Lecture Ii. the _divine Laws_ Are the Known Commands of the Deity,

enforced by the evils that we may suffer here or hereafter for breaking them. Some of these laws are revealed, others unrevealed. Paley and others have proved that it was not the purpose of Revelation to disclose the whole of our duties; the Light of Nature is an additional source. But how are we to interpret this Light of Nature?

The various hypotheses for resolving this question may be reduced to two: (1) an Innate Sentiment, called a Moral Sense, Common Sense, Practical Reason, &c.; and (2) the Theory of Utility.

The author avows his adherence to the theory of Utility, which he connects with the Divine Benevolence in the manner of Bentham. God designs the happiness of sentient beings. Some actions forward that purpose, others frustrate it. The first, God has enjoined; the second, He has forbidden. Knowing, therefore, the tendency of any action, we know the Divine command with respect to it.

The tendency of an action is all its consequences near and remote, certain and probable, direct and collateral. A petty theft, or the evasion of a trifling tax, may be insignificant, or even good, in the direct and immediate consequences; but before the full tendency can be weighed, we must resolve the question:--What would be the probable effect on the general happiness or good, if similar acts, or omissions, were general or frequent?

When the theory of Utility is correctly stated, the current objections are easily refuted. As viewed by the author, Utility is not the fountain or source of our duties; this must be commands and sanctions. But it is the index of the will of the law-giver, who is presumed to have for his chief end the happiness or good of mankind.

The most specious objection to Utility is the supposed necessity of going through a calculation of the consequences of every act that we have to perform, an operation often beyond our power, and likely to be abused to forward our private wishes. To this, the author replies first, that supposing utility our only index, we must make the best of it. Of course, if we were endowed with a moral sense, a special organ for ascertaining our duties, the attempt to displace that invincible consciousness, and to thrust the principle of utility into the vacant seat, would be impossible and absurd.

According to the theory of Utility, our conduct would conform to rules inferred from the tendencies of actions, but would not be determined by a direct resort to the principle of general utility. Utility would be the ultimate, not the immediate test. To preface each act or forbearance by a conjecture and comparison of consequences were both superfluous and mischievous:--superfluous, inasmuch as the result is already embodied in a known rule; and mischievous, inasmuch as the process, if performed on the spur of the occasion, would probably be faulty.

With the rules are associated sentiments, the result of the Divine, or other, command to obey the rules. It is a gross and flagrant error to talk of substituting calculation for sentiment; this is to oppose the rudder to the sail. Sentiment without calculation were capricious; calculation without sentiment is inert.

There are cases where the specific consequences of an action are so momentous as to overbear the rule; for example, resistance to a bad government, which the author calls an anomalous question, to be tried not by the rule, but by a direct resort to the ultimate or presiding-principle, and by a separate calculation of good and evil. Such was the political emergency of the Commonwealth, and the American revolution. It would have been well, the author thinks, if utility had been the sole guide in both cases.

There is a second objection to Utility, more perplexing to deal with. How can we know fully and correctly all the consequences of actions? The answer is that Ethics, as a science of observation and induction, has been formed, through a long succession of ages, by many and separate contributions from many and separate discoverers. Like all other sciences, it is progressive, although unfortunately, subject to special drawbacks. The men that have enquired, or affected to enquire, into Ethics, have rarely been impartial; they have laboured under prejudices or sinister interests; and have been the advocates of foregone conclusions. There is not on this subject a concurrence or agreement of numerous and impartial enquirers. Indeed, many of the legal and moral rules of the most civilized communities arose in the infancy of the human mind, partly from caprices of the fancy (nearly omnipotent with barbarians), and partly from an imperfect apprehension of general utility, the result of a narrow experience. Thus the diffusion and the advancement of ethical truth encounter great and peculiar obstacles, only to be removed by a better general education extended to the mass of the people. It is desirable that the community should be indoctrinated with sound views of property, and with the dependence of wealth, upon the true principle of population, discovered by Malthus, all which they are competent to understand.

The author refers to Paley's Moral Philosophy as an example of the perverting tendency of narrow and domineering interests in the domain of ethics. With many commendable points, there is, in that work, much ignoble truckling to the dominant and influential few, and a deal of shabby sophistry in defending abuses that the few were interested in upholding.

As a farther answer to the second objection, he remarks, that it applies to every theory of ethics that supposes our duties to be set by the Deity. Christianity itself is defective, considered as a system of rules for tho guidance of human conduct.

He then turns to the alternative of a Moral Sense. This involves two assumptions.

