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LIBRARY

, OF THE

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA.

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PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

A TREATISE

OF THE

FACTS, PRINCIPLES, AND IDEALS
OF ETHICS

GEORGE TRUMBULL LADD

PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN YALE UNIVERSITY

NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1902 .

Published, February, 1902

x^iftKV-

John Wilsox and Son, Cambuidge, U.S.A.

Hn (grateful i^emorg

A GOOD MAN — MY FATHER

101930

" He who does not unconditionally believe in the Might of Goodness
in the world and in its final victory, he can no longer lead in human
affairs — I do not say rightly, but even with any lasting success."

RoTHE.

PREFACE

The number of voluminous works dealing with man's moral
life and moral development which have recently appeared has
been by no means inconsiderable. Among these some have
been especially noteworthy, both for the array of phenomena
which they have marshalled, and also for the scientific spirit
and method which have characterized their treatment of these
phenomena. It is difficult to say how much this fact discloses
as to the revival of a more profound and vital interest in the
study of morality — properly so-called. Doubtless the history
of the evolution of the race on the side of manners and morals
arouses in many minds only the same kind of curiosity as that
to which the sciences of biology and anthropology are so vigor-
ously ministering, all over the scientific world, at the present
time. But such interest is by no means necessarily the equiv-
alent of that which is demanded by the kind of inquiry upon
which I have entered in this volume. For this inquiry pro-
poses at least to raise, even if it cannot completely answer,
the more ultimate problems of conduct as our experience
forces them upon the reflective thinking of mankind. I have,
therefore, called this treatise of human moral life and moral
development a " Philosophy of Conduct."

The title must not, however, be understood as though my
proposal were to write a book on Ethics with only scanty re-
gard for the actual facts of conduct, or for the current opin-
ions of mankind respecting the significance and the value of
these facts. As the introductory chapters expressly explain,
and as the procedure and conclusions of the entire treatise
make clear, I consider the " high-and-dry " a priori method

Vlll PREFACE

wholly unsuitable to ethics. Indeed, I may confidently ap-
peal to all my previous work to show that such a method
is unsuitable for adequate treatment of any of the various
branches of philosophy, even the most purely metaphysical.
For philosophy itself is the investigation and interpretation of
the sum total of human experience ■>— with all its implicates —
by the method of critical, harmonizing, and synthetic reflec-
tive thinking. Ethics especially, however metaphysical it may
become, must always remain practical. For ethics has its
roots in facts of experience ; and its fruitage must be an im-
provement of experience. The experience with which it deals
is of conduct ; that is to say, the whole circle of morality lies
within the practical life. And yet, the experience of man's
moral being and moral evolution is also of such a nature as
to demand a philosophical treatment throughout; for until
fact is transcended the ethical is not reached. As I have
clearly shown in this book, a merely empirical ethics, which
is without metaphysics, leaves the mind in a region where all
that has regard to the highest principles and more ultimate
sanctions of conduct is darkened, if not wholly obscured, by
doubt, confusion, and bewilderment.

I have therefore aimed to give this treatise some special
claim upon those who wish for a more fundamental discussion
of ethical problems than has been customary of late ; and yet
to conduct the discussion in the modern method and with due
regard for all the interests involved. This aim has been
realized in the following particular ways. In Part First, the
nature of the Moral Self, or of man as equipped for the life
of conduct, has been described as this nature appears in the
light of psychological science, both individual and ethnic.
Here the attempt has been made to adjust according to the
actual known facts the conflicting claims of those who regard
man's moral life throughout as a sort of divine, and once for
all ready-made endowment and of those who, on the other
hand, assume to explain morality as the result of a psycho-

PREFACE ix

physical, or an economic, or even a purely physiological evo-
lution. This attempt has resulted in an analysis of man's
ethical consciousness which is, so far as I am aware, at the
same time more thorough and more modern than that at-
tempted in any other similar treatise.

In Part Second^ which treats of the Virtuous Life, it has
been my aim to show how, in spite of the bewildering variety
of opinions and practices which has always existed, there is
still, and, so far as can be discovered, always has been, a very
substantial agreement touching the characteristic traits and
liabitual practices of the " good man." This agreement does
not, however, favor any of the more current theories of the
moralists regarding the true nature and unity of the virtues ;
or regarding the nature and obligations of the so-called
" Moral Law." But the argument, as based upon these facts
of agreement, does lead to another conception, at once more
subtly and delicately ideal and yet more truly and unchange-
ably real, of both the nature of virtuous living, and of the
laws and principles whose dominion and rational rights such
living acknowledges, and to which it yields obedience and
offers allegiance.

And, finally, in Part Third I have discussed the Nature of
the Right. It is, of course, this Part in which the method of
philosophy is most prominently and unmistakably employed.
For metaphysics is invoked to undertake the speculative solu-
tion of those ultimate problems of ethics which an investiga-
tion of the phenomena of man's moral life and moral evolu*
tion from the empirical points of view leaves wholly unsolved.
Yet the more distinctively philosophical third of this treatise
should not be considered as in any respect independent of,
not to say separated from, the treatment of man's moral self-
hood and of the conditions and principles of his virtuous living.
Only, whereas philosophy has subordinated itself to psychology
and anthropology in the collection and interpretation, by
primary intention as it were, of the phenomena, it finally

X PREFACE

answers the imperative demand of these sciences to construct
a theory which shall offer a more ultimate explanation of the
same phenomena.

I make no apology for the frequent references to other works
of mine which are found in this book. Properly and of neces-
sity, the psychological views and theories which have been
elsewhere discussed are here made use of in treating of the
Moral Self and of the Virtuous Life. More especially im-
portant has it been that certain truths regarding the nature
of knowledge, of reality, and of the mind's life, should be as-
sumed and carried up into the realm of ethical discussion,
wherever this discussion shows the imperative need of receiv-
ing illumination from these truths. For, in fact, psychology,
epistemology, and metaphysics are all in some sort subordi-
nate and contributory to ethics. The most important minis-
trations to human welfare which they can perform are directed
toward the elucidation and improvement — the rational and
practical betterment — of the life of conduct. As for myself,
in all my investigations hitherto, I have had this end in view.
And it was, in no small degree, the conviction that human
morality cannot be made safely and permanently to repose
upon a false psychological basis, or upon an agnostic view of
knowledge, or upon an inadequate metaphysics, which stimu-
lated and guided me throughout all these earlier works. For
man is a unity — although having indeed a wonderful complex-
ity of activities with their various ends and interests. And
he cannot safely build the structure of a virtuous life upon
false opinions of his own Being or of the Ultimate Realities ;
neither can he easily find true views on these subjects when
he departs widely from the path of virtuous living. He must
rise, or fall, or stand still, as that unique unity which he
really is.

If, then, any reader of this book should occasionally be
offended by an appearance of dogmatism at points where dis-
cussion, or even concession to contending views would seem

PREFACE xi

more appropriate, I must ask him either to pardon the manner
of treatment or else to resort, for this discussion, to those
other writings where it may be found.

Such a philosophy of conduct as I have attempted to estab-
lish will probably meet with opposition chiefly from three
sources of influence. The first of these is the current theory
of biological evolution. So long as this theory remains on its
own grounds the philosophy of human morality need raise no
objection to its speculations, however well or ill founded they
may be. There " the struggle for existence " may perhaps be
best treated as a bare, unmodified, and brute fact. But when
biological science proposes to employ the same method, and
to regard the phenomena from an unchanged point of view,
the moral life and moral development of man being the sub-
ject for investigation, its proposal deserves the most prolonged
and searching criticism. There can be little doubt, I think,
that the practical effect of the intrusion of biology into the
sphere of ethics is, for the present, exceedingly mischievous
to the moral life of the people, and to the current opinions re-
garding the right and wrong of conduct. It is in part under
its influence that we are witnessing a return to the brutish
point of view, to the doctrine of the right of might, to the con-
cealed or expressed opinion that it is justifiable for the strong
to go as far as they can by way of pushing the weak and the
unfortunate over the wall. This view of ethical phenomena
I have controverted throughout by showing that ethics does
not properly begin until the biological point of view, and the
conclusions from this point of view, are transcended.

The second source of theoretical and practical antagonism
to a sound philosophy of conduct is the reigning spirit of
commercialism. This cannot be met by ethics on scientific
grounds. For it is not itself scientific. Its show of theoreti-
cal justification, OA'en when it rises no higher than the lower
ranges customarily occupied by a so-called " ethics of eco-
nomics," is not intended as a serious discussion of the prin-

XU PREFACE

ciples or problems of conduct. It is, as a rule, simply an
impotent attempt at self-justification for practices which it is
proposed to continue whether those practices be justifiable on
genuinely ethical grounds or not. All, therefore, which ethics
can properly do' to remove this obstacle is to point out the es-
sential immorality of this spirit, and the bad morals of the
conduct it either fosters or condones ; and, in connection with
this work of criticism, point out also " the more excellent
way."

The third reason why the student of the philosophy of con-
duct may expect indifference, if not secret or more open an-
tagonism, toward any serious effort to deepen rational reflection
and elevate the tone of the prevalent moral consciousness is
found in the relatively low and nerveless ethical condition of
the current Christianity. I say " relatively " — as compared
with the output of energy in other directions. Of course, the
fact that such is the condition will be made a matter of dis-
pute. Of course, too, a treatise of ethical principles — especi-
ally in its Preface — does not furnish the proper place for
establishing, or even for arguing this fact. A word of ex-
planation, however, as to the interpretation of the charge I
have just made is certainly in place here. Whether the
morals of the Christian nations of the world, considered as a
matter of conduct in their more domestic social and commer-
cial relations, or in their intercourse with one another — have
improved or deteriorated does not concern us at the present
time. The only too patent facts seem to me to be these : The
ethically didactic or prophetic tone, when assumed by the
public teachers, is just now especially unpopular and obviously
ineffective. The great political, commercial, and social prob-
lems, the consideration of which is most imperative, are not
customarily discussed or settled from the predominatingly
moral point of view. Moral principles, whether presented in
the form of abstract deductions or of concrete maxims, com-
mand a relatively small amount of thoughtful interest or at-

PREFACE xiii

tention. The tone of the prevalent moral sentiment is neither
strenuous nor lofty. The presence of baleful " double moral-
ity" is quite generally either openly proclaimed or secretly
tolerated. The high ideals of the best ethical teachings of
the past — even, and especially, of the New Testament — are
not taken to heart, or made the models of actual living. And
in all this the multitude who compose the existing Christian
organizations — with a considerable number of notable and
noble exceptions — take the part of silent acquiescence, if not
of unquestioning or bewildered conformity, rather than of re-
monstrance and opposition. I repeat that the ethical spirit
is low and nerveless just now in the body of that community
which bears the name of the world's greatest teacher of a
spiritual and divinely inspired morality.

But not science, nor trade, nor society, nor religion itself,
can permanently alter, or for a long period in the world's his-
tory neglect, the fundamental principles and ultimate ideals
of the moral life. If amid the evolution of things, the flux of
interests and opinions, the changing constitution of human
society, and the rise and fall of empires, there is anything to
remain substantially inviolable, it is these principles and these
ideals. " There is no human function," said Aristotle, " so
constant as the activities in accordance with virtue ; they
seem to be more permanent than the sciences themselves."
And said that great moralist, Sophocles : —

" They ne'er shall sink to slumber in oblivion ;
A power of God is there, untouched by Time."

As sharing in this same confidence I therefore put forth this

essay in times which I am compelled to regard as by no means

favorable to its most unprejudiced and practically effective

reception.

GEORGE TRUMBULL LADD.

Yale University, New Haven, 1902.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTORY

CHAPTER I

THE SPHERE AND PROBLEM OF ETHICS

Page

The Problem of Conduct important — Character of this Problem —
Nature of Ethical Discussion — Distinctions recognized by Ethics
— Ethics as involving the Ideal — And the Conception of "the
Ought " — Definition of Ethics — Ethics as Practical 3

CHAPTER II

METHODS AND DIVISIONS OF ETHICS \

/: :
Different Ways of approaching the Problem of Conduct — The Three

Methods of Ethics— The Psychological Method — "Data of Ethics'*

so called — Necessity of Interpretation — Need of Psychology —

The Historical Method — Combination of Methods necessary — The

Speculative Method — Division of the Subject 19

CHAPTER III

THE CONCEPTION OF THE GOOD

Ancient and modern Conception of Ethics — Titles like " good " and
" bad " as applied to Conduct — Consciousness and the Good —
Degrees of the Good, and their Measurement — The Hedonistic
Conception — Value of Discipline — Instrumental and final Good
— Conception of "the Good-in-Itself " — Classification of Goods —
The common Element — Development of the Conception of the
Morally Good— The Ideal Good 34

xvi TABLE OF CONTENTS

PART FIRST
THE MORAL SELF

CHAPTER IV

ANALYSIS OF MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS

Page
Man as Ethical — The two Classes of Moral Feelings — Distinctively
Ethical Feelings — Nature of Ethical Intellection — Ethical Volition

— General Observations 59

CHAPTER V

THE FEELING OF OBLIGATION

Primary Nature of the " Ought-Consciousness " — Its Relation to
Thought and Volition — Conditions of its Origin — Influence of Imi-
tation — And of Tribal Sympathy — Its Connection with Pleasure-
Pains — Feeling of Obligation uniquely human — Development of
the Feeling — Effect of Repetition — Formation of Judgments of
Obligation — Fusion with particular Passions and Affections —
Primacy of Feeling — Relation of, to Stages of Development —
Nature of Conscience 69

CHAPTER VI

OTHER ETHICAL FEELINGS

Nature of Moral Approbation — Relation of, to the Virtues and Vices

— And to the Pleasure-Pains — Resemblance to ^Esthetical Feel-
ing — Development of Moral Approbation — Feelings of Ethical
Merit and Demerit — Social Nature of these Feelings — Implica-
tions as to the Moral Order 93

CHAPTER VII

ETHICAL JUDGMENT

The so-called Intellectual Virtues — Development of Time-conscious-
ness necessary — And of Self-consciousness — And of the Causal
Principle — Grounds of Ethical Judgment — Psychological Charac-
teristics of this Judgment — Predicate of all ethical Judgments —
Category of "the Right" — Historical Sources of ethical Judg-
ments — Domestic, tribal, and religious Customs — Intellectual

TABLE OF CONTENTS xvii

Page

Development and the Growth of Moral Judgment — Natural and
acquired Power of Judging — Characteristic Experience — Ideas
of Ends and Values — Stages in the Evolution of Ethical Opinion . 106

CHAPTER VIII

MORAL FREEDOM

Conception of " Moral Freedom" — Interest of Ethics in the Problem

— Difficulties in the Way of Discussion — Present Position of De-
terminism — Method of Procedure — Data of Experience — Free-
dom the Function of no one Faculty — Danger of Hypostasizing
— The Fact of Self- Activity — Its Physiological Basis — Nature of
deliberate Choice — Counter Arguments — Consciousness of Im-
putability — Testimony from Custom and Language — Imperfect
Conceptions of Personal Responsibility — Objections to Freedom
classified — Empirical Determinism — The "Old-Fashioned " — And
the " New-Fashioned " — Relation of Motives to Volitions — In-
comparability of Impulses and Ideals — The Conception of Char-
acter — And of Habit — Relation of Brain-States to Psychoses —
The Materialistic Outcome — The Argument from Statistics —
The Conception of Causation applied — The Self not a Mechanism

— The Residuum of Mystery 138

CHAPTER IX

THE MORAL SELF

The Conception of Conscience — Inclusive Nature of Moral Selfhood

— The Moral Self and the Social Self— The Scientific and the
Ethical — The Pursuit of Ideals — Personality and Development

— Evolution of the Moral Ideal 189

PART SECOND

THE VIRTUOUS LIFE
CHAPTER X

CLASSIFICATION OF THE VIRTUES

Twofold Distinction of Conduct — Conception of Virtue — The
Search for Unification — Different Principles of Classification
— Self-regarding and Social Virtues — The Distinction criticised —
Classification according to Objects — The psychological Classifica-
tion adopted — Unity of the Moral Self 211

xviii TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER XI

VIRTUES OP THE WILL : COURAGE, TEMPERANCE, ETC.

Page
Elements of Strength in Character — Nature of the good Will — The
cardinal Virtues of Will — Natural Fears — Natural Effects of
Fear — Courage as Self-control of Fear — Rational Fears — Ap-
parent Prudential Virtues — Moral Value of Courage — The Vice
of Cowardice — Temperance as a Virtue — The Control of Anger

— And of Sexual Appetite — And of the Desire of Possession —
Humility — Constancy as a Cardinal Virtue — Subordinate Phases

of the Virtues of Will 231

CHAPTER Xn

VIRTUES OF THE JUDGMENT : WISDOM, JUSTNESS, ETC.

Judgment itself is Conduct — Cardinal Virtues of Judgment — Wisdom
defined — Wisdom as Evaluation of Ends — And Estimate of Means

— Genuine Prudential Virtues — Resignation as a Cardinal Virtue

— The Virtue of Justness — Moral Value of this Virtue — Concep-
tion of Justness — Resulting Doctrine of Rights — Relations of
Custom and Law to Justice — The Virtue of Trueness — General
Estimate of this Virtue — The Evaluation of Truth — Vices of
Thoughtlessness — And of Dogmatism — And of Partisanship —
Truth-telling — Is Deceit or Lying Justifiable ? 269

CHAPTER XIII

VIRTUES OP FEELING : KINDNESS, SYMPATHY, ETC.

Social Origin of these Virtues — Natural Impulses to Kindness — And
Social Relations which define its Objects — Nature of Friendship

— The Virtue of Hospitality — The Virtue of Pity — Origin and
Nature of Sympathy — The Feeling of the Species — Development
of Benevolence — Influence of Philosophy — And of Art — And of
Religion — The opposite Vices — Ingratitude — Pleasure-giving
Quality of these Virtues 310

CHAPTER XIV

THE UNITY OP VIRTUE

The Search for Unity — Analogies from Psychology — The two Forms
of Unification — Tests of External Behavior — And of Motive —
And of Intention — Virtue not mere "good Intention" — Nor
identical with Benevolence — Nor with Love — The highest Self-

TABLE OF CONTENTS xix

Page

Welfare involved — Justness and Trueness not reducible to Benevo-
lence — Unity of Personality implied — And Devotion to the
Moral Ideal 337

CHAPTER XV

DUTY AND MORAL LAW

Importance of these Conceptions — Implications of the Conception of
Duty — Duties to Self — Feeling of Obligation involved — Origin
of the Conception of Duty — Are Duties and Virtues Co-extensive?
— Duty and Merit — Duties and Rights — The Conception of
Moral Law — Origin of moral Laws — Their Character of an " ex-
ternal Imponent " — Conception of a personal Source — Moral
Law never Impersonal 365

CHAPTER XVI

UNIVERSALITY OF MORAL PRINCIPLES

Principles and Laws contrasted — Nature of Moral Principles — And
of their Universality — Development of Moral Principles — De-
pendence upon Moral Institutions — And upon the Abolition of
Distinctions — Simplifying of Moral Principles — Rational Deduc-
tion of Moral Principles — Influence of Individual Examples — And
of Ethical Philosophy — Restricting Power of Custom .... 389

CHAPTER XVII

casuistry; moral tact and conflict of DUTIES

Difficulties of the Subject — Casuistry as Ethical Discipline — Sources
of Casuistry — Nature of Moral Tact — Necessary Elements of its
Cultivation — Sphere of Casuistry — Conflict of Duties — Reality
of such Conflict — Different Classes of Conflicts —The Principle
of Individuality — The Case of Truth-telling examined . . . .415

CHAPTER XVIII

THE GOOD MAN

General Description of the Virtuous Life — Influence of the particular
Ideal of Self — Conformity of the Actual to the Ideal — Danger
of excessive Idealism — Discovery of ethical "Antinomies" —
The sentient Self and the moral Self — The Self-regarding and the
Altruistic " Good Man " — Development through Discipline . . . 436

XX TABLE OF CONTENTS

PART THIRD

THE NATURE OF THE RIGHT
CHAPTER XIX

THE ULTIMATE PROBLEM

Page
The Statement — The Method of Treatment — Different " Schools of
Ethics" — The Need of Metaphysics 457

CHAPTER XX

UTILITARIANISM IN ETHICS

The Ancient Pledonism — The Modern Utilitarianism — Nature of
" Pleasure-Pains " — Sources of Human Happiness — The Evalua-
tion of Happiness — The Standard of Measurement — Problems of
a Hedonistic Ethics — Egoistic and Quantitative Hedonism — The
Question of Sanctions — Altruistic and Quantitative Hedonism —
Qualitative Hedonism — The Goal of Ethics — The Utilitarian
Modifications — And their Failure — The Problem of Rational
Worth 467

CHAPTER XXI

LEGALISM IN ETHICS

Antecedent Improbability of this Theory — Ethics always Personal

— Inapplicable Conceptions of Law and Order — Moral Law as
Rational —Views of Kant criticised — Law and Reality . . .497

CHAPTER XXII

IDEALISM IN ETHICS

Conduct and the idealizing Activity — The Ideal of Rationalism —
And of Utilitarianism — Problems of Idealism — Claims of " In-
tuitionism " — And the Facts in its Support — Contradictory
Facts — The Right, subjective and objective — The Social Ideal

— Application of the Conception of Evolution — IndividuaUty of

TABLE OF CONTENTS xxi

Paob

the Ideal — The Time of Realization — Personal Character of
Ethical Ideals — Influence of the two Conceptions, Personality
and Development 507

CHAPTER XXIII

THE ETHICAL SCIENCES

The comprehensive Sphere of Conduct — The Unethical View —
Economics as an Ethical Science — Common Basis of Ethics and
Economics — Politics as an Ethical Science — And so^alled Social
Science 537

CHAPTER XXIV

MORALITY AND RELIGION

Untenable Character of the " Positivist View " — Two Extremes of
Opinion — Universality of Religion — Influence of Religion upon
the Conception of the Virtues — And upon their Practice — The
common Psychological Origin — Twofold Nature of Piety — Speci-
fically Religious Duties so called — Ethical Influence of Religious
Faiths and Practices — Religious " Purification " — The Moral Sup-
port from Religion — Religious Fears and Moral Obligation —
Effect of Religion on Moral Ideals — "Double Morality" — Re-
ligious View of the Moral Antinomies — Influence on Morality of
the religious Postulates — Especially in their Superior Form . . 552

CHAPTER XXV

THE GROUND OF MORALITY AND THE WORLD-GROUND

Nature of the Problem — Its Ultimate Character — Need of Help
from Philosophy — The Kantian View — The Theory of Reality
implied — And of the Philosophy of Knowledge — Comprehensive
Character of the Metaphysics of Ethics — Philosophical Conception
of the World-Ground — The Absolute as Moral Self — Naturalism
in Ethics — Positivism in Ethics — A Rational Anthropomorphism
— God as the Source of Moral Standards — And of Moral Sanc-
tions — Morality of Natural Law — And of Social Enactments —
The Appeal from Social Standards — Doing the Divine Will —
Ground of the Community of Interests — The World-Ground and
Moral Ideals — Solution of Ethical Antinomies — Conflict between
the Real and the Ideal 588

xxii TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER XXVI

THE ULTIMATE MORAL IDEAL

Page
The Ideal of Conduct " in-itself " Good — The Morally Ideal Self —

Social Character of the Ultimate Ideal — Possibility of its Realiza-
tion — The Permanence of Conflict — Idealism and Realism in
Ethics — Reconciliation by Development — Conclusion .... 636

INDEX 659

PHILOSOPHY OP CONDUCT

PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

INTRODUCTORY

" Hoiaever men approach Me, even so do 1 accept them; for the path men
take from every side is Mlne.''^

Bhagavad Gita.

CHAPTER I

THE SPHERE AND PROBLEM OF ETHICS

If one consults the wisdom of the ages it will be found
nearly unanimous in the opinion that, of all inquiries the
most important are those which concern the right and wrong
forms of human conduct. As a matter of fact, however,
multitudes of men, through considerable periods of their
lives, seldom deliberate, or even consciously propose these
inquiries. Necessities of a physical kind seem to compel
them to a daily walk along well defined paths of action;
and where these necessities are less powerful, the estab-
lished social customs that environ them leave comparatively
little room for the more independent exercise of any indi-
vidual's judgment. But perhaps more than all else, the
habits they have themselves formed through years of an
activity which, in accordance with a well-known psychologi-
cal law, has now become a passive submission, ward off
attacks from any stimulus that would make imperative or
attractive the question: How shall I act at the present
moment ? In a word, physical necessity, social convention,
and individual habit combine to answer for most men, as
though they were matters of course, all ordinary questions of
ethical import. And so the multitude not only eat, drink,
and sleep, and go the daily round of tasks or pleasures,
but they also discharge many of the higher social and politi-
cal functions without much intelligent and serious debate as
to the quality or the consequences of their conduct.

4 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

As a matter of fact, however, nearly or quite all of this
same multitude do at certain times somewhat carefully
weigh important problems of more definite ethical import.
And the questions which the wisdom of the ages considers
so important are themselves the questions of the ages. It is
not the wise alone that have raised and answered these moral
problems with more or less of self-conscious feeling and
judgment. The common people have opinions, with show of
reasons attached, upon matters of conduct. Even fools are
not always lacking in a sort of cunning dialectic, or in a
somewhat systematic rationalism, upon such matters. It is,
to be sure, chiefly when the problems of conduct are brought
to mind as objectified in the concrete behavior of some fellow
actor in life's drama toward themselves that their ethical
emotions are most stirred and their ethical judgments are
most clear-sighted and emphatic. It is when some other
bow than the one held in their own hands has speeded the
arrow that men question and hotly resent the deed which
has caused them the painful sting, the dangerous wound.
Above all other occasions do they experience a lively
arousement of moral consciousness when the misdeed has
not only hurt them as individuals, but has also been a
notable breach of the established customs of society. The
multitude are made more reflectively moral by feeling them-
selves to be in some way injured or inconvenienced through
the action of individuals who disregard the customary
morality. But beyond all this, and deeper down, lie the
questions concerning right conduct to which the wise have
reference, and to which most men at some time in their lives
give at least a passing consideration.

Now it is plain that any serious inquiry after right and
wrong forms of conduct may lead the mind of the inquirer
in either one, or in all, of several different directions. In
its most frequent form the ethical problem concerns the
proper or most feasible means of securing a certain end.

THE SPHERE AND PROBLEM OF ETHICS 5

For although the opening dictum of the Nicomachean Ethics
— namely, that "every art and every research, and likewise
every act and purpose " has some end of a good in view — is
not strictly true, since many ends of every man's life are
pretty clearly defined by circumstances over which he has
little immediate control, the thing which most concerns his
success in the attainment of ends is the selection of means.
The artizan, the merchant, the professional man, even the
most stupid laborer, knows fairly well what he is aiming at,
and does not ordinarily question the rightness or wrongful-
ness of his aims. For the most part also the means avail-
able for pursuing these ends are provided, as defined by law,
or custom or convention. But ordinarily the means are
much more variable than are the ends ; and the circumstances
requiring an adaptation of means to any particular end are
always subject to change. It is evident, however, that when
men deliberate questions of conduct concerning the use of
means, their problem is still somewhat complicated. By
this I do not mean simply that it is often difficult for them
to know which of several deeds or courses of conduct fur-
nishes the most likely means to attain the desired end.
The rather are we interested here again to discover indica-
tions of those further and deeper problems which concern
the right and wrong in human conduct.

For let it be supposed that, of two or more ways of attain-
ing one's end, there is one way against which the laws or
the customs of society have definitively pronounced. Then
the ethical problem is tolerably sure to take upon itself a
somewhat different character. Then the problem becomes
not merely a questioning of experience for the instrument
most likely to be successful in attaining a given purpose.
Even the bare consideration of the more immediate, as well
as the more remote consequences of conduct is modified in
such a case as this. The law or the custom, has already
said iVb, in answer to other similar inquiries. It has

6 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

apparently solved the general problem in a negative way.
The individual, therefore, must go on to inquire: What
will the government, or society, do to me, if my answer
differs from theirs ? And this inquiry, although not the
same thing, is very intimately associated with another ques-
tion : What do my fellowmen consider to be right and wrong
forms of conduct?

But such a change in the character of the problem of con-
duct, and its increased need of deliberation and far-seeing
choice, prepares the way for raising a yet more fundamental
and difficult inquiry. For here the feeling and judgment of
the individual, whether he take the point of view from
which to regard the consequences of his act, or the point of
view from which moral consciousness strives to discern the
inherent quality of the act, may begin to ask the reason,
Why? True, society seems to have clearly indicated its
judgment as to what is right, what wrong, in such a case as
this. But — just now, at any rate — perhaps the feeling and
judgment of the individual do not precisely accord with the
social custom. How did society arrive at this, its seemingly
corporate conclusion ? By what reasons, whether in the way
of appeal to facts, or dialectic from assumed principles, or
probable inference as to consequences, can others justify the
right to control my decisions on matters of conduct? And,
furthermore, what shall I think of myself in case I venture
to choose another deed, another course of conduct, than that
which society has ordained? Rarely, it may be, yet some-
times and, if at all, always most significantl}^ do men, even
the adults of the common herd, raise with themselves, or
with one another, problems which have this deeper and
vaster significance.

It is the attempt to answer, by processes of reflective
thinking upon a basis of facts of experience, such practical
questions as the foregoing, which gives rise to an inquiry
into the principles of human conduct. If, then, we did not

THE SPHERE AND PROBLEM OF ETHICS 7

desire to avoid at the beginning of our inquiry insignificant
objections and fruitless debating, we might adopt this pre-
liminary definition : Ethics is the Science of human conduct.
For conduct is a fact; or rather, it is an infinitely varied
and ever-changing network of facts. It affords a tangled
skein of inquiries which require a methodical consideration.
And although one may easily enough dissent from Wundt's
conception, — "Ethics is the original science of norms," —
one cannot so easily disregard the significance of his further
declaration : 1 "The estimate of the value of facts is also
itself a fact, and a fact which must not be overlooked when
it is there to see." Now if we may treat facts of human
feeling, imagination, and judgment (whether they are estab-
lished by a direct appeal to consciousness or in some other
more objective and historical manner) by scientific method,
may sift them, classify them, concatenate and explain them,
interpret their import and reason speculatively about their
implicates, it is difficult to see why we may not properly
speak of a possible "science of ethics." But why spend
time in discussing so futile an inquiry ?

We will be contented then, at present, simply to say that
ethics results from the scientific (the systematic and properly
regulated) study of human conduct — its sources, its devel-
opment, its sanctions, and its most general principles. The
fuller justification of this rude, fourfold classification of
ethical problems may be left to appear during the progress
of the attempt at completing our task. But the suggestion,
if not the authentication of it, follows from a reflective
treatment of the import of such questions as have already
been proposed. All these questions concern human conduct
— the subject matter of our philosophizing or reflective
thinking. But the manifold forms in which the questions
recur suggests the need of investigating not only the present

1 Ethics : The Facts of the Moral Life ; I, pp. 5 and 9. [English translation
bv Julia Gulliver and Edward Bradford Titchener.]

8 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

external facts, but also the beginnings, the historical on-
going, the rational grounds — the sanctions and the princi-
ples — of human conduct.

Even this brief preliminary definition implies the further
need of certain very profound distinctions. Taken altogether,
these distinctions require the addition of an exceedingly sig-
niiicant clause to our conception of the sphere of ethics.
Let us then enumerate and briefly discuss these distinctions.

And, first, the sphere of ethics can be defined, and its
problem understood, only by making a distinction between
the real and the ideal, between what is, as matter of actuality
or fact, and what is conceived as better than the fact, an
idea of what might be, or should be. There are sciences
of actuality so-called. They begin with the individual
facts; they derive their principles by generalization from
the modes of the actual behavior of things or of minds ; their
metaphysics treats speculatively the assumptions, or the
most fundamental principles, which concern what has actual
being. Ethics, too, begins with facts ; it makes generaliza-
tions that are based upon the habitual, actual forms of the
behavior of men. But so long as human conduct is consid-
ered merely as fact, and the forms into which it has crystal-
lized are regarded merely as actual historical developments,
the way is only prepared, but not entered upon, for the
discussion of the more distinctively ethical problems.

Superficially regarded, the words used to describe a study
of human conduct — especially in the three languages,
Greek, Latin, and German — seem to favor the conception
of ethics as a purely historical or anthropological science.
According to these languages, ethics appears to be a science
of actually existing customs. But this fact is itself rela-
tively unimportant and due to the influence of the termin-
ology employed by Aristotle and by succeeding writers.^

1 T^ yap ^dos dirh rod edovs ex^t r^v ivoownlav: Magn. Moral., A. 6 (a writing
of the later Aristotelian school). So the Latin Moralis in Cicero, Defato, 1.

THE SPHERE AND PROBLEM OF ETHICS 9

Neither Aristotle nor Cicero, however, for a moment thought
of making the philosophy of conduct deal with facts alone,
to the exclusion of men's ideas as to the evaluation of what is
fact by comparison with some sort of a conceptual standard.
And no modern writer of treatises called " Data of Ethics "
succeeds in discussing its problems without constant refer-
ence to conceptions of the individual and of society concern-
ing an obligation and concerning sanctions that transcend
any actually existing example.

It would, indeed, be altogether too vague, as well as some-
what misleading, to define ethics as the science of the Ideal.
Such a definition would not difference it from aesthetics, or
specify its most characteristic qualities. It must also be
borne in mind that all the positive sciences are largely based
upon, and interpenetrated with conceptions which are not
wholly of the actual, but which consist largely of ideas as to
what might be or should be. Otherwise, their devotees
could not talk intelligibly of norms and types, etc., or
describe and explain the individual examples in terms of
a theory of evolution. It is the character of its ideal, and
the way in which the individual examples are brought into
relations to the ideal, which chiefly distinguishes ethics from
all the other sciences. Nevertheless, in Professor Sidg-
wick's contention with Mr. Spencer we must take our stand
with the former rather than the latter, in his conception of
the proper sphere of ethics. ^ Ethics does not primarily
lead us to deal with the "doubly ideal." It does not, in the
first instance aim at determining the ideal forms of conduct
under ideal conditions. As Aristotle long ago said: "Our
inquiry is obviously about an excellence that is human^*
(Nic. Eth., I, xiii, 5). Ethics, then, however it may finally
carry our thought and imagination into Utopia, or into the
sphere of that far-away, ideally perfect social community
which the Biblical writers call the "Kingdom of God,"

1 See p. 17 f. and the note, p. 20, The Methods of Ethics (4th ed.).

10 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

primarily treats of actual facts of man's conduct under the
actually existing conditions of man's historical development.
It views the actual, however, in the lights and shadows of
the ideal.

By an Ideal I understand: a conception, developed by
the combined activity of thought and imagination, to which
there is not necessarily attributed any real existence as its
correlate, but which appears in consciousness as an object
of contemplation or of aspiration. But this conception of
the ideal leads our thoughts at once to another distinction
which is also necessary to a correct conception of the sphere
of ethics, — namely, the distinction between other ideals and
the specifically ethical ideal. In the ethical discussions of
the Greeks that loosely organized but comprehensive and
fascinating idea which was designated " the Good " was cen-
tral and controlling. There can, of course, be no philoso-
phizing of an ethical sort w^ithout making use of one or more
elements and aspects of this idea. Moreover, there is great
significance in the fact that the human mind persists in its
effort to free these elements and aspects from that lack of
unity which they exhibit in all human experience, and thus
to form the fair and alluring picture of a state or society in
which they shall all be harmoniously united. The bare faith
in the possibility of such harmony is a problem for ethics.
The firm confidence of many that this possibility will become
realized is another problem. But these and all kindred
problems belong fitly to the later theoretical conclusions
rather than to the preliminary considerations of the student
of ethics. He must, however, soon be brought to recognize
the fact that the human mind invariably constructs several
different ideals, or at any rate several aspects of the one
highest ideal; and that the concern of ethics is primarily
and chiefly with the ideal of conduct.

Subordinate to the distinction just discussed are the two
following : — the first of which is the distinction between

THE SPHERE AND PROBLEM OF ETHICS 11

action and conduct. It is not mere doing, whether of this
or of that sort, which gives to the student of ethics his pecu-
liar problems. Conduct implies something more than action.
Conduct implies the consciousness of an end that may be
striven for ; it implies the knowledge of means that are
adapted to the attainment of the end ; it implies the power
of choice with reference to both end and means. In a word,
conduct is action rationally shaped; it is the doing of a
Moral Self. Moral action is not, indeed, a specific kind of
action, set apart, as it v^ere, for some definite species of
external performances, to the exclusion of other species.^ In
fact, the presence of ethical ideals is to be discerned in
everything which man consciously and voluntarily does.
Higher or lower degrees of these characteristics of all con-
duct are actually found as far back in history, as low down
in ethical or intellectual degradation as we can follow the
development of humanity. In his eating the adult human
being does not merely feed. In his drinking he does not
simply sivill his drink. He raises the social cup, he pours
out a libation to the gods ; and the gods at any rate must be
treated politely by the most shameless and gluttonous of
cannibals. And where, as amongst the various Hindu
castes in India, custom and morality and religion are so
confused as to constitute a nearly complete enslavement
of all the activities and interests of human life, the neces-
sity and validity of this distinction are all the more to be
emphasized.

The second of the distinctions which follows from the
attempt to confine the sphere of ethics within its more

1 I sympathize heartily with the import of Prof, Dewey's declaration (Out-
lines of Ethics, p. 167) : " The habit of conceiving moral action, as a certain hind
of action, instead of all action so far as it really is action, leads us to conceive of
morality as a highly desirable something which ought to be brought into our
lives, but which upon the whole is not." But at the fourth use of the word " ac-
tion " we must change it to conduct, in the above sentence. Prof. Dewey has
himself previously distinguished action from conduct, Ibid, p. 3 f.

12 ' PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

appropriate ideal is the distinction between mere character-
istics of being and the moral character, in the ethical sig-
nificance of the latter word. The character of men is never
estimated by themselves or by their fellows as though it
were simply a matter of fact. In that interesting symbolism
of language which shows the mysterious feeling of kinship
with nature on man's part, we find the really significant
truth to be, not that man regards himself as a being devoid
of moral character, but rather that he regards the lower ani-
mals and even inanimate objects as sharing with himself in
the potentialities of character. The superstitious savage
does not so much excuse his offending fellowman for his bad
character, because he could no more help being bad than
could the dog, or the tree, or the stone. On the contrary,
he is more apt to consider dog, or tree, or stone, as bad
with the quasi-Qih.\QdX judgment and feeling, that they, too,
ought to have known and done better! In man's case espe-
cially, character not only implies disposition, as an ethical
potentiality ; but also the moulding effect of conduct on the
actual characteristics of disposition. We might, then, say
that the sphere of ethics is regulated by man's ideals of
conduct and of character.

There is one other distinction which is very powerful in
determining the proper conception of moral philosophy.
This "might-be," this "should-be," of ethics has its own
peculiarity ; and this peculiarity is better expressed by the
significant phrase, "ought (or ought not) to be." The
sphere of ethics, then, covers that which is actual in human
conduct and character as related to that which ought to be.
Indeed, this last distinction is so essential, so fundamental,
in all genuine philosophy of conduct that one almost might
affirm: The business of ethics is the investigation of the
ought and the ought not in conduct.

It will be found that, in its developed form the feeling of
the ought stands in a peculiar relation to human volitions,

« n

THE SPHERE AND PROBLEM OF ETHICS 13

and so to human action as dependent upon volitions — i. e.,
to that human conduct which has already been defined as the
proper subject for ethics. For the feeling of obligation con-
stitutes a sort of mandate for the will. The recognition of
this relation, and of its importance for all the more strictly
ethical forms of discussion, is essential at the very beginning
of every ethical treatise. On the contrary, says Schopen-
hauer i^ "In this ethical book no precepts, no doctrine of
duty must be looked for. ... In general, we shall not talk
at all of ' ought, ' for this is how one speaks to children and
to nations still in their childhood, but not to those who
have appropriated all the culture of a full-grown age. It
is a palpable contradiction to call the will free, and yet to
prescribe laws for it according to which it ought to will.
'Ought to will' — wooden iron!'*

Now it is doubtless true that the " must " which attaches
itself to the " ought " recognized by ethics often arises on
other than distinctively ethical grounds ; not infrequently it
begins as some form of external compulsion. Thus, for ex-
ample, the unconquerable feeling of the orthodox Jew that
he ought not to eat pork may have arisen in a sanitary
regulatiori. Hinduism, on its ethical side, is so full of ex-
amples of this sort that its practical ethics may almost be
said to consist wholly of them. It is also true that in mul-
titudes of cases, in all times and among peoples of every
degree of moral advancement, many seemingly strong ethical
repulsions are closely akin to that residuum of nausea, in
memory and in imagination, which makes some persons feel
that it is morally wrong to indulge at all in tobacco or in
alcohol. But just now our inquiry does not concern the
origin of this feeling answering to the words "I ought;"
nor do we question as to how it becomes attached to any
particular piece of conduct. Our claim is that its essential
and unique character must be recognized as lying at the very

1 The World as Will and Idea (translation of Haldane and Kemp), I, p. 350 £

14 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

threshold of the study of ethical problems. And this be-
cause as a matter of fact we find it there at the entrance ;
and not only at the entrance, but also as a constant and
inseparable companion in all ethical investigations. Nor
is the experience of the individual student of ethics at all
individual in this regard. Every student of ethics meets
everywhere with this feeling, this conception of the ought ;
and every writer on ethics does actually take account of it.
Schopenhauer himself is by no means an exception to the
universal rule. In proof of this statement, were proof just
now necessary or desirable, appeal might be made to human
moral consciousness, to human language, to literature, and
to the actions of men in society and in all human history.

The sphere of ethics, then, is not a domain of fact to the
exclusion of ideals, nor a domain of ideals that has no basis
in, or application to, the world of fact. The reflective
thinking which a moral philosophy proposes does not con-
sider the conduct of men simply as an actual event, or simply
as a series of related events under the laws of habit, or
under the general laws of physics, biology, and psychology.
Ethics demands to know something more about its subject
than the bare datum of its existence, its origin in past his-
tory, its probable or known consequences in the future. It
inquires into all these matters diligently, but it does not
regard them wholly in themselves or in their relations to one
another. It reaches its more ultimate aim only when it
judges all human conduct in its relations to a standard.
And that standard is an ideal one, a construct of a developed
activity of thought and imagination — upon a basis, to be
sure, of facts of feeling, judgment, and action. We may
then complete our preliminary conception of the sphere of
ethics by adding a further clause : " Ethics results from the
scientific study of human conduct — its sources, its develop-
ment, its sanctions, and its most general principles '' — as
related to a rational ideal.

THE SPHERE AND PROBLEM OF ETHICS 15

The word rational is doubtless one of the worst abused
terms in the English language; it is almost necessarily
vaguely comprehensive in its meaning when employed by the
student of any form of philosophy in whatever language.
Witness its many uses by Kant in his three immortal Crit-
iques having " reason " as their subject of investigation.
Recall also how Aristotle in his attempt to define ethics as
a kind of politics affirms of the total function of man that
it is " an activity of soul in accordance with reason, or not
independently of reason" (Nic. Eth., I, vii, 14). ^ All that
ethics is entitled to mean by this term " a rational ideal "
cannot, of course, be described or justified at the beginning
of an ethical treatise. On the contrary the detailed descrip-
tion and completer justification of this conception is one of
the most difficult and complex problems of philosophy. Nor
should we make any large advances in the task before us if
we dwelt farther upon the patent truth that the rational
ideal to which ethics relates conduct and character is itself
an ethical ideal, an ideal, that is to say, of conduct and of
character. Like the phrases of those who define ethics as
the "science of moral habits," and then by destructive criti-
cism leave the mind in doubt as to what the word " moral "
signifies, we should thus tarry too long in what Plato sarcas-
tically calls the " puppy-dog " stage of science.

It will be helpful, however, to anticipate at the very
beginning of the inquiry the large conclusion to which the
inquiry itself will bring back the mind again and again.
The rational ideal to which ethics relates all the particulars
of conduct as to a standard, this conception of that which
ought to be, and which therefore gives the law to which the
actual in conduct feels the obligation of conforming, is the
Ideal of a Self, or "Person." But, of course, such a Self

1 In this passage the phrases /carcb Koyov and /i^ iveu \6yov mean " according
to," or *' at least implying," a rational standard, as nearly as we can reproduce
them.

16 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

cannot exist in reality, cannot even be conceived of, as an
individual separated from all social relations. In saying
this, the problem of ethics is anticipated ; it is brought be-
fore us, indeed, in all its most comprehensive and glorious
significance. This problem is the realization of the Self, in
social relations with other selves, and in accordance with a
consciously accepted ideal.

At once the conclusion follows as to the relation in which
the theory of ethics stands to life. Ethics cannot he merely
theoretical and speculative; it must, from its very nature,
also be applied and practical. A "pure" science of ethics,
modelled after the pattern of logic or of mathematics, is an
impossibility; it is more than that: it is an absurdity
equivalent to a contradiction in terms. And this, for two
reasons. Ethics has no body of principles that can be estab-
lished apart from their closest contact with, their embodi-
ment in, the concrete examples of human history and of
present experience with its changes of conditions and of
requirements from age to age. The philosophy of conduct
cannot possibly be made "pure," in this meaning of the
word. Neither can its principles be held as mere theory,;
they are themselves of such a nature as to demand and
to guide their own application to concrete and individual
instances of conduct. They cannot be kept "pure," in this
other meaning of the word. The general statement with
regard to stealing, for example, — whether it take the form,
" The good man does not steal, " or " The good man will not
steal," or "The good man ought not to steal," — cannot be
established a priori or derived by any process of reasoning
that does not take into account all the complicated actual
relations of the changing life of man. But neither form of
this general statement can be restrained from becoming at
once the practical mandate: "Thoushalt not steal." And
it is vain, as will appear subsequently, to attempt to estab-
lish such a priori moral principles by confining the word

THE SPHERE AND PROBLEM OF ETHICS 17

" moral " exclusively to the deed, or to the consequences of
the deed, or to the inward intention or mental disposition
or habit out of which the deed proceeds.

The sphere of ethics is, then, peculiar to itself, its verita-
ble own and no other. This is because there is nothing else
which is so similar to human conduct, when conduct is
viewed in its relations to its own ideal, as that a safe com-
parison may be made between its proper method and its
conclusions and the method and conclusions of ethics. On
this account we should not classify ethics and logic together,
as Wundt^ does, and call them the only "purely normative
sciences." But more misleading is the view of Paulsen ^
who — to be sure, in a rather vacillating way — ranks ethics
among the natural sciences. The intimate relations of
ethics to psychology and to anthropology are obvious enough
from its very conception as defined in the most preliminary
and tentative manner. Since ethics deals with the conduct
of man, it must know man. Since the whole of man is in-
volved in his conduct, since all his faculties of body and
mind are employed and all his being is expressed in conduct,
ethics must know man in the most comprehensive way possi-
ble. While the sphere of ethics includes much from both
psychology and anthropology, it does not wholly coincide
with either of the two. To attempt to substitute either for
ethics is to miss the peculiar province of ethics altogether;
but even to speak of " a practical ethics without psychology "
is to be guilty both of a tautology and of a contradiction.
For there is no ethics that is not practical, and there is no
ethics at all without psychology.

If, then, we expand somewhat and slightly modify his
meaning, it will be found that the first great writer upon
this subject in a systematic way had a not unworthy concep-
tion of the work he had undertaken to accomplish. Aris-
totle believed himself to be investigating, not simply for

1 Ethics, I, p. 7. 2 A System of Ethics, p. 13 f.

18 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

purposes of pure science but also in order the better to guide
himself and mankind generally, a certain kind of life.^
This was the total life of man, so far as it may be brought
under the control of the will and consciously directed to a
rational and worthy end. The standard, as I shall attempt
to show in detail, which sets this worthy end, and which
becomes a mandate to its own progressive realization, as
well as a law for the evaluation of ourselves and of others,
is the Ideal of a perfect Self existing in social relations
with other selves.

1 Nic, Eth., I, vii, 12. Zw^ irpaKTiK-fi ris rod \6yov exovros.

CHAPTER II

METHODS AND DIVISIONS OF ETHICS

The question of the sphere of ethics is complicated with
the question of the methods of ethics ; and this latter ques-
tion determines, in large measure, the question of the
virtual, if not the explicit, divisions under which to discuss
the various ethical problems. How, indeed, shall one
approach, in the effort to answer such inquiries as the fol-
lowing : What is right and what wrong in conduct? Whence
come the sanctions which men attach to that conduct which
they call right ; and. What is the ultimate end at which all
right conduct seems to aim?

The problems of ethics may be approached, first, as a
study of the subject of conduct, of the moral agent, the being
under moral law, the sensitive and appreciative conscious-
ness which is, in its activity, seeking some form of the good.
Or second, the same problems may be approached as a study
of the kinds of conduct actually existing and objectively
regarded; together with the consequences which attach
themselves to the different kinds, whether such consequences
arise from the action of other men or from the working of
natural laws. Or, finally, a speedy if not immediate resort
may be taken to speculation; the effort may be made by
processes of reasoning as nearly as possible a ^priori and
independent of facts (subjective or objective) to arrive at the
most universal and unchanging principles of conduct, and to
determine the nature of its ultimate ideal.

20 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

Of these three methods the first is the more distinctively
psychological ; its body of conclusions, when systematically
arranged, might seem to merit the title of "psychological
ethics. " The second, however, is mainly historical, and its
pursuit results in the collection and classification of "data
of ethics," a sort of science of morals, ■— rather than a phil-
osophy of morality. The third method, of course, gives
rise to metaphysics of ethics, a system of principles which is
often supposed by its advocates to have what Kant would call
an "apodeictic certainty." As a matter of fact, all three
methods have been employed to some extent by every school
of writers and thinkers on ethics. But each school has
shown its preference for one of these methods, — and usually
to the relative depreciation of the other two. The school of
Intuitionism so-called, naturally enough, has relied chiefly
upon the psychological method. It has claimed to find its
principles directly revealed to the self-conscious mind or the
feeling heart; and the sufficient authority and guaranty of
the principles resides in the fact that so they are given
(data) in human self-consciousness. All forms of Hedon-
ism, including modern Utilitarianism, on the other hand
have been more inclined to busy themselves with the collec-
tion of objective "data " and with tracing out the practical
consequences of conduct as affecting the external interests
of mankind. The rigorist in morals, however, since from
the very nature of his claim (and here Kant is, of course,
the most distinguished and typical example) he cannot possi-
bly prove it by an appeal to experience, has the more readily
resorted to the "high and dry" a priori method.

An instructive historical guide to the right method in
ethics is found in the fact — to repeat — that all the schools
of ethics which attempt to give any complete treatment to
its principal problems feel themselves obliged, in a measure,
to make use of all three of the methods just described. It
is necessary, then, to examine each of these methods and, if

METHODS AND DIVISIONS OF ETHICS 21

possible, to determine what may be accomplished by their
use and how best to combine them for purposes of successful
research.

The psychological method investigates the being of man
as capable of conduct. In some sort, then, it is the primary
and the most promising and actually rewarding manner of
approaching the study of ethical problems. The very nature
of these problems is such as to force the conviction that
ethics must begin by a study of human nature with a view
to discover what its ideal of conduct, in fact, is, and in what
respects man is equipped to realize this ideal. Where,
indeed, otherwise than as it is datum of the individual's
consciousness, can one possibly look for the answer to any
inquiry after the sources, the development, the sanctions, the
laws of the moral life? Plato was, indeed, "the first to pro-
pose for ethics a psychological foundation. " But he is entitled
to be called "the first," because that which all previous
thinkers and disputers had been doing in only a half-
conscious, fitful, and fragmentary fashion, Plato proposed
to render more thorough, immediate, and systematic. If
others went to the human soul, as to an oracle, only through
the heterogeneous and conflicting means of the prevailing
customs, opinions, and laws, — the products of souls in their
complicated intercourse with one another, — this great
searcher for the truth aimed to reach the priestess herself,
the soul in its immediateness, and to hear directly from
her what she had to teach. Of his psychological division of
the soul as a foundation for a theory of virtues, it has been
well said: "Rudimentary as it may now appear, it was an
important contribution towards the scientific theory of
morals." And all the discussions and conclusions of
Plato's great pupil, the founder of ethics in a more objective
and scientific way, are distinctly psychological. This re-
mark is true of Aristotle's doctrine of the end of the moral
life, of his discussion of the nature of virtue in the large, as

22 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

it were, and of each particular kind of virtue ; it is true also
of his doctrine of the mean, and of that division of the
virtues which a modern writer has said " may well be called
one of the greatest philosophical discoveries of any age."

Undoubtedly in modern times there has been a strong and
perhaps there is a still increasing revolt against the more
purely psychological method in ethics. To this there is the
less objection if the revolt be directed toward the unintelli-
gent and too exclusive use of the distinctively psychological
method. Bat suppose that, for the moment, we displace this
method entirely by the more objective and historical method,
and then try to think ourselves through to the conclusions
w4iich can be reached in the latter way. There is now
before us a vast, a practically unmanageable amount of
"data of ethics, '^ consisting of the customs, conventions,
laws written and unwritten, of men of different ages and of
every degree and kind of intellectual and ethical develop-
ment. The student is sternly forbidden to copy the too
proud and self-confident attitude toward this heterogeneous
mass of the doings and sayings of his fellowmen which
Aristotle assumed when he declared (Nic. Eth., I, iv, 6):
"Nothing but a good moral training can qualify a man to
study what is noble and just." But the purely objective
and historical method in ethics is inevitably doomed to
failure. In other words, in the study of ethical problems,
one must find much both of the facts and of the standard
in his own consciousness ; the " good judge" in such a case
is the man who carries within him, in his own soul, the
highest natural and acquired qualifications for good judg-
ment. These qualifications are, of course, themselves
moral ; they are nothing else but the character of the indi-
vidual soul that passes the judgment.

Indeed, in the last analysis, how can one escape some
such conclusion as this, to which the assumption of the
psychological standpoint seems to compel the mind ? But

METHODS AND DIVISIONS OF ETHICS 23

how does the case of ethics differ in this regard essentially
from the standpoint necessary to be taken, from which to
view the alleged facts and principles of every form of human
science ? What the knower knows, or can know, depends
upon his own intellectual and more distinctively moral char-
acter. If, for the time being, we extend the conception of
conduct over the " dianoetic " as well as over the more
strictly "moral'* virtues, or excellencies, this dependence
of the investigator for truth on his own moral character is
as essentially true (though not in precisely the same way,
nor to the same extent) of the natural and physical sciences
as of the philosophy of conduct. Truth and knowledge, as
well as ideas of duty and feelings of obligation, are deter-
mined, in the last resort, for every individual by what takes
place in his own consciousness.

In the case of ethics especially, how shall its problems be
understood, or how shall any conclusions concerning them
which have even the aspect, not to say the essence, of mor-
ality be reached, unless the soul interpret the data of facts
into terms of its own experience ? For the external actions,
or the custom in which the actions of many individuals have
become crystallized, is an affair of interest to the student of
ethics only as it issues from, and terminates in, some state
or more permanent condition of the soul. Each fact must
be interpreted in order to become a datum of ethics. There
is only one interpreter for every man, who must constitute
the last link in every chain of communication which binds
him to nature and to his fellows; and that one interpreter
is his own soul.

Tn general the results which words and things significant
of "right" or "rights," of "duty " and "obligation," of con-
sequences of "pain" or "pleasure," of "interest" and
" utility " — and whatever other words and things the study
of ethics may acquaint us with — shall have to contribute
toward an ethical science or a philosophy of morals, can

24 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

only be determined by a process of interpretation. Bata of
ethics are no more data of ethics than are the movements of
the stars in their courses or the formation of crystals, or the
growth of trees, unless they are rendered into facts and laws
of consciousness by the mind trained in psychology. And inas-
much as ethics lays stress upon one particular import or aspect
of the consciousness of man, its data require for their fullest
and most satisfactory interpretation the mind that has made
itself acquainted with the Self as a being fitted for conduct.

Nor must this defence of the psychological method in
ethics be too narrowly apprehended. For, as will appear
more in detail subsequently, all of man's being, so far as it
can become connected with his conscious states and, in any
way or to any degree, brought under the control of the will,
is concerned in his conduct and in the development of char-
acter. This statement is true of his bodily organs, — of his
eye and hand, of his sexual and digestive mechanism. Of
course, his entire outfit of psychical characteristics con-
tributes toward the determination of questions of right and
wrong in conduct, and of the good and the bad in character.
Generalize as broadly as the student of ethics may, and rise
as loftily on the wings of a priori speculation as he can, it
still remains true that, not only the practical solution of
every detailed question of morals, but also the rational solu-
tion of the problems regarding the fundamental principles of
morality, implies the actual complex structure of the human
being in its relations to other beings known to be similarly
constituted, on a basis of experience. For man's moral
nature is not an affair of moral feeling, or of moral judgment
alone ; and there is no single one among the many concep-
tions which have attached themselves to the word "con-
science " that affords a complete description of his fitness
for the moral life. Without recognitive memory, without a
play of imagination which enables him to rise in his mental
picturing quite above the levels to which the highest of the

METHODS AND DIVISIONS OF ETHICS 26

lower animals are confined, without a corresponding develop-
ment of his powers of observation and of reasoning, so as to
anticipate the future consequences of his own conduct and
of that of other men as an important part of his anticipation
of the future operation of natural laws, man could not possi-
bly be the "moral agent " which he most certainly is.

In the further detailed discussion of the problems of
ethics by use of the psychological method, the investigation
may therefore appropriately pay deference to the tripartite
division of the current psychology. But, inasmuch as the
moral life, when studied in its characteristic development,
and especially in connection with the search after the origins
and sources of that development, seems to justify a change
in the customary order of discussion, I shall treat first of
the affectional side of human nature in its total equipment
for conduct. This distinction will lead to the unfolding of
the subject in the following order : (1) certain forms of feel-
ing in which man's fitness for the moral life consists, so far
as that fitness is distinctively a matter of the affections and
emotions; (2) the judgments and conceptions which mark
the development, on the side of intellection, of his moral
life ; and (3) the character of the volition which man has,
or attains, and which makes it possible for him to adopt
as his own his actions, and courses of action (so as to con-
stitute a veritable piece of conduct), and to choose amidst the
conflict of ends and the varied means such ends and such
means as agree or disagree with the moral ideal.

In all the discussions of psychological ethics most of the
principles employed, and many of the conclusions attained,
must be borrowed from psychology. For although all of the
so-called faculties which psychology investigates are con-
cerned in conduct, and so become also matters of ethical
appreciation and concernment, not all of the facts and laws
relating to these faculties demand renewed investigation at
the hands of the student of ethics. The general facts and

26 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

laws of consciousness, and of the different classified proc-
esses or states of consciousness, may — nay, must — be
assumed as though they were already sufficiently determined
by previous studies in another but kindred discipline. No
doubt any author's views upon certain problems of ethics
will be largely, although perhaps unwittingly influenced by
his psychological positions. This will be especially true of
such psychological problems as the unity and reality of the
human soul, or mind, the question in debate between the
advocates of determinism and so-called " freedom of the will,"
the existence and nature of the higher sentiments and emo-
tions, the nature of pleasure and pain, and the relations of
mind and body. For myself, I can neither, on the one
hand, claim to approach certain ethical problems with a
complete freedom from all prejudice due to opinions already
formed and advocated on related psychological problems;
nor, on the other hand, can I repeat in detail, or discuss
anew, the conclusions to which I have elsewhere come
respecting truths, half-truths, and errors in psychology.^ It
is enough for my purpose to claim the right to make use of
these conclusions and discussions to the best advantage of
the following ethical treatise.

Let it be assumed, then, that the use of the psychological
method in its strictest form is appropriate to the subject
matter of ethics ; and that all historical and objective study
only prepares the mind for the act of conscious interpretation
and evaluation of the data of ethics collected by such study,
— an act which itself makes the highest possible demands
upon the analysis of the trained student of human nature.
But here, as everywhere in the use of the psychological
method, the dictum of Goethe remains in full force:
" The gauge that from himself he takes
Measures him now too small and now too great."

1 The works to which reference is here implied are especially, Psychology,
Descriptive and Explanatory (1894), and Philosophy of Mind (1895), both
by Charles Scribner's Sons, N. Y.

METHODS AND DIVISIONS OF ETHICS 27

Especially is this true of ethics, within whose sphere the hab-
itual and the customary is with the multitude of men almost
inseparably related to the ideal standard which is set up by
the individual soul. The intimacy of this relation between
the better custom and the ideal standard is witnessed to by
all the language which men employ when treating of matters
of conduct, and by the impossibility, in many particular
cases, of drawing legible and fixed lines so as to determine
where custom ends and morality, in the stricter and higher
meaning of the word, begins.

Suppose, for example, that the definition of Wundt be
adopted :i "Custom, in the sense in which it is ordinarily
used to-day, means a norm of voluntary action that is valid
for a national or tribal society without enforcement by ex-
press command or by punishment for non-conformity." At
once it must be admitted that every essential element in this
definition admits of degrees of variation which serve to
shade the conception of custom off toward morality on the
one side and toward law on the other side. As the author
himself admits : " It is true that custom finds its own means
of compulsion." But it is not so obviously true, or it is not
true at all, that " these, like custom itself, are never of the
obligatory kind. They consist neither in subjective com-
mandments like the moral laws, nor in objective menaces
like the laws of the state." For in multitudes of cases, and
indeed as a general rule, the custom is, in the consciousness
of the individual (and often rightfully) a " subjective com-
mandment like" a moral law; and the menaces which
threaten him who breaks the " cake of social custom " are
quite as objective and as terrifying as any enacted by the
laws of the state. Moreover, there is constant interchange
of status amongst all these three — namely, custom, law,
and morality. This interchange is essential to man's
ethical development. Under the influence of the law of the

1 Ethics, I, p. 151 f.

28 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

state, or of the subjective commandment, either of which
may easily enough at its beginning only express the opinions
and the will of a few individuals regarding some particular
matter of conduct, the custom forms and grows and widens
its sphere of influence. Under the same legal or moral
influence the custom may be broken down. Or, on the
contrary, the development of the custom may render the law
nugatory, a dead letter ; or the same development may quite
transform the character of the subjective mandate, the voice
of conscience, the so-called "voice of God." Instances of all
these interrelated transformations are not so rare that they
need to be cited in the present connection. They are, in-
deed, so numerous as to constitute almost the entire valuable
data of historical and evolutionary ethics. The evolution
of that marvellous and formidable compound of social cus-
toms, religious ideas, and ethical conceptions and opinions,
which constitutes the life atmosphere of the modern Hindu
is made up of examples. Not less so the more recent
history of how this compound is slowly disintegrating. But
the same thing is true of those reactions of the popular moral
consciousness on its environment which belong to the daily
experience of us all.

The student of ethics who would take account only of the
dictates of his own soul — however cultured and fair — can
never find therein the sufficient data for a science or a phil-
osophy of human conduct. He may, indeed, justly say : " I,
too, am a man." He may even fit himself by bestowing
analysis and reflection upon his own moral consciousness,
for the righteous claim to know more than ordinarily well
what belongs to human moral consciousness. But others,
too, are men. They, too, furnish worthy data of ethics.
And inasmuch as they cannot appear in propria persona
before the investigator and testify out of a full mind and
heart what they think and feel about the right and wrong
of conduct, the good and bad of character, their testimony

METHODS AND DIVISIONS OF ETHICS 29

must be taken in a more indirect and external way. In all
this there are some obvious advantages. For although the
real meaning of the testimony as thus obtained is more
doubtful, and the voice of the witnesses is at first appallingly
conflicting, the generalizations possible are placed upon a
broader basis, and the insights into eternal and universal
moral principles are more capable of being defended and
of being transmitted to other minds.

The historical and objective method must, therefore, be
combined with the psychological and more purely subjective
method in all successful study of ethics. Indeed, there is
much to commend the attempt of a modern writer ^ to com-
bine the two in the claim that the straight road to ethics lies
through ethnic psychology ; and this is defined " as the history
of custom and of ethical ideas from the psychological stand-
point." But after all, whether the path followed be de-
scribed as belonging to one method, or to two allied methods,
is not a matter upon which great stress need be laid. The
history, the objective facts, must be regarded ; otherwise our
attempt at a science of ethics is, at best, only the "confes-
sions of a fair soul. " But this history, these objective facts,
must be interpreted, must be rendered into terms intelligible
to the individual's moral consciousness. Otherwise so-called
" data of ethics " are not more ethical than are the facts with
which the merely narrative historian deals. They are mere
chronicles of deeds, not genuine data of ethics. Especially
is it true that the comprehensiveness and loftiness of the
moral Ideal which each investigator holds aloft in his own
conscious soul will chiefly determine his attitude toward the
sanctions and ultimate principles of human conduct.

When the data have been sufficiently collected, whether by
the psychological or by the historical method — or still
better, by a skilful combination of both — the problems
which are implicated in the data require further treatment

1 Wundt, Ethics, I, p. vi.

30 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

by reflective thinking. Every appeal to human moral con-
sciousness reveals, in its dawn, rise, and fuller effulgence, a
certain ideal which solicits and, in some sort, compels the
allegiance of the human mind. Conceptions have to be
recognized, which, although admitting of an almost indefi-
nite variety of detailed application, have a universal and
unchanging import; they come before the student of ethics
for analysis, and for adjustment in that system of ultimate
principles and most inclusive ideas which philosophy aims
to establish. Just as every sphere of facts, when subjected to
scientific treatment shows a residuum of problems of a more
ultimate kind, which must be handed on to philosophy for
speculative discussion, — so especially, ethics.

Man is a speaking, social, and religious being. All these
attributes are true of him, so far as the most penetrating re-
search can discover, wherever we find him in time and space,
and in whatever stage of his evolution in history. But
speech, social intercourse, and religious faith and worship
are all species of conduct. And the man who uses language,
who transacts business and enters into relations of friend-
ship or enmity and strife with his fellows, who prays and
sacrifices and contracts the obligations of membership in the
religious community, is one and the same man. He it is
also, who develops the arts and sciences; and who makes
practical application of them to the amelioration or degrada-
tion of the conditions of human living. This being is born,
at one and the same time, into the world of nature, into the
society of his fellows, and into what he comes to believe are
more or less real and vital relations to the gods. His con-
duct is a matter that has to do with right and wrong adjust-
ments in all these activities and relations. What Muirhead ^
seems to think has already come true, — namely, " the dis-
solution of the ancient partnership between philosophy and
its various branches " and the reduction of ethics to a purely
1 The Elements of Ethics, p. 11 f.

METHODS AND DIVISIONS OF ETHICS 31

empirical science, — can never become true. Such a rending
of human nature as is implied in this dissolution is impos-
sible; just as is also the implied result of restricting the
sphere of philosophy with its method of reflective thinking.

And, indeed, no thorough attempts at a so-called "science
of conduct " have ever been made (less even than formerly,
in these later days when "empirical science" is so boastful
in its claim to cover the entire field to the exclusion of meta-
physics) which did not largely resort to the method of specu-
lative philosophy. What Professor Watson says ^ was true
of the Sophists is true of those who, to-day, advocate a
practical ethics "without metaphysics." "The main idea
common to them all was that customary morality was not
absolute, but was a fair subject of discussion and criticism."
No: customary morality is not absolute. The thinker over
the problems of human conduct, whatever his method or
school, has never found himself able to identify the cus-
tomary with the absolutely right. But whence comes this
persistent, this provoking idea of " the Absolute " into all our
discussions of ethics ? Why cannot the investigator stick to
the proper sphere of a truly empirical science and refuse to
discuss or even consider the conceptions that are tainted with
this metaphysical idea of an absolute?

It will appear that the distinctively ethical problems of a
more ultimate character with which the metaphysics of
ethics finds itself compelled to deal, concern chiefly the rela-
tions of human conceptions of the Right and the Wrong in
Conduct to that which has Reality. What is it to be really
right? What Ground in reality has the Right? Is the
World- Ground an ethical Being; and is the really existent
System of beings an ethical system? Problems which have
the virtual significance, if not the exact form of such ques-
tions as the foregoing, inevitably emerge when we try to
think ourselves straight through the most profound and
1 Hedonistic Theories, p. 11.

32 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

interesting experiences of man regarding the sources, the
development, the sanctions, and the final principles of human
conduct. And so the metaphysics of ethics must try to
bring the ethical conceptions of mankind into harmony with
the best philosophical cognitions and opinions respecting
the nature and final purposes of the really existent World
and its Ground.

Making use to the best of my ability of all three of the
proper methods of ethics, I shall, therefore, attempt the fol-
lowing task : — to investigate the nature of man as moral
(capable of conduct), to classify and discuss the different
forms of his conduct as coming under moral law and con-
stituting the so-called "duties " and "virtues," and to treat
speculatively the ultimate ethical conceptions regarded as
having their ground in the existing system of the Universe.
Such a treatment naturally results in the three following
divisions of the one treatise of the Philosophy of Conduct:
(1) The Moral Self; (2) The Virtuous Life; and (3) The
Nature of the Eight. Of these three the first part is mainly
psychological, the second mainly historical and objective,
the third mainly critical and speculative. But in each of the
three parts the three branches of the one method must be
employed in combination.

Upon the study of ethics thus pursued the following
remarks now seem appropriate. First : Ethics, so far as it
can be rendered scientific, is one of the sciences of man.
Hence its dependence upon psychology and anthropology is
to a certain extent absolute. Hence also, second: Ethics,
like any other similar discipline, should begin inductively.
It should strive to plant itself upon a basis of undoubted
facts, and from this basis, with a constant attention to the
demands for a frequent return to this basis, proceed to the
discussion of speculative problems. In this way, third,
ethics becomes an important and even necessary pedagogic
for the other sciences or disciplines, which deal with the

METHODS AND DIVISIONS OF ETHICS 33

conduct of man, — especially for law, economics, politics,
and theology.

What definite and defensible results may reasonably be
expected from this combination of the methods appropriate
to the systematic study of human conduct ? To this inquiry
only the actual achievements gained by each student's efforts
can give the satisfactory reply. But Aristotle's caution
applies to all alike. It is not fitting, in accordance with the
very nature of the subject to expect, or even to seek for, that
more perfect accuracy which is demanded of the physical
and natural sciences. The haunting consciousness that
ethics did not admit of a strictly scientific construction
seems to have accompanied Aristotle^ in all his work of
investigation. Neither in respect of minuteness of detail,
nor of mathematical exactness, nor of definiteness, nor of
finish, nor of justifiable subtlety of argument shall we ex-
pect, or strive, to rival the work of the physicist, the
chemist, or even the physiologist or biologist.

^ See his declaration, Koi ixplfieiav fi^ bfioioas 4v &ira<Tiv iirt^riTuv (Nic. Eth., I,
vii, 18). Here and elsewhere the conception of aKplfina seems to include something
of all these five characteristics of a typical scientific investigation : ( 1 ) rainateness
of detail, (2) mathematical exactness, (3) definiteness of form, (4) finish of form,
and (5) subtlety, — especially, perhaps (1), (2), and (5). How tlie consciousness
of this necessary lack of scientific perfection did haunt Aristotle we learn from
his repeated references to the subject. (See also II, ii, iii, and iv). Compare the
note to the passage in Sir A. Grant's The Ethics of Aristotle, I p. 449 f.

CHAPTER III

THE CONCEPTION OF THE GOOD

There is a certain universal way of human thinking and
acting, if not a certain determinate form of conception,
which connects the subject of ethics with a number of closely-
allied forms of inquiry. Indeed, so close is the connection
that the investigation of the actions of men from the point
of view held by this conception has often been made the most
important part of entire ethical systems. Undoubtedly all
adult human beings give much consideration to what is " good "
or "bad " for them to experience ; and, accordingly, they hab-
itually act with the intention to secure as much as possible
of what they consider good and to avoid as much as possible
those experiences which they consider bad. Writers on the
history of ethical opinion are fond of reminding us that,
whereas the modern Occidental man dwells more upon con-
ceptions of rights, duties, and the moral law, the ethics of
ancient Greece laid stress upon the conception of the Good.
Certainly this Idea was, in the Platonic system of thinking,
not only the supreme ruler over all the other ethical ideas
but the chief and lord over all those ideas with which the
philosopher found himself concerned in his efforts to under-
stand the problems of the physical world and of human life.
The predominance of this conception in the Greek ethics as
compared with the ethical studies of modern times is, how-
ever, scarcely more than apparent. The feelings, thoughts,
and actions of men, which cluster about and follow along
with this conception, are always an inseparable, an integral

THE CONCEPTION OF THE GOOD 35

part of moral philosophy. It is only as discerning and
desiring, as estimating and striving for, whatever is good
that man is capable of dutiful and virtuous conduct, or is a
subject of moral law. Some study of this conception is,
then, almost a necessary prelude to the fuller analysis of the
nature of a Moral Self.

Only slight examination, however, is necessary to convince
one how vague and yet comprehensive are the mental proc-
esses which answer to such a phrase as that under considera-
tion. The criticism of this conception is one of the most
important and difficult tasks in the philosophy of conduct.
Every one knows what particular smells, tastes, sounds,
and sights he considers good, what bad ; and perhaps, what
he should more readily characterize as neutral or indifferent.
It is more difficult for men generally to say which of these
two contradictory epithets they should wish to apply to
those more elaborate combinations of sensuous impressions
that are discoverable in even the most meagre " works of art,"
so-called. Is this picture, or piece of sculptured stone, or
moulded metal, good or bad ? Do you approve or disapprove
of this tune ? Such questions as these are answered with
more hesitation and obvious doubtfulness than questions
which concern the simpler sensuous impressions.

But now, again, if inquiry be raised as to any piece of
conduct, whether it be good or bad, it is interesting to
notice how the mental attitude of the majority of men
stands toward such an inquiry. In case the particular con-
duct admits of easy classification under any one of several
already accepted titles, the judgment as to its character may
be promptly rendered, more or less suffused with the appro-
priate feeling. Is this particular act of stealing, lying,
murder, or impurity, good or bad ? Every adult member
of society has a judgment in store and ready to be applied
to such a question, as a part of his stable equipment for the
moral life in society. Even the thief, the liar, the murderer,

83 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

the rake, need not hesitate long over his choice of epithets :
this particular theft, or lie, or murder, or seduction, may in
the vicious man's judgment be at least partly good (because of
the manner of its performance or the end secured by it) ; but
another deed, quite similar in its external characteristics
may for some reason be deemed either wholly or largely bad.

But if the particular piece of conduct to be judged is not
easily classified, or if it is complicated with intricate con-
siderations of motive and of consequences, or if it is taken
for its answer before different individuals whose social con-
ditions vary greatly or whose moral consciousness has been
quite differently trained, then the greatest variety of judg-
ments and emotions will be elicited. Some will pronounce
it " good ; " but others, with equal confidence, will say, " bad. "
And not a few, perhaps, will be puzzled to know what answer
they shall give.

Judgments about the good and the bad appear, then,
to indicate a somewhat important difference in the way
in which men use these words, depending upon whether the
object is a matter of sensuous, of more nearly aesthetical,
or of more definitely ethical appreciation.

" What is most just is noblest, health is best,

Wnat IS most just is noblest, health is t
Pleasantest is to get your heart's desire

When quoting this Delian inscription, Aristotle (Nic. Eth.,
I, viii, 14) announces the conclusion that "happiness is at
once the best and noblest and pleasantest thing in the world,
and these are not separated. " But the conclusion is hasty
and ill-taken, and based upon insufficient grounds. The im-
portant thing now to notice, however, is that, plainly, this
same Delian inscription means to emphasize the undoubted
fact of a popular classification of the goods. The noble, the
practically useful and desirable, the sweet, — these are, in-
deed, all good ; but they are not precisely the same kind of
good. How, then, do they differ as kinds of the Good ; and

THE CONCEPTION OF THE GOOD 87

What is that common characteristic which they all possess,
so that they can all be called good ?

The most primary court of appeal in answer to such in-
quiries as those raised above is, of course, psychological
analysis. But such analysis, in order to be trustworthy, must
be based upon a wide acquaintance with the workings of the
human mind. It will subsequently be found that the funda-
mental differences between the important schools of ethics
are deeply concerned with the discussion of the nature of the
Good; and, accordingly, no thorough treatment of the
subject can properly anticipate the critical examination of
the claims of these schools. But a preliminary psychologi-
cal inquiry will prove helpful.

The most important thing to notice respecting this concep-
tion may be stated as follows: Every form and degree of
what men call either good or bad has reference to a state of
sentient and conscious life. And all the higher and more
significant forms have reference to the experiences of a self-
conscious life. There is no good that is not a good which is
serviceable for or actually realized in some condition of a
Self. We try, indeed, to picture to ourselves some remnant
of good truth and beauty belonging to the system of things,
if all conscious selves were removed from existence. The
extinction of self-conscious life is, to be sure, in the philoso-
phy of Schopenhauer and of some of the Vedantic writings,
the alone true good, the end which, for the good man, is de-
voutly to be wished. The object which Kant coupled with
the moral law within, as exciting his highest admiration for
its noble goodness, was the starry heavens above. If the
good of the extinction of conscious life could be attained,
there would, indeed, be no remaining badness in the uni-
verse, of any degree or kind. But, then, there would also
be no good. For the only aesthetical and admirable good
which the science of astronomy could elicit was in Kant's
own appreciative soul, or in the conscious state of some other

38 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

soul, — not excluding the imagined happiness of the World-
Soul in contemplating its own cosmogonic achievements.
To talk of good, or of bad, of any kind or degree, without
reference to good or bad states and activities of a Self is to
talk the unimaginable and the absurd. Only as we mentally
endow things with some of the qualifications of selfhood or
consider them with reference to selves, can we bring things
under this conception. Only as we make quasi- or partial
selves out of the animals can we apply the same terms to
them. It is the projection into the Other than Self, of our
own conscious happiness or unhappiness, beauty or ugliness,
moral goodness or badness, which induces and justifies the
use of the conception. What is good ? What is bad ?
States of selves, and what has reference to states of selves.
Beyond such states, or without reference to such states, there
is no good, no bad, either instrumental or final.

Taking our start from this subjective and yet unalterable
and universal point of view, we can easily see how it is that
every thing, and every event or deed, may both merit and
receive the title of good, or its opposite, as it is considered
from an indefinite number of subordinate and more special
points of view. This tool, for example, is good for one kind
of service, but bad for another. This article of diet is good,
if the end be the production of pleasure, but bad if the end
of health be kept in view. Or it is good for both pleasure
and health in the case of one digestive apparatus and bad for
both purposes in the case of another person's digestion.
This instrument is good for the good deed of the executioner,
and equally good for the bad deed of the murderer. The
pure pleasure of the peasant in the contemplation of his bad
picture of the Madonna is good ; and good or bad may be the
act of worship according to what it means for the worshipper
or according to its effect upon others. And does not every
one know that it is indeed "an ill wind (however destructive)
which blows no good " ? So shifty and variable in its par-

THE CONCEPTION OF THE GOOD 89

ticular applications is this conception of the Good. But the
reasons for these characteristics are all to be found in the
statement just made as to the essential nature of all that to
which the various kinds and degrees of the conception are
applied. As varying and shifty as are the conscious states
of the soul of man as well as the relations of these states to
things and to other men, so many and changeful are the uses
of the terms good and bad when applied to things, to events,
and to the deeds of men.

Now, however, another most important consideration
comes before us respecting the essential characteristics of
this comprehensive conception. Plainly, as all human lan-
guage shows, whatever is good admits of some kind of rela-
tive estimate or measurement. We have already spoken of
degrees^ as well as of kinds, of what men call good or bad.
And when one remembers that characteristic of nearly, if
not quite all of the conscious states of the Self, upon which
psycho-physics relies, whether popular or scientific, and
whether more or less symbolic and uncertain in its methods
and in its conclusions, then we understand the source of this
popular doctrine of the measurement of goods. For all such
conscious states do, in some sort, vary in the degrees of their
intensity and comprehensiveness. As respects their seizure
upon the entire circuit of consciousness, the emotional
warmth which goes with them, and the depth of the present
impression which they possess, they are not the same. Our
language is, indeed, figurative; its real meaning is often
painfully vague ; it may be doubted whether any comprehen-
sive science of psycho-physics can be based upon such ex-
periences. Nevertheless, the experiences are genuine and
universal ; and in them we find the explanation for the more
or less, both of goodness and of badness, which things and
events and deeds are held to possess.

It is not in degrees alone, however, that the goodness and
badness of different experiences need to be compared. An

40 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

estimate of values^ that is not merely quantitative, is un-
doubtedly placed by men upon those experiences to which the
conception of the Good is applied. This fact, and the enor-
mous significance of this fact for our entire understanding
of human nature, as well as especially for all attempts at a
philosophy of conduct, will be frequently discussed in other
connections. Just now our intention is much more limited
in its range. The psychological principle which applies to
the conception is this: All measurement of ''Hhe good,^^ which
is not merely intensive or extensive {an estimate of quantity),
implies some standard which must he assumed as differing in
hind from the particular form of good which is measured.
Estimates of magnitude apply within one and the same kind
of good. Estimates of value cannot be applied in the same
way. If I am asked to judge between two conscious states
and tell which is the most pleasurable, I may be able, at
least in some rough and imperfect manner, to weigh them
one against another. 1 like honey, for example, better than
sugar. This means that I get more pleasure from the former
than from the latter. 1 prefer reading a passage from a
poem or a chapter from a novel to eating either sweet ; —
this may mean the same thing. For, if I am asked. Why ?
I may answer once more, because I get more pleasure from
the former than from the latter. Here again the reference
is to two pleasurable states of consciousness which may be
somehow compared quantitatively. But if, on being asked
Why? I answer, because I think that the happiness of read-
ing a good piece of literature is better, more noble, or
worthy, is higher and more refined, than the pleasures of
gratified taste for sweets, then I am referring to another
standard than the merely quantitative one. Some other
kind of good is regarded as mixing with the good of pleasure
which gives it a peculiar excellence. An estimate of goods
according to their values, and not merely according to their
intensity or extension is implied.

THE CONCEPTION OF THE GOOD 41

The explanation of all such experiences is not difficult for
the candid student of psychology who is willing neither to
deny nor to sophisticate the facts. It is a fundamental and
indisputable fact that men estimate the different conscious
states of the Self as differing in value according to a standard
which is not merely quantitative. In other words, goods
differ^ as estimated in human consciousness, not only in degrees^
hut also in excellence or worth That there are kinds of goods
which have different — higher and lower — values is thus an
opinion common alike to the multitude and to all the reflec-
tive thinkers of mankind. This opinion is but the expression
of that preference for certain states of consciousness over
other states, irrespective of their relations as regards quan-
tity of the same kind, which belongs to all the artistic and
ethical development of man. It is in the effort to account
for this preference, to give it validity, to defend it against
attacks, and to judge ourselves and others in the light of
its radiance, that the problems of ethics divide men into
different opinions and different schools. For a science of
ethics begins only when it is seen that men's actions are
consciously directed toward, or unconsciously terminate in,
some one of the several forms of " the Good " (or its oppo-
site) ; and then the effort is made to give a rational unity to
all these forms, and to regard the accepted rules of conduct
as the different ways in which, as men believe, these forms
may be obtained.

Plainly, however, other distinctions are necessary in order
to understand, even in a preliminary way, the influence of
the conception of the Good upon a science of conduct, or a
philosophy of morality. That classification which is based
upon the distinction between good as a means (instrumental
good) and good as an end is now introduced. It is, how-
ever, in fact of comparatively little assistance in determining
the essential nature of the conception. This is often due to
the implied theory that the application of the distinction, at

42 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

least in certain instances, can be made absolute. Especially
is such a theory held by those who take the Hedonistic, even
when modified into the so-called Eudaemonistic point of view.
These writers are quite too ready to assume that when we come
to the good of happiness we have reached a necessary limit to
our inquiry : Good for what ? For, surely, they say, happi-
ness is good-in-itself ; although all things and all events were
treated as instrumental goods, and were summoned before
the conscious soul to tell what good they contribute to it,
the happy condition of that soul itself cannot be questioned
in the same way. The rational man might, indeed, be chal-
lenged as to why he does this or that, and his answer would
be accepted as rational if he could declare : In order that I
may be happy, or may make some other one happy. The
deed is good because it is means to happiness; if it is means
to others' happiness, it is a good deed. But to ask. What
good is there in being happy ? — this is to be absurd ; for
happiness is good as an end in itself. Happiness is an in-
itself-good. To prove that it is so may, indeed, be impos-
sible. But this is because the matter is self-evident and so
admits of no proof, as it needs none. Has not Bain declared :
"Now there can be no proof offered that happiness is the
proper end of all human pursuits, the criterion of all right
conduct " ?

I am not at present discussing either Hedonism or Eudae-
monism in any of their several forms ; I am not even raising
the question whether happiness is the ""proper^' end and
criterion of human conduct. I am simply in search of the
psychological facts as to men's conceptions of the differing
kinds and degrees of that which they call good. Is it true,
in fact, that men never regard happy conscious states, quoad
happy, as means to another form of good, but always as
good in themselves, — as being, of course, good ? It is not
true in fact. For many men do frequently regard pleasura-
ble states of consciousness as instrumental and not final

THE CONCEPTION OF THE GOOD 48

goods. Indeed, it might almost be said that the stage of
morality, in distinction from custom considered as mere
fact, is not reached until pleasure-pain states of conscious-
ness cease to be regarded solely as ends in themselves, and
come to be regarded also as means related to the attainment
of another kind of good. This truth seems to be especially
illustrated by an appeal to the two extremes of the moral
life, as they are manifest in the evolution of the race. Sav-
age and uncivilized peoples join with the loftiest specimens
of moral culture in all times, in a relative depreciation of,
if not a positive scorn for, happiness as the only or chief
in-itself-good ; while, on the other hand, it is the average
well-to-do man under favorable conditions of a somewhat
advanced civilization, the well-fed and successful English-
man or American, 1 who is most likely to prize so highly the
ideas and arguments of a skilfully devised Eudasmonism.

It is simple matter of fact of ethnic psychology that, in
the case of the lower races the conduct and character of men
is not considered good or bad with reference to the relation
which it sustains to the production and increase, or to the
decrease and destruction of the happiness whether of the
individual or of the community. Sterner rules of behavior
than this view could produce are necessary to existence
itself. More primitive and yet mysterious and vague ideas
than those which the " greatest happiness " theory can ac-
count for are already in control of the nascent social life.
The whole theory and practice of discipline as it is found
actually operative amongst these races compels a different
point of view. Here pleasure-pains, of every kind and de-

1 It would be a most interesting and suggestive ethical inquiry to trace the
connection between physical well-being, especially such as is brought about by
commercial success or successful empire, and the prevalent tenets as to the nature
of morally right conduct and as to the basis upon which repose the sanctions of
morality. Well-to-do merchants, or the official classes, or the men who have
attained a measure of academic prestige, are perhaps naturally inclined to some
form of Hedonism or Eudaemonism.

44 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

gree, are largely treated as instrumental; the end is the
fitness of the individual for his place in the community,
in accordance with the prevalent idea of those character-
istics of Selfhood in which such fitness consists. Thus the
Melanesians and many other tribes are wont to kill a large
proportion of their infants, especially of the females, imme-
diately after birth, because the food-supply is limited and
they are "not fit for war." Yet some of these tribes are
exceedingly gentle toward helpless living children. In the
training of those left alive, pains are freely taken by the
parents, and freely inflicted upon the children, to the end
that they may the better do their duty, as such duty is de-
fined by the customs, laws, and circumstances of the tribe.
The young human cub is licked into shape with only an
occasional sidelong glance at the Hedonistic motive. As a
boy he is mercilessly subjected to the discipline held to be
necessary to conform him to the existing crude ideal of man-
hood. With this end in view his early years are rendered
full of misery. When he reaches puberty and is ready to
be invested with the rights of manhood, the ceremonial
ordinarily takes little account of his happiness, while striv-
ing to enhance his feeling of the worth of his new possession
by emphasizing the suffering with which he pays the cost of
it. For example, among some of the Polynesians, the candi-
date must endure to have his skin cut through with sharp
mussel-shells, or his teeth dragged out by the rough den-
tistry of the priest-doctor.

In all cases similar to the foregoing, religious supersti-
tions are apt to play an important part ; but the part which
they do play is such as to reinforce the conclusion that man
naturally and necessarily seeks a variety of goods ; and that
in this search he by no means hesitates to regard the good
and bad of happiness as subordinate and instrumental to
other forms of good. This view of the relations of the
pleasure-pains to the end of existence is illustrated by the

THE CONCEPTION OF THE GOOD 46

doctrine and practice of "tabu" among savage and half-
civilized tribes. Here the individual finds \nmi>e\i forbidden,
in the interest of certain ends, and for certain reasons of
which he has only a vague and shifting conception, to realize
the various desires whose satisfaction brings happiness. To
be sure, fear of some disaster which is regarded as certain
to follow contact with, or enjoyment of the tabued object
is one of the most powerful motives in enforcing the regula-
tions belonging to tabu. But he has a shallow view of
human nature who cannot recognize more than this as con-
cerned in the matter. The germs of a reverential awe
toward the mysterious Unknown and of aspiration to stand
well in His sight, to be thought worthy by Him, are also
patent here. And this is an end which, although closely
allied to, and often confused with, the end of happiness, is
not precisely the same. The doctrine of Nemesis, the way
in which the gods furnish men with their moral ideals, the
mystic and ascetic elements of the religious cult, furnish
arguments for the same conclusion. But these subjects be-
long more especially to the philosophy of religion.

Of course, the answer to the foregoing arguments made by
those who hold that happiness- is invariably and necessarily
a good in-itself is not difficult to anticipate. It may be said
that all the pains voluntarily endured or inflicted are re-
garded as only temporarily and relatively instrumental.
They are regarded as unavoidable means to the end of a
greater measure or a higher kind of happiness in the future.
Thus, after all, it is happiness which is constantly kept in
mind and, however ignorantly, pursued as the true and final
end that is good in-itself. Here, however, we have one of
those sophistries of argument which are based upon misin-
terpretation of psychological facts. The very distinction
which is emphasized by all the ethical judgments and by all
the words for conduct is entirely overlooked by such an argu-
ment. The man who makes his own happiness the " in-itself-

46 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

good," and who follows this end in ways that run contrary
to the moral judgment of the community, however crude and
loosely organized, is the had man. But whoever exhibits
most of those qualities which conform to the moral judg-
ment, with most of enduring and courageous sacrifice of his
own happiness, he is the good man.

As the conditions of social welfare become more complex,
and the society interested in it becomes enlarged by the con-
quest, amalgamation, or fusion otherwise of different tribes,
the same general rule applies to the conduct with reference
to one another of its different elements. The bad king, or
chief, is he who seeks the happiness of himself or of his
family in ways that run counter to the established judgments
as to what a good ruler ought to do. The same thing is true
of any of the larger factors in the social organism. The
family, or the clan, or the faction, which always makes
happiness the end-in-itself of its conduct is regarded by the
other families, clans, or factions, as had morally, whether it
be successful or unsuccessful in its endeavor. And now that
the principles of morals have become expanded so as to
cover, at least in some vague and imperfect way, the entire
human race, essentially the same standards of ethical judg-
ment continue to be applied. We are, indeed, forced to
witness the spectacle of the most civilized and Christian
nations, arming themselves to their utmost capacity in order
to enforce their own notions, each one, as to what will render
them most prosperous and most happy. And prominent
diplomats are not wanting who openly avow that the only
standards of moral excellence in the conduct of nations
toward each other, are furnished by the intelligent pursuit,
by each, of its own happiness as an in-itself-good. No
wonder that race hatred seems just now to be on the in-
crease. But when the theoretical moralist attempts to
justify this conduct, as far as it can be shown to be instru-
mental to the future greater happiness of the greatest

THE CONCEPTION OF THE GOOD 47

number, he, on the one hand, admits our contention that
men habitually regard conduct from other points of view
than its pleasure-pain accompaniments or consequences, and
habitually practise as though happiness were instrumental
to certain ends that lie beyond itself; and, on the other
hand, the theorist has now run his doctrine of happiness, as
always an in-itself-good, out into so misty and limitless a
domain that, for the average sight of humanity its precise
form can no longer be discerned. At any rate, the theory
of happiness as the alone good-in-itself has now passed be-
yond the point where psychology or ethnology can test it.
Its further discussion must be reserved for a more purely
speculative treatment.

In that complex system of means and ends which human
thought and imagination frames, and to the existence of
which human practice bears testimony, it seems difficult to
carry out any fixed and absolute distinction. The conscious-
ness and the conduct of men show beyond doubt that they do
recognize the existence of various degrees and kinds of what
they consider to be good. And since in this recognition of
kinds of good the preference is not always for the greater
quantity of the same kind, their notions and their behavior
confirm the suspicion that different ideal standards are
made use of by different men, and by the same men on differ-
ent occasions and under different circumstances. It still
further appears that all these different kinds of good may
possibly stand, at one time or another, in relations of instru-
mental good to that which is good-in-itself. For man is a
very complex being; his interests are many; his apprecia-
tions are varied ; his sensibilities are capable of an acute and
refined development. The concrete problems of conduct
are increasingly complicated. Different individuals, and
different large collections of individuals, require and actu-
ally receive different forms of treatment, — whether to their
well-being or ill-being, and whether the well-being be con-

48 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

sidered as more strictly eudaemonistic, or aesthetical, or
ethical. Thus, by some persons, under some circumstances,
conduct regarded as a moral affair may be made instru-
mental to the end of happiness, or to the realization of some
aesthetical ideal. By others, under other circumstances, the
beautiful object may be constructed and used as the instru-
ment of happiness or of a certain moral invigoration and
improvement. Still others, under still different circum-
stances, show themselves ready to sacrifice all considerations
of morality and, as far as possible^ all considerations of hap-
piness, to the realization of their aesthetical ideal. Nor are
these differences found only in application to brief courses
or single pieces of conduct. They distinguish different per-
sons vrith reference to those ends which they chiefly pursue
in life, and whose influence pervades and characterizes all
that they think and do respecting the solution of life's most
important problems. Some men live for pleasure, and care
little for the morally good or the good of beauty otherwise
than as the minister of pleasure. Some men live for art;
and some men live for righteousness' sake and to make
themselves and others more perfect in righteousness.

Is life worth living ? This problem, in spite of its
antiquity and the monotony belonging to its reappearances
for discussion, retains much of its pristine fascination.
Perhaps, indeed, it is growing more engaging as it becomes
more complex. But what thinker cannot readily see that no
answer is possible unless one has already an answer to these
preliminary inquiries : What is the end of life ? and. What
is the proper standard of worth, or value ? Is the end my
own happiness; and is the standard of value quantity and
duration of happiness? Then many, perhaps the majority,
must say. No; and there are few that at some time must not
render this negative answer. Accordingly, were it not for
that mysterious dread of the hereafter, which most men feel,
whether the dread be rational or not, suicide would be the

THE CONCEPTION OF THE GOOD 49

logical answer. Yet how many are there whom we find
setting their teeth together, and stiffening their limbs, that
they may walk on regardless of suffering toward the finishing
of some work of science, of art, or of benevolence ?

In spite of the truth that the distinction between instru-
mental goods and the in-itself-good is not absolute, I will
here repeat what has already(p. 36 f.) been indicated with
regard to the classification of kinds of " the Good " consid-
ered as the end of human conscious and voluntary action.
In this relative way one may distinguish three kinds of that
which has worth for its own sake, of the goods to which all
things and events are regarded as means to the end of their
attainment. These are the more strictly eudaemonistic good,
or good of happiness, the aesthetical good or good of beauty,
and the ethical good or good of conduct and character.
There are, then, three forms of the Good, whether regarded
as means or end ; — namely, the eudaemonistic, the aestheti-
cal, the ethical.

Three remarks upon this classification will serve both to
explain and to justify its future uses in the treatment of the
problems of ethics. And, first, these subordinate categories
of the Good may be regarded as sustaining a number of curi-
ous and interesting relations to each other. This truth has
already been illustrated by calling attention to those instru-
mental uses of pleasure-pain states and conditions which are
so numerous and important in the development of the life of
the race. Much of our popular language is justified only in
view of the reality of these relations. "The whole ethical
vocabulary," says Wundt,i "falls into two great divisions :
words that denote ethical characteristics like *good' and
*bad,' and words that indicate the emphasis put upon ethical
characteristics, like 'esteem ' and 'contempt.' " Almost the
same thing, however, might be said of the distinctively
eudaemonistic or distinctively aesthetical vocabulary. Hence

1 Ethics, I, p. 41 f.

50 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

arises much crossing and confusion in the use of similar
terms in every language. But any more precise and re-
stricted use of the same terms only serves to bring out more
clearly these curious and interesting relations amongst the
categories of the Good. Is it not a man's duty to seek
his own happiness; or at any rate the happiness of his
friends and his fellowmen ? Ought this bad artist to paint
such bad pictures; or is it right for the man who might pro-
duce so much better art to stoop to the inferior ? Was that
not a beautiful (aesthetically good) deed of kindness, — and
all the more meritorious (ethically good) because unde-
served ? Was not that form of punishment bad (aesthetically
or ethically), because it caused needless or useless suffering
(was, eudaemonistically considered, an evil) ? But why
multiply instances, when the daily life of man is so full of
similar questionings ?

But, second, all these relations amongst the different
kinds of good — whether regarded as instrumental and final,
or regarded as appertaining to the eudaemonistic, the ges-
thetical, or the ethical good — are suggestive of some sort of
a unity which shall bind them together both in their concep-
tual form and in their objective realization. Thus far I
have considered the facts, as such, of human thinking and
feeling, and of the actual behavior of men as influenced by
their conceptions of the "goods " of existence. These facts,
however, have served the student of ethics both as his incite-
ment and as his guide to that supreme attempt at generaliza-
tion which tries to embody itself in a conception of " The
Good," — of a good that is entitled to be called the Ultimate,
or the Supreme and all-inclusive Good. It is, of course,
only in an extremely crude and inchoate form if indeed at
all, that any such conception belongs to the lower stages of
ethical development, whether of the individual or of the
race. Primitive man has other ends and interests too close-
fitting and imperative to encourage such a generalization.

THE CONCEPTION OF THE GOOD 51

If we really knew anything about primitive man we might
perhaps be compelled to admit that he had not enough of
thought and imagination even to frame such a conception.
Yet in the " happy hunting-ground " of the North American
Indian there is plenty of fish and game; the customary
morals of the tribe are not rudely disturbed ; and it is prob-
able that some truly artistic glamour must be spread over
the scene. In the blessed rule of King Yima the ancient
Parsi believed that men and cattle were immortal ; there was
no drought, no cold nor heat, no envy nor old age. And
according to the Buddhistic way of thinking, there was long
ago an age of glorious soaring beings who had no sin, no
sex, no want of food. In the mind of the more highly cul-
tivated reflective man there rises the alluring image of a
conscious life which shall combine in perfect harmony all
those states and conditions that are in-themselves good.
Objectifying this image and multiplying it by the various
members of the community of such lives, it becomes the con-
ception of a realized social ideal. Of this the poet sings : —

" Nothing is here for tears, nothing to wail
Or knock the breast ; no weakness, no contempt,
Dispraise, or blame ; nothing but well and fair."

But if this conception be rendered definite in terms only of
Eudaemonism, then we shall have the enthusiastic aesthete
declaring against "that miserable word enjoyment, which
falls infinitely short of the high aesthetic experience and
may be a thousand leagues aside from it, having nothing to
do with it whatever ; " while the enthusiast for a perfect
moral condition will affirm of Eudsemonism that "the very
intensity and unremittingness of its appeal to the senses and
understanding end by fatiguing and revolting us," and by
breeding in us "a desire for cloud, storm, effusion, and
relief."

What now is that common element which belongs to all

52 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

those states of conscious life which men esteem in-them-
selves good? How shall thought and imagination frame a
conception of that which is the Good, ultimate, supreme,
and yet subjective? To express this vague and comprehen-
sive conception we have no one word that is not ambiguous
and therefore liable to misappropriation by way of too exclu-
sive appropriation to some one of the higher goods of man's
conscious life. Let us call it the complete Satisfaction of
the ideal Self; only in the use of this word "satisfaction"
we must continually and strenuously call back the thought
to the psychological and ethnological facts pertinent to the
subject. These show that man, as man and everywhere,
has longings and aptitudes for different allied and causally
related forms of conscious good. He has appreciations of
three cognate and yet not identical values. He has sensi-
bility; he is capable of happiness and of suffering. He is
an artist and a lover of the beautiful. He is a truly moral
being; and the different kinds of conduct and of character
seem to him to have a value that is peculiarly precious and
peculiarly their own. When any manifestation of that
which he values as good — the happy, the beautiful, the
morally right — is presented to his conscious appreciation
he is satisfied. But neither of these goods, apart from the
others, gives him a full satisfactioa.^ The picture of a self-
conscious life in which they should all be raised to the high-
est potency and perfectly united is the picture of the
complete subjective satisfaction, — the ultimate and supreme
Good for the rational and sentient soul.

To this subjective satisfaction corresponds the objective
condition, for which we may perhaps most properly employ
the word Welfare, ... If, now, the thinker, by the highest

1 The vparov i>€vSos of every method of Eudaemonisra — whether it result in
the earlier and grosser forms of Hedonism or be the direct method of Mill's Util-
itarianism or the indirect method of Sidgwick's Utilitarianism — is the identifi-
cation of happiness with the whole of the in-itself-good.

THE CONCEPTION OF THE GOOD 63

exercise of his powers of reflection and imagination, objec-
tifies that which brings complete subjective good and gives it
the form of a community of selves, so favorably placed as
respects their external circumstances, and so well and intelli-
gently disposed toward one another that they all realize their
highest satisfactions (happiness, beauty, and the morally
right), then he is prepared to captivate the mind with a pic-
ture of the supreme Social Good. Let it be the " Republic "
of Plato, the ideal State of Aristotle, the "Kingdom of
Heaven," as opened to all believers. Here every longing
is to be satisfied, — the longing for perfect happiness,
the longing for unblemished beauty, the longing for
complete purity of character. This is the Ideal that sat-
isfies the different sides of human nature as it rises to
its highest heights of aspiration and endeavor. But it is
the Ideal as yet forever unrealized; and, it would appear,
forever unrealizable under the actual conditions of human
existence.

One more important consideration follows from this pre-
liminary discussion of the conception of "the Good." The
conception is itself, in every aspect, phase, and kind, a
subject of development. The actual, available means by
which any form of good is to be realized are constantly
changing. This is true of the means of happiness, as well as
of the means of assthetical and ethical excellence. Nor does
any of the three ideals which stand in human imagination
for the highest stage of their respective kinds remain un-
changed from age to age. Plato's ideally good man is not
precisely the same as Aristotle's ; and the ideal Self of the
later Greek or Roman Stoic differs from that of either of
those masterly teachers of ethics. The perfect Englishman
does not satisfy fully either the aesthetical or the ethical
consciousness of other nations ; nor is the type of the thor-
oughly good man which they exalt by any means wholly sat-
isfactory to him. Each feels it necessary to condescend

64 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

from his own superior height even to admire mildly some of
the other's more cherished characteristics. Much wider is
the difference between the typically good man of the Orient
and the man who seems to merit that title in the Western
World. From age to age, whether we consider the ideally
good individual or the supremely good social organization,
the grand and all-inclusive moral Ideal seems always chang-
ing; — now rising and now falling, now growing dim and
now shining forth with a renewal of its own white, self-
illumining radiance. Who is the wholly satisfactory good
man ? Where shall we find and how describe him ? And
how in detail shall we construct that perfect welfare of
social conditions in which all men, in all respects, cor-
respond with this type? The answer to these questions
is itself, to a large extent, undoubtedly a subject of
development.

Yet one may not hastily conclude that in ethics all is in a
condition of perpetual flux. For ethical development does
not extinguish or alter, but, rather, unfolds the unchanging
characteristics of human nature. As capable of happiness,
of aesthetical aspiration and endeavor, and of the appreciation
of conduct and the development of character, the lowest
savage entitled to be called a man is more essentially like
than unlike his most exalted fellow. There is common
" stuff " in all human conceptions of the Good, whether we
consider it as means or end, and especially if it be what is
deemed good in conduct and in character. The particular
differences are indeed great; but, after all, they are chiefly
differences of proportion, arrangement, and place of empha-
sis. All this will appear more clearly and abundantly in
subsequent discussions. Even, however, in the preceding
definition of ethics and in the preliminary analysis of this
important ethical conception traces of relief from the temp-
tation to confusion and scepticism have appeared. Here I
will only call attention to the fact that, wherever either the

THE CONCEPTION OF THE GOOD 55

goods of happiness or the aesthetical goods are regarded as
dependent in any manner or degree upon man's own volun-
tary and rational life, there men begin to employ such
phrases as " ought " and " ought not " with reference to
these goods also. But this usage suggests the truth that the
sphere of ethics spreads over the eudaemonistic and aestheti-
cal life of man and tends to render all the interests and con-
ditions of his life matters, largely or chiefly, of human
conduct and human character. That is to say, every attempt
to subordinate the moral ideal to economical, eudaemonistic,
or aesthetical goods, only results in introducing a new form
of emphasizing " the ought. " Thus a sort of supremacy of
the Ethical Good over the other forms of the so-called " in-
itself Good " seems to be indicated in a naive and unreflect-
ing but impressive way.

To these considerations might be added such others as are,
in Professor Green's splendid argument, ^ made to show how
the development of ethics has itself enlarged the application
and elevated the content of the ideal Good. Conduct, as we
have seen, is the sphere of ethics. In so far, then, as the
ideals of happiness and of art are dependent upon conduct,
they somehow fall under the sphere of ethics. Still further,
if the developing ideal of man, even or especially in its
moral aspect, rises so fast above the horizon that the slow
climbing upward of his thought, imagination, and endeavor,
seems constantly to be further and further, not only from its
complete realization, but even from the complete agreement
as to precisely what that Ideal is, this increasing distance
between the conception and its realization, and this expand-
ing of the conception, are not necessarily a good ground for
scepticism, or for the refusal on any man's part to aspire
and to strive. That is not always best or most influential
which is most clearly discerned and scientifically defined.

1 See his Prolegomena to Ethics, book IH, chapters ii-iv.

56 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

And it may be not only the surest destiny but the highest
privilege of man to have his thinking baffled and his imag-
ination outstripped whenever he attempts to give the full
account of what it means to him to use such a phrase as this
— the Highest Good, or that which is perfectly and inclu-
sively good.

PART FIRST
THE MORAL SELF

" So in man's self arise
August anticipations, symbols, types
Of a dim splendor ever on before
In that eternal circle life pursues."

Browning.

CHAPTER TV

ANALYSIS OF MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS

The more detailed study of the moral self, or of man as
capable of and responsible for conduct, may fitly begin with a
survey of human nature from the point of view held by psy-
chological ethics. What that point of view is has already (p.
21 f.) been sufficiently indicated. In other words, the first
problem of ethics may be expressed as follows : What equip-
ment for the moral life belongs to the subject of that life ?
In considering this problem it is not necessary to appeal to
facts in order to sustain the conviction that, in all essential
respects, man has always had the same kind of a moral equip-
ment. By the student of ethics, this equipment must there-
fore be considered as an endowment. Indeed if one were to
press the ethnological or anthropological discussion to its last
ground of standing, one might feel fully justified in saying:
If at any time there existed a being half or three-quarters
ape and half or one-quarter man, who differed essentially in
this respect from man as we now know him, such being
would not properly be called a "man." Man, as we now
know him, is essentially ethical. His ethical development is
not one with which he can dispense and yet continue the
claim to be what, psychologically and ethnologically consid-
ered, is properly called human.

Moreover, in the broadest extent of the inquiry all the so-
called faculties and distinctive characteristics of human
nature are involved and employed in the life of conduct and
in the development of character. Yet a very important dis-

60 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

tinction should be made at this point. Some of these func-
tions and activities are not distinctively ethical, as others
certainly are. Man, as cognitive merely, as acting in the
interests solely of the growth of knowledge and the attain-
ment of s^cience, — if we may for the present purpose and by a
somewhat difficult measure of abstraction conceive of him as
merely cognitive, — uses precisely the same powers in the
same way as when he is acting in the interests of the moral
life. On the other hand, there are certain forms of mental
functioning which the student of ethics is not at liberty to
consider in precisely the same manner. A distinction may
then be drawn between such part of man's endowment for
the life of conduct as is more general and involves all his
so-called faculties, and such other part as may be more speci-
fic and distinguished by uniquely ethical activities. Perhaps,
indeed, the picture of a being v^ith a superb intellectual
outfit and an exquisitely cultivated aesthetical judgment and
sensibility, but quite without " conscience " in the popular
meaning of this word, is not impossible to construct.
Actual examples of men long dead or now living may be
pointed out, who have not failed to suggest the abstract
possibility of such a being. This possibility suggests a clas-
sification the fuller justification of which will follow in con-
nection with all the subsequent discussion of allied topics.

The ordinary division of the psychical activities or func-
tions may conveniently be adopted. Ethics, studied psycho-
logically, will then have to consider the possibility, and the
actual nature of (1) ethical feelings, (2) ethical cognition,
and (3) ethical volition or choice as a moral affair. In the
consideration of each class of the subjects suggested by this
tripartite division, it will be found that the previous two-
fold distinction must also be borne in mind. For certain
forms of feeling, of judgment, and of willing, will be found
to be ethical, in a more specific and unique way. The psy-
chological (whether, or not, it be also rational) primacy —

ANALYSIS OF MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS 61

the first position in the order of actual development — must
be given to the feelings, where our problem is that of tracing
the sources and the unfolding of the moral life of man,
whether of the individual or of the race.

The affective (or affectional) equipment of man for the
moral life consists in two classes of feelings. The first of
these includes such affections, emotions, passions, or other
forms of feeling (and here for the moment we may mention
certain impulses and appetites) as do not of themselves have
any special ethical significance, but by their intensity or
extensity, adjustment, and predominance or control, influ-
ence conduct and determine character. Much of this affective
equipment man shares with the lower animals, — as, for
example, anger, fear, shame, pride, jealousy, sympathy, etc.
Their sum-total, so to speak, constitutes the greater part of
what is popularly called each man's "disposition." In the
same category, with reference to the purposes of a philosophy
of conduct, may perhaps best be placed such impulses as
curiosity, acquisitiveness, the so-called instinct of self-
preservation, etc. It is these affective and impulsive quali-
ties of human nature which it is particularly difficult for
psychology to classify or even to discriminate and enumerate
with any degree of scientific completeness. It is they which,
when they are considered as habits or trained faculties under
the principle of moderation ("the mean "), Aristotle^ denom-
inated the "moral excellences " or virtues. Under what cir-
cumstances these affective and impulsive forms of functioning
take to themselves a more distinctively ethical quality, and
become entitled to such terms as "good" or "bad," in the
distinctively ethical meaning of the words, the discussion of
such problems as the nature of virtue and vice, the classifi-
cation of the virtues and the unity of virtue must be per-
mitted to show.

But besides such portion of man's moral endowment of
1 Nic. Eth., II,vf.

62 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

feeling as is constituted by his natural impulses, emotions,
and passions, in the relation which all these necessarily come
to sustain toward the life of conduct and the development of
character, there are certain unique forms of distinctively
ethical feeling. Of these the most primary and distinctive
— indeed, the distinctive and unique affective element in
moral consciousness — is a certain feeling which I will ven-
ture to call "the feeling of the ought" (or its opposite, "the
ought-not "). In its more developed form this affective
movement becomes the feeling of moral obligation. Closely
allied to, and yet by no means the same with, this feeling is
the feeling of ethical approbation (and its opposite). Of
these two, when they are compared, it is noticeable that the
former stands much nearer to the ultimate and unanalyzable
sources of the moral life of man. For ethics, or the science
of conduct, has already been distinguished as having to treat
of that which ought and ought-not to be done in conduct, and
with that which ought and ought-not to be in character. The
morally good is equivalent to that which "ought," and the
morally bad is that which, on the contrary, answers to the
title "ought-not." Unless man were endowed with, or
capable of developing the feeling of obligation, — that pecu-
liar and unique attitude toward certain kinds of conduct, — he
could not possibly lead the moral life. To himself, and so
far as his own self-consciousness is concerned, he could
neither be good nor bad morally. But the feeling of appro-
bation (or its opposite) is frequently, if not generally, almost
as much a hedonistic or sesthetical as a strictly ethical affair.
That is to say, the feeling of pleasant satisfaction which is
experienced on contemplating a morally good deed or an
upright character is ordinarily a mixture of sympathetic
happiness, sesthetical admiration, and gratified moral con-
sciousness. In case there is something naturally painful or
sesthetically ugly about the deed which, however, as viewed
from the moral point of view, one is still compelled to

ANALYSIS OF MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS 63

approve, a partial or complete separation of the elements
composing this mixture is effected. Even then, however, if
the person performing the deed is regarded as triumphing
over his own feelings of pain and of sesthetical repulsion in
the interests of a high moral ideal, the more strictly hedon-
istic and aesthetical elements of one's approbation return
with redoubled force. The father suffering keenly while he
punishes his well-beloved son, or the righteous judge with
sympathetic emotion condemning his dear friend, are the
subjects of a hedonistic and assthetical, as well as of a more
strictly ethical approbation.

The feeling of merit (or its opposite, the feeling of demerit)
should perhaps be added to the other two as belonging to the
more distinctly ethical endowment of man on the side of
affection or sentiment. But here the psychologist seems to
be dealing with states of consciousness yet more complex.
The workman in any line of art may well enough feel that he
deserves recognition for the good work that he has done,
whether or not he has wrought with a moral motive or in
accordance with rules laid down by the current conceptions
of virtue and of vice. The joy of work finished, or of inven-
tion and discovery, especially when difficulties have been
overcome, is not altogether alien from the ethical feeling of
merit. Thus we read of Gay-Lussac dancing about his labor-
atory when a piece of chemical research was successfully
accomplished ; and Niebuhr tells of a feeling which must be
akin to the Divine joy in creation, over his own well com-
pleted task. Still, of the feelings of merit and demerit, as
well as of the feelings of approbation and disapprobation,
when they attach themselves to the kind of conduct as
viewed from the moral standpoint, it seems true : there is to
be recognized in all these affectional movements of human
consciousness a specific fitness for the moral life.

Ethical cognition, or the knowledge, half-knowledge, and
opinion, which characterizes man's entire moral devel-

64 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

opment, is also a complex affair. Indeed, the completed
moral judgment has its roots in all the cognitive processes
and faculties. All human intellection is concerned in, and
determinative of, the life of conduct and the development of
character. But such cognition culminates, as do all the
processes which lead up to and are involved in a completed
act of knowledge, in a certain form of judgment. It is the
character of this judgment which furnishes the only distinc-
tive characteristic of the moral life in respect of its intellec-
tual or cognitive aspect.

The fuller exposition of the part which intellection plays
in man's moral life belongs to the doctrine of ethical judg-
ment and to the discussion of the virtues and of the vari-
ous theories as to the nature of the right. But the barest
preliminary analysis of human moral consciousness must
detect the following important facts. Any judgment upon
questions of the right or wrong in conduct implies a certain
cultivation of those intellectual activities which result in the
forming of ideals. Any considerable development of moral
character implies a relatively high degree of such culture.
It is man as capable of idealization who is also capable of
conduct in the profoundest and truest meaning of this
word. But the formation of ideals — the more emphati-
cally, the higher and nobler the ideals are — requires the
reflective and productive activity of thought, and the repro-
ductive and spontaneous activity of imagination. A growth
of that knowledge which is gained by experience as to the
appropriate and ordinarily successful means for realizing
(however imperfectly) his ideals, and growing capacity to
predict the consequences of conduct, are also an indispensable
portion of the intellectual equipment of man for the moral
life. All this, however, implies an elaborate development of
time-consciousness, and the formation of a more or less dis-
tinct and elaborate consciousness of self. It also implies the
unfolding of the faculty of recognitive memory, and of reas-

ANALYSIS OF MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS (55

oning from cause to effect, and from effect to cause. With-
out this forward-and-backward running of reason man could
not impute the consequences of good and bad conduct to the
personalities whose conduct has entered into the chain of
causal influences. We have thus far been considering those
processes terminating in ethical cognition which, although
an indispensable part of man's moral equipment, are not
themselves distinctively ethical.

A distinctively and uniquely ethical conception appears,
however, to be somehow involved in every act of judgment
whose subject is either a piece of conduct judged as such,
or some type or exhibition of character. This conception
forms the predicate of every genuinely ethical judgment.
For in every such judgment the conception " rightness " or
" wrongness " (in the peculiar meaning of these words which
ethics is forced to recognize) belongs to the predicate. Ethi-
cal judgment ^s an adjudging of the "right," or the "wrong,"
to conduct and to character. Such are the words which carry
in them the subtile essence that is distinctive of the result in
which all the powers and processes of human intelligence
express themselves, when they combine to form an ethical
pronouncement. What is it that human intelligence can do,
with all its wonderful development in comparison with the
lower animals, of the distinctively and uniquely moral sort ?
It can form and apply the category of the Right to conduct
and to character. In all his ethical judgments — and all his
intellectual equipment for the moral life culminates in acts
of judgment — man can use the predicate of rightness (or its
opposite) to characterize to himself and to others the peculiar
marks whose significance the science of ethics investigates.
Judging what is right and what is wrong, man is uniquely a
moral intelligence.

That some special development of the faculty of volition is
necessary to conduct and to the development of character is
admitted with a practical unanimity both by the unthinking

66 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

multitude and by the writers of the various schools of ethics.
From Aristotle to Leslie Stephen, from first to last even
among the more clearly pronounced of the Determinists, this
admission is the prevalent opinion. In order to actions
which deserve the name of moral virtues, Aristotle ^ holds
that the doer must choose to do them ; that only the volun-
tary is the praiseworthy he thinks to be the self-evident
opinion of all men. " Voluntary action, or action deter-
mined by the motives of the agent," says Leslie Stephen,^ " is
the definition of what is strictly conduct." We shall see
later on that this alleged universal testimony is by no means
so clear as is customarily supposed; and especially, that
the attribution of conduct to the Self, as somehow its own
(no matter how vague, inchoate, and inaccurate the concep-
tion may be of what constitutes a Self), is far more universal,
primary, and self-evident than is the testimony to the volun-
tary nature of all conduct. However, that man, on the side
of his volitions, is capable of a development which puts him
into control of himself in a manner quite superior to the
control exercised over their actions by any of the lower ani-
mals is a universal assumption of all human social relations ;
it is at once a presupposition and a conclusion of all psycho-
logical and ethnological investigation.

The proposition that man is possessed of a truly moral
freedom is not to be defended merely by taking the popular
voice or by accepting ready-made, as it were, the conclusions
of the libertarian philosopher. The popular voice does not
sound from depths that have no need of exploration ; the con-
clusions of philosophy are quite too often imported from
fields of systematic metaphysics that bear little resemblance
to the actual, living, moral consciousness of man. Only as
our reflection arises fresh from the skilful interpretation of
all the facts of this consciousness and keeps itself tolerably

1 Nich. Eth., II, iii, and III, i f . ; and passim.

2 The Science of Ethics, p. 239.

ANALYSIS OF MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS 67

clear of entanglements with the assumptions of physical
science and with the uncertain calculations of economics,
politics, and sociology, can it lead to that doctrine of moral
freedom which most fully satisfies the demands of the pro-
foundest ethical principles and the loftiest ethical ideals.
Meantime, the fact of analysis remains certain that a rela-
tively high degree of volitional faculty constitutes an in-
dispensable part of man's equipment for the moral life.
Whether man, considered as a Moral Self, has actually
achieved a distinctly new kind of freedom cannot be deter-
mined by a preliminary analysis.

Two supplementary observations may fitly finish the task
of this chapter. It is customary to say ^ that the feelings,
the emotions and sentiments — as, for example, anger, fear,
or even benevolence — are not " in themselves '' moral, are
indifferent, and neither good nor bad. But this saying is
also true of the cognitive and volitional factors of conduct ;
" in themselves " they have no moral value or significance,
because in themselves they have no existence whatever. I
cannot too much insist that the qualifications of moral good-
ness or badness, like all the other qualifications of human
nature, attach themselves to the entire psychical, complex
activity or attitude, — thought, feeling, will; or rather they
are the Self as in this attitude, as thus conducting itself.
Without ideas of value, and feeling appreciative of differing
values, and without experience as to the consequences of con-
duct and as to the means of realizing the ends of conduct,
man's willing and choosing would have no moral signifi-
cance. The same moral worthlessness attaches to the hav-
ing of ideas that stir no moral feeling, are not capable of
issuing in conduct, and cannot possibly be regarded as either
accepted and embraced or rejected and banished, by a deed
of will.

And, further, in the moral evolution of the individual

1 So, for example, Dewey (quoting Bentham), Outlines of Ethics, p. 6.

68 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

and of the race the entire Self must move forward as a unity,
and in a manner accordant with that close interdependence of
all the so-called faculties which the very nature of its uni-
tary being both requires and secures. As the customary
figures of speech permit us to say : A darkened mind or a
callous heart does not favor a good will ; nor can the good
will remain good which does not aim at and secure mental
illumination, the refining and elevating of the ideals, the
increase of wisdom, the quickening and the harmonizing of
the higher and nobler forms of sentiment.

CHAPTER Y

THE FEELING OF OBLIGATION

Into every genuinely human consciousness, into every sub-
ject of the truly human life there enters at some time a form
of emotional disturbance which is chronologically primary
and essential to the very idea of ethics, as well as the unique
possession of man. It is only when this feeling becomes at-
tached to the idea of a certain action, that the action becomes
conduct and the truly moral life begins. This statement must
be received as applying in the strictest way to the devel-
opment of moral consciousness in the individual ; but it may
be taken on grounds which, although largely speculative, are
quite tenable, to apply also to the development of morality
in the race. It follows from the very nature of this feeling,
as well as from the circumstances of its first origin in human
consciousness, that all analysis ends with its recognition;
neither the memory of the individual, nor any sort of records
kept by mankind, can recall and represent the occasions or
the conditions of its origin in the race. As in similar cases,
however, it is possible in this case to place on a firm basis
of observed facts our views as to what takes place in the de-
velopment of the individual, and to make out an acceptable
argument as to what must have taken place in the history of
the race.

By their language and their customs, considered both in
the keeping and in the revolt against them, and by all their
judgments, whether more or less reflective, men quite uni-
versally show the feeling of obligation. It is only by the

70 PHILOSOPHY OP CONDUCT

infusion of this feeling into those excellences of conduct and
of character which are called the virtues, that these excel-
lences become regarded as duties and accepted as affording
some sort of a mandate to the will. " I ought " (or " I ought
not "), " he ought " (or its opposite), this deed or class of
actions "ought to be done," but the other deed or class of
actions "ought not to be done " — such expressions of judg-
ment as these are the commonplaces of the talk of mankind
in all times and communities, and under every variety of
intellectual and social development. But the universal pres-
ence and the perpetual recurrence of those feelings and judg-
ments to which such expressions bear indisputable testimony,
are not more impressive than is the marvellous variety of
opinions and practices which emerge to answer the question:
What, then, do men generally feel and judge that they
ought to do ? In illustration of this variety it is only neces-
sary in the present connection to refer to such shocking
extremes as are exhibited by those who, like certain Kam-
chatkans and Mongolians tolerate or approve of murder,
adultery, and theft, but verily think that he who scrapes
snow from his shoes with a knife, or lays iron in the fire, or
strikes his horse with the rein, ought to be punished with
death. It is plainly necessary, then, for the student who
approaches the problems of ethics from the psychological and
ethnological point of view to admit a very important distinc-
tion at this place in his survey of the field of ethics. " The
feeling of the ought ^^ is primary^ essential^ unique; the judg-
ments as to what one ought are the result of environment^ edu-
cation^ and reflection.

I have just said that the feeling of obligation in its most
original form defies further analysis. By this statement it
is not meant that this feeling does not ordinarily, or even
universally, arise blended or mixed with other forms of feel-
ing and associated with a certain content of perception or
of ideas. All states of consciousness in which the affective

THE FEELING OF OBLIGATION 71

aspect is most emphasized are a blend, or a confusion, of
various elements which psychological analysis may be able to
detect, but which are rarely or never found existing separate
in the actual life of the soul. Simple feelings, like simple
sensations, are only theoretical factors of the conscious
states. Nature's chemistry is synthetic here ; and the con-
centration of the mind's point of self-regard upon any one
aspect of the psychical complex only serves to recognize its
existence within the complex, but not to impart to it exist-
ence apart from the complex ; or even to justify the opinion
that simple psychoses can have any such separate existence.
Thus with the "feeling of the ought." This feeling may be
— although as to this it is difficult and perhaps impossible
to say with perfect confidence — always connected with feel-
ings of the pleasure-pain sort. Or, if the expression be pre-
ferred, it may be claimed that the feeling of obligation, like
all other feelings, always has some tone of either pleasure or
pain. That men do recognize duties which are pleasant and
other duties which are painful, as well as both pleasant and
painful vices, is an indubitable fact. And no amount of
theoretical manipulation or practical quibbling can destroy
the significance of this fact. It may also be true that the
feeling of obligation, especially and of necessity in all its
historical development, always has some content of thought
to which it is attached. About this, however, some doubt
may properly be expressed when we have regard to the many
hidden and mysterious ways in which the feeling arises.
But, whatever position may be taken upon these and all
similar questions of psychological analysis, it still remains
true, to admit the fact that habitually, or even universally
and necessarily, conscious pleasure or pain, and a content
of idea, blends with and modifies and defines the feeling of
obligation, is not the same thing as to hold that this feeling
can be resolved into, or classified with the pleasure-pains.
When adult men say, "I ought," or other words equivalent

72 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

to these, they are customarily expressing a complex attitude
of mind toward a particular piece of conduct. Like every
other attitude of mind that which is thus expressed involves
feeling, thought, and will. And, indeed, one may empha-
size either of these three aspects of the total situation by
modifying one's expression. Thus one may emphasize the
emotional factor by declaring: " I feel (more or less intensely'
and unswervingly) that I ought," or may lay stress upon the
intellectual factor, the presence of judgment, by saying;
"I think (more or less clearly, and with consciousness of
reasons or grounds) that I ought;" or even; "I must indeed,
and I shall, because I ought " — in this way bringing into
evidence the volitional impulse or rational mandate given to
the will. Separating in thought, what cannot be found
wholly apart in the actual life of the Self, the conclusion is
justified that this feeling of the ought is not to be identified
with any other content of human consciousness.

But although we cannot, strictly speaking, explain the
feeling of obligation by resolving it into any other form of
feeling, we may observe and describe the occasions on which
it probably arises in the life of the individual man. And
here the patent and the most important fact is this; no
moral life originates with the individual as an experience
isolated from his social environment. From the first the
human offspring is a member of the family, of the tribe, of
the larger or smaller social community, and perhaps of the
state or nation. It is idle in this connection to conjecture
whether the human child, if born and reared without any
environment or education which in any way embodied and
enforced some system of concrete judgments as to the right
and wrong of conduct, could experience — not to say develop
— the feeling of obligation. The very conditions of the con-
tinuance and the nurture of the physical life of the infant
render it impossible to obtain any trustworthy evidence in
support of such a conjecture. We have no satisfactory evi-

THE FEELING OF OBLIGATION 78

dence to determine whether the " wolf -children " of India,
or the wild men of the woods, show any traces of a feeling
of obligation, the occasion of whose origin is not connected
with some quasi-social environment.

This ought-consciousness, even in its most primitive form,
may be said to have both its positive and its negative poles;
it is, by nature and essentially, a binding to and a binding
not-to, — a feeling which goes with the judgment, I ought
to do this or 1 ought not to do that. It is probable, however,
that as a rule this emotional disturbance first arises in con-
sciousness in some concrete but negative form : It begins as
a feeling of repulsion when some natural impulse receives
its check by coming into collision with the system of cus-
toms or laws which constitute a part of every individual's
social environment.

It would seem also that, in order to convert the feeling of
repulsion awakened by any painful experience into a nega-
tive feeling of obligation, the enforcement of the prohibitory
custom or law must be recognized as arising from a personal
source. The memory-image of the pain of burning teaches
the child that it should not again take in hand the hot
coal or drink from the steaming cup of milk. The linger-
ing reminiscence of how the dog reacted after its tail had
been carelessly or sportively trodden upon by the child
stirs up and enforces a consciousness more nearly resembling
the first crude beginnings of the feeling of obligation.
And, indeed, in its earlier experiences, things, animals,
and its fellow human beings are not clearly distinguished,
either as respects the feelings entertained toward them or
as respects the feelings with which the childish imagina-
tion has endowed them. From this point of view the child
who punishes with a kick the stone that has stumbled him,
and the savage who threatens or destroys the fetish which
has failed to bring him the fitting good luck, are very
much in the same attitude of mind. In the case of the

74 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

animal no long time is needed to discover that, whatever
may be the feelings of the stone or of the fetish, it has within
a well-spring of appetites and passions similar to the child's
own, and a store of like painful and pleasurable experiences.
It is not unlikely, however, that the cause of the abused
animal may be espoused by some human being who has either
the rights of ownership in it, or is moved to protect the
animal's interest by either anger or fear, or sympathy. In
any such case as this other more intelligible signs of a social
and at least quasi-morsil disapprobation are brought to the
attention of the offending child. The "should-not," or
"better-not," unless you want to get hurt, becomes an
" ought-not " because it is not right, because the act causes
pain to some other sentient life. It is probable, however,
that those influences tending to stir the more primitive mov-
ings of the consciousness of the ought, which come from his
earlier relations with things and animals, are relatively insig-
nificant when compared with those that are due to the same
child's more direct transactions with human beings. And
here the principles of imitation and of what may be called
tribal sympathy are very important. The former of these
influences is a powerful factor in the education of certain
selected classes of actions, — those, namely, which constitute
the forms of conduct preferred by the life of the community.
The physical conditions, or the economic and religious con-
siderationsj in which the customs originated may have been
long ago forgotten. They may, indeed, never have been
brought to a clear, conscious recognition by the popular
mind. But such ignorance as this has no influence whatever
to deter the unreflecting child or adult from falling in with
the custom ; — and this all the more heartily if he has earlier
been made the subject of painful impressions on account of
either an impulsive or a more deliberate breach of any of
the prevalent forms of conduct. All expressions of social
disapprobation serve to stir the movements of the conscious

THE FEELING OF OBLIGATION 75

feeling of the " ought-not ; " the less frequent and pronounced
expressions of social approbation arouse the feeling which
answers to the words "I ought;" and the principle of imi-
tation, so universal, so powerful, so little dependent upon
thought, re-enforces and repeats unceasingly the occasions
for both these allied forms of the feeling of obligation. Thus
this distinctively ethical emotion separates itself in con-
sciousness from the accompanying feelings of pleasure and
pain; and thus, although always attended by them, it be-
comes more and more discernible as just that peculiar and
distinctively social and moral feeling which it is — having
a character to fit it for its most primeval and essential
position in man's endowment for the moral life.

Man, like all the other higher animals, and more power-
fully and intelligently than any of them, is under the influ-
ence of tribal sympathy. He feels a strong and almost
irresistible tendency, the origin and significance of which he
by no means wholly comprehends, to share in the emotions
and sentiments of the community of his fellows. For sympa-
thy appears, when understood in the most fundamental way,
to be no one particular form of affective excitement. It is
the rather that tendency of which all human beings partake
to run together in common channels of feeling, — be this
feeling of whatsoever kind. Thus the title " sympathetic "
applies to all the natural forms of human emotion and senti-
ment; and our investigation of man's equipment for the
moral life must take account of sympathetic anger, sympa-
thetic fear, sympathetic pride, etc., — on to the end of the
chapter which enumerates the different forms of feeling
common to mankind. To classify the various passions and
affections, then, as "egoistic" and "altruistic," is to pre-
pare the way for a confusion of qualifications that are dis-
tinctly different by making at the outset a distinction which
is false. Anger, fear, pride, jealousy, etc., and love and
hate, may all be either egoistic or altruistic ; and as a rule

76 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

they all are both, because they are rarely free from the in-
fluence of a sympathetic tendency to share in the feelings of
the tribe.

It is plain, however, that the words "tribe " and "tribal "
must be, in this connection, somewhat liberally interpreted.
In the dawn of the moral life, when the feeling of obligation
is just emerging into consciousness, one's " tribe " is repre-
sented by the few individuals of the same — namely, the
human kind, who constitute the more definite social environ-
ment. These are the objects which the child early comes to
recognize as, more than other things including the lower
animals, like itself. It is, indeed, the reactions that take
place in its relations with such like objects, which enable the
child to constitute itself as a moral Self in social intercourse
with other moral selves. Naturally, instinctively, and at
first quite irresistibly, the human infant feels the impulse to
the same emotions and sentiments which those of its own
peculiar kind show that they feel. Thus, not only does it
come to imitate them in all their fixed forms of action, but
also to accompany these actions with the same forms of feel-
ing which they display. In this manner does the feeling of
the ought become intensified, made more distinctly social ;
thus does the feeling get itself fixed in connection with those
definite, concrete actions which the community prescribes to
the individual as the right form of conduct for him. For
there is something painful and unnatural in an individual's
not feeling with the other individuals of his own kind. In
some such way, I believe, is the origin of the feeling of ought-
ness to be described, and its earlier developments explained.

So far as the earlier exhibitions of the feeling of obliga-
tion on the part of the race are concerned, they appear to
resemble those of the individual member of the race. But
here observation, as well as memory, soon fails to furnish
trustworthy facts. But the truth, as supported by ethno-
logical and anthropological researches, is as follows: The

THE FEELING OF OBLIGATION 77

individual members of the more childish and undeveloped
tribes and races show signs of a strong but blind and un-
intelligent feeling of obligation binding them, under the
influence of the psychological forces of imitation and sym-
pathy, to those forms of conduct which are the fixed customs
of the same tribes and races. Here, as in the case of the
individual in early life, even among the most upright and
intelligent communities, custom and morality are nearly
identical. For the feeling of oughtness is first aroused and
trained to service in the behalf of the prevalent customs.
At the moment when the custom is either obeyed or dis-
obeyed, with an accompanying excitement of this peculiar
emotion, the moral life on the side of feeling has already
begun. For there has arisen in the human consciousness a
disturbance which is significant of something having another
value than that of mere pleasure^ and which is pregnant with
the promise of another than the merely sensuous or intellectual
life.

It should be noticed in this connection that the early
movements of the feeling of obligation are very frequently
strongest in the direction of that which is sensuously painful
or repulsive. Indeed, this is probably the rule. In the
family or tribe where the code of conduct is most simple and
void of compliance with the principles of a high-toned moral-
ity, the sufferings which excite and enforce the feeling, "I
ought not," ordinarily much exceed the pleasures which are
experienced through satisfaction of the feeling, "I ought."
The boy trained to picking and stealing commonly has small
share in the proceeds of success in his art. But if he fails,
or if he turns his acquired skill against those who have
trained him and have habitually profited by his success, his
sufferings become the more abundant. And if we try to
apply any theory which identifies even the crudest begin-
nings of the feeling of obligation with any member of the
pleasure-pain series, in the case of multitudes of the race.

