ZEfoe xaniversitp of Gbicago FOUNDED BY JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER THE CONCEPTION OF A KINGDOM OF ENDS IN AUGUSTINE, AQUINAS, AND LEIBNIZ A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF ARTS AND LITERATURE IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (DEPARTMENT OF philosophy) BY ' ELLA HARRISON STOKES THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS CHICAGO, ILLINOIS THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS CHICAGO, ILLINOIS Bgents THE BAKER & TAYLOR COMPANY NEW YORK THE CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS LONDON AND EDINBURGH Ube XHnfversitE of Cbicago FOUNDED BY JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER THE CONCEPTION OF A KINGDOM OF ENDS IN AUGUSTINE, AQUINAS, AND LEIBNIZ A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF ARTS AND LITERATURE IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (department of philosophy) BY ELLA HARRISON STOKES THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS CHICAGO, ILLINOIS c*vv Copyright 1912 By The University of Chicago All Rights Reserved Published November 1012 The UniTeralfcy 6 DEC 1912 Composed and Printed By The University of Chicago Press Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A. ^\ ** % \ ^ TABLE OF CONTENTS IAPTER I. Introduction II. Augustine and the "City op God" 3 I. General Political and Social Situation in the Roman Empire in the Age of Augustine, (i) Political Situation. (2) Economic Conditions. (3) Religious Conditions. (4) The Educational Outlook. (5) Augus- tine's Statement of Conditions, and a Summary of Problems. II. Civitas Dei and Kindred Conceptions. (1) The Early and Later Jewish Conception. (2) The Early Christian Conception. (3) The Greek and Roman Conception of the City of Zeus. (4) Augustine's Civitas Dei et Terrena Civitas. III. General Purpose of the Universe and the Origin of the Two Cities. (1) Why the World Was Created. (2) The Original Citizens of the Two Cities. (3) The Sub-Human World. IV. Psychical Factors and Their Moral Value. (1) Will, Emotion, and Intellect and Their Interrelations. (2) Desires and Their Moral Value. (3) Love of Self, of Others, and of God. V. Value of Social and Religious Institutions and Agencies. (1) The Family. (2) The School and Education. (3) Celibacy and Monasticism. (4) The State. (5) The Church: Its Authority and Sacraments. (6) Special Religious Instrumentalities. VI. The Life after Death and the Final Goal. (1) The Intermediate State. (2) The End of Babylon. (3) Life in the Celestial Jerusalem. VII. The Value of Augustine's Conception of the City of God. III. Aquinas and the Universal Church 43 I. Important Changes from the Fifth to the Thirteenth Century. (1) Political and Economic Changes. (2) The Church and the New Monasticism. (3) The Universities and the New Philosophy. (4) The New Situation in Ethics. II. Ends and the Supreme End. (1) The Teleology of the Universe. (2) Nature and Early History of Intellectual Creatures. (3) The Infra- Human Realm. III. Psychical Factors and Their Interrelation. (1) Will and Intellect. (2) The Will, Impulse, and Emotion. (3) The Nature and Value of Habit. (4) The Freedom of the Will. (5) The Desire for and the Nature of Happiness. (6} Love of Self and of Other Selves. IV. Social Agencies in the Kingdom of Nature and in the Kingdom of God. (1) The Family. (2) Monastic Life. (3) The State: Its Origin, IV TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE Form, and Rulers. (4) Positive Law and Natural Law. (5) The Church as World State. (6) Relation of Divinely Revealed Law to Natural and to Positive Law. (7) Authority of the Church and of Reason. (8) The Sacraments. (9) The Virtues. V. The Dualism of Contemplation and Action. VI. The Supernatural End. VII. General Criticism. IV. Leibniz and the Kingdom of Grace 77 I. New Worlds and New Problems. (1) The New World of Physical Science. (2) The New Organic World. (3) The New World of Human Life. (4) Summary of Problems. II. Origin and Purpose of the Kingdom of Grace. (1) How the World Came into Being. (2) The Two Kingdoms. (3) Why the World Came into Being. (4) The Relation of the Human Spirit to Its Body. (5) Teleological Continuity and Man's Place in the Universe. III. The Psychology of the Kingdom of Grace. (1) General Relation of Intellect, Feeling, and Will. (2) How Moral Freedom Is Possible. (3) Pleasure and Pain, and Their Moral Values. (4) Passion and Confused Thought. (5) The Problem of Disinterested Love. IV. Natural Societies and Natural Right. (1) The Family, Slavery, and the Household. (2) The Structure and Function of the State. (3) Jus Naturale and Its Three Principles. (4) The First Two Degrees of Justice. (5) The Church as a Natural Society and the Higher Justice. (6) The Relation of the Church to the State. V. The Old and the New Contemplation. VI. Future Life and Progress. VII. General Criticism of Leibniz' Conception. V. Summary and Statement of Relation to Kant . .115 I. Problems and Solutions. II. General Advance. III. Relation of Earlier Conceptions to That of Kant. Bibliography 128 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Every age has its prophets of a new and better moral order. They are usually men of marked individuality, with a vision and message uniquely their own. This we do not deny in affirming that the vision, though seen in some lonely Patmos, and the message, though heard in the isolation of a monk's cell or of a philosopher's study, are social both in their origin and in their purpose. It is only because the prophet is keenly alive to social needs and interests that the defects of the existing order are so clearly perceived by him, and that he strives to find remedial measures. The vision of a new and better moral order comes at a time when not only the moral theorist, but also the community to which he belongs, have become aware that the old order no longer serves its original pur- pose in securing the social welfare. Customs and laws once adequate are no longer so. Bonds that held society together are badly strained or perhaps broken, and in some departments of social life anarchy is imminent. This the common man may see, but the moral theorist perceives it much more clearly because he sees it in relation to its causes and to their removal. His is the vision without which the people perish. It is at just such crises in the social order that the various conceptions of a kingdom of ends which we propose to study have been formulated. They have come as a response to specific needs in the social body, and for a time at least they have really met those needs. We shall attempt no exact definition of the phrase " kingdom of ends." It usually refers to a community whose purpose is the completest possible moral development of its members. Its scope is wide enough to include all rational beings, no one of whom, not even its divine Founder, may treat another as a mere means. It is quite conceivable that men should be regarded as members of a kingdom of ends though their period of development were regarded as limited to life in the present world. In fact some of the Stoics had just such a conception. They accepted with resignation the thought of cessation of existence at death, and made no further demands upon the universe. They have had successors in every age and still have them. This, however, is not the attitude of the philosophers whose works we 2 A KINGDOM OF ENDS IN AUGUSTINE, AQUINAS, AND LEIBNIZ shall treat. To them the thought that moral development may termi- nate with death is appalling. Man is regarded as an end in himself largely on account of his unlimited possibilities, and for this reason lower forms of life may be sacrificed for his welfare, and all higher beings are under bonds, as it were, to treat him with kindness and justice. Means are just as necessary to the attainment of ends of infinite worth as in the case of the most commonplace ends. " Car dans le total les moyens font une partie de la fin," is the sentiment expressed by one of our authors. 1 In the description of means leading to the desired goal, given by each author more or less definitely, we shall find better than any formal definition can tell us what was really meant by a kingdom of ends and by the synonymous phrases "City of God" and " Kingdom of Grace." The paper which follows is a study of the conception of a kingdom of ends as presented by Augustine, Aquinas, and Leibniz, and the relation of these conceptions to that of Kant. In the case of each author studied there will be an attempt to answer the following questions, the first of which is in the main historical, the second metaphysical, the third and fourth psychological and ethical, and the fifth ethical. They are: i. What was the immediate situation which demanded a new state- ment of moral relations and thus led to this particular conception of a kingdom of ends ? 2. Does the author's general conception of the universe permit or favor such a kingdom of ends, and make it possible or probable that the ideal involved in it will ever be realized ? 3. Does he regard men as so constituted that they can become active and patriotic members of such a kingdom ? 4. What is the author's valuation of social institutions already existing with respect to such citizenship, and if their modification is necessary what direction should it take ? 5. What advance is noticeable in the conception beyond previous conceptions and what are its most striking defects ? The writer acknowledges great obligation to Professor James H. Tufts, under whose supervision this work was prepared. Her gratitude is also due to Professor T. G. Duvall, of Ohio Wesleyan University, and to Professors A. W. Moore, G. H. Mead, J. R. Angell, and E. S. Ames, of the University of Chicago, for guidance in the devious paths of phi- losophy and psychology. 1 Gerhardt, Leibniz 1 Werke, I, 360. CHAPTER II AUGUSTINE AND THE "CITY OF GOD" I. GENERAL POLITICAL AND SOCIAL SITUATION IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE IN THE AGE OF AUGUSTINE (i) Political situation. — The attitude of Augustine toward the political state, though often presented in an exaggerated light, was really in many respects striking. In order to judge him fairly in the matter a rather full statement of the political situation of his period seems advisable. As we study the history of the period we are likely to infer that the citizens of the Roman empire must have lived in constant dread because the empire was so evidently tottering to its fall. The truth however is that they had become accustomed to ominous tremors and usually the distress felt was only local and temporary. In the hearts of some there existed a blind faith that the eternal city was destined to remain the center of an almost world-wide dominion. This faith was not coupled with ardent patriotism. There was but little interest in political affairs. In fact, the body politic wasted away so slowly and gradually that the hour of its death cannot be determined with certainty. Though historians hesitate to fix an exact date for the death of the empire they generally agree that long before its demise extreme political and social confusion prevailed. The empire nominally one was prac- tically two, and the people of the East and West were rapidly becoming alienated from each other. In the West, Ravenna not Rome was usually the seat of imperial power. There were revolts in Britain, Gaul, Spain, and Africa. Ostrogoths and Visigoths, Suevi and Alans, Huns and Alamanni, Vandals and Moors pressed in upon the empire, some- times content with plundering the outskirts, sometimes penetrating to its very center. The sack of Rome by Alaric in 410 aroused unusual excitement and terror. It was the event which gave the pagans an opportunity to assert that Rome could not survive without her guardian gods and to plead for the restoration of the old religion, as well as to declare that the precepts of Christianity were not consistent with Roman citizenship. These objections brought Augustine's problem to vivid consciousness but by no means furnished its whole content. The treatise De Civitate Dei deals with these charges. 3 4 A KINGDOM OF ENDS IN AUGUSTINE, AQUINAS, AND LEIBNIZ Most of the barbarian invaders sought a home rather than plunder. A hundred thousand of them were admitted Sisfoederati in 376 but two years later, provoked by injustice, they revolted, and the eastern emperor met defeat and death at their hands. Often large numbers of barbarians entered the army, coming in from captivity, or as mercenary soldiers, or as foederati. Some of them soon won their way to the highest military offices, even to the consulship itself. Without these barbarian troops many Roman victories would have been impossible, for the native born Romans had lost their former military zeal, but, on the other hand, troops trained to fight with the legions knew well how to fight against them. In the households of the wealthy innumerable Gothic and Scythian slaves were found, and many of the tillers of the soil were German. If all of Rome's rulers had been just, and her administrators of government honest it may well be questioned whether it would have been possible to bind together in a living unity so many races scattered over so vast a range of territory, without a representative system and means of intercommunication unknown at that day. With the existing government it was clearly impossible. (2) Economic conditions. — It is generally conceded that the empire suffered more from internal maladies than from the enemy on the borderland. The former left her helpless against the latter. A bureau- cratic system at the head of which was the emperor as the sole source of law had crushed out the earlier political life. Taxation, necessarily heavy in order to support imperial courts and large armies, was rendered especially burdensome by unscientific methods of assessment and col- lection. Its weight fell upon the curiales, the middle class upon whose strength the very life of the nation depended. The law not only oppressed this class but it made it the oppressor of the classes beneath it. In many directions the curiales sought escape from their unhappy condition. Some entered the army, others the clergy, a few of the wealthier obtained senatorial rank, some voluntarily sank to the level of coloni and slaves, and still others surrendered their land to their richer neighbors and received it again under a sort of feudal tenure. Soon severe laws were enacted to prevent the curiales escaping from their burdens. Everywhere there was a marked tendency to transform class into caste and to bind the son to the occupation of the father. In the larger cities the free "bread and circus" of Juvenal's time were still furnished to the populace at the expense of the state, or of great public officials, thus perpetuating economic parasitism and paralyzing the primitive virtues, but these two " indispensables " were no longer sufficient. Free wine and oil had been added. AUGUSTINE AND THE 'CITY OF GOD 5 At times the emperors saw and deplored the miseries of the common people, and the fact that the rich were becoming richer while the poor were becoming poorer. The character and frequency of the imperial "thou shalt not's" reveal the deplorable lack of a sense of duty in the administrators of government. Imperial efforts to change conditions however proved ineffective, and the emperors were unable to control the vast bureaucratic machine which they themselves had set in motion. The aristocratic classes though deprived of direct political power, by means of social influence, bribes, and terror really controlled the admin- istration. Under such conditions the old Roman resistance to foreign foes could scarcely be expected. (3) Religious conditions. — By no means all of the people of the empire had accepted Christianity. Many loved the old religion and struggled hard to retain its public rites. These were celebrated in the city of Rome up to and at times during the last decade of the fourth century, but not without interruption and legal limitation. Outside of the city they were maintained even longer, and many thought their suppression would destroy the foundations of the empire, not clearly perceiving that its political and economic foundations were already crumbling, or, if they perceived it, they thought it could avail nothing to discuss it. In the higher ranks of pagan society there existed a sort of patriotism but its eye was turned to the golden past rather than to the future. The oratory of the earlier period was much admired and imitated so far as could be done in an entirely different situation. Men tried in vain to catch the vigor of thought and expression of the classic period. No doubt in some cases this devotion to the classics served to refine and purify social life, and to make men nobler in all their social relations, but in general the higher classes had no deeper interest in the welfare of the lower, and were conspicuous for greed, luxury, and cruel oppression of the poor. Social life within the church did not present a wholly pleasing picture. The spotless morality of the earlier periods, with unceasing protest against every pagan vice, was not marked in many later converts whose acceptance of the Christian faith was largely a matter of following the crowd. To such the new religion like the old was mainly a matter of external observances. A recent theologian claims that Constantine, seeing that Rome had lost its distinctly Roman character and ceased to be a national state, in the hope of establishing a universal religious state accepted and legalized the Christian religion because he saw that it was superior to any institution in his realm in its organization and unity. 6 A KINGDOM OF ENDS IN AUGUSTINE, AQUINAS, AND LEIBNEZ However this may be it is evident that after emperors began to grant to the church the aid of the secular power less emphasis was placed on the use of Pauline weapons. The deep reflection and weighing of values which preceded an acceptance of the Christian faith in times of perse- cution, and the resultant moral strength could not be expected in those who followed the multitude in entering the church. In some cases they were quite as ready to follow it to the circus and gladiatorial combat, the corrupters of public morals. To overcome this tendency to laxity of morals on the part of some of its members it was in many places the custom to exclude all who were guilty of grosser vices from the most sacred rites of the church. Over against moral laxity on the part of some, severe asceticism on the part of others manifested itself. Concentration of attention upon the negation of natural instincts sometimes resulted in their affirmation. Many, however, who put themselves under monastic restrictions really kept their vows and were splendidly efficient in the service of their fellow-men. Much emphasis was placed on works of charity, a virtue which certainly needed cultivation in this period. (4) The educational outlook. — At first sight it might appear that the schools of the empire in Augustine's day gave promise of help to the nation. Never had they been more flourishing in respect to number and to the provision made for their support. But educational effort was directed rather toward a glorification of the past than to such direction of the activities of the Roman people as the needs of the time demanded. The rhetorical schools were falling far short of their ideal, the production of the orator who must also be a good man, if by goodness efficiency in serving his fellows is meant. They gave excellent instructions as to form but could furnish their students with no vital message. The school of philosophy at Athens was still in existence but its influence was very small. "The present subjects of controversy are the heresies within the church" says Augustine in a letter to Dioscurus describing the condition of philosophy in the empire, "and the Greek philosophers are neglected." (5) Augustine's statement of conditions, and a summary of problems. — We have seen why the social and the political life of Augustine's time may have appeared very unsatisfactory to him. Scattered through his works there may be found direct or indirect statements showing that in many respects they really were so. He says that the liberties of the republic were lost when Augustus assumed the imperial office, but social discord had rendered them valueless long before this. Love of domina- AUGUSTINE AND THE CITY OF GOD 7 tion had vitiated the Roman love of liberty, and as a result people of many races were forced together in a union which though not wholly bad was a very doubtful good. The very extent of the empire, made possible at a terrible cost of blood and slaughter, produced wars of a yet more obnoxious description — social and civil — and the end of miseries had not yet come. The ideal republic where perfect justice was admin- istered to all never had existed and never could exist in perfect form on earth though among Christians it might approximately be realized, and x n early Rome it had been much more nearly realized than at present, for her citizens possessed virtues such as industry, frugality, and temper- ance in striking contrast with the idleness, luxury, and lust of later Rome. Her statesmen too had possessed virtues which although not worthy to be called virtues under the Christian standard were yet splendid faults which crushed out baser faults and served to bring about a common good in the earthly state. The Gracchi were right in attempting to divide the lands among the people, but the nobles had so long possessed them wrongfully that the abuse could not be corrected, and an attempt to do so only brought destruction to those who made it. The pagan religion undermined the virtues necessary for wholesome social life. The pagan philosophers afforded no sufficient remedy. Epicureanism led to further degradation. Stoicism was powerless to reach the masses and in its protests against emotion denied an element essential to human life. Academic skepticism was of negative value as combating the material- ism of Epicurean and Stoic but could itself afford no positive relief since its advocates could not present their own spiritualistic views with a voice of authority to the people until the minds of the latter could be brought to a level where they could understand. Of the neo-Platonists some had laid aside minor inconsistencies, and recognized in Christ the imper- sonation of that essential Truth and Wisdom which they sought. Others had been corrupted by curious inquiries into magic. Christianity alone could afford a living bond of unity to the people, furnish proper motiva- tion for the moral life, and give an outlook into the future life. Summing up, we find that the problem which Augustine had to face was the breaking down of the old moral order which had been so largely state-centered that it could not survive the disintegration of the empire and the downfall of the pagan religion. This he felt must be replaced by a new moral order based on the Christian religion and centered in a state with indestructible foundations. It was the task of convincing the world that the Christian religion, regarded by many as local and temporal in its significance, was really beyond all temporal and spatial limitations. 8 A KINGDOM OF ENDS IN AUGUSTINE, AQUINAS, AND LEIBNIZ To present it in this doubly universal light there was none so well fitted by virtue of general philosophic knowledge, wide acquaintance with the most cultured thought of the day, rhetorical training, and intense moral earnestness as Augustine, bishop of Hippo. II. "CIVrTAS DEl" AND KINDRED CONCEPTIONS (i) The early and later Jewish conception. — The phrase "City of God" had an interesting history long before Augustine used it. It was employed by both the Hebrews and Greeks and also by the Romans, but with considerable variation in meaning. In fact within the literature of each of these peoples the concept varied greatly, both in extension and intension, becoming much richer in later days. To these earlier conceptions no doubt Augustine owed much, yet his own has unique elements and was destined to have a larger influence in directing future events than any preceding conception. As employed in its narrowest sense, and presumably in the earliest period of its use, the phrase " City of God" meant to the Jew the actual city of Jerusalem viewed as the center of political power, and as especially sacred to the God of Israel. It is the city "whither the tribes go up" 1 and within whose walls the Lord of hosts deigns to dwell in his holy tabernacle, commanding the observance of justice and brotherly kindness within the nation, and defending his people against external foes. Though Jehovah is represented as controlling nature forces and as Lord of the whole earth Jerusalem is not pictured by early seers as the center of a universal kingdom. It is enough that it should be secure against foreign foes. The negative relation to foreign peoples is only slightly modified, so as to secure for the peaceful stranger who came within the gates hospitable treatment. It is quite probable that even in pre-exilic times the Jewish con- ception of the city of God and its place among the nations broadened. It most certainly did so, and in a very striking way, after the exile. To the Jew, Jerusalem even though fallen was great. It was the home land to which he longed to return, and to which, when the sins of the people should be atoned for, he hoped to be restored. 3 Jehovah would surely bring his ransomed people back to Mt. Zion and establish his throne among them. 3 But his kingdom was not to be of the same isolated character as before, though Jerusalem was still to be the city of the God of Jacob. Other nations should bring their treasures into it, and men 1 Ps. 122. 3 Isa., chap. 6i. 3 Isa., chaps. 51, 52 f. AUGUSTINE AND THE "CITY OF GOD" 0, were to come from distant lands to worship in its temple, now a place of prayer for all peoples. 1 Out of Zion the law should go forth, and judgment should be given between distant peoples until the nations should cease to learn war and everlasting peace should prevail. 2 The development which caused the city of God to appear as the great center of a world religion is no more striking than that which took place with respect to the kind of service demanded by Jehovah. Sacrifice and ceremony still have a place but it is a secondary one. Obedience is declared to be better than sacrifice; the true fast is to cease from sin; to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly before God are the essential things. Jerusalem is to become a city of righteousness; lying, deceit, and every form of vice are to be laid aside. The law is to be no longer external but within men's hearts, and the dwelling-place of God not in builded houses but in the contrite soul. Hereditary penalties shall no longer exist. Only the soul that sins shall die, and this is not for the pleasure of Jehovah, whose wish is that the sinner may turn from his sin and live. 3 (2) The early Christian conception. — When we pass to the New Testament the development still goes on. The earthly Jerusalem was still civitas magni regis 4 in a sense, but it refused to receive the place of leadership in a spiritual kingdom and rejected those who proclaimed it. The messengers of this inner kingdom of which the prophets had spoken went forth from the traditional religious center, in some cases forced forth by violence, to proclaim the gospel of salvation to all nations, organizing men in a society which should bind them together in universal brotherhood on earth, and should bring them into organic relation with a yet more universal society. Thus their attention was turned toward another city "the heavenly Jerusalem, and to the innumerable hosts of angels, to the general assembly of the church of the firstborn whose names are enrolled in heaven, and to God the judge of all the earth, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant." 5 This now became the true "city with foundations" for which all the ages had looked, the city prepared for the saints. 6 In Augustine's native tongue it was the sancta civitas of the apocalyptic vision, open to men of every race and class for an eternal 1 Zech., chap. 8. 2 Isa., chaps. 55, 56; Mia, chap. 4. sMic. 6:6-8; Isa. 68:5-10; Amos, chap. 5; Zech. 8:16-17, 21-25; Zeph. 3:13; Ezek., chap. 18; Jer. 3j:3°-35- 4 Matt. 5:35. s Heb. 11:10. 6 Heb. 12:22. IO A KINGDOM OF ENDS IN AUGUSTINE, AQUINAS, AND LEIBNIZ dwelling-place, provided only that they were free from moral defilement. 1 Here alone fulness of life is to be found. This conception Augustine adopts as his own, elaborating it greatly however, and bringing in some elements from the Greek and Roman conceptions of the city of Zeus or universal state. (3) The Greek and Roman conception of the city of Zeus. — Among the Greeks we find Plato holding that a conception of an ideal city has power to transform and mold the life of him who beholds the heavenly vision. 3 This thought of transformation of moral character through vision or contemplation receives very great emphasis in the Christian conception of the city of God. The Cynics had a conception of a world citizenship, a phrase often used later as equivalent to citizenship in the city of Zeus. Their con- ception was largely negative, standing mainly for independence of the existing social and political order, for these no longer commanded respect. Among the Stoics the positive side receives more emphasis. Zeno said that men should not live in cities and demes distinguished by different codes but should regard all men as fellow-citizens and demesmen. Seneca spoke of the world as his native city; its governor as the gods. 3 Epictetus found the political state too small a sphere for the wise man. He is the minister of Zeus and cannot condescend to talk about revenues and supplies, peace and war. Man by virtue of his reason is a citizen of the world and a son of God. 4 To Marcus Aurelius the world is the "lovely city of Zeus." The end of rational animals is to follow reason, the law of the most ancient city. Elsewhere he speaks of the highest city, the great state, the political community to which the whole human race belongs. 5 Neo-Platonism, too, had its city of God, its beloved fatherland to which the soul must flee, and for which the only means of flight was in becoming like God. To both Greeks and Romans who talked of the city of Zeus the political state and much of the existing social order was felt to be but an imperfect and incomplete expression of man's nature, and in some respects a positive hindrance to a higher type of life. An internal bond of unity was sought, one removed as far as possible from temporal and spatial limitations and capable of binding man to his fellow-man uni- 1 Rev. 21 : 2-16; 22 : 19. 2 Plato Republic ix. 591, 592. 3 Seneca Epistolae morales xcv; De vita beata xx; De otio iii, iv. * Epictetus, Discourses, I, 9; III, 22. s Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, Meditations, III, 11; IV, 4, 19; XI, 7; XII, 27. AUGUSTINE AND THE CITY OF GOD II versally. This was found to consist in the possession of a common rational nature. (4) Augustine's "Civitas Dei et Terrena Civitas." — In many of Augustine's treatises he makes a very free use of the conception of the city of God, and one epoch-making work is devoted exclusively to its consideration. Augustine defines a state or civitas as an assemblage of reasonable beings bound together by a common agreement as to the object of their love. 1 Hence the bond of agreement in the city of God will be the love of God. The exact significance of the phrase Civitas Dei must however be gathered from the context in which it occurs. Some- times it refers to a city-state neither in this world nor of it, yet vitally related to it. This may be called the heavenly Jerusalem. At other times a city on earth is meant, a pilgrim city whose members are destined to come into perfect citizenship in the'heavenly city when their pilgrimage is ended. A third meaning includes both of the above, the church militant and the church triumphant. A fourth is that of the historic visible church on earth, not all of whose members can attain heavenly citizenship for some do the things which exclude entrance into it. It is notable that Augustine, except in so far as his adoption of the Hebrew history makes it necessary, does not represent any city on earth as peculiarly the city of God or center of the church. Jerusalem is always essentially "a city that is built as a state," i.e., as built of living stones — a community of persons. 2 One cannot understand Augustine's conception of the city of God or appreciate the dualism with which he struggled without a glimpse at another city which he places in strong contrast with it. Terrena civitas in its broadest sense refers to the whole society of human beings whose hearts are centered on love of self or of earthly things. Taken together with the wicked spirits under whose domination these earth lovers live they constitute Babylon, city of confusion and of souls who are captives of sin. The spiritual Babylon will cease to be a city when the final judgment is pronounced against it, but its citizens are doomed as indi- viduals to suffer everlasting punishment or eternal dying. In a narrower sense terrena civitas may refer to some particular group of the earth- loving society, bound together in civic relation of some form, such as the city of Cain, or ancient Babylon, or "Rome as it were another Babylon in the West." In this sense it may include members of the heavenly city who, though having much in common with its members, are dis- tinguished by higher interests, and are not truly of it. 1 The City of God, XIX, 24. 2 Expositions on the Psalms, 122. 12 A KINGDOM OF ENDS IN AUGUSTINE, AQUINAS, AND LEIBNIZ III. GENERAL PURPOSE OF THE UNIVERSE AND THE ORIGIN OF THE TWO CITIES (i) Why the world was created. — The general purpose of the whole created universe, including angels, men, and the sub-human world, was that good works might be done by an infinitely righteous Supreme Being, whose existence is eternal. The divine plan is that all rational beings must realize some good. This is not contradicted by any penalty placed upon the wicked for just punishment is good. Elsewhere Augustine speaks less positively concerning the divine purpose. Of his own goodness God made man, the first without sin, all others under sin, for the purpose of his own profound thoughts. This last sentence may suggest that self-realization is not the goal of man, and that he merely exists for the pleasure of the divine being, but Augustine's general view forbids such an interpretation, and in one of his treatises he deals specifi- cally with this problem. ' 'Does God use us or enjoy us ?" If he enjoys us, that would imply he is in need of good from us, hence it must be that he uses us, but he uses us not after the sense of our using. "The use which he makes of us has no reference to his own advantage but to ours only." 1 In the sense then that man cannot be used as a mere means to some other end, he is an end in himself. Yet in another sense it is the very quintessence of evil for a man to regard himself as an end in himself, for he can attain self-realization only in and through God. Self-sufficiency is the original sin, and this Augustine ceases not to emphasize. Thus over against the traditional eternal city Rome, Augustine points to a city with eternal foundations in the plan of an eternal God. The dignity of man is recognized in that he can be used only for his own advantage. We may find Augustine has difficulty in holding true to this view. In "self-sufficiency as the original sin," Augustine gives us a glimpse of his central thought: God is the bond which links man to man in mutually helpful relations, and without which neither individual nor society can find adequate development. We find statements more definitely asserting the original liberty, equality, and fraternity of the city of God. "God did not intend that his rational creature should have dominion over anything but the irrational creation; not man over man but man over beasts." 2 Woman was made from man's body and man from dust "so that all might be derived from one and learn to preserve unity." Elsewhere he asks, "How could the city of God ever 1 On Christian Doctrine, I, 32. 3 The City of God, XII, 21; XIX, 15. AUGUSTINE AND THE CITY OF GOD 1 3 begin, or develop, or attain its proper destiny unless the life of the saints were a social life P" 1 (2) The original citizens of the two cities. — As the angels play so important a part in the two cities and have so much in common with man a few words must be said about their origin, nature, and relation to the world of humanity. They were created good, but mutable, since created out of nothing. At first they dwelt together in harmony, and . there was but one city, but soon pride crept in, and some began to live for self and thus ceased to participate in God the source of their strength. Hitherto free to do good or evil they were henceforth free only to do evil, and were cast out from the holy city to form the nucleus of the spiritual Babylon for which eternal punishment is reserved. Their loss of moral rectitude entailed considerable loss of, mental power as well, hence they are distinctly inferior to the good angels who never lost their first estate. From the first, or after a brief period of probation, the good angels received the assurance that they should never be expatriated. Their wills were fixed in righteousness and their nature now so agrees with the eternal law that they are without temptation. Their attitude toward man is friendly, and he should love them as neighbors and future fellow- citizens. They and their fallen brethren can communicate ideas to man, probably by means of stirring up invisible traces in him left by former thoughts. 2 (In explaining this Augustine states that all mental activity has motor results.) Thus Augustine makes the obligation of the moral law, which for him was simply the expression of a supremely righteous will and in no sense arbitrary, binding upon all rational beings. No doubt this seemed to him as to much later writers essential, for otherwise it could not be altogether worthy of reverence as a law of universal reason. It had also a more distinctly social value — that of the encompassing crowd of witnesses of the moral struggle. As has been intimated man was originally a member of the heavenly city, indeed he was created to fill up the depleted ranks of heavenly citizens, but he soon lost his birthright membership in the higher king- dom. To understand how this came about we must get a glimpse of his nature as conceived by Augustine. Man is made up of soul and body in the most intimate interaction. (That there is interaction is indubi- table. How it takes place is inexplicable.) Soul includes (a) the rational nature distinguishingjnan from beast, which may be called spirit; (b) a 1 Ibid., XIX, 5. 2 Letters, 9:3,4. 14 A KINGDOM OF ENDS IN AUGUSTINE, AQUINAS, AND LEIBNIZ vivifying or animating element linking the spirit to the body. This second is the soul in the narrower sense but Augustine rarely makes this use of the term. The body is the least important part of man, yet very important. At first it was sound and healthful, its appetites untainted by lust or excess, and completely obedient to the rational nature. The overt act of disobedience, which as the scripture record teaches brought ruin to the race, was really preceded by pride and voluntary turning away from God. Here the real falling away began, after which man was an easy prey to the tempter. The woman was deceived, believing the tempter's words. Man was probably not deceived but this does not palliate his guilt. His will having already been corrupted by pride he yielded "to the drawings of kindred, that of husband to wife, of the one human being to the only other." 