First, Certain sentiments, or feelings of approbation or disapprobation, accompany our conceptions of certain human actions. These feelings are neither the result of our reflection on the tendencies of actions, nor the result of education; the sentiments would follow the conception, although we had neither adverted to the good or evil tendency of the actions, nor become aware of the opinions of others regarding them. This theory denies that the sentiments known to exist can be produced by education. We approve and disapprove of actions we know not why.

The author adapts Paley's supposition of the savage, in order to express strongly what the moral sense implies. But we will confine ourselves to his reasonings. Is there, he asks, any evidence of our being gifted with such feelings? The very putting of such a question would seem a sufficient proof that we are not so endowed. There ought to be no more doubt about them, than about hunger or thirst.

It is alleged in their favour that our judgments of rectitude and depravity are immediate and voluntary. The reply is that sentiments begotten by association are no less prompt and involuntary than our instincts. Our response to a money gain, or a money loss, is as prompt as our compliance with the primitive appetites of the system. We begin by loving knowledge as a means to ends; but, in time, the end is inseparably associated with the instrument. So a moral sentiment dictated by utility, if often exercised, would be rapid and direct in its operation.

It is farther alleged, as a proof of the innate character of the moral judgments, that the moral sentiments of all men are precisely alike. The argument may be put thus:--No opinion or sentiment resulting from observation and induction is held or felt by all mankind: Observation and induction, as applied to the same subject, lead different men to different conclusions. Now, the judgments passed internally on the rectitude or pravity of actions, or the moral sentiments, are precisely alike with all men. Therefore, our moral sentiments are not the result of our inductions of the tendencies of actions; nor were they derived from others, and impressed by authority and example. Consequently, the moral sentiments are instinctive, or ultimate and inscrutable facts.

To refute such an argument is superfluous; it is based on a groundless assertion. The moral sentiments of men have differed to infinity. With regard to a few classes of actions, the moral judgments of most, though not of all, men have been alike. With regard to others, they have differed, through every shade or degree, from slight diversity to direct opposition.

But this is exactly what we should expect on the principle of utility. With regard to some actions, the dictates of utility are the same at all times and places, and are so obvious as hardly to admit of mistake or doubt. On the other hand, men's positions in different ages and nations are in many respects widely different; so that what was useful there and then is useless or pernicious here and now. Moreover, since human tastes are various, and human reason is fallible, men's moral sentiments often widely differ in the same positions.

He next alludes to some prevailing misconceptions in regard to utility. One is the confusion of the test with the motive. The general good is the test, or rather the index to the ultimate measure or test, the Divine commands; but it is not in all, or even in most cases, the motive or inducement.

The principle of utility does not demand that we shall always or habitually attend to the general good; although it does demand that we shall not pursue our own particular good by means that are inconsistent with that paramount object. It permits the pursuit of our own pleasures as pleasure. Even as regards the good of others, it commonly requires us to be governed by partial, rather than by general benevolence; by the narrower circle of family and friends rather than by the larger humanity that embraces mankind. It requires us to act where we act with the utmost effect; that is, within the sphere best known to us. The limitations to this principle, the adjustment of the selfish to the social motives, of partial sympathy to general benevolence, belong to the detail of ethics.

The second misconception of Utility is to confound it with a particular hypothesis concerning the Origin of Benevolence, commonly styled the selfish system. Hartley and some others having affirmed that benevolence is not an ultimate fact, but an emanation from self-love, through the association of ideas, it has been fancied that these writers dispute the existence of disinterested benevolence or sympathy. Now, the selfish system, in its literal import, is flatly inconsistent with obvious facts, but this is not the system contended for by the writers in question. Still, this distortion has been laid hold of by the opponents of utility, and maintained to be a necessary part of that system; hence the supporters of utility are styled 'selfish, sordid, and cold-blooded calculators.' But, as already said, the theory of utility is not a theory of motives; it holds equally good whether benevolence be what it is called, or merely a provident regard to self: whether it be a simple fact, or engendered by association on self-regard. Paley mixed up Utility with self-regarding motives; but his theory of these is miserably shallow and defective, and amounted to a denial of genuine benevolence or sympathy.

Austin's Fifth LECTURE is devoted to a full elucidation of the meanings of Law. He had, at the outset, made the distinction between Laws properly so called, and Laws improperly so called. Of the second class, some are closely allied to Laws proper, possessing in fact their main or essential attributes; others are laws only by metaphor. Laws proper, and those closely allied to them among laws proper, are divisible into three classes. The first are the Divine Law or Laws. The second is named Positive Law or Positive Laws; and corresponds with Legislation. The third he calls Positive Morality, or positive moral rules; it is the same as Morals or Ethics.

