EXCHANGE 
 
SHAFTESBURY'S 
 
 ETHICAL PRINCIPLE 
 
 OF 
 
 A D APTATION TO 
 UNIVERSAL HARMONY 
 
 Thesis for Ph. D. 
 
 By 
 ALEXANDER LYONS, M.A. 
 
 ACCEPTED BY THE FACULTY 
 OF 
 
 NEW YORK UNIVERSITY 
 1909 
 
SHAFTESBURY'S 
 
 ETHICAL PRINCIPLE 
 
 OF 
 
 ADAPTATION TO 
 UNIVERSAL HARMONY 
 
 Thesis for Ph. D. 
 
 By 
 ALEXANDER LYONS, M.A. 
 
 .ACCEPTED BY THE FACULTY 
 OF 
 
 NEW YORK UNIVERSITY 
 1909 
 
To 
 REV. DR. HENRY BERKOWITZ, PHILADELPHIA 
 
 TO WHOM THE AUTHOR OWES THE BEGINNING OF HIS 
 
 PROFESSIONAL LIFE, THIS MONOGRAPH IS LOVINGLY 
 
 DEDICATED AS A LITTLE TOKEN OF A LARGE 
 
 APPRECIATION 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 I. A. INTRODUCTION. Aim of thesis expository and critical. 
 Justification for such presentation: Absence of anything 
 similar for the use of the English student of ethics. Shaftes- 
 bury considered in comparison with Hobbes. This not 
 usually done. Shaftesbury not in avowed antagonism to 
 Hobbes, but more concerned to defend his own theistic 
 position and thus save ethics in its divorce from religion. 
 He professes opposition, to Locke, and yet must be con- 
 trasted with Hobbes who furnished the starting point of 
 English ethical speculation. Pages 7-10. 
 
 B. HOBBES* ETHICAL THEORY. Ethics a human invention 
 necessitated by man's primitive condition of mutual con- 
 flict with his fellows. A state of such warfare preventive 
 of peace and progress. Man too selfish voluntarily to 
 reconcile differences. A supreme authority requisite, the 
 will of which in keeping with a covenant to be determinative 
 of conduct. Right, wrong, and conscience take their rise 
 and significance from this covenant. Hobbes' ethical system 
 empirical, relative, and thoroughly hedonistic. Pages 10-11. 
 
 II. A. SHAFTESBURY'S ETHICAL TEACHING. Contrast to 
 Hobbes irreconcilable and yet not duly recognized. Shaftes- 
 bury, like Hobbes, starts from human nature. The man of 
 his conception social by birth and good by instinct, good- 
 ness signifying sociality. His conception of man's nature 
 in striking contrast with orthodox Christian teaching. Con- 
 science: the consciousness of conflict with natural good- 
 ness. Conscience as here defined contributory to the con- 
 science of religious teaching. Pages 11-14. 
 
 B. THE DOCTRINE OF THE WHOLE. The whole, Shaftes- 
 bury's starting-point. Its content. Necessity of such a 
 starting-point. The whole no assumption; a logical con- 
 clusion. It is inescapable. Failure to find it the result of 
 man's improper attitude. 
 
 The whole an all-inclusive relationship, an organism. 
 Harmonious, therefore" good. 
 
 The manifold significance and application of the whole. 
 It gives validity to the details of experience and nature. 
 Furnishes standard of measurement of the good. The 
 good, that which is contributory to the whole. Mere har- 
 mony insufficient. 
 
 296266 
 
The whole through its impressiveness conducive to good- 
 ness. This specially evidenced in conscience. Disregard of 
 the whole destructive of goodness. The whole further con- 
 servative of goodness through pleasure. 
 
 Man's conflicting affections reconciled by the whole 
 through its assertion of the balance of its harmonious re- 
 lations. 
 
 The whole related to a "sovereign genius." A modified 
 dualism. 
 
 Significance of concept of the whole in Shaftesbury's 
 life. A dominant passion. An exemplification in his 
 patriotism. 
 
 Shaftesbury's fundamental conception not duly regarded 
 although of considerable influence. Herder, Thomson, 
 Tennyson his beneficiaries. Pope an extensive borrower. 
 Pages 14-25. 
 
 C. COMPARATIVE VALUE OF SHAFTESBURY'S TEACH- 
 
 ING. His superiority to Hobbes and Locke. To these 
 morality a creation human or divine. To Shaftesbury it is 
 uncreate, absolute, and obligatory even upon God. Moral- 
 ity thus uplifted, but God not lowered. 
 
 Virtue not mere mechanical adaptation but conscious and 
 intentional. Goodness natural adaptation, virtue intentional 
 adaptation. Virtue proportionate to effort. Further, moral 
 motive requisite. A moral motive, that which is of social 
 purport and without personal reference. Shaftesbury 
 Kantian in spirit. 
 
 Man's native goodness not an accomplishment but a 
 faculty. Goodness the possibility, virtue the realization. 
 Pages 26-28. 
 
 D. THE MORAL SENSE. Shaftesbury's most characteristic 
 
 ethical teaching. Morality a substantive universal harmony. 
 The moral sense, that by which this harmony is apprehended, 
 just as artistic beauty is grasped by the artistic sense. 
 Explanation of the moral sense. It is native and inde-- 
 structible. Not full-formed at birth but educable. Moral 
 sense determinative of conduct. Pages 29-32. 
 
 E. SHAFTESBURY AND CUMBERLAND. Shaftesbury's 
 
 other teachings than that of the moral sense anticipated in 
 part by Cumberland although in a far inferior way. Cum- 
 berland's method entirely intellectual. Conscience in- 
 tellectual. Morality mediated through the mind. With 
 Shaftesbury through the feeling. Pages 32-34. 
 
 F. ETHICS AND RELIGION. Relation in Shaftesbury's sys- 
 
 tem. Little direct value in his discussion of this subject. 
 To be credited with having distinguished the separateness 
 of the two spheres. Shaftesbury not weak in idea of God, 
 but strongly antagonistic to misconceptions of God. 
 
Stephen wrongly claims God to be essential to Shaftes- 
 bury's system. God real to Shaftesbury but unessential to 
 his teaching. Religion not source of ethics. Ethics possible 
 to atheism. The two mutually supplementary, but the 
 method not indicated. Religion virtually discarded. Kant 
 more helpful. Pages 34-36. 
 
 G. CLASSIFICATION OF SHAFTESBURY. Hedonistic or in- 
 tuitional? Nowhere duly discussed. Cursory reading re- 
 sults doubtfully. Ultimate decision to be determined by 
 consideration of both Shaftesbury's opinion and his spirit. 
 His formal ethical writings hedonistic; goodness inter- 
 preted in terms of pleasure. His intuitional teachings more 
 emphatic. Virtue based upon inherent attractiveness. His 
 discarding of religion from the ethical standpoint implies 
 the intuitional position. Further exemplification in his op- 
 position to virtue as utility. Consideraton of the spirit of 
 his teachings inforces the intuitional view. In his less 
 formal writings this very palpable. Further, while appeal 
 of virtue is commonly put on its own basis without other 
 reference to pleasure than as a result, virtue is rarely in- 
 culcated for the sake of pleasure. Pleasure, when urged, 
 is for the sake of virtue, and not the reverse. And yet his 
 intuitionalism not cogent. Theoretically valid, practically 
 it fails to hold. Earlier part of his writings intuitional, 
 later hedonistic. Shaftesbury realized the practical weak- 
 ness of the intuitional position. Butler's confession of the 
 weakness of conscience anticipated. Shaftesbury intuitional 
 in intention, hedonistic in realization. Pages 36-39. 
 
 III. DISCUSSION. Shaftesbury's merit great and manifold. 
 First in English thought to protest against a manufactured 
 morality. He gave impulse to the popularization of the 
 view of morality as sub specie eterni. 
 
 Some of the general convictions of present sociological 
 teaching anticipated. Confirmation from Giddings and 
 Spencer. Further anticipation and broader application of 
 the insistence of evolutionary ethics. 
 
 Shaftesbury's most characteristic doctrine, the moral 
 sense, subject to detraction. Misunderstood by Stephen. 
 Its proper interpretation. And yet no novelty but a 
 philosophic expression of a familiar fact: Moral sense 
 an expression of the feelings, striking but psychologically 
 incorrect. The teaching, however, valuable. It emphasizes 
 that morality is ultimately determined by feeling. Failure 
 to indicate method of education of the moral sense a defect. 
 
 Detraction of Shaftesbury's originality. Windelband not 
 to the point. Fowler more correct. Shaftesbury com- 
 pacted of Plato and Aristotle, especially Plato. Chiefly a 
 reproduction of Stoicism. His only admissible originality 
 the moral sense, though this not beyond qualification. 
 
Shaftesbury repeats the Socratic mistake of the identifica- 
 tion of knowledge and virtue. He errs further in excessive 
 generalization of man's goodness. His submission to the 
 world-order the summation of religion. Absence of criter- 
 ion by which to determine harmonization with the whole a 
 defect in his teaching. 
 
 Shaftesbury still great as moral teacher. Emphasized the 
 importance of the relation of ethics to a world-order. The 
 Characteristics inadequately praised. Destined to greater 
 esteem. Shaftesbury an exceptional man. His teachings 
 express himself. These will call attention to him only to 
 be further inforced by him. Pages 40-47. 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY. Page 48. 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 A. The aim of this thesis will be expository and critical. 
 Its justification lies in the fact that there is need in English of 
 a succinct, clear statement of Shaftesbury's ethical teaching 
 from a comparative critical standpoint. This is especially 
 true with reference to students of ethics to whom other lan- 
 guages than the English are not familiar. Besides, there is 
 not at present in any language a presentation of the subject 
 after the manner to be pursued here. 
 
 An appreciation of Shaftesbury must be determined by a 
 comparison of his ethical teaching with that of Hobbes. This 
 is not the usual course. As a rule presentations and discus- 
 sions of our author take him in and by himself with only 
 incidental reference to Hobbes. This manner of treatment 
 is acceptable if our aim is the expression of a judgment from 
 our standpoint. And yet even this is open to serious objec- 
 tion. It is unfair to judge a writer of the beginning of the 
 eighteenth century by the more advanced standard and cul- 
 ture of the commencement of the twentieth century. We 
 must estimate an author in his historical setting, and more 
 particularly with reference to some standard of his time. 
 Such a criterion in ethical teaching in Shaftesbury's day was 
 furnished by Hobbes from whom subsequent English ethical 
 speculation took its rise. 
 
 Shaftesbury's ethical system is diametrically opposed to 
 that of Hobbes, but does not profess any such intention. We 
 have no reason to believe that he intended a refutation of 
 Hobbes. He refers to him several times by implication as 
 when in his discussion, "Concerning Virtue or Merit" 
 (I. 281), he mentions "a known way of reasoning on self- 
 interest," according to which that which is of a social kind 
 in us should of right be abolished. Here, as Robertson, the 
 editor of the Characteristics (Ibid.), points out, Hobbes is 
 in the mind of our author. A plainer reference to him may 
 be found in the "Essay on the Freedom of Wit and Humor" 
 
(Ibid., I., 56), where he says that "some of our most ad- 
 mired modern philosophers had told us, that virtue and vice 
 had, after all, no other law or measure than mere fashion 
 and vogue." Further allusion is made to Hobbes' funda- 
 mental doctrine of human selfishness (Ibid., I., 61, 63, 64), 
 where Shaftesbury presents a different conclusion from 
 Hobbes with regard to the proper recourse for man's safety 
 from individual selfishness, but nowhere is Hobbes directly 
 mentioned by way of discussion. This is remarkable. In 
 his "Letters to a Young Man," as will be noticed later, 
 Shaftesbury warns against Locke. He regards Hobbes' 
 philosophy as relieved of its poison by its author's character 
 and base slavish principles of government, and so not needing 
 particular attention. In this Shaftesbury may be said to have 
 erred. In general an author's character does not discredit 
 his philosophy. If Locke appeared to Shaftesbury to call 
 for special mention, Hobbes certainly demanded it the more. 
 This omission may, however, be due to the fact that the 
 spirit and method of Shaftesbury's presentation are not con- 
 troversial. The impetus to a statement and clarification of 
 his opinions was no doubt determined in part by the teaching 
 of Hobbes, as Fowler (Shaftesbury, 100) suggests. Hobbes 
 had set the pace in the direction of naturalistic ethics and was 
 for many subsequent ethical thinkers the subject of diverse 
 discussion. But Shaftesbury appears more concerned to 
 present his own opinions than to controvert those of someone 
 else. Indeed, there is ground to hold that he had in mind not 
 a refutation of Hobbes, but a clarification and vindication of 
 his deistic position with reference to ethics. If ethical teach- 
 ing was not as had been generally believed and as Locke 
 maintained, an expression of "the will and law of God" 
 (Essay Bk., I., Ch. 3, Sec. 6), what anchorage remained to 
 it to give it stability and credibility? Shaftesbury himself 
 leaves no doubt that he was concerned to save ethics in the 
 divorce of ethics and religion in a deistic system. An over- 
 whelmingly larger part of his "Inquiry concerning Virtue or 
 Merit" is devoted to a presentation of the independent appeal 
 of ethics. To the consistent theist this would be gratuitous. 
 Besides, the very introductory section of his "Inquiry" in- 
 dicates the purport of the work to be to show that while re- 
 ligion and virtue are commonly held to be inseparable com- 
 panions they are not so but that "each has its proper province 
 
