These circumstances, explaining the want of conformity in our moral sentiments to the real tendencies of actions, he next employs to account for discrepancies in moral sentiment between different communities. Having given examples of such discrepancies, he supposes the case of two families, endowed with the rudimentary qualities mentioned at the beginning, but placed in different circumstances. Under the influence of dissimilar physical conditions, and owing to the dissimilar personal idiosyncracies of the families, and especially of their chiefs, there will be left few points of complete analogy between them in the first generation, and in course of time they will become two races exceedingly unlike in moral sentiment, as in other respects. He warns strongly against making moral generalizations except under analogous circumstances of knowledge and civilization. Most men have the rudimentary feelings, but there is no end to the variety of their intensity and direction. As a highest instance of discrepant moral sentiment, he cites the fact that, in our own country, a moral stigma is still attached to intellectual error by many people, and even by men of cultivation.

He now comes to the important question of the test or criterion that is to determine which of these diverse sentiments are right and which wrong, since they cannot all be right from the mere fact of their existence, or because they are felt by the subjects of them to be right, or believed to be in consonance with the injunctions of superiors, or to be held also by other people. The foregoing review of the genesis of moral sentiments suggests a direct and simple answer. As they arise from likings and dislikings of actions that cause, or tend to cause, pleasure and pain, the first thing is to see that the likings and dislikings are well founded. Where this does not at once appear, examination of the real effects of actions must be resorted to; and, in dubious cases, men in general, when unprejudiced, allow this to be the natural test for applying moral approbation and disapprobation. If, indeed, the end of moral sentiment is to promote or to prevent the actions, there can be no better way of attaining that end. And, as a fact, almost all moralists virtually adopt it on occasion, though often unconsciously; the greatest happiness—principle is denounced by its opponents as a mischievous doctrine.

The objection that the criterion of consequences is difficult of application, and thus devoid of practical utility, he rebuts by asserting that the difficulty is not greater than in other cases. We have simply to follow effects as far as we can; and it is by its ascertainable, not by its unascertainable, consequences, that we pronounce an action, as we pronounce an article of food or a statute, to be good or bad. The main effects of most actions are already very well ascertained, and the consequences to human happiness, when unascertainable, are of no value. If the test were honestly applied, ethical discrepancies would tend gradually to disappear.

He starts another objection:—The happiness-test is good as far as it goes, but we also approve and disapprove of actions as they are just or generous, or the contrary, and with no reference to happiness or unhappiness. In answering this argument, he confines himself to the case of Justice. To be morally approved, a just action must in itself be peculiarly pleasant or agreeable, irrespective of its other effects, which are left out: for on no theory can pleasantness or agreeableness be dissociated from moral approbation. Now, as Happiness is but a general appellation for all the agreeable affections of our nature, and unable to exist except in the shape of some agreeable emotion or combinations of agreeable emotions; the just action that is morally commendable, as giving naturally and directly a peculiar kind of pleasure independent of any other consequences, only produces one species of those pleasant states of mind that are ranged under the genus happiness. The test of justice therefore coincides with the happiness-test. But he does not mean that we are actually affected thus, in doing just actions, nor refuse to accept justice as a criterion of actions; only in the one case he maintains that, whatever association may have effected, the just act must originally have been approved for the sake of its consequences, and, in the other, that justice is a criterion, because proved over and over again to be a most beneficial principle.

After remarking that the Moral Sentiments of praise and blame may enter into accidental connection with, other feelings of a distinct character, like pity, wonder, &c., he criticises the use of the word Utility in Morals. He avoids the term as objectionable, because the useful in common language does not mean what is directly productive of happiness, but only what is instrumental in its production, and in most cases customarily or recurrently instrumental. A blanket is of continual utility to a poor wretch through a severe winter, but the benevolent act of the donor is not termed useful, because it confers the benefit and ceases. Utility is too narrow to comprehend all the actions that deserve approbation. We want an uncompounded substantive expressing the two attributes of conferring and conducing to happiness; as a descriptive phrase, producing happiness is as succinct as any. The term useful is, besides, associated with the notion of what is serviceable in the affairs and objects of common life, whence the philosophical doctrine that erects utility as its banner is apt to be deemed, by the unthinking, low, mean, and derogatory to human nature and aspirations, although its real import is wholly free from such a reproach. Notwithstanding, therefore, the convenience of the term, and because the associations connected with it are not easily eradicated, whilst most of the trite objections to the true doctrine of morals turn upon its narrow meanings, he thinks it should be as much as possible disused.

Mr. Bailey ends by remarking of the common question, whether our moral sentiments have their origin in Reason, or in a separate power called the Moral Sense, that in his view of man's sensitive and intellectual nature it is easily settled. He recognizes the feelings that have been enumerated, and, in connexion with them, intellectual processes of discerning and inferring; for which, if the Moral Sense and Reason are meant as anything more than unnecessary general expressions, they are merely fictitious entities. So, too, Conscience, whether as identified with the moral sense, or put for sensibility in regard to the moral qualities of one's own mind, is a mere personification of certain mental states. The summary of Bailey's doctrine falls within the two first heads.

I.—The Standard is the production of Happiness. [It should be remarked, however, that happiness is a wider aim than morality; although all virtue tends to produce happiness, very much that produces happiness is not virtue.]

II.—The Moral Faculty, while involving processes of discernment and inference, is mainly composed of certain sentiments, the chief being Reciprocity and Sympathy. [These are undoubtedly the largest ingredients in a mature, self-acting conscience; and the way that they contribute to the production of moral sentiment deserved to be, as it has been, well handled. The great omission in Mr. Bailey's account is the absence of the element of authority, which is the main instrument in imparting to us the sense of obligation.]

HERBERT SPENCER.

Mr. Spencer's ethical doctrines are, as yet, nowhere fully expressed. They form part of the more general doctrine of Evolution which he is engaged in working out; and they are at present to be gathered only from scattered passages. It is true that, in his first work, Social Statics he presented what he then regarded as a tolerably complete view of one division of Morals. But without abandoning this view, he now regards it as inadequate—more especially in respect of its basis.

Mr. Spencer's conception of Morality as a science, is conveyed in the following passages in a letter written by him to Mr. Mill; repudiating the title anti-utilitarian, which Mr. Mill had applied to him:—

'The note in question greatly startled me by implicitly classing me with Anti-utilitarians. I have never regarded myself as an Anti-utilitarian. My dissent from the doctrine of Utility as commonly understood, concerns not the object to be reached by men, but the method of reaching it. While I admit that happiness is the ultimate end to be contemplated, I do not admit that it should be the proximate end. The Expediency-Philosophy having concluded that happiness is a thing to be achieved, assumes that Morality has no other business than empirically to generalize the results of conduct, and to supply for the guidance of conduct nothing more than its empirical generalizations.

But the view for which I contend is, that Morality properly so called—the science of right conduct—has for its object to determine how and why certain modes of conduct are detrimental, and certain other modes beneficial. These good and bad results cannot be accidental, but must be necessary consequences of the constitution of things; and I conceive it to be the business of Moral Science to deduce, from the laws of life and the conditions of existence, what kinds of action necessarily tend to produce happiness, and what kinds to produce unhappiness. Having done this, its deductions are to be recognized as laws of conduct; and are to be conformed to irrespective of a direct estimation of happiness or misery.

'Perhaps an analogy will most clearly show my meaning. During its early stages, planetary Astronomy consisted of nothing more than accumulated observations respecting the positions and motions of the sun and planets; from which accumulated observations it came by and by to be empirically predicted, with an approach to truth, that certain of the heavenly bodies would have certain positions at certain times. But the modern science of planetary Astronomy consists of deductions from the law of gravitation—deductions showing why the celestial bodies necessarily occupy certain places at certain times. Now, the kind of relation which thus exists between ancient and modern Astronomy, is analogous to the kind of relation which, I conceive, exists between the Expediency-Morality, and Moral Science properly so-called. And the objection which I have to the current Utilitarianism, is, that it recognizes no more developed form of morality—does not see that it has reached but the initial stage of Moral Science.