Reverting to the definition of Law, he gives the following three essentials:--1. Every law is a command, and emanates from a determinate source or another. 2. Every sanction is an eventual evil annexed to a command. 3. Every duty supposes a command whereby it is created. Now, tried by these tests, the laws of God are laws proper; so are positive laws, by which are meant laws established by monarchs as supreme political superiors, by subordinate political superiors, and by subjects, as private persons, in pursuance of legal rights.

But as regards Positive Morality, or moral rules, some have so far the essentials of an imperative law or rule, that they are rules set by men to men. But they are not set by men as political superiors, nor by men as private persons, in pursuance of legal rights; in this respect they differ from positive laws, they are not clothed with legal sanctions.

The most important department of positive morality includes the laws set or imposed by general opinion, as for example the laws of honour, and of fashion. Now these are not laws in the strict meaning of the word, because the authors are an indeterminate or uncertain aggregate of persons. Still, they have the closest alliance with Laws proper, seeing that being armed with a sanction, they impose a duty. The persons obnoxious to the sanction generally do or forbear the acts enjoined or forbidden; which is all that can happen under the highest type of law.

The author then refers to Locke's division of law, which, although faulty in the analysis, and inaptly expressed, tallies in the main with what he has laid down.

Of Metaphorical or figurative laws, the most usual is that suggested by the fact of uniformity, which is one of the ordinary consequences of a law proper. Such are the laws of nature, or the uniformities of co-existence and succession in natural phenomena.

Another metaphorical extension is to a model or pattern, because a law presents something as a guide to human conduct. In this sense, a man may set a law to himself, meaning a plan or model, and not a law in the proper sense of a command. So a rule of art is devoid of a sanction, and therefore of the idea of duty.

A confusion of ideas also exists as to the meaning of a sanction. Bentham styles the evils arising in the course of nature physical sanctions, as if the omission to guard against fire were a sin or an immorality, punished by the destruction of one's house. But although this is an evil happening to a rational being, and brought on by a voluntary act or omission, it is not the result of a law in the proper sense of the term. What is produced naturally, says Locke, is produced without the intervention of a law.

Austin is thus seen to be one of the most strenuous advocates of Utility as the Standard, and is distinguished for the lucidity of his exposition, and the force of his replies to the objections made against it.

He is also the best expounder of the relationship of Morality to Law.

WILLIAM WHEWELL. [1794-1866.]

Dr. Whewell's chief Ethical works are, 'Elements of Morality, including Polity,' and 'Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy in England.'

We may refer for his views to either work. The following abstract is taken from the latest (4th) edition of his Elements (1864).

In the Preface he indicates the general scope of the work. Morality has its root in the Common Nature of Man; a scheme of Morality must conform to the Common Sense of mankind, in so far as that is consistent with itself. Now, this Common Sense of Mankind has in every age led to two seemingly opposite schemes of Morality, the one making Virtue, and the other making Pleasure, the rule of action. On the one side, men urge the claims of Rectitude, Duty, Conscience, the Moral Faculty; on the other, they declare Utility, Expediency, Interest, Enjoyment, to be the proper guides.

Both systems are liable to objections. Against the scheme of Pleasure, it is urged that we never, in fact, identify virtue as merely useful. Against the scheme of Virtue, it is maintained that virtue is a matter of opinion, and that Conscience varies in different ages, countries, and persons. It is necessary that a scheme of Morality should surmount both classes of objections; and the author therefore attempts a reconciliation of the two opposing theories.

He prepares the way by asking, whether there are any actions, or qualities of actions, universally approved; and whether there are any moral rules accepted by the Common Sense of mankind as universally valid? The reply is that there are such, as, for example, the virtues termed Veracity, Justice, Benevolence. He does not enquire why these are approved; he accepts the fact of the approval, and considers that here we have the basis of a Moral System, not liable to either of the opposing objections above recited.

He supposes, however, that the alleged agreement may be challenged, first, as not existing; and next, as insufficient to reason from.

1. It may be maintained that the excellence of the three virtues named is not universally assented to; departures from them being allowed both in practice and in theory. The answer is, that the principles may be admitted, although the interpretation varies. Men allow Fidelity and Kindness to be virtues, although in an early stage of moral progress they do not make the application beyond their own friends; it is only at an advanced stage that they include enemies. The Romans at first held stranger and enemy to be synonymous; but afterwards they applauded the sentiment of the poet, homo sum, &c. Moral principles must be what we approve of, when we speak in the name of the whole human species.

2. It may be said that such principles are too vague and loose to reason from. A verbal agreement in employing the terms truthful, just, humane, does not prove a real agreement as to the actions; and the particulars must be held as explaining the generalities.

