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THE 
 
 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 BY 
 
 JAMES H HYSLOP Ph.D. 
 
 INSTRUCTOR IN ETHICS COLUMBIA COLLEGE NEW YORK 
 AUTHOR OF " THE ELEMENTS OF LOGIC " 
 
 NEW YORK 
 CHAELES SCKIBNER'S SONS 
 
 1895 
 
^ 
 
 
 -x- 
 
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 Copyright, 1895, by 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 THE CAXTON PRE88 
 NEW YORK 
 
TO 
 
 MY FATHER 
 
 THIS 
 
 BOOK IS AFFECTIONATELY 
 
 DEDICATED 
 
PREFACE 
 
 The present work is designed as an introductory treatise upon 
 the fundamental problems of theoretical ethics, and therefore to 
 obtain standing ground from which to consider the practical 
 questions that are affected by general principles. The book may 
 seem rather an elaborate treatise for an introduction, but so great 
 are the complications of ethical problems, so manifold are their 
 interests, and so various have been opinions regarding them, that 
 a writer to-day must choose between the perfunctory task of pro- 
 ducing a mere syllabus of words and the more important duty 
 of saying enough to satisfy the wants of those who desire more 
 than platitudes, and who wish some insight into the complexities 
 of the case. The analysis of various questions has been made as 
 complete as reasonable limits would allow, with the special pur- 
 pose of trying to throw some light on the perplexities of ethical 
 theories, and to present the author's conclusions regarding them. 
 This purpose has involved a very exhaustive application of the 
 analytic method, which may try the patience of those who desire 
 synthetic and comprehensive results. But the writer is con- 
 vinced that we shall never get out of the wilderness of scholastic 
 controversy and see-sawing with traditional theories until the 
 analytic method is first carefully applied and our exact where- 
 abouts determined. We may then give a synthetic survey of the 
 field without embroiling ourselves in the hocus-pocus of endless 
 and futile discussions about words that may have a thousand 
 meanings. 
 
 A long chapter has been given on the origin and development 
 of ethical problems, which is nothing more than a brief history 
 of the principal ethical theories and opinions of the past, be- 
 ginning with the period immediately preceding Socrates. It 
 
VI PREFACE 
 
 has been given as a preliminary step to the right understand- 
 ing of present questioDs and their complexity. Present ethical 
 reflection is the accumulated heritage of the past, and only the 
 historical method can at the same time show us the richness of 
 that bequest and the multiplicity of its elements. It is hoped, 
 therefore, that the chapter will be a timely contribution for the 
 use of teachers who appreciate the value of that method and 
 wish such a survey as introductory to present-day discussion. 
 
 I make no apologies for the elaborate treatment of the freedom ■ 
 of the will, though the tendencies to determinism by general 
 writers, and the indifference of many to both sides, might be an 
 excuse for ignoring it altogether. But the importance of the 
 question to ethics is so great that no one can neglect it except 
 such as coquet with determinism without analyzing their concep- 
 tions, and yet endeavor to perform the contradictory task of con- 
 structing a system of ethics. The amount of intellectual con- 
 fusion on this subject by both sides of the discussion is simply 
 amazing. All are, perhaps, agreed that the question is one re- 
 garding the possibility of alternative choice, but many of the 
 arguments pro and con are wholly irrelevant to it, while few 
 writers adequately reckon with the equivocations of the terms 
 " determinism," " cause," and " freedom." This lengthy chapter, 
 therefore, is an attempt to fully analyze the whole problem, to 
 present a solution of it, to conciliate controversy, to fix the mean- 
 ing and interest of freedom for ethics, and to obtain a position 
 regarding it where discussion is not a logomachy and a sheer 
 waste of time. 
 
 Other subjects receive the same kind of analysis, and must 
 speak for themselves. I shall simply call attention to the analy- 
 sis of conscience, the treatment of reason and desire, and of the 
 relations between impulse, instinct, and reason, as attempts to 
 secure a way out of much confusion in different writers. Of my 
 success I am probably not a judge. 
 
 One thing, perhaps, will annoy some readers and critics, espe- 
 cially if they have mastered elementary principles. This is the 
 fact of much real or apparent repetition. This, however, has 
 
PREFACE vn 
 
 been deliberate. The writer's experience with beginners has been 
 that he must repeat certain fundamental conceptions over^ and 
 over again at different places and at different points of view in 
 order that the key to ethical problems may not be buried under 
 a mass of matter in which it would not be easily discovered. 
 Students must have emphasis and variation or they lose the 
 point at issue. This is the reason that condensation has been 
 forced to give way to the necessities of pedagogical purpose. 
 
 I am under great obligations to Dr. Norman Wilde for read- 
 ing the proofs and for occasional suggestions as the book passed 
 through the press. My other debts of gratitude are distributed 
 rather equally over too many writers on ethics to make any spe- 
 cific acknowledgments for their share in the result. 
 
 JAMES H. HYSLOP. 
 
 Columbia College, December 4, 1894. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 Introduction, » . 1 
 
 CHAPTEE II. 
 
 The Origin and Development of Ethical Problems, . 18 
 
 CHAPTEE III. 
 
 Elementary Principles, , .89 
 
 CHAPTEE IV. 
 The Freedom of the Will, 150 
 
 CHAPTEE V. 
 .Eesponsibility and Punishment, 4 224 
 
 CHAPTEE VI. 
 The Nature of Conscience, . . . . . . .251 
 
 CHAPTEE VII. 
 The Origin of Conscience, 284 
 
 CHAPTEE VIII. 
 The Theories and Nature of Morality, . , , . 349 
 
 CHAPTEE IX. 
 Morality and Eeligion, . 398 
 
 CHAPTEE X. 
 Theory of Eights and Duties, . .... 424 
 
ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 INTEODUCTION 
 
 I. DEFINITION. — 1st. The term " Ethics " is derived from the 
 Greek word r/0o5 P which denotes "custom," "manners," 
 " morals," and finds its equivalent in the Latin " mores,'.' from 
 which the English " moral " is derived. The term r/603 again 
 is a modified form of i'603, which denotes "habit," "usage," or 
 the practice of social life. The difference between the two terms 
 was probably very slight. However this may be they expressed 
 everything that the body politic of Graeco-Roman life would 
 denote by social obligation and practice. This was, then, origi- 
 nally the comprehensive content of investigation whenever this 
 branch of philosophy was considered. In the process of time 
 the term was somewhat narrowed, until it came to denote almost 
 exclusively that branch of study which occupied itself with the 
 nature, disposition and actions of the individual, and hence 
 turned the interests of social life over to Politics. 
 
 2d. Logically, Ethics must be defined as both a science and 
 an art. In so far as it is a name for the observation, classifi- 
 cation and explanation of certain phenomena, it ' is a science ; in 
 so far as it attempts to regulate and to influence human action 
 by instruction, admonition or advice, it is an art. Hence we 
 may define it as the science of the phenomena of human character 
 and conduct, and the art of directing the human ivill toward the 
 ideal order of life. This twofold nature of the subject is the 
 basis of the division into theoretical and practical Ethics, and 
 illustrates many of the complexities of the subject. Considered 
 
2 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 merely as a science, also, it treats of two distinct classes of 
 phenomena, namely, those of the will and those of the world, in 
 so far as they represent virtue and the good, or a desirable order of 
 things and events affecting the welfare of man. The distinction 
 between these will be considered in its place. For the present, 
 and for the sake of brevity, we may consider it as embodied in 
 the terms character and conduct, which may represent the men- 
 tal condition on the one hand, and the external actions on the 
 other, which make up the complex idea of morality. The phe- 
 nomena of human character are the tastes, disposition, desires and 
 aversions, affections, motives, and all mental conditions related 
 to the fixed or changeable nature of the will. The phenomena 
 of conduct are man's volitions and actions, comprehending all 
 forms of behavior affecting his own and the welfare of others. 
 Both together constitute the subject matter of Ethics, and they 
 are always supplemented by a more or less direct reference to the 
 nature and influence of the physical universe upon man as a 
 moral agent. All such facts and forces have to be reckoned 
 with in the regulation of conduct, and hence cannot escape the 
 notice of Ethics. 
 
 3d. There are several current definitions of the subject 
 which should receive a passing notice, and this for the large 
 amount of light they help to throw upon the nature and com- 
 prehensiveness of Ethics. They are largely affected by the intel- 
 lectual and social conditions under which they were first formed, 
 or by the peculiar views of the philosophers who proposed them, 
 as perhaps must always be the case. But they present an inter- 
 esting analysis of the whole subject, so that we can regard each 
 separate aspect of ethical problems as they were conceived at 
 different times and by different persons. Some of these various 
 definitions are substantially the following : " The science of right 
 and wrong," " the science of duty," " the science of the good, or 
 the summum bonum" " the science of man's moral nature," " the 
 science of conduct," " the science of the conditions of morality," 
 " the science of moral principles," " the science of social obliga- 
 tion," et cetera. 
 
INTRODUCTION 6 
 
 These various conceptions of the subject do not differ essentially 
 from the definition we have adopted, unless it be in respect of 
 scope and clearness. All of them include at least a part of the 
 field covered by our own, but some are narrower, and some rep- 
 resent a different point of view. For instance, Ethics, as " the 
 science of man's moral nature," is the conception common to 
 English thought during the seventeenth and eighteenth cen- 
 turies, when the discussion of moral questions was almost wholly 
 psychological, and when men were concerned with the problem 
 whether a man's individual conscience was the product of his 
 experience or % natural endowment. Ethics has a profound 
 interest in this question, but it is not the whole nor the most im- 
 portant part of its field. Again, Ethics, as " the science of con- 
 duct," may not take sufficient account of the fact that a matter 
 of important interest to students and practical men alike is the 
 relation of motives and character to conduct. In reality we are 
 quite as much concerned with all those elements in the man that 
 make him an object of admiration, of praise, and of approval, 
 as we are in his actions, and hence we cannot help thinking that 
 Ethics is quite as much a study of character as it is of conduct. 
 A similar limitation must be imposed upon the conception of 
 Ethics as " the science of the summum bonum" which denotes the 
 highest or the ultimate end of man's conduct. It is this undoubt- 
 edly, but it is also more at the same time. It is the science of 
 all the conditions leading to this end, and in fact is much more 
 concerned with the person seeking such an end than with the 
 result obtained by any other agency. This is the , reason that 
 we think of morality as representing, first, qualities of character 
 and will, and, second, as the actions preserving and promoting 
 social order. By supplementing the defects, therefore, of each 
 traditional definition by the excellences of the other, we obtain a 
 complete account of the complex subject with which we have to 
 deal. Hence, we have chosen to represent it as occupied equally 
 with persons and with things ; with persons as the agents in real- 
 izing an ideal order of social action, and with things and conduct 
 as conditions and elements in such an order. For this reason we 
 
4 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 regard Ethics as the science of moral personality and of moral 
 good, or end, one representing the subject's and the other the 
 object's character. 
 
 II. CHARACTERISTICS OF ETHICS.— The formal defini- 
 tion of Ethics does not manifest all of its distinctive char- 
 acteristics. It merely draws a general boundary line between 
 Ethics and other sciences. But there are several features of it 
 which still more clearly mark its nature and help us to under- 
 stand its meaning. 
 
 1st. Ethics is a Science of Values. — It is, therefore, occupied 
 with what we choose to call the good as contrasted with the 
 merely true. Not that it can ignore, or leave unnoticed the 
 field of truth, but that the mere truth about the general phe- 
 nomena of nature and man is not its chief object. The truth 
 with which it is mainly concerned is that about the good. The 
 good is the object of desire, truth is the object of the intellect. 
 In contrast with fine art also its object is this good as opposed 
 to mere beauty. But it may take up both truth and beauty as 
 goods, and in that way establish a close relation between itself 
 and other forms of activity. It will not be interested in them, 
 however, for their own sake, but as means to the development 
 and perfection of man. And again it does not look at facts and 
 events with their causes merely as such. It seeks to compare 
 them and to distinguish their relative worth to man and his 
 aims or his destiny. Hence Lotze delighted to say that its field 
 was the world of worths as contrasted with the world of facts and 
 laws of the physical sciences. It does not matter what form we 
 give this world of values : it may be pleasure, happiness, wel- 
 fare, perfection, obedience to the moral law for its own sake, love 
 of God, or any other end. It nevertheless represents a function 
 quite distinct from the so-called static and dynamic sciences. 
 They take facts as they are and try to determine their laws and 
 their causes. They consider them as effects to be explained by 
 antecedent facts. They, do not care for their worth to mankind. 
 But ethics must reduce them to a scale of values, and assuming 
 that man is able to modify the forces of nature, must indicate 
 
INTRODUCTION O 
 
 those particular facts and objects which have the greater value 
 to man. Honesty, veracity, chastity, politeness, friendship, jus- 
 tice, and all the virtues represent the sense of value which we 
 impose upon certain courses of conduct as compared with their 
 opposites, and this without regard to the mode of explaining 
 such phenomena. Hence, besides looking at facts as events in 
 the world, Ethics looks at their worth with a view either to 
 adjusting them in the future to man's development, or to his own 
 adjustment to them. Ethics thus acts as a judge over the 
 world's order rather than as a mere observer of it. 
 
 2d. Ethics is the Science of the Ideal as Contrasted with the 
 Actual. — This characteristic or function is closely allied to the 
 previous one. The sense of worth or value is a condition both 
 of perceiving and realizing the ideal. By the ideal we mean a 
 better state of being or existence than we feel has actually been 
 realized. Thus, we think that a better condition of justice, a 
 greater degree of equality, a higher development of civic virtue 
 might exist than actually does exist. We may see about us a 
 bad, or even the worst possible world where vice and sin reign 
 supreme, and yet conceive and long for a purer and more per- 
 fect order. This is conceiving the ideal. Now we must first be 
 able to realize the sense of value before we shall be conscious of 
 an ideal. But in distinguishing values we may not go beyond 
 the actual order of the world. We may only decide the scale of 
 preference between events as they occur. But to idealize a 
 world is to set up a possible state of existence, perhaps wholly in 
 contrast with the present, which it is sought to realize by indi- 
 vidual or social effort. The physical sciences do nothing of the 
 kind. They explain facts, and do not form ideals or endeavor 
 to move the will in the direction of them. The chief function 
 of Ethics is to do this, to determine what is an ideal existence, 
 and to promote its realization. 
 
 Another way of presenting the same distinction is that Ethics 
 treats of what ought to be, not what is. This is only another 
 statement for the idea that actual existence can never be made 
 an object of duty unless it can be idealized. Then so far as 
 
6 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 events are not produced by our own wills we can be only specta- 
 tors of them. We cannot say that they ought to be realized in 
 any other sense than that they would be desirable. But so far 
 as what is represents, only actual or past events, it is merely a 
 subject for explanation, and we cannot say that it ought to be 
 anything else : for to say that a thing ought to be implies, so far 
 as it is ethical at all, that it is still to be realized. Hence when 
 Ethics deals with what ought to be, it is conceiving an ideal 
 event or world which it aims to realize by urging the obligation 
 and the possibility of doing so. No other science does this. They 
 content themselves within the limits of actual facts, and lay down 
 no laws, while Ethics, starting with the world of facts goes on to 
 assert the existence of ideal possibilities and to maintain the 
 obligation to realize them. Hume remarked this distinction 
 between the physical and the moral sciences, and it is one of 
 great significance. It determines a difference both of method 
 and of matter between them, giving the moral sciences a com- 
 plexity of function which belongs to no other. 
 
 3d. Ethics is a Legislative or a Normative Science. — Not 
 only does Ethics distinguish between values, and form ideals, 
 but it imposes an obligation to respect them. This obligation is 
 the sense of duty, or Kant's "catagorical imperative." This 
 function of it follows directly upon the other two. There is no 
 use to feel the worth of a certain order or to idealize it, if we 
 cannot feel that it ought to be realized. The fact that there are 
 certain ends, such as perfection, goodness, happiness, or honesty, 
 temperance, purity, and the like, which we can and do feel we 
 ought to aim at, attests the existence of a phenomenon of great 
 importance to moral science. Under that conception we study 
 what ought to be, and then lay down its pursuit as a bind- 
 ing law upon our natures. Just as Logic, therefore, prescribes 
 rules for correct thinking, Ethics prescribes rules for correct con- 
 duct. It legislates for the will, while other sciences explain for the 
 intellect. It is this characteristic of it which marks the 
 transition to Ethics as an art, and which distinguishes its method 
 and its object so radically from the natural sciences. In 
 
INTRODUCTION 7 
 
 fact, the distinction once common between " natural " and 
 " moral " science was partly founded upon this peculiar charac- 
 teristic of Ethics. It means that, besides knowing how man 
 does act, we require to indicate how he ought to act, and what 
 end he ought to pursue. It, therefore, seeks to develop and to 
 formulate either the respect for virtue or the constraint that 
 serves to regulate the human will and to determine the choice of 
 ends and actions most consistent with man's highest welfare. It 
 is a normative science, therefore, because it endeavors to ascer- 
 tain the norms, rules or maxims which formulate the right and 
 w T rong modes of conduct, and which are the indispensable condi- 
 tions to the rationality of actions as causes are indispensable to 
 the rationality of events. 
 
 Ill RELATION OF ETHICS TO SPECIAL SCIENCES.— -It is 
 essential to a complete definition of Ethics that we consider at 
 least briefly its relations to certain special sciences. We have 
 compared it with the natural sciences in general and distin- 
 guished it as a normative science, and thus contrasted its func- 
 tions with those of the purely causal sciences. But it sustains a 
 peculiar relation either of connection, resemblance, or contrast, 
 to several special sciences — a relation which helps to define its 
 meaning and content more clearly. These particular sciences 
 are Psychology, Logic, iEsthetics, Politics and Metaphysics. 
 Others might be included, but they are not so important for our 
 present purposes, and hence may be omitted. 
 
 1st. Relation to Psychology. — Psychology and Ethics are 
 closely related, but may also be sharply distinguished. Thus 
 Psychology is the science of the phenomena of consciousness, 
 and Ethics is also a science of a certain portion of those phe- 
 nomena with their relation to, or issue in, conduct. But both 
 the extent of the field and the object, as well as the method of 
 the two sciences, are different. Psychology endeavors to show 
 how any or all of our mental phenomena come to happen. It 
 does not say whether they are true or right. It investigates 
 only their laws and causes. Hence, its proper functions are 
 observation, classification and explanation of mental events, 
 
8 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS' 
 
 including cognition, memory, association, reasoning, emotion, 
 choice, volition, and subordinate phenomena. But Ethics does 
 not investigate certain divisions of these at all, and does not in- 
 vestigate any of them in the same way, or with the same purpose 
 as psychology ; it wholly excludes cognition, memory, association 
 and reasoning from its domain, and even when it includes the phe- 
 nomena of emotion and will in its sphere, it does so without 
 any reference to explaining them, but with a view to estimating 
 their value and relation to moral development. In brief, Psy- 
 chology is explanatory, Ethics is legislative. Ethics undoubt- 
 edly is conditioned by Psychology — that is, it assumes the laws 
 of mind and will utilize them for its own object, but it will not 
 investigate or determine them, its chief function being to deal 
 on the one hand with those ideals of the intellect which deter- 
 mine the difference between good and bad, right and wrong, and 
 on the other with the problems of volition and obligation as 
 determining whether a man can and ought to aim at the moral 
 development of himself and others. It is thus very sharply dis- 
 tinguished from Psychology, while in a measure depending upon 
 it and occupied in part with the same phenomena. 
 
 2d. Relation to Logic. — Logic is also occupied with mental 
 phenomena, but with a more restricted field of them than Psy- 
 chology, and with an object different alike from Psychology and 
 Ethics. Logic is occupied only with the phenomena of thought 
 and inference or reasoning. It thus excludes all direct concern 
 with the primary faculties and phenomena of intelligence, and 
 also those of emotion and volition. But even when it considers 
 those of reasoning, it makes no attempt to explain them. It shows 
 those which are valid, and those that are not valid. In other 
 words, it is the science of the formal laws of thought, or the laws 
 of correct thinking. Its function has thus a close connection with 
 that of Ethics, only it is occupied with reasoning, while Ethics 
 is occupied with volition or conduct. Logic deals with the ideals 
 of the intellect, and so establishes the laws by which we do and 
 must reason if we think correctly. Ethics deals with the ideals 
 of the will, and so establishes the laws by which we do or ought 
 
INTRODUCTION 9 
 
 to act, if we act rightly. Logic employs the understanding ; 
 Ethics employs the conscience — one the logical, the other the 
 moral reason. Furthermore, Logic seems to impose certain obli- 
 gations, and in this respect resembles Ethics. But the obliga- 
 tions are not to obey the laws of thought, for we. must obey them 
 whether we will or not. Its obligations or duties, however, are 
 to see that, when we do think, the special contents of thought 
 conform to those laws. The obligations of Ethics, on the other 
 hand, assume that we can disobey conscience, that we are free to 
 do or not to do, as we please. The laws of Logic are the neces- 
 sary laws of reason ; those of Ethics are the moral laws of the 
 will. In the former case the " laws " are statements of the uni- 
 formity of actual phenomena, in the latter the " laws " are in- 
 junctions to realize ideal phenomena. Both of them, however, 
 discuss the laws of correct action — one the correct action of 
 thought, the other of volition. Both determine what is valid, 
 but Logic determines what is valid in reasoning, Ethics what is 
 valid in conduct. 
 
 3d. Relation to Aesthetics. — The relation between Aesthetics 
 and Ethics is also a close one. Aesthetics is the science of the 
 laws of beauty, and defines the sphere of the fine arts. Its psy- 
 chological field is the emotions, and these are the phenomena 
 that connect the subject with Ethics. Aesthetics estimates 
 values, but they are the values of art objects, of those objects 
 which appeal to the sense of beauty. It is not a science of per- 
 sonal worth, or of conduct, not even of what is called moral 
 beauty, which is an expression borrowed by analogy from art to 
 indicate the satisfaction we feel in the presence of moral perfec- 
 tions. But its sole object is impersonal worth in terms of beauty 
 as opposed to utility, which is rather the object of economics. 
 Ethics, on the other hand, is occupied with personal worth as 
 expressed in perfection of will and conduct. Virtue as opposed 
 to both beauty and utility is its object. Both sciences, however, 
 depend upon the same emotions and idealizing instincts, and are 
 so closely connected in this respect that cultivation of the one 
 affects results of the other, though one cannot be a substitute for 
 
iO ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 the other in its effects on the character. Aesthetics aid moraliza- 
 tion, but is not its equivalent. Ethics purines art, but will not 
 produce it. 
 
 4th. Relation to Politics. — The relation between Ethics and 
 Politics is closer than in any other case. Both sciences have to 
 deal with human action and institutions, and thus seem to be 
 occupied with the same field. But the distinction between them 
 is clear in spite of this fact. Ethics in its broadest sense compre- 
 hends Politics, because whatever Politics adopts must first be 
 granted in the court of Ethics. But in its narrower sense it is 
 co-ordinate with it. These facts make Ethics in its more compre- 
 hensive import co-extensive with Sociology ; in its restricted 
 import a co-ordinate species with Politics. The definition 01 
 each will make the relation clear. Politics is generally defined 
 as the science of government. This comprehends all the institu- 
 tions and laws that are instrumental in the regulation of men's 
 conduct toward each other. But for the sake of an effective 
 comparison with Ethics it should be defined as the science of the 
 regulation and restriction of human conduct by law. It thus 
 seeks to determine how certain courses of action may be artifi- 
 cially induced or prevented. It aims by law to establish social 
 order, or a condition of things which the unorganized wills of 
 men would not spontaneously produce. It is, therefore, the sci- 
 ence of the artificial limitations of human liberty in the protec- 
 tion of rights and the regulation of external conduct. On the 
 other hand, Ethics is the science of what a man can and ought to do, 
 whether government exists or not. It determines the justice and 
 validity of all political principles, but it does not investigate the 
 means of putting them into force. It is, therefore, concerned 
 with the phenomena of free action, or the voluntary choice of 
 the good. Hence, in contrast with Politics, it may be defined as 
 the science of the extension of human liberty, or of those condi- 
 tions under which morality is realized without a resort to civil 
 law. For this reason it is strictly the science of the conditions 
 under which morality becomes internal as well as external. Pol- 
 itics stops short with the attainment of external good, an order 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 11 
 
 in which free morality is possible, though it does not and cannot 
 effect this morality. Ethics aims with this to attain internal 
 good or virtue, and consequently is concerned with the " good 
 will" as well as with good conduct externally considered. 
 But it deals with morality only as it is a product of free 
 will, while Politics subordinates freedom to the attainment 
 of social order. 
 
 The general position of Ethics in relation to the sciences which 
 pertain to man is apparent from the following tabular view which 
 begins with Anthropology as the most comprehensive term for the 
 knowledge of man. Sociology appears in it as the general sci- 
 ence of all customs, habits, institutions and conduct affecting his 
 development, in so far as they are moral and social products of 
 the will : 
 
 Anthropology 
 
 Physiology 
 Psychology 
 
 Aesthetics 
 Sociology 
 
 Structural. 
 
 Functional. 
 
 Empirical. 
 
 Metaphysical, 
 f Painting. 
 ! Sculpture. 
 
 Music. 
 [ Architecture, 
 r History. 
 I Politics. 
 
 Economics. 
 
 Ethics. 
 
 Aesthetics also deals with products of the will, but the object 
 is not immediately moral. Its subdivisions represent those pro- 
 ducts which appeal to taste or the sense of beauty, not to con- 
 science as the actions or disposition with which Ethics deals. 
 The distinction then between Aesthetics and Sociology, though 
 both deal with products of will, is that the former concerns 
 material products affecting the artistic part of our nature, and 
 the latter all actions and institutions affecting human welfare 
 social and moral. Economics also represents products of will, 
 but these are the material products necessary to subsistance, or 
 at least having an exchangeable value determined by the cost of 
 production. Hence it is the science of wealth. It treats of 
 utility values, as Aesthetics treats of the artistic, and Ethics of 
 
12 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 the moral values. The actions involved, however, like those of 
 Politics, are subject to the jurisdiction and authority of Ethics, 
 though in respect to object matter the several sciences can be 
 classed as co-ordinate with each other. 
 
 5th. Relation to Metaphysics. — The connection between Ethiics 
 and Metaphysics is not so close as between Ethics and Politics. 
 The reason for this is that they are not co-ordinate sciences. 
 Metaphysics is the science of the nature of reality as contrasted 
 with the laws of phenomena. It thus, in a measure at least, 
 conditions the complete results of all sciences, and so of Ethics 
 among them. But these sciences simply assume the ultimate 
 principles of Metaphysics without so much as defining, investi- 
 gating or validating them. In Ethics we take for granted 
 that there is some reality besides the mere phenomena whose 
 laws and yalue we study, but we do not investigate its nature by 
 ethical methods. But if the possibility of Ethics, as a science, 
 of other than purely natural phenomena, or necessarily deter- 
 mined events, is raised, we must go to Metaphysics to decide 
 the matter, and in this respect Ethics is closely dependent upon 
 Methaphysics. But for the facts and for the value of moral 
 phenomena, Ethics is wholly independent of metaphysical inquiry, 
 and can go about determining the laws and duties of moral life, 
 and the validity of moral principles, without first solving any of 
 the metaphysical problems of reality. But when certain con- 
 troversies are raised, such as the freedom of the will, the nature 
 of consciousness, the relation of materialism to moral theories, the 
 solution of them must be deferred to Metaphysics. This shows 
 that the two sciences may insensibly run into each other, although 
 for practical purposes they may be kept distinct. 
 
 6th. Relation to the Physical Sciences. — The relation is not 
 close in these cases. Both the method and the object matter of 
 the physical and moral sciences are different. All the physical 
 sciences treat of natural phenomena, and their causes as opposed 
 to phenomena of will and their value. But Ethics cannot dis- 
 pense with their conclusions. It is interested in the laws of 
 nature and the results of physical science as limitations upon 
 
INTRODUCTION 13 
 
 arbitrary conduct and as conditions of right adjustment. But 
 it does not deal with them as representing the ideal order of things 
 to be realized by the human will. It merely assumes them and 
 endeavors to establish an order independent, but not in conflict 
 with them. Hence, while all the sciences may be tributary to 
 Ethics in respect to results, this is neither their direct object nor 
 the principle field of Ethics. Its primary object is wholly inde- 
 pendent of them in as much as it determines what ought to be in 
 contrast with what merely is or occurs without volitional inter- 
 position. 
 
 7th. Relation to Religion. — The relation between Ethics, or, 
 rather, morality and religion, is not easy to determine in a brief 
 discussion. The subject is a very complex one, and must be de- 
 ferred for treatment in a separate chapter. It is sufficient to re- 
 mark at present that in some respects they are very closely re- 
 lated, and in others they are wholly distinct and independent 
 of each other. This will be brought out when the subject is 
 more fully discussed in a later chapter. 
 
 IV. DIVISIONS OF ETHICS— The general division of Ethics 
 is into Theoretical and Practical. This is made according to the 
 distinction between its explanatory and its legislative or norma- 
 tive functions. While the subject is, in general, distinguished 
 from the physical and historical sciences by its normative or 
 regulative functions, it is also connected with them in having a 
 field for the application of explanatory methods. That is to say, 
 there are phenomena in the field of Ethics which require to be 
 analyzed and explained, or reduced to logical and scientific 
 order. Hence, we have the theoretical function of the science 
 concerned with the nature, relations and value of the ideal. On 
 the other hand, Ethics ,does not stop with explanation of these. 
 It goes on to lay down obligations, laws or maxims for the regu- 
 lation of conduct, and to prescribe the means of attaining the 
 ends recognized by theoretical Ethics. Consequently there is the 
 division of practical Ethics. Theoretical Ethics employs the 
 explanatory or scientific method ; practical Ethics, the norma- 
 tive or regulative method. 
 
14 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 V. SCOPE OF ETHICS.— The division of Ethics into theoreti- 
 cal and practical, defines, in a general way, the scope of the sub- 
 ject. But it does not present the particular conceptions with 
 which it has to deal, nor the problems which it is expected to 
 solve. In order, therefore, to understand the many questions 
 which Ethics has to answer, we must call attention to the range 
 of phenomena that come, more or less directly and indirectly, 
 under its notice. 
 
 1st. Man's Moral Nature. — Some psychological analysis is 
 always preliminary to the study of Ethics, or is assumed in it, 
 and it. often requires to be considered for other purposes than 
 explaining its phenomena. Hence, before laying down any rules 
 for conduct, we must know something of the nature of the being 
 to which those rules appeal. This moral nature consists of all the 
 mental capacities and phenomena which are essentially connected 
 with conduct. These are judgment, conscience, emotion, desire 
 and volition, with subordinate phenomena, and they represent the 
 psychology of Ethics. All of these come under notice in 
 determining the meaning and contents of what is called 
 moral. 
 
 2d. The Genesis of Moral Ideas and Faculties. — Besides the 
 nature of moral phenomena, we are interested in their origin. 
 This is the evolutionistic problem, or the application of the 
 theory of development to morality and moral faculties. It in- 
 cludes all the various influences — physical, political, religious and 
 social — that have been brought to bear upon man's conduct and 
 the formation of his character. These influences are summar- 
 ized in the notion of environment, which expresses a whole 
 group of external agencies limiting and determining man's 
 nature and conduct. In the development of man and his 
 morality, we have to look at his whole history and the external 
 forces affecting his will. But while these have much to do with 
 the particular codes of rules he has adopted, they do not repre- 
 sent all that the ethical problem desires to solve. They only 
 serve to show and to explain the wide divergence of conceptions 
 in regard to morality, or the inequalities of men in their moral 
 
INTRODUCTION 15 
 
 development. But the problem of genesis is nevertheless one of 
 the most important in Ethics. 
 
 3d. The Validity of Moral Principles. — Independently of the 
 problem of the genesis of morality comes the validity of its rules 
 and injunctions. This validity of a moral principle does not 
 rest upon the manner in which it came to be recognized, upon its 
 origin, but upon its use in the economy of the world. In fact, 
 the most important function of Ethics is to determine this char- 
 acteristic of a moral maxim, to justify it, to show that it holds 
 good whatever the accidents of its historical origin. Thus, be- 
 sides learning how respect for life, respect for property, chastity, 
 honesty, temperance, came to be recognized as obligatory, we wish 
 to know the ultimate ground upon which they rest, and this 
 takes us beyond all questions of history and origin, and requires 
 us to ascertain the relation between the conduct or attitude of 
 will prescribed and the ultimate end which mankind are enjoined 
 to realize. 
 
 4th. The Determination of the Good. — Man, in so far as he 
 is a rational or intelligent being at all, always acts with refer- 
 ence to some end. This end is called his good, or what he would 
 regard as such. But he is always supposed to have one ultimate 
 end or good to which he subordinates all others. This is called 
 his highest good, or summum bonum. Hence, Ethics must study 
 the highest end which men actually seek ; and if this comes short 
 of the ideal good for all persons, it must determine the good 
 which ought to be sought. The object in determining this fact 
 is to provide a criterion for measuring the worth of a man's con- 
 duct. As a man's ultimate purpose in life, so is his conduct. 
 If one is good, other things being equal, the other is good, and 
 vice versa, and as Ethics is supremely interested in the merits 
 and demerits of conduct, it must determine the nature of the 
 Highest Good, or the ideal object for man's pursuit. This may 
 be called the objective problem of Ethics. 
 
 5th. The Explanation of Virtue. — This, in contrast with the 
 previous question, may be called the subjective problem of Ethics. 
 Not only do we judge conduct by its relation to the ideal or the 
 
16 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 good, but also by the manner or motive with which it is per- 
 formed. We want to know not only the fact that a man adjusts 
 himself to environment, or conforms to the rule of the good as 
 an end, but also that he will do this without regard to the com- 
 pelling influence of circumstances, that he makes this the volun- 
 tary end of life. Hence, Ethics is concerned in more than exter- 
 nal conformity to its rules. It not only wants to see honesty, 
 veracity, temperance, obedience to the law practiced, but it 
 wants to see them respected and obeyed without the need of 
 appealing to force, or merely selfish interests to realize them. 
 Ethics wishes also to assert and maintain the importance of the 
 " good will," the disposition to pursue the good rationally and 
 without regard to the changes of circumstances and exemption 
 from police vigilance. It is, therefore, occupied with the phen- 
 omena of character, and endeavors to determine the constituent 
 elements of virtue as distinguished from merely objective 
 good. 
 
 6th. The Determination of Specific Duties. — This is partic- 
 ularly the function of practical Ethics, which especially investi- 
 gates the means, as theoretical Ethics determines the end, of con- 
 duct. It thus classifies the various forms of virtue and good 
 which it is sought to realize. The highest good and virtue are 
 not always to be attained in the same way. There are various 
 relations in life that require express formulation of the moral 
 law to suit a certain group of phenomena. Thus, it is necessary 
 to recognize the nature and distinction between justice and 
 benevolence, the nature and obligations of veracity, honesty, 
 chastity. The various relations and conditions of life which in- 
 volve these virtues, the individual, the family, and society, all 
 come under investigation as determining for us certain specific 
 duties, and measuring our obligation to fulfil them. Besides 
 there will be the questions concerning the proper and effective 
 method of influencing the human will, the educational and social 
 agencies necessary to perfect character, and all institutions that 
 are helpful to the practice of virtue. In this field, then, Ethics 
 will investigate the ground of specific duties, as distinct from the 
 
INTRODUCTION 17 
 
 general principle of morality, and the 'motive forces for insuring 
 their fulfilment. 
 