'To make my position fully understood, it seems needful to add that, corresponding to the fundamental propositions of a developed Moral Science, there have been, and still are, developing in the race, certain fundamental moral intuitions; and that, though these moral intuitions are the results of accumulated experiences of Utility, gradually organized and inherited, they have come to be quite independent of conscious experience. Just in the same way that I believe the intuition of space, possessed by any living individual, to have arisen from organized and consolidated experiences of all antecedent individuals who bequeathed to him their slowly-developed nervous organizations—just as I believe that this intuition, requiring only to be made definite and complete by personal experiences, has practically become a form of thought, apparently quite independent of experience; so do I believe that the experiences of utility organised and consolidated through all past generations of the human race, have been producing corresponding nervous modifications, which, by continued transmission and accumulation, have become in us certain faculties of moral intuition—certain emotions responding to right and wrong conduct, which have no apparent basis in the individual experiences of utility. I also hold that just as the space-intuition responds to the exact demonstrations of Geometry, and has its rough conclusions interpreted and verified by them; so will moral intuitions respond to the demonstrations of Moral Science, and will have their rough conclusions interpreted and verified by them.'

The relations between the Expediency-Morality, and Moral Science, conceived by Mr. Spencer to be, the one transitional, and the other ultimate, are further explained in the following passage from his essay on 'Prison-Ethics':—

'Progressing civilization, which is of necessity a succession of compromises between old and new, requires a perpetual re-adjustment of the compromise between the ideal and the practicable in social arrangements: to which end both elements of the compromise must be kept in view. If it is true that pure rectitude prescribes a system of things far too good for men as they are; it is not less true that mere expediency does not of itself tend to establish a system of things any better than that which exists. While absolute morality owes to expediency the checks which prevent it from rushing into utopian absurdities; expediency is indebted to absolute morality for all stimulus to improvement. Granted that we are chiefly interested in ascertaining what is relatively right; it still follows that we must first consider what is absolutely right; since the one conception presupposes the other. That is to say, though we must ever aim to do what is best for the present times, yet we must ever bear in mind what is abstractedly best; so that the changes we make may be towards it, and not away from it.'

By the word absolute as thus applied, Mr. Spencer does not mean to imply a right and wrong existing apart from Humanity and its relations. Agreeing with Utilitarians in the belief that happiness is the end, and that the conduct called moral is simply the best means of attaining it, he of course does not assert that there is a morality which is absolute in the sense of being true out of relation to human existence. By absolute morality as distinguished from relative, he here means the mode of conduct which, under the conditions arising from social union, must be pursued to achieve the greatest welfare of each and all. He holds, that the laws of Life, physiologically considered, being fixed, it necessarily follows that when a number of individuals have to live in social union, which necessarily involves fixity of conditions in the shape of mutual interferences and limitations, there result certain fixed principles by which conduct must be restricted, before the greatest sum of happiness can be achieved. These principles constitute what Mr. Spencer distinguishes as absolute Morality; and the absolutely moral man is the man who conforms to these principles, not by external coercion nor self-coercion, but who acts them out spontaneously.

To be fully understood, this conception must be taken along with the general theory of Evolution. Mr. Spencer argues that all things whatever are inevitably tending towards equilibrium; and that consequently the progress of mankind cannot cease until there is equilibrium between the human constitution and the conditions of human existence. Or, as he argues in First Principles (Second Edition, p. 512), 'The adaptation of man's nature to the conditions of his existence cannot cease until the internal forces which we know as feelings are in equilibrium with the external forces they encounter. And the establishment of this equilibrium, is the arrival at a state of human nature and social organization, such that the individual has no desires but those which may be satisfied without exceeding his proper sphere of action, while society maintains no restraints but those which the individual voluntarily respects. The progressive extension of the liberty of citizens, and the reciprocal removal of political restrictions, are the steps by which we advance towards this state. And the ultimate abolition of all limits to the freedom of each, save those imposed by the like freedom of all, must, result from the complete equilibration between man's desires and the conduct necessitated by surrounding conditions.'

The conduct proper to such a state, which Mr. Spencer thus conceives to be the subject-matter of Moral Science, truly so-called, he proposes, in the Prospectus to his System of Philosophy, to treat under the following heads.

PERSONAL MORALS.—The principles of private conduct—physical, intellectual, moral, and religious—that follow from the conditions to complete individual life; or, what is the same thing, those modes of private action which must result from the eventual equilibration of internal desires and external needs.

JUSTICE.—The mutual limitation of men's actions necessitated by their co-existence as units of a society—limitations, the perfect observance of which constitutes that state of equilibrium forming the goal of political progress.

NEGATIVE BENEFICENCE.—Those secondary limitations, similarly necessitated, which, though less important and not cognizable by law, are yet requisite to prevent mutual destruction of happiness in various indirect ways: in other words—those minor self-restraints dictated by what may be called passive sympathy.

POSITIVE BENEFICENCE.—Comprehending all modes of conduct, dictated by active sympathy, which imply pleasure in giving pleasure—modes of conduct that social adaptation has induced and must render ever more general; and which, in becoming universal, must fill to the full the possible measure of human happiness.

* * * * *

This completes the long succession of British moralists during the three last centuries. It has been possible, and even necessary, to present them thus in an unbroken line, because the insular movement in ethical philosophy has been hardly, if at all, affected by anything done abroad. In the earlier part of the modern period, little of any kind was done in ethics by the great continental thinkers. Descartes has only a few allusions to the subject; the 'Ethica' of Spinoza is chiefly a work of speculative philosophy; Leibnitz has no systematic treatment of moral questions. The case is very different; in the new German philosophy since the time of Kant; besides Kant himself, Fichte, Hegel, Schleiermacher, and many later and contemporary thinkers having devoted a large amount of attention to practical philosophy. But unless it be Kant—and he not to any great extent—none of these has influenced the later attempts at ethical speculation amongst ourselves: nor, again with the exception of Kant, are we as yet in a position properly to deal with them. One reason, for proceeding to expound the ethical system of the founder of the later German philosophy, without regard to his successors, lies in the fact that he stood, on the practical side, in as definite a relation to the English moralists of last century, as, in his speculative philosophy, to Locke and Hume.

IMMANUEL, KANT. [1724-1804.]

The ethical writings of Kant, in the order of their appearance, are—Foundation for the Metaphysic of Morals (1785); Critique of the Practical Reason (1788); Metaphysic of Morals (1797, in two parts—(1) Doctrine of Right or Jurisprudence, (2) Doctrine of Virtue or Ethics proper). The third work contains the details of his system; the general theory is presented in the two others. Of these we select for analysis the earlier, containing, as it does, in less artificial form, an ampler discussion of the fundamental questions of morals; but towards the end it must be supplemented, in regard to certain characteristic doctrines, from the second, in some respects more developed, work.[26]

In the introduction to the Metaphysic of Morals, Kant distinguishes between the empirical and the rational mode of treating Ethics. He announces his intention to depart from the common plan of mixing up the two together, and to attempt for once to set forth the pure moral philosophy that is implied even in the vulgar ideas of duty and moral law. Because a moral law means an absolute necessity laid on all rational beings whatever, its foundation is to be sought, not in human nature or circumstances, but a priori in the conception of pure reason. The most universal precept founded on mere experience is only a practical rule, and never a moral law. A purely rational moral philosophy, or Metaphysic of Morals, will serve the double end of meeting a speculative requirement, and of furnishing the only true norm of practice. It investigates the idea and principles of a potentially pure Will, instead of the acts and conditions of human volition as known from psychology. Not a complete Metaphysic of Morals, however, (which would be a Critique of the pure Practical Reason), but merely a foundation for such will be given. The supreme principle of morality is to be established, apart from detailed application. First, common notions will be analyzed in order to get at this highest principle; and then, when the principle has been sought out, they will be returned upon by way of synthesis.

In the first of the three main sections of the work, he makes the passage from Common Rational Knowledge of Morals to Philosophical. Nothing in the world, he begins, can without qualification be called good, except Will. Qualities of temperament, like courage, &c., gifts of fortune, like wealth and power, are good only with reference to a good will. As to a good will, when it is really such, the circumstance that it can, or cannot, be executed does not matter; its value is independent of the utility or fruitlessness of it.

This idea of the absolute worth of mere Will, though it is allowed even by the vulgar understanding, he seeks to establish beyond dispute, by an argument from the natural subjection of Will to Reason. In a being well-organized, if Conservation or Happiness were the grand aim, such subjection would be a great mistake. When Instinct could do the work far better and more surely, Reason should have been deprived of all practical function. Discontent, in fact, rather than happiness comes of pursuit of mere enjoyment by rational calculation; and to make light of the part contributed by Reason to happiness, is really to make out that it exists for a nobler purpose. But now, since Reason is a practical faculty and governs the will, its function can only be to produce a Will good in itself. Such a Will, if not the only good, is certainly the highest; and happiness, unattainable by Reason as a primary aim, and subject in this life altogether to much limitation, is to be sought only in the contentment that arises from the attainment by Reason of its true aim, at the sacrifice often of many a natural inclination.

