1
1 OUTLINES
OF THE !
HISTORY OF ETHICS
FOR ENGLISH READERS
BY HENRY SIDGWICK
KNIGHTBRIDGE PROFESSOR OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE
UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
AND AUTHOR OF '
'THE METHODS OF ETHICS'
HontJon
MACMILLAN AND CO.
AND NEW YORK
1886
^
PREFACE
THE nucleus of this little book is formed by an
article on " Ethics " which I wrote some years ago
for the Encyclopedia Britannica. I found that, in
the opinion of persons whose judgment had weight
with me, this article appe^reo^^Jikely to meet the
needs of English students desirous of obtaining a
general knowledge of the history of ethical thought :
I have, therefore, by the permission of Messrs. Black,
the publishers of the Encyclopedia Britannica, re-
printed it in this separate form. In so doing, I
have considerably altered and enlarged it : but, after
some hesitation, I determined to adhere to the main
outlines of the original article, according to which
the chapter (IV.) dealing with the modern period is
mainly confined to English Ethics, and only deals
with foreign ethical systems in a subordinate way,
as sources of influence on English thought. I
adopted this resolution, partly because it seemed to
me that the merit of my article if it had any lay
in a certain compact unity of movement which would
vi PREFACE
inevitably be lost if I tried to include a treatment of
French and German moralists on a scale correspond-
ing to my treatment of English moralists : while at
the same time a considerable portion of what I
thus omitted appeared to me to have a distinctly
subordinate interest for English readers as com-
pared with what I included. I ought further to
explain that, for somewhat similar reasons, I have
taken pains to keep Ethics as separate as I con-
veniently could from Theology and Metaphysics,
and also from Politics : this separation, however, is
naturally less complete in some parts of the subject
than in others ; e.g., in dealing with the mediaeval
period the relations of Ethics to Theology are
necessarily more prominent than in the modern
period. Finally, I may perhaps say that I have
aimed throughout at the greatest possible impartiality
and " objectivity " of treatment ; and in order better
to attain this result I have not attempted to deal
with contemporary modes of ethical thought with
which I have been engaged controversially except
in a very brief and summary way.
In the greater part of the book, i.e., in by far the
larger part of Chapter 1 1., in almost all Chapter IV., and
in some of Chapter III., my exposition is primarily
based on my own study of the original authors.
Where this is not the case I have tried to guard
myself from error by comparing different historians
PREFACE vii
of philosophy, and referring to the original authors
whenever this comparison left me doubtful. And
throughout I have endeavoured to correct and supple-
ment the results of my own study by comparing
them with the views expressed in other historical
works. I am especially indebted, as regards Chapter
II. to Zeller's Geschichte der Griechischen Philosophic ;
but, in revising the chapter, I have also derived use-
ful suggestions from Ziegler, Geschichte der Ethik,
and from an excellent little book on Epicurean-
ism by Mr. Wallace. The account of Christian
morality in Chapter III. was naturally derived from
sources too numerous to mention ; but for one or
two statements in it I am certainly indebted to
Lecky's History of European Morals. The account
of mediaeval ethics in the same Chapter was mainly
composed, in the original article, by the aid of
Neander and Wuttke ; but in revising it I have had
the valuable aid of Gass's Christliche Ethik. In
the modern period I have derived suggestions from
Jodl, Geschichte der Ethik, from the Principles of
Morals by Wilson and Fowler, from a little book
by Mr. Fowler on Shaftesbury and Hutcheson,
from another of the same kind on Hobbes by Mr.
Croom Robertson, and from Mr. Sully 's Pessimism;
as well as from the comprehensive histories of philo-
sophy by Ueberweg and Erdmann. I must also
express my acknowledgment to friends and corre-
vill PREFACE
spondents for advice that they have given me on
various parts of the work : especially to Lord Acton ;
to R. D. Hicks, Esq., Fellow of Trinity College,
Cambridge ; and to the Rev. Alexander Stewart, of
Mains, Dundee, who has kindly aided me by reading
through the proofs of the book.
ERRATUM.
Delete note on page 17.
CONTENTS
PAGE
PREFACE . v
INTRODUCTION.
I. GREEK AND GRECO-ROMAN ETHICS . . . xv
1. Pre-Socratic Ethics (550-430 B.C.) . . . xvi
2. Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle (430-322 B.C.) . . xvii
Cynics and Cyrenaics ..... xvii
3. Post- Aristotelian Ethics, from 300 B.C. to (say) 300 A.D. xviii
II. CHRISTIANITY AND MEDIAEVAL ETHICS . . . xix
1. Pre-Scholastic Period to noo A.D. . . . xx
Augustine (354-430 A.D.) . . . xx
Erigena (;r. 810-877 A.D.) . xx
2. Scholasticism grows and culminates (1100-1274 A.D. ). xx
3. Decay of Mediaeval Philosophy and Transition to
Modern Thought (circ. 1300-1600 A.D.) . . xx
III. MODERN, CHIEFLY ENGLISH, ETHICS . . xxi
1. Hobbes (1640 and 1651) . , . .xxi
2. Independent Morality, Rational and Jural (1651-1711) xxi
3. Psychological Anti-Egoism. Naturalness of Disin-
terested Benevolence and Conscience (1711-1747) . xxii
4. Butler (1726 and 1736). Dualism of Governing Prin-
ciples. Divergence of Conscience and Benevolence . xxii
5. Psychology predominant over Ethics. Explanation of
Moral Sentiments (1740-1759) . . . xxiii
6. Later Intuitionism and Common Sense, from 1757
(Price) or 1788 (Reid) .... xxiii
Y/ 7- Fully developed Utilitarianism, from 1785 (Paley) or
1789 (Bentham) ..... xxiii
b
^4*4^
CONTENTS
J .
jJF"A 7
CHAPTER I.
GENERAL ACCOUNT OF THE SUBJECT
PAGE
I. Ethics ; the Study of the Ultimate Good of Man . . I
Distinguished from Theology, the Study of Absolute Good 2
2. Ethics partially distinguished from Politics . . .2
3. Ethics and Psychology . . . . 4
4. Ethics ; the Study of Duty or Right Conduct . . 6
5. Ethics and Jurisprudence . . . ' . .8
Origin of the Moral Faculty. . 9
Free Will 10
I/ Summary View of Ethics . . . . .10
CHAPTER II.
GREEK AND GRECO-ROMAN ETHICS
I. Pre-Socratic Philosophy . . . . .12
Pythagoras . . . . . . 13
Heraclitus . . . . . . .14
Democritus . . . . . . 15
2. The Age of the Sophists . . . . .17
3. Socrates . . . . . . .22
4. The Socratic Schools . . . . .31
Aristippus and the Cyrenaics . . . 32
Antisthenes and the Cynics . . . . -33
,5. Plato ....... 34
6. Plat9's Theory of Virtue . . . . .41
7. Plato's View of Pleasure ; and its Relation to Human Good 47
8. Plato and Aristotle ...... 50
Aristotle . . . . . . 50
9. Aristotle's View of Human Wellbeing . . -54
10. Aristotle's Theory of Virtue . . . -57
11. Aristotle's Account of Justice, Friendship, and Practical
Wisdom ....... 63
12. Plato and Aristotle on Free Will . . . .67
CONTENTS xi
PAGE
r 13. Transition to Stoicism . . . . .69
Zeno . . . . . . -7o
14. Stoicism. The Passionless Sage . . . 71
Stoic Freedom and Determinism . . . -73
15. Stoic Wisdom and Nature . . . . -74
_i6. Stoics and Hedonists . . . . .81
/ 17. Epicurus . . . . . . -83
< 1 8. Later Greek Philosophy . . . . .88
Academic Scepticism and Eclecticism . . .90
19. Philosophy in Rome ... .92
Cicero ....... 93
20. Roman Stoicism . . . . . .96
Seneca ....... 97
V Epictetus ....... 97
Marcus Aurelius .... .98
21. Later Platonism and Neo-Platonism . . . 102
Plutarch . . . . . . .102
Plotinus . . . ' . !O3
CHAPTER III.
CHRISTIANITY AND MEDIEVAL ETHICS
1. The Characteristics of Christian Morality to be distinguished 107
2. Christian and Jewish " Law of God " .108
3. Christian and Pagan Inwardness . . .112
Faith .113
Love US
Purity . .116
4. Distinctive Particulars of Christian Morality . 1 16
Obedience .... "7
Alienation from the World and the Flesh . . 117
Patience . .118
Beneficence. . . . IT 9
Christianity and Wealth . . .121
Purity . -122
Humility . . . . .122
xii CONTENTS
PAGE
Religious Duty . . . . . .123
/ Christianity and Free Will . . . . .124
5. Development of Opinion in early Christianity . .125
Monastic Morality . . . . . I2 5
6. Development of Ethical Doctrine . . . .127
Augustine . . . . . . .127
Ambrose . . . . . . 131
7. Ecclesiastical Morality in the " Dark Ages " . .132
8. Scholastic Ethics . . . . . . 134
Johannes Erigena . . . . . .134
Anselm . . . . . . 135
Abelard . . . . . . .136
Scholastic Method . . ... . .138
Peter the Lombard . . . . . 138
9. Thomas Aquinas . . . . . 139
Duns Scotus ...... 145
Occam ....... 145
IO. Mediaeval Mysticism ..... 146
Bonaventura . . . . . .147
II. Casuistry ....... 149
The Jesuits . . . . . . 151
12. The Reformation. Transition to Modern Ethical Philosophy 151
CHAPTER IV.
MODERN, CHIEFLY ENGLISH, ETHICS
I. Modern Ethics before Hobbes . . . 155
Bacon ....... 155
The Law of Natui'e . . . . . .156
Grotius ....... 157
2.^IJoJibes ....... 160
3. The Cambridge Moralists ..... 167
Cudworth ....... 167
More ....... 168
! 4. Morality as a Code of Nature . . . .170
Cumberland . . . . . .170
Locke . . . . . . .172
CONTENTS xiii
PAGE
5. Clarke ... ... 175
6. Shaftesbury . . . . . . .180
Mandeville . . . . . . .187
7. Butler . . . . . . .188
Wollaston . . . . . . 194
8. Shaftesbury's Doctrine developed and systematised . 197
Hutcheson . . . . . . . 197
9. Moral Sentiments and Sympathy .... 200
. . . . . 225
Tucker ....... 225
Paley ....... 227
15. Bentham and his School . . . . .229
16. J. S. Mill . . . . . .234
Associationism ...... 239
17. Current Ethical Controversies . . . .241
Association and Evolution ..... 242
Evolutional Ethics ...... 242
Optimism and Pessimism ..... 246
Transcendentalism ...... 247
T. H. Green . . . . . .247
18. Free Will . . . . . . .249
Reid on Free Will ...... 250
Determinist Ethics . . . . . .253
19. French Influence on English Ethics . . . 254
Helvetius ....... 256
Comte ....... 256
20. German Influence on English Ethics . . . 258
Kant ..... -259
xiv CONTENTS
I'AGE
Post-Kantian Ethics ..... 265
v Hegel . . . . . . .266
, German Pessimism ...... 268
7 Schopenhauer ...... 268
Hartmann ....... 269
INDEX ........ 273
INTRODUCTION
IN order to assist the reader in grasping and arranging the
somewhat compressed historical matter presented to him in
this book, I have thought it desirable to prefix a brief con-
spectus of the three periods treated in Chapters II. III.
and IV. respectively.
I. GREEK AND GRECO-ROMAN ETHICS.
The first of the three great divisions of my subject the
history of Greek and Greco-Roman Ethics is most naturally
subdivided again into Pre-Socratic Ethics, Socratico-Platonic-
Aristotelian Ethics, and Post-Aristotelian Ethics. If we use
these as definite chronological divisions, the first period may
be taken to extend till somewhere about 430 B.C., when the
new dialectic of Socrates began to impress the Athenian
public : the second may be taken to end either with the
death of Aristotle (322 B.C.), or with the approximately
simultaneous appearance of Zeno and Epicurus as teachers
at Athens, near the end of tne 4th century : the third may
be extended, if we like, to the suppression of the schools of
philosophy at Athens by the orthodox zeal of Justinian,
A.D. 529 ; but I have not tried to carry the reader's interest,
in this last stage, beyond the 3d century A.D. In dealing
xvi INTRODUCTION
with the first division, however, I have not thought it desirable
to observe a strictly chronological line of demarcation ; as I
have included in it Democritus, a younger contemporary
of Socrates, who outlived him, as well as Pythagoras and
Heraclitus, on the ground that Democritus is connected by
relations of thought with the pre-Socratic philosophy, and
has no share in any of the new lines of thought which find
their common point of departure in Socrates.
In any case the three periods above distinguished are of
very unequal importance. The leading characteristic of
the first or Pre-Socratic period of Greek philosophy is that
philosophic inquiry is mainly concentrated on the explana-
tion of the external world ; the interest in human conduct
occupies a secondary and subordinate place. It is in and
through the teaching of Socrates that moral philosophy came
to occupy in Greek thought the central position which it
never afterwards lost : Socrates is the main starting-point
from which all subsequent lines of Greek ethical thought
diverge : speculations on conduct before Socrates are, to
our apprehension, merely a kind of prelude to the real per-
formance. Further, the three thinkers of this period, to
whom I have directed attention Pythagoras, Heraclitus,
and Democritus are only known to us at second-hand, or
through fragmentary passages quoted by other writers. On
both grounds we cannot afford to spend much time in ex-
amining their doctrines. It is, however, interesting and
it may assist the student in fixing their chief characteristics
in his mind to note the relations of affinity in which these
three Pre-Socratic thinkers stand respectively to three import-
ant lines of post-Socratic thought : Pythagoras to Platonism,
Heraclitus to Stoicism, and Democritus to Epicureanism.
The second period, though very much shorter in time
INTRODUCTION xvn
than the third, occupies, as the reader will see, a much larger 2. Socrates,
space in my chapter. This is partly because the actual works Aristotle 11
of Plato, and the most important part of the works of Aris- (43-3 22
totle, have come down to us, whereas the books of the lead-
ing post-Aristotelian thinkers have almost entirely perished.
But this is not the whole explanation : rather, this fact is
itself an indication of the pre-eminent and permanent in-
terest attaching to the writings of these earlier masters.
For us, at any rate, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, taken
together, hold a quite unique place in the development of
moral philosophy : there is no other philosopher, from
Aristotle to the present time, who, in the general view of
the^ modern world, is nearly as important and impressive as
any one of the three. And in order to understand the men
and their work we should contemplate them as much as
possible in relation to each other. Considered apart from
Plato and Aristotle, Socrates would indeed be a most in-
teresting historical figure; but the deepest significance of
his dialectical method would inevitably be lost. Plato's
work is, as he himself presents it, essentially the prosecution
of an inquiry started by Socrates ; and Aristotle's work, in
ethics at least, is in the main a systematic restatement of the
definite results gradually worked out by the untiring and
continually renewed research of Plato, supplemented by
further applications of what is essentially the method of
Socrates formalised.
A subordinate share of attention is due to the develop- Cynics and
ment of the Cynic and Cyrenaic schools within this period : Cyrel
it is chiefly interesting as presenting to us in an earlier and
cruder form that uncompromising opposition between Virtue /
and Pleasure, which afterwards, in the post- Aristotelian period,
is continued between Stoicism and Epicureanism. Both
xvin INTRODUCTION
Cynic and Cyrenaic schools linger for a time, after the
founding of the later and more important schools of Zeno
and Epicurus ; but we cannot trace Cyrenaic doctrine be-
yond the middle of the 3d century B.C. ; and by the end of
this century Cynicism, as an independent school, seems to
become extinct, though it revives later as an offshoot or
modification of Stoicism.
3. Post- The third and concluding period of Greek and Greco-
Aristotelian .
Ethics, Roman Ethics may be taken to extend, roughly speaking,
fr 3 over six centuries half before and half after the Christian
300 A.D. ' era. But the philosophic interest of the period is very
unequally distributed over it. The most interesting point
in it is the very beginning ; since Zeno and Epicurus appear
to have founded the Stoic and Epicurean schools re-
spectively about the same time, just before the end of the
4th century B.C. No event at all equal in importance to
this double origination of doctrine occurs in the history of
moral philosophy for the subsequent six centuries, at any
rate until the founding of Neo-Platonism in the 3d century
A.D., and even this is of less importance in the history of
ethics proper than it is in the history of philosophy generally.
Hence, in studying this period, it is convenient to divide it
if I may so say vertically rather than transversely ; first
to consider separately each of the four schools founded by
Plato, Aristotle, Zeno, and Epicurus respectively, and then
to examine their mutual relations. Stoicism in this period
takes the lead ; and throughout claims the first and largest
share of our attention, as students of ethics, until the close
of the 2d century A.D., when the interest is transferred to
the later developments of Platonism. The antithetical
V relation of Stoicism to Epicureanism is simple, permanent,
and easily apprehended ; while the attitude of the Peri-
INTRODUCTION xix
patelic.- or Aristotelian school, overlooking minor changes,
may be briefly characterised as that of "moderate ortho-
doxy," endeavouring to maintain the paramount claims
of Virtue adequately, yet so as to avoid the Stoic extra-
vagances. The earlier history of Stoicism itself is an ob-
scure subject, into which I have entered no further than just
to note the importance of the work of Chrysippus, the
"second founder" of Stoicism (arc. 280-206 B.C.); after
this, the chief points to observe in its development are the
tendency to Eclecticism or Syncretism towards the end of
the 2d century B.C., represented by Pansetius, the influence
of Stoicism on Roman thought as traced in Cicero's writings,
and the characteristics of the later Roman Stoicism that we
know from the writings of Seneca and Marcus Aurelius.
The variations in Plato's school are the most marked :
speaking broadly, we may distinguish three principal transi-
tions in its history ; the first change is to a period of philo-
sophic scepticism (circ. 250-100 B.C.) in which its ethical
teaching is dubious; then scepticism dies out during the
ist century B.C., and the predominant view of the school
becomes broadly similar to the moderate orthodoxy of the
Peripatetics until, in the 2d century A.D., a tendency to
Mysticism appe^s, which reaches its fullest development in
the Neo-Platonism of Plotinus in the 3d century.
II. CHRISTIANITY AND MEDIEVAL ETHICS.
When, at the close of the 3d century A.D., we turn
our attention from Neo-Platonism, we find Christianity
already dominant in European thought : accordingly, I
commence my second chapter with a brief characterisation
of the distinctive features of Christian morality, and then
xx INTRODUCTION
proceed to a summary sketch of the development of ethical
1. Pre- doctrine in the Western Church. If the reader should be
Period to startled by the rapidity with which he is carried over more
i ioo A.D. t nan s i x centuries, from Augustine to Anselm, he must bear
Augustine
(354-430 V n mm< ^ tri e long suspension of the higher intellectual
activities that took place during these ages of social dissolu-
tion and reconstruction ; and he may note that the one
original thinker who claims our attention during these
Erigena " dark ages," Johannes Erigena, is connected indirectly with
7 A.D!)" tlie P art i al gleam of light and order which Europe owed
to Charles the Great ; since the only part of Erigena's life
of which we have any accurate knowledge is that which he
spent in Paris as head of the Court school (Schola Palatina]
under Charles the Bald, from 843 onward. Further, it is
2. Schol- noteworthy that the important development of mediaeval
growfand philosophy, which begins with Anseim, and which is called
culminates Scholasticism, nearly coincides with the great effort to
D ) establish social and political order in Western Europe on
the basis of ecclesiastical supremacy, which begins with
Hildebrand ; and that Scholasticism, like the power of the
papacy, culminates in the i3th century with Thomas
Aquinas the only writer whose doctrines I have thought it
desirable to expound at any length in this chapter. In the
3. Decay \A$\ century the Scholasticism has passed its prime, though
- its method still dominates educated Europe; in the i5th
sophy and cen tury the sway of mediaeval thought is invaded and under-
to Modern mined by the Renaissance; in the i6th the Reformation
Thought an( ^ mCl clern science combine to shatter it: with the i7th
\circ. 1300-
1600 A.D.) century the period of modern thought has effectively begun.
INTRODUCTION xxi
III. MODERN, CHIEFLY ENGLISH, ETHICS.
The concluding chapter is principally occupied with the
process of English ethical thought from Hqbbes to J. S. i. Hobbes
Mill : but, to explain Hobbism, it seemed desirable to begin ( l64 and
by describing the previous view of Natural Law from which
Hobbism is formed by antithesis, and which had been taken
as the basis of International Law in the epoch-making work
of Grotius, some fifteen years before Hobbes's view took
written^shape. For the century and a half that intervenes
between Hobbes and Bentham the development of English
ethics proceeds without receiving any material influence from
foreign sources. This process may be conveniently divided
into parts, as follows ; but the reader must observe that the
divisions cannot altogether be treated as chronologically
successive.
In the first period, the aspect of Hobbism which 2. inde-
orthodox moralists oppose is the dependence of social jJo^Hty:
morality on the establishment of political order. Overlook- Rational
ing minor differences, we may distinguish broadly two lines (^g 5 iL
of opposition: (i) that of the Cambridge moralists and I 7 I i)-
Clarke, which laid stress on the sel~evidence of moral
principles viewed abstractly, and their intrinsic cogency for
rational wills as such, apart from any consideration of them
as laws laid down for men by an omnipotent ruler; (2) that
of Cumberland and Locke, which treats morality as a code
yof Divine Legislation to be ascertained by considering the
^relations of human beings as designed and created by God.
The former line I may call that of the Earlier Rational In-
tuitionists, to distinguish it from the somewhat similar line
introduced in the next century by Price and Reid ; while
xxn INTRODUCTION
the Jural moralists, Cumberland and Locke, are perhaps most
instructively viewed as precursors of the later Utilitarianism
of Paley although, as I have shown, Locke's method of
determining the laws of nature is rather intuitional than
utilitarian. It should be added, however, that these two
lines of thought are not definitely opposed to each other in
this period : Cumberland, especially, is regarded by Clarke
as altogether an ally, and is in some ways nearer to him
than he is to Locke.
3 . Psycho- In the second period the reply to Hobbism takes a new
departure, and penetrates to its basis of Psychological
Egoism. Egoism. This line of thought is initiated by Shaftesbury,
ness of dis- an d developed in different ways by Butler and Hutcheson :
interested a n three agree in maintaining against Hobbes (a) that dis-
BcilGVO"
lence and interested Benevolence and the Moral Sense or Conscience
Conscience are natural springs of action distinct from Self-love ; and (b)
i 747 ). that they prompt, always, or for the most part, to the con-
duct that enlightened self-interest would dictate, and are
therefore harmonious with, though distinct from Self-love.
I say "always, or for the most part ;" for on this point the
greater caution of Butler leads him into a line of thought
sufficiently different from that of Shaftesbury or Hutcheson
to constitute a new departure. In the view of Shaftesbury
and Hutcheson the Moral Sense, Comprehensive Benevo-
lence and Enlightened Self-interest combine in a triple band
4. Butler to (j raw USj if we only see empirical facts as they are, to
1736). good conduct : in Butler's view it is needful (i) to face the
Dualism of possibility of an apparent conflict between Conscience and
Governing r x x
Principles. Self-love, and therefore to lay stress on the authority of the
otcSf 1106 f rmer ; anc * (2) to note that the dictates of Conscience
science and diverge importantly from the directions which a mere regard
lence V " ^ or general happiness would give. The first of these points
INTRODUCTION xxiii
is emphasised in the preface to his Sermons (1726): the
second only became perfectly clear to him later, and appears
in the Analogy (1736) : this latter date accordingly may be
taken as the starting point of the controversy between In-
tuitional and Utilitarian Ethics, which becomes prominent
afterwards. The next division of the subject is characterised
by the preponderance of Psychology_oyer ethics : the ques-
tion that is both most originally and effectively treated is 5.
not How right conduct is to be determined, but How
moral sentiments are to be scientifically explained. Three nant over
lines of explanation, all of which supply elements to the
later Associationism of James and John Mill and others, tion f
are developed by Hume, Hartley, and Adam Smith respect- sentiments
ively. Of these, Hume's, which resolves moral sentiment
into sympathy with the pleasurable and painful effects of
action, leads naturally to a utilitarian solution of the strictly
ethical question : but Hume's concern is primarily with
psychological explanation, not ethical construction.
Finally, when the main interest turns again to the syste- 6 - Later
. . , . Intuition-
matic determination of right conduct, we find the opposi- ism and
tion between the plain man's Conscience and comprehensive Common
Benevolence, which Butler noted in 1736, developed into f r0 m 1757
the antithesis between Intuitional and Utilitarian morality,
-- * or 1700
which has lasted on into our own time. My historical sketch (Reid).
was intended to end with the Utilitarianism of Mill : but I
have thought it well to include a brief notice of two current utilitarian-
modes of thought not represented in the historical sketch, ^"^ rc
which I have called "Evolutional" and "Transcendental" (Paiey) or
Ethics. Further, before the end of the last century, we 22am}.
have to note a reintroduction of foreign influence : the Utili-
tarianism of Bentham and Mill show the influence respect-
ively of the French writers Helvetius and Comte : while, again,
xxiv INTRODUCTION
the influence of Kantism has partly blended, partly contrasted,
with the Common Sense Intuitionism of what is commonly
known as the Scottish 1 School; repjesJei^ted by Reid and
Stewart; and later, in ^th.e third quarter' of the present
, century, a new form of ethjcal " thought* whi^h I have called
v Transcendentalism has been developed under the influence
of Kant and Hegel combined: and the pessimism 2 faintly
discernible in current English thought may be partially traced
to a German origin. I have accordingly concluded the
chapter with a brief account of certain French and German
systems of ethics, regarded in relation to English thought.
1 This term is liable to mislead, as the intellectual activity of Scot-
land plays a prominent part in the movement of English ethical thought
from Hutclieson onward ; but what is most widely known as the
Scottish school was founded by Reid.
2 I mean by pessimism the view that the world is so bad that its
non-existence would be preferable to its existence not necessarily that
it is the worst possible world.
CHAPTER I.
GENERAL ACCOUNT OF THE SUBJECT
THERE is some difficulty in defining the subject of Ethics
in a manner which can fairly claim general acceptance;
I since its nature and relations are variously understood by
j writers of different schools, and are in consequence con-
ceived somewhat indefinitely by educated persons in general.
It has therefore seemed to me best, in this introductory
chapter, first to develop gradually the different views which
the human mind has been led to take of the objects of
ethical inquiry, and its relations to cognate subjects such as
Theology, Politics, and Psychology ; and then to conclude
with a statement on these points, and an account of the
chief divisions of the subject, which I shall aim at making
at once as neutral and as comprehensive as possible.
The derivation of the term is to some extent misleading : i. Ethics ;
for Ethics (>}#iKa) originally meant what relates to character t heijit^ '
as distinct from intellect ; but the qualities of character mate Good
which we call virtues and vices constituted only one ele-
ment in the subject of the treatise of Aristotle which this
term was used to denote. According to the Aristotelian
view which is that of Greek philosophy generally, and has
B
2 HISTORY OF ETHICS CHAP.
been widely taken in later times the primary subject of
ethical investigation is all that is included under the notion
J of what is ultimately good or desirable for man ; all that is
reasonably chosen or sought by him, not as a means to some
ulterior end, but for itself. The qualification "for man"
distinguish-,, is impojtHtft ?:o distinguish the subject-matter of Ethics from
Theology tnat ~ Absolute Good or Good of the Universe, which may
or foe stated, -as the 'subject-matter of Theology taking " Theo-
- . . , i i u r
Good. *gy m a wl de sense, as involving only the assumption of
some ultimate end or Good, to the realisation of which the
whole process of the world, as empirically known to us, is
somehow a means, but not necessarily connecting Personal-
ity with this end or Good. This distinction between Ethics
and Theology was not, however, reached at once and with-
out effort in the development of ethical reflection ; indeed
in Platonism, as we shall see, Ethics and Theology were in-
dissolubly blended. Nor, again, must the distinction be
taken to imply a complete separation of the two subjects ;
on the contrary, in almost every philosophical system in
which the universe is contemplated as having an ultimate
end or Good, the good of human beings is conceived as
somehow closely related in the way of imitation or deriva-
/ tion to this Universal Good.
2. Ethics But further, in the definition above given, Ethics is not
dSSf^sh yet clearl y distinguished from Politics ; for Politics is also
ed from concerned with the Good or Welfare of men, so far as they
1CS> are members of states. And in fact the term Ethics is
sometimes used, even by modern writers, in a wide sense,
so as to include at least a part of Politics viz., the con-
sideration of the ultimate end or Good of the state, and the
general standard or criteria for determining the goodness or
badness of political institutions. It is, however, also cur-
i. GENERAL ACCOUNT OF THE SUBJECT 3
rent in a narrower sense equivalent to the qualified term
" Private E/thics," which is sometimes preferred as a study
of the Good or Wellbeing of man, so far as this is attainable
by the rational activity of individuals as such. This latter
is the meaning to which the term is, in the main, restricted
in the historical sketch that follows ; at the same time I
have not tried to draw a sharp division between the two
subjects, the connection of which, in many at least of the
systems with which we have to deal, is conceived as very
close and intimate. The difficulty of separating them is
easily seen, whether we approach the boundary between
them from the ethical or from the political side. On the
one hand, individual men are almost universally members
of some political or governed community ; what we call their
virtues are chiefly exhibited in their dealings with their
fellows, and their most prominent pleasures and pains are
derived in whole or in part from their relations to other
human beings; thus most of those who consider either
Virtue or Pleasure to be the sole or chief constituent of an
individual's highest good would agree that this good is not
to be sought in a life of monastic isolation, and without
regard to the wellbeing of his community : they would admit
I that private ethics has a political department. On the other
hand, it would be generally agreed that a statesman's main
ultimate aim should be to promote the wellbeing of his fellow-
citizens, present and to come, considered as individuals.
So far then, as this is the case, the investigation of the par-
ticulars of this wellbeing must be an integral part of Politics.
Still we may, to a great extent, study the elements and con-
ditions of the good of individual men, so far as it is attain-
able by the rational activity of themselves or of other
individuals acting as private persons, without considering
4 HISTORY OF ETHICS CHAP.
how the structure and functions of government should be
determined with a view to the same end ; it is, then, to the
former of these subjects, as distinct from the latter, that
attention will be primarily directed in the following pages.
3. Ethics When, however, we thus as far as possible isolate in
choiogv " thought the individual man for the purposes of ethical con-
templation, a different relation of Ethics comes prominently
into view its relation, namely, to Psychology, the study of
the human soul or mind. Reflection soon makes it appear
that the chief good of man cannot consist in anything ex-
ternal and material, such as wealth; nor even in mere bodily
health, which experience shows to be compatible with ex-
treme badness and wretchedness. It would seem, indeed,
that we commonly judge men to be good or bad courage-
ous, just, temperate, or their opposites from a considera-
tion of the external or material effects of their actions ; still,
in the first place, reflective persons generally are agreed
that such judgments are superficial and liable to be errone-
ous, and that a certain state of the agent's mind, a certain
quality of intention, purpose, motive, or disposition, is re-
quired to constitute an act morally good ; and secondly,
when we analyse in their turn the external conse-
quences above mentioned, we find that what are really
judged to be good or bad are almost always either effects
on the feelings of men or other sentient beings, or effects
on human character. Hence almost all ethical schools
would agree that the main object of their investigation must
belong to the psychical side of human life; whether (i)
they hold that man's ultimate end is to be found in psychical
existence regarded as merely sentient and emotional, identi-
fying it with some species of desirable feeling or Pleasure,
or the genus or sum of such feelings; or whether (2) they
i. GENERAL ACCOUNT OF THE SUBJECT 5
rather maintain that the wellbeing of the mind must lie solely
or chiefly in the quality of its activity its Virtue. And ^
when we attempt to work out either view into a clear and
complete system, we are led inevitably to further psycho-
logical study, either (i) in order to examine different kinds
and degrees of pleasure and pain, or (2) to determine the
nature and mutual relations of the different virtues or good
qualities of character, and their opposites. Again, I have
spoken of man's good as being the object of rational choice
or aim ; meaning thereby to distinguish it from the objects
of merely sensual and emotional impulses, which are liable
to prompt to action opposed to the agent's true good, as he
conceives it. But this conception of " Reason choosing " or
" impelling " is found on reflection to be involved in diffi-
culties; it appears to some that the ultimate impulse to
action is always given, not by Intellect, but by Feeling;^*
hence careful psychological analysis is found to be neces-
sary to make clear the normal operation of Intellect in the
action which we call reasonable, and especially its relation
to the desires and aversions that arise, at least in part, inde-
pendently of reason, and appear to conflict with it. Further,
in the course of the controversy that moralists have carried
on as to what is truly good or desirable the fundamental
nature of which has already been indicated appeal has con-
tinually been made to experience of men's actual desires; on
the assumption that what is truly desirable for a man may
be identified with what he desires naturally, or permanently,
or en the whole. Thus in various ways ethical questions
lead inevitably to psychological discussions; in fact, we
may say that all important ethical notions are also psycho-
logical; except perhaps the fundamental antitheses of
" good " and " bad," " right " and " wrong," with which psy-
6 HISTORY OF ETHICS CHAP.
chology, as it treats of what is and not of what ought to be,
is not directly concerned. 7
4. Ethics ; The two antitheses just mentioned are frequently regarded
of^uty^or as identical. And in fact it does not matter for ordinary
Right Qrfi- purposes whether we speak of "right" or "good" con-
duct, "wrong" or "bad" motives. Reflection, however,
will show that the common notion of what is Good for a
human being even if we restrict it to what is " ultimately "
good, or "good in itself" and. not merely as a means to
some further end includes more than the common notion
- of what is Right for him, or his Duty : it includes also his
Interest or Happiness. No doubt it is commonly believed
that it will be ultimately best for a man to do his duty, and
that this will promote his real Interest or Happiness; but it
does not follow that the notions of duty and interest are to
be identified, or even that the connection between the two
may be scientifically demonstrated. The connection is
often regarded rather as a matter of faith; indeed many
would hold that it is not undesirable that it should be some-
what obscure, in order that duty may be done as duty, and
not from a mere calculation of self-love. Thus we arrive at
another conception of ethics, in which it is thought to be
concerned primarily with the principles of Duty or Right
Action sometimes called the Moral Code regarded as
absolutely binding on all men, apart from any consideration
of the mundane consequences to the agent of observing them ;
and to be only secondarily concerned or perhaps not at
all with the relation of duty to the agent's private happi-
ness. On this view the study connects itself in a new way
with theology, so far as the rules of duty are regarded as a
code of divine legislation ; and apart from this reference it
has a close affinity to rational or abstract jurisprudence, so
i. GENERAL ACCOUNT OF THE SUBJECT 7
far as this treats of rules of Law (in the strict sense) believed
to be naturally and universally valid, and accordingly cog-
nisable by reason and properly enforceable by judicial
punishment independently of human legislation ; since such
rules are also conceived as rules that men ought to obey
without judicial coercion ; they constitute an important
part though not the whole of the Moral Code. We
might contrast this as a modern view of ethics with the x
view before given, which prevailed in ancient Greek philo-
sophy generally 1 the transition between the two being due *
chiefly to the influence of Christianity, but partly also to
that of Roman jurisprudence. It is true that the thought
of " the gods' unwritten and unfaltering law " was not by
any means absent from the moral reflection of Greece ;
still, tne idea of Law was not taken as the ultimate and
fundamental notion in the ancient ethical systems. These
proceed on the assumption that man, as a reasonable
being, must seek his own highest good in this earthly
life, and therefore that any laws he has to obey must be
demonstrated to be means to the attainment of this good,
or particulars in which it is realised. On this point the
change produced by Christianity is even more striking, if we
consider its more general effects rather than its influence on
the minds that were most completely penetrated by its reli-
gious spirit. The true Christian saint lived even on earth,
no less than the pagan philosopher, a life which he regarded
as intrinsically preferable to all other modes of earthly exist-
ence; and, like the Platonic philosopher, a life of which
1 This statement requires some qualification as applied to Stoicism ;
through which, in fact, as will presently appear, the transition was
partly made from the ancient to the modern manner of thought. Cf.
post, 15, 19, and ch. iv. i.
8 HISTORY OF ETHICS CHAP.
practical virtue was not so much the essence as the outward
expression. Still even for the saint this earthly life afforded
but an imperfect foretaste of the bliss for which he hoped ;
and in the view of more ordinary Christians, the ultimate
good of man vanished from the scrutiny of mere ethical
speculation into the indefinite brightness of a future life of
happiness, supernaturally bestowed by God as a reward for
obedience to His laws. Or rather, perhaps, by the mass of
Christians, the moral code was more commonly regarded,
in still closer analogy to human legislation, as supported by
penal sanctions ; since in all ages of Christianity the fear of
the pains of hell has probably been a more powerful motive
to draw men from vice than the hope of the pleasures of
heaven. On either view the ultimate weal or ill of human
beings became something that might be imagined and
rhetorically described, but not definitely known or scienti-
/ fically investigated; and thus the subject-matter of ethics
1 defined itself afresh as Moral Law, a body of rules absolutely
prescribed, and supplying a complete guidance for human
conduct, though not claiming to contain an exhaustive state-
ment of human good.
5. Ethics Within the Christian Church, through the earlier ages of
prudenc" 5 " ' lts history, the rules of morality were commonly held to be
known in the main, if not altogether by Revelation and
not by mere Reason; and hence it naturally fell to theologians
to expound, and to priests to administer this code of divine
legislation. But when a more philosophical treatment of
ethics was introduced by the schoolmen, the combination in
the code of two elements one distinctively Christian, and
the other cognisable by natural reason, and binding' on all
men apart from revelation began to be clearly seen ; and
an adequate theory of this second element seemed to be
i. GENERAL ACCOUNT OF THE SUBJECT 9
supplied by the development of theoretical jurisprudence
that followed on the revival, in the i2th century, of the
study of Roman law. In the later treatment of legal prin-
ciples in Rome, the notion of a law of nature had become
prominent ; and this notion was naturally and easily adapted
to represent the element in morality that was independent
of revelation. It is true that the natural law with which
the philosophical jurists were concerned did not relate to
right conduct generally, but only to such right actions (or
abstinences) as are required to satisfy the rightful claims of
others ; hence it could not properly be identified with more
than a portion of the moral code. This portion, however,
is of such fundamental importance that the distinction
just noticed was overlooked or treated as subordinate
by mediaeval and early modern thinkers; the notion of
Natural Law was taken as coincident with Morality gene-
rally so far as cognisable by Reason and regulative of out-
ward conduct.
It is chiefly in connection with this jural view of morality Origin of
that the inquiry into the origin of the moral faculty has occu- Facu i ty>
pied a prominent place in the modern treatment of Ethics. So
long as the principle in man that governs or ought to govern
is regarded merely as the faculty of knowing our true good,
together with its main causes or conditions, it hardly seems
important to inquire how this faculty originated, any more
than it is important for a geometer to investigate the origin
of the spatial faculty. But when the moral faculty had
come to be conceived as Conscience, i.e., as a faculty cog-
nisant of rules absolutely binding, without regard to the
agent's apparent interest a kind of legislator within the
man that demands unquestioning and unconditional obedi-
ence over all other springs of action it was to be expected
io HISTORY OF ETHICS CHAP.
that the legitimacy of its claim would be challenged and
seriously investigated ; and it is not hard to understand how
this legitimacy is thought to depend on the " originality " of
the faculty that is, on its being a part of the plan or type
according to which human nature was originally constructed.
Hence investigations into the moral condition of children
and savages, and ever* animals, and more or less conjectural
theories of the soul's growth and development, have been
commonly regarded as necessary appendages or introductions
to modern ethical discussion. .
Free Will. So again, it is through the jural conception of ethics that
the controversy on free will chiefly becomes important. A
plain man does not naturally inquire whether he is " free "
or not to seek his own good, provided only he knows
what it is, and that it is attainable by voluntary action.
But when his conduct is compared with a code to the
violation of which punishments are attached, the question
whether he really could obey the rule by which he is judged
is obvious and inevitable, since if he could not, it seems
contrary to our sense of justice to punish -him.
Summary To sum up, the subject of Ethics, most comprehensively
Ethics f understood, includes (i) an investigation of the constituents
and conditions of the Good orijp&llbeing of men considered
individually, which chiefly takes the form of an examination
into the general nature and particular species of (a) Virtue
or (b) Pleasure, and the chief means of realising these ends ;
(2) an investigation of the principles and most important
details of Dirty or the Moral Law (so far as this is distin-
guished from Virtue) ; (3) some inquiry into the nature and
origin of the Faculty by which duty is recognised and, more
generally, into the part taken by Intellect in human action,
and its relation to various kinds of Desire and Aversion :
i. GENERAL ACCOUNT OF THE SUBJECT n
(4) some examination of the question of human Free_Will.
It is connected with Theology, in so far as a Universal Good
is recognised, inclusive of Human Good, or analogous to it ;
and again, so far as morality is regarded as a Code of
Divine appointment. It is connected with Politics, so far
as the wellbeing of any individual man is bound up with
the wellbeing of his society ; and again with Jurisprudence
(or Politics), so far as morality is identified with Natural
Law. Finally, almost every branch of ethical discussion
belongs at least in part to Psychology ; and the inquiries
into the origin of the moral faculty and the freedom of the
Will are purely psychological.
We will now proceed to trace briefly the course of ethical
speculation from its origin in Europe to the present day ;
confining our attention, during the latter part of this period,
to such modes of thought as have been developed in
England, or have exercised an important influence there.
I may observe that the term "moral " is commonly used
as synonymous with ethical (tnoralis being the Latin
translation of rjOiKos), and I shall so use it in the following
pages.
CHAPTER II.
GREEK AND GRECO-ROMAN ETHICS
i. Pre- THE ethical speculation of Greece, and therefore of Europe,
Phiioso- nas not ' an y more than other elements of European civilisa-
phy- tion, an abrupt and absolute commencement. The naive
and fragmentary utterances of sage precepts for conduct, in
which nascent moral reflection everywhere first manifests
itself, supply a noteworthy element of Greek literature
in the "gnomic" poetry of the yth and 6th centuries
before Christ; their importance in the development of
Greek civilisation is strikingly characterised by the tradi-
tional enumeration of the " seven sages " of the 6th cen-
tury ; and their influence on ethical thought is sufficiently
shown in the references that Plato and even Aristotle make
to the definitions and maxims of poets and sages. But
from such utterances as these to moral philosophy there
was still a long step; for though- Thales (circ. 640-560 B.C.),
one of the seven, was also the first physical philosopher of
Greece, we have no ground for supposing that his practical
wisdom had anything of a philosophical character ; and a
general concentration of interest on physical or metaphysical
as distinct from moral questions is characteristic of
Greek philosophy generally, in the period between Thales
and Socrates : so that, in the series of original thinkers who
CHAP. ii. GREEK AND GRECO-ROMAN ETHICS 13
are commonly classed as pre-Socratic philosophers, there
are only three if we omit the Sophists whose ethical
teaching demands our attention. These three are Pytha-
goras, Heraclitus, and Democritus. It is noteworthy that
each of them anticipates, in an interesting way, an important
element in post-Socratic thought.
The first of these, Pythagoras, would probably be the Pytha-
most interesting of all, if we could trace with any definite- f^ $80-
ness even the outlines of his work through the thick veil 50)
of legend that has overgrown the historical tradition of
it. Its interest, however, belongs more to the history of
morality in Greece, than to the history of moral theory ;
since Pythagoras is presented to us rather as the founder
of a sect, order, or brotherhood, with moral and religious
aims, than as the originator of a school of ethical phil-
osophy. In his precepts of moderation, courage, loyalty
in friendship, obedience to law and government, his re-
commendation of daily self-examination even in the minor
rules of diet, which we may believe him to have delivered
we may discern an effort, striking in its originality and
earnestness, to mould the lives of men as much as possible
into the " likeness of God^ but these precepts seem to have
been announced much Iribre in a dogmatic, or even pro-
phetic, than in a philosophic manner ; and, whether sound
or arbitrary, to have been accepted by his disciples with a
decidedly unphilosophic reverence for the ipse dixit 1 of
the master. It is but dimly that we can trace a genuinely
philosophical element in some of the fragmentary traditions
of his school which have come down to us. Thus the at
first startling proposition of the Pythagoreans, that the
1 This well-known phrase was originally attributed to the Pytha-
goreans.
U GREEK AND GRECO-ROMAN ETHICS CHAP.
essence of justice (conceived as equal retribution) isji^
square number, indicates a serious attempt to extend to the
region of conduct that mathematical view of the universe
which was the fundamental characteristic of Pythagoreanism ;
the notion of " squareness " being doubtless used to express
that exact proportionment of requital to desert which is
commonly felt to be the essence of retributive justice.
Similarly in the propositions that Virtue and Health are
"harmonies," that Friendship is a "harmonious equality,"
and in the Pythagorean classification of good with unity,
limit, straightness, etc., and of evil with the opposite quali-
ties, we may find at least the germ of Plato's view that
goodness in human conduct, as in external nature and
works of art, depends on certain quantitative relations of
elements in the good result, exactly proportioned so as to
avoid excess or defect.
Heraciitus If Pythagoras partially anticipates certain features of
470*8 c 3 )~ Platonism, Heraciitus may be regarded as a forerunner of
Stoicism. We have no reason, indeed, to suppose that the
moral element in his "dark" philosophisings was worked
out into anything like a complete ethical system. But
when he bids men obey the " divine law from which all
human laws draw their sustenance," the Justice to which
even the heavens are subject ; when he enjoins on them to
abide firmly by the Reason that is in truth common to all
men though most surrender themselves to the deceptions
of sense, and reduce happiness to the satisfaction of the
most grovelling appetites ; when he tells them that " Wisdom
is to ... act according to nature with understanding " we
recognise a distinctly Stoical quality in this uncompromising
reverence for an objective law, recognised in a threefold
aspect as Rational, Natural, and Divine. So again, in his
ii. PRE-SOCRATIC ETHICS 15
optimistic view of our world of battle and strife as in the
sight of God all " good and fair and just "the apparent in-
justice in it being only relative to human apprehension
we may find a simple anticipation of the elaborate proof of
the world's perfection which the Stoics afterwards attempted.
It was, we may believe, in the surrender of his soul to this
divine or universal view of things that Heraclitus chiefly
attained the " complacency " (evapco-rqo-iv) which he is said
to have regarded as the highest good ; and we find the same
term used by the later Stoics to express a similar attitude of
cheerful acquiescence in the decrees of Providence.
JDemocritus whose philosophical system, as a whole, Demo-
stands to Epicureanism in a relation somewhat resembling j :n . t " s 6o _
that which Heraclitus holds in respect to Stoicism is usually 370 B.C.)
and properly classed with " pre-Socratic " thinkers, as his
doctrine shows no trace of the influence of Socrates, from
whose teaching all the great schools of ethical thought in
Greece take their main departure ; chronologically speaking,
however, Democritus is a somewhat younger contemporary
of Socrates. His anticipation of the Epicurean system is
more clearly marked in the department of physics where,
indeed, he supplied Epicurus with the main part of his
doctrine than it is in ethics ; still, a certain number of the
fragments that remain of his ethical treatises have a decidedly
Epicurean character. Thus he seems to have been thejirst
thinker to declare expressly that " delight " or " good cheer "
(evOv/jLia) is the ultimate or highest good ; and his identifica-
tion of this with an equable and unperturbed temper of
mind (o-v/x/xeTpta, drapagta)', the stress laid by him on
moderation and limitation of" desires as a means to ob-
taining the greatest pleasure, his .preference of the delights
of the soul to those of the mere body, the importance he
1 6 GREEK AND GRECO-ROMAN ETHICS CHAP.
attaches to insight or Wisdom, especially as releasing from
the fear of death and what comes after, these have all their
counterpart in the Epicurean doctrine. The main part,
however, of the moral teaching of Democritus so far as we
can fairly judge it from the mere fragments handed down
seems to have been of the unsystematic kind that belongs
to the pre-Socratic period ; and many of his utterances as,
e.g., that it is worse to do than to suffer injustice, that not
only wrong-doing but wrong-wishing is bad and hateful, etc.
seem the naive expression of an elevated strain of moral
sentiment which has not been reduced to any^ rational cohe-
sion with his view of ultimate Good. On the whole, we may
say that what remains of the moral treatises of Democritus is
sufficient to enable us to conjecture how the turn of Greek
philosophy in the direction of conduct, which' was actually
due to Socrates, might have taken place without him ; but
it does not justify us in attributing to their author more than
a very rudimentary apprehension of the formal conditions
which moral teaching must fulfil before it can lay claim to
be treated as scientific.
The truth is that a moral system could not be satisfac-
torily constructed until attention had been strongly directed
to the vagueness and inconsistency of the common moral
opinions of mankind ; until ' this was done, the moral
counsels of the philosopher, however supreme his contempt
for the common herd, inevitably shared these defects. For
this purpose was needed the concentration of a philosophic
intellect of the first order on the problems of practice. In
Socrates, for the first time, we find the required combination
of a paramount interest in conduct, and an ardent desire
for knowledge ; a desire, at the same time, that was repelled
from the physical and metaphysical inquiries which had
ii. PRE-SOCRATIC ETHICS 17
absorbed the main attention of his predecessors, by a pro-
found dissatisfaction with the results of their speculations,
and a consequent disbelief in the possibility of penetrating
the secret of the physical universe. The doctrines of these
physicists, he said, were at once so extravagant and so
materially contradictory, that they were " like madmen dis-
puting." A similar negative attitude towards the whole
antecedent series of dogmatic philosophers had already
found expression in the sweeping scepticism of Gorgias,
who declared that the real substance of things which the
philosophers investigated did not exist, or at any rate could
not be known, or if known, could not be stated ; and also
in the famous proposition of Protagoras, that the human
apprehension is the only standard of what is and what is
not. In the case of Socrates, however, such a view found
further support in a naive piety that indisposed him to search
into things of which the gods seemed to have reserved the
knowledge to themselves. The regulation of human action,
on the other hand (except on occasions of special difficulty,
for which omens and oracles might be vouchsafed), they had
left to human reason ; on this accordingly Socrates concen-
trated his efforts.
The demand for a reasoned theory of good conduct was 2. The
not, however, original in Socrates, though his conception of sSphists G
the requisite knowledge was so in the highest degree. The ( circ - 45-
thought of the most independent thinker is conditioned by
that of his age; and we cannot disconnect the work of
Socrates from the professional instruction in the art of con-
duct given by a group of persons who have since been
commonly known as " the Sophists " l which is so striking
a phenomenon of this period of Greek civilisation. Of these
1 See Appendix.
C
1 8 GREEK AND GRECO-ROMAN ETHICS CHAP.
professional "teachers of Virtue," the most brilliant and
impressive appears to have been Protagoras of Abdera, to
whose philosophic doctrine I just now referred ; and it is
not improbable that the original notion of imparting instruc-
tion in virtue by means of lectures was due to this vigorous
and enterprising thinker ; whom we may suppose to have
been turned, like Socrates, to the study of human affairs in
consequence of his negative attitude towards current onto-
logical speculation. The instruction, however, that was
actually given by Protagoras, Prodicus, Hippias, and other
sophists, does not seem to have been based on any philo-
sophical system, and was in fact of too popular a quality to
be of much philosophical importance. It seems to have
combined somewhat loosely the art of getting^on, in the
world with the art of managing public affairs, and to have
mingled encomiastic expositions of different virtues with
prudential justifications of virtue, as a means of obtaining
pleasure and avoiding pain ; of these latter the best example
that has come down to us is the fable of the Choice of Her-
cules, attributed to Prodicus. But however commonplace
the teaching of the " sophists " may have been, the general
fact of the appearance of this new profession to meet a new
social need is sufficiently remarkable. In order to under-
stand the originality of this work and the social impression
produced by it, we have to conc'eive of a society full of eager
intellectual activity, and with aesthetic sensibility stimulated
and cultivated by works of contemporary art that have
remained the wonder of the world, but entirely without any
official or established teaching of morality : a society in
which Homer, one may say, occupied the place of the Bible.