 VI. SUMMARY — In this introductory discussion we have as- 
 certained that Ethics is a science of character and of conduct, of 
 good will and good results in human action. Its chief character- 
 istics are that it investigates what is man's highest good, and that 
 it tries to ascertain the principles upon which this can be ration- 
 ally pursued while exercising the functions of a normative or 
 regulative science and art. Lastly, we found that it is very 
 closely related to several other sciences, and is occupied with all 
 the problems of man's moral nature, its genesis, meaning and 
 value or authority, conscience, the good, virtue, freedom, duty, 
 and whatever is contained in a moral ideal. 
 
 References. — For the nature of Ethics the following books may be con- 
 sulted : Mackenzie : Manual of Ethics, Chapter I. ; Bowne : Principles of 
 Ethics, Introduction ; Martineau : Types of Ethical Theory, First and 
 Second Prefaces. Second Edition ; Schurman : The Ethical Import of Dar- 
 winism, Chapter I. ; Porter : Elements of Moral Science, Introduction, pp. 
 1-17 ; Alexander (S) : Moral Order and Progress, Introduction, pp. 1-19. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF ETHICAL PROBLEMS 
 
 INTRODUCTORY.— Reflection upon the nature and obliga- 
 tion of morality began as early, or nearly as early, as specu- 
 lation upon the universe. In fact it is difficult to keep the two 
 modes of thinking apart from each other. Man has as much 
 natural interest in his practical relation to the world or to a 
 Supreme Being, and the limitations which these agencies may 
 impose upon his will as he has curiosity about the causes of 
 things. He will always, therefore, associate reflection upon 
 his conduct with reflection upon the nature of things. In a 
 very large measure what he thinks about his duties, what they 
 are in particular, will be determined by the opinions he maintains 
 about the universe and his destiny in it. Even if he wishes for 
 certain purposes to keep these two phases of thought apart from 
 each other, he will find that he cannot wholly effect this result, 
 but that his ideas of morality are either directly or indirectly 
 molded by his ultimate views about the world and its meaning 
 for him. This tendency very early gave rise to ethical reflection, 
 and even the earliest philosophers, whose opinions it is safe to 
 suppose were not mere myths, are accredited with many wise 
 saws about the duties of man. These proverbs cling to their 
 persons and history as a part of their philosophic opinions, and 
 indicate the same origin for ethical as for metaphysical specu- 
 lation. But there is not time or space to discuss this matter in a 
 brief outline of its history, and we can only allude to it while 
 characterizing the first period of moral reflection which we have 
 to notice as laying down the line of all subsequent speculations 
 upon moral problems. We may conveniently adopt the usual 
 division of periods into Ancient, Mediwval and Modem, Each of 
 
 18 
 
4 
 
 DEVELOPMENT OF ETHICAL PROBLEMS 19 
 
 these represents a typical mode of thought, determining the 
 ideals and codes of Ethics applicable to its time. 
 
 I. ANCIENT ETHICS.— This will comprise the period and 
 characteristics of Greek thought. The one characteristic of this 
 whole period, so far as it affected the moral consciousness of 
 Greece, was the overwhelming sense of subjection to power, and 
 the necessity of conforming to its laws while longing for freedom 
 or exemption from the penalties which that power could inflict 
 for resistance to it. Religious and philosophic speculation, 
 aided by the reflex influence from the necessity of strong govern- 
 ment, emphasized man's subordination to supreme powers, which 
 were either conceived as impersonal, or as wholly divested of a 
 benevolent interest in the world. This state of mind favored 
 ethical codes based upon fear or obedience, with as little respect 
 as possible for the power to be obeyed. On the other hand, the 
 struggle for political freedom, with its ideals, re-acted upon the 
 speculative conception, and encouraged a certain measure of 
 libertinism in the individual, and expressed the natural desire to 
 be emancipated from the restrictions of law, which was in reality 
 only the obverse side of the absolutism at the basis of both 
 philosophy and politics. Fate and Nemesis were thus one side 
 of Greek moral consciousness, and libertinism the other. Both 
 are reflected very clearly in the drama, and mark the two types 
 of character, the ascetic and his opposite, which are reflected in 
 Greek speculative Ethics. This period again is subdivided into 
 several subordinate tendencies according as one or the other 
 aspect of it predominated. They will be considered briefly in 
 their order. 
 
 1st. The Pre-Socratic Period. — The first stage of this period 
 was the religious, and it merged into the philosophic without 
 changing the conception of man's relation to the world. The 
 religious attitude of mind, however, was the general one, and 
 gave the whole period its prevailing tone. This was that the 
 customs and laws binding on men were the decrees of the gods. 
 In philosophic parlance these were the laws of nature, in so far 
 as they represented the fixed conditions to which it was necessary 
 
20 ELEMEN1S OF ETHICS 
 
 to conform one's life. But the religious mind and political 
 interests placed its last defence of existing codes of conduct in 
 the will of the gods. This was the divine will theory of moral 
 obligation. But two influences served to weaken all the pre- 
 suppositions of such a view. They were, first, the unideal char- 
 acter of the gods, and second, the rise of scepticism in regard to 
 their existence. It was their unicleal character that gave the 
 sting to scepticism. But in criticising the religious conception, 
 with its doctrine of arbitrary power, the sceptical school based 
 its attack mainly upon its doubts about the existence of the 
 gods. It did not deny the possible relation between the gods 
 and moral law, but cut up by the roots the fact of it on the 
 ground that such powers did not exist. The force of their 
 argument, however, rested chiefly upon the growing dissatisfac- 
 tion with anthropomorphic polytheism, and prejudiced neither 
 the philosophic conception of monotheism and pantheism, nor 
 the purified conception of a more refined religious consciousness 
 which endowed the divine with benevolence as well as power. 
 But in connection with the low ideals of Greek life, the political 
 struggle for liberty and the increasing scepticism of the age, the 
 belief that the customs and laws, which were the moral rules of 
 that age, were the expressed will of the gods, was dissolved. 
 That was the negative work of the sophists and the sceptical 
 school. But they were not content with mere destruction. 
 They also presented a positive and constructive theory of moral- 
 ity as it was then understood. This consisted of two claims. 
 First, that all law, moral and political, was conventional ; and 
 second, that the good which all men seek was pleasure. The 
 first of these elements merely substituted the human for the 
 divine will ; the conception was the same as the theological view, 
 but the source was different, and the one merit which it pos- 
 sessed was that it explained both the origin of positive law and 
 custom, and the practice of Greek life in regard to its submis- 
 sion, up to that time at least, to power, whether aristocratic or 
 democratic. But this radical doctrine offended both the relig- 
 ious and the undeveloped moral consciousness of the best minds, 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF ETHICAL PROBLEMS 21 
 
 and was the signal for a reconstruction. The second element 
 indicated quite as radical a change in the point of view. The 
 theological conception based morality upon external authority. 
 Virtue in its conception consisted merely in obedience to the 
 powers capable of making their will effective. Merit consisted 
 in submission. But in making the good pleasure instead of 
 conformity to power or authority, the change was from a theo- 
 logical to an anthropological point of view. It was the incep- 
 tion of an internal authority, but instead of expressing morality 
 in terms of obedience, its sanction was found in the end sought 
 by the agent. The subject, not the object, determined the course 
 of action to be chosen. Hence, here began also the value of the 
 doctrine of human liberty, which appears as a part of ethical 
 doctrine in Aristotle. But the chief contribution to ethical 
 doctrine, made by asserting that pleasure, is the good, was that 
 conduct has its qualities determined by the end, or result aimed 
 at by the will, though the Sophists would probably not have dis- 
 tinguished between the instinctive and the rational attainment 
 of this end. They were satisfied with taking the good out of the 
 hands of authority, though explaining positive law by convention, 
 and placing the good in the object realized by the individual. 
 This was the beginning of both the psychological and the utili- 
 tarian theories of morality. 
 
 2d. The Socratic Period. — This period of ethical reflection 
 represents an entire departure from the doctrine that morality is 
 the product of mere authority, human or divine — that is, a cre- 
 ation of will, and in its place substitutes the idea that- the merit 
 of conduct is in some way a part of the nature of things, and that 
 it is determined wholly by the relations of the will to this as an 
 eud. Consequently the ' whole Socratic movement, involving 
 Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, with their minor schools, starts with 
 an analysis of human nature, the intention being to find in the 
 individual man, not in the power of any one over him, the reasons 
 or grounds of morality. Man's nature as a rational being was 
 investigated, and the end prescribed by that nature or by reason 
 was determined as the true ground for the merit of conduct. 
 
22 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 The period, therefore, represented the development of maturer 
 ideas of human freedom, especially because the sentiment of au- 
 thority was discredited. This was the effect of Sophistic doctrine, 
 which sought only to explain, not to justify, customary morality 
 by convention, and hence the next problem was to show either 
 the rational ground upon which existing codes rested, or the ideal 
 end which determined goodness independently of authority. This 
 was found, according to the Socratic school, in an object of con- 
 sciousness, cognizable by the subject, and not merely enforced 
 action in conformity to the dictates of an arbitrary power. The 
 main difference between this movement and that of the Sophists is 
 found in two characteristics. The first of these was the abandon- 
 ment of the sceptical spirit and method, and the second was the 
 purification of the ideal represented in the reconstructive effort 
 of the Sophists. There was a general tendency to abandon the 
 idea of pleasure as the highest good, and to substitute for it either 
 some other end, or to qualify it by wisdom, or the rational pursuit 
 of the good. The movement, however, represents three different 
 phases of development. 
 
 1. Soceates and the Minoe Soceatics. — The Sophists had 
 claimed to be teachers of virtue, but this claim was accompanied 
 by so much scepticism, by the cultivation of so much personal in- 
 terest, and the want of due moral earnestness, that it did little or 
 nothing to regenerate the moral consciousness of Greece. It was 
 only a signal for the better spirits to take hold of the problem 
 seriously. This more earnest attempt at reconstruction was be- 
 gun by Socrates, and his character, life and death have placed 
 him among the foremost of the great men of the world, and all be- 
 cause, besides doing much for scientific method, he aroused a 
 strong interest in moral questions. 
 
 Socrates did not directly attack the ethical theories of the 
 Sophists. He said nothing about the authority of the gods, nor 
 did he have anything to say about the doctrine of convention. 
 He merely turned the logic and dialectical method of scepticism 
 upon itself, and while seeming to be mainly interested in a theory 
 of knowledge, his illustrations and constant discussions about 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF ETHICAL PROBLEMS 23 
 
 virtue and the good, reinforced by conservative impulses against 
 scepticism, stimulated an extraordinary amount of interest in 
 ethical reflection. His theory about the nature of morality was 
 rather a paradoxical one. He did not dispute the value of 
 pleasure or happiness as the good, but, seeing the effects of its 
 unbridled pursuit, sought to qualify it by making knowledge or 
 wisdom the condition of attaining it. His whole ethical doctrine 
 is summed up in two propositions, both of which were paradoxes 
 even to the Greeks. They were (a) that no man is voluntarily 
 bad, and (b) that virtue is wisdom. The difficulties occasioned 
 by both of these notions grew out of the equivocations latent in 
 the terms " voluntary " and " virtue," on which no stress can be 
 laid here. But it is proper to remark the influence which they 
 exercise upon subsequent thought. The controversies started by 
 the first of these positions terminated in the distinction between 
 desire and will, and between impulsive and deliberative or free con- 
 duct. The controversies about the second resulted in the distinc- 
 tion between natural and moral good or excellence. These 
 distinctions, however, were not developed by Socrates. The 
 boasting claims of the Sophists had disgusted him, because he 
 saw, in spite of their conceit, that they did not know what they 
 meant by justice, temperance, courage, about which they were 
 forever disputing. He imagined, therefore, that they, with man- 
 kind at large, were prevented from being virtuous by not know- 
 ing what the good was. He imagined that every man would do 
 the right if only he knew what it was. Hence he attributed all 
 vice to ignorance. He seems to have made no account of the 
 fact that men often deliberately choose what their moral judg- 
 ment condemns. Undoubtedly he would have said of such 
 persons that they did not really know their own good, but had 
 mistaken it, though acting with reference to what they supposed 
 it to be. It was this idea that made Socrates attribute all wrong- 
 doing to a defect of knowledge, and hence he set about trying to 
 define the nature of virtue. He demanded of the Sophists that 
 they define what they meant by temperance, courage, justice, 
 wisdom, etc., and their failure to make out a consistent account 
 
24 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 of them was interpreted as proving both that they were ignorant 
 of the subject about which they professed so much knowledge, 
 and that this ignorance was the reason for their defective morality. 
 He found them disposed to seek the good, if only they knew what 
 it was, but hopelessly deceived in their knowledge of that good. 
 Hence, he set about correcting men's conception of virtue as the 
 first condition of moralizing them and announced his paradoxes 
 with the view of maintaining that virtue could be taught. By 
 this he actually meant that men could be taught what the good 
 was, though this was not always what his fellow- thinkers under- 
 stood by it. They began to feel the difference between a virtu- 
 ous will and the attainment of the good, though they did not 
 formulate it. Socrates did not realize the extent to which his 
 own strength of character entered into his own choice of the good. 
 He felt his defective knowledge, and always being ready to do 
 what was right when he knew it, he imagined all others were 
 dike himself. He did not imagine that there were persons who 
 did not wish to see or to know any other good than that which 
 they were pursuing. Hence, he made all defects of character 
 originate in ignorance and all virtue in wisdom, and«so thought 
 that the whole problem of morality lay in education. Thus he 
 was not explaining the ground of virtue, but the means of real- 
 izing it. He merely emphasized the importance of morality 
 sufficiently to induce among his admirers and disciples a scientific 
 account of it. 
 
 There were three characteristics in Socrates which influenced 
 his contemporaries in the formation of their ethical doctrines. 
 They were (a) an intense conviction that wisdom or knowledge 
 was the essential factor of virtue, (b) excellent self-control in the 
 regulation of his own personal life and conduct, and (c) the tacit 
 supposition that pleasure or happiness was the end which all men 
 sought. The first of these represented his special doctrine, and 
 the last two were personal traits of character and opinion. These 
 three aspects of the man gave rise to as many schools which sim- 
 ply exaggerated the one principle they saw in their master. First, 
 the Megarians thought that the good was not known, and that 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF ETHICAL PROBLEMS 25 
 
 the first problem for each man was to go in quest of it. For this 
 reason they thought that knowledge or wisdom was the highest 
 good, but went beyond mere knowledge of self to knowledge of the 
 universe. They thus transcended their master's contempt for 
 Metaphysics. Second, the Cyrenaics, perceiving that Socrates had 
 a regard to pleasure in his conduct, maintained thafr virtue con- 
 sisted in the rational pursuit of it. They admitted the impor- 
 tance of knowledge, but they thought that men had a better 
 knowledge of what the good was than Socrates asserted. Hence, 
 they maintained that virtue consisted, not in the quest and pos- 
 session of wisdom, but in the right or rational application of it to 
 conduct. Pleasure, and that of the present moment, was the 
 good, and wisdom was necessary to choose correctly when and how 
 it was to be obtained. Third, the Cynics admired in Socrates his 
 self-control and independence of the pleasure of the moment, or 
 rather of those impulses which lead a man blindly into wrong- 
 doing. They agreed with him that speculative research into the 
 nature of the good and of virtue was necessary to right conduct, 
 but " they maintained that the Socratic wisdom, on the exercise 
 of which man's well-being depended, was exhibited, not in the 
 skillful pursuit, but in the rational disregard of pleasure, in the 
 clear apprehension of the intrinsic worthlessness of this and most 
 other objects of men's common aims." In this the Socratic self- 
 control becomes contempt for pleasure. 
 
 The Megarian movement develops into the systems of Plato 
 and the Neo-Platonists, and into that of Aristotle in a less de- 
 gree. The Cyrenaic position develops into that of the Epicu- 
 reans, and the Sceptics of the New Academy. The doctrine of the 
 Cynics develops into that of the Stoics, in which pleasure appears 
 either as an evil, or as a morally indifferent object of will. Each 
 of these tendencies must be briefly sketched. 
 
 2. The Platonic Development. — Plato derived from Socra- 
 tes both his intellectual and his moral stimulus. But he did not 
 stop with his master's contempt for metaphysical knowledge. On 
 the contrary, he made his ethical doctrine very largely consist in 
 its dependence on such knowledge. When Socrates was called on 
 
26 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 to give a reason for certain courses of conduct, in spite of his 
 predetermination to wholly discard Metaphysics, his naive religious 
 belief in a providence induced him to point to the goodness of 
 nature's order, and its providential arrangement. In this, or in 
 his teleological view of the world, he virtually recognized the need 
 of adjustment to its conditions and ends, and prepared the way 
 for the departure of the Megarians and the more developed system 
 of Plato. But he did not even see this promised land which his 
 unconscious instincts pointed out. His disciple, however, saw it 
 and entered into its possession. 
 
 There were three main influences which converged in produ- 
 cing Plato's conception of morality or virtue. The first was his 
 antagonism to the doctrine of Heraclitus ; the second was his 
 opposition to the sophistic doctrine of the conventional origin of 
 moral law ; and the third was the notion that man's chief end 
 was the good which was fixed in the eternal nature of things, 
 and not in the pursuit of transient pleasures. Much the same 
 interest lay at the basis of the first two of these influences, but 
 they represent slightly different motives when taken in different 
 connections. 
 
 In opposition to Heraclitus, who saw nothing but flux or 
 change in the universe, Plato sought something real, permanent, 
 eternal. He was not satisfied with a universe of mere phenom- 
 ena which represented nothing but birth and decay, perpetual 
 creation and destruction. On the metaphysical side, such a 
 doctrine conflicted with the unity of consciousness and the de- 
 mand for the correlate of all phenomena; namely, that of 
 which events were modes. On the ethical side it made a principle 
 of human conduct, a law of uniform action, impossible. Hence to 
 satisfy both the metaphysical and the ethical demand, Plato set 
 up his "ideas" or forms, types of permanent reality, which 
 represented the eternal nature of things. In Ethics this posi- 
 tion was an a priori assault on the conventional theory of 
 the Sophists, which made morality the sport of legislation and 
 the pursuit of personal interests in a world without fixed or 
 rational order. It will be seen, then, why Plato did not defend 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF ETHICAL PROBLEMS I i 
 
 the theological theory. The Sophists, had they admitted the 
 existence of the gods, would not have objected to making moral 
 law a product of their decrees. Hence Plato, believing in 
 their existence, might have referred morality to their authority, 
 but he sought its ground elsewhere, in the eternal nature of 
 things, to which even the divine was subject. He would not 
 recognize that moral law could be the creation of any will or 
 authority. He could conceive it only as an order of things 
 which must or ought to be the object of all wills whatsoever. 
 Hence, without defending or attacking the theological view, he 
 opposed the theory of convention because it implied either that 
 moral law could be created by an exercise of power, or that no 
 law whatever could be imposed upon the individual. He was as 
 much afraid of anarchy, on this account, as we are to-day, and 
 so he sought a fixed law in the constitution of nature according 
 to which man must order his conduct, if he would realize the 
 good. Hence, following the tendencies of the Megarians, spring- 
 ing from the tacit assumptions of Socrates' teleological doctrine of 
 providence, he sought in something external to man the good 
 at which it was his duty to aim, or to which his conduct should 
 conform. He looked at the world and saw that everything was 
 called good or bad, according as it did or did not realize the " idea " 
 or perfect form which it represented. From this he sought to 
 determine the highest good which subordinated all particular 
 things to it, and finding it, he made morality to consist in realiz- 
 ing it as the chief end of man.* In this he found an end 
 
 * Professor Sidgwick {History of Ethics, p. 37) explains this tendency 
 in Plato in the following interesting manner : " Since all rational ac- 
 tivity is for some end, the different arts or functions into which human 
 industry is divided are naturally defined by a statement of their ends or 
 uses, and similarly, in giving an account of the different artists and function- 
 aries, we necessarily state their end, ' what they are good for.' It is only so 
 far as they realize this end that they are what we call them. A painter 
 who cannot paint is, as we say, ' no painter/ or, to take a favorite Socratic 
 illustration, a ruler is essentially one who realizes the well-being of the 
 ruled ; if he fails to do this, he is not, properly speaking, a ruler at all. 
 And in a society well ordered on Socratic principles, every human being 
 
28 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 which could not be confused with pleasure, because this last was 
 a transient phenomenon in human experience, a passing state of 
 feeling. Thus, the ultimate good was something different from 
 pleasure, and independent of any individual will. Plato went so 
 far as to identify it with God, and thus founded his Ethics upon 
 an eternal principle. But in so doing he neither abandoned the 
 psychological standpoint of his school nor exhausted his doc- 
 trine by this conception alone. He we"nt on to show that virtue 
 consisted in the rational pursuit of this end, and the emphasis 
 which he placed upon wisdom or knowledge secures his alle- 
 giance to the Socratic movement, in spite of his excursion into 
 Metaphysics. In other words, man must consciously and ration- 
 would be put to some use ; the essence of his life would consist in doing 
 what he was good for. But again, it is easy to extend this view throughout 
 the whole region of organized life ; an eye that does not attain its end by 
 seeing is without the essence of an eye. In short, we say of all organs and 
 instruments, that they are what we think them in proportion as they fulfill 
 this function and attain their end : if, then, we conceive the whole universe 
 organically, as a complex arrangement of means to ends, we shall under- 
 stand how Plato might hold that all things really were, or ' realized their 
 idea,' in proportion as they accomplished the special end or good for which 
 they were adapted. But this special end, again, can only be really good so 
 far as it is related to the ultimate end or good of the whole, as one of the 
 means or particulars by or in which this is partially realized. If, then, the 
 essence or reality of each part of the organized world is to be found in its 
 particular end or good, the ultimate ground of all reality must be found in 
 the ultimate end or good of the universe. And if this is the ground of all 
 reality it must equally be the source of all guidance for human life ; for man, 
 as part and miniature of the Cosmos, can have no good, as he can have no 
 being, which is not derived from the good and being of the universe. Thus 
 Plato, without definitely abandoning the Socratic limitation of philosophy 
 to the study of human good, has deepened the conception of human good 
 until the quest of it takes in the earlier inquiry into the essential nature of 
 the external world from which Socrates turned away. Even Socrates, in 
 spite of his aversion to physics, was led by pious reflection to expound a 
 teleological view of the physical universe, as ordered in all its parts by 
 Divine Wisdom for the realization of some divine end ; what Plato did was 
 to identify this Divine End — conceived as the very Divine Being itself — 
 with the good that Socrates sought, of which the knowledge would solve all 
 the problems of human life." 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF ETHICAL PROBLEMS 29 
 
 ally pursue the end which nature has fixed for him as his high- 
 est good, in order to be moral. 
 
 For the realization of this good, Plato must assert the existence 
 of a soul and its immortality in opposition to the materialism of 
 Atomic, Heraclitic and Sophistic doctrines. The soul, however, 
 inhabits a body which is the seat of all sorts of conflicting desires 
 and impulses, each seeking its own satisfaction without regard to 
 others or to reason. It is the business of the moral life at least 
 to bring these into harmony, and hence accepting the general 
 judgment of the Greek consciousness that moderation was the 
 typical virtue (apjjiovia, GVfijjLETpia, jj.rjdev ayav, Godfypo- 
 (Tvvify jx^aoripy etc.) he sought by his psychology to 
 provide the principle by which this should be effected. 
 He assumed a twofold function of mind, the cognitive and 
 the regulative function, though he did not sharply dis- 
 tinguish between the two processes. The former was con- 
 cerned with knowledge, and the latter with the control of the 
 impulses, but the essential element of this control was that it 
 was rational, the effect of knowledge, and here appears the psy- 
 chological importance of knowledge in right conduct. The fol- 
 lowing scheme represents Plato's psychology : 
 
 Intellectual f g? djt * = f. e f ^ io P (Appearance). 
 , Pn ■.! x < ooza = Belief (Opinion), 
 cognitive; ^ k%i6ri mv = Knowledge (Intuition). 
 
 Regulative f ^ lQv /^ = Appetite (Desire). 
 ' dvjius = Impulse (Passion). 
 vov c, = Reason (Conscience). 
 
 Mental Powers 
 
 (Active) 
 
 In this scheme the terms in brackets represent the more liberal 
 translation of Plato's conception, and the others their modern 
 equivalents, as far as that is possible. Appetite refers to the 
 organic cravings which still go by that name : impulse, the higher 
 appetencies more closely related to reason, but not of it. Both 
 represent irrational desires, and must be under the domination 
 of reason, which is simply Plato's term for our idea of conscience. 
 Plato illustrates their relation by the celebrated myth of the 
 chariot, whose steeds were appetite and impulse, and whose 
 driver was reason. He represented the steeds as wild and 
 
30 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 unordered beings who were sure to dash the chariot to pieces and 
 to produce general ruin, unless they were directed by a wise and 
 intelligent charioteer. Such a functionary was reason. It was 
 the regulator and director of blind impulses, guiding them to 
 an intelligent end. 
 
 Though Plato thus distinguished between rational and irra- 
 tional conduct, the distinction does not coincide exactly with our 
 own similarly expressed, though we can trace the lineage of 
 present conceptions to a Paltonic origin. Rational and irrational 
 at present implies the contract between the voluntary and the 
 involuntary excellences or virtues, but Plato did not distinguish 
 between the natural and the acquired good qualities. Hence his 
 rational conduct was conscious as opposed to unconscious action, 
 but not necessarily deliberative as opposed to non-deliberative 
 action. It was reserved for Aristotle to analyze the problem at 
 this point more carefully. With Plato reason expressed less of 
 freedom and spontaneity than of merely intelligent activity. But 
 he drew, once for all, the distinction between conscious and 
 instinctive conduct, which was the difference between a knowledge 
 of the end we are seeking and purely blind unintelligent action. 
 He thus developed more clearly than Socrates the notion that 
 consciousness or intelligence is the first condition of responsible and 
 therefore of moral conduct. Plato did not say as much as this, 
 but his doctrine ultimately terminated in that conception of the 
 case, when rationality came to imply freedom and deliberation as 
 well as consciousness. 
 
 On the basis of this psychology Plato classified and determined 
 the character of the several virtues. He adopted the four 
 cardinal virtues of Greek tradition as the fundamental types of 
 morality, and placed wisdom at the head of the four. They 
 were Wisdom ((ppovr/(Ti5 or (Xocpia), Courage (avdpsia), Tem- 
 perance or Moderation {poocppoGvvij), and Justice or Upright- 
 ness (piKaioavvjf). In this classification a farther peculiar and 
 interesting analysis was attempted which prepared the way for 
 an important distinction by Aristotle, which still holds in the 
 science of Ethics. Plato has but three faculties, and he must find 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF ETHICAL PROBLEMS 31 
 
 the unity of these virtues within his scheme. On the one hand 
 Temperance is the virtue of appetite, and Courage the virtue of 
 impulse ; that is, they represent the right use and direction of 
 these desires. According to his conception, Wisdom is their 
 conditioning virtue, and must be their essential quality or 
 accompaniment. On the other hand, Justice is not disposed of 
 in the scheme. But it seems that at other times Plato makes 
 Justice or Uprightness the unity and principle of the others, 
 showing that his mind was not wholly clear as to the method of 
 unifying them by a single principle. But he vaguely anticipated 
 the distinction between knowledge as the good or object of the 
 intellect, and righteousness as the good or object of the will, the 
 distinction between knowledge and virtue which Socrates never 
 could admit. This only makes clear that Plato's conception of 
 virtue never went beyond the good, as an object of will or desire, 
 except as he obscurely caught a sight of what was meant by 
 justice or righteousness ; namely, a quality of will as opposed 
 to a quality of intellect. Had he distinguished between legality 
 and equity he might have clarified his views very considerably. 
 But he did determine once for all the conditioning effect of 
 knowledge or intelligence upon the direction of human impulses, 
 and thus showed how necessary it was to the attainment of 
 the good, and to the doctrine of responsibility as later de- 
 veloped. 
 
 The contributions of Plato to the ethical problem may be 
 summarized in the following manner : First, he made morality 
 to consist of conformity to reason, as opposed to impulse, on the 
 one hand, and to authority on the other. This conception re- 
 mains as a permanent contribution to the science. Second, he 
 founds morality upon the relations between action or law and 
 its end, and not upon the relation between law and its cause, and 
 hence originates that tendency which arises to substitute respect 
 for fear as the true motive to virtue. Both of these positions 
 show how Plato belongs to the psychological or subjective 
 school, though other characteristics take him out of it. Third, 
 he identifies the ultimate Good with God, and thus moves toward 
 
32 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 a doctrine of absorption, as found in Neo-Platonism. This is 
 the metaphysical and religious element in Plato's ethical theory. 
 Fourth, he reinforces the Pythagorian doctrine of immortality 
 as a moment or characteristic in ethical life and theory. He 
 thus made the present life a probation for another, and extended 
 the area of time and conditions affecting conduct. Fifth, he gave 
 a practical embodiment of his conceptions in an ideal of social 
 life, sacrificing the individual to the organism. In this his 
 politics and ethics were united. 
 
 3. The Aristotelian System. — The first fact of special in- 
 terest in Aristotle is that he wholly separates his Ethics from 
 Metaphysics, and in this way preserves intact the fundamental 
 principle and spirit of Socrates. Both his Ethics and his Poli- 
 tics are distinct from all of his metaphysical conceptions, and 
 hence we find him wholly departing from the religious ideas and 
 associations of the Platonic system. The doctrines of im- 
 mortality and of the ultimate end or good of the universe are 
 not touched upon as elements in an ethical theory. Hence he 
 stands only upon an anthropological and psychological founda- 
 tion. His ethical and his political theories represent that both 
 public and private action have the same object — namely, human 
 welfare or happiness ; but they employ different methods. His 
 first step in treating the subject is to maintain, at least by im- 
 plication, that all conduct obtains its merit or demerit from the 
 end sought. But he finds no occasion to assert this as a disproof 
 of theories of authority. He simply treats the fact as a truism. 
 The end, however, which he affirms to be the highest good is 
 well-being (evdaifiovia). He meant by this all that we mean 
 by happiness, and also the conditions of realizing it, or connected 
 with it. This happiness is not pleasure (?)dovrj), as con- 
 ceived by the Sophists, nor feeling as general pleasure, but a 
 state of being or perfection which would find pleasure or happi- 
 ness as one of its concomitants or consequences. Aristotle thus 
 becomes the founder of what may be called Perfectionism, or the 
 theory which makes perfection rather than mere feeling the 
 highest good. The chief improvement of ethical theory, how_ 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF ETHICAL PROBLEMS 33 
 
 ever, which he introduces, comes from his thorough psychological 
 analysis of the problem. 
 
 We have seen the paradox of Socrates concerning the iden- 
 tity of virtue and knowledge, the involuntary character of vice } 
 and the teachability of virtue. Though the way to solve them 
 should have been clear to Plato, he seems to have wholly failed 
 in the effort. He still mistook and exaggerated the nature of 
 wisdom as the good, and fluctuated between two opinions on the 
 question whether virtue could be taught or not. On the one hand, 
 was the common consciousness with which he sympathized, and 
 which thought that men could be educated in virtue. With this 
 Plato's acceptance of the Socratic doctrine agreed since he held 
 that men could be influenced by ideas. On the other hand, was his 
 doctrine of reminiscence, that knowledge was not produced, but 
 only called into clear consciousness by education, and also a wide- 
 spread conviction that a man's excellences were a constitutional 
 part of his possessions ; and hence between these two views Plato 
 came to no final decision. It was at this point that Aristotle began 
 his analysis. His first step was to distinguish between two kinds 
 of "virtue." These were natural and moral virtue. He could do 
 this because in Greek usage virtue (apstrj) denoted excellence, 
 good qualitj 7 , or perfection, and this might be something which 
 was a natural endowment of men, or it might be something ac- 
 quired by their habits. What Aristotle saw was the distinction 
 between things or natural qualities which we admire or dislike, 
 and moral qualities which we praise or condemn. Both of these 
 were confused in the common use of virtue or excellence. With 
 Socrates it meant any good, and knowledge was the highest form 
 of it. But Aristotle, observing that morality is concerned, mainly, 
 if not exclusively, with the distribution of praise and blame, dis- 
 tinguishes between those excellences which are a part of a man's 
 endowment, and those which are a product of his will. The moral 
 virtues are the latter ; and from Aristotle onward virtue, except in 
 a few sporadic phrases outside of Ethics, denotes a quality of will 
 or conduct — that is, it denotes' moral as opposed to natural excel- 
 lence. But while making moral excellence or virtue a product 
 
34 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 of will, lie does not consider it such when the person merely 
 happens to act casually in conformity with the good, but it must 
 be a habit of his actions. Thus, to be virtuous, a man's conduct 
 must be a law for him, the regular expression of his will, and in 
 this way Aristotle anticipates, though he does not develop, the 
 view that virtue or moral merit consists in action according to a 
 formal law, rather than the pursuit of momentary goods. The 
 important feature, however, of the doctrine is that he makes it a 
 habit rather than a faculty or endowed excellence, and in 
 this way he limits morality to the will, excluding it from all 
 the operations of the intellect, as such, and from all actions 
 or qualities considered as natural and as opposed to voluntary 
 events. But this step necessitates another. Following the Pla- 
 tonic conception of a number of impulses or desires struggling 
 for the mastery of the soul, all of which Aristotle assumes to be 
 natural instincts requiring the guidance of reason, he indicates, 
 in accordance with the common conception of moderation as the 
 chief virtue, that moral excellence consists in the mean between 
 the excessive and the deficient gratification of natural desires. 
 Here again we find morality defined by reference to the will rather 
 than to the intellect, and its whole character made the result of 
 control over irrational inclinations. Thus, his view is summar- 
 ized by Schwegler. "Virtue," Aristotle maintained, " is the 
 product of repeated moral action ; it is a quality won through 
 exercise, an acquired moral ability of the soul. The nature of 
 this ability may be characterized as follows : Every act accom- 
 plishes something as its work ; but a work is imperfect if either 
 in defect or excess. The act itself, therefore, will be similarly 
 imperfect either by defect or excess ; nor will an act be perfect 
 unless it attain to a right proportion to the due mean between 
 too much and too little. Virtue in general, then, may be defined 
 as observation of the due mean in action. But what is enough 
 or the mean for one man may not be so for another. The virtue 
 of a man is one thing, but that of a wife, a child, a slave, is quite 
 another. In like manner there must be consideration of time, cir- 
 cumstances and relations. Hence, only so far as there are certain 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF ETHICAL PROBLEMS 35 
 
 constant relations in life will it be possible to assign also certain 
 leading virtues. Our constant human relation, for example, is 
 that of pleasure and pain. The moral mean in this reference, 
 then, will be fortitude or courage, neither to fear pain nor to seek 
 it. The due mean in regard to pleasure, again, as between 
 apathy and greed, will be temperance. In social life the mean 
 between the doing and the suffering of wrong, between selfishness 
 and weakness, is justice." Throughout the whole scale of the vir- 
 tues, Aristotle endeavors to cany out his doctrine of the mean be- 
 tween excess and deficiency, which is only his phrase for what 
 Plato meant by the regulation of desire and impulse by reason, 
 while at the same time he exalted into a philosophic principle 
 the common adage about moderation {aoo^pocrvvi^ /^£(?6Tr?3, 
 firjdtv ayav). 
 