He proceeds to develop this conception of a Will in itself good and estimable, by dealing with the commonly received ideas of Duty. Leaving aside profitable actions that are plain violations of duty, and also actions conformed to duty, but, while not prompted directly by nature, done from some special inclination—in which case it is easy to distinguish whether the action is done from duty or from self-interest; he considers those more difficult cases where the same action is at once duty, and prompted by direct natural inclination. In all such, whether it be duty of self-preservation, of benevolence, of securing one's own happiness (this last a duty, because discontent and the pressure of care may easily lead to the transgression of other duties), he lays it down that the action is not allowed to have true moral value, unless done in the abeyance or absence of the natural inclination prompting to it. A second position is, that the moral value of an action done from duty lies not in the intention of it, but in the maxim that determines it; not in the object, but in the principle of Volition. That is to say, in action done out of regard to duty, the will must be determined by its formal a priori principle, not being determined by any material a posteriori motive. A third position follows then from the other two; Duty is the necessity of an action out of respect for Law. Towards an object there may be inclination, and this inclination may be matter for approval or liking; but it is Law only—the ground and not the effect of Volition, bearing down inclination rather than serving it—that can inspire Respect. When inclination and motives are both excluded, nothing remains to determine Will, except Law objectively; and, subjectively, pure respect for a law of practice—i.e., the maxim to follow such a law, even at the sacrifice of every inclination. The conception of Law-in-itself alone determining the will, is, then, the surpassing good that is called moral, which exists already in a man before his action has any result. Conformity to Law in general, all special motive to follow any single law being excluded, remains as the one principle of Volition: I am never to act otherwise, than so as to be able also to wish that my maxim (i.e., my subjective principle of volition) should become a universal law. This is what he finds implied in the common notions of Duty.

Having illustrated at length this reading, in regard to the duty of keeping a promise, he contrasts, at the close of the section, the all but infallibility of common human reason in practice with its helplessness in speculation. Notwithstanding, it finds itself unable to settle the contending claims of Reason and Inclination, and so is driven to devise a practical philosophy, owing to the rise of a 'Natural Dialectic' or tendency to refine upon the strict laws of duty in order to make them more pleasant. But, as in the speculative region, the Dialectic cannot be properly got rid of without a complete Critique of Reason.

In Section II. the passage is made from the popular moral philosophy thus arising to the metaphysic of morals. He denies that the notion of duty that has been taken above from common sage is empirical. It is proved not to be such from the very assertions of philosophers that men always act from more or less refined self-love; assertions that are founded upon the difficulty of proving that acts most apparently conformed to duty are really such. The fact is, no act can be proved by experience to be absolutely moral, i.e., done solely from regard to duty, to the exclusion of all inclination; and therefore to concede that morality and duty are ideas to be had from experience, is the surest way to get rid of them altogether. Duty, and respect for its law, are not to be preserved at all, unless Reason is allowed to lay absolute injunctions on the will, whatever experience says of their non-execution. How, indeed, is experience to disclose a moral law, that, in applying to all rational beings as well as men, and to men only as rational, must originate a priori in pure (practical) Reason? Instead of yielding the principles of morality, empirical examples of moral conduct have rather to be judged by these.

All supreme principles of morality, that are genuine, must rest on pure Reason solely; and the mistake of the popular practical philosophies in vogue, one and all—whether advancing as their principle a special determination of human nature, or Perfection, or Happiness, or Moral Feeling, or Fear of God, or a little of this and a little of that—is that there has been no previous consideration whether the principles of morality are to be sought for in our empirical knowledge of human nature at all. Such consideration would have shown them to be altogether a priori, and would have appeared as a pure practical philosophy or metaphysic of morals (upon the completion of which any popularizing might have waited), kept free from admixture of Anthropology, Theology, Physics, Hyperphysics, &c., and setting forth the conception of Duty as purely rational, without the confusion of empirical motives. To a metaphysic of this kind, Kant is now to ascend from the popular philosophy, with its stock-in-trade of single instances, following out the practical faculty of Reason from the general rules determining it, to the point where the conception of Duty emerges.

While things in nature work according to laws, rational beings alone can act according to a conceived idea of laws, i.e., to principles. This is to have a Will, or, what is the same, Practical Reason, reason being required in deducing actions from laws. If the Will follows Reason exactly and without fail, actions objectively necessary are necessary also subjectively; if, through subjective conditions (inclinations, &c.), the Will does not follow Reason inevitably, objectively necessary actions become subjectively contingent, and towards the objective laws the attitude of the will is no longer unfailing choice, but constraint. A constraining objective principle mentally represented, is a command; its formula is called Imperative, for which the expression is Ought. A will perfectly good—i.e., subjectively determined to follow the objective laws of good as soon as conceived—knows no Ought. Imperatives are only for an imperfect, such as is the human, will. Hypothetical Imperatives represent the practical necessity of an action as a means to an end, being problematical or assertory principles, according as the end is possible or real. Categorical Imperatives represent an action as objectively necessary for itself, and count as apodeictical principles.

To the endless number of possible aims of human action correspond as many Imperatives, directing merely how they are to be attained, without any question of their value; these are Imperatives of Fitness. To one real aim, existing necessarily for all rational beings, viz., Happiness, corresponds the Imperative of Prudence (in the narrow sense), being assertory while hypothetical. The categorical Imperative, enjoining a mode of action for itself, and concerned about the form and principle of it, not its nature and result, is the Imperative of Morality. These various kinds of Imperatives, as influencing the will, may be distinguished as Rules (of fitness), Counsels (of prudence), Commands or Laws (of morality); also as technical, pragmatical, moral.

Now, as to the question of the possibility of these different Imperatives—how they can be supposed able to influence or act upon the Will—there is in the first case no difficulty; in wishing an end it is necessarily implied that we wish the indispensable means, when this is in our power. In like manner, the Imperatives of Prudence are also analytical in character (i.e., given by implication), if only it were possible to have a definite idea of the end sought, viz., happiness. But, in fact, with the elements of happiness to be got from experience at the same time that the idea requires an absolute whole, or maximum, of satisfaction now and at every future moment, no finite being can know precisely what he wants, or what may be the effect of any of his wishes. Action, on fixed principles, with a view to happiness, is, therefore, not possible; and one can only follow empirical directions, about Diet, Frugality, Politeness, &c., seen on the whole to promote it. Although, however, there is no certainty of causing happiness, and the Imperatives with reference thereto are mere counsels, they retain their character of analytical propositions, and their action on the will is not less possible than in the former case.

To prove the possibility of the Imperative of morality is more difficult. As categorical, it presupposes nothing else to rest its necessity upon; while by way of experience, it can never be made out to be more than a prudential precept—i.e., a pragmatic or hypothetic principle. Its possibility must therefore be established a priori. But the difficulty will then appear no matter of wonder, when it is remembered (from the Critique of Pure Reason) how hard it is to establish synthetic propositions a priori.

The question of the possibility, however, meanwhile postponed, the mere conception of a categorical Imperative is found to yield the one formula that can express it, from its not being dependent, like a hypothetical Imperative, on any external condition. Besides the Law (or objective principle of conduct), the only thing implied in the Imperative being the necessity laid upon the Maxim (or subjective principle) to conform to the law—a law limited by no condition; there is nothing for the maxim to be conformed to but the universality of a law in general, and it is the conformity alone that properly constitutes the Imperative necessary. The Imperative is thus single, and runs: Act according to that maxim only which you can wish at the same time to become a universal law. Or, since universality of law as determining effects is what we understand by nature: Act as if the maxim of your action ought by your will to become the universal law of nature.

Taking cases of duties according to the common divisions of duties to ourselves and to others, perfect and imperfect, he proceeds to show that they may be all deduced from the single Imperative; the question of the reality of duty, which is the same as the establishment of the possibility of the Imperative as a synthetic practical proposition a priori, at present altogether apart. Suppose a man tempted to commit suicide, with the view of bettering his evil condition; but it is contradictory that the very principle of self-conservation should lead to self-destruction, and such a maxim of conduct cannot therefore become a universal law of nature. Next, the case of a man borrowing without meaning to repay, has only to be turned into a universal law, and the thing becomes impossible; nobody would lend. Again, to neglect a talent that is generally useful for mere ease and self-gratification, can indeed be supposed a universal practice, but can never be wished to be. Finally, to refuse help to others universally might not ruin the race, but can be wished by no one that knows how soon he must himself need assistance. Now, the rule was, that a maxim of conduct should be wished to become the universal law. In the last two cases, it cannot be wished; in the others, the maxim cannot even be conceived in universal form. Thus, two grades of duty, one admitting of merit, the other so strict as to be irremissible, are established on the general principle. The principle is moreover confirmed in the case of transgression of duty: the transgressor by no means wishes to have his act turned into a general rule, but only seeks special and temporary exemption from a law allowed by himself to be universal.

