{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_43062/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_43062","id":"gutenberg_43062","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/43062","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Christian ethics","Ethics"],"text":"Transcriber's note:\n\n Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).\n\n Text enclosed by equal signs is in bold face (=bold=).\n\n Sidenotes have been moved to precede their facing\n paragraphs, and are indicated by double equal signs:\n ==sidenote text==.\n\n Greek words are shown in Greek and then in English\n transliterations that are indicated by [Greek: ] and\n were added by the transcribers. Accent mark errors\n in Greek text have been remedied.\n\n\n\n\n\nTHEORETICAL ETHICS\n\nby\n\nMILTON VALENTINE, D.D., LL. D.\n\nEx-President of Pennsylvania College, and Professor of Theology\nin the Lutheran Theological Seminary, Gettysburg, Pa.,\nAuthor of \"Natural Theology or Rational Theism.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nChicago\nScott, Foresman & Co.\n1900\n\nCopyright, 1897, by\nScott, Foresman & Co.\n\nPress of\nThe Henry O. Shepard Co.\nChicago\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE.\n\n\nEthical Theory has felt the full force of recent scientific and\nphilosophical agitation. The earlier systems have been subject to\nearnest and continued discussion. The severest tests available by\nthe progress of knowledge have been applied to both their premises\nand their conclusions. New theories, based on changed conceptions\nof man and the world, have been variously elaborated, presenting\ngreatly altered views of the whole phenomenon of morality. While not\noverthrowing old views these have given instructive suggestions. The\nethical field has thus been largely re-surveyed, and whatever light\nmodern science and speculation have furnished has been thrown upon\nthis great and unceasingly important subject. In some respects the\nagitation has brought confusion and uncertainty. The clash of theories\nhas been disturbing. But on the whole ethical philosophy has been\nthe gainer. The discussions have certified the immovable foundations\nand essential features of the moral system. The fresh light from the\nadvance of knowledge has proved, as it always does, not destructive,\nbut corrective and confirmatory. The abiding truth has been shown and\nvindicated by the ordeal through which it has passed.\n\nThis volume is largely the outcome of the author's many years of\nclass-room lecturing on the subject. Its object is to furnish for\nstudents and general readers a compendious view of the ethical facts\nand principles as the author believes them to be established by the\nbest accredited knowledge and thought of our times. There seems to be\nroom for such a work. The method is believed to give proper recognition\nto both the empirical and metaphysical sides of the subject. Starting\nfrom the universal phenomenon of moral distinctions in life, it\ndetermines the conscience psychologically, as a rationally intuitive\npower discerning the moral distinction and the reality and authority\nof moral law. The implications of conscience and moral law necessarily\nbecome theistic. The metaphysical examination finds for the real\nphenomena of the subjective faculty the objective and abiding reality\nof the ethical law which the faculty discerns, and the right or morally\ngood itself so perceived as consisting proximately in a conformity of\nconduct with the relations of life in which moral requirement meets\nhuman freedom, and as ultimately grounded in the absolute and perfect\nsource of the moral constitution of the universe. The movement carries\nto the conclusion of eternal and immutable moral law. The disclosures\nof revelation confirm the ethical law of the natural reason, completing\nthe moral view and supplying, in the divine forces of Christianity, the\nproper dynamic for the realization of the ethical life.\n\nThe volume is humbly sent forth in the hope that it may contribute\nsomewhat to the cause of truth and prove quickening to the life of duty\nand righteousness.\n\nGETTYSBURG, Dec. 1, 1896.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\n\n CHAPTER I.\n\n DEFINITION AND GENERAL DIVISIONS.\n\n PAGES\n\n 1. Definition and Statement of the Subject-matter 15-17\n\n 2. Historical Glance at the Beginning and Progress of the\n Science 17-20\n\n 3. Theoretical and Practical 20-23\n\n 4. Relations to Psychology, Natural Theology, and Christian\n Theology 23-27\n\n\n CHAPTER II.\n\n THE FACT OF MORAL DISTINCTIONS.\n\n 1. Revealed in Personal Consciousness 28-29\n\n 2. Incorporated in the Social Organism 29\n\n 3. Witnessed to in History 29-31\n\n 4. Shown in the Religious World 31-33\n\n 5. Pervades Literature 33-34\n\n 6. Ethnic and Anthropological Information 34-35\n\n 7. Unaffected by Theories of its Cause or Significance 35-36\n\n\n CHAPTER III.\n\n FACULTY OF MORAL DISTINCTIONS--THE EXISTENCE OF CONSCIENCE.\n\n 1. The Importance of this Question 37-39\n\n 2. Proofs of its Existence 39-55\n\n 1. The Moral Distinctions in Personal Consciousness\n and the World 39-40\n\n 2. The Peculiar Character of its Perceptions 40-44\n\n 3. Special Feelings from its Perceptions 44-47\n\n 4. Objection from Diversity of Moral Judgments Noticed 47-53\n\n 5. These Proofs Independent of the Mode of the Origin\n of the Power 53-55\n\n\n CHAPTER IV.\n\n THE FACULTY OF MORAL DISTINCTIONS--THE NATURE OF CONSCIENCE.\n\n 1. The Importance of Determining its Nature 56-59\n\n 1. For Scientific Accuracy 56-57\n\n 2. As Involving the Authority of Conscience 57-59\n\n 2. A Psychological Question 59\n\n 3. Conscience in place only in the Total Complex of Man's\n Psychical Powers 59-62\n\n 4. Specific Psychology of Conscience 62-76\n\n 1. Perception of the Ethical Distinction 62-64\n\n 2. Perception of Obligation 64-67\n\n 3. Identification of the Moral Quality in Acts 67-68\n\n 4. Perception of Merit and Demerit 68-72\n\n 5. Emotions Arising from these Perceptions 72-76\n\n 5. Special Characteristics Disclosed 76-80\n\n 1. Conscience Fundamentally Intellectual 76-77\n\n 2. Moral Quality its Sole Percept 77-78\n\n 3. Its Action Marked by Necessity 78-80\n\n 6. Relation of Phenomenalistic Philosophy to this View 80-83\n\n 7. Effect of Theistic Evolution Theory 83-85\n\n\n CHAPTER V.\n\n THE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE.\n\n 1. Involved in the Sphere of its Judgments 86-87\n\n 2. Shown by the Nature of its Action 87-88\n\n 3. The Absurdity of a Possible Supremacy in any other\n Faculty 88-92\n\n 4. Difficulties Considered 92-99\n\n\n CHAPTER VI.\n\n MORAL AGENCY.\n\n 1. Rational Intelligence 102-104\n\n 2. The Conscience 104-105\n\n 3. Free Will 105-115\n\n 4. Powers of Sensibility and Action 115-118\n\n\n CHAPTER VII.\n\n THE REALITY OF RIGHT AND WRONG.\n\n 1. The Source of Doubt the Relativity of Knowledge 120-125\n\n 2. Positive Statement of the Reality 125-129\n\n 1. The Moral Distinctions and Qualities not merely\n Subjective Phenomena but Objectively Real for\n Perception 125-126\n\n 2. Independent of the Mental Organization of the Race 127\n\n 3. Immutable and Eternal 127-129\n\n 3. The Importance of this Truth 129-130\n\n 4. Marks of the Dividing Line between True and False Moral\n Philosophies 130-132\n\n 5. The Relation of Evolutionism to this Reality 132-137\n\n 1. Theistic Evolution 132-133\n\n 2. Atheistic and Materialistic Evolution 133-137\n\n\n CHAPTER VIII.\n\n THE GROUND OF RIGHT.\n\n 1. The Question Defined 138-139\n\n 2. Leading Views and Theories:\n The Egyptian Teaching--Chinese--Indian--Persian--\n Greek--Roman--Divine Absolutism--Civil\n Authority--Utilitarianism--Evolutionary\n Utilitarianism--Failure of Utilitarianism--\n Plausible Side of Utilitarian Theory--\n Theory of Conformity to Relations--Spiritual\n Excellence Theory--Theory of an Imperative in\n its Own Right 140-167\n\n\n CHAPTER IX.\n\n THE GROUND OF RIGHT--CONTINUED.\n\n 1. Statement of Proximate Ground 168-178\n\n 1. Sustained by the Moral Consciousness in Constant\n Experience 171-172\n\n 2. Implied in the Logical Pre-suppositions to\n Responsibility 172-175\n\n 3. Verified in the Character of the Various Virtues\n and their Opposite Immoralities 175-176\n\n 4. Supported by Analogy of Organic and Instinctive\n Action 176-177\n\n 5. Assumed in the Conceptions and Language of Common\n Life 178\n\n 2. The Ultimate Ground 178-181\n\n\n CHAPTER X.\n\n THE OBJECTS OF THE MORAL JUDGMENT.\n\n 1. Personal Actions 182-187\n\n 2. The Various Feelings, Passions, and Desires 187-190\n\n 3. Intentions 190-191\n\n 4. The Activities and Uses of the Intellect 191-192\n\n 5. Acts of the Will 192-195\n\n\n CHAPTER XI\n\n THE ETHICAL VIEW UNDER CHRISTIAN TEACHING.\n\n 1. Christianity Recognizes the Truths and Principles\n Established in True Ethical Science 196-197\n\n 2. It Contributes Immensely to the Ethical View 197-200\n\n 3. The Two Sources of the Christian View 200-205\n\n 1. Primarily, the Sacred Scriptures 201-204\n\n 2. Secondarily, the Christian Moral Consciousness 204-205\n\n 4. Particular Features of the Christian View 205-216\n\n 1. Known Duties Made More Distinct and Definite 205-206\n\n 2. Human Relations Better Disclosed 206-208\n\n 3. Moral Obligations Disclosed as Duties to God 208-210\n\n 4. Guilt of Offending against Moral Law 210-213\n\n 5. The Universalism of the Moral Law 213-215\n\n 6. Fulfilment Requires Regeneration 215-216\n\n\n CHAPTER XII.\n\n THE ETHICAL TASK UNDER CHRISTIANITY.\n\n 1. Helped by the Completion of the Ethical View 219-220\n\n 2. Quickened by Assurance of Success 220-222\n\n 3. The Religious Interest Brought to Reinforce the Moral 222-224\n\n 4. The Enlightening and Enforcing Power of the Holy Spirit 224-225\n\n 5. Through Spiritual Regeneration 225-227\n\n\n\n\nTHEORETICAL ETHICS.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nDEFINITION AND DIVISIONS.\n\n\n==Ethics Defined.==\n\n=1.= Ethics is the science of rectitude and duty. It treats of the\nright and its obligations. Its subject is morality. Its sphere is\nthe sphere of virtuous conduct. It covers a double range of inquiry,\nas the subject-matter lies within or without the human constitution.\nOn the one side it investigates and sets forth the facts and laws of\nman's moral constitution; on the other, the nature and grounds of the\ndistinction of right and wrong. In the light of the whole investigation\ninto these fundamental verities, it determines the principles and\nrules of duty in the various relations of life. It thus discovers\nand elucidates the underlying pre-suppositions and principles upon\nwhich the phenomena of moral discernment and obligation rest, and on\nwhich man rises into the possibility and reality of character, as\nhis supreme distinction among the orders of existence on earth. The\ninquiry throughout is conducted according to the scientific method of\ncareful observation and analysis of the unquestionable facts concerned,\nand an orderly presentation of their necessary logical implications\nand conclusions. Hence the product of the investigation, as the\nsystematized view of the facts, with their underlying principles, may\njustly be called, as it usually is called, moral science.\n\nThe term Ethics, which we thus use to designate this branch of study,\nwith its systematized truth, is not employed with etymological\nstrictness. For it comes from the Greek \u1f26\u03b8\u03bf\u03c2 [Greek: \u00eathos], moral\ncharacter, which, according to Aristotle is derived from \u1f14\u03b8\u03bf\u03c2 [Greek:\nethos] custom, under the notion that moral virtue is a product of\nrepeated acts of voluntary preference.[1] Taken strictly this would\nbuild rectitude or the ethically right on the mere habits or usages\nof a people. But this conception of the basis of virtue must not be\nincluded and carried into the scientific use of the word, or be at all\nallowed to prejudice the final decision of this great question of the\nfoundation of right, in the end, in the light of all the facts in the\ncase.[2]\n\nThe Latin equivalent for \u1f26\u03b8\u03bf\u03c2 [Greek: \u00eathos] was _mos_, with similar\nsuggestion as to the nature of rectitude, and human duty was treated\nunder the head of De Moribus. Cicero says: \"_Quia pertinet ad mores,\nquod \u1f26\u03b8\u03bf\u03c2 [Greek: \u00eathos] illi vocant, nos eam partem philosophi\u00e6 De\nMoribus appellare solemus; sed decet augentem linguam Latinam nominare\nMoralem._\"[3] This suggestion of Cicero has given the common English\ndesignation Morals or Moral Philosophy. Recent usage, however, speaks\nof the study rather as moral science, in harmony with the prevailing\npreference for the term science in all investigations conducted under\nthe inductive method. It is, nevertheless, as will appear, largely\na metaphysical and philosophical investigation, and, if classed as\nscience, must be counted as pre-eminently a philosophical science.\n\n\n==Historical Glance.==\n\n=2.= The beginning of the movement to give a systematic view of ethical\ntruth may be traced to Socrates. The pre-Socratic philosophy failed to\nproduce anything that can be called a system in this connection. The\ndifficulty in the way was not only the want of a scientific spirit at\nthat period, but especially the inadequate and false light in which\nhuman beings were viewed. Outside of the Hebrew people there was\nlittle or no recognition of the freedom of man, as man. Such freedom\nwas denied both in thought and in life. Everywhere, in India, China,\nand Egypt, as well as in Greece and Rome, the immense mass of the\npopulation were in a condition of abject slavery, regarded as chattels,\nnot amenable to the responsibilities of moral life. Only the free\ncitizens were viewed as capable of virtue. Slavery was a part of the\nvery conception of the State. The essential characteristics and rights\nof humanity were not thought of as belonging to all men. But moral\nlife, as will appear, can exist only in the sphere of liberty. Even the\nmost advanced philosophers of the ancient world extended the conception\nof moral manhood only to the free citizen, the status of the rest not\nbringing them within the possibility of even civic virtue. And even\nthe so-called free citizen existed almost absolutely for the State.\nHis sacred selfhood disappeared under ownership by the Government, by\nwhich he was held and used as a machine for military service. Even\nlong after Socrates opened the way, within this limited range, toward\nsome connected view of ethical life, these disabling causes continued\nto distort and impede all efforts to systematize the principles which\nunderlie and determine it. Plato, Aristotle, and the philosophers\ngenerally, continued to know nothing of a morality for all human\nbeings.[4]\n\nIt is to be remembered, too, that this tardy appearance of effort in\nscientific ethics is part of the wider fact, that in that period of\nhuman history even the most advanced tribes and nations had not risen\nto science at all. All knowledge was in the non-scientific form, or\nonly fragmentarily and inchoately adjusted. The moral consciousness and\npersonal virtues, however, of course existed, as part of the normal\nconstitution and practical activities of human life. The various\npeoples had collections of moral precepts and rules for right living,\noften bright with gems of ethical truth and beauty, usually in close\nconnection with religious beliefs and convictions; but these were not\nbased and unified on any underlying principles bringing them logically\ninto compact and consistent system. Just as the facts and practices of\nreligion existed, in even rich luxuriance, anterior to the appearance\nof speculative theologies, and the phenomena of nature for long\ncenturies preceded the formation of the natural sciences, so the moral\nconstitution of the race and practical morality existed long in advance\nof the explanations and systemization that create the science of ethics.\n\nThe history of the science does not come within the purpose of this\nwork. The greatness of the speculative and practical questions involved\nin the subject, clearly and impressively apparent when once brought\nforward, could not fail to awaken and hold the most earnest interest\nof the human mind. They concerned the powers and possibilities of man\nin the crowning endowments of his nature, and in the highest ascent\nof their evident intention and adaptation. They touched the great\nproblems of personal and social welfare in the most vital relations\nand decisive interests. So the old sages became moralists and their\ngreat themes were the themes of virtue and duty. Not very deeply,\nhowever, did they, for centuries, succeed in penetrating the rational\nprinciples of the moral life and the authority of the moral judgments.\nYet clear gems of thought and deep suggestion mark the pathway of\ntheir thinking. In passing on, and over from pagan into Christian\ndevelopment, the treatment was mostly in connection with religious\ntruths, and as involved in theological doctrine. In the light of the\nChristian Scriptures the whole subject came under a new illumination.\nThe various duties, however, in the different relations of life,\nwere permitted to rest, without much theorizing, on the warrant of\nsupernatural revelation and divine precept. Down through the early\nChristian period, and the centuries of medi\u00e6val scholasticism, and on\nthrough the Renaissance and the Reformation and the subsequent dogmatic\nperiod of Protestant theology, ethics continued to be treated simply as\na division of theology, based almost wholly on the Sacred Scriptures,\nwith but little inclusion of any effort to determine its natural basis\nand significance. But with the age of modern philosophy and science a\nnew interest and direction came to ethical inquiry. Explanation began\nto be sought for the unique authority of the ethical judgments, and\nconcerning the place of the moral power in the essential constitution\nof the human soul. Special emphasis was given to the fact that, even\napart from the precepts of revelation, man is bound to rectitude by\nan imperative within him, which is not of his choice, but claims the\nright to dominate his choices. And since the seventeenth century\nthe ethical constitution of humanity, together with the nature and\ngrounds of right, has been made, apart from theology, the distinct\nand separate theme of scientific and philosophical investigation and\ndiscussion. It has been among the leading subjects of rational inquiry\nand constructive effort. Especially in Great Britain and in our own\ncountry has the inquiry been conducted on this basis, and directed to\nthe exhibition of the natural foundation and character of the ethical\ndistinctions and judgments, and to a systemization of the ethical\nrealities and laws thus determinable. The work thus done has created an\nimmense literature, and established a body of securely authenticated\nscientific results.\n\n\n=3.= Ethics, in its comprehensive sense, is naturally divided into two\nleading parts--Theoretical Ethics, and Practical or Applied Ethics.\n\n==Theoretical Ethics.==\n\n(1) Theoretical Ethics deals with the essential realities and\nprinciples which form the fundamental basis and source of obligation\nand moral law, in the constitution of man and of the world. It is a\nspeculative study, seeking a rational account of the foundations of\nmorality and behests of duty. It secures a theory from and of the\nfacts. It has, however, a double range of investigation, as it seeks to\ndetermine the truth with respect to the two great essential factors in\nthe aggregate inquiry.\n\nIn the one range it examines and ascertains the facts and laws of man's\nmoral nature. It investigates the constitution of the moral agent, in\nwhose conscious experience, in the presence of the concrete world, the\nmoral phenomena arise. In this part, the inquiry is psychological, and\nits results are scientific.\n\nIn the other range it investigates the nature and ground of right, or\nthe morally good. In this the search is not for what is discoverable\nwithin the moral agent, or the phenomena of the moral perceptions and\nemotions, but for that which is without him and to which his moral\nlife is, at least apparently, required to be adjusted. Here the work\nis metaphysical, passing on from what is phenomenal within man, and\nlooking for the super-phenomenal realities implied. The process and\nresults here are philosophical.\n\nIt thus appears that the one range of investigation moves subjectively,\nthe other objectively. The first discovers what man is--at least so far\nas his constitution embraces those powers, perceptions, judgments and\nfeelings in which he becomes and recognizes himself a moral being; the\nsecond seeks to know what rectitude is, or what is that to which the\nmoral perceptions and discriminations refer and bind. When the truth on\nboth these sides is discovered and brought together, the whole view,\nwith the particulars logically correlated, will present the aggregate\ntheory of duty, or the rationale of obligation.\n\n==Practical Ethics.==\n\n(2) Practical Ethics sets forth the proper application of these\nfundamental principles of right and duty, as developed and justified in\ntheoretical ethics, to the varied relations of men, personally, in the\nFamily, in Society, and in the State. It passes on from the philosophy\nof moral obligations to a settlement of particular duties in the\ndifferent spheres of human life and activity.\n\nThe connection between theoretical and practical ethics is very\nclose and vital. Theory and practice always affect each other. They\ncannot be held wholly apart. They act and react on each other, in\nceaseless influences. It is so in every department of thought and life.\nTheoretical error in physical science, in art, in trade, in political\neconomy, can hardly fail to appear in faulty or misdirected practice.\nEvery failure to grasp first principles correctly and firmly is sure\nto mean failure also to grasp and maintain the true order and beauty\nof right living. False views as to the reality and grounds of moral\nobligation weaken, vitiate and corrupt life. They become, often, the\nfountain of far-flowing streams of evil and blight. At best they lack\npower for the true and right life. A correct theory of ethical truth\nis, therefore, demanded by all the high interests in the moral life of\nman and the order of the world.\n\nIt is apparent, however, that it is only the theoretical part that\nconstitutes the science of ethics. It alone settles the systematic\nview of it, revealing its underlying pre-suppositions and principles,\nexhibiting its reasons and determining its laws. Practical ethics, as\nsimply pointing out how these bear upon men's temper and conduct in\nactual life, is apart from the scientific investigation. Though this\nhas usually constituted a large portion of formal treatises on the\nsubject, we, for the reason thus given, omit it from this discussion.\n\n\n=4.= A few of the relations of ethical science are properly called to\nmind here. Its place will thus be more clearly seen. It sustains very\nclose relations to three other great branches of study.\n\n==Relation to Psychology.==\n\n(1) To psychology. It is organically related to this. In that part of\nits work which determines the reality and nature of moral obligation\nfrom the constitution and action of the human mind, moral science joins\nwith psychology in the investigation of man's mental capacities and\npowers. Ever since the days of Aristotle ethics has been seen to have\nreal psychological basis and pre-suppositions.[5] Yet, as a result of\nthe later general subsuming of ethics under religious and theological\nprecepts, this basis received but little distinct investigation till\nthe time of Shaftesbury who, though failing to give adequate or\ncorrect account of it, brought it prominently forward. Mental science\nis essentially conditional for moral science. The behests of duty are\nprovided for and sanctioned in human nature. The moral discriminations\nand convictions emerge as psychical phenomena. \"To understand what man\nought to do, it is necessary to know what he is.\" In the very structure\nand adjustment of his powers, it becomes apparent that he has been made\nfor duty and organized under obligations.\n\nBut while psychology and ethics both study the powers and functions of\nthe soul, they do so with different aims. The one has no aim beyond\na knowledge of the phenomena and laws of the mind as mind. The other\nstudies it with a view to the light which this knowledge sheds on\nthe problems of virtue and duty. There are, indeed, some questions\nin ethics that transcend the province of psychology, and belong to\nthe further realm of metaphysics--as, for instance, the validity and\nground of the distinction between right and wrong--yet, so far as it is\nthe science of conscience or of man's moral nature, it is thoroughly\npsychological. And well would it have been for moral science if,\ninstead of speculatively and arbitrarily theorizing on the subject, it\nhad more critically, fully, and exactly searched out the real facts\nin actual psychology and moved forward always toward the conclusions\nnecessitated by these fundamental and abiding realities.\n\n==Relation to Natural Theology.==\n\n(2) To Natural Theology. As Natural Theology seeks to determine the\nexistence, character and will of God as Creator and Moral Governor\nof the world, and the consequent relations and responsibilities of\nmen, it covers, to some extent, the same ground as a system of ethics\nconstructed simply upon the basis of reason and the data found in\nman's nature and place. Both, if properly drawn out, bring to view the\nreality of \"a power that makes for righteousness\"[6] in the natural\nconstitution of the world, and exhibit the laws of obligation that\nbind men under the action of conscience. Both treat of the fact and\nauthentications of human duty. A science of ethics, as well as a\ntheology, may be constructed, apart from supernatural revelation,\nfrom the data of reason and nature alone. The possibility of this is\nimplied in Rom. 2:14, 15. This would be a system of natural ethics.\nThere is still, however, a large difference--though theology and ethics\nbe kept apart from the teachings of special revelation. For Natural\nTheology keeps more prominently and controllingly in view the being and\ncharacter of God, and aims more distinctly to produce the religious\nsentiments, while authenticating the reality and action of the moral\nlaw. Ethics, on the other hand, puts the facts of human nature and\nlife into the front and includes the religious element only as a\nconsequential, though necessary, inclusion.\n\n==Relation to Christian Theology.==\n\n(3) To Christian Theology, or revealed religion. As this is the fullest\ndisclosure of the duty of man, in all his relations, to God, to his\nfellow-men, and to his own end, it is not surprising that for so many\ncenturies, the treatment of morals was made simply a part of general\ntheology, and merely distinguished as Moral Theology. In the modern\nseparation of ethics from theology and treatment of it as a science, it\nis not meant to deny the close affinity between the two investigations\nor the rich illumination that duty receives from supernatural\nrevelation, but only to trace out more distinctly and fully, in\nindependent and scientific form, the deep and immovable foundations of\nthe principles of duty in the very constitution of man and the world.\nThis exhibition of the natural basis of ethical law and obligation\nbecomes an independent and generic enforcement of the principles of\nrighteousness. It gives a philosophic vindication of one of the first\nassumptions of Christianity--the supremacy of the law of rectitude for\nhuman life. And Christianity is vindicated and exalted when it comes\nrecognizing and confirming all the principles and duties discoverable\nin our moral nature, and adding a supernatural disclosure of the way in\nwhich righteousness may be established in our lives, and men may attain\ntheir right character and destiny.\n\nChristianity, while much more than this, appears as a divine\nre-publication of the ethical truth which from the first has been\nincorporated in the organization of humanity. In it the light of\nconscience is supplemented and made clear. The ethics of human reason\nand those of revelation thus cover, to a great extent, the same ground.\nWhen correctly read they are never in conflict, but in harmony. Both\nshow man to be under moral law--and under broken law, that is, under\nsin. But the light of the Scriptures is broader and fuller. For in\naddition to their confirmation of a natural ethic for man, they\ndisclose a scheme of redemption, with otherwise undiscoverable moral\nrelations and obligations, introducing new and vital elements into the\nscience of ethics. The inclusion of these elements and truths turns\npagan or natural ethics into Christian.\n\nWhatever interpretation may be given by different Christians to\nthe redemption thus disclosed, the ethical teaching of the Sacred\nScriptures, by universal consent, surpasses, in clearness, elevation\nand completeness, every other ethical view or system in the world. The\nloftiest philosophical thought has reached no higher summit--and has\nclimbed to its best only in the light which Christianity has supplied.\nNo system of morals is now worthy of the name that fails to avail\nitself of its ethical teaching. Only when this is properly included,\nilluminating natural ethics with its supernatural light, can we have\nthe whole view of human duty. He who refuses the Christian grade and\ncompleteness of moral view goes back from the full daylight into the\nobscure dawn before the morning. Nevertheless the natural basis of\nethical laws needs to be clearly apprehended and distinctly borne in\nmind. In these days when the foundations of all truths are put to\nscrutinizing tests, it is of fundamental importance that, through the\nverifying processes of careful science, we shall recognize the ethical\nverities and responsibilities, affirmed by revelation, as primarily and\nimmutably a part of the very nature of man and the constitution of the\nworld.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nTHE FACT OF MORAL DISTINCTIONS.\n\n\n==Moral Distinctions.==\n\nThe primary fact underlying the science of ethics is the great\nphenomenon of moral distinctions in the world. Scarcely anything\nin human life has been more conspicuous and indubitable than the\nexistence of ideas of right and wrong and their application to human\nconduct. This has characterized mankind everywhere and in all ages.\nIts prevalence is as broad as humanity. A phenomenon so universal and\npermanent must necessarily be regarded as in some way organic in the\nhuman constitution. It calls for examination and justifies scientific\ninquiry into its cause and implications.\n\nThe certainty and largeness of the phenomenon become deeply impressive\nwhen it is traced out and fairly considered.\n\n\n==Revealed in Personal Consciousness.==\n\n=1.= The distinction between right and wrong appears in every man's\npersonal consciousness. Each one is directly and fully aware of it in\nhis own case. He approves and condemns on this basis, and in doing so\nfinds himself in harmony with a principle marking the sentiments of\nothers around him. He passes quick, spontaneous judgments on his own\nconduct and on that of his fellow-men. The distinction, to greater\nor less degree, shapes itself into a sense of obligation and a law of\nduty. Nothing can wipe it out from his knowledge and feelings.\n\n\n==Incorporated in Social Organism.==\n\n=2.= It is found incorporated into the social organism. What each man\nis conscious of doing in his own inner life, society, in its solidarity\nor constitutional unity, is found doing and enforcing. Organic humanity\nreveals the presence of the ethical conception and sure lines of its\naction everywhere. However diverse may be its judgments, there is\nsuch a thing as a public conscience that holds up conduct to favor\nor reprobation, not simply as beneficial or injurious but as being\nintrinsically right or wrong.\n\nThe social constitution is in fact framed together under the human\ncapacity and necessity of perceiving and fulfilling the duties that\narise in the inter-relations of associated life. For, the very laws and\nadministrations on which the social order and welfare are dependent,\nand through which they are in a measure secured, are the embodiment\nof the ethical ideas and judgments of the people. No adjustment of\nrelations is possible except upon this foundation. The obliteration of\nthese ideas would mean social anarchy. \"Society,\" says Prof. Borden P.\nBowne, \"in its organized form, is a moral institution with moral ends.\nHowever selfish individuals may be, they cannot live together without a\nsocial order which rests on moral ideas.\"[7]\n\n\n==Witnessed in History.==\n\n=3.= The great volume of history is witness to the universal\nphenomenon. Its records testify to the presence and action of the\nmoral distinctions everywhere and in all the ages of the world. Whether\nthese records present the customs and habits of early tribes, the rise\nand fall of nations, the reigns of princes and emperors, the exploits\nof generals and conquerors, the march and overthrow of armies, the\nrelentless cruelty of tyrants or the noble service of patriots and\nbenefactors, the establishment of just institutions or the miseries of\nthe people where the oppressor's millstones grind on, all the pages\nare replete with evidence that men, around all the globe and through\nall the centuries, have been wont either to accuse or excuse the\nconduct and motives of one another according to some standard of moral\njudgment or sentiments of right and wrong. It is true that from some\npages of history the moral sense seems darkened out of sight. They\nbring before us thousands of men, often the most conspicuous in the\never-changing drama of public life, from whose thinking the notions\nof right and wrong seem to have been wanting or obliterated, acting\nonly from selfishness, avarice, or ambition, monsters of injustice,\nheartlessness, cruelty and blood. Many of its chapters are but the\nsickening stories of tribal and national feuds and wars, of crime,\nplunder and devastation, of hate, scheming and treachery, of thirst\nfor power, fame and treasure, of moving armies and fields of carnage\nand fire-swept lands, seeming to report that the moral sense had\nno place or force whatever in the men who were the actors in those\nscenes. But these chapters of lurid crime and wrong, like the records\nof crime to-day, do not represent all the thought of the humanity\nof such times. They tell of the men and deeds that most completely\ndefied the moral ideas that belonged to their own nature, and whose\nremorseless wrong-doing evoked the deep, indignant reprobation of the\nthousands and millions of innocent and injured sufferers. And when\nthe pen of history, with eye on the relations of cause and effect\nand the unfolding issues of such flagrant violation of right and\njustice, has traced the steps of a divine Nemesis, a stern Avenger,\nfollowing the guilty, age after age, the record proves to be, all the\nmore emphatically, a ceaseless testimony to the great fact of moral\ndistinctions as a world-wide and ceaseless phenomenon of human life.\n\n\n==Shown in All Religions.==\n\n=4.= The religions of the world all show the same fact. While these\npresent a Godward side and express the perpetual human need of union\nand fellowship with the infinite divine Source of all Good, they at\nthe same time testify to a distinctively moral constitution and action\nof human life. The sense of obligation, duty and guilt appears in the\nwarp and woof of religion everywhere. While with a singular breach\nwith reason religious rites and practices here and there have shown\na wide departure from correct moral principles, yet the religious\nconsciousness of the race has been almost a synonym for the action\nof the moral sense. In all lands and all ages this consciousness has\ncarried with it, in greater or less clearness and force, a conviction\nthat the Power above men not themselves is a Power that makes for\nrighteousness, establishing and enforcing principles of duty among\nmen. And the various religions of mankind, especially those of\nmonotheistic teaching and more distinct development, present clear and\nemphatic codes of moral principles and requirement. Some of them are\nresolvable largely into philosophies of life, with ethical directions\nfor the regulation of conduct. In the Egyptian Book of the Dead, which\nbelongs to the age of the pyramid builders, from 2000 to 3000 B. C., we\nfind set forth a morality marked by surprising breadth and purity.[8]\nIn all the wide-spread religions of Asia, some of them emerging out\nof the darkness of prehistoric times, the Akkadian and Babylonian,\nZoroastrianism, Brahmanism, Confucianism, Buddhism, T\u00e2oism, Shintoism,\nand Mohammedanism, with their countless millions of followers,\neverywhere the constitution of man and social life is recognized as\nlaid in laws of moral obligation and order, and religious life, in\ngreater or less degree, is called to aspire to that which is judged to\nbe right and good. Ancient Druidism was strongly marked by its emphatic\nmoral tone. No Christian needs to be reminded with what sublime\ndistinctness Christianity, with its redemption economy, declares the\neternal distinction between moral good and evil, and calls men to peace\nand blessedness through faith and righteousness.\n\nReligion, it is to be remembered, is in the broadest sense a fact of\nhumanity. The distinguished anthropologist Quatrefages is sustained\nby the fullest evidence when he asserts that man is essentially a\nreligious being. It appears in every tribe on earth. Moral conceptions\nand sentiments, however faint and faultily applied, are a part of this\nomnipresent religious mind of the race.\n\n\n==Pervades Literature.==\n\n=5.= Such moral conceptions pervade the general literature of the\nworld. Wherever a people has progressed in culture sufficiently to\ncreate and preserve a literature, it is found to be many-tongued\nwitness to a recognized difference between right and wrong. In its\npages these discriminations appear as a never-ceasing characteristic\nof human thought. They come to us out of the remotest past and from\nregions untaught by the decalogue of Sinai. They illuminate, as\nalready implied, the sacred books of India, China, Egypt, Persia and\nBabylonia, as well as the classic writings of ancient Greece and\nRome and the Saga writing of Northern Europe. They not only form the\nbody of the moral disquisitions of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Cato,\nCicero, Seneca, Marcus Aurelius and many others, but color and shape\nthe drama and lyric poetry in which the thought and sentiment of the\nrace have been embalmed. To see illustrations of this we need only\nread the tragedies of Sophocles, for instance \u0152dipus Tyrannus, lines\n863-871, or Antigone, lines 449-460, or listen to the verse of Horace,\nBook III, Ode 3, tracing the supremacy and triumph of a consciousness\nof right over all other authority and power. With the advance of\nhumanity as the centuries have passed away literature is more and\nmore the representation of human sentiment and life under the action\nand reaction of these ethical discriminations in the ever-changing\nconditions of the world. Philosophy and science and fiction and\npoetry and politics and jurisprudence are occupied in dealing with\nthe principles and questions thus raised, and our modern libraries\nare largely the accumulated treasures of the thinking world on the\nsignificance and application of these principles.\n\n\n==Anthropological Confirmation.==\n\n=6.= The ethnic and anthropological information of the present day\nreports no people or tribe, even the rudest, altogether without moral\nideas and some measure of application of them to conduct. Enthusiastic\nscientists, travelers and missionaries, traversing the earth, have\nthoroughly established this point. Often, indeed, has the universality\nhere asserted been disputed. Reports were brought of tribes discovered\naltogether destitute of the ethical sense. But closer inspection of\nthe tribal and personal life has corrected the first impression,\nand evidences of the disputed fact have become indubitable. A low\nand confused manifestation had been mistaken as none whatever. In\ndegraded and besotted conditions of human life, it is altogether\nreasonable to believe that the particular discrimination in question\nwould appear only in the crude and uncertain forms in keeping with\nthe undeveloped grade of all the functions of thought and sentiment.\nThe sunken humanity has carried down and buried its proper and normal\nmanifestations almost out of sight. As soon as uplift comes to a\ntribe, the powers of moral discernment and knowledge, whose action\nwas scarcely discoverable before, emerge in unmistakable certainty and\nforce. And no phenomenon that science is seeking to investigate to-day\ncan be more justly regarded as universally human than the fact under\nconsideration.\n\n\n==Not Affected by Explanations.==\n\n=7.= It needs to be distinctly fixed in mind that this great fact\nis not at all affected by any offered theory of its cause and\nsignificance. It stands independent of any particular explanation\nof it, and indeed of all solutions. If, for instance, the origin of\nthese moral judgments should be traced back and accounted for, as is\ndone by Herbert Spencer, as the result of accumulated experiences of\nutility, gradually organized and inherited as spontaneous approval\nand disapproval, the theory still recognizes the fact of ethical\njudgments while endeavoring to account for them. Or, when the older\nutilitarianism seeks to explain them as resolvable into the pleasure\nor satisfaction men feel toward certain forms of conduct or principles\nof behavior that are found to be useful and promotive of happiness,\nthe fact still remains that judgments of right and wrong are actually\nestablished and dominate the thought and life of men. The very attempt\nto identify the virtues of life with its utilities, while making the\nvirtues only its utilities, concedes that the obligation to them is\npart of the recognized reality of human life. Or, further, should a\nbolder and more radical view allege that these notions of right and\nwrong are mere matters of taste and prejudice, a fictitious product of\nadventitious circumstances and education, without verity or validity\nat bottom, the offered explanation would be simply a denial, but no\ndisproof of the fact concerned. For it would amount to a claim that\nin the absolute sense one thing is essentially as good as another,\nand would thus disregard the real affirmation as it stands in the\nmoral judgment of mankind. Such a claim, it has been well said, no\ntheorist of the present day would pretend to maintain outside of his\ncloset.[9] Not in any race or people has the ethical sense allowed that\nessentially and at bottom all acts are equally right. This is the very\npoint of the great phenomenon presented. Whatever may be the final\nexplanation of it, somehow or other the reason, sentiment and practical\nsense of mankind insist on a real difference, and look upon all denial\nof the distinction as a manifest and intolerable absurdity.\n\nThe universal recognition of this distinction, revealed in every\nman's consciousness, involved in the organic relations of society,\ntestified to everywhere in the pages of history, embodied essentially\nin the religious nature and sentiments of mankind, woven into general\nliterature, found to-day unmistakably in the thinking, laws and customs\nof all races and tribes, and acknowledged in the philosophical view\nof humanity wherever man is studied, irreducible as a fact by any\naccount of its genesis or explanation of its significance, presents the\noccasion and primary materials of ethical science. The great phenomenon\ncalls for investigation. We want to know the reasons for it and the\nimport of it.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nFACULTY OF MORAL DISTINCTIONS--THE EXISTENCE OF CONSCIENCE.\n\n\n==The Moral Faculty.==\n\nThe great fact of moral distinctions, found to be universal in human\nthought and life, must be traced back to the particular power of\nthe mind which discerns and feels these distinctions. Back of the\nphenomenon must be recognized the psychical capacity and action out of\nwhich the discriminations arise. The moral faculty answers to and in\npart accounts for the moral fact. In modern general literature it is\nusually called the conscience. Ethical science properly accepts the\ndesignation. It is sometimes called the moral consciousness, or the\nmoral sense. It expresses a power of the personal _ego_ or self to\nmake the moral discrimination and discern the obligation to rectitude.