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Moral Science; a Compendium of Ethics

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Title: Moral Science; a Compendium of Ethics

Author: Alexander Bain


        
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                Most recently updated: October 28, 2024

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MORAL SCIENCE; A COMPENDIUM OF ETHICS ***

MORAL SCIENCE: A COMPENDIUM OF ETHICS

by

ALEXANDER BAIN, M.A.,

Author of "Mental Science: A Compendium of Psychology;" "The
Senses and the Intellect;" "The Emotions and the Will;" "A
Manual ooof Rhetoric;" Professor of Logic in the University
of Aberdeen, etc., etc., etc.

1869







PREFACE


The present Dissertation falls under two divisions.

The first division, entitled The Theory of Ethics, gives an account of
the questions or points brought into discussion, and handles at length
the two of greatest prominence, the Ethical Standard, and the Moral
Faculty.

The second division--on The Ethical Systems--is a full detail of all
the systems, ancient and modern, by conjoined Abstract and Summary.
With few exceptions, an abstract is made of each author's exposition
of his own theory, the fulness being measured by relative importance;
while, for better comparing and remembering the several theories, they
are summarized at the end, on a uniform plan.

The connection of Ethics with Psychology is necessarily intimate; the
leading ethical controversies involve a reference to mind, and can be
settled only by a more thorough understanding of mental processes.

Although the present volume is properly a continuation of the Manual
of Psychology and the History of Philosophy, recently published, and
contains occasional references to that treatise, it may still be
perused as an independent work on the Ethical Doctrines and Systems.
A.B.





TABLE OF CONTENTS


PART I.

THE THEORY OF ETHICS.

CHAPTER I.

PRELIMINARY VIEW OF ETHICAL QUESTIONS.

  I.--The ETHICAL STANDARD. Summary of views.

 II.--PSYCHOLOGICAL questions.
     1. The Moral Faculty.
     2. The Freedom of the Will; the sources of Disinterested conduct.

III.--The BONUM, SUMMUM BONUM, or Happiness.

 IV.--The CLASSIFICATION OF DUTIES, and the Moral Code.

  V.--Relationship of Ethics to POLITICS.

 VI.--Relation to Theology.


CHAPTER II.

THE ETHICAL STANDARD.

 1. Ethics, as a department of Practice, is defined by its End.

 2. The Ethical End is the welfare of society, realized through rules
    of conduct duly enforced.

 3. The Rules of Ethics are of two kinds. The first are imposed under
    a penalty. These are Laws proper, or Obligatory Morality.

 4. The second are supported by Rewards; constituting Optional
    Morality, Merit, Virtue, or Nobleness.

 5. The Ethical End, or Morality, _as it has been_, is founded partly
    in Utility, and partly in Sentiment.

 6. The Ethical End is limited, according to the view taken of Moral
    Government, or Authority:--Distinction between Security and
    Improvement.

 7. Morality, in its essential parts, is 'Eternal and Immutable;' in
    other parts, it varies with custom.

 8. Enquiry as to the kind, of proof that an Ethical Standard is
    susceptible of. The ultimate end of action must be referred to
    individual judgment.

 9. The judgment of Mankind is, with some qualifications, in favour of
    Happiness as the supreme end of conduct.

10. The Ethical end that society is tending to, is Happiness, or
    Utility.

11. Objections against Utility. I.--Happiness is not the sole aim of
    human pursuit.

12. II.--The consequences of actions are beyond calculation.

13. III.--The principle of Utility contains no motives to seek the
    happiness of others.


CHAPTER III.

THE MORAL FACULTY.

 1. Question whether the Moral Faculty be simple or complex.

 2. Arguments in favour of its being simple and intuitive:--First, Our
    moral judgments are immediate and instantaneous.

 3. Secondly, It is a faculty common to all mankind.

 4. Thirdly, It is different from any other mental phenomenon.

 5. Replies to these Arguments, and Counter-arguments:---First;
    Immediateness of operation is no proof of an innate origin.

 6. Secondly, The alleged similarity of men's moral judgments holds
    only in a limited degree. Answers given by the advocates of an
    Innate sentiment, to the discrepancies.

 7. Thirdly, Moral right and wrong is not an indivisible property, but
    an extensive Code of regulations.

 8. Fourthly, Intuition is not sufficient to settle debated questions.

 9. Fifthly, It is possible to analyze the Moral Faculty:--Estimate of
    the operation of (1) Prudence, (2) Sympathy, and (3) the Emotions
    generally.

10. The _peculiar attribute_ of Rightness arises from the institution
    of Government or Authority.

11. The speciality of Conscience, or the Moral Sentiment, is
    identified with our education under Government, or Authority.



PART II.

THE ETHICAL SYSTEMS.

SOKRATES. His subjects were Men and Society. His Ethical Standard
indistinctly expressed. Resolved Virtue into Knowledge. Ideal of
pursuit--Well-doing. Inculcated self-denying Precepts. Political
Theory. Connexion of Ethics with Theology slender.

PLATO. Review of the Dialogues containing portions of Ethical
Theory:--_Alkibiades I_. discusses Just and Unjust. _Alkibiades II_.
the knowledge of Good or Reason. _Hippias Minor_ identifies Virtue
with Knowledge. _Minos_ (on Law) refers everything to the decision of
an Ideal Wise man. _Laekes_ resolves Courage, and _Charmides_
Temperance, into Intelligence or the supreme science of good and evil.
_Lysis_ (on Friendship) gives the Idea of the good as the supreme
object of affection. _Menon_ enquires, Is virtue _teachable?_ and
iterates the science of good and evil. _Protagoras_ makes Pleasure the
only good, and Pain the only evil, and defines the science of good and
evil as the comparison of pleasures and pains. _Gorgias_ contradicts
Protagoras, and sets up Order or Discipline as a final end.
_Politikus_ (on Government) repeats the Sokratic ideal of the One Wise
man. _Philebus_ makes Good a compound of Pleasure with Intelligence,
the last predominating. The _Republic_ assimilates Society to an
Individual man, and defines Justice as the balance of the constituent
parts of each. _Timoeus_ repeats the doctrine that wickedness is
disease, and not voluntary. The _Laws_ place all conduct under the
prescription of the civil magistrate. Summary of Plato's views.

THE CYNICS AND THE CYRENAICS. Cynic succession. The proper description
of the tenets of both schools comes under the Summum Bonum. The Cynic
Ideal was the minimum of wants, and their self-denial was compensated
by exemption from fear, and by pride of superiority. The Cyrenaic
ARISTIPPUS:--Was the first to maintain that the summum bonum is
Pleasure and the absence of Pain. Future Pleasures and Pains taken
into the account. His Psychology of Pleasure and Pain.

ARISTOTLE. Abstract of the Nicomachean Ethics. Book First. The Chief
Good, or Highest End of human endeavours. Great differences of opinion
as to the nature of Happiness. The Platonic Idea of the Good
criticised. The Highest End an _end-in-itself_. Virtue referable to
the special work of man; growing out of his mental capacity. External
conditions necessary to virtue and happiness. The Soul subdivided into
parts, each, having its characteristic virtue or excellence.

Book Second. Definition and classification of the Moral virtues.
Virtue the result of Habit. Doctrine of the MEAN. The test of virtue
to feel no pain. Virtue defined (_genus_) an acquirement or a State,
(_differentia_) a Mean between extremes. Rules for hitting the Mean.

Book Third. The Voluntary and Involuntary. Deliberate Preference.
Virtue and vice are voluntary. The virtues in detail:--Courage
[Self-sacrifice implied in Courage]. Temperance.

Book Fourth. Liberality. Magnificence. Magnanimity. Mildness.
Good-breeding. Modesty.

Book Fifth. Justice:--Universal Justice includes all virtue.
Particular Justice is of two kinds, Distributive and Corrective.

Book Sixth. Intellectual Excellences, or Virtues of the Intellect. The
Rational part of the Soul embraces the Scientific and the Deliberative
functions. Science deals with the necessary. Prudence or the Practical
Reason; its aims and requisites. In virtue, good dispositions must be
accompanied with Prudence.

Book Seventh. Gradations of moral strength and moral weakness.
Continence and Incontinence.

Books Eighth and Ninth. Friendship:--Grounds of Friendship. Varieties
of Friendship, corresponding to different objects of liking.
Friendship between the virtuous is alone perfect. A settled habit, not
a mere passion. Equality in friendship. Political friendships.
Explanation of the family affections. Rule of reciprocity of services.
Conflicting obligations. Cessation of friendships. Goodwill. Love felt
by benefactors. Self-love. Does the happy man need friends?

Book Tenth. Pleasure:--Theories of Pleasure--Eudoxus, Speusippus,
Plato. Pleasure is not The Good. Pleasure defined. The pleasures of
Intellect. Nature of the Good or Happiness resumed. Perfect happiness
found only in the philosophical life; second to which is the active
social life of the good citizen. Happiness of the gods. Transition
from Ethics to Politics.

THE STOICS. The succession of Stoical philosophers. Theological
Doctrines of the Stoics:--The Divine Government; human beings must
rise to the comprehension of Universal Law; the soul at death absorbed
into the divine essence; argument from Design. Psychology:--Theory of
Pleasure and Pain; theory of the Will. Doctrine of Happiness or the
Good:--Pain no evil; discipline of endurance--Apathy. Theory of
Virtue:--Subordination of self to the larger interests; their view of
active Beneficence; the Stoical paradoxes; the idea of Duty;
consciousness of Self-improvement.

EPICURUS. Life and writings. His successors. Virtue and vice referred
by him to Pleasures and Pains calculated by Reason. Freedom from Pain
the primary object. Regulation of desires. Pleasure good if not
leading to pain. Bodily feeling the foundation of sensibility. Mental
feelings contain memory and hope. The greatest miseries are from the
delusions of hope, and from the torments of fear. Fear of Death and
Fear of the Gods. Relations with others; Justice and Friendship--both
based on reciprocity. Virtue and Happiness inseparable. Epicureanism
the type of all systems grounded on enlightened self-interest.

THE NEO-PLATONISTS. The Moral End to be attained through an
intellectual regimen. The soul being debased by its connection with
matter, the aim of human action is to regain the spiritual life. The
first step is the practice of the cardinal virtues: the next the
purifying virtues. Happiness is the undisturbed life of contemplation.
Correspondence of the Ethical, with the Metaphysical scheme.

SCHOLASTIC ETHICS. ABAELARD:--Lays great stress on the subjective
element in morality; highest human good, love to God; actions
judged by intention, and intention by conscience.

ST. BERNARD:--Two degrees of virtue, Humility and Love.

JOHN of SALISBURY:--Combines philosophy and theology; doctrine of
Happiness; the lower and higher desires.

ALEXANDER OF HALES. BONAVENTURA. ALBERTUS MAGNUS.
AQUINAS:--Aristotelian mode of enquiry as to the end; God the highest
good; true happiness lies in the self-sufficing theoretic
intelligence; virtue; division of the virtues.

HOBBES. (Abstract of the Ethical part of Leviathan). Constituents of
man's nature. The Good. Pleasure. The simple passions. Theory of the
Will. Good and evil. Conscience. Virtue. Position of Ethics in the
Sciences. Power, Worth, Dignity. Happiness a perpetual progress;
consequences of the restlessness of desire. Natural state of mankind;
a state of enmity and war. Necessity of articles of peace, called Laws
of Nature. Law defined. Rights; Renunciation of rights; Contract;
Merit. Justice. Laws of Gratitude, Complaisance, Pardon upon
repentance. Laws against Cruelty, Contumely, Pride, Arrogance. Laws of
Nature, how far binding. Summary.

CUMBERLAND. Standard of Moral Good summed up in Benevolence. The moral
faculty is the Reason, apprehending the Nature of Things. Innate Ideas
an insufficient foundation. Will. Disinterested action. Happiness.
Moral Code, the common good of all rational beings. Obligations in
respect of giving and of receiving. Politics. Religion.

CUDWORTH. Moral Good and Evil cannot be arbitrary. The mind has a
power of Intellection, above Sense, for aiming at the eternal and
immutable verities.

CLARKE. The eternal Fitness and Unfitness of Things determine Justice,
Equity, Goodness and Truth, and lay corresponding obligations upon
reasonable creatures. The sanction of Rewards and Punishments
secondary and additional. Our Duties.

WOLLASTON. Resolves good and evil into Truth and Falsehood.

LOCKE. Arguments against Innate Practical Principles. Freedom of the
Will. Moral Rules grounded in law.

BUTLER. Characteristics of our Moral Perceptions. Disinterested
Benevolence a fact of our constitutions. Our passions and affections
do not aim at self as their immediate end. The Supremacy of Conscience
established from our moral nature. Meanings of Nature. Benevolence not
ultimately at variance with Self-Love.

HUTCHESON.--Primary feelings of the mind. Finer perceptions--Beauty,
Sympathy, the Moral Sense, Social feelings; the benevolent order of
the world suggesting Natural Religion. Order or subordination of the
feelings as Motives; position of Benevolence. The Moral Faculty
distinct and independent. Confirmation of the doctrine from the Sense
of Honour. Happiness. The tempers and characters bearing on happiness.
Duties to God. Circumstances affecting the moral good or evil of
actions. Rights and Laws.

MANDEVILLE. Virtue supported solely by self-interest. Compassion
resolvable into self. Pride an important source of moral virtue.
Private vices, public benefits. Origin of Society.

HUME. Question whether Reason or Sentiment be the foundation of
morals. The esteem for Benevolence shows that Utility enters into
virtue. Proofs that Justice is founded solely on Utility. Political
Society has utility for its end. The Laws. Why Utility pleases.
Qualities useful to ourselves. Qualities agreeable (1) to ourselves,
and (2) to others. Obligation. The respective share of Reason and of
Sentiment in moral approbation. Benevolence not resolvable into
Self-Love.

PRICE. The distinctions of Right and Wrong are perceived by the
Understanding. The Beauty and Deformity of Actions. The feelings have
some part in our moral discrimination. Self-Love and Benevolence. Good
and ill Desert. Obligation. Divisions of Virtue. Intention as an
element in virtuous action. Estimate of degrees of Virtue and Vice.

ADAM SMITH. Illustration of the workings of Sympathy. Mutual sympathy.
The Amiable and the Respectable Virtues. How far the several passions
are consistent with Propriety. Influences of prosperity and adversity
on moral judgments. The Sense of Merit and Demerit. Self-approbation.
Love of Praise and of Praiseworthiness. Influence and authority of
Conscience. Self-partiality; corrected by the use of General Rules.
Connexion of Utility with Moral Approbation. Influence of Custom on
the Moral Sentiments. Character of Virtue. Self-command. Opinion
regarding the theory of the Moral Sense.

HARTLEY. Account of Disinterestedness. The Moral Sense a product of
Association.

FERGUSON. (Note)

REID. Duty not to be resolved into Interest. Conscience an original
power of the mind. Axiomatic first principles of Morals. Objections to
the theory of Utility.

STEWART. The Moral Faculty an original power. Criticism of opposing
views. Moral Obligation: connexion with Religion. Duties. Happiness:
classification of pleasures.

BROWN. Moral approbation a simple emotion of the mind. Universality of
moral distinctions. Objections to the theory of Utility. Disinterested
sentiment.

PALEY. The Moral Sense not intuitive. Happiness. Virtue: its
definition. Moral Obligation resolved into the command of God. Utility
a criterion of the Divine Will. Utility requires us to consider
_general_ consequences. Rights. Duties.

BENTHAM. Utility the sole foundation of Morals. Principles adverse to
Utility. The Four Sanctions of Right. Comparative estimate of
Pleasures and Pains. Classification of Pleasures and Pains. Merit and
Demerit. Pleasures and pains viewed as Motives: some motives are
Social or tutelary, others Dissocial or Self-regarding. Dispositions.
The consequences of a mischievous act. Punishment. Private Ethics
(Prudence) and Legislation distinguished; their respective spheres.

MACKINTOSH. Universality of Moral Distinctions. Antithesis or Reason
and Passion. It is not virtuous _acts_ but virtuous _dispositions_
that outweigh the pains of self-sacrifice. The moral sentiments have
for their objects Dispositions. Utility. Development of Conscience
through Association; the constituents are Gratitude, Sympathy,
Resentment and Shame, together with Education. Religion must
presuppose Morality. Objections to Utility criticised. Duties to
ourselves, an improper expression. Reference of moral sentiments to
the Will.

JAMES MILL. Primary constituents of the Moral Faculty--pleasurable and
painful sensations. The Causes of these sensations. The Ideas of them,
and of their causes. Hope, Fear; Love, Joy; Hatred, Aversion. Remote
causes of pleasures and pains--Wealth, Power, Dignity, and their
opposites. Affections towards our fellow-creatures--Friendship,
Kindness, &c. Motives. Dispositions. Applications to the virtue of
Prudence. Justice--by what motives supported. Beneficence. Importance
in moral training, of Praise and Blame, and their associations; the
Moral Sanction. Derivation of Disinterested Feelings.

AUSTIN. Laws defined and classified. The Divine Laws; how are we to
know the Divine Will? Utility the sole criterion. Objections to
Utility. Criticism of the theory of a Moral Sense. Prevailing
misconceptions as to Utility. Nature of Law resumed and illustrated.
Impropriety of the term 'law' as applied to the operations of Nature.

WHEWELL. Opposing schemes of Morality. Proposal to reconcile them.
There are some actions Universally approved. A Supreme Rule of Right
to be arrived at by combining partial rules: these are obtained from
the nature of our faculties. The rule of Speech is Truth; Property
supposes Justice; the Affections indicate Humanity. It is a
self-evident maxim that the Lower parts of our nature are governed by
the Higher. Classification of Springs of Action. Disinterestedness.
Classification of Moral Rules. Division of Rights.

FERRIER. Question of the Moral Sense: errors on both sides. Sympathy
passes beyond feeling, and takes in Thought or self-consciousness.
Happiness has two ends--the maintenance of man's Rational nature, and
Pleasure.

MANSEL. The conceptions of Right and Wrong are _sui generis_. The
moral law can have no authority unless emanating from a lawgiver. The
Standard is the moral nature, and not the arbitrary will, of God.

JOHN STUART MILL. Explanation of what Utilitarianism consists in.
Reply to objections against setting up Happiness as the Ethical end.
Ultimate Sanction of the principle of Utility: the External and
Internal sanctions; Conscience how made up. The sort of Proof that
Utility is susceptible of:--the evidence that happiness is desirable,
is that men desire it; it is consistent with Utility that virtue
should be desired for itself. Connexion between Justice and
Utility:--meanings of Justice; essentially grounded in Law; the
sentiments that support Justice, are Self-defence, and Sympathy;
Justice owes its paramount character to the essential of Security;
there are no immutable maxims of Justice.

BAILEY. Facts of the human constitution that give origin to moral
phenomena:--susceptibility to pleasure and pain, and to the causes of
them; reciprocation of these; our expecting reciprocation from others;
sympathy. Consideration of our feelings in regard to actions done to
us by others. Our feelings as spectators of actions done to others by
others. Actions done to ourselves by others. The different cases
combine to modify each other. Explanation of the discrepancies of the
moral sentiment in different communities. The consequences of actions
the only criterion for rectifying the diversities. Objections to the
happiness-test. The term Utility unsuitable. Disputes as to the origin
of moral sentiment in Reason or in a Moral Sense.

SPENCER. Happiness the ultimate, but not the proximate, end. Moral
Science a deduction from the laws of life and the conditions of
existence. There have been, and still are, developing in the race,
certain fundamental Moral Intuitions. The Expediency-Morality is
transitional. Reference to the general theory of Evolution.

KANT. Distinguishes between the empirical and the rational mode of
treating Ethics. Nothing properly good, except _Will_. Subjection of
Will to Reason. An action done from natural inclination is worthless
morally. Duty is respect for Law; conformity to Law is the one
principle of volition. Moral Law not ascertainable empirically, it
must originate _a priori_ in pure (practical) Reason. The Hypothetical
and Categorical Imperatives. Imperative of Prudence. Imperative of
Morality. The formula of Morality. The ends of Morality. The Rational
nature of man is an end-in-itself. The Will the source of its own
laws--the Autonomy of the Will. The Reason of Ends. Morality alone has
intrinsic Worth or Dignity. Principles founded on the Heteronomy of
the Will--Happiness, Perfection. Duty legitimized by the conception of
the Freedom of the Will, properly understood. Postulates of the pure
Practical Reason--Freedom, Immortality, God. Summary.

