o^ BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME FROM THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND THE GIFT OF Denrg ^. Sage 1891 ..^.-L.^/ezQ. 6896-1 J '*^»^' H Vi^e re 4 weel The date shows when this volume was taken. •To renew this book copy the call No. and give to _^ the l ibrarian. HOME USE RULES All Books subjeist to[Reoall. Books not used for instruction or research "turnable within weeks. * Volumes of periodi- cals and of pamphlets are held in the library ^ ' as much asf possible. For special purposes they are given out for a limited time. Borrowers should not use their library/ privileges for the bene- fit of other persons. Books not needed ^, dnring recess periods should be returned to the library, or arrange- ments made for their return during borrow- er's absence,if wanted. Books needed by more than one person are held on the reserve list;- , '■' ' Books of special •_ value and gift books, ~ when the giver wishes it, arfr not allowed to circulate: Readers are asked \ to report all cases of books marked or muti- lated. Do not deface books by marks and writing. Cornell University Library BR45 .B21 1895a Christian ethics : eight lectures preach 3 1924 029 214 769 olin OXFORD HORACE HART. PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY CHRISTIAN ETHICS EIGHT LECTURES PREACHED BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD IN THE YEAR 1895 ON THE FOUNDATION OF THE LATE REV. JOHN BAMPTON, M.A. CANON OF SALISBURY BY THOMAS B. STRONG, M.A. STUDENT OF CHRIST CHURCH EXAMINING CHAPLAIN TO THE LORD BISHOP OF DURHAM NEW AND CHEAPER EDITION LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON NEW YORK AND BOMBAY 1897 All righis reserved 7yf A,eA\<.2-5 MATRI SUAE GRATIAS PIETATEM AMOREM TESTIFICATURUS HUNC LIBRUM DICATUM VOLUIT AUCTOR A Cornell University J Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/cletails/cu31924029214769 EXTRACT FROM THE LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT OF THE LATE REV. JOHN BAMPTON, CANON OF SALISBURY. " I give and bequeath my Lands and Estates to the " Chancellor, Masters, and Scholars of the University of " Oxford for ever, to have and to hold all and singular the " said Lands or Estates upon trust, and to the intents and " purposes hereinafter mentioned ; that is to say, I will and " appoint that the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ox- " ford for the time being shall take and receive all the rents, " issues, and profits thereof, and (after all taxes, reparations, " and necessary deductions made) that he pay all the " remainder to the endowment of eight Divinity Lecture " Sermons, to be established for ever in the said University, " and to be performed in the manner following : " I direct and appoint, that, upon the first Tuesday in " Easter Term, a Lecturer be yearly chosen by the Heads " of Colleges only, and by no others, in the room adjoining " to the Printing-House, between the hours of ten in the viii Extract from Canon Bamptons Will. " morning and two in the afternoon, to preach eight Divinity " Lecture Sermons, the year following, at St. Mary's in " Oxford, between the commencement of the last month in " Lent Term, and the end of the third week in Act Term. " Also I direct and appoint, that the eight Divinity Lecture " Sermons shall be preached upon either of the following " Subjects — to confirm and establish the Christian Faith, and " to confute all heretics and schismatics — upon the divine " authority of the holy Scriptures — upon the authority of " the writings of the primitive Fathers, as to the faith and " practice of the primitive Church — upon the Divinity of our " Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ — upon the Divinity of the " Holy Ghost — upon the Articles of the Christian Faith, as " comprehended in the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds. " Also I direct, that thirty copies of the eight Divinity Lec- "ture Sermons shall be always printed, within two months " after they are preached ; and one copy shall be given to the " Chancellor of the University, and one copy to the Head of " every College, and one copy to the Mayor of the city of " Oxford, and one copy to be put into the Bodleian Library ; " and the expense of printing them shall be paid out of the " revenue of the Lands or Estates given for establishing the " Divinity Lecture Sermons ; and the Preacher shall not be " paid, nor be entitled to the revenue, before they are printed. " Also I direct and appoint, that no person shall be quali- " fied to preach the Divinity Lecture Sermons, unless he " hath taken the Degree of Master of Arts at least, in one " of the two Universities of Oxford or Cambridge ; and that " the same person shall never preach the Divinity Lecture " Sermons twice." PREFACE The will of the late Reverend John Bampton in respect of one of its provisions, has not, of late years, been fulfilled to the letter. It has rarely happened that the Lecturers have produced their Lectures in printed form ' within two months after they have been preached.' But though many of my predecessors have postponed publication for a short time beyond that indicated in the will, I feel that I owe the University a fuller apology for my much greater delay. The reason is that I found myself called upon to undertake the office of Censor of Moral Philosophy shortly after my appointment as Bampton Lecturer, and have in consequence found my time in the Vacations largely occupied by College business. Those who know the conditions of modern Oxford will understand how greatly the possibility of continuous work depends on free Vacations. Perhaps I may be permitted to cherish the hope X Preface. * that the separation of the delivery and publication of these Lectures by one year may relieve the world from the full shock of a year without Bampton Lectures. The conditions under which the Bampton Lecturer finds himself are somewhat difficult. A subject which is of sufficient importance to occupy eight University Sermons will almost necessarily require some con- siderable amount of illustration, and a Lecturer will therefore have two courses open to him. He may either write eight considerable chapters, embodying all his arguments and illustrations, and read to the Uni- versity as much of each as he can get through in an hour ; or he may write and preach eight sermons and reserve his illustrations for the notes. I have chosen the latter course, which seemed to me, on the whole, more nearly in accordance with the provisions of the will. It has, however, this disadvantage — as I have found increasingly during the preparation of the book for publication — that it is extremely difficult to get the matter into the right order and the right place. I have aimed at placing in the Lectures discussions arising out of the New Testament, and those bearing on the general theory of Ethics; while the notes consist of illustrations from conspicuous writers of the theory presented in the Lectures. But I am aware that I have not avoided repetitions. Statements made summarily in the Lectures are occasionally repeated more at large in notes. I doubt whether, under the conditions, this could have been wholly avoided. Preface, xi It may be well to summarize here the position maintained in the Lectures. It is briefly this: that the Christian theory of moral life is not merely a new formulation of the old experience ; nor is it merely a restatement of the old truths with certain new virtues added; but it is a view of life based upon a radically different experience of facts. The recon- ciliation of the finite and Infinite — of man and God — which the Incarnation achieved, was at most a dream of the most enlightened Greek philosophers, and a hope to the most enlightened Jews. When it happened, man was admitted, in proportion to the certainty of his faith in it, into a clear and decisive knowledge of the spiritual Divine order. The appearance of the Word of God in human flesh did not indeed explain itself fully in philosophical lan- guage, but it declared finally the fact that man's nature, however frail and limited it may be, is the scene of a spiritual history and is explicable only in spiritual terms. The Christian Ethic is the detailed presentation of this fact, in relation to the end of life and human nature^, the theory of virtue ^ the idea of evil^ and the general order of the universe as a whole*. It may probably seem that there is little here that is new or that requires saying in the present day. The connexion of the Christian doctrine of the Incar- nation with the Christian view of life may seem to be 1 Lect. III. =" Lect. IV. ' Lect. V. * Lect. VI. xii Preface. a commonplace. There is doubtless a strong convic- tion that in some sense the facts of Christian history are to be effective in Christian life, but there is also a marked failure to keep the two together. It is con- stantly