Notwithstanding this force and ease of application, a categorical Imperative has not yet been proved a priori actually existent; and it was allowed that it could not be proved empirically, elements of inclination, interest, &c., being inconsistent with morality. The real question is this: Is it a necessary law that all rational beings should act on maxims that they can wish, to become universal laws? If so, this must be bound up with the very notion of the will of a rational being; the relation of the will to itself being to be determined a priori by pure Reason. The Will is considered as a power of self-determination to act according to certain laws as represented to the mind, existing only in rational beings. And, if the objective ground of self-determination, or End, is supplied by mere Reason, it must be the same for all rational beings. Ends may be divided into Subjective, resting upon individual Impulses or subjective grounds of desire; and Objective, depending on Motives or objective grounds of Volition valid for all rational beings. The principles of action are, in the one case, Material, and, in the other, Formal, i.e., abstracted from all subjective ends. Material ends, as relative, beget only hypothetical Imperatives. But, supposed some thing, the presence of which in itself has an absolute value, and which, as End-in-self, can be a ground of fixed laws; there, and there only, can be the ground of a possible categorical Imperative, or Law of Practice.

Now, such an End-in-self (not a thing with merely conditional value,—a means to be used arbitrarily) is Man and every rational being, as Person. There is no other objective end with absolute value that can supply to the Reason the supreme practical principle requisite for turning subjective principles of action into objective principles of volition. Rational Nature as End-in-self is a subjective principle to a man having this conception of his own being, but becomes objective when every rational being has the same from the same ground in Reason. Hence a new form (the second) to the practical Imperative: Act so as to use Humanity (Human Nature) as well in your own person, as in the person of another, ever as end also, and never merely as means.

To this new formula, the old examples are easily squared. Suicide is using one's person as a mere means to a tolerable existence; breaking faith to others is using them as means, not as ends-in-self; neglect of self-cultivation is the not furthering human nature as end-in-self in one's own person; withholding help is refusing to further Humanity as end-in-self through the medium of the aims of others. [In a note he denies that 'the trivial, Do to others as you would,' &c., is a full expression of the law of duty: it contains the ground, neither of duties to self; nor of duties of benevolence to others, for many would forego receiving good on conditions of not conferring it; nor of the duty of retribution, for the malefactor could turn it against his judge, &c.]

The universality of this principle of Human and Rational Nature as End-in-self, as also its character of objective end limiting merely subjective ends, prove that its source is in pure Reason. Objectively, the ground of all practical legislation is Rule and the Form of Universality that enables rule to be Law (of Nature), according to principle first (in its double form); subjectively, it is End, the subject of all ends being every rational being as End-in-self, according to principle second. Hence follows the third practical principle of the Will, as supreme condition of its agreement with universal practical Reason—the idea of the Will of every rational being as a Will that legislates universally. The Will, if subject to law, has first itself imposed it.

This new idea—of the Will of every rational being as universally legislative—is what, in the implication of the Categorical Imperative, specifically marks it off from any Hypothetical: Interest is seen to be quite incompatible with Duty, if Duty is Volition of this kind. A will merely subject to laws can be bound to them by interest; not so a will itself legislating supremely, for that would imply another law to keep the interest of self-love from trenching upon the validity of the universal law. Illustration is not needed to prove that a Categorical Imperative, or law for the will of every rational being, if it exist at all, cannot exclude Interest and be unconditional, except as enjoining everything to be done from the maxim of a will that in legislating universally can have itself for object. This is the point that has been always missed, that the laws of duty shall be at once self-imposed and yet universal. Subjection to a law not springing from one's own will implies interest or constraint, and constitutes a certain necessity of action, but never makes Duty. Be the interest one's own or another's, the Imperative is conditional only. Kant's principle is the Autonomy of the Will; every other its Heteronomy.

The new point of view opens up the very fruitful conception of an Empire or Realm of Ends. As a Realm is the systematic union of rational beings by means of common laws, so the ends determined by the laws may, abstractly viewed, be taken to form a systematic whole. Rational beings, as subject to a law requiring them to treat themselves and others as ends and never merely as means, enter into a systematic union by means of common objective laws, i.e. into an (ideal) Empire or Realm of Ends, from the laws being concerned about the mutual relations of rational beings as Ends and Means. In this Realm, a rational being is either Head or Member: Head, if legislating universally and with complete independence; Member, if also universally, but at the same time subject to the laws. When now the maxim of the will does not by nature accord necessarily with the demand of the objective principle—that the will through its maxim be able to regard itself at the same time as legislating; universally—a practical constraint is exerted by the principle, which is Duty, lying on every Member in the Realm of Ends (not on the Head) alike. This necessity of practice reposes, not on feeling, impulse, or inclination, but on the relation between rational beings arising from the fact that each, as End-in-self, legislates universally. The Reason gives a universal application to every maxim of the Will; not from any motive of interest, but from the idea of the Dignity of a rational being that follows no law that it does not itself at the same time give.

Everything in the Realm of Ends has either a Price or a Dignity. Skill, Diligence, &c., bearing on human likings and needs, have a Market-price; Qualities like Wit, Fancy, &c., appealing to Taste or Emotional Satisfaction, have an Affection-price. But Morality, the only way of being End-in-self, and legislating member in the Realm of Ends, has an intrinsic Worth or Dignity, calculable in nothing else. Its worth is not in results, but in dispositions of Will; its actions need neither recommendation from a subjective disposition or taste, nor prompting from immediate tendency or feeling. Being laid on the Will by Reason, they make the Will, in the execution, the object of an immediate Respect, testifying to a Dignity beyond all price. The grounds of these lofty claims in moral goodness and virtue are the participation by a rational being in the universal legislation, fitness to be a member in a possible Realm of Ends, subjection only to self-imposed laws. Nothing having value but as the law confers it, an unconditional, incomparable worth attaches to the giving of the law, and Respect is the only word that expresses a rational being's appreciation of that. Autonomy is thus the foundation of the dignity of human and of all rational nature.

The three different expressions that have been given to the one general principle of morality imply each the others, and differ merely in their mode of presenting one idea of the Reason to the mind. Universal application of the Maxim of Conduct, as if it were a law of nature, is the formula of the Will as absolutely good; universal prohibition against the use of rational beings ever as means only, has reference to the fact that a good will in a rational being is an altogether independent and ultimate End, an End-in-self in all; universal legislation of each for all recognizes the prerogative or special dignity of rational beings, that they necessarily take their maxims from the point of view of all, and must regard themselves, being Ends-in-self, as members in a Realm of Ends (analogous to the Realm, or Kingdom of Nature), which, though merely an ideal and possible conception, none the less really imposes an imperative upon action. Morality, he concludes, is the relation of actions to the Autonomy of the Will, i.e., to possible universal legislation through its maxims. Actions that can co-exist with this autonomy are allowed; all others are not. A will, whose maxims necessarily accord with the laws of Autonomy, is holy, or absolutely good; the dependence of a will not thus absolutely good is Obligation. The objective necessity of an action from obligation is Duty. Subjection to law is not the only element in duty; the fact of the law being self-imposed gives Dignity.

The Autonomy of the will is its being a law to itself, without respect to the objects of volition; the principle of autonomy is to choose only in such a way as that the maxims of choice are conceived at the same time as a universal law. This rule cannot be proved analytically to be an Imperative, absolutely binding on every will; as a synthetic proposition it requires, besides a knowledge of the objects, a critique of the subject, i.e., pure practical Reason, before, in its apodeictic character, it can be proved completely a priori. Still the mere analysis of moral conceptions has sufficed to prove it the sole principle of morals, because this principle is seen to be a categorical Imperative, and a categorical Imperative enjoins neither more nor less than this Autonomy. If, then, Autonomy of Will is the supreme principle, Heteronomy is the source of all ungenuine principles, of Morality. Heteronomy is whenever the Will does not give itself laws, but some object, in relation to the Will, gives them. There is then never more than a hypothetical Imperative: I am to do something because I wish something else.