COUSIN. Analysis of the sentiments aroused in us by human actions. The
Moral Sentiment made up of a variety of moral judgments--Good and
Evil, Obligation, Liberty, Merit and Demerit. Virtue brings Happiness.
Moral Satisfaction and Remorse. The Law of Duty is conformity to
Reason. The characteristic of Reason is Universality. Classification
of Duties:--Duties to Self; to Others--Truth, Justice, Charity.
Application to Politics.

JOUFFROY. Each creature has a special nature, and a special end. Man
has certain primary passions to be satisfied. Secondary passions--the
Useful, the Good, Happiness. All the faculties controlled by the
Reason. The End of Interest. End of Universal Order. Morality the
expression of divine thought; identified with the beautiful and the
true. The moral law and self-interest coincide. Boundaries of the
three states--Passion, Egoism, Moral determination.




ETHICS




PART I.


THE THEORY OF ETHICS.


CHAPTER I.


PRELIMINARY VIEW OF ETHICAL, QUESTIONS.

As a preface to the account of the Ethical Systems, and a principle of
arrangement, for the better comparing of them, we shall review in
order the questions that arise in the discussion.

I. First of all is the question as to the ETHICAL STANDARD. What, in
the last resort, is the test, criterion, umpire, appeal, or Standard,
in determining Right and Wrong? In the concrete language of Paley,
"Why am I obliged to keep my word? The answer to this is the Theory of
Right and Wrong, the essential part of every Ethical System."

We may quote the leading answers, as both explaining and summarizing
the chief question of Ethics, and more especially of Modern Ethics.

1. It is alleged that the arbitrary Will of the Deity, as expressed in
the Bible, is the ultimate standard. On this view anything thus
commanded is right, whatever be its consequences, or however it may
clash with our sentiments and reasonings.

2. It was maintained by Hobbes, that the Sovereign, acting under his
responsibility to God, is the sole arbiter of Right and Wrong. As
regards Obligatory Morality, this seems at first sight an identical
proposition; morality is another name for law and sovereignty. In the
view of Hobbes, however, the sovereign should be a single person, of
absolute authority, humanly irresponsible, and irremoveable; a type of
sovereignty repudiated by civilized nations.

3. It has been held, in various phraseology, that a certain _fitness_,
suitability, or propriety in actions, as determined by our
Understanding or Reason, is the ultimate test. "When a man keeps his
word, there is a certain congruity or consistency between the action
and the occasion, between the making of a promise and its fulfilment;
and wherever such congruity is discernible, the action is right." This
is the view of Cudworth, Clarke, and Price. It may be called the
Intellectual or Rational theory.

A special and more abstract form of the same theory is presented in
the dictum of Kant--'act in such a way that your conduct might be a
law to all beings.'

4. It is contended, that the human mind possesses an intuition or
instinct, whereby we feel or discern at once the right from the wrong;
a view termed the doctrine of the Moral Sense, or Moral Sentiment.
Besides being supported by numerous theorizers in Ethics, this is the
prevailing and popular doctrine; it underlies most of the language of
moral suasion. The difficulties attending the stricter interpretation
of it have led to various modes of qualifying and explaining it, as
will afterwards appear. Shaftesbury and Hutcheson are more especially
identified with the enunciation of this doctrine in its modern aspect.

5. It was put forth by Mandeville that Self-interest is the only test
of moral rightness. Self-preservation is the first law of being; and
even when we are labouring for the good of others, we are still having
regard to our own interest.

6. The theory called, Utility, and Utilitarianism, supposes that the
well-being or happiness of mankind is the sole end, and ultimate
standard of morality. The agent takes account both of his own
happiness and of the happiness of others, subordinating, on proper
occasions, the first to the second. This theory is definite in its
opposition to all the others, but admits of considerable latitude of
view within itself. Stoicism and Epicureanism, are both included in
its compass.

The two last-named theories--Self-Interest, and Utility or the Common
Well-Being, have exclusive regard to the consequences of actions; the
others assign to consequences a subordinate position. The terms
External and Dependent are also used to express the reference to
Happiness as the end: Internal and Independent are the contrasting
epithets.

II. Ethical Theory embraces certain questions of pure PSYCHOLOGY.

1. The Psychological nature of Conscience, the Moral Sense, or by
whatever name we designate the faculty of distinguishing right and
wrong, together with the motive power to follow the one and eschew the
other. That such a faculty exists is admitted. The question is, what
is its place and origin in the mind?

On the one side, Conscience is held to be a _unique_ and ultimate
power of the mind, like the feeling of Resistance, the sense of Taste,
or the consciousness of Agreement. On the other side, Conscience is
viewed as a growth or derivation from other recognized properties of
the mind. The Theory of the Standard (4) called the doctrine of the
Moral Sense, proceeds upon the first view; on that theory, the
Standard and the Faculty make properly but one question. All other
theories are more or less compatible with the composite or derivative
nature of Conscience; the supporters of Utility, in particular, adopt
this alternative.

2. A second Psychological question, regarded by many (notably by Kant)
as vitally implicated in Moral Obligation, is the Freedom of the Will.
The history of opinion on this subject has been in great part already
given.

3. Thirdly, It has been debated, on Psychological grounds, whether our
Benevolent actions (which all admit) are ultimately modes of
self-regard, or whether there be, in the human mind, a source of
purely Disinterested conduct. The first view, or the reference of
benevolence to Self, admits of degrees and varieties of statement.

(1) It may be held that in performing good actions, we expect and
obtain an immediate reward fully equivalent to the sacrifice made.
Occasionally we are rewarded in kind; but the reward most usually
forthcoming (according to Mandeville), is praise or flattery, to which
the human mind is acutely sensitive.

(2) Our constitution may be such that we are pained by the sight of an
object in distress, and give assistance, to relieve ourselves of the
pain. This was the view of Hobbes; and it is also admitted by
Mandeville as a secondary motive.

(3) We may be so formed as to derive enjoyment from the performance of
acts of kindness, in the same immediate way that we are gratified by
warmth, flowers, or music; we should thus be moved to benevolence by
an intrinsic pleasure, and not by extraneous consequences.

Bentham speaks of the pleasures and the pains of Benevolence, meaning
that we derive pleasure from causing pleasure to others, and pain from
the sight of pain in others.

(4) It may be affirmed that, although we have not by nature any purely
disinterested impulses, these are generated in us by associations and
habits, in a manner similar to the conversion of means into final
ends, as in the case of money. This is the view propounded by James
Mill, and by Mackintosh.

Allowance being made for a certain amount of fact in these various
modes of connecting Benevolence with self, it is still maintained in
the present work, as by Butler, Hume, Adam Smith, and others, that
human beings are (although very unequally) endowed with a prompting to
relieve the pains and add to the pleasures of others, irrespective of
all self-regarding considerations; and that such prompting is not a
product of associations with self.

In the ancient world, purely disinterested conduct was abundantly
manifested in practice, although not made prominent in Ethical Theory.
The enumeration of the Cardinal Virtues does not expressly contain
Benevolence; but under Courage, Self-sacrifice was implied. Patriotic
Self-devotion, Love, and Friendship were virtues highly cultivated. In
Cicero, Seneca, and Marcus Aurelius, there is a recognition of general
Benevolence.

The two heads now sketched--The Standard and the Psychology of our
Moral nature--almost entirely exhaust modern Ethics. Smith, Stewart,
and Mackintosh agree in laying down as the points in dispute these
two:--First, What does virtue consist in? Secondly, What is the power
or faculty of the mind that discovers and enforces it?

These two positions, however, are inadequate as regards Ancient
Ethics. For remedying the deficiency, and for bringing to light
matters necessary to the completeness of an Ethical survey, we add the
following heads:--

III. The Theory of what constitutes the Supreme END of Life, the BONUM
or the SUMMUM BONUM. The question as to the highest End has divided
the Ethical Schools, both ancient and modern. It was the point at
issue between the Stoics and the Epicureans. That Happiness is not the
highest end has been averred, in modern times, by Butler and others:
the opposite position is held by the supporters of Utility. What may
be called the severe and ascetic systems (theoretically) refuse to
sanction any pursuit of happiness or pleasure, except through virtue,
or duty to others. The view practically proceeded upon, now and in
most ages, is that virtue discharges a man's obligations to his
fellows, which being accomplished, he is then at liberty to seek what
pleases himself. (For the application of the laws of mind to the
theory of HAPPINESS, see Appendix C.)

IV.-The CLASSIFICATION OF DUTIES is characteristic of different
systems and different authors. The oldest scheme is the Four Cardinal
Virtues--Prudence, Courage, Temperance, Justice. The modern Christian
moralists usually adopt the division--Duties to God, to Others, to
Self.

Moreover, there are differences in the substance of Morality itself,
or the things actually imposed. The code under Christianity has varied
both from Judaism and from Paganism.

V.-The relationship of Ethics to POLITICS is close, while the points
of difference of the two are also of great importance. In Plato the
two subjects were inseparable; and in Aristotle, they were blended to
excess. Hobbes also joined Ethics and Politics in one system. (See
Chap, ii., § 3.)

VI.-The relation of Ethics to THEOLOGY is variously represented in
modern systems. The Fathers and the Schoolmen accepted the authority
of the Bible chiefly on tradition, and did not venture to sit in
judgment on the substance of the revelation. They, therefore, rested
their Ethics exclusively on the Bible; or, at most, ventured upon
giving some mere supplement of its precepts.

Others, in more modern times, have considered that the moral character
of a revelation enters into the evidence in its favour; whence,
morality must be considered as independent, and exclusively human, in
its origin. It would be reasoning in a circle to derive the moral law
from the bible, and then to prove the bible from the moral law.

Religion superadds its own sanction to the moral duties, so far as
adopted by it; laying especial stress upon select precepts. It
likewise calls into being a distinct code of duties, the religious
duties strictly so called; which have no force except with believers.
The 'duties to God,' in the modern classification, are religious, as
distinguished from moral duties.




CHAPTER II.


THE ETHICAL STANDARD.

1. ETHICS, or Morality, is a department of Practice; and, as with
other practical departments, is defined by its End.

Ethics is not mere knowledge or speculation, like the sciences of
Astronomy, Physiology, or Psychology; it is knowledge applied to
practice, or useful ends, like Navigation, Medicine, or Politics.
Every practical subject has some end to be served, the statement of
which is its definition in the first instance. Navigation is the
applying of different kinds of knowledge, and of a variety of devices,
to the end of sailing the seas.

2. The Ethical End is a certain portion of the welfare
of human beings living together in society, realized through
rules of conduct duly enforced.

The obvious intention of morality is the good of mankind. The
precepts--do not steal, do not kill, fulfil agreements, speak
truth--whatever other reasons may be assigned for them, have a direct
tendency to prevent great evils that might otherwise arise in the
intercourse of human beings.

Farther, the good aimed at by Ethics is attained by _rules of acting_,
on the part of one human being to another; and, inasmuch as these
rules often run counter to the tendencies of the individual mind, it
is requisite to provide _adequate inducements_ to comply with them.

The Ethical End is what is otherwise called the STANDARD, test, or
criterion, of Right and Wrong. The leading controversy of Morals is
centered in this point.

3. The Rules of Ethics, termed also Law, Laws, the
Moral Law, are of two kinds:--

The first are rules imposed under a Penalty for neglect, or violation.
The penalty is termed _Punishment_; the imposing party is named
Government, or Authority; and the rules so imposed and enforced, are
called Laws proper, Morality proper, Obligatory Morality, Duty.

4. The second are rules whose only external support is
_Rewards_; constituting Optional Morality, Merit, Virtue,
or Nobleness.

Moral duties are a set of rules, precepts, or prescriptions, for the
direction of human conduct in a certain sphere or province. These
rules are enforced by two kinds of motives, requiring to be kept
distinct.

I.--One class of rules are made compulsory by the infliction of pain,
in the case of violation or neglect. The pain so inflicted is termed a
Penalty, or Punishment; it is one of the most familiar experiences of
all human beings living in society.

The Institution that issues Rules of this class, and inflicts
punishment when they are not complied with, is termed Government, or
Authority; all its rules are authoritative, or obligatory; they are
Laws strictly so called, Laws proper. Punishment, Government,
Authority, Superiority, Obligation, Law, Duty,--define each other;
they are all different modes of regarding the same fact.

Morality is thus in every respect analagous to Civil Government, or
the Law of the Land. Nay, farther, it squares, to a very great extent,
with Political Authority. The points where the two coincide, and those
where they do not coincide, may be briefly stated:--

(1) All the most essential parts of Morality are adopted and carried
out by the Law of the Land. The rules for protecting person and
property, for fulfilling contracts, for performing reciprocal duties,
are rules or laws of the State; and are enforced by the State, through
its own machinery. The penalties inflicted by public authority
constitute what is called the Political Sanction; they are the most
severe, and the most strictly and dispassionately administered, of all
penalties.

(2) There are certain Moral duties enforced, not by public and
official authority, but by the members of the community in their
private capacity. These are sometimes called the Laws of Honour,
because they are punished by withdrawing from the violator the honour
or esteem of his fellow-citizens. Courage, Prudence as regards self,
Chastity, Orthodoxy of opinion, a certain conformity in Tastes and
Usages,--are all prescribed by the mass of each community, to a
greater or less extent, and are insisted on under penalty of social
disgrace and excommunication. This is the Social or the Popular
Sanction. The department so marked out, being distinct from the
Political sphere, is called, by Austin, Positive Morality, or Morality
proper.

Public opinion also chimes in with the Law, and adds its own sanction
to the legal penalties for offences: unless the law happens to be in
conflict with the popular sentiment. Criminals, condemned by the law,
are additionally punished by social disgrace.

(3) The Law of the Land contains many enactments, besides the Moral
Code and the machinery for executing it. The Province of government
passes beyond the properly protective function, and includes many
institutions of public convenience, which are not identified with
right and wrong. The defence from external enemies; the erection of
works of public utility; the promotion of social improvements,--are
all within the domain of the public authority.[1]

II.--The second class of Rules are supported, not by penalties, but by
Rewards. Society, instead of punishing men for not being charitable or
benevolent, praises and otherwise rewards them, when they are so.
Hence, although Morality inculcates benevolence, this is not a Law
proper, it is not obligatory, authoritative, or binding; it is purely
voluntary, and is termed merit, virtuous and noble conduct.

In this department, the members of the community, in their unofficial
capacity, are the chief agents and administrators. The Law of the Land
occupies itself with the enforcement of its own obligatory rules,
having at its command a perfect machinery of punishment. Private
individuals administer praise, honour, esteem, approbation, and
reward. In a few instances, the Government dispenses rewards, as in
the bestowal of office, rank, titles, and pensions, but this function
is exceptional and limited.

The conduct rewarded by Society is chiefly resolvable into
Beneficence. Whoever is moved to incur sacrifices, or to go through
labours, for the good of others, is the object, not merely of
gratitude from the persons benefited, but of approbation from society
at large.

Any remarkable strictness or fidelity in the discharge of duties
properly so called, receives general esteem. Even in matters merely
ceremonial, if importance be attached to them, sedulous and exact
compliance, being the distinction of the few, will earn the
approbation of the many.[2]

5. The Ethical End, or Morality, _as it has been_, is founded partly
on Well-being, or Utility: and partly on Sentiment.

The portions of Morality, having in view the prevention of human
misery and the promotion of human happiness, are known and obvious.
They are not the whole of Morality as it has been.

Sentiment, caprice, arbitrary liking or disliking, are names for
states of feeling that do not necessarily arise from their objects,
but may be joined or disjoined by education, custom, or the power of
the will. The revulsion of mind, on the part of the Jews, against
eating the pig, and on our own part, as regards horse flesh, is not a
primitive or natural sensibility, like the pain of hunger, or of cold,
or of a musical discord; it is purely artificial; custom has made it,
and could unmake it. The feeling of fatigue from overwork is natural;
the repugnance of caste to manual labour is factitious. The dignity
attached to the military profession, and the indignity of the office
of public executioner, are capricious, arbitrary, and sentimental. Our
prospective regard to the comforts of our declining years points to a
real interest; our feelings as to the disposal of the body after death
are purely factitious and sentimental. Such feelings are of the things
in our own power; and the grand mistake of the Stoics was their
viewing all good and evil whatever in the same light.

It is an essential part of human liberty, to permit each person to
form and to indulge these sentiments or caprices; although a good
education should control them with a view to our happiness on the
whole. But, when any individual liking or fancy of this description is
imposed as a law upon the entire community, it is a perversion and
abuse of power, a confounding of the Ethical end by foreign
admixtures. Thus, to enjoin authoritatively one mode of sepulture,
punishing all deviations from that, could have nothing to do with the
preservation of the order of society. In such a matter, the
interference of the state in modern times, has regard to the detection
of crime in the matter of life and death, and to the evils arising
from the putrescence of the dead.

6. The Ethical End, although properly confined to Utility, is subject
to still farther limitations, according to the view taken of the
Province of Moral Government, or Authority.

Although nothing should be made morally obligatory but what is
generally useful, the converse does not hold; many kinds of conduct
are generally useful, but not morally obligatory. A certain amount of
bodily exercise in the open air every day would be generally useful;
but neither the law of the land nor public opinion compels it. Good
roads are works of great utility; it is not every one's duty to make
them.

The machinery of coercion is not brought to bear upon every
conceivable utility. It is principally reserved, when not abused, for
a select class of utilities.

Some utilities are indispensable to the very existence of men in
society. The primary moral duties must be observed to some degree, if
men are to live together as men, and not to roam at large as beasts.
The interests of _Security_ are the first and most pressing concern of
human society. Whatever relates to this has a surpassing importance.
Security is contrasted with Improvement; what relates to Security is
declared to be Right; what relates to Improvement is said to be
Expedient; both are forms of Utility, but the one is pressing and
indispensable, the other is optional. The same difference is expressed
by the contrasts--Being and Well-being; Existence and Prosperous
Existence; Fundamentals or Essentials and Circumstantials. That the
highway robber should be punished is a part of Being; that the
highways should be in good repair, is a part of Well-being. That
Justice should be done is Existence; that farmers and traders should
give in to government the statistics of their occupation, is a means
to Prosperous Existence.[3]

It is proper to advert to one specific influence in moral enactments,
serving to disguise the Ethical end, and to widen the distinction
between morality as it has been, and morality as it ought to be. The
enforcing of legal and moral enactments demands a _power of coercion_,
to be lodged in the hands of certain persons; the possession of which
is a temptation to exceed the strict exigencies of public safety, or
the common welfare. Probably many of the whims, fancies, ceremonies,
likings and antipathies, that have found their way into the moral
codes of nations, have arisen from the arbitrary disposition of
certain individuals happening to be in authority at particular
junctures. Even the general community, acting in a spontaneous manner,
imposes needless restraints upon itself, delighting more in the
exercise of power, than in the freedom of individual action.

7. Morality, in its essential parts, is 'Eternal and Immutable;' in
other parts, it varies with Custom.

(1) The rules for protecting one man from another, for enforcing
justice, and the observance of contracts, are essential and
fundamental, and may be styled 'Eternal and Immutable.' The ends to be
served require these rules; no caprice of custom could change them
without sacrificing these ends. They are to society what food is to
individual life, of sexual intercourse and mother's care to the
continuance of the race. The primary moralities could not be exchanged
for rules enacting murder, pillage, injustice, unveracity, repudiation
of engagements; because under these rules, human society would fall to
pieces.

(2) The manner of carrying into effect these primary regulations of
society, varies according to Custom. In some communities the machinery
is rude and imperfect; while others have greatly improved it. The
Greeks took the lead in advancing judicial machinery, the Romans
followed.

In the regulations not essential to Being, but important to
Well-being, there has prevailed the widest discrepancy of usage. The
single department relating to the Sexes is a sufficient testimony on
this head. No one form of the family is indispensable to the existence
of society; yet some forms are more favourable to general happiness
than others. But which form is on the whole the best, has greatly
divided opinion; and legislation has varied accordingly. The more
advanced nations have adopted compulsory monogamy, thereby giving the
prestige of their authority in favour of that system. But it cannot be
affirmed that the joining of one man to one woman is a portion of
'Eternal and Immutable Morality.'

Morality is an Institution of society, but not an arbitrary
institution.

8. Before adducing the proofs in support of the position above
assumed, namely, that Utility or Human Happiness, with certain
limitations, is the _proper_ criterion of Morality, it is proper to
enquire, what sort of evidence the Ethical Standard is susceptible of.

Hitherto, the doctrine of Utility has been assumed, in order to be
fully stated. We must next review the evidence in its favour, and the
objections urged against it. It is desirable, however, to ask what
kind of proof should be expected on such a question.