affirmed that the Christian type of life depends upon the Christian doctrines, but little is done to show the closeness of this union. And the result is that, however fully the general truth as to the nature of Christian morality is set out, it has become almost a paradox to assert that the separation of Christian life from the deposit of Christian truth is simply a relapse upon Paganism. I have endeavoured to show that this result pro- ceeds in part from an inadequate estimate of Christian thought before the Reformation. However profoundly we are indebted to this movement, it remains true, that the ethical thought which extends over the pre- vious centuries is distinctively Christian ; and false, that the Christian ethical spirit obtained its due ex- pression for the first time in the sixteenth century. The moral principles which prevailed in those ancient days were, no doubt, sadly restricted in range. But they really represented an effort to translate into practical precepts the truths of the Christian Faith. Though not very novel, it seems that this view may still be worth asserting. It is often said that there is no real moral progress in life, and that evil always remains more or less at the same level. There is an element of truth in this. It is true that the growth Preface. xiii of civilization does not relieve any individual from his own conflict with sin. In every age under all conditions this warfare is incessant. It may be worth while, then, to urge that as the warfare is the same, the weapons for waging it are not grown old or obsolete : that the victory may still be won in the strength of the Spirit of the Incarnate Son of God. I have referred in the footnotes to various books which I have used in preparing the present work, and I have endeavoured to make the list complete. The book from which I have learnt most is Neander's Geschichte der christlichen Ethik. I have also con- sulted occasionally Dorner's System of Christian Ethics (in the English translation) ; Luthardt's Ge- schichte der christlichen Ethik, and Gass's work under the same title. In the passages relating to the School- men I have used Baur's Lehre der Dreieinigkeit, Bd. II ; Bobba, Storia della Filosofia rispetto alia, Conoscenza di Dio ; and, with less profit, Haureau, Histoire de la Philosophic Scolastiqiie. I am also greatly indebted to Mr. W. O. Burrows, Principal of Leeds Clergy School, for reading a large portion of the proofs, and for many valuable sug- gestions. ANALYSIS LECTURE I, preliminary: greek and jew. The air of disappointment and failure which marks the ancient world in its attitude towards life requires some explanation. . . pp. 1-3. I. Among the Greeks it seems to have been due to two special causes. 1. A disposition to treat ethical science merely on the analogy of other sciences, i. e. as a formulation of ethical facts. . . pp. 4-7. 2. The tendency of the ethical systems to express themselves in the shape of ideal figures — necessarily external to the will. . . pp. 7-8. This was the case with Plato and Aristotle, also with the Stoics and Neoplatonists pp. 8-1 1. These ideals, though valuable in ethical history, failed as guides to life pp. 11-12. II. The Jews reach a similar result from a different cause. The ruling idea of Jewish religion and polity was the Covenant idea which expressed itself in various forms — in the hands of prophets, psalmists, lawgivers. Of these the most familiar was the Law, which, in the best minds and in its latest forms, combined in itself the various strains of earlier thought pp. 12-18. The Jewish mind, therefore, being under Law, was not perplexed by philosophical questions like those of the Greeks ; but, owing to the condition of the human will, it failed to achieve its ideal. . pp. 18-20. III. The Sermon on the Mount belongs to a transitional state of things. It comes with a new authority and offers a new hope of perfection, but it is still a law, commanding from without. .... pp. 20-22. xvi Analysis. Thus the Greek ethical systems, the Jewish Law, and the Sermon have one thing in common; they command from without — the Greeks, by means of philosophical ideals, the Jews and the Sermon, by positive command PP- 22-24. Besides this the Jew regarded human nature as fallen, and was saved from the despair, which such a belief might have produced, by the hope of a Deliverer. pp. 24-25. NOTE I. RTJLING PRINCIPLES OF LIFE IN CLASSICAL DAYS. The difficulty of estimating a bygone period of life is only partially overcome by a study of its literature. The descriptions of satirists are apt to exaggerate the evil ; and, on the other hand, great literary skill may lead to a onesided view in the opposite direction. . . pp. 26-28. The true ground for estimating the views of another age would be found in the ruling principles (if we could reach them) which governed their whole judgement of life pp. 28-29. In the case of Greece there are two lines of thought in which the general attitude of the people towards life was expressed. I. The idea of divine et responsible for what he does quite apart from its political effect pp. 243-245. St. Augustine approached this question in the light of his own personal experience, and from the point of view of the psychological doctrine which he had evolved pp. 245-251. The final doctrine of the will came from the side of the theology of the Incarnation p. 251. As regards classifications of sins, there is very little precision in the N. T. Hermas shows that the ethical sense of the Church was gradually develop- ing in accuracy, and the disciplinary distinction between pardonable and unpardonable sins is clear in TertuUian and Cyprian. . pp. 252-257. St. Augustine, though his classifications vary, distinguishes clearly between various kinds and degrees of evil. . . . pp. 258-259. The well-known classification of seven deadly sins seems to have been based indirectly on words of Origen, and to have come to the West through Cassian from the Egyptian ascetics. In the East it remains monastic in character, but in the West, owing largely to the influence of Gregory the Great, it affects the entire moral atmosphere of the Church. It expresses the regular Christian view of sin. . . . pp, 259-266. LECTURE VI. MORALITY AND REASON. Christianity is always treated in the N. T. as forming a definite stage in the evolution of a purpose. This purpose is the expression upon the human field of the wisdom of God pp. 267-271. The wisdom of God in the ancient Jewish view was practical rather than theoretic : i. e. it dealt not with abstract and universal ideas, but was conceived as the power which moved the process of history, and governed the circumstances of individual life. It was in this idea that a philosophi- cal sanction was found for the moral life pp. 271. 272. xxiv Analysts. This idea, though not directly applied to the moral life in the N. T., indicates the way to a solution of a somewhat seriously difficulty, p. 272. The nature of God is set before men as in some way offering them their moral ideal : and this is translated into the practical command to love. But this, though it is rendered possible by the new life given, still retains the form of a command which compels the individual will, but of which the rational justification may still be asked. pp. 272-276. The answer to this difficulty, for human faculties, lies in the idea of the Divine Wisdom : through which the whole course of things, including the lives of individuals, are brought under the control of the Providence of God. The moral law can no longer be regarded as an arbitrary command ; it is the expression of the wisdom of God. . pp. 276-278. This position is not affected by the progressive character of moral ideas. Nor is it open to the objection that it involves a separation of wisdom and love in the nature of God. pp. 278-280. Such a separation has occurred in the history of theology, and was brought to its climax in the scholastic discussions between the followers of Aquinas and those of Scotus and Ockam. It must always occur when the idea of speculative wisdom is allowed to overpower that of practical wisdom pp. 280-286. A similar separation is a theological danger at the present time, owing to the disposition to trust instincts, and acquiesce in the incapacity of reason pp. 286-287. The Incarnation is the typical expression of the Divine wisdom and love : in the light of it, man can partly see wisdom where some still see only foolishness — in the Cross. pp. 288-291. Note to Lecture VI. Religion has two functions, philosophically speaking : to explain nature, and to explain moral life. The two aims ai^e not necessarily incompatible ; but the former, if followed exclusively, ends in abstract metaphysic : the latter preserves always the notion of a Personal God. . . p. 292. The Christian Church had to combine these two points of view : i. e. to determine the attributes of