A Manual of Moral Philosophy Part 11

Among the recent French moralists, the most distinguished names are those of *Jouffroy* and *Cousin*, who-each with a terminology of his own-agree with Malebranche in regarding right and wrong as inherent and essential characteristics of actions, and as having their source and the ground of their validity in the nature of things. The aim of Cousin's well-known treatise on "The True, the Beautiful, and the Good," is purely ethical, and the work is designed to identify the three members of the Platonic triad with corresponding attributes of the Infinite Being,-attributes which, virtually one, have their counterpart and manifestation in the order of nature and the government of the universe.

In *Germany*, the necessarian philosophers of the Pantheistic school ignore ethics by making choice and moral action impossible. Man has no distinct and separate personality. He is for a little while detached in appearance from the soul of the universe (_anima mundi_), but in reality no more detached from it than is a boulder or a log of drift-wood from the surface on which it rests. He still remains a part of the universal soul, the multiform, all-embracing G.o.d, who is himself not a self-conscious, freely willing being, but impelled by necessity in all his parts and members, and, no less than in all else, in those human members through which alone he attains to some fragmentary self-consciousness.

According to *Kant*, the reason intuitively discerns truths that are necessary, absolute, and universal. The theoretical reason discerns such truths in the realm of ontology, and in the relations and laws that underlie all subjects of physical inquiry. In like manner, the practical reason intuitively perceives the conditions and laws inherent in the objects of moral action,-that is, as Malebranche would have said, the elements of universal order, or, in the language of Clarke, the fitness of things. As the mind must of necessity contemplate and cognize objects of thought under the categories intuitively discerned by the theoretical reason, so must the will be moved by the conditions and laws intuitively discerned by the practical reason. This intuition is law and obligation.

Man can obey it, and to obey it is virtue. He can disobey it, and in so doing he does not yield to necessity, but makes a voluntary choice of wrong and evil.

It will be perceived from the historical survey in this and the previous chapter, that-as was said at the outset-*all ethical systems resolve themselves into the two cla.s.ses of which the Epicureans and the Stoics furnished the pristine types,*-those which make virtue an accident, a variable, subject to authority, occasion, or circ.u.mstance; and those which endow it with an intrinsic right, immutableness, validity, and supremacy.

On subjects of fundamental moment, opinion is of prime importance. Conduct results from feeling, and feeling from opinion. We would have the youth, from the very earliest period of his moral agency, grounded in the belief that right and wrong are immutable,-that they have no localities, no meridians,-that, with a change of surroundings, their conditions and laws vary as little as do those of planetary or stellar motion. Let him feel that right and wrong are not the mere dicta of human teaching, nay, are not created even by revelation; but let their immutable distinction express itself to his consciousness in those sublime words which belong to it, as personified in holy writ, "Jehovah possessed me from the beginning of his way, before his works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was. When He prepared the heavens, I was there. When He appointed the foundations of the earth, then was I by Him."

This conception of the Divine and everlasting sacredness of virtue, is a perennial fountain of strength. He who has this does not imagine that he has power over the Right, can sway it by his choice, or vary its standard by his action; but it overmasters him, and, by subduing, frees him, fills and energizes his whole being, enn.o.bles all his powers, exalts and hallows all his affections, makes him a priest to G.o.d, and a king among men.

FOOTNOTES

_ 1 Compa.s.sion_ ought from its derivation to have the same meaning with _sympathy_; but in common usage it is synonymous with pity.

2 "Ignorantia legis neminem excusat."

3 The theory that Seneca was acquainted with St. Paul, or had any _direct_ intercourse with Christians in Rome or elsewhere, has no historical evidence, and rests on a.s.sumptions that are contradicted by known facts.

_ 4 Virtutes leniores_, as Cicero calls them.

5 The duty of society to inflict capital punishment on the murderer has been maintained on the ground of the Divine command to that effect, said to have been given to Noah, and thus to be binding on all his posterity. (Genesis ix. 5.) My own belief-founded on a careful examination of the Hebrew text-is, that the _human_ murderer is not referred to in this precept, but that it simply requires the slaying of the beast that should cause the death of a man,-a precaution which was liable to be neglected in a rude state of society, and was among the special enactments of the Mosaic law.