\nWithout such power, as an adequate capacity for the ideas, it is\nplain that the ethical judgments could not arise. The very idea of\nobligation, the ethical \"ought,\" would be wanting. The whole realm of\nwhat this science considers would be a blank. In the moral faculty or\nconscience itself, as the immediate source of the ethical distinctions\nand laws of duty, we are furnished with additional material for this\nstudy.\n\nNo particular stress is here laid on the term \"faculty,\" as a\ndesignation of the moral power. There is, indeed, no validity in the\nclaim of some recent psychologists that the term must be abandoned\non the ground that psychology discovers only mental acts, without a\npsychic subject with distinct faculties back of the acts. Yet the term\nfaculty has often been used and understood in a way inconsistent with\nthe essential and conscious unity of the personal _ego_ or self, making\nthe soul seem a bundle of independent and separately acting parts of a\npsychical organism. The perfect oneness of the personal self must be\nmaintained, and the term faculty, when used for any form of psychical\nability, must be understood simply as expressing the soul's capacity\nor power to do any specific form of work, or to act in any particular\nand distinctively definable way, as, for instance, to know, to feel, to\nwill, to remember, to compare. In this sense the use of the term stands\nfully justified in psychological usage and propriety. But the reason\nfor abating from the claim of strict exactness in the term in this\nconnection is that the conscience, in its full conception and action,\nas will hereafter appear, while exhibiting a specific and simple power\nas its central reality, will be found to include also subordinately\nthe conjoint action of several other forms of psychical power. It\nstands for a complex of capacities and powers. This will appear when we\nreach its analysis. But the question of the absolute simplicity of the\nfaculty does not affect the substance of our inquiry into its existence\nnor the propriety of employing the term for the power in its totality.\nFor, as naming the central and decisive reality in the conscience, it\nis justly spoken of as a special faculty. Even when it is viewed as\nstanding for a complex of powers converging, in their functions, to\nthe discernment of moral distinctions and the reality of duty, it has\nsufficient individuality to be rightly and scientifically designated\nin this way. The question to be considered, and upon which the logical\nconclusions of the science will depend, is not its absolute simplicity,\nbut the fact of such a power as a normal part in the soul's essential\nconstitution of powers. If the power be found integral and normal in\nthe soul's actual capacities, we have all that is essential for the\nfoundation of ethics.\n\nThe existence of the conscience as a specific and natural faculty of\ndiscernment of right and duty may seem to the student or reader to need\nno formal proof, as something substantially everywhere acknowledged.\nBut as various theories undertake to question its existence, in the\nsense thus explained, and resolve the affirmations of right and duty\ninto pseudo-products developed in a roundabout way, or by some illusive\ntransformation of ideas or sentiments given by the other faculties of\nthe soul, ideas or sentiments which in fact are really unethical, it\nbecomes necessary to vindicate the asserted existence of this moral\nfaculty.\n\n\n==Moral Distinctions Prove Conscience.==\n\n=1.= The primary and fundamental evidence is the great fact, already\nset forth, of the moral distinctions which arise out of its action\nand fill personal consciousness and the life of the world with their\nattesting presence. The known object implies a power by which it\nis known. Without the faculty, in the sense of a power to know, the\nknowledge here in question could not exist. Its existence is proof\nof the reality and action of the faculty perceptive of it. The only\nalternative to this would be a total denial of the ethical distinction,\neven as a genuine phenomenon, and an assertion that the supposed\nknowledge of it is, and always has been, illusory and unreal. And\nthis would be equivalent to a claim that men may and should abandon\nthe ethical distinction and believe that there is absolutely no moral\ndifference between justice and injustice, between kindness and hatred,\nbetween truth and lying, between friendship and treachery, between\ncharity and murder. And this again would mean that we are to repudiate,\nas without validity, the whole notion which the ages, especially the\nmost intelligent and best ages, have cherished, that man is capable\nof character, as good or bad, excellent or blameworthy. But this\nwhole alternative becomes impossible, by reason of the necessary\nand invincible contrary judgment by which the moral distinctions\nare affirmed as actual and valid for human life. The faculty of\nmoral discernment proves its existence by making the contrary of its\ndiscernment an impossible conception.\n\n\n==The Moral Perceptions Peculiar.==\n\n=2.= Its existence is further proved by the unique and peculiar\ncharacter of its data or perceptions. These are unlike any other, _sui\ngeneris_. They are original and cannot be deduced from other data. The\nethical percept is something that can be understood only in terms\nof itself. It cannot be described or expressed in the terms of the\npercepts or knowledge given by the other faculties of the soul, either\ngeneral or special, either separately or in combination. Hence we must,\naccording to all sound psychological procedure, postulate a special\nfaculty, as distinctive and normal as is the percept, for this original\nand irresolvable ethical idea.\n\nA little explanation will help to show this. Let us make search for\nthe ethical idea or perception among the well-known data of the other\nfaculties. Manifestly it is not given by the \"sense-perception,\" for\nit presents none of the physical properties which this makes known.\nClearly, too, it is not created by the \"consciousness,\" which presents\nsimply the states or acts of the mind, with the personal self as\ntheir subject, but which does not itself originate the states or acts\nit reveals--any more than does the light of the morning create the\nobjects of the landscape which it discloses. Further, it is evidently\nnot given by the power of \"representation,\" for this merely reproduces\nand re-knows what was before known through the \"sense-perception\"\nand revealed in \"consciousness,\" revived in the form of memory or\nrearranged and recombined in the forms of the constructive imagination.\nIt supplies no original data. It, further still, cannot be the product\nof the \"logical\" faculty, as the power or function of discursive\nreasoning, because this originates no new material, but only reconnects\nand judges of relations in the material already known, simply dealing\nwith ideas furnished to it. Nor can the ethical percept, as an\nintuition to the obligation to rectitude, be at all identified with\nthe _a priori_ ideas of time and space, or the categories of substance\nand attribute, identity and difference, means and end, or the law of\ncausation. And yet it stands out in an originality as positive and\ndistinct as do any of the unquestionable data or percepts of the soul's\nacknowledged specific faculties.\n\nJust as little can the ethical idea, as the discrimination of right and\nwrong, be referred to the \"sensibility,\" as the pleasure or dislike\nwith which we regard what is found useful and conducive to enjoyment\nor the reverse. For, though a certain pleasure is connected with the\nethically right, this specific feeling follows, and is dependent on\nno other perception than of the right. It is a satisfaction which\nthe ethically good thus awakens. But the knowledge which experience\ngives of what is useful and conducive to enjoyment is generically\ndifferent from the moral idea and its sense of obligation. Utility and\nthe ethical discrimination are not the same conception. They belong\nto two diverse realms of thought and knowledge. Whatever relations\nmay be traced between them, they cannot be identified or held as\nconvertible percepts. The autonomous imperative of the ethical idea\noften positively prohibits the very things men judge to be profitable\nand pleasurable. It is a remarkable fact that the testimonies from\nliterature and life to the phenomenon of moral distinctions everywhere\nmaintain the difference between the idea of right and that of the\npleasurable or profitable. What is right is one thing; what is\nagreeable is another thing. The two conceptions are not identical, but\nare often placed in immediate and irreducible antithesis. Those who do\nright, choosing it and heroically loyal to it despite the appeals of\nambition, the temptations of avarice, the enticements of ease, and the\nfavor or the wrath of the wicked, are approved and honored. To such the\ngates of the divine favor and recompense are pictured as ever standing\nopen.\n\nThere is another consideration in this connection which shows beyond\nquestion that this ethical faculty, whose action is everywhere\ntraceable, is not to be confounded with mere intellectuality or\nthe action of simply the general intellectual powers. It exhibits\nitself in a distinct line of working and results, like a particular\ncurrent in the common sea, and often in open contrast. It is a\npeculiar and significant fact, often observed by historians, that\nas the civilizations of antiquity, of Assyria, Egypt, Phenicia,\nGreece and Rome, advanced in intellect they declined in morals.\nIntellectualism may be at its height while the moral side of life\nmay suffer a submergence beneath the floods of luxury and refined\nsocial vices. Buckle confesses that intellect and morals are not\nonly distinguishable, but separable.[10] Herbert Spencer says: \"The\nbelief in the moralizing effects of intellectual culture, flatly\ncontradicted by facts, is absurd _a priori_.\"[11] Lord Wolseley makes\na statement not flattering to the boasted advantage claimed for simple\nintellectualism: \"The virtue of the Zulu women was superior to that\nof any civilized people I know of.\"[12] The function of the conscience\nin human nature and life stands clearly distinguishable from the\ncommon data and powers of mere intellectualism. The world will not\nbe ethically saved by intellect alone. The conscience must dominate\nmere intellectual results and forces. And the high distinctive place\nand peculiar character of the conscience-perception is seen when it\nis thus observed that the perception is not of something that is,\nbut of what ought to be, in the sphere of conduct and character. Its\nobject is apprehended as lying in the ideal realm of obligation. The\nreality perceived is transcendent, as what should be in life, in order\nthat life may accord with a super-sensible reality in the realm of\nrighteousness. It as truly reaches beyond sense as do the intuitions\nof time and space or the law of causation; and, as truly as they, it\ncalls for the recognition of a special and original psychical faculty\nor provision, among the powers of the soul, for its perception. The\nconscience,\n\n \"Deep-seated in our mystic frame,\"\n\ndiscerns a law of righteous obligation, which is not the dictate of\nmere desire or pleasure or self-advantage, but a law established\nat once over us and in us not dependent on our will or choice but\ndemanding conformity of will and choice to itself.\n\n\n==Feelings from Conscience Perceptions.==\n\n=3.= The existence of the conscience as an integral power of the\nhuman constitution is evidenced also by the special feelings which\nattend its perceptions. They are distinctively peculiar. This is\nillustrated in the sense of obligation arising from the idea of right\nand the perception of duty. It is even more clearly illustrated in the\nsatisfaction which attends and follows duty done, and the remorse which\nfollows wrong or crime committed.\n\nThe sense of obligation, _i. e._ the emotion awakened by the perception\nof obligation, is unique among the emotions of the sensibility. In the\npresence of recognized right or wrong men feel bound to correspondent\naction as they feel bound under no other perceptions. The conscience,\nindeed, uses no compulsion, but it presents the right or wrong and\ncorrespondent obligation. Freedom is not annulled, but appealed to.\nThe feeling, as the sensibility excited, is the feeling of ought or\nought not, added to the perception of it. Nothing like this appears\nin connection with any of the other perceptions. We may perceive\ntruth, but if the truth is not the particular truth of obligation\nitself, there is only the pleasure, gratification or admiration in\nits discovery and attainment. We may perceive beauty, but if the\nbeauty be apart from that of ethical excellence, the feeling is simply\n\u00e6sthetic and different from the obligatory feeling: \"I ought.\" We may\nperceive utility or understand what is simply profitable, but the\nfeeling awakened is but desire. All these and like simply intellectual\nperceptions awaken no sense of obligation to cherish any special\nsentiments or perform any special acts. But as soon as men, in pure\nand normal state of their rational and emotional nature, perceive\nthe right as over against the wrong, the sensibility which always in\ngreater or less degree responds to every act of knowledge, presents a\nform of feeling, in the ethical \"ought,\" generically different from\nthe feelings that arise out of all other kinds of knowledge. This\nfeeling is itself a part and parcel of the aggregate or complex of the\nconscience. But its presence marks the conscience as a special power\nnormally constituent of human nature.\n\nThe other moral emotions named, viz.: satisfaction in duty done\nand remorse or compunction for wrong, bring us to the same conclusion.\nThese feelings are _sui generis_. They are distinctively characteristic,\nand are never called forth but in connection with the moral intuitions.\nThese peculiar satisfactions or compunctions never appear upon\nperception of a truth of mathematics or a fact in chemistry or a gem of\nart. Such knowledge evokes no sense of duty and is followed by no\nfeeling of remorse or rush of compunction, flooding the soul with\nself-condemnation. A sense of loss, in failing to gain a possible\nadvantage, is incapable of being confounded with the feeling of having\ndone wrong. Some of the highest elevations of ethical satisfaction are\nfelt when men have maintained their fidelity to the right in face of\nthe most enormous losses and of the most desolating sufferings. The\ndeepest remorse the human soul ever knows may spring up in view of ways\nand acts which have given men all the things they have coveted and\njudged to be the most useful and enjoyable. There must surely be a\nspecial power whose peculiar discernments call the sensibilities into\nsuch unique and peculiar forms of feeling.\n\n\n==Conflict of Moral Judgements.==\n\n=4.= This conclusion is not weakened, as has sometimes been supposed,\nby the diversity and seeming conflict of moral judgments among men.\nThis diversity seems, in the view of many persons, inconsistent with\nthe supposition of a conscience, in the sense given. The fact of such\ndiversity is freely conceded. The progress of history shows many\nchanges in moral judgments. An advance is clearly traceable, in which\nonce accepted rules of conduct have been superseded by different\nrequirements. Things approved in one land and tribe are condemned in\nanother. Pascal has said that conscience is one thing north of the\nPyrenees and another south. In every community what some look upon as\nright others declare wrong. Infanticide, which under our civilization\nis punished as murder, on the banks of the Ganges has been esteemed a\nhigh religious duty. Polygamy, which our government is trying to wipe\nout as an immorality and foul blot, is held by the Mormons as a sacred\nright. Slavery is still regarded by some as right though condemned by\nthe convictions of the nation as morally indefensible. Most startling\ndiversities and contrasts are continually appearing. Hence it has often\nbeen said that our moral judgments rest, in fact, on no original and\npermanent principles discerned by a distinct and universal faculty of\nthe soul, but are a purely adventitious and accidental product, shaped\nin ideas that come of circumstances, education or the shifting spirit\nof the age.[13] The law of morality is reduced to the dictates of\nexpediency or to sentiment and caprice born of our changeful desires.\nThis virtually denies both the validity of the ethical behests and the\nreality of an ethical faculty provided for perception of rectitude and\nduty. But the difficulty from this diversity and apparent contradiction\nloses its force when carefully considered. It disappears when we recall\nthe following indubitable facts:\n\n==Ethical Sense Persists.==\n\nFirst, that in the midst of this variety and conflict in the moral\njudgments, the ethical sense still persists in maintaining its\nfunction. If convicted of acting inconsistently, it still acts. Though\nit is found judging differently, it still judges, asserting its place\nand office, and imposing its decisions as obligatory in conduct. Under\nthe view alleged in the objection, the sense of obligation ought to\ndisappear, its supposed authority having been explained away. The\nperson finds that in very truth the moral behest, though in him is not\nof him, is not of his will or choice, but arises out of the necessary\naction of a power that he cannot displace by refusal to obey it. The\nfaculty or power does not consent, so to speak, to omit or withdraw its\nethical distinction and assertion of duty. It does not abdicate, when\nmen allege the illegitimacy of its authority.\n\n==Agreement in Judgments.==\n\nSecondly, that while there is diversity as to many points, there is\nnone in its judgments as to the great body of virtues and vices of\nhuman life. As to all the leading qualities of character and conduct\nthere is full and universal agreement. With respect to all the cardinal\nvirtues, such as justice, kindness, veracity, love, courage, fidelity,\ngenerosity, the moral judgments approve them as the magnet owns its\npole, in all the multi-form relations and offices of life. On the other\nhand, injustice, falsehood, enmity, treachery, cruelty, adultery,\ntheft, murder and similar dispositions and acts in their thousand forms\nof unmistakable manifestation, are universally condemned. There is no\nquestion anywhere around our globe that one who deliberately kills his\nmother or mangles his father, or tortures the innocent or defrauds his\nfriend, is a wrong-doer, of abhorrent guilt. Over almost the entire\nbroad field of moral obligation there is a consentient, clear and\nconsistent judgment by the moral sense of man in all ages and places.\nIt is only along dividing lines, wider or narrower as they may be,\nthat, by reason of the fainter presence of the moral element or the\ncomplexity of the relations concerned, the moral judgments exhibit this\ndiversity or act with less assured and certain accuracy. The perplexity\nand difference find place only in limited degree and on remoter points,\nwhere the distinctions are so subtle as to require the nicest balancing\nof all the complex relations and elements which develop the ethical\nobligations.\n\nIf, indeed, the conscience reported entirely different codes\nthroughout, from bottom to top and from center to circumference, or\ncodes with contradictions as to the cardinal virtues and vices, then\nwe might well question the existence and action of a real, original\nand normal faculty as actually perceiving a real moral distinction and\nprinciple of duty. But if such diversities are found only in limited\ndegree, on marginal ground and in complex situations, we are simply in\nthe presence of a fact of great similarity of the conscience with all\nthe rest of the finite and fallible faculties of the human mind. Upon\na hundred points of practical morals the intelligent conscience would\nbe likely to agree quite as well as the judgments of men in any other\nsphere of practical knowledge and life.\n\n==Agreement in Principles.==\n\nThirdly, that even with respect to the cases in which there is the most\nstartling diversity, there is often an underlying agreement, overlooked\nby superficial thought. Take, for instance, the Hindu mother's act of\ninfanticide. Underneath her act and guiding it, is one or the other,\nor possibly both, of these principles: 1. Whatever sacrifice God calls\nfor ought to be made; or, 2. Whatever is best for the child ought to\nbe done. Falsely taught to believe that God calls for the sacrifice of\nher child, or that this surrender of it to him is the best thing for\nit, the mother makes the offering. Essentially as to the principles\nfrom which she acts her conscience and the Christian conscience are at\none. But she has been misled as to the will of God. Her understanding\nis without correct information as to matters of fact, and she applies\nmistakenly the principles of duty which are in her moral nature.\nTake, again, the crimes of religious intolerance and persecution. The\nreligious zealot believes that every man is to be, without weakness or\nshadow or turning, faithful to the truth. So also does the dissenter\nfrom the creed which the persecutor defends. They agree as to the\nunderlying principle of action. Each feels bound by the same ethical\nlaw of \"fidelity to the truth,\" but the persecutor is in grievous error\nin understanding that this fidelity binds him to coerce the mind of his\ndissenting brother.\n\n==Difference of Perceptions.==\n\nFourthly, the difference must be clearly kept in view between the\nessential ethical perception, viz.: the distinction of right and\nwrong with the involved obligation, and the application of that\nperception--between the primary and secondary moral judgment. The\nprimary is the intuition of the law of right, the secondary affirms\nthe quality of right or wrong with respect to particular actions. In\nthe one case the moral sense perceives that justice, love, veracity,\nkindness, etc., are right, and injustice, hatred, falsehood and\ncruelty are wrong; in the other the judgment is concerned with the\nfurther question whether this, that, or the other act comes under one\nor the other of these categories. The fundamental ethical distinction\nand obligation, with approval of justice, truth, etc., are generic,\nand altogether irrespective of any particular actions or instances.\nThe secondary judgments apply the distinction to particular modes of\nconduct or forms of temper and feeling. The latter are only in part\nmoral judgments, _i. e._ only so far as the particular feeling or deed\nexhibits to the conscience the presence of the ethical quality. It is\nan unquestionable fact that in many of the activities of life there\nare open alternatives of choice where the question of moral quality is\nnot raised at all. As, for instance, between taking one path or another\nto a certain point, or in writing a letter with a pen or typewriter,\nthe choice is morally indifferent. The decision involves no ethical\njudgment. But in most contemplated action there are relations that\nraise the question of right or wrong--in some cases only by remote\nimplication, in others in clear and burning emphasis. There are degrees\nin this respect, all the way from the faintest glimmering of ethical\nquality to the boldest and most transparent certainty. We are by no\nmeans entitled to doubt the existence of conscience, because in all\nthese unequal conditions, with imperfect knowledge of the relations\nof particular actions and feelings, it fails to apply its unchanging\naffirmations of generic duty, with equal or unmistaken certainty and\nexactness, to all the varied motives, feelings and deeds of men. It is\nclear how differing moral judgments may occur, without any impeachment\nwhatever of either the ethical reality or the existence of the faculty\nfor its discernment.\n\n==Infallibility Not Involved.==\n\nFifthly, we must add that the reality of this faculty, as an essential\nendowment of the human soul, by no means involves infallibility in its\naction. No one of the human faculties is, in all its range and the\napplication of its data, absolutely infallible, incapable of error or\nof being misled. The sense-perceptions, the memory, the logical power,\nthe power of applying the notions of time and space, are all liable to\nerror. Yet these are all original, constitutional and normal faculties\nof man, divinely-given guides for his self-direction and suited to the\nends for which they exist. The reality of a faculty is not disproved by\nits fallibility. Finiteness, limitation and consequent incompetence to\nexclude mistake or only partial discernment, are no reason for denying\nthe existence of any faculty within the range of its given action and\nreal discriminations. The very errors that appear in its action are at\nonce evidence of its existence and proof of limitations which harmonize\nit with the aggregate human psychology. The objection against the\nconscience from its fallibility, which is but another name for this\ndiversity in its applicatory judgments, if applied to all the psychical\nfaculties, would discredit the reality of the aggregate complex of the\npsychical powers and overthrow the basis of all our knowledge, even of\nthat which is employed to effect such overthrow. No diversity occurs\nin the primary judgment of distinction between moral good and evil. As\nalready explained, it is easy to see how differences, varied and great,\nshould appear in the application of the distinction to the complicated,\nobscure and ever-changing aspects and relations of human conduct.\n\n\n==Proofs Independent of Origin.==\n\n=5.= These proofs of conscience as a distinct endowment of the\nhuman mind are independent of the whole question of the mode of its\norigin. For they consist of facts, as clear, peculiar, indisputable\nand irreducible as are the facts that guarantee any particular\nscience whatever. They are capable of verification under perpetual\ntests, as they have been verified in the consentient experience of\nmankind in all its normally developed conditions. And the logic\nof the facts is altogether irrespective of any theory of the mode\nof the origin of conscience. It is needful that this point should\nbe clearly fixed in mind, especially in view of the wide favor at\npresent shown to the hypothesis of an evolutionary genesis of man.\nExcept in the materialistic and atheistic form of the hypothesis the\ntheory distinctly presents evolution not as the cause, but only as\nthe mode of the creation of man with all his now given endowments.\nIt is, of course, incumbent on the supporters of the hypothesis, in\nany form whatever, in order to vindicate its scientific claims, to\nshow its competency to account for the existence and action of the\nmoral faculty with its ethical discernment and law. An hypothesis\nthat fails to solve any of the involved phenomena discredits itself,\nnot the facts. So far as the materialistic, non-teleological form of\nevolutionism is concerned, which proposes matter and force as the full\ncause and account of man, it is condemned by its own utter inadequacy\nto explain the genesis of conscience with its moral law, as well as\nof the other great psychical realities in the nature and life of\nman. It is helpless before the task. Its only resource is to seek to\nresolve both the ethical fact and the ethical faculty into illusion.\nWith respect to theistic evolutionism, which stands simply as an\nhypothesis of the mode of creation by God, the existence of the moral\nfaculty may still be admitted, as having its all-sufficient cause in\nthe divine creative power as the source of all things. If, instead of\nan immediate creation of man, the idea of his gradual creation from\nthe inferior animal orders be maintained as the actual method of the\ndivine work, then the law of evolution must be regarded as having been\nadjusted and used for the production of man with the faculty of moral\ndiscernment. The teleological principle, everywhere illuminating the\nstructure of organisms and the constitution of life, must, from the\nfirst, have guided the development for this enthronement of right in\nthe human personality. Asserting its method of a progressive genesis of\nconscience, this kind of evolutionism confesses its existence. Whether\nor not its account is satisfactory is another question, to be decided\naccording to the evidence furnished. It is more than doubtful if it has\nyet succeeded in making clear the possibility of its origin under the\nhypothesis. Some serious difficulties have still to be overcome.[14] If\nit ever does succeed it must be, not by denial of the conscience, but\nby showing the evolutionary movement in some way or other competent to\nits creation.\n\nThis lengthened presentation of the evidence of the existence of the\nconscience as an essential endowment and part of human nature, may\nseem to the reader to have been unnecessary or beyond the importance\nof the question involved. But, as will appear hereafter, the firm\nestablishment of this point is vitally needful, in order to exclude\nvarious forms of erroneous teaching and secure a firm and immovable\nfoundation for a just ethical system.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nTHE FACULTY OF MORAL DISTINCTIONS--THE NATURE OF CONSCIENCE.\n\n\n==Right View Necessary.==\n\nIn close connection with the indubitable fact of conscience, as an\nessential faculty of the human soul, follows a more careful inquiry\ninto the nature of this faculty. It is necessary to ascertain\nprecisely, if possible, what it is as a peculiar psychical power, as\nrevealed and defined in and by its own action.\n\n\n=1.= The importance of determining, at this place, the exact nature of\nthe conscience is apparent from two considerations.\n\n==Scientific Accuracy.==\n\n(1) Scientific accuracy in the whole ethical view is possible only\nthrough a true and thoroughly accurate understanding of the power that\ngives rise to the whole phenomenon of obligation. The final theoretical\nview is dependent on finding the truth at this point. Mistake or\ninexactness here must inevitably introduce, or at least allow,\nconfusion or error in all the dependent questions of the science. A\nfalse conception of the conscience will at once mislead. Even an only\npartial or obscure view of it will fail to afford sufficient light\nfor the subsequent steps of the investigation. A conception of it,\nwith true and false elements combined, must necessarily introduce\nperplexity or contradiction and weaken or distort the conclusion.\n\nSuch differing views have in fact introduced the utmost confusion into\nthe problems of this science. The conscience has sometimes been spoken\nof as an \"instinct,\" which identifies it with the non-intelligent,\nblind action in the bee which builds cells after geometrical\nprinciples, or in birds or fishes which migrate with the changing\nseasons. Often it has been represented as but a special \"feeling\" or\n\"sentiment\" that arises inexplicably, if not fortuitously, prior to\nperception of any ethical quality, itself the basis of judgments of\nduty.[15] Again it has been made to stand simply for accumulated or\nestablished approbative judgments from experiences of pleasure or\nadvantage, transformed and fixed as rules of conduct.[16] Sometimes it\nhas been regarded as an immediate, almost supernatural \"voice of God\"\nwithin men, with its inexplicable direct imperative of duty. It is\nplain that these and other differing notions of conscience must always\naffect, as they always have affected, the whole theory of ethics.\n\n==Condition of Authority.==\n\n(2) A right view of its nature is necessary to a correct conception of\nits authority. This makes the question more than simply speculative\nor important for correct ethical theory. It involves the interests of\npractical morality. The right of the conscience to rule us is sustained\nor denied according as one or another conception of its nature is\nentertained.\n\nIt is natural that we should feel prompted to examine the nature of a\npart of our constitution that is constantly obtruding its distinctions\nand asserting a ruling authority over us. As it has its place within us\nirrespective of our will and presents laws of duty to the will, we want\nto see on what ground its asserted authority can be justified. But not\nall views of its nature afford equal explanation of this peculiarity\nin its action. For instance, if the conscience be nothing but a\nblind, irrational \"instinct,\" or a \"feeling\" without any perception\nof reality to give rise or right to the feeling, or if it be but a\nstandard judgment of prudence or utility from experiences of what has\nbeen helpful or hurtful, perhaps slowly accumulated and hereditarily\ntransmitted, a clear and rational ground of ethical authority cannot\nbe made out. Such a power may indicate what is useful, but can, if\nthis be all, impose on us no obligation. It may tell us what is\npleasurable or desirable, but cannot speak to us concerning the other\nquestion: What is right? It cannot hold us guilty because we may choose\nto forego personal advantage or enjoyment. If, however, examination\ncan show that the conscience is a faculty of actual perception,\ndiscerning a fundamental distinction between right and wrong and an\nimmutable obligation to apply it in the constituted relations of\nlife, its rightful authority is at once vindicated. It is seen to be\nan authoritative guide in its sphere of perception, as are the other\ncognitive powers, each in its own sphere of real knowledge. When it\nbecomes clear that the moral faculty, in the presence of the existing\nconditions and relations of life, perceives what ought to be done, and\nwhat men are obligated to do, and what they cannot disregard without\ndemerit, ill-desert or guilt, then the right of conscience to direct\nconduct is justified.\n\nAt any rate, whether the examination may confirm or discredit this\nclaim of rightful rulership, the inquiry into the nature of the\nconscience is essential to a correct settlement of the great question\nof its authority and the grounds of it.\n\n\n==Question of Psychology.==\n\n=2.= The primary and proper source of information to settle the\nquestion of the nature of this faculty is to be found, not in\nspeculative theorizing or arbitrary assumptions, but in the actual\nworking of the human mind. It is a psychological question, and must be\nsettled, as all psychological questions must, by the facts as they are\ndiscovered in experience and consciousness. The method of inductive\ninquiry is here the true and essential one. The full phenomena of\naction must be carefully examined, analyzed and traced to their\npsychical genesis. Such examination can leave but little doubt in the\nconclusion. In the facts of consciousness, as found in connection with\nthe operations of our minds in the sphere of moral self-determination\nand action, the entire movement can be observed, marked and recorded.\n\n\n==Place of Conscience.==\n\n=3.= In a preliminary way, it must be noted and remembered that the\npower and action of conscience can have place only in connection with\nthe total complex of man's psychical powers. It is not an isolated,\nindependent faculty in the midst of the different powers of the\nsoul. This truth will require fuller consideration in another place,\nbut it is necessary to note it here so far as to show the essential\npsychological conditions of conscience.\n\nThe very possibility of such a faculty or power is conditioned in\nall the human faculties of intelligence, sensibility and choice, in\nwhich man becomes a moral agent. While the soul or self is a unit,\nits powers act under a law of inter-dependence, exhibiting a striking\nand beautiful order of conditioning and being conditioned, from the\nprimary and fundamental forms of activity to those that are highest\nand crown all the rest. At the very base and beginning of its action\nare sense-perception and consciousness--these furnishing knowledge\nof the outer and inner worlds, of the realities and relations in the\nsystem of things in the midst of which man finds himself. Dependent\nupon the percepts by the senses and the states of consciousness thus\nfurnished comes the further capacity of \"representative knowledge\" in\nthe forms of memory and the imagination. Only as the original acts of\nperception and consciousness have supplied their data, is the memory\nor the imagination possible. But the representative power and action\nare then necessary to the action of the higher powers. Without memory\nthe logical power, the discursive function in comparison, judgment\nand conclusion, in analysis, synthesis and systemization, would have\nno materials and could do no work. The mind could not do this advance\nwork except upon the basis of work of a different kind done before.\nAnd then, too, the reason, as the power of intuitive or _a priori_\ntruths, would be without a knowledge of the phenomenal world, in the\nmidst of which, or on occasion of the experiences of which, these\n_a priori_ truths appear and are seen to be necessary. The various\nkinds of knowing exercised by the undivided and indivisible self are\nplainly arranged in an ascending order, till at their summit they are\ncrowned with the intuitional power which we may term, as we here do,\nthe reason--the power of discerning necessary universal truths. But it\nis equally clear that of the powers below the reason--sense-perception\nand consciousness furnishing facts objective and subjective, memory\nrestoring them before the mental eye, and the logical power rushing\nto necessary conclusions--none, either singly or together, can stand\nfor the conscience. Sense and consciousness can give us only what is,\nnot what ethically ought to be. The memory can but renew to mental\nview what was before known. The sense of logical necessity is clearly\ndifferent from the perception of moral rightness and obligation.\nBut the action of these antecedent powers or faculties supplies the\nconditions for the existence and action of the conscience--gives\nknowledge of the personal self and the relations of life, in the midst\nof which moral right and wrong and obligation and duty are developed\nand are seen to arise. Upon this knowledge, in which man knows himself\nand his relations to the world of which he forms a part, the soul\nrises to an outlook in the clear atmosphere of which the reality of\nethical distinctions, duty and responsibility become visible. And\nto the crowning power of the reason, as rational insight, must be\nassigned the central function of this ethical perception of right and\nobligation--somewhat as to it belong, in another field of view, also\nthe intuitions into the realities of time and space and the categories\nof substance, attribute, and causality.\n\nThis position of the conscience as, in its fundamental action, a form\nof rational intuition, among the summit forms of the mind's powers,\nmakes evident its relation of dependence on the entire complex of\npsychical faculties which furnish the conditions for its discernments\nand imperative. But there is something more. As we shall yet see, its\ntotal function, in guiding the moral life, includes the action of many\nof the common functions of both intellect and sensibility.\n\n\n=4.= The specific psychology of the conscience itself, under close and\ncomplete analysis, will disclose the following clearly distinguishable\nelements in its action. They reveal the nature of the conscience-power\nin its total complex reality. These elements are not separable in fact,\nbut are distinguishable in the analytic thinking that examines them.\n\n==Ethical Distinctions.==\n\n(1) The primary element is a simple irreducible perception of the\ndistinction between right and wrong. This is the first and fundamental\nethical idea. In it we have the initial point in the moral action\nof the mind. \"The universal ethical fact is the recognition of a\ndistinction between right and wrong in conduct.\"[17] This distinction\nappears among the necessary ideas of the human mind. It is a phenomenon\nin the psychology of the race. It is developed, in the presence of\nthe facts and relations of life, as something provided for in the\nnormal and necessary action of the rational self-conscious _ego_. It\nmust be viewed as an \"intuition\" of the reason. It can not otherwise\nbe accounted for. In its nature it is not a feeling, though it gives\nrise to feeling. It is not a volition, for it comes irrespective of\nchoice and asserts its own rights before the will. It is not a mere\nexperience, though it arises on occasion of experience. The idea stands\nfor something beyond experience--experience being limited to the\nprofitable, the enjoyable or the painful. We experience the useful and\nthe agreeable, but the right, the ethical idea, must be perceived or\nrationally seen, as a super-sensible reality in the ideal realm of the\ndemands of duty. It is not a perception of relations themselves, but\nof a distinction as to something due in human relations and life.\n\nIf we describe this primary and fundamental distinction, as it appears\nin the action of the conscience, it will be found marked by the\nfollowing characteristics. First, the distinction is perceived--a datum\nof the cognitive intellect. As discerned by the knowing faculty, its\nobject, viz.: the distinction, exists. For knowing always involves that\nthe thing known is. The distinction between right and wrong is real\nin the sphere of moral relations. Second, it is universal, marking\nthe human mind's action everywhere and in all ages. Third, it cannot\nbe obliterated. Through all questions about it and objections to its\nvalidity, it remains undestroyed and seemingly indestructible. It\ndisappears only with the wreck of rationality itself. Fourth, it is\nunique and simple, an original perception, incapable of being resolved\ninto more elementary ideas or deduced from them. Fifth, it is the first\nof its kind of discernments, _i. e._ of ethical perceptions.\n\n==Obligation Perceived.==\n\n(2) Along with, though dependent on, the perception of the moral\ndistinction between right and wrong, there is also a perception of\nobligation with respect to right and wrong--to do or not to do. This\nis an essential part of the aggregate conscience-discernment. The\nperception of the right is thus the discovery also of law for conduct.\n\nThe soul, it must be specially noted, perceives this obligation as\ntruly as it does the ethical distinction itself. The term \"obligation\"\nmay express also a feeling, but the _ego_, or personal self, perceives\nthe obligation before it feels it. For in all cases rational emotion or\nfeeling can arise in the mind only as the mind discerns something to\nawaken it.\n\n==Belongs to the Agent.==\n\nIt is to be particularly observed, further, that the obligation, thus\nperceived and then felt, is perceived and felt as due by the moral\nagent with respect to right and wrong. The ethical quality of rightness\nbelongs to the act or principle of action. The motive, the intention,\nthe conduct of men, is in itself morally right or wrong, good or evil.\nBut the obligation appears as what is owed by the moral agent to what\nis right. The relation between right and obligation corresponds to\nthat between right and duty. Right is in the conduct; duty is for\nthe responsible person. The terms express two sides in the ethical\nreality, the first the objective side, the second the subjective. The\ntwo imply and call for each other. The right in the contemplated action\nmeans obligation or duty in the person. To the right there is always a\ncorresponding duty; for duty in fact expresses what is due to the right\nforever by all persons.[18]\n\nThis perception of obligation, with its attendant feeling of it, is\nthe central reality of the conscience. It is the very core of it. For\nin this the moral faculty carries and asserts its \"imperative\" for the\nregulation of conduct. On the basis of the idea of right, it affirms\nduty, and brings mankind under the reality and behests of moral law.\nThe distinction of right and wrong, if conceived of as unattended with\nthis further discernment of obligation, would manifestly fall short of\nestablishing the principle of duty or fixing in the soul a conscious\nbond to righteousness. But in this further discernment is revealed the\nnexus that binds together perceived right and man's responsibility to\nit. Hence, this is the cardinal thing in the conscience, for which the\nethical idea prepares, and upon which the moral life rests. It is the\npoint at which humanity is organized under a moral constitution and the\nbehests of moral law. It is the sublime endowment in which man's nature\nis capacitated for its position, as standing face to face with the\nsublimer reality of the divine government over the world.