God. This question, which Gnosticism forced forward, was answered with no uncertainty. A particular character was ascribed to God, on the basis of Scripture, tradition, and Christian experience. pp. 293-295. But the philosophical relation between the two points of view was long un- determined : in fact, it was left undecided till the Scholastic Age. p. 296. A nalysis. xxv The works of Dionysius the Areopagite brought into the Church a purely speculative theology, based on a priori considerations and tending strongly towards Pantheism pp. 296-298. The controversy between Nominalism and Realism offered the alterna- tive between a philosophy tending towards Pantheism and pure Materialism. In the light of these various lines of speculation the question of the Divine attributes was approached pp. 298, 299. Aquinas, influenced by the Dionysian writings and accepting Realism, defines both the attributes of God and the relation between them. The will of God is inseparable from the reason. Hence, as the moral law is the true expression of the will of God it cannot change. pp. 299-301. Scotus, on the other hand, with premisses somewhat similar, denies immutability to anything but the Divine nature itself. Everything created is contingent, and therefore dependent on the free choice of God — including even the moral law pp. 301, 302. Ockam, denying universals in every form, denies all but arbitrary action to God. ........... p. 303. The questions are not futile. The Dionysian mystic agnosticism is attractive and seems to be necessary. Yet the question as to the nature of God is the theological way of asking whether we can trust the moral sense, or whether we must regard it as subject to an inherent irration- ality. To assign supremacy to reason is simply to assert that reason is the fundamental presupposition of all life. . . . pp. 303-309. LECTURE VII. ETHICS AND THE REFORMATION. The moral principles, described in previous lectures, supplied the forms of moral thought till the time of the Reformation, and were in large measure successful in practice. pp. 310-312. This is shown (i) by the prevalence of monasticism, (2) by the extant Penitential literature. These put in clear light the fact that the Church had really taken in hand the task of moralizing the world. pp. 312-318. But since the Reformation — in spite of the moral earnestness out of which it arose — a division has arisen between Creed and Life. This result, so little answering to reasonable expectations, was largely due to various influences, chiefly secular, which were at work at the time of the Reformation pp. 318-320. I. The Church had suffered serious corruption, owing to its assumption of political power. Though it had been inevitable that it should do this, the time for its political activity was over. . . . pp. 320-322. xxvi Analysts. 2. As a consequence of this the moral tone of Churchmen had degener- ated, and the poor were neglected. And this happened in spite of the protests of individuals, and of the great orders. . . pp. 322-324. 3. The speculative separation between faith and reason aided this degeneration, so that Humanism, in its most pagan form, easily made way p. 325. Under these conditions, when, moreover, national feeling had come into existence, and universal supremacy of Emperor or Pope was already an anachronism, change was to be anticipated. . . . pp. 325-327. The requirement of the age was reformation: restoration of a pure creed, of moral discipline in the Church, of personal religion. The presence of exaggerated and revolutionary elements seriously modified the result pp. 327-329. The assault upon unrighteous authority and the assertion of the rights of individuals ended in the separation of individual religion from the spiritual society, and established the State as the proper and sole environ- ment for man's moral life. pp. 329-332. The result was logically involved in the revolutionary exaggerations : it is often practically suspended in the case of individuals and churches. pp. 332-336- Various evils follow from this position, e.g. moral philosophy tends to revert to a pagan type— moral effort ceases to be systematic. PP- 336-34 J- LECTURE VIII. CHURCH DISCIPLINE. The claim of Christianity is supreme and covers the whole of life. This it does in virtue of its character as an. inward guiding force quicken- ing the will from within p. 346. This life is embodied in the Christian society, and requires for its complete manifestation that the whole body of Christian people should be guided in all regions of their activity by one set of principles, moral and dogmatic pp. 346-349. To the fuller attainment of this result in the present state of things two conditions are requisite: (i) The sense of Churchmanship must be quickened. The lack of this is an obvious cause of much failure and disappointment in the work of the Church in the world. pp. 349-352. (2) The Church must resume its functions of discipline. This is probably an unpalatable suggestion and may seem to assail our reasonable feelings of independence. Also it is often supposed to lead Analysis. xxvii either to an immoral casuistry or a hard sacerdotalism. But these dangers do not necessarily arise from discipline. . . pp. 352-354. The danger of casuistry consists in a certain moral temper, which appears whenever the intellect is allowed to paralyze the will — whether this results in positively immoral action or not . . pp. 354-356. And the danger of sacerdotalism also consists in a moral temper, by which laity and priesthood are separated. This arises equally if the priesthood make exaggerated claims, or if the laity leave all the real work of the Church to the priesthood and seek only a lower ideal of Church membership pp. 356-35S. The reappearance of discipline would counteract rather than encourage these evils. Discipline in the true sense means the assertion by common consent of the Christian principle in all departments of life. pp. 358-362. This conflicts in no way with any principle except pure Individualism, nor does it involve undue interference with secular life. Discipline deals only with the moral aspects of things pp. 362-367. Nor again is it ineffective, although it operates indirectly. For it leads to concentration of purpose, and is an ascetic rule of life in the best sense : and both these characters are sources of strength. . pp. 367-372. Conclusion pp. 373-375- INDEX pp. 377-380. CHRISTIAN ETHICS LECTURE I ' I delight in the law of God after the inward man : but I see a different law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity under the law of sin which is in my members.' — ROM. vii. 22, 23 (R.V.) It is an old story that a note of disappointment and weariness sounds in the writings of the ancient world. Experience was apt to mean disillusionment, for the gods were envious, and old age crept on, and death was never far away. The hopes men had entertained in early life belied their expectations if they were realized, and left them with an unsatisfied longing if they were continually deferred. For there was a mystery in life : reason had not gripped it as a whole, and so the best calculations and the most carefully laid plans would not ensure a satisfactory issue ; even prayer to heaven might involve considerable risk. If this is true of the ordinary pursuits and desires of men, it is truer still on a higher level. All the eager and profitless searching in the world seems to be con- centrated in systems of philosophy. For a system of philosophy aimed higher than at a mere temporary B 2 Christian Ethics [lect, self-satisfaction. It attempted to grasp the whole problem of man's existence, to provide a theory of the facts of the world which should leave nothing out, and a theory of man's life and interests which should leave no occasion unforeseen or unprovided with resource, and so to rationalize the irrational search for satisfaction, and find a resting-place for the restless passion of desire. To find such a solution for the problem of existence seemed easier, at first, in the natural world. Some one element, some one aspect of being, seemed to be easily traceable throughout the complex of things, and in the light of the application of this principle the chaotic and unintelligible variety of nature seemed to fall under the dominion of order and reason : the world, at any rate, seemed to be guided by a purpose : nature, at any rate, did nothing in vain. And there- fore, if nature surrendered to reason, it seemed all the more intolerable that man's life should be void of rational significance. Man himself was conscious of purpose in his own individual actions, he was perfectly familiar with the relation of means to ends ; and there- fore looked, not unnaturally, to be able to satisfy his desire for philosophical completeness in regard of his own life, at least as well as he had done in regard of the world. The decision of