There follows a division and criticism of the various possible principles of morality that can be set up on the assumption of Heteronomy, and that have been put forward by human Reason in default of the required Critique of its pure use. Such, are either Empirical or Rational. The Empirical, embodying the principle of Happiness, are founded on (1) physical or (2) moral feeling; the Rational, embodying the principle of perfection, on (1) the rational conception of it as a possible result, or (2) the conception of an independent perfection (the Will of God), as the determining cause of the will. The Empirical principles are altogether to be rejected, because they can give no universal law for all rational beings; of the Rational principles, the first, though setting up an empty and indefinite conception, has the merit of at least making an appeal from sense to pure reason. But the fatal objection to all four is their implying Heteronomy; no imperative founded on them can utter moral, i.e., categorical commands.

That the absolutely good Will must be autonomous—i.e., without any kind of motive or interest, lay Commands on itself that are at the same time fit to be laws for all rational beings, appears, then, from a deeper consideration of even the popular conceptions of morality. But now the question can no longer be put off: Is Morality, of which this is the only conception, a reality or a phantom? All the different expressions given to the Categorical Imperatives are synthetic practical propositions a priori; they postulate a possible synthetic use of the pure practical reason. Is there, and how is there, such a possible synthetic use? This is the question (the same as the other) that Kant proceeds to answer in the Third Section, by giving, in default of a complete Critique of the faculty, as much as is necessary for the purpose. But here, since he afterwards undertook the full Critique, it is better to stop the analysis of the earlier work, and summarily draw upon both for the remainder of the argument, and the rather because some important points have to be added that occur only in the later treatise. The foregoing is a sufficient example of his method of treatment.

The synthetic use of the pure practical reason, in the Categorical Imperative, is legitimized; Autonomy of the Will is explained; Duty is shown to be no phantom—through the conception of Freedom of Will, properly understood. Theoretically (speculatively), Freedom is undemonstrable; being eternally met, in one of the (cosmological) Antinomies of the Pure Reason, by the counter-assertion that everything in the universe takes place according to unchanging laws of nature. Even theoretically, however, Freedom is not inconceivable, and morally we become certain of it; for we are conscious of the 'ought' of duty, and with the 'ought' there must go a 'can.' It is not, however, as Phenomenon or Sensible Ens that a man 'can,' is free, has an absolute initiative; all phenomena or Sensible Entia, being in space and time, are subject to the Natural Law of Causality. But man is also Noumenon, Thing-in-self, Intelligible Ens; and as such, being free from conditions of time and space, stands outside of the sequence of Nature. Now, the Noumenon or Ens of the Reason (he assumes) stands higher than, or has a value above, the Phenomenon or Sensible Ens (as much as Reason stands higher than Sense and Inclination); accordingly, while it is only man as Noumenon that 'can,' it is to man as Phenomenon that the 'ought' is properly addressed; it is upon man as Phenomenon that the law of Duty, prescribed, with perfect freedom from motive, by Man as Noumenon, is laid.

Freedom of Will in Man as Rational End or Thing-in-self is thus the great Postulate of the pure Practical Reason; we can be sure of the fact (although it must always remain speculatively undemonstrable), because else there could be no explanation of the Categorical Imperative of Duty. But inasmuch as the Practical Reason, besides enjoining a law of Duty, must provide also a final end of action in the idea of an unconditioned Supreme Good, it contains also two other Postulates: Man being a sentient as well as a rational being, Happiness as well as Perfect Virtue or Moral Perfection must enter into the Summum Bonum (not, one of them to the exclusion of the other, as the Stoics and Epicureans, in different senses, declared). Now, since there is no such necessary conjunction of the two in nature, it must be sought otherwise. It is found in postulating Immortality and God.

Immortality is required to render possible the attainment of moral perfection. Virtue out of respect for law, with a constant tendency to fall away, is all that is attainable in life. The Holiness, or complete accommodation of the will to the Moral Law, implied in the Summum Bonum, can be attained to only in the course of an infinite progression; which means personal Immortality. [As in the former case, the speculative impossibility of proving the immateriality, &c., of the supernatural soul is not here overcome; but Immortality is morally certain, being demanded by the Practical Reason.]

Moral perfection thus provided for, God must be postulated in order to find the ground of the required conjunction of Felicity. Happiness is the condition of the rational being in whose whole existence everything goes according to wish and will; and this is not the condition of man, for in him observance of the moral law is not conjoined with power of disposal over the laws of nature. But, as Practical Reason demands the conjunction, it is to be found only in a being who is the author at once of Nature and of the Moral Law; and this is God. [The same remark once more applies, that here what is obtained is a moral certainty of the existence of the Deity: the negative result of the Critique of the Pure (speculative) Reason abides what it was.]

We may now attempt to summarize this abstruse Ethical theory of Kant.

I—-The STANDARD of morally good action (or rather Will), as expressed in the different forms of the Categorical Imperative, is the possibility of its being universally extended as a law for all rational beings. His meaning comes out still better in the obverse statement: The action is bad that cannot be, or at least cannot be wished to lie, turned unto a universal law.

II.—Kant would expressly demur to being questioned as to his PSYCHOLOGY of Ethics; since he puts his own theory in express opposition to every other founded upon any empirical view of the mental constitution. Nevertheless, we may extract some kind of answers to the usual queries.

The Faculty is the (pure Practical) Reason. The apprehension of what is morally right is entirely an affair of Reason; the only element of Feeling is an added Sentiment of Awe or Respect for the law that Reason imposes, this being a law, not only for me who impose it on myself, but at the same time for every rational agent. The Pure Reason, which means with Kant the Faculty of Principles, is Speculative or Practical. As Speculative, it requires us to bring our knowledge (of the understanding) to certain higher unconditioned unities (Soul, Cosmos, God); but there is error if these are themselves regarded as facts of knowledge. As Practical, it sets up an unconditional law of Duty in Action (unconditioned by motives); and in this and in the related conception of the Summum Bonum is contained a moral certainty of the Immortality (of the soul), Freedom (in the midst of Natural Necessity), and of God as existent.

As to the point of Free-will, nothing more need be said.

Disinterested Sentiment, as sentiment, is very little regarded: disinterested action is required with such rigour that every act or disposition is made to lose its character as moral, according as any element of interested feeling of any kind enters into it. Kant obliterates the line between Duty and Virtue, by making a duty of every virtue; at least he conceives clearly that there is no Virtue in doing what we are strongly prompted to by inclination—that virtue must involve self-sacrifice.

III.—His position with respect to Happiness is peculiar. Happiness is not the end of action: the end of action is rather the self-assertion of the rational faculty over the lower man.

If the constituents of Happiness could be known—and they cannot be—there would be no morality, but only prudence in the pursuit of them. To promote our own happiness is indeed a duty, but in order to keep us from neglecting our other duties.

Nevertheless, he conceives it necessary that there should be an ultimate equation of Virtue and Happiness; and the need of Happiness he then expressly connects with the sensuous side of our being.

IV.—His MORAL CODE may here be shortly presented from the second part of his latest work, where it is fully given. Distinguishing Moral Duties or (as he calls them) 'Virtue-duties,' left to be enforced internally by Conscience, from Legal Duties (Rechtspflichten), externally enforced, he divides them into two classes—(A) Duties to Self; (B) Duties to Others.

(A) Duties to Self. These have regard to the one private Aim or End that a man can make a duty of, viz., his own Perfection; for his own Happiness, being provided for by a natural propensity or inclination, is to himself no duty. They are (a) perfect (negative or restrictive) as directed to mere Self-Conservation; (b) imperfect (positive or extensive) as directed to the Advancement or Perfecting of one's being. The perfect are concerned about Self (a), as an Animal creature, and then are directed against—(1) Self-destruction, (2) Sexual Excess, (3) Intemperance in Eating and Drinking; (B) as a Moral creature, and then are directed against—(1) Lying, (2) Avarice, (3) Servility. The imperfect have reference to (a) physical, (B) moral advancement or perfection (subjectively. Purity or Holiness).

(B) Duties to Others. These have regard to the only Aim or End of others that a man can make a duty of, viz., their Happiness; for their Perfection can be promoted only by themselves. Duties to others as men are metaphysically deducible; and application to special conditions of men is to be made empirically. They include (a) Duties of LOVE, involving Merit or Desert (i.e., return from the objects of them) in the performance: (1) Beneficence, (2) Gratitude, (3) Fellow-feeling; (b) Duties of RESPECT, absolutely due to others as men; the opposites are the vices: (1) Haughtiness, (2) Slander, (3) Scornfulness. In Friendship, Love and Respect are combined in the highest degree. Lastly, he notes Social duties in human intercourse (Affability, &c.)—these being outworks of morality.