 But having distinguished between natural and acquired or 
 moral virtues, and limited the latter to phenomena of will, he 
 goes on to distinguish between the voluntary and involuntary 
 actions of man. This distinction is very intimately connected 
 with the former. If all excellences were alike, praise and blame 
 would have to be applied to all or excluded from all. But 
 having maintained that praise and blame attached only to moral 
 actions, respectively virtue and vice, he must farther distinguish 
 between voluntary and involuntary actions as a means of refu- 
 ting the Socratic claim that virtue or goodness was voluntary, 
 and vice or badness was involuntary. Aristotle made both 
 voluntary, and thus attached praise to virtue and blame to vice ; 
 while Socrates could only apply praise to virtue, but not blame 
 to vice. Aristotle thus excluded natural excellences, and invol- 
 untary actions from the proper province of Ethics. But he went 
 on to distinguish two kinds of voluntary actions — namely, the 
 impulsive and the deliberative. Involuntary acts are neither 
 praiseworthy nor blameworthy. Voluntary acts may be so, but 
 contain different degrees of iniputability, only those which are 
 deliberative being rational. Deliberative actions, he maintains, 
 represent a certain degree of intellectual maturity, and he rather 
 asserts that they are not found in animal life. In this way 
 
36 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 Aristotle endeavors to establish the fact that man is the cause of 
 his own actions, and that when he deliberates, is responsible for 
 them. We have in this position an elaborate analysis and ex- 
 planation of the freedom of the will — an analysis which remains 
 a permanent acquisition to philosophy, and represents a most 
 important step in advance of Plato. The latter seems never to 
 have carried freedom beyond the conception of mere " power of 
 self-motion," while the freedom that conditions imputability was 
 by Aristotle made deliberative, and the doctrine of moral re- 
 sponsibility placed upon a basis which it has retained ever since 
 with those who are not determinists. 
 
 In contrast with the moral virtues, Aristotle takes up the 
 intellectual, which are the natural excellences. These are 
 scientific capacity (Knowledge), artistic ability (Art), practical 
 insight (Prudence), genius (Wisdom), and moral insight (Reason 
 or Judgment). Judgment or reason he defines as the discern- 
 ment of what is equitable, and in this shows that he still used 
 the term reason to denote the source of ultimate truth and the 
 regulator of irrational impulses after the manner of Plato. 
 These virtues, however, Aristotle regards as conditioning the 
 moral virtues in their developed form, showing that, although he 
 originated the limitation of the moral virtues to the will, and 
 ultimately determined the limitation of the word "virtue" to 
 morality, he did not go so far as to make morality a matter of 
 mere will, as the idealists often do. But he departed far enough 
 from his masters to abandon the notion that knowledge was the 
 essence of virtue, and affirmed that it was the condition of it ; 
 while the tendency to confine morality to the phenomena of 
 volition ultimately terminated in a theory that it consisted in 
 " good will " alone. 
 
 In the treatment of Justice (diKaio6vvrf) Aristotle also 
 introduces a distinction. Plato makes no important difference 
 between legality and equity. Aristotle draws this line very 
 carefully and clearly. He divides justice into civil justice, or 
 legality, and moral justice or equity. The object of both is the 
 same, but the means of attaining it are different. The agency 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF ETHICAL PROBLEMS 37 
 
 for securing civil justice is government or law; for securing 
 moral justice, it is good will or fairness. This distinction de- 
 velops into the separation of Ethics and Politics, which was tol- 
 erably well effected by Aristotle. It represents the distinction 
 between subjective and objective goodness. But as this contrast 
 was not more than hinted at by the Greeks in general, or by 
 Aristotle in particular, we can only allude to it as in the germ 
 in the thought of this master. Besides, it fixes for all time the 
 distinction between law and equity, and so determines the fact 
 that politics must ultimately obtain its authority from ethics, 
 which, in the last resort, appeals to reason and not to convention. 
 Here we find the principle of both Socrates and Plato, and a 
 refutation of the Sophistic doctrine, in that the real question does 
 not concern the origin of positive law, but the ground of its 
 validity, its equity. 
 
 When Aristotle comes to assign the life that represents the 
 ideal good to be striven for, he makes it the contemplative life, 
 and in this he remains true to the Socratic conception of the 
 place occupied by wisdom in the scale of virtue or good. Plato 
 had distinguished between the pure and the mixed pleasures, 
 placing the latter much lower in the scale of ends, and connected 
 the pure and unmixed pleasures with the activities of the intel- 
 lect. The fact also that he made the philosopher the ruler of his 
 Republic, and exalted the speculative life above all others, ex- 
 plains how Aristotle merely follows in his master's footsteps in 
 making the contemplative life the true one for realizing the 
 highest good. This was idealizing the function of science and 
 philosophy. But after all it only reflects the natural impulse of 
 all the higher intellects of Greece, so one-sided and exaggerated 
 in Neo-Platonism, and was a prominent characteristic in the ar- 
 istocratic and national -tastes of the race. It was the apotheosis 
 of knowledge, and the shadows of that influence still extend over 
 all countries where Greek conceptions have determined their 
 culture. 
 
 Aristotle's Ethics may be summarized in the following proposi- 
 tions: First, he separates Metaphysics and Ethics. Second, he 
 
38 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 repudiates pleasure, and accepts well-being or perfection as the 
 summum bonum. Third, he distinguished between intellectual or 
 natural, and moral excellence, making morality a habit of will 
 instead of a quality of intellect pr nature. Fourth, he distin- 
 guished between voluntary or conscious, and involuntary or un- 
 conscious action, and between impulsive and deliberative action, 
 so as to develop a complete theory of freedom and responsibility. 
 Fifth, he resolved all virtue into a mean between excess and de- 
 ficiency, showing how reason (conscience) regulates the impulses 
 toward either of these extremes. Sixth, he distinguished between 
 justice and equity, separating Ethics and Politics, though condi- 
 tioning the rights of the latter upon the former, and thus displaced 
 the doctrine of convention. Seventh, his practical application 
 of the ideal was placed in the contemplative life, reflecting the 
 spirit of his race, and probably the consciousness of the political 
 decline of his age, when democracy made it impossible for the 
 noblest men to engage in politics. This is the continuance of 
 that retirement from the world which was taught by Plato, en- 
 couraged by the Stoics, and made a religion by Neo-Platonism. 
 It was the asceticism of Plato, without the metaphysics, that 
 conditioned it. 
 
 3d- Post-Aristotelian Ethics. — There are three schools repre- 
 senting this period : the Stoic, the Epicurean and the Neo-Pla- 
 tonic, but all characterized by a reversion to the method of look- 
 ing to an external order for determining the maxims of morality 
 though not wholly abandoning psychological analysis of the 
 problem. The Epicureans, however, in the choice of the end of 
 conduct remained faithful to the psychological standpoint in as 
 much as they made it pleasure. But they had a distinct regard 
 to the external order in determining the means to this end. The 
 other two schools emphasized, one of them conformity to the ideal 
 order of nature, and the other, ecstasy or absorption in the abso- 
 lute. The whole period was characterized by the decline of po- 
 litical and social life. Athens had been conquered first by 
 Sparta and then by Macedonia, both of which represented an 
 inferior civilization. The old religious system and beliefs had 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF ETHICAL PROBLEMS 39 
 
 crumbled into ashes at the touch of scepticism, and thus, the 
 passing of that brilliant period of culture with the commercial, 
 literary and political system which it had built, was followed by 
 general anarchy, the want of all moral restraint, which made it 
 impossible for the sage or the wise man to live contentedly in the 
 midst of it. The nobler intellectual spirits, therefore, sought 
 their highest good in withdrawal from all participation in polit- 
 ical life — the Stoics because of their contempt for its baseness, the 
 Epicureans because, on the one hand, the intellectual life was 
 incompatible with it, and on the other, their individualistic and 
 egotistic Ethics required every man to secure pleasure or happiness 
 for himself; and the Neo-Platonists, because they thought the 
 world unworthy of them, and must seek their good in religious 
 ecstasy. Two schools were thus decidedly ascetic in their ethical 
 ideals, and the other more free, terminating in libertinism, though 
 its first representatives taught and practiced self-control as the 
 condition of the greatest possible amount of happiness. 
 
 1. The Stoics. — The starting point of stoic Ethics was in 
 their system of physics or metaphysics, which was a kind of 
 materialistic pantheism, owing to the fact that they could not 
 comprehend an idealistic view of the world. Following Aris- 
 totle, they had imposed so much confidence in the deliverances 
 of sense that the antithesis between the subjective and objective, 
 hinted at in Democritus and the sceptics could not be appreci- 
 ated, and hence the unity which they found in the world was 
 materialistically conceived. This did not prevent them from 
 conceiving it as the embodiment of reason. Reason was itself a 
 fine fiery ether, and differed from other elements only in the 
 supremacy of its nature and of its power in regulating the 
 order of the world. All nature was its expression, as a univer- 
 sal rational order. Hence reason and nature were practically 
 one in their value and significance for man. In their Ethics, 
 therefore, following the formula of Plato, the highest duty of man 
 was confo?'mity to nature or reason, whether this nature or rea- 
 son be viewed in the world or in man. Looking upon the uni= 
 verse as a divine order, they could assert that man's supreme 
 
40 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 good lay in adj ustment to that order, imitation of its harmony, 
 submission to its law, and lookiDg upon man as a group of con- 
 flicting forces, of which reason wag the higher and better, they 
 could admonish him to follow reason and to free himself from 
 the slavery of passion. Both of these features are decidedly 
 Platonic, one being metaphysical and the other psychological in 
 conception, and as man was only a part of nature the same for- 
 mula applied to both of them. The life according to reason was 
 the life according to nature. 
 
 The highest good according to the Stoics was virtue. This 
 seems a strange formula to modern thought, but it has a mean- 
 ing much different from what might be supposed. The highest 
 good must be an end, while virtue to our minds expresses a 
 quality of will in reference to an end other than itself. It 
 would therefore seem strange to say that virtue is the summum 
 bonum, as if a quality of will could exist in reference to itself 
 alone and without reference to any other end. The stoical for- 
 mula, therefore, seems paradoxical. But the many sided meaning 
 of the Greek idea of virtue (aperr?), makes possible a conception 
 not suggested by the modern narrower import. In Greek it 
 denoted variously "good," which might denote either an end or 
 a quality of will, "excellence" or perfection, a quality of being, 
 and moral merit or " virtue," which we now limit to the will. 
 The second of these meanings removes the paradoxical nature of 
 the formula, and hence if we regard the Stoics as holding with 
 Aristotle, that the highest good is perfection, we can both under- 
 stand their maxims and the relation of their doctrine to both 
 the Socratics and the Epicureans. It was moral perfection, but 
 it had reference to a state or quality of being, rather than an 
 abstract quality of action, and virtue is a quality of action in 
 reference to an end, and so cannot be made an absolute ; per- 
 fection, is an end and may be ultimate. Hence, from this we 
 may see how the Stoics could regard " virtue " as the highest 
 good. This opposition to Epicureanism is perfectly intelligible 
 in this conception : otherwise it is not. But in saying that vir- 
 tue is the highest good they did not mean to say that pleasure 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF ETHICAL PROBLEMS 41 
 
 should be eschewed. They admitted that this might be the 
 wise and good man's reward, the consequence of pursuing virtue 
 or perfection, but it was not to be the object of moral volition. 
 Indeed, the good man showed his superiority by his indifference 
 to it, by his ability to do without it. So careful was the Stoic to 
 exclude pleasure from all consideration, even as an accident of 
 virtue, that he maintained the ideal life to be one of tranquility 
 (arapa^ia), freedom from excitement either of pleasure or 
 pain, a life of- calm and repose, but always of composure and 
 endurance, if pain was unavoidable, because it was not in its 
 nature an evil. Pain was neither to be feared nor despised, any 
 more than pleasure w T as to be desired. Both were to be treated 
 as matters of indifference. 
 
 In regard to wisdom or knowledge the Stoic does not remain 
 on the Socratic platform. He does not regard knowledge as a 
 good in itself: he considers it merely as a means to an end and 
 so subordinates it entirely to practical and ethical purposes. 
 This position is quite in the direction of the view that morality is 
 a product of the will and not of the intellect. That is to say, the 
 Stoics follow out the impulse given by Aristotle's distinction 
 between intellectual and moral excellence, and make morality to 
 consist in strength and activity of will. That mental character- 
 istic of Socrates, of which he never seemed conscious, namely, 
 strength of will, and which the Cynics exalted into a principle of 
 Ethics, the Stoics came to regard as the fundamental characteristic 
 of virtue as moral excellence, and as the only condition, on the 
 -one hand, of adjustment to the world and its divine order, and 
 on the other, of control over the influence of passion. In this 
 view they practically emphasized the part played by the will and 
 what we should call moral courage in the conception of the 
 function of conscience. They admitted the strength of the 
 emotions, instincts or passions, but urged the necessity of over- 
 coming them by reason, if the law of nature was to be obeyed or 
 respected. Though they thus laid the foundation, they did not 
 develop a doctrine of conscience. 
 
 Other aspects of the Stoic Ethics were natural consequences of 
 
42 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 the main theory. For instance, the emphasis laid upon virtue as 
 the good and its alliance with the will, led to the doctrine that 
 the motive or intention was sufficient to sanctify conduct. This 
 notion grew out of the distinction between perfect and imperfect 
 duties, the former being absolute and the latter conditional. The 
 only perfect duty, however, was the will or wish to do the good. 
 This was an anticipation of the modern doctrine that virtue con- 
 sists in " good- will." 
 
 From this view, and the relation of the wise man to the course 
 of nature, came the Stoic theory of determinism. They required 
 of man absolute resignation to nature or God : he must think 
 God's will better than his own will, " that there is only one way 
 to happiness and independence, that of willing nothing except 
 what is in the nature of things, and what will realize itself 
 independently of our will." This determinism, however, only 
 affected the external choice of man, not his internal disposition, 
 which remained free. If the order of the world did not permit 
 perfect freedom in the satisfaction of desire, it also did not pre- 
 vent the good will from realizing the proper attitude of feeling 
 toward that order, and herein consisted man's freedom. This 
 distinction between man's internal and external freedom was a 
 farther analysis of the ethical problem than Aristotle had 
 attempted, and it especially expresses the conflict felt by a high 
 moral consciousness between itself and the unbe'nding course of 
 natural law and the hard social conditions of the time, though it 
 also probably expresses a conflict between desire and what reason 
 enjoins as a duty. At any rate, in their doctrine of modified 
 determinism, we have the strong consciousness of the limitations 
 upon man's power, and his duty to conform his will to them. The 
 same doctrine appears more fully developed in later Christianity. 
 
 One other doctrine has some interest, and this is the universal 
 brotherhood of men, without distinction of nationality, which 
 they founded on his common fatherhood. They did not, how- 
 ever, disapprove of slavery, which would seem the natural con- 
 sequence of their position. But this was probably due to several 
 circumstances : First, a system of slavery which permitted of an 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF ETHICAL PROBLEMS 43 
 
 Epictetus was not likely to be felt as an evil. Second, as internal 
 freedom could not be affected by the servitude of the body, and 
 was all that was in reality desirable, there was nothing to excite 
 the opposition of the Stoic. Third, it was not equality for which 
 the Stoics contended, but brotherly and harmonious relations 
 between fellow-men, and they saw nothing in the nature of slavery, 
 or the subjection of one man to another, inconsistent with this, 
 especially as his own highest duty was to live in subjection to 
 the universal law of nature. Slavery, therefore, could not appear 
 as an evil to the Stoic. * 
 
 The distinctive characteristics of Stoic morality may be 
 summed up in the following paragraphs : First, morality is con- 
 formity to nature or reason, whether we regard it in man or in 
 the world. Second, virtue is the highest good, and this represents 
 good will as the motive or attitude of reason, and perfection as 
 the end. Third, wisdom is not an absolute good or end in itself, 
 but a means to virtue, being thus subordinated wholly to practical 
 purposes. Fourth,, the intention or motive is the essential 
 element of morality. Fifth, man's freedom is limited to internal 
 choice, his dependence upon the course of nature restricting the 
 satisfaction of desire to the government of reason. Sixth, all 
 men belong to the same brotherhood, and national boundries 
 should give way to a federal life more after the type of the family. 
 
 2. The Epicureans. — The philosophy of Epicurus and his 
 school has three sources. Its physics and metaphysics originate 
 in the atomism of Democritus, its negation of religion and 
 theology in the scepticism of the Sophists, and its Ethics in 
 the doctrine of the Cyrenaics. The three influences were welded 
 together to form a compact and consistent whole. The one 
 primary motive which seems to have dominated the school was 
 the desire to overcome the sense of supernaturalism and religious 
 fear, and thus to establish that mental calm and poise which 
 were essential alike to the perception of truth, the performance 
 of virtue and the attainment of happiness. Hence they resorted 
 to purely physical explanations of things. Their materialism, 
 this being embodied in the atomic theory, was designed to remove 
 
44 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 all belief in the causal interference of the divine in things, and 
 with it the fear that kept men in subjection to arbitrary laws and 
 prevented their free pursuit of pleasure. They rather inconsis- 
 tently admitted the existence of the gods, but placed them in the 
 intermundia, or interspaces of the world, where they could 
 exercise no influence upon the course of it. For this reason 
 there was no ground to fear their power to harm man or to 
 interfere with the freedom of his life. 
 
 Having emancipated the human will presumably from super- 
 stition and fear of the gods, the next step was to determine the 
 principles of morality, which were, of course, placed in the enjoy- 
 ment of this liberty. As with the Socratic and Stoic schools the 
 first thing . to settle was the highest good, and this they boldly 
 made to be pleasure, thus adopting the ethic of ends as opposed 
 to authority. But they did not accept sensual pleasure as ful- 
 filling the terms of the problem though they conceived pleasure 
 only in reference to sense. The distinction drawn by Plato and 
 Aristotle, on the one hand between intellectual and sensuous 
 pleasures, and on the other between pure and mixed pleasures, 
 with the implied substitution of remote for momentary satisfac- 
 tion, was not without its influence upon this school. For it made 
 intellectual pleasure the type of good to be sought by the wise 
 man, and made knowledge and self-control essential means to 
 this end. Like the Stoics, therefore, thy subordinated knowledge 
 to practical objects. This inclination went so far that they 
 valued the study of physical phenomena only for their tendency 
 to banish religion and superstition. No such interest as the 
 Stoics displayed in science on its own account was maintained by 
 the Epicureans. Scientific knowledge was estimated solely 
 according to its utility, or power to contribute to a happy life. 
 In this way the whole philosophy of the Epicureans was con- 
 centrated in their morality. 
 
 The first object, therefore, which the school had to determine 
 was the highest good, the ultimate end of desire, to which every- 
 thing else was subordinate as a means. 'This they uniformly 
 made pleasure, though they were not always consistent in their 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF ETHICAL PROBLEMS 45 
 
 assertions of what was to be regarded as pleasure. In one thing, 
 however, they were unfailing and consistent, and this was their 
 invariable denial of the Stoic formula which made virtue or ex- 
 cellence the ultimate end. Hence they did not look upon virtue 
 as something to be sought on its own account, but only on 
 account of pleasure or happiness. They never conceived the 
 two as separable. They agreed that virtue and happiness were 
 invariably connected, but asserted that virtue was only a means 
 to happiness, and not an end in itself. The Stoic had said that 
 virtue or excellence was the end and happiness its consequence 
 or concomitant, though not a means to it. On the other hand, 
 the Epicurean asserted that virtue was only the means and hap- 
 piness the end of conduct, and thus marked an irreconcilable 
 opposition between the two points of view. The effect of this 
 was to subordinate everything else in life to the pursuit of 
 pleasure. "We have, then, in the school, the predecessors of 
 modern Utilitarianism, at least in so far as happiness is taken as 
 the criterion of what is right. The important difference between 
 the ancient and modern form of the theory, however, is that the 
 Epicureans were wholly egoistic, and modern Utilitarians are 
 mainly altruistic in their conception of the matter. The differ- 
 ence is also embodied in the opposition between Individualism 
 and Socialism, the later being taken in the sense of voluntary 
 co-operation to attain a common end. 
 
 The main features of the Epicurean ethics are occupied like 
 that of the Stoics, with a description of the wise man, a method 
 that was unconscious testimony to the imperfectly developed 
 condition of the general moral consciousness. This aside, how- 
 ever, their conception of the wise man, drawn from the domi- 
 nant spirit of the Socratic movement, was that of a person who 
 successfully and prudently steered a middle course between 
 passion and asceticism. His object was his own pleasure or 
 happiness, and every arrangement of life, marriage, friends, 
 political duties, personal habits, occupation, etc., were sacrificed, 
 or at least made to bend, to this one aim. Though various 
 members of the school did not always agree as to the form which 
 
46 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 this pleasure should take, some holding that it was sensuous and 
 some intellectual, they were agreed that the end was pleasure 
 rather than perfection, excellence or virtue. The agreement 
 was still further made clear in the fact that the devotees of 
 intellectual pleasure gave this an ultimate reference to' the 
 sensuous. Their ideal of happiness comprehended the past and 
 the future. Their intellectual pleasures, so far from being 
 opposed to the sensuous, were merely the contemplation of past 
 sensuous pleasures, the anticipation of future, and the regulation 
 of life so as to sacrifice merely momentary to more remote and 
 permanent pleasures. It was this that marked the advance of 
 the school upon the Cyrenaics, and more especially determines 
 the rational and reflective character of its system. "The 
 Cyrenaic was a buoyant and self-reliant nature, who lived in the 
 light of a grander day in Greece, and he plucked pleasures care- 
 lessly and lightly from the trees in the garden of life as he 
 passed through on his journey, without anxiety for the future 
 or regret for the past. The sage of Epicureanism is a rational 
 and reflective seeker for happiness, who balances the claims of 
 each pleasure against the evils that may possibly ensue, and 
 treads the path of enjoyment cautiously, as befits ' a sober reason 
 which inquires diligently into the grounds of acting or refrain- 
 ing from action, and which banishes those prejudices from which 
 spring the chief perturbation of the soul.' " This peculiarity 
 shows that the school had advanced beyond the most simple 
 form of Hedonism and had discovered the necessity of some 
 sacrifice, if only of the pleasures of the moment, in order to 
 attain the ideal or greatest amount of happiness, though it re- 
 quired the development of later ages to extend the idea of sacri- 
 fice from that of the present for the future to that of personal for 
 social good. The Epicureans, therefore, stand between pure and 
 unreflective Egoism, and universalistic, or altruistic Hedonism. 
 The concession made to self-sacrifice, however, was an unconscious 
 one, and purely selfish in its nature, though it involved a train- 
 ing of consciousness in habits of self-control which would be felt 
 on life in a way probably not intended. 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF ETHICAL PROBLEMS 47 
 
 When the school came to define what it meant by happiness, it 
 seems less removed from the views of preceding schools than is at 
 first apparent. Pleasure was usually conceived as a positive and 
 agreeable sensation or excitement of mind, "a motion" of the 
 soul. But the Epicureans along with the Stoics deprecated the 
 violence of those states which were so denominated, and regarded 
 them rather as accompaniments of intemperate gratifications, and 
 hence defined the happiness of the wise man as tranquillity or re- 
 pose (at a patriot), indifference to passionate enjoyment, on the 
 one hand, and to his destiny in the universe on the other. There 
 is a touch of Stoicism in this attitude. But its ascetic character 
 is eliminated by the fact the Epicurean thought the highest pleas- 
 ures were obtained by securing the absence of pain, and thus he 
 could still emphasize happiness as the most desirable condition for 
 the pursuit of life. But even this repose did not suppress the 
 interest in positive pleasures which were so much the object of 
 praise and expectation that the development of the school lost 
 sight of the limitations prescribed by the founder to legitimate 
 excitement and became a by- word for voluptuousness. Its 
 definition of happiness as repose did protect its tendencies against 
 the reputation which history and tradition have ascribed to it ; 
 while the motives to which it appealed, the particular ideals 
 which it exalted, and the pleasures which it pursued, gave 
 a coloring to the system which no paradoxes of definition 
 could remove. Hence the school will always be known as 
 the antithesis of Stoicism and the advocate of hedonistic 
 Ethics. 
 
 The summarized doctrine of the school is as follows : First, 
 its interest in physical science and philosophic knowledge only as 
 a means of eliminating superstition and of increasing the amount 
 of happiness attainable in life. Second, its uncompromising 
 antagonism to religious beliefs. Third, the doctrine that the 
 highest good is pleasure to which virtue and all else are subor- 
 dinated as means. Fourth, the distinction between intellectual 
 and sensuous pleasures, not as different in kind, for ultimately all 
 pleasures were the same, but as different in the mode and time of 
 
48 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 their ffcalization, the former having for their object the higher 
 aesthetic enjoyments of life. 
 
 The general development of the school was in the direction of 
 scepticism and passed out with that intellectual movement. 
 The decline of Greek civilization involved Epicureanism as one of 
 its first victims, and there remained to continue the struggle for 
 moral consciousness, only the Neo-Platonists whose thought and 
 influence extended into the Christian period until Justinian 
 closed the school of Athens in 529 A. d. From that time they 
 were superseded by Christianity. 
 
 3. The Neo-Platonists. — Neo-Platonism was a mixture of 
 philosophy and religion ; the former being defective in scientific 
 spirit and method and the latter in any definite notions of per- 
 sonality. Its peculiar character is best described by calling it a 
 system of theosophy, combining oriental theurgy and Hellenic 
 naturalism ; that is to say, oriental mysticism, magic and myths 
 were mingled, sometimes in a literal way, and sometimes allegor- 
 ically, with the philosophic spirit of Greek thought, and a kind 
 of spiritualistic pantheism was the outcome. We find this in 
 Ammonius Saccas, Proclus, Plotinus, Jamblichus, Porphyry, 
 Philo Judseus and others. The whole movement represented a 
 completely ascetic retirement from the general spirit of Greek 
 social and political activity though clinging to the intellectual 
 ideals of its best days. The speculative or contemplative life, so 
 much exalted by Plato and Aristotle, was developed out of 
 all proportion to its proper place until it passed into the monks 
 idolatry of seclusion from the world. In its first and -metaphys- 
 ical impulse it was a search for the Absolute, and absolute knowl- 
 edge. In this it was the foil of the scepticism which rivalled it 
 for the conquest of the age, and represented the last, and perhaps 
 despairing, effort to secure a foot-hold for truth. This Absolute 
 was thought, the pure intuition of reason, which was the ultimate 
 and common essence of all intelligence, no individual being more 
 than an emanation from it — "a light sparkle floating in the 
 ether of Deity " — and thus represented the unity of all things. 
 It was, of course, above matter and endowed with divine attri- 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF ETHICAL PROBLEMS 49 
 
 butes, though no conceptions of man could adequately define it. 
 They could only figuratively describe it, so that it remained 
 perfect and divine, but incomprehensible, unspeakable and tran- 
 scendent. 
 
 It was this ineffable distance of the divine essence from man and 
 the hopeless decay of Greek civilization that gave of them, the 
 religious and the other, the ascetic tone of Neo-Platonic Ethics. 
 Disappointment with the world made the Neo-Platonist a recluse, 
 and the consciousness of the immeasurable distance of the divine, or 
 the ideal vastly beyond the reach of sense and the imagination, 
 made him a devotee. His philosophy was a bold idealism, the last 
 refuge of the revolt against skepticism, and thus cutting himself 
 off from the world, and aspiring to become what his reason told 
 him Avas the highest object of hope and contemplation, his life 
 became oneof ecstasy, a ceaseless contemplation of the absolute. 
 Thus his Philosophy and Ethics were one, a belief and a religious 
 absorption in the absolute. Its whole mood was, therefore, a 
 religion, with the ineffable purity of God in front and man's 
 imperfection in the background. There was no theory of moral- 
 ity as we find it in the saner traditions of Greek life, but only 
 moral and religious ecstasy, which we find reproduced or repre- 
 sented in the monasticism of later times and in the oriental devo- 
 tees of that and earlier periods. It was a mood that aimed at 
 the purification of life from the carnality of the flesh. The 
 material world and embodiment of the soul were despised and all 
 the aspirations were directed to purifying the soul from its con- 
 tact with the world. The system thus lent itself very readily to 
 the presuppositions of Judaistic thought, connected with its sacri- 
 ficial and ceremonial worship, and in this way influenced and 
 was influenced by the movement embodied in Christianity. 
 The ethical consciousness' turned away from the world to seek its 
 object in the supersensual, contrary to the main trend of Greek 
 life, and once more substituted the religious for the scientific 
 mode of thought. This explains its ascetic character and shows 
 why its ethical tendencies were not only subjective, but also of 
 the contemplative rather than the active sort. It was emo- 
 
50 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 • 
 tional rather than volitional, and took its coloring from 
 
 metaphysical interests rather than from social conditions and 
 
 aims. 
 
 The main points which summarize Neo-Platonic teaching are 
 as follows : First, a system of metaphysical absolutism arising 
 as a revolt against scepticism. Second, a spirit of religious 
 ecstasy which aimed at emancipation from the bonds of the flesh, 
 or material existence. Third, an ascetic withdrawal from all 
 social and political life as it then existed. Fourth, a conception 
 of the complete contrast between the imperfections of man on the 
 material side and the perfection of the divine, which could be 
 overcome only by a ceaseless occupation with the divine. Thus 
 the highest ethical aim becomes the apprehension of the divine. 
 Reflection instead of action is consequently the form which its 
 morality takes. 
 
 77. MEDIEVAL ETHICS.— This movement of ethical re- 
 flection may be said to begin with Christianity, though it more 
 accurately describes the thought of the 9th and 15th centuries 
 inclusively. But as the main impulse comes irom Christianity, 
 the movement must be traced to that origin, with such elements 
 as were imported into it from contact with Greek philosophy. 
 The main characteristics of the whole period are the religious 
 source and coloring of the moral consciousness, with the authority 
 for its mandates in the divine will and revelation. Its object 
 was man's redemption and the glory of God. The whole move- 
 ment was conceived from the standpoint of man's relation to God 
 and the hereafter, all immediately human affairs being subordin- 
 ated to this. It rapidly developed a philosophy or theology 
 and modified the purely religious features by speculative consid- 
 erations, which also became complicated with the political and 
 ecclesiastical interests of the age. Hence, we shall have to recog- 
 nize three different periods of its development, characterizing 
 the predominance of distinct elements in the system. These we 
 shall call Primitive Christianity, Philosophic Christianity, and 
 Ecclesiastical Christianity. Each one of these forms must be 
 considered separately. 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF ETHICAL PROBLEMS 51 
 
 1st. Primitive Christianity. — This took its rise in the general 
 social, moral and religious chaos reigning throughout Rome, 
 Greece and Palestine. But, unlike Neo-Platonism, it did not 
 counsel monastic withdrawal from the world ; nor did it return 
 to the Platonic and Aristotelian system of direct participation in 
 political life. It was at the outset neither a system of meta- 
 physics about man's hopeless entanglement in the bonds of sense, 
 nor a theory for the political regeneration of the age. It was 
 rather a return to the better elements of Judaism and changed 
 the method of regeneration from the reflective to the practical, on 
 the one hand, and from the social 'to the individual, on the other. 
 Greek thought expected moral and political redemption, the one 
 from philosophy and the other from government. Christianity 
 expected to realize both from the individual practice of religion 
 and humanity, religion consisting in reverence for God's law and 
 humanity in the treatment of fellow-men as brothers. 
 
 The Founder of Christianity did not teach either a philosophy 
 or a theology. Some assumptions, wholly Judaistic, were made 
 about the existence and fatherhood of God, but no dogmas were 
 propounded, and nothing like proof of either of them. He did 
 not seem to have ever been aware that scepticism regarding 
 them was possible. Hence he did not premise them as philoso- 
 phic conditions of his doctrine, but proceeded to offer the world 
 regeneration by changing the heart and will of the individual, 
 He simply ignored every form of philosophy, whether Juda- 
 istic or Hellenic, and more particularly the political hopes and 
 ideals of his own race. He taught that each man was to be just 
 to every other man, that all had a common father, and that they 
 should live in peace with each other. The kingdom of God, 
 which had been conceived as a political and ecclesiastical hier- 
 archy, he taught was a condition of the individual heart and will, 
 a feeling of human brotherhood, and so implied that whatever 
 social advancement was attainable must be established by the 
 moralization of the individual. The individual he sought to 
 regenerate by awakening in him the springs of love to God and 
 love to man, and this was to be effected hy giving his own life 
 
52 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS, 
 
 and service to man and his welfare. Greek morality in both 
 the theological and political stages appealed to fear as the means 
 of affecting conduct, the founder of Christianity appealed to love, 
 and expected thereby to moralize the will as well as conduct. It 
 is this, the correlate of the idea of human brotherhood, that marks 
 the contrast between Christian and Hellenic morality and so 
 indicates the new principle which was to characterize the later 
 moral consciousness. It was the first emphatic recognition, 
 though not theoretically asserted, that morality is internal as well 
 as external, that the good will is the only permanent guarantee 
 of fight moral relations in the world. This teaching was especi- 
 ally embodied in the " Sermon on the Mount," and abounds iu 
 numerous maxims throughout the Gospels. It is summarized in 
 a statement which rivals Kant's celebrated formula and contains 
 essentially the same meaning : " Whatsoever ye would that men 
 should do unto you, even so do ye unto them." The example, 
 purity, and enthusiasm of the master soon attracted disciples, and 
 the doctrine took an organized form. The master was looked upon 
 as the Messiah who was to deliver his people from bondage and 
 .restore the kingdom of Israel. The novelty of his doctrine con- 
 sisted in the clearness with which he developed the teaching of 
 the prophets while utilizing the national aspirations to give it 
 force and power. His followers thus became imbued with his 
 mission, and between moral insight into his doctrine and faith in 
 his personality, they saw in him the long looked for Messiah. 
 During his life, however, his disciples gave his person and teach- 
 ing mainly a moral and a political meaning with a religious 
 background. But the crisis of his crucifixion and death, with the 
 disappointments which it brought, transformed the whole system 
 into a religion pure and simple, with its morality subordinated to 
 the end of spiritual rather than social regeneration. The burden 
 of his original teaching rested upon two conceptions, the father- 
 hood of God and the brotherhood of man, and represented the 
 " kingdom of heaven" after the type of the family. But his death, 
 without wholly changing the formula of his teaching, very greatly 
 modified its meaning. First, Judaistic and then Hellenic con- 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF ETHICAL PROBLEMS 53 
 
 ceptions, floating in the common consciousness of the age, attached 
 themselves to the fundamental propositions of the Christian church 
 and gave its doctrine a new and deeper religious import. The 
 Judaistic conception of the Messiah, as a savior of the nation, its 
 doctrine of sacrifices, and of sin with its alienation from God com- 
 bined to change the conception of man's relation to his creator. 
 They added the idea of sovereignty to that of the fatherhood of 
 God, and produced the doctrine of vicarious atonement for sin. 
 These are especially prominent in the Gospel of St. John and the 
 Epistles of St. Paul. The conception of the brotherhood of man 
 remained unchanged. The disappointment at the failure to im- 
 mediately realize the " kingdom of heaven " transformed that con- 
 ception into an ideal paradisaic existence after death, and modi- 
 fied the motive of righteousness by uniting individual interest with 
 the injunctions of religion. Summarized, therefore, Christianity 
 was from the outset a doctrine of salvation. Like Neo-Platonism 
 it was for the salvation of the individual, but unlike the same 
 system it involved distinctly Judaistic elements and expected to 
 regenerate social life through this agency, reversing the traditions 
 of Greek thought. This salvation took on an extended meaning 
 when it was made to comprehend reconciliation with God as Well 
 as man, and spiritual perfection in an existence beyond the grave. 
 Man's moral consciousness was thus directed to the propitiation of 
 his Maker, on the one hand, and to the duties which would se- 
 cure him a blissful immortality on the other ; both of these con- 
 ditions comprehended right relations with his fellows. In this 
 way Christianity retained the strength of its original impulse. 
 