1 Not only was this disobedience a revolt, but it also occasioned another revolt. In the kingdom of man's soul itself the fair unity was destroyed, the bodily appetites rebelling against the rational nature, thus destroying perfect self-control and beginning that warfare which is ever present in the human race as the conflict between the flesh and spirit. To understand Augustine we must keep in mind that he always represents the corruption of the spirit as precedent to that of the flesh, hence logically the sole method of restora- tion must be by bringing the soul back to its original relation with God. The original sin then was solely the result of man's free will. As Adam had no inherited nature his will could well be unbiased or indiffer- ent, at least so it seemed to Augustine. All Adam's descendants, since born with hereditary taint, are native citizens of Babylon because there is confusion in their natures, the rational element being no longer in control. Do we wish to know more fully the cause of sin or of the evil will? It is vain to do so. The cause is not efficient but deficient. An evil will is simply "defection from that which supremely is to that which has less of being." In other words sin is a falling away from the fulness of life. The above is really an admission that the problem of the origin of evil is inexplicable. How could the rational nature ever abdicate its throne and yet be rational? The Stoic had a similar difficulty. To every man the dominion of the inner kingdom is open, and no external power can hinder him from exercising absolute sway therein. But the wise man who both reigned and ruled in it was rarely to be found if at all. The neo-Platonist, too, had a kindred difficulty. Why does the soul lose companionship with the world soul ? How can one ever turn 1 City of God, XIV, n. AUGUSTINE AND THE CITY OF GOD 1 5 from the all-satisfying beatific vision ? The answer is that it is due to a falling away toward the formless, the irrational, an answer which probably suggested Augustine's doctrine of sin as defect. But why the falling away ? The complete transfer of all its human citizens from the celestial city to its rival's domain seems a discouraging beginning for a kingdom of righteousness, but it did not daunt Augustine, for he was confident that on the one hand the human soul could never find satisfaction in its fallen state, being even when unregenerate sometimes touched by the splendor of something nobler, and that on the other hand God's eternal plan for the restoration of the spiritual Jerusalem must be fulfilled. (3) The sub-human world. — The sub-human world is important to man as means to the realization of his end, and such it was intended to be when it was created. Essentially every part of it was created in the six periods of time symbolized as six days, but there were certain invisible seeds of things created which may develop by the action of unusual forces, and such development appears to us as spontaneous generation. Augustine, like Philo and Plotinus, is not sure that the commonly accepted view that the heavenly bodies are purely physical is true. The possibility is that they may be found to be members of the heavenly city. The earth may be a round body hanging upon nothing but it is quite improbable that any future citizens of the heavenly city will be found dwelling at the antipodes. Augustine's enthusiasm concerning the beauty and utility of the world order is great. Nothing in the sub-human world is evil, but some things are better than others in order that all might exist. Each thing contributes to the universe as to a commonwealth, but this we cannot appreciate now because of our limited viewpoint, our ignorance of the uses of things, and because we sometimes suffer from them, forgetful that we are in a state deserving just punishment. It is good too that there is so much beauty in the world, for beauty has a lasting worth and shall continue when necessity is no longer. The decay and destruction of living forms does not mar the beauty of the whole, for they are changed to subserve a universal purpose, and change itself is beautiful. The sentiments of Chrysippus and Plotinus concerning the goodness of the physical world when seen from the standpoint of the whole had perhaps influenced Augustine for they are very similar. All agree in looking upon existence in any form whatever as better than non- existence, and this furnishes Augustine a basal argument for classing the universe as good in spite of the fact that by his theory the human l6 A KINGDOM OF ENDS IN AUGUSTINE, AQUINAS, AND LEIBNIZ inhabitants of the spiritual Babylon far surpass in number those of the celestial city. Augustine quite frequently presents a very different view of the world. He always admits that the beauty of earth, sea, and sky surpass description, but that is just what makes them dangerously attractive to the pilgrim. He should use the world as a caravansary to help him on his way, and should not become absorbed in its enjoyment as if it were an end in itself. At times this fear of contamination from earthly things is so great that we might think Augustine accepted the neo-Platonic doctrine of matter as essentially evil, a view diametrically opposite to his own. IV. PSYCHICAL FACTORS AND THEIR MORAL VALUE (i) Will, emotion, and intellect and their interrelations. — Membership in a kingdom of ends implies the possession or possible acquirement of sufficient knowledge to understand the duties of citizenship. It also necessarily implies a desire to perform these duties and some ability to do so. Hence in the study of any author who treats of such a kingdom it is important to ascertain whether in accordance with his psychology such intelligent, loyal, and effective citizenship is attainable. Of the larger psychical categories intellect, emotion, and will, Augustine places the greatest emphasis upon the will. He is very sure that the character of the self is expressed in willing, and that his own sin lay in the fact that he willed the evil, or did not will the good. This was his experience at a time when his will was free to choose evil or even indifferent things but not free to choose the good in the sense of some- thing leading to the highest good. Yet when he did choose, he chose freely though it was not the good. This last statement is not meant as a denial of internal struggle, for this is clearly recognized. The self may be at strife with itself and torn asunder by itself, as Augustine recounts in describing his unregenerate life. 1 Augustine wishes to emphasize two things here. The first is that the act to which we apply either the term moral or the term immoral must be imputed to a person, not to a complex of warring natures whose only relation is one of conflict. The second thing is that his metaphysical theory regards evil not as a nature but as a defect. Nature as such is good, and always good. The absence of harmony within the self is due to habit, it may be to habit acquired by the individual, or it may be to racial habit, or it may be to the latter strengthened by the individual's indulgence. "Evil 1 Confessions, VIII, 10. AUGUSTINE AND THE CITY OF GOD 1 7 habit," " the custom of sin," and " the sin that is the punishment of sin" are phrases used to express the after effects of a wrong volition upon character, usually upon the character of the individual whose volition was wrong, but in the case of Adam upon the whole race descended from him, for they all sinned in him. How not only the defect, that is, the dread disease that left mankind too weak to resist sin, passed down upon all, but also how the actual penalty for sin as an offense against God likewise passed down, we shall see later. 1 The good will also passes into habit, but Augustine nowhere intimates that such acquired habits become hereditary. When the habit of willing the good becomes thoroughly fixed, then and not till then is there perfect freedom. Such freedom stands at the end of probation, not at its beginning. It is not found in the pilgrim city, nor was it found in our mutable ancestor Adam, for he was free to will not only good but evil and the latter is indicative of mutability of character or defect. It is interesting to observe that Augustine though he regarded Adam as in one sense perfect, that is originally without sin, did not regard him as so in another sense. The really perfect man is one who has acquired the habit of willing only the good. Life is opportunity for development of character. But it must be admitted that it is not so for all men from Augustine's standpoint, as will appear elsewhere. The regenerate are free in the sense that the will does not consent to evil, but while they are on earth some defect or taint remains hindering the soul from per- fectly harmonious action. In the above paragraphs Augustine's use of the word will is in accordance with nis definition of it as a movement of the mind, no one compelling us, either for not losing or for obtaining something. He has however suggestions of a more fundamental view of will, in which he seems to regard it as an organizing or unifying activity of the ego, which working sometimes unconsciously sometimes consciously makes a conscious and orderly experience possible. We may perhaps better understand Augustine's presentation of the nature of emotion and its place in the moral life if we examine briefly the Stoic attitude toward emotion and will, and the consequent dualism which sprang from it, in the practical application of their theory of the universal state. The tremendous emphasis which the Stoics placed upon the affirmation of the individual's own will is well known, as is also their emphasis upon the suppression or negation of emotion. Indeed it might seem as if the chief business of will is to crush out emotion. A 1 Ibid., VIII, 5, 10; On Faith and the Creed, 10, 23. 1 8 A KINGDOM OF ENDS IN AUGUSTINE, AQUINAS, AND LEIBNIZ man's will is from within. Emotions come from without. They are foreigners, aliens to man's essential nature and unless vigorously pro- hibited will destroy the peace and unity of his inner kingdom. The sage is he who keeps these foes to his inner kingdom at a distance. We have seen that the Stoic demand for a universal state was really a demand of the spirit for larger social relations, wider sympathy, and the general recognition of the essential equality of man with man. Many Stoics rejected or at least neglected the political state just because they deemed it unprogressive, that is to say, it was not helping but rather hindering them from entering into wider personal relations. The Stoic saw quite truly that only rational beings could enter into personal relations; the law of reason is essential to the universal state. But he did not see that personal relations are necessarily emotional, and that we can scarcely take an emotional attitude toward mere things without to some degree personifying them, also that, conversely, to treat persons without feeling any emotion ourselves or without any consideration for their emotions would be to treat them as things. The soulless cor- poration has shown us how essentially inhuman and immoral such an attitude may be, though it only approximately attains it. As a result of this the Stoic, when he attempted to crush out all emotion and to become the self-sufficient man, shut out the possibility of becoming an active world-citizen. He had not learned that the only sort of self which can be even approximately satisfactory from the moral standpoint is one that both loses and finds itself in the larger social whole, and this it cannot do without deep and abiding sentiments often strongly colored with emotion, and always to some extent emotional. It is partly to avoid this overemphasis on will and reason at the expense of emotion that Augustine gives his theories on the place of emotion in the moral life. There are passages in Augustine which seem to reduce emotion to will. "The character of the human will is of moment, because if it is wrong these motions of the soul (emotions) are wrong, but if it is right they will be not merely blameless but praiseworthy for the will is in them all, yea none of them is anything more than will." Desire and joy "are but a volition of consent to the things we wish." 1 There are other passages in the same chapters in which he seems to reverse his reasoning, reducing will to emotion. "The good will is well-directed love, and the wrong will is ill-directed love." What Augustine is really trying to do is to show that the Stoic view of emotion is wrong, and that intellect, 1 City of God, XIV, 6, 7. AUGUSTINE AND THE "CITY OF GOD 1 9 will, and emotion are elements not found in isolation from each other in human experience, and that unless a fair amount of each enters into the combination the results will be unsatisfactory from the moral stand- point. "To seek the good of our neighbor and to avoid injuring him requires more than mere good will." 1 He goes on to say that a high degree of thoughtfulness and prudence is also needed. In the following all three elements are declared requisite. "A man's free will avails for nothing except to sin, if he knows not the way of truth, and, even after his duty and proper aim become known to him unless he delights in it, and feels a love for it he neither does his duty or sets about it, nor lives rightly." 3 Augustine declared that the loss of all emotion would mean the loss of humanity, and that apathy, if it means insensibility, would be worse than all the vices. Augustine perhaps knew that the Stoics claimed that the sage who represses all emotion is very different from the man who by nature lacks feeling, but if so, he thought they had failed to show any moral distinction. That emotion should be followed by a wisely directed voluntary act and that it has a high social value Augustine clearly understood. The scenic plays are condemned partly because "the hearer is not invited to relieve, but merely expected to grieve." 3 In speaking of friendship, Augustine shows how the milder emotional expressions "melt souls together and make them one," and in a letter of instruction to a catechist he shows how even the most painful emotions felt by a teacher may be made to yield fruit by rendering his teaching more impressive. 4 The good will properly informed and motivated is not the highest blessedness, but it is something not lightly to be esteemed and very near to blessedness. " He only is a blessed man who hath all the things that he wills and wills nothing ill," and this is attainable only in the future life. 5 Though it is through will (aided by grace) that man enters into active membership in the city of God, yet his certainty of his own existence and of his continued future existence is based upon his possession of intellect. The certainty of present existence however does not rest merely on the fact that the mind knows itself as knowing, and knows that it knows this and so on ad infinitum, but also on the fact that it knows itself as desiring and willing. In so far as it knows these its own activities it knows its substance, even if not wholly. Augustine 1 Catholic Morals, 26. 3 The Spirit and the Letter, 5. 4 On Catechizing the Uninstructed, 14, 21. 3 Confessions, III, 2. s On the Trinity, XIII, 5. 20 A KINGDOM OF ENDS IN AUGUSTINE, AQUINAS, AND LEIBNIZ frequently protests against any absolute separation of mental activities. " Memory, understanding, and will are not three minds but one." 1 The desire for knowledge he may have regarded as bound up with other activities, at least this is suggested in his view of the ordinary student desiring to know because of what he already knows. Possibly the extraordinary student may be moved purely by curiosity about the unknown. The certainty of immortality rests upon the relation of the intellect to eternal truth. "If the soul dies what then? Why then truth dies, or intelligence is not truth, or it is not a part of the soul, or that which has some part immortal is likely to die." 2 Early in Augustine's religious life he asserted that as for himself immortality without increase of knowledge would be undesirable. This he did not retract, though he asserts elsewhere a blind will to live as characteristic of all mankind. "What if this immortal life should permit thee to know nothing more than thou knowest? .... I will weep so much that life itself shall cease to be. Thou dost not desire then to live for the sake of being but for the sake of knowing? I grant the inference." 3 The Confessions reveal Augustine's extreme hunger for truth in boyhood. It is perhaps this strongly intellectualistic bent which determined his attitude toward the future life as contemplation. (2) Desires and their moral value. — Desire for unending existence plays an important part in Augustine's system of thought. It may mean a mere blind instinct to live on even though life's gold has become dross and there is no hope of finding an alchemist to change it back again. An example of this appears in the hypothetical case of men doomed to deathless misery who are offered the alternative of total annihilation. Joyfully and exultingly they choose to endure endless anguish rather than not to live at all. The connection of this view with Augustine's general conception of the end of human society will be treated later. Passages are frequent in which the desire for continued existence is given a content worthy of respect, such as an ampler being, or fuller knowledge, or deeper union with God and man. 4 All desire joy, but the fact that an act brings happiness is no suffi- cient criterion of its goodness. The nature of the thing enjoyed must be considered. Sometimes men are misled by a semblance of joy, 1 On the Trinity, X, 10-12. 3 Letters, 3; On the Trinity, X, 10; XLT, 4. 3 Soliloquies, II, 1, 36. 4 City of God, XI, 27; XIX, 4; Confessions, XIII, 9. AUGUSTINE AND THE CITY OE GOD 21 sometimes they are too weak to live the life that brings the highest joy and try to be content with a lower. The true summum bonum to be desired above all else has two characteristics: (a) There is nothing better than it, hence it must not be inferior to the best that is in man. (b) It must be something which cannot be lost against the will, for otherwise fear of losing it would keep us from enjoyment in the fullest sense. 1 The true highest good to which all our duties are related is not wealth, or honor, or sensual pleasure as the baser philosophers claim, or even spiritual strength as their nobler brethren say, but union with God, the true source of felicity. Felicity is recognized as more than happiness. It is happiness with desert. The desire for the summum bonum then must include the desire to be worthy of happiness. 2 Augustine's view of the desire of praise brings into great prominence the social side of morality. He admits that he is not altogether free from it and is not quite sure that he ought to be, but he knows he would not sacrifice truth for love of praise. The "splendid faults" of the heathen world especially of the greatest Roman statesmen sprang from the love of praise, and it is always one of the most powerful determinants of human action. It does not however furnish a sufficient basis for a sound morality, though it often serves to restrain vice. (3) Love of self, of others, and of God. — Love of self so far as it is love of the body man has in common with the beasts. The body should be kept subordinate to the soul since the latter is the part "that observes good customs and inquires, and learns and grasps the things that eter- nally abide," but he who loves his soul merely for his own sake does not enjoy himself at his best; he should look at himself in relation to God. 3 Augustine recognizes clearly that both virtue and sin have a social aspect, and that the latter nevertheless is in another sense unsocial. "There is nothing so social by nature as man, nothing so unsocial by corruption." 4 The nature here referred to is that which existed in the racial man Adam, but Augustine does not mean that this social nature is wholly lost. He believed in the possibility of disinterested love for friends even in the unregenerate, and claims that he both gave and received such. The temptations which spring from the social side of man's nature he describes in an introspective analysis of a transgression in his boyhood days. "Alone I had not committed that theft [stealing pears], wherein what I stole pleased me not; but rather the act of 1 Cath. Mor., 3. 3 City of God, IV, 18; VI, 12; VIII, 8-9, 10; X, 18. 3 Cath. Mor., 5-8. 4 City of God, XII, 21-22, 27. 2 2 A KINGDOM OF ENDS IN AUGUSTINE, AQUINAS, AND LEIBNIZ stealing. Nor to have done it alone would I have liked so well, neither would I have done it. O Friendship, too unfriendly! .... When they say let us go, let us do it, we are ashamed not to be shameless." 1 He adds elsewhere illustrious examples of men who fell through social influence, not through intellectual error, among them Adam. Not only is man social by nature. The first law of grace is to love God and our neighbor. There is no surer step to the love of God than the love of our neighbor, or to use another figure the human love may be the cradle of the divine. To love one's neighbor is better than to love one's own body since we may have communion with our neighbor in spiritual things. 2 Love of our neighbor means to do good to him, partly to his body, partly to his soul, but the chief obligation to him is to commend him to God. "Our neighbor" is given the broadest possible interpretation. Men of every race and society are included in it and even the wicked should be treated as possible future fellow-citizens in the celestial city. Angels too are our neighbors, and not the mere fact of our dwelling on earth can hinder our fellowship with them. 3 With Augustine the love of God was no mere abstract intellectualis amor Dei, but a strong abiding sentiment becoming at times a deep emotion and carrying with it a sense of satisfaction which "the per- ception of fragrance, of harmony of tones, and beauty of form" suggests faintly but cannot give. 4 Cor nostrum inquietum est donee requiescat in Te is practically the keynote of his entire works. 5 Perfect love to one's neighbor demands this love as a precondition, for men are separated without it from one another "by divers pleasures, and desires, and the uncleanness of sin." 6 Man's whole nature is disorganized and the entire universe seems discordant until he finds rest of soul in this divine affection. The cardinal virtues may be interpreted in terms of it: temperance as love keeping itself pure for his sake, fortitude as endurance for his sake, justice as serving God only therefore ruling rightly, pru- dence as love distinguishing between what helps or hinders it in its approach to God. Evidently the bond of unity in the city of God is personal devotion or love to the founder of the city. 7 1 Confessions, II, g. 3 On Catechizing, 26; Cath. Mor., 26; Christian Doctrine, I, 27, 30-31. 3 Ibid.; Cath. Mor., 26. 4 Confessions, X, 6, 24-25. 6 On the Trinity, IV, o. s Confessions, I, 1. ? Cath. Mor., 15. AUGUSTINE AND THE CITY OF GOD 23 V. VALUE OF SOCIAL AND RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS AND AGENCIES Augustine admits of the city of God what must be admitted of every kingdom of ends, that it could never come into being or have any growth unless man were social by nature. Our next question is, how social institutions already established can be used for the advancement of the kingdom of ends. We shall want to know the relative value of such institutions, and whether there are any that should be either eliminated or reconstructed, as well as how and when such elimination or recon- struction is to be brought about in case it is necessary to make it, for until such adjustment is made a kingdom of ends in its full development cannot come. (1) The family. — The family in the relation of husband and wife was the first organized society and existed from the beginning, though its harmony was greatly disturbed by the Fall. Since marriage is divinely ordained it must not be classed as an evil, but it is a lesser good than the celibate life, and is not now incumbent upon the saints as it once was for the sake of increase of heavenly citizens. Now an abundant off- spring may come in by spiritual birth from every kindred and tribe and nation, and ample material for holy friendship is furnished. 1 If we contrast Augustine's view of marriage with standards of morality prevalent in Carthage where his early life was spent, and even with those prevalent in the imperial city several centuries earlier, it seems indeed very high. Yet there is in it the reflection of his own degradation before his conversion, and of the low moral tone of his native province, shown by the tremendous emphasis on its more dis- tinctly animal elements. The taint of sin is always manifested in marriage, thus affording poor prospect for social perfection of earth. Advance over earlier views of marriage is marked in respect to placing the same standard of purity and loyalty to marriage vows on both husband and wife, and in the nature of the authority given to the husband as head of the family. This in the case of both husband and father is very different from that which Roman law gave. The place of woman on earth was no doubt greatly elevated by granting her an equal citizenship with man in the celestial Jerusalem, and Augustine, like most sons of superior women, was disposed on the whole to be generous to her. The family is recognized as the basis of the political state. It was meant to give training for citizenship; hence the father of a family ought to frame his domestic rule in harmony with the civic rule. Within 1 The Good of Wedlock, 9. 24 A KINGDOM OF ENDS IN AUGUSTINE, AQUINAS, AND LEIBNIZ the family, as elsewhere, authority is opportunity for service, and it should be so regarded and used as a sacred trust, with tenderness and consideration for the welfare of others. The implication is that the proper training of the child will improve the condition of the state. The child though born in a Christian family is not thereby a citizen of the heavenly city. The sin of Adam passes down upon all through the remains of sin even in regenerate parents. 1 More frequently it is stated, and here with reference to the actual guilt as well as to the weakened and defective nature occasioned by the sin, " all were in Adam when he sinned." 2 From this awful solidarity of the race Augustine finds no escape, yet he will not go so far as to say that the whole accumu- lated guilt of ancestors from Adam down to the immediate parents rests upon the child. This problem he thought should not be answered rashly but he evidently inclines to answer it negatively. No one could be more emphatic in the assertion that the child cannot in infancy commit actual sin, and that he is only potentially a person, than Augustine, though to the results of inherited sin he attributes much of the child's physical weakness and also some of its emotional expressions. Through the baptism of the child the parents can secure its future safety while in infancy, and perhaps may through instruction aid it in the proper direction thereafter. There is little ground for hope of the establish- ment of an approximately perfect society on earth with so much original sin in its members. (2) The school and education. — The school is recognized as a necessary agency for the development of the child. Education, in the elementary schools especially, is pictured as a painful process. Boys are driven by punishment to learn letters or trades, and the learning to which they are driven is sometimes in itself such a punishment that they prefer the punishment that drives them to it. The descent to Avernus is easy for the child, and law and instruction are necessary to restrain him from that to which "his vitiated nature tends by its own weight," hence "the multifarious threatenings, the birch, the strap, the cane." 3 Yet Augustine was not without a wish to sweeten the "salutary bitter" of school life, and in the analysis of his own experience as a pupil he reached some very modern conclusions. He found he had learned Greek in school with extreme difficulty, but Latin in infancy with great ease 1 Enchiridion, 26, 46-48. 2 City of God, XIII, 3; XIV, 1; Confessions, VIII, 10; Against Fortunatus, 22; On Nature and Grace, 81. s City of God, XXI, 14; XXII, 22. AUGUSTINE AND THE CITY OF GOD 25 because he needed it as a tool for expression. "A free curiosity has much more influence on our learning than a necessity full of fear," is another of his conclusions. In criticizing the higher schools he decides that grammar and eloquence are more easily caught than taught by formal rules, and even the art of reasoning may be presented in too formal a way. The rhetorical schools in which he himself had served as a teacher he does not wholly condemn, but he despises their tendency to sophistry and overemphasis of form, and neglect of intellectual con- tent and genuine moral sentiment. 1 The necessity of adapting instruction to individual cases and the un- profitableness of absolute fixity in either the subject-matter or form of presenting it were clearly recognized by Augustine, but it is quite prob- able that his best suggestions as to method, occurring as they do as mere hints in the midst of other material, were practically lost to posterity. 2 In his early writings Augustine gave the traditional liberal arts and philosophy a very high value, but later he rated them lower, and finally retracted his commendation of the liberal arts, which he no longer regarded as essential to Christian life, or producers of it. He regrets, too, that he spoke of certain philosophers " shining by the light of virtue" who were not truly pious. 3 The narrowness of the last statement is undeniable, but his condemnation of the traditional school curriculum in which the liberal arts were all important finds confirmation in modern writers, one of whom speaks of the best of the Roman aristocracy of the last century of the empire as without sympathy for the masses, and as absorbed in a sterile culture beyond which there was no curiosity, no scientific inquiry, no hope of further advance. 4 Augustine's fear of materialism led him to place a low value on the study of the material sciences, much of which did not come under the liberal arts. " Searching with greatest inquisitiveness into that material mass which we call the world" may cause the investigator to think nothing exists but what is material. 5 Augustine was himself really deeply interested in science, and at times commends highly the study of corporeal things, "a rational cognizance of which distinguishes man from beast" and which is necessary because man cannot live on earth if he devotes himself wholly to contemplation. The higher function of 1 Confessions, I, 9, 13-14; IV, 16; Christian Doctrine, II, 36-37; IV, 2, 4. 2 On Catechizing, I, 15. 3 Christian Doctrine; II, 40; De ordine, I, 8, 11; II, 30; Retractationes, I, 3. 4 Dill, Roman Society in the Last Century of the Western Empire, II, 4. 5 Cath. Mor., 21. 26 A KINGDOM OF ENDS IN AUGUSTINE, AQUINAS, AND LEIBNIZ reason however is contemplation and Augustine feared that emphasis on the lower function would mean neglect of the higher. Augustine also claimed rightly that most of the science of his day was guesswork, and he felt that the all important problem of human thought was to find "the goal of that course down which as though down a river the human race is sailing, and the transference thence of each to his own appropriate end." 1 In Christine Doctrine Augustine discusses the value of the various branches of knowledge as aids in interpreting scripture. He finds that some knowledge of natural science, history, and even of mechanical arts is helpful. The science of reasoning is much more valuable because it reveals certain logical laws which men do not create but discover for they exist eternally and have their origin in God. So also does the science of number. 2 Along with several of the church Fathers Augustine advised the free use of the moral precepts and of the practical arts of pagan civilization. 3 (3) Celibacy and monasticism. — There is no particular virtue in the celibate life unless undertaken for a religious purpose. When this is done it ranks much higher than wedlock, yet there are some limitations to this. Humility and obedience are the two essentials of the Christian life and sometimes these are found in greater degree in the married than in the celibate. Celibacy is of counsel, not of precept. Someone asked Augustine, "If all should choose the celibate life would not the race cease ?" He replied, " So much sooner will the city of God be filled, and the end of the world hastened." 4 Yet this is an isolated expression occurring but once. Augustine highly commends the monastic life for its voluntary poverty, chastity, and obedience, but he sharply criticizes those monks who go from place to place "hawking about bones of martyrs if indeed they be martyrs," and in other ways bringing the charge of venality on the church. He extends the rebuke to those who refuse to perform the usual prescribed manual labor. He declares that their excuses are vain, and all manual labor which ministers to human needs is honorable. Let them meditate while working and sing songs of praise to the rhythm of their bodily movements in performing their duties. 5 The movement toward celibacy and monasticism which Augustine favored in the church had much in common with Stoicism and neo- 1 On the Trinity, XII, 3, 4; IV, 16. 2 Christian Doctrine, II, 26-39. 4 The Good of Wedlock, 10. s Ibid., II, 40. s The Work of Monks, I, 38. AUGUSTINE AND THE CITY OP GOD 27 Platonism. Epictetus among the former thought that in the present troubled times marriage was not advisable for the wise man, and the neo-Platonic doctrine of evil as inherent in matter led in the same direction. Augustine no doubt greatly overestimated the monastic life as a means to moral perfection and failed to appreciate fully how much the Christian home contributes to the upbuilding of spiritual life. At the same time he did much to socialize monastic life, by bringing the monks under discipline and helping to fit them for the very effective work which they performed in the Middle Ages, a work which would have been vastly more effective if all had lived true to the advice given in The Work of Monks. (4) The state. — Augustine is almost universally quoted as teaching that the state necessarily has its origin in fraud and violence, and that it is and must remain the creature of sin. To the writer this statement seems inadequate and unfair though isolated passages may seem to justify it. Augustine presupposes an ideal social condition in which men were free and equal, and so thoroughly subject to reason that neither positive law nor an organized government was needed. He also teaches that a state may be so narrow in its aims, so essentially unjust that it is practically organized brigandage, but he does not imply that such must be the character of the state. In fact his view of the state is quite opposite. He says that the earthly city as an organized political community is a good, and the ends which it seeks, peace and concord, are good. Of course to seek peace and concord implies at least a possi- bility of discord, but unless it is a sin to seek to escape from sin it does not adequately describe the state to call it a creature of sin. Elsewhere Augustine says that it is consistent with the natural order and with the will of God that the just should rule, not however from the lust of dominion but for the welfare of others. The pilgrim city, sojourning in the midst of the earthly city, has much in common with it. It obeys its laws in regard to the maintenance of the public welfare and enjoys its peace, but hopes for a more perfect peace in its final home. There are however two dangers to which the state is exposed. One is that it may lead its citizens to think that the earthly goods are the only good, and the other is that it may introduce the worship of false gods as a national religion. We must gather Augustine's idea of government partly from his criticism of the empire. He is not sure that the best state is of wide extent. Small states living simply and unostentatiously in neighborly concord might be really better than a vast state. Or if small states had 28 A KINGDOM OF ENDS IN AUGUSTINE, AQUINAS, AND LEIBNIZ come into the empire freely it would have been better for the public morals and the dignity of man, both of which suffer from wars of conquest. It would have been well, too, if they had been taxed by their own consent for the support of the landless classes, and the tax paid to good administrators. 1 That perfect justice cannot be found on earth Augustine always claims. He sympathizes with the man who from a sense of duty to his fellows takes office; for, though his intentions be good, because of ignorance he will sometimes punish the innocent and let the guilty escape. Yet the wise judge will not refuse to take up this duty to human society, for even the relative justice attainable here is of great value. 2 Justice must rest on a religious foundation, for it is not possible either in the individual or the community unless the body is subject to the soul, and this can only be when the soul serves God. In his letters to Christians in administrative offices Augustine repeatedly encourages them in their work. Through his advice, given, however, in a time of unusual danger from the barbarian attacks, Boniface turned aside from a contemplative life to devote his military talents to the defense of Africa. Augustine answered the pagan charge that Christianity was not consistent with Roman citizenship by saying that if there were "such soldiers, such husbands and wives, such parents and children, such masters and servants, such kings and judges — even such taxpayers and tax gatherers as Christianity demands," the state might be restored. "It may be that God will yet restore the Roman state, who knows ?" 3 Augustine had no definite plan for bringing about direct political reform. He probably would have deemed effort in this direction as futile as had been that of the Gracchi. As Reuter suggests, those who have criticized most sharply his lack of political interest have not stated how the government could have been reconstructed and reorganized. There seemed to be no practicable way of amending the constitution. Augustine's interest in the state was confessedly secondary. This is stated repeatedly in unmistakable terms. A few of the reasons why it should be so are not difficult to discover. One was that his attention was concentrated upon the heavenly state as involving more lasting interests, promising more complete satisfaction, and even in its earthly representative manifesting more life and vigor in its organization and securing a deeper social unity than the Roman state. Augustine, who 1 City of God, IV, 3, 4, 14, 15; V, 17. 3 Ibid., XIX, 6. 3 Letters, 138: 17; City of God, IV, 7. AUGUSTINE AND THE CITY OF GOD 20. was essentially democratic in spirit, rejoiced in the fact that slaves, peasants, and handicraftsmen could rise to a high position in the church. In the church councils of his time and in the management of the affairs of a congregation the voice of the majority predominated in many things. Another reason was that the actually existing state seemed to men of classical training far inferior to the earlier state, with no indication of regaining its former condition. A third reason was that his spiritual ancestors both in theology and philosophy had given ordinary political interests a subordinate place. This is true of the church Fathers, not merely because their supreme interest was elsewhere, but also because in the centuries when tradition was being established they were prac- tically excluded from political affairs inasmuch as paganism was the state religion. It was true but in different degrees of Epicurean, Stoic, and neo-Platonist. Epicurus looked upon participation in state affairs as by no means remunerative in the coin of his ideal realm of pleasure. Zeno advised participation in public affairs where circumstances do not hinder. Chrysippus said that the wise man can take active part in political life only in progressive states; the statesman must displease either God or the people. Even Seneca and Marcus Aurelius, both active in political affairs, prized their world-citizenship more highly than the Roman, and duties to the human race higher than those imposed by particular cities. Epictetus kept his wise man employed mainly in talking to world-citizens about freedom and slavery, not however to the total neglect of the narrower citizenship. Augustine though seeking civic peace and concord as a means to aid the pilgrim en route to a better city, not as an end in itself, no doubt thought that he was really serving the best interests of the state. Without a deeper sympathy between man and man and a strengthening of moral fiber it is improbable that any political scheme aiming to secure greater justice and equity could have been successful. From Augustine's standpoint Christianity promised to remove many of the evils which made a true commonwealth impossible. Instead of a general indifference to men of other races and classes it could give a deep interest in the welfare of others, and a true fraternal spirit. It condemned that love of luxury which was the source of political and economic corruption. It protested fiercely against the vices which had made the Roman so often physically inferior to the barbarian. It looked forward to a judg- ment which should reveal and punish man's sins against his neighbor. It taught that no man's wealth can be exclusively his own so long as the poor are in need. It inculcated many virtues similar to those of the 30 A KINGDOM OF ENDS IN AUGUSTINE, AQUINAS, AND LEIBNIZ most noble Romans of earlier times and claimed to root them more deeply in man's nature. It promised to fit men for self-government, which Augustine believed should be permitted to them wherever they showed great care for the common interest. The heresies which at this time were throwing a dark cloud over the fair picture Augustine hoped would be but temporary, and yet it cannot be claimed that he hoped for a thorough moral reconstruction of the earthly state. The real triumph of righteousness and justice could come only in the heavenly city incom- parably more glorious than Rome. (5) The church: Its authority and sacraments. — With Augustine the church was the pre-eminent social institution, adapting its administra- tion to the needs of everyone. The famous apostrophe to the church in Catholic Morals represents it as the conserver of all normal social interests. 1 Its glory is not in wealth or external authority but in its consecration to the work of love. It seeks the good of all, and it is the city of God on earth adorned with every moral virtue. Before examining the means which the church employs in its efforts for the common welfare it may be well to examine the nature and extent of its authority. "To be unwilling to grant her the first place is either the height of impiety or headlong arrogance." 2 This authority is rep- resented as inaugurated by miracles, admitted by the consent of peoples and nations, evidenced by the name Catholic and by the continual succession of priests from the apostle Peter. In the midst of a greatly disturbed social order Augustine felt that the only means of preventing social anarchy was to regard the authority of the church as above question. Its authority is superior to that of reason. The latter "falls back discouraged and exhausted before the light of truth with respect to divine things till met by the friendly shade of authority." 3 In the order of nature when we learn anything "authority precedes reasoning." Of course Augustine's presupposition is that if reason were perfect there would be no conflict. Nor does Augustine hesitate to subordinate the authority of the Scriptures to the church. This he does in a treatise written against the Manicheans. "For my part I should not believe the gospel except as moved by the authority of the church. "4 This sentiment may surprise one who has read much in Augustine for very often he appeals to the 1 Cath. Mor., 30. 2 The Profit of Believing, 35; Against the Letter of Manicheus, 4. 3 Cath. Mor., 2, 7. " Against the Letter of Manicheus, 5. AUGUSTINE AND THE CITY OF GOD 3 1 authority of the Scriptures as final. He however rejects an interpreta- tion so literal as to make seeming inconsistencies irreconcilable. Any- thing found inconsistent with love of God and one's neighbor is to be treated as figurative. It is hard to believe Augustine always kept this in mind. It was a problem for later centuries, not for the fifth, whether pope or emperor was superior in temporal power. In later years both parties used Augustine's name to support their respective positions. He believed that an imperial sinner should submit to spiritual discipline, but this does not carry with it an assertion of superior temporal authority for the church. It may be regarded as simply one of the declarations of the essential equality of men in the sight of God and his representatives on earth which Augustine was fond .of making. Augustine at first opposed employing the aid of the secular power in punishing heresy but later approved of it, believing that he saw undeniable evidence of its good results in Hippo. 