He allows no special Duties to God, or Inferior Creatures, beyond what is contained in Moral Perfection as Duty to Self.

V.—The conception of Law enters largely into Kant's theory of morals, but in a sense purely transcendental, and not as subjecting or assimilating morality to positive political institution. The Legality of external actions, as well as the Morality of internal dispositions, is determined by reference to the one universal moral Imperative. The principle underlying all legal or jural (as opposed to moral or ethical) provisions, is the necessity of uniting in a universal law of freedom the spontaneity of each with the spontaneity of all the others: individual freedom and freedom of all must be made to subsist together in a universal law.

VI.—With Kant, Religion and Morality are very closely connected, or, in a sense, even identified; but the alliance is not at the expense of Morality. So far from making this dependent on Religion, he can find nothing but the moral conviction whereon to establish the religious doctrines of Immortality and the Existence of God; while, in a special work, he declares further that Religion consists merely in the practice of Morality as a system of divine commands, and claims to judge of all religious institutions and dogmas by the moral consciousness. Besides, the Postulates themselves, in which the passage to Religion is made, are not all equally imperative,—Freedom, as the ground of the fact of Duty, being more urgently demanded than others; and he even goes so far as to make the allowance, that whoever has sufficient moral strength to fulfil the Law of Reason without them, is not required to subscribe to them.

The modern French school, that has arisen in this century under the combined influence of the Scotch and the German philosophy, has bestowed some attention on Ethics. We end by noticing under it Cousin and Jouffroy.

VICTOR COUSIN. [1792-1867.]

The analysis of Cousin's ethical views is made upon his historical lectures Sur les Idees du Vrai, du Beau et du Bien, as delivered in 1817-18. They contain a dogmatic exposition of his own opinions, beginning at the 20th lecture; the three preceding lectures, in the section of the whole course devoted to the Good, being taken up with the preliminary review of other opinions required for his eclectical purpose.

He determines to consider, by way of psychological analysis, the ideas and sentiments of every kind called up by the spectacle of human actions; and first he notes actions that please and displease the senses, or in some way affect our interest: those that are agreeable and useful we naturally choose, avoiding the opposites, and in this we are prudent. But there is another set of actions, having no reference to our own personal interest, which yet we qualify as good or bad. When an armed robber kills and spoils a defenceless man, we, though beholding the sight in safety, are at once stirred up to disinterested horror and indignation. This is no mere passing sentiment, but includes a two-fold judgment, pronounced then and ever after; that the action is in itself bad, and that it ought not to be committed. Still farther, our anger implies that the object of it is conscious of the evil and the obligation, and is therefore responsible; wherein again is implied that he is a free agent. And, finally, demanding as we do that he should be punished, we pass what has been called a judgment of merit and demerit, which is built upon an idea in our minds of a supreme law, joining happiness to virtue and misfortune to crime.

The analysis thus far he claims to be strictly scientific; he now proceeds to vary the case, taking actions of our own. I am supposed entrusted by a dying friend with a deposit for another, and a struggle ensues between interest and probity as to whether I should pay it. If interest conquers, remorse ensues. He paints the state of remorse, and analyzes it into the same elements as before, the idea of good and evil, of an obligatory law, of liberty, of merit and demerit; it thus includes the whole phenomenon of morality. The exactly opposite state that follows upon the victory of probity, is proved to imply the same facts.

The Moral Sentiment, so striking in its character, has by some been supposed the foundation of all morality, but in point of fact it is itself constituted by these various judgments. Now that they are known to stand as its elements, he goes on to subject each to a stricter analysis, taking first the judgment of good and evil, which is at the bottom of all the rest. It lies in the original constitution of human nature, being simple and indecomposable, like the judgment of the True and the Beautiful. It is absolute, and cannot be withheld in presence of certain acts; but it only declares, and does not constitute, good and evil, these being real and independent qualities of actions. Applied at first to special cases, the judgment of good gives birth to general principles that become rules for judging other actions. Like other sciences, morality has its axioms, justly called moral truths; if it is good to keep an oath, it is also true, the oath being made with no other purpose than to be kept. Faithful guarding as much belongs to the idea of a deposit, as the equality between its three angles and two right angles to the idea of a triangle. By no caprice or effort of will can a moral verity be made in the smallest degree other than it is.

But, he goes on, a moral verity is not simply to be believed; it must also be practised, and this is obligation, the second of the elements of moral sentiment. Obligation, like moral truth, on which it rests, is absolute, immutable, universal. Kant even went so far as to make it the principle of our morality; but this was subjectivizing good, as he had subjectivized truth. Before there is an obligation to act, there must be an intrinsic goodness in the action; the real first truth of morality is justics, i.e., the essential distinction of good and evil. It is justice, therefore, and not duty, that strictly deserves the name of a principle.

The next element is liberty. Obligation implies the faculty of resisting desire, passion, &c., else there would be a contradiction in human nature. But the truest proof of liberty is to be sought in the constant testimony of consciousness, that, in wishing this or that, I am equally able to will the contrary. He distinguishes between the power of willing and the power of executing; also between will and desire, or passion. In the conflict between will and the tyranny of desire lies liberty; and the aim of the conflict is the fulfilment of duty. For the will is never so free, never so much itself, as when yielding to the law of duty. Persons are distinguished from Things in having responsibility, dignity, intrinsic value. Because there is in me a being worthy of respect, I am bound in duty to respect myself, and I have the right to be respected by you. My duty (he means, of course, what I owe to self) is the exact measure of my right. The character of being a person is inviolable, is the foundation of property, is inalienable by self or others, and so forth.

He passes to the last element of the phenomenon of morality, the judgement of merit and demerit. The judgement follows, as the agent is supposed free, and it is not affected by lapse of time. It depends also essentially on the idea that the agent knows good from evil. Upon itself follow the notions of reward and punishment. Merit is the natural right to be rewarded; demerit, paradox as it may appear, is the right to be punished. A criminal would claim to be punished, if he could comprehend the absolute necessity of expiation; and are there not real cases of such criminals? But as there can be merit without actual reward, so to be rewarded does not constitute merit.

If good, he continues, is good in itself, and ought to be done without regard to consequences, it is no less true that the consequences of good cannot fail to be happy. Virtue without happiness and crime without misfortune are a contradiction, a disorder; which are hardly met with in the world, even as it is, or, where in a few cases they are found, are sure to be righted in the end by eternal justice. The sacrifice supposed in virtue, if generously accepted and courageously undergone, has to be recompensed in respect of the amount of happiness sacrificed.

Once more, he takes up the Sentiment, which is the general echo of all the elements of the phenomenon. Its end is to make the mind sensible of the bond between virtue and happiness; it is the direct and vivid application of the law of merit. Again, he touches the states of moral satisfaction and remorse, speaks of our sympathy with the moral goodness of others and our benevolent feeling that arises towards them—emotions all, but covering up judgments; and this is the end of his detailed analysis of the actual facts of the case. But he still goes on to sum up in exact expressions the foregoing results, and he claims especially to have overlooked neither the part played by Reason, nor the function of Sentiment. The rational character of the idea of good gives morality its firm foundation; the lively sentiment helps to lighten the often heavy burden of duty, and stirs up to the most heroic deeds. Self-interest too is not denied its place. In this connexion, led again to allude to the happiness appointed to virtue here or at least hereafter, he allows that God may be regarded as the fountain of morality, but only in the sense that his will is the expression of his eternal wisdom and justice. Religion crowns morality, but morality is based upon itself. The rest of the lecture is in praise of Eclecticism, and advocates consideration of all the facts involved in morality, as against exclusive theories founded upon only some of the facts.

Lectures 21st and 22nd, compressed into one (Ed. 1846) contain the application of the foregoing principles, and the answer to the question, what our duties are. Duty being absolute, truth becomes obligatory, and absolute truth being known by the reason only, to obey the law of duty is to obey reason. But what actions are conformable to reason? The characteristic of reason he takes to be Universality, and this will appear in the motives of actions, since it is these that confer on actions their morality. Accordingly, the sign whereby to discover whether an action is duty, is, if its motive when generalized appear to the reason to be a maxim of universal legislation for all free and intelligent beings. This, the norm set up by Kant, as certainly discovers what is and is not duty, as the syllogism detects the error and truth of an argument.