 This primitive movement may be summarized in the following* 
 conceptions. It is divided into two stages. First, a spiritual as 
 opposed to the political conception of the Messiah. Second, the 
 moral regeneration of the individual as the first step in social 
 salvation, or the realization of " the kingdom of heaven." Third, 
 the Judaistic doctrine of the fatherhood of God. Fourth, the 
 extension of the brotherhood of man first beyond the limits of 
 sects and classes, and then to comprehend all nations. Fifth, the 
 inculcation of loTe in opposition to fear as the means to right 
 
54 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 conduct or the establishment of the right relations between differ- 
 ent personalities, whether divine or human. This love took the 
 form of " good will" to man (benevolence), and gratitude and 
 reverence toward God (worship). The second stage involves 
 some modification of the original conception. First, the 
 sovereignty as well as the fatherhood of God. Second, a sense 
 of sin or alienation from God. Third, salvation or recon- 
 ciliation with God by means of vicarious atonement. Fourth, 
 the immortality of the soul and the realization of "the 
 kingdom of heaven" after death. 
 
 The moral consciousness was profoundly transfigured by all of 
 these ideas. Religious sentiment and philanthropic impulse com- 
 bined to give a new motive to conduct and morality became an 
 expression of personal character as well as conformity to law. It 
 was intensely practical and in this respect was opposed to the 
 speculative life of Hellenic thought. The second general period 
 however modified this tendency. 
 
 2d. Philosophic Christianity — Traces of this development 
 are very distinct in the tendency to import philosophic Judaism 
 into Christian doctrine. This is especially true of St. Paul's 
 teaching, while both Hellenic and Judaistic elements are notice- 
 able in the doctrines of St. John. The Pauline doctrine consisted 
 of man's natural depravity, his alienation from God, sacrificial 
 atonement, and justification by faith : the Johannine contribution 
 was mainly the doctrine of the Logos, sacrificial atonement and 
 brotherly love. The first two were the philosophical and the 
 last the ethical element. The doctrine of the Logos was 
 the Hellenic element introduced to rationalize Christianity, 
 while the doctrine of atonement, both in Paul and John, was the 
 Judaistic element introduced to maintain the continuity of 
 revelation and providence. The sense of sin and alienation was 
 common to Judaism and Neo-Platonism, though conceived in 
 the former as a moral defect of man's will and in the latter as a 
 natural consequence or imperfection of man's corporeal existence. 
 Justification by faith was wholly a new doctrine and grew out of 
 the personal relation between master and disciple. Faith at first 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF ETHICAL PROBLEMS 55 
 
 was only a quality of will toward a person, or fidelity to person 
 and principle. With St. Paul it began gradually to represent 
 intellectual assent to doctrine. From this point it became the 
 chief organ of Christian belief and life, as reason had been the 
 organ of Greek thought. Christianity was called upon to justify 
 its distinctive doctrines. The systems of St. John and St. Paul 
 were attempts at this result. As Judaism declined and Grseco- 
 Roman thought prevailed, philosophic tendencies increased their 
 demands and influence, and the great conflict between religion and 
 science began. On the one hand, Christianity insisted upon the 
 truth of its distinctive religious beliefs, and in lieu of reason as a 
 court of judgment was content with faith, while philosophy 
 repudiated all that could not verify its credentials before the 
 court of reason. This intellectual contest concerned the essential 
 doctrines of Christianity as then understood, the Trinity, the 
 atonement, the nature of God, the soul and its immortality, and 
 the principles of salvation. Morality took the channel of 
 charity and such Christian graces and virtues as represented the 
 new order. But there was no special philosophy of Ethics. The 
 moral consciousness was absorbed in reconciling itself with God 
 and insuring its eternal welfare. A theory of social conduct 
 and duties apart from salvation hereafter did not occupy its 
 attention. The whole moral movement of Christianity had 
 become absorbed in religious rites and philosophic reflection on 
 its doctrines. But the conflict between reason and faith con- 
 tinued to agitate the church until her political triumph over the 
 Roman Empire. Even then it did not subside, but the method 
 of dealing with the problem changed into a practical one. 
 
 The summary of the main features of this second period, ex- 
 tending down to about the ninth century, when a sort of truce 
 between the two contending parties was concluded, is as follows : 
 First, an attempt at the philosophic justification of Christianity 
 and its essential doctrines. Second, the practice of morality with 
 a direct reference to immortality. Third, the adoption of ascetic 
 and monastic conceptions of life, in virtue of the need of redemp- 
 tion. 
 
56 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 3d. Ecclesiastical Christianity. — The triumph, of the church 
 and the downfall of Rome gave Christianity a new method. In 
 fact, the reorganization of the state was made under the influence 
 and domination of the church and is well called the Holy 
 Roman Empire. Called to reconstruct social order out of chaos, 
 the church lost no time in patching up a peace with the philosophic 
 spirit, though it was accomplished partly by the fusion of reason 
 and faith, and partly by the exercise of her imperial authority. 
 Previous to her triumph the only influence to be relied upon for 
 retaining the allegiance of her votaries was a moral and religious 
 attachment to her doctrines. But when she began to wield eccle- 
 siastical power and to control the civil authority, her influence 
 was both changed and increased. When the contest between 
 reason and faith again broke out, and reason threatened to dis- 
 solve the speculative doctrines of the church, her ecclesiastical 
 power was strong enough to decide the balance in favor of the 
 authority of faith. Arrogating to herself the claim of being the 
 sole repository of Christian tradition and truth, she was able to 
 place the stamp of authority on her doctrines as well as her civil 
 laws, and in lieu of the ultimate authority of reason, claimed by 
 philosophy, substituted the infallibility and authority of her de- 
 crees. The supreme guide of the individual, both in matters of 
 truth and duty, of reason and conscience, was the councils of the 
 church and her delegated agents. Under cover of this power her 
 priests and councils regulated the beliefs and practices of her mem- 
 bers down to the minutest details. Not only the rites and cere- 
 monies of religious worship came under their jurisdiction, but also 
 the rights and manner of secular employments. The confessional 
 was the means of carrying out this policy and extended its au- 
 thority into all the privacy and secrets of the family and of the 
 individual heart. The confessional was a substitute for individ- 
 ual conscience, and served as an ecclesiastical restraint upon per- 
 sonal liberty precisely as the political system of Plato was 
 calculated to produce. No man needed to be thejudge of his con- 
 duct. His life was surrendered to the control of the church. His 
 salvation, moral and religious, was in her hands. His duty was 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF ETHICAL PROBLEMS 57 
 
 obedience to the appointed agents of the church. This insured his 
 redemption. He had only to conform to the laws of the church, 
 if he wished to be saved. In this way justification by works was 
 substituted for justification by faith, and a vast system of purely 
 external morality established in place of the love and good will 
 which characterized the first impulse of Christianity. There was 
 no theoretical system of Ethics apart from the scheme of salvation. 
 Civil as well as religious duties were directed by the same end, 
 and sanctioned by the same authority. The state was a part of 
 the system of divine government looking to man's spiritual wel- 
 fare and salvation, and all conduct was regulated with more or 
 less reference to this end, and regulated by a hierarchical power 
 that left nothing to individual initiation and freedom, except such 
 as it was imprudent or dangerous to interfere with or disturb. 
 The chief influence of this social, political and religious condi- 
 tion of things, subject as it was to prelatical dictation and con- 
 trol was to imbue the moral consciousness of the age with the sense 
 and reverence for authority. This was a decidedly better moral 
 condition than the fear of arbitrary power which dominated 
 Greek civilization, because it insured greater stability for the 
 social system and voluntary obedience to its laws. But it was, 
 nevertheless, an attempt to determine morality from without in- 
 stead of from within. It made virtue to consist wholly in ex- 
 ternal conformity to law w T hile using the motive of religious 
 reverence to enforce it, instead of relying upon the spontaneous 
 choice of the individual will to determine merit. The determina- 
 tion of the course of conduct, the method of salvation, was left to 
 external authority, while the danger of resistance was overcome by 
 inculcating reverence for it. This was the manner in which sal- 
 vation by w T orks supplanted justification by faith, the inner prin- 
 ciple of regeneration which w T as to Christianity what Kant's 
 " good will " is to idealistic Ethics. Consequently the abandon- 
 ment of that inner principle resulted in establishing a foreign 
 authority over the will, and both the moral and religious con- 
 sciousness became a dependency upon hierarchical decrees, though 
 modified by the voluntary submission and respect which it paid 
 
58 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 to the assumed legitimacy of that power. Still morality sprang 
 from authority and was independent of the intelligence and good 
 will of the agent, except so far as respectful obedience determined 
 his share in it. 
 
 Side by side with this ecclesiastical system there developed 
 occasionally a more correct view of morality, and one that was 
 connected with the cultivation of philosophy. This appears first 
 in Abelard (1079 — 1142 A. D.), who in many respects was the 
 founder, but in respect to Ethics was the Nemesis, of scholasticism. 
 The discussions about predestination, the sovereignty of God and 
 the freedom of the will attracted much attention as affecting the 
 conception of sin and responsibility. The upholder of the first 
 two doctrines made sin to consist in the violation of the law with- 
 out regard to the motive. But whatever was to be said of pre- 
 destination and divine sovereignty, Abelard saw that personal 
 merit and demerit depended upon the character and choice of the 
 will. He therefore taught that virtue consists in the intention 
 and not in the act. The theological point of view, as opposed to 
 the naturalistic, is apparent in his conception of the highest good. 
 The absolutely highest good, he considers, is God : for man, it is 
 the love of God. The way that leads to the attainment of this 
 good is virtue, which is a confirmed habit of will (bona in habitum 
 so lid ata .voluntas). But it is in the motive or intention, not in 
 the act per se, that merit and demerit reside. This intention 
 depends upon the consciousness of the distinction between right 
 and wrong. Hence Abelard lays some stress upon a doctrine of 
 conscience, as opposed to objective and authoritative morality. 
 Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas followed more or less 
 in the same line and laid down principles which were resumed 
 and developed in the Reformation. They were all basecl upon the 
 freedom of the individual will and were the germs of the doctrine 
 that finally dissolved scholasticism. 
 
 The summary of this whole movement will contain the follow- 
 ing elements. First, the final triumph of the church in its struggle 
 with the state, and the establishment of an ecclesiastical system 
 controlling the entire life and thought of the individual. Second, 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF ETHICAL PROBLEMS 59 
 
 the continuance of the struggle between reason and faith after 
 their temporary reconciliation until faith supplanted reason in the 
 determination of dogma. Third, the regulation of individual 
 conscience by authority, which was the necessary outcome of the 
 civil power of the church. Fourth, the substitution of justifi- 
 cation by works for justification by faith. Fifth, the spo- 
 radic appearance of the more philosophic doctrine that vir- 
 tue was internal rather than external, or the product of intention 
 rather than purely formal obedience. It was the conflict between 
 the last two ideas, along with the demand for secular and religious 
 liberty as opposed to ecclesiastical authority that brought about 
 the Reformation and the whole modern intellectual movement. 
 
 Ill MODERN ETHICS.— The spirit of modern life repre- 
 sents a reaction against religious and ecclesiastical authority and 
 so is a return to naturalism, as it may be called. This tendency 
 very profoundly affects Ethics, both theoretical and practical. It 
 explains the desire on the part of many writers to emancipate 
 morality from religion, and to emphasize secular as opposed to 
 religious ideas. The movement is particularly a rejuvenation of 
 Greek philosophy, though greatly modified in its spirit and con- 
 tents by the influence of Christianity. The forces which repre- 
 sent and contributed to it were the revival of literature, Coper- 
 nican astronomy, the emancipation of Europe from papal dictation, 
 Newtonian gravitation and scientific progress with all the later 
 industrial, scientific and economic developments. Two early 
 movements have not been included in this list, because in reality 
 they represented the main impulses of the reaction. They were 
 the religious and philosophic reformations. The first was headed 
 by Luther and the second by Descartes. Both attacked the 
 authority of the church, the one its authority over conscience and 
 the other its authority over speculative reason. Descartes did not 
 rush into open conflict with the church, but his philosophy w T as 
 irreconcilable with its dogmatic method. Descartes' system was 
 rationalism in philosophy, and Protestantism was the precursor of 
 rationalism in theology. Both emancipated the human mind 
 from authority, and placed individual reason upon its own respon- 
 
60 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 sibilities. Both declared principles that modified the direction 
 and content of ethical reflection, though both retained the religious 
 conception of its object. The philosophic movement divided into 
 two main tendencies, the empirical and psychological of English 
 thought, and the idealistic of continental thought. Each of them 
 will be considered in an independent order. But we shall begin 
 with the nature and influence of the Protestant Reformation. 
 
 1st. The Theological Reformation. — The Protestant Reform- 
 ation was the fruit of general intellectual", social and religious 
 unrest, due to the tyranny and corruption of the papal' church- 
 It was preceded and accompanied by those discoveries of Colum- 
 bus, Copernicus, and Galileo, which widened the horizon of 
 human knowledge, and overthrew the traditions of the past 
 which were identified too closely with the interests of the church. 
 These influences were in the direction of greater freedom of thought, 
 but would have accomplished less than they did, had not the 
 revolt of Protestantism secured a religious reformation, as 
 science and philosophy secured the intellectual. But these are 
 not the elements that connect Protestantism with the develop- 
 ment of Ethics. These factors are comprehended in what the 
 movement stood for as a revolt against ecclesiastic policy and 
 authority. Protestantism represented two principles connected 
 with the same end, the practical and the doctrinal. The first 
 was the assertion of individual conscience against the moral cor- 
 ruption of the church, the vices of the clergy, the sale of indul- 
 gences, monastic disorders, and similar offences. The second 
 and doctrinal reform was the correlate of the first, and was the 
 reassertion of justification by faith. Both of these affected the 
 problems of Ethics. The first substituted conscience for the 
 authority of ecclesiastical power, and the second restored the 
 original Christian position that moral regeneration is internal. 
 This latter doctrine was the central and essential principle of 
 Protestantism. What it meant for Ethics was the entire dis- 
 placement of ecclesiastical authority, so laboriously established 
 by scholasticism, and the substitution of the individual con- 
 science in its place. In this salvation, temporal and eternal, 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF ETHICAL PROBLEMS 61 
 
 was the result, not of works, but of faith. Man was brought by 
 this course into direct communion with God through his own 
 conscience and religious insight. He required no human inter- 
 mediation, as the priestly practices of the period implied. His 
 justification came by faith, the inner principle of the soul which 
 is the spring of every regenerated will, because it is the surrender 
 of the soul to God, and the perfections which he represents. 
 But Protestantism did not abandon all that was contained in the 
 idea of authority. So abrupt a course is hardly to be expected 
 in any -age. It simply transferred the idea from the church to 
 revelation, from human to divine agency. Kevolting against 
 the papal system, it could not resort to a similar method for 
 determining the ground of its own doctrines, and must perforce 
 yield to the natural demands of the time for authority in 
 support of its claims. This it sought for religion, in revelation, 
 and for morality, in conscience, enlightened and governed by 
 revelation. Here arose the distinction that has characterized 
 the two separate, or supposably separate, fields of Ethics and 
 religion, and later Rationalism took it up to concentrate its 
 emphasis upon the former. Ethics came to represent duties to 
 man, and religion duties to God. Conscience was the organ of 
 morality, and faith the organ of religion with revelation as its 
 guide. In neither case, however, did the new position succeed 
 in eliminating older assumptions made to guarantee the dogmas 
 of the church. The doctrine of infallibility and of the supreme 
 authority of the church w T as the natural consequence of its sub- 
 ordination of the civil power, on the one hand, and of its sup- 
 pression of reason, on the other. In Protestantism it divided its 
 jurisdiction. The infallibility and authority of revelation sup- 
 planted that of the church and the pope, and was the warrant 
 for religious truth, while the infallibility and authority of con- 
 science was and is the survival in Ethics of the ecclesiastical 
 doctrine in regard to the basis of both morality and religion. 
 The foundation of morality and of salvation was thus shifted 
 over to the subject of them, and the whole doctrine of religion 
 made compatible with the idea of freedom, Avhether personal or 
 
62 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 political, and subsequent development in the direction of political 
 and religious liberty was made possible. Justification by faith, 
 therefore, was the source of modern individualism, so far as re- 
 sponsibility is concerned, and as opposed to ecclesiastical author- 
 ity and mediation ; discredited ritualism in religion, and deter- 
 mined the modern doctrine of conscience with its conception of 
 personality and character, or good will, as the most essential 
 condition of morality. 
 
 A brief summary of the influence of the Reformation will 
 include the following points. First, the restoration of the inner 
 and subjective principle of morality, due to the doctrine of justi- 
 fication by faith. Second, the transfer of the idea of authority 
 from the church to conscience and revelation. Third, the free- 
 dom and responsibility of the individual for his moral and spirit- 
 ual salvation, thus setting aside human mediation and influence 
 from without. Fourth, the separation of morality and religion, 
 at least in their sanctions and object, if not in regard to their 
 source or ultimate. 
 
 2d. The Philosophical Reformation. — The fundamental prin- 
 ciple of the Cartesian philosophy, which was the original impulse 
 of the philosophical reformation, was the same in its nature as 
 that of the religious reformation. It was a revolt against dog- 
 matic methods and authority, and the restoration of individual 
 reason to its place in the determination of truth, with the impli- 
 cation which it carried along with its method, that knowledge and 
 virtue are subjectively conditioned, that is, have a mental source, 
 whatever may be said of other influences. Descartes began with 
 philosophic doubt of every assertion which could not appear as 
 clear and distinct truth. To him clear and distinct ideas were 
 either those which had an intuitive origin and were the con- 
 ditions of all thought, or those which followed necessarily from 
 admitted truths. He would accept no others than such as could 
 present these credenitals. Hence he put to the severest test all 
 beliefs about the existence of an external world, of matter, of a 
 soul,- of God. He found that he could doubt everything but the 
 fact of the doubt, the fact of consciousness, and in this he found 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF ETHICAL PROBLEMS 63 
 
 necessarily implied his own existance. Hence the basal formula 
 of his method and system was Cogito, ergo sum (I think or am 
 conscious ; therefore I exist.) From this he developed his belief 
 in the existence of God, of matter and of the soul. In thus sub- 
 tracting, or thinking away everything except consciousness, 
 Descartes laid the foundation of modern Idealism which assumes 
 the subjective method of treating knowledge and a fortiori the 
 phenomena of morality. It altered the point of view pre- 
 dominent in scholasticism which asserted the principle of 
 authority and permitted nothing to individual reason. Descartes 
 emancipated the individual in philosophy as Luther did in 
 religion, and so set up an internal principle as the criterion of 
 truth. This reacted on the principles of Ethics and carried the 
 idealistic impulse into that field until it terminated in the fully 
 developed system of Kant and his school. 
 
 When Descartes came to discuss ethical problems directly, he 
 seeks first after the manner of Greek ethics to determine the 
 highest good, which he finds to be virtue and happiness, or 
 freedom and blessedness. He combines the ideal of the Stoics 
 and the Epicureans. There is in this two systems of morality ; 
 one empirical and determining the rules for the bodily life, 
 rendering possible a control over the passions, and the other 
 resting upon the good will and assuring the soul's independence 
 and a spiritual felicity which depends upon the soul alone. This 
 was carrying his dualism into Ethics. His doctrine of autom- 
 atism, or the automatic nature of animal functions, prevented the 
 success of this attempt, but it remained in Kant's view that 
 pleasure is a necessary object of volition, and opposed the freedom 
 of obedience to the sense of duty. 
 
 Descartes maintained firmly the freedom of the will, and 
 owing to his identification of judgment and the will carried the 
 doctrine so far as to assert responsibility for our beliefs, to at 
 least a limited extent. The supreme motive to morality he 
 made the love of God, coinciding in this position with the relig- 
 ious consciousness. He emphasized the limitations of nature 
 imposed upon the human will and desires, and recommended as a 
 
04 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 duty the adjustment of our desires to its inflexible laws rather 
 than an attempt to change the order of the world. Herein was 
 the Stoic element of his doctrine, and it determined the prom- 
 inent characteristics of Spinoza's Ethics. 
 
 Descartes, however, had very little to say directly on the 
 problem of ethics. He was most deeply interested in metaphysics 
 and the theory of knowledge. His influence upon Ethics, 
 therefore, was indirect and merely fortified by philosophic as- 
 sumptions the general tendency of the reaction against scholas- 
 ticism. Its chief influences were derived from the following : ' 
 First, the establishment of consciousness as the ultimate criterion 
 of truth and goodness. This was the assertion of reason, in 
 opposition to authority, as the ground of knowledge and obliga- 
 tion. Second, the founding of Idealism and its subjective 
 method. Third, the maintenance of the freedom of the will. 
 Fourth, the assertion that virtue or the good will has a moral 
 value on its own account and not merely as a means to happi- 
 ness, though this is its natural consequence. Fifth, submission 
 and adjustment of desire to the necessary order of nature. 
 Sixth, the love of God as the chief motive of conduct, or con- 
 dition of mind in which to live. These several momenta in the 
 Cartesian system will be apparent to all who study its develop- 
 ment. 
 
 In following now the subsequent development of ethical 
 doctrine we can only select certain representatives of general 
 schools. It is not necessary to detail the views of each 
 author since we are not presenting a complete history of ethics. 
 Hence we shall only outline the general direction of the main 
 streams of thought, selecting for this purpose the Continental 
 and the English movements, or the idealistic and the empirical 
 schools, with their main representatives. 
 
 3d. The Idealistic Movement. — The chief representatives of 
 this school include Spinoza, Leibnitz and Kant, all that need 
 consideration in ascertaining the nature of modern ethical 
 problems. They are regarded as idealistic because they set up 
 moral principles of a decidedly subjective character, and superior 
 
DEVELOPMENT- OF ETHICAL PROBLEMS 65 
 
 to mere physical naturalism, and develop Cartesianism to its 
 logical consequences in the direction of idealistic methods. 
 Omitting Malebranche, who is unimportant, we take up Spinoza. 
 1. Spinoza. — Spinoza based his Ethics upon a thoroughly 
 worked out system of metaphysics. In producing this he simply 
 turned the dualism of Descartes into monism. Descartes held 
 that there were two kinds of separate substances, mind and mat- 
 ter, each without any participation in the nature or qualities of 
 the other. Extension was the essence of matter, and conscious- 
 ness the essence of mind. The independence of matter which 
 characterized mind was a ground for maintaining the freedom of 
 the will, because it was the subject of its own phenomena. The 
 existence of God was asserted as an absolute substance and the 
 creator of matter and mind. But Spinoza started by denying 
 the substantial nature of mind and matter. He simply took their 
 distinctive qualities, extension and thought, and made them the 
 attributes of a single substance, God and dissolved dualism, by 
 asserting pantheistic monism. The effect of this was to make 
 man a mere mode of the Absolute, and so to destroy all possibil- 
 ity of the freedom of the will. Hence, Spinoza denied this free- 
 dom and maintained that man could not choose otherwise than 
 he does on each particular occasion of choice. His actions are a 
 mere product of the Absolute. From the same conception of 
 dependence on God came the emphasis which Spinoza placed 
 upon the limitations of the human will. The course of nature, 
 according to him, is an inflexible one. It is a vast mechanism 
 acting in accordance with laws which pay no regard to man's 
 desires and ideals. Human nature is a part of this system, and 
 human actions a result of it. Freedom is an illusion. Absolute 
 good and evil do not exist. Praise and blame, as if the conduct 
 of man could be otherwise than it is, are absurd. We must learn 
 to be satisfied with the necessary course of nature. The highest 
 good is a life according to this law of nature, which is also the 
 law of reason. This Spinoza made "the intellectual love of 
 God" (amor intellectualis Dei), or rational regard for the laws 
 of the mechanical world, as it must be considered in his system. 
 
66 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 Man's duty consists iu freeing himself from the control of his 
 passions, and his felicity comes from a reverent submission to his 
 fate. How he can gain either of these ends is not clear from the 
 principles of his system, and, moreover, it is hardly a misrepre- 
 sentation to regard his " intellectual love of God " as mere sci- 
 entific curiosity. It has the religious form of expression, but the 
 materialistic pantheism of his philosophy, and the purely specu- 
 lative interest of his thought eviscerate that formula of all its re- 
 ligious import, and with the denial of free will there was nothing 
 left but his own somewhat romantic and sublime character to 
 adorn the theory. 
 
 Spinoza's influence upon the main problems of theoretical 
 Ethics was chiefly negative. He was among the first to boldly 
 challenge the current conceptions of free will and responsibility. 
 He could do so more effectively because, unlike scholastic the- 
 ology, which had behind its denial of free will, at times, the per- 
 sonality and grace of God, to rob the theory of its practical conse- 
 quences, Spinoza, in spite of his pious phraseology, represents a 
 purely materialistic conception of the universe, with man a mere 
 mode of it, a bubble on a shoreless ocean of force, floating for a 
 moment on its troubled surface, and disappearing forever at the 
 touch of the first wind of change. His thought was the mechan- 
 ical side of Cartesian philosophy, representing the scientific reac- 
 tion against the spiritualistic character of mediaeval ideas, though 
 expressed in mystical and religious language, and in this way 
 brought to the front a complete antithesis to the benevolent and 
 providential scheme of orthodox theology. Consequently, his 
 influence upon ethical speculation and the practical moral con- 
 sciousness, was to present inexorable limitations to the fulfill- 
 ment of natural desires and the implacable laws of nature, to 
 which man must adjust himself if he would attain felicity. Mod- 
 ern evolution emphasizes the same conception, and no system, 
 except Spinoza's, has so comprehensively stated the finitude and 
 dependence of man upon the vast infinitude of forces which we 
 call the world. The realization of this condition is the incentive 
 to humility and obedience, which are the special virtues of Spin- 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF ETHICAL PROBLEMS 67 
 
 oza's thought, and which have especially recommended him to 
 the scientific student. Hence, the calm, stoical composure with 
 which Spinoza contemplated the laws of nature, and urged the 
 control of passion in order to live in harmony with them. The 
 moral consciousness which his pantheism and materialism pro- 
 duced was one of submission to the inevitable, and represents 
 the whole modern reaction against the supernatural. 
 
 The elements of his system were as follows. — First, pantheistic 
 monism with its reduction of man to a mode or phenomenon of 
 the Absolute. Second, the denial of free will or the power of 
 alternative choice. Third, man's highest good consists in his 
 freedom from passion, or from desires that are in conflict with the 
 order of nature. Fourth, the inculcation of that moral conscious- 
 ness which humbly and obediently yields to the inexorable laws 
 of nature. These principles exhibit a system quite in contrast 
 with ordinary views and in particular are opposed to the ethics 
 of Kant. 
 
 2. Leibnitz. — The ethical doctrine of Leibnitz was a return to 
 some of the fundamental positions abandoned by Spinoza, though 
 intended to conciliate Spinoza's doctrine with the theological pre- 
 sumptions of the age. Thus, Leibnitz retained monism as a phil- 
 osophic Theory : but it was atomistic as opposed to pantheistic 
 monism, and in this way he sustained a doctrine which made 
 possible the freedom of the will. The fundamental unit of exist - 
 tence was a monad, which he regarded as indivisible and perma- 
 nent. It was distinguished from the Lucretian atom in that its 
 nature was not material. Hence, Leibnitz regarded the basis of 
 existence as immaterial. He asserted a difference between mo- 
 nads, but it was a difference in degrees of activity. Their sub- 
 stance was the same; their modes were different. Hence, a 
 series of gradations, representing the law of continuity, existed 
 between the unconscious, or so-called material monad and the 
 conscious or spiritual monad. But it was the independent exist- 
 ence of the monad and its power of self-activity without deter- 
 mination from the influence of any other monad (Spinoza's freedom 
 of the Absolute) that enabled Leibnitz to maintain the freedom of 
 
68 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 the will. It was in this fundamental position that he differed so 
 radically from his predecessor. He had his own special theory 
 about the close relation between the lower and higher forms of 
 volition, of the gradual development of rational activity from the 
 instinctive, but he based his whole theory of morality upon the 
 freedom of the will, which he saw was necessary, if Ethics was to 
 be regarded as possible. He distinguished, however, between the 
 freedom of indifference, or in determinism (equilibre), as it was 
 called, and the freedom of determinism, which meant that the 
 subject had a predominant inclination in one direction, though 
 not fatally nor externally determined. Hence, Leibnitz denied 
 both necessitarianism and the freedom of indifference and main- 
 tained a theory of determinism which meant that volition was 
 caused by the subject and that it was according to the law of the 
 subject's nature. Thus he admitted the predominant tendencies 
 of the individual's character while he affirmed free, original and 
 spontaneous volition. This freedom he made to be action in con- 
 formity with reason and in this way recognized the main conten- 
 tion of Spinoza. 
 
 When he came to consider the object of conduct he recognized 
 happiness as the highest good. But this he seems at the same 
 time to have regarded as the accompaniment of perfection. 
 Pleasure, he said, is the feeling of perfection, pain, of imperfection. 
 He sometimes speaks of happiness and perfection as if they were 
 identical, or as if they together constituted the highest good. 
 Instinct sought this as a natural object of volition, but reason 
 only could seek it as a moral object ; because instinct was not a 
 sure guide. It was confused and indistinct in its operation. His 
 whole system also bore a close relation to his theory of optimism. 
 
 3. Kant. — The philosophy of Immanuel Kant represents the 
 confluence of two great streams of thought, those of Locke and 
 Descartes. From Locke he obtained the empirical element of 
 his system, which appears in the limitation of knowledge to 
 experience, and from Descartes the idealistic basis which led to 
 the assertion of the a priori conditions of experience, represented 
 in the forms of perception (space and time) and the categories of 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF ETHICAL PROBLEMS 69 
 
 the understanding (Quantity, Quality, Modality, and Relation). 
 Thus he admitted " intuitive," " innate," " a priori," or underived 
 principles of thought, though he confined them to the field of 
 experience, and would not extend them beyond it. They were 
 immanent in experience instead of 'transcending it. That is to say, 
 whatever fundamental principles of truth were to be recognized, 
 they were laws of thought rather than ideas distinct from sense 
 deliverances whether inner or outer. But having made the 
 forms of perception and the categories, or conditions of conscious- 
 ness, subjective and ideal, he placed idealism upon a firmer and 
 more radical footing than ever before, and so prepared the way 
 for a more thorough-going idealism in Ethics. There were also 
 subordinate contributions from different members of the same 
 school tending in the same direction. Hume determined his 
 scepticism in a large measure especially on the side of metaphysics, 
 Berkeley had disputed the existence of matter, and Hume on the 
 same grounds disputed that of mind, causality, personal iden- 
 tity, etc., leaving nothing but "impressions," or experience, 
 as the data of knowledge. Kant follows this up with . the 
 distinction between nouinena, or things in themselves (Dinge an 
 sicli) and phenomena, or appearances (JErscheimung) , asserting that 
 the latter is all we know, while the former are unknowable, though 
 asserted to exist. His scepticism thus applied to the nature of 
 things, but not to their effect upon the ego or subject. 
 
 No less striking was Hume's influence upon Kant's ethical 
 doctrine. Hume had denied the connection of reason both with 
 moral distinctions and with the motivation of the will, and 
 affirmed it only of a " moral sense " which was a feeling or emo- 
 tional function. This was subjective while reason was occupied 
 with the objective. Farther, Hume denied that conduct, exter- 
 nally considered, could have either merit or demerit, and thus 
 taking up the non-moral character of all events and actions 
 independent of the will, Kant was forced, like Hume, to place 
 morality in the motive or condition of the will. The stoical 
 spirit and severity of Spinoza are repeated in the rigidity of 
 Kant's law of duty, though they were probably influenced less 
 
70 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 by Spinoza's philosophy than by the temperament and early 
 training of Kant himself. The monistic and idealistic tendency 
 of Kant were affected by both Spinoza and Leibnitz, though it 
 was the outcome of the psychology of Leibnitz more than of the 
 metaphysics of Spinoza. From Leibnitz also he probably drew 
 the conceptions which aided him in sustaining the doctrine of 
 freedom. But there were general tendencies acting in this 
 direction by their antithesis to every doctrine of free will. 
 These were the natural consequences of two movements, the 
 scientific and the philosophical. On the one hand, the renais- 
 sance had brought with it a strong admiration of the natural in 
 Greek life, and Copernican astronomy and Newtonian gravita- 
 tion had immensely extended the conception of physical laws, 
 destroying the last traces of the ancient theory that the heavenly 
 bodies were of a divine essence. The physical sciences had 
 received large accessions in the discoveries of Pascal, Huyghens, 
 Bernoulli, and others, so that the, sense of mystery was fast dis- 
 appearing before the light of natural knowledge, and a sharply 
 defined mechanical conception of the world was supplanting the 
 spiritualistic theology of scholasticism: This was the purely 
 scientific movement, and Kant shared in it to the extent that, 
 simultaneously with La Place he outlined a nebular hypothesis 
 to account for the origin of the solar system upon physical prin- 
 ciples. On the other hand, Descartes stimulated by his interest 
 in mathematics and mechanics, had reduced all phenomena of 
 the universe, except those of consciousness, to mechanical laws, 
 and included in them all the actions of organic life and the ani- 
 mal world below the rational intelligence of man. Animals 
 were-aXitomata and no more conscious in their actions than all 
 unconscious beings. At least consciousness was not the cause of 
 their actions. ^Consequently both the scientific and the philo- 
 sophic movement had produced a widespread tendency toward 
 materialism and its implications that all events were to be re- 
 duced to invariable and mechanical laws. Leibnitz felt this, as 
 we have seen, to the extent that he denied the freedom of indif- 
 ference and admitted only a freedom that could be consistent 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF ETHICAL PROBLEMS 71 
 
 with predominant inclinations in a given direction. Kant, 
 therefore, came when he must either abandon Ethics to the 
 physical sciences or vindicate the freedom of the will in order to 
 save morality. This fact made that doctrine the key to his 
 ethical theory, while its obverse side was found in the " cate- 
 gorical imperative," which, as a fact of human consciousness was 
 both the proof of freedom and the essential element of all moral- 
 ity. These complimentary aspects of his doctrine, the categor- 
 ical imperative and the freedom of the will, were attempts at 
 correcting the dangerous tendencies of the age ; the former to 
 represent a principle for regulating the lawlessness of the human 
 will as it began to demand political freedom, and to stamp con- 
 duct with the nobility of the ancient virtues practiced in sub- 
 ordination to social welfare, and the latter to counteract the 
 consequences of a mechanical and materialistic conception of the 
 world. 
 
 Starting with the ideas of duty and freedom Kant had to 
 give his ethical system a firm foundation, and this was the 
 more necessary because of the negative result of his Metaphysics. 
 It was, in fact, this negative result that prompted him to the 
 reconstruction of Ethics. Like Plato, the object of his philoso- 
 phy centred in moral problems, but, unlike Plato, he did not 
 seek their basis in Metaphysics. His dissatisfaction with the 
 Leibnitzo-AVollfian dogmatism and the sceptical influence of 
 Hume, taken with the general reaction against scholasticism, 
 which had based everything upon theological and metaphysical 
 assumptions, had induced him to analyze the fundamental con- 
 ceptions of Ontology, Theology, and Psychology. In the Critique 
 of Pure Reason, therefore, he denied the sufficiency of the argu- 
 ments for the existence of God, the existence of the soul, and 
 the freedom of the will. On these the previous systems of 
 Ethics were founded, and hence, in order to avoid a dogmatic 
 foundation for its principles, Kant saw no other way to treat 
 the questions than to destroy the speculative foundations upon 
 which scholasticism had built them. He resolved to reconstruct 
 Ethics without any transcendental Metaphysics for its support. 
 
