say : let the love and the will of God become mine, because 
 in fact there are no longer two, but only One, and no longer 
 two wills but simply one. So long as man yet desires to be 
 any thing himself, God comes not to him ; but so soon as he 
 annihilates himself fully, utterly and radically, then God alone 
 remains and is all in all. In annihilating himself man contin- 
 ues in God, and in this self-annihilation consists blessedness. 
 The scientific justification of this (in some respects) not un- 
 ambiguous requirement, is not given. Notwithstanding ,the 
 enthusiasm which Fichte's pretentious philosophy excited, 
 especially among the youth, it was unable to create any long- 
 enduring movements of thought. Feeble attempts to develop 
 it further, or, in fact, to apply it to Christian ethics (Mehmel : 
 "Elements," 1811), fell very soon into deserved oblivion. 
 
 SECTION XLV. 
 
 Schelling, after passing from Idealism to Panthe- 
 ism, and from Pantheism to a dualistic Theosophy, 
 endeavored, in this his third development-period, to 
 reconcile the freedom of the individual with the sway 
 of necessity, and indeed of necessary evil, by regard- 
 ing individual man as determining himself for evil 
 in an ante-mundane self-determination as influenced
 
 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [45. 
 
 by a principle of darkness lying in God himself, 
 but as necessary for the self-revelation of divine love. 
 The presentations of philosophical ethics which based 
 themselves on Schelling, have been unable to attain to 
 any permanent significancy. The imperfectly devel- 
 oped anti-Schellingian philosophy ofJacobi answered, 
 in its ethical phases, more to the Christian view, but 
 it also has given rise to no real ethical system. 
 
 Schelling, appearing at first as a disciple of Fichte (at a 
 period which was very receptive and thankful for philosophy, 
 even for a youthfully unripe one), and then, in a more highly 
 speculative spirit passing beyond him, and also in constant 
 metamorphoses progressively rising above even himself, never 
 settled, never bringing any thing to perfection, did not de- 
 velop in his earlier period any ethical system, and, at furthest, 
 only gave, on purely Pantheistic foundations, more or less clear 
 suggestions toward an ethical system ; however, in his last pro- 
 ductive period (when, under the stimulation of Jacob Bb'hnie 
 and Francis Baader, he plunged into a current of phantasy- 
 speculation not un-akin to Gnostic dualism), he furnished, in 
 his " Philosophical Inquiries as to the Essence of Human Lib- 
 erty" (1809), a less dialectically developed, indeed, than theo- 
 sophically-portrayed. though certainly deeply suggestive, pres- 
 entation of the presuppositions and bases of a system of phil- 
 osophical ethics. In God there exists, before all reality, his 
 eternal ground, his per se unintelligent nature, out of which in 
 all eternity the divine understanding generates itself as the 
 eternal antithesis to this ground-nature, which understanding 
 stands dominatingly over against this nature, rules creatingly 
 in it, and by its acting upon it creates the finite world. Eveiy 
 creature has consequently a twofold nature in itself : an essen- 
 tially dark principle corresponding to the nature-element in 
 God, and also the principle of light or understanding. In the 
 highest creature, man, there exists the entire power of the dark 
 principle, namely, the unintelligent self-will, and also the entire 
 power of light the deepest abyss and the highest heaven. 
 From the fact of his springing from the ground or nature- 
 element in God, man has in himself a principle relatively inde-
 
 45.] SCHELLINGTAN ETHICS. 343 
 
 pendent of God, which, answering to this ground, is darkness, 
 but which becomes transfigured by the light, the spirit. But 
 while in God the two principles are indissolubly united, in man 
 they are separable, that is, man has the possibility of good and 
 evil. The dark principle can, as selfishness, separate itself from 
 the light ; self-will can endeavor to be, as a separate will, that 
 which it truly is only in unity with the universal will, can 
 endeavor to be, also in the periphery or as a creature, that 
 which it is only in so far as it remains in the divine center ; 
 this self-severing of self-hood from the light is evil. Evil, as 
 the dissevering of the two principles, is necessary in order to a 
 revelation of God ; for if these principles remained in man as 
 unseparated as they are in God, then there would be no differ- 
 ence between God and man, and God could not manifest his 
 omnipotence and love ; but God must of necessity so reveal 
 himself. For this reason, the self-will of man is influenced by 
 that dark unintelligent principle in God, man is tempted to 
 evil, in order that the will of divine love may find an opposing 
 element, an antithesis, wherein it can realize itself. Hence 
 evil exists in man as a natural tendency, for the reason that the 
 disorder of his powers, as occasioned by the awakening of self- 
 will in the creature, communicates itself to him in his very 
 birth ; and this ground-element in God works also constantly 
 in man, and excites his self-hood and individual will, in or- 
 der that in antithesis to it, the will of divine love may find 
 scope for action. Hence results a general necessity of sin, 
 which, however, by no means does away with the personal 
 guilt of man, for the dark ground in God realizes not evil as 
 such, but only prompts thereto. The actions of actual man 
 result, indeed, with necessity from his essence, but this es- 
 sence man himself has determined by an act of self-determi- 
 nation beyond all time and co-incidently with creation itself. 
 Man is indeed born in time, but he has, himself, determined 
 his life and character before his temporal life, yon side of 
 time, in eternity. Hence our actual act.-'ons are, on the one 
 hand, necessary, and, on the other, within our own respon- 
 sibility. That Judas betrayed Christ, was absolutely neces- 
 sary; neither himself nor another could have changed the 
 matter; and nevertheless it was his own guilt, for he had so 
 determined himself from eternity. As every man now acts,
 
 344: CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 45. 
 
 so acted he, as the identical person, already at the beginning 
 of creation ; he is not simply now forming his character, but 
 his character is already formed. All men have determined 
 themselves from eternity to egotism and self-seeking, and are 
 born with this dark principle essential in their being. Evil, 
 however, ought not to remain, but to be overcome by the 
 good principle. 
 
 Schelling promised a fuller development of these ground- 
 thoughts, but did not carry it out. The enthusiasm with 
 which this philosophy of his (which promised the solution of 
 all the enigmas of existence), was received, an enthusiasm 
 which was not dampened, but rather heightened by its orac- 
 ular tone and by the boldness of assertion which often as- 
 sumed in it the place of scientific proof, gave occasion also 
 in the ethical field, to various, though mostly feeble, fruit- 
 less and soon abandoned, attempts at a further carrying-out 
 of his ground-principles, some of them in greater approxi- 
 mation to the Christian consciousness ; (Buchner, 1807; Than- 
 ner, 1811; Klein, 1811; Holler, 1819; Krame, 1810, though 
 deviating considerably from the master, and rather independ- 
 ent). The facility with which other kindred currents of 
 thought admitted of being joined into Schelling's theosophi- 
 cal outbursts, was indeed very tempting to the book-prolific 
 spirit of the age, but it also soon awakened in the sobering- 
 down spirit of the time a degree of distrust ; and the fame 
 obtained by the master in his meteoric flight, showed itself 
 less partial for his zealously-imitating scholars; and when 
 Daub, after welcoming, in their regular order of succession, 
 all the philosophies from Kant to Hegel, advanced in his 
 "Judas Iscariot" (1816), on the principles of Schelling, to a 
 sort of personality of evil, to a philosophical Satanology, 
 which indeed is yet far different from the Christian view, 
 then, at last, the predominantly Rationalistic spirit of the age 
 began to lose confidence in the worth of the more recent 
 philosophy as a whole. 
 
 F. H. Jucobi of Munich, who, in antithesis to all Pantheism, 
 
 took his departure from the stand-point of the free personal 
 
 spirit, has given in his miscellaneous and unsystematic 
 
 writings * only hints and suggestions toward an ethical sys- 
 
 * Werke, 1812, 4 vols.
 
 46.] JACOBI HEGEL. 345 
 
 tern. He opposed to the Pantheistic philosophy, however, 
 rather, merely the consciousness of its untruth than a sci- 
 entifically-constructed theory. He emphasized very strongly 
 the personal, moral will-freedom of man as opposed to all 
 necessary determination, without, however, creating for it a 
 really scientific basis, appealing here, as also in the case of 
 the idea of the personality of God, to inner spiritual experi- 
 ence to feeling. Morality, he based on a primitive feeling 
 for the good, which is independent of the striving after hap- 
 piness ; the good must be accomplished for its own sake, and 
 not as a means to happiness. In general, Jacobi did not rise 
 beyond the views of Rationalism. The few moralists who 
 followed in his wake, defend indeed the Christian stand-point 
 as against the Pantheistic tendency, but they have no -very 
 great scientific significancy. Among them belongs essentially 
 also the Roman Catholic theologian, Salat (1810 and later). 
 
 SECTION XLVL 
 
 The philosophy of Hegel knows nothing of ethics 
 under this name; upon its Pantheistic ground no 
 really personal freedom can find foothold, although 
 it makes all possible endeavors to find scope therefor. 
 The reality of freedom appears essentially only under 
 the form of necessity, as that right which, on the 
 part of the subject, is duty ; ethics appears only as the 
 Doctrine of Right ; its scientific significancy lies in 
 its decided advance beyond the previous subjective 
 stand-point (which appears even yet in Kant) to the 
 objective validity and reality of morality in the 
 family, in society and in the state, as real moral 
 forms of humanity. In the fact, however, that only 
 the State is conceived as the highest realization of 
 objective morality, lies also the one-sidedness of the 
 view, inasmuch as the full reality of moral freedom 
 remains unrecognized. The Hegelian school has not 
 developed philosophical ethics beyond the positions
 
 346 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 46. 
 
 of the master; its application to theological ethics 
 by Daub and MarTieineke presents the un refreshing 
 picture of a vain attempt at harmoniously reconcil- 
 ing irreconcilable contradictions. The school of Pan- 
 theistic radicalism, which is nominally connected 
 with Hegel but is in reality based rather on Spinoza, 
 has produced no real system of ethics, but only nar- 
 row-minded and absurd essays on particular ethical 
 topics. 
 