 8 
 
and due rank" (Char., I., 239). And in pursuance of this 
 purpose Shaftesbury shows that while religion has an in- 
 cidental ethical value as accompaniment of virtue, virtue 
 wields an attractive power through an inherent charm. 
 Shaftesbury might, accordingly, be more properly regarded 
 as in antagonism with his teacher Locke who inculcated that 
 morality, though empirically determined, is at its source an 
 assertion of a divine will which has "by an inseparable con- 
 nection joined virtue and public happiness together," and is 
 on this account incumbent upon man. This view of Locke 
 may at first glance appear striking as incongruous with his 
 general empirical position, but it is urged here as representa- 
 tive of the tendency of his ethical theory had it been worked 
 out. Rogers (Student's History, 357) maybe appropriately 
 cited here when he says that according to Locke u the true 
 ground of morality is the will and law of a God" "who sees 
 men in the dark, has in his hands rewards and punishments, 
 and power enough to call to account the proudest offender." 
 The view here given of Locke's ethical tendency finds further 
 support in the article on Shaftesbury, Encyl. Britan., Vol. 
 XXL, and in Sidgwick's Outlines (p. 176), where we are 
 told that Locke regarded the aggregate of ethical rules as 
 the law of God. Locke himself leaves no doubt as to his 
 position in this matter w r hen, in speaking of the proof of a 
 deity (Essay, II., Bk. IV., Sec. 7), he denominates it a 
 fundamental truth of such consequence that all religion and 
 genuine morality depend upon it. Though this view of 
 Locke's warranted Shaftesbury's opposition to him, yet in 
 his formal public writings he does not mention Locke by 
 name for the reason, as Gizycki (p. 76) appropriately sug- 
 gests, that the reverence of a pupil for his teacher forbade. 
 Locke superintended his entire early education. To him, as 
 he confessed, next to his immediate parents, he owed the 
 greatest obligation (Hodder I., 24). But in his "Letters to 
 a Young Man" (p. 41), written after Locke's death, which 
 were not for public knowledge, he freely censured Locke's 
 theory of ethics, declaring it to be "very poor philosophy." 
 Even mentioning Locke by name he says: "Locke struck the 
 home blow. Hobbes' character and base slavish principles 
 of government took off the poison of his philosophy. 'Twas 
 Mr. Locke that struck at all fundamentals, threw all order 
 and virtue out of the world, and made the very ideas of 
 
these unnatural and without foundation in our minds" (Ibid., 
 39) . "Virtue, according to Mr. Locke, has no other measure, 
 law, or rule, than fashion and custom; morality, justice, 
 equity depend only on law and will. This is very poor 
 philosophy." (Ibid., 40, 41.) And yet Shaftesbury's im- 
 portance as an ethical teacher lies not in his opposition to 
 Locke but in his contrast to Hobbes, in the high level he gave 
 to ethics in contradistinction to him, and in the comparative 
 novelty of his inculcation of an ethical sense. Hence, to ap- 
 preciate Shaftesbury we must start with a presentation of the 
 ethical teaching of Hobbes. 
 
 HOBBES' ETHICAL THEORY 
 
 B. To Hobbes ethics is a human invention pure and 
 simple, an expedient upon the road of human progress from 
 savagery to civilization. It is an outcome of man's primitive 
 nature and condition. In their primal natural state, accord- 
 ing to Hobbes (Leviathan, pp. 81, et sq.), men are so 
 equal in their faculties of body and mind that one cannot 
 claim to himself any benefit to which another may not pre- 
 tend as well as he. This equality of ability gives rise to 
 equality of hope in attaining the ends suggested by desire. 
 But when two desire the same thing which they can't both 
 enjoy, they become enemies, and on the way to the assertion 
 of their respective desires they wage war upon one another. 
 This condition on a small scale in the relation of individuals 
 to each other is repeated in the large in society generally. In 
 this state of virtual warfare of all against all there is no place 
 for industry, culture of earth, navigation, or society, but 
 continual danger of violent death, and consequent fear. But 
 man desires peace, its opportunities and pleasures. He is, 
 however, too selfish, according to Hobbes, to compose his 
 differences with his fellows by concessions and mutual adapta- 
 tions, so by general surrender a supreme power and authority 
 is instituted to which all become subject in keeping with an ac- 
 cepted covenant. This covenant furnishes the norm of jus- 
 tice and the starting point of ethics. "Justice is the keeping 
 of valid covenants, injustice is non-performance of them." 
 (Leviathan, pp. 97, 98.) Prior to covenant there is no 
 
 10 
 
ethical distinction. Individual desire determines good and 
 evil. There is consistently no such thing as conscience in our 
 acceptation of the term in the individual of Hobbes' concep- 
 tion. Nor does it enter in our sense even after the institution 
 of a covenant. For Hobbes conscience naturally carries no 
 moral reference. It is simply as its literal signification im- 
 plies, a knowing together shared by several instead of being 
 confined to the individual subjectively. Violation of con- 
 science to Hobbes is merely contravention by one of knowl- 
 edge of anything shared by several. (Leviathan, 39-40.) It 
 has an intellectual connotation and is in no sense of moral 
 worth. Where men are out of relation with each other there 
 is no place for conscience. The absence of a moral element 
 from Hobbes' conception of conscience is characteristic of 
 his entire ethical system. To possess worth and appeal 
 morality must be more than mere human convention and 
 custom. Its majesty lies either in its superhuman or super- 
 material origin. With Hobbes it is neither of these. Its 
 origin is entirely empirical. "Man has from birth nothing 
 but sense" (Leviathan, 41), and from this all subsequent ex- 
 pressions of his life, even the so-called moral, are formed, 
 although from the unmoral the moral cannot be derived. 
 
 The relativity of Hobbes' ethical principle is further man- 
 ifest in its dependence upon pleasure. Man does the right or 
 the just because it conduces to his peace and pleasure. The 
 pleasant is the good, the unpleasant the evil. In such a sys- 
 tem the painfulness of righteous self-surrender such as con- 
 stitutes the grandeur and glory of martyrdom is wholly un- 
 thinkable. It is a thorough-going hedonism carried to a 
 logical extreme which may be called moral only by an elastic 
 usage of the term, but would be more correctly characterized 
 as private speculation in the interest of personal pleasure. 
 
 SHAFTESBURY'S ETHICAL TEACHING 
 
 II 
 
 A. The step from the ethical teaching of Hobbes to that 
 of Shaftesbury is comparable to a sudden rise from the depths 
 to the heights. There we experience a sense of depression, 
 here one of elevation into a lofty, purer atmosphere. The 
 
 1 1 
 
contrast furnished by Shaftesbury's teaching has not been 
 sufficiently distinguished and emphasized by anyone. 
 
 An exposition of Shaftesbury's ethical teaching must start 
 as with Hobbes from a presentation of the nature of man. 
 In each case the human material determines the ethical con- 
 ception. Both had the significant insight that man and not 
 God, as Locke maintained, is the starting point of ethical 
 theory, although Shaftesbury transcended both in his in- 
 sistence that morality is no manufacture either of human or 
 divine effectuation. It is rather an entity or relationship in- 
 herent in the nature of things, that needed only to be de- 
 tected. Not having been manufactured either divinely or 
 humanly, as with Locke and Hobbes, it is presumably co- 
 extensive with the rest of existence from which it is insepar- 
 able. 
 
 Both Hobbes and Shaftesbury proceed deductively from 
 an assumption with regard to man's constitution, but from 
 antipodal conceptions. To Hobbes, as we have seen, man is 
 an exemplification of selfishness, the superstructure of his 
 entire life being founded upon an unmitigated egoism. 
 Shaftesbury starts from a more optimistic complimentary 
 view of human nature. To him man is not only not selfish, 
 but social. Indeed, to be unsocial is to be abnormal. "A 
 mind -that refuses its consent to what is acted in the whole 
 and for the good of the whole is the same as a hand that 
 should refuse to act for the body." (Regimen, p. n.) 
 Sociality is an ear-mark of man in his human distinction. u To 
 be a man means to be a citizen of the world and to prefer 
 the interest of the world." (Ibid., u.) "A human infant 
 is of all the most helpless, weak, senseless, and longest con- 
 tinues so. Does not this refer man to society and force him 
 to own that he is purposely, and not by accident, made rational 
 and sociable, and cannot otherwise increase or subsist but in 
 and by society?" (Regimen, p. 188.) Man accordingly is 
 made for society, in it he attains his highest possibility, and 
 apart from it would degenerate. The only perfection, the 
 only tolerable state of man, and that alone in which he can 
 possibly endure or subsist is society. (Ibid., 52.) It is 
 therefore an evidence of wisdom for a man to adapt himself 
 to society. He is thus acting normally. 
 
 Not only is man social by nature, but good as well. In- 
 deed, sociality which, according to Shaftesbury signifies har- 
 
 12 
 
monious relationship and adaptation of man to his environ- 
 ment, implies a nature that is good. Shaftesbury very 
 logically and philosophically denies an unmoral origin to the 
 moral as is affirmed in the system of Hobbes. He very 
 wisely says: "Faith, justice, honesty, and virtue, must have 
 been as early as the state of nature or they could never have 
 been at all." (Characteristics, I., p. 73.) "Civil union, or 
 confederacy, could never make right or wrong if they sub- 
 sisted not before." (Ibid.) "Worth and merit are sub- 
 stantial, and no way variable by fancy or will." (Ibid., 83.) 
 Man brings goodness with him and finds goodness in the 
 universe when he comes. "As it seems hard to pronounce 
 any man an absolute atheist, so is it to pronounce one abso- 
 lutely corrupt or vicious, there being few even of the hardest 
 villains w r ho have not something of virtue." (Characteris- 
 tics, I., p. 257.) "There scarcely is or can be any creature 
 whom consciousness of villainy as such merely does not at 
 all offend nor anything opprobrious or heinously imputable 
 move or affect." (Ibid., I., p. 306.) In fact, Shaftesbury 
 maintains that absence of response to the good from the very 
 moment when man is affected by sensible stimuli tokens an 
 ill and unnatural constitution. Not only so, but so normal is 
 man's native goodness that he does not lose it except through 
 the application to him of some art or strong endeavor. 
 (Ibid., 259, 260.) Shaftesbury is very emphatic on this 
 point. His teaching of man's native goodness is so clear and 
 conspicuous that it is noteworthy that its conflict with ortho- 
 dox Christian teaching of his time, and even of our's, has 
 never been adverted to. While his deism was strenuously 
 fought by contemporaries as inimical to Christianity, his 
 anthropological teaching w r as more fundamentally subversive 
 as undermining the very foundation of the Christian plan of 
 salvation as laid down by Paul. In presentations and dis- 
 cussions of Shaftesbury his conception of goodness as pro- 
 portion has commonly been exalted into a position of pre- 
 eminence. There is, however, justification for maintaining 
 that historically, both for theology and ethics, the implica- 
 tion of Shaftesbury's doctrine in its reference to the pessimis- 
 tic conception of human nature as taught by orthodox Chris- 
 tianity and by Hobbes should receive more prominence and 
 consideration. 
 
 It is the naturalness and instinctiveness of goodness to a 
 
 13 
 
human being that gives rise to Shaftesbury's conception of 
 conscience. The difficulty that is generally found in an at- 
 tempt to explain conscience does not exist for him. To him 
 it is logically consistent with his fundamental teaching of 
 human nature. Goodness is harmony, naturalness, and peace 
 or ease. Badness is disharmony, unnaturalness, and discom- 
 fort or pain. Accordingly, he says : Two things are horridly 
 offensive and grievous to a rational creature, viz. : to have 
 mental reflection of any unjust act which he knows to be 
 naturally odious and ill-deserving, or of any foolish action 
 which he knows to be prejudicial to his own interest or happi- 
 ness. The former of these is conscience. Conscience, there- 
 fore, is not representative, as is commonly believed, of man's 
 sense of responsibility to and fear of the Deity. In Shaftes- 
 bury's sense conscience is antecedent and contributory to the 
 conscience of religion. How conscience in Shaftesbury's 
 sense leads to conscience in the religious sense is ingeniously 
 explained by him thus : "What men know they deserve from 
 every one they necessarily fear and expect from all. Thus 
 suspicions and ill apprehensions must arise with terror, both 
 of men and of the Deity." (Char., I., 306.) But conscience 
 in Shaftesbury's sense may exist apart from religion, although 
 the religious conscience cannot exist apart from it. It is 
 simply man's painful sense of disharmony and disruption 
 from that which is natural. 
 