To obey reason is, then, the first duty, at the root of all others, and itself resting directly upon the relation between liberty and reason; in a sense, to remain reasonable is the sole duty. But it assumes special forms amid the diversity of human relations. He first considers the relations wherein we stand to ourselves and the corresponding duties. That there should be any such duties is at first sight strange, seeing we belong to ourselves; but this is not the same as having complete power over ourselves. Possessing liberty, we must not abdicate it by yielding to passions, and treat ourselves as if there were nothing in us that merits respect. We are to distinguish between what is peculiar to each of us, and what we share with humanity. Individual peculiarities are things indifferent, but the liberty and intelligence that constitute us persons, rather than individuals, demand to be respected even by ourselves. There is an obligation of self-respect imposed upon us as moral persons that was not established, and is not to be destroyed, by us. As special cases of this respect of the moral person in us, he cites (1) the duty of self-control against anger or melancholy, not for their pernicious consequences, but as trenching upon the moral dignity of liberty and intelligence; (2) the duty of prudence, meaning providence in all things, which regulates courage, enjoins temperance, is, as the ancients said, the mother of all the virtues,—in short, the government of liberty by reason; (3) veracity; (4) duty towards the body; (5) duty of perfecting (and not merely keeping intact) the intelligence, liberty, and sensibility that constitute us moral beings.

But the same liberty and intelligence that constitute me a moral person, and need thus to be respected even by myself, exist also in others, conferring rights on them, and imposing new duties of respect on me relatively to them. To their intelligence I owe Truth; their liberty I am bound to respect, sometimes even to the extent of not hindering them from making a wrong use of it. I must respect also their affections (family, &c.) which form part of themselves; their bodies; their goods, whether acquired by labour or heritage. All these duties are summed up in the one great duty of Justice or respect for the rights of others; of which the greatest violation is slavery.

The whole of duty towards others is not however comprehended in justice. Conscience complains, if we have only not done injustice to one in suffering. There is a new class of duties—consolation, charity, sacrifice—to which indeed correspond no rights, and which therefore are not so obligatory as justice, but which cannot be said not to be obligatory. From their nature, they cannot be reduced to an exact formula; their beauty lies in liberty. But in charity, he adds, there is also a danger, from its effacing, to a certain extent, the moral personality of the object of it. In acting upon others, we risk interfering with their natural rights; charity is therefore to be proportioned to the liberty and reason of the person benefited, and is never to be made the means of usurping power over another.

Justice and Charity are the two elements composing social morality. But what is social? and on what is Society founded, existing as it does everywhere, and making man to be what he is? Into the hopeless question of its origin he refuses to enter; its present state is to be studied by the light of the knowledge of human nature. Its invariable foundations are (1) the need we have of each other, and our social instincts, (2) the lasting and indestructible idea and sentiment of right and justice. The need and instinct, of which he finds many proofs, begin society; justice crowns the work. The least consideration of the relations of man to man, suggest the essential principles of Society—justice, liberty, equality, government, punishment. Into each of these he enters. Liberty is made out to be assured and developed in society, instead of diminished. Equality is established upon the character of moral personality, which admits of no degree. The need of some repression upon liberty, where the liberty of others is trenched upon, conducts to the idea of Government—a disinterested third party armed with the necessary power to assure and defend the liberty of all. To government is to be ascribed, first its inseparable function of protecting the common liberty (without unnecessary repression), and next, beneficent action, corresponding to the duty of charity. It requires, for its guidance, a rule superior to itself, i.e., law, the expression of universal and absolute justice. Here follows the usual distinction of positive and natural law. The sanction of law is punishment; the right of punishing, as was seen, depending on the idea of demerit. Punishment is not mere vengeance, but the expiation by the criminal of violated justice; it is to be measured therefore chiefly by the demerit and not by the injury only. Whether, in punishing, allowance should be made for correction and amelioration, is to put the same case over again of charity coming in after justice.

Here the philosopher stops on the threshold of the special science of politics. But already the fixed and invariable principles of society and government have been given, and, even in the relative sphere of politics, the rule still holds that all forms and institutions are to be moulded as far as possible on the eternal principles supplied by philosophy. The following is a summary of Cousin's views:—

I.—The Standard is the judgment of good or evil in actions. Cousin holds that good and evil are qualities of actions independent of our judgment, and having a sort of objective existence.

II.—The Moral Faculty he analyzes into four judgments: (1) good and evil; (2) obligation; (3) freedom of the will; and (4) merit and demerit. The moral sentiment is the emotions connected with those judgments, and chiefly the feeling connected with the idea of merit. [This analysis is obviously redundant. 'Good' and 'evil' apply to many things outside ethics, and to be at all appropriate, they must be qualified as moral (i.e., obligatory) good and evil. The connexion between obligation and demerit has been previously explained.]

III.—In regard to the Summum Bonum, Cousin considers that virtue must bring happiness here or hereafter, and vice, misery.

IV.—He accepts the criterion of duties set forth by Kant. He argues for the existence of duties towards ourselves.

V. and VI. require no remark.

THEODORE SIMON JOUFFROY. [1796-1842.]

In the Second Lecture of his unfinished Cours de Droit Naturel, Jouffroy gives a condensed exposition of the Moral Facts of human nature from his own point of view.

What distinguishes, he says, one being from another, is its Organization; and as having a special nature, every creature has a special end. Its end or destination is its good, or its good consists in the accomplishment of its end. Further, to have an end implies the possession of faculties wherewith to attain it; and all this is applicable also to man. In man, as in other creatures, from the very first, his nature tends to its end, by means of purely instinctive movements, which may be called primitive and instinctive tendencies of human nature; later they are called passions. Along with these tendencies, and under their influence, the intellectual faculties also awake and seek to procure for them satisfaction. The faculties work, however, at first, in an indeterminate fashion, and only by meeting obstacles are driven to the concentration necessary to attain the ends. He illustrates this by the case of the intellectual faculty seeking to satisfy the desire of knowledge, and not succeeding until it concentrates on a single point its scattered energies. This spontaneous concentration is the first manifestation of Will, but is proved to be not natural from the feeling of constraint always experienced, and the glad rebound, after effort, to tho indeterminate condition. One fact, too, remains even after every thing possible has been done, viz., that the satisfaction of the primitive tendencies is never quite complete.

When, however, such satisfaction as may be, has been attained, there arises pleasure; and pain, when our faculties fail to attain the good or end they sought. There could be action, successful and unsuccessful, and so good and evil, without any sensibility, wherefore good and evil are not to be confounded with pain and pleasure; but constituted as we are, there is a sensible echo that varies according as the result of action is attained or not. Pleasure is, then, the consequence, and, as it were, the sign of the realization of good, and pain of its privation.

He next distinguishes Secondary passions from the great primary tendencies and passions. These arise apropos of external objects, as they are found to further or oppose the satisfaction of the fundamental tendencies. Such objects are then called useful or pernicious. Finally, he completes his account of the infantile or primitive condition of man, by remarking that some of our natural tendencies, like Sympathy, are entirely disinterested in seeking the good of others. The main feature of the whole primitive state is the exclusive domination of passion. The will already exists, but there is no liberty; the present passion triumphs over the future, the stronger over the weaker.

He now passes to consider the double transformation of this original state, that takes place when reason appears. Reason is the faculty of comprehending, which is different from knowing, and is peculiar to man. As soon as it awakes in man, it comprehends, and penetrates to the meaning of, the whole spectacle of human activity. It first forms the general idea of Good as the resultant of the satisfaction of all the primary tendencies, and as the true End of man. Then, comprehending the actual situation of man, it resolves this idea into the idea of the greatest possible good. All that conduces to the attainment of this good, it includes under the general idea of the Useful; and finally, it constructs the general idea of Happiness out of all that is common to the agreeable sensations that follow upon the satisfaction of the primary tendencies.

But besides forming these three perfectly distinct ideas, and exploring the secret of what has been passing within, the reason also comprehends the necessity of subjecting to control the faculties and forces that are the condition of the greatest satisfaction of human nature. In the place of the merely mechanical impulsion of passion, which is coupled with grave disadvantages, it puts forward, as a new principle of action, the rational calculation of interest. The faculties are brought into the service of this idea of the reason, by the same process of concentration as was needful in satisfying the passions; only now voluntarily instead of spontaneously. Being an idea instead of a passion, the new principle supplies a real motive, under whose guidance our natural power over our faculties is developed and strengthened. All partial ends are merged in the one great End of Interest, to which the means is self-control. The first great change thus wrought by reason is, that it takes the direction of the human forces into its own hand, and although, even when by a natural transformation the new system of conduct acquires all the force of a passion, it is not able steadily to procure for the idea of interest the victory over the single passions, the change nevertheless abides. To the state of Passion has succeeded the state of Egoism.