Now Homer supplies nothing like the ten commandments ;
but he does supply more or less impressive notions of
ii. THE SOPHISTS 19
human excellences and defects of various kinds qualities
of conduct and character that drew strong utterances of
liking and aversion from those who took note of them.
And in the vigorous and concentrated social life developed
since Homer's time in the city-states of Greece and
especially intense in Athens in the 5th century the praise
and blame attached to such qualities would naturally grow
in fulness of expression and fineness of discrimination. f In
the genus of human excellence, Virtues or moral excellences
would constitute the most prominent group; though not
yet clearly distinguished from intellectual skills and gifts, j
and graces of social behaviour. J And no wellbred Greek
gentleman no one deserving the name of " fair and good "
(KaAoKaya#os) would doubt that the different species of
moral excellence were qualities to be desired, objects that a
man should aim at possessing. He might indeed have no
very definite notion of their rank or place in the class of
good or desirable things ; he might be more or less troubled
by the apparent incompatibility occasionally perceived be-
tween the exercise of virtue and the attainment of pleasure,
wealth, or power; he might even doubt how far virtue,
though admittedly good and desirable, was always worth the
sacrifice of other goods. Still such doubts would only occur
transiently and occasionally to the few ; in the views of im-
partial spectators the beauty of virtue would only be made
more manifest by its triumphing over seductive desires
directed to other objects; thus an ordinary well-trained
Athenian would be as simply confident that it was good for
a man to be virtuous and the more virtuous the better as
that it was good for him to be wise, healthy, beautiful, and
rich.
When, therefore, Protagoras or any other sophist
20 GREEK AND GRECO-ROMAN ETHICS CHAP.
i / came forward to teach Virtue or goodness of conduct, he
/ would not find in his audience any general recognition of
J* a possible divergence between Virtue and Self-interest
/ properly conceived. They would understand that in pro-
fessing to show them " how to live well and manage well
one's own affairs," he was claiming to guide them to the
best way of living, from the points of view of both Virtue
and Self-interest at*once. It may, however, be asked how
the need and advantage of such guidance came to be so
generally recognised, as the success of the sophists shows it
to have been. How came it that after so many centuries,
in which the Greeks must have applied their moral notions
in distributing praise and blame, with the confidence of per-
fect knowledge, and must have attributed to any cause
rather than ignorance the extensive failure of men to realise
virtue, they should suddenly become persuaded that good
conduct was something that could be learned from lectures ?
The answer to this question is partly to be found in that
(very fusion of the moral view of life with the prudential
view, which I have just described, in the fact that the
virtues which the sophists professed to impart by teaching
were not sharply distinguished by them from other ac-
quirements that sustain and enrich life. In this age, as in
more modern times, most men would suppose that they had
1 sufficient knowledge of justice and temperance ; but they
' would not be equally confident that they possessed the art
i of making the best of life generally. Further, we must
' remember the importance of the civic or public side of life,
to a free-born leisured Greek in the small town-communities
of this age. The art of conduct as professed and taught to
him would mean to a great extent the art of public life
indeed, Plato's Protagoras defines his function to be that of
ii. THE SOPHISTS 21
teaching "civic excellence" the art of managing public no
less than private affairs. It is more natural that a plain "
man should think scientific training necessary in dealing
with affairs of state than in the ordering of his own private
concerns.
Still this emergence of an art of conduct with profes-
sional teachers cannot thoroughly be understood, unless it
is viewed as a crowning result of a_general tendency at
this stage of^reejc^ Civilisation, to .substitute Jechnical _skill
for traditional procedure and empirically developed faculty.
In the age of the sophists we find, wherever we turn, the
same eager pursuit of knowledge, and the same eager effort
to apply it directly to practice. The method of earth-
measurement was rapidly becoming a science ; the astro-
nomy of Meton was introducing precision into the compu-
tation of time ; Hippodamus was revolutionising architecture
by building towns with straight broad streets ; old-fashioned
soldiers were grumbling at the new pedantries of " tactics "
and " hoplitics " ; the art of music had recently received a
great technical development ; and a still greater change had
been effected in that training of the body which constituted
the other half of ordinary Greek education. If bodily
vigour was no longer to be left to nature and spontaneous
exercise, but was to be attained by the systematic observance
of rules laid down by professional trainers, it was natural to
think that the same might be the case with excellences of
the soul. The art of rhetoric, again, which was developed in
Sicily in the second half of the 5th century, is a specially
striking example of the general tendency we are here con-
sidering ; and it is important to observe that the profession
of rhetorician was commonly blended with that of sophist.
Indeed throughout the age of Socrates sophists and philo-
22 GREEK AND GRECO-ROMAN ETHICS CHAP.
sophers were commonly regarded, by those who refused to
recognise their higher claims, as teaching an "art of words."
It is easy to see how this came about ; when the demand of
an art of conduct made itself felt, it was natural that the
rhetoricians, skilled as they were in handling the accepted
notions and principles of practice, should come forward to
furnish the supply. Nor is there any reason to regard them
as conscious charlatans for so doing, any more than the pro-
fessional journalist of our own day, whose position as a
political instructor of mankind is commonly earned rather
by a knack of ready writing than by any special depth of
political wisdom. As Plato's Protagoras says, the sophists
in professing to teach virtue only claimed to do somewhat
. better than others what all men are continually doing ; and
similarly we may say that, when tried by the touchstone of
Socrates, they only exhibited somewhat more conspicuously
than others the deficiencies which the great questioner found
everywhere.
The charge that Socrates brought against the sophists
anc ^ kis fellow-men generally may be viewed in twojispects.
470 B.C. ; On one side it looks quite artless and simple ; on the other
d ' 3 " B>c ^ it is seen to herald a revolution in scientific method, and to
contain the germ of a metaphysical system. Simply stated,
the charge was that they talked about justice, temperance,
law, etc., and yet could not tell what these things were; the
accounts of them which they gave when pressed were, as
Socrates forced them to admit, inconsistent with their own
judgments on particular instances of justice, legality, etc.
A This "ignorance" of the real meaning of their terms was
i not, indeed, the only lack of knowledge that Socrates dis-
covered in his contemporaries, but it was the most striking :
and its exposure was a philosophic achievement of profound
ii. SOCRATES 23
importance. For the famous "dialectic," by which he
brought this ignorance home to his interlocutors, at once
exhibited the scientific need of exact definitions of general
notions, and suggested that these definitions were to be
attained by a careful comparison of particulars. Thus, we
can understand how, in Aristotle's view, the main service
of Socrates to philosophy consisted in " introducing induc-
tion and definitions." This description, however, is too
technical for the naive character of the Socratic dialectic, u "
and does not adequately represent its destructive effects.
For that the results of these resistless arguments were mainly
^negative is plain from those (earlier) Platonic dialogues in ,
which the impression of the real Socrates is to be found
least modified. The pre-eminent "wisdom" which the
Delphic oracle attributed to him was held by himself to
consist in a unique consciousness of ignorance. And yet
it is equally plain, even from Plato, that there was a most
important positive, element in the teaching of Socrates ; had ^
it been otherwise, the attempt of Xenophon to represent his
discourses as directly edifying, and the veneration felt for
him by the most dogmatic among subsequent schools of
philosophy, would be quite inexplicable.
The union of these two elements in the work of Socrates
has caused historians no little perplexity ; and certainly we
cannot quite save the philosopher's consistency, unless we
regard some of the doctrines attributed to him by Xenophon
as merely tentative and provisional. Still the positions of
Socrates that are most important in the history of ethical
thought are not only easy to harmonise with his conviction
of ignorance, but even render it easier to understand his
unwearied cross-examination of common opinion. For the
radical and most impressive article of his creed was consti-
24 GREEK AND GRECO-ROMAN ETHICS CHAP
tuted by his exalted estimate of this knowledge that was sc
hard to find, his conviction that men's ignorance of theii
true good was the source of all their wrong-doing. If hh
,J habitual inquiries were met by the reply, "We do know
j what justice and holiness are, though we cannot say," he
would rejoin " Whence, then, these perpetual disputes about
what is just and holy ? " True knowledge, he urged, would
settle these quarrels, and produce uniformity in men's moral
judgments and conduct. To us, no doubt, it seems an
extravagant paradox to treat men's ignorance of justice as
the sole cause of unjust acts ; and to the Greek mind also
the view was paradoxical ; but if we would understand the
position, not of Socrates only, but of ancient ethical philo-
sophy generally, we must try to realise that this paradox was
also a nearly unanswerable deduction from a pair of apparent
truisms. That "every one wishes for his own good, and
- would get it if he could," an arguer would hardly venture to
question; and, as I have before said, he would equally
shrink from denying that justice and virtue generally were
goods, and of all goods the finest. How then could he
/ refuse to admit that " those who knew how to do just and
/ righteous acts would prefer nothing else, while those who
I did not know could not do them if they would," l which
/ would land him at once in the conclusion of Socrates that
justice and all other virtues were summed up in wisdom or
knowledge of good ?
This view of virtue, to most modern minds, would seem
incompatible with moral freedom ; but to Socrates it ap-
peared, on the contrary, that knowledge alone could really
make men free. Only good conduct, he maintained, is
1 Cf. Xenophon, Memorabilia, III., ch. ix. 5, where Xenophon fully
confirms what Plato's dialogues abundantly illustrate.
ii. SOCRATES 25
truly voluntary ; a bad man is constrained by ignorance to
do what is contrary to his real wish, which is always for his
own greatest good : only knowledge can set him free to
realise his wish.
Thus, we may say, in spite of the conflict between
Socrates and the sophists, that we find him in essential agree-
ment with the fundamental assumption on which their novel
claims were based the assumption that the right manner
of life for human beings was a result attainable by knowledge,
and capable of being imparted by verbal instruction to
TDronerly qualified intellects. And this fundamental assump-
tion is maintained throughout all the development and vari-
ations of the post-Socratic schools. Greek philosophy, after
Socrates, always makes a prominent claim to impart the true
art of life ; however differently its scope and method may be
defined by different schools, it is always conceived as the *
knowledge by which the best life is to be lived, or in the
contemplation of which such a life consists. By Socrates
indeed, as by Plato after him, the supremacy of knowledge
is asserted in a no less uncompromising manner in the
sphere of politics. " The true general," he says " is he who
knows the art of strategy, whether he be elected or not ; the
votes of all mankind cannot turn an ignorant man into a
general deserving of the name." It was no peculiar flight
of Plato's idealising imagination that made him place the ab-
solute control of his ideal state in the hands of philosophers ;
it was an immediate application of his master's cardinal
doctrine that no one can be fit to govern men who does not ^ _
know man's true end or good.
Observe that the " knowledge of good " at which -Socrates
aims is misconceived if we think of it as knowledge of duty as
distinct from interest. The force of his argument depends
26 GREEK AND GRECO-ROMAN ETHICS CHAP.
upon a blending of duty and ^interest in the single notion of
good. This blending Socrates did not, of course, invent
he found it, as the sophists did, in the common thought of
his age; but it was the primary moral function of his
dialectic to educe and exhibit it, to drive it home and trace
its practical consequences. The kernel of the positive
moral teaching that Xenophon attributes to him is his pro-
found conviction of the reality and essential harmony of_the
different constituents nf human gopdj as commonly recog-
nised ; especially his earnest belief in the eminent value for
the individual of those "goods of the soul," which then as
now were more praised than sought by practical men
generally. From this conviction, maintained along with an
- unattained ideal of the knowledge that would solve all
practical problems, springs the singular combination of
qualities exhibited both by the teaching and the personality
of this unique man as they are presented to us with incom-
parable impressiveness in many dialogues of Plato. We
- seem to see self-sacrifice in the garb of self-regard ; a lofty
spirituality blended with a homely common sense ; a fen-id
enthusiasm for excellence of character, and an unreserved
devotion to the task of producing it in himself and others,
half-veiled by a cool mocking irony ; a subtle, intense,
scepticism playing round a simple and resolute acceptance
of customary duties, like a lambent flame that has somehow
lost its corrosive qualities.
We are concerned here with the doctrine, not the man ;
but it is impossible to separate the two. For it is import-
ant, even for the history of ethical doctrine, to note that if
the necessity for firmness of purpose, 1 as well as fulness of
1 Xenophon, it is to be observed, describes Socrates as preaching
1 ' self-control " (^y/cpdreia) ; but I see no difficulty in interpreting this
ii. SOCRATES IV ^/bd#^
VvP
Xv^/ *;
insight, was not adequately recognised in the S^ratfc* /'^ }'
doctrine, the former quality was all the more conspicuously
manifested in his life. Indeed it was the very perfection
in which he possessed this virtue that led him to the paradox
of ignoring it. Of himself at least it was true, that whatever
he believed to be " fair and good " he must necessarily do ; Aft
when another acted apparently against knowledge, the ;
easiest explanation seemed to him to be that true knowledge
was not really there. He could give no account that satis- \
fied him of good in the abstract ; when pressed for one he
evaded the questioners by saying that " he knew no good
that was not good for something in particular ; " but that
good is consistent with itself, that the beautiful is also
profitable, the virtuous also pleasant, he was always ready
to prove in concrete cases. If he prized the wisdom that is
virtue, the " good of the soul," above all other goods, if in
his absorption in the pursuit and propagation of it he
endured the hardest penury, he steadily maintained that
such life was richer in enjoyment than a life of luxury ; if
he faced death rather than violate the laws of his country, ^
he was prepared with a complete proof that it was probably
his interest to die.
This many-sidedness in his view of good is strikingly
illustrated by the curious blending of elevated and homely
consistently with the rest of his doctrine, by taking this "self-control"
to consist in or result inevitably from knowledge of the small value
of sensual indulgences in comparison with the harm they entail : so that
the need of self-control in the ordinary sense, regarded as a quality
different from knowledge, and required to supplement it, would still be
unrecognised by him. And this was certainly the view taken of his
teaching by the Aristotelian author of what now stands as Book VII. of
the Nicomachean Ethics, who says (chap. ii. ) that Socrates "argued on
the theory that want of self-control (out pour to.) did not exist."
28 GREEK AND GRECO-ROMAN ETHICS CHAP.
sentiment which his utterances about friendship show. If
goodness of soul is the " finest of goods," a good friend must
be the most valuable of external possessions ; no effort is
too great to keep or win such. Still, the good of friendship
must be shown in its utility ; a friend who can be of no
service is valueless ; and this " service " Socrates on occa-
sion interpreted in the most commonplace sense. Still, he
held, the highest of services that friend can render to friend
is moral improvement.
I conceive, then, that while the Athenian community
was not altogether wrong in -the famous condemnation of
Socrates as a " sophist who had undermined the morals of
youth," the disciples of Socrates were altogether right in their
indignant repudiation of the charge, so far as it affected
either the personal morality of the master or his deepest
philosophic aims and convictions. On the one hand, when
we compare Xenophon and Plato, we cannot but feel that
the negative effect of the Socratic dialectic must have been
argumentatively stronger than the positive; and that on
minds intellectually active and penetrating, but without
moral earnestness, this is likely to have bepn the sole
effect; however uniformly, by his practical precepts and
example alike, he encouraged obedience to "laws written
and unwritten," an acute pupil would be liable to think
that his reasons for this obedience lacked the cogency
of his destructive arguments. On the other hand, it
is really essential to the Socratic method that the per-
petual particular scepticism it develops should be com-
bined with a permanent general faith in the common sense
of mankind. For while he is always attacking com-
mon opinion, and showing it, from its inconsistencies, n<^
to be knowledge, still the premises of his argument?- this
n. SOCRATES 29
always taken from the common thought which he shares
with his interlocutors, and the knowledge which he seeks is
implicitly assumed to be something that will harmonise not
overthrow these common beliefs. This is manifested in the
essential place which dialogue holds in his pursuit of truth :
it is only through discourse that he hopes to come to know-
ledge.
So far we have spoken of the knowledge sought by
Socrates as knowledge of man's ultimate good ; and this,
was in fact, the chief and primary object of his dialectical
research. But we are not to suppose that he regarded this
as the only knowledge needful for the wise ordering of
human life. 1 He is represented as continually inquiring
for definitions, not only of " Good," " Virtue," " Pleasure,"
but of all the notions that enter into our practical reasonings,
whether they relate to public or to private affairs; and
the attention bestowed by him on even the humbler arts
that minister to human needs is one of his most noted
characteristics. I have already said that he regarded all
merely speculative inquiries into the nature of the physical
universe as superfluous and futile ; but he recognised that
the adaptation of external things to the uses of man must
always absorb a large share of human activity, and that a
knowledge of these things and their qualities, so far as thus
useful, was therefore necessary for completely rational
conduct ; it was indeed, in a certain sense, " knowledge of
the good " i.e., of what is relatively good as a means to the
true end of life. Hence any rational and useful human
labour had, in his eyes, an interest and value which contrasts
1 This is the misinterpretation of the Socratic teaching into which
Uxl* ?ne-sided Socratics " especially the cynics appear to have more
the tftllen. Cf. post, pp. 33, 34.
30 GREEK AND GRECO-ROMAN ETHICS CHAP.
strikingly with the contempt commonly felt by cultivated
Greeks for base mechanic toil. Xenophon has recorded at
length a dialogue with a corslet-maker, in which Socrates
gradually draws out the rationale of corslet-making; and
we find that his talk was ridiculed for its continual reference
to the analogies of vulgar trades for his perpetual harping
on shoemakers and carpenters and braziers and herdsmen.
The truth was that as Plato makes him say in his defence
before his judges the common artisans differed from poli-
ticians and professors in knowing their business : in the
great work of transforming human life into a completely
reasoned adaptation of means to definitely known ends the
vulgar arts had led the way, and were far in advance ; they
had learnt a great part of their lesson, while the "royal
art" of life and government was still struggling with the
rudiments.
These, then, seem the historically important character-
istics of the great founder of moral philosophy, if we take
(as we must) his teaching and character together: (i) an
ardent inquiry for knowledge nowhere to be found, but
which, if found, would perfect human conduct knowledge,
primarily, of ultimate and abstract good, but also secondarily
of all things relatively good, all the means by which this
ultimate end was to 'be realised by man; (2) a provisional
adhesion to the common]^ received view of good, in all its
incoherent complexity, and a perpetual readiness to 1 main-
tain the harmony of its different elements, and demonstrate
the superiority of virtue by applying the commonest standard
of self interest ; (3) personal_firmness, as apparently easy as
it was actually invincible, in carrying out consistently such
practical convictions as he had attained. It is only when
we keep all these points in view that we can understand
ii. THE SOCRATIC SCHOOLS 31
how from the spring of Socratic conversation flowed the
divergent streams of Greek ethical thought.
Four distinct philosophical schools trace their immediate 4 . The
origin to the circle that gathered round Socrates the
Megarian, the Platonic, the Cynic, and the Cyrenaic. (The
impress of the master is manifest on all, in spite of the
wide differences that divided them ; and they all agree in
holding the most important pn^p^sion of man to be wisdom
or knowledge, and the most important knowledge to be
knowledge of Good. ) Here, however, the agreement ends.
The more philosophic part of the circle, forming a group
in which Euclides of Megara seems at first to have taken the
lead, regarded this Good as the object of a still unfulfilled
quest ; and setting out afresh in search of it, with a pro- \
found sense of its mystery, were led to identify it with the
hidden secret of the universe, and thus to pass from ethics j
to metaphysics. Others again, whose demand for know-
ledge was more easily satisfied, and who were more im-
pressed with the positive and practical side of the master's
teaching, made the quest a much simpler affair; in fact,
they took the Good as already known, and held philosophy
to consist in the steady application of this knowledge to
conduct. Among these were Antisthenes the Cynic and
Aristippus of Cyrene. It is by their unreserved recognition
of the duty of living by consistent theory instead of mere
impulse or custom, their sense of the new value given to
life through this rationalisation, and their effort to maintain
the easy, calm, unwavering firmness of the Socratic temper,
that we recognise both Antisthenes aud Aristippus as
" Socratic men," in spite of the completeness with which
they divided their master's positive doctrine into systems
diametrically opposed. Of their contrasted principles we
32 GREEK AND GRECO-ROMAN ETHICS CHAP.
may perhaps say that, while Aristrppus took the most
obvious logical step for reducing the teaching of Socrates
to clear dogmatic unity, Antisthenes certainly drew the
most natural inference from the Socratic life.
Aristippus Aristippus argued that, if all that is beautiful or admir-
Cyrenaics a ^ e m con duct has this quality as being useful, i.e., pro-
ductive of some further good ; if virtuous action is essentially
action done with insight, or rational apprehension of the
act as a means to this good ; then surely this good can be
but pleasure, which all living things with unperverted im-
pulses seek, while they shun its opposite, pain. He further
found a metaphysical basis for this conclusion in the doctrine
to which the relativism of Protagoras led him, that we can
know nothing of things without us except their impressions
on ourselves. An immediate inference from this was that
the " smooth motion " of sense which we call pleasure, from
whatever source it comes, is the only cognisable good ; no
kind of pleasure being in itself better than any other,
though some kinds are to be rejected for their painful con-
sequences. Bodily pleasures and pains Aristippus held to be
the keenest ; though he does not seem to have maintained
this on any materialistic theory, as he admitted the existence
of purely mental pleasures, such as joy in the prosperity of
one's native land. He fully recognised that his good was
transient, and only capable of being realised in successive
parts ; giving even exaggerated emphasis to the rule of
seeking the pleasure of the moment, and not troubling one-
self about a dubious future. It was in the calm, resolute,
skilful culling of such pleasures as circumstances afforded
from moment to moment, undisturbed by passion, pre-
judices, or superstition, that he conceived the quality of
wisdom to be exhibited; and tradition represents him as
ii. THE SOCRATIC SCHOOLS 33
realising this ideal to an impressive degree. Among the
prejudices from which the wise man was free he included
all regard to customary morality beyond what was due to
the actual penalties attached to its violation; though he
held, with Socrates, that these penalties actually rendered
conformity reasonable.
Far otherwise was the Socratic spirit understood by Antis
Antisthenes and the Cynics. They equally held that no
speculative research was needed for the discovery and
definition of Good and Virtue ; but they maintained that the
Socratic wisdom, on the exercise of which man's wellbeing
depended, was exhibited, not in the skilful pursuit, but in
the rational disregard of pleasure, in^he clear apprehen-
sion of the intrinsic worthlessness of this and most other
objects of men's common aims. Antisthenes, indeed, did
not overlook the need of supplementing merely intellectual
insight by "Socratic force of soul;" but it seemed to him
that, by insight and invincible self-mastery combined, an
absolute spiritual independence might be attained which
left nothing wanting for perfect wellbeing. What, indeed,
could be wanting to the free rational soul, when imaginary
needs, illusory desires, and idle prejudices were all discarded.
Pleasure he declared roundly to be an evil; "better mad-
ness than a surrender to pleasure," he is said to have ex-
claimed ; and as for poverty, painful toil, disrepute, and such
evils as men dread most, these, he argued, were positively
useful as means of progress in spiritual freedom and virtue.
The eccentricities 1 with which his disciple Diogenes flaunted
his fortitude and freedom have made him one of the most
1 We hear that he slept on the bare ground, or in a tent ; wore for
his only garment a single loose mantle doubling it in cold weather ;
ate meat raw to save fire, etc.
D
34 GREEK AND GRECO-ROMAN ETHICS CHAP.
familiar figures of ancient social history, and one which in
its very extravagance gives a vivid impression of that element
in the Socratic pattern which it involuntarily caricatures. 1
Vainly, however, do we seek a definite positive import for
the Cynic notion of wisdom or moral insight, besides the
mere negation of irrational desires and prejudices. We saw
that Socrates, while not claiming to have found the abstract
theory of Good or Wise conduct, practically understood it
to consist in the faithful performance of customary duties,
maintaining always that his own happiness was therewith
bound up. The Cynics more boldly discarded both plea-
sure and mere custom as alike irrational ; the most sacred
domestic and civic ties were in their view shackles from
which the sage had shaken himself loose ; but in emphasis-
ing this emancipation they seem to have left the freed
reason with no definite aim but its own freedom. It is
absurd, as Plato urged, to say that knowledge is the good,
and then when asked "knowledge of what?" to have
nothing positive to reply but " of the good ;" but the Cynics
do not seem to have made any serious effort to escape from
this absurdity.
5. Plato The ultimate issues of these two one-sided Socraticisms
c^~ 347 we s ^ a ^ ^ ave to n tice presently when we come to the post-
Aristotelian schools. We must now proceed to the more
complicated task of tracing the fuller development of the
Socratic germ to its Platonic blossom and Aristotelian fruit.
We can see that the influence of more than one of. the
1 It is to the deliberate disregard of customary notions of propriety
shown by this school that the modern meaning of the term "cynical"
is due. Indeed, the Greeks felt that the name of the school derived
originally from the gymnasium Cynosarges where Antisthenes taught
aptly suggested their affinity with the dog (KVUV), a proverbial type of
shamelessness.
ir. PLATO 35
earlier metaphysical schools combined with that of Socrates
to produce the famous idealism which subsequent genera-
tions have learnt from Plato's dialogues; but the precise
extent and manner in which each element co-operated
is difficult even to conjecture. 1 Here, however, we may
consider Plato's views merely in their relation to the
teaching of Socrates, since to the latter is certainly due
the ethical aspect of idealism with which we are at present
concerned.
The ethics of Plato cannot properly be treated as a .
finished result, but rather as a continual movement from the f
position of Socrates towards the more complete and articu-
late system of Aristotle ; except that there are ascetic and
mystical suggestions in some parts of Plato's teaching which
find no counterpart in Aristotle, and which, in fact, disap-
pear from Greek philosophy soon after Plato's death until
they are revived and fantastically developed in Neo-Pytha-
goreanism and Neo-Platonism. The first stage at which we
can distinguish Plato's ethical view from that of Socrates is
presented in the Protagoras, where he makes a serious,
though clearly tentative, effort to define the object of that
knowledge which he regards, with his master, as the essence
of all virtue. This science, he here maintains, is really
mensuration of pleasures and pains, by which the wise man
avoids those mistaken under-estimates of the value of future *
feelings in comparison with present which we commonly
1 The difficulty arises thus : (i) Aristotle represents Platonism as
having sprung from Socratic teaching combined with Heraclitus's doc-
trine of the flux of sensible things, and the Pythagorean theory that
numbers were the ultimate realities ; but (2) in the Megarian doctrine
the non- Socratic element is clearly the one changeless being of Par-
menides ; while (3) the original connection of Plato and Euclides is
equally evident.
36 GREEK AND GRECO-ROMAN ETHICS CHAP.
call "yielding to fear or desire." This thorough -going
hedonism has somewhat perplexed Plato's readers, and was
probably never conceived by himself to be more than a
partial expression of the truth. Still (as was said in speak-
ing of the similar view of the Cyrenaics) when a disciple
sought to make clear and definite the essentially Socratic
doctrine that the different common notions of good, the
beautiful, the pleasant, and the useful, were to be somehow
identified and interpreted by each other, hedonism pre-
sented itself as the most obvious conclusion. By Plato,
however, this conclusion could only have been held before
he had accomplished 'the movement of thought by which
he carried the Socratic method beyond the range of human
conduct, and developed it into an all-comprehensive meta-
physical system.
This movement may be briefly expressed thus. " If we
know," said Socrates, "what justice is, we can give an
account or definition of it ; " true knowledge e.g., of justice
or any other virtue must be knowledge of the general fact,
common to all the individual cases to which we apply our
general notion. But this, if true of the objects of ethical
knowledge, must be no less true of other objects of thought
and discourse. The same relation of general notions to
particular examples extends through the whole physical
universe ; we can only think and talk of it by means of
such notions. * True or scientific knowledge, then, of what-
ever can be known, must be general knowledge, relating
not to individuals primarily, but to the general facts or
qualities which individuals exemplify ; in fact, our notion of
an individual, when examined, is found to be an aggregate
of such general qualities. But, again, the object of true
knowledge must be what really exists ; hence the most real
IT. PLATO 37
reality, the essence of the universe, must lie in these general
facts, and not in the individuals that exemplify them.
So far the steps are plain enough ; but we do not yet
see how this logical Realism (as it was afterwards called)
comes to have the essentially ethical character that especially
interests us in Platonism. 'For though Plato's philosophy
is now concerned with the whole universe of being, the
ultimate object of his philosophic contemplation is still
"the good,"jnow conceived as the ultimate ground of all
being and knowledge. That is, the essence of the universe
is identified with its end, the " formal " with the " final "
cause of things, to use -the later Aristotelian phraseology.
How comes this about ? \
Perhaps we may best explain this by recurring to the
original application of the Socratic method to human affairs.
Since all rational activity is for some end, the different arts
or functions into which human industry is- divided are
naturally defined by a statement of their ends or uses ; and
similarly, in giving an account of the different artists and
functionaries, we necessarily state their end, " what they are
good for." It is only so far as they realise this end that
they are what we call them. A painter who cannot paint
is, as we say, " no painter;" or, to take a favourite Socratic
illustration, a ruler is essentially one who realises the well-j
being of the ruled ; if he fails to do this, he is not, properly
speaking, a ruler at all. And in a society well-ordered on .
Socratic principles, every human being would be put to
some use; the_essence ofhis life would consist i^ doing
what he^as_gOjQd for. But again, it is easy to extend this
view throughout the whole region of organised life ; an eye
that does not attain its end by seeing is without the essence
of an eye. In short, we may say of all organs and instru-
38 GREEK AND GRECO-ROMAN ETHICS CHAP.
ments that they are what we think them in proportion as
they fulfil their function and attain their end : if, then, we
conceive the whole universe organically, as a complex ar-
rangement of means to ends, we shall understand how Plato
might hold that all things really were, or (as we say) "real-
ised their idea," in proportion as they accomplishe_d_lhe
special end or good for which they were adapted. But this
special end, again, can only be really good so far as it is re-
lated to the ultimate end or good of the whole, as one of the
means or particulars by or in which this is partially realised.
If, then, the essence or reality of each part of the organised
world is to be found in its particular end or good, the ulti-
mate ground of all reality must be found in the ultimate end
or good of the universe. And if this is the ground of all
reality, it must equally be the source of all guidance for
human life ; for man, as part and miniature of the Cosmos,
can have no good, as he can have no being, which is not
derived from the good and being of the universe. Thus
Plato, without definitely abandoning the Socratic limitation
of philosophy to the study of human good, has deepened
- the conception of human good until the quest of it takes
in the earlier inquiry into the essential nature of the external
world from which Socrates turned away. Even Socrates,
in spite of his aversion to physics, was led by pious reflec-
tion to expound a teleological view of the physical universe,
as ordered in all its parts by Divine Wisdom for the realisation
of some divine end ; what Plato did was to identify this
Divine End conceived as the very Divine Being itself with
the Good that Socrates sought, of which the knowledge would
solve all problems of human life. In this fusion of Socratic
ethics with Socratic theology, he was probably anticipated
by Euclides of Megara, who held that the one real being is
ii. PLATO 39
" that which we call by many names, Good, Wisdom, Rea-
son, or God;" to which Plato, raising to a loftier signifi-
cance the Socratic identification of the beautiful with the '
useful, added the further name of absolute Beauty ; explain-
ing how man's love of the beautiful, elevated gradually from
flesh to spirit, from the individual to the general, ultimately
reveals itself as the yearning of the soul for the end and
essence of all life and being.
Let us conceive, then, that Plato has taken this vast
stride of thought, and^ identified the ultimate notionsof
ethics and ontology. We have now to see what attitude
this will lead him to adopt towards the practical inquiries
from which he started. What will now be his view of
wisdom, virtue, pleasure, and their relation to human well-
being ?
The answer to this question is inevitably somewhat com-
plicated. In the first place we have to observe that philo-
sophy has now passed definitely from the market-place into
the study or lecture-room. The quest of Socrates was for
the true art of conduct for an ordinary member of the
human society, a man living a practical life among his
fellows. But if the objects of abstract thought constitute \
the real world, of which this world of individual things is
but a shadow, it is plain that the highest, most real life
must lie in the former region and not in the latter. It is in
contemplating ovryo-i or cro^)ta, 2 ( 2 ) ai/8/oei'a, (3) toi/Ta). T ~"BotR of them indeed frequently assume this
in their arguments, though their effort appears to be
primarily concentrated on the investigation of abstract
good (TO dyaOov). Nor is it difficult to explain how these
two conceptions came to alternate in their discussions with-
out any attention being drawn to their difference or relation.
The practically important question, on which doubt and
controversy existed, was not whether a man's ultimate good
is his own welfare, but how far the particular objects re-
cognised as good or desirable Wisdom, Pleasure, Wealth, .
Reputation, etc. constitute or conduce to his welfare ; and
this question like other questions relating to "goods"
they assume to be scientifically soluble only by knowledge
of good in the abstract. But when Plato's idealism had
definitely formed itself in his mind, and he had come to
mean by "abstract good" the end and essence of the
whole organised world, the investigation of the ultimate
good for an individual man inevitably began to separate it- J
self from the profound metaphysical research by which he
1 The belief, to which even writers of reputation in modern times
have given countenance, that the notion of evSai/j-ovla as the end of
human action was introduced by Aristotle in opposition to Plato, who
maintained virtue to be the sole or chief good has, so far as I know,
no foundation whatever. The error involved in it, however, would be
less important if ev8ai/j.ovla were not currently rendered happiness, and
thus more or less definitely conceived as a whole of which the elements
are pleasurable feelings.
48 GREEK AND GRECO-ROMAN ETHICS CHAI>,
sought to penetrate the secret of the universe. Good, ab-
*stract or absolute, is the ultimate ground of things ; but "the
f good " about which the Cynics and Cyrenaics disputed
and which Plato, in the Phihbus, is ready to discuss with
them is admittedly something more concrete ; something
that belongs to the sphere of sensible existence within which
the actual life of man is embraced. Is it a sufficient de
finition of this concrete human good to say that it consists
in the exercise of Wisdom or Virtue ? or is Pleasure an ele
ment of it ? and if the latter, what is its importance ?
On these points Plato's view seems to have gone through
several oscillations. After apparently maintaining (Protagoras
that pleasure is the good, he passes first to the opposite
extreme, and denies it (Phcedo, Gorgias) to be a good at all
Not only is it, as concrete and transient, a mere " process '
(yeveo-ts), obviously not the real essential good that the
philosopher seeks ; it is found further that the feelings most
prominently recognised as pleasures are bound up with pain,
as good can never be with evil ; since they are the mere
satisfaction of painful wants and cease with the removal o:
these ; in so far, then, as common sense rightly recognises
some pleasures as good, it can only be from their tendenc)
to produce some further good. This view, however, was
too violent a divergence from Socratism for Plato to remair.
in it. That pleasure is not the essential absolute good, was
no ground for not including it in the good of concrete
human life; and after all it was only coarse and vulgai
pleasure that was indissolubly linked to the pains of want,
Accordingly, in the Republic he has no objection to tr)
the question of the intrinsic superiority of philosophic 01
virtuous l life by the standard of pleasure ; arguing that the
1 It is highly characteristic of Platonism that the issue in this dia-
n. PLATO 49
^philosophic (or good) man alone enjoys real pleasure Awhile - /
me sensualist spends his life in oscillating between painful I
want and the merely neutral state of painlessness, which he \
mistakes for positive pleasure. Still more emphatically does
he declare in the Laws that when we are " discoursing to
men not to gods" we must show that the life which we
praise as best and noblest is also that in which there is the
greatest excess of pleasure over pain. But though Plato holds
this inseparable connection of " best " and " pleasantest " to
be true, and fundamentally important, it is only for .the
vulgar that he lays this stress on Pleasure. In the more
philosophic comparison in the Philebus between the claims
of Pleasure and Wisdom, the former is altogether worsted ;
and though a place is allowed, in a complete statement of
the elements of concrete human good, to the pure pleasures
of colour, form, and sound, and of intellectual exercise, and
even to the "necessary" satisfactions of appetite, it is only a
subordinate place. At the same time, in his later view, he
avoids the exaggeration of denying all positive quality of
pleasure even to the coarser sensual gratifications ; they are
undoubtedly cases of that "replenishment" or "restora-
tion" to its "natural state" of a bodily organ, in which he
defines pleasure to consist : he merely maintains that the
common estimate of these is to a large extent illusory, as a
false appearance of pleasure is produced by contrast with the
antecedent or concomitant painful condition of the organ.
It is not surprising that this somewhat complicated and
delicately balanced view of the relations of "Good" and
logue, as originally stated, is between virtue and vice ; whereas, without
any avowed change of ground, the issue ultimately discussed is between
the philosophic life and the life of vulgar ambition or sensual enjoy-
ment.
E
50 GREEK AND GRECO-ROMAN ETHICS CHAP.
"Pleasure" was not long maintained within the Platonic
school, and that under Speusippus, Plato's successor, the
main body of Platonists took up a simply anti-hedonistic
position ; as we learn from the polemic of Aristotle.
8. Plato When a student passes from Plato to Aristotle, he is so
toflef" 5 forc ibly impressed by the contrast between both the habits
of mind and the literary manners of the two authors re-
spectively, that it is easy to understand how their systems
have come to be popularly conceived as diametrically op-
posed to each other; and the uncompromising polemic which
Aristotle Aristotle, both in his ethical and his metaphysical treatises,
Be 4 )" 322 directs against Plato and the Platonists, has tended strongly
to confirm this view. Yet when, more than two centuries
after Plato's death, Antiochus of Ascalon as president of
the school commonly known as the "Academy," 1 which
looked to Plato as its founder repudiated the scepticism
which, during the greater part of the intervening period, had
been accepted as the traditional Platonic doctrine, he con-
fidently claimed Plato and Aristotle as consentient authorities
for the ethical position that he took up ; and a closer in-
spection shows that there were substantial grounds for his
claim. For, though Aristotle's divergence from Plato is very
conspicuous when we consider either his general conception
of the relation of ethics to other studies, or the details of his
system of virtues, still his agreement with his master is al-
most complete as regards the main outline of his theory of
human good; the difference between the two practically
vanishes when we view them in relation to the later con-
1 The name was derived from the gymnasium called 'A/caS^ia, close
to which was the garden in which Plato had taught, and which seems
to have been bequeathed by him to his disciples, and handed down from
president to president of the school.
ii. PLATO AND ARISTOTLE. 51
troversy between Stoics and Epicureans. . Even on the
cardinal point on which Aristotle entered into direct con-
troversy with Plato, the definite disagreement between the
two is less than at first appears ; the objections of the dis-
ciple chiefly hit that part of the master's system that was
rather imagined than thought ; the main positive result of
Platonic speculation only gains in distinctness by the appli-
cation of Aristotelian analysis.
Plato^ we saw, held that there is one supreme science or
wisdom, of which the ultimate object is absolute good ; in
the knowledge of this, the knowledge of all particular goods,
that is, of all that we rationally desire to know is im-
plicitly contained ; and also all practical virtue, as no one
who truly knows what is good can fail to realise it. But in
spite of the intense conviction with which he thus identified
metaphysical speculation and practical wisdom, we find in
his writings no serious attempt to deduce the particulars of
human wellbeing from his knowledge of absolute good, still
less to unfold from it the particular cognitions of the special
arts and sciences. Hence when Aristotle urges that the
science or art of human life-- which he conceives as states-
manship, since human wellbeing must mainly depend upon
political institutions must define its own end, and that a
knowledge of absolute good will be of no avail for this any
more than it is for the more special arts and handicrafts, we
find no .definite Platonic argument that attempts to prove
what he denies. Indeed as I have already pointed out
the distinction which Aristotle explicitly draws between
speculative science or wisdom, which is concerned with the
eternal and immutable truths of being, and practical wisdom
or statesmanship, which has for its object "human" or
"practicable" good, is really indicated in Plato's later treat-
52 GREEK AND GRECO-ROMAN ETHICS CHAP.
ment of the subjects, although the express recognition of it
is contrary to his principles. The discussion of good, e.g.
in his Philebus, relates entirely to human good, and the
respective claims of Thought and Pleasure to constitute
this ; he only refers in passing to the Divine Thought that
is the good of the ordered world, as something clearly
beyond the limits of the present discussion. So again, in
his last great ethico- political treatise (the Laws) there is
hardly a trace of his peculiar metaphysics. On the other
hand, the relation between Human and Divine Good, as
presented by Aristotle, is so close that we can hardly con-
ceive Plato as having definitely thought it closer. The
- substantial Good of the universe, in Aristotle's view, is the
pure activity of universal abstract thought, at once subject
and object, which, itself changeless and eternal, is the final
cause and first source of the whole process of change in the
concrete world. And he holds, with Plato, that a similar
activity of pure speculative intellect is the highest and best
mode of human existence, and that in which the philosopher
will seek to exist as far as possible ; though he must, being
a man, concern himself with the affairs of ordinary human
life, in which region his highest good will be attained by
realising perfect moral excellence. No doubt Aristotle's
demonstration of the inappropriateness of attributing moral
excellence to the Deity seems to contradict Plato's doctrine
that the just man as such is " likest the gods ;" but here
again the discrepancy is reduced when we remember that
the essence of Plato's justice (SIKCUOO-WT;) is harmonious
activity. No doubt, too, Aristotle's attribution of pleasure
to the Divine Existence shows a profound metaphysical
divergence from Plato ; but it is a divergence which has no
practical importance, and which only makes the analogy
ii. PLATO AND ARISTOTLE 53
between Divine and Human good more definitely intel-
ligible. Nor, again, is Aristotle's dissent from the Socratic
principle that all " virtue is knowledge " substantially greater
than Plato's, though it is more plainly expressed. Both
hold that every one in deliberate action aims at what ap-
pears to him good, and that perfect virtue necessarily follows
from perfect practical wisdom or moral insight if actual and
operative. Both, however, recognise that this actuality of
moral insight is not a function of the intellect only, but
depends on the establishment of a right relation between the
intellect and the non-rational, or semi-rational, elements of
the soul ; and that, accordingly, for education in virtue mere
verbal instruction is less important than careful discipline
applied to minds of good natural dispositions ; though this
doctrine has no doubt a more definite and prominent place
in Aristotle's system. The disciple certainly takes a step in
advance by stating definitely, as an essential characteristic
of virtuous action, that it is chosen for its own sake, for the
beauty of virtue alone ; but herein he merely formulates the
conviction that his master more persuasively inspires. Nor,
finally, does Aristotle's account of the relation of pleasure
to human wellbeing differ very materially from the outcome
of Plato's thought on this point, as the later dialogues
present it to us ; although he has to combat the extreme
anti-hedonism to which the Platonic school under Speusippus
had been led. ^Pleasure, in Aristotle's view, is not the
primary constituent of wellbeing, but rather an inseparable
accident of it; human wellbeing is essentially well doing,/
excellent activity of some kind, whether its aim and end be
abstract truth or noble conduct ; and knowledge and virtue
are objects of rational choice apart from the pleasure
attending them; still all activities are attended and in a
54 GREEK AND GRECO-ROMAN ETHICS CHAP.
manner perfected by pleasure, which is better and more
desirable in proportion to the excellence of the activity.
He no doubt criticises Plato's account of the nature of
pleasure, arguing that we cannot properly conceive pleasure
either as a "process" or as "replenishment" the last
term, he truly says, denotes a material rather than a
psychical fact ; but this does not interfere with the general
ethical agreement between the two; and the doctrine that
vicious pleasures are not true or real pleasures is so
characteristically Platonic that we are almost surprised to
find it in Aristotle.
9. Aris- In so far as there is any important difference between
of Human* ^ e P^ aton i c an d the Aristotelian views of human good, we
Wellbeing. may observe that the latter is substantially the more faithful
development of the ethical teaching of Socrates, although it
is presented in a far more technical and scholastic form, and
involves a more distinct rejection of the fundamental Socratic
paradox. The same result appears when we compare the
methods of the three philosophers. Although the Socratic
induction forms a striking feature of Plato's dialogues, his
ideal method of ethics is purely deductive ; he only admits
common sense as supplying provisional steps and starting
points from which the mind is to ascend to knowledge of
absolute good ; by deduction from which, as he conceives, the
lower notions of particular goods are to be truly apprehended.
Aristotle, discarding in Ethics the transcendentalism of
Plato, naturally receded towards the original Socratic
method of induction from and verification by common
opinion. Indeed, the turns and windings of his exposition
are best understood if we consider his literary manner as
a kind of Socratic dialogue formalised and reduced to a
monologue transferred, we may say, from the market-
ii. ARISTOTLE 55
place to the lecture-room. He first leads us by an induc-
tion to the fundamental notion of ultimate end or good for
man. All men, in acting, aim at some result, either for its
own sake or as a means to some further end ; but obviously
everything cannot be sought merely as a means ; there must
therefore be some ultimate end (or ends), and the science
or study that inquires into this must be " architectonic " in
relation to all arts that aim at some special end or utility.
We find, in fact, that men commonly recognise such an
end, and agree to call it wellbeing l (eTjScu/wma) ; but they
take very different views of its nature. How, then, shall we
find the true view ? Another genuinely Socratic induction
leads us to this. We observe that men are classified and
named according to their functions ; all kinds of man, and
indeed all organs of man, have their special functions, and
are judged as functionaries and organs to be in good or bad
condition according as they perform their functions well or ill.
May we not then infer that man, as man, has his proper
function, and that the wellbeing or " doing well " that all
seek, really lies in fulfilling well the proper function of man,
that is, in living well, through the normal term of man's
existence, that life of the rational soul which we recognise
as man's distinctive attribute ?
jfi Again, this Socratic deference to common opinion is not
merely shown in the way by which Aristotle reaches his
1 This cardinal term is commonly translated "happiness ;" and it
must be allowed that this is the most natural term for what we (in Eng-
lish) agree to call "our being's end and aim." But the English word
" happiness " so definitely signifies a state of feeling that it will not ad-
mit the interpretation that Aristotle (as well as Plato and the Stoics)
expressly gives to evdai/jiovta ; hence, to avoid serious confusion, it seems
to me necessary to render evdai^ovia by the more unfamiliar " wellbeing "
or "welfare."
56 GREEK AND GRECO-ROMAN ETHICS CHAP.
fundamental conception ; it equally appears in his treatment
of the conception itself. In the first place, though in
Aristotle's view the most perfect wellbeing consists in the;
exercise of man's " divinest part," pure speculative reason,)
he keeps far from the paradox of putting forward this and
nothing else as human good; so far, indeed, that the
greater part of his treatise is occupied with an exposition of
the inferior good which is realised in practical life when
the appetitive or impulsive (semi-rational) element of the
soul operates under the due regulation of reason. Even
when the notion of "good performance of function" was
thus widened, and when it had further taken in the pleasure
that is inseparably connected with such functioning, it did
not yet correspond to the whole of what a Greek commonly
regarded as indispensable to " human wellbeing." We may
grant, indeed, that a moderate provision of material wealth
is indirectly included, as an indispensable pre-requisite of
a due performance of man's function as Aristotle conceives
it, his system admits of no beatitudes for the poor ; still,
there remain other goods, such as beauty, good birth, wel-
fare of progeny, etc., the presence or absence of which
influenced the common view of a man's wellbeing, though
they could hardly be shown to be even indirectly important
to his "well acting." These Aristotle neither attempts to
exclude from the philosophic conception of wellbeing nor
to include in his formal definition of it. The deliberate
looseness which is thus given to his fundamental doctrine
characterises more or less his whole discussion of ethics.
He plainly says that the subject does not admit of com-
pletely scientific treatment ; his aim is to give not a per-
fectly definite theory of human good, but a practically
adequate account of its most important constituents.
ii. ARISTOTLE 57
The most important element, then, of wellbeing or good
life for ordinary, men he holds to consist in welldoing, as
determined by the notions of the different moral excel-
lences. In expounding these, Aristotle gives throughout
the pure result of analytical observation of the common
moral consciousness of his age. Ethical truth, in his view,/
is to be obtained by induction from particular moral opin-l
ions, just as physical truth is to be obtained by induction
from particular physical observations. On account of the
conflict of opinion in ethics we cannot hope to obtain
perfect clearness and certainty upon all questions; still
reflection will lead us to discard some of the conflicting
views and find a reconciliation for others, and will furnish,
on the whole, a practically sufficient residuum of moral truth.
This adhesion to common sense, though it involves some
sacrifice of both depth and completeness in Aristotle's
account of the virtues, gives it at the same time a historical
interest which renders it deserving of special attention, as
an analysis of the current Greek ideal of " fair and good "
life. 1
Let us begin with the generic definition of Moral Ex- 10. Aris-
cellence or Virtue in the narrower sense. The term cannot theory of
Virtue.
1 Ka\oKaya6ia. I may observe that Aristotle follows Plato and
Socrates in identifying the notions of /caX6s ("fair," "beautiful") and
aya66s ("good") in their application to conduct. We may observe,
however, that while the latter term is used to denote the virtuous man,
and (in the neuter) equivalent to end generally, the former is rather
chosen to express the quality of virtuous acts which in any particular
case is the end of the virtuous agent. Aristotle no doubt faithfully
represents the common sense of Greece in considering that, in so far as
virtue is in itself good to the virtuous agent, it belongs to that species
of good which we distinguish as beautiful. In later Greek philosophy
the term KaXdv seems to have become still more technical in the signifi-
cation of " morally good."
\-> ;
58 GREEK AND GRECO-ROMAN ETHICS CHAP.
denote a mere natural feeling or susceptibility to feeling,
such as anger, fear, pity as these, considered merely as such,
are not objects of praise or blame : it denotes a tendency,
formed by a course of actions under rule and discipline, in
which vicious excess and defect have been avoided, to
experience these natural emotions in a duly limited and
regulated manner; and thus without internal conflict to
purpose acts that hit the happy mean in their effects. So
far Virtue is like technical skill, which also is the result of
practice, and is manifested in the successful avoidance of
the contrasted errors of " too much " and " too little ;" but
Virtue differs from skill in involving a deliberate choice of
virtuous acts for the sake of their intrinsic moral beauty, and
not for any end external to the act. The " happy mean "
or due degree in feeling and outward act in which virtue is
realised, is not a mere arithmetical mean between the pos-
sible alternative extremes : it is determined in each case
relatively to the agent, and to the circumstances of the
action; indeed, it is often markedly nearer to one of the
two vicious extremes courage, e.g., is much nearer to
rashness than to cowardice. Its precise determination,
however, must be given by the reasoning and judgment of
men of practical wisdom.
So much for the general conception, in which Aristotle
is mainly formulating the results to which Plato's develop-
ments and correction of the Socratic notion of Virtue had
gradually led. His list of particular virtues is also partly
framed on the basis of Plato's ; it is Plato's list enlarged by
a number of notions introduced from common discourse, and
defined with that close adhesion to common sense of which
I have before spoken. But the two thinkers differ strikingly
in their treatment of the cardinal virtues; for Plato, im-
Vi
ARISTOTLE
pressed by the essential unity of Virtue and the mutual
implication of the virtues commonly recognised, tends in
his account of each particular virtue to enlarge the notion
until it might fairly stand for Virtue in general, whereas
Aristotle's analytical intellect and inductive method leads
him rather to define too narrowly the terms that he takes
from common discourse. Reserving for separate treatment j
the conceptions of Wisdom and Justice or Uprightness]
(SiKaioa-vvt]), he begins with Courage and Temperance, con-'j
sidering them, after Plato, as excellences of the " irrational
element" of the soul. J^pjimge ^ e ana ^Y ses w ith special I
care and subtlety, corresponding to the importance attached
to it in the current distribution of praise and blame. In
the strict and proper use of the word its sphere is nearly
restricted to war. 1 ' It is manifested in the fearless facing of
the chances that bring death, where death is noble, and
such occasions are chiefly met in war e.g. in a storm at sea
the courageous man will indeed be fearless, but he cannot
exhibit courage, properly speaking, since there is nothing
noble in the threatened death. Further, Courage proper
in the sense in which it is a virtue and involves a choice of
the courageous act for its intrinsic goodness or nobleness
is to be distinguished from the " civic courage " of which
the motive is the fear of disgrace or pain, from the con-
fidence due to experience, or to a sanguine disposition, or
to ignorance, and from mere physical courage or high
spirit; this last, however, is, as it were, a raw material,
1 I have not thought it right to deviate in the text from the tradi-
tional rendering of 'Avdpeia. But I may observe that "valour" rather
than "courage" appears to me the most appropriate equivalent of the
term as defined by Aristotle, since we find in its current usage just that
degree of restriction to war which Aristotle finds in the current usage of
avSpeia.
