j Tn y v< \ Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2016 https://archive.org/details/justificationofg01solo CONSTABLE’S RUSSIAN LIBRARY UNDER THE EDITORSHIP OF STEPHEN GRAHAM THE JUSTIFICATION OF THE GOOD CONSTABLE'S RUSSIAN LIBRARY EDITED WITH INTRODUCTIONS By STEPHEN GRAHAM. THE SWEET-SCENTED NAME By Fedor Sologub WAR AND CHRISTIANITY: THREE CONVERSATIONS By Vladimir Solovyof THE WAY OF THE CROSS By V. Doroshevitch A SLAV SOUL, AND OTHER STORIES By Alexander Kuprin THE EMIGRANT By L. F. Dostoieffskaya THE REPUBLIC OF THE SOUTHERN CROSS, AND OTHER STORIES < By Valery Brussof THE JUSTIFICATION OF THE GOOD By Vladimir Solovyof THE JUSTIFICATION OF THE GOOD AN ESSAY ON MORAL PHILOSOPHY By VLADIMIR SOLOVYOF TRANSLATED FROM THE RUSSIAN By NATHALIE A. DUDDINGTON, M.A. WITH A NOTE By STEPHEN GRAHAM LONDON CONSTABLE AND COMPANY LTD. First Published 1918. \no Slo^Ti DEDICATED TO MY FATHER, THE HISTORIAN SERGEY MIHAILOVITCH SOLOVYOF AND TO MY GRANDFATHER, THE PRIEST MIHAIL VASSILYEVITCH SOLOVYOF WITH A LIVING AND GRATEFUL RECOGNITION OF AN ETERNAL BOND 2 Q O a q ■<*> *-*■' 6 EDITOR’S NOTE It may be of use to the reader approaching Solovyof for the first time if I state in an elementary form the ideas to which the Russian philosopher specially consecrated his life and energies. They were : The universal Church, the idea of the unity of Christendom, and beyond that ultimately the conscious unity of mankind. Not a world-republic, however, but a world-church. The evolution of the God-man, not the superman with his greater earth-sense and fierceness, but the God-man with his greater heaven-sense, mystical sense. The Eternal Feminine, a characterisation of all humanity at one in the mystical body of the Church. Woman as the final expression of the material world in its inward passivity. Love as the highest revelation, the gleam of another world upon our ordinary existence. Love, therefore, as the proof of immortality, the guerdon and sense of it. Sancta Sophia, the Heavenly Wisdom, the grand final unity of praise, the wall of the city of God. The Justification of the Good is the book in which Solovyof elucidates the laws of the higher idealism. It is a classical work of the utmost importance in Russian studies. All that is positive in modern Russian thought springs from the teaching of Solovyof. Time is only now coming abreast of him and he appears especially as the prophet of this era, with his vision of united humanity and the realisation of the kingdom. All students of thought and religion, both here and in America, ought to feel indebted to vii ? Q O p, r. 7 cj u G s viii THE JUSTIFICATION OF THE GOOD Mrs. Duddington for the brilliant translation she has done. Tolstoy we know ; Dostoievsky we know ; and now comes a new force into our life, Solovyof, the greatest of the three. Through Solovyof we shall see Russia better and Europe better. STEPHEN GRAHAM. SOLOVYOF’S PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION The object of this book is to show the good as truth and righteous- ness . , that is, as the only right and consistent way of life in all things and to the end, for all who decide to follow it. I mean the Good as such ; it alone justifies itself and justifies our confidence in it. And it is not for nothing that before the open grave, when all else has obviously failed, we call to this essential Good and say, “ Blessed art Thou, O Lord, for Thou hast taught us Thy justification.” In the individual, national, and historical life of humanity, the Good justifies itself by its own good and right ways. A moral philosophy, true to the Good, having discovered these ways in the past, indicates them to the present for the future. When, in setting out on a journey, you take up a guide-book , you seek in it nothing but true, complete, and clear directions with regard to the route chosen. This book will not persuade you to go to Italy or Switzerland if you have decided to go to Siberia, nor will it provide you with money to traverse the oceans if you can only pay the fare down to the Black Sea. Moral philosophy is no more than a systematic guide to the right way of life’s journey for men and nations ; the author is only responsible for his directions being correct, complete, and coherent. But no exposition of the moral norms — of the con- ditions, i.e. for attaining the true purpose of life — can have any meaning for the man who consciously puts before him an utterly IX X THE JUSTIFICATION OF THE GOOD different aim. To indicate the necessary stations on the road to the better, when the worse has been definitely chosen, is not merely a useless but an annoying and even insulting thing to do, for it brings the bad choice back to one’s mind, especially when in our inmost heart the choice is unconsciously and in spite of ourselves felt to be both bad and irrevocable. I have not the slightest intention of preaching virtue and denouncing vice ; I consider this to be both an idle and an immoral occupation for a simple mortal, since it presupposes an unjust and proud claim to be better than other people. What matters, from the point of view of moral philosophy, are not the particular devia- tions from the right way, however great they may be, but only the general, definite, and decisive choice between two moral paths, a choice made with full deliberation. The question may be asked whether every man makes such a choice. It certainly is not made by people who die in their infancy, and, so far as clear conscious- ness of self is concerned, many grown-up people are not far removed from babes. Moreover, it should be noted that even when conscious choice has been made, it cannot be observed from outside. The distinction of principle between the two paths has no empirical definiteness , and cannot be practically defined. I have seen many strange and wondrous things, but two objects have I never come across in nature : a man who has finally attained perfect righteousness, and a man who has finally become utterly evil. And all the pseudo-mystical cant based upon external and practically applicable divisions of humanity into the sheep and the goats, the regenerate and the unregenerate, the saved and the damned, simply reminds me of the frank words of the miller — Long have I travelled And much have I seen, But copper spurs on water pails Saw I never ne’en. At the same time I think of the lectures I heard long ago at the University on embryology and zoology of the inverte- PREFACE XI brate. These lectures enabled me, among other things, to form a definite conception of the two well-known truths, namely, that at the lowest stages of organic life no one but a learned biologist, and sometimes not even he, can distinguish the vegetable from the animal forms, and that at the early stages of the intra-uterine life only a learned embryologist can tell, and not always with certainty, the embryo of man from the embryo of some other creature, often of a distinctly unpleasant one. It is the same with the history of humanity and with the moral world. At the early stages the two paths are very close together, and outwardly indistinguishable. But why, it will be asked, do I speak with regard to the moral world, of the choice between two paths only ? The reason is, that in spite of all the multiplicity of the forms and expressions or life, one path only leads to the life that we hope for and renders it eternal. All other paths, which at first seem so like it, lead in the opposite direction, fatally draw farther and farther away from it, and finally become merged together in the one path of eternal death. In addition to these two paths that differ in principle, some thinkers try to discover a third path, which is neither good nor bad, but natural or animal. Its supreme practical principle is best expressed by a German aphorism, which, however, was unknown both to Kant and to Hegel : Jedes Tierchen hat sein Plaisirchen. This formula expresses an unquestionable truth, and only stands in need of amplification by another truth, equally indisputable : Allen Tieren fatal 1st zu krep'iren. And when this necessary addition is made, the third path— that of animality made into a principle— is seen to be reduced to the second path of death. 1 It is impos- sible for man to avoid the dilemma, the final choice between the two paths — of good and of evil. Suppose, indeed, we decide to take the third, the animal path, which is neither good nor bad, but 1 The pseudo-superhuman path, thrown into vivid light by the madness of the unhappy Nietzsche, comes to the same thing. See below, Preface to the First Edition. xii THE JUSTIFICATION OF THE GOOD merely natural. It is natural for animals, just because animals do not decide anything, do not choose between this path and any other, but passively follow the only one upon which they have been placed by a will foreign to them. But when man actively decides to follow the path of moral passivity , he is clearly guilty of falsehood, wrong, and sin, and is obviously entering not upon the animal path, but upon that of the two human paths which proves in the end, if not at the beginning, to be the path of eternal evil and death. It is indeed easy to see from the first that it is worse than the animal path. Our younger brothers are deprived of reason, but they undoubtedly possess an inner sense ; and although they cannot consciously condemn and be ashamed of their nature and its bad, mortal way, they obviously suffer from it ; they long for something better which they do not know but which they dimly feel. This truth, once powerfully expressed by St. Paul (Rom. viii. 19-23), and less powerfully repeated by Schopen- hauer, is entirely confirmed by observation. Never does a human face bear the expression of that profound, hopeless melancholy which, for no apparent reason, overshadows sometimes the faces of animals. It is impossible for man to stop at the animal self- satisfaction, if only because animals are not in the least self-satisfied. A conscious human being cannot be an animal, and, whether he will or no, he must choose between two paths. He must either become higher and better than his material nature, or become lower and worse than the animal. And the essentially human attribute which man cannot be deprived of consists not in the fact that he becomes this or that, but in the fact that he becomes. Man gains nothing by slandering his younger brothers and falsely describing as animal and natural the path of diabolical persistence in the wrong — the path which he himself has chosen, and which is opposed both to life and to nature. What I most desired to show in this book is the manner in which the one way of the Good, while remaining true to itself, PREFACE xiii and, consequently, justifying itself, grows in completeness and definiteness as the conditions of the historical and natural environ- ment become more complex. The chief claim of my theory is to establish in and through the unconditional principle of morality the complete inner connection between true religion and sound politics. It is a perfectly harmless claim, since true religion cannot force itself upon any one, and politics are free to be as unsound as they like — at their own risk, of course. At the same time moral philosophy makes no attempt to guide particular individuals by laying down any external and absolutely definite rules of conduct. If any passage in the book should strike the reader as c moralising ’ he will find that either he has misunder- stood my meaning or that I did not express myself with sufficient clearness. But I have done my best to be clear. While preparing this second edition I read the book over five times in the course of nine months, every time making fresh additions, both small and great, by way of explanation. Many defects of exposition still remain, but I hope they are not of such a nature as to lay me open to the menace, “ Cursed is he who doeth the work of God with negligence.” Whilst I was engaged in writing this book I sometimes ex- perienced moral benefit from it ; perhaps this is an indication that the book will not be altogether useless for the reader also. If this should be the case it will be enough to justify this ‘justification of the good.’ VLADIMIR SOLOVYOF. Moscow, December 8, 1898. SOLOVYOF’S PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION A PRELIMINARY CONCEPTION OF THE MORAL MEANING OF LIFE Is there any meaning in life ? If there is, is that meaning moral in character, and is its root in the moral sphere ? In what does it consist, and what is the true and complete definition of it ? These questions cannot be avoided, and there is no agreement with regard to them in modern consciousness. Some thinkers deny all meaning to life, others maintain that the meaning of life has nothing to do with morality, and in no way depends upon our right or good relation to God, men, and the world as a whole ; the third admit the importance of the moral norms for life, but give conflicting definitions of them, which stand in need of analysis and criticism. Such analysis cannot in any case be dismissed as unnecessary. At the present stage of human consciousness the few who already possess a firm and final solution of the problem of life for themselves must justify it for others. An intellect which has overcome its own doubts does not render the heart indifferent to the delusions of others. I Some of those who deny the meaning of life are in earnest about it, and end by taking the practical step of committing suicide. Others are not in earnest, and deny the meaning of life solely by means of arguments and pseudo-philosophic systems. I xv xv i THE JUSTIFICATION OF THE GOOD am certainly not opposed to arguments and systems, but I am referring to men who regard their philosophising as a thing on its own account , which does not bind them to any concrete actions or demand any practical realisation. These men and their intellectual exercises cannot be taken seriously. Truths like the judgment that the angles of a triangle are together equal to two right angles remain true quite independently of the person who utters them and of the life he leads ; but a pessimistic valuation of life is not a mathematical truth — it necessarily includes the personal, sub- jective attitude to life. When the theoretical pessimist affirms as a real objective truth that life is evil and painful, he thereby expresses his conviction that this is so for every one , including himself. In that case, why does he go on living and enjoying the evil of life as though it were a good ? It is sometimes urged that instinct compels us to live in spite of the rational conviction that life is not worth living. But this appeal to instinct is vain. Instinct is not an external mechanically compelling force, but is an inner condition which prompts every living creature to seek certain states which appear to it to be pleasant or desirable. The fact that in virtue of his instinct the pessimist finds pleasure in life seems to undermine the basis of his pseudo-rational conviction that life is evil and painful. He may say that the pleasures of life are illusory. What, however, can be the meaning of these words from his point of view ? If one recognises the positive meaning of life many things may be dismissed as illusory in comparison, as drawing our attention away from the chief thing. St. Paul could say that by comparison with the kingdom of heaven, which is won through a life of renunciation, all carnal affections and pleasures are as dung and rubbish in his eyes. But a pessimist who does not believe in a kingdom of heaven, and attaches no positive significance to a life of renunciation, can have no standard for distinguishing illusion from truth. From this point of view everything is reduced to the state of pleasure or of pain which is being actually experienced ; but no PREFACE XVI 1 pleasure while it is being experienced can be an illusion. The only way to justify pessimism on this low ground is childishly to count the number of pleasures and pains in human life, assuming all the time that the latter are more numerous than the former, and that, therefore, life is not worth living. This calculus of happiness could only have meaning if arithmetical sums of pleasures and pains actually existed, or if the arithmetical difference between them could itself become a sensation ; since, however, in actual reality sensations exist only in the concrete, it is as absurd to reckon them in abstract figures as to shoot at a stone fortress with a cardboard gun. If the only motive for continuing to live is to be found in the surplus of the pleasurable over the painful sensa- tions, then for the vast majority of men this surplus is a fact : men live and find that life is worth living. With them, no doubt, must be classed such theoreticians of pessimism who talk of the advantages of non-existence, but in reality prefer any kind of existence. Their arithmetic of despair is merely a play of mind which they themselves contradict, finding, in truth, more pleasure than pain in life, and admitting that it is worth living to the end. From comparing their theory with their practice one can only conclude that life has a meaning and that they involuntarily sub- mit to it, but that their intellect is not strong enough to grasp that meaning. Pessimists who are in earnest and commit suicide also involun- tarily prove that life has a meaning. I am thinking of conscious and self-possessed suicides, who kill themselves because of disap- pointment or despair. They supposed that life had a certain meaning which made it worth living, but became convinced that that meaning did not hold good. Unwilling to submit passively and unconsciously — as the theoretical pessimists do — to a different and unknown meaning, they take their own life. This shows, no doubt, that they have a stronger will than the former, but proves nothing as against the meaning of life. These men failed to discover it, but what did they seek it in ? There are two types b xviii THE JUSTIFICATION OF THE GOOD of passionate men among them : the passion of some is purely personal and selfish (Romeo, Werther), that of others is connected with some general interest which, however, they separate from the meaning of existence as a whole (Cleopatra, Cato of Utica). Neither the first nor the second care to know the meaning of universal life, although the meaning of their own existence depends upon it. Romeo killed himself because he could not have Juliet. The meaning of life for him was to possess that woman. If, however, this really were the meaning of life, it would be wholly irrational. In addition to Romeo forty thousand gentlemen might find the meaning of their life in possessing that same Juliet, so that this supposed meaning would forty thousand times contradict itself. Allowing for difference in detail, we find the same thing at the bottom of every suicide : life is not what in my opinion it ought to be, therefore life is senseless and is not worth living. The absence of correspondence between the arbitrary demands of a passionate nature and the reality is taken to be the result of some hostile fate, terrible and senseless, and a man kills himself rather than submit to this blind force. It is the same thing with persons belonging to the second type. The queen of Egypt, conquered by the world-wide power of Rome, would not take part in the conqueror’s triumph, and killed herself by means of a poisonous snake. Horace, a Roman, called her a great woman for doing it, and no one would deny that there is a grandeur about her death. But if Cleopatra was looking to her own victory as to a thing that ought to be, and regarded the victory of Rome as simply the senseless triumph of an irrational force, she, too, took her own blindness to be a sufficient reason for rejecting the truth of the whole. The meaning of life obviously cannot coincide with the arbitrary and changeable demands of each of the innumerable human entities. If it did, it would be non-meaning— that is, it would not exist at all. It follows, therefore, that a disappointed and despairing suicide was not disappointed in and despaired of the PREFACE xix meaning of life, but, on the contrary, of his hope that life might be meaningless. He had hoped that life would go in the way he wanted it to, that it would always and in everything directly satisfy his blind passions and arbitrary whims, i.e. that it would be sense- less — of that he was disappointed and found that life was not worth living. But the very fact of his being disappointed at the world not being meaningless proves that there is a meaning in it. This meaning, which the man recognises in spite of himself, may be unbearable to him ; instead of understanding it he may only repine against some one and call reality by the name of a c hostile fate,’ but this does not alter the case. The meaning of life is simply confirmed by the fatal failure of those who reject it : some of them (the theoretic pessimists) must live unworthily , in contradiction to their own preaching, and others (the practical pessimists or the suicides) in denying the meaning of life have actually to deny their own existence. Life clearly must have a meaning, since those who deny it inevitably negate themselves, some by their unworthy existence, and others by their violent death. II “The meaning of life is to be found in the aesthetic aspect of it, in what is strong, majestic, beautiful. To devote ourselves to this aspect of life, to preserve and strengthen it in ourselves and in others, to make it predominant and develop it further till super- human greatness and new purest beauty is attained, this is the end and the meaning of our existence.” This view, associated with the name of the gifted and unhappy Nietzsche, has now become the fashionable philosophy in the place of the pessimism that has been popular in recent years. Unlike the latter, it does not require any criticism imported from outside, but can be disproved on its own grounds. Let it be granted that the meaning of life is to be found in strength and beauty. But, however much we may devote ourselves to the aesthetic cult, we shall find in it no protec- XX THE JUSTIFICATION OF THE GOOD tion, nor the least hope of protection, against the general and inevitable fact which destroys this supposed independence of strength and beauty, and renders void the divine and absolute character they are alleged to possess. I mean the fact that the end of all earthly strength is impotence, and the end of all earthly beauty is ugliness. When we speak of strength, grandeur, and beauty there rises to the mind of every one, beginning with the Russian provincial schoolmaster (see Gogol’s Inspector- General) and ending with Nietzsche himself, one and the same image, as the most perfect historical embodiment of all these aesthetic qualities taken together. This instance is sufficient. “And it happened after that Alexander, son of Philip, the Macedonian, who came out of the land of Chittim, had smitten Darius, King of the Persians and Medes, that he reigned in his stead, the first over Greece, and made many wars, and won many strongholds, and slew the kings of the earth, and went through to the ends of the earth, and took spoils of many nations, insomuch that the earth was quiet before him, whereupon he was exalted, and his heart was lifted up. And he gathered a mighty strong host, and ruled over countries, and nations, and kings, who became tributaries unto him. And after these things he fell sick, and perceived that he should die ” (Book I. of the Maccabees). Is strength powerless before death really strength ? Is a decomposing body a thing of beauty ? The ancient pattern of beauty and of strength died and decayed like the weakest and most hideous of creatures, and the modern worshipper of beauty and of strength became in his lifetime a mental corpse. Why is it that the first was not saved by his strength and beauty, and the second by his cult of it ? No one can worship a deity which saves neither those in whom it is incarnate, nor those who worship it. In his last works the unhappy Nietzsche turned his views into a furious weapon against Christianity. In doing so he showed a low level of understanding befitting French free-thinkers of PREFACE xxi the eighteenth century rather than modern German savants. He looked upon Christianity as belonging exclusively to the lower classes, and was not even aware of the simple fact that the Gospel was from the first received not as a doubtful call to rebellion but as a joyful and certain message of sure salvation , that the whole force of the new religion lay in the fact that it was founded by c the first fruits of them that slept,’ who had risen from the dead, and, as they firmly believed, secured eternal life to His followers. To speak of slaves and pariahs in this connection is irrelevant. Social distinctions mean nothing when it is a question of death and resurrection. Do not ‘ the gentle ’ die as well as ‘ the simple’ ? Were not Sulla the Roman aristocrat and dictator, Antioch the king of Syria, and Herod the king of Judaea eaten up by worms while still alive ? The religion of salvation cannot be the religion for slaves and ‘ Chandals ’ alone — it is the religion for all, since all need salvation. Before beginning to preach so furiously against equality, one ought to abolish the chief equaliser — death. Nietzsche’s polemic against Christianity is remarkably shallow, and his pretension to be c antichrist ’ would be extremely comical had it not ended in such tragedy . 