In the Speculative or Theoretical sciences, we prove a doctrine by
referring it to some other doctrine or doctrines, until we come at
last to some assumption that must be rested in as ultimate or final.
We can prove the propositions of Euclid, the law of gravitation, the
law of atomic proportions, the law of association; we cannot prove our
present sensations, nor can we demonstrate that what has been, will
be. The ultimate data must be accepted as self-evident; they have no
higher authority than that mankind generally are disposed to accept
them.

In the practical Sciences, the question is not as to a principle of
the order of nature, but as to an _end_ of human action. There may be
_derived_ Ends, which are susceptible of demonstrative proof; but
there must also be _ultimate_ Ends, for which no proof can be offered;
they must be received as self-evident, and their sole authority is the
person receiving them. In most of the practical sciences, the ends are
derived; the end of Medicine is Health, which is an end subsidiary to
the final end of human happiness. So it is with Navigation, with
Politics, with Education, and others. In all of them, we recognize the
bearing upon human welfare, or happiness, as a common, comprehensive,
and crowning end. On the theory of Utility, Morals is also governed by
this highest end.

Now, there can be no proof offered for the position that Happiness is
the proper end of all human pursuit, the criterion of all right
conduct. It is an ultimate or final assumption, to be tested by
reference to the individual judgment of mankind. If the assumption,
that misery, and not happiness, is the proper end of life, found
supporters, no one could reply, for want of a basis of argument--an
assumption still more fundamental agreed upon by both sides. It would
probably be the case, that the supporters of misery, as an end, would
be at some point inconsistent with themselves; which would lay them
open to refutation. But to any one consistently maintaining the
position, there is no possible reply, because there is no medium of
proof.

If then, it appears, on making the appeal to mankind, that happiness
is admitted to be the highest end of all action, the theory of Utility
is proved.

9. The judgment of Mankind is very generally in favour of Happiness,
as the Supreme end of human conduct, Morality included.

This decision, however, is not given without qualifications and
reservations; nor is there perfect unanimity regarding it.

The theory of Motives to the Will is the answer to the question as to
the ends of human action. According to the primary law of the Will,
each one of us, for ourselves, seeks pleasure and avoids pain, present
or prospective. The principle is interfered with by the operation of
Fixed Ideas, under the influence of the feelings; whence we have the
class of Impassioned, Exaggerated, Irrational Motives or Ends. Of
these influences, one deserves to be signalized as a source of
virtuous conduct, and as approved of by mankind generally; that is,
Sympathy with others.

Under the Fixed Idea, may be ranked the acquired sense of Dignity,
which induces us often to forfeit pleasure and incur pain. We should
not choose the life of Plato's beatified oyster, or (to use
Aristotle's example) be content with perpetual childhood, with however
great a share of childish happiness.

10. The Ethical end that men are tending to, and may ultimately adopt
without reservation, is human Welfare, Happiness, or Being and
Well-being combined, that is, Utility.

The evidence consists of such facts as these:--

(1) By far the greater part of the morality of every age and country
has reference to the welfare of society. Even in the most
superstitious, sentimental, and capricious despotisms, a very large
share of the enactments, political and moral, consist in protecting
one man from another, and in securing justice between man and man.
These objects may be badly carried out, they may be accompanied with
much oppression of the governed by the governing body, but they are
always aimed at, and occasionally secured. Of the Ten Commandments,
four pertain to Religious Worship; _six_ are Utilitarian, that is,
have no end except to ward off evils, and to further the good of
mankind.

(2) The general welfare is at all times considered a strong and
adequate justification of moral rules, and is constantly adduced as a
motive for obedience. The commonplaces in support of law and morality
represent, that if murder and theft were to go unpunished, neither
life nor property would be safe; men would be in eternal warfare;
industry would perish; society must soon come to an end.

There is a strong disposition to support the more purely sentimental
requirements, and even the excesses of mere tyranny, by utilitarian
reasons.

The cumbersome ablutions of oriental nations are defended on the
ground of cleanliness. The divine sanctity of kings is held to be an
aid to social obedience. Slavery is alleged to have been at one time
necessary to break in mankind to industry. Indissoluble marriage arose
from a sentiment rather than from utility; but the arguments, commonly
urged in its favour, are utilitarian.

(3) In new cases, and in cases where no sentiment or passion is called
into play, Utility alone is appealed to. In any fresh enactment, at
the present day, the good of the community is the only justification
that would be listened to. If it were proposed to forbid absolutely
the eating of pork in Christian countries, some great public evils
would have to be assigned as the motive. Were the fatalities attending
the eating of pork, on account of _trichiniae_, to become numerous,
and unpreventible, there would then be a reason, such as a modern
civilized community would consider sufficient, for making the rearing
of swine a crime and an immorality. But no mere sentimental or
capricious dislike to the pig, on the part of any number of persons,
could now procure an enactment for disusing that animal.

(4) There is a gradual tendency to withdraw from the moral code,
observances originating purely in sentiment, and having little or no
connexion with human welfare.

We have abandoned the divine sacredness of kings. We no longer
consider ourselves morally bound to denounce and extirpate heretics
and witches, still less to observe fasts and sacred days. Even in
regard to the Christian Sabbath, the opinion is growing in favour of
withdrawing both the legal and popular sanction formerly so stringent;
while the arguments for Sabbath observance are more and more charged
with considerations of secular utility.

Should these considerations be held as adequate to support the
proposition advanced, they are decisive in favour of Utility as the
Moral Standard that _ought to be_. Any other standard that may be set
up in competition with Utility, must ultimately ground itself on the
very same appeal to the opinions and the practice of mankind.

11. The chief objections urged against Utility as the moral Standard
have been in great part anticipated. Still, it is proper to advert to
them in detail.

I.--It is maintained that Happiness is not, either in fact or in
right, the sole aim of human pursuit; that men actually, deliberately,
and by conscientious preference, seek other ends. For example, it is
affirmed that Virtue is an end in itself, without regard to happiness.

On this argument it may be observed:--

(1) It has been abundantly shown in this work, that one part of the
foregoing affirmation is strictly true. Men are not urged to action
exclusively by their pleasures and their pains. They are urged by
other motives, of the impassioned kind; among which, is to be
signalized sympathy with the pains and pleasures of others. If this
had been the only instance of action at variance with the regular
course of the will, we should be able to maintain that the motive to
act is still happiness, but not always the agent's own happiness. We
have seen, however, that individuals, not unfrequently, act in
opposition both to their own, and to other people's happiness; as when
mastered by a panic, and when worked up into a frenzy of anger or
antipathy.

The sound and tenable position seems to be this:--Human beings, in
their best and soberest moods, looking before and after, weighing all
the consequences of actions, are generally disposed to regard
Happiness, to some beings or others, as the proper end of all
endeavours. The mother is not exclusively bent on her own happiness;
she is upon her child's. Howard abandoned the common pleasures of life
for himself, to diminish the misery of fellow creatures.

(2) It is true that human beings are apt to regard Virtue as an
end-in-itself, and not merely as a means to happiness as the final
end. But the fact is fully accounted for on the general law of
Association by Contiguity; there being many other examples of the same
kind, as the love of money. Justice, Veracity, and other virtues, are
requisite, to some extent, for the existence of society, and, to a
still greater extent, for prosperous existence. Under such
circumstances, it would certainly happen that the means would
participate in the importance of the end, and would even be regarded
as an end in itself.

(3) The great leading duties may be shown to derive their estimation
from their bearing upon human welfare. Take first, Veracity or Truth.
Of all the moral duties, this has most the appearance of being an
absolute and independent requirement. Yet mankind have always approved
of deception practised upon an enemy in war, a madman, or a highway
robber. Also, secrecy or concealment, even although misinterpreted, is
allowed, when it does not cause pernicious results; and is even
enjoined and required in the intercourse of society, in order to
prevent serious evils. But an absolute standard of truth is
incompatible, even with secrecy or disguise; in departing from the
course of perfect openness, or absolute publicity of thought and
action, in every possible circumstance, we renounce ideal truth in
favour of a compromised or qualified veracity--a pursuit of truth in
subordination to the general well-being of society.

Still less is there any form of Justice that does not have respect to
Utility. If Justice is defined as giving to every one their own, the
motive clearly is to prevent misery to individuals. If there were a
species of injustice that made no one unhappier, we may be quite sure
that tribunals would not be set up for enforcing and punishing it. The
idea of equality in Justice is seemingly an absolute conception, but,
in point of fact, equality is a matter of institution. The children of
the same parent are, in certain circumstances, regarded as unequal by
the law; and justice consists in respecting this inequality.

The virtue of Self-denial, is one that receives the commendation of
society, and stands high in the morality of reward. Still, it is a
means to an end. The operation of the associating principle tends to
raise it above this point to the rank of a final end. And there is an
ascetic scheme of life that proceeds upon this supposition; but the
generality of mankind, in practice, if not always in theory, disavow
it.

(4) It is often affirmed by those that regard virtue, and not
happiness, as the end, that the two coincide in the long run. Now, not
to dwell upon the very serious doubts as to the matter of fact, a
universal coincidence without causal connexion is so rare as to be in
the last degree improbable. A fiction of this sort was contrived by
Leibnitz, under the title of 'pre-established harmony;' but, among the
facts of the universe, there are only one or two cases known to
investigation.

12. II.--It is objected to Utility as the Standard, that the bearings
of conduct on general happiness are too numerous to be calculated; and
that even where the calculation is possible, people have seldom time
to make it.

(1) It is answered, that the primary moral duties refer to conduct
where the consequences are evident and sure. The disregard of Justice
and Truth would to an absolute certainty bring about a state of
confusion and ruin; their observance, in any high degree, contributes
to raise the standard of well-being.

In other cases, the calculation is not easy, from the number of
opposing considerations. For example, there are two sides to the
question, Is dissent morally wrong? in other words, Ought all opinions
to be tolerated? But if we venture to decide such a question, without
the balancing or calculating process, we must follow blindfold the
dictates of one or other of the two opposing sentiments,--Love of
Power and Love of Liberty.

It is not necessary that we should go through the process of
calculation every time we have occasion to perform a moral act. The
calculations have already been performed for all the leading duties,
and we have only to apply the maxims to the cases as they arise.

13. III.--The principle of Utility, it is said, contains no motives to
seek the Happiness of others; it is essentially a form of Self-Love.

The averment is that Utility is a sufficient motive to pursue our own
happiness, and the happiness of others as a means to our own; but it
does not afford any purely disinterested impulses; it is a Selfish
theory after all.

Now, as Utility is, by profession, a benevolent and not a selfish
theory, either such profession is insincere, or there must be an
obstruction in carrying it out. That the supporters of the theory are
insincere, no one has a right to affirm. The only question then is,
what are the difficulties opposed by this theory, and not present in
other theories (the Moral Sense, for example) to benevolent impulses
on the part of individuals?

Let us view the objection first as regards the Morality of Obligation,
or the duties that bind society together. Of these duties, only a
small number aim at positive beneficence; they are either Protective
of one man against another, or they enforce Reciprocity, which is
another name for Justice. The chief exception is the requiring of a
minimum of charity towards the needy.

This department of duty is maintained by the force of a certain
mixture of prudential and of beneficent considerations, on the part of
the majority, and by prudence (as fear of punishment) on the part of
the minority. But there does not appear to be anything in our
professedly Benevolent Theory of Morals to interfere with the small
portion of disinterested impulse that is bound up-with prudential
regards, in the total of motives concerned in the morality of social
order called the primary or obligatory morality.

Let us, in the next place, view the objection as regards Optional
Morality, where positive beneficence has full play. The principal
motive in this department is Reward, in the shape either of benefits
or of approbation. Now, there is nothing to hinder the supporters of
the standard of Utility from joining in the rewards or commendations
bestowed on works of charity and beneficence.

Again, there is, in the constitution of the mind, a motive superior to
reward, namely, Sympathy proper, or the purely Disinterested impulse
to alleviate the pains and advance the pleasures of others. This part
of the mind is wholly _unselfish_; it needs no other prompting than
the fact that some one is in pain, or may be made happier by something
within the power of the agent.

The objectors need to be reminded that Obligatory Morality, which
works by punishment, creates a purely selfish motive; that Optional
Morality, in so far as stimulated by Reward, is also selfish; and that
the only source of purely disinterested impulses is in the unprompted
Sympathy of the individual mind. If such sympathies exist, and if
nothing is done to uproot or paralyze them, they will urge men to do
good to others, irrespective of all theories. Good done from any other
source or motive is necessarily self-seeking. It is a common remark,
with reference to the sanctions of a future life, that they create
purely self-regarding motives. Any proposal to increase disinterested
action by moral obligation contains a self-contradiction; it is
suicidal. The rich may be made to give half their wealth to the poor;
but in as far as they are _made_ to do it, they are not benevolent.
Law distrusts generosity and supersedes it. If a man is expected to
regard the happiness of others as an end in itself, and not as means
to his own happiness, he must be left to his own impulses: 'the
quality of mercy is not _strained_' The advocates of Utility may
observe non-interference as well as others.





CHAPTER III.


THE MORAL FACULTY.

1. The chief question in the Psychology of Ethics is whether the Moral
Faculty, or Conscience, be a simple or a complex fact of the mind.

Practically, it would seem of little importance in what way the moral
faculty originated, except with a view to teach us how it may be best
strengthened when it happens to be weak. Still, a very great
importance has been attached to the view, that it is simple and
innate; the supposition being that a higher authority thereby belongs
to it. If it arises from mere education, it depends on the teacher for
the time being; if it exists prior to all education, it seems to be
the voice of universal nature or of God.

2. In favour of the simple and intuitive character of Moral Sentiment,
it is argued:--

First, That our judgments of right and wrong are immediate and
instantaneous.

On almost all occasions, we are ready at once to pronounce an action
right or wrong. We do not need to deliberate or enquire, or to canvass
reasons and considerations for and against, in order to declare a
murder, a theft, or a lie to be wrong. We are fully armed with the
power of deciding all such questions; we do not hesitate, like a
person that has to consult a variety of different faculties or
interests. Just as we pronounce at once whether the day is light or
dark, hot or cold; whether a weight is light or heavy;--we are able to
say whether an action is morally right or the opposite.

3. Secondly, It is a faculty or power belonging to all mankind.

This was expressed by Cicero, in a famous passage, often quoted with
approbation, by the supporters of innate moral distinctions. 'There is
one true and original law conformable to reason and to nature,
diffused over all, invariable, eternal, which calls to duty and deters
from injustice, &c.'

4. Thirdly, Moral Sentiment is said to be radically different in its
nature from any other fact or phenomenon of the mind.

The peculiar state of discriminating right and wrong, involving
approbation and disapprobation, is considered to be entirely unlike
any other mental element; and, if so, we are precluded from resolving
or analyzing it into simpler modes of feeling, willing, or thinking.

We have many feelings that urge us to act and abstain from acting; but
the prompting of conscience has something peculiar to itself, which
has been expressed by the terms rightness, authority, supremacy. Other
motives,--hunger, curiosity, benevolence, and so on,--have might, this
has right.

So, the Intellect has many occasions for putting forth its aptitudes
of discriminating, identifying, remembering; but the operation of
discerning right and wrong is supposed to be a unique employment of
those functions.

5. In reply to these arguments, and in support of the view that the
Moral Faculty is complex and derived, the following considerations are
urged:--

First, The Immediateness of a judgment, is no proof of its being
innate; long practice or familiarity has the same effect.

In proportion as we are habituated to any subject, or any class of
operations, our decisions are rapid and independent of deliberation.
An expert geometer sees at a glance whether a demonstration is
correct. In extempore speech, a person has to perform every moment a
series of judgments as to the suitability of words to meaning, to
grammar, to taste, to effect upon an audience. An old soldier knows in
an instant, without thought or deliberation, whether a position is
sufficiently guarded. There is no greater rapidity in the judgments of
right and wrong, than in these acquired professional judgments.

Moreover, the decisions of conscience are quick only in the simpler
cases. It happens not unfrequently that difficult and protracted
deliberations are necessary to a moral judgment.

6. Secondly, The alleged similarity of men's moral judgments in all
countries and times holds only to a limited degree.

The very great differences among different nations, as to what
constitutes right and wrong, are too numerous, striking, and serious,
not to have been often brought forward in Ethical controversy. Robbery
and murder are legalized in whole nations. Macaulay's picture of the
Highland Chief of former days is not singular in the experience of
mankind.

'His own vassals, indeed, were few in number, but he came of the best
blood of the Highlands. He kept up a close connexion with his more
powerful kinsmen; nor did they like him the less because he was a
robber; for he never robbed them; and that robbery, merely as robbery,
was a wicked and disgraceful act, had never entered into the mind of
any Celtic chief.'

Various answers have been given by the advocates of innate morality to
these serious discrepancies.

(1) It is maintained that savage or uncultivated nations are not a
fair criterion of mankind generally: that as men become more
civilized, they approximate to unity of moral sentiment; and what
civilized men agree in, is alone to be taken as the judgment of the
race.

Now, this argument would have great weight, in any discussion as to
what is good, useful, expedient, or what is in accordance with the
cultivated reason or intelligence of mankind; because civilization
consists in the exercise of men's intellectual faculties to improve
their condition. But in a controversy as to what is given us by
nature,--what we possess independently of intelligent search and
experience,--the appeal to civilization does not apply. What civilized
men agree upon among themselves, as opposed to savages, is likely to
be the reverse of a natural instinct; in other words, something
suggested by reason and experience.

In the next place, counting only civilized races, that is, including
the chief European, American, and Asiatic peoples of the present day,
and the Greeks and Romans of the ancient world, we still find
disparities on what are deemed by us fundamental points of moral right
and wrong. Polygamy is regarded as right in Turkey, India, and China,
and as wrong in England. Marriages that we pronounce incestuous were
legitimate in ancient times. The views entertained by Plato and
Aristotle as to the intercourse of the sexes are now looked upon with
abhorrence.

(2) It has been replied that, although men differ greatly in what they
consider right and wrong, they all agree in possessing _some notion_
of right and wrong. No people are entirely devoid of moral judgments.

But this is to surrender the only position of any real importance. The
simple and underived character of the moral faculty is maintained
because of the superior authority attached to what is natural, as
opposed to what is merely conventional. But if nothing be natural but
the mere fact of right and wrong, while all the details, which alone
have any value, are settled by convention and custom, we are as much
at sea on one system as on the other.

(3) It is fully admitted, being, indeed, impossible to deny, that
education must concur with natural impulses in making up the moral
sentiment. No human being, abandoned entirely to native promptings, is
ever found to manifest a sense of right and wrong. As a general rule,
the strength of the conscience depends on the care bestowed on its
cultivation. Although we have had to recognize primitive distinctions
among men as to the readiness to take on moral training, still, the
better the training, the stronger will be the conscientious
determinations.

But this admission has the effect of reducing the part performed by
nature to a small and uncertain amount. Even if there were native
preferences, they might be completely overborne and reversed by an
assiduous education. The difference made by inculcation is so great,
that it practically amounts to everything. A voice so feeble as to be
overpowered by foreign elements would do no credit to nature.

7. Thirdly, Moral right and wrong is not so much a simple, indivisible
property, as an extensive Code of regulations, which cannot even be
understood without a certain maturity of the intelligence.

If is not possible to sum up the whole field of moral right and wrong,
so as to bring it within the scope of a single limited perception,
like the perception of resistance, or of colour. In regard to some of
the alleged intuitions at the foundation of our knowledge, as for
example time and space, there is a comparative simplicity and unity,
rendering their innate origin less disputable. No such simplicity can
be assigned in the region of duty.

After the subject of morals has been studied in the detail, it has,
indeed, been found practicable to comprise the whole, by a kind of
generalization, in one comprehensive recognition of regard to our
fellows. But, in the first place, this is far from a primitive or an
intuitive suggestion of the mind. It came at a late stage of human
history, and is even regarded as a part of Revelation. In the second
place, this high generality must be accompanied with detailed
applications to particular cases and circumstances. Life is full of
conflicting demands, and there must be special rules to adjust these
various demands. We have to be told that country is greater than
family; that temporary interests are to succumb to more enduring, and
so on.

Supposing the Love of our Neighbour to unfold in detail, as it
expresses in sum, the whole of morality, this is only another name for
our Sympathetic, Benevolent, or Disinterested regards, into which
therefore Conscience would be resolved, as it was by Hume.

But Morals is properly considered as a wide-ranging science, having a
variety of heads full of difficulty, and demanding minute
consideration. The subject of Justice, has nothing simple but the
abstract statement--giving each one their due; before that can be
applied, we must ascertain what is each person's due, which introduces
complex questions of relative merit, far transcending the sphere of
intuition.