78 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

and especially where the mysterious but almost omnipotent
motives of religion are felt; what anomalies arise! Here
one might appeal to instances like the following : — to the
ignorant devotee of popular Hinduism, who feels that he
ought to make his disgusting beverage of the secretions of
the sacred cow ; or to the learned and honored chief justice
of one of the provinces of India who considered it his duty
daily to drink the water in which his mother had washed her
feet!

To take other instances ; the strictest of the Jains will not
drink water which has not been boiled by some one else, or
breathe in air which has not been filtered through some
screen, lest perchance, they may violate the feeling of obli-
^j-ation not to destroy animal life. But the English milord
takes pride in publishing the scores of thousands of living
things, to kill which he has with good conscience devoted
himself as to his life sport. The former looks upon the
latter as guilty of the most heinous crimes; the latter
regards the former as being, on account of his silly supersti-
tion, somewhat beneath contempt. But after all, if the two
are coming upon any common ground of meeting within the
domain of ethical feeling, the one must acknowledge the
obligation to suffer one's self rather than destroy another's
good ; and the other must smother the obligation not to
destroy another's good by strictly attending rather to the
satisfaction of his own desire for pleasure. Which is the
more moral of the two does not concern us at this point.

Undoubtedly, feelings of selfish interest, and the desire
to earn for one's self the greater reward mingle in all
these and similar instances. But whoever, with lawyer-like
subtlety, argues that these elements solve the problem of the
entire conscious state, and that we have not here to deal
with something quite distinctive and unique, simply does
not know his case.

It appears, then, that the student of ethics must assume,

THE FEELING OF OBLIGATION 79

as the necessary presupposition of the origin and develop-
ment of the moral life, the existence in man's consciousness
of the germinal feeling of obligation. In its earliest
manifestations this feeling is vague and obscure, as is the
case with all emotional excitements; and, like all other
forms of feeling, it is mixed with emotional excitements of
a different order and kind. But there it is — defying further
analysis, yet demanding recognition as something quite
peculiar in the complex content of the individual soul.
Like the other earlier manifestations of psychical life, we
can rarely or never put our finger precisely upon the time of
its origin; but, as a rule, it appears whenever by rod, or
gesture, or language coming from one of his own kind, the
natural impulses of the child are checked and corrected
through a conflict with the custom of his social environment.
Much less can its origin be traced with the whole race
of men, by any possible extension of anthropological re-
searches. Man, as man, is from the first equipped with
this peculiar form of feeling in reaction upon his existing
social environment.

And moreover, although one can never speak with a per-
fect confidence respecting one's analysis of the consciousness
of the lower animals, there is sufficient reason to hold that
the feeling of obligation is uniquely human. We have no
evidence that an emotional excitement, much less a rational
judgment, corresponding to the phrase, "I ought," ever
arises in the mind of any of the lower animals. Anger,
fear, pride, jealousy, sympathy, love and hate, they share
with man. In these forms of feeling they are, if you please,
our younger and weaker brethren. Under the influence of
such emotions they perform deeds which have the semblance
of human virtues, and which we cannot help (and need not
try to help) admiring with a truly ethical approbation.
We admire these actions, with a truly ethical and not merely
an aesthetical admiration ; because we feel that they are the

80 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

actions which, under the circumstances, ought to be done.
Were we so situated, as is the cat whose kittens are in
danger of burning or the dog whose master is attacked, and
tempted to sacrifice our feeling of duty to the instinct of self-
preservation, we feel that our highest satisfaction would
come in resistance to the temptation. That the animal is
tempted, as we are tempted, that a feeling of obligation is
aroused in favor of that which is threatening to the interests
of the pleasure-pain sort, that resistance to the temptation
will be followed by the feeling of a satisfied moral conscious-
ness, — all this, and all that is strictly of the same order as
this, there is apparently no sufficient reason for attributing
to the animal consciousness. But whatever psychology and
biology may enable us to decide about all this (and it is
entirely unlikely that they will ever enable us to decide in
view of any newly discovered reasons), the truth of ethics
remains unchanged. Man has this feeling of obligation.
In its most primitive form, it is peculiar, distinctively
moral, and to be recognized and classed apart. Its first
appearance in any series of conscious states marks the
dawning, the first distinctive fact of the moral life.

It is the more necessary to insist upon this result of the
analysis of the content of moral consciousness, because con-
fusion or lack of clearness here is apt to vitiate all one's
subsequent theoretical conclusions. This is especially true
of those writers on ethics who advocate unreservedly the
purely Eudaemonistic and evolutionary points of view.
Their psychological basis is in general not well taken.
What, for example, but such lack of clear analysis could
lead Mr. Leslie Stephen,^ with that splendid but scarcely
justifiable confidence which characterizes those who expect
to find all the sources of a valid view of ethical problems in
the still muddy and rapidly shifting currents of biological
evolution, to deny the unique character of the feeling func-

1 The Science of Ethics, p. 311 f.

THE FEELING OF OBLIGATION 81

tion of so-called conscience by contrasting it with the opera-
tions of the sense of hearing ? " " The ear, " says he, " decides
authoritatively that certain sounds are discordant and others
harmonious. " But conscience does not so decide. Now the
illustration is most apt in contradiction of the view it is
designed to illustrate. As mere feeling, the ear "decides"
nothing; as mere feeling, conscience decides nothing.
Decision in matters of sense or of conduct is an affair of the
judgment. The psychological facts are these: In the one
case a form of pleasurable or painful feeling arises which is
capable of becoming modified and cultivated, while not
essentially altered ; and so of being the emotional basis, as
it were, for a certain class of judgments, for a certain kind
of aesthetical satisfaction and aesthetical development. By
making the necessary changes a similar declaration may be
confidently ventured with respect to the relations in which
the feeling of obligation stands to the origin and develop-
ment of the moral life. It is, probably, about as correct to
say that the lower animals have no true feelings of harmony
or discord as to say that they have no true feeling of obliga-
tion. Both these classes of feelings have to be assumed
before one can advance a single step in comprehending either
the aesthetical or the moral development of man. How,
too, does Professor Sidgwick completely miss the mark at
this point by identifying the question as to the primary char-
acter of this kind of affective consciousness with the ques-
tion as to the " rationality " of conduct ! ^

After accepting the general correspondence to the facts
of this account of the most primitive feeling which charac-
terizes the beginnings of man's moral life, it is not difficult
to trace its unfolding in a series of judgments and habits of
action. For the emotional excitement out of which emerges
the consciousness of obligation is not wont to occur without
some definite occasion and content of an intellective and

1 The Methods of Ethics, book I, chap. iii.
6

82 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

volitional sort. As everywhere else in the psychical life,
so in the more distinctly ethical forms of that life, it is con-
crete, individual experiences and not abstract conceptions or
any slightest grasp upon general principles, in which the
origins of morality must be sought. The simple initial fact
in the evolution of the moral consciousness of the individual
is this: the feeling of oughtness gets itself connected with
the idea of a certain action and, of course also, with the
inner experience in which this action has its impulse or its
motive. For example, under the spur of anger the young
human animal strikes a blow; or moved by impulsive desire
it snatches and craftily conceals another's toy. Or, yet
again, the influence of imitation and of impulsive sympathy
leads the child to surrender to some fellow a portion of its
own good. The expressions of social approval or disap-
proval thus called forth, may easily constitute a first lesson
in morals. Pain reinforces the negative pole of the feeling
of obligation; pleasure, its positive pole. For although
pleasure-pains never form the essential whole of the feeling
of being morally bound ; they do serve to bind this feeling
to certain definite, concrete actions and to their originating
or accompanying states of consciousness.

Next in the evolution of the moral life must be noted the
effect of repetition and the operation of the law of habit.
This is true both of the individual and of the race. For the
study of ethics never discovers the individual in any situa-
tion where he is not compelled by his social environment to
the repetition of certain experiences and to the formation
of the corresponding habits. Nor is it possible to conceive of
the whole of mankind, or of any isolated portion of the race,
as beginning their ethical development in a vacuum from
which all the residuary habits of their ancestors have been
removed. Always and everywhere, the experiences which
tend to connect the feeling of obligation with certain con-
crete kinds of conduct are sure to be repeated. Thus habits

THE FEELING OF OBLIGATION 83

of association are formed between definite actions and the
ethical feeling of obligation.

It is certain that in the earlier stages of moral evolution
only a minimum of judgment, and little or no attempt to
form abstract conceptions of right and wrong, accompanies
the advances of the moral life. Neither in ethical nor in
other concernments, do men first generalize and then experi-
ence the feelings appropriate to their generalizations. The
child of an advanced civilization and the childish savage
both proceed from feeling to judgment rather than in the
reverse direction. Therefore that is first judged to be right
which has actually, through the powerful influence of the
social environment, aroused the feeling of oughtness; and
that is judged to be wrong which has, through the same
influences working in the opposite direction been welded to
the feeling, I ought not. In the first instance of argument
with one's self, if argument at all there be, the reasoning of
the unfolding moral Self runs as follows: I judge this wrong,
because the idea of it excites the feeling of ought-not ; but
I judge that right, because the idea of it excites the feeling,
I ought. In a word, the earlier inchoate forms of moral
judgment are made upon a basis of the feeling of obligation,
after this feeling of obligation has been aroused, directed,
and associated according to forms pre-existing in the in-
dividual's social environment.

But the relation which judgments of this class sustain to
the feeling of obligation does not remain unchanged. The
second stage in the cultivation of the " ought-consciousness"
is quickly reached. In this stage judgment begins to take
the lead; a growing intelligence assumes the guidance of
feeling. Certain attitudes of the moral Self toward particular
forms of conduct which express these attitudes are now
to be made the basis of generalizations which bring them
under the predicates "wrong" and "right." The condi-
tions of reaching this second stage of moral development

84 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

require attention to the following three considerations.
Language is the first, if not the indispensable condition of
such development. Human society informs its new members
by speech as to what they must judge about different kinds
of conduct under the category belonging to all conduct.
This category is, of course, that of the morally right (and
its opposite). Early judgments that are not merely expres-
sive of impulsive or habitual forms of feeling, but are the
result and the expression of a process of generalization are
themselves, for the most part, taught in words. In matters
of conduct these words signify the approbation or disappro-
bation, the collective "ought-consciousness," of the social
environment. They convey to the child the resultants of the
forces which have worked through generations of experience
to produce a certain average moral status, in those forms of
conception and judgment which human language permits.
It is not right to lie, to steal, to strike in anger; or, at
least, it is wrong to lie to some persons, if permissible in
other cases; it is wrong to steal from one's parents or one's
"pals," although encouraged by them to steal, when others
are the victims, etc. The acceptance, out of deference to
pre-existent and all-encompassing social authority, of a cer-
tain set of rules, precepts, maxims, or other forms of gener-
alized judgments, reverses in a measure the relation hitherto
maintained between the intellect and the feeling of obliga-
tion. The order of relation in the quasi-moral argument now
becomes somewhat as follows : I feel that I ought not to do
this, because — as I have been taught and, therefore, myself
judge — it is wrong ; or I feel that I ought to do that, be-
cause I know that it is right. In this second stage of the
cultivation of the feeling of obligation, feeling tends rather
to follow judgment than, as in the earlier stage, wholly to
determine it.

In this connection, however, another set of considerations
becomes most important. These concern the effects of a

THE FEELING OF OBLIGATION 85

fusion of the " ought-consciousness " with particular passions
and affections so as to make the latter themselves the objects
of the feeling of oughtness. It is in the fact of such a fusion
that the view of the so-called " Emotional Intuitionists " finds
its support. The fact is significant and undoubted. But
the view taken by these theorists misinterprets the signifi-
cance of the fact through misunderstanding its psychological
nature and origin. " In a Creature capable of forming gen-
eral Notions of Things," says Lord Shaftesbury, ^ "not only
the outward Beings which offer themselves to the Sense, are
the Objects of Affection; but the very Actions themselves,
and the Affections of Pity, Kindness, Gratitude, and their
Contrarys, being brought into the Mind by Reflection, be-
come Objects. So that, by means of this reflected Sense,
there arises another kind of Affection toward those very
Affections themselves, which have been already felt, and are
now become the Subject of a new Liking or Dislike." Now
that the feeling of obligation becomes attached to, or fused
with, the different forms of affective excitement, so that men
come to regard these forms as partaking of that quality to
which the ought-consciousness responds, is an obvious ex-
perience. But the experience is not a proof, it is not even
an indication of the truthfulness of that view which regards
some of these passions and affections as having inherently a
superior moral quality (or, indeed, any moral quality at all) ;
or which represents conscience as the innate tact or faculty
of judgment capable of discriminating this inherent superior
quality. All the natural passions and affections of man —
anger, fear, pride, jealousy, sympathy, love, and hate — are
in themselves equally moral, or rather non-moral. But by
their mixture with each other, their attachment to the
feeling of obligation, their indulgence or control by the
intellect in the pursuit of various ends, they become either

1 Inquiry, Book I, Part ii, Section 3 j See L. A. Selby-Bigge, British Moral-
ists, I, p. 11.

86 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

good or bad. All these passions and affections alike may be
called the "stuff" or raw material of certain virtues and
vices. Their virtuousness or viciousness does not arise from
the insight of any inborn or quasi-divine faculty of feeling or
of judgment, but is created by the connections brought about
between them and the " ought-consciousness" as the result of
early education and of social influences.

In communities where ethical development is still in a
low and relatively primitive stage (and this is true in not a
few respects of the most highly civilized [sic] and so-called
Christian communities), certain kinds of anger, fear, pride,
jealousy, and hate, which a refined and rational morality con-
demns, are not only tolerated but are approbated as though
they were the most fundamental, if not the most exalted of
the virtues. In communities which have reached a higher
stage of ethical development, the force of the feeling of obli-
gation may give to the natural and equally non-moral feel-
ings of pity, kindness, gratitude (though to this last, most
rarely of all), a character which a still higher point of view
must regard with doubt when the claim is set up that these
feelings are the chiefest and most distinctively right forms
of affection. The truth is obvious enough ; it is simply this.
The frequent arousing of the consciousness of obligation in
connection with any form of the passions and affections
seems, in the first instance, to make men blindly feel that
some of them ought, and others ought not, to exist in con-
sciousness or to be indulged. Judgments affirming the obli-
gation are immediately framed in view of this fusion of
feeling; these judgments are also taught in terms which
express to the individual the formulated moral law of his
social superiors. So that, if at first the child simply feels
the obligation to indulge or to control anger, pride, etc., and
bases its more primitive judgments on this feeling, it soon
accepts the judgment, It is right (or wrong) to indulge anger,
pride, etc. ; and feels that, because ib is right (or wrong),

THE FEELING OF OBLIGATION 8T

anger, pride, etc., ought (or ought not) to be indulged (or to
be controlled).

A certain primacy of feeling in the actual order of the
moral life may, then, properly be maintained. But to main-
tain (as does, for example, Hermann Schwarz) that we
immediately feel the worth of sympathy to be higher than
that of selfishness is to mistake the psychology of moral
feeling, and the history of the evolution of customs and of
morality. For psychology knows no such simple form of
feeling or mental principle of any sort as selfishness ; and,
as we have already seen (p. 75 f. ), sympathy is a word which
must stand for that universal tendency to feel with the feeling
of the other members of the same species which belongs to
man everywhere, and, indeed, to many species of the lower
animals.

Certain forms of man's varied emotional equipment are,
indeed, much more likely than others to lead to attacks upon
the person and property of others, and so to wrong-doing
whether in the form of a breach of custom or a violation of
the precepts of the higher morality. Certain other forms are
much more frequently on the side, as it were, of established
custom and of the purer moral precept. Thus anger, jeal-
ousy, and hate are in the main, and rightly, esteemed wrong
by the cultivated moral consciousness ; pity, generosity, and
love are deemed to have a higher worth when they appear
for judgment at the bar where refined feeling renders its
verdict. On the other hand, however, anger, jealousy, and
even hatred, safeguard not only the rights of the individual
but also the marital and other rights of the family, the tribe,
and the nation ; — yes, in the last resort, the sacred and
eternal rights of the weak and defenceless members of the
human race against the violent or the insidious endeavors of
the unscrupulous rich and the strong. And the individual,
or the race, that had not just these forms of emotional
excitement committed — however fitfully and imperfectly —

88 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

to the interests of moral development would have small
chance indeed of realizing the moral ideal. How far off the
most civilized communities are at present from this ideal may
be judged by this among many other indications : they can
scarcely conceive of these emotions being other than selfish ;
while unthinking pity, generous use of the fruits of injus-
tice, and injudicious and injurious love are without further
critical examination commended as giving satisfaction to the
consciousness of obligation.

When then, as Lord Shaftesbury said, " the affections of
pity, kindness, gratitude, and their contraries," become
themselves "the objects of affection," "the subjects of a new
liking or dislike," a new phase in the culture of the con-
sciousness of obligation results. The human being begins
to feel : I ought (or ought-not) to be angry, jealous, fearful,
pitiful, generous, kind, etc. From the very nature of human
society, the so-called altruistic feelings come, on the whole,
to have upon their side the feeling of obligation — at least,
within the limits of the community which is regarded as
constituting the individual's peculiar social environment.
Such a stage of ethical development is, as a rule, embodied
in the social principle : Every man ought to love his neighbor
and hate his enemy.

A third set of considerations serves to make clearer the
place which the feeling of obligation holds in the original
equipment and continuous development of the moral life.
As in the case of all other judgments, so in respect of judg-
ments concerning the right and wrong of conduct, men grow
in knowledge by asking and answering the question. Why ?
In this case also, as in the case of all kinds of judgments,
the answer may be either specious or genuine. It may serve
to satisfy the demand for explanation either by distracting
the attention or by disclosing a real reason. When I say: I
judge this to be right, because I feel it ought to be done ; or
that wrong, because 1 feel it ought not to be done, the import

THE FEELING OF OBLIGATION 89

of my judgment is still simply this: I have the feeling of
obligation to do or not to do. That is to say, the judgment
is declarative of a subjective and mainly affective attitude of
the Self. The word " because " adds no real reason to the
judgment. When, however, I say: I both judge and feel
this class of actions to be right, and the other to be wrong,
because they are accordant with, or contrary to, the precept,
maxim, law, or custom, which has become a part of my
intellectual equipment for the moral life, then I do ground
both judgment and feeling in reasons that lie in part beyond
themselves.

But a still further stage in moral development is inevi-
table. Some time and somehow — perhaps frequently and in
many ways — the child growing to adult life and influenced
by varied experiences, asks of the very judgments it has
unthinkingly accepted from society still a reason, Why ?
As in other matters, so in ethical concernments, the preva-
lent maxims, precepts, laws, and customs must account to
the intellect of the individual for their own right to exist-
ence as the guides and lords of his moral life. And with
the raising of this question there goes inevitably a new agi-
tation of the feeling of obligation ; — an inquiry whether,
after all, this feeling itself " ought to " maintain its own
time-honored attachments and associations ! The problem :
" Ought I really to feel as I actually feel I ought ? " is surely
one of the strangest and yet most significant and interesting
of all problems. Its meaning and its bearings upon the
nature and the development of man's moral life can be
understood only when we have considered in detail the sig-
nificance of the phrase which was added to the definition of
the sphere of ethics — a study of human conduct as related
to a rational ideal.

The further exposition of the part which the feeling of
obligation plays in the moral development of man requires
that the working of other faculties in his equipment for the

90 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

life of conduct should be taken into the account. In part the
origin, nature, and cultivation of ethical judgments must be
discussed before we can understand the later forms of this
consciousness of oughtness. But two or three classes of
familiar phenomena deserve at least a reference in this con-
nection. First, it may readily be seen that vacillations and
uncertainties of this form of ethical feeling are inevitable.
These are not simply due to its obscuration and blunting by
the so-called selfish emotions. Doubt about the rightfulness
of the control of the feeling of obligation by the current rules
of conduct is essential to a higher development of the indi-
vidual and of the race. But such doubt inevitably leads to
the disturbance of the feeling and to its possible detachment
from its old associations. While this feeling trembles in
the balance, as it were, between the old and the new point
of attachment an important influence is being exercised upon
the entire attitude of the individual toward the conception
of duty and toward the dutiful life. In large communities,
and over continents occupied by different races and different
constitutions of existing society, periods of " illumination "
are always connected with unusual disturbances in morals
and in the moral consciousness. This was true of the epoch
when the Sophists became prominent in Greece, of the
Renaissance in the Middle Ages, of the Avfklarung in Europe
in the eighteenth century ; it is true of to-day in connection
with the modern discoveries of ethnology and with the appli-
cation of some of the cruder views of biological evolution to
the development of morality in the human race.

And, second, the place of the feeling of obligation in the
moral life explains, in part, how divergent views as to the
nature and authority of so-called "conscience" may arise.
To speak of a conscience, or the conscience is likely to
induce misunderstanding of the most primary data of psy-
chological ethics. Moral consciousness man has ; or, rather,
he is essentially a moral consciousness. But in this moral

THE FEELING OF OBLIGATION 91

nature of his consciousness are found involved all of his so-
called faculties, or powers, in so far as they have reference
to the production and the criticism of conduct. No wonder,
then, that those theorists who appeal solely to the feeling of
obligation fail to convince others who take their appeal to the
bar of an enlightened judgment. And just as little wonder
that the latter, when they offend the feeling of obligation by
their coolly intellectual judgments, run the risk of being
described as essentially immoral in their standards of judg-
ment. Thus fine feeling and sound judgment in matters of
conduct may seem to be involved in a perpetual conflict.

But, third, these same considerations show how this kind
of conflict in morals, with all the tragedy to which these
words indubitably bear witness is the fate of the individual
and of the race, — the price that must be paid for all
essential progress under existing social conditions toward
the realization of the moral ideal. If moral judgment, based
on grounds that lie outside itself and beyond the reach of
mere feeling, is ever to be framed, then feeling and judg-
ment must betimes come into conflict. But since the rational
man feels the obligation to be rational, — and, sometimes,
as his supremest obligation, — therefore the feeling of obli-
gation is liable to be divided against itself. He who has
not judged that he ought not to do that which he, neverthe-
less, still feels that he ought to do has probably not yet
passed beyond the earliest stages of moral development.

And, finally, we are now prepared in a general way to give
an opinion upon one of the contentions of the extreme
evolutionary school in ethics. This school would make out
that all which concerns the feeling of obligation is relative,
is subject to evolution. In the case of the individual man
such a conclusion plainly is not true to the facts in the case.
With the individual the most primary movings of an "ought-
consciousness " are not modifications of the pleasure-pain
feeling, or of any of those forms of emotional excitement

92 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

which are so often improperly divided into egoistic and
altruistic. On the other hand, the most primary forms of
the quasi-ethical judgments are only propositions stating
the fact of the arousement of this feeling, and the particular
actions to which this feeling makes its earliest and firmest
attachments are explicable by reference to influences of
education and environment. In the later development of
the Moral Self, the feeling of obligation becomes modified
and changed in its associations by the changed character of
the same influences, as these influences work upon all the
passions and affections, and upon a system of increasingly
intelligent judgments.

Thus do man's moral convictions form themselves; and
they always have the twofold aspect in which the feeling
of obligation stands to his voluntary nature. They have a
passive aspect; they are a consciousness of being under law.
They have also an active aspect; they are an emotional ex-
citement which constitutes a call to volition. The feeling
of obligation is a feeling of being bound; for "the ought"
partakes, in a measure, of the nature of a "must;" it is also
an impulsive feeling, and in its more intense forms comes
very near to passing over from emotional impulse into an
"I will."

What is true in the small sphere is probably true in the
large. What is true of the ought-consciousness of the indi-
vidual is, so far as we can discover, true of the place which
the feeling of obligation has always taken in the develop-
ment of the moral life of the race.

CHAPTER YI

OTHER ETHICAL FEELINGS

The preceding discussion of the feeling of obligation has
been so detailed as to make unnecessary a lengthy treatment
of the other ethical feelings. Certain changes being made,
most of what Has been already said with reference to it is
also applicable to them. In general they may be spoken of
as the feelings of approbation and disapprobation, and the
feelings of merit and demerit — all to be regarded from the
distinctively ethical point of view. But these affective atti-
tudes of human consciousness toward conduct and toward
character, when analyzed, appear more complex than the
more primitive and distinctively ethical feeling of oughtness.

The feeling of moral approbation may be described as that
pleasant satisfaction which the morally awakened conscious-
ness has when contemplating a piece of conduct that is in
accordance with the feeling of obligation. The feeling of
disapprobation, on the other hand, is the unpleasant dis-
satisfaction with which conduct is contemplated that violates
the feeling of obligation. The very language which we are
obliged to use in every attempt at describing these feelings
suggests some of the more important differences from, as
well as certain likenesses to, the early emotional stirrings
of the "ought-consciousness." Of such differences I shall
now briefly call attention to the following four.

It is not unimportant to notice a difference in the ethical
feelings as respects their temporal relation toward the deed.
In imagination, at least, the feeling of obligation is fitly

94 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

excited in view of a deed that is about to be done. This
feeling looks forward to the future conduct; it arises on
contemplation of conduct that is still to be. What shall I
do, or refrain from doing ? is the inquiry which stirs the
feeling of " I ought " or " I ought-not. " The question what
ought he to have done is speculative; a problem which, for
its very consideration requires an act of imagination setting
the Self into time relations before the deed in regard to which
the question is raised. But with the feelings of moral appro-
bation and disapprobation just the reverse is true. These
feelings are always and necessarily aroused in view of con-
duct regarded as already done. The deed may, in fact, only
be imagined as done, may be contemplated and passed upon
with approbation or disapprobation when its transaction is a
purely subjective affair. But even in all such cases the tem-
poral relation of the different members in the conscious
series remains unaltered. The feeling of obligation looks
forward ; the feelings of moral approbation and disapproba-
tion look backward. Of course, it must be remembered that
all one's own passions and affections are, in so far as they
are conceived of as controlled by the self, regarded as actions
or deeds. And thus one may come to look upon their con-
tinued, even momentary indulgence or prompt repression,
with the feeling of obligation; while men contemplate the
just past indulgence or repression of these same passions and
affections with the feeling of approbation (or its opposite).

The characteristic difference just mentioned is almost
identical with another, when the whole subject is considered
from a slightly changed point of view. To employ language,
the fuller import of which requires further analysis, it may be
said that the feeling of obligation constitutes a ''motive " for
the will. The emotion partakes of the nature of those states
of consciousness which are regarded as impelling and attract-
ing toward, or repelling and deterring from, certain actions,
and the choices on which the actions depend ; it is essentially

OTHEK ETHICAL FEELINGS 95

a demand to do something — a summons issued to the volun-
tary nature. But the feelings of approbation and of disap-
probation are of a more contemplative character ; they more
nearly resemble the aesthetical stirrings with which an artis-
tically good or bad piece of work is regarded. In either case,
of course, one may wish to punish or to reward the doer of
the work. But this wish is an impulse to another piece of
conduct which in its turn will have to be contemplated, when
it is finished, with feelings of approval or of disapproval.

A third difference between the two kinds of ethical feeling
will be found important when we come to consider the nature,
the formation, and the development of the various virtues
and vices. The whole complex mental condition, especially
as determined by the predominance, or even by the presence,
of these feelings is different. Above all is this true of the
relations which they both sustain to our pleasures and our
pains. The feeling of obligation to do, when strongest and
worthiest of a high place in the scale of ethical values, may
be most painful ; and the same thing is true of the feeling
of obligation when it corresponds to the judgment, " I ought
not." Whereas, although one may fitly speak of pleasant
duties, the increment of pleasure which comes from the
feeling of obligation to indulge the inclinations or to perform
the actions which constitute these so-called "pleasant
duties," is ordinarily very small. But a certain amount of
pleasure is an essential element — or, rather, it is the char-
acteristic and universal tone — of the feeling of approbation;
and a certain amount of pain naturally and necessarily tinges
the feeling of moral disapprobation. Both the pleasure and
the pain are however, ordinarily of a predominatingly mild
and rather ineffective character. And if either of them
becomes intense, it is almost certain to be the pain.

It is customary on the part of all the more persuasive of
the hedonistic theories to emphasize the value of those pleas-
ures and pains which go with the approving or the disapprov-

96 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

ing of conscience, by calling them "higher," "nobler,"
"worthier" of a rational being, etc. The hedging which
such a course to the argument involves will be tracked out
later. But this fact of human experience may as well be
noted and emphasized at once. The feeling of obligation is
for the most part, both in its positive and in its negative
form (both as the feeling, "I ought," and the feeling, "I
ought not"), far more productive of pain than of pleasure.
And most of the positive pleasures which the individual
secures come from actions that either violate this feeling or
give scanty recognition to it. On the contrary, the pleasures
which come from the feeling of strictly moral approbation
are, as pleasures, comparatively weak and ineffective as
motives to right conduct, while the pains that are an essen-
tial part of the emotional excitement which wrong-doing
occasions are relatively strong; and, in the case of a morally
awakened consciousness, they may become very intense.
Now if all the pleasures of the approving consciences of all
mankind were, quoad pleasures, to be placed in the scale with
the pains which all mankind have suffered both in doing the
right and in disapproving the wrong, there can be little
doubt which way that scale would turn. In a word, the
sufferings of humanity far exceed its pleasures as immediate
results or accompaniments of obedience to the moral law.

The fourth class of differences which characterize the
feeling of obligation and the feeling of moral approbation
(or its opposite) is still more distinctive. Or — better said,
perhaps — there are no feelings of approbation and disappro-
bation which, either as respects their origin or their char-
acter, are quite distinctively and uniquely ethical. This
fundamental fact was indicated when ethics was called, even
in an only partially satisfactory way, the scientific study of
that which "ought to be" in conduct and in character.
Probably no one would think of defining the subject-matter
of ethics as though it were wholly, or chiefly, concerned with

OTHER ETHICAL FEELINGS 97

that pleasant satisfaction and unpleasant dissatisfaction
which men feel in contemplating different kinds of conduct.
At any rate, the feelings of approbation and disapprobation
with which men do actually regard conduct and character
are, considered barely as modes of affective consciousness,
very closely allied to certain non-moral forms of feeling.
Indeed, they are so closely allied to corresponding aesthetical
feelings as to make difficult or impossible any distinction
which has a sufficient permanent basis in psychological
analysis. Here' the difference between the aesthetical and
the ethical is much more a difference in the character of the
objects, and in the results which flow from this difference
in objects, than a difference in the essential character of the
feelings themselves.

The distinction just drawn requires further illustration.
There are certain qualities of all beings, whether of things
and animals in the system of so-called nature or of men in
the existing social system, which are naturally regarded
with feelings of approval; certain other qualities, with
feelings of disapproval. Exhibitions of power on a large
scale, or of skill in the adaptation of means to ends, or of
judgment and good taste in arranging colors and forms,
when these exhibitions are not regarded as in any way
inimicable to their interests, are met by men everywhere
with feelings of pleasant satisfaction. This is but the
natural attitude of human consciousness toward the various
kinds of goods. It is not necessary at present to inquire
whether the approval is the source of the pleasure, or is only
its effect or its accompaniment. It may, in fact, on various
occasions stand in either one of these three relations to the
happiness of the conscious soul. In all cases, approbation is
the characteristic human way of greeting with appropriate
feeling that which the mind apprehends as an instrumental or
a final good. For example, the savage approves of the bow
or the war-club or the spear that has done him good service,

98 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

or that is beautifully decorated. The worshipper of the stars
or of the sacred fire regards the object of his adoration with a
similar feeling. The traveller stands " like-minded " before
the Taj Mahal or the Pyramid of Cheops ; or he looks off from
Observation Hill at Darjeeling upon Kinchinjanga and its
attendant members of the Himalayas with emotions of
wonder and admiration that strive to become an adequate
expression of what is due to those qualities of grandeur in
beauty which such objects seem to possess. But now let the
same savage contemplate his chief, or himself, using bow, or
club, or spear, in deeds of prowess ; and his feeling toward
the author of such worthy conduct remains, as feeling,
essentially unchanged. The same thing is true when the
traveller remembers the builder of the colossal structure of
the pyramid, or the architect of this gem of beauty, the Taj
Mahal; or even when he regards the Infinite One as the
creator of the loftiest mountains of the world. In each case
the approbation is an emotion of pleasant satisfaction accom-
panying the contemplation of that which is regarded as a
species of good.

When, however, any object is definitively contemplated as
the product of some conscious agent, as a piece of his con-
duct, so to say, then a change in the attitude of the contem-
plating mind occurs ; but it is rather a change in the point
of attachment for the feeling of approbation than a change in
the character of the feeling itself. That is to say, the con-
duct is met with the feeling of a pleasant satisfaction on
account of its qualities as good conduct ; and the responsible
agent is approbated — at least so far as this particular action
is concerned — as a good man.

Something further is needed in order to connect as strictly
as possible the feeling of approbation with the most distinc-
tively ethical elements of consciousness. Suppose now that
the motives which led to the observed conduct become fully
known; and, as well, the kind of real character which the

OTHER ETHICAL FEELINGS 99

conduct evinced. Suppose that this deed which seemed so
noble was really done from base motives. It was a seeming
good which originated in hypocrisy, cowardice, avarice, or
malicious hatred. Or it was a piece of splendid impru-
dence, rash generosity, mistaken kindness. Then we shall
see the emotional stirrings of the contemplative soul become
yet more complex. A curious struggle between feelings of
approbation and feelings of disapprobation now emerges in
consciousness. The deed is approved, the motive disap-
proved. Or deed and motive are both approved, but only in
a qualified or faint-hearted way. The man did well and
meant well, and yet — he should have been less hasty, more
deliberate and wise about probable consequences. Suppose,
however, that this is one of those rare and splendid cases
where, in obedience to the feeling of obligation but at cost of
immense self-sacrifice, with deliberate judgment and with a
noble scorn of one's own suffering, with a wise use of means
in the interests of a worthy end, and with the worthiest ex-
hibition of economically directed strength, the deed was both
chosen and executed; then, however our sensitive natures
shrink with sympathetic pain, our whole aesthetical and
ethical being approves. How truly splendid, how perfectly
excellent a piece of conduct it was ! Why ? Because it pre-
sents to the moral consciousness a picture of the highest kind
of activity belonging to an ideal Self. And this realization
of the moral ideal in the object gives its most distinctively
moral character to the approving feelings with which our
consciousness greets the object.

Keeping these differences in mind, what was said in treat-
ing of the nature, origin, and development of the moral life
as dependent upon the feeling of obligation may be briefly
recalled, but need not be repeated in detail. These feelings
of approbation and of disapprobation with which men every-
where, and in all stages of development, regard their own and
others' conduct, must be assumed as natural for every indi-

100 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

vidual. The origin of these feelings for the race is lost in
obscurity ; but it may be said that men began to approve and
to disapprove morally, whenever they began to be moral, —
i. e., whenever they began to regard actions and states of
consciousness leading to action from the point of view held
by the feelings and judgments of obligation. All that is
deemed good is approved, — the happifying, the beautifying,
the morally good. But the man who is morally approbated
is the man who does what ought to be done.

The same distinctive and unique character which belongs
to the feeling of obligation can, therefore, scarcely be claimed
for that feeling of pleasant satisfaction with which all men
greet what is considered as morally worthy in conduct or in
character. For — as I have already said — ethical approba-
tion is so closely akin to the admiration with which our
aesthetical susceptibilities regard whatever is sublime and
beautiful that it is difficult or impossible always to distin-
guish between the two. Full and unhesitating admiration is
rendered to the hero who does the good deed in a strong and
beautiful way. And even he who, like Milton's Satan, does
the morally wrong deed, in a manner that seems strong and
beautiful, is the object of admiration. Nor can this admira-
tion be said to be entirely won-moral in its character. For
strength and beauty in the execution of one's purpose are,
of necessity, considered as significant of that strenuous will
and fine discerning judgment which are distinctive and highly
important qualifications of the ideal Self. And this ideal
Self is the Ideal of ethics, — the standard by which moral
consciousness measures the worth of conduct and the right
to approval which good conduct possesses. The uncultured
consciousness is not wholly wrong when it looks with appro-
bation upon the behavior exploited in melodrama, or nar-
rated in the biography of dashing rogues, like Dick Turpin
or Sixteen-string Jack.

The development of the feelings of ethical approbation or

OTHER ETHICAL FEELINGS 101

disapprobation is dependent upon the relations which are
established between these feelings and the ideas and judg-
ments that concern conduct and character. Thus the answer
to the question, Why are particular forms of conduct and
types of character approved, and others disapproved ? like
the similar question in art, can be understood only as the
result of a detailed historical investigation. Such an inves-
tigation, when carried on in a comprehensive way, reveals
the enormous complexity of influences which surround and
shape the unfolding of the moral consciousness of the indi-
vidual and of the race. Like all other feelings these ethical
emotions may vary in intensity and in that quality called
"refinement" which is, after all, rather a change in the
intellectual and ideal aspect of moral consciousness regarded
as guiding the restraining control of will. Here, as every-
where, the principle of habit becomes exceedingly important.

Those feelings which I have ventured to call ethical merit
and demerit are yet more complex, — less distinctively and
uniquely primitive and original. This will appear if we
consider all that is involved in Professor Bowne's ^ excellent
definition of merit as " the desert of moral approval and the
right to be rewarded accordingly." This definition must be
interpreted as involving at least the following factors:
(1) A feeling of obligation to approve (I ought to he morally
approbated) ; (2) a feeling of right to assert a claim (I am
entitled to some form of the good, which ovght to come to
me) ; (3) a vague feeling of another's duty, as it were (for
another than I ought to treat me " accordingly " — by bring-
ing me some reward).

It is plain that such feelings as those just analyzed imply
much more than is revealed at once even to the most pene-
trating and thorough analysis. Indeed, it may be claimed
not inaptly that they imply a somewhat firm grasp of
conviction — however vague and incoherent the accompany-

1 The Principles of Ethics, p. 171.

102 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

ing ideas and judgments may be — upon the existence of an
extended social system which is at least partially conducted
in accordance with moral principles. It is, indeed, true
that the higher one's culture in essential morality grows, the
less does one care for, or work for, the reward of merit.
And the typically good man is he who is good, " not for the
sake of gaining heaven or of escaping hell." Still further,
he who encourages within himself the feeling of a right to
assert the claim of merit may easily dull the fine edge of his
own feeling of moral approbation, and dim the lustre of the
moral quality of his deed. There is another side to all this,
however — most true, most significant. The good man feels
that he ought to approve the virtues of others and to assist,
so far as in him lies, in seeing to it that virtue is rewarded
and vice disapproved and punished. He is also filled with
the conviction that no society is as yet properly constructed
so long as the goods of life are distributed by it with scanty
regard for the merit or demerit of its own individual mem-
bers. The more one insists upon the importance of right-
eousness in social development, the more important becomes
the practical effectiveness of the feelings designated by the
words merit and demerit.

If we study the historical evolution of customs, laws, and
the opinions and codes that embody the current feelings and
judgments of an ethical kind, the strength and tenacity of
the same conviction among mankind are still more plainly
evinced. The man who has done another "a good turn," or
has labored, suffered, and achieved, in the interests of the
tribe or of the nation, instinctively feels that some reward
is of his right and is bounden duty on the part of his fellows.

Even

" Thanks to men
Of noble minds is honorable meed."

On the other hand, total and cold indifference, or an attitude
of haughty scorn, toward the moral approval of others is

OTHER ETHICAL FEELINGS 103

in itself discordant with the moral Ideal; while all the
strongest forces that bind and move men together — such as
imitation, tribal sympathy, community of interests, yearning
for social'* connections and desire for this very thing, the
moral esteem of one's fellows — are pledged to operate
against the total suppression of the feelings of merit and
demerit. It is, indeed, doubtful whether indifference to all
reward for right conduct is not uniformly more or less
feigned, and the scorn for the approbation of other moral
beings, as a rule, only another and more subtle way of
asserting the same sense, when we have done right, of our
"right to be treated accordingly." Under the influence of
this feeling men turn from the jury at hand to the jury
more remote, from the court at present sitting to the court
of the future, from the human judgment to the judgment
of the invisible powers, from the verdict of the race even
to the infallible verdict of God. One of the most curious
instances of the conviction that he who has done what
he ought has acquired "the desert of moral approval and
the right to be rewarded accordingly," coupled with a yet
more curious contradiction of involved beliefs, was given
years ago by Mr. Spencer in his "First Principles," ^ when,
reflecting upon the certainty that he would be misunder-
stood in his effort to reconcile science and religion, he
comforted and justified himself as follows : " Whoever hesi-
tates to utter that which he thinks the highest truth, lest
he should be too much in advance of the time, may reassure
himself by looking at his acts from an impersonal point of
view. . . . He, like every other man may properly consider
himself as one of the myriad agencies through whom works
the Unknown Cause ; and when the Unknown Cause produces
in him a certain belief, he is thereby authorized to profess
and act out that belief. "

How this natural and well-nigh universal readiness to

1 Second edition, p. 123.

104 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

extend so far our confidence in the implications of the feel-
ings of merit and demerit points toward a moral system of
the universe, and toward the continuance beyond the visible
into the invisible, and beyond the present life into the future
life, of a system of rewards and punishments, it belongs to
the later extensions of ethical theory, or to the philosophy
of religion, to disclose. It is perfectly evident at this point,
however, that a considerable development of ideas and
judgments of the social order is indispensable in giving an
account to ourselves of even the cruder and lower forms of
such ethical feelings as these.

The pleasant satisfaction which the feeling of merit
affords, when its right is satisfied, is closely related to the
mild pleasure of a gratified pride ; the dissatisfaction follow-
ing the failure to be approbated by others, and " to be treated
accordingly," is much more than an equivalent in its produc-
tivity of pain. Here again the path along which duty leads,
as marked out by the ethical feelings, is much less strewn
with roses than with thorns. He who thinks to pay himself
for doing what he ought in coin of merit will almost surely
fail in the business. Indeed, one of those curious anomalies
with which ethical study is full, is encountered here. It
is as a rule, the meanest and least moral men who have the
most lively satisfactions from the sense of their own merit,
and who most intensely feel their right to a reward, for the
occasional small, meritorious services they render their
fellowmen.

The feeling of demerit is doubtless to a certain extent a
natural means of punishing past misdeeds and a motive to
refrain from misdoing in the future. Occasionally this
feeling acquires that sharp and pungent character which the
word "remorse " is meant to signalize. In this form it may
— but only rarely — give an adequate reason for the saying
that the evil-doing, the sin, brings in the form of self-repro-
bation its own self-punishment. But I am persuaded that

OTHER ETHICAL FEELINGS 105

the intensity of this feeling, and the actual potency of its
influence, are usually greatly exaggerated by the orthodox
systems of ethics. The avenging furies, the demon of the
remorseful conscience, the Erinnys, do indeed, appear in
real life. It is only when they are the emissaries of those
dre'ad, mysterious powers to which religious belief commits
men, that they are potent for good through their appeal to
the feeling of demerit. For the most part, otherwise, they
are the relatively impotent constructs of the imagination of
the poet or of the priest.

These ethical feelings, in the course of attachments to
certain judgments, detachments, and reattachments, which
they follow are subject to the same conditions which have
already been sufficiently described. Indeed, the entire
development of the moral life requires us to understand how
it is that ethical judgments arise, and become changed and
modified so as to give rise in the mind of the individual and
in the social structure to a system of moral principles;
and thus to awaken the conception of a moral law and of an
inalienable and unalterable nature for the Right. But I
cannot proceed further in the effort to describe and explain
the working of the emotional elements in moral conscious-
ness, before taking into account the more distinctively intel-
lectual and voluntary endowment of the moral life.

CHAPTER YII

ETHICAL JUDGMENT

Since the time of Aristotle the relation in which man's
intellectual equipment stands to his moral life has been quite
customarily misunderstood by writers upon the philosophy
of conduct. This great analyst of psychical states closes the
first Book of the Nicomachean Ethics with a division of
human " excellences " into the " intellectual " and the
"moral;" "when we are speaking of a man's moral character
{irepl Tov ^^ou?)," he says, "we do not say that he is wise or
intelligent, but that he is gentle or temperate." In this, as
one of his most recent commentators ^ declares, "Aristotle
is founding the distinction between the Intellectual and the
Moral which has lasted ever since." The same division is
justified at the beginning of the second Book by several
arguments which may, however, all be summarized as fol-
lows : (1) the intellectual excellences are implanted in us by
nature, the moral result from training and habit; (2) and,
therefore, the latter alone stand in such a relation to the
voluntary Self as that they are attributable to it and can
properly be praised or blamed and rewarded or punished.

No such distinction as that advanced by Aristotle, although
it " has lasted ever since," can justify itself before the
analysis of a thorough and consistent psychological ethics.
The "intellectual excellences " — to continue the use of this
phrase — are no more and no less natural than are those
feelings and passions which constitute the " raw material "

1 Sir A. Grant, The Ethics of Aristotle, I, note to p. 476 f.

ETHICAL JUDGMENT 107

of the " moral virtues ; " and the former are as much in need
of training under the habit of right choice as are the latter,
in order that the proper rules of conduct may be observed
and the ideal of Selfhood progressively realized. This is
implied by Aristotle's entire doctrine of moderation, or the
observance of the " mean, " as entering into the very essence
of every moral virtue. But it is especially important at the
point now reached in our study of the philosophy of conduct
to insist that only rational beings can be moral, and that the
degree of rationality attained or attainable depends upon
both the inherited intellectual endowment and the voluntary
training of the intellectual powers. So obvious is this truth
with reference to that task which morality sets before the
human imagination whenever it is necessary to construct any
kind of an Ideal, that nothing need be added to what has
already been said upon this subject (see p. 64 f.). And the
larger part of what will subsequently appear true in the dis-
cussion of the Nature of the Right and of the Ultimate
Moral Ideal will further illustrate and enforce this claim.
In order to understand the nature of ethical judgment, how-
ever, there are three respects in which man's rationality far
surpasses the intellectual possibilities of the lower animals,
that demand a more particular consideration at this point.
These are his development of (1) Time-consciousness, of (2)
Self-consciousness, and (3) his application of the Causal
Principle to the synthetic construction of experience.

A development of the consciousness of Time is a necessary
part of man's equipment for the moral life. If the same
sort of a continual flux of unorganized sensations, or the
same shifting mechanism of fused and associated memory-
images, which marks the limits of the animal's consciousness
of time, were also all that man could attain, then the life of
conduct and morality would be impossible for him. Indeed,
such a succession of states cannot be said in themselves to
form even the basis for an inchoate and undeveloped time-

108 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

consciousness. But man's recognitive memory is something
different from this. As a developed faculty it brings into
consciousness, in a way to influence the conduct of the pres-
ent moment, a more remote and a more orderly past than is
possible for the animal, — a past that is regarded as a real
past in its relations to the conscious present. Undoubtedly,
such a rational cognition of the past is a matter of varying
degrees even among men of the same period; probably, if
not undoubtedly also, it is a form of consciousness which
has been rising in clearness and moral value in the develop-
ment of the race. It is, at least in part, for this reason that
reward or punishment, praise or blame, should follow
quickly upon the good or bad deed in the case of children
and savages ; while they are more fitly and effectively delib-
erate and deferred in the case of civilized adults. So also,
where the passions are hot and uncontrolled, and where
memories are short-lived and speedily grow faint, the dis-
tinctively ethical feelings will not bear to wait long for their
satisfaction. In the case of the developed man the long
stretches of time over which extend the feelings of merit or
remorse, and the determination to reward or punish, are
proof of his superior intellectual equipment for the moral life.
By imagination, acting under the category of time, man
predicts and anticipates the consequences of conduct, and
its due rewards. It is a most astonishing mark of his intel-
lectual excellence that he consciously directs his behavior
with reference to that which is remotely situated in time.
Thus he fears punishment from the descendants of the one
he has injured, and he understands in some dim way the
truth of Schiller's couplet :

" This is the very curse of evil deed,
That of new evil it becomes the seed."

It is not the cultivated German poet alone who can reason
thus. " One event is the son of another and we must never

ETHICAL JUDGMENT 109

forget the parentage," said the Bechuana chief to Casalis,
the African missionary ; ^ and in saying this he showed how-
far beyond all merely animal development is the moral
endowment of human savages. Human imagination creates
a future Tartarus and Elysium ; it peoples them with gods
whose attitude toward human conduct will endure relatively
unchanged after men have forgotten their own past. It
ministers to the belief in an eternity of consequences as
flowing from what is done in the conscious present — a
doctrine of Karma, an everlasting heaven and hell. But to
punish or to reward, even five and ten years after the deed,
the faulty or the good work of the draught-horse or of the
hunting-dog, would be neither wise policy nor commendable
morals; for the animal could neither perform the act of
imagination necessary to anticipate the postponed punish-
ment or reward, nor, when the pain or pleasure came, con-
nect it by an act of memory with something done in the
remote past as its occasion or cause. It is man's relatively
high development of time-consciousness which imparts the
needed continuity to morality and which makes possible a
truly moral development — the life of conduct progressively
approaching to, or withdrawing from, the Ideal.

In what has just been said the development of Self-
consciousness as a necessary postulate of ethical development
is also implied. 2 It is to the moral Self that the feeling of
obligation attaches ; it is from the inmost selfhood that the
feelings of approbation and disapprobation seem to spring.
Whose is the merit or the demerit of conduct, and whose
"the right to be treated accordingly?" Undoubtedly, our
answer to every such question must always involve some con-
ception of the meaning properly belonging to the word " Self. "
But this very conception is itself a subject of development,

1 See Tylor, Primitiye Culture, I, p. 4.

^ On the development of Time-consciousness and Self-consciousness, see the
following works of the author : " Psychology, Descriptive and Explanatory,"
p. 495 f. and " Philosophy of Knowledge," p. 193 f.

110 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

having a markedly different content and a largely variable
wealth of meaning, as it is formed by different individual
intellects and by the reciprocal intellectual efforts of different
communities of individuals in different periods and under
different circumstances, in the life of the race. Thus the
offending member of the child's bodily self is made to suffer
for the vice or fault of the soul ; " an eye for an eye, and a
tooth for a tooth " is the proper rule for regulating the meas-
ure and place of application for the demerit of him who has
violated the rights of some other Self. The hand of the
matricide must be cut off before he is executed ; castration is
the fitting reward for the adulterer; eyes that have looked too
curiously on forbidden objects must be put out ; and tongues
that have been guilty of slander or betrayal deserve to be
rooted out. Gross and vicious bodily selves will get roasted
and tortured in the hereafter ; but equally gross yet virtuous
selves (because " faithful " to their religion) will be feasted
and indulged in the hereafter.

As, however, the conception of the Self becomes more
refined and spiritual, the entire nature of virtuous or vicious
conduct, of righteousness and sin, together with the nature
of the inducements to right conduct and of the rewards and
punishments of conduct, undergo important modifications.
Pure, spiritual selves do not crave to be feasted and indulged;
and intellectually developed but wicked selves do not fear
being roasted and otherwise tortured. But in all stages of
the development of self-consciousness, it is the actual Self,
set by thought and imagination into relations with other
selves, and measured by the standard of an ideal Self,
which determines the character of ethical theory and of the
practical moral life. This is necessarily and unchangeably
so ; for virtues and vices are qualifications, not of things or
of actions as such, but of selves; and the distinctively
ethical feelings are self-binding and self-appropriating.
Inasmuch, therefore, as conduct is, essentially considered,

ETHICAL JUDGMENT 111

a voluntary adjustment of one moral self to other moral
selves through the media of things, the character of the
prevalent self-knowledge influences essentially the wrong
and right of conduct. In a word, only a being that is con-
sciously a Moral Self can be at once the author and the
subject of moral law, the appropriate, because rational object
of approbation and disapprobation, and of reward and punish-
ment, in the distinctively ethical meaning of these terms.

That any being must be intellectually equipped with the
power to pass from causes to effects and from effects to
causes, in order to be capable of the moral life, scarcely
needs argument. Indeed, without somehow raising and
answering the questions. Whence ? and Why ? it is quite
impossible to set forth in imagination the conceivability of
a moral life. In saying this I do not intend to emphasize the
fact that all the virtues connected with, and dependent upon,
our human conceptions of truth are unintelligible apart from
the domain ruled over by the so-called "principle of suffi-
cient reason." Nor do I mean simply to assert that without
rational knowledge of the consequences of conduct as affect-
ing the interests of ourselves and others, no popular or scien-
tific knowledge of ethical principles could possibly be
attained. But still further, as will be shown in another
connection, the relation between motive and deed of will is
itself the most typical and immediately present example of
the causal relation; and the experience of men with this
relation is the precursor and the postulate of all their
reasoning about external causes and effects, and about means
and ends in the world of physical phenomena. Without that
extended development of reasoning faculty under the control
of this principle which belongs to man alone among the ani-
mals, no conception of a moral law, or of a social unity
which shall admit of the practice of virtuous and vicious
forms of conduct, — much less of a universal moral order ex-
tending itself over gods and men and over all spaces and all

112 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

times — could possibly dawn, rise, and grow clearer within
the consciousness of humanity.

In this, as in all the other intellectual endowments for
the life of conduct and the acquirement of character, both
the individual and the race come under the principle of
development. That is to say, the clearness and effectiveness
with which the causal principle is intellectually recognized
and voluntarily applied admits of a great variety of degrees ;
and, in fact, a great variety of such degrees marks the place
in the scale of ethical evolution occupied by different persons
and different portions of mankind. In the more elementary
stages of culture little or no thought of rational and inevi-
table connections manifests itself in moral consciousness;
the Whence and the Why of conduct, of custom, and of the
current ethical precepts are scarcely inquired after and not
at all understood. In a later and somewhat higher stage
the caprice of the gods, the command of some person superior
in intelligence and authority, or the bare Will of the
Omnipotent, is esteemed a sufficient answer to most of such
inquiries. Still later those conceptions of Necessity and Law
which convert the totality of human experience with the
interaction of persons and things, and of persons with persons,
into a colossal Sj^stem of physical and psychical mechanics,
may for a time rule the thinking and satisfy the questionings
of men. Such is perhaps the level of the thought and imag-
ination reached by the majority of those who claim to be
cultured at the present time. But I am confident that a yet
more strenuous and comprehensive thinking and a loftier
imagination inevitably produce and justify another picture
of the connections of the moral World-Order. Such thinking
and imagining enter inevitabl}^ and in an integrating way,
into the moral life of the race by enlarging and improving
the conceptions of the Moral Self as Will and as Reason,
and by the growth of the conception of the Ground of all causal
relations as an Absolute Self,

ETHICAL JUDGMENT 113

The special application of all man's cognitive faculties to
the interests of ethics always takes the form of an Ethical
Judgment. In this respect ethical consciousness resembles
all other conscious mental processes; for judgment is the
distinctive and culminating thing in all human intellection.
And general notions whether about conduct and principles
of conduct or about other content of experience, are the
results of, rather than the material for, the really effective
acts of judgment. But judgment itself is a piece of con-
duct; and, especially where it concerns the qualities of con-
duct, judgment itself is either good or bad conduct. In its
developed form it implies a certain affective and voluntary
attitude of the Moral Self toward the conduct which is
judged.

No fact of experience is more instructive to the student of
ethics than the pronouncing of judgment by his fellowmen
I upon matters of right and wrong in conduct. He notes as

important a remarkable difference in the character of their
different ethical judgments, in the manner in which, in any
considerable community, different matters of conduct are
pronounced upon by the different members of the com-
munity. But the most elementary analysis of the content of
human consciousness has already made it apparent that one
conception is strictly universal for all ethical judgments ; it
is this which makes them ethical ; it is the character of the
predicate. This is expressed by the significant words. Eight
and Wrong, in the more definitively ethical use of these
words.

Let now an inquiry be made as to the grounds on which
these different kinds of ethical judgments repose, and another
series of somewhat confusing answers will be elicited.
Some men will refer to unreasoned feeling; some to the
prevalent custom ; some to self-interest or to the relation sus-
tained by their judgment to the pursuit of their own well-
being; some to the sanctions of religion, — the will of the

114 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

gods or the Holy Divine Will ; and some to reasons which
lie either in the consequences of the actions judged, or in a
certain conception of the nature of moral law, or even of the
so-called abstract "Nature of the Right."

What appears true of any particular community, when
examined with respect to its present conditions of ethical
judgment, seems also to be enforced and illustrated by the
history of the evolution of ethical judgment in the whole
race. The same difference of judgments about matters of
conduct and of the reasons more or less intelligently ren-
dered in answer to the questions, How ? and Why ? belongs
to the great diversity of human institutions under all the
changing conditions of man's development. Custom sets
the general standard for such judgments; the rather is
custom, subjectively considered, itself identical with the
standard judgments. But a possible distinction is always
to be noticed between the custom considered as embodying
the mere fact of judgment and that judgment to which the
reason and feeling of the individual find themselves bound
to respond. And, in fact, actual divergences, at first on the
part of a few individuals, are constantly arising and then
gaining strength and numbers until both external custom
and the system of moral judgments corresponding to the
custom become largely modified or quite completely reversed.
But all the while, as far back as man is man, and every-
where that man is found, the predicate of all judgments
about matters of conduct remains unchanged. The custom
itself is subject to this predicate ; customs are liable to be
judged as either right or wrong. Hence the outcries of
reformers of custom, like that of Laotsu, are heard down the
centuries to the remotest past : " Nowadays we despise love
of humanity and are insolent; we despise economy and are
wasteful ; we despise modesty and strive to surpass every
one else. These ways lead to death. "

Such phenomena as those just described demand investi-

ETHICAL JUDGMENT 115

gation in the effort to obtain, if possible, some satisfactory
answer to a series of questions. Of these questions the first
which I shall raise may be stated as follows : What is the
distinctive psychological nature of the judgments of men
respecting matters of conduct ? The following three char-
acteristics seem to afford, for the present, a sufficient answer
to this question. Of these, the first has already been noticed;
it is the character of their predicate. Persons and things,
considered from every other point of view, have an indefinite
number of qualities, which may be either affirmed or denied
of every particular person or thing; but conduct has only
one quality, when regarded from the ethical point of view.
We may, indeed, be in doubt in any particular case which of
the forms of this universal predicate, the positive or the
negative, to apply; we may even be inclined to divide our
judgment between the two poles, and to say " partly right and
partly wrong;" and we certainly recognize an endless variety
of degrees in our qualification of conduct. But if we judge
on moral grounds alone, we can only affirm either right or
not right for this matter of judgment. Thinking is either
logical or illogical; speech is either correct or incorrect;
judgment itself is either false or true; but all conduct is
either right or wrong.

Another psychological characteristic of all ethical judg-
ment is its somewhat pronounced emotional character.
Men do not ordinarily affirm, this is right or that is wrong,
with the coolness with which they pronounce a familiar pro-
position in geometry or in some matter of physical science.
Judgments about matters of conduct are apt to have color,
to be warmed or even to glow with feeling; and not infre-
quently they excite the most intense passions or the most
effective enthusiasms. The principal reasons for this char-
acteristic of ethical judgment appear to be the two following :
first, such acts of judgment usually have some connection
with the more visible and palpable interests of men; and^

116 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

second, they are, from their very nature, inseparably con-
cerned with those moral feelings in which they either have
their origin or to which they make a more or less immediate
and forceful appeal. Hence, all the natural passions and
emotions, — such as anger, fear, jealousy, pity, sympathy,
love, and hate, — and all the higher ethical sentiments of
moral obligation, approbation, and merit (or their oppo-
sites), flow into the consciousness of the judge and prevent
his judgment from being "cool" and strictly "scientific."
Moreover, the common feeling and judgment of mankind,
as well as the deductions of psychological ethics, support the
opinion that it is fitly so. Ethical judgment ought to he
formed under an influence from moral feeling; \t\^ reason-
ably of a somewhat pronounced emotional character.

It is doubtless true that men do, with no little intensity of
emotion, debate questions of truth and falsehood, even of the
abstract sort, when no human conduct can be supposed to
have any possible influence upon the decision of the ques-
tions, and when no decision of the questions can exercise
any discernible influence upon their physical welfare.
Indeed the fiercest quarrels and most pronounced enmities
sometimes arise over such debate. No mathematics or
physics is so pure, no metaphysics so remote from all prac-
tical concernment, no scholastic hair-splitting so obviously
unprofitable, as that its judgments may not be hotly con-
tested. It may not be difficult to see why monophysites and
orthodox should wish to kill each other, or why ecclesiasti-
cism should find it necessary to persecute Copernicus or
Galileo. But why should scholars fall out with one another
over some philological punctilio, or over the nature of the
infinitesimal in calculus, or over the possibility of an w*^
dimension of space ? The only credible answer to such ques-
tions recognizes the characteristic quality of the ethical
judgment. Men quarrel over their differing judgments,
because they regard all truth as discoverable and statable

ETHICAL JUDGMENT 117

only by an activity of mind which somehow itself partakes of
the qualities of a piece of conduct. All human judgment is
regarded as, at least potentially, a moral affair; it may he
that voluntary deficiencies or vices in the Self account for
the very manner of the mental seizure and pronouncement of
the truth. And where this is suspected, " cool judgment " is
not the appropriate attitude of the critical mind. Coolness
of judgment is an intellectual excellence, a virtue, in the
investigation of truth, — as well truth of conduct as other
truth; but where the false, or imperfect, or dilatory judg-
ment is itself a matter of bad conduct, there coolness of
judgment with reference to it is not the normal and appro-
priate condition for the human mind.

The third psychological characteristic of ethical judgment
is the peculiar relation which it sustains to the voluntary
states. This relation follows, with a sort of necessity, from
its emotional character. To judge about a matter of conduct
is to establish a claim upon the will. For ethical judgment
is not simply of something that is, or is not so in fact, or is,
or is not true in principle ; it is a practical affair. Reason-
ing about matters of ethics may, indeed, be logical or illogi-
cal, — a pure theory, a play with the weapon of the syllogism,
an exercise in polemics. But this is not the manner in which
men usually discuss important problems of conduct; and
when judgment is reached, even if its statement be in the
most impersonal and abstract form possible, it is after all a
judgment of something that some person ought to do, or to
have done. If you helieve in the truth of the ethical judgment^
you are hound to carry your helief out into the voluntary life.
Given opportunity, judgments respecting the right and wrong
of conduct become convictions of duty.

The idea of the Right has been shown to be the one ethical
category. Our next question is, then, the following: —
What is the psychological origin of this category ? How
does this conception of Tightness arise in human conscious-

118 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

ness and come to take its place of supremacy among all the
moral conceptions? The answer to such an inquiry as this
is not difficult if the investigation is confined to the develop-
ment of the conscious processes as this development takes
place with every newly born individual in a community
already organized upon a social and ethical basis. But the
application of the principles of biological evolution to the
problem of the origin of ethical judgment in the race
only results in the same confusions which mark our inquiry
into the rise and development of all the most universal and
necessary notions of mankind.

If the so-called "category," or' general notion of rightness
be compared with the categories usually recognized as giving
the forms according to which all human judgments must be
shaped, certain differences, as well as certain resemblances
will be discerned. It is desirable to examine these differ-
ences and resemblances, at least in a preliminary way,
because of the connection which this category has with the
theoretical discussion of the Nature of the Right.

What, then, that accords with facts of experience, is meant
by calling the conception of "the Right" the one ethical
category ? In answer to this question — first — one may
refer to the already established fact of its universal and
necessary character. However men may answer the ques-
tion Why ? and whatever reasons they may allege as the
ground of their answer, there is always this same moral
qualification assigned to the conduct by the act of judgment :
the category of Rightness (or its opposite) gives the universal
form of ethical judgment. This same c@nception fixes also
the necessary form of all ethical judgment; it is the rubric
which must be employed by man in accordance with his
moral nature, as now constituted in the evolution of the race.
And as far back as we can trace the history of the evolution
of morals among mankind, the same formal characteristic of
all ethical judgment is to be traced.

ETHICAL JUDGMENT 119

Nor can it be denied, in the second place, that an immense
number of ethical judgments are passed by all men where
the act of judging seems to amount to a sort of envisagement
of the moral quality of the conduct judged. And when we
include, as we must, the indulgence or the restraint of all
the impulsive and emotional conscious states under the con-
ception, we may perhaps claim that most of human conduct
has its moral quality discerned in a quasi-intmtiYe way.

Finally, however, this intuitive character of the ethical
conception of Rightness is easily understood when we refer
again to its psychological origin. It is the experience of
ethical feeling (as already described, chapters v and vi) in its
reaction upon the stimulus of the environment, which forms
for the individual the earliest basis of the generalized notion
of rightness. Certain forms of conduct, that is to say, are
habitually accompanied or followed by the feelings of ethical
obligation, approbation, and merit (or their opposites), and
these determine the so-called right (or wrong) forms of
conduct. The judgments which declare these experiences
are, in their earlier form, like all judgments of the unde-
veloped intellectual life, concrete and individual. They are
judgments of the individual's experience ; and they appear in
this intuitive form, because, in their origin, they are not the
results of conscious processes of ratiocination, but of the
prompt response of feeling and of its fusion with certain
ideo-motor experiences.

In multitudes of other cases, however, judgment is not,
and cannot be, so intuitively pronounced. Elaborate proc-
esses of reasoning fail to make perfectly clear whether the
particular piece of conduct ought to be called right or wrong ;
and this is even as true of inward states, of motives, and
impulses, as it is of actions. But further discussion of this
subject must be left for the more theoretical portion of our
task.

It becomes obvious, therefore, that in order to understand

120 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

the origin and character of ethical judgment we have yet
other questions to raise and to answer. The individual man,
who is the subject and the critic of conduct, the agent and
the judge, is never merely an individual ; he is always and
pre-eminently a member of the race, at a particular time
and under especial circumstances in the evolution of the life
of the race. None of the so-called " categories " — not even
those of Space, Time, and Causation — escape important
modifications under the influence of these all-embracing
facts. Much less than the others can such a so-called cate-
gory as that denominated "Rightness," which is in its origin
and essential nature so pre-eminently social, fail to undergo
important changes in the particular characteristics of its
manifestation and its application.

We are compelled, then, to ask : What is the historical
origin of many of the ethical judgments of men ? To this
inquiry I answer: They, too, are judgments of experience
that have acquired the immediacy, certainty, and necessity,
which they possess for the individual as a result of the
prevalent historical conditions shaping the life of the race.
Such judgments embody the conclusions reached upon a
basis of interaction between the various members of the com-
munity, and between the community as a whole and its physi-
cal, social, and political environment.

Of the principal sources for men's ethical judgments I
now distinguish the following four. The established life and
government of the family furnish many such judgments.
In respect of no other equally important matter do we find the
morals of men — the relations they enter into and sustain
with good conscience and with the approbation of their
fellows — so changeable as in respect of the customs and
forms of the family life. Always and everywhere there are
right and wrong relations recognized as possible, existing
between husband and wife. But even where some sort of
fidelity is rigidly exacted of the woman and some sort of pro-

ETHICAL JUDGMENT 121

tective kindness is required of the man, in the most important
matters affecting their relations the rules of good conduct
toward each other are exceedingly variable. Thus the law
of the family may enforce the husband's right to his wife by
punishing adultery with death, but think it a duty for men
to lend their wives to their guests, or to exchange them with
their friends. Among some of the Arabian tribes the wife
is required to remain true to her husband three days out of
four ; but every fourth day it is right for her to do as she
will. The Samoan father may properly resent the seduction
of his daughter by one of the same tribe, but must esteem it
right for him, as a host, to make a temporary loan of her.
The most righteous of the Patriarchs, with good conscience
and without divine rebuke, practised polygamy; and the
sentiment of to-day, which approves of the penitentiary for
the bigamist, regards it as a mark of its higher civilization
that divorce is constantly made easier. As to the right
limits of consanguinity between husband and wife the same
diversity is found. The royal priests of ancient Egypt con-
secrated the marriage of brothers and sisters; while the
Church of England still refuses to consecrate a remarriage
which is in not a few cases, the most rational possible, —
viz., with the sister of one's deceased wife. As respects
children and parents, in ancient Rome and in Old Japan the
patria potestas was so construed as to make it right for the
father to put to death his disobedient child ; and the same
thing was expressly commanded to the Hebrews by the
Mosaic Law. But now in large portions of the most refined
communities, the use of physical force or physical pain to
secure obedience in the family is deemed not only the
height of unwisdom, but a kind of crime which discredits
the moral character of the parent. Thus the most sincere
and enlightened judgments which the individual approves
have, many of them, their historical origin in the develop-
ment of this institution on which the very existence and

122 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

continuance of the race depends. And the intuitive charac-
ter which such judgments appear to possess must be explained
historically as arising in the experience of the race.

The codes of the different social classes, professions, busi-
nesses, and organizations of every kind, furnish the individual
with many unquestioned and unreasoned judgments upon
matters of right and wrong conduct. In such spheres the
aesthetically proper or fitting thing, and the morally right
thing, are nearly if not quite identical. For example, some
amount and sort of clothing is almost universally deemed
necessary for adult human beings, and the wrong-doing of
non-conformity to the custom here is generally, though not
universally, regarded as a breach of the virtue of modesty.
But quite as universal is the judgment that different sorts of
persons ought to wear different sorts of clothing. The
Fiji Chief submits to the painful process of tattooing, and
the Englishman of the upper classes endures in August
weather the torture of black coat and starched shirt and
collar — both that they may appear as gentlemen of distinc-
tion ought to appear. The priest or clergyman who dresses
like the jockey or the flashy " tough " is, with warmth of
conviction, blamed not only for his lack of good taste but
also for an immoral overstepping of the customs of his class.
If one set of critics considers it to argue a wicked disrespect
for the dead not to give them an expensive funeral and also
wear mourning garments for them; does not the other set
consider it an equally wicked, because useless extravagance
to conform to the custom in these regards ? And what can
the good man do to avoid both these forms of wrong-doing
better than quietly to conform to the ruling custom, while
availing himself of Aristotle's principle of "moderation " ?

But judgments as to the right and wrong in matters of
clothing for different classes and different occasions are,
from the higher and more strictly moral point of view,
trivial compared with many other kinds of what I shall call

ETHICAL JUDGMENT 128

the " classified " ethical judgment. " Honor among thieves "
is no less honor, no less a virtue so far as it goes, because
it is so limited in its application. To love one's neighbor
and hate one's enemy, undoubtedly expresses the moral
sentiment of one side of the Old-Testament morality. And
to deceive or even to lie in war is not to-day regarded as a
breach of essential morals by the great majority of Christian
people, — while the same majority, hot as it is to resent
cruelty and savagism when turned against itself, looks with
tolerance, if not with approbation, upon its own cruel and
savage treatment of so-called "inferior races." Among the
mercantile classes, how few are they whose moral conscious-
ness is at all sensitive to the customary false weights, false
labels, and deceitful advertisements ? What would be the
purifying effect upon our courts of justice, and upon our
halls of legislation, if lawyers and politicians no longer made
special exceptions for their class from the strictest demands
of veracity and sincerity ? And as to social purity, only the
grossest ignorance of facts can fail to appreciate the enor-
mous difference which the highly civilized, as well as the
grossly barbarous communities, make between what is right
or wrong in the conduct of the " privileged classes " and the
right and the wrong for " ordinary people. "

In the wider circle of the laws, written or unwritten, and
the general customs of the tribe, the state, the nation, lie
the sources of many of the individual's spontaneous judg-
ments. The very foundations of the political structure in
all its forms would be shaken and quite undermined, if all
keeping of the laws as obligatory upon the conscience of the
citizen were left to discussion and to inference. The day
has indeed gone by when the theory held by Hobbes as to
the origin and nature of the Right can be successfully
resuscitated. But there was a certain large measure of
truth in this theory. No theory can define a priori just
where the duty to accept the judgment of the ruling power,

124 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

when embodied in law or national custom, comes to an end ;
and where the higher right of appeal to one's own moral
consciousness begins. No amount of tact can always infal-
libly detect this dividing line. But undoubtedly it is in
general the duty of every individual unquestioningly to obey
the law, and to conform to the custom of the land. This is
true quite irrespective of the amount of self-government
which belongs to the average citizen. Indeed, the anomalous
thing about this land of America to-day, where the maxi-
mum of self-government is supposed to have been reached, is
the fact that the right and duty to make the laws have bred
a feeling of right to break them; and that in no small
number of cases, the law-makers are the chief law-breakers
in every state and in the nation at large. Yet even this
anomalous condition cannot contravene the yet more general
fact that, on the average and in the long run, the individual
does actually get his judgments as to matters of right and
wrong, without much reasoning of his own — as it were,
intuitively — from the laws in force and the customs current
in the organized society of which he is a member.

In the fourth place, the customs, precepts, and statutes of
religion furnish a source of the spontaneous judgments of
the individual in matters of conduct. Until morality and
religion have become separated in a somewhat formal and
crystallized way, no other source of those ethical judgments
which seem most self-evident and obligatory is so powerful
as religion. Judgments originating in this source penetrate
all the other sources; ethical judgments pertaining to the
life of the family, judgments of so-called "class morality,"
and the laws and most general customs of the whole people,
are everywhere largely of religious origin. Nor is this
coincidence in the sources of judgment on matters of morals
and religion at all surprising when we consider how closely
allied are the moral and religious natures in the one human
nature. To treat the gods with disrespect, to attempt to

ETHICAL JUDGMENT 125

deceive them, or to defraud them of their property or of their
dues, is a particularly heinous and dangerous kind of wrong-
doing among those communities that are lowest in the ethi-
cal scale. In the relations of the sexes also, the priesthood
or clergy are almost universally regarded as coming under
special provisions respecting the right and wrong of conduct;
although opinion may differ as to what is right, what wrong,
all the way from the rule which makes it a sin for a priest
even to look upon the face of a woman to the code in force
among some of the Hindu castes, which considers it right for
the Brahman to enjoy an almost unlimited license. Such
license was conceded by the opinion of ancient Greece as
right for the gods in their intercourse with men. In similar
way elaborate ceremonial purifications become of the most
obligatory moral character; and not to abstain from many
desirable gratifications, because religion has rendered these
tabu, is to outrage the moral law. In India almost the only
moral restraint upon the conduct of the multitudes, a re-
straint as powerful as it is spontaneously and unquestion-
ingly accepted, consists of the code of religious ceremonial,
belief, and superstition. The ten commandments which are
an undisputed part of the creed of millions of twentieth-
century men and women were originally due to a "thus saith
the Lord, " understood to have been uttered to the founder of
an ancient religion. For the great majority of men, all over
the earth's surface and far back in the world's history, the
one class of judgments respecting the right and wrong of
conduct to which heart and reason alike has seemed most
unhesitatingly and intuitively to respond comprises the
customs, precepts, and statutes, that have had their origin
in the religious experience of humanity.

But with unreasoned ethical judgment the moral con-
sciousness of men has not reached its highest intellectual
development. Whatever of immediate self-evidence can be
made out for certain instances in the application of the so-

126 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

called category of Rightness no more prevents the use of
reflection and inference in forming judgments upon matters
of conduct, or the growth of the moral code, than the intui-
tive character of the category of space prevents the progress
of geometry or of surveying. Without intellectual develop-
ment on the part of the individual, neither ethical theory,
nor systems of morals, nor essential morality, could exist or
develop. It is to the men who doubt the essential morality
of the prevalent custom, who question the rationality of the
current ethical judgments, who insist on knowing the Why ?
of conduct and character, that the race owes most for such
ethical advances as it has already made. He who does not
transcend the stage of intuitive feeling, or of unquestioning
acceptance of the common judgment, remains a morally
undeveloped man.

As an historical fact all adult individuals, no matter how
rigidly fixed the moral code may have become previous to
their existence, and in spite of the most intolerant and
oppressive reign of conventionality and custom, do take some
part in the framing of the current and ruling judgments on
questions of the right and wrong of conduct. He who, as a
member of the commonwealth of ethical judgment, only aims
to think and feel precisely as the others do, nevertheless
becomes himself a moulder of the community's thought and
feeling. His influence may seem quite inappreciable, but it
is none the less real. In the case of those more independent
minds who — as the popular saying runs — " think for them-
selves," the ethical judgments made by the individual on a
basis of conscious inference may not only determine the
dominant maxims of his own moral life but in time even
effect an important moral revolution in the judgments of the
society of which he is only a single member.

Undoubtedly, the clearness with which different men think
out their conclusions on matters of conduct differs very
greatly ; and as well, the character of the grounds on which

ETHICAL JUDGMENT 127

they place their ethical judgments, the reasons they are ready
to assign for the conclusions at which they have arrived.
Hence the possibility of unlimited debate about what is right
and wrong; hence also, in part, the doubtful character be-
longing to all elaborate systems of casuistry. But this is
only to call attention to the general psychological fact that,
in matters of conduct as in all other matters, different per-
sons have different degrees and combinations of the judging
faculty, and different stores of experience on which to draw
for the material of reasoning and its concluding judgment.

Moreover, there is in ethics, both practical and theoretical,
another most potent cause of difference; men differ as
respects their entire conception of the aims and values of life,
and as respects the character already acquired in the more or
less intelligent pursuit of those aims, under the estimates of
value assigned to each of them. In a word, the ethical judg-
ments of different individuals, so far as they are based upon
conscious inference, will depend in the main upon these three
considerations: namely (1) natural or acquired power of
forming judgment; (2) characteristic experience (the experi-
ence which belongs to the individual) ; and (3) ideas of ends
and of values, — while over all, and through all, the princi-
ple of habit will assert its power.

Of these three considerations only the last two admit of a
brief treatment. The accumulation of experience is a growth
of knowledge as to the relations of means and ends, and of
causes and effects. But every man's conduct is his way of
setting himself into the great system of means and ends,
of causes and effects, — into the World-System. Every
man's conduct is also, in some peculiar meaning of the
words, his very own contribution to the total working and
final outcome of this World-System. As the individual man
acquires experience of what he can consciously and voluntarily
effect he becomes increasingly capable of relatively indepen-
dent and well-reasoned ethical judgment. His conduct is thus

128 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

an intelligent means to certain ends ; and the consequences of
his conduct are effects which are attributable to his Self as
to their cause. He becomes conscious, that is to say, of his
Self as both effect and cause, both means and ends; and,
in some degree, he learns precisely how the manifold
desired relations are, in fact, to be secured. Thus the
rightness or wrongness of the particular forms of conduct
is made to depend upon a judgment whose grounds are to
be found in the conscious experience of the judging mind.

In all this, however, the supreme consideration is often —
if not always — found in the estimate which is placed upon
the value of the ends to be attained and, in a subsidiary way,
of the means to be employed in their attainment. There is,
indeed, a certain side of all human experience which goes a
considerable way toward the seeming justification of Schopen-
hauer's contention for a blind and purposeless f orthputting of
Will, in the World at large and in the individual man. On
the other hand, it is a most indubitable fact of experience
that man, and especially developed man, does consciously
pursue ends that have in his eyes higher or lower degrees
of different kinds of value. And in the case of each
individual, the character of these ideas of ends and of values
determines his judgments upon matters of conduct and of
character.

It should not be necessary again at this point to remind
ourselves that we are not now considering how to determine
which of two contending ethical judgments is most trust-
worthy; or which of the different aims or methods of evalu-
ation is most justifiable in the light of the supreme moral Law
or of the highest moral Ideal. Our present purpose is much
more modest. It is simply to show how, in the development
of ethical judgment, a higher or lower stage of quasi-inde-
pendent reasoning is reached by every adult individual; and
what is the efi'ect of this fact upon that use of human rational
faculty which all morality and moral development implies.

ETHICAL JUDGMENT 129

There are two important general assumptions to which one
is brought by the psychological study of ethical judgment.
First, man's intelligence is rightfully regarded as obligating
him to its own use in planning and guiding his own conduct.
Noblesse oblige, — and not less the nobility of rationality than
the nobility of rank or birth. Thus the thought is led around
again to a position which is in neighborly contiguity with
the position from which the discussion of the nature of ethi-
cal judgment took its departure: So-called "Conscience," as
a matter of intellectual equipment for such judgment, is no
whit different from so-called ordinary intelligence. But
this " ordinary " intelligence is human intelligence ; it is
man's intellect, in its full use, culminating in judgment as
to the right and wrong of conduct. Moreover, this use of
intelligence is itself either right or wrong — in the ethical
meaning of these words ; for this use is a species of conduct.
And the moral feelings of obligation, of approbation and dis-
approbation, and of merit and demerit, have as much place,
and as binding an authority, in respect of this, as of any other
species of conduct. If we generalize this fact which, like a
silent postulate, permeates all our estimates of the nature
and value of ethical judgment, and bring our generalization
into correspondence with that conclusion to which all our
study of psychological ethics is pointing the way, we may
anticipate the following conclusions. The intellectual proc-
esses are, of course, essential to the existence of moral
Selfhood; the noblest and best use of them is characteristic
of the Ideal Self; and such a use is morally obligatory,
necessarily to be approbated by moral consciousness, and to
be considered meritorious ; for it is an essential part of the
realization of the Ideal of a perfect Self existing in social
relations with other selves.

The second assumption involved in the doctrine of ethical
judgment is this : Only through the exercise of intelligence
does the so-called " motive '' pass over, as it were, into the

130 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

choice and into the deed. It is not motive alone, or judg-
ment alone, or deliberate choice alone, whether followed or
not by a successful executive action, to which the qualifica-
tion of moral goodness or badness should be attached. It is
rather to the total Self in action — Feeling, Intellect, and
Will, in a living unity. Motives must, indeed, be judged
morally; but they must also be more or less willed, in order
to be really motives. Judgments, too, are motived and more
or less subjected to volition. The highest expressions of
will, the deliberate choices, are themselves the subject of
both moral feeling and moral judgment. Good intentions
alone are not the only moral good ; as Professor Dewey has
well said: " The conceived results constitute the content of the
act to he performed. They are not merely relevant to its
morality, but are its moral quality." Therefore, I affirm
without hesitation : A virtuous intellect is essential to a vir-
tuous man.

We are now in a position to understand the main features
of the evolution of ethical judgment, both in the individual
and in the race. This evolution follows the same laws which
control man's total development of intelligence. In a certain
somewhat loose way, three stages may be distinguished. In
the earliest stage, it is feeling largely, if not almost wholly,
which determines the judgment; in this stage, the judgment
is scarcely more than a declaration of the fact of feeling.
Children and childish men think little as to the reasons why
they feel and therefore judge as they do ; they know almost
nothing of the influences which are operative upon their own
minds, whether these causes belong to the original constitu-
tion of human nature or are themselves the result of the
previous experiences of the race. In a word, amongst savages
as amongst the children of civilized communities, judgments
about the right and wrong of conduct arise in blind, instinc-
tive feelings. If we could get very near to the so-called
primitive man, we should undoubtedly find him yet more a

ETHICAL JUDGMENT 131

creature and a subject of feeling. We should find him — if
as jet man^ however primitive — moved by passions and
emotions to do certain things which the sentiments of obli-
gation and of ethical and sesthetical admiration and approba-
tion were moving him not to do. We should find him in this
strange conflict of feeling, this schism between the lower
and the higher Self; but the schism would not be compre-
hended; nor would the grounds be recognized on which the
authority of the higher moral consciousness was reposed.

The second stage in the evolution of ethical judgment is
reached whenever experience of the effects of conduct has
embodied itself in certain more or less fixed customs, or in
the form of moral maxims, precepts, and regulations, or in
the shape of something resembling a code of conduct defining
what is to be esteemed right, what wrong, by the community.
But even at this stage the multitude of individuals in their
private ethical judgments only echo and reiterate, as they
for the most part unquestioningly accept, the generalizations
reached in some form by the generations of their predeces-
sors in the moral life. In this stage, whenever the attempt
is made to give reasons for any particular judgment, such
an attempt ends in a reference to the fact, as bare fact, of
the conclusions already accepted by the majority. Thus most
of the current " reasoning " on moral matters might be sum-
marized in the one major premise for the standard ethical
syllogisms: It is right to follow the custom; doing right is
doing as the ancients have done and as people generally
do now.

But even this stage in the evolution of ethical judgment
cannot come into existence, much less long continue to exist,
without certain individuals at least making considerable
advances into a third and higher stage. In this third stage,
the science and philosophy of conduct become, to some
extent, the interest and the attainment of the multitude of
individuals of whom society consists.

132 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

The history of ethical evolution by no means, of course,
warrants us in making a clean-cut separation between these
different stages of man's ethical progress. Other factors and
laws than those which are distinctly intellectual take part in
this evolution. No community at any time can be regarded
as stationary in either one of these three stages, to the exclu-
sion of all examples of the other stages. Amongst the
lowest savages are found some who, more than others, think
for themselves touching matters of conduct; amongst the
most highly cultured ethically, the majority, for most of
their ethical judgments, trust to unreasoned feeling or accept
the conclusions handed down from preceding generations.
And it is well that it is so. For thus the " cake of custom "
is formed ; only thus could enough of uniformity be secured
to constitute a safe and true social environment such as is
the necessary presupposition of any ethical life or ethical
development. But all the while the race — or at the least,
that portion of it which is undergoing a real moral evolution
— is learning more and more how to make up its mind, on
the ground of an enlarging experience and by use of its
improved powers of ratiocination, regarding the right and
wrong of conduct. A progress in ethical enlightenment is
certainly taking place with this portion of mankind; but
whether this portion, or the whole of mankind, is growing
better in disposition and in will in proportion to its increased
enlightenment — why, this is another and a distinctly broader
and more difficult question.

CHAPTER YIII

MORAL FREEDOM

In the preliminary analysis of the content of moral con-
sciousness it was found that some degree at least of self-
control, superior to that possessed by the lower animals, is
necessary to man's equipment for the moral life and for the
development of character. The sphere of ethics is the sphere
of conduct and character. But conduct and character imply
choice — of one deed rather than another, of one course of
action in preference to some other; and in their highest
manifestation, the choice of an end, an ideal that shall
largely subordinate and control the entire life. Hence the
continued necessity for ethics of a discussion of the nature
and extent of man's moral freedom. By ''moral freedom " I
mean such a kind and amount of self-control as belongs,
both in fact and in accordance with the demands of a sound
ethical theory, to man's moral life and moral development.

It would manifestly be impossible, however, to bring
the whole range of psychological and metaphysical problems
which form important parts of this ethical problem ^ within
the reasonable limits of a treatise on the philosophy of con-
duct. To psychology appertains the description and, so far
as possible, explanation of the phenomena of the voluntary
nature of man. To metaphysics one might properly wish to

1 For a fuller discussion of these problems the reader must be referred to the
other works of the author, especially to Psychology, Descriptive and Explana-
tory, chap. V, xi, xxi, xxvi ; A Theory of Reality, chap, iii, vii, x, xiii, xix ;
Philosophy of Knowledge, chap, x, xivj and Philosophy of Mind, chap, ir,
vii, viii, xii.

134 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

relegate the discussion of the nature of Causation, in both
the physical and the psychical fields; of the conceptions of
Necessity, of Law, of the Indeterminate, and of the real
Relations which exist between the different psychoses, or
between the Body and the Mind of man; and, finally, the
speculative treatment of the Absolute, the Infinite, etc., and
of its relations to the Relative and the Finite. But how can
ethics wait for psychology and metaphysics to solve all
these complicated and profoundly difficult problems ?

This entanglement of the problem of man's moral freedom
with so many psychological and metaphysical problems has
given occasion for certain intolerable attitudes toward the
task of ethical philosophy. Against two such attitudes I
wish to make an especially earnest protest at this point.
The one is the attitude of indifference or of contemptuous
dissatisfaction with all proposals for renewed discussion of
so insolvable a problem. The other is the attitude of satisfac-
tion and " cock-sure-ness " that the matter has at last been
definitely settled in the interests of a so-called strictly scien-
tific conception of human nature and of its ethical, as well
as of all its other development. It is difficult to say which
of these two attitudes is theoretically the more unwarrantable
and practically the more mischievous; it is certain that
both of them should be challenged and criticised by every
student of the philosophy of conduct.

Ethics can never cease to be profoundly and vitally inter-
ested in the discussion of the problem of moral freedom ; for
this problem, like a banyan tree, although it affords friendly
shelter or deadly shade for all sorts of common folk, sends
its many branches down to take roots in the dark and hidden
places whence comes its own life, and all Life. It is true
that the problem has been attacked over and over again by
minds of the keenest analytic powers, and left, after the
attack, in nearly the same impregnable condition as before.
It is also true that the several factors of the problem, the

MORAL FREEDOM * 135

different considerations mainly influencing the manner of its
discussion, and the different forms given to its solution have
customarily been thrown into the shape of fundamentally
irreconcilable conceptions and conclusions. It has thus
been left honeycombed with so-called "antinomies." And
perpetually recurring antinomies inevitably bring about an
attitude of discouragement or even of disgust toward the
problems which are expressed in this fashion.

Now I have elsewhere ^ discussed in detail the subject of
"alleged antinomies." What was there concluded as to
such interesting products of ingenious dialectics in general
is emphatically true of the hitherto current ethical anti-
nomies. Asa rule, they are not contradictions inherent in
reason at all. "They are, rather, spurious contradictions
which can always be got up when abstract conceptions of
more or less doubtful empirical origin and of perverted or
mutilated construction are hypostasized and brought into
relations that are themselves either fictitious or abstracted
inconsiderately from the relations of real individual things."
Such contradictions, that is to say, are not found actually
existent or implied, either in the world of things or in the
constitution of human reason, or between the world of things
and the reason of man ; they are the constructs of imperfect
or self-deceived logical processes. The cure for such anti-
nomies is neither indifference, nor contempt of thinking,
nor despair of their removal. The cure for them is a more
thorough, unprejudiced, and profound criticism of the con-
ceptions involved. All this is true whether these antithetic
conceptions are evolved by the plain man's thinking, or by
the profound but perverse analysis of Kant, or by the brilliant
and subtle but fallacious dialectics of Dean Mansel or Mr.
Bradley. Limits of our knowledge may well enough, — nay !
must of course be recognized; although they must not be
too hastily fixed by the method of dialectics. In respect of

1 Philosophy of Knowledge, chap. xiv.

136 . PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

the nature of moral freedom, and the relations to the World
and to God in which man is placed bj the possession or the
development of such freedom, there is doubtless much which
the human mind does not understand. Probably there is
much which never will be understood. But no one adequately
acquainted with the history of the philosophy of conduct can
assume that the conceptions involved in the phrase " Moral
Freedom " have all received the criticism necessary to say
the last words upon so involved a subject.

Nor can the student of ethics admit that theory here is of
no great practical importance. Mr. Sidgvvick,^ in his calm
and measured way, undertakes to "dispel any lingering
doubts ... as to the practical unimportance of the Free
Will controversy." But, in his own discussion, he con-
stantly confuses the question of the immediate practical
results of Determinism with the question of the possibility
of reconciling the theory of Determinism with the demands
of practical reason, — that is, with the rationality of moral
consciousness. But practical results of this sort are scarcely
to be determined by a priori processes of reasoning; and
there are two very potent influences at work which make it
difficult or impossible to tell what the practical results
would be of having no opinions, or at least convictions,
respecting the questions in debate between the Determinist
and the Libertarian. One of these influences consists in
the patent fact that scientific Determinism is an almost
purely scholastic theory; and while the multitudes of men
are perfectly well aware of, and constantly take account of,
the facts on which the deterministic theory relies, they do
not interpret these facts in terms of this theory. Therefore,
imtil its advocates have managed thoroughly to convince
the multitude of its truthfulness, we can never know by
experience what would be the practical results of the uni-
versal adoption of this theory. There is absolutely no
1 The Methods of Ethics, book I, chap, v f.

MOKAL FREEDOM 137

chance of ever converting the multitudes to a scientific
Determinism. Fatalism is, however, a religious doctrine —
generally accepted among millions of men; its practical
results may be subjected to observation, and there cannot be
much doubt about their baleful character.

The second cause of the difficulty of putting the fruits of
the deterministic theory to a test of experience is that they
who advocate it most strenuously as a scholastic tenet, as
a rule, give it less scope in a practical way over their own
conduct than do even the multitude of thoughtless men and
women. For they who urge the speculative tenet, that all
conduct is strictly determined, practise as though they were,
what they really are, as free as the gods themselves. By
constitution, by education, by circumstances, they are the
highest specimens of responsible moral freedom. But to
pursue the inquiry further in this direction would be to
employ a rather unserviceable argumentum ad hominem.

To say here in one word what will come up for notice sub-
sequently : — those men who act as though they were " free "
from all restraints of moral law or influences from their fel-
low-men, and those others who regard themselves as " slaves, "
strictly determined by either their own impulses and passions
or by external influences, are ordinarily both alike bad and
immoral. Both classes are customarily so regarded by the
enlightened critic of conduct. They constitute, on the one
hand, the gifted, high-born, and interesting rogues, and, on
the other hand, the low-bred and often disgusting rogues, of
human kind ; — rogues are they both apt to be, and in such
manner that license and slavery seem to meet in characters
that practise according to either extreme of theory.

The attitude of undisturbed satisfaction toward any new
proposal to discuss the problem of moral freedom is widely
prevalent amongst present-day writers on ethics. It is vir-
tually the assumption that further discussion is needless be-
cause, in sooth, the whole problem has been once for all

138 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

definitively settled. Less speed and assurance would be not
only practically helpful but more genuinely scientific here.
To be sure we have writers — like Riehl,^ for example — who
boldly assert that freedom is an '' illusion" comparable to the
illusion of the sun moving round the earth ; and that
"Morality is the cognitive ground of Determinism, while
Determinism is the real ground of Morality. " But to such
offhand assertions the counter claim of Caspari,^ for example,
is good enough as an answer; for Caspari claims with far
more reason, that the phenomena on which Determinism
depends are Sehein-Phenomena, or illusions. Then there is
the declaration of psychologists like Hoffding:^ "Psy-
chology, like every other science, must be deterministic;
that is to say, it must start from the assumption that the
causal law holds good even in the life of the will, just as this
law is assumed to be valid for the remaining conscious life and
for material nature. " But, as I have ventured to say else-
where : * " Such an assertion as this may properly be met with
the flattest kind of a denial. Psychology has absolutely no
right to make any such assumption. " Nor need the advocate
of moral freedom retreat before the encounter takes place
through fear of such theories as that of M. Luys ^ who re-
gards all psychoses, including volitions and choices, as
determined by the brain which dictates them to the con-
scious mind by a species of incomprehensible jugglery.
Neither a metaphysical, nor a psychological, nor a psycho-
physical theory of the will is to be enforced or even made
relatively acceptable by any such rash and wholesale state-
ments as the foregoing. No student of ethics need hesitate
boldly to call in question the somewhat too overbearing
temper and self-confident tone of this current Determinism.

1 Philosophischer Kriticismus (edition of 1876), II, ii, chap. 3, 219 f.

2 Grundprobleme der Erkenntniss-Thatigkeit II, p. 131 f.
8 Outlines of Psychology, p. 345 f.

* Psychology, Descriptive and Explanatory, p. 627.
5 The Brain and its Functions, passim.

MORAL FREEDOM 139

In a word, although the world is old and the problem of
so-called "free will" has often been examined, and always
been found full of difficulties and dangers of misconception
and of practical import, there is, possibly, still more light to
be thrown upon it. At any rate, there is absolutely nothing
in the most recent discoveries, either of psychological or of
physical science, which compels one to regard the deter-
ministic solution as the only valid and scientific answer
to the problem.

Within the limits of the present treatise the best course to
follow in discussing the nature and development of moral
freedom is, I think, the following: first, to recognize certain
truths of fact emphasized by both the deterministic and the
libertarian positions, and to criticise the views held by both
these positions, when pressed to an extreme; second, to
display briefly those principal data of moral consciousness
on which an acceptable theory of moral freedom must be
based ; third, to examine the chief objections which may be
brought against the theory; and, finally, to summarize the
entire problem and harmonize, so far as possible, the con-
flicting elements and the subordinate conclusions.

Of preliminary considerations the following seem to me the
most important. In the first place, the actuality must be
admitted of certain relations between the successive states
of the Self, and between each of those states and the bodily
organism, as well as through this organism between the Self
and the changing conditions of external things. Such rela-
tions are to be found at the very base of human experience ;
they are necessary to the very constitution of any experience
whatever. It may be said, the rather, that in these relations
and in their effects upon the Self, experience itself largely
consists. Different words are indeed employed by naive
common-sense or by psychological, psycho-physical, and
metaphysical theories, to express these relations. Among
such words are the following: "cause," "occasion," "in-

140 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

duce," "influence," or even "make" and "compel." We
" account for " one state or process of consciousness by refer-
ring to another preceding state or process; we refer, for
example, our present choice or intention to the desire of
attaining some coveted end. Men continually inquire as to
the motives of deeds, the reasons and explanations of courses
of conduct. They apply similar language to the relations in
which they believe themselves as conscious existences to stand
to the conditions of their own bodily organism; it is the
arm or the tooth that makes one smart with pain ; it is the
condition of the eye or ear which determines whether one
shall see or hear, well or ill. In all his social and civil
relations man believes in the applicability of similar terms
to describe what those relations are, and also how the
experience of the individual is dependent upon the actuality
of those relations. Society exists at all only on the postulate
that human beings influence or affect each other, and that
they are in their collective action and development influenced
or affected by a great variety of external conditions. Upon
such facts as these Determinism bases its theory ; and in
discussing the problem of moral freedom no such sophistical
procedure with these facts as converts them into merely
Schein-Phenomena can be adopted. Nor can the terms in use
among men be interpreted by a scientific ethics otherwise
than as bearing witness to the actuality of the relations which
they signify. To interpret them, and not to deny or sophis-
ticate them, is the task of the philosophy of conduct.

But, on the other hand, the actuality must also be admitted
of certain relations between the Self regarded as emotional
and impulsive and the Self regarded as willing and choosing,
and also between the Self and its own choices ; and experi-
ence forbids our interpreting the foregoing words, when
applied to these relations, strictly after the analogy of any
relations which can exist between things and things, or
between things and their own states. Upon this point the

MORAL FREEDOM 141

opinions and language of men, as well as their practice, are as
clear as they are upon the point just preceding. The univer-
sal tendency of the untutored man is to conceive of the rela-
tions between things and things, and between things and his
own states, pretty strictly after the analogy of his own experi-
ence with himself as influenced by motives to choose or to
avoid certain ends. This doctrine of Animism, with its
language and practices, is all the more significant because,
as says Tylor,^ "the conjunction of ethics and Animistic
philosophy, so intimate and powerful in the higher culture,
seems scarcely yet to have begun in the lower." For the
tendency shows how permanent and universal is the naive
conviction that the real relation between the man and his
choices, or the man's choices and the man's desires, is not
one to be expressed in terms analogous to a physical neces-
sity. A similar anthropomorphism belongs to all stages of
human development. Indeed, as 1 have elsewhere shown,^
the modern scientific view of the Universe as a strictly
ordered and uniform system of causal connections, is no less
anthropomorphic than is the Animism of the savages. It
has the advantage of projecting into things, for the explana-
tion of man's experience with them, the higher as well as —
or instead of — the lower factors of man's cognition of the
characteristics of selfhood. But modern science can validate
its anthropomorphism only if it admits the postulate that
Causation, or Influence, and Necessity, Contingency, and
Law, mean something different when applied to man's ex-
perience with himself and to his experience with physical
things.

In this connection I will cite the sentence with which the
author quoted above closes his discussion of the phenomena
of Animism by bidding us " consider how the introduction of
the moral element separates the religions of the world,

1 Primitive Culture, I, p. 427.

2 A Theory of Reality {passim, and especially, chap, x, xvi, xviii).

142 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

united as they are throughout by one animistic principle, into
two great classes, those lower systems whose best result is
to supply a crude childlike natural philosophy, and those
higher faiths which implant on this the law of righteousness
and of holiness, the inspiration of duty and of love." i That
is to say, the growth of culture and the development of
morals does not destroy what is true in the one pervasive
"animistic principle;" the One Life which manifests Itself
in all beings is assumed to be both the Ground of a necessi-
tated connection between Things and of a development of
such moral freedom in Selves as makes possible a keeping
of the "law of righteousness and of holiness, the inspiration "
(not mechanical causation) "of duty and of love." Of
course, the language and conduct of men must be sympa-
thetically and profoundly interpreted in order to find in
them so much of superior privilege and of opportunity. But
the most superficial interpretation shows that the universal
type of psychical relations is not derived from man's
experience with a merely physical mechanism.

The inevitable necessity of combining in one's conception
of moral freedom the two preceding somewhat antithetical
considerations leads the mind directly to a third important
truth. We may state the antithesis — which is after all
more verbal than real — in either one of several ways. The
Self is indeed influenced in its choices by its own desires and
passions; but it is not thus compelled in the same way as
that in which the action of one thing compels the action of
another thing. Sometimes, and in certain pitiful cases
almost or quite habitually, the Self is so strongly influenced,
so overborne, as it were, in its consideration of all motives
to pause or to resist, that men accept some such description
of its action as the following: "I could not help it;" or
"The temptation was too strong and sudden, was greater
than I could resist. " When asked : — Why did you choose
1 Tylor, ibid., ii, p. 361.

MORAL FREEDOM 143

thus and so ? or, Why was your conduct so blameworthy, or
impolitic ? the answer sometimes is : " This passion or
impulse mastered me; this consideration compelled me to
act." And yet rarely does the explanation, taken at all
literally, seem either to the one who makes, or to the one
who receives it, quite satisfactory or quite complete. The
untutored moral consciousness, the crude and swift justice
of the savage, takes little or no account of excuses such as
these. And the suspicion that the offender against the law
or the custom is lying, when he pleads the excuse of a causal
and necessitated connection between his motive and his
deed, is likely to make the retribution no less crude and
swift. It is only the refined moral consciousness which
modifies its feelings of reprobation and demerit, and substi-
tutes somewhat of indulgent pity and compassion in their
stead.

Now from such mixed and conflicting experiences as these
it follows at once that moral freedom must be considered as
a matter admitting of degrees, and as itself capable of develop-
ment. In a word, human beings are not born free morally ;
neither do all men possess at any time, nor does any indi-
vidual man possess at all times, equal degrees of moral free-
dom. The rather is such freedom to be spoken of as an
acquisition, dependent upon repeated exercise of the so-called
power of choice, under the principle of habit. Growth in
moral freedom is the development of the Self's capacity for
making choices.

It is also manifest at once, in the fourth place, that this
" capacity of the Self for making choices " cannot be con-
sidered as the function of any one faculty or set of faculties.
The possession of any degree of moral freedom, and the
development of its higher and more significant degrees, are
dependent in all cases upon the possession and development
of all the faculties which go to make up man's moral
nature. The problem of ethics is therefore not decided,

144 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

it is not even properly stated, when only the facts that con-
cern the purely voluntary aspect of consciousness are consid-
ered. Neither mere arbitrariness of will, nor machine-like
and necessitated action of will, can constitute the basis of a
truly moral freedom. For, indeed, the problem includes much
more than this. Choices to follow the ideal forms of that
which is esteemed morally good cannot be made by a mere
fiat of will, whether wholly unmotived or strictly determined ;
the presence in consciousness of such ideals and the conscious
evaluation of them from the moral point of view is necessary
to their choice. I cannot will to adhere to my feeling of
obligation rather than yield to my passion or desire, unless I
have such feeling of obligation ; nor can I choose that course
of conduct which 1 judge to be right unless I am capable of a
judgment which shall bring the conduct under the category
of the right. And without the powerful influence from the
feelings of moral approval and merit (and their opposites) it
cannot be contended that men would ever attain to a genuine
moral freedom. It is in the neglect of these considerations
that some of the antinomies which are forced into the problem
of a so-called freedom of the will have their origin. "Free-
dom of the will " is, I think, a term which would better be
abandoned by ethics. Moral freedom for the human Self ; —
what is it in fact, and essentially, in spite of its many degrees
of intensity, so to say, and its different forms of manifestation ?
This is the primary ethical question. And has moral freedom
in fact such a character that, before the same moral conscious-
ness which is its own most severe and, when well cultivated,
intelligent critic, we may justify the conclusion that the
present social system has in it at least the seeds of rationality?
Certain facts of indubitable experience exist, on the basis
of which may be formed our conception of the nature of man's
choices, and of the part which they play in the moral life and
moral development. But even these facts lose all their highest
value and most of their significance, when we attempt to

MORAL FREEDOM 145

regard them as separable from the development of human life,
in the individual and in the race.

One word more of preliminary cautioning seems desirable.
This has reference to the chief fallacy in discussing this prob-
lem which affects those metaphysically inclined. The fallacy
is that of mistaking conceptions for entities, functions for
realities, relations for pre-existent and effective causes. In a
word, it is the fallacy of hypostasizing. For example," Law "
never does anything, or accounts for anything, — no matter
how imposing the capital with which one spells the word.
" Necessity " creates no real bond ; and " Chance " and
" Contingency " — whether whispered with bated breath by
the frightened worshipper of the great modern World-
Machine, or boldly proclaimed by the avowed enemy of such
a monstrosity — can no more injure the existing arrangement
of things than the most inevitable Fate can conserve this
arrangement by preventing man's interference with it all.
Ghosts of abstractions, whether theological or scientific,
whether redolent with the smell of the tombs in which they
should have been buried ages ago, or emitting whiffs of the
latest patent embalming fluid, can effect neither good nor
harm outside of the mind of man. And when one is solemnly
told that the Law of Causation forbids this or compels the
other; that human Self-determination would destroy the
integrity of the physical Universe ; or that the Conservation
and Correlation of Energy does not admit of influences
•' passing over," etc., from the physical to the psychical realm,
one may always demand a re-examination of the warrant in
facts for such sweeping use of ideas whose whole force is
only that of the highest potency of logical generalization.

What now are those facts of a well-nigh if not quite universal
human experience, from which flows the conception of a real
moral freedom for man, and to which this conception must be
referred in the effort to determine more critically its rational
import? These facts may be divided between two related

146 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

but not identical forms of consciousness. They may be
called the consciousness of ability and the consciousness of
imputability, or the consciousness of the Self as active and
the consciousness of the Self as responsible. As these facts
appear in the stream of the individual's conscious life, and as
they become data for the conception of man's moral freedom,
they are expressed by such language as the following : '' I can,"
and " I know that I can ; " and because " I ought to have (or I
ought not to have), I am worthy of approval (or of disap-
proval), and of merit (or of demerit)." In the one case, the
Self contemplates itself as in the presence of its own deed
and affirms that the choice to do, or not to do, in spite of all
internal and external influence, is, nevertheless its very own.
J make my choice ; and the "I" that chooses is not simply
the being that was yesterday, or even a moment since ; the
rather is it the living, present, here-and-now-being of the
Self. In the other case the Self contemplates its ow^n deed
as already done, and affirms that this deed of choice together
with a certain greater or less amount of the consequences
following from the deed, belongs to itself ; and, in consequence,
so does also the blame or praise, the reward or punishment.
I did this thing, for it was my choice ; and my living, present
Self doth reasonably assume as its own the moral predica-
ments of its own choosing. Such, I maintain are the facts of
human experience, when this experience reaches that stage
of development which affords the clearest and most trust-
worthy data for a conception of moral freedom. But with
inferior degrees the same experience manifests itself as an
almost ceaseless accompaniment of, and a substantial factor
in, the unfolding of the moral life. Let us now examine
somewhat more carefully these two classes of general facts
belonging to man's ethical consciousness.

The general fact of self-activity, culminating in that highest
form of such activity which is intelligent and deliberate
choice, when taken — as it always should be — in connection

MORAL FREEDOM 147

with the equally general fact of limitations and inhibitions to
this activity, is expressed in such language as " I can," or " I
cannot." This form of language is appropriate before the
choice is made. After the choice, the appropriate declaration
is " I could have," or " I could not have " — done otherwise
(" helped " it, or not, etc.). The psychological analysis of the
origins and development of those complex conscious condi-
tions which give the warrant to these forms of expression
shows that the conditions themselves are continually present
in human consciousness, and belong essentially to the rise and
evolution of the very conception of a moral Self, To prove
this we have only to evoke the aid of a descriptive psychol-
ogy which is faithful to the facts.

In the infantile consciousness there is neither knowledge of
the Self as a doer, nor of other selves and things as external
existences that excite desire and solicit or impel the will.
But there is that mixture of sensations and feelings which
stimulates the discriminating consciousness to master its
environment both intellectually and practically, and which is
of such a character as to compel the distinction between the
Ego as active and the same Ego as passive, and so between
the Self and the not-Self or other things. In the one ever-
flowing and shifting stream of conscious states there are
changes which accentuate and define the conception of our-
selves as agents ; and there are other changes which accentu-
ate and define the conceptions of things not ourselves by
which our agency is limited, and by which we are made
to suffer by being acted upon. This is no occasional expe-
rience for any man. This is the universal and necessary
characteristic of all experience. Under the conditions of
most supreme activity we are self-active only in a limited
way ; we are also solicited or deterred, impelled or inhibited —
somehow made passive — by the actions of other persons and
other things. On the other hand, in our most abject submis-
sions, in our most supine yieldings, we are often, if not gen-

148 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

erally or universally, conscious of a certain measure of
self-activity — of a resistance, which indicates the retention
of at least a minimum of that inherent right and power of
seZf-control which belongs to the very nature of man. When
I suffer pain, after all it is I that, having borne up Qsuh fero)
against it, now give way ; and in the very giving way, I may
assert my will not to have it so. And if the total yielding
happens to be an affair of ethical concernment; if I have
yielded because I felt I could no longer suffer for righteous-
ness' sake ; then — my conscience being well trained and still
sensitive — I may feel most keenly that, after all, I really could
have borne more ; I was not wholly passive in being over-
borne. The ideal of a truly moral being is the conception of
a Will which under certain circumstances, cannot be made to
choose to do certain things by any amount of conceivable
suffering.

The belief of mankind that human wills can by their ac-
tivity modify the otherwise extreme conditions of passivity,
is proved by their language, their judgments, and their be-
havior. ''Do not mind it, and it will not hurt you (at all, or
so much) " — this is what nurses and mothers tell their chil-
dren. " You shall learn to bear up against that pain in the
interests of some practical ideal" — this is the moral maxim
which is fundamental with the North American Indian, as
well as with that Christian tutelage out of which the martyrs
came. Even the claim, " I cannot help it," or " I cannot do
this," has no meaning unless it be interpreted in the light of
contrast with the consciousness of power to do. The con-
sciousness of potency is the indispensable postulate of the
consciousness of impotency ; " cannot " has no meaning ex-
cept as the foil of " I can." ^

Neither past nor current theories of the physiological basis

1 For a full discussion of the beginnings and development of this conscious-
ness, see the author's Psychology, Descriptiye and Explanatory, chap, xi and

MORAL FREEDOM 149

or of the psycho-physical connections of this consciousness
of self-activity should be allowed in the least to modify our
statements of the fundamental facts of experience, or to blur
the conception of the import of these facts in their bearing
upon the doctrine of moral freedom. That this feeling of
self-activity, psychologically considered, cannot be wholly re-
solved into feelings of peripheral tension and strain, etc., I
have elsewhere shown to be true. It is in these feelings that
men have, the rather, the grounds in experience for the con-
ception of an activity that is limited and checked. But the
feeling of being active is not, as a mode of consciousness at
least, the feeling simply of being inhibited in activity. I will,
with difficulty^ indeed ; but the fact expressed by the words
" with difficulty " is not the whole of the fact.

As far as available data exist for a scientific conclusion, it
appears that the physiological functions with which these
feelings of self -activity are correlated are not of peripheral
origin. They are not modifications of the brain's states
which arise wholly in areas of tense muscles, joints set
together, skin stretched tight, teeth grinding on one another,
fists clenched, etc. The nervous correlate of these feelings
is rather that ongoing chemico-physical life which belongs to
the central organs, to the controlling centres of the cerebro-
spinal and sympathetic systems, and, through these systems, of
all those bodily functions with which consciousness has, either
directly or indirectly, anything to do. If this is so, — and,
indeed, whether it be so or not, — the nature of the connec-
tion between the brain-states and the states of a conscious
self-activity is of so indeterminate and metaphysical a char-
acter that it should not be allowed to influence our pre-
liminary judgment as to the character and import of the
conscious facts. More sure than all theories of idealism,
of materialism, or of psycho-physical parallelism, stands the
indisputable and important datum of human consciousness.
With varying degrees of extension and intensity, however

150 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

limited and checked by causes external or influences arising
within, man carries with him an immediate awareness of his
own potency. He expresses his inmost experience by saying
" I can^^ although it may be with pain and difficulty, or even
with doubt as to whether, after all, this potency will endure
beyond a certain somewhat indefinite amount of strain.

The supreme exhibition of man's self-activity is given in
the phenomenon of intelligent and deliberate choice. The
wonderful and unique characteristics which this phenomenon
may attain have been quite too little insisted upon in modern
discussions of moral freedom. The consciousness of motives,
the estimate of values, the appreciation of ends, have too often
been converted into gwasZ-mechanical processes, whose effect
in consciousness has been conceived of after the analogy of
the action upon each other of the parts of a physical mechan-
ism. But Aristotle long ago saw that intelligent deliberation
guarantees, and itself is, the highest form of moral freedom.
" When we say, this is chosen or purposed, we mean that it
has been selected after deliberation." ^ An intelligent and
deliberate choice is the very opposite of an impulsive or im-
pelled deed of will. The Self choosing, after deliberation, is
the Self determining and not determined. Even to say that
''after reflection, I am determined," is to assert the highest
conceivable potency of a finite self-determining being. Nor
can any one imagine what larger amount of simple " power
of will " should be desired in the interests of man's moral free-
dom. More clearness of vision, more light on consequences,
more pure and noble intentions, finer sensibilities, higher
estimates of the more spiritual goods, — any and all of these
acquirements render any man ''freer" from the risks and
dangers, the mistakes and errors, of the moral life. But I
fail to see how the consciousness of self-activity which is
expressed by the " I can," under the most favorable circum-

1 Nic. Eth., Ill, iii, 17.

MORAL FREEDOM 151

stances, could be made any more convincing of the real nature
of the transaction than it actually is.

The philosophy of conduct must, then, never omit to em-
phasize this most mysterious and, in some respects, most
essentially incomprehensible of psychical phenomena, espe-
cially since so much of human experience inevitably leads
the thought to different and even opposed conclusions re-
specting the nature of man, the nature of things, and the
character of the relations actually existing between the two.
The psychological characteristics of a deliberate choice are
best understood by contrasting this supreme act of will with
every form of impulsive volition. In view of the prevalence
of the teleological principle in all mental as well as physical
life, there is good ground for agreeing with M. Paulhan ^ :
" Every idea, . . . every sentiment, in brief every psychic
system tends to complete itself by volitions and motor
phenomena ; every system has its own will." Now if this
tendency itself were never subject to a conscious and vol-
untary check the phenomena of deliberate choice would
never occur, and moral freedom could never develop. But
deliberation is itself the conscious interposition of a check
until two or more contending " psychic systems " can have
their values estimated and one of them be adopted to the
exclusion of the others. So that what is called " delibera-
tion " is itself a mixture of intellectual activity and inhibitory
volition; indeed, in all cases where the questions deliberated
have a moral import, deliberation is a most significant piece
of conduct. There are, indeed, not a few cases where every
principle of morality leads to the conclusion that action ought
to he preceded by deliberation, with its resulting clearer vision
of the end to be aimed at and its more precise estimate of
the values involved. The moral ideal is that of a Self volun-
tarily using its own intelligence to secure the ends of that
conduct which is judged to be right. Deed without judg-

1 L'Activite Mentale, p. 59 f .

152 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

ment, or impulsive judgment, is in these cases morally wrong
conduct.

The very effect of the intervention of will and reason, or of
the consciously judging and voluntary mind, is totally to change
the relations in which the appetites, passions, emotions, and
desires, stand to the final deed of will. So that the will to
deliberate — " to reason with one's self," or " to let the voice
of reason be heard," as men expressively say — often amounts
in the issue to this : / will the influe7itial ideas, feelings, and
desires, rather than allow these ideas and feelings and desires
to influence — not to say, determine me. " Nothing can well
be more shallow and misleading, in description and explan-
ation of the facts of consciousness, as such, than to regard
deliberation as a mere struggle for supremacy in conscious-
ness of ideas and feelings and desires that strictly determine
will." 1

Moreover, the volition itself, when issued after deliberation
is not psychologically the same. All the naive distinctions
of degrees of responsibility and of guilt which men customarily
make, and all the elaborations of acceptable ethical theory,
agree in affirming this. The deed done with " malice pre-
pense " is peculiarly one's own. If no deliberation intervene,
then the feeling is rather that of being influenced or even car-
ried away by one's own impulses ; if deliberation intervene,
then the feeling is rather that of a self-determining which one
of two or more impulses shall be given the influence which it
is judged to deserve. The culminating one in this series of
psychical phenomena is that decision, or " cutting-short" of
the process of deliberation, in which will expresses itself as
the faculty distinctive in all making of choices. Or, to de-
scribe the experience in terms less abstract and technical :
I myself decide which of the ideas and feelings and desires
I will make definitively and finally my very own. The prob-
lem whose solution has thus far been only more or less highly

1 See Psychology, Descriptive and Explanatory, p. 618 f.

MORAL FREEDOM 153

probable, is now for the time being solved ; only the decision
decides, only the resolution resolves the problem.

Undoubtedly, only a relatively small amount of any man's
conduct results from, or consists in, those intelligent and
deliberate choices which exhibit in a complete and supreme
way all the characteristics that have just been described.
But just as undoubtedly such choices are within the limits
of man's capacity, and are actually made by many, if not
frequently by all men. It is not the heroes alone who can
truthfully declare with the Paracelsus of Browning:

" I have subdued my life to the one purpose
Whereto I ordained it ; "

or, agam :

*' I have made my life consist of one idea."

The plain men and women of the world, even in the more un-
favorable conditions and lower stages of moral development,
do frequently make choices which are of large subsequent
effect upon their own lives and upon the lives of others.
These concern their habitual employments, their places of
residence, their marital and other social connections, the
parts they play in the life of the tribe or larger community,
and even the interests which affect the ongoing of the his-
tory of the race. " Will in the narrower sense, or rational
will," says Paulsen,^ "is desire determined by purposes,
principles, and ideals." But this is only the partial truth ;
Rational will is the Self regarded as determining its own con-
duct with a view to realize the ends that are conceived of as
good.

The phenomena, taken in their entirety and surveyed as im-
portant factors in man's evolution, vindicate his claim to a
conscious s^Zf-activity. The fact that this activity is itself
dependent upon a development of the mind with all its
powers, and the fact that it admits of a great variety of

1 System of Ethics, p. 220.

154 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

degrees, varying from an impulsive and more strictly deter-
mined volition to the most intelligent and deliberate choice,
— these facts do not destroy but only modify and explain the
nature and import of the claim.

In opposition to this view of the fundamental facts of ex-
perience another is sometimes set up, which regards the
phenomena as analyzable into a consciousness of change plus
a conscious ignorance as to the cause of the change. In a
word, this form of Determinism sees an intellectual weak-
ness in the very conscious experience in which we find a con-
sciousness of power. But a potency of action is not to be
resolved into an impotence of knowledge. Nor can the activity
of a Thing be converted into the activity of a Self merely by
assuming that the thing has become conscious of what it is do-
ing, while remaining still ignorant of the reason why.

Some physical illustration is quite too often supposed, with
a kind of Hindu logic, to prove the case against the advo-
cate of a real moral freedom. Let us suppose an arrow in
its flight to become conscious of its own buoyancy, speed, and
direction, and to feel the influences which really come from
earth and air, without however knowing anything about the
bow and the strong arm that set it in motion, or the forces
and laws of gravity and of atmospheric pressure. Might not
this conscious Thing imagine itself to be soaring aloft of its
own free will, to be voluntarily going straight for, or deviating
from, the mark with feelings and desires appropriate ; and,
finally, might it not rejoice in and esteem praiseworthy its own
success on hitting the " bull's-eye," or drop to ground quite
short of the target with feelings of disappointment and moral
shame? But, surely, it does not require a past master of
psychology to prick this iridescent bubble, or a great inter-
preter of the language of the human soul to discover the
fallacy of such mythological conceits. Let us make a com-
plete Self out of this conscious arrow. And now under the prin-
ciple of suflicient reason the " Thing " does account to itself

MORAL FREEDOM 155

for its own speed and direction as partially due to causes that
lie outside of itself ; its tendency to decline from the straight
course it ascribes to the pressure of the invisible wind;
and the necessity to put forth more of its own effort to keep
aloft it attributes to the down-pulling of the earth beneath.
And yet this conscious arrow refuses to credit the conclusion
that the wholly sufficient reason for its action resides outside of
its own present, self-determining choice ; and it maintains this
refusal to the last, in spite of all the cogent pleadings of a
deterministic philosophy. Add all these potencies of intellect
and will, and not a few others, together with the ethical feel-
ings of man, to this conscious arrow, and the conscious arrow
has become a conscious Self, with all the rights, duties, and
moral ideals of such a rational and free being. As to the
possibility of so wonderful a transmigration of souls, I am
quite willing to leave it to the most ardent and consistent
advocates of the theory of psycho-physical parallelism to
discuss.

But to drop so imperfect and even absurd an illustration ;
it distinctly is not true to the facts that ignorance of the pre-
cise influences operative is any measure of the willingness to
attribute to the Self the power of self-determination ; or, on
the other hand, that knowledge of the influences actually at
work upon the man necessarily diminishes at all the well-
grounded belief in his freedom. Suppose, for example, that
after much deliberation of the pros and cons I decide to take
a certain journey. After making the decision, I know quite
clearly the relatively narrow set of influences which tended
to induce me to go abroad or to stay at home ; I am still able
quite accurately to describe the amount of consideration
which I gave to them in making up my mind to the final
choice ; but, all the same, or even all the more, I remember
that I was conscious of the ability to choose and that I did
choose with this consciousness still pervading my deed of will.
Now, on the other hand, suppose that I am investigating a

156 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

complicated problem in cerebral physiology. For example:
What are the causal influences that determine the production
of so-called " protagon " in the human brain ? I do not know.
I have not the slightest doubt, however, that they are indefi-
nitely more complicated than those which determined my
clioice to take the journey. I may doubt whether all the
physico-chemical causes which enter into the production of
protagon will ever be known to the student of physiological
chemistry. But do I doubt that every atom and molecule in
that compound, and the whole constitution of the compound,
was strictly determined and did not anywhere admit, on the
part of its elements or its totality any self-determining choice ?
Not for a moment ; not in the least. Why, then, this differ-
ence ? It is not a difference in amounts of knowledge ; it is
plainly a more fundamental difference. It involves all the
enormous difference, based on indubitable facts of experience,
between my conception of the nature of a Thing and my
conception of the nature of a Moral Self.

The other class of facts upon which the conception of moral
freedom is based has been called the consciousness of imputa-
bility. The bearing of these facts upon the conception of
moral freedom may be more briefly stated in view of what
has already been said touching allied facts. Some one is
ethically responsible for all conduct; some one is to be
approbated if the conduct is good, or disapproved if the con-
duct is bad ; and for every good or bad piece of conduct some
one deserves to be treated accordingly. All over the world,
when good or bad deeds transpire, search is at once made for
the person, or persons, whose the deeds are, so that to them
they may be attributed as their very own. And to oivn the
conduct — whether jointly or severally or exclusively — is to
establish a sort of right to its appropriate treatment of praise
or blame, of reward or punishment ; it is also to lay upon
society the duty of this appropriate treatment. In a word, to
the Self, in a special and peculiar way, belong such of its

MORAL FREEDOM 157

individual actions or habitual modes of behavior as consti-
tute its conduct and character ; this attribution of the con-
duct makes ethically proper the imputation of praise or blame,
and the bestowal of reward or the infliction of punishment.

Few will doubt that men are in general ready to claim for
themselves the credit and the reward which are due to the
good deeds they are convinced they have done. Even the
most genuinely humble Christian, in his most sincere ascrip-
tion to God of whatever glory may belong to any of his own
good deeds, still feels that his fellow-men ought also to
recognize in their treatment of him that these good deeds
were indeed his own. If God did them, — and to Him be all
the glory, — still they were done in and through himself.
Just as little doubt is there that men generally disapprove
and blame and desire to punish those who have wronged
them ; and that they express with good conscience this dis-
approval and blame, if not a more explicit notice of demerit.
And the fact that they are not, as a rule, so strict in their
judgment, or so warmly convicted of the rationality of this
universal mode of procedure, when their own selves must
suffer thereby, is to be accounted for in obvious ways. In
the case of those who have the highest degree of ethical cul-
ture, moreover, we not infrequently find the disposition to
make the most unsparing application of this working of moral
consciousness to their own case. The bad things they them-
selves do are, of all bad conduct, the nearest and most intui-
tively disapproved and punished by themselves. They are of
all men least disposed, in cowardly and self -deceitful fashion, to
retreat before the condemnation of conscience or to throw the
blame and the baneful consequences of their own wrongdoing
off upon circumstances or upon other men. And such per-
sons are the most trustworthy witnesses to those facts of
moral consciousness which have this import. All conduct,
with its accompaniments and consequences of approval and
disapproval, merit and demerit, is imputable to some Self as
to its author and source.

158 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

The phenomena of ethical pride and shame, of the claim
made by the pure conscience and the remorseful consciousness
to be self-rewarded or self-punished, even if society neglect its
duty, or fail through ignorance to administer reward or pun-
ishment, are not peculiar to any tribe or to any era of ethical
development. The man of honor in Old Japan committed
hara-kiri, when his wrong conduct toward one of a lower class
was not punishable as a crime in the eyes of the law. His
honor called ; he punished himself. On this point the sanc-
tions of the religious consciousness reinforce the moral feeling
of the imputability of conduct. Hence not only the god who
is friendly should enjoy a sacrifice as a gift, but the god
who has become offended, must be propitiated by a sacrifice.
Criminals have often surrendered themselves in order that the
cravings of their own conscience for punishment might be
appeased ; and sinners who become penitent get satisfaction
in doing some sort of penance. Even the Zulus have the
proverb : " When a fish is killed its own tail is inserted in
its own mouth " (said of people who reap the reward of their
deeds).

The same view of the imputability of conduct is taught by
the universal customs and the language of men as related to
one another's deeds. Whatever one may think about the
morality of revenge, one cannot forget the significance of the
indisputable fact that men regard injuries done them by their
fellowmen as demanding a different sort of treatment from
that which is given to injuries done by things or by the lower
animals. " Confucius made it a duty for a son to slay his
father's murderer, just as Moses insisted on a strictly re-
taliatory penalty for bloodshed." ^ Among the Fijians the
duty of revenge passes from father to son, and from the son
to th« nearest relation, according to the maxim: "Let the
shell of the oyster perish by reason of years, and to these
add a thousand more, still my hatred shall be hot." And

1 Comp. J. A. Farrer, Primitive Manners and Customs, p. 80.

MOKAL FREEDOM 159

even the modern Italian extols the sweetness of revenge and
declares it a morsel fit for God. Between the tribes of the
uncivilized North American Indians, and between the fami-
lies of the scarcely less uncivilized portions of our own South,
feuds and blood-revenge illustrate this fact of imputabilitj in
the form which makes a sacred duty of vengeance. Nor is
the strength of this fact diminished when the lower stage of
morals has been transcended and the beautiful sentiment of
Persia has prevailed, which makes it the sign of a mean spirit
to take private revenge for an injury, but a manly thing to
return good for evil ; or when the yet clearer and more pro-
nounced declarations of the sermon on the mount have been
adopted as the law of social life. On the other hand, the
opinion grows with all the growth of the common moral
status, that to withhold praise and approbation from him who
deserves it, as well as to bestow them selfishly where they
are not deserved, are two kindred forms of evil conduct.
Indeed, this may amount to saying that ingratitude (for pub-
lic as well as private benefits — and every good deed is a
public benefit) and sycophancy are among the basest of vices.
The same truth is even more clearly set forth by the exist-
ence and execution of the laws in all civilized states and
nations ; ^s well as by much of that appeal to force which is
made to settle matters of conduct in dispute between states
or nations, — the so-called " arbitrament of war." For men
can scarcely fight as wild-cats and tigers do. Although there
are few wars of human history where either party has had
a clear title to a perfect righteousness of conduct in the mat-
ter under dispute, and no wars where both parties have had
such a title, yet there are fewer still where there has been
made no pretence — however hypocritical or mistaken — of
some right to be asserted or some wrong to be redressed.
But all such claims bear witness to the same universal belief
in the imputability of human conduct. The barest pretence
of justice carries with it this same irresistible belief.

160 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

There are, indeed, many curious customs and even laws
which show through what various and shifting phases the
conception of the more precise nature of man's responsibility
for his conduct may pass. Most of these, however, may be
explained as due to imperfect conceptions of personality, of
the selfhood which the individual is considered to have.
The history of man's ethical development seems to show that
belief in the imputability of conduct is even more constant
than are the conceptions of selfhood which he develops.
The conception of selfhood is a relatively complex affair.
It undergoes important modifications with the growth in
culture and in experience of the individual and of the race.
Thus the individual Self may, on the one hand, become merged
and almost lost in the vague notion of a selfhood for the
family, the tribe, or the state. Since the other members of
the body domestic, social, political, suffer sympathetically
when any one member suffers, by a not unnatural and useful
fiction they are thought of as sharing in the goodness or
badness of each other's conduct and in " the desert to be
treated accordingly." But the same conception may, on the
other hand, become so contracted as to be identified with some
one of its own good or bad passions, affections, and impulses ;
or even with some one of those bodily members that are the
natural instruments for executing the will as moved by these
passions, affections, and impulses.

This vague and expansive conception of selfhood accounts
in part for the custom of extending to the whole family or
tribe the guilt of an individual member and of satisfying the
demands of justice by executing the penalty upon any other
member of the same family or tribe. Thus the Thlinkeet
Indians, if they cannot catch the actual doer of a crime, kill
one of his family or tribe instead. According to the native
Samoan law a plaintiff might seek redress for the murder of
one of his own relatives " from the brother, son, or other rela-
tive of the guilty party.'* Among the natives of Australia,

MORAL FREEDOM 161

when a crime was committed, and especially if the culprit es-
caped, only persons unconnected with the family believed them-
selves to be safe, until some one had expiated the crime. It is
not long since the English law avenged itself on the successful
suicide by punishing his relatives ; and not so very much
longer since it incarcerated or fined the husband for an
assault committed by his wife. To-day in many Western
sections of this country vengeance for a crime committed by
some one or more Indians is executed by killing as many
as possible, even innocent members of the same tribe or of
other tribes, — and this not as a necessary but awful deter-
rent simply, but rather with the satisfaction of a good con-
science. And do not the most Christian nations constantly
disgrace their Christian name by treating the so-called in-
ferior races with the same crude, selfish, and degraded, but
awfully potent conceptions of personal responsibility for
wrong-doing ?

The thoughtful student of man's moral evolution cannot
fail to find a certain basis in reality for these misguided ways
of asserting the imputability of conduct. Some one has got
to suffer, and some one ought to suffer, if any wrong has
been done. And so much of a sort of solidarity is there to
the connections of individual men, in the family, the tribe,
the state, or the race, that the suffering cannot be confined to
the personality of the criminal alone. Moreover, it ought not
to be so confined. Nor is the reason for this " ought-not "
purely a matter of expediency or of social policy. In their
social connections men act with a kind of corporate responsi-
bility. This fact makes the precise manner of the just dis-
ti'ibution of praise and blame, reward and punishment, most
difficult ; — so difficult indeed, that anything approaching per-
fect justice is an impossibility. The question of Cain : " Am
I my brother's keeper ? " has always been answered affirma-
tively by the prevailing judgment and actual practice of the
race. As ethical enlightenment increases, and " good will "

162 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

becomes more dominant, the conception of Selfhood becomes
truer and more definite, and the points for the just and
beneficent attachment of responsibility become more clearly
discerned.

The important conclusion, therefore, from this general
fact of the imputability of conduct may be stated somewhat
as follows : The fact itself belongs to the most fundamental
and unchanging phenomena of man's moral consciousness.
It guarantees the individual and corporate responsibility of
men to one another, for their conduct and, to a certain ex-
tent for the consequences of conduct. It implies the irresis-
tible belief that conduct belongs to the Self, is the product of
self-activity ; thus conduct can be, must be, and ought to be,
followed by praise or blame, reward or punishment. But
these rational sequences of conduct are themselves justifiable
at the bar of reason itself only in view of the postulate of
moral freedom. And, in fact, these sequences are, by all
men and everywhere, justified in this way. For they are
universally regarded as belonging to the very essentials of
morality as a rational affair. Wrong-doing, since it is the
product of a being possessed of moral freedom, ought to be
blamed and punished ; but right conduct is reasonably en-
titled to praise and to a reward of merit. For the total com-
plex fact is not simply the fact of conduct imputed and treated
accordingly ; it is rather the fact of conduct imputable and so
reasonably treated accordingly.

What now is the picture which these facts of universal
moral consciousness both authenticate and require ? It is
the picture of Man as self-determining; it is the picture of
man as a rational free Self. Negatively described, it is the
picture of a being that is not wholly determined either by
environment and external stimuli and impulses, or by his
own emotional and impulsive states or past habits of action.
Positively described again, it is the picture of a being that,
under differing circumstances and with varying degrees,

MOKAL FREEDOM 163

develops a power which reaches its culminating manifesta-
tion in its own peculiar form of intelligent and deliberate
choice ; and this power is the whole Self actively determin-
ing its own conduct. Perhaps nothing truer has ever been
said upon this subject than the following sentences of Aris-
totle ^ : " Therefore virtue depends upon ourselves ; and vice
likewise. For where it lies with us to do, it lies with us not
to do. Where we can say No, we can say Yes. If then the
doing of a deed which is noble lies with us, the not-doing
it, which is disgraceful, lies with us ; and if the not-doing,
which is noble, lies with us, the doing, which is disgraceful,
also lies with us. But if the doing and likewise the not-
doing of noble or base deeds lies with us, and if this is, as
we found, identical with being good or bad, then it follows
that it lies with us to be worthy or worthless men." " We
are ourselves joint causes^ in a way^ of our {virtuous or
vicious) habits.

Even those advocates of Determinism who venture to charge
this universal opinion — We ourselves determine our conduct
and help to make our own character — with being an illusion^
cannot well controvert the fact that this " illusion " underlies
and interpenetrates the whole moral structure of human insti-
tutions. It is an illusion of the race, a mutually tolerated and
encouraged self-deceit that one cannot say afflicts, but the
rather conserves the higher spiritual and ethical interests of all
mankind. But no warning to the philosophy of conduct can
easily be more significant than that which bids the reflective
thinker beware how he passes lif^jhtly over to the realm of
illusion facts of experience like these. It might well seem
far better to toss some of his own fixed ideas, some of his
boasted scientific (sic) conclusions, over into " the death-
kingdom of abstractions."