right and wrong cannot be left to accident, thinks Plato, or the suggestion of circumstances, or the promiscuous impressions of one's neighbours. Desire cannot be empty and vain, Aristotle holds : there must be some guiding principle which will explain it all, and supply a proper rule for i] Preliminary : Greek and Jew 3 action. There must be some positive reality or some single end to justify the use of terms like ' right ' and ' wrong,' upon which all agree, but which it is not so easy to define. But here, as indeed in the philosophy of nature, the usual disappointment attended man's efforts. Definitions and theories were put forward, but the question remained still open to discussion. Seek for knowledge, said one, and care for nothing else ; seek for pleasure, said another, for pleasure is the one thing that makes life tolerable ; seek for virtue, for self- development in every way, said others. Some tried to live by these rules, and to help others so to live. But the philosophers always tended to become an eccentric clique : for the most part life went on apart from them : men bought and sold, and married and gave in marriage, were eager or listless, quarrelsome or calm, and no one could say why. And to the thoughtful this was just the most cruel part of their fate, that they were forced either to stand aside from the interests and pursuits which occupied other men, or to fall in with the general drift of life without knowing whether there was any sufficient reason for so doings- It will be worth while to ask, as we look back over this history of anxious inquiry and very partial attain- ment, whether we can point to any reason that will throw light upon the want of success. Can we lay our finger on any common characteristic of all these * Cf. Plat. Rep. 496 E ; Justin Martyr, Dial. c. Tryph. ch. 3 ; Lucian, Hermotimus, esp. ch. 72 and following. B % 4 Christian Ethics [lect. speculations which will explain their futility? Or must we say simply that it happened because man is doomed to aimless search, and his life is an insoluble enigma? For, if we consider how very largely the thinkers of ancient Greece have laid down the Hnes within which all subsequent speculation has moved in the spheres of Physics and Metaphysics, we may fairly, expect that they would have been as successful in the field of Ethics, if they had had at their disposal the materials for success. Was there, then, any de- finable reason why such men, in spite of their keenness of moral perception, and their practice in the handling of problems, should have achieved so much less in the decision of the greatest problem of all ? It seems to me that there are two common charac- teristics presented by all ancient Greek systems which in part explain their failure. In the first place there was a confusion as to the exact method or place of an ethical system. Human life was treated too much on the analogy of other branches of scientific investigation. Moral life presents two strikingly different series of facts. On the one side there are the moral ideas — the general notions of right and wrong. These may and do vary with different individuals, different ages, and different societies. But wherever such notions exist, they form a sort of rough standard by which the particular actions of life are measured. Amidst all this variety there is, of course, some principle to be found. Moral facts, like facts of any other kind, cover with their variety an underlying identity. There are certain residual convictions which every man must i] Preliminary : Greek and Jew 5 hold in whom the moral sense is developed at all. Some of these are essential to the existence of society : some arise naturally as men emerge from barbarism : a minority of them consist of inexplicable local usages which run back upon a state of things long past and long forgotten. It is, comparatively speaking, a simple matter to introduce order into this region of discussion, and to arrive at some common standing-ground by the summation and co-ordination of facts. Such a process would be little more than a classification such as is performed constantly in connexion with the progress of science, and would result in a general and rough conception of the meaning of moral life for man. And, supposing it done, the other class of facts would then rise into view. It would be found by evidence no less immediate and convincing than that of ordinary observation, that this quasi-scientific generalization would not have quite the same effect in morals as in other things. It would not affect action in quite the same way. A scientific generali- zation becomes a permanent property. Once proved, it becomes part of the regular stock of the human mind : it affects practice as well as theory. Even a philosophical construction of facts may turn the course of human thought and mark an epoch; such was the effect, for instance, of the dictum of Anaxagoras that reason was the power that brought order into the world. Even if it meets with violent opposition from those who cling to a more ancient point of view, yet all the increasing numbers who accepted it are dominated by it, and take it as their guide in the interpretation 6 Christian Ethics [lect, of the world. With morals it is different. Not only are the uneducated herd left outside the influence of the generalizations of philosophers, but the philo- sophers themselves, those who do profess and really mean to take these principles for their guidance, these are the people who fail to do so : fail so conspicuously as to become a byword ^. This difficulty is not ade- quately provided for by the recognition that theory and practice are not the same. For that leaves out of sight the fact that the theory itself is incomplete : that the definition of virtue, even the conviction that a man knows how to obtain it, cannot provide against disas- trous surprise and fall. In one word, we have here one reason which certainly operated to hinder the complete success of moral speculation. The life of man was treated too much as a branch of natural history. The inquirers set out by simply noting existing facts and theories about it, as they might have done in order to explain any ordinary natural phenomenon ; and the acquisition of a consistent and intelligible account of the moral facts examined seemed to lead at once to the enunciation of moral principles. And that led necessarily to disappointment. Men expected more than they had any right to expect from speculations of this character, and in the degree in which they did so they doomed themselves to failure. Of course, I do not mean — no Oxford man could admit such a thing for a moment — that the work done by the ancient moralists was in all respects and in all 1 Cf. Plat. Rep. 487 D. 1] Preliminary : Greek and Jew 7 relations a mere failure. They did for moral philo- sophy what pioneers have the special mission to do. They broke up the ground : they defined and dis- tinguished : they noted the bearing of motives and the importance of the estimate of them : they deduced (with more or less clearness) the demand for virtue from the essential nature of man. In all these regards they did work of permanent value. But they were too great themselves not to aim at a higher result than this ; they meant to supply an inspiration to their age, and strengthen the hold of moral ideas upon the wills of men : and this, except for a narrow following of dis- ciples whom each gathered round him, they all largely failed to do. They stood aloof from human nature, and viewed it from the outside as an object of natural history. They described its actual movements as they saw them, and their speculations were strictly limited by what they had observed. Such a confusion then as to the exact method and value of ethical speculation inevitably led to failure ; but this is not the only cause of it. There is a second, which is, in part, a consequence of the first. As there was a disposition to treat human life from the point of view of the external observer, so, as a true artistic impulse rises out of accurate observation, it was inevitable that speculative ethics should express itself in the construction of ideal figures. Assuming man in relation to certain forces, it would seem to confirm and illustrate any definition of virtue or of the end of life that might be attained, if an ideal man in an ideal relation to these forces could be contrived by the 8 Christian Ethics [lect. imagination. Speculation would then seem to become intelligible. It would be possible to cite the behaviour at various junctures of the wise man, the o-TrouSato?, or whatever else he might be called, and to take his conduct as a model for one's own ; and the crude process of speculation would seem to become more reasonable and approachable than could ever be while it remained in abstract terms or even took the form of moral precept. It was an artistic