\n\nIt is to be distinctly observed, however, that the \"imperative\"\ndisclosed in this perceived obligation, does not mean compulsion. The\nidea of \"obligation\" can have no place where there can be no choice as\nto accepting it. The whole sphere of morals, as we have already seen\nand shall need often to be reminded, exists, and can exist only in\nconnection with personality or intelligent free agency. Its realm is\nthat of freedom. Law in ethics is something in clear contrast with law\nin the processes of physical nature. The perception of it is not the\nperception of what must be or will be, or shall be, but what ought to\nbe. Its appeal is to our freedom, and the duty is ideated before it is\nperformed.\n\nFurther, it is well to observe here again how distinctly peculiar\nis this percept of obligation among the data of our cognitive\nfaculties. The sense-perception notifies us of what is. So does the\nconsciousness. Memory renews to consciousness a knowledge of what\nwas. The logical processes reveal abstract relations. That two and\ntwo make four, or that a straight line is the shortest between two\npoints, or that oxygen and hydrogen united in certain proportions form\nwater, are truths distinctly known when the mind is directed to these\nsubjects; but the perception of these truths is without the unique\nidea of obligation or the duty of cherishing any particular feeling\nor of conforming to a standard of righteousness. Only through the\ndiscernments of right and wrong by the conscience, is there given this\npeculiar intuition of the reality of obligation.\n\n==Moral Quality Identified.==\n\n(3) A third thing to be marked in this psychological analysis of the\naction of conscience, and revealing its nature, is the affirmation of\nright or wrong to particular acts or principles of conduct. In this\nthe function of conscience passes from its fundamental idea into the\nform of an applicatory judgment. The ideas of right and obligation\nare applied to the actual affairs and activities of life. The quality\nof right or wrong is connected with particular actions, feelings or\npurposes, and these are affirmed to be right or wrong according as\nthey have or have not such moral quality. This application is both a\nperception and a judgment--a perception in that it sees the ethical\nquality in the deed or motive, and a judgment in that it affirms the\nconnection. These judgments take the forms of approval or disapproval,\nas the conduct is discerned to be morally good or bad. It is plain\nthat such judgments of application would be impossible were there not\nin the mind the fundamental ethical distinctions already explained.\n\nManifestly these judgments of application belong to the general judging\npower of the mind. All knowing may be said to be judging, or at least\ntends to take the form of judgment. They are specific here, only with\nrespect to the material they take account of. They are the acts of the\njudging faculty in the sphere of applying the ethical distinctions and\nobligations. As a basis for the judgments, not only must the ethical\ndistinction exist in the mind, but the action or conduct to be judged\nmust be seen or understood in all its essential relations and motives.\nAs duties are developed by relations, the moral character of the\ncontemplated conduct or deed cannot be determined apart from a correct\nknowledge of those relations. The judging capacity will err without the\nlight of true and full information concerning the place and purposes\nof the action. And its insights and affirmations will vary in their\napproximation to entire correctness according to the degree in which\nall the elements entering into the particular conduct are understood\nand considered.\n\n==Merit and Demerit Perceived.==\n\n(4) The action of the conscience includes also perception of merit\nand demerit in connection with conduct. The meaning of these terms\nneeds to be carefully defined and limited. They express something more\nthan the simple approval or disapproval already noted in connection\nwith the discernment of the rightness or wrongness of an action. The\nterms stand for a step of discernment and judgment beyond these, and\ndenote the ethical reality of good-desert or ill-desert for the moral\nagent who conforms to rightness, or offends against its claims. He who\nconforms deserves well; he that offends deserves ill. They, therefore,\nmark distinctly and definitely the point in the psychology of the\nconscience where the faculty discerns that those who do right ought to\nreceive favor and those who do wrong ought to experience disfavor. They\nexpress a principle of just consequences. The principle is, that for\nright conduct good is due, for wrong done evil is due. The wrong-doer\nis guilty, _i. e._ justly subject to punitive action. His deed deserves\nit for him. On the other hand doing right is worthy of reward, or of\nthe good that befits the good done. The conscience discerns and affirms\nthis reality of good and evil-desert.\n\nHere is reached the psychological source of the great fact of\nresponsibility in the world. It emerges into consciousness and into\nactual force in human life from this point in the disclosures and\naffirmations of the moral sense. Hence arises the unspeakably varied\nbut ever persistent human necessity under which men are compelled\nto regard themselves and others as justly amenable to the law of\nmoral consequences. Its application is seen in every sphere of life,\npersonal, domestic, social, and national. A moral administration is\nseen in the world only as the administration is found to be conformed\nto and carrying out the principle of distributing good according to\nmoral desert. Any failure in the adjustment of recompense or given good\nunder this idea is felt to be a lapse from justice and proper order. It\nstands as something abnormal and monstrous. So firmly does the decision\nof conscience establish this principle of happy consequences as due to\nright conduct and punitive effects to wrong-doing, so strongly does it\nfix the conviction that the divine administration must on the whole\nadjust award and happiness on this basis, that thoughtful philosophers\nhave ever been wont to find here one of the most assuring guarantees of\na future life in which the fragmentary justice of this world will be\nfilled out in fully given recompense.\n\nIt must be noted, as is apparent, that this merit or demerit does not\nbelong to men's acts, but to themselves as the moral agents. To action\nand conduct pertain the moral qualities of rightness and wrongness, but\nwhat is done is itself altogether impersonal and not responsible for\nits own occurrence. The doer of the deed deserves whatever good or evil\nis due in connection with it.\n\nThe practical application of this principle of moral desert is found\nto be almost infinitely varied, both with respect to the import of\nthe principle and the measure of merit and demerit. With respect\nto its _import_, good desert may mean simply that he who chooses\nthe morally right is entitled to his own self-approbation and the\napproval of others and the moral excellence which he thus prefers.\nOr it may signify various degrees and kinds of more positive reward\nwhich the divine constitution and moral administration of the\nworld may be adjusted to give in the way of happiness and the best\nexternal conditions of existence. On the other hand, the demerit of\nthe wrong-doer may mean anything he deserves, from the simple loss of\nthe moral good which he does not choose, to the extremest penalties,\nobjective and subjective, which a righteous divine government may have\nto employ for the repression of wickedness. In its import, both merit\nand demerit may refer to endlessly varied experiences and forms of\ngood and evil. With respect to the _measure_ of merit and demerit and\nthe adjustment of due recompense, a similar wide range of difference\nmust be recognized when we come to the application of the principle\nto human acts and conduct. Conformity to right and offense against it\nare exhibited in myriad degrees under conditions as varied as are the\npositions and relations and inner state of all the individuals of the\nrace. The very nature of different persons is in unequal adjustment\nto virtue and vice. Environment, too, brings stronger temptations to\nsome than to others. Hereditary forces and early training strengthen\nor weaken the moral perceptions and forces. Thousands of differences\nperplex the attempt to equate the measure of moral desert to men. It\ncan be determined only in full and perfect view of all the conditions\nwithin and the relations surrounding the moral agent; and the\napportionment of the due award, it would seem, can be perfectly made\nonly by a being of infinite knowledge and justice.\n\nThe measurement of merit and demerit is, however, but another form\nof judgments of application, in which the moral sense can act in only\napproximate determinations. Here variation and uncertainty find place.\nBut there can be none as to the fact of good desert and guilt where\nright and wrong are done.\n\n==Emotions Awakened.==\n\n(5) Emotions or feelings, awakened by the perceptions of right\nand wrong, obligation, merit and demerit, complete the action of\nconscience. These feelings are peculiar and original, unlike the\nfeelings springing from any other perceptions and incapable of being\nresolved into or deduced from others. Psychologically, it is to be\nremembered, feeling is in no case a part of perception or cognition,\nbut an additional psychical action of a different kind. \"A purely\ncognitive intelligence might have perfect knowledge of things and\ntheir relations to itself; it might know that things, or courses of\naction, would destroy its own existence; it might even know that its\nown existence was about to be destroyed; but this knowledge alone\nwould imply no feeling. Such intellect would be like a mirror; it\nwould accurately reflect all that passed before it; but it would be as\nindifferent as the mirror.\"[19] But knowing is followed by feeling, a\ndifferent kind of action of the soul. This is not its action in the\nform of intellect, but in the form of sensibility. It is action of\nanother order--not itself a cognition, but arising out of cognition.\nThis is the place and relation of these moral feelings. They are\nawakened in the soul by and through the ethical perceptions. They are\ndetermined by these, and form the final element in the total action of\nthe conscience.\n\nThese moral feelings, while they form one class, as having their origin\nin the ethical discriminations, exhibit distinguishing differences.\nThese differences develop in a twofold way, presenting special forms of\nfeeling. They must be noted as they differ by these two conditions of\ntheir development.\n\n==Correspondent to Right or Wrong.==\n\nFirst, according as the moral quality, the perception of which awakens\nthem, is good or evil. The soul cannot discern the great distinctions\nbetween right and wrong without correspondent emotional awakening. The\nsensibility is moved by the perception, and takes the form of a feeling\nof approval for the morally good, and a feeling of reprobation for\nthe wrong. Our language furnishes no single term to designate either\nof these feelings, but this phraseology is sufficiently descriptive\nto point them out. The feeling toward the right may be denoted as\nmoral love; that toward wrong as moral aversion. When the quality\nof rightness or wrongness is exhibited in specially intense degree\nin particular conduct, the feelings may take the form of ethical\nadmiration or of abhorrence.\n\n==Before and After Action.==\n\nSecondly, as arising before or after the moral action. If the feeling\nis awakened in view of action proposed to be done, it may be described,\nin the absence of a more specific designation, as a sense of obligation\nto do or not to do the deed--this feeling of obligation being based on\na perception of the obligation. From the intellectual discernment the\nemotional sensibility springs as a sentiment which forms part of the\nimpelling force of conscience. When the feeling arises with respect\nto an act already done, it takes the nature of ethical satisfaction,\na peculiar pleasure in which are blended a sense of self-approbation\nand of joy, if the deed be right; of self-reproach and remorse, if\nwrong. Remorse--\"a gnawing sense of guilt,\" whether the feeling be\nthe slightest disquiet of emotion or of agonizing and unsolaceable\ncompunction--appears to be the aptest term to express this state of\nmind.\n\n==Differences of Degree.==\n\nBesides the differences thus arising, there are differences in the\ndegree or intensity of these moral feelings. Innumerable causes may\naffect the differences in this respect. Personal temperament, acquired\ncharacter, or external conditions may make the feeling greater or less.\nThe mental organization of some persons is more emotional. Education\nmay have given a peculiar development. Temporary circumstances may\nheighten the excitation. But other things being equal the degree of\npositiveness in the moral emotions is generally dependent on two\nthings: (_a_) the clearness with which the moral distinction and\nthe consequent obligation is discerned, and (_b_) the pureness and\ntenderness of the person's moral nature. If the ethical idea and\nobligation are unclearly seen or hardly seen at all, the impression in\nthe feelings must be comparatively slight. But if seen under strong\nlight and with their supreme import, the intuition impresses with\ngreater force. So, too, the state of the whole moral nature is a\nreason of higher or lower moral sensibility. The more unblighted is the\ncondition of personal life, the more is it responsive to the ethical\ndiscernment. Habitual refusal of duty, easy and indifferent familiarity\nwith wrong-doing, or any continued enslavement of the higher nature to\nthe lower, necessarily blunts the delicateness of the sensibilities and\nlowers the strength of the moral feelings. The process of injury may\ngo on until a condition of callousness is reached which fulfils the\nstriking description: \"Seared as with a hot iron.\"\n\n==Motive Power.==\n\nIt is through these feelings that the conscience becomes a motive power\nfor moral life. The perception of duty alone, as purely intellectual,\nwould be, as said, \"like a mirror accurately reflecting the ethical\nreality passing before it, but as indifferent as the mirror.\" But upon\nthe perception the emotional nature springs into action. Knowledge, if\nat all, always goes into effect mediately through the sensibilities\nin which the soul is stirred by affections and desires. These may be\ntoward moral good as truly as toward sensuous good. We may love the\ntrue and the beautiful and the right. We may love the right as right.\nAccording to our choices we make the ethically good our own and mould\nour life into its excellence and blessedness, or the contrary. These\nfeelings are motive powers, bringing occasions for choices.\n\nIt is proper to take note, however, that it is only the feelings in\nview of the right or wrong of an act yet to be done, that are directly\nmoral motives. For it is only through these that we are face to face\nwith the question of choosing or refusing the right in the proposed\nconduct. The feelings that arise, as satisfaction or remorse after\nwrong acts, have no existence till the conduct is in retrospect,\nand can have no motive force for it. And when memory brings these\nexperiences as motives for subsequent conduct, they stand mainly, if\nnot wholly, as considerations for enjoyment. They are not feelings of\npure obligation to rightness, but remembrances of pleasure or pain\ninfluential as prompting or dissuading on the lower ground of comfort.\nThere is a generic and indelible difference between the feeling of\nduty, under the pure behests of right, and the natural desire to gain\nthe enjoyment or avoid the misery which we have learned to anticipate\nfrom experiences in conduct. In the one case it presents love of the\nright as right; in the other a love of the more agreeable consequences\nof right. Unquestionably, indeed, a desire of the better consequences\nis a proper motive for choices. In these consequences virtue is proving\nits adaptation to bring its own reward. But the merit of virtue is not\nin seeking the reward, but in seeking virtue itself. The mercenary\nspirit is not the love of righteousness, nor as high as it.\n\n\n=5.= This analysis makes clear the following characteristics of the\nconscience.\n\n==Conscience is Intellectual.==\n\nFirst, it is primarily and fundamentally intellectual. It is a power\nof rational perception. It perceives, in direct or intuitive way, the\nprimary ethical distinction between right and wrong, perceives the\nquality of rightness or wrongness in particular acts or conduct,\nperceives the obligation of the moral agent with respect to right and\nwrong, as also the merit or demerit of the moral agent. But along with\nand blended in inseparable concurrence, moves the function of the\nsensibility, in feelings of approval and obligation, satisfaction or\nremorse. Both the intellectual and emotional action of the soul are,\ntherefore, included in what is named the conscience--the perceptive\naction, here as everywhere else, being primary and conditional for the\nemotional. If there were no ethical distinction perceived, none would\nbe felt. The conscience, taken in its totality, thus includes both\nsides of the human psychology, the intellect and the sensibility, and\nit addresses its behests of duty to the will in its own peculiar way of\nmoral law for conduct.\n\nThe strife between intuitional theories and sentimental theories of\nconscience is, therefore, composed by the concurrence of both knowing\nand feeling in the action of this power. But the intellectual part\nis necessarily logically prior to the emotional, and conditional for\nit. To make a feeling of obligation the basal fact in the psychology\nof conscience would be an inversion of the whole order of dependence\nrevealed in consciousness. And, surely, the feelings here developed\nare rational, not physiological sensations. They cannot, for a moment,\nbe identified with the physical sensations which condition the\nsense-perceptions. Their true place is among the rational emotions.\n\n==Sole Percept Moral Quality.==\n\nSecondly, the sole object of perception by the conscience is moral\nquality--the quality of rightness or wrongness, together with the\ncorrespondent obligation. It is something supersensible and ideal; not\nactions themselves as known by sense, but their quality as morally good\nor evil as discovered by the ethical reason. The thing discerned by the\nconscience is generically different from the things discerned by the\nsense-perception or consciousness. Through our senses we know the whole\nworld of objective existences, events and their relations; through\nconsciousness the states, acts and experiences of the subjective\npersonal self are given. But the conscience does not furnish us with\na knowledge of any of the substances, events or relations which\nconstitute the world about us or the world within us, but solely of the\nmoral quality of conduct and sentiment, as duty is developed in these\nrelations. It takes notice of the ethical character of the actions and\nmotives of intelligent and responsible beings.\n\n==Conscience Acts of Necessity.==\n\nThirdly, the action of the conscience is marked by necessity. And by\nthis we are to understand something more than the simple uniformity in\nwhich all the psychical activity, except that of the choices of the\nwill, is held under \"fixed laws of thought and feeling.\" The necessity\nhere affirmed is that unique necessity which distinguishes and marks\nintuitive or _a priori_ cognition, as of time, space, and causality.\n\"Necessity\" is justly conceded to be one of the criteria of these and\nother intuitional \"first truths.\" It is not at the option of the human\nmind whether it will think the world under the relations of time and\nspace, or events as occurring under the principle of causation. These\nare \"forms of knowledge,\" knowledge of super-sensible realities, that\ncome not at our choice but by an unavoidable insight. The primary and\nfundamental ethical distinction belongs to such rational intuition,\nand is marked by the peculiar necessity of intuitional action. As\non occasion of knowing material bodies with three dimensions, or of\nchanges in consciousness or in the outer world, with the fact of\nco-existence or succession and duration, the phenomenal sphere is\nnecessarily transcended and time and space are necessarily discerned,\nso when we understand the manifold relations in which our lives are to\nbe lived, in which we may use our personal powers, either in harmony\nwith or in violation of our given adaptations, and with either great\ninjury or rich good to others, in the same necessary way the conscience\nmust discern the distinction of right and wrong and the reality of duty.\n\nThe great implication in this necessity, as we shall hereafter see in\nexamining the nature of virtue, is that the principle of righteousness\nor the law of duty is something that belongs to the objective order\nof the world as constituted by God, a divine reality permanent and\nimmutable, not produced but perceived by the conscience. It is not\nmade by man but finds him--finds him through the intelligence by which\nhe is informed of the realities to which he must adjust his life.\nMoral law stands for a reality that rays itself into view in the human\nreason whether men will or not. The intuitions of it do not come at\nthe call, or desire, or even at the consent of man. The law revealed\nstands independent of the individual's personality or choices and\nasserts itself over him. While this is true of the law revealed, the\nperception of the law becomes a necessity with the moral agent that is\nnormally endowed and developed. Man does not furnish the moral law to\nhimself. He is not the giver of it, but the recipient. The conscience,\ntherefore, is an open window of our being, through which the objective\nlaw of righteousness to which the Creator has adjusted our nature and\nthe constitution of the universe may be discerned by us, a sphere\nof reality enfolding us, with which our freedom is to harmonize our\nconduct. Francis Newman has admirably marked the position of this\nconscience-power in our constitution:\n\n \"This energy of life within is ours, yet it is not we.\n It is in us, belongs to us, yet we cannot control it,\n It acts without our bidding, and when we do not think of it,\n Nor will it cease its acting at our command, or otherwise obey\n us,\n But while it recalls from evil, and reproaches us for evil,\n And is not silenced by our effort, surely it is not _we_;\n Yet it pervades mankind, as one life pervades the trees.\"[20]\n\nThe reason of these intuitions of the conscience is that back of it\nand around it and above it is a realm of moral obligations which must,\nwithout contingency, be made known to us, that we may order our lives\naright.\n\n\n==Erroneous Theory.==\n\n=6.= It is proper at this place to express dissent from some forms of\ntheory which are at variance with the truth thus brought to light.\nAlmost all of them are the outcome of the philosophical phenomenalism\nof which Kant's Critique of Pure Reason is the best illustration. It\ndiscredits the competency of our cognitive faculties to reach knowledge\nof things as they really are. We can know, it is said, only phenomena,\nwhile the noumena or things in themselves are incognizable; and\ndoubt is raised whether there is a reality corresponding to what our\nfaculties report. It is suggested that the data of these faculties,\nespecially in the forms of intuition and universal judgments, may\nbe mere \"forms of thought,\" forms of knowing but not of real being,\ncreated within as well as by the mind itself, and projected thence in\nconnection with apprehended phenomena. They may be mental fictions\nin whole or in part, in which the ideal must not be held as standing\nfor actual being. Thus while time and space are necessary \"forms of\nthought\" under which all bodies and events must be known, yet time\nand space, it is alleged, may be but subjective forms given to the\nphenomena by and in the cognitive action. We are obliged, indeed,\nit is conceded, in practical life to follow the guidance of our\nnecessary forms of thought. But the knowledge is merely regulative\nfor present activity; and being a product created and shaped largely\nby the particular organization of our minds, this merely relative and\nregulative perception of truth may be different in other minds or be\nhereafter so changed as to present changed phenomena, superseding\nthe judgments now given by other judgments under other views. When\nthe adherents of the Positive Philosophy proceed to define matter\nas merely \"a permanent possibility of sensations,\"[21] faith in the\nreliability of our knowledge of the realities about us, as true for\nthose realities, is thoroughly undermined. This tendency toward an\ninvalidating of our knowledge as real for objective truth, has been\nfostered by recent physiological psychology which, under materialistic\nimplications, magnifies the effect of the physical organization and\ncondition upon the mental products. In these ways extreme idealism and\npositive materialism join hands in effort to reduce to uncertainty\nor illusion what our cognitive faculties perceive of reality and\ntruth in both the material and moral systems about us. But ethical\nscience, in harmony with the soundest and best sustained philosophy of\nthe Christian centuries, rejects these agnostic suggestions, as not\nonly unproved but untenable. They form a theory of our intellectual\nfaculties which cuts away the foundations of all knowledge, even\nof that which is most clear, fixed, necessary and unchangeable\nin the intelligence of the race. The theory becomes intellectual\nsuicide, as it nullifies the real validity of all the fundamental\nperceptions of both sense and reason, on which its own conclusion\nrests. Its suggestions discredit themselves by confessing that their\nown foundation is but a part of the illusory, phantasmal action of\nfaculties which, instead of perceiving what is, present but forms which\nthey produce. While it is conceded that, even on this agnostic basis,\nthe conscience would still possess \"regulative\" authority--as it still\nasserts its imperative \"ought\" for life--yet rational ethics, like\nself-respecting philosophy, must not vacate for our cognitive faculties\nthe great function of knowing while attempting to exercise it, nor\nfail to maintain that they have been organized for real knowledge,\nwithin the sphere and measure opened to them, of the genuine realities\nwith which we have to do, in both the material and moral worlds. The\nconscience, therefore, must be held, not as formative of its peculiar\nphenomena, but perceptive of the ethical realities of right and\nobligation.\n\n\n==Consistent with Theistic Evolution.==\n\n=7.= It is proper also to point out here that this view of the\nnature of the conscience is not necessarily affected by the question\nof its evolutionary origin. Should the theory of man's derivative\norigin, under some form of theistic and teleological evolution, ever\npass from its position as an hypothesis into that of scientific\ntruth, this would not require us essentially to alter our account\nof the nature of this faculty. For the nature of the faculty has\nnot been found in considerations of the mode of its origin, but\nfrom analysis of the elemental facts in its action. The adherents\nof the evolution hypothesis have, indeed, found one of their most\nformidable difficulties in attempting a satisfactory explanation of a\npossible origination of this faculty in the assumed forces and laws\nof evolutionary action. Keeping in view the fact that the very center\nof the conscience-function appears in regulation and often in denial\nof inherited feelings and habits, the difficulty of attributing its\ncreation to hereditary action is clearly seen and deeply felt. It\nhas been well pointed out that \"the injunctions of conscience do not\nrun with the stream of our hereditary tendencies, but rather against\nthem.\"[22] That a law of the work and victory of hereditary forces\nshould issue in organizing an endowment for control and repression of\nhereditary tendencies, seems to involve too much of a contradiction\nto be accepted. That the survival of the strongest in the battle of\nindividual existence, the reign of \"tooth and talon,\" should gradually\ncreate a faculty for asserting the obligation and law of love and\nkindness to the weak, fails to come properly under our conception of\nthe working of cause and effect.[23] Even in the theistic form of\nthe theory, in which evolution offers itself as presenting not the\ncause but only the mode of creation, it is hard to conceive of the\nadaptation of such a process for the production of such a result--a\nresult standing apart from the means by a total difference in both\ntheir nature and direction. It is as if the flow of the stream should\ncreate the principle of repression of flowing. The actual attempts of\nevolutionist writers to construct an ethical view which shall explain\nthe phenomena of conscience and justify its authority, has added\nfurther evidence of the difficulty on this point. No such attempts\nhave thus far been satisfactory. But the nature of the conscience, as\nhas already been shown, is properly settled, not by the mode of its\norigin, but by an examination of its actual psychology and intrinsic\npowers. If this makes it clear, as it unquestionably does, that it is\nprimarily intellectual and percipient in its function, then any failure\nof evolution or any other theory to explain its origin must much\nrather discredit the theory than disprove the nature of the endowment\nwhich stands as a fact. But an origin of the conscience by evolution,\nshould it ever be proved, would introduce no trouble at this point in\nthe science of ethics. For the faculty is competent for its office in\nvirtue of what it is, and not by the mode through which the divine\ncreative power worked in its formation. The necessity in the case would\nbe met should the evolutionary mode be shown to be capable of evolving\nan intellectual endowment high enough in perceptive power to discern\nthe ethical distinctions and bind their obligations on men.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nTHE SUPREMACY OF CONSCIENCE.\n\n\nBy the supremacy of conscience is meant its right to exercise moral\ncontrol. It expresses its proper authority. This authority is not\nto be thought of as original or independent, but as resting on and\nrevealing the absolute authority of God, who has constituted the moral\nrelations of the world and has set the conscience, with its discerning\nand regulative function, in the human soul. The question involved is\nnot the right of one merely subjective faculty to impose obligation on\nanother faculty or on all the human capacities and powers--one part\nof the personal self playing the role of sovereign over the other\nparts. This would be a shallow and misleading notion of this authority.\nThe whole conception of the conscience is theistic, and implies, as\nit also testifies to, an absolute law of righteousness over all the\nworld, established by Him who is creator and sovereign of all. It is\nin the discernment of this principle of rightness, with its demand\nfor obedience to it, that the conscience comes into its position of\nauthority and its authority becomes _de jure_ supreme.\n\n\n=1.= But the proof that such authority rightly belongs to it needs to\nbe more fully exhibited. It is explained and made unquestionable in the\nfollowing facts:\n\n==Its Sphere of Judgments.==\n\n(1) It is involved in the very sphere of its discernments. This sphere\nis the sphere of right and duty, which, by very conception, subordinate\neverything else. Its primary perception is of \"the right,\" as having\nclaim on every rational free agent--and then of obligation which\nimmediately presses its moral requirement into the presence of our\ncapacity for conformity to it. There is, indeed, a degree of authority\nbelonging to each and all the psychical faculties, in the functions\nthey fulfil for the direction and welfare of life. But the peculiarity\nof the conscience is that the realm of its functions and direction\nis higher than that of the other powers, the realm in which manhood\nreaches its supreme purpose and worth. Moral goodness, excellence\nof character, is the summit of the ascent to which human nature is\nadapted. In this our nature reaches the \"supreme\" and all-inclusive\n\"good,\" compared with which all things else are of inferior claim\nand merit. The authority of the conscience, as a faculty, is thus\nidentified with the supremacy which belongs to the idea of the morally\nright, of obligation, duty, the irrepealable \"ought\" for the conduct of\nlife.\n\n==Shown by Nature of Action.==\n\n(2) This is more distinctly apparent when we recall the nature of its\naction. Psychologically, the conscience does not stand as a thing of\nour own personal will, or as in any way making the obligation which it\npresents. When we examine it, as it appears in our consciousness, its\nmovement is in the form of a necessary perception of an obligation\nthat is upon us irrespective of our will, a law of duty not of our\nown framing, but imposing itself on us and demanding the homage of\nour will. It possesses its authority, therefore, in the fact that it\nis the discernment of something higher than our will or ourselves, a\nprinciple transcending our personality and appearing as supreme law for\nour life and conduct. And the law connotes a lawgiver and a judge. The\nconscience thus puts us in the presence of One who has sovereign and\nabsolute right to rule in us and over us. It thus becomes authoritative\nby its being the power or faculty through which is made known to us the\nprinciple or law of righteousness which God has established for the\nmoral order of the world.[24]\n\n==The Contrary is Absurd.==\n\n(3) These facts, at once psychologically and metaphysically well\ncertified, would themselves be sufficient to explain and vindicate the\npeculiar right of supremacy almost universally conceded to belong to\nthe moral sense. But the proof, thus given, is confirmed by the fact\nthat the contrary conclusion involves a manifest absurdity.\n\nIn the first place, it is incredible to suppose that man, as an\nintelligent, rational, free agent, capable of character, should have no\nprovision in his mental make-up, no faculty of knowledge, furnishing a\nprinciple of guidance for meeting the responsibilities of life. For,\nsuch an absence of endowment for this purpose, would necessarily mean,\neither that responsibility is an illusion, a conclusion belied by the\nhard fact that the organization of human life inexorably treats and\nexacts it as real, or that man's nature is constructed in a falsehood,\nbeing bound to a high task for which it contains no endowment.\nSomewhere, therefore, among the human faculties, must appear a power\nor complex of powers whose disclosures or impulses shall furnish\na rightful principle of control. To say that there is no rightful\nprinciple--that the morally good has no more right than the morally\nbad--would be not only absurd to reason, but fly in the face of the\nspontaneous and ineradicable sense of mankind, which makes the moral\ndistinction.\n\nFurther: While the authority for self-control, to meet the ethical task\nand responsibilities of life, must thus be found somewhere in man's\nconstitution, careful consideration makes it also clear that the right\nof supremacy cannot be attributed to any other capacity, function or\nimpulse of our nature. The well-known _argumentum ad absurdum_ is fully\napplicable here.\n\nBesides the conscience itself, the only other motive-forces for conduct\nare the physiological appetites, the desires for enjoyment, and the\nbenevolent affections. The right of supreme control cannot be supposed\nto belong to the physical appetites and passions. The supremacy of\nthese would be subversive of character and deadly to personal and\nsocial welfare. This is not simply the judgment of reason, but a fact\nattested by the most melancholy experiences in which blight and woe\nhave fallen on men. Nor can the right of ruling authority belong to\nthe desire of enjoyment. When this dominates it becomes the reign of\nselfishness, which, according to the consent of mankind, is utterly\ninconsistent with the development of noble character, or the discharge\nof those inter-human duties on which both individual and social\nwell-being depends. It forms the soul of anarchy, in which the family,\nsociety, and the state would be dissolved. The true excellence and\nhappiness of man would be impossible. The rulership of this class of\nmotive forces is thus inconsistent with the highest and best ends to\nwhich his nature has been correlated.\n\nNor can the supremacy belong to the benevolent affections. These,\nsummed up in the word love, are indeed very high and must be regarded\nas among the worthiest and best elements of character and principles\nof action. \"God is love,\" and so near does love come to being the\nvery essence of virtue, that it is declared to be \"the fulfilling\nof the law.\" But the \"love\" that God is said to be is not alone in\nHis character, nor does it rule without regard to holiness, justice,\npurity, or righteousness. It cannot be conceived as subordinating these\nto a desire to make creatures happy. On the other hand we are obliged\nto think of love as able to confer its favors only in accordance with\nthe principle of righteousness. Even in its supreme exhibition, in the\nsalvation of men, in giving its gifts, it could only act through a\nway that declared the divine righteousness while granting forgiveness\nto those that repent and forsake wrong. In human life, the love that\nin its own degree and order helps to the fulfillment of the law is\nnot alone, or unregulated, or superior to the principle of duty, of\ntruth, purity and holiness. It cannot get above these, but is itself\nright only when it holds its ends, of making its objects happy, in\nsubordination to what is morally good. We must remind ourselves exactly\nwhat the supremacy of the benevolent affections would mean. Unless\nguided in the action through which they reach their object, they\nwould subject everything to their own ends and take no account of the\ncharacter of the ways and means, as right or wrong. As unregulated love\nthey would lack an essential element for the office of moral control.\nIf it be true, as it unquestionably is, that some things are wrong,\nno matter how lovingly they may be done, the benevolent affections\ncannot be the supreme guide for even the loving activities of life.\nBlind affection may run, as it does in thousands of relations and\ninstances, into the widest departures from good character and into\ngross vices. However high the benevolent feeling may be as a motive,\nall its purposes and the activities through which these purposes are\naccomplished need the guidance of the law of righteousness, if they\nare to be maintained in harmony with essential virtue, holy character\nand human welfare. Their function must therefore be held subordinate\nto the authority of conscience as the capacity through which the\nlaw of rectitude, with its obligation, is presented and kept before\nthe mental view. This conclusion does not remove love from its high\nposition, at the very summit of things that are right and good and\nessential for character. It allows it to stand, as it does all other\nsprings of action, in its full rights and value among human motives and\nvirtues in determining duty in conduct. But it is the conscience, and\nnot love itself, that judges and decides the obligation to it and the\nhigh rank that ought to be given it as an element of character. Thus\nthe regulative function, even for benevolence, belongs to the ethical\nsense, through perception of what sentiments and acts are right in\nconduct. And so the peculiar business of the conscience is to watch all\nthe forces of our nature and keep each in its place.\n\nThe view which gives the right of moral control to the conscience is\nthus vindicated by the plain fact that there is no other faculty or\nspring of action in the human constitution adapted to this function, so\nunquestionably requisite for the order and welfare of life.\n\n\n==Difficulties.==\n\n=2.= An apparent difficulty, however, arises in connection with this\nconclusion. It calls for a brief consideration, lest it should be\nthought to form a refutation of the correctness of our view:\n\nIt comes from the acknowledged fallibility of the conscience. This\nseems, at first sight, inconsistent with a right to such ruling\nauthority. If its discernment of duty in particular relations may\nnot be fully clear and is liable to be misled, how can it be justly\nregarded as having this authoritative office? If its applicatory\njudgments are often found erroneous and need to be revised and\nsuperseded by better judgments, can we fairly hold it as charged\nwith such regulative function? In different men, as already stated,\nit exhibits differing and even conflicting directions. In different\nnations and times its indications of duty fail to agree. Advance\nin civilization, knowledge and culture is marked by higher ethical\nstandards, modifying, if not reversing, former judgments. But this\nlarge fact, so unquestionable and, apparently, so formidable, becomes,\nwhen analyzed, easily reconcilable with the position of authority\ngiven to the conscience-discernments and imperatives. For a faculty\nmay be highest in human nature, and yet, like every other capacity,\nlimited. Its functional action may be comparatively undeveloped, or\nmay be strengthened and clarified. In its applicatory judgments, for\nfixing the ethical law of right in all the varied and complex relations\nand conditions of human life, it is dependent on all the subordinate\nfaculties for the requisite light. Whatever limitations may rest on\nits ability, whatever partialness may mark its development, whatever\ncomplications may perplex it in adjusting duty to all the actual\nsituations in human life, it yet remains the faculty through which\nthe law of duty is disclosed to view, and if duty is not indicated\nthrough it, it is not indicated through any human insight at all. But\nno faculty loses its own particular special authority in its own place\nby its natural limitations and liability to error. Authority must not\nbe confounded with infallibility. Despite its fallibility every faculty\nof the soul carries the authority for its own psychical office--the\nintellect for knowledge, the sensibility for feeling, the will for\nchoices. The sense-perception has decisive authority for phenomena\nabout us, the logical faculty for just conclusions from given data,\nthe memory for recall of past experiences, the intuitional reason for\naxiomatic truths and first principles. If the liability to error in\nthe psychic functions and their application to the myriad conditions\nin which their immediate data are used, does not vacate their place of\nauthority in their spheres, no more does the similar liability vacate\nthe unique authority of the conscience, which it has by its action in\nthe supreme realm of the right and of moral obligation. Its position\nof authority in its sphere remains, and remains supreme, because the\nsphere of its action and discernments is, as pointed out, the supreme\nsphere of eternal righteousness and obligation.\n\nBut a further question arises at this point. If it is sometimes in\nerror and, like an imperfect watch, gives an incorrect indication,\nshould the conscience always be followed? Does not this fact, if it\ndoes not wholly take away its right to supremacy, at least modify the\npositiveness of our duty to follow its dictates? This has sometimes\nbeen a perplexing casuistic question. But the perplexity arises from\nfailure to keep in mind the precise points involved in the problem, and\nto take account of the whole process through which particular duties\nbecome apparent and obligatory. Since the decision of the conscience,\nwhen rightly and fully reached, is, at the time it is given and as to\nthe point it decides, the soul's conviction as to what is right and\nduty, to violate or disregard it becomes necessarily the very essence\nof the immoral spirit and conduct. To go contrary to what the soul\nsees as duty, through the only capacity it has for knowing it, is\nessentially moral rottenness. Whewell's statement: \"To disobey the\ncommands and prohibitions of conscience, under any circumstances, is\nutterly immoral: it is the very essence of immorality,\"[25] is hardly\ntoo emphatic. To some writers this has seemed extravagant, in view\nof the fact that some of the greatest wrongs and foulest crimes of\nhistory, such as the burning of Latimer and Ridley, the St. Bartholomew\nmassacre, the gun-powder plot, might be palliated or even justified\nunder the plea of conscientiousness in the perpetrators.