72 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 But having affirmed that reason was not adequate to the task of 
 proving the speculative ideas of science and philosophy, he 
 would seem to have cut off his return to a basis for morality. 
 Nevertheless, Kant makes the effort by drawing a radical dis- 
 tinction between two functions of reason, the theoretical or specu- 
 lative, and the practical or postulative. Pure or speculative 
 reason, he maintained, could not assure us of the fundamental 
 principles of Ontology, Theology, and Psychology, though prac- 
 tical reason might do so. This position was decidedly paradoxi- 
 cal. It will appear less so, however, when we suppose that by 
 pure or theoretical reason Kant meant the explanatory function 
 of consciousness, which could not give an assurance of its objects 
 as inexpugnable as the practical reason which postulated them 
 as facts to account for phenomena, but did not pretend to inves- 
 tigate their grounds. In spite of this, however, the distinction 
 will always appear unsatisfactory, and gives rise to confusion. 
 But its motive was an intelligible one, namely, to reconstruct 
 Ethics independently of current metaphysical assumptions. ' Here 
 began modern rationalism in Theology and Ethics, and with it 
 the secularization of morality, or the separation of Ethics and re- 
 ligion. 
 
 After the destructive conclusions of the first part of his phi- 
 losophy, Kant showed a double tendency in the reconstruction of 
 Ethics. First, he had to indicate a function for establishing 
 morality upon a basis independent of metaphysics ; second, his 
 speculative interests induced him to postulate from practical 
 reason the ideas rejected by speculative reason, but now asserted, 
 not as conditions of morality, but as implications of it, or sup- 
 plementary truths in which it culminated. The first of these 
 gave morality a psychological ground, and the second compensated 
 for the removal of its dependence on Metaphysics. Each of 
 these aspects must be considered separately. 
 
 The principle upon which Kant found a basis for Ethics was 
 the distinction between the natural and the moral, and the 
 denial that the latter could be deduced from the former. Hav- 
 ing reduced all the phenomena of sense and of the understand- 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF ETHICAL PROBLEMS 73 
 
 ing ; that is, of nature and of consciousness, in so far as they 
 were events objective to reason, to the law of causality or neces- 
 sity, Kant's problem was to find a fact which could not be so 
 reduced. He sought this in the categorical imperative, which 
 was the ideal of practical reason, the declaration of what ought 
 to be, as contrasted with what merely is. The natural sciences, 
 including physics and empirical psychology, treated all events as 
 the natural effect of causes which did not represent volition as 
 the initiating antecedent, and hence were the product of neces- 
 sity. They explain phenomena, and cannot legislate for the 
 will. We cannot say that any event " ought "to be ; we can 
 only say that it is, and that under the conditions it must be. 
 But if the science of Ethics be possible we must be able to assert 
 that some end ought to be realized ; some object must be uncon- 
 ditionally commanded, and this can in no case be derived merely 
 from the facts of observation. This desideratum Kant found in 
 the sense of duty, or categorical imperative, which is uncondi- 
 tionally binding, simply because it is an a priori product of 
 practical reason. Hence Ethics is possible because it imposes a 
 law, and does not explain facts. Morality is thus independent 
 of the natural and necessary. 
 
 Kant's next step was to formulate this law, which should be 
 free from every element of experience. The first and purely 
 formal statement of it was that "we should act so that the maxim 
 of our conduct could be made a law for all rational beings ; " that 
 is, a principle of universal legislation. This was his most gen- 
 eral test for the character of any rule of action, and though it 
 was merely negative in showing the suicidal nature of any prin- 
 ciple which did not conform to it, the maxim was too abstract to 
 satisfy all claims made upon a moral law. Hence Kant under- 
 took to complete it by indicating the object to which the law 
 was to be applied. It was not sufficient that action should be 
 merely uniform, consistent, or according to law. The object 
 concerned should also be taken into account. Purely formal 
 obedience to it, which expressed the good will, might indicate 
 the character of the agent, and satisfy all that could be de- 
 
74 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 manded of the law for the subject, but it did not suffice to sup- 
 ply a complete criterion in the complexities of social life. 
 Hence for more concrete purposes, Kant adds another concep- 
 tion to the law, so that it will recognize the persons concerned in 
 the exercise of volition. It then reads that the law of morality 
 commands that we should treat man, whether in our own, or in the 
 person of others, as an end in himself and not merely as a means. 
 By this formula Kant can test all moral laws regarding person 
 and property, so as to see whether they consist with the proper 
 respect due to personality. At the same time this principle 
 forces utility as a criterion into the background, though it does 
 not antagonize it, and brings forward the good will as the only 
 absolute value which Ethics can admit. This unconditional 
 imperative, then, is equivalent to enjoining virtue for its own 
 sake as it makes that quality to consist purely in formal obedi- 
 ence to the law. At this stage of the problem Kant lays no 
 stress upon the external end to be realized in morality. He does 
 not seem to feel that the end is the important element in virtue, 
 but that it consists only in the attitude of the mind or will toward 
 whatever end it may choose ; that is, merely in the will to live 
 according to the law of duty. Hence he wholly repudiates 
 pleasure as a rational object of volition. He does not deny that 
 pleasure is a good, he only denies that it is a moral good. It is 
 the natural and necessary object of all volition, while a moral 
 object must represent the free autonomy of the will. Hence 
 though pleasure might be a material element in conduct it is 
 not the object which constitutes its moral worth. This must be 
 derived from conscientiousness, or as Kant expresses it, from 
 formal obedience to the categorical imperative. Thus neither 
 instinct nor desire, but only rational volition out of respect for 
 moral law can constitute virtue. This is a quality which every 
 one whether wise or ignorant could be expected to exhibit, and 
 hence Kant could hold all persons up to the same degree of 
 responsibility. With the utilitarian or hedonist knowledge is 
 necessary to the right pursuit of pleasure, because this end is 
 complicated with the various conditions of the physical world, 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF ETHICAL PROBLEMS 75 
 
 while the good will is not affected by these circumstances and 
 requires no special knowledge of nature to condition it. This 
 position of Kant gave idealism complete control of the ethical 
 problem by making it to consist in the determination of the will 
 alone, which could act under the law of duty without regard to 
 the amount of material knowledge possessed by the subject. 
 
 This capacity of reason to act according to a law, to produce a 
 categorical imperative, or sense of duty, was taken as proof of its 
 capacity to obey the law, and this was its freedom. What Kant 
 made clear in this view, was the fact that the consciousness of 
 duty was absurd and anomalous, unless we could assume man's 
 power to do what reason thus commanded. If man cannot do 
 what his reason (conscience) tells him he ought to do, the sense 
 of duty contradicts his nature, and he cannot be said to possess 
 responsibility at all. In this way Kant sought to establish the 
 fact of freedom. But the mechanical philosophy of the day, the 
 Leibnitzian conception of predominant inclinations affecting the 
 will, and Kant's own concessions to natural philosophy in his 
 conceptions of mental phenomena, led him to assert a paradoxi- 
 cal theory in regard to the will, which maintained, on the one 
 side, the freedom, and on the other, the necessity of volition. 
 Thus, Kant affirmed that phenomenally the will was determined, 
 but noumenally, or as a thing in itself, it was free. In the anti- 
 nomy regarding freedom, Kant found, as he thought, that he had 
 to choose between the law of causation and freedom, and so he 
 solved the problem by the distinction between things in them- 
 selves and phenomena, holding that the will, in so far as it was a 
 noumenon, was free, and not subject to the law of causality, but 
 that in so far as it was a phenomenon it was not free, but deter- 
 mined. Stripped of Kantian verbiage and technicalities this 
 view can be made intelligible only by saying that volition (em- 
 pirical will) as an event in time is determined and subject to the 
 natural law of causation, but that the will (transcendental will) 
 as a subject and not in time, is free and undetermined. Clumsy 
 as his way of putting the matter was, nevertheless it had the 
 merit, first of reinforcing common conviction in regard to the fact 
 
76 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 of freedom, and second of indicating* the source of philosophic 
 illusion regarding it, in that he distinguished between the causal- 
 ity of volitions as events and the ca'usality of the will as a sub- 
 ject, the latter not falling in the series of phenomena which come 
 under the law of causation. 
 
 The second and supplementary aspect of his doctrine is quite 
 as interesting, as an attempt to correct the excessively formal 
 characteristic of the first part. Kant was aware of the rigorous 
 and stoical demands upon the individual made by his doctrine 
 of conscience, and though it was not so offensive as the severity 
 of Spinoza's system with its pantheism and denial of immortality, 
 it took away the concessions to happiness made by Leibnitz, 
 admitted even by Spinoza, and recognized by the common con- 
 sciousness of the age, and perhaps, of all ages, as too precious to 
 be sacrificed to the logical necessities of a theory. Hence after 
 apparently repudiating the connection of happiness with morality 
 and certainly denying its importance as a measure of virtue, in 
 order to prove that the formal law of duty was the essential 
 element of moral goodness, Kant turns around and recognizes 
 that happiness is properly connected with virtue. But he denies 
 the identity of the two qualities of action, and so maintains that 
 they are synthetically, not analytically, connected, to use his 
 phraseology. The highest good he asserts is virtue, but it is 
 necessarily united with happiness in the ideal or perfect state. 
 But the imperfection of man and his present condition is the cir- 
 cumstance that necessitates his dependence upon the purely 
 formal nature of the law and gives rise to two postulates which 
 the theoretical side of Kant's philosophy could not prove. They 
 are the immortality of the soul and the existence of God. 
 
 In the first place the moral law requires the union of virtue 
 and happiness which can be realized only by perfect holiness, or 
 perfect conformity of will to the law of duty. But man's imper- 
 fection is such that the conflict between the demands of the law 
 and his own love of happiness makes it necessary to have an 
 indefinite time in order to sanctify his will. He can only realize 
 a progressive approximation to perfection or holiness, and to 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF ETHICAL PROBLEMS 77 
 
 attain this he must have' immortality. In the second place, 
 since the moral law commands nothing but conformity to itself, 
 and since at the same time there is a natural and necessary 
 connection between the ideas of virtue and happiness, but not 
 between their phenomenal reality, Kant asserts that the exist- 
 ence of God is necessary in order to establish their real connec- 
 tion in a more perfect state of existence. God is thus necessary 
 to determine the harmony between morality and happiness. In 
 this way Kant presented his celebrated moral, as opposed to the 
 speculative, arguments for immortality and the existence of God. 
 They were assumptions to complete the nature of morality, not 
 the grounds or proof of it. Consequently in his system Ethics 
 culminated in religion, but was not dependent upon it. This, of 
 course, was intended as a conciliation of conflicting interests. 
 Whatever it may have done in this directiou, or failed to do, it 
 certainly preserved the integrity of the moral law without coming 
 into open conflict with the religious consciousness, and fell into 
 line with the spirit of the reformation. Kant's good will was the 
 philosophic conception for Luther's justification by faith, if not in 
 the relations it bore, certainly in the freedom which it implied, 
 and in the recognition of personality which it asserted as opposed 
 to the doctrine of external works. 
 
 The summary of Kant's doctrine will contain the following 
 contributions. First, the thoroughly idealistic character of his 
 Ethics as compared with the half-way theories of the time. 
 Second, the sceptical attitude of his philosophy toward meta- 
 physics, which forces idealism into Ethics if morality is to be 
 saved at all. Third, the doctrine that morality is based upon 
 freedom and the [categorical imperative, the latter as a fact 
 being a proof of the former. Fourth, the constitution of virtue 
 in the free conformity of the will to duty, and without regard 
 to happiness. Fifth, the postulation of immortality as a condi- 
 tion of realizing the ideal connection between virtue and happi- 
 ness, since it requires an indefinite time for its achievement. 
 Sixth, the postulation of God's existence as a condition of main- 
 taining the harmony between morality and happiness. 
 
78 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 For the sake of understanding the modern problems of Ethics 
 it is not necessary to pursue the history of the idealistic move- 
 ment any farther. It attains its maturity in Kant, as a purely 
 subjective doctrine. Later developments only eliminate its 
 difficulties and inconsistencies while asserting that the essential 
 principle of virtue, so far as it represents character as distinct 
 from external conduct, must be found in the quality of will and 
 conscientiousness which Kant's categorical imperative embodied. 
 Kant developed to its highest pitch the importance of the 
 motive to morality, and did so to the extent that he apparently 
 ignored the value of the material end, or the inevitableness of 
 the tendency to use pleasure as a criterion of good conduct. 
 Hence, the purely idealistic movement, which was independent 
 of genetic theories on the one hand, and of endsemonistic doc- 
 trines on the other, may be said to have culminated in Kant. 
 We may, therefore, turn to the empirical school and its contri- 
 butions. 
 
 4th. The English Movement. — This whole school is charac- 
 terized by the historical method, though it is divided into two 
 opposing tendencies, the empirical and the intuitive. It is not 
 necessary, however, to follow each tendency throughout its de- 
 velopment. It is sufficient to know for what they stand. The 
 empirical school maintained and maintains that all moral con- 
 ceptions are derived from experience, or from associations of 
 pleasure and pain with certain forms of conduct, and it is 
 usually identified with the position of Utilitarianism, that hap- 
 piness is the only good. The intuitive school maintained that 
 the principles of morality are implanted in the constitution of 
 human nature, and are not the product of mere experience. 
 This school was sometimes identified with the doctrine of Utili- 
 tarianism, and sometimes it was not. Its main tenet was the 
 original as opposed to the derived nature of morality. It also 
 subdivides into the intellectual and the cesthetic or moral-sense 
 school. 
 
 1. The Empiricists. — This school comprises the earlier and 
 the later forms. The earlier is represented by Hobbes and Locke, 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF ETHICAL PROBLEMS 79 
 
 the latter by Bentham, Mill, and Spencer, with men of minor 
 note. Hobbes and Locke, however, are all that Ave can consider 
 for the present, in giving the historical development of the ethi- 
 cal problem. Both gave a very considerable impulse to the em- 
 pirical movement, though their influence was not the same in its 
 nature. 
 
 The chief feature of Hobbes' philosophy was its political doc- 
 trine. But it contained a theory of right which was not only 
 founded upon pleasure, but also represented conventionalism in a 
 peculiarly offensive form. His system started in a materialistic 
 psychology, but its strength did not lie in that fact. Its impor- 
 tance came from the particularly pessimistic view which he took 
 of human nature, and the means necessary to secure social order. 
 Men in a state of nature, he maintained, were in a state of war. 
 Every man was against every other man (Jiomo homini lupus'), 
 and each pursued his own interests without any restraints, except 
 such as the fear of a stronger availed to produce. Selfishness is 
 the only primitive spring to conduct, and pleasure its only object. 
 There is no such a thing as social instinct moving men to seek a 
 general good. They are solely under the influence of individual 
 interest, and being in perpetual conflict could succeed only in 
 maintaining -a state of anarchy. In this condition, might and 
 right coincide, and no man has any rights .or duties. These are 
 purely the product of social organization, which Hobbes main- 
 tains must be brought about either by compact or by conquest. 
 Either alternative involves the necessity of absolute obedience to 
 a sovereign who becomes the state for all practical purposes. 
 " The sovereign is itself bound by the Law of, Nature to seek 
 the good of the people, which cannot be separated from its own 
 good, but it is responsible to God alone for its observance of these 
 laws. Its commands are the final measure of right and wrong 
 for the outward conduct of its subjects, and ought to be absolutely 
 obeyed by every one so long as it affords him protection, and 
 does not threaten serious harm to him personally ; since to dis- 
 pute its dictates would be the first step towards anarchy, the one 
 paramount peril outweighing all particular defects in legislation 
 
80 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 and administration." * Hobbes carried the doctrine of absolute 
 obedience so far as to affirm that, if the sovereign declared 
 Mohammedanism or any other faith to be the state religion, it 
 was .the duty of the subject to obey. Though he alludes 
 to the Law of Nature as binding upon the sovereign, he means 
 by this the law of self-preservation, and not any social tendency 
 of men, or love of their fellows. Consequently, his system con- 
 fers as absolute power as could be imagined, over the character of 
 what shall be called right. The doctrine coincided at the time 
 with the interest of the monarchical party in England, and was 
 supported by the conservatives against the liberal tendencies of 
 the Puritans, whose doctrine of individual responsibility to con- 
 science was especially offensive to Hobbes. His theory greatly 
 influenced public sentiment, on the doctrine of the " divine right 
 of kings," or at least gave it the support of philosophic authority, 
 and so had the double effect of reinforcing the reaction toward 
 external authority as the guide of conduct, and of giving moral- 
 ity more of a conventional character than the orthodox mind of 
 the age was willing to admit. Though the school which Hobbes 
 heads did not accept the radically despotic doctrine that the 
 sovereign could be the source of moral law, it turned the general 
 principle of his system to account in explaining the influence ex- 
 erted by jurisprudence in establishing social customs, and so in 
 giving form to the general conscience. The boldness and revo- 
 lutionary character of the doctrine was the agency which revived 
 ethical speculation, as can be seen in both the intellectual and 
 the aesthetic schools, which endeavored to refute both the con- 
 ventional and the egoistic features of his theory. Also its in- 
 fluence can be traced in the doctrines of Bain and Spencer, that 
 conscience originates, at least partly, in political authority and 
 restraints. The essential feature of the theory, however, was that 
 morality can be the creation of will in which Hobbes restored the 
 theological doctrine without the religious reverence that gave it 
 both force and ideality. It became a political instrument in the 
 hands of arbitrary power, precisely as Sophistic doctrine became 
 * Sidgwick, History of Ethics, p. 165. 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF ETHICAL PROBLEMS 81 
 
 in the hands of the Thirty Tyrants. The reaction which came 
 in the intellectual and moral sense schools measured the extent 
 of both the repugnance and the dangers of Hobbes' doctrine. 
 
 Locke did not exactly follow the lines of Hobbes' speculations. 
 The author of the celebrated treatise on Toleration could hardly 
 have consented to any form of absolutism, and hence his sympa- 
 thies with individual liberty would incline him to take another 
 view more consistent with natural rights. But he nevertheless 
 gave the empirical movement quite as strong, if not a stronger, 
 impulse than Hobbes, though he did it from another standpoint, 
 and without involving his theory in the meshes of practical poli- 
 tics. This he did by his general theory of knowledge whose fun- 
 damental principle was experience as opposed alike to authority 
 and to intuition. Locke denied the existence of " innate ideas," 
 both speculative and practical. All theoretical ideas he derived 
 from sensation and reflection, meaning by these external and 
 internal perception : all practical ideas, or moral maxims he 
 derived from experiences in pleasure and pain. What Locke 
 really called attention to was the fact that moral principles are 
 abstract and complex instead of being simple, and hence require 
 to be reduced to their concrete elements, which he found to be 
 pleasure and pain. Others had emphasized the influence of 
 these phenomena as well as he, but they did not mean thereby 
 to antagonize a doctrine of natural and inborn morality. 
 Hence the peculiar characteristic of Locke's position was that 
 he used the fact to prove the purely experiential character of 
 moral principles, and ever since his time the hedonistic theory 
 has been identified with the endeavor to develop, ethical maxims 
 from the pursuit of ends which in themselves did not contain 
 the peculiar quality which is generally expressed by morality or 
 virtue. 
 
 2. The Intellectualists. — This school comprises Cud- 
 worth, Cumberland, Price, and Clarke. The common characteris- 
 tic of it is its hostility to the conventionalism of Hobbes on the one 
 hand, and to the experientialism of Locke on the other. Hobbes 
 had founded morality upon the will and Locke upon the 
 
82 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 emotions. The intellectualists rejected these sources and referred 
 moral principles to reason, and made them constitutional to it. 
 They were influenced by the traditional doctrine that conscience 
 was mainly intellectual in its character, and so attempted to 
 reconstruct Ethics upon that basis. 
 
 Cudworth's contribution to the problem was his Treatise con- 
 cerning Eternal and Immutable Morality. This title is a suf- 
 ficient indication of the position which he took, as against the 
 theory of Hobbes. He denied the origin of morality, or moral 
 distinctions, in will of any kind, whether divine or human, and 
 asserted that it was a part of the eternal nature of things. This 
 moral law was an object of reason and not of feeling. But what 
 is interesting in his view is its thoroughly metaphysical and 
 objective character. It is very far removed from the idealistic 
 doctrine in that it founds morality in the nature of things rather 
 than in the nature of mind, and thus can set up an objective set 
 of relations as cognita of reason rather than either products of 
 arbitrary power or reflexes of sense and feeling. 
 
 Cumberland expounded his philosophy in a work entitled De 
 Legibus Naturce, which was designed as an attack on Hobbes, 
 and in which he asserted that the laws of nature were represented 
 by "immutably true propositions, regulative of voluntary 
 actions as to the choice of good and the avoidance of evil, and 
 which carry with them an obligation to outward acts of obedi- 
 ence, even apart from civil laws and from any considerations of 
 compacts constituting governments." Civil law can be nothing 
 but an effective means of enforcing the laws of nature. All 
 these laws of nature he thought could be comprehended under 
 one general principle — the law of benevolence — the obligation to 
 promote the happiness of all rational agents. Thus his position 
 is a double reply to Hobbes. The assertion of a law of nature was 
 opposed to Hobbes' conventionalism and the recognition of be- 
 nevolence as the basis of this law was opposed to the egoistic 
 individualism of Hobbes. 
 
 Clarke takes the same general view that the sanctions of mo- 
 rality are independent of legislations either divine or human, and 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF ETHICAL PROBLEMS 83 
 
 in regard to their self-evidence compares them to mathematical 
 truths which were generally admitted to be intuitive. Price also 
 presses the self-evidence of moral truths and asserts that the 
 ideas of right and wrong, ought, duty, etc., are simple notions 
 incapable of definition or analysis, thereby disputing the conse- 
 quences of Locke's doctrine. 
 
 3. The Esthetic or Moral Sense School. — This school 
 comprises Hutcheson, Shaftesbury, and Hume, with some others 
 of less important note. They represent a tendency to combat 
 equally the conventionalism of Hobbes, the empiricism of Locke, 
 and the rationalism of the intellectualists. They agree in main- 
 taining the existence of a moral sense whose function it is to per- 
 ceive what is right and wrong per se, as opposed to mere obedi- 
 ence to law from the motive of self-interest. On the other hand, 
 its object was not a relation of things as in the intellectual 
 school, but was a relation of men ; that is, universal happiness. 
 The fundamental principle of moral sense was sympathy or 
 social instinct. Thus there was a double opposition to Hobbes. 
 First, in so far as moral sense was an endowment of the individual 
 it was opposed both to Locke's empiricism and to Hobbes' con- 
 ventionalism. Second, in so far as it represented social instinct it 
 opposed Hobbes' egoism. Again, in so far as it was a sense as 
 opposed to reason and with its object in happiness the doctrine 
 combatted the pure rationalism of the intellectualists, and 
 represents the tendency toward the hedonistic and utilitarian 
 doctrine of later times. 
 
 Shaftesbury published his views in a work entitled An 
 Inquiry concerning Virtue and Merit, in which he attacked the 
 egoistic interpretations of the good by asserting the naturalness of 
 the social affections. He uses the term moral sense to describe 
 their general function and admits an element of judgment 
 or reason in it. But he placed more emphasis upon the felicific 
 character of its object and the universality of its existence so as 
 to show the social nature of morality. 
 
 Hutcheson emphasizes the view that the moral sense has had 
 no growth or history, but is a natural endowment of man. It 
 
84 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 is mainly of the nature of the affections and represents the 
 approval of right and the disapproval of wrong actions. Sym- 
 pathy or disinterested affection is the mainspring of virtuous 
 conduct, and reason plays only a subordinate part in its 
 functions. He wholly denies the moral character of self-love, 
 though admitting its harmony with benevolence. This prepared 
 him for the admissions of the scholastic distinction between 
 formal and material goodness. An act was formally good, 
 he held, when it sprang from benevolent affection, and " mate- 
 rially good when it tends to the interest of the system, whatever 
 the affections of the agent." This is an anticipation of one 
 feature of Kant and a preparation for Hume's doctrine. 
 
 Hume developed the moral-sense theory to its utmost degree 
 of perfection, and the elaborate analysis which he gave the 
 ethical problem makes his system worthy of a careful, though 
 brief, discussion. In the first place, he began with a completely 
 sceptical system of metaphysics, discrediting the dogmatic and 
 theological doctrine in regard to the existence of mind and 
 matter. But when he came to Ethics his scepticism seems to 
 play no special part in his theory. There was no reason that 
 it should do so because he opposed the idea that morality 
 Represented anything in the nature of phenomena independent 
 of the will. He founds his Ethics, however, upon the psycho- 
 logical classification of phenomena into impressions and ideas. 
 The former represent the objects of sense, including the feelings 
 of pleasure and pain ; the latter represent objects of the under- 
 standing or reason, and so denote relations of things. His 
 starting point, therefore, is the denial that moral distinctions are 
 produced by reason. " Reason," he held, " is the discovery of 
 truth or falsehood," and not of the praiseworthy or blame- 
 worthy. It deals with matters of fact and relations of ideas, and 
 so with objects and relations not determined by consciousness. 
 On the other hand, morality is wholly an affair of the will and 
 the affections. Its function is the distribution of praise and 
 blame, and its object pleasure and pain. Thus it had to deal 
 with the emotions. Hence he wholly denied the position of 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF ETHICAL PROBLEMS 85 
 
 Cudworth and the Cambridge Platonists, that right and wrong 
 represented aii) T thing in the nature of things apart from con- 
 sciousness and the will. Hume emphasized his denial of the 
 intellectualist doctrine by showing that the same effects pro- 
 duced by inanimate and irrational beings were not adjudged as 
 either moral or immoral. Actions must be caused by a will to 
 have moral quality. But since this quality cannot be found in 
 the nature of things, the objective relations of phenomena, it 
 must be found in the motive. Here is idealism pure and simple ; 
 only Hume refuses to attach merit to the " sense of morality," 
 or duty as a motive. This merit must come from some natural 
 affection of the soul other than reason or the sense of duty. 
 The way is prepared here for Kant's good- will, though it is not 
 qualified in the same way. Hume thus refutes the intellectual- 
 ists while maintaining the ultimately natural character of moral 
 distinctions. But he falls into line with the hedonists in making 
 pleasure the end of action, and partly w T ith Hobbes in his 
 doctrine of the conventional though not arbitrary nature of 
 justice. Having maintained that virtue and justice do not 
 represent any relation in things apart from will and that justice 
 cannot exist until a social order has been established, he pro- 
 ceeds to show that it is wholly dependent upon the contract or 
 compact that introduces that order. Justice is thus artificial 
 and also the obligation which it originates. The convention, 
 however, on which justice rests is not arbitrary, but expresses 
 the natural agreement of men, formed by their social instincts, 
 to establish society, and to maintain security of life and property. 
 Sympathy is the bond which holds the social organism together. 
 But in spite of this view Hume agreed with Hobbes in making 
 "self-interest the original motive to the establishment of justice, 
 but sympathy with public interest is the source of the moral 
 approbation which attends that virtue." In the latter aspect he 
 therefore falls into line with Hutcheson and Shaftesbury. But 
 in so far as he made virtue and justice in the social order a pro- 
 duct of convention and the sense of duty the result of the same, 
 he combined the doctrines of Hobbes and Locke, and laid the 
 
86 r ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 foundation of modern empiricism, as represented in Bain and 
 Spencer, and evolutionists generally. But he stands midway 
 between them and Kant in the fact that his moral sense is a 
 natural foundation upon which experience and convention had 
 to build. On the one hand, Hume anticipated idealism in 
 showing that morality was not a quality of external events, and 
 that it was constituted solely by the motive, or disposition of 
 will, though he made its object pleasure. On the other hand, he 
 outlined empiricism by declaring for the conventional nature of 
 justice, of conscience, and all rules affecting the security of life 
 and property. But when taken in all its phases his system will 
 be found to reflect the principles of several schools, marking the 
 transition to more modern doctrines. The summary of his views 
 will bring out this character of his system. We may state this 
 as follows : 
 
 First, Hume denies the rationalism of Cudworth and the 
 intellectualists. Second, he limits the object matter of morality 
 to the feelings or emotions. Third, he asserts a doctrine of 
 moral sense which contradicts both Hobbes and Locke. Fourth, 
 since morality cannot consist in a law or relation of things, ex- 
 ternal events, it must consist wholly in motive. Fifth, the 
 motive which determines the quality of virtue is something other 
 than the " sense of its morality," and must be some natural affec- 
 tion. Sixth, the conventional nature of the social organism gives 
 an artificial though not an arbitrary nature to justice. Seventh, 
 though personal interest originates this convention sympathy is 
 the influence which seals it and determines the feeling of appro- 
 bation. Eighth, conscience, or the "sense of morality," is a 
 product of social convention and represents a purely cognitive, 
 not a motive, function in the determination of morality. Ninth, 
 pleasure or utility is the object of all action and the criterion of 
 its goodness. 
 
 4. Conclusion. — It is not necessary to follow the history 
 of English ethical problems beyond Hume, farther than to re- 
 mark that his doctrine may be the starting point of several 
 opposing systems. On the one hand, the emphasis of one of his 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF ETHICAL PROBLEMS 87 
 
 principles terminates in Kant ; the development of another pro- 
 duces Bentham and Mill. The last two made pleasure the sole 
 criterion of morality, Bentham, however, holding that pleasures 
 differ only in quantity or degree, and Mill that they differ in 
 quality or kind as well as in quantity. Another aspect of 
 Hume's theory anticipates the main position of evolution, 
 while the many elements taken, together and harmonized might 
 originate a complete syncretistic or eclectic theory of morality. 
 He touched upon all the main problems of modern ethics and 
 suggests the attitudes which may be taken regarding them. 
 From his time they become progressively complex as the 
 analysis of their various elements proceeds, and represent the 
 questions which the moralist of the present has to meet. What 
 they are we may best illustrate by a careful summary, which 
 shall outline for us the many problems we have to discuss in the 
 present work. The following, therefore, will represent the ques- 
 tions to be considered in the modern science of Ethics : 
 
 First, there is the ultimate or highest good, or the question 
 regarding the ultimate end of conduct, whether it is pleasure or 
 perfection, or both, or some other more defensible object. Sub- 
 ordinate to this problem is the one regarding what men do seek, 
 and what they ought to seek, if obligation be possible. Second, 
 there is the question regarding ivhat is right or moral after the 
 end has been determined, since the right has to do with the 
 means to the end. The question why it is right also comes in as 
 a problem, but it is identical with the first-mentioned case. 
 Third, there is the question regarding the metaphysical basis of 
 Ethics, including the theological problems of God's existence, 
 his nature, and the relation of his will to the moral law. 
 Fourth, there is the question regarding the relation of moral law 
 to external authority, whether divine or human, and which in- 
 volves the question whether it is conventional or natural. Fifth, 
 there is the question in regard both to the nature and the origin 
 of conscience ; whether it is simple or complex, and whether it is 
 original, and implanted, or acquired and developed. Sixth, there 
 is farther the question as to the authority of conscience, its falli- 
 
88 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 bility or infallibility. This problem, however, is a receding echo 
 of scholasticism. Seventh, there is the problem of the freedom 
 of the will and responsibility, involving the question as to the 
 causes of conduct, man's relation to environment and to his an- 
 cestors, or the influences in time and space which may be sup- 
 posed to impose limitations upon his will. Eighth, there are the 
 various specific theories of Ethics combining these several prob- 
 lems in different ways. Ninth, there is the question regarding 
 the nature of virtue or moral goodness, whether it consists in a 
 quality of will, or a quality of conduct, or both. Tenth, there ■ 
 is the question of the relation of motives to conduct, (a) whether 
 they are causes of it or mere concomitants, and (6) whether they 
 are elements determining its ethical character or not. Eleventh, 
 there are the specific problems of practical Ethics concerning 
 the nature, obligation, and limits of the various virtues, such as 
 veracity, justice, chastity, etc. There are numerous other ques- 
 tions which might be stated, but they are either less important 
 than those we have mentioned, or they are subordinate aspects 
 of more general problems. But such as have been enumerated 
 indicate how complex the ethical question has become in the 
 process of development, and how careful must be the analysis if 
 we expect to give it any adequate answer. 
 
 References. — Sidgwick : History of Ethics ; Erdmann : History of Phi- 
 losophy ; Ueberweg : History of Philosophy ; Kuno Fischer : Geschichte 
 der Neueren Philosophic ; Wundt : Ethik ; Ziegler : Christliche Ethik ; 
 Martineau : Types of Ethical Theory ; Jodl : Geschichte der Ethik ; Win- 
 delband : Geschichte der Philosophic ; Falckenberg : History of Phi- 
 losophy (Translation by A. C. Armstrong) ; Schwegler : History of Philos- 
 ophy (Translation by J. H. Stirling). See also articles in the Encyclo- 
 pedia Britannica under the appropriate names and subjects. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 ELEMENTARY PRINCIPLES 
 
 J. INTRODUCTORY.— We have found that Ethics as a science 
 investigates questions concerning right and wrong, man's moral 
 nature, and the ultimate end of conduct, and that it is especially 
 interested in the ground and validity of the various moral rules 
 imposed by society and conscience upon the individual to reg- 
 ulate his behavior. These questions can, perhaps, be reduced to 
 three or four different forms. The first is whether there is any 
 duty, virtue, morality, or obligation at all. The second is, why 
 such and such rules are made obligatory, conditionally or 
 unconditionally, or what are the grounds upon which moral 
 obligation rests. The third is, how we come to know what 
 is moral. This is the problem of the origin and development of 
 moral consciousness. The fourth concerns the application of 
 moral rules to practical life, or the conditions under which they 
 may be held to be valid. It is the second and the third ques- 
 tions, however, that occupy the largest portion of the field 
 of theoretical Ethics, and to them we shall have to give most of 
 our attention in the first part of this treatise. The answer to the 
 first question is an answer to scepticism and can be made easy or 
 difficult according as we simplify or confuse our problems. In 
 one sense it is only a matter regarding the meaning of terms as 
 to whether there is any such thing as morality ; that is, it 
 is merely a question of fact which any normal consciousness 
 can settle for itself. On the other hand, and in another sense, it 
 is a question involving the meaning, contents, and theory of 
 morality. For that reason it may involve the whole problem, 
 and can be adequately answered only in the sequel of the 
 discussion. 
 
90 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 Again, there is so much equivocation and confusion in regard 
 to the nature of ethical conceptions and the theories of them, that 
 general questions can be intelligently discussed only after the 
 fundamental terms have been clearly defined and the various 
 moral phenomena of consciousness analyzed. In fact, nearly all 
 the disputes of Ethics turn upon a misunderstanding of the 
 terms and point of view involved. They are assumed to be sim- 
 ple and uniform in their import, but are in fact extremely com- 
 plex and variable in their application. For that reason it 
 is exceedingly important to clearly define the various applications 
 of fundamental terms and indicate their relation to the different 
 aspects of the ethical problem. These terms are virtue, vice, 
 good, bad, moral, immoral, right, wrong, duty, obligation, and 
 allied conceptions. We may forestall much useless controversy 
 by first indicating the illusions to which we are liable in using 
 them without being conscious of their equivocal import. 
 
 II DEFINITION OF TERMS— The different schools of Ethics 
 are very much affected by the conceptions they hold of the 
 terms lying at the basis of moral reflection. Their antagonisms 
 also are influenced by the different meanings involved and might 
 be removed by the precautions which analysis and definition 
 may establish. Thus one school makes virtue, as we have seen, 
 the highest good, and so regards it as an ultimate end of con- 
 duct ; another school does not see how virtue can be an end at 
 all, and conceives it as describing the merit of certain means to 
 an end which it may call pleasure, perfection, or something else. 
 If the terms have more than one meaning there is no necessary 
 conflict between the two modes of thought ; otherwise they 
 must disagree. It is the same with other important conceptions, 
 and hence their various denotations must be carefully examined. 
 
 1st. Virtue and Vice. — These two terms are usually employed 
 as opposites, or contradictory conceptions. More technically they 
 may be treated as contraries. But this refinement aside, they are 
 always opposed to each other. The former, however, often has 
 a meaning which is not reflected in the latter. This is due to the 
 exigencies of special theories, as will appear in the analysis. 
 