 The ethics of Hegel, as presented in his "Philosophy of 
 Right," (1821; better by Gans, 1833) the field occupied by 
 which constitutes a part of the Philosophy of the Spirit, 
 rests on the Pantheistic current set in motion by Spinoza, 
 and appears, in higher scientific maturity than in Schelling. 
 The rational spirit, as the unity of the objective conscious- 
 ness and of the self-Consciousness, is the true free-become 
 spirit; it cognizes every thing in itself and itself in every 
 thing, is, as reason, the identity of the objective All and the 
 ego. In that the rational spirit recognizes rationality in 
 nature, and hence nature as objective reason, it is theoretical 
 spirit. But reason knows its own contents also as its object, 
 objectivizes the same, posits them outwardly, that is, the 
 spirit is practical spirit volitionates. But in so far as it is 
 determined to this volitionating by no other object foreign to 
 itself, but determines itself simply by virtue of its rational 
 being, it is free spirit. Hence the spirit posits itself out- 
 wardly from within, objectivizes itself in freedom, realizes 
 itself in an objective manner. This its realization is not 
 nature, but is essentially of a spiritual character, is a spiritual 
 world, a kingdom of the spirit which exists not merely in the 
 ego, but has an objective reality the creator of which is the 
 free rational spirit ; the objective-become spirit is the historical 
 world in the widest sense of the word. The freedom of the 
 rational spirit is, however, with Hegel, by no means a real 
 freedom of choice ; such a freedom finds in the Pantheistic 
 world-theory no legitimate place ; it is only the spirit's active 
 relating to itself, its being independent upon any other ex- 
 ternal entity, but it is nevertheless essentially at the same time
 
 46.] HEGELIAN ETHICS. 347 
 
 necessity. Thus the free spirit creates a world as the objective 
 reality of freedom, a reality, however, which has a general 
 significancy transcending the individual being, becomes a 
 power over the individual spirit, assumes the form of necessity, 
 whereby the individual subject is determined in his freedom, 
 and which consequently must be recognized by the individual 
 as the higher factor, is a general will over against the individ- 
 ual will, is right, which becomes for the individual, duty. 
 
 The Philosophy of Right falls into three parts. (1) The 
 free will is primarily immediate, as individual will. The 
 subject of right is the person, which stands to other persons 
 primarily in an excluding relation. The person confers 
 upon itself the reality of its freedom posits a special sphere 
 of its subjective freedom in property. I declare an ob- 
 jective entity as my own, and hence as that upon which 
 another has no right. This is primarily as yet an outward 
 and not necessary action ; it lies not in the essence of the 
 thing itself that I declare it as my property ; hence right in 
 this sphere is the merely formal, abstract right. The freedom 
 of the subject is assured and recognized by the fact that 
 other subjects must concede the validity of my freedom, my 
 property, my right ; freedom receives thus a general signifi- 
 cancy, becomes right. The freedom of individual subjects 
 is regulated by law, is reduced to general harmony. But 
 that the reality of this right rests primarily on the subjective 
 will, and that the general will is the product of the individual 
 will, is as yet an irrational state of things, and abstract right 
 advances now, (2), to morality, wherein the individual will 
 becomes the product and expression of the general will, but 
 on the basis of freedom, through free recognition. In the 
 first sphere the subjective freedom of the individual is 
 bound by the right of the other, and hence trammeled. 
 But in the free recognition of this right, the bondage, the 
 trammeling element, is thrown off; right and law are no 
 longer a merely outward limiting element, but become the 
 personal law of the subject, the contents of his free self- 
 determination. In the mere fulfillment of right the disposi- 
 tion does not come into question ; I may concede to another 
 his right unwillingly, and hence immorally ; so soon, how- 
 ever, as right becomes morality, the disposition, the intention,
 
 348 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 46. 
 
 becomes the chief thing, and the outward act a merely second- 
 ary matter. A man may be forced to right, but not to mo- 
 rality ; only free, cheerful action is moral. That which in the 
 sphere of right is wrong, becomes in the moral sphere moral 
 guilt. The intention of the moral action directs itself pri- 
 marily upon the rational subject himself, wills his welfare ; 
 but, as rationality has a general significancy, this intention 
 looks also to the general welfare, to the realizing of the 
 rational will and hence of rationality in general, that is, to 
 the good. To realize the good, is for the individual subject, 
 duty, is no longer a merely outward law, but an inner, 
 freely appropriated one. The good as the unity of the no- 
 tion of the rational will and of the particular will of the 
 individual subject, is the end, the goal of the universe. 
 
 But in the accomplishing of this duty of realizing the 
 good, the subject finds himself involved in a multitude of 
 contradictions and conflicts; the outer objective world is, 
 as related to the subject, a something different from and in- 
 dependent of him; hence it is doubtful and fortuitous 
 whether or not it is in harmony with the subjectively moral 
 ends, whether or not the subject finds his well-being in it. 
 The abstract right was a merely outward and formal one ; 
 morality is a merely inward subjective something, has 
 harmony only as a postulate, as an "ought;" the good 
 is, as yet, only the abstract idea of the good ; hence there 
 is need of a third, higher stage wherein the subjective and 
 the objective phases are united, where the postulate of the 
 harmonizing of the two spheres is realized, where the ought 
 is also reality, where the good is no longer an abstract gen- 
 eral something over against which the subject stands as yet 
 as an isolated individual, but where the good has attained to 
 reality, where freedom has become nature, and law has be- 
 come custom. This brings us, (3), to the sphere of customari- 
 nesit the completion of the objective spirit. In customariness 
 the spirit enters into its true reality ; the person finds the 
 good outside of himself, as a reality to which he subordinates 
 himself, as a moral world. Thus Hegel, deviating from the 
 ordinary usage of language, distinguishes morality [moralitat] 
 from customariness [sittlichkeit], conceiving the former as 
 the merely subjective and individual morality, and the latter
 
 46.] HEGELIAN ETHICS. 349 
 
 as civic or social morality. In the sphere of morality man is 
 considered as an individual who determines himself accord- 
 ing to abstract moral laws ; in that of customariness he is 
 considered as an essential member of a moral community, of 
 a moral whole, so that he now fulfills not abstract laws, but 
 the requirements of the concrete-become spirit of a moral, 
 social reality. Hence the end of customariness is primarily 
 and immediately, not the individual, but the moral whole. 
 The moral organisms constituted by reason as become object- 
 ive, present themselves in the three development-stages of 
 the family, of civil society (in which the individual subjects 
 are bound together only by legal relations), and of the state, 
 in which appears the full reality of morality. The state is 
 the moral substance as conscious of itself, the objectively- 
 realized moral and rational spirit, the union of the principle 
 of the family and of civil society, the outer full realization 
 of freedom, inasmuch as here the moral reality rests no 
 longer (as in the case of the family) upon a nature-ground, 
 and no longer (as in the case of civil society) upon merely 
 outward legal relations, but upon the common conscious- 
 ness wherein the individuals are conscious of themselves as 
 organic members of the whole. Hence the state is the per se 
 rational existence, the highest manifestation of moral reason 
 in general. Hegel conceives the state in higher significancy 
 than antecedent philosophers, namely, not as a mere means 
 for the end of the individual citizens, but as end per se, to 
 which the individual must sacrifice his particular and finite 
 ends. This is a decided advance, especially in contrast to 
 the utterly perverse and entirely anti- Christian state-doc- 
 trine of the eighteenth century, when it was regarded as 
 perfectly self-evident that the state has no other task than 
 to serve the interests of individuals, whether the interests 
 of the individual citizens of a state, or the interests of 
 a class in society, or those of a prince, but not to fulfill a 
 moral idea. But the state is also here the ultimate and high- 
 est form of all morality, as, indeed, Hegel recognizes no higher 
 existence yon-side the finite reality of the natural All, but 
 not an absolutely self-existent, infinite, personal spirit. The 
 purely moral reality of the church, which in its purely spir- 
 itual interests is far above the necessary outward limitations
 
 350 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [46. 
 
 of the state, far above classes of society and national bound- 
 aries, and has a super-mundane eternal goal, and which, as 
 resting absolutely upon freedom, does not exert coercive 
 power, finds no room for itself in Hegel's system. All 
 morality, without exception, appertains to the state, and all 
 reality of the church must be merged into it, a doctrine 
 which of course was especially favorable to the absolutism 
 of politics then in vogue. All that was usually ascribed to 
 the church in its significancy for the moral, falls here to the 
 state, while religion is regarded only as tlie basis, but not as 
 the essential reality, of the moral spirit. "The state should 
 be reverenced as an earthly-divine element ; the state is 
 divine will as present and developing itself into the real 
 form and organism of a world." Hence with Hegel, as also 
 with the Greeks, morality is merged in the state, and has no 
 significancy beyond it. " What man has to do, what the du- 
 ties are which he has to fulfill, is, in a moral community, easy 
 to determine : nothing else is to be done by him than that 
 which is prescribed, expressed, and made known, in his rela- 
 tions. " That this moral community may also be morally a very 
 perverted one, and that consequently man may be morally 
 obligated to resist it, and that even the most perfect actual 
 state, does not embrace the whole field of the moral commu- 
 nity-life, of all this the Hegelian system takes no account. 
 