60 GREEK AND GRECO-ROMAN ETHICS CHAP.
which may be developed into Virtue by implanting the
higher motive.
As Courage is restricted to war, Temperance is similarly,)
in accordance with usage, taken as solely concerned with
I the pleasures of hunger, thirst, and sex. The temperate
man abhors the vicious indulgence of these appetites, and
does not take excessive pleasure even in a lawful satisfaction
of them, or feel pain at their absence, or long for them
unduly. It is noteworthy that error on the side of deficiency,
in the case of this virtue undue insensibility to the pleasures
of appetite is, according to Aristotle, hardly to be found in
human beings. It is to be observed, further, that the im-
portant distinction between Virtue in the highest and strict
sense, which implies the performance of right actions with-
out internal conflict, and " Self-restraint " (lyK/Dareia), which
involves a struggle with misdirected impulses, is treated by
Aristotle l as specially belonging to the sphere of Temper-
ance chiefly, it would seem, because in ordinary Greek
usage the terms denoting Self-restraint and its opposite
(aKpavia) were in strictness applicable only to the case of
bodily appetites, their application to anger or other non-
rational impulses being regarded as secondary and meta-
phorical.
After Courage and Temperance, which are concerned
with the regulation of the primitive or animal aversions and
1 I do not regard Book VII. of the Nicomachean Ethics, in which
'this topic is discussed, or Books V. and VI. , as being Aristotle's work
in the same sense in which the rest of the treatise is. But I conceive
that they were intended by the disciple who composed them to convey
pure Aristotelian doctrine ; and that therefore they sufficiently justify
the brief and general statement of Aristotle's view given in the paragraph
to which this note is appended ; and also what is said later on of
Justice, Intellectual Excellences, and Practical Reasoning.
ii. ARISTOTLE 61
appetites, Aristotle gives two pairs of virtues which are oc-
cupied respectively with the two chief objects of man's more
refined and civilised desire and pursuit Wealth and Hon-
our ; distinguishing in each case the kind of excellence whicW
is possible only to a select few from that which is more
widely attainable. Thus, in the case of wealth, persons
of moderate means may exercise Liberajity a virtue I
chiefly shown in giving or spending ungrudgingly but with-
out lavishness on proper objects, though it also involves
abstinence from all disgraceful sources of gain; but the
more brilliant quality of Magnificence is only attainable by
persons of large estate and high social position, to whom it
is becoming to make grand offerings to the gods, or give
splendid banquets, or equip choruses or ships of war in
imposing style. The performance of these expensive
functions was a kind of extra taxation imposed by law or
custom at Athens, and elsewhere, on wealthy citizens ; but it
is plain that they were often eagerly seized as occasions of
display, and that the excess which the magnificent man is
required to avoid, the vulgar extravagance of " entertaining
one's club with a wedding-feast, and dressing one's comic
chorus in purple," was a type illustrated in actual life.
Similarly the due pursuit of Honour or Reputation by\
men generally, is regarded by Aristotle as the province of aj
special virtue ; though he finds no name for it in the moral 1
vocabulary both "Ambitious" and its opposite, "Unam-
bitious," being sometimes used for censure and sometimes
for eulogy. But he is more interested in delineating the
attitude of mind in respect of this "greatest of external
goods," exhibited by the " High-minded man," who, possess-
ing a rare degree of merit," values himself as he deserves.
Such High-mindedness is a kind of crown of accomplished
62 GREEK AND GRECO-ROMAN ETHICS CHAP.
virtue, since it at once presupposes other virtues for any
marked vice would be incompatible with the rare degree of
merit which it implies and enhances them. Having this
perfection of virtue the high-minded man will be only
moderately pleased even by great honour from men of
repute, as this is no more than his due ; while as he rightly
despises the common herd he will be altogether indifferent
to the honour they pay him. The traits by which Aristotle
characterises in detail this flower of noble life are all the
more interesting from their discrepancy with the Christian
ideal. The high-minded man is likely to be rich and well-
born ; he loves to confer favours, but feels shame at receiv-
ing them, and does not like to be reminded of any that he
may have received ; he shuns all subordinate positions, and
is inert and dilatory except when there is something great
to do ; he is open in his enmities and his love for he fears
no one and generally candid, except that he affects irony
with the common herd ; he is free from malice, no gossip,
careless of the little needs and concerns of life, not given to
wonder or praise ; his walk is slow, his voice deep, his
speech deliberate.
After the virtues relating to Honour comes Gentleness,
i the moral excellence manifested in duly limited resentment ;
and the list is concluded by the excellences of social inter-
course, Friendliness (as a mean between obsequiousness and
surliness), Truthfulness, and Decorous Wit.
There is enough just and close' analytical observation
contained in this famous account of virtues and vices to give
it a permanent interest over and above its historical value ;
but it does not seem to be based on any serious attempt to
consider human life exhaustively, and exhibit the patterns of
goodness in conduct appropriate to its different parts,
ii. ARISTOTLE 63
functions, and relations; and Aristotle's restriction of the
sphere of courage to dangers in war, and of that of temper-
ance to certain bodily pleasures, as well as his non-distinction
of selfish and benevolent expenditure in describing liberality,
illustrate the fragmentariness and superficiality of treatment
to which mere analysis of the common usage of ethical terms
is always liable to lead. Nor is his general formula for
virtue, that it is a mean or middle state, always to be found
somewhere between the vices which stand to it in the
relation of excess and defect, of much avail in rendering his
treatment really systematic. It was important, no doubt,
to express the need of limitation and regulation, of observing
due measure and proportion, in order to attain good results
in human life no less than in artistic products ; but Plato's
teaching had already driven this point home ; and Aristotle's
purely quantitative statement of the relation of virtue to
vice is misleading, even where it is not obviously inappro-
priate ; and sometimes leads him to such eccentricities as
that of making simple veracity a mean between boastfulness
and mock-modesty.
The cardinal virtue of Justice or Uprightness (oWiocrvvr?), ".
, , . . Aristotle's
omitted from the list above given, was reseryed._by Aristotle accou nt of
for separate treatment; partly because he finds the term, as J 1
. . . . Friendship,
commonly used, to have two distinct meanings, blended in a nd
Plato's conception of the virtue : in the wider meaning
which I have tried to suggest by "Uprightness" it is
opposed to all law- breaking (a8Wa or dvopia), and thus
may be taken to stand for the whole of virtue, considered in
its social aspect: in the narrower meaning, more nearly
represented by our "justice," it is specially opposed to
grasping or unfair treatment. Of Justice in this narrower
sense he distinguishes primarily, (i) Distributive Justice,
64 GREEK AND GRECO-ROMAN ETHICS CHAP.
exhibited in the distribution in proportion to Desert 1 of any
public fund or stock of wealth, honours, or whatever else
may have to be divided among the members of a community;
and (2) Reparative Justice, realised in the exaction from a
wrongdoer, for the benefit of the person wronged, of damages
just equivalent to the loss suffered by the latter ; but he adds
that in the exchanges of commodities which bind society
together Justice is attained when the amounts of any two
commodities exchanged are in " reciprocal proportion " to
their relative values the superiority in quality on one side
being balanced by superiority in quantity on the other. The
distinctions are instructive : though they do not guide us
in determining what are fair shares, fair damages, fair bar-
gains, in particular cases. Further, taking up the question
much discussed at the outset of moral reflection in
Greece whether Justice is "natural" or "conventional,"
Aristotle decides that there is a mixture of both elements in
" civic justice," i.e., the relations legally established among
the citizens of a constitutional state ; but he does not attempt
to separate the two elements, or to treat Natural Justice as
an ideal to which actual civic relations should be made to
conform. He notes, however, the need of " equity " as a
kind of justice superior to that which is realised by strict
adhesion to the letter of law, and rightly over-ruling it, where
the literal application of the prescriptions of the law to
special unforeseen cases would fail to realise its intention.
One defect in Aristotle's account of Virtue which strikes
a modern reader is that Benevolence is not recognised,
1 "Desert" must not be understood to mean "moral worth;" it
will, in fact, vary according to circumstances ; thus when public money
has to be distributed, the DeserJ of each citizen will depend on the
amount of his contribution to the public treasury.
ii. ARISTOTLE 65
except obscurely in the imperfect form of Liberality. This
deficiency, however, is to some extent supplied by a separate
discussion on the relations of kind affection which bind men
together. This mutual kindness, if not strictly a virtue,, is
an indispensable element of human wellbeing : as a bond of
union among members of a state, it is " more the concern
of the legislator even than justice : " in the narrower and
intenser form which we specially call Friendship, it is needful
to complete the happiness even of the philosopher. The
proper basis of Friendship is the mutual recognition of good-
ness : there are indeed relations known by this name that
are based merely on " utility " or " pleasure ;" but these lack
the element of disinterested benevolence which is essential
to true friendship. True friendship, therefore* can only exist
between the good, whose happiness it completes by enlarging
through sympathy that consciousness of life which is itself a
good : especially it gives them, in fuller measure than their
own virtue, the delight of contemplating excellent achieve-
ments as something belonging to them. Aristotle, however,
supplements this ideal treatment of the basis of friendship
by a more empirical discussion of the natural conditions of
human affection : recognising, for instance, that in the
parental relation it is produced by a sense of quasi-physical
unity : the parent's love for the child is a sort of extended
self-love.
From moral excellences Aristotle passed to analyse the
intellectual. Here his most important point is the determi-
nation~oTthe relation between the two kinds of wisdom which
Plato blended in one conception Speculative Wisdom
(o-oia) and Practical Wisdom (^dv^crts). He holds, as we
saw, that Speculative Wisdom does not guide us in deter-
mining moral questions : still, it is in a sense practical, in so
F
66 GREEK AND GRECO-ROMAN ETHICS CHAP.
far as its exercises are the highest forms of human activity :
it does not define human good, but it pre-eminently consti-
' tutes it. Practical Wisdom, on the other hand, is really
involved in moral excellence as already defined, if we sup-
pose this perfect ; for it is required to determine in any par-
ticular case that due limitation of feeling and action in which
perfect virtue consists; and it cannot be conceived as
existing apart from moral excellence we do not count a
man practically wise for such mere intellectual cleverness as
a vicious man may exhibit. The man we count wise must
be not merely skilful in the selection of means to any ends :
his ends must also be rightly chosen. It is, however, diffi-
cult to form a distinct general idea of the practical syllogism
by which Aristotle conceived right action to be ordinarily
determined. And, indeed, it would not have been easy
for him to make this point plain, without bringing into
prominence a profound discrepancy between his own view
of rational action and the common opinion and practice of
mankind. The kind of reasoning which his view of virtuous
conduct requires is one in which the ultimate major premise
states a distinctive characteristic of some virtue, and one or
more minor premises show that such characteristic belongs
to a certain mode of conduct under given circumstances ;
since he holds it essential to good conduct that it should
contain its end in itself, and be chosen for its own sake.
But he has not failed to observe that practical reasonings
are not commonly of this kind, but are rather concerned with
actions as means to ulterior ends; indeed, he lays stress
on this as a characteristic of the " political " life, when he
wishes to prove its inferiority to the life of pure speculation.
Though common sense will admit that virtues are the best
of goods, it still undoubtedly conceives practical wisdom as
ii. ARISTOTLE 67
chiefly exercised in providing those inferior goods which
Aristotle, after recognising the need or use of them for the
realisation of human wellbeing, has dropped out of sight ;
and the result is that, in trying to make clear his conception
of practical wisdom, we find ourselves fluctuating continually
between the common notion, which he does not distinctly
reject, and the notion required as the keystone of his ethical
system.
There is another respect in which Aristotle's view of the 12. Plato
relation of intellect to moral action is apt to be found con- ^ e ^ 5 '
fusing by the modern reader : in its bearing, namely, on the Free Will.
question of Free Will. On this point it may be said both
of Plato and Aristotle that their psychology compels them
to teach by implication the opposite doctrine to that which
they expressly maintain and desire to enforce. They have
every wish to resist and explode the Determinism which
presents itself to them as providing a dangerous excuse for
vice : but their psychological system has no place for that
deliberate choice of evil recognised as such, which, for the
Christian moral consciousness, is the primary and promi-
nent type of bad volition ; and hence they inevitably fail in
their attempts to fix on the wrongdoer the full and final
responsibility for his acts. The only states of mind which
they recognise as immediate antecedents of bad acts are (i)
predominance of irrational impulse overpowering rational
judgment or prompting to action without deliberation, and
(2) mistaken choice of evil under the appearance of good.
In either case the action would seem, according to the
account given of it by both these thinkers, to be "necessi-
tated," as Plato expressly says, by causes that lie in time
before the bad volition. It is true that Plato gives himself
much pains to eliminate this necessitation from the ultimate
68 GREEK AND GRECO-ROMAN ETHICS CHAP.
causation of vice ; in semi-fanciful or semi-popular expres-
sions of his view as in the fable at the close of the
Republic^ in the Timceus^ in the Laws he affirms emphatic-
ally that each individual soul has full responsibility for its
vicious conduct : but in his more scientific analysis of
human action it is always presented as due either to
Reason determined by the prospect of good or by Passion
or appetite in blind or disorderly opposition to Reason;
the inadequate control of reason in the latter case being
completely explained by the original composition of the
disordered soul and the external influences that have
moulded its development. Similarly the " voluntariness "
which Aristotle attributes to the acts of a vicious man does
not exclude complete determination of them, from moment
to moment, by formed character and present external influ-
ences ; and hence does not really amount to " free agency "
in the modern philosophical sense. At any given time
Aristotle's vicious man, so far as he acts from deliberate
purpose, must aim at what then appears to him good ; and
however misleading this appearance may be, he has no con-
trol over it. We may admit, as Aristotle urges, that it is his
previous bad conduct which has caused evil to seem good
to him : but this argument only seems strong until we fix
our attention on that previous bad conduct and investigate
its causation. For this conduct, on Aristotle's view, must
(if purposed) have been equally directed towards an end
apparently though not really good : which appearance must
again be attributed to still earlier wrongdoing : and so the
freedom of will recedes like a mirage as we trace back the
chain of purposed actions to its beginnings, and cannot be
made to rest anywhere. If it be said, as Aristotle probably
would say, that in its beginnings vice is merely impulsive,
ii. ARISTOTLE 69
and that it only gradually becomes deliberate as bad habits
are formed, it is still more easy to show that Aristotle's psy-
chology provides no philosophical justification for fixing
finally on the agent the responsibility for impulsive bad
acts : for when he comes to analyse the state of mind in
which such acts are done in spite of the knowledge that
they are bad, his explanation is that the knowledge at such
moments is not really actualised in the mind ; it is reduced
by appetite or passion to a condition of latency.
On the whole, there is probably no treatise so masterly 13.
as Aristotle's Ethics, and containing so much close and ^"to"
valid thought, that yet leaves on the reader's mind so strong Stoicism.
an impression of dispersive and incomplete work. It is
only by dwelling on these defects that we can understand
the small amount of influence that his system exercised
during the five centuries after his death, in which the schools
sprung from Socrates were still predominant in Greco-
Roman culture ; as compared with the effect which it has
had, directly or indirectly, in shaping the thought of modern
Europe. Partly, no doubt, the limited influence of the_-j
"Peripatetics" 1 (as Aristotle's disciples were called) is to
be attributed to that exaltation of the purely speculative life
which distinguished the Aristotelian ethics from other later
systems, and which was too alien from the common moral
consciousness to find much acceptance in an age in which
the ethical aims of philosophy had again become paramount/
Partly, again, the analytical distinctness of Aristotle's manner
brings into special prominence the difficulties that attend
1 The term is derived from 7rept7rare?j/, "to walk about," and was
applied to the disciples of Aristotle in consequence of the master's
custom of giving instruction while walking to and fro in the shady
avenues of the gymnasium where he lectured.
70 GREEK AND GRECO-ROMAN ETHICS CHAP.
the Socratic effort to reconcile the ideal aspirations of men,
and the principles on which they agree to distribute mutual
praise and blame, with the principles on which their prac-
tical reasonings are commonly conducted. The conflict
between these two elements of Common Sense was too pro-
found to be compromised ; and the moral consciousness of
mankind demanded a more trenchant partisanship than
Aristotle's. Its demands were met by a school which
' separated the moral from the worldly view of life, with an
absoluteness and definiteness that caught the imagination ;
which regarded' practical goodness as the highest result and
manifestation of its ideal of wisdom ; and which bound the
common notions of duty into an apparently complete
and coherent system, by a formula that comprehended the
whole of human life, and exhibited its relation to the ordered
process of the universe. This school was always known as
the "Stoic," from the portico (o-roa) in which its original 1
Zeno founder Zeno used to teach. The intellectual descent
87^B.c?) 2 of ' lts etn i ca l doctrines is principally to be traced to
Socrates through the Cynics^ though an important element
in them must be referred to the influence of the Academic
school. Both Stoic and Cynic maintained, in its sharpest
form, the fundamental tenet that the practical knowledge
which is virtue, with the condition of soul that is inseparable
from it, is alone sufficient for complete human wellbeing.
It is true that the Cynics were more concerned to emphasise
the negative side of the sage's wellbeing, its independence
of bodily health and strength, beauty, pleasure, wealth, good
1 I use the term ' ' original founder " because the part taken by
Chrysippus (about 280-206 B.C.) in the development of the Stoic system
was so important that some regarded it as no less essential than Zeno's.
El fir) yap fy XPWITTTTOS OVK av fy crod, says a poet quoted by Diogenes
Laertius, vii. 183.
ii. STOICISM 71
birth, good fame; while the Stoics brought into more
prominence its positive side, the magnanimous confidence,
the tranquillity undisturbed by grief, the joy and good cheer
of the spirit, which inseparably attended the possession of
wisdom. This difference, however, did not amount to dis-
agreement. The Stoics, in fact, seem generally to have
regarded the Cynic practice of rigidly reducing the provi-
sion for physical needs to a minimum, without regard to
conventional proprieties, as an emphatic manner of express-
ing the essential antithesis between philosophic aims and
vulgar desires; a manner which, though not necessary or
even normal, might yet be advantageously adopted by the
sage under certain circumstances. 1
Wherein, then, does this knowledge or wisdom that 14-
makes free and perfect consist ? Both Cynics and Stoics T ^g l pas _
agreed that its most important function, that which consti- sioniess
tuted the fundamental distinction between the wise and frhe
unwise, consisted in recognising that the sole good of man
lay in this knowledge or wisdom itself* It must be under-
stood that they did not, any more than Socrates, conceive
the existence of wisdom as separable from its realisation in
wise and good life ; though they held that the duration of a
wise life was a matter of indifference, and that the perfection
of human wellbeing would be attained by any individual in
whom perfect wisdom was realised even for a moment. This
return of the Stoics to the Socratic position, after the diverg-
ence from it which we have seen gradually taking place in
1 It has been suggestively said that Cynicism was to Stoicism what
monasticism was to early Christianity. The analogy, however, must
not be pressed too far, since orthodox Stoics do not ever seem to have
regarded Cynicism as the more perfect way. They held, however, that
it was a "short road to virtue," and that a Cynic who became a sage
should abide in his Cynicism.
72 GREEK AND GRECO-ROMAN ETHICS CHAP.
Platonic- Aristotelian thought, is very noteworthy ; it is to be
attributed to the stress that their psychology laid on the
essential unity of the rational self that is the source of
conscious human action, which prevented them from accept-
ing Plato's analysis ' of the springs of such action into a
regulative element and elements needing regulation. They
held that what we call passion, so far as it governs the
voluntary acts of a reasoning being, essentially consists in
erroneous judgment as to what is to be sought or shunned.
From such passions or errors the truly wise man will, of course,
be free. He will, indeed, be conscious of the solicitations of
physical appetite ; but he will not be misled into supposing
that its object is really a good ; he cannot, therefore, strictly
speaking, hope for the attainment of this object or fear to
miss it, as these emotions involve the conception of it as a
good. Similarly, though he will be subject like other men
to bodily pain, this will not cause him mental grief or dis-
quiet, as his worst agonies will not disturb his clear convic-
tion that it is really indifferent to his true reasonable self.
And so of all other objects that commonly excite men's
hope, fear, joy, or grief; they cannot produce these states
in the sage, because he cannot judge them to be good or
bad. We are not therefore to regard the sage as an alto-
gether emotionless being ; there is a reasonable elation over
the attainment of what is truly good, movements of inclina-
tion or aversion to what reason judges preferable or the
reverse, which the wisest man may experience; but the
passions that sway ordinary human minds cannot affect him.
That this impassive sage was a being hardly to be found
among living men the later Stoics at least were fully aware.
They faintly suggested that one or two moral heroes of old
time might have realised the ideal, but they admitted that
ii. STOICISM 73
all other philosophers (even) were merely in a state of pro-
gress towards it. This admission, however, did not in the
least diminish the rigour of their demand for absolute loyalty
to the exclusive claims of wisdom. The assurance of its
own unique value that such wisdom involved they held to
be an abiding possession for those who had attained it ; l and
without this assurance no act could be truly wise or virtuous.
Whatever was not of knowledge was of sin ; and the dis- \^
tinction between right and wrong being absolute and not
admitting of degrees, all sins were equally sinful ; whoever
broke the least commandment was guilty of the whole law.
Similarly, all wisdom was somehow involved in any one of
the manifestations of wisdom, commonly distinguished as
particular virtues, in classifying which the Stoics seem
generally to have adopted Plato's fourfold division as at
least the basis of their own scheme; 2 though whether these
virtues were specifically distinct, or only the same know-
ledge in different relations, was a subtle question on which
they do not seem to have been agreed.
Was, then, this rare and priceless knowledge something Stoic Free-
which it was possible for man to attain, or were human
shortcomings really involuntary ? There is an obvious ism.
danger to moral responsibility involved in the doctrine that
vice is involuntary; which yet seems a natural inference
from the Socratic identification of knowledge with virtue.
1 The Stoics were not quite agreed as to the immutability of virtue,
when once possessed, but they were agreed that it could only be lost
through the loss of reason itself.
2 The Stoic definitions of the four virtues appear to have varied a
good deal. Zeno, according to Plutarch, defined Justice, Temperance,
and Fortitude as Wisdom in "things to be distributed," "things to be
chosen," and "things to be endured;" and this statement may be
taken as expressing briefly the general view of the school.
74 GREEK AND GRECO-ROMAN ETHICS CHAP.
Hence, as we have seen, Aristotle had already been led to
attempt a refutation of this doctrine ; but his attempt had
only shown the profound difficulty of attacking the paradox,
so long as it was admitted that no one could of deliberate
purpose act contrary to what seemed to him best. Now,
Aristotle's divergence from Socrates had not led him so far
as to deny this ; while for the Stoics who had receded to
the original Socratic position, the difficulty was still more
patent. In fact, a philosopher who maintains that virtue is
essentially knowledge has to choose between alternative
paradoxes : he must either allow vice to be involuntary, or
. affirm ignorance to be voluntary. The latter horn of the
dilemma is at any rate the less dangerous to morality, and
[ as such the Stoics chose it. But they were not yet at the
end of their perplexities ; for while they were thus driven
on one line of thought to an extreme extension of the range
of human volition, their view of the physical universe in-
volved an equally thorough-going determinism. How
could the vicious man be responsible if his vice were
strictly predetermined ? The Stoics answered that the error
which was the essence of vice was so far voluntary that it ,
could be avoided if men chose to exercise their reason ; no w
doubt it depended on the innate force and firmness 1 of a
man's soul whether his reason was thus effectually exercised ;
but moral responsibility was saved if the vicious act pro
ceeded from the man himself and not from any external
cause.
15- With all this we have got little way towards ascertaining
demand" tne positive practical content of this wisdom. How are
Nature. W e to emerge from the barren circle of affirming (i) that
1 Hence some members of the school, without rejecting the defini-
tion of virtue*~= knowledge, also defined it as "strength and force."
ii. STOICISM 75
wisdom is the sole good and unwisdom the sole evil, and
(2) that wisdom is the knowledge of good and evil ; and
attain some method for determining the particulars of good
conduct? Both Cynicism and Stoicism stood in need of
such a method to complete their doctrine, since neither
school was prepared to maintain that what the sage does is
indifferent no less than what befalls him provided only
he does it with a full conviction of its indifference. The
Cynics, however, seem to have made no philosophical pro-
vision for this need ; they were content to mean by virtue
what any plain man meant by it, except in so far as their
sense of independence led them to reject certain received
precepts and prejudices. The Stoics, on the other hand,
not only worked out a detailed system of duties or, as
they termed them, " things meet and fit " (KaOiJKovTa) 1 for
all occasions of life ; they were further especially concerned
to comprehend them under a general formula. They found
this by bringing out the positive significance of the notion
of Nature, which the Cynic had used chiefly in a negative
way, as an antithesis to the "conventions" (vo/^os), from
which his knowledge had made him free. Even in this
negative use of the notion, it is necessarily implied that
whatever in man is " natural " that is, prior to and un-
corrupted by social customs and conventions must furnish
valid guidance for conduct ; but the adoption of " conform-
ity to nature," as a general positive rule for outward con-
duct, seems to have been due to the influence on Zeno of
Academic teaching. Whence, however, can this authority
1 The word "duty" in the modern sense is perhaps misleading as
a translation of KadriKov ; because an act so termed is not a " right act"
(KardpOufjLa), unless performed from a right motive, i.e., in a purely
reasonable or wise state of mind otherwise it has merely an external
fitness or suitability.
76 GREEK AND GRECO-ROMAN ETHICS CHAP.
belong to the natural, unless nature, the ordered creation
|of which man is a part, be itself somehow reasonable, an
expression or embodiment of divine law and wisdom ? The
conception of the world, as organised and fitted by divine
thought, was common, in some form, to all the philosophies
that looked back to Socrates asSfcir founder, the Megar-
ians, as we saw, even maintaininjBthat this thought was the
sole reality. This latter doctrine harmonised thoroughly
with the Stoic view of human good ; but being unable to
conceive substance idealistically, they (with considerable
aid from the earlier system of Heraclitus) supplied a
materialistic side to their pantheism, conceiving divine
thought as a function of the purest and most primary of
material substances, a subtle fiery aether. They held the
physical world to have been developed out of Zeus, so
conceived ; to be, in fact, a modification of his eternal sub-
stance into which it would ultimately be consumed and
re-absorbed ; meanwhile it was throughout permeated with
the fashioning force of his divine spirit, and perfectly
ordered by his prescient law. The world, being thus essen-
tially divine, they held to be perfect, regarded as a whole ;
whatever defects may appear in its parts must be conceived to
become evanescent in the sight of that Supreme Reason which
" knows how to even the odd and to order the disorderly,
and to whom the unlovely is dear." 1 This theological view of
the physical universe had a double effect on the ethics of the
Stoic. In the first place it gave to his cardinal conviction
of the all-sufficiency of wisdom for human wellbeing a root
of cosmical fact, and an atmosphere of religious and social
emotion. The exercise of wisdom was now viewed as the
1 The quotation is from the hymn attributed to Cleanthes, who
presided over the Stoic school between Zeno and Chrysippus.
ii. STOICISM 77
pure life of that particle of divine substance which was
in very truth the " god within him ; " the reason whose ^
supremacy he maintained was the reason of Zeus, and of
all gods and reasonable men, no less than his own ; its
realisation in any one individual was thus the common good
of all rational beings as such ; " the sage could not stretch
out a finger rightly without thereby benefiting all other
sages," nay, it might even be said that he was " as useful
to Zeus as Zeus to him." It is, I conceive, in view of this
union in reason of rational beings that friends are allowed
to be " external goods " to the sage, and that the possession
of good children is also counted a good. But again, the
same conception served to harmonise the higher and the
lower elements of human life. For even in the physical or
non-rational man, as originally constituted, we may see
clear indications of the divine design, which it belongs to
his rational will to carry into conscious execution ; indeed,
in the first stage of human life, before reason is fully de-
veloped, uncorrupted natural impulse effects what is after-
wards the work of reason. Thus the formula of "living
according to nature," in its application to man as the
" rational animal," may be understood both as directing that
reason is to govern, and as indicating how that govern-
ment is to be practically exercised. In man, as in every
other animal, from the moment of birth natural impulse
prompts to self-preservation, and to the maintenance of his
physical frame in its original integrity ; then, when reason/
has been developed and has recognised itself as its own
sole good, these " primary ends of nature " and whatever]
promotes these still constitute the outward objects at which!
reason is to aim ; there is a certain value (ata) in them, in
proportion to which they are "preferred" (-Trporj-y^va) and
78 GREEK AND GRECO-ROMAN ETHICS CHAP.
their opposites "rejected" (aTroTr/ao^y/^eva) ; indeed, it is only
in the due and consistent exercise of such preference and
rejection that wisdom can find its practical manifestation.
In this way all or most of the things commonly judged
to be "goods" health, strength, wealth, fame, 1 etc. are
brought within the sphere of the sage's choice, though his
real good still lies solely in_the wisdom of the choice, and
not in the thing chosen ; just as an archer aims at a bull's
eye, his end being not the mark itself, but the manifestation
of his skill in hitting it. 2
7 s We may illustrate the distinction just explained by re-
ferring to a point in the practical teaching of the Stoics
which modern readers sometimes find perplexing their
encouragement of suicide. This at first sight seems to us
inconsistent, at once with the virtuous fortitude which they
commend and with their belief in the providential ordering
of the world. Men are commonly driven to suicide by the
miseries of life ; but how, we ask, can the sage, to whom
pain is no evil, be thus moved to quit the post which Divine
Reason has assigned to him ? The answer is, that if pain
be not an evil, it is yet an alternative ceteris paribus to be
\ rejected, if painlessness is obtainable ; and on the other
i hand, life is not a good in the view of wisdom, and though
(. its preservation is generally to be preferred, cases may arise
1 The Stoics seem to have varied in their view of "good repute,"
ei5Sota ; at first, when the school was more under the influence of
Cynicism, they professed an outward as well as an inward indifference
to it ; ultimately they conceded the point to common sense, and in-
cluded it among Trpotjy/j^va.
2 This comparison appears to have been variously applied by differ-
ent Stoics ; but it appears to me well adapted to illustrate the important
doctrine with which I have connected it ; and we may infer from Cicero
(De Finibus, Book III.) that it was so used at least by some members of
the school.
ii. STOICISM 79
in which the sage receives unmistakable indications that
death is preferable to life. Such indications, they held,
were given by mutilations, incurable diseases, and other
disasters even by extreme pain; and when they were
clearly given, wisdom and strength were as much mani-
fested in following these leadings of nature or Providence
as they were manifested at other times in resisting the
seductions of pleasure and pain.
So far we have considered the "nature" of the indi-
vidual man as apart from his social relations; but it is
obvious that the sphere of virtue, as commonly conceived,
lies chiefly in these, and this was fully recognised in the
Stoic account of duties (Ka&JKovra) ; indeed, their exposi-
tion of the "natural" basis of justice, the evidences in
man's mental and physical constitution that he was born
not for himself but for mankind, is the most important part
of their work in the region of practical morality. Here,
however, we especially notice the double significance of
"natural," as applied to (i) what actually exists everywhere
or for the most part, and (2) what would exist if the original
plan of man's life were fully carried out ; and we find that
the Stoics have not clearly harmonised the two elements of
the notion. That man was " naturally " a political animal
Aristotle had already taught : in the ideal view of nature
which the Stoics framed, he was, we may say, cosmopoliti-
cal ; for it was an immediate inference from the Stoic con-\^
ception of the universe as a whole that all rational beings,
in the unity of the reason that is common to all, form
naturally one community with a common law. That the
members of this " city of Zeus " should observe their con-
tracts, abstain from mutual harm, combine to protect each
other from injury, were obvious points of natural law ; while,
So GREEK AND GRECO-ROMAN ETHICS CHAP
again, it was clearly necessary to the preservation of human
society that its members should form sexual unions, produce
children, and bestow care on their rearing and training.
But beyond this nature did not seem to go in determining
the relations of the sexes ; accordingly, we find that com-
munity of wives was a feature of Zeno's ideal commonwealth,
just as it was of Plato's ; and other Stoics are represented
as maintaining, and illustrating with rather offensive para-
doxes, the conventionality and relativity of the received
code of sexual morality ; while, again, the strict theory of
the school recognised no government or laws as true or
binding except those of the sage ; he alone is the true ruler,
the true king. So far, the Stoic " nature " seems in danger
of being as revolutionary as Rousseau's. Practically, how-
ever, this revolutionary aspect of the notion was kept for
the most part in the background; the rational law of an
ideal community was peacefully undistinguished from the
positive ordinances and customs of actual society ; and the
"natural" ties that actually bound each man to family,
kinsmen, fatherland, and to unwise humanity generally,
supplied the outline on which the external manifestation of
justice was delineated. 1 So, again, in the view taken by
the Stoics of the duties of social decorum, and in their
attitude to the popular religion, we find a fluctuating com-
promise between the tendency to repudiate what is artificial
and conventional, and the tendency to revere what is actual
and established ; each tendency expressing in its own way
an adhesion to the principle of " conforming to nature."
' ^
1 It seems to have been a generally accepted maxim that the Stoic
sage would take part in public life, unless some special obstacle pre-
vented him ; the critics of the school, however, observed that in practice
such obstacles were usually found by the Stoic philosophers.
ii. STOICS AND HEDONISTS 81
Among the primary ends of nature, in which wisdom 16.
recognised a certain preferability, the Stoics included Hedonists
freedom from bodily pain ; but they refused, even in this outer
court of wisdom, to find a place for pleasure. They held
that the latter was not an object of uncorrupted natural
impulse, but an " aftergrowth " (eTriyevvry/xa), a mere con-
sequence of natural impulses attaining their ends. They
thus endeavoured to resist Epicureanism even on the ground
where the latter seems prima facie strongest ; in its appeal,
namely, to the natural pleasure-seeking of all living things.
Nor did, they merely mean by pleasure (^Sov^) the gratifica-
tion of bodily appetite ; we find, e.g., Chrysippus urging, as
a decisive argument against Aristotle, that pure speculation
was " a kind of amusement ; that is, pleasure." Even the
" joy and gladness " (x<**p<*<, twfrpowwj) that accompany the
exercise of virtue seem to have been regarded by them as
merely an inseparable accident, not the essential constituent
of wellbeing. Thus it is only by a later modification of
Stoicism 1 that cheerfulness or peace of mind is taken as
the real ultimate end, to which the exercise of virtue is
merely a means; in Zeno's system, as in Aristotle's, it is
good activity, and not the feeling that attends it, which con-
stitutes the essence of good life. At the same time, since
pleasant feeling of some kind must always have been a
prominent element in the current Greek conception of " well-
being" or "welfare" (evScu/xovta), it is probable that the
serene joys of virtue, and the grieflessness which the sage
was conceived to maintain amid the worst tortures, formed
the main attractions of Stoicism for most minds. In this
sense, then, it may be fairly said that Stoics and Epicureans
1 This modification so far as I am aware is not definitely to be
found earlier than Cicero. Cf. post, p. 94, note.
82 GREEK AND GRECO-ROMAN ETHICS CHAP.
made rival offers to mankind of the same kind of happi-
ness ; and the philosophical peculiarities of either system
may be equally traced to the desire of maintaining that inde-
pendence of the changes and chances of life which seemed
essential to a settled serenity of soul. The Stoic claims on
this head were the loftiest ; as the wellbeing of their model
sage was independent, not only of external things and bodily
conditions, but of time itself; it was fully realised in a
single exercise of wisdom and could not be increased by
duration. This paradox is violent, but it is quite in harmony
with the spirit of Stoicism ; and we are more startled to
find that the Epicurean sage, no less than the Stoic, is to
be happy even on the rack ; that his happiness, too, depends
almost entirely upon insight and right calculation, fortune
having very little to do with it, and is unimpaired by being
restricted in duration, when his mind has apprehended the
natural limits of life ; that, in short, Epicurus makes no
less strenuous efforts than Zeno to eliminate imperfection
from the conditions of human existence. This characteristic,
however, is the key to the chief differences between Epi-
cureanism and the more naive hedonism of Aristippus.
The latter system gave the simplest and most obvious
answer to the inquiry after ultimate good for man; but
besides being liable, when developed consistently and un-
reservedly, to offend the common moral consciousness,
it admittedly failed to provide the " completeness " and
"security" which, as Aristotle says, "one divines to be-
long to man's true Good." 1 Philosophy, in the Greek
1 It was admitted by the Cyrenaics that even the sage could not
count on a life of uninterrupted pleasure ; and Theodoras, the frankest of
the school, is said to have expressly taught that the sage would, under
certain circumstances, commit theft, adultery, and sacrilege.
II.
HEDONISTS 83
view, should be the art as well as the science of good life ;
and hedonistic philosophy would seem a bungling and un-
certain art of pleasure, as pleasure is ordinarily conceived.
Nay, it would even be found that the habit of philosophical
reflection often operated adversely to the attainment of this
end ; by developing the thinker's self-consciousness, so as to
disturb that normal relation to external objects on which
the zest of ordinary enjoyment depends. Hence we find
that later thinkers of the Cyrenaic school felt themselves
compelled to change their fundamental notion ; thus Theo-
dorus defined the good as " gladness " (x a />) depending on
wisdom, as distinct from mere pleasure, while Hegesias
proclaimed that happiness was unattainable, and that the
chief function of wisdom was to render life painless by
producing indifference to all things that give pleasure.
But by such changes their system lost the support that it
had had in the pleasure-seeking tendencies of ordinary
men; indeed, with Hegesias the pursuit of pleasure has
turned into its opposite, and one is not surprised to learn
that this hedonist's lectures were forbidden as stimulating
to suicide. It was clear that if philosophic hedonism was
to be established on a broad and firm basis, it must some-
how combine in its notion of good what the plain man
naturally sought with what philosophy could plausibly offer.
Such a combination was effected, with some little violence,
by Epicurus, whose system, with all its defects, showed a
remarkable power of standing the test of time, as it attracted
the unqualified adhesion of generation after generation of
disciples for a period of some six centuries.
- Epicurus maintains, on the one hand, as emphatically as 17-
J Aristippus, that pleasure is the sole ultimate good, and pain
the sole evil; that no pleasure is to be rejected except for B.C.)
84 GREEK AND GRECO-ROMAN ETHICS CHAP.
its painful consequences, and no pain to be chosen except
as a means to greater pleasure ; that the stringency of all
laws and customs depends solely on the legal and social
penalties attached to their violation ; that, in short, all vir-
tuous conduct and all speculative activity are empty and
useless, except as contributing to the pleasantness of the
agent's life. And he assures us that he means by pleasure
what plain men mean by it ; and that if the gratifications
of appetite and sense are discarded, the notion is emptied
of its significance. So far the system would seem to suit
the inclinations of the most thorough-going voluptuary. But
its aspect changes when we learn that the highest point
V of pleasure, whether in body or mind, is to be attained by
the mere removal of pain or disturbance, after which pleasure
admits of variation only and not of augmentation ; that
therefore the utmost gratification of which the body is
capable may be provided by the simplest means, and that
" natural wealth " is no more than any man can earn. This
doctrine has a curious affinity to the depreciatory view of
sensual pleasure expounded in Plato's Republic}; but it
must be carefully distinguished from it. Plato's point is that
mere removal of the pain of want is mistaken by the sensu-
alist for a pleasure, from the illusion produced through
t, contrast ; what Epicurus maintains is that the satisfaction of
want restores that tranquil agreeable feeling that accompanies
the mere sense of normal life, unruffled by pain or anxiety ;
and that this "pleasure of- stable condition" (Karao-r^amo}
^ovrf) has in the highest degree the quality of positive
pleasure. A second and no less decided divergence from
vulgar sensualism, and from the Cyrenaic system, is found
in the Epicurean doctrine that, though the body is the original
source and root of all pleasure, still the pleasures and pains
n. EPICURUS 85
of the mind are actually far more important than those of
the body, owing to the accumulation of feeling caused by
memory and anticipation. If these two positions be granted,
Epicurus is confident of providing for his sage that secure
continuity of happiness which obviously cannot be realised
by the pursuit of pleasure as ordinarily understood. He
could not promise his disciples that bodily pain should
never preponderate over bodily pleasure, though he endea-
voured to comfort them by the consideration that all organic
pains are either short in duration or slight in intensity ; but
though for a transient period the flesh might yield an
overplus of pain even to the sage, it would always be
possible for him to redress the balance by mental pleasures
and bring out a net result of present good, if only his
mind be kept duly free from the disturbance of idle fears
for the future.
To provide this undisturbedness, then, is the important, *-*
the indispensable function of philosophy ; for men's most
serious alarms for the future arise from their dread of death
and their dread of the displeasure of the gods ; and these
sources of dread can only be removed by a true theory of
the physical universe and man's position in it ; the deliver-
ance that Ethics shows to be needed must be sought from
Physics. Epicurus found this deliverance in the atomism of
Democritus, 1 which explained the whole constitution of the
1 The only important modification introduced by Epicurus in the
fundamental principles of Democritean physics was to attribute to the
falling atoms which he, like Democritus, assumed as the original
elements of things a spontaneous tendency to deviate innnitesimally
from the perpendicular. This supposition seemed necessary to explain
the collisions of atoms which resulted in the formation of worlds ; it
was also used as a physical basis for the doctrine of Free Will in man,
which Epicurus thought it ethically important to maintain in contrast
86 GREEK AND GRECO-ROMAN ETHICS CHAP.
physical universe in a purely mechanical manner, without
the intervention of an ordering intelligence. Gods, on this
theory, become superfluous from a cosmological point of
/view; but Epicurus is no atheist; he accepts as well-
founded the common belief that these blessed and immortal
beings exist, and even holds that phantasms of them are
from time to time presented to men in dreams and waking
visions; but there is, he holds, no reason to be afraid of
* their wrath and vengeance. " The blessed and incorruptible
has no troubles of its own, and causes none to others ; it is
not subject to either anger or favour."
The dread of something after death being thus removed,
there remains the dread of death itself. But this, Epicurus
argues, is due to a mere illusion of thought ; death appears
to us formidable because we confusedly conceive ourselves
as meeting it ; but in fact no such meeting can occur, be-
cause " when we are, death is absent from us ; when death
is come, we are no more." Thus death is really nothing to
us ; the sage will dismiss the thought of it, and will live in
the fruition of "deathless goods" the delights of serene
unperturbed existence, of which the limitations are unfelt
just because they are so thoroughly known.
Temperance and Fortitude of a sort will manifestly
belong to the philosophic life consistently framed on the
basis of this wisdom ; but it is not so clear that the Epicurean
sage will be always just. He will of course not regard
Justice as a good in itself; " natural justice," says Epicurus,
"is merely a compact of expediency to prevent -mutual
to the Stoic submission to the decrees of destiny. I have already
mentioned that Epicurus's ethical position was also partially anticipated
by Democritus ; his system may be regarded as generated by a combi-
nation of Democritean and Cyrenaic elements.
ii. EPICURUS 87
harm ; " still the sage will doubtless enter into this compact
to escape harm from his fellow-men; but why should he
observe it if he finds secret injustice possible and con-
venient ? Epicurus frankly admits that his only motive will
be to avoid the painful anxieties that the perpetual dread of
discovery would entail ; but he maintains that this motive
is adequate, and that Justice is inseparable from a life of
true pleasure. A similar sincere but imperfectly successful
effort to free his egoistic hedonism from anti-social inferences
may be found in his exuberant exaltation of the value of
friendship; it is based, he conceives, solely on mutual
utility ; yet he tells us that the sage will on occasion die for
a friend, and his only objection to complete " community
of goods among friends " is that the suggestion implies an
absence of the perfect mutual trust that belongs to friend-
ship. Such utterances are all the more striking because in
other respects the model sage of Epicurus exhibits a coldly
prudent detachment from human ties : he will not fall in
love with a woman, nor become the father of a family, nor
unless under exceptional circumstances enter into politi-
cal life. And in fact we find that this paradox of devoted
friendship based on pure self-interest was one of the few
points in the master's teaching that caused perplexity and
division of opinion among Epicureans, who appear, how-
ever, to have accepted the doctrine without question, though
they offered different explanations of it. We may believe
that on this point the example of Epicurus, who was a man
of eager and affectionate temperament, and peculiarly un-
exclusive sympathies, 1 supplied what was lacking in the
argumentative cogency of his teaching. The genial fellow-
1 It is noted of him that he did not disdain the co-operation either
of women or of slaves in his philosophical labours.
* ;$S- GREEK AND GRECO-ROMAN ETHICS CHAP.
ship of the philosophic community that he collected in his
garden remained a striking feature in the traditions of his
school ; and certainly the ideal which Stoics and Epicureans
equally cherished, of a brotherhood of sages united in har-
monious smooth-flowing existence, was most easily realised
on the Epicurean plan of withdrawing from political and
dialectical conflict to simple living and serene leisure, in
imitation of the eternal leisure of the gods apart from the
fortuitous concourse of atoms that we call a world.
l8 The two systems that have just been described were
Later those that most prominently attracted the attention of the
Greek . . ' ... ......
Philo ancient world, so far as it was directed to ethics, from their
sophy. almost simultaneous origin to the end of the 26. century
A.D., when Stoicism almost vanishes from our view. But
side by side with them the schools of Plato and Aristotle
still maintained a continuity of tradition, and a more or less
vigorous life ; and philosophy, as a recognised element of
Greco-Roman culture, was understood to be divided among
these four branches. The internal history, however, of the
four schools was very different. We find no development
worthy of notice in Aristotelian ethics; the philosophic
energy of Aristotle's disciples seems to have been somewhat
weighed down by the inheritance of the master's vast work,
and distracted by the example of his many-sided activity.
The Epicureans, again, from their unquestioning acceptance
of the " dogmas " * of their founder, almost deserve to be
called a sect rather than a school. On the other hand, the
outward coherence of tradition in Plato's school was
strained by changes of great magnitude, so that the his-
torians of philosophy reckon not one but several "Aca-
1 The last charge of Epicurus to his disciples is said to have been,
Twv doyfj-druv /J.fj.vfj(r6cu.
E ACADEMY
demies." We have already had occasion to note the two most
important characteristics of the ethical doctrine of the " Old
Academy" that immediately succeeded the master, viz.,
that at least its main body, 1 under Speusippus, denied that
pleasure was a constituent of human wellbeing, and that it
adopted " conformity to nature " as a fundamental practical
maxim. Both these points appear to bring the older
Academics into close affinity with Stoicism ; indeed the
most definite difference between the two doctrines was that
what the Stoics only allowed to be "preferred" the Academics
admitted as " good," retaining the old threefold division of
good into (i) good of the soul virtue, (2) good of the
body health and high fitness of organs for their respective
functions, and (3) external goods, such as wealth, power,
reputation ; and accordingly regarding virtue as the chief
but not the sole constituent of wellbeing. 2 A view not very
different from this, but allowing more importance to outward
circumstances, was held by the Peripatetics ; on whom, when
the energies of Plato's school were absorbed in Scepticism
(about 275-100 B.C.), it chiefly devolved to maintain what
1 We learn, however, from Aristotle that Eudoxus, who seems to
have been at any rate for some time a member of the school, adopted,
in opposition to the main body, a purely hedonistic interpretation of
Ultimate Good : and the extreme anti-hedonism of Speusippus seems
to have been transient in the school, since we are told that Krantor
admitted pleasure in his scale of goods, placing it after health and
before wealth.
2 It should be noted that the Academic school seem soon to have
substantially admitted that separation of Ethics from Theology which
Aristotle advocated against Plato ; for if, as we are told (Clem. Alex.
II. v. 24), Xenocrates distinguished two kinds of Wisdom (p6vij
not belong to the somewhat severe and abstract cosmopoli-
tanism of the earlier Stoics ; his aim is not merely to perform
his duty as a member of the cosmic system of rational
beings, but to "love men from the heart," to "love even
those who do wrong," reflecting that they are kinsmen who
err through ignorance.
At the same time, other passages in these unaffected
and impressive utterances bring home to us forcibly the
difficulty of combining (i) philosophic reverence for the world
as a whole, as the perfect product of supreme reason, and for
man as the crown of this divine creation, with (2) philosophic
indifference to all the objects of worldly aims and desires,
and the consequent inevitable sense of alienation from most
of the actual human beings with whom the philosopher is
ioo GREEK AND GRECO-ROMAN ETHICS CHAP.
brought into contact On the one hand Marcus Aurelius
bids himself contemplate the wise order in which all things
are bound together by holy bonds, the inferior things made
for the sake of the superior and the superior fitted to one
another ; but equally he bids himself reflect how contempt-
ible and perishable all sensible things are, how the whole
course of mundane events is a stream of familiar, ephemeral,
and worthless change, "quarrels and sports of children,
labourings of ants and runnings about of puppets pulled by
strings " or a furious torrent in the midst of which the
wise man has to stand like a "promontory against which
the waves continually break" or, worse still, sordid and
disgusting, " such as bathing appears, oil, sweat, dirt, filthy
water, so is every part of life and everything." He tells
himself that death is to be respected and prepared for as an
operation of nature ; but what most truly reconciles him to
death is the consideration of the things and the characters
from which death will remove him. Nor can this gap
between the actual and the ideal be filled by the thought of
a better and brighter world to which he is to be removed.
XFor, though the Stoic school traditionally maintained the
prolongation of the individual life after death until the
great conflagration that was destined to close each mundane
period and transmute all things again to the original fiery
and divine substance from which they were derived they
were not accustomed to lay any 'stress on this belief in their
ethical teaching ; and, in this age of Stoicism at least, the
belief seems to have been very dubiously held, where it was
' not altogether dropped. 1 Marcus Aurelius seems usually
1 It is a matter of difficulty to trace the variations and changes in
Stoic doctrine on the question of the life after death. Of the older
teachers we are told that according to Cleanthes all souls survived
ii. ROMAN STOICISM 101
to leave it an open question whether death is mere change
or extinction, transition to another life or to a state without
sensation; sometimes, however, he tends decidedly to the
negative view. " In a little while," he tells himself, " thou
wilt be nobody and nowhere, like Hadriaruis and Augustus."^
He even wonders, in a striking passage, ''hoVit can be*.,
that the gods, having ordered all things rightly and benevo-
lently towards man," have yet allowed most virtuous men,
who have communed most with the divinity, to be utterly
extinguished after death; and can only console himself
with the reflection, "were it just, it would also be possible;,
were it according to nature, nature would have had it so."
This last sentence gives the characteristic note of Stoicism :
to take the world as it is and resolutely find it now perfect,
not to postulate a better future in which present imperfec-
tions will be removed. Indeed we may say that the funda-
mental ethical doctrine of Stoicism rests on the inversion of
a leading argument of modern moral theology. " It is not
possible," says Aurelius, "that the nature of the universe
has made so great a mistake, either through want of power
or want of skill, as that good and evil should happen indis-
criminately to the good and the bad ;" so far the Stoic and
the Christian philosopher agree : but while the Christian
inference is that a future life must be assumed in which
what is inequitable in the present indiscriminate distribution
of good and evil will be repaired, the Stoic inference is that
bodily death according to Chrysippus only the souls of the wise ; and
it is noted as a peculiarity of Pansetius that he denied the survival alto-
gether. Epictetus had clearly discarded the belief ; on the other hand,
Seneca in some passages expatiates on the bliss of the soul released
from its bodily prison, in a manner almost Platonic : in other passages,
however, he seems to balance between extinction and change much as
Aurelius does.
102 GREEK AND GRECO-ROMAN ETHICS CHAP.
the things now so indiscriminately distributed " death and
life, honour and dishonour, pain and pleasure " are neither
good nor evil.
21. Later There was, however, one among the four leading post-
Aristotelian schools the Platonic in whose founder's
.^ teaching th? doctrine of the immortality of the individual
.soul^ had occupied a prominent place ; l and it was to be
.expected that t^e" ascetic tendencies which we have noticed
in Stoicism the alienation from the actual world of trivial
and sordid corporeal change would manifest themselves
still more impressively in the later history of this school ;
where, indeed, they appear as the natural development of
one element of the master's teaching. Thus it is not
Plutarch surprising that when we come to Plutarch we find that
TAEO t ^ ie ol d Academic conception of a normal harmony
between the higher and lower elements of human life is no
longer the recognised Platonic doctrine ; the side of Plato's
teaching that deals with the inevitable imperfections of the
world of concrete experience has again become prominent.