 Shaftesbury's conviction of the social and moral nature 
 of man consists with his conception of things universally. To 
 understand him best it is necessary to view his teachings in 
 relation to a conception of a whole which is fundamental with 
 him and to which with varied application and in various 
 forms he refers again and again. 
 
 THE DOCTRINE OF THE WHOLE 
 
 B. This whole is Shaftesbury's starting point. It com- 
 prises all that is outside of or objective to the Deity. It is 
 an entire thing of which all hangs together as of a piece. 
 (Characteristics, II., 99.) It is what he understood by the 
 universe. 
 
 The necessity of such a starting point Shaftesbury prop- 
 
erly indicates in the need of some standard of measurement 
 in a world where all is so plainly relative. An artist, he tells 
 us (Ibid., I., 214), must have an idea of perfection to which 
 to refer for guidance or his performance will be found to be 
 defective and mean. Although his ambition is to please the 
 world he must in his references be above it. He must hold 
 his mental eye fixed upon that beauty of nature as a whole 
 which mankind in their limited or unrefined vision call unin- 
 telligible. The artist in this conception is presented, as he 
 really is, as the mediator and interpreter between the whole 
 and its constituent parts. That Shaftesbury himself as moral 
 teacher was guided by such thought of a higher reference 
 appears in his assertion with regard to such teachers. He 
 says (Ibid., I., 216) that there can be no kind of writing 
 which relates to men and manners where it is not necessary 
 for the author to understand poetical and moral truth, the 
 beauty of sentiments, the sublime of characters, and carry 
 in his eye the model or exemplar of that natural grace which 
 gives to every action its attractive charm. This model or 
 exemplar of natural grace is Shaftesbury's standard, ex- 
 pressed or implied, to which he makes persistent reference. 
 It is something, he tells us, to which we must look up or 
 back, something to be regarded in the light of a higher coun- 
 try to which our allegiance must be paid. 
 
 This whole in Shaftesbury's teaching is no gratuitous as- 
 sumption. In the nature of the case it cannot be demon- 
 strated. It is a logical conclusion based upon the necessary 
 assumption of a rational universe. We find relation in that 
 part of the universe with which we are familiar. As to the 
 part which lies beyond our present knowledge, we may 
 properly have recourse to the reasonable claim that "if in the 
 infinite residue, there were no principle of union, it would 
 seem next to impossible that things within our sphere should 
 be consistent and keep in order. What was infinite would be 
 predominant." (Characteristics, II., 108.) 
 
 Having thus vindicated the existence of order or relation 
 in the realm beyond our present perception and knowledge, 
 Shaftesbury holds this order to indicate logically the existence 
 of a perfect whole necessitated by the aggregation of parts 
 which are orderly. To his mind detection of the whole is 
 consequent upon a knowledge of a part thereof. We have 
 an echo of this doctrine in Tennyson's familiar lines, 
 
 15 
 
"Flower in the crannied wall, 
 I pluck you out of the crannies ; 
 Hold you here, root and all, in my hand, 
 Little flower but if I could understand 
 What you are, root and all, and all in all, 
 I should know what God and man is." 
 
 Shaftesbury, however, went farther than Tennyson in 
 that he believed himself to be possessed of a sufficient knowl- 
 edge of the part to justify him, through its universal relation, 
 to infer a knowledge of the whole. He is so convinced of 
 his possession of such knowledge that in u The Moralists" he 
 expresses surprise at Philocles, who has such insight and ac- 
 curate judgment in the particulars of natural beings and 
 operations that he is no better judge than he is of the structure 
 of things in general. Who better than yourself, says Theocles 
 (Char., II., 61), who is representative of Shaftesbury, can 
 show the structure of each plant and animal body, declare the 
 office of every part and organ, and tell the uses, ends, and 
 advantages to which they serve? How, therefore, should you 
 prove so ill a naturalist in this whole, and understand so 
 little the anatomy of the world and nature, as not to discern 
 this same relation of parts, the same consistency and uni- 
 formity in the universe ! 
 
 His conception of the reality of the whole Shaftesbury 
 emphasizes by pointing out that it is inescapable. It is the 
 implied background of our entire lives and determines us 
 variously whether we know it or are unconscious of it. We 
 are deeply indebted to it. It matters not how depraved our 
 humors or taste, we cannot resist a natural anticipation in 
 behalf of nature or the whole, according to whose supposed 
 standard we perpetually approve or disapprove, and to which 
 in all natural appearances, all moral actions, we inevitably 
 appeal and pay a constant homage. It is the basis of life's 
 enthusiasms and finer aspects. It is fundamental to the 
 beauty of poetry and the arts. In confirmation of this claim 
 he cites Lucretius as example, who is averse to a universal 
 background and traces all from a human standpoint, but fails 
 to get away from the universal. He unconsciously reflects 
 it in his admiration and rapturous views of nature. The 
 lover, the ambitious, the warrior, the virtuoso would lose 
 much of their enjoyments if in the beauties which they admire 
 
 16 
 
and passionately pursue there were no reference or regard 
 to any higher majesty or grandeur than what simply results 
 from the particular objects of their pursuit. This conceit of 
 a universal background furnishes the seasoning to most of our 
 pleasures in life (Char., II., 175). The inescapableness of 
 the whole constituting nature Shaftesbury puts pointedly in 
 his translation of the words of Horace : "You may turn out 
 nature with a pitchfork, yet back she will keep coming" 
 (Char., II., 289). 
 
 Now, although the whole as standard of appeal and 
 background of life's reference is unavoidable, there are 
 many who fail to find it. This results from a reversal of the 
 proper order that should obtain in the statement of our rela- 
 tion to the universe. We begin with ourselves and relate 
 all to us instead of oppositely relating ourselves to the all. 
 We subject the interest of the whole to the good and interest 
 of the part. Pope, echoing Shaftesbury, phrased this- well 
 when he said (Essay on Man, Epistle, I.) that when human 
 pride questions the phenomena of creation it concludes that 
 all is for its sake, and exclaims : 
 
 u For me kind nature wakes her genial power, 
 Suckles each herb, and spreads out every flower; 
 Annual for me, the grape, the rose, renew 
 The juice nectareous, and the balmy dew; 
 For me> the mine a thousand treasures brings ; 
 For me, health gushes from a thousand springs ; 
 Seas roll to waft me, suns to light me rise ; 
 My footstool earth, my canopy the skies." 
 
 This attitude Shaftesbury opposes. It enlarges the partic- 
 ular at the cost of the obscuration of the general, forgetting 
 or not knowing that the individual only receives worth and 
 significance from the general or whole. 
 
 This whole with which Shaftesbury starts is an all-in- 
 clusive relationship. Each particular is in relation with all 
 in general and the latter is in relation with each particular. 
 The whole is in other words an organism. No single entity, 
 however complete a system of parts it presents with refer- 
 ence to all within, can be allowed in the same manner com- 
 plete as to all without, but must be considered as having a 
 
 17 
 
further relation abroad to the system of its kind. This sys- 
 tem of its kind has relation to a higher, this to the world, 
 and this to the universe. So "all things are united" (Char., 
 II., 64) ) and accordingly organic. 
 
 To Shaftesbury the harmonious is the good. Since, ac- 
 cording to him, the whole is harmonious, it is good. This 
 he further clinches by the argument that every particular 
 nature produces what is good to itself unless something for- 
 eign prevents or disturbs. If now every particular nature be 
 thus constantly and unerringly true to itself to produce what 
 is only good for itself and conducing to its own right state, 
 shall not the general nature or the whole do full as much 
 since there is nothing foreign to it to do it violence or force 
 it out of its natural way? Hence, the whole is good. 
 
 Having settled upon the idea of a whole as fundamental 
 to his system, Shaftesbury finds in it a manifold significance 
 and application. It alone gives validity and coherence to the 
 particulars of human experience. Borne steadily in mind it 
 explains all seeming incongruities and removes all forbidding 
 features and deformities, whether of nature or mankind, 
 causing them to vanish forthwith. Lack of this view tends 
 to rob things of a genuine enduring worth and to suppress 
 the admiration of natural beauties. If the universe as a 
 whole is regarded as a pattern of disorder it is not likely 
 to be believed to afford in its particulars anything lovable or 
 admirable. From the vantage-point of Shaftesbury's con- 
 ception of a whole the world and its details are illumined 
 with a glow of poetic beauty. 
 
 The application and influence of this idea is, however, not 
 only physical, it has a moral value as well. The whole as a 
 harmonious relation furnishes a standard by which the good 
 may be determined. Only that is good which conduces to 
 the maintenance of the whole of which it is a part. Whatever 
 occasions the closer union of the individual with the generality 
 conduces to the greater goodness of that individual. What- 
 ever bears hurtfully upon the whole is vicious. Indeed, ac- 
 cording to Shaftesbury, good in the particular presupposes 
 good in the general, of which it is only an expression or 
 phenomenon just as the tree springing from the earth pre- 
 supposes the nurturing soil. While it is commonly held that 
 particular virtues like charity begin at home, Shaftesbury 
 holds the interesting opposite view that particular attach- 
 
 18 
 
ments imply a precedent general attachment. "To be a 
 friend to anyone in particular it is necessary to be first a 
 friend to mankind" (Char., I., 40). This was no less strik- 
 ing in his time than it appears to us. After the manner of 
 Plato, his master, Shaftesbury recognizes such objection and 
 meets it. In "The Moralists" (Char., II., 41), Philocles 
 objects that it is difficult to qualify for such friendship. 
 To this Shaftesbury, in the character of Theocles, re- 
 plies that "to be justly styled the friend of mankind 
 requires no more than to, be good and virtuous." His 
 meaning, more plainly stated, is that to be a friend in par- 
 ticular or in the concrete one must first have the quality or 
 be characterized by friendship in the abstract. To be good 
 or virtuous one must have goodness or virtue. These things 
 in the abstract are simply statements of one's sense of con- 
 formity with the whole. This conformity or love, which is 
 the prerequisite of particular love, friendship, goodness or 
 virtue, is to Shaftesbury's conviction the height of goodness, 
 and constitutive of the temper that is called divine. That 
 relation to the whole is the standard of goodness in Shaftes- 
 bury's teaching and not mere harmony of relations has not 
 been recognized. Hettner, f.i. (Gesch. der Englischen Lit., 
 1 80) says with reference to Shaftesbury that: "Die Tugend 
 ist sittliche Schoenheit. Sie ist die innere Einheit und Ord- 
 nung, das glueckliche Gleichgewicht aller Kraefte und 
 Neigungen, Lebensharmonie." This is representative of a 
 common view of Shaftesbury's conception of goodness. It 
 is, however, only partially true. It does not go far enough. 
 It is from Shaftesbury's standpoint goodness without its 
 foundation, and so not a genuine enduring thing. Shaftes- 
 bury not only demands harmonious relationship subjectively 
 existent, but a harmony of this inner status with the objective 
 whole of which the individual is an inseparable part. The 
 whole is the final standard of moral appeal. 
 
 The whole not only furnishes the standard of goodness, 
 it is conducive to and conservative of it. It thus gives it 
 stability and reliability. This Shaftesbury points out vari- 
 ously. Starting with the insistence that virtue is love of order, 
 he maintains consistently that this admiration' will grow in 
 strength in proportion to the dimensions of the object in 
 which the order is found. Accordingly, it will reach its 
 heighth of fervor when exercised "in so ample and mag- 
 
 19 
 
nificent a subject as the whole which exhibits a divine order" 
 (Char., I., 279). This influence of the whole he further 
 indicates in the claim that on the physical side man must have 
 exercise of his parts to keep him whole and healthy. It is 
 not otherwise on his inner or spiritual side. Nothing, says 
 he, is so essential to it as exercise. This it finds in social or 
 natural affection, which is affection for the whole. Such 
 affection alone furnishes real enjoyment and thus conduces to 
 a life that is moral. 
 
 This determinative moral value of the whole is even 
 more evident, according to Shaftesbury' s teaching, in his con- 
 ception of conscience, as has already been explained. To 
 him conscience is, according to its experience of pleasure or 
 pain, expressive of one's harmony or disharmony with the 
 whole. The offensiveness and grievousness of the dishar- 
 mony is such that through the pain it inflicts in conscience 
 the whole compels a recognition of itself and thus contributes 
 to the maintenance of virtue. Indeed, disregard of the whole 
 makes goodness uncertain or even destroys it. A friendship 
 confined to an individual is unreliable. It must have as back- 
 ground affection for the whole to possess constancy and 
 permanency. Every immorality and enormity of life, says 
 he (Char., II., 345), is caused by neglect of this considera- 
 tion. It is on this ground of the evil of a partial view of 
 things that Shaftesbury condemned Egyptian animal worship 
 as containing a possible unsocial tendency. 
 