The author holds this objection to be erroneous; and the scheme of his work is intended to meet it. He proceeds as follows:--

He allows that we must fix what is meant by right, which carries with it the meaning of Virtue and of Duty. Now, in saying an action is right, there is this idea conveyed, namely, that we render such a reason for it, as shall be paramount to all other considerations. Right must be the Supreme Rule. How then are we to arrive at this rule?

The supreme rule is the authority over all the faculties and impulses; and is made up of the partial rules according to the separate faculties, powers, and impulses. We are to look, in the first instance, to the several faculties or departments of the mind; for, in connexion with each of these, we shall find an irresistible propriety inherent in the very nature of the faculty.

For example, man lives in the society of fellow-men; his actions derive their meaning from this position. He has the faculty of Speech, whereby his actions are connected with other men. Now, as man is under a supreme moral rule, [this the author appears to assume in the very act of proving it], there must be a rule of right as regards the use of Speech; which rule can be no other than truth and falsehood. In other words, veracity is a virtue.

Again, man, as a social being, has to divide with others the possession of the world, in other words, to possess Property; whence there must be a rule of Property, that is, each man is to have his own. Whence Justice is seen to be a virtue.

The author thinks himself at one with the common notions of mankind in pronouncing that the Faculty of Speech, the Desire of Possessions, and the Affections, are properly regulated, not by any extraneous purposes or ends to be served by them, but by Veracity, Justice, and Humanity, respectively.

He explains his position farther, by professing to follow Butler in the doctrine that, through the mere contemplation of our human faculties and springs of action, we can discern certain relations which must exist among them by the necessity of man's moral being. Butler maintains that, by merely comparing appetite with conscience as springs of action, we see conscience is superior and ought to rule; and Whewell conceives this to be self-evident, and expresses it by stating that the Lower parts of our nature are to be governed by the Higher. Men being considered as social beings, capable of mutual understanding through speech, it is self-evident that their rule must include veracity. In like manner, it is self-evident from the same consideration of social relationship, that each man should abstain from violence and anger towards others, that is, love his fellow men.

Remarking on the plea of the utilitarian, that truth may be justified by the intolerable consequences of its habitual violation, he urges that this is no reason against its being intuitively perceived; just as the axioms of geometry, although intuitively felt, are confirmed by showing the incongruities following on their denial. He repeats the common allegation in favour of à priori principles generally, that no consideration of evil consequences would give the sense of universality of obligation attaching to the fundamental moral maxims; and endeavours to show that his favourite antithesis of Idea and Fact conciliates the internal essence and the external conditions of morality. The Idea is invariable and universal; the Fact, or outward circumstances, may vary historically and geographically. Morality must in some measure be dependent on Law, but yet there is an Idea of Justice above law.

It very naturally occurred to many readers of Whewell's scheme, that in so far as he endeavours to give any reason for the foundations of morality, he runs in a vicious circle. He proposes to establish his supreme universal rule, by showing it to be only a summing up of certain rules swaying the several portions or departments of our nature--Veracity, Justice, &c., while, in considering the obligation of these rules, he assumes that man is a moral being, which is another way of saying that he is to be under a supreme moral rule. In his latest edition, the author has replied to this charge, but so briefly as to cast no new light on his position. He only repeats that the Supreme rule of Human Action is given by the constitution and conditions of human nature. His ethical principle may be not unfairly expressed by saying, that he recognizes a certain intrinsic fitness in exercising the organ of speech according to its social uses, that is, in promoting a right understanding among men; and so with Justice, as the fitness of property, and Humanity, as the fitness of the Affections. This fitness is intuitively felt. Human happiness is admitted to be a consequence of these rules; but happiness is not a sufficient end in itself; morality is also an end in itself. Human happiness is not to be conceived or admitted, except as containing a moral element; in addition to the direct gratifications of human life, we must include the delight of virtue. [How men can be compelled to postpone their pleasurable sense of the good things of life, till they have contracted a delight in virtue for its own sake, the author does not say. It has been the great object of moralists in all ages, to impart by education such a state of mind as to spoil the common gratifications, if they are viciously procured; the comparatively little success of the endeavour, shows that nature has done little to favour it.]

The foregoing is an abstract of the Introduction to the 4th Edition of the Elements of Morality. We shall present the author's views respecting the other questions of Morality in the form of the usual summary.

I.--As regards the Standard, enough has been already indicated.