[26] But the\nreconciliation of this seeming conflict between conscience and real\nduty is made plain by remembering two things:\n\nFirst, that the conscience, being a complex faculty or power, its\nparticular judgments of duty in particular cases, being judgments\nof application of the principle of rightness, are reached often\nthrough very complex processes, in which the obscuration of imperfect\ninformation, or misconception of the relations involved, or the\nmisleading effect of prejudice created by wrong training, or some\nfalsely imagined divine authority, may leave not only a state of doubt\nas to duty, but throw the decision into error. Examples of the process\noccur in daily experience. A question of duty is presented. We come to\nit with sincere, honest mind, and study it by taking into consideration\nall the facts and relations concerned. We get all the light we can,\nand we decide what the moral principle requires of us. This is the\ncourse that fair dealing with ourselves and duty requires us to pursue.\nBut suppose that, after all this, in the fallibility of the applicatory\njudgments, we are thus led to do the very thing that \"ought not\" to be\ndone, and violate instead of fulfil the duty which the actual relations\ncall for from us. The following of conscience may thus have put \"wrong\"\nconduct, objectively viewed, in place of the \"right\" conduct which was\ndue from us in the case. The deed, in its external form and bearing,\nmay have been unfitting and one that ought not to have been done. But\nthis is not the whole view or full account of the matter. For though,\nwhile in obeying our fallible conscience, we have thus failed to bring\nour whole outward action in the case into harmony with full duty, or\nhave even done what to others about us or to God above us was wrong,\nwe have maintained our own subjective personal moral integrity, in\nmaintaining that which is the fundamental and essential element of\nall morality, the right intention and effort. This is the prime and\nthe grandest element of all moral character, and is itself more than\n\"four-fifths of conduct.\" There is such a thing as being innocent\neven when we have done what, viewed objectively, ought not to have\nbeen done. The aim, in genuine integrity of moral purpose, was to do\nright. The deed was a mistake. The moral status in which we may thus be\nplaced as a result of following our conscience, is, ethically, at the\nopposite pole from that which we make ours when we disregard duty as\nfixed for us in and by our own moral judgments. This is disobedience to\nobligations as perceived and felt--an attitude in its nature immoral.\n\nSecondly, the crimes and wrongs often attributed to obeying the\nconscience are, probably, not fairly credited to the action of\nconscience at all. We must distinguish what men, even conscientious\nmen, have done or do in the name of conscience, and what the moral\njudgment itself has pointed out and urged as duty. It is safe to\naffirm that nearly all these crimes have come not by the light and\ndictates of the conscience, but by its suppression. There are, as all\nhistory, observation and experience testify, many other strong and\nbad motive-forces in human nature. The appetites and passions, the\nlusts of ambition, the desire of wealth and power, the striving for\nplace and fame, the willfulness of selfishness and prejudice, are\nforever suggesting their objects, filling the soul with their varied\nand plausible pleadings, until life is driven hither and thither under\nthe restless forces. In some men these forces hardly allow any place\nfor the conscience to act. Not from the intuition of the moral sense\nor the force of conscience, but from the suggestion and direction of\nother motives, come the crimes that are credited to zeal inspired by\nconscience. Conscience is not at the helm in this business. The wrongs\nare a result of failure to consult its dictates--of the force and\ndirection of other elements and tendencies of action in human nature.\nIt was not conscience that burnt Latimer and Ridley, but intolerant\nfanatical hate, hot passion ruling the hour. It was not conscience\nthat made St. Bartholomew's day full of cruelty, blood and horror,\nbut prejudice, hatred, the unreasoning rush of excited passions. It\nmay, indeed, seem plausible to say \"that day was made by the Church's\nconscience asserting the duty of repressing or overthrowing heresy.\"\nAnd it is conceivable that that conscience should testify against\nthe evil of heresy, and the duty of endeavoring to overcome it. But\nthe suggestion of torture, blood and slaughter as the means of such\nrepression, was not the work of conscience. Its guidance was thrust\naside in that conduct. For this use of violence, cruelty and murder,\nwith all their repulsive horrors, conscience did not give the command,\neven as God did not.\n\nThe truth with respect to the authority of conscience may be summed\nup as its right to control our lives in all things involving moral\nquality or character. Specifically: (1) In the regulation of our\nphysical appetencies; (2) In the use to which we put our intellectual\nendowments and capacities; (3) In the direction and relations in which\nwe use our emotional and affectional capacities, embracing our natural\ndisposition, desires and aims; (4) In deciding our choices or the way\nwe use our power of free self-determination, covering our intentions\nand aims; and (5) In the use we make of our capacities for physical\naction by which thought, feeling and the preferences of choice are\nturned into conduct which either fulfils or violates the duties which\nare evolved by our relations to being around us or above us.\n\nThe authority of conscience touches at each and all of these different\npoints, because at each and all human life is taking shape in moral\ncharacter, as either conformed to duty or variant from it. Our personal\nlife is, in its deepest reality, a single self-conscious unit, and\nthe action of all its capacities and powers needs to be rhythmically\nadjusted to the morally good. But the imperative of the conscience\naddresses itself pre-eminently and peculiarly to the will, or the\npersonal self as free in choosing, and thus capable of directing and\nusing all the personal capacities and functions. It is upon the self\nas free-will, as the self-determining and directive power, that the\nresponsibility for the conduct of life is thrown, and through it, if at\nall, the responsibility is to be met.\n\nAnd this authority becomes supreme not by any arbitrary right of one\nsubjective faculty over another or over all the rest, but from the fact\nof the supremacy of what the conscience discerns and discloses, the\nauthority of right over wrong, the obligation to eternal righteousness.\nRighteousness is king.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\nMORAL AGENCY.\n\n\nOur consideration of the great truth of the distinction between right\nand wrong which marks human life in all ages and places, and of the\nexistence and nature of the moral faculty discerning and enforcing\nthis distinction, leads up to an inquiry into the aggregate complex of\nendowments which are essential to moral agency. The great fact of moral\nagency is implied and made certain in what has already been brought\ninto view. But the pre-supposition of such moral agency is manifestly\nthe moral agent, with all the requisite endowments for the sublime\nreality of ethical life. What are the constituents of the moral nature,\nin which man rises to the lofty grade of moral agency?\n\nThere are two special reasons for examining and fixing the truth on\nthis point. First, it is needful in order to complete the scientific\nethical view. Such view must be comprehensive enough to include the\nsum total of the powers or faculties concerned in living the moral\nlife. The view remains faulty if any parts or features of the actual\nconstitution are omitted or their relations to each other and to the\nwhole are misconceived. Secondly, false and confusing representations\nhave often been made on this point. For instance, because all the moral\nlife moves so closely about the conscience there has been a tendency\nto think of the conscience and the moral nature as the same. In the\neighth edition of the Encyclop\u00e6dia Britannica, Dr. Alexander taught:\n\"The moral nature of man is summed up in the word conscience. Moral\nnature and conscience are two names for the same thing. An analysis of\nconscience, therefore, will unfold man's moral nature.\" This resolves\nthe whole of our moral nature into this one particular faculty. A\nfull and correct statement must make it embrace much more. Though the\nconscience may be the culminating thing, it is by no means all that\nis requisite to endow a being with the capacities necessary for moral\nagency.\n\nThe truth of this is easily made clear. It is self-evident that all\nthe essentials for moral action must be embraced in the moral nature.\nSome of these, manifestly, are not identical with the faculty of\nconscience, however closely allied to it they may be. For example,\nthe general function of knowing is not the same as the conscience,\nyet it is necessary to moral action. The faculty of choice is not\nitself conscience or a part of conscience. Still moral action is\nimpossible without it. Some of these essential elemental functions may\nin themselves possess no moral character whatever. For instance, \"to\nknow\" is not itself a moral act, yet it is necessary for moral agency.\nThe faculty of feeling is not _per se_ moral. The emotions arise\nnecessarily or at least spontaneously from acts of knowledge, and may\nbe neither meritorious nor blameworthy. Yet the emotional function,\nthrough which thought passes into action and conduct, is involved in\nmeeting the obligations of life. Thus it becomes plainly evident that\nbesides the conscience by which the ethical quality and obligation\nare perceived, other powers by which conduct may be conformed to\nthis obligation are requisite to fit beings for the responsibilities\nof moral agency. In other words, our moral nature is not only the\nconscience by which we approve and condemn, but also all the other\nendowments by which we originate or work out what is approvable or\ncondemnable. Illustrations of this appear in our lives every day.\nConscience does not love, yet love of what is good is a moral act or\ntemper. Conscience does not care for the sick or feed the hungry, yet\nsuch charities are acts of the moral life.\n\nWe must, therefore, mark the constituents which together form man's\nmoral constitution.\n\n\n==Rational Intelligence.==\n\n=1.= The first and fundamental thing, unquestionably, is his rational\nintelligence. A being incapable of knowledge is incapable of the\nidea or sense of duty. In a world in which creative production\nshould present no creature able to know or think, there could be no\nmoral agency whatever. Between rocks and trees and irrational living\norganisms no moral relations can exist nor duties be developed.\nRational intelligence, which is the basal reality of personality, is\nthe first essential for moral agency. And this must be understood to\nmean the whole intellectual endowment, embracing self-consciousness,\nperception, memory, imagination, intuitional insight, and the varied\npowers of reflection and the discursive understanding. Since, as will\nhereafter appear (Chapter IX), duties are developed by the relations in\nwhich men stand in the system of which they are made to form a part, a\nknowledge of themselves and of their relations is clearly essential to\na discharge of these duties. Their very constitution carries also an\nadaptation to an end which they must know, in order to meet their duty\nto themselves and others.\n\nThis dependence of ethical life upon knowledge makes itself\nimpressively clear in the experiences and course of common life and\nthe lessons of history. While the absence of rational intelligence,\nas in the case of idiocy, annuls all possibility of character and\nresponsibility, the lower the grade of men and races in mental\ndevelopment, the poorer is their equipment for the demands of the full\nethical standard of conduct. It is almost axiomatic that we should not\nlook for as high grade of moral ideals and rules among ignorant people\nand savage tribes as in the life of intelligent civilizations. Though\nthe principle of duty is not always turned into character in proportion\nto the measure of mental development and secular culture, yet\nexperience and history affirm a clear tendency in increased knowledge\nto bring better sense of obligation and more prevalent rectitude of\nlife. So well established is the recognition of this relation between\nintelligence and conduct, that the advocates of the evolutionist origin\nof man with one consent represent the emergence of intelligence as\nconditional for the appearance of moral agency. A knowledge of one's\nself and of his relations to the world around him and God above him,\nand the destiny to which his powers appoint him, is thus fundamental in\nthe constitution of a nature for the sphere and reality of moral life.\n\n\n==The Conscience.==\n\n=2.= The conscience--resting in the general rational intelligence and\nrising into the peculiar discernments and judgments which mark it--is\nanother constituent. This is universally conceded by moral philosophy.\nThere is, therefore, need here only to recall the place and relations\nof this special power in the total organism of psychical powers. The\nconscience, in its essential perceptions and judgments, as appears from\nthe analysis already given, is part of the rational intelligence. It\ndesignates the power and function of the intelligent _ego_, or personal\nself, for discernment in the sphere of right and duty--for insight\ninto the reality of ethical law and obligation which belong to good\nconduct among rational, self-directing beings. It expresses, therefore,\nthe highest ascent of the rational intelligence, where, overlooking\nthe whole realm of existence and relations known in other forms of\nknowledge, it sees, and through the emotional nature, feels, how to\nlive as life ought to be lived.\n\nFurther, while thus the summit point in the rational intelligence,\nthe conscience employs for its perceptions and judgments the data of\nall the other functions of the mind. Its discernments are made in the\nlight of all the truth which in any way illuminates the understanding.\nThis explains why and how the conscience is educable. It is dependent\non all the other intellectual powers for a knowledge of the relations\nof life which develop duties and in view of which every duty is to\nbe determined and judged. The very position of the conscience, as\nhighest of all the powers of the intelligence, makes it, not the most\nindependent, but the most dependent of all. All knowledge should\nsupply light for the right conduct of life. The clearer the light,\nother things being equal, the clearer and more correct will be the\nethical judgments. Ignorance is a darkened atmosphere to see duty in.\nThe advance of general civilization, the progress of knowledge, the\nwidening of the realm of science, the supernatural information given by\nspecial divine revelation, are all, therefore, if used as they should\nbe, factors in developing the faculty of conscience into its best\nability for insight into duty and for practical morality.\n\n\n==Free Will.==\n\n=3.= Free-will. The only truly satisfactory psychological account of\nthe will is that which presents it as the soul's power of causation\nfor choices. It is the capacity of the personal _ego_ or self for\nreal choosing or free election. As in intellectual action the soul\nis causal for knowing or thinking, and in the sensibility it is\ncausal for feeling or really feels, so in will the _ego_ or rational\nself is acting as the cause of the choices which it makes. Using the\nterm for this capacity of the personal self to choose, the will is\nself-determining. It originates movement. It is creative of its own\nacts. It is causal of its volutions. Morality consists in deliberate\nself-submission to the law of rectitude. Duty must be freely chosen;\nand the autonomy of the will, _i. e._ of the personal self, is\ninvolved in the very conception of virtue. Freedom must, therefore,\nbe a prime characteristic of a moral nature. The whole fabric of\nobligation and responsibility is built upon it. It is this, as well\nas rational intelligence, that lifts man above the order and ongoing\nof material nature and makes him amenable to the claims of right and\nduty. It is essential to personality and its presence or absence\nmakes and marks the deepest difference between persons and \"things.\"\nWe can imagine intellectual automatism; but the most brilliant\nintellectuality, a corruscation of mental mechanism, without reaching\nup into a capacity for free choice and voluntary action, would,\nmanifestly, not make a free agent or exalt into the high realm of\nethical life. The idea of duty is inapplicable except in the sphere of\nfreedom. Moral responsibility is inconceivable without it.\n\nIn this, more than in anything else, the whole aggregation of\nhuman endowments comes to its crown. In it man becomes, in a real\nsense, a supra-natural being, endowed with the lofty distinction of\nself-direction, self-dominion and self-rulership in the presence of\nthe great realities of right and obligation. He becomes capable of\ncharacter and answerable for his conduct, as he shapes that character\nand determines that conduct.\n\nAnd this freedom cannot be merely the freedom of simple spontaneity or\nvoluntariness. It must be the capacity of alternative choice.[27] There\ncould not be real choice without capacity and room to elect between\ndifferent possibilities. It is a well known definition: \"Free will is\npossessed when, the conditions of doing something being given, one can\neither do or not do it.\"[28] A capacity simply to act, even though it\nshould be through intelligence and consciousness, in a way that can\nhave no alternative and allows no choice or option, could not open a\nfield of personal virtue or responsibility. Where only one thing is\nreally made possible in action, and that one possible thing is already\nsomehow necessitated, there can be no place for choice. It presents\nno sphere for the exercise of election--even though the faculty of\nelection should exist. A field of choice and the faculty of choice\nimply and call for each other. Both are necessary for the freedom\nimplied in responsibility. Human responsibility rests on the possession\nof a real capacity to make decision between real alternatives. Without\nthese there could be no more place for morality among men than there is\namong the atoms or molecules of the chemical elements in their behavior\nin the laboratory.\n\nThe proof of free-will, in this sense, might be left to rest upon the\nfact that it is a necessary pre-supposition to the very conception of\nmorality and of actual accountability. This accountability, recognized\nin conscience and exacted by the constitution of the world, is an\nomnipresent and inerasable reality. So must free-will also be. Freedom\nis part of the moral idea, and the idea falls apart and lapses into\ncontradiction and confusion without it. The same necessity that obliges\nus to accept the truth of morality itself, obliges us to assert\nfree-will as an attribute of a moral nature and a condition of moral\nagency.\n\nBut the truth of freedom is sustained by other proofs. It is proper to\nrecall and fix clearly in mind several of these.\n\n(1) The testimony of consciousness. This is clear and explicit. We\nare directly conscious of free choice. And there can be no evidence\nmore immediate and authoritative than that of consciousness. It is the\nform of evidence in which all psychical facts, activities, powers, and\nlaws, are made known and stand certified in our knowledge. It is the\ncertifying element for both the form and reality of all our knowing. It\nis that in which we \"know that we know,\" and without which there can be\nno knowledge. It is, therefore, the foundation certitude. Our systems\nof science, our conclusions in philosophy, our intuitions into first\ntruths and laws, and all the confidence with which we accept truth in\nall these great realms of mental life, rest back on the observations,\nreasonings and conclusions for whose reality and order consciousness\nis our most fundamental voucher. To its tests and verifications all\nthe processes of knowing must submit. No truth is even visible except\nin the light in which consciousness holds all our acts and forms\nof intelligence. No form of our knowing can be surer than this.\nTo discredit it is to discredit that without whose help not a step\nin knowledge can be taken. Upon this fundamental and unsurpassable\nevidence rests the great fact of free-will. No person, in the simple\nlight of his unperverted and unperplexed consciousness, doubts his\nfree-will. He finds himself in exercise and use of it every day and\nevery hour. He knows himself to be perpetually making decisions within\nhis own liberty, if he knows anything. The witness to it is direct, and\nhe holds himself, and others hold him, responsible for his choices and\nthe deeds he does in carrying them out. He deliberately and consciously\nelects his way through clearly seen open alternative possibilities. If\nhe is to believe that in reality he does not do so, he must believe\nthat his consciousness is a perpetual fraud upon him. But thus the\nauthority for the reality of all his psychical capacities and acts is\noverthrown, and he does not \"know that he knows\" in any of his knowing.\n\nIt is not a sufficient answer to all this, when it is said that in\nthis way of proof we are making the testimony of consciousness reach\nfurther than it actually does. Some psychologies undertake to limit\nconsciousness to a disclosure of simply the actual volition, or other\npsychical acts, and not of acts or volitions which we imagine might\nhave been but were not. Thus, it is said, the proof of another possible\nchoice, as an alternative to that of the actual volition, fails to be\ncovered by the consciousness. The supposed act is outside of its reach\nof purview and testimony. But such a psychology is untrue to the full\ndeliverance of the consciousness. A just and full account of it, as\nis clearly seen in our experience, must hold it as covering not only\nthe act of choice, but the _power to choose_. The human consciousness\nis a self-consciousness, and in it we truly know the personal self\nas the power for the various forms of activity which it reveals. Not\nmore truly are we conscious of the power really to think or feel than\nreally to choose, among diverse possibilities. We have direct knowledge\nof the power of electing in the very act of election. And thus, not\nonly the untutored consciousness, but one trained to the sharpest and\ndeepest self-inspection, will be found a full witness to free-will as a\ncapacity of alternative choice.\n\n(2) The implications of the natural constitution of the world. Mankind\nare in fact framed into and held under the principle of freedom. The\nwhole system of which man forms a part answers to the testimony of\nconsciousness. Bishop Butler, in his immortal Analogy, has shown with\nresistless clearness and force that in the constitutional organism\nof society and the experiences of actual life free-will is assumed\nfor human nature.[29] Both by natural and moral law men are governed\nas free agents. The physical order of the earth, as a place where\nbodily and moral welfare are conditioned on obedience to discoverable\nrelations and principles, pre-supposes human intelligence and\nliberty. Nature in her ongoings requires every individual to adjust\nhimself carefully to its laws of health, safety and happiness. There\nis an incessant appeal to him to use his intelligence and liberty\nin accordance with the demands of his ever-changing conditions and\nrelations in life. The idea that everything takes place by necessity is\nnot only at variance with his sense of freedom, but is found utterly\ninapplicable in practical living. A youth, if such a case be supposed,\ntrained under the notion that he must not be held responsible for\nhis acts, since they take place by necessity, would soon find his\ndream of irresponsibility disturbed and disallowed. At every turn he\nwould find the inexorable forces of nature and society refusing to\nrecognize his claim. Government, law, administration, all the various\nfunctions through which human affairs are held together in orderly\nmovement, assume the individual's power and obligation to determine\nhis conduct and hold him chargeable with consequences. Though supposed\nspeculatively true, the doctrine proves false in practice. It is in\nfact untrue to the constitution of human life. \"The thing here insisted\non,\" says Butler, \"is that under the present natural government of the\nworld we find ourselves treated and dealt with as if we were free,\nprior to all consideration whether we are or not. Were this opinion,\ntherefore, of necessity admitted to be ever so true, yet such is in\nfact our condition and the natural course of things, that whenever we\napply it to life and practice, this application of it always misleads\nus, and cannot but mislead us, in a most dreadful manner, with\nregard to our present interests.\" Beyond all question, as is evident\nto every thoughtful person, mankind deal one with another on the\npre-supposition and principle of freedom, and of the responsibility\nwhich is ethically unthinkable except on that freedom. Personal,\nsocial, and governmental relations are framed upon this principle,\nand are a perpetual expression of it. Men universally treat each\nother--and under the actual inter-relations of life cannot but treat\neach other--as free beings. The inference is direct and necessary that\nthey are such, unless we concede that human life is organized into a\nnecessary order of living that is false to their real nature and unjust\nin its penalties.\n\n(3) It is to be further noted that while freedom rests thus on the\ndirect and positive evidence of consciousness and the actual order of\nlife, the contrary doctrine of necessity or determinism arises only\nfrom assumptions or implications of speculative thought. This is a fact\nthat needs to be clearly and fully fixed in mind. Necessitarianism\nis without any direct witness of consciousness, and is not forced or\neven suggested by the natural sense of mankind. It is not required as\na working theory for the business or natural conduct of life. It is\nonly a product of speculation or ideal theorizing. It is constructed\nfrom different standpoints of thought. In some speculation it rests\nsimply on certain ontological assumptions, sometimes pantheistic as in\nSpinozism, sometimes materialistic as in non-theistic evolutionism.\nIn both these cases freedom disappears in the absoluteness with\nwhich the substance of the universe unfolds into all its products\nand manifestations.[30] In some other speculations it appears as a\nconclusion from certain metaphysical views of the law of causation and\nits supposed application in the realm of psychical activity. In this\nform of theory every volition is viewed as standing in the relation\nof a mere effect to a cause which determines the will to it, in fixed\nconnection and force of antecedence and consequence. The volition\ncomes, it is represented, as the necessary result--not as a real choice\nby self-determining personality, but produced by environment, mental\nstructure, and disposition. Not the _ego_ or personal self, as free\nspirit endowed with capacity for real election, but the environment,\nmotives, and disposition decide and fix the volition for the person,\nwhich by an illusion of consciousness appears as done by himself. In\nstill other speculation necessitarianism comes as an inference from\nconceptions formed as to the divine sovereignty and the absoluteness\nwith which it must direct creature movement. The doctrine thus has its\nplausibility, not from the conscious working of the human mind or the\nnatural order of conduct and welfare, but as theoretical conclusions\nfrom certain forms of speculative thinking. It is therefore the product\nof metaphysical theorizing. It is not a datum of pure psychology. It\nis not taught by life. It is not known as a fact. It is not called\nfor by the practical needs of daily self-direction. It has only\nsecondary forms of suggestion and support--the precarious evidence\nfrom special theorizing in ontology and metaphysics. And it introduces\nmore difficulties than it shuts off, while it collides with the moral\nconsciousness of mankind and its sense of responsibility for conduct\nand the formation of character. In the light of these truths it ought\nnot to be regarded as having any validity. It is surely incredible that\nthe doctrine of necessity should be true when the actual constitution\nof human life, in all its personal, social, and governmental relations,\nrequires us to treat it as false, being practically inapplicable.\nUtterly beyond belief is it that while the inexorable necessities of\ndaily behavior bind us to the principle of freedom and responsibility,\nthere should be in the real constitution of the world no actual freedom\nin deciding on choices or determining our conduct.[31] Moral agency\nmust be free agency, in open alternatives of choice. It involves both\nthe subjective capacity to choose and a realm for its exercise in\ndiverse possibilities.\n\n\n==Sensibility and Actions.==\n\n=4.= Powers of sensibility and action, by which the dictates of\nconscience may be turned into actual conduct and character, complete\nthe moral constitution.\n\n(1) It has already been seen (pages 44-47) that in the complex action\nof the conscience itself the sensibility awakened in the form of\nemotion, as a feeling of obligation arising from a perception of\nobligation. This has already shown the sensibility to be a part of the\nmoral organization. Conscience itself includes emotion. Duty perceived\nbecomes duty felt, if the moral life is normal; and the feeling is\nmotive-force for the choice and the fulfillment of duty. Emotional\npowers are thus constituent in the structure of man's moral nature. The\nmoral emotions are occasions for ethical choices and deeds.\n\n(2) But, further, the movements of the sensibilities are themselves\neither morally good or evil, and form a sphere of personal life\nto which moral quality belongs. Man's affections and desires, his\nloves and hatreds, his enjoyments and aversions, constitute a domain\nwhere the ethical distinctions are to be applied. They hold and\nexhibit elements of character. We may not, indeed, say that a being\nof pure intellect, void of all emotion, would be utterly incapable\nof character and irresponsible, but we are compelled to think that\nthe moral life in such case would be without what forms the highest\nethical excellence and glory of character, viz.: love, benevolence,\ndelight in righteousness and joy in pure affection. The regulation of\nthe affections and passions, the purification of the inmost \"thoughts\"\nof what the sacred scriptures call \"the heart\" is vital to right\ncharacter. The capacity to love is an equipment for the moral life. It\nis virtuous to love what ought to be loved. The capacity to hate is\nalso such an equipment--the obligation being to hate what ought to be\nhated as morally wrong. Benevolence may not be, as some have contended\nit is, the essence or ground of all virtue, but, unquestionably, it\nis a virtue of highest rank, and the capacity for it is a prominent\nelement in man's moral organization. The same is true of the whole\nemotional and affectional capacity in the human soul. It is part of the\nconstitution for true character and life.\n\n(3) Still further, man's powers of action, in which the ethical\ndistinctions and choices are wrought out into their proper deeds, are\npart of his organization for the true moralities of life. However\ndeeply the foundations of ethics may be laid in personal individuality,\nthe ethical life concerns more than self, and finds its largest\nfield in inter-human relations. Human solidarity is as real as human\nindividuality. Humanity is an organism, in which each person has his\nplace and mission. The individual's sphere of duty is not simply his\nown soul, but the broad reach of all his relations to the world about\nhim, in which duties are developed and right conduct is required. In\nall this wide sphere obligation can be met only through his endowment\nwith power to carry into effect, in action, his moral judgments and\nconvictions of right. Moral science must consider man not merely as a\nknower and contemplator or lover of the right, but also as a doer of it\nin righteous deeds. Hence man's moral nature, as his endowment for the\nmoral life, is not all brought under review until it is seen to include\nthe realm of his feelings and those executive powers which turn the\nethical discriminations and choices into righteous conduct.\n\nWe thus sum up the constituents of man's moral nature: intelligence,\nthe conscience, free-will, and capacities for affection and doing.\nWhere these are united the subject is organized for knowing duty\nand fulfilling it. But a final fact, of profound import, needs yet\nto be added, not as a further faculty, but rather as a consequence\nresultant from the union and co-action of these endowments, viz.:\nthat this organism of faculties presents not simply a capacity as a\npossibility of the moral life, but a positive, vital motive adjustment\nand organic pre-disposition toward it. It is not simply framed to it\nas an articulation of dead timber, but is adapted to it as a complex\nof living forces for normal movement. The moral constitution, if not\ndisordered or wrecked, carries thus a living trend or impulse toward\nknowing duty and doing it. This impulse, seemingly pervading, if\nnot standing behind, the whole mental activity, as a sub-conscious\npre-disposition, appears as an original aptitude or incorporated\npurpose in the total human psychical organization. Hence human nature,\nif normal, is not indifferent to right and wrong. Its true life is\none of positive affinity for the good. If, under internal disorder\nor particular circumstances, counter-tendencies appear and prevail,\nthis does not disprove the fundamental and normal set of humanity for\nthe moral life. Man is made for the right as he is made for God. This\nconception of the positiveness of his total moral organization is\nnecessary to complete the view of man as a moral agent.[32]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII.\n\nTHE REALITY OF RIGHT AND WRONG.\n\n\nIn this chapter we pass the dividing line between the two great\nparts of ethics. Thus far we have considered only the facts and\nmanifestations of our moral nature. We have traced the unquestionable\nphenomena of moral distinctions and obligation in human thinking,\nfeeling, and conviction. We have found the explanation of these\nphenomena in the action of a faculty or complex of faculties of the\nhuman soul, that discerns and affirms these distinctions. We have\nstudied this power and marked its data from its initial perception of\nthe ethical distinction through its further discernments, emotions and\njudgments to its full assertion of moral responsibility. We have seen\nits unique authority explained by the supremacy of the law of right\nand duty which it reveals, and have noted the aggregate of endowments\nbelonging to man's moral agency.\n\nBut the mere registry of these moral phenomena is not the full\nexplanation of them. We must examine yet what they imply. From the\nfaculty that perceives we must turn to look at the nature of that which\nis perceived. We may call the part already traversed the science of\nethics, as dealing with and systematizing the facts of experience.\nThe part that remains takes us into the metaphysics of ethics, as\nexhibiting the abiding verities so perceived and to which we find\nourselves so responsibly related--not what is in us, but what is above\nand over us to which our moral consciousness corresponds. Having\nvisited \"the moral consciousness in its own home\" and listened to its\nstory of \"right\" and \"duty\" and \"responsibility,\" we must go forth\nand explore the realm that answers to that story. This realm is the\nobjective moral system to which human conduct is to be adjusted.\n\nThe precise question of this chapter is whether the distinction\nof right or wrong, subjectively and psychologically made, is also\nobjectively true and real, marking an actual qualitative difference in\nthe deeds and intentions of men, or is a mere appearance, a fiction\nand illusion of our own minds. Is the principle of duty a reality for\nright life, as something belonging to the constitution of the world, or\nonly an idea which our minds have manufactured--only our own thought\nreflected back upon us, as is our face that seems so real in the mirror?\n\nIt would seem that the very asking of this question should be itself\na sufficient answer. But doubt has been raised by speculative\nmetaphysics. Hence we must examine it.\n\n\n==Source of Doubt.==\n\n=1.= The doubt comes from misleading representations of the relativity\nof knowledge. Unquestionably there is a sense in which our knowledge\nmay justly be said to be \"relative.\" It is not absolute, unconditioned\nor unlimited. We can know only as we have facilities for knowing,\nand under the conditions and aspects in which objects are presented\nto them. We are restricted to the modes and degrees of our given\ncapacities. There are probably many realities about us of which we can\nknow nothing. We have no organs for their perception. Even the things\nthat we do know reach off into transcendent relations. Philosophy\nhas long confessed the relative character of our knowledge. Even the\npercepts of sense-experience, say for instance, of sight or hearing,\nwhen analyzed in physical science are found to be, in their objective\ncause or material conditions, somewhat different from the simple\nreport of the organ of sense--color being the subjective sensation\nof light-rays on the retina of the eye, and sound the effect of\nvibrations of the atmosphere upon the sensorium. But in recent times\nvarious theories have represented our knowing faculties as largely\nuntrustworthy and their data as invalid in spheres where their\nfunctions appear most certain and explicit. Locke gave basis for a\nmovement in this direction by teaching that the immediate objects of\nthe mind are not things, but \"ideas.\" Berkeley's idealism repudiated\nthe sufficiency of sense-perception to prove the objective existence\nof the material world. Hume questioned the substantial existence of\nboth matter and mind. In the view of Kant human knowledge reaches only\nto \"phenomena,\" the appearance of things, while the things as they are\n\"in themselves\" can not be known. The mind projects and imposes its own\nsubjective forms of thought upon the universe. Sir Wm. Hamilton, Dean\nMansel, J. S. Mill, Alexander Bain and Herbert Spencer have developed\ntheories, variously modified but agreeing in this, that even our\nnecessary forms of rational perception are not to be held as standing\nfor more than relative truth, _i. e._ subjective impressions in our\nminds in the presence of environment. Doubt is cast upon the point\nwhether what is true to our necessary or actual thought is also really\ntrue for the objective world.\n\nThe teaching will be best understood by several quotations. Sir Wm.\nHamilton, though a natural realist, influenced by the speculations of\nKant, while acknowledging an underlying reality for phenomena, taught\nthat we can never know them except \"under modifications determined by\nour own faculties.\"[33]\n\nJ. S. Mill, going further, says: \"Our knowledge of objects, and even\nour fancies about objects, consist in nothing but the sensations\nthey excite, or which we imagine them exciting in ourselves.... This\nknowledge is merely phenomenal.... The object is known to us only in\none special relation, namely, as that which produces, or is capable of\nproducing certain impressions on our senses; and all that we really\nknow is these impressions.\"[34]\n\nHerbert Spencer asserts the relativity of all knowledge, and says:\n\"Clearly as we seem to know it, our apparent knowledge proves on\nexamination to be utterly irreconcilable with itself. Ultimate\nreligious ideas and ultimate scientific ideas, alike turn out to be\nmerely symbols of the actual, not cognitions of it.\"[35]\n\nPlainly these theories do not make our knowledge a genuine apprehension\nof reality, but merely internal and unreliable mental states. It is\nonly a subjective phenomenon. We cannot know that it stands for the\nreal truth of things. Rather, we are told, it does not. It is but an\neffect within the mind, determined, it may be, by things without, but\nmodified, if not created, by the constitution and action of the mind\nitself. The receiving mind, like the receiving lens, determines the\nshape and color of the apprehended phenomenon. If there be any reality\nbehind it and correspondent to it, we can never assure ourselves\nof it. The theory thoroughly discredits the trustworthiness of our\nfaculties, both of sense-perception and of reason. They do not report\nthe things of the world as they really are, but merely as they affect\nus. Our necessary conceptions, such as time, space, beauty, cause,\nmoral law, cannot be proved to be anything else than phenomena within\nus. The conclusion is well stated in the language of Mr. Grote in his\nexplanation of the views of the Greek sophists: \"As things appear to\nme, so they are to me; as they appear to you, so they are to you.\"[36]\nIt is altogether a subjective matter. We can have only a relative\nmorality--not conformed to an objective and universal standard, but to\nthe particular impressions we find within us.\n\nEvidently this doctrine of relativity lands us in universal\nintellectual skepticism. It gives us agnosticism. Nothing is sure in a\nsingle department of knowledge. If our minds are forever presenting to\nus internal \"forms of thought\" that stand not really for the \"forms\nof being\" in the real world, if they are actually creating or painting\nfor us what we seem to perceive and what appear to be realities\nobjective to our faculties and existing independently of them, there\nis no possibility of reaching truth of any kind. But in the domain of\nmorals this theory would prove peculiarly destructive. If the qualities\nof right and wrong be not in very truth real, if they be not verities\nof conduct in the constituted relations of human life, if the ideas\nanswer not to a true distinction set before us for our recognition\nand conformity, then virtue is a dream, obligation an illusion, and\nconscience a fraud.\n\nOver against this false we must place the true conception of the\nrelativity of knowledge. We must hold, as the spontaneous sense of\nmankind and the best sustained psychology and philosophy of the\ncenturies affirm, that our cognitive powers are genuine faculties\nfor discerning the truth of things, that, while not infallible nor\nunlimited, they give us substantially correct knowledge, as far as it\ngoes, of the realities of the natural and moral world in which we are\nplaced. These powers of intelligence are not set to act delusively and\nimprison us in phantasmagoria or a factitious system false to that\nwhich actually exists. The correct theory, the only one that is really\nrational and can be lived out, must ever be that, as far as we have\nfaculties to know at all and use them loyally, we know what is and\nbecause it is. The true reason of our knowing is the real existence of\nknowable realities.[37] Instead of knowing only appearances, we know\nthe very things that appear--not perfectly, or without possibility\nof mistake, but yet truly. The end of knowledge is not to give us a\nphantasmagorical world for endless illusion, but the actual world, with\nits divine constitution and movement, in which we are to live, and with\nwhose facts and laws, physical and moral, we are to harmonize our lives.\n\n\n=2.= The false conception of the relativity of knowledge being thus\nset aside, and the psychological law, that the correlate of knowing\nis reality, being recognized, we are prepared to see the truth on the\npoint of inquiry in this chapter, as follows:\n\n==Objective Reality.