 Determining virtue by giving it norm and stability the 
 whole further favors it by effecting the pleasure or happiness 
 which is its concomitant. Pleasure or happiness, according 
 to Shaftesbury, is impossible in a state of separateness and 
 disunion. Loneliness cannot well or long enjoy anything. 
 Its enjoyment is not real and enduring. It would soon be 
 cloyed and grow uneasy till it could impart and thus share 
 its experience. This is a condition which can't be disregarded 
 long without being avenged. Nature disregarded in this 
 will break out (Char., I., 310). Persistent disregard of 
 nature or the claims of the whole will entail the greatest of 
 miseries. Since this is so, Shaftesbury takes it as a mark of 
 the ruling wisdom in nature by which it leads private interest 
 to an interest in the general good and thus to virtue. 
 
 The conception of a harmonious whole is for Shaftesbury 
 the solvent of the problem presented by the diverse and con- 
 
 20 
 
flicting affections of human life. He recognizes three ex- 
 pressions of these affections (Char., I., 286) : 
 
 1 i ) Natural affections which lead to the good of the 
 public; 
 
 (2) Self-affections which lead only to the good of the 
 private ; 
 
 (3) Such as tend to the good of neither but contrariwise 
 and are unnatural. 
 
 One of these is fundamental to all conduct as its moving 
 cause. We are moved in the direction of our strongest affec- 
 tions or passions measured either in force or number. But 
 how prevent a consequent conflict? Nature prevents this auto- 
 matically through the assertion of its harmonious relation- 
 ships. There is an inner harmony as well as an outer one/\ 
 Disturbance of this by excess in any direction, either good or 
 ill, entails unhappiness. We must foster self-regarding af- 
 fections. Insufficient attention in this direction is vicious 
 with reference to the design and end of nature in the whole. 
 She has attached extreme care to single parts of our consti- 
 tution by safe-guarding them with particular solicitude. She 
 certainly must intend the same relatively to the whole, 
 whether of body or soul. Excess in the direction of egoistic 
 interest is bad in that it destroys the balance of harmony be- 
 tween self, the part, and the whole. This whole is inescapable 
 and must be regarded, but not exclusively. Self must be re- 
 garded also. Reconciliation obtains in the fact that they are 
 not actually dissevered, but so connected organically that 
 proper devotion to self advances the whole which reacts 
 beneficially upon the part, and due devotion to the whole 
 directly furthers the part which it contains. 
 
 The whole thus employed by Shaftesbury does not for 
 him exhaust reality. Viewed in and by itself it is simply an 
 articulated system of relationships in which everything is 
 essential to everything else. But it is a vast machine-like 
 structure that also stands in a relation. It is representative 
 of a "sovereign genius and first beauty" (Char., II., 40), to 
 which it is related. So, while in a sense Shaftesbury is 
 dualistic in positing a supreme mind and something that is ob- 
 jective to it, that supreme mind is part of a greater whole 
 from which it seems to be inseparable. He therefore pre- 
 sents what might be termed a modified dualism. 
 
 It is interesting to note the significance of Shaftesbury's 
 
 21 
 
conception of the whole in his life. Mandeville, with charac- 
 teristic cynicism (Fowler, Shaftesbury and Hutcheson, 142), 
 regarded Shaftesbury's interest in a larger whole as merely 
 theoretical, and so calls on him to give evidence of it "not 
 by living in retirement and inactivity, but by serving his coun- 
 try in the field or by attempting to retrieve its ruined 
 finances." Vater (Pope and Shaftesbury, 13) very cor- 
 rectly brands this attempted detraction as an expression of 
 the partisan prejudice of one whose exaggeration overlooked 
 the illness of the one criticised and his political conditions. 
 Shaftesbury's love of the generality was no mere pretty theory 
 but a vital principle. This is testified by others with Vater, 
 who says (Ibid., 17) that Shaftesbury possessed in rich meas- 
 ure the patriotism he so highly praised. Apart from such 
 testimony of later students of Shaftesbury his own words will 
 be accepted in vindication of his patriotic virtue in the largest 
 sense by those who know the genuineness of his modesty, his 
 unswerving single-eyed devotion to truth, and his nobility of 
 character in general. In a letter to his friend Furley (Orig- 
 inal Letters, 271), dated July, 1712, the year before his 
 death, he attributes his weakened health to cares and labors 
 borne in behalf of the good interest and cause of liberty and 
 mankind. On other occasions he wrote to the same friend 
 (Ibid., 207) , "I know no better use for my life than to spend 
 it for one's country, and for mankind, and if I thought my 
 life of no use to the public, I should not be at the pains I am 
 at of preserving it." And again, when in poor health, he 
 wrote (Ibid., 242), "Whilst I can have any share (be it 
 ever so little) in the service of my friends, my country, or 
 mankind, I can be contented with any life, any health, or any 
 constitution ever so bad, and can live as happily thus as at any 
 time of my life." In view of such professions, which repre- 
 sent vital convictions, it may be said that Shaftesbury's 
 philosophy was no mere speculation, but an expression of the 
 man. To him the whole as a universal, harmonious relation- - 
 ship was an actuality. Love for it was his dominant passion. 
 This basic conception of Shaftesbury's has not, as already 
 pointed out, been duly regarded, but along with other im- 
 portant convictions of his has wielded great influence in sup- 
 plying to others the dominant note or determining spirit of 
 their literary production. Herder in his "Naturhymnus," 
 Thomson more conspicuously in "The Seasons," which in- 
 
 22- 
 
spired Tennyson, and others may be said to have derived in- 
 spiration and suggestion at the lips of "The Moralists." 
 Alexander Pope is, as has been extensively recognized, clearly 
 the largest debtor. His poetry is not only, as Stephen says 
 (Diet, of Nat. Biog., Vol. XLVL, p. 124), the essence of 
 the first half of the eighteenth century, but in its more im- 
 portant parts it is almost literally a reproduction of Shaftes- 
 bury. To show this, as well as for the sake of the greater 
 emphasis thereby given to the main insistences of our author, 
 we give to the subject a little more particular and extended 
 illustration. 
 
 Like Shaftesbury, Pope rears the structure of his poetical 
 teaching upon the conception of a whole consisting of God 
 and Nature: 
 
 U A11 are but parts of one stupendous whole, 
 Whose body Nature is, and God the soul." 
 
 (Essay, Epistle I.) 
 
 This whole exists in organic inner relation. A chain of 
 love unites all below and all above. 
 
 "Nothing is foreign; parts relate to whole; 
 One all-extending, all-preserving Soul 
 Connects each being, greatest with the least." 
 
 (Ibid., III.) 
 
 To understand a part requires knowledge of the whole of 
 which it is a part. 
 
 "He, who through vast immensity can pierce, 
 Sees worlds on worlds compose one universe, 
 May tell why Heaven made us as we are." (Ibid., I.) 
 
 In the light of the whole, accordingly, parts lose the harsh- 
 ness of their incongruity which is only seeming. 
 
 "Respecting man whatever wrong we call, 
 May, must be right, as relative to all." (Ibid.) 
 
 Our failure to see this reflects our ignorance. In which case 
 it may be said: 
 
 "All nature is but art, unknown to thee; 
 All chance, direction which thou canst not see ; 
 
 23 
 
All discord, harmony not understood ; 
 All partial evil, universal good." (Ibid.) 
 
 Larger knowledge sufficiently inclusive to embrace the whole 
 would discover the relativity and appropriateness of all 
 things within that whole. This Pope implies thus : 
 
 "When the proud steed shall know why man restrains 
 His fiery course, or drives him o'er the plains; 
 When the dull ox, why now he breaks the clod, 
 Is now a victim, and now Egypt's god, 
 Then shall man's pride and dullness comprehend 
 His actions, passions, being's use and end." (Ibid.) 
 
 This differently stated declares that just as we understand 
 what is incomprehensible to the brutes because of their lim- 
 itation, so spirits higher than we are in the scale of existence 
 may comprehend what is yet unintelligible to us. 
 
 "Heaven from all creatures hides the book of fate, 
 From brutes what men, from men what spirits know." 
 
 (ibid., i.) 
 
 Our failure to find a thread of purpose winding through the 
 mazes of the universe is, therefore, partly our ignorance, but 
 chiefly, as has been said, our pride, which exaggerating our 
 self-importance, depreciates the world, and attempts to render 
 it subservient to us instead of ourselves to it. This Pope 
 castigates by asking: 
 
 "Has God, thou fool ! worked solely for thy good, 
 Thy joy, thy pastime, thy attire, thy food?" 
 
 (Ibid., III.) 
 
 It is true that "Man, like the generous vine, supported lives" 
 (Ibid.), but to think all made for one and not one for all is, 
 says Pope, to fall short of reason. "God framed a whole, 
 the whole to bless." (Ibid. ) 
 
 "The Universal Cause 
 Acts not by partial, but by general laws ; 
 And makes what happiness we justly call, 
 Subsist not in the good of one, but all." (Ibid., IF.) 
 
 24 
 
Consistently with his teaching of the supremacy of the 
 whole as Shaftesbury conceived it, Pope emphasizes the pre- 
 cedence of the whole over the part. There are not nor can 
 there be any favorites or exceptions that may be heeded by 
 the operation of the External Cause. (Ibid., IV.} 
 
 In the more particular reference to his teaching with re- 
 gard to the individual, Pope presents a literal reproduction 
 of Shaftesbury. Like our author, he is antipodal to Hobbes. 
 His view of man's primitive condition is not of elements at 
 war with one another. For him "the state of nature was 
 the reign of God." (Ibid., III.) There were, 'tis true, self- 
 regarding elements at the beginning, but there were also social 
 proclivities which served as a bond of union. Hence, 
 
 "Self-love and social at her birth began, 
 Union the bond of all things, and of man." (Ibid.) 
 
 For "true self-love and social are the same." (Ibid., IV.) 
 
 Finally, in his view of the significance of virtue and vice 
 to the individual, Pope is at one with Shaftesbury. There is 
 reward and punishment not, however, as the goal but as the 
 result of conduct. This result is always to be sought for in 
 kind. Spiritual causes must have spiritual consequences. The 
 reward of virtue is, therefore, not bread but happiness. And 
 this is the greatest reward. 
 
 "What nothing earthly gives or can destroy, 
 The soul's calm sunshine, and the heartfelt joy, 
 Is virtue's prize." (Ibid., IF.) 
 
 One self-approving hour of such outweighs years of other 
 recognition. Not only is this true according to Pope, but 
 with Shaftesbury he further maintains that "Virtue alone is 
 happiness below. (Ibid.) 
 
 With this evidence of Shaftesbury's doctrine of the whole, 
 together with other subordinate teachings logically derived 
 therefrom employed by Pope, which might be even more ex- 
 tensively illustrated, the judgment of Herder (cf. Pope and 
 Shaftesbury, Vater, 22), is justified, that u ohne die Moralis- 
 ten haette Pope die besten Verse seines Essay on Man 
 schwerlich geschrieben." 
 
 25 
 
COMPARATIVE VALUE OF SHAFTESBURY'S 
 TEACHING 
 
 C. Having now Shaftesbury's teaching of the whole in 
 mind, we see at once the irreconcilable difference between him 
 and Hobbes in the nature and value of their respective ethical 
 positions. Hobbes derives his norm of ethical conduct from 
 a consideration of the individual; Shaftesbury deduces his 
 from the universal. To Hobbes the individual is all-im- 
 portant, to Shaftesbury it is the generality. Shaftesbury, in 
 the spirit of Spinoza or Leibnitz, views the individual from 
 the standpoint of the universal. The universal harmony must 
 prevail. For this harmony is the essence of virtue and man 
 must keep himself in articulation with it. The ethical value 
 of his life is to be measured by the extent of its conformation 
 with the general life. "It is shame and folly to wish against 
 the whole." (Regimen, 93.) "The good of mankind, that 
 alone shouldst thou intend and that perform as far as in thee 
 lies." (Ibid., 72.) When personal interest and that of the 
 public are in opposition, one is far from virtue (Ibid., 73). 
 The appeal of virtue in Hobbes' teaching is strictly personal, 
 in that of Shaftesbury it is as conspicuously impersonal. In 
 the one it is a base self-assertion, in the other a sublime self- 
 surrender. With Hobbes man is born without morality and 
 invents it. With Shaftesbury man is born as a moral possibil- 
 ity and is left to realize and maintain it. 
 