II.--The Psychology of the Moral Faculty is given by Whewell as part of a classification of our Active Powers, or, as he calls them, Springs of Action. These are: I.--The Appetites or Bodily Desires, as Hunger and Thirst, and the desires of whatever things have been found to gratify the senses. II.--The Affections, which are directed to persons; they fall under the two heads Love and Anger. III.--The Mental Desires, having for their objects certain abstractions. They are the desire of Safety, including Security and Liberty; the desire of Having, or Property; the desire of Society in all its forms--Family Society and Civil Society, under which is included the need of Mutual Understanding; the desire of Superiority; and the Desire of Knowledge. IV.--The Moral Sentiments. Our judgment of actions as right or wrong is accompanied by certain Affections or Sentiments, named Approbation and Disapprobation, Indignation and Esteem; these are the Moral Sentiments. V.--The Reflex Sentiments, namely, the desires of being Loved, of Esteem or Admiration, of our own Approval; and generally all springs of action designated by the word self--for example, self-love.

With regard to the Moral Sentiment, or Conscience, in particular, the author's resolution of Morality into Moral Rules, necessarily supposes an exercise of the Reason, together with the Affections above described. He expressly mentions 'the Practical Reason, which guides us in applying Rules to our actions, and in discerning the consequences of actions.' He does not allow Individual Conscience as an ultimate or supreme authority, but requires it to be conformed to the Supreme Moral Rules, arrived at in the manner above described.

On the subject of Disinterestedness, he maintains a modification of Paley's selfish theory. He allows that some persons are so far disinterested as to be capable of benevolence and self-sacrifice, without any motive of reward or punishment; but 'to require that all persons should be such, would be not only to require what we certainly shall not find, but to put the requirements of our Morality in a shape in which it cannot convince men.' Accordingly, like Paley, he places the doctrine that 'to promote the happiness of others will lead to our own happiness,' exclusively on the ground of Religion. He honours the principle that 'virtue is happiness,' but prefers for mankind generally the form, 'virtue is the way to happiness.' In short, he places no reliance on the purely Disinterested impulses of mankind, although he admits the existence of such.

III.--He discusses the Summum Bonum, or Happiness, only with reference to his Ethical theory. The attaining of the objects of our desires yields Enjoyment or Pleasure, which cannot be the supreme end of life, being distinguished from, and opposed to, Duty. Happiness is Pleasure and Duty combined and harmonized by Wisdom. 'As moral beings, our Happiness must be found in our Moral Progress, and in the consequences of our Moral Progress; we must be happy by being virtuous.'

He complains of the moralists that reduce virtue to Happiness (in the sense of human pleasure), that they fail to provide a measure of happiness, or to resolve it into definite elements; and again urges the impossibility of calculating the whole consequences of an action upon human happiness.

IV.--With respect to the Moral Code, Whewell's arrangement is interwoven with his derivation of moral rules. He enumerates five Cardinal Virtues as the substance of morality:--BENEVOLENCE, which gives expansion to our Love; JUSTICE, as prescribing the measure of our Mental Desires; TRUTH, the law of Speech in connexion with its purpose; PURITY, the control of the Bodily Appetites; and ORDER (obedience to the Laws), which engages the Reason in the consideration of Rules and Laws for defining Virtue and Vice. Thus the five leading branches of virtue have a certain parallelism to the five chief classes of motives--Bodily Appetites, Mental Desires, Love and its opposite, the need of a Mutual Understanding, and Reason.

As already seen, he considers it possible to derive every one of these virtues from the consideration of man's situation with reference to each:--Benevolence, or Humanity, from our social relationship; Justice, from the nature of Property; Truth, from, the employment of Language for mutual Understanding; Purity, from considering the lower parts of our nature (the Appetites) as governed by the higher; and Order, from the relation of Governor and Governed. By a self-evident, intuitive, irresistible consideration of the circumstances of the case, we are led to these several virtues in the detail, and their sum is the Supreme Rule of Life.

Not content with these five express moral principles, he considers that the Supreme Law requires, as adjuncts, two other virtues; to these he gives the names EARNESTNESS, or Zeal, and MORAL PURPOSE, meaning that everything whatsoever should be done for moral ends.

V.--The relation of Ethics to Politics in Whewell's system is one of intimacy, and yet of independence. The Laws of States supply the materials of human action, by defining property, &c., for the time being; to which definitions morality must correspond. On the other hand, morality supplies the Idea, or ideal, of Justice, to which the Laws of Society should progressively conform themselves. The Legislator and the Jurist must adapt their legislation to the point of view of the Moralist; and the moralist, while enjoining obedience to their dictates, should endeavour to correct the inequalities produced by laws, and should urge the improvement of Law, to make it conformable to morality. The Moral is in this way contrasted with the Jural, a useful word of the author's coining. He devotes a separate Book, entitled 'Rights and Obligations,' to the foundations of Jurisprudence. He makes a five-fold division of Rights, grounded on his classification of the Springs of Human Action; Rights of Personal Security, Property, Contract, Marriage, Government; and justifies this division as against others proposed by jurists.