 In the carrying-out of the classification of the moral subject- 
 matter, the " Philosophy of Right " varies largely in many 
 places from the presentation given in the "Encyclopedia" 
 and in the "Phenomenology of the Spirit." The transition 
 from morality to customariness seems artificial and very ar- 
 bitrary. The freedom of choice here largely brought into 
 requisition is entirely without justification in the system, and 
 even contradictory thereto. The classification itself is also 
 not rigorously kept apart, nor indeed can it be ; the sphere 
 of right falls largely into that of civil society, in so far as 
 there is any real attempt at carrying it out ; and the protec- 
 tion of right, which according to Hegel falls into the sphere 
 of civil society, is utterly impossible without the state. 
 Furthermore, it is worthy of note that Hegel, in perfect con- 
 sistency with the principle naturally following from his sys- 
 tem, namely, that "all that is real is also rational," regards
 
 46.] DISCIPLES OF HEGEL. 351 
 
 war, not as an evil, but as a phenomenon necessarily con- 
 nected with the highest moral community-life or the state, 
 and, hence, as entirely rational, and which simply expresses 
 in act the frailty and finiteness inherent in all finite being, 
 and which has in the moral sphere the same inner necessity 
 and normalcy, as death in the nature-sphere; war is death 
 exalted into the moral sphere.* 
 
 The Hegelian school, dividing itself soon after the master's 
 death into a right wing, which progressively drew nearer to 
 the Christian consciousness, and into a left wing, which sank 
 lower and lower in the direction of radicalism and destruc- 
 tiveness, has not produced any very important results in the 
 ethical field. (Michelet gave a " System of Philosophical 
 Ethics," 1828; Von Henning presented the "Principles of 
 Ethics," historically, 1824); Vatke ("Human Freedom in its 
 Relation to Sin and to Grace," 1841) develops, in opposition 
 to Julius Muller's "Presentation of the Christian Doctrine 
 of Sin," the Hegelian view in a very ingenious manner, with- 
 out, however, succeeding in reconciling the unf reedom essen- 
 tially inherent in the Pantheistic System with the general 
 consciousness of moral freedom of choice ; evil, though re- 
 garded as ultimately to be overcome, is yet held to be an 
 absolutely necessary incident of the good. Daub and Mar- 
 Tieineke undertook, in their ethical works, t the vain and 
 thankless task of giving to the Pantheistic ground-thoughts 
 of Hegel such a turn, and of clothing them in such forms of 
 expression, as to make them appear as a higher scientific ex- 
 pression of the Christian doctrines. But the rapidly disen- 
 chanted age soon saw clearly enough the impossibility of this 
 undertaking. Daub's Ethics, as edited from his lectures in 
 an easy and often conversational style, though proposing to 
 present Biblical ethics, is yet unwilling to derive the moral 
 law from the Scriptures, but seeks for it only in reason, re- 
 garding it as inherent therein, and forces the Biblical teach- 
 ings, frequently with violence, into conformity to the already 
 adopted system; the lofty self-complacency of the philoso- 
 phizing theologian looks often contemptuously down upon 
 
 * Phanomenol., p. 358 ; Phil, des Rechtt, pp. 417, 427, sqq. 
 t Daub : Prolegomena sur Moral, 1839 ; System d. theol. Moral., 1840 ; 
 Marheiueke: System d. theol. Moral., 1847.
 
 352 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 46. 
 
 the churchly consciousness, and oftener still, artfully explains 
 away its significancy. Marheineke divides ethics into the 
 doctrine of the law as the objective phase, into the doctrine 
 of virtue as the subjective phase (virtue being taken as the 
 harmonizing of the will with the law) and into the doctrine 
 of duty. Despite a very pretentious style, the positive con- 
 tents, consisting in many places merely in a loose series of 
 single, and not always ingenious, and sometimes even insipid, 
 observations, are really quite barren, and often involved in 
 violent self-contradiction. 
 
 The left wing of the Hegelian school, which strayed still 
 further from the master in the direction of a vulgar Panthe- 
 ism based on Spinoza, and which does not rise in the ethical 
 field even to the honest consequentiality and earnestness of 
 Spinoza, but, for the most part, sinks back into the most 
 vulgar freethinking of French materialism, has shown itself 
 utterly unfruitful in ethical works ; it has made itself felt, on 
 the field of ethics, less by scientific productions than by im- 
 pudent assertion. David Strauss is unwilling to admit the 
 fatalistic necessity of all the individual phenomena of life, so 
 consequentially affirmed by Spinoza ; but he gives scope, with- 
 out hesitation, to chance and to arbitrary discretion, and affirms 
 (of course without any justification in his system) even the 
 freedom of the human will. What the world had not as yet 
 known, Strauss presumes to assert, and takes the liberty of 
 blankly contradicting the principle of Spinoza, that the hu- 
 man will is a causa non lihera, sed coacta. In his view, Pan- 
 theism alone guarantees the free self-dependence of man. If 
 God is immanent in the world, and hence also in man ; if, as 
 in the Christian world-theory, the finite stands over against 
 the absolute Agent as a distinctly different object, then is this 
 finite (the world) only in a condition of absolute passivity ; 
 but in Pantheism the absolute actuosity lies in the collec- 
 tivity of finite agencies, as their own activity. While in 
 monotheism it holds good, that as truly as God is almighty 
 so truly are men unfree, in Pantheism it holds good that as 
 certainly as God is self-active so truly are men also so, in 
 whom He is so.* What the drift of this special-pleading 
 inference is, appears at once from the following observations : 
 * Glaubenslehre, ii, 364.
 
 46.] STRAUSS FEUERBACH. 353 
 
 "This holds good, of course, only of our conception of the 
 divine essence; whether it holds good also in the recip- 
 rocal relation of finite things, where Spinoza denies it, is 
 another question, and one which does not concern us in this 
 place." He makes, however, in this connection, in order to 
 maintain against Spinoza the freedom of the will, also the 
 following very curious observation : "Spinoza declares indi- 
 vidual man as unfree, for the reason that only that determined- 
 ness of his essence and activity remains to him which all other 
 tilings leave to him; but in this connection he overlooked 
 the fact that also, conversely, only that much remains to all 
 other things which the individual leaves to them ; this is of 
 course not freedom of choice, but it is also not coercion." The 
 honest Spinoza would doubtless have shaken his head in as- 
 tonishment at this naive objection. Strauss, naturally enough, 
 recognizes also, as the highest moral reality, the state as sepa- 
 rated from the church and as entirely swallowing it up within 
 itself ; in the place of the worshiping of God must be substi- 
 tuted art, and especially the theater; for genuine morality, 
 that is, for the life in the state, religion is not only super- 
 fluous but hurtful ; for whoever thinks he has, outside of his 
 duties as a citizen of the state, still other duties as a citizen 
 of heaven, will, as a servant of two masters, necessarily 
 neglect the first class of duties.* In this expression of opin- 
 ion he gives to governments a very significant hint, as to 
 how dangerous for the state is an ecclesiastically pious dis- 
 position in the people, and how great is the duty of an en- 
 lightened government to guard against it. Lewis Feuerbach, 
 who finds in religion only a morbid delusion, namely, in that 
 man regards his own being as a divine object, declares re- 
 ligion, and especially the Christian religion, as the destruction 
 of morality, inasmuch as it makes the validity of the moral 
 law dependent on religious faith. Nature is every thing, and 
 exclusively so ; to follow the voice of nature is the highest 
 principle of morality. This voice, however, teaches us love 
 to our fellow-men, whereas religion teaches only hatred 
 against those who believe differently from us, and directs 
 the love and activity of man, not toward other men, but to- 
 ward a non-existing being God ; only the religiouless man 
 * Glaubenslehre, ii, 615 sqq.
 
 354 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 46. 
 
 can have universal love to man, which is per se always practi- 
 cal atheism, namely, a denial of God in heart, in sentiment, 
 and in act. For a scientific justification of these wonderful 
 assertions we seek in vain; morbid bombast supplies its 
 place. That this theory of morality must lead to the vul- 
 garest enjoyment- seeking, is perfectly natural ; and Feuerbach 
 himself explains himself as to the nature of this morality of 
 human love, very clearly, thus: "When I am hungry then 
 nothing is more important to me than the enjoyment of food, 
 after the meal, nothing more than rest, and after rest, 
 nothing more than exercise; after exercise, nothing more 
 than conversation with friends ; after the completion of 
 the work of the day, I court the Brother of Death as the 
 most beneficent of beings ; thus every moment of the life 
 Of man has something, but nota bene! something human 
 in it."* 
 
 Thus the philosophy of " modern science " has returned, in 
 rapid circuit, back to the morality of French materialism, to 
 the practical morality of Philip of Orleans under Louis XV. 
 The more advanced and almost insane productions of the still 
 more "radical" circle, especially of the circle of "emanci- 
 pated" ones, which formed itself around Bruno and Edgar 
 Bauer, and by whom even Feuerbach was soon stigmatized 
 (Max Stirner) as belonging among "theologians," "believing 
 hypocrites " and " slavish natures," belong not in the sphere 
 of a history of science, but, at best, only in that of the his- 
 tory of the morals of the nineteenth century. 
 
 We will mention additionally, in passing, only the material- 
 istic world-theory, which, though not directly springing from 
 the Pantheistic philosophy, yet coincides with it in its ulti- 
 mate results, and which has its origin more in the empirical 
 study of nature than in philosophy, and which in its moral 
 riews has sunk back to the French materialism of the Systeme 
 de la Nature (Moleschott, Vogt, Biichner, etc.). If spirit is sim- 
 ply a phenomenon of brain-force, and if man is nothing more 
 than a highly organized animal, then the moral catechism is 
 very easy and short. Vogt declares it as presumption in man 
 to pretend to be any thing essentially different from the brute ; 
 man belonged originally to the ape race, and has only gradu- 
 * Werkt, i, 355.
 
 47.] VOGT MOLESCHOTT. 355 
 
 ally developed himself somewhat more highly. Man is guided 
 and impelled, just as the brute, by his own nature, that is, 
 by the laws of his material existence, and with inner irresist- 
 ible necessity; every so-called act of the will is strictly a 
 necessary product of the material conditions of the brain and 
 of the outer sensuous impressions, as determined by nutrition 
 and by the peculiarity of the brain-substance. Hence also 
 there can be no manner of moral responsibility; all so-called 
 sins and crimes are only "consequences of a defective nutri- 
 tion and of an imperfect organization of the brain." The 
 distinguishing between morally good and evil actions is 
 merely a self-deception; "to comprehend every thing in- 
 volves also the justifying of every thing, " says Moleschott. 
 Hence, the moral amelioration of man takes place solely 
 through suitable and strengthening nutrition. " The more 
 fully we are conscious that by the proper proportioning of 
 carbonic acid, ammonia, and the salts, etc., we are contrib- 
 uting to the highest development of mankind, so much the 
 more are also our efforts and work ennobled." Upon eating 
 and drinking, these writers naturally enough lay very great 
 emphasis ; it appears to them as a sacred rite, and Moleschott 
 is not ashamed even to compare it with the holy eucharist. 
 It was also reserved for this writer to stigmatize the Christian 
 world-theory and Christian custom as detrimental to the 
 public good, and for this, among other reasons, that thereby 
 the national wealth suffers a considerable loss from the prac- 
 tice of burying corpses in special graveyards, whereas the 
 bodies of the dead should rather be used for manuring the 
 fields. Those who look always for the truth simply in a 
 "progress" beyond that which has hitherto been known and 
 practiced, can perhaps inform us what the next further 
 progress beyond this world-theory will lead to. 
 