 Shaftesbury's superiority to Hobbes is not inferior to that 
 with which he may be credited in comparison with Locke. To 
 both Hobbes and Locke morality is a manufacture with only 
 this difference, that while to one it is a human handiwork, to 
 the other it is of Divine origin. Locke might be regarded 
 as rendering morality more impressive by reason of its higher 
 ultimate source, but this result will only obtain with the un- 
 thinking. Moral sanction to be valid must in the last 
 analysis be something inherent and not superimposed. Be- 
 cause a god commands the moral might make it more certain 
 of acceptance and realization from its association with power 
 and its suggestion of penalty, but this would be to make 
 morality unmoral. In Kant's phraseology it would be legality 
 but not morality. Further, morality is not moral merely 
 when imposed by Divine will even apart from promise or 
 penalty. What assurance have we that this Divine will does 
 
 26 
 
not act arbitrarily in the matter, which again would rob 
 morality of moral quality by exposing it to the suspicion of 
 being capricious. Specific moral enactment may express 
 arbitrary determination, but fundamentally morality must be 
 absolute and independent. Shaftesbury finally meets this re- 
 quirement in contrast to Hobbes and Locke by removing the 
 source and sanction of morality from both human and Divine 
 origin and placing it, as has been shown, in the universal con- 
 stitution of things themselves. He would have said in the 
 language of Stephen (Science of Ethics, 142), that "the 
 moral law is as independent of the legislature as the move- 
 ments of the planets." He actually went a step further than 
 this and taught that the moral law is independent even of 
 Divine legislation. It is antecedent to man and even ob- 
 ligatory upon God if He is to subsist in harmonious relation- 
 ship with the rest of existence. This view may not, as was 
 the case, be acceptable to the opponent of the deistic position 
 as exemplified by Shaftesbury. It may be construed as 
 derogatory to the Deity. It need not, however, be so con- 
 strued. It would be a more and not less creditable Deity 
 who recognized and accepted the appeal and obligation of 
 the moral law and gave himself to be its mouthpiece. And 
 if the fear were persisted in that the implication of Shaftes- 
 bury's position lowered the dignity of the Deity, it could be 
 urged by way of compensation that it exalted the worth and 
 appeal of morality. And if we are concerned, as we should 
 be, with man's salvation and not with God's safety, the posi- 
 tion maintained by Shaftesbury is incomparably more de- 
 sirable. It is no irreverence to say that man's chief concern 
 is man. Nor is any irreverence implied to say from this 
 standpoint that God may take care of Himself. 
 
 But virtue, according to Shaftesbury, is not mere har- 
 mony between the individual and the universal. He saw 
 clearly and emphasized appropriately that moral merit is 
 not to be credited to mechanical action, but is allowable only 
 to that which is conscious and intentional. Shaftesbury 
 makes here an interesting and novel distinction between good- 
 ness and virtue. He terms that goodness by which a creature 
 is carried as result of natural temper or bent of affections 
 towards good and against evil. (Characteristics, I., p. 250.) 
 It must also be attended with some affection. (Ibid., 247.) 
 Such goodness lies within the reach and capacity of all sensible 
 creatures. (Ibid., 251.) Virtue, on the other hand, is 
 
 27 
 
higher and better. It involves goodness and has an addi- 
 tional element. To be virtuous one must exercise conscious 
 choice based upon a knowledge of conflicting alternatives. 
 If a creature be generous, kind, constant, etc., and yet cannot 
 reflect upon what he does or sees others do so as to take notice 
 of what is worthy or honest, and make that notice or concep- 
 tion of worth and honesty to be an object of his affection, 
 he has not the character of being virtuous. (Ibid., 253.) 
 
 The greater the effort implied in choosing, the greater 
 the virtue. (Ibid., 256.) And such moral worth is attrib- 
 utable only to man. (Ibid., 251.) 
 
 Since virtue is choice between conflicting alternatives, 
 there arises further qualification of virtue by motive. With- 
 out motive virtue degenerates into a mere mechanical good- 
 ness, but the motive must be moral. To be moral it must be 
 social in purport, tending to the general good, and it must be 
 without personal reference in the end to be obtained. In the 
 spirit of Kant, Shaftesbury makes virtue an end in itself. It 
 must not embody a spirit of commercialism or speculation. 
 If virtue be not really estimable in itself, he says, I can see 
 nothing estimable in following it for the sake of a bargain. 
 If the love of doing good be not of itself a good and right 
 inclination, I know not how there can possibly be such a 
 thing as goodness or virtue. (Ibid., I., p. 66.) Nor is the 
 matter of the moral value of motive altered by its removal to 
 a distance. Shaftesbury protests strongly in the interest of 
 the integrity of virtue against the introduction of the selfish 
 motive of reward hereafter. "If a saint had no other virtue 
 than what was raised in him by the same objects of reward 
 and punishment in a more distant, state, I know not whose 
 love or esteem he might gain besides, but for my own part 
 I should never think him worthy of mine. (Ibid., p. 85.) 
 Goodness out of fear of deity or hope of reward is not good- 
 ness. (Ibid., p. 267.) 
 
 There needs be said that the goodness with which Shaftes- 
 bury credits man as a native endowment is not an accom- 
 plishment but a faculty. He may be said to be born good 
 to the end that he might become virtuous. Goodness, ac- 
 cording to Shaftesbury, being the possibility, virtue the 
 realization. And it is here that we have what might be 
 termed Shaftesbury's most characteristic ethical teaching and 
 contribution to the study. 
 
 28 
 
THE MORAL SENSE 
 
 D. To realize the significance and value of this we must 
 start with Shaftesbury's insistence of the naturalness and 
 inherency of moral distinctions in the universe. Morality is 
 neither divinely created nor humanly manufactured, it is 
 original and substantial. Nor is it, to begin with, subjective 
 to man, but objective. Accordingly, the question may be 
 raised, in fact, is unavoidable, how does man arrive at knowl- 
 edge of this morality? How is the mediation between the 
 objective and the subjective in the case effected? This, for 
 Shaftesbury, is easily brought about by his unique conception 
 of morality. 
 
 Morality is commonly taken to imply a spiritual attitude 
 or disposition of the individual in matters pertaining to con- 
 duct. It is primarily a matter of motive. Without this sub- 
 jective element morality is a kind of mechanics, a beautiful 
 counterfeit without a soul. In Shaftesbury's moral scheme 
 morality is primarily and principally objective to man, some- 
 thing that he can perceive and imitate, or adapt himself to. 
 It is a harmonious relationship, a beauty of conduct the at- 
 tractiveness of which consists in the harmonious articulation 
 of its parts or purposes to one another, and to the rest of 
 things besides. "There is, says Shaftesbury (Characteristics, 
 II. , p. 137), in certain figures a natural beauty which the eye 
 finds as soon as the object is presented to it. And is there 
 not as natural a beauty of actions?" Indeed, "the most 
 natural beauty in the world is honesty and moral truth" 
 (Ibid., I., p. 94). Beauty and good are one and the same 
 (Ibid., II., p. 128). There is no real good beside the en- 
 joyment of beauty, and there is no enjoyment of beauty be- 
 side what is good. (Ibid., 141.) 
 
 The substantive independent existence of the good as a 
 moral standard cannot be more emphatically put than when 
 Shaftesbury exalts it into a standard of moral measurement 
 of the Deity Himself. This he does when he says: "Who- 
 ever thinks there is a God and pretends formally to believe 
 that He is just and good, must suppose that there is in- 
 dependently such a thing as justice and injustice, truth and 
 falsehood, right and wrong, according to which he pronounces 
 that God is just, righteous, and true. If the mere will, de- 
 cree, or law of God be said absolutely to constitute right and 
 
 29 
 
wrong, then are these latter words of no significance." (Ibid., 
 L, 264.) In other words, God's moral determinations are to 
 be measured by an objective moral standard. 
 
 How does man arrive at this objective morality of a 
 beautiful harmonious relationship? Here Shaftesbury has 
 made his most striking contribution to the history of ethics. 
 Leslie Stephen (Free-thinking, p. 265) calls it Shaftesbury's 
 invention. According to Shaftesbury, man enters the world 
 dowered with a many-sided sensitiveness to various forms of 
 beauty. Fundamentally, all beauty is harmony, which ex- 
 presses itself variously. There is a beauty of harmony in 
 sounds, another in sights, and another in conduct. To each 
 of these there is a corresponding sense. The beautiful in 
 sights is perceived by the eye, the beautiful in sound by the 
 ear, and the beautiful in conduct by a moral sense, or taste. 
 This moral sense Stephen (Ibid., 267) describes as "merely 
 a particular case of that sense by which we perceive the all- 
 prevailing harmony. That harmony, as revealed to our 
 imagination, produces the sense of the beautiful; as partially 
 apprehended by our reason it produces philosophy; and as 
 embodied in the workings of human nature it gives rise to 
 the moral sense." This description of Stephen's is excellent 
 but for the qualification that the harmony existing and ex- 
 perience does not produce the several corresponding senses. 
 They are part and parcel of man's native endowment. They 
 are human capabilities. The diverse expressions of the beau- 
 tiful are merely occasions of the exercise of these capabilities. 
 They are simply different exhibitions of the same fundamental 
 responsiveness, according to the respective natures of the 
 stimuli presented. 
 
 The naturalness and inherency of this moral sense, as 
 part of man's native equipment, Shaftesbury has plainly em- 
 phasized. "Sense of right and wrong is as natural to us as 
 natural affection and is a first principle in our constitution and 
 make. There is no speculative opinion, persuasion or belief 
 which is capable immediately or directly to exclude or destroy 
 it." (Characteristics, I., 260.) Not only is there no specu- 
 lative opinion, persuasion, or belief which is capable imme- 
 diately or directly to exclude or destroy this moral sense, but, 
 as if growing in strength of assurance with regard to it, 
 Shaftesbury, a little later on, says, " 'Tis impossible that this 
 can instantly or without much force and violence be effaced 
 
 30 
 
or struck out of the natural temper even by means of the most 
 extravagant belief or opinion in the world." (Ibid., 261.) 
 And much later still (Ibid., II., 344) he maintains that man's 
 moral sense is not only natural and essential, but that "You 
 can't get rid of it." 
 
 But this moral sense is not to be regarded as a fully 
 formed faculty with which man enters life any more than any 
 other with which he is endowed to face life with its manifold 
 possibilities and duties. In the spirit of Shaftesbury's familiar 
 classicism, we might say it does not spring full-formed like 
 Minerva from the brow of Zeus. Like sight, like hearing, 
 like man's other senses, his moral sense, differing from the 
 others in being dissociated from any physical organ and in 
 being thus purely spiritual, starts as they do as a rudimentary 
 possibility requiring development. It requires use, practice, 
 culture and criticism. Accordingly, it is educable, and if not 
 educated will remain stunted or become through wrong de- 
 velopment perverted. Its education should be begun early, 
 when material is plastic, in which case it is effected for us by 
 discreet sympathetic teachers. It can be later continued and 
 furthered by ourselves. It is in keeping with this opinion that 
 Shaftesbury says (Characteristics, II., p. 266) that, in this 
 matter, "the youth alone are to be regarded. The rest are 
 confirmed and hardened in their way. Something should 
 therefore be thought of in behalf of our generous youths 
 towards correcting their taste or relish in the concerns of 
 life." Education of the moral sense is so sure and effective 
 that thereby "such an opinion of good could be settled in our- 
 selves as would secure an invariable, agreeable, and just taste 
 in life and manners (Ibid., p. 272). The man who repre- 
 sents the result of the education of the moral sense in keeping 
 with Shaftesbury's idea will be so disposed morally that he 
 will respond to moral appeal with the same automatic cer- 
 tainty as obtains in the reaction of any bodily sense to its 
 appropriate stimulus. 
 
 Shaftesbury abundantly encourages the cultivation of the 
 moral sense by placing in clear outline its stimulative value to 
 conduct. This taste, says he (Ibid., II., 344), determines 
 goodness where opportunity is given it to operate. "With- 
 out it there is no incentive to morality" (Ibid., p. 265 ) . For 
 'Tis not merely what we call principle, but a taste which 
 governs man. They may think for certain 'this is right, or 
 
 31 
 
that wrong,' they may believe 'this a crime, or that a sin, this 
 punishable by man, or that by God,' yet if the savour of 
 things lies cross to honesty; if the fancy be florid and the ap- 
 petite high towards the subaltern beauties and lower order of 
 worldly symmetries and proportions, the conduct infallibly 
 turns this latter way." "Even conscience, such as is owing to 
 religious discipline, will make but a slight figure where this 
 taste is set amiss. (Ibid., p. 265.) This taste is at last what 
 will influence. (Ibid., p. 266.) In view of the significance 
 of the moral taste as here indicated, the high importance at- 
 tached to it in this paper is abundantly justified. Shaftes- 
 bury himself regarded his teaching of the moral sense as 
 among his most important. For he says (Ibid., II., p. 344), 
 that to demonstrate the reasonableness of a proportionate 
 taste was one of the main aims of his work. 
 