impulse, characteristic of the nation which developed sculpture to such supreme perfection, and it represented the endeavour to express abstract principles in concrete form. But yet it was one chief cause of the failure of Greek ethics to be practically impressive. For the ideal figure always tended to pass beyond the range of ordinary conditions, and it was always hard to bring him back into the prosaic, inartistic region of practical human life. Plato knew men well, and read the causes of their failure with unique power and insight. But his philosopher-king was the creation of a state which no existing conditions were adequate to produce. In order to bring him on to the human stage, a clearance had to be effected of all that had in it associations with the evil past. That such a man should occur in the ordinary Greek state seemed beyond all hope. And so Plato's ideal figure disappears into the clouds — though his nature is defined by strict philosophical necessity, and every element in it is based upon observation and logic — because the stage upon which alone he can be active is not forthcoming. So with Aristotle. He too has entered thoroughly I] Preliminary : Greek and Jew g into the conditions of human Hfe, and has endeavoured to imagine the way in which they might be ideally met and realized. He comes closer in some ways to the ordinary levels of human experience than Plato does even in the Laws. At all points in his inquiry we can recognize the facts which he describes : indeed the danger is that his remarks should seem too obvious and self-evident. But his ideal also seems to require an ideal society as its background. His society, as he describes it, involves perhaps less startling changes in the existing order than Plato demanded, but still the changes required are complete. It is a new society that is wanted, with peculiar conditions of number, place, and internal order, if the supremely balanced character is to be produced, which observation and reflexion prove to be the ideal possibility for man. These were social ideals, conceived while the glories of the old Hellenic city-state still haunted the imagination. But there are others besides these, the product of the conviction that the world as a whole was beyond the hope of reformation, and that the less wide aspiration must content the philosopher — to keep himself independent of the sordid pursuits of the unenlightened, and to feast alone upon his philosophy. Such was the ideal of the Stoic. His conception of true manhood was the life according to reason and nature, which gave up the riddle of the world, and simply accepted with a dull passion of endurance whatever came. It was a logical structure, the strict outcome of principles which were laid down at the start, but there was little chance of its being ever lo Christian Ethics [lect. fully realized. For the Stoics more than any one else, though their interest in the individual life led them further than their predecessors in the direction of casuistry, overshot the mark of actual reality. Their wise man was out of the question from the first, except as supplying a regulative principle for the life of an individual here and there. A state peopled with men fulfilling Stoic principles would be a monstrosity and a nightmare. No group of persons could conceiv- ably have so separated themselves from all the desires and activities of ordinary human beings as to have attained it. And therefore there was always a second or lower ideal running somewhat in parallel lines with the first, and more in accordance than it with human experience. And then, again, in later days there was the Neo- platonist. He too thought of the ideal life of man from the individual point of view. His ideal also rests upon despair. But he gave it a semblance of warmth and life by making its chief characteristic to be the passionate yearning for union with God — the supreme principle of Unity and Good, out of whose superabundant life, as Plotinus thought, the whole universe had been developed ^- Porphyry tells us in his life of Plotinus ^ that during the time that he knew the master and studied with him, Plotinus had four times attained to moments of this ecstatic con- templation, in which the turbulence of sense and ^ Plot. Enn. V. ii. I : irpmrri oiov yevvrjiris avrrj' ov yap reXfiov TO) fiijSev (rjnlv firjSi €X^i-v fi';Se SelcrOm olov VTrcpeppinj Kai to wrfpTrX^pes airov irenoirjKev aXXo. 2 Vii. Plot. c. 23. T] Preliminary : Greek and Jew n intellect was stilled, and he simply feasted on the presence of the Divine. We rarely hear of a philo- sopher realizing so much of his ideal as this. Again, I must guard against a possible misappre- hension. I do not mean that these conceptions of the ideal man have been mere waste labour. On the contrary, they have all of them done work that is permanent in the history of ethics. Plato and Aris- totle brought to light in a way in which no one had ever done before, the close relation between man as an individual and the society in which he dwells. They emphasized the truth, and it should never have been forgotten, that man alone is not sufficient to himself: that he is radically a social being. And the later history of ethics brings to light the real value of the careful analysis of moral states which the Stoics first attempted, and the mystic contemplation which was the goal of all the striving of the Neo-platonist. But when all this has been said, it still remains that for the most part these ideals were remote, and insufficiently made effectual on the will. Though it might be true that man at his best might look to attain to something like them, the will remained untouched except so far as the ideal happened to exercise an attractive charm over it. And even if the ideal itself proved charming, there was still the inveterately irresolute and indecisive will to be strengthened to the point of persistent struggle with circumstances that made against all determined action on principle. There was lacking the mediating idea or force that would change the conceptions won by 12 Christian Ethics [lect. so much earnest thought from ideals to inspirations. And this was the other reason why, on the whole, the ancient philosophies ended in failure. They had great influence in their time, especially in the first three centuries of the Christian era : at least, the philosophical profession was held in high honour. Rich men kept philosophers in their houses, like private chaplains; and, in spite of the mischievous suggestions of Lucian, that they cared more for the rich man's table than for moralizing his life, we cannot but believe that their influence was in many cases for the good. But it remains that their philo- sophy, from the necessity of the case, was rather a rule of thumb than a system of effective principles. It rose out of experience, like the old proverbial philosophies which it had displaced, and it was limited only less narrowly than they. Its ideals were the utmost aspirations that the life of experience suggested ; yet when they came to be applied it appeared sometimes that they were impracticable, sometimes that there was no motive strong enough to force the will to conform itself to a standard thus externally imposed, however fully its moral beauty might be allowed. But I shall be met here with an objection. I shall be asked. Have you not forgotten the Jews ? What of their Law .'' Did not that, at any rate, succeed in part .'' And these questions clearly require consideration. Judaism of course stood in a peculiar position. It depended in the last resort upon the covenant- relation between God and the chosen people, and I] Preliminary : Greek and Jew 13 this determines all that was specially characteristic in it. There were, of course, historical elements of various kinds imbedded in the Jewish religion. Ancient conceptions running back upon the common Semitic heathendom ; ancient practices depending for their explanation upon obsolete beliefs as to powers in nature : these are still traceable in Jewish ordinances, and enable us to explain many things which otherwise would seem arbitrary and obscure. But these are not the characteristic features of Judaism, and they are mythological rather than religious. The most characteristic feature of the Jewish religion is the strengthening of the old conception of a tribal god into the idea of a union so close between Jehovah and the children of Israel that it can be described in the terms of a marriage ^. Moreover this, which was the most characteristic feature of Jewish religion, was also the ruling idea of the Jewish nation. Just in proportion as it regarded itself as being the special object of Jehovah's love and interest, its exclusive national feeling grew in intensity. In earlier days the people fell away, as we all know, with extraordinary frequency towards the gods of the neighbouring tribes : and it was only after the stern lesson of the Captivity that their religious allegiance and national exclusive- ness became confirmed habits of mind. Still, when they reached, as a people, the conviction of their unique relation to Jehovah, they only attained what ^ Cf. Gen. xii. 1-3, xvii. 1-14 ; Exod. vi. 2-9 ; Deut. iv. 7. 