VI.--He introduces the Morality of Religion as a supplement to the Morality of Reason. The separation of the two, he remarks, 'enables us to trace the results of the moral guidance of human Reason consistently and continuously, while we still retain a due sense of the superior authority of Religion.' As regards the foundations of Natural and Revealed Religion, he adopts the line of argument most usual with English Theologians.

JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER. [1808-64.]

In his 'Lectures on Greek Philosophy' (Remains, Vol. I.), Ferrier has indicated his views on the leading Ethical controversies.

These will appear, if we select his conclusions, on the three following points:--The Moral Sense, the nature of Sympathy, and the Summum Bonum.

1. He considers that the Sophists first distinctly broached the question--What is man by nature, and what is he by convention or fashion?

'This prime question of moral philosophy, as I have called it, is no easy one to answer, for it is no easy matter to effect the discrimination out of which the answer must proceed. It is a question, perhaps, to which no complete, but only an approximate, answer can be returned. One common mistake is to ascribe more to the natural man than properly belongs to him, to ascribe to him attributes and endowments which belong only to the social and artificial man. Some writers--Hutcheson, for example, and he is followed by many others--are of opinion that man naturally has a conscience or moral sense which discriminates between right and wrong, just as he has naturally a sense of taste, which distinguishes between sweet and bitter, and a sense of sight, which discriminates between red and blue, or a sentient organism, which distinguishes between pleasure and pain. That man has by nature, and from the first, the possibility of attaining to a conscience is not to be denied. That lie has within him by birthright something out of which conscience is developed, I firmly believe; and what this is I shall endeavour by-and-by to show when I come to speak of Sokrates and his philosophy as opposed to the doctrines of the Sophists. But that the man is furnished by nature with a conscience ready-made, just as he is furnished with a ready-made sensational apparatus, this is a doctrine in which I have no faith, and which I regard as altogether erroneous. It arises out of the disposition to attribute more to the natural man than properly belongs to him. The other error into which inquirers are apt to fall in making a discrimination between what man is by nature, and what he is by convention, is the opposite of the one just mentioned. They sometimes attribute to the natural man less than properly belongs to him. And this, I think, was the error into which the Sophists were betrayed. They fall into it inadvertently, and not with any design of embracing or promulgating erroneous opinions.'

2. With reference to SYMPATHY, he differs from Adam Smith's view, that it is a native and original affection of the heart, like hunger and thirst. Mere feeling, he contends, can never take a man out of self. It is thought that overleaps this boundary; not the feeling of sensation, but the thought of one's self and one's sensations, gives the ground and the condition of sympathy. Sympathy has self-consciousness for its foundation. Very young children have little sympathy, because in them the idea of self is but feebly developed.

3. In his chapter on the Cynic and Cyrenaic schools, he discusses at length the summum bonum, or Happiness, and, by implication, the Ethical end, or Standard. He considers that men have to keep in view two ends; the one the maintenance of their own nature, as rational and thinking beings; the other their happiness or pleasure. He will not allow that we are to do right at all hazards, irrespective of utility; yet he considers that there is something defective in the scheme that sets aside virtue as the good, and enthrones happiness in its place. He sums up as follows:--

'We thus see that a complete body of ethics should embrace two codes, two systems of rules, the one of which we may call the fundamental or antecedent, or under-ground ethics, as underlying the other; and the other of which we may call the upper or subsequent, or above-ground ethics, as resting on, and modified by the former. The under-ground ethics would inculcate on man the necessity of being what he truly is, namely, a creature of reason and of thought; in short, the necessity of being a man, and of preserving to himself this status. Here the end is virtue, that is, the life and health of the soul, and nothing but this. The above-ground ethics would inculcate on man the necessity of being a happy man.

It is not enough for man to be; he must, moreover, if possible, be happy. The fundamental ethics look merely to his being, i.e., his being rational; the upper ethics look principally to his being happy, but they are bound to take care that in all his happiness he does nothing to violate his rationality, the health and virtue of the soul.'

HENRY LONGUEVILLE/MANSEL.

Mr. Mansel, in his 'Metaphysics,' has examined the question of a moral standard, and the nature of the moral faculty, accepting, with slight and unimportant modifications, the current theory of a moral sense.