1 He always protested against the death penalty for heresy, and would not permit that abomina- tion of the Roman trial, the torture of witnesses. Yet in admitting the aid of the temporal power at all, as well as in his subordination of the authority of reason and the Scriptures to that of the church, he was substituting a bond which might become external, and in some respects was already so to many, for the internal bond which he meant to provide. How fully Augustine made every individual dependent upon the ministry of the church appears most clearly in the doctrine of baptism. An infant born where he could not be baptized "is rightly excluded from the kingdom of heaven." The conclusion at times tortures Augustine but in spite of moral pangs he holds to it unflinchingly just as he accepted the eternal condemnation of the moral teachers of early Greece against his natural feelings and sense of justice. Investigation of earlier custom seemed to show him that "It was not an open question admitting of discussion, but was fixed and unassailable that the soul would forfeit eternal salvation if it ended this life without the sacrament of baptism," 2 hence he treated the matter as finally settled though it both conflicted with his own view of salvation by faith and gave him endless difficulty in attempting "to justify the ways of God to men." The former he answered by saying that it is the faith of others which saves the child, without which "the fleeting and perishable element" could do no good. In order to explain now the punishment of the unbaptized infant can be 1 Letters, 93:5; 104, 173. 2 On Forgiveness, III, n; On Nature and Grace, 9. 2,2 A KINGDOM ON ENDS IN AUGUSTINE, AQUINAS, AND LEIBNIZ just he sought aid from Jerome in constructing a metaphysical hypothesis of the origin of souls that would explain the transmission of actual guilt. 1 Jerome gave no aid, and Augustine, never quite satisfied with his own solution, in his "Retractions" treated the question as unsettled, advising others either to leave it alone or else to accept no solution contradicting the Catholic faith with regard to original sin in infants. 2 Usually Augustine seems not so much bound by previous teaching as by the custom of previous ages. (6) Special religious instrumentalities. — Augustine tried hard at times to escape from bondage to external rites, but he was a Roman hence per- haps he could not, and at least he did not wholly, succeed. He wished to make the mediation of the church necessary, but at the same time to throw the most powerful emphasis upon divine grace. Hence he taught that the sacraments of the church though necessary to salvation are in themselves not sufficient for it. He who receives them without faith is yet in sin. He who lives unworthily and in gross sin will be shut out from heaven though he receives them. Man must fulfil the law of love to God and his neighbor. But how can man born in sin fulfil the law of righteousness ? In attempting to answer this question Augustine was led to take a position which makes the bond that was intended to unite the city of God seem arbitrary and external, in spite of his attempts to avoid this. The law reveals to man his sinfulness. This may be the first step toward salvation or it may lead in the opposite direction, for to know a thing is forbidden may cause us to desire it the more. To obey the divine commands from fear will not avail, for though fear involves a kind of faith true faith works by love not fear. How then is the true faith to be obtained? Here Augustine found a dilemma. To say the will to believe is the gift of God would give men an opportunity to excuse themselves by saying it had not been given them. To say it is of man would make man glory in his own strength, than which nothing could be more disastrous. Free will must not be allowed to limit free grace. Augustine wavered for a time between the two views, though in fact always inclining the more toward the denial of freedom. In his later works man is left with but the merest semblance of freedom. All is of grace. It seemed to him that to admit the slightest moral initiative on man's part would be opening the way for the denial of the need of any divine aid whatever. 3 1 Letters, 166; 169:4. 2 Retractationes, II, 45. 3 The Spirit and the Letter, 7, 8, 13, 20, 52, 54, 60; On Forgiveness, II, 28; Conf., IX, 1; On Predestination, 7, 8; On Perseverance, 33. AUGUSTINE AND THE CITY OF GOD 33 An experiential basis for a tremendous emphasis upon grace as against free will Augustine probably found in his own conversion. "Where then through all those years was my free will, and out of what deep and secret retreat was it called forth in a moment?" No doubt from the first Augustine felt that this sudden deliverance involved a power other than his own, but it was more than a decade later before he took an extreme position in denying free will. The scriptural basis for his change of view he claimed was, "What hast thou that thou hast not received?" and this he would not admit might be interpreted to mean that man was originally given the power of choice. Augustine, however, always is very careful to insist that this imparted faith is not, though received through grace, forced upon us. "It is not of necessity but of love shed abroad in our hearts — a love that makes us willing where we were unwilling," hence our consent to suggestions of good is in the highest degree voluntary. " God's work in us is not as it is in creatures without reason or will by nature." What he means to say is that God does not take away our free will, but really makes the will, hitherto not free to do good, free by his grace. 1 Augustine was true to the religious consciousness in so far as it usually involves a strong sense of new strength or of help coming from without and lifting the individual up from the weakness and narrowness of his individuality into a vastly larger life. Yet it may well be ques- tioned whether there is not always some sense of individual effort present in the experience. Grace appears as irresistible mainly because the individual could not have refused to follow the new light which came to him without becoming utterly debased in his own eyes by so doing. Augustine's own experience as given in "The Confessions" certainly reveals many definite voluntary acts leading toward his wonderful deliverance. As protesting against a narrow individual morality which denies all help from without Augustine was right. He was right also in so far as he denied the possibility of willing the good without some love for it. Without this love it is not really the good that is willed but something connected with it. Most probably his aim was partly to show that morality is more than legality. But when through exaggerated expres- sions he practically canceled the individual's own activity and left him a passive recipient as it were, he struck a severe blow at that moral order which he wished to preserve. Active citizenship in the city of God lost much of its significance, because its individual members lost 1 Com/., IX, 1; On Predestination, 7, 8. 34 A KINGDOM OF ENDS IN AUGUSTINE, AQUINAS, AND LEIBNIZ all moral initiative. In fact this moral kingdom became a feeble reflec- tion of the political state of Augustine's own day. The monarch alone was active, politically in one and morally in the other. The future life, too, conceived as happiness with desert, became an impossible con- ception, for man was left with so small a part, if indeed with any part in his own moral reconstruction, that it could not be seen where any desert came in. This problem Augustine foresaw but did not answer satisfactorily. But an even more crucial problem remained. Why does God assist one and not another ? Augustine boldly asserts that this is done, even when some who receive no assistance are living purer lives than others who do receive it. His favorite defenses of the justice of God in this respect are: (a) None have any claim on him hence he may show mercy to whom he will. All are born under penalty, (b) Without the contrast with penalty mercy could not be appreciated, (c) Though there be seeming injustice there is no real injustice on the part of God, and "we should not search into things too strong for us," 1 advice which Augustine himself never consistently followed. The first of the above answers was peculiarly destructive to the bond which united the citizens of the city of God. The divine fatherhood of the race, carrying with it human brotherhood, was interpreted in a sense once recognized in Roman law but utterly inadequate for a higher developed moral society. The Roman law had permitted the father of the newborn child either to take it up and bestow upon it the tenderest paternal care, or else to refuse to do so and to permit or command its exposure until death resulted. With this type of fatherhood the pre- determined and absolutely fixed rejection of the greater part of the human race and its assignment to eternal death is thoroughly con- sistent, but not so with the fatherhood of God as presented by Jesus. The second answer implies that the redeemed either have never felt real penitence for sin or having felt it have forgotten it. The real problem of an absolutely painless heaven lies rather in how a pure soul can remember without pain, a wrong done to another even though assured of its forgiveness. The third answer was an expression of Augustine's profound faith in the divine justice, which was always to him a basal conception in spite of the fact that he sometimes made it hard for others to believe in such justice. He thought that none but a madman could doubt God's justice. 2 1 Against Two Letters, II, 15; IV, 16; Letters, 95:6. 3 Ibid., 166:6. AUGUSTINE AND THE CITY OF GOD 35 Contemplation has the peculiar distinction of being both a means to the realization of individual and social ends, and the end itself. It gives both a foretaste of the final end and new strength and courage for the journey. Social considerations should always be regarded in choos- ing a contemplative life. If the claims of others demand our active service, we should not choose the contemplative life, but no life however active should be without the contemplation of God. 1 Contemplation is not indolent vacancy of mind but the discovery or investigation of truth. Its object is God or other objects as seen in relation to God. It may have little emotional content, or may at rare times be ecstatic. It is reason in its highest function hence reason in lowest function should obey its commands. It is reason developed into higher intuition though this phrase is not used by Augustine. Prayer and communion with God are included in it and celibacy is to be preferred because it gives more leisure for it. It is pre-eminently the means of spiritual advance- ment — a veritable bond of life, for it unites the soul with God. Long before Augustine the contemplative life had been strongly emphasized as the highest type of life though the object of contemplation was conceived differently. Aristotle gave eight reasons why he con- sidered it so. 2 Plato too had spoken in the Republic of a beatific vision of eternal realities, a sort of immediate intuition penetrating beyond the limits of rational thought. The Stoic retired within the citadel of his mind and meditating upon universal law sought to bring his own will into relation with it. In the midst of war Marcus Aurelius did not neglect his hours of meditation. Neo-Platonism made contemplation of supreme importance, as the means by which we rise to that vision which, though rarely reached here, gives promise of a future unbroken vision in which the seer and the seen become one. The world of the inner life had revealed itself in such splendor to these men that they were intoxicated with it. VI. THE LIFE AFTER DEATH AND THE FINAL GOAL (1) The intermediate state. — The final goal in the city of God is perfect felicity in the contemplation of God. This involves moral per- fection, for felicity is happiness with desert, hence only the pure in heart may know it. As the work of moral purification is incomplete at death it must be completed. To those who love Christ more than earthly T On the Trinity, XII, 14-15; Reply to Faustus, XXII, 27; Conf., IX, 10; X, 40; XII, 16. 2 Aristotle Ethics, x. 8. 36 A KINGDOM OF ENDS IN AUGUSTINE, AQUINAS, AND LEIBNIZ things yet love the latter inordinately the loss of earthly things at death may be both a purification and a punishment. 1 In two of his works Augustine says that a kind of purgatorial fire is not impossible. That the righteous may endure temporary punishment between death and the judgment is conceded. At this stage prayer for the dead avails. He usually speaks as if the dead slept until the final judgment, their dreams in the meantime being in accordance with their desert. 2 (2) The end of Babylon. — At the resurrection both wicked and righteous receive bodies again, those of the wicked being material and imperfect, and those of the righteous glorified and perfect. The wicked are consumed in material fire which does not destroy the body but tortures the soul. Their severest penalty however is exile from the city of God. The punishment, though for temporal sins, is eternal since neither in earthly nor in heavenly courts does the time spent in com- mitting the evil deed determine the nature of the penalty. The sinner wills the eternal enjoyment of his sin hence his penalty is eternal. If God is the source of life will not the soul that is cut off from him become extinct ? Augustine has two incongruous answers for this question : (a) The soul which has known truth must like truth be eternal, and (b) God preserves even the evil spirits so they may receive just punishment; if he did not, Augustine elsewhere admits, they would cease to be. 3 In one respect the wicked have their will. They prefer living on in torment to annihilation. There are degrees in punishment in exact accordance with what justice demands, hence infants receive the mildest form and those who lived praiseworthy lives without knowledge of the gospel the next lowest. 4 For all there is a possibility of some respite from penalty, but this Augustine does not attempt to describe definitely. The general presupposition is that the wicked know that their penalty is just, but a very serious difficulty arises here, especially in the case of infants. By hypothesis the wicked do not develop physically or mentally after death, and the child is absolutely unable to understand moral relations before death hence its suffering must be eternally a mere blind endurance of pain, wholly purposeless. 1 Enchiridion, 69, 109. 2 Tractate on the Gospel of St. John, 49:9-10; Enchiridion, 69, 109-10; City of God, XXI, 13, 24. J Enchiridion, 27, 112; Letters, 3. * On Forgiveness, II, 21 ; The Spirit and the Letter, 48; City of God, XXI, 16. AUGUSTINE AND THE CITY OF GOD 37 (3) Life in the celestial Jerusalem. — The judgment is a time not only of separation but also of purification. The good have the last stain of sin removed and receive a new body. This new body is spiritual and without blemish or lusts of the flesh. Augustine is not anxious to exclude all material characteristics. It is quite indifferent whether the body does or does not have weight. There is at any rate such vitality that movement is pleasure, or without effort in the sense of strain. In fact on earth a healthy man moves his body though large with much greater ease than a sick man moves his emaciated form. The essential thing seems to be with Augustine that materiality and inertia should be swallowed up in life and vigor. The soul is strong and in complete harmony with God and other souls, and the subordination of the body is perfect. The latter is not a hindrance but really necessary for com- pleteness. Man is better with it than without it. Here Augustine is true to his basal metaphysical principle that matter as such is not essentially evil but good. Evil originates from the soul and passes down to the body. It is the purification of the soul for which baptism is meant. But since the soul cannot be perfectly purified on earth or at least never is so purified, the dualism of good and evil will last as long as -the soul is united with the earthly body. It is easy to see how this invariable connection of the body with evil could come to be regarded as causal, and this is just what happened, and thus practically the neo- Platonic idea of the inherent antagonism of matter and the good was restored. Humanity, that is as much of it as belongs to the city of God, finds its fulfilment and lasting joy in the beatific vision. It would seem in general that beatific visions lend themselves better to appreciation than to description. In neo-Platonic terms they go beyond the realm of the concept. Augustine considers contemplation rather as the highest function of reason, but he too said the vision surpassed description. The beatific vision was evidently his dominating concept and largely through his influence it became so for many of the noblest minds of after ages. Augustine's own magnificent personality had combined in it strong will, keen intellect, and deep emotion. Did the beatific vision give proportionate recognition to all these elements ? We have said he regarded contemplation as the highest exercise of the function of reason but in the same paragraph he gave it a value for action, and may not have meant to shut volitional elements out from the highest vision. In fact he represents the angels as carrying on many and varied activities 38 A KINGDOM OF ENDS IN AUGUSTINE, AQUINAS, AND LEIBNIZ without interruption of contemplation. Let us examine the content of the concept more closely. Augustine clearly emphasized the knowledge side. We have seen that he deemed immortality undesirable without increase in knowledge. There were very many problems Augustine wanted an answer for, and hoped to receive it hereafter. Some of them pertained to material things, such as how things are conserved, the order in which they exist, and how they give way to something else. Then there were the problems about the justice and equity of the great judge, why some gentle souls suffered torturing pain on earth, and monsters of wickedness prospered. "The righteous now know that these things are just, then they shall know why they are just." 1 There is however good reason to think that Augustine would have rejected the belief of an earlier philosopher that insight is the final goal of man, and that he would have resented the charge sometimes made that his vita beata is merely will-less contemplation. "In that life the will shall have all that it wills, and there gratification of desire shall give satisfaction but not satiety." 3 Rest in the after life "is not slothful inaction but a certain ineffable harmony caused by works in which there is no painful effort," and "the repose on which we enter is consistent with lively joy in the exercises of the better life." 3 Augustine was clearly conscious that the perfection of life demanded more activity than he had been able to define or describe, but feared to attempt more. Certainly he did not mean that contemplation should be regarded as essentially passive. In accordance with his psychology contemplation involves attention which is an act of will. "The will is the uniter of the visible thing and vision." Memory, which also involves will, is present in the future life. 4 The emotional side is certainly not neglected. Love to God and to those who dwell in him is mentioned very frequently. Since the vision of God is also a vision of all things which exist as related to him neither its emotional nor intellectual content can be small. The scriptural bases for the beatific vision most frequently employed by Augustine are: (a) "Now we see through a glass darkly as in an enigma but then face to face, etc." 5 The thought here seems to be that of the solution of the puzzles of life through greater knowledge hereafter, but the context in which it occurs declares the emptiness of knowledge 1 Letters, 195:6; Enchiridion, 94. 2 On the Trinity, XIII, 7; City of God, XXII, 30; On Catechizing, 25, 47. J Letters, 55:9; 189. 4 On the Trinity, XI, 3. s I Cor. 13:12. AUGUSTINE AND THE CITY OF GOD 39 without love, (b) "Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God." 1 This may be interpreted as recognition by the Supreme Moral Person of internal rectitude in man. (c) "We shall be like him for we shall see him as he is," 2 suggesting moral transformation through direct or intuitive perception of the Supreme Being. To all of these elements Augustine gives attention. Just how far and how directly Augustine was influenced by earlier beatific visions it is difficult to say. Beatific visions were seen even before Plato's day, and were not limited to any country. The neo- Platonic influence was brought to bear upon Augustine very directly, but there is an essential difference between the neo-Platonic vision and the Augustinian. The former meant loss of personality, it seems often loss of distinct consciousness. The latter meant an intensifying of consciousness and enlargement and completion of the self by the social intimacy upon which it entered. It must be remembered that to Augustine the final goal for man is the binding of the personality of the individual to that of other individuals through the Supreme Person, God, and as expressive of such a union the beatific vision must always be social and personal in character. VII. THE VALUE OF AUGUSTINE 's CONCEPTION OF THE CITY OF GOD The conception of the city of God presented by Augustine was a marked advance beyond the Stoic conception. (1) It appealed to the whole nature of man, while Stoicism, suppress- ing the emotional nature, could reach only men of iron will and highly developed reasoning powers. Its wise men were few, and active citizen- ship in the universal state necessarily greatly limited. (2) Augustine's conception made provision for a partial realization of the ideals of the divine city by means of an organized society on earth which should place this end above all others. Stoicism, though not absolutely without the missionary spirit, could not organize its forces effectively so as to gain the strength which is born of actual association, and which the individual working in isolation cannot have. As against the Stoic overemphasis on the power of the individual to reconstruct himself morally through reason and will independent of outside aid, Augustine's assertion that men fall together and must rise together because bound by ties other than the purely rational, as shown in his doctrine of the child's condemnation for racial sin, and its salvation by 1 Matt. 5:8. 2 1 John 3: 2. 40 A KINGDOM OF ENDS IN AUGUSTINE, AQUINAS, AND LEIBNIZ the faith of others, was in some respects a wholesome though extreme reaction. (3) It brought into unity ethics and religion much more completely than the Stoic system had done. Stoicism gave too little attention to the religious aspect; neo-Platonism too little to the ethical. (4) It promised an unending development of life and thus afforded a future outlook. Personality was to be preserved and personal relations widened so as to include men of every age and race. Members lost to the earthly society were to be reunited in the heavenly. The ideal universal state was to become actual. (5) It gave reinforcement to the individual conscience by the power- ful stimulus of a future judgment revealing the thoughts and intents of the heart, and thus free from the externality of earthly judgments of approval and disapproval. At the same time the judge is represented as at all times ready to help the individual to live righteously and to sustain him in his efforts for the moral upbuilding of society. To this social stimulus of an omnipotent judge was added that of an invisible society of men and angels as witnesses of his moral struggle. The Stoic had little of this social stimulus. Too much credit cannot be given him for his heroic assertion of the power and duty of the individual to stand alone in the midst of social surroundings antagonistic to his lofty con- ceptions; but on the whole he was left so lonely and comfortless that it is not difficult to understand why suicide might seem justifiable to him in seemingly irremediable situations. As a kingdom of ends Augustine's conception has several very serious defects: (1) There is great incongruity in its metaphysical presuppositions. The purpose of the universe is conceived to be the expression of the divine goodness, but this does not harmonize with a predetermined plan to exclude the greater part of the human race from any other partici- pation in the eternal good than the purely formal and negative one of a bare existence in eternal torment enduring punishment in no sense remedial. (2) There are elements in the system which tend to destroy that conception of personality which is the necessary bond of a true kingdom of ends, and which Augustine on the whole was anxious to preserve. In its best form the system represents a personal God as the intermediary link making possible the fulfilment of man's duty to his fellow-man. In its worst form the concept of human personality is practically annulled by denying to man the moral initiative necessary to personality. If AUGUSTINE AND THE CITY OP GOD 4 1 this initiative be denied man cannot be regarded as an active member of the kingdom of ends. (3) Progress is restricted by overemphasis on the authority of the visible church, and a tendency to see in her customs and rules a per- fection not congruous with the generally accepted hypothesis that her members do not attain perfection on earth, and with the admission that there was a real development of moral perception in the earthly Jerusalem of the Old Testament period. (4) Progress is likewise hindered by what has been called the Roman tendency to harden into inflexible dogmatic statements the teachings of the Scriptures. Though Augustine advises that anything found in the Scriptures at variance with the love of God or of one's neighbor should be interpreted figuratively, he persistently violates this principle in evident unawareness of the fact that if the city of God is to be progressive new viewpoints must be taken, and frequently older ones, illuminating and helpful perhaps to earlier generations, must be forsaken. (5) A violation of the human sense of justice in placing actual moral guilt on infants who, it is admitted, cannot have sinned as persons. (6) The natural basis for the development of a moral kingdom is destroyed by the assertion that the moral virtues manifested by the unregenerate are necessarily immoral in their spirit and motive. This, though meant as a protest against the incompleteness of a morality which too often did not go beyond instinct, or custom, or merely pru- dential considerations, was stated in extreme terms. Augustine denied that the law was written in any legible form in the heart of the unre- generate. It may well be doubted also whether a belief in the total spiritual depravity of one's neighbor tends to the furtherance of mutual sympathy and understanding. (7) A too great tendency to accept the possibility of the development of the person for the larger social relations of a universal kingdom in almost absolute isolation from social relations with his fellow-men. While Augustine moves away from the hermit life he does not move very rapidly, or very far. (8) A morbid accentuation of the unsatisfactoriness, failures, and gloom of life to the neglect of its brighter aspects. This, while partly explicable by the troublous character of the times in which Augustine lived, seems like a rhetorical device to increase the glory of the heavenly city by darkening the contrast picture of the earthly. (9) Too faint an appreciation of a progressive realization of the end in the means. Faith as active appropriation of spiritual power receives 42 A KINGDOM OF ENDS IN AUGUSTINE, AQUINAS, AND LEIBNIZ less attention than hope of a future "far off divine event." It is a very serious defect in Augustine's conception of the city of God that there is so little hope of its realization on earth. Augustine is mildly melioristic rather than optimistic. In this he is severely logical in following out his premises concerning the nature and transmission of original sin. If every new member of the race must come into it, burdened, corrupted, and limited by original sin as much as his ancestors have been, and possibly even more so, and if the social institution on which the increase of the race depends cannot escape the taint of sin, and also if for the Christian there is suppression not total eradication of the sinful element in him, the outlook is necessarily gloomy. It was so gloomy for Augustine that he even resorts to a highly figurative interpretation of the millennial period of the church, practically denying that Christ will ever reign more completely on earth than he does now. 1 The whole world will never be leavened with the leaven of the kingdom of heaven. So also in the universe as a whole sin will ever continue as an irremediable defect. 1 City of God, XX, 8-17. CHAPTER III AQUINAS AND THE UNIVERSAL CHURCH I. IMPORTANT CHANGES FROM THE FIFTH TO THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY (i) Political and economic changes. — The next serious attempt after Augustine to develop a systematic theory of life and its meaning in terms of a social order was made more than eight hundred years later by Thomas Aquinas. Momentous changes had taken place in the city of God and also in the whole political and social world. The boundaries of the church had been greatly extended but in some directions there had been diminution. Augustine's Africa, lost in part before his death, was now entirely without her borders. To the new states, formed partly from new territory once belonging to the empire and partly from lands over which the Roman rule had never extended, the church stood in most intimate relation. England had been settled by Germanic tribes, Christianized, organ- ized first into a national church, then into a national state, had assimi- lated several groups of invaders and Christianized those who were not so before their coming. In the period of Aquinas it was undergoing marked political changes. Magna Charta had been granted shortly before and now the movement was toward the Model Parliament and Confirmatio Cartarum. In this century one of the kings had offered homage to the pope and another had been pitifully subservient to papal demands, but not without popular protest. Gaul, largely in the hands of the barbarians before the fall of the Empire, had been conquered by the Franks who soon accepted Chris- tianity. The Carlovingian dynasty came into power, formed a close alliance with the pope, and its king received from him the imperial title. His weaker successors under the stress of new barbarian invasions had failed to maintain the unity of the Empire. As a means of defense the feudal order grew up ; but a little later a line of feudal kings of unusual ability began to build up a strong central government. The Crusades helped them to escape from feudal restraints, and in Aquinas' day the saintly monarch, Louis IX, was adding new strength to the state. Though a devoted son of the church he was not weakly submissive to the papal power. In the tenth century Otto the Saxon received from the pope the imperial title as head of "the Roman Empire of the German People." 43 44 A KINGDOM OF ENDS IN AUGUSTINE, AQUINAS, AND LEIBNIZ For three centuries following, German kings hazarded their lives and the welfare of their native land to maintain imperial sway. Politically the result was a failure ending in the collapse of the empire, and in the triumph of its chief but by no means only opponent, the papacy. Dur- ing the Interregnum the greatest confusion prevailed. There were about three hundred fragmentary political divisions and no hope of unity. Italy, never strongly feudal, was then an aggregation of petty tyrannies and of city republics moving rapidly in the direction of tyranny. The cities were at strife with each other, and within the cities the bitterest class strife prevailed. Castile and Aragon were in this period growing up in the midst of Mohammedan neighbors. Portugal was nominally a Christian kingdom, and since Augustine's time many other small Christian kingdoms had been established. The idea of a universal monarchy did not perish with the house of Hohenstauf en, but it never regained its earlier force among the Germans. It is true in a sense that the papacy fell heir to the fallen German- Roman Empire, but it is also true that half a century earlier Innocent III exercised from the papal chair a domination far wider than had ever been possessed by that empire. He had received homage from almost every ruler in Europe, but his authority and that of his successors had not remained unquestioned. It was yet to be seen, says a recent his- torian, whether the ecclesiastical state could be reconciled with current legal theory. The tremendous importance attached to the study of Roman law in the two centuries preceding made the problem of more general interest. Economic changes in these intervening centuries had been very striking especially in the later ones. Serfdom had taken the place of slavery. The Crusades had greatly weakened the feudal lords and given the cities an opportunity for development. The old barter system no longer existed, and commerce and manufacture had received a wonderful impetus. The merchant and the artisan were becoming very important, and agriculture was no longer the only industry. The burgher was forming the basis for the third estate. New forms of industrial life drew peasants and serfs to the cities, and greatly increased the wealth of the country. This rapid transition was not without danger to moral interests, and commercial values threatened to predominate over all others. We have seen that the problem of the relation of the various political states to the papacy was vital. Another equally important problem was AQUINAS AND THE UNIVERSAL CHURCH 45 concerning the nature of the state and the duty of rulers to their people. Along with this and to a large extent involved in it, was the problem of the mutual relations of the natural, the positive, and the divine law. These problems were forced to the front by the breaking down of the feudal order, the internal strife within the Italian cities, and the forma- tion of new states. At least twice Aquinas was called upon to give advice concerning the political state. (2) The church and the new monasticism. — The value of the service rendered to society by the organized, church in the Middle Ages can scarcely be overestimated. It is in the main true that the clergy and their earthly head had earned exaltation by leading every advance in civil- ization. Many at times forgot their holy mission, but there were always some who condemned their defection and tried to purify the church and fit it for better service to humanity. In this their success was often great, but never more striking and widespread than in the revival heralded early in the thirteenth century by the coming of the friars. St. Francis, founder of one of the two great brotherhoods, at first questioned whether he should retire from the world or give himself to active service. The example of Jesus solved his problem. Henceforth the monk instead of fleeing from the world might seek its most densely populated places with a gospel message, or a ministry of mercy. His holy city was to be created rather than sought by the sword. The second order, the Domini- cans, also had a message for the multitude. With them contemplation became largely a preparation for instructing others. Both orders took up what was best from orders formed in the preceding century, but they had two unique characteristics, (a) ardent zeal for the salvation of others, and (b) poverty not merely for the individual monk but for the order. The first contrasted strikingly with the indifference to others' welfare often manifested by both the secular and the monastic clergy. The second was a protest against evils which had grown up in a feudalized church. The active ministry of these orders in public preaching, teaching, and works of mercy necessitated relaxation from the rigorous discipline prevalent in some of the earlier orders. The secular clergy was slow to recognize the worth of the two orders of friars, but the pope soon perceived their efficiency, and kings and common people sought their ministration in preference to that of the seculars. The Dominicans, who were chiefly concerned with doctrine, early sought the university centers and won a place in them in spite of great opposition. Many Franciscans followed their example. Though Augustine and many others had always assumed that the monastic life 46 A KINGDOM OF ENDS IN AUGUSTINE, AQUINAS, AND LEIBNIZ should be one of social service there were still some who looked upon this active imitation of Christ in mingling with and serving others as something quite inconsistent with a profession of "forsaking the world" which they interpreted quite literally. It was essential to the unity of the faith that the work of friars should be shown to be consistent with the highest ideals of the church. (3) The universities and the new philosophy. — The university centers, sought by the friars, were for them strategic points of great value. Within little more than two centuries these institutions had come into being, and were exercising a great influence. The movement out of which they rose preceded the Crusades. A comparatively peaceful era gave opportunity for the development of interest in dialectic, law, medicine, and theology in the existing schools. Bologna became famous for law, Salerno, afterward Naples, for medicine, and Paris for theology. Charters were given later by which they became universities. The Crusades caused an intellectual upheaval which stimulated their growth most powerfully. Within these schools keen criticism of existing theories arose, (a) There was a demand for reconciliation of contra- dictions in theological literature. Abelard's Sic et non had helped to reveal this need, (b) It was a pedagogical necessity that the vast mass of theological material inherited from preceding ages should be put into scientific form. Hugo of St. Victor and Peter the Lombard had made important steps in this direction, but a more highly developed scholasticism demanded something more completely organic, (c) A task not less difficult was given to the church by the introduction of the philosophy of Aristotle. The logic of Aristotle, long accepted as authoritative, prepared the way for his other works first made known to the Middle Ages through Arabic thinkers, and a little later brought to the West from the Latin empire at Constantinople. By the church this new material was regarded with suspicion. Conclusions drawn from Aristotle by Arabic commentators were antagonistic to the Christian faith, hence the church forbade the use of his works, except the Logic, under severe penalties. But soon a closer examination revealed that Aristotle's metaphysical theories would lend themselves to an interpretation not incongruous with generally accepted religious beliefs, and in some cases could be used as a positive support. (4) The new situation in ethics. — It was not merely as affording metaphysical support that Aristotle was adopted by theology. There were other problems which theology as guardian of the moral order AQUINAS AND THE UNIVERSAL CHURCH 47 could not neglect. We have already seen that there was a demand for a theory of government. Here Aristotle promised aid. Still another problem had come into consciousness through wider knowledge of non- Christian peoples gained partly by mingling with them in the Crusades and partly by more peaceful contact. It was observed that they too recognized duty and virtue, and that their good deeds were deserving of a better title than "splendid faults." There was need of a relatively independent ethics and of showing the relation of the morality with which it dealt to Christian morality. For the independent ethics much might be drawn from Aristotle. Summing up the difficulties which confronted Aquinas we may say his problem was : How to meet the dangerous disturbance in the moral order due to several mutually interacting causes, viz., (a) General uncertainty as to the relation of church and state, especially with respect to the relation of the pope to the heads of the various states, (b) The need of a theory of government and of law. (c) Diversion of attention from the religious foundations of the moral order, and a neglect of moral values due to the breaking up of the earlier industrial order and to the rapid rise of commercial interests, (d) Uncertainty whether the monastic life could be consistently spent in active social service, (e) The new university spirit interested in the above problems, and dis- satisfied with existing theology because of its contradiction and its lack of scientific form. (/) The undermining of religious belief especially in the universities by the revival of the Aristotelian philosophy, (g) The need of an independent ethics or recognition of moral values in actions not springing from a religious motive. Albertus Magnus, the distinguished teacher of Aquinas, and the Englishman Alexander of Hales had already done notable work bearing upon at least two of these problems, but it was left to Aquinas to com- plete their work. His eminent fitness sprang from his thorough mastery of the scholastic method, his conciliatory disposition, his very great piety, and his remarkable knowledge of past and of contemporary thought. His work is an attempt to organize and interpret experience, using the term in its widest sense, under a general concept which will give a richer meaning to every particular part. The concept is that of a very complex and highly organized kingdom of ends known as the universal church. II. ENDS AND THE SUPREME END (1) The teleology of the universe. — "God is the end of all things" is the brief formula by which Aquinas expresses his doctrine of the supreme 48 A KINGDOM OF ENDS IN AUGUSTINE, AQUINAS, AND LEIBNIZ end. He explains this to mean that God is the sovereign or common good since upon him the good of the whole community of creatures depends. In this sense " God hath wrought all things for himself, but since as first producer he does not act in view of acquiring anything by his action there can be no other end for his intellect and will than that he should communicate his goodness." 