==\n\n(1) The qualities of right and wrong, involved in the ethical\ndistinction, are not merely subjective impressions or appearances,\nimposed on conduct by the human mind, but are objective, belonging to\nthe external world of relations and action, real for apprehension and\nconformity. They are without us as well as within us. And they come\nwithin us because they are realities without us for us to know and\nobserve. The moral qualities, as real features of required behavior\nof free beings in their given relations to each other, belong to the\nconstitution of the world as well as to the faculties of the human\nmind. They are real qualities of action and motives to action whether\nmen perceive or take note of them or not. As truly as the starry sky\nis above us, before we open our eyes to see it, so the principle\nof righteousness is established for life before we enter it or our\nfaculties awake to discover it. The principle of moral law is framed\ninto the constitution of the world and human life. It is back of\nthe discernment of it, imbedded in the demand which the constituted\nrelations of nature make for proper behavior of free, intelligent\nbeings. The law of duty is fixed in these relations. It abides there to\nbe recognized and fulfilled by all beings endowed with moral perception\nand freedom. Moral law is a profounder and broader thing than a\nsimple uncertain mental fiction in personal thinking. It belongs to\nthe immense, almost infinite realm of creature inter-relations of the\nuniverse.\n\nThe reality, however, is not to be thought of as a material entity or\nsubstantive essence, but solely as a quality of the intentions and\nconduct demanded by and in the relations sustained by men and other\nmoral beings. It is the reality of an established obligation. It\nbelongs to character.\n\nThe right, as moral law, has ever been venerated as something\nsupersensible, absolute, and divine. The early Egyptian teaching\nrepresented its home as in Deity. Buddhistic philosophy conceives of\nit as an imperishable dominion over gods and men. Christianity has\nenforced it as based in the very nature of God, and as a principle of\norder ordained for the whole universe of personal life and behavior.\nNot more real are the solid rocks of the mountain or the strong\nwaves of the sea. Not more real for the material realm is the law of\ngravitation than is the law of ethical righteousness for the spiritual\nrealm, the realm of free conduct. And the latter is superior and of\nhigher value than the former. This truth speaks in the old apothegm:\n\"_fiat justitia, ruat c\u0153lum_.\"\n\n==Not Dependent on Organization.==\n\n(2) The qualities of right and wrong in conduct are not dependent\non the peculiar mental organization or temperament of the race.\nThis results from the objectivity of the law of obligation. Only\nthe perception of them is so dependent, while the moral qualities\nare abidingly real for all beings high enough in the scale of being\nto discern them. Just as we must believe that the sun exists as an\nextended body independently of our eyes or minds, and would have to\nbe so apprehended by any inhabitant of Neptune or Jupiter endowed\nwith capacity to perceive it as it is, so we must believe that truth\nand love and kindness are right, and falsehood, injustice, malignity\nand ingratitude are wrong, not as made so by our peculiar personal\nconstitution, but _per se_, in any inhabited world of the stellar\nheavens; and that the only subjective condition for their so appearing\nis the possession of the faculty for perception of moral quality.\n\nThere may, indeed, be a doubt among finite moral agents, with limited\nknowledge, how far a certain thing may be true or false, kind or\nmalignant, just or unjust, but the quality of truth or falsehood,\nkindness or malignity, justice or injustice being perceived in it,\nit is impossible that such truth, kindness and justice should not\nbe judged right and their opposites wrong. The ethical distinction,\nobjectively viewed, is an ethical difference, perceived as such, if\nperceived at all.\n\n==Immutable and Eternal.==\n\n(3) The moral distinctions, with the moral qualities involved, being\nthus objective, and not the product of a special temporary organization\nof the percipient, are immutable and eternal. This is involved in the\nvery nature of the qualities themselves. By eternal necessity of what\nthey are, justice and love must be unchangeably and forever right. They\nare not thus right because we think or feel them so, but we think and\nfeel them so because they are so, because of the immutable and enduring\nnature of justice and love themselves. They hold and carry the kind of\nmotive and action that ought to prevail in the relations of intelligent\npersonal life, everywhere and in all time. So malignity, injustice,\nfalsehood, and cruelty are wrong by the very nature of the qualities\nthat make and mark them; and the personal intentions and conduct that\nhold them can never be right any more than a thing can be itself and\nyet other than itself.\n\nMen's judgments as to whether particular conduct is fair or just or\nkind or honest, may change and do change. Different nations and ages\nclass certain acts and ways of men very differently. But these are only\njudgments of application, and so only secondary ethical judgments. This\nhas already been pointed out in Chap. IV, pp. 67-68. They depend on the\ndegree to which the moral qualities of the conduct may be discerned\namid the complicated relations and obscurities that often perplex a\nright understanding of it. But while men change their judgments of\nthe justice, benevolence, or truth of particular forms of behavior,\nthey do not change their judgments that justice, love and truth are\nright--necessarily and immutably so. The behests of duty are imbedded\nin the necessary relations of intelligent free beings. Virtue is no\nshifting subjective illusion, shaped by our inner mental mould. No\nchange of the percipient's intellectual constitution can change the\nrealities of right and wrong. No removal from world to world can change\nthem. No distant age in eternity can reverse them, and discover virtue\nto be wrong or sin right, or either as without moral quality. The\ndistinction is eternal, and no future can arrest our responsibility\nwith respect to it. God calls us to identify ourselves with what\nis right and shun all wrong, as realities with which we stand in\nimmutable, unending relation, for good or evil.\n\n\n==Grandeur of Moral Law.==\n\n=3.= The truth thus reached on this point is one of exceeding\nimportance. It brings to view the grandeur of the moral law. It shows\nthis law to be truly transcendental, belonging not to transient\nmaterial forms or physiological structure, nor to special psychical\nconstitutions of men or races, nor organized instinct, nor subjective\nmental illusion, nor peculiar hereditary experience, nor transformed\nsense of realized or supposed utility, nor any local adventitious\ncircumstances and training, but to the supreme super-sensible realm\nof universal and necessary ideas and truth, in which the universe of\nrational thought and divine order lives and moves and has its being and\nwelfare. In this truth, therefore, the moral law begins to appear in\nits true greatness and value, in its universal dominion and infinite\nimportance. It comes down upon us with a mighty impression. It thrills\nus into enthusiasm. As long as the moral idea is accounted a mere\nproduct of environment and biological evolution or experienced utility,\na blind hereditary instinct, an organized impulse, a fiction of\neducation, or a temporary behest of individual or racial organization,\nit is a thing of but little dignity and of limited moment. It is worthy\nof no more reverence than a form of protoplasm or a passing mental\nimpression. Not reflecting an objective reality of universal, supreme\nand permanent validity, but only a special phenomenon of the human\norganization and this transient life, it can inspire but small respect.\nOnly in the truth here reached does the authority of the moral law\nstand out in its majesty and illimitable range and sweep. Only in it\ncan that law be rightly effective for the good conduct of men and the\nsafe formation of character in the mould of immortal excellence.\n\n\n==Reality is Dividing Line.==\n\n=4.= The recognition of the objective validity of the moral\ndistinctions marks one of the chief dividing lines between true and\nfalse theories of moral philosophy. A failure to recognize this point\nnot only leaves the point itself a blank, but usually means error\nboth in the conception of the nature and function of conscience\nand of the grounds and claims of right and virtue. With respect to\nconscience the failure reduces it from a power of true discernment\nof what is, into an instinct acting blindly or a make-believe of\nobligation through judgments indistinguishable from those of utility,\npleasure or advantage, or into a passing product of racial experience\nor education. So instead of explaining the unique authority of the\nconscience it undermine and dissolves that authority into non-moral\nelements. Obligation itself becomes but a synonym for an impulse toward\ncertain forms of pleasure or advantage. As to the grounds and claims\nof right, these are thus caused to disappear in the non-moral elements\ninto which right and wrong are dissolved. The ethical distinctions, the\ngreat moral phenomena of the ages, with all the interests of practical\nmorality, instead of being explained and justified, are explained\naway. If, therefore, ethical theory is to exhibit the metaphysical\nvalidity of the moral consciousness of men, no view can reasonably\nbe regarded as correct that dissipates the very reality which the\nconscience assumes to see and without which the moral judgments lose\ntheir rational foundations. For if the objective and transcendent\ncharacter of the ethical distinction be denied, morality necessarily\ndrops down into, at best, a temporary biological provision for the\nutilities of this ephemeral life, or, at worst, into a deep fraud of\nour faculties, estopping the use of our freedom by a phantom bugbear\nof moral distinctions. If, therefore, virtue is not to be disrobed of\nits honor, if righteousness is not to be cast down from the supreme\nplace which the reason of mankind has ever accorded it, if the idea of\nduty is not to be belittled, invalidated and overthrown, ethical theory\nmust recognize and emphasize the objective and permanent reality of the\nmoral law as an unchanging law of obligation and responsibility for\nthe conduct of free agents. Otherwise the so-called ethical theory is\nnot a theory of the ethical reality, but one that sinks the supposed\nethical reality into non-moral elements and illusion. To vindicate the\nauthority of conscience, the immutable foundations of righteousness\nmust be maintained, not dissolved.\n\n\n==Relation to Evolution.==\n\n=5.= The relation of this truth to the wide-spread hypothesis of\nthe evolutionary origin of man dare not be ignored at this place.\nFrank admission has already been made that this hypothesis, as\nsetting forth a mere mode of creation by God, does not appear to be\nnecessarily inconsistent with the existence of conscience. Any mode\nthat can produce a faculty of mental power capable of perceiving\nor making the ethical distinction, suffices on that point--though\ngrave difficulties stand in the way of accounting for it under any\nevolutionist explanation thus far given. But how is it with respect to\nthe supersensible reality of the moral law, as the reality perceived by\nthe conscience? Can evolution account for it, or even allow any place\nfor it?\n\n==Theistic Evolution.==\n\nTo these questions, the answer must be, first, that evolution, in the\ntheistic conception, if supposed capable of developing the faculty of\nconscience, must also be regarded as consistent with existence and\nplace of the moral law. The infinite intelligence and purpose back of\nthe creative evolution, and through it originating a power for ethical\nperception, must be conceded to be equally capable, in that method of\nforming the universe, of establishing the principle and law of duty in\nthe relations in which rational and self-determining creatures are to\nlive. Provided only that a rational first cause be assumed and the\nplan of the world be viewed as laid in aims of divine order, a moral\nsystem as well as moral agents may, surely, be created by slow advance\nof life no less completely than by instantaneous fiat of power. The\ntheistic theory of evolution, assuming the cosmic system to be grounded\nin the will and power of God and filled with his ever-working presence\ndoes not necessarily bring any trouble into the question of fixed moral\nlaw. The moral law, resting in the same divine source whence arise the\nlaws that are revealed in physical nature, comes into play as soon as\nmoral agents are created in relations which call for right sentiments\nand conduct. The rational purpose which ordained physical laws, in\nnecessity, for material order, ordains moral law for order of personal\nagents acting in freedom. The question, therefore, with respect to this\nkind of evolution need not embarrass the question of the reality of\nimmutable moral law--at least when the theory of evolution is so shaped\nas to give its fundamental assumptions full and consistent place and\nforce.\n\n==Atheistic Evolution.==\n\nBut, secondly, on the other hand, answer must be made, that under no\ntheory of atheistic and merely materialistic and naturalistic evolution\ncan the objective existence of moral law be logically or rationally\nmaintained. This kind of evolutionism is not only helpless before the\ntask of accounting for it, but logically excludes the possibility of\nit. For any theory that presents the cosmos as a pure naturalism of\nmatter, or is agnostic as to an intelligent author of nature, furnishes\nno realm or materials for moral law. This becomes evident, beyond\ndoubt, from the following considerations:\n\n(1) According to the hypothesis \"the potency of all things\" is in\nmatter with its energy and modes of motion. This is the \"all and\nthe one\" \u03c4\u1f78 \u03c0\u1fb6\u03bd \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u1f15\u03bd ([Greek: to pan kai hen]) of the universe,\nat once the only essence and ground of its existence and ongoing.\nNo intelligent first cause is assumed, no creative reason to begin\nor determine the evolution. There is no ordering mind or purpose in\nit--for its origin, in the process, or as to its end. It is avowedly\na purely mechanical theory of the universe--matter and force acting\nin self-contained energy without design. All rational, purposive,\nor teleological idea is wanting. Now it is evident that this pure\nmechanism of matter and energy must be not only without any moral\nelement whatever, but necessarily incapable of evolving the moral. It\nis an infinite and endless automatism. Though it should run on \u00e6on\nafter \u00e6on it is still only a mechanism of atoms in eternally unfree\nmaterial movement. The unmoral elements can never produce moral law;\nand, _ex hypothesi_, there is no intelligent free moral being behind or\nin the movement to create or establish moral law through it.\n\n(2) Further, this form of evolutionism, returning, as it does, to the\nancient notion of the universe as a perpetual flux, even if imagined to\nbe able to evolve the moral out of non-moral elements, could present\nno permanent and stable ethical law. In such evolution, without\nbeginning and without end, all things are only a continual becoming,\n\"an eternal process moving on.\" There is and can be nothing fixed,\nwhether of forms or relations, but only a shifting, necessitated,\neverlasting scene of aimless beginnings and disappearances. Could we\neven conceive--which we cannot, because the concept is possible only\nin connection with purpose and ideal order--that the ethical \"ought\"\nshould momentarily appear, it would soon be broken up and passed by,\nlike the bubble on a stream,\n\n \"A moment here, then gone forever.\"\n\nManifestly, this perpetual motion, forever changing and superseding its\nown forms and products, cannot be considered father to even a rational\nstable conscience, much less a sure abiding moral law for its steady\nrecognition and eternally reverent regard. \"The child of contingency\nremains contingent.\" And so the advocates of this empirical,\nmaterialistic, and atheistic evolutionism consistently maintain that\nthere is no absolute moral law, and that what seems so is only shifting\nhereditary judgments generated by experience and utility or some\ninstinct formed by biological processes.\n\n(3) But further. In this merely naturalistic evolution all the\nessential presuppositions of moral law are wanting and excluded. This\nis easily seen. (_a_) It has already been pointed out that the action\nof conscience is theistic, its authority arising from its perception\nof a law of duty imposed on it and representing a moral law-giver (See\nChap. IV, pp. 79-80; Chap. V, pp. 87-88). So moral law, as a rule of\nethical righteousness, is necessarily theistic. It is thinkable only\nas a requirement made by rational intelligence for fitting conduct\namong personal agents. It rests in a world-system of rational ends\nand ideal requirements. The standard is established by intelligence.\nShould it be objected, that we may regard the standard as made by the\nmind of men only, and altogether a human and subjective thing, it is\nenough to remind the reader that according to the hypothesis, there is\nno human mind as a different entity from matter, the only \"mentality\"\nleft being merely particular effects of molecular or brain activity,\nand therefore only successive passive products, simply revealing what,\nif it exists at all, must exist as the molecular matter behind them.\nThe autocratic moral law which the conscience finds, but does not\nmake, is conceivable therefore, only as part of intelligent ordering\nin a rational world-system. But according to the hypothesis no moral\nreason has framed or regulates the order of the physical forces that\ncreate the relations of life. (_b_) Moral law, with responsibility, is\ninconceivable except in connection with personal freedom in the subject\nof it. But in this kind of evolutionism, everything is reduced to the\nmechanism of matter; and its supporters agree that our personal freedom\nis an illusion. There can be no more morality in the thoughts, aims and\nconduct of men than in the digestion of food or the growth and decay of\na tree.\n\nWhile, therefore, theistic evolution does not present anything\ninconsistent with the reality and recognition of moral law, every\nhypothesis which exhibits the world, in its ground and processes,\nas the mere mechanism of material forces, stands in logical and\nirreconcilable antagonism. This antagonism, however, is not to be\ntaken as overthrowing or even weakening the truth set forth in this\nchapter. Rather, the antagonistic hypothesis, which fails in so many\nother respects to meet the necessities of a rational or scientific\naccount of the phenomena of the universe, discredits itself still\nfurther by its incongruity on this great point.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII.\n\nTHE GROUND OF RIGHT.\n\n\nThis topic carries the inquiry concerning moral law one step further\nthan that determined in the last chapter. It being settled that that\nlaw is objectively and permanently real, for the recognition of\nconscience, we must yet seek some explanation of the basis of the\nreality. Why are some things right and others wrong? What is the reason\nof the difference? On what is the law of right grounded? We seek the\nexplanation of its existence and the obligation it imposes.\n\nIt must be remembered that even those who hold the moral behests\nto be merely subjective, products in some way of the psychological\nconstitution, nevertheless endeavor to account for them in some\nrelations or forces back of themselves. These accounts, as will\nappear, are exceedingly varied. Inasmuch, therefore, as nearly all the\ndiffering ethical theories seek to give some explanation and ground\nfor moral obligation, the inquiry now before us presents the point\nabout which the chief contests of moral philosophy have been waged.\nThe different answers have been the main determinants of the different\nsystems.\n\nOur examination must include three things: a clear definition of the\npoint of inquiry; some notice of the leading theories; and a positive\nstatement of the ground as demanded by reason and the interests of\nmoral life.\n\n==The Question Defined.==\n\nI. Definition. This is necessary because it has sometimes been\nconfounded with the question: What is the ground of obligation?[38]\nWe must distinguish between the \"ground of right\" and the \"ground of\nobligation.\" The point before us is not why we are under obligation\nto do a right act, but why the act is right. Manifestly the rightness\nof the proposed action is the ground of the obligation to do it; that\nis, the obligation is grounded on the right. The exact inquiry is--and\nmust be, in order to reach the real and abiding moral foundations--on\nwhat is the right, whose perception obligates, grounded? A quest after\nthe ground of the \"obligation\" simply, might satisfy those who reduce\nconscience to a mere instinct or sentiment, and the moral standard to\na mere internal product of association, education or of biological\norganization. To them it might seem enough to give an explanation of\nthe felt obligation. In such case they might plausibly, as they often\ndo, affirm that the moral bond, being thus organically insured and\nfixed in the moral consciousness, must remain the same, no matter\nwhat theories, even though purely materialistic, may be formed of its\ngenesis and nature. But so soon as the ethical reality is seen in its\ncosmic place and transcendental character we want an explanation not\nonly of the ground of obligation to right conduct, but also of the\nground of the right which evokes the sense of obligation.\n\n==Various Theories.==\n\nII. Leading Theories. We must include, in this review, both the\ntheories which offer only an explanation of the phenomenon of\nobligation and those that seek an elucidation of the principle of\nrighteousness as objective moral law. In the long continued discussion\nof the subject these theories have been immensely varied and modified,\nbut the differences thus noted divide all explanations into two\nclasses, viz., those which make the moral stand in something subjective\nand those that find it objective. In the cursory rehearsal of them,\nhere needed, we will present them in chronological order, irrespective\nof their belonging to one class or the other, noting, however, their\nrelation to this distinction which divides them. Such historical glance\nwill give an outline of the development of thought on the subject, and\nhelp us to reach and appreciate the true conclusion.\n\n\n==Egyptian Teaching.==\n\n=1.= Egypt's golden age was in the morning of the world's historical\nperiod, and we must look far back for its best ethical thought.\nWith the Egyptians morality and religion were closely identified.\nThe ethical view was united with the theological and determined by\nit. They, however, dealt with the subject of duty only in separate\nmaxims and precepts, without framing a theory of obligation. But the\npurity and elevation of these precepts have been a wonder to many in\nour modern days. It is, however, easily explained. Their religion\nwas monotheistic. God was a good and righteous Being, with power and\nrulership, the source of all things for man. The Egyptians connected\nall that was pure and good with God and recognized their dependence\non Him and their duty to live according to His will. Thus their moral\nconsciousness rose above the function of a mere subjective instinct\nor a feeling of responsibility to their fellow-men, and included a\nsense of direct amenability to divine authority. The goal of the moral\nendeavor, ever overcoming evil, was regarded as attained, not in this,\nbut in a future life of blessedness under the divine approval. Their\nview grounded all duty objectively, and practically identified it with\npiety.[39]\n\n\n==Chinese Teaching.==\n\n=2.= Chinese teaching, too, was theological. The theology was\nessentially monotheistic, but overgrown with superstitions and\nidolatrous practices. It taught that man is the creature of God, and\nwas endowed by heaven with a nature for the practice of good, a nature\nthat, if followed properly--_i. e._ in the \"golden mean\"--invariably\nleads men aright. The path indicated by nature is the will of God\nconcerning duty. \"What heaven has conferred is called the nature; an\naccordance with this nature is called the path of duty; the regulation\nof this path is called instruction.\"[40] The chief contribution to\nthe Chinese teaching by the sage Confucius (B. C. 551-478) was his\nproclamation of the principle of \"reciprocity,\" _i. e._ doing as we\nwould have others do to us. Though the elements of the moral problem\nwere thus included fairly well for ordinary conduct, they were not\nframed into a distinct philosophy of the ground of right.\n\n\n==Views in India.==\n\n=3.= India's sacred books abound in moral maxims and counsels.\nBrahmanism is substantially a philosophy of life rather than a\nreligion. But its pantheism and doctrine of the pre-existence and\ntransmigration of souls have distorted and misdirected the moral idea.\nIts pantheism confounds the human with the divine, both in its origin\nand destination. Its belief in transmigration, with its perpetual\nsuccession of rebirths into conditions of woeful individual life unless\nthe soul's unhappy agitations and unrest should be composed by virtue,\nshapes the moral task mainly, not only into restraint of the appetites\nand passions, but into such austerity and stern self-abnegation as\nmay prepare the soul, on the death of the body, to attain the perfect\nrepose of Nirvana the complete extinction of human passions, or,\nas Buddhism represents, annihilation of conscious individuality in\nreabsorption into the absolute existence. In this system the aim\nof morality is not \"the right,\" but the desired good of tranquil\nhappiness, or the final goal of merging self-conscious personality back\nagain into the Great All from which it arose. The ground of the moral\nstriving--it can hardly be called obligation--is the adaptedness of it\nto secure this result.[41]\n\n\n==Persian Teaching.==\n\n=4.= Zoroastrianism (Mazd\u00e6ism), from about B. C. 1500-1000, confessedly\npresents an ethical teaching that, among oriental views, is second\nonly to that of the Hebrews. Its theological dualism, which seems\nto have encroached upon an earlier purer monotheism, of two eternal\nprinciples or powers, Ormuzed (Ahura Mazda) the good power, and Ahriman\n(Angra Mainyou) the evil power, manifestly arose from the effort to\nsolve the dread problem of evil in the world. Zoroastrian teaching\nrepresents Ormuzed as the all-knowing and the holy creator of the\nworld. He cannot create evil. He is the source of all purity, order and\nrighteousness. Wrong and misery have come into the world from Ahriman,\nthe opposite contending power in the universe. Zoroastrianism thus\ngives the world-system a moral foundation and law of order. The moral\nlife is a holy conflict with the forces of evil within human nature and\nassailing it. The supreme end of life is to increase the ascendency\nof righteousness and establish its everlasting reign of truth and\ngoodness. The goal of it comes in a future life of blessedness. The\nground of righteousness is thus placed in the nature and will of the\neternal creator, to whom obedience is due, against the influences of\nthe malign power of evil.[42]\n\n\n==Greek Theories.==\n\n=5.= Among the Greeks ethical philosophy began with Socrates. Their\nearlier writers dealt with the subject of duty but little in a\nspeculative way. When the philosophy of it came to be sought the\ntheories mainly connected it closely with \"the good\" or \"the highest\ngood,\" the _summum bonum_ of life. This designation was ambiguous.\n\"The good\" (\u03c4\u1f78 \u1f00\u03b3\u03b1\u03b8\u03cc\u03bd, \u03c4\u1f70 \u1f00\u03b3\u03b1\u03b8\u03ac [Greek: to agathon], [Greek: ta\nagatha]) might be conceived of as either intellectual or sensuous\ngood, as consisting in one's intrinsic state or in outward condition,\nas either happiness or personal well-being. And because this method\nfailed to distinguish clearly and fully between this indefinite\n\"good\"--having at best no more authority than \"the beautiful\"--and \"the\nright\" which forms the true essence of the ethical principle, their\nexplanations failed to become clear, and stopped short of being actual\nexplanations of the ground of right. Hence their theories, though not\nalways consistently exhibited, and variously interpreted by expounders\nof them, were substantially _eud\u00e6monistic_[43] and _utilitarian_.\nSpecifically:\n\n(1) Socrates made all virtue consist in knowledge, especially self\nknowledge or wisdom, leading men to proper self-regulation and\nhappiness. He put emphasis upon man's rational nature as essentially\ngood, and to this rational nature belonged the office of self-mastery\nand control of all appetites, dispositions, and passions. The life\nin knowledge became the good and happy life. Though this great sage\nmaintained that the world is governed by a supreme intelligence, he\nfailed to connect clearly and closely the moral law with this high\nsource, and rested the moral life simply subjectively.\n\n(2) Plato developed his view substantially on the basis of that of\nSocrates. He identified the highest good with the intellect rather than\nthe sensibility, and looked upon all virtues as united in _knowledge_,\nnot only as guiding the soul in acting out its proper destination,\nbut, according to some statements, even as in itself all-sufficing.\nThough Plato's speculative view of the universe contains the elements\nfor the construction of a sublime immutable ethical standard, and he\neven suggests God-likeness as the goal of man's moral life,[44] the\nimplications of his view are not consistently carried out; and when he\ncomes to apply his ideas to life in his ideal Republic he lapses into\nwhat seems a caricature of his better thought, and is content to rest\nmorality simply on the authority and laws of the state.[45]\n\n(3) Aristotle, in whom Plato's theistic view of the world receded into\nthe background, made the \"chief good\" consist in happiness or felt\nwell-being, which depends on man's living according to his rational\nnature. Such living includes both the activities of the mind and\nhabitual conduct. The reason must not only develop its own energies,\nbut rule the lower powers and passions. On this double requirement\nhe founded two kinds of virtue, the intellectual (dianoetic) and the\npractical. The one consists in \"knowledge\" or \"wisdom,\" the other in\nformed \"habits\" or \"character.\" The moral life, therefore, consists\nin the true use, without abuse, of our rational nature. The rule\nfor it, as taught by Aristotle, is to avoid extremes and pursue the\ngolden mean. The theory thus rests morality wholly on subjective good\nand identifies it with the calculations of prudence. It is simply\nsecularistic, without religious element or appeal.[46]\n\n(4) In Epicurus (B. C. 341-270) and his followers eud\u00e6monism descended\ninto hedonism. The supreme good is happiness in the sense of personal\nenjoyment, pleasure. The universe, without theistic ground, was\nregarded as eternal, forever evolving in fortuitous concourse of atoms.\nIt is without rational order, design, or government. The human soul is\nmaterial, and at death men cease to be. The good of life consists in\nthe avoidance of pain and the securing of pleasure. The pleasure may\nbe intellectual or sensuous and gross, as men may prefer. The pursuit\nof it is the highest virtue and best wisdom. Enjoyment is the end of\nlife. The whole question of ethics thus came to be a calculation and\nbalancing of pains and pleasures, and the cardinal virtue prudent\nselfishness. It was complete subjectivism.\n\n(5) In Stoicism (founded by Zeno of Citium, about 308 B. C.) we have\na view that, in its principal features, was in strong contrast with\nEpicureanism. It arose in close relation to the teaching of Socrates.\nBut it taught that \"happiness\" was not necessary, and should never be\nmade the end of endeavor. Virtue itself was the highest good, and to\nbe sought for its own sake. Itself was sufficient for happiness--not\nbecause it could make men insensible to pain or pleasure, but because\nit made them superior to it. Virtue was immutably excellent in itself,\na permanent reality for man's realization, and subordinated everything\nelse. It consisted essentially in living \"according to nature,\"[47]\n_i. e._ not simply in harmony with one's self, but with the nature of\nthe universe, with the whole constitution of the world as ordained and\nruled by God, of which a man's own nature forms a part. The stress\nwas not at all to be laid on self, but upon the great total of being.\nMan exists for society, and virtue is impossible apart from the\nsocial state. So Stoic teaching inculcated subordination of self to\nmore general interests--to family, country, mankind. It taught that\nall creatures are \"children of one father,\"[48] and duty was owed\nto all. We may hardly, however, speak of this as \"altruism,\" in the\nsense of unselfish benevolence or self-sacrificing goodness; since,\nin the general Stoic philosophy, not the sentiment of sympathetic\nhelpfulness, but of victorious superiority to pain, was the temper\nfostered. Love was almost submerged in the stern spirit of duty. The\nblessedness of virtue was to stand independent of the sufferings which\nbefell men. In fact the dreadful inexorableness of fate (\u03b5\u1f31\u03bc\u03b1\u03c1\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u1fc3\n[Greek: heimarmen\u00ea]), conceived by the Stoic philosophy as eternally\nembracing the life of both God and nature, gave to virtue, not so much\nthe temper of free, loving obedience to either God or righteousness,\nas the sternness of a proud intellectual resoluteness in yielding, for\nvirtue's sake, to the inevitable in the fate-bound universe. Under\nthis conception the Stoic moral obedience could never rise to the free\njoyousness that belongs to the obedient life under the light of the\nChristian truth that God is love--eternal love, ruling in absolute\nfreedom and desiring to exalt His children to the perfect holiness to\nwhich alone happiness forever belongs.\n\nAll these Greek theories, except the Stoic, are thus seen to have been\nmarked by two features. First, they dissolved \"the right,\" which alone\nhas direct authority and forms moral law, into \"the good,\" which is\nsimply something offered to us as an object of desire, but which has\nno \"imperative\" for the conscience, and may be innocently foregone.\nSecondly, despite the clear better implications supplied to them in\ntheir accepted theistic conceptions of the world, they failed to define\ndistinctly any grounding of the moral law on anything higher or more\npermanent than the subjective elements of the human constitution. For,\neven Plato's objective basing of it, for citizen duty, on the law of\nthe state, assumed only a subjective basis in the person of the ruler\nhimself. The Stoic theory, however, had glimpses of some higher and\nbroader ground, though it failed to see it truly.\n\n\n==Roman Teaching.==\n\n=6.= The Roman moralists adopted substantially the doctrine of the\nGreek Stoics. This was finely exhibited and commended, especially by\nSeneca, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius. But we have no new theory among\nthe Roman philosophers.\n\nAfter the establishment of Christianity, whose progress thenceforward\ndetermined and marked the intellectual activity and advancing\nphilosophy and culture of mankind, the discussion of ethics became\nsimply a part of theology. And according to the spirit and method of\ntheology in the early Church and during the middle ages, even down to\nmodern times, the discussion was not philosophical, but biblical. It\nwas concerned simply to set forth human duty, especially the duties\nof the Christian life, as taught in the scriptures of the Old and New\nTestaments. Resting the moral law upon revealed divine authority, it\npaid small attention to the question of its metaphysical validation.\nBut when modern philosophy began its investigations, it of necessity\nsoon came upon this point, and inquired after the natural basis or\nultimate ground of the great law whose unique authority both the sacred\nScriptures and the moral consciousness of men agreed in asserting.\n\n\n==Divine Absolutism.==\n\n=7.= Modern theories begin with that of Divine absolutism--making the\nmoral law, like physical laws, only a product of God's will. It makes\nit rest absolutely optional in His sovereignty of choice. It not only\nseeks no ulterior reason, or logical _prius_, for his choice, but\ndistinctly disconnects it from any. God's will is not the expression or\nrevelation, but the originator, of the moral distinction, constituting\nit, with its obligatoriness, as He has done, when He might have\nconstituted it otherwise, even the very contrary. He determined \"the\nright\" according to no norm, but as creating and establishing a norm.\nWhether there should be any moral distinction and what it should be,\nwas a matter of the divine choice. The view is a one-sided conception\nof God's sovereignty. It was set forth by Hugo Grotius (1583-1645) and\nRen\u00e9 Descartes (1596-1650), and has found prominent advocacy frequently\nsince. But it collides with both sound theology and an adequate moral\nphilosophy.\n\n(1) It fails to recognize any eternal essential moral character in\nGod Himself. The interests of both morality and religion require\nfaith in Him as Himself eternally the righteous and holy creator\nand moral ruler, in His immutable nature. The morally good can not\nbe something \"contingent,\" but must be absolute, irrepealable and\nirreversible even by God. We need for both religion and character, to\nhold fast to the great truth which represents God in His moral will\nas choosing righteousness as righteousness, loving the \"morally good\nas good\"[49]--not as by mere will originating the moral distinction\nand fixing a code of conduct upon arbitrary ordination. For real moral\ncharacter in God we must go even further and regard Him as loving\nrighteousness, not simply as good in Himself, but as good in itself,\ngood by the immutable quality of its own nature. For a moral government\nwe must have a moral governor. And God can be such, not by enforcing\nresponsibility to an arbitrary code, but by ruling according to\ndistinctions that are _per se_ supreme in eternal reason--enforcing not\na mere rule of power but of essential rightness.\n\n(2) Further, the action of the conscience itself, in discerning right\nand wrong where it has received no information as to the will of God,\nimplies that the distinction is rationally based. To discern it is not\nalways conditioned on such information. Reason itself--the human in the\nimage of the divine--in some degree reveals the right. So clear is this\ndiscernment, and so independent of all \"contingency\" does the right\nappear, that even pagan writers have been wont to make virtue superior\neven to the displeasure of the gods, nobly standing self-approved.[50]\n\n(3) The true relation between the will of God and the ethically good\nmust be conceived of as, indeed, involving a profound and indissoluble\nidentity--what He wills being always and necessarily right, though He\nwills it in perfect freedom--but yet as moving in the logical order of\nthought, that right is not made right by His willing it, but that He\nwills it because it is right.\n\n\n==Civil Authority.==\n\n=8.= Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), holding the natural state of man as\nutterly selfish and a state of war, gave to civil government, as\nnecessary to the social order, supreme authority, and asserted that the\nbasis of all moral obligation was positive law issued by the sovereign.\nDuty rested on the legal statute, whose direction was final. It knew no\nhigher law. The theory was a repetition of the travesty of ethics in\nPlato's Republic. It has had no following, and needs no confutation.\n\nBut a theory that thus ignored individual conscience and essential\nright, reducing morality to civic obedience, with no other foundation\nthan the positive enactment of a monarch, at once and strongly re-acted\nin strengthening the conviction of the necessity and truth of the\nintuitional view of the moral faculty, and of the importance of finding\na better basis for the ethical principle, both in the constitution of\nmankind and in the author of nature.\n\n\n==The Sympathetic Theory.==\n\n=9.= The Sympathetic Theory is naturally associated with that\nconception of conscience which makes it consist fundamentally, not in\nintellect, but in instinct or feeling. Taking the suggestion from Hume,\nthe theory was elaborated by Adam Smith (1723-1790). It explained moral\nobligation as produced by the special action of our nature in which\nwe spontaneously sympathize with certain intentions or conduct of our\nfellow-men--this sympathy taking the form of approval. The bond to duty\nwas viewed as thus formed by these instinctive sentiments pointing\nout what is morally good and obligating to corresponding behavior. Of\ncourse the individual's sympathetic appreciation had to be broadened\nand trained by the standard of general sentiment. And the explanation\nwas helped out by noting the adaptation of this rule of conduct to\npromote personal and social happiness. But a theory resting duty on a\nbasis so thoroughly subjective, and so uncertain and changeful as are\nmen's unguided feelings, likely often to be in sympathy with evil,\ncould not commend itself to wide acceptance. It presented neither the\nground of right nor a safe rule.\n\n\n==Utilitarianism.==\n\n=10.= The theory of Utilitarianism had its prototypes in the teachings\nof Socrates, Aristotle, and the Epicureans. Its modern forms have been\ngreatly varied, but they all agree in founding the morally good in\nutility. That which experience shows to be useful, as promotive of\npersonal or social interests and happiness, becomes thereby right,\nor the norm of moral choices and conduct. The theory, in all its\nmodifications, is a \"goods\" theory,[51] interpreting obligation as\nsimply the behest to conform life to the attainment of the various\nforms of good, even the chief, as happiness or enjoyment, provided for\nin man's nature and condition. Named from the object or objects sought,\nit is eud\u00e6monism; named from the way or means of its attainment, it\nis utilitarianism. Sometimes the good is simply happiness, sometimes\npersonal well-being, sometimes social welfare. Sometimes it is purely\nselfish, sometimes altruistic or in some sense benevolent. But a\nfew examples will make plain both its general character and chief\nvariations.\n\n(1) William Paley (1743-1805), adopting eud\u00e6monistic principles, rested\nall obligation to duty on its tendency to secure everlasting happiness.\nHe says: \"Actions are to be estimated by their tendency. Whatever is\nexpedient is right. It is the utility of any moral rule alone, which\nconstitutes the obligation to it.\"[52] \"The will of God\" is accepted\nas \"the rule of virtue,\" seemingly not, however, as the direct ground\nof it, but rather as the sure guide as to what has the \"tendency\" to\ngain for us \"everlasting happiness.\" For, Paley explains: \"Such is the\ndivine character that what promotes the general happiness is required\nby the will of God.\" This view makes the spirit of duty, even in\nreligion, supreme selfishness. It places the self-regarding impulses on\nthe throne.\n\n(2) Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832), the chief apostle of modern\nutilitarianism, gave it great popularity by making it distinctly\naltruistic. Adopting suggestions in this direction by Shaftsbury\n(1713), Hutcheson, Butler, and Hume, he measurably lifted its aim above\nthe individual's care of his own interests, and made the principle of\nright authoritative because promotive of \"the greatest happiness of the\ngreatest number.\" This seemed to subordinate, without excluding, the\nindividual's advantage to that of the many, and the selfish instinct\nto the higher and nobler aims of love. It developed a rule by which\nthe brotherhood of man could have place, and character could rise and\nbroaden into magnanimity and worth. It gave an objective standing and\nbroadly human aim to the principle of obligation. James Mill, J. S.\nMill and Alexander Bain have been conspicuous recent representatives of\nthis general view, while modifying some particular features of it.\n\nIt must be added, however, that this modern \"altruism,\" when analyzed\nto its final view, does not become \"disinterested benevolence.\" For\nthe greatest general good is viewed as conditioning the best good of\neach individual, and the individual is to include it for the sake of\nhis own share. So this so-called \"altruism,\" after all, is still ruled\nby the self-regarding aim, and stands only for the broadest and most\nsuccessful utilitarianism.