 SECTION XL VII. 
 
 The philosophical ethics of the two last decades, 
 based in general on Hegel or on Herbart, shows a 
 manifestly growing approximation to the Christian 
 world-theory ; but because of the rather unphilosophi- 
 
 24
 
 356 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 47. 
 
 cally-inclined spirit of the age, it has exerted less in- 
 fluence upon society at large than the immediately 
 preceding philosophy. 
 
 The most recent times have suddenly shown, after an ex- 
 cessive and almost morbid intensity of enthusiasm for philoso- 
 phy, an all the greater lack of earnest interest therein. The 
 excessive expectations were soon followed by discouraging 
 disappointments; and while at the beginning of the century 
 the most crude products of philosophy, if they were only 
 presented with assurance, were sure of an enthusiastic wel- 
 come, the, in general, far more mature and more scientific 
 and profound works of recent times have met with but cold 
 indifference ; and though the philosophers of the present day 
 have some reasons to complain of the thanklessness of the 
 educated world, and that only ambitious rhetoric is now able 
 to win applause, nevertheless this state of things is clearly 
 explainable as a reaction from the wild intoxication of the 
 past. 
 
 Nearly contemporaneously with Hegel wrote Herbart of 
 Konigsberg. Taking up his position outside of the histor- 
 ical development-course of philosophy, and, in keen skepti- 
 cism, discarding the unity of the principle of reality, he had 
 in his elegantly written " Practical Philosophy " (1808) thrown 
 open a new path. In his view the previous treatment of 
 ethics, as the doctrine of goods, of virtues and of duties, 
 makes the will of a twofold character a norming or com- 
 manding one, and a derived or obeying one, and hence 
 makes of the will its own regulator ; but this is impossible 
 and absurd. On the contrary, a will-less judgment as to willing 
 precedes all actual willing; this judgment cannot command, 
 but only approve or disapprove; but it never acts upon the 
 will as strictly isolated!, but always as a member of a relation. 
 Hence all willing presu'pposes moral taste, which has pleasure 
 in the morally-beautif uf ; thus the moral is conceived essen- 
 tially esthetically. The esthetical judgment as to the will 
 leads it to action, but not necessarily ; the will should be obe- 
 dient, but it can be disobedient ; taste is immutable, the will 
 is flexible ; thus manifests itself the idea of inner freedom. 
 Together with this idea Herbart assumes still others, ideas
 
 47.] HERBART CHALYBAUS. 357 
 
 which are connected, but reduced to no real unity, with this 
 idea, and which precede all exertion of will, namely, the 
 ideas of perfection, of benevolence, of right, and of fitness ; 
 by virtue of these five ideas the moral taste passes upon an 
 act of the will, directly and involuntarily, a judgment of ap- 
 proval or disapproval. The full realization of the moral is 
 society^as expressing itself in different stages. This work 
 of Herbart, though little regarded in its day, contains in its 
 details many profound and ingenious thoughts ; the violently 
 original character of the whole is very stimulating, but not 
 satisfying; the unity* of the theory as a whole is defective. 
 Hartenstein wrote in the spirit of Herbart, his "Fundamental 
 Notions of the Ethical Sciences," 1844, a work full of 
 thought, and presenting^ a much more candid view of the 
 realities of life than the writers of the Hegelian school, and 
 not unfrequently assailing Schleiermacher and Hegel with 
 keenness and success. As primitive ethical ideas, he assumes 
 those of inner freedom, of benevolence, of right and of fitness. 
 Similarly also Allihn: "Fundamental Doctrines of General 
 Ethics," 1861. (Beneke: "Elements of Ethics," 1837, en- 
 tirely empirical, and only partially basd on Herbart. 
 Ehenich: "Moral Philosophy," 1830, based on evangelically- 
 modified Kantian views.) 
 
 The "Speculative Ethics" (1841) of Wirth sprang from 
 the Hegelian school, but deviates therefrom in many respects ; 
 the Pantheistic fundamental view is not entirely overcome ; 
 (ethics is "the science of the absolute spirit as will realiz- 
 ing its absolute self-consciousness into its likewise infinite 
 reality ; " in details it offers many good thoughts, though also 
 many mere empty phrases, especially where it treats of relig- 
 ious" morality; to close the development of ethics with an 
 amateur-theater as one of the most important moral agencies, 
 is surely a very odd fancy). ChalyMm of Kiel: "System of 
 Speculative Ethics," 1850, doubtless the most important 
 treatise on philosophical ethics in modern times. Chalybaus, 
 in his work, breaks entirely away from the Pantheistic view 
 of Hegel, and treats ethics on the basis of the idea of per- 
 sonal freedom, and does not, as Hegel, regard the ideal and 
 the real as in perfect harmony, but on the contrary recog- 
 nizes evil as merely possible in virtue of freedom, and hence
 
 358 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [47. 
 
 its reality as only fortuitous and guiltily-incurred, but not as 
 necessary. A candid, sound view of reality is combined with 
 an ingenious development of thought in clear vigorous lan- 
 guage ; and notwithstanding a few cases of the lowering of 
 Christian doctrines, this philosophical ethics expresses the 
 Christian consciousness, in many cases, more faithfully than 
 does Rothe's "Theological Ethics." Also J. H. FWte (son 
 of the philosopher) places himself in his " System of Ethics," 
 1850, upon a decidedly theistical stand-point, and strongly 
 emphasizes the idea of personality, whiph in Hegel falls into 
 so dubious a back-ground. (The essence of the moral ap- 
 pears as love, which, as an "unselfing of the personal ego," is 
 carried out somewhat one-sidedly so far as to throw the valid- 
 ity of self and of right quite too much into the back-ground.) 
 K. P. Fischer (of Erlangen): "Elements of a System of 
 Speculative Ethics," 1851, briefer than the preceding works, 
 freighted with thought, likewise an essential advance of re- 
 cent philosophy toward a deeper comprehension of the Chris- 
 tian consciousness. (Martensen : " Outlines of a System of 
 Moral Philosophy," 1845. Schliephake: " The Bases of the 
 Moral Life," 1855, inspired by Krause, empirical toward the 
 close, but keen and judicious). In this place belongs also, in 
 part, the ingenious and deeply Christian work of StaJil : " The 
 Philosophy of Right "* based in the beginning rather on 
 Schelling, but afterward more independent ; the idea of the 
 human personality as a copy of the personality of God is, in 
 contrast to all naturalistic philosophy, raised to the full sig- 
 nificancy and to the foundation of all morality and of all 
 right. 
 
 (The preposterously original Schopenhauer goes back to In- 
 dian conceptions, and finds morality only in an annihilating 
 of the individuality. The will to live is the root of all evil ; 
 the denying of this will is virtue. The will must turn away 
 from existence, must turn to will-lessness ; for existence is ab- 
 solutely null, and the will a delusion, from which we must 
 become free. Vulgar suicide is indeed not right, for it is a 
 phenomenon of a strongly-affirming will ; on the contrary, a 
 voluntary starving of one's self to death is a real moral sacri- 
 
 *1830, 3'ed., 1851.
 
 48.] THEOLOGICAL ETHICS. 359 
 
 ficing of the will to live. "The two Fundamental Problems 
 of Ethics," 1841; "The World as Will and Conception," 
 1819, '44, '60.) 
 
 SECTION XLVIH. 
 
 The, Theological ethics of the nineteenth century, 
 in so far as it came not into a relation of complete 
 dependence upon some particular philosopher of the 
 day, remained either upon a purely Biblical ground, 
 making no use or only a very moderate use of philo- 
 sophical thoughts, or assumed a rather eclectico-phil- 
 osophical character. Rationalism proved surprisingly 
 unfruitful. 
 
 Ethics was treated in a predominantly original 
 manner by Schleiermacher, in a widely differing and 
 irreconcilable double-form of philosophical and of 
 theological ethics, in the former case entirely irre- 
 spective of the God-consciousness, and in the latter, 
 from the inner nature of the pious Christian con- 
 sciousness, with great richness and ingenuity of 
 thought, but also without a rigidly scientific form, 
 and, in a violently-revolutionary originality, in many 
 cases beclouding the Biblical view with foreign 
 thoughts. Rothe shaped his "Theological Ethics" 
 into a system of theosophic speculation, resting upon 
 the philosophy of Hegel and Schleiermacher, but 
 carried out in an unclear originality, covering almost 
 the entire field of Christian doctrine, constituting a 
 work in which a pious mind, and exotic thoughts 
 deeply endangering the Christian consciousness, go 
 hand in hand. 
 
 Although the scientific treatment of the subject-matter of 
 ethics in the earlier and (in the main) Biblical moralists of 
 the nineteenth century, may be regarded as relatively feeble,
 
 360 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [48. 
 
 yet they have this not to be despised significancy, that in an 
 age almost entirely estranged from Biblical Christianity they 
 kept alive the consciousness of this estrangement, and faith- 
 fully held fast to the indestructible bases of Christian Ethics. 
 ReinharcTs "System of Christian Ethics" (1780-1815) has 
 indeed neither any special depth of thought nor a rigidly 
 scientific form, and contains many insipid and useless discus- 
 sions, and furnishes no just comprehension of the inner 
 essence of the moral idea ; but yet it gives indication of a 
 thorough examination of the Scriptures, and of an unpreju- 
 diced observation of real life, furnishing often in detail good 
 and morally earnest discussions, and avoiding all eccen- 
 tricity. His classification of the whole is poorly adapted to 
 give a clear steadily-progressive development of the subject- 
 matter. In his third edition Reinhard declares himself very 
 decidedly against Kant. Flatt of Tubingen in his "Lect- 
 ures on Christian Ethics" (published by Steudel in 1823) 
 gives only carefully-compiled, purely Biblical material, with- 
 out impressing upon it a scientific form. F. H. C. ScJiicarz 
 of Heidelberg in his "Evangelically-Christian Ethics," 
 1821, presents ethics in two different forms, in the first vol- 
 ume in a scientific, in the second in an edificatory form, but 
 which is designed to serve at the same time in elucidation of 
 the first, presenting for the most part a simple evangelical 
 view, brief, clear, but without deeper foundation. 
 