If any part of Morals had the simplicity of an instinct, it would be
regard to Truth. The difference between truth and falsehood might
almost be regarded as a primitive susceptibility, like the difference
between light and dark, between resistance and non-resistance. That
each person should say what is, instead of what is not, may well seem
a primitive and natural impulse. In circumstances of perfect
indifference, this would be the obvious and usual course of conduct;
being, like the straight line, the shortest distance between two
points. Let a motive arise, however, in favour of the lie, and there
is nothing to insure the truth. Reference must be made to other parts
of the mind, from which counter-motives may be furnished; and the
intuition in favour of Truth, not being able to support itself, has to
repose on the general foundation of all virtue, the instituted
recognition of the claims of others.

8. Fourthly, Intuition is incapable of settling the debated questions
of Practical Morality.

If we recall some of the great questions of practical life that have
divided the opinions of mankind, we shall find that mere Intuition is
helpless to decide them.

The toleration of heretical opinions has been a greatly contested
point. Our feelings are arrayed on both sides; and there is no
prompting of nature to arbitrate between the opposing impulses. If the
advance of civilization has tended to liberty, it has been owing
partly to greater enlightenment, and partly to the successful
struggles of dissent in the war with established opinion.

The questions relating to marriage are wholly undecideable by
intuition. The natural impulses are for unlimited co-habitation. The
degree of restraint to be put upon this tendency is not indicated by
any sentiment that can be discovered in the mind. The case is very
peculiar. In thefts and murder, the immediate consequences are injury
to some one; in sexual indulgence, the immediate result is agreeable
to all concerned. The evils are traceable only in remote consequences,
which intuition can know nothing of. It is not to be wondered,
therefore, that nations, even highly civilized, have differed widely
in their marriage institutions; agreeing only in the propriety of
adopting and enforcing _some_ regulations. So essentially has this
matter been bound up with the moral code of every society, that a
proposed criterion of morality unable to grapple with it, would be
discarded as worthless. Yet there is no intuitive sentiment that can
be of any avail in the question of marriage with a deceased wife's
sister.

9. Fifthly, It is practicable to analyze or resolve the Moral Faculty;
and, in so doing, to explain, both its peculiar property, and the
similarity of moral judgments so far as existing among men.

We begin, by estimating the operation of (1) Prudence. (2) Sympathy,
and (3) the Emotions generally.

The inducements to perform a moral act, as, for example, the
fulfilling of a bargain,--are plainly seen to be of various kinds.

(1) Prudence, or Self-interest, has obviously much to do with the
moral conduct. Postponing for the present the consideration of
Punishment, which is one mode of appeal to the prudential regards, we
can trace the workings of self-interest on many occasions wherein men
act right. To fulfil a bargain is, in the great majority of cases, for
the advantage of the agent; if he fails to perform his part, others
may do the same to him.

Our self-interest may look still farther. We may readily discover that
if we set an example of injustice, it may be taken up and repeated to
such a degree that we can count upon nothing; social security comes to
an end, and individual existence, even if possible, would cease to be
desirable.

A yet higher view of self-interest informs us, that by performing all
our obligations to our fellows, we not only attain reciprocal
performance, but generate mutual affections and sympathies, which
greatly augment the happiness of life.

(2) Sympathy, or Fellow-feeling, the source of our disinterested
actions, must next be taken into the account. It is a consequence of
our sympathetic endowment that we revolt from inflicting pain on
another, and even forego a certain satisfaction to self rather than be
the occasion of suffering to a fellow creature. Moved thus, we perform
many obligations on the ground of the misery (not our own) accruing
from their neglect.

A considerable portion of human virtue springs directly from this
source. If purely disinterested tendencies were withdrawn from the
breast, the whole existence of humanity would be changed. Society
might not be impossible; there are races where mutual sympathy barely
exists: but the fulfilment of obligations, if always dependent on a
sense of self-interest, would fail where that was not apparent. On the
other hand, if we were on all occasions touched with the unhappiness
to others immediately and remotely springing from our conduct--if
sympathy were perfect and unfailing--we could hardly ever omit doing
what was right.

(3) Our several Emotions or Passions may co-operate with Prudence and
with Sympathy in a way to make both the one and the other more
efficacious.

Prudence, in the shape of aversion to pain, is rendered more acute
when the pain is accompanied with Fear. The perturbation of fear rises
up as a deterring motive when dangers loom in the distance. One
powerful check to the commission of injury is the retaliation of the
sufferer, which is a danger of the vague and illimitable kind,
calculated to create alarm.

Anger, or Resentment, also enters, in various ways, into our moral
impulses. In one shape it has just been noticed. In concurrence with
Self-interest and Sympathy, it heightens the feeling of reprobation
against wrong-doers.

The Tender Emotion, and the Affections, uphold us in the performance
of our duties to others, being an additional safeguard against injury
to the objects of the feelings. It has already been shown how these
emotions, while tending to coalesce with Sympathy proper, are yet
distinguished from it.

The AEsthetic Emotions have important bearings upon Ethical Sentiment.
As a whole, they are favourable to human virtue, being non-exclusive
pleasures. They, however, give a bias to the formation of moral rules,
and pervert the proper test of right and wrong in a manner to be
afterwards explained.

10. Although Prudence and Sympathy, and the various Emotions named,
are powerful inducements to what is right in action, and although,
without these, right would not prevail among mankind, yet they do not
stamp the _peculiar attribute_ of Rightness. For this, we must refer
to the institution of Government, or Authority.

Although the force of these various motives on the side of right is
all-powerful and essential, so much so, that without them morality
would be impossible, they do not, of themselves, impart the character
of a moral act. We do not always feel that, because we have neglected
our interest or violated our sympathies, we have on that account done
wrong. The criterion of rightness in particular cases is something
different.

The reasons are apparent. For although prudence, as regards self, and
sympathy or fellow-feeling, as regards others, would comprehend all
the interests of mankind--everything that morality can desire to
accomplish--nevertheless, the acting out of these impulses by each
individual at random would not suffice for the exigencies of human
life. They must be regulated, directed, reconciled by society at
large; each person must be made to work upon the same plan as every
other person. This leads to the institution of Government and
Authority, with the correlatives of Law, Obligation, and Punishment.
Our natural impulses for good are now directed into an artificial
channel, and it is no longer optional whether they shall fall into
that channel. The nature of the case requires all to conform alike to
the general arrangements, and whoever is not sufficiently urged by the
natural motives, is brought under the spur of a new kind of prudential
motive--Punishment.

Government, Authority, Law, Obligation, Punishment, are all implicated
in the same great Institution of Society, to which Morality owes its
chief foundation, and the Moral Sentiment its special attribute.
Morality is not Prudence, nor Benevolence, in their primitive or
spontaneous manifestations; it is the systematic codification of
prudential and benevolent actions, rendered obligatory by what is
termed penalties or Punishment; an entirely distinct motive,
artificially framed by human society, but made so familiar to every
member of society as to be a second nature. None are allowed to be
prudential or sympathizing in their own way. Parents are compelled to
nourish their own children; servants to obey their own masters, to the
neglect of other regards; all citizens have to abide by the awards of
authority; bargains are to be fulfilled according to a prescribed form
and letter; truth is to be spoken on certain definite occasions, and
not on others. In a formed society, the very best impulses of nature
fail to guide the citizen's actions. No doubt there ought to be a
general coincidence between what Prudence and Sympathy would dictate,
and what Law dictates; but the precise adjustment is a matter of
_institution_. A moral act is not merely an act tending to reconcile
the good of the agent with the good of the whole society; it is an
act, prescribed by the social authority, and rendered obligatory upon
every citizen. Its morality is constituted by its authoritative
prescription, and not by its fulfilling the primary ends of the social
institution. A bad law is still a law; an ill-judged moral precept is
still a moral precept, felt as such by every loyal citizen.

11. It may be proved, by such evidence as the case admits of, that the
peculiarity of the Moral Sentiment, or Conscience, is identified with
our education under government, or Authority.

Conscience is described by such terms as moral approbation and
disapprobation; and involves, when highly developed, a peculiar and
unmistakeable revulsion of mind at what is wrong, and a strong
resentment towards the wrong-doer, which become Remorse, in the case
of self.

It is capable of being proved, that there is nothing natural or
primitive in these feelings, except in so far as the case happens to
concur with the dictates of Self-interest, or Sympathy, aided by the
Emotions formerly specified. Any action that is hostile to our
interest, excites a form of disapprobation, such as belongs to wounded
self-interest; and any action that puts another to pain may so affect
our natural sympathy as to be disapproved, and resented on that
ground. These natural or inborn feelings are always liable to coincide
with moral right and wrong, although they are not its criterion or
measure in the mind of each individual. But in those cases where an
unusually strong feeling of moral disapprobation is awakened, there is
apt to be a concurrence of the primitive motives of self, and of
fellow-feeling; and it is the ideal of good law, and good morality to
coincide with a certain well-proportioned adjustment of the Prudential
and the Sympathetic regards of the individual.

The requisite allowance being made for the natural impulses, we must
now adduce the facts, showing that the characteristic of the Moral
Sense is an education under Law, or Authority, through the
instrumentality of Punishment.

(1) It is a fact that human beings living in society are placed under
discipline, accompanied by punishment. Certain actions are forbidden,
and the doers of them are subjected to some painful infliction; which
is increased in severity if they are persisted in. Now, what would be
the natural consequence of such a system, under the known laws of
feeling, will, and intellect? Would not an action that always brings
down punishment be associated with the pain and the dread of
punishment? Such an association is inevitably formed, and becomes at
least a part, and a very important part, of the sense of duty; nay, it
would of itself, after a certain amount of repetition, be adequate to
restrain for ever the performance of the action, thus attaining the
end of morality.

There may be various ways of evoking and forming the moral sentiment,
but the one way most commonly trusted to, and never altogether
dispensed with, is the associating of pain, that is, punishment, with
the actions that are disallowed. Punishment is held out as the
consequence of performing certain actions; every individual is made to
taste of it; its infliction is one of the most familiar occurrences of
every-day life. Consequently, whatever else may be present in the
moral sentiment, this fact of the connexion of pain with forbidden
actions must enter into it with an overpowering prominence. Any
natural or primitive impulse in the direction of duty must be very
marked and apparent, in order to divide with this communicated bias
the direction of our conduct. It is for the supporters of innate
distinctions to point out any concurring impetus (apart from the
Prudential and Sympathetic regards) sufficiently important to cast
these powerful associations into a secondary or subordinate position.

By a familiar effect of Contiguous Association, the dread of
punishment clothes the forbidden act with a feeling of aversion, which
in the end persists of its own accord, and without reference to the
punishment. Actions that have long been connected in the mind with
pains and penalties, come to be contemplated with a _disinterested_
repugnance; they seem to give pain on their own account. This is a
parallel, from the side of pain, of the acquired attachment to money.
Now, when, by such transference, a self-subsisting sentiment of
aversion has been created, the conscience seems to be detached from
all external sanctions, and to possess an isolated footing in the
mind. It has passed through the stage of reference to authority, and
has become a law to itself. But no conscience ever arrives at the
independent standing, without first existing in the reflected and
dependent stage.

We must never omit from the composition of the Conscience the primary
impulses of Self-Interest and Sympathy, which in minds strongly alive
to one or other, always count for a powerful element in human conduct,
although for reasons already stated, not the strictly moral element,
so far as the individual is concerned. They are adopted, more or less,
by the authority imposing the moral code; and when the two sources
coincide, the stream is all the stronger.

(2) Where moral training is omitted or greatly neglected, there is an
absence of security for virtuous conduct.

In no civilized community is moral discipline entirely wanting.
Although children may be neglected by their parents, they come at last
under the discipline of the law and the public. They cannot be
exempted from the associations of punishment with wrong. But when
these associations have not been early and sedulously formed, in the
family, in the school, and in the workshop, the moral sentiment is
left in a feeble condition. There still remain the force of the law
and of public opinion, the examples of public punishment, and the
reprobation of guilt. Every member of the community must witness daily
the degraded condition of the viciously disposed, and the prosperity
following on respect for the law. No human being escapes from thus
contracting moral impressions to a very large amount.

(3) Whenever an action is associated with Disapprobation and
Punishment, there grows up, in reference to it, a state of mind
undistinguishable from Moral Sentiment.

There are many instances where individuals are enjoined to a course of
conduct wholly indifferent with regard to universal morality, as in
the regulations of societies formed for special purposes. Each member
of the society has to conform to these regulations, under pain of
forfeiting all the benefits of the society, and of perhaps incurring
positive evils. The code of honour among gentlemen is an example of
these artificial impositions. It is not to be supposed that there
should be an innate sentiment to perform actions having nothing to
do-with moral right and wrong; yet the disapprobation and the remorse
following on a breach of the code of honour, will often be greater
than what follows a breach of the moral law. The constant habit of
regarding with dread the consequences of violating any of the rules,
simulates a moral sentiment, on a subject unconnected with morality
properly so called.

The arbitrary ceremonial customs of nations, with reference to such
points as ablutions, clothing, eating and abstinence from meats,--when
rendered obligatory by the force of penalties, occupy exactly the same
place in the mind as the principles of moral right and wrong. The same
form of dread attaches to the consequences of neglect; the same
remorse is felt by the individual offender. The exposure of the naked
person is as much abhorred as telling a lie. The Turkish woman
exposing her face, is no less conscience-smitten than if she murdered
her child. There is no act, however trivial, that cannot be raised to
the position of a moral act, by the imperative of society.

Still more striking is the growth of a moral sentiment in connexion
with such usages as the Hindoo suttee. It is known that the Hindoo
widow, if prevented from burning herself with her husband's corpse,
often feels all the pangs of remorse, and leads a life of misery and
self-humiliation. The habitual inculcation of this duty by society,
the penalty of disgrace attached to its omission, operate to implant a
sentiment in every respect analogous to the strongest moral sentiment.




PART II.


THE ETHICAL SYSTEMS.

The first important name in Ancient Ethical Philosophy is SOKRATES.
[469-399 B.C.]

For the views of Sokrates, as well as his method,[4] we have first the
MEMORABILIA of XENOPHON, and next such of the Platonic Compositions,
as are judged, by comparison with the Memorabilia, to keep closest to
the real Sokrates. Of these, the chief are the APOLOGY OF SOKRATES,
the KRITON and the PHAEDON.

The 'Memorabilia' was composed by Xenophon, expressly to vindicate
Sokrates against the accusations and unfavourable opinions that led to
his execution. The 'Apology' is Plato's account of his method, and
also sets forth his moral attitude. The 'Kriton' describes a
conversation between him and his friend Kriton, in prison, two days
before his death, wherein, in reply to the entreaties of his friends
generally that he should make his escape from prison, he declares his
determination to abide by the laws of the Athenian State. Inasmuch as,
in the Apology, he had seemed to set his private convictions above the
public authority, he here presents another side of his character. The
'Phaedon' contains the conversation on 'the Immortality of the Soul'
just before his execution.

The Ethical bearings of the Philosophical method, the Doctrines, and
the Life of Sokrates. are these:--

The direction he gave to philosophical enquiry, was expressed in the
saying that he brought 'Philosophy down from Heaven to Earth.' His
subjects were Man and Society. He entered a protest against the
enquiries of the early philosophers as to the constitution of the
Kosmos, the nature of the Heavenly Bodies, the theory of Winds and
Storms. He called these Divine things; and in a great degree useless,
if understood. The Human relations of life, the varieties of conduct
of men towards each other in all capacities, were alone within the
compass of knowledge, and capable of yielding fruit. In short, his
turn of mind was thoroughly _practical_, we might say _utilitarian_.

I.--He gave a foundation and a shape to Ethical Science, by insisting
on its practical character, and by showing that, like the other arts
of life, it had an End, and a Theory from which flows the precepts or
means. The End, which would be the STANDARD, was not stated by him,
and hardly even by Plato, otherwise than in general language; the
Summum Bonum had not as yet become a matter of close debate. 'The art
of dealing with human beings,' 'the art of behaving in society,' 'the
science of human happiness,' were various modes of expressing the
final end of conduct.[5] Sokrates clearly indicated the difference
between an unscientific and a scientific art; the one is an
incommunicable knack or dexterity, the other is founded on theoretical
principles.

II.--Notwithstanding his professing ignorance of what virtue is,
Sokrates had a definite doctrine with reference to Ethics, which we
may call his PSYCHOLOGY of the subject. This was the doctrine that
resolves Virtue into Knowledge, Vice into Ignorance or Folly. 'To do
right was the only way to impart happiness, or the least degree of
unhappiness compatible with any given situation: now, this was
precisely what every one wished for and aimed at--only that many
persons, from ignorance, took the wrong road; and no man was wise
enough always to take the right. But as no man was willingly his own
enemy, so no man ever did wrong willingly; it was because he was not
fully or correctly informed of the consequences of his own actions; so
that the proper remedy to apply, was enlarged teaching of consequences
and improved judgment. To make him willing to be taught, the only
condition required was to make him conscious of his own ignorance; the
want of which consciousness was the real cause both of indocility and
of vice' (Grote). This doctrine grew out of his favourite analogy
between social duty and a profession or trade. When the artizan goes
wrong, it is usually from pure ignorance or incapacity; he is willing
to do good work if he is able.

III.--The SUMMUM BONUM with Sokrates was Well-doing. He had no ideal
of pursuit for man apart from virtue, or what he esteemed virtue--the
noble and the praiseworthy. This was the elevated point of view
maintained alike by him and by Plato, and common to them with the
ideal of modern ages.

Well-doing consisted in doing well whatever a man undertook. 'The best
man,' he said, 'and the most beloved by the gods, is he that, as a
husbandman, performs well the duties of husbandry; as a surgeon, the
duties of the medical art; in political life, his duty towards the
commonwealth. The man that does nothing well is neither useful nor
agreeable to the gods.' And as knowledge is essential to all
undertakings, knowledge is the one thing needful. This exclusive
regard to knowledge was his one-sidedness as a moral theorist; but he
did not consistently exclude all reference to the voluntary control of
appetite and passion.

IV.--He inculcated Practical Precepts of a self-denying kind, intended
to curb the excesses of human desire and ambition. He urged the
pleasures of self-improvement and of duty against indulgences,
honours, and worldly advancement. In the 'Apology,' he states it as
the second aim of his life (after imparting the shock of conscious
ignorance) to reproach men for pursuing wealth and glory more than
wisdom and virtue. In 'Kriton,' he lays it down that we are never to
act wrongly or unjustly, although others are unjust to us. And, in his
own life, he furnished an illustrious example of his teaching. The
same lofty strain was taken up by Plato, and repeated in most of the
subsequent Ethical schools.

V.--His Ethical Theory extended itself to Government, where he applied
his analogy of the special arts. The legitimate King was he that knew
how to govern well.

VI.--The connexion in the mind of Sokrates between Ethics and Theology
was very slender.

In the first place, his distinction of Divine and Human things, was an
exclusion of the arbitrary will of the gods from human affairs, or
from those things that constituted the ethical end.

But in the next place, he always preserved a pious and reverential
tone of mind; and considered that, after patient study, men should
still consult the oracles, by which the gods, in cases of difficulty,
graciously signified their intentions, and their beneficent care of
the race. Then, the practice of well-doing was prompted by reference
to the satisfaction of the gods. In so far as the gods administered
the world in a right spirit, they would show favour to the virtuous.

PLATO. [427-347 B.C.]

The Ethical Doctrines of Plato are scattered through his various
Dialogues; and incorporated with his philosophical method, with his
theory of Ideas, and with his theories of man and of society.

From Sokrates, Plato derived Dialectics, or the method of Debate; he
embodied all his views in imaginary conversations, or Dialogues,
suggested by, and resembling the real conversations of Sokrates. And
farther, in imitation of his master, he carried on his search after
truth under the guise of ascertaining the exact meaning or definition
of leading terms; as Virtue, Courage, Holiness, Temperance, Justice,
Law, Beauty, Knowledge, Rhetoric, &c.

We shall first pass in review the chief Dialogues containing Ethical
doctrines.

The APOLOGY, KRITON, and EUTHYPHRON (we follow Mr. Grote's order) may
be passed by as belonging more to his master than to himself;
moreover, everything contained in them will be found recurring in
other dialogues.

The ALKIBIADES I. is a good specimen of the Sokratic manner. It brings
out the loose discordant notions of _Just_ and _Unjust_ prevailing in
the community; sets forth that the Just is also honourable, good, and
expedient--the cause of happiness to the just man; urges the
importance of Self-knowledge; and maintains that the conditions of
happiness are not wealth and power, but Justice and Temperance.