There are many of the transactions which take place between
things and things, and between selves and things, that are

1 Nic. Eth., Ill, V, 2 and 20.

164 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

certainly known not to be " free " in any of tlie several mean-
ings which ethics can possibly attach to this word. Indeed,
modern science has a well-founded belief that things, if left to
themselves, uniformly behave in ways which are strictly deter-
mined by the natures and relations of the very things in whose
changes the observed uniform behavior consists. I say natures
as well as relations ; the meaning of this declaration will be
made clearer and the application of it more pertinent at a later
stage of the discussion. For the very term " nature " is one
which science is obliged to use in order to cover up a vast
amount of ignorance, and as a sort of comfortable locus for that
unavailable fund of mystery which investigation always leaves
on hand, no matter to what extent knowledge of so-called causes
has been able to find its way. Or, to put the solution of the
whole problem into one sentence: Science finds the total
explanation of all the physical changes in the world in
the assumption that all things are from the beginning
strictly determined by their own natures how to behave —
each in its own same way — when in determinate identical
relations with other things. This is not, indeed, the naive,
natural way in which men have always explained the physical
changes with which their experience has made them familiar.
It is not the way in which millions of men now explain
these changes. It is, however, the way in which modern
science insists upon explaining, at the very least, all physical
changes.

It will be found that all the objections to that view of moral
freedom which I am advocating have their source in the so-
called " principle of causation." But they come from its mis-
conception and its consequent misapplication. The objections
must be met by correcting the misconception and by determin-
ing the true application of the principle. And if we have to
leave a large residuum of ignorance as to specific causes to be
located in the mysterious nature of the Self ; if we have, indeed,
to end the controversy by saying that the very nature of man

MORAL FREEDOM 165

consists largely in his developing the mysterious power of self-
determination, still the confession is neither so extraordinary
nor so damaging to a reasonable Libertarianism as it might
at first appear. For the principle which controls the conscious
and rational development of a morally constituted being is not
the principle of causation in the complete mechanical form in
which modern science applies it to the changes of things.

There are, however, two ways of controverting moral free-
dom with the principle of causation ; and these two ways differ
largely because they regard the principle itself as resting upon
experience in two different ways. Thus the objections which
arise may take either one of the two following forms : (1) em-
pirical and inductive, or objections from facts ; and (2) deduc-
tive and a priori, or objections coming straight from the claim
that the principle of causation — as interpreted by the objec-
tor — is of universal and demonstratively valid applicability.
The one class of objections points to our experience with facts,
and claims simply. It is so ; the deeds of will, including the
most intelligent and deliberate choices, are all strictly deter-
mined by their antecedents and concomitants. The other class
of deterministic theorists are bolder ; they venture to affirm :
It must be so; the universal and unalterable principles of
reason are on our side ; and we do not need to advance con-
vincing proofs in the way of facts. Let us, however, take
each position in order, and advance to the citadel of what
Kant would call an " apodeictic " stronghold over gaps in
the walls of its empirical surroundings.

It is with no little amazement that, when one examines the
Determinism which affirms for itself a solid basis in fact, one
finds it hopelessly divided against itself on the most important
matters, both theoretical and practical. Indeed, there is
scarcely need to call upon Libertarianism to disprove the
very substance of the deterministic argument so long as these
two schools of Determinists contradict each other both in their
affirmations and in their denials. The form which, without

166 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

disrespect, may be called " Old Fashioned Determinism,"
maintains that the sufficient reason for all deeds of will must
be found in antecedent states of consciousness. It cultivates
an elaborate mathematics dealing with the dynamical theory
of " motives," or those mainly emotional states of conscious-
ness which have different degrees of potency to move (or de-
termine in a 2'^asz-mechanical way) the Will. Men choose
always in accordance with — and so as determined by — the
appetite, passion, desire, sentiment, or estimate of some form
of the good, which for them at the time of choosing is the
most forceful, the most of a real moving power. In a word,
whatever form of expression may be selected to represent the
facts of experience, the underlying assumption is this : All
psychoses, including deeds of will and even the most intelli-
gent and deliberate choices, stand to antecedent psychoses in
the relation of effects to causes. But the form of Determinism
which I will venture to call "■ New Fashioned " (although its
more appropriate name is the now almost universally rejected
and opprobrious title, " Materialism ") denies that psychoses
can really influence, or cause, each other in any case or under
any circumstances. For states of consciousness, say its advo-
cates, are not realities and cannot act dynamically upon each
other. The real cause of them all is the succession of chemico-
physical changes which goes on in the nervous system ; and
especially, the succession of brain-states. Psychoses, whether
appearing to us as motives or deeds of will, are mere phenom-
ena — phenomena of the brain. And just as we do not say
of the successive puffs of steam from the locomotive — ^, B,
C, D, . , , iV — that A causes B, and B causes (7, and so on
until iVis reached ; but we hold that the entire series, A, B,
C, D, , . , N, is explained by the succession of dynamical
changes which go on in the boiler, steam-chest, etc., of the
locomotive, under the influence of surrounding temperature,
atmospheric pressure, etc., — so ought we to explain the succes-
sion of psychoses. Whatever may be their apparent character

MORAL FREEDOM 167

in consciousness, we must explain them by the only causal
chain of occurrences which can possibly be considered as
effective in reality, — namely, the succession of cerebral
neuroses. In a word, psychoses cannot cause or influence
psychoses ; all psychoses, as respects their nature and their
order in the series, are caused by neuroses.

Both these forms of the deterministic hypothesis have cer-
tain undoubted facts of experience on their side ; and every
theoretical construction of the conception of Moral Freedom
which aims to afford a sufficient explanation of the most
patent facts must admit some truth from them both. For they
are both right in much of what they affirm. But they are both
wrong in much of what they neglect or deny ; and they are both
wrong in the extreme to which they push their own way of giv-
ing a theoretical construction to the phenomena. It should
never be forgotten that Determinism always has been, is now,
and must continue to be, a theory for explaining undoubted
facts. As I have said, it is a scholastic affair. And now we
discover that its two main forms are totally and irreconcilably
contradictory with regard to the fundamental question : Do
the psychoses stand in causal connections with one another ?
Or, to state the same question in a more practical manner :
Do men mean anything which corresponds to the reality,
when they explain their own and each other's conduct by
referring to the influence of passion, desire, estimate of the
ideal good of truth, beauty, or duty ; or to the tendencies of a
mental and moral sort which are popularly summed up in the
word, character? "Yes," says the Old Fashioned Deter-
minism ; " and by such influences we are to explain all choices
as strictly determined, though by antecedent psychoses."
" No," says the New Fashioned Determinism ; " for all psy-
choses, and the subjects of them all, are mere phenomena ;
they can determine nothing ; they, and their order of arising
and setting, are strictly determined by the antecedent or con-
comitant chain of physical changes."

168 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

Let us now ask for a brief re-examination of those facts of
experience on which such portentous theories rely in order to
rally around themselves their schools of adherents. That
men are actually influenced by their emotional states of every
kind in the matter of their conduct and in the development of
character, has already been admitted as an indubitable matter
of experience. That men do find the explanation of conduct
— and an explanation which deals with causce verce — in their
passions and desires, in their loves and hates, and in the various
forms of impulse toward different kinds of good, is a truth of
experience on which all society and all human life, as well as
all science or philosophy of conduct, are based. And one
may be pardoned for a sort of contemptuous impatience with
any theory of moral freedom — whether deterministic or
libertarian — which denies the reality of the explanation.
But it is a long and blind road to travel which leads from this
admission to the unlimited conclusions of what has been
called the Old Fashioned Determinism. Especially is this true
if one honestly proposes and faithfully endeavors to follow
the guidance of experience, and not to abandon the highway
of Empiricism for the steep and dangerous paths of an a priori
metaphysics of Causation. For, let the formula which is to
embody the deterministic conclusion be framed as skilfully
as possible, and it will be found that, unless it is made depend-
ent upon some misconception of the metaphysics of causation,
it cannot succeed, even as a formula, in covering all the
facts of experience. When analyzed, the statements of every
attempt at a purely empirical doctrine of the deterministic
order prove to be either absurd, or tautological, or insuf-
ficiently founded.

What now is the position which must be proved to accord
with the sum-total of human experience if we are to accept
the view of the first form of Determinism ? It is that all the
self-determining activities of the Self are, contrary to its own
impression, really determined by its own antecedent states,

MORAL FREEDOM 169

under the laws of association and habit. Shortened up and
stiffened, this statement may be made to read : So-called
motives are the sufficient and efficient causes of all so-called
choices. And, in general, the whole series of psychoses which
constitute the life history of a Moral Self are a causal chain
in which each link is dependent in the most absolute fashion
upon the preceding links.

In every deterministic but empirical construction of the
principles of human mental and moral development there is
much false as well as much true psychology. The two or three
most important false conceptions of psychical life and of its
meaning which are held by this form of the theory may
now be noticed. In the first place, so-called " motives " are
treated by it as states of consciousness that can tliemselves
be considered independently of that power, or aspect, of the
Self which we call Will. But even in the lower stages of
man's life it is psychologically inexact not to regard him as an
active Self, as a Will, which in some measure determines its
own motives, and is not wholly determined by them. Especi-
ally when the power of intelligent and deliberate choice unfolds
itself, and in some sort according to the extent and height
of its unfolding, deeds of will begin to determine motives as
truly as motives determine deeds of will. And as the devel-
opment of moral being goes on, the phenomena of imitation,
instinct, impulse, and desire, in unchecked and irrational
form — all that goes to make up the push of mere motive in
its lower stages — become relatively less distinctive ; and the
phenomena of will, with its principle of freedom under the
higher laws of mental development, become relatively more
prominent and distinctive. It is very largely this in which
consists the manhood of man, the nature of Selfhood set with
other selves into relations of domestic, social, and political
kind. This espousal of tlie extreme and now obsolete " faculty-
theory " of the soul vitiates the old-fashioned form of Deter-
minism. Its conception of a Self as a succession of strictly

170 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

determined and causally connected psychoses is totally inade-
quate. For it must be substituted the conception of an evolv-
ing, conscious, and rational Life — depending for its original
characteristics on its membership in the race, and for its more
special characteristics on its ancestral inheritance, influenced
constantly by education and environment, and developing under
the laws of association and the principle of habit. But to say
all this is not to give the entire account of this conscious and
rational Life ; for at every stage of its development, and in-
creasingly if it develops in accordance with its higher powers
and better opportunities, the Self is, by its choices, constantly
determining itself, and so manifesting a certain relative
independence of its inheritance, its environment, and even of
its own past development.

No particular deed of will, when analyzed in detail, can be
resolved, on empirical grounds at least, into the mere effect of
the antecedent motives. This is true above all of those
choices which have the highest import for the moral life.
There are choices where strong passions, desires, affections or
selfish aims and impulses, come into competition with the
estimate of the value of ideals and with the generally mild-
mannered and low-keyed form of sentiment which accompanies
and enforces all ideals. About the true psychological char-
acter and the ethical significance of such choices, the current
English psychology and ethics of the seventeenth, eighteenth,
and early part of the nineteenth centuries has been product-
ive of much obscurity and misconception. This psychology
set up a mechanical, a perfectly " wooden " standard, for
measuring the relative weights or impulsive tendencies of
those states of consciousness which it was pleased to isolate
from the stream of consciousness and hypostasize as
" motives."

Indeed, without admitting the full force of those facts of con-
sciousness on which the conception of moral freedom is itself
based, we have no ground in experience for the measurement

MORAL FREEDOM 171

of the relative intensities of " motive '' states. It is true that
there are certain conditions of mind in which the prominent fac-
tors call attention to the speed and inevitable nature of the tran-
sition from impulse to volition. In some of these conditions
nearly the whole of one's consciousness is summed up in the
feeling of being hurried away to an issue in action which one
foresees, and yet is unable to avoid. But such conditions by
no means constitute the whole, or the chief part, of any man's
moral life. And even in them it is often, if not generally
true, that the consciously active Self can, and does, modify
the earlier stages of these strong impulses by, at least, a par-
tial acceptance or rejection of them, — while it is more than
probable that with the adult man no conscious action which
has moral quality is totally passive. Moreover, when one
tries to estimate the impulsive power of different motives even
of the more passionate and emotional kind, one discovers that
there is little or no chance here for any near approach to a
science of mental and moral dynamics. Nor is this fact due
wholly or chiefly to ignorance; it is the rather due to the
nature of the case. The doer himself, no matter how shrewd
in self-estimate he may have become, cannot weigh his own
motives accurately, according to their intensity. How much
less can any one external to the motives perform such a feat
in spiritual mathematics. In the bare fact of experience,
motives themselves are nothing statical ; they do not appear
and remain before the mind, side by side, in the same field of
consciousness. And the mental image of a past (even of a
single moment past) passion or emotion cannot, for the
amount of its merely impulsive potency, be weighed against the
now real motive, the present energetic urgency of passion or
emotion. What determines in such cases, if all intelligent
and deliberate choice is at any moment ruled out, is associa-
tion and habit, — what is called character.

When, however, the more intense impulsive states of con-
sciousness contend for the control of the purposes and deeds

172 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

with the Self regarded as placing a sentimental value on in-
tellectual, aesthetic, or moral ideals, the problem of spiritual
dynamics becomes — not simply more complicated and insolv-
able, but even intrinsically absurd. Here, again, it is true
that one meets with examples of minds which choose what they
estimate to be true, beautiful, or morally good, with an im-
pulsive intensity of feeling which amounts to an overwhelming
passion or affection. So the Russian Queen longed to die,
that she might learn what Leibnitz could not tell her ; or, ac-
cording to tradition, Martin Luther appealed to God to sup-
port his chosen position, for he " could not do otherwise " than
follow his convictions as to the right. But such devotion to
ideals is itself due to the repeated free choice of the same
ideals in preference to other contending interests of a lower
kind. In general, however, the so-called moving influence of
ideals of truth, beauty, and righteousness, cannot be compared
with that of the impulsive states of consciousness, in respect
merely to the intensity with which both act upon the Will.
Indeed, unless chosen repeatedly and made the somewhat con-
sistent principles of conduct as defining the ends of life, and
as regulating the means for attaining these ends, ideals in gene-
ral have little or no motive power in them. They are the
rivals of the motives to choose only as we prefer them, for
their very quality's sake ; and in this voluntary preference we
move toward them with self-determination, rather than allow
ourselves to be moved away from them by no matter how in-
tensely powerful appetites, passions, and affections.

It is only by neglecting such plain facts of human experi-
ence that one can put any, even temporary, confidence in that
P«ewc?(?-science of mental and moral dynamics which the psy-
chological and political forms of Determinism cultivate. To
convey knowledge which enables its student to make, either
as respects the action of the individual, or with regard to the
course of the community, any entirely trustworthy predictions
for the future, it is confessedly feeble and incomplete. Its at-

MORAL FREEDOM * 173

tempt to account for the facts of choice is often incapable of
expression except in terms of a most notable circulus in defin-
iendo. For example, Mr. A chooses the conduct X ; but Mr.
B, under seemingly similar circumstances, chooses the con-
duct y. The choice was, in both cases, a matter of fact ; and
obviously it was an intelligent and deliberate choice. Tf%,
now, did A choose X, when B chose Y^ Why did A choose
pushpin or something similar, when B chose poetry ; or, why
did the former elect to gratify a base passion while the latter
determined, in spite of strong temptation from similar passion,
to remain true to his ideal of the noble and the good ? Be-
cause the one preferred the gratification of desire or passion ;
the other preferred fidelity to his conviction as to what was
beautiful or righteous. But what is the precise meaning of
the word " preference " in such cases ? Does it mean that
gratified passion was in the one case, and fidelity to truth and
duty in the other case, esteemed the greater good ; and that
this mathematical phrase — " the greater " — refers simply to
the impulsive magnitude of the affective consciousness, the mere
bulk in the stir of feelings aroused by the mental image of the
desired end ? The facts of the moral consciousness cannot
be handled with any such significance to one's language as
this. For over and over again has it been true that A^ who
chose to gratify passion, has looked upon duty as seeming
very fair and attractive to him ; and B^ who has chosen fidel-
ity to duty, has often formed and executed this deed of will in
spite of passions as impulsively strong as those of A. More-
over, if preference means nothing more than the intellectual
estimate of an apparent good, the choice which is the actual
preference, has not yet been accounted for. What then re-
mains that is empirically certain, but the empty declaration :
A chose X because he did choose it (actually preferred it) ;
and for a like reason, which is no reason at all, B chose Y?

It must be confessed, then, that there is no fixed standard
possible for the measurement of the various classes of so-called

174 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

motives ; that, where quantitative comparisons are at all pos-
ible one needs always to bear in mind a certain qualitative in-
comparableness between passions and affections as motives and
the intellectual estimate of the value of ideals as motives;
and that, practically, the mysterious problem afforded by
the Self in its actual self-determination remains essentially
unchanged. Nor is this problem the better solved by taking
into the account the character of the person making the
choice. A chooses X, largely because J. is J. ; and B chooses F,
because B is B. Thus the inquiry becomes, not so much a
problem in the dynamics of human personality, but rather in its
chemistry. Just as a certain product necessarily emerges
from the union under given circumstances of a definite quan-
tity of definitively constituted atoms, so — Determinism
claims — is essentially the case with the human constitution.
The nature of the constituents is the important statical
consideration in attempting to account for all the combina-
tions into which they are found to enter. Thus even writers
on ethics who, like Mr. Leslie Stephen, are avowedly and
consistently deterministic throughout, find themselves com-
pelled to hold that the ethical feelings and ideas expressed
in such words as " blame," " merit," " good," and " bad," etc.,
attach themselves properly only to the character of the indi-
vidual, and not to his native endowment of passions and
emotions.

No philosophy of conduct is possible which does not find
room for the facts of experience, and the theoretical construc-
tion of moral principles, that are implied in a valid conception
of character. It is under the laws which control the for-
mation of character that man gains such moral freedom as
he has, and uses this freedom in the continuance and develop-
ment of a truly moral life. But, on the other hand, the con-
ception of character cannot itself be formed without taking
into account those conscious experiences in which the con-
ception of moral freedom has its origin; and any such

OF TH:

MORAL FREEDOM

conception of character as contravenes and annuls the con-
ception of freedom is itself unfit to command our intellectual
allegiance and is injurious to the morals of mankind. In
arguing this question it is especially necessary to heed the
warning against hypostasizing. What men call character is
no entity, no self-existent principle, capable of playing an
independent part in the dynamics of the moral life. The
character of any existence is merely the sum-total of those
more uniform ways of its behavior by which we are able for
purposes of knowledge and the communication of knowledge,
to distinguish it from other existences. But the character
of a Self is always a quite different affair from the character
of a Thing. For the character of a Self always includes the
choices, and the results of the choices, in exercising which it
has been self-determining. What ethics seeks is not some
hidden, statical core of reality which stands in the relation of
universal and omnipotent cause to each of the individual
choices ; the reality of the individual Moral Self is rather itself
in a measure the constantly varying resultant of those choices.
The man's character is not something external to himself,
which, as a finished product of the past or an extra-voluntary
determining force, gives the entire reason why he chooses as
he does choose. On a basis of inherited potentialities, indeed,
and under a variety of influences from the total, constantly
changing environment, and in a certain subjection to the prin-
ciple of habit, the Self, nevertheless, progressively determines
its own character.

Habit is indeed strong, and its bonds are often difficult,
sometimes impossible, to be broken. But, looked at from the
historical point of view, habit itself is very largely a record of
self-determining choices, a child of moral freedom. Looked
at from the present psychological point of view it is the Self,
tending more or less strongly to choose certain forms of
conduct ; and yet just now, perhaps, on the eve, by a choice,
of interrupting the previous current of impulses and starting

176 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

the formation of a new habit. Only the complete extinction
of moral freedom converts any man's character into a purely
impulsive cause, an all-sufficient determining reason, for each
of the particulars of his action. Habit rules inexorably and
unvaryingly, only when self-determination has wholly ceased.

It is important now to notice how the attempt to carry this
form of the deterministic conception, with complete thorough-
ness of analysis and unbending rigidity of logic, to its last
conclusion lands the mind in the most uncompromising Ma-
terialism. This surprising result is reached in the following
way. All psychoses, it is claimed, are strictly determined by
pre-existent psychoses, and these pre-existent psychoses by
others still earlier : — and so on to the very beginnings of
psychical life. But what determines for the individual these
beginnings and the channels in which they have flowed from
the first until now ? Any complete answer must appeal to
the physical environment on which the psychoses are reac-
tions ; and back of all, to the atomic structure and physico-
chemical tendencies which were carried over in the impreg-
nated ovum^ — the one certain and fixed antecedent of the
entire psychical development. Thus the deterministic mental
and moral dynamics ends in a psycho-physical and chemico-
biological dynamics. For it is the physical and chemico-
biological forces which tie the conscious Self in with the
course of Nature, and strictly determine for it disposition,
character, and all the conscious states and all the pieces of
conduct, — even those which find their account in disposition
and character, for lack of a complete account in the shifting
external environment.

Such, then, is the legitimate outcome of this form of the
deterministic hypothesis. All psychoses, the whole ongoing of
the life of the Self, with its illusory belief that It^ by its own
choices, can determine ought, as well as its beneficial but equally
illusory conviction that it is somehow rationally subject to
praise and blame, and deserving of reward or punishment, are

MORAL FREEDOM 177

only the phenomenal exhibition of the really effective forces
of external Nature. At the last we neither determine our-
selves, nor are determined by our own dispositions or char-
acters : —

" We are a moving row of shadow-shapes," —
Our very shapes are shadows and the movement even is not
our own, but Nature's, whose products through and through
we are.

To this same conclusion the second form of Determinism
leads by a more direct route. Into the arguments against its
rude hustling of moral freedom quite off the whole field from
the start, I shall not here enter in detail ; and this, for two
sufficient reasons. In the first place, I have elsewhere ^ given
them a detailed treatment, both inductive and speculative. In
the second place, the slender basis upon which the theory stands
renders it even more astounding than is the first impression
made by its far-reaching consequences. The following sum-
mary of conclusions will, therefore, suffice in this connection
to answer the assumption that all psychoses, including choices
however deliberate, are strictly determined by the antecedent
or concomitant brain-states : First, we are almost completely
ignorant of the nature and relations of those chemico-physi-
cal changes in the brain, into the science of which it is pro-
posed to resolve the connections of the mental states as they
appear in consciousness. About the influences under which
we choose, and about the conscious character of our choices,
we do know much which has the appearance at least of the
most certain kind of knowledge. In this sphere all adult
human beings have seemingly trustworthy information ; and
upon its trustworthiness they plan and conduct and estimate
their own lives and the lives of others. But no expert in
cerebral physiology, knows anything worth calling by the
name of "science" about the real nature of that chain of

1 Comp. Elements of Physiological Psychology, pp. 585-688 ; Philosophy of
Mind, pp. 113-148 and 208-396.

178 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

occurrences in the brain-states which is assumed to deter-
mine, without the intervention of a soul, the sequences of the
conscious states.

And second : If we had all possible, even all conceivable
knowledge of the laws of the nature and established connec-
tions of the brain-states, this knowledge could never explain
the activities of the conscious Self, especially its self-deter-
mining choices. For, not simply is it true that physico-
chemical changes in the brain can never be conceived of as
the sufficient explanation for changes in consciousness ; it
is also even more obviously true that certain factors and
aspects of the more elaborate and developed mental and
moral processes have no conceivable physical correlate — not
to say, physical explanation. What can be meant, for ex-
ample, by ascribing the feeling of obligation, or the estimate
of the ideal value of a beautiful picture or of a noble action,
or the feelings of potency and imputability which belong to
moral freedom, to some particular kinds of chemico-physical
changes in the brain-states as their sole and sufficient
explanation ?

And, third: Abundant facts of experience furnish incon-
testable proof that, if we are to interpret the phenomena
of the influence of the body over the mind as significant of a
series of real transactions we are equally compelled to interpret
the phenomena of the influence of the mind over the body as
having the same real significance. Feelings, ideas, and especi-
ally choices, considered as conscious processes, have quite as
much claim to afford a satisfactory explanation of changes in
the brain-states, as the latter have to be made realiter account-
able for the character and sequences of the feelings, ideas, and
choices. If the theory which directs all the energy in one di-
rection, after ascribing it all to a psychical source, comes into
conflict with the physical hypothesis of the conservation and
correlation of energy; so does the theory which finds only a
physical source of energy, while scouting at the notion that con-

MORAL FREEDOM 179

scious states can be " causes " of nervous changes in any verifia-
ble meaning of the words. The current resort to the absolutely
unintelligible theory of psycho-physical parallelism helps out
the one theory no more than the other. We know as much
which may warrant the claim that the conscious Self is a
source of control for the body as we know in favor of the
proposition that the body accounts for changes in the con-
scious Self.

Furthermore, fourth : All human science of every sort,
considered purely as psychological fact, is only man's way of
explaining the connections of his own conscious states. Let
cerebral physiology succeed in the most brilliant discoveries,
the saying of the old woman in one of Fritz Renter's novels
will still remain true : " There is nothing so near to one as
one's self." What is known immediately and indubitably is
only this — the psychoses as influencing each other, and the
relations in which they all seem to stand to what we call the
Subject of them all, the conscious Ego. What men actually
experience is the dependence of choices on perceptions,
feelings, and ideas, and the dependence of feelings, ideas, and
perceptions on choices. Only by remote, intricate, and often
doubtful inferences do they reach any conclusions at all as
to the connections between so-called brain-states, or between
them and the sequences of human consciousness. Such
inferences can never establish for themselves the scientific
right to contradict and annul those more immediate facts of
experience in order to explain which they themselves have
been introduced as hypotheses.

Finally, fifth : When this second form of Determinism is
carried to its extreme logical result, it, too, presents us with
a picture of all Reality, including human life and human
society, which undermines the entire structure of morality.
The individual man becomes, absolutely and with no possibility
of any qualification, a phenomenon of the blind and soulless
play of physical forces. Human society and all the develop-

180 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

ment of man in history must be explicable in the same way.
Human history is the puppet show of physical Nature ; it is
in no sense, at any time, the structure of man's building.
The phrases which ethics so glibly employs when it dis-
courses of " moral forces," " moral ideals," " moral standards,"
have no real applicability to the facts, when man has been
reduced to the strictly determined series of conscious puffs,
phenomenal of the partially known changes that, for unknown
reasons, go on in that universal boiler and steam-chest we
call the World of Reality. Surely man's condition is worse
than that of the abandoned product of an illegitimate and
unethical mixture :

" In die Welt hinausgestossen
Steht der Mensch verlassen da."

The truth, I think, is simply this : all Determinism, strictly
constructed and logically carried to its issue, ends in Material-
ism. Why should its advocate be afraid or ashamed of
the issue he has himself forced ? Surely, the last thing
to go in any system or practice of morals should be that
honest manliness which stands upright in the positions which
have voluntarily and deliberately been assumed. And to
fear being called a name which one merits is as cowardly as to
call another an opprobrious name which is not appropriate or
deserved. But the return to a study of the facts of conscious
experience enables the student of moral consciousness
promptly to throw off this nightmare of a materialistic
Determinism.

I will now notice briefly the attempt to establish Deter-
minism inductively upon a basis of statistics. Here the
argument is that the individual cannot have moral freedom,
because there are facts to show that the multitudes of individ-
uals frequently act alike under like influences. To every such
argument may be opposed the undoubted facts that the validity
of the statistics themselves is usually exceedingly question-

MORAL FREEDOM 181

able; that the interpretation of the statistics is generally
doubtful ; and that other classes of statistics very severely test,
if they do not wholly controvert, this form of the determin-
istic hypothesis. For example, if the number of illegitimate
births in some district of Southern Europe suddenly suffers
a great diminution, in close connection with the revival of well-
paid employment for the female operatives in its silk-mills,
this does not prove that Maria or Angelica has been com-
pelled or determined to become virtuous thereby, or even that
she and her companions have really become more virtuous.
Probably, it simply shows that a larger number of couples are
now financially able to comply with the legal restrictions
which the State has unfortunately imposed upon marriage. But
the virtue or the vice of sexual intercourse is not wholly, or
even chiefly, determined by statute. Maria and Angelica, in
that eternal conflict in which we are all placed between our
moral ideals and our lower impulses and inferior interests,
may choose according to their best light to be either good or
bad, quite irrespective of the conditions of the silk market.
Doubtless for them, as for us all, the external conditions and
internal excitements, but above all the habitual past clioices
will make goodness, or badness, much easier or much harder
in any particular case. But for either of these two souls, as
for millions of others, there may come a moment in prayer,
or reflection, or memory, when the worth of the moral ideal
will be so revealed as to let it assert its more legitimate
influence. Then the conscious self-determining Self will
have its best chance to assert and to establish its right to a
higher and more effective form of moral freedom. For sudden
reforms and complete religious conversions are, after all, not
such rare and isolated phenomena in human society. And
they constitute hard facts for any theory of Determinism that
wishes to plant itself upon purely empirical grounds.

Let it be admitted, however, that good deeds- and bad deeds,
virtues and crimes, tend to go in groups. This is only to

182 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

reinforce a truth necessary to be taken account of by every
attempt at a philosophy of conduct. Certainly men are
influenced in their behavior as individuals by the social con-
ditions under which they exist and develop. The obviously
criminal population is always largely made up of a class that
on account of discouraging environment, relatively great sus-
ceptibility to impulsive considerations, and a low degree of
intelligence, has, on the average, a less degree of freedom.
Moral freedom is always, indeed, a matter of degrees. The
theory of morals, as well as the practice of enlightened men,
takes all this into account.^ We expect that the final judg-
ment and the ideally perfect judge will not fail to authenti-
cate this truth. But especially in the most enlightened and
civilized nations there are not a few who have fallen down
from the higher into the lower stratum ; and some come up
from the lower, in spite of all their burdens and temptations,
into strata that lie far above. But falls, and reforms, and
risings, in the ethical scale are significant of the same por-
tentous fact ; the character and destiny of the individual are
not all strictly determined irrespective of the self-determina-
tion of the conscious, rational, and ethically-constituted Self.

We have, then, a most lamentably weak non-sequitur in the
argument which, from a certain observed regularity in the
external actions of a multitude of individuals, concludes that
all the conduct of every individual in that multitude is strictly
dependent upon influences which are, as it were, external to
his own choice. That man is in some sort the creature of
circumstances, and that many men are largely so — who
would venture to deny this in full view of his experience with
■men ? But that man is by deeds of will also in some sort the
creator of his own character, and the moulder of society and
of nature ; and that many men are so in a somewhat large

1 Compare the pictures of some of these lower classes of society — much
more sensible and true to the facts than the work of Lombroso and his followers
— given by Josiah Flynt in his " Tramping with Tramps," and " The World of
Graft."

MORAL FREEDOM 183

and impressive way — who would venture to refuse to admit
this complementary truth ?

During the entire previous discussion it can scarcely have
escaped observation that the effort of a strict Determinism
to keep close to the facts of experience is never quite success-
ful. The Determinist cannot be content to argue that his case
is true, — in fact he always covertly assumes it is true in fact,
because he thinks it must he true. But this must he is itself
the result of a misconception. It is due to a partial or com-
plete failure to understand the conception of Causation. The
philosophy of conduct, therefore, must undertake the criticism
of this conception. Of this task also I shall now only briefly
summarize what I have already said with great detail in
several other connections.^

First of all, it is essential to bear in mind how exceedingly
complicated and shifty is the nature of the conception of
Causation, with its different forms of statement and of appli-
cation. The very conception has quite generally of late been
either hypostasized and made a god, or banished as a ghost
from the realm of scientifically authorized abstractions. But
it has neither the unity of internal structure necessary for
such metaphysical mythology, nor can it be got rid of by ignor-
ing or ridiculing it. In any workable form Causation obvi-
ously involves the categories of Force, Relation in Time and
Space, Law and Final Purpose ; also a certain mysterious
residuum which all our efforts cannot resolve, and which we
are compelled to recognize in a general way as belonging to
the inexplicable original Nature of things and of souls.

Now the narrow range of vision and the shallow insight of
the current scientific Determinism consists in its attempt to
handle and explain all experience as though it came com-
pletely under one type of the complex conception of causation,
— namely, that of a Physical Mechanism. As we have just

1 Comp. Philosophy of Mind, chap, iii, vi, ix, x ; Philosophy of Knowledge,
chap. X, xviii ; A Theory of Reality, chap, iii, vi, vii, x, xiii.

184 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

seen, the ultimate logical consequence of the deterministic
hypothesis in morals is this : The World, of selves, as well as
of things, is a piece of mechanism in which ideas of value, as
well as all the finer sentiments of art, morals, and religion,
and the choices which have regard to such ideas and senti-
ments play no really effective part.

The psychological origin of the conception of causation
warns us against any strictly mechanical way of interpreting
our experience. This conception itself cannot be accounted
for, or its real meaning understood and explained, without
admitting the reality of that conscious and rational self-
activity which culminates in ethical, free choice.^ The
processes in which the formation of this conception takes
place follow somewhat the following order: I know myself to
be active ; I know myself to be restricted, inhibited in my
activity. In other words, my deed of will is generally, if not
universally accompanied or followed by a feeling of effort.
Hence arise the ideas of those mutually related and dependent
forces with which we invest external things. But this experi-
ence of energy inhibited is, of course, connected with the
more or less careful and intelligent observation of the sequent
changes in the relations of myself to things, and of things to
one another. For I am interested in knowing how to carry out
my will in effecting changes in things ; and through the more
immediately dependent changes which I effect, I find that
more remote changes in other things can be brought about.
Moreover, I soon develop an intellectual curiosity, which
may become a burning passion and a practical self-devotion
in the effort to discover how all the different realities stand
related to each other in respect of their interdependent
changes. How one may secure the ends one desires by using
one's force in its dependent relations to other soulless or

1 The reader will please bear in mind that the dogmatic form in which this
statement is here given would not seem justifiable to the author without the
references already made to the diacussions which have established it as their
conclusion.

MORAL FREEDOM 185

soulful forces is of the utmost practical moment. But one's
more purely scientific interest is not limited in this way.

So, then, from these beginnings within the Self and its
most immediate environment, and with its own most pressing
needs in view, the conception of causation is objectified, and
goes abroad to conquer the whole of Reality. For the most
part, men understand the simpler sufficient reasons of their
own actions, — the ideas to which they react willingly, and
the passive conditions by means of which other men and the
world of things limit their wills. Some of every man's
environment — the other selves — is like his own self, influ-
enced by intelligible motives, yet rather uncertain and freaky ;
but the things that are not selves, and that appear to him
to have no conscious ideas, feelings, and choices, are relatively
stable, uniform, and dependable in their modes of behavior.

And now, abstracting from all the social and ethical sides
of human experience, it is possible to regard merely the way
that things behave, when either beyond all recognizable in-
fluence from the behavior of men, or when left to themselves
to follow their own natural ways of behavior. In this man-
ner is formed the scientific picture of a Mechanism, in which
every part is definitively limited, and strictly determined, not
only as to the general course of its behavior, but also as
to every minutest form of its movement, every slightest
change in its own constitution, or in its relations to the great
Whole. With what confidence and joy, then, does the mind
that is determined to be thoroughgoing in its scientific con-
clusions return, with this conception of a purely mechanical
causation, to force it upon those very experiences of rational
and purposeful choice, in which the beginnings of the con-
ception are themselves to be found. Having interpreted phys-
ical phenomena after the analogy of personal experience,
with the most truly personal of the characteristics left out,
science assumes completely and correctly to reinterpret
personal experience after the analogy of a purely physical

186 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

mechanism. Surely here is a fine case of matricide ! The
child, having learned bad manners in foreign lands, has come
home to lay violent hands on his own mother.

But the truth remains forever unshaken that all inter-
pretation of experience is an affair of the human spirit, and
that physical science itself is the construct of a rational and
free will. The World of things is itself a quasi-personsil
affair. As such it gives to the observer no reasonable ground
for denying to those beings whose experience is of a fuller
and completer personal life, the more essential characteristics
of personality which they know themselves to have. And
among these moral freedom is not the least important, or the
least clearly and forcefully evinced.

Repeated reference has been made, however, to a certain
residuum of mystery, a trace or a large measure of the un-
known, and the unknowable, to which every application of
the principle of sufficient reason makes a tacit confession.
Here is a consideration, to take account of which is very
important for the philosophy of conduct. Let us begin with
the case as the physical sciences deal with this principle.
Suppose, for example, that I am searching for the cause of
some chemical combination, and I am told that it is to be
explained in the following way : the elements. A, B, C, D,
under definite conditions, and, in definite proportions, N, M,
have united according to the formula X Y. But now I will
inquire : Why have these particular elements, J., etc., chosen
to act and react in this particular manner, while — as we
know — under similar conditions, other elements, such as E,
-F, (7, and ZT, would behave in a markedly different way ?
The only answer to the question Why ? in such a case must be
found in the mysterious nature of A^ etc., and of E^ etc. But
this is to say, that in all our explanations by means of the prin-
ciple of sufficient reason, we leave certain factors unexplained.
Nor is this true simply of those particular limitations of know-
ledge which further investigation may remove. It is true

MORAL FREEDOM 187

by virtue of the very nature of all human knowledge as
dependent upon the principle of sufficient reason, with its
assumption of real causes, and real effects.

Suppose, next, that 1 am asking of biological science to
explain, as fully as it can, some one of the simplest forms
of life, — an amoeba, for example. At present, we can only
tell how, according to its own nature^ this particular living
form originates, develops, behaves, propagates its own kind,
and ceases to exist. Suppose, however, that at some time
the chemistry of life shall be so far advanced as to be able
to ascribe all the changes in the amoeba, and its own con-
stitution, and even all the constitution and the development
of every living germ, to the potencies of the atoms, still the
truth for which I am contending will remain essentially
unchanged. Indeed, this truth will be made the more aston-
ishingly obvious. The increased knowledge of what the
atoms can do, will only render the final explanation of their
original nature — the potentiality in which all actuality resides
— tlie more profoundly mysterious, the more hopelessly un-
knowable.

There is little reason, then, for surprise that the nature of
man — itself, in its depths, unknowable — must always be
made to account for so much in explanation of the important
part he plays in the drama of his own historical development.
We find abundant reason for believing that he is not always
determined, either from without, or as a piece of psychical
mechanism, after the analogy of a physical machine. We
find abundant reason for affirming that he is also self-de-
termining — by nature potentially so, and in fact often be-
coming actually so. And if the answer to such inquiries as.
How can he have this mixed constitution which thus differ-
ences him from all physical existences, and from the lower
animals ? or. Whence comes this gift of moral freedom ? must
remain unanswered, still the student of the philosophy of
conduct need not be ashamed ; and he cannot be accused

188 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

of any peculiar isolation in his ignorance. In the name of
philosophy, he may even make bold to answer: Such is
apparently the decision of that Absolute Will and Reason in
whose Being man, as well as all other existences, has his
life and being.^ In the name of religion he may say : God
knows how it can be, and God's will is the ultimate sufficient
reason that it should be so.

Finally, as the student of the philosophy of conduct makes
over to Metaphysics and to the Philosophy of Religion the
right and the duty to say whatever may remain to be said
on the limits of human knowledge, and the possibility of a
speculative solution of this mystery of moral freedom, he
need feel no alarm at the cry that his view of human nature
is injurious to the integrity of the physical or psycho-physical
mechanism. The stars in their courses have greatly in-
fluenced the development of man. The greater chains of
physical causation are too rigid for finite beings to bend aside
to any appreciable extent. But that man's will does largely
change the face of external nature is simply a fact of daily
experience. The physical mechanism in the midst of which
he develops is more durable than steel where its own essen-
tial integrity needs to be defended ; but it is as responsive
in many particulars to human feelings, ideas, and choices, as
is the most delicately constructed violin in the hands of its
master. And to bring forward as an argument for Deter-
minism the possible overthrow or the essential marring of
the World-system, if moral freedom as involving self-
determination in any virtual way be admitted, is to propose a
speculative bugbear which any one, plain man or philosopher,
may regard with a smile or pass by wholly unnoticed.

1 The way in which the criticism of the conceptions of Causation and of
Freedom leads us back to the idea of that Absolute whom religion esteems a
Personal God has been finely shown by the Russian philosopher, Professor N.
la. Grot, in a treatise called " On Freedom of Will," a written translation of
which is in my possession.

CHAPTER IX

THE MORAL SELF

We are now prepared to see how extended and profound a
significance psychological ethics imparts to the words which
have been chosen for the heading of this chapter. They are
synonymous with the entire nature of man when we regard
him as equipped for conduct and for the development of
character. In a word, the so-called "Moral Agent," is the
Self, so constituted and actually in action as to form by volun-
tary relations with other selves something quite different from
a collection of interacting physical forces, or a herd of animals,
or a mere multitude of human beings. As moral, the Self is a
member of society ; and society is the product of the corre-
lated conduct of a multitude of moral selves. With a some-
what different but no less profound and important meaning
than that which Aristotle gave to the saying, we may declare
that Ethics thus becomes " a sort of political inquiry."

From the full and correct picture of man's ethical endow-
ment certain truths of a general import follow which need at
least a brief mention before proceeding to the next main
branch of our inquiry. One of these truths concerns the too
narrow use of the word " conscience," — a use which has given
rise to much not wholly fruitful (though by no means entirely
unprofitable) discussion, and to no little practical embarrass-
ment in the attempt to solve correctly the daily problems of
right conduct. By all means " follow your conscience and
keep it pure and good," has been the instruction and exhorta-
tion of moralists in all ages and places of human development.

190 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

What, however, does it mean *' to follow one's conscience ; " —
what precisely, that has a definitive application to the conduct
of life, as well as to the attempt theoretically to assign correct
values to the different forms of conduct ? Shall the appeal
be made to unreasoned and unreasoning feeling, no matter
how much crowned with sanctity on account of its associa-
tions with early memories, religious ideas, or its seemingly
original and unquestioned spontaneity ? In its cruder but not
least intense and effective forms this may amount to a " feel-
ing in the bones," or other bodily members, the heart, the
veins, etc., as the language of men so significantly suggests.
Or is it, on the other hand, consonant with the moral constitu-
tion, and wholly safe, to instruct men to disregard those sen-
timents of obligation and approbation which are, in respect
of their attachment to certain definite forms of conduct,
undoubtedly the results of education and social environment,
and to leave each to " reason out for himself," on the basis of
calculated consequences or in accordance with some abstract
ethical theory (hedonism, e. g.), the forms of behavior which
lie will adopt for his own ? Not infrequently, in practice,
such instruction results in the formation of the disagreeable
and self-conceited " crank," if not of the disorderly and danger-
ous criminal. Will the kindly and humane impulses, as well
as all the tendencies to a prompt resistance of evil and the
indignant infliction of penalty for unrighteousness, be im-
proved by submitting themselves to the control of intelligent
and deliberate choice. Or shall indiscriminate kindness and
so-called charity, because they evoke the feeling of obligation
and obtain the reward of approbation, while still commending
themselves to the ethical judgment of the majority of mankind,
be excused from deferring to the most rational and illumined
investigation ? Who can believe that the appeal to conscience
as an ultimate authority can justify an affirmative answer to
either of the last two inquiries ?

The truth as it has been made apparent by our previous

THE MORAL SELF 191

discussion, seems to be that conscience, as an authoritative
guide to conduct, is synonymous with the total moral con-
sciousness; and that moreover, this moral consciousness
practically involves the entire distinctively human nature of
man. Even thus understood, conscience provides no infalli-
bility of authority. In his ethical, as well as in his more
purely sentient and cognitive life and development, man has
an outfit of capabilities which quite surpasses that of any of
the lower animals. He is a really ethical Self — in feeling,
intellect, and will ; and they are not even inchoate and unde-
veloped ethical selves ; although they are, as man knows them,
self-like in all their characteristics. Thus man is capable of
self -conduct, of se^f-development. But neither in the form of
" instinctive feeling," or of " innate idea," or of '' rational
principle," or of spontaneous and impulsive or deliberate and
intelligent " good will," has he an authoritative, in the mean-
ing of an infallible, guide. The voice that is within liim is
often feeble and uncertain ; it is always possible to dispute its
authority, to gainsay its right, and to reject its rule. Just in
this does man's imperfection and weakness, as well as his
immorality and sinfulness consist. Nevertheless, this voice is
the most precious possession he has, the most significant
value of his whole existence. It is, indeed, entitled to be
called "the voice of God." This voice calls man in every
voluntary thought and feeling, and in every impulsive deed of
will as well as every intelligent and deliberate choice, to strive
after the realization of the ideal Self. Every form or particular
exhibition of morally good conduct is — in however special
and narrow a way — an item in this realization. The source
of the authority of moral consciousness lies in the response of
the actual Self to its own Ideal of self-hood. This is that
authority of conscience which thus reveals to religion a rela-
tion, that is dependent upon the total reaction of man's moral
consciousness, between the human Self and God.

We note then how comprehensive is the study of conscious-

192 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

ness as the source of ethical obligation, ethical relations
and ethical development. The conception of the Moral Self
includes all that descriptive and pragmatic psychology can
discover and reveal respecting human nature, as well as all
the sources for the most far-reaching and lofty conclusions of
speculative philosophy. Moral self-hood is the all-inclusive
nature of man. That all those activities of body and soul,
whose stimuli and laws psycho-physics and psychology de-
light to make plain, are concerned in man's conduct is too
obvious to need proof. No so-called scientific picture of his
nature is completely drawn nor is the final significance of
his constitution understood, until he is seen to be con-
sciously, and in the exercise of his birthright of moral free-
dom adjusting himself to the morally right forms of actual
relations to his fellow-men. Psychology, although it is pri-
marily a study of the individual, plainly shows that he is
constituted for society ; in social, that is, ethical relations, his
entire being finds its supreme exercise, its most nearly
complete satisfaction. The Self as fitted for conduct, and as
actively engaged in the moral life, is the largest kind of a Self
with which psychological science can deal. And all the in-
vestigations of psychology — " new " or " old " — have a cer-
tain unsatisfactory pettiness, if they do not somehow, either
directly or indirectly, contribute to our knowledge of man
considered as invested with the power to constitute and
control himself in manifold social relations with his fellow-
men. In spite of the incessant claims of psychological
science to consideration for its own science' sake, we cannot
avoid asking ourselves : " What matters it, how many sigmas
it takes to react to this or that form of stimulus ; or, how
the bonds of associated ideas are framed and broken; or,
how intellect develops out of what appears to be, at first, a
merely mechanical sequence of mental images ; unless, in-
deed, all our investigation tends to give us more insight into
the nature of that life, three-fourths, or seven-eighths of which

THE MORAL SELF 193

is conduct having reference to social interests and to the
realization of the ideals of the race ? " The psychology of the
Moral Self includes all psychology, because the right and
wrong of conduct compasses human life so inclusively, and
because the values here concerned are so extensively present
and so qualitatively supreme.

In this connection the significance of recent studies of the
individual as psychically shaped by his social environment
becomes apparent. Here two equally mistaken and danger-
ous extremes are to be avoided. They are alike unscientific
in their disregard of each other's interests, however pertinent
and helpful may be the positive suggestions of truth to which
they succeed in calling the attention of the age. Properly
speaking, there is no such consciousness as '' social conscious-
ness " and no such existence as a social individual. But
if by the phrase we mean the individual man as influenced
by his social environment, then we may say : The Moral
Self encompasses the Social Self ; and it is only by a clear
conception of what is included in the former term that one
can correctly estimate and discreetly judge the significance
of what is often so vaguely connotated by the latter term.
Of the two extreme views upon the subject one tends to sink
the personality of the individual man in the indiscriminate
mass of his social surroundings ; the other tends to press so
far the independence of the individual as to depreciate or
neglect the influence of these surroundings. It is impossible
for a true person to exist or to develop outside of a social en-
vironment. Against both these extremes the preceding
analysis and discussion of man's moral self-hood has both
warned us and provided us with a sufficient safeguard.

In the lower stages of ethical development the individual
is, indeed, to a large extent the product of his social environ-
ment. He feels himself obligated to do that which this
environment, by silent custom, or by spoken and written
precept, or by more solemn priestly and legal decree, has

194 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

decided for him to be the right thing to do. He is a depend-
ent piece of the ethico-social mechanism. In all times and
places very largely, and in some times and places almost
universally (as, for example, even now in India), this " right
thing" to do which the social environment enforces is, for
the multitudes, not at all what flesh desires or heart craves.
Only for the favored few are the pleasant and the morally
good things of life coincident in the view of the ethical
authorities ; among the millions the Social Self is either the
unhappy or the morally bad Self, when viewed from the stand-
point of the prevalent ethics. But as the truly Moral Self
undergoes development, — or rather, I might almost be
permitted to say, comes into being, — it wins more of that
independence of judgment and of action which is essential to
any considerable approach toward a realization of the moral
ideal. Thus the conduct of the individual more and more
freely takes up into, and incorporates with itself that rational
regard for social considerations which stands at an extreme
both from the blindly affective and unthinking acceptance
of the social standards of conduct and also from the intelligent
and deliberate but immoral departure from those standards.
A social being, in some sort, man might be, if he had no
other equipment for the life of the community than a superior
amount of those characteristics which belong to the lower
animals, — if, in a word, he were not a Moral Self. But
although in such a case he might be, in some conceivable
meaning of the word, " social," he could not be a social self.
It is man's moral equipment, the essential potentialities of
his individual personality, which makes him capable of form-
ing a true human society. These potentialities, society, whether
considered as an environment or as a continuous self-propagat-
ing force, can in some sort develop, but can never originate
or impart. The philosophy of religion has its theory as to
whence come the germs of that moral self-hood which includes
the true social self-hood. Neither ethnology nor psychology

THE MORAL SELF 196

can inform us on this point. Or, rather, properly speaking,
there is no such reality for these sciences as a social Self ;
the term is but a figure of speech, fitly enough designed, it
may be, to remind one that the individual man could never
be, or develop into a true personality were it not for the
constant and most potent influence of other personal beings.
When, however, ethics speaks intelligently of the Moral Self,
it sums up in this term all that is true of the other term, and
much more. And, moreover, ethics is using no figure of
speech to endanger the understanding and the application of
its terms, as do psychology and ethnology when they speak
of " social selves," *' social organisms," etc. For the Moral
Self of ethics is the concrete reality of the individual man,
regarded as equipped for the life of conduct and for the
development of character, in certain definite relations with
other selves equipped in substantially like manner. Were he
not moral, man could not be social in the highest meaning of
the word ; and the very idea of morality as applied to man
implies his existence, activity, and development in the midst
of society. I repeat : Moral selves constitute a true society ;
but social influences can never, of themselves, constitute or
explain the existence or the total development of moral
selves.

The conception of the Moral Self contains within it the
germinal thoughts and suggestions for a philosophy of the
Ideal as well as of that to which science is so ready, some-
times quite too exclusively, to attribute the title of Reality ;
in this conception, therefore, must be found the data for
reconciling all that belongs to man's scientific tendencies,
standards, and pursuits, and also his judgments of that
which has value, his higher sentiments, the longings and
obligations which bind him to an ideal Good. How to effect
this reconciliation is, indeed, the burning question of this as
of every other age ; but it is the imperative and most difficult
problem of this age beyond all other ages. No reconciliation

196 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

can be accepted for longer than a brief breathing-spell in the
hot chase after the final and satisfying truth, which leaves
man divided into two incommunicable and unrelated parts,
two spheres of interest and experience. Science, on the one
hand, and ethics, art, and religion, on the other hand, cannot
be allotted separate fields in the domain of human nature. No
form of the dichotomy of man's being which has ever been
devised, or that can ever possibly be devised, will long remain
satisfactory. We cannot make the feeling and imagination
responsible for faiths which run contrary to scientific con-
clusions that are forced upon us by the unfeeling and unim-
aginative intellect. We cannot believe in Ideals, whether of
conduct, or of beauty or of worship, which contravene the
known principles of E-eality ; neither can we know what those
principles of Reality are, in their highest potency and com-
pletest significance, without crediting for their discovery and
their explication, the authority of ethical, artistic, and religious
Ideals. The Ideal and the Real must he a Living Unity.

The fundamental reasons for dissatisfaction with the demand
of religion and ethics that we should believe and practise that
which science condemns or doubts are not to be found in the
undoubted weakness of the arguments of either of the two
contending parties. The moral reformer, the artist, or the
inspired seer, and the man of scientific claims and culture,
are, as a rule, about equally partisan, equally insufficient as to
information and illogical in reasoning, when they fall out
with each other over the ultimate problems of existence and
of human life. The fundamental reasons why they can
neither of them be accorded a full satisfaction are deep-set
and ineradicable in the nature of them both. These reasons
lie in the same unity of human Self-hood which is common to
them both. You cannot array man against himself. A schis-
matic psychology is the original heresy, the root of all other
schisms. Reason and Science so-called must listen appreciat-
ingly to the feeling and judgment in their loving estimate

THE MORAL SELF 197

of that which has value ; and ethical, aesthetical, and religious
ideas and sentiments must make themselves rational and ao»
cordant with the truths of science. The possibility and the
necessity for such a reconciling process are discoverable in
the very nature of cognition and of the cognitive mind.^

It is, however, the conception of man's moral being which
shows how a reconciliation may be effected between the claims
of science and the claims of ethical, aesthetical, and religious
sentiment and idealization. For all science itself is the pur-
suit and the product of the Moral Self. When we compre-
hend the entire extent of the ethical sphere and the full
content of ethical principles and ethical ideals, scientific
pursuits themselves become matters of conduct ; and the scien-
tific Truth itself attains to the condition where it has value in
its relations to the life of conduct. The patience, candor,
exactness of observation and carefulness of testing and atten-
tion to logical completeness, upon which scientific method so
much insists, are an ethical procedure. These are the
peculiar virtues of the man of science, quoad scientific. If
his virtues in society, or on Sunday, are quite different from
these, or even if the more conspicuously social and religious
virtues are lacking, his work-a-day and laboratory excellences
are of a truly moral sort. The moral self-hood must go into
any man's science or it is not his science at all.

Why, from the merely scientific point of view, should the
human mind attach any idea of worth to truth or to its dis-
covery ? The animals, which are only partial selves and not
really moral selves at all, give not — so far as I am aware —
the slightest distinguishable token of regarding the acquire-
ment of knowledge as a matter of ideal significance. They
never exclaim : " I read thy thoughts after thee, God ; " nor
do they strut about with the appearance of a conscious pridef
of possessing an ideal good as they do show pride in the suc-

1 This thought has been anticipated and wrought out in its preliminary aspects
in my work on the " Philosophy of Knowledge."

198 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

cessful strife for sensuous goods. It is only a moral nature that
feels the obligation, by a virtuous and painstaking self-denial,
to attain the facts in each case ; that appreciates in a quasi-
ethical way the success of all scientific efforts ; and that
regards the Truth as worthy of being thus striven after,
because — somehow or other — belonging to the domain of
the " in-itself-Good."

Therefore, the more highly science estimates itself for its
own self's sake, the more does it testify to the value of human
conduct in the pursuit of an ideal Good. And inasmuch as the
man who enters upon or pursues a so-called scientific career
with an obvious regard only for his own selfish interests and
an obvious disregard of the interests of " the cause of science,"
or " the public welfare," or " society at large," is blamed if not
execrated for his badness morally, it is evident that the ideal
interests of ethics are, in however indirect and concealed
fashion, nevertheless supreme. One cannot, indeed, maintain
that every failure to attain and state the truth of fact or
of principle is blameworthy ; or that every manner and form of
telling the truth is justifiable ; but the highly significant fact
is this : It is the ethical nature of man which makes him
appreciate the value of the end at which science aims, as well
as the morally worthy features of the mind's activity in pur-
suit of this end. Only the Moral Self is fitted to regard truth,
and the effort to know truth, as an essential part of the ideal
Good. Thus science becomes merged in the perfection of
that supreme moral Ideal which is a society of moral selves.
In the language of religion : The Kingdom of Truth becomes
identical — reconciled — with the Kingdom of Heaven, or the
ideal social community of morally perfect selves. This dis-
tinctly ethical way of regarding man's relation to all conceiv-
able truth, which physical science appreciates only as the proper
attitude of its students toward Nature, is, of course, only a
hint toward the most profound and satisfying reconciliation of
the ideas and judgments of worth with the spirit and achieve-

THE MORAL SELF 199

ments of the scientific mind. But it is, at least, a hint in the
right direction. The later speculative endeavors of ethics are
surely bound to return again to the suggestion, and to carry
the suggestion out to its rational conclusion in a declaration
of peace between the domain of the Real in fact and the Ideals
that have value for the moral life.

In all the foregoing analyses I have coupled ethics with
aesthetics and religion as belonging, with them, to the same
sphere of the Ideal. I have also spoken as though all the
inconsistencies and seeming contradictions which exist, in fact
and in the history of the race, between the ideals of conduct
and the ideals of art and religion must find their reconcile-
ment in the conception of the perfect Moral Self. With
certain qualifications this is true. The interests and the
ideals of art are by no means always obviously identical — not
to say, reconcilable — with the interests of morality and tho
ideals of conduct. Neither can we in an offhand way force
into coincidence the apparently diverging lines of ethical and
of religious opinions, practices, and development. But, for
all this, the conception of the Moral Self remains the most
widely inclusive which the mind can form of human nature ;
and when expanded to its widest legitimate limits, this con-
ception includes the suggestions necessary for reconciling all
the conflicts amongst these three classes of ideals and of ideal
values. Only this qualification must be added : — so far as the
formation and the realization of the Ideal depends upon human
conduct under any conceivable social relations.

The analysis of the moral consciousness has already shown
us how many elements are common to it with that form of
consciousness with which men greet the Beautiful, as well
as with those closely allied forms of thought and feeling which
lead to the life of religious worship and of obedience to God.
Indeed, fche artistic nature and the ethical nature of man
have so many roots in common that it is difficult to separate
them without stopping the flow of vital sap into both the life

200 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

of conduct and the life of beauty. And it is only necessary
to spread the mantle of one great Idea over the conception of
ethics in order to give a religious signification and an " other-
worldly " radiance to the whole subject. The somewhat un-
couth compound " ethico-religious " is indicative of a profundity
of experience as great as that in which such phrases as the
" Beauty of Holiness," and eine schone Seele, have their origin.
In trying also to comprehend what, in essence, is common to
all the kinds of the "• in-itself-Good," and yet to keep some-
how distinct the good of beauty, the morally good, and the
All-Good, we found ourselves encompassed with the same
Unity in variety. The metaphysics which grows out of such ex-
periences belongs either to the more speculative part of ethics,
or to aesthetics, or, finally, to the philosophy of religion. But
the student of ethics must not fail at this point to feel the full
weight of the impression that man is fitted and obligated to seek
the Goods of art, and of religion ; that the attainment of these
ideal ends is, at least in a limited way, dependent upon his
own conduct, both that of the individual and that of the race ;
and that in the general movement of human society, what is
achieved for the better appreciation and finer representation of
the beautiful in nature and in human life as well as all the grow-
ing knowledge of God and the improved adjustment of human
relations to Him, and, for His sake, of men to one another, is
an integral part of the ethical development of the race. All
this lies within the sphere of human conduct. And man is
capable of it, responsible for it, successful or unsuccessful in
it, only because he is a Moral Self,

Those great principles, however, which are true for the
other main branches of philosophy are also true for the phi-
losophy of conduct. These principles, as I have elsewhere^
said, group themselves about " two comprehensive concep-
tions which seem to us to be shaping the thought and the
conduct of the present age. They are, of course, not new,

1 A Theorj of Reality, p. 31.

THE MORAL SELF 201

either in their total complexion or in any of their more
important factors, otherwise they could not be so compre-
hensive and influential as they are. But they are receiving
new and enlarged meanings; they are made to serve more
extended and illumining uses. These are the conception of
Evolution, of the principle of becoming, and the conception
of Self-hood, especially as having its roots in, and as reaching
out into, social connections." It is enlarged and truer notions
of Personality and of Development which are sought by the
reflective thinking of the age.

When, then, such fulness of significance and range of
influence are claimed for the conception of the Moral Self,
it must not be imagined that any of the legitimate rights of
the other conception, the conception of Evolution, are iti-
vaded or denied. The history of morals, and the current
opinions and practices of the time, as well as all the most
profound and comprehensive of ethical principles, cannot
be understood without giving due influence to both these
conceptions. TTie Moral Self, in a process of Development
toward the Social Ideal, — this complex of conceptions con-
tains the whole domain of investigation for the student of
ethics. What is the essential nature of the subject of con-
duct, the ethical being of man ? It is moral self-hood ; it
has already been described. But for every individual man,
and for the whole race of men, conduct is some sort of a
career ; it is subject to the principle of continuity ; it is a
matter of history, and of the growth from beginnings toward
ends, in the ongoing of time; it is something which can
neither be described, nor even be conceived of, except as the
individual is regarded in his physical, and especially in his
social environment. The principle of Evolution applies, then,
in ethics ; but in no superficial or merely external way. The
Moral Self is a life growth, and so subject — although on its
own special terms, as it were — to a continuous development.

Here, however, must the word of caution be uttered which

202 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

is confirmed by an analysis of the individual man, as well as
by a study of the history of the individual and, so far as
possible, of the race. The equipment which makes man
capable of conduct at all, and which furnishes his first
incitement to strive after the ethical ideal, as well as the
feelings and resulting judgments that evaluate conduct, can
never itself be accounted for as the mechanical resultant of
an evolutionary process. The conception of endowment is the
only one which will meet the facts in the case. The psycho-
logical study of the moral nature is competent to decide this
question for the individual man of to-day ; and such study
does decide it. Ethnological study is not competent to give
us the complete and trustworthy picture of the moral nature
of the so-called '' primitive man." It will probably, in spite
of many interesting details which await observation respect-
ing the customs and ethical opinions of rude and barbarous
tribes, never be in a position to guarantee such a picture.
But, as Wundt has well said : The one incontestable fact in this
field of uncertainty and conjecture is that "however far back we
push historical inquiry, and however low the stage of civiliza-
tion that we choose for observation, mankind appears always
and everywhere as subject to the same good and evil impulses
which constitute to-day the sources of its happiness and
misery." 1 Moreover, we may claim with equal confidence
that man always and everywhere appears as giving a prefer-
ence, for their own inherent value, to some kinds of conduct
rather than to others ; as feeling the bond of obligation which
ties him to his fellows with common rights and reciprocal
duties ; and as appreciating those who voluntarily recognize
the sacredness of this bond for their superior worth when
compared with tliose who, in the pursuit of their own pleasure,
or in the avoidance of pains for themselves, prove recreant
to this bond. And if biology, invading the proper field of
ethnology, and of history, and making bold to contradict all

1 Ethics, I, p. 127.

THE MORAL SELF 208

the conclusions of psychological ethics, chooses to please
itself with the speculative conception of an ancestral, non-
moral man, the student of ethics must, on the one hand,
confess his total ignorance of the existence of any such
being, and, on the other hand, must insist upon the obvious
truth that such a being is not capable of conduct at all,
is not man in any meaning which ethics can attach to the
word. In any event, ethics does not deal with beings that
are not already, potentially, moral selves ; it finds itself
compelled to take as its essential datum, the endowment
of moral self-hood, as this endowment has already been
described.

But after discovering and comprehending in a measure,
the significance of this datum, ethics welcomes, because ethics
imperatively needs, the conception of Evolution. This con-
ception, as quite certainly applying both to the individual
man, and also to the race, it expands and illustrates on the
basis of experience in somewhat the following way. The
three factors of feeling, ideation, and volition, enter into all
the behavior and the development of man considered as a
Moral Self. In the individual, and in the race, three stages
of development may be, somewhat vaguely, and yet on the
whole satisfactorily, distinguished as characterizing the life
of humanity. The first and lowest grade of action which
can be called conduct — or, at least, can be said to contain
the germ of conduct — combines the idea of an action with a
feeling of ought or ought-not, with reference to that action,
and an estimate of worth or unworthiness for the person
performing the action. In this complex, and often confused
state of consciousness, which is always of necessity more or
less painful or pleasurable, the moral life of man has its
birth. The whole affair is concrete and individual, a here-
and-now fact of experience which, as a conscious process,
looks neither backward nor forward for its sanctions.

In the second stage of ethical development, that which

204 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

was entirely concrete and individual, has become in some
measure generalized and universal ; but the same factors
characterize this stage, although modified in form of mani-
festation according to those general laws which control the
entire progress of the mental life. And now the improved
discriminating consciousness, acting upon an acquired wealth
of experience, estimates two or more actions with reference,
either to their consequences, or to their seemingly inherent
moral characteristics, approves of one, and disapproves of
others, chooses and resolves in a way to bring into clearer
consciousness the feeling of moral freedom ; and thus the
man takes the necessary steps in the formation of virtuous
or vicious habits. By repeated actions of this sort, virtuous
or vicious habits are actually formed, and the character-
istically good or bad quality of the Moral Self becomes
determined.

As I have already shown, during this second stage of
evolution, the social influences are most directly powerful ;
although they operate with little accompaniment, for the
most part, of any attempt to subject these influences them-
selves to a more purely ethical testing, by comparing them
with ideals that appear to have for the enlightened conscious-
ness a higher value than the current judgments and customs
of society. Beyond this second stage, most men for the
most part do not attempt to go. And for the multitudes of
men everywhere, and in all times, this amount of ethical
advance is usually satisfactory. Indeed, in the less highly
civilized communities, through lack of the stimulus of in-
tellectual and aesthetical as well as of ethical ideals, and also
on account of an unfavorable physical and social environment,
much progress beyond this stage is usually impossible, or
at least extremely difficult. Yet vague glimpses of some-
thing more beyond and higher up in that scale of being by
which the evolution of human morality is measured, come to
the eyes and ears even of the multitude. Especially are such

THE MORAL SELF 206

glimpses given to them in their religious experiences. The
right behavior toward the gods, is conceived of as something
better and nobler than the best of the actions decreed to be
right by human society. If only men were gods, and dwelt
with them in their more favorable surroundings, their ideals
of conduct might be still loftier by far, and yet without
transcending the possibilities of that moral freedom which is
so strictly limited as their possession under existing cir-
cumstances. Let it, then, at least be an ideal which shall
bring some further unification into human lives, so to con-
duct them as perchance, by and by, to go and live the diviner
life in its more favorable environment.

And so, with all souls in some manner, and with some few
souls in a most blessed and glorious manner, the last stage in
the evolution of the Moral Self is reached. The various ideas
of what is always and everywhere right — right here and
under such circumstances, and right there and under differing
circumstances — are gathered, or rather (more frequently)
gather themselves, into some shape of an Ideal. Under its
influence the originally segregated, and somewhat spasmodic
feelings of oughtness become unified; they develop into a
more constant feeling of obligation, often passionate and yet
rational, to strive as far as possible to realize for ourselves
and for others this grand conception. Thus it comes about,
that the entire practical life of the individual falls pro-
gressively under the controlling influence of the distinctively
ethical ideas, and ethical emotions. The essential factors
and prominent aspects of such a devotion may remain the
same amidst a number of forms in which the Ideal assumes
more definite outlines, and in spite of a great variety of
concrete habits of action under varying conditions and
changes in the social environment. This Ideal may be the
idea of a so-called " moral law," or the idea of a perfected
personality, or the idea of the Divine Will ; or it may be
some yet more inclusive form of a social constitution. With

206 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

one good man the object which seems worthy of commanding
him may be conceived of as an impersonal principle, an
unselfish and unswerving obedience to which is recognized as
summing up the entire obligation of man. With another,
the conception of an infinitely worthy personal Being, in
whose personal characteristics they may share who make the
attainment of this ideal the object of their life endeavor, may
be substituted for the conception of an impersonal principle.
With another, the perfectibility, by human efforts, of society
seems to furnish the good to strive for which with the stren-
uous life, is the whole duty of him who would attain the
supreme moral Good.

Each of these, and all other forms of defining that Ideal
which is the perfect satisfaction and permanent source of
inspiration for the development of moral Self-hood, is quite
likely to be marred by deficiencies, or to include subordinate
elements which would better be left out. The possibility of
a sound speculative treatment of this Ideal will come before
us for discussion later on. But I wish now to call attention
to the truth that the very attempt to form any ideal of
conduct in so comprehensive and lofty a fashion, and to place
the ideal upon a basis of experience, while admitting the
necessity for trusting the better sentiments and the artistic
imagination, marks a high stage in the moral evolution of
mankind.

But the Moral Ideal is itself the subject of Evolution, —
necessarily so, for it is the mental construct of the Moral Self,
and therefore dependent for its very excellence upon the stage
in its own moral development which the constructing mind
has reached. And moral development here includes all kinds
of development; for they all are dependent in a measure
upon man's own conduct; and man's conduct is the sphere
of morality. In reaching this conclusion, however, I have
already gone far in advance of the position where the facts
of psychological ethics can be confidently relied upon to

THE MORAL SELF 207

defend me. We must, then, return to the study of experience
from another allied but different point of view, and consider
what habits of conduct men have agreed to call " virtuous,"
what " vicious," and how one may explain, justify, and
properly apply such terms as these.

PAET SECOND
THE VIRTUOUS LIFE

" And lie shall he like a tree planted hy the rivers of water ^ that hringeth
forth his fruit in his season ; his leaf also shall not wither / and whatsoever
he doeth shall prosper.^* Psalm, i. 3.

CHAPTER X

CLASSIFICATION OF THE VIRTUES

One of the most suggestive of ethical facts is the pertinacity
with which men everywhere cling to a certain twofold divi-
sion of the kinds of conduct. All conduct is in their judgment
to be esteemed either good or bad, either worthy of approba-
tion because it is right, or of disapproval and ill-desert on
account of its quality of being wrong. Hence those habits of
action which belong to the one class are called virtues ; and
the virtues have their corresponding opposites, the so-called
vices of mankind. This distinction persists everywhere and
under all conditions of moral evolution, in spite of all attempts
to minimize or explain it away. To its significant truth
and exceeding worth in determining all manner of human
interests, the language, the customs, and the ethical opinions
of men bear an indisputable witness.

It is true that increasing culture usually makes the mind,
within certain limits, less prompt and self-confident in pro-
nouncing upon the genuine qualities of particular cases of
conduct. Quite too frequently it is ignorance or self-con-
ceit which appropriates the title of " virtue " to one's own
favored forms of behavior, and then assigns the opprobrious
term of a vice to all departures from these forms. Especially
does this appear to be true when we consider that all human
means for testing the real qualities of conduct are so uncertain.
In the case of others, particularly, the chances of mistake are
threefold. There is, first, the chance which comes from
the uncertain character of the sign to be interpreted. For

212 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

example : did the attempted assassin of the Shah of Persia,
in Paris, in the summer of 1900, at the precise moment
when he pulled the trigger of the pistol still intend to com-
mit murder, and was his failure due solely to a defect in
the weapon ; or did he at the last instant falter in purpose
and thus make an ethically incomplete event of the final
result? The expert in weapons can give only a probable
answer to such a question, even when he has carefully exam-
ined the condition of the pistol and considered the external
behavior of the assassin. But there is, second, the chance
of mistake which comes from a defective or a prejudiced
mind on the part of him who attempts the task of ethical
interpretation. How difficult it is for the ordinary Occidental
to estimate duly the virtues and the vices of the Orient ; for
the Anglo-Indian to understand the Hindu, the German the
Chinese, and the American the Filipino ! There is also, third,
the special chance of failure to which even those best fitted to
estimate conduct are always liable ; and which comes from the
quite generally complicated and subtle character of the thing
to be estimated. Finally, we are reminded that all individual
men, and all tribes and conditions of human kind, have their
own somewhat peculiar virtues and vices ; moreover that the
virtues of one are esteemed the vices of another, and that the
standards of virtue and vice are changeable from place to
place and from age to age.

Such considerations as the foregoing must undoubtedly be
taken into the account by any one who would draw a correct
picture of the Virtuous Life as it is displayed and estimated
in the moral evolution of the race. But they do not in the
least alter the significance or impair the value of this dis-
tinction in the kinds of conduct. For the fundamental fact
is that men universally make the distinction somehow ; and
that the distinction is always a twofold distinction. The
distinction itself is always, therefore, a germinal theory of
virtue, — an attempt, to appreciate the implications of which

CLASSIFICATION OF THE VIRTUES 213

is an introduction to a valid opinion, based upon universal
experience, as to the true nature of virtue and its opposite.
It is, as well, a valuable hint for the application of the theory
of virtue to the practice of the virtues.

In order, however, to form inductively a theory of the
virtues and vices it would be desirable, if possible, to begin
by taking the distinction of good (or virtuous) and bad
(or vicious) habits of conduct as it is found expressed in
its lowest and, therefore, most unsatisfactory terms. Here all
is vague and apparently confused ; but it is spontaneous, naive,
and so the more valuable for the student of the philosophy of
the moral life. One does not need, however, to rummage the
field of ethnological facts with a view to discover precisely
how many distinguishable virtues, how many vices, have re-
ceived recognition by the whole race of mankind in all places
of its existence and all stages of its development. To consult
philology as to the origin and meaning of the different
words which have stood for the idea of virtue in general or
for the particular virtues would, doubtless, be a more reward-
ing task. We may, with sufficient accuracy for our purpose,
summarize the net results of both these lines of investigation
in the following statements. And, first, as to the essential
meaning of the words for virtue in general and for the par-
ticular virtues : they all evince some form of embodying the
thought that certain ways of doing things are entitled to be
considered preferable, more excellent, better, or best. To the
unreflecting human consciousness, this does not seem to
mean so much that it is better for a man to be virtuous than
not to be virtuous ; it, the rather, seems to mean that to be
virtuous is to be the better, or the best, as respect one's
conduct and character. In what respect " better " or by
virtue of what peculiar advantages or special characteristics
"best"? — this is a question about the answer to which the
words that express the different particular virtues, do not, of
themselves, by any means always clearly pronounce. Where,

214 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

however, they do reveal the subtler thought and finer feeling
that is in them, they call attention to the existence in human
consciousness of an ethical Ideal.

The indeterminate but important answer which the instinc-
tive expression of human thought gives to inquiry into the
conception of the virtuous life is therefore this : The virtues
are the habitual modes of the conduct of the person who is the
better, the best, the most worthy and admirable, the noblest
man. If then we ask : " In what sense are courage, constancy,
justice, wisdom, kindness, generosity, better than cowardice,
fickleness, injustice, folly, cruelty, meanness?" the answer
is : " These are the ways of the behavior of the ' better ' men.'*
Or, to translate into terms which further investigation must
justify more fully : In the thought of mankind, the virtues are
those habitual forms of conduct which realize the conception of
the better and nobler Self. All naming of the virtues indicates
a " constant and especial attention to the praiseworthy features
of human personality." The virtuous man is the good man ;
virtue is manliness and steadfastness of character ; it is the
best, because the fittest and noblest thing for a man to have.^

In the second place, the philosophy of conduct may borrow
from ethnology the conclusion which rests upon its induction
of facts : There are many startling divergencies from the
opinions, now current among the most ethically advanced
communities, as to the correct list of the virtues ; but these
divergencies do not destroy, they rather make more impressive

1 Thus the Greeks used ayaQ6s to indicate the most manly personal characteris-
tics, — especially, bravery in battle for the state and nobility of bearing. Virtus
in Latin emphasized the same traits of good manliness. The connection of the
English and German words for " good " with the German Gatte indicates the
emphasis which these languages place upon personal " fitness " in the virtuous
life. In Greek, again, virtue {dperi]) =that which, for a man, is best (Hpiarros).
But the man is bad and vicious, he is no man worthy to be called a man, who is
lacking in these fundamental qualifications. And where the influence of allied
religious conceptions is distinctly felt, the idea of stain and defilement becomes
more emphatic. The bad man has a darkened and soiled Selfhood. In Latin
malus, and in Greek fxe\as (black), and in Sanskrit malas (from ma/am, dirt), seem
to incorporate this way of thinking.

CLASSIFICATION OF THE VIRTUES 215

a certain fundamental agreement. They are due chiefly to
differences of emphasis, differences of application in depend-
ence upon the existing physical and social environment, and
differences in those wide-spreading moral and spiritual ten-
dencies which, for lack of a more scientific account of their
origin, we are often compelled to refer to as the " Spirit of the
Age." If, however, one accepts the most general and unpreju-
diced estimate, and especially if one consults the opinions of
the most thoughtful and pure-minded, one finds a substantial
uniformity of view as to the leading characteristics of the
proper life for man. Courage, constancy, justice, wisdom,
kindness, generosity, — these and other allied forms of the
behavior of the manlier man, of the better Self, have always
been esteemed to be ethically preferable to the opposite forms
of behavior; they have always been accounted among the
fundamental virtues. In a word : the one persistent utterance
of moral instruction has been, " Yet show I unto you a more
excellent way ; " and, in the various forms of energizing which
necessarily belong to every individual man in his social rela-
tions to other men, the different distinguishable virtues are the
different allied forms of following this " more excellent way."
The relation of a preliminary classification of the virtues to
the ends aimed at by a philosophy of conduct may, therefore,
be described in the following way. We wish to discover the
essential characteristics of the Virtuous Life ; — and this both
with a view to understand such a life and also to acquaint
ourselves with the proper way to lead it. For the philosophy
of conduct, although it deals so largely with a theory of values
that are rather obscurely and changefully incorporated into
an experience of facts, has its own supreme value as the trust-
worthy guide to actual right conduct. Ethics, considered as
the scientific study of conduct, must introduce its student to
the art of living virtuously. All the human estimates of
virtue depend upon an experience involving ideas of value ;
and these values are all realizable only in the life of the

216 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

better, the Ideal Self. But ethics is, of course, not satisfied
to leave the current conceptions of the different virtues and
duties so indefinite in number and so disconnected in prin-
ciple. It aims to reduce them to allied species, to distinguish
the more fundamental and inclusive, and, if possible, to bring
them all under some one principle or idea. In its effort to
accomplish this it must avail itself of the scientific method of
classification and of reflective criticism with a view to unify
its results.

Perhaps the most common mistake made by writers on
ethics is to force a unification by exalting some one virtue or
some one aspect of the virtuous life to a position of exclusive
supremacy. But such a method inevitably results in several
theoretical and practical evils : (1) The misinterpretation of
the terms used by men generally to express the different
virtues ; (2) a narrowing of the conception of the morally
most worthy manhood, either by leaving out of it certain
virtuous traits, or by underestimating the value of certain
aspects of the ideal of manliness ; (3) a loss of roundness and
harmony to the idea of the good man, which results from
making him " over-good " on some sides (" too good for this
world," as the somewhat misleading, yet expressive popular
phrase would say) ; and (4) an excessive abstractness, — the
completion of the task of describing the total Virtuous Life
in terms that cannot be translated into the concrete linea-
ments and full-blooded structure of a living organism.

I would not have it forgotten then, that the truly virtuous
life is the life of the whole man, body and soul, with all his
appetites, passions, desires, and affections, involving all his
capacities and constitutional or acquired forms of activity —
the total human being, feeling, intellect, and will.

How, more precisely, shall one describe the virtuous, the
morally good man ; — the man who performs all his duties,
and possesses and exercises all the virtues? Shall one be
satisfied to say : He is the man who does now this, now that;

CLASSIFICATION OF THE VIRTUES 217

and who refrains from doing this on such an occasion, and on
another occasion from doing that ? Or may one affirm : He
is the man who is courageous, constant, just, wise, kind, and
generous ; and who practises whatever other ways of conduct-
ing himself are to be recognized as virtuous by the social
judgment of his fellow-men ? ^ Or can one make a more
general summary and rest satisfied with this : He is the bene-
volent man, the man of good will ? On the answer which
is given to these questions must depend in large measure the
subsequent answer to the more speculative inquiry after the
nature of the Right and the relation in which the human
Moral Self and the social order of humanity stand to the
order of the Universe and to the so-called " World-Ground."

In almost all attempts at stricter classification, in accord-
ance with recognized scientific methods, the selection of a
satisfactory principle of classification is a difficult task. In
the scientific treatment of complex psychical phenomena, or
of attitudes and aspects of the entire man as related to life
and to reality, it is particularly difficult to find such a helpful
principle. But when it is proposed to reduce to scientific
ordering the voluntary adoption of ideas of value, in order to

1 The following list of virtues was written out at my request on consultation by-
two persons who are intelligent about matters of current morality and yet with-
out technical knowledge of psychological ethics : — " Temperance, patience,
cleanliness, kindliness, good temper, unselfishness, thoughtfulness, justness,
truthfulness, courage (moral and physical), righteousness, piety, uprightness,
forgiveness, purity, orderliness, sobriety, industry, perseverance, faithfulness,
love to neighbor, honesty, chastity, adaptability (?), cheerfulness, prudence, self-
control, charity, hopefulness." The redundancy from one point of view and
deficiency from another point of view, the lack of coordination, the comparative
narrowness of some of these so-called virtues and the vast range over the " springs
of action " which belongs to others of every such popular list are at once
apparent to the trained student of psychology. But these same qualifications
belong also to most of the lists which have been adopted by writers on the prin-
ciples of morality. Even in the case of Martineau's careful and elaborate analysis
of the " springs of action " with a view to a critical " Idiopsychological Ethics "
(Part II, Book i. of the "Types of Ethical Theory"), it is difficult to make
sure of agreement with the author, both as to the completeness of his analysis and
also as respects the relation in which these primary and secondary springs of
action stand to the different virtues and vices.

218 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

place these ideas in control over all the varied and shifting
springs of action, under every variety of the physical and
social environment to which man's evolution is subject, then
the selection of a principle of classification is supremely
difficult. Here the principle is necessarily defined by the
nature of man himself — his total nature, including all the
ends of Good he seeks — in his physical, mental, and social
development. The operative principle, in actuality, is the
unity in variety of a Moral Self, freely adjusting itself to the
changing relations which it sustains, as a member of a
society of moral selves.

Divisions of the virtues like that, for example, of M. Janet,^
into '''devoirs stricts^^ and '' devoirs larges^^ need not occupy
our attention ; for they can only serve the temporary purpose
of introducing dispute over certain subordinate problems in
applied ethics. And these problems, so far as I intend to
treat of them at all, will more fitly come up in other con-
nections.

The classification into self-regard ing virtues and social
virtues is more worthy of consideration. This division is not
infrequently, and always with a certain plausibility, employed
to show how virtue can be evolved from that which is non-
virtuous, or even vicious ; how the morally good can come out
of the ethically neutral, if not the ethically evil. It is a divi-
sion of the virtues which is based upon the relations sustained
between the motives for conduct and certain clearly conceived
personal interests which are chosen as ends. The motive for
some of the virtues is the end of good for myself ; the motive
for others of the virtues is the end of good, for others. I have
myself to look out for, — my own life, health, and happiness
to secure ; my own appetites, instincts, passions, and desires
are in part self-regarding " springs of action." To conserve
these self-regarding interests intelligently is right; and the
different ways of doing this constitute, when they are volun-

1 La Morale, liv. II. chap. iii.

CLASSIFICATION OF THE VIRTUES 219

tary and habitual, the different so-called self-regarding virtues.
But I have also a certain part in society to play, — in the
family, the tribe, the clan, the circle of comrades and friends
with their opponents and enemies, if not in tlie larger com-
munity of the state, the nation, or the whole world of men.
And I am constituted a social being, with appetites, instincts,
passions, desires, and affections of a social kind. These latter,
when voluntarily and habitually made reasonable and intelli-
gent, become the social virtues. The two classes of virtues,
when both are faithfully practised, fill up the whole orb of the
virtuous man's life ; he who has them both in full measure
is the ideally good person.

Now it cannot be denied that some of the many so-called
springs of action do have a more direct and forceful influence
upon the conduct of the individual as related to the interests
of the individual self. Cleanliness, temperance, purity, in-
dustry, and prudence, as well as fortitude in resistance to all
hostile attacks upon the immediate interests of one's own
bodily and mental life, are excellent forms of behavior, neces-
sary habits for him who would lead the ideally good human
life. And so are kindliness, honesty, justice, pity, chastity,
— words which have no meaning except on the supposition
that the individual man is acting in social relations with
others, and is shaping his conduct with their interests as well
as his own in view. Moreover, both from the theoretical and
from the practical points of view, he who has no regard for
the cultivation of the excellences of the ideal Self in the con-
crete case of his own individual life — that which is nearest
to him and most immediately, in all ordinary cases, under his
control — cannot be an efficient doer of the socially right
things ; and to turn the statement about, he who disregards
the practice of the so-called social virtues thereby shows a
woful disregard of his own higher and more worthy Self.

It might be objected to this classification (so Sidgwick) that
it involves a premature and illogical denial of all the claims

220 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

of every form of intuitionism ; or, more forcefully, that it
takes the spontaneity of ethical feeling, as well as the value
of disposition and of habits of conduct, out of the sphere of
ethics altogether. But there are objections to urge which are
much more comprehensive and conclusive. They arise when-
ever one considers those psychological conditions on which,
and those psychological principles according to which, the
very conception of a Self lias its origin and development ; and
they are greatly reinforced whenever one reflects upon the
philosophical implications which the distinction itself is de-
signed to support. Especially emphatic are these objections
to this distinction between the self-regarding and the social
virtues when it is applied to the nature and the qualifications
of man's- moral life.

For, in the first place, it is chiefly as the distinction between
one's self and others is made, only to be disregarded and broken
down, that tlie moral life of the human being enters upon its
course of development. The very birth, so to say, of the moral
Self, involves in some sort the voluntary abrogation of this
distinction. In saying this, I do not intend to revive in new
form an obsolete Hegelian abstraction; I intend simply to
point out the obvious meaning of the most primary and crude
but constant and significant facts of human ethical experience.
The human being, as soon as conscious of a social environ-
ment, spontaneously expresses all those springs of action
which lead him both to seek from others for himself a variety
of goods and to seek to give to others a variety of things
which he finds to be good for himself. His self-regarding
appetites, passions, desires, and affections, are shot through
with sympathetic and other-regarding or social impulses ; and
the society of which he comes to recognize himself as a
member, is an integral part of the conception which he comes
to hold of himself as an individual to the securing of whose
interests others as well as himself must pay regard. From
the very inception of the moral life, and as a necessary incite-

CLASSIFICATION OF THE VIRTUES 221

ment to the beginnings of such a life, the individual Self is
the self-conscious Will seeking its own good, as one of many
similar selves.

Thus, as I have already shown (p. 73 f.) the sentiment
of obligation is ordinarily first aroused when the purely
self-regarding volition receives its check from the social
environment. The beginning lesson in right conduct is
this: "Thou shalt not regard thyself to the exclusion of
regard for others ; thou shalt regard thyself only as society
permits thee to regard thyself. And, willing or nilling,
thou shalt conform in thy self-regarding, to the customs, the
traditional and organized will of thy predecessors and supe-
riors." Even in the gratification of the most fundamental
and imperative of the appetites and passions, virtuous con-
duct imperatively requires that the regard shall not be, at
least directly and ostensibly, directed upon the self. In no soci-
ety, however low, can the individual eat and drink and indulge
the appetite of sex, with even a show of virtue, and regard
only himself. And that which is enforced in the lower grades
of moral evolution by some form of appeal to civil, military,
or religious authority, is freely adopted as tlie rational prin-
ciple of conduct by those who have reached the higher grades
of moral evolution. The essential thing about their morality
is that, whether they eat or drink or whatsoever they do, they
do it all — if not "to the glory of God " — with the good of
society in mind as a matter of the virtuous man's constant
regard.

While, then, the distinction between one's self and others,
as a matter of self-conscious thinking, grows more and more
clear with the growth of the individual's capacities, this dis-
tinction is from the first totally unfitted to be made the basis
for a classification of the virtues. The more of selfhood any
individual attains, the more does he become both able and
entitled to distinguish himself, as having the unity of a per-
sonality, from all his own physical and social environment.

222 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

But the growth in the ability to make this distinction cannot
result in the development of a Moral Self, cannot even pro-
duce the first feeble beginnings of a life in which right and
wrong conduct are distinguished, unless some sort of an
attempt at harmony between the so-called self-regarding and
the so-called social springs of action is brought about.
The man who refuses to attempt this harmony, the purely
self-regarding man, is the non-virtuous or bad man. His
self-regarding excellences, in so far as they are purely 8elf-
regarding, are not esteemed virtuous at all. Even a king
must do as kings ought to do — most of all, when he is
regarding his own kingly dignity and power. The gods of
Homer might be adulterous without blame ; but if they were
sneaking and cowardly in their gratification of selfish lusts,
they did not behave as gods should. But, on the other hand,
at no time, whether in the naive and childish ethics of the
Homeric Age, or in that most strenuous insistence upon re-
gard for the social welfare which characterizes modern ethical
theories, do we find men satisfied with the morality of the per-
son who attempts to practise only the so-called social virtues.
In all our historical characterization of the Virtuous Life, the
point now to be noticed is this : virtuous conduct cannot be
merely self-regarding ; it is, of its very nature and essence,
an activity of the Moral Self in social relations ; but then it is
also something which belongs most distinctly and essentially
to a self-respecting and self-controlled manhood.

In the second place, it may be objected to the distinction of
the virtues into the self-regarding and the social, that most
forms of virtuous conduct, so far as they are practised with
an intelligent consideration of ends in view, are hoth self-
regarding and social. For example, shall the man who, be-
cause he has respect for his own personality and its attitude
of fidelity toward the truth as he understands it, refuses
to lie, even when he is forced to believe that a lie might
be useful in conserving the interests of society, be denied all

CLASSIFICATION OF THE VIRTUES 223

claim to virtue on the ground that his conduct is motived by
selfishness ? Or shall the man who, with equal courage and
consistency, always refrains from falsehood in the interests of
social morals, be esteemed lacking in the essentials of a proper
regard for his own personality ? I do not believe that the vir-
tuousness of truthfulness is destroyed or necessarily impaired
by the acceptance of either point of view as its motive. Lying
is bad for society, — a social injury, a social vice. Lying is
degrading to one's proper self-regard, — an act unworthy and
deeply injurious to the character of a moral personality. And
they are virtuous men, in this regard, who will not lie, whether
their motive be regard for themselves or regard for society.
The same line of remark is applicable to those who virtuously
refrain from that vice which is specifically called " social."

That should be noted in passing, however, which will be
made more obvious subsequently. The harmony at which
all virtuous conduct aims may be expressed, not simply as an
adjustment of the individual self to society, but as an adjust-
ment which goes on within the individual self. In the virtu-
ous conduct, for the moment, at least, the whole being is
brought into a harmony between the lower and actual self and
the higher but ideal Self ; and in this fact I find a suggestion
of the ultimate Ideal of ethics.

Another classification of the virtues which may receive
a brief notice, adopts as its principle the difference of objects
upon which the virtuous conduct terminates. In the division
resulting, some three or four classes of virtues and corre-
sponding duties are customarily enumerated. Thus, there
may be recognized virtues that are (a) individual, (b) domestic,
(c) social ; and duties toward (a) Self, (b) the family, and
(c) society ; or again, four classes of duties and their corre-
sponding virtues, — namely, toward (1) animals, (2) Self,
(3) fellow-men, and (4) God.

But all proposals to discover the essential characteristics
of the Virtuous Life by classifying the virtues according to

224 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

the different objects on which the virtuous conduct termi-
nates land us in hopeless confusion. Of the above-mentioned
threefold division one may inquire, whether marriage is for
all persons a necessary condition of living virtuously ; and
what particular form of it can be made, under all social con-
ditions, so comprehensive as to include a full one-third of all
human duties. In what essential respect do certain virtues,
— such as pity, kindness, justice, truthfulness, etc., — when
exercised in the domestic circle, differ from the same virtues
when they pass over into the class called social ? As to the
preceding fourfold classification, it may be questioned whether
there are, strictly speaking, any duties and virtues having
respect to the animals that are not included in those having
respect to self and to fellow-men. And there can be no
doubt whatever that the instant the existence of God is as-
sumed as necessarily connected with the philosophical treat-
ment of ethical phenomena, the entire subject of morality
changes front. All duties now become due to God ; all vir-
tues now become capable of being regarded as fidelity to Him,
as a voluntary patterning of the individual man after the
Divine model and as " moments " in the life which is obedi-
ence to his Holy Will.

A third principle for a classification of the virtues lays
emphasis upon the attitude in which the different impulses of
human nature stand toward the Moral Ideal. This is at once
the oldest and the most suggestive and convenient ; it is also
a principle which, when modified in accordance with the
progress of psychological science, most directly and safely
introduces us to a valid theory as to the nature of virtue. Its
foundation rests in the belief that human virtues are those
activities of the human Self which correspond to the Ideal of
a Self. " A man's duties are due to his humanity."

By making this division, Plato, in spite of the uncouth
physiology and psycho-physics which were then its accompa-
niment, showed a profound insight into the essential nature of

CLASSIFICATION OF THE VIRTUES 225

the Virtuous Life among men. Three cardinal virtues there
were ; and yet a fourth which comprehended the three in a
sort of divinely ordered harmony. The three were Wisdom
or the virtue of the head (cro^ia), Courage or the virtue of the
heart (avSpeia), and Self-control or the virtue of the parts
below the diaphragm (aoxppocnjvrj). A certain Justness, or
right proportionateness (Bi/caLoavvrj) everywhere resulted when
these three virtues combined to make the really " good man."
And yet in some sort it is wisdom, or reason knowing the
Reality, and so regulating the entire life, which, according to
Plato, supremely characterizes the follower of the moral Ideal.
But none of these virtues can be merely self-regarding, although
they are all attitudes of the higher Self with regard to its own
proper regulation. For with Plato, as with the ancient world
generally, wisdom, courage, temperance, and justice are essen-
tially civic virtues, and have regard to the welfare of the State.
This ideal of manhood is, then, the farthest possible from the
brutal self-assertion of some of the modern advocates of the
so-called " strenuous life." As Paulsen has well said : ^ " The
Republic is the very thing for young people whose thoughts are
preoccupied with and confused by Nietzsche's UebermenschJ^

Plato's great disciple, while not adhering to any consistent
classification of the virtues, in his treatment of the nature of
virtue in general and of the particular virtues accepts essen-
tially the same principle. In his preliminary definition of the
sphere of ethics Aristotle indeed proposes the distinction
which, we have already seen (p. 106 f.), weakens, if it does not
vitiate, one's estimate of the nature and supreme value of the
virtuous life. The virtues of the head, the voluntary culture
and right use of reason as a species of conduct, although it is a
fundamental prerequisite of every cardinal virtue, he separates
at the beginning of his treatise from the so-called " moral "
virtues. Still " the virtue or excellence that we are to con-
sider is," according to Aristotle, " the excellence of man,"

1 A System of Ethics, p. 47.
15

226 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

and bj the " excellence of man " is meant " excellence not of
body, but of soul." And in his description of each particular
virtue he finds himself dealing with the various springs of
action and forms of activity, under the control of the will and
in the pursuit of an ideal. Thus the various appetites give
rise either to forms of temperance or to the vices of gluttony,
unchastity, etc. ; and fear either begets an unworthy cowardice,
or, being controlled, issues in a prudent courage or an impru-
dent rashness. In all this discussion it is evident that the
author of the Nicomachean Ethics has constantly in view the
fundamental principle of every psychologically sound theory
of the nature of virtue.

Abundant examples might be drawn from the history of
ethical discussions to show that every attempt at a description
of the Virtuous Life must pay its respects to essentially the
same principle for the classification of the virtues. And why
should it not, as a matter of course, be so ? For by the word,
the " virtues," ethics does not mean to indicate some en-
tity that can be abstracted and exhibited apart from the
activity of the entire soul. Yirtuousness for man is essen-
tially man's Self in action as related to other selves.

With a view, then, the more conveniently to establish a valid
theory of the nature of virtue upon a broad basis of human
experience, I shall classify the virtues according to the current
threefold classification of man's so-called faculties. We
have thus to consider in a separate chapter, first, the virtues
of the will, or those forms of conduct in which the excellent,
the better manhood shows itself conspicuously by its self-
control, whether in the pursuit of its chosen ends or in re-
sistance to those influences which inhibit and prevent the
execution of the will. Second : we have to examine the
virtues of the intellect or judgment, those excellences of
the better manhood which give the distinctively rational
quality to human conduct. And, third, there remain the
virtuous sentiments and affections, the virtues of the heart,

CLASSIFICATION OF THE VIRTUES 227

or those excellences of conduct which do most sweeten the
sourness, illumine the darkness, and cheer the otherwise
hard and cold path to the higher Good of human life.

But before taking up in detail this discussion of the Vir-
tuous Life certain explanations are necessary as to the use
which it is proposed to make of this principle of classification.

First : no form of virtuous conduct can either be under-
stood or practised as though it were the product of any isolated
activity of man's mental life. Strictly speaking, then, there
are no virtues exclusively of either head or heart or dia-
phragm, or even of either intellect, feeling, or will. For
blind, unfeeling volition — if it were worthy to be called a
man^s will — has no ethical quality whatever; such volition is
not a function of the Moral Self. In order to constitute any
fact of volition a deed of will that has ethically good or bad
quality, there must be a presentation of some form of good
to be obtained and a feeling appreciative of its worth as an
end to be voluntarily sought. But neither does mere judg-
ment as to what is eudasmonistically or aesthetically or ethic-
ally good, however true and illumining in itself, constitute a
virtuous action. Just judgment is a virtuous trait, and to be
trained in such judgment is an essential for the truly good
man. They who have in the highest perfection this power of
intelligently balancing conflicting interests, of sitting like
gods for the evaluation of the moral worth of themselves
and others, belong to the " good few " among men. But
such power of judgment is always attained and exercised
as the result of will, incited and suffused with feeling. It,
too, is a function of the total Moral Self. Nor is mere so-
called " fine feeling " a virtue, unless it be tempered with
reason and then adopted as a guide to action.

The threefold classification of the virtues which I propose
must therefore, like every other classification, be understood
as not denying the unity, either of the soul or of the soul's
virtuous living, while at the same time adopting distinctions

228 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

that are serviceable for the mastery of an almost indefinite
variability.

For, second, there are different classes of virtues which do,
both actually and in the average estimate of mankind, em-
phasize the excellences of man's self-control ; and the cor-
responding vices are like laments over deficiencies in the
power of self-control. The courageous and consistent " bad "
man illustrates the one ; and the timid and fickle but " well-
meaning" man illustrates the other. So, too, there are
virtues which depend chiefly upon a cultivated judgment;
they are the virtues of rationality, in the narrow but popular
meaning of the latter word. And no kindness of heart, or
constancy of purpose, can suffice to fill the gap caused by a
lack of these virtues. Virtues indeed they are ; for they re-
sult from the at least partially right activity of the moral self
in accordance with its proper and obligatory ideal. On the
other hand, the man of steadfast and courageous purpose, with
no end of wisdom and the most exact justice, but without kind-
ness of heart, sympathy with the weak, and pity for the
oppressed and the fallen, is not the ideally good man. He
lacks one essential third, at least, of the wholly Virtuous
Life.

And, now in the third place, the two preceding remarks
must combine in a conclusion, to make and apply which will
relieve the mind of many practical perplexities, while, at the
same time, throwing no small light upon the true conception
of the essential nature of virtue. Is the courage of the
criminal who is brave not wholly from a spirit of shameless
bravado, but chiefly because of a sort of shame at betraying
fear when he must face the foreseen consequences of his own
chosen path of conduct, a virtue, or not ? Is our admiration
for Milton's Satan, however sneakingly confessed, a purely
aesthetical and not also an ethical affair ? Can the mind of
man frame a picture of a devil, who is in any sense of the word
and over any realm, the Devil, and make him wholly bad ?

CLASSIFICATION OF THE VIRTUES 229

To all such questions the naive moral consciousness of man-
kind gives no unequivocal answer. I believe that the answer of
the student of philosophy must in the main accord with the
answer of mankind.^

Courage and persistency of purpose, for example, are virtu-
ous forms of conduct. They are forms of conduct, because
they involve the activity of the whole Moral Self, — feeling,
intellect, and will ; they are virtuous, because they are such
forms of conduct, chiefly a matter of steadfast will, as corre-
spond with the Ideal of Selfhood. The self-control of fear,
and steadfastness of purpose, even when given to the pursuit
of some selfish end, do not thus become vices, being them-
selves vitiated by the quality of the end sought, or by the
means employed. They remain what they essentially are, —
virtues of the will. But the choice of the inferior in prefer-
ence to the better good is a most cardinal vice, the very
essence, as it were, of all wrong-doing; and injustice to
others in the pursuit of one's own ends, whether ignorant
and thoughtless or designed and deliberate, is a flagrant
moral evil. Selfishness and injustice are vices ; but courage
and constancy still remain virtues, even when enlisted in the
behalf of selfishness and injustice.

It is this truth which gives ethical justification to the
poetical expression of it in Browning: —

" Oh, a crime will do
As well, I reply, to serve for a test
As a virtue golden through and through.

The sin I impute to each frustrate ghost
Is — the unlit lamp and the ungirt loin."

Shall it then be said that it were better — more in accord-
ance with the ideal of moral selfhood — to remain to the last
courageously and constantly in the pursuit of the inferior
good, rather than to change to the pursuit of the superior

1 Compare the remarks already made on p. 100.

230 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

good ? Certainly not. But timid and inconstant generosity,
the spirit of kindness restrained and rendered fickle by cow-
ardice, benevolence that has no '' valiancy " to its " volency,"
are sometimes scarcely less clearly "through and through"
vicious than is a courageous and consistent selfishness.

The reasons for this conflict in points of view, and the
correct solution of the problems of ethical praxis that are
concerned in the conflict, lie deep in the constitution of the
human soul. They are due to its actual variety in unity, its
real unity in spite of the actual variety of its activities.
Thus all the particular virtues, or modes of conduct which
the moral consciousness of man approves, may fitly be called
" qualified " virtues. In order to have moral quality at all,
or — what is the same thing — in order to be species of con-
duct, they must involve the total personality. They must be
forms of action that admit of voluntary control, and that are
directed toward the attainment of some end which itself ad-
mits of being connected with ideas of worth and with feelings
of obligation and of approbation or disapproval. Those par-
ticular activities of the man which correspond with the ideal
of a Moral Self conducting itself in a variety of social rela-
tions with other selves are the so-called virtues. But, I repeat,
they are all qualified virtues. They all inhibit and limit or
supplement and complement each other in the totality of the
complex Virtuous Life. For this life is the total life in conduct
of that unitary being, with all the variety of its threefold
nature, which we call a human Self.

CHAPTER XI

VIRTUES OF THE WILL: COURAGE, TEMPERANCE, ETC.

From time immemorial and under all conditions of human
development, the man of strong character has been quite
generally admired and commended. Nor can the admiration
and commendation be declared, on a careful analysis of the
motives and actions of men in this respect, to be by any
means lacking in truly ethical significance. Doubtless some
of this feeling towards so-called " strength of character " is con-
nected with a sneaking sense of inferiority which may, on the
one hand, lead the weak to prostrate themselves before the man
of superior will, or, on the other hand, turn quickly into the
expression of that base envy and hatred which always greet
those of the strenuous, whether the obviously successful or
unsuccessful life. Just as undoubtedly much of the universal
admiration for men of strong character is quite purely aes-
thetical. The plucky bulldog or gamecock which puts up a
brave fight and holds tenaciously on to the bitter end, is
admired. Bravos meet the daring, if successful, ventures
of the toreador or the prima donna. Exhibitions of strength,
whether made by inanimate or by animate nature, tend al-
ways to arouse the aesthetical feeling of man. Weakness
may be pitiful and pardonable, but it is never, as weakness,
assthetically good. But I believe the facts of moral con-
sciousness show that just as undoubtedly is the admiration
which men so generally bestow upon strength of character
also an ethical affair. Strong in character is what the good
man ought to be , strength and constancy of self-determina-

232 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

tion in this universe, where so many temptations to cowardice
and fickleness are found and where such bulk of obstacles lies
athwart the path to the right form of living are virtues which
every good man must possess and cultivate. The approbation
with which the strong man is greeted is the expression of a
justifiable moral esteem.

And why should this not be so? The rather, how can
this possibly fail to be so ? For by the very term, will,
nothing else is meant in this connection than the Self re-
garded in its aspect of control of itself, of its own conduct, in
the pursuit of an end esteemed to be good. This so-called
" Will,'' then, is the very centre and core of his selfhood, in
so far as man himself has anything to determine concerning
what he shall be or accomplish by way of influence over his
fellow men. So that, in some sort, the most essential thing
about moral goodness is the way in which the self-control
enters into the goodness so as to make it strong and con-
stant. For, properly speaking, '•'good will," in this most
fundamental, appropriate, and clearly intelligible meaning
of the phrase, is not synonymous with benevolence, or
wishing the good. It is, the rather, good stiff and sound,
but not unintelligent and blind, self-control.

Inasmuch, then, as it is good psychology to hold that man
is, primarily and most fundamentally considered, a Will, and
good ethics to hold that moral freedom is an essential and
integral part of his endowment for the life of conduct, it is
also sound philosophy of conduct to recognize that these good
qualities of the willing Self, are cardinal virtues, fundamental
forms of man's functioning in the Virtuous Life. A ''''good
will " ^s, first of all and always, a Will that performs well its
functions as a Will. And such a will is what men chiefly
mean whenever they note with admiration and commendation
unusual ''strength of character" so-called.

The three cardinal Virtues of Will, or forms of self-control
and self-determination which emphasize the correct function-

VIRTUES OF THE WILL 233

ing of the voluntary Self in conduct, are Courage, Temper-
ance, and Constancy. Courage is self-control in the presence
of every form of temptation to fear ; it is strength of purpose
resisting the impulse to yield to cowardice. Temperance
is self-control in the presence of every impulse to the grati-
fication of the appetites and desires ; it is strength of purpose
to resist the seductions of the pleasure-giving and pleasure-
promising activities. Constancy is persistent self-control in
spite of resistance or obstacles to be overcome ; it is strength
of purpose resisting all impulses to turn aside from the chosen
course of conduct, from the repeated if even laborious use of
means to reach the desired end. The vices or faults which
are opposed to these virtues are cowardice, licentiousness or
profligacy, and fickleness or sloth.

In some sort, however, Constancy best expresses the most
essential characteristic of all the virtues of this kind, — con-
stancy which when it exists in the interests of a high and
noble principle, a rational end such as elicits the finest ethical
sentiment, becomes Fidelity to the Moral Ideal. Than this
word, no other, not even the word " benevolence," or the
word " justice," is better fitted to call up and to embody the
most inclusive characteristics of the truly Virtuous Life.

It is desirable in the interests of a tenable theory, as well as
indispensable in preparation for tlie successful practice of
morality, that these virtues of will should be distinguished
from the shams of virtue with which they are most liable to
be confounded. And perhaps confusion is easier here than
with respect to any other class of virtues. Rashness, and the
braggart spirit or the spirit of bravado, and insensibility to
fear, are the shams of courage — the vices, which, although
they have their own moral constitution, as it were, are most
apt to be mistaken for the virtue of courage. Here, for
example, the application, by Aristotle, to the case of this virtue
of his well known doctrine of the mean^ does not quite satis-
1 See Nic. Eth., II, viii, 1 f. and III, vi-ix.

234 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

factorilj exhibit the exact nature either of courage or of those
vices which are its most frequent and deceptive shams. For
the virtue of which rashness is generally the apparent opposite
vice is prudence ; but this vice of rashness may be the expres-
sion of either one of several somewhat different forms of vicious
motive ; or what seems rashness may even be the expression
of a deliberate, intelligent, and virtuous resolve to throw all
considerations of the prudential sort to the winds, for the time
being, in the interests of some higher end. In this latter case
we do, indeed, hesitate to speak of the violation of prudential
considerations as rashness; and the conduct resulting, how-
ever imprudent, certainly cannot unreservedly be called vicious.
It may amount to the sublimest kind of courage.

Not infrequently, however, it is some form of fear which
furnishes the motive to the pretence of courage ; and this is as
true of what appears as an extraordinary willingness to face
danger, a brilliant bravery amounting to rashness in the mind
of the observer, as of what, in the case of weaker personalities
is usually recognized as foolhardiness. The cowardice which
exists in the latter case Aristotle recognizes : " And so your
foolhardy man is generally a coward at bottom ; he blusters so
long as he can do so safely, but turns tail when real danger
comes." But when one kind of fear impulsively overcomes
another, the control of the weaker by the stronger impulse
can scarcely be praised as an instance of the virtue of courage.
The cowards are not only those who will not fight unless
compelled " in Hector's fashion," —

" Whoso is seen to skulk and shirk the fight
Shall nowise save his carcase from the dogs."

but also those who dare not refuse to fight simply because they
fear more some form of vilification, or depreciation by their
fellows. It is moreover often difficult to distinguish between
insensibility to pain and that energy of will which overcomes
not only the fear of pain but even the feeling of pain. To

VIRTUES OF THE WILL 235

which, for example, shall we attribute the heroic action of
that Indian of whom Jameson tells in his '' Winter Studies
and Summer Rambles in Canada," who, when he was pinned
by his arm by a falling tree, amputated the arm with his hunt-
ing-knife, crept to his canoe, and rowed himself home ?

It would seem, then, that the virtue of courage needs a
more thorough analysis than it has generally received in order
to distinguish it from those vices or faults which sham its
characteristics, and from those forms of virtuous conduct
whose external manifestations are most similar. Courage, I
repeat, then, is a virtue which includes all intelligent self-
control in the presence of every kind of fear. Cowardice is
the yielding to fear, the allowing of fear to become an impul-
sive or a restraining motive in the pursuit of any end attain-
able by one's conduct. The Self afraid, and the Self controlling
itself and putting down or setting aside the fear, — these are
the essential elements of this cardinal virtue. It is fitly called
a virtue of the will because, although it must be qualified by
rational considerations and ethical sentiments in order to
reach its most worthy estate, it is, nevertheless, eo ipso, a
way of voluntary functioning which is a fundamental char-
acteristic of the good Moral Self. Such a Self is designed
to control itself, in the pursuit of its ends, in spite of every
form of fear.

Man is a being made capable of fears and so environed
that he is constantly, of necessity, subjected to various forms
of fear. There are fears which are aroused by all manner of
attacks upon his physical well-being ; and, as well, upon the
physical well-being of those whose interests are nearest to
his own. He cannot acquire any manner of possessions
without overcoming these fears ; and for the primitive or
savage man the daily fears that inhibit and scare backward
his efforts for food and drink and gratification of the sexual
appetite, are terrible and hard to overcome. Domestic, tribal,
and civic fears hedge in and retrench his forth-puttings, the

236 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

impulsive or more deliberate resultant workings of the different
springs of action. The restraints of the current morals and
of his religious beliefs largely multiply and enhance his fears.
His primary moral law is chiefly a " thou shalt not " ; his
religion is largely a matter of terrifying superstitions and
dreadful tabus. Only in this way, however, can the crude
and dangerous primary impulses of his nature be held in
check, and the most fundamental of all tlie particular virtues,
the virtue of courage, be induced. As ethnology shows us;^
" Prominent among the checks of savage life is the fear of
the anger of the dead. Among savages the supposed wishes
of their departed friends, or deified forefathers, operate as
real commands, girt with all the sanction of superstitious
terror, and clothing the most fanciful customs with all the
obligatory feelings of morality."

Now if we examine this emotion of fear in the light of its
psycho-physics we find its most primitive significance in the
economics of human life to be (1) inhibitory and (2) retro-
active in the meaning of furnishing the impulse to retreat,
to move in the opposite direction from that in which lies the
desired object. The scared child, like the startled animal,
first stops, stands still, remains in extreme cases '* rooted to
the spot" and trembling, but with senses alert to discover
and estimate the object of fear ; and then, second, if the fear
is yielded to, impulsive or more deliberate flight results. But
all human interests, all the ends of good which mortal man
can pursue, including those that are most evanescent or
purely ideal, are subjects of the struggle for possession, the
fight that either wins or suffers defeat. For every kind of
good and of impulse toward that good, there is a correspond-
ing kind of fear. Without the inhibitory action and the
impulse to withdraw, whether precipitately or deliberately,
which are due to the various fears of human nature, neither
body nor mind nor morality could be either conserved or

1 Farrer, Primitive Manners and Customs, p. 117 f.

VIRTUES OF THE WILL 237

developed. For the checks and inhibitions and retroactions
of every form of human life are quite as necessary to the
preservation and evolution of that life as are the more positive
and direct springs of action. He who has not all these fears
is less fully equipped for life ; indeed, he is less likely to have
the genuine virtue of courage. For the virtue of courage
consists in the self-control of fear ; and insensibility to fear,
even if we refuse to agree to Aristotle's view that " it is a
vice which is one of the * extremes ' of courage," certainly
must not be identified with this virtue.

As the author of the Nicomachean Ethics pointed out, cour-
age is, therefore, not to be confused with the self-confidence
of the sanguine temperament or of the optimist; neither
does it resemble that impulsive disregard of danger which
extreme rage causes : " So we find in Homer, ' Put might
into his rage ' and ' roused his wrath and rage ' and ' fierce
wrath breathed througli his nostrils,' and ' his blood boiled.' "
The sanguine man and the optimist may be courageous ; and
the angry man may also be truly brave. Both the sanguine
temperament and the state of anger are, however, distinctly
unfavorable to the genuine virtue of courage. Indeed, the
virtue of courage is more apt to develop in the choleric and
melancholic temperaments ; and the exercise of the habit of
courage is plainly for the time impossible when one is under
the control of impulses due to an excessive and blind rage.

The truth is that the greater part of the courage of the
world's bravest souls goes into their lives in quiet and unob-
trusive ways. Invalids who meet with daily self-control the
fear of pain and weakness, women who either calmly but
intelligently await the terrors of childbirth or send their
grown sons out to do battle in a just cause, laborers who
pluckily fight for a decent maintenance and education for
their families in the face of the new fears with which the
modern organization of capital is surrounding them, the good
few politicians (where there be any such) who stand for

238 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

truth and justice in the face of a depressing and degrading
dread of the '' boss " or of " my constituency," the servants
of God who plead for righteousness in spite of the fact that
they may forfeit their positions, — these, and such as they
constitute the multitude of those who have this cardinal
virtue of the will that chooses not to yield to fear. My friend,
who pluck ily fought to the end for the one hour and a half a
day, which was all that the deadly disease would allow him,
in order that he might worthily finish his good work of
science, was amongst the bravest of men. Kant, working away
and never minding but subduing the constant pain in his
chest that he might, although " removing knowledge," " make
room for faith," showed much more of genuine courage than
some generals whose tombs adorn Westminster Abbey. And
no more valiant hero ever died in battle than David Living-
stone found dead upon his knees in Africa.

It is not strange, then, that the kind of courage most
imperatively needed at any particular stage of man's develop-
ment should be most highly esteemed and approbated by the
ethical judgment of that age. Even in the estimate of the
ancient philosopher,^ '-' The term courageous, in the strictest
sense, will be applied to him who fearlessly faces an honorable
death and all sudden emergencies which involve death ; and
such emergencies mostly occur in war." But a man, Aris-
totle thinks, would be " a maniac or quite insensible to pain "
who should not fear " even earthquakes and breakers, as they
say is the case with the Celts." Both these statements miss
entirely the essential qualities of the virtue of courage. For
fearlessly to face an honorable death is not courage unless the
fear has been overcome by an act of will ; otherwise it is the
same maniacal rage or insensibility to pain of which the Celts
are accused. But to control the fear of death by the sea or
by the earthquake requires a rarer and a higher kind of courage
than to face death in battle. Almost all kinds of men can,
1 Nic. Eth., Ill, vi, 10.

VIRTUES OF THE WILL 239

as experts tell us, without great difficulty be trained to bravery
in war ; and that bragging over an exclusive claim to this ex-
hibition of the virtue with which particular persons, tribes, or
nations, so often go forth to battle is quite likely to take
on a lower tone before the issue is fully decided. The
Norsemen in their hardy and bold conquest of the sea have
shown as much courage as did the founders of the Roman
Empire. Moreover, as man becomes more truly civilized, less
emphasis is placed by the thoughtful upon the particular
manifestation of courage which Aristotle considered to be-
long to the concept in its strictest sense. In some far-distant
future the time may come when even the less civilized nations
will cease to agree with the Greek conception, because indi-
vidual men and nations will have ceased to recognize the fear-
ful necessity of appealing their disputes to the arbitrament
of war, so-called. Then will be most highly esteemed the
courage of the man who would rather suffer wrong than do
wrong, who is more afraid of not doing good than of not
getting goods ; and yet who is ever ready to face even death
in the interests of righteousness to be attained or unrighteous-
ness to be opposed. For this virtue of courage will never be
out of date ; and the more subtle are the temptations to the
vice of cowardice and the more deceitful the shams of cour-
age, the more will the genuine thing be needed and the more
highly will it be prized. Under such improved circumstances
of nations so civilized as no longer to engage in war, there
would seem to be still an opportunity for the ideally cour-
ageous man, as his praises are sung by Wordsworth in his
Happy Warrior,

" Who, if he be called upon to face
Some awful moment to which Heaven has joined
Great issues, good or bad for human kind,
Is happy as a lover . . .

And, through the heat of conflict, keeps the law
In calmness made . . .

More brave for this, that he hath much to love."

240 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

But is it not true that to be influenced bj certain fears is a
mark of the Virtuous Life, and that the absence of these fears
is a sign of stolidity or of shamelessness rather than of the
virtue of courage ? Are there not fears which a man ought
to cherish and to control which cannot be called virtuous?
These questions must doubtless be answered affirmatively,
although in a qualified way. Susceptibility to various forms
of fear is a natural characteristic of the human animal. And
man, besides having substantially all the same fears as the more
intelligent of the lower animals, is also influenced by many
are that specifically human. Moreover, some fears are so con-
nected with the higher interests of human life that they ap-
pear to have, as fears, a real ethical character. For example,
the fear of being disesteemed by one's fellow men, or of being
deemed base, may become more potent, because it seems more
ethically worthy, than the fear of the loss of property or even
of the loss of life. Higher yet in the scale of values, because
of its connection with the virtuous life, may appear the fear of
doing wrong, or that " fear of the Lord " which is the begin-
ning of wisdom. There is also the curious anomaly of the
man who is courageous because he fears more — not the being
called, but the really being a coward, than he fears the thing
that threatens seriously some physical or material interest.
The fear of losing the consciousness of honor has been a most
powerful motive toward some of the noblest deeds of history.

It may be said, then, in some true and pertinent meaning of
the words, that every complete man ought to feel all the kinds
of fear to which man is subject, when liis nature, his inter-
ests, and his environment are considered from the rational
point of view ; and, furthermore, that he ought most of all to
fear those things which make the most dangerous and effec-
tive attacks upon his superior interests. But from the ethical
point of view the most fearful thing is whatever tends to in-
hibit, or to make him retreat from, his following with all his
will the moral ideal.

VIRTUES OF THE WILL 241

The forms of conduct which arise through the influence of
the different fears of man are certain so-called " prudential
virtues." Prudence as a virtue frequently is the rational and
voluntary yielding to fear in respect of the pursuit of ends for
the realization of any form of the good ; and the particular
display of prudence has its place assigned in the scale of
moral values according to the worth of the end in the inter-
ests of which the prudence is exercised. Self-control under
the influence of fear may be called virtuous when the fear is
of such a character that it may be regarded as obligatory upon
the will. Prudence is, therefore, for all men an indispensable
but most distinctly " qualified " and even subordinate kind of
virtue.

It follows, then, from the very nature of both virtues and
from the character of man's physical and social environment
that courage and prudence are usually antithetic. They con-
stantly qualify each other. Shall I run the risk — to life
or health, to property or happiness, to the favor of men or to
social or political advancement, or even to the interests of
those dear to me — which is necessarily involved in the pur-
suit at this particular point, of the end which I have chosen ?
If I say, Yes, it is the courageous answer ; if I say. No, it is
the prudential. When the end is one the attainment of which
imposes the feeling of obligation, a conflict of duties, and a
problem of moral values, is certain to follow. If the end is
worth it, I am in duty bound to run the risk. The cardinal
virtue of the will — courage — must win the day, or I am not
worthy of moral approbation. If the end is not worth the
risk — " not worth," that is, in the scale of moral values —
then I may be prudent ; or it may be my duty to be prudent.
It is noteworthy, however, that all yielding to fear is apt to be
accompanied by a certain feeling of weakness, littleness, finite-
ness. Thus that excellent Hindu gentleman who succumbed
to the threats of the Brahmans through the fear of losing
caste for his family, and did penance for having violated their

242 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

rule against going abroad, even if it be admitted that his pru-
dence was morally justifiable, suffered in the sight of men a
certain loss of esteem.

But what if, it may be asked, as doubtless often happens,
prudence is duty, and the man has no right to run the risk ;
shall we say that, in such a case, courage is virtuous ; or may
it not even be the crime of rashness, — not true courage at
all ? Here, I reply, is one of those psychological confusions
with which the discussion of the nature of the virtues is so
fraught. Courage, or self-control in the presence of fear, is
always a virtue ; but courage is not the only virtue ; and, like
all the qualified virtues, it is not always the virtue that should
come to the front. In many problems of conduct there is,
therefore, a chance for a seeming compromise between the
antithetic virtues of courage and prudence. This takes place
oftenest, perhaps, in the form of a change of the chosen means
for accomplishing the end ; and conduct has frequently to do
with the way in which men choose to realize their ends. If,
then, without yielding through fear the chosen end, one can
follow that end more successfully in some other than the
chosen way, there is a chance to effect an apparent blend of
courage and prudence. One may continue to be courageous
in the following of the prudentially " more excellent way."
Men who succeed best by such compromises get most credit
for a kind of fairly courageous prudence, a judicious courage.
But, unless there is something more of this cardinal virtue of
will to these men, they have no fitness for heroic deeds, nor
do they attain the sublimer heights of character.

In order to discover the key for unlocking this puzzle of
seemingly inherent and unavoidable sacrifice of virtue to fear,
we must turn to the positive side of the human soul, to the
motives and inducements furnished by the moral ideals. Thus
for every negative prudential virtue as an act born of fear,
there is found a correlative virtuous act of a courageous sort.
The prudential fear of death becomes the courageous guarding

VIRTUES OF THE WILL 243

of life — but only so long as life can be made to serve the
ends that are set by the moral ideals. The prudential fears
of losing property, position, public favor, or even reputation
and influence, are lost in the courageous defence and use of
all these opportunities — but only so long and so far as they
contribute to the realization of the moral ideals. Even the
fear of doing wrong is transformed into a passionate and
brave devotion to the ideal of duty ; and that fear of the
Lord which is only the beginning of wisdom is lost in the per-
fect love which casteth out all fear. How splendidly this
cardinal virtue of the will, this courageous and positive devo-
tion to the Moral Ideal, may shine forth in the expressions of
finite moral consciousness is shown in a startling manner by
the following declaration of John Stuart Mill ^ : '' I will call no
being good, who is not what I mean when I apply that epithet
to my fellow- creatures ; and if such a being can sentence me
to hell for not calling him so, to hell I will go." So, what
but the sublimest confidence in a moral ideal that is worthy
of being bravely followed at whatever risk to interests not
essentially and inseparably part of itself, could have led that
nobleman among my friends, in all modesty to say : ** I do
not believe there is power enough in the universe to make me
tell a lie." But neither of these declarations can possibly be
explained in consistency with a philosophy of conduct which
makes any prudential principle supreme, either in the theory
or the practice of morality.

How cardinal a virtue is courage in every form of its
manifestation might also be shown by an historical investi-
gation into the place which it has always held amongst those
forms of conduct most esteemed by the moral consciousness
of mankind. In the earlier and lower stages of evolution,
whatever other virtues are lacking, courage must be most
insisted upon. All the immediate inducements of discipline
and of praise, as well as the more remote social, political, and

1 Examination of Sir Wra. Hamilton's Philosophy, I, p. 131.

244 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

even religious rewards of this virtue, tend to cultivate it. Of
the North American Indian we are told ^ that, for him " death
is rather an event of gladness than of terror, bringing him
rest or enjoyment after his period of toil ; nor does he fear to
go to a land which all his life long he has heard abounds in
rewards without punishments." In the form of courageous
endurance of suffering and scorn of danger in the interests of
truth, early Christianity insisted upon this virtue ; and it thus
won for itself the admiration which the brave religious devotee
has commanded in all ages and under all circumstances.
Mediaeval Germanic Christianity overestimated, or rather
wrongly conceived, this essential virtue ; and so — to quote
from Paulsen : ^ " The old Saxon poem of the life of Jesus
(the Heliand) makes Christ a mighty lord and the disciples
his retainers; the transformation shows how impossible it
was for the Saxons to imagine the real Jesus and his fol-
lowers." And in the modern Occidental civilizations, where
the ordinary daily life of the multitude is all " sicklied o'er
with the pale cast" of prudential considerations, the occur-
rence of war, riot, fire, pestilence, gives occasion to the
spontaneous outburst of approbation which always, and fitly,
greets any unusual display of this cardinal virtue of the will.
In respect for this virtue man is essentially the same in all
stages of the development of his moral consciousness.

Cowardice is, on the other hand, one of the most funda-
mental and mortal forms of bad conduct ; it is essentially
and eternally bad, because it vitiates and thwarts every kind
of virtuous conduct by yielding to the fears which stand in the
way of the pursuit of moral good. No good can be gained
for man without encountering pain. No virtue can be exer-
cised if the individual will cannot control the conduct in spite
of the influence from the fear of pain. And here the current

1 J. A. Farrer, Primitive Manners and Customs, p. 39, quoting from School-
craft.
« A System of Ethics, p. 119.

VIRTUES OF THE WILL 245

distinctions between ** physical courage" and "moral cour-
age," or between " true courage " and " false courage," are for
the most part mistaken and mischievous. There is no courage
which is not moral ; and there is little use for courage that
cannot control the bodily impulses which are produced by the
various forms of fear. True courage is simply courage ; and
so-called false courage is simply the sham of courage, which
may be only another and subtler form of cowardice. But
cowardice is always and everywhere a vice ; and it is often
the most deplorable and harmful of vices.

The moral degradation from the vice of cowardice, as well
as the mischievous results which follow indulgence in this
vice, admit of being estimated by a sort of ethical standard
or scale. What is the particular character of the fear, and
with reference to what sort of good does it apply ? The
lower in the ethical scale stands the fear in yielding to which
the cowardice consists, and the less worthy ethically are the
ends at which the prudential considerations aim, the more
degrading and, on the whole, more harmful, is the resulting
vice of cowardice. The merchant who, through fear of losing
property or of failing to gain it, consents to lies and bribery,
the politician who does the same thing through fear of losing
his place, the public teacher who flinches in telling the truth
which it is his duty to tell, are all baser cowards than is the
soldier who, in the panic fear of losing his life, turns his back
upon his officer and precipitately leaves the field of battle.
Yet, in these days, the one is surely disgraced as a poltroon;
the other is perhaps commended for his prudence.

Another consideration which enhances the meanness and
the dangerous character of cowardice is the number of other
vices whose minister, or easy prey, the coward must become.
For the coward is the man subject to fear and not the
master of his fears. And almost every human vice, on
certain frequent occasions, can appeal to our fears ; while
every antithetic virtue must often be practised bravely, if

246 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

practised at all. Consider how avarice feeds cowardice and
is responsive to the prudential considerations onlj. Consider
how ambition — the more the baser — does the same thing.
And how is lust made more despicable when allied with
cowardice ! What virtue can you expect, in an evil genera-
tion — and the generation is always prevailingly evil — from
the soul afflicted with the incurable vice of cowardice ? I
believe it is quite warranted by the facts to declare that
cowardice and avarice are the two worst, most mischievous,
and most degrading vices of the nation at the present time ; —
cowardice that is begotten and nurtured in the vice of avarice,
and avarice that is made all the more contemptible and perni-
cious because it is so cowardly. As one of our leading
novelists has written : " We are a cowardly generation, and
men shrink from suffering now, as their fathers shrank from
dishonor in the rougher times. The Lotus hangs within the
reach of all, and in the lives of many ' it is always afternoon,'
as for the Lotus Eaters. The fruit takes many shapes and
names ; it is called Divorce, it is called Morphia, it is called
Compromise, it is designated in a thousand ways and justified
by ten thousand specious arguments, but it means only one
thing : Escape from Pain."

It is not without significance that, in the order of treatment
suggested by our classification of the virtues, we now pass on
to consider the virtue of Temperance. For temperance, like
courage, is mainly a virtue of self-control ; although, like
courage and all the other particular virtues, it is qualified by
other virtues as respects the rightful position which it holds
in the Virtuous Life. But while courage is the enlightened
and feeling Self in control of itself, in spite of fear, temperance
is the same enlightened and feeling Self holding the control
over all its own positive impulses to seek the various forms
of good, — that is, over its own " springs of action " so-called.
Temperance is a virtue of the Will, because in its essential
nature it emphasizes seZ/-control ; but unless it be enlightened

VIRTUES OF THE WILL 247

by intelligence, the control can have no moral character ; that
is to saj, in a word, it is not control of the Self at all. Indeed,
the very term signifies that virtuousness here requires the
moderation rather than the total suppression of the impulses
to action. It is the intelligence of man which furnishes the
rules for this kind of self-control ; but it is the will that actu-
ally moderates, according to the rules of moderation which
experience furnishes and wisdom dictates ; I have, therefore,
called temperance a cardinal but qualified virtue of the will.

Temperance, then, is the rational moderation by self-
control of every form of natural impulse, positive or defen-
sive, toward all kinds of good. The germ of the complete
conception is better given (better, that is, than in the word
i^yKpareia) in the Greek aaycfipoa-uvTj — a "healthy-minded," ra-
tional will. But even Aristotle, ^ the most prominent scien-
tific exponent of the conception, limits this virtue to " those
kinds of pleasure which are common to the lower animals ; "
and, then, more definitely to ** the sense of touch, alike in the
pleasures of eating, drinking, and of sexual intercourse." It
is more consistent, however, both with a profound psychology
and with the interests of ethics to extend the conception to
all the natural impulses of man. This extensiveness charac-
terizes the view of the more distinctively Christian doctrine ;
the good Christian keeps all his appetites, passions, and
desires, under strict control in the interests of the ideally
virtuous life which he is trying to realize. The same fulness
of conception belongs to modern ethics, in spite of the present
unfortunate popular limitation of the word " temperance " to
moderation, or even ascetic abstinence, in respect of one
artificial form of a subordinate kind of the human appetites.
The extent of the more comprehensive and refined idea may
be seen in this declaration of " holy " George Herbert : " To
put on the profound humility and the exact temperance of
our Lord Jesus Christ, and to keep them on in the sunshine
1 Nic. Eth., m, X t

248 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

and noon of prosperity, is as necessary and as difficult, at least,
as to be clothed with perfect patience and true Christian
fortitude in the cold, midnight storms of persecution and
adversity." Here humility, or the rational will in control of
that impulse to haughtiness to which the prosperous man is
tempted, is rightly coupled with temperance. For to temper^
or modify, by self-control, all the natural impulses is a
cardinal excellence of will which is demanded in the pursuit
of the moral Ideal.

Further insight into the nature of this particular virtue, as
bearing upon the general theory of virtue is gained by consid-
ering the fundamental relations in which the varying inten-
sities of the impulsive elements of human nature stand to the
cultivation of a genuine strength of character. It is custom-
ary to speak — and this accords with universal experience —
of different degrees in the strength, naturally, of the various
appetites, passions, and desires. One man is said to be born
with " strong " and another with " weak " appetites or passions,
— either including the general outfit, as it were, or selecting
some one or more examples. A is naturally " passionate "
(meaning a man born with tendencies to anger which rise
above the average level of intensity) ; but B is *' lustful " (in
the narrower meaning of the word ) ; and as for (7, the desire
to acquire property has been especially forceful and control-
ling from almost the beginning of his conscious life.

Two things are to be observed touching the psychological
relation in which this so-called strength of the impulses
stands to the acquirement of strength of character, to the
Virtuous Life in so far as it consists in energy of self-deter-
mining Will. First : strength of character is dependent upon
a certain natural inheritance or endowment of intensity to
the appetites, passions, and desires ; the man who is weak in
respect of all these springs of action can scarcely become a
man of strong character. But, second, the reverse or com-
plementary truth is this : unless these appetites, passions, and

VIRTUES OF THE WILL 249

desires are tempered by self-control — unless, that is to say,
the virtue of will which is called temperance, is called forth
and cultivated — their very intensity becomes a source of
moral weakness. For the centre of the Moral Self is apt to
become occupied by some dominant impulse, which from this
centre controls the courses of conduct to the impairment or
the destruction of a genuine moral strength. Such a thing as
a maximum intensity of all the varied and numerous forms of
impulse is, of course, impossible of realization ; for they sway
the will of the morally weak man in different and often in
contrary directions. The strength of the maniac is the
nearest approach to the resultant in character, when all the
impulsive forces of the soul are trying, since they cannot rage
together, to get their turn in the control of the will. But
strong appetites, passions and desires, when tempered by self-
control, are constituents of a strong and effective and morally
admirable manhood. Thus Temperance becomes a cardinal
and indispensable Virtue of the Will.

The same thing, in a way, is true of the appetites, passions,
and desires of man, which was seen to be true of human fears.
There is a general outfit of such impulses which all com-
pletely constituted human beings possess in varying degrees
of intensity belonging to each. To be deficient in any of
them is to lack some of the qualifications of manhood, and so
to be incapable of certain forms of the virtue of temperance.
These different impulses are themselves capable of being
arranged in a scale of values, corresponding to the relation
which they sustain to the Self in its pursuit of the moral
Ideal. Thus, to control the appetites in the interest of
almost every form of desire — the desire for property, the
desire for esteem of one's fellows, the desire for knowledge,
or the desire to succeed in one's profession — is recognized as
a species of the virtue of temperance. But desires themselves
have different values by reason of their relation to the values
of the ends desired, if not by virtue of their own inherent

250 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

worth. Nor can one stop with this admission. For the
various affections, the loves and hates of mankind, make
different claims upon the voluntary powers to exercise this
cardinal virtue, self-control, in the interests of moral ends.
For example, it is one's duty to control one's appetites, so far
as their gratification interferes with the desire for property or
for professional success, which desire in its turn ought to be
tempered in the interests of one's affection for one's family or
for the community of which one is a member.

Thus the mind is led around to the same point of starting
again. There are springs of action, desires and affections and
longings, which ought to he allowed to control the conduct in
preference to other springs of action. The perfectly moral
man, in respect of this virtue of temperance, will not be the
man without passions and desires ; much less will he be the man
without strong affections and intense enthusiasms. The cold-
blooded, unaffectionate, imperturbable man is not the Ideal
Self. The exaltation which the ancient Stoical picture of
the " good man " gave to this virtue of temperance was often
itself intemperate, and therefore unsatisfactory to the most
highly developed moral consciousness of mankind. Ardent
desires for the various kinds of good, warm affections toward
men in the different social relations, intense hatred of un-
righteousness and of those who make prey of their fellows,
and passionate devotion to righteousness, — these are not
inconsistent with a virtuous self-control. But the full-orbed
virtue is the Moral Self controlling its own springs of action
in accordance with a rational pursuit of the Moral Ideal.