8, vi. 14. 15, vii. 6-1 1, xxxi. 16 ; I Sam. xii. 20-25 ! Hos. ii. 14-23 ; Jer. iii. 8 ; Isa. liv. 5, 6 ; Ezek. xvi ; and other passages. 14 Christian Ethics [lect. had all along been the guiding idea of all their greatest men — prophets, lawgivers, and psalmists — and there- fore their morality was guided throughout by the one ruling principle, which their greatest men had developed and kept before the conscience of the people. In the history of Judaism this one notion of the relation of God to man took various forms. The one which we are most accustomed to identify with the name of Judaism is the development of legislation. The Jewish Law assumed from the first that God was to be known by, and to accept, the worship and friendship of His chosen people. But His character of supreme holiness involved a certain risk in approach- ing Him. There was danger lest, by too suddenly in- truding into His presence unprepared and unprotected, the rash intruder might come to harm. And therefore a complex system of ceremonial was devised, which, though it resembled in many ways the ceremonial systems of many other nations, and preserved many archaic conceptions long after they had really ceased to rule men's minds, yet differed from all these in that it rested finally on the notion of the holiness of God. It was this moral character pervading the Jewish ceremonial that preserved it from degradation in the direction of fetish-worship and prevented it from com- plete obsolescence as the mind of the people grew in power and range. For it is certainly a curious and unique fact that the palmy days of the law of ceremonial observance came, if criticism is right in its conclusions, in the last period of the history of Judaism. It is not as if the system of ceremonial I] Preliminary : Greek and Jew 15 were exceptionally free from pre-historic ideas, or were exceptionally intelligible to minds which had passed beyond pre-historic associations with the notion of God : many of its regulations are only explicable in full by reference to the customs and beliefs of primitive races ^ We cannot, then, account for the tenacious hold of such primitive practices and ideas upon the mind of a race which was already developing, except upon the supposition that this ceremonial order enshrined for the people many of their moral ideas. The careful regulations necessary for approaching God may, in some minds, have occupied the whole horizon. Their interest would exhaust itself in accuracy of detail, and the God who was thus surrounded with a barrier of ceremonial would be wholly forgotten. In such minds, religion would be already on the move towards fetichism. But in others, the elaborateness of the ceremonial order would emphasize the unapproach- able holiness of God, and make men only the more anxious to fit themselves for His presence. That this result was possible even upon the basis of the Law seems to be proved by the union in the latest developments of Judaism of the two other strains of thought which existed and grew separately in earlier days. The prophets from an early date had been engaged in vigorously denouncing mere formalism. They felt the need of some outlet for their more spiritual desires and yearnings, and the mere external routine of ceremonial — of sacrifices and feasts at special times — troubled and wearied them. It was this class ' Cf. p. 42. i6 Christian Ethics [lect. of men who searched their own hearts most anxiously : and it is to them that we owe that deeper view of human nature, its temptations and capacities, which gives the Old Testament its peculiar value throughout all time. It was the prophets again who displayed most completely the working of moral laws in the field of politics. Similarly, later on, it was the psalmists who analyzed most elaborately the subtle inward move- ments of the individual human soul. They revealed the mysteries of penitence, they understood the pain of world-weariness and the awful desolation of spirit which comes when the righteous man seems to be forsaken even by his God. These and other such intuitions of comparatively remote and rare moral conditions point to a habit of introspection which is beyond the usual degree of intensity. I have said that the Jews had little interest in philosophical questions, strictly so called. They accepted, apparently without difficulty, a simple theory of the being of the world, and their reliance upon revelation for their moral order made it unnecessary for them to raise any of the metaphj'sical discussions which lie round the moral ideas. At the same time their practical men arrived at a view of the right order of life, which we find in the Proverbs and other sapiential books. These practical philosophers de- veloped the conception of the wise man and the fool : the man who made the most of his position, was careful, diligent, and religious, and the man who was at all points wilful, idle, and unsatisfactory. The wise man, in their view, was expected to be successful ; and failure i^ Preliminary : Greek and Jew 17 in the pursuits of ordinary life was connected with folly and misdoing. Virtue is the wisest course, and should reap its due reward. Out of this somewhat utilitarian and, as it seems, uninspiring view of life, however, there arises one of the most profound of all human problems — the question of the relation of God's providence and foreknowledge to human activity. And again in this connexion we find the idea of Divine Wisdom, the mysterious plan or thought which is gradually expressed in the order of things, with which it is man's wisdom to correspond, to which, though he cannot fathom it, he must submit. It was this circle of ideas which satisfied the philosophical instincts of the Jews, and helped to make them ready in time to mingle with the stream of Hellenic thought^. I have been obliged to allude thus shortly to these very familiar facts, in order to bring out the special characteristics which marked the Jewish moral ideas. The Law, in spite of the repulsive appearance which it bears to our minds, was after all the centre of the com- bination of the various influences at work in Judaism. Later psalmists, such at the author of Ps. cxix, find their spiritual desires satisfied in the Law of God ; the Temple services and the worship there are the delight of the author of Ps. Ixxxiv ; and throughout the Psalms, which seem to have been written for the Temple, there breathes a religious enthusiasm which we find very difficult to put in any connexion with hosts of slaughtered animals and steaming sacrifices. ' Cf. Driver, Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament, PP- 369, 370. C i8 Christian Ethics [lect. So again the Law appeared to the Jewish philosopher as the great manifestation of the divine wisdom : it was the wisdom of God which brought man out of his first fall, and ordered the nations upon the earth, and chose the people of Israel for His own, and gave them this Law to guide them. It was the moral order, as expressed in the Law, which was the conspicuous instance of the supreme wisdom of God, for in regard of human life it was most mysterious and unfathom- able. There were always mysteries remaining un- solved; but for man the fear of the Lord was the beginning of wisdom, and to depart from evil was understanding i. The J ewish moral system was, therefore, a lofty and elaborate one, and was attached by the closest associa- tions to the legislative code which ruled the ceremonial observances of the people. However strange it may appear to us, though we may note with curious interest the comparative absence of moral delinquencies in the law of sacrifice, it was the law which moulded the minds of the people ; and their predominant notion of a moral code was legal. By a process of synthesis, which we can only partly understand, the deepest spiritual yearning for communion with God was to be found in those who were careful of the external duties imposed by the law rather than amongst those who sat loosely to it. The Sadducee priesthood, who reduced their faith within the narrowest limits, were no more ready to meet Christ when He came than the Phari- ' Wisd. vi-ix. ; Ecclus. xxiv., especially verse 23. Cheyne, Job and Solomon, pp. 161, 162. i] Preliminary : Greek and Jew 19 sees. Their contempt for the casuistry and pettiness of the legalist party represented no high spiritual scorn for the mere external; it merely meant the most hope- less indifference to religion of any kind. The true spirit of Judaism was enshrined in the Law. Thus the ethical system of Judaism escaped one