(Exodus xxi. 38.) If, however, the common interpretation be retained, the precept requires the shedding of the murderer's blood by the _brother_ or nearest kinsman of the murdered man, and is not obeyed by giving up the murderer to the _gallows_ and the _public executioner_. Moreover, the same series of precepts prescribes an abstinence from the natural juices of animal food, which would require an entire revolution in our shambles, kitchens, and tables.

If these precepts were Divine commandments for men of all times, they should be obeyed in full; but there is the grossest inconsistency and absurdity in holding only a portion of one of them sacred, and ignoring all the rest.

6 Latin, _virtus_, from _vir_, which denotes not, like _h.o.m.o_, simply a human being, but a man endowed with all appropriate manly attributes, and comes from the same root with _vis_, strength. The Greek synonyms of _virtus_, ??et?, is derived from ????, the G.o.d of war, who in the heroic days of Greece was the ideal man, the standard of human excellence, and whose name some lexicographers regard-as it seems to me, somewhat fancifully-as allied through its root to ????, which bears about the same relation to ?????p?? that _vir_ bears to _h.o.m.o_.

7 In the languages which have inherited or adopted the Latin _virtus_, it retains its original signification, with one striking exception, which yet is perhaps an exception in appearance rather than in reality. In the Italian, virtu is employed to signify taste, and _virtuoso_, which may denote a virtuous man, oftener means a collector of objects of taste. We have here an historical landmark.

There was a period when, under civil despotism, the old Roman manhood had entirely died out on its native soil, while ecclesiastical corruption rendered the n.o.bler idea of Christian manhood effete; and then the highest type of manhood that remained was the culture of those refined sensibilities, those ornamental arts, and that keen sense of the beautiful, in which Italy as far surpa.s.sed other lands, as it was for centuries inferior to them in physical bravery and in moral rect.i.tude.

8 It is obviously on this ground alone that we can affirm moral attributes of the Supreme Being. When we say that he is perfectly just, pure, holy, beneficent, we recognize a standard of judgment logically independent of his nature. We mean that the fitness which the human conscience recognizes as its only standard of right, is the law which he has elected for his own administration of the universe. Could we conceive of omnipotence not recognizing this law, the decrees and acts of such a being would not be necessarily right.

Omnipotence cannot make that which is fitting wrong, or that which is unfitting right. G.o.d's decrees and acts are not right because they are his, but his because they are right.

9 From _cardo_, a hinge.

10 It is virtually Cicero's division in the _De Officiis_.

11 The points at issue with regard to sabbatical observance hardly belong to an elementary treatise on ethics. I ought not, however, to leave any doubt as to my own opinion. I believe, then, the rest of the Sabbath a necessity of man's const.i.tution, physical and mental, of that of the beasts subservient to his use, and, in some measure, even of the inanimate agents under his control, while the sequestration of the day from the course of ordinary life is equally a moral and religious necessity. The weekly Sabbath I regard as a dictate of natural piety, and a primeval inst.i.tution, re-enacted, not established, by Moses, and sanctioned by our Saviour when he refers to the Decalogue as a compend of moral duty, as also in various other forms and ways. As to modes of sabbatical observance, the rigid abstinences and austerities once common in New England were derived from the Mosaic ceremonial law, and have no sanction either in the New Testament or in the habits of the early Christians. I can conceive of no better rule for the Lord's day, than that each person so spend it as to interfere as little as possible with its fitting use by others, and to make it as availing as he can for his own relaxation from secular cares, and growth in wisdom and goodness.

12 It was the malignity displayed toward the children of divorced wives by the women who succeeded them in the affections and homes of their husbands, that in Roman literature attached to the name of a stepmother (_noverca_) the most hateful a.s.sociations, which certainly have no place in modern Christendom, where the stepmother oftener than not a.s.sumes the maternal cares of the deceased wife as if they were natively her own.