In the general evolution of humanity there are three forms
of this virtue which are most imperatively demanded by the
very constitution of society, and in the interests of its per-
petuation. These are the self-control of anger, of sexual
appetite, and of the desire for property. Among the most
undeveloped peoples ethically, the restriction of anger, lust, and
avarice is necessarily provided for in some manner. Other-

VIRTUES OF THE WILL 251

wise there could be no community life, no most rude and primi-
tive organization of the family, no acquirement of property
either by the individual or by the commune. Enforced control
as respects these three forms of impulse nourishes the begin-
nings of the virtue of temperance. The various concrete
forms of this educative control by the community have, in-
deed, so often been at variance with all the modern ideas
of truth, justice, and good sense, as to conceal and perhaps,
seemingly pervert their real ethical significance and value.
But the real point which must be insisted upon as of impor-
tance in framing a theory of the Virtuous Life remains fixed
and luminous for the eye of the student of ethics whose
insight is keen and penetrating. It is simply this : under all
circumstances, and in all grades of human development,
the good man must in some prescribed ways and to some
obviously appreciable and worthy extent, voluntarily temper
his anger, his lust, and his avarice, by consideration for the
interests of others. Temperance or self-control in respect of
the appetite of sex, the passion of anger, and the desire of
property, is a virtue prescribed as necessary for even the
most imperfect correspondence to the lowest conception of
an ideal manhood.

The natural passion of anger is part of the equipment
which man has, in common with the other higher animals,
to defend his interests of every kind against every species of
attack. In its crudest form it expresses itself as the impulse
to strike at once, to strike hard, and to maim or destroy the
being which makes the attack. If, however, this passion
cannot find such expression because of inability to get at
the offender, or if it is restrained by some form of fear, it
becomes the spirit of hatred and the desire for revenge. The
indulgence, or rather the exercise, of anger becomes a matter
of moral action, an affair of good or bad conduct, when it
acquires those ethical qualifications of will, feeling, and judg-
ment which characterize all forms of conduct properly so-

262 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

called. A being deficient in every phase and degree of this
passion would, indeed, scarcely be capable of defending
against attack any one of the many human interests ; but a
being incapable of developing the virtue of temperance in the
control of anger would remain still beastly in this respect.
The higher in the scale of values stands the interest which
is attacked, the more reasonable and even praiseworthy the
anger may become ; but always only if it is tempered by the
will under the influence of the appropriate motives. These
motives may lie either in kindly feelings, or in some form of
just judgment respecting the merits of the case, or in regard
to the consequences upon ourselves and others of either the
indulgence or the repression of the anger. But all these
so-called motives represent aspects of that selfhood which
corresponds to the moral ideal; and into that ideal Moral
Self temperate anger must enter as an important phase
of its Virtuous Life. Even the Personal Absolute cannot be
conceived of as an ethically Ideal Self without laying empha-
sis on his voluntary and affective resentment at whatever
attacks those interests that are of the highest worth.

The crudest and most primitive way of bringing about the
initial steps in the self-control of anger is the punishment of
its expression by returning the consequences in kind. Life
for life, an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. And
amongst peoples of the lower stages of ethical development,

— savages of the twentieth century B. c, or of the twentieth
century a. d., and whether situate in ancient Egypt or in
modern England, in ancient Mexico or in America of to-day,

— the punishment for indulging anger, like the original in-
dulgence in the anger, is a matter of good or bad conscience.
That is to say, the deed is approbated as obligatory by the
ethical judgment of the doer, or it is disapproved and re-
warded accordingly.

Nor is the ethics of these complex reciprocities essentially
altered by all manner of startlingly false conceptions of per-

VIRTUES OF THE WILL 253

sonality and personal responsibility. Where the passions are
hot and unrestrained by refined moral motives, and where
human life is cheap, one deed of blind, impulsive rage may
kindle a bloody feud which will involve scores of men, and
last through generations as yet unborn when the deed was
committed. So in ancient Germany, whose poet Beowulf
treats the punishment of Cain for Abel's murder as a divine
act of blood-revenge. Here " came the great step of civiliza-
tion which compounded a murder by the payment of a definite
price" (the wergild^ or man-price).^ The very unutilitarian
method of expressing the disapproval of one angry killing by
more of vengeful killing now gives place to a method which
tends to make a prudential virtue out of the self-control of
the passion. Thus, the impression is deepened that such con-
duct does not pay. In other cases, as in the Hebrew law,
for example,^ the custom of blood-revenge was tempered by
introducing the distinction between accidental killing and
deliberate, malicious murder, and by interposing some repre-
sentation of the public sentiment and authority between the
culprit and his punishment (in this case, " the elders of his
city," who were to " send and fetch him thence, and deliver
him into the hand of the avenger of blood"). "Besides
spiritual terrors," says Farrer,^ " secular punishment has a
well-defined place among savages, to check the extreme in-
dulgence of hatred or passion. It is doubtful whether any
tribe is so indifferent to the criminality of murder as to be
destitute of customary penal laws to prevent or punish it."

There are not wanting traces, however, even among those
low down in the scale of ethical development, of a more
enlightened judgment and a better sentiment as to the wrong
of intemperate anger. In the same Deuteronomic code which
enjoins the slaughter of women and children in the city

1 See Gummere, Germanic Origins, p. 178.

2 See Deut. xix.

* Primitive Manners and Customs, p. 106.

254 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

which resists the Israelites, is found not only the injunction
to love one's neighbor, but the command, " Love ye therefore
the stranger: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt."
While the savage blood and ferocious customs of the ances-
tors of those races which consider themselves " superior " are
still frequently shown in lynchings and other brutalities at
home and in shocking barbarities in foreign war, it is fair not
to forget what Buddhism has done to temper anger and to
encourage pity, gentleness, and kindness amongst millions of
the so-called " inferior " races. And if the modern Italian
still extols the sweetness and commends the duty of revenge,
the Yorubas of Central Africa may certainly extend to him a
fit invitation to reflect upon the ethical spirit of some of the
maxims current among them : " Ashes fly back in the face of
the thrower." "He who injures another injures himself."
" Anger benefits no one." " We should not treat others with
contempt." " He that forgives gains the victory."

It is instructive to notice how these " savage (?) proverbs "
touch at a vital point almost all the motives which may be
pleaded in behalf of the virtue of temperance as the self-
control of the natural passion of anger. It should be culti-
vated as a prudential virtue ; for intemperate anger injures
him who indulges it as surely as ashes thrown against the
wind fly back in the face of the thrower. And society re-
ceives no benefit from such anger. For although the rational
and tempered anger of the good man is an indispensable and
priceless safeguard of social interests, a prime social virtue,
savage rage " benefits no one." Men generally regard others
as like themselves, worthy of being treated otherwise than in
blind rage or sullen contempt ; while the dignity and worth of
not only the restraint of anger but even, and especially, of the
spirit that goes beyond and stands ready to pardon the injury
which has caused the anger, belong to the man who, by virtue
of his own rational Will, has made a conquest of his lower self.
To conquer thus one's self is better than to take a city.

VIRTUES OF THE WILL 255

While, then, this particular form of temperance has a
hard lot amongst men in their lowest, and still low, stage of
moral evolution, the germinal ideas and sentiments from
which the virtue may be developed are widely sown in human
minds, if they are not everywhere present. And the ancient
Scandinavian who boasts : " I have walked with bloody brand
and whistling spear, with the wound-bird following me," has
perhaps not more truly submerged this virtue in his false
ideal of bravery than his modern descendant, who is ready to
kill or to refrain from killing, in accordance with his idea of
the interests of trade, has lost sight of the same virtue in a
dominant avariciousness.

Some kind of self-control of the sexual appetite also is ex-
acted by the prevalent customs, laws, and ethical ideals,
under all conditions and in even the lowest stages of man's
ethical development. But the great variety of customs, laws,
and ideals which give sanction to the relations of the sexes
as dependent upon this appetite has already been noticed
(p. 120 f). "The morality of the family is varied and
changeable" ; and, indeed, as the writer from whom I quote
this sentence,^ and others have sufficiently shown, there is no
other matter of morals upon which such widely and startlingly
different judgments and practices may be adduced as upon this :
What relations of the sexes are right, what wrong ; or how
shall the sexual appetite be controlled in the interests of the
truly virtuous life ?

On the one hand, we find the most refined Christian morals
of to-day limiting the gratification of the appetite of sex to a
chaste monogamous marriage, and still, although somewhat
doubtfully, defending the limitation by reference to some
moral intuition or even to some primitive divine command.
But, on the other hand, the student of human history discovers
almost every kind of license permitted at some time and
somewhere — in respect of the limits of consanguinity, of

1 Schurman, The Ethical Import of Darwinism, p. 258.

256 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

the number of wives or husbands, of the period during which
the relations ought to hold good, of the grounds on which the
relations may properly be severed, and of frequency of indul-
gence, etc. In Milton's apostrophe to marriage,

<* Hail, wedded love, mysterious law, true source
Of human oifspring, sole propriety
111 Paradise of all things common else,"

poetical expression is given to one form of thought as to what
is commanded by the virtue of temperance in this regard.
Standing at the other extreme are such views as those of the
Mexicans, who held the possession of a large number of wives
to be a proof of superiority ; or the Ashantee law, which al-
lowed the king three thousand three hundred and thirty-three
wives ; or the right yielded to the king of Yoruba to have as
many wives as, linked hand in hand, would reach across his
kingdom. Somewhere between stands the tempered indulgence
permitted by custom to the patriarchs, or to their descendants
by the Mosaic law ; and, indeed, the ethical theories, and
practices of the multitude amongst modern Christian nations.
And then there is the position taken by the Confucian ethics
in Old Japan, which, apparently, attached no moral signifi-
cance whatever to the intercourse of the sexes in itself consid-
ered, but only as it became dependent upon the supreme virtue
of personal loyalty.

The reasons for such great divergence in the views and
practices of men as to what ought to be the temperate, ration-
ally self-controlled indulgence of the sexual appetite, although
in certain respects obscure, are in the main not impossible to
appreciate. They may be touched upon in the following line
of considerations. The appetite of sex is, with the exception
of the appetite for food and drink, the most imperative of the
bodily impulses. In the language of Schopenhauer, " in this
act the most decided assertion of the will to live expresses it-
self." The general gratification of the appetite in some form

VIRTUES OF THE WILL 257

is essential to the very continuance of the human species.
" Therefore it is this act through which every species of living
creature binds itself to the whole and is perpetuated." Inas-
much, however, as there is an obvious connection between
this voluntary act and the origin and perpetuation of life,
that eternal and inscrutable mystery, the exercise and the
control of the function have always been closely connected
with the religious ideas and practices of mankind. The
phallus was worshipped by the Greeks ; the lingam is wor-
shipped by the Hindus of to-day. But man, in this respect
as in other respects, has much more decided preferences and
choices than have the lower animals : and the very physio-
logical characteristics of the human offspring necessitate
some at least rude and inchoate form of the family. More-
over, the interests of society become immediately and deeply
involved in the union of the sexes. Of necessity a community
of human beings cares more, because it has more varied and
vital interests involved, how its males and females are paired
than do flocks of birds or herds of cattle. But chiefly is it
because the higher, tenderer, and nobler affections of man
are most powerfully enlisted in connection with the exercise
of the sexual functions that their control is of the highest
import, not only as a matter of social custom and morals,
but also as a matter of essential morality.

It is not strange, therefore, that an almost bewildering
difference of conceptions and customs should characterize the
judgments of men as to what constitutes the virtue of tem-
perance in sexual intercourse. Even the practices and the
sanctions of man's religious life throw little clear light upon
the path of virtue in this regard. It is plainly the will
of God that the will to live should be satisfied, by some
form of uniting the sexes. But if man looks to the various
forces and processes of nature for guidance, the utmost confu-
sion of conceptions is the inevitable result. Quite commonly
an important part of nature worship is phallic worship ; and

258 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

when religious evolution has reached the stage in which the
gods are conceived of as persons similar to heroic and kingly
men, their example is an encouragement to unbridled lust
rather than to its temperate control. Such was the case in
ancient Greece ; such is the case in India to-day. Indeed, in
the latter country the British Government is still compelled
to make an exception to the laws prohibiting obscene litera-
ture, in favor of religious (!) books ; and the sacred interests
of morality and religion are continually pleaded by the most
orthodox of the Hindus against the attempts made by their
own reformers to promote the increase of sexual temperance
and self-restraint. Nor does it appear, until after a lengthy,
complicated, and even conflicting experience, what forms and
limits of the control of the sexual appetite are actually
productive of the best results. The consequences of the im-
moral indulgence of this appetite are often most remote and
difficult to trace. And then, how irregular and fitful do these
consequences seem to be ! Relatively gross indulgences are
not infrequently concealed or their bad results lie latent;
while quite as frequently the least immoral, or even a small
legitimate indulgence, is promptly followed by the most appal-
ling evils.

Yet the other side of this universal human experience must
not be neglected. Some self-control, a measure of tempering
for this form of desire, is universally demanded of the man
who will lay claim to the title "good." For the formal
and legitimate union of the sexes the barrier of some sort
of ceremony must in almost all instances be passed. Among
savages it is a common rule of etiquette that a proposal
for marriage shall be approached indirectly ; generally it
is deemed right that the male shall show his insistence
by pursuing or even violently carrying off his bride, and
that the female shall show her modesty by some, at least
pretended, form of coyness or resistance. The limits within
which marriage may lawfully take place are everywhere

VIRTUES OF THE WILL 259

somehow fixed, although the manner of their adjustment
varies indefinitely. The Hindu Kooch incurs a fine if he
marries a woman of another clan; the Abors consider
marriage out of the clan as a sin to be washed out only
by sacrifice ; but among the Thlinkeets the young warrior
of the totem of the Wolf must seek his bride among the
maidens of the totem of the Raven. Almost everywhere
adultery on the woman's part, if without consent of her hus-
band, is punishable with death. Amongst the Germanic
nations '' the church has the credit of forcing law and senti-
ment to take cognizance of the husband's crime as well ! "
Slowly, and more especially among these same nations, the
standard of sexual virtue has, at least as far as the sentiments
and open practices of the majority are concerned, been rising.
And there are few indeed now whose judgment is worth re-
specting, that do not identify the virtue of sexual temperance
with monogamic marriage, and with such indulgence of ap-
petite in this relation as is consistent with the higher interests
involved.

It appears, then, that the regulation of the appetite of sex 'f

is a species of temperance in the larger meaning of this word.
It is, that is to say, a form of the voluntary control of a
natural and legitimate desire within the limits rationally
permissible in accord with the pursuit of the ideals of a Virtu-
ous Life. These limits are themselves the result of a histori-
cal evolution which has defined them more and more clearly,
and has enforced them by more and more powerful sanctions,
as the gathered experience of the race has yielded more light
upon the right path. But prominent among the different
forms of this experience is the teaching and example of the
Christian Church and the teaching of its founder : " Moses
because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put
away your wives ; but from the beginning it was not so." All
other extensions of the limits, whether by way of legality or
of custom, are thus declared to be concessive ; but the divine

260 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

ideal for the human species is a pair, faithful to each other
and chastened by those ends that have value and are depend-
ently connected with the married state.

Another of the historically more prominent forms of the
virtue of temperance is self-control over the desire of posses-
sion, the impulse to acquire property. The desire " to have
and to hold " for one's self all the various forms of good is
natural and universal with man ; it is also indispensable for
his material evolution and for the development of morality.
No form of Communism is conceivable — not to say possible of
actualization — which is not based upon the desire of property
and the distinction between the vicious and the virtuous ways
of gratifying this desire. Therefore some measure of the ex-
ternal habits of honesty is esteemed good conduct under all
conditions of human existence ; and much as men may differ
as to what stealing is, or as to how much and what kinds of
stealing are permissible, some formal regulation of the indivi-
dual's tendency to appropriate the goods of life exclusively to
himself is always provided for by the customs and laws of the
community. Even the robber castes of India recognize this
virtue as reciprocally obligatory upon the other members of
the caste. With them, as with our wreckers of railroads and
other plunderers of the public, even thieves must divide the
spoils amongst themselves with some show of honesty ; and
if brought before the standards of the prevailing moral con-
sciousness of their own class, they must show reason why
their conduct was not essentially dishonest after all.

Here again the multiform curious discrepancies in the preva-
lent customs and opinions regarding the nature of the virtue,
the weird and strange ordeals to which suspected culprits are
subjected, the startling differences in the forms and degrees
of punishment inflicted for crimes of dishonesty, do not change
the essential nature of the transaction, whether subjectively
or objectively regarded. Thus if " the Guinea Coast negroes
thought it reasonable to punish rich persons guilty of robbery

VIRTUES OF THE WILL 261

more severely than the poor," they did not necessarily show
themselves less appreciative of the crime of dishonesty than do
the English of to-day, with their theoretical principle of impar-
tiality before the law, for all ranks and degrees of wealth.
The rich, argued the negroes, deserve more punishment, be-
cause they are not urged to steal by necessity, and can better
spare the fines of money laid on them. " The thief catches
himself," and " Stolen goods do not make one grow," say the
Basutos of South Africa.

But the virtue of self-control over the desire of possession
is not confined to matters of property in the narrower mean-
ing of this word. Among the less civilized, the wives of any
man are, of course, regarded as his rightful possession ; and
the crime of adultery is punished not so much — or not at all
— as an impurity, but rather as an act of robbery of that
which belongs to another by right. So also to take another's
picture, or to use his name, seems to many savages a similar
sort of crime. To gain power over others by witchcraft or
incantations and so to rob them of self-control or of the dues
of service may also be regarded in nearly the same way. In
our complicated modern life, where the " possessions " of man
have became so much increased in number and magnitude,
the various concrete forms of virtuous control over the desire
for that which is not one's own, have themselves greatly in-
creased. But the virtuousness of the virtue remains always
the same. And the viciousness of the vice, too, — this is
essentially identical in all times and under all circumstances ;
it is the gratification of the lust of possession without regard
to the moral ideals. When, as, alas ! so often happens in
modern times amongst the most highly civilized nations —
" civilized," that is to say, in the interests of commercialism
and for the purpose largely of protecting the property rights
of the individual and of the community — this lust can be
gratified under the protection of the laws, it may become
legalized and respected indeed, but it is no less essentially

262 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

immoral until it submits itself loyally and completely to the
demands of moral principle. The custom and the law do
indeed assist in defining the limits of a virtuous self-control.
But if the self-control is not really exercised in the interests
of the ideal of a virtuous life, compliance with custom and
law is not morality. Indeed the custom and the law may
combine to encourage this vice. For a time — but only for a
time — the custom itself may be a species of robbery ; and the
laws may be enacted in the interests of robbers.

Many other forms of the virtue of temperance than these
three might be mentioned and shown to be important parts of
the Virtuous Life. For example, the rational self-control of the
natural emotion of pride is the distinctively Christian virtue
of Humility. But this virtue has been much misunderstood,
— not only by the ancients, who found difficulty in detaching
it from the suspicion of a certain baseness of spirit, but also
by many modern writers. The genuine virtue of humility
consists in the rational self-control of pride, primarily before
God and chiefly with reference to one's own attainments and
merits as measured by the standards of a perfect Moral Ideal.
But before men, and in the face of every attempt to bribe
or to threaten the soul away from devotion to its supreme
spiritual interests, genuine humility is closely akin to, if not
identical with, a certain noble haughtiness, or at least quiet
self-reserve. And this is a virtue which, although distinct-
ively Christian in the sense that it is a cardinal thing with
the spirit of the true believer and was especially enjoined and
needed in the early times of the Christian faith, has always
and everywhere been recognized by the most thoughtful stu-
dents of ethics. It is true that humility cannot easily flourish
amongst those savage tribes whose successful struggle for ex-
istence depends upon the practice of the tougher and more
strenuous virtues. But, as I have just said, humility is not
essentially inconsistent with courage ; in the long run, and in
its more intelligent and refined forms, it is often the twin of

VIRTUES OF THE WILL 263

courage in the successful struggle for the higher life. " Blessed
are the meek : for they shall inherit the earth." When, where,
and how ? these are questions which it will take a long time
for the race to answer in a practical way. Still, even amongst
the OjiSy one may find such a suggestion as gleams through
the proverb : " If you can pull out, pull out your own gray
hairs." In happier circumstances the moral truth lias been
more reflectively and fully expressed in such wise sayings as
follow : " As the tulip that is gaudy without smell, conspicuous
without use, so is the man who setteth himself on high, and
hath not merit." " Wherein art thou most weak ? In that
wherein thou seemest most strong ; in that wherein most thou
gloriest ; even in possessing the things which thou hast ; in
using the good that is about thee." ^ Or, as the sacred saying
of the Vaisnava Dharma is : " That man truly pronounces
the name of tlie Loving Lord, who is in fortitude like the
trunk of a tree, and in humility like a blade of grass."

Temperance in eating and drinking are, to a certain extent,
enforced upon those tribes and communities whose conditions
of living are most nearly primitive. With them the meagre
and fitful supply of food confines the vice of gluttony within
narrow limits ; and the vice of drunkenness is also likely to
be spasmodic rather than habitual. It is scarcely to the
credit of any claim to superiority in rational self-control of
these appetites, on the part of the most civilized peoples, that
they have come to limit the popular meaning of the word
temperance to the self-control, or the enforced external con-
trol, of the appetite for drink. The history of the matter
shows that habitual over-feeding and improper drinking are
more particularly the vices of a civilization where luxury and
w^ant exist side by side in extreme forms, or where some
hardy race seeks relief in these ways from the monotony or

1 Taken from a book called " The Economy of Life " and purporting to be
translated from an ancient manuscript discovered in Thibet and written by a
Biahman.

264 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

the severitj of the conditions imposed upon it by its envi-
ronment. The opposed virtues can never be widely and
successfully cultivated except as the result of a more in-
telligent self-control under the influence of an exalted moral
ideal.

That other Yirtue of the Will which I have called Con-
stancy is yet more cardinal — were this possible — than are
the virtues of courage and temperance. By constancy I
understand that intelligent and steady habitual action of the
will which follows in strong characters the commitment of
the whole self to the pursuit of a deliberately chosen end of
good. "Consistency," says Lotze,^ "is demanded in con-
duct : only that which flows from such a constant character
— rather than inconsequent ebullitions of fine feeling — ex-
periences our moral approbation." " We demand that every
single action be not at all times dependent on a hazardous
struggle between character and the impulse of the moment.
Bather does the moral habit, which makes the correct con-
duct seem like a second nature, appear to us a much higher
ideal of morality and as somewhat toward which, among other
things, education has to strive." The virtues, according to
Aristotle,^ are all " habits or trained faculties." Constancy,
then, is the essential of every virtuous character, in so far as
virtue is a matter of will. It is that interpenetrating and
all-suffusing quality of moral selfhood which every form of the
so-called virtues must have, in order to the realization of any
even imperfect ideal of the Virtuous Life. In chosen courses
of conduct it secures uniformity and dependableness ; in the
service of one's superiors, of one's country, or of humanity, it
manifests itself as faithful obedience ; in matters of sentiment
and of behavior towards others, it is the much -prized char-
acteristic of loyalty ; in devotion to the rational life, it is the
very bone of veracity. On the contrary, every virtue is either

1 Outlines of Practical Philosophy, p. 30 f .

2 Nic. Eth., II, passim.

VIRTUES OF THE WILL 265

ftiarred or spoiled by the vice of fickleness and inconstancy.
Of Reuben, said Israel, — though he was his firstborn, his
might, " the beginning of strength, the excellency of dignity,
and the excellency of power " : " Unstable as water, thou shalt
not excelP Steadfastness of purpose is, psychologically con-
sidered, the one indispensable condition of virtuous character,
the very core of right and dutiful manhood. It is justly
admired under all circumstances, and in every stage of moral
development. Even bad men are given for this type of char-
acter a credit and an admiration which are not merely assthet-
ical but are also ethical. And the verdict of the populace, as
well as of all writers on ethics, accords with the declaration
of Scripture (Jas. i. 7 f.) : " A double-minded man is unstable
in all his ways." And " let not that man think that he shall
receive anything of the Lord."

It is scarcely necessary, however, to call attention at length
to the danger of mistaking the psychological nature of this
virtue of the will. Constancy is certainly not to be con-
founded with obstinacy, or with " blind will " (provided even
that we admit the propriety of any such term as hlind will).
Indeed, although constancy in any particular course of con-
duct may easily enough be accused of obstinacy by the oppo-
nents of this course, the two are so different that obstinacy
cannot even properly be regarded as the shamming of con-
stancy. The man who will not hear to reason is unwise, the
man who prefers to listen and commit himself to the inferior
good is morally foolish. Such refusal is the essence of
obstinacy, and is not to be confounded with the virtue of
constancy even when this virtue, like all the other qualified
virtues, is enlisted in a bad cause. Neither can persistence
in an evil course of conduct convert that conduct from the
one ethical category of " bad " into the other of " good " con-
duct. None the less, however, is constancy always a genuine
virtue of the will. The solution of such a seeming paradox
is to be reached in the following way : Particular pieces of

266 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

conduct or aspects of character are called good or bad, ethi-
cally, according as they do, or do not, correspond to the
Moral Ideal. Repetition of these acts constitutes, therefore,
either a good character and a virtuous life or a bad character
and a vicious life. For the principle of habit is fundamental
in the growth of character, and the laws of development ex-
tend over the entire life. He, then, who at any time shows
that power of will which induces a change from a bad to a
good course of conduct makes the kind of a choice which is
a highly important initial step in the path of all virtuous liv-
ing. But constancy of will is essential to the fuller realiza-
tion of this life. He who has hitherto been bad, because he has
applied this essential characteristic of the virtues to vicious
ends in vicious ways, is the more sure thereby of a success-
ful issue when he changes his conduct to the pursuit of the
higher ideals. Steadiness of purpose, although attained and
exercised in vicious ways, when converted, gives more assur-
ance of success than do tlie fitful yieldings of the fickle man to
the demands and persuasions of a disapproving conscience,
even if continued through the whole life.

In all moral concernment, however. Habit is powerful over
all; the bad man will necessarily become the weaker in re-
spect of the possibility of changing to virtuous courses, and
hardened in his commitment to vicious courses. But how-
ever it needs to be " qualified " by all these considerations,
steadfastness of purpose, planful and constant self-control,
remains a cardinal virtue of will.

There are several particular subordinate phases or complex
combinations of these cardinal Virtues of the Will which are
themselves recognized as separate virtues, in some sort within
the scheme approved by the moral judgment of mankind.
Such are patience, endurance, sobriety, industry, perseverance,
etc. The exercise of all these virtues makes draughts upon
the power of self-control under the hard circumstances, or in
the presence of the seductions and temptations which every-

VIRTUES OF THE WILL 267

where and inevitably belong to human life. The patient,
enduring, and persevering man must have a steady, temper-
ate, and courageous self-control. The industry and sobriety
which are chosen in the interest of the legitimate ends of life,
and which bring satisfaction to the moral consciousness, are
therefore entitled to be considered virtuous forms of self-
control ; for the temptations to laziness, impatience, and self-
indulgence are pervasive and strong. But there are relatively
narrow limits to all these subordinate virtues : there are wrongs
before which patience is not the cardinal virtue ; insults and
attacks that ought not to be endured ; innocent mistakes in
chosen courses of conduct in which one ought not to per-
severe. There are also ethical as well as physical limitations
to industry ; and recreation and play may become imperative
duties. Neither can it be said that the good man will be
always "sober," unless a very generous interpretation be
given to the word. If it be not true, as Aristotle taught,
that a " refined and gentlemanly wittiness " is itself a virtue,
it is certainly permissible to be witty in consistency with the
limitations set by other forms of virtuous conduct. And per-
haps one may fitly end such a discussion by saying, as does
Orsino in Crawford's Corleone : " I believe that the chief real
wickedness is in doing nothing at all ; " or, " Sloth is one of
the capital sins," as Yittoria observed, who knew the names
of all seven.

When all these virtues of the will are combined in good
proportion and fair mixture in one person, and that person is
in their exercise fully committed through a long life to the
realization of lofty and morally worthy ideals, we behold a
character which the cultured moral consciousness approbates
and thinks most worthy of reward. This is also the character
which, under the conditions of human life is likeliest to
succeed in doing the work of life. A loyal and a royal man,
— brave, temperate, constant, and with an unchanging
courage and moderation of his own desires committed to his

268 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

highest ideals, — a faithful soul ; such is he whom others
esteem to be, so far as will can make one, the man of the
virtuous life. He it is of whom they say :

*' Languor is not in your heart,
Weakness is not in your word,
Weariness not on your brow.' '

CHAPTER XII

VIRTUES OF THE JUDGMENT : WISDOM, JUSTNESS, ETC.

The considerations which justify and explain the title of
this chapter have already been presented with considerable
detail. They show that certain kinds of conduct which men
agree to call good, and which are indeed essential character-
istic forms of the Virtuous Life, depend upon the culture and
use of the judging faculty. It will be well, however, before
proceeding to determine what these forms are, and how it is
that intelligence takes its place as an essential element in all
moral goodness, to subject some of the most important of
these considerations to a brief restatement. I shall do this,
emphasizing the following four points : —

First : Judgment about matters of conduct is itself a species
of conduct. And inasmuch as most judgments have some
either direct or remote reference to conduct, most judgments
are liable at any moment in human experience to be brought
under the rubric of conduct. By a man of " good judg-
ment," then, is fitly meant what the popular speech usually
means, viz., one who uses his judging faculty in a morally
worthy way.

Second: In all the language and usages of men which
have a bearing upon this subject, this true and profound
psychology of the judgment is implied. Judging is not con-
ceived of as a mere getting together, much less as a mere
sequence, under the laws of association, of memory-images or
products of the phantasy. Neither is judgment regarded by
men generally as a merely formal and, as it were, passive

270 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

collocation or connection of conceptions or of so-called
abstract ideas, /judge ; and this has reference to a voluntary
and synthetic activity. The judgment is mine, as belonging
to an active Self. The ideas or conceptions, which logic
regards as somehow being together^ the language of men agrees
with a vital psychology as regarding under terms of a connec-
tion effected by a living Will. What wonder, then, that the
inclination of mankind is strong to hold — each one, the other
— responsible for his judgment. The exhortation, then, to
take heed how one judges is deserving of regard, not simply
on prudential but also on more distinctively ethical grounds.

Third : The part which judgment takes in the conduct of
the Virtuous Life is integral and essential. Judging well is
not simply preliminary to virtue, or merely accessory to good
conduct ; neither is the part of judgment in morality fully
discharged ex post facto, as it were, when the virtuous or
vicious act comes before the bar of the intellect to have its
moral quality estimated. Intellect judges conduct ; how and
why it judges at all, and judges as it actually does, has already
been made clear in the discussion of the origin and nature
of ethical judgment. Plato was, indeed, wrong when he went
so far as to make virtue always coincident with knowledge ;
it contradicts the facts of experience to hold that men do
wrong only because they do not know the beauty and the real
worth of the higher good. Neither as accordant with facts,
nor as tenable theory of the riglit and wrong in conduct, is it
true that " all men are always invohmtarily bad." ^ It is not
even true that the cardinal virtues of judgment — as, for
example, Wisdom — are wholly identical with " thought on
moral subjects " {(j)p6v7}cn<;). Feeling and will enter into every
species of conduct ; and without these aspects of the moral self
participating no virtue is possible. But, on the other hand,
the same thing is true of intellect. In its supreme function-

1 Laws, p. 860 C ; and on the Ethics of Plato see Sir A. Grant : The Ethics of
Aristotle, I, essay III, and Thos. Maguire, Essays on the Platonic Ethics.

VIRTUES OF THE JUDGMENT 271

ing by way of judgment, it is necessarily a participant in every
virtuous or vicious act. What is done blindly — wholly
blindly — loses all the characteristics, both intellectual and
voluntary, of a genuine piece of conduct. What is done
deliberately is more particularly ethical in its characteristics ;
but deliberation is itself a voluntary exercise of the judging
faculty. What is done with the whole Self — this it is which
bears to the fullest possible extent, the stamp of the coin that
is either genuine or counterfeit in the kingdom where right and
wrong doing are matters of the supreme value. Voluntary
judgment, feeling motive, deliberate choice, — thus the entire
unitary being of the Moral Self commits itself to the conse-
quences, internal and external, subjective and objective, of
what is the expression of its own deepest life.

Fourth : But while all virtues involve intellect, feeling, and
will, and some virtues are chiefly of the will, some other
virtues may properly bear the title " virtues of the judgment."
Wherever the relation which the judging function bears to
truth and reality is the prominent characteristic of the good
or bad conduct, there the virtue or the vice may properly be
spoken of in this way. It must be remembered, however,
that we are treating of real virtues and not of their appear-
ances or of the opposite vices which so often are the shams of
the real virtues. For just as seeming courage may often
result from real cowardice or from insensibility to some
particular kind of fear, so seeming wisdom may be due to
real timidity or to a selfish reserve of one's strength, or to
neglect of one's opportunities. Just as temperance may be
only the expression of another form of uncontrolled desire
(like the miser's abstinence fi'om food and drink), so what
men call justice is not uncommonly the expression of merely
prudential or positively selfish impulses.

The Virtues of Judgment, then, are those forms of con-
duct whose goodness or badness, in the ethical meaning of
these words, depends chiefly upon the character of the judg-

272 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

ing function which enters into them. Of such virtues the
following three are most cardinal and comprehensive ; —
namely, Wisdom, Justness, and a certain other form of good
judgment which I will call, Trueness.

Wisdom as a virtue is moral, and therefore voluntary,
judgment having reference to the ends of life, and to the
means of attaining these ends. It is the Moral Self exercis-
ing its power of judgment in conduct regarded as the pursuit
of some form of good. The virtue may either terminate in
the act of judging, or it may require for its completion and
manifestation some further motor elements. Indeed, since
wisdom is essentially a judgment with reference to conduct,
there is usually something to be done by somebody in order
that the virtue may not spend itself in mere judgment as it
were. When the action which is necessary to realize the
wise conclusion devolves upon the very same person who has
reached the conclusion, the failure to act certainly detracts
from the popular estimate of the original virtue. Indeed,
those who are wise to counsel others to virtuous conduct, but
who do not conduct themselves in accordance with their own
wise counsels, are apt to be esteemed bad, rather than good
men. Here, however, as usual, what is needed in order to
understand the psychological nature of this virtue is a more
discriminating analysis. To adjudicate wisely the value of
ends, and the means of attaining ends that have value, is a
virtue — not merely an intellectual excellence, but a species
of morally right conduct. But habitually to disregard in
thought the ideal ends of life may not improperly be said to
be essentially vicious. " Frivolity," says Humboldt, " under-
mines all morality and permits no deep thought or pure
feeling to germinate ; in a frivolous soul nothing can emanate
from principle, and sacrifice and self-conquest are out of the
question."

To act in accordance with wise judgment usually requires
courage, temperance, constancy, and all the other virtues of

VIETUES OP THE JUDGMENT 273

the will. To be lacking in these is to be not virtuous ; it is
to be, on the contrary, guilty of certain vices that are them-
selves contrary to, and destructive of, the higher wisdom.
Moreover, that principle of moral development must be reck-
oned with which makes the habitual failure to do what judg-
ment dictates ought to be done, react upon the judging
faculty so as to render it obscure and blind. For the mind, in
conduct and in the development of character, is such a unity
of interdependent functions, that its vicious or defective
working in any one important respect makes itself felt in all
respects. For example, if courage should be wise, wisdom
should be courageous, in order that both may be at their best.

The most important respects in which the virtue of wisdom
needs to be exercised are three in number : (1) the evaluation
of ends, with a view to determine their relative worth ; (2)
the estimate of means, with a view to determine their effective-
ness (often relative also) for the realization of ends; and
(3) the appreciation of those limitations which concern both
the ends and the means, but which belong to the natural and
social environment of man. Wisdom in the evaluation of
ends is sometimes called the " higher " wisdom ; in the esti-
mate of means the same virtue may be considered as a practi-
cal wisdom, the quality which belongs to the deliberate
judgments of the expert. But a due appreciation of the limita-
tions of life is the intellectual essential of that rare and holy
complex of virtues which may fitly be called a wise Resigna-
tion. I shall consider briefly these three forms of exhibiting
the virtue of wisdom.

In each of these three forms of wisdom one may discover
what is the essential difference between knowledge and wis-
dom. Knowledge, too, culminates in that activity which is
the supreme expression of man's intelligence, — namely, in
the judgment. But wisdom always implies an estimate of
some kind of value ; and the judgment into which the quality
of the virtue enters has reference to something conceived of

274 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

as dependent — in some way and to some extent — upon per-
sonal will. If nothing which comes into our human lives had
worth in human estimates, there could be no virtuous judg-
ment, no wise man ; and even when men discuss the wisdom
of a constitution of the universe over which human wills have
no control, the very problem — Is this constitution of the
universe wise or not ? — implies the conception that It is
dependent upon the Absolute Will.

The highest conceivable manifestation of wisdom consists
in the right, because rational, evaluation of those ends of life
which can be, at least partially and approximately, reached by
courses of human conduct. We have already seen (Chap. Ill)
that men recognize different goods to be pursued ; and that
these goods are recognized as not only differing in degrees
within themselves but also as differing between themselves in
kind. The good which morality exalts is the Moral Self real-
izing its ends in the Virtuous Life. When, then, any problem
arises concerning the end toward which it is wise to direct
one's energies, this general principle will always be given the
chief place : it is always true wisdom devotedly and unswerv-
ingly to follow the ideal of the virtuous life. It is true wisdom
always to set the problem of conduct before one in the following
way : what is right and best (as having most moral value) to be
done ? The problem being proposed in this form, the syllog-
ism along which the wise man's intelligence proceeds to the
judgment, may be naively expressed thus : major premise — It
is always wise to do what is right ; minor premise — This is
right ; conclusion — Therefore this is wise. Certainly, like all
other general principles and like all the devices of a so-called
" pure " logic to advise men what conclusions they shall arrive
at, this syllogism settles nothing as to what is right, and
therefore nothing as to what is wise. But it describes the atti-
tude toward his ideal of a virtuous life in which every man per-
sistently and intelligently stands, who is truly wise. This
attitude of soul is itself a virtue of the highest degree of

VIRTUES OF THE JUDGMENT 275

excellence. It succeeds, when perfect, in making the higher
wisdom appear coextensive with the entire rational content
of virtue.

Nor can it be claimed that this relatively abstract form of
the virtue of wisdom is of little or no practical value. Ques-
tions as to what conduct is wise, what not, are often compli-
cated enough. Many such questions can never be solved by
a judgment which is quite clear and self-confident ; and the
entirely clear and wholly self-confident judgment of one man
will not infrequently be exactly the opposite of that of another
equally trustworthy judge. God pity us all if we are habitually
tempted to think our wisdom of the highest and most com-
plete ! None the less, for the man who is in process of that
discipline which alone can give the conquest of the Virtuous
Life, the supreme obligation is to choose the end that seems to
him to have the highest worth, to remain unswervingly faith-
ful to it, and so to be wise, — however many faults of judgment
he may commit in his decisions about the means of realizing
this end. Neither is it true that such wisdom is not defin-
itively practical. For in the majority of instances men know
well enough how to supply the middle term and so to form the
minor premise. They know what is right. But they think
to be wise enough to make what they know is not right serve
fairly well in the place of the right. To do this habitually is
to be really unwise ; it may in the end amount to the rankest
and most mischievous folly.

The ends of truly virtuous living are themselves manifold
and admit of being arranged in some sort of a scale of values.
Hence many complicated and perplexing problems arise with
respect to the subordination of these ends. To be always just
is one such end ; to be always kind is another. To make
others happy is a virtuous thing to choose ; but to make others
strong to resist temptation and able to figlit manfully the bat-
tle of life is certainly no less virtuous. Which of the various
ends it is wise to emphasize most, whether habitually or on

2T6 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

any particular occasion, demands some special wisdom of
judgment ; and no so-called moralist can give rules which will
dispense with the patient mastery of the details that belong
to the preparation for wise judgment. Hence, the higher wis-
dom is the steadfast attitude of one's moral self, as a judge,
toward one's moral ideals.

Practical wisdom as a virtue, in the narrower meaning of
the phrase, has reference chiefly to judgments concerning the
right means to be employed in attaining the ends of life.
But these means are far more complicated and intricate than
are the ends themselves. Furthermore, so far as they are
the objects of the wise man's judgment, the employment of
them is a matter of conduct. In not a few instances, too,
certain means involve action which is prejudicial to some
form of good, or even destructive to the securing, by others, of
the things on which they have set their hearts. Hence the
questions. What means shall be selected ? and How far shall
the particular means once chosen be pushed forward against
the wishes or the rights of others ? become exceedingly dif-
ficult ethical problems. The solution of such problems of
conduct requires the application of a large and varied
stock of knowledge in the form of wise judgments. For
moral judgment about appropriate means for the realizing of
one's chosen plans has to consider — not simply what means
are hest, because likeliest to bring about the desired result, but
also what means are permissible in accordance with the prin-
ciples of a virtuous life. The good man may not realize all
his chosen ends by the use of any kind of instrumentality.
This would not be wise, with the wisdom of virtue, although
it might be shrewd, masterful, and successful.

More and more, as the experience of the individual accu-
mulates and the scientific knowledge of the race gives to it
increased mastery over the resources of nature and over
the gathered results of past discoveries and achievements,
do problems of the use of means demand special and expert

VIRTUES OF THE JUDGMENT 277

information. At the same time, many means for achieving
desirable results which were wholly lacking in past times, are
now ready at hand for general use. It is the part of wisdom
to know what these means are, and to know how to use them.
One can heartily sympathize then with the indignation which
I have, in a clinic, heard a surgeon pour upon the parents of
a boy allowed to grow up with an unstraightened spine or an
uncorrected club-foot. He who, when important human in-
terests are involved, will take no pains to know what course
of conduct to pursue, or, in case he cannot himself judge fitly
of the means, will not even try to know who the judges are,
is foolish in an immoral way. In modern life, therefore, the
place of the expert is destined to become increasingly impor-
tant. It is wise, it requires good moral judgment, to provide
pure water, clean streets, effective protection against crime
and fire, and to organize schools and other institutions that
make for good citizenship. It is unwise, it is distinctly im-
moral judgment, and wicked conduct, which disregards the
opinions and counsels of those who know, and who are there-
fore entitled by their wisdom to decide in the interests of the
people. That king is saved by his wisdom who, knowing
himself to be a fool in need of counsel, is wise enough to
choose wise counsellors and to follow their advice. But woe
to the nation that is guided either by its own unintelligent im-
pulses, however brave or generous in themselves, or by
counsellors and legislators that, however shrewd in political
manipulation, have little or no true wisdom ! Courage and gen-
erous expenditure of treasure and blood may save that people
from some of the effects of its folly, but courage and gener-
osity can never take the legitimate place of that cardinal
virtue of good judgment which is called Wisdom.

In those communities which are low in the scale of ethical
evolution practical wisdom occupies a most important place
amongst the cardinal virtues. The man who is wise in coun-
cil is the running mate of the man who is brave in war. That

278 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

tribe or nation is well equipped with the most essential excel-
lences for its existence, and for its welfare, which has its
young men courageous warriors and its old men wise, " not
in part nor in any particular thing (as Homer says in the
Margites —

'Him the gods gave no skill with spade or plough,
Nor made him wise in aught'),

but generally wise." This wisdom (cro^ia) which is " the
union of intuitive reason with scientific knowledge, or scien-
tific knowledge of the noblest objects with its crowning per-
fection added to it," ^ has always been a virtue highly prized.
In its very nature it is a mixture of the higher wisdom and
practical wisdom (but not necessarily the knowledge of a
specialist in any one line). It was for this that the Sophists
were, so far as admired at all for wisdom, justly admired. It
was this which Socrates, as not wise but a " lover of wisdom,"
wished to substitute for the sophistical pretence of wisdom.
It is this kind of wisdom which, no less rare, is no less to be
prized and is even more difficult in our complicated modern life.
Who is the wise man of to-day ? He who, adjudging to the
various ends of life the value which really belongs to them,
judges correctly also as to the means to be employed in real-
izing these ends, — and all in consistency with the ideal of
virtuous living.

But wisdom, like courage and temperance, has its imitators,
the shams that sometimes seem the same with the virtue, but
are often really the vices most unlike its genuine form. One
of these shams of wisdom is the unfounded conceit of knowl-
edge, which is all the more effective if the supposed content
of the knowledge be something wholly esoteric and hidden
from the common herd ; and if the knowing subject be shrewd
enough to be chary about exposing his wisdom to the tests of
reality or of the sound judgment of other men. It is recently

1 Nic. Eth., VI, vii.

VIRTUES OF THE JUDGMENT 279

reported that a new Grand Llama has been proclaimed in
Thibet ; and he will be worshipped by the people as incom-
parably wise in matters extremely occult and of the highest
import ; but it will doubtless be the better for him not to talk
too freely, but to allow his owlish look and dignified silence
to be mistaken for the supremacy of wisdom. To this class
of the pretences of a noble virtue belong most of the theories
and practical judgments of what goes under the name of
theosophy, " Christian " and not a few other forms of " science
falsely so-called," together with the practices of palmistry,
fortune-telling, oneiromancy, and what not. In saying this I
do not mean, of course, to deny that all or any of these sub-
jects admit of investigation with a view to determine knowl-
edge, and of that sound moral judgment respecting the conduct
connected with them which is the essence of the virtue of
wisdom. But most undoubtedly the far greater part of this
sort of wisdom is only a pretence of virtue which either
arises from ignorance and folly, or is more positively vicious
on account of the large admixture with it of mental laziness
and of falsehood. Most pernicious, perhaps, of all the shams
of wisdom is that low-lived shrewdness in business which
stands ready to abrogate or avoid every principle belonging
to the higher wisdom, if only the chosen end of commercial
prosperity can be secured.

From the cardinal virtue of the judgment which is called
Wisdom flow several subordinate but important forms of right
conduct that are themselves entitled to a place in any com-
plete catalogue of the virtues. These may more properly be
called the genuine prudential virtues. Here we return to a
subject already touched upon (see p. 240 f.), and are prepared
to regard it from another and higher point of view. What
is popularly called prudence is not a virtue, but is rather the
vice of cowardice, when it consists merely in the yielding to
some unworthy form of fear. But, as we have just seen, it is
not easy to gain one's lawful ends, however worthy, or even

280 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

to gain the use of the means which are likely to be most ser-
viceable in the pursuit of these ends. Especially do the vir-
tues of justice and kindness toward our fellow men hedge in
and move athwart the path along which seems to lie the way
to success in attaining the aims of life. Indeed these virtues
are essential parts of human life ; all virtues are social and
have regard to our fellow men. Therefore wisdom in the
form of prudence, or, rather, wisdom showing intrinsic excel-
lence as moral judgment in various forms of prudent conduct,
is a marked characteristic of the truly good man. Wisdom
itself, although a cardinal virtue, is qualified by the other car-
dinal virtues of justice, kindness, etc. But it, in turn, quali-
fies them ; kindness and even justice, must be wise, in order
to reach their highest estate. And thus the wise man will be
cautious in action, where the virtue of caution is demanded ;
and he will be deliberate and fair minded in making up his
opinion, where the virtue of deliberation can fitly be secured.
He will be provident with respect to the present and future
risks of life, considerate of the feelings and interests of his
fellows, judicious in selecting his associates and in respect of
the trusts which he reposes in other men, and discreet in his
selection of means for realizing his own plans and in his
adaptation of these means to their appointed work.

Nowhere else is the virtue of wisdom as a matter of poli-
tics more forcefully commended than in these words of the
Hebrew law-giver : " Keep therefore and do them (i. e., the
divine statutes and judgments) ; for this is your wisdom and
your understanding in the sight of the nations, which shall
hear all these statutes, and say, Surely this great nation is a
wise and understanding people."

Perhaps the loftiest, and often the most pathetic, exhibition
which the truly wise man can make of his wisdom is in the form
of Resignation, or voluntary and intelligent judgment in view of
the limitations which belong inevitably to the life of the individ-
ual and of the race. Ideals of every kind, the more they are

VIRTUES OF THE JUDGMENT 281

contemplated and subjected to thoughtful consideration, the
more do they rise and expand themselves before the mind. The
more passionately, enthusiastically, and hopefully they are
pursued, the more bitter the strife becomes to attain them,
the more inevitable the disappointment over the very partial
character of the realization of them which human efforts can
secure. But the nature of morality requires the devoted and
unswerving pursuit of one of the loftiest and most unattain-
able of all human ideals ; this is — to speak only, for the pres-
ent, from the point of view which I am holding — the reality
of the Virtuous Life, in its perfection as an Ideal. Speak
as one may of moral freedom, and exalt as one will the
power of man to realize his noblest ambitions, the Koran is
truer to experience in declaring that a man might as well
hope to cross the gulf of hell on a hair as to live a life wholly
without wrong-doing, than he would be who should claim the
ability, in fact, to realize this ideal of perfectly virtuous living.
To relinquish the pursuit of the ideal is to drop down from
the demands of the higher wisdom to the level of a wrong
tolerance of vice : but to fail, in one's plans and in one's use
of means, of all recognition of the inevitable limitations of
the Moral Life, to continue vainly to "kick against the
pricks," is also a fatal wrong toward the counsels of practi-
cal wisdom. If patience, endurance, and courage are virtues
of will which must characterize, unremittingly, the pursuit of
the ends of morality, resignation is a habit of mind toward
the success of such pursuit which is one of the noblest and
most necessary forms of wisdom : — most difficult, too, for the
most noble and aspiring souls, whose temptation and failure —
not to say, whose vice — is to be not resigned.

Resignation is then, a virtue of rational judgment which
leads to a certain yielding of will before the inevitable limi-
tations of the moral, as of every other form of life. It results
in the no less patient, enduring, and passionate pursuit of the
moral ideal, though with a constant attitude of mind that

282 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

is rationally adjusted to the fixed conditions of that environ-
ment in the midst of which this ideal must be pursued. For,
as says Lotze : ^ " Neither ought conduct to be fruitlessly
directed toward what is in itself impossible, nor ought a con-
test to be waged against what is unavoidable. This is the
thought of Resignation, by which all our activity is limited to
real and attainable ends."

In its highest exercise this kind of wisdom almost impera-
tively demands the support of the religious motive. It is,
possibly, conceivable that a man may still retain his devotion
to moral ideals and practice, and also gain the pure virtue of
resignation before the limitations of life when these limita-
tions are regarded from an absolutely fatalistic point of view.
But the shikata ga nai Q' it cannot be helped ") of the careless
Japanese servant, and the erect head and unbending will of
the ancient Stoic philosopher, before the destiny of pain and
defeat, are scarcely on a level with this form of wisdom.
The voluntary bending of our wills to a Will in whose
wisdom we have a reasonable confidence is a great support,
if it be not the indispensable condition, of the virtue of
resignation.

The vices which are the opposite of this virtue are some-
what manifold. Among them are the discontent, the peev-
ishness, and fretfulness which men whose lives are full of
disappointed plans for realizing worthy ideals so often share
with the men of selfish and unideal lives. There is also that
"high-flying extravagance " of aims and plans which often
characterizes the fanatic or the megalo-maniac. Saddest of
all is the rebellious spirit with which the proudest and most
incorruptible souls sometimes meet the inevitable result of
their honorable struggle for the supremacy of truth and
justice. Hence comes the moving spectacle of a Prometheus
Vinctus, — a man who has striven heroically for the good
of humanity, now bound and suffering to have his vitals torn

1 Outlines of Practical Philosophy, p. 27.

VIRTUES OF THE JUDGMENT 283

by the vultures that have hitherto been restrained by fear
in their desire to approach. That purifying function of
tragedy which Aristotle recognized is exercised when reflec-
tion reveals the moral lesson of human experiences like these.

The second cardinal virtue of judgment is Justness ; and
in treating of it we have a more complicated and difficult
conception before us than has been presented by any of the
previously considered forms of virtue. Courage and con-
stancy are comparatively simple affairs ; their psychological
nature and the historical conditions which have enforced
them and which have determined their several principal
forms of manifestation are comparatively easy to describe
and to estimate. Since temperance has its range of control
over so many different and often conflicting impulses and
desires, its psychological description, historical evolution,
and practical application furnish somewhat more difficult
problems for the student of ethics. But none of these vir-
tues, as respects its complexity and the obscure problems it
presents, equals any one of the several virtues of judgment.

Justness is a term which covers a group of forms of
virtuous conduct whose psychological origin and character,
and whose historical evolution, are very complicated and
obscure. Whoever has to take the part of the judge, and to
pronounce judgments that must seem fair and fit to the criti-
cal moral consciousness, knows that he can seldom be sure
of securing more for these judgments than his own just
intention. Subjective justice, — what is it, as respects its
origin and character from the psychologist's point of view ?
Objective justice, the spirit of justness realized, where in
the universe shall the man find it who has not either already
lost the red blood from his conception of the ethical Ideal ;
or else has answered with a faith far transcending sight the
pressing inquiry : " Shall not the Judge of all the earth do
right? ''

This complexity of psychological nature and historical

284 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

development requires recognition. In the effort to cover all
that virtuousness which seems to give their characteristic
good quality to an entire group of the most fundamental and
universally commended virtues, I have therefore adopted
the word " Justness. " By this I do not mean mere compli-
ance with the customs and laws, whether common or statute,
which regulate the relations of men, — in business dealings,
in civil and criminal procedures, or in the freer intercourse
of friendship or the family life. Nor simply by dealing out
rewards and punishments according to one's ideas of the
merit or demerit of others' conduct, together with the wise
insistence that one's self shall be treated justly by others,
does one become perfectly just. On the contrary, submis-
sion to a large amount of injustice from others, and no little
treatment of others which it is impossible to make consis-
tent with the conception of a strict distributive justice,
seems inevitable in every good man's life. Even in legal
administration, the abrogation or ameliorating of justice, in
the narrower meaning of the word, is at least occasionally
demanded in the interests of the higher virtue of justness;
just as the higher wisdom sometimes makes it necessary to
disregard all ordinary prudential maxims. Mere justice,
for its own sake, may become a horrible fetish ; its worship
may result in conduct that, from the higher standpoints of
moral consciousness, seems thoroughly defective in respect
of virtuousness, if not positively criminal.

There is undoubtedly, however, an entire group of virtues
which appear most fitly to fall together under one term,
and which cannot be resolved into " benevolence," in any
properly restricted meaning of the latter word. Such are,
for example, honesty, honor, equity, fairness, and much
truthtelling and enlightened kindness. In some sort, too,
it may be said of justness that it includes the essence of all
virtuousness. The author of the Fifth Book of the Nicoma-
chean Ethics recognizes a kind of general justice, including

VIRTUES OF THE JUDGMENT 285

the legal and the fair : " Justice, then, as so defined, is
complete virtue, although not complete in an absolute sense,
but in relation to one's neighbor." This justice, which is
the exhibition of the spirit of virtue toward others, " is not
a part of virtue but the whole of virtue." Thus understood,
it is, of course, worthy of the highest praise. Justice and
virtue are one and the same character differently viewed.
" On this account it is often spoken of as the chief of vir-
tues, and such that ' neither evening nor morning star is so
lovely. ' "

This high estimate of justness, as well as its complex
character, cannot be considered as due chiefly to the evolu-
tion of law and custom. The conception and the practice
certainly were far enough apart among the Greeks of Aris-
totle's time. In general, however, it may be urged that
where the discomforts and disasters of unjust judgment are
most abundant, the praises of the virtue of just judgment
are apt to be most loud. But where it is assumed in the
very structure of the government and of society that a large
measure of equality belongs by right to every individual,
and where the laws are trusted to regulate both distributive
and retributive justice, the difficulties of actualizing this
theoretical equality, and so the actual failures in fairness and
equity, are less easily made obvious. Yet the essentials
of this virtue are probably as highly prized among savage
peoples as among the most elaborately constituted and highly
civilized communities. The civilized practice, however, is
about as far below the current ideal of this most important
virtue as the practice of ancient times and of savage peoples
has ever been below their lower ideal. " Perhaps," says
one author, 1 " no description of savage character is fairer
than Mariner's of the Tongan Islanders. ' Their notions,'
he says, * in respect to honor and justice are tolerably well-
defined, steady, and universal ; but in point of practice both

1 Farrer, Primitive Manners and Customs, p. 127 f.

286 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

chiefs and people, taking them generally, are irregular and
fickle, being in some respects extremely honorable and just,
and in others the contrary, as a variety of causes may oper-
ate. ' But the justice of such remarks is lost in their vague-
ness, and their impartial generality would render them of
world-wide rather than of merely local or insular applica-
tion." Who that knows "the chiefs and people" of the
United States or of Great Britain could claim for them any-
thing better respecting their notions of justice, or anything
less bad respecting their practice of this entrancing virtue ?
Itis —

" This even-handed justice

Commends the ingredients of our poisoned chalice

To our own lips."

And the cry of the ages is : " There is not a just man upon
earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not " (Eccles. vii. 20).
Where justice is supposed to reign, it is little appreciated.
Where ifc is most lacking, it is most praised.

An analysis of the virtue of Justness shows that the ap-
preciation which it receives is due to the very nature of the
Moral Self in its social environment with other selves;
while the immense variety of customs, laws, opinions, and
judicial decisions which have given concrete realization to
this virtue is due to the varied nature of man's moral evolu-
tion. Only some such distinction as this will help us solve
this paradox of experience. That one ought to be just, and
to require justice of others, — this comes out of the moral
constitution of man which is at the same time self-regarding
and social. What constitutes justice, under certain definite
circumstances or in every special case needing determina-
tion, — this is a question, to answer which requires an im-
measurable fund of historical information and illimitable
tact in forming particular judgments. The spirit of fair-
ness, ready at all times to infuse the judgment, — one can
understand, appraise, and cultivate this. The actually fair

VIRTUES OF THE JUDGMENT 287

apportionment of the goods and evils of life, so far as these
depend upon one's just judgment, — no one can hope to ac-
complish much of that. The psychology of the virtue, though
complex and somewhat obscure, arises out of the depths of
personal existence; it springs from the permanent nature
of moral and social beings. The account of the various
forms which the virtue has assumed, although interesting
and helpful to the understanding of its intrinsic nature, is
due to environment and historical conditions.

By Justness, as a cardinal virtue, I understand the volun-
tary judgment which duly apportions to men their share of
the goods and the evils of life, so far as these goods and evils
are dependent upon human conduct. Injustice, popularly
so-called, is indeed customarily regarded as some deed
which either violates the rights of others by taking from
them what they already possess, or else prevents them from
receiving what they have a right to possess. But even in
such matters it is recognized that the person who cannot in
any way effect the result by his action is as capable as
another of being, in his judgment, either just or unjust.
Men demand just judgment of their fellows, even where the
bare satisfaction of being justly judged is the only appreci-
able result. Indeed, in many cases, if it is justice^ for its
own sake, which they demand, and not the " pound of flesh "
for its sake, men prefer just judgment even when it is, from
the nature of the case, not possible to carry the subjective
virtue into objective realization. And as for the case of
the man who judges virtuously but will not act according
to his own judgment, his failure and vice are everywhere
severely condemned.

The good things and the evil things of man's life are, to
a certain increasingly large extent, disposable according to
the decisions of men themselves. It is within the sphere of
such things that justice moves. Where men, whether in the
lower and coarser or in the higher and more refined forms

288 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

of religious faith, regard this distribution of good and evil
as dependent upon the Divine Will, they bring even the
judgment which guides that Will before the bar of human
judgment. 1 They argue with themselves and with one an-
other as to the justice of the gods, or of the One Supreme
God. But this working of the religious consciousness only
confirms the conception of this virtue which I am advocating.
In the distribution of the evils of floods, cyclones, and strokes
of lightning, they do not demand justice of their fellow-men
unless, as in the case of the disasters at Johnstown and
Galveston, the results can somehow be traced back to re-
sponsible human action. But earth and air and water, with
tlieir common stock of bane and blessing, are disposable by
the will of man, according to fair or unfair judgment ; and
so are the fruits and deposits of the earth, the breezes of
heaven, and the contents of river, lake, and ocean. And He
who made men in his own image commanded : " Let them
have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of
the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over
every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth."

It is not material goods alone whose apportionment de-
pends upon the conduct of man. Honor in the eyes of one's
fellows, reputation, political place and influence, social
position, intellectual attainment, opportunities for moral
and spiritual welfare, are also among the things for the
distribution of which the virtuous judgment which we call
justness is imperatively demanded. This dependable char-
acter of those goods which all men desire, and of those evils
which all men wish to avoid, upon man's conduct is the
fundamental and universal fact which makes human jus-
tice and injustice possible.

Within the consciousness of man, therefore, there arises

1 For a discussion of some of the curious implications regarding the nature of
Reality which this involves, see Philosophy of Knowledge, chap. XVII and A
Theory of Reality, chap. XIV and XVIL

VIRTUES OF THE JUDGMENT 289

what may be called an instinctive sense of justice; and with
the development of moral self-consciousness there comes a
sort of sacred apperception of the worth of personality. In
its lower and beginning forms, this so-called " sense of
justice " is chiefly protective and retributive. It has its foil
in the animal consciousness; but injustice does not cut
deep with the lower animals as it does with man, and it is
doubtful whether anything resembling its dullest human
appreciation is to be found with them. Wolves that hunt
in packs do indeed contend with one another for a share
in the captures of the hunt ; and ants have a semblance of
organization in which each member has its duly allotted
place, and suffers the just penalty of being found derelict in
duty at that particular place. In fact, however, the con-
sciousness with which all this is done probably does not even
remotely resemble that of the Homeric heroes when they
dispute over the spoils of war, or the places of honor and
of leadership. There are seemingly authentic stories of
animals — notably of elephants — cherishing the spirit of
revenge and punishing those who had excited their anger,
even after considerable intervals of time. But it is doubtful
whether the sense of being wronged, and of righting the
wrong in accordance with the satisfactions of moral con-
sciousness, such as the lowest savages manifest, is back of
any of these analogous actions on the part of the lower
animals.

Adult human beings generally resent attempts to deprive
them of good, or to inflict evil upon them, not merely in the
spirit of instinctive anger, but with the approving con-
sciousness of protecting their rights. We believe also that
Lotze ^ is true to the psychological facts, when, in discussing
"the simple moral ideals," he declares: "Retribution is
agreeable to conscience; that is to say, the returning of a
corresponding measure of reward or of punishment to a will,

1 Outlines of Practical Philosophy, p. 29.
19

290 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

which has occasioned a definite measure of weal or woe.'*
Every man, by virtue of his normal moral consciousness, is
capable, not only of feeling spontaneous anger or prolonged
resentment, but also of feeling " wronged " and of cherishing
the desire to see the wrong somehow righted. Therefore,
the virtue of temperance in the form of the self-control of
anger only limits but does not extinguish the sense of jus-
tice. On the contrary, it requires justness, — the submis-
sion of the feeling of anger to rational considerations in
order that all the interests of the Virtuous Life may be the
better conserved and promoted. Here also justness itself,
in the higher form of this virtue, intervenes to correct the
tendency to an unjust excess of merely protective and retribu-
tive justice. For the man who invokes even the most primi-
tive sense of justice is always a member of some sort of a
community ; and he is necessarily restrained by the enforced
obligation to remember that the man who has wronged him
is still also a man unless, indeed, he be an outlaw, or a
beast of a man. Eetribution itself, therefore, must also
take on the garb of justness, must be measured according to
custom or to law, whether it be between members of the same
tribe, or between different tribes.

It would take the discussion too far afield to examine
thoroughly the psychological origin and historical evolution
of the doctrine of human rights. It is enough for the
present purpose to know that the consciousness out of which
this doctrine develops is strictly universal; it belongs to
man everywhere and under all circumstances, to man as
man. Every normal adult human being claims for himself
some rights, and also acknowledges the obligation to respect
some of the claims made by others for the satisfaction of
their rights. Every man believes that certain of the good
things of life are his dues, and is irrevocably committed to
the conviction that he ought to be exempted from certain
evils at the hands of his fellow-men. What precisely are

VIRTUES OF THE JUDGMENT 291

these goods and evils, and what the measure of them, which
justice demands for every man, is a question whose answer
admits of no general agreement. The Javanese servant
will not resent fines and blows from his master, if they are
" nominated in the bond " which the customary relation
executes; but he will kill you with good conscience, and
as a duty, if you call him certain opprobrious names. The
" grafters " and " strong-armed " thieves of our modern
American cities are ready enough to insist upon what they
call the " fair thing" in their iniquitous partnership with
the police. Nor do they have any less respect for the justice
of the authorities that arrest, imprison, and hang them, if
only such is their fate in the result of a " fair " fight be-
tween themselves and the public good.

In some sort, then, every developed moral consciousness
places all individual moral selves on a basis of equality.
The goods and the evils of human life are manifold; the
former are somewhat uncertain, yet on the whole abundant
enough for all to have some share ; the evils are inevitable
and of such nature that every one must have some share.
The distribution of both goods and evils depends largely,
either directly or indirectly, upon the will of man. Every
Self, because of his selfhood, is morally entitled to his own
proper share ; to this he has rights, and he is in duty bound
to leave to every other the share that is his own. If in
human society there is a failure here, and the failure is due
to human conduct, wrong has been done. Justice demands,
originally, the avoidance of all such wrong; it requires the
positive virtue which assists in the equable allotment of both
good and evil. But when the wrong of injustice has been
committed, justice demands that punishment should correct
the wrong. That curious mixture of highflown talk about
essential rights, and of intense feeling with respect to
exacting and rendering justice to these rights, with what
we should regard as the most flagrant injustice in the work-

292 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

ing of the existing customs and laws, and with the most
confused and inadequate notions of personal responsibility,
of which human society is capable, is perhaps nowhere else
so well illustrated as in China. ^

The case is not, then, as though man, like the other animals,
simply wanted the satisfaction of his desires ; for his social
life rests upon the ethical demand, as a right, of a due pro-
portion of the common good. Why this universal demand ?
and, Why this concession of the Tightness of a similar
demand by others ? Some crude estimate, at least, of that
personal worth in which each individual has a share must be
at the bottom of the demand. It is this which in part (bat
only in part) accounts for the satisfaction which all man-
kind feel in retributive justice. Pain suffered by the offender
and inflicted by the offended may satisfy the passion for
vengeance. Punishment regulated by custom or legal enact-
ment, and proportioned duly, makes for the peace and order
of the community. But outraged sense of justice puts in its
voice at this point with a claim for satisfaction that is of a
deeper sort. Only in accordance with this view, it seems to
me, can we account for such ethical phenomena as the fre-
quent self-punishment of criminals (sometimes even with
death); or where, as in " Old Japan," the corporate con-
science was sensitive and the conceptions of personality
vague, and the man of honor voluntarily assumed the penalty
needed to satisfy the demands of justice as against the com-
munity at large.

Although compliance with custom and observance of legal-
ity cannot be identified with the virtue of Justness, and
although regard for the current forms of behavior and for
obedience to the laws cannot explain the attitude of men
toward their criminal fellows, yet this virtue can never get
concrete expression in action irrespective of custom and
legality. Ignorance, or scorn of custom or of the existing
1 See Chinese Characteristics, by Arthur H. Smith.

VIRTUES OF THE JUDGMENT 293

legal enactments, makes distributive justice difficult; it
makes protective or punitive justice well-nigh impossible.
For the measure of the rights to which most men think
themselves entitled is that afforded by either one, or by
both, of these two standards. All the others have this
good fortune, why cannot I ? None of my fellows are
treated so ill, why should I be ? These are questions which
children and childish men and women are forever asking
of themselves and of one another. If they cannot get a sat-
isfactory answer from human sources, they will have it from
heaven. Thus struggles for precedence at courts and at all
manner of functions, and for the enjoyment of all the trivi-
alities of life, are gloried over and made seemingly to have
a certain ethical respectability, by an appeal to this univer-
sal and eternal regard for what is fair and just. Each
rank, each circle, each social class, makes in this way its
attempt at the fixing of some accepted standard.

But as, in the evolution of moral selfhood the tenet of the
equality of all selves, in some respects at least, becomes
more widely extended, and the corresponding sense of jus-
tice and the demand for the recognition of rights expand,
the customs and the laws which regulate the concrete ex-
pressions of the virtue of justness undergo constant changes.
What was once very just has now become the most rank and
unbearable injustice. What is generous rather than simply
just in one place, and under one set of circumstances, seems
intolerable when change of place and of circumstances must
be taken into the account. Practical justice is, therefore,
doomed ever to shift and alter both its grounds and its char-
acter. Custom and law cannot confine it, although custom
and law are so largely the expressions which it has given to
its own inner spirit and intent.

On the other hand, as there is a higher wisdom, so there
is a higher justness. This higher justness judges the cus-
toms and the laws themselves and condemns or approbates

294 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

them in accordance with its own ideals. In order to be
just, and so true to its own higher nature, this supremely
virtuous judgment must keep free from the temptations of
Fanaticism; it must always bear in mind the inevitable
limitations under which all human ideals of virtuous living
are progressively realized. At the same time, and espe-
cially in the case of those more highly complex civiliza-
tions where the forms of justice have become registered in
prevalent customs and accepted laws, one is made painfully
aware that often these same customs and laws are most
blameworthy and pernicious from the point of view of the
higher justness. Alas! that this judgment should be so
emphatically true of the most advanced nations at the pres-
ent time. Nothing else can possibly be so disturbing to the
public morals, or so threatening to the public welfare, as
the enactment of laws which the multitude of the people
governed by those laws feel to be unjust and unfair. This,
however, is the inevitable result of class legislation —
especially under a republican form of government. Here
the very laws and the whole structure of society become
chargeable with the dreadful crime of a deliberate, wilful,
and protracted disregard of fairness. It is not individual acts
of injustice, however frequent and violent, that most threaten
the virtuous quality or even the stability of the national
life of any people ; it is, the rather, the organized and cus-
tomary and legalized unfairness which is most dangerous.
And what awful retribution has more than once in human
history followed a long-continued disregard of this essential
characteristic of a virtuous National Life !

What, then, can the individual man do in order to merit
the title of the " perfectly just " ? He can (1) cherish
always the spirit of fairness; (2) hold ever before him an
estimate of the worth of every individual man (no matter to
what race or social rank the individual may belong, and
irrespective of the relative grade or the total mixture of

VIRTUES OF THE JUDGMENT 295

human characteristics which constitute the individual) ; (3)
diligently inform himself as to the relative values of the
ends of life and the means of obtaining them; (4) study
those customs and laws which are so influential over the
interests of men in the use of means for the pursuit of every
form of good ; and, then, finally, (5) fuse all these elements
of justness into judgment whenever any concrete question
arises concerning the share of the common stock of good and
evil which shall be borne by any individual self — himself,
of course, included. He who with courage and constancy,
and with the spirit of tempered kindness, always acts under
the control of such judgment gives to the world the best pos-
sible example of perfect Justness. But a perfect objective
justice — a wholly fair distribution of earth's goods and
evils in accordance with the merit of each individual man —
is an ideal toward the realization of which one man, with
his highest wisdom and most strenuous endeavor, can do
little enough.

As Plato long ago taught, justice is the reality of which
all the division of life's labors and acquisitions is the sem-
blance ; — " dealing, however, not with the outward man but
with the inward, which is the true self and concernment of a
man. " ^

** Say, what is honour ? *T is the finest sense
Of Justice which the human mind can frame,
Intent each lurking frailty to disclaim,
And guard the way of life from all offence
Suffered or done."

Closely allied with the virtue of justness is that other car-
dinal virtue of intellect which I have ventured to designate
by the somewhat unusual title — Trueness. Indeed, so close
is the alliance between the two that the latter might almost
be called a species of the former. There is, however, an
important difference between them; and that quality of ideal

1 The Republic, 443.

296 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

manhood which appears as sincerity in conduct and genuine-
ness of character is not altogether the same as that which
gives birth to the virtues of fairness, honesty, equity in
dealing with others, etc.

By Trueness as a cardinal virtue of judgment I do not
understand mere truth-telling, or speaking what is believed
to be either true in facts or to be in theory accordant with a
large number of facts. Much less can one properly define this
virtue so as to approve unthinking bluntness of speech, or
that openness of conduct which reveals the thought and feel-
ing without regard to effects upon the thoughts and feelings
of others. Undoubtedly, justice and kindness both require
much concealment, and sometimes even what is inevitably
misinterpreted so as to construe a voluntary deceit; much
of this same thing is also apparently necessary to a proper
self-respect and to the maintenance of any ground of stand-
ing for the exercise of the social virtues generally. Mere
truth-telling, for its own sake and without regard to conse-
quences or to the inquiry, whether the truth ought to be told
at all and who is the proper person to tell it, may become
criminal ; and such truth-telling often shows a defect in re-
spect of 'the virtues of wisdom, justice, kindness, or even
courage and temperance and constancy.

On the other hand, it cannot be claimed either in view of
the patent facts of universal opinion or of the course of
moral evolution that there is no such cardinal virtue as a
regard for truth — in some sort, " for its own sake." On
the contrary, " being true " in conduct and in character may
be esteemed the one indispensable condition of all virtuous-
ness, the core of all right and dutiful character. Limited as
is Aristotle's conception ^ of the virtue of trueness, he is
unstinted in his praise for " the plain dealer " who is truth-
ful both in life and speech. "Falsehood," says Aristotle,
who makes " irony " in dealing with one's inferiors the

1 Nic. Eth., IV, vii.

VIRTUES OF THE JUDGMENT 297

virtue of a gentleman, — " falsehood is in itself base and
censurable; truth is noble and laudable." And whatever
one may think of Paulsen's teleological theory of virtuous-
ness, neither the popular nor the critical estimate of the
nature of all virtuous living can encourage us to follow him
in exempting examples of infidelity to truth in practice,
like Schopenhauer, Rousseau, and Petrarch, from the charge
of falsehood in the most intensely moral meaning of the
word, on the authority of a motto like this : — " The man
who rings the bell cannot march in the procession."

The student of ethics must not hastily fall in with the too
prevalent opinion that the virtue of trueness is not even
recognized in the lower stages of moral evolution, or among
peoples where lying and all forms of deceit are habitual and
persistent. It is true, indeed, that ignorance, falsehood,
and craft interpenetrate the whole life of almost all savage,
as well as of many civilized peoples. In the case of the
savages, unceasing craft and deceit are so indispensable even
to continued existence that the conduct in which they find ex-
pression is esteemed an essential kind of virtue. Yet even in
such cases the virtue which is really recognized and esteemed
is, after the notion of these same people, a sort of wisdom or
prudence. Only the man who is in the position of independ-
ence and power can he — so it is assumed — habitually frank
and truthful. It would not be easy to show, however, any
essential difference in respect for this virtue between the
most immoral peoples and those who most pride themselves
on their superior morality. All men recognize how com-
paratively difficult it is for one to practise truthfulness at
the cost of, rather than in the maintenance of, the desirable
and good things of life. Even the Ojis have a saying:
" When a poor man makes a proverb it does not spread ; " and
in Accra it is cleverly declared: " A poor man's pipe does
not sound. "

But the persuasion is tolerably widespread and embodied

298 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

in maxims among mankind, that it is poor policy to lie.
" The liar is short-lived," says the Arabian proverb.
" Lies, though many, will be caught by Truth, as soon as
she rises up," is the Wolof way of expressing the general
experience. " Even in Afghanistan, where it is said that
no disgrace attaches to lying per se, and where lying is
called an honest man's wings, while truth can only be
spoken by a strong man or a fool, there is also a proverb
with the moral, that the career of falsehood is short." As
long ago as Herodotus it was known how the Persian moral
philosophy held, what the Persian gentleman practised, —
namely, " that the man who speaks truth is always at his
ease; that men never suffer from speaking the truth; that
it behoves them to speak their minds unreservedly, for there
is no hill in front of the tongue. " Probably, nowhere else
in the world is falsehood in all its shades of gray, from that
which is a little off the pure white of truth to the blackest of
lying, more prevalent than amongst the Hindus of India.
Nowhere else is deceit of every kind more ingenious or more
tolerated. Yet when the Hindu can free his judgment from
the temptations of poverty, fear, greed, and superstition, he
shows the same appreciation of the value of trueness which
belongs to others ; and with the high-minded Hindu gentle-
man, truth, as he understands it, is as essential a part of the
Virtuous Life as it is with the high-minded English gentle-
man. In the Hindu moral philosophy truthfulness is one of
the sattwik gunas, or principles that introduce harmony " by
controlling self or by sacrificing self to higher forces ; " and
as such, it is daivik (or divine). " Of the good man in the
Rig Veda," says Professor Hopkins,^ " are demanded piety
toward gods and manes and liberality to priests ; truthfulness
and courage." That this virtue of judgment is connected in
the Hindu system of thinking with a true apprehension of
the great religious and philosophical verities is not to be

^ Beligions of India, p. 148.

VIKTUES OF THE JUDGMENT 299

urged as a mark of its depreciation ; but rather of the oppo-
site, — while, as I have already said, the prevalence and the
tolerance of the breaches of this virtue are in India, as else-
where, due to ignorance, superstition, cowardice, and greed.
As says the base lago : —

" O monstrous world ! Take note, take note, O World,
To be direct and honest, is not safe."

Trueness involves, essentially considered, an appreciation
of the value of Reality and of the correspondence which may
be established between it and the Self by way of its own
act of true judgment. This appreciation it is which inspires
the noblest minds with the love of the truth for the truth's
own dear sake. Such a passionate affection, however, when
subjected to psychological analysis and then, as far as its
residuum is concerned, to further reflective thinking, loses
its abstract character, but gains much thereby in actual
ethical significance and importance. The love of Truth for
its own sake turns out to be an affective appreciation of
the value of true judgment for the Selfs own sake, and for
the sake of other selves ; and, finally, for the sake of fidelity
to that Supreme Selfhood who is the source and the guardian
of all truth — " The Truth," as well as the Life, of man.^

By this virtue, accordingly, I understand that voluntary
judgment which corresponds to the facts and principles of
Reality as these are made known to the Moral Self. In
perception and self-consciousness we stand face to face with
certain actual facts. By reflection and reasoning we proceed
from the apprehension of those facts to the knowledge of
principles, or to the belief, varying all the way from timid
conjecture to unshaken conviction, in facts and principles
that cannot be immediately apprehended or (as often hap-
pens) empirically verified. It is in the judgment that this

1 Compare the chapters on ** Truth and Error " and on '* The Ethical and
^sthetical * Momenta ' of Knowledge," in the author's Philosophy of Knowledge
(XV and XVU).

300 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

total activity so culminates as to come under the rubric of
the true and the false. It is the actual judgment which, as
a species of conduct, merits the title of being either good or
bad, not only from the logical, but also from the ethical
point of view. This is only to say in other words that the
Self, when voluntarily pronouncing judgment, is virtuous
and meritorious or vicious and blameworthy, according to
the relation which it thus assumes toward the facts and
principles that appear to have reality.

Undoubtedly somewhat the same obscurities and perplex-
ities encompass this inquiry which were found surrounding
the discussion of the virtues of wisdom and justness. The
sceptical questions : What is Truth ? and, How can any one
assume that his representation of it does correspond, and
that of his fellow-man does not correspond, to Reality ? need
not embarrass us at this point. Let it be granted that
" real " truth in this connection means what seems true to
each mind; that it is the individual's own seizure of the fact
or of the principle. Without attention, memory, insight,
thought, and the fair spirit, there is no satisfactory judg-
ment of either fact or principle possible. So that getting
the judgment into a form which shall appear to ourselves
clearly and fully to correspond with reality is a complex
piece of conduct which always has either a certain good or
bad moral quality.

But truths, like other forms of good, have different degrees
of worth and are therefore capable of being arranged in a
scale of values. Their place in such a scale, so far as either
they or it can be the proper consideration of philosophy, must
be determined by two things : (1) by the relation in which
the truths, as respects the possibility of their attainment,
stand to human conduct ; and (2) by the relation in which
the truths, when partially or perfectly attained, stand to
human welfare.

It will not do dogmatically to pronounce upon the irre-

VIRTUES OF THE JUDGMENT 301

movable limits of human cognition. The folly of attempting
this after the fashion of the Kantian or other agnosticism is
made clear by a consistent theory of knowledge; and the his-
tory of the particular sciences is fall of instructive instances
of discoveries which have brought to nought the agnostic
declarations of the men of science themselves. Yet the
inquiry, whether the " game is worth the candle,'^ when
judiciously put, always has an ethical import. And to
spend energy and time that might be given to the solution of
solvable problems in the search for unattainable mysteries,
or in the hair-splitting discussion of abstract propositions,
or even in almost hopeless attempt to unearth matters of
fact buried too deep for human industry, may savor of an
immoral lack of wisdom. For the spirit of trueness is,
after all, opposed to the exploiting of mere fact or barren
theory, for the "truth's own sake" so-called. But ethics
must be very liberal upon this point. And a due humility
before the great realities themselves strengthens rather than
diminishes the faith that the door into the innermost chamber
of Reality is never wholly shut to man ; and that each fact
has some worthy place and important significance in the
structure, as it were, of that Reality. Here it will appear
to the thoughtful mind that fidelity to the virtue of True-
ness approaches, and in a sisterly way embraces, the virtue
of Resignation.

It is a more obvious remark in the interests of a fuller
exposition of this form of virtuous judgment, that truths
themselves stand in different relations to human welfare.
Our conception of " The Truth " may, perhaps, properly be
such as to sanctify in some measure every seemingly insig-
nificant fact. Thus scientific exactness, in all its pettiness
of details, may come to have a decidedly ethical quality and
may even be worshipped with something of the fervor of
religious devotion. And accepting the correct psychological
view and metaphysical estimate of the virtue of trueness,

302 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

one can readily see how such exactness meets a moral de-
mand ; since all truth is for some self's sake. Let then the
" man of science " pride himself on having counted exactly
the petals of some new species of flower or the scales of some
hitherto unknown species of fish, and on having correctly
derived the one from its true plant progenitor or pieced suc-
cessfully together the skeleton of the other, — and all the
more, if both be extinct and of no practical interest to either
pharmacist or fisherman. For his own patience, industry,
intellectual control, are features of good selfhood ; and he is
so far virtuous in this piece of conduct, although the truth
he has obtained prove of small value to other selves.
While, of course, God knew it all beforehand. What, how-
ever, shall be said of the man who spends his energies and
risks his life in finding the way to the North Pole, or the
best plan of spanning with a bridge some river, but refuses
even earnestly to inquire whether there be any God, or no,
or what is the better way to adjust one's own conduct to the
exigencies of the higher life and to the attainment of its
supreme values ?

It is, of course, not possible for a philosophy of conduct
accurately to scale the values belonging to every form of
truth; it is sufficient here to point out that the virtue of
trueness, since it is a species of conduct, must always recog-
nize its object as a thing of worth. And this good value,
which the object has, is a matter of degrees. Like every
species of good, therefore, this good which belongs to truth
has reference to human welfare — to the welfare of persons in
their manifold social relations. So that the highest truth-
fulness, like the highest wisdom and the highest justice, will
be exhibited in the forms of judgment that concern matters
of the highest worth. Although, perhaps, nothing can be
further from the spirit of an age that values truth chiefly
from the commercial standpoint, and even estimates the
truths of science in dependence solely upon the worth of the

VIRTUES OF THE JUDGMENT 303

profit that is in them, it nevertheless remains an invincible
conclusion from the inmost nature of man : He has most of the
virtue of Trueness who most painstakingly and sincerely adjusts
his judgments to the realities that have most of value in relation
to the supreme ends of the Virtuous Life, The reverse of this
is also true: to exalt, either theoretically or practically,
either in education or in life, so-called scientific truth or
those forms of knowledge which minister to success in trade
or in warfare, above the truths of morals and religion, is im-
moral; it is distinctly disloyal to the inmost spirit of the
virtue of trueness itself.

The vices which oppose this virtue are manifold ; but they
do not consist chiefly of the different kinds and degrees of
lying — a form of evil conduct that is oftenest the expression
of the vices of cowardice, greed, love of notoriety, etc.
They are chiefly of the following three varieties: (1)
Thoughtlessness, whether taking the form of carelessness,
indifference, or sloth in forming judgments; (2) Dog-
matism ; (3) Partisanship. Man is made to be thoughtful ;
and the ideal selfhood is not to be attained, or successfully
pursued, or even most distantly approached, without pains-
taking thought. It is chiefly thought that makes judgment
true ; and he who, for any reason, will not think, is essen-
tially untrue to his manhood. Carelessness, however, in-
evitably results in untrue judgment; but taking care is a
voluntary matter, an activity of the willing Self that is
essential to the formation of all sound judgment. Indif-
ference, too, is destructive of sound judgment; for, while
carelessness is likely to err through haste and lack of pro-
longed and concentrated attention, it may sometimes by
good luck hit the mark more or less near its centre. But
the vice of untrueness which is due to a cool and deliberate
disregard of the value of truth shows a more deeply seated
and repulsive character. Especially is this so, when the
indifference has for its object the higher ethical, social, and

304 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

religious truths. Let it be said again, then, that the man
who claims that such truths have no interest in his sight,
and who treats them with a practical neglect — not to say
contempt — is, as respects the virtue of trueness, one of
the most immoral of men. He is untrue to the highest
devotions — the principles of conduct, the welfare of the
race, the attitude of the human soul toward the Supreme
Good — of which his manhood is capable.

Dogmatism, too, is untrueness, a species of immorality.
But by dogmatism I do not, of course, mean either positive
knowledge which has subjected itself to the scientific tests
of valid cognition, or reasoned opinion which is held firmly,
as opinion, in view of the rational grounds on which it
reposes, or warm conviction concerning moral issues where
wisdom and justice are difficult to secure, or even the faith
which reposes, somewhat ignorantly, in the judgment or
the authority of others. All these forms of judgment may
evince, under differing circumstances, the various shades
of the virtue of trueness. Dogmatism is the arrogant and
unreasoning attitude of mind, in judgment, toward the
facts and principles of Reality. No doubt, the dogmatist
habitually has his reasons to offer; and they may appear
convincing to him and to his coterie, if to no others. And
to be alone with The True One in one's judgment may he
more virtuous than to agree with the world's multitude
against Him. But he who is in this position of seem-
ing isolation from his fellow men, or in any position re-
sembling it, escapes the vice of dogmatism so long as he
keeps free from arrogance, however firm in his opinions,
and remains ever willing and striving to know the truth,
however this new truth may disturb or contradict his past
opinions.

In politics, and in all the judgments which prevail among
the different classes. Partisanship is the most mischievous
form of the vice of untrueness. Lies here and there are

VIRTUES OF THE JUDGMENT 305

mischievous enough; no one but an all-seeing Providence
can foretell how long and how far their mischief will spread
over the sphere of the liar's selfhood and over the sphere of
society. Habitual tolerated trickery, when it permeates the
multitude, is worse in its effects. But, sometimes in amus-
ing as well as appalling ways, the evils of this form of the
vice come almost constantly to correct themselves. In parts
of the Orient everybody knows that everybody else is lying ;
but everybody has come pretty correctly to conjecture what
everybody else truly means by the lie that he is telling. To
escape from the practical evils of the vice without taking
part in it requires time and patience; it is, indeed, quite
impossible for the inexpert foreign traveller. But in its
practical mischief the vice of partisanship is worst of all.
It is bitter in spirit and coupled with all injustice of judg-
ment. It inevitably expresses itself in methods of action
which join all the vices of cowardice, unwisdom, and un-
kindness, in one amalgamation of baseness. Inasmuch as
it unites men in masses, so that each individual rather
accentuates than corrects the untrue judgments of every
other, it is of all forms of falsehood the most dangerous to
the civic welfare and to the national life. On the other
hand, it is the man who remains true to his ideal of man-
hood, and, while benevolently inclined to join with others
in every good cause, steadfastly refuses to join with any,
or with all, in efforts to debase this ideal, — it is such a
man, who is both most truly virtuous in his own Self and
most truly valuable in his social relations.

The forms of expression which the true judgment re-
ceives, whether in speech, or in gesture, or in more elaborate
action, are manifold; they give rise to many complicated
and difficult ethical problems. The virtue which we have
been considering is a virtue of judgment; it is the virtue
of trueness, and its opposite is found in the different forms
of untrue judgment. But what is customarily understood

306 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

by deceit, falsehood, or lying, has to do with the voluntary
failure to make the expression correspond with the judgment
itself. These failures are, of course, a species of conduct.
But as has already been pointed out, the vices which the
failures really evince are often, perhaps ordinarily, of
another kind; they are cowardice, greed, some unlawful
desire, love of applause, etc. It is most important, then,
briefly to notice how dependent the form and number of
such vicious actions is upon the civic and social environ-
ment. Attention has already been called (p. 296 f.) to the
fact that, in Aristotle's scheme, truthfulness appears as the
virtue especially of the gentleman, the man of honor who
does not need to degrade himself by telling a falsehood.
Truthfulness goes with wittiness and modesty. It is the
consciousness of superiority which makes the man out-
spoken. ^ In fact there is much truth in this view. Many
powerful influences, both direct and indirect, may be traced
between the civil and political constitution of any com-
munity and the character and amount of falsehood prevalent
in the community. Between the tyrant, or the irresponsible
government and its subjects, falsehood is inevitable; thus
Oriental intrigue and lying are largely due to wrong civic
relations. In a constitutional but aristocratic government,
the gentry are in general truthful ; they have little tempta-
tion to be false, and truthfulness is a primary virtue and
point of honor with them. In a mercantile community, a
certain amount of truthfulness is necessary; but as the
spirit of greed grows, and rivalry becomes more intense, the
various forms of deceit grow more elaborate and seductive ;
until the experience of the race in its efforts to get the start
of the great, abiding, and worthy realities repeats itself, and
the Arabian and Wolof proverbs come true again: "The liar
is short-lived ; " and " Lies, though many, will be caught by
Truth, as soon as she rises up." So far, however, as the

1 Nic. Eth., IV, iii, 29.

VIRTUES OF THE JUDGMENT 807

essential spirit of Trueness, as well as of Justness, is con-
cerned, the modern Commercialism, when unmodified by
the, at least, indirect influences of Christian benevolence,
is every whit as cruel, false, and unscrupulous as was the
ancient or mediasval greed of Empire.

What kinds and degrees of deceit, if any, are consistent
with the Virtuous Life ? and, Is lying ever justifiable ? —
these are questions which it belongs to casuistry to raise and
to discuss. But the essential nature of that virtue of the
judgment which is called trueness enables one to make the
following observations looking toward the success of any
attempt to answer them.

1. Trueness, in the higher meaning of the word, is one
of the most unqualified of all the virtues. Indeed, if one
considers that all right conduct, and all estimate of the
Tightness of conduct depends upon true judgment, one may
affirm that this virtue is of all most absolute. All the
virtues are essentially various forms of the voluntary con-
formity of the Self to its Ideal; they are all, therefore,
different ways of being true to some type or principle, — so
far as such trueness depends upon ourselves.

2. But trueness, as a virtue of the judgment, requires
courage, temperance, constancy, wisdom, justness, kind-
ness, in its own expression, — whether the expression be in
the form of speech, or in some other form of action; and
trueness does not require intemperate, unwise, or unjust
expression of its own judgment. So that to secure its own
proper influence, and even to make its own essential excel-
lence apparent, this virtue must somehow be combined with,
and qualified by, certain other virtues. Concealment of the
judgment may, then, either be a virtue, or it may be a con-
temptible form of vice ; and only good judgment, which is a
form of conduct, and oftentimes equivalent to natural or
acquired tact, can decide between the reasons for concealing,
and the reasons for revealing, any true judgment.

308 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

3. The true interpretation of any expression of judgment,
the understanding of the speech or other action of another,
is always a somewhat doubtful, and often an extremely diffi-
cult matter. No amount of trueness in one man's judgment,
or fidelity and care in the expression of the judgment, can
furnish security against other men's blundering, mistaken,
or perverted interpretation. There is often wisdom, too, in
"answering a fool according to his folly," if you answer him
at all. To a certain extent, moreover, which can never be
determined antecedently, and can never be determined at all
with much approach to accuracy, all good and truthful men
must allow themselves to be falsely interpreted, whether
they speak or remain silent, whether they act upon their
judgment or think fit to suspend action while remaining in
the same true judgment.

4. There are certain matters, and many times, when one's
conduct cannot be altered on moral grounds in view of the
fact that it is certain to be misunderstood. One cannot be
decent or virtuous, in a social environment constructed as
that of man actually is, without concealing many things ; and
concealing in not a few instances is tantamount to deceiving.

5. Where those who carry the utilitarian or teleological
conception of the virtue of truthfulness to its extreme are
ready to justify deceit, or even lying, this justification, so
long as it is in any sense of the word a moral affair, consists
in qualifying this particular virtue by some other virtue. In
wisdom or kindness or justice toward others, they hold, one
may deceive or tell lies ; perhaps sometimes one even ought
to tell a lie, or two, in the interests of these other virtues.
But few moralists in any age have been found ready to claim
that those popular sayings which praise the benefits of un-
truthfulness to the seeker for the goods of life have any
standing at the bar of a refined moral consciousness. We
have here, then, in another form, a question of casuistry,
a problem arising from a seeming conflict of duties.

VIKTUES OF THE JUDGMENT 309

6. Once more, there undoubtedly is always a certain feel-
ing of moral degradation attaching itself to the personality
of one who, for any reason, however praiseworthy the
reason in itself may be, has told a lie. The more exalted
the virtue of truthfulness has been in the estimate of such a
person, the more violent the wrench, the more pitiful the
feeling of self-depression, which follow yielding to the most
approved motives for lying. It is the nun who has never
lied, who, in Victor Hugo's Les Mis^rables, becomes the
heroine for her self-sacrificing benevolence in telling just this
one lie in the interests of another person. The angels drop
a tear on the record to wash it away. Moralists debate and
perhaps end by justifying it ; at any rate all pity the doer
and perhaps condone the deed. But none glory in it as
we glory in the conduct of the man who dies himself rather
than tell a base and selfish lie.

The man, then, who uses all his powers of judgment in
the interests of good conduct, is the man of the Virtuous
Life, so far as qualities of judgment can go. In his estimate
of the ends of life, and of the means for their attainment,
he is wise. In his apportionment of the goods and evils of
life to the different individual selves with whom he has rela-
tions, he is just. In his own mental attitude of judgment
toward all the facts and principles of reality, he is true.
Being wise, and just, and true, in all matters of judgment,
he is the good man whom the universal moral consciousness
of his fellows must approbate and esteem " worthy of being
treated accordingly. "

CHAPTER XIII

VIRTUES OF FEELING: KINDNESS, SYMPATHY, ETC.

The virtues of the class which await consideration differ
in some important respects from those of the two classes
which have already been discussed. The differences are, for
the most part, due to two causes ; first, to the character of
the psychological source or mainspring of these virtues ; and
second, to the relation which the virtues themselves, consid-
ered as forms of conduct, sustain to the individual's social en-
vironment. Certain modes of behavior originate mainly in
the affectional and sentimental nature of man (" the heart,"
das GemutK) ; and these modes of behavior, coming under the
guidance of judgment and the control of the will, institute and
sustain a great variety of powerful and valuable relations, of a
general character called friendly^ among men. Such virtues
are, therefore, pre-eminently social in the narrower mean-
ing of the word. I say in the narrower meaning of the word
social ; for we have already seen that, in the broader and truer
meaning of the same word, there neither are, nor can be, any
virtues or vices which are not social.

It should be observed, first, that the affectional and senti-
mental origin of this class of virtues makes difficult, if not
quite impossible, any clear definition of their characteristic
marks. It is now, for example, almost universally acknowl-
edged in the ethically more highly developed communities,
that kindness is due to men generally, and that it is to be
morally approbated and deemed worthy of reward for its
meritoriousness. But what is it to be kind ? The feeling to
which one must appeal in order to get any basic fact in

VIRTUES OF FEELING 811

human experience for an answer to such a question as this,
does not admit of definition. It is what it is, as feeling ; and
to know what this particular feeling really is, it is necessary
that it should actually be felt. But the theory of morals as
applied to the description of every cardinal virtue refuses to
regard mere feeling as coming up to the full standard of those
characteristics that are required of every claimant to the title.
This theory very promptly and properly introduces a distinc-
tion between merely having kindly feeling and being truly
kind, — or exercising the full-orbed grace of virtuous kindness.
For such kindness, judgment is necessary ; and, as well, the
volition which, as it were, appropriates and makes the Selfs
very own, the spontaneous kindly feeling. " Good nature," for
example, is a potent and praiseworthy source of virtuous con-
duct ; but he who good-naturedly tosses a coin to a beggar
is not, as a matter of course, virtuous, — especially, if he
owes that coin to his family or to some other cause. It is
necessary that the natural feeling of kindness should be vol-
untary and subjected to rational judgment in order to convert
it into the cardinal yet qualified virtue whicli it may become.
That there are natural feelings of kindness, sympathy, be-
nevolence, and self-sacrificing love, scarcely need be ques-
tioned anew at the present time. Aristotle was, like all the
ancient Greek and Latin world, far enough from recognizing
the highest form of the virtues of this class, such as the en-
thusiasm of humanity, the principled love of all mankind.
But he was too keen and observing a psychologist not to
notice how " Love seems to be implanted by nature in the
parent towards the offspring, and in the offspring towards the
parent, not only among men but also among birds and most
animals ; and in those of the same race toward one another,
among men especially — for which reason we commend those
who love their fellow-men. And when one travels one may
see how man is always akin to and dear to man." ^ That

1 Nic. Eth., Vni, i, 3.

812 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

outcome of sensationalism and egoism in psychology which
prevailed at one time among certain English and French
writers on ethics, and which thought to show that all these
obviously kindly, sympathetic and friendly forms of human
feeling are only sly and indirect forms of selfishness, and that
the different species of conduct to which the feelings give rise
are only concealed ways of seeking one's own good, — jejune
and unproductive as it always was — is now so deservedly ex-
tinct as to require only a passing reference. It is interesting
to remark, however, how the successors of this psychological
system are at present among those most interested to make
out that certain spontaneous feelings belonging to our com-
mon human nature are distinctively (and even exclusively)
altruistic. Indeed, " sympathy " is the term which some of
these writers employ as fit to summarize all those impulses
of humanity in which the social virtues have their origin and
their support.

Kindness, sympathy, and various forms of affection and
friendship undoubtedly belong by birthright to the nature of
man. They are as essential impulses in his soul as are the
impulses to anger, fear, pride, and jealousy. Indeed, the two
classes of impulses, when one attempts to classify them as
two, and apart, appear so to interpenetrate, modify each other,
and fuse together in complex emotional states, as to be prac-
tically indistinguishable, if considered as furnishing motives
to deeds and courses of conduct. The affection of the sexes,
for example, often manifests itself as jealousy ; and, indeed,
in not a few instances it feeds upon this passion. Much
anger and pride are sympathetic, and belong to the social life
of the community, whether domestic, tribal, or national.
The various affections of family, tribe, and state foster no
little anger and pride. To be proud, without sufficient reason,
of the object of our love, is quite as natural as to love that
which ministers to our pride. And there is no fiercer, as
well as more rational anger, than that which burns against

VIRTUES OF FEELING 313

the person who attacks a beloved member of one's own social
or friendly alliance. These kindly outgoings of the human
spirit belong as truly to man in a ''state of nature*' (if by
a state of nature be meant any condition in which human
existence is historically recognizable, or even conceivable in
view of an accurate psychological analysis) as do any of his
passions, emotions, or desires.

On the other hand, it cannot be denied that, in some re-
spects, the virtues of the heart are not so fundamental and
essential to mere existence, or to the earliest stages of man's
moral evolution, as are the cardinal virtues of the will and of
the judgment. Courage, a certain amount of temperance and
of wisdom, and some rude justice, can perhaps less easily be
dispensed with, when man is making his first start toward the
ideal of virtuous life, than can kindness, generosity, or the love
of man as man. To be sure, one cannot fail to recognize a
certain large truth in Aristotle's ^ declaration : " If citizens be
friends, they have no need of justice, but though they be just,
they need friendship or love also ; indeed, the completest
realization of justice seems to be the realization of friendship
or love also." But even the truth of this declaration seems
to confirm the truth of what has just been said. Man cannot
exercise the virtue of the higher justice without rendering to
other men that kindly, sympathetic, and friendly service
which is their due. And friendship is needed to satisfy a
yearning which is native to every human soul, — except, per-
haps, the most callous and degraded. There is, moreover, a
profound and powerful ethical truth in the declaration that —
" Love is the fulfilling of the law," in its essence and its
entirety. But it is also true that the virtues of the heart
flourish upon a basis laid by the sterner and less lovable
virtues of courage, prudence, and a rude but sturdy form of
protective and retributive justice.

It is true, however, that some degree and form of the

1 Nic. Eth., VIII, i, 4.

314 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

virtues of feeling is found and appreciated at all the lower
levels of moral evolution. A certain prizing, and even a
relatively large amount of practice, of these virtues is often
found among savage peoples. For no savages are all the
while engaged in hating, killing, and abusing others — in-
cluding those of their own household or tribe. Many savages
are, on the contrary, quite habitually kind, generous, and
friendly, not only to those of their own tribe, but also to
strangers. One of the saddest things about the effect of
contact with the evil representatives of peoples who have
attained an advance of civilization that permits so-called
" benevolence " largely to take the place of protective and
punitive justice is this, it too often destroys the more simple
and confiding forms of friendly feeling among savage peoples.
What M. Rose says is true of his own countrymen with respect
to their influence upon other savage virtues is too often true
of so-called superior races generally in their influence upon
the hospitality, generosity, and kindliness of inferior races:
" The people are simple and confiding when we arrive, per-
fidious when we leave them. Once sober, brave, and honest,
we make them drunken, lazy, and finally thieves. After
having inoculated them with our vices, we employ these very
vices as an argument for their destruction." ^

Among the more warm-blooded races, however low in the
scale of civilization, there is usually a large amount of the
various forms of natural affection. Even where polygamy
abounds, or concubinage is most unrestricted, affection be-
tween the sexes is not wanting. Nor do abortion, the expos-
ure and murder of children, and other similar kinds of crime
against offspring, do away with that instinctive and powerful
love which binds the parent — especially the mother — to the
child. But particularly is hospitality counted to be essential
among the virtues of manhood ; and the ties of friendly feeling
everywhere bind men together — master and servant, chief and
1 Quoted by Quatrefages, The Human Species, p. 462.

VIRTUES OF FEELING 315

retainer, old man and youth, tribesman with member of the
same tribe — in a way to mitigate and sweeten the hardships
and cruelties of the struggle for existence and for the posses-
sion of the goods of life. The Tongan chiefs, according to
Mariner, were familiar with the value of " the agreeable and
happy feelings which a man experiences within himself when
he does any good action and conducts himself nobly and gen-
erously as a man ought to do." " A good name makes one
sleep well " ; and '' A lent knife does not come back alone '*
(^. e., a good deed is never thrown away), say the Basutos
of South Africa, — while the lofty ancient morality of the
Persians proclaims : " The liberal man is the friend of God " ;
and, '' Practise liberality, but lay no stress on the obligation."
Even our own savage and cruel ancestors who, not many
generations ago, spared "the bairn that is on the floor" (is
born) only when the father had caused it to be lifted up,
prized the " pure virtue " of hospitality and enjoyed no little
of " romantic love " in the marital relations of the sexes.

It has already been said that kindness as spontaneous and
natural feeling cannot be further analyzed or, strictly speak-
ing, defined ; but its various manifestations, as these depend
either upon the social relations under which the feeling comes
into play, or upon the condition of the object toward whom
the feeling goes out, require some separate mention. Of
such relations the following three deserve chiefly to be con-
sidered : (1) the relations of the family ; (2) the relations of
the tribe, or other form of social community ; and (3) the
peculiar relations which come under the term of friendship,
in the narrower meaning of this word. In adopting this
order I do not intend to raise the question whether the family
or the tribe is the oldest social organization.

The physical and mental constitution of man and woman
is such that any sexual union, when continued and repeated,
necessarily develops feelings either of affection or of repul-
sion. So true is this that it is only under the most un-

316 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

favorable conditions, and where sexual intercourse is most
unregulated by law or custom, and most brutish, that the
human pair do not feel the happy impulse to some degree of
distinguishing kindly feeling toward each other. Were it
not that so many other influences, both among savage and
highly civilized peoples, tend to counteract this impulse, it
would probably be quite generally true that husbands and
wives would love each other, — and this, whether the affec-
tion were left to follow upon marriage or were made to
precede it. Mothers naturally tend to feel a peculiar kind-
ness toward their offspring; and amongst the cruellest of
savages the pride and affection of the father in his son,
whenever this son has grown to an age to reciprocate the
simpler forms of intercourse, manifest themselves in not a few
important ways. Members of the same family — brothers and
sisters, daughters-in-law and mothers-in-law, etc. — doubtless
quarrel frequently and bitterly enough even in the most re-
fined and Christian communities ; but, after all, membership
in the same family, however the family may be constituted
and however much its confines may be enlarged, is the one
form of affection which ties society together at its very base,
so to say. Witness the amazing strength of the mixed and
ill-defined Hindu family, both for offensive and for defensive
purposes, in spite of the wide-spreading evil of family jealous-
ies, bickerings, and strifes. In China, too, the cement which
unites the various heterogeneous interests of the social fabric is
a sort of loyal affection for the family and the clan. I have
heard it said by one of those most familiar with Chinese char-
acter that one can never judge the individual by himself as
either so good or so bad as he seems to be. He is always,
in his most fundamental and effective characteristics, a mem-
ber of the family or clan. In spite of the large amount
of insincerity, jealousy, and even cruelty which are prevalent
among the different members of the same family or clan,
*' filial piety," as they understand it, continues to be both the-

VIRTUES OF FEELING 317

oreticallj and practically a force which mitigates the selfish
struggle for existence among the Chinese. Every one familiar
with the history of " Old Japan " knows how much of virtuous
conduct, in spite of exceedingly loose notions of the morality
of sexual relations, came from the reciprocal affections of
those who bore the same family name, or who owed allegiance
to the same Daimyo.

To ethnology and the history of ethical development the
student of the philosophy of conduct may confidently appeal
to show how valuable, and how universal and effective, are
these kindlier affections, and the virtues which grow out of
them, among the different tribes and other subdivisions of the
human race. When the common social life and social inter-
ests have spread themselves over the larger and ever widening
circles of men, the power of the friendly feelings, in general,
is yet more obvious. It is never merely selfish interest, and
rarely, if ever, the merely natural reaction of courageous
anger against attack, which enlists the members of the same
tribe or larger community in a common cause. It is rather
also because they have sympathy with one another ; because
even they, in some rude and imperfect fashion, obey the
Divine command, as brethren to love one another. The idea
of brotherhood, however, extends only to the one bound up in
the same bundle, in respect of his notions, customs, language,
loves, and even prejudices and hates. But, alas ! how few in
the most Christian nations have really any higher conception
of the brotherhood of man than just this !

There is something yet more imposing and in some sort
mysterious about the love of friendship in the more restricted
and positive meaning of this word. This peculiar form of
love, although it is by no means identical with the affection
which ties together the members of the same family, clan,
or tribe, may be added to domestic or tribal affection, and so
constitute a double cord for human souls. Where it exists
between husband and wife, it may outlast, and outstrip in self-

318 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

denying service and in mutual reward, the relations peculiar
to the two sexes; where it binds brothers and sisters to-
gether, it is a much more durable and purer bond than mere
consanguinity. Where it exists in its noblest form, as
between good souls who desire to have, and are able to have,
suitable converse with each other, and whose motive for love
is pure, friendship is the finest and most elevating of human
affections. The mysterious nature of this bond, as respects
both its origin and also the character of the persons between
whom it can properly exist, or exist in fact at all, has been
the subject of debate for centuries. Aristotle was forced to
say : ^ " There are not a few differences of opinion about the
matter." In his day some said the principle of choice is
"Like to like," as "Crow to crow;" but others even then
reminded the inquirer how "Potter quarrels with potter, and
carpenter with carpenter" (Kal Kepa^ev<i Kepafiel Koreet koI

TeKTOVb T6KTC0v),

With all the psychological analysis which has been given
to the causation of friendship, and all the instruction and
exhortation which the duty of carefully choosing one's
friends has very properly received, little more is known
about the subject than was recognized in the writings of
Plato and Aristotle. The former makes Socrates say at the
close of the Lysis : " Here is a jest ; you two boys, and I, an
old boy, who would fain be one of you, imagine ourselves to
be friends, and we have not as yet been able to discover what
is a friend."

In spite of the truth of Jowett's remark ^ that Socrates
allows himself " to be carried away by a sort of eristic or
illogical logic," the notions which "appear to be struggling
or balancing in the mind of Socrates " are not yet easy to
harmonize: namely, "First, the sense that friendship arises
out of human needs and wants; Secondly, that the higher

1 Nic. Eth., Vm, i, 6.

2 Introduction to the Lysis, The Dialogues of Plato, vol. L

VIRTUES OF FEELING 319

form or ideal of friendship exists only for the sake of the
good. " What more does this amount to, however, than the
opinion that, if one considers this form of friendly feeling
between human beings, one finds it capable of becoming
either a vicious and injurious or a virtuous and most benefi-
cent form of conduct. It is also a form of conduct which is
all the more powerful for weal or for woe in the development
of morals, whether in the case of the individual or of society,
because it so grasps hold of all the springs of action and
brings them all to bear together either toward, or away from,
the ideal of the Virtuous Life. Witness the frequency in all
times with which friends have sacrificed themselves for one
another, whether in a good cause or in a bad one, have com-
mitted suicide together, or have cheerfully laid down their
lives in common devotion to the same end.

Satisfactory oif-hand explanations cannot be given as to
why two human beings come to acknowledge the ties of
friendship in their more or less binding form. Learned and
unlearned, master and slave, royalty and peasant, man and
man, or man and woman, or woman and woman, youth and
youth, or youth and age, those of kindred blood and common
country, and those as alien as possible in blood and of
countries hostile to each other, have become faithful and
devoted friends. For the forces in human nature that induce
friendship are an exceedingly complex affair; and whether
in any particular case the existence of intense friendly feel-
ing is due chiefly to contiguity, or to likeness of interests and
tastes, or to the need of being supplemented, or to the quite
common yearning for appreciation or for affection, or to
something that is either too fortuitous or too profound in
character or in circumstance to be reached by external in-
spection, can never be determined a priori. Nor should
much importance be attached to rules for defining the duty
of the individual in respect to the making of friendships; —
especially, perhaps, if such rules are conceived in a spirit

320 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

too narrow and Puritanic. For the casuistry of friendship,
too, is very complex. Bad characters are by no means
always helped, even if they can be induced to form a sort of
self-interested friendship with good men. Characters with
bad tendencies already established may be either improved or
injured by unselfish friendships with others not much better
than themselves. Good men are undoubtedly sometimes
made worse by friendships with the vicious; but, on the
other hand, there is no so potent human influence to make
the vicious better as to make them feel the friendship — not
the formal " benevolence " or the so-called " charity " of the
good. In a word, the beneficial or deleterious results of
friendships depend in general upon the relations which the
friendly alliances themselves sustain to the pursuit of the
ideal of the Virtuous Life.

Among the forms taken by kindly feeling, as dependent
upon the condition of its object, in the lower stages of man's
ethical development, the more prominent are Hospitality
and Pity. The former is undoubtedly partly of a utilitarian
origin and character, and partly connected with the gratifi-
cation of either a noble or an ignoble pride. It is in eating
and drinking together that men's friendly feelings are apt
to be aroused and enhanced, and their hatred cooled and
ameliorated. Quite universally the stranger and even the
enemy, when received as a guest to the dwelling-place, tent
or house, is considered to have the most sacred claims to
protection from injury. And, for whatever motive (the
honor of Jehovah, or the good of his people, not excepted)
to do as Jael did to Sisera (Judges iv.) is a most heinous
crime. When the host is himself poor and needy, he feels
the virtue of his hospitality all the more keenly because he
is sharing with his guest the small portion of food and the
meagre lodging which is the just and rightful property only
of his own family. But where the host is rich or princely,
a liberal and even magnificent display of hospitality, al-

VIRTUES OF FEELING 321

though it does not enhance the virtuousness of the friendly
feeling, ministers to a not wholly ignoble kind of pride.
Not to treat one's guest according to one's ability to comfort
and to please him would be, in such a case, a positive and
mean vice. As regards the practice of this virtue also I
may refer to ethnic and historical studies to show in de-
tail the many curious and interesting customs which have
grown up in various communities from the root of this
friendly feeling; and, as well, what great benefits have
accrued from the ancient and wide-spreading practice of
hospitality, in the way of ameliorating the condition of men
and of cultivating the spirit of humanity and love. Even
among savages this virtue is esteemed. As Wundt has said : ^
"In the Greek world this high regard for hospitality goes
back to the very earliest times. The Odyssey counts Ulys-
ses' unrivalled hospitality to the coming and the departing
guest as one of his chief virtues. " The duties of hosts (f eVot)
are placed by Aristotle among the virtues of "accidental
friendship.'* Among the Germanic peoples Grimm quotes
ancient ordinances which imposed a penalty upon the house-
hold who refused shelter and fireside to the traveller. " Even
if the guest had slain the brother of his host " — no matter ;
he must come and go in safety. This hospitality was in
time extended so as to cover the travelling merchant; it
thus became the early protector of commerce. Of Chaucer's
franklin we read that his

"... table dormant in his halle alway
Stood redy covered al the longe day."

This virtuous friendly feeling, when combined with a sense
of honor, has led to such heroic deeds as those of the
Gepidae, who refused to give up a guest at the command of
Justinian and so suffered themselves to be ruined. At the

1 Ethics, I, p 286, f. ; and comp. Buchholz, Homerische Realen, II, 2, pp.
38 fE. ; and III, 2, pp. 361 f ., as cited by Wundt.

322 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

present time, in the more civilized communities, the preva-
lent commercial spirit has produced everywhere the attitude
which makes the traveller the legitimate object of every
kind of plunder; while the progress of the humanitarian
spirit consigns the tramp either to the station-house or to
the " charities' home." This may be just; it is perhaps
inevitable. But it should not lead the student of morals
either to flatter unjustly his own generation, or to overlook
the part which the ruder forms of the virtue of hospitality
have formerly played in the development both of commerce
and of benevolence.

Pity is the form which kindly feeling takes when its
object is suffering. The feeling of pity is natural ; and in
spite of the curse of, and almost the necessity for, unspeak-
able cruelties in all the earlier stages of the evolution of the
race, there are never and nowhere wanting traces of this
feeling. The physically lower and savage peoples un-
doubtedly show an astonishing indifference to suffering.
Physiologically considered, they are relatively incapable of
suffering; they are from their earliest existence inured to
bear it, and to take pride in concealing or even in despising
it. Of this hardened attitude toward the sufferings of others,
which is largely conditioned upon the absence of nerves and
the custom of seeing and bearing what to more highly
sensitive nervous organizations would be intolerable, the
Chinese are perhaps the most conspicuous example among
civilized peoples. But where the human heart becomes
sensitive to the pain or misfortune of others, unless selfish-
ness or hatred interpose to pervert or alter the natural
feeling, pity is the emotion which is spontaneous for man
toward man, and even toward the animals. Anger, jealousy,
desire for revenge, as well as insensibility, prevent the feel-
ing and its expression. The cultivated virtues of courage,
wisdom, and justice, not infrequently have to control and
divert it. But pity itself, in turn, powerfully modifies them.

VIRTUES OF FEELING 823

And when, chastened with wisdom and tempered by justice,
the virtue of pity takes its highest possible form, it is one
of the most divine, as it is always one of the most difficult,
of all the human virtues.

The use of the word Sympathy suggests a conception
which seems too comprehensive and fundamental to fit well
any particular form of virtuous conduct. Indeed, the prin-
ciple of sympathy, when joined with the principle of imita-
tion, gives the psychological explanation of a considerable
portion of the experiences witnessed in the earlier stages
of the ethical development of the individual and of the race.
In action, whether merely expressive or designed to accom-
plish some ulterior end, men imitate each other ; in feeling,
whether their own interests are quite directly or only in an
imaginary way involved, men sympathize with each other.
Imitation and sympathy co-operate with each other to impel
in certain common directions all the emotional impulses and
motor activities of groups of men. Thus are secured the
more spontaneous and unthinking forms of conduct common
to considerable multitudes. All wise, just, and truly
benevolent co-operation with one's fellows, in good causes,
represents a later stage of ethical development; but it is
rendered by his nature inevitable that man, on learning to
interpret and to employ his motor powers through the prin-
ciple of imitation, should be instructed and quickened in all
the different forms of sympathetic feeling with others.

Indeed, by a not unwarrantable and suggestive extension
in the application of this principle it is possible to make
sympathy serve as the explanation of all the so-called altru-
istic side of human nature, and of the whole extent of the
foundations upon which human society rests. Among the
lower animals similar influences seem to prevail. The
" feeling of the kind, " the feeling with the species, is every-
where a generic rather than a particular form of feeling. It
is that broad yet subtile emotion of kinship which, while it

324 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

is no one specific form of emotion, is the emotional basis
for all the specific forms. If ants will not tolerate ants of
another hill, or bees those of another hive, because they do
not smell or otherwise seem like those of their own kindred,
the sympathetic attractions and repulsions of the higher
animals, and especially of human beings, are more complex
and decisive as to terms of friendly intercourse. Where
the physical features of different peoples, or their habits of
dress and of behavior, or their manner of gesture and their
written and spoken language, are markedly unlike, it is the
more difficult to persuade both mind and heart that this
feeling of sympathy is legitimate — not to say, virtuous. A
monkey, or a fox, or a bulldog, or some one of another
species quite different from one's own ;— why ought one to
sympathize with it as tliough it were of one's own kinship ?
Thus, even until the present time and in spite of all the
experience of travel and commerce, and all the instructions
of art and of philosophy, and all the commands and exhorta-
tions of religion, the Oriental and the Occidental fail to
exercise the virtue of sympathy with each other ; and black,
white, and yellow. Englishman, Frenchman, German, and
Russian, find it difficult to extend over one another the
mantle of a just and sweet kindliness of feeling.

But in the narrow confines within which the natural feel-
ing of kinship — sympathy, in the broader meaning of the
word — exercises its legitimate power, the specific virtue of
sympathy springs up and extends itself toward all those who
share the title to be considered of one kind. And as men
come to know that man is essentially the same on whatever
hemisphere you find him, and of whatever color, and to
whatever nationality his allegiance may belong, the virtue
of sympathy follows in the path of the natural feeling of
kinship. Thus this virtue leads the way to the supreme
form of virtuous feeling, — namely, a courageous, just, and
wise benevolence.

VIRTUES OF FEELING 325

The natural feeling of sympathy tends to bring men into
accord along all the different lines of the particular forms
of feeling. I have already remarked that anger, fear, pride,
etc., are subject, in general, to the influence of the principle
of sympathy (see p. 75 f.). The same thing is, of course, true
of pity, love, admiration, joy, hope, and all the loftier and
finer sentiments and aspirations of humanity. To " rejoice
with them that do rejoice " is as truly a mark of sympathy as
to " weep with them that weep. " Indeed, there is a certain
truth in Perty's remark* that "it is no fine feature of
our nature that most men are much more inclined to sympa-
thetic suffering with others' misfortune than to sympathetic
joy with others' good fortune. " As respects both the psy-
chological nature of this virtue and also the cultivation and
exercise of it, the feeling of sympathy depends largely upon
a cultivated imagination. One can feel with others only
when one is able to imagine how others feel. And here is
one of the several points at which the feeling comes, so to
say, into relation to the will. For the cultivation of the
imagination so as to be able to "put one's self into the
other's place," if done with a view thus to realize the ideal
of virtuous living, is itself a virtuous action; and it also
makes possible the virtue of a more complete sympathy.
Nor can the connection of such culture of mind and heart
with the virtue of justice be long kept out of sight. Without
the virtue of sympathy the "higher justice" is impossible.

That the natural feeling of kinship, the feeling of the
species, develops among the rudest savages into the virtue
of sympathy, there can be no doubt. The range of the virtue
may be narrow, the limitations obvious, but the reality of
the manifestation is unmistakable. " Primitive man," says
Wundt,2 "can be sympathetic, helpful, even self-sacrificing,
when his comrade is in danger : he is incapable of an action
whose results will not benefit some one of his acquaintance,

1 Anthropologie, I, p. 298. 2 Ethics, I, p. 263 f.

326 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

still more of conduct that does not aim to assist any indi-
vidual whatever." But this concrete, personal character of
the earlier manifestation belongs to all the virtues ; and the
reasons for it will appear more clearly hereafter. It is
largely, however, caused by the narrow range of interests to
which the so-called " primitive man " is susceptible, and by
the limited character of his knowledge and the imperfect
working of his imagination.

Out of a half-savage hospitality toward the stranger, pity
toward the suffering, and sympathy with those most closely
kin, the noble and inclusive virtue of benevolence has been
evolved. The influences which have chiefly contributed to
this evolution are two : philosophy and art, on the one hand,
and, on the other hand, religion — especially Christianity,
Thus as the range of human acquaintanceship extends, the
reasons, motives, and sanctions for the extension of the
natural feelings of friendliness and sympathy are provided;
and what is with primitive and savage man possible only
over an exceedingly narrow circle of his fellow-beings, on
account both of his ignorance and of his own low grade of
moral development, becomes possible over the ever widening
circle of mankind, and even of other personal existences in
whose capacity for fellowship man comes to believe.

Philosophy and art have undoubtedly rendered a real ser-
vice in the evolution of that supreme virtue of the feeling
which is called Benevolence. This service has been accom-
plished by elevating and expanding the conception which
man holds of his own nature and destiny. Philosophy and
art have been powerful historical forces to teach mankind
to recognize the better and the worthier Self. They have
always, on the whole, emphasized the permanent values of
life. True, they have in not a few instances ministered
to what is sensuous and opposed to the interests of moral
development; but religion has also — even more frequently
than philosophy and art — had this same ethically degrading

VIRTUES OF FEELING 327

effect. For a degraded ethical condition will pull down and
abuse the ministrations of all the otherwise illumining and
elevating energies of man. But, in general, and in the
historic process of unfolding human life, all these three —
philosophy, art, and religion — have powerfully co-operated
to raise and reinforce the ideals of the spirit.

Philosophy, as soon as it applies its instrument of reflec-
tive thinking to man himself — his origin, nature, and prob-
able destiny — begins everywhere the search for the uni-
versal and the permanent. It seeks the universal and the
permanent amidst the individual and changeable facts of
experience; and it finds what it seeks. It makes the
discovery that slaves, strangers, and even barbarians are
also men; it discerns in them also those marks that
are common to the members of the philosopher's own
household and nation and circle of friends. Before this
conception of man as man has been formed in some intelli-
gent and comprehensive fashion, the spirit of kindliness
and sympathy has no sure dwelling-place. It wanders like
the dove over the face of the dreary waters and returns,
tired out, to its own little ark. Philosophy, whose spirit is
— quite contrary to notions that are always widely popular
but are based upon ignorance and prejudice — not proud and
exclusive, but always more genial and condescending than
that of the unreflecting crowd, reveals man to himself as a
being of worth. Philosophy customarily estimates the
value of man much higher than does commerce, or the civil
government, whose officers are ever ready to sacrifice the
multitudes to themselves, or to the popular opinion. Even in
the case of those religions which have contributed so much
to the awakening and spread of benevolent feeling, it is the
conceptions of man's origin, nature, and destiny, which they
share with philosophy, that give to this feeling, and to the
beneficent works which flow from the feeling, the sound and
permanent rational basis they possess. Indeed, unless the

828 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

philosophical basis of any religion is sound and its spirit
and efforts are directed to right ethical ends, that religion
increases hate rather than good will among mankind.

Through art also, and especially in the form of poetry,
man comes to a knowledge and appreciation of his own
higher selfhood. The feelings awakened and nourished by
the poetical representations of those hopes and fears, those
interests and activities, those insights and mysteries, which
are the common heritage of mankind, tend forcefully and
effectively toward the extension of the friendly and sympa-
thetic side of human nature. Poetry, and in a less degree
other forms of art, has indeed done much to stir and to
foster the warlike spirit, the courage and the enthusiasm
which must become popular if the tribe or the nation is
going to engage heartily in strife against a common foe.
But the war-songs, like the love -songs and the cradle-songs
of other tribes and nations, show to us how essentially like
ourselves these others really are. This truth I will illus-
trate by reference to the exploit of a former pupil and friend
of mine, who, after mastering the dialects of the inhabitants
of sundry South Sea Islands, and becoming recognized as a
friend among them, translated into one of these dialects a
book from the Odyssey and read it to their assembled
chiefs. These savages found the hero of the Homeric
poem a man after their own heart, and greeted his suffer-
ings with pity and his triumphs and his escapes with sym-
pathetic joy.

It is also instructive to notice how poetry and philosophy
have combined to call attention to the conception that all
existences recognize the principles which bind together as
well as those which result in contention and strife. Love,
as well as Hate, or Friendship and Yearning for one another,
as well as Strife and Contention {(^CKottj^ or aropyy, and
vetKo<; or Koroi), seemed to Empedocles a necessary prin-
ciple of all natural objects. And in a sentence quoted by

VIRTUES OF FEELING 829

Aristotle,^ Euripides sees in natural phenomena the apt
illustration of the principle of friendships among men : —

" The parched earth loves the rain,
And the high heaven, with moisture laden, loves
Earthwards to fall."

From a yet higher ethical point of view did Menander sing:
" This is living, not to live for thyself alone " (ToOr' earl to
^rjv fjLTj a-eavTO) ^rjv jxovcp). If modern chemistry finds itself
obliged to recognize the attractions as well as the repulsions
(which are, after all, only superior attractions) of the atoms,
doubtless modern biology will come to see that even the
"struggle for existence," which it has hitherto made so ex-
clusive, is actually modified among the lower animals by the
mysterious far-reaching power of sympathetic feelings and
affections. In the human race, these latter have always been
so influential that we can never consider the evolution of
man as falling in any unqualified way under the current bio-
logical rubric; while, with every extension of the knowledge
of what is of common nature and common value to all men,
the natural feelings of friendliness and sympathy have
tended to expand themselves so as to cover yet wider spheres
of human nature. In the present intercourse of the so-called
" superior races " with those whom they choose to consider
"inferior," there is testimony, though of a mixed pathetic
and ludicrous character, that the former are beginning to
raise again the debate whether the latter are indeed " human "
in the fullest sense of the word. Those whom greed and re-
venge prompt the enlightened {sic) of the race to treat as
though they were not men, the enlightened will try to make
out realli/ are not men. It would not be civilized — not to
say. Christian — to harry and hunt men like squirrels and
rabbits, or tigers and wolves !

It is religion, however, which has been the mightiest

1 Nic. Eth., VIII, i, 6.

330 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

power over the minds of men to foster the growth of the
virtue of benevolence. It is true, but only in the sense in
which we have explained it, that "philanthropy is utterly
foreign to the savage mind." And when the author just
quoted asserts,^ "Humanity in this highest sense was brought
into the world by Christianity, " we must carefully guard our
accord with this assertion so as to make the assertion itself
accord with the facts of history. " Humanity in this highest
sense" is "the sacrifice of self for others, without regard to
difference of class or race." It was undoubtedly the early
Christian religion which raised this virtue of benevolence to
the height of a supreme moral principle and made it effective
in the morally decadent condition of the ancient Roman
Empire. We find the same moral principle, however, rec-
ognized and proclaimed by both of the two most widely
influential religions of the Orient; — recognized and pro-
claimed, indeed, but not alive and effective in any such
manner as to compete successfully with its working among
modern Occidental and Christian peoples. Buddhism in its
earlier days was a most powerful humanizing influence. It
proclaimed a doctrine of friendly feeling and helpful con-
duct, of pity for, and sympathy with, all the suffering and
needy, quite irrespective of differences of class or race.
And in those earlier days it did a vast work for the Oriental
World in spreading a genuine and helpful, if not wholly
enlightened and judicious, spirit of active well-wishing for
all men.

It is true that the religion from which Buddhism was a
revolt contains, in a germinal way, some recognition of the
virtue of benevolence, as self-denial and well-wishing toward
all sorts and conditions of men. In a measure, too, it con-
nects this human virtue with "the power to realize the
loving presence of an individualized Personal God (?) in
everything in the creation. " Even in the extreme case when

1 Wundt, Ethics, I, p. 291.

VIETUES OF FEELING 331

the individual, whose character must determine our active
relations to him in carrying out our well-wishing, is suffer-
ing the inevitable consequences of his own wrong-doing, the
feelings of universal fellowship should not wholly be extin-
guished. " When one person suffers the consequences of his
acts," asks an expounder of the Bhagavad Gita,^ "should his
fellow-brothers stand by and enjoy the spectacle ? Certainly
not. They should, led by feelings of universal fellowship,
do their duty disinterestedly towards the person suffering."
In spite, however, of those nuggets of gold that are hidden
in the various strata of the writings which the Hindu
religion has produced, the practically unbroken reign of
caste, with all its ideas and practices so contradictory of the
virtue of benevolence and of the beneficent practices belong-
ing to this virtue, will remain for a long time the answer to
any claims which its devotees may advance in rivalry of the
claims of Christianity.

An active well-wishing toward all men, with a consistent
self-sacrifice in their behalf, "without regard to difference of
class or race," is made by the Christian religion a cardinal
and quite indispensable duty — a virtue that is the gift of
divine grace, and not to have which is contradictory of the
essential spirit of the religion itself. In a treatise on the
philosophy of conduct there is little or no need, therefore,
to argue the point. But in any treatise on distinctively
Christian ethics there is little else to be done than just this,
— namely, to show how the Christian conception of man
as a child of God, and of God as the loving Father and yet
just Judge of all men, makes rational as an ethical tenet,
and peremptory as a moral command, the virtue of benevo-
lence toward all mankind. Thus religion unites all men, as
brethren, in a common service and a common destiny. In
judging Christianity in this regard, there is no need of

1 Mr. Kishori Lai Sarkar, in The Hindu System of Moral Science, cona-
menting upon chap, xi, 26 and 27.

832 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

doubt. In judging Christian nations, one must encounter
the spectacle of many departures from the Ideal of the Vir-
tuous Life, which are all the more conspicuous, sad, and
blameworthy, because of the nature of this ideal itself.

It is customary to claim for modern commerce a large
share of influence in spreading the spirit of humanitarian-
ism among the nations. But this influence, where it is
favorable to the extension of friendly feelings and sympathy
among men, is mostly indirect ; its more direct and powerful
effects are mostly unfavorable. Commerce with one another
on the part of foreign peoples makes them acquainted ; and
no one can love the man as his fellow whom he does not
know as his fellow man. Thus the virtue of benevolence is
made able to take a wider range. But the narrower spirit
of commercialism is, in the main, distinctly opposed to the
spread of the spirit of well-wishing. If it were only the
fairest of "fair trade" which modern commerce sought to
secure, the result of its efforts would probably continue only
negative or indirect at best. It is not in the interests of
universal well-wishing that men engage in trade with one
another. And when so much of the trade is distinctly not
"fair trade," as is still everywhere the case, it is indeed
questionable whether the indirect benefits, by way of fostering
benevolence, compensate for the direct mischiefs to benevo-
lent manifestations which commerce constantly works. The
past and the present state of the commercial relations be-
tween the Christian nations and China is a fruitful and a
frightful commentary on the charge of moral ineffectiveness
and mischief-making which I am bringing against commerce.
At any rate, one cannot praise commerce, as one can praise
art, philosophy, and religion, for its services in extending
the natural virtues of pity, sympathy, and all manner of
friendly feeling over into that principled love of all man-
kind for which the word " benevolence " is now made to
stand.

VIRTUES OF FEELING 333

What has already been seen to be true of the other car-
dinal virtues now appears emphatically true of the virtue of
benevolence. What, indeed, can society require of the indi-
vidual more than that he should wish well to all his fellows ;
and, of course, carry the well-wishing out into conduct,
wherever and whenever the opportunity offers? In opposi-
tion to that selfishness which certain ethical theories make
the essential root of all wrong-doing, benevolence appears as
the most attractive and pervasive principle of all that doing
of the right which the most refined moral consciousness
approves and commands. Who is entitled to be called per-
fectly good, if it be not the man whose supreme motive is
wishing the welfare of all ? It is doubtless possible so to
expand the conception of this virtue as to make it seem to
embrace all the other virtues so-called. Of this effort 1
cannot wholly approve, as will be made clear in another
connection. But the very grounds on which the effort is
based point toward some meeting-place for all the virtues
when each of them is raised to its highest potency.

Both the counterfeits of this class of virtues and the vices
which are the opposites of the virtues, are peculiarly offensive
to "good taste." This fact is significant as to the nature of
the virtues themselves. They flow spontaneously from good
feeling for others ; they are calculated to awaken correspond-
ing good feeling in others. Their extended practice makes
kindliness itself to be widely extended among men. Kind-
ness begets kindness in others, and sympathy begets sym-
pathy; the case is not the same with courage, wisdom, and
justice. But the shamming of friendly feeling for purposes
of gain or ambition or pride is distinctly disagreeable.
Fawning, flattery, and fickle, shallow friendship, are assthet-
ically and ethically nauseating to the refined consciousness.
Such is the natural and normal reaction against a peculiarly
affective and emotional form of vice. But harshness, cen-
soriousness, and kindred manifestations of a lack of friendly

334 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

feeling are also vices that excite answering feelings of a like
disagreeable character. That sickly sentimentality which is
sometimes praised as "loving everybody," irrespective, not
so much of class or race as of moral character and good or
ill desert, instead of carrying wisdom, justice, and truth up
to the heights where they are lost in a common halo with
love, too often degrades and perverts these three cardinal
virtues in its foolish effort to reduce them all to a subordi-
nate position under its control. Such benevolence is no
substitute for justice even of the sterner and more punitive
kind; nor for courage of one's convictions; nor for the
wisdom that fears the consequences of breaking natural or
Divine law more than of disturbing, however deeply and
long, the smoothly running current of social good feeling.

Of all the vices which militate against good feeling none
is baser than ingratitude ; and perhaps none is more common.
Indeed, this vice seems to combine unkindness and injustice
in a peculiarly heinous fashion of mixture. For there is no
other good which every individual man has so perfectly at
his disposal for a just and equitable distribution as his own
"good will," the sincere well-wishing, the friendly feeling
for his fellow-men. There is no other good which, when
convinced of its sincerity, men prize more highly, if once
they rise to the moral point of view. Now while the nature
of benevolence is such that it does not seek a return in its
own kind, or refrain from the beneficent deed through fear
that it will not meet a reward, it is still true that friendly
feeling, if genuine, and however manifested, merits friendly
feeling on the part of its recipient. Such reciprocity is one
of the most essential characteristics of the distinctively
social virtues. So that ingratitude adds injustice to un-
kindness, and both of the most inexcusable kind. No doubt
the temptation to ingratitude comes chiefly from the dislike
of being obligated to another, and of the feeling of inferi-
ority which such obligation implies. But such a motive

VIRTUES OF FEELING 335

to ingratitude adds to its already great load of meanness.
One of the most false touches in all the writings of Aristotle
is the passage in the Nicomachean Ethics, ^ where he says of
the high-minded man : " It is his nature to confer benefits,
but he is ashamed to receive them; for the former is the
part of a superior, the latter of an inferior. And when he
has received a benefit, he is apt to confer a greater in return ;
for thus his creditor will become his debtor and be in the
position of a recipient of his favour. " ^ This spirit is, how-
ever, quite the opposite of high-mindedness or even of ordi-
nary friendliness on the part of the superior; carried into
effect it discourages, if it does not make utterly impossible
that fine mixture of justice and benevolence in which the
virtue of gratitude consists. Of all the virtues gratitude is
the fittest and the easiest for the inferior to exercise toward
his superior and benefactor; and when thus exercised, it
partakes also of the virtue of fidelity and so makes possible
for the poor and dependent a highmindedness of their own.
All such relations presuppose, of course, that the good deed,
the favor done or the help rendered, is a manifestation of
genuine and unfeigned kindly friendship — a sound fruit
from the beautiful root of humanitarian feeling.