\n\n(3) Evolutionist Utilitarianism. This is its recent and present\nmost characteristic form. The variety of types of evolutionism,\nhowever, has prevented the bringing of it, thus far, into a definite\nuniversally accepted formulation. Although, as already stated,[53]\nmonistic evolutionism, whether materialistic or pantheistic, by\nexcluding freedom from the universe, leaves no place for moral action\nor responsibility, it still continues to speak about obligation and\nthe reality of personal character. In this case the \"obligation\" can\nbe only acquiescence in the fatalistic onward evolution of nature with\nits inevitable events. Theistic evolution, however, holding itself as\nonly the mode of the divine creation, though it has difficulties in\nexplaining the genesis of an authoritative conscience, maintains both\nits existence in some sense and a ground for the obligation which it\nurges. Its utilitarianism differs from earlier forms in substituting an\nhistorical and biological explanation of the origin and force of the\nmoral sentiments for the purely psychological one. These sentiments\nare declared to be \"the results of accumulated experiences of utility,\ngradually organized and inherited.\"[54] In its better forms of\nstatement this process of organizing a guiding instinct or intuition is\nrepresented as the divine work of transferring the moral law over us\ninto our subjective consciousness--a process, however, that moves on\nthe principle of utility and is always incomplete.[55]\n\nAgainst the whole utilitarian theory, as a widely urged explanation\nof the ground of right and the sense of obligation, the following\nconsiderations are decisive:\n\nFirst, the idea of right is generically distinct and different from\nthat of happiness or utility. However closely related they refuse\nto be identified and must not be confounded. In reference to any\nparticular act or to any general course of conduct, beyond the question\nof pleasure or advantage arises the further question: Is it right?\nEvery day of their lives men are required to forego enjoyment and the\nforwarding of what appears to be their interests, in order to do right\nand follow their conscience. Perceived adaptations to happiness are not\nthe same as the obligation to right. Utilitarianism stands apart from\nthe moral idea, in a by-play with the idea of profit.[56]\n\nSecondly, as a matter of fact, clear in our consciousness, we do not,\nin deciding the right or wrong of purposes and conduct, go through the\nprocess of first determining the question of utility or adaptedness to\nsecure the greatest happiness to the greatest number or even our own\ngreatest happiness. In actual moral experience, the first fact is the\nnotion of right and duty. Even when pleasure or advantage is making an\nappeal, duty is decided by the further question: Is it right? If it be\nclaimed that the process of calculation has become largely unnecessary\nthrough the experience which has been teaching lessons and training\ninto judgments so spontaneous as to seem almost intuitive, there are\nstill cases enough where the right is a distinct issue, irrespective of\nadvantage, and where it is chosen in the face of loss and suffering.\nThis fact shows that right is a distinct principle and higher than\npleasure. To do right rather than seek sensitive good is the noblest\nexaltation of character.\n\nIt is especially in evolutionist utilitarianism that the absence of\nsuch conscious calculating of advantage in questions of duty, is\nsupposed to be explained. The enjoyment of the useful is represented as\ngradually organized and transformed into moral approbation, and through\nhereditary descent appears, as Herbert Spencer says, in \"certain\nemotions responding to right and wrong, which have no apparent basis in\nthe individual experiences of utility.\" But philosophy fails to explain\nhow the idea of the useful can thus become identical with the idea of\nthe right, or even explanatory of it. If a lifetime's experience of\nutility does not suffice to transmute the idea of one into the other,\nwhy should we think a longer time would do it? If duty does not become\nthe same as happiness or as the tendency of conduct to promote it, in\nthe ascending steps of individual evolution, what warrant have we to\nassume that it did so in some period far back of the consciousness of\nthe present individuals of the race?\n\nThirdly, utilitarianism is inconsistent with the authority which\nbelongs to right, as witnessed in the moral consciousness. It is\nthe distinctive peculiarity of conscience that it reveals a law or\nprinciple of obligation, not of our own making, and which our wills\ncannot displace. Manifestly this authority is not of the faculty\nitself, but belongs to the law of right which it discloses. It\nis right, therefore, that is authoritative, with and through the\nconscience, because right is a revelation of that absolute authority\nnot ourselves which makes for righteousness in the world and the whole\nuniverse. It represents the perfections and will of God. No theory of\nobligation is adequate which does not square with this fact of unique\nauthority in right, as recognized and enforced by the moral imperative.\nBut neither happiness nor the utilities that tend to promote it,\npossess it. They are not obligatory in the peculiar sense in which\nthe ethical behest binds to righteousness. They are offered to our\nenjoyment, as sensitive good, but we may forego them or neglect to seek\nthem, without direct criminality. Duty may, and often does, require us\nnot to make them a controlling object of desire.\n\nAmong pleasures, some are higher or larger than others, and appeal to\nsome persons more strongly than to others. We can innocently choose\nbetween them. To seek the greater instead of the smaller, or indeed\nto neglect them all, is a prudential characteristic, not a moral one.\nWhere a person has simply foregone pleasure, he may regret it as\nan error, but not repent of it as a sin. Considered with respect to\nthe individual alone, and free from relations that may incidentally\ninvolve other points than his own personal pleasure, a man's happiness\nmay be regarded as his own free concern. If he chooses to neglect its\npursuit, or sacrifice it to other aims, so far as it is only and purely\na question as between greater or less enjoyment, his choice cannot\nbe challenged as guilty, but only as poor economy. Unquestionably it\nought to be believed that God desires men to be happy, and has provided\nthe needful conditions for happiness, but its enjoyment is an offer\nof His love, and not a requirement of law. Happiness is a thing to be\ngratefully appreciated; right is a thing we are bound to. Happiness\nis a thing the less likely to be enjoyed the more covetously it is\nsought after; right claims our unforgetful and completest loyalty.\nUtilitarianism, therefore, assuming to ground right, which has direct\nauthority in the moral consciousness, upon happiness which in itself\nhas none, necessarily falls short of being an adequate theory of the\nethical reality. It attempts to deduce the moral from the non-moral.\n\nThis difference between questions of right and questions of utility\neasily solves a supposed difficulty in the moral freedom of the\nwill. If choices were simply between greater or less degrees of\npleasure or advantage, it might easily be imagined that the will\nwould be necessarily determined by the greater pleasure. As between\ninducements of the same kind, the larger would prevail. But the ethical\nchoices have their place in the presence of motives of different\n_kinds_, between right and enjoyment, duty or gain; and here there is\nunquestionable room for free ethical choices. The question of freedom\nin moral life is at once relieved by taking it out of the utilitarian\nview into the clear atmosphere where the profitable is no longer\nconfounded with the right.\n\nFourthly, utilitarianism inverts the true relation between right and\nutility. Unquestionably the connection between them is very close. In a\nmoral system true happiness belongs to righteousness. Man cannot attain\nhis true welfare in sin. Whatever uncertainties and inequalities the\nabuse of free agency may bring temporarily into human enjoyment, in\nthe long run right in its very nature promotes the happiness which has\nbeen intended for us. But the logical order of relations is, not that\nan act is right because it is useful, but useful because right. Under a\nmoral government happiness, in the highest and fullest sense, comes as\nthe legitimate fruit of righteousness, as wrong-doing, also, brings its\ntrue consequences in suffering, pain and misery. Right is the quality\nof highest rank, and all blessedness comes into unity and harmony under\nit. Their rightness gives to actions their quality of usefulness, which\ncannot, therefore, ground the right. Utilitarianism inverts the real\nrelation.\n\nThis true relation explains how it is that the right stands the very\nhighest in the grade of values, without its becoming right by its\nprofitableness. It is of supreme worth, the greatest good, but it is so\nby what it is in itself. Its good consequences spring from its nature.\n\nBut while utilitarianism is thus utterly inadequate as a statement of\nthe ground of right, it nevertheless, especially in its altruistic\nform, brings to view some genuine and profound principles of the\nphilosophy of duty. This has given it its plausibility and wide\nacceptance. It is proper, therefore, to mark and recognize the truth\nthat belongs to the theory.\n\n(1) The tendencies of conduct to promote true happiness, or the\ncontrary, furnish, in fact, a valuable practical rule in questions\nof right and duty. For, by the moral constitution of the world,\nright-doing, despite the disorders that temporarily obstruct and\nconfuse the real law of consequences, is the way of true welfare.\nHappiness, in the true, though not hedonistic sense, is an end of our\nbeing, and virtue is conducive to it. \"The way of the transgressor\nis hard,\" under the law of natural cause and effect. The utilitarian\ntheory therefore justly appeals to the great lessons of experienced\nutility to show the way of duty and guide conduct into righteousness.\nSo that while utility does not explain why an act is right, it becomes,\nif correctly interpreted, a principle of great value in determining the\nright.\n\n(2) It is unquestionably true that the altruistic principle of \"the\ngreatest good to the greatest number\" presents a principle of genuine\nmoral authority. It opens to view the whole realm of obligation to\nbeneficent activity and self-sacrifice. It points to deeds that are\nnoblest in life and highest in ethical character. It even gives a\nreason for their obligatoriness. In this form the theory no longer\nbases duty simply on one's own personal enjoyment or advantage,\nidentifying morality with supreme selfishness, but lifts it into the\nsphere of benevolence and doing good. For, in altruism individual\nenjoyment and interests are necessarily subordinated to the well-being\nof the many. And when utility is thus put into the service of love\nor good-will, it carries the quality of right into wide ranges of\npurpose and conduct. It will be observed, however, that the theory\nthus obtains its appearance of explaining the foundation of right and\nduty only after \"utility\" has been itself changed and identified with\nthe virtue of active good-will or beneficence which, of course, is\nright and obligatory to the degree of every man's ability. In other\nwords, only when it ceases to be purely and really a utilitarian\ntheory, and stands in the name and rights of benevolence--getting\nethical authority surreptitiously from the quality of love instead of\n\"profitableness\"--does it also get the plausibility that it seems to\npossess.\n\n(3) It is true, too, that a person's opportunities to promote his\nown happiness and true interests involve a degree of obligation to\ndo so, as far as this may be consistent with other duties. A proper\nself-regard is right. In general, on the one hand, we may justly make,\nas we have done, a distinction between enjoyment, which is offered\nto our option, and right, which is required by moral law. Were there\nno considerations involved but that of one's own happiness, this\ndistinction would be unqualified. On the other hand, it must, at\nthe same time, be confessed that the moral consciousness of mankind\noften condemns the conduct of men reckless of their own happiness\nor well-being, not simply as \"poor economy,\" but also as morally\nwrong. Except in benevolent sacrifice no man can innocently throw away\nhis own happiness. The explanation of this is easy. There are other\nconsiderations involved than his own happiness. To understand the whole\ntruth at this point the underlying fact must be borne in mind, that man\nis created for two great ends, primarily for excellence of character,\nsecondarily and consequently for happiness. In moral order the way\nto the latter is in and through the former. Character stands as the\nirrepealable condition of reaching man's proper and true happiness.\nAnd it is, therefore, true that in throwing away his happiness a man\nmay be guilty of more than \"poor economy,\" but only in case he does\nthis by violating the law of right in surrendering his nature to vice.\nIt is not the consent to surrender enjoyment in itself that involves\nguilt. For, one may innocently and virtuously forego this for the sake\nof doing right. He may sacrifice pleasure or present happiness to serve\nthe good of others. In such disregard and sacrifice of enjoyment to do\ngood, there is no sin against the law of right; for we are not bound to\nenjoyment as we are to right. Nor is there in it any sin against the\ndivine provision for happiness in our own nature; for under the rule of\nmoral order righteousness and happiness must finally coincide. While,\ntherefore, there is a sense in which to throw away one's happiness is\nmorally wrong, as well as bad policy, it is only when it is thrown away\nby conduct that is first a violation of the law of right.\n\nThere are two other profound ethical facts which help to explain how\nmen are bound to regard their own happiness, although right is not\ngrounded in it. One is, that every man sustains relations to the\nwelfare of his fellow-men, being a unit in the solidarity of social\nhumanity, making it impossible to separate his own happiness from\nthe well-being and rights of others. The other is that he sustains\nalso relations to an intended possible personal destiny. In the first\nof these he is bound in duty to his fellow-men. In the second he is\nobligated in duty to God. In the former case, he cannot wantonly trifle\nwith his own interests without wrong and injury to those to whom he is\nbound in the relationships of life. In this way a moral wrong comes\nin. In the latter case, as God has rights in His plan for each man's\nworthy and happy destiny, it is a sin against Him when men make their\nown welfare inferior by failure to observe the moral principle which\nconditions true happiness in righteousness. Sacrifice of happiness\nby such disregard of moral principle is not to be confounded with\nsacrifice of it through loyalty to right and holy self-denial in doing\ngood.\n\nIt thus, however, becomes evident, even in this discussion and\nexhibition of the truth which utilitarianism has in its favor, that the\ntheory fails to present the real ground of right. For in its primary\nand fundamental form, viewing conduct as right because promotive of\nour personal interests and happiness, it plainly resolves morality\ninto mere calculation of selfishness. It presents supreme egoism. And\nin its altruistic form it either maintains its selfish character, by\nexplaining that only by the rule of \"the greatest good to the greatest\nnumber\" can the common interest, and consequently each man's share be\nfully secured, implying that he is to contribute to the common welfare\nfor the sake of his own larger portion; or by subordinating the idea\nof \"utility\" to that of \"good-will\" actively seeking the interests of\nothers, it practically confesses that it must seek some other ground\nthan mere utility or the consequences of conduct, in which to find\nthe principle of right. And this good-will, benevolence or love, thus\nadded, also fails. For since good-will is a virtue, it cannot be\nplaced as the ground of virtue, both in itself and in all virtues. The\nmoral law is by no means exhausted in benevolence; it must include\nalso justice, purity, veracity and many other duties. A benevolence\nthat would be unaccompanied by condemnation of the evil-doer and his\nwrongs, might quickly go astray. It has often been pointed out that\ngood-will itself throws no light as to the right methods of realizing\neven itself. Itself needs a guide as to how it may proceed--the very\nprinciple of right after whose basis we are inquiring. Love, unless\nunited with reprobation of evil-doing, is as likely to act immorally as\nmorally. Benevolent endeavor, however excellent in itself, must subject\nits methods to the fundamental principles of right. And not until we\nfind the relations that require both benevolence and its utilities, do\nwe reach the ground of right and obligation.\n\n\n==Theory of Relations.==\n\n=11.= The Theory of _Relations_ is variously modified. As expressed by\nDr. Samuel Clarke, right is based on \"the fitness of things.\" Wollaston\ngrounded it on \"the truth of things,\" wrong action being in all cases\nout of harmony with the realities of existence. Jouffroy found it in\nthe demands of \"universal order,\" the particular good and duty of each\nman being elements or parts of an absolute good and universal order\nappearing to reason as obligatory. Dr. Wayland makes right rest upon\n\"conformity of action to the relations which man sustains in life.\"[57]\n\nWe shall come upon the essential features of this theory in our next\nchapter, in our positive account of the development and basis of right.\n\n\n==Spiritual Excellence Theory.==\n\n=12.= As defined by Dr. Hickok: \"The ground in which the ultimate rule\nof right is seen, is the intrinsic excellency of spiritual being.\"...\n\"Every man has consciously the bond upon him to do that and that only\nwhich is due to his spiritual excellency.\"[57] But it is a plain matter\nof fact that men do not go through a process of correlating their\nproposed conduct with the spiritual excellency of their nature, before\ndeciding on its moral character. And even if they did so, it would give\nthem but a self-centred rule. Dr. Gregory well says of this attempt to\nput one's own spiritual excellency as the principle of right: \"It is\nonly by a self-deification, by making man a god to himself, that it can\nbe made a supreme end.\"[58]\n\n==Theory of Intuitions.==\n\n=13.= Some writers search for no ground beyond the immediate intuition.\nThis view forbears to seek for any basis behind the immediate\naffirmation of the moral sense. Right is ultimate in its own intuition.\n\"The intuition creates law.\" This seems to be the teaching of Cudworth,\nKant, Coleridge, Calderwood, and others.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX.\n\nTHE GROUND OF RIGHT--CONTINUED.\n\n\nThe review of theories in the last chapter prepares us to apprehend the\nreal ground of right. All the subjective theories fail, because the\nmoral quality is objectively real to the percipient conscience. The\nend\u00e6monistic and utilitarian explanations are at fault, because they\nattempt to deduce the moral from the unmoral and can give no account of\nthe unique authority which is the characteristic mark of moral law.\n\nThe full ground of right, as the essential elements of the problem have\nmade clearly apparent, must be regarded as twofold, embracing, first,\nthe proximate or immediate ground, and secondly, the ultimate ground.\n\n==Proximate Ground Stated.==\n\nI. The proximate ground--as becomes easily manifest if we keep our\nview close to the witness of consciousness in actual experience--is in\na rational conformity of conduct to the relations which men sustain\nto one another and to other beings in the divinely constituted system\nof the world. These relations immediately call for fitting conduct.\nThey create the _ought_ of moral law. The right is found in conforming\nto the requirements which they develop and impose. Duty consists in\nfulfilling the demands which they involve and express to the moral\nreason.\n\nThis, it will be noticed, accords with the fundamental principle\nalready referred to, that the conception of moral law allies itself\nnormally only with the theistic view of the world, and the truth that\nthe constituted human relations have been framed under a rational\nideal of order and welfare. These relations form a rational system\nin which intelligent free activity is to actualize a divine plan of\nexcellence and well-being. They require conduct in accordance with\nthemselves and with the ends of well-being and happiness to which they\nhave been adapted. The human reason reads the meaning of the relations,\nand the moral discernment recognizes the obligation to correspondent\nsentiment and action. Moral conduct thus becomes simply the conduct\nthat actualizes the ideas of divine order to which the framework of\nhuman relations has been constituted. What is right springs immediately\nfrom the relations, as what is due in ideal moral order. The relations\nthemselves exhibit a moral constitution as the immediate environment\nof the human moral personality. They bring the ethical requirement\nwhich they contain to the recognizing capacity of the reason and the\nobedience of the will.\n\nIt is to be noticed, further, that the term \"relations\" is to be\nunderstood here in its most comprehensive sense and applicability. It\nembraces all relations with respect to which the human personality\nin its freedom has to determine and harmonize itself--relations\nindividual, social, and divine. Social relationship has often been\nabsurdly mistaken as the only sphere of moral obligation; and the\nindividual, if contemplated as alone and perfectly isolated, has\nsometimes been supposed to be entirely without ethical bonds. In what\nconcerns himself only, he is imagined to be unbound. But this is an\nunwarrantable limitation of the term. For the individual, even viewed\nutterly apart from his race, yet sustains relations to the adaptations\nand intentions in his own nature. As in society he owes something to\nthe humanity around him, even alone he would still owe something to\nthe humanity committed to his own keeping. He cannot absolve himself\nfrom the bond that binds him to that--as in fact he cannot from that\nwhich unites him to his fellow-men. Mere pleasures or enjoyments which\nare apart from his essential character he may, indeed, disregard, but\nnot what concerns its intended excellence and honor. It has been well\nsaid: \"Robinson Crusoe did not become a non-moral being when thrown on\nthe desert island; for he still owed respect to his own humanity.\"[59]\nMany a deed is wrong, not as injuring others, but as violative of the\nagent's relation to the purposes lodged in his own constitution. This\nis as real as are those that connect him with his fellow-men around him\nor with God above him. And it is very superficial thought that finds\nno relations but those that are objective. Sometimes, strangely, in\npopular thinking, man's relation to God is also omitted from a place\nin morality, by a relegation of it to the sphere of religion. But this\nrelation is the most fundamental and vital of all human relations and\nmost replete with moral obligations and responsibilities.\n\nThis view of the immediate ground of right is fully established by the\nfollowing additional considerations:\n\n\n==Sustained by Moral Consciousness.==\n\n=1.= It is directly sustained by the moral consciousness itself, in\nconstant experience. As a question of psychological metaphysics the\npoint must be settled in harmony with the testimony of consciousness.\nAppealing to this, there can be no doubt that these relations do\ndevelop and call for the duties which the conscience is constantly\ndiscerning and enforcing. This is simply a fact--a fact which\nspeculations about the origin of conscience or the education of its\njudgments, must not be allowed to obscure. It assures that actual\nmorality is no abstraction, but concrete conduct rightly answering\nto each person's relations in real life. Beyond all question, as\nthus witnessed in the universal moral consciousness, these relations\nfrom the most general, that of man to man, down through all special\nconnections, as between parents and children, husband and wife,\nbrothers and sisters, friends and neighbors, rulers and citizens,\nemployer and employ\u00e9, rich and poor, capable and helpless, and all the\nother human interrelations in their thousands of diversified forms,\ndo determine and impose both general and specific duties. The duties\ncome into view as developed by the relations, and change as they are\nmodified and changed. This basing of what is right and obligatory\nfor men on their relations to one another, to God, and to appointed\nends, is not a mere theory, but an unquestionable reality in their\nconsciousness.\n\nAnd this accords with the best cosmic philosophy. For this holds all\nthese relations as parts of a rationally designed system of world-order\nfor universal well-being, and the moral reason as capacitated to\ndiscern, with more or less clearness and fulness, the moral requirement\nwhich they involve and present for observance. We know of no morality\nthat exists, or can exist, in human life, apart from them. Strike them\nall away, and all duties disappear. Take, as illustration, the most\ngeneric virtue of all the virtues recognized by the ethical judgments,\nthat of good-will or love. The moral reason recognizes this as resting,\naccording to eternal fitness, in the broadest and most generic of all\nrelations, that of one intelligent sentient being to another. In the\ninter-human connection it is based in the brotherhood of man. And this\ngeneric good-will, thus required in ideal moral right by the generic\nrelation, becomes differentiated and modified in thousands of special\ntypes and forms by the endlessly diversified particular relations of\nlife.\n\n\n==Presuppositions in Responsibility.==\n\n=2.= It is implied in the logical presuppositions to all moral\nresponsibility. Among such presuppositions, as conceded by all, are\nintelligence to know, and freedom to conform to these relations. These\nprerequisites are essential to the very conception of moral action and\namenability. It is the universal sense of the race that creatures that\ncannot know themselves and the relations they sustain, and are without\nfree-will to fulfil them, are morally irresponsible and incapable of\nvirtue or vice. To them the moral realm becomes a blank, and the moral\njudgments become impossible. And equally universal is the admission\nthat the moral insight is helped and responsibility increased by every\nincrease of light giving larger and truer knowledge of the complex and\nintricate connections of human life. With every broadened and clarified\nvision of these connections fresh obligations appear. \"A defective\napprehension of the relations in which we stand to God and to our\nfellow-men, will prevent our seeing our specific duties.\"[60] This fact\nfurnishes direct evidence that right conduct must be held as a certain\nintelligent adjustment to the relations sustained.\n\nThe value of this point is magnified when we remind ourselves how\nit explains and illuminates the sometimes troublesome phenomenon of\ndifferent and even conflicting moral judgments in the same case by\ndifferent persons, and the fact of progress in moral standards as\ncivilization and culture advance. Differing apprehension of one or\nmore of the many elements or factors converging, with confusing force,\ninto almost every situation which calls for duty, easily accounts\nfor most of the perplexing diversity. The relations are seen from\ndifferent angles, and interpreted in different light. And the advance\nof civilizations, with their science and philosophy, brings truer and\ncompleter views of man's place and relations. The moral ideas of the\nhuman reason are, indeed, essentially identical in all men and all\nages, and when human relations are apprehended in the same light,\nwith equal clearness and fulness, the moral judgments substantially\nagree. But the progress of knowledge, throwing increasing light on\nthese relations, leads the onward civilizations up into truer and\nbetter application of the principles of right in life. The different\ncodes do not mean a change of primary moral ideas, but merely reflect\nand illustrate the changed and advancing apprehension of man's true\nrelations to which these unchanging ideas are, and are forever to be,\napplied.\n\nAnother and kindred fact is explained, adding still further\nconfirmation of the correctness of this theory. With perfect intentions\nmen fulfil objective duty only in measure. Duty is only approximately\naccomplished, in varying degrees, from very faulty success to high\ngrades of accuracy and completeness. A correct view of the ground of\nright must necessarily allow a consistent explanation of this fact.\nSometimes the fact has been looked upon as inconsistent with any\nabsolute dividing line between right and wrong, on one or the other\nside of which every action must fall. Not all good acts are perfect\nor faultless; not all evil ones are equally violations of duty. Of\nright actions some measure up better than others toward all that full\nduty requires. Dr. Martineau, partly in order to account for this\nscope of variety in moral correctness, urges a special definition of\nright and wrong: \"Every action is right, which, in presence of a lower\nprinciple, follows a higher; every action is wrong, which, in presence\nof a higher principle, follows a lower.\"[61] By the great difference in\nthe rank of moral motives the reason of men's differing grades in the\nascending or descending scale of character seems to come into view.\nBut while the definition furnishes a rule frequently serviceable for\nguidance in questions of duty, it fails to define the ground of right;\nfor it leaves unsettled the very point in this question, viz.: why one\nprinciple (as a motive) _is_ morally \"higher\" or \"lower\" than another,\nor why some intentions or actions are right or wrong in any degree.\nAnd the offered explanation is unnecessary; for the unquestionable\nprinciple of moral requirement developed in relations, and discerned\nby the intuitive insight of the conscience fully explains the variety,\nwhen we remember the various degrees of accuracy and fulness with\nwhich these relations are understood and estimated. Every relation\ncalling for duty is composite and complex, the various parts being\noften so connected as to come only partially or one-sidedly into view,\npreventing full insight of the moral demand, or accurate adjustment of\nsentiment and conduct to it. Rarely is any relation simple and alone.\nOften, indeed commonly, conscience has to decide duty as a resultant\nobligation out of very complicated and even antagonistic relationships.\nAll this is amply sufficient to explain the different degrees in which\nthe conduct meets duty. It is the necessary result of the impossibility\nof exactly fitting the moral sentiment or act to the demands of the\nmoral relations. And the transparent explanation which this theory\nfurnishes of the fact of such degrees strongly corroborates its\nscientific correctness.\n\n\n==Verified in Moral Concepts.==\n\n=3.= It is verified, further, in the character of the various virtues,\nand their opposite immoralities. In their very conceptions these\nimply relations. They are moulded by them, and carry the shaping thus\nreceived. Justice, for example, in inter-human affairs, is absolute\nequity between man and man--exact reciprocity. Veracity expresses\nsomething that is due from one to another among beings whose welfare\nrequires them to live according to the truth of things. The duty to\nspeak the truth answers to the need and right of each one to know it.\nLove, or good-will, has already been shown to express the feeling\nwhich, in eternal fitness, is due from one sentient rational being\nto another, in the most generic relationship. Honesty means seeking\nequality of values in dealings one with another. Sincerity signifies\ngenuineness in the temper and way we relate ourselves to those about\nus. We might run through all the precepts of the Christian decalogue\nand note that every one is based on some general or special relation,\neither of man to God or of men to their fellow-men. No virtue can get\naway from relations. The very concept of every one is moulded by them,\nand carries the shaping which they enstamp upon it as the coin does\nthat of the die.\n\n\n==Supported by Analogy.==\n\n=4.= It is supported also by the analogy of organic and instinctive\naction. In organic action, the physically right is adaptation to\nenvironment, in which each part and movement fills its sphere\nand accomplishes its functions in the given place and relations.\nIn instinctive action, the force is adjusted to the position and\nconnections in which the animal is placed. For example, that of the\nbee is made to move correspondently to its relations to the individuals\nof its own kind and to the end of supporting and preserving the\nspecies. The instinct of the beaver adjusts its house to its peculiar\nsurroundings; that of birds constructs their nests in distinct\nadaptation to the conditions that surround them. In animals that\nharvest and store their food, it suits the action to the particular\nenvironment and changing seasons. In every case instinct fits the\nactivity to the given place and relations of its subject. This method\nby which organic and instinctive functions are set to secure right\naction in their special spheres, is exceedingly significant of the\ngeneric principle of all right action. In the light of the analogy, the\nmorally right is a continuation of the same principle of harmony with\nconstituted relations which is seen to be omnipresent in all the lower\ndomain of nature extending up to human personality, but becoming moral\nat this point by being subject to free will and accomplished by it. It\nis to be remembered that teleologic plan and adaptation run through the\nentire cosmic order, from atoms to worlds and from minutest structures\nof body to the loftiest endowments of intelligent beings akin to God.\nAutomatic action secures accordance in the inferior ranges. The grand\ndistinction of the moral realm appears when, as the crowning ascent\nof life is reached, the principle of ethical harmony with divinely\nconstituted relations is to be accepted and accomplished by the\nintelligence and freedom of man and is made the moral _ought_ under\npersonal responsibility.\n\n\n==Assumed in Common Life.==\n\n=5.= It adds confirmation to this explanation, that it is implicitly\nassumed in all the conceptions and language of common life. Unbiassed\nby speculative theories the every-day thinking and speech of mankind\nconnect duties with men's personal place and relations--duties\nmodified and fixed according to the form and specialty of individual\nsituations. The fact of duty itself is not more certain than this\nfact of the way in which spontaneous and unperverted thought grounds\nit. This fixing of the world's conceptions and speech in this form\ncannot be fairly interpreted as a caprice or accident, but as the true\neffect of the actual reality, which stands as its cause or warrant.\nAnd it is significant that speculative theorists who have framed for\nthemselves some other account, whenever momentarily off their guard\nor forgetting to act as watch-dog for their theory, have been wont to\nturn unconsciously into forms of expression recognizing this relational\nground for human duties.\n\n==The Ultimate Ground.==\n\nII. In thus finding the right grounded directly on conformity to the\nrelations given men in the constituted order of life, we have not yet\nreached the full solution of the great problem. For these relations are\nonly a part of the aggregate moral constitution, and are not the last\nterm of moral authority. They do not stand in their own independent\nright. Though they do directly create and shape the immediate duties\nfor which they call, they are not the ultimate reality in which moral\nlaw has its deep foundations. So we must go back to the source and\nreason of these relations. The ultimate ground can be found, only in\nGod himself who, in his underived eternal nature, is the absolute\nground of the whole created universe, with all its interrelations which\ndevelop the reality of moral law.\n\nThe true conception of the divine creative action is that in it the\nthought and moral character of God become transitive and appear in the\nrelations established and the ethical requirements which the relations\nimpose. The constituted connections and order of life, which involve\nan ideal standard of right conduct and duty, reveal the divine mind\nor intention and in it the ultimate authority. The proximate basis,\nalready discovered, in ideal conformity to the moral relations in which\nthe moral agent is placed, therefore represents God, who, as the first\ncause and eternal ground of the creation with all its adaptations and\nlaws, is the ultimate and unchangeable ground of right and of all moral\nlaw.\n\nThis statement of the ultimate ground means more than a resting of\nright simply on the will of God. A reference of it to his will has\noften stood for a claim that the moral law stands merely in the option\nof God or as only a product of his choice. Many have represented it as\nonly an effect whose cause is an act of his will--that will originating\nor making \"the right\" rather than observing and declaring it, and the\nmoral law having no basis other than such enactment of will. But this\nwould imply that God himself is without moral character, acting from\nno norm of essential right, but simply by mere will ordaining what\nshould pass as right among mankind. Our fundamental ethical conception\nof him, however, is that of a moral being and moral ruler. And to be\nmoral means to love and choose the right as right. We must keep in\nmind here the relation between moral law and will, or the choices of\nthe will. Moral authority does not exist as will, but as right. The\ngreat conception of the right, as witnessed to in universal conscience,\nis of something that appeals to will and requires the will to bow to\nits claim. Right is superior and authoritative for will, and cannot,\ntherefore, be simply an effect of it. The right itself is basal for\nright willing, even with God himself. He wills according to it. Hence\nthe moral law is not to be considered a product of his will, but an\nexpression of his nature. In perfect freedom he wills the good because\nhe is good, being in his eternal nature the absolute and infinite moral\nPerfection. It is a deep conviction in the moral consciousness of\nmankind, that God himself is in his very nature righteous and good, a\nconviction which utters itself evermore in the spontaneous exclamation:\n\"Shall not the judge of all the earth do right!\" Out of a non-moral\nground the moral could never arise, and only in the very nature of God\nhimself as perfect, infinite and unchangeable righteousness, do we\nreach the ultimate ground both of the constituted relations of human\nlife and of the sublime and inextinguishable reality of moral law for\nthe ordering of these relations. The profound meaning of the poet's\ncouplet:\n\n \"For right is right since God is God,\n And right the day must win,\"\n\nis to identify God and right as united in the eternal foundation of\nthe moral system. There is thus, for the universe, what has been often\ndesignated \"an eternal and immutable morality\" whose authority and\nstandard rest in the very Ground of the universe itself.\n\nThe conclusion thus apparent is vindicated by the very conception\nof the authority which binds men ethically. Mere \"might cannot make\nright\" or be that which has the reverence of the moral nature. Moral\nsovereignty does not attach to a simple absolutism of power. The\nethical will bows to the right only. It would be a great contradiction\nto think of the power to which the moral submission of the soul is due\nas itself anything other than an ethical power, the morally good power,\nthe morally good Being.\n\nThis ultimate ground of right, thus found, makes plain why ethics,\nin its full meaning and issue, is so closely allied to religion.\nReligion, in its spirit and aim, means fellowship with God, accordance\nof desire, will, and life with him. And ethics, even in the view of\nits early student Plato, looks to the same goal, \"likeness to God.\"\nThe supreme aim of Christianity is ethical, the transformation and\nexaltation of human conduct and character into the excellence and\nhappiness of righteousness. That the moral life of man may, out of his\nbroken, corrupt and disabled state of sin, thus become again harmonized\nwith God and the divine constitution of things, redemption comes\nwith its supernatural powers and help for human nature, enabling and\naccomplishing a realization of the ethical law in human character.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X.\n\nTHE OBJECTS OF MORAL JUDGMENT.\n\n\nA full view of the ethical reality and its meaning for us requires yet\nan examination into the question: Of what may we justly affirm moral\nquality? Where does the conscience apply the distinctions of right and\nwrong? What are properly the objects, and the only objects, of moral\napproval or condemnation? Or, to put it in a way possibly more easily\nunderstood, to what human activities or features of life does moral\nquality belong?\n\nIt has already been noted in general that only personal beings\ncan be moral agents or become, in what they are and do, objects\nof moral judgment. Apart from personality, no place for virtue or\nvice can be found. Of things, whether natural products or products\nof human industry, as rock or star or stream, or ship or watch or\nengine, we cannot predicate moral character. We may speak of them\nas beautiful, useful, or perfect, or as ugly, useless, or faulty,\nbut all distinctly ethical terms are inapplicable to them. The moral\napprobation or condemnation which we feel for the temper, words, and\nactions of men is felt toward them as personal phenomena. Detached from\npersonality they would no more be subjects of praise or blame than\nthe temperature of the sea, the noise of the wind, or the down-pour\nof rain Moral character belongs to them only as the characteristics\nand manifestations of the self-conscious and self-directed life of a\nmoral agent. To the question what activities of a moral agent may have\nethical quality, it ought to be sufficient to say that it belongs to\nall his conscious and self-directed conduct. Obligation claims sway\nover the whole personality. But for clearness and definiteness, it is\nnecessary to specify.\n\n\n==Personal Actions.==\n\n=1.= The action itself, in its external form, may be right or wrong, as\nin conformity to moral relations or incongruous with them. It may be\neither the deed that is due to the relations and a fulfilment of the\nduty they call for, or it may be one that clashes with their rational\nand actual requirement. It may be in itself just the action in which\nconduct is rightly adjusted to the actual relations--an act that ought\nto appear in them. Or it may be in itself an action whose very form\ncontradicts the moral demand of the relations, and which ought not to\nbe done, no matter how good a motive may prompt the deed. For example,\nthe motive to use them in a worthy charity could never justify a theft\nof goods or money, nor could filial care of a helpless parent be in\nitself wrong, even should a bad motive inspire it. Moral law repudiates\nthe first deed; it condemns the wrong motive in the second, but\ndeclares the material of the deed itself to be right and good.\n\nWe must here distinguish between the moral character of the doer and of\nthe deed. The quality of right and wrong belongs to the action; guilt\nor innocence belongs to the person. This is the basis of the well\nknown fact that in some cases the doer of a wrong act may nevertheless\nbe held as innocent and even virtuous in it. He may have honestly\nmeant to do right, and acted from praiseworthy motives, but from not\nunderstanding correctly or fully the situation, may have done what has\nviolated the moral call of the relations. The action may be condemned,\nwhile he himself may be acquitted of guilt. The full ethical demand,\nhowever, requires such a use of all our faculties of knowledge and\nbehavior, as not only to maintain a good intention, but to keep our\noutward conduct in harmony with objective righteousness.