 De Wette has furnished a threefold treatment of ethics, 
 which more than the above-mentioned works is imbued with 
 philosophical thoughts (from the stand-point of the Kantian 
 Fries). His "Christian Ethics" (1819) one half of which 
 is occupied by the history of ethics (which is introduced be- 
 tween the general and the special part), is more ingenious 
 than profound, and does not appreciate the full significancy 
 of the evangelical consciousness. His "Lectures on Chris- 
 tian Ethics," 1824, are intended for a wider circle of readers. 
 (His Compendium of Christian Ethics, 1833, is only a brief 
 outline.) With the exception of this rather Rationalistic 
 than evangelical treatment of ethics, Rationalism has, con- 
 trary to what might have been expected, produced but very 
 little in the ethical field. The next most noticeable work 
 is Amman's (comp. 43) later "Hand-book of Christian
 
 48.] SCHLEIERMACHER. 361 
 
 Ethics." (1823, '38), scientifically very unimportant, and con- 
 taining, besides many examples and anecdotes, mostly only 
 commonplace thoughts and mere objective observations, 
 without in any degree going into the depth of the subject. 
 Biiumgarten-Crusius in his "Compendium," * breaks already, 
 in many respects, with Rationalism ; his work is ill-digested, 
 but in many respects instructive. KaJiler, in his "Christian 
 Ethics" (1833; a "Scientific Abridgment," 1835) hesitat- 
 ingly endeavors to rise beyond the Rationalistic stand-point, 
 and gives much that is peculiar, and also much that is super- 
 fluous. 
 
 Philosophical and theological ethics were treated very 
 profoundly and very peculiarly, but in a manner violently 
 revolutionary and different from all precedent treatment of 
 the subject, by Schleiermacher; indeed in no other science 
 does the inner and unmediated scientific dualism of this 
 writer appear so prominently as here. His critical acumen, 
 his restlessly changing and almost fitfully metamorphosing 
 productiveness, showed itself here under the most brilliant 
 forms ; but there is for that reason all the greater need of a 
 cautious guarding against being deceived by the arts of his 
 dialectic genius. Introduced into the field of philosophy by 
 the study of the Greeks, and especially of Plato, enthusi- 
 astic for Spinoza, and building mostly upon him, but also 
 powerfully incited by Fichte and Schelling, and uniting in 
 himself the collective, anti-historical and anti-Christian cul- 
 ture of his day, Schleiermacher was not able to harmonize 
 his Pantheistic and unhistorical metaphysics with his heart- 
 Christianity, which latter, though sometimes drooping and 
 wounded, yet grew constantly more and more vital with the 
 advance of his years ; he left these two forces standing side- 
 by-side in his soul, and honestly entertained and expressed 
 religious convictions with which his philosophical opinions 
 stood in irreconcilable antagonism ; and it would be a great 
 mistake to undertake to interpret the ones by the others. 
 Schleiermacher did not rise above this inner dualism, 
 a state which not every mind would be able to endure. In 
 his first period, he manifested in the field of ethics a keen 
 critical power, but also as yet great unclearness as to the 
 
 * Lehrbuch, 1826.
 
 362 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 48. 
 
 positive essence of Christian morality; and he did not keep 
 free from some of the serious errors of the uncurbed spirit 
 of the age. The moral laxity of the " geniuses " then reign- 
 ing supreme in the world of letters, threw its dusky shadows 
 also over this mighty spirit. His justificatory "Letters" 011 
 Schlegel's immoral "Lucinde, " 1800, were of a nature to be 
 used, and unfortunately not without ground, by Gutzkow in 
 countenancing the " rehabilitation of the flesh" which was 
 then taught by this writer, and in casting reproach upon the 
 sacredness of wedlock.* In his "Discourses on Religion," 
 1799, which breathe a Spinozistic spirit under the drapery of 
 poetic rhetoric, Schleiermacher declares also evil as belonging 
 to, and co-ordinate in, the beauty of the universe. Morality 
 rests upon religion. In his "Monologues," 1800, which em- 
 phasize the ethical phase, there is manifested a bold, high- 
 aiming self- feeling, the full, overflowing self-consciousness 
 of the youthful genius. Self-examination appears here as 
 the basis and fountain of all wisdom, not indeed in the 
 sense, that man is to compare himself in his reality with an 
 idea or a divinely-revealed law, in order to arrive at humility 
 and at a consciousness of his need of redemption, but on the 
 contrary it is an immersing of self in one's own immediate 
 genial reality as the fountain of all truth and strength, 
 a full, self-satisfying enjoyment of self, a pride-inspired self- 
 mirroring of a nobly-aspiring spirit, f Though this unhumble 
 spirit of self-enjoying was not peculiar to him, but was 
 rather the spirit then dominant among the excessively self- 
 conscious "geniuses" of the day, still there hiy therein the 
 germ of an ethico-scientific peculiarity of Schleiermacher, 
 as against the Kantian school. In the latter, individual man 
 is a mere moral exemplar shaped after a general pattern, 
 merely a single fulfiller of an impersonal moral law, the 
 essence of which consists precisely in not recognizing the 
 peculiarity of the person, but in throwing it off, and in giv- 
 ing validity only to the general. Schleiermacher maintains, 
 on the contrary, that every man is to represent humanity in a 
 
 * Comp. Vorlander's : ScMeierm.'s Sittenlehre, p. 69 ; C. H. Weisse 
 in Tholuck's Litter. Am., 1835, 408 sqq. ; Twesten, in his preface to 
 Schleiermacher's Grundriss, p. 76 sqq. 
 t Compare the dissenting judgment of Twesten, idem, p. 83 sqq.
 
 48.] H SCHLEIERMACHER. 363 
 
 peculiar manner, and that, accordingly, it is the very opposite 
 of correct to propose to one's self simply the question, 
 " whether this my maxim is adapted to be exalted into a 
 law for all men." Even as the artist does not produce an 
 object of beauty by representing simply abstract, mathematic- 
 ally-correct forms, but by expressing that which is individu- 
 ally-peculiar, so is also the moral man to be an artist, an 
 artist whose task it is to develop himself into a personally 
 peculiar art-work, and not merely into a monotonous expres- 
 sion of the species. He is not to strip off, but, on the con- 
 trary, artistically to develop, his personal peculiarity, he is 
 not to cast himself down before duty as a thought different 
 from his individual personality, but rather on the contrary 
 "constantly to become more fully what he is ; this is his sole 
 desire." Thus Schleiermacher, in opposing the Kantian one- 
 sidedness, involves himself in the opposite one ; both posi- 
 tions are equally true and equally untrue, and the Christian 
 view stands in the middle-ground between them. If the 
 Kantian view answers rather to the Old Testament law-system, 
 then that of Schleiermacher would answer rather to the Chris- 
 tian idea of the freedom of the children of God (at least, 
 in case it were applied to spiritually-regenerated children 
 of God, which, however, is not the case), so that consequent- 
 ly the presentiment of the higher truth turns into untruth, 
 into a perilous holding-fast to self, ariQ this all the more so 
 for the reason that it is absolutely and independently based 
 upon mere self, for "from within came the high revelation, 
 produced by no teachings of virtue and by no system of the 
 
 The "Elements of a Criticism of Preceding Ethics," 1803, 
 able but in a heavy and often unclear style, and hence more 
 celebrated than known, relate only to philosophical ethics, 
 and discard, in keen but sometimes unjust criticism, all previ- 
 ous methods of treating this science, and present (as opposed 
 to the more usual method of treating of ethics as the doctrine 
 of virtues or duties) the doctrine of goods as the basis of the 
 science, and, hence, ethics as an analysis of the highest good; 
 the good is the objective realization of the moral. The criti- 
 cism of the work is applied not so much to the contents as to 
 the scientific form, and seeks to show that the contents can be
 
 364 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. " [ 48. 
 
 true only when the form is perfect ; there is no other criterion 
 of truth in ethics than the scientific form. Plato and Spinoza 
 are esteemed most highly. In explaining away the almost 
 unbounded self-feeling of the author, large account must be 
 made for the spirit of the times; less care is given to the 
 demonstration of his own view than to the many-sided assail- 
 ing of the views of others. 
 
 The "Sketch of a System of Ethics" (published in 1835 by 
 Schweizer, from Schleiermacher's posthumous papers, in an 
 imperfect digest of different sketches ; in a briefer and more 
 general form in 1841 as "Outlines of Philosophical Ethics" 
 with an introductory preface by Twesten) * rests upon the 
 philosophy of Spinoza and the earlier views of Schelling, but 
 contains speculations in many respects peculiar, and not always 
 sufficiently developed. In this philosophical ethics Schleier- 
 macher leaves entirely out of consideration the Christian 
 consciousness, and indeed the religious consciousness in 
 general, knows nothing of a personal God as moral Law- 
 giver, nor of an immortal personal Spirit independent of 
 nature; this religious basis is left so entirely in the back- 
 ground that Schleiermacher (as late as in 1825) answered 
 the question : whence, then, arose in the moral law the idea 
 of a " should," which seems to refer to a commanding will ? 
 by saying, that in the Jewish legislation the divine will had 
 been conceived as of a*magisterial character demanding obe- 
 dience ; and that this form had also been adopted in Christian 
 instruction, and " thus arose the custom of associating with 
 moral knowledge also the ' should,' and this custom was re- 
 tained even after men had begun to reduce moral knowledge 
 to a general form, wherein there was no longer any reference 
 to an outwardly-revealed divine will, but human reason itself 
 was regarded as the legislating factor." f The two manifes- 
 tation-forms of God in Spinoza, namely, thought and exten- 
 sion, and the primitive antithesis of Schelling, reappear here as 
 the antithesis of the universe in reason and nature, in. the ideal 
 and the real. The highest antithesis in the world is the an- 
 tithesis of material (known) and of spiritual (knowing) exist- 
 ence. The existence in which the former element predominates 
 
 *Comp. Vorlander : Schleierm? ' Sittenlehre, 1851, keen and clear 
 but not evangelical. t Werlce, iii, 2, 403.
 