Reason must, however, he thinks, make another discovery before there is a truly moral state—must from general ideas rise to ideas that are universal and absolute. There is no real equation, he holds, between Good and the satisfaction of the primitive tendencies, which is the good of egoism. Not till the special ends of all creatures are regarded as elements of one great End of creation, of Universal Order, do we obtain an idea whose equivalence to the idea of the Good requires no proof. The special ends are good, because, through their realization, the end of creation, which is the absolute Good, is realized; hence they acquire the sacred character that it has in the eye of reason.

No sooner is the idea of Universal Order present to the reason, than it is recognized as an absolute law; and, in consequence, the special end of our being, by participation in its character of goodness and sacredness, is henceforth pursued as a duty, and its satisfaction claimed as a right. Also every creature assumes the same position, and we no longer merely concede that others have tendencies to be satisfied, and consent from Sympathy or Egoism to promote their good; but the idea of Universal Order makes it as much our duty to respect and contribute to the accomplishment of their good as to accomplish our own. From the idea of good-in-itself, i.e., Order, flow all duty, right, obligation, morality, and natural legislation.

He carries the idea of Order still farther back to the Deity, making it the expression of the divine thought, and opening up the religious side of morality; but he does not mean that its obligatoriness as regards the reason is thereby increased. He also identifies it, in the last resort, with the ideas of the Beautiful and the True.

We have now reached the truly moral condition, a state perfectly distinct from either of the foregoing. Even when the egoistic and the moral determination prescribe the same conduct, the one only counsels, while the other obliges. The one, having in view only the greatest satisfaction of our nature, is personal even when counselling benefits to others; the other regarding only the law of Order, something distinct from self, is impersonal, even when prescribing our own good. Hence there is in the latter case devouement of self to something else, and it is exactly the devouement to a something that is not self, but is regarded as good, that gets the name of virtue or moral good. Moral good is voluntary and intelligent obedience to the law that is the rule of our conduct. As an additional distinction between the egoistic and the moral determination, he mentions the judgment of merit or demerit that ensues upon actions when, and only when, they have a moral character. No remorse follows an act of mere imprudence involving no violation of universal order.

He denies that there is any real contradiction among the three different determinations. Nothing is prescribed in the moral law that is not also in accordance with some primitive tendency, and with self-interest rightly understood; if it were not so, it would go hard with virtue. On the other hand, if everything not done from regard to duty were opposed to moral law and order, society could not only not subsist, but would never have been formed. When a struggle does ensue between passion and self-interest, passion is blind; when between egoism and the moral determination, egoism is at fault. It is in the true interest of Passion to be sacrificed to Egoism, and of Egoism to be sacrificed to Order.

He closes the review of the various moral facts by explaining in what sense the succession of the three states is to be understood. The state of Passion is historically first, but the Egoistic and the Moral states are not so sharply defined. As soon as reason dawns it introduces the moral motive as well as the egoistic, and to this extent the two states are contemporaneous. Only, so far is the moral law from being at this stage fully conceived, that, in the majority of men, it is never conceived in its full clearness at all. Their confused idea of moral law is the so-called moral conscience, which works more like a sense or an instinct, and is inferior to the clear rational conception in everything except that it conveys the full force of obligation. In its grades of guilt human justice rightly makes allowance for different degrees of intelligence. The Egoistic determination and the Moral state, such as it is, once developed, passion is not to be supposed abolished, but henceforth what really takes place in all is a perpetual alternation of the various states. Yet though no man is able exclusively to follow the moral determination, and no man will constantly be under the influence of any one of the motives, there is one motive commonly uppermost whereby each can be characterized. Thus men, according to their habitual conduct, are known as passionate, egoistic, or virtuous.

We now summarize the opinions of Jouffroy:—

I.—The Standard is the Idea of Absolute Good or Universal Order in the sense explained by the author. Like Cousin, he identifies the 'good' with the 'true.' What, then, is the criterion that distinguishes moral from other truths? If obligation be selected as the differentia, it is in effect to give up the attempt to determine what truths are obligatory. The idea of 'good' is obviously too vague to be a differentia. How far the idea of 'Universal Order' gets us out of the difficulty may be doubted, especially after the candid admission of the author, that it is an idea of which the majority of men have never any very clear notions.

II.—The moral faculty is Reason; Conscience is hardly more than a confused feeling of obligatoriness.

Sympathy is one of the primitive tendencies of our nature. Jouffroy's opinion on the subject is open to the objections urged against Butler's psychology.

He upholds the freedom of the Will, but embarrasses his argument by admitting, like Reid, that there is a stage in our existence when we are ruled by the passions, and are destitute of liberty.

III.—The Summum Bonum is the end of every creature; the passions ought to be subordinated to self-interest, and self-interest to morality.

In regard to the other points, it is unnecessary to continue the summary.

NOTES

[Footnote 1: Duties strictly so called, the department of obligatory morality, enforced by punishment, may be exemplified in the following classified summary:—

Under the Legal Sanction, are included; (A) Forbearance from (specified) injuries; as (a) Intentional injury—crimes, (b) Injury not intentional—wrongs, repaired by Damages or Compensation. (B) The rendering of services; (a) Fulfilling contracts or agreements; (b) Reciprocating anterior services rendered, though, not requested, as in filial duty; (c) Cases of extreme or superior need, as parental duty, relief of destitution.

Under the Popular Sanction are created duties on such points as the following:—(1) The Etiquette of small societies or coteries. (2) Religious orthodoxy; Sabbath observance. (3) Unchastity; violations of the etiquette of the sexes, Immodesty, and whatever endangers chastity, especially in women. (4) Duties of parents to children, and of children to parents, beyond the requirements of the law. (5) Suicide: when only attempted, the individual is punished, when carried out, the relatives. (6) Drunkenness, and neglect of the means of self-support. (7) Gross Inhumanity. In all these cases the sanction, or punishment, is social; and is either mere disapprobation or dislike, not issuing in overt acts, or exclusion from fellowship and the good offices consequent thereon.]

[Footnote 2: Optional Morality, the Morality of Reward, is exemplified as follows:—

(A) A liberal performance of duties properly so called. (a) The support of aged parents; this, though to a certain extent a legal duty, is still more a virtue, being stimulated by the approbation of one's fellows. The performance of the family duties generally is the subject of commendation. (b) The payment of debts that cannot be legally recovered, as in the case of bankrupts after receiving their discharge.

These examples typify cases (1) where no definite law is laid down, or where the law is content with a minimum; and (2) where the law is restrained by its rules of evidence or procedure. Society, in such cases, steps in and supplies a motive in the shape of reward.

(B) Pure Virtue, or Beneficence; all actions for the benefit of others without stipulation, and without reward; relief of distress, promotion of the good of individuals or of society at large. The highest honours of society are called into exercise by the highest services.

Bentham's principle of the claims of superior need cannot be fully carried out, (although he conceives it might, in some cases), by either the legal or the popular sanction. Thus, the act of the good Samaritan, the rescue of a ship's crew from drowning, could not be exacted; the law cannot require heroism. It is of importance to remark, that although Duty and Nobleness, Punishment and Reward, are in their extremes unmistakably contrasted, yet there may be a margin of doubt or ambiguity (like the passing of day into night). Thus, expressed approbation, generally speaking, belongs to Reward; yet, if it has become a thing of course, the withholding of it operates as a Punishment or a Penalty.]

[Footnote 3: The conditions that regulate the authoritative enforcement of actions, are exhaustively given in works on Jurisprudence, but they do not all concern Ethical Theory. The expedience of imposing a rule depends on the importance of the object compared with the cost of the machinery. A certain line of conduct may be highly beneficial, but may not be a fit case for coercion. For example, the law can enforce only a minimum of service: now, if the case be such, that a minimum is useless, as in helping a ship in distress, or in supporting aged parents, it is much, better to leave the case to voluntary impulses, seconded by approbation or reward. Again, an offence punished by law must be, in its nature, definable; which, makes a difficulty in such cases as insult, and defamation, and many species of fraud. Farther, the offence must be easy of detection, so that the vast majority of offenders may not escape. This limits the action of the law in unchastity.]