danger which beset those of the Greeks. Judaism never lost itself in questions whether virtue was or was not knowledge, and the like, for it had no oppor- tunity of raising such problems. The belief in the direct inspiration of Moses, and the position held by all the books which gradually formed the Canon, acted so as to prevent that sort of inquiry into the nature and the claims of the moral ideal. The moral law was, as it were, given already in the religious expe- rience of every devout Jew and needed no explanation. The man who believed in Jehovah and His love for His chosen people believed, on the same evidence, in the same breath, as it were, in the moral code con- veyed by the Law. There was no room for further discussion if this were once admitted. But on the other ground, over which the Greek ethical systems also failed to realize all that was expected of them, the Jewish Law failed as signally as any. It stood outside and issued commands, as it were : and righteousness came not by means of it. Those who searched into the heart of man among the Jews plunged far more deeply even than Plato or the highest of the Stoics into the recesses of human nature. They had more to say about the causes of moral failure ; they knew that there was more in it c 2 20 Christian Ethics [lect. than a deficiency of knowledge, or than the mere existence of a blundering chaotic principle like matter. They sought the springs of moral evil in the will, and learned by experience many of the subtle ways in which the conscience persuaded itself to wrong-doing. But they believed that somehow the Law, which was their delight, was in some way to solve all the difficulties, though it was just this which as yet it had never done. It was external, like the Greek* ideals. Acting on the specially prepared mind of the Jewish nation, it affected them more deeply, and reached further towards im- pressing and moulding their wills. But, like the Greek ideals again, it did its full work with those only whose spiritual nature was such as to understand its bearing. In these it produced the patient temper that waited for the hope of Israel, for it pointed constantly out of itself to a future where its failures would be redressed. In hard, narrow, unspiritual natures it produced the most unlovely character almost that has yet appeared in history : with less moral depth, and more stiff self- righteousness than has been developed under any other system of moral principles. When it failed, it failed grievously. When it succeeded, it declared itself incomplete. In the Sermon on the Mount the climax of Judaism was reached, and in the same moment its death-knell was sounded. This Sermon as it stands in St. Mat- thew's Gospel gives, it is true, the law to the new kingdom ; but it stands in close connexion with the language and ideas of the old. And it comes with authority — it asserts the new authority of a new i] Preliminary : Greek and Jew 21 teacher; but at the same time it is a teacher who interprets — who comes not to destroy, but to fulfil. Again, it lays stress throughout upon spiritual con- ditions, and throws them up in strong relief against an external observance from which the true spirit is lacking ; but it still runs in the form of a law. It thus belongs to a transitional period, and, as it were, hangs between the old and the new order. In the sense that it directs attention to a new teacher, who claims a per- sonal right to set His interpretation against the preva- lent tradition, it belongs wholly to the new ; but in its emphasis upon the spiritual as opposed to hollow ex- ternalism, though it goes deeper into things than the writers of old, it does but follow the best traditions of Hebrew religious thought. The golden rule itself is followed by the words, ' For this is the law and the prophets.' There is yet another point in which the Sermon passes wholly beyond anything which occurred under the old covenant. There is a promise of perfection, based on a comparison with the Father : according to the true text, ' Ye therefore shall be perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect ^.' This was a hope for which the old fathers hardly dared to look : the Law hardly offered any such possibility. But though the Sermon makes this promise, it does not say any word as to the way of realizing the per- fection which it preaches. And thus, even in view of this promise, it takes its place rather with the older dispensation than the new. It is still a law: 1 St. Matt. V. 48. 22 Christian Ethics [lect. still gives commands to the will, and sets before it an ideal. The will is left to find its own way to this perfect type : no guidance, no direct promise of guidance is given. So that the Sermon on the Mount kills, to use St. Paul's language, as relentlessly as the Law^ We look at it so often from the point of view of a complete Christianity that it has somewhat quaintly been taken to be the sum total of the Christian message. As if a law were made easier to keep by being made more difficult : as if the burden of com- pliance with an external rule were made lighter by applying the rule relentlessly to the shifting move- ments of the soul, which only the most careful watch- fulness can keep in view. Whatever language may be held, and held rightly, as to the lofty spiritual character of the morality inculcated in the Sermon, it cannot be said to do more than place the ideal before the mind. Those to whom it appeals — and these will necessarily be many — will grope after it in the obscure ways of life. They will see in its light their own failures, and they will learn the endless variety of the causes of their falls. And if they try to face its full meaning without evasion or diminution of its force, they will find out how it constrains and presses upon the will at every turn — how it closes avenues of action, and opens a narrow and difficult path which few indeed will dare to tread. The Greek ethical systems, the Jewish Law, the Sermon on the Mount, have all this one character in common, that they command from without. They ^ Cf. Holland, Creed and Character, Sermon xvi. pp. 238, 239. i] Preliminary .- Greek and Jew 23 vary, of course, indefinitely in other respects ; there is a long interval between the ideal of Epicurus or even of Plato and that of the Sermon on the Mount. They appeal differently also to the enlightened conscience of mankind ; even from the point of view of mere attractiveness the ideal of the new kingdom has far the widest appeal. Indeed, the world is apt to think itself Christian, and profess as its ideal a slightly amended version of the Sermon on the Mount, con- demning as narrow and self-pleasing even the grim seclusion of the Stoic philosopher. But the world is apt to exaggerate its own disposition to virtue, and to be contented with moderate attainments : and therefore it fails to see the wide interval which separates ordinary practice from the professed ideal. It is natural that this should happen. An ideal does not necessarily translate itself into action : it exists apart to be referred to at will. And in a society in which various ideas prevail it is additionally hard to put them into practice. If we imagine a man compelled to choose his own ideal of life, and then called upon to put it into practice in his own strength, amidst all the various voices in the world, which call him different ways, we shall not be surprised if in many cases no wide success or lofty attainment rewards his efforts. He will be almost inevitably bewildered ; he will lose his head, and miss the connexion between his ideal and his life ; he will become uncertain of his convictions, and will almost inevitably end by falling in with the type of action around him. It is the uniform charac- teristic of all this dispensation of Law to address a 24 Christian Ethics [lect. man from outside, and confront him with some rule or some ideal, and supply no force that will enable him to perform it. He sees what is right : he agrees with the law that it is good ; but this bare knowledge is not strong enough to cope with the forces of society : righteousness comes not through the law. The presence of mere ideals, however lofty, is apt to end in a quiet surrender to fashion. There is of course one broad distinction between the Greek and the Hebrew elements in this period to which I must again allude. The Greeks assumed practically that man was either in an unfallen state, or that his fall was irremediable, depending upon the inclusion of his soul in an alien matter, which subdues and impedes its action. The Jew started from the conception of a fallen human nature, but to his mind the fall was somehow to be reversed ; it depended upon no ultimate impassable physical barrier, but upon the will. This is why the loftier and more elaborate moral conceptions of the Jews produced no such hopelessness as I have had occasion to notice