1 This doctrine is essentially like Augustine's. Being as such is good, and is the expression of the goodness of God. The perfection of the universe requires infinite variety so there must be creatures in it who could fall away from goodness, as well as those who could not. This provision made possible an explanation of the origin of evil. Like several of his predecessors, Aquinas answers a moral problem in terms of esthetics. Infinite variety or esthetic per- fection is made a supreme determining principle of creation. At other times Thomas says God permitted evil knowing that he could bring good out of it. (2) Nature and early history of intellectual creatures. — All creatures contribute to the universal perfection, but not in the same degree. Intellectual creatures, as conscious of ends and able to direct their activities toward ends, participate in the divine plan uniquely. They may be called co-workers with God because of this, and in his providence they are cared for for their own sakes while other creatures are cared for that they may serve these higher beings. Intellectual creatures, then, are never mere means but ends. They may be said from this standpoint to constitute a kingdom of ends, but Thomas does not use this phrase. From our standpoint however it is a very imperfect kingdom of ends, because of a constitutional defect. Its founder is represented as wishing some good to all but not eternal life to all though he does not positively predestine any to eternal death. Not all are equally ends in themselves. The universal church is a mystic body in which all men on earth are members as also are all those who have entered into a higher life. But of the earthly members many are so only in potentia. Some of them are predestined to become so in actu, but the great majority will never do so. The latter cannot be called active members of the mystic body or kingdom of ends. 2 The supreme end of intellectual creatures as might be expected is intellectual activity in the beatific vision of God. This Thomas never forgets to state emphatically. With him there is less emphasis on the volitional elements in contemplation than in Augustine* Contemplation 1 Contra Gentiles, I, 86-87. "Ibid., Ill, 112-13; Summa Tkeologica, I, 23:3; III, 8:1-3. AQUINAS AND THE UNIVERSAL CHURCH 49 is pre-eminently an exercise of the intellect. How the final end as contemplation reflects back on the present life, making the ideal life contemplative in character, we shall see later. Thomas however is very careful to represent contemplation not as a passive state. It is, as with Augustine, an activity and a distinctly personal activity, and it is in the after life an uninterrupted activity. The part played by angels in carrying out the divine plan is worked out quite fully by Thomas, as is also their organization into orders and hierarchies, suggestive of the feudal order but more perfect. They move all corporeal things and they also influence man by illuminating his intellect or by persuading him, but they never force his will. A guardian angel is given to every child at birth and remains with him till death. This guardianship always is of some worth, for by it even the most wicked are kept back from many evil deeds. Activity in carrying on the administration of affairs in the universe is no hindrance to the angelic contemplation of God. The fall of the angels follows the tra- ditional description. Of the class of beings whose activities resemble the divine in that they are intellectual and volitional, man is the lowest member. He stands between subsistent forms which have no bodily existence and forms wholly bound up in matter. His soul can exist in separation from the body, but it is incomplete in this state, and essentially, the soul is the form of the body. Its individuation is derived from its real or possible, present or past, commerce with the body whose form it is. This gives the body a prominence that Augustine would have resented. The fall of man was a fall from grace supernaturally bestowed upon him at creation and by virtue of which body was perfectly subordinated to soul, lower forces to reason, and the soul to God. The fall was due to sin springing from pride but involving other elements also, and the results of it passed down to posterity. Without the supernatural grace bestowed at creation man might have reached his natural end, in full possession of the cardinal virtues, but could not have attained unaided his supernatural end, the beatific vision. After man's nature was wounded and corrupted by sin the moral life still remained but the practice of the natural virtues became more difficult. Augustine admitted that some good could be found in every man, but he had refused to call it true virtue. Thomas does not take so vigorous a view of the destructive nature of the original sin. The child's lack of self-control and inability to reason are not the penalty of sin but have a natural cause in cerebral humidity. Instincts are not to 50 A KINGDOM OP ENDS IN AUGUSTINE, AQUINAS, AND LEIBNIZ be crushed out. They are like children with a will of their own, and should be ruled by reason. Training rather than suppression is needed. In this larger recognition of the natural, Thomas leaves the way open for a relatively independent treatment of ethics, but only relatively independent for as Rietter says, "Virtue is always considered as the way to the goal not the goal itself." (3) The infra-human realm. — It is somewhat difficult to understand just what division Thomas makes between the human and sub-human world. Celestial bodies as such are more perfect than human bodies, and they are moved by subsistent intelligences higher in rank than human souls, but these do not stand in the relation of souls to the bodies which they move. All created things are part of a very definite order. Per- haps Thomas thought of the feudal hierarchy, but the greater perfection of his subordination of each part to one above it and of all to God suggests rather that God is the infinite Logician, and the universe an animated logical schema of which he is the highest term. In this scale of being the lower serve the higher, hence we may term them means; but as it is the glory of the higher to diffuse goodness like God they also in some measure serve the lower. All things seek their own good, the inanimate through the physical appetite (physical and chemical forces), the merely animal through the sentient appetite, and the rational through the rational appetite or will. In this sense all seek after God who is at once the source of being and activity, and the highest goal. Thomas, though highly appreciative of the fulness of reality and of the almost infinite variety of the universe, seems scarcely so appreciative of the charm of nature as Augustine. It is certain that he feared its danger much less. On the whole he pictures the infra-human world as very good and no insuperable hindrance to a kingdom of ends. Our next step is to examine whether within man's own inner nature there is any irreconcilable conflict such as would make active membership in such a kingdom impossible. III. PSYCHICAL FACTORS AND THEIR INTERRELATION (1) Will and intellect. — It is through intellect and will, the capacity of conceiving ends and following them out, that man becomes a member of a kingdom of ends. Every man is a member of a kingdom of ends in the sense that all are under obligations to treat him as such, but he may fall far short of being an active member, thoroughly loyal to the interests of the kingdom, if will and intellect do not work together harmoniously, AQUINAS AND THE UNIVERSAL CHURCH 5 1 or if there are other elements in his nature which prevent their efficient action. Hence it is necessary to examine the relation of intellect and will to each other and to other mental activities such as emotion, desire, instinct, and impulse. Aquinas defines will as a craving after, or longing for, a conceived good. It differs from animal appetite. The latter man also possesses in common with the beasts in the form of " concupiscible or irascible" faculties. Animal appetites must move in one specific direction. They are determined by a sense judgment. Man through his power of reflec- tion has many courses of action open to him. He has "free judgment which is free will." 1 This statement however must be considered only as partial. As an intellectualist Thomas tends to give the primacy to intellect in the volitional act, but as a moralist and as a theologian he is led to assert the primacy of will. - At times he vibrates between these two positions. The primacy of the intellect is suggested in such passages as, "Free will is a free judgment on the matter of a specific notion or general concept," and "Sin is in the reason when the reason either commands the inordinate acts of the lower powers, or after deliberation does not refuse them." Reason is also represented as furnishing the proper motive. 3 The primacy of will seems to be taught in such passages as, "If the failure of the apprehensive power were a thing in no way under the control of the will there would be no sin in either will or apprehensive power." So also in indorsing Augustine's statement that sin is never committed except by the will, he adds by way of exposition, "by the will as prime mover, but it is committed by other powers as moved by the will." Similarly in respect to meritorious acts, he says, "The intellect of the believer (in the assent of faith) is not finally determined by the reason but by the will." It may however be said of the last quotation that not the general primacy of the will is asserted here but only the special primacy of the supernaturally aided will in matters of faith. 3 A tendency to compromise but to favor intellect the more is found. "It is manifestly false to say the will is higher than the understanding as moving it, for primarily and ordinarily the understanding moves the will. Incidentally the will moves the understanding inasmuch as the act of understanding itself is apprehended as good and as desired by the will The will would never desire to understand unless first the 1 Contra Gent., II, 48. 3 Ibid.; Sumtna, I— II, 74:5. * Ibid., I-II, 74:1-2; II-II, 2:1. 52 A KINGDOM OF ENDS IN AUGUSTINE, AQUINAS, AND LEIBNIZ understanding apprehended its own act as good." The conclusion is that simpliciter intellect is higher than will, but per accidens the will is the higher. 1 Since intellect is regarded as the differentiating feature between man and beast, and will is regarded as common to all in so far as it is an appetite for good, and peculiar to man only in the sense that it is an intellectual appetite, naturally the greatest emphasis must be placed on intellect. It is through the universalizing power of intellect that the will gets its freedom. It is through the supernaturally illumined intellect that man becomes a sharer in the beatific vision, the last and highest end of rational creatures. The main function of will seems to be to suspend action until the reflective process can complete itself, and the impulse can be thereby illumined and guided, and this of course cannot be wholly independent of intellect. (2) The will, impulse, and emotion. — In the activities of sense appetite there is always some alteration of a bodily organ hence such activities may be called passions. In man the conative activities are not always well trained, so under some sudden incitement of sense the will "may burst out into action" before there is time for reflection, or perhaps after some reflection but before the process has gone far enough to take into consideration the proposed act in its wider relations. The result is that the particular good apprehended is not the good which the actual situation demands. There may be three causes assigned for the evil act, (a) the will which carries it out, (b) the reason which works apart from due rule, and (c) the sensitive appetite as inclining to sin. Thomas emphasizes the fact that sensitive appetite in moderation is not an evil but a very positive good. In excess it distracts mental energy and consequently leads a man to act without reflection, or if he reflects he fails to recall the law that prohibits the particular sin involved though he knows it well, or if he recalls the general law he fails to see that this particular case with which he is dealing comes under it. Thus, though he seems to act in the teeth of well known truths, he is really for the moment blinded by passion. This explains the old puzzle how a man can be rational and yet do what he knows is wrong. 3 Will is not merely the sensitive appetite illumined by reason, or sense desires tamed and well trained. It is also a distinctly intellectual appetite, a desire for intellectual activities as such, without regard to 1 Contra Gent., Ill, 26. *Summa, I-II, 75:3; 77:2; II-II, 158. AQUINAS AND THE UNIVERSAL CHURCH 53 their practical value. As intellectual not intellectualized appetite it will find its final gratification in a heaven of contemplation. 1 Sense appetite and passion are not always to be curbed and restrained. It is well that emotion should follow the lead of reason, and it is some- times a man's duty to call forth emotion in order to make his action more vigorous and effective. The absence of a passion when it should be present is not a virtue but a vice. Thomas seems not to fear that the emotion summoned forth by reason may go beyond the limits which reason would prescribe. Augustine had protested against the Stoic suppression of emotion and saw that emotion had a social value, but did not estimate the natural instincts and emotions so highly as Thomas. 2 The higher emotions are not passions at all. They accompany intellectual activities in all intellectual beings, but in men they may flow over into the sensitive appetite. In connection with the final goal they play an important part. 3 (3) The nature and value of habit. — Aquinas is very careful to restrict the use of the term habit so as to preserve its moral value by retaining in it an element of reflective consciousness, hence he does not admit that an animal, though trained to follow fixed lines of activity, really forms habits. Self-consciousness must be present in some degree both in the incipient and later stages of habit. A thoroughly mechanized act would not be a habit, for "habit is something one uses at will," by which Thomas seems to mean consciously and with some degree of reflection. The function of habit as he presents it is practically that of securing prompt, easy, and efficient action along lines originally estab- lished by reason and never wholly without rational oversight. Man's appetitive nature, never in such complete revolt with Thomas as with Augustine, may be trained to submit to rational sway, and until so trained man is not virtuous. The readiness or tendency of the desires to submit to reason is the habit essential to virtue, and the good will is one in which this habit is established. 4 A habit may be destroyed, or weakened by repeated acts to the contrary, not by one act, for it is not engendered by one act. It may die from cessation of exercise or become decrepit through feeble exercise. Habit may be called the fortitude aspect of all virtues. In striking contrast with Augustine, Thomas places the emphasis on good habits rather than bad, but he also believed that the effects of previous sinful 1 Ibid., I-II, 31 :4. 3 Ibid., I-II, 22; 59. 1 Ibid., I-II, 59; II-II, 158: 1-8. < Ibid., I-II, 49-62. 54 A KINGDOM OF ENDS IN AUGUSTINE, AQUINAS, AND LEIBNIZ acts remained as habits and hindered moral development. We shall see later that Thomas, though emphasizing the necessity of consciousness and a certain amount of reflection in moral habits, left a sphere of custom or social habit where he allowed this reflective process to take upon itself none of its usual reconstructive function, and thus really- returned to the mechanization of habit which in moments of truer insight he rejected. (4) The freedom of the will. — St. Thomas supports the freedom of the will by several arguments. The perfection of the universe requires that in the higher scales of being there should be creatures resembling God in that they possess intellect and free will. The will itself is more perfect because of its possibility of varied activity. Rationality surely implies freedom, for why should a man deliberate and judge if he has no power over his own acts? The moral order implies it for without it reward and punishment, praise and blame are absurd. The realization of any preconceived end is through the causality of freedom, and without such causality social and political institutions could not exist. 1 Aquinas was anxious to preserve freedom of the will from external compulsion. Neither angels, nor heavenly bodies, nor any external influence can force the will of man. God alone can change it and he never does so by violence, but through the working of grace in the form of an interior impulse which he as the first cause of the will and source of its conservation can employ to render the unwilling willing. This divine aid to the will must come to man before he can attain his super- natural end, or have the infused virtues. Thomas however is confident that he who does not turn to righteousness in some way excludes himself from conversion, by closing his eyes as it were, and as a result not being able to see the light. 2 Thomas was also desirous of saving the will from internal compulsion. In one sense the will is determined internally but not so as to hinder freedom of choice. Man can will nothing except under the form of the good, but the intellect presents a large number of particular goods from which the will may select inclining to any one of them. The final end, happiness, is willed through a natural notion of good by all, but not all know that its complete realization can be found only in God, hence not all will it effectively. In man's ideal state the will follows reason freely as a guide, but, as we have already seen, in his actual state it often "bursts out into action" before reason has considered the specific act 1 Contra Gent., Ill, 73-85. 1 Ibid., Ill, 3-6, 87-92, 149-50. AQUINAS AND THE UNIVERSAL CHURCH 55 in its universal relations and given judgment. Between divine reason and the divine will there is no conflict. 1 (5) The desire for and the nature of happiness. — We have seen that happiness is desired and in one sense willed by all men as an end; but there are two standpoints from which an end may be regarded, and by means of these two standpoints Thomas escapes hedonism. From the first of these standpoints the object to be gained is foreseen. From the second, the use or enjoyment of the object. In the former sense he who really understands his own nature and the provision made for its satisfaction seeks God as the final end or object, that is he seeks union with God. Happiness is not delight though delight is its concomitant. Happiness is the perfection of the activity whereby we are united to the uncreated good. Delight follows the perfect manifestation of this activity, but it is not the end sought, for the intellect seeks a good pre- eminently above delight. Thomas means that man seeks fulness of life through union with God, not merely the joy that accompanies this spiritually healthful relation. In the sense world of purely animal life, a different order prevails. Activities here are sought for the sake of delight, and God so established it in order that they might not be neglected. Thomas, though refusing to make pleasure the criterion of moral value in human life, gives it a very high recognition as a mark of wholesome functioning in the physical activities of man, as well as an essential element of social life. 2 In the present life perfect happiness is not attainable, for the activity of the intellect in its highest form is interrupted. Neither intellect nor will, because of their infinite demands, can find full satisfaction in created good. Wealth, power, fame, honor are fleeting. They may or may not be the rewards of virtue. The truly satisfactory good must be one which cannot be lost. As the highest good it must satisfy man's highest faculty hence it is an activity of the understanding rather than of the will though both are involved, and it is of the speculative under- standing rather than of the practical, though in the earthly life both must be employed. Perfect happiness is essentially intuitive insight into the very essence of the First Cause. This is the heavenly vision, that most perfect activity of the divinely illumined soul, and it is activity not passivity. 3 Though Thomas sees no possibility of perfect happiness in the 1 Summa, I-II, 5~&; Contra Gent., Ill, 47-49, 73; IV, 92. 3 Summa, I-II, 3-4. 3 Ibid., I-II, 2-3; Contra Gent., Ill, 26, 45. 56 A KINGDOM OF ENDS IN AUGUSTINE, AQUINAS, AND LEIBNIZ present life, he teaches that there is much which may be called happiness, as involving noble activities accompanied by a delight higher than sense pleasure. Such are the activities of the mind in contemplation, in faith, in regulating the passions, and in directing the practical life. Even the activity of sense appetite when directed by reason becomes in a manner psychical, and productive of more than sense pleasure. Both in terms of wholesome activities, and in the feeling of satisfaction accompanying them, the immediate worth of life in the pilgrim city is estimated far more highly by Aquinas than by Augustine. Even play is very highly valued. 1 (6) Love of self and of other selves. — Thomas makes free use of Augustine's classification of the two kinds of love, the higher of which is the love of friendship, the lower the love of desire. The former we shall afterward hear of as disinterested love or benevolence. It seeks the good of the beloved object, or rejoices in its welfare, or goodness, or glory. The lower form of love is love of desire. It seeks the object with reference to the use the seeker can make of it in securing his own welfare. The object is a mere means, not an end in itself. The angelic doctor is careful not to give the love of friendship too large a place. True love of our neighbor is love of friendship, and we ought to have it even to the extent of willingness to suffer material loss for his sake, but a man is bound in charity to love himself more than his neigh- bor. Yet a man is truly loving himself when he loves his neighbor because he thereby perfects his own spiritual nature. There is a sug- gestion here that he is looking to his own spiritual perfection rather than his neighbor's good, but this is softened somewhat by the fact that the "charity with which a man loves himself" is not love of an isolated self but love of the self as seen in relation to God who is the common good of all selves. Love to God is love of friendship more than it is love of desire. 3 The hypothetical situation of a social universe containing but one man, who finds full satisfaction in union with God, does not fairly rep- resent the general attitude of St. Thomas. The latter finds a truer expression, and one in harmony with the conception of man's psychical nature, in the thought that happiness can be found only in the kingdom of God "which is the organized society of those who enjoy the vision of God."* In general St. Thomas places great emphasis on the social nature of man. He is a social and political animal as Aristotle said. His 1 Contra Gent., Ill, 26, 45; Summa, II-II, 168:3. 'Ibid., I-II, 77:4; II-II, 26:1-4. 3 Contra Gent., IV, 50. AQUINAS AND THE UNIVERSAL CHURCH 57 outfit of instincts is not sufficient to maintain his existence even when supplemented by reason. Others must impart to him the collective experience of the race. His power of speech shows he was meant for society. But his social life is not merely of necessity. He desires praise, fears blame, and has an instinctive love for his fellow-man. In fact he is a friend and kinsman to every other man unless it happens that both are seeking a good that cannot be shared. Over and above the sexual and parental instincts common to animals, man has a natural inclination to live in society and in agreeable relations with his fellow- man. For the development of both his moral and religious life, repre- sented by Thomas respectively under the terms natural and theological virtues, he needs human help. "Of all things man can make use of the chief are other men." It is evident that Thomas regards the social environment as primary and the physical as secondary in human life. 1 With St. Augustine, man was intensely social before his fall, and though capable of ardent and unselfish friendship iafterward, he was essentially not in harmony with his fellow-man until restored by grace. St. Thomas tells more fully why and how far men are social, and repre- sents the disturbing influence of man's fall as much less destructive. This we shall see in our next study — that of the social relations established and recognized by church and state, which give concreteness to the universal church or state. IV. SOCIAL AGENCIES IN THE KINGDOM OF NATURE AND IN THE KINGDOM OF GOD (1) The family. — The family has its psychological basis in a God- implanted natural instinct hence it cannot be evil. There are natural reasons also why the union of husband and wife should be permanent. Woman unaided could not provide for her offspring sufficiently during their long period of immaturity. Man, by virtue of his more perfect reasoning power, is better fitted to give them instruction, as well as to restrain from wrongdoing by admonition and punishment. Equity forbids that the husband should forsake the wife in her old age after their offspring are reared. Of the forms of union monogamy alone admits of a certain equality and friendship between a free man and a free woman. 2 Church and state depend for their perpetuity upon marriage and hence both legislate concerning it. From the standpoint of the church 1 De regimine principum, I, 1-2; Summa, I-II, 94: 2-3; II-II, 114: 1. 2 Contra Gent., Ill, 122; IV, 78; Summa, II-II, 154:2. 58 A KINGDOM OF ENDS IN AUGUSTINE, AQUINAS, AND LEIBNIZ marriage is sacramental. The two parties bind themselves to mutual loyalty and to the education of their offspring in the faith. The church then bestows its blessing and divine grace is imparted. The family is but an imperfect community. The good of the household must be subordinate to the good of the state which is a perfect community. The rules which a father makes are not laws in the full sense of the term. He may punish the child but not to its permanent injury. Until the child reaches the age of reason he is under the full control of his parents, and with this control none may interfere, not even the church for the purpose of baptizing him. Baptism is necessary to give the child a share in the heavenly heritage, which Adam, like a disloyal knight, lost by a just forfeiture, leaving his descendants without valid claim to it. 1 Thomas tries to prevent conflict between recognized social institu- tions. The child owes reverence to his parents and to his country next to God. He may not forsake his parents even to enter a religious life if they are in actual need of his services to provide for their necessities, but ordinarily the parent should provide for the child, not the reverse. (2) Monastic life. — Thomas considers celibacy from the social standpoint. Marriage is for the good of the species, but some may serve the community better through a celibate life, consecrated to God. The celibate who thus consecrates himself has much greater merit than the married, providing that he does not fall behind them in other virtues. All religious orders have as a common end the free and untrammeled service of God, but they vary widely in their specific purposes, ranging from devotion to military service and other active employments to a life almost wholly given to contemplation. Yet even the active life of a religious is directly related to the contemplative ideal and inspired by it. 2 Aquinas neither feared nor desired that all should take vows. Prob- ably the collective wisdom gained in the intervening centuries helped him to see the truth here more clearly than did Augustine. Persons of strong passionate inclinations are much better fitted for active life, he said, and natural tendencies will prevent them from entering a religious order, from the rigorous obligations of which even many of those engaged in the care of souls are accustomed to shrink. Of the three monastic vows obedience ranks highest. (Here we see the tendency of Thomas to bring the monk under complete control of 1 Summa, I-II, 90 : 3 ; II-II, 10:12; 65:2. * Ibid., II-II, 182:1-4; 188:2; Contra Gent., Ill, 133-39. AQUINAS AND THE UNIVERSAL CHURCH 59 his superior, and of superiors in turn under that of the head of the church on earth, a principle which might and did prove a veritable two-edged sword in social life.) Chastity and poverty may be subsumed under obedience as specific forms of it. The religious does not claim perfection but he puts himself under the best possible conditions for attaining it: negatively by removing the three great hindrances, positively by taking up the good work of his particular order. The double standard of Christian life known as precepts and counsels is worked out much more fully by Aquinas than by Augustine. The counsels bind only those who have made an entire consecration, that is to say "have offered themselves as a holocaust to God." The precepts are binding for all Christians. Some have seen in the adoption of this double standard an imitation of later Stoicism which was compelled to admit that its ideal man, the "wise man," was rarely found, and that a much less perfect being was very valuable to the universal state in spite of the fact that he could not rule with absolute sway in his own inner kingdom. In both cases it was a tacit admission that the ideal held up was not attainable for the mass of mankind, therefore not a good working principle for a universal brotherhood. Augustine once said that the solitary may perform a great social service through his prayers, and through his contempt for earthly pleasures, yet it is evident that both he and Aquinas were trying to socialize monasticism more completely so as to make it contribute to the welfare of the whole church in additional ways. Thomas classes the solitary life as most dangerous if it be entered upon without training, for which community life is necessary. Solitude befits those who are already perfect, but a perfect man may be called from a life of con- templation to the very active life of a bishop. 1 Thomas admitted that under natural law manual labor is incumbent upon all, but he did not think it necessary for all the members of a religious community. " The flesh may be macerated " by other exercises, among them study. It is quite probable that he did not see in manual labor so much of wholesome joy and useful service as Augustine did, but the latter was the son of a poor farmer, and in the veins of the former flowed the blood of two royal houses. Neither did Aquinas fear like Augustine that living from alms would work injury. As a Dominican and as a profound student Thomas naturally wished to give study a large place in monastic life. Its negative value is great. "The labor of study turns the mind from wantonness and wears down 1 Summa, II-II, 188:1-8. 60 A KINGDOM OF ENDS IN AUGUSTINE, AQUINAS, AND LEIBNIZ the flesh." It also saves from errors to which contemplatives are prone. It has a positive value in that it furnishes weapons for the spiritual warfare against heresy, much more valuable than material weapons. Thomas had not reached the conception that spiritual weapons are not merely the best but the only weapons to be used against heresy, and that even they may be used cruelly. Sciences not distinctly religious are recognized as having an indirect worth. 1 In the bitter fight which the friars waged to win the right to teach publicly and to preach Thomas had been a leader. He saw in these employments nothing incompatible with the vows of monks, but, on the contrary, the monk is thereby afforded a much broader field of service than his lonely cell can give. Again we see in Thomas the effort to open a wider sphere of activity for monastic life. Older orders not admitting such service may be so reconstructed as to allow it, he says. The contemplative who gives to others the results of his contemplation is better than he who only contemplates without sharing the results. (3) The state: Its origin, form, and rulers. — The problem of the state was of tremendous significance to Aquinas. It was by no means merely a question of the relation of the ruler to the pope. The old feudal order was breaking down. The welfare of the universal church demanded strong, well organized constitutional governments in the respective states. Without these their union under the pope would be largely barren. The genius of Thomas perceived this clearly. It is through his recognition of moral virtues and political activity as noble, even if not supremely so, that he did more to counteract an excessive other worldliness than through any definite conception of the proper balance between contemplation and action. Henceforth the state is a highly honored means for the realization of the kingdom of God on earth. In advocating the supremacy of sacerdotium over imperium the Gregorians were fond of asserting that the state had its origin in fraud and violence, quoting Augustine in favor of this view. Thomas directly opposed this doctrine, claiming that the state would arise among men in an ideal condition of moral health. Man is social by nature and is impelled both by economic and by spiritual needs to live in society. Society life without order and a recognized common good is impossible. Among men there could not but be disparity. The physical environment would directly cause variation in human bodies and therefore indirectly in human minds. Freedom of choice would result in variation of appli- cation to particular pursuits and consequently in difference of mental I Summa, II-II, 181-83; 166-67; 181:1-8. AQUINAS AND THE UNIVERSAL CHURCH 6 1 development. Then there would be natural disparity from variation of age and sex, in fact the perfection of the divine order demands the greatest possible variation. Even without sin or defect some would naturally surpass others in justice and wisdom, and it would be very deleterious to the public welfare if such persons were not employed to direct affairs. In this sense dominion of man over man is essential; and the ruler is an expert who directs others for the sake of the common welfare. To explain Augustine's position the scholastic dupliciter is used, a somewhat pragmatic way of asserting that the truth of a state- ment depends upon the standpoint from which it is regarded. Domin- ion, in the sense of master over slave, could not have existed in an ideal condition, but a just ruler over free men is not in the relation of master to servants. The individual must never be exploited by the ruler, but may be directed toward such conduct as the common good demands, which is always inclusive of his own. With Thomas the ideal state is in many senses a kingdom of ends. He gives no theory of the origin of actually existing states, but he leaves fallen man with sufficient moral virtue, wholesome instinct, and use of reason to account for their rise without assuming any general condition of unendurable violence and 1 fear. It seems however to be a favorite idea with him that a monarch may be the creator of the constitution of his state through his superior statesmanship, and of a constitution, too, which foresees the evil day and avoids it by putting legal restrictions upon the monarch in the interests of civil liberty. 1 From the standpoint of unity monarchy is the ideal form of the state. As God rules over the world and the soul over the body, so it is fitting that one should rule over the state. But when a monarch forgets his high and holy mission and seeks only his own advantage then mon- archy degenerates and becomes the worst form of tyranny but not the only form. The aristocracy and the democracy are two other very commendable forms of government, but they also may degenerate, the former into an oligarchy, the latter into anarchy or mob rule. Their degeneration is often more rapid than that of the monarchy. A mixed polity giving recognition to all three of the former just mentioned is recommended as best adapted to the conservation of the public welfare especially among a highly cultured people. A constitutional monarch may stand for unity. A body of subordinate rulers or senate chosen on account of virtue or fitness will express what is valuable in an aristoc- racy, and the fact that the rulers are chosen from the people and by 1 Ibid., I, 96-97; Contra Gent., Ill, 81. 62 A KINGDOM OF ENDS IN AUGUSTINE, AQUINAS, AND LEIBNIZ the people would give all active citizens a share in the government and therefore more interest in it and loyalty to it — the crowning virtues of a democracy. An elective monarchy is better than a hereditary form as it affords a better guaranty of civil liberty by giving the people greater control. Whatever form of government is chosen careful provision should be made against tyranny so that in case of degeneration a legal remedy may be at hand. It is not sinful to revolt against a tyrant; it may be sinful not to do so; but when there is no higher power to whom appeal can be made and where the constitution of the state does not permit the deposition of a ruler it is better to endure tyranny, not however without prayer to God for deliverance from it, than to resort to tyrannicide. The latter usually aggravates rather than heals the disease of the body politic. Thomas evidently sought hard to find a guaranty for civil liberty, the conservation of which remained an unsolved problem for many centuries. The difficulty of the problem was keenly felt by many in the thirteenth century who found it easier to obtain than to retain chartered liberties. 1 Thomas asserts most emphatically that the function of a ruler is purely representative in making law, in administering it with equity, and in dispensing with existing laws when the latter is imperatively demanded for the sake of the common welfare. Anything not done for the common welfare is illegally done. The duties assigned to a ruler below, most of them taken from a treatise written for the king of Cyprus, may in accordance with the spirit of Thomas be interpreted as resting on all who participate in governing. 2 If the ruler is founding a new state he should select its locality with great care. Environmental influences are very powerful, but yet man is not the mere creature of his physical environment as history well illustrates. The ideal city should be surrounded by a fertile agricultural region. This is necessary in war and highly valuable in peace, for commerce though to some extent desirable has serious dangers. The presence of foreign merchants tends to disturb the customary order. Citizens who engage in trade learn to place money values above moral values, lose their interest in public service, and become unfit for military service. The ruler should not neglect esthetic considerations in selecting the site for his city or realm, for life cannot be long maintained without 1 De regimine principum I, 3-1 1; De regimine Judaeorum, 6; Summa, I-II, 95:4; 96-97; 105:1. 