For example, we find Plutarch adopting and amplifying the
suggestion in Plato's latest treatise (the Laws) that this im-
^f perfection is due to a bad world-soul that strives against the
good, a suggestion which appears to have lain unnoticed
during most of the intervening period. We observe, again, the
value that Plutarch attaches, not merely to the sustainment
and consolation of rational religion, but to the supernatural
communications vouchsafed by the divinity to certain human
beings in certain states, as in dreams, through oracles, or
1 I am not myself of opinion that Plato really held this doctrine at
the close of his development, when the Tinuzus was written ; but I
believe that ancient readers of his dialogues attributed it to him without
qualification or reserve on the strength of the argument in the Ptuzdo,
in which it is certainly maintained.
ii. NEO-PLATONISM 103
by special warnings, like those of the genius of Socrates.
For these flashes of intuition, he holds, the soul should be
prepared by tranquil repose, and the subjugation of sensuality
through abstinence. The same estrangement between mind
and matter, the same ascetic effort to attain by aloofness
from the body a pure receptivity for divine or semi-divine
influences, is exhibited in the revived Pythagoreanism of the
ist and 2d centuries A.D. ; indeed the view of Plutarch
and others whom he represents is due to a combina-
tion of these Neo- Pythagorean influences with Platonic
doctrine. But the general tendency that we are noting did
not find its full expression in a reasoned philosophical
system until we come to the latest-born of the great thinkers
of antiquity the Egyptian Plotinus.
The system of Plotinus is a striking development of Plotinus
that element of Platonism which has had most fascina-
tion for the mediaeval and even for the modern mind,
but which had almost vanished out of sight in the con-
troversies of the post-Aristotelian schools. At the same
time the differences between the original Platonism and
this Neo-Platonism are all the more noteworthy from the
reverent adhesion to the former which the latter always
maintains. Plato, we saw, identified good with the real
essence of things ; and this, again, with that in them which
is definitely conceivable and knowable. It belongs to this
view to regard the imperfection or badness of things as
somewhat devoid of real being, and so incapable of being
definitely thought or known; accordingly, we find that
Plato has no technical term for that in the concrete sensible
world which hinders it from perfectly expressing the abstract
ideal world, and which in Aristotle's system is distinguished
as absolutely formless matter (vA??). And so, when we pass
104 GREEK AND GRECO-ROMAN ETHICS CHAP.
from the ontology to the ethics of Platonism, we find that,
though the highest life is only to be realised by turning
away from concrete human affairs and their material en-
vironment, still the sensible world is not yet an object of
positive moral aversion; it is rather something which the
philosopher is seriously concerned to make as harmonious,
good, and beautiful as possible. But in Neo-Platonism the
inferiority of the condition in which the embodied human
soul finds itself is more intensely and painfully felt ; hence
an express recognition of formless matter (uAr?) as the " first
evil," from which is derived the " second evil," body (o-w/m),
to whose influence all the evil in the soul's existence is due-
Accordingly the ethics of Plotinus represent, we may say,
the moral idealism of the Stoics cut loose from nature.
The only good of man is the pure intellectual existence of
the soul, which in itself, apart from the contagion of the
body, would be perfectly free from error or defect ; if it can
only be restored to the untrammelled activity of its original
nature, nothing outward, nothing bodily, can positively im-
pair its perfect wellbeing. It is only the lowest form of
virtue the " civic " virtue delineated in Plato's Republic
that is employed in limiting and regulating those animal
impulses whose presence in the soul are due to its mixture
with the body ; higher or philosophic wisdom, temperance,
courage, and justice, are essentially purifications from this
contagion; until, finally, the highest mode of goodness is
reached, in which the soul has no community with the
body, and is entirely turned towards reason, and re-
stored to the likeness of God. It should be observed
that Plotinus himself is still too Platonic to hold that
the absolute mortification of natural bodily appetites is
required for purifying the soul; but this ascetic infer-
ii. NEO-PLATONISM 105
ence was drawn to the fullest extent by his disciple
Porphyry.
There is, however, a yet higher point to be reached in
the upward ascent of the Neo-Platonist from matter ; and
here the divergence of Plotinus from Platonic idealism is none
the less striking, because it is a bond fide result of reverent
reflection on Plato's teaching. The cardinal assumption
of Plato's metaphysic is, that the real is definitely thinkable
and knowable in proportion as it is real ; so that the further
the mind advances in abstraction from sensible particulars
and apprehension of real being, the more definite and clear
its thought becomes. Plotinus, however, urges that, as all
thought involves difference or duality of some kind, it can-
not be the primary fact in the universe, what we call God.
He must be an essential unity prior to this duality, a Being
wholly without difference or determination; and, accord-
ingly, the highest mode of human existence, in which the
soul apprehends this absolute, must be one in which all
definite thought is transcended, and all consciousness of
self lost in the absorbing ecstacy. Porphyry tells us that
his master Plotinus attained this highest state four times
during the six years which he spent with him.
Neo-Platonism is originally Alexandrine, and more than
a century of its existence has elapsed before we find it
nourishing on the old Athenian soil. Hence it is often re-
garded as Hellenistic rather than Hellenic, a product of the
mingling of Greek with Oriental civilisation. But, however
Oriental may have been the cast of mind that eagerly em-
braced the theosophic and ascetic views that have just been
described, the forms of thought by which these views were
philosophically reached are essentially Greek ; and it is by
a thoroughly intelligible process of natural development, in
106 GREEK AND GRECO-ROMAN ETHICS CHAP. n.
which the intensification of the moral consciousness repre-
sented by Stoicism plays an important part, that the Hellenic
pursuit of knowledge culminates in a preparation for ecstacy,
and the Hellenic idealisation of man's natural life ends in a
settled antipathy to tr^e body and its works. At the same
time we ought not to overlook the affinities between the
doctrine of Plotinus and that remarkable combination of
Greek and Hebrew thought which Philo Judaeus had ex-
pounded two centuries before ; nor the fact that Neo-
Platonism was developed in conscious antagonism to the
new religion which had spread from Judea, and was already
threatening the conquest of the Greco-Roman world, and
also to those fantastic hybrids of Christianity and later
paganism, the Gnostic systems ; nor, finally, that it furnished
the chief theoretical support in the last desperate struggle
that was made under Julian to retain the old polytheistic
worship. To the new world of thought, that after the
failure of this struggle was definitely established upon the
ruins of the old, we have now to turn.
CHAPTER III.
CHRISTIANITY AND MEDIAEVAL ETHICS
IN the present work we are not concerned with the origin i. The
of the Christian religion, nor with its outward history ; the istics of
causes of its resistless development during the first three Christian
~ , . . _ _, . morality to
centuries ; its final triumph over Greco-Roman paganism ;
its failure to check the decay of the Hellenistic civilisation guished.
that centered in Constantinople, or to withstand in the east
and south the force of the new religious movement that
burst from Arabia in the yth century ; its success in dominat-
ing the social chaos to which the barbarian invasions reduced
the Western empire ; the important part it took in educing
from this chaos the new civilised order to which we belong ;
the complex and varying relations in which it has since stood
to the political organisations, the social life, the progressive
science, the literary and artistic culture of our modern world.
Nor have we to consider the special doctrines that have
formed the bond of union of the Christian communities in
any other than their ethical aspect, their bearing on the
systematisation of human aims and activities. This aspect,
however, must necessarily be prominent in discussing Christi-
anity, which cannot be adequately treated if considered
merely as a system of theological beliefs divinely revealed,
and special observances divinely sanctioned ; as it essentially
108 CHRISTIANITY AND MEDIAEVAL ETHICS CHAP.
claims to rule the whole man, and leave no part of his life
out of the range of its regulating and transforming influences.
It was not till the 4th century A.D. that the first attempt
was made to offer anything like a systematic exposition of
Christian morality; and nine centuries more had passed
away before a genuinely philosophic intellect, trained by a
full study of the greatest Greek thinker, undertook to give
complete scientific form to the ethical doctrine of the
Catholic church. Before, however, we take a brief survey
of the development of ethical thought that culminated in
Thomas Aquinas, it may be well to examine the chief
features of the new moral consciousness that had spread
through Greco-Roman civilisation, and was awaiting philo-
sophic synthesis. In making this examination it will be
convenient to consider first the new form or universal
characteristics of Christian morality, and afterwards to note
the chief points in the matter or particulars of duty and
virtue which received an important development or emphasis
from the new religion.
2. The first point to be noticed as novel is the conception
and Jewish of morality as the positive law of a theocratic community,
"law of possessing a written code imposed by divine revelation, and
sanctioned by express divine promises and threatenings,
It is true that we find in ancient thought, from Socrates
downwards, the notion of a law of God, eternal and
immutable, partly expressed and partly obscured by the
various and shifting codes and customs of actual human
societies. But the sanctions of this law were vaguely and,
for the most part, feebly imagined; its principles were
essentially unwritten and unpromulgated, and thus not
referred to the external will of an Almighty Being who
claimed unquestioning submission, but rather to the reason
TII. CHRISTIAN MORALITY 109
that gods and men shared, by the exercise of which alone
this eternal law could be adequately known and denned.
Hence, even if the notion of law had been more prominent
than it was in ancient ethical thought, it could never have led
to a juridical, as distinct from a philosophical, treatment
of morality. In Christianity, on the other hand, we early
find that the method of moralists determining right conduct
is to a great extent analogous to that of jurists inter- \S
preting a code. It is assumed that divine commands have
been implicitly given for all occasions of life, and that they
are to be ascertained in particular cases by interpretation
and application of the general rules obtained from texts__of
Scripture, and by analogical inference from scriptural ex-
amples. This juridical method descended naturally from
the Jewish theocracy, of which Christendom was a univer-
salisation. Moral insight, in the view of the most thought-
ful Jews of the age immediately preceding Christianity, was
conceived as knowledge of a divine code, emanating from
an authority external to human reason, which had only the
function of interpreting its rules and applying them to diffi-
cult cases. The normal Inotives^o obey this law were trust
in the promises and fear of the judgments of the Divine
Lawgiver, who had made a special covenant to protect the
Jewish people, on condition that they rendered^ Him due
obedience ; and the sources from which knowledge of the law
was actually gained had the complexity often exhibited by
the jurisprudence of an advanced community. The original
nucleus of the code, it was believed, had been written and
promulgated by Moses, other precepts had been revealed in
the fervid utterances of the later prophets, others had been
handed down through oral tradition from immemorial an-
tiquity ; and the body of prescriptions and prohibitions thus
no CHRISTIANITY AND MEDIEVAL ETHICS CHAP.
composed had, before Judaism gave birth to Christianity,
received an extensive development through the comment-
aries and supplementary maxims of several generations of
students. Christianity inherited the notion of a written
divine code acknowledged as such by the " true Israel "-
now potentially including the whole of mankind, or at least
the chosen of all nations, on the sincere acceptance of
which the Christian's share of the divine promises to Israel
depended. And though the ceremonial part of the old
Hebrew code was altogether rejected, and with it all the
supplementary jurisprudence resting on tradition and erudite
commentary, still God's law was believed to be contained in
the sacred books of the Jews, supplemented by the records
of Christ's teaching and the writings of his apostles. By the
recognition of this law the Church was constituted as an
ordered community, essentially distinct from the State ; the
distinction between the two being sharpened and hardened
by the withdrawal of the early Christians from civic life, to
avoid the performance of idolatrous ceremonies imposed as
official expressions of loyalty; and by the persecutions which
they had to endure, when the spread of an association
apparently so hostile to the framework of ancient society had
at length caused the imperial government serious alarm. Nor
was the distinction obliterated by the recognition of Christi-
anity as the state religion under Constantine. The law of
God and its interpreters still remained quite separate from the
secular law and jurists of the Roman empire ; though the
former was of course binding on all mankind, the Church was
none the less a community of persons who regarded them-
selves as both specially pledged and specially enabled to obey
it, a community, too, that could not be entered except by
a solemn ceremony typifying a spiritual new birth.
in. CHRISTIAN MORALITY in
Thus the fundamental difference between morality and
(human) legality only came out more clearly in consequence
of the jural form in which the former was conceived. The
ultimate sanctions of the moral code were the infinite rewards
and punishments awaiting the immortal soul hereafter ; but
the Decian persecutions, while they manifested the strength of
the spreading faith in the unalterable constancy of martyrs
and confessors, also pressed forcibly on the Church the pro-
blem of dealing with apostate members ; and it was felt to
be necessary to withdraw the privileges of membership from
such persons, and only allow them to be regained by a pro-
tracted process of prayer, fasting, and ceremonies expressive
of contrite humiliation, in which the sincerity of the repent-
ant apostates might be tested and manifested. This formal ^
and regulated " penitence " was extended from apostacy to
other grave or, as they subsequently came to be called,
"deadly" sins; while for slighter offences the members
of the Church generally were called upon to express con-
trition by abstinence from ordinarily .-permitted pleasures,
as well as verbally in public and private devotions. " Ex-
communication " and "penance" thus ramp to he tern- \j
pond ecclesiastical sanctions...M-thg^ rppral law ; as the
graduation of these sanctions naturally became more careful
and minute, a correspondingly detailed classification of J
offences was rendered necessary; the regulations for ob-
serving the ordinary fasts and festivals of the Church grew
similarly elaborate ; and thus a system of ecclesiastical juris- ^
prudence, prohibitive and ceremonial, was gradually pro-
duced, somewhat analogous to that of the rejected Judaism.
At the same time this tendency to develop and make pro-
minent a scheme of external duties has always been bal-
anced and counteracted in Christianity by the ineffaceable
H2 CHRISTIANITY AND MEDIEVAL ETHICS CHAP.
remembrance of the founder's opposition to Jewish legalism.
It has even to be observed that the influence of this oppo-
sition, as fantastically understood and exaggerated by some
of the Gnostic sects of the 2d and 3d centuries A.D., led
to a dangerous antinomianism ; sometimes even (if the
charges of orthodox opponents are not entirely to be dis-
credited) to gross immorality of conduct : and a similar
tendency has shown itself at other periods of church history.
Such antinomianism, indeed, has always been sternly re-
pudiated by the moral consciousness of Christendom in
general ; still it has never been forgotten that " inwardness,"
Tightness of heart or spirit, is the special and pre-eminent
characteristic of Christian goodness. It must not, of course,
be supposed that the need of something more than mere
fulfilment of external duty was ignored even by the later
Judaism. Rabbinic erudition could not forget the repres-
sion of vicious desires in the tenth commandment, the stress
laid in Deuteronomy on the necessity of heartfelt and loving
service to God, or the inculcations by later prophets of
humility and faith. "The real and only Pharisee," says the
Talmud, " is he who does the will of his Father because he
loves Him." But it remains true that the contrast with the
"righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees" has always
served to mark the requirement of " inwardness " as a dis-
tinctive feature of the Christian code, an inwardness not
merely negative, tending to the repression of vicious desires
as well as vicious acts, but also involving a positive rectitude
of the inner state of the soul.
3- In this aspect Christianity invites comparison with
and Pagan Stoicism, and indeed with pagan ethical philosophy gener-
inward- ^lly, jf we exce p t t h e hedonistic schools. Rightness of
purpose, preference of virtue for its own sake, suppression
in. CHRISTIAN MORALITY 113
of vicious desires, were made essential points by the Aris-
totelians, who attached the most importance to outward
circumstances in their view of virtue, no less than by the
Stoics, to whom all outward things were indifferent. The
fundamental differences between pagan and Christian ethics
do not depend on any difference in the value set on right-
ness of heart or purpose, but on different views of the
essential form or conditions of this inward Tightness. In
neither case is it presented purely and simply as moral
rectitude. (By the (pagarN philosophers it was always con-
ceived under the form of Knowledge or Wisdom, it being
inconceivable to all the schools sprung from Socrates that
a man could truly know his own good and yet deliberately
choose anything elseJ This knowledge, as Aristotle held,
might be permanently precluded by vicious habits, or
temporarily obliterated by passion, but if present in the
mind it must produce Tightness of purpose. Or even if it
were held with some of the Stoics that true wisdom was out
of the reach of the best men actually living, it none the
less remained the ideal condition of perfect human life ;
though all actual men were astray in folly and misery,
knowledge was none the less the goal towards which the
philosopher progressed, the realisation of his true nature.
ByCC^nstiarX evangelists and teachers, on the other hand,
the inner springs of good conduct .were generally, rnnr.f ived
as Faith and .jLove. Of these notions the former has a Faith,
somewhat complex ethical import ; it seems to blend
several elements differently prominent in different minds.
Its simplest and commonest meaning is that emphasised
in the contrast of " faith " with " sight ; " where it signifies
belief in the invisible divine order represented by the
Church, in the actuality of the law, the threats, the promises
H4 CHRISTIANITY AND MEDIEVAL ETHICS CHAP.
of God, in spite of all the influences in man's natural life
that tend to obscure this belief. Out of this contrast there
ultimately grew an essentially different opposition between
faith and knowledge or reason, according to which the
theological basis of ethics was contrasted with the philo-
sophical; the theologians maintaining sometimes that the
divine law is essentially arbitrary, the expression of will,
not reason ; more frequently that its reasonableness is
inscrutable, and that actual human reason should con-
fine itself to examining the credentials of God's messengers,
and not the message itself. But in early Christianity this
latter antithesis is as yet undeveloped ; faith means simply
force in clinging to moral and religious conviction, what-
ever their precise rational grounds may be ; this force, in the
Christian consciousness, being inseparably bound up with
personal loyalty and trust towards Christ, the leader in the
battle with evil that is being fought, the ruler of the kingdom
to be realised. So far, however, there is no ethical differ-
ence between Christian faith and that of Judaism, or its
later imitation Mahometanism ; except that the personal
affection of loyal trust is peculiarly stirred by the blending
of human and divine natures in Christ, and the rule of duty
impressively taught by the manifestation of His perfect life.
A more distinctively Christian, and a more deeply moral,
significance is given to the notiqnin the antithesis of "faith"
and "works." Here faith means more than loyal accept-
ance of the divine law and reverent trust in the lawgiver ; it
implies a consciousness, at once continually present and
continually transcended, of the radical imperfection of all
human obedience to the law, and at the same time of the
irremissible condemnation which this imperfection entails.
The Stoic doctrine of the worthlessness of ordinary human
in. CHRISTIAN MORALITY 115
virtue, and the stern paradox that all offenders are equally,
in so far as all are absolutely, guilty, find their counterparts
in Christianity ; but the latter, while maintaining this ideal
severity in the moral standard, with an emotional con-
sciousness of what is involved in it quite unlike that of the
Stoic, at the same time overcomes its practical exclusiveness
through faith. This " saving " faith, again, may be conceived
in two modes, essentially distinct though usually combined.
In one view it gives the believer strength to attain, by God's
supernatural aid or "grace," a goodness of which he is
naturally incapable ; in another view it gives him an assur-
ance that, though he knows himself a sinner deserving of
utter condemnation, a- perfectly just God still regards him
with favour on account of the perfect services and suffering
of Christ. Of these views the former is the more catholic,
more universally present in the Christian consciousness ; the
latter more deeply penetrates the mystery of the atonement,
as learnt by the chief Protestant churches from the Pauline
epistles.
But faith, however understood, is rather an indispensable Love,
pre-requisite than the essential motive principle of Christian
good conduct. This is supplied by the other central
notion, love. On love depends the " fulfilling of the law,"
and the sole moral value of Christian duty that is, on
love to God, in the first place, which in its fullest develop-
ment must spring from Christian faith; and, secondly,
love to all mankind, as the objects of divine love and
sharers in the humanity ennobled by the incarnation. This
derivative philanthropy, whether conceived as mingling
with and intensifying natural human affection, or as absorb-
ing and transforming it, characterises the spirit in which
all Christian performance of social duty is to be done;
n6 CHRISTIANITY AND MEDIAEVAL ETHICS CHAP.
loving devotion to God being the fundamental attitude of
mind that is to be maintained throughout the whole of
Purity. the Christian's life. But further, as regards abstinence
from unlawful acts and desires prompting to them, we
have to notice another form in which the inwardness of
Christian morality manifests itself, which, though less
distinctive, should yet receive attention in any comparison
of Christian ethics with the view of Greco -Roman philo-
sophy. The profound horror with which the Christian's
conception of a suffering as well as an avenging divinity
tended to make him regard all condemnable acts was
tinged with a sentiment which we may perhaps describe as
a ceremonial aversion moralised, the aversion, that is,
to foulness or impurity. In all religions to some extent,
but especially in Oriental religions, the natural dislike of
material defilement has been elevated into a religious senti-
ment. In Judaism, in particular, we find it used to sup-
port a complicated system of quasi -sanitary abstinences
and ceremonial purifications ; at the same time, as the
ethical element predominated in the Jewish religion, a moral
symbolism was felt to reside in the ceremonial code, and
thus aversion to impurity came to be a common form of the
ethico-religious sentiment. Then, when Christianity threw
off the Mosaic ritual, this religious sense of purity was left
with no other sphere besides morality; while, from its
highly idealised character, it was peculiarly well adapted for
that repression of vicious desires which Christianity claimed
as its special function.
4 . When we examine the details of Christian morality, we
Distinctive fin( j that most Q f -^ distinctive features are naturally con-
particulars
ofChristian nected with the more general characteristics just stated ;
Morality. th^g^ man y o f them may also be referred directly to the
in. CHRISTIAN MORALITY 117
example and precepts of Christ, and in several cases they
are clearly due to both causes inseparably combined.
We may notice, in the first place, that the conception of Obedience,
morality as a code which, if not in itself arbitrary, is yet
to be accepted by men with unquestioning submission,
tends naturally to bring into prominence the virtue of
obedience to authority : just as the philosophic view of
goodness as the realisation of reason gives a special value
to self-determination and independence at least in the
philosopher (as we see more clearly in the post-Aristotelian
schools where ethics is distinctly separated from politics).
Again, the opposition between the natural world and the Alienation
spiritual order into which the Christian had been born anew \v or id
led in the early and mediaeval Church not merely to a
contempt equal to that of the Stoic for wealth, fame, power,
and other objects of worldly pursuit, but also to a compara-
tive depreciation of the domestic and civic relations of the
natural man. This tendency was exhibited most simply/
and generally in the earliest period of the Church's history.
In the view of primitive Christians, ordinary human society
was a world temporarily surrendered to Satanic rule, over
which a swift and sudden destruction was impending; in
such a world the little band who were gathered in the ark of
the Church could have no part or lot ; the only attitude they
could maintain towards it was that of passive alienation.
On the other hand it was difficult practically to realise dis-
engagement of the spirit from worldly life with the com-
pleteness which the highest Christian consciousness required ;
and a keen sense of this difficulty induced the same hostility and the
to the body as a clog and hindrance, that we find to some Flesh -
extent in Plato, but more fully developed in Neo-Platonism,
Neo-Pythagoreanism, and other products of the mingling of
n8 CHRISTIANITY AND MEDIAEVAL ETHICS CHAP.
Greek with Oriental thought. This feeling is exhibited in
the value set on fasting * in the Christian Church from the
earliest times, and afterwards in an extreme form in the self-
torments of monasticism ; while both tendencies, anti-worldli-
ness and anti-sensualism, seem to have combined in causing
the preference' of celibacy over marriage which is common
to most early Christian writers. 2 In consequence of this
opposition between the Church and the World, patriotism
and the sense of civic duty, the most elevated and splendid
of all social sentiments in the pre-Christian civilisation of
the Greco -Roman world, tended, under the influence of
Christianity, either to expand into universal philanthropy,
or to be concentrated on the ecclesiastical community.
"We recognise one commonwealth, the world," says Ter-
tullian ; " we know," says Origen, " that we have a father-
Patience, land founded by the word of God." We might further
derive from the general spirit of Christian unworldliness that
repudiation of the secular modes of conflict, even in a
righteous cause, which substituted a passive patience and
endurance for the old pagan virtue of courage, in which the
active element was prominent. Here, however, we clearly
trace the influence of Christ's express prohibition of violent
resistance to violence, and his inculcation, by example
and precept, of a love that was to conquer even natural re-
sentment. An extreme result of this influence is shown in Ter-
tullian's view, that no Christian could properly hold the office
of a secular magistrate in which he would have to doom to
death, chains, imprisonment ; in the declaration of Lactan-
1 Fasting, in some form or other, is almost universal as a religious
observance, but it is still noteworthy that it was retained and gradually
made regular and elaborate by Christianity, while Christianity was
yet keenly conscious of its independence of Jewish legalism.
2 E.g., Justin Martyr, Origen, Tertullian, Cyprian.
in. CHRISTIAN MORALITY 119
tius, that a Christian must not accuse any one of a capital
crime, since slaying by word is as bad as slaying by deed ;
in the doctrine of even so sober a writer as Ambrose, that
Christian long-suffering precludes the shedding of blood
even in self-defence against a murderous assault. The
common sense of Christendom gradually shook off these
extravagances ; though the reluctance to shed blood lingered
long, and was hardly extinguished even by the growing
horror of heresy. 1 Similarly, the reluctance of primitive
Christians to take oaths even for judicial purposes, though
supported by the most obvious interpretation of their
Master's words, gave way to considerations of public need,
when the Church in the 4th century entered into formal
union with the secular organisation of society.
It is, however, in the impulse given to practical benefi- Benefi-
cence in all its forms, by the exaltation of love as the root ce
of all virtues, that the most important influence of Christ-
ianity on the particulars of civilised morality is to be
found ; although the exact amount of this influence is here
somewhat difficult to ascertain, since it merely carries
further a development distinctly traceable in the history
of pagan morality considered by itself. This development
clearly appears when we compare the different post-Socratic
systems of ethics. In Plato's exposition of the different
virtues there is no mention whatever of benevolence,
although his writings show a keen sense of the importance
of friendship as an element of philosophic life, especially
of the intense personal affection naturally arising between
master and disciple. Aristotle goes somewhat further in re-
1 We have a curious relic of this in the later times of ecclesiastical
persecution, when the heretic was doomed to the stake that he might
be punished without bloodshed.
120 CHRISTIANITY AND MEDIEVAL ETHICS CHAP.
cognising the moral value of friendship (iAia) ; and though
he considers that in its highest form it can only be realised
by the fellowship of the wise and good, he yet extends
the notion so as to include the domestic affections, and
takes notice of the importance of mutual kindness in
binding together all human societies. Still in his formal
statement of the different virtues, positive beneficence is
only discernible under the notion of " liberality ; " in which
form its excellence is hardly distinguished from that of
graceful profusion in self- regarding expenditure. Cicero,
on the other hand, in his treatise on external duties (officia\
ranks the rendering of .positive services to other men as an
important department of social duty ; while in later Stoicism
the recognition of the universal fellowship and natural mutual
claims of human beings as such is sometimes expressed with
so much warmth of feeling as to be hardly distinguishable
from Christian philanthropy. Nor was this regard for
humanity merely a doctrine of the school. Partly through
the influence of Stoic and other Greek philosophy, partly
from the general expansion of human sympathies, the legis-
lation of the empire, during the first three centuries, shows a
steady development in the direction of natural justice and
humanity ; and some similar progress may be traced in the
tone of common moral opinion. Still the utmost point that
this development reached fell considerably short of the
standard of Christian charity. ' Without dwelling on the
immense impetus given to the practice of social duty gene-
rally by the religion that made beneficence a form of divine
service, and identified "piety" with "pity," we have to put
down as definite changes introduced by Christianity into
the current moral view (i) the severe condemnation and
final suppression of the practice of exposing infants ; (2)
in. CHRISTIAN MORALITY 121
effective abhorrence of the barbarism of gladiatorial combats ;
(3) immediate moral mitigation of slavery, and a strong
encouragement of emancipation ; (4) great extension of the
eleemosynary provision made for the sick and the poor.
On this fourth point, however, it has to be observed that Christi-
the free communication of wealth to the needy was not
merely a manifestation of the brotherly love enjoined on all
Christians though its importance in this aspect has caused
it to usurp, in several modern European languages, the
general name of " charity " it was partly due to a special
apprehension of the spiritual dangers attaching to the pos-
session of wealth, signalised by Christ's emphatic utterances.
From both these causes the communism attempted in the
apostolic age was cherished in the traditions of the early and
mediaeval Church as the ideal form of Christian society ; and
though the common sense of Christendom resisted the sug-
gestions that were from time to time made for its practical
revival, it was widely recognised that the mere ownership
of wealth as such gave a Christian no moral right to its
enjoyment. This right could only be given by real need ;
and though, when the Church had reconciled itself with the
World, "need" for ordinary Christians was generally
allowed to be determined by the customs of the social
class or profession to which they belonged, a stricter obedi-
ence to the evangelical counsel, "sell all thou hast and
give to the poor," was no less generally approved. 1 It
1 The attitude of primitive and even to some extent mediaeval
Christianity towards private property and towards slavery, is, I think,
best understood by trying to look at the two institutions as much as
possible in the same light. Both were regarded as encroachments on
the original rights of all members of the human family since men were
naturally free, and the fruits of the earth naturally common ; both would
disappear in the future, when Christ's kingdom came to be realised ;
122 CHRISTIANITY AND MEDIAEVAL ETHICS CHAP.
should be noted, too, that in laying stress on almsgiving
Christianity merely universalised a duty which has always
been inculcated and maintained in conspicuous fulness by
Judaism, within the limits of the chosen people. The same
may be said of the prohibition of usury, which the Church
maintained with certain reserves and accommodations down
to quite modern times.
Purity. So again, the strictness with which Christianity pro-
hibited illicit intercourse of the sexes was inherited from
Judaism. The younger religion, however, went further in
maintaining the permanence of the marriage-bond, and laid
more stress on " purity of heart " as contrasted with merely
outward chastity. Even the peculiarly Christian virtue of
Humility, humility, which presents so striking a contrast to the Greek
" highmindedness," was to some extent anticipated in the
Rabbinic teaching. Its far greater prominence under the
new dispensation may be partly referred to the express
teaching and example of Christ; partly, in so far as the
virtue is manifested in the renunciation of external rank
and dignity, or the glory of merely secular gifts and acquire-
ments, it is one aspect of the unworldliness which we have
already noticed; while the deeper humility that represses
the claim of personal merit even in the saint belongs to the
strict self-examination, the continual sense of imperfection,
the utter reliance on strength not his own, which characterise
the inner moral life of the Christian. Humility in this
latter sense, " before God," is an essential condition of all
truly Christian goodness.
both, however, were to be accepted as parts of the actually established
order of secular society ; but the harshness of both kinds of inequality
could even now be removed, and ought to be removed, by brotherly
treatment of bondsmen and of the poor.
in. CHRISTIAN MORALITY 123
Obedience, patience, benevolence, purity, humility, Religious
alienation from the "world" and the " flesh," are the chief Duty *
novel or striking features which the Christian ideal of con-
duct suggests, so far as it can be placed side by side with
that commonly accepted in Greco -Roman society. But
we have yet to notice the enlargement of the sphere of
ethics due to its new connection with Revelational Theo-
logy ; for while this added religious force and sanction to
ordinary moral obligations, it equally tended to impart a
more definitely moral aspect to religious belief and worship.
" Duty to God " as distinct from duty to man had not,
indeed, been unrecognised by pagan moralists; not only
Pythagoras and Plato and the Neo-Pythagorean and Neo-
Platonic schools, but also Stoicism in a different manner
had laid much stress upon it : but the generally mixed
and dubious relations in which philosophic theism stood to
the established polytheism tended to prevent the offices of
piety from occupying, in any philosophic system, the definite
and prominent place allotted to them in Christian teaching.
Again, just as the Stoics held wisdom to be indispensable
to real rectitude of conduct, while at the same time they
included under the notion of wisdom a grasp of physical as
well as ethical truth, so the similar emphasis laid on in-
wardness in Christian ethics caused orthodoxy or correct-
ness of religious belief to be regarded as essential to good-
ness, and heresy as the most fatal of vices, corrupting as it
did the very springs of Christian life. To the philosophers,
however, convinced as they were that the multitude must
necessarily miss true wellbeing through their folly and
ignorance, it did not usually 1 occur to guard against these
1 Plato is an important exception to this generalisation, as in his
Laws he makes elaborate provision not only for the regulation of public
124 CHRISTIANITY AND MEDIEVAL ETHICS CHAP.
evils by any other method than that of providing philosophic
instruction for the few ; whereas the Christian clergy, whose
function it was to offer truth and eternal life to all mankind,
naturally regarded theological misbelief as insidious pre-
ventable contagion. Indeed, their sense of its deadliness
was so keen that, when they were at length able to control
the secular government, they overcame their aversion to
bloodshed, and initiated that long series of religious perse-
cutions to which we find no parallel in the pre-Christian
civilisation of Europe. It was not that Christian writers
did not feel the difficulty of attributing criminality to sincere
ignorance or error. But the difficulty is not really peculiar
to theology; and the theologians usually got over it (as
some philosophers had surmounted a similar perplexity in
the region of ethics proper) by supposing some latent or
antecedent voluntary sin, of which the apparently involun-
tary heresy was the fearful fruit.
Christi- f -f- Lastly, we must observe that in proportion as the legal
Fre^wm concept* 011 of morality as a code of which the violation
deserves supernatural punishment predominated over the
philosophic view of ethics as the method for attaining
natural felicity, the question of man's freedom of will to
obey the law necessarily became prominent. At the same
time it cannot be broadly said that Christianity took a de-
cisive side in the metaphysical controversy on free will and
necessity ; since, just as in Greek philosophy the need of
maintaining freedom as the ground of responsibility clashes
with the conviction that no one deliberately chooses his
own harm, so in Christian ethics it clashes with the attri-
bution of all true human virtue to supernatural grace, as
worship, but for the severe punishment of unauthorised rites and opinions
opposed to (Platonic) orthodoxy.
in. CHRISTIAN MORALITY 125
well as with the belief in divine foreknowledge. All we
can say is that in the development of Christian thought the
conflict of conceptions was more profoundly felt, and more
serious efforts were made to evade or transcend it.
In the preceding account of Christian morality, it has 5. De-
been already indicated that the characteristics delineated ^ ^f
did not all exhibit themselves simultaneously to the same in early
extent, or with perfect uniformity, throughout the Church. ^f "
Partly the changes in the external condition of Christianity,
and the different degrees of civilisation in the societies of
which it was the dominant religion, partly the natural pro-
cess of internal development, continually brought different
features into prominence ; while again, the important antagon-
isms of opinion that from time to time expressed themselves in
sharp controversies within Christendom sometimes involved
ethical issues even in the Eastern Church until the great
labour of a dogmatic construction began in the 4th century.
Thus, for example, the anti-secular tendencies of the new
creed, to which Tertullian (160-220) gave violent and rigid
expression, were exaggerated in the Montanist heresy which
he ultimately joined ; on the other hand, Clemens of Alex-
andria, in opposition to the general tone of his age, main-
tained the value of pagan philosophy for the development
of Christian faith into true knowledge (Gnosis), and the
value of the natural development of man through marriage
for the normal perfecting of the Christian life. Then we
have to observe that when the Church, through Constantine,
entered into organic relation with civil society, the tendency
of its more enthusiastic members to advocate an ascetic
breach with man's natural life took a new direction. Total
renunciation of the world and mortification of the flesh were Monastic
no longer held to be prescribed to all Christians as the sole Morallt >'-
k IJOS CHRISTIANITY AND MEDIAEVAL ETHICS CJIAJ-.
H ^ 3 ^ 4
indeei-cecognised, but the theological system depending on
these notions is not sufficiently developed 1 to come into
1 To show the crudity of the notion of redemption in early Christi-
128 CHRISTIANITY AND MEDIAEVAL ETHICS CHAP.
even^ apparent antagonism with the freedom of the \vilL.
Christianity is for the most part conceiven as essentially a
proclamation through the Divine Word, tp immortal beings
gifted with free choice and therefore jpstly punishable for
wrong choice of the true code of conduct sanctioned by
eternal rewards and punishments. 1 IE is plain, however,
'that on this external legalistic view of duty it was impossible
to maintain a difference in kind between Christian and pagan
morality ; the philosopher's conformity to the rules of chastity
and beneficence, so far as it went, was indistinguishable from
the saint's. AJaculty of fulfilling such duty as he is capable
of recognising must be granted even to the natural man ; and
the new light of revelation given to the Christian would seem
to carry with it at least a possibility of completely avoiding sin.
But this inference, as developed in the teaching of Pela-
gius, seemed inconsistent with that absolute dependence on
Divine Grace to which the Christian consciousness resolutely
clung ; and it was accordingly repudiated as heretical by the
Church, under the leadership of Augustine ; by whom the
doctrine of man's incapacity to obey God's law by his
unaided moral energy was pressed to a point at which it
was difficult to reconcile it with the freedom of the^ will
anity, it is sufficient to mention that more than one leading writer
represents Christ's ransom as having been paid to the devil ; sometimes
adding that by the concealment of Christ's divinity under the veil of
humanity a certain deceit was (fairly) practised on the great deceiver.
1 It may be observed that the contrast between this view and the
efforts of pagan philosophy to exhibit virtue as its own reward, is
triumphantly pointed out by more than one early Christian writer.
Lactantius (circ. 300 A.D. ), for example, roundly declares that Plato
and Aristotle, referring everything to this earthly life, "made virtue
mere folly ; " though himself maintaining, with pardonable inconsist-
ency, that man's highest good did not consist in mere pleasure, but in
the consciousness of the filial relation of the soul to God.
..
AUGUSTINE 129
Augustine is fully aware of _the_ theoretical importance
ofjnaintaining Free Will, from its logical connection with_
human_ responsibility and divine justice ; but he considers
that these latter points are sufficiently" secured if actual
freedom * of choice between good and evil is allowed in the
single case of our progenitor Adam. For_since the natura
seminalis from_which all jnen were to arise already existed
in Adam, mJnVvduntary_preference of self to God humanity
cjipse ejdl_^n^e_for_sllj for which ante-natal guilt all men
are justly condemned to perpetual absolute sinfulness and_
consequent punishment, unless they are elected by God's
unmerited grace to share the benefits of Christ's redemption.
Without this grace it is^impossible for man to obeyjhe " first
greatest commandment" oflove to God ; and, this unfulfilled,
he^is guilty^ of the whole law, and is only free to choose-between
degrees of sinj, r^juoparejitj^^
value, since inner Tightness of intention is wanting. " AlHhat I
is not of faith is of sin ; " and faith and love are mutually .
involved_and inseparable faith springs from the divinely _
imparted germ "f Invp, jwhich in its turn is developed by
faith to its full strength, while from both united ,springs hope, <>
joyful yearning towards ultimate perfect fruition of the object
of love. These three Augustine (after St. Paul) regards as
the three essential elements of Christian virtue ; along with
these, indeed, he recognises the old fourfold division of virtue
into prudence, temperance, courage, and justice according
to their traditional interpretation; but 'he explains these
virtues jc^e in Jlxeir deepest ^andjruest natures only the same
1 It is to be observed that Augustine prefers to use the term
" freedom," not for the power of willing either good or evil, but the
power of willing good. The highest freedom, in his view, excludes the
possibility of willing evil.
K
130 CHRISTIANITY AND MEDIEVAL ETHICS CHAP.
love. tp_ God in different aspects or exercises. " Temperance
is love keeping itself uncontaminated for its object, Fortitude
is love readily enduring all for the beloved's sake v Justice js.
love serving only the beloved and therefore rightly govern^,
ing, Prudence is love sagaciously choosing the things that
help her and rejecting the things that hinder." This love
of God in which the self-love of the human soul finds its
true development, and of which love of one's neighbour is
an outgrowth is the sole source of enjoyment to the
redeemed soul : the world is not to be enjoyed but only
used : contemplation of God, the last stage reached in the
upward progress of the soul, is alone Wisdom, alone happi-
ness. The severe uncompromising mysticism of this view
-inay b_^_aL_J5^ e compared and contrasted with the philo-
sophical severity of Stoicism. Love of God in the former
holds the same absolute *and unique position as the sole
element of moral work in human action, which, as we have
seen, was occupied by knowledge of Good in the latter;
and we may carry the parallel further by observing that in
neither case is this severity in the abstract estimate of good-
ness necessarily connected with extreme rigidity in practical
precepts. Indeed, an important- part of AugustiD!s_work^
as a moralist lies in the reconciliation which he laboured to
effect between the anti-worldly jpiritLQf Christianity and the
necessities of secular civilisation^ For example, we find him
arguing for the legitimacy of judicial punishments and
military service against an over-literal interpretation of the
Sermon on the Mount : and he took an important part in
giving currency to the distinction before-mentioned between
evangelical "counsels " and "commands," and so defending
the life of marriage and temperate _njoyment of natural
good against the attacks of the more extravagant advocates
in. AMBROSE 131
of celibacy and self-abnegationj_although he fully admitted
the superiority of the latter method of avoiding the con-
tamination of sin.
The attempt to Christianise the old Platonic list of Ambrose
virtues, which we have noticed in Augustine's system, was ^' A j
perhaps due to the influence of his master Ambrose; in
whose treatise De offidis ministrorum we find for the first
time an exposition of Christian duty systematised on a plan
borrowed from a pre-Christian moralist. It is interesting
to compare Ambrose's account of what through him came
to be known as the " four cardinal virtues " with the cor-
responding delineations in Cicero's De offidis which has
served the bishop as a model. Christian Wisdom, so far
as speculative, is of course primarily theological; it has
God, as the highest truth, for its chief object, and is there-
fore necessarily grounded on faith. Christian Fortitude is
essentially firmness in withstanding the seductions of good
and evil fortune, resoluteness in the conflict perpetually
waged against wickedness without carnal weapons though
Ambrose, with the Old Testament in his hand, will not
quite relinquish the ordinary martial application of the
virtue. " Temperantia" retains the meaning of " observance
of due measure " in all conduct, which it had in Cicero's
treatise ;' though its notion is partly modified by being
blended with the newer virtue of humility ; while in the
exposition of Christian justice the Stoic doctrine of the
natural union of all human interests is elevated to the full
height of evangelical philanthropy; the brethren are re-
minded that the earth was made by God a common posses-
sion of all, and are bidden to administer their means for
the common benefit, and give from the heart with joy;
wealth, indeed, should not be lavished still, no one should
132 CHRISTIANITY AND MEDIEVAL ETHICS CHAP.
be ashamed if he becomes poor through giving. Ambrose,
we should observe, lays stress on the inseparability of these
different virtues in Christian morality, though he does not,
like Augustine, resolve them all into the one central affec-
tion of love of God.
7. Eccle- Under the influence of Ambrose and Augustine, the
morality in four car dinal virtues furnished a generally accepted scheme
the ' Dark for the treatment of systematic ethics by subsequent eccle-
siastical writers. Often the triad of Christian graces Faith,
Hope, and Love was placed by their side, after Augus-
tine's example : the seven gifts of the Spirit, enumerated by
Isaiah (ch. xi. 2), are also introduced; while on the other
side of the great moral battle the forces of vice are arrayed
under the heads of the seven (or eight) deadly sins. The
list of these sins, as I have already said, was transplanted
from the special experience of the monk into the concep-
tion of morality applicable to Christians generally ; but, on
the whole, the separation between monastic and common
Christian duty, as higher and lower forms of religious obedi-
ence, remained distinct and established in the mediaeval
Church. It was complicated by a distinction, of different
origin and significance, between the clerical and the lay rule
of life ; but the moral codes applied by the common opinion
of Christendom to clergy and ascetics respectively had a ten-
dency to approximate, even before, clerical celibacy was made
universally obligatory in the nth century. We have before
noticed that the distinction between " deadly " and " venial "
sins had a technical reference to the quasi-jural administra-
tion of ecclesiastical discipline ; which grew gradually more
organised as the spiritual power of the Church established
itself amid the disorder that followed the overthrow of the
Western Empire, and slowly developed into the theocracy
in. MEDLEVAL MORALITY 133
that almost dominated Europe during the latter part of the
Middle Ages. " Deadly " sins were those for which formal
ecclesiastical penance was held to be necessary, in order to
save the sinner from eternal damnation ; for " venial " sins
he might obtain forgiveness through prayer, almsgiving, and
the observance of the regular fasts. We find that " peni-
tential books " for the use of the confessional, founded partly
on traditional practice and partly on the express decrees of
synods, come into general use spreading from Ireland and
Britain into France and Germany in the yth and 8th
centuries. At first they are little more than mere inven-
tories of sins, with their appropriate ecclesiastical punish-
ments ;* gradually cases of conscience come to be discussed
and decided, and the basis is laid for that system of casuistry
which reached its full development in the i4th and i5th
centuries. This elaboration of ecclesiastical jurisprudence
intended to be kept in vigorous exercise by episcopal visita-
tions was probably indispensable in the accomplishment of
the Church's great task of maintaining moral order in the
earlier semi-anarchical period of the Middle Ages; but it
had a dangerous tendency to encourage an unduly external
and legal view of morality. Still a certain counterpoise to
1 It may be instructive to note some of those punishments. For
gluttony and drunkenness a penitential fast of from three to forty days
is imposed ; for sexual sins the days of penitence grow to years, and
even in an extreme case may extend to the end of life ; for homicide
the penalty varies from a month to ten years, according to motives and
circumstances. Monks and clergy have severer penances ; on the other
hand, double penance is enacted from one who kills a clergyman. Super-
stitious practices such as burning the grass in places where a man has
died can only be expiated by year-long penances (cf. Gass, Christliche
Ethik, IV. ch. i. 92). The fact that the Church itself was partially
barbarised during this period made the need of organised discipline all
the more urgent.
134 CHRISTIANITY AND MEDIEVAL ETHICS CHAP.
this tendency was continually maintained by the influence
of the fervid inwardness of Augustine, transmitted, in a
subdued and attenuated form, through the Moralia of
Gregory the Great (d. 604), the Sententicz of Isidore of
Seville (d. 636), the works of Alcuin (d. 804), Hrabanus
Maurus (d. 856), and other writers of the philosophically
barren period that intervened between the destruction of
the Western Empire and the rise of Scholasticism.
8. Scholastic ethics, like scholastic philosophy generally,
Ethics 8 * ^ attained its most complete and characteristic result in the
teaching of Thomas of Aquino. But before giving a brief
account of the ethical system of this great teacher, it will be
well to notice the chief steps in the process of thought and
discussion which led up to it. We must begin with Johannes
Johannes Scotus Erigena, the earliest noteworthy philosopher of the
(^zvTTio- Middle Ages, though it is only in a wide sense of the term that
877). he can be called a scholastic ; since he is separated by a con-
siderable interval of time from the main body of scholastics,
and while he aims at philosophising in harmony with the
Christian faith he does not show either the unqualified
respect for authority in his method of reasoning or the un-
qualified orthodoxy in his conclusions, which are character-
istic of scholasticism, strictly taken. The philosophy of
Erigena is to be traced in the main to the infllience_of Plato
and Plotinus, transmitted through an unknown author of the
5th century, who assumed the name of Dionysius the Areo-
pagite : accordingly the ethical side of his doctrine has the
same negative and ascetic character that we have observed
in Neo-Platonism. He teaches that God alone truly is :
that everything else exists only in so far as God manifests
Himself in it ; that evil is essentially unreal and incognisable
by God, only existing in the world of illusory appearance
in. SCHOLASTICISM 135
into which man has fallen ; that the true aim of man's life is
to return to perfect union with God out of this illusory material
existence. This doctrine found little acceptance among Eri-
gena's contemporaries, and was certainly unorthodox enough
to justify the condemnation which it subsequently received
from Pope Honorius III.; but its influence, together with
that of the Pseudo-Dionysiu's, had a share in developing the
more emotional orthodox mysticism of the i2th and i3th
centuries; and Neo-Platonism, or Platonism received through
a Neo- Platonic tradition, remained a distinct element in
mediaeval thought, though obscured, in the period of mature
Scholasticism, by the predominant influence of Aristotle.
Scholastic philosophy, in the stricter sense, may be taken^--
to begin with Anselm's comprehensive and profound attempt(Anseim J
Jo render the dogmatic system of orthodox Christianity. so~
far as possible, intelligible to reason. In ethics, however,
Anselm's work is only noteworthy on the question of (Free-
will) We observe that the Augustinian doctrine of original
sin and man's absolute need of unmerited grace is retained
in his theory of salvation; he also follows Augustine in
denning freedom as the "power not to sin;" though in
saying that Adam fell "spontaneously" and "by his free
choice," though not "through its freedom," he has implicitly
made the distinction that Peter the Lombard afterwards
expressly draws between the freedom that is opposed to
necessity and freedom from the slavery to sin. Anselm
further softens the statement of Augustinian predestina-
tionism by explaining that the freedom to will is not strictly
lost even by fallen man ; it is inherent in a rational nature,
though since Adam's sin it only exists potentially in humanity,
like the faculty of sight in a dark place, except where it
is made actual by grace.
CHRISTIANITY AND MEDIEVAL ETHICS CHAP.
In a more modern way Abelard tries to establish the con-
nection between man's ill desert and his free consent by a
more precise conception of sin. He distinguishes sin, strictly
taken, both from the mere propensity to bad conduct which
fallen man inherits and from the externally bad action in
which it takes effect. The bad propensity, so far as involun-
tary, is not sin ; its existence indeed, as he points out, is
presupposed in our conception of human virtue, which essen-
tially consists in fighting successfully against wrongly directed
desires. Nor, again, can sin lie in the outward effects of
our action ; it is evident that these may occur without moral
culpability on our part, through ignorance or compulsion.
It must therefore lie in the contempt of God and His com-
mands, which is manifested in conscious consent to vicious
inclination : accordingly it is upon this inward consent to
evil that repentance must be directed, and not upon any
outward effects of the act ; the essence of true repentance
is aversion to the sin itself, not to its consequences. He
does not shrink from drawing the inference that, since right-
ness of conduct depends solely on intention, all outward
acts as such are indifferent ; but he avoids the dangerous
consequences of this paradox, with some loss of consistency,
by explaining that "good intention" must be understood
to mean intention to do what really is right, not merely what
seems so to the agent. In the same spirit, under the re-
viving influence of ancient philosophy with which, however,
he is very imperfectly acquainted, and the relation of which
to Christianity he extravagantly misunderstands * he argues
that the old Greek moralists, as inculcating disinterested love
of good, were really nearer to Christianity than Judaic legalism
1 He endeavours to prove that the ancient philosophers had at least
a partial knowledge of the doctrine of the Trinity.
in. SCHOLASTICISM 137
was ; and he boldly contends that they set an example of
control of irrational desires, contempt of worldly things and
devotion to the things of the soul, which might well put to
shame most monks of his age. He carries his demand for
disinterestedness so far as to require that the Christian
" love to God " should only be regarded as pure if purged
from the self-regarding desire of the happiness which God
gives. The general tendency of Abelard's thought was
suspiciously regarded by contemporary orthodoxy 1 ; and the
over -subtlety of the last -mentioned distinction provoked
vehement replies from more than one of the orthodox
mystics of the age. Thus Hugo of St. Victor (1077-1141)
argues that all love is necessarily so far "interested" that it
involves a desire for union with the beloved; and since
eternal happiness consists in this union, it cannot truly be
desired apart from God ; while Bernard of Clairvaux (1091-
ii 53) more elaborately distinguishes four stages by which
the soul is gradually led from (i) merely self-regarding desire
for God's aid in distress, to (2) love Him for His loving-kind-
ness to it, then also (3) for His absolute goodness, until (4) in
rare moments this love for Himself alone becomes the sole
all-absorbing affection.
The conflict of Abelard with Bernard and Hugo of
St. Victor illustrates the antagonism, sometimes latent,
sometimes open, which we find in mediaeval thought be-
tween the dialectical effort to obtain satisfaction for the
reason under the conditions fixed by the traditional dogmas
of orthodox faith, and the mystical effort to find in the same
dogmas an adequate support or framework for the emotional
and intuitive religious consciousness. These diverse ten-
dencies appear in conflict both before and after the culmina-
1 He was condemned by two synods in 1121 and 1140.
138 CHRISTIANITY AND MEDLEY AL ETHICS CHAP.
Scholastic tion of scholastic philosophy in the i3th century; but the
Method, prevailing aim of scholasticism in its best period is to find a
harmonious reconciliation of this and other antagonisms.
