History As Past Ethics

Part Ii. the Ethics of Buddhism: an Ideal of Self-Conquest

AND UNIVERSAL BENEVOLENCE 106

I. THE PHILOSOPHICAL BASIS OF THE SYSTEM 106

II. THE IDEAL 110

III. SOME EXPRESSIONS OF THE ETHICAL SPIRIT OF BUDDHISM 115

VIII. THE ETHICS OF ZOROASTRIANISM: AN IDEAL OF COMBAT 123

I. PHILOSOPHICAL AND RELIGIOUS IDEAS WHICH CREATED THE ETHICAL TYPE 123

II. THE IDEAL 126

III. THE PRACTICE 131

IX. THE MORAL EVOLUTION IN ISRAEL: AN IDEAL OF OBEDIENCE TO A REVEALED LAW 135

I. THE RELIGIOUS BASIS OF HEBREW MORALITY 135

II. THE EVOLUTION OF THE MORAL IDEAL 140

1. The Development up to the Exile 140

2. The Morality of the Prophets of the Exile 157

3. The Moral Life in the Postexilic Age 162

X. THE MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS OF HELLAS: AN IDEAL OF SELF-REALIZATION 169

I. INSTITUTIONS AND IDEAS DETERMINING THE MORAL TYPE 169

II. THE IDEAL 174

III. LIMITATIONS AND DEFECTS OF THE IDEAL 179

IV. THE MORAL EVOLUTION 185

XI. ROMAN MORALS: AN IDEAL OF CIVIC DUTY 212

I. INSTITUTIONS AND CONDITIONS OF LIFE DETERMINING THE EARLY MORAL TYPE 212

II. THE PRIMITIVE MORAL TYPE 214

III. THE MORAL EVOLUTION UNDER THE REPUBLIC 218

IV. THE MORAL EVOLUTION UNDER THE PAGAN EMPIRE 231

XII. THE ETHICS OF DOCTRINAL CHRISTIANITY: AN IDEAL OF RIGHT BELIEF 255

I. RELIGIOUS IDEAS AND THEOLOGICAL DOGMAS MOLDING THE IDEAL 256

II. THE MORAL IDEAL 261

XIII. MORAL HISTORY OF THE AGE OF CHRISTIAN ASCETICISM 267

I. CONCEPTIONS OF LIFE AND HISTORICAL CIRCUMSTANCES THAT PRODUCED THE ASCETIC IDEAL 267

II. THE IDEAL AND ITS CHIEF TYPES 270

III. THE CHIEF MORAL FACTS OF THE PERIOD 272

XIV. THE ETHICS OF ISLAM: A MARTIAL IDEAL 288

I. RELIGIOUS BASIS OF THE MORAL SYSTEM 288

II. THE MORAL CODE 289

III. THE MORAL LIFE 293

XV. THE MORAL LIFE OF EUROPE DURING THE AGE OF CHIVALRY 300

I. THE CHURCH CONSECRATES THE MARTIAL IDEAL OF KNIGHTHOOD 300

II. THE COMPOSITE IDEAL OF KNIGHTHOOD 306

III. THE CHIEF MORAL PHENOMENA OF THE PERIOD 309

XVI. RENAISSANCE ETHICS: REVIVAL OF NATURALISM IN MORALS 320

I. DETERMINING INFLUENCES 320

II. SOME ESSENTIAL FACTS IN THE MORAL HISTORY OF THE AGE 322

XVII. ETHICS OF THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION 333

I. PRINCIPLES OF THE REFORMATION OF ETHICAL IMPORT 333

II. SOME IMPORTANT MORAL OUTCOMES OF THE SIXTEENTH-CENTURY RELIGIOUS REFORM 334

XVIII. THE MORAL EVOLUTION SINCE THE INCOMING OF DEMOCRACY: THE NEW SOCIAL AND INTERNATIONAL CONSCIENCE 340

I. FORCES DETERMINING THE TREND OF THE ETHICAL MOVEMENT 340

II. EXPRESSIONS OF THE NEW MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN DIFFERENT DOMAINS OF LIFE AND THOUGHT 344

1. The Ethics of Democracy 344

2. The Ethics of Industrialism 347

3. The Ethics of Modern Science 353

4. The Ethics of Theology 360

5. Social Ethics: the New Social Conscience 364

6. International Ethics: the New International Conscience 371

INDEX 383

HISTORY AS PAST ETHICS

CHAPTER I. Introduction

INTRODUCTION

Professor Freeman defined history as “past politics.” Mr. Buckle argued that the essence of the historical evolution consists in intellectual progress. Many present-day economists hold that the dominant forces in the historical development are economic. Churchmen consistently make the chief factor in history to be religion.