2 De regimine princ, I-II. AQUINAS AND THE UNIVERSAL CHURCH 63 pleasure — a by no means isolated expression of the joy loving nature of Thomas. A wide extended plain with an outlook of neighboring moun- tains, and with fruit trees, beautiful forests, and streams is desirable. But here Thomas, the ascetic, adds the warning that the people must not give themselves over too completely to the enjoyment of natural beauties, lest they should thereby become sensualized. Another important duty of the ruler is to provide for the education of youth by selecting suitable sites for universities and schools. Thomas seems to have the general idea that the state should provide for education such as the public welfare demands. It is characteristic of a tyrant to try to repress culture lest leaders may be developed who will be able to overthrow his rule. The chief duty of a ruler is to establish a bond of peace and unity among his people. He must also provide for defense against external foes. It is the duty of the government to see that none of its subjects shall want the necessities of life. The ruler himself should be very rich so that he may not be tempted to tax his people unless in accordance with constitutional restrictions or in great public danger. Thomas had as lofty a conception of the dignity of rulers as he had of their duties. It is to be feared that the conception of the former may have worked to negate the latter, though such was far from his intention. His statement that the power of a ruler is similar to that of the soul over body and of God over the world was not altogether happy. Selfish men were prone to interpret it to mean that as soul is of vastly more worth than body, and God immeasurably greater and nobler than his creatures, so also is the king far above his subjects. In a better sense Aquinas did put the ruler too far above the subject. The dutiful king is much more worthy of honor and reward from God and man than his most dutiful subject. Thomas partly excuses the deification of good kings in former times. What Thomas really meant to do was to stir up rulers to do a work which he thought, and thought with much truth, could be done by no one else in his time. It was not impossible to hope for great things from rulers in the days of St. Louis. But though Thomas thought the exalta- tion of the people must come mainly from above, he also believed that culture would finally render them fit for self-government in a large degree, and produce natural leaders among them who could successfully protest against maladministration of political affairs. To incite rulers to social service of a very high type Thomas compared them with God, in that it was in their power to diffuse goodness over so 64 A KINGDOM OF ENDS IN AUGUSTINE, AQUINAS, AND LEIBNIZ wide a field. A reward commensurate with their virtue was promised them as certain to be given them in the after life. They would probably have also the "best possible earthly reward in the good-will of their subjects," and a more material reward in rich gifts brought to them freely. The Aristotelian rewards, fame and honor, are declared insuf- ficient, because fleeting, and also because he who seeks fame is likely to lose the spiritual independence necessary for leadership. (4) Positive law and natural law. — The task which presented itself to Thomas with respect to law was one that demanded careful considera- tion. Interest in law was keen in all civilized Europe. The relation of the law and authority of the state to that of the church required definition but that was by no means the whole problem before Thomas. The Christian statesman as such needed a clear conception of the nature and province of law, and this Thomas gave him. Thomas defines law as an expression of both reason and will thus combining two earlier views. It is "an ordinance of reason for the general good, emanating from him who has the care of the community, and promulgated." As the state derives its origin from elements found in man in his natural condition so also its laws should rest on a natural foundation. Before the positive law existed, and of higher authority than it, natural law existed. In the forum of conscience no man-made law can have validity if it is antagonistic to natural law. Positive law may be valid when very different from natural law, but it must never oppose it. The ruler is above positive law in that it does not have coercive force over him but it does have directive force. He is below natural law and if his edicts violate it his subjects are not bound to obey him. 1 The precepts of natural law are judgments given in the natural tribunal of reason upon those things toward which man has natural inclinations. Naturally man tends to subject his inclinations to the control of reason which is to live virtuously. These inclinations as originally implanted in man were the expression of the eternal reason, and were in perfect subjection to human reason. Natural law may refer to the reason guided impulse or to the precepts which serve as rules of guidance. It is promulgated by the light of natural reason, and has all the necessary marks of law. The law of nature in its most general precepts cannot be blotted out of the heart of man though passion may prevent the application of these universal rules to a particular case. In its secondary precepts the natural I Summa, I-II, 90-97; II— II, 57. AQUINAS AND THE UNIVERSAL CHURCH 65 law may be destroyed or obscured by evil persuasions, vicious customs, and corrupt habits. These secondary precepts may in rare cases be set aside legitimately when their application brings about a conflict with a larger good. Positive law is a development of natural law just in so far as it meets the requirements of right reason. This it does not always do, because human judgment is weak, and is often obscured by passion. As a legitimate development of natural law it adds material of great value in that it prescribes virtuous acts to which nature does not at first incline but which reason finds conducive to happiness. When it fails to be a true development of natural law, as it may be either in its first formu- lation, or later on because of the changed circumstances of the people, it should be changed but never lightly, for long continuance conduces to a proper reverence for law. Positive law by its penalties may inculcate virtue in an indirect way, in that a right action done through fear at first, if repeatedly done may become habitual, and as such pleasant to the doer, and as a result may finally be properly appreciated and freely chosen. But in its educative capacity law must have due regard for human weakness and give only such precepts as the multitude are able to bear. If the standard is not thus adjusted to the particular situation evil will be provoked rather than remedied. Because of this positive human law deals only with such virtuous and vicious acts as are evidently useful or deleterious to the public welfare. The framing of a law may be the work of the ruler, but always with reference to his representative capacity, or it may be done by a large representative body, or by the whole people. If the constitution of the state does not permit the people to make laws a custom which the ruler does not interfere with while it is becoming established has the force of a law. The principle that Thomas here speaks was often used in the interest of civil liberty in the Middle Ages, by the people demanding in the name of immemorial custom the abolition of an offensive law, or even in the name of custom established in a well known period the confirmation of privileges permitted by a generous ruler. But on the other hand it is just the evil that is crystallized in custom or rapidly becoming so that progressive law-making should deal with. Thomas' real intention here is to guarantee civil liberty but elsewhere in common with Augustine he places too great emphasis on the sanctity of custom, for instance in placing the custom of the church as above the authority of her wisest men, and in thus making impossible the reconstruction essential to growth. 66 A KINGDOM ON ENDS IN AUGUSTINE, AQUINAS, AND LEIBNIZ Human law as conceived by Thomas might restrain the individual from certain acts deleterious to the public good, and compel him to perform others for the public good, but it dealt with a limited sphere of his activities. He was left free for others in the name of natural right. This right of the individual holds good to some extent even with the slave. While this freedom which Thomas left to the individual was to a considerable extent formal rather than real still it was well that formal recognition should be given to man's essential worth and dignity as having within himself an expression of a law older and more binding in the forum of conscience than the laws which were made for him in most cases by representatives whom he had no voice in choosing. Thomas, though he follows Aristotle in many respects, goes beyond him here. Stoicism, Christianity, and German love of liberty all had contributed to make it impossible to look upon the slave as merely "animate property " who is in no sense an end in himself. Nor could the mechani- cal artisan be regarded as entirely out of the natural order and lower than the slave in the scale of virtue. But the fact that Thomas regarded slavery as non-existent and inconsistent with man's ideal condition before the Fall must not be interpreted to mean that he deemed it irra- tional and unjustifiable afterward. He admitted its rationality and utility, striving however to limit its oppressiveness, and giving to the slave as did the Stoic whatever benefit might come from the assertion that in the inner citadel of will he might be a free and an active citizen of the highest realm. Thomas follows Aristotle in limiting active citizenship in the political state so as to shut out the farmer, the mer- chant, and the manual laborer. Yet all laws were to be referred to the good of all hence they were given recognition as passive citizens. 1 Augustine and Aquinas both taught the right of private property but Aquinas the more strongly defends it and seems less disturbed by its unequal distribution. From the standpoint of Augustine it could not have existed in the original state of justice. From that of Aquinas it had not yet developed but was not contrary to natural law. Both taught that in the state of perfection, under the counsels, there should be common possessions or poverty. Both emphasized the claim of the poor upon the rich and denied the exclusive use of property. Thomas refuses to classify as theft the taking of another's goods in case of extreme need in order to sustain life, for natural law is above positive law. (5) The church as world state. — Augustine's ethical and political theories are evidently secondary to the religious. His thought, as it 1 Summa, II-II, 57; 104; Aristotle Politics i. AQUINAS AND THE UNIVERSAL CHURCH 67 were, travels along a route plainly marked with milestones showing the distance and direction to the kingdom where all ends are realized. St. Thomas gives a relatively independent treatment of politics and ethics. His milestones are marked "to political welfare" or "to the moral virtues" but if we travel far enough we find that the all important final terminus for man as viator is futura felicitas in patria. The political state wherein the moral virtues flourish is indeed a kingdom of ends wherein the welfare of all is the law for each, but not a kingdom of final ends, using the term end as Aquinas uses it. The end which man seeks is not realized here but in an eternal kingdom. It is because of the superiority of the final end, felicity in the father- land of souls, that the ecclesiastical state ranks higher than the political state, and the divinely revealed law above the human positive law. Those who have care for the final end must have precedence over those who have the care of antecedent ends. In Old Testament times it was not so. Then kings ranked above priests for only earthly ends were then sought. The ecclesiastical state is a universal empire. Infidels are accounted its members in potentia though they may never actually unite with it. The spiritual headship of Christ is not sufficient to secure the unity of the church as world state. The pope is his representative on earth, and "to him kings should render obedience as to the Lord Jesus Christ" who was himself both king and priest. The chief pontiff is the head of the mystic body Of all the faithful with plenitude of grace and power both spiritual and temporal, for the latter depends upon the former just as the operation of the body depends upon the mind. He may relieve subjects from their oath of allegiance to temporal rulers when govern- ment ceases to conform to spiritual standards. Thomas says nothing about two swords of spiritual and of temporal power. He simply states as if beyond question the superiority of the spiritual ruler because of the superior interests intrusted to him. 1 (6) Relation of divinely revealed law to natural and to positive law. — Similar to the relation of the ecclesiastical state to the political is the relation of revealed law to natural and positive law. As man has a supernatural end, to attain it the guidance of natural law must be supplemented by that of the divine. Even in its own sphere natural law is easily obscured by passion and interest. Positive law deals with exterior acts. Its aim is to inculcate justice and enforce it by repressing 1 Summa, III, 8:3; Dereg., I, 14-15; Contra Gent., IV, 76; Quaestiones quod libet, VI, 13; Sententiae, II, 44; Summa, II-II, 12:2. 68 A KINGDOM OF ENDS IN AUGUSTINE, AQUINAS, AND LEIBNIZ the graver vices, but it cannot deal with interior acts or make men love and help each other, hence it is not sufficient for the universal state. The divine law also serves to give direction where men differ in judgment. 1 The natural law is a part of the divine eternal law revealed by the inner light of reason, and man's inclination to follow it shows that he is subject to the eternal law, but without divine revelation his notion of it is inadequate, and without grace his inclination too weak to follow it fully. The divine law is given both as precepts and as counsels. Obedi- ence to the counsels is highly meritorious. Augustine also had taught this but made much less of that form of social mediation whereby the spiritual wealth of the saints may be transferred to their weaker brethren. (7) Authority of the church and of reason. — To the Dominican heart nothing was dearer than the preservation of the Catholic faith threatened as it was by heresies from within and without the church. How could he show that attacks made upon his faith were unjustified ? The best answer to the problem was that he should state his faith in as rational terms as possible, that he should reconcile contradictions in earlier teaching by admitting partial truths in both views, or when this could not be done, by rejecting the view least in harmony with the whole body of doctrine. To this there was a serious limitation as we shall see later, but yet in the writings of St. Thomas there was sufficient success in following the above plan to confirm faith in the possible reconciliation of dogma and reason and to discourage that dualistic belief already making its appearance as the doctrine of the twofold truth. It was at once the scholastic thesis, and especially that of St. Thomas, as well as a partially justified conclusion, that natural reason is not contrary to the truths of faith, but that some of these truths are beyond the comprehension of reason. Many of them are so to the great majority who therefore must receive them on authority, but some of these which are incomprehensible to the untrained thinker the trained thinker can think through satisfactorily; hence there is a reasonable presumption that if the trained thinker were better trained or if his reason were perfect, faith and reason would be in perfect agreement. In the mean- time he must take a practical attitude toward these truths not yet proved but held by the church which is an organization with high and holy principles, hence he may accept her teachings when he cannot as yet understand them rationally. Such an attitude was not inconsistent with openness of mind and 1 Summa, I-II, 91; III, 5:3. AQUINAS AND THE UNIVERSAL CHURCH 69 zeal for truth, both of which St. Thomas possessed in a remarkably high degree. But along with the spirit which maketh alive there was also the letter that killeth. The latter expresses itself in such dogmatic assertions as that he who does not regard the teachings of the church as an infallible and divine rule, and he who holds to such parts as he likes and refuses to hold what he dislikes has not the habit of faith. Similarly worship contrary to the rite of the church is severely condemned, and the greatest possible authority is declared to be attached "to the custom of the church which is always to be followed in all things." It was this unwillingness to admit any suggestion of change in custom and dogma that led Thomas to assert that heretics deserve not only excommunication but also punishment by death, and that apostates are to be compelled to fulfil what they have promised and to hold fast that which they have received. However those who have never received the faith are not on any account to be brought to it by compulsion. Now in accordance with the psychology of Thomas, faith and unbelief are both of the will. No creature rational or irrational can force a man's will, and God never does force it. How the forced retention of the apostate in a living bond of faith could be brought about is not explained, but it is very evident that such retention is impossible in that spiritual state known as a kingdom of ends. 1 (8) The sacraments. — Thomas places much more emphasis than Augustine upon the sacraments as a means of spiritual life. The figure of the church as organism or mystic body is freely used. Thomas defines a sacrament as the deliverance of a spiritual thing under a corporal sign. Baptism is the means for incorporating new members; confirmation stands for spiritual growth; the eucharist for nourishment; penance and extreme unction for healing; orders for the propagation and conservation of spiritual life. Grace is bestowed in the sacraments but Thomas recognizes that it may be given when there is full intention to take them before they are actually taken. 2 The high value placed on the sacraments as means of maintaining spiritual life indicates a falling away from the spiritual conception of Augustine but this had taken place before Thomas wrote. The priest- hood by its mediation in administering the sacraments had been exalted far above the laity to the injury of both classes. A religion so largely dependent on external rites tended to neglect the weightier matters of the law, and could not make all of its adherents active members of a kingdom of ends. 1 Ibid., 11-11, 5; 10:8; 11:4. 2 Contra Gent., IV, 56-72. 70 A KINGDOM OF ENDS IN AUGUSTINE, AQUINAS, AND LEIBNIZ (9) The virtues. — We have seen that Thomas made possible a rela- tively independent ethics by representing man as naturally inclined toward virtue, even after the wound inflicted on the race by the original sin. The natural virtues are found in us in rudimentary form, though passion and vicious habits hinder their development. No man is wholly without them. They may all be subsumed under the four cardinal virtues, prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance. To become perfect virtues they must become habits. The infused or theological virtues, faith, hope, and charity, are superhuman virtues produced in us by God without our action but not without our consent. They are nobler than other virtues because they lead to blessedness. The presence of the theological virtues means healing of the wound of sin to some extent, hence freer development of the moral virtues. Thomas gives the theological virtues a high social value for the present life. Justice he regards as keeping men from getting in each other's way. It does not provide for helping others in their need. For this love is necessary. Thus far Thomas completes his structure of thought by placing the ecclesiastical state above the political state, the revealed law above positive and natural law, and the infused virtues above the natural virtues, because the higher place belongs to that which bears more directly on the life after death. 1 V. THE DUALISM OF CONTEMPLATION AND ACTION Two moments are noticeable in the opinion of Thomas upon con- templatives. As against a life of action, such as would come under precepts not counsels, and even as against a life under monastic vows, but in an order devoted to works of a very active type such as military service, hospitality, etc., he urges the superiority of a life of contempla- tion, always however in a most conciliatory way, admitting good in what he opposes, but claiming that there is something much more excellent in what he advocates. Life in the world is lower and very much lower than any contemplative life, yet best suited to the majority. Life in an order where there is much action and little contemplation is lower than in one in which there is more contemplation. But as against a life wholly devoted to contemplation Thomas urges the claims of action, in perfect loyalty to the principles of his order; it is however of action as inspired by contemplation, especially, but not exclusively, preaching and teaching. 1 Summa, I-II, 58; 61-62; II-II, 81; 92; Contra Gent., Ill, 130. AQUINAS AND THE UNIVERSAL CHURCH 7 1 A real difficulty confronted Thomas, coming from the accepted view of the final goal of man as contemplation or vision of God. Here the contemplative life is recognized as the perfect life, as its own all sufficient and most worthy end. It is not a means and to make it a means to anything else is to degrade it. Naturally the life most like it on earth must be the perfect life. Hence Thomas himself says, "Nothing in this life is so like that final and perfect happiness as the life of those who contemplate truth as far as possible. For the contemplation of truth begins in this life but will be consummated in the life to come, whereas the life of action and the political life do not transcend the bounds of the present life." 1 This view of the truly divine life as a life of contemplation came down from both Plato and Aristotle, though no doubt they would have both admitted that in human life while contemplation is not practiced directly for the sake of action yet it is a powerful determinant of action in that it strengthens spiritual forces which afterward express themselves in noble activities. The neo-Platonic emphasis on contemplation is well known. Augustine modified it somewhat for the future life and a great deal for the present life. Men mighty in both contemplation and action were needed, he thought. And sometimes they were found. Certainly Augustine and Aquinas must both be so classed. Neo- Platonic contemplation however without much modification was also found. Men sought heavenly visions in isolation from social life and under these abnormal conditions the visions were often quite other than heavenly. Hence Thomas says solitary life is only for those who have attained perfection, and even for life in a monastic community the mass of mankind are not well fitted. The history of monasticism in the Christian church is, notwith- standing some retroactive movements, a history of steady advance in the direction of larger social service and more varied fields of activity. The life of the hermit devoted wholly to contemplation gave way to organized brotherhoods ever becoming more and more universal in their relations. The latest link in this chain of development was, in the thirteenth century, the friars. Though called contemplatives they were intensely active, yet their action was in a sense all to be referred to contemplation. That contemplation should be so much more directly connected with action than inthe earliest monastic period is probably in part due to a change in the content of contemplation. Instead of being centered 1 Ibid., Ill, 73. 72 A KINGDOM OF ENDS IN AUGUSTINE, AQUINAS, AND LEIBNIZ on the more abstract metaphysical attributes of the Supreme Being it was turned toward the life and suffering of Christ. It was this which determined St. Francis to labor for others. It was probably this which occasioned that disinterested love of God described by Bernard of Clairvaux a century earlier and later found in so many mystics as a love "which casts out fear, feels no toil, asks no rewards, and yet carries with it a mightier constraint than all else beside." 1 Aristotle's view of contemplation as usually stated did not tend to further the development of the contemplative orders in the direction of greater activity. To Thomas he was "the philosopher," and his eight marks of the superiority of the contemplative life were unquestioningly accepted. Aristotle was indeed speaking of a somewhat different con- templation but there was a real agreement with Aquinas nevertheless. Both looked upon it as the exercise of a faculty superior to the exercise of any practical or moral virtue. Contemplation differentiates man from the animals as employing a faculty these do not possess. Similarly it unites him with the divine, for it is the chief or the only activity of the gods, or of God. It is accompanied by superior delight, and all other activities may be subsumed under it as contributing to it, while it remains as an end in itself. The help of other men is not. needed for its exercise — a view hardly consistent with the statement that man is through and through a social and political animal. In spite of his acceptance of the Aristotelian definition Thomas really did make advance in the conception of contemplation. He saw that for man on earth at least it must have a reference to action, and that an exclusively contemplative life as in the case of the solitary is exceed- ingly dangerous for many monks, also that the ordinary contemplative life in a religious order is not suited to the majority of men, because by nature they are too much inclined to action. At the same time he does not forget the superior sweetness of contemplation which perhaps was indelibly impressed upon his mind by his boyhood life in the Benedictine monastery on Monte Cassino. Devoting oneself with delight to con- templation remains the superior mark of the higher Christian life, yet it must be accompanied by willingness to turn away temporarily from its sweetness to do the will of God in relieving others, an example of which he, like St. Francis, found in the life of Christ. Thomas always falls somewhat short in grasping the thought that the God who is con- templated is the God who wills, and that there ought to be as much joy in doing his will as in the exercise of contemplation, but he does partially 1 Bernard of Clairvaux, De diligendo Deo, 107. AQUINAS AND THE UNIVERSAL CHURCH 73 grasp it, in the thought that it is abounding love which stimulates to the sacrifice — always however to sacrifice much more emphatically than to joyous service or co-operation. Until such a conception of the divine as manifested in will quite as much as in intellect was reached there could be no proper balance between contemplation and action. Their antagonism rather than their co-operation would necessarily be promi- nent even when both received some recognition, and there would be a corresponding dualism in the kingdom of ends whether conceived as church or as state. VI. THE SUPERNATURAL END After life for the wicked means only penalty, a little less material than that of Augustine but on the whole very similar, as are also the reasons justifying eternal punishment. Thomas would not admit predestination of the lost. Reprobation in the sense of permitting man to fall and come under penalty is allowed. He also talks much less of future penalties than Augustine did. The most striking difference between Thomas and Augustine is in regard to the future of unbaptized infants, the former by degrees reject- ing, the doctrine of the latter. At first he rejected the penalty of pain inflicted through sense upon infants for a deed done by another, but thought they might be aware of their loss of the supernatural vision. He later concluded that they had no knowledge of their loss, but might have more knowledge than when on earth, and participate to some extent in natural goods. 1 Thomas accepts a thoroughly organized purgatory. Its purpose is the expiation of temporal penalties for which the work of penance has not been complete. For the good, future felicity in the fatherland is a naturale desiderium. The universe would be irrational without it. In the present life we naturally desire the highest felicity, and we cannot obtain it, hence the desiderium, which, as nature makes nothing in vain, must be filled. Thomas speaks less frequently of "the fatherland" than Augustine does of "the heavenly city," and also less passionately, yet he gives abundant evidence of a deep-centered emotion, an insatiable longing for the after life — the "heavenly homesickness" so strongly felt in the Middle Ages but not limited to that period. Felicity is in the intellect rather than in the will. It consists for every intellectual creature in knowing God through his essence. The 1 Appendix to Summa, V, 1-2; Sententiae, II, 33 : 2; De malo, V, 2-3. 74 A KINGDOM OP ENDS IN AUGUSTINE, AQUINAS, AND LEIBNIZ power to do this must come from God. In his light we shall see life. Thomas represents the employment of the after life as distinctly intel- lectual but of a character not known to us through experience since it is an exercise of the intellect higher than that of reasoning. It has an immediacy which the latter cannot have. 1 VII. GENERAL CRITICISM (i) Aquinas like Augustine conceived the universe as founded in eternal goodness, but at the same time both represented the Father of spirits as forming an eternal plan which failed to include the vast majority of the human race in the eternal good of citizenship in the fatherland of souls. Aquinas sins the less grievously against the con- ception of divine fatherhood, since he teaches that unbaptized infants, though not given a heritage in the fatherland, are preserved in a region where they do not suffer and may to some extent participate in the divine goodness by sharing natural joys. He also, though not with marked success, represents the exclusion of others as more distinctly a thing permitted by the divine plan and dependent upon human choice, than as predestined and absolutely inevitable without respect to human choice, a conclusion which Augustine had made some effort to avoid. It cannot be said that Thomas succeeds in making the character of the founder of the church appear just and impartial. (2) Aquinas leaves the individual with moral initiative sufficient for a rather imperfect kingdom of ends wherein the common good is sought and true moral virtues abound; he also escapes the sharp denial of moral initiative with respect to the more perfect eternal kingdom. Augustine denied that virtues in the unregenerate could be true virtues, and though recognizing the political state as a good he fell far short of reaching the position taken by Aquinas, who saw that love to God and one's neighbor must be rendered concrete, partly by manifesting itself in the political state, and that a true universal church must realize itself in institutions which are to some extent local and temporary. (3) Similarly in the larger recognition given to the family and family relations as moral and essential to the perpetuity of both church and state, Thomas far surpasses Augustine. This vision of a concrete unity expressing itself through already existent social institutions rendered Thomas much more optimistic than Augustine, who never anticipated even an approximately perfect earthly society, though he did hope for some improvement. 1 Contra Gent., Ill, 48, 52. AQUINAS AND THE UNIVERSAL CHURCH 75 (4) In his effort to make the unity of the universal church more concrete Thomas places too great stress on elements which have but a symbolic value and which had already become bonds hindering the growth of spirit, rather than instruments for its expansion. It is, however, but just to say that in the historic church Thomas really represents a reaction toward the more spiritualistic view of Augustine, though he places tremendous emphasis upon the function of the sacraments. (5) In his sharper differentiation between counsels and precepts Thomas more emphatically than Augustine recognizes and strengthens a discordant element in the universal church. A kingdom of ends is essentially a kingdom of one law and one standard, admitting indeed of growth and reconstruction, but not placing its members under different degrees of obligation toward its ideal, and thereby tending toward a disruption of social unity by assuming a higher and holier function for one part of its active members than for another. (6) It is a real element of value in the view of Aquinas that he recognizes a true universal church as necessarily involving very complex differentiation and integration. The defect which he had in far greater measure than Augustine is in his failure to recognize equal worth in the differentiated factors. This shows itself in many ways, among them in the evidently greater merit assigned to the contemplative than to the active life. Parallel to this is the exclusion from active participation in the earthly state of certain classes recognized as essential to its welfare yet not esteemed worthy of sharing in its highest exercise of liberty, or, in other words, of active citizenship in the perfect political community. (7) Another defect in the view of St. Thomas, which really kept him from understanding the essential injustice of his class divisions, is one which Augustine also had in some measure and which is yet all too prevalent in modern times. It might be called the fallacy of abstract good-will. We have seen that Thomas clearly recognizes that sover- eignty is inherent in the people, that the function of the ruler is repre- sentative, and that he is false to his trust and to the divine obligation resting upon him when he forgets this representative character. The fallacy lies in the assumption that representation of another is mainly a matter of good-will toward him. The analogy of God in the world and of the soul in the body are misleading for in both cases the hypothesis is that there is thorough knowledge of the elements to be ruled. The soul becomes keenly aware of the bodily needs and suffers when they are not recognized, and a fair adjustment of claims made. A ruler or 76 A KINGDOM OF ENDS IN AUGUSTINE, AQUINAS, AND LEIBNIZ representative may have good-will but it must be in many respects empty of content without a social interaction which even yet we have not fully attained, and which was much farther removed from possibility in the period in which Aquinas lived. Hence obedience, either of the citizen in church or in state to an earthly ruler, was not always conducive to real growth of the mystic body, whether conceived as church or as state. (8) The crowning defect of the system of Thomas is in its absolute exclusion of reconstructive influences from the mystic body or universal church by the static conception of the infallible authority of dogma and custom. Reflection is here left functionless, though in the life of the individual its high value is recognized especially in the insistence upon self-consciousness as essential to moral habit, where it evidently means, though Thomas does not use the phrase, possibility of directing and reconstructing habit. By this restriction of freedom of thought the universal state was deprived of an element required for its growth as an organism whether through the taking up and assimilation of external elements, or through a more perfect differentiation of its parts for new and more varied activities, or for the rejection of elements no longer essential. A temporary and external unity was gained but at a ruinous price. Though Augustine makes this limitation on freedom of thought he does it far less emphatically. But while the system of Thomas is sadly defective here, there was within it a saving factor. Thomas gives tremendous emphasis to reason; he examines freely and tries to do justice to views quite different from his own, and very often appeals to reason not to authority to settle the controversy. Notwithstanding the fact that he held more extreme views of the right of the church to punish heretics than Augustine, he treats the statements of his opponents with more courtesy and con- sideration, and more of judicial calmness than his passionate predecessor. He compels our respect both by the uniqueness of his insight and the intensity of his devotion to the purpose of working out a concrete unity in the universal church as including the universal state. The scholastic presupposition, too, on which he worked, that true reasoning cannot lead to conclusions contrary to the true faith, though not logically con- vertible into the statement that the faith which stands in opposition to our reasoning cannot be true, was nevertheless suggestive of such con- version and tended to lead toward reconstruction and restatement of belief. CHAPTER IV LEIBNIZ AND THE KINGDOM OF GRACE I. NEW WORLDS AND NEW PROBLEMS (i) The new world of physical science. — In the period intervening between St. Thomas and Leibniz, Scholasticism, Renaissance, and Reformation had revealed treasures of ancient culture and quickened the activities of the human spirit. But not only had there been a rebirth of letters, art, and religion. 1 Physical science too had been reborn, and now possessed a vigor unknown in its previous incarnation. It had a story to tell of a new heavens and a new earth. The crystalline spheres of ancient and mediaeval times had been ruthlessly shattered and the spirits which formerly controlled their movements were no longer visible to the mind's eye. The earth had been pushed out of its central position, and even weighed and found wanting with respect to its superiority among the planets. Nor was this the end of transition, for the whole solar system was now proclaimed to be but a small part of an' immeasurably great system of systems. But not only was our earth transformed in respect to its relation to other heavenly bodies. Geologists were claiming that it had a strange history. Once a molten mass it had attained its present form after violent convulsions and inundations occupying countless ages. Geogra- phers, too, had a new story to tell, for explorers had demonstrated the rotundity long claimed for it, and limits had been set to the limitless but all-limiting ocean of antiquity. In the light of this newly discovered temporal and spatial immensity of the universe man seemed strangely insignificant, a mere ephemeron in its vast expanse. As the physicist explained the world it seemed foreign to man's deepest interest. He had indeed found out many of its secrets, and could express many of its movements in marvelous mathematical formulae. Thus a new control over the material world had been gained, but in all this the categories of moral goodness and purpose seemed to have little recognition. Hence it was a problem for Leibniz to restore final causes to physics, not forgetting that it was a new physics with which he had to deal. (2) The new organic world. — The extension and transformation of the physical universe, due so largely to Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo, 1 Mollat, Leibniz' ungedruckte Schriften, p. 19. 77 78 A KINGDOM OF ENDS IN AUGUSTINE, AQUINAS, AND LEIBNIZ found a parallel in the organic world through the works of Leuwenhoek, Swammerdam, and Malphigi. The discovery that a single drop of water might contain almost a million animalcules suggested that the inorganic world was in truth a world teeming with life. The organic world itself became much more minutely organic by the discovery of the embryonic plant within the seed, and of the spermatazoon within the animal. If the animal is but a transformation of a spermatazoon might it not be that the latter is in turn but the transformation of a smaller animalcule related to it as it is to the larger form, and might not this inclusion in and development of minute animal forms from others still more minute go on to the nth. degree ? Perhaps generation is but a stage in transformation of previously existing living forms, thus giving individual life as great an extension in the temporal sphere as organic life in general had gained in the spatial sphere through microscopic discoveries ? External difference of form seemed less a barrier to trans- formation after careful observation had revealed, as in the case of the silkworm and its moth, wonderful internal identity where external differences were most striking. But suppose that the scientific fairyland should turn out to be something other than a mere product of a very active imagination, what would it all mean? What would be the value of an unlimited multi- plication of animal forms if animals are mere automata as Descartes thought them? Just a vast extension of the sphere of mechanical necessity into a greatly enlarged sphere of seeming purpose — a sphere of seeming purpose now so massive as to throw a dark shadow of doubt over the human sphere, in which to many it is unendurable to regard purpose as other than real and freedom as but an illusion. Thus it became the task of Leibniz to show that animal life should not be regarded as mechanical, but that however far the sphere of life should be extended it was interpretable, and should be interpreted, in terms of consciousness, and its kinship to man admitted. It is very probable in spite of one or two passages to the contrary that the new discoveries in zoology not only gave Leibniz a new problem but also suggested important elements in the metaphysical theory which furnished a foundation for his answer to this and other problems. Cer- tainly long before the monadic theory appeared one of these discoveries suggested to him that materiality, in the form of ultimate physical elements, might be swallowed up in life. "It is even' to be feared that there are no ultimate elements, all being effectively divided to infinity LEIBNIZ AND THE KINGDOM OF GRACE 79 into bodies organic." 1 Presumably his effort to interpret the universe in terms of life, not mere mechanism, was from the first the outgrowth of a desire to save individuality, purpose, and freedom, though the problem of freedom did not as he says become of absorbing importance to him until about his fortieth year. Not less strongly than he wished to escape from a mechanical explanation of scientific facts did Leibniz wish to make known those scientific facts and to open a way for scientific research. With prophetic vision he foresaw in the science which was yet to come a most powerful agency in advancing human welfare. He did not regard science as only a means of material advancement, important as this might be. He assigned to it a distinctly moral and religious function in that it revealed the perfection of God and thus made it easier for men to love and serve him. From this standpoint great scientists seemed to him to con- stitute a holy priesthood. Leibniz however well knew that in several countries of Europe, as Spain, Italy, and the hereditary lands of the empire, a rival priesthood and the narrowness of rulers repressed the knowledge of great scientific truths such as the Copernican theory. 3 In other countries the rulers were often too much occupied with selfish interests, and wars offensive and defensive, to give a generous support to scientific pursuits, hence it was a problem for Leibniz to find some means of removing hindrances to the advancement of science, and of positively enlisting the monarchs of Europe as generous supporters of scientific research. 3 (3) The new world of human life. — The genius of Leibniz was monadic in the sense that it reflected universal interests. His heart went out to the "innumerable and strange peoples brought to us for culture." He knew well how many of his fellow Europeans did not hesitate to contribute positively to the moral and physical destruction of these new- world citizens, and that more were uninterested in their welfare. There was evident need of a change in attitude in this respect especially among those European powers which had been striving for more than a hundred years for new-world trade and territory. 4 Partly in connection with the struggle for new-world power, and partly independent of it, great changes had been wrought in Europe in religious, in political, and in economic life. The temporal supremacy 1 Gerhardt, Leibniz 1 Werke, I, 335. 2 Gerhardt, V, 497> Stein, Leibniz und Spinoza, 337. 3 Stein, 334. 4 ibid., 313, 335; Gerhardt, V, 90. 80 A KINGDOM OF ENDS IN AUGUSTINE, AQUINAS, AND LEIBNIZ of the pope, never so seemingly secure as in the last years of Aquinas, had broken down, and in England and northwest Europe there had been open revolt against his spiritual authority as well. The Thirty Years' War closed two years after Leibniz' birth but its unsurpassed evils were still in evidence in the demoralization of vast numbers of the German people, in the devastation and depopulation of German territory, and in the general retardation of civilization. Leibniz said of it, "In France in the past century and in our own Germany in the present, neither famine, nor pestilence, nor any other public scourge has proved so injurious as has religious dissent." 1 Elsewhere, he expressed a fear that the terrible lesson might be forgotten, and that religious strife might again result in far-reaching destruction. After Louis XIV had shown his religious intolerance by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and also his greed for territory by actual attempts to enlarge his borders at the expense of both his Netherlandic and his German neighbors, Leibniz was not without dread that there might be a total suppression of religious liberty in Europe and a partial return to barbarism and superstition. Within Protestantism itself there was also a most deplorable strife. Attention often centered on the discussion of doctrinal points of little practical significance to the neglect of weightier matters of social duty. Leibniz thoroughly believed that a sound moral order must be based on religion hence to him this disturbance in religious life presented an important problem. "There is nothing," he says, "which appears to me so excellent as the religion of Jesus Christ, and nothing excepting the purity of that religion so important as the unity of the church of God." 2 It was with respect to the purity of religion and unity of the church as a necessary basis for the preservation and development of moral order that Leibniz took upon himself the task of working out a solution of a religious problem which involved as its most prominent phases, (a) the reduction of partisan feeling so as to avoid violent outbreaks; (b) the repudiation or restatement of certain religious beliefs, some of official others of semi-official character, which hindered the progress of science and of morality; (c) the establishing of a really generous toleration in religious faith, and of co-operation in efforts to improve social and political life. To what extent such improvement was needed we shall now examine. In the political sphere the unity deemed essential in the Middle Ages 1 Foucher, Leibniz, II, 549. 