1 The cult of natural strength and beauty is not directly opposed to Christianity, and it is not Christianity that makes it void, but its own inherent weakness. Christianity does not by any means reject strength and beauty, but it is not satisfied with the strength of a dying invalid or the beauty of a decomposing corpse. Chris- tianity has never preached hostility to or contempt for strength, grandeur, or beauty as such. All Christian souls, beginning with the first of them, rejoiced at having had revealed to them the in- finite source of all that is truly strong and beautiful, and at being saved by it from subjection to the false power and grandeur of the powerless and unlovely elements of the world. “ My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour. 1 It will be remembered that after passing through a mania of greatness this un- fortunate writer fell into complete idiocy. xx ii THE JUSTIFICATION OF THE GOOD . . . For He that is mighty hath done to me great things ; and holy is His name. . . . He hath shewed strength with his arm ; He hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree. He hath filled the hungry with good things, and the rich He hath sent empty away.” It is obvious that the con- tempt here is only for the false, imaginary strength and wealth, and that humility is not the absolute ideal or the final end but only the necessary and the right way to heights unattainable to the proud. Strength and beauty are divine, but not in themselves : there is a strong and beautiful Deity whose strength is never exhausted and whose beauty never dies, for in Him strength and beauty are inseparable from the good. No one worships impotence and ugliness ; but some believe in the eternal strength and beauty which are conditioned by the good and which actually liberate their bearers and worshippers from the power of death and corruption, while others extol strength and beauty taken in the abstract and fictitious. The first doctrine may be waiting for its final victory in the future, but this does not make things any better for the second ; it is con- quered already, it is always being conquered — it dies with every death and is buried in all the cemeteries. Ill The pessimism of false philosophers and of genuine suicides inevitably leads us to recognise that life has a meaning. The cult of strength and beauty inevitably shows that that meaning is not to be found in strength and beauty as such, but only as conditioned by the triumphant good. The meaning of life is in the good ; but this opens the way for new errors in the definition of what precisely we are to understand by the good. At first sight there appears to be a sure and simple way of PREFACE xxiii avoiding any errors in this connection. If, it will be urged, the meaning of life is the good, it has revealed itself to us already and does not wait for any definition on our part. All we have to do is to accept it with love and humility, and subordinate to it our existence and our individuality, in order to make them rational. The universal meaning of life or the inner relation of separate entities to the great whole cannot have been invented by us ; it was given from the first. The firm foundations of the family have been laid down from all eternity ; the family by a living, personal bond connects the present with the past and the future ; the fatherland widens our mind and gives it a share in the glorious traditions and aspirations of the soul of the nation ; the Church, by connecting both our personal and our national life with what is absolute and eternal, finally liberates us from the limitations of a cramped existence. What, then, is there to trouble about ? Live in the life of the whole, widen on all sides the limits of your small self, ‘take to heart’ the interests of others and the interest of all, be a good member of the family, a zealous patriot, a loyal son of the Church, and you will know the good meaning of life in practice and have no need to seek for it and look for its defini- tion. There is an element of truth in this view, but it is only the beginning of truth. It is impossible to stop at this — the case is not so simple as it looks. Had life with its good meaning assumed at once, from all eternity, one unchanging and abiding form, then there would certainly be nothing to trouble about. There would be no prob- lem for the intellect, but only a question for the will — to accept or unconditionally to reject that which has been unconditionally given. This was precisely, as I understand it, the position of one of the spirits of light in the first act of the creation of the world. But our human position is less fateful and more complex. We know that the historical forms of the Good which are given to us do not form such a unity that we could either accept or reject them as a whole. We know also that these forms and principles xxiv THE JUSTIFICATION OF THE GOOD of life did not drop down ready made from heaven but were developed in time and on earth. And knowing that they had become what they are, we have no rational ground whatever for affirming that they are finally and wholly fixed, and that what is given at the moment is entirely completed and ended. But if it is not ended, it is for us to carry on the work. In the times prior to ours the higher forms of life — now the holy heritage of the ages — did not come to be of themselves but were evolved through men, through their thought and action, through their intellectual and moral work. Since the historical form of the eternal good is not one and unchanging, the choice has to be made between many different things, and this cannot be done without the critical work of thought. It must have been ordained by God Himself that man should have no external support, no pillow for his reason and conscience to rest on, but should ever be awake and standing on his own legs. “What is man, that Thou art mindful of him ? and the son of man, that Thou visitest him ? ” Piety itself forbids us to despise in ourselves and in others that which God Himself respects, for the sake of which He remembers and visits us — namely, the inner, unique, and invaluable dignity of man’s reason and conscience. And those who are guilty of such contempt and seek to replace the inner standard of truth by an external one, suffer natural retribution in the fatal failure of their attempt. The concrete, clear, and consistent minds among them — minds that cannot be content with vague phrases — accomplish with remarkable rapidity a direct descent from the certain to the doubtful, from the doubt- ful to the false, and from the false to the absurd. “ God,” they argue, “manifests His will to man externally through the authority of the Church ; the only true Church is our Church, its voice is the voice of God ; the true representatives of our Church are the clergy, hence their voice is the voice of God ; the true representative of the clergy for each individual is his confessor ; therefore all questions of faith and conscience ought PREFACE XXV in the last resort to be decided for each by his confessor.” It all seems clear and simple. The only thing to be arranged is that all confessors should say the same thing, or that there should be one confessor only — omnipresent and immortal. Otherwise, the difference of opinion among many changing confessors may lead to the obviously impious view that the voice of God contradicts itself. As a matter of fact, if this individual or collective repre- sentative of external authority derives his significance merely from his official position, all persons in the same position have the same authority which is rendered void by their contradicting one another. And if, on the other hand, one or some of them derive their superior authority in my eyes from the fact of my confidence in them, it follows that I myself am the source and the creator of my highest authority, and that I submit to my own arbitrary will alone and find in it the meaning of life. This is the inevitable result of seeking at all costs an external support for reason, and of taking the absolute meaning of life to be some- thing that is imposed upon man from without. The man who wants to accept the meaning of life on external authority ends by taking for that meaning the absurdity of his own arbitrary choice. There must be no external, formal relation between the individual and the meaning of his life. The ex- ternal authority is necessary as a transitory stage, but it must not be preserved for ever and regarded as an abiding and final norm. The human ego can only expand by giving inner heartfelt re- sponse to what is greater than itself, and not by rendering merely formal submission to it, which after all really alters nothing. IV Although the good meaning of life is greater than and prior to any individual man, it cannot be accepted as something ready made or taken on trust from some external authority. It must be understood by the man himself and be made his own through xxv i THE JUSTIFICATION OF THE GOOD faith, reason, and experience. This is the necessary condition of a morally-worthy existence. When, however, this necessary subjective condition of the good and rational life is taken to be its essence and purpose, the result is a new moral error, namely, the rejection of all historical and collective manifestations and forms of the good, of everything except the inner moral activities and states of the individual. This moral amorphism or subjectivism is the direct opposite of the doctrine of the conservative practical humility just referred to. That doctrine affirmed that life and reality in their given condition are wiser and better than man, that the historical forms which life assumes are in themselves good and wise, and that all man has to do is reverently to bow down before them and to seek in them the absolute rule and authority for his personal existence. Moral amorphism, on the contrary, reduces everything to the subjective side, to our own self-consciousness and self-activity. The only life for us is our own mental life ; the good meaning of life is to be found solely in the inner states of the individual and in the actions and rela- tions which directly and immediately follow therefrom. This inner meaning and inner good is naturally inherent in every one, but it is crushed, distorted, and made absurd and evil by the different historical developments and institutions such as the state, the Church, and civilisation in general. If every one’s eyes were open to the true state of things, people would be easily persuaded to renounce these disastrous perversions of human nature which are based in the long run upon compulsory organisations, such as the law, the army, etc. All these institutions are kept up by intentional and evil deceit and violence on the part of the minority, but their existence chiefly depends upon the lack of