 SHAFTESBURY AND CUMBERLAND 
 
 E. Shaftesbury's teaching of the moral taste or sense 
 is his most unique contribution to ethical history. His other 
 positions, more or less modified, appear before as after him, 
 but in this he is entirely original. The only antecedent Eng- 
 lish ethical writer with whom he might be brought into com- 
 parison is Richard Cumberland, whose DeLegibus Naturae 
 appeared in 1672, over a quarter of a century before the first 
 appearance of Shaftesbury's Inquiry concerning Virtue and 
 Merit. (Sidgwick, 184.) In general, Cumberland's work 
 can't be brought into comparison with that of Shaftesbury. 
 Appearing originally in Latin, it has been little translated. 
 It is long drawn, pedantic, uninspiring, and wearisome, while 
 Shaftesbury is, as a rule, lucid, not too verbose, dignified in 
 treatment, and always exalted and inspiring in spirit. But we 
 find several of Shaftesbury's main contentions, as, for in- 
 stance, against Locke or Hobbes, anticipated, and more or 
 less clearly stated by Cumberland. He is openly in oppo- 
 sition to Hobbes. To him man is egoistic by nature as to 
 Hobbes, but he is also social. This sociality, however, is not 
 a result of self-seeking social compact, but an original en- 
 dowment. He even goes so far as to maintain (De Legibus, 
 p. no) that men universally respect the general good earlier 
 than their own. Men are thus good by nature. The larger 
 
 32 
 
nature of which man is part is also good. Goodness is in- 
 herent therein, but this quality, according to Cumberland, is 
 not, as with Shaftesbury, original and substantive, but created. 
 It owes its existence to Divine creation. Cumberland is in 
 complete accord with Locke in regarding morality as inherent 
 in the universal order of things, but by Divine determination. 
 And yet, from this starting point wherein he differs from 
 Shaftesbury, he differs more widely from him in the method 
 of arriving at a knowledge of the moral. With Cumberland 
 it is entirely rational and intellectual. "Certain proposi- 
 tions," he says (Ibid., p. 39), "of unchangeable truth which 
 direct our voluntary actions about choosing good and re- 
 fusing evil, and impose an obligation to external actions even 
 without laws, and laying aside all considerations of those 
 compacts which constitute civil government, are from the 
 nature of things and of men necessarily suggested to the 
 minds of men and therefore really exist there." We see here 
 the recognition of moral truth to be entirely intellectualistic. 
 This same fact receives further exhibition and confirmation in 
 Cumberland's conception of conscience. To him conscience 
 is entirely a matter intellectual. It is a judicial function which 
 is necessarily rational. He says in this connection, "Our mind 
 is conscious to itself of all its own actions. It sits a judge 
 upon its own actions and thence procures to itself either tran- 
 quillity and joy or anxiety and sorrow. In this power of the 
 mind and the actions thence arising consists the whole force 
 of conscience by which it proposes laws to itself, examines 
 its past, and regulates its future conduct" (De Legibus, 112). 
 According to this, man's apprehension of moral truth is 
 mediated by an intellectual process, and the result of the 
 process remains intellectual. Feeling plays no part and is 
 unnecessary. With Shaftesbury there is no intellectual 
 mediation. The mind does not first sit in judgment upon 
 facts to determine their moral signification. But oppositely, 
 the mental recognition is a later process. We recognize the 
 good, which is the harmonious, the beautiful, by direct in- 
 tuition of the moral sense. We are by nature sensitive to 
 the moral as the photographer's plate is to the pencilings of 
 the light. The result is equally direct and certain in either 
 case. To indicate more strikingly the contrast between Cum- 
 berland and Shaftesbury in the matter of moral apprehen- 
 sion, it may be said that according to Cumberland the right 
 
 33 
 
reaches feeling through the mind, whereas with Shaftesbury 
 it reaches the mind through feeling. Shaftesbury differs en- 
 tirely from Cumberland in this aspect of his ethical teaching 
 and was in no sense even in the least suggestively anticipated 
 by him. 
 
 ETHICS AND RELIGION 
 
 RELATION IN SHAFTESBURY' S SYSTEM 
 
 F. What in Shaftesbury's system is the relation of ethics 
 to religion? This is a query of great present-day interest, 
 but one in which Shaftesbury does not give us any informa- 
 tion of historical value, although historically he is of great 
 moral value in the history of the controversy. He may be 
 credited with high importance as conspicuous among the 
 earlier deists for having emphasized the distinctness of ethics 
 and religion and thus broadened the way to a study of their 
 respective implications and mutual relations. Till Shaftes- 
 bury's time the subject had, as he mentions (Characteristics, 
 I., 238), been little examined. It was still, as acknowledged 
 by him, of dangerous speculation. And yet, with characteris- 
 tic courage for which he was always conspicuous, he under- 
 took the investigation, and conducted it according to his in- 
 formation and ability with exemplary candor. 
 
 Leslie Stephen has well said (English Thought, II., p. 2) 
 that speculations as to morality inevitably increase as the 
 vision of God becomes faint. This may be true, and very 
 likely is in a large measure, speaking generally. It is, how- 
 ever, wholly without application to Shaftesbury. He was in- 
 tensely religious in the true signification of being possessed 
 and guided by a sense of the Divine supremacy and of human 
 responsibility. This consciousness was the determining in- 
 fluence of his life. In writing to his young friend at Univer- 
 sity, he says (Letters, p. 4) that when the improvement of 
 our minds and the advancement of our reason is what we aim 
 at to fit us for a perfecter, more rational, and worthier service 
 of God, we can have no scruples whether or no the work be 
 an acceptable one to Him. But where neither our duty to 
 mankind, nor obedience to our Creator is anyway the end or 
 object of our studies or exercises, be they ever so curious or 
 exquisite, they may be justly styled vain. Shaftesbury was 
 not faint in his vision of God, but he was, as Stephen points 
 
 34 
 
out (English Thought, II., p. 25), inimical to the debased 
 conception of deity as found in primitive religious teaching, 
 both Jewish and Christian, as it still obtained in his day. In 
 this respect Shaftesbury's insistence is not yet superfluous. 
 But it is not correct when Stephen says elsewhere (Free- 
 thinking, p. 256), that a belief in God is an essential part of 
 Shaftesbury's system, and that such belief means a perception 
 of harmonious order (Stephen, English Thought, II., p. 25). 
 Shaftesbury's avowed aim is to show that the inseparableness 
 of God and ethics, as popularly believed, does not exist, and 
 one can, therefore, have a perception of the moral relation- 
 ship of the universe without perception or even thought of 
 God. Shaftesbury is a firm believer in God. To him God is 
 a reality and a palpably moving spirit. In consonance with 
 the other deists he may have held theoretically to the distance 
 of the Deity in certain respects from His universe, but this 
 Deity was certainly not distant from Shaftesbury himself, as 
 far as his consciousness was concerned. 
 
 Shaftesbury maintains the existence of a complete sever- 
 ance between religion and ethics. This is implied in his teach- 
 ing of the substantive existence of goodness as a universal 
 harmony by which even God is determined as a moral being. 
 Shaftesbury anticipated our familiar principle that men act 
 and develop conduct before they speculate, and that accord- 
 ingly, as he says (Characteristics, I., p. 266), "It will hardly 
 be questioned that it is possible for a creature capable of 
 using reflection to have a liking or dislike of moral actions, 
 and consequently a sense of right and wrong, before such 
 time as he may have any settled notion of a God." One may 
 continue without any theistic belief and yet discover a high 
 opinion of virtue. (Ibid., 275.) Indeed, so certain is the 
 precedence of ethics to religion, that the religious conscience 
 depends for its efficacy upon the natural conscience (Ibid., 
 p. 305). So Shaftesbury says that, the love of God is best 
 attained not by speculation and philosophy, but by moral 
 practice, and love of mankind, and a study of their interests. 
 True zeal for God, or religion, must be supported by real love 
 for mankind (Letters, pp. 8, 9). In other words, it is 
 Shaftesbury's teaching that ethics is the threshold to re- 
 ligion. 
 
 Religion, therefore, according to Shaftesbury, is not es- 
 sential to ethics, but may be helpful, and so supplementary. 
 
 35 
 
Just how the influence is exerted and effectuated he does not 
 say. He is no clearer on this point and no more helpful than 
 Schleiermacher, who, discussing the same problem in his 
 ''Discourses on Religion," leaves us hazy as to a solution. 
 Shaftesbury says (Characteristics, I., p. 270), that, "If re- 
 ligion creates a belief that the ill passions no less than their 
 consequent actions are the objects of a deity's animadversion, 
 'tis certain that such a belief must prove a seasonable remedy 
 against vice and be in a particular manner advantageous to 
 virtue," and that thus "virtue finds completion in piety" 
 (Ibid., 280). But he fails to recognize that from the stand- 
 point of his own conception of virtue the result of such piety 
 would not be virtuous, although it might be religious. Even 
 if such a religious result might be termed ethical, it would be 
 impossible to see how it would imply a single step in the direc- 
 tion of virtue as conceived in Shaftesbury's system. Virtue 
 on religious soil is submission to Divine will. In Shaftes- 
 bury's sense it is spontaneous response and adaptation to the 
 appeal of a harmony universal. So, although he does not 
 disclaim religion and appraises it as supplementary to ethics, 
 he virtually discards it by failing to bring it into logical con- 
 sistency with his ethical system. Kant's adoption of religion 
 as a regulative principle is far more valuable, although 
 logically scrutinized is not much more tenable. 
 
 CLASSIFICATION OF SHAFTESBURY 
 
 G. We come now, finally, in our presentation of Shaftes- 
 bury's ethical teaching to its most difficult problem, as to its 
 classification among ethical principles. Shall we call him 
 hedonistic or intuitional? We find nowhere more than in- 
 cidental reference to the subject. And yet it is interesting 
 and important. A cursory reading of our author leaves one 
 at the close thereof confused as to what term may properly 
 be applied to him. As one proceeds in the text he finds him- 
 self constantly vaccilating, now inclining to the hedonistic 
 position, anon to the more rigorous ethical standard. 
 
 A decision of our question requires not only a considera- 
 tion of Shaftesbury's expressed opinions, account must also 
 be taken of the evident spirit with which his writings are in- 
 
 36 
 
spired and permeated. In his more formal, purely ethical 
 writings, there is a decided balance in favor of those who 
 would claim Shaftesbury for hedonism. Goodness is com- 
 monly interpreted in terms of pleasure and happiness; as, for 
 instance, "To have the natural affections (such as are 
 founded in love, complacency, good-will, and in a sympathy 
 with the kind or species) is to have the chief means and power 
 of self-enjoyment. To want these is certain misery and ill" 
 (Characteristics, I., p. 293). "The natural affections being 
 the only means which can procure a constant series or suc- 
 cession of the mental enjoyments, are the only means which 
 can procure a certain and solid happiness" (Ibid., 294). 
 Shaftesbury everywhere identifies virtue with pleasure. 
 "Where perfect beauty is, there alone can be perfect enjoy- 
 ment" (Regimen, pp. 59, 91). He even urges the superior 
 claim of pleasure when he says, "Every creature should seek 
 its good and not its misery" (Ibid., 92), in which goodness 
 is synonymous with happiness. These teachings in support 
 of hedonism might be increased to greater length to place 
 Shaftesbury in the ranks of the school of hedonists. There 
 is, however, another aspect of the matter. 
 