2 Guhrauer, Leibniz' Deutsche Schrijten, I, 153-255. LEIBNIZ AND THE KINGDOM OF GRACE 8 1 was lost. The optimistic hoped for its restoration but not in the earlier form. Though feudalism had fallen as a political power many of its economic and social elements remained. Feudal warfare had passed away but its place had been taken by a warfare fiercer and more pro- longed in many cases, because the commercial and religious interests involved appealed more powerfully to the people. The religious inter- ests were in Leibniz' day giving way before dynastic and commercial interests but there was yet danger of religious warfare. In general the rising national states of Europe were poor in their conception of mutual obligation or duty. Preservation of the balance of power, an idea becoming prominent in this period, was practically as unsocial as the underlying motive in the formation of Hobbes's political state. As usual, external warfare hindered development of internal resources and also a fitting expression of the rights and duties of the various classes in the form of equitable laws, notwithstanding the fact that Hobbes, Grotius, Pufendorf, Spinoza, and Locke had examined the bases of right and government within a century. The restored German Empire which had never been able to secure much more than a formal unity was, as Leibniz said, held together by a mere silken thread. Much of the bitterness of recent religious strife remained, but German unity had an older and more direful foe in particularism, manifested in love of local independence and dread of a strong central government. This though often salutary to German development in the past now left her exposed and helpless before the often threatening danger of attack from the Turks and from France — a source of almost constant dread during the life of Leibniz. In a paper prepared in 1670 Leibniz described this most grievous situation declaring the empire to be without the three requisites of a persona civilis, a per- manent council, a standing army, and a permanent treasury. 1 Even his optimistic temper could see little future outlook under the existing conditions of mutual distrust between electors and princes, and their common distrust of the house of Austria. As a German elector said a few years later, "Germany is under the lion's paw and dare not stir." 2 Her simulation of death, however, proved but imperfectly protective against the hunger of Louis XIV for new territory. Leibniz lived to see some promise of better things for German unity, but on the whole the various states remained far from the realization of the unity which he declared Germany must attain before it could cease to be the easy prey of ambitious powers and the battle ground of Europe. 3 1 Ibid. 2 Eng. Hist. Review, July, 1909. J See note 2, p. 80. 82 A KINGDOM OF ENDS IN AUGUSTINE, AQUINAS, AND LEIBNIZ France, one of the two leading contestants for new-world power, at this time sought also to dominate in European affairs through intrigue and war. Its economic resources had been unusually well developed, and in the early part of the reign of Louis XIV he delighted to honor literature and natural science. Naturally he discouraged investigation of the bases of government as unwarrantable interference with his own private affairs. The glitter of his court dazzled Europe and exercised a hypnotic effect on the feudal nobility restraining them from efforts to regain any political power. The moral corruption of this luxurious and idle court poisoned the nation. The religious intolerance of the king, his selfish conception of the kingly office, and the moral degradation of the high classes called for a political and moral awakening. England was in this period the powerful rival of France for new- world power and the hope of distracted Europe for defense against French aggression. In this period English parliamentary supremacy was won, and though religious liberty was left under restrictions it was primarily for political reasons. The work of such men as Hobbes, Locke, and Newton commanded the intellectual respect of Europe. Yet it was an age in which there was much political and moral corruption, and at times French gold and French influence endangered the existence of English political institutions. A glimpse at the smaller states of Europe is necessary, for Leibniz dealt with universal relations. Holland was at this time prominent for her commerce, her intellectual advancement, and most of all as the plucky antagonist of French extension of power. Sweden illustrated successful resistance to an attempt to divide her territory made by her neighbors, but on the whole her strength was declining, and she soon began to lose her Baltic possessions. Russia made a spasmodic attempt to advance under Peter the Great, a monarch whose general moral culture was too low to permit successful application of his accepted ideal which was that of benevolent despotism. Russian territory was increasing. Italy was at this stage comparatively peaceful but without unity. Spain had ceased to be first among world powers and was declining rapidly, due largely to the suppression of free thought. Poland came forward once as the rescuer of Europe against the Turk but though capable of uniting temporarily under tremendous external pressure it had little internal unity. (4) Summary of problems. — The political situation of which Leibniz was well aware was indeed suggestive of many serious problems. It is strange how amidst the general strife and confusion Leibniz could hear LEIBNIZ AND THE KINGDOM OF GRACE 83 the strains of universal harmony and talk of a best possible world. How could he hope for German unity knowing as he did the existing chaos ? How could he hope for a universal state and world-citizenship in the midst of international strife then so prevalent? Yet he did so hope, and the reason for this hope is expressed in the solution which he gave to existing problems. In brief it was Leibniz' problem to remove abnormal elements in the moral order arising in three ways: (a) Through a mechanical interpre- tation of the universe which rendered basal moral categories meaningless. (b) Through religious strife and narrowness, and also misdirected zeal introducing many moral evils and devitalizing normal moral and religious activities, (c) Through political strife and neglect of many of the functions of government, springing from commercial and dynastic interests and expressive of boundless egoism. His solution is found in connection with the conception of a kingdom of ends termed indiffer- ently either the kingdom of grace, or the divine city of spirits, or the moral realm in the natural world, or the city of God. II. ORIGIN AND PURPOSE OF THE KINGDOM OF GRACE ■ (1) How the world came into being. — Our first inquiry is how the kingdom of grace took its rise, what is its relation to the kingdom of nature, and what the final purpose of both. The founder of the kingdom of grace is its monarch, the one original perfect necessary being, God. In his understanding from eternity there were an infinite number of ideas or essences, endowed with a sort of motor force and tending to pass into actual existence. We may call them possible existences because being without inner contradiction they could pass the first guard at the portals of reality, the law of contra- diction. But yet another guard must be passed whose demands were more difficult to satisfy. This was the law of sufficient reason, which permitted no individual idea to become real unless it manifested a highly social capacity, consisting in ability to enter into the best possible world as an active though perhaps indirect contributor to its perfection. As all who could pass the test came into the realm of actual existence the result was a world of perfect teleological continuity. From this stand- point there are no gaps in the series of beings in the universe. Seeming gaps there may be left for esthetic effect, as it were "musical cadences among phenomena." Besides we may think there are gaps because we do not see all beings in the universe, or do not know just what beings should exist in the best possible world. In all the vast 84 A KINGDOM OF ENDS IN AUGUSTINE, AQUINAS, AND LEIBNIZ universe the demands of infinite variety are met as no two beings are exactly alike. The individual ideas when they have become actual existences are termed monads. A monad is essentially perceptive. Not only is it in the universe, the universe is in it, as an ever-developing mental content. This unfolding is the development of the monad's own soul life, and at the same time necessary to the perfection of the whole. Here Leibniz takes an attitude of direct opposition to the mechanical view. The universe is not to be interpreted in terms of the mechanical, but even the material world must be interpreted in terms of conscious life. The individual monad as forming part of a universal system seems to be in a relation of interaction to all other members of the system, but this must not be interpreted in terms of transeunt action. Interaction should be interpreted as immanent action of individuals each exquisitely adapted to all of the others through a pre-established harmony originating in God and in a sense maintained by him, but never to the destruction of the individual or the negation of his activity, for this would mar the perfection of the whole of which he forms a part. Leibniz here puts in the place of the Spinozistic immanent action of the one substance, im- manent action of the many, by which individuality is saved. This too is a rejection of the Occasionalist view which although it recognized the individual seemed to deprive him of any real function. (2) The two kingdoms. — The principle of differentiation of monads is found in the degree of perfection with which they reflect the universe. Like St. Thomas' angels there are, strictly speaking, no two in one species, but it is convenient to divide them roughly into three great groups, the lowest of which is that of bare monads endowed with unconscious perception, and having an infinitely confused image of the universe. Next higher is that of souls with conscious perception and a low form of memory. Highest is that of spirits possessing apperception and reason, with consciousness of self and of other selves. This highest class forms the kingdom of grace or city of God. Reflection, beholding as in a mirror, transformation through vision, these processes we are familiar with as pertaining to the city of God; but Leibniz brings the concept down to the lowest monads, and makes this reflection of the universe an ever on-going process through which the monad attains perfection in both the lower world or kingdom of nature and in the higher or kingdom of grace. All three classes have appetition, which is not a mere will to exist but a perpetual will to become. In the lowest class this is unconscious LEIBNIZ AND THE KINDGOM OF GRACE 85 impulse or tendency, in the next higher instinct guided by feeling, and in the highest of all it is desire and volition. (3) Why the world came into being. — The purpose of the world is the traditional one — to express God's goodness or glory. As God's glory could not exist without spirits to recognize it, and as these spirits cannot increase in knowledge of the divine perfection except as their own perfection increases, the increase of God's glory is bound up with the full development or self-realization of spirits. 1 Hence we may say that all rational beings or spirits, since they are specially capable of reflecting the divine glory and imitating the divine will, are recognized members of the kingdom of grace, the chief glory of whose monarch is the welfare of his subjects. Lower forms of monad life, which constitute the kingdom of nature, have some claims on the universe but these need not conflict with the welfare of the realm of spirits. In fact the world might be destroyed and renewed by natural means if the welfare of spirits demanded it. In one sense the realm of grace is bound to contribute to the perfection of that of nature, since it is largely through the develop- ment of material resources that the advancement of the human race must come. , (4) The relation of the human spirit to its body. — The very intimate interrelation of the kingdom of nature and of grace is strikingly illus- trated in the relation of the human soul to its body. The soul is the dominant monad in the midst of a vast number of lower monads in harmonious relation. Every phase of their activity is in some sense reflected in the soul but it must never be regarded as merely the resultant of such activity. The soul reflects with considerable clearness and distinctness a higher world which the monads of the body reflect only in a vague, confused way. In this sense spirits may be called children of the divine household, capable of appreciating and imitating the divine order. This preservation of the individuality of the spirit is a leading motive throughout all of Leibniz' theory. Similarly he sought to maintain the transcendence of God in or over the monadic system. To obscure these two lines of demarcation would leave but Spinozistic pantheism, endangering both individuality and moral responsibility. The relation of God to the world however is not quite identical with that of soul and body. While Leibniz wishes to preserve the separate individuality of the human spirit he is also eager to show its necessary relation to the body. " Created spirits are never without organs and never without sensations 1 Gerhardt, VI, 605, 621-22; VII, 544. 86 A KINGDOM OF ENDS IN AUGUSTINE, AQUINAS, AND LEIBNIZ as they cannot reason without symbols." 1 "There is never an abstract thought unaccompanied by material marks or traces." 2 But the spirit may preserve its identity and continuity while the body is undergoing cataclysmic disturbances, not however without serious disturbances of mental activities. It is worthy of note that in the early treatise in which Leibniz most emphatically declares the concrete unity of soul and body he also places the greatest possible emphasis on the difference between the material and spiritual. "Every I and thou is a single, inseparable, indestructible thing, and does not consist of three parts, soul, spirit, and body." "Bodies are merely the work of God. Spirits are intrinsically the king- dom of God." "Corporeal things are only shadows — the real truth is only in spirit, yet inexperienced men consider the spiritual as a dream, and that which can be grasped by sense as truth." 3 Leibniz like Augustine, but from a different motive, had difficulty in accounting for the origin of the new citizens of the kingdom of spirits. Leibniz' world view demanded that every individual coming into actual existence should be chosen from the beginning from among possible existences. The difficulty lay in showing on one hand, where, if the human spirit was then endowed with actuality, it had spent the inter- vening ages before appearing in a human body, and on the other, how, if not at that time endowed with actual existence, it could become so endowed without miraculous interference. The difficulty was increased by Leibniz' biological views in which he drew a too general conclusion from Leuwenhoek's discoveries and to which he in the main persistently adhered. This view, that generation is but transformation from a lower form of life, e.g., man from spermatazoon, and the latter in turn from a lower form, and so on indefinitely, afforded sufficient individual continuity for Leibniz but of a very barren type. How could an individual spirit ever have really expressed its true individuality in such low forms of life for the countless centuries before its admission to the kingdom of grace by birth in human form ? Besides the relatively sudden awakening of spiritual activities so long dormant was not far short of the miraculous. The opposing view, that by transcreation a merely sensitive nature was suddenly endowed with a miraculous degree of perfection by the action of God, attracted Leibniz somewhat, but on the whole he seemed to prefer the former view, probably because it afforded some sort of individual continuity however worthless. 4 Spirits in such a state could 1 Gerhardt, V, 197. 2 Ibid., VI, 533. s Guhrauer, I, 410-12. 4 Gerhardt, II, 75, 99, 371; VI, 152, 352, 621. LEIBNIZ AND THE KINGDOM OF GRACE 87 scarcely be called members of "the moral world within the natural world," though predestined to become such. (5) Teleological continuity and man's place in the universe. — Leibniz thought that man's exalted place above other animals on our globe was in harmony with teleological continuity, as it gives man a freer sphere for action; so also rational animals higher than man, though no doubt existing in great numbers elsewhere, are kept from our earth. That creatures midway between man and beast exist on other globes may be true. That on our earth in a period when animal natures were more plastic, animals now varying widely may have descended from an earlier common form may also be true. 1 Even the most wicked man has something to contribute to the good of the universe, and because of this he was permitted to come into it. The wickedness of Sextus Tarquinius provoked the Roman people to found a free state. 2 He acted under no other compulsion except that of his own nature and this cannot be legitimately termed compulsion. As for the idea of Sextus pre-existing in the divine understanding this throws no blame back upon God, since he, as Leibniz naively remarks, did not create his own understanding. The latter simply expresses the true nature of things. Thus evil is made by Leibniz a necessary moment in the universal good, a stimulus to ever advancing perfection. Leibniz admits original sin at least formally. His extreme individual- ism of course makes actual transference of either tendency or guilt impossible, except in the sense that one monad reflects others, and changes itself in reflecting. The true original sin for Leibniz lay in the necessary limitation or defect of created beings, and at times both Aquinas and Augustine had placed it there, emphasizing the unstable equilibrium of man's nature rather than the one act of Adam. 3 That the universe demands that unbaptized children should suffer eternal penalties Leibniz regarded as a cruel slander on the justice of God. 4 Original sin could not exclude from the beatific vision; for this there must be actual wrongdoing. With Leibniz as with Augustine and Aquinas the beatific vision is the final goal of man. We shall see later that the character of this all transforming vision has undergone transformation. We have already had an intimation that it is meant for the many not the few, in the thought that the glory of its object is increased by reflection. Are 'Ibid., Ill, 565, 571, 579, 581; V, 455, 296. 'Ibid., VI, 359-65. 3 Ibid., VI, 181, 203, 451. '•Ibid., VI, 153-54, 220; Mollat, p. 42. 88 A KINGDOM OF ENDS IN AUGUSTINE, AQUINAS, AND LEIBNIZ the many so constituted that they can share it? This will depend on the nature of the many as well as upon the character of the vision. III. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE KINGDOM OF GRACE (i) General relation of intellect, feeling, and will. — Are man's elemen- tary mental processes such that he may be expected to adopt the laws of the moral realm within the natural world rather than the laws of the lower natural world, or at least is he free to do so, is the problem which we shall study here. Leibniz treats the perceptive and conative faculties as merely two phases of one process, or as two activities of one substance. "Some attempt to act or some volition follows every thought immediately." 1 He does not clearly distinguish pleasure and pain from these activities. They usually seem to belong with appetition, and like perception and appetition they may sink below the level of consciousness without ceasing to be effective. Leibniz prefers however not to use the terms pleasure and pain except for a distinctly conscious psychosis. As perception, appetition, and feeling are thus parts of a single ever on-going process there can be no such thing as volition uninfluenced by the whole mental content. Though a free will in this sense is chi- merical, in another sense the will, as every other activity of the monad, is free because it is spontaneous and utterly uninfluenced from without. The term free however applies rather to those activities which are uniquely human compared with those of lower forms of life, that is to such activities as follow a deliberative process and have been adopted by the self. (2) How moral freedom is possible. — The success of a kingdom of ends might seem to be assured when we learn that its laws are but developed forms of what man knows intuitively and is inclined to obey. Its possible failure lies in the fact that there is a serious hindrance to this development, and intuitions of right and wrong remain vague instead of becoming clear and demonstrative. The inclination to follow the moral law is counteracted by inclination toward the satisfaction of physical desires, and the intuitions of duty though they can never be wholly destroyed are obscured by confused sense perception. Granting this dualism or conflict in man's nature the next question is whether it can be overcome. 2 Leibniz in spite of both his predeterminism and his determinism gives specific directions for overcoming the dualism mentioned above, and 1 Mollat, p. 4. 3 Gerhardt, V, 80-91. LEIBNIZ AND THE KINGDOM OP GRACE 89 shows why most men do not do so. He takes it for granted that to see and to approve better things and yet to follow worse things is quite general. This is because men oppose to the prospective evil deed with its promise of immediate pleasure, and lively sense imagery, only abstract ideas, or pensees sourdes, that is thought practically unaccompanied by imagery and feeling, hence weak in motor force. Men most frequently think of God, virtue, and felicity, without developing or analyzing these ideas, hence though they may come into consciousness in time of tempta- tion they have no motor force to restrain passion. As the bad always includes some good and may be seen under the form of good, men are hurried into action before they develop the idea of the proposed act sufficiently to see the evil involved or the good involved in its opposite, although the opposite is vaguely present. There is one method that we should know cannot avail. The interests of the moral realm cannot be saved by any coup d'etat; they may be saved by diplomacy. In periods when our besetting sin lies dormant we may marshal its natural enemies, by developing counteracting desires or interests which already make some appeal to us. Agriculture, gardening, scientific research, art, good books, and associates, or some indispensable occupation may be used to occupy our attention and to satisfy our joy hunger, thus often preventing the dormant passion from rising above the threshhold of consciousness. Sometimes a gradual reduction of indulgence in a vicious habit may lead to perfect self- control. It is important also to strengthen the imagination in picturing the natural but perhaps distant penalty of a besetting sin. Periods of meditation and examination of motive and purpose are valuable. In moments of insight we may formulate rules of action leading in an opposite direction, and may hold ourselves steadily to their observance thus acquiring the habit of acting in accordance with reason. In short by directing our attention to wholesome pursuits we may develop hidden resources within our own nature, and actually change our tastes with reference to pleasure. 1 The above is evidently moral salvation through a process of self- education or self-discipline for which our capacity is assumed. In accordance with this theory tragic situations like that so thrillingly described by Mr. James as the fifth type of decision would be sure to end in moral defeat, but the prudent man may foresee such evils and flee. Extensive learning is not needed for this kind of moral self- protection. The good will, that is the habit of formulating or developing I Ibid., V, 155-97; VI, 288-89. 90 A KINGDOM OF ENDS IN AUGUSTINE, AQUINAS, AND LEIBNIZ moral intuitions into maxims or rules of conduct and patiently adhering to their observance until obedience becomes easy, is much more impor- tant. Leibniz' doctrine of freedom, stated briefly, is that we may win self-control if we proceed in accordance with the laws of our own nature by directing attention so far as possible toward a good to be attained, this good consisting in the full development of some of our inherent capacities. In striking contrast with the earlier views which we have studied, especially Augustine's, is the emphasis placed upon the develop- ment of good impulses rather than upon the suppression of evil impulses. The original good rather than the original sin is the center of attention. The process of moral education presented here is mainly individual. A more social form we shall study later. It will naturally be asked whether the practical freedom of the will described above is a real freedom to attain highest ends, and if so how this can be reconciled with the pre-established harmony which reigns even in the kingdom of grace. Leibniz himself was sure he had solved the problem of predestination and saved the day both for human liberty, and for the goodness and justice of God. The will is never necessitated but inclined. This is true even of divine choices though they always actually do follow the dictates of reason. All ardent advocates of predestination have at some time admitted that it must always be in conformity with God's goodness and justice, hence it must always be interpreted so as to exclude anything which would conflict with perfect goodness and justice. The individual Christian may be sure he cannot fall away except through his own fault. With Leibniz the sphere of grace is necessarily as broad as the kingdom of grace. To every member of the divine city of spirits enough grace is given to make his moral advance possible but not to necessitate it, for neither corruption nor grace is ever quite irresistible. This grace is perhaps given to some in the hour of death, at least it must be given so that none can complain of neglect. "The greatest gift of divine grace consists in mental illumination and inclination of will, by both of which the attention of the mind towards its duties is perfected." 1 (3) Pleasure and pain, and their moral values. — Leibniz sometimes defines pleasure as a sense or perception of perfection, sometimes as a sense of increasing perfection, and often, to make the emphasis greater, as nothing other than a sense of perfection. 2 As perfection is increase of power, or heightening of being, or passage from less to greater 'Gerhardt, II, 569. 2 Mollat, pp. 7, 17, 61. LEIBNIZ AND THE KINGDOM OE GRACE 9 1 perfection the definitions given above are identical. 1 Once he hesitates to give a formal definition, because pleasure like light and color must be felt to be understood. 2 Happiness is a state of lasting pleasure, not necessarily always felt, but if we turn the mind's eye inward the per- ception of harmony there will arouse it. 3 Perception of perfection in others should give us joy, as well as when in ourselves, and normally it does so. Pain is the perception or sense of an imperfection. It has a highly important function since it is the goad which stimulates man to move from less to greater perfection. This is emphatically true of it in its imperceptible form of restlessness or discontent with the present moment. 4 Since some disquietude is essential to felicity, a perfect possession of which would produce insensibility, even the angels must advance through overcoming disquietude. 5 Leibniz as has been said objects to calling this disquietude pain, but as it often passes into conscious pain, and really is an incipient form of pain, he himself does not adhere to the limitation, using the phrase demies douleurs to express it. Besides he leaves pain which is distinctly felt with a similar function. Consciousness itself is a result of various conflicts and combinations in the underworld of petites perceptions, demies douleurs, et demies plaisirs, at least such is the implication in the statement that it would cease without these elementary processes. 6 A similar process goes on through the developing stages of consciousness up to deliberation and choice. Here we find in the microcosm as in the macrocosm that " compossibility " is the password, for the candidate among the con- testing motives is chosen not because stronger than any other single contestant, but because of its ability to combine with others and with them drive from the field single contestants or weaker combinations. This continual disquietude and conflict in the soul of man has its parallel in his physical organism where a constant process of disturbance and readjustment goes on. Pain is evidently essential to the dynamism of progress. Not only is pain in its higher or lower forms, preferably in the lower, necessary to the on-going activity in a developing consciousness, but it has also in its perceptible form an important function in heightening the appreciation of its opposite. But just as only a small amount of pain is needed to prevent mental inertia and to start new movements of 1 Guhrauer, II, 36^ 4 Ibid., V, 152. 2 Gerhardt, V, 180; Guhrauer, I, 420. s Ibid., V, 174-79. 3 Gerhardt, VII, 43. 6 Ibid., V, 150-51, 175. 92 A KINGDOM OF ENDS IN AUGUSTINE, AQUINAS, AND LEIBNIZ progress so here but little is required to bring out the contrast effect in pleasure. The quantity must always be less than that of pleasure. Again we find an analogy between macrocosm and microcosm. As in the universe evil is taken up as a necessary moment in the ever increasing perfection so in the individual pain or displeasure is taken up as a necessary moment in the increase of pleasure. The treatment of pleasure is highly important in Leibniz because of his early conception of it as the sole motive power in conscious appetition or volition. If it were not for his equivocal use of the term pleasure it would be necessary to class him as a psychological hedonist. In any case he places tremendous emphasis on the feeling side of the volitional psychosis, and does not hesitate to attack non-hedonistic views fiercely. "The proud boastings of Sadducees and Stoics of virtue sought for its own sake are far from true to human nature." 1 "Interrogate those lofty cloud dwelling Stoics, pretended enemies of pleasure, real enemies of truth. Look about, examine their actions or their motives! You will see that you cannot point your finger without impinging upon the falsity of their vain philosophy! Rectitude is nothing except pleasure of the mind." 2 However, examination of other passages shows that under the category of pleasure Leibniz includes every feeling of appre- ciation of an act as praiseworthy or in accordance with the dignity of man, all sense of satisfaction in duty done, and even that calmness of mind regarded by the Stoic as essential to virtuous conduct just because of its freedom from emotional quality. 3 Leibniz undertook a difficult task, that of reducing the antagonism between the praiseworthy and the useful, as Socrates had wished might be done. 4 The problem became more complicated by the division of goods into still another class, the agreeable or pleasant. His aim was to state all of these in terms of a single feeling, either as constituting the feeling itself or as valued because of their causal relation to it. The useful then becomes that which produces pleasure in an indirect way. It serves to arouse the feeling of pleasure in us, but the producing object perishes in the using in most cases. The praiseworthy reduces directly to the agreeable or pleasant. It is good in itself, never mere means. Its perception gives us pleasure of a very high kind, that is to say pleasure of the spirit. The mental object or thing perceived does not perish in the using, but it does have a causal efficiency. It may serve as an ideal in the light of which we are transformed. Our joy in contemplating this 1 Gerhardt, I, 160. 3 Ibid., p. 36. 2 Mollat, pp. 28-29. 1 1bid., p. 36; Guhrauer, II, 46. LEIBNIZ AND THE KINGDOM OF GRACE 93 ideal stimulates us to express it in our own lives. Because we recognize it as a good in itself it has power to uplift us. Leibniz might have added that the praiseworthy is distinctly social in character and involves inter- ests far wider than does the useful, employing the latter term as he does. The term perfection, used in defining pleasure, is employed lavishly, not always consistently. Some perfections are admittedly inferior to and in conflict with others since they drag imperfections in their train. A qualitative distinction within pleasure is recognized. That the highest type of perfection, the moral, does not always have as its accompaniment the sense of perfection is shown by the statement that many of the virtuous are less happy than the wicked. 1 Leibniz forsakes both psycho- logical and ethical hedonism by adding that it seems that God has so ordered it to give us an opportunity to exercise "free virtue springing from wisdom and a non-mercenary love toward himself." 2 It is certain that this article was written after 1700. Presumably later, in an undated paper it is said that neither hope of reward nor fear of penalty moves the righteous to their good deeds. Felicity, however, though not a motive of virtue is, in the form of the highest pleasure of the mind, its necessary concomitant. Elsewhere the inadequacy of the present life and the need of God and a future life is argued from the standpoint of the inequality of merit and happiness. Leibniz seems to have anticipated Shaftesbury in emphasizing taste for virtue and distaste for vice. In 171 2 he warmly commended Shaftesbury's "Characteristics" and seemed especially pleased with the natural basis for the virtues therein presented. 3 For Leibniz a taste for pure pleasure, developed under the guidance of the reason, is synonymous with perfection of the will. "That serenity of soul which finds the greatest pleasure in virtue and the greatest ill in vice, that is to say in the perfection or imperfection of the will is the greatest good of which man is capable here below, even if there were nothing to attain beyond this life." 4 But unfortunately for the success of the moral realm, men though capable of this high and holy joy rarely develop their taste sufficient to attain it, hence our problem of how they are to be brought into active and efficient citizenship in a kingdom of ends is yet unsolved. We shall find it occurring again later in a more distinctly social setting outside of which its solution is impossible. (4) Passion and confused thought. — Passion as with the earlier philosophers is the main hindrance to the development of the taste for 1 Mollat, p. 49. 3 Gerhardt, III, 423-43. 2 Ibid., pp. 51-52, 89. 4 Mollat, p. 61. 94 A KINGDOM OF ENDS IN AUGUSTINE, AQUINAS, AND LEIBNIZ pure joys so essential to virtue. It is defined as a strong tendency to some form of action, the stimulus to which may be either a thought or a feeling. It is accompanied by pleasure and displeasure and by great confusion of ideas. It is the deadly foe of clear and distinct thinking for it misrepresents to the mind the pleasure of the proposed action and unduly hastens the decision of reason. The value of passion when restrained by reason is admitted. The violent struggle in the passion of despair represents disturbance set up by blocking a powerful tendency. Leibniz does not generalize this so as to apply it to all passions but it shows how modern is his thought. When the passion-struggle subsides the passion may remain in a modified form, as where anger losing its violent manifestations becomes hate. The inner disturbance in passion is so clearly mirrored in outward movements that a careful observer need never fail to detect its presence. 1 (5) The problem of disinterested love. — If the individual has just two powerful motives, his own pleasure and self-preservation, the conception of a kingdom of ends must necessarily be discarded. It implies intimate social relations in the most perfect of all societies, in which man must treat fyis fellow-man with respect and reverence. Because of these implications the very prevalent individualistic psychology of Leibniz' day which represented every man as necessarily regarding others as mere instruments for his own pleasure and self-preservation needed supplementation and correction. Leibniz often spoke of the problem of disinterested love as very difficult. Much as he admired Hobbes he severely disapproved of his representation of man as by nature selfish and unsocial. Such mis- anthropic views of human nature he deemed positively immoral in their influence. 2 But while from the standpoint of ethics and of political science he disapproved of this view his own early psychology of pleasure as the sole motive of the voluntary act seemed to point in the same direction. "We do everything for our own good and it is impossible for us to hold other opinions although we may talk about others." "There is no one who does anything voluntarily except for his own good." 3 But finally Leibniz found a method of transforming this ultra-selfish self into a self with some social interests. He very often refers to his solution of the problem which was published in 1693 in the preface to a collection of national and international papers. He thought his solution was capable of serving as a source of great illumination to both theology 'Mollat, p. 86; Gerhardt, V, 153-55; VII, 497. 2 Ibid., Ill, 424; V, 253. s Ibid., II, 577-78; Mollat, p. 24. LEIBNIZ AND THE KINGDOM OF GRACE 95 and jurisprudence. 1 There is little evidence that it did so. He traces the genesis of his solution back to Augustine's division of objects into two classes, one of which serves as instruments for the satisfaction of our wants. The other consists of things in which we rest with satisfac- tion for their own sake. Love for objects in the class mentioned first, and usually called love of desire, he rejected as unworthy to be called love; then he formed his definition on the basis of the second. "To love or to esteem is to take pleasure in the happiness or perfection of another." If we can do this we have some motivation for doing good to others. 2 But the question arises whether love is really disinterested if we hope to attain our own pleasure by giving others pleasure. Are we not using them as means? Leibniz is sure that "what pleases us here is a good in itself not a good of interest," that is that we neither hope for nor attain any other advantage for ourselves than pleasure in the happiness of another. "It pertains to the end and not the means." "When we desire things, because they please us in themselves and are consequently good in themselves without regard to consequences, they are ends not means." Other passages reaffirm this position. 3 But how can we feel another's joy, or make his pleasure our own ? The nature of the monad provides the psychological mechanism, all monads being living mirrors. "Just as there can be double refraction in vision, i.e., in the lens of the eye, and in the lens of an optical tube, so is there a double reflection in thinking. As each mind has the likeness of a mirror one will be in our mind another in the mind of another. And if there are more mirrors, that is more minds that recognize our good the light will be greater, not only by the mirrors mingling light in the eye but also the splendor collected within them produces glory. "4 Leibniz never means that mirroring is the whole process. By the vision of another's joy or perfection we receive an impulse in the same direction. His mirror imagery is not always easy to follow especially when we think of the monad as a living mirror developing wholly from within, but we can see that he is trying to picture the self as essentially social, and its happiness and development as most intimately related to that of other selves. It would just as naturally find satisfaction in preserving itself as a social self as a self conceived as individual finds pleasure in activities for self-preservation. 1 Ibid., p. 28. 2 Gerhardt, III, 384-87; V, 150; VII, 546; Guhrauer, II, 483. 3 Gerhardt, I, 358; II, 569; V, 150; Mollat, pp. 28, 36, 37. 4 Ibid., p. 29. g6 A KINGDOM OF ENDS IN AUGUSTINE, AQUINAS, AND LEIBNIZ It may still be questioned whether we have yet found a sufficient basis for a kingdom of ends. Monads reflect clearly only within narrow limits. The distinguished classical advocate of disinterested love in friendship tells us in De amicitia that few have been famous for friendship. The disinterested devotion of parent to child, beautiful as it is, cannot serve as a working basis for a kingdom of ends as broad as humanity. Leibniz recognized the need of a wider social self and tried to provide for it in his treatment of the concept of justice. Notwithstanding the close psychological connection of disinterested love and justice as treated by Leibniz it will be profitable to get a glimpse of the natural societies through which the latter must find expression before dealing with it. IV. NATURAL SOCIETIES AND NATURAL RIGHT (1) The family, slavery, and the household. — A natural society is one that nature wishes, which she has implanted a desire for, and has given power to realize. There are six natural societies each having its own purpose. 1 The basal natural society is wedlock and its purpose the maintenance of the race. The marriage relation, based on natural instinct, becomes one of mutual love and helpfulness. The second natural society is that of parent and children. Its purpose is the nourishment and education of the children. A free man of noble character trains and educates his children so as to make them his heirs in culture and virtue. The child owes obedience and gratitude when old enough to understand what has been done for it. The parents exist for the child as the present for the future. 