In conclusion, attention should be called to the pleasure-
giving quality of many of the subordinate forms of these
virtues of feeling; this renders them more influential for
good, or more seductive for misjudgment and even mis-
chievous consequences, than any of the colder and harder
virtues. Much is readily forgiven to the kindly, sympathetic
disposition, to the " good-hearted " man or woman. For,
however the judgment may condemn a somewhat habitual
lack of wisdom or an occasional breach of justice, the heart
responds to his heart in kindly and sympathetic fashion. It
is on the whole well that this is so. For cowardice, greed,

1 IV, 3, 24.

2 IV, iii, 24 (Translation of F. H. Peters, p. 117).

336 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

ambition, and lust are still among men so excessively influ-
ential for suffering and want, and so productive of hardness
of heart and misery of life, that the sunshine and cheer
which kindly feeling brings can scarcely be overestimated.
Yet your man who is thoughtless, fickle, and not altogether
careful of truth and of the rights of others, can be the cause
of much misery, — sometimes of even more than the more
selfish and deliberately cruel man. And it is not to be
forgotten that, neither in human physiology nor in human
conduct, is it always the most obviously comely and graceful
manifestation of life which is the most essential and effective
of good results.

CHAPTER XIV

THE UNITY OF VIRTUE

There is little doubt that the foregoing description of the
Virtuous Life would, in its main features at least, seem fairly
satisfactory when brought for judgment before the bar of
current popular opinion. It would accord substantially with
this opinion, and it would seem to carry its own explanation,
proof, and sanction, with itself. There is considerable his-
torical ground also for the conclusion that if an essentially
like description could be adapted to those differences in
language, customs, and physical and social environment,
which characterize the different stages and types of man's
ethical evolution, it would gain a general acceptance in all
times and in all places. Who is the good man, — the man
who conducts himself as a man ought, and so meets with the
approbation of the universal moral consciousness ? He is the
man who is brave and constant, wise and just, hospitable,
generous, and kind. To explain further than this or even to
seek for the proofs and sanctions of so much as this, seems
to the multitude of men to belong to interests of a purely
academical sort. Plain common-sense is satisfied to take its
ethical judgments and opinions on a basis of life and reality.

The scientific student of conduct, however — its origins,
development, sanctions, and ultimate principles — cannot be
satisfied with a merely descriptive history of the virtues, no
matter how true this history is to the facts of individual or
ethnic psychology. As said Socrates to Meno : " When I ask
you for one virtue, you present me with a swarm of them."

338 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

Science seeks for some principle of unity ; and the argument
which gives a warrant and a guide to this scientific impulse
may be stated in somewhat the following way. Here are
nine — more or less — so-called cardinal virtues; and yet
each one of the nine is confessedly of an order which needs
to be qualified by one or more of the others. For courage
that is not wise, even if still entitled to be called the virtue
of courage, is certainly not virtuous when considered as folly ;
and kindness that plainly violates the principles of justice,
however well intentioned, is not to be commended from
the higher ethical point of view. Moreover, we have dis-
covered that whenever any of the more fundamental of the
virtues is considered in its highest purity of excellence, and
in its widest range of application, it begins to show a kind
of capacity to embrace, as it were, a large number of other
relatively subordinate virtues. If, then, all these forms of
conduct are virtues, there must be some characteristic which
they all share in common, so as to entitle them all to the
same name. What is this characteristic in which all the
types or kinds of virtuous conduct share ? What is that
essential quality which gives their virtuousness to the virtues ?

The endeavor to discover a unifying trait, or principle, for
the virtues is undoubtedly born of the scientific spirit ; and
whatever its practical value may be, or even its success
in the research which it stimulates, it cannot be disregarded
by the philosophy of conduct. Two considerations, however,
should always anticipate and constantly accompany such
research. And, first, it must be remembered that in the
order of experience and reality the manifold and various
precedes; it is the actually experienced, the real; and the
so-called unity is only abstract and conceptual. Virtues
exist; they are the actual, concrete forms of the Virtuous
Life. Virtue does not exist, except as a conception abstracted
from the existent specimens of the virtues.

Second : in certain similar cases we find our keenest psy-

THE UNITY OF VIETUE 889

chological analysis much puzzled, if not completely baffled,
in its endeavors to discover the essential, unifying marks of
similar conscious states. Men speak, for example, of differ-
ent pleasures and pains; and then, again, of pleasure and
pain, in the abstract and yet as though the intention were to
appeal to a universal experience. But pleasures and pains
are of an indefinite variety ; and neither pleasure nor pain is
ever experienced, or can possibly be experienced, except as
some concrete, definite kind of a pleasure or a pain. But
what is common, for example, to the anguish of having a
firmly rooted tooth drawn, or an attack of neuralgia of the
stomach, and the melancholy memory of a neglected oppor-
tunity, or the grief of having offended one's invisible Divine
Friend ? Both experiences are painful, to be sure ; but what
construction shall be given to the conception of what is
common to both — quoad pain ? How, on the other hand,
shall science depict the common essence of two pleasures
— one of which is the gratification of some appetite, for
example, and the other the memory of some deed of gratitude
in return for help rendered to another, or the appreciation of
the present Divine favor? In answer to such questions as
these the current psychology is accustomed to give either
evasive or inadequate answers. Evasive — distinctly so —
are all such theories as those which, since the day when the
close of the Seventh Book of the Nicomachean Ethics was
written down to the present hour, have defined pleasure and
pain by reciting their physiological or psychical antecedents or
accompaniments. Such theories, at best, only describe, in a
lame way some of the known or conjectural conditions under
which pleasures and pains of certain sorts are experienced, and
then confuse the conditions with the experience of pleasure or
pain itself.^ More misleading still, and decidedly mischievous

1 For a more detailed discussion of this subject compare chapters ix, "Feel-
ing : its Nature and Classes " and x, " Feeling, as Pleasure-Pain," iu the au-
thor's Psychology, Descriptive and Explanatory.

340 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

in the field of ethics, is the psychology which identifies the
entire feeling side of human nature with the pleasure-pains,
then proceeds to strip the remainder of its contingent judg-
ments and estimates of value, and then propounds a theory
of a wholly abstract and unreal gross quantum of pleasure
and antithetic pain which it can distribute by weight, as it
were, among the different concrete experiences of human
lives. This is scientific unification and simplification with
a vengeance ; but its simplicity is a delusion, and its unify-
ing a snare. And the picture of the individual or social
Self which it thus completes, as seeking with a pair of phan-
tom scales in its hand to weigh out larger portions or
smaller driblets of the current pleasure-pain commodity, no
more resembles the infinitely rich and varied affective expe-
riences and judgments in estimating the goods of life which
belong to the real, living man, than the rude sketch of his
bodily appearance, as drawn by the child or the savage,
resembles the histological structure and physiological action
of man's actual bodily organism.

Another example of the same difficulty might be taken
from the condition in which psychological analysis finds
itself compelled to leave the search for the unifying essence
of man's sensuous experiences. Light and color, noise and
musical tones, the various smells and tastes, and the sev-
eral modifications of consciousness caused by stimulating
the areas of the skin, are all classifiable together as " sensa-
tions " ; and the psychologist knows beyond doubt what are
some of the conditions and concomitants, as well as some
of the characteristics common to them all. It is another and
much more difficult problem, however, to frame a conception
of sensation, as such, which shall include only the common
characteristics and neglect all that belongs exclusively either
to sensations of smell, or of taste, or of sight, or of sound.

It will not be an unexampled failure, then, if the student
of ethics fails to discover in what consists the virtuousness

THE UNITY OF VIRTUE Ml

of the different virtues. For virtues — I repeat — as actu-
ally recognized and concretely practised by men, are the
antecedents in the order both of experience and of reason ;
but to discover the '' essence of virtue " involves an aca-
demic quest which may not be destined to end in complete
success.

There are two forms, closely allied but by no means iden-
tical, which have been taken by the customary attempts at
unifying the particular virtues. Both of these are, in my
judgment, unsatisfactory in their method as well as in their
result. One of them consists in selecting some single feature
or aspect of conduct, and then identifying the virtuous or
vicious quality of all conduct with the goodness or badness
of this one feature or aspect. The other consists in selecting
some one of the more important of the virtues, and then iden-
tifying with it the entire essential content of the virtuous life.
Thus if one follows the trail of the first argument in one's
search after the unity of virtue, one will discover the virtuous-
ness of virtue to consist in either good external behavior, or
good motive, or good intention. But if the second method of
solving the problem be adopted, then it will be claimed that
all the virtues are, in the last analysis and essentially consid-
ered, either wisdom, or justice, or benevolence, or some other
one among them all. The first method of unifying the partic-
ular virtues results in a narrow and perverted conception of
conduct, as conduct has already been described in accordance
with the opinions and practices of mankind. The second
method results in so modifying and expanding the conception
of some one of the particular virtues as that it loses all its
concrete and valuable particularity in a vague and shadowy
generalization as to the nature of virtue. The result in both
cases is similar to that obtained by a similar method of treat-
ing the allied phenomena of man's religious life. Thus in
answer to the question, What is religion ? one may locate
its " essence " in feeling, or dogma, or behavior ; or one may

342 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

attempt the answer by so manipulating some one religion as
to include under it all " true " religions and exclude all other
religions on the ground of their being " false."

The one essential characteristic of virtue is not the char-
acter of the external behavior ; the science of ethics cannot
bring about a unification of the virtues under the conception
of Conformity to the customs and laws regulating such beha-
vior. It has already been shown that without regard for those
customs, laws, and precepts, which give external expression
to the developing moral consciousness of mankind, there
could be no concrete standards for the social testing of con-
duct and of character, — no society even as an affair of ethical
influences and ethical significance. But, on the other hand,
nowhere and never do we find the merely external conformity
to custom, or law, or moral precept regulating behavior,
identifiable throughout with the essence of virtue. For " vir-
tuous " or " vicious " is an epithet which men apply to conduct ;
and conduct is something more than mere conformity to any
rule, however set, of behavior. It is an activity of the con-
scious Self, and not an affair of muscles, bones, and tendons
chiefly. Men call the bow strong and good which, when
drawn by a strong arm and directed by trained visual and
muscular sense, speeds its arrow truly and well toward the
far-distant mark. Men do not, except in a figurative way,
demand of the bow the feeling of fidelity, the resolve to try to
hit the mark, the judgment of the distance at which the mark
is set, of the resistance from the currents of wind, or of the
downpull of gravity. In the case of the lower animals, unless
we endow them with ^wasi-moral qualities, we are satisfied if
their behavior is satisfactory, whatever the motives and inten-
tions which initiate it, or the judgments which guide it, may
chance to be. We prize affection, fidelity, sound judgment,
courage, etc., on their part ; but we do not demand these
states of consciousness as in themselves commendable so long
as we consider the animals to be merely conscious machines.

THE UNITY OF VIKTUE 343

In man's case, however, the very locus in which resides the
virtuous quality of the virtue is the conscious feeling, judging,
and willing Self. It is this conscious Self which is good or
bad, virtuous or vicious, deserving of approval or of disappro-
bation, and of punishment or reward. Whenever men have
reason to believe that it is cowardly, they do not call the
action brave, however it may conform externally to the requi-
sites of the virtue of courage ; or wise, if the motive and
intention be those of a fool, in spite of all the more obvious
semblances of wisdom. We cannot, then, adopt any view
which, like that of Locke,^ regards the whole essential quality
of morality to be the conformity of action to a rule.

It is a much more frequent temptation and consequent
error to merge the whole of conduct in the so-called Motive
merely. Or if the motives be taken collectively and regarded
as fairly stable in character and habitual in their impulsive
effect, his " disposition " may be counted upon as summariz-
ing the virtuous or vicious character of the individual. The
good man is, then, as the popular phrase expresses the thought,
the " good-hearted " man ; he is the man who always means
well. One will therefore have to say that conduct is virtuous
whenever the motive which issues in the conduct is virtuous.
And it would seem to follow that the one thing which he who
would lead the Virtuous Life must do is to make sure that
his motives are good. For are we not assured by those who
invoke the sanctions of religion in behalf of morality, that
God has regard to the motives only ?

Now although I cannot for a moment admit the adequacy
of this attempt to simplify the conception of virtue, I have
no desire to hold it to the strictest account for the language
which it sometimes employs. The word " motive " does not
once occur in that collection of books (the Bible) to which
this view of the essential nature of all the virtues most
frequently appeals. The word " heart," however, does occur

1 Essay Concerning Human Understanding, book II, chap, xxviii.

344 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

there hundreds of tinies ; and although the heart includes, in
that vague and unscientific way which distinguishes the psy-
chology of the biblical writers, activities of intellect and of
will, it undoubtedly emphasizes more particularly the side of
feeling and of the emotions. Since the mishaps which arise
in conduct, as well as the more heinous sins and crimes of
humanity, have their origin so largely in selfish and dis-
ordered appetites, impulses, and desires (the motive elements
of human nature) ; and since the inducements and disciplines
to improved conduct which ethical praxis aims to employ
must reach man so largely through his feelings; there is
good reason for emphasizing the supreme importance of
purity of motive in all attempts at virtuous living. All
this, however, does not alter the essential facts of the case ;
good judgment is as necessary to virtuous conduct as is good
disposition ; and the same is true of the courageous, stren-
uous, and constant will.

Nor are matters helped in the interests of unification when
it is urged that, of course, the motive to inform one's self and
to form good and wise judgment is a part of the general good
motive required by the demands of virtue ; and as well that
one must cherish the motive to be, and to grow, more courage-
ous and constant in self-control, to get the mastery over one's
Self, so to say. To all this the reply is obvious : the disposi-
tion to cultivate wisdom is doubtless a species of wisdom, and
so is the disposition to cultivate courage or that species of
self-control which results in temperance. But if the actual
acquirement of the wisdom, the courage, the temperance, or
the kindness, does not somehow result from the motive, then
the quantum of virtue and as well the particular qualities of
virtuous conduct are so far forth lacking. The ideal of virtue
can no more excuse this lack than the common moral
consciousness of mankind actually does excuse it. And
experience shows that good disposition, and commendable
motives, when they fail of the moral strength and the wise

THE UNITY OF VIRTUE 346

judgment necessary to realize themselves in courageous and
wise conduct, may be excused in part and for a time, but
they are finally, and rightly, visited with increased moral dis-
approval and even contempt. For although it is necessary
for the heart to go into the deed in order to impart to the
deed its quality of life and moral vivacity, the heart that
yields only motives which are not guided by good judg-
ment and set into reality by strenuous will, is so far from
being the summary of all virtuous living as to incur for
its owner the greatest risk of being quite seduced away
from the paths which lead toward the attainment of the
Moral Ideal.

The science of psychology, then, sets certain limits to the
ethical theory of virtue when this theory attempts to confine
the essential nature of virtue to the character of the motive.
For, in psychological language motive is any impulse, desire,
or wish, which tends to induce a definite form of volition.
Motives that are "good," in the ethical meaning of this
adjective, are such impulses, desires, and wishes, as tend
to induce the choice of good, or virtuous, action. And,
if all morality consist in the motive alone, to desire or wish
to be perfectly virtuous is equivalent to being perfectly vir-
tuous. But such an extreme conclusion is quite inconsistent
with the moral consciousness of men, as this consciousness
expresses itself in the feelings of obligation and ethical
approbation, in the complex conception of conduct and of
the virtues, and in the most satisfactory attempts at the
speculative construction of the conception of the Right.

If, however, to this conception of motive as mainly emo-
tional, we add the elements of " reason " as an inducement
to certain forms of judgment, we confess in a covert way the
inadequacy of our conception, by introducing into it from
the outside, as it were, what does not properly belong to its
psychological character.

^'^Y motive I mean," says Jonathan Edwards, "the whole

346 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

of that which moves, excites, or invites the mind to voli-
tion whether that be one thing singly, or many things
conjunctively." It is now only necessary to couple this con-
ception of motive with the Edwardean theory of a strictly
determined will in order to complete a machine-like theory
of the nature of virtue and of the virtuous life. But it can-
not be too often repeated that conduct involves — nay ! it is
— the entire Self, feeling, judgment, and will, functioning
together in relation to a Moral Ideal. When, and only
when, this total functioning corresponds with some portion
or aspect of this ideal are we warranted in calling the
particular piece of conduct virtuous. To quote from the
Nicomachean Ethics : ^ "If the purpose is to be all it should
be, both the calculation or the reasoning must be true, and
the desire must be right."

Similar objections may be urged against identifying the
virtuousness of the virtues, the " essence " of all virtue, with
the so-called Intention. This word ordinarily includes ele-
ments which do not so strictly belong to the motive; and
such elements are partly of the intellectual and partly of the
voluntary order. The man of habitually good intentions
might perhaps be distinguished from the man of habitually
good motives by his larger measure of thoughtfulness in
planning his conduct, and by the increased certainty with
which the plans get themselves actualized in the choices and
their sequent courses of action. As said Locke, in his naive,
common-sense way of stating the conceptions of the popular
psychology: "Intention is when the mind, with great earn-
estness, and of choice, fixes its view on any idea, considers
it on every side." An ethically good intention, then, may
seem to include an earnest desire to do the right thing, a
voluntary direction of the judgment upon the problem of
determining what that right thing is, and the suspension of
action during a process of deliberation which enables the

1 See VI, ii, 2.

THE UNITY OF VIKTUE

mind to regard all the elements entering into the problem.
In this way, of course, the evaluation of the end of con-
duct becomes more completely rational ; the estimate of the
most effective and appropriate means is gained; and the
increased chances are secured that the final choice will be
satisfactory from the moral point of view.

Intention apprehends and comprehends the probable con-
sequences of conduct far more than does mere motive. For
this reason it is ordinarily held that the responsibility is
increased and the blameworthiness heightened if the conduct
is wrong, the praiseworthiness if the conduct is right,
according to the intention. Moreover, to intend evidently
gives more of distinctively moral quality to the entire pro-
cess ; for it involves and commits to the process more of the
entire Moral Selfhood. To be in the habit of framing good
intentions (it is well to notice at this point that one speaks
of creating or forming intentions and of indulging or encour-
aging motives) is undoubtedly a virtuous habit; it is a most
desirable species of wisdom, and a duty, as well, to which
the power of rational intending obligates every man. It
must also be admitted that in certain cases good intention
is by far the greater part, and it may become the whole of
virtue. Finally, if one insists on so extending and modify-
ing the word intention as to change quite completely its own
primary meaning, one may make a brave show of identifying
it with the virtuousness of all the virtues. I must, how-
ever, object to this, and for the following, among other
reasons.

First: if under "good intention" it is meant to include
the best possible functioning of the Moral Self, as feeling,
judging, and willing, in the interests of the moral Ideal,
good intention is certainly identical with the morality of all
the virtues. The man of perfectly good intentions would
then be the man of the perfect Virtuous Life. But this
would only change titles without simplifying the subject.

348 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

Morally good conduct would remain just as complex an affair
as before; the virtues would not be unified; and for the very
good reason that we should not be at all enlightened as to
the nature of their unity.

Secondly: The forming of good intentions is often the
best possible exercise of virtue; sometimes it is the only
way of virtue possible under the circumstances. But there
are certain forms of feeling to which the moral consciousness
of men quite generally responds with approval that are not
so consistent with the fixedness of view upon an idea, and
the consideration of it from every side. These feelings seem
to lose somewhat of their moral beauty, or effectiveness,
when they lose their spontaneity ; and spontaneity belongs to
them rather as motives than when they become transformed
into fixed and deliberate intentions. Still further must it
be remembered that often, if not ordinarily, time for the
consideration of consequences and for the contemplation
of the ideal of virtue, cannot be secured previous to action ;
to attempt to secure time would result in vacillation and
delay and even in loss of opportunity for any fit action at
all. The Puritanic virtues may be called the virtues of
good intention. But there are other virtues of good impulse
and good feeling more particularly. Such are all the sub-
ordinate forms of kindliness, hospitality, generosity, etc. ;
and as well much of courage and temperance. Nor am I at
all sure that so-called " righteous " anger, if righteous at all,
is always improved by being converted into the virtuous
intention to punish or even to reform. Its outburst and
expression is not infrequently a token of the virtuous heart
of the angry man ; and the effect of such anger is seldom, if
time and form of expression be appropriate, otherwise than
morally purifying. On the contrary, the infliction of pun-
ishment, and the attempt at reform, without more or less of
such spontaneity of feeling, seem to lack something of right
moral quality. And men resent, rather than appreciate

THE UNITY OF VIRTUE 349

highly, all intention to be kind or generous toward them,
which is not largely a spontaneous feeling.

Thirdly : there are some of the most cardinal and impor-
tant virtues of each of the three main classes which do not
seem reducible to good intentions merely. For example,
there is that virtue, mainly of the will, which was called
constancy. To be sure, it may be affirmed that in order to
be always a man of good intentions one must constantly be
framing and keeping the intentions good. But this bit of
sophistry does not meet my objection. For it is just that
necessity of being constant, of having a voluntary fidelity to
the chosen ideal, which must be introduced into our account-
ing for the habit of intending well, in order to complete the
picture of the ideally virtuous life. To a less degree some-
what of the same necessity applies to the virtue of courage.
The best of intentions need to be carried out with courage
in order to perfect the system of virtuous forms of conduct.
Shall we say that the intention always to be courageous is
equivalent to the unfailing virtue of courage ? We can
scarcely claim that the man who fully intends to do any
particular brave and virtuous deed, but who fails through
fear in the hour of execution, is as good and meritorious
a man as he who both intends to be brave and courageously
carries into effect the brave intention.

It seems, then, that the virtue of habitually intending
well is a kind of deliberative and voluntary wisdom; and
that this virtue properly emphasizes the duty of man to plan
his conduct, wherever this is possible, so as to put his moral
reason and right resolve into appropriate action, when the
time for action arrives. But the conception which the
ethical use of the word " Intention " covers is of compara-
tively little assistance in our search for the bond of unity
which unites all the virtues into one idea of Virtue.

The second way of unifying theoretically the virtues main-
tains that some one among them all is so comprehensive in

350 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

character, and so supremely magisterial, that it includes and
dominates all the rest. Such a claim may be pushed so far
as to assert that some one Virtue is, essentially considered,
all the virtues in one. Thus he who has that one virtue to
perfection exercises them all in perfection; — not, indeed,
because he can dispense with any one of them, but rather
because he already in essence possesses them all. In modern
systems of ethics the virtue which is thought most fit to be
intrusted with this comprehensive supremacy is, of course.
Benevolence. Thus this particular virtue is converted into
a general, all-inclusive virtuousness. And if a somewhat
theological caste is given to the conception, the word Love
may be adopted in its stead. The summary of all the vir-
tues is then expressed in " The Law of Love and Love as a
Law." For are we not told on the best of authority that
the two commandments on which "hang all the law and the
prophets'* are : — " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all
thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind ; "
and, " Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself " ? Love,
then, is the fulfilling of the whole moral law.

But before adopting somewhat too rashly the ethical theory
which identifies the virtuousness of all the virtues with the
one virtue of benevolence, one may profitably consider the
exact nature of the proposal. If " the law and the prophets "
be themselves inquired of in order to determine more pre-
cisely their own most elevated and comprehensive conception
of morality, they return such answers as the following:
"And now, Israel, what doth the Lord thy God require of
thee, but to fear the Lord thy God, to walk in all his ways,
and to love him, and to serve the Lord thy God with all thy
heart and all thy soul ; " i and, again, " He hath showed thee,
O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of
thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly
with thy God. " 2 These are the utterances of a monotheistic

1 Deut. X, 12. 2 Mic. vi, 8.

THE UNITY OF VIRTUE 851

religion in which the Deity is conceived of as the Source, the
Arbiter, and the Ideal, of perfect righteousness. No wonder,
then, that an attitude of loyal and passionate devotion to his
service, conceived of as an intelligent and principled per-
sonal affection, should seem to be a sufficient motive to the
practice of every form of that which ethics conceives of as
the Virtuous Life. It should not be forgotten, moreover,
that the first of the passages just quoted has reference partic-
ularly to the keeping of the Mosaic Law with its elaborate
" commandments and statutes " having reference to domestic,
social, and civil relations, and appealing to every cardinal
virtue in the entire catalogue current at the time; while
the exhortation of the prophet especially emphasizes the
justice, mercy, and humility, which were at the time — as
always in human history — particularly needed, and con-
spicuously lacking, on the part of the rich and the powerful.
For it was a time when men devised iniquity at night and
executed it with the morning light : " And they covet fields,
and take them by violence ; and houses and take them away :
so they oppress a man and his house, even a man and his
heritage". . . "because it is in the power of their hand." ^
Here is surely a tolerably comprehensive list of virtues and
vices, the former of which would be motived and secured
by the love and fear and obedience of Yahveh, the god of
righteousness, and the latter of which would be obstructed
and prevented by the same love, fear, and obedience.

Finally, it should also be borne in mind that the entire list
of concrete and particular virtues, with the illustrative ex-
amples given in the Sermon on the Mount, is summarized
by their author in the exhortation : " Be ye therefore perfect,
even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." As to
the truthfulness and value of this religious doctrine of per-
fect morality, I shall have occasion to refer hereafter. But
surely this is a very different tenet from the identification,

1 Mic. ii, 2.

352 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

in ethics, of the virtue of benevolence with the virtuousness
of all the virtues.

Is benevolence properly conceived of as the one absolute
and all-inclusive virtue ? The affirmative answer to this
question either compels us to extend unwarrantably the
meaning of the term "benevolence," or else leaves us with
the same complex and confused conception as to the essen-
tial nature of virtue, and as to the bond of unity among the
different virtues. In the most expanded form of its proper
ethical significance, this virtue is an active well-wishing, a
desiring and planning for the good of our fellow-men (comp.
p. 331). When this virtue is represented by the word
"love" and identified in its essential virtuous quality with
that attitude which religion considers to be due from man to
God, an almost complete change of its psychological char-
acteristics is silently but suggestively introduced. For it is
decidedly not a virtue for any one to love all men alike, or
with the like kind of affection {e.g., the domestic, friendly,
admiring, etc., sort of love). Nor is it virtuous for me to
love any human being with all my mind and soul. On the
other hand, there seems something quite inappropriate and
savoring of the aesthetically, if not of the ethically, unseemly,
to regard it as a virtue in man to cultivate " benevolence "
toward God.

What, moreover, is this good which I ought to desire and
plan for every man, if I am to exercise benevolence in such
a way as to include in it all the other forms of virtuous liv-
ing ? Eudaemonism, even in its most refined forms would
have to say : It is happiness ; for happiness is, first and last,
the only and all-inclusive good for every man. But justice
and wisdom often require me not to desire and plan for this
kind of good, either for myself or for some one else, so far
as the concrete and individual case is concerned. And if
the modification is added — "for the greatest number and in
the long run '* (a general benevolence or " love of being in

THE UNITY OF VIRTUE 353

general ") ; then the vagueness and worthlessness of the
entire conception are made apparent as soon as it is brought
to the actual test of a working principle. Distinctly, I am
not going to desire and plan to have all my fellow-men
happy, unless they themselves fulfil the fundamental ethical
conditions of a limited happiness ; and I am very sure that
these ethical conditions themselves are going, so long as
they are not essentially and even inconceivably altered, to
set unavoidable limits to human happiness.

Even Lotze is hopelessly confused and unintelligible in
his conception of benevolence as affording the unity of all
the virtues. For, after defining this virtue as that piety
which "considerately allows" the undisturbed development
of spirits in their relations to spirits, he regards retribution
as also agreeable to moral consciousness. And, then, having
shown that pleasure-pains as the consequences of conduct
are essential to all moral judgment, he appeals to an intui-
tion of conscience to show " that it is not the effort after our
own, but only that for the production of another's felicity,
which is ethically meritorious ; — and, accordingly, that the
idea of benevolence must give us the sole supreme principle
of moral conduct. " ^ But I do not so read moral conscious-
ness ; at least, I do not so read its conclusions in any such
off-hand manner. As is customary with all advocates of
this theory, Lotze's conception of benevolence is quite too
vague to correspond to any definite manifestation or attitude
of the Moral Self toward others; and his identification of
benevolence, on the authority of conscience, with the vir-
tuousness of all virtues is not in accordance with the univer-
sal moral feeling and judgment, even when considered from
the higher point of view to which man is rising in his moral
evolution.

The best possible case is, however, made out for the all-
inclusive nature of benevolence when the object of its wish-

1 Outlines of Practical Philosophy, p. 28-34.

354 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

ing and planning is the welfare^ including especially the
moral development and perfection, of all mankind. I may
not virtuously wish the bad man to be happy. On the con-
trary, I may be, in fidelity to virtuous principle, bound to
wish and to plan to make him very unhappy. But I may
virtuously wish him to become good, that we together, as
brethren in one high purpose, may follow, each in his own
individual' appointed way, the Moral Ideal. The highest
benevolence will include — will chiefly be, just such a wishing
and planning as this. What more than such an habitual
temper of bene-volence, or well-wishing, as this can the
complete Virtuous Life demand or even suggest ?

I have elsewhere (p. 326 f.) referred to this lofty spirit of
wishing and planning for the highest welfare of all sorts and
conditions of men as the choicest result of poetry, philos-
ophy, and religion in their influence upon the moral evolu-
tion of the race. Such so-called " benevolence " includes the
uplift of imaginative insight, — the far-away look into the
future of the race, the acquaintance with the history of its
past evolution and with the conditions of its future improve-
ment, and, above all, that estimate of the great worth of the
individual soul and of a human society which shall consist
of multitudes of such souls when morally improved and
perfected. The most kindly and sympathetic savages are
quite incapable of all this. Even Plato and Aristotle, with
all their noble conceptions of the virtues of friendship and
of philanthropy failed to rise to such heights as those where
these conceptions and ideals are powerful.

Yet the same difficulties recur when the effort is made
theoretically to reduce all the particular virtues to this one
virtuous attitude of well-wishing and planning for the
highest welfare of mankind. And the difficulties seem to
be due to the very nature of the Moral Self ; they persist, in
part, because wishing and planning, even when extended
and organized into choice of a course of conduct, do not

.THE UNITY OF VIRTUE 355

cover properly all the functioning of such a self. Nor does
the whole of virtuous living consist for any individual in
planning and wishing for the most desirable end of others*
happiness or welfare. In order to the perfection of benevo-
lence itself the moral judgment of men requires all the
other most cardinal virtues, both of will and of judgment.
All these other cardinal virtues qualify benevolence, as
benevolence employs, consecrates, and qualifies them. Be-
nevolence itself must be courageous in its expression where
the beneficent conduct which it motives is destined to
encounter any kind of fear. Especially do we require of
this virtue that dependableness which is the product of the
virtue of the will called constancy; and for which, as such,
there is not wanting a certain ethical admiration, even when
it becomes a steadfast commitment to a wrong cause. Even
the wishing and planning for the highest welfare of mankind
in general — nay, just this especially — needs indomitable
courage and steadfast fidelity to make it complete. No
advance is made, however, when the claim is raised that
only courageous and constant benevolence is real benevo-
lence. For the answer is at the same time suggested and
justified by the question: benevolence, then, plainly needs
courage and constancy in order to become perfected in its
own reality, and this seems the same thing as to say that
the latter virtues qualify and complement the former, in the
unity of the Virtuous Life. As says Hegel : " True character
involves on the one hand an essential import in its purpose ;
on the other hand, adherence to that purpose such that the
individuality would be robbed of its whole existence, if
forced to desist from and to abandon it. " " This stability
and substance constitute the key-note of character. "^

It is doubtless easier to make a fair show of proving that
such virtues as temperance are only applications of the one
all-inclusive virtue of benevolence. Yet I am by no means

1 See Hegel, On Fine Art, Bosanqnet's Translation, p. 129.

856 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

sure that some fallacy is not lurking in the argument here.
Many virtuous acts which fall under the general notion of
self-control over the impulses, appetites, and desires, are
certainly relative. Their virtuousness mainly, if not wholly,
depends upon the character of the social consequences which
follow from them, as a rule. In the narrower meaning of
the word chastity, for example, as involving virtuous control
over the sexual instincts and passions, the actual limits of
such control are, in fact, exceedingly indefinite. In the
large they may be said to be determinable only by considera-
tion for the welfare of society. In the regulation also of
one's appetite for food and drink, and in the matter of
securing and maintaining bodily health, the law of regard
for the highest social welfare is very properly emphasized.
Why, however, shall one say that preserving health by
chastity is always a virtue; and that sacrificing health
sometimes — as in the case of the faithful mother, nurse, or
physician — is also a virtue? How far rightfully may the
demands go for sacrifice of Self in the interests of society ?
These, it seems to me, are questions which the benevolence
theory can never answer with a complete satisfaction. For
at a certain point the theory is always met by certain limita-
tions which moral reason imposes in the name of the other
virtues, — even such as temperance, wisdom, and justice.

Benevolence itself may become an absorbing passion. The
enthusiasm of humanity, like the scientific zeal for truth, may
carry the soul and body of the enthusiast beyond the limits
of a temperate and wise self-control. And then the student
of ethics who wills to face steadily its most profound and
dark philosophical problems may return to ask of it anew
certain pressing, though perhaps unanswerable questions.
After all, am not I, too, a Self ? — only one, among a vast
multitude of other selves, it is true ; and yet one Self, And
is there not that in me, and belonging by right of my very
selfhood to me, which I am not virtuous, not true to the

THE UNITY OF VIRTUE B6T

nature of a Self, if I surrender or disturb? At times this
devotion to the good of others seems to threaten the supreme
and inalienable rights of one's own soul. In view of this
threat, as well as in view of the highest ideals before the
individual soul, Aristotle and other philosophers, both
ancient and modern, have made reflective thinking or phil-
osophy itself the highest form of virtue. In view of similar
considerations, not only the Hindu and Buddhist devotees
but also many Christian ascetics and monks have withdrawn
from society in the interests of the higher ethics — the spiri-
tual life of the individual soul. The lonely Jew Spinoza,
isolated so largely from all social interests, concludes his
Ethic with the demonstration that the intellectual love of
God, which is blessedness, is "not the reward of virtue, but
is virtue itself." It is "the highest good we can seek accord-
ing to the dictate of reason ; " and although it is " common
to all men and we desire that all may enjoy it," the virtuous-
ness of this virtue does not consist in the desire for others
but in the intellectual love itself. ^ Such theoretical construc-
tions of virtue as these are, indeed, quite foreign to the spirit
and the doctrine of the Modern Occidental World ; and they
are not mentioned here in order wholly to commend —
much less to rehabilitate and reinstate them. But they rep-
resent a side of the fcruth sought by the philosophy of con-
duct which is perhaps too little regarded at the present time.
Every man must save his own soul ; nor can he surely and
wholly save it by the utmost of wishing and planning for the
welfare of others.

And now the proposal is made so to extend the conception
of benevolence as to have it apply, on terms of personal
equality as it were, to one's own self as well as to other
selves. The perfect exercise of this virtue would then secure
the wishing and planning for one's own highest welfare as
included in the welfare of mankind generally. Such a pro-
1 Ethic, Fifth Part, Prop. XX and XLIL

358 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

posal certainly strikes the common-sense of mankind as a
somewhat fantastic modification of the current and appro-
priate meaning of ethical terms. Indeed, on examination it
also appears to conceal a kind of twist to the conceptions
themselves. If by welfare one simply means happiness,
then the desire and planning for one's own happiness is only
doubtfully to be called a virtue in any case. Have we not
been told by Lotze (see p. 353) that benevolence, considered
as the one all-sufficing virtue, is ''not the effort after our
own, but only that for the production of another's felicity? "
Suppose, however, that by welfare one means also, and
especially, the highest welfare, which from the purely ethical
point of view is the attainment for the Moral Self of the per-
fect Virtuous Life; then indeed one may say that wishing
and planning for this is the most comprehensive of virtues
and, in some sort, includes all the virtuous quality of all the
other particular virtues. Only now we have arrived, by a
process of enhancing the content of the conception of benev-
olence, at a result which essentially alters its entire meaning.
Properly, the virtue of benevolence consists in wishing and
planning for the welfare of other men ; in this meaning of
the word, benevolence is the powerful corrective of the too
exclusive wishing and planning for one's own welfare. All
of which paradox will have to be resolved, so far as its
resolution is possible at all, by considerations connected
with the fundamental truth that an isolated Moral Self is
a monstrosity, — impossible even of conception — and that
society is an essential condition of the individual's moral
life and moral development.

Once more, then, the discussion must return to the thought
that wishing and planning for the welfare, whether of our-
selves or of others, is not the whole of man's virtuous living.
Benevolence, even in its most comprehensive exhibition as a
virtue, must be infused with the cardinal virtues of judgment.
It must be wise, and just, and conformed in a voluntary and

THE UNITY OF VIRTUE 359

rational way to the facts and principles of Reality. Indeed,
so far as human wishing and willing have reference to the
higher welfare as their object, they imply the reference also to
some standard which shall determine a place for each form
of good in a scale of values. The best benevolence desires
what is best for every self in its various changing relations
to a social organization of selves. But who shall determine
that which is best — either in general, or in any case of a
particular and concrete problem for the judgment ? If the
problem be one concerning the ends to be chosen, or the
means to be selected, then the virtue answering to its
morally satisfactory solution is wisdom ; if the problem be
one of distributing good and evil among men according to
their desert, then the corresponding virtue is justness.
Benevolence wishes to employ justness and wisdom in carry-
ing out its supreme desire and plan to secure the welfare of
all mankind. Benevolence, then, has need of wisdom and
justness in order to complete its own virtuous quality. The
idea of rational measure is required as an added ethical qualifi-
cation in connection with benevolence itself. That justice which
is " half of honor — and honor and justice are two-thirds of
purity " — is a necessary supplement to benevolence, and
cannot be merged in it. It is this fact which has led so
many writers on ethics to regard " justice " {hiKaiocrvvr]) as
the complete and all-inclusive virtue. The same thing is
true of the wisdom which Plato exalted to the place of
supremacy. But in the ethical theory of Old Japan, benevo-
lence, justice, and wisdom all yield the crown to the
consummate virtue of Fidelity.

The relation of trueness to benevolence in the system of
the virtues is somewhat similar to that in which temperance
stands to benevolence. But it is even more fundamental. Is
trueness, as it has already been described (p. 295 f.), a species
of conduct whose virtuous quality can all be resolved into
benevolence ? Certainly not. I am not now about to dis-

360 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

cuss the more casuistical question whether a lie, under cer-
tain prescribed circumstances, may be consistent with, or
even demanded by, the virtue of benevolence. Nor is it pro-
posed to criticise such statements as the following from Mr.
Leslie Stephen : ^ "If in some distant planet lying were as
essential to human welfare as truthfulness is in this world,
falsehood might there be a cardinal virtue. " I only inter-
rupt the argument to suggest these three inquiries : (1) What
would distance or difference in the physical constitution of
its environment have to do with the moral nature or the social
effect of lying, in case the nature and the spiritual relations
of moral selves remained the same ? (2) If we agree with
Mr. Stephen in making the end of conduct — namely, " human
welfare " — synonymous with happiness, do we not find our-
selves obliged to admit that an immense amount of falsehood
is "essential to human welfare," — almost as essential as
truthfulness is, in this world even ? And (3), how can false-
hood be regarded as a " cardinal virtue " — however permis-
sible or pardonable as a species of kindness or politeness
— without so undermining the very structure of the rational
selfhood, and of society as a community of moral selves,
as to render all virtue nugatory and inconceivable ? In a
word, the hypothesis of Mr. Stephen seems to me to re-
semble that of John Stuart Mill with reference to some con-
ceivable condition in which space is still three-dimensioned,
but parallel lines are habitually seen to meet. Even in the
philosophy of conduct, however, analytical axioms must not
be unwarrantably converted into synthetic judgments a priori.
You cannot at the same time keep your three-dimensioned
space, and your Euclidean geometry, and also utterly destroy
its essential characteristics. You cannot posit Moral Selves
in a social community and then suppose them to be trans-
muted by some change of place or physical environment into
a totally unlike Moral Selfhood.

1 Science of Ethics, p. 153 f.

THE UNITY OF VIRTUE 861

The adjusting of one's rational position by an act of judg-
ment to the facts and principles of Reality is, I believe, for
a rational and moral being a virtue which can never be
resolved into any form of well-wishing toward other beings.
Granted that falsification may sometimes be a virtue; and
if the motive be regard for the well-being of others, call the
falsehood an act of benevolence, if you please. And still, it
seems to me, you have not essentially altered the state of the
case; you have not at all changed the principles involved.
Benevolence may be the virtue which, in the conflict, gets
the victory, while a particular manifestation of the virtue
of trueness temporarily goes to the wall. But the duty of
rational man to frame his judgments according to the facts
and principles of Reality remains unchanged; and the
cardinal character of the virtue of doing this remains
unimpaired.

In a word, the argument always seems to come circling
around to the point of starting again. Benevolence is indeed
an important and cardinal virtue ; but it is only one of the
virtues, and it must itself be supplemented and completed by
the others — by constancy, wisdom, justness, and trueness —
if ethics is to depict in its perfection the Virtuous Life.

This circle in the argument has, however, its own most
important suggestion to make. The suggestion is this : the
student of the philosophy of conduct should concentrate his
regard upon the one conception corresponding to that unitary
being about which the circle has been drawn. This is the
being of the Moral Self. It is the conception of such a being
in which he must find the true principle for the unification
of all the virtues. The unity of the virtues is due to the unity
of a personality^ in active and varied relations with other per-
sons. This is a unity of no mechanical or merely conceptual
sort; it is neither like the unity of a piece of mechanism nor
like the unity which the process of logical abstraction pre-
pares in order to cover an entire species consisting of

362 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

individuals. One sheep is like another, although one
may be white and another black, one with long wool and
one with short. But wisdom is not like courage, tem-
perance is not a species of kindness, and justness and true-
ness are not to be reduced to benevolence. This many-sided
being called man is the virtuous or the vicious one; his
possible virtues and vices are as many as the forms of his
action that are in any measure subject to intelligent control.
He is set in society as the incitement and environment of
his moral development; and his social relations are as
indefinite in number as they are variable in kind. Now
he is angry, and now he is pleased ; now he loves and then
again he hates ; now he is called upon to summon courage,
now to exercise wisdom, and now to let himself melt with
the spirit of kindness. He is parent or child, brother or
sister, subject or ruler, employer or employed — a companion
of friends, a fighter with other comrades against a common
foe, connected with many societies and guilds, citizen of
some State or member of some tribe, and always potentially
a citizen of an invisible and heavenly community.

In all these varying relations, and on all these many
sides, the Moral Self is seeking many different forms of
good, and is trying to escape or bravely to endure many
different forms of evil. In all this search and effort the
individual man is only one of many, a unit in a larger
social multiplicity, which is itself also a sort of unit rela-
tively to other higher unities. No one virtuous quality will
suffice on all occasions, or for the satisfactory discharge of
all the functions belonging to these differing relations ; nor
can any man, however wise, always tell which one of several
virtues it is fitting to display.

Shall we, then, abandon all hope of discovering any prin-
ciple of unity among the virtues ? Shall we confess that,
while we can confidently declare, in accordance with the
common consciousness of mankind, our adherence to the

THE UNITY OF VIRTUE 363

virtuous character of courage, constancy, wisdom, justice,
and kindness, yet we are quite unable to say in what the
virtuousness of them all consists ? Must we conclude with
Meno: "Every age, every condition of life, young or old,
male or female, bond or free, has a different virtue: there
are virtues numberless, and no lack of definitions of them ;
for virtue is relative to the actions and ages of each of us in
all that we do ? " Or, must we all " confess with shame," as
does Socrates : " I know literally nothing about virtue ; and
when I do not know the ' quid * of anything, how can I know
the ' quale ' ? " Not so ; or, at any rate. Not yet. But the
search for the ultimate unifying truths and conceptions, if
any such are to be found, must go much deeper down into
the heart of Reality, much further abroad in the kingdom of
Truth.

One unifying conception of great significance and power
has, however, already been attained. All the discoverable
virtues are partial harmonies, or single notes accordant with
the Moral Ideal. And that ideal is a Self living the Virtuous
Life in social relations with other selves. The effort to
realize this ideal furnishes to each one in a fragmentary way
his bit of the principle of unification which, so far as it is
adopted and applied, tends to bring his own inner life, at
any rate, into the unity of a harmonious whole.

The alleged unity of virtue thus becomes the fidelity of
the one and total personality — the unitary being called a
Moral Self — to the Moral Ideal. But this unity is subjec-
tive and lies in the nature of moral personality rather than
in the nature of virtue — as though " Virtue " could represent
anything more than an abstraction from the characteristic
tendencies and conscious states of this Self. For any objec-
tive unity we must look, not to the nature of virtue, but to
the Nature of Reality. But the subject still awaits further
and more satisfactory discussion.

It should be joyfully noticed in this connection how much

364 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

opportunity for the development of Individuality this view of
the unity of virtue permits to every man. Virtuous living
is not living in conformity to any one pattern of conduct.
It is no dead monotonous agreement in a sort of common
stock of virtues, from which each man may win more or less
for himself. The Virtuous Life has all the variety which
belongs to the beings who lead the life ; and of them no two
are alike. No man's list either of virtues or of vices pre-
cisely resembles that of any other man. Indeed, no man's
anger, or pride, or courage, or wisdom, or justice, or kind-
ness, is precisely the counterpart of the same qualities in
another. For the unity is in and of each individual self-
hood. And this is a unity that emphasizes endless vari-
ability — even in the Ideal toward which it strives.

CHAPTER Xy

DUTY AND MORAL LAW

There are certain aspects of man's moral consciousness,
the experience and the contemplation of which give rise to
conceptions that are in important ways different from those
already considered. Of such conceptions the two most sug-
gestive and fundamental are Duty and Moral Law. Accord-
ing to the modern enlightened conscience, at any rate, the
life of virtue can be led only by the man who does his duty,
and is obedient to the moral code. Indeed, the question
may be raised whether the complete doing of one's duty, and
perfect obedience to that law which commands the right and
forbids the wrong, would not be tantamount to attaining
moral perfection. The value of the animus which attaches
itself to these two conceptions can scarcely be overestimated ;
and to trace the history of their evolution and elevation
in human moral consciousness is equivalent to following
along the main lines of the moral progress of the race. For
it is in respect of improved and enlarged conceptions of Law,
and more severe and exacting conceptions of Duty, rather
than of altered appreciations of the virtues, that the moral
progress of man has consisted hitherto.

It must be admitted, however, that the moment one begins
the effort to derive a theory of the virtues, or a theory of the
nature of the right, from men's notions of duty or of that
which some writers are pleased to call the moral law one
becomes involved in manifold embarrassments, — not to say,
hopelessly insoluble puzzles. The reason for this is not

366 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

difficult to discover. Duty and moral law are extremely
abstract and intangible conceptions. They summarize a cer-
tain complex attitude of the Moral Self toward one of its own
ideal constructions, rather than the definite marks of some class
of concrete objects or the common factors of definitely similar
experiences. They are themselves comparatively late devel-
opments ; although the basis for them is, of course, laid in the
most universal and fundamental facts of human experience.
Here again, the particular and the concrete, with all its
variety and subtile texture, comes first ; and the abstract, the
formulated, the attempt at a generalization which shall
embody all the essential elements of the changing actuality,
is a later product of reflection. Just as virtues precede
virtue, so are duties prior to duty ; and so do many individual
and conflicting commandments antedate the idea of a unity of
moral law.

To understand the nature of the conception of Duty it is
necessary to discover the facts in moral consciousness in
which it has its origin. These facts all, in a word, refer to
the excitement of the feeling of obligation in connection with
certain definite relations of the individual man to other men.
Two sets of factors are thus brought to our attention by this
conception : (1) that conduct is an obligation ; and (2) that
the obligation has personality — tlie Moral Self in relations
to other moral selves — for its objective aim or point of
attachment. In this way the significance of the very word
" duty " becomes apparent ; it is the conduct that is owing, is
due (dehituiTi)^ because the mental image of it arouses the
feeling of "oughtness" or moral obligation. A duty is a
formulated oughtness.

I cannot, therefore, quite agree with the statement of Pro-
fessor Dewey : ^ " The consciousness of an end to be realized,
the idea of something to be done is, in and of itself, the
consciousness of duty." It is rather to be said that the con-

1 Outlines of Ethics, p. 192.

DUTY AND MORAL LAW 367

sciousness of an end that ought to be realized, an idea of
something that ought to be done, is in and of itself the most
fundamental content of the consciousness of duty. But no
particular conduct can be regarded as a duty without the
added conception, or mental picture, of some one whose duty
the conduct is, and also of some other one to whom the con-
duct is due. Who owes this " something to be done " ? It
is I (or some other one) that owe; it is my duty, my debt,
my obligation to be met by a corresponding deed of will.
To what, or to whom, is the debt, the duty, the obligation
due ? To some other person, to another who stands in some
definite and particular form of relations to me.

It is not likely to be disputed that the conception of duty
would never originate, were it not for that feeling of obliga-
tion which has already been discussed as the most unique
phenomenon of the moral consciousness of mankind. For
the conception is essentially an abstraction from this unique
form of feeling. And when it becomes the more definite
conception of some particular form of conduct, — a duty, or
the duty, for example, of reverence to superiors, pity for the
suffering, courage in danger, or justice and friendliness to
all mankind, — it cannot be disconnected from the feeling
which is its source. Only forms of behavior having reference
to what we feel either ought or ought not to be, can be con-
ceived of as duties.

There is more chance for question, however, with reference
to the statement that all duties are due to some Self con-
ceived of as standing in social relations to other selves. For
do we not hear of duties to the animals, and even to inanimate
things ; and especially in these later days of somewhat ex-
treme refinement of ethical theory, of duties to one's own
person, and above all to a code conceived of as a sort of im-
personal unity, called the Moral Law ? How, then, can one
affirm — as I certainly wish to be understood to affirm — that
the conception of duty implies as an integral and ineradicable

368 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

moment of itself the reference to persons existing in social
relations to one another ?

It is, indeed, possible to maintain the duty of cultivating
a spirit of kindness and of tlie unwillingness to cause
unnecessary pain toward the lower animals. The rationale
of this duty may be differently regarded by different systems
of ethics, or when brought to the test of the explanation
afforded by the ethical judgments of different individual
agents. Thus A may refrain from abusing another man's
dog, because he recognizes the right of its owner to protect
his property from injury ; B may refrain because he dislikes
to experience the sympathetic pains which the sufferings of
the animal would cause him ; may recoil from the feeling of
moral degradation which he would thus bring upon himself ;
and D may shrink from the social opprobrium involved, or
from the danger of arrest by the officer of the Society for the
Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. In each case, however,
if reason is sought to justify the feeling of moral obligation,
the reference will be either direct or indirect to that which is
due to a being answering to the conception of selfhood. It is
my duty to my Self, or to my fellow selves among the social
community, or to the quasi self-like being of the dog, which
forms the point of attachment for the feeling of obligation.

In this connection it is worth while to notice how different
is the attitude of moral consciousness toward animals which
are distinctly hostile and dangerous to man, when it is possi-
ble to strip them as nearly as possible of all self-like qualities.
In India, for example, most Europeans do not feel it to be a
duty owed to the cobras or the man-eating tigers, to treat
them with kindness; however unwilling many individuals
may be to demean themselves by subjecting these pests to
unnecessary torture. But the devout and superstitious native
will continue to leave the deadly serpent where the Euro-
pean may, at peril to his own salvation, destroy it; while
he himself feels the obligation not to harm the animal be-

DUTY AND MORAL LAW

cause his own ancestor may be embodied in the cobra or
because he would thus impair his own chances of improving
his future condition in Karma, At the other extreme of
refined sentimentality stands the example of St. Francis of
Assisi who delighted in doing his duty by way of loving our
dear brethren in the Lord, the birds.

Any form of conduct, then, whose mental representation
calls forth the feeling of obligation toward some Self or
self -like being is properly called a duty. " I am bound to
every act of duty." And where the relations which define
the different classes and different circumstances of mankind
are sufficiently permanent, we find arising out of them some
specific formulas that prescribe the corresponding duties.
For example, the relations of the family bear upon the con-
sciences of the different members of the family in different
ways. Husbands and wives owe each other some duties;
but between the chief of the tribe and the tribesmen, or
between the common members of the same tribe, other duties
are owing. In the narratives of the Homeric era we have
a picture of a variety of obligations under which gods and
men stand to one another, and gods and goddesses to one
another, and all to Zeus ; while the different classes of per-
sons among the allied Greek forces acknowledge peculiar
duties as belonging to each one of them ; nor are even Greeks
and Trojans so alien that no duties whatever are felt to be
incumbent upon both in their reciprocal relations. In our
modern commercial civilization it is the duties of men and
women that grow out of their various business relations
which are chiefly emphasized; and even domestic, social,
and religious duties are either relegated to the background
of privacy or else are themselves discharged as matters of
contract and of commercial justice. Indeed, there seems
to be danger that in England, America, and Germany all
human duties will be regarded from the commercial point
of view, — while in the Orient, and especially perhaps with

370 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

the Hindu and the Mohammedan, duties have chiefly to do
with religion and social relations ; while commerce and trade
are matters that are conducted with an appalling lack of any
consciousness of being bound by moral law.

This brief analysis of the conception of duty may enable
us to discern how much of truth, how much of fallacy, there
is in a theory which — like that of Paulsen, for example —
regards duty as in origin essentially negative, and uniformly
arising in the form of a limitation of impulses.^ According
to this theory the feeling of obligation is itself a derivative
moral consciousness, caused only and limited by, that clash
of impulse with custom which always gives the idea of the
right to the individual. That the feeling of obligation is
not a derivative form of moral consciousness, that, on the
contrary, one cannot even speak of moral consciousness of
morality at all as prior to this feeling, has already been
shown in detail. ^ It is then necessary at present only to
point out the fallacy of regarding the notion of duty as
purely negative and limiting of natural impulse. It is true
that the dawning of all moral experience is largely due to
the negation and limiting of natural impulses ; being inhib-
ited and checked by the social environment acts, in the
early instances, to stir most vehemently the consciousness
of right and wrong, of good and evil, in the ethical signifi-
cance of these terms. But to say this is quite a different
matter from characterizing the conception of duty as purely
negative. The "duty-to," psychologically considered, is
quite as positive, and it often becomes quite as spontaneous,
attractive, and influential, as the " duty-not-to. " The
reason for this has its basis in the moral nature, and in the
most nearly primitive moral experiences. For even under
a very low degree of ethical and social culture, but pre-
eminently as this degree rises to the condition attained in

1 A System of Ethics, p. 346 f.

2 Compare the discussions, especially chapters V and VII.

DUTY AND MORAL LAW 3T1

the ethically most developed communities, the feeling of
obligation and the pleased feeling of self-approval together
become most closely associated with identical forms of
conduct. So that, in all degrees of social culture, ethically
considered, while there is much which custom enforces
against inclination and in the interests of duty, there is also
much which custom does to secure a union of inclination
with the feeling of obligation. It may even be said that men
are naturally inclined to do at least some things which they
are determined by custom, law, or their own reflections, to
judge that they ought to do. Instances of this sort, taken
from the less developed forms of social organization, are
the pleasurable duties of courage in battle, hospitality to
strangers, and many of those forms of conduct to which are
attached — as even the Tongan chiefs knew (see p. 315) " the
agreeable and happy feelings which a man experiences within
himself when he conducts himself nobly and generously, as
a man ought to do. "

The conception of duty must, then, be held to include all
those forms of behavior toward others with which the feeling
of obligation becomes bound up, whether they are favored or
opposed by impulse and inclination. One's impulses and
inclinations, whether natural or acquired, may coincide
with, or they may stand in the way of, one's duties.

Erom the conception of duty there have arisen a number of
subordinate conceptions and connected problems, the discus-
sion of which has quite too often resulted in a rather unpro-
ductive logomachy. For example: Are the duties and the
virtues co-extensive ? Can a man, by being virtuous, do
more than his duty ? More particularly : Can one properly
speak of such experiences as the duty of being happy, or of
thinking correctly, or of any other form of self-control over
feeling and intellect ?

So far as such questions as the foregoing are of general
interest and have a bearing upon the philosophy of conduct

372 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

and the practice of the virtuous life, they are illumined in a
measure by such considerations as the following. Both
words — Duty and Virtue — are used sometimes with a
chiefly subjective, and sometimes with a chiefly objective
and external, reference. That is to say, they either signify
conscious and voluntary attitudes of the Self, considered
mainly as such; or they indicate definite forms of behavior
which are observable by others and so can be considered
with reference to their conformity to the prevalent custom or
other social standard. Not only in all discussion about
matters of conduct, but also in the very transactions which
constitute these matters of conduct, the consciousness of
men is subject to rapid and frequent transitions between
these two points of view. To illustrate this let us consider
two examples of exactly opposite kinds; and let the first
example be the doing of a duty to which one is very much
disinclined, — the administering of a punishment, the dis-
closure of his faults to a friend, the bestowal of a favor likely
to be abused, the performance of some tiresome social func-
tion, or the casting of a vote for a candidate who is "the
lesser of two evils," etc. Here the external act is a duty;
and its performance even against inclination would be con-
sidered by most men to be a virtuous deed. In the objective
aspect of the transaction virtue and duty coincide. How
stands the case, however, with the mental attitude, in spite
of which, one forces one's self — so to say — to perform the
external act ? Is one virtuous in having this attitude of dis-
inclination toward one's duty? On the contrary, would not
one be more virtuous if one were less in need of using the
motive of duty to overcome disinclination?

If the same point of view is steadfastly maintained during
the entire inquiry, I am confident that we must answer Yes
to the first question and No to the second question; and
that we may get confirmation from both the questions and
their appropriate answers for identifying throughout the

DUTY AND MOEAL LAW 373

sphere of the virtues and the sphere of the duties. For sup-
posing that the mental attitude to the external act may be
considered as a piece of conduct, — and so it ought to be
considered if judgment and will enter into the feeling here ;
then the disinclination itself is either virtuous or not vir-
tuous, either a duty or not a duty. In many cases disin-
clination to do one^s duty is virtuous and is itself a duty, I
ought to be disinclined to administer painful punishment,
to find fault with a friend, to bestow favors likely to be
abused, to use strength needed for work in social functions,
and to vote for unworthy candidates, no matter to what party
they belong. In a word, both disinclination to the duty and
doing the duty to which we are disinclined, may be both
virtuous and dutiful. Virtuous living consists for man in
large measure in cultivating certain disinclinations and yet
in acting in ways that are contrary to the same disinclina-
tions. This any student of ethics must admit who takes
ethical facts and truths as they exist in their finest manifes-
tation, — namely, the reactions of intelligent, sensitive, and
disciplined moral consciousness upon the inevitably hard
conditions, both physical and social, of human life.

In the other class of cases the good man refrains, for
duty's sake, from doing what he is more or less strongly
inclined to do. Sometimes, in such cases, the inclination
may be virtuous and the failure to perform the external act
may seem to others to be wrong; at other times, the inclina-
tion may seem to others to be wrong, but both it and the
refusal to do the thing to which the inclination points may
really be both dutiful and virtuous. For example, he who
has the virtues of kindliness and pity cannot see the suffering
and sin of others without the inclination to relieve both.
This inclination is virtuous ; it is a duty to which the feeling
of obligation binds the mind, and from which we ought not
to desire to free ourselves. So, too, there are certain inclina-
tions to the mutual enjoyment of one another's wit, poetic

374 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

imagination, scientific information, or other friendly and
sympathetic intercourse, without which the life of virtue and
of duty-doing does not easily flourish or even keep its head
above the mire of despondency and the dust of oblivion.
Yet oftentimes in view of inevitable limitations and of the
consequences of indulging them, these kindly, pitiful, and
friendly inclinations have to be denied. The denial is both
dutiful and virtuous ; it is what the good man ought to do.
But it is also both dutiful and virtuous to do what one can
to keep alive these generous and kindly impulses. To refrain
from giving to a beggar may be a duty; but it does not
follow that it is also a duty not to feel the pitiful inclination
to give.

Similar considerations help to solve those cases where
the moral consciousness of mankind seems the more highly
to commend the virtue of those who have done "piore than
their duty." For here, too, the very idea of a surplusage
which is transferable from the credit side of the ledger
where the accounts of " Duty " are kept to the same side of
the page over which is the headline "Virtue," is a mistake
due to a lack of clear thinking. If one will look at the two
accounts without changing the point of view, one will find
their debits and credits to coincide; and both accounts
stand always with the same deficits on the credit side. No
man can be more than perfectly virtuous; no man can do
more than his whole duty. It would not be virtuous to
exceed in any direction the domain of known duties ; it is
not doing the whole duty to be wanting in any particular of
virtuous conduct.

Two forms of the confused thinking on this subject which
results from the unconscious transition between different
points of view need especially to be noticed in this connec-
tion. First: The evolution of morals in the individual and
in the race does for the so-called duties of mankind what it
does for the virtues ; it reduces them to some sort of order,

DUTY AND MORAL LAW 876

formulates them, and incorporates them into certain com-
monly recognized modes of external behavior. It is in this
way that there come to exist those rules of conduct which it
is deemed obligatory for all persons to observe toward one
another under definite sets of relations ; these are the duties
owed by one person to another, as they are associated in
various ways. Morals are satisfied if these debts are paid,
whatever be the inclination, the motive, or the preceding
struggle in consciousness. But morality is not satisfied in
this way; and, in some crude and imperfect fashion, man-
kind demand morality as well as morals of one another.
This they have always done ; this, to an increasing extent,
they will do as the social and ethical evolution of the race
goes forward. When, however, any individual makes an
exhibition of morality in some form that notably transcends
the limits of morals fixed by the social standard — whether
this standard be custom, law, or opinion — he is said to " do
more than it was his duty to do." But here again is con-
cealed the same ambiguity which arises from shifting the
point of view. This ambiguity may be emphasized in the
form of a paradox: It is every one's duty to do a great deal
more than he and others esteem his duty; and yet no one
can do more than his duty ; and, finally, if one were to do
more than his duty, he would not, in this doing, be doing
his duty at all.

Second: It is customary for writers on ethics to debate
whether the merit of well-doing is enhanced or diminished
by the amount of conflict through which the mental attitude
finds its way to the external action. Is a man's virtue, and
his corresponding merit the greater if he does his duty in
spite of inclination, or if his inclination sets strongly in the
direction of his duty? Here, once again, a careful analysis
of the problem exposes the vice of constantly shifting the
point of view. For example, the question is raised : Is the
man who is strongly tempted to indulge the appetite for

376 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

drink and yet who, out of proper motives, controls that
appetite, more virtuous, dutiful, and meritorious than the
man who is not tempted to drink at all ? The answer is,
Yes, or No, — according to the point of view which is taken,
and the character of the virtue which is emphasized. More
virtue of will goes into the external act of temperance in the
case of the man who has the appetite. But the appetite for
drink itself is, in all normal cases, a resultant of an habitual
vice of will. In its beginnings and early developments, this
appetite is due to a lack of rational control over imagination,
thought, speech, social environment and influences. On the
other hand, unless the case has passed beyond the limits of
recovery by the practice of self-control, repeated acts of
virtuous self-denial will eventually undermine the vicious
appetite, and restore the man to a completer state of virtue.
To take another example : Is the grasping man when, with
painful reluctance and yet for duty's sake, he bestows his
property upon some good cause, more virtuous than that
" cheerful giver " who is the beloved of God and man ? Yes,
and yet No, — according to one's point of view, may be the
answer again. The avaricious man practises more self-
denial; and this self-denial is certainly virtuous, if it be
wise and in a good cause. But the kindly, generous feeling
of the cheerful giver is a virtue also, — a meritorious attitude
of soul toward others which seems to belong to a somewhat
different category. Nor is it much easier to weigh over
against one another virtues and duties that do not belong
to the same class, than it is to estimate the relative inten-
sities of the different forms of sensations, or of the pleasure-
pains. Especially is this true when the standard itself is
constantly kept shifting between the subjective and the
objective points of view.

It appears, then, that the conception of the duties, like
the conception of the virtues, arises from the way in which
men contemplate the different aspects of moral life and

DUTY AND MORAL LAW 877

moral development. The two conceptions lay emphasis
upon somewhat different aspects of this life and of its devel-
opment. The virtues suggest less of the feeling of obliga-
tion, more of that which is relatively spontaneous and
impulsive. The duties lay more emphasis upon the feeling
of obligation, in its frequent attitude of counteracting or
restricting the impulses; but especially do they recognize
the various social relations in which men are placed toward
one another as limiting and defining the forms of their mutual
obligations.

Thus the conception of duties leads naturally and neces-
sarily to the conception of rights. What I am owing to
another, that it is his right to have : what is due me from
another, to that I am entitled as to a right. And as the
conceptions of duty and of virtue take a wider range and
extend to more manifold and intricate relations among men,
the idea of universal moral laws comes into prominence and
power. This growth in these conceptions introduces and
necessitates a philosophy of conduct that is political and
social rather than so exclusively psychological.

It is quite impossible, however, to do the scantiest justice
to the conception of Duty without noticing how forceful is
the grasp which it lays upon the ethical imagination, when
it is sublimated and apostrophized to the highest possible
degree. Nor is the quickening and elevating influence of the
conception lessened by the extremely vague and indefinite
nature of its content. On the contrary, the continually
expanding demand made upon human thought and imagina-
tion to frame an Ideal of that which shall express all which
the Moral Self feels itself obligated to be, and to do, becomes
the cause of more and more strenuous efforts to realize all
the concrete virtues and duties which make up the Virtuous
Life. Thus Kant, although he seemed to make the concep-
tion of duty synonymous with subjection to an abstract prin-
ciple admitted that men properly ascribe a certain " dignity

378 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

and sublimity to the person who fulfils all his duties. " ^ In
his celebrated apostrophe he addresses the bare conception
as "Duty! Thou sublime and mighty name." In Coleridge
and Carlyle and in other writers whose thoughts upon ethical
topics are infused with more of emotional warmth, a similar
treatment is given to this impersonal conception. In not a
few of those lives which are actually keyed to the highest
pitch of moral endeavor, the idea to which this "sublime
and mighty name " corresponds, imparts to the person who
follows the idea a certain great " dignity and sublimity " of
personal character.

How shall this manner of speech be taken out of the realm
of poetry and myth and given the garb of scientific truth ?
It seems to me that only one way is possible. The ideal of
duty-doing, which is a mere abstraction until it is translated
into terms of personal experience and personal character, is
really the ideal of a Moral Self perfectly adjusted, by his own
response to the feeling of obligation, to all other moral selves
in the various social relations. What, then, is the whole
duty of man ? It is the constant, courageous, wise, and
loving devotion of one's powers to the realization of this
Ideal. Positively expressed in terms of religion, the ex-
hortation which sets before man his whole duty is this:
"Be ye therefore perfect even as your Father which is in
heaven is perfect." Negatively expressed, and as contra-
dicting all the impulses, endeavors, and ideals which lie
in different directions, human ethical experience may be
summed up in these closing words of Tourgu^neff 's Faust :
"Not the fulfilment of cherished dreams and aspirations,
however lofty they may be — the fulfilment of duty, that is
what must be the care of man. Without laying on himself
chains, the iron chains of duty, he cannot reach without a
fall the end of his career. But in youth we think — the freer

1 Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals, Edition of Rosenkranz
and Schubert, p. 64.

DUTY AND MOEAL LAW 379

the better, the farther one will get. Youth may be excused
for thinking so. But it is shameful to delude one's self
when the stern face of truth has looked one in the eyes at
last."

Closely connected with the conception of duty as an obli-
gation upon impulse which is felt like " iron chains " is the
conception of moral law in its origin and development. On
this subject the analysis of moral consciousness confirms
what an historical study of moral development suggests ; only
at a certain stage in his progress does man (the individual
and — in a somewhat figurative way we may say — the race)
find himself face to face with this legal conception of mor-
ality. It is indeed doubtful whether any distinct epoch in
ethical evolution is to be discerned " when the idea of obliga-
tion held in the general consciousness has been taken by the
obligatory norm of law. " The rise and growth of the thought
that the pursuit of the Virtuous Life may properly be con-
ceived of as obedience to a universal code has been natural
and yet manifold in character, and oftentimes subtle and
concealed. Especially is this true of that exceedingly vague
and intangible conception which undertakes to express it-
self in such phrases as a moral law, or the Moral Law. Laws,
themselves impersonal, which are concrete enactments regu-
lating the relations of persons, and which owe their origin to
the action of persons, can be understood. Laws that have
only the significance of the more or less regular observed
modes of the behavior of impersonal things, are prima facie
intelligible, even if we cannot understand their source. But
what can be meant by the Moral Law, if all personality, all
Selfhood, is to be left out of the account which ethics attempts
to render of its origin, its validity, and the enforcement of
its penalties ?

In their effort to understand the origin and nature of such
a mental construct as the conception of an impersonal moral
law writers on ethics are found shifting their points of view

380 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

in the fashion against which warning has already been
uttered repeatedly. That is to say, these writers take at
one moment the subjective, or plainly personal point of
view ; and at the next moment they are found stationed at
the more objective and tentatively impersonal point of view.
I say "tentatively impersonal;" for no point of view from
which to regard any ethical conception can possibly be more
than apparently and momentarily (" for the sake of the argu-
ment," as it were) separated from considerations that are
realizable only in the conditions and social relations of
moral and personal beings.

Subjectively regarded, the conception of Moral Law is the
conscious apprehension of some rule or maxim, adapted to
regulate conduct, which actually excites the feelings of
obligation, approbation, and merit, and which actually offers
a mandate to the will. Subjectively considered also, the very
formation of this conception implies a work of learning these
rules and maxims from other persons, or of generalizing them
for one's self by processes of observation. The primary data
for its formation are such as have already been discovered by
our analysis of man's moral consciousness. They are the "I
think," "I feel," "I desire," "I plan," etc., all of them
psychoses, which have reference to forms of good and bad
conduct. Objectively regarded, however, the so-called moral
laws are certain forms of conduct that have — by whatever
historical processes and in accordance with whatever true or
false traditions — become actually embodied in customs,
maxims, statutes, or other institutions; they are the com-
monly accepted formulas which assume the right to regulate
human behavior under a great variety of conditions and
relations. But such laws, thus objectively and impersonally
regarded, cannot be regarded as moral laws, without a return
to the personal and subjective point of view. And here the
simple and ultimate fact is that they appear before the
individual consciousness as binding ; they actually arouse the

DUTY AND MORAL LAW B81

feeling of obligation, and offer a mandate, an imperative to
the will. Their being consists in the recognition which
they obtain in the minds of personal beings.

Moral laws imply, then, law -giving moral consciousness,
ivhich is their only actual, and indeed only conceivable, source.
So much of universality as they can attain is dependent upon
those characteristics of moral consciousness which belong
to human nature and are exercised semper, ubique, et ah
omnibus. So much of objectivity as they possess, of imper-
sonality as they appear to have, is due to the conditions and
nature of the various forms of social organization. But
social organization is itself a product of morally constituted
selves. In all such social organization the primary, uni-
versally present fact is found to be that certain ways of
behavior, rather than others, are recognized as binding upon
human nature. As far back as one can go in human history,
trusting in genuine historical sources, one finds society of
some sort already organized upon substantially the same
ethical basis as that now existing. The person makes the
laws that take on the objective form of custom, maxim,
common law, or written statute ; and the person responds to
these objective forms with the feelings, thoughts, and voli-
tions, which make them to be, in reality, moral laws.

The prevalent conception of moral law, and the influence
of this conception over the practical morals and virtuous
living of the men of any age, are, therefore, always closely
connected with the development of the conception of law in
general. In modern times this connection has been made
especially close with thoughts and feelings which are the
product and the embodiment of the regnant scientific spirit;
and the fact has been, in some respects, most unfortunate
for ethics. What, in reality, is to be understood by the
word "Law," as this one word is made to cover experiences
so unlike as the generalizations of the physical sciences,
the enactments of legislative assemblies, and the formulas

382 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

to which the nobler impulses to action respond in moral
consciousness ?

As I have elsewhere shown, ^ the ethical nature of man
directs, colors, and everywhere interpenetrates his scientific
researches and conclusions. It is in his moral being that all
the current notions of the sanctions, of the quasi-ethicol
import and obligatory character of natural laws, have their
origin and source of strength. From the same fountain flow
the feelings with which the modern student of nature so
highly regards his oftentimes really unimportant discoveries,
and with which he magnifies his office and the worth to the
race of his own personal services as a so-called man of
discovery and research. Only for a being with moral con-
sciousness can such conceptions as "the reign of law,*'
"obedience to the laws of nature," etc., have any power to
awaken ideas of obligation or sanctity. Indeed, if one
will think clearly, one will come to see that all that termi-
nology of science which implies ideas of sanction, obligation,
worth, etc., is utterly meaningless except as applied to the
states and relations of personal beings. On the other hand,
any attempt to set up the conception of an impersonal rule,
or a formula derived from observation and generalizations
on a basis of mere fact, within the moral realm results in a
species of fetish-worship which is as unthinking and degrad-
ing here as fetish-worship is within the kindred realm
of religion. The same personal being who is expected to
regard with a feeling of sacredness and admiring approbation
the uniform modes of the behavior of impersonal beings
— the so-called " laws of nature " — cannot be expected,
without these feelings of a personal sort, to conform in his
own conduct to the idea of an impersonal rule, when it calls
itself by the name of a "moral law." Why, indeed, should
man show the fundamental characteristics of his moral
selfhood more plainly when he is regarding the behavior of

1 In Philosophy of Knowledge, and A Theory of Reality — throughout both
books.

DUTY AND MOEAL LAW 383

things than when he is regarding the behavior of human
beings ?

Of all the several forms which the conception of law can
assume, that which it wears within the sphere of ethics is
most distinctly an affair of personality. Natural laws are,
indeed, only the observed or inferred uniform ways of the
behavior of things ; the things themselves are not regarded
as consciously conforming to the laws. The whole represen-
tation terminates in the mere fact that so the things behave.
But human laws are objectively formulated rules, to which
conformity is expected and enforced by an appeal to interest
of some sort. Both natural laws and human laws become
moral, and obedience to them becomes virtuous and disobe-
dience becomes a vice, only when the external expression of
the formula presents itself within the consciousness of some
Self as a form of behavior which ought to be rendered, under
certain social relations, to other selves. Thus the idea of
an "external imponent," — to borrow the expressive phrase
of Professor T. H. Green ^ — is undoubtedly connected in
the imagination of mankind with the sanctions belonging to
most laws that are conceived of as distinctively moral.

When the point of view properly held by the student of
ethical evolution is assumed, it is seen how the idea of
universal obligation arises from the experience which the
individual actually has of the laws imposed upon him in
connection with the growth of society. Formulas of conduct
that are embodied in customs, common laws, statutes, and
institutions, do really and inevitably bind men as with
"iron chains." But on the other hand, the laws thus
actualized in the social organization, and accorded sanc-
tions by society, have themselves arisen from the more
primitive ethico-religious consciousness of mankind. The
profound import of all this can only appear later on, when
we come to deal with the relation to ultimate realities which
1 See Prolegomena to Ethics, p. 354.

884 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

is sustained by this ethico-religious consciousness in whose
development lies the source of the very laws which it regards
as having an "external imponent," and to which it accords
the right to command and a certain character for sanctity.
It is enough now to note that the conception of some one
all-comprehending Law which, having an impersonal origin,
comes to claim the right, as mere law, to bind the conduct
of the individual, or of society, is a conception which can
find no legitimate place either in the philosophy of conduct
or in ethical praxis. Of all ethical abstractions this is the
most untenable.

Among the influences which have worked upon the thought
and imagination of man to develop, elevate, and enforce
the conception of moral law, that of religion has been much
the most potent. Indeed the very nature of religion is such
as to serve most effectively the two principal ends reached by
this conception ; — namely, (1) that the feeling of obligation
should attach itself to an "external imponent" instead of
remaining a merely inexplicable subjective stirring of con-
sciousness ; and (2) that the formula should assume the shape
of a command issued from a person to a person and defining
right personal relations. All the seeming impersonal laws,
whatever may be the form of manifestation which they have
taken, lack something of these important characteristics.
But the priest, the prophet, the soothsayer, or the sacred
writing, comes with words from those who are like the
noblest and most powerful of human kind, with definite
formulas, in the shape of a command — " Thou shalt " or
" Thou shalt not ; " and this command is enforced by prom-
ises of reward and threats of penalties. In the lower stages
of ethical and religious evolution this is especially true of
the essence of tabu, which is, as Jevons has said,^ the con-
viction that certain things must be avoided, because it has
been so commanded — absolutely, and not on grounds of

1 Introduction to the History of Religion, p. llf.

DUTY AND MOKAL LAW 385

experience with them or of " unconscious utility. "" Tabu is
the objective categorical imperative, the law that is imposed
from without as a " Thou shalt not " — " the first form
assumed by social and moral obligation and by religious
commandments." In the same direction of ethical evolu-
tion those religious codes have been powerful which, like the
laws of Moses, or the laws of Manu, have prescribed forms
of ritual, or other forms of conduct, to mankind. Their gen-
eral formula is a "Thus saith the Lord," — a commandment
that has divine sanctions, is more direct and usually more
explicit than the impersonal custom, and that appeals to all
those feelings which are the more powerful because the objects
toward which they are evoked are invisible and mysterious.

It is significant of the most important ethical truths that
no release from the " iron chains " which give these truths
the character of laws follows upon the setting free of the
intellect from its superstitions, so long as the command-
ment itself retains its moral character. The inner obliga-
tion — the feeling-bound to keep the commandment as though
it were an " external imponent " — still abides in the morally
worthy consciousness; still does this voice of conscience
seem as though it were a voice from an invisible and supreme
source of moral laws, a true Voice of God. Hence when
those who do not believe in God as a Moral Self, or in God
at all, personify the conception of the sum-total of ethical
obligations, they are fain to spell the words with capitals
and swear allegiance to this purely abstract conception.
They hypostasize and deify an abstraction as though it were
itself existent and divine.

" Der AherglauV, in dem vnr aufgewachserij
Verliert, auch wenn wir ihn erkennen, darum
Dock seine Macht nicTit ilber uns. Es sind
Nicht allefreiy die ihrer Ketten spotten." ^

1 Lessing, Nathan der Weise, line 2755 f . " The snperstition in which we have
grown np, even when we come to recognize it, does not lose its power over us on
this account They are not all free who scorn their chains."

386 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

I shall undertake to show in another connection that this
high regard for the conception of an impersonal formula, or
system of formulas, — that is, for the Moral Law regarded as
not having its ground or sanctions in the Absolute Moral
Self — is a continuance of a similar more refined, but no
more logical, form of superstition.

It appears then that our conception of the law of morality is
itself an evolution which is due to the action and reaction
of two correlated but not identical sides, or aspects, of man's
ethico-social development. Of these one is objective and
historical ; it includes the progressive formation of all those
legal or quasi legal institutions, of whatever kind, which pre-
sent themselves as external to the moral consciousness of the
individual, because they prescribe formulas for his conduct
that have rewards and penalties attached, and represent with
social sanctions the collective will and judgment of the
social organization. These are the laws furnished by the
current morals regarded as externally imposed. But this
historical evolution is accompanied by a development of the
ethico-social consciousness within the individual members
of the social organization. Such consciousness consists in
a clearer mental grasp upon the significance and value of the
external institutions, and a response to them with the dis-
tinctively ethical feelings of obligation and of approbation
(or its opposite). It is this subjective evolution which,
having more or less unconsciously produced the objective, —
now determines the question whether the existing laws shall
be acknowledged to be truly moral laws. Thus humanity
comes to a higher degree of moral consciousness with refer-
ence to its own morals. Thus there is developed an idea
of laws that, from the point of view of the present enlight-
enment, correspond better with the Moral Ideal than do the
existing legal institutions and externalized moral formulas.
Indeed, in the interests of this ideal every ethically progres-
sive social organization is continually condemning and so

DUTY AND MORAL LAW 387

improving or wholly rejecting its own past attempts to legal-
ize the different forms of the Virtuous Life. What it has
imposed upon itself in an external way it now regards as
an unwarrantable imposition ; and so it changes the external
manifestation of some phase of its own ethical construction.

In adopting this conclusion, however, the philosophy of
conduct is by no means left to those shiftings of opinion and
of conviction which seem to threaten its very foundations.
Laws many there have been, as there have been gods many
and lords many. And the moral laws, sacred as we must
regard them, seem to be much less stable than are the laws
of nature so-called. Well, why should they not be — at least
in some sort, and when regarded from a higher point of
view ? Even physical reality is not a matter merely of
keeping a few unalterably fixed laws externally imposed.
It, too, when regarded as having value, appears to be the
manifestation of the unfolding Life of the World; and
natural science, as well as ethics, needs to recognize the
higher import of the very system of laws which it has already
discovered. What has already been seen to be true in a lim-
ited way, when shown to be true also in the larger spheres of
conduct, suggests to the student of ethics a higher and more
unchanging point of view. It is chiefly religion that has
connected all these predicates — such as personal source,
supreme authority, inviolable sanctions, meaning that lies
in the very heart of Reality — with the conception of an
inviolable and unalterable ethical code. Whether we shall
not be forced either to leave all our philosophy of human
conduct in a state of perpetual flux, or else to substitute
the conception of a personal Life for the abstract conception
of an impersonal Law remains to be considered.

At any rate it is absolutely certain that philosophy cannot
logically justify, as anthropology cannot historically authen-
ticate, the conception of a Code for Conduct, that, irrespec-
tive of the moral character of its personal source and of the

388 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

moral consequences which its keeping or breaking has upon a
society of personal beings, possesses the right to rule over men.
Especially in respect of its moral consciousness, society is
always superior to the laws to which it has given the place
of "external imponents." For moral consciousness, curi-
ously enough, always allows itself glimpses of a character
for the individual, and of a condition for society, which is
better than that already existing, and to which man is bound
— somehow, but why ? or by whom ? — to struggle forward
and upward. To try to justify this obligation by deify-
ing Humanity and joining the few remaining disciples of
Auguste Comte, would only be another way of conforming
to the clinging superstition (?) which regards the Moral
Ideal as having essentially the character of an "external
imponent."

We may note, in closing this chapter, how the conceptions
of Virtue, Duty, and Moral Law, stand related in moral
consciousness, in many interesting ways. Virtue is a gen-
eralization from particular virtues, or kinds of conduct to
which, as due chiefly to moral reactions of the social en-
vironment, the feelings of obligation, approbation, and merit
have become attached. Duty is a generalization from con-
crete particular duties, each one of which implies the same
feelings as connected with forms of conduct dependent upon
our special relations with others (an "oweness" of some-
thing to be done to some person). Law is a generalization
of the maturer consciousness of the individual in his race
development and more extended social environment. It is
two-sided, and implies validity ("thatness") and content
(" whatness ") ; — an imperative which has reference to some
external authority, although existing as a mandate within
the human mind.

CHAPTER XVI

UNIVERSALITY OF MORAL PRINCIPLES

Corresponding in some sort to the unification of virtues
and duties, and to the development of the conception of
moral law, is the growth in universality of moral principles.
Before we can comprehend the nature of this growth, how-
ever, it is necessary briefly to consider for what the word
" principles " is entitled to stand in any system of ethics, as
well as in the actual pursuit of the Virtuous Life. Of the
conceptions whose import has already been examined, that
of moral law comes nearest to the content represented by the
word now to be examined. For the essence of rules and
formulas in morals does not consist in an unconscious and
involuntary uniformity of action, but in the relation in
which the rules or formulas stand to the judgment, feel-
ing, and will of moral selves. Moral principles, too, have
reference to conduct, and conduct is something more than
mere habit of action.

In ethics, then, laws when subjectively regarded become
inmost respects the equivalent of principles; for both are
the self-understood and self-accepted formulas for regulating
the behavior of persons in their relations to other persons.
There are, nevertheless, two respects in which the concep-
tion of moral principles carries us beyond the conception
of moral law. First : the word " principle " lays more em-
phasis upon the recognition by the reason of the rule, or
formula, and less upon those factors in moral consciousness
which make it possible to regard ethical rules and formulas

390 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

as originating in some impersonal source, and so as having
a large irrational element in their character of "external
imponents." Thus the will seems to bow to laws; the
reason acts upon, or in the light of, principles. Reason is
more in conscious agreement with the principles of right
conduct than with the laws that define the limits of such
conduct. Laws cannot become principles in the sphere of
ethics without making an appeal to the rational side of
human nature. Laws, — only when rationally apprehended,
become principles.

With this characteristic difference between the two con-
ceptions another is closely and even necessarily allied.
Principles, in order to be entitled to the name, must be
capable of becoming the points of starting from which by
processes of reasoning to conclude something concerning
particulars. Moral principles are, then, in the second place,
such rules, or formulas, as being apprehended by the reason
may be made the grounds of a syllogism, or argument, by
means of which to reach a particular judgment concerning
the right or wrong of conduct. They are starting-points for
ethical judgment.

This view is justified by the current usages of speech. It
is customary in some circles to speak of certain persons as
'* men of good " (or, again, of bad) " principles ; " and by the
adjective used in this connection with the word principle the
usage indicates clearly enough that it is an ethical meaning
which is had in mind. Mr. A may be trusted in general,
and expected to do right in each particular emergency call-
ing for action, because he is a man of good moral principles.
But of Mr. B one is obliged not to expect too much by way
of resisting temptation or acting with good judgment; be-
cause Mr. B is not well grounded in moral principles. In
all such cases the emphasis is plainly not put upon mere
difference in that habit, or fixed state, of the affections and
will which, in the Aristotelian meaning of the words, is

UNIVERSALITY OF MORAL PRINCIPLES 391

called a virtue or a vice. In the man of moral principles,
good or bad, reason recognizes its own grounds of action,
and stands ready to make them the points of starting for a
conclusion that is — at least in the opinion of the individual
himself — justified by these grounds. Moral principles in
general, therefore, may be said to be those formulas that
are widely accepted by human reason and made premises
for conclusions as to the right and wrong of conduct.

It is obvious from the very nature of moral principles
what must be the nature of any universality which such
principles can attain or continue to possess. Principles^ in
general, have no existence outside of the rational conscious-
ness in whose apprehension and mental employment of them
their very being consists. They are not entities to dwell in
mid-air or in material things, or to be "lying around loose,"
as it were. Moral principles can exist only in the con-
sciousness of rational and ethical beings, in moral selves,
and as apprehended and employed by these selves for the
determination of concrete cases of moral judgment. Their
universality, therefore, can never be abstract merely — like
the laws of pure logic for the plain man's consciousness; nor
can it be, like the law of gravitation, simply the uniform
way of the behavior of beings that do not comprehend the
grounds on which their behavior reposes or the ends which
this behavior is fitted to procure. Moral principles can
really become universal among men, only when more and
more living individuals actually adopt the same rules as the
points of starting and of control for the intelligent deter-
mination of what they ought to do, and what they ought not
to do. Such increase in the universality of moral principles
depends upon the growth — nay! it is equivalent to, and
identical with the growth — of the rational and ethical
self-consciousness of mankind. It is, to speak somewhat
figuratively, a moral coming to itself, to a self-understanding
and a practice that grows out of self-understanding, on the

892 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

part of the race. The progressive establishment of moral
principles is an evolution, a march toward the Universal
which must have its grounds and its laws in somethiug
that is common to mankind.

If, then, a discussion of moral principles as having uni-
versal validity is to attain any basis whatever in experience,
or even in that which is intelligible because it states itself
in terms of experience, this discussion must discover some
real historical grounds for this progress toward the Univer-
sal. For^ so far as man is concerned, the universality/ of
moral principles is a progress and not an accomplished fact.

Let it be noticed that I am not proposing to inquire into
the grounds and laws of the total moral improvement of the
race; nor do I even assume that there has been such im-
provement. It is not as though ours were the historical
inquiry whether, on the whole, a larger proportion of man-
kind are becoming virtuous ; or whether the " good few " are
becoming more virtuous ; or whether the general level of the
race at large is being raised as estimated by the scale of vir-
tuous living about which men generally agree. Our inquiry
is in some respects more simple, although perhaps in others
more complex and difficult than any of these inquiries. I
assume that at least a considerable portion of the race is
becoming more intelligent and self-conscious as to the laws,
the consequences, and the import, of both natural and social
events — is, in a word, making progress in its mental grasp
upon those forces, formulas, and results that enter into its
own experience. Moral principles, as a part of the increas-
ing knowledge of the world, are becoming more universally
accepted and understood. In spite of the appalling fact
that, reckoned by numbers merely, such a large proportion
of mankind appear to be making no progress of any kind, it
is still true that the progressive part of the race is in the
way of forcing or carrying along the unprogressive part
toward some kind of agreement upon moral truths, as upon

UNIVERSALITY OF MORAL PRINCIPLES 393

other forms of truth. A not inconsiderable advance toward
the universality of moral principles is thus established as
an historical fact.

More than two thousand years ago Aristotle declared;^
" There is no human function so constant as the activities in
accordance with virtue: they seem to be more permanent
than the sciences themselves. Among these activities, too,
it is the most honorable which are the most permanent, as
it is in them that the life of the fortunate chiefly and most
continuously consists. " Now it is in these permanent func-
tions that the grounds of the universality of moral principles
are laid ; and it is in the growth of human knowledge as to
the laws which these functions follow that all actual realiza-
tion of the universality of these principles, thus grounded,
must consist.

It is not necessary to add to what has already been said
in support of the proposition that certain permanent and
fundamental forms of moral functioning belong to man as
man — are the common, the universal characteristics of the
race. These are the forms of feeling, judgment, and voli-
tion, which are the characteristic constitution of man as an
ethical being. The study of human nature from the anthro-
pological point of view shows the truth of Wundt's con-
tention: "Man has always had the same kind of moral
endowment." To say that these forms of functioning are,
so far as man is concerned, universal in their validity and
applicability is, therefore, either tautological or superfluous.
So essential are they to every conception of morality itself
that all other rational beings — inhabitants of some distant
planet or more distant star, angels, disembodied spirits, and
God himself — are in thought necessarily endowed with these
same forms of functioning. It is in these universal forms
of functioning that the immediate grounds of man's moral
development consist.

I Nic. Eth, I, X, 10.

394 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

Moreover, there is a limited number of more definite rules
and principles declarative of what is right that arise from
experience under the most general, or even universal forms of
human life and human development. To this class belong
those most primary and widely applicable ethical formulas, or
conscious generalizations, that are based upon a few simple
and universal relations, such as those of the family, the
tribe, or the somewhat more elaborate social organization.
For example, that children owe some sort of service and
obedience to their parents, and parents some sort of protec-
tion and nurture to those whom they freely adopt as their
children; that subjects owe some sort of fidelity to rulers,
and of service to the social organization of which they are
members (courage in battle for the tribe, etc.); and that
members of the same social organization owe a certain
amount of friendliness to one another; — these, and some
similar judgments of worth of a primitive sort, may be said
to have had a nearly, if not quite, universal existence. They
exist because they have been consciously accepted by adult
human beings, and made major premises in their inferences
about the right and wrong of conduct. They are judgments
of worth which all men recognize — proximate moral princi-
ples of an actual and practically universal validity. Their
universality is due to the fact that they grow out of the very
constitution of moral selves as related to one another under
the simpler, and therefore more universal and permanent
forms of social organization. About them the infantile race
must be more or less enlightened and self-conscious.

In accordance with this definition of the words it is diffi-
cult to find in reality — that is, in the actual social life and
social development of humanity — much that answers to the
conception of strictly universal moral principles. Indeed,
principles seem to be less universal than are the virtues.
For the latter, to be effective, must be practised much more
spontaneously than would be possible if every one were com-

UNIVERSALITY OF MORAL PRINCIPLES 395

pelled to arrive at them by way of deduction, so to say, from
accepted general formulas. Men are also more at one in
their opinions as to what are the duties befitting most of
their different relations with one another than in their
opinions as to the way in which the rational grounds of those
duties should be stated and applied by processes of reasoning
to concrete cases. It is, then, primarily through their com-
mon feelings of appreciation for the different forms of the
Virtuous Life, and of unreasoned obligation arising under
the impulses of the different social relations, that the multi-
tudes are bound together, and are made loyal in their attach-
ment to any universally valid Ideal. Bad as the conduct of
the race has hitherto been, and still is, and important as are
the moral failures of most of its members, it is true of the
race as of the individual : It " has builded better than it
knew." Achievement, in respect of particular virtues and
duties, everywhere lags behind knowledge as to what those
particular virtues and duties are. But knowledge of univer-
sal principles from which knowledge of particular virtues
and duties may be derived by a logical process lags behind
the achievement of those same virtues and duties.

In this respect ethical science and the philosophy of con-
duct do not differ from all forms of science and all branches
of philosophy that get their principles incorporated into
human living. For example, there are few men who do not
indulge their appetites in ways which they well enough know
will be injurious to health; but they are even fewer who
know enough about the principles of physiology and hygiene
to regulate the practice of individuals deductively, and irre-
spective of those experiences in which individuals do not
agree. Again, there is much which is defective in all exist-
ing forms of social organization ; but there are few students
of sociology who can enunciate principles that are adapted
for a universal applicability by all members of any particular
organization.

S96 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

On the other hand, as respects their appreciation of virtue
and their opinions as to what are the cardinal virtues, there
seems to be comparatively little progress among men toward
the universal. This is partly because — as I have just said —
they are already " universalized " in such matters. The true
nature and significance of the principal virtues are substan-
tially the same for all men, in all stages of moral develop-
ment. The emphasis is different ; the mode of manifestation
greatly varies ; the external actions and prevailing customs
are bewildering, changeable, and confusingly unlike. But the
good man generally knows his own brother and acknowledges
the kinship, as soon as he comes to an understanding of his
character. And the ethical characteristics which it is
necessary to take account of in classifying any individual
— whether virtuous or vicious, good or bad — remain essen-
tially unchanged. Thus it is easy to believe that the
African Bakwains were sincere in their declaration that
"nothing described by the missionaries as sin had ever ap-
peared to them otherwise, except polygamy." The "natural
virtues" attributed to the Tongans include "honor, justice,
patriotism, friendship, meekness, modesty, conjugal fidelity,
parental and filial love, patience in suffering, forbearance of
temper, respect for rank and age." Of the ethical side of
the Brahmanas we are told : ^ " The list of virtues is about
the same as that of the decalogue — the worship of the right
divinity; the observance of certain seasons for prayer and
sacrifice ; honor to the parents ; abstinence from theft, mur-
der, and adultery. Envy alone is omitted."

An historical and anthropological survey of the ethical
development of mankind seems, then, to establish some such
conclusions as follow, regarding the grounds and the laws of
this development. Men are constituted substantially alike
in their moral natures. This common constitution of men
is the basis of the universality which moral obligations and

1 Hopkins, Religions of India, p. 204.

UNIVERSALITY OF MORAL PRINCIPLES 397

the accepted forms of conduct have in their sight. The
sanctions and sources of moral principles, so far as they can
be subjected to an historical investigation, lie inherent in
that moral Selfhood which all men share. Moreover, inas-
much as we find men from the first existing in certain
fundamental but relatively simple relations, — such as the
family and the tribe, we find them largely in agreement as to
certain judgments of worth which they consciously recognize
as binding for the control of all who live under those rela-
tions. These are chiefly the relations of the family and the
tribe; but also, always and everywhere, the relations of man
to the gods of the family or of the tribe. On this universal
basis his moral life depends ; and, resting upon this basis,
the moral evolution of man goes forward. An important
part of this moral evolution is the spread of an improved
and enlightened consciousness of moral principles. About
the way in which this growth of the universality of moral
principles takes place, I wish now to make a few suggestions
that would seem to bear the light of history.

The reciprocal reactions which go on between the moral
consciousness of the race and the moral institutions which
this consciousness has builded are exceedingly important
in the evolution of universal moral principles. These reac-
tions follow a law which I will venture to call the law of
the redintegration of judgments of worth through ethical
institutions. In explaining this law it must, first of all, be
noticed that the moral progress of the race (and of the indi-
vidual as favorably or unfavorably affected by his member-
ship in the race) consists almost wholly in two classes of
particulars. Both of these are pre-eminently social; they
emphasize the aspect of growth toward the universal. They
are (1) the development of a great variety of institutions of a
beneficent and morally helpful sort, and (2) the discovery and
extension of those principles, properly called moral, which
are won for the intelligence of the race through experience

398 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

as to the consequences of different forms of conduct. In a
broad and loose way, then, it may be affirmed that the moral
evolution of man consists chiefly in the development of right
institutions and in the coming to consciousness of rational
and sound principles of conduct. The mental recognition of
good moral principles, and an environment of good institu-
tions, even when operating together, will not suffice to make
the good man; but they do make some kinds of goodness
easier, the possible sphere and influence of most goodness
larger, and all goodness more rational and enlightened. On
the other hand, ethically improved institutions also make
some kinds of badness easier, more common, more far-
reaching, and also more essentially bad ; because the badness
knows so much better what it is about and what its direful
consequences are certain to be.

It has already been shown that the primary factors in
the moral development of mankind consist of the practical
recognition of particular virtues and duties, together with
those simpler judgments of value which give the rational
sanctions and grounds to these virtues and duties. These
are activities of moral consciousness. But next stands,
both in the order of time and of logical independence, the
objective forms of morals — the customs, laws, common and
written, and other institutions which are the products of
these activities. As a rule these institutions precede the
moral principles which become, when they are discovered,
the rational justification of the institutions. For men, in
general, do not derive their customs, or enact their laws,
or rear the other institutions which have ethical import,
because they have previously reasoned out the conclusion
from some consciously recognized principle, that such cus-
toms, laws, and institutions ought to be adopted. Human
institutions, as a rule, spring up suddenly, or more slowly
come to be, — the men who build them not knowing either
why or to what really good purpose. And the same thing is

UNIVERSALITY OF MORAL PRINCIPLES 899

true in ethics, which is true in language, in every form of
art, in religious cult, and in all the practical life of man.
Moral principles follow the institutions, and are mainly due
to reflection upon institutions that already exist. Man first
acts, builds, and achieves ; then by observing what he has
done, builded, and achieved, he comes to an understanding
of his own, hitherto hidden, laws of behavior.

Ethical laws become moral principles through ethical insti-
tutions. In other words, the lower, more restricted and less
self-conscious judgments of worth develop into consciously
accepted premises for all conduct by means of reflection upon
the nature and effect of existing institutions. For customs
and laws must themselves inevitably be made the objects of
critical observation from the moral point of view ; and, as
judged from this point of view, they must either be appro-
bated or condemned. As long as any custom or law conflicts
merely with the irrational impulse or desire of individuals,
it holds its position of a sanctioned "external imponent."
But all morally progressive communities are constantly
"breaking the cake of custom," repealing and changing the
laws, and building anew their various institutions. The
custom is judged bad ; the law must be broken or changed ;
the institution must be modified or replaced. Thus by
noticing the effect, and reflecting upon the rationality, of
its own work, the moral consciousness of man recognizes
better the character and import of this work, as surveyed
from a higher and more enlightened point of view. The
recognition is made possible only because experience of the
work has resulted in elevating the average judgment of
moral value to the point of view held by a morally more
enlightened reason. The formerly vague and fluid factors of
the social consciousness become redintegrated into a higher
and more rational form by means of experience with the
results of its own constructions. The moral stagnation, if
not degradation of China is chiefly due to the fact that for

400 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

centuries nothing has been effected there toward this form of
moral redintegration.

This point of view may serve to show, in part, how much
of truth there is in the contention of Mr. Balfour :i "The
general propositions which really lie at the root of any ethi-
cal system must themselves be ethical, and can never be either
scientific or metaphysical. In other words, if a proposition
announcing obligation require proof at all, one term of that
proof must always be a proposition announcing obligation,
which itself requires no proof." So far as this declaration
means that physical science can never, of itself, furnish the
explanation of either the origins or the sanctions of moral
principles, it seems to me undoubtedly true. But general
propositions do not " lie at the root " of ethical systems, nor
are " propositions announcing obligations " dependent for
their proof on other similar propositions that require no
proof. The rather are more and more general propositions
the flowering of any ethical system that would take human
ethical experience into its confidence ; and those propositions
themselves, thus actualized by the reflection of the race upon
its own experience, have no satisfactory explanation, and no
proof at all, without resort to metaphysics.

In illustration of the law for which I am contending, let
one attempt to trace historically the manner in which a
general principle respecting the morally right use of names is
coming to be established in the consciousness of mankind.
No name of any person ought ever to be employed thought-
lessly or maliciously : perhaps one may venture in this way
to state a moral principle which would serve as a valuable
major premise for innumerable more particular judgments of
worth, and which also shows some signs of progress toward
the position of a real universal. How has this moral evolu-
tion of so valuable a principle been going on? In obedience
to the law of ethical redintegration as already explained.

* A Defence of Philosophic Doubt, Appendix, p. 337 f.

UNIVERSALITY OF MORAL PRINCIPLES 401

In tracing this development one would have to observe how
the instinctive feeling of possession and of rights, which
goes with the name of the individual even among the
savages, has combined with superstitious fears to produce
customs and laws designed to guard and enforce respect for
the names of others. Another allied branch of historical
study would show how crimes of forgery, or of perjury in the
denial of one's own signature, have become widely recognized
as serious breaches of morality. Just now in India the low
moral consciousness of the natives is being educated toward
a somewhat higher plane by the use of "thumb impressions "
to identify their signatures beyond all dispute. Doubtless,
the enforced guardianship of the seals of the nobility in
Japan is destined to have in connection with the rapid lift-
ing of commercial morals, a salutary effect in this respect
upon the moral consciousness there. The history of the
customs and laws relating to the libellous or insulting use
of others' names reveals another side of an essentially similar
experience. There is at least a hope that the application of
the same generalization to the habits of the gossip, and of
the good-natured but thoughtless signer of ill-judged recom-
mendations, is destined to attain more and more of general
acceptance. Major premise: The name of a person — my
own or that of another — ought never to be employed
thoughtlessly or maliciously; minor premise; in this case
the name of some person has been so employed; ergo^ etc.
It is surely encouraging to think how much of wrong-doing
and of consequent misery will be done away when this moral
principle comes to be clearly established in the moral con-
sciousness of men.

Another law which seems to be made obvious by a study
of the history of moral development may be called — The
universalizing of moral principles through the abolition of
limiting distinctions between classes or individuals. In the
practice of the virtues, the difference between the lower and

402 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

the higher stages of moral development is, oftentimes, chiefly
a difference in the range of the relations under which the obli-
gation to the virtue is felt. For example, no other form of
morality seems so loose and shifting, so difficult to establish
upon a basis of clearly recognized principle as that which
concerns the sexual relation. In general, if one simply
consults the historical development of the race, it will be
found that the rules for the virtuous conduct of the male
differ from those supposed to be binding upon the female;
those for the ruler are not the same as those for the subject;
those for individuals of especial gifts or attractiveness often
permit what is forbidden to ordinary mortals, etc. But, on
the whole, the tendency is manifest, wherever there is pro-
nounced progress in moral enlightenment, to bring both sexes
and all classes under the same general principles.

Again, ia the Nicomachean Ethics, although justice is
regarded as the whole of virtue ^ and friendship is held
to do away with the need of justice in the case of fellow
citizens, 2 it seems incredible to the author that there can
be any talk either of justice or of friendly feeling as
obligatory on the part of masters toward slaves. For " the
slave is a living tool, and the tool is a lifeless slave. "^
But as soon as all men, not excluding bond-servants, are
apprehended under the conception of a common citizenship
in the heavenly kingdom, the universal principles of jus-
tice and kindness are applied even to the fugitive slave —
"not now as a servant, but above a servant, a brother
beloved."* So, too, are certain principles of ethics clearly
enunciated in the Brahmanas which are prevented from
any approach to a general application by the distinctions
of class and caste still current in India. All over the world
similar distinctions continue to oppose the actual universality
of the moral principles of justness and kindness; — that

1 V, i, 19. 2 vin, i, 4.

8 Vin, xi, 6. * Philemon, 16.

UNIVERSALITY OF MORAL PRINCIPLES 403

is to say, not simply the universal practice of these virtues
but also the recognition of the rational title of the principles
to be universally applied.

It is beyond doubt that, on the whole, the distinctions
between classes of men, which are founded upon what is
more adventitious and accidental, are slowly being cast out
of the controlling place they have hitherto held in the moral
consciousness of the race. Unfortunately, a plutocracy
is taking the places of power formerly held by an hereditary
aristocracy, or by rulers distinguished for merit in war, in
council, in character, or by virtue of some peculiar relations
with the unseen and divine powers. Probably, a plutocratic
aristocracy, although less stable, will prove itself as dis-
agreeable, unsatisfactory, and even dangerous, as a military,
a landed, an hereditary, or a priestly aristocracy. In spite
of this, the distinctions between men, as made by wealth
or otherwise, are less and less considered when questions of
the supremacy and inviolability of moral principles are put
before the social consciousness. The ethical spirit which is
winning its way all over the world is democratic; men are
becoming more and more clearly and intelligently pronounced
in the opinion that distinctions of class and rank do not
count for so much when the sanctions of judgments of worth
are concerned.

Growth toward the universal on the part of moral prin-
ciples is powerfully affected by all the influences and insti-
tutions which tend to give increased solidarity to the race.
Growth in the size and power of the social units themselves
is of great efficiency here. The old Roman Empire never
attained a true social unity. Its spread tended in a certain
way, indeed, to unify the race. But the cement which held
together the different heterogeneous parts was not of the
moral quality ; neither was it distinctively social. Some of
the mighty empires and growing imperial enterprises of to-
day are undoubtedly running the same risks as those which

404 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

ruined the ancient structure. On the whole, however, there
is far more of intelligent moral principle (far more, although
still, alas! far too little) which gets itself applied with some
logical consistency to modern social and political affairs than
was possible two thousand years ago. Nor is it the devel-
opment of states that are based upon an improved democratic
morality which is the only cause of the tendency of moral
principles toward a more universal acceptance. Intercourse
of every kind — and especially the interchange of ideas and
sentiments — between different states is assisting the uni-
versalizing of moral principles. As men know each other
better, they come to understand how essentially alike all
men are ; and if this is so, why should not the same general
rules of conduct apply alike to all ? In language and re-
ligion, in needs and hopes and fears, in proverbs and wis-
dom, and even in customs and laws, they discover so much
of fundamental resemblance as to justify the opinion that
common principles ought to govern the conduct of all toward
all.

Especially, however, does the spread of the essentially
Christian idea of brotherhood, and of responsibility to the
Father from whom all come and to whom all go, powerfully
operate to secure growth toward the universality of moral
principles. How can one set of moral laws have sanction
for the male and another for the female, one code apply to
the ruler, the mighty man, the rich, and another to the
subject, the weak man, or the poor, when one Creator is the
Lord and Master of all ; and when the destiny of all is subject
to the same eternal and unchanging ideas ?

This growth toward the universal by abolishing distinc-
tions between particular classes and persons is itself met,
however, and in a measure checked by other connected facts
in the moral evolution of the race. The resulting complex
experience introduces the third of the laws that control the
universalizing of moral principles. All tendency toward a

UNIVERSALITY OF MORAL PRINCIPLES 405

practical solidarity of the race is accompanied by an increase
in the complexity of life, and therefore in the difficulty of
applying moral principles, however clearly recognized and
constantly kept in mind, to the actual solution of concrete
cases of conduct. When the social organization is relatively
simple, even though different sets of moral principles apply
to the different classes and different relations of those classes,
the practice of the Virtuous Life needs less of thought and
enlightenment. If, for example, one's servant is to be
treated as a "living tool," one does not need to trouble one's
self so much about the precise manner of treating him as a
servant. Treatment of him is no longer a matter of moral
concernment. If the male has no obligations to sexual
fidelity toward his wife, or other female, then the virtue of
temperance in this regard needs no thought for its applica-
tion to concrete cases from some well-conceived moral prin-
ciple. If one is morally bound to love only one's friend,
and to hate one's enemy, then one is comparatively well
prepared for a prompt and uncomplicated discharge of obliga-
tions toward both friends and enemies. And it cannot be
denied that a soothing simplicity is imparted to the prob-
lem of conduct, if your principle is — " The country, right
or wrong " — when you are trying to govern your behavior
toward the Chinese or the Filipinos according to accepted
and universally applicable moral formulas.

While, then, the moral evolution of the race has witnessed
a tendency toward the simplifying of moral principles, by
abolishing certain distinctions between social classes and
between individuals in the same society, it has also wit-
nessed an increased complexity of the relations in view of
which the principles must be applied to the concrete cases
constantly arising under the new conditions. This increased
complexity of relations, in turn, makes necessary an increase
of skill in forming judgments of moral values ; it requires a
development of " moral tact. " Such a change is well illus-

406 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

trated by the difficulty which is experienced by the indi-
vidual under modern conditions in respect of the treatment
of beggary. Under certain widely prevalent forms of
social organization, the professional beggar, especially if he
have some intimate association with religious hopes and
fears, as the fakir or yogi in India and the begging friar in
mediaeval Europe, is dutifully dealt with as a class apart.
The spontaneous and morally acceptable custom is to give a
small dole; and the feeling of satisfaction at having done
right is the normal accompaniment of the action. When,
however, the whole experience of giving to beggars is sub-
jected to rational reflection, and especially in view of
changed social conditions, the problem before the man of
enlightened moral principle is made much more compli-
cated. For him every beggar is, indeed, one of his fellow-
men, to " count as one " with himself in the universal society
of mankind. But changes in the social conditions of the
race have made more complicated the problem to be solved
in each particular case, even after one's moral principles
have been reduced to this highest degree of generality.

What, now, is the effect upon moral development in
general, and upon the growth of the particular toward the
universal, which arises out of this conflict between increased
simplicity of principles and increased complexity of rela-
tions ? In the first place, the repeated effort to frame par-
ticular judgments as to the right and wrong of conduct, by
referring these judgments to universal principles, constitutes
a most important form of moral discipline for the individual
and for the community. The effort forces intelligence into
conduct; it compels action to be more enlightened from the
point of view of moral reason. It is by the habit of solving
problems of practical morals that skill in judgments of
moral values is gained.

But, second, the reactionary effect upon the moral prin-
ciples themselves is the matter of chief concernment in this

UNIVERSALITY OF MORAL PRINCIPLES 407

connection. The conflict which has often seemed to spring
up between two principles, because each of them has appeared
to apply to some particular case, constitutes of itself a prob-
lem that demands a rational solution. Such a conflict shows
plainly that neither of the principles involved can claim the
sanctions necessary to render its use obligatory as a ground
for drawing conclusions fitted to cover every individual case.
Some higher principle must, then, be discovered; and its
discovery marks an important step in the march of mankind
toward the knowledge of those supreme principles of moral-
ity that have an absolute and universal validity. The result
of reflection upon such an experience is an expansion of
ethical intelligence, a growth toward the universal in the
only way in which moral principles, and their sanctions, can
be actualized among men. This, as we have already seen,
is through their conscious acceptance and use as grounds of
inference by a larger and larger number of the human race.

This process, or law, I will call the universalizmg of moral
principles through the practical necessity of establishing a
rational connection between particular forms of conduct and
those universal principles. Illustrations of the working of
this third general law are so numerous that they may be
derived from almost any form of human experience. Indeed,
the law itself is only an application to problems of conduct,
of the same method which characterizes all growth of human
intelligence. In the physical, the linguistic, the psychologi-
cal sciences, the constantly increasing complexity of the
phenomena demands always an enlarged knowledge of those
universal principles which are thought to be in control of the
phenomena. But in ethics, the phenomena themselves are
human conduct — behavior of men toward one another, as
moral selves socially related; and the principles are nothing
else but the generalizations derived by reflective thinking
with regard to those rules that have sanction in moral con-
sciousness, and that are adapted to serve as points of starting

408 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

for a deductive argument in the solution of concrete cases of
conduct.

One more general experience regulating this species of
moral evolution may be called The law {?) of learni7ig uni-
versal moral principles from particular individuals^ hy precept
and hy example. In all forms of human development the
influence of remarkable individuals has been far too much
underrated or neglected by modern theories of evolution.
Especially is this true in human ethical development. For
such development consists in conduct, in opinions about
conduct, in institutions that embody the results of conduct,
and in principles that have the authority and sanctity which
belong to ideals of conduct. These are all the products of
individual selves. In effecting these products the gifted and
favorably circumstanced individual is the principal factor.

I turn aside for a moment in order soon to return with
added reasons for my conclusion, to protest against the
whole machine theory of the world and of human life.
Everywhere it seems to me that this theory is so loaded
with the very facts which have been discovered and sub-
stantiated in its behalf that it is destined soon to break
down under the load. It has been my welcome task, in
preparation for this study of the philosophy of conduct,
to show in detail that all the most fundamental conceptions
which science has used to state, defend, and expand, the
theory of mechanism, are themselves derived from instinc-
tive experience with, or elaborate reflection upon, the life of
the self-conscious and rational Self. These scientific con-
ceptions have no validity, no intelligible meaning even,
except as they are interpreted into terms of that selfhood.
But when we give scientific consideration to this Self we
discover that it is not possible satisfactorily to describe it,
or even superficially to state its numerous performances, in
terms of a psycho-physical or psychical mechanism. The
Self is not simply a more elaborate mechanism ; the rather are

UNIVERSALITY OF MORAL PRINCIPLES 409

all mechanisms conceivable only as incomplete and partial
selves.

The individual will, whose the conduct is, and which
undergoes a moral self-development because it is a rational
and self-determining will, can in no case be considered as
merely the product of pre-existent substances and forces,
whether ph3^sical or psychical. Individuals, indeed, enter
upon their historical career under conditions which they
cannot alter. But individuals are never merely the result-
ants, or the expressions, of historical conditions. Individ-
uals make human history by a complicated set of reactions
upon the existing physical and social environment. Great
individuals have much to do with making history. On their
career, which is more than ordinarily the effect of their own
free and rational selves, the subsequent history of the race
is dependent to an unusual degree. This is pre-eminently
true of the moral evolution of the race. If out of its ethi-
cal experience there were taken a few score men of great
ethical influence, the moral condition of mankind would be
changed indeed. No other influence has had so much to do
with shaping human history as the influence of a few great
moral and religious teachers. Moses and the Prophets of
the Old Testament, Confucius, Sakya-Muni, Zoroaster, but
above all Jesus and his disciples, with the greatest among
the succession of the moral teachers and reformers which
the Christian religion has produced, have exercised a quite
incalculable force for the elevation and universalizing of
moral principles. This they have done both by teaching and
by example. It is doubtless true that in the case of none of
these teachers has the enunciation of moral principles been
something wholly new and foreign to the most enlightened
moral consciousness of their predecessors in the great func-
tion of teaching morality to mankind. Even in the case
of him whom Christianity recognizes as having supreme
authority among these teachers, it is not to be forgotten

410 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

what was the special talent for ideas and ideals of righteous-
ness shown in the previous history of the people from which
he sprang.

But, on the other hand, he minimizes, not to say distorts
the indisputable facts who is not ready to admit that a few
individuals have thought out into clear consciousness before
their own and following generations those truths respecting
the right and wrong of human conduct that have been, pre-
vious to their coming, only discerned in a relatively partial,
fragmentary, and hesitating way. I am not, then, uttering a
mere figure of speech when I maintain that in such individ-
uals the supremest moral consciousness of the race culmin-
ates in a most surprising way. Nor is it a wonder that has
no justification in reality if the multitude comes to regard
these individuals when they speak of standards and ideals
that are above the accepted standards and the hitherto
conceived ideals, as having the sanctions of not only an
external but an absolute and divine authority.

In every age, even among social organizations that have
reached a fairly high degree of moral development, individ-
uals are to be found whose discernment and use of moral
principles rises much above the level of the multitudes. Such
individuals refuse to take their principles of conduct, chiefly
and in uncriticised form, from the prevalent customs, laws,
opinions, or institutions. And so long as they maintain this
position, the principles which they do adopt as their own
have for them the authority and the sanctions which belong
to all moral principles. Indeed, without this authority and
these sanctions, the rational grounds of action could not be
esteemed moral at all. When such persons inquire into the
sources of these principles, and of the right to control them
which the principles seem to themselves to assume, they are
accustomed to refer either to a Divine Origin, or to Reason
(a source in the higher rational Self), or to some impersonal
origin to which they give gi^asz-personality under the rubric

UNIVERSALITY OF MORAL PRINCIPLES 411

of Law. In either case the moral principles are regarded
as coming from a source which is higher than that of the
custom, law, opinion, or institution, over which they consti-
tute themselves as an authoritative judge.

Those moral principles which are either discovered or
more clearly enunciated by the moral leaders of mankind
are, as a rule, apparently so merged in the general level of
outward forms of the morals of society, as to be lost. We
cannot, however, believe that they really are ever wholly
lost. They contribute something toward raising the stand-
ards and the ideals for all judgments of moral values ; they
do something in the behalf of the march toward the Univer-
sal of moral Principles and toward the realization of the
more ultimate moral Ideals. There are a few individuals
in every branch and epoch of the history of the race who
have done much for its moral development. They have
voiced most clearly the Universal Moral Reason ; they have
seen most clearly the Ultimate Moral Ideal.

By reflecting upon its own experience as embodied in
institutional forms, by abolishing fictitious and incidental
distinctions between individual persons or particular classes
of persons, by education in the actual application of accepted
rules of conduct to concrete cases of conduct, and by favor
of the teachings and example of preferred individuals, the
growth of moral principles toward the Universal has taken
place. This is to say that the actual advance of such prin-
ciples is chiefly dependent upon the development of social
and political institutions, upon the spread and intensifying
of an intelligent democratic and Christian spirit, upon the
culture that comes from the effort of individuals to live
more virtuously according to conscious rational rules, and
upon the leadership of the foremost spirits in the discern-
ment, enunciation, and employment of these principles.

It should be added that the more speculative efforts of
great thinkers like Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, and in more

412 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

modern times Kant, Hegel, Locke, Hobbes, Hume, Bentham,
and others, have been of no inconsiderable influence in the
same direction. The great preachers and teachers of reli-
gion have also, always and everywhere, been prominent in
moulding the moral consciousness of mankind. At the same
time, it must not be forgotten that probably those who have
by their own speculations been most successful in reaching
universal principles satisfactory to themselves have by no
means contributed most toward the actual universalizing of
moral principles; and the work of religious preachers and
teachers has had more effect, for good or for evil, on the
practical life of men than upon the acceptance of those
higher generalizations that should serve for the rational and
self-conscious governing of that life. The philosophy of
conduct sharpens the critical faculty and makes the mind
more self-conscious ; but it operates within a comparatively
narrow circle in its influence upon the growth of moral prin-
ciples for the race. But good religious teaching makes men
better, morally, and bad religious teaching makes men
worse, without in either case necessarily putting them into
possession of the rational grounds of conduct.

All the forces which concern the growth of moral prin-
ciples toward universality have their reverse side ; they may
tend to narrow and degrade rather than to expand and to
elevate. To live in the environment of customs, laws, and
institutions, that no longer represent the higher levels of the
popular moral consciousness, tends to check the growth of
moral principles. The continuance or the re-establishing
practically, of distinctions among men that are only of a
superficial or even unethical character, has a similar effect
upon moral progress. The increase of the plutocratic spirit
over the whole world, and its allied development of the spirit
of commercial imperialism and of race-hatred, is probably
doing more at the present time than all other antagonistic
forces combined to retard and degrade the moral evolution of

UNIVERSALITY OF MORAL PRINCIPLES 413

mankind. But the increased complexity of modern life and
of modern social organizations and social relations is won-
derfully sharpening the wits of men by the demands which
it makes upon them for principles of conduct that will apply
to the solution of such complex ethical problems. Here
again, however, if the truly moral solution of these problems
is not diligently sought and somehow found, then this very
social evolution itself reacts to blind and blur and degrade
the rationality of moral consciousness. For men cannot
come to act habitually without regard to moral principles
and yet continue to hold their mental grip strong upon their
principles — not to say, advance society to the intelligent
apprehension of improved and higher moral principles.

All the while, the individual — every individual in some
degree, but in the greatest degree those most favored intel-
lectually and socially — is contributing something either
toward the advance or toward the retrogradation of moral
principles. For it cannot be too often said, if one has the
practical ends of morality in view, that moral principles do
not dwell in heaven or in mid -air, or in the merely specula-
tive dreams of theologians and philosophers; they exist,
only as they really are ; and the only reality which they can
have is in the rational consciousness of the Moral Self.

Any student of the philosophy of conduct who reflects in a
serious and prolonged way upon the conclusions of this and
the preceding chapters will detect in them a sort of con-
cealed postulate, if I may so say, which is of the nature of a
problem demanding further consideration. As the course
of moral evolution flows onward, whether objective or sub-
jective, whether in the consciousness of the individual mem-
bers of the social organization or as given some institutional
form, the code of moral laws and the body of accepted
moral principles always seem to hold a certain position of
authority, — claiming sanctions from somewhither, and sit-
ting in criticism over what has already been accomplished

414 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

for the social realization of the ideals of morality. Moral
reason is critic and judge of its own accomplishments in
such a way as to be always dissatisfied with them; it mani-
fests itself as endowed with power and authority to command
their modification and improvement. Its voice has the char-
acteristics of an "external imponent." This fact accords
with the view that the grounds and the satisfactory type of
man's universal moral principles must be found in the
nature of his ethical Ideal. And it implicates the problem
of accounting for this Ideal by bringing it into relation with
the nature of the Ultimate Reality.

CHAPTER XYII

CASUISTRY: MORAL TACT AND CONFLICT OF DUTIES

That eminent good sense which characterizes the Nicoma-
chean Ethics leads its author to declare respecting the solution
of cases of conflicting duties : " To lay down precise rules for
all such cases is scarcely possible ; for the different cases differ
in all sorts of ways, according to the importance or unimpor-
tance, the nobility, or necessity of the act." ^ But Aristotle
immediately adds that one principle is tolerably obvious, —
namely, no one and the same person can reasonably make
claim to all of another's obligations. In the complicated
relations of modern society this ancient cautionary remark is
more than ever needed ; and the tendencies which this society
so plainly shows toward a certain equalization of claims on
the part of all individuals, and toward the universality of
moral principles in the manner already discussed, have made
the ancient principle somewhat more than " tolerably obvious"
(oxjK dSrjXov). Conflicts of duty differ in all sorts of ways ; and
all the members not only of that particular social organiza-
tion to which each modern man more especially belongs, but
also of the race of which all the different social organizations
are parts, make increasing demands upon one another for the
discharge of a variety of moral obligations. Precise rules for
the solution of these conflicts are therefore becoming con-
stantly more difficult, not to say impossible, to give. The
sphere of casuistry seems to be expanding; it seems likely
to burst through excessive expansion.

1 Nic. Eth., IX, ii, 2 f.

416 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

For the Moral Self, however, the practice of casuistry is,
always and essentially, a truly rational discipline. Excessive
punctiliousness over minutiae of behavior is, indeed, not
approved by the enlightened moral consciousness ; and delay
to act at all, through doubt over the way in which to act, is
often a loss of opportunity for some good deed ; not infre-
quently, the delay itself is immoral and mischievous. A
certain spontaneity in mental movement, especially of the
affectional sort, seems essential to the practice of the Vir-
tuous Life ; and the promptness of action which depends in
large measure upon such spontaneity is certainly felt as an
obligation, and is approbated and rewarded when the demand
for promptness is successfully met. Even wisdom and pru-
dence cannot always advise — strictly in their own interest as
cardinal virtues of judgment — the examination of reasons
and the making from the reasons, of deductions affecting
particular cases. For such wise and prudential performances
too often have the effect of rendering the other cardinal
virtues of courage, justice, and kindliness quite impossible of
realization. Persons who are extremely fussy over details
of behavior — even if it be " for conscience' sake " — are not,
on that account, virtuous beyond the ordinary man ; indeed
they may be quite the opposite ; for manly virtue must always
retain something of the proportion and largeness of spirit
which rationality commands and guarantees.

On the other hand, disregard or carelessness of details
of conduct is not approved by a refined and enlightened moral
consciousness. In the business of living wholly virtuously
— that business which is always on hand with the truly good
man, whether he be at work or at play, and even if he be not
at all thinking about the business — details cannot properly
be neglected. Indeed, here as in all business matters, much
good or evil depends upon how provision is made for the
details. He who thinks the manner of doing little things
does not count in character is the servant who is unfaithful in

CASUISTRY AND CONFLICT OF DUTIES 417

that wliich is least; he thus shows his unworthiness to be
trusted with matters of greater import. Indeed, human judg-
ment as to what is great, what small, what is most or least
important, is far from being infallible. At any rate, the spirit
and habit of unfaithfulness, the temper and practice of dis-
regarding duty, are of the very essence of immorality.

Modern pathological psychology recognizes both these ex-
treme forms of moral consciousness as morbid and inhuman.
The one is characteristic of a certain form of insanity ; the
other of what is bestial and monstrous. They who attach enor-
mous importance to petty details, and who make error in these
details a matter of moral life or death, may be preparing them-
selves for the retreat of the mentally unsound, rather than
for helpful social intercourse with their fellows. But they
who scorn to concern themselves about all so-called " matters
of conscience," and arrogate to themselves the right, in the
name of might or of genius, to disregard moral principles and
moral motives, may read the description of the brotherhood to
wiiich they properly belong, in the following words of the
scientific psychiatrist : ^ "To persons of this ' moral color-
blindness,' this perversion of the altruistic feelings, the entire
prevailing cult, the whole moral and civic order has only the
significance of a restricting limit for their egoistic feeling
and effort, which must lead them, as of necessity, to the
negation of the sphere of others' rights and to attack upon
them." Even when such unfortunates have more than usual
gifts of an artistic, logical, or inventive order, their true place
is not in human society but in the madhouse ; and there in
certain notable instances they have ended their misspent
lives.

Casuistry, regarded as " the science or doctrine of cases of
conscience," is therefore entitled to rational consideration
from the philosophy of conduct. For it is a species of ethical
discipline. Nor can any valid reason be given why the

1 Krafft-Ebing, Lehrbuch der Psvchiatrie, 11, ii, chap. 3, p. 118.
27

418 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

attempt should not be made to put this discipline into some-
thing resembling systematic form. The individual, since the
consequences and even the moral worth of his behavior has
reference to others, may properly enough communicate with
other individuals belonging to the same social organization
in the common effort to establish some such quasi-science or
doctrine. Men may teach and learn from one another in
the common effort to solve the problems of conduct as well
as every other manner of problem. Incitement, guidance,
instruction, are possible in the moral sphere as in every other
within which a multitude of selves are socially organized
with reciprocally determining limits, and mutually limiting
interests. Only it can never be forgotten that, since the vir-
tuousness of conduct resides in the attitude of the Self, and
since each Self, while following in common with all other
selves a certain universal Ideal, must have his own ideal which
it belongs to himself to realize, particular problems of conduct
can only he solved hy actual conduct; and conduct forever
remains the individual's own affair. The motive, the inten-
tion, the execution, the responsibility, the reward, are all
primarily and pre-eminently the property of the individual.
No individual can do for any other what that individual ought
to do for himself. No man can usurp the place of conscience
for any other man ; none can lay off his duty of deciding upon
any other.

All that it seems further necessary to say upon this subject
may arrange itself as a brief discussion of the following
three topics : (1) The Sources of Casuistry ; (2) the Sphere of
Casuistry ; and (3) the Conflict of Duties. In the dictionary
definitions of this term there are frequently enumerated
three sources of casuistry, — namely, " Scripture, the rules of
society, and the principles of equity or right moral reason."
Now, if the first of these be extended so as to include all the
books esteemed authoritative in matters of ethics by the
devotees of the different religions of mankind, and to these

CASUISTRY AND CONFLICT OF DUTIES 419

be added the injunctions and instructions of priests and
other rehgious teachers, this threefold division is fairly ex-
haustive of the actual sources from which men do derive
their help in the solution of cases of conscience. But to
regard either Scripture or the rules of society as a primary
source for solving problems of conduct is to depart from the
very conception of casuistry as a truly ethical discipline.

It is the moral consciousness, the "right moral reason"
of some Moral Self, which is the only source of ethical
judgment, with whatever of authority and sanctions such
judgment may possess. Sacred writings are, at most, only
channels and not true sources at all. So, too, must the
" rules of society " either be received as merely the customs
which embody forms of action that " right moral reason " has
already sanctioned ; or else they must themselves be subjected
to the criticism of moral reason in their application to every
so-called case of conscience.

Undoubtedly, the moral precepts and more particular rites
and ceremonies prescribed by the sacred writings, and by the
expounders of the various religions of the world have hitherto
been the most important practically, of all the influences
employed for the settlement of cases of conscience. Indeed,
in the case of millions of men, these influences have largely
taken the place of the activities belonging properly to the moral
consciousness of the individual. But this they have done in
the name, and by the alleged authority, of other moral reason
than their own; — e.g., in the name and by the authority
of the gods or the One God conceived of as a Lawgiver, or
of some principle of Universal Reason, etc. Wherever
the necessity for applying any moral principle to the concrete
case has been lifted from the conscience of the individual,
the casuistical procedure has ceased to be a genuine ethical
discipline.

As to the relations in which so-called " moral reason " stands
to its own products in the form of the rules of society, enough

420 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

has already been said to justify tlie denial that it can ever
look to them as an independent source for the solution of
problems of conduct.

If, however, we affirm that moral reason is the only source
for solving problems of conscience, we are at once reminded
that the conception of the process used in dealing with these
problems must be something different from that of arguing
one's way from general principles to particular cases without
violating the rules of the syllogism. Nor can this process be
guided exclusively by that " logic of feeling " about which so
much has of late been written in the effort to free judgments of
worth from the hard and fixed lines of evidence and proof by
which scientific judgments ought to be bound. In saying this,
the very language reminds us that any difference between the
two classes of judgments is by no means absolute. In ethical
affairs, judgments of feeling, however subtle and emotional,
must have some rational grounds ; but judgments of the more
scientific and strictly logical order must have and command
some feeling of their truth and worth,

1 will say, then, that a sort of Moral Tact is the source of
such practice of casuistry as can rightly commend itself to
the seeker after the Virtuous Life. This form of tact it is
the good man's duty to cultivate. Thus will he save what can
be saved, under the hard conditions of human living, of the
spontaneity, grace, and beauty of virtue, without unnecessarily
sacrificing the rational quality which should always charac-
terize virtuous conduct. In this way, if morality is always
devotion to duty, it may also generally be good sense ; if duty
is essentially an inner principle which compels each man to
strive after the ideal of selfhood, it is also commonly a very
practical and neighborly affair.

The psychology of tact is an extremely difficult subject to
treat scientifically. This is chiefly due to the two following
reasons : first, the factors which enter into any judgment of
tact are exceedingly subtle and evanescent ; and, second, the

CASUISTRY AND CONFLICT OF DUTIES 421

complexity of the combinations of these factors in the indi-
vidual judgments of tact is very great. It is the rapidity and
immediacy, combined with a certain sureness and appropri-
ateness of his conclusions, which gives to the tactful person
his admirable ability to act aright under complicated condi-
tions. This judgment has the characteristics of a judgment
of first intention, as it were ; we are inclined, therefore, to
call it " perception," "intuition," or "insight," rather than a
conclusion reached through any conscious recognition of the
grounds on which it is placed. Indeed, the factors which
enter into the concluding mental state, the decisions that
determine what is to be done in the particular cases, arise
so little way above the threshold of consciousness (if they
come up out of the sphere of the psycho-physical mechanism
at all), and blend together or disappear with such rapidity, as
fully to warrant that view of the nature of tact which the popu-
lar language implies. The How, and the Why, this particular
judgment, rather than another, was actually reached cannot
generally be assigned by the person whose judgment it is.
Now in matters of conduct it is those who actually have moral
tact who are the true teachers of casuistry ; but they teach
by example rather than by a display of logic and didactic
machinery. In order to be genuinely moral, however, the
tactful judgment must be the expression of a trained and
refined moral consciousness.

It will be seen, then, that the theologian, the priest, or the
moralist, who is not himself a man of genuine moral tact, a
person with a " trained and refined moral consciousness," can
scarcely become a trustworthy casuist. And systems of
casuistry emanating from ethically impure sources are not
only devoid of value theoretically, but are practically mis-
chievous. Indeed, the solution of cases of conscience q. e. d.
fashion, by one moral consciousness for all other moral con-
sciousnesses, is a snare and a delusion. But moral tact, like
the ability to form with unusual rapidity, immediacy, and yet

422 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

sureness and fitness, other kinds of judgment, is susceptible
of cultivation ; within certain limits it can be both learned
and taught, although the rather learned by practice and
taught by example, than learned by rule and taught as a
pseudo-scienti^G system.

In the cultivation of moral tact four things are chiefly
necessary. These are (1) sensitiveness of moral feeling ;

(2) insight into the motives of men in general and especially
into the motives of those composing one's social environment ;

(3) experience as to the consequences of different kinds of
conduct; and (4) subtlety of ratiocination, or skill in the
drawing of detailed inferences. That sensitiveness of moral
feeling can be cultivated, although the original susceptibility
for it differs immensely with different individuals, there
can be no reasonable doubt. It must be borne in mind,
however, how exceedingly varied is the play of feeling ap-
propriate to all the varied situations of the life of conduct.
In the settlement of perplexing cases of conscience it will
not do wholly to rule out any legitimate form of human
feeling, from the most deep-seated but righteous indignation,
or the most heroic disregard of suffering in the realization
of a higher good, to the most refined sentiments of pity
and of tender regard for the feelings of others.

The knowledge of the way others think and feel also
admits of cultivation. For the great multitude of human
beings these " others " are, indeed, a very small number ;
of the most of the race, and even of the men over the
nearest mountains, or across the nearest river, not to say,
across the seas — they can imagine little correctly, and can
know surely almost nothing at all. But even this narrow-
ness to the range of their acquaintanceship has certain ad-
vantages. It makes the more possible an insight into the
thoughts and feelings of others which is sufficient to enable
the individual, if he will, to put himself into the place of the
others. Without this insight one cannot obey the golden

CASUISTRY AND CONFLICT OF DUTIES 423

rule and love one's neighbor as one's self. Willi regard to
the consequences of good or bad conduct all the range of
human foresight and human calculation is, at its widest,
narrow indeed. But every one can watch and be thoughtful
here. And to act without any regard to consequences is as
immoral as abstinence from doing our duty is impossible,
until we have calculated precisely what the consequences
are going to be.