ALKIBIADES II. brings out a Platonic position as to the _Good_. There
are a number of things that are good, as health, money, family, but
there is farther required the skill to apply these in proper measure
to the supreme end of life. All knowledge is not valuable; there may
be cases where ignorance is better. What we are principally interested
in knowing is the Good, the Best, the Profitable. The man of much
learning, without this, is like a vessel tossed on the sea without a
pilot.[6]

In HIPPIAS MINOR, appears an extreme statement of the doctrine, common
to Sokrates and Plato, identifying virtue with knowledge, or giving
exclusive attention to the intellectual element of conduct. It is
urged that a mendacious person, able to tell the truth if he chooses,
is better than one unable to tell it, although wishing to do so; the
knowledge is of greater worth than the good disposition.

In MINOS (or the Definition of _Law_) he refuses to accept the decree
of the state as a law, but postulates the decision of some Ideal wise
man. This is a following out of the Sokratic analogy of the
professions, to a purely ideal demand; the wise man is never
producible. In many dialogues (Kriton, Laches, &c.) the decision of
some Expert is sought, as a physician is consulted in disease; but the
Moral expert is unknown to any actual community.

In LACHES, the question 'what is Virtue?' is put; it is argued under
the special virtue of _Courage_. In a truly Sokratic dialogue,
Sokrates is in search of a definition of Courage; as happens in the
search dialogues, there is no definite result, but the drift of the
discussion is to make courage a mode of intelligence, and to resolve
it into the grand desideratum of the knowledge of good and
evil--belonging to the One Wise Man.

CHARMIDES discusses _Temperance_. As usual with Plato in discussing
the virtues, with a view to their Logical definition, he presupposes
that this is something beneficial and good. Various definitions are
given of Temperance; and all are rejected; but the dialogue falls into
the same track as the Laches, in putting forward the supreme science
of good and evil. It is a happy example of the Sokratic manner and
purpose, of exposing the conceit of knowledge, the fancy that people
understand the meaning of the general terms habitually employed.

LYSIS on _Friendship_, or Love, might be expected to furnish some
ethical openings, but it is rather a piece of dialectic, without
result, farther than to impart the consciousness of ignorance. If it
suggests anything positive, it is the Idea of Good, as the ultimate
end of affection. The subject is one of special interest in ancient
Ethics, as being one of the aspects of Benevolent sentiment in the
Pagan world. In Aristotle we first find a definite handling of it.

MENON may be considered as pre-eminently ethical in its design. It is
expressly devoted to the question--Is Virtue _teachable_? Sokrates as
usual confesses that he does not know what virtue is. He will not
accept a catalogue of the admitted virtues as a definition of virtue,
and presses for some common, or defining attribute. He advances on his
own side his usual doctrine that virtue is Knowledge, or a mode of
Knowledge, and that it is good and profitable; which is merely an
iteration of the Science of good and evil. He distinguishes virtue
from Right Opinion, a sort of quasi-knowledge, the knowledge of
esteemed and useful citizens, which cannot be the highest knowledge,
since these citizens fail to impart it even to their own sons.

In this dialogue, we have Plato's view of Immortality, which comprises
both pre-existence and post-existence. The pre-existence is used to
explain the derivation of general notions, or Ideas, which are
antecedent to the perceptions of sense.

In PROTAGORAS, we find one of the most important of the ethical
discussions of Plato. It proceeds from the same question--Is virtue
teachable?--Sokrates as usual expressing his doubts on the point.
Protagoras then delivers a splendid harangue, showing how virtue is
taught--namely, by the practice of society in approving, condemning,
rewarding, punishing the actions of individuals. From childhood
upward, every human being in society is a witness to the moral
procedure of society, and by degrees both knows, and conforms to, the
maxims of virtue of the society. Protagoras himself as a professed
teacher, or sophist, can improve but little upon, this habitual
inculcation. Sokrates, at the end of the harangue, puts in his usual
questions tending to bring out the essence or definition of virtue,
and soon drives Protagoras into a corner, bringing him to admit a view
nowhere else developed in Plato, that Pleasure is the only good, Pain
the only evil, and that the science of Good and Evil consists in
Measuring, and in choosing between conflicting pleasures and
pains--preferring the greater pleasure to the less, the less pain to
the greater. For example, courage is a wise estimate of things
terrible and things not terrible. In consistency with the doctrine
that Knowledge is virtue, it is maintained here as elsewhere, that a
man knowing good and evil must act upon that knowledge. Plato often
repeats his theory of Measurement, but never again specifically
intimates that the things to be measured are pleasures and pains. And
neither here nor elsewhere, does he suppose the virtuous man taking
directly into his calculation the pleasures and pains of other
persons.

GORGIAS, one of the most renowned of the dialogues in point of
composition, is also ethical, but at variance with the Protagoras, and
more in accordance with Plato's predominating views. The professed
subject is Rhetoric, which, as an art, Sokrates professes to hold in
contempt. The dialogue begins with the position that men are prompted
by the desire of good, but proceeds to the great Platonic paradox,
that it is a greater evil to do wrong than to suffer wrong. The
criminal labours under a mental distemper, and the best thing that can
happen to him, is to be punished that so he may be cured. The
unpunished wrong-doer is more miserable than if he were punished.
Sokrates in this dialogue maintains, in opposition to the thesis of
Protagoras, that pleasure is not the same as good, that there are bad
pleasures and good pains; and a skilful adviser, one versed in the
science of good and evil, must discriminate between them. He does not
mean that those pleasures only are bad that bring an overplus of
future pains, which would be in accordance with the previous dialogue.
The sentiment of the dialogue is ascetic and self-denying.[7] Order or
Discipline is inculcated, not as a means to an end, but as an end in
itself.

The POLITIKUS is on the Art of Government, and gives the Platonic
_beau idéal_ of the One competent person, governing absolutely, by
virtue of his scientific knowledge, and aiming at the good and
improvement of the governed. This is merely another illustration of
the Sokratic ideal--a despotism, anointed by supreme good intentions,
and by an ideal skill. The Republic is an enlargement of the lessons
of the Politikus without the dialectic discussion.

The postulate of the One Wise man is repeated in KRATYLUS, on the
unpromising subject of Language or the invention of Names.

The PHILEBUS has a decidedly ethical character. It propounds for
enquiry the _Good_, the Summum Bonum. This is denied to be mere
pleasure, and the denial is enforced by Sokrates challenging his
opponent to choose the lot of an ecstatic oyster. As usual, good must
be related to Intelligence; and the Dialogue gives a long disquisition
upon the One and the Many, the Theory of Ideas, the Determinate and
the Indeterminate. Good is a compound of Pleasure and Intelligence,
the last predominating. Pleasure is the Indeterminate, requiring the
Determinate (Knowledge) to regulate it. This is merely another
expression for the doctrine of Measure, and for the common saying,
that the Passions must be controlled by Reason. There is, also, in the
dialogue, a good deal on the Psychology of Pleasure and Pain. Pleasure
is the fundamental harmony of the system; Pain its disturbance. Bodily
Pleasure pre-supposes pain [true only of some pleasures]. Mental
pleasures may be without previous pain, and are therefore pure
pleasures. A life of Intelligence is conceivable without either pain
or pleasure; this is the choice of the Wise man, and is the nature of
the gods. Desire is a mixed state, and comprehends body and mind. Much
stress is laid on the moderate and tranquil pleasures; the intense
pleasures, coveted by mankind, belong to a distempered rather than a
healthy state; they are false and delusive. Pleasure is, by its
nature, a change or transition, and cannot be a supreme end. The
mixture of Pleasure and Intelligence is to be adjusted by the
all-important principle of Measure or Proportion, which connects the
Good with the Beautiful.

A decided asceticism is the ethical tendency of this dialogue. It is
markedly opposed to the view of the Protagoras. Still greater is the
opposition between it and the two Erotic dialogues, Phaedrus and
Symposium, where _Bonum_ and _Pulchrum_ are attained in the pursuit of
an ecstatic and overwhelming personal affection.

The REPUBLIC starts with the question--what is JUSTICE? and, in
answering it, provides the scheme of a model Republic. Book I. is a
Sokratic colloquy, where one speaker, on being interrogated, defines
Justice as 'rendering to every man his due,' and afterwards amends it
to 'doing good to friends, evil to enemies.' Another gives 'the right
of the strongest.' A third maintains that Injustice by itself is
profitable to the doer; but, as it is an evil to society in general,
men make laws against it and punish it; in consequence of which,
Justice is the more profitable. Sokrates, in opposition, undertakes to
prove that Justice is good in itself, ensuring the happiness of the
doer by its intrinsic effect on his mind; and irrespective of
exemption from the penalties of injustice. He reaches this result by
assimilating an individual to a state. Justice is shown to be good in
the entire city, and by analogy it is also good in the individual. He
accordingly proceeds to construct his ideal commonwealth. In the
course of this construction many ethical views crop out.

The state must prescribe the religious belief, and allow no
compositions at variance with it. The gods must always be set forth as
the causes of good; they must never be represented as the authors of
evil, nor as practising deceit. Neither is it to be allowed to
represent men as unjust, yet happy; or just, and yet miserable. The
poetic representation of bad characters is also forbidden. The musical
training is to be adapted for disposing the mind to the perception of
Beauty, whence it becomes qualified to recognize the other virtues.
Useful fictions are to be diffused, without regard to truth. This
pious fraud is openly recommended by Plato.

The division of the human mind into (1) REASON or Intelligence; (2)
ENERGY, Courage, Spirit, or the Military Virtue; and (3) Many-headed
APPETITE, all in mutual counter-play--is transferred to the State,
each of the three parts being represented by one of the political
orders or divisions of the community. The happiness of the man and the
happiness of the commonwealth are attained in the same way, namely, by
realizing the four virtues--Wisdom, Courage, Temperance, Justice; with
this condition, that Wisdom, or Reason, is sought only in the Ruling
caste, the Elders; Courage, or Energy, only in the second caste, the
Soldiers or Guardians; while Temperance and Justice (meaning almost
the same thing) must inhere alike in all the three classes, and be the
only thing expected in the third, the Working Multitude.

If it be now asked, what and where is Justice? the answer is--'every
man to attend to his own business.' Injustice occurs when any one
abandons his post, or meddles with what does not belong to him; and
more especially when any one of a lower division aspires to the
function of a higher. Such is Justice for the city, and such is it in
the individual; the higher faculty--Reason, must control the two
lower--Courage and Appetite. Justice is thus a sort of harmony or
balance of the mental powers; it is to the mind what health is to the
body. Health is the greatest good, sickness the greatest evil, of the
body; so is Justice of the mind.

It is an essential of the Platonic Republic that, among the guardians
at least, the sexual arrangements should be under public regulation,
and the monopoly of one woman by one man forbidden: a regard to the
breed of the higher caste of citizens requires the magistrate to see
that the best couples are brought together, and to refuse to rear the
inferior offspring of ill-assorted connexions. The number of births is
also to be regulated.

In carrying on war, special maxims of clemency are to be observed
towards Hellenic enemies.

The education of the Guardians must be philosophical; it is for them
to rise to the Idea of the good, to master the science of Good and
Evil; they must be emancipated from the notion that Pleasure is the
good. To indicate the route to this attainment Plato gives his theory
of cognition generally--the theory of Ideas;--and indicates (darkly)
how these sublime generalities are to be reached.

The Ideal Commonwealth supposed established, is doomed to degradation
and decay; passing through Timocracy, Oligarchy, Democracy, to
Despotism, with a corresponding declension of happiness. The same
varieties may be traced in the Individual; the 'despotized' mind is
the acme of Injustice and consequent misery.

The comparative value of Pleasures is discussed. The pleasures of
philosophy, or wisdom (those of Reason), are alone true and pure; the
pleasures corresponding to the two other parts of the mind are
inferior; Love of Honour (from Courage or Energy), and Love of Money
(Appetite). The well-ordered mind--Justice--is above all things the
source of happiness. Apart from all consequences of Justice, this is
true; the addition of the natural results only enhances the strength
of the position.

In TIMAEUS, Plato repeats the doctrine that wickedness is to the mind
what disease is to the body. The soul suffers from two distempers,
madness and ignorance; the man under passionate heat is not wicked
voluntarily. No man is bad willingly; but only from some evil habit of
body, the effect of bad bringing-up [very much the view of Robert
Owen].

The long treatise called the LAWS, being a modified scheme of a
Republic, goes over the same ground with more detail. We give the
chief ethical points. It is the purpose of the lawgiver to bring about
happiness, and to provide all good things divine and human. The divine
things are the cardinal virtues--Wisdom, Justice, Temperance, Courage;
the human are the leading personal advantages--Health, Beauty,
Strength, Activity, Wealth. He requires the inculcation of
self-command, and a training in endurance. The moral and religious
feelings are to be guided in early youth, by the influence of Poetry
and the other Fine Arts, in which, as before, a stringent censorship
is to be exercised; the songs and dances are all to be publicly
authorized. The ethical doctrine that the just man is happy and the
unjust miserable, is to be preached; and every one prohibited from
contradicting it. Of all the titles to command in society, Wisdom is
the highest, although policy may require it to be conjoined with some
of the others (Birth, Age, Strength, Accident, &c.). It is to be a
part of the constitution to provide public exhortations, or sermons,
for inculcating virtue; Plato having now passed into an opposite phase
as to the value of Rhetoric, or continuous address. The family is to
be allowed in its usual form, but with restraints on the age of
marriage, on the choice of the parties, and on the increase of the
number of the population. Sexual intercourse is to be as far as
possible confined to persons legally married; those departing from
this rule are, at all events, to observe secresy. The slaves are not
to be of the same race as the masters. As regards punishment, there is
a great complication, owing to the author's theory that wickedness is
not properly voluntary. Much of the harm done by persons to others is
unintentional or involuntary, and is to be made good by reparation.
For the loss of balance or self-control, making the essence of
injustice, there must be a penal and educational discipline, suited to
cure the moral distemper; not for the sake of the past, which cannot
be recalled, but of the future. Under cover of this theory, the
punishments are abundantly severe; and the crimes include Heresy, for
which there is a gradation of penalties terminating in death.

We may now summarize the Ethics of Plato, under the general scheme as
follows:--

I.--The Ethical Standard, or criterion of moral Right and Wrong. This
we have seen is, ultimately, the Science of Good and Evil, as
determined by a Scientific or Wise man; the Idea of the Good, which
only a philosopher can ascend to. Plato gave no credit to the maxims
of the existing society; these were wholly unscientific.

It is obvious that this vague and indeterminate standard would settle
nothing practically; no one can tell what it is. It is only of value
as belonging to a very exalted and poetic conception of virtue,
something that raises the imagination above common life into a sphere
of transcendental existence.

II.--The Psychology of Ethics.

1. As to the Faculty of discerning Right. This is implied in the
foregoing statement of the criterion. It is the Cognitive or
Intellectual power. In the definite position taken up in Protagoras,
it is the faculty of Measuring pleasures against one another and
against pains. In other dialogues, measure is still the important
aspect of the process, although the things to be measured are not
given.

2. As regards the Will. The theory that vice, if not the result of
ignorance, is a form of madness, an uncontrollable fury, a mental
distemper, gives a peculiar rendering of the nature of man's Will. It
is a kind of Necessity, not exactly corresponding, however, with the
modern doctrine of that name.

3. Disinterested Sentiment is not directly and plainly recognized by
Plato. His highest virtue is self-regarding; a concern for the Health
of the Soul.

III.--On the Bonum, or Summum Bonum, Plato is ascetic and
self-denying. 1. We have seen that in Philebus, Pleasure is not good,
unless united with Knowledge or Intelligence; and the greater the
Intelligence, the higher the pleasure. That the highest happiness of
man is the pursuit of truth or Philosophy, was common to Plato and to
Aristotle.

2. Happiness is attainable only through Justice or Virtue. Justice is
declared to be happiness, first, in itself, and secondly, in its
consequences. Such is the importance attached to this maxim as a
safeguard of Society, that, whether true or not, it is to be
maintained by state authority.

3. The Psychology of Pleasure and Pain is given at length in the
Philebus.

IV.--With regard to the scheme of Duty. In Plato, we find the first
statement of the four Cardinal Virtues.

As to the Substance of the Moral Code, the references above made to
the Republic and the Laws will show in what points his views differed
from modern Ethics.

Benevolence was not one of the Cardinal Virtues.

His notions even of Reciprocity were rendered hazy and indistinct by
his theory of Justice as an end in itself.

The inducements, means, and stimulants to virtue, in addition to penal
discipline, are training, persuasion, or hortatory discourse,
dialectic cognition of the Ideas, and, above all, that ideal
aspiration towards the Just, the Good, around which he gathered all
that was fascinating in poetry, and all the associations of religion
and divinity. Plato employed his powerful genius in working up a lofty
spiritual reward, an ideal intoxication, for inciting men to the
self-denying virtues. He was the first and one of the greatest of
preachers. His theory of Justice is suited to preaching, and not to a
scientific analysis of society.

V.--The relation of Ethics to Politics is intimate, and even
inseparable. The Civil Magistrate, as in Hobbes, supplies the Ethical
sanction. All virtue is an affair of the state, a political
institution. This, however, is qualified by the demand for an ideal
state, and an ideal governor, by whom alone anything like perfect
virtue can be ascertained.

VI.--The relationship with Theology is also close. That is to say,
Plato was not satisfied to construct a science of good and evil,
without conjoining the sentiments towards the Gods. His Theology,
however, was of his own invention, and adapted to his ethical theory.
It was necessary to suppose that the gods were the authors of good, in
order to give countenance to virtue.

Plato was the ally of the Stoics, as against the Epicureans, and of
such modern theorists as Butler, who make virtue, and not happiness,
the highest end of man. With him, discipline was an end in itself, and
not a means; and he endeavoured to soften its rigour by his poetical
and elevated Idealism.

Although he did not preach the good of mankind, or direct beneficence,
he undoubtedly prepared the way for it, by urging self-denial, which
has no issue or relevance, except either by realizing greater
happiness to Self (mere exalted Prudence, approved of by all sects),
or by promoting the welfare of others.

THE CYNICS AND THE CYRENAICS.

These opposing sects sprang from Sokrates, and passed, with little
modification, the one into the Stoics, the other into the Epicureans.
Both ANTISTHENES, the founder of the Cynics, and ARISTIPPUS, the
founder of the Cyrenaics, were disciples of Sokrates.

Their doctrines chiefly referred to the Summum Bonum--the Art of
Living, or of Happiness.

The CYNICS were most closely allied to Sokrates; they, in fact,
carried out to the full his chosen mode of life. His favourite
maxim--that the gods had no wants, and that the most godlike man was
he that approached to the same state--was the Cynic Ideal. To subsist
upon the narrowest means; to acquire indifference to pain, by a
discipline of endurance; to despise all the ordinary pursuits of
wealth and pleasure,--were Sokratic peculiarities, and were the _beau
idéal_ of Cynicism.

The Cynic succession of philosophers were, (1) ANTISTHENES, one of the
most constant friends and companions of Sokrates; (2) DIOGENES of
Sinope, the pupil of Antisthenes, and the best known type of the sect.
(His disciple Krates, a Theban, was the master of Zeno, the first
Stoic.) (3) STILPON of Megara, (4) MENEDEMUS of Eretria, (5) MONIMUS
of Syracuse, (6) KRATES.

The two first heads of the Ethical scheme, so meagrely filled up by
the ancient systems generally, are almost a total blank as regards
both Cynics and Cyrenaics.

I.--As regards a Standard of right and wrong, moral good or evil, they
recognized nothing but obedience to the laws and customs of society.

II.--They had no Psychology of a moral faculty, of the will, or of
benevolent sentiment. The Cyrenaic Aristippus had a Psychology of
Pleasure and Pain.

The Cynics, instead of discussing Will, exercised it, in one of its
most prominent forms,--self-control and endurance.

Disinterested conduct was no part of their scheme, although the
ascetic discipline necessarily promotes abstinence from sins against
property, and from all the vices of public ambition.

III.--The proper description of both systems comes under the Summum
Bonum, or the Art of Living.

The Cynic Ideal was the minimum of wants, the habituation to pain,
together with indifference to the common enjoyments. The compensating
reward was exemption from fear, anxiety, and disappointment; also, the
pride of superiority to fellow-beings and of approximation to the
gods. Looking at the great predominance of misery in human life, they
believed the problem of living to consist in a mastery over all the
forms of pain; until this was first secured, there was to be a total
sacrifice of pleasure.

The Cynics were mostly, like Sokrates, men of robust health, and if
they put their physical constitution to a severe test by poor living
and exposure to wind and weather, they also saved it from the wear and
tear of steady industry and toil. Exercise of body and of mind, with a
view to strength and endurance, was enjoined; but it was the drill of
the soldier rather than the drudgery of the artisan.