13 When Jesus forbids swearing by heaven, because "it is G.o.d's throne,"

and by the earth, because "it is his footstool," the inference is obvious that, for still stronger reasons, all direct swearing by G.o.d himself is prohibited. The word ?te, which introduces the oaths by inferior objects specified in the text under discussion, not infrequently corresponds to our phrase _not even_. With this sense of ?te, the pa.s.sage would be rendered, "But I say unto you, Swear not at all, not even by heaven," etc.

I find that some writers on this subject quote in vindication of oaths on solemn occasions the instances in the Scriptures in which G.o.d is said to have sworn by Himself. The reply is obvious, that no being can swear by himself, the essential significance of an oath being an appeal to some being or object other than one's self.

Because G.o.d "can swear by no greater," it is certain that when this phraseology is used concerning Him, it is employed figuratively, to aid the poverty of human conceptions, and to express the certainty of his promise by the strongest terms which human language affords.

In like manner, G.o.d is said by the sacred writers to repent of intended retribution to evil-doers, not that infinite justice and love can change in thought, plan, or purpose, but because a change of disposition and feeling is wont to precede human clemency to evil-doers.

14 The odious meaning of _excessive_ interest, as attached to _usury_, is of comparatively recent date. In the earlier English, as in our translation of the Bible, it denotes any sum given for the use of money.

15 In this country usury laws are fast yielding to the growth of intelligence in monetary affairs. Wherever they exist in their severer forms, they only enhance the rate of interest paid by the major portion of the cla.s.s of borrowers, as the lender must be compensated, not only for the use of his money, and for the risk of his creditor's inability to repay it, but also for the additional risk of detection, prosecution, and forfeiture.

16 The reader need not be told that _patience_ and _pa.s.sion_ are derived from different participles of the same verb. _Patience_ comes from the present participle, and fittingly denotes the spirit in which present suffering should be met; while _pa.s.sion_ comes from the perfect or past participle, and as fittingly denotes the condition ensuing upon any physical, mental, or moral affection, induced from without, which has been endured without protest or resistance.

17 From _punctum_, a point.

18 ?d???.

19 St??.

20 The words employed by the Stoics to indicate specific duties, as presented to the common understanding, recognize intrinsic fitness as the ground of right. These duties are termed in Greek, ?a?????ta, that is, _be-fitting_, and in Latin, _officia_, from _ob_ and _facio_, that which is done _ob aliquid_, for some a.s.signable reason.

21 How far Seneca's character was represented by his philosophy is, we believe, a fairly open question. That the beginning and the close of his career were in accordance with his teachings, is certain. That as a courtier, he was in suspicious proximity to, if not in complicity with, gross scandals and crimes, is equally certain. The evidence against him is weighty, but by no means conclusive. He may have lingered in the purlieus of the palace in fond memory of what Nero had been in the promise of his youth, and in the groundless hope of bringing him again under more humane influences. This supposition is rendered the more probable by the well-known fact, that during his whole court life, and notwithstanding his great wealth, Seneca's personal habits were almost those of an anchorite.

22 Spinoza's ethical system was closely parallel to that of Hobbes. He denied the intrinsic difference between right and wrong; but he regarded _aristocracy_ as the natural order of society. With him, as with Hobbes, virtue consists solely in obedience to const.i.tuted authority; and so utterly did he ignore a higher law, that he maintained it to be the right of a state to abjure a treaty with another state, when its terms ceased to be convenient or profitable.

23 Price's theory of morals is developed with singular precision and force in one of the Baccalaureate Addresses of the late President Appleton, of Bowdoin College.

24 ??t?p??.

25 The reader who is conversant with the literature of ethics in England and America will miss in this chapter many names which merit a place by the side of those that have been given. But within the limits proposed for this manual, the alternative was to select a few writers among those who have largely influenced the thought of their own and succeeding times, and to a.s.sociate with each of them something that should mark his individuality; or to make the chapter little more than a catalogue of names. The former is evidently the more judicious course. Nothing has been said of living writers,-not because there are none who deserve an honored place among the contributors to this department of science, but because, were the list to be once opened, we should hardly know where to close it.