2 The third natural society is that of master and slave, based on the natural superiority of the master, for whose purpose the slave is but an instrument or little more than that. The Aristotelian justification of slavery from the analogy that as reason governs the senses and the soul the body, so the master because he is rational should rule the slave who possesses but physical strength, is not accepted as valid. If the slave is at all educable it would be the duty of his master to educate him for freedom. The relation of one as mere means to the good of another does not exist between man and man. But if there should be a right of slavery according to natural reason, there is a stronger right opposed to the abuse of this right. " It is the right of rational souls naturally and inalienably free; it is the right of God who is the sovereign master 1 Guhrauer, I, 415-19. 2 Ibid.; Mollat, p. 69. LEIBNIZ AND THE KINGDOM OF GRACE 97 over bodies and souls and under whom the masters are fellow-citizens with their slaves." 1 One can say the body belongs to the soul and since the soul of the slave cannot be acquired neither can the body. The right of the master is at most but very limited. When contrary to the nature of things the right of slavery is admitted, strict right must be limited by equity and charity. The fourth natural society, the household, comprises the first three and its purpose is to provide for daily needs. (2) The structure and function of the state. — The fifth natural society is civil, a city if small, a province if made up of several cities, a kingdom if made up of different provinces. The general purpose is to secure happiness more quickly and to retain it more certainly. The state seeks temporal welfare. Leibniz rejects Hobbes's view of the origin of the state. It puts man below certain animal groups which band together for co-operation rather than to escape mutual conflict or fear of their kind. 2 Men of the highest character voluntarily form societies for mutual aid. In fact, it is only when to some extent men recognize virtue and good faith in others that they judge it wise to enter into a society with them to seek the common good. 3 Leibniz also recognized that neither fear nor desire for felicity had served among primitive peoples to produce a state of the contract type. A constitutional monarchy is the form of government to be preferred. Cabals and animosities may prevail in an assembly, and render its rule as arbitrary as that of a tyrant. Arbitrary rule defeats an important purpose of the state which is to make the empire of reason flourish. Like Aquinas Leibniz thought a combination of the principles of mon- archy, aristocracy, and democracy highly desirable where conditions would permit. 4 Resistance to a tyrannical government is lawful. Hobbes was right only so far as that attack should not be made for trivial reasons. He was inconsistent in allowing that a prisoner deserving punishment may seek escape, while good citizens under similar danger to life and liberty may not seek to save themselves. Filmer's defense of an absolute government as paternal in its origin overlooks the fact that the relation of parent to child is not that of master to slave. 5 Though a foe to absolutism Leibniz was no ardent advocate of a 1 Guhrauer, I, 41 5^ Mollat, p. 68. 3 Gerhardt, V, 253. * Gerhardt, III, 277. 3 Mollat, p. 13. .s Mollat, p. 67. 98 A KINGDOM OF ENDS IN AUGUSTINE, AQUINAS, AND LEIBNIZ larger political liberty. He thought that the Europe of his day suffered more from "libertinism than from lack of liberty." Political salvation he thought depended on the few. The wise should rule even if they must use both force and skill to gain and maintain control. His ideal of government was that of a very generous type of paternalism with some constitutional limitations, certainly not the happiest form of government in a kingdom of ends. 1 In contrast with Augustine and to some extent with Aquinas Leibniz ascribed a very wide field of activity to the government. The aim of government is the public welfare and the greatest possible amount of felicity. 2 In many respects things contributory to this are universally desired, but they can be obtained only when sought through the agency of wise rulers. That the ruler should take personal oversight in weighty matters is important. Under no condition should he intrust such matters to others. His power for doing good or evil is very great and so also is his responsibility. Some of the specific ends in a good state are to render the people temperate, content with the political order, prudent, well disposed toward each other, well informed in practical arts and skilled in every useful activity of body or mind, and religious in the sense of believing it shall be well with him who seeks the glory of God, which is identical with the public good, and ill with the wicked. 3 As the circumstances about him seemed to demand, Leibniz empha- sized the importance of military strength, meaning however not so much a standing army as a loyal citizen soldiery ready to come quickly to the aid of the country. The evils of protracted military service he bitterly deplored. 4 Leibniz' unique contribution to the idea of governmental functions was in the emphasis he placed on the encouragement of science. Sug- gestions of an agricultural department, experiment stations, and state- supported technical schools are found in his works. We have here in the broadest sense a new contemplative life. The sciences and arts by which our power over nature is increased were regarded as the greatest treasure of the human race. Rulers should provide for the preservation and development of such sciences. 5 Leibniz placed great emphasis on the academy of science and devoted much attention to the establishment of such institutions. With him salvation was by enlightenment, but the enlightenment must pass into 1 Gerhardt, III, 264-65. 2 Mollat, pp. 1, 7, 85. 4 Stein, 315. * Ibid., pp. 4-5, 20, 86. s Mollat, pp. 4-5, 20. LEIBNIZ AND THE KINGDOM OF GRACE 99 action. No other rationalist has emphasized so strongly that thinking is for the sake of doing. "The goal is to unite theory and practice and to improve not only arts and sciences, but also country and people, agriculture, manufactures, commerce, and in short all the means of sustenance. ' '* That divorce of theory and practice had been very hurtful to the French, English, and Florentine academies, he fully believed. It was his thought that practical arts should be introduced from other countries. Specialists employed in connection with the academy were to write the textbooks for lower and higher schools. In fact only con- certed efforts under the direction of the state could make possible advance in the sciences hence political science became basal. 2 With surprising frequency Leibniz refers to the use of the micro- scope which he thought promised to reveal worlds of more practical value than those revealed by the telescope. Not more than ten men he says are now devoting themselves seriously to investigation by means of it though a hundred thousand could be thus employed to advantage. 3 The religious value of scientific knowledge was a favorite theme with Leibniz. "Better than many recently written defences of religion, a study of the marvels of nature would serve to convince the profane." "Without the sciences contemplatives become visionaries." Men cannot love God without they know his perfections and if they know them it is natural to love him. The sciences are a powerful instrument to promote the glory of God. It was one of Leibniz' most cherished hopes that the superiority of Christianity with respect to the sciences would prove an effective argument in propagating the faith. 4 An interesting social phase of Leibniz' view of the academy of sciences was that it would interest the leisure class in the sciences and in the practical arts which connect closely with them. From this two valuable results would follow: (a) the moral betterment of the higher class by the substitution of pure and wholesome interests for empty and hurtful ones, and (b) the encouragement of handworkers. The breaking down of class divisions by means of developing common interests rather than by means of sudden political movements is char- acteristic of Leibniz. 5 A very important duty of the state is the education of youth. We have already seen how Leibniz proposed to overcome evil tendencies and bad habits by a process of self -education ; but this is neither his surest 1 Gerhardt, III, 262; Guhrauer, II, 268. 2 See note 5, p. 98. JMollat, pp. 52-53; Gerhardt, II, 234. 4 Gerhardt, II, 536; III, 261-62, 279. s Guhrauer, II, 43. IOO A KINGDOM OF ENDS IN AUGUSTINE, AQUINAS, AND LEIBNIZ method nor his easiest. Children may be taught to feel such pleasure in virtue and pain in vice that they will infallibly choose the former and reject the latter, for there is more pleasure in virtue than in vice. Leibniz was sure if it were only the fashion to be virtuous everyone would realize this. He probably anticipated the difficulty of introducing the fashion but he did not despair. 1 In common with most great men Leibniz thought the schools of his day very poor. No doubt they were so for the splendid provisions for public education made largely under the influence of Luther and Melancthon had been rendered ineffective by the Thirty Years' War. He approved the use of games for quickening the intellect and develop- ment of self-restraint. In several papers he speaks of the need of physical training (not however in connection with the schools) in order that the body may possess health, agility, and beauty which are invalu- able social assets. 2 The study of logic Leibniz deemed very valuable, but thought that as it was usually presented in the schools it was practically worthless. As we should naturally expect, he wished to introduce the new studies demanded by the sense realists for the sake of their directly practical value and also probably for the sake of developing the imagination, lack of which very seriously affects the will. There are strong suggestions that his school curriculum would have been far above the capacities of the average child. In one very suggestive passage he expressed the wish that the principles of certain professions and arts and even of the trades might be practically taught among the philosophers or some group of scholars, who in turn might become the teachers of the race. Philosophy with Leibniz was not without function in practical life. 3 As might be expected Leibniz urged that in all religious instruction the emphasis should be placed on those doctrines which were most fruitful in the moral life. Failure to do this was one of the basal evils which he attempted to remove. 4 (3) "Jus naturale" and its three principles. — It was the purpose of Leibniz to remove the harshness and externality from law by a psy- chological treatment of its leading concepts. In fact he felt that Roman law notwithstanding its great suggestiveness was by no means perfectly adapted to the needs of more modern peoples. It was an ideal of 1 Gerhardt, V, 177; VII, 489. 1 Mollat, p. 3; Guhrauer, I, 479, 491; II, 473. s Gerhardt, V, 509; VII, 494; Guhrauer, I, 374, 393. 4 Gerhardt, III, 138; VII, 121. LEIBNIZ AND THE KINGDOM OF GRACE IOI Leibniz, never but in a small measure realized, to give the leading Christian conceptions expression in law. The previous century had produced many great theorists on the nature of law and the basis and functions of government but there was yet much to be done and a part of it was to undo what had recently been done. As much of Leibniz' work on this subject was not published until very recently its influence was not great. As the members of the Kingdom of Grace are members of natural societies they must be under natural right or law, but as we shall see there are different degrees of natural law. Natural right has its origin in the divine understanding hence it is unvarying and may be called perpetual right. Its purpose is the maintenance and furtherance of the natural societies and it is concerned with both outer and inner acts, as jus externum etjus internum. Its supreme principle is " All must be directed to the greatest general good" or Solus publico, supremo lex est. In all states we find certain perpetual principles derived from it, such as the prescriptions that God must be worshiped and magistrates and parents honored. All human laws should conform to natural right, but because of human weakness and the inefficiency of legislators they often fail to do so. There may be valid and useful laws which do not reflect its' unvarying character and which because of different conditions which they are meant to provide for are very dissimilar in different countries, and even at different times in the same country. No law, however, should contradict it. The revealed law of God but strengthens and confirms its principles. 1 This sounds much like Aquinas but we shall see a difference later. Subordinate to the supreme principle of natural right are three general principles expressing three degrees of right. The first and lowest of these obtains even in the rudest state of nature. It may be called strict or narrow right, or right of property, or individual right (jus strictum, out jus proprietotis). Its rule is neminem loedere. Its purpose is to secure peace by removing the most flagrant cause of strife. The second kind of right presupposes an organized society or state. It is distinctly social and both modifies and supplements the first. It is called jus societotis out equitatis, out communitatis , and its rule is suum cuique tribuere. In rendering his own to each it judges from the stand- point of the greatest public good. The third kind of right is jus internum out pietatis. Its rule is honeste out pie vivere. It penetrates deeply into the inner motives j?f acts, and brings God into the society. This last principle though expressed in the words of Ulpian is used by Leibniz to 1 Mollat, pp. i, 9, 14, 73-74, 85; Guhrauer, I, 414. 102 A KINGDOM OF ENDS IN AUGUSTINE, AQUINAS, AND LEIBNIZ convey a different meaning, and the second principle also receives a richer content as we shall see in the three varieties of justice. The division of right into three degrees each representing an evolution in society beyond the preceding one is significant. 1 Corresponding with the three degrees of natural right are the three degrees of justice. (4) The first two degrees of justice. — Leibniz wished to treat both ethics and theology from the standpoint of jurisprudence in order to give them more system and rationality, at the same time he wished to psy- chologize law by giving its leading concepts more internality. Hence he sought long and painfully for a conception of justice with a new and richer content. He carefully examined what should be included and what excluded. Prudence must be included as it is practical reason, and justice being a virtue must have the characteristic mark of all the virtues, that is, the aim to control passion and to secure the sway of reason. The lowest stage of justice is commutative. It respects the person and property of others and expects a similar respect from them, but this it might do largely from fear. Leibniz felt keenly that division of property as it existed in his day was mainly in accordance with such principles as we might expect to find in a rude state of nature. He was very sure that the truly social standpoint had not been reached, by which every individual could enrich the whole and in turn be made richer thereby. He recommends state aid to private industry as one very important means of advance, but his general thought seems to be that marked transformation of justice in respect to the possession of material goods cannot come without a corresponding development of man's whole social nature. Leibniz' man is never the abstract economic man, though the importance of economic interests is fully recognized, and the need of a more positively social type of justice with respect to them admitted. In attempting to give the concept of justice a richer and more positive content Leibniz shows that no strict line of demarcation can be drawn between injuring another and refusing to aid him. He asks us to consider a concrete case in which our own interest is deeply involved, for the demand which the individual makes upon others becomes the measure of his obligation to others. The universal is to be found reflected in the individual and our neighbors must be treated just as generously as we ourselves would wish to be treated. Justice is no half- way measure between love and hate. If we imagine ourselves in a situation where another might with but slight effort and with no personal 1 Gerhardt, I, 161; III, 386; Mollat, pp. 5, 12-15, 64-65. LEIBNIZ AND THE KINGDOM OF GRACE 103 disadvantage save us from great calamity and he did not do so we should not think him just. Similarly if under like conditions he refused to aid us in coming into the possession of some great good. Justice demands an active interest in the welfare of others; it recognizes that "we are not born for ourselves but for the good of society." It has in it intellectual elements and also volitional, and affective. It involves equity, and charity in the narrower sense, hence the worth of Leibniz' oft repeated definition of justice as the charity of the wise begins to appear. 1 One way of knowing what this higher type of justice demands is to put ourselves at the standpoint of the other person concerned, but we must remember that in many cases the whole society is concerned, hence rewards and penalties must be awarded from the standpoint of the general welfare. We are now in. the sphere of jus publicum, not jus privatum, and the justice we exercise here should be distributive justice. 2 We have come to the stage where we can see the mutual relations o* the welfare of the whole and of the individual, and that one "cannot easily be happy in the presence of the miserable." 3 Now we can endure some pain in seeking another's good, because the pleasure we obtain from that good overbalances our pain. Similarly, "Good men will willingly bear a moderate amount of evil to prevent the greater misery of many." 4 It should be noticed that in this stage prudence is conspicu- ously present balancing the gain of others with the individual's own loss. It is a mistake, however, to think that spiritual health must be sus- tained by goods wrested from others, as in a shipwreck where one must struggle for the exclusive possession of a board. It thrives on goods which may be shared, and "true felicity is increased rather by the multitude of associates." 5 But this second type of justice needs supplementation. We are not all wise enough to practice that justice which is the charity of the wise man, hence we cannot perfectly realize the right of the community or practice what we do realize of it without a larger view. The distributive type of justice must yield before the justice of piety or of internal recti- tude by means of which justice is given a universal sphere; God becomes a part of the community and the community is widened to include his realm. 6 Here Leibniz blends the morality of love, the Christian ideal, with the morality of universal reason, the law of the Stoic sage. Before x Ibid., pp. 23-29, 35, 48, 56-58; Gerhardt, VII, 106-7. 2 Mollat, pp. 57-59. " Ibid., p. 86. 3 Ibid., p. 21. s Ibid., pp. 31, 40. 6 Ibid., pp. 15-18, 63-64; Guhrauer, I, 415. 104 A KINGDOM OF ENDS IN AUGUSTINE, AQUINAS, AND LEIBNIZ developing the meaning of this third type of justice it will be well to examine the sixth natural society where it is practiced. (5) The church as a natural society and the higher justice. — We have seen how Aquinas brought ethics down to the natural world. Leibniz calls the church a natural society. Its purpose is everlasting felicity. Its natural basis is in the desire implanted in every man for immortality, hence it would exist and be maintained and propagated by the pious and holy even without revelation. The latter, however, strengthens the bond uniting the universal church. 1 Though Leibniz gives the city of God this unusual extension he often speaks of an inner circle, of active citizens we may say, constituting the kind of society into which we enter by deliberate choice. Its members freely co-operate with God for his glory which is identical with the public good. This invisible church is not identical with the visible church. It is catholic in the sense in which Leibniz once very emphati- cally asserted he was catholic, that is, it is free from obstinacy with respect to the resistance of truth and it is dominated by love to all mankind. "The mark of true catholicity is charity" — a charity which hesitates to condemn others whose life is pure but whose opinions differ from some particular standard. 2 For membership in this church the sacraments are not absolutely essential though their value as a means of grace is admitted. A simple ceremony is all that is needed, for reli- gion must not be conceived as consisting essentially in externalities. Neither is knowledge of revealed truth an absolute requirement since many infants and others who have not heard it are saved without it. Revelation however is worthy of the highest reverence, yet it is subject to the criterion of reason. The New Testament has changed the whole countenance of humanity and taught the laws of heaven, but just because Christ honored humanity by becoming man, every man should remem- ber his own dignity as man and keep the eyes of his understanding open. Those who belong to the true church are never malcontents in the universe, but trustful as to the final outcome. This is because of their faith in God whose presumptive will they are zealous in carrying out. Theirs is not patience par force like that of the Stoics but joyous resigna- tion, such as comes only when one has done his part. It is interesting to note that Leibniz really practiced this creed as is shown in a letter in which he admitted that a purpose to which he had devoted many years of effort had failed, but he remained confident that God would bring 1 Gerhardt, VII, 511; Guhrauer, I, 415-19. 2 Foucher, I, 143, quoted by Pichler. LEIBNIZ AND THE KINGDOM OF GRACE 105 it to success in later times. This purpose was that of uniting the various divisions in the Christian church. "Don't be a malcontent but work earnestly and hopefully" is a categorical imperative in the King- dom of Grace. 1 In this true church hope and fear are not wholly absent, but when they are present they are not narrow and selfish. They are in connection with those larger goods desired by those who are animated by universal charity. The faith of this church may go beyond reason and demon- stration, but it is never contrary to reason and it must be founded on reason. Nothing gave Leibniz greater annoyance than the doctrine of the twofold truth especially that form of it which made the chief glory of faith to consist in its irrationality. In its doctrines this church guards carefully against anything which .would reflect on the goodness or justice of God, for it recognizes in the perfection of God the only ideal which has sufficient force to elevate mankind to a high degree of virtue. 2 This high degree of virtue, to which the church seeks to attain but has as yet attained but imperfectly, is nothing other than the third type of justice, for in a dual sense justice is the universal virtue: (a) It extends to all rational beings, (b) All other virtues may be subsumed under it, and all motives be valued in accordance with its standard. In its light we may criticize the lower type of justice. The second type of justice was not sufficiently discriminating for it ignored moral defects in the individual which seemed from a superficial view not to concern the welfare of other persons, but which really mar the perfection of the whole and render the individual unfit to contribute to the public welfare. It was defective also in that it lacked that highest sanction of natural right which comes from the idea of God and immortality. The thought of an all-seeing eye and of a perfectly just judgment from which there is no escape affords a powerful stimulus in a world where both sins of omission and commission often remain undetected. Natural right expressed as law receives thereby an ad- ditional guaranty for a law in order to be a law in the strict sense must have compulsive force. Under the third type of justice the wise man now becomes "free to exercise his charity even upon his enemies," and the prudent man may voluntarily suffer torture and even death for the public welfare without being accounted foolish. In this last analysis 'Pichler, Die Theologie des Leibniz, II, 17-18, 55; Mollat, pp. 38-39; Gerhardt, III, 218; VII, 122. " 2 Mollat, p. 62; Gerhardt, III, 218; VI, 220-22; Guhrauer, II, 52; Pichler, II, 265. 106 A KINGDOM OF ENDS IN AUGUSTINE, AQUINAS, AND LEIBNIZ Leibniz finds his long-sought reconciliation of prudence and the higher type of justice, between the individual and society. 1 The part played by immortality as a sanction of justice is very important. "Imperfect is the doctrine of morals, of justice, and of duties, which rests only on the goods of this life, and the doctrine of providence is useless if immortality of the soul is taken away." 2 Often Leibniz expresses the thought that the great majority of men are not sufficiently sensitive to the attractions of virtue to comply with the demands of justice without additional hope of reward or fear of punish- ment. This is not the only function which is assigned to the idea of immortality, but it is one which it is difficult to reconcile with the con- ception of justice as the charity of the wise man. We find however that Leibniz himself has clearly expressed another and quite different con- ception of the third type of justice. 3 This second conception of the third type of justice makes its appeal neither to hope nor to fear, but rather to love and appreciation of perfection. Its influence is in the powerful but silent attractiveness of moral beauty. "We needs must love the highest when we see it" is a modern expression of Leibniz' thoughts The argument proceeds substantially as follows: When we con- template the goodness of God we perceive that his actions spring neither from hope of reward nor fear of penalty. God is his own reward, which means that his only reward is the pleasure springing from the harmony or perfection of his acts. In fact this is not a mere matter of tradition. If we look within we find our own nature demands that God should thus act. If we conceive a being so high above us that he does not need our aid or fear our enmity and ask ourselves how he ought to treat us, our only answer is "with the charity of the wise." Thus we demand justice from all above us and this demand is reflected back upon the wise man. He freely admits that he is under obligations to be just without considera- tions of reward or of punishment or at least in almost entire abstraction from them. It would however misrepresent Leibniz to say that men feel they are sternly compelled by reason to adopt this high standard of justice. By a feeling much like esthetic appreciation they are drawn toward it. This is pure disinterested love. Beholding the glory of 1 Mollat, pp. 13, 39, 64, 89, 94-95- 2 Gerhardt, VII, 511. J Mollat, pp. 6, 61, 94; Gerhardt, V, 186-87. « Mollat, p. 62. LEIBNIZ AND THE KINGDOM OF GRACE 107 God we become like him and strive to promote this glory which is identical with the highest public welfare. 1 We have seen how the idea of transformation by beholding appeared in Aquinas and in Augustine, and still earlier in St. Paul, whose typical expression is, "We all with unveiled face reflecting as a mirror the glory of God are transformed into the same image from glory to glory." Still earlier Plato spoke of a similar transforming power. Leibniz adds an illustration of a queen endowed with such graces and virtues that her charm rendered her subject loyal. In another place he states that "the perfection of God is in a sense transfused into us by knowing and loving him." 2 From a somewhat different standpoint Leibniz discusses three motives of justice. 3 The first is our own advantage. We fear to injure others lest they seek revenge. We aid others hoping to receive again. The second is a sense of humanity and rectitude implanted in all men which inflicts certain natural penalties on us when we violate it. This penalty may take the form of dissatisfaction or of certain inner wounds and blows, quosdam laniatus et ictus. It is this same sense of humanity which makes us feel pain at another's loss and pleasure in his well deserved happiness. The third motive is religion. It comes in to solve the conflict between the first and second motives especially when there is little prospect of discovery and penalty from our fellows. The thought of a higher judge, omniscient and omnipotent, turns the scale in favor of the second motive. But the wise do not need to make this reconciliation. They already know virtue is its own reward since it produces the highest happiness. But even here religion is not quite reduced to virtue though it is said that A pud sapientes religio et honestas seu virtutis amor est idem. Religious faith, undisturbed confidence in the final outcome of things, still remains, and this to Leibniz is as essential to wholesome spiritual life as the heart's period of rest between its movement of contraction and relaxation is to its healthful functioning. The above may be interpreted developmentally, indeed Leibniz' conception that the first type of justice belongs to a rude state of nature makes this necessary. First the individual self recognizes others as means not as ends, but cannot be quite satisfied in doing so. Gradu- ally social interests gain a larger recognition, but at times of great stress 'Leibniz' System of Theology, Russell's transl., p. 31; Mollat, pp. 59-60, 94; Gerhardt, VII, 547. - 2 Mollat, pp. 17, 62. 3 Ibid., p. 88. 108 A KINGDOM OF ENDS IN AUGUSTINE, AQUINAS, AND LEIBNIZ the narrow individual self comes into conflict with a larger social self. The latter appeals to God as a higher social self for aid, and as a result the individual self moderates its claims but not without internal resistance. We may suppose continuous growth in the social self until the law with regard to other selves is considered internal, and willing obedience rendered. But the very fact that the self has become so much wider in its interests brings with it new hopes, new fears, new sorrows — just as the philanthropist feels more keenly the woe and degradation of those whom he tries to rescue than does the misanthrope. Belief in the co-operation of God here becomes a powerful factor, enabling man to work cheerfully and hopefully for the establishment of an ideal kingdom of ends in the actual world. Immortality suggests advance in that perfection which to the follower of the ideal is never realized here because of the rapid growth of ideals. In Leibniz' words "the wise would have no sufficient motive to seek their own perfection in so brief a life if it were not for immortality." Leibniz' concept of justice as charity is strongly suggestive of recent moral advance as well as of the great nineteenth century reforms. The obligation of the morally strong to help the weak is implied in it. It stands also for prevention rather than penalty, for love that uplifts and tries to understand, rather than hatred of the sinner and indifference to the causes of his sin. Our ideal of the divine love and divine justice have likewise undergone transformation. There is less despair of the great republic of souls, the Kingdom of Grace whose members may all become active, loyal, and efficient, when divine and human justice is conceived as the charity of the wise. The last element in the definition is as valuable as the first. It means that the old indiscriminate charity often working injury and injustice to those who receive it should be replaced by a none the less devoted but vastly more enlightened spirit of helpfulness. (6) The relation of the church to the state. — In early life Leibniz hoped to unite the various churches under one visible head, presumably the pope, but in a system very different from what had formerly existed. The need for some superior power which could act as court of arbitration among Christian peoples and direct them to concerted effort against external foes never seemed greater. Later on Leibniz spoke of this as desirable, and imaginable though not without a certain artistic endow- ment, but impossible to carry out. An early paper suggests another scheme for Christian peace. The new world was to be divided among the powers already contesting for it. The empire was to unite with LEIBNIZ AND THE KINGDOM OF GRACE 109 Holland, Switzerland, and Italy and to go forth everywhere to maintain the peace. Some sort of union between the spiritual and the temporal power is presupposed. In general Leibniz represents the church as obedient to the state in matters temporal. 1 V. THE OLD AND THE NEW CONTEMPLATION Leibniz always wished to do justice to earlier institutions and earlier theories and was inclined to criticize severely those who did not do so, but in recognizing the old he usually transforms it. In nothing is this more evident than in his treatment of the contempla- tive life and of monasticism as the only institution in which that life could be realized. The service of monasticism in preserving books and letters is freely admitted. So also is the possible social usefulness of a body of men free from family cares bound together for a noble purpose, "a sort of army of heaven upon earth." One element however must drop out of monas- ticism which was hitherto considered most vital. The indissolubility of vows must no longer be a precondition of such a life, for the novice cannot foresee what his real choice may be many years in advance. Much in the organization of the Jesuits appealed to Leibniz. He admired their splendid activity and their missionary zeal, but was fearful that this activity would take directions not the best for social advancement. Once he commends the superior scholarship of an order more devoted to the contemplative life. 2 A second modification of monasticism was desirable. The con- templative life must be more specifically united with action. "It is an illusion to found the union of the soul with God on inaction since it is rather by frequent acts and exercises of divine virtue that we ought to maintain, to demonstrate and fortify the habit of those virtues which unite us to him." 3 Once Leibniz suggested a plan for the organization of study and of research of a very practical sort which assigned to each of the monastic orders a special field for scientific investigation. This was in harmony with his often emphasized view of meditation on the works of God in nature and in history as essential to piety. One cannot love God or glorify him without knowing his beauty, and true devotion consists largely in such contemplation of God and his works as have for 1 Gerhardt, III, 306-11, 314; Klopp, III, 168, quoted by Pichler; Guhrauer, I, 201. 2 Dutens, V, 93, quoted by Pichler; System of Theology, pp. 39-40. 3 Gerhardt, II, 577. IIO A KINGDOM OF ENDS IN AUGUSTINE, AQUINAS, AND LEIBNIZ their end the practice of moral virtues. True devotion may also include simple ceremonies fitted to stimulate men to what is real in piety. 1 Such contemplation of course is not to be limited to monks. It is essential to an ever advancing perfection, and perfection with Leibniz is not a matter of counsels. It is distinctly a matter of precepts, an obligation resting upon every Christian, no matter what his rank and occupation to strive with all powers of body and soul toward it. We have already seen how contemplation of the moral attributes of God becomes the transforming principle in the moral life producing a love for virtue which must manifest itself in the conduct of life. This, however, does not exclude the kind of contemplation described above but the rather implies it. A prolonged period of meditation on life and its meaning, especially on the problems of God, the soul, and felicity is recommended because it has often determined the life of an individual to virtue. A year of preliminary work on easier subjects is recommended. This determina- tion of attitudes which will be in general maintained through the future life is valuable in a high degree, but it must be supplemented by the habit of calling a halt at times to ask, "Why this rather than that?" "Whither am I tending?" etc. In general like Socrates and all great moral teachers Leibniz insisted that "the unexamined life is unworthy of any man." Leibniz in his early writings differentiated meditation from contemplation, by assigning to the former the more distinctly intellectual function, that is of determining what course of action one should adopt. Contemplation appeals rather to the will by exciting love for and consequently motivation to good deeds. He does not adhere to these principles of division at all closely and it is really not essential that he should do so since by his general psychological theory thought and volition are logically but not really separable phases of an ever on-going process. It can hardly be said that action exists for the sake of contemplation or contemplation for the sake of action exclu- sively, but that they are mutually contributory elements in one life process, logically separable but not separate aspects of the higher monad's activity. 2 VI. FUTURE LIFE AND PROGRESS The whole Leibnizian system has no stronger motive than that of preserving belief in the immortality of the individual. The city of God must lose none of its citizens and all members of the kingdom of grace 1 Gerhardt, III, 218. 2 Ibid., VII, 79; Pichler, I, 411. LEIBNIZ AND THE KINGDOM OF GRACE III must be afforded an opportunity for full self-realization, without hope of which the wise would hardly undertake to develop toward perfection. 1 Leibniz accepts the doctrine of future rewards and punishments but not without great limitation, especially as to the number of those who receive punishment. It is by no means certain that the number of those lost is greater than that of the saved. Penalty cannot come upon the innocent. Infants are therefore exempt. Contemplation of nature and internal assistance may prepare many for eternal life who have not heard Christian teaching. Grace in the hour of death is suggested for others and it is recognized that many may be in the true church though not connected with any visible church. If some are hopelessly lost it is because the will continues stubborn. In any case they retain a formal freedom. The employments of the after life are not fully described, but as always life is activity. Souls reunited with God do not lose their particular functions. "The beatific vision of happy souls is compatible with the activities of glorified bodies." 2 The after life must not be conceived of as inactive and useless. That the soul must be united with a body is the presupposition of the whole monadology. Leibniz is by no means sure that existence is such a blessing that one would prefer the highest infelicity to annihilation. Existence in a state of indifference, if such were possible, would be preferable to non-existence. 3 Progress in good is infinite, in evil finite. The beatific vision can never be fully complete, because God can never be fully known, hence there will be continual advance to new perfections. So far as the after life of the blessed is concerned there is always the emphatic assertion that it is one of perpetual progress. Leibniz saw the contradiction in- volved in the idea of progress in a world which is already the best possible. He gives several solutions. One is that change in kind of perfection may take place without change in degree which can be illustrated by the passing from a delightful auditory experience to a not less delightful one of the visual type. Another with which Leibniz himself is evidently dissatisfied is that diminution might take place in one part of the universe to balance the increase in others. A third is that the nature of the object is such that perfection cannot be attained at once. A fourth is an elaboration of the third. It says that perfection itself can be in- terpreted only as progressive change unending and unlimited. This 1 Gerhardt, V, 60; Mollat, p. 17. 3 Gerhardt, V, 52; VI, 536. J Ibid., I, 121. 112 A KINGDOM OF ENDS IN AUGUSTINE, AQUINAS, AND LEIBNIZ apotheosis of the idea of change is most strongly expressed in a quotation given by Cassirir from a manuscript in the library at Hanover. The main thoughts in this quotation are: The world continually increases in perfection. If it did not do so final cause would be lacking. The universe like plant and animals tends toward maturity; unlike them it knows neither old age nor limit of development. The divine being must feel something analogous to pleasure. There could be no pleasure, only stupor, if he should persist in the same state, however noble. Felicity demands perpetual progress to new pleasures and perfections. Though all things are, as it were, present in their unity to God their realization requires time. To bring it to pass all at once would exclude enriching change. To pass from a state to its equal would leave no goal in acting. 1 VII. GENERAL CRITICISM OF LEIBNIZ' CONCEPTION (i) It is a serious defect in the metaphysical system of Leibniz that it seems to deny that free and effective interaction which is so essential to the members of a kingdom of ends. It is quite possible that the real kernel of Leibniz' meaning is that such free interaction is not explicable except in terms of the essential elements of a pre-established plan, that is to say in terms of intelligence and purpose, and that all interaction in the universe is meaningless except in relation to these categories. (2) It is also a defect in Leibniz that like Aquinas, though holding a most exalted conception of the representative character of rulers, he did not clearly grasp that the policy of a truly representative state is not something pre-existing in the minds of its best men nor an average gathered from the opinions of all, but really something born out of intimate social interaction in free discussion of needs and methods of meeting them. Both, however, were beyond their generation in desiring a general culture which would fit men better for such active citizenship. (3) Leibniz represented a distinct advance over his predecessors in the tremendous emphasis he placed upon attributing to the ideal founder of the kingdom of grace no such plans and determinations of the future of that kingdom as would throw a doubt upon the righteousness of its founder, who is also its pattern of virtue. (4) There is a similar advance over preceding opinions in Leibniz' clear cut statement that every individual whether born in bondage or freedom has a right to the kind of education that will fit him for freedom. 