 48.] " SCHLEIERMACHER. 365 
 
 is nature; the existence in which the knowing element predomi- 
 nates is reason, the two appearing in man as body and soul. 
 Hence reason is essentially knowing, and. in so far as it is self- 
 active, willing. Speculative reason is ethics, which has, then, 
 physics over against itself, the two embracing the whole field 
 of science, so that ethics appears essentially as the collective 
 philosophy of the spirit, an entirely unjustifiable deviation 
 from all previous nomenclature.* Ethics presents the col- 
 lective operation Of active human reason upon nature. Hence 
 the aim of moral effort is, the perfect interpenetration of rea- 
 son and nature, a permeation of nature by reason, and indeed 
 of all nature in so far as standing in connection with human 
 nature. This interpenetration is the highest good,t the sum 
 total of all single goods ; it is embodied in the thought of the 
 Golden Age, where man dominated absolutely over nature, and 
 in the thought of everlasting peace, of the perfection of 
 knowledge, and in the thought of a kingdom of heaven, and 
 in a free communion of the highest self-consciousness by means 
 of spiritual self-representation. In the individual the attain- 
 ment of the moral goal appears as personal perfection, as a 
 perfect unity of nature with intelligence, and hence as a per- 
 fect blessedness. But the unity of reason and nature is to" be 
 conceived in a threefold manner : (1) In reference to the end- 
 point of the moral striving, namely, the real unity of reason 
 and nature, as the highest good ; herein is embraced the mul- 
 tiplicity of particular manifestations of said unity, and hence 
 of good ; this is ethics as the doctrine of goods or as the doc- 
 trine of the highest good; (2) in reference to the beginning- 
 point of the moral striving, namely, the efficiency of reason in 
 human nature, and hence said unity conceived as power, that 
 is, as virtue, the doctrine of virtue ; \ (3) in reference to the 
 relation between the beginning-point and the end-point, and 
 hence in the movement of the power toward the goal, and 
 consequently a modus operandi of reason in realizing the high- 
 est good; this is the doctrine of duties.^ Hence a threefold 
 
 * See his discussion of the difference between natural and moral law : 
 Werke, iu, 2, 397. 
 
 t Ueber das hocJiste Gut, 1827, '30 ; Werlce, iii, 2, 446. 
 J Comp. Abh. ub. d. Behundlung des Tugendbegriffs, 1819 ; idem 850. 
 Comp. Abh. ub. d. Behandlung des Pftlchtbegrifes, 1824; idem 379.
 
 366 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [48. 
 
 manner of presenting ethics is possible and necessary ; each 
 embraces really the whole field of the moral, but as considered 
 from a different point of view, each, however, refers to the 
 others. In giving all the goods, one must give at the same 
 time all the virtues and duties, and the converse. However, 
 the doctrine of goods is the most self-based and independent, 
 because it embraces the ultimate goal. ''Every definite ex- 
 istence is good in so far as it is a world for itself, a copy of 
 absolute being, and hence in the disappearing of the antithe- 
 ses";* a good is "every harmony of particular phases of rea- 
 son and nature," that wherein "the interpenetration of rea- 
 son and of nature is independently brought about, in so far as 
 this unity of reason and nature bears itself like the whole in an 
 organic manner. t The doctrine of goods alone is fully de- 
 veloped, while the doctrine of virtue and of duties is treated 
 but very briefly and meagerly. 
 
 In the doctrines of goods Schleiermacher distinguishes -a 
 twofold moral activity : (1) In so far as reason exerts itself 
 upon nature as external to it, it is organizing, in that it makes 
 nature an organ of reason ; (2) in so far as the interpretation 
 of reason and nature is already posited, the activity of reason 
 is of a symbolizing character, in that it makes itself recogniz- 
 able in its work. These two activities manifest themselves in 
 turn in two different manners. In as far, namely, as reason is 
 the same in all men, in so far also these two activities are alike 
 in all ; but in as far as individual men are originally and in 
 their very idea different from each other, in so far also is the 
 activity of an individual character, shaping itself in a peculiar 
 manner in each individual. This notion of a legitimate per- 
 sonal peculiarity, Schleiermacher emphasizes very strongly, 
 without, however, really grounding it philosophically. Virtue 
 expresses itself either as enlivening or as militant: as enliven- 
 ing, it expresses the harmonious union of reason and nature ; 
 as militant, it overcomes the resistance of nature ; under anoth- 
 er phase it is either cognoscitive or representative; thus we arrive 
 at four cardinal virtues : the enlivening virtue as cognoscitive 
 or representative is wisdom or soundness of judgment; as repre- 
 sentative it is love ; the militant virtue as cognoscitive is pru- 
 
 * System, p. 54. t Ibid. , p. 7 2.
 
 48.] SCHLEIERMACHER. 367 
 
 dence; as representative it is persistence. (In his academical 
 Dissertation on the notion of virtue, Schleiermacher varies in 
 form somewhat from his System of Ethics.) The very unequal 
 currying out of the subject in detail presents, together with 
 great acumen, also much unsound and fruitless sophistry ; the 
 brilliant thoughts shoot forth in every direction in sharp-cut 
 crystal-gleams before the dazzled eye of the beholder, but often 
 only to dissolve themselves suddenly again into a state of form- 
 less fluidity. The interrupted, incomplete, un-uniform presenta- 
 tion, as given in the hastily-edited edition, render the reading 
 of this work very difficult, and the ethical results appear by no 
 means so rich as, from the pretensions of the system, one might 
 be led to expect ; and it is often impossible to resist the impression 
 that the work abounds in unprofitable sophistry. The academ- 
 ical Essays that belong here, though ably developed, present 
 after all but mere fragments of the whole. 
 
 A wholly different picture is furnished by the Theological 
 Ethics, which was edited by Jonas in 1843, from Schleier- 
 macher's posthumous papers, and from notes written by his 
 hearers, under the title: "Christian Ethics according to the 
 Principles of the Evangelical Church." * The idea of the moral 
 is developed from the Christianly-determined self-conscious- 
 ness ; hence ethics is the analysis and presentation of the Chris- 
 tian self-consciousness, in so far as the same tends to pass over 
 into act. The moral subject is not considered as a mere iso- 
 lated individual, but predominantly as being a member of the 
 Church, and as influenced by the spirit of the Church. The state 
 of the human self-consciousness as in communion with God 
 through Christ, is salvation and blessedness. This salvation, 
 however, is primarily merely an incomplete but progressive one, 
 seeing that we are always still in need of redemption ; hence 
 our life is a constant alternation of pleasure and unpleasure, 
 and therein lies an "impulse" to activities in view of arriving 
 at true blessedness. In unpleasure lies the impulse to a man- 
 ner of action whereby the momentarily-disturbed normal state 
 is to be restored, that is, a restorative or purifying manner of 
 action ; in pleasure lies the impulse to a manner of action which 
 subordinates a lower life-power (as willingly yielding itself to 
 a higher one) directly and without any resistance to the higher 
 * Die christliche Sitte, etc.
 
 368 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [48. 
 
 one, thus educating the lower power, and, hence, deepening 
 and extending the harmony of the two, the deepening and ex- 
 tending manner of acting. Both manners of acting aim at 
 effecting something, at bringing about a change, and, hence, 
 constitute unitedly the operative form of action, whereby man 
 is to pass from one condition into another. The purifying 
 form of action relates primarily to Christian communion, and 
 appears as Church-discipline and as Church-reform (reformatory 
 action) ; and then again, in relation to civil society, as domestic 
 discipline, as the administration of civil justice, as State- 
 reformation, and as purifying action in the relation of one 
 state to another. The extending form of action, which is essen- 
 tially the educating of the, as yet lower,, but willing life through 
 the higher, takes place primarily in the sphere of the Church, 
 aims to widen and intensify the efficaciousness of the Holy 
 Spirit as dwelling in the Church, and of Christian sentiment. 
 This presupposes the propagation of the human race, the pro- 
 duction of human personalities. Hence the extending form of 
 activity in the Church is primarily the communion of the sexes, 
 and then the inner extending and heightening of the life of the 
 Church. Then also the extending form of action relates to the 
 state, and looks to the training of all human talents, and 
 to the transforming of nature for the spirit, in both cases 
 as one common act of all the individuals belonging to the 
 human race, and hence a maturing of all the citizens through 
 spiritual and material commerce ; (in this connection it 
 is treated of property, of trade, of money, etc.). This is 
 the first part of ethics, that which embraces the operative form 
 of action. 
 
 Now, between the moments of pleasure and unpleasure there 
 occur moments of satisfaction (and which are consequently 
 distinguished from those of pleasure), that is, of relative bless- 
 edness, the fundamental feeling proper of the Christian, and 
 which is at the same time also an impulse to acting. This 
 acting, however, aims not at effecting a change, but only at 
 revealing itself outwardly, at making known its condition of 
 happiness to others, and hence is not an operative but a repre- 
 sentative acting. The operative form of acting is only the 
 way for attaining to the perfect dominion of the spirit over 
 the flesh, that is, to the feeling of blessedness ; and the active
 
 48.] SCHLEIERMACHER. 369 
 
 expression of this feeling and of this dominion is the repre- 
 sentative form of action, which manifests this inner self-con- 
 sciousness by means of communion with others, and hence 
 from motives of love. The essence of love is the inner neces- 
 sity of the constant intercommunion of self-consciousness as 
 separated by personality, rests upon communion, and devel- 
 ops it to a higher degree. Although the representative form 
 of action takes its rise from the communion of the subject with 
 God, yet this communion is mediated by the Holy Spirit that 
 dwells in the Christian society. Hence the representative fonn 
 of action relates primarily to the evangelically-religious com- 
 munion, is divine worship, or the sum total of all actions 
 whereby we present ourselves as organs of God by means of 
 the Holy Spirit ; it embraces, in the wider sense, also the vir- 
 tues of chastity, patience, endurance, humility, in so far as in 
 them is manifested the dominion of the flesh over the spirit. 
 Then again, this form of action relates to general human 
 communion, which is the outer sphere of this action, as divine 
 worship is the inner, in other words, the sphere of social life, 
 the representative form of action in the intercourse of men, as 
 not immediately connected with Christian communion, not, 
 however, as an operative form of action, but predominantly 
 merely as beholding and enjoying. In this connection, Schleier- 
 macher considers, first, the social life proper, and particu- 
 larly social intercourse in eating and drinking under circum- 
 stances of luxury and decoration, and, then, art, and lastly 
 play. 
 