"Peter the We find this eclectic or harmonistic character in the Libri
id "-!!? ) Sententiarum of Peter the Lombard, which was for a long
time the most widely accepted manual of theological teach-
ing in Western Europe, but of which the historical interest
now lies mainly in its method and plan of construction. It
aims at presenting a compendious but comprehensive ex-
position of Christian Theology as developed by the Catholic
Church, giving with each important proposition the chief
arguments pro and con, drawn from Scripture and the
Fathers, and endeavouring to reconcile the apparently con-
flicting authorities by subtle distinctions of meaning in the
terms used. This famous scholastic art of distinctions was
always somewhat open to the attacks which Bacon and
others made on its later developments ; but something like
it was indispensable if a systematic and coherent body of
doctrine was to be built up from materials so diverse in
their sources ; and it became still more inevitable when the
complexity of authorities was increased in the following
century by the acceptance of Aristotle as " The Philosopher "
whose dictum was almost indisputable on all matters falling
properly within the domain of human reason. The revival
of the study of Aristotle was due to the work and influence
of Arabian and Jewish commentators ; but the remarkable
union of Aristotelian and Christian thought achieved in the
1 3th century which determined for a long period the
orthodox philosophy of the Catholic Church was initiated
by Albert the Great and completed by Thomas of Aquino.
The moral philosophy of Thomas ( AquinaS) is, in the
main, Aristotelianism with a Neo-Platonic tinge, interpreted
in. THOMAS AQUINAS 139
and supplemented bv a view of Christian dnrtrinp derived s o
ff IT T TTT> nt j n ii* y y*
chiefly from Augustine. He holds that all action or move- p 10
jment of all things irrational as well as rational is directed (1225-
i towards some end or good: which in the case of rational
(creatures is represented in t^oughr^ fi^e.tioTi ; and
aimed at. by Will under the influence of Practical Reason.
There are many ends actually sought riches, honour, power,
pleasure but none of these satisfies and gives happiness ;
this can only be given by God Himself, the ground and first
cause of all being, and unmoved principle of all movement.
It is, then, towards God that all things are really though un-
consciously striving in their pursuit of Good ; but this uni-
versal striving after God, since He is essentially intelligible,
exhibits itself in its highest form in rational beings as a desire
for knowledge of Him ; such knowledge, however, is beyond
all ordinary exercise of reason, and may only be partially
revealed to man here below. Thus the summum bonum
for man is objectively GQJJ^ subjectively the happiness to be
derived from loving vision of His perfections ; although there
is a lower kind of happiness to be realised here below in a
normal human existence of virtue and friendship, with mind
and body sound and whole and properly trained for the
needs of life. The higher happiness is given to man by free
grace of God ; but it is only given to those whose heart is
right, and who have merited it by a number of virtuous
actions. Passing to consider what actions nrp- virtuous,
we first observe generally that the morality of an act is in
paikJbuLorLljLirL-p.art* determined by., its, particular ..end or
motive : it partly depends on its external object and cir-
cumstances, which render it either objectively in harmony
with the " order of reason " or the reverse except in the
case of acts externally indifferent, of which the goodness or
140 CHRISTIANITY AND MEDIEVAL ETHICS CHAP.
badness is determined entirely by the motive. In the classi-
fication of particular virtues and vices, we can distinguish
very clearly the elements supplied by the different teachings
which Thomas has imbibed. In his treatment of the virtues
which belong to the nature of man as a rational creature,
and can be acquired (though not perfectly) as a mere
natural result of training and practice, he is in the main
Aristotelian. He follows Aristotle closely in dividing
these " natural " virtues into intellectual and moral and the
intellectual virtues, again, into " speculative " and " practi-
cal ; " in distinguishing within the speculative class the
"intellect" that is conversant with principles, the science
that deduces conclusions, and the " wisdom ". to which
belongs the whole process of knowing the sublimest objects
of knowledge ; and in treating practical wisdom or prudence
as inseparably connected with moral virtues and therefore
in a sense moral. 1 So, again, his distinction among moral
virtues of the justice that is manifested in actions by which
others receive their due, from the virtues that primarily relate
to the passions of the agent himself, expresses his interpreta-
tion of Aristotle's doctrine ; and his list of the latter virtues,
to the number of ten, is taken en bloc from the Nicomachean
Ethics. On the other hand, his classification of passions
depends on a division of the non-rational element of the soul
into " concupiscible " and "irascible," which is rather Platonic
than Aristotelian 2 ; to the " concupiscible " element he refers
the passions that are stirred by the simple apprehension of
sensible good or evil love, hate, desire, aversion, joy, sorrow;
1 His justification, however, for classing "prudentia" both among
intellectual and moral virtues that it is intellectual secundum essentiam
and moral secundum materiam is rather scholastic than Aristotelian.
2 The distinction is adopted by Aristotle in several passages, but as
a popular rather than a scientific division.
in. THOMAS AQUINAS 141
while to the " irascible " element he attributes the passions
excited by some difficulty or obstacle in the way of the attain-
ment of the desired object viz., hope, despair, fear, boldness,
anger. And in arranging his list of the virtues that control
these passions he defers to the established doctrine of the
four cardinal virtues, derived originally from Plato and the
Stoics through Cicero; accordingly, the Aristotelian ten
have to stand under the higher genera of (i) the Prudence
which gives reasoned rules of conduct, (2) the Temperance
which resists misleading desire, and (3) the Fortitude that
resists misleading fear of dangers or toils. The relation,
however, of the cardinal virtues to the different elements of
the soul is conceived in a manner which is not either Pla-
tonic, Aristotelian, or Stoic ; since, along with the Rational,
Concupiscible, and Irascible elements which have Prudence,
Temperance, and Fortitude respectively as their special
virtues Thomas's system recognises, as a fourth distinct
element, Will (Voluntas\ to which Justice, whose sphere
is outward action, specially belongs. But, on the whole, as
regards these " natural " and " acquired " virtues the autho-
rity of " the Philosopher " is predominant : along with these,
however, and before them in rank, Thomas places the
Pauline triad of " theologic " virtues, Faith, Love, and Hope,
which are supernaturally " instilled " by God, and directly
relate to Him as their object. By faith we obtain that part
of our knowledge of God which is beyond the range of mere
natural wisdom or philosophy ; naturally, e.g., we can know
God's existence, but not His Trinity in Unity, though philo-
sophy is useful to defend this and other revealed verities :
and it is essential for the attainment of the soul's welfare
that all articles of the Christian creed, however little they
can be known by natural reason, should be apprehended
142 CHRISTIANITY AND MEDIAEVAL ETHICS CHAP.
through faith; the Christian who rejects a single article
loses hold altogether of faith and of God. Faith, then, is
the substantial basis of all Christian morality, but without love
the essential form of all the Christian virtues it is " form-
less " (informis\ Christian love is conceived (after Augus-
tine) as primarily love to God (beyond the natural yearning
of the creature after its ultimate good), which expands into
love towards all God's creatures as created by Him, and so
ultimately includes even self-love. But creatures are only
to be loved in their purity as created by God ; all that is
bad in them must be an object of hatred till it is destroyed.
In the classification of sins the Christian element pre-
dominates ; still we find the Aristotelian vices of excess
and defect, along with the modern divisions into " sins
against God, neighbour, and self," " mortal and venial sins,"
sins of " omission and commission," of " heart, speech, and
act," etc.
From the notion of sin treated in its jural aspect
Thomas passes naturally to the discussion of Law. The
exposition of this latter conception presents, to a great
extent, the same matter that was dealt with by the
exposition of moral virtues, but in a new form ; the
prominence of which, in Thomas's treatise, may perhaps
be attributed to the growing influence of the study of
Roman jurisprudence, which attained in the i2th century
so rapid and brilliant a revival in Italy. This side, of
Thomas's system has a special historical interest ; since, as
we shall presently see, it is just this blending of theological
conceptions with the abstract theory of the later Roman law
that gave the starting-point for independent ethical thought
in the modern world. Under the general idea of law,
defined as an "ordinance of reason for the common good,"
in. THOMAS AQUINAS 143
promulgated by him who has charge of the community,
Thomas distinguishes (i) the eternal law or regulative
reason of God, which embraces all His creatures, rational
and irrational ; (2) " natural law," being that part of the
eternal law that relates to rational creatures as such; (3)
human law, which properly consists of natural law par-
ticularised and adapted to the varying circumstances of
actual communities; (4) divine law specially revealed to
man. As regards natural law, he teaches that God has
firmly implanted in the human mind a knowledge of its
immutable general principles and not only knowledge,
but a disposition to realise the.m in c^ndnr.t^ a disposition
that unerringly prompts to good and raises its voice against
\
evil to which Thomas applies the peculiar scholastic term J
" synderesis." 1 All acts of natural virtue are implicitly in-
cluded within the scope of this law of nature ; but in the
operation of applying its principles to the particjilaj^dmum-
stances of human life to which the term "conscience"'
should be restricted 2 man's judgment is liable to err : so
that duty is imperfectly known, the light of nature being ob-
scured and perverted by bad education and custom. Human
law is required, not merely to determine the details for which
man's apprehension of natural law gives no intuitive guidance,
but also to supply the force necessary for practically secur-
ing, among imperfect men, abstinence from acts that are
both bad and disturbing to others ; its rules must be either
deductions from principles of natural law, or determinations
of particulars which natural law leaves indeterminate; a
1 The term is derived from ffwr-^prjais, used in this sense in a passage
of Jerome (Com. in Ezek., i. 4-10).
- " Conscientia," as he recognises, is also used to include what he
terms "synderesis."
CHRISTIANITY AND MEDLEVAL ETHICS CHAP
rule contrary to natural law could not be valid as law at all
Human Law, however, can only deal with outward conduct
and even here cannot attempt to repress all evil, withou
causing worse mischief than it prevents ; natural law, as w<
saw, is liable to be obscure and uncertain in its particula:
applications ; and neither natural nor human law take intc
their view that supernatural happiness which is man';
highest end. Hence they needed to be supplemented bj
a special revelation of divine law. This revelation, again
is distinguished into the law of the old covenant and the
law of the Gospel ; the latter of these is productive as wel
as imperative, since it carries with it the divine grace thai
makes its fulfilment possible. We have, however, to dis-
tinguish in the case of the Gospel between (i) absolute
commands, and (2) counsels, which recommend, without
positively ordering, the monastic life of poverty, celibacy,
and obedience, as the best method of effectively turning
the will from earthly to heavenly things.
But how far is man able to attain either natural or
Christian perfection ? This is the part of Thomas's system
in which the cohesion of the different elements composing
it seems weakest. He is scarcely aware that his Aristo-
telianised Christianity inevitably combines two different
difficulties in dealing with this question : first, the old pagan
difficulty of reconciling the position, that will or purpose is a
rational desire always directed towards at least apparent
good, with the freedom of choice between good and evil that
the jural view of morality seems to require ; and, secondly,
the Christian difficulty of harmonising this latter notion with
the absolute dependence on divine grace which the religious
consciousness affirms. The latter difficulty Thomas, like
many of his predecessors, avoids by supposing a " co-opera-
in. SCHOLASTICISM 145
tion " of free will and grace, but the former he does not
fully meet. It is against this part of his doctrine that
the most important criticism, in ethics, of riii rival Dui^s Duns
Scotus (1266-1308) was directed. He urMd that will Scotus<
could not be really free if it were bound tl reason, as
Thomas (after Aristotle) conceives it ; a reallyyree choice
must be perfectly indeterminate between reason and
unreason. Scotus consistently maintained that the divine
will is similarly independent of reason, and that the divine
ordering of the world is to be conceived as absolutely arbi-
trary. a point on which he was followed by the acute in-
tellect of William of Occam (d. 1347); though the doctrine Occam,
is obviously hostile to all reasoned morality. In another
more indirect way, the NominaHsm_of iOccam jand his fol-
lowers is important in the history of scholastic ethics : in so
far as the denial of the reality oJMJniversals shattered the
bridge which the earlier scholasticism had sought to construct
between the particulars of sensible experience and God con-
ceived as the ultimate ground and end of all existence. In
this way what was most certain for faith came to be regarded
as least cognisable by human intellect ; which had to con-
tent itself with establishing the reasonableness of believing,
not the reasonableness of what was believed. The result
did not at first seem unfavourable to orthodoxy ; theology
retained the services of philosophy while relieved from its
rivalry ; but the change none the less involved the decay of
scholasticism ; for though the dialectical faculty might still
find ample occupation, the task marked out for it could no
longer claim the devotion of a philosophic intellect of high
order. Thus the work of Thomas remained indubitably
the crowning result of the great constructive effort of
mediaeval philosophy. The effort was, indeed, foredoomed
L
146 CHRISTIANITY AND MEDLEY AL ETHICS CHAP.
to failure, since it attempted the impossible task of framing
a coherent system out of the heterogeneous data furnished
by Scripture, the Fathers, the Church, and "the Philo-
sopher ; " and whatever philosophic quality is to be found
in the work of Thomas belongs to it in spite of, not
in consequence of, its method. Still, its influence has
been great and long-enduring, in the Catholic Church
primarily, but indirectly among Protestants ; especially in
England, since the famous first book of Hooker's Ecclesi-
. astical Polity is largely indebted to the Summa Theologies, of
Aquinas.
10. Alongside of scholasticism, and partly in conscious anti-
Mystki V sm. tne i s to tne erudite labours and dialectical conflicts of the
schoolmen, though in close affinity to their central ethico-
theological doctrine, we have to note the development of
mysticism in the Christian Church meaning by "mysticism "
the tendency to subordinate all moral effort and intellectual
exercise to the attainment of a state of intuitive or even
ecstatic vision of God. This manner of thought is partly
* to be traced to Platonic and Neo-Platonic influence trans-
mitted through various channels; but its development in
strict connection with Christian orthodoxy begins in the
first half of the i2th century, with Bernard of Clairvaux and
Hugo of St. Victor. According to Bernard, the Christian who
seeks divine truth must ascend to the higher life of the spirit
through love and humility of which there are many grades
to be surmounted; then through discursive "consideration"
of divine truth he must press forward to intuitive con-
templation, in which state moments of ecstatic absorption
in the object contemplated will be granted him transient
anticipations of the perfect self-forgetfulness that the glorified
soul will attain hereafter. Similarly, in the more systematic
in. MYSTICISM 147
and completely developed theology of Hugo of St. Victor,
it is through divine grace intensifying man's love for God
to the point at which he only loves himself and his neigh-
bour for God's sake, that the " eye of the soul " is opened
by which God is seen in His true nature ; the perception of
matter by the outer eye of the soul, and the intuition of
self introspectively, being only valuable as steps to attain
the intuition of divine truth and goodness. The process of
preparation is more elaborately and imposingly conceived
by Bonaventura, the great orthodox mystic of the best Bona-
period of scholasticism, in whose work, indeed, the / I22I _
scholastic and mystical tendencies exhibit rare balance and
harmony. In his view the mind must ascend to the final/
vision through six stages. In the first it contemplates the
evidence of the power, wisdom, and goodness of God in
the external world, in the number and measure that are
everywhere found, the rising scale of perfection of created
things, organic and inorganic, and the progressive stages of
human history. Secondly, it must contemplate the divine
attributes as manifested in the relation of the world to man
the " microcosm ; " thirdly, by inner reflection on the mind's
faculties, it must see how memory is illuminated by divine
insight, how intellect is governed in its operation by the
indispensable conception of a most perfect being, and
rational will by the conception of a supreme Good. In the
fourth stage the soul, through the supernatural virtues of
Faith, Hope, and Love, develops an immediate spiritual
sense or feeling of the Divine nature ; then in the fifth stage
its pure intelligence contemplates God in His true essence
Pure Being without negation, the original source of all
conceivable reality. But there is a higher stage still; in
which that " synderesis," that clinging of the soul to good
148 CHRISTIANITY AND MEDIEVAL ETHICS CHAP.
which exists in some degree in every man, being the un-
dying and unerring element of what we vaguely speak of as
conscience, receives its full development ; by this faculty
God is contemplated not as Absolute Being but as Absolute
Goodness, whose essence it is to communicate itself in its
fulness ; at this stage, therefore, the mystery of the Trinity
is apprehended, for the essence of this mystery is the
communication of Divine Goodness through the Son and
the Holy Spirit. Then after these six stages of mental
activity comes the Sabbath of ecstasy, in which all intel-
lectual operations are suspended and the soul is wholly
passive in its ineffable union with God.
Bonaventura represents mediaeval Platonism or Neo-
Platonism, as Thomas represents mediaeval Aristotelianism,
in docile subordination to dogmatic orthodoxy ; and the
same subordination is maintained more than a century later
by Gerson, whose mysticism carries on the tradition of the
" Victorines " l and Bonaventura. But before Gerson there
had been developed in Germany the more original and dar-
ing mysticism of Eckhart and his followers ; which is free
from the trammels not only of scholasticism but of ecclesias-
tical orthodoxy. In Eckhart's teaching that alienation from
the world and finite things, which characterises mysticism
generally, is intensified into a fervid yearning to get rid
altogether of the self-hood that separates the individual soul
from the divine reality of its Being, to know nothing, will
nothing, think nothing but God. In this abolition of creature-
ship Eckhart conceives all morality to be contained though
he is at pains to guard against the quietistic and immoral
consequences that might be drawn from this fundamental
1 This is the name often used to denote together Hugo of St. Victor
and Richard, a later mystical writer of the same monastery.
in. CASUISTRY 1.49
doctrine, and to represent good works as the natural outflow
of the transcendent union of the soul's inmost essence with
God.
In the brief account above given of the general ethical ~ IZ
view of Thomas Aquinas no mention has been made of the Casuistry,
detailed discussion of particular duties included in the
Summa Theologies ;^ the tone of which allowance being
made for the heterogeneousness of the materials put together
from such diverse sources shows, on the whole, moral
elevation and sobriety of judgment combined ; though on
certain points the scholastic pedantry of precise and ex-
haustive consideration is unfavourable to due delicacy of
treatment. It was to this practical side of ethics that the
acumen and industry of ecclesiastical writers was largely
directed in the i4th and i5th centuries, as the speculative
interest of scholasticism decayed ; and we have to note, as
one result of this, a marked development and systematisation
of casuistry. The solution of doubtful cases of conscience
had always, as a matter of course, formed part of the
work of ecclesiastical moralists ; from the earlier period of
the Church a number of questions and answers relating to
various departments of morality had been handed down under
the names of Justin Martyr, Athanasius, Augustine ; and the
growth of ecclesiastical jurisprudence, the penitential books,
the systematic morality of the schoolmen, furnished a con-
tinually increasing amount of casuistical discussion. A
need, however, began to be felt of arranging the results
attained in a form convenient for the conduct of auricular
confession; and to meet this need various manuals of
casuistry (Sumnuz Casnum Conscientia) were compiled in
the 1 4th and i5th centuries. Of these the oldest, called
1 Occupying the portion of the treatise called Secunda Secunda.
150 CHRISTIANITY AND MEDIEVAL ETHICS CHAP.
Astesana, from Asti in Piedmont, is arranged as a kind of
text-book of morality on a scholastic basis ; later manuals
(e.g., the Summa Rosella, Venet. 1495) are reduced to mere
alphabetically arranged collections of casuistical questions
and answers. It was inevitable that the quasi-legal treat-
ment of morality involved in this development of casuistry,
aiming as it did at a precise determination of the limits
between the prohibited and the allowable, with doubtful
points closely scrutinised and illustrated by fictitious cases,
would have a tendency to weaken the moral sensibilities of
ordinary minds ; while, again, the more industry and in-
genuity were spent in deducing conclusions from the diverse
authorities accepted in the Church, the greater necessarily
became the number of points on which doctors dis-
agreed ; and the central authority that might have
repressed serious divergencies was wanting in the period
of moral weakness * that the Church went through,
between the death of Boniface VIII. and the Counter-
Reformation. A plain man perplexed by such disagree-
ments might naturally hold that any opinion maintained
by a pious and orthodox writer must be a tolerably safe one
to follow; and thus weak consciences might be subtly
tempted to seek the support of authority for some desired
relaxation of a moral rule. It does not, however, appear
that this danger assumed formidable proportions until
after the Reformation ; when, in the struggle made by the
Catholic Church to recover its hold on the world, the
principle of obedience to authority was forced into keen,
balanced, and prolonged conflict with the principle of
1 The refusal of the council of Constance to condemn Jean Petit's
advocacy of assassination is a striking example of this weakness. Cf.
Milman, Lat. Christ., Book XIII. ch. 9.
in. THE REFORMATION 151
reliance on private judgment. To the Jesuits, the fore- The Jesuits,
most champions of the Counter -Reformation, it seemed
fundamentally important for the cause of authority that
laymen generally should be trained to submit their judg-
ment to that of their ecclesiastical guides; as a means
to this end it seemed indispensable that the confessional
should be made attractive by accommodating ecclesiastico-
moral law to worldly needs; and the theory of "Proba-
bilism" supplied a plausible method for effecting this
accommodation. The theory proceeded thus : A layman
could not be expected to examine minutely into a point on
which the learned differed; therefore he could not fairly
be blamed for following any opinion that rested on the
authority of even a single doctor; therefore his confessor
must be authorised to hold him guiltless if any such " pro-
bable" opinion could be produced in its favour; nay, it
was his duty to suggest such an opinion, even though
opposed to his own, if it would relieve the conscience
under his charge from a depressing burden. The results
to which this Probabilism, applied with an earnest desire
to avoid dangerous rigour, led in the iyth century were
revealed to the world in the immortal Lettres Provinciates
of Pascal.
In tracing the development of casuistry we have been 12.
carried beyond the great crisis through which Western formation.
Christianity passed in the i6th century. The Reformation Transition
T~~ . , to modern
which Luther initiated may be viewed on several sides, ethical
even if we consider only its ethical principles and effects, p h ilos<
apart from the political and social aims and tendencies with
which it was connected in different European countries.
It maintained the simplicity of Apostolic Christianity
against the elaborate system of a corrupt hierarchy, the
152 CHRISTIANITY AND MEDIEVAL ETHICS CHAP.
teaching of Scripture alone against the commentaries of the
Fathers and the traditions of the Church, the right of private
judgment against the dictation of ecclesiastical authority,
the individual responsibility of every human soul before
God in opposition to the papal control over purgatorial
punishments, which had led to the revolting degradation of
venal indulgences. Reviving the original antithesis be-
tween Christianity and Jewish legalism, it maintained the
inwardness of faith to be the sole way to eternal life, in
contrast to the outwardness of works ; returning to August-
ine, and expressing his spirit in a new formula, to resist
the Neo-Pelagianism that had gradually developed itself
within the apparent Augustinianism of the Church, it
affirmed the total corruption of human nature, as contrasted
with that " congruity " by which, according to the school-
men, divine grace was to be earned ; renewing the fervent
humility of St. Paul, it enforced the universal and absolute
imperativeness of all Christian duties, and the inevitable
unworthiness of all Christian obedience, in opposition to
the theory that " condign " merit might be gained by
"supererogatory" conformity to evangelical "counsels."
It will be seen that these changes, however profoundly
important, were, ethically considered, either negative or
quite general, relating to the tone and attitude of mind in
which all duty should be done. As regards all positive
matter of duty and virtue, and most of the prohibitive code
for ordinary men, the tradition of Christian teaching was
carried on substantially unchanged in the discourses and
writings of the Reformed Churches except that, as the
monastic life was discarded altogether, the moral ideal of
conduct for Christians generally tended to gain somewhat
in elevation and refinement by being relieved from a de-
m. THE REFORMATION 153
pressing comparison with what was before regarded as a
more excellent way. Even the old method of casuistry was
maintained 1 during the i6th and iyth centuries; though
scriptural texts, interpreted and supplemented by the light
of natural reason, now furnished the sole principles on
which cases of conscience were decided. In the iyth
century, however, the interest of this quasi-legal treatment
of morality gradually faded ; and the ethical studies of
educated minds were occupied with the attempt, renewed
after so many centuries, to find an independent philosophical
basis for the moral code. The renewal of this attempt was
only indirectly due to the Reformation ; it is rather to be
connected with that enthusiastic study of the remains of old
pagan culture that spread from Italy over Europe in the \
1 5th and i6th centuries; which again, was partly the effect,
partly the cause of a widespread alienation from mediaeval
theology. To this " humanism " the Reformation seemed
at first more hostile than the Roman hierarchy ; indeed,
the extent to which this latter had allowed itself to become
paganised by the Renaissance was one of the points that
especially roused the Reformers' indignation. Not the less
important is the indirect stimulus given by the Reformation
towards the development of a moral philosophy independent
alike of Catholic and Protestant assumptions. Scholasticism,
while reviving philosophy as a handmaid to theology, had
metamorphosed its method into one resembling that of its
mistress; thus shackling the renascent intellectual activity
which it stimulated and exercised by the double bondage to
Aristotle and to the Church. When the Reformation shook
1 As the chief English casuists we may mention Perkins, Hall,
Sanderson, as well as the more eminent Jeremy Taylor, whose Ductor
Dubitantiuni appeared 1660.
154 CHRISTIANITY AND MEDLEY AL ETHICS CHAP. in.
the traditional authority in one department, the blow was
necessarily felt in the other. Not twenty years after Luther's
defiance of the Pope, the startling thesis "that all that Aris-
totle taught was false " was prosperously maintained by the
youthful Ramus before the University of Paris * ; and not
many years later the series of remarkable thinkers in Italy
who heralded the dawn of modern physical science
Cardanus, Telesius, Patritius, Campanella, Bruno began
to propound their anti-Aristotelian views as to the constitu-
tion of the universe, and the right method of investigating
it. It was to be foreseen that a similar assertion of inde-
pendence would make itself heard in ethics also ; and,
indeed, amid the clash of dogmatic convictions, the varia-
tions and aberrations of private judgment, that the multi-
plying divisions of Christendom exhibited after the Reform-
ation, reflective persons would naturally be led to seek
for an ethical method that relying solely on the common
reason and common moral experience of mankind might
claim universal acceptance from all sects. The chief results
of this search, as prosecuted in England from the iyth
century onward, will occupy our attention in the next
chapter.
1 It is noteworthy that Luther had also spoken with sweeping dis-
respect of " the Philosopher."
CHAPTER IV.
MODERN, CHIEFLY ENGLISH, ETHICS
THE great writer with whose name we in England are i. Modern
accustomed especially to connect the transition from fore
mediaeval to modern thought Francis Bacon has given Hobbes.
in his Advancement of Learning a brief sketch of moral
philosophy, which contains much just criticism and pregnant
suggestion, and deserves to be read by all students of the
subject. 1 But Bacon's great task of reforming scientific
1 Sze Advancement of Learning, Book II. ch. xx.-xxii. Bacon takes
the "main and primitive division of moral knowledge" to be into (i)
"the exemplar or platform of good," and (2) the "regiment or culture
of the mind. " It is in the latter branch that he finds the older moralists
most markedly deficient ; they have not treated fully and systematically
of the "several characters and tempers of men's natures and disposi-
tions," their different affections, and the occasions of these, and modes
of influencing them. In respect of the " exemplar or platform or good,"
their work appears to him more satisfactory if we discard their pagan
extravagances as to the possible attainment of supreme felicity upon
earth. They have well described, enforced, and defended the general
forms of virtue and duty, and their particular species ; and have excel-
lently handled the "degrees and comparative nature of good." He
thinks, however, that they might with advantage have "stayed a little
longer on the inquiry concerning the roots of good and evil and the
strings of these roots," and have "consulted with nature" somewhat
more. For observation of nature shows us how "there is formed in
everything a double nature of good ; the one, as everything is, total or
substantive in itself ; the other as it is a part or member of a larger
156 MODERN ETHICS CHAP.
method was one which, as he conceived it, left morals on
one side ; and he never made any serious effort to reduce
his ethical views to a coherent system, methodically reasoned
on an independent basis. Thus the outline of which I have
spoken was never filled in, and does not seem to have had
any material effect in determining the subsequent develop-
ment of ethical thought. The main stream of English
ethics, so far as it flows independently of Revelational
Theology, begins with Hobbes and the replies that Hobbes
provoked; and the temptation to establish an intellectual
filiation between Hobbes and Bacon is one that the sober
historian must resist. Indeed the starting-point of Hobbes'
ethical speculation is mainly, I conceive, to be sought in a
department remote from Bacon's meditations ; namely, in the
The Law current view of the Law of Nature, to which in its political
ature. as p ect especially the new conditions of the troubled century
preceding Hobbes had directed an unusual amount of atten-
tion. For the need of independent practical principles,
which I have noted as largely due to the Reformation, was
most strongly felt in the region of political relations ; since
the regulation of these was deeply disturbed, in a twofold
body; whereof the latter is in degree the greater and the worthier."
We see this exemplified even in the physical world ; but it is on "man,
if he degenerate not," that this "double nature of good" is more
specially engraven; and "this being set down and strongly planted,
doth judge and determine most of ,the controversies wherein moral
philosophy is most conversant." Here the later views both of Cumber-
land and of Shaftesbury are to some extent anticipated. But Bacon
expressly disclaims the construction of a complete moral system in-
dependently of revealed religion. "It must be confessed," he says,
" that a great part of the law moral is of that perfection whereunto the
light of nature cannot aspire;" for though this "light of nature" is
"imprinted upon the spirit of man by an inward instinct, according to
the law of conscience," it is only "sufficient to check the vice, not to
inform the duty."
'
iv. GROTIUS 157
way, by the religious wars of the 1 6th century : first, by
the gravity and urgency of the doubts as to the rights of
sovereigns and duties of subjects which the confessional
divisions inevitably raised ; and secondly, by the collapse of
the real though imperfect regulative influence that had pre-
viously been exercised over Western Europe by the unity of
Christendom. In the resulting chaotic condition of public
law, several writers both Catholic and Protestant attempted
to supply the void of regulative.principles by developing that
conception of the Law of Nature which the schoolmen had
formed, partly by tradition from Cicero through Augustine,
and partly from the recently revived study of Roman Juris-
prudence. This conception, as it was presented in the
system of Thomas Aquinas, was rather the wider notion
which belongs to ethics than the narrower notion with which
Jurisprudence or Politics is primarily concerned ; the LawN
of Nature was defined to mean not merely the rules of mutual
behaviour that men may rightly be coerced into obeying,
but, more broadly, the rules that they ought to observe, so \
far as these are cognisable by the light of nature apart from
revelation. The same absence of distinction-between the/
provinces of Ethics and Jurisprudence is commonly found
in the view of Natural Law given by writers on the subject
before Grotius ; and, though the required distinction is Grotius
clearly taken in the epoch-making work De Jure Belli et
Pads (1625), in which Grotius expounded the principles of
Natural Law as applicable to international relations, still in
the general account which he gives of Natural Law the
wider ethical notion is retained. His definition of "Jus
Naturale " as the " dictate of Right Reason, indicating that
an act, from its agreement or disagreement with man's rational
and social nature, is morally disgraceful or morally necessary,"
158 MODERN ETHICS CHAP.
is applicable, if not to the whole of the code of moral duty,
at any rate to that larger part of it which relates to social
conduct ' } l and not merely to the rules denning the impera-
tive claims which individuals or communities may make on
each other though it is with these latter that Grotius is
specially concerned. In either case Natural Law, according
to Grotius and other writers of the age, is a part of divine
law that follows necessarily from the essential nature of
man, who is distinguished among animals by his peculiar
" appetite " for tranquil association with his fellows, and his
tendency to act on general principles. It is therefore as
unalterable even by God Himself as the truths of mathe-
matics, although it may be overruled in any particular case
by express revelation ; hence it is cognisable a priori, from
the abstract consideration of human nature, though its
existence may also be known a posteriori from its universal
acceptance in human societies. By the Roman jurists, from
whom the conception was taken, this law of nature was not
usually conceived as actually having a substantive existence
independent of positive codes ; it was rather something that
underlay existing law, and was to be looked for through it,
though it might perhaps be expected ultimately to supersede
it, and in the meanwhile represented an ideal standard, by
which improvements in legislation were to be guided. Still,
the language of the jurists, in some passages, clearly implied
1 It is noteworthy that the words " ac social! " are not found in the
original text of the definition of Jus Naturale, given in Book. I. ch. i. 10,
of Grotius's treatise. They were added by his editor Barbeyrac, who
held that a comparison of 12 of the same chapter showed them to
have been accidentally omitted. I am inclined, however, to think that
Grotius intended the phrase in 10 to be applicable to moral duty
generally, in accordance with what he says in 9 ; but as the addition
of the words " ac sociali " certainly make the definition more in harmony
with his general treatment of the subject, I have let them stand.
iv. GROTIUS 159
that a period of human history had existed prior to the
institution of civil society, in which men were governed by
the law of nature alone: 1 it was known from Seneca (Ep.
xc.) that the Stoic Poseidonius had identified this period
with the mythical golden age ; and the ideas thus derived
from pagan sources had easily coalesced, in the view of
mediaeval thinkers, with ideas gathered from the narrative
of Genesis. Thus there had come to be established and
current a conception of a state of nature, social in a sense,
but not yet political, in which individuals or single families
had lived side by side, under none other than such
"natural" laws as those prohibiting mutual injury, and
mutual interference with each other's use of the goods of
the earth that were common to all, giving parents authority
over their children, imposing on wives a vow of fidelity to
their husbands, and obliging all to the observance of com-
pacts freely entered into. This conception Grotius took,
and gave it additional force and solidity by using the prin-
ciples of this Natural Law so far as they seemed applicable
for the determination of international rights and duties ;
since it was obvious that independent nations, regarded as
corporate units, were still in the state of nature relatively to
each other. It was not assumed that the principles of
natural right were perfectly realised in the conduct of primi-
tive independent individuals any more than by nations now ;
indeed, one point with which Grotius is especially concerned
is the natural right of private war, arising out of the viola-
tion of more primary rights. Still the definition of Natural
1 The most definite statement of this kind that I know is the follow-
ing (Inst. Just. II. i. 2) : " Palam est vetustius esse jus naturale, quod
cum ipso genere humano rerum natura prodidit. Civilia enim jura tune
esse cceperunt, cum et civitates condi et magistratus creari et leges scribi
oeperunt."
160 MODERN ENGLISH ETHICS
Law above quoted implied a general tendency to observe
it; and we may observe that it was especially necessary
for Grotius to assume such a general observance in the case
of contracts ; since it was by an " express or tacit pact " that
the right of property (as distinct from the mere right to
non-interference during use) was held by him to have
been instituted ; and a similar " fundamental pact " had long
been generally regarded as the normal origin of legitimate
sovereignty.
The ideas above expressed were not, as I have said, in
the main peculiar to Grotius. At the same time the rapid
and remarkable success of his treatise would bring this view
of Natural Right into prominence, and would suggest to
penetrating minds such questions as " What is man's ulti-
mate reason for obeying these laws ? Wherein does their
agreement with his rational and social nature exactly consist ?
How far, and in what sense, is his nature really social ?''
2 - It was the answer which Hobbes erave to these fun-
Hobbes
(1588- damental questions that supplied the starting -point for
l6 79>. independent ethical philosophy in England. Hobbes's
psychology is in the first place frankly materialistic ; he
holds that man's sensations, imaginations, thoughts, emo-
tions, are all mere "appearances" of motions in the "in-
terior parts " of his body. Accordingly he regards pleasure
as essentially motion "helping vital action/' and pain as
motion "hindering" it. There is no logical connection
between this theory and the doctrine that appetite or
desire has always pleasure (or the absence of pain) for its
object ; still a materialist, framing a system of psychology, is
likely to give special attention to the active impulses arising
out of bodily wants, whose obvious end is the preservation of
the agent's organism ; and this, together with a philosophic
iv. IIOBBES
wish to simplify, may lead him to the conclusion that all
human impulses are similarly self-regarding. This, at any
rate, is Hobbes's cardinal doctrine in moral psychology, that
eac^imaiVs_appetites or desires are naturally directed either
to the preservation of his life, or to that heightening of it
which he feels as pleasure; 1 including the aversions that
are similarly directed " from ward " pain. Hobbes does not
distinguish instinctive from deliberate pleasure-seeking ; and
he confidently resolves the most apparently unselfish emotions
into phases of self-regard. Pity he finds to be grief for the
calamity of others, arising from imagination of the like
calamity, befalling oneself; what we admire with seeming
disinterestedness as beautiful (pulchrum) is really " pleasure
in promise ; " when men are not immediately seeking pre-
sent pleasure, they desire power as a means to future
pleasure, and thus have a derivative delight in the exercise
of power which prompts to what we call benevolent action.
The vaunted social inclinations of men, when we consider
them narrowly, resolve themselves either into desire for
personal benefit to be obtained from or through others, or
desire for reputation; "all society is either for gain or
1 He even apparently regards the organic motion which he calls
"appetite" as indistinguishable from the heightened vital action of
which the appearance is "delight or pleasure" a strange confusion,
since, though it may be plausibly maintained that desire is an insepar-
able element of what we call pleasure, it is evident that desire is often
experienced without pleasure: as Hobbes himself says, "appetite
without the opinion of attaining " is "despair," and not delight. I have
therefore in the text passed over this identification of desire and pleasure
as a palpable inadvertence ; but Hobbes's persuasion that the latter
involves the former should be noted, as it appears again in his account
of happiness or felicity ; which he declares not to consist " in the repose
of a mind satisfied," but in a " continual progress of the desire from one
object to another ; the attaining of the former being still but the way to
the latter."
M
162 MODERN ENGLISH ETHICS CHAP.
glory." No doubt men naturally require mutual help :
" infants have need of others to help them to live, and those
of riper years to help them to live well ; " but so far as this
need is concerned, it is " dominion " rather than society that
a man would naturally seek if all fear were removed : apart j]
from mutual fear, men would have no natural tendency to !
enter into political union with their fellows, and to accept
the restrictions and positive obligations which such union
involves. If any one doubts this natural unsociality of
man, Hobbes bids him consider what opinion of his fellows
his own actions imply : " when taking a journey he arms
himself; when going to sleep he locks his doors ; when even
in his house he locks his chests ; and this when he knows
there be laws and public officers, armed, to revenge all
injuries shall be done him."
What, then, is the conduct that ought to be adopted, the j
reasonable course of conduct, for this egoistic, naturally un-
social being, living side by side with similar beings ? In the
first place, since all the voluntary actions of men tend to
their own preservation or pleasure, it cannot be reason-
able to aim at anything else 1 ; in fact, nature rather than
reason fixes the end of human action, to which it is reason's
function to show the means. Hence if we ask why it is
reasonable for any individual to observe the rules of social
behaviour that are commonly called moral, the answer is
1 There is, however, a noticeable though, I think, unintentional
discrepancy between Hobbes's theory of the ends that men naturally seek
and his standard for determining their natural rights. This latter is never
Pleasure simply, but always Preservation though on occasion he en-
larges the notion of "preservation" into "preservation of life so as not
to be weary of it. " His view seems to be that in a state of nature most
men would fiht, rob, etc. , "for delectation merely" or " for glory," and
hence all men must be allowed an indefinite right to fight, rob, etc.,
" for preservation."
iv. HOBBES 163
obvious that this is only indirectly reasonable, as a means
to his own preservation or pleasure. It is not, however, in
this, which is only the old Cyrenaic or Epicurean answer,
that the distinctive point of Hobbism lies ; but rather in the
doctrine that even this indirect reasonableness of the most
fundamental moral rules is entirely conditional en their
general observance, which cannot be secured without the
intervention of government. JEg., it is not reasonable for
me to perform my share of a contract, unless I have
adequate reason for believing that the other party will per-
form his ; and this adequate reason I cannot have, except
in a state of society in which he will be punished for non-
performance./ Thus the ordinary rules of social behaviour
are only hypothetically obligatory until they are actualised
by the erection of " a common power," that may " use the
strength and means of all " to enforce on all the observance
of rules tending to the common benefit. On the other
hand, Hobbes yields to no one in maintaining the paramount
importance of moral regulations. The rules prescribing
justice or the performance of covenants, equity in judg-
ing between man and man, requital of benefits, sociability,
forgiveness of wrong so far as security allows, the pro-
hibitions of contumely, pride, arrogance, and other subordi-
nate precepts, which may all be summed up in the simple
formula,' "Do not that to another which thou wouldest
not have done to thyself" 1 he calls "immutable and
1 The language with which Hobbes introduces this formula suggests
that he thinks he is giving the well-known "golden rule" of the
Gospel, whereas his formula is, of course, the golden rule taken only in
its negative application, as prescribing abstinences, not positive services.
It is, perhaps, even more remarkable that Puffendorf, quoting Hobbes,
should not have seen the difference between the two formulae. Cf. DC
frire Nature et Gentium, II. ch. iii. 13.
1 64 MODERN ENGLISH ETHICS CHAP.
J eternal laws of nature ; " meaning that though a man is
not unconditionally bound to realise them in act, he is
bound as a reasonable being to desire and aim at their
realisation. For they must always be means to the attain-
ment of peace, and the "first and fundamental law of
nature so far as man's relations to his fellows are con-
cerned 1 is to " seek peace and follow it ; " though if peace
cannot be obtained, he may reasonably " seek and use all
helps and advantages of war." It is equally opposed to
nature's end of self-preservation (i) that an individual
should render unreciprocated obedience to moral rules in
the interest of others, and so " make himself a prey to
others," and (2) that he should refuse to observe such
rules when he has sufficient security that they will be
observed by others, and so " seek not peace but war." For
the state of nature, in which men must be supposed to have
existed before government was instituted, and into which
they would relapse if it were abolished, is indeed a state
free from all moral restraints; but it is therefore utterly
miserable. It is a state in which, owing to well-grounded
mutual fear, every man has a right to everything, " even to
one another's body," for it may conduce to his preservation ;
or, as Hobbes also expresses it, a state in which " right and
wrong, justice and injustice, have fio place;" 2 but it is
1 Hobbes takes the term " Law of Nature " in its widest ethical
sense, and expressly recognises that "things tending to the destruction
of particular men, such as drunkenness and all parts of intemperance,"
are "amongst those things which the Law of Nature has forbidden ;"
but he is only concerned to expound the laws regulative of social con-
duct, and tending "to the conservation of men in multitudes."
2 Hobbes does not recognise any formal contradiction between the
two statements ; because he defines Right (substantive) = Liberty =
absence of external impediments; but he practically means by "a
right" what most people ordinarily mean by it, i.e., a rightful liberty, a
iv. HOBBES 165
therefore also a state of war in which every man's hand is
against his neighbour's, a state so wretched and perilous
that it is the first dictate of rational self-love to emerge ffom
it into the peace of an ordered Commonwealth. Such a
commonwealth may arise either by "institution," through
compact of the subjects to obey as sovereign a defined
individual or assembly acting as one, or by " acquisition "
through force ; but in either case the authority of the sove-
reign must be unquestioned and unlimited. The sovereign
is itself bound by the Law of Nature to seek the good of the
people, which cannot be separated from its own good ; but
it is responsible to God alone for its observance of these
laws. Its commands are the final measure of right and
wrong for the outward conduct of its subjects, and ought to
be absolutely obeyed by every one, so long as it affords him
protection, and does not threaten serious harm to him per-
sonally ; since to dispute its dictates would be the first step
towards anarchy, the one paramount peril outweighing all
particular defects in legislation and administration.
It is easy to understand how, in the crisis of 1640, when
the ethico-political system of Hobbes first took written shape,
a peace-loving philosopher, weary of the din of warring
sects, should regard the claims of individual conscience as
essentially anarchical, and the most threatening danger to
social wellbeing ; but however strong might be men's yearn-
ing for order, a view of social duty, in which the only fixed
positions were selfishness everywhere and unlimited power
somewhere, could not but appear offensively paradoxical.
liberty claimed and approved by the individual's reason. In any case
the statement that "the notions of right and wrong have no place" in
the state of nature is too wide for his real meaning ; for he would admit
that intemperance is prohibited by the Law of Nature in this state. See
preceding note.
1 66 MODERN ENGLISH ETHICS CHAP.
Nevertheless, offensive or not, there was an originality, a
force, an apparent coherence in Hobbism which rendered
it undeniably impressive; in fact, we find that for two
generations the efforts to construct morality on a philo-
sophical basis take more or less the form of answers to
Hobbes. From an ethical point of view Hobbism divides
itself naturally into two parts, which are combined by
Hobbes's peculiar political doctrines into a coherent whole,
but are not otherwise necessarily connected. Its theoretical
basis is the principle of egoism, that it is natural, and so
reasonable, for each individual to aim solely at his own pre-
servation or pleasure ; while, for practically determining the
particulars of duty it makes morality entirely dependent on
positive law and institution. It thus affirmed the relativity
of good and evil in a double sense ; good and evil, for any
individual citizen, may from one point of view be defined as
the objects respectively of his desire and aversion ; from
another point of view, they may be said to be determined
for him by his sovereign. It is this latter part or aspect of
the system which is primarily attacked by the first genera-
tion of writers that replied to Hobbes. This attack, or
rather the counter-exposition of orthodox doctrine, is con-
ducted on different methods by the Cambridge moralists
and by Cumberland respectively. The latter retains the
legal view of morality, and endeavours, while showing the
actuality of the laws of nature, to systematise them by re-
ducing them to a single principle. The former, regarding
morality primarily as a body of knowledge of right and
and wrong, good and evil, rather than a mere code of rules,
insist on its absolute or independent character and its intui-
tive certaintvx"
Cudworth was the most distinguished of the little group
iv. CUDWORTH 167
of thinkers at Cambridge in the lyth century, commonly 3- The
known as the " Cambridge Platonists," who, embracing Moralist?
Platonic principles seen through a Neo-platonic medium, Cudworth
but also influenced by the new thought of Descartes, en-
deavoured jto_blend rational theology with religious philo-
sophy. In his treatise on Eternal and Immutable Morality
(which was not published till more than forty years after his
death in 1688), his main aim is to maintain the "essential
and eternal distinctions of good and evil " as independent
of mere arbitrary Will, whether human or divine. He main-
tains this not only against Hobbes's view of good and evil as
determined by the sovereign ; but equally against the doctrine
of Duns Scotus and Occam, and certain later theologians
who regarded all morality as dependent upon the mere will
and positive appointment of God. According to Cudworth,
the distinctions of good and evil have an objective reality,
cognisable by reason no less than the relations of space or
number : the knowledge of them comes no doubt to the
human mind from the Divine; but it is from the Divine
Reason, in whose light man imperfectly participates, not
merely from the Divine Will as such. Ethical, like mathe-
matical, truth relates properly and primarily not to sensible
particulars, but to the intelligible and universal essences of
things, which are as immutable as the Eternal mind whose
existence is inseparable from theirs : ethical propositions,
therefore, are as unchangeably valid for the direction of -the
conduct of rational beings as the truths of geometry are.
Cudworth does not take, note of the sense in which
Hobbes, in spite of his relativism, does yet maintain laws
of nature to be. .eternal and immutable; nor does his
refutation of Hobbism which he treats as a "novan-
tique philosophy," a mere revival of the relativism and
1 68 MODERN ENGLISH ETHICS CHAP.
atomism 1 of Protagoras appear to me generally penetrat-
ing or effective. His main polemical point is the argu-
mentum ad hommem y by which he tries to show that
Hobbes's atomic materialism involves the conception of
an objective physical world, the object not of passive sense
that varies from man to man, but of the active intellect
that is the same in all; there is therefore, he urges, an
inconsistency in refusing to admit a similar exercise of in-
tellect in morals, and an objective world of right and wrong,
which the mind by its normal activity clearly apprehends
as such. Cudworthj Jn the work above mentioned, givesno
systematic exposition of the ethical principles which he holds
to be thus intuitively apprehended. But we may supply this
deficiency from the Enchiridion Ethicum of Hejuy More,
another thinker of the same school. More gives a list of
twenty-three Noemata Moralia, the truth of which will, he
says, be immediately manifest. Some of these are purely
egoistic, as, e.g., that goods differ in quality as well as dura-
tion, and that the superior good is always to be preferred, and
similarly the lesser evil ; that absence of a given amount of
good is preferable to the presence of equivalent evil ; that
future good or eviFls to be regarded as much as present, if
equally certain, and nearly as much if very probable. What-
ever objections might be urged against these modes of for-
mulating man's natural pursuit of self-interest, it is evident
that the serious controversy between Hobbism and modern
Platonism did not relate to such principles as these, but to
others which demand from the individual a (real or apparent)
sacrifice for his fellows. Such are the evangelical principle of
" doing as you would be done by ; " the principle of justice,
1 Cudworth misspends some labour in proving that Protagoras not
Democritus is the author of Atomism as well as Relativism.
iv. MORE 169
or "giving every man his own, and letting him enjoy it
without interference ;" and especially what More states as
the abstract formula of benevolence, that " if it be good that
one man should be supplied with the means of living well and
happily, it is mathematically certain that it is doubly good :
that two should be so supplied, and so on." The mere
statement of such formulae, however, does not fully meet
the issue raised by Hobbes : granting that it is for the
common benefit that more rather than fewer members of
the community should be benefited, which is, indeed,
almost an identical proposition, the question still remains
what motive an individual has to conform to this or any
other social principle, when they conflict with his natural
desires and private interest. To this question Cudworth
gives no explicit reply, and the answer of More is hardly
clear. On the one hand he maintains that these principles A
express an absolute 'good; which is to be called intellectual I
becairse its essence and truth are defined and apprehended
by the intellect. We might infer from this that the in-
tellect^ so judging, is itself . the proper and complete j/
determinant of the will, and that man, as a rational being,
oughT to aim at the realisation of absolute good for its
own sake : and this inference would also be suggested
by More's definition of virtue as an " intellectual force
of the soul by which she has such complete mastery over
animal impulses and bodily passions, that in each action she
can easily seek what is absolutely and simply best." But it
does not seem to be really More's view. He explains that
though absolute good is discerned by the intellect, the
" sweetness and flavour " of it is apprehended, not by the
intellect proper, but by what he calls a "boniform faculty;"
and it is in this sweetness and flavour that the motive to
i yo
MODERN ENGLISH ETHICS
Nature.
Cumber-
land
(1632-
1718).
I virtuous conduct lies ; ethics is the " art of living well and
happily," and true happiness lies in " the pleasure which the
soul derives from the sense of virtue." In short, Platonism,
in More's view, has become as hedonistic as Hobbism ; only
the feeling which it takes as ultimate motive is of a kind that
only a mind of exceptional moral refinement can habitually
-~l -....feel with the decisive intensity required.
It is to be observed that though More lays down the
e^of 15 abstract principle of regarding one's neighbour's good as
much as one's own with the full breadth with which
Christianity inculcates it and though the highest form of
the " boniform faculty " is the love of God and one's
neighbour yet when he afterwards comes to discuss and
classify virtues he is too much under the influence of
Platonic -Aristotelian thought, to give a distinct place to
benevolence, except under the old form of liberality. In
this respect his system presents a striking contrast to
Cumberland's, whose treatise De Legibus Natures (1672),
though written like More's in Latin, is yet in its ethical
matter thoroughly modern. Cumberland is a thinker both
original and comprehensive, who has furnished material to
more than one better-known moralist; but his academic
prolixity and discursiveness, his academic language, and
a want of clearness of view in spite of an elaborate display
of exact and complete demonstration, have doomed his work
to oblivion. At any rate he is noteworthy as having been
the first to lay down that " the common good of all " is the
supreme end and standard, in subordination to which all
other rules and virtues are to be determined. So far he
may be fairly called ihe precursor of the later utilitarianism.