 While Shaftesbury abounds in interpretations of virtue 
 in terms of pleasure and the like, in none of these is he as 
 emphatic and impressive as when he presents morality in 
 its intuitional phase. u ln the characters or pictures of man- 
 ners which the mind of necessity figures to itself and carries 
 about with it the heart cannot possibly remain neutral, but 
 constantly takes part one way or another" (Characteristics, 
 I., p. 252). "There is a power in harmony proportion and 
 beauty of every kind which naturally captivates the heart" 
 (Ibid., II., 174). "Integrity, justice, faith, or anything 
 which is the part of a man as he is a man, is his only end and 
 not pleasure. He who follows pleasure as his end knows not 
 what he follows. He who follows virtue as his end knows 
 what he follows" (Regimen, 50). Shaftesbury's intuitional- 
 ism is implied in his virtual discarding of religion from the 
 ethical standpoint, and assigning to it a mere supplementary 
 and subordinate, although not indispensable, position. We 
 see it further exemplified, even more emphatically, in his 
 avowed opposition to virtue on any ground of utility. In a 
 letter to Lord Somers (Regimen, 402) he pities him if he 
 cannot find good attractive for its own sake. He speaks with 
 
 37 
 
like contempt of all whose virtue is, as he would call it, a 
 commercial bargaining. "Those who can be conscious of 
 doing no good but what they are frightened or bribed into, 
 can make but a sorry account of it" (Ibid, 345). "Nothing 
 is truly pleasing or satisfactory but what is acted disinterest- 
 edly, generously, and freely" (Ibid}. "The certain way to 
 make the most of life is to do the most good, and that the 
 most generously, throwing aside selfishness and merce- 
 nariness" (Ibid., 346). Shaftesbury says of himself, "The 
 greatest part of what I do in the world is not because I hope 
 anything, but because I think I must be doing" (Ibid., 299). 
 In other words, he finds an inherent compulsion in duty or 
 virtue. This attitude of his may be seen to attain its highest 
 dignity and confirmation when he urges virtue not only apart 
 from thought or expectation of reward, but even where it 
 may entail not only absence of pleasure but even possibility 
 of pain. "It is diviner," says he (Characteristics, 27), "to 
 do good where it may be thought inglorious than for glory's 
 sake." If now, with these clear-cut teachings, one takes ac- 
 count, as has been maintained should be done, of the spirit 
 of Shaftesbury, there will remain no doubt as to the purity 
 of his intuitionalism, at least in its intention. In his less 
 formal teachings, as in the Philosophical Regimen, where we 
 see mirrored, as it were, the inner life of the man, we ex- 
 perience a very palpable spirit of moral earnestness to which 
 virtue in its unclothed beauty wields a powerful appeal into 
 consonance with which he struggles hard to bring himself. 
 Further, be it noted that while Shaftesbury commonly places 
 the appeal of virtue on its own basis without other reference 
 to pleasure than as a natural result of virtuous action, he 
 rarely inculcates virtue for the sake of pleasure. Indeed, it 
 is evident that when reference is made to pleasure as con- 
 comitant of virtue, it is for the sake of the virtue and not the 
 reverse. He tells us (Ibid., 67) that there is a necessity for 
 the preservation of virtue. To this end it should be thought 
 to have no quarrel with true interest and self-enjoyment. 
 He is willing to accept happiness as an aid to virtue, but not 
 as a ground therefor. Virtue is to be the supreme concern. 
 
 And yet, Shaftesbury's intuitionalism does not hold. 
 Theoretically it is valid, practically it does not work. In his 
 discussion "Concerning Virtue or Merit," he discusses the 
 nature of virtue and leaves with the reader the impression 
 
 38 
 
that it is something that needs only be known in order to be 
 done. It does not require the conventional aid of religion, 
 although this may be helpful. It is represented as autonomous 
 or self-enacting. Had Shaftesbury rested the case here it 
 would have redounded to the dignity of his system and placed 
 it squarely on the side of intuitionalism. But when he comes 
 to the second part of the same discussion, in Book II., thereof 
 he belies his previous teaching by asking bluntly and plainly, 
 at the very outset, "what obligation there is to virtue, or what 
 reason to embrace it." Thereafter virtue is explained in 
 terms of pleasure. It is presented as synonymous therewith, 
 although he does not, as has been said, urge that one should 
 be guided by the hedonistic motive. A consistent intuitional- 
 ism would exclude in a discussion of virtue the question of 
 motive. The genuine intuitionalist requires no motive. 
 Shaftesbury himself plainly evidenced his consciousness of 
 the weakness or limitation of the intuitional view of virtue 
 when he said (Characteristics, I., p. 9), "If the knowing well 
 how to expose any infirmity or vice were sufficient security 
 for the virtue which is contrary, how excellent an age might 
 we be presumed to live in." We are reminded here of the 
 pathetic echo of this conviction on the part of Bishop Butler, 
 whose intended intuitionalism also breaks down in his con- 
 fession with regard to the limitation of the moral conscious- 
 ness that "Had it strength, as it had right, had it power as 
 it had manifest authority, it- would absolutely govern the 
 world" (British Moralists, I., p. 217). James Martineau, 
 in his "Types of Ethical Theory" (II., pp. 500, 508), men- 
 tions this inconsistency in Shaftesbury's system, speaks of it 
 properly as a downward step, and terms it "forgetfulness of 
 prior positions" (Ibid., 510). We do not think that it 
 evidences forgetfulness, but inability to maintain the high 
 position with which the discussion started. So, in characteriz- 
 ing Shaftesbury's system, we should say that in intention it is 
 intuitional, but becomes hedonistic in its realization. And 
 yet, strange to say, Shaftesbury himself is in character a fine 
 exhibition of a man whose virtue may be said to be guided 
 by intuitional promptings. He was better than his teaching. 
 And yet, this teaching may be said to be a tribute to his virtue. 
 So enamoured of the good was he that he conceded to human 
 weakness by providing for the securance of virtue through 
 the added attraction of a hedonistic motive. 
 
 39 
 
DISCUSSION 
 III. 
 
 Shaftesbury's merit as ethical teacher is great and man- 
 ifold. Up to his time morality had been made, as Hunt 
 (Religious Thought, II., 347) has said, u to depend upon 
 the authority of the State, the Church, or the will of God." 
 "The Bible was supposed to determine what was right or 
 wrong" (Ibid 1 ., 359). The progress of thought and inves- 
 tigation, and the growth of a liberal spirit would make such 
 basis of morality very insecure. Shaftesbury anticipated this 
 by removing the basis of morality from what might be con- 
 strued as secondary and placing it in the ultimate constitution 
 of the universe itself. He was the first in English thought, 
 in the novelty and attractiveness of his presentation, to pro- 
 test against a manufactured morality, whether human or 
 divine. Morality has never been made more august than 
 when Shaftesbury, in his forceful way, made it obligatory 
 even upon God Himself. 
 
 Shaftesbury may be credited with having initiated the 
 impulse which led to the popularization of the doctrine of 
 viewing morality sub specie eterni. This conception gives 
 dignity to the smallest moral act by ascribing to it a universal 
 relation and significance. Acts may be small but not unim- 
 portant. This makes man cooperative with the universe. 
 There is an old traditional Jewish view that man is intended 
 to be and should be in partnership with the deity to realize 
 the possibilities of the universe. Shaftesbury raises man to 
 the higher dignity of partnership with the universe itself, with 
 which, according to his teaching, God Himself must be in 
 harmonious relation. 
 
 Shaftesbury has anticipated some of the general convic- 
 tions of present-day sociological teaching, although his con- 
 clusions were reached speculatively instead of by empirical 
 investigation. "There is hardly a single fact in the whole 
 range of sociological knowledge," says Giddings (Elements 
 of Sociology, 232), that does not support the conclusion that 
 the race was social before it was human, and that its social 
 qualities were the chief means of developing its human 
 nature." This is fundamental with Shaftesbury in opposi- 
 tion to Hobbes. The consequent teaching that society must 
 
 40 
 
take precedence, Shaftesbury urged with even greater in- 
 sistence than Herbert Spencer. "The life of the social or- 
 ganism," says Spencer (Data of Ethics, Ch. VIII. , Sec. 49), 
 "must, as an end, rank above the lives of its units." But, 
 according to him, this organism is the result of expediency 
 and not of the universal constitution, as with Shaftesbury. 
 "Living together," says Spencer (Ibid.), "arose because, on 
 the average, it proved more advantageous to each than living 
 apart." But social integrity with Spencer is essential as con- 
 tributory to continued individual self-preservation. Accord- 
 ingly, "the subordination of personal to social welfare is 
 contingent," says he; "it depends on the presence of antag- 
 onistic societies. When such cease, the need for sacrifice of 
 private claims to public claims ceases also" (Ibid.) Shaftes- 
 bury's view is opposite. He also maintains the superior right 
 of the social whole, but subordination of self is not contingent 
 and will not be removed. The individual is incidental, the 
 whole is essential and will have to continue so. 
 
 Spencer and modern sociological teaching in general agree 
 that society is not a manufacture but a growth, (cf . Spencer : 
 Social Organism, 270.) In this connection he objects to the 
 social conceptions of Plato and Hobbes on the ground of 
 their artificiality. But his conception was forestalled by 
 Shaftesbury and in a more thorough-going, vital way. To 
 Spenced (Ibid) there exists scarcely any mutual dependence 
 of parts in the early undeveloped states of society, whereas 
 "in our conception of a social organism we must include all 
 that lower organic existence on which human existence de- 
 pends" (Ibid., 272). This very inclusion of the lower with 
 the higher characterizes Shaftesbury and in a more thorough- 
 going fashion than with Spencer. While Spencer, as Muir- 
 head has pointed out (Ethics, 128, note), holds the doctrine 
 of the social organism with feeble grasp, as though it were 
 an interesting analogy or metaphor, Shaftesbury conceives 
 of it as vital and fundamental. Muirhead says (Ibid., 127) 
 that "for the atomic theory of human nature modern science 
 has substituted the organic." This substitution can properly 
 be first credited to Shaftesbury. 
 
 In keeping with this organic social conception is the evo- 
 lutionary ethical one. This evolutionary ethical conception 
 Shaftesbury also emphasized. "Moral obligation at any par- 
 ticular stage," says Muirhead (Ethics, 212), "rests, not 
 
 41 
 
merely on the call to maintain a particular form of moral 
 organization, but to maintain and forward the cause of moral 
 order as a whole." "Duty rests upon a personal interest in 
 a moral order" (Ibid). To this Shaftesbury would have 
 given immediate and literal assent. But Shaftesbury's teach- 
 ing is of broader scope than that of the insistence of evo- 
 lutionary ethics. For while, as stated by Stephen (Science of 
 Ethics, 1 60), the moral law of evolutionary ethics defines a 
 property of the social tissue, the same law as urged by 
 Shaftesbury bears reference to what he would call the uni- 
 versal tissue. 
 
 Shaftesbury's most characteristic doctrine, that which 
 distinguishes him most radically from other ethical writers 
 and makes him to that extent unique, is his inculcation of 
 what he calls the moral sense. This contribution of his to 
 ethical teaching may, however, be required to suffer some 
 detraction and be regarded as having been exaggerated in 
 importance, and accordingly too largely credited. Stephen 
 may be said to have misunderstood and misrepresented it 
 entirely. He interprets it as a "natural tendency to virtue" 
 (English Thought, II., 29), and considers it to owe its 
 origination to the influence of the universal harmony just as 
 this same harmony produces in our imagination sense of the 
 beautiful, and in our reason generates philosophy (Ibid., 30) . 
 The moral sense of Shaftesbury's teaching is neither a 
 tendency to virtue nor is it produced by the universal har- 
 mony. It is a sensitiveness and responsiveness to the good 
 which it recognizes as soon as it confronts it, but is not 
 called into being by it. It is a native endowment natural to 
 man as the harmony it perceives is natural to the universe. 
 But Shaftesbury has not suggested a novelty ethically so much 
 as he has attempted to give philosophic expression and dig- 
 nity to a familiar fact of universal recognition. We com- 
 monly describe our recognition of the good in terms of feel- 
 ing. We apprehend a certain ethical distinction or frame a 
 definite ethical resolution. When asked for an explanation we 
 naively say that we feel it to be right or wrong, as the case 
 may be. This feeling is what generally dominates our 
 character. Upon this Shaftesbury seized. He overlooked 
 that it is a product and secondary to the more rapid and 
 elusive operation of mental recognition and, giving it a 
 primary position in our inner life, called it under the name of 
 
 42 
 
moral sense that by which goodness is recognized. His pro- 
 cedure is striking, but psychologically incorrect. This opinion 
 finds support in the judgment of Warner Fite that "we 
 should refuse to regard the moral sense as the unanalyzable 
 utterance of a special faculty" (Ethics, 23). 
 
 This ought not, however, to be taken to rob Shaftes- 
 bury's teaching of moral value. It has high worth, but in 
 another direction. In his attribution of moral apprehension 
 to a moral sense he has given emphasis to a fact of ethical 
 import that is not always recognized by ethical theorists 
 and is not sufficiently familiar to the more practical generality 
 of mankind, and that is, that morality is ultimately deter- 
 mined by feeling and not by intellectual conviction. This is 
 a truth of very ancient recognition. When Socrates says that, 
 to know the right is to do it, there is reason to believe that 
 knowledge implied more than mere intellectual apprehension, 
 and that is the consequent and attendant sensitive experience. 
 Pure intellect is impassive, reason is cold. Neither alone 
 would effect anything in the realm of conduct. The bridge 
 is furnished by the impetus of feeling. The Bible may be 
 construed as having given this forceful expression when it 
 says (Proverbs, IV., 23), "Keep thy heart with all diligence 
 for out of it are the issues of life." This fact of the primacy 
 of feeling, as determining factor in the moral life, is what 
 Shaftesbury may be said to have implied in his teaching of 
 the moral sense. 
 