1 Gerhardt, II, 136; III, 338; VI, 237, 606; Guhrauer, II, 36; Gerhardt, VII, 543; Cassirir, Leibniz' System, p. 444. LEIBNIZ AND THE KINGDOM OF GRACE 113 (5) Another and kindred mark of progress is in the great emphasis which Leibniz places on moral education as a means whereby all may be prepared for active membership in a kingdom of ends. (6) It was an element of great worth in Leibniz' system that he saw in the scientific study of the industrial arts, and in a fuller knowledge of the abstract sciences with relation to these arts, a means of moral elevation for the higher classes of society, a bridging of the chasm between the classes, and also both the material and spiritual elevation of the lower classes. Thomas and Augustine are not without suggestions of this but their views are not clearly enunciated. (7) While no doubt the emphasis of both Augustine and Aquinas on contemplation has as a partial motive the development of the moral imagination it was a definite advance to show clearly as Leibniz did the need of a trained imagination in making moral decisions, since they are often made in complex situations when it is desirable that the worth of each contending element should be distinctly felt. (8) It was a distinct advance to give a clear recognition to natural right and law as a matter of evolution in which the higher stages take up elements of worth from the lower and at least aim to reject what has become worthless. Nor was it of less value to show discontent with the fact that incongruous elements have been carried over from a ruder state of nature and that in many respects what was originally intended for the necessary protection of the individual had become a barrier to the progress of society as a whole. This finds expression in Leibniz' dissatisfaction with property distribution, and his indirect effort to remedy the evil by state intervention and aid which would increase the material goods and the general culture of those upon whom the inequality of distribution falls most grievously. (9) To insist, as Leibniz did, that rulers should turn their attention toward the furthering of science and the development of internal resources rather than to external warfare and violence to one's political neighbors was suggestive of the general direction of future political progress, from which however it must be admitted there have been many backslidings. (10) It represented great progress in moral insight to see that the obligation to seek perfection with all the heart and soul and mind and strength rested not on the few who had taken specific vows as members of a monastic body but upon all men no matter what their position in life. (11) There is great development in bringing the contemplative life into the most intimate and effective relation to action, without losing the older element of value embodied in the thought of a real transfor. 114 A KINGDOM OF ENDS IN AUGUSTINE, AQUINAS, AND LEIBNIZ mation of spiritual life through visions of the ideal. Similarly it was of high practical value to identify, as Leibniz so frequently does, the glory of the divine being contemplated with the public welfare. (12) It was a work of great merit to attempt to turn the attention of the various churches away from destructive conflict toward active co-operation in every good work. Leibniz probably accomplished much less in this respect through published papers than through personal appeal and discussion with great political and religious leaders. The history is yet to be written, if indeed it can be written, which will show how much the influence of Leibniz contributed to prevent the recurrence of religious wars. It is also impossible to estimate how much Leibniz contributed by published theory and private effort to the transformation of German particularism into national patriotism, and the broadening of all national patriotism into universal citizenship. (13) It was a noble effort of Leibniz to attempt to bridge the chasm between the natural and supernatural without destroying the tran- scendence of ideal conceptions and the thought that the supreme reality must be interpreted as righteousness or goodness. (14) Greater even than Leibniz' prophetic insight into the value of science and scientific instruments as means of social advance, and greater because inclusive of this insight, is his conception of justice as the charity of the wise, blending as it does the necessary factors for effective social service, that is a real sympathy and desire to help others with an obligation to understand wherein they need help and how such help may best be given. (15) Last but not least in value in Leibniz' conception is his undying faith in progress. He is never content to maintain merely the status quo of the universe. Even when he tries to conserve older conceptions which he believed must be maintained as a basis to further progress he really gives them a new interpretation whether consciously or uncon- sciously. The representation of perfection as final goal loses its static character and takes on that of unending development. Pre-established harmony becomes rather an assertion of unbroken connection of all events in time than that of a hard and fast predetermined scheme of things admitting of no real change or progress. Such change, at least once Leibniz asserts, must be present in the divine life itself. Many times he implies it. CHAPTER V SUMMARY AND STATEMENT OF RELATION TO KANT I. PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS Stating the results of our investigation in very general terms we may say that it was Augustine's problem to restore the moral order seriously disturbed in his day by the rapidly progressing disintegration of the Roman empire and the downfall of the pagan religion. He solves it by presenting the Christian community as a universal state with indestruct- ible foundations — an eternal city of God over against Rome as eternal city and center of world-empire. The Christian faith is set forth as a deeper and truer bond of unity than the older religion. His advance over previous systems consisted (i) in the larger recognition which he gives to the whole nature of man, (2) in his better provision for realization of ideals through a well organized society, (3) in the wider future outlook for the development of the human spirit, (4) in his more concrete state- ment of the worth of man as man. His system is inadequate mainly in that in his attempt to make his ideal city eternal he crushes out essential elements of progress (1) by practically denying the possibility of freedom to will the good, (2) by limiting possible membership in a kingdom of ends in accordance with eternal decrees of a very arbitrary character, (3) by suppression of freedom of thought in order to repress heresy, (4) by overemphasis on asceticism as contributory to the social good. Aquinas had to deal with serious disturbances in the moral order due (1) to the breaking down of the German-Roman empire, (2) to the disintegration of the feudal order and consequent rise of new political states and commercial interests with an as yet undeveloped technique of control, (3) to the intellectual unrest especially prevalent in university centers calling for a new statement of religious and moral conceptions, and for a better organized philosophy. His solution took the form of a large recognition of social interests resting on a natural basis, by showing that such interests were perfectly legitimate within a given sphere, but that they must be kept subordinate to eternal interests, hence positive law must be regarded as less authoritative than revealed law, and the political state than the universal church. He also succeeded to a great extent in reconciling conflicts within earlier expressions of the Christian faith and in organizing theology into a system which, from the standpoint 115 Il6 A KINGDOM OF ENDS IN AUGUSTINE, AQUINAS, AND LEIBNIZ of his time, was formally perfect. Free use was made of Aristotle to supply necessary ethical, political, and philosophical conceptions though not without modification. The value of Aquinas' solution consists mainly in the greater concreteness of his conception of the universal church through a more generous recognition of the worth of political and social institutions and of natural moral tendencies. There is also a distinct decrease in the number of those shut out from participation in eternal good. The main defects are (i) too great emphasis on elements which have but a symbolic value, (2) exaltation of the contemplative life as the ideal life, (3) exclusion of reconstructive influence through a static conception of dogma and custom as infallible. Leibniz tried to remove abnormal elements from the moral order arising through a mechanical interpretation of the universe by both philosophers and physicists, through political strife, harsh legalism, and general governmental inefficiency, and through religious strife and narrowness. Against the claims of mechanism he asserted that the real meaning of the universe is to be found in terms of conscious life, and in the feelings and purposes involved therein. The kingdom of nature, however, is given an exalted place as the means through which to a great extent the kingdom of grace must be realized. Against political strife and commercial greed he asserts that the individual state must find enlargement by means of internal development and friendly co-operation with other states. Against a harsh legalism on the one hand and an unwise benevolence on the other he proclaimed the identity of love and justice. Against religious strife he preached a gospel of mutual tolerance and co-operation in well doing. The two main defects in his conception are (1) the denial in his metaphysics of interaction between members of the kingdom of grace, and (2) the limitation of active citizenship in the political state to the few. II. GENERAL ADVANCE On the whole there is a marked development in the conception of a kingdom of ends from Augustine through Aquinas and Leibniz: (1) From the metaphysical standpoint: The world plan inclusive of man's place in it with respect to his relations both to higher and lower beings not only makes possible but positively demands a wider extension of active membership in a kingdom of ends. (2) From the standpoint of the psychology of ethics: Man's psychical nature is so conceived that active membership in a kingdom of ends becomes possible, not merely for the select few but for all. There is also a clear conception that every SUMMARY AND STATEMENT OF RELATION TO KANT 1 1 7 individual both can and ought to be educated for free and active citizen- ship in the moral realm. Inner conflict in man's nature is recognized, and is made the basis of all intellectual and moral advance, but over and above the conflict there is reconciliation, co-operation, progress. (3) From the standpoint of the moral order as expressing itself in social institu- tions and instrumentalities: In the more complete subordination of existing societies to the general welfare, both by the elimination of hurtful activities and in the assignment of wholesome functions. There is also a fairly clear conception that the meaning of law and of natural right will be found not so much by going back to an immemorial past to find their origin as in regarding them as demands upon the future for a fuller and freer self-realization. III. RELATION OF EARLIER CONCEPTIONS TO THAT OF KANT The phrase "kingdom of ends" was first used by Kant but many of the elements entering into his conception were known to Augustine, Aquinas, and Leibniz. In fact the theories of all, if stated in general terms, would seem practically identical. An effort to understand what was meant more specifically reveals striking differences. We will now examine some of the points of likeness and difference, without stating the historic situation which gave occasion for the latter. (1) All agree in regard to the fundamental law of the kingdom of ends expressed in the thought that every man must be regarded as an end in himself and never as merely a means. This dignity attaches to him because he is a rational being. The obligation rests upon every human being to observe this law. The divine being observes it not because of obligation but because of his holy character. Kant's enunciation of the principle of the kingdom of ends is clearer and stronger than that of the writers previously considered. It also places vastly more emphasis on the need of applying the principle in every institution of social and political life. It is a stern demand for the freedom of the individual everywhere, a philosophic appeal for liberty, equality, and fraternity of a universal sort. Distinguished scholars have attributed tremendous efficacy to it in bringing ameliora- tion to the oppressed both in Europe and America. To what extent it has been an epoch-making ideal need not be determined here, but it certainly stands today as one of the noblest formulations of human worth ever proclaimed. It finds, as Kant had hoped, "an entrance to feeling and intuition." Perhaps he suspected it found too free an entrance to be quite consistent with his general theory. His use of the Il8 A KINGDOM OF ENDS IN AUGUSTINE, AQUINAS, AND LEIBNIZ conception is indeed not limited to his use of the phrase as he employs all other equivalent phrases previously mentioned in our study, but he does not use the conception as freely as its worth demands, or as his early announcement of it as "very fruitful" would lead us to expect. Emphasis is placed on the necessity of making practical maxims conform to a universal law and on the self-legislative character of reason rather than on the less abstract conception of man as a living member of a social organism. (2) Kant's faith in the final realization of a kingdom of ends is not less profound than that of the three authors previously treated, but it is in several respects very different. He claimed that it rested neither on revelation nor church dogma. It was not an infused faith but primarily a moral faith prized highly because of its efficacy in setting free activities which are well able to justify it. Such is Kant's "will to believe." Like his predecessors he estimated its worth in the development of moral character very highly for without the "venture of faith" there can be no moral advance. The self-legislative reason demands that we strive to the utmost to realize the highest purpose. To deny the possibility of such realization is to make obedience to the noblest and most authori- tative command of reason irrational, since one cannot voluntarily put forth effort to realize that which he deems impossible. Man becomes conscious of a call to constitute himself a citizen of a better world, and this call comes to him as a mighty, irresistible proof of that world's existence. The argument from man's moral nature is ever with Kant the only sufficient basis for faith but he also recognizes two others as of some worth. Adaptation to ends, especially prevalent in the organic world, while not affording infallible proof for the existence of an intelligent world, would yet strongly suggest it. From the realm of esthetic feeling, too, there comes a suggestion that the marvelous adaptation of nature objects to our minds implies a close relation between the worlds of nature and of reason. (3) Kant emphasizes as strongly as Augustine a dualism in human nature which makes the moral life one of unending conflict and renders the development of a desirable moral order among men difficult, but he gives the radical evil in man's nature a different meaning especially with respect to its origin. Hereditary transmission he deems the poorest of explanations, conflicting as it does with freedom and responsibility. Natural instincts and sense appetites are in themselves right and proper when subordinated to the legislative reason, but that they are not SUMMARY AND STATEMENT OF RELATION TO KANT 119 always so subordinated the history of the race and the individual's own conscience testify, thus invalidating the teaching of Seneca and Rousseau that man is naturally good. The proneness to fail to bring about such subordination is the "bias toward evil." We cannot go back in memory to a time when it did not exist, hence the tendency to call it connate, but this is illegitimate. We cannot suppose a taint in the legislative reason. We must then attribute the evil bias to the free act of the individual, however inscrutable such an act may be in a free person who hears the authoritative voice of legislative reason, and has no previous taint of corruption. The effort to locate such an act of the noumenal self at a point in time must prove unavailing. That the consciousness of moral evil might be a necessary result of the movement away from animality and of the birth of ideals both Kant and Augustine saw at least faintly in the case of the child. In the case of the race it is not wholly foreign to Kant. With both man's choice of evil meant a defect of the will not its freedom, and is admittedly inexplicable. Kant's radical evil is far from the total depravity of Augustine. The voice of legislative reason is heard and to some extent reverenced by even the most depraved, and the supposition both in morals and in law must be that no previous evil environment or commission of evil deeds can render the wrongdoer unable to turn and become a better man, or excuse his continuance in wickedness. However inscrutable the change may be man ought to become better, hence he can. The readjustment of the moral nature is by means of one inflexible act of determination which retroverts the perverted bias of the will and puts the practical maxims in their proper order. Without it we are in the stage of legality not morality, and our virtues, though not as Augustine claimed only "shining sins," are "dazzling frailties." In the Anthropology this thorough- going moral reconstruction, whose effects are by no means all immediately evident, is said to take place but rarely before the thirtieth year, and establishment in it even more rarely before the fortieth. This is Kant's philosophic counterpart of religious conversion. For bringing it about man's unaided will is sufficient. Like the religious conversion it does not mean total destruction of the radical evil, hence the dualism remains. Strictly speaking, with the renewal of the moral life the con- sciousness of it becomes intensified. (4) Aquinas and Leibniz had far less difficulty than Kant in rational- izing the natural appetites and emotions and turning them to good use. With Aquinas pleasure is never the motive of the moral act but it accompanies it as a consequence. Leibniz seemed to grow away from 120 A KINGDOM OF ENDS IN AUGUSTINE, AQUINAS, AND LEIBNIZ the tendency to make it the only motive, but he thought men were possessors of a moral sense which felt the beauty and attractiveness of goodness and which could be developed so that right doing would be the greatest joy, and evil a repulsive thing. Such development is synonymous with that of the good will. With Kant the good will stood in lonely supremacy. The volition alone, not the preceding, accompanying, or resultant feeling, is of importance. Positive pleasure may follow a good deed, and the negative feeling of freedom from blame or consciousness of having done one's duty does follow. But this is not pleasure, and it may be accompanied by intense pain. Pleas- ure can never precede the good deed as motive, else the deed would cease to be good. The co-operation of any feeling when the maxim is being determined is dangerous, for feeling can never serve as a standard of action to a rational being. There is for Kant one feeling which seems to bridge the moral chasm between the mundus intelligibilis and the mundus sensibilis much as did the time schema between categories and sense intuitions. It is the feeling of reverence or respect for the moral law, which as feeling must be sensuous, but as produced by the legislative reason is noumenal in its origin, and trails clouds of glory with it. Moral interest and appreciation are but variations of it. At times Kant represents this feeling quite negatively and as far removed from pleasure, for instance when it humiliates human conceit and neutralizes the attractions of sense. It gains a more positive content when represented as the result of con- templation of the marvelous moral law within us, the expression of the true self, the homo noumenon, for Kant too is not without a beatific vision which ever becomes more wonderful. This respect is not the force primarily which makes the moral law work, but the indication that it is working. When classed as the proper spring of action, or the subjective spring of the will, it seems to represent a necessary stage in the activity. Kant's various expressions concerning it are hard to reconcile but it is certain that the noumenal self acts upon the sensibility in producing it. (4) Augustine and Aquinas believed the bond that held the moral realm together to be love of God and one's neighbor. Leibniz held it to be universal justice or the love of the wise man. Here feeling and reason supplement and correct each other. Kant, at least in the classical period, in solemn scorn of feeling holds reason to be the only universal bond, for feeling cannot give universality. He was long in coming to this conclusion, and it seems to the writer, that he forsook it later though SUMMARY AND STATEMENT OF RELATION TO KANT 121 perhaps never fully conscious that he had done so. Before adopting his classical standpoint he passed through practically every theory which he rejected later except that of the crudest hedonism. In 1763 he asserted that love toward one's neighbor exists in the heart of every man as a positive impulse or force which must be overcome before one can do him wrong or wilfully refuse to give him needed aid. In 1764 he tried to bring the feelings of sympathy and courtesy under the limitation of a more general feeling, since they need guidance and restraint " though like true virtue they involve immediate pleasure in good acts." The limiting principle, he says, must not be a speculative rule but the con- sciousness of a feeling that lives in every human heart. The feeling, he concludes, is that of the beauty and dignity of human nature. "If it had a perfect development in any human heart its possessor would love and treasure himself only in so far as he was one among all of those to whom his broad and noble feeling extended." Here we have an early statement of a kingdom of ends, though the phrase is not used, and feeling is declared to be its bond. The conception is quite Leibnizian but it probably connects genetically with Rousseau and Shaftesbury. During the same year Kant tried to connect Wolff's universal rule, "Do the most perfect deed you can," with immediate practical principles express- ing an intuitive and unanalyzable perception of the good. In 1765 the investigations of Hume, Hutcheson, and Shaftesbury into the basis of morality were said to be the best yet made, but incomplete. In 1770 Shaftesbury was rejected as following Epicurus from afar, and the conclusion is reached that the intellect must be the basis of the moral judgment. Three years later Kant's question was how to give the rational principle of morality, now sharply separated from feeling, the proper leverage on the will. In papers undated but presumably near or in this period of struggle several ideas are brought out. 1 In one there is an effort to make the essence of happiness intellectual — a feeling of contentment because one can do without pleasure and even endure ills in undisturbed serenity. In another a man who is tempted to lie overthrows the objections offered by representatives of various moral theories, but when he looks within his own heart honestly he finds a strong sense of disapproval and horror at the thought of the deed. Kant interprets this feeling as springing from an a-priori law which brings the will into unity and harmony, and also brings, if obeyed, contentment with self which is the condition of all happiness. In one of these papers "worthy to be happy" is defined as worthiness to come 1 Reicke, I, 9-14, 250. 122 A KINGDOM OF ENDS IN AUGUSTINE, AQUINAS, AND LEIBNIZ into possession of every means by which one can bring about his own and others' happiness. It applies to the man whose choice is independ- ent of sense constraint. It is evident to one who tries to apply the principle of thinking of others as ends not merely means that feeling, consideration of conse- quences, and other elements which in accordance with the Kantian psychology ought not to appear really do appear, scarcely less strikingly so than when one tries to apply the golden rule, or any other standard which puts us in position to get at the moral value of a contemplated act. The insufficiency of the Kantian psychology of ethics in the isolation of the law giving reason from feeling and experience and the fact that he must have ignored it or else have outgrown it appears especially as we shall see in his treatment of social institutions and agencies for the furtherance of the moral realm. Very noticeable is Kant's failure to give full value to the feeling of sympathy. He admits that it is peculiar to humanity, and his categorical command to respect the humanity within ourselves and within others would seem to demand its larger recognition. Not even after he passes from the view of an isolated self determining itself by a-priori laws independent of experience to that of a self whose duty it is to unite with others to further the moral advance of all, and the development of a state whose constitution is to become possible only through the widest experience, does he do full justice to this feeling. (5) Kant has marked superiority over his predecessors in dealing with the concept of freedom. For him it is the center of interest. The Critique of Pure Reason is worked out to remove obstacles to belief in it. Its inexplicability he admits, but he assumes it must be true, for moral action cannot go on without it. In order to preserve the individ- ual's independence neither God nor one's fellow-man is allowed to enter into the inner sanctuary of the will either to help or to hinder in deter- mining it toward righteousness. That individual independence was overemphasized in the classical period is evident, but never was there a better historic justification for taking too extreme a view, nor does the history of philosophy show anything more heroic than the strong and persistent effort of this physically fragile man to make a way for liberty. (6) The Kantian conception of education is the noblest yet studied. Youth should be educated for progress, not merely to maintain the status quo. State controlled education is likely to have the narrow aim of making good citizens of the state instead of fitting the child for world- citizenship in the largest sense. The need of scientific method in SUMMARY AND STATEMENT OF RELATION TO KANT 1 23 education is recognized. The normal school cannot give the proper method until it has been determined by experimentation. Acquisition of knowledge and skill are important but moral education more so. Good habits are not enough, for they break down under stress. Maxims of conduct should be developed. An hour a day might well be devoted to the study of the rights of men, "that apple of God's eye." The child should not be overstimulated but quietly led to an appreciation of disinterested devotion to principle, a capacity for which is in every nature. Religious teaching should follow the moral and be essentially moral in content. Love for others and even cosmopolitan sentiments are to be developed. Evidently Kant would have the educator labor not merely for the happiness of the child but for its perfection also in spite of his formal denial of man's moral duty to do so. (7) From Augustine to Kant the moral worth of the political state is increasingly recognized. Both attributed its origin to egoistic impulses. Kant thought a social state must have preceded the civil state. He did not fully reach Leibniz' view that unless there were already some degree of confidence men would not enter into a compact to form a civil state. This compact was not regarded by Kant as a historic event, but as a rational norm expressing the thought that the fundamental law and also all later laws should be such as would harmo- nize with the general will. Freedom is the great central principle of the state. All other rights and duties spring from it hence the ideal form of the state is the republic though the spirit of representative government may exist in a monarchy or in an aristocracy. In the ideal state neither rank nor degradation can be inherited not even where the former is originally given as a reward to virtue or the latter as a penalty for wrongdoing. Even the child of the slave is born free. Children are potentially active citizens of the state and should be educated for freedom. The word potentially must be used here in a unique sense by Kant with regard to the female child since she remains in perpetual minority both in "business and thinking." Yet Kant repeatedly states that a paternal government is despotic, and once he terms it the worst form of despotism. 1 In his treatise on education he neglects the educa- tion of woman for freedom. He thought that perhaps education might improve her disposition but hesitated to prescribe any plan for it since "as yet there is no scheme for it in harmony with the destiny of her sex." How he obtained knowledge as to what this destiny is he did not state. Yet despite this narrow view of half of the race the sage of 1 Reflexionen, II, 109. 124 A KINGDOM OF ENDS IN AUGUSTINE, AQUINAS, AND LEIBNIZ Konigsberg was a true prophet of freedom, and far bolder and more persistent in proclaiming the doom of many forms of bondage than his predecessors. Though he left men who sold their labor rather than its products as passive citizens because of their dependent position, he hated the idea of passive citizenship for men and saw its contradictory nature. His hope was that all these evils must end and to philosophy he assigned the task of furnishing guiding principles whereby this end should be hastened. (8) Kant, in striking contrast with Augustine and Aquinas, regarded freedom of speech as essential to social and political health. This is his trusted means of bringing about every reform. Revolt against the administration of government he regarded as anarchical, not clearly seeing that before a successful revolt can be carried out the essential elements of a new state must have already come into being. (9) With Augustine and Aquinas realization of the kingdom of ends could come only through revealed religion and the mediation of the church. With Leibniz salvation is possible without revelation and the aid of the historic church, but revealed religion coincides with the natural. With Kant the visible historic church is valuable only in so far as it disseminates a pure morality. Its ceremonies may by their symbolism render moral truth more impressive but there is very great danger that the symbol will be taken for the thing symbolized and thus idolatry flourish under the name of religion. Kant was very emphatic in his praise of the morality inculcated by the Bible. The use of the Bible as a popular book he regarded as of inestimable worth. Its records of historical events are not to be taken literally, but as symbolic of great spiritual truths. No statement of doctrinal belief is to be taken as final and made binding upon the coming generations, since new interpretations of religious truth are always necessary. Kant's idea of God and of duties toward him differs widely from those of Augustine and Aquinas. With him there are no specific duties to God that are not duties to our fellow-men, but all duties are to be con- ceived as divine commands and here morality becomes religion. It is not easy to see how the voice of duty could gain impressiveness from conceiving it to be the voice of God when we examine Kant's idea of God, especially where he speaks of him as hypostatized idea or per- sonification of the moral law but Kant evidently thought that it did so. 1 The inner judgment of conscience is delivered in a tone not our own, 1 Reicke, Lose Blatter aus Kant's Nachlass, II, 151-53, 184, 238; III, 77; Harten- stein, VI, 277; Preface to Critique of Practical Reason. SUMMARY AND STATEMENT OF RELATION TO KANT 1 25 hence he thinks there is a natural reason for assuming a personal law- giver. It also gives a foundation for hope of a successful outcome of the moral struggle. Kant too though seeming to deny any interaction between the divine being and man yet commends the belief that divine goodness will supply any deficiency in our moral service if we have really exerted ourselves to our utmost. With Kant as with Leibniz bringing God into the moral life meant a deepening and expansion of it, though he seemed to deny that personal relation which the religious consciousness demands. It might seem that the mediation of the church was entirely super- fluous since the individual has an infallible law within himself and also strength to obey it. Besides no one can aid him directly in his moral advance. Kant's later writings present a different view. A very important function is assigned to the church, or city of God, or ethical state. Men tempt each other and the only way to neutralize destructive social influences is to organize an ethical society for the promotion of moral ends. It is one's duty to enter into such a society for mutual stimulation to righteousness. That the church in his day was perform- ing this function poorly was Kant's strong conviction. ' (10) Kant, like all writers previously studied, felt that unless there were a life after death there would be a natural desiderium. One of his arguments for such a life is the incompleteness of the moral develop- ment, the noblest of all tasks, in the present life. Another is the imperfect adjustment of happiness to worthiness in this life. With the sensuous meaning which Kant attached to happiness in some of his works it is hard to see how there can be happiness hereafter. The nature of the after life Kant did not attempt to define beyond what has been implied. In his early writings there is a description of a beatific vision of the distinctly intellectualistic type, but this could not have been his conception after he reached the conclusion that moral values were supreme. (n) Kant definitely excludes none from participation in the final good though he does not explicitly admit all. We have seen in the writers studied a constant tendency to widen the sphere of the kingdom of ends. (12) Aquinas and Leibniz both wished for an organization of broader scope than the existing state in order to secure peace and unity. Kant had a similar wish^ and, without rejecting the idea of the heavenly city as celestial, in a sense he brings it down to earth as the cosmopolitical state in which the race shall attain physical, mental, and moral per- 126 A KINGDOM OF ENDS IN AUGUSTINE, AQUINAS, AND LEIBNIZ fection. Kant did not find in experience sufficient evidence to compel us to believe in the coming of such a state, but there are already sugges- tions of its possibility in the remote future and it is our duty to believe in such a fortunate outcome for the race since it is our duty to work for it. The real obstacle to its coming is not without but within us in the cowardly, lying principle which refuses to believe in or hasten its coming. This doctrine of the coming of the ideal state is called the philosopher's millenial view, an ideal which will further its own realiza- tion. Until such a state is established the existing states will be cor- rupted by wars, their internal development hindered, their resources wasted, and the education of their citizens neglected. (13) We have seen how powerful a conflict Kant believed to exist between nature and reason, the mundus sensibilis and the mundus intelligibilis . We have seen how Leibniz made evil a moment in the development of the good. Kant adopts a similar plan. Kant had at one time looked upon contentment or satisfaction as the first condition of happiness. In the Anthropology as if correcting his earlier view he denies that contentment is possible in a human life. Without Schmerz or some spur we should fall into mental stupidity and fail of a true development. Kant finally seized upon this principle of conflict as the most important element in progress. Man who cannot live without his fellow-men can scarcely live with them. Nature uses these inborn an- tagonisms to develop man's power. Already she has civilized him, but only imperfectly moralized him. As the evils of a social state without a political constitution drive men to form a civil state, so also the evils of war will drive the various political states into a confederation which later will develop into the true cosmopolitical state. It is ours to work for the perfect race which is yet to be but Nature is doing more than we can do. Thus Kant built up his ideal state through opposing forces much as in earlier years he conceived the formation of physical worlds. In this ideal state antagonism does not die but lower forms of it yield to higher and all are stimulated thereby to their highest development, while at the same time the freedom of all is preserved. Thus the king- dom of nature serves the kingdom of grace by resisting it. Thus the self which in earlier times was left in majestic loneliness to work out its own salvation is conceived of as reaching higher stages through influ- ences coming from both the physical and the social environment, that of the two worlds whose unity is really deeper than their antagonism. SUMMARY AND STATEMENT OF RELATION TO KANT 1 27 That there is purpose back of all this evolutionary movement and expressed through all of it is implied constantly. We have followed the development of the conception of an ideal organization through a period of fourteen hundred years as reflected in the views of four great thinkers, and we have seen that there is a real development from the standpoints of both extension and intension. Especially noticeable is the increase of faith that an approximation of this ideal may be reached on earth. Men who pray for the coming of the kingdom of heaven on earth have been loth to believe in its possibility, but faith in it has never wholly failed and is rapidly increasing. Along with this comes effort to bring blessings upon generations yet to be. Our hope is strengthened by the fact that we need no longer regard evolution even in lower forms of life as limited to progress by infinitesimal stages, and also by the fact that struggle and conflict, important as they are, are by no means the only explanatory principles. In human nature there are elements suggestive of the golden rule as well as of the iron rule. It may be asked why we tend to conceive of life in the golden age of the future as this intimate social relation within ever enlarging groups. McDougall explains the turning of the multitudes toward the earthly city as the development of a primitive gregarious instinct stronger even in higher animals than physical welfare demands. Whatever its origin the social character of the self is shown in this longing for full and perfect social relations, hence the city in the skies or one coming down from it, that is one created by the influence of a noble ideal, has always played an important part in human life, and probably will continue to do so. Today it is manifested in the ever growing demand for better social conditions, and in the courageous spirit with which men labor for social advance, well expressed by Kant's quotation from Vergil: Tu ne cede malis sed contra audentior ito. BIBLIOGRAPHY A. AUGUSTINE The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vols. I-VIII. New York, 1886-88. Augustini Opera Omnia, Benedictine Edition. Paris, 1836-39. Reuter, Augustinische Studien. Gotha, 1887. Harnack, History of Dogma, Vols. V and VI. Translation. Long, Discourses of Epictetus. London, 1906. Taylor, Select Works of Plotinus. London, 1895. Long, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. London, 1901. Seneca, De otio; Epistolae morales. Dill, Roman Society in the Last Century of the Western Empire. London, 1899. Taylor, Classical Heritage of the Middle Age. Thatcher and Schwill, The Middle Age. Bakewell, Source Book in Ancient Philosophy. Holme, Churches in North Africa. B. AQUINAS S. Thorn. Aquinatis summa theologica, Vols. I-VI. Turin, 1901. Aquinas, Summa de veritate Catholicae fidei contra Gentiles. Rome, 1878. Abert, Thomae v. Aquin compendium theologiae. Wurzburg, 1896. Rickaby, Aquinas ethicus, Vols. I and II. London, 1896. Baumann, Die Staatslehre des heiligen Thomas von Aquino. Leipzig, 1873. Werner, Thomas von Aquino, Vols. I— III. Regensburg, 1858. Rietter, Die Moral des heiligen Thomas von Aquino. Miinchen, 1838. Bluntschli, Geschichte der Staatswissenschaft; Bd. I. Miinchen, 1867. Adams, Civilization during the Middle Age. New York, 1895. Fisher, The German Empire and Papacy. Rashdall, Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages, Vol. I. Dunning, A History of Political Theories Ancient and Medieval. New York> 1902. Tout, Empire and Papacy. London, 1903. Poole, Illustrations of the History of Medieval Thought. London, 1884. Maitland, Translation of Gierke's "Political Theories of the Middle Ages." Cambridge, 1900; London, 1898. C. LEIBNIZ Gerhardt, Die philosophischen Schriften von Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Bde. I-VII. Berlin, 1875-90. Mollat, Leibniz' Ungedruckten Schriften. Leipzig, 1893. 128 BIBLIOGRAPHY 120. Guhrauer, Leibniz' Deutsche Schriften, 2 Bde. Berlin, 1838-40. Stein, Leibniz und Spinoza. Berlin, 1890. Russell, System of Theology, a Translation of Leibniz 1 "Systema Theologicum." London, 1850. Pichler, Die Theologie des Leibniz, Bde. I-II. Miinchen, 1870. Latta, Leibniz' Monadology, etc. Oxford, 1898. Russell, Philosophy of Leibniz. Cambridge, 1900. Langley, New Essays. New York and London, 1896. Duncan, The Philosophy of Leibniz. Dewey, Leibniz. Griggs' Philosophical Classics. Chicago, 1888. Merz, Leibniz. Edinburgh and London, 1884. Bluntschli, Geschichte des allgemeinen Statsrechts. Miinchen, 1867. D. KANT Hartenstein, Kant's Werke, Bde. I-VIII. Leipzig, 1867. Hagerstrom, Kant's Ethik. Upsala, 1902. Paulsen, Immanuel Kant. Caird, The Critical Philosophy of Immanuel Kant. Reicke, Lose Blatter aus Kant's Nachlass, Bde. I-III. Konigsberg, 1898. Erdmann, Kant's Reflexionen. Bernard, Kant's Critique of Judgment. Abbott, Kant's Theory of Ethics. fc LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 019 953 503 1