His fundamental principle and supreme " Law of Nature,"
in which all other laws of nature are implicitly included, is
i\'. CUMBERLAND 171
thus stated : " the greatest possible benevolence * of every
rational agent towards all the rest constitutes the happiest
state of each and all, so far as depends on their own power,
and is neccessarily required for their happiness ; accordingly
Common Good will be the Supreme Law." It is, however, l
important to notice that in his "good" is included not
merely happiness, in the ordinary sense, but " perfection ; "
and he does not even define perfection so as strictly to exclude
fiom it the notion of moral perfection or virtue, and save his
explanation of morality from an obvious logical circle. % A
notion so incompletely determined could hardly be used for
deducing particular moral rules with any precision ; but in fact
Cumberland does not attempt this ; his_ supreme principle
is not_ designed to rectify, but merely to support and sys-
tematise, common morality. This principle, as was said, is
conceived as strictly a law, and therefore referred to a law-
giver, God, and provided with a sanction in the effects of
its observance or violation on the agent's happiness. That
the divine will is expressed by it, Cumberland, " not being
so fortunate as to possess innate ideas," tries to prove by
a long inductive examination of the evidences of man's
essential sociality exhibited in his physical and mental
constitution. His account of the sanction, again, is
sufficiently comprehensive, including both the internal
and the external rewards of virtue and punishments of
vice; and he, like later utilitarians, explains moral obliga-
tion to lie primarily in the force exercised on the will by
these sanctions; he considers, however, that while this ,
egoistic motive is indispensable, and is the normal spring '
of action in the earlier stages of man's moral obedience, yef*^
1 He explains that he means by this effective benevolence, not a
languid and lifeless principle that does not take effect in outward acts.
172 MODERN ENGLISH ETHICS CHAP.
rational beings tend to rise from this to the nobler motives
of love of God, regard for His honour, and disinterested affec-
tion for the common good. At the same time it is difficult
to put together in a clear and consistent view his different
statements as to the precise manner in which the good of
the individual is implicated with universal good, and as to
the operation of either or both in determining volition.
Locke The clearness which we seek in vain from Cumberland
( l6 3 2 ~ is found to the fullest extent in a more famous writer, whose
1704).
Essay on the Human Understanding (1690) was already
planned when Cumberland's treatise appeared. And yet
Locke's ethical opinions have been widely misunderstood ;
since from a confusion between " innate ideas " and " in-
tuitions," which has been common in recent ethical dis-
cussion, it has been supposed that the founder of English
empiricism must necessarily have been hostile to "intui-
tional " ethics. But this is a complete misapprehension,
so far as the determination of moral rules is concerned ;
though it is no doubt true that Locke rejects the view that
the mere apprehension by the reason of the obligatoriness
of certain rules is, or ought to be, a sufficient motive to
their performance, apart from the foreseen consequences of
observing or neglecting them. He agrgesy-in fact, with
Hobbes in interpreting "good" and "evil" as "nothing
but pleasure and pain or that which occasions or procures
pleasure and pain ; " he defines " Moral good and_evil " as
'only the conformity or disagreement of our voluntary
actions to some law, whereby good and evil is drawn on us
from the will and power of the lawmaker ; " but none the
less he agrees entirely with Hobbes's opponents in holding
ethical rules to be actually obligatory independently of
political society, and capable of being scientifically con-
[V. LOCKE 173
structed on principles intuitively known : though he does
lot regardThese principles as implanted in the human mind
it birth. The aggregate of such rules he conceives as the
aw of God, carefully distinguishing it, not only from civil
aw, but from the law of opinion or reputation, the varying
noral standard by which men actually distribute praise and
)lame, and being divine he assumes it to be sanctioned by
idequate rewards and punishments. He does not, indeed,
peak of the scientific ascertainment of this code as having
>een completely effected, but he affirms its possibility in
anguage remarkably strong and decisive. " The idea," he
ays, "of a Supreme Being, infinite in power, goodness,
nd wisdom, whose workmanship we are, and upon whom
re depend, and the idea of ourselves, t as understanding
ational beings, being such as are clear in us, would, I
uppose, if duly considered and pursued, afford such
mndations of our duty and rules ojf action as might place
lorality among the sciences capable of demonstration,
herein, I doubt not, but from self-evident propositions,
y necessary consequences as incontestable as those in
lathematics, the measures of right and wrong might be
iade out." As Locke cannot consistently mean by God's
goodness " anything but the disposition, to give pleasure,
might be inferred that the ultimate standard ojf right rules
" action ought to be the common happiness of the beings
Fected by the., action j^ut-Lolate ) does not explicitly adopt
is standard. In 'the passage from which I have just
loted, the propositions which he gives as instances of
tuitive moral truths "no government allows absolute
jerty," and "where there is no property there is no in-
istice" have no evident connection with general happi-
t ess ; so again in his treatise on " Civil Government,"
174 MODERN ENGLISH ETHICS CHAP.
where he expounds that part of the code of nature which
appears to him important in determining the source and
limits of governmental power, his rationale of the rules laid
down is not utilitarian, except in a latent or secondary way.
His conception of the Law of Nature is, in the main, that
which has come to him immediately from Grotius and his
disciple Puffendorf, more remotely from the Stoics and the
Roman jurists ; though one or two important modifications
are due to his own reflection. /^That all men are originally
free and equal; that one ought not to harm another, but
rather aid in preserving him, so far as his own preservation
is not thereby impeded; that compacts ought to be kept;
that parents have a power to control and direct their children,
corresponding to their duty of nurturing and training them,
but only till they come to the age of reason; that the
goods of the earth are common to all in the first instance,
but become the private property of one who has "mixed
his labour" with them, 1 if there is "enough and as good
left in common for others" these principles appear to
Locke intelligible and plain to any rational being who will
contemplate the relations of men as originally created to
each other and to God ; without any explicit reference to
general happiness as the supreme end. God, he argues,
has made men similar in nature and faculties, therefore they
are to be regarded as mutually independent ; He has made
them to last during His pleasure, therefore every one is
bound to preserve his own life and that of others ; and so
forth. Not that Locke is averse to arguments showing the
tendency of moral rules to promote general happiness ; he
1 This is, perhaps, the most important innovation of Locke's ; in
the view of Grotius, as we saw, the right of private property was held
to depend on an express or tacit compact.
iv. CLARKE 175
has no doubt that they have this tendency, and he uses
such arguments to some extent ; but this line of reasoning
is not fundamental in his system. Hence if his view be
called utilitarian in respect of its method of determining
right action, and not merely in respect of the motive it
accepts as normal, it ought to be admitted that the utili-
tarianism is for the most part latent and unconscious. 1
Fifteen years after the publication of Locke's treatises 5- Clarke
on civil government (1705), an impressive attempt was made i 7 J 9 5 \~
by Clarke to "place morality among the sciences capable of
demonstration, from self-evident propositions as incontestible
as those in mathematics;" but it was made on the lines of
Cud worth's reasoning rather than of Locke's; ask maintained
against Hobbes and Locke, 2 that the cognition of self-evi-
dent practical propositions is in itself, independently of v-
pleasure and pain, a sufficient motive to a rational being for
acting in accordance with them. The aim of the lectures
in which Clarke's system was expounded was to prove the'
" reasonableness and certainty " of the Christian revelation :
1 I think that Locke's relation to utilitarianism is exactly charac-
terised by some phrases of Puffendorf in which the latter is speaking of
his own method. "In assigning," he says, "the cause and reason
[for a law of nature] we are wont to have recourse, not to the benefit
proceeding from it, but to the general nature in which it is founded."
For example, if we are to give a reason why one man ought "not to
hurt another, we do not usually say because abstaining from mutual
violence is profitable (although it is so indeed in the highest degree), but
because the person is another man, that is, an animal related to us by
nature whom it would be criminal to harm." It may, I think, be in-
ferred from the manner in which Locke mentions Puffendorf in his
essay on education that he was in substantial agreement with his view
of the Law of Nature.
2 It should be observed that Clarke's polemic is formally directed
against Hobbes alone ; he does not, so far as I am aware, ever define
his relation to Locke.
1 76 MODERN ENGLISH ETHICS CHAI
and, with this view, to exhibit on the one hand the eterna
and immutable obligations of morality " incumbent on mei
from the very nature and reason of things themselves," am
on the other hand the impossibility of " defending " thes<
obligations "to any effectual purpose," or enforcing then
with any sufficient strength, without the belief in immor
tality and future rewards and punishments. This double
ness of aim which, as we shall see, complicates Clarke's tasl
rather seriously must always be kept in view in examining
his system. He is anxious to show both that moral rule;
are binding independently of the sanctions that divine legis
lation has attached to them, and also that such rules are
laws of God, with adequate sanctions attached to their observ
ance and violation; the two propositions are, in his view,
necessarily connected, since only from the absolute binding-
ness of justice on all rational wills are we able to infer with
philosophic certainty that God being necessarily just will
punish ill desert and reward good desert. In examining the
first, and more strictly ethical, portion of his argument, it is
convenient to distinguish two questions: (i) What arejhe
self-evident and immutable principles of morality? and (2)
What is their relation to the individual's will? His general
account of the manner in which moral principles are appre-
hended is that, from the "necessary and eternal different
relations that different things 'bear to one another," result
" fitness and unfitness of the application of different things
or different relations one to another " a " fitness or suitable-
ness of certain circumstances to certain persons, and unsuit-
ableness of others, according to the nature of things and the
qualification of persons;" and that this fitness and unfitness
are as intuitively evident to the reason contemplating these
relations, as the equality and inequality of mathematical
iv. CLARKE 177
quantities. This general conception he illustrates by ex-
hibiting the self-evidence of the four chief rules of righteous-
ness: i.e. t the rule of (i) Piety towards God, (2) Equity
and (3) Benevolence towards our fellows, and (4) the rule of
duty towards a man's own self, which he calls Sobriety. The
last of these rules, as defined by Clarke, is manifestly not
primary and independent in its obligation, since it inculcates
the preservation of life and the control of passions and
appetites, with a view to the performance of duty, which is
therefore assumed to be already determined; and in the
exposition of the Rule of Piety he hardly attempts the pre-
cision which his mathematical analogy suggests. 1 It is in
the rules of Equity and Universal Benevolence, which, in
Clarke's view, sum up social duty, that the force and signi-
ficance of this analogy appears. The principle of Equity
that "whatever I judge reasonable or unreasonable for
another to do for me, that by the same judgment I declare
reasonable or unreasonable that I in the like case should
do for him " has undoubtedly a certain resemblance to a
mathematical axiom: and the same may be said of the
principle that a greater good is to be preferred to a less,
whether it be my good or another's 2 which we have already
1 The "fitness" or " congruity " which he here tries to exhibit is
the " congruity " between admiration, awe, fear, hope, and other human
feelings, and the divine attributes of Eternity, Infinity, Omniscience,
Power and Justice, Mercy, etc. But the indefinite qualitative corre-
spondence between human emotions and divine attributes is as unlike
as possible to the exact quantitative relation which we apprehend
between the terms of a mathematical comparison.
2 I have elsewhere observed (Methods of Ethic s> Book III. ch. xiii.
4) that this principle, as stated by Clarke, is not free from the charge
of tautology ; but I regard this charge as only affecting the form, not
the substance, of his proposition. It is, I think, a more serious
objection to the completeness of Clarke's exposition, that the rules of
N
178 MODERN ENGLISH ETHICS CHAP.
noted, in a slightly different form, among More's Noemata
Moralia.
If the self-evidence, in some sense, of these propositions
be granted, it remains to consider how far the intuitive
cognition of them is or ought to be decisive in determining
the individual's volition. On this point a careful examina-
tion of Clarke's language shows that the position which he
is really prepared to maintain is by no means either so
clear or so uncompromising as the general tenor of his
language implies. At first sight he seems to lay down,
without qualification, that a rational creature, as such, must\
act in conformity with these or any other practical intuitions :
it is because we have these moral intuitions that we can/
attribute with certainty moral attributes to the supreme
Reason that governs the universe, and know that God will
order the destinies of His creatures in conformity to justice
and benevolence, and make men happy unless they have
deserved to be miserable ; and on similar grounds he affirms
that " were not men most unnaturally corrupted by perverse
and unaccountably false opinions and monstrous evil customs
and habits ... it would be impossible that universal equity
should not be practised by all mankind " as impossible as
that they should not believe that two and two make four.
Nay, Clarke often presses the analogy between ethics and
mathematics so far as to use phrases which not onlv^ over-
look the essential distinction between what is and what
Equity and Benevolence, as stated by himself, hardly exemplify his
general account of self-evident moral truth ; for the relations contem-
plated in these rules are relations of similarity: whereas what, after his
general account of moral truth, we expect him to show us and what
for practical purposes we need to be shown is how differences of treat-
ment of human beings correspond to differences in their circumstances
and relations.
iv. CLARKE 179
ought to be, but even overleap this distinction extravagantly ;
as, e.g., in saying that the man who "wilfully acts contrary
to justice wills things to be what they are not and cannot
be." What he really means is less paradoxically stated in
the general proposition that " originally and in reality it is a^
natural and (morally speaking) necessary that the will should
be determined in every action by the reason of the thing
and the right of the case, as it is natural and (absolutely
speakmg) necessary that the understanding should submit/
to a demonstrated truth." From these and similar passages
we should infer that if a man deviates from the rules of
Equity or Universal Benevolence, under the seductions of
pleasure and pain, it is not, in Clarke's view, that he has
solid reasons for so deviating, but that he is partly under the
influence of irrational impulses. But when he comes after-
wards to argue the need of future rewards and punishments
we find that his claim on behalf of reason is starfrngly
reduced. He now only contends that " virtue deserves to
be chosen for its own sake, and vice to be avoided, though
a man was sure for his own particular neither to gain nor
lose anything by the practice of either." He fully admits
that the question is altered when vice is attended by pleasure
and profit to the vicious man, virtue by loss and calamity;
and even that it is "not truly reasonable that men by
adhering to virtue should part with their lives, if thereby
they deprived themselves of all possibility of receiving any
advantage from their adherence." That is, he admits im-
plicitly a reasonableness from the individual's point of view
in the preference of Self-interest to Virtue if the empirically
known conditions of human life are alone taken into account ;
though from an abstract or universal point of view it is
reasonable to prefer Virtue to Interest. The contradiction
i8o MODERN ENGLISH ETHICS CHAP.
between the two kinds of reasonableness was no doubt
convenient for showing the need of theology to defend the
truths of ethics; but as Clarke's theological system also
requires ethical truth to be irrefragably established apart from
theology in order that the moral attributes of the Deity
may be philosophically known this contradiction was a
serious source of weakness : it exhibited a conflict among
the intuitions of the practical reason, for which no parallel
could be found in the mathematical intuitions with which
Clarke compares them.
Thus, on the whole, the impressive earnestness with
which Clarke enforced the doctrine of rational morality only /
rendered more manifest the difficulty of establishing ethics
on an independent philosophical basis ; so long at least as
the psychological egoism of Hobbes was not definitely
assailed and overthrown. Until this was done, the utmost
demonstration of the abstract reasonableness of social duty
only leaves us with an irreconcilable antagonism between
the view of abstract reason and the self-love which is allowed
to be normal in man's appetitive nature. Let us grant that
there is as much intellectual absurdity in acting unjustly as in
denying that two and two make four ; still, if a man has to
choose between absurdity and unhappiness, he will naturally
prefer the former ; and Clarke, as we have seen, is not really
prepared to maintain that such preference is irrational^
6. It remains to adopt another line of reasoning ; instead
bury teS " of presenting the principle of social duty as abstract reason,
(1671- liable to conflict to any extent with natural self-love, we
1713 may try to exhibit the naturalness of man's social affections,
and demonstrate a normal harmony between these and his
reflective self-regard. This is the line of thought which
Shaftesbury may be said to have initiated. Not, of course,
iv. SHAFTESBURY 181
that he is original in insisting on the actual fact of natural
affections binding men to their fellows ; Cumberland, to say
nothing of earlier writers, had dwelt on this at some length ;
and Clarke had used it to supplement his exposition of the
abstract reasonableness of universal benevolence. But no
moralist before Shaftesbury had made this the cardinal
point in his system ; no one had transferred if I may so f\
say the centre of ethical interest from the Reason, con-
ceived as apprehending either abstract moral distinctions or
laws of divine legislation, to the emotional impulses that
jprompt J:o jgyrifl) ^U^y J no one had undertaken to dis- J
tinguish clearly, by careful analysis of experience, the
disinterested and self-regarding elements of our appetitive
nature, or to prove inductively their, perfect harmony. In
his Inquiry concerning Virtue and Merit (lyn) 1 he begins
by attacking the egoistic interpretation of good which
Hobbes had put forward, and which, as we have seen, was
not necessarily excluded by the doctrine of rational in-
tuitions of duty. This interpretation, he says, would be
only true if we considered man as a wholly unrelated
individual. Such a being we might doubtless call " good,"
if his impulses and dispositions were harmonised and
adapted to the attainment of his own felicity. 2 But' man
1 The treatise was printed first in 1699; but its influence must be
dated from its republication in the second volume of the Characteristics,
which appeared in 1711.
2 In the greater part of his argument Shaftesbury interprets the
"good" of the individual hedonistically, as equivalent to pleasure,
satisfaction, delight, enjoyment. But it is to be observed that the con-
ception of "Good" with which he begins is not definitely hedonistic;
"interest or good" is at first taken to mean the "right state of a
creature," that "is by nature forwarded and by himself affectionately
sought;" and in one passage he seems to conceive of a "planetary
system" as having an end or good. Still, when the application of
1 82 MODERN ENGLISH ETHICS CHAP.
we must and do consider in relation to a larger system of
which he forms a part, and so we only call him " good "
when his impulses and dispositions are so graduated and
balanced as to tend towards the good of this whole. And
observe, he adds, we do not attribute goodness to him
merely because his outward acts have this tendency ; when
we speak of a man as good, we mean that his dispositions
or affections are such as tend of themselves, without external
constraint, to promote the good or happiness of human
society. Hobbes's moral man, who, if let loose from
, governmental control, would straightway spread ruin among
: his fellows, is not what we commonly agree to call good.
Goodness, then, in a " sensible creature " implies primarily
disinterested affections, whose direct object is the good of
others; but Shaftesbury does not hold that such benevolent
social impulses are always good, and that no other impulses
are necessary to constitute a creature good. On the con-
trary, he is careful to point out how particular benevolent
affections e.g., pity or parental love may be so "over-great"
as to detract from the force and natural operation of other
kind affections, and even so excessive as to defeat them-
selves and miss the attainment of their own ends; and
how, again, a deficiency in the affections that tend to
the preservation of the individual may be injurious to
the species, and therefore vicious. Goodness, in short,
depends upon the co-existence of impulses of both kinds,
each in its proper measure relatively to the rest, so as
the term is narrowed to human beings, he slides almost unconsciously
into a purely hedonistic interpretation of it. Indeed, he defines
Philosophy itself as "the study of happiness" (Moralists, Part III.
3). I may add that he never, so far as I know, recognises any possi-
bility of conflict between the good or happiness of the human species,
and the good of the " system of the universe."
iv. SHAFTESBURY 183
to maintain a just proportionment, balance, and harmony
of the different elements tendency to promote the good of
mankind being taken as the criterion of the right degrees
and proportions. This being established, the main aim of
Shaftesbury's argument is to prove that in human beings
trie~same balance and blending of private and social affec- X
tions, which tends naturally to public good, is also con-
ducive to the happiness of the indivividual in whom it exists.
He distinguishes three classes of impulses: (i) "natural
affections," which he defines to be " such as are founded in
love, complacency, goodwill, and sympathy with the kind ;"
(2) " Self-affections," which include love of life, resentment
of injury, bodily appetite, interest or " desire of those conveni-
ences by w^ich we are well provided for and maintained,"
emulation or love of praise, indolence or love of ease and
rest; and (3) "unnatural affections," under which head
come not only all malevolent impulses except resentment,
but also impulses due to superstition, barbarous custom,
depraved appetite, and even certain "self-passions," when
exorbitant and monstrous in degree. 1 Taking the first class,
he dwells on their importance as sources of happiness to the
individual who experiences them ; pleasures of mind being
superior to those of body, and the exercise of benevolent
affections yielding the richest harvest of mental satisfaction,
in (i) the pleasurableness of the benevolent emotion itself,
(2) the sympathetic enjoyment of the happiness of others,
and (3) the pleasure arising from a consciousness of their
love and esteem. He points out what a large place the
1 The terminology of the classification is not altogether defensible,
as according to Shaftesbury's own view the "self-affections" were as
"natural" as the social affections : the latter, however, may be said to
be in a special sense " natural " as directed towards nature's largest end,
the good of the species or kind.
1 84 MODERN ENGLISH ETHICS CHAP.
social affections occupy in human life, being indeed an
indispensable element even of what are vaguely thought
of as the sensual enjoyments of the voluptuary ; and
concludes that " to have these natural and good affections
in full strength is to have the chief means and power
of self-enjoyment; to want them is certain misery and
ill." Thus though to a superficial view these disinter-
ested impulses, aiming directly at others' good, lead a man
away from his own good, in reality they are found to lead
him to it. On the other hand, the " self-affections " or
"self-passions," which, as conceived by Shaftesbury, con-
stitute " self-love," appear to aim directly at the individual's
good ; but it is only if kept within strict limits that
they really promote it. To show this he dwells on the
painfulness of anger, the palpable loss of pleasure on the
whole through excessive indulgence of sensual appetites, the
restlessness and disquiet that attend covetousness and
immoderate love of praise, the mischief of various kinds
due to excessive sloth. Even love of life may exist in
excess and tend to the unhappiness of the creature that
indulges it. On the whole, therefore, he concludes, that
these self-passions or self-affections begin to be mischievous
to the individual just at the point of indulgence at which
they begin to be mischievous to society ; while up to this
point they are conducive both to public and private good.
He does not, however, attempt to prove the exact coinci-
dence of the two points by any close or cogent reasoning.
That the "unnatural affections "' should be excluded
altogether from a well-balanced mind is implied in the very
conception of them ; since they are defined as affections that
tend neither to public nor to private good. It may, however,
be urged that even purely malevolent desires (which he has
iv. SHAFTESBURY 185
chiefly in view here) carry a kind " of pleasure with them,"
so that where they are strong, their satisfaction would seem
to constitute an element of the individual's happiness
that ought to be taken into account. But this Shaftesbury
regards as an illusion. " To love and to be kind," he says,
"... is itself original joy, depending on no preceding pain or
uneasiness ; and producing nothing but satisfaction merely.
On the other side, animosity, hatred, and bitterness is ori-
ginal misery and torment, producing no other pleasure or
satisfaction than as the unnatural desire is for the instant
satisfied by something which appeases it. How strong
soever this pleasure may appear, it only the more implies
the misery of the state that produces it." If we add to this
the painfulness of the consciousness of the ill-will of others,
it seems to him abundantly clear, that "to have these
horrid, monstrous, and unnatural affections is to be miser-
able in the highest degree : " and thus we are led to the
general conclusion that the same balance, order, economy
of affections which tends to the public good, tends also to
the good of the individual.
So far I have made no reference to the doctrine of a
" moral sense," which is sometimes represented as Shaftes-
'bury^'cardinal tenet; but in fact this doctrine, though
characteristic and important, is not exactly necessary to his
main argument ; it is the crown rather than the keystone
of his ethical structure. Even a man who had no moral
sense would, in Shaftesbury's view, always find it his interest
to maintain in himself precisely that balance of social and
self-regarding affections that is most conducive to the good
of the human species : and such a being, if he existed,
might properly be said to have "goodness," though not
virtue. But such a man, Shaftesbury holds, is not really to
186 MODERN ENGLISH ETHICS CHAP.
be found. In a " rational creature," not only "the outward
beings that offer themselves to the sense are objects of
affection ; but the very actions themselves, and the affections
of pity, kindness, gratitude, and their contrarys, being
brought before the mind by reflection, become objects." So
that, by means of this reflected sense, there arises another kind
of affection towards the very affections 1 themselves ; a love-of
goodness for its own sake and on account of its own natural
beauty and worth, and aversion to its opposite. It is im-
possible, he thinks, to conceive a rational creature entirely
devoid of this moral or "reflex" sensibility, which accord-
ingly furnishes an additional impulse to good conduct by
which any deficiency in the balance of social and self-
regarding affections may be supplemented and corrected
and an additional gratification to be taken into account in
the reckoning which proves the coincidence of private and
public good. For the operation of the moral sense, when
uncorrupted, is conceived by Shaftesbury to be always in
harmony with rational judgment as to what is or is not
conducive to the good of the human species, though it does
not necessarily involve the explicit formation of such a
judgment ; and he holds that " no speculative opinion is
capable immediately and directly to exclude or destroy it."
It may, however, be to a great extent lost by " custom or
licentiousness of practice : " and it may, in time, be pro-
foundly perverted by a false religion that prescribes honour
and esteem of a deity with immoral attributes.
The appearance of Shaftesbury's Characteristics marks
] Shaftesbury sometimes speaks of "affections and actions," some-
times of "affections" alone, as the proper objects of moral likings and
aversions ; his vie\v" being, I conceive, that it is not the outward act in
itself that arouses moral sensibility, but the act as a manifestation of
sentiment.
iv. MANDEVILLE 187
a turning-point in the history of English ethical thought.
With the generation of moralists that followed, the considera-
tion of abstract rational principles falls into the background,
and its place is taken by introspective study of the human
mind, observation of the play of the various impulses and
sentiments. This empirical psychology had not indeed
been neglected by previous writers. More, among others,
had imitated Descartes in a discussion of the passions, and
Locke's essay had given a still stronger impulse in the same
direction ; still, Shaftesbury is the first moralist who dis-
tinctly takes psychological experience as the basis of ethics. )
His suggestions were developed by Hutcheson into one of
the most elaborate systems of moral philosophy which we
possess ; and through Hutcheson, if not directly, they in-
fluenced Hume's speculations, and are thus connected with
later utilitarianism. Moreover, the substance of Shaftes-
bury's main argument was adopted by Butler, though it
could not pass the scrutiny of that powerful and cautious
intellect without receiving important modifications and
additions. On the other hand, the ethical optimism of
Shaftesbury, being rather broadly impressive than exactly
reasoned, and being connected with a natural theology that
implied the Christian scheme to be superfluous and hinted
it to be worse challenged attack equally from orthodox
divines and from infidel pessimists. Of these latter Mande- Mande-
ville, the author of The Fable of the Bees, or Private Vices vllle *
Public Benefits (1724), was a conspicuous if not -a typical
specimen. He can hardly be called a " moralist ; " and
though it is impossible to deny him a considerable share of
philosophical penetration, his anti-moral paradoxes have not
even apparent coherence. He is convinced that virtue
(where it is more than a mere pretence) is purely artificial ;
1 88 MODERN ENGLISH ETHICS CHAP.
but he is not quite certain whether it is a useless trammel of
appetites and passions that are advantageous to society, or
a device creditable to the politicians who introduced it by
playing upon the " pride and vanity " of the " silly creature
man." The view, however, to which he gave eccentric
expression, that moral regulation is something alien to the
natural man and imposed on him from without, seems to
have been very current in the polite society of his time, as
we learn both from Berkeley's Alciphron and from Butler's
, more famous sermons.
Outkr^) The view of " human nature " against which Butler
preached was not exactly Mandeville's, nor was it properly
to be called Hobbist, although Butler fairly treats it as
having a philosophical basis in Hobbes's psychology. It
was, so to say, Hobbism turned inside out, rendered licen-
tious and anarchical instead of constructive. Hobbes had
said, " the natural state of man is non-moral, unregulated ;
moral rules are means to the end of peace, which is a means
to the end of self-preservation." On this view morality,
so far as Hobbes deals with it, though conventional and
dependent for its actuality on the social compact which
establishes government, is actually binding on man as a rea-
sonable being. But the quasi-theistic assumption that what
is natural must be reasonable remained in the minds of
Hobbes's most docile readers ; and in combination with his
new thesis that unrestrained egoism is natural, tended to
produce results which, though not perhaps practically sub-
versive of peace, were at any rate dangerous to social well-
being. To meet this view Butler does not content himself,
as he is sometimes carelessly supposed to do, with simply
insisting on the natural claim to authority of the conscience
which his opponent repudiated as artificial ; he also uses a
iv. BUTLER 189
more subtle and effective argument ad hominem. He first
follows Shaftesbury in exhibiting the social affections as no
less natural than the appetites and desires which tend more
directly to self-preservation ; then going further and reviving
the Stoic view of the prima naturce, the first objects of
natural appetites, he argues thatVpleasiirc is not the primary
aim even of the impulsejTVvhich Shaftesbury allowed to be
" self-affections ;" but ratner a result which follows upon
their attaining their natural ends. We have, in fact, to dis-
tinguish Self-love, the " general desire that every man hath
of his own happiness^er-pleasure, from the particular affec
tions, passions, an(( appetite) directed to externa^ objects
which are " necessarily presupposed " in " the very idea of
an interested pursuit ;" since there would be no pleasure
for self-love to aim at, if there were not pre-existing desires
directed towards objects other than pleasure, in the satis-
faction of which pleasure consists. Thus, e.g., the object i
of hunger is the eating of food, not the pleasure of eating it ; \
hunger is, therefore, strictly speaking, no more " interested "
than benevolence; granting that sensual pleasures are an
element in the happiness at which self-love aims, the same
at least may be said for the pleasures of love and sympathy.
Further, so far from bodily appetites (or other particular *
desires) being forms of self-love, there is no one of them
which under certain circumstances may not come into con-
flict with it. Indeed, it is common enough for men to
sacrifice to passion what they know to be their true interests ;
at the same time we do not consider such conduct " natural"
in man as a rational being ; we rather regard it as natural
for him to govern his transient impulses. Thus the notion
of natural unregulated egoism turns out to be a psychological
chimaera; for (i) man's primary impulses cannot be sweep-
190 MODERN ENGLISH ETHICS CHAP.
ingly called egoistic in any sense, since the objects of all are
other .than his own happiness, and the tendencies of some
are as obviously social in the first instance as those of
others are self-regarding ; and (2) a man cannot be con-
sistently egoistic without being^ continually self-regulative.
Indeed, we may sag^hat an egoist must be doubly self-
regulative, since rational self-love ought to restrain not only
other impulses, but itself also ; for as happiness is made up
of feelings that result from the satisfaction of impulses other
than self-love, any over- development of the latter, enfeebling
these other impulses, must proportionally diminish the hap-
piness at which self-love aims.
Human nature, on its practical side, then, in Butler's
view: more distinctly and explicitly than in Shaftesbury's
> is conceived to be not merely a system of impulses, in
which a certain balance and harmony has to be maintained
in order that it may be in a good condition, but a system in"
which some springs of action are naturally governing and
regulative, while others are naturally submissive to regula-
tion. As regards the latter, Butler maintains with Shaftes-
bury that allfimpulsej which can properly be called natural
all which belong to the original plan and constitution of
human nature have a certain legitimate sphere of operation.
This is true even of the impulses to inflict harm; among
which he distinguishes (i) merely instinctive resentment,
which he regards as a useful aid to self-defence against
sudden mischief, however caused, from (2) deliberate resent-
ment, of which the proper object is wrong and injustice as
distinct from mere harm. When properly limited such de-
- liberate resentment is an impulse socially useful, and even
indispensable for the effective administration of Justice ; for
though " it were much to be wished " that men would pro-
iv. BUTLER 191
secute offenders from "reason and cool reflection," experience
shows that they will not. " Resentment being out of the
case, there is not, properly speaking, any such thing as
direct ill-will in one man towards another;" e.g., envy is
merely desire of superiority taking a bad means to its end.
In short, all our natural appetites, passions, and affections,
however distinct, in their immediate ends, from Self-love
and Benevolence, have within due limits a tendency to
promote both public and private good ; though one set of
them, including the bodily appetites, tend primarily to the
good of the individual; while others, such as "desire of
esteem, love of society as distinct from affection to the good
of it, indignation against successful vice," tend primarily to
public good.
So much for the natural springs of action that need
regulation. It is more difficult to ascertain Butler's view of
the naturally regulative principles. The language of his
first sermon would rather suggest that there are three such
principles $lloye, Benevolence, and Conscience; the
two former being subordinately"regulative of the two groups
of impulses that respectively have a primary tendency to
private and to public good ; while conscience is supremely
regulative over all. But on looking closer at Butler's
language it will be seen that what he contemplate? under
the notion of benevolence is not definitely a desire for
general good as such, but rather kind affection for particular
individuals "if there is in mankind any disposition to
friendship; if there be any such thing as compassion, as
the paternal or filial affections ; if there be any affection in
human nature, the object and end of which is the good of
another, this is benevolence." Possibly he doubted the
existence of public benevolence, or regard to the happiness
192 MODERN ENGLISH ETHICS CHAP.
of mankind in general, as distinct on the one hand from
particular kind affections, and on the other hand from con-
science ; certainly, at the time of writing the sermons, he
has not definitely abandoned the view of Shaftesbury that
the good or happiness of society as a whole is the ultimate
end of conduct approved by conscience "that mankind
is a community," he says, " that we all stand in a relation
to each other, that there is a public end and interest of
society which each particular is obliged to promote, is the
sum of morals." 1 At any rate he does not distinctly recog-
nise a calm regard for general happiness as a normal
governing principle, parallel to the calm regard for private
happiness which he calls self-love.
There remain, then, Conscience and Self-love as the
two authorities in the polity of the soul. With regard to
these it is by no means Butler's view (as is very commonly
supposed) that Self-love is naturally subordinate to con-
science at least if we consider the theoretical rather than
the practical relation between the two. He treats them as
independent principles, and so far co-ordinate in authority
that it is not " according to nature " that either should be
overruled. "Reasonable self-love and conscience are the
chief or superior principles in the nature of man ; because
an action may be suitable to this nature, though all other
principles be violated ; but becomes unsuitable if either of
those are." 2 He even goes so far as to "let it be allowed"
that "if there ever should be, as it is impossible there ever
should be, any inconsistence between them," conscience
would have to give way ; since " our ideas of happiness and
misery are of all our ideas the nearest and most important
to us ... though virtue or moral rectitude does indeed
1 Sermon IX. 2 At the end of Sermon III.
BUTLER
consist in affection to and pursuit of what is right and good
as such; yet, when we sit down in a cool hour, we can
neither justify to ourselves this or any other pursuit, till we
are convinced that it will be for our happiness, or at least
not contrary to it." 1 Thatythe ultimate appeal must be to
the individual's interest/was similarly assumed in Shaftes-
bury's argument, though it is not formally stated by him ;
notwithstanding all his emphasis on the disinterested im-
pulses to^Virtuj^ still, when he raises the question, " What
obligation there is to Virtue, or what reason to embrace it,"
it never occurs to him to answer them from any other than
an egoistic point of view ; his " obligation " is the obligation
of self-interest ; his "jreasons " are entirely addressed to self-
love. Butler, however, considers that his own view corrects
Shaftesbury's by taking due note of the authority of con-
science ; and that this correction is fundamentally important
to meet the case of a " sceptic not convinced of the happy
tendency of virtue " in this world. He thinks that if the
natural authoritativeness of conscience is recognised, even
such a sceptic cannot reasonably doubt that duty is to./'
be preferred to worldly interest independently of the
sanctions of revealed religion ; since the dictates of con-
science are clear and certain, while the calculations of
self-interest lead to merely probable conclusions ; and where
two authorities conflict "the more certain obligation must
entirely supersede and destroy the less certain."
Butler's ethical construction, then, is based upon what
we may call a guarded optimism : it is reasonable, he holds,
to assume that the two inner authorities under which we
find ourselves placed by nature are harmonious, not con-
flicting, until proof to the contrary is given ; and it is
1 Last paragraph but two of Sermon XI.
o
I(J
!s
194 MODERN ENGLISH ETHICS CHAP.
impossible that such proof should be given owing to the in-
evitable uncertainty of egoistic calculation. It may be
added that a further psychological reason for anticipating
the ultimate coincidence of Virtue with the Happiness of
the virtuous agent is found by him in the " discernment of
good and ill desert," which by an " unquestionable natural
association" accompanies our discernment of moral good
and evil.
Butler's express statement of the duality of the regulative
principles in human nature constitutes an important step in
ethical speculation ; since it brings into clear view the most
fundamental difference between the ethical thought of
modern England and that of the old Greco-Roman world
a difference all the more striking because Butler's general
formula of "living according to nature" is taken froni
Stoicism, and his view of human nature as an ordered
polity of impulses is distinctly Platonic. But in Platonism
and Stoicism, and in Greek moral philosophy generally, but
one regulative and governing faculty is recognised under
the name of Reason however the regulation of Reason
may be understood; in the modern ethical view, when it
worked itself clear, there are found to be two Univer-
Reason and Egoistic Reason, or Conscience and Self-
love. This dualism, as has been noticed, appears confusedly
in Clarke's account of " reasonable " conduct, and implicitly
in Shaftesbury's account of the obligation to Virtue ; but
its clear recognition by Butler is perhaps most nearly anti-
\Wollaston cipated in Wollaston's Religion of Nature Delineated '(1722).
iTs^T Here, for the first time, we find "moral good " and " natural
good "or " happiness " treated separately as two essentially
distinct objects of rational pursuit and investigation ; the
harmony between them being regarded as matter of religious
iv. BUTLER 195
faith, not moral knowledge. Wollaston's theory of moral
evil as consisting in the practical contradiction of a true
proposition, closely resembles the most paradoxical part of
darkens doctrine, and was not likely to approve itself to the
strong common sense of Butler; but his statement of hap-
piness or pleasure as a "justly desirable" end at which
every rational being " ought " to aim corresponds exactly to
Butler's conception of self-love as a naturally governing
Impulse ; while the " moral arithmetic " with which he
compares pleasures and pains, and endeavours to make
thtrnotion of happiness quantitatively precise, is an antici-
pation of Benthamism.
If we ask for a justification of the dual authority of Con-
science and Reasonable Self-love beyond the mere fact
of their natural claims to authority we turn to an aspect
of Butler's thought which is but imperfectly developed or
disclosed. As regards the reasonableness of self-love,
indeed, he scarcely recognises the need of any explanation :
he merely remarks that it " belongs to man as a reasonable
creature, reflecting on his own interest or happiness," to
make that happiness an ultimate end ; and that, therefore,
"interest, one's own happiness, is a manifest obligation."
^ The reasonableness of conscience -is a different matter: here
he has before him the work of such moralists as Clarke, who
had endeavoured elaborately to exhibit moral principles as
rational intuitions or axioms, analogous to the intuitions or
axioms of mathematics : and this line of reasoning Butler
admits as valid, though he "does not adopt it. He agrees
with Clarke that " there is a moral fitness and unfitness in
actions, prior to all will, which determines the Divine Con-
duct ; " that " moral duties arise out of the nature of the
case," and " moral precepts are precepts of which we see
I9 6 MODERN ENGLISH ETHICS CHAP.
the reason ; " so that " vice is contrary to the nature jmd
reason of things" in a sense quite different from that in
which it is " a violation and breaking in upon our own
nature." Still, he never makes any attempt to exhibit this
abstract reasonableness in the moral rules to which he refers :
(his method is to ascertain by psychological reflection what
dictates conscience lays down, not to reduce these -dictates
[to self-evident intuitions or moral axioms. This method
leads him ultimately to recognise a marked divergence -
between the directions of the moral faculty and the con-
clusions to which we should be led by a simple considera-
tion of what is most conducive to general happiness. It is
interesting, indeed, to find^iri the- development of Butler's
ethical view, the beginnings of the controversy between
" intuitional " and " utilitarian " morality which has filled so
large a space in more recent ethical discussion^ The anti-
thesis is quite latent in earlier writers ; Clarke finds himself^
in perfect agreement with Cumberland ; and . Shaftesbury
conceives the moral sense, in a normal state, as approving
immediately actions seen to be conducive to the good or
happiness of the species. And in the passage above quoted
from Butler's ninth sermon (" Upon Forgiveness of Injuries")
the divergence between Conscience and Benevolence is
still ignored ; it is, however, suggested, but in a tentative
way, in a note to Sermon XII. (" Upon the Love of our
Neighbour ") ; but it is wry pvpiiVi+iy ^^ emphatically
stated in tll p "Hissprtntinn on Vjrfjjf appended to the
Analogy, published ten yeata after the sermons (1736).
He there affirms that " benevolence and the want of it.
singly considered, are in no sort the whole of virtue and
vice ; " for "we are constituted so as to condemn falsehood,
unprovoked violence, injustice, and to approve of bene-
iv. HUTCHESON 197
volence to some preferably to others, abstracted from all
consideration which conduct is likeliest to produce an over-
balance of happiness or misery." He even characterises
the opposite opinion as a " mistake, than which none can
be conceived more terrible. For it is certain that some of
the most shocking instances of injustice, adultery, murder,
perjury, and even of persecution, may, in many supposable
cases, not have the appearance of being likely to produce
an overbalance of misery in the present state; perhaps
sometimes may have the contrary appearance."
Butler is not certain that any author has designed to assert 3.
that complete coincidence between Virtue and Benevolence Shaftes-
bury s
which he controverts in the passages above quoted ; but he doctrine
thinks that " some of great and distinguished merit
expressed themselves in a manner which may occasion tematised.
some danger to careless readers " of falling into the terrible
mistake that he signalises. Probably we may assume
Shaftesbury to be one of the authors here referred
almost certainly we may assume another to be Hutcheson Hutchesor
who in his Inquiry Concerning the Original of otir Ideas
Virtue had definitely identified virtue with benevolence.
The identification is slightly qualified in Hutcheson's pos-
thumously published System of Moral Philosophy (1755);
in which the general view of Shaftesbury is more fully
developed, with several new psychological distinctions ; in-
cluding the separation of "calm " benevolence as well as,
after Butler, "calm self-love" from the "turbulent" passions,
selfish or social. Hutcheson also follows Butler in laying
stress on the " regulating and controlling function " of the
moral sense ; but he still regards " kind affections " * as the
1 Butler, on the other hand, defines the object of the moral faculty
as " actions " including intentions and tendencies to act as distinct
from mere passive feelings, so far as these are out of our power.
198 MODERN ENGLISH ETHICS CHAP.
jprir]r.i|}gj^r)hject_of_ moral approbation- the "calm" and
" extensive " affections being preferred to the turbulent and
narrow. The most excellent disposition, he holds, which
" naturally gains the highest approbation" v& either the " calm,
stable, universal goodwill to all" by which a man is de-
termined to " desire the highest happiness of the greatest
possible system of sensitive beings," or the desire and love
of moral excellence, which in man is inseparable from the
universal goodwill that it chiefly approves. These two
principles cannot conflict, and therefore there is no practical
need of determining which is highest : Hutcheson is dis-
posed to treat them as co-ordinate. Only in a secondary
sense is approval due to certain " abilities and dispositions
immediately connected with virtuous affections," as candour,
veracity, fortitude, sense of honour ; while in a lower grade
still are placed sciences and arts, along with even bodily
skills and gifts ; indeed, the approbation we give to these
is not strictly moral, but is referred to the " sense of decency
or dignity," which (as well as the sense of honour) is to
be distinguished from the moral sense. Calm...,sltlove
Hutcheson regards as not in itself an object either of moral
approbation or disapprobation; the "actions which flow
solely from self-love, and yet evidence no want of bene-
volence, having no hurtful effects upon others, seem per-
fectly indifferent in a moral- sense:" at the same time he
enters into a careful analysis of the elements of happiness, 1
in order to show that a true regard for private interest al-
ways coincides with the moral sense and with benevolence.
1 It is worth noticing that Hutcheson's express definition of the
object of self-love includes " perfection" as well as " happiness ;" but
in the working out of his system he considers private good exclusively
as happiness or pleasure
iv. HUTCHESON 199
/ Whikj-hlIS^immtaining Shgftesfru.ry's "harmony" h^wppn
public and private ffoad. Kutcheson is still more careful
establish the strict disinterestedness of benevolent aflfertjfl
Shaftesbury had conclusively shown that these were not in
the'' vulgar sense selfish ; but the very stress which he lays
on the pleasure inseparable from their exercise suggests a
subtle egoistic theory which he does not expressly exclude,
since it may be said that this " intrinsic reward " constitutes
ihe real motive of the Benevolent man. To this Hutcheson
replies that no doubt the exquisite delight of the emotion
of love is 'a motive to sustain and develop it ; but this
pleasure cannot be directly obtained, any more than other
pleasures, by merely desiring it ; it can only be sought by
the indirect process of cultivating and indulging the dis-
interested desire for others' good, which is thus shown to be
distinct from the desire for the pleasure of benevolence,X
He points to the fact that the imminence of death often
intensifies instead of diminishing a man's desire for the
welfare of those he loves, as a -crucial experiment proving
thb disinterestedness of love< adding, as confirmatory
evidence^hat the sympathy and admiration commonly
felt for sel^sacrifice depends ori th,& belief that it is some-
thing different from refined self-seeking./
It remains to-' colder how, from the doctrine that
affection is the .proper object of approbation, we are to
deduce mora^ rules S>r " natural laws " prescribing or pro-
hibitirig outward acts. It is obvious that all actions
conmicive 'to the. general good will deserve our highest
approbation if dorie from disinterested benevolence ; but
Tjjow if they are not so done, ?j In. answering this question,
Hutcheson avails-, himself of a- scholastic distinction be-
tween " material " and " formal " goodness. " An action,"
200 MODERN ENGLISH ETHICS CHAP.
he says, "is materially good when in fact it tends to the .
interest of the system, so far as we can judge of its tendency,
or to the good of some part consistent with that of the
system, whatever were the affections of the agent. An
action is formally good when it flowed from good affection
in a just proportion." On the pivot of this distinction
Hutcheson turns round from the point of view of Shaftes-
bury to that of later utilitarianism. As regards goodness of
actions, he adopts explicitly and unreservedly the formula
afterwards taken as fundamental by Bentham ; holding that
" that action is best which procures the greatest happiness for
the greatest numbers, and the worst which in a like manner
, occasions misery." Accordingly his treatment of external
; rights and duties, though decidedly inferior in methodical
clearness and precision, does not differ fundamentally from
that of Paley or Bentham ; only he lays greater stress on
the immediate conduciveness of actions to the happiness
of individuals, and more often refers in a merely supple-
mentary or restrictive way to their tendencies in respect of
general happiness. It may be noticed, too, that he still
accepts the " social compact " as the natural mode of con-
stituting government, and regards the obligations of subjects
to civil obedience as normally dependent on a tacit con-
tract; though he is careful to state that consent is not
absolutely necessary to the just establishment of beneficent
government, nor the source of irrevocable obligation to a
/ pernicious one.
~^\Morai An important step further in political utilitarianism was
anVsym- 5 taken by Hume in his Treatise on Human Nature (1739).
pathy. Hume concedes that compact or consent is the natural
Hume. . ., . .
(1711- means of peacefully instituting a new government, arid may
1776)- therefore be properly regarded as the ground of allegiance
iv. HUME 201
to it at the outset ; but he urges that, when once it is firmly
established, the duty of obeying it rests on precisely the
same combination of private and general interests as the
duty of keeping promises ; it is therefore absurd to base
the former on the latter. Justice, veracity, fidelity to com-
pacts and to governments, are all co-ordinate ; they are all
" artificial " virtues, due to civilisation, and not belonging
to man in his " ruder and more natural " condition ; our
approbation of all alike is founded on our perception of
their useful consequences. It is this last position that
constitutes the fundamental difference between Hutcheson's
ethical doctrine and Hume's. 1 The former, while accepting
1 Hume's ethical view was finally stated in his Inquiry into the
Principles of Morals (I7S 1 )? which is at once more popular and more
purely utilitarian than his earlier work. I think, however, that Hume's
view as to the origin of Justice cannot easily be understood from the later
treatise alone. In the Treatise on Human Nature he agrees broadly
with Hobbes as to the original connection of Justice with Self-interest,
and holds, like Hobbes, that its obligations are conditional on the exist-
ence of an established social order which it is the individual's interest to
maintain. Where he separates from Hobbes is, firstly, on the question
of the origin of this established order, he treats Hobbes's "state of
nature " as a philosophical fiction, holding that the observance of Justice
is not to be referred to an express compact, but to a gradually attained
convention similar in kind, by which Language and Currency must be^
conceived to have been brought about. Secondly, pistinguishing the
""moraj^ obTjgallon " Of Ihe "sentiment of right and wrong" from the
motwTTjFlselKmterest that originally prompted to the observance of
justice, he refers" tlie former to Sympathy, which makes injustice dis-l
please us even when it is too remote to affect our interests; and he I
regards this sympathy as a necessary stirrp 1 ^*"^ *^ gplf.Wprpgfr jn a i
[n the Inquiry, the original derivation of
Justice from Self-interest is not brought out : but I do not conceive that
Hume had discarded it, though he had doubtless come to attach more
importance to the operation of sympathy : since it is obvious that he
still regards the sphere of justice as limited by its conduciveness to self-
interest, he expressly says that we should not, properly speaking, lie
?fc> ^., 4 \ \ MODERN ENGLISH ETHICS CHAP.
' 7^ Cv'*".. '
utility as the criterion of " material goodness," had adhered
t^S^ftesbury's view thatfdisposijioTtfr, not results of action,
' were the -proper object of moral approval ; at the same time,
while giving to [benevolence the first place in his account of
personal merit, he had shrunk from the paradox of treating
it as the sole virtue, and had added a rather undefined and
unexplained train of qualities, veracity, fortitude, activity,
industry, sagacity, immediately approved in various degrees
by the " moral sense " or the " sense of dignity." / This
naturally suggested to a mind like Hume's, anxious to apply
the experimental method to psychology, the problem of
reducing these different elements of personal merit or
rather our approval of them to some common principle.
The old theory that referred this approval entirely tqfsejf-
lovejs, he holds, easy to disprove by "crucial experiments"
on the play of our moral sentiments ; rejecting this, he finds
the required explanation in the sympathetic pleasure that
attends our perception of the conduciveness of virtue to
the interests of human beings other than ourselves. He
endeavours to establish this inductively by a survey of the
qualities, commonly praised as virtues, which he finds to be
always^ejther useful or immediately agreeable, either (i) to
the virtuous agent himself or (2) to others. In class (2)
he includes, besides the Benevolence of Shaftesbury and
Hutcheson, the useful virtues, Justice, Veracity, and Fidelity
to compacts ; as well as such immediately agreeable qualities
as politeness, wit, modesty, and even cleanliness. The most
original part of his discussion, however, is concerned with
qualities immediately useful to their possessor. The most
cynical man of the world, he says, with whatever " sullen
under any restraint of justice with regard to rational beings so much
weaker than ourselves that we had no reason to fear their resentment.
iv. HUME ..
incredulity " he may repudiate virtue as a h<
cannot really refuse his approbation to " discret]
enterprise, industry, frugality, economy, good sense, ;
discernment;" nor again, to "temperance, sobriety, patience,
perseverance, considerateness, secrecy, order, insinuation,
address, presence of mind, quickness of conception, facility
of expression." It is evident that the merit of these quali-
ties in our eyes is chiefly due to our perception of their
tendency to serve the person possessed of them ; so that
the cynic in praising them is really exhibiting the unselfish
sympathy of which he doubts the existence. Hume admits
the difficulty that arises, especially in the case of the " arti-
ficial" virtues, such as justice, etc., from the undeniable fact
that we praise them and blame their opposites without con-
sciously reflecting on useful or pernicious consequences;
but considers that this may be explained as an effect of
"education and acquired habits." 1
So far the moral faculty has been considered as con-
templatiye j;ather than active ; and this, indeed, is the point
of view from which Hume mainly regards it. He does not
attempt, like Hutcheson, to develop a scheme of external
duties ; nor to determine the rank in moral worth of the
different qualities that moral sentiment approves. Indeed,
if we ask what the precise ( ^otivp^for virtuous conduct is,
Hume's answer does not seem quite_clear. In his earlier
treatise he denies the very existence in ordinary human
beings of the " calm, stable, universal goodwill " which
Hutcheson treats as the normally supreme motive. "In
1 Hume remarks that in some cases, by " association of ideas," the
rule by which we praise and blame is extended beyond the principle
of utility from which it arises ; but he allows much less scope to this
explanation in his second treatise than in his first.