 While Shaftesbury's merit is great in having given 
 philosophical expression and emphasis to a familiar ex- 
 perience, he might have placed us under greater obligation 
 had he indicated, or even intimated, how the moral sense 
 is to be educated. That it is educable he maintained, as has 
 been pointed out. When Plato presented in his republic the 
 method of education for the citizen of the ideal common- 
 wealth he gave due attention to the development of the inner 
 life by requiring, among other things, that careful and ex- 
 tensive attention be given to the matter of right environ- 
 ment. Shaftesbury might have done similarly, and in so 
 doing have achieved more for ethical theory in general, than 
 by the mere inculcation of his moral sense. It would have 
 been, if tenable and effective, a valuable contribution to the 
 furtherance of a scientific ethics. 
 
 The genuineness of Shaftesbury's originality has suf- 
 
 43 
 
fered detraction. Windelband maintains that "the ancient 
 conception of life, in accordance with which morality coin- 
 cides with the undisturbed unfolding of man's true and 
 natural essence, was directly congenial to Shaftesbury and 
 became the living basis of his thought" (Hist, of Phil., 508 ) . 
 There is room to maintain that Shaftesbury's originality is 
 really not compromised here. His theory is more than one 
 of a mere self-unfolding. It is rather one of a self-adapta- 
 tion. What Fowler says is more to the point when he sug- 
 gests (Shaftesbury, 98) that Shaftesbury's analogy between 
 art and morals, beauty and virtue, is evidently derived from 
 Plato, while his conviction of man's native sociality and other 
 elements are taken from Aristotle and Plato. Some of the 
 elements which Shaftesbury must have taken from Plato 
 may be found, among others, in the Protagoras (p. 110) : 
 is not the wiser the fairer?; in the Gorgias (p. 95) : the good 
 soul is that in which there is harmony and order; in the 
 Phaedo (p. 423) : where vice is denominated discord and 
 virtue harmony. Shaftesbury's teaching of the absoluteness 
 of beauty and goodness is also Platonic (Phaedo, 391 ) . His 
 larger indebtedness to his great master may be found in his 
 probable derivation from him of his insistence upon a uni- 
 versal organism and of the consequent truth of the necessity 
 of a knowledge of the whole for a comprehension of a part. 
 "All nature is akin," says Plato (Meno, p. 255), "and there 
 is no difficulty in the soul's eliciting all out of a single recol- 
 lection," and "Can anyone who does not know virtue know 
 a part of virtue?" (Ibid., 253). Shaftesbury's constant 
 reference to a higher whole as norm of valuation of the 
 particulars of our experience reproduces in some instances 
 with striking similarity the teaching of Plato that those are 
 blind who are deprived of the knowledge of the true being 
 of each thing, and have in their souls no clear pattern, and 
 are unable, as with a painter's eye, to look at the very truth 
 and to that original to repair (Republic, Bk. VI., p. 310). 
 
 Shaftesbury's reproduction of the platonic identification 
 of virtue and harmony is only natural, according to Palmer 
 (Field of Ethics, 94), who says that in general, "Testimony 
 of every sort, gather it where we may, shows that the human 
 mind has always identified, or tended to identify, the field of 
 beauty and the field of goodness." To this may be added 
 that it can be further shown, and this easily, that both in his 
 
 44 
 
idea of the necessity of man's adaptation to the universal 
 harmony and in the evident spirit, as well as in a particular 
 expression of many of his sentiments, Shaftesbury is plainly 
 either a literal reproduction or a refined modification of the 
 spirit and teachings of Stoicism. Even a cursory reading 
 of his "Philosophical Regimen" will inforce this conclusion. 
 The time in which his moral teaching took shape was one of 
 an intense Grecian spirit (Gizycki, 89) . His youth had been 
 richly stored with classic knowledge. Latin and Greek were 
 to him like mother tongues. Xenophon and Plato, Epictetus 
 and Aurelius, Horace and Lucian were the companions of 
 his youth and the friends of his life (Herder in Gizycki, i). 
 He quotes the Stoics frequently and refers to them as "the 
 learned masters" (Char., II., 280), along the line in which 
 he has drawn from them. Many of his opinions and convic- 
 tions are almost literal reproductions of those of the Stoics. 
 In his exposition of Grecian and Roman Stoicism, Davis 
 (p. 79) says that "their followers were taught to live in 
 harmony with nature, conformably with reason, and the de- 
 mands of universal good." "Can anything be more de- 
 sirable," asks Shaftesbury (Char., II., 148), "than to follow 
 nature?" "True rational life (which with man is the only 
 true life) is when the will is subject to reason" (Regimen, 
 254). "By freedom from our passions and low interests we 
 are reconciled to the goodly order of the universe" (Char., 
 II., 148). This harmony with the goodly order of the uni- 
 verse was, as has been shown, the main message of Shaftes- 
 bury's teaching. This harmony was to him virtue, as it was 
 to the Stoics, and this virtue happiness to him as to them. 
 Shatfesbury himself, in the genuineness and loftiness of his 
 character, is an impressive exemplification of the stoic spirit 
 incorporated in action. Accordingly, it should be said that 
 Shaftesbury's real originality lies in his teaching of the moral 
 sense, although this may be open to the interpretation, as has 
 been pointed out, of being a dignified philosophical phrasing 
 of a commonplace familiar fact of the life of the feelings. 
 And yet, even this does not necessarily imply a discreditable 
 detraction. A more serious one may be made with reference 
 to his repetition of the Socratic mistake of identifying knowl- 
 edge with virtue. Such identification is true only to a limited 
 extent. It is true of a Socrates as of a Shaftesbury, but not of 
 mankind generally. In this particular aspect of his teaching 
 
 45 
 
Shaftesbury's ethics lacks the quality of scientific require- 
 ment. Shaftesbury may be found to err further in his view of 
 man's nature in his excessive generalization on the side of 
 man's goodness, as Hobbes erred on the side of man's 
 wickedness. It is truer to say that all men are no particular 
 thing morally, but merely possibilities for good or evil. 
 
 Another qualification of Shaftesbury's originality may 
 be found in his ethical requirement of submission to the 
 world-order which, as Gizycki has pointed out (Philosophic, 
 198), is the summation of all religion. He has virtually 
 narrowed and carried over into the field of ethics a concep- 
 tion that properly belongs to and which he may unconsciously 
 have taken from the realm of religion. Religion is an at- 
 tempt at harmonization with the world-order as expressive 
 of a God. Shaftesbury's system makes the same demand for 
 ethics, but omits God. 
 
 Finally, the most fundamental criticism that can be passed 
 upon Shaftesbury's system refers not to its originality, but to 
 the value of its ethical principle. If that is ethical which, ac- 
 cording to him, is harmonious with the whole, by what 
 criterion can one tell when such harmonization has been 
 attained. With regard to this important demand Shaftes- 
 bury has left us without other aid than the moral sense, 
 which is insufficient. 
 
 And yet, Shaftesbury's greatness as a moral teacher 
 stands. He saw that ethics must not stand in independent 
 isolation as a department of life, but most express one's at- 
 titude to the world as a whole. He thus gave the subject 
 philosophic formulation and contributed towards making it 
 scientific by relieving it of arbitrary aspects. Robertson in 
 his "Introduction to the Characteristics" (p. 45), says that 
 the "Characteristics" can still hold its own with most of the 
 books with which it competed in its generation. This is in- 
 adequate praise. Mackintosh (Dissertation, p. 117) is 
 nearer the truth when he says of the "Inquiry concerning 
 Virtue," that it is "unquestionably entitled to a place in the 
 first rank of English moral philosophy." Not only can 
 Shaftesbury hold his own with any of the theorists of his 
 day, not only is he superior to most of them, but he does not 
 suffer in the value of his ethical writing in comparison with 
 writers even of the present day. There is justification for 
 venturing the opinion that time will only heighten his im- 
 
 46 
 
portance and broaden and strengthen his position in the gen- 
 eral esteem. This opinion finds support in Hettner, who 
 says (Geschichte, p. 172) : "Seine Reize sind ewig neu. 
 Unsere Gegenwart thut sehr Unrecht, ihn ausser acht zu 
 lassen." "Wir haben alle Ursache wieder zu seinen Schriften 
 zuruck-zu kehren" (Ibid., 187). 
 
 Shaftesbury was an exceptional man. His teachings are 
 exponent of his character. This may be extensively illus- 
 trated. An impressive exemplification may be found in his 
 exalted unselfishness, as expressed with regard to the relation 
 of author and reader, when he says, "Should I have the good 
 fortune to raise the masterly spirit of just criticism in my read- 
 ers and exalt them ever so little above the lazy, timorous, 
 over-modest, or resigned state in which the generality of them 
 remain, though by this very spirit I myself might possibly 
 meet my doom, I should, however, abundantly congratulate 
 with myself on these my low flights, be proud of having 
 plumed the arrows of better wits, and furnished artillery or 
 ammunition of any kind to those powers to which I myself 
 had fallen a victim. Fungar vice cotis : I will play the part 
 of a whetstone, Horace De arte poet, 304. (Char., II., 313.) 
 
 Character is coming increasingly to be the center of 
 human interest and emphasis. This will only redound to a 
 growth in interest in Shaftesbury's teachings. He was un- 
 usual in qualification for such teaching. Libby (Journal of 
 Psychol., XII., 458) characterizes him as an aesthetic mind 
 strongly interested in moral and religious questions. He was, 
 what is more to the point, an intensely moral man, profoundly 
 interested in moral speculation. The ethical man is certainly 
 the best ethical expositor. Plato (Phaedrus, 555) says: "He 
 who has become corrupted is not easily carried out of this 
 world to the sight of beauty in the other," the meaning of 
 which is that an unethical man is not a good ethical teacher. 
 Conversely, Shaftesbury was well fitted for his task. His 
 teachings welled from and are freighted with intense moral 
 conviction. He will, therefore, because of what he was, at- 
 tract an increasing attention to what he taught, while his 
 teachings will enjoy a widening influence because of the 
 quality of their author. 
 
 47 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 CUMBERLAND, RICHARD. De Legibus Naturae, English trans., 1672. 
 
 DAVIS, CHARLES H. STANLEY. Greek and Roman Stoicism, Boston, 1903. 
 
 ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, IX. Edit., Vol. XXI., Article: Shaftesbury. 
 
 FITE, WARNER. An Introductory Study of Ethics, 1903. 
 
 FOWLER, PROF. T. Shaftesbury and Hutcheson, London, 1882. 
 
 GIDDINGS, FRANKLIN H. The Elements of Sociology, 1900. 
 
 GIZYCKI, DR. GEORG VON. Die Philosophic Shaftesbury's, Leipzig, 1876. 
 
 HETTNER, HERMAN. Geschichte der Englischen Literatur von, 1660- 
 1770, 5 edit., 1894. 
 
 HOBBES, JOHN. The Leviathan. 
 
 HODDER, EDW. Life and Work of the Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, 
 Vol. I., London, 1888. 
 
 HUNT, JOHN. Religious Thought in England, 1871. 
 
 LELAND, JOHN. Principal Deistical Writers, 1836. 
 
 LIBBY, M. F. Influence of the Idea of Aesthetic Proportion on the 
 Ethics of Shaftesbury, Amer. Journ. of Psychol., Vol. XII. 
 
 LOCKE, JOHN. Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Bohn's 
 Library, 1901. 
 
 MACKINTOSH, SIR JAMES. Dissertation on the Progress of Moral 
 Philosophy during the 17th and 18th Centuries, Edinburgh, 1862, 
 third edit. 
 
 MARTINEAU, JAMES. Types of Ethical Theory, 1886. 
 
 MUIRHEAD, J. H. Elements of Ethics, 1892. 
 
 PALMER, GEORGE HERBERT. The Field of Ethics, 1902. 
 
 PLATO. Dialogues, Jowett's Translation, 1890. 
 
 POPE, ALEXANDER Essay on Man. 
 
 REHORN, FRITZ. Moral Sense and Moral-prinzip bei Shaftesbury, Bonn, 
 1882. 
 
 ROGERS, ARTHUR KENYON. Student's History of Philosophy, 1906. 
 
 SELBY-BIGGE. British Moralists, 1897. 
 
 SHAFTESBURY, THIRD EARL OF. Characteristics, 2 vols., edited by John 
 M. Robertson, London, 1900. Letters to a Young Man at Uni- 
 versity, London, 1716. The Life, Unpublished Letters and 
 Philosophical Regimen, edited by Benj. Rand, London, 1900. 
 Original Letters, edited by T. Forster, London, 1830. 
 
 SIDGWICK, HENRY. Outlines of the History of Ethics, 5th edit., 1906. 
 
 SPICKER, GIDEON. Die Philosophic des Grafen von Shaftesbury, 1872. 
 
 SPENCER, HERBERT. The Social Organism, Humboldt Library, No. 17. 
 
 STEPHEN, LESLIE. The Science of Ethics, 2d edit., 1907. Pope, Diet. 
 Nat. Biog., XLV., p. 124. Free-Thinking and Plain Speaking, 
 1905. History of English Thought in the 18th Cent, 1876. 
 
 WINDELBAND. History of Philosophy, 1901. 
 
 48 
 
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