\n\nMany writers have shown a disposition to deny moral quality to the\nexternal action. Locating it all in the inner sentiment or intention,\ntheir analysis separates the visible part from its source, and\nholds up to view the action, so separated, as mere physical motion,\ncharacterizable as useful and expedient or the contrary, but neither\nmoral nor immoral. Independently of its motive it is resolved into mere\nnatural movement, as non-ethical as a muscular spasm, sleepwalking,\nthe dashing of a wave, or the biting of frost. But this is as\nmisleading as it is plausible. The error becomes clear by the following\nconsiderations:\n\n(1) The supposed separation of the deed from the inward intention\nfalsifies the actual facts in the case. The essential element in the\nproblem is that we are contemplating, not physical movement only,\nlike spasms or waves, but personal deeds, as acts of moral agents.\nOf course, moral quality does not attach to the action of non-moral\nbeings, as the striking of clocks or the barking of dogs, but to deeds\nof self-directing personality. Let it be freely admitted that the inner\nsentiment does give quality to conduct. The obligation to the conduct\nthat shall fulfil duty attaches to the personal agent; the innocence\nor guilt also belongs to him. But there is obligation upon him with\nrespect to conduct only because conduct, in its external forms as well\nas inward springs, forms the total material of morality. There could be\nno responsibility for conduct if no moral quality belonged to actions.\nTo separate--after the manner referred to--the action from the personal\nmoral agent and think of it as physical motion only, makes it no longer\nthe action about whose character we are inquiring.\n\n(2) We must bear in mind several just distinctions in the application\nof the term right. Along with duty, obligation, merit, innocence,\nor guilt, it may be affirmed of the moral agent. We may say, \"he is\nright,\" in doing so or so. We may speak of the inner sentiment as\nright or wrong. So we may of the external action. For the true and\nfull extent of moral quality, we must make it cover the agent himself,\nand both the inner and outer sides of his personal conduct. Conduct\nhas an internal and an external part. The motive is only one part. An\naction is relatively right, with respect to the agent, when he has the\nright will in right motive; it is absolutely right only when it is\nalso shaped into accordance with the relations so as to realize the\nmoral demand upon the person. The distinction, often made, between\nformal right and material right, throws the point into clear light. It\nis well stated by Prof. Bowne: \"The former depends upon the attitude\nof the agent's will toward his ideal of right, the latter depends on\nthe harmony of the act with the laws of reality and its resulting\ntendency to produce and promote well-being. Conduct which is formally\nright may be materially wrong; and conduct which is materially right\nmay be formally wrong; but no conduct can be even formally right when\nthe agent does not aim to be materially right. The ideal of conduct\ndemands both formal and material rightness, and as long as either is\nlacking the outcome is imperfect.... If one does 'the best he knows,'\nit is often said nothing more can be demanded of him. And yet it is\nplain that this formal righteousness is altogether insufficient for\nthe person's well-being. The reason is that the law of well-being\nis independent of our will. If we misconceive that law and act\naccordingly, we may be formally right, but because of the misconception\nwe should be materially wrong. It is, then, by no means sufficient\nthat one be formally right, that is, true to his convictions of duty;\nhe must also be materially right, that is, in harmony with reality\nand its laws. Formal rightness, of course, is ethically the more\nimportant, as it involves the good will; but material rightness is only\nless important, as without it our action is out of harmony with the\nuniverse.\"[62]\n\n(3) The moral consciousness, when unperverted by speculative theory,\ndoes in fact judge the actions of men. It steadily holds them as\nessentially right or wrong, over and above all question as to the\nmotives for them. It is found perpetually condemning even well-meant\ndeeds as traversing duty and righteousness, hardly able to excuse the\nblundering ignorance to which they are due. This feeling of reprobation\nis genuine, normal, and wholesome. On the other hand the overthrow of\nthis feeling and the adoption of the claim of a non-ethical character\nfor actions, tends directly and strongly to consequences which witness\nagainst the validity of the claim. The demoralizing effect has often\nbeen illustrated. The resolving of duty into a mere matter of good\nintentions has led off into ways and forms of behavior shocking to\nenlightened consciences. It has made quite plausible the illusion\nthat \"the end sanctifies the means,\" and in the name of religion has\nstretched men on the rack and lighted the faggots at the stake. Under a\nfancy that purity is simply a thing of the heart, men have been known\nto excuse not a little sensualism of life. While ethics must lay stress\non the inner good-will, it must also look after the harmony of the\noutward acts with the law of right relations. No amount of good motive\ncan make blasphemy or murder right or virtuous.\n\n\n==The Feelings, Passions and Desires.==\n\n=2.= The various feelings, passions, and desires are not only springs\nof action that may issue in conduct, but are in themselves either right\nor wrong, according as they are exercised in harmony with moral law or\nin conflict with it.\n\n(1) Though our feelings spring spontaneously and immediately out of\nour knowledge and fundamental psychical character, they are subject to\ntraining and regulation by the will, and their states and movements\nare part of our moral life. And though by natural unperverted\nconstitution all these primary feelings and affections have right\nand good functions, their activities, under noxious stimulation, may\nrun into forms and in directions thoroughly immoral. Love, which,\nin its holiest direction, toward God, and in its purest forms of\nbenevolence, toward men, is the highest virtue, may take forbidden\ndirections and corrupt and disorder life. Hate, the reverse of love,\ninstead of being directed against evil which ought to be hated, often\nemits its venom against that which ought to be loved for its goodness.\nSelf-esteem, as a proper respect for what has been put into a person's\nbeing to be cared for and enjoyed, frequently runs into condemnable\nselfishness. Many of the \"desires\" are apt to be in offense because of\nover-development, clashing in anarchic insubordination in the soul, or\nrushing toward unlawful objects. Desire for possessions tends to grow\ninto covetousness, desire for honor into unscrupulous ambition, desire\nfor pleasure into a ruling passion. Such feelings as malice and envy,\nmongrel products of selfishness and ill-will, are at once adjudged to\nbe sinful.\n\n(2) Were further proof needed that morality attaches to the affections\nand desires, it is found in their relations as motives to conduct.\nWe have not traced actions completely to their moral source when we\nhave ascertained the volition from which they proceed. We must go a\nstep further back and mark the impulses that either rightly or wrongly\ninfluenced the will. We must do as do courts of justice in seeking the\ncharacter of an act, and ascertain not only that the act was done in\nfree-will, but also what feelings influenced the free-will in doing\nit. An act of volition may have very different motives behind it. The\nimmoral character of the volition is not only from the immorally-acting\nwill itself, but also from the wrong feelings or desires acting on\nthe will. Indeed, the very will is betrayed into wrong-doing by their\nperverting persuasions. It becomes clear, therefore, that if it be at\nall true that \"actions take moral character from their motives,\" this\ncharacter must be predicable of these motive sensibilities.\n\n(3) A special question has place here--whether moral quality belongs\neven to the personal dispositions, propensities and inclinations\nthat lie back of the _exercise_ of the feelings, as attitudes or\nhabitudes of the soul with respect to good and evil? The facts of life\nunquestionably show the existence of such propensities or tendencies\nderived through heredity and descending from generation to generation.\nThe scientific theory of evolution recognizes them and draws many of\nits conclusions, both psychological and moral, from them. They express\nrather a state of the personal constitution than any exercise of its\nfaculties. They denote so basally the psychical life-condition, that\nthey characterize rather what the person is than what he does morally.\nSince they, as states of the personal agent, constitute his attitude,\namong other things, toward good and evil, an attitude either right or\nwrong, this question manifestly requires an affirmative answer.\n\n\n==Aims and Intentions.==\n\n=3.= Intentions. In judging conduct we inquire especially into the aim,\npurpose, intention, which directed it. We look at the end sought. And\nin a peculiar degree conduct is pronounced right or wrong according to\nthis. For the intention is pre-eminently the very heart and informing\nprinciple of the moral act. Besides largely shaping the material action\nin agreement or conflict with objective duty it is the inner soul of\nthe total deed.\n\nIt may make an act that in its external form is morally indifferent\nthoroughly virtuous or deeply criminal--such as that of handing a sum\nof money to another, in one case to relieve suffering, in another to\nsecure murder. The intention to do what is known to be wrong, even\nwhen the overt deed is prevented, stamps upon the person its own moral\ncharacter.\n\nIn intentions we find the teleology of the ethical conduct--the chosen\nends at which men are aiming in their constant endeavor--and they have\na place of importance corresponding to this directive relation. Life\nmoves as these turn, and the great body of human activity, in its\nmighty sweep of purposive conduct, whether rising into its loftiest and\npurest virtues or descending to its lowest and most horrid crimes, is\ntheir result. In this teleological position they differ as \"motives\"\nfrom the motives found in the simple feelings, affections and passions\nwhich act non-voluntarily and unconscious of ends, but are springs of\nimpulse and incentives from the subjective psychical organization.\nIntentions are deliberate voluntary purposes aiming at chosen objects\nand adjusting means to ends. For this class of motives, therefore, we\nare peculiarly and pre-eminently responsible.\n\n\n==Activities of the Intellect.==\n\n=4.= The activities and uses of the intellect. Often theorists have\ndenied any moral element in these, mainly because of a certain\n\"necessity\" in intellect under psychical law, and because its function\nis simply \"to know.\" It does nothing, either good or bad; \"it only\nknows.\" Its sphere is the sphere of knowledge, not of conduct. But\nthis is a very inadequate view of its total activity, and of its place\nin the moral agent's life. As to the question of \"necessity,\" the\nactivities of the intellect are as much under the command of the moral\nagent as are his sensibilities, his affections, desires, and passions.\nIt would be difficult to see why he should be amenable for the\ndirection and regulation of these desires and passions, and not also\nfor the direction and character of his intellectual work and the use\nhe makes of these high endowments. As to the question of the non-moral\ncharacter of cognitive or thought activities, they are correctly\nconceded to be, in very large measure, without any ethical quality. But\nit is also true, that there may be activities, as for example, in the\nimagination, and in purposive scheming, which are impure and grossly\nviolative of justice and right. Because the intellect in itself, as\ncontradistinguished from the will, does not choose and has no choice,\nwe may not, indeed, say of its activity: \"It is guilty,\" \"it is under\nobligation,\" since obligation and guilt pertain not to the act but\nto the moral person; but yet we may speak of intellectual activity\nor work as morally \"right\" or \"wrong,\" according as it is in harmony\nor in conflict with the true ends for which the intellectual powers\nhave been framed and the well-being they are designed to serve. It\nwould be difficult to see why the intellectual activity which plans\nout the details of a theft or a murder is not as really immoral,\n_i. e._ something morally condemnable, as is the desire or wish to\ncommit it, or why the person is less blameworthy for the one than the\nother. In both cases it is part of his personal activity. And if he is\n\"blameworthy,\" it is only because the activity is in itself \"wrong.\" Is\nhe any less guilty for allowing his intellect to think out the wrong\nthan his feelings to desire it? The moral sense must condemn this\nintellectual work as inconsistent with the relations of the intellect\nto human well-being and righteousness. In these days of worship of\nintellectual brilliancy, and the large prostitution of the imagination\nto activities which flood literature with thoughts that defile and\nsuggestions that carry moral blight and desolation, producing every\nform of vice and crime, it is of prime importance to recognize that\nthis intellectualism does not stand altogether apart from moral\nquality, and that men are under the completest obligation to keep it\nall in harmony with righteousness and the ethical ends of life.\n\n\n==Acts of the Will.==\n\n=5.= Our view of intentions has touched on part of the functions of\nthe _will_ with respect to moral quality, but its acts in the stricter\nsense and more specific forms require further statement. \"Intentions\"\nare, indeed, under the command of the will, yet they are there as\nmotives, whose force and quality stand specially in the objects desired\nand aimed at. They draw their quality rather from the ends sought than\nfrom the working of the will which consents to the ends. We must see\nyet whether the conscience judges also the proper and specific acts of\nthe will.\n\nOf course that which we name \"the will\" is simply the soul's power of\nchoosing, or rather, it is the personal self as causal for choices\nand executive action. Its acts are \"volitions.\" Does moral quality\nattach to these? There can be no doubt of it. Upon these volitions,\npreferential and executive choices, electing between duty and its\nopposite, between conduct in harmony or in conflict with moral\nrequirement, between indulgence of good or wicked feelings, between\nvirtuous and evil intentions, between higher and lower motives, between\nactions materially right or wrong, making the decision for or against\nrighteousness and goodness and purity, in all the questions of daily\nbehavior in which life rises into ethical excellence and blessedness\nor descends into wrong, vice, crime, and consequent wretchedness,\nthe moral sense of mankind pours its most unequivocal approvals or\nreprobations. It not only judges them as right or wrong in themselves,\nbut as, among all human activities, most creative or most destructive\nof moral character. It is a fundamental postulate in ethical thinking\nthat moral law binds the will.[63]\n\nIn the action of the will the moral judgment finds its object of\nhighest approval and of most thorough condemnation. It is to the will,\n_i. e._ the personal self, that moral law presents its claims. It is\nthe point in which personality is summed up in free and responsible\nselfhood, and where the great reality of responsibility is pivoted. The\nwill, as another name for the soul's power of choosing, sustains the\ndecisive relation between all the motives that precede and the actions\nwhich follow the volitions. The action contemplated may be right or\nwrong, the motive may be good or bad, but when the question is brought\nby the conscience into the presence of the will, the place of supreme\nand final responsibility for virtue or sin is reached.\n\nThis justifies the conclusion that moral character belongs to the\nexercise of the will as it does not to any other activity of our\nmoral nature. For it is the point, and the only point, of freedom\nin our whole constitution. Necessity marks the action of each and\nevery part from the lowest functions up to the will; and beyond this\nthere stretches on another realm of necessity in the consequences\nof volition. For example, necessity rules in the physical nature.\nThe processes go on under fixed uniform laws, with no freedom or\nchoice. So in the intellect and the sensibility. We begin to think in\nnon-optional spontaneity, or we would not think at all. In perception,\nrepresentation, in the discursive and intuitive powers, and in the\nemotions, affections and desires that arise from the activity of the\nintellect, the movement is bound up under laws of cause and effect.\nWhatever power of regulation, change or control we possess over these\nfunctions does not belong to the powers themselves, but to the will or\nthe personal capacity of free choice and self-regulation. It is only\nthrough our will-power that we can handle and direct our thinking or\ncontrol the direction and force of our feelings. So, too, the ideas of\nright and wrong, the perceptions of duty and the sense of obligation\ncome into the presence of the will of necessity. All before the will\nis of necessity. Thus men see the right and perceive obligation. At\nthis point all the responsibility of character is thrown upon the will.\nIf contemplated action appear right or wrong, as action that ought or\nought not to be done, the will must decide whether it shall be done. If\ngood or bad motives plead for rulership, the will must say which shall\nprevail. If feelings are out of harmony with duty and right in the\nrelations of life, with respect to God or man, it is to be remembered\nthat the feelings cannot choose, and the will alone can guide them in\nvirtuous action. To it, therefore, virtue or guilt belongs as nowhere\nelse. For it not only accepts and makes its own all the right or wrong\nthat appears elsewhere, but it also remains true or becomes false to\nits own supreme duty and obligation to moral law, when, under the\nbehests of conscience, it directs life and character either up the\nheights of moral excellence and happiness, or into the wrong and guilt\nand miseries of immorality. Where the will is moral the man is moral;\nfor the will is the zenith of personality. Where it is immoral the man\nis immoral.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI.\n\nTHE ETHICAL VIEW UNDER CHRISTIAN TEACHING.\n\n\nThese conclusions with respect to the nature and office of conscience,\nthe ethical distinction, its theistic implications, its transcendental\ncharacter and objective validity, its relation to personality and\nfreedom, the proximate and ultimate ground of right, and the different\nparts of human activity to which moral quality belongs, are conclusions\nreached by the scientific method and stand on the warrant of reason.\nThey arise from phenomena of history and life, and form, in their\nessential statements, a body of scientific and philosophical knowledge\nof equal certainty and authority with the most assured results of\nother branches of rational investigation. Ethics, therefore, finds its\nfundamental truths in the natural constitution of the world, and is\nable to build these truths into a science possessed of all the rights\nand force of systematized and established knowledge.\n\n\n==Christianity Recognizes Ethics.==\n\n=1.= Christianity fully recognizes these truths and all the essential\nprinciples which ethical science formulates and certifies. It does\nmore. It magnifies their importance by building upon them its own\ndivine view of moral requirement and the way of its realization. All\nthat ethical science shows to be true in the moral constitution of man,\nin the reality of moral law for the free regulation of his conduct,\nand in respect to the source and immutable authority of that law,\nabides as fundamental presuppositions in the divine superstructure\nof religion and duty presented by Christianity. Redemption starts\nand works upon the basal facts of human nature and man's condition,\nrelations, duties, responsibilities and needs. If Christianity assumes\nthe existence and rulership of God, a moral constitution of human life,\nand the existence of conscience with its perceptions of duty and sense\nof obligation; if it assumes man to be a free agent and yet bound in\nthe exercise of his autonomy by laws of obligation and responsibility;\nif it assumes the law of right to be essentially unalterable and\nirrepealable, a reality to which God himself conforms, all these are\ngreat truths fully certified in the rational conclusions of ethical\nscience.\n\n\n==Contributions to Ethical View.==\n\n=2.= But Christianity contributes immensely to the ethical view. It is,\nindeed, a great misconception to think that supernatural revelation\nhas been given simply to teach morality, or to look on Christianity\nas merely a code of ethics. But though its first great object is\nredemption, presenting God to our view in redeeming love and activity,\nand offering deliverance from the guilt and life of sin, it necessarily\nalso aims to recover men to personal righteousness. Indeed, both\nforgiveness and renewal look to this as the goal to which redemption is\nto bring its subjects. While primarily Christianity is a religion and\nredemptory, its ultimate aim is the establishment of men in obedience\nto God, righteousness, and excellence. The very summit of its purpose,\nthe Alp that rises above every other Alp, is character and right life.\nSo the very law of its movement is supremely ethical. Forgiveness of\nsin, justification by faith, stands as only the first step in the\napplication of redemption, and beyond this Christianity pre-eminently\nmeans a life, the increasing recovery and perfection of human nature in\nits ethical character and action, enthroning the principles of duty,\nlove, and righteousness in the conscience and the heart, and bringing\npersonal conduct into rhythmic harmony with eternal righteousness and\ngoodness.\n\nAnd the science of ethics has not properly completed its view until\nit has fully included the distinctive teaching of Christianity. For\nbeyond all question the data of this teaching have produced the purest\nand loftiest moral life that the world has seen, the best product of\nthe moral history of mankind. Its ideal is confessedly the highest and\nthe best sustained. Even apart from the question of the well-proved\nsupernatural claims of Christianity, its ethical work lifts its moral\nteachings to the most authoritative place, the supreme court, for the\ndecisions and formulations of the complete scientific view.\n\nThe total contribution of Christianity to morality comes along two\nlines of help: 1. In the way of fuller disclosure of moral principles\nand of essential duties; and 2. In the way of furnishing an efficient\ndynamic for their fulfilment. The first of these two topics claims\nattention in this chapter; the second must be left for the next.\n\nThe need of larger knowledge, than that furnished by simply\nnaturalistic ethics, for the perfection of moral life, has everywhere\nbeen evident. The debasement of moral thought and the worse debasement\nof moral life frequently found among peoples outside of the atmosphere\nilluminated by Christian truth, is sad proof how crying this need\nof right knowledge may become. The strife of conflicting opinions\nas to the root and validity of moral principles, even among many\nin Christendom who look at the subject with faces averted from\nChristianity, is perpetual remembrancer of the room for more and better\ninformation. And the perplexing phenomenon of wide diversity of moral\njudgments in daily life, to which we have had occasion several times\nalready to refer, resulting from the different degrees of correctness\nwith which the relations of life are understood and interpreted,\nenforces the same truth. The moral power is educable. It sees its\nobjects in the light, not in darkness, nor fully in dawn. It acts\nbest when flooded with the fullest knowledge. Men can discern duty\naccurately and fully only when they comprehend all their relations to\nGod above them, their fellow-men around them, their destiny before\nthem, and the significance and moral demand of these relations. From\nthe high origin of their nature, \"in the image of God,\" they may\ncarry some impress of the moral law from God in their hearts, in the\ninner order of insight and spiritual vision, and in measure \"read\nGod's thoughts after Him\" about love and justice and truth and other\nessential virtues. But this rational reading of duty from the law\nof right within them and from the moral constitution about them,\nis grandly helped when revelation throws its illumination on the\nnature and relations of men, the meaning of life and the reach of its\nresponsibilities. Whatever has been the short-coming of Christianity's\nprofessors in exemplifying its moral teaching, the history of its\nwork is full proof of its containing the best ethical direction and\npower the earth has yet seen. In individuals and communities in which\nits teachings have been worthily turned into character and life, it\npresents an inspiring suggestion of what it is capable of doing for\nhuman exaltation when its instruction is truly followed. It is the\ncompleting factor for moral guidance, and the scientific view is false\nto itself when it fails to include the teachings and the phenomena\nof the Christian consciousness and life. Since Christianity has come\nand given the world its highest civilizations and elevations, its\ngrandest progress in philosophy, science, art, literature, invention,\nenterprise and prosperity, all the purest and most beautiful amenities\nof life, and is still leading the best nations onward and upward, it\nis surely worse than idle to think of forcing ethical science back\nto a pagan or merely naturalistic standpoint. This would ignore the\ngreatest moral phenomenon of history and the most impressive facts in\nthe present condition of the world. \"Christian ethics is ethics in the\nhighest--ethics raised to the highest power--the last and fullest moral\ninterpretation of the world and its history.\"[64]\n\n=3.= The Christian ethical view has its special moral conceptions from\ntwo sources. The one is primary and principal; the other secondary and\nauxiliary.\n\n==Sources of Christian View.==\n\n(1) The principal source is the Sacred Scriptures of the Old and New\nTestaments. Along with their distinctively religious purpose and\nteaching, these pages of God's supernatural revelation, from first\nto last, look to ethical ends, and are replete with principles,\nlaws, and precepts for duty and righteousness. As for a knowledge of\nChristianity as a religion we must come to these writings as its own\naccredited records, presenting its truths and requirements, so also for\na knowledge of its moral teachings. Whatever help may be obtainable\nfrom other sources, say from study of the Christian consciousness or of\nthe effects of Christianity on personal and social life, the chief and\nhighest source is these Sacred Scriptures. For the best Christian life\nfalls short of the ideal standard of conduct there presented. It would\nbe unfair to study it or judge it only in the partial, fragmentary,\none-sided, imperfect illustrations of it. Every ideal thus gained must\nbe corrected and greatly up-raised before it can stand for the complete\ndivine ideal that shines out from the teachings of the Scriptures and\nthe life of the Christ therein revealed. The perfect image of Christian\nethics has never been fully reflected by either the inward or outward\nlife of the believer. The Sacred Scriptures, therefore, are the only\ninfallible normative authority for Christian ethics, as they are for\nChristian theology.\n\nThis use of the Scriptures as the determinative authority, however,\nmust take account of the fact that they present an historical\nand progressive revelation. As God's redemptive action advanced\nhistorically, unfolding religious truth and grace gradually and\neducationally, so the moral ideal, which Christianity in its fulness\nof provision and power should exhibit, is found more and more clearly\nrevealed till the view is completed. This accounts for the higher\nethical view reached in the New Testament.\n\nThe Old Testament, which is the record of the earlier stages of the\nChristian revelation, distinctly preparatory and prophetic, forms a\ncontinual instruction in duty and righteousness. It grounds the moral\nlife essentially in the religious, but religion must walk in holiness.\nFundamental in it stands the decalogue, a summary of moral law, of\nmost profound and comprehensive sweep, which is still the great code\nof duty for the guidance of human conduct, and so clearly beyond the\nmere thinking of Moses or the people he led, as to prove its divine\norigin. All the types and symbols of the Old Testament, its sacrifices\nof cleansing and expiation, are impressive condemnations of sin and\ncalls to repentance. The ever-ringing voices of prophecy are thrilling\nrebukes to wrong-doing and clarion appeals for righteousness. Its\npsalms and music are but echoing praise for the divine grace that\nrenews the heart and restores the life to the blessedness of obedience\nto the moral laws of God. The lofty ethical demands of the Hebrew\nScriptures, along with their revelation of grace, form a unique and\ndistinguishing feature among ancient literatures. Their ceaseless\nvoice is: \"Keep judgment and do righteousness\"; \"Cease to do evil and\nlearn to do well\"; \"Offer to God the sacrifices of righteousness.\"\nNowhere else at that day was the moral ideal lifted so high, or with\nsuch imperative authority. The Old Testament ethics was a fit prophecy\nand preparation for the full Christian teaching. \"If the ethics of the\nold dispensation had not passed into the fulfilment of the new, the\nHebrew prophets and poets would still be the world's most inspiring\nteachers of high ethical hopes and ideals, and the moral code of Israel\nwould be the school of righteousness, reverence, and law, to which the\ngenerations should go for the loftiest instruction.\"[65]\n\nThe New Testament, which completes the authoritative records of\nChristianity, completes also Christianity's normative statement of the\ntruths and principles of duty. These appear in the threefold form of\n(1) Christ's recorded teaching, (2) His personal example, and (3) the\ninspired interpretations of Christian duty in the apostolic writings.\nThe teaching of Jesus, all through the gospels, while primarily\nreligious and religiously spiritual, deals with the great realities of\ncharacter and conduct, and, particularly in the Sermon on the Mount,\nascends to the very heights and penetrates to the very depths of the\nlaws of duty. It carries those laws into a spirituality, solemnity, and\nglory before unknown, and forms a representation which stands before\nthe moral sense of the race as the unsurpassed and the unequalled\nethical ideal. The view is carried up to the goal: \"Be ye perfect, even\nas your Father in heaven is perfect.\" This divine teaching is at the\nsame time reflected from the personal life of Christ. It is presented\nin living form. The example is part of the teaching--an example which\nis never lowered below the exalted range of the given precepts, and\nwhich has been instructing and inspiring all the centuries since.\nIn the apostolic writings, under the guiding Spirit of truth, the\nteaching and pattern of Christ, together with his redemptive gospel,\nare applied to wide and varied ranges of practical life, the apostles\nthemselves being filled with an ever-increasing appreciation of their\ndivine import and transcendence. These inspired Scriptures, because of\ntheir unique and supreme authority for Christianity itself, are the\nfundamental and decisive standard of Christian ethics.\n\n(2) But there is a secondary and auxiliary source for formulation\nof Christian ethics--in the Christian moral consciousness. In this,\nChristianity exhibits its moral principles and meaning as they enter\ninto the inner experience of men, where they may be studied and\nestimated. Christianity is a \"life,\" a \"new life,\" in whose moral\nconsciousness its principles and forces are acting formatively for\ncharacter. Not only of \"the life\" that in Christ was \"the light of\nmen,\"[66] but of all the pure life that is from him, is it true: \"the\nlife is the light of men.\" The ethicised Christian consciousness\nreveals the principles and laws that have come into it. It is a maxim\nin theology that only the regenerated and sanctified mind has a clear\ninterpretative insight into spiritual truth, and can form the true\ntheologian. The maxim holds, just as truly, with respect to moral\ntruth. The spiritual and moral are inseparably united, and no man\ncan judge with unhindered and reliable discrimination in matters\nof Christian ethics whose heart is unsympathetic or averse to the\nduties of the Christian life. The light shines in the darkness, but\nthe darkness comprehends it not. Christian ethics, therefore, in\nformulating its ideas and completing its theoretical view rightly,\ndraws upon the Christian consciousness, as that consciousness is\nscripturally determined, and interprets, not the Scriptures alone, but\nalso, in auxiliary relation, the ethicised life of Christian humanity.\nWhile, therefore, it is the science of Biblical morality, it is also\nof the whole moral development of Christianized life, both in personal\nconsciousness and in the observed historical fruitage of Scripture\ndoctrine.\n\n=4.= It is necessary to look at some of the particular elements or\nfeatures of the clearer and fuller ethical view which comes from these\nsources.\n\n==Duties made More Definite.==\n\n(1) Most of the duties naturally discerned by the conscience from the\nknown relations of life are brought into more distinct and definite\nview by Christian revelation and experience. The natural discernment is\noften unclear, uncertain, partial, and faulty. The blindness, mistakes\nand misgivings of the moral sense form a large and perplexing chapter\nin the story of non-Christian morality. It has often led to doubt\nwhether there is such a thing as a fixed, sure, immutable morality. A\nremedy for this has been needed. By its immense number of specific\n_precepts_ for particular relations and circumstances, revelation gives\ncorrectness, minuteness, and fulness of application to the general\nprinciples of duty asserted by the moral sense. In manifold cases\nthe conscience would be in the dark, or have only obscure or partial\nview, without the instruction and guidance thus supplied. Scarcely\na situation or emergency in life can be named for which precept and\ncounsel have not been given. When the sun rises the eye sees not\nonly farther, but more minutely and with more certainty. Myriads of\nobjects and relations before unseen flash into view. So by the light\nof the Scriptures, more of duty is known and better known. By common\nconsent, even among skeptics as to the Christian religion, the ethical\nprecepts of Christianity, in their purity and elevation, in their\nquickening directness and radical thoroughness, in their explicitness\nand universality, form an aggregate moral directory unapproached by the\nbest codes of pagan sages or human philosophies, and add a grand aid to\nthe moral judgments.\n\n==Human Relations.==\n\n(2) The human _relations_, on which duty rests, have been brought\ninto broader and fuller view by Christian teaching. Much of the\ndisability, under which morality has suffered, has always come from a\nfaulty understanding, if not total ignorance, of the varied relations\nwhich are to be filled out with their exact and full measure of duty.\nThe idea of God and man's relation to him has often been falsely or\nmisleadingly conceived. The history of thought as to inter-human\nrelations, from the closest to the most extended, presents a sad story\nof misapprehension, error, ignorance and consequent wrong. When these\ngreat vital relations are themselves misconceived, looked at from a\nfalse or obscuring view-point, one of the prime conditions for correct\nmoral judgments is absent. Positive misdirection is in play. When our\nknowledge has not yet shown us clearly man's place in God's plan of the\nworld, or the adaptations and purposes in human nature itself; when\nneither the great fact of personality nor that of human solidarity is\ncorrectly understood, as for example, when the individual is reduced,\nas has often been the case, to mere material for the state or for\npossible enslavement by captors, or he is, on the other hand, looked\nupon as an isolated and unrelated unit; or when the reality and meaning\nof the universal brotherhood of man, under the universal fatherhood of\nGod, is not seen, the duties and obligations of life must necessarily\nbe much obscured and unperceived.\n\nBut here the Christian revelation comes in with one of its great\nforms of help--a divine disclosure of our moral relations. It reveals\nsome otherwise undiscoverable relations, opening to view additional\nobligations and responsibilities. It sets before us our solemn\nrelations to God, to his renewing and saving grace, as well as to\nhis creating and preserving love, to offered blessings, gracious\nrewards, and eternal destinies. The whole horizon of life is lifted\nand broadened, and the sphere of the moral activity and consequences\nextends into a future life. Man becomes a child of immortality and his\nhome is eternity. The world and human life have a grandly changed\nmeaning under the gospel. Man's place in the system of things, as to\nthe past, present, and future is revealed in a light increased and\nbroadened like that on the landscape when morning rises upon night;\nand in this light he sees a thousand new responsibilities on which he\nis touching every moment, and which stretch out and on in illimitable\nranges. Conscience is enabled to act in view of all these new relations\nas well as the irradiated old ones, and taught to hold the heart\nand life, the will and activities to the moral requirements of this\nenlarged and illuminated ethical domain.\n\n==Moral Duties Divine Obligations.==\n\n(3) Christian teaching has elevated the ethical view in closely\nuniting all moral obligation with duty to God. Natural ethics, when\nits implications are rationally followed up, is, indeed, theistic,\nand finds the seat of moral law in God as the absolute ground of the\nwhole moral constitution. But from this movement, rising from the\nlaw of right in the conscience and in the moral constitution of the\nworld, such ethics has yet this limitation, that duty is thought of\nfrom the human side, and not from the standpoint of God, who in his\npersonal nature and will is both the source and goal of moral law. In\nthis mode of forming the theory God is apt to be left remote, virtue\nis abstractly conceived and remains a reality too much by itself\nand separated from any enforcing or helping authority. It becomes\ntoo abstract and simply humanistic. But our view of moral good must\nbe lifted into closer and more living connection with God. And so,\nChristianity, to transfuse the ethical sense with religious light and\nmotives, teaches us to look upon right and duty from the standpoint\nof God. This is in accordance with the very design of Christianity as\na redemptive and saving religion, seeking to bring man into true and\npractical fellowship with God. The moral discernment is to be filled\nand animated by the religious spirit, so that the moral training may be\ncarried on and completed together with the development and consummation\nof the Christian life. Thus the form of the appeal is: \"Be ye holy, for\nI am holy.\" \"Be ye perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.\"\nIn a high and peculiar emphasis all duty is required to be done as unto\nGod. \"Forasmuch as ye have done it to the least of these, ye have done\nit unto me.\" \"We should so fear and love God,\" as not to offend against\nany part of the law or fail in doing good. Through the Christian\nrevelation alone the ethical conception and relation of God is truly\nattained, and with it a right conception of man and the highest spirit\nof duty.\n\nIn thus teaching that all duties should be fulfilled as something due\nto God, and under inspiration of love to Him, Christian ethics is not\nto be understood to mean that rational ethical theory is mistaken when\nit claims that men are to \"do right because it is right.\" But it means\nto remind us where alone the absolute right is found--only in God. And\nit means that both the religious and the ethical life is to upraise and\nanchor us to Him, and to eternal righteousness as it is in Him. All\nduty is owed finally to God, because He is the one absolute righteous\nBeing to whom the whole universe owes its very existence and all its\nblessings. Thus Christian ethics sets forth fully what rational thought\nhas often caught a glimpse of and hinted at, but wanted vision to see\nclearly, viz.: that the goal of the ethical aim is to be \"like God.\"\nIts aim, as is that of religion itself, is to bring our moral life into\nliving fellowship with Him and His blessedness. This marked feature of\nChristian teaching presents the ethical view in its highest elevation,\npurification and power.\n\n==Moral Guilt.==\n\n(4) In harmony with this close connection of the moral with the\nreligious life, a further special feature of Christian ethics is a\npeculiar emphasis upon the guilt of offence against the moral law.\nIn pagan ethics, often with no clear perception of the existence of\nGod, always without just conception of his character, though the moral\ndistinction was recognized and wrong was regarded as condemnable, yet\nbecause the wrong was viewed as traversing only an abstract principle\nor an accredited usage or order of best happiness, it evoked no strong\nsense of guilt. Right was always little else than a conforming of one's\nself to \"nature,\" or \"reason,\" or \"civil authority,\" or conditions\nof \"well-being\" or \"enjoyment,\" or at best to an ideal conception of\nvirtue. In the ethical view which materialistic philosophies present,\nthough the phenomenon of conscience is acknowledged and obedience\nto its direction admitted to be necessary for proper right order,\nyet the condemnatory judgment on immorality is rather a judgment\nof it as unwise, imprudent, and injurious than as guilty and worthy\nof punishment. It is at most a non-conformity to an impersonal,\nmechanically determined, ongoing nature. The whole utilitarian\nconception of morality, which makes it consist essentially in following\nthe teachings of experience as to what is most advantageous and useful,\nmay hold disregard of it as a great \"evil,\" economically viewed, but\nalmost annuls, if it does not completely remove, the idea of guilt, by\nsubstituting that of loss. Even in simply rational _theistic_ ethics,\ndespite theistic pre-suppositions and conclusions, the view may still\ndeal too much with abstractions and rest too much on abstract ideas or\nimpersonal things. Right and wrong are, indeed, developed by natural\nrelations, to which men are bound to conform, but only because these\nrelations, by being divinely established, represent God, who in the\nperfections of his nature and will, is at once the free Creator and\nrighteous personal Ruler of the universe. Moral law not only applies\nalone to free personality, but has its source and authority in the\nAbsolute Personality whose holy and beneficent will has constituted the\nmoral relations and requirements of life. Morality pertains, not to the\nrelations of mere things to things, or of persons to simply impersonal\nnature, but of persons to persons. Inter-human relations create and\nexhibit obligations because God's plan and will speak in them, but the\nfull solemnity of moral obligation appears only when all inter-human\nobligations are seen carried up and united in the supreme and\nall-embracing obligation to God, to whom all duty is due. When these\ninter-human duties are refused, they are refused to God who requires\nthem and has expressed that requirement to reason through the relations\nthemselves and through his word. Not only the religious duties, as\nfaith and love and gratitude and prayer, but all human duties are owed\nto Him. Here all religious duties become moral obligations; and all\nmoral obligations become religious duties. And the guilt of wrong-doing\nis heightened by the fact that it is a sin against the just, holy,\nsupreme authority and will of God, the absolute personal ground of the\nright order and blessedness of the universe. In Him the moral authority\nis identified with the rights of the Creator to whom every good in\nthe universe is owed. This emphasis upon the transcendent authority\nand sanctity of moral law and consequent guilt of its violation is a\nspecial feature in the Christian ethical view and necessary for the\ntrue force and efficiency of the moral sense.