understanding and self-deception of the majority which, besides, employ various artificial means for blunting their reason and con- science — wine, tobacco, etc. Men, however, are beginning to realise the error of their ways, and when they finally give up their present views and change their conduct, all evil forms of human PREFACE XXVI 1 relations will fall to the ground ; evil will disappear as soon as men cease to resist it by force, and the moral good will be spontaneously manifested and realised among the formless mass of 4 tramping ’ saints. In its rejection of different institutions moral amorphism for- gets one institution which is rather important — namely, death, and it is this oversight which alone renders the doctrine plausible. For if the preachers of moral amorphism were to think of death they would have to affirm one of two things : either that with the abolition of the law courts, armies, etc., men will cease to die, or that thegood meaning of life,incompatiblewith political kingdoms, is quite compatible with the kingdom of death. The dilemma is inevitable, and both alternatives to it are equally absurd. It is clear that this doctrine, which says nothing about death, contains it in itself. It claims to be the rehabilitation of true Christianity. It is obvious, however, both from the historical and from the psychological point of view, that the Gospel did not overlook death. Its message was based in the first place upon the resurrec- tion of one as an accomplished fact, and upon the future resurrec- tion of all as a certain promise. Universal resurrection means the creation of a perfect form for all that exists. It is the ultimate expression and realisation of the good meaning of the universe, and is therefore the final end of history. In recognising the good meaning of life but rejecting all its objective forms, moral amorphism must regard as senseless the whole history of the world and humanity, since it entirely consists in evolving new forms or life and making them more perfect. There is sense in rejecting one form of life for the sake of another and a more perfect one, but there is no meaning in rejecting form as such. Yet such rejection is the logical consequence of the anti-historical view. If we absolutely reject the forms of social, political, and religious life, evolved by human history, there can be no ground for recog- nising the organic forms worked out by the history of nature or by the world process, of which the historical process is the direct xxviii THE JUSTIFICATION OF THE GOOD and inseparable continuation. Why should my animal body be more real, rational, and holy than the body of my nation ? It will be said that the body of a people does not exist, any more than its soul, that the idea of a social collective organism is merely a metaphor for expressing the totality of distinct individuals. If, however, this exclusively mechanical point of view be once adopted, we are bound to go further still and say that in reality there is no individual organism and no individual soul, and that what exists are merely the different combinations of elementary particles of matter, devoid of all qualitative content. If the prin- ciple of form be denied, we are logically bound to give up the attempt to understand and to recognise either the historical or the organic life or any existence whatever, for it is only pure nothing that is entirely formless and unconditional. V I have indicated two extreme moral errors that are contra- dictory of one another. One is the doctrine of the self-effacement of the human personality before the historical forms of life recog- nised as possessing external authority, — the doctrine of passive submission or practical quietism ; the other is the doctrine of the self-affirmation of the human personality against all historical forms and authorities — the doctrine of formlessness and anarchy. The common essence of the two extreme views, that in which, in spite of the opposition between them, they agree, will no doubt disclose to us the source of moral errors in general, and will save us from the necessity of analysing the particular varieties of moral falsity which may be indefinite in number. The two opposed views coincide in the fact that neither of them take the good in its essence, or as it is in itself but connect it with acts and relations which may be either good or evil accord- ing to their motive and their end. In other words, they take something which is good, but which may become evil, and they PREFACE XXIX put it in the place of the Good itself, treating the conditioned as the unconditional. Thus, for instance, it is a good thing and a moral duty to submit to national and family traditions and institutions in so far as they express the good or give a definite form to my right relation to God, men, and the world. If, however, this condition is forgotten, if the conditional duty is taken to be absolute and ‘ the national interest ’ is put in the place of God’s truth, the good may become evil and a source of evil. It is easy in that case to arrive at the monstrous idea recently put forth by a French minister: “It is better to execute twenty innocent men than to attack ( porter atteinte ) the authority of a national institution.” Take another instance. Suppose that in- stead of paying due respect to a council of bishops or to some other ecclesiastical authority, as a true organ of the collective organisation of piety, from which I do not separate myself, — 1 submit to it unconditionally, without going into the case for myself. I assume that this particular council as such is an unfailing authority, that is, I recognise it in an external way. And then it turns out that the council to which I submitted was the Robber Council of Ephesus, or something of the kind, and that owing to my wrong and uncalled-for submission to the formal expression of the supposed will of God, I have myself suddenly become a rebellious heretic. Once more evil has come out of the good. Take a third instance. Not trusting the purity of my conscience and the power of my intellect, I entrust both my conscience and reason to a person vested with divine authority and give up reasoning and willing for myself. One would think nothing could be better. But my confessor proves to be a wolf in sheep’s clothing, and instils in me pernicious thoughts and evil rules. Once more, the conditional good of humility, accepted uncon- ditionally, becomes an evil. Such are the results of the erroneous confusion of the good itself with the particular forms in which it is manifested. The opposite error, which limits the nature of the good by rejecting xxx THE JUSTIFICATION OF THE GOOD the historical forms of its expression, comes to the same thing. In the first case the forms or institutions are taken to be the absolute good, which does not correspond to truth and leads to evil. In the second case these forms and institutions are un- conditionally rejected, and therefore are recognised as uncon- ditionally evil, which is again contrary to the truth, and can- not therefore lead to anything good. The first maintain, for instance, that the will of God is revealed to us through the priest only ; the second affirm that this never happens, that the Supreme will cannot speak to us through the priest, but is revealed solely and entirely in our own consciousness. It is obvious, however, that in both cases the will of God has been left out of account and replaced, in the first instance, by the priest, and in the second by the self-affirming ego. And yet one would think there could be no difficulty in understanding that once the will of God is admitted its expression ought not to be restricted to or ex- hausted by the deliverances either of the inner consciousness or of the priest. The will of God may speak both in us and in him, and its only absolute and necessary demand is that we should in- wardly conform to it and take up a good or right attitude to everything, including the priest, and indeed putting him before other things for the sake of what he represents. Similarly, when the first say that the practical good of life is wholly contained in the nation and the state, and the second declare the nation and the state to be a deception and an evil, it is obvious that the first put into the place of the absolute good its conditional manifesta- tions in the nation and the state, and the second limit the absolute good by rejecting its historical forms. In their view the rejection is unconditional, and the good is conditioned by it. But it ought to be obvious that the true good in this sphere depends for us solely upon our just and good relation to the nation and to the state , upon the consciousness of our debt to them, upon the recognition of all that they have contained in the past and contain now, and of what they must still acquire before they PREFACE XXXI can become in the full sense the means of embodying the good that lives in humanity. It is possible for us to take up this just attitude to the Church, the nation, and the state, and thus to render both ourselves and them more perfect ; we can know and love them in their true sense, in God’s way. Why, then, should we distort this true sense by unconditional worship, or, worse still, by unconditional rejection ? There is no reason why, instead of doing rightful homage to the sacred forms, and neither separating them from, nor confusing them with, their content, we should pass from idolatry to iconoclasm, and from it to a new and worse idolatry. There is no justification for these obvious distortions of the truth, these obvious deviations from the right way. It is as clear as day that the only thing which ought to be unconditionally accepted is that which is intrinsically good in itself, and the only thing which ought to be rejected is that which is wholly and essentially evil, while all other things ought to be either accepted or rejected according to their actual relation to this inner essence of good or evil. It is clear that if the good exists it must possess its own inner definitions and attributes, which do not finally depend upon any historical forms and institutions, and still less upon the rejection of them. The moral meaning of life is originally and ultimately deter- mined by the good itself, inwardly accessible to us through our reason and conscience in so far as these inner forms of the good are freed by moral practice from slavery to passions and from the limitations of personal and collective selfishness. This is the ultimate court of appeal for all external forms and events. “ Know ye not that we shall judge angels ? ” St. Paul writes to the faithful. And if even the heavenly things are subject to our judgment, this is still more true of all earthly things. Man is in principle or in his destination an unconditional inner form of the good as an uncon- ditional content ; all else is conditioned and relative. The good as such is not conditioned by anything, but itself conditions all xxxii THE JUSTIFICATION OF THE GOOD things, and is realised through all things. In so far as the good is not conditioned by anything, it is pure ; in so far as it con- ditions all things, it is all-embracing ; and in so far as it is realised through all things, it is all-powerful. If the good were not pure, if it were impossible in each practical question to draw an absolute distinction between good and evil, and in each particular case to say jw or «45 146 150 152 *53 xlviii THE JUSTIFICATION OF THE GOOD XIV. Kant’s religious postulates ill-founded. — Reality of the super-human good, proved by the moral growth of humanity CHAPTER II The Unconditional Principle of Morality. I. Morality and the world of fact. — In shame man actually separates himself off from material nature ; in pity he actually manifests his essential connection with and similarity to other living beings ....... II. In religious feeling the Deity is experienced as the actuality of the perfect good ( = happiness) unconditionally and entirely realised in itself. — The general basis of religion is the living experience of the actual presence of the Deity, of the One which embraces all (explanation) ...... III. The reality of God is not a deduction from religious ex- perience but its immediate content— that which is experienced. — Analysis of this content, as of a given relation of man to God, from the point of view of (i) the difference between them (‘the dust of the earth’ in us) ; (2) their ideal connection (‘the image of God ’ in us) ; and (3) their real connection (‘ the likeness of God ’ in us). — The complete religious relation is logically resolvable into three moral categories: (1) imperfection in us; (2) perfection in God ; (3) attaining perfection as the task of our life IV. The psychological confirmation : ‘joy in the Holy Spirit’ as the highest expression of religion. — The formally moral aspect of the religious relation. — The duty ‘ to be perfect,’ its ideal exten- sion and practical significance — ‘ become perfect ’ . V. Three kinds of perfection : (1) that which unconditionally is in God ( actus purus ) ; (2) that which potentially is in the soul ; (3) that which actually comes to be in the history of the world. — Proof of the rational necessity of the process. A mollusc or a sponge cannot express human thought and will, and a biological process is necessary for creating a more perfect organism ; in like manner the supreme thought and will (the Kingdom of God) cannot be revealed among semi -animals, and requires the historical process of making the forms of life more perfect ........ VI. The necessity of the universal process which follows from the unconditional principle of the good. — The world as a system of preliminary material conditions for the realisation of the kingdom of ends. — The moral freedom of man as the final condition of that realisation .... . . PAGE l 5 6 160 161 164 1 66 168 170 CONTENTS xlix VII. The demands of religious morality : ‘ have God in you ’ and ‘ regard everything in God’s way.’ — God’s relation to evil. — The full form of the categorical imperative as the expression of the unconditional principle of morality . . . 173 VIII. The higher degrees of morality do not abolish the lower, but when being realised in history presuppose them and are based upon them. — Pedagogical aspect of the matter . . .174 IX. Natural altruism becomes deeper, higher, and wider in virtue of the unconditional principle of morality. — The determining power of that principle in relation to collective historical institu- tions intended for serving the good. — Our highest duty is not to serve these institutions uncritically (since they may fail to fulfil their destination), but to help them to serve' the good or, if they swerve from the right course, to point out their true duties . .176 X. When man’s relation to the Deity is raised to the level of absolute consciousness, the preserving feeling of continence (shame, conscience, fear of God) is finally seen to safeguard not the relative but the absolute dignity of man — his ideal perfection which is to be realised. — Ascetic morality is now seen to have a positive eschatological motive, namely, to re-create our bodily nature and make it the destined abode of the Holy Spirit . . .178 CHAPTER III The Reality of the Moral Order. I. Since the reality of the spiritual is inseparable from the reality of the material, the process — to be considered by moral philosophy — whereby the universe attains perfection, being the process of manifestation of God in man, must necessarily be the process of manifestation of God in matter. — The series of the concrete grades of being most clearly determined and characteristic from the point of view of moral purpose realised in the world- process — the five ‘kingdoms’: the mineral or inorganic, the vegetable, the animal, the naturally human, and the spiritually human or the kingdom of God. — Description and definition of them. — Their external interrelation : inorganic substances nourish the life of plants, animals exist at the expense of the vegetable kingdom, men at the expense of animals, and the kingdom of God consists of men (explanations). — The general character of the ascent : just as a living organism consists of chemical substance which has ceased to be mere substance, so natural humanity con- sists of animals who have ceased to be mere animals, and the king- dom of God consists of men who have ceased to be merely human 1 THE JUSTIFICATION OF THE GOOD PAGE but have entered into a new and higher plan of existence where their purely human objects become the means and instruments of another, final purpose . . . . . .180 II. The stone exists ; the plant exists and lives ; the animal, in addition to this, is conscious of its life in its concrete states and correlations, the natural man, existing, living, and being conscious of his actual life, comes, besides, to be gradually aware of its general meaning according to ideas ; the sons of God are called to realise this meaning in all things to the end (explanation). — The development of the human kingdom in the ancient world. — The real limit — a living man-god (apotheosis of the Caesars). — As in the animal kingdom the appearance of the anthropomorphic ape anticipates the appearance of the real man, so in natural humanity the deified Caesar is the anticipation of the true God-man . 183 III. The God-man as the first and essential manifestation of the kingdom of God. — Reasons for believing in the historical existence of Christ (as the God-man) from the point of view of the evolution of the world rationally understood . . . 186 IV. Positive unity of the world-process in its three aspects : (1) the lower kingdoms form part of the moral order as the necessary conditions of its realisation ; (2) each of the lower forms strives towards a correspondingly higher form ; (3) each of the higher forms physically (and psychologically) includes the lower. — The process of gathering the universe together. — The task of the natural man and humanity is to gather together the universe in idea ; the task of the God-man and the divine humanity is to gather the universe together in reality . . . .188 V. Positive connection between the spiritual and the natural man, between grace and natural goodness. — Historical confirmation of the essential truth of Christianity . . . .190 VI. Christ as the perfect individual. — Reason why He first appeared in the middle of history and not at the end of it . 193 VII. The perfect moral order presupposes the moral freedom of each person, and true freedom is acquired by a finite spirit through experience only : hence the necessity of historical develop- ment after Christ. — The ultimate significance of that development. — The actual task morality has before it inevitably brings us into the realm of conditions which determine the concrete historical existence of society or of the collective man . . .193 CONTENTS li PART III THE GOOD THROUGH HUMAN HISTORY CHAPTER I PAGE The Individual and Society. I. The separation between the individual and society as such is nothing but a morbid illusion (explanation) . . .199 II. Human personality as such, in virtue of the reason and will inherent in it, is capable of realising unlimited possibilities, in other words, it is a special form with infinite content. — The chimera of self-sufficient personality and the chimera of impersonal society. — Society is involved in the very definition of personality as a rationally knowing and morally active force, which is only possible in social existence (proofs). — Society is the objectively realisable content of the rational and moral personality — not its external limit, but its essential complement. — It embodies the indivisible wholeness of universal life, partly realised already in the past (common tradition), partly realisable in the present (social service) and anticipating the perfect realisation in the future (the common ideal). — To these abiding moments of the individually social life there correspond three main stages in the historical development : the tribal (past) ; the nationally- political (present) ; and the world-wide (future). — A clear distinc- tion between these grades and aspects of life actually shows itself in history as the successive transformation of one into another and not as the exclusive presence of any one of these forms ........ 200 III. Society is the completed or the expanded individual, and the individual is the compressed or concentrated society. — The historical task of morality lies not in creating a solidarity between the individual and society but in rendering this solidarity conscious, in transforming it from involuntary into voluntary, so that each person should understand, accept, and carry out the common task as his own ....... 203 IV. True morality is a right interaction between the individual and his environment. — Man is from the first an individually- social being, and the whole history is a process of gradually deepening, widening, and raising to a higher level this two-sided, individually-social life. Of these two indivisible and correlative terms the individual is the movable, the dynamic element, Hi THE JUSTIFICATION OF THE GOOD PAGE while society is the inert, conservative, and static element of history.— There can be no opposition of principle between the individual and society but only between the different stages of the individually-social development ..... 204 V. The clan (in the wide sense) as the rudimentary embodi- ment of morality as a whole (religious, altruistic, and ascetic), or as the realisation of the individual human dignity in the narrowest and most fundamental social sphere (explanations and proofs) ........ 206 VI. The moral content of the clan life is eternal, the form of the clan is broken up by the historical process. — The general course of this breaking up. — Transition from the clan through the tribe to the nation and the state. — The profound significance of the word ‘ fatherland ’ ...... 207 VII. When a new and wider social whole (the fatherland) is formed, the clan becomes the family (explanation). — The signifi- cance of the individual element in the transition from the clan to the state . . . . . . .210 VIII. Every social group has only a relative and conditional claim on man. — Social organisation, even of a comparatively high type — e.g. the state — has no right at all over the eternal moral content which is present even in the relatively lower forms of life — in the clan life, for instance (detailed explanation out of Sophocles’s Antigone ) . . . . . .213 CHAPTER II The Chief Moments in the Historical Development of THE InDIVIDUALLY-SoCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS. I. Moral progress (on its religious and altruistic side) corre- sponds to the social progress (explanatory remarks) . .220 II. Achievements of civilisation as a condition of progress for ascetic morality, which is not the work of individuals taken as such, but of man as an individually-social being (historical ex- planation and confirmation). — Conditions which render conscious- ness of spiritual independence possible . . . 