among the Greeks. No Stoic withdrawal or Neo-platonist mysticism was indigenous among the Jews. It was the hope which dwelt in the Jewish heart that kept them from a deeper despair than any that could have beset other nations : the despair of men who knew more of the unmanageable character of the disease under which they laboured, and the fruitlessness of offering sacrifices to the God to whom all the beasts of the forest belonged, so long as the heart was not right with Him. In this hope lies the suggestion of the cure for the il Preliminary ;. Greek and Jew 25 constant failure which we noted at the beginning of this lecture. It is not so much a new moral system that is required, as a new force to move the will. The various ethical systems failed, not because they led to wrong or false or even insufficient conclusions, but because they dealt inadequately with human nature itself. The moral philosopher can never be fully satisfied with barely abstract definitions ; the end of that investigation is essentially not knowledge, but action. And to secure this end it is of comparatively slight avail simply to represent the ideal good, however well, as an ideal. For if the nature of man, from which the whole departure is made, is touched with incapacity, the moral system which does not meet this must inevitably display its inadequacy at some point. It may produce a theory of good that fails to correspond with the whole nature of man, or it may fail altogether to set the will in motion by ignoring the necessity of some direct operation upon it. In the succeeding lectures we shall have to inquire whether Christianity has supplied any such force, and whether we can trace any corresponding differences in its treatment of action and motive. The question is no light or academic one. It is more even than a question involving our lives and happiness. It is in the last resort the question whether God rules and has declared Himself to the world. 26 Christian Ethics NOTES TO LECTURE I. • Note 1. Ruling Principles of Life in Classical Days. The statements made in the lecture as to the failure and the sense of inefficiency characteristic of ancient moral history require some comment. It is proverbially hard to estimate the character of another age, to appreciate the aspect it bore to those who lived in it, and to disabuse ourselves of those prejudices and prepossessions which imper- ceptibly lay hold of us in consequence of our own experience and our own moral ideals. It is this difficulty which largely accounts for the various estimates which prevail of life in the classical times. To some it seems as if that age were hopelessly remote from all that we know in our own ex- perience ; to others, as if it would be nearer and more intel- ligible to us than any of the ages lying between. The former judgement depends in great measure upon the satirists ' ; the latter, upon an aesthetic appreciation of the beauty of classical life as it survives in the best literature. For the satirists draw attention to the most startling features of the worst side of ancient life : and we, forgetting what a Juvenal might find to say of our own age, hug the thought that we have nothing such as this in modern times. And, on the other hand, we know most of the classical period, and it would be strange indeed if we did not find many ideas in common with it. But both these views are probably one-sided. They lay emphasis on one single aspect of ancient society without allowing for the effects of abstraction, in giving an air of unreality to what was once solid, and living, and concrete. If, however, this danger can be avoided, it may be possible to ' But compare the aspect of life presented in the Metamorphoses of Apuleius. Note 1 to Lecture I 27 indicate with some approach to truthfulness the real character of ancient life and morality, and to bring out without exag- gerating the points of difference between ancient moral ideas and our own. In order to do this, it will be necessary to define before- hand, as far as may be, the features of life and speculation which are most significant of the real tendency of the people in question. It does not follow that these, whatever they are, will be the most striking at first sight. Some aspects of life will be really secondary, though they may arrest the attention and seem to be decisive. It is possible even that upon these elements the interest and success of a satire may depend. The satirist is bound by the conditions of his work to produce an impressive picture. He lashes the vices of his age, shows up its inconsistencies, and lays his chief emphasis upon the more contemptible actions of men. And this he may do either from a real moral abhorrence of what is bad or from a cynical conviction of the impossibility of all real virtue. But it does not follow that his condemnation falls on the real spot of wrong. The actions condemned may be a genuine outcome of a low moral state, or they may spring from a class which is in no way typical of the general culture of the people. And however unreservedly we accept the satirist's view of the facts, it is not necessary that our condemnation and his should be really based upon the same principles. We may agree with him in condemning a certain practice, and yet find that were we to argue upon the subject there would be little enough upon which we could come to terms. If this is true of the evidence provided by s^tiristSj it is no less important in estimating the evidence provided by a literature like that of Greece. Even in modern times men are apt to look away from the evil side of a picture when their aesthetic feelings are satisfied by the picturesqueness of a custom or a mode of life. We regret, for instance, in a degree far beyond reason, the destruction of ancient buildings if they look attractive, even when the retention of them means discomfort and a backward style of life to those 28 Christian Ethics who dwell in the neighbourhood. And if we are capable of this when our impressions could so easily be corrected by our experience, there can be no doubt that we are Hable to a similar error in dealing with an age of which we can never have any direct knowledge. We attain through a literature, such as that of Greece, for instance, a view of life as it appeared to the highest minds of the day. They express themselves in terms which we can partially understand, and give voice to judgements with which we find it easy to sympathize. But there is a real danger of imagining hastily that these thoughts ran in all respects in the same groove as our own, of reading our own fundamental modern associations into our estimate of what they say, and of ignoring, in our pleasure at the beauty of the picture, the shadows and distances which are necessary to make it solid and real. It is not enough, therefore, to note the events which they criticize or to approve the criticisms which they pass. For in both these cases we may be dealing with details and acci- dents, and building imaginatively upon these. We condemn and admire in the terms of the ancient writers the acts or practices which they condemned and admired, and we infer hastily that the moral judgement is identical throughout. The inference is far from being necessary. An illustration will make the point clear. All moralists condemn an act of cowardice, and by consequence commend the virtue of courage. But it is obvious, without going back into ancient days, that moralists of different schools mean very different things by their judgements, in spite of the external appearance of complete agreement. The moralist who finds the evil of cowardice in selfishness as such — in the excessive assertion by the coward of his private right to live and be free from pain — means something very different by his condemnation to that of some rival of another school, who condemns the coward because he has miscalculated the balance of ultimate pleasure and pain. Both cpndemn the same acts, both lay down the same rules ; but their principles are different. Hence the decision of the question, whether the ancient Note 1 to Lecture I 29 systems of morality are or are not in real agreement with our own, will depend upon our ability to trace in them the real principles which underlie their appearance of agreement or disagreement, and to say whether these have or have not been modified by succeeding history. It will not matter so much whether we find or fail to find anticipations of our own judgements in ancient writers ; but it will be a matter of great importance if we can detect in them the working of principles by the aid of which we can explain both the agree- ment and the difference between our judgements and theirs. I. There are two ideas, widely distributed among the Greeks, which moulded their view of life in its widest sense and coloured all their expectations. These are the well- known conceptions of .5>v eKaaros &