To cultivate subtlety in ratiocination is also possible.
There are undoubtedly dangers connected with all attempts
at such a form of cultivation ; and these dangers are somewhat
akin to those which attend the too great refinement of the
moral sentiments. Feeling may become too exquisite for the
best service of virtuous living under the actual conditions
in which men have this life put before them as an ideal for
achievement. And reasoning as to what is one's duty may be
habitually conducted through such winding paths of consid-
erations pro and con.^ and with such an array of " but-ifs "
and " notwithstandings " as to result in the partial paralysis
of those powers that best carry men forward in straight
and direct courses toward their chosen ends. At the same
time, it cannot be denied that life is increasingly complex ;
and this increased complexity seems to make necessary an
increased skill, amounting to subtlety, in the use of that
discursive reasoning which, for the modern man, must often
take the place of the animal craft of the untutored savage.

Fortunately for the interests of the man who is heartily
devoted to the realization of the Moral Ideal in the Virtuous
Life, there is a certain economics of casuistry which appears
the more clearly when we consider the sphere within which
move the attempts to teach in a systematic way the right
solution of particular problems of conduct. I have already
said that the rules of society cannot constitute an independent
source of casuistry. They do, however, shape a certain
sphere within which casuistry may most conveniently and

424 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

safely receive recognition from the virtuous man. Broadly
understood, the sphere of casuistry is coextensive with the
entire sphere of conduct. Or rather, in any particular case
the two spheres may at any instant come to coincide. For
the otherwise most trivial detail may at any instant become
of the greatest ethical import ; and all the powers of intel-
lect, stirrings of the heart, and energy of will in self-deter-
mination, may be called forth in the interests of morality
as respects this detail. But ordinarily the general submerged
purpose to do right, in connection with the habitual working
of moral consciousness under conditions that are familiar,
best meets the demands of virtuous living. What to do in
order to do one's duty, how to act in order to act virtuously,
are questions which would better appear only comparatively
rarely in one's consciousness. It is ordinarily better to go
ahead and do one's daily prescribed duties, without thinking
of them as duties ; simply to live virtuously, without raising
casuistical inquiries as to the virtuous or vicious cliaracter
of one's living. That is to say, the moral tact which is the
source of the practice of casuistry is working with a satisfac-
tory smoothness. Magnanimity, and other of the nobler
virtues, are very desirable to secure in conjunction with a
minute regard to the details of one's own daily conduct ; but
this is nearly impossible where the mind is much given to
regard for the details of the conduct of other people. It is
right ordinarily to lower the window or open the door, with-
out attaching any moral import to the transaction ; or to put
on a dress suit as a matter of course in compliance with
etiquette when accepting an invitation to dinner. But
thoughtlessly to let a dangerous draught upon some invalid
would be a grave fault ; and deliberately to lower a window
upon a relative in whose death we were interested might be
no less a crime than murder. Nor are occasions wanting
where no little thought is necessary to determine how one
ought to dress in order to dress virtuously.

CASUISTRY AND CONFLICT OF DUTIES 425

In the vast number of cases the rules of the society with
which he is either temporarily or more permanently con-
nected have settled for the individual the manner of his
behavior in respect to details of a certain sort. These rules
are themselves, to be sure, constantly changing ; and their
changes are largely due to changes of judgment and feeling
respecting the moral propriety of the rules themselves. Some
of these rules are almost sure to violate certain principles of
morality recognized by those who are sensitive to ethical
considerations and bent on realizing their ideal of moral self-
hood. Thus the keeping or the breacli of these rules may
become a problem in casuistry — difficult to solve and of no
small ethical importance. But ordinarily, and in the large,
the man who aims at being wholly virtuous will let the rules
of society decide for him what he should do, will simply com-
ply with those rules ; he will tlms set free his more distinctively
moral consciousness for better business than making compli-
ance or non-compliance with petty details of behavior a case
of conscience. He considers that it is as irrational, and may
be as unethical, to make wearing no buttons a matter of con-
science as to make wearing a particular number and kind of
buttons a matter of pride at being in the fashion.

The commitment of his conduct on the part of the individ-
ual to the rules of society rather than to his own moral
judgment is most rational in matters of etiquette, in matters
of professional and technical behavior, as it were, and in
certain classes of personal habits. In such matters, unless
there exists some special reason to the contrary, one may
hold that the moral quality of the action varies with the
custom and derives itself most directly from the custom.
In these matters, when in Rome one does as the Romans do.
What would be indecent and lewd under some circumstances
would be prudish under otlier circumstances. To omit what
would be servile and lacking in proper self-respect in some
communities would be rudeness and deficiency in due respect

426 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

for others, in other communities. In all such cases the true
casuist tries to find out what are esteemed good manners and
then calls into exercise all the refinement of feeling and sure-
ness of judgment he can command in the desire to conform
to the current standard of good manners. For although
manners are not synonymous with morals, and morals are
not all that is most important in morality, thoughtlessly or
deliberately bad manners are usually immoral. Where de-
partures from the rules of society are due to an excusable
ignorance, the enlightened moral consciousness makes light
of them ; and in general, in the case of others, one should be
careful not to err on the side of excessive punctiliousness.
But that habitual disregard for polite manners, which, for
example. Occidental nations show in their treatment of Orien-
tal peoples is something worse than pardonable boorishness ;
it is the expression of an immoral haughtiness and unfriend-
liness which is most certainly none the better because it is
also coarse and vulgar.

In the majority of cases, amidst the freer social organiza-
tions of modern civilization, he who dissents from the rules of
society on moral grounds can save his good conscience by not
consorting with others in the more objectionable forms of
organization. Rarely does the "good conscience" require
that the individual should join the society whose rules he
intends, " for conscience' sake," habitually to set at naught.
It might have been necessary for the newly converted captain
of tlie host of the king of Syria to provide against a serious
misinterpretation of his beliavior as both a servant of the
Syrian king and a believer in the foreign god, Yahveh : " In
this thing the Lord pardon thy servant, that when my master
goeth into the house of Rimmon to worship there, and he
leaneth on my hand, and I bow myself in the house of Rim-
mon: when I bow down myself in the house of Rimmon,
the Lord pardon thy servant in this thing" (2 Kings, v, 18).
It may also be doubted how far Elisha intended to approve

CASUISTRY AND CONFLICT OF DUTIES 427

this bit of casuistical subtlety, when he bade Naaman " Go
in peace." But there are at present relatively fewer cases
where the applicability of the rules of society is not a matter
dependent upon the will of the individual. If the visiting
American objects to kissing the hand, or receiving the bless-
ing, of the pope he need not seek admittance to the pope's
receptions. And he whose conscience is offended by having
to bow low three times on entering into and departing from
the presence of the Mikado ought not to allow others to ask
the imperial audience for him.

In not a few cases, however, where the rules of society and
the moral consciousness of the individual come into conflict
the settlement of the path to be followed is not so easy. For
the good man cannot go entirely out of society. In the more
proper meaning of this word "society," to attempt to with-
draw from it altogether would, if it could be successful, take
the individual totally out of the sphere of ethics. This would
be a solution of all possible cases of conscience indeed ; but
it would also be to make social morality impossible. To
keep any vestige of moral goodness in the most pronounced
solitary ascetic, God and he must constitute a sort of society.
Nor can it be denied that in most cases no little of what is
popularly called "sociability" is conducive to the highest
development of the Virtuous Life. But in all this the Moral
Self must retain its own integrity. Hence there arises the
necessity of being always ready to refer the right of society
to control the individual back to the source of all rules, to
the moral reason ; and thus the need of moral tact is made
prominent again.

The minor and relatively unimportant cases of the Conflict
of Duty usually occur in the sphere of social details. But
conflicts of duty are apt to arise which are of a far more por-
tentous character. And to such experiences some reference
is now in place.

Many writers on the philosophy of conduct — and among

428 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

them even Professor T. H. Green ^ — have denied the possi-
bility of such an experience as a genuine conflict of duties.
On the other hand, others have claimed that, inasmuch a-s
the entire tendency of moral development is monistic, and
toward a unifying of the entire life of conduct under the con-
trol of some one principle, conflict is a necessary result of
all effort at moral development. According to Simmel, for
example, the conflict of duties arises, as an essential moment
in the progress of -ethical monism, in either of two ways :
first, when a higher principle comes down from without, as
it were, upon two or more contiguous and hitherto concord-
ant classes of duties and forces a choice between them ; or
else, second, when the more internal development of two
related duties forces them further and further apart until
they become antagonistic. A marked instance of the first
class occurred when, in the fourth century, the Christian
bishops were ordered to put away their wives, and fidelity to
the office became incompatible with fidelity to the family
relation, because the authority of the Church dominated
both relations. Instances of the second class are constantly
occurring where Church and State interfere with each other
in matters that have customarily been controlled exclusively
by one of the two.^

The abstract way of treating this subject is, I think, inap-
propriate to its character; it is also inconsistent with the
view which finds the unifying principle of so-called "monis-
tic ethics " not to reside in any form of a moral law but in
the unity which belongs to a Moral Self following its indi-
vidual Ideal. Duties are not entities ready-made with cor-
responding or antagonistic characters between which one must
choose as one chooses which pattern of cloth one will have
made into a suit of clothes. Nor are duties fixed conceptions
of what ought to be done by every individual in accordance

1 Prolegomena to Ethics, p. 355.

2 See Simmel, Einleitung in die Moralwissenschaft, 11, pp. 380 ffi

CASUISTRY AND CONFLICT OF DUTIES 429

with unalterable laws. Duties are concrete individual forms
of conduct which must realize themselves in the individual
moral consciousness, and which are continually liable to
change the form of their expression. The problem of con-
duct is therefore always capable of statement somewhat as
follows : Is this particular conduct my duty, at this particular
time, under these particular conditions, and as something
owing from me to this particular person ? Every factor of
the problem is particular, and dependent upon a variety of
accordant or conflicting particulars. Moreover, ethical con-
flicts are not clashes of material entities or of physical forces
that take place outside of moral selves ; they are not mere
conceptions of the meeting of such entities or forces. Ethi-
cal conflicts are conflicts of soul. Conflicts of duty are just
this — namely, actual struggles of the feelings of obligation
because the ethical judgment cannot be made clear. They,
therefore, certainly do exist with the only kind of existence
which they could be conceived of as having. To deny their
existence is about as inane and comfortless a "psychologi-
cal fallacy," due to excessive abstraction, as can possibly be
devised.

Moreover, there seems to be much truth in the view that
the very nature of man's moral development makes necessary
a conflict of duties. Certainly the fact appears to be that,
under existing conditions, the more developed ethically any
individual becomes, the more are the chances increased of
the occurrence of many such conflicts. To avoid conflicts of
this character it would seem necessary never to make one's
conduct a case of conscience at all. Bluntness of sensibility
and inertia of judgment on moral matters is most favorable
to that quietness which consists in freedom from the per-
plexity of asking one's self to settle troublesome ethical
questions. But this is moral consciousness asleep, not
moral consciousness at peace with itself. Always to be
cock-sure what is duty, and always to be satisfied in retro-

430 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

spect that one's duty has been done in the best possible
manner, does not prove a superior moral insight or rational
soundness of judgment; it may the rather show a meagre
ethical nature and a deficiency of interest in the real values
of human life.

Still further does it seem true that, after all, human life
is greatly enriched, made more interesting and better worth
the living, by these battles that are best worth the fighting ;
for they are battles in the interests of that which has the
highest worth. And certainly, from the sesthetical point of
view cases of conflict of duties, where the struggle is of the
life-or-death order and the stakes at issue are the salvation
of the higher Self, are the sublimest things in human history.
The noblest tragedies celebrate such conflicts. There is
Antigone with all her soul's affection and her most cherished
sense of obligation committed to the act of putting the neces-
sary three handfuls of dust upon her brother's corpse ; and
in conflict with this command of sisterly affection and duty
are the duty of obedience to the highest external authority
and to the wise counsels of the experienced old men of the
chorus. What shall one poor girl do when torn apart in
two directions by moral forces so mighty as these ? It is the
necessity for answering such a question as this, in which the
tragedy of many a humble human life consists.

Conflicts of duty that are real and that call upon the
individual for much painful but disciplinary and improving
use of his ethical powers may arise in any one of several
different ways. In one class of cases moral feeling and
ethical judgment are found in conflict. The rational and
intelligent conclusion from moral principles as to what is
duty stirs up feelings of obligation and of approbation or
disapprobation that conflict with the conclusion. Then the
mind knows it ought to do what it feels ought not to be
done; or knows it ought not to do what it feels ought to be
done. This sort of conflict belongs necessarily to all the

CASUISTRY AND CONFLICT OF DUTIES 431

more intelligent and deliberate changes of habit in matters
that are made distinctively moral (comp. p. 90 f). In all
such cases the problem before the man who would live
virtuously is this, — how to develop rationality in con-
duct upon a basis of larger experience, without losing that
tenderness and sensitiveness of moral sentiment which it
is so beautiful and praiseworthy to retain.

Another class of conflicts of duty arises when two or more
persons, or groups of persons, require from us modes of
behavior that are incompatible. Every individual life is full
of this kind of conflicts. Within the circle of the family the
husband may have to decide between duties owing to his wife
and those owing to his child, and the wife may have a simi-
lar decision to make ; the child may have to choose to which
of its two parents it will remain obedient, even when the
matter of conflict would not of itself originate the conflict
unless it were commanded by two authorities. Either of the
parents may require that which the child cannot in con-
science perform, and so give rise to that choice which, when
viewed from the religious point of view, is so often called
choosing between obeying God and obeying man. So, too,
do duties to one's family — especially for the overburdened
man whose entire life is a doing of duty to somebody by
conducting conscientiously his business or profession — not
infrequently conflict with duties to society. The different
social circles which surround every individual, and the
different social organizations with which he is more or less
closely connected, all make their demands upon interest,
time, strength, and property; and these demands are in
almost perpetual condition of conflict. Here, especially, the
more the sphere of one's conduct expands, and the more the
quality of one's conduct becomes a matter of moral concern-
ment, the more numerous and severe the conflicts are likely
to become. And then there are the demands of the religious
nature with its longings, at least occasionally, to get away

432 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

from all social obligations, to commune with one's Self and
be still; and to know something more of the "peace of God."

Still another class of conflicts of duty arises when the very
virtues themselves — and, in extreme cases, those of the most
cardinal order — fall out with one another. How shall one
always, in a practical way, be both courageous and pru-
dent, angry and sympathetic, just and kindly, truthful and
polite, loyal to one's higher selfhood and actually helpful
to society, at one and the same time. Shall one insist
on punishment or on pardon for the offender ? Shall one
throw one's life into the breach at the risk, or with the
certainty, of losing it, or shall one save one's life for other
battles ? Shall one speak and act out the truth that is
most offensive and disagreeable to the populace, with only
a possibility that it will be salutary ; or shall one wait in
silent hope that some other tongue will speak the same
truth in a more agreeable and salutary way ? Life is
made up, to no small extent, of such problems of practi-
cal morals as these ; and to deny that they are real conflicts
of duty is to offer empty phrases for the instruction and
consolation which all attempt at goodness so much needs.

Feeling conflicts with judgment, and custom often conflicts
with both; the demands of individuals and classes conflict
and no one can ever satisfy all their demands; even the
virtues themselves seem at times to be variant. What shall
the good man do ? In what consists the truly virtuous life ?
The good man must stand up to the conflict and do the best
he can in it ; for in this consists the very essence of the vir-
tuous life itself. And here the principle of individuality as
a relation of every Moral Self to its own Moral Ideal, although
each individual ideal is worked out in a social organization
of similarly constituted selves, shines forth again to guide
our thinking by the right path. For morality is not the
mere keeping of a law ; it is not the mere doing as others
do, have done, and are going still to do; although without

CASUISTRY AND CONFLICT OF DUTIES 433

consideration of custom and of consequences no morality
can be attained. Morality is the achievement of the indi-
vidual person who, by dutiful exercise of all his powers,
frames — each for himself — an ideal of what, as regards
conduct and character, he ought to do and to be ; and who
by dutiful exercise of these same powers progressively
realizes this ideal.

Both the moral ideal, and the virtuousness which consists
in the realization of it, are individual ; both the formation
of the ideal and the realization of it are progressive, never
finished, always growing in wealth of content and in diffi-
culty of attainment. But neither ideal nor realization can
ever come into being otherwise than in a social environment.
Indeed, in their very nature both ideal and its realization,
although individual and ceaselessly variable, are also just
as essentially social. Conflict here, as through every form
of life, is a struggle for existence. But since virtuous liv-
ing is something more than mere existence, or merely for-
tunate existence, this struggle is of a nature to involve all
the moral values. It is a struggle to apprehend, to compre-
hend, and to realize a Moral Ideal. There is no help for
it then ; every man who desires to be virtuous must endure
this kind of conflict. His claim to virtue consists largely
in the way in which he conducts the conflict.

This brief casuistical discussion may fitly be brought to
a close by a few words regarding one class of cases of con-
science which has given the casuists of all times no small
amount of trouble. These cases are those in which the duty
of truth-telling comes into conflict with some other form of
duty that claims to be equally cardinal, or even more funda-
mental. Here our view of the nature of morality does not
permit us either to say with Kant that untruthfulness is
always " by its mere form, a crime of man against his own
person, and a baseness which must make a man despicable
in his own eyes ; " or with Fichte : *' I would not break my

434 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

word even to save humanity;'' but even less to hold with
Paulsen ^ that " veracity may be regarded as a form of benev-
olence " and that lies may be told with good conscience if
they seem likely, in particular cases, to benefit others. It
would scarcely seem necessary to controvert the extreme
views of Kant and Fichte, in these days when the utility of
truthfulness is so emphasized by most writers in commend-
ing it as a virtue. Moreover, 1 have already indicated (p.
296 f) in what sense trueness is a cardinal, an absolute virtue,
— not as the mere keeping of a law but as an act of fidelity
to the nature of moral and rational selfhood. Nor is it nec-
essary to dwell long upon the necessity under which Paulsen
(with every other student of ethics who does not place this
virtue upon its own secure foundations) finds himself of
covertly reintroducing considerations which his very concep-
tion of the virtue has appeared openly to exclude. For if the
sole answer to the question, Why is lying wrong ? is this :
Because it destroys faith and confidence among men, and
consequently undermines human social life, the other ques-
tion still recurs: What about human social life is it that
lying undermines which has the worth to make the happiness
given by, and derived from, much lying, disapproved as
inconsistent with the ideal of personal morality ? In try-
ing to answer this question we actually find Paulsen disap-
proving, on the one hand, of the theologians who deceive
men in the supposed interests of the salvation of their
souls, and commending physicians who deceive them in
the interests of their bodily health or of recovery from
disease!

When the conflict is on between the duty of truth-telling
and the duty to exercise some contrary and opposed form of
virtue, only the individual whose conflict it is can decide
which of the two shall control his action. But the conflict
must be fought out on grounds of duty, and the eye must be

1 A System of Ethics, p. 664 f.

CASUISTRY AND CONFLICT OF DUTIES 435

kept steadily fixed on the moral ideal. Otherwise, which-
ever way this particular problem of conduct is practically
settled, duty is not really done, and the moral ideal has been
violated. In most cases it will be found, I think, that the
conflict is not between duties at all. For example, if the
question seem to be. Shall I tell the truth and be unkind or
speak falsely in a benevolent way ? there are several ques-
tions that deserve an answer which lie still back of this one.
Must I speak at all? Will the truth be really unkind ?
Will the falsehood or deceit be really kind; and if a kind-
ness to this one person, will it be a kindness to society ?
And, indeed, am I bound to be kind in this case, etc., etc. ?
He who values trueness at its own intrinsic worth, as
belonging to the most essential qualities of rational and
moral personality, and as situate at the very foundations of
all social intercourse of the moral sort between selves, but
who has come to the pass that he must either deliberately
surrender this precious thing for only one moment or else
do a great wrong by way of injustice, unkindness, or other
harmful conduct to his fellow-men, is in a hard case indeed.
He is in one of those tragic situations for the relief from
which no system of casuistical rules, and no code of moral
principles, can amply provide. He must settle his own case
of conscience as best he can. But he must settle it as a
moral problem — keeping himself free from cowardice, in-
justice, enmity, and hypocrisy or self-deceit. If he thus
settle it, good men will commend his devotion to his own
ideal of duty, and pardon and pity him if he seems to them
not to have settled it aright. And what the Judge who
knows the whole truth will cause to eventuate from this
human decision is in this Judge's hands. The struggle
itself has its own value, although its place in the realization
of the Moral Ideal may be a mystery hidden from man.

CHAPTER XYIII

THE GOOD MAN

The previous discussion of the nature of the Virtuous Life
has prepared the way for a correct and fairly complete
answer to the following question : Who is the good man, and
how shall we describe, so that we may know him ? This
answer must, however, always remain of a rather general
sort, the details of which have to be filled in with a variety
of contents dependent upon individual circumstances and
upon the differences inherent in individual selves. More-
over, the description must employ terms of the recognized
virtues rather than the more abstract terms of moral laws
and moral principles. Thus we may say without fear of
contradiction that the good man is brave, temperate, and
constant; he is also wise, just, and true; and he is not
lacking in kindness and sympathy but, the rather, guides
himself in his relations to others by a principled and broad
benevolence. In a word the good man is he who realizes the
virtuous life in all his varying relations with other men in
society. This "realizing" consists in the actual practice of
the different virtues, — the virtues, namely, of courage, tem-
perance, constancy, wisdom, justness, trueness, kindness,
sympathy, and benevolence, — each duly and in its own
place, as occasion demands and as circumstances make pos-
sible. This "realizing" is not so much the mental recogni-
tion of a law, and the patterning of conduct after the law, as
it is the actual living of a life according to an Ideal.

But the ideal itself, since it is a moral ideal, appears as a

THE GOOD MAN 437

command which elicits the feeling of obligation and which
gains respect for its own sanctions by its own nature and
manner of appearance in consciousness. The good man is
the man who actually lives in the progressive realization of
the virtuous life. In other words, and since every man is
a concrete individual, in social relations with other individ-
uals, the good man conducts himself according to his ideal
of what his Self ought to do and be, in its intercourse with
other selves. Every piece of conduct which has these char-
acteristics is entitled to be called virtuous, or morally good ;
every person who habitually conducts himself in this way is
entitled to consider himself, and to be considered by others,
as a truly good man. And should any mortal and finite
person succeed in doing this to perfection he would be
entitled to be considered by others an entirely good man.
As says Professor Laurie i^ "The Good Will is that Will
which habitually subsumes moral ideas as motives of its
willing or volition."

In order, however, to adapt this description to the facts
of experience and also to the uses of the student of ethics,
whether from the more purely speculative or the more purely
practical point of view, it needs to be modified and further
explained by a series of remarks. These remarks are them-
selves only brief summaries of conclusions which have either
been definitively reached or less clearly indicated by the
previous discussions of the nature of the Moral Self and of
the Virtuous Life. Among them I place first the following:
Morality does essentially consist in conduct shaped accord-
ing to an ideal ; but this ideal need not be either conceived
in its entirety, or followed with a full consciousness of its
significance and worth, or even always followed with any
conscious recognition of it at all, in order that conduct
may be moral.

That morality does consist in conduct shaped according

1 Ethica, The Ethics of Reason, p. 21.

438 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

to an ideal standard, and that moral judgments regularly and
naturally bring all actual conduct into comparison with this
standard, has been made increasingly apparent by the entire
trend of our discussions. The power to frame ideals by
joint activity of thought and imagination, and that emo-
tional response to the ideal which the consciousness of man
returns, are fundamental and universal conditions of all his
moral as well as a3sthetical development. He who cannot in
any wise be induced to conceive of that which is better than
the actual, and to feel some preference for this better, some
drawing or obligation to it, cannot be a moral being. The
good man must conceive of a Self, to make his own, which
is morally superior to his own present self; and he must feel
the impulse and the demand to realize that superior self.

At the same time, for the multitude of men in all their
transactions with their fellows, and for the best men in the
multitude of their transactions, the moral ideal is not
present in consciousness in any distinct, not to say com-
plete, form. With most men and women — even good men
and women — the daily and yearly round of duties is filled
out with comparatively little conscious intention aimed at
the end of it all, and with only rare and fragmentary pic-
tures of the better selfhood which is either being won or
being lost. Indeed, with the millions of earth — and not
simply among the savages, or in the civilizations of China
and India, but as well in Europe and America — life is lived
with a concentration of energies upon the problem of bare
existence which leaves little of thought, imagination, and
feeling, for problems that lie in any measure above, or out-
side of, hare existence. And yet, everywhere that any form
of social organization constitutes an environment for the
individual — and man's environment, as moral, is neces-
sarily some form of social organization — the shadow of
some feature or fragment of the moral ideal is constantly
being thrown across his path. His barest existence is a

THE GOOD MAN 439

social affair, and to secure it involves the practical solution
of questions of conscience. Shall he now be brave or be a
coward ? Shall he in this case indulge his anger and the
spirit of revenge, or control it? Shall he act with fore-
thought or let this particular matter slip by without his
careful seizure of opportunity ? Shall he treat another in
this special instance unjustly, or allow himself to be treated
unjustly in case he can avoid it by resistance or outcry ?
Shall he swear to his own hurt and change not; or shall he
avoid the keeping of his word ? Shall he be kind and help-
ful toward a fellow, even at the cost of self-sacrifice ? In
the solution of all these concrete questions, there is an
opportunity to exchange glances between the Self that is
and the Self that ought to be? The former is very real and
insistent with its appetites, passions, and desires. But
then it has its kindly and sympathetic impulses as well.
And the latter, the Self that ought to be, is always, in re-
spect of this one piece of conduct in hand, or perhaps in
respect of the entire class of actions to which this action
belongs, at least somewhat better — ideally so — than the
actual Self. It has certain appreciable values, and the
sanctions that go with these values, on its side.

There are, moreover, in the very structure and personnel
of the existing social organizations concrete representations
of that Ideal Self which the individual is obligated to realize.
There are the customs, laws, and institutions, which have
moral significance and which result from the past experience
of the race in its own experimenting to find out the right
ways of conduct. And there are the older and wiser mem-
bers of society, the individual selves that are looked up to
by the multitude as embodying, in some important features
at least, the ideals of a selfhood which is better than that
now realized by the average development of the immature
and unskilled multitude. There are the stories of the heroes
of old, and of revered ancestors, and of the gods that have

440 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

their home on Olympus or dwell nearer the hearts and
hearths of men. Thus the individual member of the social
whole is led to feel, in this or that respect at least, and here
in one way and there in another way, that the selfhood of
these superiors is an example of the Ideal Self which he
should make his own.

But no matter how much the individual may subordinate
his moral reason to the social type, and in spite of the lazy
and abject willingness to be, not simply no better man than
the custom and law demand, but even as little of a good man
as the custom and law will permit, problems of conduct are
apt to arise which make still higher demands upon the joint
work of thought and imagination in framing his moral ideal.
Whether I will or not, I must bQ my self. My virtuousness
or viciousness must be, in some respects, peculiarly my own.
For the working of the principle of individuality is impera-
tive here. The great majority of men and women are
undoubtedly, in such ideals of the life that ought to be as
they cherish at all, very largely, perhaps almost wholly
alike. Yet in all countries and stages of social evolution,
good and bad men are recognized as existing side by side in
the same social organization. And the very words, " good "
and "bad," indicate clearly enough which of the two classes
is recognized as entitled to give the picture of moral per-
fection to the community for their example and imitation.
There are also some " very good men " in almost all multitu-
dinous communities. And such is the very nature of moral
goodness, that these leaders of the van must have an ideal
for themselves to follow which is raised by themselves con-
sciously above the low level of the average morals. As to
the influence of this ideal upon the moral development of
these individuals themselves, and, not infrequently, through
them upon the race, it is not necessary to add to what has
been already said.

Nor can this relation of the ideal Self to the actual Self,

THE GOOD MAN 441

in the case of all who are entitled to be called good, be
understood without taking into account those psychological
laws which control all human development. Among such
laws are chiefly those which enter into the growth of habit
and which determine all the immense influence of habit over
the character and achievements of the individual. Repeated
activities of the order that constitutes good or bad conduct,
like all repetition of similar activities, tend to the formation
of habits. The formation of habits is necessarily connected
with important changes in the character of the thinking,
feeling, and willing, which enter into every single instance
of the habit. What was formerly done, when the habit was
in its earlier stages of formation, only with a definite con-
sciousness of the end to be attained and of the proposed
method of its accomplishment, with more or less of specially
appropriate feelings or with a certain conflict of feeling or
resistance from feeling, and with an appearance of deliberate
willing and self-determination, comes to be done in a seem-
ingly unintelligent, non-emotional, and automatic fashion.
But the good man morally, according to the age and matur-
ity of his goodness, is emphatically the man of good moral
habits. He is, therefore, good in general, as a matter of
course. He is habituated to follow a certain ideal ; and for
this very reason he, in his habits, follows it actually, but
oftenest without consciously setting it before him as an
ideal. In the main he has solved the problem of conduct
by deciding what sort of a man he ought to be ; and he has
settled himself into an habitual but relatively unthinking,
unfeeling, and once-for-all determined career in pursuance
of his ideal. It is chiefly when such an one awakes to the
consciousness of having been unfaithful in some particular
to his standard of moral selfhood, or when some more than
usually difficult case of casuistry comes up for a practical
decision, that he makes conscious reference to his moral
ideal. It is, as a rule, only in a case of doubt, that the

442 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

good man inquires: How, under these particular circum-
stances, shall I act in order best to realize my ideal of a
Moral Self?

Conduct is a sort of high art; and truly virtuous living is
not a theory to be accepted, but an habitual practice of the
several virtues that flow from the very nature of the obliga-
tions of moral selves in their reciprocal relations as members
of a social organization. Like all art it recognizes the ideal.
But its ideal is realized not in idea merely or chiefly, but in
conduct which implies much more than correct and exalted
ideating activity. And like all life the virtuous life, the life
of the good man, is an habitual way of living that conforms
to a norm without, by any means, constantly holding that
norm before itself in the mirror of consciousness. Moral
seZf-consciousness — no matter of how intelligent and exalted
a type, and notwithstanding the great need of self-compre-
hension which the noblest living requires — is never the
chief end of conduct, or the principal criterion of the moral
quality of conduct.

Another remark necessary to characterize properly the
good man is, I think, somewhat like the following: The
different degrees of moral goodness depend, both upon the
excellence of the moral ideal adopted by the individual, and
also upon the perfection with which each individual's ideal
is realized in the actual conduct of life. That some good
men are better than others, and that good men may generally
continue to grow better, are propositions which only a cap-
tious and pernicious metaphysics or theology would think of
disputing. Most human beings have some morally good
points about them; even those justly called bad men have
some virtues, some fragments or traces or promises of moral
excellence. Not infrequently men who are decidedly vicious,
when their conduct is compared with the standard set by
certain of the cardinal virtues, are conspicuously good if
measured by the standard of other cardinal virtues. But

THE GOOD MAN 443

the good man is he whose ideal, chosen and followed, is the
for him virtuous life; or, in other words, he is the man who
is actually shaping his conduct according to the ideal of
manhood he believes he ought to attain. As is the case with
all other ideals, so with the moral ideal ; the different indi-
vidual standards get compared with one another, get tested
by the comparison which often becomes a conflict, get prefer-
entially selected as the result of such practical testing; and
gradually, if not suddenly, in the experience of the individ-
ual and of the race, the more excellent are made plain. It
is not strange, then, that there is much difference of opinion
among different individuals as to the most excellent type
of manhood, morally; just as there is much difference of
opinion concerning the ideals of the happy life, or of any of
the principal kinds of art. And every one must " work out
his own salvation " in ethical, as well as in eudaemonistic or
sesthetical affairs. For it is the spirit working in the man,
the spirit of devotion to the moral ideal and the constant
working to realize it, which are the chief distinctions be-
tween the good and the bad.

Nevertheless, the moral development of the race, which
is in this respect eminently dependent upon its intellectual
development and upon its entire growth in experience, has
made it possible in good measure to adjudicate between the
different ideals of moral selfhood. The influence of the
Christian religion has been especially prominent in this
development, through the ideal of manhood which it has
favored and established in favor amongst mankind. I can-
not believe that this ideal differs, in so far as it is ethical
and not distinctively religious, so radically from the best
Greek conception as Paulsen and others would have us to
suppose. But the description of the ideal good man as given
in the Sermon on the Mount, and as realized by the preacher
of that Sermon, with its implied exhortation to strive to be
perfect after the pattern of the Divine Ideal of Selfhood, is

444 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

undoubtedly entitled, even when judged by the standards of
historical and ethnological and psychological criticism, to
be considered the most excellent of ideals. This ideal,
however, cannot be adopted in a vague general way ; it must
itself be individualized by every good man; and, in its con-
crete realization, it is dependent upon a host of constantly
changing circumstances connected with each individual's
social environment. It must also be a practicable, a pro-
gressively realizable, ideal. For nothing is more destructive
of virtuous living than to make virtue consist in holding and
pursuing a type of manhood that could not possibly maintain
itself in any existing, or even conceivable, kind of a social
organization. One's ideal may be — nay! should be — as
high and noble as the strenuous and persistent effort to
copy the godlike man can possibly raise it; but its realiz-
ing is no mere act of mental apprehension; and living
in accordance with the moral ideal can never be a mere
copying.

So, then, it is not simply the holding of the higher and
lower degrees of the ideal of moral selfhood which makes the
difference in the goodness of different men; although they
are the better morally, who, other things being equal, have
espoused the best ideals. The "high-flyer," the Idealist (as
the word is usually understood when spelled with a capital
and applied to the sphere of ethics), is not likely to be the
best of good men. For besides the general impracticable
character of the ideal he cherishes, we may havB to note that
he is too frequently and too contentedly unfaithful to his
own ideal. No good man — much more, no best among
good men — realizes his own ideal of a Moral Self. But any
man renders suspicious, if he does not altogether forfeit, his
claim to being a loyal follower of the Virtuous Life, if he
habitually and obviously falls far short of the very elements
of the ideal which he considers so strictly applicable to all
his fellow-men. He may be grandly right, as Jesus was, in

THE GOOD MAN 446

leading a little group of followers, or in going alone to
martyrdom, because the standard he raises and would have
others accept is so obviously contrary to the interests of the
ruling classes or the impulses of the multitude. But, I
repeat again : Every moral ideal which is binding on the
individual involves the conception of a Self set into actual
relations with other selves, in some existing social organiza-
tion, and conducting itself virtuously in those relations. The
most really good man is, then, he who in his daily life habit-
ually, by the employment of all his energies of mind, heart,
and will, moulds himself according to that particular ideal of
morality which seems to him most worthy. This ideal of
morality is always, on the one hand, concrete and individual ;
but it is also, on the other hand, social and having reference
to the part which every individual takes in the community
of moral beings.

Another remark — almost too obvious to deserve making,
were it not for its practical importance, is this : The good-
ness of the good man is always a growth, both of function
and of performance ; and this growth is eminently dependent
upon the development of the ideal toward which the growth
is directed in each individual case. Being good is no gen-
eral undefined sort of a thing; functioning virtuously is not
an abstraction. The good man is a good father, a good son,
a good brother, and a good citizen or member of the particu-
lar social organization in which his daily life is placed;
and, as such a good member of society, he is a good day-
laborer, a good shopkeeper, a good teacher, lawyer, doctor,
or what not — using the word "good" always in its ethical
significance. Into this kind of moral goodness he must grow
by experience, just as truly as into the excellent skill or
learned technique of his particular calling or profession.
But back of, and down below, all this is the fact that the
very functions in which every form of virtuous living con-
sists are all subject to development.

446 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

The more specific activities in which the essential moral-
ity of action consists are apt to develop later than those
necessary to the mere form of the action itself. The feeling
of obligation, for example, is necessarily preceded by a con-
siderable development of the pleasure-pains and of the lower
and less complex forms of affection and emotion. The
appreciation of the worth of resisting the impulse to steal
an orange comes later than the appreciation of the value of
the orange for its pleasure-giving sensuous qualities. It
requires more growth in self-determination to resist the
tendency to cowardice in consideration of motives presented
by the idea of a virtue called courage than to let one's self
be determined by the struggle for supremacy of two con-
flicting forms of fear. And the stage at which intellect and
imagination must arrive in order to construct even a rela-
tively low type of the Moral Ideal is a higher stage than
that which makes possible the anticipation of pleasure or
pain on account of some imaginary condition of a physically
ideal sort. Cinderella and Blue Beard, or any of the tales
of the Arabian Nights, awaken the picture-making faculty
at a much lower level than that to which the spiritual purity
of the Virgin Mary, or the self-sacrifice of her Son, the
Christ, appeal. Whoever throws himself wholly into the
arms of the Virtuous Life, whoever makes his constant aim
the realizing of so exalted an ideal, must endure a strain
upon his Time-consciousness and Self-consciousness, in order
to find rational justification for such a deed of will, which
considerably surpasses that required for the mastery of the
higher matliematics or the physics of the solar system.

To these less obvious considerations may, of course, be
added the entirely commonplace remark that growth in vir-
tue comes only through the practice of virtue. Of course,
as everybody knows, the only way to be good is to become
good ; and the only way to become good is to practise being
good.

THE GOOD MAN 447

Scarcely less important but much less obvious is the truth
that the Ideal of conduct and character toward which the
good man shapes his course, is itself a matter of growth and
development. No other forms of psychoses are so manifestly
subjective as are the ideals of men. Their perceptions are
popularly thought of as copies of somewhat permanently
existing extra-mentsil realities ; and there is warrant for this
mistaken thought in the very nature of the mental processes
which are called perceptions. So, too, are those conceptions
which are formed by logical functioning upon a basis of con-
crete experiences considered to have some correlate in the
world of actual existences. But how stands the case with
human ideals ? Are they not mere dreams of what might be,
entirely unlike perceptions and conceptions in that they are
devoid of all correlates in Reality ? Must it not be confessed
of the good man, as of the Idealist of every sort : —

*' That type of Perfect in his mind
In Nature can he nowhere find,
He sows himself on every wind ? '*

I am not seeking at present the answer to so vast and
difficult a question, although it raises the ultimate problem
of a philosophy of conduct. The existence of the ideals
which are formed by the conscious activity of good men is at
any rate a fact of experience. Moral ideas are persistently
recurring facts, — of such a nature, too, that without them
and what they imply as to man's constitution and history,
there would be no problem of conduct for ethics to try to
solve. And for every individual his own ideal — however
low and fragmentary or lofty and relatively complete — is
subject to change and development. Besides all this, it is
truth of fact that the good man finds his ideal growing faster
than his own growth in the ability to actualize it. To other
good judges and, if he will only be reasonable in judgment,
to himself, he may appear to be making no inconsiderable

448 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

advances in the practice of the particular virtues ; his mo-
tives may be growing purer and his intentions wiser; but at
the same time he is likely to seem further than ever from
realizing his own ideal. This is because his ideal of the Self
to which he owes allegiance has advanced faster than has
his real Self in the actualization of that ideal. Hence the
beautiful and profoundly true words of Riickert : —

Vor jedem steht ein Bild des, das er iverden soil ;
So lang er das nicht ist, ist nicht sein Friede veil.

Doubtless something similar, as applied to the different
social organizations and even, in a way, to the entire race
must be recognized as true to the facts of history. Certain
large sections of mankind — notably, the Chinese, for ex-
ample — have remained for centuries well satisfied with the
moral ideal which has "set the pace," and marked out the
path, for the people in their ethical development. All
nations show their national characteristics respecting the
self-satisfaction of an ethical sort which they habitually feel.
But neither in the case of the multitudes, nor in the case of
individuals, can this satisfaction with the existing ideal be
considered as a sure sign of moral advancement. Neither
for the people, nor for the individual, is the habit of patting
one's self upon the back and congratulating one's self on
one's own virtuousness a sure sign of the real possession of a
virtuous character. A certain noble dissatisfaction belongs,
the rather, to the best among individuals and among nations.
And at the present time, the large amount of pessimism
current among the most enlightened and conscientious of the
morally most progressive peoples is, undoubtedly, a sign of
two truths which are seemingly, but not really, antagonistic.
First: The Moral Ideals of humanity are rising, and this is
the cause of that noble dissatisfaction with existing moral
conditions which they who do not feel, have no right to be
considered good men ; but, second, the actual conduct of men

THE GOOD MAN 449

is far below their ideals, perhaps farther below now than
ever before ; and this, too, is the cause of a sad but not dis-
couraged dissatisfaction. The former is a hopeful sign, a
forerunner of a coming age of ethical improvement. The
latter may mean either Yes, or No, to the question : Is the
world growing better ? according to what part of the world
one regards and how one estimates this "growing better."
Everywhere and in all times, for the individual and for
the race, the growth of the Moral Ideal is an indispen-
sable cause and accompaniment of all moral progress.

And now it would seem inevitable that every psychologi-
cal and ethnological discussion of ethical problems must
have a most astonishing conclusion. And, indeed, the
inevitable logical conclusion of empirical ethics is most
astonishing. For the whole discussion leads to apparent
practical contradictions, if it does not end in confusion.
Indeed, if the word were not so certain to be misunderstood
and its implications abused, I should not hesitate to main-
tain that the psychological and ethnological study of the
problem of conduct ends in " antmomies. " These are not,
however, real metaphysical antinomies of the Kantian order,
because neither one of the apparently contradictory proposi-
tions which compose them can, in any case, be given the form
of law (a nomos) that is founded upon a truly scientific hand-
ling of the facts. Let us say, then, that unless philosophy
can in some way get behind, or underneath, the conditions
in which a descriptive and historical survey of the Moral Self
and the Virtuous Life leave the subject, the good man, when
he seeks in ethics a guide to conduct, is left hopelessly
in the dark as to the real significance and worth of the
Right, and hopelessly at odds with himself, with his fellows,
with his environment, and with the World of Reality.

I will now briefly state several of the principal forms of
conflict, or antithetic situations, which have been disclosed
by the detailed study of ethical facts and ethical laws.

450 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

First, there is the conflict between the sentient self and the
moral self. Man is constituted so that his pleasure-pains
have value for him ; indeed, it is difficult, if not impossible,
to conceive of any form of conscious existence in which
pleasure and pain should not be constituents of, or essen-
tially connected with, ideas of value. Conduct, for the
worth of its own which it seems to possess, is dependent
in large measure upon its concomitant and sequent effects
in the way of pleasure and pain. To be regardless of the
happiness of others, if not of my own happiness, is certainly
immoral. Justice, wisdom, kindness, sympathy, and benev-
olence, if not also courage and truth, would have no meaning
in a world composed of non-sensitive beings. But man is
not simply a sentient self, he is also a moral self. And
whatever the most subtle and refined arguments of Hedonism
or Utilitarianism may have to advance, the interests of the
two selves, or two sides of the one Self, are by no means
obviously identical throughout. Indeed, everything that
psychology and ethnology have had to disclose regarding
ethical facts and laws has gone to show that, neither by the
individual nor by the race have these two classes of interests
been regarded as essentially and always the same. On the
contrary, the history of the individual and of the race is
full of conflicts between the two classes of interests. The
essential characteristic of the good man has come to be that
the moral self shall largely triumph over the sentient self.
And yet the sentient self remains — always an integral part
of the moral self. Hence the conflict ever remains ; it must
be perpetually renewed until some sort of a reconcilement
can be effected.

But the sentient self and the moral self are both perpet-
ually in danger of developing an internal conflict. I take
pleasure in seeing others happy; but if I am to have this
pleasure I must often — perhaps usually would be the better
word for most persons — gain this pleasure at the expense of

THE GOOD MAN 451

other pleasure. But for the sentient self to calculate its
own interests in terms of the value of pleasure-pains brings
about many a conflict; whereas a perpetual calculation of
this kind is distinctly prejudicial to all genuine morality.
Again, if I am to be truly moral, I must often regard in
others something much more highly than their happiness; —
but frequently nothing is more disagreeable for both parties
to the transaction than for one human being, no matter how
wisely, to undertake to improve another's character.

Second : There are almost unceasing conflicts among the
virtues themselves. All the most cardinal virtues have been
found to be relative and necessary to modify or supplement
one another; and yet it seems quite impossible to discover
any one supreme virtue entitled to absorb them all. Hence
life is full of conflicts of duties which are as real as any of
the most intense but indubitably human experiences can be,
and which are not to be escaped by resort to abstract theories
that a 'priori demonstrate their impossibility. And, besides,
although we refused on good grounds to accept the common
division of virtues into the self-regarding and the altruistic,
there can be no doubt that constant conflicts arise between a
dutiful regard for one's own interests and a dutiful regard
for the interests of others. It is vain to deny the fact of
these conflicts ; it is a kind of solemn mockery to offer, in
solution of the problem they afford, a mathematical theory
which regards the whole of society as so many in number,
"each to count as one," or any abstract conception of the
race as a lump-sum of spirits, so to say, of which each indi-
vidual forms only an insignificant portion. I may be in
duty bound at one time to consider myself as worth more
than a hundred others of my fellow-men ; at another time I
may be bound to sacrifice my life freely in the behalf of one
poor specimen of this common humanity.

Much as is now being said — some truth, some travesty of
truth, and some horrible falsehood — about the social organ-

452 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

ism and its worth, etc., the side of the individual's duty to
guard against the encroachments of society his own higher
and nobler Self can never be neglected without grave danger
to the most fundamental moral interests. The " good few "
have rights ; and they are bound to guard these rights even
in the interests of the few good. And nowadays, when the
popular sneer is so often against those who will not lower
their standard of ethical excellence in the interests even of
society, the individual may be compelled to stand alone with
God, as " holier " than they, against the multitude of his
fellow men. No matter ; for the good few always represent
the ultimate Moral Ideal better than do the majority. And
in this and all kindred cases, how shall the good man know
whether, in his supreme regard for his own better Self and
for the absolutely Holy One, he is not also acting in the best
interests of society ? His ideal must he his own highest and
best Self; his ideal must he one that is practicable in the
actual society of which he is one member. Will he do harm
by opposing the majority, and perish for his presumption, or
lose all influence on account of his seeming arrogance ? Or
will he succeed in doing something worth while for other
men while regarding so highly his own absolute standard ?
God knows; but who among men can tell? The conflict is
inevitable in the good man's life; and no form of socialistic
theory, and no amount of respect for the rules and opinions
of society, or even of more rational regard for the higher
social interests, will enable him to escape this conflict. In-
deed, the good man's own high ideal of what he himself
would be, constitutes at times an almost irresistible tempta-
tion to disrespect for the "herd" of men, with their low
estimate of moral values, and their yet lower practice of
virtuous living.

And, finally, there is the eternal contrast, which so often
issues in conflict, between the actual realization and the
real Ideal. Why should the torment of the ideal be so felt

THE GOOD MAN 463

by the men who would seem least to need it ? Why should
the whole race seek a moral good, which they do not under-
stand or really appreciate, but which comes to them in fitful
glimpses of fragmentary shapes ?

" Heaven opens inward, chasms yawn,
Vast images in glimmering dawn.
Half shown, are broken and withdrawn."

For this ideal is not one of bodily comfort merely ; it is not
the Utopia where all are rich, and healthy, and wise enough
not to desire more than is necessary for a happy life. It is
an ideal that takes conduct and character into the account,
in such fashion as to make its realization without righteous-
ness intrinsically absurd. But as material, and even moral
conditions go on improving, the Moral Ideal seems little or
no nearer realization under the improved conditions. For it
has risen while the conditions have been rising; its demands,
therefore, now seem more difficult of fulfilment than they
were before. Or, at least, they would seem more difficult,
and even impossible of fulfilment, were it not for that strange
hopefulness which somehow characterizes most of the indi-
viduals and the peoples who are most bent on setting moral
principles into realization as a practical affair.

Such conflicts as these lie athwart the path of the good
man — the more frequent and intense, the higher his ideal
and the broader and more influential upon society his sphere
of action — in his effort to lead the life of perfectly virtuous
conduct under existing natural and social conditions. Such
difficult questions of a practical character come before him
for solution by his moral tact. The attempt at a theoretical
treatment of these ethical antinomies (?), and of the prob-
lems which grow out of them, is the task of speculative ethics
in the form in which we now turn to it our attention.

PAKT THIED
THE NATURE OP THE EIGHT

'''■From Thee all things come; in Thee all things subsist; to Thee all
things return. And so I say of the World: Dear City of God."

Marcus Aurelius.

CHAPTER XIX

THE ULTIMATE PROBLEM

We enter upon this final stage of the investigation of topics
in ethics with a number of questions still unanswered which
appear to be of the most important theoretical, if nut practical,
character. It would seem highly desirable to gather these
questions together and to give them a sort of unity, which
may serve as a guide and a goal to further investigation.
Can the problems which an empirical ethics leaves unsolved
be so stated as at least to constitute the terms of an ultimate
problem in the philosophy of conduct ? And if such a state-
ment be found possible, what method of research may be most
hopefully employed in the effort to find a tentative and fairly
satisfactory solution of this ultimate problem, — " tentative
and fairly satisfactory,' ' I say. For, if biology is constantly
finding the lower life, with all that it implicates as to its
origin, laws, and destiny, more and more of a mystery, and
the wonderful array of new facts is so far outstripping the
utmost energies of science in its effort to give the facts a
complete explanation, it is small wonder if the higher life of the
Moral Self, and the evolution of morality in the race is found
to be equally mysterious. If the biologist or anthropologist
confesses with becoming modesty his inability to deal with the
origin and nature of physical life, no student of ethics need
be over-confident in his attack upon the ethical problem, or
scorn and underestimate the help which metaphysics and
religion have to offer. For, indeed, biology, psychology, and
anthropology, by their combined efforts, seem scarcely com-

458 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

petent much to illumine this ultimate problem. Indeed, we
shall soon see that our only hopeful resource is to metaphysics
and to religion.

In this chapter I shall make the attempt simply to state the
ultimate problem of the philosophy of conduct, and briefly to
describe the means which offer themselves for its best pos-
sible solution. In a word, the ultimate problem of ethics con-
cerns the essential and permanent relations in which the
ethical life and ethical development of the individual man and
of the human race stands to Reality ; and the conception of
reality here referred to must be the most comprehensive and
ultimate which it is possible for philosophy to construct.
The method of investigating these relations must be that
method of reflective thinking upon a basis of all the data of
experience concerning which philosophy uniformly employs,
and in which, indeed, philosophizing essentially consists. In
this particular case it will be found, I believe, that those data
which are gathered from all the ideals of man and especially
from his religious nature, must be chiefly taken into the account.
In a word, then, only general philosophy borrowing largely
from the philosophy of religion can give any, even tentative
and fairly satisfactory solution of the ultimate problem of
ethics. A few words of explanation regarding each of these
two claims will suffice the purposes of this introductory chapter.
Their justification is the task attempted in the entire Third Part
of the book.

When I say that the ultimate problem of ethics concerns
the essential and permanent relations of human morality to
Reality, I am using the latter term in no empty or abstract
way. Above all must the mistake be avoided of setting the
conception of reality over against the actual and historical
development of man in its moral aspect, or of excluding from
the conception this moral development itself. Indeed, the
central and essential permanent reality in ethics is this same
actual moral life and moral development. The progressive

THE ULTIMATE PKOBLEM 459

ethical life of man is the reality whose psychological charac-
teristics and historical career form the subject-matter of
ethics. This life is real ; and it does not borrow, or need in
order to be real, a reality outside of itself.

The fact that the Ethical Life of Humanity is really a suc-
cession of psychoses, and so, from the psychological point of
view, a subjective affair, does not render it less real. Indeed,
what kind of reality but a subjective and spiritual reality could
morality possibly have ? The dreamer, the student of the phe-
nomena who is guilty of useless and unmeaning abstractions, is
not the thinker who conceives of ethics as really an affair of the
mutually dependent conscious states of selves ; he is rather the
so-called " scientist " who considers morality to be really an
affair of external customs and institutions, or even an affair
of stone, bronze, iron, and steel, of clubs, spears, cross-bows,
and ironclads. That vague conception which anthropology
dubs by the title " civilization," and which it is accustomed
to describe as chiefly made up of things visible and tangible,
is undoubtedly both cause and effect of the ethical evolution
of the race. But civilization itself is chiefly — at any rate, in
its highest and most important factors — an habitual manner
of the intercourse of selves with one another, and of their
construction and use of those means for such intercourse
which have been put at the disposal of the present generation
by the achievements of past generations. Now it is just in
this social intercourse that we have found the sphere of
morality to lie ; for morality is essentially an actual con-
scious life of the Moral Self in social relations with other
moral selves.

But the reality of the actual moral life which history dis-
closes, whether of the individual or of the race, is not the
whole of Reality. Looking backward and outward, if not
looking inward and forward (although I believe we shall
have to cancel this "if not" too), the history of man's
moral life is not the Ultimate Reality. Such a declaration

460 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

is certainly true of the individual Moral Self. Character and
conduct we have agreed to leave subject to the self-determina-
tion of the individual in a limited way. But the ethical con-
stitution which makes the conducting of himself and the
acquirement of character possible for the individual, and
makes possible as well the social and physical environment
in which his moral life is begun, do not originate with the
individual. All these he receives as a dependent member of
the race. The race itself, however, cannot be conceived of as
carrying in its life history the whole of that reality on which
this history is dependent. However we may work out our
problem of the descriptive history of man's moral evolution,
we come to a theoretical beginning when this history is de-
pendent for its institution upon realities that lie beyond
itself. Let it be atoms, ape, or (pardon the seeming irrev-
erence !) God, the case for philosophy is not essentially
changed. The Reality, which is from the point of view of
time-consciousness more Ultimate, must be thought of as
containing within itself the potentiality of all the surprising
moral evolution of mankind. The origins of that reality
which is the actual moral life of the race must either be left
in mid-air, or found in the atoms and the lower animals, or
credited to the Absolute Self. For this real life is a part
of the larger Life ; this reality of man's moral life and moral
development begins in, and is encompassed by, a larger Reality.
Nor do I believe that it is necessary to follow the dull,
mechanical " rattling of the chain of causation," physical and
biological, back in imagination to the beginning of things,
in order to feel the imperative, the supreme need of ground-
ing one's ethical theory in a certain conception of Ultimate
Reality. It is confessedly an impossibl-e kind of a task to try
to discover the satisfactory reasons for a feeling of obligation,
and for a judgment that bears in itself a claim to authority
and to incontestible sanctions, as a part of the most ultimate
conceivable knowledge (if we had or could ever hope to have

THE ULTIMATE PKOBLEM 461

such knowledge) of the nature and laws of physical existence.
Nor do I see how the difficulty of the task is lessened by put-
ting in between ourselves and the material elements countless
generations of animals with pleasure-pains resembling ours ;
albeit with more or less likeness of appetites, impulses,
desires, and social interests, besides. But whether the holy
light which surrounds the sanctions of the Moral Ideal began
in a twilight that was indistinguishable at first from the
darkness in which all things are black, or struck into the
world of real experiences at some instant like a faint flash
of lightning, the ultimate problem of ethics remains un-
chanored. How shall the world of moral life — human or
animal — be accounted for as a dependent part of the world
of Reality ? This moral life is an actual psychological and
historical development. How shall it best be interpreted and
explained in its relations to the Totality of which it is an
undoubted part?

Inasmuch also as this moral development, like every other
development, looks forward as well as backward, and raises
problems as to its goal, as well as problems as to its origins,
ethics cannot avoid questions of the destiny of the individ-
ual and of the race, if it wishes to treat satisfactorily its
own ultimate problem. All explanation is teleological and
has reference to an end to be realized. Especially and most
obviously true is this of the phenomena with which ethics
deals. Its end to be realized is a form of the Good, which is
most intimately related in all the systems of interconnected
real existences and actual events with every form of good
realizable by man : and yet the ethical good seems to have
its special characteristics and its own conditions and laws of
realization. How then can ethics solve its most fundamental
problems in a satisfactory way unless it consider the ends that
are sought, attainable, and actually attained, by human con-
duct. And here what is true of the individual in the small is
true of the race in the large. It is impossible to explain the

462 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

ethical meaning and the forward-running effect of the good or
bad conduct of the individual without reference to the relations
of the individual to the future generations of men. Yet to jus-
tify the individual, from the point of view of moral reason, in
sinking his own immediate and more pressing interests in the
future welfare of others, some sort of an appeal must certainly
be made to a teleology which rises to a higher plane than that
upon which stands the merely sentient nature of man. Besides
all this, moral reason demands that one should raise some
such question as the following : What sort of good for others
in the future am I bound to seek, or even justified in seeking,
at the expense of good to myself ? And what picture shall I
frame of that Ultimate Good, for myself, or for others, or for
all, that will connect the entire moral evolution of mankind
with the unceasing and universal ongoing of the World of
Reality ? Or must one leave both ends, the origin and the
goal, as well as all that is most interior, of the moral evolution
of man in the darkness of doubt and nescience ? Must the
philosophy of conduct end with this confession ? —

" There was the door to which T found no key,
There was the veil through which I could not see,
Some little talk there was awhile of Me and Thee,
And then no more of Thee or Me.*'

But since the essential thing about morality is its peculiar
judgments of worth, and the way these judgments arise, assume
a position of command, and define for the Moral Self the course
and final purpose of the Virtuous Life ; and since such judg-
ments radiate from, or concentrate themselves upon a certain
Moral Ideal — the truly right conduct of personality as a mem-
ber of a social organization — the ultimate problem of the phil-
osophy of conduct may be said to concern the origin, sanctions,
and teleological justification of this ideal. This is, however,
to say that some rational and eternal relation must be estab-
lished between the Moral Ideal and the Ultimate Reality.

THE ULTIMATE PKOBLEM 468

Put in the form of a question, the ultimate problem of ethics
reads as follows : May that Being whom philosophy knows as
the Absolute or the World- Ground be so conceived of as to
afford the source, the sanctions, and the end of Morality ? Or,
more briefly, how shall the Moral Ideal be so united with the
Ultimate Reality as to find in it its Ground ? The same
problem which the metaphysics of ethics proposes in this way,
religion solves by affirming God to be the source, the judge
and defender, the goal and guaranty, of that virtuous living
which has for its aim the realization by moral selves of the
moral ideal.

Surely the answers to such questions as these constitute an
important problem for the student of the philosophy of conduct.
And whoever carries on his study of this branch of philoso-
phy with the moral earnestness and scientific thoroughness
which befit the theme cannot consent to be satisfied with
that state of practical antinomies and consequent theoretical
agnosticism in which psychological and anthropological ethics
inevitably leave the mind. Above all other forms of life the
moral life should serve to impart a desirable unity to exper-
ience. To have either the theoretical consideration of moral
principles or the honest attempt to set them into practice
result in a permanent and hopeless schism in human nature
would be a discouraging and sad result indeed.

By what method, then, may one most hopefully proceed in
the further treatment of this so-called ultimate problem of
ethics ? The very nature of the questions which combine to
constitute the problem suggests the method. The questions
have to do with the evolution of moral selves in their natural
and necessary relations with one another, under the different
forms of social organization. Whence does the moral life
come? Whither does the moral life tend? Wliat sort of
real world must that be in which such a striving after an
ideal good has its so important and essential place ? And
what, as further described or defined, is the larger nature of

464 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

that ideal, the Ultimate Moral Ideal toward which the moral
evolution of the race is on its way? These questions con-
cern the origins, the authority and sanctions of the regulat-
ing laws, and the destiny of man's ethico-social development.
Their answer requires such a conception of Reality as fur*
nishes to reason the most satisfactory form of knowledge
— or, if knowledge be impossible, the most rational form
of belief — respecting this development. These are ques-
tions of general philosophy, and especially of the philosophy
of religion ; and they must be attempted by the method
which is legitimate to philosophy. This is the method of
reflective thinking upon the broadest possible basis of experi-
ence as scientifically construed.

The different so-called " schools of ethics " have from time
immemorial dealt with one or more of the features of the
more comprehensive problems of human conduct. Some of
them have attempted simply to confine their consideration to
what experience tells us concerning the ethical development
of the individual, or of the race ; they have been satisfied
with such a descriptive history as could be told in terms of
fact. With them the most important inquiry has been,
whether liappiness is the one form of good that must be
sought by human conduct in accordance with the constitu-
tion of human nature and its conscious reactions upon its
environment ; or whether virtuous conduct should be sought
as having a worth of its own. But this is chiefly a psycho-
logical question ; and it should never be confused with the
more ultimate metaphysical problems which psychology and
anthropology leave unsolved.

A genuine and comprehensive metaphysics of ethics seeks
to ground in Reality a rational basis for the origins, sanc-
tions, and results of conduct and of moral development. It is
this in which even the multitudes of common men are truly
interested. For them the disputes between Utilitarians and
Intuitionists are matters of merely academic concernment.

THE ULTIMATE PROBLEM 465

They recognize the truths to which both appeal ; and they
can detect those misses of the truth of which each school
justly accuses the other. What they most want to know
about, however — or, at least, to have some opinion or faith
about — are such problems as these : Is the world a moral
order, or a machine driven onward by blind forces, and blind
to its own fate ? Whence come the sanctions of the so-called
moral laws, and who is going to enforce, those sanctions, if I
can manage to disobey and to escape my fellow men, or even
to profit by disobedience ? Who but a lot of impracticable
theorists issues the demand that I shall do what I do not
want to do ? And, what is going to come of it, any way,
in the long run, in the far-away future, for me and for the race ?
But these are the questions of a metaphysics that must pay
regard not simply to the physical and natural, or to the psycho-
logical sciences, but also and chiefly to the faiths, fears, and
hopes, of the religious nature of man. They are proposals to
extend that essential, rational, and inevitable anthropomorph-
ism, on which all scientific knowledge of the World is based,^
over into the sphere of ethics and religion, with a view
to unify one's entire working theory of nature and of human
life. That is to say, they are inquiries as to whether what
psychology and anthropology fail to do for ethics and re-
ligion, the spheres in which man's realest interests move,
cannot be accomplished in some other way? The popular
demand is for a view of man's origin, nature, and destiny,
which will do something worth while in the way of bridging
the chasm between truths of fact and those ideals that seem
to have an absolute worth.

And the people are right — and by " right,'* I mean both
rational and ethically justifiable — in making this demand.
Moreover, no matter how much of studied effort the schools
of ethical theory may make to keep their contentions clear

1 For the proof in extenso of this, see my Philosophy of Knowledge, and
A Theory of Reality, throughout.

466 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

of general pliilosophy, and of those problems with which the
philosophy of religion concerns itself, they never succeed
in doing this. Some view as to the nature of the Absolute,
and as to the relations toward the Ultimate Reality in which
the moral life of man stands, as respects its origins, laws,
development, and destiny, every theoretical treatment of ethi-
cal problems must either explicitly avow or implicitly involve.
While, then, I shall make no pretence of an effort to avoid
the discussion of topics which compel one to go beyond where
ethics, empirically considered, would counsel one to stop, I
shall take the path to this discussion which lies through a
criticism of the different schools of ethical theory. To
classify these schools at all strictly is impossible ; their points
of agreement and of disagreement are nowadays too numer-
ous, and the paths that connect or diverge from them are
too complex for a strict classification. For purposes of con-
venience they will be considered under three classes, —
namely, Utilitarianism in Ethics, Legalism in Ethics, and
Idealism in Ethics. The criticism of these schools and the
establishing of my own conclusions positively will compel me
to borrow — often without calling attention to it — much
from what seem to me truths of general philosophy ; as well
as to anticipate some things which a detailed treatment of
-Esthetics, but more especially of the Philosophy of Religion,
would be necessary to establish.

CHAPTER XX

UTILITARIANISM IN ETHICS

The modern ethical theories which go by the name of
"Utilitarian" differ from the ancient Hedonistic theories,
whose descendants they are, in two or three important par-
ticulars. Of these the most important, perhaps, consists in
the modification which they have received from their con-
nection with modern views as to biological evolution, and
from the application of the principles of such evolution to
the phenomena of human life. But, as will apj^ear in the
course of discussion, whatever light of truth the biological
doctrine of evolution can throw upon man's ethical develop-
ment is really no more favorable to the hedonistic elements
of Utilitarianism in Ethics than to other distinctly antithetic
forms of ethical theory. Indeed, writers who, like Mr.
Herbert Spencer, insist most strenuously upon a close
amalgamation of Utilitarianism and Evolution often seem
singularly deficient as to insight into the real difficulties of
the problem they are trying to solve.

Modern Utilitarianism also differs from both ancient and
more recent Hedonism as respects the way in which it is
accustomed to construe such conceptions as pleasure, happi-
ness, the good, etc. And this difference is largely due to a
historical growth in the complex conditions of what men
generally regard as necessary for comfortable and happy
living, or even for an existence that is deemed barely tol-
erable. Here again, however, there is not infrequently
apparent an increase of confusion, rather than of clearness,

468 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

in the psychology of pleasure-pain states (or of happiness in
general and in particular), which grows out of a failure to
seize and hold fast the permanent elements that enter into
a problem of so much complexity. The relatively large im-
portance and range given by the current Utilitarianism to
those virtues of feeling so-called, which have a peculiar
relation to human pleasure-pains — such as kindness, pity,
sympathy, etc. — may be said further to characterize certain
changes in the prevalent ethical opinion.

But in spite of these important differences, and of all the
conceivable as well as actual minor differences, the essential
contentions of a certain school of ethics have remained
unchanged throughout. I have given to this school the name
"Utilitarian" rather than "Hedonistic," because the former
term seems better adapted to include the latter, than does
the latter to include it ; moreover, there are some writers of
this school who object to being called Hedonists, — as though
something not so excellent ethically were implied in this
word.i But Hedonists, Utilitarians, and certain writers
who adopt still different terms for their theories, hold essen-
tially the same view respecting the answer to that ultimate
problem which it is proposed now to discuss. They hold
that the life of man, whether of the individual or of the race,
is an end in itself ; and that its own happiness is its final
and all-inclusive end. In a word, they all maintain that the
criterion, the sanctions, and the rational end of conduct and
of character are to be found in human happiness. From this
conclusion it follows, first, that the reason which entitles
any particular kind of conduct or type of character to be
called morally good (virtuous) must be found in its useful-

1 Professor Watson is undoubtedly true to the facts of history when, in his
treatment of "Hedonistic Theories," he includes J. S. Mill and Spencer with
Epicurus, Hobbes, Locke, Hume, and Bentham; while Thilly (Introduction to
Ethics, p. 72 f,), in grouping together writers who accept some form of the Evolu-
tionary Theory, has included with Spencer, Leslie Stephen, and von Gizycki, those
who differ so widely from them as Wundt, Simmel, and Alexander.

UTILITAKIANISM IN ETHICS 469

ness as a means to happiness; second, that the obligation
to right conduct depends upon its utility as productive of
happiness; and, third, that the rational ideal, set up and
striven for by the individual and by the race, is the utmost
possible of happiness. In a word, moral good is instru- .
mental ; it is good because it is of utility toward the attain- '
ment of other good.

To the student of the philosophy of conduct, who traces
the history of the utilitarian view, the cardinal and decisive
importance which belongs in its arguments to the conception
of happiness is the most impressive phenomenon. But no
other point in psychology, whether popular or scientific, has
been left after so much discussion in a state so indefinite,
so unsuitable to serve as the basis of a theory, as the concep-
tion of happiness. Indeed, I am inclined to doubt whether
the academic notions which are generalized under this term
have not often stood for experiences which mankind can
scarcely recognize as having any considerable influence upon
their actual lives. It is true that as a stricter psychological
theory of human pleasure-pains has gradually been evolved,
and has come to be more insisted upon by those critically
disposed toward all ethical theories, a certain tendency
toward general agreement has appeared. Thus, to quote
from Paulsen,! "In his Ethics Gizycki modifies the hedon-
istic theory as follows : The highest subjective goal of life,
he says, is the satisfaction produced by the consciousness of
having done the right, or the feeling of a good conscience.
Doring agrees with him when, in his Gilterlehre, he defines
the highest good as the proper regard for self, or the satis-
faction of the desire for individual worth. — We see thus
that the difference between the various conceptions of moral-
ity may be practically insignificant or may entirely vanish.
The question is a purely theoretical one. " What we do see
is, the rather, that practically significant and theoretically

1 A System of Ethics, p. 286.

470 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

important questions in ethics may be handled with so much
lack of psychological analysis, and so much confusion of
terms, as to identify things essentially different, and make
imposing distinctions in things essentially the same.

While, then, it is, of course, impossible to discuss the
entire psychology of the subject, some remarks seem indis-
pensable, from the more disinterested and purely psycho-
logical point of view, upon the conception of pleasure or
happiness, and upon the relation sustained by pleasurable
and painful conscious states to that total activity of the Self
which ethics considers under the name of conduct.

And, first, when men speak of Pleasure or Happiness,
they are always dealing with the feeling aspect of conscious
processes or states ; and this constitutes a factor of human
experience that can be actualized only in a subjective and
strictly individual way. This universal psychological truth
must not be overlooked or covered up in the interests of any
theory, hedonistic or anti-hedonistic, eudsemonistic or utili-
tarian. Pleasure, happiness, enjoyment, even bliss — which-
ever one of these words is employed, and whether other terms
are devised to suggest and seemingly to warrant some modi-
fication of the conception, or not, an element which remains
substantially unchanged in them all must be distinctly recog-
nized ; and this element must not be confused with other
essentially different elements that are quite too often intro-
duced in order to produce a false appearance of breadth and
depth to the foundations of the ethical theories based upon
them. This element, always substantially unchanged, is that
purely subjective feeling-tone which psychology treats under
a theory of pleasure -pains.

But pleasure-pains are not entities; neither are they gen-
eral notions, whether academic or popular in their logical
construction. They have no existence except in concrete,
individual experiences; to be actualized, or brought into
being, they must be experienced ; to be experienced, they must

UTILITARIANISM IN ETHICS 471

be — not thought or thought about, hut felt. For one man to
tell another that he ought to be happy is not to make him
happy ; nor does assuring the wrong-doer that he ought to be
unhappy necessarily increase his unhappiness. To proclaim
the comforting (?) doctrine, " Be good and you will be happy,"
does not alter the matter-of-fact experience of every man that,
in his own case, and in multitudes of other cases moral good-
ness and happiness really do not go hand in hand ; — while to
say to men who are consciously unhappy that they are really
happy, or to those who feel their own lives to be a succession
of pleasant states, that they are really miserable, is, so long
as one does not covertly introduce distinctions of another
order, a performance which would be always amusingly
impudent were it not so often desperately embittering. All
conscious states, quoad their pleasure-pain qualification, are
essentially of one order; and that order cannot be deter-
mined by the advice of the moralists, or altered by the
pronunciamento of the psychologists. It really is what it
is to the one whose state it is — pleasure or pain, happiness
or unhappiness, enjoyment or misery; and no one else's con-
ception of "ought" or "ought not," of "real " or "illusory,"
so long as it is simply the character of the feeling, and of its
pleasure-pain tone which is under discussion, has anything
to do with the true nature of such experiences.

From this it follows, in the second place, that any judg-
ment as to the intensity and the value (as pleasure or
happiness) of all pleasurable or painful, happy or unhappy,
experiences, is also subjective and individual. As the
feeling itself cannot be rendered into conceptual form so
as to transfer it from one consciousness to another, so the
quantitative and qualitative estimate of the feeling cannot be
made permanent and universal by another's thought. Every
soul knows its own joy as well as its own bitterness — how
great it is, how unsatisfying or otherwise it seems; and
which form of either joy or sorrow is most approved or most

472 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

dreaded in its own sight. As long as the observer maintains
the strictly hedonistic or eudsemonistic position, all ques-
tions of preference and of estimated value are questions
strictly of fact. Without abandoning this position one has
absolutely no right to say for another that the pleasures of
poetry are preferable to push-pin, or that the happiness of
a life of wise self-sacrifice exceeds that of a life of not too
excessive but morally unscrupulous indulgence of the sensu-
ous appetites. One must somehow get out of the hedonistic
or utilitarian position; or else one is compelled, in the
seeming interests of eternal moral truths, to be constantly
telling lies about the actual experience of mankind. If A
actually prefers drinking beer to psalm-singing, or getting
and spending money immorally to leading a poor but honest
life, or pandering for success to the lower standards rather
than preserving the consciousness of having followed a high
professional or artistic ideal, B can never persuade A to
truly virtuous living simply by reciting the greater and supe-
rior pleasures that characterize ^'s consciousness. The
judgment which prefers the pleasure a to the pleasure x,
quoad pleasure, is a subjective fact, and that is all there is
of it as belonging merely to the sentient self. When the
individual intelligence attempts to stick by the standard of
happiness, its quantity or kind merely, and at the same time
masquerade as rational and talk about what is universally
noble and what is ignoble, it makes itself ridiculous.

And, third, so far as personal experience and observation
of others can teach one, it does not appear that the habit or
quality of men's moral consciousness is ever the chief deter-
^ mining factor in their experience of pleasure-pains. One
may not be greatly tempted, indeed, to adopt off-hand the
cynical maxim that the chief conditions of human happiness
are, like those of the pleasures of the lower animals, "no con-
science and a good digestion. " But as the average man is con-
stituted and situated in the present world environment, the

UTILITAEIANISM IN ETHICS 473

conditions of happiness are, so far as they reside in the
individual, undoubtedly physiological and temperamental
rather than ethical and spiritual. When men of widely
separate classes or stages of development contemplate each
other objectively they are apt to form entirely erroneous
conceptions of the pleasure-pain experiences of one another.
Anthropology is just now depicting the desperately miser-
able condition of primitive man, as he struggled perpetually
for a scanty existence against the forces of unsubdued nature,
against horrid cold and heat, wild beasts, and the invisible
terrors with which his imagination peopled the air and
waters and skies. Undoubtedly this wholesale conversion of
external conditions into conscious miseries is largely weak
sentimentalizing. The modern anthropologist writes all this,
sitting in his well-warmed room and in his well-cushioned
chair, and with the pleasurable anticipation of the renown
and reward in royalties which his labors will bring to him.
Perhaps he reads his finished paper before a group of
"society" ladies who, before they go to their elegant lunch-
eon, add this small bit of Weltioeh to their accumulated
stock of sufferings, at once sympathetic and self-complacent.
But his brother man who dwelt with the cave-bear and the
rhinoceros as his constant companion would probably, could he
read the anthropologist's book, not at all recognize the picture
as corresponding to his subjectivity, however objectively valid.
It is altogether likely that he would find more of kinship to
his own soul's actual states in the words of Browning: —

'* Oh, the wild joys of living ! the leaping from rock up to rock,

the hunt of the bear,
And the sleep in the dried river channel
How good is man's life, the mere living ! how fit to employ
All the heart and the soul and the senses for ever in joy ! "

Of one such tribe of men, at any rate, a modern writer says :
" Given freedom from disease, and a slain antelope, and there
could be no merrier creature than a Bushman. "^

1 Theal, The History of British Colonies, II, South Africa, p. 6.

474 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

Even in these latter days and more highly civilized condi-
tions which are generally (but by no means surely) supposed
to furnish the individual with such improved opportunities
for happy living, we do not find that those who are most
governed by moral considerations are necessarily the hap-
piest. On the contrary, the healthy performance of the
physiological functions of respiration, circulation, nutrition,
reproduction, etc., and that cheerful but not too careful way
of taking life which is so largely a matter of inherited tem-
perament, are the possessions which, whatever else a human
being may have or fail to have, contribute most to his hap-
piness in living. And why should one dispute those who,
having all that wealth and honor and social distinctions can
confer, testify so emphatically that these goods of external
living do not make them happy. If now the very important
exception be made of that inspiration and consolation which
most really conscientious people get from religious faiths
and hopes, I am sure that the bare consciousness of having
striven to do one's duty and to live up to one's moral ideal,
taken together (as it must be) with all the conscious failures
and mistakes of such a life of striving, suffices to make
exceedingly few men very happy. People who are happily
satisfied with their own conduct and character are usually
easily satisfied. They are really getting their pleasure out
of their temperament and their surroundings rather than out
of their proper moral consciousness.

It would doubtless seem to most observers of modern life
in the better conditions of it, a difficult and perilous thing
to maintain that the good people in any particular large
social organization are not as a rule the happiest; and even
] that their very goodness stands much in the way of their
I happiness. But I should be quite willing to maintain this
proposition if there were any feasible way of bringing it and
its counter proposition to the test of an empirical standard.
Certainly the vulgar Utilitarianism which maintains that it

UTILITARIANISM IN ETHICS 475

is the good man's own fault if he is not happier in his own
goodness, is quite often enough rather a mean way of adding
insult to the injury which any form of an extreme hedonistic
theory does to moral consciousness, strictly so-called.

But, in the fourth place, it is an incontestable psychologi-
cal fact that all men recognize different degrees of intensity
and of value in their different pleasure-pains, or happy and
unhappy conscious states. Pleasures succeed pains, and
then themselves give way to other pains ; and mixed states,
in which one can scarcely tell whether there is more of
pleasure or of pain, are common enough as human experi-
ences. Both tones of feeling rise suddenly or more slowly
to a,jnaximum an d then suddenly or more slowly die away.
Pleasures, as such, although they are not the original and
primary objects of desire or ends of conduct, when once
experienced are, unless there be some reason to the^contrary,
es sential l y desir able. But they differ in their desirable
quality with different individuals and with the same indi-
viduals at different times, in an almost unlimited and seem-
ingly lawless manner. Indeed, when we come to inquire
into the grounds of this difference we find that they cover
the entire realm of the objective, the physical and social,
as well as of the subjective, the psychical and spiritual,
conditions and aspects of the conscious life of man. Why
are some persons most happy under conditions that render
others most miserable? Why are all individuals so liable
to change as respects the things and the activities that brino;
happiness and unhappiness ? The Esquimaux in Central
Park is scarcely less wretched than the dweller on Fifth
Avenue would be if consigned to live in Greenland. Aris-
totle tries to commend his Eudaemonism with the conclusion
"that happiness is a kind of speculation or contemplation.*- ^
"In this way also, therefore, the wise man will be happier
than any one else ; " for " the wise man is the most beloved

1 Nic, Eth., X, viii, 8.

476 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

of heaven; and, therefore, we may conclude, the happiest."
But the average good citizens of England or America, and
not a few of its so-called "educators," consider this sort of
activity most useless and unsatisfying; and nothing would
make them more miserable than to have to spend their lives
as men should who are made wise by philosophy. " Bless-
edness," says the "God-intoxicated" Spinoza, ^ "consists in
love towards God, which arises from the third kind of
knowledge, etc. Blessedness, therefore, is virtue itself."
No wonder that the philosopher closes this Proposition and
his entire Treatise on Ethic with the declaration: "But all
noble things are as difficult as they are rare." It is not with
rare and noble experiences, however, that the psychology of
pleasure-pains has to deal; and the Spinozistic Ethic has
arrived at its conclusion by a way which the disciple of
Hedonisn^ in its most refined form, cannot possibly follow
without losing sight both of his point of starting and of his
goal. For they are rare individuals, indeed, who are getting
this blessedness which is virtue by living persecuted and
solitary, grinding lenses to secure a bare subsistence, and
meanwhile enjoying the contemplative love of the Absolute.
And who could ever claim to be so at home in the inmost
soul of either Aristotle or Spinoza as to know that either
moralist was actually enjoying the proof of his theory ?

When an appeal is taken to pragmatic psychology with the
inquiry after the causes of this endless variety and cease-
less changeableness in the degrees and kinds of happiness
which different men experience and appreciate so variously,
all its resources have to be ransacked to provide an answer.
Prominent among these causes are the following: The in-
herited characteristics of body and mind, or the temper-
ament; the physiological and psychical changes which
depend upon age, sex, and external physical and social
influences; the varying moods and fancies of the individual

1 Ethic, Fifth Part, Prop. xlii.

UTILITARIANISM IN ETHICS 477

or of society, so strange, unaccountable, and often whimsi-
cal, as they appear; the ever present mighty force of the
habits which are, nevertheless, themselves subject to more
or less sudden and often unaccountable changes; all the
quick and the dead associations that either lie close to the
surface and are ever ready to rise above the threshold of
consciousness, or those more deeply buried memories that a
symbolic and poetical psychology is fond of ascribing to a
"subliminal" or "secondary" or even "tertiary" Self; and
those profound transformations of the tastes and aptitudes,
the loves and hates, and of such sources of happiness or
unhappiness as result from the most fundamental choices
or from the influences of the wind that " bloweth where it
listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not
tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth."

That happinesses and unhappinesses do differ^ in degree
and in kind, as purely subjective and individual, there
can be no doubt. Doubtless then, also, one may properly
speak of different kinds of happiness that have more or
less of value in the estimate of their possessors. But this
difference in the kind of the pleasure, quoad pleasure, is a
difference due to the complex characteristics of the conscious
state or process whose feeling-tone it is ; and the estimate of
the value of the pleasure, quoad pleasure, like the pleasure
itself, is purely subjective and individual. So long, then,
as the criterion and the end of conduct are made to consist
solely in any kind or degree of pleasure, the " wise man "
is he who trusts his own estimate of what is most and best
(that is, in fact, preferred by himself) among the attainable
kinds of pleasure.

Accordingly, fifth : From the hedonistic or utilitarian
point of view, so long as one remains faithful to the actual
facts of human experience, one can never make distinctions
in pleasures or happinesses that have in them any other
worth than that which they actually derive from the prefer-

478 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

ence of the individual whose states they are. To speak of
higher and lower pleasures, or of noble and ignoble pleas-
ures, or of pleasures in which one ought or ought not to
indulge, is at once either to falsify the psychological facts
or to overleap the utilitarian point of view. And here
ethics must beware particularly of the confusion which
results from introducing distinctions of moral worth into
terms that are to be employed subsequently for the express
purpose of dissolving or changing the nature of these same
distinctions. For this reason I cannot approve even of the
very guarded remark of Professor Seth : ^ " But we must dis-
tinguish, as Aristotle did, between happiness and pleasure."
For Aristotle failed to carry out this distinction, as indeed
from the nature of the case, he was sure to do ; and the very
effort to make the distinction introduced a confusion into
his entire ethical system which his pupils and critics have
never been able to eradicate ; nor will they ever be able to
eradicate it, because the confusion is an integral part of the
system as it was left by its author. Nor can I approve of
the distinction which the author just quoted borrow^s with
approbation from Professor Dewey ^: "Pleasure is transitory
and relative, enduring only while some special activity en-
dures, and having reference only to that activity. Happiness
is permanent and universal." For one would tell the truth
of fact quite as well if, in these sentences, one interchanged
the words pleasure and happiness ; and it is not true of either
happiness or pleasure that they are separable, in fact, from
special activity, or ever "permanent and eternal." And
when the theory goes on to say that "happiness is the feel-
ing of the whole self as opposed to the feeling of some one
aspect of self," it substitutes mysticism for both psychical
facts and ethical principles. Aristotle's conception of hap-
piness is particularly guilty of the same confusions as those

1 Ethical Principles, p. 209.

2 Psychology, p. 293.

UTILITARIANISM IN ETHICS 479

which distinguish modern Utilitarianism. With him, hap-
piness is equal to the excellence of the Virtuous Life plus a
considerable amount of such pleasures as to Aristotle's mind
seemed indispensable and inseparably connected with the
practice of some of the more imposing of the virtues —
namely, liberality, large hospitality, magnificence, and an
independent position with reference to the "common herd
and vile throng " of men. (Ev^atfiovla = dper'i] + yBopai
dependent upon external goods of a certain kind.)

But ethics can divide pleasures into higher and lower,
noble and ignoble, or difference pleasure from happiness or
even from blessedness, only by introducing into the psycholog-
ical conception of pleasure-pains something from the outside.
That something is a standard of moral values. In a word, the!
hedonistic standard must be subordinated by reference toj
another scale of values. Another kind of good must sit in
judgment over the worth of the good which men call pleasure
or happiness. This judgment indeed changes the kind of
satisfaction. It changes its kind so radically that now we
are no longer considering the value of the subjective condi-
tion as due to, or consisting in, any kind of pleasure or
happiness merely, but as relative to the demands and the
satisfactions of a higher form of consciousness. And these
demands and satisfactions do not have primarily to do with
amounts and kinds of happiness as such, but with the relation
in which the proposed conduct stands to the ideal of a Moral
Self. That the good measured by this standard actually is,
and is esteemed by men to be, another species of good, and
by no means wholly identical with, or subordinate to, happi-
ness, has already been shown in detail (see especially Chapter
III). That the satisfactions of the sentient self in various
relations are not identical with those of the Moral Self in
social relations with other moral selves, but are rather in
large measure antithetic and incompatible, has come to be the
problem, in part, with which all ethical theory has to deal.

480 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

It is scarcely necessary in this connection to discuss the
relation of desire to happiness. Indeed, the historical evo-
lution of the Utilitarian School has made clear to its own
advocates that happiness is not, as was often formerly as-
sumed, the primary object of desire; neither is there any
such psychical experience as "general happiness." Desire
itself is a complex and rather highly developed psychosis.^
Its affective roots are in blind impulsive feeling. Experi-
ence is necessary of things that actually produce pleasure or
pain in order to make desire definite and to guide the mind
toward the ends of desire. The psychical states that are more
properly called desires are therefore definite ; they are desires
after some particular kind of satisfaction; unless, indeed,
they are species of that vague sort of dissatisfaction which
is popularly called, — " Wanting something, one knows not
what ;" — or unless they are those primary forms of appe-
tency with which nature has provided the human animal and
which serve as causes for his earlier impulsive movements
toward some form of external good. It is by the latter class
of desires, less appropriately so-called, that the infant is con-
trolled before it has had concrete experience of the definite
place of its various active functions in meeting the needs of
life, or of their more precise value as connected with life's
pleasure-pains.

The old-fashioned conception of man as a being that seeks
happiness as his one obvious, definite, and comprehensible
aim, and that differs from the lower animals chiefly in his
superior equipment of ability to calculate more accurately
the amounts and kinds of obtainable happiness, has perished
of its own simplicity. It took no sufficient account of the
many sides, obvious and hidden, of man's natural equipment,
and of the many motives, springs, and estimates of value
that show him to himself as a being, complex, mysterious,
and suggestive of the Infinite as tiie Source and Goal of

1 See my Psychology, Descriptive and Explanatory, chap. xxr.

UTILITARIANISM IN ETHICS 481

his life. Man, as modern anthropology knows him, is es-
sentially and universally artistic, moral, and religious.
And although these qualifications of his nature do not
relieve him from the demands of his sentient nature for a
variety of happy experiences, but rather reinforce these
demands at many points, they are significant of other claims
that are never to be met and satisfied by any quantity or
kind of such experiences.

If now one will keep steadily in mind the truths just
stated regarding the psychological doctrine of the pleasure-
pains, and also what has earlier been said concerning the
nature of the Moral Self, one may, without injustice, make
short work of every form of Hedonism, however subtle and
well-fortified with argumentation. In its most refined form
of modern Utilitarianism, it cannot explain the simplest
facts of moral consciousness and moral development; nor
can it help us by its conclusions and its postulates out of
those distressing practical antinomies into which ethics is
conducted by the survey of these facts.

From the very nature of happiness as an actual experi-
ence it follows that the assertion which makes the value of
morality consist in its being instrumental to happiness
cannot be maintained in an indefinite and merely general
way. Utilitarianism cannot be declared satisfactory as an
ethical theory, after it has established a relation of cause and
effect between happiness in general and morality in general.
It must, the rather, be held strictly accountable for a defi-
nite answer to the three following particular questions:
(1) Wliose happiness furnishes the criterion, sanction, and
rational ideal of morality? Is it the happiness of the sub-
ject of the conduct solely; or also the happiness of a few
others — most closely connected with him ; or of the whole
of society ; or does it perhaps also include the happiness of
invisible sentient and rational beings ? (2) When is this
happiness to be conceived of as realizable, in order that it

482 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

may afford the desired criterion, sanction, and ideal ? Is it
more immediately, or in the near or more distant future,
or even in the life that knows no ending ? (3) What is the
nature of the happiness that stands in such an essential rela-
tion to morality ? Does it include all manner of pleasure-
pains, as these are measured only quantitatively and by the
conscious estimate of the individual whose pleasures or pains
are under consideration ? Or does the answer provide for
the establishment of a selected judicature composed of " wise
men," who are authorized to decide what pleasure-pains
ought to be preferred ? And once more, for what reason
ought others to prefer the pleasures which moralists recom-
mend, even when these pleasures are so mixed with pains
and sometimes so submerged and lost in pains that they can
scarcely be distinguished as pleasures ? Is the obligation to
prefer them due to the inherent superiority of their pleasure-
giving quality merely ; or is it due to the nobility they pos-
sess on account of their connection with the consciousness of
moral demands and moral values ?

All these three sets of questions are differently answered
by the different modifications of Hedonism, from its most
crass and morally shocking forms to the forms that are most
refined and captivating. I begin at the lowest levels. Ego-
istic and quantitative Hedonism claims that the amount of
the pleasure which the individual can get for himself out of
life is the sole criterion, sanction, and rational end of his
conduct. "Quantity of pleasure being equal, push-pin is as
good as poetry." It is now well-nigh universally admitted,
however, that this form of Hedonism is incapable of any
theoretical construction whatever. And, indeed, it is doubt-
ful whether any class of individuals,^ even in spite of their
boasting such purity of selfish calculation, do actually make

1 As Carlyle has declared; "In the meanest mortal there lies something
nobler." Even the depreciating remark of Gellius — 'HSovr; reAos, v6pvris Uyfxa,
does not express correctly the truth of fact. Few prostitutes are so vile as actu-
ally to be Hedonists of this order.

UTILITARIANISM IN ETHICS 488

the sole principle of their conduct, the obtaining for them-
selves the maximum of pleasure, with a total disregard of
the pleasures and pains of others except as affecting their own.
If, however, any considerable number of persons should be
discovered whose consciousness gave no response to other
interests than those represented by the amount of the sub-
jective feeling of pleasure attainable by themselves, such
persons could never serve as an empirical basis for any form
of an ethical theory. All that ethics could do with such
monstrosities would be to note the fact of their existence.
Whereas Aristotle and Spinoza considered the noblest hap-
piness to consist in the activity of the speculative reason,
these creatures find their utmost quantity of pleasure, pre-
sumably, in some other way. But from such comparisons
no principle emerges for the determination of the goodness
and badness of conduct. For the point of starting shifts
with every individual's experience; and, indeed, with the
shifting experience of every individual. No criterion is
attainable that even approaches the secure position where it
can make a claim to generality. Much less can any sanction
or ideal of conduct be obtained in this way. To tell any
man that, in fact, by behaving in a certain manner toward
others, he will obtain the maximum of pleasure for himself,
when the same man finds himself obtaining more pleasure
for himself by behaving in a quite different way, is hard
enough doctrine to enforce. But to give sanctions to such
advice, and to issue it in the name of duty and for the
purpose of arousing feelings of moral obligation, is to in-
volve one's self in an absurd circulus in arguendo. And,
finally, how can there be rational justification for placing
the grounds of moral obligation in the maximum of each
individual's own happiness when the moral consciousness
of those whom the ethical judgment of mankind has agreed
to call morally most worthy has been foremost in renouncing
this standard of morality ?

484 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

When Hedonism lays aside its more pronounced egoistic
features, while retaining the measure o£ mere quantity of
pleasure, it presents indeed a distinctly improved appearance,
but it still fails to answer the demands of a satisfactory
ethical theory. The investigator can now, on the basis of
experience with large numbers of men through long periods
of time, make some approach to a defensible view as to what
kinds of conduct and types of character conduce to the maxi-
mum of pleasures in the greatest number. Yet the standard
is exceedingly, and even increasingly, complicated and diffi-
cult of application ; and he is constantly in danger of falling
under the fallacy that the natural conditions, the kinds of
behavior, and the constitution of society, which are conceived
of as fitted to make him happy, or to make his set happy, are
of like applicability to all the suxjcessive generations of men,
in all grades of social progress and under all classes of
social organization. Hence, in part, the significance of the
disputes that arise in so-called social science. Difficult of
nice comparative estimate as the virtues of men are, their
happinesses are even in worse case in this regard. The
traits of the good man are easier to describe than are the
conditions and circumstances which make all men happy.
Persons most envied for their happy estate not infrequently
commit suicide to escape from misery; and in the exercise
of the virtues of courage and fidelity, not a few have calmly
taken their own lives, or submitted them to be taken by
others.

It would not be fair, indeed, to demand of this altruistic
but quantitative Hedonism that it should provide ethics with
such an exact standard of measuring happiness as to facili-
tate tke prompt solution of all cases of conflict of duties. As
I have already shown, such a readily available standard can
be afforded by no system of ethical principles or code of
moral laws. But the attempt to apply this particular form
of the hedonistic standard — namely, the amount of so-

UTILITARIANISM IN ETHICS 486

called " general happiness " which the particular conduct in
question will produce — is something in which no one can
possibly become an expert. The rule for the ordinary man
must be an uncritical following of custom or external forms
from which the genuine moral quality has largely departed.
In this way all the so-called virtues tend to become merely
prudential ; and the wider the ranges of time and greater the
changes of conditions which are taken into the account the
more uncertain does all realization of the ideal of conduct
become, if this ideal is so conceived as to correspond with
the phrase " the- greatest happiness of the greatest number. "
Even more difficult is it for this altruistic, but still quan-
titative Hedonism to justify itself in view of the immense
influence which the discipline of struggle and pain has
always exercised over the moral development of the indi-
vidual and of the race. In view of this influence the theory
shows us the spectacle of an interminable series of somer-
saults which never allow the person turning them to light
anywhere upon his feet. Let us suppose some good and wise
man to train his family of children or his pupils and wards
exclusively upon this principle. Certain virtues must be
enforced by painful discipline, otherwise the entire scheme
will certainly go wholly awry. This enforcement bears
heavily upon the susceptibilities for current pains and
pleasures of each member of the community. What is the
warrant for this disciplinary suppression of the pleasures
and increase of the pains of this small community ? It
must be found in the interests of their relations to a larger
community. But this larger community, this present gen-
eration of men and women, cannot pursue virtuously its own
maximum of pleasures and minimum of pains, if the pur-
suit is conducted without any regard to the next generation
who are to be its successors in the ethical evolution of the
race. The next generation are in their turn restricted in
like manner in their pursuit of the maximum of pleasures

486 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

for them. But will the whole happy result culminate in
those far-off generations of men who, having entered into
the reward of the self-discipline and self-denial of us and
of all their other ancestors, have attained the purely quan-
titative and hedonistic social ideal — the maximum of
pleasures for the greatest number ? Will they be able to
contain, as it were, — even if they attain all they can
contain, — enough of the ideal end to compensate for the
accumulated pains of moral discipline and altruistic self-
denial which all the preceding generations have endured in
their behalf ? Who can say ? And who would be willing
to have the worth of his own moral selfhood, or of the
present virtuous living of men, as a good-in-itself, estimated
in this uncertain way ? It seems to me that we are all en-
titled to a release from the obligation to suffer so much as
respects the attainable maximum of our own happiness, if
this suffering is a mere form of functioning in the interests
of the happiness of others ; especially where the factors of
our calculation are so remote and uncertain. And, indeed,
how can we speak of obligation as resting on such a basis
as this ? For even if this form of Hedonism furnished an
approximately useful measure or criterion of the moral
quality of the individual's conduct, it utterly fails to afford
a sanction for morality. As Professor Dewey has saidi^
"Because all men want to be happy, it hardly follows that
every man wants all to be happy." Still further: If it
could be shown that all men would actually be happier, if
every man wanted all, irrespective of their conduct and
character, to be happy, it would by no means follow that
every man ought to want all to be good, and to be happy in
and through their goodness. But it is just in this form
that the desire to promote the happiness of others receives
its highest and most unquestioned sanction from the educated
moral consciousness. The right-minded and rational regard

1 Outlines of Ethics, p. 55 f.

UTILITARIANISM IN ETHICS 487

for the happiness of others expresses itself in every one of
the cardinal virtues; — in courage, temperance, and con-
stancy, in wisdom, justice, and truth, in kindness and
benevolence. But the unrestricted desire to get the utmost
quantity of pleasure for ourselves or to furnish it to others,
regardless of moral considerations and of the effects upon
the moral life and development of one's self and of society,
is a vicious and not a virtuous desire. To admit such a
conclusion is at once to break down all the claims of this
form of Hedonism. It is to admit that, if mere quantity of
pleasure distributed among the greatest number is to be
regarded as the sole measure of the morality of conduct, all
attempt must be abandoned to find a rational ground for
that feeling of obligation with which moral consciousness
regards even the most painful and disagreeable of human
duties.

In a word, you cannot appeal to my reason, and get
its sanctions in behalf of my denying to myself and to the
little circle of friends in which I am especially interested,
the most of pleasures attainable simply on the ground that
future generations of unknown individuals will possibly, or
probably, thereby have made a greater amount of pleasures
obtainable for themselves. When, therefore, the advocate of
Hedonism affirms, ^ "The fact that 'I am I ' cannot make my
happiness intrinsically more desirable than the happiness of
any other person," he is guilty of a most astonishing fallacy.
For what does " intrinsically " mean in such a strange con-
nection ? Does it mean to speak of "my happiness" as
abstracted from the consideration that " I am I ?" Then the
statement becomes either absurdly tautological or wholly
unmeaning. Or does it mean that to me, in fact (actually)^
my happiness is no more desirable than that of any other
person ? In this case the statement contradicts the psy-

1 Compare the entire argument of Professor Sidgwick on this point, in hifl
*' The Methods of Ethics."

488 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

chological basis on which all forms of the hedonistic theory
repose. Or perhaps — and this is the only intelligible mean-
ino* — it is the intention of the author to remind us, that in a
social and moral system, where those rational considerations
which are appreciated by the Moral Self are prevalent, the
individual may not worthily or rightly regard his own hap-
piness as more desirable than the happiness of " any other
person." But in this case, every trace of an hedonistic
position has been completely abandoned, and the altruism
has been carried to an extreme which may be irrational and
dangerous. Much more truth than in the sentence just
quoted is there in what Crawford says in his Corleone:
"Happiness that is solidly founded is itself a most negative
source of the most all-pervading virtue, without the least
charity for unhappiness' sins; happiness suffices to itself;
happiness is a lantern to its own feet ; it is all things to one
man and nothing to all the rest ; it is an impenetrable wall
between him who has it and mankind." That is to say:
The estate of Eudcemonism which even Aristotle makes the end
of virtuous conduct tends to separate men from sympathy with
the unhappy lot of the multitude of mankind.

The irrational and even ludicrous extremes of sentiment
to which the mind is driven by a merely quantitative He-
donism receive ample illustration in the history of literature.
The ancient Epicureans set up the claim that the wise man,
even on the rack, is enabled to say: "How sweet," — a
declaration which rivals the most extreme statements of
the most ultra Stoicism, but is quite impossible to interpret
from the merely hedonistic point of view. In the last scene
of Victor Hugo's Hernani, where the two lovers, who have
so long been separated, are at last united in death, — and
this, a death of the most frightful agony, — a bystander,
Don Ruy Gomez, cries: "How happy they are!" The
exclamation may bear witness to an isolated fact; but if
the problem of determining the virtue of such constancy as

UTILITARIANISM IN ETHICS 489

that shown by these two lovers were proposed to this form of
Hedonism, and were decided by a calculation of the greatest
amount of happiness to be got for the greater number by
similar conduct, the sum in proportions would not be likely
to be worked out by any sane mind to a satisfactory result.^
Over against such perversions of fact by sentiment we may
set the facts that the worst criminals are rarely troubled by
remorse ; and that a sensitive nature like that of Heine
could declare he would rather suffer a life-time of such pain
as a disapproving conscience could give him than endure the
pangs of tooth-ache for a single hour.

The hedonistic view of ethical facts has in comparatively
recent times been made much more plausible by being
complicated with two important improvements. These are
(1) the proposal to establish some standard of the higher and
lower values, some measure of the worth of different kinds
of happiness ; and (2) the addition of the theory of evolution
in order to account for those actual modifications which have
taken place in men's estimates of these values, and for the
corresponding changes in ethical judgments, and in the
accepted rating of the particular virtues and vices.

Now it cannot be denied that if one does not criticise its
conception too closely, modern Utilitarianism as thus
modified and fortified, is able to answer certain objections
that are easily shown to be fatal to the older forms of quan-
titative Hedonism. Modern Utilitarianism also makes it
more probable, upon an empirical and historical basis that
in the long run and in the large way, a coincidence may be

1 Of the principle adopted by Hedonism of the mixed social and quantitative
order, as a rule of conduct admitting of practical application, Dumont says in the
Discours prdiminaire to his Trait^s de Legislation the following : " Pour avoir une
connaissance precise du principe de I'utilite', il a fallu composer une table de tons
les plaisirs et de toutes les peines. Ce sont la les premiers ele'ments, les chiffres
du calcul moral. Comme en arithmetique on travaille sur des nombres qu'il faut
connaitre, en legislation on travaille sur des plaisirs et des peines, dont il faut
avoir une exacte enume'ration." What a hopeless task such a table offers to
psychologist or to legislator !

490 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

established between the welfare which the Sentient Self
craves — namely, the welfare of happiness — and the welfare
which the Moral Self demands and appreciates, — namely,
the realization in conduct and character of an ideal person-
ality. This is indeed a very ancient truth, and has of old
been taught with relatively little parade of scientific appa-
ratus: "Say ye to the righteous it shall be well with him;"
and " It is righteousness that exalteth a nation ; " — these
and similar expressions emphasize the connection of the
ethical with the eudsemonistic aspect of human experience.
But what utilitarian theories of every sort really prove is
not what they set out to prove ; neither is it, strictly speak-
ing, what they claim to prove. To show that happiness and
virtuous conduct are, for human beings in their historical
evolution, largely interdependent is quite a different thing
from showing that the virtuousness of virtuous conduct con-
sists solely in its utility to produce happiness.

A philosophy of conduct which is founded upon experience
may even be led to believe that the ultimate goal of human
striving is a social life in which all the forms of what the
mind esteems as " in-itself-Good " unite to constitute a
complete and total Welfare. But we cannot entertain this
picture of complete happiness and perfect righteousness, com-
bined and objectively realized for mankind, without holding
to principles and postulates which can by no means be placed
upon a merely psychological and historical basis. What is
at once evident, however, in view of the relations which
psychology and history establish between human happiness
and the evolution of human morality, is this : just so far as
modern Utilitarianism explains these relations it abandons
its purely hedonistic positions. Every one, even the most
high and dry Rigorist, like Kant, admits the psychological
and historical connections of the two forms of "the Good."
Nor is the utilitarian claim established when it is shown
that the happiness which follows directly from morality —

UTILITARIANISM IN ETHICS 491

whatever there may be of it — is actually more highly prized
in the conscious estimate of good men than are the pleasures
of sensuous gratification.

In brief, Utilitarianism in Ethics claims that the criterion,
the sanctions, and the rational end of conduct are all to be
found wholly in the relatioa which conduct sustains to
human happiness. Conduct is, in fact, a function produc-
tive of happiness or of unhappiness; this is one truth of
experience. But men call conduct "good" or "bad," —
meaning by these terms to designate the characteristics of
conduct in relation to another ideal standard than that of
happiness. This is another truth of experience. These
two truths cannot be united in the theory that conduct is to
be considered, from the ethical point of view, solely as a
function productive of happiness or unhappiness; that the
rationality of the demand made upon moral consciousness
for right conduct is based solely upon the value of its
eudaemonistic tendency; and, finally, that the ideal end at
which moral self -culture aims is solely the end of happiness.

To review the problem of conduct as it now comes before
us for solution: We are seeking for some rational account of
the origin and grounds of that quality of " Tightness " which
men attribute to some conduct in preference to others. We
are seeking not so much to explain the facts of particular
preferences, but to discover a universal basis which our
rational nature may approve for the fact of this kind of a
preference. In the course of the search, the admission has
been forced from the advocates of the hedonistic theory that
men do not actually regard the preference of morally right
conduct as identical with the choice of the course which
seems to bring the maximum of mere happiness. The admis-
sion has also been forced that men do not regard themselves
as obligated to seek happiness, nor do they claim the sanc-
tions of conscience for seeking happiness, in the same way as
for the effort to do right, and for the striving after the reali-

492 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

zation of the moral Ideal. The admission has also been
forced that, in the practical reason of mankind, the ideal of
happiness and the ideal of a Moral Self functioning perfectly
so far as its own conduct is concerned, in social relations to
other selves, are not absolutely identical ideals. What more
is needed to constitute the admission that the criterion, the
sanctions, and the ideal end of conduct, as regarded from
the point of view of ethics, are not to be found in happiness
alone ?

Now, however, a last attempt is made to escape from the
full force of the objections to Utilitarianism by claiming a
special dignity and worth for certain happy experiences, for
those — namely — that accompany or follow such conduct as
is esteemed morally right ; especially, perhaps, if it be of a
somewhat rare and heroic character. Why, however, even
if it could be shown that, in fact, the better men are, the
more they have of this especially choice kind of happiness,
is the happiness entitled on rational grounds to be invested
with such a peculiar worth ? Only because this worth is
imparted to it by the moral consciousness of mankind. In
other words, we note the fact of man's moral consciousness
functioning so as to dignify a certain kind of happiness;
and, indeed, imparting a remarkable dignity and worth to
this kind of happiness. The Moral Self appears to raise
some of its own rarer happy experiences to a limit of value
which makes them quite over-reach in worth all other happy
experiences. But this is the benediction of righteousness
bestowed upon pleasure, and not the functioning of morally
right conduct for the production of pleasure.

To make the theory of Hedonism depend upon distinctions
in the rational worth of certain happinesses is, it seems to me,
a complete abandonment of its fundamental position. For
the rightness of conduct is no longer located in its energy as
productive of happy states of consciousness; its worth is no
longer estimated according to the measure of its hedonistic

UTILITARIANISM IN ETHICS 493

utility. On the contrary, the rational worth of certain
pleasurable states of consciousness is now found to consist
in the appreciation which the moral nature of man gives to
them on account of their connection with right conduct.
The sentient Self is no longer authorized to dictate the
supreme and final purpose to the moral Self. The right of
the moral Self is now acknowledged to set its own stamp of
values upon the pleasure-pain states of the sentient Self.

The refusal to regard morality as having either its cri-
terion, its sanctions, or its ideal, in happiness merely, has
been so complete in the world's best literature that one
scarcely need cite examples to show this truth. Dramatists,
poets, biographers, and historians, who have taken the ethi-
cal point of view, as well as the surer insight of the highest
class of modern novelists, have refused to depict or to esti-
mate the values of human life in terms merely of pleasure
and pain, of happiness and suffering. The necessary disci-
pline of pain, and the moral worthiness of disregarding the
purely hedonistic standard have so impressed the minds of
the poets generally as to evoke many passages like that one
often quoted from Browning's Rabbi Ben Ezra : —

" Then welcome each rebuff
That turns earth's smoothness rough.
Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand but go 1
Be our joys three parts pain,
Strive, and hold cheap the strain;
Learn, nor account the pang ; dare, never grudge the throe."

The same relation between morality and the pleasure-
pains is recognized by George Eliot in the Epilogue to
Romola : " We can only have the highest happiness, such as
goes along with being a great man, by having wide thoughts
and much feeling for the rest of the world as well as for our-
selves; and this sort of happiness often brings so much pain
with it, that we can only tell it from pain by its being what
we would choose before everything else, because our souls

494 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

see that it is good." Bat such discourse connects itself far
better with Stoicism than with any form of Hedonism, — not
excepting even the hedonistic side of a Eudasmonism like
that of Aristotle.

When combined with elements of a quasi -ToligioviS char-
acter, this anti-utilitarian morality may take utterance in
words like those of Marcus Aurelius : ^ " What, then, is that
about which we ought to employ our serious pains ? This
one thing: thoughts just, and acts social, and words which
never lie, and a disposition which cheerfully accepts all that
happens, as necessary, as usual, as flowing from a principle
and source of the same kind." Or, as Bacon in a somewhat
Ayjoer-senti mental way^ states the ideal of conduct to be
striven for under the existing conditions of human life:
"Certainly it is heaven upon earth to have a man's mind
move in charity, rest in Providence, and turn upon the poles
of truth. " But all such testimonies point to an Idealism in
Ethics which sees moral goodness and sesthetical sublimity
illustrated, the rather, in a face like that given to Jesus in
Baphael's "Bearing of the Cross."

Hedonistic Utilitarianism, then, if consistently carried
through, contradicts, rather than explains, many of those
facts of man's moral consciousness which have been most
conspicuous in the analysis of the Moral Self, and in the
discussion of the Virtuous Life. Neither human nature,
broadly and profoundly regarded, nor the nature of virtue,
when regarded either from the point of view of the more
common consciousness or from that attained by the heroes
and the seers among mankind, consents to the theory which
places the criterion, the sanctions, and the end of morality
in that feeling-tone of certain subjective states which we call
happiness.

1 have already said that the considerations which the

1 His " Reflections" (English translation by Long), IV, 33.

2 Essay I.

UTILITAEIANISM IN ETHICS 495

modern theory of evolution has brought to bear upon the
older forms of Hedonism are important; and that their
admission into the theory produces certain improvements in
the current forms of Utilitarianism in Ethics. So far as
the theory of evolution is applied to the explanation of the
changes that have gone on in the attitude of the moral con-
sciousness of the race toward different customs and prac-
tices, it throws a flood of light upon ethical phenomena.
Undoubtedly the experience, both of the individual and of
the race, with the pleasurable or painful consequences of the
current customs and practices is always changing, and often
profoundly or even completely, the attitude of men toward
those customs and practices. The typical morality is uni-
formly, to a large extent, the construct of the physical and
social forces that enter into the total evolution of human
life ; and hedonistic considerations are, of course, powerful
amongst those forces. But they are by no means the whole
of the forces which shape the moral evolution of mankind ;
and the history of this evolution shows that they are not.
It is, therefore, necessary again to remind ourselves of that
fallacy to which the advocate of the theory of evolution in
ethics is constantly tempted, — the fallacy, namely, of iden-
tifying a partial and defective history of moral development
with a complete and satisfactory account of its causes and
its principles. But I have already made sufficiently clear
what are the limitations within which the theory of evolu-
tion moves in its attempts to account for the Moral Self and
for the Virtuous Life ; and its powerlessness to deal with that
ultimate problem of morality which we are now approaching,
I shall hope to make clear later on.

After making the necessary restrictions and explanations
there are few real reasons left for the present close alliance
between Utilitarianism and Evolutionary Ethics. The just
claims of both, as based upon facts of experience and upon
fair conclusions from those facts, can be the better admitted

496 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

and incorporated into a satisfactory ethical theory, if this
alliance is severed. Those complicated and distinctive
forms of functioning which make man a moral being, can-
not, strictly speaking, be explained as evolved from any
less complex and more vaguely general forms of functioning.
His moral endowment being once assumed, however, the
various modifications which it undergoes are explicable —
theoretically at least — in terms of the theory of Evolution.
On the other hand, the important part which man's suscep-
tibility to an increasing variety of pleasures and of pains
plays in his ethical development cannot, of course, be
denied ; nor should it ever for a moment be lost sight of by
the student of the philosophy of conduct.

Indeed, it is to these considerations, which admit the
value of happiness and yet deny that happiness is the sole
criterion, sanction, and ideal end of morality, that we must
attribute that unsettled and antithetic condition in which
the ultimate problems of ethics were left at the close of the
Second Part of this treatise. And, surely, Utilitarianism
in Ethics does not promise any measure of deliverance from
such painful dilemmas. On the contrary, it widens the gulf,
intensifies the strife, and perpetuates the schism, between
the Sentient Self and the Moral Self. It tends to make a
hopelessly divided manhood. No amount and no subtlety
of intellect, when employed in calculating amounts, kinds,
durations, and ideal values, of happiness merely, can so
equip man as to fit him to conduct his entire life toward a
rational and rationally worthy end. We must look to some
other form of theory for help in the further solution of the
most pressing problems of morality.

CHAPTER XXI

LEGALISM IN ETHICS

It would seem intrinsically improbable, if not quite absurd,
that a conception which concerns itself wholly with the char-
acteristics of personal beings and with their relations to one
another in society should be capable of reduction to imper-
sonal terms. And yet this is what is virtually attempted by
all the theories which, either in whole, or in part, fall under
the heading of this chapter. The attempt itself is honorable ;
it is the issue of the resolve to discover some principle in
ethics that shall be free from the charge of being dependent
upon the subjective changes of the finite individuals who con-
stitute the social organization. For, in truth, there is some-
thing entirely unsatisfactory, and indeed almost shocking, in
the assertion that the nature of the right has no fixed charac-
teristics, either as regards its criteria, its sanctions, or its
ideal. Must the philosophy of conduct confess that whatever
any man thinks or feels to be right is really right ; that each
fleeting state of the individual's moral consciousness contains
within itself the true measure and final goal of morality ? Or
is it the end of the matter to assign an absolute authority and
unchanging value to the ethical opinions of any generation or
age?

But where, on the other hand, are to be found criteria,
sanctions, and ideals, of the sort that ethics seeks, except
in some one's conscious processes ? To escape from this
dilemma of a complete subjectivism, resort is had to some
conception which seems to offer a permanent and universal

498 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

ground for ethical judgments ; and such a conception is that
of a Moral Law, or a Moral Order.

In ethics, as in physical science, the mind scientifically
inclined is apt to be captivated with its own generalizations ;
and forgetting that the conceptions formed by generalizing
(itself a mental activity) are only convenient summaries of
the habitual manner of the behavior of things in their
manifold relations to one another, the devotee to science
includes in his conceptions all that belongs to the reality
of the individual things themselves. Then, on spelling these
conceptions with their proper capital letters, he seems to
recognize in them an absolute authority and power ; but all
this has been fictitiously imparted to abstractions, as though
they were entities. In this way Law and Order appear as
real beings that rule over particular facts respecting individual
things and their relations ; they^ at least, are immutable and
unchanging, however transitory the things are, and however
continuously changing the relations. Such a fictitious manner
of regarding tlie phenomena is much less inappropriate, and less
mischievous too, in the science of physical beings than in the
study of the phenomena and principles of human conduct.
For things are impersonal ; and their qualities and relations
must be conceived of as having some sort of a reality that is
independent of human conscious states.

But the case is not at all the same with ethical affairs.
Ethical facts are all personal — distinctly, and essentially,
and exclusively so. What kind of applicability to them then,
can conceptions have like that of an impersonal Law or an
impersonal World Order ? Yet there is not a little of ethical
speculation, and some of it of a very exalted and moving char-
acter, which employs language that, strictly interpreted, im-
plies an impersonal character and origin for the criteria, the
sanctions, and the ideals of human conduct. Do we ask, for ex-
ample, after the standard of the right and the wrong of man's
behavior ? It is asserted that this standard is obedience or

LEGALISM IN ETHICS 499

disobedience to moral law. Do we further inquire after a
rational ground for the obligation to obey ? We are referred
to the exalted and inviolable character, or the benefit-produc-
ing energy of this same law. And, finally, if we crave an
ideal, according to which we may persistently and progres-
sively shape our conduct in the interests of the perfect moral
life, we are bidden to devote ourselves unflinchingly (and,
sometimes, without regard, it would appear, to ourselves or
to other human interests) to the keeping of the Moral Law.
For, otherwise, the great Moral World Order, impersonal and
one would suppose, blind as it is, will grind us small ; it will,
at best, somehow sadly put us out of sorts, if we do not ob-
serve its sacred formulas.

Now for my part, I have less respect for this fetish of
" Law " or "- Order " (when personified and spelled with a
capital, although ^represented as impersonal) in ethics than
I have for the corresponding fetish called " Nature " in
physics. It would seem that a sentient being might reason-
ably entertain certain vague fears and hopes that are aroused
while in contemplation of a system of mysterious impersonal
entities and forces. But to ask a thinking being to have a
moral respect for any merely impersonal formula or to recog-
nize such a formula as a rightful source of authority and of
binding obligation, is to ask for an irrational rather than a
rational procedure. Our demand upon every ethical theory,
however, goes much further than this. For we are seeking
some help out of a dilemma caused by a series of painful,
practical antitheses, all of which originate in personality and
have reference solely to personal relations. It is difficult to
believe that real help is to be found from any manipulation of
conceptions that are impersonal and, therefore, foreign to the
interests with which ethics deals.

That all the offers of help which Legalism in Ethics makes
are really unavailing will the more readily appear after what
has already been said in the chapters on Moral Law and on

500 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

the Universality of Moral Principles. Indeed, these previous
discussions render unnecessary in this connection anything
more than two or three brief observations. Of the two forms
taken by the theory that the essential nature of the right is
to be described as obedience to some impersonal norm or law,
one has already been considered in detail. This form seeks
to place its conceptions of moral criteria, sanctions, and
ideals, upon a basis of experience. The other form appeals
to some statement that can lay claim to be established as a
rational intuition. In the one case, the resulting conception
of "The Moral Law" is empirical and historical in respect
of its origin and of the proofs to be advanced in favor of its
validity. In the other case, the conception is said to be a
priori ; and it refuses to appeal to experience, because it does
not admit the need of making so uncertain and doubtful an
appeal.

It has already been clearly shown that the nature of all
empirical laws and principles respecting judgments of
ethical value is purely subjective and personal ; and that
the objectivity which they appear to have — the qualifications
which impart to them the character of " external imponents "
— is in its origin also subjective and personal. This form of
Legalism in Ethics amounts then to saying that mankind, in
its moral evolution, has somehow embodied in its social or-
ganizations certain ways of behavior, and types of character,
which actually excite the feelings of obligation and of ap-
probation ; and which, therefore, appear to have a right to
command the will, with the majority of the individuals form-
ing these social organizations. The criteria, sanctions, and
ideals of conduct are in this way left, just where they ought
to be left by all merely descriptive and historical ethics, —
namely, in the consciousness of the multitude of the individ-
uals that respond to the stimulus of external conditions, with
the appropriate ethical feelings and ideas. Nothing is learned
in this way, however, as to how the source, the rational justi-

LEGALISM IN ETHICS 601

fication, the profounder significance or final purpose, of this
experience of mankind must be conceived of, in relation to
Ultimate Reality. Somehow or other the fact emerges that
man finds himself bound by one side of his nature to
principles of conduct that do not get themselves approved
as by any means wholly favorable to another side. The
moral norm is his own unaided, unbidden construction ; but
in spite of the fact that it is his own construction it com-
mands him as though it had celestial authority and celestial
sanctions. It rises gradually in his consciousness ; and yet it
seems to rise above him, and largely to contradict that external
Nature of which he is, physically considered, so insignificant a
part, as well as to divide and set at hopeless odds against itself
his own selfhood, or internal nature.

The case is somewhat different with the other form of
Legalism in Ethics. This theory asserts that the moral law
is revealed in human consciousness, and in such manner as to
be independent of any form of historical or experiential proof.
The Moral Law has the force, it maintains, of an unquestioned
rational principle ; whose peculiarity, however, consists in this,
that it does not simply offer a statement of truth which has
demonstrable and universal certainty, but that it also makes
upon the will a demand for obedience which is equally ex-
empted from all the questionings of human scepticism. The
moral law is thus, on account of its origin being purely in
reason and without any admixture of empirical elements, both
an apodictic proposition and a " categorical imperative."

That we cannot speak of any one all-inclusive and complete
moral law, any proposition that shall summarize all the
essential judgments of mankind with respect to ethical values
and all the maxims esteemed right for realizing these values
in a virtuous life, has already been demonstrated in great
detail. The very nature of ethical judgment, the plainly
heterogeneous character of the moral code accepted by the
best judges, the actual course of man's ethical evolution, show

502 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

that this conception of an intuitive all-embracing moral
principle, as set into the original constitution of human
reason, or even as having evolved itself in the progressive
formation of human reason, is a chimera. Even more un-
warrantable have those attempts been found to be which
disregard the personal influences and interests involved in
all moral values ; and which repeat the vain proposal to free
the mind from its natural, necessary, and rational tendency,
to consider all these values as rendered unthinkable and
wholly without value as soon as they are treated from the
point of view of impersonal laws and impersonal ends.

Our contention against the possibility of an a ^priori im-
personal law as offering the solution of the more difficult
problems of the philosophy of conduct may fitly be illustrated
by a few words of criticism of Kant's attempt in this direc-
tion. In his profoundly philosophical mind the inevitable
connection between ethics, on the one hand, and epistemology
and metaphysics on the other hand, is obvious and impressive
from the very first. To found more securely the principles of
conduct and the postulates and faiths of religion was his pur-
pose from the beginning of his critical examination of human
reason. His criticism of so-called " pure reason," or man's
cognitive faculties so far as they are native. and constitutional,
leaves these faculties embarrassed and thwarted wholly, when-
ever they attempt to extend knowledge beyond the confines
of phenomena. Within these confines the same faculties
operate to give to all kinds of experience, both constitutive
and regulative forms that are themselves quite independent
of experience. And when Kant comes to treat of the moral
ideas, he demands for them, too, an origin that is not empir-
ical but wholly supersensuous ; he remains true to the presup-
positions of the Platonic ethics. He is even forced into the
position where the very moral worth of every right action
consists in its being done against resistance. Nothing but
a bare law, unrelated to experience and arising in a world

LEGALISM IN ETHICS 603

quite apart from the one which we know, is left of the essence
of morality. This abstract formula, thus derived by a critique
of man's moral consciousness and independently of all empi-
rical data, is called by Kant the " Fundamental Law of the
Pure Practical Reason." And it is stated by its author in
the chief one of its several slightly different forms, as follows :
" Act so that the maxim of thy will can always at the same
time hold good as a principle of universal legislation."

Further examination of this Law, to which Kant gives a
perfectly unquestioned authority and an absolutely universal
applicability, and which he conceives of as a mandate of
reason entirely free from all considerations as to the con-
sequences of conduct and as to the feelings with which men
unavoidably contemplate those consequences, shows that it is
neither a priori^ in any strict meaning of the term, nor
properly speaking impersonal. Indeed, whatever this Law
has which commends itself to the human feelings of obliga-
tion, or to the reasonable judgment of man, is dependent
upon a vast and variable evolution of human experience ; and
all this experience consists in forms of intercourse between
persons, and in readjustments of opinions and practices due
to such intercourse. That is to say, all the validity which the
so-called a priori and impersonal formula possesses comes
from centuries of the use of human powers of reflection upon
ethical and social phenomena.

This criticism of Kant's "fundamental law of the pure
practical reason," might, if it were necessary, be supported
by a detailed examination of the very terms in which the so-
called law is stated. Every word of it palpitates with warm,
concrete, human interests that appeal to the emotions com-
mon to humanity, and to the experience of men with the
consequences of their different forms of conduct. How other-
wise is the possibility (the " can always ") of applying the
maxim of my will to others, to be tested ? How otherwise
can the adaptability (the " holding good ") of the rule of one

504 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

person's conduct to the case of others be presupposed, devoid
as it would be, of a parity of ethical experiences and of a cer-
tain uniformity of results from similar forms of conduct?
And is it not so self-evident as scarcely to need exposition,
that any absolutely unexceptionable law ("principle of uni-
versal legislation ") over all human beings must take account
of the various kinds of concrete relations in which all human
beings stand to each other, under the different forms of social
organization ? If it were worth the while in the present con-
nection, it could be shown that all of Kant's own exposition
of this law answers these and allied questions in a manner
distinctly unfavorable to his claim of a strictly a 'priori char-
acter ; in a word, he cannot himself regard a Moral Law as
free from all dependence upon common and wide-spreading,
and even upon concrete and individual, forms of human
personal experience.

Were such attempts as that of Kant much more highly
satisfactory from the standpoint of universal reason, they
would still remain of comparatively little practical import-
ance or even convenience. For taken in its full import every
such " Moral Law " is impossible of application to the solu-
tion of concrete cases of conscience, not to say conflicts of
duty. How can the plain man discover whether the particular
maxim of his will, in a given instance, is such as to " hold
good as a principle of universal legislation." Instead of its
being true, as its author asserts,^ that in this way "the
commonest intelligence can easily and without hesitation
see what . . . requires to be done," quite the reverse is true.
Nothing could be more complicated and doubtful of issue than
this appeal to fitness for " universal legislation." And noth-
ing else so much requires, as well as produces elevation of
mind, as to consider carefully the nature of each thing, and
thus — to quote the wisdom of Marcus Aurelius — decide,

1 Critique of Practical Reason, Part First, Book I, § VIII, Theorem IV,
Remark II.

LEGALISM IN ETHICS 506

"What virtue 1 have need of with respect to it, such as
gentleness, manliness, truth, fidelity, simplicity, content-
ment, and the rest."

There is much, however, in this lofty maintaining of the
claims of universal reason to have somewhere hidden in its
depths the eternal truths and unchanging principles of all
morality, which excites the enthusiasm and commands the
respect of the reflective mind. The most unchanging truths,
we feel, are moral. The profoundest insights into the heart
of Reality are born of the ethical nature. Man's kinship
with the Infinite and the Eternal is most intimate and strong,
only when he has arrived at the maturity of a moral self-
consciousness. Things may be in an unceasing flux, and all
the physical structures of human skill may crumble away.
Even the elements may melt with fervent heat, and the
heavens themselves be rolled up like a parchment scroll.
But the obligations of duty can never be abated ; the good
of righteous living does not fade ; the moral ideal loses none
of its awful beauty, or of its unconditioned value. Over
and beyond the last dim and fading vision of the things that
minister to a sensuous good, there rises the spiritual vision of
a good that is lasting and supreme. And in this Good virtue
is not the least, but rather the most important factor ; for it
is the Ideal which lures on and encourages and commands
the moral consciousness of humanity.

This the philosopher, enamored of his own rational con-
struction, has always felt and spoken regarding his Ideal of
the morally Good. That profound stirring of feeling, which
Kant designates " respect for the Law," is itself a fact ; and
so is also the movement of imagination and thought which
accompanies the feeling. These facts show in an undoubted
empirical way that, if not otherwise, at least in his moral
nature man is —

" Formed to rise, reach at, if not grasp and gain
The good beyond him, — which attempt is growth."

506 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

It is the source, the significance, the value, the warrant, and
the outcome, of this " formation " to which men generally
respond, in some measure at least, as they are related to the
sum-total of Reality, which offer to the philosophy of con-
duct its ultimate problems. These problems, which Utilita-
rianism in Ethics disregards, are not solved by Legalism in
Ethics. But the latter theory emphasizes and reinforces
them as the former theory does not. We therefore turn with
an increased sense of their important and pressing character
to consider other attempts at their solution.

CHAPTER XXII

IDEALISM IN ETHICS

It is obvious from the previous course of our examination
into the problems of ethics that the attempt to solve them,
if this attempt is carried through consistently, must termi-
nate in some form of an idealistic theory. Indeed, all the
facts, opinions, and tendencies with which the philosophy of
conduct is concerned have reference to human ideals; and
only in so far as the average "plain man," or even the hypo-
thetical "primitive man," is conceived of as a creator of
ideals can he be considered moral in any tenable meaning of
this latter word. Thus it was found necessary to introduce
a corresponding phrase into the very first preliminary de-
scription of that sphere of human experiences which ethics
claims as peculiarly its own. This sphere was defined to
be the sphere of conduct not as mere fact of behavior, but of
conduct "as related to a rational ideal." In the analysis
of the Moral Self also, it was shown how indispensable to
moral life and development are those activities of thought
and imagination which result in the formation of the moral
ideals; that these ideals themselves are indubitable psychic
facts, actual forms of the functioning of human minds ; and
that they are, moreover, very potent and influential facts,
which no student of human history, ethically considered,
can safely overlook.

It was further discovered that the different cardinal vir-
tues, although they are actual forms of that personal life
which men agree to call good, are all conceived and prac-

508 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

tised under the guidance of certain typical notions of what
a person ought to be. In their superior or more perfect
manifestations they are constructs of thought and imagina-
tion — each one being some phase or aspect of that moral
selfhood which represents for the ethical aspiration of the
individual the goal of his striving. To try to be "a good
man " is the naive, popular way of expressing the aspiration
and the effort to attain a moral ideal. And when, by the
further process of abstraction and generalizing, the most
comprehensive conceptions of morality are evolved in human
consciousness, this idealizing tendency, and the dependence
of human conduct and ethical development upon the ten-
dency, are still further illustrated and enforced. The con-
ceptions of a universal Moral Law, and of a System of moral
Principles whose sanctions and values and authority extend
over all men, if not over all personal beings, are of an ex-
ceedingly abstract and non-empirical character. Indeed, so
purely abstract are they that the desirability was strongly
felfc of calling even the philosophical mind back from its
high-flying excursions to consider again more carefully the
details of the ground from which it took its flight, and the
probable construction of the territory on which it would be
obliged to alight.

And, finally, our empirical investigation found itself con-
fronted with a puzzle of antithetic positions and opinions, of
inconsistent and contradictory demands upon the strivings
and active life of the mind. This was the puzzle of human
moral life — of an existence in which each individual feels
himself bound to seek a kind of welfare which is so often
incompatible with the cravings of his pleasure-loving nature,
and in which he thinks it reasonable and even obligatory to
legislate, in thought and heart at least, for all his fellow
men for all time, and under all circumstances. On turning
to the various schools of ethical theory for the solution of these
problems of conduct, they were all found either to admit or to

IDEALISM IN ETHICS 609

emphasize the essential importance of the Moral Ideal. The
first of these schools to be examined, the Utilitarian, did
indeed change the character of this ideal. For the ideal of
a Moral Self living in accordance with his conceptions of a
virtuous life in social relations with other selves, Utilita-
rianism in Ethics, substitutes the ideal of a Sentient Self,
shrewdly or even wisely calculating the conditions and
consequences of conduct as affecting a certain sum-total of
happiness. But the criteria, the sanctions, and the ends of
conduct are still placed outside of, and above the actual, in
the realm of what ought to be. And although the ideal of
the lower and grosser forms of Hedonism is itself relatively
low and gross, the ideals of the more refined modern forms
of Utilitarianism are among the most difficult to frame by
human thought and imagination. For they require the mind
to picture a condition in which happiness and good conduct
shall be actually related in such a way as that seeking the
former will afford a sure criterion and rational sanction for,
if not a goal identical with the latter. This is a hard task
for the idealizing faculty to combine with the cool judgment
which retains a strong grasp upon the actual forces and laws
that have to do with physical nature and with human society.
Certainly no actual form of existence sustains any very close
resemblance to the ideal of any form of hedonistic theory.

Those forms of rationalism in ethics which resemble the
attempt of Kant to derive from the so-called practical reason,
by a critical process, some general proposition that may
demand unhesitating and unquestioning acceptance and obe-
dience, certainly tax sufficiently our deference to human
ideals. Indeed, they have a superb confidence in the results
of the reflective thinking and lofty imaginings of the individ-
ual mind of the philosopher; this confidence more than meets
the demands of a tenable idealistic theory. This rationalis-
tic ideal must be some principle, that may be pronounced
obligatory upon all rational beings, even upon God himself,

610 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

and infallibly applied to particular cases of conscience by
any plain man's judgment, if he be a " man of good will. "
No more noble and inspiring exercise of human ideality than
this could possibly be imagined. But alas ! when tested by
experience the facts of experience do not support the theory.
The dream of rational Legalism is quite as beautiful as that
of the most refined Hedonism; and it is, ethically con-
sidered, much more stimulating and ennobling. But the
actuality of man's moral nature and ethico-social develop-
ment do not justify the dream. Its very existence in the
human mind gives a grave additional emphasis to the con-
clusion that only as man is an idealist is he a moral being;
and that all satisfactory solutions of ethical questions must
make large demands upon the idealizing activities of the
human mind.

Thus does the problem of conduct begin, indeed, with
the attempt at a purely empirical investigation, and with
the promise to regard only such facts of ethical import as
the sciences of psychology and anthropology appear to justify
incontestably. But the investigation leads on irresistibly
to the speculative contemplation of the highest and most
comprehensive of human ideals. For these ideals them-
selves are found to be — however fitfully and fragmentarily
constructed by the multitude of men — the most momentous
and influential of the phenomena of men's moral develop-
ment. In spite of our earlier warning (see p. 9 f. )
against making ethics, as Professor Sidgwick charged Mr.
Spencer with doing, the science of the "double ideal," it
appears now that, in close connection with the study of the
life of the Moral Self in its manifold relations with society,
the mind is almost inevitably carried away toward a sort of
triply ideal Utopia. In this Utopia all ideal good is to be
realized — the good of happiness, the good of beauty, and the
good of morality.

Some form of Idealism in Ethics is, then, the only consis-

IDEALISM IN ETHICS 611

tent and tenable ethical theory. Indeed, I am quite ready
to say that there is possible only one form of ethical theory
— namely, some form of Idealism. But such a conclusion
as this, while it follows from what has already been dis-
covered to be true in the domain of ethics, does not afford
the further truth which we are seeking. It suggests that
truth, however; and I will now state it in the form of an
alternative hypothesis : — Unless our human Ideals — and I
am now speaking of the ethical ideals, the ideals of moral
personality and of a society of morally good persons — have
their ground, their sanction, and their goal, in the nature of
Ultimate Reality, they are merely subjective, without rational
ground, or sanction, and without sure promise of a satisfying
end. In other words, that Unity of Reality which science
calls Nature (including in this term the nature and evolution
of the human race), and which philosophy calls the Absolute
or the World -Ground, must be so conceived of as to be the
source, the authority, and the guarantor, of man's ethical de-
velopment, or else all ethical theory must be left, where a care-
fully restricted empirical and historical investigation leaves
it, in a condition of distracting and hopeless antitheses.
But I am anticipating a conclusion which will more fitly be
reached by slower approaches under the guidance of patient
reflective thinking.

Idealism in ethics, like Utilitarianism in ethics, has
certain definite answers which it must propose to the
subordinate problems of conduct before it can claim to
have established itself upon an empirical basis. These are
elicited by questions like the three following: (1) With
whose ideal does the nature of the right in conduct and the
good in character correspond ? Can the functioning of any
individual's intellect and imagination, "plain man" or phil-
osopher, be trusted to furnish the criteria, the sanctions,
and the end, of morality in such a way as to entitle its result
to claim authority for all human beings under every form of

612 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

social organization ? (2) When is this trustworthy ideal of
conduct actually produced by human mental activity ? Does
it originate in the presence of every particular piece of con-
duct, or every special conflict of duty, as a sort of envisage-
ment of the rational and the universal in the concrete and
individual conscious state ? Or has the ideal rather the
nature of a result from a long process of evolution, during
which it slowly emerges in the consciousness of the race, or
at the end of which it suddenly springs into the mind of some
member of the race who has a genius for morality ? (3)
What kind of an ideal is this which is said somehow to con-
tain within itself the rational account of the criteria, the
sanctions, and the goal of human conduct ? Psychologically
considered, is it chiefly a suggestion of the emotional nature,
an ideal of faith, hope, and aspiration ; or is it a pure prod-
uct of processes of ratiocination, or a principle of judgment
adapted to regulate the activity of the rational powers when-
ever they are applied to the problems of conduct; or is it,
the rather, something discoverable only by a historical
generalization based upon centuries of racial experience ; or
is it not, perhaps, a combination of feeling and intellect
working according to rules prescribed by the very constitu-
tion of the human mind ?