1. The Moral Faculty. That the conceptions of right and wrong are sui generis, is proved (1) by the fact that in all languages there are distinct terms for 'right' and 'agreeable;' (2) by the testimony of consciousness; and (3) by the mutual inconsistencies of the antagonists of a moral sense. The moral faculty is not identical with Reason; for the understanding contributes to truth only one of its elements, namely, the concept; in addition, the concept must agree with the fact as presented in intuition. The moral sense is usually supposed to involve the perception of qualities only in so far as they are pleasing or displeasing. To this representation Mr. Mansel objects. In an act of moral consciousness two things are involved: a perception or judgment, and a sentiment or feeling. But the judgment itself may be farther divided into two parts: 'the one, an individual fact, presented now and here; the other, a general law, valid always and everywhere.' This is the distinction between presentative and representative Knowledge. In every act of consciousness there is some individual fact presented, and an operation of the understanding. 'A conscious act of pure moral sense, like a conscious act of pure physical sense, if it ever takes place at all, takes place at a time of which we have no remembrance, and of which we can give no account.' The intuitive element may be called conscience; the representing element is the understanding. On another point he differs from the ordinary theory. It is commonly said that we immediately perceive the moral character of acts, whether by ourselves or by others. But this would implicate two facts, neither of which we can be conscious of: (1) a law binding on a certain person, and (2) his conduct as agreeing or disagreeing with that law. Now, I can infer the existence of such a law only by representing his mind as constituted like my own. We can, in fact, immediately perceive moral qualities only in our own actions.

2. The Moral Standard. This is treated as a branch of Ontology, and designated the 'Real in morality,' He declares that Kant's notion of an absolute moral law, binding by its inherent power over the mind, is a mere fiction. The difference between inclination and the moral imperative is merely a difference between lower and higher pleasure. The moral law can have no authority unless imposed by a superior, as a law emanating from a lawgiver. If man is not accountable to some higher being, there is no distinction between duty and pleasure. The standard of right and wrong is the moral nature (not the arbitrary will) of God. Now, as we cannot know God--an infinite being,--so we have but a relative conception of morality. We may have lower and higher ideas of duty. Morality therefore admits of progress. But no advance in morality contradicts the principles previously acknowledged, however it may vary the acts whereby those principles are carried out. And each advance takes its place in the mind, not as a question to be supported by argument, but as an axiom to be intuitively admitted. Each principle appears true and irreversible so far as it goes, but it is liable to be merged in a more comprehensive formula. It is an error of philosophers to imagine that they have an absolute standard of morals, and thereupon to set out à priori the criterion of a possibly true revelation. Kant said that the revealed commands of God could have no religious value, unless approved by the moral reason; and Fichte held that no true revelation could contain any intimation of future rewards and punishments, or any moral rule not deducible from the principles of the practical reason. But revelation has enlightened the practical reason, as by the maxim--to love God with all thy heart, and thy neighbour as thyself--a maxim, says Mr. Mansel, that philosophy in vain toiled after, and subsequently borrowed without acknowledgment.

JOHN STUART MILL.

Mr. J.S. Mill examines the basis of Ethics in a small work entitled Utilitarianism.

After a chapter of General Remarks, he proposes (Chapter II.) to enquire, What Utilitarianism is? This creed holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure, and the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain, and the privation of pleasure. The things included under pleasure and pain may require farther explanation; but this does not affect the general theory. To the accusation that pleasure is a mean and grovelling object of pursuit, the answer is, that human beings are capable of pleasures that are not grovelling. It is compatible with utility to recognize some kinds of pleasure as more valuable than others. There are pleasures that, irrespective of amount, are held by all persons that have experienced them to be preferable to others. Few human beings would consent to become beasts, or fools, or base, in consideration of a greater allowance of pleasure. Inseparable from the estimate of pleasure is a sense of dignity, which determines a preference among enjoyments.

But this distinction in kind is not essential to the justification of the standard of Utility. That standard is not the agent's own greatest happiness, but the greatest amount of happiness altogether. However little the higher virtues might contribute to one's own happiness, there can be no doubt that the world in general gains by them.

Another objection to the doctrine is, that happiness is a thing unattainable, and that no one has a right to it. Not only can men do without happiness, but renunciation is the first condition of all nobleness of character.

In reply, the author remarks that, supposing happiness impossible, the prevention of unhappiness might still be an object, which is a mode of Utility. But the alleged impossibility of happiness is either a verbal quibble or an exaggeration. No one contends for a life of sustained rapture; occasional moments of such, in an existence of few and transitory pains, many and various pleasures, with a predominance of the active over the passive, and moderate expectations on the whole, constitute a life worthy to be called happiness. Numbers of mankind have been satisfied with much less. There are two great factors of enjoyment--tranquillity and excitement. With the one, little pleasure will suffice; with the other, considerable pain can be endured. It does not appear impossible to secure both in alternation. The principal defect in persons of fortunate lot is to care for nobody but themselves; this curtails the excitements of life, and makes everything dwindle as the end approaches. Another circumstance rendering life unsatisfactory is the want of mental cultivation, by which men are deprived of the inexhaustible pleasures of knowledge, not merely in the shape of science, but as practice and fine art. It is not at all difficult to indicate sources of happiness; the main stress of the problem lies in the contest with the positive evils of life, the great sources of physical and of mental suffering--indigence, disease, and the unkindness, worthlessness, or premature loss of objects of affection. Poverty and Disease may be contracted in dimensions; and even vicissitudes of fortune are not wholly beyond control.