In the eyes of the public, the prominent feature of the Cynic was his
contemptuous jeering, and sarcastic abuse of everybody around. The
name (Cynic, dog-like) denotes this peculiarity. The anecdotes
relating to Diogenes illustrate his coarse denunciation of men in
general and their luxurious ways. He set at defiance all the
conventions of courtesy and of decency; spoke his mind on everything
without fear or remorse; and delighted in his antagonism to public
opinion. He followed the public and obtrusive life of Sokrates, but
instead of dialectic skill, his force lay in vituperation, sarcasm,
and repartee. 'To Sokrates,' says Epiktetus, 'Zeus assigned the
cross-examining function; to Diogenes, the magisterial and chastising
function; to Zeno (the Stoic), the didactic and dogmatical.'

The Cynics had thus in full measure one of the rewards of asceticism,
the pride of superiority and power. They did not profess an end apart
from their own happiness; they believed and maintained that theirs was
the only safe road to happiness. They agreed with the Cyrenaics as to
the end; they differed as to the means.

The founders of the sect, being men of culture, set great store by
education, from which, however, they excluded (as it would appear)
both the Artistic and the Intellectual elements of the superior
instruction of the time, namely, Music, and the Sciences of Geometry,
Astronomy, &c. Plato's writings and teachings were held in low esteem.
Physical training, self-denial and endurance, and literary or
Rhetorical cultivation, comprise the items taught by Diogenes when he
became a slave, and was made tutor to the sons of his master.

IV.--As to the Moral Code, the Cynics were dissenters from the
received usages of society. They disapproved of marriage laws, and
maintained the liberty of individual tastes in the intercourse of the
sexes. Being free-thinkers in religion they had no respect for any of
the customs founded on religion.

V. The collateral relations of Cynical Ethics to Politics and to
Theology afford no scope for additional observations. The Cynic and
Cyrenaic both stood aloof from the affairs of the state, and were
alike disbelievers in the gods.

The Cynics appear to have been inclined to communism among themselves,
which was doubtless easy with their views as to the wants of life. It
is thought not unlikely that Sokrates himself held views of communism
both as to property and to wives; being in this respect also the
prompter of Plato (Grant's Ethics of Aristotle, Essay ii.).

The CYRENAIC system originated with ARISTIPPUS of Cyrene, another
hearer and companion of Sokrates. The temperament of Aristippus was
naturally inactive, easy, and luxurious; nevertheless he set great
value on mental cultivation and accomplishments. His conversations
with Sokrates form one of the most interesting chapters of Xenophon's
Memorabilia, and are the key to the plan of life ultimately elaborated
by him. Sokrates finding out his disposition, repeats all the
arguments in favour of the severe and ascetic system. He urges the
necessity of strength, courage, energy, self-denial, in order to
attain the post of ruler over others; which, however, Aristippus
fences by saying that he has no ambition to rule; he prefers the
middle course of a free man, neither ruling nor ruled over. Next,
Sokrates recalls the dangers and evil contingencies of subjection, of
being oppressed, unjustly treated, sold into slavery, and the
consequent wretchedness to one unhardened by an adequate discipline.
It is in this argument that he recites the well-known apologue called
the choice of Herakles; in which, Virtue on the one hand, and Pleasure
with attendant vice on the other, with their respective consequences,
are set before a youth in his opening career. The whole argument with
Aristippus was purely prudential; but Aristippus was not convinced nor
brought over to the Sokratic ideal. He nevertheless adopted a no less
prudential and self-denying plan of his own.

Aristippus did not write an account of his system; and the particulars
of his life, which would show how he acted it, are but imperfectly
preserved. He was the first theorist to avow and maintain that
Pleasure, and the absence of Pain, are the proper, the direct, the
immediate, the sole end of living; not of course mere present
pleasures and present relief from pain, but present and future taken
in one great total. He would surrender present pleasure, and incur
present pain, with a view to greater future good; but he did not
believe in the necessity of that extreme surrender and renunciation
enjoined by the Cynics. He gratified all his appetites and cravings
within the limits of safety. He could sail close upon the island of
Calypso without surrendering himself to the sorceress. Instead of
deadening the sexual appetite he gave it scope, and yet resisted the
dangerous consequences of associating with Hetaerae. In his enjoyments
he was free from jealousies; thinking it no derogation to his pleasure
that others had the same pleasure. Having thus a fair share of natural
indulgences, he dispenses with the Cynic pride of superiority and the
luxury of contemning other men. Strength of will was required for this
course no less than for the Cynic life.

Aristippus put forward strongly the impossibility of realizing all the
Happiness that might seem within one's reach; such were the attendant
and deterring evils, that many pleasures had to be foregone by the
wise man. Sometimes even the foolish person attained more pleasure
than the wise; such is the lottery of life; but, as a general rule,
the fact would be otherwise. The wisest could not escape the natural
evils, pain and death; but envy, passionate love, and superstition,
being the consequences of vain and mistaken opinion, might be
conquered by a knowledge of the real nature of Good and Evil.

As a proper appendage to such a system, Aristippus sketched a
Psychology of Pleasure and Pain, which was important as a beginning,
and is believed to have brought the subject into prominence. The soul
comes under three conditions,--a gentle, smooth, equable motion,
corresponding to Pleasure; a rough, violent motion, which is Pain; and
a calm, quiescent state, indifference or Unconsciousness. More
remarkable is the farther assertion that Pleasure is only _present_ or
_realized_ consciousness; the memory of pleasures past, and the idea
of pleasures to come, are not to be counted; the painful
accompaniments of desire, hope, and fear, are sufficient to neutralize
any enjoyment that may arise from ideal bliss, Consequently, the
happiness of a life means the sum total of these moments of realized
or present pleasure. He recognized pleasures of the mind, as well as
of the body; sympathy with the good fortunes of friends or country
gives a thrill of genuine and lively joy. Still, the pleasures and the
pains of the body, and of one's own self, are more intense; witness
the bodily inflictions used in punishing offenders.

The Cyrenaics denied that there is anything just, or honourable, or
base, by nature; all depended on the laws and customs. These laws and
customs the wise man obeys, to avoid punishment and discredit from the
society where he lives; doubtless, also, from higher motives, if the
political constitution, and his fellow citizens generally, can inspire
him with respect.

Neither the Cynics nor the Cyrenaics made any profession of generous
or disinterested impulses.

ARISTOTLE. [384-322 B.C.]

Three treatises on Ethics have come down associated with the name of
Aristotle; one large work, the Nicomachean Ethics, referred to by
general consent as the chief and important source of Aristotle's
views; and two smaller works, the Eudemian Ethics, and the Magna
Moralia, attributed by later critics to his disciples. Even of the
large work, which consists of ten books, three books (V. VI. VII.),
recurring in the Eudemian Ethics, are considered by Sir A. Grant,
though not by other critics, to have been composed by Eudemus, the
supposed author of this second treatise, and a leading disciple of
Aristotle.

Like many other Aristotelian treatises, the Nicomachean Ethics is
deficient in method and consistency on any view of its composition.
But the profound and sagacious remarks scattered throughout give it a
permanent interest, as the work of a great mind. There may be
extracted from it certain leading doctrines, whose point of departure
was Platonic, although greatly modified and improved by the genius and
personality of Aristotle.

Our purpose will be best served by a copious abstract of the
Nicomachean Ethics.

Book First discusses the Chief Good, or the Highest End of all human
endeavours. Every exercise of the human powers aims at some good; all
the arts of life have their several ends--medicine, ship-building,
generalship. But the ends of these special arts are all subordinate to
some higher end; which end is the chief good, and the subject of the
highest art of all, the Political; for as Politics aims at the welfare
of the state, or aggregate of individuals, it is identical with and
comprehends the welfare of the individual (Chaps. I., II.).

As regards the _method_ of the science, the highest exactness is not
attainable; the political art studies what is just, honourable, and
good; and these are matters about which the utmost discrepancy of
opinion prevails. From such premises, the conclusions which we draw
can only be probabilities. The man of experience and cultivation will
expect nothing more. Youths, who are inexperienced in the concerns of
life, and given to follow their impulses, can hardly appreciate our
reasoning, and will derive no benefit from it: but reasonable men will
find the knowledge highly profitable (III.).

Resuming the main question--What is the highest practical good--the
aim of the all-comprehending political science?--we find an agreement
among men as to the name _happiness_ [Greek: eudaimonia]; but great
differences as to the nature of the thing. The many regard it as made
up of the tangible elements--pleasures, wealth, or honour; while
individuals vary in their estimate according to each man's state for
the time being; the sick placing it in health, the poor in wealth, the
consciously ignorant in knowledge. On the other hand, certain
philosophers [in allusion to Plato] set up an absolute good,--an Idea
of the Good, apart from all the particulars, yet imparting to each its
property of being good (IV.).

Referring to men's lives (as a clue to their notions of the good), we
find three prominent varieties; the life of pleasure or
sensuality,--the political life, aspiring to honour,--and the
contemplative life. The first is the life of the brutes, although
countenanced by men high in power. The second is too precarious, as
depending on others, and is besides only a means to an end--namely,
our consciousness of our own merits; for the ambitious man seeks to be
honoured for his virtue and by good judges--thus showing that he too
regards virtue as the superior good. Yet neither will virtue satisfy
all the conditions. The virtuous man may slumber or pass his life in
inactivity, or may experience the maximum of calamity; and such a man
cannot be regarded as happy. The money-lender is still less entitled,
for he is an unnatural character; and money is obviously good as a
means. So that there remains only the life of contemplation;
respecting which more presently (V.).

To a review of the Platonic doctrine, Aristotle devotes a whole
chapter. He urges against it various objections, very much of a piece
with those brought against the theory of Ideas generally. If there be
but one good, there should be but one science; the alleged Idea is
merely a repetition of the phenomena; the recognized goods (_i.e._,
varieties of good) cannot be brought under one Idea; moreover, even
granting the reality of such an Idea, it is useless for all practical
purposes. What our science seeks is Good, human and attainable (VI.).

The Supreme End is what is not only chosen as an End, but is never
chosen except as an End: not chosen both for itself and with a view to
something ulterior. It must thus be--(1) An _end-in-itself_ pursued
for its own sake; (2) it must farther be _self-sufficing_ leaving no
outstanding wants--man's sociability being taken into account and
gratified. Happiness is such an end; but we must state more clearly
wherein happiness consists.

This will appear, if we examine what is the work appropriate and
peculiar to man. Every artist, the sculptor, carpenter, currier (so
too the eye and the hand), has his own peculiar work: and good, to
him, consists in his performing that work well. Man also has his
appropriate and peculiar work: not merely living--for that he has in
common with vegetables; nor the life of sensible perception--for that
he has in common with other animals, horses, oxen, &c. There remains
the life of man as a rational being: that is, as a being possessing
reason along with other mental elements, which last are controllable
or modifiable by reason. This last life is the peculiar work or
province of man. For our purpose, we must consider man, not merely as
possessing, but as actually exercising and putting in action, these
mental capacities. Moreover, when we talk generally of the work or
province of an artist, we always tacitly imply a complete and
excellent artist in his own craft: and so likewise when we speak of
the work of a man, we mean that work as performed by a complete and
competent man. Since the work of man, therefore, consists in the
active exercise of the mental capacities, conformably to reason, the
supreme good of man will consist in performing this work with
excellence or virtue. Herein he will obtain happiness, if we assume
continuance throughout a full period of life: one day or a short time
is not sufficient for happiness (VII.).

Aristotle thus lays down the outline of man's supreme Good or
Happiness: which he declares to be the beginning or principle [Greek:
archae] of his deductions, and to be obtained in the best way that the
subject admits. He next proceeds to compare this outline with the
various received opinions on the subject of happiness, showing that it
embraces much of what has been considered essential by former
philosophers: such as being 'a good of the mind,' and not a mere
external good: being equivalent to 'living well and doing well,'
another definition; consisting in virtue (the Cynics); in practical
wisdom--[Greek: phronaesis] (Sokrates); in philosophy; or in all these
coupled with pleasure (Plato, in the Philebus). Agreeing with those
who insisted on virtue, Aristotle considers his own theory an
improvement, by requiring virtue in act, and not simply in possession.
Moreover, he contends that to the virtuous man, virtuous performance
is in itself pleasurable; so that no extraneous source of pleasure is
needed. Such (he says) is the judgment of the truly excellent man;
which must be taken as conclusive respecting the happiness, as well as
the honourable pre-eminence of the best mental exercises.
Nevertheless, he admits (so far complying with the Cyrenaics) that
some extraneous conditions cannot be dispensed with; the virtuous man
can hardly exhibit his virtue in act, without some aid from friends
and property; nor can he be happy if his person is disgusting to
behold or his parentage vile (VIII.).

This last admission opens the door to those that place good fortune in
the same line with happiness, and raises the question, how happiness
is attained. By teaching? By habitual exercise? By divine grace? By
Fortune? If there be any gift vouchsafed by divine grace to man, it
ought to be this; but whether such be the case or not, it is at any
rate the most divine and best of all acquisitions. To ascribe such an
acquisition as this to Fortune would be absurd. Nature, which always
aims at the best, provides that it shall be attained, through a
certain course of teaching and training, by all who are not physically
or mentally disqualified. It thus falls within the scope of political
science, whose object is to impart the best character and active
habits to the citizens. It is with good reason that we never call a
horse happy, for he can never reach such an attainment; nor indeed can
a child be so called while yet a child, for the same reason; though in
his case we may hope for the future, presuming on a full term of life,
as was before postulated (IX.). But-this long term allows room for
extreme calamities and change in a man's lot. Are we then to say, with
Solon, that no one can be called happy so long as he lives? or that
the same man may often pass backwards and forwards from happiness to
misery? No; this only shows the mistake of resting happiness upon so
unsound a basis as external fortune. The only true basis of it is the
active manifestation of mental excellence, which no ill fortune can
efface from a man's mind (X.). Such a man will bear calamity, if it
comes, with dignity, and can never be made thoroughly miserable. If he
be moderately supplied as to external circumstances, he is to be
styled happy; that is, happy as a man--as far as man can reasonably
expect. Even after his decease he-will be affected, yet only feebly
affected, by the good or ill fortune of his surviving children.
Aristotle evidently assigns little or no value to presumed posthumous
happiness (XI.).

In his love of subtle distinctions, he asks, Is happiness a thing
admirable in itself, or a thing praiseworthy? It is admirable in
itself; for what is praiseworthy has a relative character, and is
praised as conducive to some ulterior end; while the chief good must
be an End in itself, for the sake of which everything else is done
(XII.). [This is a defective recognition of Relativity.]

Having assumed as one of the items of his definition, that man's
happiness must be in his special or characteristic work, performed
with perfect excellence,--Aristotle now proceeds to settle wherein
that excellence consists. This leads to a classification of the parts
of the soul. The first distribution is, into Rational and Irrational;
whether these two are separable in fact, or only logically separable
(like concave and convex), is immaterial to the present enquiry. Of
the irrational, the lowest portion is the Vegetative [Greek:
phytikon], which seems most active in sleep; a state where bad men and
good are on a par, and which is incapable of any human excellence. The
next portion is the Appetitive [Greek: epithymaetikon], which is not
thus incapable. It partakes of reason, yet it includes something
conflicting with reason. These conflicting tendencies are usually
modifiable by reason, and may become in the temperate man completely
obedient to reason. There remains Reason--the highest and sovereign
portion of the soul. Human excellence [Greek: aretae] or virtue, is
either of the Appetitive part,--moral [Greek: aethikae] virtue; or of
the Reason--intellectual [Greek: dianoaetikae] virtue. Liberality and
temperance are Moral virtues; philosophy, intelligence, and wisdom,
Intellectual (XIII.).

Such is an outline of the First Book, having for its subject the Chief
Good, the Supreme End of man.

Book Second embraces the consideration of points relative to the Moral
Virtues; it also commences Aristotle's celebrated definition and
classification of the virtues or excellencies.

Whereas intellectual excellence is chiefly generated and improved by
teaching, moral excellence is a result of habit [Greek: ethos]; whence
its name (Ethical). Hence we may see that moral excellence is no
inherent part of our nature: if it were, it could not be reversed by
habit--any more than a stone can acquire from any number of
repetitions the habit of moving upward, or fire the habit of moving
downward. These moral excellencies are neither a part of our nature,
nor yet contrary to our nature: we are by nature fitted to take them
on, but they are brought to consummation through habit. It is not with
them, as with our senses, where nature first gives us the power to see
and hear, and where we afterwards exercise that power. Moral virtues
are acquired only by practice. We learn to build or to play the harp,
by building or playing the harp: so too we become just or courageous,
by a course of just or courageous acts. This is attested by all
lawgivers in their respective cities; all of them shape the characters
of their respective citizens, by enforcing habitual practice. Some do
it well; others ill; according to the practice, so will be the
resulting character; as he that is practised in building badly, will
be a bad builder in the end; and he that begins on a bad habit of
playing the harp, becomes confirmed into a bad player. Hence the
importance of making the young perform good actions habitually and
from the beginning. The permanent ethical acquirements are generated
by uniform and persistent practice (I.). [This is the earliest
statement of the philosophy of _habit_.]

Everything thus turns upon practice: and Aristotle reminds us that his
purpose here is, not simply to teach what virtue is, but to produce
virtuous agents. How are we to know what the practice should be? It
must be conformable to right reason: every one admits this, and we
shall explain it further in a future book. But let us proclaim at
once, that in regard to moral action, as in regard to health, no exact
rules can be laid down. Amidst perpetual variability, each agent must
in the last resort be guided by the circumstances of the case. Still,
however, something may be done to help him. Here Aristotle proceeds to
introduce the famous doctrine of the MEAN. We may err, as regards
health, both by too much and by too little of exercise, food, or
drink. The same holds good in regard to temperance, courage, and the
other excellences (II.).

His next remark is another of his characteristic doctrines, that the
_test of a formed habit of virtue, is to feel no pain_; he that feels
pain in brave acts is a coward. Whence he proceeds to illustrate the
position, that moral virtue [Greek: aethikae aretae] has to do with
pleasures and pains. A virtuous education consists in making us feel
pleasure and pain at proper objects, and on proper occasions.
Punishment is a discipline of pain. Some philosophers (the Cynics)
have been led by this consideration to make virtue consist in apathy,
or insensibility; but Aristotle would regulate, and not extirpate our
sensibilities (III.).

But does it not seem a paradox to say (according to the doctrine of
habit in I.), that a man becomes just, by performing just actions;
since, if he performs just actions, he is already just? The answer is
given by a distinction drawn in a comparison with the training in the
common arts of life. That a man is a good writer or musician, we see
by his writing or his music; we take no account of the state of his
mind in other respects: if he knows how to do this, it is enough. But
in respect to moral excellence, such knowledge is not enough: a man
may do just or temperate acts, but he is not necessarily a just or
temperate man, unless he does them with right intention and on their
own account. This state of the internal mind, which is requisite to
constitute the just and temperate man, follows upon the habitual
practice of just and temperate acts, and follows upon nothing else.
But most men are content to talk without any such practice. They fancy
erroneously that _knowing_, without doing, will make a good man. [We
have here the reaction against the Sokratic doctrine of virtue, and
also the statement of the necessity of a _prosper motive_, in order to
virtue.]

Aristotle now sets himself to find a definition of virtue, _per genus
et differentiam_. There are three qualities in the Soul--_Passions_
[Greek: pathae], as Desire, Anger, Fear, &c., followed by pleasure or
pain; _Capacities_ or _Faculties_ [Greek: dynameis], as our capability
of being angry, afraid, affected by pity, &c.; _Fixed tendencies,
acquirements_, or _states_ [Greek: hexeis]. To which of the three does
virtue or excellence belong? It cannot be a Passion; for passions are
not in themselves good or evil, and are not accompanied with
deliberate choice [Greek: prouiresis], will, or intention. Nor is it a
Faculty: for we are not praised or blamed because we _can_ have such
or such emotions; and moreover our faculties are innate, which virtue
is not. Accordingly, virtue, or excellence, must be an acquirement
[Greek: hexis]--a State (V.). This is the _genus_.