To many of the inquiries subordinate to the three ques-
tions just raised, as well as to the three questions them-
selves, more or less satisfactory answers have already been
given. These answers have shown in large measure what
shape any idealistic theory of morality must take, if it
wishes to found itself upon the psychological and historical
"data of ethics." But brief summaries of the conclusions
already reached by the psychological and historical method
will prepare the way for that more speculative extension of
the idealistic theory which, while it bases itself upon other
facts that are closely allied with these data, extends the
conclusions of ethics over into the domain of a theory of

IDEALISM IN ETHICS 613

Reality that takes into its account also the aesthetical and
religious nature of man. For even in those ideals of his
which depart furthest from his experience with concrete
realities, man cannot wholly disregard the facts. And no
wise man, no reflective thinker on the problem of conduct,
would wish to disregard them. But there are other classes
of facts than those which concern man's experience with
concrete realities ; and these are the facts which solicit and
require the mind to form ideals. There are other ideals
than the ideals of morality; there are the ideals of art and
of religion. These aesthetical and religious ideals are so
involved with the moral ideals that, in fact, the experience
which creates and supports all three cannot be wholly sepa-
rated. And thus the need is manifest that the aesthetical,
and especially the religious nature, should be consulted in
connection with the moral nature, when it is proposed to
construct such a theory of Reality as shall satisfy the entire
being of man.

Concerning moral ideals, as affording the criteria, the
sanctions, and the goal of conduct for the individual and for
the race, the following claims of Intuitionism — a form of
Idealism in Ethics — have already been found to be true:
First, in multitudes of cases, in all forms of social organiza-
tion, the average adult promptly and apparently intuitively
decides for himself what is right and wrong in conduct, by
comparing the concrete action with his own ideal. He also
habitually judges the conduct of other men to be meritorious
and worthy of being rewarded accordingly, or the opposite,
by comparing it, too, with the same ideal. If the judge be
a man of particularly "liberal mind," he can make certain
allowances; he can at times remember and take into his
account the patent fact that men and circumstances differ
and that no one man ought to make himself the measure of
all things moral. But after all, this amounts simply to
saying that the liberal mind is able and willing to picture

514 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

the ideal of Selfhood which it has made its own, in a some-
what more than ordinarily facile and, as it were, elastic
way. Every judge and critic of another's conduct, in his
very judgment of others, still holds fast to his own ideal;
his real inquiry is : How should I feel and think that I ought
to act, if only I were not I in these circumstances that are
mine, but if I were he in those other circumstances that are
his ? It would, however, be contrary to fact to affirm that
men at all frequently deliberate whether this or that way of
behavior will produce the maximum of human happiness; or
whether the particular action accords with some maxim that
can be made to hold good as a principle of universal legis-
lation. Indeed, more frequently, perhaps, the multitude do
not deliberate problems of conduct at all. To this extent,
at any rate, the simplest form of that idealistic theory which
is called " intuitive " seems to correspond with the facts of
experience.

And, second, this intuitive application of the moral ideal to
problems of conduct, this prompt and seemingly infallible
activity of so-called conscience, in multitudes of cases
carries the entire being of the man along with itself. Thus
the man in action is not a divided man. Or if he is a
divided man, the division of his being is not over the moral
problem; but is rather a division over some question of
expediency. The problem of the man who doubts about
conduct is usually hedonistic and not strictly ethical. Cases
of doubt customarily arise as follows : The individual has a
feeling of obligation which binds him to some definite course
of action ; this is the course which he judges would be right,
while not to follow it would be wrong; and he also experi-
ences in the same direction certain elementary and primary
impulses of will. If, however, action does not follow, then
the feeling of a divided Self emerges ; doubt as to what is
duty creeps on apace and grows with deliberation. When the
man begins to reason with himself, the seemingly infallible

IDEALISM IN ETHICS 615

authority of conscience becomes obscured ; the subjective ideal
no longer seems to afford the sure criterion, the sufficient
sanction, the worthy end, of the particular conduct. Indeed,
a conflict of duties may arise, according as one course of con-
duct appears to satisfy one phase of this ideal, and another
different and antagonistic course makes its appeal to a differ-
ent phase of the total complex ideal. The seemingly infal-
lible nature of the moral standard as a commitment of the
entire man to one line of action, gives place to a condition in
which feeling contends with judgment; or the more imme-
diate emotion and intellectual estimate are confronted with a
contradictory conclusion that results from a course of argu-
ment with one's self or with some other person.

Such complex and conflicting phenomena have very nat-
urally operated to divide the members of the Intuitional
School into subordinate classes. Some intuitionists have
given precedence to the immediacy of feeling, and have
accordingly developed a theory of " moral sense " or — more
particularly — a " taste theory. " Others have relied rather on
intellectual processes and have mistaken the prompt mental
recognition which follows according to well-known psycho-
logical laws from the habitual ways of carrying through
these processes, for the immediate dicta of practical reason.
The ideally right is thus made a matter of " insight " or of
"perception," after the analogy of our most obviously imme-
diate cognitions of material objects and their relations.

Still other writers on ethics have emphasized the need
which the average man must acknowledge of help from those
of his own species who have the gifts and the culture of the
moral philosopher. "Intuitions " of that which is infallibly
and universally entitled to be called right may, therefore, be
had by the human mind ; but in order to reach them, long
and severe processes of reflective and analytic thinking must
be gone through ; — somewhat, for example, after the pattern
of what is necessary to attain the geometer's intuition of the

516 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

abstract geometrical properties of space, or the physicist's
intuition of the indestructibility of energy or of matter.
Such a so-called " intuition " is plainly about as far as pos-
sible removed from that envisagement of the concrete, indi-
vidual object, of which sense-perception is the type. It is
none the less, however, believed to have a superior excellence
on account of its alleged a priori character. It is definitively
a rational intuition, and therefore necessary and universally
applicable. And just as all men have, or may develop, the
ideal of a perfect triangle, or of those parallel lines that
(unlike the appearance of the parallel rails of the steam-
road), however far produced, can never meet, and may com-
pare with these geometrical ideals all actual triangles and
pairs of lines, so all men may test the purity of their actual
conduct by comparing it with the moral ideal. For practical
reason affords to all rational beings an "intuition" of the
unchanging standard of right conduct. Such an intuitionist
of the pronounced rational type was the same great thinker,
Kant, whom we classified as a legalist in Ethics, when con-
sidering his ethical philosophy from another point of view.

It is instructive to notice in this connection how one-sided
are all these forms of idealistic theory; just as the practice
of the Virtuous Life is by most men one-sided. Considered
from the point of view of their disposition, education, and
habits, some persons are obviously better fitted to conduct
themselves properly and to attain the goal of virtuous living,
if they act very largely in pursuance of their spontaneous
good feeling, their natural kindliness, sense of justice, and
courage in speech and deed— -the sum-total of which con-
stitutes for them the emotional ideal of a morally good man.
It cannot be denied, however, that the "intuitions" of such
persons are peculiarly liable to do mischief through lack of
that cool judgment and habit of reasoning logically from
premises, coupled with that self-restraint, which makes the
will refuse to yield to morally good impulses until the duty

IDEALISM IN ETHICS 517

of foresight has been exercised in the effort to determine
how the conduct is going to result. Certain other persons, in
their turn, not at all infrequently fail to be good according
to the ideal standard which the more emotional intuitionists
would set up ; the intuitions of cool judgment too often end
by suppressing all goodly emotions in the interests of pruden-
tial considerations. In fact, the course such "cool judges"
habitually follow results in immense loss of the opportunity
to do good, even through the fear of doing harm, — not to
take too much account of the undoubted fact that what society
especially needs for its betterment is often more spontaneity
in the brave expression, by deed and speech, of sympathetic
kindly feeling and of that highly emotional sense of justice
which characterizes so many somewhat fanatical minds.

In regarding all this human experience from the point of
view offered by a properly constructed idealistic theory, the
explanation comes promptly and abundantly from consid-
erations already supported by abundant facts: Every good
person actually has, and from the nature of morality as
belonging to personality must have, an ideal of his own
peculiar Self. Men generally do not like peculiar selves, —
at least, not those which are too peculiar. But the peculi-
arity of the Moral Self which I am commending, and in
which I insist the moral ideal for every individual human
being must reside, is not the peculiarity of the "crank."
Even less is it characterized by that pernicious determina-
tion which tries to reduce all the rich individuality of the
Virtuous Life amongst the multitudes of the human race to
the utmost possible uniformity in the details of opinion and of
practice. On the contrary, its maxim, while it recognizes all
the worth of social influences and the close connection of
custom and law with essential morality, is a very generous
"Live and let live," so far as virtuous living is concerned.
Each individual, in order to be moral, must commit himself,
such as he is by inherited disposition and under the circum-

518 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

stances which make his physical and social environment, —
must commit his very own Self to the ideal which this same
self progressively constructs, of what he ought to be.

Individuality is, therefore, of the very essence of morality.
In the social organization which is composed of a multitude
of individuals there is always abundant demand and ample
room for a great variety of moral selves; just as we have
reason to believe (a faith about the justification of which
more will be said in another place) that the Absolute Self
designs and has regard for all the particular manifestations
of moral selfhood, in whose common practice of the virtuous
life and development of character, — each in his own some-
what peculiar way, — the fulfilment of His plans takes
place.

It must be further acknowledged, in the third place, that
in every form of social organization many of the laws, cus-
toms, moral maxims, and opinions about matters of conduct,
are accepted so unquestioningly by the moral feeling and
ethical judgment of the community as to make the impres-
sion of an intuitive cognition. In other words, the actual
forms of conduct prevalent in any society have the appear-
ance to the members of that society of corresponding with
the absolute ideal of morality. So far forth, then, the social
ideal, as it has actually established itself by historical
process, is, for the time being, the accepted ideal of the
multitude of individuals. For the multitude this ideal is,
in its main features, entirely satisfactory. And in many
cases of conscience, even those individual members of the
social whole who are most disposed to frame their own ideal
of conduct, and to act somewhat independently of the com-
mon practices and opinions, yield to the almost irresistible
force of these embodied and entrenched "intuitions" of what
is right in conduct and in character. Indeed, a certain large
conformity, which would better be made with the utmost
possible of good conscience, is essential to any ethico-social

IDEALISM IN ETHICS 519

organization among moral selves. Many matters, accord-
ingly, are treated by persons who are inclined to dissent, or
who would prefer different laws, customs, moral maxims,
and opinions about matters of conduct, as morally indif-
ferent. The good man may conform, and still hold to his
own ideal. In other matters a certain large conformity
takes place which is not altogether with good conscience;
and in still others, revolt arises against the demands of
society upon the individual to suppress the feelings of obli-
gation that bind him to his own peculiar ideal.

And now appear facts of ethical experience which contra-
dict Intuitionism in Ethics. Soon the history of the moral
evolution of any progressive community shows that the
common ideal which has undertaken to enforce itself within
the moral consciousness of the individual members of the
community is, after all, only a "rough and ready" affair.
At its worst it cannot wholly exclude from the place of
respect and command the more particular ideal of any
individual Moral Self. At its best, it cannot wholly be
accepted as a substitute for this particular ideal. Aristotle
held, indeed, that a slave could not be a person, and could
not hold or follow any ideal of a virtuous life for his own
Self. But we know, that even under the limitations of
ancient slavery, slaves could cherish their ideals of good-
ness, and could make a fairer show of realizing them than
could many of the Greek warriors, statesmen, and philoso-
phers. Moreover, all the while the process of change is
going on in the social ideal ; and not infrequently the multi-
tude comes around to the "good few," if the latter will not
conform overmuch to the multitude. So that every man
may say, " If in the last resort I cannot follow the type of
conduct, in general or in any concrete case, which corre-
sponds with the prevalent and commonly recognized moral
ideal, and if I choose, at whatever risk of social unpopularity,
or loss of social influence, or even suffering of penality, to

620 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

follow my own more personal ideal, it may he — God knows
whether it will be — that sooner or later the conception of
the right which the multitude hold will be exchanged for the
conception which I now hold; at any rate, when my ideal
has been purified and clarified as best I can, to that^ and to
no other, must my Self cling, or I am false to the absolute
and universal moral good. "

When now, in view of these conflicting considerations we
ask for the secret of that idealistic theory which explains
"the Nature of the Right," the psychological and historical
suggestions are not so difficult to discover. Certainly, " The
Right " is by nature both subjective and individual, on the
one hand ; and, on the other hand, it is objective and
universal. It is both, at one and the same time, when con-
sidered from two different points of view; — from both of
which points of view, however, it is necessary to consider
its proper nature. Every example of morally right conduct
is, by its very nature, subjective and individual. It is
some person's conduct; and, as conduct, it is an affair of
conscious feeling, judgment, and volition, considered in re-
lation to an ideal. This ideal, too, is subjective and indi-
vidual. It is the product of that same individual's judging
and imagining activity. But "the Right" appears also as
objectified and universalized. For all men have, in order to
constitute them moral and capable of living together under
ethico-social relations, a certain constitutional equipment;
and certain common relations, like those of the family, the
tribe, or the more complex social organization, belong to
men everywhere and at all times. Therefore, the conduct
of the individual is never solely his own affair; it has
constantly to measure itself by this more objective and
generally accepted standard; and its ideal can never be
achieved, nor even approached, by those

" Who, trimmed in forms and visages of duty,
Keep yet their hearts attending on themselves."

IDEALISM IN ETHICS 521

Moreover, these two ideals — both the individual and sub-
jective, and the objective and universal — are never framed
in any approach to a complete independence of each other;
nor can they be kept apart in their application to the theo-
retical solution of the problems of conduct, or in their effect
upon the feelings and deeds which correspond to the ideals.
Not infrequently the two seem struggling together; the one
to enforce laws and rules, and to realize in the social organ-
ization the conception of an eternal and absolute character
for that which is esteemed right; the other to introduce
exceptions and to break down existing laws and rules by
an appeal to some superior interest or higher authority.
Especially is this apt to be true in all rapidly transitional
stages of the development of ethical opinions and practices,
whether with the individual or with society at large. Such
a period was passed through in old Greek life when the
Sophists were prominent; such a period is now being
passed through in Japan, and indeed all over the world.
Repeatedly between the ancient history and the present
time has "the cake of custom," and all that goes with it,
been breaking into fragments and forming anew, so as
greatly and speedily to modify the particular ideals of
many individuals, and thus to modify the common ideal.
Always, indeed, some kind of conduct is considered morally
to be preferred; always virtue is praiseworthy and vice is
blameworthy ; always there is some mental picture of what
a man ought to be and of what society ought to be, that
awakens feelings of obligation and of moral appreciation,
because it corresponds to the rising, if not to the setting
sun of the Ideal Moral Good.

It cannot be said, however, that the doubts and oppositions
over the problems of conduct which characterize all human
experience, and which especially characterize those epochs
of transition to which reference has just been made, affect
the fundamental "Nature of the Right." Nor can it be

522 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

asserted that the antagonism, or even the twofoldness,
which seems especially to develop at these periods, exists
between the individual's ideal of his own Self and the social
Ideal. For, in truth, the ultimate moral ideal is always
necessarily social; it is invariably conceived of by every
idealistic theory, which has any claim to critical considera-
tion, as including the moral good of the one and the many,
of the individual and of the social organization. What
precisely this ideal good may be, and how it is going to
harmonize in particular cases, or in the final result, the
interests both of the individual and of society, no one may be
able to describe a priori. Certainly, no theory which confounds
all morality with the prudential virtues can frame a solution
for the problem which the conflicting interests of society and
of the individual presents. But so far as one attends strictly
to the moral ideal, the difficulties and antagonisms between
the individual and society are of another order.

From the point of view of my personal selfhood, and its
moral ideal, I am bound to be faithful to it ; but this fidelity
cannot be, if I am careless of the social good, and do not
take my part in realizing the ideal of a community composed
of upright moral selves. On the other hand, he who urges
upon me to conform to the generally accejjted ideal, if his
urgency be upon moral grounds, cannot disregard the fact
that my moral welfare is involved in my fidelity to my own
ideal. As a moral adviser, therefore, he may try to make
me see that by conformity to the more general judgment of
the social organization as embodied in its customs, laws,
maxims, and opinions on matters of conduct, I shall be
doing my duty, fulfilling my obligation to the moral ideal
which is reasonably mine under the existing circumstances.
But he cannot exhort me to go contrary to my ideal of what
I ought to do, without abandoning the ethical point of view.
The dcemon of Socrates can be enlightened or persuaded,
but it cannot be forced. My friend who differs from me,

IDEALISM IN ETHICS 523

although quite radically as to how a man ought to act under
a given concrete set of circumstances — and here in the word
"action" we are to include motives, intentions, and feel-
ings, as well as external behavior — may still remain my
true friend, standing with me on the higher grounds of
genuine morality, if each of us is faithful to his own moral
ideal in each particular case. Indeed, my friend's moral
ideal, as an individual and subjective affair, may differ from
mine in not a few important ways, and yet, in the larger and
more comprehensive meaning of the words, we may both be
seeking the same Ideal.

This more inclusive ideal is undoubtedly social ; and so it
is adapted to include the particular ideals of the individuals
composing society. But the social ideal itself is decidedly
not the ideal of a social organization in which the customs,
maxims, laws, and opinions, that are for the time being most
popular and dominant, assert and enforce the right to control
absolutely the individual in the pursuit of his own moral
ideal. Such a social organization would not correspond to
the Ideal of a society of moral selves. Indeed, the ecclesi-
astical and civil organizations which have — no matter with
what pretence of a good conscience, or with what show of
reasonable grounds — endeavored so to dictate moral ideas
and laws to their individual members have usually turned
out most mischievous and abominable tyrannies. The pres-
ent day proposals, which are more subtle and indirect,
whether of the more pronouncedly imperialistic or social-
istic order, to force conformity to some common ideal, when
the Moral Self is not intelligently committed to it as its very
own ideal, will undoubtedly turn out just as disastrously.
The two prominent existing and contending types of social
organization — Imperialism and Socialism — are both char-
acteristically immoral and fatally destructive of genuine
morality. For, the moment you conceive of your social or-
ganization as successfully framed after the pattern that com-

524 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

mends itself to the ethical judgment, and that stirs moral
feeling and the imagination in appreciation of its excellence,
you have rejected for the individual the supreme authority of
the prevalent customs, maxims, laws, and opinions.

An ethically ideal society is essentially such that it can
be constituted only of ideally good persons living together in
social relations. But the good person is the Moral Self who
shapes his conduct in conformity to his own Ideal of what a
Self ought to be. He is deferential to society; he conforms
oftentimes to its customs and laws, and often remains silent
in the presence of its maxims and opinions, although they
do not represent satisfactorily the ideal which he has made
his own. He is devoted to the best interests of society, as
he conceives of these interests; for them he may wish to
live and, on occasion, be quite willing to die. But he can
conscientiously do this, and so maintain in integrity his
own moral selfhood, only in so far as his own moral reason
will permit; and when the necessity arises, he appeals to
something within himself, or above himself and above all
men, for the warrant to disregard and even to transgress
the standard of morality which has become objective and
generally accepted. He may call this something his dcemon,
as did Socrates ; or he may style it the Moral Law and spell
it with a capital, as do those devotedly good men who wish
to free morality from all taint of religion ; or he may call it
the voice or the law of God, as the religious consciousness
has always done, and will always continue to do — the con-
clusions of ethical societies to the contrary notwithstanding.
Or the individual man may even have no other name for it
than just simply this: — What Jfeel, or think, that /ought
to do. But however he may denominate this marvellous
something, and whether he locate it within or without, in
the soul alone or also in heaven and in the World-soul, if he
remain a truly moral man, he will die rather than be false
to this ideal.

IDEALISM IN ETHICS 625

Let it not be overlooked that I have said "A^ will die
rather than be false to his ideal. " I have not said that he
will consign others to death ; or indirectly work to do them
any inferior harm, because they differ from him as to the
nature and application of the moral ideal. Nor will he
necessarily hate, and fight, the multitude who demand from
him either conformity, with the sacrifice of his ideal, or else
the loss of other forms of good. In this respect the true
moral spirit is at one with the method of Jesus and with the
genuine spirit of Christianity. In this respect, most of the
world's present plans for forcing upon unwilling subjects
foreign ideals of the ethical order — whether of the more
obviously civic and social or the more private and domestic
kind — are both immoral and un-Christian.

The further developments of Idealism in Ethics and its
adjustments to the facts and laws which an empirical inves-
tigation of the data discloses, are significantly aided by the
conception of evolution as applied to the sphere of human
conduct. Our use of this conception has already shown how
both the ideal of the individual in its more purely subjective
form, and also the more objective and general form of the
social ideal, are constantly in a process of change. For
the individual in the lower stages of human life, and in the
earlier stages of the highest development of this life, the
moral ideal is fragmentary, fitful, and largely dependent for
its more special characteristics as well as for the strength of
its influence over the conduct, upon the physical and social
environment. This is only to say that any child of man,
and all childlike men, think and imagine with respect to
what they ought to do and to be, in a relatively strict
dependence upon their parental inheritance and total en-
vironment of things and of other persons.

What has been shown as to how the individual's ideal
of morality develops, and how this ideal stands related to
his actual conduct, need not be repeated here even in the

526 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

most summary manner. It need only be said that the ideal-
izing activity itself depends in a most important way upon
its own effect on the actual moral life of the individual.
The man who — to use the popular expression — " is as good
as he knows how to be," knows the better for this very
reason how to be good. In other words, the ideal of a
Moral Self is itself really developed by the practice of the
Virtuous Life. But this ideal, if practically disregarded
and thwarted, fails of development. He who follows with
patience the path of virtue learns how more successfully and
firmly to walk in that path. But he who, whether through
carelessness or yielding to temptation, habitually departs
from that path, loses both the instinctive appreciation of its
worth and the ability to mark it out for his own feet with a
sure and intelligent judgment. The very nature of virtuous
living, and as well the nature of morality, is such that it
cannot be defined in detail for any individual. This path
— the path of virtue, the right course in life — must be
always in a process of defining itself. The virtuous man is
a perpetual " path-finder. "

The same changeable character and susceptibility of con-
stant growth belongs to the moral and social ideal of every
community of men and, indeed, of the entire race regarded
as in a process of development. Change characterizes this
Ideal, — whether it exist as a sort of vague general present-
ment, a certain prevalent type of thinking and feeling as to
what the social organization of human beings ought to be
and what of good it ought to realize for its members, or
take the more objective and fixed form of popularly accepted
customs, laws, maxims, and institutions.

Idealism in ethics, then, if it wishes to adjust itself to
all the data of ethics, as these data are gathered from the
widest and most varied sources by the psychological and
historical method, and are subjected to philosophical reflec-
tion, must make large use of the theory of evolution in

IDEALISM IN ETHICS 627

morals. This it can properly claim to be able successfully
to do in the following way. The ethical theory which best
satisfies all the facts does indeed locate the Nature of the
Right in the relation which conduct sustains to an Ideal.
For every individual this ideal is the ideal of his own Self
as living and acting in social relations with other selves;
and for society the more objective and seemingly universal
ideal is that of a multitude of such selves — a social organ-
ization of human beings that are living together and acting,
each one, in accordance with his own moral ideal. The
reciprocal influence of the individual and society upon the
growth of moral ideals is secured by the very nature of moral
selves socially organized. I have said that every individual
forms his own ideal of the Self which he ought to be ; that,
for the most part, this is done in a very fitful, fragmentary,
and unsuccessful way; and that it is always done under
the predominating influence of the prevalent social ideals.
Each individual, however, contributes something to the for-
mation of the prevalent and typical social ideal. This is
true, although only to less appreciable extent, of the lowest
savages in respect of the origin and change of their tribal
customs and ideas; it is true also of the countless hordes
of a decadent civilization, the multitudes like those at the
present time of India and of China. As the entire race of
men comes to experience, in more prompt and sensitive and
impressive ways, its own solidarity, the reciprocal influences
of the different subdivisions of the race become more appre-
ciable and significant. Let him who thinks that savages are
incapable of producing individuals which powerfully influence
the prevalent ethical type of conduct and of character, study,
for example, the history of men like Tschaka and Moshesh
among the Zulus. On the other hand, to suppose that the
Anglo-Saxons, or any other most considerable portion of
mankind, can remodel the morality, private and social, of
the so-called inferior races without being themselves remod-

528 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

elled by these races in a significant way, is to fail of an
understanding of some of the plainest lessons of history.

Man, then, I conclude, in his psychological and historical
development, creates his own ideals of conduct and charac-
ter, — each individual moulding for himself in particular the
idea, and yet all for each one and each one for all. The
Right is defined for every individual and for every age hy the
fidelity with which the individual and the age actualizes in
conduct this its perpetually growing Ideal.

We are now prepared to summarize the more definite
answer given by Idealism in Ethics to the three questions
which it was declared at the beginning of this chapter every
idealistic theory must be able to answer. The three ques-
tions. Whose ? When ? and What kind ? must, as we have
seen, be answered in the following way.

1. For every individual his own ideal of moral selfhood
furnishes the criteria, the sanctions, and the end of morality
in such manner that if he conforms his conduct to this ideal
he is entitled, at the bar of universal moral reason, to be
called a good man. By such conformity the individual
realizes in his own personal experience the nature of that
which is eternally and unchangeably right. For it is the
spirit of devotion to the ideal of personal being in social
relations which constitutes the very essence of ethical Tight-
ness. Only it must never be forgotten that this spirit itself
involves and absorbs the entire Self, — involves all the func-
tions and activities of moral personality in its service daily
and momently, and absorbs them all in the rational pursuit
of its more and more perfect realization.

Whatever objections may be urged against the subjective
and vague character of this conclusion will be found, I think,
to have been answered, either directly or indirectly, while
considering in detail the nature of the Moral Self and of the
Virtuous Life. The following, however, may seem to demand
a few words additional. How is it, then, to be explained

IDEALISM IN ETHICS 629

that so much of error in ethical judgment and of practical
failure to keep the recognized moral code may be charged
against those who seem the most pronounced in their claims
to pursue faithfully their own ideal of the right ? To this
question the reply is obvious: Claims and appearances are
by no means sure tests of the entire, sincere attitude of the
person toward his ideal of personality; and the theory of
the virtuous life shows how essential is good judgment and
intelligent regard for the welfare of society, both to the con-
struction and progressive improvement of every individuaPs
moral ideal, and also to his progressive realization of that
ideal. In further reply, it might be asked: How can any
one judge what is right except with his own judgment; or
form a conception of what he himself, or others, ought to
do or to be, except by activity of his own thinking and
imagining; or feel regard for the welfare of others, other-
wise than as a movement of his own affections ? For me,
there is no morality but my own, which can assert or decide
the claim to be classified with that which is universally
and eternally right. Moreover, the objections which arise
from the shifting nature of the moral ideal itself are to be
answered by recurring again to the conception of moral
development. It is the direction and the goal of life which
chiefly determines its character at any particular stage in
its evolution. This is true of every form and aspect of life ;
but it is pre-eminently true of the moral life.

In a more figurative way perhaps, but still in accordance
with empirical data, we may say that the same declaration
is true of any particular society or stage in the moral evolu-
tion of the race : its own ideal furnishes for it the criteria,
sanctions, and goal of morality, so that a practical corre-
spondence with this ideal tests the rightness or wrongness
of the prevalent customs, laws, and maxims. Here, again,
however, the conception of development and the acknowl-
edgment of the important and dominating part which the

530 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

most enlightened and pure members of the race play in its
moral evolution is necessary to save the idealistic theory
from hopeless confusion. Of such moral leaders, moral
seers and prophets of the Absolute, known or imagined as
perfect Moral Personality, we may say in the words of
Matthew Arnold: —

*' Beacons of hope ye appear I

Ye fill up the gaps in our files,
Strengthen the wavering hands,
'Stablish, continue our march."

It is by those who, standing in the front ranks on account of
the position which they have attained for their own ethical
ideals, reveal the advanced stages of human moral develop-
ment, that the more nearly absolute criteria, sanctions, and
goal of morality are set for the race. These "good few"
are, indeed, children of their own age, and are never able
wholly to free themselves even in the formation of their
most exalted mental pictures of what human society ought
to be, from the influences which are ancestral and environ-
mental. Nor is it best, whether we consider the moral value
of their own conduct or the magnitude of their influence
upon others, that they should reach such an extremity of
idealism as to discourage and confuse, rather than encourage
and confirm, their fellow men. In them, however, the
highest ideals of what a Moral Self in social relations with
other selves should do and ought to be have come to con-
sciousness, as it were. It is pre-eminently their ideals which
answer for every age the first of our three questions.

2. The answer to the second of the three questions, pro-
posed to Idealism in Ethics by an empirical investigation of
the phenomena of man's moral life and moral development
necessarily admits only of a somewhat vague and indefinite
answer. When is this ideal brought into the only existence
which an ideal can have, in order that it may serve as the

IDEALISM IN ETHICS 531

criterion, sanction, and end of morality ? In multitudes of
cases we may give the answer which the ordinary intuitional
theory of ethics gives. The ideal is constructed at the time
that the problem of conduct arises in consciousness and by
the same active consciousness in which the problem arises*
Thus the problem itself is solved by the very appearance
of the ideal; the man envisages or intuits his duty in an
intelligent and whole-hearted way. This duty is his, what-
ever might have been the duty of others under similar circum-
stances. The criteria, the sanctions, the more immediate
end to be secured, are all there present, so to say, in the
one transaction ; and for this particular piece of conduct no
further justification of its rightness is necessary than that
which the present experience of the individual secures.
This is spontaneous morality ; but it is no less ideally moral
conduct because it is so spontaneous. In other cases, how-
ever, the actual must be brought, as it were, into comparison
with the ideal by way rather of reflection and thoughtful
judgment based upon the opinions of others, or upon the
social requirements, or upon the calculated consequences of
the conduct. In such cases the nature of the right may be
either revealed in consciousness, at the end of the period of
reflection, in a surprisingly sudden and clear manner, or it
may come only slowly and doubtfully after all. Or, again,
some logical connection of the particular problem of conduct
with a law or principle which embodies for the intellect a
relatively permanent phase of the moral Ideal may be indis-
pensable in order to realize the right.

Especially must the principle of evolution be taken into
the account in every attempt to answer this question both for
the individual, and for the race. When do we arrive at the
absolute and infallible criterion of all conduct ? When is
the soul's search for the morally good rewarded by discover-
ing those sanctions of morality to which an appeal may
always be made as to something universal and unchanging ?

532 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

When do we get in all its grandeur and beauty the picture of
the final end which all development of moral character, at
whatever cost of suffering and struggle by the way, aims to
secure ; and which the final moral judgment will pronounce
worth all the suffering and struggle which its pursuit may
have cost ? Now, always, or never, — according to the point
of view which the inquirer takes. The criterion, the sanc-
tion, the goal, is now and always with us. The criterion
is our own best present moral consciousness; the sanction
is in the authority of that same consciousness; the goal is
realized every time we actually make a piece of conduct
conform to our ideal of just what that conduct, here and now
and under these definite circumstances, ought to be. And
this statement is not vitiated in the least by the fact that,
not infrequently, we are in doubt and cannot see clearly
what we ought to do. For to doubt, and to act in doubt, or
to refrain from acting because of doubt, — all this is what for
man the highest criterion, the most imperative sanction, and
the most desirable goal, of his present existence require him
to do.

And, making the necessary changes in one's language,
without neglecting the increasingly figurative character of
those conceptions which necessitate the change in language,
one may maintain that what is true of the individual is true
of society at large. Nations as well as individuals, when
they wish to do the right, sometimes see it clearly in an
intuitive way, and doit spontaneously; sometimes they act
rightly only after reflection; and then either with a clear
moral judgment or in moral perplexity and doubt. Oftener,
of course, they do wrong because they refuse to be moral
at all.

3. In answering the third question which empiricism
proposes to Idealism in Ethics, the entire course of our
examination comes to a concurrent and accordant termina-
tion. The ideal of morality is a Personal Ideal. As such

IDEALISM IN ETHICS 583

it involves all the characteristics of personal being and per-
sonal life. These are the characteristics of a moral Self,
living and acting in social relations with other selves. In
every individual case this ideal is dependent for its con-
struction upon the combined activity of feeling, thought,
imagination, and will — the activity, namely, of the ideal-
izing human mind. In every individual case this ideal is
dependent for its partial and progressive realization upon the
same activities of the same being that constructs the ideal.
It is only as this Self functions according to its own nature
in its different social relations that the criteria of right con-
duct come into existence. These criteria themselves are the
reactions of the moral personality upon the mental represen-
tations of its own behavior, or of the behavior of some other
person, toward other persons in the same society. The sanc-
tions of morality, too, have no existence other than in per-
sonal existence; they, too, are the rational and emotional
responses of the same human nature. Man judges his own
morality, and feels the inestimable worth of it, when he
comes to moral ^e^f-consciousness. And the goal which he
sets before himself for attainment by the activity of the
moral self is the realization of the ideal of that same Self,
— the actual, perfected personal Life in social relations with
others. The idealistic answer, then, to the question. What
kind of an Ideal is this which you propose as affording the
criteria, sanctions, and end of right conduct? is this: It is a
personal ideal, the conception of the life of moral and social
Selfhood, in its whole range of constitutional activities pro-
gressively attaining the perfection of its being. In a word,
it is —

"... all our rarer, better, truer self,
That sobbed religiously in yearning song,
That watched to ease the burden of the world,
Laboriously tracing what must be,
And what may yet be better."

634 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

Two remarks may fitly bring to its close this part of the
discussion. First: In determining the Nature of the Right
two conceptions are of paramount and even of unique im-
portance. These are the conception of Personality and the
conception of Development. In other connections^ I have
shown how the conception of a Self is needed to be under-
stood — its genesis, nature, and unfolding — in order to
describe the actual meaning of all other descriptions, and to
explain all other explanations. For the world is, in all its
lower individual forms of being and so-called purely physi-
cal relations, a self-like World ; it is understood by science,
and can be understood by regarding it, from whatever point
of view, only as the manifestation of the Absolute Self in
a system of self-differentiating and self-relating objects.
And now a psychological and historical study of man's
moral nature and moral development has shown that the
philosophy of conduct builds itself securely upon foundations
of experience only as it extends and further emphasizes this
same conception of Selfhood. To things and to the lower
animals, even in our very most immediate cognition of them
and of their relations to us and to one another, we attribute
self-like characteristics. We do not, however, feel war-
ranted in recognizing them as moral selves. But men are
moral selves, and thus are capable of the truly moral and
social life and development. In a word, they are persons.
And all the understanding of ethical phenomena in their
"first intention," as it were, as well as all further results
due to reflection upon the implications and the significance
of these phenomena, require ethics to emphasize and com-
prehend the conception of Personality. The kingdom of
moral realities and of moral values is a kingdom of personal
beings socially related and socially organized.

Equally necessary is it to any semblance of a satisfactory
ethical theory that emphasis should be laid upon the concep-

1 In the Philosophy of Knowledge and in A Theory of Reality, passim.

IDEALISM IN ETHICS 636

tion of Development. The full definition of the individual
person or of the social organization is not attainable by the
mind that studies only the germinal stages of personality or
of society; or that confines its attention to any one, or to
any group of the past stages of evolution. Clearer and
clearer has it become at every step of our investigation that,
for each individual person, the sources, the criteria, the
sanctions, and the goal of his own personal life must be
accounted for by what lies outside of that life; the individual
cannot be regarded as separate from the great whole. And
what is true of each individual person is true of every por-
tion, and generation, and stage, of the ongoing moral life
of humanity. To understand and appreciate that life the
better, then, we must strive to grasp together the parts
under the conception of the totality. And this the ideas
and laws of the general theory of development, in a measure,
enable us to do; but only "m a measure," for another remark
is needed to prepare our conclusions for the further consid-
erations which they seem to require.

This most defensible and comprehensive idealistic theory
of man's ethical life and development is far enough from
being complete in itself. It shows, indeed, how the criteria,
the sanctions, the laws, and the goal of conduct are all
included in the ongoing life of that personality, when multi-
plied in numbers and socially related, which man is. But it
leaves us with the picture of a race of moral beings, coming
we know not whence, devoting itself to the realization of
ideals whose origins and sanctions are not otherwise ex-
plained, attaching a kind of absolute and unchanging value
to actions that neither promise nor, so far as experience goes,
actually secure any appreciable external reward ; and, as set
into reality by its own morally most worthy examples,
pursuing to the death or even beyond death a goal that can
only be very vaguely imagined, and yet that somehow incites
endeavors and elicits hopes and fears quite out of all corre-

536 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

spondence to a reasonable interpretation of man's workaday
experiences with the consequences of his own conduct.
In the words of a recent Chinese writer, the practice of the
highest morality is not due to interest, or because of any
form of natural affection merely; it is "because of the
spirit of nobility in the Superior Man, strong enough to
break in pieces stone and metal, and which mounts to the
clouds of Heaven." This is an engaging picture; but it
is as mysterious as it is engaging.

I have already said that undoubtedly the Nature of the
Right must be explained in accordance with our knowledge
of human nature in its moral and social development. But I
have also said that unless one is willing to leave human life
thus isolated, as it were, from its own ultimate grounds
and thus irrationally unconscious of its own profoundest
significance and supreme destiny, one must so expand the
conception of the Being of the World — the World-Ground,
the Absolute Self — as to find in this conception the perfec-
tion of the task undertaken by the Philosophy of Conduct.
I shall, therefore, go on briefly to show how all conceptions
of man's actively produced welfare involve his moral life ;
and how the grounding of this moral life in Reality requires
the ideas, faiths, and hopes, which the philosophy of religion
alone can furnish.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE ETHICAL SCIENCES

The value of many of the positions, whether assumed or
reached by a course of reasoning in the preceding chapters,
so far as their application to human life is concerned, depends
largely upon the extent of the ground they are permitted to
cover. It has, indeed, been constantly maintained that the
sphere of ethics is coextensive with all human conduct ; and
that fitness for conduct is the most valuable possession and
most distinctive excellence of man. With the unfolding of
the total life of the individual and of society, therefore, the
domain of morality is constantly widening ; and there arises
an ever increasing obligation and opportunity to make the
practices of men serve the ideals of the moral life. All the
analysis of moral selfhood and the descriptive and specu-
lative study of the nature of virtue, its interests, and its aims,
has tended to confirm the claim of a certain supremacy for
these moral ideals.

The fact cannot be overlooked, however, that other branches
of the study of human life, in the most comprehensive mean-
ing of the phrase " human life," have their more or less
distinct points of view ; they feel themselves entitled to insist
upon the scientific rights, and both the scientific and the
practical benefits of this study from their own points of view.
Indeed, the different sciences of man in action have struggled
hard to separate themselves completely from ethical consider-
ations ; just as ethics itself has tried to get free from the
influence and the implicates of religion and of metaphysics.

638 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

This effort has, of late, been urged on by a strong combina-
tion of practical and speculative influences. The economical,
political, and social organizations of men have rapidly under-
gone an enormous development. All manner of financial
combinations — companies, trusts, syndicates — have grown
big and grasping beyond all precedent in past time. The
aims of these combinations are, as a matter of course, as
purely financial as it is possible to make them. Their
" legitimate " business is to produce wealth and to distribute
it to their promoters and stockholders. Their primary in-
terests and their distinctive points of view are economical
only; and they are not at all, or in very scanty fashion,
ethical as well. To promote the public welfare, or to secure
the ideal purity of their administration, enters scarcely to a
perceptible extent into their estimate of the ends they wish to
serve.

What is true of the financial combinations of men is also,
to a large extent, true of their political combinations. Every-
where, the rulers of the nations, and all the forces that chiefly
control the relations of nations, are eager to make their
political combinations strong, and prosperous commercially,
with an almost complete disregard of the bearing of moral
considerations upon the means to be employed for the ac-
complishment of their ends. Interest in ethical theories of
the state, or in the serious consideration of the application of
moral principles and moral ideals to the relations of nations,
is relatively languid and ineffective, where it is not wholly
wanting at the present time. Society itself has recently
shown an almost overpowering disinclination to regard its
own more lasting and larger interests and aims from any
distinctively ethical points of view. With the increase of
material prosperity in certain quarters of the globe there has
been no corresponding popular increase of inquiry into those
principles of conduct upon which all social organizations have
their basis, and according to which all real social progress

THE ETHICAL SCIENCES 689

must take place. With the standing still or the decline of
material prosperity in certain other quarters of the globe,
there has gone on a corresponding stagnation or decline in
the moral standards.

This condition of human affairs, economical, political, and
social, when regarded from the point of view of actual prac-
tice, has been related as both cause and effect to the pursuit
of the sciences of economics, politics, and sociology so called.
Tlie scholastic students and recognized authorities in these
subjects have for the most part come to regard the problems
confronting them, in a totally unethical way. Ethics, we have
seen, cannot be made an exact science ; perhaps — for I have
shown how little I care to claim any right to the term — ethics,
as the philosophy of human conduct cannot be made a science
at all. Certainly, in so far as the handling of its phenomena
can be subjected to scientific tests, the problems of ethics do
not admit of a satisfactory solution by the empirical method.
But it has been the pardonable, though forever unattainable
aim of economics, politics, and sociology, to take their place
among the sciences which can claim to have employed the
empirical method in the more exact forms of this method.
The semblance of deductive and demonstrative method which
the older treatises on these subjects affected has very properly
been abandoned. Its results never even attained the trust-
worthy semblance of science. The inductive and historical
study of the economical, political, and entire social aspects of
human life and human development is a very distinct advance
beyond anything which the older method could hope to attain.
But, in their attempts so to catch and represent the spirit of
the age as to give scientific character to their conclusions
with regard to the economic, political, and social life of man,
without taking also into account the pervasive and permanent
character of his moral and spiritual being, the students of
these sciences will continue to labor largely in vain.

The individual man in action, however his action is diver-

540 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

sified and to whatever end it is directed, is a psychical unit,
a Moral Self. And society, however we may contest the
propriety of regarding it under the figure of speech suggested
by the word " organism," is composed of such units. The
growth of society, the progress of so-called civilization (what-
ever that may be thought to signify), and all the development
of human institutions of every sort, are the resultants of the
reactions of moral selves upon one another and upon their
environment. The human individual and human society can,
then, no more escape from the sphere of ethics than (to bor-
row an old figure of speech) the greyhound can outrun his
own shadow. Nay more : human society cannot exist or
continue, in any one of its varied forms of existence and
development, otherwise than as the construct of ethical beings
living together in all the varied relations of which their
ethical being makes them capable.

Economics, politics, and sociology, are, therefore, psycho-
logical and ethical studies. If they are ever to attain the
coveted distinction of being called " sciences," it must be
with the same allowances made for inexactness, doubt, and
growth upon the basis of accumulating experience, which
belong to all the attempts to formulate the principles that
control the nature and development of man, as placed within,
and active in, his historical environment. These sciences can
never dispense with psychology and ethics. They can never
advance far beyond the points of successful and permanent
construction provided for them by psychology and ethics.
Indeed, one might properly add the study of the religious
nature and religious development of man to the list of pre-
requisites for the more successful cultivation of economics,
politics, and sociology. Certainly in India and China no one
can begin to comprehend the economic, political, and social
problems which there require theoretical and practical solu-
tion, without understanding the ethico-religious views and
practices of the people. Nor have America and Europe

THE ETHICAL SCIENCES 641

yet become so free from superstition or so little religious that
the same thing is not true of their peoples also.

The attempt to render the other principal sciences of
man's life and development independent of ethics must,
therefore, always and inevitably result in failure. The
claim to have succeeded, even partially, in this attempt, is
a sham. The continuance of the attempt is likely to be
fraught with baleful practical results. It has already worked
a certain evil amongst the multitudes of men. The race wuU
never play "Hamlet" with the passions, fears, faiths, aspira-
tions, and speculations of the hero left out. The whole of
human history is predominatingly ethical and religious in its
motifs its tendencies, its guiding forces and ideals. It is a
mixture of tragedy and comedy, in which, in every act and
every scene, gods and godlike men and devils and devilish
men, are taking their part. In the production and distri-
bution of wealth, in the formation, disintegration, and
reformation of states, in the construction, improvement, and
deterioration of social organizations, the ethico-religious
being of humanity is always secretly or openly at work.
Therefore, no historical and empirical study of man's eco-
nomic, political, and social constructions and developments
can be trustworthy or — much less — complete, which does
not take this ethico-religious being into account.

The objection may be urged against the foregoing view
that, although the sciences of economics, politics, and
sociology, deal with the description and explanation of
phenomena which are facts of human conduct, and which
therefore belong to the proper sphere of ethical inquiry, they
deal with these same phenomena from quite different points
of view. In a word, these sciences consider conduct as
cause and effect of economic, political, and sociological
conditions, but without any reference to its more distinctly
ethical or unethical character. They are sciences of actual
facts, as fact; but ethics has been defined as a study of what

542 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

ought to be in human conduct, and of the relations which
facts of conduct sustain to a developing ideal. There is a
certain measure of force in this objection. But after all, the
distinction here introduced is more fictitious than real, more
purely theoretical than practicable in the concrete work of
establishing these allied sciences. For — not to be continu-
ally reiterating the statement of fundamental positions and
of conclusions long ago sufficiently established — the ethical
feelings, judgments, and moral choices of men, with all their
unique psychical characteristics and reactions, are pervasive
and powerful facts affecting the whole of human life and
human development, in all manner of human relations. As
such, these phenomena determine, and are indeed integral
parts of all those activities of men in the relations to which
the sciences of economics, politics, and sociology give their
attention. The relations themselves, 1 affirm, are essentially
and indissolubly connected with, and dependent upon, the
ethical nature and ethical development of man.

The more detailed working-out of the applications of ethi-
cal principles to economic, political, and social conditions,
belongs to the appointed task of the students of those condi-
tions. A general treatise of ethical sort, or more especially
a philosophy of conduct, cannot attempt this task. After
dismissing as fallacious the general assumption that these
three sciences — economics, politics, and sociology — are
capable of treatment without the assistance of ethics, and
that their ideals are realizable apart from the ethical ideal,
I shall therefore content myself with a few remarks upon
each of the three.

The development of the resources of any country or
smaller social unit, and the distribution of the wealth thus
produced, is necessarily always a matter in which moral
forces, moral principles, and moral values, are deeply con-
cerned. For, in the first place, a large basis of fact and
law, physical and physiological, underlies and controls the

THE ETHICAL SCIENCES 543

actions of men in those relations which are dealt with by
economics. These same facts and laws furnish the abso-
lutely rigid, or more elastic conditions, under which the
conduct of men shapes itself into the customary forms of
morals and of moral development. For example, there is
the entire sphere of the sexual relations in which the close
connection of economics and morals may be illustrated ; and
here this connection is made close and permanent because
the same physical and physiological facts must be considered
from both points of view. The ethics of sexual intercourse
and the economics of sexual intercourse are, to a large
extent, made one by the structure and functions of the
sexes. Those same natural differences of man and woman
which determine their relative values in the economical scale
decide also, in large measure, the right and wrong of their
conduct in their mutual relations. The relative helplessness
of the human infant, and the relatively long time which it
needs in order to develop to a fitness for self-help, is also
of both economic and moral significance. Thus the same
group of unalterable and indisputable physical facts deter-
mines both the ethics of the family life, and also the eco-
nomics of the family in its relations to the production and
distribution of domestic and national wealth. And in spite
of the present vast and far-reaching disturbance of old-time
views concerning both these aspects of the relations of the
sexes, there are unmistakable signs of a preparation on the
part of the natural laws to reassert their supremacy. No
economical changes can be lastingly successful, from the
point of view of economics, which violate those ethical prin-
ciples regarding right relations of man and woman, and of
the family life, which the race has won through centuries of
experiment and struggle in its pursuit of ethical ideals.
This is because both the ethics and the economics of family
life rest upon the bed-rock of unalterable physical and
physiological preconditions.

644 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

Were it necessary — as, indeed, it vrould be if one were
making a detailed study of the ethics of economics — it could
be shown how the same principle admits of varied illustra-
tion and application in many of the relations which men, as
moral selves, sustain to one another. But it will serve the
present purpose better if we invert somewhat the terms of
the proposition and consider, in the second place, how im-
possible it is to make the conduct of men ethically correct,
or to secure a progressive correspondence with the rising
and changing moral ideals, without regard for the facts and
laws appertaining especially to that experience of the race
with which the science of economics deals. Men are uni-
versally and unchangeably obligated to the virtues of wis-
dom, prudence, fidelity, justice, and kindness. But, as has
already been shown with abundant illustration and argument,
there is no infallible and a priori way of determining just
what conduct is wise, prudent, faithful, just, and truly kind,
in any particular combination of circumstances. The rather
is it true that, in the effort to put into practice the disposi-
tion toward these virtues, some of the severest conflicts of
duty arise. Now these same virtuous forms of conduct have
also the very highest economical value. Judged by historical
and empirical standards, and without neglecting well-founded
deductive arguments, the most successful development and
the most satisfactory distribution of any country's resources
depend upon the actual exercise of these virtues by the people
themselves. Nothing is more foreboding of economical
evils, or more certain to be disastrous in its final results,
than the too prevalent impression that individuals or nations
may attain the highest lasting economic prosperity without
the assiduous practice of the cardinal virtues. Over and over
again has it been demonstrated in the history of the race
that nations must, in the long run, pay back every dollar of
treasure and every drop of blood of which they have possessed
themselves in disregard of fundamental ethical principles.

THE ETHICAL SCIENCES 645

This close and permanent relation between ethics and
economics makes the two reciprocally dependent. Ethics
prescribes for economics those ideals of the virtuous life,
that pattern of dutiful moral selves living together in a
variety of social relations which has been for unnumbered
centuries rising and gathering clearness and strength in the
consciousness of the race. Economics teaches ethics by what
more precise forms of conduct, and under what particular
kinds of physical environment, the means may be secured
and employed, for the better realization of these ideals; —
but this, only in a given class of human relations, viz.,
those which concern the development and distribution of
material resources. Thus it comes about that, to disregard
the influence of the ethical ideals which are set by such
conceptions of the virtuous life as answer to these words, —
wisdom, prudence, fidelity, justice, and kindness, — is bad
economical policy. But how to make these virtues effective
requires that good men should have some knowledge of
economical principles. Ethics must inspire economics with
its ideals, must soften and vitalize its otherwise hard and
even brutal formulas, must inform it of the higher obliga-
tions which rightfully assert an ever-increasing supremacy
over the lower passions and desires. Ethics must rebuke
and chasten economics when, as so often happens, it tends
to forget that selves can never be treated as mere things;
and that there are loftier considerations for individuals and
for nations than the unrestricted increase of their material
prosperity. On the other hand, the virtues which secure
material prosperity cannot be practised in those relations with
which economical science deals without instruction from this
science as to how the practice is to be shaped and is most
successfully to be secured.

There is probably no other land where the reciprocal rela-
tions and influences of economics and the ethico-religious
life of the people are so curiously, and in such a complicated

646 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

matter, intertwined as among that conglomerate of peoples
called India. How shall the improved sanitary and eco-
nomical condition of the multitudes be brought about in
social organizations where the power of the money-lender
and of the grain-merchant is chiefly conferred through the
dominant and oppressive regard for quasi-religious functions ;
where, for example, millions would rather die of starvation
themselves than kill a cow for food ; where the management
of the sewers is likely to set the entire body politic aflame
with a quasi-ethical zeal for rebellion; and where bubonic
plague runs riot, and the crops of the starving are allowed
to be ruined, because the extermination of rats is forbidden
by established moral and religious principles ? But what is
true in such exaggerated form of India is essentially true
of all peoples in all ages. The development and distribu-
tion of their material resources cannot be considered irre-
spective of the influences constantly exerted by moral
forces. Nor can the peoples themselves develop the higher
qualities of ethical judgment and sound moral practice
without instruction as to economical laws and economical
conditions.

The great economical problem of the present age is most
distinctly an ethical problem. In the more prosperous
nations, and between all nations, this problem concerns
the distribution rather than the production of the world's
resources. The development of physical means for effecting
this distribution makes the problem more distinctively
ethical. And all the subordinate problems — for example,
of the tariff, taxation, reprisals and wars for commercial
aggrandizement and supremacy, are great moral questions.
That they are so little considered from the ethical point of
view, and in the light of the practicable ideals of the vir-
tuous life, is the principal economic shame and menace of
the present age.

What has been said of ethics and economics, in respect

THE ETHICAL SCIENCES 547

of their relations to each other, is also true of ethics and
Politics. Politics, or the science of human conduct under
the relations of "statehood" (including municipal and all
other forms of governmental organization), has its own basis
of physical facts and physical laws. And right conduct for
the citizen, whether ruler or subject, in all the various rela-
tions under which men are organized politically, is impos-
sible in disregard of this basis of facts and laws. The same
environment forms the inescapable conditions of the moral
life and of the political life. The same physical conditions
surround the individual, and determine the quality and the
consequences of his conduct, whether he be considered as
citizen of a state or as one of many moral selves in the looser
relations of society so-called.

If, moreover, we consider the psychological and social
origins and development of the state, the necessarily ethical
character of the science of politics becomes yet more obvious.
It is not by the enactment of contracts which are motived
and controlled by purely utilitarian conditions, and even
less through the pressure of force and necessity in a purely
physical or brutal way, that men come to associate them-
selves together politically. The rather does the state have
its origin in obedience to a command that is respected as
divine, in filial and devoted affection toward the head of the
family or toward one's dead ancestors, and in loyalty to the
leaders of the tribe. ^ But these feelings and forms of action
spring from the nature of the moral Self in its social rela-
tions with other moral selves. The origin of the state is,
then, distinctly ethical. So, too, does the character of its
development depend in a very important, if not absolute
way, upon the moral status and moral progress of its
individual members; even more upon those prevalent cus-
toms and current standards of opinion which represent the
moral culture of the people at large.

1 Comp. Wundt, Ethics, I, p. 279 f.

548 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

That the scientific treatment of political phenomena is
pre-eminently an ethical discipline has aways been acknowl-
edged. So truly, and to such an extent, is the connection
between ethics and politics to be maintained that it is
difficult, as well with respect to their history as their con-
ception, to separate between the two. Plato's Republic is a
discussion of Justice "writ large." Now "Politics," says
Aristotle,^ "seems to answer to this description," — namely,
that of the "master-science" of the final ends of all action,
of human life itself. Ethics is, then, "a sort of political
inquiry." The Confucian ethics, as it has developed in
China and Japan, is political. And Christian ethics, in its
conception of the divine Family including all men, or of the
Kingdom of God, obviously and in a very pregnant manner
extends the doctrine of responsible conduct over all the
relations which are covered by any of the several forms of
statehood among men. Indeed, "the self-acknowledgment
of the state that it is a moral institution" ought to be so
firmly established as never again to be questioned.

The ideals of human political organizations are also ethi-
cal ideals. The moral ends of statehood have, in fact, been
progressively more clearly defined and more emphasized
during the political evolution of mankind. Any tendency
to dispute or to depreciate this profound truth is, however
much such a tendency may refer to the " illumination ideas "
of the eighteenth or any other century, a distinct retrograda-
tion in political theory. Neither commercial prosperity, nor
the spread of intellectual enlightenment, can serve by itself
to suffice the final purposes of political organizations among
men. And Japan, which still insists upon ethico-political
instruction for the citizen from the earliest to the latest
periods of his education, is clearly entitled in this regard to
serve as a model for other nations.

It is by no means clear that there is a science which may

1 Nic. Eth., I, ii, 5, 9.

THE ETHICAL SCIENCES 649

properly be called "sociology," or " societology, " or by some
similar term. If the intention is to apply such terms to all
attempts at a scientific treatment of the conception of human
society, or of the actual historical development of human
social organizations, or of the physical and psychological
conditions of their origin and evolution, then we are met at
the beginning of all such attempts by these essential facts:
(1) all the physical sciences which relate to man's environ-
ment upon the earth serve as introductory or essential parts
of the so-called science of "sociology;" and all the sciences
of human nature are allied branches of it. But (2) defined
in this way (which is almost equivalent to its not being
defined at all) sociology seems to lose all claim whatever to
a definite scientific character, and to merge itself, so far as
it is scientifia at all, in certain other more particular and
definite sciences; and, finally, (3) so far as it remains
sociology^ the result degenerates into propositions of a very
indefinite and disputable, or purely speculative character.
A specific science, deserving this particular name, can
therefore scarcely be said to claim either existence or
raison d^etre.

The term " society " properly applies to a number of per-
sons who are associated together for whatever purpose or by
whatever connection or bond. In the very conception the
two important words are persons and association ; associated
selves constitute every kind of a society. The conception,
therefore, is essentially psychological and ethical. Human
society, of every description and in every stage and era of
its development, is constituted by moral beings who conduct
themselves in common relations to some environment, and
in reciprocal relations toward one another, for the attain-
ment of some end. Of societies there exist in fact in-
numerable kinds; and the several kinds, as well as the
multiplications within the area of the same kind, are cease-
lessly coming into existence, running their more or less brief

550 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

course, and passing to their end. Society, spelled with a
capital S, has no existence, and no chance for existence,
except in the theoretical imagination ot the individual man.
In the wider significance of the word "social," all human
life and human activity, under anything resembling normal
conditions, is necessarily social. At his birth, in his train-
ing, in his activities and aims, the human being is con-
stantly forming and breaking these different associations
with those of his own kind. But all this falls within the
sphere of conduct. Therefore, whatever one may mean by
the science or theory of Society — whether it be a study of
the abstract conception connoted by the term, or of the
actual physical and psychical conditions which environ all
the different associations of men, or of the historical devel-
opment of some selected few of the many forms of human
social organization — this science or theory cannot separate
itself from ethics.

As I have already said, a general treatise of the philosophy
of conduct cannot expound or vindicate in detail the ethical
character of economics, politics, and so-called sociology.
They are, indeed, all ethical sciences, or studies of the con-
ditions, laws, results, and ideals of men — of moral selves —
in their various relations of a more particular or a more
general social order. It is enough for my purpose at the
present time to have indicated how wide and inclusive is
the sphere, how theoretically and practically important are
the principles and ideals, of the moral life and moral devel-
opment of man. Neither in his economic, nor his political,
nor in any of his other varied social relations can man escape
the necessity, or deny himself the high privilege of paying
regard to the laws and ideals of morality. As a tradesman,
as a citizen, as a member of many forms of society, he is
always a Moral Self; and not the pursuit of happiness for
himself alone or for others, or the mere keeping of a Law,
however austere or lofty, can wholly take the place of the

THE ETHICAL SCIENCES 651

supreme Ideal of conduct. As Mr. Shadworth Hodgson has
said : ^ Ethics is " a science which is supreme over the whole
of human practice. " Economics, politics, and sociology, are
therefore ethical studies ; and so far as the ideals which they
hold up before humanity are realizable as results of human
conduct, they are subordinate parts of the Ideal of Ethics.

^ Metaphysics of Experience, III, p. 214.

CHAPTER XXIV

MORALITY AND RELIGION

What Pfleiderer ^ calls the " positivisfc view " — namely,
"that at first religion and morality had little or nothing
to do with each other," he declares to be contradicted
by everything we know of the early history of mankind.
Indeed, the same authority has previously ^ asserted the
truth of exactly the opposite proposition: "The historical
beginning of all morality is to be found in religion." In a
more qualified and cautious way we find Wundt affirming in
his treatise of Ethics : ^ " History shows that almost all, and
especially all the more significant forms of life have their
root in religious motives that have disappeared from the
consciousness of a later age; and thus teaches that man's
self-education in custom and morality begins with the devel-
opment of religious worship." And Waitz,^ who speaks
from the standpoint of the most sane and accomplished
student of anthropology, declares : " There is hardly a more
trustworthy sign and a safer criterion of the civilization
of a people than the degree in which the demands of pure
morality are supported by their religion and are interwoven
with their religious life." That admirable little book by
Roskoff ^ shows how, in the natural order of the development

1 See The Philosophy of Religion (translation from the second edition by A.
Menzies) IV, p. 238.

2 Ibid., IV, 230.
8 I, p. 134.

* Anthropologie der Natnrvolker, IV, p. 128.

^ Das Religionswesen der rohesten Natnrvolker, p. 175.

MORALITY AND RELIGION 668

of human life, "Custom and the Law receive divine sanction,
the connection between religion and morality is placed in
clear light, and the two appear in their reciprocal relation. "

The historical facts which compel some such conclusion as
the foregoing are undoubted. The current anthropological
teachings which either overlook or minimize the conclusions
that follow logically from these facts deserve the severest
testing, if not the promptest rejection. There are two
views, however, about the more important and permanent
relations of morality and religion which must be regarded as
representing two about equally unwarrantable extremes. In
treating briefly of them, and in proposing the true opinion,
which mediates and reconciles these extremes, I shall con-
tinue to take the ethical point of view. The more full
discussion of the entire subject belongs to the historical and
theoretical study of the phenomena of man's religious life —
to the so-called philosophy of religion. But its importance
as bearing upon the ultimate problems of a philosophy of
conduct, and especially as affecting one's views of the origin,
sanctions, and final purpose of morality, and of the nature of
the moral Ideal, cannot be overestimated.

Of the two extreme views one advocates the complete
separability of morality and religion; the other, their com-
plete identification. The former is not held solely by those
who incline to that philosophical point of view adopted by
the Positivists which Pfleiderer controverts ; it is held by a
certain select few who are purely and somewhat passionately
devoted to the Moral Ideal, but who find themselves more
or less unwillingly agnostic concerning the fundamental
verities of the religious life; and it is also held by an
increasing multitude who tolerate the customary and con-
ventional opinions of their class respecting moral problems
and moral practices, but do not bother themselves at all
about religious affairs. The opposite view which identifies
morality and religion throughout — the ground, the sane-

654 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

tions, the meaning, and the ideal of both — has customarily
been promulgated by two classes of thinkers and writers;
these are the theologians and certain idealistic moralists.
The former ordinarily choose to identify morality and reli-
gion by making religion absorb morality. They find in
their conceptions of God and of his relations to humanity
the full, and the only account of the origin, sanctions,
worth, and ideals, of the moral life and moral development
of man. But the latter identify morality and religion by
making morality absorb religion. Religion as theoretical,
as a metaphysics or a reasoned system or a faith, is with
them nothing more or less than an ethical view of the world-
order. And God, if he is not Himself identified with the
moral world-order (the " power not-ourselves that makes for
righteousness''), is of use, so to say, only as the postulate,
and the vindicator of the moral consciousness.

It will be found, I think, that most of the confusion and
the antagonisms over the problems involved in defining the
relations of morality and religion arise in too narrow and
one-sided views of human nature and of its complex inter-
ests, activities, and forms of development. In a technical
word, they are primarily psychological. Here, as everywhere,
philosophy goes back to the full and rich knowledge of the
Self, if it would escape the severest pains of disappointment
and the direst disasters of controversy. "Know thyself" —
the full, richly endowed Self, sensuous, intellectual, artistic,
social, but also hoth moral and religious, and yet always a
unity of selfhood in a course of development ; it is because
they neglect, or are ignorant of the choicest deliverances of
self-study that so many go astray over this subject.^

The historical facts of man's moral and religious devel-

1 If theologians, moralists, and anthropologists alike were only also psycholo-
gists, and familiar with the broader fields of those sciences that treat of the soul
of man, there would be less of unjustifiable assurance on some points, and more
of certainty and agreement on others, in their average discourses about the rela-
tions of morality and religion.

MORALITY AND RELIGION 655

opment lay the basis for that psychological theory of the
relations between morality and religion which must itself
serve, in turn, as an important part of the basis on which
to rest our conclusions respecting the ultimate problems of
ethics. The nature of these historical facts has been in-
dicated in the opening paragraph of this chapter. It is
desirable that they should be presented here in somewhat
more of detail.

But, first of all, it should be understood — what a serious
study of the nature and development of human religious
consciousness establishes beyond doubt — that man, as man,
is essentially and everywhere a religious being. Just as
surely as all men are speech-making and speech-using, are
instinctively and naively metaphysical, and are moral and
social in their nature and in their institutions, just so surely
are all men also religious. Religion is, with man, no
adventitious or temporary thing; it belongs to man as man;
it is implanted in his constitution, that he should seek after
and believe in the "Over-natural," which is the hidden
Spirit and Life of all that appears in his experience. And,
furthermore, the roots of man's religious nature, and the
sources and sanctions of man's religious experience, are not
exhaustively to be found in any single form of natural func-
tioning, or in any one aspect of his unfolding life. Not
intellect alone, or feeling alone, or the necessities and out-
come of the practical life alone, but all together as allied
forms of the activity of the one soul of man, furnish the
sources from which his religious experience arises, and in
which it finds its sustenance and growth. No wonder, then,
the nature and origin of religion being such, that morality
and religion are so closely and even indissolubly allied in
the experience of the individual and in the history of the
race. But all the more because both morality and religion
spring out of the complex being of man as reacting in mani-
fold ways upon its physical and social environment, and

556 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

because both derive their discipline and their culture from
the same complex history of man's development, do they
differ in a variety of secondary but by no means unimportant
ways.

The history of humanity shows that morality and religion
have, in fact, to a large extent a common origin. As I have
already said, the opinion of Saussaye and others, which was
always based entirely on a priori grounds, that morality and
religion had a separate origin and were later forced into
union by the environment, as it were, is disproved by many
facts of history. The nature-myth, for example, has always
served as a common root for both. In this myth, some
natural power or natural phenomenon is deified and made
the object of religious feeling and religious worship; but
man's welfare, as dependent upon his own conduct, is neces-
sarily more or less connected with every such myth. Hence
morality and religion find in every such work of thought and
imagination a common root. Nor does it even hold true, as
Wundt seems to suppose, ^ that the separation of the nature-
god from the natural phenomenon is necessary before ethical
ideas can be connected with him.

Again, human virtues become embodied or peculiarly
exemplified in different divinities, because these divinities
have themselves been idealized in different ways. And thus
the hero-legend may become a root out of which grows a
closely connected development of religion and morality. In
this way respect for the virtues of courage and courageous
efforts in behalf of others became connected with legends of
the god Heracles. Where the idealization is more complete
in the interests both of religion and morality, we may have
some important aspect of the divine Being represented, and
its corresponding form of virtuous life commended and
enforced by a particular divine example. Thus the merciful
and pitiful side of God, and the duties and blessings of

1 Ethics, I, p. 86 f.

MORALITY AND EELIGION 667

raercy and pity, are presented by the Buddhistic conception
and worship of Kwannon. The same thing is seen in the
worship of Mary as the embodiment of the motherly tender-
ness of God.

Wherever reverence for ancestors, and the continued feel-
ing of filial piety toward them after death, are prevalent
and influential — and this is the case among many peoples
— these feelings furnish a vigorous common root for morality
and religion. Cruelty to one's aged ancestors uniformly
marks the lowest depths of barbarous immorality. And, as
especially among the Japanese and Chinese, fidelity to the
Emperor, the daimyo, the head of the clan, becomes the
central principle of morality. Whenever the bodily pres-
ence on which it is concentrated is removed from sight, this
reverence takes to itself more of that feeling of mystery,
that respect for the invisible, that veneration before the
worth of unseen realities, which is of the very essence of the
religious life. In support of this view reference might be
made to the standing which the genii, the manes, the lares
and penates, of ancient Rome had in the moral and religious
development of its people. In this way the deified ancestors
or idealized human beings of any people become moral ideals
and set the standards of accepted customs and moral laws,
either by depressing or elevating or otherwise modifying
them.

In these and numerous other ways the close historical
connections between morality and religion, which may be
traced from the recorded beginnings of human history, have
been brought about. Thus it has been made true in fact
that no system of religious doctrine, or set of rules and
observances for the practice of religion exists, which does
not involve ethical principles, enjoin duties, and inculcate
virtues. On the other hand, it is difficult, if not impossible,
to live virtuously in any social organization without giving
some practical recognition to the current religious beliefs

558 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

and practices. But this truth, which is merely the expres-
sion of historical facts — a sort of general fact of anthro-
pology — has its own explanation in considerations that are
permanent and lie deep down in human nature. It is all
the more necessary to insist upon this conclusion because it
is often assumed that, whatever may have been the case in
the earlier and cruder stages of man's social evolution, the
progressive divorce of morality and religion is sure to be
accomplished and greatly to be desired. This assumption
cannot be justified. It is made improbable, or even impos-
sible, by what we are constantly learning as to the origin
and laws of the development of the total moral and social
selfhood of man. A long treatise would be needed even
summarily to present in its full force the argument for our
contention, but it can be maintained. We may not identify
morality and religion; we must not absorb either one in the
other, or cultivate one to the exclusion of the other ; but, on
the other hand, we can never divorce morality from religion,
or safely fail to recognize both theoretically and practically
the dependence of morality upon religion.

We have seen that the essence of morality consists in an
intelligent and voluntary devotion to an ideal of conduct; and
that this ideal of conduct is the conscious life of a Moral Self
which is functioning in all its relations toward other selves
in the social organization so as most perfectly to realize this
ideal. But religion, in its more primitive forms, is belief
in the real existence of superhuman beings, of the "Over-
man ; " this belief is joined to the feelings of fear or rever-
ence, dependence, trust, and love or dread, which arise out of
the belief; and it expresses itself in certain acts of worship,
allegiance, and obedience. In both morality and religion
the Ideal is a personal affair, and one which calls for an
adjustment of relations toward it that involve in a large way
the entire sphere of human experience. " But that which is
a demand in morals becomes a reality in religion." And

MORALITY AND RELIGION 569

other important differences between the two attitudes of
mind and of life toward their respective ideals might be
noticed. What most impresses the student of the philosophy
of conduct, however, is the essential likeness of the two.

For, in the first place, morality and religion have much
the same psychological origin. The truth is not simply
that they are both outputs of the same soul of man, as he
is surrounded by the same physical and social environment
and develops within the one general course of human
history. Morality and religion have yet more profound and
sensitive connections in human nature. The roots of the
two are intertwined in similar instincts, feelings, faiths,
and other experiences. Nor can the whole case be summed
up by saying with Paulsen r^ "Both spring from the same
root, the yearning of the will for perfectio7i.^* This is too
vague and mystical. There are, at least, two specific forms
of human feeling — constitutional and universal even in the
lowest stage of social relations — which form a twin root for
uniting morality and religion. These are fear and piety.
The former is the more simple in structure, but is exceed-
ingly varied in its manifestation ; the latter is more complex
and includes elements from several primitive forms of emo-
tion, such as admiration, sympathy, respect, and even the
more refined forms of fear itself — namely, reverence and
awe. The very nature of the invisible and unknown powers
which are symbolized by material or personal forms is such
as to excite feelings of more or less lively fear. Their
wishes can be only imperfectly learned; their commands
must be received and interpreted in a somewhat mysterious
way. Hence the more potent is the fear they inspire, and
the greater the need of man's care that their mandates are
understood and obeyed. God, or the gods, cannot be rendered
intelligible to human understanding without conceding the
essential likeness of divine and human selfhood; but God,
1 See Paulsen, A System of Ethics, p. 419.

660 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

or the gods, cannot inspire the religious feeling without
being conceived of as superior to man. How exceedingly
similar in both respects— -in respect of its likeness to man
and in respect of its superiority to man — is that ideal Moral
Self which each one somehow, and to some extent, fears and
reverences ; whether this Ideal takes the subjective form of
the mandate of conscience, or assumes the more objective
representation of the better part of society commanding
the individual's allegiance and judging and punishing his
misdeeds !

In the broader meaning of the word, however, it is some
kind of piety which most allures men to righteousness and
also deters them from vice and crime. In spite of the cold
and hard impersonal character to duty upon which Kant and
the legalists in ethics generally insist, it is a loyal and
affectionate regard for personal considerations which secures
both the lower and commoner, as well as the higher and
rarer, forms of morality among men. Domestic loyalty and
domestic affection, the courageous and faithful allegiance
to the interests of the tribe or other social organization, the
trusty and loving service of others, in a word, Piety ^ is the
summing-up of all virtuousness for the multitude of men in
the majority of their daily transactions. But when this
personal interest is concentrated upon the deified ancestor,
or the gods of the tribe, or of the particular tribal or national
religion, but — more especially — when it becomes a supreme
and passionate devotion to the service of the one true God,
although such service is called "religion," its moral charac-
ter and influence over the life of conduct is not so essentially
changed.

Nor are the character and the influence of that complex
attitude of soul toward personal interests, which I have
called piety, essentially altered by the most thorough cul-
ture and supremely worthy development of both the moral
and the religious life. Regarded as morality^ the culture of

MORALITY AND RELIGION 561

piety extends the affectionate respect for personal life far
beyond the narrow circle of the deceased members of one's
own tribe or family, into the wider circle of all sentient
and rational being. The truly pious heart of the cultured
good man feels the obligation to virtue as having for its
object the whole of mankind. Such is in large degree the
true thought which Kant reaches when, in the Second Sec-
tion of his Metaphysic of Morals he changes his point of
view and his theory besides: for, having before made the
essence of morality to consist in a too unfeeling and purely
rational (in the narrow meaning of this word) respect for an
impersonal Law, he now recognizes the truth that morality
is essentially an intelligent and rational regard for the
interests of a Kingdom of Selves, an ideal of personal
dignity and worth. Personality is the only true sphere of
ends that are absolute and final. But regarded as religion,
the culture of piety reaches substantially the same point of
view, the same temper of mind, the same spirit of de-
votion to an essentially identical ideal. For the deified
ancestors, or the gods of the tribe, or the nature-gods, let us
substitute the cultured monotheistic conception, and con-
sider the attitude toward the World and toward Life, which
properly accompanies this conception. Now the supreme
motive to goodness becomes the adoring and loving service
of the One Personal Absolute who, although He is the alone
Absolutely Good, shares his goodness with all finite sentient
and personal life, and thus assigns to them as well as to
Himself the feeling and the exercises of piety, in the
religious meaning of that word.

The close relation between morality and religion, and yet
the infelicity of a complete identification and the complete
impossibility of a divorce of the two, may now be made
clearer in a somewhat different way. Let us, then, raise
and briefly answer the following question: What effect, if
granted, do the postulates of religion have upon the concep-

662 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

tions and principles of ethics ? That the great majority of
men have always accepted, and to a certain extent acted
upon these postulates, is one of the plainest general facts of
human history. Nor is there sufficient reason extant — no
matter how enormous one may estimate the opposing influ-
ences to be — for believing that any considerable number of
the human race will succeed in divesting their minds or
their lives of the influence from these postulates. The
question we have just raised is, therefore, most important
for the student of the philosophy of conduct who wishes to
understand its profounder and more difficult problems while,
at the same time, not removing his point of view from the
ground of actual human experiences.

The case may be briefly stated as follows: Man is, as a
matter of fact, a moral being. Man is also, as an equally
sure matter of fact, a religious being. But man is, con-
sidered as an individual, a unique kind of unity. And the
human species, considered in its specific characteristics and
specific development, is a looser but no less real kind of a
unity. Now in human history these two aspects of human
nature and of human development have always been most
closely allied, most powerful in their reciprocal influence.
Suppose that the inquirer professes — and to this there is
perhaps no objection, but several considerations in its favor
— to be a man of faith, or even of alleged knowledge lead-
ing to indubitable convictions, in matters of morality; and
that the same inquirer has little aptitude, and perhaps no
taste and scanty respect for religious truth, and for the life
that grows out of such truth; at any rate he must be pre-
pared to face the facts, and all the facts, of a human ex-
perience which is always, in the large, both ethical and
religious. Let such an inquirer consider, then, certain
religious truths as mere postulates; and let him also con-
sider the practices which, in fact, grow out of these post-
ulates as concessions to the faiths, fears, hopes, and

MORALITY AND RELIGION 563

aspirations of humanity. What follows from these postulates
within the more definite and special sphere of human con-
duct as studied from the moralist's point of view ?

In answer to such a question as that which has just been
raised one may confidently say, first : A certain considerable
class of new duties and of new ethical problems are now
forced prominently upon the attention. These duties and
problems are not " new " in the chronological meaning of the
word ; on the contrary, they are as old as the history of the
race itself. They are logically new only to the mind which
has accustomed itself to separate the faiths and practices of
the popular religious life from all its own conceptions and
principles regarding what are the essentially right and wrong
forms of human conduct. These duties and problems of duty
which uniformly arise out of the current religious faiths
and practices, even when one considers the latter as merely
postulated, are too complex and varied to admit of easy
classification. I shall, however, mention three classes which
will serve, at least, to illustrate my meaning.

And, first, religion, as both faith and practice, creates a
multitude of associated members within the larger social
organization, whose duties, when considered from the re-
ligious point of view, become special ; and who, by their very
existence, also create a special class of duties toward them-
selves on the part of the other members of the same social
organization. Such persons are the priests, prophets, min-
isters, acolytes, and religious devotees ; as well as pre-
eminently the authorities and rulers in the different religious
associations whatever the character of the religion in ques-
tion may be. The situation is rendered more perplexing
ethically by any sort of union between Church and State.
Granted only the existence of any class of specialized per-
sons, — such existence is everywhere a fact that must be
reckoned with, — and the treatment which they receive from
the individual, from society, and from the government,

664 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

becomes a complicated problem in morals. It is utterly vain
and unhistorical — whether it be impious, or not — to reason
theoretically, or to practise as though this class were, under
any existing circumstances or under any circumstances likely
to exist, to be treated precisely like all other classes. All
morality, as we have repeatedly seen, is special in its appli-
cation. The outcry against priestcraft and against the dom-
ination of the ecclesiastic is indeed warranted by the facts of
history. The throes of the governments of the nations in
their efforts to rid themselves of this domination are indeed
pitiful. The hatred and despite of it are largely pardonable,
if not wholly justifiable, in view of human experience. But
the throes and the woes of the peoples in their efforts to
obtain freedom from all special obligations to the classes
which represent religious ideals and religious authority are
no more severe and pitiful than the throes and the woes of
those who imagine themselves permanently to have effected
at least in this more external regard, a complete divorce
between morality and religion. To establish this conclusion,
witness the French Revolution. And it is unwise, with that
unwisdom which is saddest of all because it overlooks or
despises the teachings of history, for either France or the
United States to-day to think it possible to treat the religious
associations of the former country, or the religious orders in
the newly acquired territory of the latter country, otherwise
than as affording a very special and complex ethical problem.
The individual man who prizes and cultivates the pious life,
whether from the dominatingly moral or the religious point
of view, is sure to lose something from his morals without
gaining anything for his claim to superior intelligence, by
refusing practical recognition to any sincere and faithful
representative of the religious organization and religious
development of humanity. Nor can the student of the phil-
osophy of conduct fail to sympathize with the advocates of a
freer course for the religious life and of more recognition for

MORALITY AND RELIGION 665

spiritual authority in any fair and reasonable contest with the
rule of *' blood and iron."

In the second place, by far the majority in the different
larger social and political organizations of men recognize
their obligation to perform certain acts as so-called religious
duties. This is to a great extent true in the most " irre-
ligious communities." Impiety toward tlie gods and im-
piety toward man show essentially the same spirit; they
march hand in hand ; they grow strong and insolent in each
other's company. But in many communities the sphere of
conduct over which these more definitely religious duties
spread themselves constitutes a large portion of the practical
life. The example of the Hindu religion in India may
be referred to again in this connection. " He," says the
Egyptian '* Book of the Dead," — " he who blasphemes the
king, his father, or his god, he who lends his ear to evil and
remains deaf to the words of truth and righteousness, he who
hurts his neighbor or despises the gods in his heart, he can-
not enter into the dwellings of the blessed dead." Such sins
as these are violations of piety in both its moral and its
religious aspect. And although this code is largely negative
— a forbidding of immoral conduct in the name of religious
authority and with religious sanctions — there is abundant
evidence to show that the same relation maintains itself be-
tween the more positive injunctions of religion and the
equally positive injunctions of morality. In the lower as
well as the higher stages of ethico-religious development
human experience is essentially the same. The tattooing
of savages, for example, is in many instances a quasi-
religious rite made obligatory at puberty as a matter of
practice. Who can fail to regard the practice as much more
respectable on this account than when indulged in by the
modern English lady or gentleman — the motive being in
this case a fashionable fad? Again, are the lascivious
dances which are so widely prevalent in connection with

666 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

certain forms of religions cult any more reprehensible from
the ethical point of view than are the scarcely less indecent
recreations of much of so-called " polite society " ?

Many similar illustrations, although important, are com-
paratively trivial when contrasted with those more profound
and pervasive obligations that command certain forms of
conduct and forbid others, which grow by necessity out of
the accepted religious faiths and religious cult of any com-
munity. In China to-day, the binding relations to the family
and to the clan, which are the most powerful factors in de-
termining the characteristics and consequences of the national
life, are of a quasi-veWgious sort. The whole structure of
society reposes upon the foundations that are cemented by
these obligations. The case of ancient Rome was not unlike
this. In Russia at the present time it is a pious devotion,
showing itself in manifold forms of conduct, of suffering and
of self-denial toward the *' Holy Church " and the Czar, the
ruler and father of his people, which holds the social struc-
ture compacted together. Even in Western Europe and in
America the conduct of the daily life of the multitude in all
their economic, political, and social relations, is either dictated
or commended and reinforced, or else restrained and rebuked
by the prevalent religious ideas. And whoever determines to
live a jpurely moral life, and yet keep himself free from the
influence of these ideas and the practices corresponding to
them, attempts a wholly impossible task. The popular faiths
may not be his faiths ; the prevalent cults he may despise ;
the common practices he may regard as of doubtful validity
and usefulness from his own ethical point of view. But he
can scarcely aim to live the virtuous life — much less, meet
with any satisfying success in the realization of this aim —
without making some of these faiths the practical postulates
of his own morality.

Yet further, in the third place, the influence of the preva-
lent religious faiths and practices over the duties and prob-

MORALITY AND RELIGION 667

lems of ethics is felt when one considers how the religious
point of view modifies the scope and the character of ethical
opinion and ethical discussion. If there is a God, and if the
religious life is to be considered essential to all morally right
living, then human opinions and points of view respecting
many an ethical problem are liable to undergo important
changes. The influence of the religious postulates is enor-
mous here. The very conclusion of the Kantian criticism is
this : opine, believe and act as though God were, and as though
He were the absolute Moral Reason, the Guardian and Judge
of righteousness among men. In the field of pure reason this
criticism leads to a most thorough-going agnosticism ; in
spite of which, however, the fundamental ethico-religious
faiths of humanity in God, Freedom, and Immortality, are
reinstated in the form of necessary postulates of the universal
practical reason. One may accept, or not, the critical method
of Kant and his followers. One may feel warranted, or
not, in rejecting the agnostic conclusion. But one cannot
wholly fail of respecting and adopting the practical postulate :
Opine, reason, and behave, as though the origin, sanctions,
principles, and sure evolution of man's moral life and moral
ideals were not in himself alone or in the structure of mate-
rial things ; but, the rather, as though they had their ground
in the Being of that Personal Absolute whom religion believes
in, and worships as God. And, indeed, to do otherwise than
this, to make more than a pretence of the total rejection of
this practical postulate, in the large and for any long time,
would seem to be impossible for the Imman race.

Nor is the explanation hard to find of the remarkable te-
nacity with which the mind of man clings to opinions and
theories which imply that man's moral life is neither alien
nor indifferent to the superior Spiritual Being in which reli-
gion believes. Men have hard work to withhold the religious
nature from all influence over their opinions in the more
purely scientific fields of experience. The particular sciences

568 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

do, indeed, deal primarily with what is considered to be mere
truth of actuality ; their so-called laws are descriptions of the
general facts of human experience. But the shadow of the
Ideal which is at the same time an illuminating centre, is
over them all. In their orderly behavior, and in the concep-
tions of sublimity which they incite, " the heavens declare the
glory of God and the firmament showeth his handiwork."
Art and ethics, however, when we attempt to treat thought-
fully and methodically their phenomena, reveal themselves as
belonging to the spheres into which reach upward the ideals
of man. But the supreme and all-comprehending Ideal-Real,
the Reality which stands as the correlate, in the thought
and imagination of men, of all their loftiest and worthiest
ideals, is the object of their religious faith, contemplation, and
service. So that their opinions as to the verities of art and
of morals cannot possibly escape all important influence from
the religious life.

In scores and hundreds of small practical ways, and in a
manner closely fitting to the details of daily life, what men
believe and feel about the faiths and practices of religion
influences their judgments and practices in matters of con-
duct. Of this it is scarcely necessary to give illustrations;
and to the fundamental principles involved in these related
experiences I shall return in other connections. The rankest
atheist, the most confirmed agnostic, cannot judge himself or
others, and behave toward others, as though there were abso-
lutely no " soul of truth " in the religious faiths and practices
of his fellow men.

What is true of ethical views and moral practices, respect-
ing their dependence upon the postulates of religion, is
emphatically true also of the sanctions of morality. The
sanctions of conduct become profoundly modified, and greatly
reinforced by taking the religious point of view from which to
regard them. Standing in fear and awe before mere mystery
the ancient Hebrews could speak of the thunder as the " voice

MORALITY AND RELIGION 669

of Yahveh." The more interior and penetrating view of the
sources for that mandatory character which the moral con-
sciousness not infrequently assumes has led to the popular
regard of conscience as the " voice of God." Questions of
casuistry, as well as questions of profit and of destiny, have
often enough been relegated to diviners and priests who
settle them by declaring the divine will. Not only does the
Chinese merchant try his prospective luck, in lottery fashion
before the idol in the temple ; but the devout worshipper who
doubts as to what in some particular emergency his duty
may be, asks, "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" If
the pious soul can discover the divine will it is satisfied that
it has the right side of the problem of conduct ; — and this,
oftentimes, even when the judgment of the multitude or of
the wise men is on the other side. There are few things at
once more pathetic and more dignified in human history than
the position on questions of right and wrong which have been
taken, in loneliness, by the always few devoted followers of
the Lord, when the popular declarations were all the other
way. On God's side stood the Hebrew prophets when his
people were against Him respecting the moral issues of
their day. On God's side stood Socrates, satisfied that the
sanctifying testimony of the daemon within him was ideally
better to follow, even at the cost of life, than the judgments
of the Athenian demos. On God's side stood Martin Luther
and felt that it was enough that he could do no otherwise.
But in less conspicuous and in historically unimportant ways
thousands of plain men and women are constantly trying
to invoke the divine sanctions upon their conduct of the path
of life. And these are by no means they who are least intel-
ligent or least successful in the practical solution of those
questions of right conduct which so frequently perplex us all.
The undoubted fact that many crimes against the moral
ideal have been committed in the name of religion does not
diminish but rather increases the force of our argument.

570 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

Crimes innumerable have also been committed in the name
of freedom. This statement is true, whether such crimes
arise out of ignorance or out of more purely immoral im-
pulses. Human experience shows, in a historical way, that
neither religion nor political freedom can safely be estranged
from a cultivated intelligence and a sound moral con-
sciousness. Where, as so frequently happens, the breaches
of the moral code are indefensible when viewed in the light
of the moral ideal, but are made under the impulse of a sin-
cere religious zeal, the whole phenomenon illustrates anew
the close relations which exist between morality and religion
so far as the sanctions of both are concerned. Saul, when he
persecuted the followers of Jesus, thinking thus to do God
service, is as forceful an illustration of this relation as Paul
when, the most notable follower of the same Jesus, he is ready
himself to be " offered up for his sake." Immoral religion and
irreligious morality — if one may be tolerated for the time in
forming such conjunctions of words — are inept verbal link-
ings together of different aspects of human nature which, in
their more fundamental relations, are somewhat indissolubly
united.

Connected with the same considerations is the almost
world-wide experience that a certain purity of heart and purifi-
cation of life is deemed necessary by religion in approaching
the gods, and in all manner of divine service. This purity
is, indeed, too often merely formal and ceremonial ; and the
external purifications are too often made the substitute for a
real improvement in the motives and principles of conduct, if
not a cover for positive immoralities to hide themselves behind.
It is true also that an excessively emotional religious expe-
rience not infrequently, instead of warming and vivifying the
sources of right conduct, makes the more pliable or fluid
those barriers which sound judgment, and the evolution of
morally superior customs have erected against wrong conduct.
In all such cases, however, it is doubtful how much, what can

MORALITY AND RELIGION 671

properly be esteemed religious faith, and even what can prop-
erly be called religious fervor has to answer in its own right
for that lowering of moral tone and those excesses of license
which have become connected with it. Phallic worship and
the vile practices in the name, and to the honor of the gods,
which are its accompaniment, have undoubtedly in various
places been an almost integral part of the worship of nature.
In Syria, Assyria, and Old Japan, this was so. In India to-
day there are religious rites and religious festivals not a few,
as well as surviving customary privileges of the B rah mans,
which are the occasions of gross and bestial immoralities.
The presence of the lingam lingers everywhere in the land.
But it is by no means easy in most of these instances to de-
termine how far the real causes for the lowering of the standard
of the public morals can rightly be attributed to the prevalent
religion. The worship of Krishna has undoubtedly been the
patron of debauchery. But the existing debauchery in the
hearts and lives of both priests and people accounts, in turn,
for the impurities of the god Krishna.

However, then, one may be disposed to distribute the re-
sponsibility for a degradation of the popular conduct between
morality and religion — the two aspects of the one moral and
religious Selfhood of man in his social relations and social
organization — one cannot fail to be impressed chiefly with
another and opposing current of influences. In general, re-
ligion has stood for a more or less sincere purity of heart,
and for a more or less serious and effective attempt at purifi-
cation of the moral life. In all forms of religion which have
passed beyond the very lowest stages in the evolution of
man's moral life, it has been held that purity of soul is
necessary for acceptable worship of the gods ; and the effect
of this admission has been most powerful over the historical
development of the popular morals. For as the bard who
sang thousands of years ago in the Odyssey (III. 48) well
knew : " All men long after the gods." The tribute paid by

672 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

the chorus in Sophocles' " King Oedipus " to the power of
religious feeling is as rational philosophically as it is poeti-
cally beautiful

" Oh may I live
Sinless and pure in every word and deed,
Ordained by those firm laws that hold their realm on high !
Begotten of heaven, of brightest ether born,
Created not of man's ephemeral mould.
They ne'er shall sink to slumber in oblivion ;
A power of God is there, untouched by Time."

The gods are, indeed, always, in respect of some of the forms
of the virtuous life, above man as he actually is ; they belong
to the " Overman," to the kingdom of human ideals. Thus,
the desire of intercourse with these divine beings, the wish
to stand well with them, and the fear of their disfavor, —
all of the motives belonging to the more especially religious
experience of humanity, — are essentially and permanently
enlisted on the side of a higher than the prevalent standard
of morality among men.

Were examples needed, they might be given, almost with-
out limit, of the powerful influence which religion has ex-
ercised in purifying morals and uplifting the moral ideal.
India, the land where religion remains so largely identified
with mere form and ceremonial, and so largely deprived of
its legitimate good influences over the popular morals, is by
no means an exception to this rule. On the contrary, its best
religious teachers have always held that without purity of
heart no man shall see the Lord; and that unless religion
shows itself in a real improvement of the moral life, it is
spurious and vain. According to Hindu doctrine, the *^ holy
man" is indeed Sattwik (" liaving a healthy taste") as
respects his diet ; he " likes food that promotes longevity,
tranquillity, strength, freedom from disease and cheerfulness,
— food that is palatable, soothing, nourisliing, and cheering."
He has also been taught precisely how to regulate his breath-

MORALITY AND RELIGION ^78

ing, his dress, his gestures, his entire life in its details.
There is bondage in all this. But the Hindu doctrine also
teaches, that *' tliere is only one kind of bondage in the world,
viz., the bondage of passions and no other. '* Freed from the
control of desires, like the moon emerged from murky clouds,
the man of wisdom, purged of all stains, lives in patient ex-
pectation of his time." And the summing-up of all the
morality which grows out of true religion is this :

" I. Let not adversity and temptations bend you.

"II. Divest yourself of stiffening pride and hardening
selfishness.

" III. Do not seek your own glory, but the glory of your
fellow brothers.'*

Summarized and translated into the hortatory principle of
religious devotion, these maxims become : ^ "Do all works
and at all times under His shelter, and then by His Grace
you will be saved."

I am sure also that the practical insufficiency of morality
to sustain and elevate its own principles without support and
help from religion can be shown by an appeal to almost all
the human experience which illustrates this subject. How-
convincing is the testimony of history to this truth has
already been made the subject of remark. The depen-
dence of the morals of the state on the popular teachings
with respect to the nature of God and of man's relation to
Him is emphasized and illustrated toward the close of the
Second Book of Plato's Republic, although in a negative way.
If lies and lying vanities are not to be tolerated among the
citizens, all men must know that " the superhuman and divine
is absolutely incapable of falsehood." Later (III, 391) Plato
declares that stories about the immoral conduct of the gods
" are likely to have a bad effect on those who hear them ; for
everybody will begin to excuse his own vices when he is con-
vinced that similar wickednesses are always being perpetrated
1 Compare the Bhagavad Gita, chap, xviii, verse 56.

574 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

by the kindred of the gods." That is to say, such false
opinions in religion are the equivalent of a lowering of the
moral ideal in its effect upon the morals of society.

But more positively we may say, and may place our declar-
ation upon an empirical and historical basis : Human moral-
ity has unceasing need of religion for its better support and
more effective triumph over all the weaknesses and tempta-
tions which assault and try the very foundations upon which
it reposes its rules for the practical life. It is cold, hard
work for the human soul, and frightfully difficult and unsafe
for human society to try to lead the virtuous life strenuously
and perfectly, and to hold up and advance the moral ideals,
without the faiths, consolations, and cheer, which religion
has to offer. Who can deny that, if we may believe in God
as the Righteous One, as the Vindicator and Guardian of
righteousness and at the same time the pitiful and gracious
Father of men, and if we may hold to the hope of the triumph
at the last of his Kingdom, as the reign over all rational
spirits, of righteousness, truth, and peace, then living accord-
ing to our lights upon moral principles, and pursuing tirelessly
and loyally the highest Moral Ideal, is a less distressing —
nay ! a far more hopeful, sure, and joyful thing ? The
strongest in the race for moral perfection get weary and
even discouraged at times. The most loyal suffer, in certain
moments of defeat, the almost irresistible temptation to
strike the colors which they have held up in the service of
their lord and master. Duty. What if humanity goes all the
more to the dogs, or to the devil, because I decline to bear
extreme hardship or stand in my post as a suffering soldier
in its behalf ? Why should I concern myself ? Whence
comes this unceasing and unsparing obligation to an Ideal
that grows the more exacting for the individual and the race,
the more the individual and the race rise through sweat, and
toil, and infinite loss of treasure and blood, toward its allur-
ing embrace ? How can the moral Law dare to impose upon

MORALITY AND RELIGION 675

the quivering flesh and sensitive soul of the world's best and
noblest, the seemingly unreasonable sanction of its imperative
demands ? Surely the thoughtful man must find in such ques-
tions as these the true metaphysical riddles of the universe.
Not in the nature of space, or of matter, or of the hypotheti-
cal atom, do the most puzzling of all problems lie concealed.
They consist rather in the practical antinomies of the moral
nature and moral development of the race. And yet the
enliglitened moral consciousness somehow feels that the last
thing which the rational Self can afford to let slip, or even to
loosen its firm grip upon, is the Moral Ideal. This Ideal is
vague, changeable, and elusive ; it partakes of the nature of
the Infinite from which it comes. But it is both alluring and
commanding ; and wholly to let it go is damnation for the
individual and for society — sure and swift, and already well
on the way to completion.

To one whose position toward the moral Law and the
moral Ideal corresponds, whether very occasionally or more
frequently and even habitually to any of the points of view
just described, religion certainly offers itself in a most in-
viting way. Let its faiths and alleged knowledges for the
present be considered merely as practical postulates. To
examine reflectively these postulates, and to criticise and
harmonize these alleged knowledges is the task of the phil-
osophy of religion ; and the psychology of the religious being
and life of man must be invoked to consider in detail how it is
that religion supports and helps the moral life of man. I can
only indicate a few thoughts upon the subject here.

Religion imparts warmth and vitality to morality. Let it
be supposed that one is trying to lead the virtuous life, with-
out faith in God, Freedom, or Immortality. We need not
take the position which Kant expounded, and thus institute
the claim that these tenets of religion are indubitably im-
plicate in a moral law that needs no appeal to human ex-
perience, no other sponsor than the 'pure practical reason,

576 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

in order to authenticate itself. We will only ask: What
effect on such a worthy strife for the Moral Ideal is had by
the absence of all these faiths of religion ? The irrationality
— not to say, foolishness — of voluntarily subjecting one's
self to a mere impersonal law, removed from all concrete,
personal interests, has already been sufficiently exposed. But
without belief in the reality of God, and in the immortal life
regarded as dependent upon man's voluntary relations to
Him, certainly much of the most important of these personal
interests is removed from the place of power. Devotion to
the practical concernments of a system of physical and
psychical existences that can never attain title to the
worthiest conception of personality, or of a kingdom of
personal ends and so of the supremest dignity and worth,
is surely a difficult attitude of mind consistently and per-
sistently to maintain. Some few — good few, if you will —
are perhaps equal to the task. But the multitude of men are
not so strong. And there is reason more than to suspect,
that it is the only half-conscious but profound hereditary and
environing influence of the religious nature, which contributes
no little accession to the strength of these " good few."

How the baser fears of a religious sort reinforce the fear of
the consequences which follow the disregarding of moral obli-
gations imposed by custom, or by the statute, or even by the
moral consciousness of the individual, it is scarcely necessary
to show. A reverent attitude toward the Divine Will and an
awesome regard for the consequences of giving offence to
Deity, is closely akin to that respect for the Moral Law in
which Kant thought to find the only emotional factor in true
morality. The hopes of religion, — not so much the hopes of
reward which it holds out, but rather the hopes of success in
making some small contribution to the eternal blessedness of
the world, — reinforce the courage with which the devout
soul meets the problems of the moral life. Thus one finds
the more satisfying practical solution of many of these prob-

MORALITY AND RELIGION 677

lems. We are "saved by hope," both in morals and in
religion, — while faith in the effective goodness of God is so
closely akin to the practical and influential belief in the
supreme worth and final supremacy of moral interests, that
the two seem quite identical. Both require, at any rate, that
constancy of confidence in the higher ideals of human reason
which is the " sustaining grace " of all who cultivate any
form of that which is conceived of as " in-itself Good." ^

Tt is everywhere assumed, as a matter of course, that
morality and religion are together, and in their relations of
reciprocity, subject to development. Savagism and brutality,
where they exist, show themselves in both the moral and the
religious beliefs and practices of any social organization.
The characteristic temperament of the individual, or the
prevalent temper and established habits of any age, furnish
conditions to the manifestation of both forms of human con-
sciousness. The culture of one at the expense or in neglect
of the other may effect a temporary schism between the two.
Nor is it quite possible to tell how moral any individual or
nation may become, after the religious development has been
allowed to lag far behind ; or, viee versa, how intelligent and
sincerely religious a man or a people may be, while as yet
their ethical progress has not been in any marked way pro-
moted. The "conversion" of the Saxons by Charlemagne
was no more and no less bloody than his other imperial per-
formances. And if one Capitulare (that of Paderborn, 785)
decreed death for him who refused baptism, or wantonly ate
meat during Lent, or burned a corpse after the custom of the
heathen, this was no more immoral surely than the infliction
of the punishment of death upon the man who, to satisfy the
Imnger of his children, knocked down a hare in the forest of
some English nobleman. The latter immoral and legalized

1 Compare the declaration of Carus, Moral philosophic, p. 169 : Vorausgesetzt
wird vor jeder Religionspflicht, die Fflicht ein moralisches Interesse zu erregen
fUr den Glauben an die walire Gottheit and das sterbliche unendliche Zlel.

578 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

cruelty can scarcely be charged to the influence of the Chris-
tian religion. The horrors of the wars in South Africa
and the Philippine Islands are certainly not intensified by
the genuine Christianity of the nations that are waging
them.

To return, then, to the fundamental truths regarding the
relations of morality and religion, so far as these truths can
be based upon human experience with both these aspects
of human nature in its social workings. A reflective study
of the phenomena fails to identify the two. Religion is not
the sole ground, nor does it afford the only sanctions, of
morality ; nor does religion wholly correspond to morality in
respect to the ideal which it presents. But the roots of the
two are largely the same, — both those that strike down into
the unchangeable constitution of man, and those that spread
widely in the underlying strata of ail human domestic and
other social conditions. Both the similarities and the differ-
ences are rather too manifold and subtle to admit of offhand
analysis or easy-going enumeration. The faiths, fears, hopes,
sanctions, and ideals of the two merge into each other, and
interpenetrate in myriads of ways. It is the many-sided
nature of the one moral and religious Self which is expressing
itself in both ways, — inseparably allied, never to be divorced,
but always to be accorded those items of special worth which
belong to each, and never in a crude and incautious manner
to be confused or identified.

Morality and religion need each other in order to secure
the perfect and more blessed and worthy ideals of life ; or,
rather, in order to live up toward our growing and rising
conceptions of this blessed and worthy life. If, on the one
hand, morality needs religion in order to impart to it warmth,
comfort, and the assurance of faith — needs, in a word, the
divine Life and the divine Grace — none the less does religion
customarily show itself inferior to morality in clearness of
vision, in rational character, and in practical adaptability to

MORALITY AND RELIGION 679

the exigencies of the present life. As says Dr. Laurie :^ " A
system of moral ends has an opportunity of correcting itself
from day to day by the perceived results of human activity,
while in the region of pure idea, which may always be dis-
connected from the actualities of life, there is no such con-
tinual corrective of the false and the inadequate." I cannot,
indeed, agree with the proposition that the " region of pure
idea " may " always be disconnected from the actualities of
life " ; nor is the phrase an adequate description either of the
domain of speculative thinking upon the great philosophical
problems of religion, or of the practical and emotional expe-
riences which enter into the religious life. But man un-
doubtedly has more of solid and indubitable experiences
connecied with the sources, the sanctions, the principles, the
development, and the consequences of conduct, when con-
sidered from the ethical point of view, than with the corre-
sponding problems in the domain of religion. There is more
of racial solidarity, of historical verity, of experimental truth,
and immediate practical import, in morality than in religion.

It is not necessary to enter into the reasons for this prac-
tical superiority of the ethical over the religious sanctions
and principles. Man feels, indeed, the obligation to conduct
himself aright in all his many and varied relations to his total
environment. So far as the proper adjustment depends upon
his own conduct, the obligation is ethical ; the adjustment is
a moral problem ; the processes and results belong to the
sphere of ethics. If divine beings, in any of the many forms
simulated or faithfully represented by human conceptions,
really exist, then the adjustment of human relations to them,
and of the relations of men to one another and to their physi-
cal environment, as coming under these divine beings, is a
matter of ethical concernment. The postulates of religion
place the conduct of men toward the Divine within the
domain of moral sanctions and moral principles. But in-

1 Ethica, p. 189.

580 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

asmuch as these postulates do not in most cases attain the
same position of clear light and intelligent comprehension
which belongs to the faiths, knowledges, and practices, of mor-
ality, religion remains inferior to, or rather dependent upon,
morality in certain important respects. In certain others, as
I have already shown, the relation is reversed : morality de-
pends upon the acceptance of the religious postulates; and
religion becomes the most desirable and helpful companion,
and even supporter and inspirer of the virtuous life.

In this connection mention should be made of that one
great and perpetually recurring danger which arises out of
the inherent natural and historical connection of morality
with religion. I refer to the dangerous heresy of a double
morality. Such a two-sided ethical system only makes con-
fusion worse confounded ; it debases religion and loads down
morals with an added weight of practical and theoretical
contradictions. Nevertheless, this doctrine of a double moral-
ity has been somewhat variously held. Sometimes it amounts
to having one code for duties connected with religious faith
and worship, and another for those forms of conduct which
it is convenient to regard as not belonging to the religious
life. At other times, the distinction is made between essenti-
ally different principles and sanctions of conduct, — some
having reference only to the members of your own religious
caste or sect, others which are to be brought into play w^hen
dealing with the adherents of other religions. Or, yet again,
within the sphere of the religious life itself, the distinction is
set up between a higher and a lower morality. The low^er is,
perhaps, the morality of the laity, the higher that of the
clergy ; or the lower is the morality of duty merely, and the
higher that to which the merit of some special divine favor is
attached. In this way piety and morality, instead of being
drawn together and made to impart each to the other its
peculiar strength, are further separated. The two ideals are
rendered antagonistic rather than complementary and recipro-

MORALITY AND RELIGION 681

cally assisting. Thus the great Church Father, Thomas Aqui-
nas, in his effort to combine '' ecclesiastical supernaturalism "
with the ethical views of Plato and Aristotle, made a sharp divis-
ion between the cardinal virtues of the Greek ethics — wisdom,
justice, self-control, and courage — and the three supernatural
virtues of faith, love, and hope. It is easy to see how this
division may be used to withdraw from the virtue of wisdom
the support of faith in the Divine goodness, to take away
from justice the warning and vivifying influence of the Divine
love, and to withold from self-control and courage the support,
which they so sorely need, of a cheering religious hope. But
religious faith should inspire wisdom ; love should infuse
justice ; and hope should sustain courage.

Here again, however, it is not religion and morality which
contain in their own nature, or by virtue of their more
legitimate influences are responsible for, so sad a mistake in
ethics, so dangerous a doctrine in religion. To-day, under the
baleful domination of commercial greed, and notwithstanding
the plainest teachings of the world's most highly developed
moral principles and the most potent exhortations and
motives of the Christian religion, this detestable heresy, this
most perilous enemy both of pure morals and of sincere
religion holds sway over the multitude of minds. In national
and international politics, the current morality is double.
The combined forces of morality and religion must be invoked
to grind into powder this brazen and hideous two-faced idol
of the age. To shape the material into the image of the new
man, whose moral consciousness suffuses and illumines his re-
ligious faiths and religious cult, and whose religious conscious-
ness warms, consoles, and supports in the struggle with evil
his moral conduct, both sets of influences must work harmoni-
ously. But there is much truth in Martensen's statement i that
" abstract autonomic morality only appears at those seasons
when there is also religious decay." It is when both morals

1 Christian Ethics, p. 17.

582 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

and religion are decaying that the practice of a double moral-
ity is likeliest to be rife. Its prevalence at present is one of
the most foreboding signs of the times.

We are now in a position to see more clearly what is the
bearing of this profound and many-sided connection between
morality and religion upon the ultimate problems of ethics.
In attempting to pursue these problems, our way was blocked
by certain antinomies, or puzzles which seemed to baffle all
attempts satisfactorily to solve them by employing only the
material which empirical and historical ethics could furnish.
The theoretical handling of this material had forced an
inquiry into the nature, origin, sanctions, and development,
of a rational Ideal ; and the very constitution of this Ideal, so
to speak, had come to appear of a superhuman, not to say
supernatural, character. Moreover, the moral Ideal appeared
to make demands upon the life of conduct which were difficult
to reconcile either theoretically or practically with the inter-
ests of other sides of human nature and other forces in the
historical evolution of human society. Hence, finally, arose
those theoretical and practical antinomies, which it was found
impossible to solve either by substituting some other ideal
for the moral ideal, or by debasing the character of the ideal
itself. The extent of these problems was seen to be co-
incident with the entire sphere of human conduct, and of the
development of the race as dependent upon its own conduct.
Such sciences as economics, politics, and sociology, which
deal with men as associated and interacting, upon a basis of
their total physical environment in a great variety of ways,
are all ethical. But the solutions which they offer only
emphasize anew and extend still further these distinctively
ethical problems, these antinomies of the practical reason as
the responsible ruler of the life of man.

We are now also in a position to affirm that religion does
offer much needed assistance toward resolving the antinomies
of ethics ; that it does throw light upon the puzzling problems

MORALITY AND RELIGION 683

with which the student of the philosophy of conduct finds
himself confronted after he has used up all his empirical
data, and has lent his ear to all the different theories re-
garding the nature, sanctions, principles, and development,
of what men call " the Right " in conduct and in character.
The help from religion to morality is real though not com-
plete ; it should be respectfully considered and gratefully
received, even if it is only partial. I will, then, put my con-
tention into the following form : If those postulates of
religion which the constitution and history of man seem to
warrant him in accepting be made the faith of the scml and
the guide of the practical life, many of the practical anti-
nomies of ethics are either completely solved, or much re-
lieved. These postulates themselves may be so stated as to
appeal to a vast amount of experience which evinces the close
and indissoluble connection, but not identity, of morality and
religion as they grow out of the personal life of humanity
and develop in their historical interrelations according to the
nature and goal of this life.

In order that the truth I am presenting may appear in
more convincing form, let us take for a moment both morality
and religion at their best. On the one hand, the best morality
approves such a view of life as regards the moral ideal to
be above all other ends of conduct most inspiring and most
worthy to enlist the efforts of the rational mind. But this
ideal is personal ; it is rich in all the concrete virtues which
the Moral Self feels obligated to endeavor to realize. The
virtues of self-control are necessary factors in this ideal ; but
they do not enable the good man to dispense with the virtues
of judgment. And strong and constant self-control, even
when well coupled with wisdom, prudence, and truthfulness,
cannot boast itself to be quite independent of sympathy, kind-
ness, and benevolence. Nor is this ideal stationary ; and so
capable of being approached without itself undergoing any
improvement. Were it not the subject of development its

684 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

own imperfections would soon become too manifest to admit
of its being longer regarded as a worthy ideal. Nor does the
ideal encourage an exclusive devotion to one's Self — not
even to one's own better and ideal Self, as though this could
possibly be realized in independence of devotion to the in-
terests of the social organization. On the contrary, the
moral ideal is so distinctively social that one cannot even
begin to consider the existence, or much less the hopeful
development, of the individual moral Self as possible apart
from other selves w^ho constitute with it a moral association,
a kin^om of persons in which personal interests and per-
sonal ends are regarded as the only realities of supremest
worth. This tenet is true, although the most difficult prac-
tical problems of ethics often arise in the attempt to know
just how to adjust the higher interests of the individual Self
with the higher interests of the social organization. But,
then, here is one of the practical antinomies which religion
may help us to relieve or even to solve.

What, on the other hand, may the best religion be said to
maintain ? In answering this question it is not proposed to
make any selection among the different religions which con-
test with one another the claim to occupy the first rank in
the respectful consideration of mankind. Nor is it proposed
to try to enumerate those tenets of religious faith in which
the best religions may be supposed substantially to agree. I
wish now only to state briefly what are the propositions, as
regarded from the ethical point of view, which appear to
represent what is highest and best in the religious faith of
mankind. The best religion as related to ethics is, then, the
faith in an Ideal Personality, whose real Being affords the
source, the sanctions, and the guaranty of the best morality ;
and to whom reverential and loving loyalty may be the
supreme principle for the conduct of life. This ethically best
of the religious tenets lies slumbering in the exhortations
which so many religions make that their followers should

MORALITY AND RELIGION 585

purify their hearts and lives, if they wish acceptably to ap-
proach the Divine presence and find favor in the Divine sight.
This it is which is symbolized in the mirror of Shinto, and
more clearly expressed in those doctrines of Hinduism to
which reference has already been made. This is the sub-
stance regarding the gods, and the relations of men to them,
of that which is taught by much of the Egyptian Book of the
Dead. This it is which the religious experience of that
people who had a special genius for religion embodied in the
conception of Yahveh as the God of righteousness. But pre-
eminently is this the central ethico-religious tenet of Chris-
tianity ; the way of right conduct is the way of salvation ; it
is the way of man's being perfect after the pattern of his
Father in Heaven ; it is the " imitation of Christ."

And now, bringing together these two clusters of best
conceptions, — one from morality and the other from religion,
— we may see how they unite to furnish the most illumi-
nating, and as well the most inspiring, comforting, and
hopeful attitude toward the problems of morality and the
conduct of the practical life. In other terms, the postulates
of the best religion, when they are joined to the choicest
conceptions and principles of the highest moral development,
solve in a way the practical antinomies which non-veligious
ethics leaves in the dark. From these two higher points of
view, — the ethical and the religious, — or rather from the
one ethico-religious ground of standing which covers and
occupies them both, the so-called moral laws coincide in their
principles and in their sanctions with the religious commands.
All duties become for the true believer due to God as the
ideally perfect Person, and to men as his children, as " Sons
of God." All virtues become, essentially considered, right
attitudes toward the King whose kingdom includes as its
members all sentient, and especially all rational and personal
life. All doing right becomes interpretable as loyalty to the
will of God, as keeping the Divine Law, or as being a true

586 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

son of God. This is the exaltation in its ethical aspect of the
words ascribed to Hippocrates who coupled with the inclusive
" all " the adjectives " divine " and " human " as well {irdvra
Beta KoX avOpcdiriva Trdvra). Thus man's faith toward the Moral
Ideal falls into line with his Way of Salvation ; the antithesis
between the Moral Self, with its law and ideal of life, and the
sentient Self, with its strong craving for satisfaction of desire
and personal happiness, is softened ; and finally, it is made to
vanish wholly away. The hard setting together of the teeth
and tense straining of the muscles in the effort to run well
the race of duty in the sight of an impersonal and forever
unattainable ideal gives place to a no less strenuous, but
more hopeful and joyful service, because it is a loyal devo-
tion to a personal master and friend. The social instincts
and other more crude and non-rational motifs which evoke a
regard for the interests of others are found to be only antici-
pations of that rational recognition of kinship which entitles
every member of the race to a share in the blessings of a
social ideal, of a true Kingdom of God.

This is the truth in its sublimated form which Plato teaches
by way of exhortation at the close of his most masterly Dia-
logue— "The Republic";

" Wherefore my counsel is, that we hold fast to the heavenly
way and follow after justice and virtue always, considering
that the soul is immortal and able to endure every sort of
good and every sort of evil. Thus shall we live dear to one
another and to the gods, both while remaining here and when,
like conquerors in the games who go round to gather gifts,
we receive our reward. And it shall be well with us both in
this life and in the pilgrimage of a thousand years which we
have been reciting."

In the previous discussion the faiths and practices of
religion have been regarded simply as postulates which have
an undoubtedly important effect in modifying the practical
antinomies of ethics. These postulates have been for tlie

MORALITY AND RELIGION 587

most part accepted as they are to be discovered in operation
among men, and exerting their matter-of-fact influence over
human conduct and over human opinions respecting the
right and wrong of conduct. It remains necessary for the
completion of our attempt to throw light upon the ultimate
problems of ethics that we should inquire into that course of
reflective thinking by which these postulates are best justified.
And this I shall do under two heads, — namely, first, the
identification of the ground of morality with the World-
Ground, or the doctrine of God as the Source of the moral
law, its sanctions and its development ; and, second, the
justification of the hope that the ultimate moral ideal will
be realized in the establishment of the Divine Kingdom.

CHAPTER XXV

THE GROUND OF MORALITY AND THE WORLD-GROUND

A CERTAIN natural and naive, but strong and indissoluble
bond between morality and religion has been seen to be the
explanation of much of the ethical history of humanity.
Although morality and religion are not throughout identical,
but, the rather, express and emphasize different complex
aspects of human nature and of the development of man,
they constantly draw upon the same sources and reveal simi-
lar ideal conceptions and ideal aims. But more especially is
it true that religion furnishes to morality the much needed,
and even indispensable, support of its faiths and its motives,
— indeed, of its entire affective and practical attitude toward
reality and toward the conditions and ends of life. And,
finally, if one will but accept the postulates of religion, and
shape his conduct in accordance with them, some of the most
trying of the antithetic and seemingly contradictory positions
in which the empirical and historical study of ethics leaves
the mind are either greatly relieved or wholly transcended.
The soul, aspiring after the ideal of a virtuous life, and finding
the way so difficult and the goal set by the ideal so unattain-
able under existing circumstances, is quieted and encouraged,
incited and cheered, by the faiths and hopes of religion.
Indeed, in its most approved form, the belief in God and
the service of God become the fundamental and controlling
principles of the life of conduct and of the development of
character.

In the historical evolution of liumanity — both ethically
and religiously — this natural and na'ive connection between

MORALITY AND THE WORLD-GROUND 589

morals and religion must give way to a more sure and broad
comprehension of the common basis upon which both repose.
But such a comprehension can be obtained only through philo-
sophical reflection. Here, as everywhere, philosophy seeks to
discover, to criticise, and to harmonize those universals which
have their existence for experience in all the phenomena of
man's life. These " universals " in ethics which have already
been discovered and discussed, — chiefly from the psychologi-
cal and historical points of view, — have proved, in general,
to be of two orders : (1) certain functions of human nature
and their products, — the various kinds of right and wrong
conduct and of opinions about conduct, — which belong to all
men, in whatever stage of moral evolution you may find them ;
and (2) certain ideals which, although variously conceived in
respect of their details and always conceived imperfectly, are
shared in by all men, and which influence most powerfully
the entire development of humanity so far as this development
is dependent, either directly or indirectly, upon the results of
human conduct. These two orders of so-called " universals "
are not, however, spoken of as tivo^ in the meaning of being
divided or separated by exclusion of either class from the
other. The moral ideals have themselves been shown to be
the functions of man's idealizing mind, and thus dependent
in their own development upon the historical changes which
have gone on in the actual nature of his conduct and of his
judgment concerning the right and wrong of conduct. But,
on the other hand, it has also been shown that the actual
practices of men and the prevalent opinions as to the nature
of the moral life, are themselves dependently connected with
these ideals. In other words, man creates the norm — the
universal and necessary ideas, the so-called " moral law," or
"categorical imperative" — which itself, in turn, forms his
actual life of conduct and gives shape to his entire moral and
social evolution.

The ultimate philosophical problem in ethics becomes,

590 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

then, the inquiry, by critical reflection, into the real ground
for the existence and development of human moral life ; and
for the progressive realization of the moral ideals of humanity.
How does the ground of morality stand related to the Being
of that which philosophy knows as the " World-Ground " ?
Or to put the question more concretely and definitely in the
terms of religion : Can the mind frame a rational system
of ethics without admitting (either as tenet of faith, or as
postulate, or as reasoned knowledge) the Divine Being, so
conceived of as to be the Source, the final Sanctioner, and
the Guarantor of morality among men ? I believe that this
last question must most emphatically be answered, No. Or, to
turn the answer into an affirmative proposition : The Ground
of Morality for man must be found in the World-Ground
conceived of as an ethical personality, as the ideally righteous
and holy God. Thus, and thus only, can that which the
multitude of the race have always done naturally and naively
— namely, establish a more or less vital connection between
their moral conceptions and practices regarded from the
ethical point of view, and the faiths, feelings, and practices
which constitute their religion — be made consonant with
the conclusions of tlie philosophic mind. Thus, and thus
only, can the total interests of humanity, as they are repre-
sented by loth morality and religion, be merged in one view
of the world and of human experience which, although it
may be far enough from solving all the vexed problems set
for reason to solve, certainly affords the highest attainable
satisfaction for the rational as well as the practical life of
mankind.

In this case, as elsewhere, philosophical reflection elaborates
into metaphysical conceptions, and defends, those instinctive
or unreasoned beliefs and practical postulates upon which
the life of humanity bases its development and even its very
existence. In truth, the ultimate questions of moral philoso-
phy are not problems for ethics alone to solve. They acquire

MORALITY AND THE WORLD-GROUND 691

the nature of imperative demands upon ethics to take into
its confidence the conclusions of the philosophy of nature
and the philosophy of mind; but most especially do they
constitute an imperative demand upon the student of the
philosophy of man's religious life. These ethical problems
start the discussion of certain yet more fundamental and
universal conceptions and relations ; thus the reflective and
critical treatment of ethical phenomena connects the meta-
physics of ethics with the entire domain of metaphysical phil-
osophy. As was said at the beginning (p. 29 f.), and as has
been implied all the way through, ethics cannot dispense with
metaphysics. On the contrary, its metaphysics comprises
all metaphysics ; because ethics itself is concerned with all
the most essential interests, and deals with all the conscious
life, of man considered as a true person, a moral Self.

It will be noticed, however, that this conception of the
true place and province of the metaphysics of ethics, and of
the proper and only successful method of its pursuit, is quite
different from that of the immortal author of the " Funda-
mental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals." Kant
assumed the existence in human reason of a universally
valid and necessary principle (a practical synthetic judgment
a priori) which was virtually admitted by every reason, and
which by philosophical criticism could be explicated, and held
up for the most unquestioning acceptance and transcendent
respect. We have followed the lowlier and more humble,
but, as I firmly believe, much surer and safer path of
psychological and historical inquiry into man's actual ex-
perience with himself as a moral being, in social relations,
pursuing and owning allegiance to a moral ideal. This
empirical path, however, conducts us irresistibly to the
presence of the ultimate metaphysical problems. What sort
of a World is that in which a race of beings, constituted moral
selves and following moral ideals, can originate, struggle,
organize themselves socially, and develop institutions founded

592 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

wholly or in part on ethical principles ? It is God's World,
In what sort of a Being must we conclude that such a world,
and such a race existing in such a world, and having to run
such a course of development, has its real explanation, its
Ground, if our explanation is to maintain any claim to a
consistent rationality ? It is the Being of the ideally righteous
and holy One^ whom the highest religious consciousness believes
in and worships as God.

In support of such a metaphysics of ethics as is outlined
in the declarations just made, the temptation is strong to
maintain a polemical, if not a purely dogmatic attitude
toward those who dispute or even doubt. I believe that
the statement made, for example, by Professor Watson^ —
" To a man in our day who thinks, and who insists upon
having a connected view of things, it is apparent that in-
dividual, political, and social morality, are one and insepar-
able, and that law and morality as a whole ultimately rest
upon and are explained by religion " — is substantially true.
But merely to affirm this, or even to prove the affirmation
by an appeal to current thoughtful opinion, is not enough to
satisfy the legitimate demands of a mind which seeks to find
a firm rational basis for a system of etiiical principles. Such
a basis, as has already been said, must seek in its formation
all the help that can be rendered by general metaphysical
philosophy, and especially by the philosophy of religion.
Ethics can ill afford to dispense with any of these offers of
help. Neither the high-and-dry, autocratic, a priori method
of Kant, nor the hortatory and sentimental method of the
current theology, are satisfactory to meet the demands of
reflective thinking upon the ultimate problems of conduct.

The profoundest and ripest conclusions of philosophy, when

firmly founded upon the survey of the experience of humanity,

belong to that branch of metaphysics which deals with the

grounds in reality of man's moral life and moral development.

1 Hedonistic Theories, p. 12.

MORALITY AND THE WORLD-GROUND 693

Philosophy can render no greater service than this to human-
ity. Even if it can only make somewhat more acceptable
to reason that metaphysical tenet which finds the Ground
of Morality in the ethical Being of the World-Ground, this is
no small gain. Anything in the way of sound reflective
thinking which seems to harmonize the discordant claims
of the sensitive and sensuous nature of man, with the claims
of moral consciousness and its ideals of duty and estimate of
judgments of worth, is itself beyond all price as measured
by physical good. Indeed, when considered from the point
of view where the values of different truths are sufficiently
taken into the account, such practical, reconciling, and in-
vigorating work of philosophy is that in which the attempt
at a systematic and rational treatment of all our ultimate
problems most properly culminates.

The attempt at a justification of the theory which identifies
the Ground of Morality with the World-Ground, by conceiv-
ing of this World-Ground as the ideally righteous and holy
personal God, must borrow much from general philosophy
and anticipate no little from the philosophy of religion
so called. In the form in which I shall now present it, the
argument is an extension of the " theory of reality " which I
have elsewhere^ discussed in detail; and it rests upon a
view of the nature, validity, and limits of human knowledge,
and of the essential reality of mind, which I have also
advocated in separate writings.^ From these three related
branches of philosophy I therefore gather together the
substance of the conclusions which their independent study
seemed to justify.

And, first, man knows Reality and knows something which
is beyond all doubt and all dispute as to what tliis Reality is.
It is not true that knowledge is " of phenomena " only ; or
that all the assumptions and implicates of that form of the

1 In a work called A Theory of Reality, published in 1899.

2 Philosophy of Knowledge, 1897, and Philosophy of Mind, 1893.

694 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

mind's functioning which we dignify with cognitive titles is
forever open to scepticism, — much less to either dogmatic or
critical agnosticism. On the contrary, reality is implicate in
all knowledge ; and in every exercise of the knowing faculty the
testimony plainly is — I, the actual, am not afar off, but nigh
thee, even within, an integral part of thy Self, the knower.
The doubt of this truth — the truth of all truths — is so irra-
tional, so absurd, that it does not even admit of a consistent
and intelligible statement by one mind to another, or by any
one to one's own conscious mind. This attitude toward
reality in which knowledge consists — call it what you will,
envisagement, intuition, belief, inference, or what not, or
better all combined — does not come by one sudden leap into
conscious life ; nor is it the result of the functioning of some
one selected class of the so-called faculties of the human
mind. On the contrary, it is the choicest development of the
complex Self functioning in all its three, not identical nor
yet distinct and separable forms of functioning — namely,
intellection, feeling, will. In this, its complex and developed
active and passive life of relation to other selves and self-like
things, which we denominate its growing knowledge, the
mind constantly exists in a living and fruitful intercourse
with reality. Thus the artificial analysis of the Kantian
criticism, with its hard and fast gulf between the bounds of
pure reason and the domain of reality, with its firm and divi-
sive separation between phenomenon and noumenon, — as
though actuality were forever outside of the mind's life and
could never show itself in consciousness otherwise than as
the shadowy suggestion of a great unknown That-something-
really-is — totally misrepresents the indubitably experienced
truth of the case. On the one hand, the philosophy of knowl-
edge teaches as that " Thing-in-itself " there is not — to be
either known, or imagined, or thought ; but, on the other hand,
it teaches also that the really-existent is implicate in all human
knowledge, is indeed its inseparable correlate in perpetual

MORALITY AND THE WORLD-GROUND 595

communion with the active mind. Noumenon apart from
phenomenon cannot indeed become the object of cognition ;
but in every phenomenon of the cognitive sort noumenon
stands present and self-revealing.

Moreover, the philosophy of knowledge shows that of all
the different kinds and degrees of knowledge the type of per-
fection is that which the developed cognitive Self experiences
when it knows, in trained and ripened self-consciousness, the
reality of its own Self. Such self-consciousness is the integer^
as it were, of cognition ; all other knowing is fractional and rela-
tively imperfect. The same thing is true in respect of moral
consciousness which is true in respect of all the conscious
manifestations of the Self. That J myself feel the binding
force of duty, the attractiveness and obligation of the virtu-
ous life, that I make judgments of right and wrong which are
followed by feelings of approbation or disapprobation, and of
merit or demerit — all this neither needs proof nor admits of
disproof. I know my own moral selfhood with this immediate
and indubitable certainty. More indirectly, and with a lower
degree of certainty, I know other selves to be constructed ethi-
cally in a large and substantial agreement with my own moral
selfhood. This substantial agreement is not essentially im-
paired, much less is it abrogated, by many and varied differ-
ences in judgment over what is right in conduct or most
commendable in character.

Nor can it be said that the Moral Ideal is itself wholly
removed beyond the limits of human knowledge. Like all
other ideals, it has a marked kaleidoscopic character. As the
hand of time turns it, the colors arrange themselves in dif-
ferent patterns. The realization, too, of the moral ideal is
neither to be known nor achieved as though it were some
simple fact of experience, or some one deed of will that could
be undertaken and finished once for all. But to speak of
this ideal as illusory, and to regard human experience with it
as devoid of all truly cognitive activity, is to introduce a

596 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

schism in human nature which is quite unwarranted by the
facts. For each moral being the force and value of his own
moral ideal may be made a matter of knowledge in the same
way as any of the other of the individual's complex experi-
ences. And in the broader fields of history there is knowl-
edge to be gained touching the progress which the race has
made in the past by way of forming and reforming, and of
progressively realizing its moral ideals.

The philosophy of conduct may, then, avail itself of all the
positive conclusions of the philosophy of knowledge with
reference to the possibility and trustworthy character of
man's knowing faculty when applied to his ethical experience.
Neither dogmatism nor agnosticism, neither the attitude of
unquestioning and thorough-going certainty, nor the attitude
of a scoffing or a despairing scepticism, becomes the student
of the problems which the ethical constitution and develop-
ment of humanity has to propose. The nature, the guaranty,
and the limits of knowledge, when the effort to know is
directed upon the phenomena and principles and ideals of the
moral life, are not essentially changed.

If we may borrow from philosophy a theory of knowledge
which secures the highest interests of ethics from becoming
a wreck in full sight of the eyes of reason, the same thing is
true of a theory of reality. General metaphysics may be
summoned to prepare the way for the more special meta-
physics of ethics. As to the propriety and the method of
this summons I do not need to repeat what has been either
said or implied, over and over again. With us, metaphysics
— of whatever name or sort — is never wholly a priori in
conception or in method. The rather is it the critical and
speculative treatment of the conceptions and principles which
are discoverable in experience. So then, if one raises the
problem which is before us at the present time — namely,
May the ground of morality be found in some rational concep-
tion of the World-Ground ? — one can properly revert to the

MORALITY AND THE WORLD-GROUND 597

inquiry : And what does metaphysics, as a theory of reality,
have to tell us of the characteristic marks of that Being
which it calls the " World-Ground " (or by some similar
term) ?

When this question is asked of metaphysics, regarded as a
critical and systematic theory of reality, its answer is not
equivocal ; although the answer has, of course, been given by
different philosophers with varying degrees of clearness and
comprehensiveness, and in spite of the fact that certain names
may be quoted in denial of the possibility of systematic meta-
physics at all. Among these names the greatest — anticipat-
ing or following the example of their most illustrious leader,
the ''astounding Kant" — have, after all, found some way,
either by faith, or revelation, or philosophical intuition, of in-
troducing more or less covertly the very knowledge (or its
equivalent) the possibility of which they had previously denied.
And when such fragments, or rather grudging acknowledg-
ments, are pieced together, and ilhimined by further reflective
thinking, they are wont to arrange themselves into a form,
having a certain consistency with the same permanent and un-
alterable view which the common reason of man holds respect-
ing the nature of all that is Real. This statement is about as
true of Mr. Spencer and Mr. Bradley as it is of Jacob Boehme
or of Schleiermacher. Small wonder if it is so ; for no im-
mersion in modern physical science, or academic exclusiveness,
or sceptical disregard for the common opinions and faiths of
humanity, or special respect for the extra-mundane, or belief
in the value and validity of belief, essentially changes the
nature of the reason of man. They and we all are finally
brought around upon our knees before the same confessional :
homo sum — not a god or an angel, nor yet a mere phenome-
non or sum-total consisting of a series of phenomena that
never attain any reality beyond the extra-phenomenon of a
certain appearance of quasi-VQ^Wty.

There is, then, a well reasoned and defensible answer which

598 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

a general and systematic metaphysics can deliver to the meta-
physics of ethics, when the latter cries out for assistance in
the effort to answer its own more ultimate and profound
inquiries. What are we warranted in affirming as defensible
knowledge regarding the Being of the World-Ground ? In
few words it is this : What philosophy calls the Absolute or
the World-Ground is Will, informed and guided by Reason, and
immanent as progressively realizing its own Ideas in all that
of which we have experience. As I have elsewhere^ said, in
summing up the conclusions of a lengthy discussion of the
problems of metaphysics, our human way of knowing the
World-Ground is " a way of conceiving the ' Being of the World '
after the analogy of the Life of a Self as a striving toward a
completer self-realization under the consciously accepted motif
of immanent Ideas. The principle, as a postulate of all reas-
oning, and so of all science, implies (1) some sort of unitary
Being for the really existent ; (2) that this Being is Will ;
(3j that the differentiation of the activity of this Will, and
the connection of the differentiated ' momenta,' — the separ-
ate beings of the world, is teleological and rational like that
of our own Self." In one word, the Being of the World, the
World-Ground, is a rational Will, everywhere and always
energizing for the realizing of its own ideas. The Absolute
is a Self : all the seeming separate beings and happenings of
which man has experience have their ground in this Abso-
lute Self.

And now when it is objected that this is an anthropomorphic
view of the so-called World-Ground, that it is, if not avow-
edly at any rate covertly, a purely human and limited way of

1 In the treatise already referred to I have shown this to be true, with more of
detailed and constant appeal to the conceptions and principles adopted by the par-
ticular sciences, than, so far as I am aware, has hitherto been employed by any
similar treatise. All the so-called " categories," as they are actually embodied, so
to say, in the very structure of every form of science and involved in all the
growth of science, have there been given a thorough critical treatment. To this
treatise, therefore, I must refer the reader who asks for further proof in support
of the propositions made above. Compare A Theory of Reality, p. 547.

MORALITY AND THE WORLD-GROUND 599

conceiving of a hypothetical Reality, the objection must be
admitted. But on taking it back to the philosophy of knowl-
edge for re-examination, this objection does not appear to
have either the bearing or the force which is claimed for it.
For it is seen that, as an argument for scepticism or agnosti-
cism, it dwells only upon the negative and limited aspects of
human knowledge, and largely or wholly neglects its positive
and constantly extending guaranties and triumphs. More-
ever, its psychological analysis of knowledge is markedly
defective ; its logical outcome is the destruction of the concep-
tions and assumptions which enter into all the particular
sciences, as well as into all human practice and social inter-
course ; and, finally, the more consistent logically it aims to
become, the nearer does it approach the point where it is
obliged, by a kind of intellectual hara-kiri, to destroy itself
and all its own works as integral portions of human thinking
and knowing.

On the contrary, the philosophy of knowledge and the
theory of reality supplement and confirm each other, in all
those forms of both which have been advocated by the reflec-
tive thinkers who have managed somehow to escape the results
of a scepticism that ends in agnosticism rather than in a crit-
ical reconstruction of the conception answering to the term,
" the World- Ground." Taken together into our confidence,
these two branches of philosophical discipline show how
all man's cognitive processes and achievements of knowledge —
whether practical, scientific, or speculative — culminate in
substantially the same view. They all assume that the world
in which man lives is a manifestation of a Reality of Will
and Reason — a Mind- World. They all contribute proofs
toward the progressively clearer and better establishment upon
grounds of experience, of the very assumption upon which
experience itself is grounded. This basic circular constitu-
tion of human experience, which grows out of those relations
to reality in which the cognitive powers of man's mind place

600 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

him, instead of being a vicious circle in argument, is itself
the foundation upon which the validity and the value of all
argument must always rest. As knowledge grows, man's con-
ception of reality becomes more comprehensive and more pro-
found. The assumption which underlies all knowledge itself
becomes the better understood, the more obviously proved
true, by the growth of human knowledge. The postulate is
immanent in all science ; all scientific development confirms
and illustrates the postulate. This World is known by man
as the manifestation of Will and Reason. The Reality made
apparent by all man's experience is Personal ; the World-
Ground is rightly and rationally conceived of as an Abso-
lute Self. If now, more of trustworthy knowledge is required
respecting the fundamental characteristics of that Being
which the World-Ground is known to be, it can be obtained
only from a study of the philosophy of Mind. This branch
of philosophy undertakes to discover and expound what may
be known as to the nature of a Person; or — to use a
term which may possibly seem less ambiguous — of a Self.
The reality, the unity, the identity, and whatever other char-
acteristics may be discerned as belonging to the essential
nature of a Self, are all revealed — however imperfectly
grasped and hazily conceived — with an indubitable certainty
in the experience of every human life. What it is to be real,
to be one, to be self-identical, as all selves are, man does not
need to go to the heavens above, or to the depths of the seas,
or to the inter-stellar spaces, to find out. What he does find,
so surely that it reaches the acme of conceivable knowledge,
is not correctly summarized either by the shallow positivism
which reduces the Self to a series of phenomena which con-
ceal instead of revealing reality, or by the seemingly pro-
found but always unclear ontology which assumes an un-
knowable and inconceivable " substance," a sort of dead
Ding-an-sichheit, that cannot break through the phenomena.
The reality, the unity, and the identity, of every human Self

MORALITY AND THE WORLD-GROUND 601

are just such actual characteristics of its own living and
conscious activity as severally answer to these words. And
to affirm that man does not know for what actual character-
istics these words are warranted to stand is another of those
distressing and self-destructive absurdities into which the
sceptical attitude toward experience is constantly leading
astray the devotees of metaphysical philosophy.