It is unquestionably possible to do without happiness. This is the lot of the greater part of mankind, and is often voluntarily chosen by the hero or the martyr. But self-sacrifice is not its own end; it must be made to earn for others immunity from sacrifice. It must be a very imperfect state of the world's arrangements that requires any one to serve the happiness of others by the absolute sacrifice of their own; yet undoubtedly while the world is in that imperfect state, the readiness to make such a sacrifice is the highest virtue that can be found in man. Nay, farther, the conscious ability to do without happiness, in such a condition of the world, is the best prospect of realizing such happiness as is attainable. Meanwhile, self-devotion belongs as much to the Utilitarian as to the Stoic or the Transcendentalist; with the reservation that a sacrifice not tending to increase the sum of happiness is to be held as wasted. The golden rule, do as you would be done by, is the ideal perfection of utilitarian morality. The means of approaching this ideal are, first, that laws and society should endeavour to place the interest of the individual in harmony with the interest of the whole; and, secondly, that education and opinion should establish in the mind of each individual an indissoluble association between his own good and the good of the whole.

The system of Utility is objected to, on another side, as being too high for humanity; men cannot be perpetually acting with a view to the general interests of society. But this is to mistake the meaning of a standard, and to confound the rule of action with the motive. Ethics tells us what are our duties, or by what test we are to know them; but no system of ethics requires that the motive of every action should be a feeling of duty; our actions are rightly done provided only duty does not condemn them. The great majority of actions have nothing to do with the good of the world--they end with the individual; it happens to few persons, and that rarely, to be public benefactors. Private utility is in the mass of cases all that we have to attend to. As regards abstinences, indeed, it would be unworthy of an intelligent agent not to be aware that the action is one that, if practised generally, would be generally injurious, and to not feel a sense of obligation on that ground; but such an amount of regard for the general interest is required under every system of morals.

It is farther alleged against Utility, that it renders men cold and unsympathizing, chills the moral feelings towards individuals, and regards only the dry consequences of actions, without reference to the moral qualities of the agent. The author replies that Utility, like any other system, admits that a right action does not necessarily indicate a virtuous character. Still, he contends, in the long run, the best proof of a good character is good actions. If the objection means that utilitarians do not lay sufficient stress on the beauties of character, he replies that this is the accident of persons cultivating their moral feelings more than their sympathies and artistic perceptions, and may occur under every view of the foundation of morals.

The next objection considered is that Utility is a godless doctrine. The answer is, that whoever believes in the perfect goodness and wisdom of God, necessarily believes that whatever he has thought fit to reveal on the subject of morals must fulfil the requirements of utility in a supreme degree.

Again, Utility is stigmatized as an immoral doctrine, by carrying out Expediency in opposition to Principle. But the Expedient in this sense means what is expedient for the agent himself, and, instead of being the same thing with the useful, is a branch of the hurtful. It would often be expedient to tell a lie, but so momentous and so widely extended are the utilities of truth, that veracity is a rule of transcendent expediency. Yet all moralists admit exceptions to it, solely on account of the manifest inexpediency of observing it on certain occasions.

The author does not omit to notice the usual charge that it is impossible to make a calculation of consequences previous to every action, which is as much as to say that no one can be under the guidance of Christianity, because there is not time, on the occasion of doing anything, to read through the Old and New Testaments. The real answer is (substantially the same as Austin's) that there has been ample time during the past duration of the species. Mankind have all that time been learning by experience the consequences of actions; on that experience they have founded both their prudence and their morality. It is an inference from the principle of utility, which regards morals as a practical art, that moral rules are improvable; but there exists under the ultimate principle a number of intermediate generalizations, applicable at once to the emergencies of human conduct. Nobody argues that navigation is not founded on astronomy, because sailors cannot wait to calculate the Nautical Almanack.

As to the stock argument, that people will pervert utility for their private ends, Mr. Mill challenges the production of any ethical creed where this may not happen. The fault is due, not to the origin of the rules, but to the complicated nature of human affairs, and the necessity of allowing a certain latitude, under the moral responsibility of the agent, for accommodation to circumstances. And in cases of conflict, utility is a better guide than anything found in systems whose moral laws claim independent authority.