222 III. Recognition by the human personality of its purely negative or formal infinity without any definite content. — The religion of Awakening : “ I am above all this ; all this is empty .” — Buddhist confession of the ‘ three treasures ’ : I believe in Buddha, I believe in the doctrine, I believe in the community ” — i.e. all is illusion with the exception of three things worthy of belief : the man who is spiritually awake, the words of awakening, and the brotherhood of the awakened. — Buddhism as the first extant CONTENTS liii stage of human universalism rising above the exclusive nationally- political structure of pagan religion and society. — The moral essence of the Buddhist doctrine : reverence for the first awakened, the commandment of will-lessness and of universal benevolence . IV. Criticism of Buddhism : its inner contradictions . V. Final definition of the Buddhist doctrine as religious and moral nihilism (in the strict sense), which denies in principle every object and every motive for reverence, pity, and spiritual struggle VI. Logical transition from Hindu nihilism to Greek idealism. — Greeks no less than Hindus felt the emptiness of sensuous being : the pessimism of Greek poetry and philosophy. — But from sensuous emptiness Greeks passed to the intelligible fulness of the Ideas. — Statement of the Ideal theory (historical instances and explanations) ....... VII. The impossibility of consistently contrasting the two worlds. — Three relative and analogous wrongs (anomalies) of the phenomenal world : the psychological (the subjection of reason to passions), the social (the subjection of the wise man to the mob), and the physical (the subjection of the living organic form to the inorganic forces of substance in death). — Idealism attempts to combat the first two anomalies but is blind and dumb to the third. — The whole of our world (not only the mental and the political but the physical as well) is in need of salvation, and the Saviour is not the Hindu ascetic or the Greek philosopher but the Jewish Messiah — not one who rejects life in the name of non-being or in the name of abstract Ideas, but one who makes life whole and raises it up for eternity ..... VIII. Comparison between Buddhism, Platonism, and Christi- anity : negative universalism, one-sided universalism, and positive, complete, or perfect universalism. — The weakness of Platonism from the moral point of view. — Preparatory significance of Buddh- ism and Platonism ; their fruitlessness when they are taken to be doctrines complete in themselves. — Christianity as an absolute event, an absolute promise , and an absolute task CHAPTER III Abstract Subjectivism in Morality. I. The erroneous view which denies as a matter of principle that morality has an objective task or is the work of the collective man. — Statement of the question . . . . . II. The insufficiency of morality as subjective feeling only. — Historical confirmation ...... III. The insufficiency of morality which addresses its demands to individuals only. — Historical confirmation PAGE 227 230 233 236 240 244 248 250 2 S4 liv THE JUSTIFICATION OF THE GOOD IV. The demand for organised morality (theoretical explana- tion). — The degree of the individual’s subordination to society must correspond to the degree to which society itself is subordinate to the moral good. Apart from its connection with the moral good, social environment has no claim whatever upon the individual. CHAPTER IV The Moral Norm of Social Life. I. The error of social realism, according to which social in- stitutions and interests have a supreme and decisive significance in themselves. — Man is not merely a social animal. — The concep- tion of a social being is poorer in intension but wider in extension than the conception of man. — Description of the social life of ants II. The unconditional value of the individual for society. — No man under any circumstances and for any reason may be regarded as merely a means or an instrument — neither for the good of another person, nor for the good of a group of persons, nor for the so-called ‘common good’ (explanations). — Religion, family, and property in relation to the unconditional moral norm III. Rights of man wrongly understood as the privilege of the one (eastern monarchies) or of the few (classical aristocracies) or of the many (democracies). — The three chief anomalies of the ancient society — the denial of human dignity to the external enemies, to slaves, and to criminals. — Progress of social morality in the consciousness of the ancient world. — The absolute affirma- tion of human dignity in Christianity . IV. The task of the present is to make all social institutions conformable to the unconditional moral norm and to struggle with the collective evil ...... CHAPTER V The National Question from the Moral Point of View. The collective evil as a threefold immoral relation : between different nations, between society and the criminal, between different classes of society ...... I. Nationalism and cosmopolitanism. — Moral weakness of nationalism ....... II. The absence of strictly national divisions in the ancient world. — Eastern monarchies and western city states did not coincide with nations (historical references) PAGE 258 261 264 268 272 276 277 279 CONTENTS III. Jews have never been merely a nation. — Christianity is not negative cosmopolitanism, but positive super-national and all-national universalism. It can as little demand absence of nationality as absence of individuality (explanation and his- torical instances) ....... IV. Universalism of new European nations. — Historical survey : Italy, Spain, England, France, Germany, Poland, Russia, Holland, Sweden . . ... V. Deduction from the historical survey : a nation as a parti- cular form of existence derives its meaning and its inspiration solely from its connection and its harmony with what is universal. — Moral weakness of cosmopolitanism. — Positive duty involved in the national question : love (in the ethical sense) all other nations as your own (explanation) . .... CHAPTER VI The Penal Question from the Moral Point of View. Statement of the question ..... I. To be ethically right the opposition to crime must give moral help to both parties. — The duty to defend the injured and to bring the injurer to reason. — The two prevalent erroneous doctrines deny either the one or the other aspect of the matter II. The conception of punishment as retribution. — Its root is in the custom of blood vengeance of the patriarchal stage. — The trans- formation of this custom into legal justice, and the transference of the duty of vengeance from the clan to the State . III. The genesis of legal justice is wrongly taken to be its moral justification. — Absurd arguments in favour of the savage conception of punishment as revenge or retribution .... IV. Immoral tendency to preserve cruel penalties. — Since the absurdity of retribution is universally recognised, cruel penalties are justified upon the principle of intimidation. — The essential immorality of this principle. — Fatal inconsistency of its adherents . V. The chaotic state of modern justice. — The doctrine of non- resistance to evil as applied to the penal question. — Detailed analysis and criticism of this doctrine .... VI. The moral principle admits neither of punishment as intimidating retribution, nor of an indifferent relation to crime and of allowing to commit crimes unhindered. — It demands real opposi- tion to crime as a just means of active pity, which legally and compulsorily limits certain external manifestations of the evil will not only for the sake of the safety of the community and of its peaceful members, but also in the interest of the criminal himself. — lv PAGE 282 286 295 299 300 302 306 310 31 + lvi THE JUSTIFICATION OF THE GOOD PAGE Normal justice in dealing with crime must give, or at any rate aim at, equal realisation of three rights : of the right of the injured person to be protected, of the right of society to be safe, and of the right of the injurer to be brought to reason and reformed. — Temporary deprivation of liberty as the necessary preliminary con- dition for carrying out this task. — The consequences of the crime for the criminal must stand in a natural inner connection with his actual condition. — The necessity of reforming the penal laws in a corresponding way : ‘ conditional sentences ’ as the first step towards such reformation ....... 322 VII. The possibility of reforming the criminal ; the right and the duty of society to care about it. — The necessary reform of penal institutions ....... 324 CHAPTER VII The Economic Question from the Moral Point of View. I. The connection of criminality and national hostility with the economic conditions. — The simple nature of the economic problem. — Theoretically wrong solutions of it on the part of the orthodox economists and of the socialists . . . 326 II. Erroneous and immoral isolation of the economic sphere of relations as though it were independent of the moral conditions of human activity in general. — Free play of chemical processes can only take place in a dead and decomposing body, while in the living organism these processes are connected together and deter- mined by biological purposes. — There is not, and there never has been, in human society a stage so low that the material necessity for obtaining means of livelihood was not complicated by moral considerations (explanations) . . . . .327 III. In its economic life, too, society must be an organised realisation of the good. — The peculiarity and independence of the economic sphere lies not in the fact that it has inexorable laws of its own, but in the fact that from its very nature it presents a special and peculiar field for the application of the one moral law. — The ambiguous beginning and the bad end of socialism. — The principle of the St. Simonists : the rehabilitation of matter. — The true and important meaning of this principle : matter has a right to be spiritualised by man. — This meaning soon gave way to another : matter has the right to dominate man. — Gradual degenera- tion of socialism into economic materialism, which is inwardly and essentially identical with plutocracy (explanation) . . -332 IV. The true solution of the economic question is in man’s moral relation to material nature (earth), conditioned by his moral CONTENTS lvii PAGE relation to men and to God. — The commandment of labour : with effort to cultivate material nature for oneself and one’s own, for all humanity, and for the sake of the material nature itself. — The insuf- ficiency of the ‘ natural harmony ’ of personal interests. — Criticism of Bastiat’s doctrine . . . . . 336 V. The duty of society to recognise and to secure to each the right of worthy human existence. — The immorality of certain conditions of labour (instances, confirmations, and explanations) . 340 VI. The main conditions which render human relations in the sphere of material labour moral : (1) material wealth must not be recognised as the independent purpose of man’s economic activity ; (2) production must not be at the expense of the human dignity of the producers, and not a single one of them must become merely a means of production ; (3) man’s duties to the earth (material nature in general) must be recognised (explanations). — The rights of the earth. — Man’s triple relation to the material nature : (1) subjection to it; (2) struggle with it and its 'exploitation ; (3) looking after it for one’s own and its sake. — Without loving nature for its own sake one cannot organise the material life in a moral way. — The connection between moral relation to the external nature and the relation to one’s body ..... 345 VII. It is insufficient to study the producing and the material causes of labour. — Full definition of labour from the moral point of view : labour is the interrelation of men in the physical sphere, which interrelation must, in accordance with the moral law, secure to all and each the necessary means of existing worthily and of perfecting all sides of one’s being, and is finally destined to trans- form and spiritualise material nature .... 348 VIII. Analysis of the conception of property. — The relativity of its grounds ....... 349 IX. The right of each to earn sufficient wages and to save. — The normal origin of capital. — The right and the duty of society to limit the misuse of private property. — The striving of socialism for an undesirable extension of this public right and duty. — The moral meaning of the handed down or inherited (family) property. — The special significance of family inheritance with regard to landed property : it is necessary not to limit it, but, as far as possible, to secure it to each family. — Objections answered . 354 X. Exchange and fraud.- — Commerce as public service which cannot have private gain for its sole or even its main object. — The right and duty of society compulsorily to limit abuses in this sphere. — Transition to the morally-legal question . . . 