Nor is there better reason for the conjecture that the char-
acteristics of Reality, Unity, and permanency or Self-identity,
when attributed to the World-Ground, have reference to some
unknowable and inconceivable quasi-dead core of its Being.
To be real, to be one, to be self -identical, is, for the Absolute
Self, essentially the same as for every finite Self. To be a
Ding-an-sich, in the Kantian meaning of the word (if clear
meaning there be which can be fixed upon all of Kant's uses
of these words), is surely nothing for the gods to covet. Ding-
an-sichheit is poor " stuff " out of which to make Divinity.
The rather is it especially important, as it were, for the Abso-
lute Self that he should have in its most unlimited and highest
degree of perfection that self-realizing, self-unifying, self-
identifying power, which is to some degree possessed by every
finite Self.

What, then, a critical and systematic study of man, and of
the world which constitutes his environment, contributes to
the philosophy of conduct is this : The World-Ground must
be conceived of, and may (speaking broadly and generously)
be said to be known, as an Absolute Self. It is real, unitary,
self-consistent and self-identical, as a self-conscious Will and
Mind alone can be. Thus much by way of foundation for a
metaphysics of ethics may be fairly borrowed from other more
fundamental branches of philosophy.

The philosophy of conduct inquires, then, whether any of
the characteristics of the Moral Self which man knows him-
self to be, can properly also be attributed to the World-Ground.
By this latter term (" the World-Ground") we express a general

602 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

notion of metaphysics. Can the attributes of personal Being
be so extended in their application to this notion as to find in
its reality the ground for all the phenomena, the laws, and the
history of man's moral constitution and moral development ?
The full answer to this problem requires a critical survey of
nearly the entire sphere covered by the philosophy of religion ;
indeed the sphere covered by this survey is common to this
branch of philosophy and to the metaphysics of ethics.

In the very brief sketch of an argument which will follow,
two lines are seen to converge upon one conclusion. Of these
two lines one is chiefly negative, the other positive. The
former tends to show that without admitting that conception
of God as the World-Ground wliich the most mature reflec-
tive consciousness of humanity presents, the foundations of
morality are left totally unexplained. The other tends to
show that the truths involved in this conception furnish the
mind with the best available explanation of the fundamental
facts and truths of ethics.

The non-religious, not to say the irreligious, view of man,
his origin, constitution, history, and destiny, cannot suggest
any explanation of the admitted facts and truths of his own
ethical experience. The failure of the ethics of " Naturalism "
to explain itself, or in any satisfying way to answer, or even
to attack, the ultimate problem of the philosophy of conduct
has been emphasized by no one more strongly than by Pro-
fessor Huxley. According to this authority on the processes
and laws of so-called " Nature," all modern as well as ancient
scientific effort has utterly failed " to make existence in-
telligible ; " but it has especially failed " to bring the order of
things into harmony with the moral sense of man." ^ The
" injustice of the nature of things " is quite " unfathomable ; "
" the cosmic process has no sort of relation to moral ends ; "
the " ethical process " involves a checking of the " cosmic
process " and the substitution for it of something radically

1 Evolution and Ethics, 1893, and the Prolegomena, 1894.

MORALITY AND THE WORLD-GROUND 603

different ; the life of virtue is opposed to that which leads to
success in the cosmic struggle for existence. And to Mr.
Spencer's question, " If the ethical man is not a product of
the cosmic process, what is he a product of ? " the naturalistic
view of ethical phenomena has, of course, no sufficient answer.

Now, as I have elsewhere shown,^ the merely naturalistic
view of so-called " Nature " itself leaves all the most pressing
of our questions unanswered ; it is indeed, quite unable to
justify or even to explain the conception wliich it endeavors
to embody in this capitalized word — the nature spelled with
a big N. " Except in so far as it is known by having additional
characteristics of Spirit, Nature is as ' brute and inanimate '
as was the old-fashioned but now extinct conception of
matter." " The genetic and architectonic power " which
modern science puts into the word is all spiritual in its
origin ; it is the result of that inevitable and legitimate
construing of the world of things after the analogy of our
indubitable experiences with the world of Self. It amounts,
in the last result, to affirming that " Spirit is the true and
Essential Being of so-called Nature."*^ Certainly no explana-
tion of the moral nature, moral life, and moral development
of man can be derived from this^ the naturalistic conception
of nature ; this conception may even be said to be opposed
to any morality at all, and more especially to any such view
of the nature of moral sanctions and moral ideals as a
fair study of ethical phenomena establishes in a matter-of-fact
way. But then, no values of any kind, nothing that has
worth, whether from the artistic, the ethical, or the religious
point of view, can gain the least credence in the creed, if it is
consistently maintained, of such a form of Naturalism.

It is not Nature, truly conceived and profoundly known,
which is antagonistic to morality, so much as the wholly in-
adequate and largely false conception of nature held by tlie
naturalistic philosophy. One cannot, of course, claim that

1 Especially, A Theory of Reality, chap, xvii : Nature and Spirit

604 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

the nature of things, when man's ethical nature is left out of
the account, will serve to account for the origin, sanctions,
principles, and development of morality. But when this
inadequate view of Nature is itself transcended, one cannot,
on the other hand, so bluntly affirm the total opposition of
the " cosmic process " and the " ethical process." From the
higher point of view, one may even attain glimpses, if not a
full vision, of the truth that both processes are parts of one
great and all-inclusive process, and that both lead to one and
the same " far-off divine event." If Morality asks Nature to
show how she could come from nature's womb and be nature's
offspring, the question may only evoke the return of the
question :

♦" Ah, child,' she cries, 'that strife divine,
Whence was it, for it was not mine ? ' "

And yet the ceaseless, seemingly immoral, '' struggle for exist-
ence " with which all Nature is laden may have the same ulti-
mate ground and ultimate goal before it as the ceaseless and
by no means less painful strife of Humanity after the moral
Ideal. The inquiry after the origin and the sanctions of both
may thus elicit the answer :

" ' Twas when the heavenly home I trod,
And lay upon the breast of God."

It would scarcely seem necessary to assume the obligation of
showing the failure of Naturalism to furnish a metaphysics
of ethics, after its failure has been so emphasized by the
students of the " cosmic process " themselves. The truth
seems to be that we have here one of those problems relating
to the comparison of incomparables, which answer themselves
in the very asking. Cosmic processes, conceived of in the
purely naturalistic, or — what is the same thing — the totally
unspiritual and non-theistic way, are asked to originate
beings who believe in the value, who respect the sanctions,
who safeguard the principles, and who secure the develop-

MORALITY AND THE WORLD-GROUND 605

ment of ideals of conduct, not only of the individual but also
of the social kind. That the belief is often weak, the respect
ineffective, the safeguarding violated, and the security in-
complete does not essentially change the conditions of the
problem. For the problem is just this : How can conscious
conceptions of worth arise as the resultant of mere blind
happenings in fact ? How can such actual happenings pro-
duce a respect for that which is conceived of as claiming the
right to be in spite of the fact that it is not ? How can the
clash of irrational and impersonal forces produce a tender
and pious regard for personal interests — especially when
these are the interests of others that must be secured by a
more or less complete surrender of one's own happiness?
The old-fashioned metaphysical saw, ex nihilo nihil fit, may
not seem sufficient to put a check upon such e volutin g of the
moral from the non-moral, or the positively immoral, as all
the attempts of Naturalism in Ethics to answer such ques-
tions obviously require. But if ever there was an explaining
which did not explain, a borrowing of tenets which are not
current coin and which have no power to pay anything back,
such a transaction is that which goes on whenever a natural-
istic metaphysics undertakes to solve the metaphysical prob-
lems of ethics. Far better to be frankly agnostic than to
accept such answers to one's inquiries for ultimate truth.
Far better to cling without light or hope to the dark shadow
of a form we call our Duty than to explain its origin and
sanctions in so absurd a manner as Naturalism in Ethics
offers.

The quite complete incompetency of that view of the his-
torical evolution of morality which does not recognize the
personal character of the Moral Life and the Moral Ideal, as
to both its origin and its sanctions, has been pointed out many
times in our past discussions. It was, indeed, the confession
of this incompetency which threw upon us the necessity of
resorting to a more fundamental philosophical discussion in

606 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

order to get light for the solution of the ultimate ethical prob-
lems. That Positivism in ethics which merely notes the facts
of certain historical conditions of the development of morality
Is as unsatisfactory as is Naturalism in ethics. Again we are
obliged to say that it is better frankly to confess our agnosti-
cism than to make the phenomena of man's moral constitution
and moral evolution, by a skilful but always hypothetical re-
arrangement according to some preconceived theory, seem to
explain themselves. He should have no difficulty with any of
the stories of the wonders wrought by Aladdin's lamp who
professes to understand how a World absolutely indifferent to
distinctions of moral worth could give rise to an ethico-social
being like man, and to his ethical and social development.

And now, before turning to the more positive answer which
the philosopher has, at his best estate, to offer for the solution
of the ultimate problem in ethics that concerns the relations
of the ground of morality to the World-Ground, let us once
more endeavor clearly to see what the problem is. The ex-
istence of morality amongst men is a fact. Anticipations,
forecasts, preparations for its coming may be detected in the
animal kingdom lying lower down than man, and even in the
systematic arrangement of things. For although neither
things nor the lower animals seem to be wholly equipped with
moral selfhood, they do possess certain basic qualifications for
moral development in common with man ; and both things
and the lower animals undoubtedly have important functions
to perform in furnishing the physical basis and the physical
and social environment for man's moral life and moral devel-
opment. In spite of Mr. Huxley's low estimate of the moral
value of the " cosmic processes " — which, with him, include
all the different lower stages in the evolution of animal life
preceding the time when man became a Moral Self — there
are good reasons for the belief that these processes, too, can-
not be illumined fully or understood aright until they are
regarded from the ethical point of view. They, too, participate,

MORALITY AND THE WORLD-GROUND 607

in a way, in a system where ideas of value, and ideals of moral
development^ have the highest sanction and the most univer-
sal sway. At any rate, such has been the confidence, not only
of the multitudes who do not think, but of the poets and the
philosophers of the human race. In a certain Sanskrit drama,
for example,^ a wicked prince endeavors to persuade a parasite
to commit murder by assuring him that there is no one to
witness the act. Pariah as he is, he faces the prince in con-
fidence that the last foundations of morality are not subject to
human influences, and thus replies in indignant language :

" All nature would behold the crime,
The genii of the grove, the sun, the moon,
The winds, the vaults of heaven, the firm-set earth,
Yama, the mighty judge of all who die,
Aye, and the inner conscience of the soul."

And that tried human soul, the girl Antigone, ^ when called
upon to decide between her loving sense of personal obligations
and the mandates of the supreme human authority reinforced
by the ripest human wisdom, is made to say by the tragedian
whose insight into the springs of human life has never been
surpassed :

" It was not Zeus who heralded these words,
Nor Justice, helpmeet of the gods below,
^T was they who satisfied those other laws,
And set their record in the human heart.
Nor did I deem thy heraldings so mighty,
That thou, a mortal man, couldst trample on
The unwritten and unchanging laws of heaven.
They are not of to-day or yesterday ;
But ever live and no one doubts their birth-tide."

This confidence, thus poetically expressed, was the ground of
the philosopher Fichte's assertion : " The world-order is in the
last analysis a moral order." Or, again, as another writer

1 See Talboys Wheeler's Short History of India, p. 63.

2 See also CEdipus, 846 f. and p. 572 of this book ; and comp. Pfleiderer, The
Philosophy of Religion, iv, p. 240.

608 PHILOSOPPIY OF CONDUCT

has expressed the same truth from another point of view :
" Man's consciousness of himself as a member of society in-
volves a reference to a cosmic order."

Doubtless it will be objected to all this that we are here
dealing only with the projecting of man's moral Selfhood into
the phenomena of the World, in the midst of which this Self-
hood somehow finds its origin and its development. The
objection is true in fact ; but the fact to which objection is
made is the very thing which demands explanation. Why do
the multitudes, and the choicest of the poets, and the wisest
of the philosophers, find themselves impelled to regard with
this moral sympathy that system of things in which their own
existence and development have their ground ? Of course, it
is because they all are themselves moral beings. But the very
thing to be accounted for is the existence and progress of moral
beings, as arising out of such a ground and existing in such
an environment. Certainly, man's moral nature, the experi-
ence of the individual with himself and with other men and
with things, must be recognized as containing the sources, the
sanctions, and the principles of his own moral development.
All the more necessary is it, therefore, so to conceive of the
origin of this human moral nature, of its reactions upon its
environment, and of its progress and its achievements, — so
to shape, in a word, the explanation of all that is distinctively
ethical in human experience, — as to bring it into the fullest
harmony with all our other most trustworthy conceptions of
Keality. This, I assert, can be done only by identifying the
Ground of Morality with the World-Ground. And such an
identification is possible only if the World-Ground be conceived
of as the absolute moral Person, the ultimate Source of all
the ethical life and ethical development of humanity. I shall
now present this general position very briefly as it appears to
me defensible from several closely related but somewhat
different points of view.

And, first, in God, or the moral personality of the World-

MORALITY AND THE WORLD-GROUND 609

Ground, we discover the more ultimate source of whatever
common standards of conduct have prevailed, so far as inves-
tigations can inform us, in all ages of the ethical history of
humanity. Certain of these standards are, indeed, more
especially of a purely utilitarian character. They spring up
everywhere as the result of that striving for freedom from pain,
and for the obtaining of pleasure, in which man joins all sen-
tient life and in which he employs his superior intellect. But
this merely utilitarian explanation of the prevalence of com-
mon standards of morality will not apply to all cases, nor is it
the complete explanation of any of the forms in which a moral
code establishes itself. An inner motive is especially neces-
sary to account for some of these standards ; indeed, some
inner motive seems necessary to supplement the explanations
of an external utilitarianism in order to account for the origin
and prevalence of nearly all of them. This inner motive uni-
formly appears to involve a recognition of values that are not
wholly of the utilitarian order. For example, in some cases
the gods are deemed worthy to be pleased ; or their fear re-
strains the would-be wrong-doer. This, or some other form of
impulse, which, like whisperings from another and invisible
world, compels men to the recognition of the more subtle
spiritual connections of their own selves with a mysterious
and invisible Selfhood, has always — to quote the words of
another — added " incalculably to the power of religious ethics
to hold its own against the tendency to an external utilitarian-
ism which springs so easily from a purely objective considera-
tion of moral phenomena."

It has been by means of both the co-operation and the
antagonism between inner spiritual motives and the more ex-
ternal utilitarian considerations, in action and reaction with
the " cosmic processes," that tlie human race has established
in authority over itself certain common standards of morality.
These standards, psychologically considered, are the forms of
mental activity that are everywhere regarded as right and

610 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

that together constitute the virtuous life. Historically con-
sidered, they are the forms of external behavior, the manners
and customs, the laws unwritten or written, which, however
they may differ in respect of many details, still bear witness
to the essential universality of the conduct that is recognized
as valid for man as man. But the historical process which
derives its factors from all three sources — namely, from
spiritual influences, from utilitarian considerations, and from
physical processes — and which somehow manages to work
out a planful structure of an ethico-social kind, challenges
philosophy to furnish to it a satisfactory account of itself.
This account philosophy must bring into accord with its
conclusions upon cognate subjects. Its account reads as
follows : Any historical process like the moral development
of humanity is proof of the presence in the World of a
rational Will, which is working in the interests of moral values,
and which is establishing over all moral selves the regency
of moral standards in the only way in which such establish-
ing is possible. For, in the progress of morality, man must
accomplish the Divine Will by making that Will man's own ;
in other words, the Divine standards of righteousness and of
virtuous living must be made universally effective by the
work of God in human ethical history, as mere " cosmic
processes " or " external utilitarian " considerations alone
cannot make them, even although working in conjunction with
influences from these processes and these considerations.

This same thought is still further emphasized and enforced
when humanity is considered as actually experiencing a real
moral progress. This manner of progress implies, on the
one side, the elevating of the currently accepted standards of
morality ; and, on the other side, it implies the spreading of
these rising standards over a larger and larger portion
of the race. That there is a moral progress of this sort
actually taking place, historical and anthropological data
would seem to show. The race may not, on the whole, be

MORALITY AND THE WORLD-GROUND 611

growing better men. But the current standards acknowl-
edged as obligatory are being raised ; and a larger number
of mankind are being made acquainted with what those
higher standards are. This is a work similar to that which
religion assigns to Divine Providence and to Divine Self-
revelation. If the response to this self-disclosure of the
Infinite Moral Spirit is effective in actually securing among
men, not only intellectual enlightenment and improved judg-
ment upon matters of conduct, but also the purer heart and
the nobler life, then religion speaks of this result as due to
Divine inspiration. Thus religion regards the raising and
the spreading of the standards of morality among men as due
to the efficient activity of God, in providence, revelation, and
inspiration.

Making a sufficiently large allowance for over-confidence
in details of argument, for excessive naivete in expression,
and for a somewhat too frequent and often dangerous neglect
of modifying considerations, a truly philosophical Theory
of Reality can receive the conclusions of the religious
consciousness as worthy of a high place in its system of philo-
sophical truths. Any completed theory of reality has the real-
ities of morality to take into its account. Ethical facts are
no less facts because ethical. Among ethical facts not the
least important is the actual existence of the accepted stand-
ards of conduct and of the current judgments upon matters of
conduct. The explanation of their existence cannot be found
wholly in any purely cosmic process, or in any historical process
of a purely utilitarian character. Ethical facts come into such
supreme importance and become of such tremendous import
in the development of the race, through a sort of progressive
synthesis in which cosmic processes, utilitarian interests,
and spiritual ideals and motives all co-operate to a common
result. We, therefore, find this synthetic power in the
Divine Will ; we ascribe this complex historico-ethical evolu-
tion to the Divine Plan. In it God, the ideally righteous

612 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

and holy Person, is realizing his immanent ideas as to
what standard humanity ought, by its own co-operative
responses to tliis rational and holy Will, to set before itself
as the law of its life in the conduct of moral selves with one
another.

In this sense, then, does the metaphysics of ethics find the
origin of moral laws in the will of God. Such a philo-
sophical tenet is by no means to be identified with that tenet
of theological ethics which finds the ground of the right in
the so-called *' bare will " of God. Of hare will, whether
in physical nature, in man, or in the Absolute, a discerning
theory of reality discovers no trace at all. Schopenhauer's
contemptuous phrase — "wooden iron" — for the justifiable
conception of an " ought-to-will " may properly be turned
against his own attempt to identify the one central attribute
of the World-Ground with the being of bare will. In physical
nature, in man, or in God, nothing is "bare" — neither
will, nor reason, nor feeling, nor any of the other psycho-
logical aspects or attributions of the unitary being we know
as a Self. But the moral laws which men create, as the
expression of their higher ideas of unseen worth, and their
experience with the uses of things, are at the same time the
offspring of the righteous and holy Will of God. Here,
that is true which was seen ^ to be true of all finite beings
and finite events ; they, too, share in the will and wisdom
of the Infinite; they, too, are "moments " in the self-realiza-
tion of the personal Absolute. They are not lost in Him,
because they exist in Him ; nor, because they do really exist
in Him, are they able to affirm or maintain their existence in
independence of Him.

Man creates his own moral standards. This is true. He
makes, in the progress of his own ethical evolution the
moral laws which he either does well in keeping or suffers

1 Compare a Theory of Keality, Chap. XIX. " The World and the Abso-
lute."

MORALITY AND THE WORLD-GROUND 613

by disobeying. He is pre-eminently his own law-giver in the
moral, as he is not in the physical or purely mental sphere.
God created the sun, the moon, the stars ; God created the
world of man's physical environment; and He constituted
the laws of man's mental life, — those constitutional and
inescapable limitations of man's thinking processes, of his sen-
suous observations, of his handling and moulding of things.
But did He have aught to do with the constitution of those
invisible spiritual influences which co-operate with the more
visible and material inducements to form the mandates of the
moral law ? Most certainly ; and none the less truly because
so true is it that man forms and adopts, without being
under the same stricter compulsion, his own moral standards
and moral code. For, in the last analysis, human thinking
must find in the World-Ground the efficient and the final
cause for the development among men of uniform and im-
proved standards of conduct, and for whatever real ethical
progress our historical and anthropological studies enable us
to claim for the race. The continuous illumination of the
human race by the everywhere scattered lights of the Moral
Law has its source in the Sun of Righteousness, the ideally
holy and righteous Will of the World-Ground.

But, second, the argument is again reinforced when we
consider the character of those sanctions which are every-
where found attributed to the moral standards of men. These
data of all morality, too, must find their ultimate source in the
same World-Ground. There is no more puzzling problem be-
fore the philosophy of conduct than is involved in the search
after the ground of the inviolable sanctions, the sources of the
indisputable obligations, of the moral selfhood and moral de-
velopment of man. That humanity believes in some such
sanctions and acknowledges the existence of such obligations,
the psychological analysis and historical survey of the phe-
nomena of moral consciousness plainly show. It is, indeed,
possible to find in the social environment and even in the

614 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

" cosmic processes " a partial account of some of the particular
sanctions which belong to human morality. But this account,
at its best, is only partial.

All views which do not find the feeling of oughtness, as
uniquely human among the most original data of ethics, have
already been adjudged unsatisfactory. This feeling cannot
be regarded as the outcome or expression of any purely cosmic
process. It cannot be explained as a resultant solely of the
working of social influences upon the mind of the individual.
On the contrary, it is itself a basic and ultimate fact with
which every attempt to account for the origin of social organ-
izations among men must always reckon. Social organiza-
tion among men presupposes the feeling of moral obligation ;
it is built upon the recognition of sanctions belonging to par-
ticular kinds of conduct; social organization as mere fact,
then, cannot form the entire satisfactory account of the exist-
ence of this feeling or of the most original sanctions, to which
the feeling responds. It is true, however, that the direction
and concentration, so to say, of the sanctions of moral con-
sciousness upon particular courses of conduct are often to be
explained by the character of man's physical and social
environment. These environing influences often answer,
chiefly or in part, the question why the soul of man recog-
nizes as obligatory just such, rather than other, forms of con-
duct. This general historical fact explains why moral laws
appeal to a sense of obligation ; only by making this appeal
do the customs of society, or its more deliberate statute
enactments acquire the peculiar sanctions of morality. So,
then, whenever certain customs or laws appear to be due to
the fortuitous or the regular operation of physical or social
forces, the sanctions of these same customs and laws also
appear to be derived from the same physical or social forces.
What the social organization commands becomes a truly
moral mandate, and has all the sanctions belonging to such
a mandate. Even Nature, in a more uncertain way and often

MORALITY AND THE WORLD-GROUND 615

by a kind of dumb, pantomimic gesture, indicates to man
her orders as to what he ahaW feel himself obligated to do
as her creature and the subject of her laws.

Doubtless, the recognition of the right of Nature and of
human Society to issue mandates to the individual man, and
of the dutg of the individual to respond by obedience to the feel-
ing thus aroused — in this way acknowledging the moral sanc-
tions inherent somehow in these mandates — is an inestimable
benefit to humanity. Without it the individual would speed-
ily make wreck of himself by antagonizing both nature and
society, either in a blindly mechanical way or else in a no less
dangerous but wrongly conscientious fashion. Indeed, it is
just this failure to credit the cosmic processes and the social
customs and institutions with the amount of moral character
which is their due that constitutes the arch-crime of Insolence ;
this crime is the essence of tragedy ; it is the wrong-doing
which the Divine Will as Nemesis, is wont so surely and
frightfully to avenge. The opposite of this crime is the all-
inclusive virtue of the judgment to which the name of a pious
Resignation was given. Doubtless it is in general right for
the individual man to obey the so-called " laws of nature," so
soon and so far as he can discover what those laws actually
are. Doubtless also a man will not generally be in the right,
if he flouts at and contemptuously disobeys the customs and
laws of society.

But so much concession as this, and even many times as
much of concession, does not make it clear that either nature
or society can furnish the ultimate and complete ground of
moral sanctions ; nor does it explain precisely how they can
serve as an ultimate ground at all. It is in the endeavor to
clear up the origin of that right to command which all the moral
standards — however historically derived — seem to claim,
that the course of reflective thinking leads the mind again to
the identification of the ground of morality with the World-
Ground. Let us consider the argument as briefly stated.

616 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

With regard to Nature, considered merely as a complex of
more or less coherent " cosmic processes," one can really find
no rational account for any sanction attaching itself to her
so-called " laws." That some at least of these processes dom-
inate man and determine his weal and his woe — will-he or
nill-he — is undoubtedly matter-of-fact. This matter-of-fact
lies at the basis of all his moral life and development just as
it forms the indestructible basis of his very existence. In
certain other cases, not a few in number or unimportant but
always of a restricted character, man can say whether or not he
will act in obedience with nature's laws ; he can take the con-
sequences of disobedience, if he cannot, as not infrequently
happens, mitigate these consequences by action that falls
under other natural laws. In still other cases, his moral
development depends largely upon improving Nature's un-
restricted ways of behavior, and so, by natural forces, helping
himself to a better estate than nature, without this self-help,
would ever furnish to him.

All such human intercourse with natural forces and natural
laws belongs, however, to the domain of the actual. So it
is : Nature encompasses me, hems me in, assists me at times
and thwarts and punishes me at others. I must obey her
laws, because without this I cannot even exist, much less
attain any of my ends or enjoy any of her privileges. But
suppose that She, or some moralist who has come over from
physics into ethics, speaking in her name, attempts to add
the sanction of an " ought " to any one of her many ways of
treating human kind. Suppose that the endeavor is made to
impress the individual man with the ethical sacredness, the
truly obligatory character, of any of the so-called natural
laws. It is proposed to put an obligation upon man's ethical
nature to do as the cosmic processes compel or solicit him to
do. The voice that issues from this mysterious mother of us
all is now no longer " Thou must," or " Thou shalt," in order
to this or that end, and in view of these favorable or unfavor-

MORALITY AND THE WORLD-GROUND 617

able consequences ; her voice now is, " Thou oughtest," and
'' so only wilt thou secure the satisfactions of an approving con-
science." But what right to command — right, such as belongs
to the very idea of an ethical sanction — can be conceived of in
the name of a purely cosmic or natural process ? Suppose
that I choose to disobey nature ; you may threaten me with
impersonal cosmic processes, but you cannot appeal in their
name to my feeling of obligation. The ruling natural forces
may grind me to powder, but they shall not make me bow
before their right to command. The laws of nature may
compel my obedience, but they cannot compel a moral respect
for themselves. By the appeal itself, " Holy mother Nature "
is already transformed from an impersonal source of cosmic
processes into a personal and Ethical Spirit, in order that she
may serve the better as a sort of World-Ground. This is really
only another way of bringing in covertly the postulate of God
as the ground of morality.

As the moral development of man proceeds, accompanied
as it necessarily is by his intellectual progress, the conscious
worth of man's nature superior to the sum-total of the under-
lying cosmic processes, becomes more and more obvious to
himself. From the very beginning, indeed, he finds much in
those processes which is neither to his mind nor in accord-
ance with his dawning and ascending sense of what is just
and wise and kind. The schism between the natural and the
ethical tends to become more apparent. The struggle with
these natural forces and laws into which man's ethical nature
impels him becomes more intense and more oppressive.
His moral consciousness comes to assume the right of
moral judgment over these very " cosmic processes ; " and, as
in Professor Huxley's extreme case, it accuses them of the
breach of all those proprieties and obligations under the
sanction of which man's moral development flourishes best.
A saner and profounder view of Nature follows, in our
judgment, upon taking a higher point of view ; but this is

618 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

true only if one confess that the cosmic processes themselves
issue from the same personal and spiritual source as that
to which, in the last resort, must be attributed the moral
nature and moral development of man. Certain it is that,
without some such way of unifying the explanation of all
man's experience, the schism between his moral life and
the existence, action, and evolution of physical forces and
laws is certain to go on widening and deepening to the end.
Accept such an explanation, however, and it at once be-
comes apparent that — if not wholly how — the quasi-ohWgdi-
tory character of natural law is due to this : The source of
this law and of the human consciousness which endows it
with sanctions is to be found in the same World-Ground.
But this is in a way to identify Nature with the ideally
righteous and holy Will of God.

There is undoubtedly more reason to be found in man's
naive moral consciousness for asserting the right of society
to issue morally obligatory commands to the individual, than
can be discovered in the nature of any of the merely cosmic
processes, or in any of man's natural relations to these proc-
esses. Such is the very constitution of society that certain
of its members inevitably appeal to the multitude of men
with a sort of sanction for their claim to authority and
allegiance, in matters of conduct. In the family, this is true
of the relations between parents and children, during all
the earlier development of the latter; true also of certain
of the relations which exist between husband and wife. In
the tribal relations also, the chiefs, or head-men of the tribe,
its leaders in war, its wise men in council, and its teachers
and priests who carry on the religious functions of the
community, are naturally clothed with an authority which
appears to be of no merely external sort. The moral con-
sciousness of the inferior multitude of the tribe acknowledges
the commands or injunctions of the superior few as reason-
ably acquiring the obligation of a spiritual and ethical bond.

MORALITY AND THE WORLD-GROUND 619

Mere fear of force, unmixed dread of physical consequences
or desire for the pleasant rewards of obedience, can in no
case account for all the strength of the tie which binds men
together ; — even in these simplest forms of social organization,
or in the lowest stages of their moral and rational develop-
ment. What is true of the simplest forms and the lowest
stages is pre-eminently true of the more complex forms and
higher stages of the ethical development of humanity. In
these higher developments, the will and ethical judgment of
the social organization have expressed themselves in a great
variety of customs, precepts, laws, and regulations, all of
which are themselves the resultants of a long process of
historical development. In other words, we find the individual
Moral Self everywhere, within certain limits, acknowledging
the sacred and obligatory character of the customs and laws
which express the moral development of the community
of Moral Selves. Thus do the historical and social processes,
in which the moral life of humanity manifests itself, seem
to stand in a relation to the sanctions of morality which is
much superior to anything that can be claimed for what
Professor Huxley denominates the " cosmic processes."

If now inquiry be made into the reason why the ethical
judgments and choices of the various forms of social organir
zation appear, under ordinary circumstances, to carry with
them their own indisputable sanctions, the answer must
undoubtedly be found in the very constitution of man, and
in the nature of the social organizations which he constructs.
To draw out this argument in detail would only take us
again over the same ground which we have already covered
in considering the nature of the Moral Self, and the doctrine
of the Virtuous Life, its character, and its aims. Man is, in
fact, so built that he respects his own building. Because of
this mysterious inherent dominance of the feeling of obliga-
tion, the judgment and practices which have, for various
reasons, come more or less continuously and persistently

620 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

to call forth the feeling, appear to the subject of that feeling
as having an inviolable authority. In one word, the sanctions
of the prevalent standards of conduct have their origin and
their explanation in the same sources as those in which these
standards themselves originate.

Let no inquirer, however, be deceived by the appearance of
lucidity and finality which all such explanations as the fore-
going may be tempted to assume. For this circle in argu-
ment, however interesting and able to illuminate its own
complete circumference, or even its own entire area, never-
theless still leaves unsolved the same problem in the meta-
physics of ethics. It is the historical behavior of the race in
its construction and acknowledgment of these very same
moral sanctions for which a more fundamental and ultimate
explanation is sought. Just as the ministration of the cosmic
processes to the moral development of man does not seem
to be satisfactorily accounted for when it is referred to Nature,
conceived of as a complex of blind forces devoid of all Spirit
and conscious Life, so does the work of so-called human society,
in creating and sanctifying those bonds which are in their
very character spiritual and personal, appear unequal to that
of a self-existent and self-explaining Absolute.

And, indeed, there are other ethical phenomena which are
current and indisputable, but which are of a startlingly
different character. For sacred and full of self-consistent
sanctions as much of social morality may seem to be, there
has always existed in the human breast a strong and some-
times irresistible and outbreaking tendency to overleap the
regard for all such sanctions. The great moral reformers
and prophets of humanity have always felt this, and have
acted according to the feeling. Call a crime if you will this
revolt against the current social morality ; and perhaps
society is compelled thus to designate and to punish every
such revolt. But the fact is that the most enlightened and
pure-minded individuals have never been willing uncondition-

MORALITY AND THE WORLD-GROUND 621

ally to submit their moral consciousness to the most highly
sanctioned external regulations, however enacted and enforced
by the social organization. In studying the phenomena of
man's moral development in a large way, attention is con-
stantly called to this interesting and startling fact. Other
sanctions, and another more spiritual and mysterious source
of authority, have always been appealed to in critical mo-
ments by the morally most advanced members of society
itself. Nor do I think that any reasonable critic of man's
moral life would be satisfied with finding no higher and more
final sanctions to which an appeal may be taken than those
that belong to the actually existing mandates enforced by the
customs of the social organization.

I should understate the case so greatly as quite completely
to misrepresent it if I left this subject with the impression
that we are here dealing only with a rare phenomenon, or
one that may be accredited to the class of ethical eccentrici-
ties. On the contrary, it has always been true that a pos-
sible distinction, usually lying latent perhaps, and yet always
ready to emerge, exists in the moral consciousness of the
race, between the sanctions which the will of man imparts to
the moral law and the sanctions to which an appeal may
sometimes, at least, be made as though they belonged to the
moral law itself. I know that there is much about such
human experience which is vague and shadowy. I confess
that it is difficult to take the fact out of the figurative and
symbolical character with which it is clothed in human expe-
rience, and then reconstruct it in such a way as to give it the
force of a convincing argument. But the fact is there ; it
cannot properly be overlooked ; its import is sometimes most
astounding. Very timid animals, when driven and cornered,
will sometimes fight most desperately. Very subservient
multitudes of men, after long years of suppression under the
dominance of forces of social organization that have every
claim to moral sacredness which society itself can impart,

622 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

sometimes appeal, regardless of results, to another than the
human social tribunal. The appeal is generally dim-sighted
or blind. Seldom, or never, do these multitudes clearly know
what they are about. Rarely, if ever, do they succeed in
escaping from the infliction upon themselves of evils more
grievous than those which they endeavor to abate. But in
some dim-sighted or blind way they hold the indestructible
confidence that there is a justice superior to all human jus-
tice ; that there is a court of appeal to which the individual
may resort when the last earthly court of appeal has given
its sanctions to essential wrong-doing ; in fine, that the moral
law is above all the human laws which enact what shall be
esteemed moral ; and that its sanctions are so deeply founded
in the bedrock of Reality as never to be shaken, even when
all human institutions of the most time-honored and sacred
order seem tottering to their final fall.

It is not, however, in this quasi-nihilistic or revolutionary
fashion alone that the moral consciousness of man seeks
satisfaction in the confidence that the Ground of the World
itself is the source and ground for the sanctions of morality.
There have always been many quiet workmen who have held
this confidence in less obtrusive and disturbing ways. More
or less habitually these persons have been able to do right,
and to enjoy the sanctions of an approving conscience, even
when the " doing right " brought them into disesteem as
wrong-doers among those of their fellows whose standards of
moral judgment were of the more conventional sort. That
some of these workmen have displayed a somewhat immoral
spirit of contempt and bitterness toward conventional mor-
ality and toward its sanctions must be confessed ; it is to be
deplored undoubtedly. The disposition to let society "go-
hang," as it not infrequently deserves to do, is never lovely
or morally to be approbated. But the testimony of the men
who, whether indulging this spirit or keeping themselves free
from it, have cherished that respect for morality which is not

MORALITY AND THE WORLD-GROUND 623

founded merely in respect for the enactments, practices, and
opinions of the social organization, is, it seems to me, a valid
argument for the identification of the ground of the sanctions
of morality with the World-Ground.

Nor should one fail to notice another cognate class of
related phenomena. Not simply in times of open and violent
revolt against the prevalent moral order, but in their daily
moral judgments multitudes of men frequently exhibit their
confidence in God as the source and sanctioner of a more
ripe and essential justice than that which society approbates,
— not to say practises and enforces. This they often do in
querulous ways. And among such complainers the most
pronounced skeptics as to the Being of God, the Ethical
Spirit, are not infrequently most prominent. Things have not
gone right with them ; society has not dealt fairly with them.
And yet things have gone on steadily treating them with that
indifference to merely personal considerations which belongs
to the very nature of things. Society has quite uniformly
given them just the same chance for success which others
have had ; and neither the social customs, nor the courts of
law, nor the popular opinions and judgments, have ever
brought any peculiar hardship upon them. They who least of
all believe that there is any Providence are often most bitter
in the judgment of the behavior of Providence toward them-
selves. They who do not credit any existing ground for the
sanctions of morality above or beyond the cosmic processes,
or the enactments of society, are frequently most dissatisfied
with the character and working of these sanctions. To claim
their respect, things and society " ought to do better ; " be-
cause things and society are somehow not up to the standard
to which they ought to rise ! Surely one may call out with
Schopenhauer, " Wooden iron," when one hears from such
lips about what that is not, really ought to be. Or the rather,
may one say in the words of the Apostle Paul : " Whom
therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you." In

624 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

contrast with this multitude stands the multitude of pious
souls who quietly and faithfully trust God, the Ethical Spirit,
as the original source and final sanctioner of all morally right
conduct. By the standard of his mandates they constantly
test, as best they can, all the most sacred standards both of
the natural and the social sort.

By these and many similar experiences it may be shown
that there is a necessity laid upon reflective thinking to find
somewhere back of, and beyond, man's moral constitution and
the historical evolution of his moral life the ground for the
sanctions which he recognizes as essential to all morality.
Collective humanity, in and through a historical process,
gives itself the moral law. And yet humanity gives itself the
law, because humanity itself is constituted a child of that
Ethical Spirit in whom are all the sources of its own moral
life and moral development. Man recognizes the inviolable
authority and indisputable sanctions of morality, because he
is himself an ethical and social Self ; and thus is empowered
and compelled to respect his own moral constructions. But
just as he is not the author of his own physical being and
physical development, but perpetually derives this from the
World-Ground, whose life and vital energy are immanent
in the race, so is he not the author, in the last analysis, of
the authority and the sanctions which his Moral Selfhood
acknowledges.

I believe, then, that no satisfactory account is possible for
the reflective and speculative treatment of the sanctions of
human moral life which does not find the ground of these
sanctions in the World-Ground. If they originate, as they
certainly do, in the ethical reactions of man himself upon his
own physical and social environment, still this very proce-
dure of man must find its explanation in our theory of reality.
Both the environment — social as well as physical — and the
constructive work of man in his own ethical evolution must
be referred for their more ultimate explanation to the Per-

MORALITY AND THE WORLD-GROUND 625

sonal Absolute. In order that this Absolute may serve as an
explanatory principle of such a complex evolution — namely,
of the development of man's confidence in, and respect for,
the sanctions of morality it must be conceived of in terms
of Ethical Spirit. The ultimate Ground of moral sanctions
cannot be hare Will, or hlind Will, or Will indifferent to
all the Ethical as well as sentient and aesthetical interests
of humanity. The rather is it an omnipotent and omni-
present energy devoted to the final securing in reality of
those interests. In other words, the ultimate sanctions of
morality must be located in the authority of an ideally
righteous and holy Will that is realizing its own Ideas in
the historical process of human moral development,

Such a conception as that just expressed imparts rational-
ity to the sanctions of morality. When the demand is made
that I, the individual person, shall sacrifice my immediate or
more distant sentient good in the interests of the common
good, an underlying substantial Ground seems necessary in
order to justify the obligatory character of such a demand.
All through the previous treatment given to the problem of
conduct, transcendental references have been implied to a
Personal Bond among the individuals whose life in social
relations affords the content of morality. One may not be
ready to accept the claim that no sanctions for an altruistic
ethics — i. e. for genuine morality at all — are tenable which
do not found themselves in belief in God, and in the oneness
of all finite souls in God.^ " All persons are mutually exclusive
... yet they are one in God. Hence the Good for the whole
is the Good for every separate member." But if such a form
of stating the truth seems somewhat too abstract and other-
worldly, this is no legitimate reason for overlooking tlie plain
facts in the case, or for refusing to face the mysterious and
profound problem which the attempt to explain the facts pre-
sents. In some dumb and inchoate fashion the universal

1 As made by T. H. Green, and compare D'Arcy, Short Study of Ethics, p. 102.

626 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

moral consciousness makes confession to the belief that men
— the wise and the ignorant, the superior and the inferior
individuals and races — are bound to acknowledge the author-
ity over them all alike, of a moral government which is only
faintly and imperfectly typified and realized in the sanctions
which they confer upon the mandates of their own devising.
And this confession points the finger of reason in the direction
of this truth : The ultimate Source and Guarantor of all
moral sanctions is that Ethical Spirit to whom all men thus,
more or less unwittingly, confess that their allegiance is due.
Pre-eminently true, however, is it that the moral Ideals of
humanity must find their explanation in the Being of the
World-Ground. And this they cannot do unless this World-
Ground be conceived of as Itself an Ethical Spirit, the One
Ideal-Real of a righteous and holy rational Will. As a
modern writer has said : ^ " The moral World-order regarded
as an active Principle is God as Spirit. Only the Self, only
Egohood, is the home of all that is Ideal." In human
morality, its life and its development, the presence and influ-
ence of ideals is the greatest and most mysterious of experi-
enced facts. Man is, indeed, an idealizing energy. His dis-
satisfaction with his physical and intellectual conditions and
attainments is a mighty potency for accomplishing the im-
provement of these conditions, the enlargement of these
attainments. In all stages of his development, at least above
the very lowest, he forms a picture of something better than
the actuality and makes more or less strenuous and determined
efforts to realize it. This ceaseless reaching out beyond the
domain of his present possessions to grasp after imagined
goods characterizes the course of humanity in its upward
history. It is, however, in the ethical sphere of his living
and acting that the influence of man's idealizing potency is
most mysterious and profoundly significant. He is indeed a
poor specimen of human nature who has no ideal of a Moral
1 Moriz Carriere, Die sittliche Weltordnung, p. 405.

MORALITY AND THE WORLD-GROUND 627

Self in any respect or degree better than his own actual attain-
ments; who esteems himself in all respects as largely and
comprehensively virtuous as is necessary to satisfy his own
conceptions of what he ought to be. I am not now referring
to the theological doctrine of the consciousness of moral im-
perfection as a consciousness of sin. But, in fact, man is
naturally determined to compare the facts of the moral life
of himself and of other men with a standard which is set
higher than the reaches of that life itself.

In a still larger way are men found picturing to themselves a
social status which is an improvement morally over any exist-
ing social organization, and then acknowledging, however
feebly, the moral obligation to move onward toward the real-
ization of this Ideal. Thus it is only a seeming contradiction
in terms when I assert : the moral Ideal is the great, myste-
rious, and permanent Reality in the moral constitution and
moral development of humanity. This same Ideal assumes
almost innumerable forms as it appears before the individual
consciousness and as it changes its character in the different
ethical epochs and stages of the ethical evolution of man.
Sometimes it is rather an allurement ; sometimes it partakes
more of the nature of a torment — the allurement or the tor-
ment of the Infinite appearing within the consciousness of the
finite. Always, as was clearly seen when the subject was
under consideration, the moral Ideal is itself undergoing a
process of development. Its very ideal character shows
itself in this that, the more it is pursued, the more does it
retreat ; the more nearly it seems to have been reached, the
more distant of realization does it become.

Now, undoubtedly, it is in the nature of man's moral and
social Selfhood that one must discover the proximate account
for the origin of his moral ideals. Just as man makes his
own moral laws, and imparts to them the sanctions before
whose holy inviolability he acknowledges his allegiance to be
due, so does he frame the ideals of individual goodness and

628 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

of the morally perfect human society which the keeping of
these laws is supposed progressively to secure. How he can
achieve with any measure of success so important a task the
psychology of the Moral Self attempts to describe. Thus, too,
does the historical and anthropological study of the influences
under which the different types of the Virtuous Life have
appeared supply the proximate causes for the structure and
growth of the Ultimate Moral Ideal. Yet here again the
answer of psychological analysis and of historical insight does
not furnish all that the philosophy of conduct demands.
How can man do for himself this significant work of idealiz-
ing, unless his nature is born of an Absolute Ethical Spirit ?
How can he develop such an Ideal, in whose life he shares,
unless his history may be understood from the side of the
" Overman " as under the inspiration and guidance of this
Spirit ? It is in the answer to these inquiries that the meta-
physics of Ethics finds itself obliged to adopt some position
corresponding to that from which religion regards all the
development of humanity. Of this tenet of the religious con-
sciousness Pfleiderer ^ forcefully says : " And here too Paul
pointed out the right way, founding his philosophy of religion
on the thought which in modern thinking must always be
the principal point of view : the thought, namely, of a develop-
ment of the moral spirit under the guiding education of God.
Each stage of the development has its corresponding moral
ideal ; none of them is fortuitous or arbitrary, each rests on a
divine ordinance and is good and necessary for its own time,
and for its own time only."

In one word, if man's moral nature and moral develop-
ment are held in themselves to furnish the account for the
origin and development of man's moral ideals, then a fortiori
is it man himself, with this nature and undergoing this de-
velopment, who demands to have an account of his origin
and his history. In his efforts to introduce in the form of
1 The PhUosophy of Religion, IV, p. 254.

MORALITY AND THE WORLD-GROUND 629

ethical postulates all those most precious ethico-religious
conceptions and truths which had been denied to knowledge,
Kant found himself compelled to draw heavily upon the
resources of an invisible, non-sensuous, and ideal World.
Knowledge had been proved, he thought, to be only of phenom-
ena — albeit of " objective " phenomena, and so of phenomenal
reality. But the moral law, which appears in human con-
sciousness as a categorical imperative, demands that we should
not only think the possibility of our being, but believe that
we actually are, free and noumenal beings, belonging to this
kingdom of persons where moral values, however unrealizable
in the world of phenomena, are unconditional and supreme.
This is Kant's uncouth way of acknowledging that man's
moral being, however its historical unfolding and psychologi-
cal explanation may appear to the understanding, is, after all,
dependently connected in reality with the World-Ground.
For this great thinker, in order to make rational our expe-
rience with this ideal side of human selfhood and human
history, God must be believed in as the Lawgiver, the Sanc-
tioner, and Rewarder of the moral life of humanity.

In accounting for the nature of cognition — of knowledge,
faith, feeling, opinion, etc. — we are obliged to differ from
the author of the Critique of Pure Reason in many and rad-
ical ways. In our treatment of the nature of moral conscious-
ness, too, we have tried to keep much nearer to life and to
experience than did he ; and so to be more truly rational than
was Kant with his quite too vacillating and expansive con-
ception of reason itself. In this way we expect to avoid the
deep-cutting schism, the irreconcilable contradiction, which he
sets up within the heart of reason itself. There are, in fact,
no such contradictions within the realm of appearances, or be-
tween appearances and Reality, as the Kantian dialectic aims
to disclose, whether this dialectic be wielded in the hands of
its great master or in the far feebler grasp of some of his suc-
cessors and imitators. But the final necessities which all the

630 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

agnostic dialecticians come to acknowledge are most signifi-
cant. In man's moral nature, if not elsewhere (although,
as I believe, also elsewhere and everywhere), the voice of the
Personal Absolute is more plainly to be heard. Faith in this
voice is imperative here. Faith in this voice is the height
of rationality here. The account of the origin and the on-
going of the physical universe may seem complete without
the recognition of a Spirit whose self-conscious Life is the
source and the inspiration of an otherwise dead and even non-
existent nature ; the account, I say, may seem complete, espe-
cially if the inquirer does not inquire too profoundly, and if
he is content to deceive himself with words that either pos-
sess no real content of thought or else do service for thoughts
which they do not legitimately represent. But for the origin
and the historical development of man's ethical and spiritual
life — with its laws that transcend all experience of conse-
quences, its sanctions that evoke a devotion which oversteps
all the bounds of a merely personal regard, its ideals that are
ever arising and fading, but only to appear more bright and
alluring and inspiring still — what account can possibly be
found in impersonal cosmic processes, or in a World-Ground
that is not itself an ethical and spiritual Life ?

And, finally, with the adoption of the postulate that the
ground of morality is to be found in the World-Ground con-
ceived of as Ethical Spirit, the theoretical and practical an-
titheses with which the psychological and historical study of
ethical phenomena left our minds embarrassed, are much
softened and relieved, if they are not wholly removed. That
they are not wholly removed must be frankly admitted. The
virtuous life is still a problem and a conflict for the truly reli-
gious man. It is not the reward of religious faith to deliver
the soul from all the puzzling conflicts of thought, or even the
manifold conflicts of a practical sort. But both reason and
will, both the speculative demands and the necessities of clear-
sighted action, are in a measure — and in increasingly good

MORALITY AND THE WORLD-GROUND 631

measure, as acquaintance with the ethical problem increases
in width and in depth — satisfied by the view which finds the
ground of morality in an ethical and spiritual World-Ground.
Among the theoretical and practical antitheses in which
we were left by the empirical study of the Moral Self and of
the Virtuous Life was the conflict which exists between the
interests of the sentient and the commands of the moral being
of man. Naturally and inevitably the sentient nature demands
satisfaction ; but many of its most imperative and fundamen-
tal satisfactions are either quite constantly or more infrequently
restricted, or even forbidden, by the moral law. Theoretically
considered this conflict is often inscrutable ; and from the
practical point of view, it is generally annoying and difficult of
a reasonable settlement. It is not my purpose at present to
sing the praises of those consolations, and even reversals of
the natural results of this conflict, which are afforded by reli-
gious faith. It is enough here briefly to say that, to the
thinker who refers this dual and antagonistic nature of man
to its source in an ideally righteous and holy Will, and who
regards this Will as pledged and empowered to see the finite
Moral Self through to a triumphant issue in this conflict, —
to such a one the conflict itself assumes a quite different aspect.
Suffering in the interests of morality, if this suffering is
caused by a blind, irrational, and hopeless confusion seated in
the nature of an impersonal Universe, is hard indeed to
justify. Suffering, in the interests of morality, with the
added confidence that in the suffering we are showing our
allegiance to an Ethical Spirit, whose sympathy we may claim
and to whose righteous judgments we may appeal, is not
nearly so hard. The most refined arguments of Naturalism
in Ethics give, I think, no sort of intellectual satisfaction,
and no sufficient semblance even of a support to the man who
is putting down, and putting behind him, his lower sensuous
cravings in the interests of the moral life — whether his own,
or that of his fellow men.

632 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

The same thing is true of the conflicts which arise among
the virtues themselves. As we have already seen (p. 451 f.),
the different virtues seem to display a kind of antagonistic or
antithetic character. This is emphasized in the classification
which, however, we refused to accept, — namely, into egoistic
and altruistic virtues. What solution offers itself when my
own best interests seem to conflict with the equally good and
desirable interests of others ? No theoretical answer to this
problem must, indeed, be admitted which solves the problem by
dissolving the individual personality, with its definite concrete
interests, in the vague and boundless conception of an all-
embracing Infinite. The " oneness of man in God " has not
infrequently been so taught by the metaphysics of ethics as to
frame such a reason for doing away with moral conflicts that
the reason itself, taken seriously, does away with all intelligible
apprehension of the nature and grounds of morality itself. I
am one person, — in my moral Selfhood exclusive of all other
personality and individually responsible in a very real and
significant way. My morality is my own ; there is no reality
answering to the term the " Social Self ; " but the morality
of the Moral Self is ever an individual and concrete affair.
The moral selfhood of every human being is peculiarly lonely.
And a pantheistic metaphysics of ethics which either removes
the attributes of good and bad conduct from the individual,
or which merges them all together in the Universal, is above
all forms of this branch of philosophy most to be avoided and
dreaded. This way of reconciling moral antitheses cuts moral-
ity up by the roots.

None the less, however, is it necessary to emphasize the
social nature of morality, and the amelioration which all
moral conflicts receive from the religious doctrine of the
Fatherhood of God, and the membership in the Divine family
of all the " sons of men." Religion teaches that men are all
born of one Ethical Spirit ; the sons of men are also sons of
God. From this point of view the hard and sharp antithesis

MORALITY AND THE WORLD-GROUND 633

between the so-called egoistic and the so-called altruistic
duties softens and seems to melt quite away. If I, in my
conduct, strive to conserve and promote the moral interests
of my better Self; — this I do as one of the members of the
Divine family and with their interests as truly as my own at
heart. If in this interest I oppose others to the death of the
body and to the destruction of all the material interests of
myself and of them, provided this opposition has secured the
characteristics of wisdom, truth, and benevolence on its side,
I am still contending for their most worthy life as well as for
my own. And in all this devotion to others — to consider
the individual's conduct from the other and reverse point of
view — I am realizing my own ideal of the morally most
worthy Self. Thus this " suffusion of vague personality "
which has everywhere appeared in our study of ethical
phenomena is made to crystallize into a definite doctrine of
a personal Ground for all these phenomena. The distinction
between persons is not abrogated ; the rather is it em-
phasized and elevated.

The attempt to construe the World-Ground in a so-called
"scientific" and totally impersonal way tends always to
minimize the authority and value of personal life. A bubble
rising, briefly remaining, and then soon bursting upon the
surface of Nature's boundless sea, seems scarcely worth the
attention which the study of the Moral Self of man, and of
his rising moral Ideals, urges us to bestow. But a single
child of God may sanely be held to have no mean potential
value. And to believe that what is done for one — whether
that one be one's self or some other one — is somehow done
for all, and that the Ethical Spirit in whom all have their
life and being is the Source and Guarantor of the moral
interests of all, can scarcely fail to assist in both the theoreti-
cal and the practical solution of the antithesis between the
egoistic and the altruistic virtues so called.

Especially, however, does the heart of man crave the as-

634 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

sistance of some well-assured hope in its effort to bear
dutifully the grave contradictions which everywhere exist
between the actual and the ethically Ideal. That things are
not as they ought to be is a much more trying discovery than
that things are not as they seem. The antithesis between
Appearance and Reality which has been so often exploited in
a showily dialectical rather than in a profoundly philosophical
manner is, for the most part, a specious and not very alarming
affair. But the contradictions which exist between the moral
and social ideals of humanity and what is actual in human
conduct, and in the constitution of human affairs so far as it
is dependently related to conduct, are very real and very
disturbing. That whatever appears, really ^s, — this is a
proposition which may well command the attention, and
finally the consent, of every thoughtful mind. But that
whatever is in conduct and in character among men is right,
— this is a proposition, which, however often it is made and
with whatever brilliant dialectics it may be supported, is op-
posed to all the most firmly seated and valuable moral con-
victions of mankind.

This conflict between the Real of human experience and
the Ideal constructed by human thought and imagination,
and followed — however fitfully and imperfectly — by human
endeavors, is the eternal conflict. According to the myths
of the ancients and the theologies of modern times, it was
waged in invisible, supermundane regions, before it began to
be waged upon earth. The theoretical solution of the conflict,
as respects its origin, its fullest significance, and its ultimate
issue, is, however, as satisfactorily treated as is compatible
with the limitations of human knowledge, when it is shown
how one may believe that the ultimate Source of both the
reality and of the ideals which still await realization is one
and the same World-Ground. This World-Ground is a
Personal Will that is pledged and able to effect the pro-
gressive realization of the ideals which, too, owe their origin

MOEALITY AND THE WORLD-GROUND 635

and historical development to Him. In a word, the same
Ethical Spirit who inspires the moral ideals of man, and who
reveals liis own being in their historical evolution, will secure,
and is securing, the realization of the ideals in the world's
actual on-going. If one may have a reasonable faith in this
conclusion, then certainly, however severe the temporary
conflict may be, and whether this conflict be raging within
the soul of the individual or within the social organization,
its final issue and fuller significance are secure. Well-
founded moral optimism makes large demands on religious
faith. Only wlien one is confident that there is a Power in
human history, which is over and throughout it all, and
which effectively makes for righteousness, can one hopefully
survey the large and long-existing disruption between the
actual moral conditions of humanity and humanity's own
highest moral ideals. The only power which can be con-
ceived of as at once interested and suitable to effect this
progressive reconciliation of the actual and the ideal is God.

CHAPTER XXYI

THE ULTIMATE MORAL IDEAL

In proposing to ourselves the ultimate problem of a philos-
ophy of conduct it was said (see p. 461) that " ethics cannot
avoid questions of the destiny of the individual and of the
race," if it wishes satisfactorily to treat of this problem. '' All
explanation is teleological and has reference to an end to be
realized. Especially and most obviously true is this of the
phenomena with which ethics deals." What is this End, or
Goal of endeavor, to which all the strivings, however limited
in their success, of the human race look forward, so far as the
philosophy of conduct can take them into its account ? The
question has already been answered, but only in an approxi-
mate and partial way. Perhaps no more than an approximate
and partial answer can ever be expected as the result of re-
flective thinking. Certainly, philosophy can now furnish no
complete answer to this ethical inquiry. In such a case briefly
to gather together the fragments of an opinion is all which the
concluding chapter of this treatment of the problem of con-
duct should attempt. I believe, however, that it is quite legit-
imate to indulge, within carefully drawn limits, in those
anticipations and conjectures which, while they never admit
of scientific proof and, rarely, even of definite and defensible
statement, are, nevertheless, among the most valuable of our
mental possessions as measured by that standard of worth
compliance with which results in the most satisfactory living.

It was stated early in the course of this investigation that,
without doubt, some form of the Good is the ultimate ideal of

THE ULTIMATE MORAL IDEAL 637

man's moral life and moral development. This phrase, " the
Good," however, includes all the ends whose realization brings
any form of satisfaction to the sentient and self-conscious life
of man ; and among goods are to be distinguished three classes
which, although they are cognate and interconnected, just as
are all the different functions of the one human soul, are not
by any means precisely the same. The objects which afford
the three forms of a satisfaction which may be called an in-
itself good are designated as pleasant, or as beautiful, or as
morally right. But in all cases, the actual good is the living
state or activity, the actual experience, of a self-conscious soul.
And when inquiry is made as to what kind of states or activi-
ties are those which merit the name of being morally good,
the answer of empirical ethics is given in the enumeration of
those forms of conduct which, taken together and in harmony,
constitute the Virtuous Life. This Life is the moral in-itself
Good. And here I most heartily agree with Mr. Bradley when
he declares : ^ " Against the base mechanical 'BavavaCa^ which
meets us on all sides, with its ' What is the use of goodness,
or beauty, or truth,' there is but one fitting answer from the
friends of science, art, or religion and virtue, ' We do not
know, and we do not care ; ' " if by this confession of ignorance
and indifference it is meant to rebuke all attempts to reduce
the value of these forms of that which is good to any merely
mercantile or utilitarian standard. Moral goodness, or the
virtuous life — I repeat — is in-itself good ; it is the supreme
moral good. And to say that such a life needs no guaranty
of its own worth, which lies outside of itself, so far from being
a vicious circle in conception or argument, is simply to state
a fundamental truth of ethics ; — namely, that man's total
moral consciousness, and his entire ethical experience, alike
assert and confirm the independent value of the virtuous life.

The assertion of the intrinsic worth of moral goodness as
furnishing its own end does not, however, amount to a depre-
^ Ethical Studies, p. 57.

638 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

ciation or denial of the value of other forms of good ; neither
does it afford the mind any means of discovering how this par-
ticular form of good is to be separated from these other forms,
in the actual life of the individual or of the race. In all con-
crete ethical judgments we are obliged to acknowledge the
relations which exist between moral goodness and the other
conceptions of that kind of personal existence which has worth.
Hence in discussing, or even in barely conceiving, the nature
of the moral law, the nature and ground of its sanctions, and
the nature and guaranty of its ideal, eudaemonistic and aes-
thetical factors cannot wholly be divorced from the ethical.
Nor is this fact at all strange or in any degree unaccountable.
Indeed, were the contrary an established fact, it would be un-
accountable and even quite unintelligible. A perfectly virtu-
ous but utterly miserable rational being is not only not to be
met with in fact ; but such a being is not conceivable in accord-
ance with our knowledge concerning the vital unities estab-
lished between the sentient and the moral Self. A perfectly
virtuous but utterly miserable society composed of such beings
is not only ideally considered an unsatisfactory conception,
but is even intrinsically irrational and absurd. The ethical
good may not be identified with the purely eudaemonistic ; nor
may the virtuous life be conceived of as merely instrumental
to any other form of good lying outside of its own precious
self. But as long as the unity of the various functions and
experiences of human nature remains what it is — and this
amounts to saying, as long as man is man — virtue and hap-
piness cannot be wholly divorced ; nor can either be conceived
of as consisting of states or activities that never concur in
reciprocal relations within the conscious life of the soul. In
a somewhat less obvious but no less profound and important
way are the good of conduct and the good of art — or rather
moral goodness and beauty — interrelated. To be perfectly
good morally and yet to disregard all considerations of what
is beautiful is impossible. Especially are the heroic and the

THE ULTIMATE MORAL IDEAL 639

kindly virtues intrinsically adapted to call forth an admiration
which partakes of both the ethical and the aesthetical sides of
human nature. The perfectly good man cannot be all ugly,
both without and within ; neither can we deny the great value
of the ministrations rendered to the moral ideal of living, in
the case both of the individual and of the social organization,
by the satisfactions of man's craving for, and love of, the
beautiful.

It has always happened, therefore, that The Ideal before
the aspiring individual, and as well before the community and
the race, has been some sort of a blend of all these three
forms of ideal good. The ideal Self has been thought to com-
bine and reconcile, in some good degree at least, all the sides
of human activity and human experience which are deemed
worthy of being satisfied. Such a Self has been conceived
of as worthily happy in its own good disposition and good
will ; and thus, too, as an aesthetically admirable and praise-
worthy example of what a person ought to be.

If, however, one demands a more strict and well-defined
conception of the morally ideal Self, an answer to this has
been furnished by all the previous investigations. These in-
vestigations have shown that the Moral Good, which is the
Ideal of Ethics, appears in human consciousness as (1) virtue,
the good to realize which is worthy of approbation, individ-
ual and social ; as (2) duty, or the good to realize which is
obligatory upon the will ; and as (3) end, the good the real-
ization of which sets the rational goal of effort and awards
the title to being felicitated by all rational beings. In a
word, the moral ideal which is ultimate for every individual
Moral Self is this same self 8 life history considered as depend-
ent upon its own conduct and character. To live this ethi-
cally ideal life, and progressively to become this morally
ideal Self, is the highest ethical good for the individual
moral being.

At once, however, another cognate aspect of the ultimate

640 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

moral Ideal is opened before the expectant imagination.
This aspect emphasizes the social nature of the moral Ideal.
It shows that the conclusion which seems most final from
the individual's point of view really contains the demand
within itself for an enlargement of its own domain. The
individual Moral Self cannot develop, cannot even exist,
much less successfully pursue its ideal end, in independence
of other selves whose interests are either accordant with,
or antagonistic to, its own. Thus the end of morality can-
not be realized for any individual in independence of society.
Nor can the good of the social organization — whether it
be the good of happiness, of beauty, or of morality — be
conceived of, or practically treated as though it were merely
instrumental to the moral good of the individual. To treat
other persons as though they, especially in respect of their
attainment of the ethical ideal, were merely subsidiary to
one's self is to abandon the ideal of a perfect Moral Self;
it is to attain a worse the rather than a better position
with reference to the standard of moral goodness. In some
dim way this truth has always been recognized. As Profes-
sor T. H. Green has said : ^ *' In the earlier stages of human
consciousness in which the idea of a true or permanent
good could lead any one to call in question the good of an
immediately attractive pleasure, it was already an idea of a
social good — of a good not private to the man himself,
but good for him as a member of community." Tlius have
the thoughtful always found themselves compelled to say,
on the one hand : He who seeks his own highest moral
good, the perfection of his moral Selfhood, must seek to
promote the same good in others, must seek to serve the
social ideal of moral goodness ; but, on the other hand, he
who seeks the highest service to the ethico-social Ideal must
realize that service primarily in conforming his own life to
his own moral ideal.

1 Prolegomena to Ethics, p. 247.

THE ULTIMATE MORAL IDEAL 641

In some sort, however, the social good may be said to con-
stitute the Ultimate Ideal — as well of morality, as also of
happiness, beauty, and religion. This social good is a good
at all only in so far as it consists in the actual living ex-
perience of concrete personal existences. So-called "social
good," like every form of good, is realizable only in the self-
conscious states and activities of individual selves. It is not
itself to be personified, much less made into a fetish or one of
the minor gods. But there is a certain limited legitimacy to
the prevalent custom here. This custom has been to gather
into the mental grasp of some one conscious life the picture
of all the good, which a vast multitude of such lives might,
through long stretches of time, be able to realize ; and then
to conceive of this picture as representing the Ultimate Ideal
Good. That the laws, sanctions, and ideals of conduct which
every good man is called upon to make his own suggest some-
thing of this sort is undoubtedly true. I cannot be ideally
good, cannot claim any consistent approach to the moral ideal,
unless I regard the relations of my own conduct to other mem-
bers of the race ; — and not only those in the more immediate
circle to which I see that I belong, but also to many outside
that circle whom I shall never see, and even to many more
who belong to the ages yet to come.

As a matter of fact, men have for countless centuries con-
ceived of the Ultimate Moral Ideal in a social way. Above
and beyond, and as embracing the particular ideal of a perfect
moral selfhood which the individual strives to realize, there
is the fair thought of a larger and more comprehensive ideal.
This social ideal, like every other conception of great lofti-
ness and comprehensiveness, has been variously and always
more or less imperfectly conceived. The ancient Parsis and
Hindus framed it, each in their own way. With a pastoral
people it differs from the conception framed by those whose
interests are more agricultural or commercial. Those who
prize more highly the values of science, art, and philosophy

642 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

would construct it with a comparative disregard for the factors
which, for example, the North American Indians or the Ainos
would most surely introduce. The Old Testament and the
Apocryphal Hebrew Scriptures dreamed, in a way inspired by
the religious faiths and hopes of their authors, of a kingdom
over which presided the nation's God, and in which the par-
ticular type of prosperity with which experience had made
them familiar was to reach its highest conceivable expression.
The Stoical moral ideal, too, was that of a divine community
among men. In the triumph within the World of the "Dear
City of God," Marcus Aurelius believed as ardently and as
faithfully as did the Church Father, Augustine. To contribute
to this triumph has long been esteemed to be the task and the
privilege of the good man ; and only in the completion of this
task, and in the enjoyment of this privilege, could the indi-
vidual moral self progressively realize its own ideal. The
mediaeval systems of ethics indeed emphasized the idea of
perfection according to a Law — divine, or human, or a coin-
cidence of both. But even this more impersonal way of pre-
senting the ultimate ideal of morality was essentially of a
social character. Pre-eminently in modern times, by all the
different types and forms of socialistic conceptions, is the ideal
after which men feel themselves morally bound to strive in
respect of conduct and of character, an ideally constituted
community of morally upright men.

Thus has the imagination of man constructed some form
of a social order which should transcend anything hitherto
realized by human experience ; and the actualization of this
superior social order has been held up before the mind and
the will of the race as the goal of its endeavors. As with the
more individual, so with the more social Ideal, the imagina-
tion has never been satisfied wholly to exclude from the
picture any of the forms of the in-itself Good. However
constructed — whether by the most altruistic of communists
and socialists or by the most orthodox and old-fashioned of

THE ULTIMATE MORAL IDEAL 643

theologians — the end of social development is made somehow
to combine the realization of the conditions for the highest
happiness, together with the most perfect beauty, and the
most exalted goodness, of the entire community.

The Ultimate Moral Ideal, however, makes prominent the
conception of a social organization which is arranged on a
basis of righteousness and good will ; and in which all the
different members are, each in his own way, realizing his own
ideal and yet all contributing to the righteous, happy, and
beautiful life of all the others. In a word, the goal set before
the ethical history and evolution of the race is the formation
and continuance of a community of moral selves, all of whom
are contributing by their conduct and their character to the
highest and most worthy social life conceivable, — so far as
this highest conceivable social life is dependent upon the
conduct and the character of the members of the community.

The religious form of a similar conception is embodied
in such titles as a " Divine Community," a " City of God," a
" Kingdom of Heaven," or a " Kingdom of God." From the
point of view held by this conception, the nature of the right
is ever more clearly defined in connection with the progres-
sive " coming " of that Kingdom ; the superior and all-inclu-
sive good for man is to share in a happy, beautiful, and holy
community, — an ever-blessed society, whose inspirer, ruler,
and immanent life is the Absolute Ethical Spirit whom reli-
gious faith calls God. That the Ultimate Moral Ideal has, in
fact, been construed in some such way as this by minds in-
fluenced not only by religious faith, but also by insight into the
significance of human society and of its history, is true be-
yond dispute. What Paulsen says^ of one great poet and
philosopher may be said of many another : " Even for a man
like Goethe, who stands firmly upon the earth and joyfully
appropriates it with his entire being, it has always been the
deepest yearning of his heart to gaze into a boundless,

1 A System of Ethics, p. 161.

644 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

purer realm, in which everything that the hazy atmosphere
of our narrow earthly existence encompasses dissolves and
vanishes."

To prove the objective validity of man's trust in such an
Ultimate Moral Ideal by an appeal to the history of man's
ethical development lies outside of the bounds of ethics. The
philosophy of conduct could not depend on such historical
evidence, even if it were discoverable to a still larger extent
than it is. The highest ideal constructions of the moral Self,
under the influence of its social cravings and social faiths,
, hopes, and aspirations, do not admit of having their possi-
bility demonstrated in a scientific and historical way. Neither
do I find that any proof can be derived from the so-called
" pure reason " of man, whether regarded in its more cogni-
tive or more practical aspect. But here again, and for the
last time, it appears that the acceptance with a lively faith
and a cheerful hope of the postulates of religion affords the
mind of the inquirer the highest attainable satisfaction with
regard to the prospect of man's realizing the construct of his
own supremely noble and desirable activity of the imagination
in the form of an Ultimate Moral Ideal.

Upon one point, however, a few words are pertinent in this
connection. It is sometimes held that the very conception
which we have attached, in the name of the world's best
thinking and believing, to the words, an " Ultimate Moral
Ideal," is full of internal and mutually destructive contradic-
tions.^ The realization of this fair hope, that is to say, would

1 This view is maintained in a very obtrusive and even morally offensive way
by Mr. A. E. Taylor in his recent work, called The Problem of Conduct. This
author seems determined to find all reality and all human life fairly undermined
with antinomies, although the avowed object of his treatise is to discuss the
ethical problem, abjuring all metaphysics. First, the nature of morality is shown
to be " an unprincipled compromise " (p. 244 f.). Then the claims of self-culture
and those of social justice are shown to be irreconcilably opposed (p. 295 f.).
Then the ideal of a perfect society, or Kingdom of God, is declared to be, how-
ever useful, an " ultimately illusory ideal" (p. 420 f.). And, finally, the religious
experience of humanity is confidently accused of being (a) " full of unresolved

THE ULTIMATE MORAL IDEAL 645

involve the extinction of all morality ; for the 'perfect society
is that in which the very conditions which are necessary to
the existence and development of the truly virtuous life have
come to an end. The morality whicli is conceived of as no
longer being a choice of good rather than evil — and this,
when it is difficult to do right because temptations abound,
and the possibilities and opportunities of doing wrong are
frequent — is thus declared to be not genuine morality at all.
The realization of the moral ideal is confessedly progres-
sive ; in its intrinsic character it is a struggle upward on the
part of the individual and of the race ; therefore, we are told
that to speak of it either as an " unending progress " or as a
*' finished process " is to leave out of our conception the most
essential of its factors. In a word, morality is always and
necessarily the antithesis of immorality; the right can never
have its nature manifested except through the opposition of
the wrong ; the reign of goodness is neither conceivable nor
capable of actualization except in the form of a perpetual
triumph over the hosts and forces that make for evil. The
kingdom of the Devil is the necessary foil of the kingdom of
God.

In reference to the conception of an Ultimate Moral Ideal
I beg leave to quote at some length what I have said in an-
other connection.^ " It is indeed given to man to know the
world of concrete real beings and of actual events as falling
under the principle of final purpose. This world is known to
be a teleological system, a construction controlled by imma-
nent ends. But it is not given to man to ' know * what is the
one ultimate end of the world ; or whether the world's cause
has only one such end ; much less, whether this one ultimate
purpose of Nature — of the world's system and course of
things and of selves — is the realization of man's moral ideal,

and unresolvable contradictionB," and thus (6) defective, except so far as it is
capable "of emptying all our purely moral conceptions of all significance"
(p.427f.).
1 A Theory of Reality, p. 390 f.

646 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

as Kant conceived of it. With regard to each of these three
teleological problems, — although they are all essential factors
in the one problem of teleology, as this all-inclusive problem
is viewed in the Critique of Judgment, — only the better hope, or
the more reasonable opinion is, at best, attainable. For neither
of the three can rightly claim the dignity of a postulate of moral
reason ; nor is either of them essentially connected with any
so-called * ethico-teleological ' proof for the Being of God.

" First, — and strictly speaking, — an ' ultimate ' purpose of
the world's being and course, as such, may well seem some-
thing unattainable and even inconceivable. The End to be
attained cannot be regarded as the complete cessation of the
process of its own attainment. The ultimate purpose of
Nature cannot be a statical condition. The very idea of tele-
ology is an incitement to strive on and live on ; the idea it-
self perishes in its own completed realization. To be sure,
individual men get tired and come to consider Nirvana as
the ultimate ideal ; or they get pessimistic, and regard the con-
dition when the world shall be a burned-out coal, as something
devoutly to be wished. But the World itself is not tired ; and
the strictly ultimate purpose is always beyond where man's
hope and faith — not to say man's knowledge — can go.

" Moreover, second, the most ultimate purpose which we
can conceive is not one purpose ; it is not an ideal end that
can be brought under any strict unity of conception. Some
sort of a Unity the final purpose of the World's course un-
doubtedly must be. But the higher the sort of unity is, the
more complex and inclusive is it of every conceivable form of
good ; — and of yet more beyond. Who shall define to knowl-
edge or describe to faith and hope the single, the alone ideal
end which it shall seem a worthy end of all the World's
Force to realize through the infinite Life of the world's time ?
A certain singleness of aim is necessary for the physical and
mental resources of finite mortals. Yet there is no real thing
so mean, so limited in resources, so meagre in time, and so

THE ULTIMATE MORAL IDEAL 647

single-handed in service, as not to have many ends to attain.
The only worthy aim which the most exalted intelligence can
set for itself is to play its assigned part well everywhere in
the infinitely varied and ever-changing system of selves and
things. This is the true service of Self, of the World, and of
God ; but its unity is best expressed in an indefinite variety of
actual transactions, and of diversified forms of being.

" Nor, finally, can man attain the assurance of faith that
his own moral culture forms the one ultimate purpose served
by the Nature of which he is, or esteems himself to be, the
crowning product. No word of ours shall ever depreciate or
minimize the moral ideal. Without its light to shed upon
the course of physical things, down to the lowest depths and
into their minutest details, this course is darker than it other-
wise need be. But not even the most exalted religious faith
which raises man to the rank of a child of God, and grasps,
as its supreme ideal, the redemption of the race, justifies
exactly the confidence which Kant assigns to this postulate
of reflective teleological judgment. Indeed, the conception
of * moral culture * may be so pressed as to divide human
nature against itself, separate human nature from other
nature, and even take man out of sympathy with the well-
being of God. For man is not all ethical, in the Kantian con-
ception of tlie * ethical ' ; neither is the ethical so strictly set
apart from the natural as that the one can dispense with the
truths of the other. Nor, finally, is God an unattainable
Ding-an-sich to knowledge, but a necessary postulate of
moral realities ; and yet altogether without a warm and vital
co-conscious indwelling in his own children."

So much agnosticism as this, however, is a quite different
affair from that dogmatic agnosticism which somehow claims
to hiow that the realization of the Ultimate Moral Ideal is
forever unattainable because it seems inherently self-contra-
dictory. Indeed, there does not appear to be any adequate
reason for inflicting upon this conception the charge of in-

648 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

herent self-contradictions. That moral life, like all other
life, has in fact thus far developed under conditions of con-
flict and struggle against moral evil is not an adequate proof
that the continued existence of moral evil is an indispensable
pre-condition of all moral life. The " evil times " which
have hitherto prevailed, and which still prevail, in the ethical
development of humanity do, indeed, call imperatively for a
certain class of virtues that fit men to contend successfully
with, and to triumph over, a prevalent unmoral or immoral
social environment. And it is quite in accordance with the
nature of moral consciousness, as well as of the most funda-
mental principles affecting the sanctions and grounds of moral
development, that those who fight well should be esteemed
heroically and most worthily good. Nor will I deny that the
Ethical Spirit in whose Will and Reason are found the final
explanation of the principles, sanctions, and ideals of the
moral life of humanity, is Himself somehow interested and
engaged in this mighty and enduring conflict between the
morally good and the morally evil.

But there is another side to the virtuous life ; and this side,
too, has its sanctions and its own inalienable right to partic-
ipate far more largely than is its wont, at the present time,
in the conceptions which correspond to tlie ideals of morality.
In the present World-Age all men must fight or they cannot
claim the title to be good, or even to be aspirants for this title.
But fighting is not the only ethical good; and the good
fighter is not the exclusively good Self ; nor is the ideal of
virtuous living essentially a picture of one eternal and unre-
mitting battle. The quiet kindly offices of friendship, the
calm and resigned acceptance of pain and defeat in the inter-
ests of the higher ideals of life, the willing and joyful doing of
duty, and the joy in living the divine life and in membership
in the Divine Kingdom, are entitled to recognition among
the chief moral goods. The Hindu seeker for Nirvana, the
ascetic monk of ancient or mediaeval Christianity, the mystic

THE ULTIMATE MORAL IDEAL 649

among the Buddhists, and the philosopher who regards as his
ideal the contemplative blessedness of the " God-intoxicated "
Spinoza, — however one-sided and ethically defective their
theory and practice may be (and certainly they are no more
defective than many an advocate of the so-called " strenuous
life " ), — have certain truths to teach the candid student of
the philosophy of conduct. The picture which the highest
exercises of poetical and philosophical imagination frames
of the Ultimate Ideal of Morality is certainly not that of a
community of inactive and dreaming selves. But because the
goal is not Nirvana or the undisturbed intuition of the Abso-
lute, it does not follow that one may dogmatically declare a
social life, which has passed beyond the necessity of conflicts
with moral evil, to be inherently self-contradictory.

Moreover, it must be remembered that ethics deals primarily
with the morally Ideal, and with the other elements of the ideal
social life, only so far as these are dependently connected with
human conduct, its consequences, and its own peculiar goal
of endeavor. This restriction of its most comprehensive and
even improbable conceptions leaves abundant room in the en-
vironment of morality for the healthy stimulus of pain, disap-
pointment, and loss — for all the conflict and discipline of the
moral life of humanity which it essentially needs. It would
be foolish, because contrary to all our growing scientific knowl-
edge of man's more permanent environing conditions, to sup-
pose that right conduct can ever do away with all suffering
and struggle from human life. On the contrary, it is man's
inescapable finiteness which furnishes those more important
conditions which will always be productive of these kinds of
evil. The Kingdom of God on earthy at any rate, can never
be free from pain, and tears, and disappointments, and
struggles.

At last, however, ethical discussion must confess that it
has reached its utmost limits. The philosophy of conduct can
only recognize the nature of those deep-seated faiths and

650 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

hopes which it finds in the ethico-religious consciousness of
humanity. It can invoke the aid of the philosophy of religion
to render more clearly well-founded, more explicit, and more
reasonable these faiths and hopes. So far as they converge
upon this Ideal of a morally perfect social community, in
which wrong-doing shall be no more, not because all do alike,
or think alike, or are shaped after the one pattern, but because
all acknowledge supreme allegiance and render unflinching
obedience to the manifoldly differentiated worth of a Moral
Self living in all the relations, which personality compels or
justifies, with other moral selves, — so far as this is true of these
faiths and hopes, ethics can defend them against the charge of
inherent and self-destructive inconsistency. But here it must
lay down its task. For ethics has now returned to the truth
which Plato saw but did not clearly state : " No single cate-
gory will adequately express the nature of our highest ideals
of the Good."^ This conclusion points out the way along
which the mind of the inquirer must pass, after the more le-
gitimate confines of the philosophy of conduct have been tran-
scended. The moral nature of man must blend its voice in
harmony with his artistic and religious nature. Ethics must
clasp hands with Esthetics and with the Philosophy of Reli-
gion. And such a threefold cord, which binds humanity to
the Ideal, cannot be easily or quickly severed.

Our investigation of the phenomena of man's moral life
and moral development began with the lowly attempt to com-
prehend the nature of the Moral Self. It then passed on to a
survey of those kinds of conduct which by a common, if not
a strictly universal consent have come to be established in
the constitution of human society as having a preferred claim
upon the consciousness of obligation, and as entitled to be
approbated and rewarded for their conformity to the ideal of

1 See Taylor, The Problem of Conduct, p. 241.

CONCLUSION 651

a Virtuous Life. But when the attempt was made to give a
satisfactory solution to those more ultimate problems connected
with the Nature of the Right and its relations to the World
of Reality, it seemed that the postulates of religion became,
if not necessarily implied and authenticated, at least needed
in an important way for the help which they could afford.
And so the whole discussion was lifted into the invisible do-
main where the Ideals of the loftiest thought and imagination
of man hold their potent though not undisputed sway.

It now remains only to gather into a few concluding words
the results of this lengthy discussion. And, first, the impres-
sion is confirmed and justified that the moral ideals of humanity
are the most important factors in the moral life and historical
development of man. That this estimate is true has been
abundantly proved by the study of ethical phenomena. A simi-
lar estimate can be justified of man's more definitively aestheti-
cal and religious ideals. In fact, human history — whether
it be the history of the individual, or of the race, or of any
particular part of the race, or particular social organization —
cannot be understood without admitting that it is all largely
founded upon, shot through and through with, guided and
inspired by, ideals and judgments of worth. Human history
is the record of man's striving to realize his own progressively
unfolding ethical, artistic, and religious ideals.

This fundamental truth has its practical side. No philoso-
phy which does not give large room, profound significance,
and a mighty potency to the Ideal can account for the
experience of man. Not to use the word in a narrow and
technical way. Idealism is the only form of philosophy which
can claim to explain the realities of human experience. la
a way which gives the key to the rules of right moral
practice, it may also be asserted that no one who is not an
idealist can possibly be a good man, can even know what
kind of a reality is meant by the very word "goodness."
Virtue necessitates belief in the permanency and uncon-

652 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

ditioned worth of ideas. For virtue is the realization by the
actual and historical self of an ideal selfhood. Morality,
or subjective goodness, consists in devotion to the ideal.
The nature of the right and the goal of objective morality
is given in the progressive realization of the universal, social
Ideal. Thus it is that without the constructive, idealizing
activities of thought and imagination, and without the awak-
ening of faith, hope, and inspiration having for their object
these constructions, and without the dominance and guidance
of the practical life by these activities, morality is impossible
for man. No other work could be less easily spared by man's
moral evolution than that which is wrought by this construc-
tive and idealizing activity of his imagination in the ethico-
religious life.

On the other hand, however, morality concerns that which
is practicable under the actually existing conditions of man's
physical and social environment. Right conduct demands
the recognition, therefore, of the real environment, and of
the actual consequences of all human conduct; and, as far
as possible, of each particular piece of conduct. Justness,
wisdom, the measuring and apprehension of opportunity and
of the results of success or failure in seizing the opportunity,
are essential forms of the virtuous life. What is popularly
called " good, sound sense " is the precondition and the
accompaniment of all good conduct. The loftiest idealism
and the firmest grasp upon the unseen realities which are
constituted or recognized by the idealizing activities of man
cannot dispense with the necessity for experience with the
actual behavior of things and men, in their manifold shifting
relations, of things with things, and of men with men. Here
is the ever-present chance, yes ! the certainty of mistake and
conflict, of disappointment and temporary defeat, — not to be
avoided even by those who most firmly and intelligently hold
the highest and worthiest ideals ; but often the more certain to
be met with by those whose ideals are highest and worthiest.

CONCLUSION 668

These two conceptions give us the picture of the Moral
Self striving to realize its ideals in the midst of the real
conditions furnished by its physical and social environment.

Between these two conceptions of the moral life — namely,
that which regards it in its ideal aspects, and that which lays
emphasis rather upon actual experience with causes and
effects, means and ends, conduct and its proximate sources and
nearer consequences — there is another mediating conception
which ethics teaches us particularly to emphasize. This
mediating conception is that of Development, All realiza-
tion of the Moral Ideal, whether in the individual or in the
social organization, is necessarily partial and progressive.
The environment of man, and so the physical and social
circumstances on which his moral evolution is dependent,
is itself in a process of development. By a ceaseless in-
terchange of actions and reactions between moral selves
and this environment the moral development of the race is
secured. For the individual and for the race there is no
way to he moral but to become moral. The only possible
realization of the moral ideals is itself a process in which
the ideals, as well as the actualities corresponding more or
less imperfectly to them, are changing. But it is the hope
and faith of humanity — a hope and a faith that are not
entirely irrational or devoid of all foundations in experience
— that this process of changing is a real progress ; and that
the goal of this progress is the establishment of tliat blessed
and perfect society which religion calls the "Kingdom of
God."

Therefore, the exhortation of that system of ethical con-
clusions which acknowledges fully the ideality of moral facts,
and the reality of the Moral Ideal, is somewhat as follows :
" Hold to the Ideal and ever lift it up ; be sensible and wiso
in practical affairs, patient with yourself, and with all men,
and with God, — also, courageous, and full of faith and
hope."

654 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

The Philosophy of Conduct has a special message to the
social and political organizations of the present day ; — special^
not because they differ from all the preceding social and
political organizations of humanity, in respect of the funda-
mental relations which they sustain to morality, but because
they are themselves so highly specialized, and so big with
portentous consequences affecting the welfare of the race.
Perhaps it is not altogether fanciful to regard this message
as threefold, after the analogy of the three divisions of its
topics which has been adopted by the present treatise. Thus
the first lesson to learn will have regard to the kind of men
that make society and the nations strong and great. It is in
the character of the Moral Selfhood of the individual that the
enduring and effective forces of social and political strength
and greatness are to be found. Human organizations that
are cemented by ethical bonds, and that exist between staunch
and tried moral selves, alone have the character which can
best resist all the forces of dissolution — cosmic, commercial,
social, and political — that assail them under the limitations
of space and of time. That it is righteousness which
magnifies and greatens nations is as true to-day as it has ever
been; — witness the ruins of other forms of greatness and
power which are spotted over the face of the whole earth,
and in spite of the current confidence in rich treasuries,
strong navies, and multitudes of armed men.

And, again, if one inquires after the marks of a truly ad-
vanced civilization, and of such a genuine prosperity as shall
rightly claim a high estimate in the scale of the values of
human existence, it is in the conception of the Virtuous Life
that one's answer must be found. For society and for the na-
tion to be virtuous through and through is to enjoy the right to
be felicitated for its prosperity, and assigned the highest place
in the ranks of civilized living. But it must be remembered
that the list of virtues which enter into this completer concep-
tion of the life of the good man is no meagre affair. Wisdom

CONCLUSION 655

and tnieness are also fundamental virtues ; the cultivation
and management of the intellectual forces is an affair of good
or bad conduct ; and he who remains wilfully ignorant of that
which he might know, and ought to know, is so far forth pre-
vented from realizing the demands of virtuous living. What is
true of individuals is true of communities and nations as well.
While, on the one hand, then, the advancement of the arts and
sciences will never of itself make men highly civilized or really
prosperous, the cultivation of the arts and sciences and the
distribution of the results of their cultivation throughout the
entire multitude of the nation is the duty and the moral
privilege of those who would lead the people in the improve-
ment of its moral standards and in the uplifting of its scale
of ethical living. For man's nature is a spiritual unity ; and
if there is any one heresy which the philosophy of conduct
desires to correct, rebuke, and exorcise, it is the heresy of
schism between reason and morality, between the cognitive
and the moral Self. Nor is strength of character and
power to overcome difficulties an unimportant factor of the
virtuous life. For the prosperity which consists in the real-
ization of this life is, for human beings under existing cir-
cumstances, always a conquest; and advancing civilization
can never hope to substitute the life of ease for the heroic
struggle on which its advances constantly depend. These are
more important factors in civilization than great wealth, or
large armies, or strong navies.

Finally, ethics has a message to the nations which follows
from its study of the more ultimate nature of the principles,
the sanctions, and the ideals that cluster about the conception
of the Right. Nations, like individuals, cannot afford to lose
their faiths, aspirations, and hopes, as these are all directed
toward and into the non-sensuous and invisible World. Na-
tions, like individuals, cannot live by bread alone. For nations,
as for individual souls, it is the things which are not seen that
are eternal. And well is it for nations in their conduct to

656 PHILOSOPHY OF CONDUCT

recognize the sacred duty and the blessed privilege of holding
before themselves, and before one another, the Moral Ideal ;
and of helping humanity in its longing for, and its striving
after, the realization of this Ideal. For such is the deeper
and truer significance of human history. As Rothe ^ so
grandly said : " He who does not unconditionally believe in
the Might of Goodness in the world, and in its final victory,
he can no longer lead in human affairs — I do not say rightly,
but even with any lasting success. For we live in the King-
dom of Redemption, and no longer in the kingdom of this
world."

1 Theologische Ethik, V. p. 291 f.

INDEX

Absolute Self, the, as Ground of
Morality, 112, 536, 567 f., 600 f.,
609 f., 630 f.; and an Ethical Ideal,
252, 536, 567 f., 584 f., 630 f. ; Kantian
view of, 567 f., 601, 629 (see also
World-Ground).

Activity, consciousness of, 146 f., 150 f. ;
physiological basis of, 149 ; relation
of, to deliberation, 150f.

JEsthetics, relation of, to Ethics, 198 f.,
650.

Anthropology, relation of, to Ethics,
26 f., 473 ; on primitive man, 473 f .

Antinomies, the Ethical, nature of, 135. f,
449 f., 582 f. ; influence of religion up-
on them, 582 f. ; solution of them, by
philosophy of religion, 631 f.

Approbation (and Disapprobation), the
moral feeling of, 62 f., 93 f., 100;
differences of, from feeling of obli-
gation, 93 f. ; pleasures of, 95 f ., 97 f. ;
aesthetical character of, 97 f. ; de-
velopment of the feeling of, 100 f.

Aquinas, Thos., his doctrine of the
virtues, 581.

Aristotle, his ethical terminology, 8 f . ;
on ethics as politics, 1 5, 548 ; his use
of psychological method, 21 f . ; views
on exactness of method, 33 (note) ;
on. happiness as supreme good, 36 f . ;
his classification of the virtues, 61 , 1 06,
225; on voluntary action, 66 f., 150;
his doctrine of "the mean," 107, 122,
233 f. ; on consciousness of freedom,
150 f., 163f.; on courage, 234, 237,
238 f. ; and temperance, 247 ; on vir-
tue as trained faculty, 264, 393 ; on
truth, 296 f., 306; and friendship,
311, 313, 318, 321, 329; on perma-
nence of moral principles, 393 ; and
casuistry, 415 ; his conception of hap-
piness, 475 f ., 478 f .

Art, influence of, upon growth of kindly
feeling, 326, 328 f.

Bacon, on the ideal of conduct, 494.

Bain, on happiness as only final good,
42.

Balfour, Mr., on the origin of moral
principles, 400.

Bhagavad Gita, its morality, 573 (see
also Hinduism).

" Book of the Dead," the Egyptian, the
morality of, 565, 585.

Bowne, Prof., his definition of merit,
101.

Bradley, Mr., on utilitarian ethics, 637.

Browning, on the vice of indecision,
229 ; and on happiness and morality,
493.

Buddhism, its influence on human pas-
sion, 254 ; and on the growth of hu-
mane feeling, 330 ; its representation
of the Divine pity, 556 f.

Carltle, on pleasure as an end, 482
(note).

Carriere, on the moral World-order,
626.

Cams, on relation of duty and belief in
God, 577 (note).

Caspari, on moral freedom, 138.

Casuistry (chap. XVII.), nature of,
41 5 f., 418 f.; as ethical discipline,
417 1, 569 ; sources of, 418 f., 422 f. ;
sphere of, 423 f.

Causation, consciousness of, in moral
development, 107, 111 f., 168 f.; law
of, as related to moral freedom, 164 f.,
168 f., 183f. ; psychological origin of,
184f.

Character, the conception of, 174 f.,
231 f.; strength of, 231 f., 248 f. (see
also Moral Self , development of).

Christianity, influence of, on humane
feeling, 330, 331 f., 404 f.; its concep-
tion of perfect morality, 351 f ., 443 f . ;
and of ideal manhood, 443 f.

Cicero, use of the word " moral,** 9.

658

INDEX

Commercialism, influenco of, on hu-
mauitarian feeling, 332 f.

Communism, ethicvS of, 260.

Conduct, importance of, 3 f., 156 f.,
342 f., 416 f.; ethics, the science of,
7, 537 f., 654 ; the Ideal of, 10, 11 f.,
442 f., 491 f. (see also Moral Ideal) ;
how different from action, 10 f., 156 f.,
269,342; imputability of, 156f., 162 f.,
176 f. ; judgment, a species of, 269 f. ;
as an art, 442 f .

Confucius, on duty of blood-revenge,
158 ; and ethics of marriage, 256.

Conscience, popular meaning of, 60,
90 f., 189 f., 417 f.; divergent views
of, 90, 189 f. ; proper use of the term,
90 f., 189 f.; authority of, 191, 384 f.,
417 f. ; pathological lack of, 417 (see
also Consciousness, as moral, and
Moral Self).

Consciousness, as moral, analysis of,
59f., 69f., 129, 189 f.; as imposing
obligations, 384 f.

Crawford, on relation of happiness to
virtue, 488.

Custom, as related to morality, 27 f.,
292 f., 342, 615 f., 618 f.; conformity
to, not virtue, 342 f.

Delian Inscription, on the kinds of
the Good, 36.

Determinism, a scholastic theory, 136,
145 ; its basis in fact, 139 f., 142,
169 f.; its fallacy of hypostasizing,
145, 154 f., 163, 169; its objections
to moral freedom, 164 f., 169 f., 183 f. ;
the "Old-Fashioned," 165f., 168f. ;
and the "New-Fashioned," 165 f.,
1781; its conception of the Self,
169 f. ; its statistical argument, 180f.
(see also Will).

Development, importance of conception
of, 201 f ., 203, 443 f ., 495, 526 f ., 534 f .,
653 ; as applied to the Moral Ideal,
206 f., 443 f., 447, 461 f., 526 f., 531 f.,
653 f. ; naturalistic theory of, 602 f .

Dewey, Prof., on moral action, 11
(note), 130 ; and idea of duty, 366 f. ;
on distinction between pleasure and
happiness, 478 ; and hedonistic the-
ory, 486.

Doring, on the highest good, 469.

Dogmatism, immorality of, 304.

Dress, customs regulating, 122 f.

Dumout, on hedonistic calculations, 489
(note).

Duties, classification of, 223 ; conflict of,
415 f., 427 f., 430 f., 433 f., 514 f. ; the
so-called religious, 565 f.

Duty, conception of, 365 f., 370, 376 f.,
379, 388; duties prior to, 367 f . ;
varieties of, 369 f . ; not always nega-
tive, 370 f. ; relation of, to virtue,
371 f., 373 f . ; relation of inclination
to, 375 f. ; influence of, upon ima<>i-
nation, 377 f. ; as related to Moral
Law, 379.

Economics, relation of, to Ethics, 540,
542 f ., 545 f.

Edwards, Jonathan, on nature of the
motive, 345 f.

Eliot, George, on happiness and moral-
ity, 493 f.

Epicureans, the ancient, 488 (see Hedon-
ism).

Ethics, sphere and problem of, 3 f ., 1 7 f.,
25, 31 f., 60 f., 457 f., 538 f., 636; a
science, 7 f., 32 f . ; its problems classi-
fied, 7 f., 31 f.; distinctions implied in,
8 f. ; begins with facts, 8 f.,16 f., 29 f. ;
" Data " of, 9 f ., 24, 29 f. ; relation to
the Ideal, 8 f., 11 f., 14, 55, 462 f.,
637 f., 641 f., 645 f., 649; as dealing
with the Ought, 12 f. ; definition of,
14 ; as politics, 15 ; methods and div-
isions of 19, 20 f., 29 f. ; Kantian
method of, criticised, 20 f ., 502 f ., 592 ;
psychology of, 20 f .; its method, his-
torical and objective, 29 f. ; but also
philosophical, 30 f., 457 f., 463, 588 f.,
636 f. ; precision in study of, 32 f.
(note) ; ultimate problem of, 457 f .,
461 f., 588 f., 606 f., 636 f. ; Schools
of, 464 f. ; relation of, to economics,
540 f., 545 f. ; and to politics, 540 f.,
547, 548 ; and to sociology, 548 f. ; the
" universals " of, 589 f. ; inclusive
character of the metaphysics of, 590 f.,
592 f. ; Naturalism in, 602 f., 605 f.,
631.

Eudaemonism, its conception of the
Good, 42 f., 51 f. (note), 475 ; on the
virtue of benevolence, 352 ; the, of
Aristotle, 475 f. ; (see also Hedonism
and Utilitarianism).

INDEX

659

Euripides, on principle of friendship,

329.
Evolution (see Development).

Farrer, on fear among savages, 236 ;
savages' view of death, 24+ ; and
punishment of auger, 253 ; on savage
character, 285 f.

Feeling, kinds of the ethical, 60, 61 f.,
93 f., 310 f., 325 ; relations of, to right
conduct, 85 f., 88 f., 115 f., 312 f.,
315, 326; Virtues of (Chap. XIII).
310 f., 315 f., 320 f., 326 f., 333 f.

Fichte, on untruthfulness, 436 f . ; on the
World-order, 607.

Freedom, Moral, nature of, 133 f. (chap.
VIII.) 139f., 1 50 f., 164 f., 165 f.; com-
plex problem of, 133 f., 139 f., 150 f.,
165 f. ; interest of ethics in, 134 f.,
136 f. ; proofs of, 139 f., 142, 143 f.,
148 f., 156 f. ; development of, 147 f. ;
objections to, answered, 164 f., 172 f.,
177 f., 180 f.

Friendship, Aristotle's view of, 313,318;
mysterious nature of, 317 f,, 319 f.;
Plato's view of, 318 f.

Gellids, on pleasure as an end, 482
(note).

Gizycki, hedonistic theory of, 469.

God, influence of belief in, upon ethics,
569 f., 572 f., 574 f., 591 f . ; as the
Moral Ideal, 574 f., 584 f., 591 f.,
626 f., 628, 632 f ., 647 f . ; and ground
of ethical laws, 608 f., 612 f. ; and of
ethical sanctions, 613 f., 620, 623 f.
(see also Absolute Self).

"Good," The, Greek conception of, 10,
34 f ., 443 ; especially the Platonic, 34 ;
difficulty of analyzing, 34 f., 37;
psychology of the conception, 36 f. ;
always sentient life, 37 ; distinction
of instrumental and final, 38 f., 198 f.,
490 f. ; degrees of the, 39, 41 f., 482 f. ;
means of estimating, 40, 41 f ., 46 f. ;
different values of, 40 f ., 47 f., 479 f .,
636 f. ; discipline as means of realiz-
ing, 43 f . ; the Ultimate and Supreme,
50 f., 55, 198 f., 490 f., 636 f. ; the
distinctively ethical, 55, 199, 636 f.,
639.

Grant, Sir A., on Aristotle 33 (note),
106 (note).

Green, Prof. T. H., on ethical develop-
ment, 55, 640 ; and moral law as an
" external imponcnt," 383 ; on con-
flict of duties, 428; and oneness of
humanity, 625 ; on the ultimate good,
640.

Grot, Prof. N. la. on "Freedom of
Will," 188 (note).

Gummere, on the origin of wergild,
253.

Habit, influence of, in ethical life, 82 f .,
168 f., 175 f., 266, 637 f. ; as reign-
ing over Will, 168 f., 175 f.

Happiness, conception of, in ethics,
469 f., 477 f., 481 f. ; distinction be-
tween pleasure and, 471 f., 478 f.,
492 f.; relation of, to virtue, 471 f.,
481 f., 489 f., 493 f., 637 f . ; and to
moral development, 637 f.

Hedonism, the method of, 20, 482 f . ;
its conception of the Good, 42 f., 469,
482, 484 f., 492 f. ; as related to Utili-
tarianism, 467 f., 481 f . ; modern
theory of, 469 f.. 481, 489 f. ; the
quantitative and egoistic, 482 f. ; as
altruistic, 484 f., 487 f. ; and qualita-
tive, 489 f., 492 f. ; the calculus of,
489 f., (see also Utilitarianism).

Hegel, on the value of constancy, 355.

Herbert, George, on temperance, 247 f.

Hinduism, its confusion of custom and
morality, 11, 257 ; ceremonial ethics
of, 13, 125, 565 ; sexual morality
of, 257 f., 571 ; ethical tenets of,
263, 298 f., 330 f., 565, 571 ; especially
as respects truthfulness, 298 ; and
humanitarian feeling, 330 f. ; on
purity of heart, 572 f.

Hobbes, his theory, 123 f.

Hoffding, on Determinism, 138.

Hopkins, Prof., on the good man in the
Rig Veda, 298.

Hospitality, considered as virtuous,
320 f.

Humboldt, on frivolity, 272.

Huxley, Prof., on Ethics and Evolution,
602 f., 606, 619.

Ideal, nature of an, 10, 589 f. (see

Moral Ideal).
Idealism, in Ethics, 444 (chap. XXII.) ;

essential character of, 507 f., 509 f..

660

INDEX

511, 526 f., 589 f., 651 f . ; problems
before it, 51 1 f., 529 f. ; different forms
of, 512 f. ; individualism of, 518 f.;
yet essentially social, 524 f . ; and evo-
lutionary, 526 f., 531., 651 f.

Intention, nature of an, 346 ; the
"good," 347 ; not the whole of virtue,
346 f., 349.

Intuitionism, its method in ethics, 20,
5131; the "Emotional," 85, 515; as
a form of Idealism, 513 f., 518, 530 f. ;
the "perceptive," 515 f., 518 f.; facts
contradictory to, 519 f.

Janet, M., his classification of the vir-
tues, 218.

Jowett, on Plato's view of friendship,
318 f.

Judgment, Ethical, nature of, 65 f.,
83 f., (chap. Vll., passim), 115 f.
269 f.; earliest forms of, 83 f., 106 f.,
285 ; dependent on feeling, 86 f.,
113 f., 115; importance of, 106 f.,
113 f., 270 f. ; grounds of, 113 f., 119 f.,
126 f., 397 f. ; relation of, to volition,
117, 129 f., 270; the predicate of,
117 f. ; as intuitive, 119, 125 ; histori-
cal origins of, 120 f., 126 f.; develop-
ment of, 125 f., 130 f,283, 397 f. ;
dependence of, on the individual,
126 f., 273, 420 f. ; virtues of (chap.
XII.j, 271 f., 283 f.; as Moral tact.
420 f.

Kant, his use of the word reason, 15;
method in ethics, 20, 502 f ., 592 ; con-
ception of the Good, 37 ; and of Duty,
377 f. ; on untruthfulness, 433 ; his
legalism, 502 f. ; categorical impera-
tive of, 503 ; his fundamental law of
moral reason, 503 f., 505 f., 592 ;
view of relations between religion
and moralit}^ 567, 629 ; on teleologi-
cal judgment, 647.

Karma, moral import of the doctrine,
109, 368 f.

Krafft-Ebing, on moral perversity, 417.

Laurie, Prof., on the "Good Will,"
437 ; and relations of morality and
religion, 579.

Law, the Moral, conception of, 365, 379,
381 f ., 388, 497 f. ; not impersonal, 380,

382, 384 f., 387, 498 f. ; but a product
of moral consciousness, 381, 384 f.,
505 f . ; as an " external imponent,"
384 f ., 387, 500 f. ; and related to the
Moral Ideal, 386 f., 497 f., 503 f. ; and
to moral principles, 389 f., 501 f. ; ul-
timate Source of, 609 f., 613.

Lessing, on superstition, 385 (note).

Locke, on nature of morality, 343 ; on
intention, 346.

Lotze, on consistency as virtue, 264;
and resignation, 282 ; on retribution,
289 f . ; and on benevolence, 353, 358.

Luys, M., on Determinism, 138.

Man, as ethical, 59 f., 67 f., 148, 162,
202, 325, 436 f. ; as rational and free,
162 f. ; the so-called " primitive," 202,
325 ; concept of the good (chap.
XVIII.), 442 f. (see also Moral Self).

Marcus Aurelius, motto from, 456 ; on
painstaking morality, 494; his dif-
ferentiation of virtues, 504 f.

Marriage, customs regulating, 120 f .,
256 ; ethics of, 255 f., 258.

Martensen, on abstract morality, 581.

Materialism, in the psychology of voli-
tion, 166, 1771, 180; and as Natural-
ism in Ethics, 602 f., 605 1

Martineau, his classification of the vir-
tues, 217 (note).

Merit (and Demerit), feeling of, 63,
101, 375 f. ; complexity of the concep-
tion, 101 ; and its social implications,
102 f. ; and relation to pleasure-pains,
104 1 ; and to inclination, 375 f .

Mill, J. S., his testimony to the Moral
Ideal, 243.

Moral Ideal, the, 12, 14, 15 1, 18, 110,
129, 206 f., 363, 574 1, 589 f., 626 1,
639 1 ; as Selfhood, 110 1, 229, 363,
432 1, 439 f ., 443 f., 532 f. ; develop-
ment of, 206, 443 1, 447 1, 519 1,
521 1; relation of, to virtue, 229,
274 1, 344 f., 363 1, 442 f. ; and to
Moral Law, 386 1, 626 1; as indivi-
dual, 433 1, 439 1, 452 1, 517 1;
reality of, 447 1, 574 1, 584 1, 595 1 ;
in God, as perfect Personality, 584 f.,
591 1, 626 1, 628 ; possibility of
knowledge of, 595 f . ; the ultimate
moral (chap. XXVL), 637 1, 639 1,
641 1, 643, 645 1

INDEX

661

Moral Self, the, conduct as belonging
to, 11, 15, 17 f., 24 f., 145 f., 156 f.
(chap. IX.), 195 f., 220 f., 507 f. ; al-
ways social, 15 f., 76 f., 189 f., 194 f.,
286, 445 ; the Ideal of a, 18, 52, 100 f.,
191, 363, 386, 432 f., 516 f. ; complex
nature of a, 24 f., 59 f. (Part First,
passim), 67, 89, 92, 191 f., 194 f., 271,
532 f. ; satisfaction of, 52 ; conduct
imputable to, 156, 158 f., 532 f. ; de-
velopment of the, 201 f., 361, 432 f.,
439 f., 445 f. ; as furnishing the prin-
ciple of unity for the virtues, 361 f.,
632 ; God as the Absolute, 385 f., 536,
630 f. ; not a mechanism, 408 f.

Moral Principles, universality of (chap.
XVI.), 389, 392 f., 394, 401 f., 404 f.,
412 ; relation of to moral laws, 389 f. ;
nature of, 389 f., 391 ; development
of, 391 f., 396 f., 401 f., 404 f., 412 ;
validity of, 392, 396.

Morality, as different from custom, 27 f.,
273 f., 342 f ., 484 ; function of the
total Self, 227, 229 f., 271, 342 f.,
439 f., 517 f.; fidelity to an Ideal,
265 f ., 274, 352 f., 437 f ., 458 f ., 485 f.,
522 f., 528 f., 558 ; implies evaluation
of ends, 273, 479 f. ; and their real-
ization, 274 f ., 439 f . ; not identical
with any one virtue, 352 f., 357 f. ;
as related to Eeality, 458 f., 567 f.,
597 f., 601 f., 613 f. ; individuality es-
sential to, 518 f. ; and yet social, 523 f.,
615 f., 618 f., 624; relation of, to
religion (chap. XXIV.), 552 f., 560,
561 f., 568 f., 571 f., 575 f., 578 f.,
582 f . ; danger of '* double morality,"
580 f. ; as obedience to God, 584 f.,
612; ultimate Ground of (chap.
XXV.), 588 f., 609 f., 613 f .; source of
the sanctions of, 613 f., 620, 622 f.,
625.

Morals, conception of, 8 f., 27, 292 f. ;
relation of, to custom, 292 f., 342 ;
and to philosophy and religion,
326 f . ; not identical with morality,
342 f., 375.

Mosaic Code, ethics of, 256, 259, 280,
350 f. ; on love as the fulfilling of
the Law, 350 f. ; its view of God as
Righteousness, 585.

Motive, feeling of obligation as a, 94 f. ;
nature of a, 139 f., 151 f., 165f., 170f.;

quality of, not all of virtue, 343 f . ;
the "good," 345.
Muirhead, on relations of philosophy to
ethics, 30 f.

Nature, unethical conception of, 602 f,,
615 ; its right to command, 615 f. ; as
Ethical Spirit, 617.

Nicomachean Ethics, referred to, 9, 15,
22, 33 (note), 36, 61, 66, 106, 150 f.,
163, 225 f., 233 f., 238, 247, 264, 278,
284 f., 311, 313, 318, 329, 339, 346,
393, 402, 415, 475 f., 548.

Obligation, feeling of, 69 f., 89 f,,
366 f., 384 f., 614 f.; its primary char-
acter, 70 f., 79, 88 f., 91 f., 614; con-
nection with pleasure-pains, 72 f.,
77 f.; origin of, 73 f., 617; develop-
ment of, 83 f., 89 f., 617 f. ; relation
of, to duty, 366 f. ; and to moral law,
384 f., 614 f.

Old Testament, morality of, 123 ; moral
ideal of, 642.

Ought, the feeling of, 12 f., 62 f., 70 f.,
91 f. ; conditions of its origin and de-
velopment, 74 f., 83 f. ; uniquely hu-
man, 80 f . (see also Obligation, feeling
of).

Partisanship, immorality of, 304 f.

Paulhan, M., on volition and psychic
systems, 151.

Paulsen, on ethics as natural science,
17; on Will, 153; on Plato's Re-
public, 225; ancient Saxon view of
courage, 244 ; his view of falsehood,
297, 434 ; and conception of duty,
370 f. ; on hedonistic theory, 469 ; and
relation of morality to religion, 559 ;
on the moral ideal, 643 f.

Person, see Self.

Personality, importance of conception
of, 201 f., 361 f., 533 f., 651 ; as fur-
nishing a principle for unifying the
virtues, 361 f. (see also Moral Self).

Perty, on natural sympathy, 325.

Pfleiderer, on morality and religion,
552; and the development of moral
ideals, 628.

Philosophy, relations of, to Ethics, 30 f .,
133, 188, 326 f., 458 f., 463 f., 590 f.,

662

INDEX

593 f . ; influence of, on the develop-
ment of benevolence, 326 f.

Piety, as an inclusive virtue, 560.

Plato, his psychological Ethics, 21 f.,
224 f . ; conception of the Good, 34 ;
classification of the virtues, 224 f .,
363; and doctrine of wisdom, 270;
and of justice, 295: on friendship,
318 f.; his view of influence upon
morals, of the popular religion, 573 f . ;
on morality and immortality, 586 f.

Pleasure-pains, psychology of, 43 f.,
338 f., 470 f., 47*5 ; influence of, in
ethical discipline, 43 f., 73, 470 f. ;
relation of, to feeling of obligation,
73 f., 76 f., 339 f., 471 ; sources of the,
472 f., 475 f.

Politics, relation of, to Ethics, 540 f.,
547 f. ; Aristotle's view of, 548.

Psychology, relation of to Ethics, 20 f.,
43 f., 133 f., 338 f., 470 f., 554 (note) ;
its doctrine of pleasure-pains, 339,
470 f.

Kealitt, theory of, as related to Ethics,
459 f., 463 f., 511 f., 568, 593 f., 597 f.,
599 f., 611 f.

Religion, as a source of morals, 124 f.,
329 f., 404, 556 f., 563 f. ; general re-
lation of, to Ethics, 198 f., 329 f.,
404 f ., 650 ; and to morality, 552 f .,
559 f., 561 f., 568 f., 573 f., 578 f.,
61 1 f., 628 f. ; universality of, 555 f. ;
ethical roots of. 559 f. ; special effect
on morality of the postulates of,
561 f., 566 f., 571 f., 576 f., 578 f.,
582 f., 584 f., 588.

Riehl, on moral freedom, 138.

Right, the, conception of, 65 f., 117 f.,
520 f., 528 ; the ground of, 491 f. ;
subjective character of, 520 f., 528 ;
objective character of, 520 f., 529 f. ;
as unchanging, 521 (Nature of the,
Part Third).

Rose, M., on the influence of civilization
upon savage virtues, 314.

Roskoff, on relation of morality and
religion, 552 f.

Rothe, on the might of goodness, 656.

Saussaye, on the relation of morality

to religion, 556.
Schopenhauer, ou the conception of

" Ought," 13 f. ; and of the Good, 37 ;
on appetite of sex, 256 f.

Schurman, on morality of the family,
255.

Schwarz, Hermann, on intuitive moral
feeling, 87.

Self, consciousness of, a condition of
moral development, 107, 1091, 142 f ;
theldealof, llOf., 191 f. (see Moral
Ideal) ; defective conceptions of,
158 f., 160 f. ; the Social, as included
in the Moral, 192 f. ; (see also Moral
Self).

Selfhood, importance of conception of,
201 f . (see also Personality and Moral
Self).

Seth, Prof. James, on distinction be-
tween pleasure and happiness, 478.

Shaftesbury, Lord, on moral emotions,
85 f., 88.

Sidgwick, on ethics as ideal, 9 ; on feel-
ing of obligation, 81 ; and " Free Will
controversy," 136; his Hedonism,
487 (and note).

Simmel, ou conflict of duties, 428.

Sociology, relation of, to ethics, 548 t

Sophists, the, their ideas ou Ethics, 31.

Sophocles, on the Divinity of moral
Law, 572.

Spencer, Herbert, on ethics as " doubly
ideal," 9 ; feeling of approbation, 103.

Spinoza, on the intellectual love of God,
357, 476 ; his conception of virtue, 476.

Stephen, Leslie, on voluntary action, 66 ;
on feeling of obligation, 80 f. ; on
truthfulness, 360.

Stoics, the, their conception of the
"good man," 250.

Sympathy, nature of the feeling, 75 f.,
310 f., 323, 325; relation of, to
morality, 87 f., 310 f., 312, 323 f.

Tact,. need of, in conduct, 419 f., 422;
psychology of, 420 f. ; factors in, 421,
422 f . ; cultivation of, 422 f .

Taylor, Mr. A. E., on problem of con-
duct, 644 (note).

Thilly, on classification of ethical theo-
ries, 468 (note).

Time, consciousness of, in moral devel-
opment, 107 f., 109.

Tourgueneff, on the conception of duty,
378 f.

INDEX

663

Truth, regard for, 29G, 299 f., 301 f.,
359 f. ; its value for personality, 300 f .,
303, 307 f., 360, 433 f. ; abstract con-
ception of the, 301 f.

Tylor, on relation between ethics and
Animism, 141 f.

Utilitarianism, its method, 20, 489 f. ;
its conception of the Good, 52 f.
(note), 474, 490, 637; as related to
hedonistic theories, 467 f., 479 f.,
481 f., 489 f., 494 f. ; development of,

480 f., 490 f. ; problems before it,

481 f., 491 f., 495 f . ; modern forms
of, 489 f.

Virtue, conception of, 211 f., 226,
264 f., 338, 342 f., 371 f., 388; possi-
bility of a theory of, 213 f., 226 f.,
337 f. ; as function of the total Self,
227 f., 229 f., 343 f., 347 ; constancy
essential to, 264 f., 355; unity of
(chap. XIV.), 338, f. 346 f., 352 f.,
361 ; not identical with motive, 343 ;
or intention, 346 f., 349 ; or any one
virtue, 352 f., 357 f.

Virtues, the, Aristotelian classification
of, 61, 106 f., 225 ; proper classifica-
tion of (chap, X.), 217 f., 224 f., 226 f.,
371 f . ; lists of, 217; self-regarding
and social, 218 f ., 451 f. ; as related to
duties, 371 f . ; conflicts among the,
451 f., 632 f.

Volition, faculty of, as necessary to

morality, 65 f , 117 f., 150 f.; as de-
pendent on judgment, 117 f. ; relation
of, to psychic systems, 151 f . ; termi-
nation of the process of, 152 f.

Wattz, on relation of morality and
religion, 552.

Watson, Prof., on the Sophists, 31 ; and
on hedonistic theories, 468 (note) ;
on relation of morality and religion,
592.

Will (see also Moral Freedom, chap.
VIII.), physical theories of, 138,
149 f., 164 f. ; as self-determining,
137 f., 143 f., 148, 150 f., 155, 163 f.,
248; virtues of the (chap. XI.), 231 f.,
246 f., 260 f., 266 f. ; central in char-
acter, 232 f . ; so-called " good will,"
232, 437 ; conception of the Divine,
612, 624 f.

World-Ground, the, philosophic view of,
590, 597 f ., 599 f., 632 f. ; as also the
ground of morality, 590 f ., 593, 596 f.,
601 f., 608 f., 612 f. ; and of its sanc-
tions, 613 f., 620, 622 f. ; and of moral
ideals, 626 f., 647.

Wuudt, his conception of Ethics, 7, 17,
27 ; view of custom, 27 ; on ethical
vocabulary, 49 ; endowment of primi-
tive man, 202, 325, 393 ; on the virtue
of hospitality, 321 ; on the influence
of Christianity upon self-sacrifice,
330 ; on morality and religion, 552,
556.

OF THE

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THE

Philosophical Works

GEORGE TRUMBULL LADD,

Professor of Philosophy in Yale University.

THE philosophical writings of Dr. Ladd have now become so
numerous and are so widely known in a general way, that the
publishers take pleasure in giving them some special notice, with the
object that the adaptation and purpose of each volume may be better
understood. It is believed that this author's " Primer of Psychol-
ogy," « Outlines of Descriptive Psychology," " Psychology ; Descrip-
tive and Explanatory," " Elements of Physiological Psychology," and
" Philosophy of Mind " form a continuous course in the subject which
surpasses any similar course that has appeared. Naturally, where
several books by one author treat of the same subject, some confusion
in ordering results, and it is to prevent this, as well as in the hope of
leading to a wider interest in the books, that the following description
has been prepared.

Outlines of Descriptive Psychology

By George T. Ladd, LL.D., Professor of Philosophy in Yale
University. Illustrated. 8vo. pp. 421. $1.50 net.

This work is especially prepared as a text-book for all Colleges and Universities
that have not time for the larger treatise, and for use in Normal Schools, and by
teachers in the Public Schools who are studying the subject. As a classroom text, the
book is sure to meet with a warm welcome. It is in the first place unusually rich in
material, without becoming unduly prolix in its presentation. There is, moreover, a
well-ordered system running through the whole. Particularly happy and judicious is
the introduction of much material from experimental sources. — The Philosophical
Review.

For the general reader who desires a better acquaintance with the better part of
himself, Professor Ladd's book makes the task as simple as it can be made consistently
with thorough treatment. . . . The book is a model of its kind on a subject whose
importance for education and pedagogy, theology and philosophy, has only in our day
been appreciated. — The Outlook.

In the department of psychology, Professor Ladd has been a strong influence in
the dissemination of an intelligent interest in the phenomena of the mental life. A
larger and a briefer compendium of physiological psychology, a primer, a larger and
now a smaller volume on descriptive psychology, have all appeared within a dozen
years. These volumes are stimulating as well as useful, systematic as well as discrim-
inating, scholarly as well as readily intelligible.

Philosophical Works of George Trumbull Ladd
Psychology: Descriptive and Explanatory

A Treatise of the Phenomena, Laws, and Development of
Human Mental Life. By George Trumbull Ladd, LL.D., Pro-
fessor of Philosophy in Yale University. 8vo. pp. 676. $4.50.

A GENERAL treatise for those who wish to gain a thorough
knowledge of the subject. The size and scope, the amount and
kind of material, and the style of its presentation unite in making
it a suitable book for mature students, as those usually are who begin
the subject in colleges. It is therefore a college text-book, and is
recommended without qualification for such use.

I find it a most excellent and useful work. I shall take pleasure in recommend-
ing it to my classes as a most thorough and exhaustive treatment of psychology. —
Prof. J. H. Hyslop, of Columbia College.

The beauty of this mighty work is that it informs us regarding all well-defined
modern psychology, that it makes us think at our best, that it tends to make the
reader a master in psychologic thought. It does not make the reader a slave, but it
tends to emancipate him from his own vague knowledge and vicious ignorance. It is
the great masterpiece in Americanized modern psychology. — Journal of Education.

Primer of Psychology

By George Trumbull Ladd, LL.D., Professor of Philosophy in
Yale University. i2mo. pp. 226. $1.00 net.

A TEXT-BOOK for elementary students, and was written by this
eminent author because no book in America had been found
satisfactory for academies and high schools, and for a large class of
general readers who might find some pleasure and perhaps more profit
in reading a very brief and simple treatise on psychology.
Contents : I. The Mind and its Activities — II. Consciousness and
Attention — III. Sensations — IV. Feeling — V. Mental Images
and Ideas — VI. Smell, Taste and Touch — VII. Hearing and Sight
— VIII. Memory and Imagination — IX. Thought and Language —
X. Reasoning and Knowledge — XI. Emotions, Sentiments and
Desires — XII. Will and Character — XIII. Temperament and
Development.

This little book is not an abstract of a larger work. It is a compact statement in
the simplest words the author could select of the purport and achievements of the new
science. Even experts might find it convenient as an introduction to Professor
Ladd's system. — New York Tribune.

Professor Ladd has come to be so high an authority in psychology that any who
desire to begin its study may naturally be drawn to this book. Their expectations
will be met. The outlines of the subject are so happily treated, in a plain, familiar
style and with abundant illustracion, as to create and deepen interest in all intelligent
readers who care to know anything of the life of the mind. — The Outlook,

Philosophical Works of George Trumbull Ladd
Elements of Physiological Psychology

A Treatise of the Activities and Nature of Mind from the Phys-
ical and Experimental Point of View. With numerous illus-
trations. By George Trumbull Ladd, LL.D., Professor of
Philosophy in Yale University. 8vo. pp. 696. $4.50.

IN distinction from the introspective psychology and as a companion
to it, this book is devoted to physiological and experimental
psychology. It was the first book in English to discuss the whole
subject, and is the only one which may be regarded as an adequate
treatise. It includes the latest discoveries, and the most competent
critics pronounce it a credit to American scholarship and an unrivalled
authority.

A calm, unprejudiced survey of this comparatively new science, and a very full
and comprehensive one. — Atlantic Monthly.

D'aprbs ce court r^sum^, le lecteur pent avoir une id^e suffisante de la composi-
tion g6n6rale et de I'esprit de ce livre ! mais I'analyse ne peut faire connaitre I'abon-
dance des informations, le nombre des documents, m6moires, monographies que
M. Ladd a utilis6s. Pour ceux qui suivent le mouvement de la psychologie contem-
poraine dans les divers pays, il est inutile de dire que ce n'est pas Ik une petite tache.

— M.T. RiBOT.

Ich habe mit vielem Interesse mehrere Theile aus diesem Werke gelesen, und
mich iiber die vortreffliche Weise der Darstellung sowie iiber die reiche Sachkenntniss
gefreut, von der es Zeugniss ablegt. Ich halte es fiir sehr verdienstlich, dass Sie in
englischer Sprache ein Werk geschaffen haben, welches so gut geeignet ist den
Anfanger in diesen schwierigen Gegenstand einzufuhren ; nur so mehr als ihr Werk, so
viel ich weiss, das Erste ist, welches nach den meinigen iiber denselben verfasst wurde.

— Prof. W. Wundt, of Leipzig.

Outlines of Physiological Psychology

A Text-Book of Mental Science for Academies and Colleges.
By Prof. George T. Ladd, Yale University. Crown 8vo. pp.
505. $2.00.

THE volume is not an abridgment or revision of the larger book,
*' Elements of Physiological Psychology," which is still to be pre-
ferred for mature students, but, like it, surveys the entire field, though
with less details and references that might embarrass beginners. The
author aims to furnish a complete yet correct text-book for the brief
study of mental phenomena, from the experimental and physiological
point of view.

We regard it as even better than the larger work, as it is more judicious and
mature, having the advantages of longer reflection upon the subject and larger experi-
ence in teaching it. For its purpose there is not a better text-book in the language.

— The Nation.

We regard a knowledge of physiological psychology as absolutely necessary to an
appreciation of psychology in general. The only book in the language which pre-
tends to cover the entire field within the compass of a volume of five hundred pages is
this smaller work of Professor Ladd. His larger work stands without a superior in
any language. — Journal of Pedagogy.

Philosophical Works of George Trumbull Ladd
Introduction to Philosophy

An Inquiry after a Rational System of Scientific Principles and
their Relation to their Ultimate Reality. By George Trumbull
Ladd, LL.D., Professor of Philosophy in Yale University. 8vo.
pp. 426. $3.00.

An introduction to philosophy is an excessively difficult thing to write, that is,
the kind of introduction which Professor Ladd undertakes. It would be easy to write
an introduction to a particular philosophy, but to write what may serve as an intro-
duction to all of them is another matter. This is the merit of Professor Ladd's book.
It introduces philosophy, but not a particular philosophy. It states the sources,
problems, divisions^methods, and possible solutions of philosophy better than any
other work of its size in English. — Prof. J. Mark Baldwin, of Princeton
University.

He is liberal, able, and full of knowledge. ... He thus adopts, if we may judge,
the safest, most penetrative, and most progressive form of thought. — The Dial.

A really admirable book. — Saturday Review^ London.

Philosophy of Mind

An Essay in the Metaphysics of Psychology. By George Trum-
bull Ladd, LL.D., Professor of Philosophy in Yale University.
Octavo, pp. 412. $3.00.

THIS is a speculative treatment of certain problems suggested, but
not discussed, in the study of psychology. The subjects treated
are : Psychology and the Philosophy of Mind, The Concept of Mind,
The Reality of Mind, The Consciousness of Identity and the so-called
Double Consciousness, The Unity of Mind, Mind and Body, Mate-
rialism and Spiritualism, Monism and Dualism, Origin and Perma-
nence of Mind, Place of Man's Mind in Nature.

It is one of the most important works in the field of philosophy published in
recent years. The subject itself, and the acknowledged position and influence of the
author, should strongly recommend this volume to all students and to all readers in
philosophy. — John E. Russell, Williams College.

Philosophy of Knowledge

By George Trumbull Ladd, LL.D., Professor of Philosophy in
Yale University. 8vo. pp. 614. $4.00.

THE book appeals to the general reader by reason of the relation
this subject bears to questions now so prominently before the
philosophical and religious world, as well as through the broad
sympathy of the author with different phases of thought. It will also
find a place waiting for it as a text-book for advanced and post-
graduate students in logic and the laws of thought.

In this analysis of truth and error, of knowledge and reality, dualism and monism,
and of knowledge and the absolute, Professor Ladd's discussion and conclusions will
be of great value to all students of philosophy and anthropology. One of the most
interesting features is its criticism of Kant's " Critique of Pure Reason." . . . The
two chapters on the history of opinion, from Socrates to Kant, and from Kant to the
present, form a valuable part of the book. — The Congregationalist.

Philosophical Works of George Trumbull Ladd
The Theory of Reality

An Essay in Metaphysical System upon the Basis of Human
Cognitive Experience. By George Trumbull Ladd, LL.D., Pro-
fessor of Philosophy in Yale University. 8vo. pp. 556. $4.00.

THIS volume brings to its close the series of books in which the
author has dealt with the general problem of reality — things
and minds — and the possibility and the validity of knowledge. The
former volumes were " Philosophy of Knowledge and Philosophy of
Mind."

Professor Ladd has been in the eye of the philosophical pubUc for so many years
that much can be taken for granted concerning any work on metaphysics that may
issue from his hand. We can be certain, before opening the book, that its knowl-
edge is broad and accurate ; that its psychology is well digested ; that its method is
the analysis of experience rather than speculative synthesis ; that the spirit and the
results of the sciences pervade its pages, and that its general standpoint is some
form of theism sharply contrasting with both materialism and absolute idealism.
These general virtues of his '* Theory of Reality " may therefore be dismissed with a
mer6 reference. — Philosophical Review.

Professor Ladd has made every lover of Christian philosophy his debtor as few
Americans have done, and this noble volume forms a fitting climax of his work in
the paired hemispheres of thought and truth. —Presbyterian and Reformed Review.

Philosophy of Conduct

A Treatise of the Facts, Principles, and Ideals of Ethics, in
three parts :

I. The Moral Self.
II. The Virtuous Life.

III. The Nature of the Right. 8vo. $3.50 net. (Postage 20
cents.)

FOLLOWS "The Theory of Reality" in sequence and develop-
ment, treating, in the introduction, of the sphere and problems of
Ethics, and developing the subject under the heads noted above.

In Part I. the author deals with morals from the point of view of
modern psychology and anthropology, with special discussions of
moral freedom and current forms of determination.

He offers in Part II. an original classification of virtuous conduct,
surveying men's opinions, and considering virtue as a unit; with
special discussions of Moral Tact and the Character of the Good Man.

Part III. takes up the ultimate problems of Ethics, and shows how
all conceptions and ideals of human conduct are indissolubly connected
with the principles and ideals of general philosophy and, in particular,
the philosophy of religion.

This is Professor Ladd's most popular and most literary work, as
well as his newest, and the one of all others into which he has put his
heart.

Philosophical Works of George Trumbull Ladd
What is the Bible

An Inquiry of the Origin and Nature of the Old and New Testa-
ments in the Light of Modern Biblical Study. i2mo. $2.00. By
George Trumbull Ladd, D.D.

Summary of Contents : Jewish and Early Christian Views — The
Bible and the Sciences of Nature — The Miracles of the Bible — The
Histories — The Prophecies — Moral and Religious Teaching of the
Bible — Authorship of the Biblical Books — The Bible as Literature
— The Canon and the Text — Revelation and Inspiration, etc.

A work of inestimable value to pastors, to laymen, and to teachers. — New
Englander.

This will prove a very interesting and instructive book for the steadily increasing
army of Bible students who want to learn more of the genesis and development of the
sacred Scriptures. The author has adopted his former work without any loss of
power. We see the same qualities of patient research, of wide information, of candid
and courageous facing of difficulties. — The Interior.

For those who take interest in the question which forms the title of this book,
Professor Ladd's volume will prove both interesting and valuable. . . . His view of
the subject of inspiration, as popularly set forth in most confessions of Protestant
churches, is well worth consulting. . . . Other noteworthy chapters are those which
treat of "The Bible and the Sciences of Nature," " The Miracles of the Bible," " The
Prophecies of the Bible," and "The Canon and the Text." Professor Ladd faces
the difficulties in a manly way, and in substance upholds the ordinary Christian view
of these topics. — New York Times.

The Doctrine of Sacred Scripture

A Critical, Historical, and Dogmatic Inquiry into the Origin and

Nature of the Old and New Testaments. 2 vols. 8vo. $7.00.

By George Trumbull Ladd, D.D.

It is the most elaborate, erudite, judicious discussion of the doctrine of the Scrip-
ture, in its various aspects, with which I am acquainted. I have no hesitation in
saying that, for enabhng a young minister to present views alike wise and reverent
respecting the nature and use of Sacred Scripture, the faithful study of this thorough,
candid, scholarly work will be worth to him as much as half the studies of his semi-
nary course. — J. Henry Thayer, D.D.

In truth there lies imbedded in the book, as incidental to the discussion, a vast
critical commentary, from an accomplished scholar, on all parts of the Bible. The
exegetical student, who may care comparatively little for doctrinal or philosophical
discussion, will resort to these volumes as an extremely valuable contribution to his
own special department. — Prof. George P. Fisher, of Yale University, in New
York Tribune.

The present volumes are evidently the result of much labor and research. They
are also of special interest to Biblical students at this time, as being an earnest as well
as vigorous effort to deal satisfactorily with a subject of the highest importance to
mankind. — New York Times.

What is the Bible ? . . . The answer which has been supplied to this question
is so clear and striking, is built up with so much solid learning, and delivered in a
manner so perspicuous and pleasing, that we believe it calculated to play an important
part in the theological revolution now in progress throughout Christendom. — London
Christian World.

Philosophical Works of George Trumbull Ladd
The Principles of Church Polity

Crown 8vo. $2.50. -

Contents. Introduction. Lecture I. The Principles of Congrega-
tionalism — II. The Principles of Congregationalism applied to man
as a rational soul — III. The Principles of Congregationalism applied
to man as a social being — IV. The Principles of Congregationalism
applied to man as a citizen — V. The formal Principle of Congrega-
tionalism — VI. The Principle of a Regenerate Membership — VII.
The Principles of Congregationalism applied to the purity of the
ministry — VIII. The Principle of the Communion of Churches —
IX. The Principle of the Communion of Churches — X. The Self-
Propagation of Congregationalism — XI. Congregationalism and
Foreign Missions — XII. Present and Prospective Tendencies of
Congregationalism.

THIS volume gives a philosophical analysis of the principles which
should enter into any scheme of church polity, and then endeavors
to show how far these principles have been acknowledged and illus-
trated in modern Congregationalism.

A richness of practical suggestion runs all through this logical development of
the principles and facts, which is very refreshing and stimulating to the reader. In
this respect the book is peerless among many essays upon the same general subject.
— Hartford Religious Herald.

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS,
Publishers, 153-157 Fifth Ave., New York.

THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE
STAMPED BELOW

AN INITIAL FINE OF 25 CENTS

WILL BE ASSESSED FOR FAILURE TO RETURN
THIS BOOK ON THE DATE DUE. THE PENALTY
WILL INCREASE TO SO CENTS ON THE FOURTH
DAY AND TO $1.00 ON THE SEVENTH DAY
OVERDUE.

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