ELEMENT AR Y PRINCIPLES 9 1 
 
 The etymological import of the term virtue (Latin : virtus) is 
 manliness, and in Roman civilization this was largely represented 
 by the martial type of thought embodying the conceptions of a 
 militant stage of life. But in the course of intellectual develop- 
 ment the term was used as the equivalent of the Greek term 
 apetfj (apGD, to fit), whose original import seems to have been 
 fitness, harmony, adjustment, and so apparently describes the 
 adaptation of means to ends. But in Greek Ethics this concep- 
 tion seems not to have been current and the term denoted excel- 
 lence, without distinction between natural and moral, original 
 and acquired, qualities of being. Virtue was thus excellence of 
 any kind, whether of blood, of talents, or of character. But 
 Aristotle's distinction between intellectual and moral virtues and 
 his limitation of ethics to the consideration of the latter have 
 availed to narrow the term's significance until it now properly 
 denotes only moral qualities, either qualities of will, or qualities of 
 conduct. There are traces of the old conception in such phrases 
 as " the virtues of medicine," " the virtues of crystals," etc. But 
 this produces no confusion, since the phrases do not occur in 
 ethical speculations. The ambiguity of the term, so far as it 
 affects ethical doctrine, lies in its power to denote both excellence 
 of being or will, and excellence of conduct. The former meaning 
 refers to quality of character, of nature, of personality, and may 
 well be an end of desire or of action. In this sense the 
 merit which it denotes may be an absolute quality, appealing to 
 our approval or admiration, and having its excellence in itself. 
 With, this view of it the Stoics and later writers might well con- 
 sider it as the highest good. But the second .meaning which 
 describes excellence of conduct is very different. It here denotes 
 a merit which is purely relative to the end at which the conduct 
 aims. All action is a means to an end, and cannot very well be 
 conceived as an end in itself. Whatever quality it has, there- 
 fore, must be derived from the end or consequence to which it 
 leads. If the end be good, the act may be good, and if the end 
 be bad, the act will be bad. Now, as all the specific " virtues " 
 like courage, temperance, honesty, etc., represent actions, there 
 
92 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 was no way to look at them but as means to some end, and 
 hence they were virtues because they were causally connected 
 with certain desirable ends like pleasure or perfection. Their 
 quality was relative to those ends and dependent upon them. 
 That is to say, in this meaning of the terms, virtue and virtuous 
 denote only the fitness of a means to an end approved on other 
 grounds than the nature of the means. It is evident that in this 
 sense they could not denote an absolute or ultimate end, and 
 hence so conceived we can understand the reluctance of the 
 human mind to speak or think of the particular virtues, such as 
 veracity, honesty, courage, etc., as ends in themselves to be sought 
 on their own account and for which no reason could be assigned. 
 It could not do so as long as it asked and gave the reason for 
 their merit in the end which they were necessary to realize. But 
 when virtue expresses excellence of will, nature, or character the 
 case is different. It is then the equivalent of perfection, or the 
 intrinsic quality of a being which is expressed or indicated by 
 particular " virtues," while they are not means for attaining it. 
 In this sense it is an object to be aimed at, not a means for attain- 
 ing some other object. Hence we find the two very distinct 
 meanings for the term : first, a quality of being which is an end, 
 and second, a quality of action which is a means. One has 
 absolute and the other has only a relative value. 
 
 These two conceptions may give rise to two different theories 
 of morality. If we use the term to denote only the means to an 
 end, virtue must have its character determined solely in relation 
 to that end. It is reducible and capable of analysis into the 
 object which it serves, and will have no value but that of the 
 result to which it is the causal or necessary means. This will 
 explain the natural tendency of the mind to give a reason for 
 the various duties of honesty, veracity, justice, humility, etc., 
 other than those virtues themselves. On the other hand, if we 
 take the term to mean excellence of character, the quality or 
 nature of will which we call good on its own account, or perfec- 
 tion of personality, there is no reason to consider it as a means to 
 an end. Kather it may be regarded as an end having its own 
 
ELEMENTARY PRINCIPLES 93 
 
 worth, as every highest good or ultimate end, whether it be 
 pleasure or not, must have. Hence it would be reasonable to 
 speak and think of pursuing virtue for its own sake when so 
 conceived. 
 
 The term vice requires no special discussion, as its import is 
 parallel with that of virtue ; only it is to be noted that general 
 usage confines its application more frequently to the nature of 
 actions, rather than to that of the will or character. Hence it 
 reflects the tendency of the mind to use the two terms for de- 
 scribing the fitness and unfitness of certain actions in an ideal 
 world. 
 
 2d. Good and Bad or Evil. — These terms also have both an 
 absolute and a relative import : an absolute to denote inherent 
 characteristics, perfections, or imperfections, and a relative to 
 denote fitness or unfitness for achieving an end. We can define 
 both, however, by confining attention to one of them. Good, for 
 instance, will qualify objects, animate or inanimate, persons, 
 actions, and ends or purposes, and it does not always have the 
 same import in each case. Thus it may qualify objects, animate 
 or inanimate, below man, both absolutely and relatively. For 
 instance, we may say " a good picture " when we mean only that 
 it comes up to a certain standard of excellence, and not that it is 
 useful for any material purpose. In this sense we mean to de- 
 scribe certain intrinsic perfections of the picture, and not its 
 mere fitness to realize an end. On the other hand, " a good 
 watch," "a good horse," "a good government, "a good 
 machine," etc., however they may imply the presence of certain 
 excellences, intend definitely to express only -their value as 
 means to an end. We should not call them " good " if they did 
 not serve this useful purpose, although their intrinsic qualities 
 might remain the same. The question, then, is whether moral 
 goodness expresses anything more than adaptation to a given 
 purpose. If it does not, we cannot speak of this purpose as 
 " good " at all without degrading it to the rank of a means again 
 to some ultimate end which cannot be called "good." Mr. 
 Spencer maintains that the term has only a relative import. 
 
94 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 <' In which cases," he asks, " do we distinguish as good, a knife, 
 a gun, a house? And what trait leads us to speak of a bad 
 umbrella or a bad pair of boots ? The characters here predi- 
 cated by the words good and bad are not intrinsic characters ; 
 for apart from human wants, such things have neither merits 
 nor demerits. We call these articles good or bad according as 
 they are well or ill adapted to achieve prescribed ends ; ... so 
 it is when we pass from inanimate objects to inanimate actions." 
 When he comes to ethical actions he uses the same language. 
 "Observation," he says, "shows that we apply them according 
 as the adjustment of acts to ends are, or are not, efficient." All 
 this is very true as far as Mr. Spencer's illustrations go. But 
 he is either unfortunate in the choice of them, or he has failed 
 to make his analysis exhaustive. In most such cases "good" 
 does describe fit adjustment to ends, and only that. But it 
 often also refers to intrinsic perfections which are not considered 
 as a means to an end. They may be determined by relation to 
 an ideal, but this is not making them causally relative to an 
 end. They are qualities of excellence which we may admire 
 without reference to their utility. Such expressions as " a good 
 work of art," " a good book," " a good tree," " a good pane of 
 glass," meaning in each instance only that the object comes up 
 to a certain standard of perfection. Of course, some terms have 
 both the absolute and the relative meaning, but the presence of 
 the relative import may obscure or prevent the detection of the 
 other meaning. A few instances, however, where the expression 
 can denote only certain intrinsic excellences, admired on their 
 own account, are sufficient to set aside Mr. Spencer's limitations 
 and to defend the assertion that there is such a thing as an abso- 
 lute good, worth or value, not spoken of or conceived as a mere 
 means to an end. 
 
 As applied to persons this use of the term is quite aiDparent. 
 " A good man " is an expression which is without any rational 
 meaning unless it describes a certain excellence of character, or 
 quality of will representing at least a certain approximation to 
 an ideal. To conceive it as relative to some end in this case 
 
ELEMENTARY PRINCIPLES 95 
 
 would be to consider man merely as a means, and not as an end 
 in himself. Where a condition of slavery exists we might use 
 the term in that sense, but in a condition where every man is 
 free and independent, goodness can describe his moral perfection 
 or the presence of a quality which may be viewed as an end, as 
 a worthy object on its own account, and not merely as a means 
 to an end. It is true that man may often be a means to some 
 end : he may always be so. But the moment that he becomes 
 only a means, or that his excellences are conceived as only a 
 means to some other end, he can have no moral worth which is 
 not recognized in that end. Hence, the human mind when 
 seeking some object or quality of intrinsic value in man, merit- 
 ing moral approbation, has chosen to call it "good" simply 
 because of that quality and not merely because it might be use- 
 ful as a means. A good man, meaning a moral man, is one 
 whose nature or character represents something ideal, not merely 
 an instrument for giving pleasure to others or himself. The 
 existence of such a conception is a complete refutation of the 
 limitations placed upon the term by Mr. Spencer, and shows 
 that it . possesses other than a purely relative import. The 
 importance of this fact lies in the consideration that it validates 
 the usage of language in speaking of ultimate ends as good, 
 meaning thereby some excellence that is not merely a means, 
 and shows how any means can obtain its merit by virtue of that 
 relation to the end. It is apparent that in these usages the term 
 is quite identical with the two meanings of " virtue," only that 
 "virtue" in its relative sense is the name of a thing which is a 
 means, while "good" distinctly expresses or implies its instru- 
 mental character when purely relative. 
 
 In its applications to actions "good" has only a relative sig- 
 nification. Actions are only means to ends and cannot be called 
 good without limiting that attribute to their instrumental rela- 
 tion or connection with their result, and as Ethics has to do very 
 largely with conduct it is only natural that the term should 
 take on the essential meaning of the relative phenomena which 
 it describes. Courage, fortitude, humility, honesty are all 
 
96 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 actions which must be estimated or valued solely on the 
 ground of their relation to the end they serve, or because of the 
 character they express. If they did not represent these relations 
 they would not obtain the right to be called good actions. 
 From these and like illustrations we can only conclude that 
 where actions are described as good or bad, we can view the 
 terms only in their relative signification, to denote merely 
 adjustment to prescribed ends. Hence they describe no merit 
 or obligation which is not derived from the end which they may 
 realize. If this end cannot be shown to be ideal or moral, these 
 actions cannot be good. In Ethics, therefore, good and bad 
 cannot describe any absolute quality in actions. An absolute 
 value must be found in some object or purpose whose pursuit 
 sanctifies the action necessary to attain it. 
 
 In its application to ends, the term good will have an absolute 
 or a relative import according as the end is ultimate or subordi- 
 nate. An ultimate end is one which represents the supreme 
 object of desire or volition, to which everything else is subordi- 
 nate or contributory. Thus I may make haj)piness my supreme 
 purpose in life, and in that case I should subordinate fame, 
 wealth, knowledge, and all other accomplishments to it. Or if I 
 choose wealth, I subordinate my manner of business and dealings 
 with men to that one end. On the other hand, a subordinate 
 end is one which is a means to a remoter end. Thus the imme- 
 diate end of my action may be to make knives. But this end 
 again may be a means to the acquisition of wealth and this again 
 to some other end. Thus some purposes may be both means and 
 ends, and others only ends but not means. An end which is not 
 a means is always ultimate or supreme. Now in application to 
 this the term good can only have an absolute meaning. It can 
 describe the ultimate end or ends of life only as objects having 
 intrinsic worth, and not as means to any remoter end. This 
 must be true or the term cannot apply to them. Thus if the 
 Utilitarian calls pleasure or happiness the highest good, he must 
 either admit the absolute meaning of the term or abandon call- 
 ing the ultimate end of life a good at all. We cannot define 
 
ELEMEXTARY PRINCIPLES 97 
 
 the term as purely relative and then apply it to an absolute end. 
 Hence when we do apply it to the ultimate object of life we 
 intend to express ah intrinsic quality by it, a certain kind of 
 excellence or perfection, and not mere causal capacity. 
 
 The importance of considering the two meanings of the term 
 is the same as in the case of the term virtue, with which ti is 
 often identical. There is a slight difference between them in 
 most applications, but it is not essential to ethical discussions. 
 The two uses have their value, however, in the fact that they en- 
 able us to consider the controversy about moral obligations at 
 its very basis. One of the problems of theoretical interest to 
 Ethics is the question whether moral obligation is ever uncon- 
 ditional ; whether duty is not merely relative to an end which 
 we may choose or not, as we please. The sceptic tells us that 
 the various duties and virtues, like temperance, chastity, filial 
 obedience, etc., are binding only so long as we desire the end to 
 which they are the means, and that so long -as we reject that 
 ideal there is no necessity or constraint to exercise them. This 
 is to say that moral obligation is conditioned upon something 
 which is not moral or obligatory at all. As long as " good " 
 expresses a merely relative meaning, or fitness to achieve an end, 
 causal or instrumental agency, this might be true. But if the 
 term is also employed to denote what the mind denotes by an 
 absolute and ultimate value, irreducible to anything more 
 supreme, there is reason to consider moral goodness as expressing 
 unconditional obligations of some kind, and we are not at liberty 
 to discard it. It is, in fact, the sense of an unconditionally im- 
 perative end that has tempted the human mind to speak and 
 think of the specific virtues as absolutely binding, and thus by 
 abstraction to lose sight of the one fact that constituted their 
 moral character. 
 
 3d. Right and Wrong — Right (Latin rectus, straight ; Greek 
 equivalent, opdo5) denotes literally directness or straightness, 
 and wrong (Anglo-Saxon wringen, to twist) denotes obliquity or 
 crookedness. In Ethics, however, there is only metaphor to re- 
 tain these etymological meanings, and hence they describe cer- 
 
98 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 tain qualities of action. They do not always coincide with the 
 terms good and bad, or virtue and vice, while they have one as- 
 sociated implication not found in those at all. This will be 
 shown in the analysis of them. The first will suffice for this. 
 
 The term " right " has several distinct meanings which may 
 be reduced to its substantive and its attributive import. They do 
 not all of them express moral quality and it is on this account 
 that the term is liable to illusion. Each may be considered in 
 its order. 
 
 1. "Right" (Latin Jus) as a substantive, " sl right" or 
 " rights," denotes a claim of one person against the infringement 
 of others, or a possession which can be defended against aggres- 
 sion. It is illustrated in such phrases as " the right to life," 
 " the right to vote," " human rights," etc., and essentially means 
 that force may be legitimately used in the defence of it, though 
 there may not always be an obligation to do so. In this usage 
 it does not necessarily imply any kind of morality. It is prac- 
 tically identical with liberty of action, or a privilege which it is 
 proper to exercise, and which confers immunity upon the sub- 
 ject from all penalties for its exercise. It implies a duty on the 
 part of others to respect it and not to interfere with it, but it 
 does not express any absolute obligation on the part of the sub- 
 ject to act according to his liberty. Consequently it has only a 
 peculiarly relative import in that it implies a duty on the part 
 of other rational beings to restrict their own liberty of action 
 according to this right, but implies no duties on the part of the 
 subject, unless he too be rational. Thus animals are said to have 
 " rights " but no duties ; but they have " rights " only in relation 
 to man, who has duties toward them. But between men the 
 duties are reciprocal by virtue of the possession of the same 
 rights, while between animals there are neither " rights " nor 
 duties. It is the possession of a rational nature that determines 
 the existence of duties, and it is a relation to rational beings 
 that determines the existence of " rights." What that relation 
 is it is not necessary to consider at present. But it is important 
 to know that it is only a relation to rational beings and not 
 
ELEMENTARY PRINCIPLES 99 
 
 merely the possession of a rational nature that determines the 
 existence of rights, as the practice of civilization represents the 
 matter. This will explain why the term in this sense does not 
 connote morality, but only the unreasonableness of interference 
 with a right by those who are rational, or claim to be. 
 
 2. "Right" (Latin rectus), as an attributive qualifying 
 objects, denotes correctness of choice or judgment between alter- 
 natives, and so is distinguished from wrong as true is from false. 
 It is illustrated in such phrases as " the right person," " the 
 right path," "right judgment," "right opinion," etc. In this 
 usage the term has no moral implications whatever and does not 
 express a moral quality in the object described. It merely indi- 
 cates that as between two or more alternatives, conceived as 
 related to a certain end, the choice has been a correct one. If I 
 am hesitating about the road I shall take among several before 
 me to a certain point of destination, I may be told that a certain 
 one is " the right road," by which is meant, not that there is 
 any moral obligation to take that course, but that this is the 
 proper one to take me whither I wish to go, or with the least 
 pains and inconvenience. If the road is the only one to my 
 destination and I will to go to it, I am " obliged " to choose this 
 road. But the obligation is not moral unless the journey itself 
 is morally imperative. The obligation is only a constraint 
 or necessity to adopt this means, if I insist upon pursuing the 
 end. Hence " right " in this case denotes nothing more than 
 correctness, or the proper causal connection between the alterna- 
 tive or means chosen and the end desired. It simply denotes 
 intellectually correct determinations, not moral quality. 
 
 3. "Right" (Latin rectus, honestus, etc.), as attributive qual- 
 ifying actions, denotes moral quality, and so indicates their im- 
 perativeness or praiseworthiness. There are instances here also 
 where the term signifies merely intellectual correctness of judg- 
 ment, but it is usually in the phrase " the right " as contrasted 
 with " a right." This is an interesting illustration of a very 
 subtle illusion to which the human mind is exposed in using such 
 expressions. But phrases like " right conduct," " right action," 
 
100 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 and statements like " that is right," " temperance is right," etc., 
 denote moral quality and hence imply an obligation to realize 
 them. But the term retains its references to causal connection 
 between the means and the end, while it never expresses the 
 conception of virtue taken in the sense of excellence. Even 
 when the term virtue or virtuous refers to actions it never 
 indicates causal capacity or relation, but only moral quality by 
 virtue of that connection with an end conceived as moral. But 
 the term right expresses both moral quality and causal connec- 
 tion when describing the means to an end. 
 
 4. "Eight" (Latin equitas, honestum, justitia, etc.), as substan- 
 tive again, denoting ends or an object of moral volition, signifies 
 that which carries the highest obligation with it. It is purely an 
 abstract conception to describe the quality, either of an action or 
 an end that gives it morality and imperativeness. In this mean- 
 ing of the term the conception of virtue as excellence is not 
 found. There is only the idea of moral necessity or obligation, 
 whether there be excellence, utility, or other merit in it. It 
 denotes in this use pure morality, or the duty that rests upon 
 all wills, absolutely considered and irrespective of any other ob- 
 ject than itself. Whether there be any such thing or not, it is 
 not our purpose to settle at present. It is important only to 
 show current usage, and to notice the tendency of the human 
 mind to conceive something else than a purely relative good or 
 right, though it becomes entangled in difficulties, when called to 
 define its meaning, by the simultaneous power of the same terms, 
 to denote only relative qualities. 
 
 5. It is proper to call attention to a peculiar use of the term 
 " right," which shows its extreme flexibility. It sometimes de- 
 notes merely moral indifference, or not wrong. This appears in 
 such expressions as : " It is right to take a walk, or to play ball, 
 if I desire to do so," etc. No moral obligation is expressed by 
 this manner of statement, but only that the act is not wrong pro- 
 vided the liberties of others are not infringed. It is, therefore, 
 more or less synonymous with liberty of action, and seems to be 
 an attributive use of the term to express what is meant by " a 
 
ELEMENTARY PRINCIPLES ' 101 
 
 right," or " rights." No special importance attaches to this sig- 
 nification of the word farther, than to denote the equivocation 
 to which it might give rise both consciously and unconsciously. 
 
 The term " wrong " has simply the opposite import of the term 
 " right," except a general meaning opposed to that of " a right " 
 or " rights " is not common. 
 
 4th. Moral or Morality. — The primitive and etymological 
 import of the term (Latin mos) was custom, usage, or the rules 
 which society imposed upon its members. The force of public 
 opinion and of the law, with the constraints which they estab- 
 lished, gave rise to the notion of authority as characterizing the 
 " moral." Hence the term described a life according to accepted 
 usage, or common as opposed to eccentric and independent con- 
 duct. But as civilization progressed, the term took up the funda- 
 mental conceptions, which the prevalent theories of Ethics created, 
 regarding the nature of what was called morality. The implica- 
 tion of external authority was transformed into one of internal 
 authority, and then into the conceptions of utilitarian and other 
 doctrines. Very early these conceptions now expressed by it 
 were embodied in equivalents, like righteousness, uprightness, 
 holiness, etc. (Latin honestum, rectum, Greek to KaXov, 
 SiKair/y and later opdia), and when the term came to be 
 adopted for the general class of ethical phenomena, it denoted 
 a certain quality about actions which made them praiseworthy 
 and imperative, independently of mere conformity to usage or 
 authority out of the fear of consequences. Controversies also 
 between the physical and the "moral" sciences availed to im- 
 press their influence upon the meaning of the term, and hence 
 taking all of them into account, we should be able to enumerate 
 a number of significations. But they can be reduced to two 
 general forms, the generic and the specific meanings of the term. 
 
 1. The generic import of the term moral applies to all 
 voluntary actions, whether good or bad, and which are the sub- 
 ject of ethical consideration. Such actions are called " moral" 
 in contradistinction to physical and involuntary actions, 
 which are not subject to either praise or blame, and so are 
 
102 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 properly non-moral in their nature. The distinction here is 
 between personal or free and impersonal or necessitated acts. 
 There is no special importance attaching to this meaning, but it 
 is well to keep it in mind as necessary to understand certain dis- 
 tinctions which have been embodied in ethical doctrine. It is 
 within the limits of the second meaning that the term obtains its 
 more important qualifications. 
 
 2. The specific import of the term is that of rightness as 
 opposed to wrong and hence is contrasted with the immoral 
 rather than the unmoral or non-moral, though it is, of course, dis- 
 tinguished from these at the same time. Moral is here not only 
 personal but is also virtuous and imperative actions, and so de- 
 scribes that quality of conduct by which it has acquired the 
 character of righteousness. Within this general meaning it has 
 also obtained different meanings according as action is viewed 
 externally or objectively and internally or subjectively. Some- 
 times it denotes any personal act affecting the order of the 
 world for good, no matter what the motive, and sometimes it 
 describes only the volitional act independently of the conse- 
 quences, and so makes righteousness merely a quality of will. 
 But these meanings will come up when discussing the questions 
 of moral actions more directly, while it is sufficient at present to 
 know that there is an equivocal meaning in the term growing 
 out of this distinction between motive and consequence. As 
 a general result, then, we obtain two important uses of the term, 
 one contrasting personal or voluntary and physical actions, and 
 the other two distinct kinds of personal or voluntary actions. 
 The first pair represents the contrast between conscious and un- 
 conscious, or free and necessitated actions; the second pair 
 represents the antithesis between good and evil actions, both of 
 which are free or personal and conscious. This gives us three 
 forms of actions to be considered — the moral, the non-moral or in- 
 different, and the immoral. Confusion may occur between the 
 last two classes when we assume that all actions must be either 
 good or bad ; that is, we sometimes illegitimately identify " not 
 moral " with immoral. This probably gives rise to no difficulties 
 
ELEMENTARY PRINCIPLES 103 
 
 in speculative and theoretical Ethics when we are on the alert 
 for such illusions, but in practical life it often avails to carry 
 unfair insinuations with it when we speak of an action as " not 
 moral M and mean by it that it is immoral. Common life often 
 proceeds upon the loose assumption that the disjunction is com- 
 plete between the moral and the immoral, and distributes praise 
 accordingly, and thus does not make allowance for the large field 
 of actions that are indifferent and that constitute the province of 
 rights and of moral liberty. 
 
 5th. Duty and Obligation. — Duty (Latin debere, to owe) 
 and obligation (Latin obligate, to bind), though etymologically 
 distinct, have logically the same import. Both originally ex- 
 pressed that relation between two persons which is indicated by 
 the indebtedness of one to the other, a condition in which there 
 is a constraint upon one to return a service to the other. They 
 still express this thought with the conception that the service is 
 not a mere debt or obligation, assumable or dissolvable at will 
 by contract, but a fixed due unconditionally binding upon a 
 rational subject toward all others. They describe what ought to 
 be done as contrasted with that which we are at liberty to do or 
 not do. The ideas expressed by them are very difficult to de- 
 fine in other terms than themselves. They are rather unique in 
 their nature, and we better understand the feelings and condi- 
 tions they indicate than we can choose any brief phrase to 
 denominate their meaning. Besides, like most other terms in 
 Ethics, they have absorbed the variety of conceptions that have 
 characterized different stages of intellectual and moral develop- 
 ment, while they have lost none of the associations belonging to 
 an earlier stage. Hence they have become ambiguous. Con- 
 straint, a feeling of necessity or compulsion, a limitation to one 
 course of conduct where we desire liberty, are the conceptions 
 that describe the original and perhaps the prevalent notion of 
 the terms. But the development of the doctrine that morality 
 does not consist merely in obedience to authority out of fear, but 
 in reverence for law and personality, has carried with it the 
 notion that our duty and obligation consists in reverence and re- 
 
104 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 spect for an ideal which is very far removed from the notion or 
 constraint or compulsion. The consequence is that the two 
 terms give considerable difficulty in the construction of an ethi- 
 cal theory. One of their meanings opposes them to inclination, 
 desire, or interest, and the other identifies them with interest, or 
 at least with the highest conceivable interest. This variation 
 was brought about by the process alluded to in which the terms 
 retained along with their older associations the accretions of 
 later stages of moral development. In the first place, the con- 
 straint of authority and the subordination of all other claims 
 and desires to the one course of conduct enjoined by what was 
 called a man's duty very easily carried with it, especially in 
 individualistic ages, the conception that ali desires and inclina- 
 tions must be suppressed in the presence of this law. This 
 created the idea that duty necessarily involves a struggle or con- 
 flict with interest and natural desire, and so tenacious has been 
 this impression of its meaning that most persons still think of it 
 as always requiring a sacrifice of natural impulses to do their 
 duty, and many often think and act with the fear that they are 
 not doing what is right unless they are resisting the temptations 
 of some pleasure or desire. But as the sense of duty in this con- 
 ception represented the highest motive to action, the intellectual 
 change from the sentiment of authority and fear to that of rev- 
 erence or respect as the proper attitude of mind and will in 
 moral action, wdiile the object of it remained the same as before, 
 carried with it the conception that one's duty must consist with 
 reverence and a positive love for the ideal ; so that the term 
 added this idea to that of conflict with lower impulses, while it 
 changed the kind or attitude of the subject's interest, and there 
 remains still the difficulties of conceiving the term as implying 
 a conflict with desire, on the one hand, and as representing the 
 highest desire, on the other. 
 
 Theoretical Ethics is very much influenced by this equivo- 
 cation, and even the general moral consciousness is confused by it 
 when called to assign the highest motives to conduct. But the 
 consequences of this ambiguity cannot be dwelt upon at present. 
 
ELEMENT AR Y PRINCIPLES 105 
 
 It is enough to know it exists and is likely to produce all the 
 perverse antagonisms which duplicity of meaning is calculated 
 to create. Later, in the discussion of the nature of morality, we 
 may return to it, and be content at present with the warning 
 against illusion, which the consciousness of equivocal conceptions 
 can provide. 
 
 III. PSYCHOLOGICAL FIELD OF MORAL CONSCIOUS- 
 NESS. — Man's moral nature has often been conceived as 
 a simple one and very little complicated with the intellectual. 
 Many, indeed, have gone so far as to assert that the only differ- 
 ence between man and the animals, so far as intelligence is 
 concerned, is one of degree, but that man's moral nature estab- 
 lished a difference of kind. This conception of the matter 
 makes moral capacity unique and independent in its character 
 of the general faculties of intelligence, and has been embodied 
 in the doctrine of conscience. But it is a mistake thus to isolate 
 moral phenomena. They are part and parcel of the general 
 functions of the mind. Not that they cannot be distinguished 
 from other mental events, but that the distinction is rather one 
 of the objects than of the processes concerned. Moral phenomena 
 will give more prominence to certain functions than the purely 
 intellectual activities in the objective sciences of nature, but 
 they will not exclude them altogether. Consciousness, judgment, 
 feeling, are quite as much concerned with morality as they are 
 with science and art ; only the objects of it differ and perhaps 
 the kind of feeling. But they cannot be eliminated from it 
 altogether. They pervade all the operations of our moral nature 
 and give it completeness. Hence, in order to properly under- 
 stand that nature, we require to know all the elements that enter 
 into it. But we can abbreviate the analysis for Ethics which 
 would have to be more elaborate in Psychology. Hence, we shall 
 merely outline the whole field of mental phenomena. A sketch 
 of this kind is represented by the following tabular review. 
 
 I. Intellection. — This is the general process occupied with the acqui- 
 sition, retention, ^reproduction, and elaboration of conceptions. 
 It includes three subordinate processes. 
 
106 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 1st. Cognition = Consciousness of present objects. 
 
 1. Sensation = Affection or Reaction of the organism. 
 
 2. Perception = Apprehension of an object. 
 
 2d. Conservation = Preservation and Consciousness of past objects. 
 
 1. Eetention = Passive Memory. 
 
 2. Reproduction and Association = Recall. 
 
 3. Recognition = Active Memory. 
 
 3d. Construction = Consciousness of relations. The process is one of 
 comparison and synthesis. 
 
 1. Conception — Synthesis of percepts. 
 
 2. Judgment = Synthesis of concepts. 
 
 3. Reasoning = Synthesis of judgments. 
 
 II. Emotion. — This is a general state of excitement attending the exer- 
 
 cise of function, or interesting the subject as an attraction or 
 repulsion. 
 
 1st. Subjective, or Reflexive Emotion == Sensibilities or Pleasures and 
 Pains. These are reflexes of activity, functional, intellectual, 
 and volitional. 
 
 2d. Objective, or Impulsive Emotion = Passions. These are the attrac- 
 tions and repulsions of consciousness directed toward objects. 
 
 III. Conation. — This is the general faculty of effort or all the influences 
 
 of the mind which issue in activity. 
 
 1st. Motive Powers = Desires and Legislative functions of conscious- 
 ness.* 
 
 1. Impulse = Non-deliberative and Unadjusted Passion. 
 
 2. Instinct = Organic, Co-ordinated, and Adjusted Desires. 
 
 3. Reason = Deliberative and Regulative Forces of Con- 
 
 sciousness. 
 
 (a) Prudential Reason ; Utility or Interest is its object. 
 
 (6) Moral Reason, or Conscience ; Duty or Virtue is its 
 
 object. 
 
 2d. Active Powers = Determinative and Initiative Functions of 
 Consciousness. 
 
 1. Choice = Determinative. Internal in its nature and 
 
 decides the character of the agent, or the subjective 
 quality of moral action. 
 
 2. Volition = Executive. External in its effect and decides, 
 
 though it does not constitute, the objective quality of 
 moral action. 
 
ELEMENTARY PRINCIPLES 107 
 
 In distinguishing man's moral from his intellectual nature we 
 do not wholly exclude the latter functions, but we merely add 
 them to those which we regard as more particularly constituting 
 the moral, and these are the emotional and conative functions. 
 Intellectual operations, occupied with the acquisition of mere 
 knowledge, concern themselves with facts, events or phenomena 
 as they occur according to natural law. They simply observe 
 and explain them. Thus intellectual processes are speculative, 
 reducing phenomena to their laws and causes. On the other 
 hand, man's moral functions are concerned with ideals or ends, 
 as opposed to mere events. They estimate the value or worth of 
 certain facts and objects of desire, and attempt to regulate the 
 pursuit of them as ends. This contrasts them with the intel- 
 lectual processes as occupied with an order of events already 
 produced, and shows them concerned with a possible order of 
 events not yet realized, and which must be realized by the will. 
 But in spite of this difference intellectual activities are involved 
 in the moral. Consciousness is always involved in the judg- 
 ments of value and the motivation of volition. Cognition is an 
 invariable element of the estimation of values and ends, and the 
 speculative functions are necessary to the determination of the 
 means to ends. And " means " is only a term to denote the 
 practical, as " cause " is a term to denote the theoretical, relation 
 of events. Moral consciousness determines the ends of life and 
 the legitimate means to them, while purely intellectual conscious- 
 ness determines the causal relations of phenomena, which indi- 
 cate what can be the means to ends. The former is helpless, 
 however, without the accompaniment of the latter, and hence 
 cognition must always be a fundamental element of moral con- 
 sciousness. 
 
 It is not necessary to enter into the detailed relation of the 
 subordinate faculties to the moral. It is enough to know that 
 they enter into the subject matter and processes of moral phe- 
 nomena as general elements wherever cognition is a part. It is 
 only necessary to emphasize the function of the knowing process 
 in order to set aside the doctrine that moral consciousness is 
 
108 ELEMEJ\TS OF ETHICS 
 
 simple and unique. The temptation to regard it as such comes 
 from the prominence of the feelings, expressed by pleasure and 
 pain and the sense of duty, in moral consciousness as a whole, 
 which do not appear as distinctive in theoretical occupations. 
 But the necessity of knowing the highest good, of discriminating 
 between objects that compete with it for this supremacy, of as- 
 certaining what are the possible means to any end, as well as the 
 right means, is evidence of what pure cognition does for con- 
 science, and hence it must be recognized as a psychological 
 datum in the complex known as moral consciousness. 
 
 It is apparent, therefore, that we use the terms " moral con- 
 sciousness " as an expression for the ensemble or aggregate of all 
 the intellectual, emotional, motive and active functions of the 
 mind as exercised with objects called moral. In that sense we 
 may regard it as unique. But it is so by virtue of the object 
 with which it is occupied rather than because of the mental 
 processes involved, which are the same as in other mental activi- 
 ties. Thus moral judgment is simply discrimination in regard to 
 right and wrong ; moral emotion is approval or disapproval, 
 while intellectual emotion is satisfaction or dissatisfaction in the 
 discovery of truth ; moral choice is a decision between right and 
 wrong, while in scientific matters it is attention or correct selec- 
 tion of facts. In this way we readily perceive that moral con- 
 sciousness is not only complex, but differs from any other 
 consciousness only in the subject matter with which it deals. 
 
 Again the Sensibilities and the Passions are prominent elements 
 of the moral nature. For instance, pleasure and pain are 
 accompaniments of nearly every form of action, functional or 
 volitional, and we are obliged to take account of them in regu- 
 lating our conduct. They may become the sole object of voli- 
 tion, the one of pursuit and the other of aversion, and lead to 
 the disregarding of other ends. Again the passions of love, 
 hatred, sympathy, fear, anger, malice are influences on character, 
 or expressions of it and require to be properly directed. They 
 are moral agencies in so far as they are rationally controlled 
 and directed and hence make up a part of the moral nature of 
 
ELEMENT AR Y PRINCIPLES 109 
 
 the subject. The study of them and of the means of keeping both 
 the sensibilities and the passions under subjection is a very 
 important part of Ethics. 
 
 The conative functions are a still more important element of 
 moral consciousness. All moral action, so far as it is rational, 
 and it is perhaps impossible to conceive any other as moral, must 
 have its motives and its executive character. The motive is the 
 consciousness of a purpose or end and the accompaniment of a 
 desire to act. It is the impelling character of consciousness. It 
 may take any one of the three forms mentioned — impulse, 
 instinct, or reason. All these go to make up the agent considered 
 as a moral being and so are a part of the psychology of conduct. 
 Then there is the choice and the volition. The choice is the 
 decision of the mind between two or more alternatives, and it is 
 the point where the whole character of the agent is determined. 
 It is the first element of action properly considered, and as it is, 
 so is the morality of the man. The volition is the determinate 
 act to execute a choice or resolve and puts into effect the object 
 chosen. It is the part of a moral act which sets other agencies 
 going to achieve a result, and determines the good or bad part of 
 conduct apart from the character of the agent. The motive and 
 choice determine the goodness or badness of the will, and the 
 volition the goodness or badness both of the character and of the 
 result, of the former as an expression of it, and of the latter as 
 the cause of it. The psychology of morality, therefore, involves 
 all these complex functions as determining its nature. It is not 
 a unique and isolated phenomenon, but absorbs in various pro- 
 portions all the operations and functions of the mind. 
 