\n\nAny separation of morality from the position of something due to God\npersonally, obscures and weakens the ethical view. This has been\nthe bane not only of pagan, materialistic, atheistic, or grossly\nutilitarian theories, but also of many other forms of representation.\nWhenever the sense of duty is resolved into an instinct, or blind\nfeeling, or sympathy, or a product of custom, its true authority is\nkept out of sight. The guilt of neglect of it disappears. Though\nfervently regarded by many great thinkers as a sublime statement\nof the moral principle, even the Kantian \"categorical imperative,\"\nan immediate behest of the reason, saying: \"Do this, or do that,\"\ngiving no account of itself or ground for its authority, but speaking\nautocratically in its own right, and as sufficient and final in its\nown imperative, under the abstract rule: \"Act as if the maxims of thy\naction were to become by thy will the law of the universe,\" holds the\nwhole moral authority too abstractly and remote from God for complete\ntheory or effective power. He is not brought clearly into view or made\nlivingly near, but left in the background--a Being whose existence,\nalong with freedom and immortality, is only inferred and to be believed\nbecause this ideal \"law\" requires Him for its maintenance. Sublime as\nthe \"categorical imperative\" may often have seemed, this shaping of\nthe theory of obligation is not suited to fill and vivify the moral\nconsciousness of men as does a sense of the sublimer reality of the\nholy will and supreme authority of God, as present in and speaking\nthrough that moral consciousness. But the Christian view brings us\nface to face with this righteous will and authority in every moral\nobligation, and teaches us to see in all the established personal\nrelations of life a divine call to right and duty.\n\n==Moral Law Universal.==\n\n(5) The Christian view makes uniquely clear the universalism of\nthe moral law. In natural theories the reach and identity of the\nlaw has failed rightly to appear. The theory has formed only an\nethics for a race, a nation, a condition or caste. It has been\nparticularistic, limited by race lines, tribal or national boundaries,\nclass distinctions, or ancestral traditions. Codes of duty have\nbeen shaped to local and exclusive conditions. So we have a national\nethics created by civil law, or a class ethics, as of free citizens\ncontra-distinguished from slaves, or of Brahmans as different from\nlow caste people. Or we have an ethics of individuals, in which the\ncode of duty of each is determined by his own personal \"instincts,\"\n\"feelings,\" swing of \"sympathy,\" preference in \"pleasure,\" development\nof \"reason,\" calculations of \"utility,\" ancestral \"inheritance,\" or a\nmysterious \"categorical imperative.\" Moral codes have been immensely\nand confusingly diversified. A self-identical and common standard\ndoes not appear, nor the clear, sure foundation of any. The moral law\nis not exhibited in its universality and permanence. Its grandeur is\nunseen by reason of the kaleidoscopic variations presented by the\nmoving fragmentary theories. Its authority is brought into doubt. The\ngreat want has been a view of morality for man as man, authoritative\neverywhere and always, co-extensive with humanity.\n\nThe defect of the theories has been twofold. 1. They have not brought\nthe whole race of man together in the essential sameness of a universal\nhumanity, each individual being endowed with the high attributes of a\npersonality, made in the image of God, and all bound together in one\nall-inclusive brotherhood. 2. They have failed clearly to unite this\ntotal humanity, in all its personalities, with God, whose nature and\nwill is the only and absolute source of the moral law which sweeps\nround and through all the world. The Christian Scriptures and the\nChristian consciousness supply the needed completion of view by\nthrowing both these truths into clear light. Christianity invests\nhuman personality with a worth, sacredness, and responsibility never\nelsewhere recognized. It is at the point of personality that each\nindividual is to be united in fellowship with the personal God, who,\nas righteousness and love, sits upon the throne. Christianity seeks\nto make so real and living the brotherhood of man, that the throb\nof love and sympathy may be felt across all national lines and race\ndistinctions around the earth. And while it thus strengthens the\nvitality and sacred force of the relations that thus bind men together,\nit teaches that the moral duties to men which these relations require,\nare to be done as unto God. Monotheism brings _mono-nomism_. The moral\nlaw, which is absolute, self-identical, eternal and immutable in the\nholy nature and will of God, becomes universal and irrepealable not\nonly for the earth but for all the moral universe.\n\n==Condition of Fulfillment.==\n\n(6) A special extension in the Christian ethical view is the truth that\nthe moral law can be truly fulfilled only in and through a spiritual\nregeneration and renovation of the personal life. This is a truth\nwhich simply rational theories fail to formulate, though they are not\nwithout materials to justify the formulation of it. Few facts of life\nand history are more conspicuous than the impotence of the ethical\nperceptions and motives to get and maintain rightful rulership. Some\nhindering and disabling depravity in the human condition prevents\nattainment of the moral ideal. Apart from the dreadful sway of vice\nand crime and cruel wrong, even with the well-disposed, full duty to\nneither God nor man is completely realized. The words put by Ovid in\nthe mouth of Medea: \"_Video meliora, proboque, detereora sequor_\"\n(I see and approve the better, I follow the worse), voice the moral\nweakness felt even in pagan consciousness. This incompetency of the\nethical behests to accomplish the true and required life, Christianity\nconfirms and emphasizes; and upon its basis unfolds the necessity of a\ndeep, radical renewal of personal character.\n\nIn Christianity, let it be remembered, the moral law is a diviner and\ndeeper reality than natural notions of men make it. It looks, with\nits divine eye, down into the very depths of the heart, and demands\nloyal and full duty through the whole range of personal relations with\nrespect to both God and man. It spreads the force of moral obligation\nover religious duties, joining them in indissoluble union. \"The law\nof the Lord is perfect,\" and requires this wholeness of duty and\nrighteousness. Hence Christianity holds a merely natural morality\nalways to be faulty, leaving men under the law's condemnation. Without\na divine quickening and spiritual enabling, men can never be brought to\ntrue and full obedience and transformed into moral harmony and likeness\nwith God. And the proclamation, looking to this part of the redemptive\nprocess, is: \"Except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of\nGod.\" Thus it becomes a unique distinction of the Christian ethical\nview, that it proposes to bring men to spiritual and moral endeavor\nand victory from the starting-point of a conviction and recognition\nof their own thorough incompetence for the moral task. It furnishes\na true and adequate ability where it has broken up dependence on an\ninsufficient one.\n\nBut this brings to us the moral task, which belongs to the next\nchapter.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII.\n\nTHE ETHICAL TASK UNDER CHRISTIANITY.\n\n\nThe ethical task is to fulfil the moral law, to actualize the ethical\nideal in conduct and character. It is to turn obligations into life.\nIt is not enough to know duty, even in completest theory. It must be\nrealized. In its most important and final view, ethics is a question of\nmoral power.\n\nThe impotence of the conscience before the moral task has always been\nan impressive fact. The perception of duty has lacked efficiency for\nthe enforcement of duty. Vision of the right largely fails to secure\nconformity to it. Even the clearest intellectual discriminations and\nilluminations of the moral law have often been only as the play of\ncold light, almost like the aurora of the north quickening nothing\ninto life or fruitage. Here is found the chief point of failure in\nnatural ethics. It has power to dictate, but not to move. It wants an\nefficient dynamic for overcoming the moral evil that has established\nitself in human nature and life--evil so positive and dominant as to\njustify an apostle in representing the better ethical will as disabled:\n\"Ye cannot do the things that ye would.\" Prof. Flint says: \"The wisdom\nof the heathen world, at its very best, was utterly inadequate to\nthe accomplishment of such a task as creating a due abhorrence of\nsin, controlling the passions, purifying the heart, and ennobling the\nconduct.\"[67]\n\nThe aim of Christianity is supremely practical. It seeks to save\nfrom sin and bring to righteousness. It wastes no effort for simply\nspeculative results. It comes \"not in word only, but in power.\" Besides\nits service to morals in confirming and extending our needed knowledge\nof duty, its greatest ethical service is in supplying the needed\ndynamic or efficacious force for the realization of the holy life. How\ndoes it enable the moral task?\n\n\n==Completion of the Ethical View.==\n\n=1.= In some degree by the completion of the ethical view itself. The\nclearer light is forceful and efficacious for a better realization of\nthe moral task. \"Knowledge is power,\" especially knowledge which throws\ninto view the most impressive realities and relations, and appeals\nwith the most cogent motives. By the strong illumination shed upon the\ngeneral principles of right and virtue, by the definiteness and detail\nof the instruction and precepts for all situations in life, by the\nelevation of view in which the moral horizon is widened and extended,\nso as to show a living brotherhood of every man with every other\nround the world and a range of moral interests and responsibilities\ninterminable as eternity, by the emphasis with which men are made\namenable to God for all moral duties, even those to men, thus vivifying\nthe whole moral consciousness with a sense of a close, unescapable\naccountability to God the conscience is better enlightened and\nquickened for its task, strengthened by the fullest certainty and under\nthe vigor of a new inspiration. It has more light for direction; it\nbears grander motive forces before the will.\n\n\n==Assurance of Success.==\n\n=2.= By giving assurance of success. In the face of the greatest\nhindrances and natural incompetence, it certifies an inspiring goal of\nthe moral endeavor. Pointing to redemptive grace, it makes manifest\nthat the administration of this world is not on the side of moral\nevil, or indifferent to its wrong and blight, but is working for its\noverthrow, the deliverance of its subjects, and their triumph over\nit. It proclaims an established and ever-advancing \"kingdom,\" whose\nconsummation will bring all those who, as its subjects, \"hunger and\nthirst after righteousness,\" triumphantly through and beyond the\npresent militant stage of the moral life into final victory over evil,\n\"a new earth and a new heaven wherein dwelleth righteousness.\" In this\ndivine assurance that the domination of moral evil, with its anarchy\nand misery in the soul, is no necessity, that its overthrow is provided\nfor, and that God's government is so in the interest of righteousness\nand love as to guarantee victory to even the feeblest that in faith\nappropriate his grace and help, there comes the full inspiration, not\nonly of hope, but of sure success in the moral endeavor. Moral effort\nis not compelled to be\n\n \"Like ships that sailed for sunny isles,\n But never came to shore.\"\n\nIt has the certainty that\n\n \"To him who sides with God\n No chance is lost.\"\n\nThe moral help thus supplied by Christianity is well illustrated by\nthe contrast which it presents to some other teaching, say as seen in\nBuddhism, extolled in poetry as \"The Light of Asia.\" This is known as\none of \"the great religions.\" It is, rather, a philosophy of life, a\ndirectory for conduct. It is an atheistic, or at best a pantheistic\nphilosophy, recognizing no personal God and emptying the idea of Deity\nof practical validity. It had its origin in a deep and oppressive sense\nof the evil and misery of life, and aimed at their solution and the\nway of deliverance. On the basis of the oriental \"metempsychosis,\"\nwith its supposed perpetual re-births, on account of earlier sins,\ninto successive distressful lives, it elaborated, for deliverance, a\ncode of duty pervaded by the ascetic spirit and demanding the severest\nself-discipline. In many of its separate precepts it rises, indeed,\nhere and there to elevations and beauties of moral idea that seem\nalmost akin to the finest and purest of New Testament inculcations.\nBut whether viewed as a philosophy or a religion Buddhism has no\npersonal God, who loves and values men as his own children made in\nhis own image, and ready to come to their help. It has heard, and in\nits atheistic cosmos, can hear, no voice of redemption, knows of no\nmanifestation of a loving God for deliverance of his sinful children\nfrom their sins and their exaltation to the dignity and happiness\nof fellowship with Himself. In this despair of help from God, in\nthis dolefully pessimistic view of the world and life, and driven\nto depend only on self-help, is it any wonder that the moral task\nis directed, not to the development, elevation and joy of personal\nlife, but to its repression, subjugation, and reduction, so as to\nbring it, at its earthly close, to Nirvana, extinction of conscious\nindividual existence, as the greatest good! By as much as this theory\nof despair is suited to atrophy all nerve for the ethical task, and\nsink personality from its true intended elevation of divine fellowship\nand excellence into the inanity of unconscious being, by so much does\nthe Christian truth of the assured success and victory of right and\ngoodness in the advancing kingdom of God's grace and eternal love,\nexalting the worth and force of personality to the highest, inspire and\nsustain the moral endeavor. \"Forasmuch as ye know that your labor is\nnot in vain in the Lord.\"\n\nMuch has been written in late years about \"the evolution of the moral\nlife,\" by writers who seek to account for it through the action of\nmerely naturalistic forces in the human constitution and in its\nphysical environment. The above contrast is suggestive of factors in\nthe problem which many of these writers overlook.\n\n\n==Religious Interest.==\n\n=3.= By uniting the moral side of life with the religious, and so\nbringing all the powers of the religious interest in vital help for\nthe moral task. The common false diremption between morality and\nreligion, classifying duties to God as religious, and only duties to\nfellow-men or self as moral, each standing in isolation, and largely of\nseparate accomplishment, allowing men to be \"moral\" while repudiating\nall their duties to God, or \"religious\" while without a conscience\nenforcing duty to men, leaves flabby nerve for moral endeavor. All the\nmighty motives from the Godward side are lost. No quickening force for\ninter-human duties comes from a consciousness of God and his authority,\nor the future life. Any view that severs morality from God and is\nbounded by this world and temporal good, must fail to realize the\nmoral life of man. But the Christian view allows no such separation.\nIt unites the two as two sides of the same life of duty, out of one\nconscience, with vision of both God and men, and one heart true to\nthe indivisible spirit of right. As religious duties are all moral,\nas obligations to God, and all moral duties are religious, as due to\nHim, the Christian consciousness of God must re-inforce and vivify with\nnew efficiency the whole twofold moral endeavor. All the distinctly\nreligious interests and forces, reverence of Deity, repentance before\nGod, gratitude, faith, love, hope, spiritual joy, aspiration, desire\nof immortality and endless blessedness, thus brought into concurrent\naction with the Christianly enlightened natural conscience, bring an\nimmensely advantageous condition for the actualization of the ethical\nlife. \"To believe in an ever-living and perfect Mind, supreme over\nthe universe, is to invest moral distinctions with immensity and\neternity, and lift them from the provincial stage of human society to\nthe imperishable theatre of all being. When planted thus in the very\nsubstance of things, they justify and support the ideal estimates of\nthe conscience; they deepen every guilty shame; they guarantee every\nrighteous hope; and they help the will with a Divine casting-vote in\nevery balance of temptation.\"[68]\n\n\n==Power of Holy Spirit.==\n\n=4.= By the enlightening and obligating force of the Holy Spirit.\nThis reality is assured both in the teaching of the Scriptures and\nthe testimony of the Christian consciousness. We must distinguish\nbetween the simply natural action of conscience and the quickening\nand helping by the divine Spirit. Revelation fully recognizes the\nnatural conscience and its obligating energy, Rom. 2:15; 1:20. It\ndesignates it by the term \u03c3\u03c5\u03bd\u03b5\u03af\u03b4\u03b7\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2 [Greek: syneid\u00easis] from \u03c3\u03cd\u03bd\u03bf\u03b9\u03b4\u03b1\n[Greek: synoida], _conscius sum_--a knowing with, _i. e._ a conjoined\nconsciousness of self and of right, or a knowing with God, whose law\nit discerns. Its natural functions of discernment and imperative are\nnot set aside by the Spirit, but enlightened and re-inforced. His part\nmust not be counted zero. \"When the Spirit is come, He will convince\nthe world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment,\" John 16:8. He\nworks through the truth, in and through men's natural faculties. While\nthe Christian's own conscience is acting in its natural functions, it\nis not acting alone. It is not alone; for the Holy Spirit is there as\na quickening and helping power. In this is fulfilled the experience\nexpressed by St. Paul: \"My conscience also bearing me witness in the\nHoly Ghost,\" Rom. 9:1. This is a Christian conscience, one acting not\nalone and unaided, but embraced within and filled by the influence of\nthe Holy Spirit. This influence has been well expressed as \"like the\nenergy of the sunshine in the fruit.\"\n\n\n==Spiritual Regeneration.==\n\n=5.= Through spiritual regeneration and renovation. It is through this\nprofound reality that Christianity accomplishes its great ethical\nresult. It places the principle of holiness, of duty to God and men, in\nthe very heart of human nature and life. It writes the law in the love\nof the soul.\n\nThe divine wisdom of Christianity is marked by the stress which it\nplaces upon a purification of the inner life, \"the heart,\" the very\nfountain of thought, purpose, and conduct. It points to the immoral\nsource of the immoralities of conduct: \"Out of the heart proceed\nmurders, adulteries,\" etc. The remedy must purify the fountain. When\nthis is secured and the law of holiness is established there, the\nethical life, in its manifoldness and many-sidedness, comes into\nrealization.\n\nIt is thus that the conscience gains control. Its failures result\nfrom the strength of opposing passions, desires, and perverted\ninclination, excited often by temptations without. The affections do\nnot find their centre and rest in God and righteousness. They are\nirregular, often sordid and misleading. The appetites and passions\nobscure the moral discernments and resist the moral judgments. There\nis a law of \"sin in the members.\" The will, which should bow to the\ndirection of the conscience, is swayed by wrong motives. The scepter\nof the moral faculty is broken by the rebellion of desires at war\nwith right and duty. The faintest whisper of conscience ought to be\ndecisive, but against the imperious ascendency of wrong affections\nits loudest imperatives prove impotent. But in this moral renovation,\ngiving its \"new heart and right spirit,\" the affections come into\nharmony with God and all that is good. It is the \"writing of the law\nagain in the heart,\" in the understanding and love. To this new life\nin the affections, duty becomes a pleasure. The conscience, no longer\nperplexed and overborne by evil desires, becomes able to assert its\nrightful authority. The will attains its rightful freedom and power to\ncontrol efficiently in the domain of righteousness, and to hold the\nlife in the harmonies of right and duty.\n\nPut these different elements of the Christian ethical dynamic together.\nThey aggregate the final moral power. Christianity completes the\nethical view, flooding all the principles of right and duty with\nimpressive light. It throws broad and strong illumination over all\nthe moral relations of men, extending the view into the future life,\nand giving certifying precepts for guidance and support. It gives\nthe inspiring assurance of the triumph of righteousness in the\nkingdom which God's love is establishing for it. It unites all moral\nduties under the sanctions and solemnities of obligation to God, and\nre-inforces them by all the motives and appeals which the religious\nsentiments and interests address to men. It supplies an exhaustless\nwealth of truths which give nerve to moral endeavor and are directly\nconvertible into character. And, as expressing the line along which\nthese elements all pass into full effect, by its regenerative action it\nsecures for the innermost sources of conduct a transforming influence\nwhich does for the life what making the tree good does for its fruit.\nLove of right turns convictions of right into character. The efficiency\nof the conscience no longer stands only in the intellectual judgments,\nbut also in affection for the morally good. With love toward what\nis good a feebler conscience could sway the life aright. But under\nthis deep inward change, we have clearer moral vision and stronger\nimperative, together with a transformation of the whole nature into\npredominant love of righteousness. As the Christian life advances,\nthe principles of duty are more and more established in the heart and\nconduct as life-forces, and the conscience becomes more and more _de\nfacto_, as it is _de jure_, sovereign for moral obedience. And thus\nChristianity supplies the divine and sufficient dynamic for the full\nrealization of the ethical life.\n\n\n\n\nINDEX.\n\n\n Absolutism, Divine, 149-151.\n\n Actions, objects of moral judgment, 183-187.\n\n Affections, benevolent, not supreme, 90-92.\n\n Agnostic tendencies, 81-83, 120-124.\n\n Aim, ethical, in Christianity, 197-198.\n\n Altruism, 154, 161.\n\n Analogy, supports relational theory, 176-177.\n\n Anthropological testimony, 34.\n\n Applicatory moral judgments, 51-52, 67-68, 92-97, 128.\n\n Arnold, Matthew, quoted, 25.\n\n Aristotle, 16, 18, 33, 152.\n\n Assyria, 43.\n\n Assurance of success, quickening to moral endeavor, 220-222.\n\n Aurelius, Marcus, 33.\n\n Authority, moral, belongs not to utility or pleasure, 158-160;\n nor to \"the beautiful,\" 144;\n but to \"the right,\" supremely, 79-80, 87-88, 126-136, 158-159,\n 178-191;\n to conscience, as discerning the right, 57-58, 86-99, 104.\n\n\n Bain, Alexander, 121, 154.\n\n Benevolent affections, not supreme, 90-92.\n\n Bentham, Jeremy, 154.\n\n Book of the Dead, 33.\n\n Bowne, Prof. Borden P., 29, 36, 62, 153, 170, 186.\n\n Brahmanism, 32, 142.\n\n Buckle, 43.\n\n Buddhism, 32, 126, 142, 221-222.\n\n Butler, Bishop, 110-111, 154.\n\n\n Calderwood, 167.\n\n Cato, 33.\n\n Christ, personal embodiment of his own teaching, 203-204.\n\n Christian ethics, completes the ethical view, 198-200;\n sources of, 200-205;\n special features of, 205-217.\n\n Christianity, relation of, to rational ethics, 26-27, 196-198;\n its distinctive teachings, 205-217;\n affords power for the moral task, 218-227.\n\n Cicero, 16, 33.\n\n Clarke, Samuel, 166.\n\n Cocker, B. D., quoted, 173.\n\n Coleridge, 167.\n\n Confucianism, 32.\n\n Confucius, 141.\n\n Conscience, simple or complex, 37-39; its existence proved, 39-55;\n its psychological place, 59-62;\n its nature determined, 62-83;\n theistic, 79-80, 86-88;\n supremacy of, 83-92;\n acts of necessity, 78-80;\n educable, 104, 199-200;\n conceivably formed through theistic evolution, 83-85;\n enlightened by Christian teaching, 198-217;\n becomes efficient through Christian forces, 218-227.\n\n Consciousness, testimony as to freedom, 108-110;\n Christian, source for formulation of ethics, 204-205.\n\n Cudworth, 167.\n\n\n Demerit, import and measure of, 70-72.\n\n Deontology, 16 (note).\n\n Des Cartes, Ren\u00e9, 150.\n\n Dividing line between true and false ethical theories, 130-132.\n\n Diversity of moral judgments, 48, 173.\n\n Dorner, Dr., quoted, 150.\n\n Druidism, 32.\n\n Duty defined, 65.\n\n Dynamic, moral, 198, 218-227.\n\n\n Education of conscience, 74, 104.\n\n Egypt, 43, 126.\n\n Epictetus, 148.\n\n Ethics, defined, 15-17;\n historically sketched, 17-20;\n how divided, 21-23;\n relation to psychology, 23;\n to natural theology, 24;\n to Christian theology, 25;\n partly psychological, 21-22, 59;\n partly metaphysical, 21-22, 119-120;\n relation of evolution to, 54-55, 83-85, 132-137;\n illuminated by Christianity, 196-217;\n task of, under Christianity, 218-227.\n\n Eud\u00e6monism, 144-153.\n\n Evolution, in relation to conscience, 54-55, 83-85, 132;\n to objective moral law, 132-137, 154-155.\n\n\n Fact, the primary ethical, 28-36.\n\n Faculty, as applied to the conscience, 37-38;\n psychologically described, 62-80.\n\n Failure of utilitarianism, 155-160.\n\n Fallibility of conscience, 52, 92-94, 103-105.\n\n Fatalism, in Stoic virtue, 147.\n\n Feelings, moral, a part of conscience, 72-77;\n feelings, objects of moral judgment, 187-189.\n\n Flint, Prof., quoted, 218.\n\n Freedom, personal, abridged in ancient nations, 17-18.\n\n Free-will, necessary to moral agency, 66, 105-106;\n alternative choice, 106-107, 159;\n proof of, 107-112;\n excluded by materialism, 112-113.\n\n\n God, existence of required by moral law, 79-80, 87-88, 135;\n relation to moral law, 126, 135-136, 149-151, 158, 169, 172,\n 178-181, 208-215;\n moral duties due to Him, 169-170, 222-223.\n\n Good, the chief, 143, 145, 146, 148.\n\n Greece, 17, 43, 143-148.\n\n Gregory, Dr. D. S., 166.\n\n Grote, 123.\n\n Grotius, Hugo, 149-150.\n\n Ground of right, the point defined, 139;\n sometimes confounded with ground of obligation, 138-139;\n various theories, 140-167;\n Egyptian, 140;\n Chinese, 141;\n Indian, 142;\n Zoroastrian, 142-143;\n Greek, 143-148;\n Roman, 148;\n Divine absolutism, 149-150;\n of Hobbes, 151;\n sympathetic, 152;\n utilitarian, 152-165;\n of relations, 165;\n spiritual excellence, 166;\n direct intuition, 167;\n as subjective or objective, 139-140, 168;\n proximate ground, 168-178;\n ultimate, 178-181;\n not in mere \"will\" of God, 179-180.\n\n Guilt of wrong-doing, 210-212.\n\n\n Hamilton, Sir William, 121, 122.\n\n Happiness, an end, but not supreme, 161-163;\n idea of, not identical with that of right, 156;\n without the moral imperative, 158-160.\n\n Hedonism, 146.\n\n Herbert Spencer, on moralizing effects of intellectualism, 43;\n on relativity of knowledge, 122;\n explanation of the moral sentiments, 35, 155.\n\n Heredity and conscience, 83-84.\n\n Hickock, Dr. Laurens P., 166.\n\n Historical witness to the ethical distinctions, 29-31.\n\n History of ethics, glance at, 17-20.\n\n Hobbes, 151.\n\n Horace, 33.\n\n Hume, 152, 154.\n\n Hutcheson, 154.\n\n\n Imperative, the moral, 65-66, 99, 158, 212-213.\n\n Instinct, not conscience, 57-58.\n\n Intentions, have moral quality, 190;\n teleological motives, 190.\n\n Intuitional, the conscience perceptions, 60-63, 76, 78-79.\n\n\n Jouffroy, Theo. Simon, 166.\n\n Judgments, moral, universal, 29;\n conflict of, 47;\n agreement, 48-51;\n primary, 62-67;\n secondary, 51, 128;\n not infallible, 52.\n\n\n Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, 81;\n phenomenalism, 121-122;\n on the ground of right, 167;\n \"categorical imperative,\" 212-213.\n\n Knowledge, relation of, to moral judgments, 51-52, 59-62, 67-68,\n 92-93, 95-96, 102-105, 172-175, 205-209.\n\n\n Lecky, quoted, 157 (note).\n\n Literature, its testimony to the moral sense, 33.\n\n\n Mansel, Dean, 121.\n\n Marcus Aurelius, 148.\n\n Martineau, James, 88, 174, 223-224.\n\n Merit and demerit, import of, 68-70;\n measure of, 71.\n\n Metaphysics of ethics, 21, 119-195.\n\n Mill, James, 154.\n\n Mill, J. Stuart, 82, 121-122, 154.\n\n Mohammedanism, 32.\n\n Monism, material, 133-137, 155.\n\n Moral agency, 100-118, 172, 182.\n\n Moral distinctions, fact of, 28-36;\n faculty of, 37-85;\n objectively real, 125-126;\n not made by mental organization, 127;\n intuitions, 63;\n immutable and eternal, 127-128.\n\n Moral emotions, 44-47.\n\n Moral Law, perceived obligation, 64-66;\n theistic, 79-80, 87-88, 135;\n only for free agents, 136;\n grandeur of, 129-130;\n universal, 213-215.\n\n Morality, relation of Christianity to, 197-198.\n\n Moral motives, 73, 75-76.\n\n Moral qualities, predicable of personal beings, 182;\n external acts, 183-187;\n feelings, desires, etc., 187-189;\n hereditary propensities, 189;\n intellectual activities, 191;\n intentions, 190;\n will, 193-195.\n\n\n Necessitarianism, 112-115.\n\n Necessity, in the action of conscience, 78;\n in intellect and sensibility, 174-175.\n\n Nemesis, in history, 31.\n\n Newman, Francis, 80.\n\n Nirvana, 142, 222.\n\n\n Obligation, perceived, 64;\n felt, 64-65;\n belongs to moral agent, 65;\n central in conscience, 65;\n implies objective moral law, 125-137.\n\n Old Testament ethics, 202-203.\n\n\n Paley, William, 153.\n\n Pascal, 47.\n\n Peculiarity of the moral perceptions, 40.\n\n Persistence of the moral sense, 48, 64.\n\n Phenicia, 43.\n\n Phenomenalism, 81, 121-125.\n\n Philosophical part of ethics, 21.\n\n Plato, 18, 33, 144, 148, 152.\n\n Plausibility of utilitarianism, 161-165.\n\n Positive Philosophy, 82.\n\n Principles, higher and lower, Dr. Martineau's rules, 174-175.\n\n Presuppositions to responsibility, 102-103, 105-108, 172.\n\n Psychology, relation to ethics, 23;\n in study of conscience, 59;\n shows the place of conscience, 59-62.\n\n\n Quatrefages, 32.\n\n\n Regeneration, to realize the ethical life, 215-217, 225-226.\n\n Relativity of knowledge, 81, 120-125.\n\n Religion, witness to the ethical distinctions, 31-33;\n becomes moral obligation, 169-170, 222-223.\n\n Right, rated in value, 160.\n\n Robinson Crusoe, 170.\n\n Roman teaching, 148.\n\n Rome, 43.\n\n\n Seneca, 33, 148.\n\n Sensibility, the, as related to the conscience, 72-76;\n to moral agency, 115.\n\n Shaftesbury, 154.\n\n Shintoism, 32.\n\n Skepticism, intellectual, 123.\n\n Smith, Adam, 151.\n\n Smyth, Dr. Newman, quoted, 200, 203.\n\n Society, ethical constituted, 29, 116.\n\n Socrates, 17, 143, 144, 153.\n\n Solidarity of humanity, 164.\n\n Sophocles, 33.\n\n Spencer, Herbert, 35, 43, 122, 157.\n\n Spinozism, 112.\n\n Stoic ethics, 146-148.\n\n Supremacy of conscience, 86-99.\n\n Sympathetic Theory, 151.\n\n\n T\u00e2oism, 32.\n\n Theology, relation to ethics, 24, 25.\n\n Theoretical and practical ethics distinguished, 21-23.\n\n\n Universalism of moral law, 127-130, 213-215.\n\n Utilitarianism, 35, 152-164;\n error of, 155-160;\n measure of truth involved in, 161-165;\n evolutionist, 155-156, 159;\n Lecky on, 157 (note).\n\n\n Value of the morally good, 160.\n\n Volitions, objects of moral judgment, 193-196.\n\n\n Wayland, Dr. Francis, 166.\n\n Whewell, 95.\n\n Will, free, 106-112;\n point of personal responsibility, 194-195.\n\n Will of God, not itself the absolute ground of right, 179-181.\n\n Wollaston, 166.\n\n Wolseley, Lord, 43.\n\n\n Zoroastrianism, 32, 142.\n\n\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n\n[1] Nicomachean Ethics, Book II, Chap. I.\n\n[2] The term Deontology, from \u03c4\u1f78 \u03b4\u03ad\u03bf\u03bd [Greek: to deon], what is due\nor binding, and \u03bb\u03cc\u03b3\u03bf\u03c2 [Greek: logos], discourse, has been used by\nsome modern writers as a fit designation of moral science. Though it\nhas never come into general use, it is etymologically well adapted to\nexpress the element of obligation involved in the moral sense. See\nKrauth-Flemming Vocabulary of the Philosophical Sciences, p. 132.\n\n[3] De Fato, Cap. I, 1.\n\n[4] See Wuttke's Christian Ethics, Vol. I, pp. 69-122.\n\n[5] Wuttke's Christian Ethics, I, p. 95. Int. to Aristotle's Ethics, p.\nvi (Bohn's Ed.).\n\n[6] Matthew Arnold, Literature and Dogma, Chap. I.\n\n[7] Philosophy of Theism, Harper & Brothers, N. Y., p. 220.\n\n[8] See The Oldest Book in the World, Bibliotheca Sacra, October, 1882\n(Vol. XLV). Also C. Loring Brace's The Unknown God (A. C. Armstrong &\nSon, New York, 1890), pp. 1-40.\n\n[9] Prof. Borden P. Bowne. Philosophy of Theism, p. 216.\n\n[10] History of Civilization, p. 125 (D. Appleton & Co., N. Y.).\n\n[11] Study of Sociology, p. 363.\n\n[12] Fortnightly Review, December, 1888.\n\n[13] See, for instance, Paley's Moral Philosophy, Chap. V.\n\n[14] See Chap. IV, p. 83.\n\n[15] So Hume, Adam Smith, Thomas Brown.\n\n[16] Jeremy Bentham, Jas. Mill, J. S. Mill, Herbert Spencer.\n\n[17] Borden P. Bowne, Int. to Psychological Theory (Harper &\nBrothers, N. Y., 1887), p. 206. Prof. Bowne thinks, indeed, that this\ndistinction, traced to its roots, depends on \"a feeling of approval or\ndisapproval in connection with the aims and principles of conduct,\"\nand that the ideal of life and the law of conduct spring out of \"this\nbasal feeling.\" He asserts that \"we can only represent the motives and\nactions to ourselves, and wait for the immediate feeling of approval or\ndisapproval to manifest itself.\" He maintains that nothing is gained\nby regarding the distinction as an intuition of the reason instead of\na feeling, because, he says, \"its universality depends on its content,\nand not upon its psychological classification.\" But we may well ask\nif it really does make no difference whether this distinction, the\n\"ethical ideal,\" comes as a perception of reality, the action of a\nknowing power, or as a \"feeling\" which perceives nothing and to account\nfor which there is no perceived ethical reality, no discernment of the\nelemental ideas of right and wrong, upon which approval or disapproval\ncan arise and rest. We are entitled to ask: How can there be a feeling\nof ethical approval when there is no insight of the distinction between\nmoral good and evil? The \"feeling\" that arises from no perception of\nanything to approve, or that approves without any perceived principle\nor law of approval, is blind. It has no standard or reason for an\nethical approval. Moreover, Prof. Bowne admits: \"As long as they [the\naims and principles of conduct] are unrecognized there is no moral\nlife. As long as they are unclearly perceived, there are only the germs\nof a moral life. When they are brought out into clear recognition, the\nself-conscious moral life begins.\"\n\n[18] See Wuttke's Christian Ethics (Nelson & Phillips, N. Y.), Vol. II,\npp. 139, 140.\n\n[19] Borden P. Bowne's Int. to Psychological Theory (Harper & Bros.,\nN.Y., 1887), p. 184.\n\n[20] Theism, p. 13. Quoted from William Knight's Essays in Philosophy\n(Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston, 1890), p. 276.\n\n[21] J. Stuart Mill.\n\n[22] \"The Crisis in Morals,\" by Jas. Thomas Bixby, Ph. D. (Boston,\nRoberts Brothers, 1891).\n\n[23] Prof. Huxley, in one of his latest utterances, puts this point\nstrongly: \"The practice of what is ethically best--what we call\ngoodness or virtue--involves a course of conduct which, in all\nrespects, is opposed to that which leads to success in the cosmic\nstruggle for existence. In place of ruthless self-assertion, it demands\nself-restraint; in place of thrusting aside, or treading down, all\ncompetitors, it requires that the individual shall not merely respect,\nbut shall help his fellows; its influence is directed, not so much to\nthe survival of the fittest, as to the fitting of as many as possible\nto survive.\" Lecture at Oxford on \"Ethics and Evolution.\"\n\n[24] See Dr. Martineau's Types of Ethical Theory, II, pp. 5, 99-110.\n\n[25] W. Whewell, Elements of Morality, Sect. 275.\n\n[26] The Doctrine of Morality, by Dr. R. B. Fairbairn (Whitaker, N. Y.,\n1887), pp. 109-113.\n\n[27] This feature is recognized in what is usually termed \"formal\nfreedom,\" _i. e._ that psychical capacity of rational choice which\nis essentially formative of \"personality.\" To lose this would be the\nloss of personality. Whether the power of free choice between good\nand evil is impaired in man's corrupt state, being put in bondage or\nsubserviency to a depraved love of sin, is quite a different question.\n\n[28] \"Liberum arbitrium habetur, quando positis ad agendum requisitis,\npotest quis agere vel non agere.\" Quoted from W. S. Lilly's Right and\nWrong, p. 104, 2d Ed., London, Chapman and Hall.\n\n[29] Part I, Chap. VI.\n\n[30] Materialistic evolution, which holds matter as being the energy\nand cause of all things, leaves no place for free-will, because in\ntruth it leaves no place for mind. For \"mind\" or \"soul\" as a real\nentity or being which thinks, feels and wills, it substitutes mere\n\"mentality\" as an effect of atomic or molecular changes in the brain.\n\"Mind,\" as a self-conscious spirit that itself self-knowingly acts,\nis repudiated. Nothing is left but a series of sensations, thoughts\nand wishes that are as truly physically-produced effects as are the\nvaried perfumes of flowers, the fall of rain or the waves of the sea.\nNo selfhood remains in man but the physical organism which, in material\ncausation, gives out the various forms of products or manifestations\ndenominated \"mental.\" But this materialistic theory is not science. It\nnot only stands contradicted by the common judgment of mankind in all\nages, but breaks down utterly in the presence of scientific psychology.\nFor this finds among its unquestionable and irreducible facts a\nreal self-conscious subject or self back of the series of thoughts,\nemotions and volitions, holding all these psychical experiences in its\nunitary consciousness, and, with its memories of the past, carrying\nits personal identity through present activity on into the future.\nThe series of mental experiences, in the theory, are independent of\neach other and dependent only on the brain changes which directly\nproduce them, and thus, by necessity, ignorant of each other. Personal\nidentity, therefore, is full disproof of the theory. For personal\nidentity rests in a single abiding consciousness, in which all separate\nmental acts are known as its own acts, the materials for memory and\ncomparison. The truth is, that all moral distinctions arise out of the\nconviction that each individual, in the center of his personality, is a\nsoul, itself determining its rational choices and responsible for the\nconduct of life.\n\n[31] The contradiction thus involved is well put by Prof. E. D. Roe,\nof Oberlin, O., in Bibliotheca Sacra, Oct., 1894: \"This law (autonomy)\npre-supposes the freedom of the will, for without freedom 'oughtness,'\n'responsibility' and 'repentance' would possess no significance. Every\none, as the necessarians admit, acts under the idea of freedom. Their\nhypothesis to explain this is, that the subject acts under illusion\n(necessary illusion, of course). But here an hypothesis is necessary to\nexplain the hypothesis. Why, if necessity is the truth, is the subject\nnecessitated to believe falsity? A very strange truth it is which\nnecessitates itself to be disbelieved.\" Pp. 656, 657.\n\n[32] See Introduction to the Study of Philosophy, by J. H. W.\nStuckenberg, D. D. (Armstrong & Sons, New York, 1888), pp. 321, 322.\n\n[33] Metaphysics, Lect. VIII.\n\n[34] See Dr. McCosh's Defense of Fundamental Truth, Chap. X, 3.\n\n[35] First Principles, Chap. IV, \u00a7 22.\n\n[36] Quoted from Dr. McCosh. Fundamental Truths, Chap. X, 3.\n\n[37] This is the old apothem: The _ratio cognoscendi_ is grounded in\nthe _ratio essendi_.\n\n[38] See A. Alexander's Moral Science, Chap. VII.\n\n[39] Brace's The Unknown God (A. C. Armstrong & Son, N. Y.), pp. 1-40;\nThe Oldest Book in the World, in Bibliotheca Sacra, Oct., 1888.\n\n[40] Quoted by Prof. Jas. Legge, in The Religions of China, from\nConfucius's Doctrine of the Mean (Chas. Scribner's Sons, New York), p.\n139.\n\n[41] Wuttke's Christian Ethics, I, pp. 47-52.\n\n[42] Wuttke's Christian Ethics, I, p. 59; Brace's Unknown God, pp.\n182-197; S. D. F. Salmond's The Christian Doctrine of Immortality (F. &\nT. Clark, 1895), Chap. VI.\n\n[43] \u03b5\u1f50\u03b4\u03b1\u03b9\u03bc\u03bf\u03bd\u03af\u03b1 [Greek: eudaimonia].\n\n[44] Republic X, 613a; Theaet., 176.\n\n[45] See Wuttke's Christian Ethics, Vol. I, Sec. 14, and Martineau's\nTypes of Ethical Theory, Book I, Branch I.\n\n[46] See Luthardt's Christian Ethics (T. & T. Clark), Vol. I, p. 9.\n\n[47] \u1f41\u03bc\u03bf\u03bb\u03bf\u03b3\u03bf\u03c5\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03c9\u03c2 \u03c4\u1fc7 \u03c6\u03cd\u03c3\u03b5\u03b9 \u03b6\u1fc6\u03bd [Greek: homologoumen\u00f4s t\u00ea physei z\u00ean],\nDiogenes, L. VII, 87.\n\n[48] The quotation, Acts 17:28, is probably from the Ph\u00e6nomena of the\nStoic poet Aratus.\n\n[49] See Dr. Dorner's System of Christian Doc., II, p. 14.\n\n[50] See Horace, Book III, Ode III. Sophocles' \u0152dipus Tyrannus, lines\n863-871. Peter Bayne's Testimony of Christ to Christianity, p. 44.\n\n[51] Prof. Borden P. Bowne designates this teaching as \"the goods\nethics.\" Principles of Ethics (Harper & Bros.), Ch. I.\n\n[52] Moral and Political Philosophy, Chap. VI.\n\n[53] See pp. 133-137.\n\n[54] Herbert Spencer, Data of Ethics, \u00a7 45.\n\n[55] What is Reality? by Francis Howe Johnson (Houghton, Mifflin & Co.,\nBoston), pp. 475-498.\n\n[56] Lecky, in History of European Morals, says: \"In all nations and\nin all ages, the ideas of interest and utility on the one hand and of\nvirtue on the other, have been regarded by the multitude as perfectly\ndistinct, and all languages recognize the distinction. The terms\nhonor, justice, rectitude, or virtue, and their equivalents in every\nlanguage, present to the mind ideas essentially and broadly differing\nfrom the terms prudence, sagacity, or interest. The two lines of\nconduct may coincide, but they are never confused, and we have not the\nslightest difficulty in imagining them antagonistic. When we say a\nman is governed by a high sense of honor, or by strong moral feeling,\nwe do not mean that he is prudently pursuing either his own interests\nor the interests of society.\" ... \"There is no fact more conspicuous\nin human nature than the broad distinction, both in kind and degree,\ndrawn between the moral and the other parts of our nature. But this on\nutilitarian principles is altogether unaccountable. If the excellence\nof virtue consists solely in its utility or tendency to promote the\nhappiness of men, we should be compelled to canonize a crowd of acts\nwhich are utterly remote from all ordinary motives of morality.\" Vol.\nI, Chap. I.\n\n[57] Moral Science (Boston, 1867), pp. 39-44.\n\n[58] Christian Ethics, p. 104.\n\n[59] Borden P. Bowne, Principles of Ethics, p. 113.\n\n[60] B. F. Cocker, Theistic Conception of the World, p. 377.\n\n[61] Types of Ethical Theory, Vol. II, \u00a7 15.\n\n[62] Principles of Ethics, pp. 39-40. For a clear exposition of this\ndistinction, see Dr. D. S. Gregory's Christian Ethics, Pt. I, Divis.\nIII, sec. 1.\n\n[63] Martensen's Christian Ethics (General), \u00a7 7.\n\n[64] Newman Smyth's Christian Ethics (Charles Scribner's Sons, 1892),\np. 3.\n\n[65] Newman Smyth's Christian Ethics, p. 60.\n\n[66] John 1:4; 8: 12; 9: 5.\n\n[67] \"Theism,\" p. 305.\n\n[68] James Martineau, in Nineteenth Century, Vol. I, quoted by Prof.\nDrummond in \"Natural Law in the Spiritual World\" (J. Pott & Co., New\nYork), p. 168.\n\n\n\n\n * * * * *\n\n\n\n\nTranscriber's note:\n\nPunctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant\npreference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed.\n\nSimple typographical errors were corrected; occasional unbalanced\nquotation marks retained.\n\nAmbiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained.\n\n\nPage 9: \"62-76\" was misprinted as \"62-80\"; corrected here.\n\nPage 10: \"168-178\" was misprinted as \"168-170\"; corrected here.\n\nPage 12: \"200-205\" was printed as \"200\"; changed here for consistency.\n\nPage 13: \"205-216\" was printed as \"205\"; changed here for consistency.","title":"Theoretical Ethics","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":58106}