Now, as to the _differentia_, which brings us to a more specific
statement of the doctrine of the _Mean_. The specific excellence of
virtue is to be got at from quantity in the abstract, from which we
derive the conceptions of more, less, and equal; or excess, defect,
and mean; the equal being the mean between excess and defect. But in
the case of moral actions, the arithmetical mean may not hold (for
example, six between two and ten); it must be a mean relative to the
individual; Milo must have more food than a novice in the training
school. In the arts, we call a work perfect, when anything either
added or taken away would spoil it. Now, virtue, which, like Nature,
is better and more exact than any art, has for its subject-matter,
passions and actions; all which are wrong either in defect or in
excess. Virtue aims at the mean between them, or the maximum of Good:
which implies a correct estimation of all the circumstances of the
act,--when we ought to do it--under what conditions--towards whom--for
what purpose--in what manner, &c. This is the praise-worthy mean,
which virtue aspires to. We may err in many ways (for evil, as the
Pythagoreans said, is of the nature of the Infinite, good of the
Finite), but we can do right only in one way; so much easier is the
path of error.

Combining then this _differentia_ with the _genus_, as above
established, the complete definition is given thus--'Virtue is an
acquirement or fixed state, tending by deliberate purpose (genus),
towards a mean relative to us (difference).' To which is added the
following all-important qualification, 'determined by reason [Greek:
logos], and as the _judicious man_ [Greek: ho Phronimos] would
determine.' Such is the doctrine of the Mean, which combines the
practical matter-of-fact quality of moderation, recognized by all
sages, with a high and abstract conception, starting from the
Pythagorean remark quoted by Aristotle, 'the Infinite, or Indefinite,
is evil, the Finite or the Definite is good,' and re-appearing in
Plato as 'conformity to measure' [Greek: metriotaes], by which he
(Plato) proposes to discriminate between good and evil. The concluding
qualification of virtue--'a rational determination, according to the
ideal judicious man'--is an attempt to assign a standard or authority
for what is the proper 'Mean;' an authority purely ideal or imaginary;
the actual authority being always, rightly or wrongly, the society of
the time.

Aristotle admits that his doctrine of Virtue being a mean, cannot have
an application quite universal; because there are some acts that in
their very name connote badness, which are wrong therefore, not from
excess or defect, but in themselves (VI.). He next proceeds to resolve
his general doctrine into particulars; enumerating the different
virtues stated, each as a mean, between two extremes--Courage,
Temperance, Liberality, Magnanimity, Magnificence, Meekness,
Amiability or Friendliness, Truthfulness, Justice (VII.). They are
described in detail in the two following books. In chap. VIII., he
qualifies his doctrine of Mean and Extremes, by the remark that one
Extreme may be much farther removed from the Mean than the other.
Cowardice and Rashness are the extremes of Courage, but Cowardice is
farthest removed from the Mean.

The concluding chapter (IX.) of the Book reflects on the great
difficulty of hitting the mean in all things, and of correctly
estimating all the requisite circumstances, in each particular case.
He gives as practical rules:--To avoid at all events the worst
extreme; to keep farthest from our natural bent; to guard against the
snare of pleasure. Slight mistakes on either side are little blamed,
but grave and conspicuous cases incur severe censure. Yet how far the
censure ought to go, is difficult to lay down beforehand in general
terms. There is the same difficulty in regard to all particular cases,
and all the facts of sense: which must be left, after all, to the
judgment of Sensible Perception [Greek: aisthaesis].

Book Third takes up the consideration of the Virtues in detail, but
prefaces them with a dissertation, occupying five chapters, on the
Voluntary and Involuntary. Since praise and blame are bestowed only on
voluntary actions,--the involuntary being pardoned, and even
pitied,--it is requisite to define Voluntary and Involuntary. What is
done under physical compulsion, or through ignorance, is clearly
involuntary. What is done under the fear of greater evils is partly
voluntary, and partly involuntary. Such actions are voluntary in the
sense of being a man's own actions; involuntary in that they are not
chosen on their own account; being praised or blamed according to the
circumstances. There are cases where it is difficult to say which of
two conflicting pressures ought to preponderate, and compulsion is an
excuse often misapplied: but compulsion, in its strict sense, is not
strength of motive at all; it is taking the action entirely out of our
own hands. As regards Ignorance, a difference is made. Ignorance of a
general rule is matter for censure; ignorance of particular
circumstances may be excused. [This became the famous maxim of
law,--'Ignorantia facti excusat, ignorantia juris non excusat.'] If
the agent, when better informed, repents of his act committed in
ignorance, he affords good proof that the act done was really
involuntary. Acts done from anger or desire (which are in the agent's
self) are not to be held as involuntary. (1) If they were, the actions
of brutes and children would be involuntary. (2) Some of these acts
are morally good and approved. (3) Obligation often attaches to these
feelings. (4) What is done from desire is pleasant; the involuntary is
painful. (5) Errors of passion are to be eschewed, no less than those
of reason (I.).

The next point is the nature of Purpose, Determination, or Deliberate
Preference [Greek: proairesis], which is in the closest kindred with
moral excellence, and is even more essential, in the ethical estimate,
than acts themselves. This is a part of the Voluntary; but not
co-extensive therewith. For it excludes sudden and unpremeditated
acts; and is not shared by irrational beings. It is distinct from
desire, from anger, from wish, and from opinion; with all which it is
sometimes confounded. Desire is often opposed to it; the incontinent
man acts upon his desires, but without any purpose, or even against
his purpose; the continent man acts upon his purpose, but against his
desires. Purpose is still more distinct from anger, and is even
distinct (though in a less degree) from wish [Greek: boulaesis], which
is choice of the End, while Purpose is of the Means; moreover, we
sometimes wish for impossibilities, known as such, but we never
purpose them. Nor is purpose identical with opinion [Greek: doxa],
which relates to truth and falsehood, not to virtue and vice. It is
among our voluntary proceedings, and includes intelligence; but is it
identical with predeliberated action and its results? (II.)

To answer this query, Aristotle analyzes the process of Deliberation,
as to its scope, and its mode of operation. We exclude from
deliberation things Eternal, like the Kosmos, or the incommensurability
of the side and the diagonal of a square; also things mutable, that are
regulated by necessity, by nature, or by chance; things out of our
power; also final ends of action, for we deliberate only about the
_means_ to ends. The deliberative process is compared to the
investigation of a geometrical problem. We assume the end, and enquire
by what means it can be produced; then again, what will produce the
means, until we at last reach something that we ourselves can command.
If, after such deliberation, we see our way to execution, we form a
Purpose, or Deliberate Preference [Greek: proairesis]. Purpose is then
definable as a deliberative appetency of things in our power (III.).

Next is started the important question as to the choice of the final
_End_. Deliberation and Purpose respect means; our Wish respects the
End--but what is the End that we wish? Two opinions are noticed;
according to one (Plato) we are moved to the good; according to the
other, to the apparent good. Both opinions are unsatisfactory; the one
would make out an incorrect choice to be no choice at all; the other
would take away all constancy from ends.

Aristotle settles the point by distinguishing, in this case as in
others, between what bears a given character simply and absolutely,
and what bears the same character relatively to this or that
individual. The object of Wish, simply, truly, and absolutely, is the
Good; while the object of Wish, to any given individual, is what
appears Good to him. But by the Absolute here, Aristotle explains that
he means what appears good to the _virtuous_ and _intelligent_ man;
who is is declared, here as elsewhere, to be the infallible standard;
while most men, misled by pleasure, choose what is not truly good. In
like manner, Aristotle affirms, that those substances are truly and
absolutely wholesome, which are wholesome to the healthy and
well-constituted man; other substances may be wholesome to the sick or
degenerate. Aristotle's Absolute is thus a Relative with its correlate
chosen or imagined by himself.

He then proceeds to maintain that virtue and vice are voluntary, and
in our own power. The arguments are these. (1) If it be in our power
to act right, the contrary is equally in our own power; hence vice is
as much voluntary as virtue. (2) Man must be admitted to be the origin
of his own actions. (3) Legislators and others punish men for
wickedness, and confer honour on good actions; even culpable ignorance
and negligence are punished. (4) Our character itself, or our fixed
acquirements, are in our power, being produced by our successive acts;
men become intemperate, by acts of drunkenness. (5) Not only the
defects of the mind, but the infirmities of the body also, are blamed,
when arising through our own neglect and want of training. (6) Even if
it should be said that all men aim at the apparent good, but cannot
control their mode of conceiving [Greek: phantasia] the end; still
each person, being by his acts the cause of his own fixed
acquirements, must be to a certain extent the cause of his own
conceptions. On this head, too, Aristotle repeats the clenching
argument, that the supposed imbecility of conceiving would apply alike
to virtue and to vice; so that if virtuous action be regarded as
voluntary, vicious action must be so regarded likewise. It must be
remembered that a man's fixed acquirements or habits are not in his
own power, in the same sense and degree in which his separate acts are
in his own power. Each act, from first to last, is alike in his power;
but in regard to the habit, it is only the initiation thereof that is
thoroughly in his power; the habit, like a distemper, is taken on by
imperceptible steps in advance (V.).

In the foregoing account of the Ethical questions connected with the
Will, Aristotle is happily unembroiled with the modern controversy.
The _mal-apropos_ of 'Freedom' had not been applied to voluntary
action. Accordingly, he treats the whole question from the inductive
side, distinguishing the cases where people are praised or blamed for
their conduct, from those where praise and blame are inapplicable as
being powerless. It would have been well if the method had never been
departed from; a sound Psychology would have improved the induction,
but would never have introduced any question except as to the relative
strength of the different feelings operating as motives to voluntary
conduct.

In one part of his argument, however, where he maintains that vice
must be voluntary, because its opposite, virtue, is voluntary, he is
already touching on the magical island of the bad enchantress;
allowing a question of fact to be swayed by the notion of factitious
dignity. Virtue is assumed to be voluntary, not on the evidence of
fact, but because there would be an _indignity_ cast on it, to suppose
otherwise. Now, this consideration, which Aristotle gives way to on
various occasions, is the motive underlying the objectionable
metaphor.

After the preceding digression on the Voluntary and Involuntary,
Aristotle takes up the consideration of the Virtues in order,
beginning with COURAGE, which was one of the received cardinal
virtues, and a subject of frequent discussion. (Plato, _Laches,
Protagoras, Republic_, &c.)

Courage [Greek: andreia], the mean between timidity and foolhardiness,
has to do with evils. All evils are objects of fear; but there are
some evils that even the brave man does right to fear--as disgrace.
Poverty or disease he ought not to fear. Yet, he will not acquire the
reputation of courage from not fearing these, nor will he acquire it
if he be exempt from fear when about to be scourged. Again, if a man
be afraid of envy from others, or of insults to his children or wife,
he will not for that reason be regarded as a coward. It is by being
superior to the fear of great evils, that a man is extolled as
courageous; and the greatest of evils is death, since it is a final
close, as well of good as of evil. Hence the dangers of war are the
greatest occasion of courage. But the cause must be honourable (VI.).

Thus the key to true courage is the quality or merit of the action.
That man is brave, who both fears, and affronts without fear, what he
ought and when he ought: who suffers and acts according to the value
of the cause, and according to a right judgment of it. The opposites
or extremes of courage include (1) Deficiency of fear; (2) Excess of
fear, cowardice; (3) Deficiency of daring, another formula for
cowardice; (4) Excess of daring, Rashness. Between these, Courage is
the mean (VII.).

Aristotle enumerates five analogous forms of quasi-courage,
approaching more or less to genuine courage. (1) The first, most like
to the true, is political courage, which is moved to encounter danger
by the Punishments and the Honours of society. The desire of honour
rises to virtue, and is a noble spring of action. (2) A second kind is
the effect of Experience, which dispels seeming terrors, and gives
skill to meet real danger. (3) Anger, Spirit, Energy [Greek: thymos] is
a species of courage, founded on physical power and excitement, but not
under the guidance of high emotions. (4) The Sanguine temperament, by
overrating the chances of success, gives courage. (5) Lastly, Ignorance
of the danger may have the same effect as courage (VIII.).

Courage is mainly connected with pain and loss. Men are called brave
for the endurance of pain, even although it bring pleasure in the end,
as to the boxer who endures bruises from the hope of honour. Death is
painful, and most so to the man that by his virtue has made life
valuable. Such a man is to be considered more courageous, as a soldier,
than a mercenary with little to lose (IX.).

The account of Courage thus given is remarkably exhaustive; although
the constituent parts might have been more carefully disentangled. A
clear line should be drawn between two aspects of courage. The one is
the resistance to Fear properly so called; that is, to the perturbation
that exaggerates coming evil: a courageous man, in this sense, is one
that possesses the true measure of impending danger, and acts according
to that, and not according to an excessive measure. The other aspect of
Courage, is what gives it all its nobleness as a virtue, namely,
_Self-sacrifice_, or the deliberate encountering of evil, for some
honourable or virtuous cause. When a man knowingly risks his life in
battle for his country, he may be called courageous, but he is still
better described as a heroic and devoted man.

Inasmuch as the leading form of heroic devotion, in the ancient world,
was exposure of life in war, Self-sacrifice was presented under the
guise of Courage, and had no independent standing as a cardinal virtue.
From this circumstance, paganism is made to appear in a somewhat
disadvantageous light, as regards self-denying duties.

Next in order among the excellences or virtues of the irrational
department of mind is TEMPERANCE, or Moderation, [Greek: sophrosynae],
a mean or middle state in the enjoyment of pleasure. Pleasures are
mental and bodily. With the mental, as love of learning or of honour,
temperance is not concerned. Nor with the bodily pleasures of muscular
exercise, of hearing and of smell, but only with the animal pleasures
of touch and taste: in fact, sensuality resides in touch; the pleasure
of eating being a mode of contact (X.).

In the desires natural and common to men, as eating and the nuptial
couch, men are given to err, and error is usually on the side of
excess. But it is in the case of special tastes or preferences, that
people are most frequently intemperate. Temperance does not apply to
enduring pains, except those of abstinence from pleasures. The extreme
of insensibility to pleasure is rarely found, and has no name. The
temperate man has the feelings of pleasure and pain, but moderates his
desires according to right reason (XL.). He desires what he ought, when
he ought, and as he ought: correctly estimating each separate case
(XII.). The question is raised, which is most voluntary, Cowardice or
Intemperance? (1) Intemperance is more voluntary than Cowardice, for
the one consists in choosing pleasure, while in the other there is a
sort of compulsory avoidance of pain. (2) Temperance is easier to
acquire as a habit than Courage. (3) In Intemperance, the particular
acts are voluntary, although not the habit; in Cowardice, the first
acts are involuntary, while by habit, it tends to become voluntary
(XII.).

[Temperance is the virtue most suited to the formula of the Mean,
although the settling of what is the mean depends after all upon a
man's own judgment. Aristotle does not recognize asceticism as a thing
existing. His Temperance is moderation in the sensual pleasures of
eating and love.]

Book Fourth proceeds with the examination of the Virtues or Ethical
Excellences.

LIBERALITY [Greek: eleutheristaes], in the matter of property, is the
mean of Prodigality and Illiberality. The right uses of money are
spending and giving. Liberality consists in giving willingly, from an
honourable motive, to proper persons, in proper quantities, and at
proper times; each individual case being measured by correct reason. If
such measure be not taken, or if the gift be not made willingly, it is
not liberality. The liberal man is often so free as to leave little to
himself. This virtue is one more frequent in the inheritors than in the
makers of fortunes. Liberality beyond one's means is prodigality. The
liberal man will receive only from proper sources and in proper
quantities. Of the extremes, prodigality is more curable than
illiberality. The faults of prodigality are, that it must derive
supplies from improper sources; that it gives to the wrong objects, and
is usually accompanied with intemperance. Illiberality is incurable: it
is confirmed by age, and is more congenial to men generally than
prodigality. Some of the illiberal fall short in giving--those called
stingy, close-fisted, and so on; but do not desire what belongs to
other people. Others are excessive in receiving from all sources; such
are they that ply disreputable trades (I.).

MAGNIFICENCE [Greek: megaloprepeia] is a grander kind of Liberality;
its characteristic is greatness of expenditure, with suitableness to
the person, the circumstances, and the purpose. The magnificent man
takes correct measure of each; he is in his way a man of Science
[Greek: ho de megaloprepaes epistaemoni eoike]--II. The motive must be
honourable, the outlay unstinted, and the effect artistically splendid.
The service of the gods, hospitality to foreigners, public works, and
gifts, are proper occasions. Magnificence especially becomes the
well-born and the illustrious. The house of the magnificent man will be
of suitable splendour; everything that he does will show taste and
propriety. The extremes, or corresponding defects of character, are, on
the one side, vulgar, tasteless profusion, and on the other, meanness
or pettiness, which for some paltry saving will spoil the effect of a
great outlay (II.).

MAGNANIMITY, or HIGH-MINDEDNESS [Greek: megalopsychia], loftiness of
spirit, is the culmination of the virtues. It is concerned with
greatness. The high-minded man is one that, being worthy, rates himself
at his real worth, and neither more (which is vanity) nor less (which
is littleness of mind). Now, worth has reference to external goods, of
which the greatest is honour. The high-minded man must be in the
highest degree honourable, for which he must be a good man; honour
being the prize of virtue. He will accept honour only from the good,
and will despise dishonour, knowing it to be undeserved. In all good or
bad fortune, he will behave with moderation; in not highly valuing even
the highest thing of all, honour itself, he may seem to others
supercilious. Wealth and fortune contribute to high-mindedness; but
most of all, superior goodness; for the character cannot exist without
perfect virtue. The high-minded man neither shuns nor courts danger;
nor is he indisposed to risk even his life. He gives favours, but does
not accept them; he is proud to the great, but affable to the lowly. He
attempts only great and important matters; is open in friendship and in
hatred; truthful in conduct, with an ironical reserve. He talks little,
either of himself or of others; neither desiring his own praise, nor
caring to utter blame. He wonders at nothing, bears no malice, is no
gossip. His movements are slow, his voice deep, his diction stately
(III.).

There is a nameless virtue, a mean between the two extremes of too much
and too little ambition, or desire of honour; the reference being to
smaller matters and to ordinary men. The fact that both extremes are
made terms of reproach, shows that there is a just mean; while each
extreme alternately claims to be the virtue, as against the other,
since there is no term to express the mean (IV.).

MILDNESS [Greek: praotaes] is a mean state with reference to Anger,
although inclining to the defective side. The exact mean, which has no
current name, is that state wherein the agent is free from perturbation
[Greek: atarachos], is not impelled by passion, but guided by reason;
is angry when he ought, as he ought, with whom, and as long as, he
ought: taking right measure of all the circumstances. Not to be angry
on the proper provocation, is folly, insensibility, slavish submission.
Of those given to excess in anger, some are quick, impetuous, and soon
appeased; others are sulky, repressing and perpetuating their
resentment. It is not easy to define the exact mean; each case must be
left to individual perception (V.).

The next virtue is Good-breeding in society, a balance between
surliness on the one hand, and weak assent or interested flattery on
the other. It is a nameless virtue, resembling friendship without the
special affection. Aristotle shows what he considers the bearing of the
finished gentleman, studying to give pleasure, and yet expressing
disapprobation when it would be wrong to do otherwise (VI.).

Closely allied to the foregoing is the observance of a due mean, in the
matter of Boastfulness. The boastful lay claim to what they do not
possess; false modesty [Greek: eironeia] is denying or underrating
one's own merits. The balance of the two is the straightforward and
truthful character; asserting just what belongs to him, neither more
nor less. This is a kind of truthfulness,--distinguished from 'truth'
in its more serious aspect, as discriminating between justice and
injustice--and has a worth of its own; for he that is truthful in
little things will be so in more important affairs (VII.).

In the playful intercourse of society, there is room for the virtue of
Wit, a balance or mean between buffoonish excess, and the clownish
dulness that can neither make nor enjoy a joke. Here the man of
refinement must be a law to himself (VIII.).

MODESTY [Greek: aidos] is briefly described, without being put through
the comparison with its extremes. It is more a feeling than a state, or
settled habit. It is the fear of ill-report; and has the physical
expression of fear under danger--the blushing and the pallor. It befits
youth as the age of passion and of errors. In the old it is no virtue,
as they should do nothing to be ashamed of (IX.).

Book Fifth (the first of the so-called Eudemian books), treats of
Justice, the Social virtue by pre-eminence. Justice as a virtue is
defined, the state of mind, or moral disposition, to do what is just.
The question then is--what is the just and the unjust in action? The
words seem to have more senses than one. The just may be (1) the
Lawful, what is established by law; which includes, therefore, all
obedience, and all moral virtue (for every kind of conduct came under
public regulation, in the legislation of Plato and Aristotle). Or (2)
the just may be restricted to the fair and equitable as regards
property. In both senses, however, justice concerns our behaviour to
some one else: and it thus stands apart from the other virtues, as
(essentially and in its first character) seeking another's good--not
the good of the agent himself (I.).