 However much we may admire the creative genius whereby 
 Schleiermacher endeavored to establish and carry out his 
 highly peculiar classification of ethics, still in reality we can- 
 not but declare it as unadapted and unsuccessful ; and, in 
 spite of the great and almost idolizing admiration shown by 
 the public for the skillful thought- artist, this piece of art has 
 not succeeded in calling forth any imitation. At the very r tirst 
 glance one recognizes the utter unnaturalness of making Chris- 
 tian ethics begin with Church-discipline and Church-reforma- 
 tion, and close with the subject of play ; while, in the second 
 part, is presented the widening form of action in Church-com- 
 munion, and, in the third, the ecclesiastical worship of God, 
 as also the unnaturalness of placing sexual communion along-
 
 370 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 48. 
 
 side of Church-communion as simply its presupposition, and 
 of treating it only subsequently to the discussion of Church- 
 discipline and domestic discipline, and of treating of four 
 Christian virtues, in isolation from all the others, under the 
 head of divine worship, and among them that of chastity, 
 which of course falls under the head of sexual communion, 
 whereas in fact all and every other of the Christian virtues 
 might with just as good right be treated under the rubric of 
 divine worship. The chief subdivisions of Christian acting as 
 purifying, extending and representative acting, cannot by any 
 means be sharply separated from each other ; on the contrary, 
 in each one of them also the other is necessarily involved ; the 
 extending or distributive acting is not possible otherwise than 
 by a representing. At all events the purifying activity could 
 not be the first, for the obtaining and confirming of life-com- 
 munion with God must, as moral activities, precede the purify- 
 ing of the already-obtained communion. The feelings of 
 pleasure and displeasure are, as pure states of experience, not 
 by any means per se the bases of the Christianly-moral activ- 
 ity ; both feelings may per se be just as readily immoral as 
 moral ; and the first moral striving must be directed to the end 
 that the pleasure and displeasure themselves be moral, whereas 
 they are here presupposed unconditionally as " impulses " to the 
 moral ; but this system of ethics is not written for saints (who 
 might indeed be regarded as determining themselves by the 
 simple feeling of pleasure or unpleasure per se), since it sets 
 out with a purifying form of action, relating to the subject 
 himself. It is true, Schleiermacher brings this pleasure and 
 displeasure into relation to communion with God; but the 
 apostle distinguishes, also in the saints, a pleasure and a dis- 
 pleasure in this God-communion (Rom. vii, 22 sqq.) ; hence if 
 there exists also in the Christian, before his final perfection, as 
 yet an unpious pleasure and an impious displeasure, it follows 
 that the moral striving must in fact direct itself primarily upon 
 this pleasure and unpleasure. Furthermore, the entirely unu- 
 sual separating of the pious pleasure-feeling and of the blessed- 
 ness-feeling (so fully that two chief-divisions of ethics are based 
 thereupon), is neither justifiable nor practical. The objective 
 goal of the moral activity, that is, the doctrine of moral good, 
 is rather presupposed than developed. Knowledge or Chris-
 
 48.] ROTHE. 871 
 
 tian \visdom is thrown quite disproportionately in the back- 
 ground, behind the subjects of feeling, of disposition, and of 
 acting. In general we find, notwithstanding the great dialec- 
 tic art employed, especially in the analysis of ideas, still quite 
 frequently an indefiniteness and unfruitfulness of the moral 
 ideas in their practical significancy, an excessive prominence 
 of the subjective peculiarity and a corresponding unprominence 
 of a simple Biblical spirit. The ecclesiastical element with 
 which, from unecclesiastical quarters, Schleiermacher has been 
 reproached, is in fact reduced in him to its merest minimum. 
 " With the exception of the free activity of the Holy Ghost 
 nothing is to be regarded as absolutely fixed by the Holy 
 Scriptures, but every thing as accepted only provisionally, and 
 to be regarded as remaining subject to a constant revision." 
 All symbolical settlings of doctrine are Romanizing, and must 
 be made revocable.* We cannot see, however, why precisely 
 the activity of the Holy Ghost is to be regarded as an abso- 
 lutely-established point, and not also subject to a constant re- 
 vision, why it is not " revocable " ; and just as little can we 
 see why this activity, if it is valid at all, should not lead to a 
 real knowledge of the truth, and hence to a definitively-estab- 
 lished knowledge. 
 
 Richard Rotht, standing in part upon Schleiermacher's 
 stand-point, but also making use of Hegelian and Schel- 
 lingian philosophy in combination with his own somewhat 
 peculiar and daring form of speculation, furnishes, in his 
 "Theological Ethics" (1845-'49, thoroughly revised, 1867) a 
 system of theosophy embracing also a large portion of dog- 
 matics and even some extra-theological topics, which, how- 
 ever much we may admire its erudition and earnest thought- 
 labor, yet, in view of its wonderful commingling of Christian 
 faith, extra-Christian philosophy and extra-philosophical 
 fantasy, we cannot avoid regarding as a failure. Rothe 
 manifests, in contrast to a large number of more recent 
 speculative theologians, an estimable sense for scientific 
 honesty ; and where he deviates from the ecclesiastical and 
 Biblical view (and this occurs in very essential and funda- 
 mental things) there he does not disguise the antithesis in 
 fine-sounding words ; not every one, however, could succeed 
 
 * CJirittl. Sittc., etc., eil., p. 184. 
 25
 
 372 CHKISTIAN ETHICS. [48. 
 
 so naively as Rothe in harmonizing with a pious faith in other 
 respects, such questionable contradictions to the general 
 Christian consciousness as are found, e. g., in his doctrines 
 of the omniscience of God (which he limits to the past, the 
 present, and the necessary), and in his doctrine of the church 
 (which he treats in the spirit of entire anti-ecclesiasticism). 
 His merely-apparently profound and frequently very un- 
 bridled speculations do not constitute a steadily progressive 
 ana regularly-developed line of thought, but are in many 
 respects mere plays of thought and fantasy ; and it is only 
 after passing through these portions of the work (which, 
 though treated with a certain amateur-fondness, are yet really 
 very unfruitful of ethical results, and are presented in a not 
 unfrequently sadly misused language), that we enter, in the 
 third part, upon a frequently excellent, beautifully-presented, 
 and really ethical current of thought, though not without 
 also occasionally meeting with surprising eccentricities. 
 Rothe's view of ethics as a science we have already men- 
 tioned ( 3, 4). The moral task of man is, by virtue of his 
 free self-determination, to appropriate material nature to his 
 own personality; hence the idea of the moral is: "the real 
 unity of the personality and of material nature, a unity as im- 
 pressed upon nature by the personality itself in virtue of its 
 nature-determining functions, or, the unity of the personality 
 and of material nature as the appropriatedness of the latter 
 to the former." Morality is an independent something along- 
 side of piety, and rests by no means upon piety, is entirely 
 co-ordinate to and independent of it. Ethics falls into three 
 divisions: it considers (1) the moral as being a product, that 
 is, the pure and full manifestation of the moral in the un- 
 folded totality of its special moments and of their organiza- 
 tion into unity, that is, the moral world in its completeness 
 the doctrine of goods. The good is the normal real unity of 
 the personality and of material nature, the appropriatedness 
 of the latter to the former. Here Rothe considers, first, the 
 highest good as an abstract ideal, irrespective of sin ; (in this 
 connection are treated also of six forms of moral communion, 
 of which the highest and most comprehensive is the State, 
 which is ultimately destined to embrace all moral life, and 
 to absorb the communion of piety, namely, the church, into
 
 48.] ROTHE. 873 
 
 itself ; the church has only a transitional significancy, but the 
 state a higher, permanent one). Hereupon follows a com- 
 plete treatment of eschatology. The other, next-following, 
 phase is the highest good in its concrete reality ; here it is 
 treated, first, of sin, as something inhering in human nature, 
 and hence necessary and originally co-posited in the divine 
 world-plan ; and, then, of redemption, where a complete doc- 
 trine of redemption is presented. (2) The causality or power 
 bringing forth this product, that is, virtue, and hence the doc- 
 trine of virtue, is treated of in the second part, and, in con- 
 nection therewith, also the corresponding un-virtues. (3) As 
 this power is a self-determining one, hence there is need of 
 a determined formula of the moral product, namely, a moral 
 law, by the observing of which, on the part of the producing 
 moral power, the real production of the moral world is con- 
 ditioned, namely, the doctrine of duties, which in turn falls 
 into the doctrine of self-duties and the doctrine of social 
 duties. In the two first and rather speculative parts of the 
 work, Rothe treats of many things which one would not look 
 for in a work on ethics, e. g. , of pure matter, of space and 
 time, of extension and motion, of atomic attraction and re- 
 pulsion, of gravity, of fluidity, of crystallization, of vegeta- 
 tion, of comets, and the like; these digressions into the 
 sphere of natural philosophy belong among the oddities of 
 the work. The excessively artificial schemata are repeated 
 in constant and very strange application, the quadropartite 
 division being throughout observed, even though the ob- 
 serving of it requires the invention of entirely new definitions 
 and new words ; and not unf requently are found entirely' use- 
 less and profitless splittings of ideas. The chief fault of this 
 work, however, seems to us to lie in the fact, that it unhesi- 
 tatingly lays at the foundation of Christian Ethics, theories 
 which are utterly foreign to the Christian world-theory, such 
 as that of the philosophical ethics of Schleiermacher, which, 
 however, Schleiermacher himself declared to be inapplicable 
 to Christian ethics. Rothe's notion of the moral is endurable 
 only in a philosophical system such as Schleiermacher's ; and, 
 even there appearing only as an oddity, is not only per se en- 
 tirely unsound, but also utterly in contradiction to the entire 
 evangelico-ethical consciousness. This consciousness has as
 