358 lviii THE JUSTIFICATION OF THE GOOD CHAPTER VIII Morality and Legal Justice. PAGE I. The unconditional moral principle, as a commandment of or demand for perfection, contains in its very nature a recognition of the relative element in morality, namely, of the real conditions necessary for the attainment of perfection. — Comparative predomin- ance of this relative element constitutes the legal sphere of relations and comparative predominance of the unconditional side — the moral sphere in the strict sense . . . . .362 II. Alleged contradiction between legality and morality (examples and explanations) ..... 364. III. The different grades of moral and legal consciousness. — The unchangeable legal norms or the natural right. — Legal con- servatism. — Progress in legality or the steady approximation of the legal enactments to the norms of legality conformable to, though not identical with, the moral norms .... 365 IV. The close connection between morality and legal justice, vitally important for both sides. — Verbal and etymological con- firmation of it . . . . . . 367 V. Difference between legal and moral justice : (1) the un- limited character of the purely moral and the limited character of the legal demands — in this respect legal justice is the lowest limit or a definite minimum of morality ; (2) legal justice chiefly demands an objective realisation of this minimum of good, or the actual aboli- tion of a certain amount of evil ; (3) in demanding such realisation legal justice admits of compulsion ..... 369 VI. A general definition : legal justice is a compulsory demand for the realisation of a definite minimum of good, or for an order which does not allow of certain manifestations of evil. — The moral ground for this : interests of morality demand personal freedom as a condition of human dignity and moral perfection ; but man can exist and consequently be free and strive for perfection in society only ; moral interest, therefore, demands that the external manifestations of personal liberty should be consistent with the conditions of the existence of society, i.e. not with the ideal perfec- tion of some, but with the real security of all. — This security is not safeguarded by the moral law itself, since for immoral persons it does not exist, and is ensured by the compulsory juridical law which has force for the latter also . . . . .371 VII. Positive legal justice as the historically-movable definition of the necessary and compulsory balance between the two moral interests of personal liberty and of the common good. — The moral demand that each should he free to be immoral ; this freedom is CONTENTS lix secured by positive laws (explanations). — The necessary limit to the compulsion exercised by all collective organisations . .374 VIII. The legal view of crime .... 378 IX. From the very definition of legal justice it follows that the interest of the common good can in each case only limit personal liberty, but can never abolish it altogether. — Hence capital punish- ment and imprisonment for life is impermissible . . -379 X. The three essential characteristics of law (publicity, con- creteness, real applicability). — The sanction of the law. — Public authority. — The three kinds of authority (legislative, juridical, executive). — -The supreme authority. — The state as the embodiment of legal justice. — Limits to the legal organisation of humanity . 380 CHAPTER IX The Significance of War. I. Three questions are involved in the question of war : the generally moral, the historical, and the personally-moral. — The answer to the first question is indisputable : war is an anomaly or an evil ........ 385 II. War as a relative evil (explanations).— Transition to the question as to the historical meaning of war . . . 387 III. Wars between clans naturally led to treaties and agree- ments as guarantees of peace. — The formation of the state. — The organisation of war in the state as an important step towards the coming of peace. — ‘ The world empires ’ — their comparative char- acteristic. — Pax Romana. — Wars in which ancient history abounds increased the sphere of peace. — Military progress in the ancient world was at the same time a great social and moral progress, since it enormously decreased the proportion of lives sacrificed in war . 389 IV. Christianity has abolished war in principle ; but until this principle really enters human consciousness, wars are inevit- able, and may, in certain conditions, be the lesser evil, i.e. a relative good. — The Middle Ages. — In modern history three general facts are important with reference to the question of war: (1) Most nations have become independent political wholes or ‘perfect bodies ’ ; (2) international relations of all kinds have been de- veloped ; (3) European culture has spread throughout the globe (explanations). — The war-world of the future . . . 394 V. The general historical meaning of all wars is the struggle between Europe and Asia — first local and symbolical (the Trojan war), finally extending to the whole of the globe. — The end of external wars will make clear the great truth that external peace is lx THE JUSTIFICATION OF THE GOOD PAGE not as such a real good, but becomes a good only in connection with the inner (moral) regeneration of humanity . . . 399 VI. The subjectively moral attitude to war. — False identifica- tion of war and military service with murder. — War as the conflict between collective organisms (states) and their collective organs (armies) is not the affair of individual men who passively take part in it ; on their part possible taking of life is accidental only. — Refusal to perform military service required by the state is of necessity a greater moral evil, and is therefore impermissible. — Moral duty of the individual to take part in the defence of his country. — It is grounded on the unconditional principle of morality (explanatory instances). — Unquestionable dangers of militarism are not an argument against the necessity of armaments. — Biblical illustration ....... 402 VII. It is our positive duty not merely to defend or protect our fatherland, but also to bring it to greater perfection, which is inseparable from the general moral progress of humanity. — To approach a good and lasting peace one must act against the evil root of war, namely, against hostility and hatred between the parts of the divided humanity. — In history war has been the direct means of the external and the indirect means of the internal unification of humanity ; reason forbids us to throw up this means so long as it is necessary, and conscience commands us to strive that it should cease to be necessary, and that the natural organisation of humanity, divided into hostile parts, should actually become a moral or spiritual unity ........ 406 CHAPTER X The Moral Organisation of Humanity as a Whole. I. Differences between the natural and the moral human solid- arity, which Christianity puts before us as a historical task, de- manding that all should freely and consciously strive for perfection in the one good.- — The true subject of this striving is the individual man together voith and inseparably from the collective man.— -The three permanent embodiments of the subject striving for perfection, or the three natural groups which actually give completion to the in- dividual life : the family, the fatherland, humanity. — Corresponding to them in the historical order we have the three stages — the tribal, the nationally political, and the spiritually universal ; the latter may become actually real only on condition that the first two are spiritual- ised. — The concrete elements and forms of life as conditional data for the solution of an unconditional problem. — The given natural bond between three generations (grandparents, parents, children) must be transformed into the unconditionally moral one through the spiritualisation of the family religion, of marriage, and education . 409 CONTENTS lxi II. Homage paid to the forefathers. — Its eternal significance recognised even in the savage cults. — Christian modification of the ancient cult . . . . . . .411 III. Marriage. — It unites man with God through the present, just as religious regard for the forefathers unites man with God through the past. — In true marriage the natural sexual tie is not abolished but transubstantiated. — The necessary data for the moral problem of such transubstantiation are the natural elements of the sexual relation : (1) carnal desire ; (2) being in love ; (3) child- bearing. — Marriage remains the satisfaction of the sexual desire, but the object of that desire is no longer the satisfaction of the animal organism, but the restoration of the image of God in man. — Marriage as a form of asceticism, as holy exploit and martyrdom. — Child - bearing, unnecessary and impossible in a perfect marriage, is necessary and desirable in a marriage which strives after perfection ; it is a necessary consequence of the perfection not yet attained, and a natural means of attaining it in the future . 415 IV. The purpose of the bringing up of children in a spiritually organised family is to connect the temporary life of the new genera- tion with the eternal good, which is common to all generations, and restores their essential unity . . . . .418 V. True education must at one and the same time be both traditional and progressive. — Transferring to the new generation all the spiritual heritage of the past, it must at the same time develop in it the desire and the power to make use of this heritage as of a living moving power for a new approach to the supreme goal. — Fatal consequences of separating the two aspects. — The moral basis of education is to inspire the descendants with a living concern for the future of their ancestors (explanation). — Moral progress can only consist in carrying out further and better the duties which follow from tradition. — The supreme principle of pedagogy is the indis- soluble bond between generations which support one another in carrying out progressively the one common task of preparing for the manifestation of the kingdom of God and for universal resurrection 421 VI. The normal family is the immediate restoration of the moral wholeness of man in one essential respect — that of succession of generations (the order of temporal sequence). — This wholeness must be also restored in the wider order of coexistence — first of all within the limits of the nation or the fatherland.— In accordance with the nature of moral organisation, the nation does not abolish either the family or the individual, but fills them with a vital content in a definite national form, conditioned by language. —This form must be peculiar but not exclusive : the normal multiplicity of different languages does not necessitate their isolation and separateness. — The Babylonian principle of the division of humanity through identity in confusion and the Sion lxii THE JUSTIFICATION OF THE GOOD PAGE principle of gathering mankind together through unanimity in distinctness. — The true universal language means the community and understandability of many separate languages which, though divided, do not divide ...... VII. The unity of mankind. — All the grounds which justify us in speaking of the unity of a people have still greater force when applied to humanity. — The unity of origin ; the unity of language, irrespective of the number of different tongues ; the unity of universal history apart from which there can be no national history (proofs and explanations). — The indivisibility of the moral good. —The evil of exclusive patriotism. — Humanity as the subject of moral organisation. — Transition to the discussion of the universal forms of the moral order ...... VIII. The universal Church as the organisation of piety (explanation). — The essence of the Church is the unity and holiness of the Godhead in so far as it remains and positively acts in the world through humanity (or, what is the same thing, the Church is the creation gathered together in God). — The unity and holiness of the Church in the order of coexistence is its catholicity or whole- ness and, in the order of succession, is the apostolic succession. — Catholicity abolishes all divisions and separations, preserving all the distinctions and peculiarities ..... IX. Participation in the absolute content of life through the universal Church positively liberates and equalises all, and unites men in a perfect brotherhood which presupposes a perfect father- hood ........ X. The religious principle of fatherhood is that the spiritual life does not spring from ourselves . — Hence messengership or apostle- ship in contradistinction to imposture. — Christ ‘ sent of God ’ and doing the will of the Father who sent Him and not His own will is the absolute prototype of apostleship. — Its continuation in the Church : “ As my Father sent me, so I send you.” — Since filial relation is the prototype of piety, the only-begotten Son of God — the Son by pre-eminence — -being the embodiment of piety is the way, the truth, and the life of His Church, as of an organisation of piety in the world. — The way of piety is the way of hierarchy — it is from above (the significance of ordination and consecration). — The truth of the Church is not, at bottom, either scientific, or philosophical, or even theological, but simply contains the dogmas of piety ; the general meaning of the seven (Ecumenical Councils. — The life of piety ; the meaning of the seven sacraments XI. The question as to the relation of the Church to the state or the problem of the Christian state . — Important instance in the New Testament (the story of Cornelius the centurion) XII. Moral necessity of the state. — Explanations with regard to Christianity ....... 423 426 432 435 437 440 443 CONTENTS Ixiii XIII. The state as collectively -organised pity. — -Vladimir Monomakh and Dante (explanation) .... XIV. Analysis of the objection generally urged against the definition of the normal state ..... XV. Analysis of legal misunderstandings XVI. In addition to the general conservative task of every state — to preserve the essentials of common life, without which humanity could not exist — the Christian state has also a progressive task of improving the conditions of that life by furthering the free development of all human powers destined to bring about the coming of the kingdom of God (explanation) XVII. The normal relation between the Church and the state. — From the Christian (the divinely-human) point of view both the independent activity of man and his whole-hearted devotion to God are equally necessary ; but the two can only be combined if the two spheres of life (the religious and the political) and its two immediate motives (piety and pity) are clearly distinguished — corresponding to the difference in the immediate objects of action, the final purpose being one and the same. — Fatal consequences of the separation of the Church from the state and of either usurping the functions of the other. — The Christian rule of social progress consists in this, that the state should as little as possible coerce the inner moral life of man, leaving it to the free spiritual activity of the Church, and at the same time secure as certainly and as widely as possible the external conditions in which men can live worthily and become more perfect .... XVIII. The special moral task of the economic life is to be the collectively-organised abstinence from the evil carnal passions, in order that the material nature — individual and universal — could be transformed into a free form of the human spirit. — The separation of the economic life from its object at the present time and historical explanation of that fact .... XIX. Moral significance of the law of conservation of energy. ■ — The value of the collectively-organised abstinence depends upon the success of the collective organisations of piety and pity. — The unity of the three tasks ...... XX. Individual representatives of the moral organisation of humanity. — The three supreme callings — that of the priest, the king, and the prophet. — Their distinctive peculiarities and mutual dependence ....... CONCLUSION PAGE 447 449 45i 455 457 460 465 467 The Final Definition of the Moral Significance of Life and the Transition to Theoretical Philosophy 47o INTRODUCTION MORAL PHILOSOPHY AS A SCIENCE I The subject-matter of moral philosophy is the idea of the good ; the purpose of this philosophical inquiry is to make clear the content that reason, under the influence of experience, puts into this idea, and thus to give a definite answer to the essential question as to what ought to be the object or the meaning of our life. The capacity of forming rudimentary judgments of value is undoubtedly present in the higher animals, who, in addition to pleasant and unpleasant sensations , possess more or less complete ideas of desirable or undesirable objects. Man passes beyond single sensations and particular images and rises to a universal rational concept or idea of good and evil. The universal character of this idea is often denied, but this is due to a misunderstanding. It is true that every conceivable kind of iniquity has at some time and in some place been regarded as a good. But at the same time there does not exist, nor ever has existed, a people which did not attribute to its idea of the good (whatever that idea might be) the character of being a universal and abiding norm and ideal . 1 A Red Indian who considers it a virtue to scalp as many human heads as possible, takes it to be good and meritorious, not for one day merely but 1 In these preliminary remarks, which are merely introductory, I intentionally take the idea of the good in its original complexity, i.e. not merely in the sense of the moral worth of our actions, but also in the sense of objects which are generally regarded as desirable to possess or to enjoy (“ all one’s goods,” etc.). Some doctrines deny that there is any such distinction, and I cannot presuppose it before the matter has been subjected to a philosophical analysis. I B 2 THE JUSTIFICATION OF THE GOOD for all his life, and not for himself alone, but for every decent man. An Esquimo whose idea of the highest good is the greatest possible supply of putrid seal and cod-fish fat, undoubtedly regards his ideal as of universal application ; he is convinced that what is good for him is also good for all times and all people, and even for the world beyond the grave ; and if he be told of barbarians to whom putrid fat is disgusting, he will either dis- believe that they exist or will deny that they are normal. In the same way, the famous Hottentot who maintained that it is good when he steals a number of cows and bad when they are stolen from him , did not intend this ethical principle for himself only, but meant that for every man the good consisted in successful appropriation of other people’s property, and evil in the loss of one’s own. Thus even this extremely imperfect application of the idea of the good undoubtedly involves its formal universality, i.e. its affirmation as a norm for all time and for all human beings, although the content of the supposed norm (i.e. the particular answers to the question, What is good ?) does not in any way correspond to this formal demand, being merely accidental, particular, and crudely material in character. Of course the moral ideas even of the lowest savage are not limited to scalped heads and stolen cows : the same Iroquois and Hottentots manifest a certain degree of modesty in sexual relations, feel pity for those dear to them, are capable of admiring other people’s superiority. But as long as these rudimentary manifestations of true morality are found side by side with savage and inhuman demands, or even give precedence to the latter, as long as ferocity is prized above modesty, and rapacity above compassion, it has to be admitted that the idea of the good, though preserving its universal form, is devoid of its true content. The activity of reason which gives rise to ideas is inherent in man from the first, just as an organic function is inherent in the organism. It cannot be denied that alimentary organs and their functions are innate in the animal ; but no one takes this to mean that the animal is born with the food already in its mouth. In the same way, man is not born with ready-made ideas, but only with a ready-made faculty of being conscious of ideas. MORAL PHILOSOPHY AS A SCIENCE 3 The rational consciousness in virtue of which man possesses from the first a universal idea of the good as an absolute norm, in its further development gradually supplies this formal idea with a content worthy of it. It seeks to establish such moral demands and ideals as would in their very essence be universal and necessary, expressing the inner development of the universal idea of the good and not merely its external application to particular material motives foreign to it. When this work of human consciousness developing a true content of morality, attains a certain degree of clearness and distinctness, and is carried on in a systematic way, it becomes moral philosophy or ethics. The different ethical systems and theories exhibit various degrees of completeness and self-consistency. II In its essence moral philosophy is most intimately connected with religion, and in its relation to knowledge with the theoretical philosophy. It cannot at this stage be explained what the nature of the connection is, but it is both possible and necessary to explain what it is not. It must not be conceived of as a one- sided dependence of ethics on positive religion or on speculative philosophy — a dependence which would deprive the moral sphere of its special content and independent significance. The view which wholly subordinates morality and moral philosophy to the theoretical principles of positive religion or philosophy is extremely prevalent in one form or another. The erroneousness of it is all the more clear to me because I myself at one time came very near it, if indeed I did not share it altogether. Here are some of the considerations which led me to abandon this point of view ; I give only such as can be understood before entering upon an exposition of moral philosophy itself. The opponents of independent morality urge that “only true religion can give man the strength to realise the good ; but the whole value of the good is in its realisation ; therefore apart from true religion ethics has no significance.” That true religion does give its true followers the strength to realise the good, cannot be doubted. But the one-sided assertion that such strength is given by religion alone , though it is supposed to be 4 THE JUSTIFICATION OF THE GOOD made in the higher interests of religion, in truth, directly contradicts the teaching of the great defender of faith, St. Paul, who admits, it will be remembered, that the heathen can do good according to the natural law. “For when the Gentiles,” he writes, “which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves : which show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the meanwhile accusing or else excusing one another.” 1 In order to receive the power for realising the good, it is necessary to have a conception of the good — otherwise its realisations will be merely mechanical. And it is not true that the whole value of good is in the fact of its realisation : the way in which it is realised is also important. An unconscious automatic accomplishment of good actions is below the dignity of man and consequently does not express the human good. The human realisation of the good is necessarily conditioned by a consciousness of it, and there can be consciousness of the good apart from true religion as is shown both by history and by everyday experience, and confirmed by the testimony of so great a champion of the faith as St. Paul. 2 Further, though piety requires us to admit that the power for the realisation of the good is given from God, it would be impious to limit the Deity with regard to the means whereby this power can be communicated. According to the witness both of experience and of the Scriptures, such means are not limited to positive religion, for even apart from it some men are conscious of the good, and practise it. So that from the religious point of view also, we must simply accept this as true, and consequently admit that in a certain sense morality is independent of the positive religion and moral philosophy of a creed. 3 1 "0 to.v yap Hdvr] ra. pr) vbpov Uxovra v