Whether the upholders of these several interpretations of history would have us understand them as speaking of the ultimate goal of the historic evolution, or merely of the dominant motive under which men and society act, none of these interpretations can be accepted by the student of the facts of the moral life of the race as a true reading of history. To him not only does moral progress constitute the very essence of the historic movement, but the ethical motive presents itself as the most constant and regulative force in the evolution of humanity. His chief interest in all the other factors of the historical evolution is in noting in what way and in what measure they have contributed to the growth and enrichment of the moral life of mankind.

Thus the historian of morals is deeply interested in the growth of political institutions among men, but chiefly in observing in what way these institutions have affected for good or for evil the moral life of the nation. Particularly is the progress of the world toward political unity a matter of profound concern to him, not because he regards the establishment of the world state as an end in itself, but because the universal state alone can furnish those conditions under which the moral life of humanity can most freely expatiate and find its noblest and truest expression.

It is the same with intellectual progress. The student of morals recognizes the fact that the progress of the race in morality is normally dependent upon its progress in knowledge--that conscience waits upon the intellect. But in opposition to Buckle and those of his school, he maintains that, so far from an advance in knowledge constituting the essence of a progressive civilization, this mental advance constitutes merely the condition precedent of real civilization, the distinctive characteristic of which must be a true morality. A civilization or culture which does not include this is doomed to quick retrogression and decay. As Benjamin Kidd truly observes, “When the intellectual development of any section of the race, for the time being, outruns the ethical development, natural selection has apparently weeded it out like any other unsuitable product.”

As with the political and intellectual elements of civilization so is it with the economic. The outward forms of the moral life are, it is true, largely determined by the industry of a people; but the informing spirit of morality is the expression of an implanted faculty. It is elicited but not created by environment. No industrial order from which it is lacking can long endure. Natural selection condemns it as unfit. And this we are beginning to recognize--that economics and ethics cannot be divorced, that every great industrial problem is at bottom a moral problem. To the student of the ethical phase of history all social reformers from the old Hebrew prophets down to Karl Marx and Henry George are primarily moralists pleading for social justice, equity, and righteousness.

And preëminently the same is it with religion. Religion has been a great part of the life of man, and the historian of morals must be a diligent student of the religious systems of the world, but mainly because religion has been in general such a potent agency in the moral education of mankind. For it is the ethical factor in the great world religions which constitutes their universal and permanent element. “It is the function of religion to kindle moral enthusiasm in society at large.” “Christianity has no other function or value than as an aid to morality.” All the great religions of the world--Buddhism, Confucianism, Zoroastrianism, Judaism (reckoning historic Judaism as beginning with the great prophets of the ninth and eighth centuries B.C.), Christianity, and Islam--began as moral reforms.

In short, in the words of Wellhausen, “Morality is that for the sake of which all other things exist; it is the alone essential thing in the world.” The really constructive and regulative forces in history are in truth moral ideas and convictions. And there is vast significance in this--that the ethical motive, never absent and always active, is constantly becoming more and more dominant in the processes of the historical evolution. As the ages pass there enters into history--we shall see this to be so later--an ever larger ethical element. Conscience becomes ever more and more involved in the personal, national, and international affairs of the world.

Moral progress consists not so much in changes in the quality or intensity of the moral emotions, although these gain in diversity, purity, and refinement as time passes, as in the successive enlargements of the circle of persons embraced by the moral feelings. “It is not the sense of duty to a neighbor, but the practical answer to the question, Who is my neighbor? that has varied.” As we shall see when we come to examine the morality of primitive man, the moral feelings embrace at first only kinsmen, that is, the members of one’s own family, clan, or social group. All others are outside the moral pale. But gradually this circle grows larger and embraces in successive expansions the tribe, the city, the nation, and lastly humanity.

This expansion of the area covered by the moral feelings is the dominant fact in the moral history of mankind. It is the overlooking of this fact that has caused writers like Buckle to make their strange misreading of history and to maintain that though man during historic times has made immense progress on material and intellectual lines, he has made little or no progress in morality. The truth is, as we shall learn, that in no domain has progress been greater, the gains larger or more precious, than in the moral. From clan morality, based on physical kinship, mankind has advanced or is advancing to world morality, based on the ethical kinship of men. This is the one increasing purpose running through all history--the creation of a moral order embracing the whole human race.

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