204 MODERN ENGLISH ETHICS CHAP.
general, it may be affirmed that there is no such passion
in human minds as the love of mankind, merely as such,
independent of personal qualities, or services, or of relation
to oneself; 1 public benevolence, therefore, or a regard for
the interests of mankind, cannot be the original motive to
Justice." Nor does he expressly retract this view in his
later treatise ; but he speaks of moral approbation as derived
from "humanity and benevolence," and expressly recognised,
after Butler, that there is a strictly disinterested element in
our benevolent impulses (as also in hunger, thirst, love of
fame, and other passions). On the other hand, he does not
seern to think that moral sentiment or " taste " can " be-
come a motive to action," except as it " gives pleasure or
pain, and thereby constitutes happiness or misery." It is
difficult to make these views quite consistent; but at any
rate Hume emphatically maintains that ("reason) is no
__~ * ~ ~~~\^- ^^~^~
motive to action, ' except so far as it " directs The impulse
received from appetite or inclination ; " and recognises in
his later treatise at least no " obligation y to virtue, except
that of the agent's interest or happiness..
But even if we consider the moral consciousness merely
as a particular kind of pleasurable emotion, there is an obvi-
ous question suggested by Hume's theory, to which he gives
no adequate answer. If the essence of " moral taste " is
sympathy with the pleasure of others, why is not this specific
feeling excited by other things that tend to cause such pleasure
beside virtue ? On this point Hume contents himself with
the vague remark that " there are a numerous set of passions
and sentiments, of which thinking rational beings are by the
original constitution of nature the only proper objects."
The truth is, that Hume's notion of moral approbation was
1 Treatise on Human Nature, Part II. I.
iv. ADAM SMITH 205
very loose, as is sufficiently shown by the list of "useful and
agreikble " qualities which he considers worthy of approba-
tion; in which merely intellectual gifts are indiscrimi-
nately mixed with properly moral excellences. 1 It is
therefore hardly surprising thatfnis theory) should leave
the specific quality of the moral sentiments a fact still
needing to be explained. An original and ingenious solu-
tion of this problem was offered by his contemporary Adam
Smith, in his TheoriU)J--Mora1 L J$entiments (1759). Adam Adam
Smith does not deny the actuality or importance of that ( I723 _
sympathetic^leasure in the perceived or inferred effects of J 79o).
virtues and vices on which Hume laid stress. He does not,
however, think that the essential part of common moral
sentiment is constituted by this, but rather by a more
direct sympathy with the impulses that prompt to action
or expression^ The Spontaneous play of this sympathy
he treats as an original and inexplicable fact of human
nature ; but he considers that its action is powerfully sus-
tained by the pleasure that each man finds in the accord
of his feeling with another's. jBy jneans of this primary
element, compounded in various ways, Adam Smith explains
all the different phenomena of the moral consciousness.
He takes first the semi-moral notion of "propriety" or
"decorum," and endeavours to show inductively that our
application of this notion to the social behaviour of another
is determined by our degree of- sympathy with the feeling
1 In earlier editions of the Inquiry^ Hume expressly included all
approved qualities under the general notion of "virtue." In later
editions he avoided this strain on usage by substituting or adding
"merit" in several passages, allowing that some of the laudable
qualities which he mentions would be more commonly called " talents,"
but still maintaining that " there is little distinction made in our in-
ternal estimation " of " virtues " and " talents."
206 MODERN ENGLISH ETHICS CHAP.
expressed in such behaviour. " To approve of the passions
of another as suitable to their objects is the same thing as
to sympathise with them." Similarly we disapprove of
passion exhibited in a degree to which our sympathy cannot
reach; and even, too, when it falls short; since, as he
acutely points out, we often sympathise with the merely
imagined feelings of others, and are thus disappointed, when
we find the reality absent. Thus the prescriptions of good
taste in the expression of feeling may be summed up in the
principle, " reduce or raise the expression to that with which
spectators will sympathise." When the effort to restrain
feeling is exhibited in a degree which surprises as well as
pleases, it excites admiration as a virtue or excellence;"
such excellences Adam Smith quaintly calls the " awful and
respectable;" contrasting them with the "amiable virtues"
which we attribute to persons by whom the opposite effort to
sympathise is exhibited in a remarkable degree. From the
sentiments of propriety and admiration we proceed to the
sense of merit and demerit. Here a more complex pheno-
menon presents itself for analysis ; we have to distinguish in
the sense of merit (i) a direct sympathy with the sentiments of
the agent, and (2) an indirect sympathy with the gratitude of
those who receive the benefit of his actions. In the c^se of
demerit a direct antipathy to the feelings of the misdoer takes
the place of sympathy; but the chief part of the sentiment
excited is sympathy with the resentment of those injured by
the misdeed. The object of this sympathetic indignation,
impelling us to punish, is what we call injustice ; and thus
the remarkable stringency of the obligation to act justly is
explained, since the recognition of any action as unjust im-
plies that we approve of its being forcibly obstructed or
punished. To the obvious objection that we often approve
iv. ADAM SMITH 207
and disapprove without sympathising, it is replied that in
such cases we correct or supplement present feelings by the
general rules derived from preceding experience of our ordi-
nary sentiments. Similarly the received maxims to which -
we commonly appeal as recognised standards of judgment
are held to be formed by the concurrent and mutually con-
firmed sympathies of mankind generally. Moral judgments,
then, are expressions of the complex normal sympathy of an
impartial spectator with the active impulses that prompt to
and result from actions. When, however, such judgments
are passed on our own conduct, a further complication of
the fundamental element is required to explain them. What /I
we call our conscience is really sympathy with the feelings !
of an imaginary impartial spectator looking at our conduct. /
Such a spectator, it is true, would not have full means for
forming a judgment, but these we can supply in imagina-
tion; thus, "praise-worthy" (as distinguished from actually
praised) conduct may be defined as "that with which an
impartial and fully-informed spectator would sympathise."
The theories of Hume and Adam Smith taken together 10. Moral
anticipate the explanations of the origin of moral sentiments
which have been more recently current in the utilitarian ed by Asso-
school, so far as they lay stress on the general relation of the C1<
moral sense to sympathy; but both of them err in under-
rating the complexity of the moral sentiments, and in not
recognising that, however these sentiments may have origi-
nated, they are now, as introspectively examined, different
from mere sympathy with the feelings and impulses of
others ; they are compounds that cannot be directly analysed
into the simple element of sympathy, however complicated
and combined. In these respects both Hume's and Adam
Smith's methods of explanation compare unfavourably with
208 MODERN ENGLISH ETHICS CHAP.
that of Hartley, whose Observations on Man (1749) come
in time before Hume's Inquiry. Hartley's importance lies
mainly in his original and comprehensive application of the
laws of association of ideas to the explanation of all our
more complex and refined emotions ; he shows elaborately
how, by the repeated and combined effects of such associa-
tion, the pleasures and pains of "imagination, ambition,
self-interest, sympathy, theopathy, and the moral sense"
are developed out of the elementary pleasures and pains_of
sensation. He was not indeed the first among English
writers to draw attention to the importance of association in
modifying mental phenomena; some of its more striking
effects were noticed by Locke, and its operation was made
a cardinal point in the metaphysical doctrine of Hume ;
who also referred to the principle slightly in his account of
justice and other " artificial " virtues. And some years earlier,
Gay, 1 admitting Hutcheson's proof of the actual disinterested-
ness of moral and benevolent impulses, had maintained that
these (like the desires of knowledge or fame, the delight of
reading, hunting, and planting, etc.) were derived from self-
love by "the power of -association." But a thorough and
systematic application of the principle to ethical psychology is
first found in Hartley's work ; he also was the first definitely
to conceive association as producing, instead of mere cohesion
of mental phenomena, a quasi-chemical combination of these
into a compound apparently different from its elements.
His theory is primarily physiological, and assumes the com-
plete correspondence of mind and body ; he explains how
"compound vibratiuncles " in the "medullary substance"
are formed from the original vibrations that arise in the
organ of sense; and how, correspondingly, the repetition of
1 In an essay prefixed to Law's translation of King's Origin of 'Evil '(1731).
iv. HARTLEY 209
sensations, contemporaneously or in immediate succession,
tends to produce cohering groups of the " miniatures " or
traces of the original feelings, which coalesce into ideas and
emotions really complex but apparently simple and original.
Each of his six classes of pleasures and pains is both later
and more complex than those which precede it in the list,
being due to the combined operation of the preceding
classes ; accordingly, the pleasures of the moral sense, being
the latest, are of all the most complex. In the first stage of
their growth they consist mainly of the pleasing and displeas-
ing associations of the language which children hear applied to
virtues and vices respectively; with these are gradually blended
traces of the (non-moral) satisfactions derived by a man from
his own virtues and those of others ; sociality and bene-
volence, when they have been developed, add their quota ;
a further contribution is furnished by the aesthetic gratifica-
tion derived from " the great suitableness of all the virtues
to each other and to the beauty, order, and perfection of the
world;" again, from the hopes continually felt of rewards
hereafter for the performance of duty, ideal pleasure tends
to connect itself with the notion of duty without any express
recollection of these hopes ; finally, religious emotion adds
another element to the " general mixed pleasing idea and
consciousness" which arise in us when we reflect on our
own virtuous affections or actions. A similar blending of
pains causes the sense of guilt and anxiety that arises when
we reflect on our vices.
Hartley's sensationalism, however, is very far from lead-; I
ing him to exalt the corporeal pleasures; indeed, the fact |f
that they are, in his view, the foundation of all the rest is con-
sidered by him as an argument for their inferiority ; since
" that which is prior in the order of nature is always less
p
210 MODERN ENGLISH ETHICS CHAP.
perfect and principal than that which is posterior." Similarly
the inferiority of the pleasures of imagination, excited by
the beauties of nature and art, and by the sciences, is argued
from the fact that they are "in general the first of our in-
tellectual pleasures" and " manifestly intended to generate
and augment the higher orders." On the whole, he
concludes that no one aiming at his own greatest happi-
ness ought to make the sensible pleasures, or those of
imagination or ambition, the objects of his primary pursuit;
a fuller measure of those inferior pleasures will be attained
if they are regulated by the precepts of sympathy, piety, and
the moral sense. So far the argument in favour of religion
and morality seems to rest frankly on a basis of egoistic hed-
onism. But Hartley further maintains that even rational
self-interest, if made the primary object of pursuit, would
damp and extinguish the higher pleasures of the love of God
and our neighbour : its proper function in human develop-
ment is to put us on " begetting in ourselves the disposi-
tions of Benevolence, Piety, and the Moral Sense;" and our
ideal aim though probably unattainable in this life should
be to carry this subordination of self-interest further and
further till we arrive at "perfect self-annihilation and the
pure love of God;" so that reasonable self-love may receive
its fullest satisfaction by its own extinction. For the
pleasures of sympathy, theopathy, and the moral sense,
unlike the inferior kinds, may be pursued without danger
of excess and without mutual conflict. Piety and Rational
Benevolence mutually support each other : " it must be the
will of an infinitely benevolent being that we should culti-
vate universal unlimited benevolence;" on the other hand
" benevolence can never be free from partiality and selfish-
ness till we take our station in the Divine Nature and view
iv. HARTLEY 211
everything from thence." Again, the pleasures of sympathy
are " approved of and enforced entirely" by the moral sense,
of which they are one principal source.
So far Hartley's practical doctrine appears to be broadly
coincident with that of Shaftesbury or Hutcheson ; and he
expressly says that " benevolence being a primary pursuit,"
it follows that we are to " direct every action so as to pro-
duce the greatest happiness and the least misery in our
power ;" this is the " rule of social behaviour which universal
unlimited benevolence inculcates." But notwithstanding
his unhesitating acceptance of this rule, Hartley is very far
from anticipating the method of later utilitarianism. Owing
to the difficulties and perplexities that attend the calculation
of the consequences of our actions, we must, he thinks,
largely substitute for this general rule seyeral_others less
general ; such as (besides obedience to Scripture) regard to
our ownj-noral sense and that of others, and to our " natural
motions of goodwill, and compassion," preference of persons
in near relations to strangers, and of benevolent and religi-
ous persons to the rest of mankind, regard for veracity, and
obedience to the civil magistrate. These subordinate rules
are chiefly to direct us in deliberate acts ; while on sudden
emergencies, which exclude deliberation, the moral senti-
ments should be our guides. But what method of decision
is to be applied when any two or more of these maxims
conflict, as they are prima fade likely to do, Hartley does
not make clear ; he only suggests vaguely that they are to
"moderate and restrain," to "influence and interpret" one
another : nor does his derivation of the moral sense ap-
pear to afford adequate grounds for that confidence in its
utterances which he seems to feel.
On the whole we must say that, though Hartley is obvi-
212 MODERN ENGLISH ETHICS CHAP.
Psychology ously in earnest in his attempt to determine the rule of life,
and Ethics. ^ systematic vigour which still gives an interest to his
psychology, in spite of his defects of style and treatment,
is not applied by him to the question of the criterion or
standard of right conduct ; on this point his exposition is
blurred by a vague and shallow optimism that prevents
him from facing the difficulties of the problem. A some-
what similar inferiority appears in Adam Smith's work, when
he passes from psychological analysis to ethical construc-
tion. He takes care to assure us that the general rules of
morality impressed on us by the complicated play of sym-
pathy which he analyzes are "justly to be regarded as the
laws of the Deity;" but it can hardly be said that his theory
affords any cogent arguments for this conclusion, or in any
way establishes these rules as objectively valid. It would seem
that the intellectual energy of this period of English ethical
thought had a general tendency to take a psychological rather
than a strictly ethical turn. In Hume's case, indeed, the
absorption of ethics into psychology is sometimes so com-
plete as to lead him to a confusing use of language ; thus in
one or two passages he insists with apparent emphasis on
the "reality of moral obligation;" but a closer examination
shows that he means no more by this than the real existence
of the likes and dislikes that human beings feel for each
other's qualities. The fact was, that amid the observations
and analyses of feelings which were prominent in the line of
ethical thought initiated by Shajtesbury, the fundamental
questions "What is right" and "Why?" tended to drop
somewhat into the background not without manifest
danger to morality. For the binding force of moral rules
becomes evanescent if we admit as even Hutcheson
seems not unwilling to do that the "sense" of them
iv. LATER INTUITIONISM 213
may naturally vary from man to man as the palate does ;
and it is only another way of putting Hume's doctrine,
that reason is not concerned with the ends of action, '
to say that the mere existence of a moral sentiment is
in itself no reason for obeying it. A reaction, in one
form or another, against the tendency to dissolve ethics
into psychology was inevitable ; since men in general could
not be so far absorbed by the interest of psychological
hypotheses as to forget their need of establishing practical
principles. It was obvious, too, that this reaction might
take place in either of the two lines of thought, which,
having been peacefully allied in Clarke and Cumberland, -S
had become distinctly opposed to each other in Butler and
Hutcheson. It might either fall back on the moral prin-
ciples commonly accepted, and, affirming their objective
validity, endeavour to exhibit them as a coherent and
complete set of ultimate ethical truths ; or it might take ,
the utility or conduciveness to pleasure, to which Hume^
had referred for the origin of moral sentiments, as an ulti-
mate standard by which these sentiments might be judged
and corrected. The former is the line adopted with
substantial agreement by Price, Reid, Stewart, and other
members of the Intuitional school, still represented among
us by able writers ; the latter method, with considerably
more divergence of view and treatment, was employed
independently and almost simultaneously by Paley and
Bentham in both ethics and politics, and is at the present
time current under the name of Utilitarianism.
Price's Review of the Chief Questions and Difficulties of " Later
,, i i v 1 -, u r A j Intuition-
Morals was published in 1757, two years before Adami
Smith's treatise. In rpparHinpr mnral iHpqg ac rWiwH frOI
1723
the "intuition of truth or immediate discernment of the .1791).
214 MODERN ENGLISH ETHICS CHAP.
natuijof- things, by. th^ understanding," Price revives the
general view of the earlier school of rational moralists; but
with several specific differences which it is important to
notice. Firstly, his conception of "right" and "wrong"
as "single ideas" incapable of definition or analysis the
notions "right," "fit," "ought," "duty," " obligation," being
coincident or identical at least avoids the confusions into
which Clarke and Wollaston had been led by pressing the
analogy between ethical and mathematical or physical truth.
Secondly, the emotional element of the moral consciousness,
on which attention had been concentrated by Shaftesbury
and his followers, is henceforth distinctly recognised as^
accompanying the intellectual intuition, though it is care-
fully subordinated to it. While right and wrong, in Price's
view, are " real objective qualities " of actions, moral " beauty
and deformity " are subjective ideas ; representing feelings v
which are partly the necessary effects of the perceptions of
right and wrong in rational beings as such, partly due to
an " implanted sense " or varying emotional susceptibility.
Thus, both reason and sense or instinct co-operate in the }
impulse to virtuous conduct, though the rational element is
primary and paramount. Price further follows Butler in
expressly distinguishing the perception of merit and demerit
in agents, as another' accompaniment of the perception of
right and wrong in their actions; the former cognition,
however, is only a peculiar species of the latter, since, to
perceive merit in any one is to perceive that it is right to
reward him. He is careful to state, as Reid also is,
.that the merit of the agent depends entirely on the in- ]
tention_or "formal Tightness" of his act; a man is not
blameworthy for unintended evil, though he may of course
be blamed for any wilful neglect which has caused him
h&?
y
iv. PRICE 215
to be ignorant of his real duty. When we turn to the
subject matter of virtue, we find that Price, in compari-
son with More or Clarke, is decidedly laxer in accepting
and stating his ethical first principles ; chiefly because he
(like Reid and Stewart afterwardsMppeals to common sense
rathL_than abstract reason as the jmjg-e^oT moral evidence
Thus he maintains with Butler that gratitude, veracity, ful-/
filment of promises, and justice are obligatory independently
of their conduciveness to happiness; but he does not ex-
actly exhibit the self- evidence of the abstract proposition
"that truth ought to be spoken;" he rather argues, by an
inductive reference to common moral opinion, that "we
cannot avoid pronouncing that there is an intrinsic rectitude
in sincerity." Similarly in expounding justice, "that part
of virtue which regards property," he seems prepared to
accept en bloc as ultimate the traditional principles of Roman^
jurisprudence, which refer the right of property to "first |
possession, labour, succession, and donation." We must
bear in mind that Price's task is considerably more difficult
than that of the earlier rational moralists ; owing to the new
antithesis to the view of Shaftesbury and Hutcheson by
which his controversial position is complicated, so that he
is specially concerned to show the existence of ultimate
principles besides benevolence. Not that he repudiates the \
obligation either of rational benevolence or self-love ; on the
contrary, he takes more pains than Butler to demonstrate
the reasonableness of either principle. " There is not any-
thing," he says, "of which we have more undeniably an
intuitive perception, than that it is 'right to pursue and ]/
promote harjpiness,' whether for ourselves or for others."
Finally, Price, writing after the demonstration by Shaftes-
bury and Butler of the actuality of disinterested impulses
2l6
MODERN ENGLISH ETHICS
12.
Reic
[710-
1796).
in human nature, is bolder and clearer than Cudworth or
Clarke in insisting that right actions are to be chosen be-
cause they are right by virtuous agents as such, even going
so far as to lay down that an act loses its moral worth in
proportion as it is done from natural inclination.
On this latter point Reid, in his Essays on the Active
Powers of the Human Mind (17%$), states a conclusion more
in harmony with common sense, only maintaining thar*' no
act can be morally good in which regard for what is right
has not some influence.^ This is partly due to the fact that
Reid's moral psvxhologv is, more distinctly than Price's,
developed on the lines Jaid down bj^Butlgr. [With Butler
he recognises as fundamental the distinction between (i)
rational and governing principles of action, and (2) non-
rational impulses which need regulation, but yet, so far as
they are natural, have a legitimate sphere of operation, tend
to the good of the individual and of society, and are indeed
indispensable supplements to the rational principles in such
beings as men. Among these non-rational springs of action
he distinguishes from (i) " mechanical " instincts and habits,
that operate "without will, intention, or thought," those
(2) " animal 1 principles" which "operate upon the will and'
intention but do not suppose any exercise of judgment or
reason" in the determination of the ends towards which
they impel. The original animal principles in man he
classifies, with more precision than Butler, as (a) Appetites
distinguished as being " periodical and accompanied with
an uneasy sensation ; " (b) Desires (in the narrower sense),
of which the chief are desire of power or superiority, desire
1 The term is singular and infelicitous, since it is made to include
such affections as pity, public spirit, and " esteem for the wise and good,"
which we have no ground for attributing to brutes.
iv. REID 217
of esteem and desire of knowledge ; and (c) Affections or
emotions directed towards persons, both benevolent and
malevolent. The common characteristics of benevolent
affections are agreeable emotion and desire of good to
their objects ; similarly malevolent affections involve " vexa-
tion and disquiet " along with a desire to hurt ; still Reid
follows Butler in recognising the legitimacy and utility of
both sudden and deliberate resentment within their proper
sphere, as of all other original and natural impulses.
"Acquired desires," on the other hand, are generally "not
only useless, but hurtful and even disgraceful." Reid
follows Butler again in his acceptance of that duality of
"" *
governing principles which we have noticed as a cardinal
point in the latter's doctrine. He considers "regard for
one's good on the whole " (Butler's self-love) and " sense of
duty " (Butler's Conscience) as two psspntially rUstinrt anrt
C0-f?rf|inarp v rational 'principle though naturally often com-
prehended under the one term, Reason. The rationality of
the" fofeneTprinciple he takes pains to explain and establish ;
in opposition to Hume's doctrine that it is no part of the
function of reason to determine the ends which we ought to
pursue, or the preference due to one end over another. He
urges that the notion of *' good l on the whole)" is one which
only a reasoning being can form, involving as it does abstrac-
tion from the objects of all particular desires, and comparison
of past and future with present feelings ; and maintains that
it is a contradiction to suppose a rational being to have the
1 It is to be observed that whereas Price and Stewart (after Butler)
identify the object of self-love with happiness or pleasure, Reid con-
ceives this ' ' good " more vaguely as including perfection and happiness ;
though he sometimes uses "good" and happiness as convertible terms,
and seems practically to have the latter in view in all that he says of
self-love.
2i8 MODERN ENGLISH ETHICS CHAP.
notion of its Good on the Whole without a desire for it,
and that such a desire must naturally regulate all particular
appetites and passions. It cannot reasonably be subordinated
even to the moral faculty ; in fact, a man who doubts the
coincidence of the two which on religious grounds we must
believe to be complete in a morally governed world is re-
duced to the " miserable dilemma whether it js better to be
a fool or a knave." As regards the moral faculty itself,
Reid's statement coincides in the main with' Priced ; it is
both intellectual and active, not mereryV perceiving the
" lightness " or " moral obligation " of actions (which Reid
conceives as a simple unanalysable relation between act and
agent), but alscr impelling the will to the performance of
what is seen to be right. Both thinkers hold that this per-
ception of right and wrong in actions is accompanied by a
perception of merit and demerit in agents, and also by a
specific emotion ; but whereas Price conceives this emotion
chiefly as pleasure or pain, analogous to that produced in
the mind by physical beauty or deformity, Reid regards it
chiefly as benevolent affection, esteem, and sympathy (or
their opposites), for the virtuous (or vicious) agent. This
" pleasurable good-will," when the moral judgment relates to
a man's own actions, becomes " the testimony of a good con-
science the purest and most valuable of all human enjoy-
ments." Reid is careful to observe that this moral faculty
is not " innate " except in germ ; it__ stands in need of
" education, training, exercise (for which society is indis-
pensable), and habit," in order to the attainment of moral
truth. He does not with Price object to its being called
the " moral sense," provided we understand by this a source
not merely of feelings or notions, but of "ultimate truths."
Here he omits to notice the important question whether the
iv. REID 219
premises of moral reasoning are universal or individual
judgments ; as to which the use of the term " sense " seems
rather to suggest the second alternative. Indeed, he seems
himself quite undecided on this question ; since, though he
generally represents ethical method as deductive, he also
speaks of the "original judgment that this action is right
and that wrong."
The truth is that the construction of a scientific method
of ethics is a matter of no practical moment to Reid, since
he holds that, " in order to know what is right and what is
wrong in human conduct, we need only listen to the dictates '
of conscience^ when the mind is calm and unruffled." 1
Accordingly,\though he offers a list of first principles, by
deduction from which these common opinions may be con-
firmed, he does not present it with any claim to complete-
ness. J Besides maxims relating to virtue in general, such
as (i) that there is a right and wrong in conduct, but (2) only
in voluntary conduct, and that we ought (3) to take pains to
learn our duty, and (4) fortify ourselves against temptations
to deviate from it, Reid states five fundamental^axiomsA
The first of these is merely the principle of rationalselt )
love, " that we ought to prefer a greater to a lesser good,
though more distinct, and a less evil to a greater," the
mention of which seems rather inconsistent with Reid's
distinct separation of the "moral faculty" from "self-love."
The third is merely the general rule of benevolence stated f^\
in the somewhat vague and lax Stoical phrase, that " no one
is born for himself only." The fourth, again, is the merely
formal principle that "right and wrong must be the same to
1 He does, however, expressly recognise that the conscience of an I
individual may err, and holds that in this case he is morally right in
acting in accordance with his erroneous judgment.
220 MODERN ENGLISH ETHICS CHAP.
all in all circumstances," which belongs equally to all systems
of objective morality ; while the fifth prescribes the religious
duty of " veneration or submission to God." Thus, the only
principle which might not be equally well stated by Paley or
sfc. any religious utilitarian is the second (also Stoical), " that so
far as the intention of nature appears in the constitution of
man, we ought to act according to that intention," the
vagueness l of which becomes manifest as soon as we try to
apply it to practice.
'"It is obvious that these maxims, taken together, will
carry us but a little way towards methodising the dictates of
a plain man's conscience.^ Nor is their deficiency materially
supplemented by a discussion on Justice which Reid adds
in a subsequent chapter. He argues with more or less force
against Hume (i) that different kinds of injury to which
Justice is opposed injuries to person or family, restriction
of liberty, attacks on reputation, violation of contract
are perceived intuitively to be violations of natural rights,
without conscious reference to the public good ; and (2)
that though the right of property is "not innate but ac-
quired " it is a necessary consequence of the natural right
to life which implies a right to the means of life, and of
the natural right to liberty which implies a right to the
fruits of innocent labour. But he makes no effort to exhibit
clear and precise axioms of Justice, by which the determina-
tion of these rights in concrete cases may be decided, with-
out reference to public utility as an ultimate standard.
r A similar incompleteness in the statement of ethical
1 E.g. , Reid proposes to apply this principle in favour of monogamy,
arguing from the proportion of males and females born ; without ex-
plaining why, if the intention of nature hence inferred excludes occasional
polygamy, it does not also exclude occasional celibacy.
iv. STEWART 221
principles_js_found_ at least in the department of social 13-
duty 1 if we turn to the work of Reid's most ijnluenliaLdis- Stewart
ciple^JDu^ald^Stewart^ whose Philosophy of the Active and (*753-
Moral Powers of M~atf(iS28) contains the general view of
Butler and Reid, and tcx some extent of Price, expounded
with more systematic fulness and precision, with more grace
and finish of style, and withNsome minor improvements in
moral psychology, but without any important original addi-
tions or modifications. 2 TBiis^ e.g., while Stewart lays stress
or?ThT^bligatiorirof justice as distinct from benevolence,
his definition of justice represents it as essentially impar-
tiality, a virtue which (as was just now said of Reid's
fourth principle) must equally find a place in the utilitarian
or any other system that lays down universally applicable
rules of morality. Afterwards, no doubt, distinguishing
1 Stewart classifies duties under three heads, duties which respect
the Deity, duties which respect our fellow-creatures, and duties which
respect ourselves. Under the third head he discusses chiefly the internal
sources and conditions of happiness ; especially the influence on happi-
ness of temper, opinions, imagination, and habits.
2 Among these it may be noticed that Stewart corrects Reid by dis-
tinguishing emulation or the desire of superiority on the one hand from
the desire of power, and on the other hand from the malevolent affec-
tion of envy with which it is sometimes accompanied. Reid seems to
have confounded it alternately with one or other of these two distinct
impulses. Also, as I before noticed, he is more definite and consistent
than Reid in conceiving as "happiness" that "good on the whole" of
the individual which he takes to be the object of the "rational and
governing principle of action " which he consents after Butler to call
self-love though he offers some just criticism on the term. Also his
account of the moral faculty is, in style and treatment, decidedly superior
to Reid's : it is not, indeed, penetrating or profound ; but it is a lucid,
comprehensive, and judicious attempt to put together the elements of
truth in the views of preceding writers, including Shaftesbury and
Adam Smith, into a harmonious and coherent statement of the results
of impartial reflection on the moral consciousness.
222 MODERN ENGLISH ETHICS CHAP.
"integrity or honesty" as a branch of justice, he lays down
the moral axiom " that the labourer is entitled to the fruit
of his own labour" as the principle on which complete
rights of property are founded ; maintaining that occupancy
alone would only confer a transient right of possession
during use. But the only other principles which he dis-
cusses are veracity and fidelity to promises ; and in treating
of these what he chiefly aims at showing is that there is in
the human mind, independently of calculations of utility, a
natural and instinctive love of truth, a natural impulse to
sincerity in our mutual communications, and correspondingly
a natural faith in testimony and a natural expectation that
promises will be kept ; and that there is " something pleas-
ing and amiable " in veracity, and a recognised injustice in
bad faith, abstracting from all regard to ulterior conse-
quences. He does not attempt to state in either case a
/ - -^principle which is at once manifestly and absolutely binding,
ahd sufficiently precise to give^practical^uidance^__
OrT the whole, then, it must be said that neither Reid
ior Stewart, offers more than a very meagre and ten-
tative contribution to that ethical science by which, as
they maintain, the received rules of morality may be ration-
illy deduced from intuitive first principles. J^\ more am-
bitious, but hardly more successful, attempt in the same
direction was made by Whewell in his Elements of Morality
Ui846).\ Whewell's general moral view differs from that of
m^-Scotch predecessors chiefly in a point where we may
trace the influence of Kant viz.^Jn_Jiis_jJcliQji_o self-
1 Stewart seems to have been partly influenced by a desire to avoid
the "hackneyed topics of practical morality;" but it is difficult to see
how an ethical science which rests on common sense in the manner that
Reid's and Stewart's does can consistently affect this dignified contempt
of particulars.
iv. WHEWELL 223
lov__as an independent rational and governing principle,
and his consequent rejusa]jx)jidrmy^
duty, as a reasonable end for the individual. The moral
reason, tfmsleiFm sole supre~macy, is represented as enun-
ciating fiyejultimate principles, those of (benevolence) ,
justice, j'jTuth,^ purity,") and (^rder. } With a little straining
these are made to correspond to five chief divisions of Jus,
personal security (benevolence being opposed to the ill-
will that commonly causes personal injuries), property, con-
tract, marriage, and government ; while the first, second,
and fourth, again, regulate respectively the three chief classes
of human motives, affections, mental desires, and appetites.
Thus the list, with the addition of two general principles,
" earnestness" and "moral purpose," has a certain air of
systematic completeness. When, however, we look closer,
we find that the principle of order, or obedience to govern-
ment, is not seriously intended to imply the political ab-
solutism which it seems to express, and which English
common sense emphatically repudiates ; while the formula
of justice is given in the tautological or perfectly indefinite
proposition "that every man ought to have his own." Whe-
well, indeed, explains that this latter formula must be practi-
cally interpreted by positive law, though he inconsistently
speaks as if it supplied a standard for judging laws to be
right or wrong. The principle of purity, again, "that the
lower parts of our nature ought to be subject to the higher,"
merely particularises that supremacy of reason over non-
rational impulses which is involved in the very notion of
reasoned morality. Thus, in short, if we ask for
/ and definite fundamental intuition, distinct from regard
\ happiness, we find really nothing in Whe well's doctrine
incept the single rule of veracity (including fidelity to pro-
224 MODERN ENGLISH ETHICS CHAP.
mises); and even of this the axiomatic character becomes
evanescent on closer inspection, since it is not maintained
that the rule is practically unqualified, but only that it is
practically undesirable to formulate its qualifications.
It does not fall within the plan of this work to enter into
controversy with writers still living, who maintain a doctrine
of moral intuitions which, speaking broadly, may be affiliated
to that of Butler and Reid. But it must, I think, be
admitted that the doctrine of the intuitional school, down
to the middle of the present century, had been developed
with less care and consistency than might have been
expected, in its statement of the fundamental axioms or
Contro- intuitively known premises of moral reasoning. And if the
between controversy which this school conducted with utilitarianism
intuitional had turned principally on the determination of the matter
utilitarian f duty, there can be little doubt that it would have been
Schools. forced into more serious and systematic effort to define pre-
cisely and completely the principles and method on which
we are to reason deductively to particular rules of conduct. 1
But in fact the difference between intuitionists and utili-
tarians as to the method of determining the particulars of
the moral code was complicated with a more fundamental
disagreement as to the very meaning of "moral obligation."
This Paley and Bentham (after Locke) interpreted as-flaerefy
the effect on the will of the pleasures or pains attached to
1 We may observe that some recent writers, who would generally
be included in this school, avoid in different ways the difficulty of con-
structing a code of external conduct : e.g. , Dr. Martineau considers that
moral intuition is primarily concerned not with outward acts but with
the comparative excellence of conflicting motives ; others hold that
what is intuitively perceived is the Tightness or wrongness of individual
acts, a view which obviously renders ethical reasoning practically
superfluous.
iv. UTILITARIANISM 225
the observance or violation of moral rules, combining with
thisjjhe doctrine of Cumberland or Hutcheson, that " general
jjopoV/or '^happiness "; is the final enpVand standard of these
rules; while they eliminated all vagueness from the notion
of general happiness by denning it to consist in " excess of
pleasure over pain " pleasures and pains being regarded as
" differing in nothing but continuance or intensity." The
utilitarian system gained an attractive air of simplicity by
thus using a single apparently clear notion pleasure and its
negative quantity pain; to answer both the fundamental
questions of morals, "What is right?" and "Why should I
do it ?" But since there is no logical connection between \
the answers that have thus come to be considered as one
doctrine, this apparent unity and simplicity has really hidden 1
fundamental disagreements, and caused no little confusion \
in recent ethical debate.
The originality such as it is of Paley's system (as of 14. Utiii-
Bentham's) lies in its method of working out details rather tarianism -
than in its principles of construction. Paley expressly
acknowledges his obligations to the original and suggestive,
though diffuse and whimsical, work of Abraham Tucker Tucker.
(Light of Nature Pursued, 1768-74). In this treatise we
find "every man's own satisfaction" or, more strictly, the
"prospect or expectance of satisfaction" "the spring that
actuates all his motives," connected with "general good, the
root whereout all our rules of conduct and sentiments of
honour are to branch," by means of natural theology de-
monstrating the "unniggardly goodness of the author of
nature." Tucker recognises that new inclinations arise by
"translation," i.e., that we acquire a liking to things from their
having frequently promoted other desires ; in particular, that
the " moral senses " are thus formed, and also benevolence,
Q
226 MODERN ENGLISH ETHICS CHAP.
which he conceives as a " pleasure of benefiting," prompting
us to perform good offices because we like them. But it
remains true, he thinks, that a man's own happiness in the
sense of an aggregate of pleasures and satisfactions is the
ultimate end of his actions; and he is careful to explain that
satisfaction or pleasure is " one and the same in kind, how-
ever much it may vary in degree . . . whether a man is
pleased with hearing music, seeing prospects, tasting dainties,
performing laudable actions, or making agreeable reflec-
tions," and again that by "general good" he means "quan-
tity of happiness," to which " every pleasure that we do to
our neighbour is an addition." Here we have all the chief
characteristics of Paley's utilitarianism, (i) purely quan-
titative estimate of pleasure ; (2) criterion of moral rules,
conduciveness to general pleasure; (3) universal motive,
private pleasure; (4) connection between motive and rules,
the Will of an omnipotent and benevolent being. There
is, however, in Tucker's theological link between private
and general happiness a peculiar ingenuity which Paley's
common sense has avoided. He argues that men having
no free will have really no desert; therefore the divine
equity must ultimately distribute happiness in equal shares
to all ; therefore I must ultimately increase my own happi-
ness most by conduct that adds most to the general fund
which Providence administers.
But in fact a simple outline of Paley's utilitarianism may
be found more than a generation earlier in the following pass-
ages from Gay's dissertation prefixed to Law's translation of
King's Origin of 'Evil (17 31) : "The idea of virtue is the con-
formity to a rule of life, directing the actions of all rational
creatures with respect to each other's happiness; to which
every one is always obliged. . . . Obligation is the necessity
iv. PALEY 227
of doing or omitting something in order to be happy. . . .
Full and complete obligation, which will extend to all cases,
can only be that arising from the authority of God. . . .
The will of God [so far as it directs behaviour to others]
is the immediate rule or criterion of virtue . . . but it is
evident from the nature of God that He could have no
other design in creating mankind than their happiness;
and therefore that He wills their happiness ; therefore that
my behaviour so far as it may be a means to the happiness
of mankind should be such ; so this happiness of mankind/
may be said to be the criterion of virtue once removed. V--'
The first construction, however, of a tolerably complete/
system on this basis is to be found in Paley's Principles of^ Paley
Moral and Political Philosophy (1785). He begins by
to mean the being " urged by a yJQlent
motive re^ulting~irom the command ofjamDtbgr;" in the
caseoTmoral obligation^TrTe^olnmand proceeds from God,
and the motive lies in the expe^tatI6fToT^eIng~rewardecrand
punished after this life. TB^~c^mlrian3^~oTTTod are to be
ascertameoT^lrom Scripture and the light of nature com-
bined." Paley, however, holds that Scripture is given less to
teach morality than to illustrate it by example and enforce
it by new sanctions and greater certainty, and that the light
of nature makes it clear that God wills the happiness of
His creatures. Hence, his method in deciding moral ques-
tions is chiefly that of estimating the tendency of actions to
promote or diminish the general happiness. To meet the
obvious objections to this method, based on the immediate
happiness caused by admitted crimes (such as " knocking a
rich villain on the head "), he lays stress on the necessity of
general rules in any kind of legislation 1 ; while, by urging
1 It must be allowed that Paley's application of this argument is
228 MODERN ENGLISH ETHICS CHAP.
\the importance of forming and maintaining good habits, he
partly evades the difficulty of calculating the consequences
of particular actions. In this way the utilitarian method is
freed from the subversive tendencies which Butler and others
had discerned in it ; as used by Paley, it merely explains the
current moral and jural distinctions, exhibits the obvious
basis of expediency which supports most of the received
rules of law and morality, and furnishes a simple solution,
in harmony with common sense, of some perplexing casuist-
ical questions. Thus, e.g., " natural rights " become rights
of which the general observance would be useful apart from
the institution of civil government; as distinguished from
the no less binding " adventitious rights," the utility of which
depends upon this institution. Private property is in this
sense " natural," from its obvious advantages in encouraging
labour, skill, preservative care ; though actual rights of pro-
perty depend on the general utility of conforming to the law
of the land by which they are determined. Thus, again, many
perplexities respecting the duties of veracity and good faith
are solved, so as to avoid Jesuitical laxities no less than
superstitious scruples, by basing their obligation on the
utilities general and particular of satisfying expectations
deliberately produced. So, too, the general utilitarian basis
of the established sexual morality is effectively expounded.
We observe, however, that Paley's method is often mixed
\ with reasonings that belong to an alien and older manner
of thought ; as when he supports the claim of the poor to
charity by referring to the intention of mankind " when they
agreed to a separation of the common fund," or when he
somewhat loosely reasoned, and does not sufficiently distinguish the
consequences of a single act of beneficent manslaughter from the con-
sequences of a general permission to commit such acts.
iv. BENTHAM 229
infers that monogamy is a part of the divine design from the
equal numbers of males and females born. In other cases
his statemenliij^ilitarian__considerajiQris is fragmentaryjind f
unmetHodical, and tends to degenerate into loose exhortationl
on rather trite topics.
In unity, consistency, and thoroughness of method,
Bentham's utilitarianism has a decided superiority o
Paley's. He throughout considers actions solely in respect School
of their pleasurable jind painful consequences, expected or
actual ; and he fully recognises the need of making an
exhaustive and systematic register of these consequences,
free from the influences of common moral opinion, as
expressed in the "eulogistic" and "dyslogistic" terms in
ordinary use. Further, the effects that he estimates are
all of a definite, palpable, empirically ascertainable quality ;
they are such pleasures and pains as most men feel and all
can observe to be felt, so that all political or moral inferences
drawn by Bentham's method lie open at every point to the
r test of practical experience. Every one, it would seem, can
tell what value he sets on the pleasures of alimentation, sex,
the senses generally, wealth, power, curiosity, sympathy,
antipathy (malevolence), the goodwill of individuals or of
society at large, and on the corresponding pains, as well as
the pains of labour and- organic disorders 1 ; and can pretty
well guess the rate at which they are valued by others;
_ therefore if it be once granted that alfljctions^ are deter-
mined by pleasures and pains, and are to'betried by the
same standard, the art both of legislation and of private
1 This list gives twelve out of the fourteen classes in which Bentham
arranges the springs of action, omitting the religious sanction (mentioned
afterwards), and the pleasures and pains of self-interest, which include
all the other classes except sympathy and antipathy.
230 MODERN ENGLISH ETHICS CHAP.
conduct is apparently placed on a broad, simple, and clear
empirical basis. If we are investigating the good or bad
tendency of an act, we are to " begin with any person of
those whose interests seem immediately affected by it ; and
take an account of the value of each distinguishable pleasure
or pain which appears to be produced by it in the first
instance;" we are to consider both its intensity and its
duration, and also its certainty and uncertainty, 1 but not
any supposed difference of quality as distinct from intensity ;
for "quantity of pleasure being equal, pushpin is as good
as poetry." We are then to consider the "fecundity" and
" purity " of these primary effects ; that is, their tendency to
be followed by feelings of the same kind, and their tendency
not to be followed by feelings of an opposite kind : then, if
we sum up the values of all the pleasures and pains thus
scrutinised, the balance on the side of pleasure or pain
will give us the total good or bad tendency of the act with
respect to the particular individual selected. Then we are
to repeat the process in respect to every* other individual
"whose interests appear to be concerned;" and thus we
shall arrive at the general good and bad tendency of the
act. Bentham does not, indeed, expect that " this process
should be strictly pursued previously to every moral judg-
ment;" but he holds that "it may always be kept in view,"
and that the more we approximate to it, the more exact our
ethical reasoning will become.
Suppose now that it has been thus determined what
action, in any given circumstances, would be best in its
1 Bentham adds "propinquity or remoteness;" but I can hardly
suppose him to regard the date of a pleasure as affecting its value
rationally estimated, except so far as increase of remoteness necessarily
involves some increase of uncertainty.
iv. BENTHAM 231
tendency ; the question then arises how a man is to be made
to do it. To answer this instructively, we have to classify
pleasures and pains from a different point of view, " in the
character of efficient causes or means ;" or, to use Bentham's
chief name for them in this relation, as "sanctions" 1 of the
rules of conduct to which they prompt men to conform.
Men are actually induced to obey useful rules by the ex-
pectation of pleasures and pains for themselves either (i)
from the ordinary course of nature " not purposely modified
by the interposition of any will," human or divine, or (2)
from the action of judges or magistrates appointed to execute
the will of the sovereign, or (3) from the action of chance
persons in the community, " according to each man's spon-
taneous disposition;" that is, in Bentham's terminology, by
the " physical," the " political," and the " moral 2 or popular "
sanction. To these he adds the "religious sanction," /.
guidance to all who choose " general good" as their ultimate
end 5 whether they do so on religious grounds, or through
the predominance in their minds of impartial sympathy, or
because their conscience acts in harmony with utilitarian
principles, or for any combination of these or any other
reasons ; or- (2) it may be offered as a code to be obeyed
not absolutely, but only so far as the coincidence of private
and general interest may in any case, be judged to extend ;
or again (3) it may be proposed as a standard by which
men may reasonably agree to praise and blame the conduct
of others, even though they may not always think fit to act
on it themselves, r We may regard morality as a kind of sup-
plementary legislation, supported by public opinion, which
we may expect the public, when duly enlightened, to frame in
accordance with the public interest. From this last point of
view, which is that of the legislator or social reformer rather
than the moral philosopher, a new question arises as to the
relation of private to general happiness, which must be care-
fully distinguished from that which we have been considering.
Assuming that the promotion of general happiness is the
ultimate end of morality, how far should the moralist and
the educator aim at making benevolence the consciously
predominant motive in the action of the individual ? how
far should he seek to develop the social impulses whose
direct object is the happiness of others at the expense of
impulses that may be called broadly " egoistic," i.e., im-
pulses that aim at personal satisfaction otherwise than
through the happiness of others? On this question Ben-
tham's view is characteristically expressed in the saying that
238 MODERN ENGLISH ETHICS CHAP.
"for diet nothing but self-regarding affection will serve;"
though " for a dessert benevolence is a very valuable addi-
tion." The teaching of Mill under the influence, as will
be presently noticed, of Comte, with whom, however, he
materially disagrees holds the balance differently, and more
delicately, between practical "egoism" and "altruism."
On the one hand, he maintains that disinterested public
spirit should be the prominent motive in the performance
of all socially useful work, and that even hygienic precepts
should be inculcated, not chiefly on grounds of prudence,
but because "by squandering our health we disable ourselves
from rendering services to our fellow-creatures." On the
other hand, he considers that " life is not so rich in enjoy-
ments that it can afford to forego the cultivation of all those
that address themselves to the [so-called] egoistic propensi-
ties;" and that the function of moral censure (including self-
censure), as distinct from moral praise, should be restricted
to the prevention of conduct that positively harms others,
or impedes their pursuit of their own happiness, or violates
engagements expressly or tacitly undertaken by the agent;
though he extends the notion of " tacit undertaking " to
include "all such positive good offices and disinterested
services as the moral improvement of mankind has rendered
customary," thus laying down a standard which in an im-
proving society tends continually to grow more exacting.
It follows from this doctrine as to, the limits of legitimate
censure that it should not be employed for the promotion of
the happiness of the person censured j the " moral coercion
of public opinion " is, in Mill's view, a form of social inter-
ference which society is only justified in using for its own
protection. Mill admits that the mischief which a person
does to himself may seriously affect those connected with
iv. J. S. MILL 239
him through sympathy or interest, and, in a minor degree,
society at large : but he holds that this " inconvenience is
one which society can afford to bear for the greater good of
human freedom," except where there is " a definite damage,
or definite risk of damage, either to an individual or to the
public," e.g., we ought not to censure an ordinary citizen _
merely for being drunk ; but if intemperance disables him
from paying his debts or supporting his family, he is blame-
worthy ; and a policeman is blameworthy if he is drunk on
duty.
But though Mill holds that the moral sentiments ought Associa-
te be deliberately and carefully regulated, in the way just tlc
described, so that their operation may be as conducive
as possible to the general happiness, he does not simply
identify moral sentiments with sympathy or rational bene-
volence; on the contrary, he considers that "the mind is
not in a state conformable to utility unless it loves virtue as
a thing^ desirable in itself" without conscious reference to
its utility. Such love of virtue Mill holds to be in a sense
natural, though not an ultimate and inexplicable fact of
human nature : he explains it by the " law of association "
of feelings and ideas, which, as we have seen, Hartley was
the first to apply comprehensively in a psycho-physical
theory of the development of mental phenomena. 1 This
law, in Mill's view, operates in two ways, which it is im-
portant to distinguish. In the first place virtue, originally
valued merely as conducive to non-moral pleasure or as pro-
tective against non-moral pains, comes through the influence
1 The importance of this principle was learnt by J. S. Mill from his
father, James Mill, who in his Analysis of the Human Mind had de-
veloped with much vigour and clearness a view fundamentally similar to
Hartley's, but unencumbered by the crudities of Hartley's physiology.
240 MODERN ENGLISH ETHICS CHAP.
of association to be an immediate source of pleasure, and of
the pain of remorse if its rules are violated ; it is therefore,
to the morally developed mind, an object of desire for its
own sake. So far, the performance of virtuous acts is only
a particular mode of seeking one's own greatest pleasure.
But Mill holds, further, that the acquired tendency to virtu-
ous conduct may become so strong that the habit of willing
it may continue, " even when the reward which the virtuous
man receives from the consciousness of well-doing is any-
thing but an equivalent for the sufferings he undergoes or
the wishes he may have to renounce." It is in this way that
the hero or martyr comes voluntarily to make an " abso-
lute sacrifice of his own happiness " to promote the happiness
of others : he cannot desire anything except in proportion as
it is pleasant in prospect, but he may through habit will what
is on the whole unpleasant through the operation of the
same law by which the miser first sought money as a means'
to comfort, but ends by sacrificing comfort to money. The
moral sentiments which ultimately acquire this force are in
Mill's view, as in Hartley's, derived from "very numerous
and complex elements," so blended that the resulting feel-
ing in most cases is "very unlike the sum of its elements."
Their origin, in any ordinary individual, is partly artificial,
partly natural ; they are partly, due to what Mr. Bain calls
the " education of conscience under government or autho-
rity," which is liable to be misdirected, so that the moral
impulses generated by it are sometimes absurd and mis-
chievous. But sentiments of merely artificial origin tend to
yield, as intellectual culture goes on, to the " dissolving force
of analysis :" so far, however, as moral feelings are in harmony
with utilitarian rules they are sustained against this corrosive
analysis by the permanent influence of the natural source
iv. ASSOCIATIONISM 241
from which they have partly sprung, the " social feelings of
mankind," which are themselves a complex blending of (i)
sympathy with the pleasures and pains of others, and (2) habits
of consulting others' welfare from a consciousness of mutual
need and implication of interests. The peculiar sentiment
connected with our notions of justice and injustice Mill (after
Adam Smith) explains as essentially resentment moralised
by enlarged sympathy and intelligent self-interest ; what we
mean by injustice is harm done to an assignable individual
by a breach of some rule for which we desire the violator
to be punished, for the sake both of the person injured
and of society at large, including ourselves. A view of
the origin of moral sentiments, broadly similar to Mill's, is
maintained by Mr Bain, the chief living representative of
the Associational Psychology, and by other writers of the
same school. The combination of antecedents is somewhat
differently given by different thinkers Mr Bain, in parti-
cular, laying special stress on the operation of purely
disinterested sympathy 1 ; but all agree in representing the
conscience of any individual as naturally correlated to the
interests of the community of which he is a member, and
thus a natural ally in enforcing utilitarian rules, or even a
valuable guide when utilitarian calculations are difficult and
uncertain*
The general validity of this Associational explanation of 17.
conscience is, however, still a subject of dispute. It has ^^
been persistently controverted by writers of the intuitional Contro-
school, who (unlike Hartley) have usually thought that this ve
1 Mr. Bain considers this operation of sympathy to be a special case
of the " tendency of every idea to act itself out, to become an actuality,
not with a view to bring pleasure or ward off pain, but from an inde-
pendent prompting of the mind."
R
242 MODERN ENGLISH ETHICS CHAP.
Association derivation of moral sentiments from more primitive feelings
Son Ev lu " would be detrimental to the authority of the former. Their
chief argument against this derivation has been based on
the early period at which these sentiments are manifested
by children, which hardly, they urge, allows time for associa-
tion to produce the effects ascribed to it. This argument
has been met in recent times by the application to mind of
the physiological theory of heredity, according to which
changes produced in the mind (brain) of a parent, by
association of ideas or otherwise, tend to be inherited by
his offspring ; so that the development of the moral sense
or any other faculty or susceptibility of existing man may be
hypothetically carried back into the prehistoric life of the
human race, without any change in the manner of derivation
supposed. At present, however, the theory of heredity is
usually held in conjunction with Darwin's theory of natural
selection, according to which different kinds of living things
in the course of a series of generations come gradually to
be endowed with organs, faculties, and habits tending to the
preservation of the individual or species under the conditions
of life in which it is placed. Thus we have a new zoological
factor in the history of the moral sentiments, which, though
in no way an obstacle to the older psychological theory of
their formation through coalescence of more primitive feel-
ings, must yet be conceived as controlling and modifying the
effects of the laws of association by favouring the existence
of sentiments tending to the preservation of human life, and
impeding the existence of those that have an opposite
tendency.