 374 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [48. 
 
 its moral goal something utterly other than the appropriating 
 of material nature to the personal nature ; the kingdom of God 
 has with this nature primarily and essentially nothing to do. 
 The other more recent writers on ethics keep themselves 
 more independent of recent philosophy. The work of Har- 
 less: " Christian Ethics " (since 1842 in five almost similar 
 editions ; the sixth edition, 1864, greatly enlarged), is a 
 brief, able and purely- Biblical treatise, practical, purely- 
 evangelical and well written; but the scientific form is 
 faulty ; the ideas are not sharply distinguished nor always 
 held fast to; the clearness is more frequently appearance 
 than reality ; the development of thought is neither vigor- 
 ous nor uninterrupted; the classification (salvation-good, 
 salvation-possession, salvation-preservation) is not capable of 
 being kept distinct ; the second and third parts overlap each 
 other, for there is no possession without preservation ; and 
 what appears here as preservation is in fact possession ; the 
 general introduction is insufficient, and Harless himself says 
 of his book, that it contains "no trace of a system." * The 
 work of Sartoriw. "The Doctrine of holy Love, or Elements 
 of Evangelico-Ecclesiastical Moral Theology," (third edition, 
 1851-'56), is intended for the general public, and is not a sci- 
 entific treatise, nor yet a book of edification ; but it goes be- 
 yond the limits of mere ethics, and embraces love in the wid- 
 est sense ; hence it treats also of the love of God to himself, 
 and of its realization in the Trinity, and to man, also of 
 creation and redemption, thus combining much dogmatical 
 matter with ethics. The spirit of the work is purely evan- 
 gelical, of ardent' faith enlivened and enlivening. The dis- 
 cussion, however, remains mostly in the sphere of the 
 general; the individual moral phenomena are neither com- 
 pletely nor closely examined. (W. Bohmer: "Theological 
 Ethics," 1846~'53). C. F. Schmid's "Christian Ethics," 
 edited by Heller, 1861, is of a truly Biblical spirit, earnest, 
 judicious, and giving evidence of Christian life-experience ; 
 the scientific classification and form are not happy are not 
 derived from the subject-matter, but outwardly thrown upon 
 it; many weighty points are omitted, and the manner of 
 treatment is unequal. Palmer's "Ethics of Christianity," 
 * Varr. t. 6 Au. XV.
 
 49.] ROMISH ETHICS. 876 
 
 1864, is an outline destined for wider, cultivated circles; 
 the view taken is sound and evangelical, morally earnest and 
 judicious, and the style pleasing, light, and untechnical. 
 T. Culmanri's " Christian Ethics, " first part, 1864, is based 
 upon Baader's theosophy, and is in sharp antithesis to all 
 rationalistic superficiality, although, notwithstanding its 
 many ingenious and even profound thoughts, it strays away 
 into many, and even anti- Scriptural, assumptions and dreamy 
 brain-fancies. 
 
 SECTION XLIX. 
 
 The ethics of the Roman Catholic Church since 
 the dissolution of the Order of the Jesuits has been 
 becoming, even in the circles which stood in connec- 
 tion with this Order, considerably more cautious ; in 
 other respects it has been treated (when not casuis- 
 tical) principally on the basis of Thomas Aquinas. 
 The influence of recent philosophy has made itself 
 in many respects apparent ; in part, there has been 
 also a noticeable approximation to the evangelical 
 consciousness, without, however, rising beyond a hesi- 
 tating half-way position. The ground-character of 
 the Romish church as distinguished from the evan- 
 gelical, namely, its tendency to conceive the moral 
 predominantly under the form of law, whereas the 
 latter conceives it more as virtue, remains the same 
 even up to the present. 
 
 During the last two centuries the ethics of the Roman 
 Catholic church has made decided advances toward the bet- 
 ter. The growing indignation against the perversion of the 
 same by the Jesuits rendered even the Jesuits themselves 
 more cautious, although also the works of the earlier Jesuits 
 have been very largely in use up to most recent times. 
 Alphonzo de Ligorio's Theologia maralis, since 1757, (an en- 
 largement of the work of Busenbaum), is yet to-day one of 
 the most highly prized hand-books of ethics ; (on it are
 
 376 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [49. 
 
 based the works of Waibel: "Moral Theology," 1841-'47, 
 and of Scavini : " Theologia Moralis," ninth edition, 1863.) 
 The Jesuit Stattler of Ingolstadt (Ethica Christiana communis, 
 1791) taught, however, pretty boldly the old principles of the 
 Order ; whereas, on the other hand, the opposition thereto was 
 growing more emphatic, and has resulted in bringing about 
 a purer moral view. The moralists who based themselves 
 on the Scholastics, especially on Thomas Aquinas, have been 
 very numerous; (Besombes, from and after 1709; Amort, 
 1789, '58, who wrote also a system of "Casuistry," 1733, '62; 
 Tournely, 1726 and subsequently; Concina, 1745; Patuzzi, 
 1770 ; and others) ; of the large number of ethical works, 
 however, only a few have any thing original ; the majority 
 simply compile from their predecessors. Under the influence 
 of Kant, wrote Isenbiehl (1795), Muttschelle (1801, Schenkl 
 (1803), and others; Riegler's "Christian Ethics," 1825, rests 
 in part on Schenkl, and is much used, though scientifically 
 unimportant. Braun, in his "System of Christian Catholic 
 Ethics," (1834), and Vogelsang in his "Compendium" (1834), 
 applied the philosophy of Hermes to ethics. Sailer's ' ' Hand- 
 Book of Christian Ethics," (1818, '34) is of a very mild and 
 generally evangelical spirit ; and the approximation to a purer 
 evangelical view, though often somewhat infected with 
 Rationalism, shows itself also in other more recent moralists. 
 Hirscher's "Christian Ethics" (1835, fifth edition, 1851) is 
 doubtless scientifically the most important, and its general 
 view is largely based on essentially evangelical principles ; 
 distinctively Romish views are in many cases very much 
 modified and, advocate-like, .idealized and brought nearer to 
 evangelical views ; this, however, is not accomplished with- 
 out some sophistry. Also Stapf ("Christian Ethics," 1841 ; 
 Theologia Moralis, fourth edition 1836) endeavors to shape 
 the older ethics more Biblically; Jocham's "Moral Theol- 
 ogy," 1852, is simple and clear; Martin, 1850-'51 ; Werner, 
 1850. 
 
 These improvements of Romish ethics do not succeed, how- 
 ever, in changing its ground-character as in contrast to evangel- 
 ical ethics ; the notion of the meritoriousness of human works 
 as co-working toward salvation is not yet overcome, virtue is 
 not mere thanks, but it establishes claims ; the moral life is not
 
 49.] ROMISH ETHICS. 377 
 
 the spontaneously-cmt-streaming radiance of the faith-inspired 
 loving soul, but it is a something yet distinct from faith and rela- 
 tively independent, a laborious working upon salvation as only 
 associatedly conditioned by faith, but not yet really obtained. 
 The divine will has not as yet become an inner property of the 
 believing soul in spiritual regeneration, but simply still hovers 
 before it as a something other from and objective to it ; hence 
 the largely predominant character of legality in Romish ethics, 
 even where, on the basis of Thomas Aquinas, the form of 
 the doctrine of virtue is chosen. And here is manifestly the 
 reason why the Romish form of theology has produced a far 
 richer ethical literature than the Evangelical, seeing that in 
 the Romish Church not merely the scientific but also the prac- 
 tical need for moral instructions and rules, is much greater 
 than in the sphere of the Evangelican consciousness, which lat- 
 ter is no longer " under the law," and has consequently in ethics 
 less a practical than a purely scientific interest. To the Cath- 
 olic the Gospel is essentially also a newZaw, simply a further- 
 development of the Old Testament law ; and it is the task of 
 ethics to digest this new legislation and shape it more or less 
 into a statutory form ; only to a Romish moralist is it possible 
 to take up into a treatise on ethics a civil criminal code, as 
 Stapf has done, in detailed thoroughness, with the Austrian. 
 The Christian never succeeds, here, in bearing in himself the 
 Divine will otherwise than in a law learned by study ; the law 
 and the moral subject still continue exterior to each other, and 
 the former is objective to the latter; to act according to the 
 authority of an outward law appears as a special merit ; the 
 law interpenetrates not the human soul, and the soul not the 
 law ; there remains between the two an impassable gulf; hence 
 the law and the person content themselves, at last, with the 
 outward; obeying outweighs loving; and loving is never a 
 merit, as obeying, however, may be. Because of the placing of 
 faith simply along-side of works, there lacks to the moral the 
 unitary center-point in the heart, and hence the good appears 
 predominantly as a plurality of virtues, and the moral life pre- 
 dominantly as a countless sum of single cases ; hence in Romish 
 ethics the predominance of the casuistical treatment, which is 
 not yet thrown aside even in the most recent treatises; the 
 thought of ethics awakes at once in the Catholip's mind the
 
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 378 CHRISTIAN ETHICS. [ 43. 
 
 notion of a Summa casuum ; also, in this respect, \ve see a 
 manifestation of the predominant character of externality. 
 The notion of a Gocl-sonship manifesting itself in a new free 
 life never comes to full appreciation in Romish ethics ; the no- 
 tion of a son of the Church is, in it, much more familiar; and 
 here at once the ecclesiastical State, with its legal character, 
 steps into the fore-ground of the moral life. 
 
 END OP HISTORY OP ETHICS.