The first kind of justice, which includes all virtue, called Universal
Justice, being set aside, the enquiry is reduced to the Particular
Justice, or Justice proper and distinctive. Of this there are two
kinds, Distributive and Corrective (II.). Distributive Justice is a
kind of equality or proportion in the distribution of property,
honours, &c., in the State, according to the merits of each citizen;
the standard of worth or merit being settled by the constitution,
whether democratic, oligarchic, or aristocratic (III.). Corrective, or
Reparative Justice takes no account of persons; but, looking at cases
where unjust loss or gain has occurred, aims to restore the balance, by
striking an arithmetical mean (IV.). The Pythagorean idea, that Justice
is Retaliation, is inadequate; proportion and other circumstances must
be included. Proportionate Retaliation, or Reciprocity of services,--as
in the case of Commercial Exchange, measured through the instrument of
money, with its definite value,--is set forth as the great bond of
society. Just dealing is the mean between doing injustice and suffering
injustice (V.). Justice is definitely connected with Law, and exists
only between citizens of the State, and not between father and
children, master and slave, between whom there is no law proper, but
only a sort of relation analogous to law (VI.). Civil Justice is partly
Natural, partly conventional. The natural is what has the same force
everywhere, whether accepted or not; the conventional varies with
institutions, acquiring all its force from adoption by law, and being
in itself a matter of indifference prior to such adoption. Some persons
regard all Justice as thus conventional. They say--'What exists by
nature is unchangeable, and has everywhere the same power; for example,
fire burns alike in Persia and here; but we see regulations of justice
often varied--differing here and there.' This, however, is not exactly
the fact, though to a certain extent it is the fact. Among the gods
indeed, it perhaps is not the fact at all: but among men, it is true
that there exists something by nature changeable, though everything is
not so. Nevertheless, there are some things existing by nature, other
things not by nature. And we can plainly see, among those matters that
admit of opposite arrangement, which of them belong to nature and which
to law and convention; and the same distinction will fit in other cases
also. Thus the right hand is by nature more powerful than the left; yet
it is possible that all men may become ambidextrous. Those regulations
of justice that are not by nature, but by human appointment, are not
the same everywhere; nor is the political constitution everywhere the
same; yet there is one political constitution only that is by nature
the best everywhere (VII.).

To constitute Justice and Injustice in acts, the acts must be
voluntary; there being degrees of culpability in injustice according to
the intention, the premeditation, the greater or less knowledge of
circumstances. The act that a person does may perhaps be unjust; but he
is not, on that account, always to be regarded as an unjust man
(VIII.).

Here a question arises, Can one be injured voluntarily? It seems not,
for what a man consents to is not injury. Nor can a person injure
himself. Injury is a relationship between two parties (IX.). Equity
does not contradict, or set aside, Justice, but is a higher and finer
kind of justice, coming in where the law is too rough and general.

Book Sixth treats of Intellectual Excellences, or Virtues of the
Intellect. It thus follows out the large definition of virtue given at
the outset, and repeated in detail as concerns each of the ethical or
moral virtues successively.

According to the views most received at present, Morality is an affair
of conscience and sentiment; little or nothing is said about estimating
the full circumstances and consequences of each act, except that there
is no time to calculate correctly, and that the attempt to do so is
generally a pretence for evading the peremptory order of virtuous
sentiment, which, if faithfully obeyed, ensures virtuous action in each
particular case. If these views be adopted, an investigation of our
intellectual excellences would find no place in a treatise on Ethics.
But the theory of Aristotle is altogether different. Though he
recognizes Emotion and Intellect as inseparably implicated in the mind
of Ethical agents, yet the sovereign authority that he proclaims is not
Conscience or Sentiment, but Reason. The subordination of Sentiment to
Reason is with him essential. It is true that Reason must be supplied
with First Principles, whence to take its start; and these First
Principles are here declared to be, fixed emotional states or
dispositions, engendered in the mind of the agent by a succession of
similar acts. But even these dispositions themselves, though not
belonging to the department of Reason, are not exempt from the
challenge and scrutiny of Reason; while the proper application of them
in act to the complicated realities of life, is the work of Reason
altogether. Such an ethical theory calls upon Aristotle to indicate,
more or less fully, those intellectual excellences, whereby alone we
are enabled to overcome the inherent difficulties of right ethical
conduct; and he indicates them in the present Book, comparing them with
those other intellectual excellences which guide our theoretical
investigations, where conduct is not directly concerned.

In specifying the ethical excellences, or excellences of disposition,
we explained that each of them aimed to realize a mean--and that this
mean was to be determined by Right Reason. To find the mean, is thus an
operation of the Intellect; and we have now to explain what the right
performance of it is,--or to enter upon the Excellences of the
Intellect. The soul having been divided into Irrational and Rational,
the Rational must farther be divided into two parts,--the Scientific
(dealing with necessary matter), the Calculative, or Deliberative
(dealing with contingent matter). We must touch, upon the excellence or
best condition of both of them (I). There are three principal functions
of the soul--Sensation, Reason, and Appetite or Desire. Now, Sensation
(which beasts have as well as men) is not a principle of moral action.
The Reason regards truth and falsehood only; it does not move to
action, it is not an end in itself. Appetite or Desire, which aims at
an end, introduces us to moral action. Truth and Falsehood, as regards
Reason, correspond to Good and Evil as regards Appetite: Affirmation
and Negation, with the first, are the analogues of Pursuit and
Avoidance, with the second. In purpose, which is the principle of moral
action, there is included deliberation or calculation. Reason and
Appetite are thus combined: Good Purpose comprises both true
affirmation and right pursuit: you may call it either an Intelligent
Appetite, or an Appetitive Intelligence. Such is man, as a principle of
action [hae toiautae archae anthropos].

Science has to do with the necessary and the eternal; it is teachable,
but teachable always from _praecognita_, or principles, obtained by
induction; from which principles, conclusions are demonstrated by
syllogism (III.). Art, or Production, is to be carefully distinguished
from the action or agency that belongs to man as an ethical agent, and
that does not terminate in any separate assignable product. But both
the one and the other deal with contingent matters only. Art deals for
the most part with the same matters as are subject to the intervention
of Fortune or Chance (IV.).

Prudence or Judiciousness [Greek: phronaesis], the quality of [Greek:
ho phronimos], the Practical Reason, comes next. We are told what are
the matters wherewith it is, and wherewith it is not, conversant. It
does not deal with matters wherein there exist art, or with rules of
art. It does not deal with necessary matters, nor with matters not
modifiable by human agency. The prudent or judicious man is one who
(like Pericles) can accurately estimate and foresee matters (apart from
Science and Art) such as are good or evil for himself and other human
beings. On these matters, feelings of pleasure or pain are apt to bias
the mind, by insinuating wrong aims; which they do not do in regard to
the properties of a triangle and other scientific conclusions. To guard
against such bias, the judicious man must be armed with the ethical
excellence described above as Temperance or Moderation. Judiciousness
is not an Art, admitting of better and worse; there are not good
judicious men, and bad judicious men, as there are good and bad
artists. Judiciousness is itself an excellence (_i.e._, the term
connotes excellence)--an excellence of the rational soul, and of that
branch of the rational soul which is calculating, deliberative, not
scientific (V.). Reason or Intellect [Greek: nous] is the faculty for
apprehending the first principles of demonstrative science. It is among
the infallible faculties of the mind, together with Judiciousness,
Science, and Philosophy. Each of these terms connotes truth and
accuracy (VI.). Wisdom in the arts is the privilege of the superlative
artists, such as Phidias in sculpture. But there are some men wise, not
in any special art, but absolutely; and this wisdom [Greek: sophia] is
Philosophy. It embraces both principles of science (which Aristotle
considers to come under the review of the First Philosophy) and
deductions therefrom; it is [Greek: nous] and [Greek: epistaemae] in
one. It is more venerable and dignified than Prudence or Judiciousness;
because its objects, the Kosmos and the celestial bodies, are far more
glorious than man, with whose interests alone Prudence is concerned;
and also because the celestial objects are eternal and unvarying; while
man and his affairs are transitory and ever fluctuating. Hence the
great honour paid to Thales, Anaxagoras, and others, who speculated on
theories thus magnificent and superhuman, though useless in respect to
human good.

We have already said that Prudence or Judiciousness is good counsel on
human interests, with a view to action. But we must also add that it
comprises a knowledge not of universals merely, but also of
particulars; and experienced men, much conversant with particulars, are
often better qualified for action than inexperienced men of science
(VII.). Prudence is the same in its intellectual basis as the political
science or art--yet looked at in a different aspect. Both of them are
practical and consultative, respecting matters of human good and evil;
but prudence, in the stricter sense of the word, concerns more
especially the individual self; still, the welfare of the individual is
perhaps inseparable from household and state concerns. Prudence farther
implies a large experience; whence boys, who can become good
mathematicians, cannot have practical judgment or prudence. In
consultation, we are liable to error both in regard to universals, and
in regard to particulars; it is the business of prudence, as well as of
the political science, to guard against both. That prudence is not
identical with Science, is plain enough; for Science is the
intermediate process between the first principles and the last
conclusions; whereas prudence consists chiefly in seizing these last,
which are the applications of reasoning, and represent the particular
acts to be done. Prudence is the counterpart of Reason [Greek: Nous] or
Intellect, but at the opposite extremity of the mental process. For
Intellect [Greek: Nous] apprehends the extreme Universals,--the first
principles,--themselves not deducible, but from which deduction starts;
while Prudence fastens on the extreme particulars, which are not known
by Science, but by sensible Perception. We mean here by sensible
Perception, not what is peculiar to any of the five senses, but what is
common to them all--whereby we perceive that the triangle before us is
a geometrical ultimatum, and that it is the final subject of
application for all the properties previously demonstrated to belong to
triangles generally. The mind will stop here in the downward march
towards practical application, as it stopped at first principles in the
upward march. Prudence becomes, however, confounded with sensible
perception, when we reach this stage. [The statement here given
involves Aristotle's distinction of the proper and the common
Sensibles; a shadowing out of the muscular element in sensation]
(VIII.).

Good counsel [Greek: euboulia] is distinguished from various other
qualities. It is, in substance, choosing right means to a good end; the
end being determined by the great faculty--Prudence or Judiciousness
(IX.). Sagacity [Greek: synesis] is a just intellectual measure in
regard to the business of life, individual and social; critical ability
in appreciating and interpreting the phenomena of experience. It is
distinguished from Prudence in this respect--that Prudence carries
inferences into Practice (X.). Considerateness [Greek: gnomae] is
another intellectual virtue, with a practical bearing. It is that
virtue whereby we discern the proper occasions for indulgent
construction, softening the rigour of logical consistency. It is the
source of equitable decisions.

The different intellectual excellences just named--Considerateness,
Sagacity, Prudence [Greek: phronaesis], and Intellect [Greek: Nous],
seem all to bear on the same result, and are for the most part
predicable of the same individuals. All of them are concerned with the
ultimate applications of principle to practice, and with the actual
moments for decision and action. Indeed, Intellect [Greek: Nous] deals
with the extremes at both ends of the scale: with the highest and
lowest terms. In theoretical science, it apprehends and sanctions the
major propositions, the first and highest _principia_ of
demonstrations: in practical dealings, it estimates the minor
propositions of the syllogism, the possibilities of the situation, and
the ultimate action required. All these are the _principia_ from whence
arises the determining motive: for the universal is always derived from
particulars; these we must know through sensible perception, which is
in this case the same thing as intellect [Greek: Nous]. Intellect is in
fact both the beginning and the end: it cognizes both the first grounds
of demonstration and the last applications of the results of
demonstration. A man cannot acquire science by nature, or without
teaching: but he may acquire Intellect and Sagacity by nature, simply
through, long life and abundant experience. The affirmations and
opinions of old men deserve attention, hardly less than demonstrations:
they have acquired an eye from experience, and can thus see the
practical principles (though they may not be able to lay out their
reasons logically) (XI.).

But an objector may ask--Of what use are Philosophy and Prudence? He
may take such grounds as these. (1) Philosophy has no practical aim at
all; nor does it consider the means of happiness? (2) Prudence, though
bearing on practice, is merely knowledge, and does not ensure right
action. (3) Even granting the knowledge to be of value as direction, it
might be obtained, like medical knowledge, from a professional adviser.
(4) If philosophy is better than prudence, why does prudence control
philosophy? We have to answer these doubts. The first is answered by
asserting the independent value of philosophy and prudence, as
perfections of our nature, and as sources of happiness in themselves.
The second and third doubts are set at rest, by affirming prudence to
have no existence apart from virtue. Without a virtuous aim, there is
no such thing as Prudence: there is nothing but cleverness degenerating
into cunning; while virtue without virtuous prudence is nothing better
than a mere instinct, liable to be misguided in every way (XII.).

There is one more difficulty to be cleared up respecting virtue. All
our dispositions; and therefore all our ethical excellences, come to us
in a certain sense by nature; that is, we have from the moment of birth
a certain aptitude for becoming temperate, courageous, just, &c. But
these natural aptitudes or possessions [Greek: physikai hexeis] are
something altogether distinct from the ethical excellences proper,
though capable of being matured into them, if intellect and prudence be
superadded. Sokrates was mistaken in resolving all the virtues into
prudence; but he was right in saying that none of them can exist
without prudence. The virtues ought to be defined as, not merely
ethical dispositions _according_ to right reason, but ethical
dispositions _along with_ right reason or prudence (_i.e._, prudence is
an ever present co-efficient). It is thus abundantly evident that none
but a prudent man can be good, and none but a good man can be prudent.
The virtues are separable from each other, so far as the natural
aptitudes are concerned: a man may have greater facility for acquiring
one than another. But so far as regards the finished acquirements of
excellence, in virtue of which a man is called _good_--no such
separation is possible. All of them alike need the companionship of
Prudence (XIII.).

Book Seventh has, two Parts. Part first discusses the grades of moral
strength and moral weakness. Part second is a short dissertation on
Pleasure, superseded by the superior handling of the subject in the
Tenth Book.

With reference to moral power, in self-restraint, six grades are
specified. (1) God-like virtue, or reason impelling as well as
directing. (2) The highest human virtue, expressed by Temperance
[Greek: sophrosynae]--appetite and passion perfectly harmonized with
reason. (3) Continence [Greek: egkrateia] or the mastery of reason,
after a struggle. (4) Incontinence, the mastery of appetite or passion,
but not without a struggle. (5) Vice, reason perverted so as to
harmonize entirely with appetite or passion. (6) Bestiality, naked
appetite or passion, without reason. Certain prevalent opinions are
enumerated, which are to form the subject of the discussions
following--(1) Continence and endurance are morally good. (2) The
Continent man sticks to his opinion. (3) The Incontinent err knowingly.
(4) Temperance and Continence are the same. (5) Wise and clever men may
be Incontinent. (6) Incontinence applies to other things than Pleasure,
as anger, honour, and gain (I.).

The third point (the Incontinent sin knowingly) is first mooted.
Sokrates held the contrary; he made vice and ignorance convertible.
Others think that the knowledge possessed by the incontinent is mere
opinion, or a vague and weak conviction. It is objected to No. 4, that
continence implies evil desires to be controlled; while temperance
means the character fully harmonized. As to No. 2, Continence must
often be bad, if it consists in sticking to an opinion (II.).

The third point, the only question of real interest or difficulty, is
resumed at greater length. The distinction between _knowledge_ and
_opinion_ (the higher and the lower kinds of knowledge) does not settle
the question, for opinion may be as _strong_ as knowledge. The real
point is, what is meant by _having knowledge_? A man's knowledge may be
in abeyance, as it is when he is asleep or intoxicated. Thus, we may
have in the mind two knowledges (like two separate syllogisms), one
leading to continence, the other to incontinence; the first is not
drawn out, like the syllogism wanting a minor; hence it may be said to
be not present to the mind; so that, in a certain sense, Sokrates was
right in denying that actual and present knowledge could be overborne.
Vice is a form of oblivion (III.).

The next question is, what is the object-matter of incontinence;
whether there is any man incontinent simply and absolutely (without any
specification of wherein), or whether all incontinent men are so in
regard to this or that particular matter? (No. 6). The answer is, that
it applies directly to the bodily appetites and pleasures, which are
necessary up to a certain point (the sphere of Temperance), and then he
that commits unreasonable excess above this point is called Incontinent
simply. But if he commits excess in regard to pleasures, which, though
not necessary, are natural and, up to a certain point, reasonable--such
as victory, wealth, honour--we designate him as incontinent, yet with a
specification of the particular matter (IV.).

The modes of Bestiality, as cannibalism and unnatural passion, are
ascribed to morbid depravity of nature or of habits, analogous to
disease or madness (V.).

Incontinence in anger is not so bad as Incontinence in lust, because
anger (1) has more semblance of reason, (2) is more a matter of
constitution, (3) has less of deliberate purpose--while lust is crafty,
(4) arises under pain; and not from wantonness (VI.).

Persons below the average in resisting _pleasures_ are incontinent;
those below the average in resisting _pains_ are soft or effeminate.
The mass of men incline to both weaknesses. He that deliberately
pursues excessive pleasures, or other pleasures in an excessive way, is
said to be abandoned. The intemperate are worse than the incontinent.
Sport, in its excess, is effeminacy, as being relaxation from toil.
There are two kinds of incontinence: the one proceeding from
precipitancy, where a man acts without deliberating at all; the other
from feebleness,--where he deliberates, but where the result of
deliberation is too weak to countervail his appetite (VII.).
Intemperance or profligacy is more vicious, and less curable than
Incontinence. The profligate man is one who has in him no principle
(archae) of good or of right reason, and who does wrong without
afterwards repenting of it; the incontinent man has the good principle
in him, but it is overcome when he does wrong, and he afterwards
repents (VIII.). Here, again, Aristotle denies that sticking to one's
opinions is, _per se_, continence. The opinion may be wrong; in that
case, if a man sticks to it, prompted by mere self-assertion and love
of victory, it is a species of incontinence. One of the virtues of the
continent man is to be open to persuasion, and to desert one's
resolutions for a noble end (IX.). Incontinence is like sleep or
drunkenness as opposed to wakeful knowledge. The incontinent man is
like a state having good laws, but not acting on them. The incontinence
of passion is more curable than that of weakness; what proceeds from
habit more than what is natural (X.).

The Eighth and Ninth Books contain the treatise on Friendship.

The subject deserves a place in an Ethical treatise, because of its
connexion with virtue and with happiness. Several questions have been
debated concerning Friendship,--Is it based on likeness or unlikeness?
Can bad men be friends? Is there but one species of Friendship, or more
than one? (I.) Some progress towards a solution of these questions may
be made by considering what are the objects of liking; these are the
good, the pleasant, the useful. By the good is not meant the absolute
good of Plato, but the apparent good. Inanimate things must be
excluded, as wanting reciprocation (II.). The varieties of friendship
follow these three modes of the likeable. The friendships for the
useful and the pleasant, are not disinterested, but self-seeking; they
are therefore accidental and transitory; they do not involve intimate
and frequent association. Friendship for the good, and between the
virtuous, is alone perfect; it is formed slowly, and has the requisites
of permanence. It occurs rarely (III.). As regards the useful and the
pleasant, the bad may be friends. It may happen that two persons are
mutually pleasant to each other, as lover and beloved; while this
lasts, there is friendship. It is only as respects the good, that there
exists a permanent liking for the person. Such friendship is of an
absolute nature; the others are accidental (IV.). Friendship is in full
exercise only during actual intercourse; it may exist potentially at a
distance; but in long absence, there is danger of its being dissolved.
Friendship is a settled state or habit, while fondness is a mere
passion, which does not imply our wishing to do good to the object of
it, as friendship does (V.). The perfect kind of friendship, from its
intensity, cannot be exercised towards more than a small number. In
regard to the useful and the pleasant, on the other hand, there may be
friendship with many; as the friendship towards tradesmen and between
the young. The happy desire pleasant friends. Men in power have two
classes of friends; one for the useful, the other for the pleasant.
Both qualities are found in the good man; but he will not be the friend
of a superior, unless he be surpassed (by that superior) in virtue
also. In all the kinds of friendship now specified there is equality
(VI.). There are friendships where one party is superior, as father and
son, older and younger, husband and wife, governor and governed. In
such cases there should be a proportionably greater love on the part of
the inferior. When the love on each side is proportioned to the merit
of the party beloved, then we have a certain species of equality, which
is an ingredient in friendship. But equality in matters of friendship,
is not quite the same as equality in matters of justice. In matters of
justice, equality proportioned to merit stands first--equality between
man and man (no account being taken of comparative merit) stands only
second. In friendship, the case is the reverse; the perfection of
friendship is equal love between the friends towards each other; to
have greater love on one side, by reason of and proportio

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