Evolution- The view, however, of biological evolution which has
recently become prevalent in consequence of the widespread
acceptance of the Darwinian theory, has had effects on
/
iv. EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS 243
ethical thought of a still more fundamental kind. It has
tended not merely to modify the Associational explanation
of the growth of moral sentiments, but also to thrust aside
the Benthamite criterion and method for determining the
good and bad tendencies of actions ; first, by substituting
for "balance of pleasure over pain" some more objective
biological conception such as the " preservation of human
society " or of the " human race," or, still more generally,
" quantity of life " as the end by conduciveness to which
actions and characters are to be estimated; and secondly,
by substituting for empirical utilitarian reasoning an attempt
to deduce moral rules from biological or sociological laws.
This latter procedure is sometimes called "establishing
morality on a scientific basis."
The end which, in this deduction, furnishes the " scien-
tific" criterion of moral rules is, as I have intimated,
somewhat differently defined by different thinkers of the
Evolutional school ; but there is a more fundamental differ-
ence in their view of the relation of this objective end to hap-
piness. By some Evolutionist writers happiness or pleasure
seems to be regarded as a mere accompaniment not
scientifically important of that preservation of living
s beings in a condition tending to the future preservation of
similar beings, which is regarded as the real ultimate end.
Mr. Herbert Spencer, however, the most influential teacher
of Evolutional Ethics, expressly repudiates this view. He
holds, indeed, that a survey of what he calls "universal
conduct" the actions of animate beings of all kinds
shows us " quantity of life, measured in breadth l as well as
1 By differences of breadth Mr. Spencer means differences in the
"quantities of change" that different living beings go through in the
same time.
244 MODERN ENGLISH ETHICS CHAP.
in length," as the end to which such actions tend to be
more and more adjusted as the development of life pro-
ceeds ; but he considers that conduct tending to the pre-
servation of life is only good and commonly judged to be
so on the assumption that life is attended with a " surplus
of agreeable feeling." He does not maintain as I under-
stand that life is actually always so attended; still he
appears to hold that, for ethical purposes, actions conducive
to maximum quantity of life, and actions conducive to maxi-
mum quantity of agreeable feeling, may be taken to coin-
cide. His readiness to assume this coincidence is due to
/ trie fact that he does not conceive ethics to be primarily
I concerned with the conduct of actual human beings : its
; primary business is to " formulate normal conduct in an
ideal society," a society so ideal that in it normal conduct
will produce "pleasure unalloyed by pain anywhere." In
Mr. Spencer's view it is only conduct of which the effects
are thus unmixed that can be called "absolutely right;"
" conduct that has any concomitant of pain, or any painful
consequence, is partially wrong :" and as Ethical Science is
primarily "a system of truths expressing the absolutely
right," it is obvious that such truths cannot relate directly
to the actions of actual men. " Absolute ethics," then, are
concerned with " ascertaining necessary relations " between
actions and their consequences, 'and " deducing from neces-
sary principles what conduct must be detrimental and what
conduct must be beneficial" in an ideal society. When
this deduction is performed it belongs to an inferior mode
of reasoning, which Mr. Spencer distinguishes as " Relative
Ethics," to settle in a rough, empirical manner how far the
rules of Absolute Ethics are to be taken as applicable to
human beings here and now.
iv. EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS 245
I am not aware that any other writer on Ethics, from
the " evolution point of view," has adopted Mr. Spencer's
doctrine as to the relations of Absolute and Relative Ethics.
But there are other writers of whom Mr. Leslie Stephen l
may be taken as representative who, while accepting happi-
ness as the ultimate end of reasonablejconduct, reject the
Benthamite method of ascertaining empirically the conduc-
iveness of actions" to this end ; and consider that a more
" scientific criterion " of morality is obtained by investigat-
ing their conduciveness to the "efficiency" of the social
organism, efficiency, that is, for the purposes of its own
preservation. In comparing this with the older utilitarian
view, it is important not to exaggerate disagreement. Prob-
ably there is no moralist of any school who would deny
the fundamental importance of rules and habits tending
to the preservation of society; certainly there is no utili-
tarian not being a pessimist who would not regard the
attainment of this result as the most indispensable function
of morality, from a utilitarian point of view, and its main
function in the earlier stages of moral development, when
to live at all was a difficult task for human communities.
The primary question at issue, therefore, is, whether we are
to regard preservation as the sole end ; whether we are to
be content with the mere securing of existence for humanity
generally, instead of seeking to make the secured existence
more desirable whether, in short, the notion of "Well-
being" is to be reduced to "Being with the promise of
future being." If this question were settled in the affirma-
tive it might then be further disputed how far the present
condition of sociological knowledge is such as to render
" conduciveness to the preservation of the social organism "
1 In his Science of Ethics (1882).
246 MODERN ENGLISH ETHICS CHAP.
a criterion completely applicable to the scientific reconstruc-
tion of morality. 1
Optimism It is not easy to say how far the optimistic view of the
Pessimism relation of Life to Happiness, which seems an essential part
of both Mr. Spencer's and Mr. Stephen's ethical system, is
shared by the increasing number of students who are de-
voting themselves to biological and sociological investigation.
The prevalent opinion would certainly seem to be that life,
normally and on the whole, is attended with a balance of
) pleasure over pain. The correctness of this opinion, how-
ever, is from time to time disputed by thoughtful arguments,
partly under the influence of the pessimistic philosophy of
Germany, of which a brief account will be given later. The
points on which pessimists lay stress are chiefly (i) the pain-
fulness of the state of desire and unsatisfied longing which
is yet a pervading and essential element of the process of
life ; (2) the indefinitely greater intensity of pain, especially
organic pain, as compared with pleasure ; and as regards
human beings in particular (3) the irksomeness of the
labour required from the great majority to secure even the
imperfect degree of protection from disease and pain which
is at present attained. A dogmatic conclusion, on these or
other grounds, that human life is on the whole more painful
than pleasurable, is perhaps rare in England; but it is a
widespread opinion that the average of happiness attained
1 The extent to which Sociology is to be regarded as already con-
stituted is a point on which there would appear to be considerable dif-
ference of opinion among Evolutionists. Mr. Spencer regards it as
sufficiently established to be able to predict definitely an ideal society
in the remote future. Mr. Stephen, on the other hand, declares that
Sociology at present ' ' consists of nothing more than a collection of
unverified guesses and vague generalities, disguised under a more or less
pretentious apparatus of quasi-scientific terminology. "
iv. TRANSCENDENTAL ETHICS 247
by the masses, even in civilised communities, is deplorably
low, and that the present aim of philanthropy should be
rather to improve the quality of human life than to increase
its quantity.
The controversies that I have just briefly indicated, Transcen-
among empirical utilitarians, evolutional hedonists, or dentallsm -
evolutionists pure and simple, are for the most part con-
ducted on the basis of a general agreement to regard
human life as essentially a part of the larger whole of
animal life, and as something of which the goodness or
badness is to be estimated on principles applicable at least
in some degree to this larger whole. This basis, however,
is emphatically repudiated by a school of thought which has
recently become prominent which holds that the good of
man as a rational being depends essentially on the self-
consciousness which distinguishes human life from the
merely sentient existence of animals. The German sources
from which this view has been mainly derived will be
briefly described in a later section; in its English phase
the doctrine has found its most elaborate and important
expression in the Prolegomena to Ethics of the late Pro-
fessor T. H. Green. According to Green the end or T.H. Green
good of every man is the realisation of the faculties of his
being as one of the many self-conscious subjects, " spirits "
or "persons," in whom the one divine mind, the one
supreme subject implied in the existence of the world,
partially reproduces itself. Each such spirit or person, con-
scious of self as a combining intelligence, necessarily knows
himself as something distinct from the world of nature which
his combining intelligence constitutes : his existence, though
in one aspect it is a part of this nature, is not merely natural ;
accordingly his aims and activities are not explicable by
248 MODERN ENGLISH ETHICS CHAP.
natural laws. As he is himself distinct from nature, so his
true self-satisfaction or good cannot be found in the gratifica-
tion of the wants and desires due to his animal organism,
nor, indeed, in any conceivable series of pleasures that perish
in the enjoyment : his true good must be permanent, as the
self is which it satisfies; and it must be realised in a social
life of self-conscious persons. A completely definite descrip-
tion of it cannot yet be given, since we cannot know what
man's faculties are except from their realisation, which is as
yet only partial : but a partial determination of it is to be
found in the established moral code, which though it is
not to be regarded as absolutely and incontrovertibly valid
is yet unconditionally binding as against any conflicting im-
pulse except that desire for the best in conduct, which is the
spring of moral improvement. The one unconditional good
is the good will ; and " when we come to ask ourselves what
are the essential forms in which the will for true good (which
is the will to be good) must appear," our answer must " follow
the lines of the Greek classification of virtues." Our concep-
tion must not, however, be restricted to virtue in the modern
sense; it must include "art and science" as well as the
"specifically moral virtues;" the good will is "the will to
know what is true, to make what is beautiful, to endure pain
and fear, to resist the allurements of pleasure, in the interest
of some form of human society." Finally, we are told that
" the idea of a true good does not admit of the distinction
between good for self and good for others," and that it is
not to be sought in " objects that admit of being competed
for" though how exactly this is reconciled with the in-
clusion in the notion of the "realisation of scientific and
artistic capacities " is not, I think, clearly explained.
In the account that I have given in this chapter of the
iv. FREE WILL 249
development of English ethical thought from Hobbes to the 18.
present time, I have hitherto omitted to take note of the Fl
views held by different moralists on the question of Free
Will. My reason for the omission is, that by several of the
writers with whom I have been concerned, this difficult and
obscure question is either not discussed at all, or treated in
such a way as to minimise its ethical importance ; and that
this latter mode of treatment is in harmony with my own
view. In order to explain this comparative neglect to readers
who may be disposed to take a different view, it is needful
to distinguish three meanings in which " freedom " is attri-
buted to the will or " inner self" of a human being viz., (i)
the general power of choosing among different alternatives of
action without a motive, or against ^re^esultant force of con-
flicting motives ; (2) the power of choice between the prompt-
ings of reason and those of appetites (or other non-rational
impulses) when the latter conflict with reason ; (3) merely
the quality of acting rationally in spite of conflicting impulses,
however strong, the non posse peccare of the mediseval theo-
logians. It is obvious that " freedom " in this third sense
is something quite distinct from freedom in the first or
second sense ; and, indeed, is rather an ideal state after
which the moral agent ought to aspire than a property which
the human will can be said to possess. In the first sense,
again, as distinct from the second, the assertion of "freedom"
appears to have no ethical significance, except in so far as
it introduces a general uncertainty into all our inferences
respecting human conduct Even in the second sense it
hardly seems that the freedom of a man's will can be an
element to be considered in examining what it is right or
best for him to do (though of course the clearest convictions
of duty will be fruitless if a man has not sufficient self-control
250 MODERN ENGLISH ETHICS CHAP.
to enable him to act on them) ; it is rather when we ask
whether it is just to punish him for wrongdoing that it
seems important to know whether he could have done
otherwise. But the importance actually attached to this
connection of Free Will with Retributive Justice has been
rather theological than strictly ethical, at least during a great
part of the period with which we have been concerned;
so that notwithstanding the prominence given to the question
in the controversies of the Protestant divines of the iyth
century, it does not appear that English moralists from
Hobbes to Hume laid any stress on the relation of free-will
either to duty generally or to justice in particular. Neither
the doctrine of Hobbes, that deliberation is a mere alterna-
tion of ' competing desires, voluntary action immediately
following the " last appetite," nor the hardly less decided
Determinism of Locke, who held that the will is always
moved by the greatest present uneasiness, appeared to either
author to require any reconciliation with the belief in human
responsibility. Even in Clarke's system, where Indeter-
minism is no doubt a cardinal notion, its importance is
metaphysical rather than ethical; Clarke's view being that
the apparently arbitrary particularity in the constitution of
the cosmos is really only explicable by reference to creative
free-will. In the ethical discussion of Shaftesbury and
sentimental moralists generally this question drops naturally
out of sight; and the cautious Butler tries to exclude its
perplexities as far as possible from the philosophy of practice.
The position of the question, however, became materially
different under the influence of the important reaction,
Free vrii m ^ ate( ^ ky Reid, against the whole manner of philosophising
that had culminated in Hume. Not only did the conviction
of Free Will occupy a prominent place among the beliefs of
iv. FREE WILL 251
Common Sense which, in the view of the Scottish school, it
was the business of philosophy to define and defend ; it was
also generally held by this school to be an absolutely essen-
tial point of ethical doctrine, and inseparably Connected
with the judgment of good and ill desert which they main-
tained to be an essential element of the moral consciousness.
In fact, the two main arguments on which Reid relies to
prove Free Will are the universal consciousness of active / ,
power and the universal consciousness of accountability.
In the first place, Reid urges, " we have a natural conviction
that we act freely so early, universal, and necessary, that it
must be the result of our constitution;" so that the supposi-
tion of its fallaciousness is " dishonourable to our Maker,
and lays the foundation for universal scepticism." The
force of this argument would seem to be weakened by
Reid's admission that it is natural to rude nations to believe
that sun, moon, sea, winds, have active power, whereas the pro-
gress of philosophy shows them to be dead and inactive : but
Reid's view is that the universal notion of activity must find
proper application somewhere, while reflection shows that it
can only be properly applicable to the free human will, a
so-called agent whose acts are the necessary consequences
of causes that lie outside his volition being, in fact, not an
agent at all. That " acts are determined by the strongest
motive" is, he contends, a proposition incapable of any
proof that does not beg the question: if we measure the
strength of a motive by the effect which it actually has on
volition, it is doubtless easy to show that the strongest
motive always prevails ; but then we have assumed the very
point at issue. If, on the other hand, we take our criterion
from the agent's consciousness, and measure the strength of
a motive by the felt difficulty of resisting it, then it must be
252 MODERN ENGLISH ETHICS CHAP.
admitted that impulses to action are sometimes successfully
resisted, even when the agent feels it easier to yield than to
resist. In fact, the ethically important competition of
motives is that which takes place when an " animal motive,"
which as felt is strongest, impels in one direction, and a
motive " strongest in the eye of reason " points the opposite
way ; i.e., when we have a conviction that it is our duty or
our interest to resist appetite or passion, although more
[_ effort is required to resist than to yield. In such a conflict,
though the flesh sometimes prevails against the spirit, it
does not always prevail ; moral freedom, then, is the power
experience shows us to possess of either acting in accordance
with our judgment as to what is best, or obeying the impulse
felt to be the strongest.
A similar relation between rational and animal motives
is implied, according to Reid, both in our general notion of
responsibility and in the varying degrees of responsibility
recognised in common moral judgments. An irresistible
motive is generally admitted to take away guilt ; no one is
blamed for yielding to necessity, or thought to deserve
punishment for what it was not in his power to prevent.
Again, we commonly judge that the criminality of mis-
chievous acts is materially diminished by their being done
under the influence of violent pain or alarm, or even passion ;
and in this recognition of the limits of man's power of acting
in resistance to feeling, the reality of his free agency within
these limits is also implicitly recognised, if all actions were
equally necessary, if a man who betrays a State secret for a
bribe is as much " compelled by an irresistible motive " as
a man who betrays it on the rack, why should there be so
profound a difference in our judgments of the two cases ?
Since Reid's time the Freedom of the Will has, I think,
iv. DETERMINISM 253
been usually maintained by intuitional moralists, and usually
on grounds broadly similar to those which I have just sum-
marised; except so far as under the influence of Kant
operating either directly or as transmitted by Sir William
Hamilton and others the argument from "consciousness
of power" has been abandoned as really leading to an
antinomy or conflict of opposite inconceivabilities, and the
whole stress laid on the argument from consciousness o
duty and desert. Utilitarian moralists, on the other hand,
have usually been Determinists ; and besides urging the Determin-
difficulty of reconciling Free Will with the universality of ist Ethics>
causation as understood by all students of physical science,
a difficulty which the progress of science has pressed home
with continually increasing force, they have usually at-
tempted to repel the argument from responsibility and desert
by giving a somewhat new meaning to these current terms.
The common judgment of ill -desert, according to the
Determinist, is merely the expression of natural resentment
moralised by sympathy and enlightened self-regard : such
resentment, and the punishment to which it prompts, are a
proper and reasonable response to voluntary mischief
however little free the mischievous agent may have been
if, as is admitted, they tend to prevent similar mischief in
future. 1 He allows that in a sense " ought " implies " can,"
and that only acts which it was " in a man's power " not to
do are proper subjects of punishment or moral condemna-
tion ; but he explains " can " and " in his power " to imply
only the absence of all insuperable obstacles except want of
1 It should be observed, however, that some Determinists have dealt
differently with the argument that necessity does away with ill-desert.
They have admitted that punishment can only be legitimate if it be
beneficial to the person punished ; or they have held that the only law-
ful use of force is to restrain lawless force.
254 MODERN ENGLISH ETHICS CHAP.
sufficient motive; it is just in such cases, he urges, that
punishment and the expression of moral displeasure are re-
quired to supply the lacking motives to right conduct. He
finds no difficulty in the fact that acts are commonly judged
to be less culpable if done under the influence of violent
fear or desire : for, as Bentham points out, the disposition
manifested in such acts causes less alarm for the future than
if the motive had been slighter. The Determinist, however,
does not admit that common judgments of culpability are
really in harmony with the doctrine of free-will ; and indeed
it seems undeniable that we commonly agree in punishing
negligence that has caused serious detriment without re-
quiring proof that it was the result, directly or indirectly, of
wilful disregard of duty ; and that we do not consider re-
bellion or assassination less properly punishable, because
they were prompted by disinterested patriotism, though we
certainly consider their ill-desert less.
*9- So far I have traced the course of English ethical
French . . , ... . . . ,
influence speculation without bringing it into relation with con-
on English temporary European thought on the same subject. This
course has seemed to me most convenient, because in fact
almost all the systems described, from Hobbes downward,
have been of essentially native growth, showing hardly any
traces of foreign influence. We may observe that ethics is
the only department in which 'this result appears. The
physics and psychology of Descartes were much studied in
England, and his metaphysical system was certainly the
most important antecedent of Locke's ; but Descartes hardly
touched ethics proper. So again the controversy that Clarke
conducted with Spinoza, and afterwards with Leibnitz, was
entirely confined to the metaphysical region. Catholic
France was a school for Englishmen in many subjects, but
iv. FRENCH INFLUENCE 255
not in morality ; the great struggle between Jansenists and
Jesuits had a very remote interest for us. It was not till
the latter portion of the i8th century that the impress of the
French revolutionary philosophy begins to manifest itself
on this side the channel ; and even then its influence is not
very marked-in the region of ethical thought. It is true
thalt^Rousseauy bold and fervid exaltation of nature at the
expense^ef^civilisation, his praise of the happy ignorance,
transparent manners, and simple virtues of uncultivated man
as contrasted with the artificial, effete, corrupt product of
modern society, had considerable effect in England as well
as in France : and his eloquent proclamation of the inalien-
able sovereignty of the people as the principle of the only
just and legitimate political order gave powerful aid to the
development of the old English theory of the social com-
pact in a revolutionary direction. Still, it is interesting to
observe how even those English writers of the latter half of
the 1 8th century, who were most powerfully affected by
the movement of French political speculation, kept close
to the old lines of English thought in laying down the
ethical foundation on which they proposed to construct
the new social order of rational and equal freedom :
whether, like Price, they belonged to the intuitional school,
or whether, like Priestley and Godwin, they accepted
greatest happiness as the ultimate criterion of morality.
Only in the derivation of Benthamism do we find that an im-
portant element is supplied by the works of a French writer,
Helvetius ; as Bentham himself was fully conscious. 1 It was
1 It may be observed that Bentham's political docrine first became
widely known in the French paraphrase of Dumont ; and that a certain
portion of it that relating to the Principles of the Civil Code has never
been given to the world in any other form.
256 MODERN ETHICS CHAP.
Helvetius from Helvetius that he learnt that, men being universally
( I?I 5~ and solely governed by self-love, the so-called moral judg-
ments are really the common judgments of any society as to
its common interests ; that it is therefore futile on the one
hand to propose any standard of virtue, except that of con-
duciveness to general happiness, and on the other hand
useless merely to lecture men on duty and scold them for
vice ; that the moralist's proper function is rather to exhibit
the coincidence of virtue with private happiness; that,
accordingly, though nature has bound men's interests to-
gether in many ways, and education by developing sympathy
and the habit of mutual help may much extend the connec-
tion, still the most effective moralist is the legislator, who,
by acting on self-love through legal sanctions, may mould
human conduct as he chooses. These few simple doctrines
give the ground plan of Bentham's indefatigable and life-long
labours.
So again, in the modified Benthamism of J. S. Mill, the
Comte influence of a French thinker, Auguste Comte (Philosophic
1857)" Posit 6 ) 1829-42, and Systeme de Politique Positive, 1851-
54) appears as the chief modifying element. This influence,
so far as it has affected moral as distinct from political
speculation, has been exercised primarily through the general
conception of human progress, which, in Comte's view,
consists in the ever-growing preponderance of the distinct-
ively human attributes over the purely animal, social feel-
ings being ranked highest among human attributes, and
highest of all the most universalised phase of human affec-
tion, the devotion to humanity as a whole. Accordingly, it
is the development of benevolence in man, and of the habit
of "living for others," which Comte takes as the ultimate
aim and standard of practice, rather than the mere increase
rv. COMTE 257
of happiness. He holds, indeed, that the two are insepar-
able, and that the more altruistic any man's sentiments and
habits of action can be made, the greater will be the happi-
ness enjoyed by himself as well as by others, j But he does
not seriously trouble himself to argue with egoism, or to
weigh carefully the amount of happiness that might be
generally attained by the satisfaction of egoistic propensities
duly regulated; a supreme unquestioning self-devotion, in
which all personal calculations are suppressed, is an essential
feature of his moral ideal. Such a view is almost diamet-
rically opposed to Bentham's conception of normal human
existence; the newer utilitarianism of Mill represents an
endeavour to find the right middle path between the two
extremes.
It is to be observed that, in Comte's view, devotion to
humanity is the principle not merely of morality but of reli-
gion ; i.e., it should not merely be practically predominant,
but should be manifested and sustained by regular and
partly symbolical forms of expression, private and public.
This side of Comte's system, however, and the details of
his ideal reconstruction of society, in which this religion
plays an important part, have had but little influence either
in England or elsewhere. On the other hand, his teaching
on the subject of scientific method especially on the
method of Sociology or the Social Science, which he be-
lieved himself to have constructed, and of which he has a
legitimate claim to be regarded as the chief founder has
had a profound and enduring effect on English Ethical
thought. In the utilitarianism of Paley and Bentham the
proper rules of conduct, moral and legal, are determined by
comparing the imaginary consequences of different modes
of regulation on men and women, conceived as specimens
s
258 MODERN ETHICS CHAP.
of a substantially uniform and unchanging type. It is true
that Bentham expressly recognises the varying influences of
climate, race, religion, government, as considerations which
it is important for the legislator to take into account; but
his own work of social construction was almost entirely in-
dependent of such considerations, and his school generally
appear to have been convinced of their competence to solve
all important ethical and political questions for human
beings of all ages and countries, without regard to their
specific differences. But in the Comtian conception of
social science, of which ethics and politics are the practical
application, the knowledge of the laws of the evolution of
society is of fundamental and continually increasing im-
portance ; humanity is regarded as having passed through a
series of stages, in each of which a somewhat different set
of laws and institutions, customs and habits, is normal and
appropriate. Thus present man is a being that can only be
understood through a knowledge of his past history; and
any effort to construct for him a moral and political ideal, by
a purely abstract and unhistorical method, must be neces-
sarily futile; whatever modifications may at any time be
desirable in positive law and morality can only be deter-
mined by the aid of "social dynamics." This view extends
far beyond the limits of Comte's special school or sect, and,
indeed, seems to be very widely accepted among educated
persons at the present day.
20. The influence of German as of French philosophy
ftuence on" on English ethical thought has been comparatively unim-
Engiish portant until a recent period. . In the iyth century,
indeed, the treatise of Puffendorf on the Law of Nature,
in which the general view of Grotius was restated with
modifications, partly designed to effect a compromise with
iv. GERMAN ETHICS 259
the new doctrine of Hobbes, seems to have been a good
deal read at Oxford and elsewhere. Locke includes it
among the books necessary to the complete education of
a gentleman. But the subsequent development of the
theory of conduct in Germany dropped almost entirely out
of the cognisance of Englishmen ; even the long dominant
system of Wolff (d. 1754), imposing in its elaborate and
complete construction, was hardly known to our best in-
formed writers. Nor does it appear that the greater fame
and more commanding genius of Kant led to the careful *--
study of his ethical system by English moralists, until it had
been before the world for about fifty years. 1 His fundamental
ethical doctrine, however, was early and eagerly embraced
by one of the most remarkable and interesting among the
leaders of English thought in the first part of this century,
the poet and philosopher Coleridge. Later, we find dis-
tinct traces of Kantian influence in Whewell and other
writers of the intuitional school; and the continually in-
creasing interest in the products of the German mind which
Englishmen have shown during the last forty years has
caused the works of Kant to be so widely known that the
present work would be manifestly incomplete without an
exposition of his ethical doctrines.
The English moralist with whom Kant has most affinity Kant
(1724-
1804).
1 The period of fifty years is arrived at thus : Kant's most valuable
ethical treatises, the Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten, and the
Kritik der praktischen Vernunft, were published in 1785 and 1788
respectively. In 1836 Sir James Mackintosh republished from the
Encyclopedia Britannica his Dissertation on the Progress of Ethical
Philosophy : and the superficial character of the passage of the disser-
tation that refers to Kant may be taken, I think, as fair evidence that
Kant's ethical doctrine had not yet found its way even to the cultivated
intelligence of Englishmen.
260 MODERN ETHICS CHAP.
is (Price ;J)n fact, Kantism, in the ethical thought of modern
Europe, holds a place somewhat analogous to that occupied
by the teaching of Price and Reid among ourselves. Kant,
like Price and Reid, holds that the reason declares the im- ^
mediate obligation of certain kinds of conduct, or (to use
his phrase) issues " categorical imperatives." Like Price he
holds that an action is" not good unless done fromji good ix
motive, and that this motive must be essentially different
from natural inclination of any kind ; duty, to be duty, must
be done for duty's sake /and he argues, with more subtlety
than Price or Reid, that though a virtuous act is no doubt
pleasant to the virtuous agent, and any violation of duty
painful, this moral pleasure (or pain) cannot strictly be the
motive to the act, because it follows instead of preceding the
recognition of our obligation to do it. 1 /With Price, again,
he holds that Tightness of (intention/ and motive is not only
an indispensable condition of element of the Tightness of an
action, but actually the sole determinant of its moral worth ; \/
but with more philosophical consistency he draws thelnfer- v
ence of which the English moralist does not seem to have
dreamt that there can be no separate rational principles
for determining the "material" Tightness of conduct, as
1 Singularly enough, the English writer who approaches most nearly
to Kant on this point is the utilitarian Godwin, in his Political Justice. d(
In Godwin's view, reason is the proper iotive to acts conducive to
general happiness : reason shows me that the happiness of a number of
other men is of more value than my own ; and the perception of this
truth affords me at least some inducement to prefer the former to the
latter. And supposing it to be replied that the motive is really the
moral uneasiness involved in choosing the selfish alternative, Godwin-
answers that this uneasiness, though a "constant step" in the process
of volition, is a merely " accidental " step, " I feel pain in the neglect
of an act of benevolence, because benevolence is judged by me to be
conduct which it becomes me to adopt."
IV.
KANT 261
distinct from its " formal " Tightness ; and therefore that all
rules of duty must admit of being deduced from the one
general principle that duty ought to be done for duty's sake. <
This deduction is the most original part of Kant's doctrine, v
The dictates of reason, he points out, must necessarily be
addressed to all rational beings as such ; hence, my inten-
tion cannot be right unless I am prepargdL to will the
principle on which I act to be^jiiriiversal lavjp^He con-
siders that this fundamental rule, or imperative " act on a
maxim which thou canst will to be law universal," supplies
a sufficient criterion for determining particular duties in all
cases. The rule excludes wrong conduct with two degrees v
of stringency. Some offences, such as breach of contract,
we cannot even conceive universalised \ as soon as every
one broke promises no one would make them. Other
maxims, such as that of leaving persons in distress to shift
for themselves, we can easily conceive,- to be universal laws,
but we cannot without contradiction^ will them to be such ;
for when we are ourselves in distress we cannot help desiring
that others should help us.
Another important peculiarity of Kant's,jdoctrine is his
development of the connection between /duty Jfcnd free will.
He holds that it is through our moral consciousness that we
obtain a rational conviction that we 'are free ; in the cogni-
tion that I ought to do what is right because it is right and
not because I like it, it is implied that this purely rational
volition is possible ; that my action can be determined, not
"mechanically," through the necessary operation of the
natural stimuli of pleasurable and painful feelings, but in
accordance with the laws of my true, reasonable self. The
realisation of reason, or of human wills so far as rational,
thus presents itself as the absolute end of duty; and we
262 MODERN ETHICS CHAP.
get, as a new form of the fundamental practical rule, " act
so as to treat humanity, in thyself or any other, as an end
always, and never as a means only." We may observe, too,
that the notion of freedom connects ethics with jurispru-
dence in a simple and striking manner. The fundamental
aim of jurisprudence is to realise external freedom by remov-
ing the hindrances imposed on each one's free action through
the interferences of other wills. , Ethics, on the other hand,
is concerned with the realisation of internal freedom l by the
resolute pursuit of rational ends in opposition to those of
natural inclination. If we ask what precisely are the ends
of reason meaning by " end " a result which is sought to
be produced by action Kant's proposition that " all rational
beings as such are ends in themselves for every rational
being " hardly gives a clear answer. Its most obviotrs inter-
pretation would seem to be that the result to be practically
sought is simply the development of the rationality of all
rational beings such as men whom we find to be as yet
imperfectly rational. But this is not Kant's meaning. He
holds, indeed, that each man should aim at making himself ^
the most perfect possible instrument of reason, by cult-
ivating both his natural faculties and his moral disposition ;
but he expressly denies that the perfection of others can
be similarly prescribed as an end ,to each. It is, he says,
1 Notwithstanding the fundamental importance of the notion of
Freedom in Kant's ethical system, it does not appear to me possible to
state this part of his doctrine distinctly and consistently ; because his
exposition of it seems to me to contain a confusion between two notions
of freedom distinguished in 18 (l) the Freedom that is only realised
in right conduct, when reason successfully resists the seductions 0*
appetite or passion, and (2) the Freedom to choose between right and
wrong which is equally realised in either choice. It is Freedom in
the latter sense, not in the former, that Libertarians have commonly
regarded as inseparably connected with moral responsibility.
IV.
KANT 263
"a contradiction to regard myself as in duty bound to
promote the perfection of another ; for it is just in this that
the perfection of another man as a person consists, viz., that
he is able of himself to set before him his own end according
to his own notions of duty; and it is a contradiction to
make it a duty for me to do something which no other but
himself can do." In what sense, then, am I to make other
rational beings my ends ? Rather to our surprise, we find
that what each is to aim at in the case of others is not^
Perfection but Happiness : that is, he is to help them to-
wards the attainment of those purely subjective ends that
are determined for each not by reason but by natural in-
clination. For, Kant urges, "the ends of any subject
which is an end in himself, ought as far as possible to be
my ends also, if the conception of him as an end in himself
is to have its full effect with me." Elsewhere he explains
, that to seek one's own happiness cannot be prescribed as a
duty because it is an end to which every man is inevitably
impelled by natural inclination : but that just because each
inevitably desires his own happiness, and therefore desires
that others should assist him in times of need, he is bounds
to make the happiness of others his ethical end, since he
cannot morally demand aid from others without accepting
the obligation of aiding them in like case. pTHe~exclusion
of private happiness from the ends at which it is a duty to
aim, at first slgnt strikingly contrasts with the view of Butler
and Reid, that man, as a rational being, is under a " manifest
obligation " to seek his own interest. The difference, however,
is not really so great as it seems ; since in his account of the
summum bonum or Highest Good, Kant appears to recognise
at least implicitly the reasonableness of the individual's
regard for his private happiness. In Kant's view, the highest
-
264 MODERN ETHICS CHAP.
human or derived good 1 is not duty alone, but a moral world in
which happiness is duly proportioned to merit : and he holds
that we are bound by reason to conceive ourselves as neces-
^arily belonging to such a world under the government of a
wise author and ruler; since without such a world, "the
glorious ideas of morality would be indeed objects of
applause and admirr ! on, but not springs of purpose and
action." Though tfuty is to be done for duty's sake^ and j
not as a means to the agent's happiness, still, Kant holds, I
the demand for happiness as merited by duty is natural
and necessary to every rational being ; and if we refused to v
postulate a cosmical order in which ^is demand finds satis-
faction, we reduce all mo^al laws to the condition of " idle
dreams." It has further to be observed that, according to
Kant's metaphysical doctrine, the world of nature, as known
to each of us, is a mere complex of impressions on human
sensibility, combined into a world of objects of possible
experience by the self-conscious intelligence that conceives
it ; hence we can have no knowledge, as we can have no
experience, of things as they are in themselves ; and there-
fore we cannot cogently demonstrate the existence of God or
the immortality of the soul, or even the freedom of the will,
though we can refute all arguments constructed to prove the
opposite. Accordingly, in the Kantian system the certitude
of these fundamental beliefs rests on an ethical basis alone ;
we cannot, strictly speaking, know them to be true, but we
must assume them to be true in order to fulfil rationally
what we recognise as * * categorical imperatives " of the
practical reason.
1 The absolutely highest good is the union of perfectly good or
rational will with perfect blessedness, as in the Divine Existence as com-
monly conceived.
IV.
AFTER KANT 265
Before Kant's death (1804) his works had begun to be Post-
read by the English thinker who, for more than a generation,
was to stand as the chief representative in our island of
German tendencies in philosophic thought. 1 But yet, when
Coleridge's study of Kant began, the rapid and remarkable
development of metaphysical view and method, of which the
three chief stages are represented by Fichte, Schilling, and
Hegel respectively, had already Breached its second stage;
the Subjective Idealism of Fichteyhad been developed in a
series of treatises and formally rejected by Kant and the
philosophy of^Schelling was claiming the eager attention of
all German students of metaphysics. One consequence of
this was that the Kant partially assimilated by Coleridge was
Kant seen through the medium of Schelling a Kant who
could not be believed "to have meant no more by his
Noumenon or Thing in itself than his mere words ex-
press;"" who, in fact, must be believed to have attained,
through his practical convictions of duty and freedom, that
speculative knowledge of the essential spirituality of human
nature which his language appeared to repudiate. But
though, viewed on its metaphysical side, the German in-
fluence obscurely communicated to the English mind through
Coleridge was rather post-Kantian than Kantian, the same
cannot be said of its strictly ethical side. The only German
element discernible in the fragmentary ethical utterances of
Coleridge is purely Kantian; 3 nor am I aware that any
1 This view of Coleridge is strikingly shown in an essay on him
by J. S. Mill (1840), in which such phrases as " Coleridge and the
Germans," the " Germano-Coleridgian doctrine," occur repeatedly.
3 See Coleridge, Biographia Literaria, vol. I. pp. 145-6.
3 Thus in the Friettd, vol. I. p. 340 (originally published 1809), he
gives an unqualified adhesion to Kant's fundamental doctrine : "so act
that thou mayest be able, without involving any contradiction, to will
266 MODERN ETHICS
trace can be found elsewhere, in English ethical thought,
of the peculiar doctrines of Fichte or Schelling, or of
any post -Kantian German writer, until the influence of
Hegel became manifest in the third quarter of the present
century. 1
Hegel Hegel's ethical doctrine (expounded chiefly in his Philu-
s Ph* e d gs R* c h ts * 1821) shows a close affinity, and also a
strik : ng contrast, to Kant's. He holds, with Kant, that
duty or good conduct consists in the conscious realisation
of the free reasonable will, which is essentially the same in
all rational beings. Hut in Kant's view the universal con-
tent of this will is only given in the formal condition of
" only acting as one can desire all to act," to be subjectively
applied by each rational agent to his own volition ; whereas
Hegel conceives the universal will as objectively presented
to each man in the laws, institutions, and customary morality
of the community of which he is a member. Thus, in his
view, not merely natural inclinations towards pleasures, or
the desires for selfish happiness, require to be morally
resisted ; but even the prompting of the individual's con-
science, the impulse to do what seems to him right, if it
comes into conflict with the common sense of his com-
munity. It is true that Hegel regards the conscious effort
to realise one's own conception of good as a higher stage of
moral development than the mere conformity to the jural
rules establishing property, maintaining contract, and allot-
ting punishment to crime, in which the universal will is first
that the maxim of thy conduct should be the law of all intelligent
Beings is the one universal and sufficient principle and guide of
morality."
1 The manifestation of the Hegelian influence may be taken, I sup-
pose, to begin with the publication of Mr. J. H. Stirling's remarkable
book on the Secret of Htgel (1865).
iv. HEGEL 267
expressed ; since in such conformity this will is only accom-
plished accidentally by the outward concurrence of individual
wills, and is not essentially realised in any of them. He
holds, however, that this conscientious effort is self-deceived
and futile, is even the very root of moral evil, unless it
attains its realisation in harmony with the objective social
relations in which the individual finds^himself placed;
unless the individual recognises as his I -vn essence the
ethical substance presented to him in the family, in civil
society, and finally in the state, the organisation of which
is the highest manifestation of universal reason in the sphere
of practice.
Hegelianism appears as a distinct element in English
ethical thought at the present day; the English Trans-
cendentalism described in 17 may be characterised
as Kanto-Hegelian ; but the direct influence of Hegel's
system is perhaps less generally important than that in-
directly exercised through the powerful stimulus which it
has given to the study of the historical development of
human thought and human society. According to Hegel,
the essence of the universe is a process of thought from the
abstract to the concrete ; and a right understanding of this
process gives the key for interpreting the evolution in time
of European philosophy. So again, in his view, the history
of mankind is a history of the necessary development of the
free spirit through the different forms of political organisa-
tion : the first being that of the Oriental monarchy, in which
freedom belongs to the monarch only ; the second, that of
the Greco-Roman republics, in which a select body of free
citizens is sustained on a basis of slavery ; while finally in
the modern societies, sprung from the Teutonic invasion of
the decaying Roman Empire, freedom is recognised as the
268 MODERN ETHICS CHAP.
natural right of all members of the community. The effect
of the lectures (posthumously edited) in which Hegel's
Philosophy of History and History of Philosophy were ex-
pounded has extended far beyond the limits of his special
school ; indeed, the present predominance of the historical
method in all departments of the theory of practice is not a
little due to their influence.
It was before 1 noticed that, in antithesis to the Evolu-
tionistic Optimism of such writers as Spencer, a pessimistic
view of animal life as a whole, and of human life as its
highest development, has faintly manifested itself in recent
English thought. In somewhat similar antithesis to the
different kind of Evolutionistic Optimism, which belongs
to the post-Kantian Idealism generally and the system of
Hegel in particular, stands the pessimism of Schopenhauer.
Taking from Kant the doctrine that the objective world of
which we have experience is altogether constructed of ele-
ments supplied by human sensibility, combined according
to laws of the experiencing mind, Schopenhauer diverges
from Kantism in his conception of the Thing in itself that
impresses our sensibility. In his view it is One Will that is
the innermost essence of every thing and of the totality of
things. This Will, by its very nature, strives blindly to
manifest and objectify itself; the mechanical and chemical
forces of the inorganic world, the actions of living organisms
from the lowest upwards, exhibit different stages of this
objectification, which reaches its highest grade in organisms
endowed with a brain, and therefore possessing conscious-
ness. As manifested in living beings this Will may be more
definitely conceived as the Will or striving to live : this in-
stinctive impulse towards life is the deepest essence of all
1 On page 246.
TV. SCHOPENHAUER 269
animal nature. But as this striving necessarily implies
defect and discontent with the present condition, the life
which it constitutes and maintains is essentially a suffering
life ; even the transient satisfactions by which it is chequered
are really deliverances from pain and not positively good.
This essential misery of life reaches its maximum in man,
the most advanced manifestation of Will ; and it will neces-
sarily be increased by intellectual progress, even though this
develops what Schopenhauer recognised as the purest human
satisfaction the restful contemplation of beauty. In this
unhappy state of things the duty that philosophy points out
to man is plainly the negation or denial of will ; in this all
true morality is summed up. Of such denial there are two
stages : the lowest is that attained in ordinary virtue, which.
is essentially love and sympathy resting on a recognition of
the real identity of any one ego with all others : the virtuous
man represses and denies the egoism from which all injus-
tice springs, and which is the affirmation of the will in one
individual aggressively encroaching on the manifestation of
the same will in another. But ordinary virtuous or sympa-
thetic action is not yet free from the fundamental error of
affirming the will to live : complete denial of this will is
only attained by the ascetic self-mortification that turns
away altogether from the illusory pleasures of life, for the
race as well as self, repressing even the impulse to propa-
gation.
Schopenhauer's primary argument for pessimism based,
as we have seen, on a consideration of the essential nature
of Will is confirmed, he tells us, by a careful and impar-
tial observation of human experience. But the a posteriori Hartmann.
proof of the misery of life has been more fully developed by
a recent writer E. von Hartmann who, though of con-
270 MODERN ETHICS CHAP.
siderable originality, may be broadly regarded as a disciple
of Schopenhauer; and who agrees with Schopenhauer in
holding that the existence of the actual world is due to
an irrational act of unconscious will. 1 Hartmann rejects
Schopenhauer's doctrine that all pleasure is merely relief
from pain : but he holds that the pleasures which arise
from cessation of pains greatly preponderate over the
pleasures not so conditioned, and are greatly inferior in
intensity to the pains by which they are conditioned ; that
the fatigue of nerves caused by the prolongation of any kind
of feeling tends to increase the painfulness of pain and to
diminish the pleasantness of pleasure; that satisfaction is
always brief, while dissatisfaction is as enduring as desire
itself. Then, taking a survey of the chief directions of
human effort, he urges that many emotions as envy,
chagrin, regret for the past, hatred are purely or almost
purely painful ; that many states of life as health, youth,
freedom are valued merely as implying absence of certain
pains, while others as labour and marriage are recognised
as evils chosen to avoid greater evils ; that the common
pursuit of riches, power, honour, etc., is illusory so far as
the objects sought are conceived as ultimate ends ; that
many common active impulses hunger, love of children,
compassion, ambition bring the agent clearly far more
pain than pleasure, while many more cause a clear pre-
ponderance of pain on the whole,, taking into account the
feelings of patients as well as agents ; that, finally, the only
activities which bring an excess of pleasure the cultivation
of art and science are capable of being really enjoyed by
1 Hartmann, however, unlike Schopenhauer, conceives the " Un-
conscious," that is, the ultimate ground of existence, to be not merely
Unconscious Will but Unconscious Intelligence also.
iv. HARTMANN 271
comparatively few, and these few persons whose superior
intelligence specially exposes them to pain from other
sources. These considerations lead Hartmann to the " in-
dubitable conclusion " that the pain in the world now
greatly exceeds the pleasure, not only on the whole, but
in the case even of the most favourably circumstanced
individuals. He then proceeds to argue that there is no
prospect of material improvement in the future, but rather
of increased misery : the progress of science brings little or
no positive pleasure, and the partial increase in protection
against pain that the human race may derive from it will be
far more than outweighed by the increased consciousness of
the predominance of pain, due to the development of
human intelligence and sympathy. Hnrtmann's practical
conclusion is that we should aim at the negation of the will
to live, not each for himself, as Schopenhauer recommended,
but universally, by working towards the end of the world-
process and the annihilation of all so-called existence.
INDEX
AHKI.AKD, 136.
Absolute and Relative Kthics, 244.
Absolute Good. 2.
Academics, 89.
A leu in, 134,
Alienation from World and Mesh
II}.
Altruism, 257.
Ambrose, 131.
Anselm, 155.
Antinomianism, 1 12.
Antiochus of Ascalon, 91.
Antisthenes, 33.
Aquinas, 138.
Arcesilaus. 90.
Aristippus, 32.
Aristotle, xvii, 50 ; and Plato, 50
view of Human Wellbeing. 54
theory of Virtue, 57 ; "the I'hilo
sopher," 138, 154.
Asceticism, 126.
Association. 207 ; and Evolution,
242.
Associationism, 239.
Augustine, 127.
Aurelius, Marcus, 98.
Austin, 231, 234.
BACON, 155.
Bain, 240-1.
Beneficence, 119.
Bentham, 229, 254, 255, 257.
Benthamism, anticipated. 195. 200.
Berkeley, 188.
Bernard of C'lairvaux, 137, 146.
Bonavcntura, i.j-.
Butler, xxii, 188. 214, 217, 250.
I CAMHKinci. I'l.ATONJSTS. xxi,
( I Cardinal Virtues, 43, 132, 141.
| (.'arneades, 91.
Casuistry, 148; manuals of,
English, 153.
Christianity, inlhience of. 7. ,
and Wealth. 121 ; and >
Will, 124.
j Christian Opinion. 125 ; and }ex\
" I.awuf (iud," 1 08 ; and I'agr.
Inwardness, 112; morality, di
tinctive particulars of, 116.
Chrysippus, 70, 81.
C.'hurch and Civil Society, 125.
Cicero, 93.
Clarke, 175. 195. 250, 254.
Coleridge. 259, 265.
Comic. 256.
Conscience. 9, 192.
Counter-Reformation, 150.
Courage. 59.
Cudxvorlh, 167.
Cumberland, 170.
Cynics. 33.
Cyrenaics, 32.
" DARK Ar;i-:s," xx, 132.
Darwin. 242.
Deadly Sins, in, 132.
Democritus, 15.
Descartes, 254.
274
INDEX
Determinism, Stoic, 73 ; Ethics of,
253-
Duns Scotus. 145.
Duty, Religious, 123.
KCKIIAKT, 147.
Eclecticism, 90.
Epictctus, 97.
Epicureanism and Stoicism. 81.
Kpicurus, 83 ; his view of Virtue,
86.
Erigena, 134.)
Ethics : study of the Ultimate I Joed
of man, i ; distinguished from
Theology, 2 ; from Politics, 2 ;
from Psychology, 4 ; from Juris-
prudence, 8 ; the study of Duty
or Right Conduct, 6 ; Summary
view of, 10 ; Evolutional, 242;
Relative and Absolute, 244 ; De-
tcrminist, 253 ; French influence
on Knglish, 254 ; German in-
fluence on English, 258.
Eudoxus, 89.
Evolution and Association, 242.
Evolutional Ethics, 242.
FAITH, 113.
Fichte, 265.
Freedom and Determinism, Stoic, 73.
Free Will, 10, 67, 124, 249, 261.
French influence on English Ethics,
254.
Friendship, 65.
GAY, 208, 226.
German influence on English Ethics,
258.
Gerson, 147.
"Gnomic" poetry of Greece, 12.
Gnostics, influence of, 112.
Godwin, 255, 260.
Good, the, 47, 51.
Gorgias, 17.
Green, T. H., 247.
Gregory the Great, 134.
Grotius, 157.
HARTLEY, 208.
Hartmann, 269.
Hedonists and Stoics, 81.
Hegel. 266.
Hegesias, 83.
IK-lvetius, 256.
Heraclitus, 14.
Hol>tx:s, xxi, 156, 160, 1 88, 201,
250-
Homer. 18.
Hooker. 146.
Ilrubanus Maurus, 134.
Hugo of St. Victor, 137, 146.
Ilium-, xxiii. 187. 200, 212, 217,
220.
Humility, 122.
Hutcheson, 187, 197.
INOKPKNDKXT MOKAI.ITY. xxi.
Intuitional and Utilitarian Morality,
xxiii, 196, 224.
Intuitionism, Lat'T, 213 ; and Frtv
Will, 253.
Inwardness, Christian and I'agan,
112.
Isidore of Seville, 134.
JKSUITS, 151.
Jewish and Christian ' ' Law of God. "
1 08.
Jural conception of Morality, in.
Jurisprudence and Ethics, 8, 95. 142.
Justice, 44, 63.
KANT, 222, 253, 259.
K ran tor, 89.
LACTANTIUS, 118. 128.
Law, Aquinas on, 142.
" Law of God," 108.
Law of Nature, 156, 164, 170.
Locke, 172. 250, 259.
Love, ITC.
Luther, 151.
MACKINTOSH, 259.
Mandeville, 187.
Marcus Aur- lius, 98.
Martineau, 224.
Mill, James, 239.
INDEX
275
Mill, J. S., 234, 256, 265.
Monastic Morality, 125.
Moral Faculty, 9 ; Sense, 185.
More, Henry, 168.
Mysticism, 146.
NATURAL LAW, xxi, 156, 164, 170.
Neo-Platonism, 102.
Nominalism, 145.
OBEDIENCE, 117.
Occam, 145.
Opinion, Development of Christian,
125.
Optimism, 246, 268.
Origen, 118.
PALEY, 225, 227, 257.
Panaetius, 91, 93, 94.
Pascal, 151.
Patience, 118.
Perfection, Christian, 144.
Peripatetics, 69.
Pessimism, xxiv, 246, 268.
Peter the Lombard, 138.
Philo, 91, 93.
Plato, xvii, 34 ; and Socrates, 35 ;
fundamental principles of, 39 ;
theory of Virtue, 41 ; view of
Pleasure, 47 ; and Aristotle, 50.
Pleasure and Human Good, 47.
Plotinus, 103.
Plutarch, 102.
Politics and Ethics, 2.
Poseidonius, 159.
Price, 213, 217-8, 260.
Priestley, 255.
Prodicus, 18.
Protagoras, 17.
Psychology and Ethics, xxii, 4,
187, 212.
Puffendorf, 163, 175, 258.
Purity, 1 1 6, 122.
Pyrrho of Elis, 90.
Pythagoras, 13.
REFORMATION, the, 151.
Reid, 214, 216, 250; 260, 263.
Religious Duty, 123.
Renaissance, xx.
Revelation, 8.
Rome, Philosophy in, 92.
Rousseau, 255.
SCEPTICISM, 90.
Schelling, 265.
Scholasticism, xx, 134.
Schopenhauer, 268.
Scottish School, xxiv.
Self-love, xxii, 189, 198.
Seneca, 97-
Sextii, the, 97.
Shaftesbury, 180, 189, 193, 197,
212, 250.
Simeon Stylites, 126.
Smith, Adam, 205, 212.
Socrates, xvi, 22; "dialectic," 23;
"Virtue is knowledge," 24; work
of, 30 ; and Plato, 35.
Socratic Schools, 31.
Sophists, the, 17.
Spencer, H. , 243, 246.
Speusippus, 89.
Stephen, Leslie, 245.
Stewart, Dugald, 217, 221.
Stoicism, xix ; Transition to, 69 ;
"passionless Sage" of, 71 ; Free-
dom and Determinism, 73 ; Wis-
dom and Nature, 74; and Hedon-
ism, 8 1 ; in Rome, 96 ; and the
life after death, 100 ; and Butler,
194.
Sympathy, 201, 205.
Syncretism, xix.
TALMUD quoted, 112.
Tertullian, 118, 125.
Thales, 12.
Theodoras, 82, 83.
Theology and Ethics, 2.
Thomas Aquinas, 138.
Transcendentalism, 247, 267
Tucker, 225.
UNCONSCIOUS, the, 270.
Universals, 145.
Utilitarian and Intuitional Morality,
xxiii, 196, 224.
2 7 6
INDEX
Utilitarianism, 200, 207, 213, 225,
253- 257-
VICTORINES, the, 147.
Virtue, Socratic doctrine of, 24 ;
Platonic doctrine of, 41 ; Aris-
totelian doctrine of, 57.
Virtues, Cardinal, 43, 132, 141.
WEALTH, Christianity and, 121.
Whewell, 222, 259.
Wisdom, Speculative and Practical,
65 ; Stoic, 74.
Wolff, 259.
Wollaston, 194.
XENOCRATES, 89.
Xenophon, 23, 26.
ZENO, 70.
Zeus, 76; Stoic "City of Zeus,"
79-
THE END
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