 Having thus indicated all the elements that enter into our 
 moral nature, we. may speak of them comprehensively as 
 knowledge, emotion, and volition. This conception of the case 
 will enable us to take up moral action and discuss its nature. 
 Moral action covers a narrower field than the moral nature. It 
 refers mainly to the will, though regarding the other factors as 
 important accompaniments. But in taking up the simple 
 phenomenon of action we can discuss it as an event in contrast 
 
110 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 with actions that are admittedly not moral. The first problem, 
 therefore, will be to decide the conditions of morality, or of the 
 distribution of praise and blame. 
 
 IV. THE CONDITIONS OF MORALITY.— ."When we come 
 to classify actions connected with human life, we find many of 
 them free from either praise or blame, and yet their nature and 
 effects make them resemble those which are moral to such an ex- 
 tent as often to cause confusion regarding them. Every moral 
 act is subject to praise or blame, merit or demerit, using the 
 term moral here in its specific sense. It is in this way contrasted 
 with all actions which occur without the intention or conscious- 
 ness of the agent, and all that are not freely performed. Hence, 
 the following conditions of morality : 
 
 1st. Consciousness or Intelligence. — Every act, in order to 
 be moral, must at least be an intelligent act. The agent must 
 be conscious of what he is doing. He must have an end in view, 
 and if not conscious of all the effects that may follow, he must at 
 least know that he aims at some result. It is for what he aims 
 at that he is responsible, and he cannot be responsible for any re- 
 sult of which he is wholly ignorant, and which it is no part of his 
 intention to effect. That is, he is not morally responsible, as 
 that term is technically applied, unless conscious. We may in- 
 terfere with him to prevent such an action, on the ground that 
 he is the cause of it, but he is not responsible or subject to praise 
 or blame unless the act be conscious or intentional. 
 
 There is a whole series of actions that cannot be moral for the 
 want of this characteristic. First among them are physical ac- 
 tions which are the necessary effects of antecedent causes. Then 
 there is the class of reflex actions which are so much like purely 
 mechanical movements that they might be called such. They 
 are unconscious and physiological responses to stimulus, and are 
 illustrated in their purest forms by such cases as circulation, di- 
 gestion, and in modified forms by breathing, winking, etc. Ac- 
 tions also which represent an immediate and unreflective response 
 to some stimulus, though we become at once conscious of them 
 when done, are true reflexes. Again, automatic or spontaneous 
 
ELEMENTARY PRINCIPLES 111 
 
 actions, like those of very young infants, or the unregulated and 
 unconscious or unintended acts of any one, not affected by any 
 known stimulus, are also like the reflexes in being non-moral. 
 They are physical or physiological to all intents and purposes. 
 That they are not moral actions is a truism which every one 
 knows. But they afford a clear illustration of what must be one 
 of the essential conditions of a moral act. They lack the element 
 of consciousness. The agent is neither conscious of the result 
 which they effect, nor does he consciously aim at this result. But 
 where he is conscious of the result, and intends it, he is responsi- 
 ble. That is to say, that to be conscious, on the one hand, of the 
 effect of one's action, and to consciously aim at it, on the other, 
 are facts which place such actions under a very different category 
 from those which have just been mentioned. Consciousness, 
 either aiming at an end, or aware of a result connected with 
 volition, characterizes conduct as very different from mechanical 
 actions, and the clearest way to present its influence in this re- 
 spect is to compare it with that class. Consciousness is presum- 
 ably a cause or antecedent of action conditioning or accompany- 
 ing, or at least the index, of the power to determine conduct 
 otherwise than mechanical or unconscious forces. It involves a 
 knowledge of alternative courses of action, and even when 
 this is not determinately active, it represents an influence 
 which is directed to an end as distinguished from a mere 
 result, and in this way qualifies actions so that they cannot be 
 identified with physical movements and their antecedents. It is 
 this intelligence which makes conduct rational, as it is called, 
 under the condition described, and any action which does not 
 come under some degree of this characteristic must be excluded 
 from morality, generically considered, and treated as non-moral. 
 2d. Freedom. — (But there is a second equally important 
 condition of morality closely connected with the first. It is free- 
 dom. It is not enough that conduct be accompanied by con- 
 sciousness ; it must be free. The subject must be the cause of 
 the action and capable at least of knowing that some other 
 alternative was possible than the one actually chosen. We 
 
112 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 cannot at present discuss either what is meant by the freedom of 
 the will or the question whether it is free or not. We can only 
 point out that in some sense there must be what is called free 
 will if morality be possible at all. We* are not here assuming 
 that there is any such thing in fact as morality, but only that 
 morality and freedom must stand or fall together ; that freedom 
 is a primary condition of it, if morality exists in fact. The term 
 is unquestionably used in different senses, which we shall have to 
 examine again, but there is one general conception of it that all 
 would admit, and this is that a free act is, in the first place, 
 initiated by the subject, not by the object or external world, 
 and, in the second place, is consciously willed with a knowledge 
 of alternative possibilities (whether the agent can choose between 
 them or not). In this sense, at least, every act must be free in 
 order to be moral. All such actions of my person as are reflex, 
 automatic, or performed unconsciously are not free ; that is, I 
 have not caused them. So with any actions forced upon me, 
 and of which I am the mere instrument. Properly speaking, 
 they are not my acts : they are only connected with my physical 
 person. Thus if some other being or person uses my hand or 
 limbs to effect any result, if I am the passive instrument for 
 inflicting an injury upon some one, as, for instance, being pushed 
 against another, my action is not free. Strictly speaking it is 
 not my act at all, though its connection with my person gives 
 rise to the habit of calling it mine. But it is not a free act, 
 not being willed or initiated by myself, and I cannot be made 
 responsible for it. Neither praise nor blame can attach to it, 
 and hence it is not moral in any sense of the term. To be such 
 I must will the action. I must be the free, spontaneous cause of 
 it. In this way we must regard freedom as a fundamental con- 
 dition of morality. 
 
 3d. Conscience. — Conscience, speaking generally, is the 
 power to distinguish between right and wrong, whatever we may 
 say about its additional functions. This faculty or power must 
 be possessed by every free agent in order to be moral or to 
 make his conduct moral. It is not enough that he be free and 
 
ELEMENT AR Y PRINCIPLES 113 
 
 intelligent or conscious. He must also be able to appreciate the 
 existence of a moral ideal and to distinguish between right and 
 wrong. It is probable that all the higher animals act both 
 consciously with reference to an end and with a measurable de- 
 gree of deliberation and freedom, but they lack all traces of 
 what we call conscience, even when they do noble acts, some of 
 which are recorded of them. It is usual to 'explain such actions 
 by reference to instinct, association, sympathy for masters, but 
 not by reference to a conscience as we know it in man. I do not 
 mean by this to affirm the broad distinction between man and 
 the animals which was current before evolution was accepted, 
 but only to indicate that the difference is great enough to be 
 embodied in the doctrine of conscience ; for nothing can be more 
 certain, whatever the resemblances, that man has a nature in 
 relation to conduct which animals do not systematically betray, 
 and no one adjudges the animal world as moral or responsible. 
 Animals are either almost wholly egoistic in their character or 
 they act without the slighest sense of duty or respect for law, so 
 far as can be determined. Hence despite their consciousness 
 and freedom they have not the remaining quality to make their 
 actions moral, subject to praise and blame or moral disci- 
 pline. This contrast helps distinctly to show how conscience, 
 which distinguishes man, must be a condition of morality and re- 
 sponsibility ; for wherever the person or creature is suspected of 
 being without it, his cod duct is classed as morally indifferent. 
 It cannot possess that quality of reason and will which acknowl- 
 edges consciously a distinction between right and wrong. I am 
 not saying or implying that conscience must be active in all ap- 
 plied cases, but only that the individual must have the capacity 
 for the distinction mentioned before his action can be treated as 
 moral. The relation of an active conscience to conduct will come 
 up again. But to distinguish between moral and non-moral con- 
 duct the aofent must have the sense of value and obligation in 
 social relations to at least a limited degree ; that is, he must 
 have the quality of power expressed by conscience, though he may 
 not have the quantity of development of it represented by perfect 
 
1 1 4 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 responsibility. This, then, is a primary condition of treating his 
 actions as moral in any sense whatever. 
 
 There are certain interesting facts to be noted about these con- 
 ditions. They are cumulative in their nature. Besides being 
 conditions of morality they are related to each other somewhat in 
 the same way. The first conditions the second, and the second 
 along with the first conditions the third. The presence of all of 
 them at the same time is necessary to make conduct moral, but 
 the absence of any one is sufficient to eliminate that quality. 
 But the absence of the first will render the existence of both 
 freedom and conscience impossible, while it may be present and 
 both of these absent. This merely shows that freedom and con- 
 science are qualities added on to consciousness. 
 
 Another circumstance to be observed is that these qualities 
 condition morality in the generic sense. The possession of them 
 does not make an act moral in the specific sense, as contrasted 
 with immoral. They merely make it accountable, or moral in 
 the sense that the agent can be treated according to the law of 
 imputability which assumes that he is more or less capable 
 of alternative choice. A man may be conscious or intelligent, he 
 may be free, and he may have a conscience, and yet his conduct 
 be immoral. This shows that they are not elements but 
 conditions of morality. One other condition is necessary to 
 make conduct moral in the specific sense. It is conscientiousness, 
 or respect for the end chosen, as the right, or as the highest good. 
 I shall not enlarge upon this feature of the problem, because it 
 will come up again. But it is important to remark, before going 
 farther, a circumstance incident to the ambiguity of the term 
 " moral " as it has already been defined, and calling attention to 
 the important distinction between the conditions and the 
 elements of morality; which, however, is occasioned mainly, 
 if not altogether, by that equivocation. We may turn next, 
 therefore, to the elements of moral conduct as suggested by the 
 distinction to which we have alluded. 
 
 V.— ELEMENTS OF MORA L COND UCT. — This topic can be dis- 
 cussed without reference to the distinction between generically 
 
ELEMENT AB Y PRINCIPLES 115 
 
 and specifically moral actions, for in the broad sense they have 
 the same formal elements. They differ only materially; that is, 
 in the character of the elements of which they are composed. 
 Every moral act is complex, by virtue of the fact that it exists 
 in relation to the subject and the object, or the agent and the 
 patient, the person acting and the person or thing acted upon. 
 The word " action " might not indicate this fact of complexity, 
 because it is taken in its abstract sense to denote merely the 
 volition or the movements taken as instruments connecting 
 the subject with some designed result. But taken in its complex 
 applications moral action necessary includes more than mere 
 choice alone or mere movement alone. It involves both the 
 state of mind and will which is the antecedent of movement and 
 volition, and the consequence which is the effect or object of that 
 antecedent. In its comprehensive import, therefore, moral con- 
 duct comprises three elements, the motive, the act, and the result. 
 Calderwood makes them the motive, the act, and the end. But 
 the motive and the end are inseparable and imply each other, so 
 that the distinction intended to be conveyed by them is not 
 sufficiently clear. Hence I choose the term result or conse- 
 quence as indicating something which does not necessarily imply 
 the motive. This distinction between the end and the result is 
 an important one, because it has a bearing upon the compre- 
 hensiveness of morality. The end is a principal factor in deter- 
 mining what is moral. It is always the result aimed at, and 
 when there is no miscarriage of purpose the motive and result 
 will always coincide. But there are often results in connection 
 with volition which were not intended by the agent, and which 
 yet determine the character of the conduct without involving 
 the morality and responsibility of the agent. Hence it is neces- 
 sary to distinguish a certain function for results in the problem 
 of Ethics apart from that of the motive and end. Whether we 
 shall call the result any part of morality, considering that it 
 may not be intended, depends wholly upon the conception we 
 take of morality. There are two separate schools in regard to 
 this matter. Gne of them estimates morality wholly from the 
 
116 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 standpoint of consequences and the other wholly from the 
 standpoint of motives. This difference makes it necessary to 
 examine each element very carefully in order to ascertain the 
 part played by it in the constitution of morality. But previous 
 to this undertaking it is important to state the reasons for so 
 considering the several elements of conduct. 
 
 1st. Reasons for the Analysis of Morality. — There are sev- 
 eral reasons for separating morality into distinct elements. 
 Were there no difference between the schools in regard to it, and 
 were the ground of it either the motive or the consequences 
 alone, there would be no complexity to deal with. But the very 
 fact that one school lays the whole stress upon character, and the 
 other upon consequences, shows that the conception of morality 
 and responsibility is distinct in each case. Common sense gen- 
 erally exhibits .judgments in sympathy with both schools, either 
 without knowing, or with entire indifference to, the contradiction 
 which is often charged to it. Hence we have the following 
 reasons for investigating separately the motive, the act, and the 
 result in conduct. 
 
 1. The Subjective and Objective Meanings of Moeal- 
 ity. — We have already discussed one ambiguity incident to the 
 use of the term "moral," namely, its generic and its specific 
 import. But there is a still more important difficulty and this 
 grows out of the habit, now of using it to denote the subjective 
 conditions of conduct, and again to denote its objective refer- 
 ence, or the ground upon which the subjective facts and conduct 
 are adjudged. This originates in the following manner: On 
 the one hand, all conduct must be measured by reference to its 
 end. But this is a consequence; only it is the consequence 
 aimed at, and this partial coincidence of the motive and result 
 often gives rise to their confusion with each other. Again, conse- 
 quences are good or bad according as they are related to human 
 perfection and happiness, and reflect their character upon the 
 actions issuing in them. This quality may not be moral good- 
 ness or badness, but only a characteristic which is related to 
 human welfare for good or evil without reference to the motive 
 
ELEMENT AR Y PRINCIPLES 117 
 
 producing the consequence. As good and bad are applied to 
 the same acts when originating from volition, it is only natural 
 that morality and the good should become confused with each 
 other, and the former measured solely by reference to conse- 
 quences. 
 
 On the other side, as remarked, ends and consequences or re- 
 sults do not always coincide. Consequences of which the agent 
 may be wholly ignorant, and at which he did not aim, may be 
 produced by his conduct. For these he cannot be held respon- 
 sible, and as morality and responsibility are often made coexten- 
 sive in their import, it would be natural to exclude consequences 
 per se from the strict consideration of morality, and to limit that 
 quality to the motive or end. Physical results not aimed at or 
 not known may occur incidentally, and be good or bad, but con- 
 sciousness, being a condition of what is moral, and presumably 
 absent in this imaginary case, while morality is supposably 
 initiated by volition, the conception of that characteristic is 
 naturally confined to the intelligent cause or motion of the re- 
 sult, rather than to the result itself. Hence one school measures 
 morality by the antecedent or cause of results aimed at, exclud- 
 ing consequences, as equally irrelevant with purely physical phe- 
 nomena, while the opposing school measures it by consequences 
 and confuses the subjectively moral or immoral with the objec- 
 tively good or bad. 
 
 2. The Ambiguity of the Term Act. — There is an equivo- 
 cation in the use of this term which almost coincides with the 
 subjective and objective reference of the term moral. Some- 
 times it is used to denote the external and physical action neces- 
 sary to effect the result or end which the agent has in view, and 
 again it sometimes denotes the internal act of choice and voli- 
 tion. *We condemn fraudulent voting, or bribery, for instance, 
 no matter what the motive may be. We do so because of the 
 unfairness and injustice done by it, and in this way seem to re- 
 gard only the consequence as the measure of wrong. The 
 " action " in such a case is either the whole complex act of the 
 agent combined with the physical movements necessary to 
 
1 1 8 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 achieve the result, or it is the latter of the two alone. On the 
 other hand, if a man attempts bribery or fraudulent voting, but 
 fails in it, we equally condemn the ■" act," though no bad results 
 are effected. We take into account the intention or motive. 
 Similarly we condemn the desire to do an injury or the feeling 
 of malice, and approve humane sympathies. In such cases the 
 "act" is nothing but the subjective intention or expression of 
 character. Hence, in the one instance, action denotes either the 
 whole complex phenomenon of choice, volition, and the external 
 movement, or merely this external physical act. In the other it 
 denotes only the motive and choice. Here again we have the 
 distinction between subjective and objective morality, a distinc- 
 tion which is rendered necessary by the frequent miscarriage of 
 purposes. 
 
 3. The Difference between the Criterion of Respon- 
 sibility and that of Morality. — The standard of responsi- 
 bility consists of intelligence, freedom, and conscience, and hence 
 is purely subjective. The element which usually receives the 
 most emphasis is freedom, and hence responsibility is viewed from 
 the position of the cause of action, and not from that of the effect 
 or consequence. No man is held responsible for the consequences 
 of his conduct unless several conditions are fulfilled : (a) that he 
 intends them ; (6) that he knows they are connected with his 
 conduct, though they are not the object of it ; (c) that he is not 
 culpable for his ignorance. Hence supposing that the conse- 
 quence is wholly outside the agent's knowledge and intention, he 
 is not responsible. In this conception of the case if morality were 
 limited to motives, as in one school, it would coincide with respon- 
 sibility. But on the other side, a man's conduct is good or bad 
 externally by virtue of its relation to consequences and without 
 regard to motives. Even the character of motives is measured 
 by the result aimed at, and not by their qualities per se, unless 
 we identify them with excellence or perfection of being ; which, 
 however, can be done only by a stretch of moral judgment. But 
 so far from measuring the worth of conduct externally considered 
 by the cause of it we estimate it solely by reference to the end, 
 
ELEMENTARY PRINCIPLES ' 119 
 
 or the consequence to which it is a means. Consequently, as 
 morality and responsibility are sometimes identified, or made to 
 coincide with each other, and at other times are distinguished 
 by the difference between their criterion, we are obliged to take 
 account of different functions in the separate elements of moral 
 conduct and character taken as a w T hole. We may then sum- 
 marize the relations of these elements to each other and to the 
 whole complex of which they are a part. m 
 
 2d. Nature and Relations of the Elements. — Each element 
 has its own place and characteristic, and exhibits very complex 
 relations. Some are subjective or internal, and some are objec- 
 tive or external, and again they may have both references at the 
 same time as the summary will indicate. 
 
 1. Motives. — These are subjective in their nature, but may 
 be objective in their reference. That is, they are states of mind, 
 but are directed, or may be directed, only to some result outside 
 of the mind. The judgment of them as moral or immoral must 
 depend either upon their relation to this result or upon them as 
 qualities of the subject, as excellences or as defects of nature to 
 be desired or deplored on their own account. 
 
 2. The Act. — The act may be regarded from two points of 
 view ; that is, it may have two elements, each having its own 
 characteristic : (a) There is the subjective element or act. This 
 is the choice and volition. They reflect the moral nature or 
 character of the agent, and may be estimated without regard to 
 the consequences, but not without regard to the end. (6) There 
 is also the objective element. This is the physical movement or 
 effect set into action by the volition, and it reflects the moral 
 nature or character of the result. It will be good or bad accord- 
 ing to consequences and without regard to intentions. 
 
 3. Result, or Consequence. — This is purely objective in its 
 nature, unless we choose to regard a state of the subject like 
 pleasure or feeling as the result, which we may in many cases. 
 But even then it is objective in the sense that it cannot be di- 
 rectly willed, and it is quite as often some effect foreign to the 
 consciousness of the agent. Considering it as independent of the 
 
120 
 
 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 end it will be purely external to the mind as objective, and will 
 not even Have a subjective reference. Its character, unless 
 regarded as a means to a remoter end, will be found wholly in 
 itself. Its goodness or badness will express its intrinsic qualities. 
 4. The End. — I mention this as incidently a kind of fourth 
 element. It partly coincides with results as already indicated. 
 It is the result aimed at, but is nothing more, and hence cannot 
 denote all the consequences that may be unintentionally con- 
 nected with conduct. It is, therefore, objective in its nature, 
 though subjective in its reference. A motive we have seen is 
 subjective in nature but objective in its reference ; the end is the 
 reverse of this, and partakes of a like double nature. It will be 
 seen in this conception of it that it coincides partly with motives 
 and partly with results. It is, therefore, the point where subjec- 
 tive and objective morality coincide, though a perfect and ideal 
 world would also include all the consequences that are desirable 
 and exclude the undesirable. All these relations may now be 
 represented by the following diagram and their character de- 
 termined according to one's preferences. Each rectangle will 
 represent the whole area of a single element, and all combined 
 the total of the references expressed by the idea of morality, as 
 conceived by both schools. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Mot 
 
 ive 
 
 Choice 
 
 1 Volition 1 
 
 Motion 
 
 1 
 
 End 
 
 
 
 , 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Act 
 
 
 
 
 
 Morality 
 
 The diagram represents both the chronological order and con- 
 nection of the several elements, and the reference of the motive 
 to the end, which is a logical connection. The act may be any 
 one of the three elements, choice, volition, or physical motion, or 
 all of them combined. The result may or may not include the 
 
ELEMENTARY PRINCIPLES 121 
 
 end. In one school, morality, or the character of conduct, may 
 be measured by nothing except what comes within the free and 
 intentional effect, and in the other school it may appear worthy 
 or reprehensible according to results independently of the will, 
 though the agent may be excused from responsibility. 
 
 Thus far we have done nothing but analyze the conception of 
 morality, stating their relations to each other and to the whole. 
 But there is more to be done still. We have assumed that the 
 nature and meaning of the term "motive" was clear and intel- 
 ligible. But this is far from being true. We require to define 
 it carefully and to investigate its forms as usually represented 
 and thus to determine more carefully the relations of this and 
 other elements to the total product known as moral conduct. 
 This must be done under the title of the functions of the elements 
 in morality. 
 
 VI. FUNCTIONS OF THE ELEMENTS OF MORALITY.— 
 There is something more to be determined here than their 
 chronological order and logical relations. These are intimately 
 connected with their functions, but they do not constitute them. 
 The functions of the elements are what they effect, or what they 
 contribute in quality to the complex whole which is the subject 
 of moral judgment, and this will be found in some cases to con- 
 sist of more than one characteristic. Let us examine the func- 
 tions of each element more carefully. 
 
 1st. The Motive. — The function of the motive in morality will 
 depend wholly upon the conception we take of it. Unfortunately 
 it is not a simple conception, as the diagram above seems to 
 imply, unless we decide to limit its import as some moralists do. 
 But traditional and current views often make it a compound of 
 ideas and feelings or impulses, each with very different functions 
 in the problem. Hence we must define and analyze it very 
 carefully. 
 
 1. Definition of Motives. — A motive is an idea of an 
 end to be realized plus the desire for it. In this conception 
 we propose to represent two elements as necessary to the nature 
 of a motive in the proper sense of the term, a cognitive and an 
 
122 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 impulsive or dynamic element. Sometimes the term is taken to 
 denote only the idea of an end to be attained, and sometimes it is 
 applied to the feeling which is supposed to be the propelling 
 force of consciousness. The former emphasizes the place and 
 functions of reason, and the latter the function of emotion in the 
 conception of it. Often it is the rational element that is sup- 
 posed to determine the moral nature of the motive and at other 
 times the emotional or desiderative element is regarded as the 
 moral factor. Thus, wherever reason or rational consciousness, 
 as in Plato, the Stoics, the Scholastics, Kant, Butler, and others, 
 has been put forward as the principal condition of morality this 
 element of the motive seems to have been regarded as the most 
 important; nay, as the only one which could make conduct 
 moral. On the other hand, wherever emotions, feelings, or 
 desires, as opposed to mere ideas, as in the Epicureans, the utili- 
 tarians, the aesthetic school, including Hutcheson, Hume, Adam 
 Smith, and others, have been regarded as determining the moral 
 nature, the dynamic side of consciousness has appeared to be the 
 most important. This is reflected in the various impulses and 
 instincts, or forms of desire, which are discussed in connection 
 with moral problems and regarded as impelling forces acting on 
 the will. Thus the passions and desires like anger, hatred, love, 
 hunger, thirst, lust, ambition, etc.; are always spoken of as 
 " motives " to volition, even when they are described as blind, 
 unreflective, or irrational incentives. The agent is supposed to 
 be moral or immoral according as he is governed by the better or 
 the worse of these passions. 
 
 But I cannot agree to call either element taken alone as a 
 " motive," in the true moral sense. Loosely speaking, we may 
 consider every necessary antecedent to volition a "motive," 
 whether it be ideational or emotional. Conduct under such an 
 antecedent cannot be moral in any sense of the term, for the 
 reason that if the "motive " be an idea only, it has no directing 
 power, and if it be a passion only, it has no rationality. There 
 may be much instinctive action under the law of dynamogenesis, 
 which is that consciousness, from the very nature of its emotional 
 
ELEMENT AR Y PRINCIPLES 123 
 
 concomitant and coloring, tends to issue in some form of activity. 
 But the want of direction to a deliberately chosen end in such 
 cases prevents such action from being rational and moral as we 
 understand it, whatever we may choose to call it. It may have 
 all the desired results of a moral act, but it depends so much 
 upon the right conditions for producing the particular conscious- 
 ness necessary to effecting the result, and lacks so completely that 
 reflective character expressed by the knowledge of what the agent 
 is doing, that it cannot be more than objectively moral, while it 
 may be subjectively either bad or indifferent. I prefer, therefore, 
 to maintain that a true " motive," as the subject of Ethics must 
 contain both a cognitive and a dynamic element, or an idea and 
 a desire, and that it will be defective in moral character precisely 
 in proportion to the absence of one or the other of these elements. 
 If consciousness predominates in the ideational element, there 
 will be little or no activity, and there can be no morality until 
 the will is affected. On the other hand, if desire predominates, 
 and reflective tendencies are suppressed by blind passion, action 
 will not be moral for the lack of rational control. Morality is 
 thus the rational direction of consciousness, and the motive, 
 therefore, contains both an ideal and a desiderative or dynamic 
 element. This explains why a motive is both a final and an 
 efficient cause of conduct, and though it creates certain difficulties 
 in discussing the freedom of the will, to recognize the dynamic 
 characteristic, the complex nature of it is necessary to render in- 
 telligible both the general conceptions of morality, and the scien- 
 tific theories of it. 
 
 Before proceeding farther, it may be important to examine the 
 distinction sometimes made between the "motive" and the "in- 
 tention " of an act. Bentham, for instance, defined a motive as 
 that for which an act was done, and an intention as both that for 
 which and that in spite of which an act was done. This view 
 makes intention more comprehensive than motive, and includes 
 it. Others have followed Bentham in the distinction.* It has 
 
 * Muirhead, Elements of Ethics, p. 58. Mackenzie, Manual of Ethics, 
 p. 39. 
 
124 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 some importance for the extent of responsibility in conduct, and 
 deserves notice. Mr. Muirhead states it very clearly and briefly. 
 "Intention," he says, "is wider than motive. The former may 
 be said to include the latter, but not vice versa. For while the 
 end or consequent for the sake of which the action is done is, of 
 course, intended, it is only part of the intention, and is sometimes 
 distinguished from the other part as the ' ultimate intention.' 
 On the other hand, the consequences of the intermediate steps as 
 the means adopted, though part of the intention, are not part of 
 the motive. Thus, the father who punishes his child is said to 
 intend the child's good. The good of the child is the motive. 
 But he also intends to cause the child pain ; the pain, however, 
 though it is part of the intention, cannot in any sense be called 
 the motive or reason why he punished him. Or take the case of 
 the man who sells his coat to buy a loaf of bread. His motive is 
 to buy the bread. It is also part of his intention to do so. It is 
 part of his intention also to part with his coat, but this cannot 
 in any intelligible sense be the motive of his conduct." Thus 
 the motive is the ultimate end sought, while the intention is this 
 end plus either the means or a necessary concomitant of it, of 
 which we are conscious. Responsibility will, therefore, cover all 
 of which we are conscious in the act, no matter whether it is a 
 part of the motive or not. 
 
 2. Classification of Motives. — The function of motives 
 in determining morality will depend as much upon their kinds as 
 upon their nature in general. Morality is often a thing of 
 degrees, and is not a simple, absolute, or uniform type of action. 
 It is now more and now less pure or perfect. This is deter- 
 mined by the various kinds of influences affecting conduct. 
 These influences differ in their relation to it, and hence we 
 may classify motives in two ways, according as we are viewing 
 them as final or as efficient causes of volition, that is, according 
 to the two elements we have recognized in motives. I shall 
 speak of the two general classes as the cognitive or static 
 motives, and the impulsive or dynamic motives, though they 
 differ only in the degree of prominence given to one or the other 
 
ELEMENTARY PRINCIPLES 
 
 125 
 
 element in motives at large. Then the first class may be sub- 
 divided according as the ends sought are subordinate or ultimate, 
 immediate or remote. The second class is the same as given in 
 the psychology of the motive powers of the mind. The follow- 
 ing table represents the classification : 
 
 r f 
 
 Subordinate Ends 
 
 Static 
 
 Ultimate Ends 
 
 Impulse 
 
 Dynamic \ Instinct 
 
 Eeason 
 
 Fame. 
 
 Wealth. 
 
 Power. 
 
 Knowledge. 
 
 Art, etc. 
 
 Perfection, 
 appiness. 
 
 Obedience, or Formal Law, etc. 
 f Passion. 
 \ Pleasure, etc. 
 
 {Hunger. 
 Thirst. 
 Sex, etc. 
 f Prudence or Interest. 
 \ Conscience or Duty. 
 
 fPe 
 
 LL 
 [ Ot 
 
 The first set or the static motives represent different degrees 
 of morality in conduct according to the scale of values attaching 
 to the different possible ends of action. There can, of course, be 
 but one ultimate end, but I have mentioned several in order to 
 recognize the standpoint of different theories. But while the 
 moral worth of the static motives may not be the same for all, 
 responsibility is the same, other things being equal, because 
 this depends upon mere consciousness, and not upon any degree 
 of value. On the other hand, the dynamic series represents both 
 different degrees of responsibility and different degrees of moral- 
 ity, as will be developed when. we come to the problem involved 
 in this question. 
 
 The function of the particular ends in conduct will be exam- 
 ined when we consider the theories of Ethics where they will be 
 shown to illustrate the grounds upon which morality rests. At 
 present we wish to discuss the relation of the dynamic aspect of 
 motives to conduct. These must be taken in their order. 
 
 3. Impulse. — It is not easy to define impulse exactly. The 
 term has done service for so many different conceptions in the 
 course of' history that any definition which happens to run 
 
126 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 counter to one of them is sure to give dissatisfaction. On the 
 one hand, it has often been spoken of as a blind and irrational 
 tendency to certain kinds of action; where it is so contrasted 
 with intelligent influence and initiatives that the impression 
 often gains a foothold that it is an unconscious stimulus to 
 action. Thus hunger, thirst, sex, or other natural' appetites 
 have been spoken of as impulses, partly on the ground of their 
 irrational character and partly on the ground that their crav- 
 ings do not point to any definite object apart from the satisfac- 
 tion of the appetite, and they do not even seem to express any 
 knowledge of this end until experience has shown their meaning. 
 They are cravings in the dark, so to speak. Thus Plato con- 
 trasted them with reason and created the psychological tendency 
 to regard them as natural momenta in the direction of certain 
 actions, and so opposed to rational considerations. On the other 
 hand, the term is sometimes used to denote conscious but ca- 
 pricious and lawless action according to the impression of the 
 moment, and is again contrasted in this way with rational con- 
 duct, which is supposed to be regular and according to law. 
 The two different ideas expressed by it, then, have been appetite 
 and lawless volition, with a tendency probably for the two to 
 shade off into each other insensibly. These, however, represent 
 their typical forms. 
 
 It is the second of these which comes nearer to the concep- 
 tion which we wish here to take of impulse, the former being 
 more closely allied to instinct as it will be treated presently. 
 Reflex, automatic, and all influences to muscular activity that 
 are unaccompanied by consciousness are to be discarded from 
 the conception of it because they are not subject to either praise 
 or blame. Impulse we shall treat as at least accompanied by 
 consciousness of the direction of the conduct which it initiates, 
 but it represents no law of adaptation to the order of the world. 
 In this respect, the appetites, whether organic or of the higher 
 order, do not resemble what passes for impulse in ordinary par- 
 lance. Hence we shall define impulse as that influence which 
 represents the momentary and .unreflective activity of the mind. 
 
ELEMENTARY PRINCIPLES 127 
 
 There are other characteristics and connections of it, but the 
 momentary and unreflective feature is sufficient to distinguish it 
 from the other forms of volitional antecedents. We can then 
 illustrate it, and show . what an influence it exercises upon con- 
 duct. 
 
 One of the best illustrations of impulse is the whole class of 
 passions, such as anger, extreme fear, love, hate, indignation, 
 lust and lasciviousness in their voluptuous forms, alcoholism, 
 and the same characteristic is found in all the capricious actions 
 indicating choice on the spur of the moment, and without re- 
 flection upon possible remoter consequences than the one aimed 
 at. A man may strike another suddenly out of anger and re- 
 pent at leisure of his rashness. Under sudden fright we may 
 shout for aid when calm self-control would insure us greater 
 security. Love is proverbially blind, by which is meant, not 
 that the action which it dictates is blind, but only that the 
 passion is too strong for care and deliberation, and prompts 
 action for immediate satisfaction. Hatred, malice, and revenge, 
 when they are aroused, inspire conduct without any regard to re- 
 mote consequences ; and so with the other regular passions. But 
 impulse is shown perhaps more clearly in the caprices and irreg- 
 ularities of life than in the common vices, and it may occur in 
 connection with emotions or feelings, having per se no bad 
 character, but which under restraint and regulation might be 
 regarded as marking meritorious qualities. If a man act under 
 a sudden impulse of pity or sympathy, and give alms on the 
 street without inquiry and without due regard to the consequences 
 to the beneficiary, he is acting under a motive which must be 
 called an impulse as defined. If again he goes off at a sugges- 
 tion upon some subject, changes his resolution the next hour, 
 and as suddenly chooses some other course of action ; if on one 
 day he indulges in a fit of drunkenness, the next day reforms, 
 and enters on a definite career of business, as suddenly out of 
 some whim of dislike changes this resolution, say from the inten- 
 tion to be a lawyer to that of being a physician, and so reflects 
 during his life,. or during any considerable period of time, this 
 
128 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 vacillating character, he is said to be a creature of impulse 
 merely because he is disposed to act upon the idea of the 
 moment, and without reflection. Whenever such action is dis- 
 cerned it is properly described by that term. What it exhibits 
 besides this is the utter lack of adjustment to the order of 
 things. It is a tendency to seek gratification at the expense of 
 unregarded consequences, and thus takes no account of the 
 environment which regulates the individual's welfare and develop- 
 ment. In fact it is not adjustment to environment at all, unless 
 we should say that its gratification depends upon changes in the 
 external world as irregular and capricious as its own action. It 
 aims only at personal good, and takes no account of external 
 law and order beyond the realization of some immediate result. 
 It can represent only a possible adjustment to an environment 
 as variable and inconstant as itself. 
 
 We may now summarize the characteristics of impulse as 
 a motive to a certain kind of conduct : (a) It is capricious and 
 irregular; (6) it is unrenective or non-deliberative; (c) it is 
 momentary and passionate in its actions ; (d) it neglects remote 
 consequences for immediate ends; (e) it represents misadjust- 
 ment to a fixed or constant environment, and a possible adjust- 
 ment to a variable and lawless order or environment ; (/) it 
 probably represents a predominance of the dynamic or dynamo- 
 genie elements in consciousness. 
 
 From these various characteristics it is apparent that the main 
 function of impulse seems to be what the very term implies, 
 namely, an impelling tendency, though it is possible to exagger- 
 ate this character of it. It obtains the credit of this peculiarity 
 from the readiness of any given suggestion to explode into a 
 volition, and it undoubtedly illustrates a very close resemblance 
 to that nexus between mechanical events which makes the ante- 
 cedent the direct cause of the consequent. It is, therefore, only 
 natural to conceive it as dynamic or efficient in contrast with de- 
 liberative consciousness which seems to have *no efficiency what- 
 ever. A general t} r pe of impulse has generally been taken from 
 the actions of animal existence, where we seldom find deliber- 
 
ELEMENTARY PRINCIPLES 129 
 
 ative habits of any kind. Their motives are the impulses of the 
 moment, the immediate action of every desire that possesses any 
 reasonable amount of freedom for its indulgence. 
 
 It will not be difficult, after these remarks, to determine the 
 moral character of impulse as a motive. Of course we might 
 open the whole question whether motives of any kind ever 
 possess either merit or demerit. Bentham and others claim that 
 they never possess either quality. But they are here speaking 
 of them absolutely and out of relation to an end or result, and 
 it is not necessary to assert this extreme view in order to main- 
 tain their moral character. General usage approves or dis- 
 approves of motives, regards them as moral, non-moral, or 
 immoral whatever its reasons may be, and for this account it 
 pronounces judgment upon the character of impulse as an 
 expression of character, which is as much an object of moral 
 admiration or censure as any result of conduct can be. Taking 
 this tendency in the main as just, we would only say thatr 
 impulse is not especially a moral characteristic, or it can be this 
 in so slight a degree as to weaken the value of Ethics to recog- 
 nize the fact at all. It is too capricious, irregular, and unreflec- 
 tive in its nature to provoke the respect we attach to morality. 
 What is moral has something of the nature of laiv. It is a fixed 
 and rational way of acting, adjustment to an external order, 
 equilibrium of internal and conflicting forces, and the supremacy 
 of the law of conscience, which imposes an inflexible duty upon 
 the will, if it be nothing but the formal intention to act accord- 
 ing to good- will itself. But impulse has nothing of such a law 
 about it. It represents no steady object of pursuit, but only 
 a wayward tendency to be independent of law or limitations. It 
 is freedom without rationality, and even when it represents what 
 we call the better instincts, such as sympathy, pity, or affection, 
 we do not admire it for its action. We simply congratulate our- 
 selves that it has not gone wrong on the occasion. But we 
 expect no consistency from it, and no sacrifice of self to the 
 larger order of the world or to the remoter goods of life. It is 
 simply the incarnation of lawlessness, the very antithesis to 
 
130 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 all the higher degrees of morality, and can gain only a passing 
 tribute when its fortune carries it into the performance of an 
 accidental good. We like too well to see law, order, and char- 
 acter, in the will as well as in the world, to sanctify impulse with 
 moral qualities. 
 
 4. Instinct. — Instinct is quite as difficult to define as im- 
 pulse. General usage is perhaps even more loose in its practice 
 regarding the term than in the case of impulse. In the first 
 place, it has been used to describe "blind and unconscious" 
 acts, as they have been called, which in reality meant, not that 
 the action was wholly unaccompanied by consciousness, but that 
 there was no knowledge of the end to which the various actions 
 actually tended. It was an easy step from this conception of 
 instinct to that which denoted merely mechanical movements. 
 If consciousness did not initiate, but only accompanied the action, 
 it was no more responsible for it than for reflex or automatic 
 movements, so that the impelling cause was outside of it. This 
 idea was reinforced by the Cartesian dualism, which made all the 
 actions of the animal world, called instinctive, automatic in their 
 nature and source. Descartes regarded animals as unconscious 
 automata, and their actions instinctive, though imitating the ad- 
 justments of intelligence. Mr. Spencer regards instincts as com- 
 plex reflexes. Other evolutionists speak of them as " inherited 
 habits " or " lapsed intelligence." The last conception of them 
 is in reality a theory of the way they came to exist rather than 
 a notion of their manner of action. Still other writers speak and 
 think of them as representing a certain grade of intelligence, as 
 conscious though not rational in the proper sense of the term. 
 There is, perhaps, one characteristic common to all these con- 
 ceptions, and it is that instinct denotes a certain fixed disposi- 
 tion or organic tendency of the individual. Under this con- 
 ception the appetites are often called instincts, and so with any 
 persistent inclination which shows no adaptability to change of 
 circumstances. 
 
 We should summarize these various conceptions before giving 
 our own account of the matter. Instinct has, therefore, variously 
 
ELEMENTARY PRINCIPLES 131 
 
 been conceived to be — (a) wholly unconscious and automatic 
 impulses ; (6) actions accompanied by consciousness, but not 
 initiated by it ; (c) conscious but not rational actions in the 
 highest sense ; (c?) complex reflexes ; (e) organic tendencies 
 reflecting natural as opposed to volitional causes. In all these 
 the original object was to distinguish between rational actions 
 and those which at least resembled them in many particulars 
 and yet could not be identified with them. Hence, where we 
 find the law of continuity between the lowest and the highest 
 forms of conduct, as it is illustrated from reflex to rational 
 actions, instincts and impulses intervening between the two 
 extremes, it becomes of importance to distinguish their nature 
 very carefully, especially when we remember that some writers, 
 like Leslie Stephen and many evolutionists, speak of our rational 
 and moral desires as instincts. Such usage only shows that, in 
 spite of the traditional contrast and antithesis between instinct 
 and intelligence, there is often no clear distinction between them. 
 Hence we must either make that distinction clear or abandon it 
 altogether. 
 
 Such a distinction can be drawn without making the two 
 conceptions mutually exclusive in all their characteristics. In 
 fact man's nature is such that all the various influences affecting 
 his actions, from the lowest to the highest, interpenetrate each 
 other and overlap. No classification can be given which will 
 exclude one impulse in all its characteristics and relations from 
 every other. They often merge into each other. The organic 
 appetites show affiliations with instinct, on the one hand, and 
 with impulses, on the other, in that they are constitutional ten- 
 dencies, and may develop into passions with irregular indulgence. 
 They may also become so fully subordinated to rational control 
 that they can be spoken of as natural desires only with the 
 qualification that they have no specific object for their craving. 
 Again, the passions may become so fixed and persistent a ten- 
 dency in the individual, though capricious in their manifesta- 
 tions as to resemble the predisposition and organic stability of 
 instincts. And still further actions often called instinctive may 
 
132 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 be so influenced by the accompaniment of consciousness and may 
 so thoroughly resemble intelligent adjustments of conduct that 
 they overlap rational actions. But in spite of all this continuity 
 and interpenetration of functions they can be radically distin- 
 guished in certain particulars. The doctrine of Ethics is 
 interested in the distinction because of the question of responsi- 
 bility, and because of the different kinds and degrees of merit 
 attributed to human actions. Hence we shall undertake to 
 define instinct with these facts in view, .and at the same time to 
 avoid the inconsistencies of current and common usage. 
 
 Instinct, as related to ethical problems as well as the psycho- 
 logical, we shall define as a constant and organic tendency to 
 certain actions, representing an adjustment to a definite and fixed 
 environment The full meaning of this conception "with addi- 
 tional characteristics will be brought out by its further develop- 
 ment. In the meantime we wish to concentrate attention upon 
 its organic and more or less fixed nature, together with the 
 adjustment which it represents, as the true characteristics that 
 are most important for Ethics. In its highest development it 
 may at least be accompanied by consciousness, or even con- 
 sciousness and organic impulse may combine in reference to a 
 common end. 
 
 The most frequent types of what are called instincts are cases 
 of bees building their honeycomb, spiders their webs, birds 
 their nests, ants their homes and practicing their peculiar forms 
 of industry, the migration of birds, the incubation and care of 
 young, domestic affection, and a thousand other forms of con- 
 duct. The bee in building its honeycomb adopts the most per- 
 fect form for economy of space and material, namely, the hex- 
 agonal ; but it can hardly be supposed to know this fact. All 
 its actions show a mechanical-like regularity in this reference. 
 The spider's web always takes a form peculiar to each species, 
 and the same with birds' nests, even when we cannot assume any 
 influence from experience. In all these it is difficult, if not impos- 
 sible, to suppose that the creatures know why they perform their 
 actions. It seems as certain, also, that they do not know the 
 
ELEMENTARY PRINCIPLES 133 
 
 ultimate end which their actions serve ; and it may be doubtful 
 whether they have any purpose or end at all. Their mechanical- 
 like nature and regularity seems to exclude all intelligence and 
 so to distinguish their actions from rational conduct. But this 
 distinction can be exaggerated, as indicated in the admission that 
 instinct may grade off into automatic actions in oue direction 
 and intelligent actions in the other, so far as the characteristic 
 of consciousness is concerned. The main peculiarity of them is 
 the fact that they represent a natural and organic tendency in a 
 particular direction, which remains more or less fixed, often 
 resisting all influences to modify them. This is the subjective 
 aspect of instinct and represents a tendency to spontaneity, that 
 is, spontaneous action independent of disturbance or stimulus 
 from the outside. It thus indicates a law of internal action. 
 Its objective characteristic is its adjustment to a constant envi- 
 ronment. Conceived as an "inherited habit" it would require 
 that constancy in nature which would render its exercise pos- 
 sible. It is true that environment often changes, but instinct 
 very generally displays resistance to this change. It is more 
 especially adapted to the fixity of the external world in order 
 to act on the line of least resistance. Hence, it is an organic 
 tendency adapted to a certain fixity in nature. Thus the build- 
 ing of nests where they can be put to no use, the beaver build- 
 ing a dam in its cage where there is no water, geese trying to 
 hatch stones or " dummy " eggs, the young of animals trying to 
 suck everything that comes within the reach of their mouths 
 when hungry, the setter showing its peculiar habits without any 
 education, etc., all these are illustrations of organic dispositions 
 that do not wait for their appropriate stimulus for exercise, and 
 are no doubt called instincts for the very reason that they do 
 not seem to show the adaptation of intelligent motives. 
 
 It is not meant here to say or to imply that instinct is invari- 
 able ; for. modern observation shows that it is modifiable, at least 
 to some extent. But it shows less variability, or varies less easily 
 than intelligent actions. Instinct is conservative, and yields to 
 external influences with considerable resistance. Hence its pre- 
 
134 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 dominant tendency is to be constant and to act according to an 
 environment to which it is organically adjusted. This is prob- 
 ably due to its complex nature. Many of the instincts are very 
 complicated arrangements, and grow out of complexity of struc- 
 ture and function, all the elements acting in harmony either be- 
 cause of long experience or because of inherited momentum from 
 previous experience, and thus make it difficult for the variation 
 of one element without the simultaneous variation of all others. 
 Hence instinct contrasts with impulse in this respect, is regular 
 and constant in its activity, and less adapted to a variable envi- 
 ronment. Thus, to state its objective characteristic, it may be 
 said to be an organic adjustment to a constant, but a misadjust- 
 ment to a varying, environment. We may, therefore, summarize 
 its several characteristics before pointing out its ethical value : 
 (a) It is an organic or constitutional tendency to action ; (b) it 
 is spontaneous in its exercise, or represents internal stimulus as 
 opposed to the external ; (c) it is fixed and regular in its activity ; 
 (d) it is complex in its organization and exercise ; (e) it is adjusted 
 to a definite end whether conscious or not ; (/) it is preadapted to 
 a fixed but not to a changing environment. These several char- 
 acteristics define a complex phenomenon without raising the usual 
 question, whether instinct is intelligent or not. In regard to 
 that matter it is proper to say that I do not think consciousness 
 is either always absent or always present with instinctive inclina- 
 tions. It is probable that in its lowest forms instinct is wholly 
 unattended by any consciousness of the tendency of its actions ; 
 that in the second stage it is only accompanied by consciousness, 
 more or less clear of its object, and in the third stage conscious- 
 ness begins to usurp its functions by subordinating it or by 
 usurping its place. Hence it displays in this way various de- 
 grees of approximation to the higher orders of activity. 
 
 In regard to its function "in the theory and conception of 
 morality, its importance is derived from this very peculiarity as 
 well as several other features of it. First, it resembles the moral 
 springs in the characteristic of regularity and law which it shows. 
 Morality must have this quality whatever else it must have. 
 
ELEMENTARY PRINCIPLES 135 
 
 Instinct shows that fixity and stability of direction which we 
 always expect in moral character. In the second place, it shows 
 direction and adaption to a remoter end than does pure impulse. 
 Indeed we might compare impulse and instinct by saying that 
 the former looks only to an immediate and subordinate end 
 without regarding a remoter one, while the latter, whether con- 
 scious or not, is adapted to the remoter end. This very com- 
 plexity of organism which enables the individual to live for and 
 to realize remoter ends has a value, which, if it does not confer 
 morality upon the actions it initiates, as we understand morality, 
 exhibits a better objective order of creation, and represents 
 something which morality can well afford to imitate in its regu- 
 larity and teleology. Stability of character is an essential, 
 though not the only essential quality of virtue, and instinct fur- 
 nishes this characteristic. In the third place, in so far as instinct 
 may be accompanied by consciousness it approximates again the 
 stage of moral conduct. Regularity and concomitant intelli- 
 gence give it a higher order of merit than purely unconscious 
 and automatic actions. Lastly, its adjustment to a definite end 
 and a constant environment give it both a subjective and an 
 objective value which allies it very closely to the objective 
 aspects of morality. That is to say, it embodies both a subjective 
 and an objective regularity, which are important elements in 
 moral conduct. Instincts may be regular and yet bad, and ad- 
 justed to bad ends. This is not to be questioned, and they will 
 be bad precisely in their proportion to their fixity and wrong 
 adjustment. But in spite of this they show the constitutional 
 and organic character which we wish for perfect morality and 
 which is a sign of some excellence wherever found, though 
 requiring to be supplemented by rational and moral elements as 
 defined by right adjustment and conscientiousness. Hence in- 
 stinct represents some advancement upon the pure impulses. If 
 the agent's organic desires are in the direction of right ends we 
 can trust and admire him, whether he appreciates the morality 
 of those ends or not, more than a creature of impulses who shows 
 no adjustment to such ends at all. This is the reason that we 
 
136 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 place such a being upon a higher level of excellence than a law- 
 less creature, though he may not answer to our conception of 
 moral as represented by rationality. We desire an agent to be at 
 least constant, and if that constancy or stability of character is 
 marked by correctness of objective direction we may regard its 
 conduct as at least objectively moral, and only wish that the 
 agent might be endowed with better perfections ; that he could 
 be as moral as his action. But until instinct becomes wholly 
 subordinated to intelligence it does not reach the highest degree 
 of moral excellence, no matter how true it may be to the moral 
 ends of life. It is simply a tendency which we can rely upon to 
 act uniformly in a variable order, at least generally, but shows 
 less perfect adjustment than reason. It lacks the subjective 
 characteristic of morality in all its forms, except the attribute 
 of regularity. 
 
 5. Reason. — This is also an ambiguous term. It has a log- 
 ical, a psychological, and a moral import. Its logical meaning 
 is its ratiocinative application. Here it means the power of 
 drawing inferences, or of reasoning from premises to conclusions. 
 If the premises are general truths and the conclusions particular 
 ones, the reasoning is deductive ; if they are facts and the con- 
 clusion is a general truth, or some probable fact containing more 
 than the premises, the reasoning is inductive. With this mean- 
 ing of the term Ethics has nothing to do, though as a science it 
 may employ the ratiocinative faculty, and in framing definite 
 rules for life we may do the same. But it is not the source of 
 motives for the will when taken in this sense. The psychologi- 
 cal import of the term is that it denotes the power of direct or 
 intuitive insight into certain facts and truths; for instance, that 
 pleasure is desirable, that the truth cannot be denied when per- 
 ceived, that every cause has its effect and vice versa, that two 
 and two make four, etc. This function of reason has its place 
 in Ethics in determining the ultimate good or the special ends 
 of conduct that present themselves for consideration. It is 
 cognitive but not impulsive in its nature, as is apparent from 
 describing it as intuitive, The moral application of the term is 
 
ELEMENTARY PRINCIPLES 137 
 
 that which denotes the mind's power over natural desire. Hence 
 in the field of Ethics reason is the regulative and legislative power 
 of the mind controlling and directing the various inclinations to 
 some intelligible and ideal end. Ever since the time of Plato, 
 who made it the sovereign over the passions and impulses, this 
 has been the general conception of it in Ethics. It is important 
 to remark, however, that its true function in morality is both cog- 
 nitive and directive. Plato included both these elements in his 
 conception of it. The cognitive was its function as conscious- 
 ness of an end and opposed it to desire {tniQvjxia) and 
 impulse (Ovjj.03), which could form no conception of their 
 object until reason supervened to do so. This view of the case 
 survived as a permanent contribution to the problem, and hence 
 moral reason has for its first function to know ivhat the ultimate 
 object of a volition is in any particular case, and how it can be 
 attained without entailing any evil consequences. But this 
 function alone does not take reason beyond mere prudence or 
 self-interest. Hence the second function ascribed to it is the 
 formation of an imperative ideal which shall act as a constraint 
 upon irrational desires, impulses, and passions, and a motive for 
 its own realization. This is the legislative and directing power 
 of reason as contrasted with mere knowledge, though knowledge 
 must accompany it, and it is embodied in the modern concep- 
 tion of conscience, which supervenes upon prudence without set- 
 ting it aside. 
 
 Having given a definition and a brief outline of the function 
 of reason in conduct, it will be in place to describe and illustrate 
 its operations more fully. We should, perhaps, first note an ob- 
 jection to the use of the term at all in the moral sphere. We 
 have found that moral phenomena are concerned with motives 
 and actions. Actions are the function of the will, and it is 
 sometimes said that reason cannot act as a motive to volition. 
 This position is especially urged by Hume, who maintains that 
 only the " passions " (Hume's term for emotions) can move the 
 will, while it is the business of reason merely to know truth. This 
 objection is true enough from the ratiocinative or logical con- 
 
138 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 ception of " reason," and also from its merely cognitive function. 
 Mere perception is not a motive power. But as the real ques- 
 tion in the case is only a matter of definition and practical 
 usage, it is fair to use the term to denote moral functions, pro- 
 vided we do not intend by it to attribute dynamic power to ab- 
 stract ideas. It is, no doubt, unfortunate that custom has em- 
 ployed so equivocal a term, but long-established usage cannot be 
 set aside by a difficulty of that kind, unless a proper term is 
 found to take the place of an objectionable one. Hence, as long 
 as this requisite is not supplied, the only alternative is to define 
 the sense in which " reason " is employed to denote moral func- 
 tions, and refuse to be troubled by a different import in the logical 
 field. Moreover, we have already seen that the term " motive" 
 in Ethics does not mean merely dynamic power, but that it de- 
 notes at the same time an idea of an end, an ideational object. 
 We even found that some moralists used it to denote only this 
 object and so made it a purely cognitive function, excluding the 
 impulsive element. With this conception of " motive," the term 
 " reason " could well be employed to supply it, and no one could 
 exclude it from moral phenomena without first limiting the notion 
 of " motive " to suit the purpose. But since motives are complex, 
 involving cognitive and dynamic functions combined, and since 
 the term " reason " often denotes the whole mind as occupied with 
 a particular object, we may well use it without doing any vio- 
 lence to clear thinking for describing the relation of the man to 
 conduct, whose character is so dependent upon knowledge. It 
 will then be largely a matter of illustration to determine what is 
 meant by the term, and what functions are ascribed to the mind 
 so considered. 
 
 We call conduct reasonable when a man acts in full view of 
 his own and others' best interests. If a man yields to intemper- 
 ance we say he has acted unreasonably, because he obeys a pass- 
 ing impulse or passion and does not calculate the ultimate injury 
 to follow a momentary gratification. An impulse acts, as we say, 
 without thinking. Reason in its relation to volition thinks or 
 reflects and seeks to determine whether the remote consequences 
 
ELEMENTARY PRINCIPLES 1 39 
 
 may not bring more evil than the present good may compensate 
 for. A reasonable man weighs the question of means and ends, 
 brings all his knowledge to bear upon the case, and seeks 
 to ascertain what is best or what is right, and acts accordingly, 
 instead of "going it" blindly or yielding to the first instigations 
 of desire. He looks before and after, determining his relation to 
 all the contingencies in the case which might involve his happi- 
 ness, his character, or his perfection. He will not be intemperate 
 if he knows what painful consequences are involved, he will not 
 commit murder if he knows the penalty for it. It is true that a 
 man may act against the counsel of conscience or reason, but he 
 is not reasonable when he does so. We call him reasonable when 
 he perceives and acts according to the monitions of his best 
 knowledge, keeps his passions under control, considers the har- 
 mony of his life, chooses the highest ideal of which he is capable, 
 and pursues it with a single eye to its realization. " Reason," 
 says Mr. Leslie Stephen, " whatever its nature, is the faculty 
 which enables us to act with a view to the distant and the 
 future. Consequently, in so far as a man is reasonable, he is 
 under the influence of motives which would not be otherwise 
 operative. The immediate bodily appetite is held in check by a 
 number of motives to which only the reasoning being is acces- 
 sible." In all this, reason means more than mere insight. It is a 
 general term for the union of insight and emotion in the right 
 direction. In this way it gains motive power, which it must have 
 in order to regulate the competition of individual desires. It 
 balances the various interests of the subject, decides the highest 
 and enjoins the pursuit of it, not merely as an interest, but as 
 a duty, when it has that quality. There must be a capacity for 
 this function, call it what we will, and as reason was the earliest 
 term to denote the unity of all the individual functions of 
 consciousness, it was only proper and natural that a capacity 
 comprising the conjoint action of insight, emotion, and legisla- 
 tion, and thus presiding over to regulate all the anarchic tenden- 
 cies of the mind, should obtain that name. 
 
 But aside from further justification of the term it is most 
 
140 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 important to observe the specific functions ascribed to reason, 
 and to compare them with those of impulse and instinct. We 
 have already indicated very clearly that they are complex, 
 though they act together. The first of these functions may be 
 called self-consciousness, or deliberative consciousness, in distinc- 
 tion from the unreflecting consciousness of impulse or passion 
 and the merely concomitant consciousness of instinct. We do 
 not mean consciousness of self in its technical philosophic sense, 
 but the reflective turn of mind which stops to consider whether 
 the course offered the will is the right one or not. This is a 
 function that will overcome both the recklessness of passion and 
 the automatism of instinct. Amid the temptations of dis- 
 honesty, of injustice, of intemperance, of voluptuous habits, of 
 greed and ambition, and of all other moral distortions, this dis- 
 position to deliberate and reflect upon the possibilities of self is 
 the first condition of restraining and directing either the 
 strength or the caprice of desire. We may regard its dynamic 
 quality as of the nature of desire itself, but directed to a differ- 
 ent object than that of passionate desire, and modified by the 
 cool and reflective agency of reason. But whether we choose to 
 regard it as a higher desire, or as a distinct and independent 
 function, its essence is one of self-conscious reflection in the first 
 stage, a deliberative inhibition upon impulse and instinct, grow- 
 ing out of better knowledge and experience, and utilizing the 
 memory of past consequences in similar emergencies to act with 
 foresight, prudence, self-sacrifice, and it may be conscientious- 
 ness, in the future. This first characteristic, however, distin- 
 guishes reason more particularly from passion, which may be 
 conscious but not deliberative, than it does from instinct, whose 
 chief quality is persistence and strength whether conscious or not. 
 It is, therefore, the second function of reason which distin- 
 guishes it more clearly from instinct. Instinct does not delib- 
 erate; but if it did it would be reason, and if it were only 
 accompanied by deliberation, this process would avail nothing 
 by virtue of the priority and superior momentum of instinct. 
 The force of instinct, as usually conceived and defined, lies in its 
 
ELEMENTARY PRINCIPLES 141 
 
 not being conscious, or clearly conscious of its own end, or the 
 direction of its impulsion. But this second function of reason 
 supplies this very desideratum. Its object can be truly called 
 an end. Reason knows why it acts and what means it must 
 employ to attain its ends. It is not only conscious of what is 
 going on, but is conscious of the destiny of its action and can 
 direct it to that result. Impulse lives for the present, though 
 conscious, and takes no account of experience or of possible con- 
 sequences. Instinct is adjusted to remoter ends, of which it can 
 give no account, and employs means whose full significance it 
 does not know. But reason utilizes experience and is conscious 
 of both immediate and remoter ends, and thereby acquires for 
 conduct the. title of intelligent, and when it contains a course of 
 action on the ground of its imperative worth, it adds moral to 
 intelligent quality. 
 
 A third characteristic of reason as a function in the direction 
 of conduct is its power of adjustability. In this it is superior to 
 both impulse and instinct. Impulse, we found, would require a 
 world without any unity and without any connection between 
 immediate and remote consequences in order that the subject 
 might even survive in it. It is, therefore, wholly unadjusted to 
 a fixed order, but only to a changeable one. On the other hand, 
 we found instinct to be adjusted to a constant environment and 
 out of harmony with a variable one. Now, it is the nature of 
 environment to be partly constant and partly variable. Some 
 of the world's forces, be they physical or social, are more or less 
 permanent, or at least so articulated as to work toward or to 
 favor a common end. The best life requires such adaptation, 
 self-control, and sacrifice as will guide the subject through many 
 a conflict to the ceaseless purpose running through the ages. 
 Other influences are , constantly changing ; the seasons, the 
 climate, the character of the soil, industrial and social condi- 
 tions, age, health, knowledge, taste, and a thousand other ex- 
 ternal agencies are changing from time to time, varying a man's 
 interests and duties, with every locality, age, or circumstance. 
 All these require adjustability, and as environment is neither 
 
142 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 wholly constant nor wholly variable, the highest development 
 requires a capacity for flexible adjustment. This is precisely 
 what reason supplies. It is the power of adjustment to environ- 
 ment as a whole, at least so far as that environment comes within 
 the ken of consciousness. It modifies conduct when the varia- 
 tion of conditions nullifies the obligation or removes the expe- 
 dience of old laws and habits, and it holds the will to a regular 
 and constant life when passion might lead it to ignore the 
 eternal. Keason is thus adjustment to both aspects of environ- 
 ment. It makes rational concessions to change and to difference 
 of circumstances, while it is unyielding when remoter good 
 requires the sacrifice of an immediate pleasure. It thus shows 
 its freedom and independence in both directions. It does not 
 yield to every outward and capricious stimulus, and it does not 
 blindly follow in the line of habit and instinct when survival 
 and development require adjustment. Hence we may compare 
 it with the other motives to action by remarking either how it 
 supplants them or how it adds reflective and deliberative con- 
 sciousness to both of them, giving it power to resist impulsive 
 adjustment to the irregularities of life and to modify the 
 mechanical fatalism of instinct. Impulse represents the pre- 
 dominance of external influence and change in the determination 
 of conduct, freedom being found only in accepting the offer of 
 gratification. On the other hand, instinct represents the 
 predominance of spontaneity or internal influence, freedom 
 consisting, only in the exemption from external compulsion. 
 But reason is the adjustment of both of these conditions, giving 
 greater independence of external environment and less fatalism 
 to organic functions and internal tendencies. It is, therefore, the 
 point where all the conflicting forces of the mind meet and. 
 attain their unity, completing the adjustment of the individual, 
 which is so important for his development and perfection. 
 
 This rational nature as a motive and regulative function takes 
 two forms, as already indicated, Prudence or Interest and Con- 
 science or the Sense of Duty. The difference between them 
 requires to be carefully stated. 
 
ELEMENTARY PRINCIPLES 143 
 
 (a) Prudence.— Literally understood, prudence is simply fore- 
 sight. It is the function of reason which has been most fully 
 described as looking before and after, taking account of expe- 
 rience and consequences, and directing the agent through the 
 conflicts of desire to a course of conduct which will best serve 
 his interests in the long run. A man is prudent when he saves 
 money against scarcity, famine, sickness, and old age, or any con- 
 tingency in which he might be cut off from self-support. He is 
 prudent when he resists the temptation to a fit of intemperance 
 or debauchery in order to preserve his health. He is prudent 
 when he protects all his resources against waste and loss. He is 
 prudent again when he sacrifices an immediate interest for a re- 
 mote and greater one ; when he prefers the respect of the commu- 
 nity to its indifference or dislike ; when he prefers honesty for the 
 sake of its gain ; when he accepts an insult and injury rather than 
 conduct a futile quest for justice. In all this the agent acts 
 with reference to the greatest good to be obtained for himself. 
 But he does not sacrifice his own good to that of others. He 
 may sacrifice something, but it will be with more than a com- 
 pensation in return. A man may pay a debt at a sacrifice 
 before it matures only to establish his credit, not to fulfill 
 an unconditional obligation. He may even sacrifice a desire 
 and act for the good of others, but it will u t be with the good 
 of others in view. He will have primary reference to the 
 compensation to be received for the sacrifice. Prudence is, 
 therefore, looking to one's own interest, though seeing that 
 no friction occurs with the good of others. It is thus pri- 
 marily and only individualistic in its motive, though it may 
 be objectively altruistic ; that is, in its effects. But it does not 
 take on the character of obligation, or a desire to limit one's own 
 freedom and action in behalf of the welfare or the equal freedom 
 of others, and hence is not marked by the sense of morality, or of 
 right and wrong, as distinguished from good and bad. "Inter- 
 est," says one writer, " means what is good for an individual con- 
 sidered from his own point of view, and without regard to similar 
 claims of other individuals. It is the maximum of happiness or 
 
144 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 satisfaction which he can secure under his conditions. By 
 ' maximum happiness ' is meant that distribution of satisfaction 
 or of energies which produce them, any deviation from which on 
 either side implies a less fullness of life. Interest, though a dif- 
 ferent conception from right or [moral] goodness, is therefore a 
 conception of the same rank or order. In the first place interest 
 is not mere momentary satisfaction, but implies a reference both 
 forwards and backwards to the whole range of a person's wants. 
 It is something permanent, something which implies orderly ar- 
 rangement." But whatever its results and whatever adjust- 
 ment to others' rights and interests the exercise of prudence in- 
 volves, its motive and primary reference is to the individual 
 that practices it. 
 
 This conception of conduct does not reach the stage of moral- 
 ity proper, or perfect virtue, for the reason that it does not aim 
 equally at the good of others. It is conduct having a different 
 and a higher merit than passion and instinct, simply because it is 
 intelligent and conserves life under complex conditions better than 
 these motives can possibly do. It is conduct that is careful not 
 to conflict with morality, but does not aim at realizing purposely 
 either the subjective or the objective aspect of it. It will con- 
 form to objective morality, though mainly in its negative aspect 
 of not doing positive harm. It nevertheless contains an 
 object which may be called moral and ought to be respected as 
 such, namely, the higher possibilities as against the temptation 
 of passion and momentary satisfaction, and larger freedom than 
 is possible in the mechanical fatuity of instinct. But it does 
 not reach the level of conscience, which moves the will by other 
 considerations than interest alone and transfigures character 
 as well as conduct. 
 
 (b) Conscience. — We shall consider only one aspect of con- 
 science at present : a detailed analysis of it will come up in its 
 proper place. Here we are concerned with its motive function 
 and the quality which it bestows upon volition. It represents 
 more specifically the moral function of reason and defines the 
 constraint of the sense of right and duty upon the will, impelling 
 
ELEMENTARY PRINCIPLES 145 
 
 it to respect an unconditional ideal. Prudence is mainly insight 
 into the most expedient of a series of conflicting alternatives and 
 simply changes the objective, but not the subjective, direction of 
 desire. On the other hand, conscience is mainly propulsion, 
 combined with a sense of rightness and an entire subordination 
 of personal to general good. It does not admit free alterna- 
 tives, but selects one course as having a value and importance 
 which not only put all others into the shade, but exclude them 
 from consideration. It may involve the same external actions 
 as prudence and the same objective results, but its motive is not 
 individualistic, while it looks at the result as having a value 
 apart from the mere interest of the subject and sets it up as an 
 object of reverence and of unconditional duty. 
 
 The part which conscience plays in morality, besides overcom- 
 ing passion and personal desire, is an important one. It subor- 
 dinates individual action to the whole consciously. Prudence 
 merely sees that it does not come into conflict with universal in- 
 terest, while conscience sees that it serves this end directly. It 
 will even sacrifice an individual good for that of others, the 
 family, the tribe, or the state. It particularly insists upon 
 action according to law, a law of will as well as of results. Its 
 form is regularity and its motive a command. In the former 
 quality it opposes impulse and resembles instinct, but in the 
 latter it transcends both of them. It gives special sanctity to the 
 will or volition, though it may not modify the nature of results. 
 It is on this account that so many moralists have exalted the 
 motive above everything else in right conduct. Prudence may 
 have something of caprice in it by virtue of the necessity for a 
 larger adaptation to a changing environment, and of the con- 
 stant reference to self. It is, in other words, more in danger of 
 transgression, as it is only the modification and control of 
 impulse without moralizing its object. On the other hand, con- 
 science, as a motive, has much if not all of the constancy of 
 instinct and does for the character of the subject what correct- 
 ness of judgment does for the result of conduct. It is not only a 
 conscious choice. of the right result, but it is aiming at that re- 
 
146 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 suit on its own account, whatever reference it may have to the sub- 
 ject itself. It will not conflict with interest in the long run, 
 though it sets aside an immediate orie. But it does not look 
 primarily to this interest. It regards the action and the end as 
 having an intrinsic worth imposing a universal and absolute 
 obligation, and so imposes a subjective law of duty upon the will, 
 while prudence is much more under the objective law of circum- 
 stances. The subjective law of prudence is personal good, that of 
 conscience is impersonal good. The objective law of prudence is 
 adaptation, that of conscience is self-realization, the attainment 
 of an ideal independent of circumstances. Morality from this 
 source will be perfect where it is accompanied by correct judg- 
 ment as to means and ends. Imperfection will arise only from 
 mistaken knowledge and not from a perverted will, where the law 
 of duty is observed, and hence conscience as a motive simply 
 adds the moralization of the agent to all other considerations of 
 the good ; or to put it in terms of conceptions already distin- 
 guished, it combines virtue with the good where knowledge is not 
 defective. The individual who exercises it is admired, not for 
 his being a means to an end, but for his personality, for the 
 intrinsic excellence of a life or action according to the law of 
 freedom, of duty, and of ideal attainment. That is to say, con- 
 science is the essence of morality where it must be estimated 
 in terms of personality or good-will, and viewed from the stand- 
 point of individual worth there is no other quality which stands 
 so high in the estimation of the world. It is, therefore, the most 
 fundamental of all the elements that make up virtue, and view- 
 ing this as expressing merely a quality of will, conscience is all 
 that is necessary to realize it, leaving to education and experi- 
 ence the work of bestowing the knowledge necessary for securing 
 correct objective results when the will is good. 
 
 In analyzing thus the functions of motives in morality we 
 determine only its subjective side, and so the excellence or 
 virtue of the agent. But in common conception morality 
 contains more than virtue. It is the goodness also of some- 
 thing else than the mere will. The motives may determine 
 
ELEMENTARY PRINCIPLES 147 
 
 the character and worth of the agent. But they do not consti- 
 tute the quality of any other data which are essential to com- 
 plete morality, though in a world of free agents they are the 
 most important elements to reckon upon as security for regular- 
 ity and law, which are the first principles of character wherever 
 consciousness is concerned. The objective elements and their 
 functions, however, are determined by other considerations than 
 the value of good- will. To them we immediately turn, and can 
 dismiss them very briefly. 
 
 2d. The Act. — The act we have already divided into the 
 subjective action and the objective action ; in other words, the 
 choice and volition for the one and the external movement for 
 the other. The act as a whole, of course, must contain both 
 aspects, but each has entirely different functions in relation to 
 moral judgment. The internal act or the choice and volition 
 are the index of character, and so are an expression of the sub- 
 jective side of morality as discussed in the function of conscience. 
 It may be a causal link in the series terminating in the result, 
 but it determines constitutively nothing but the quality of the 
 will, and not the quality of the result. Hence it may be re- 
 garded in this respect as doing the same as the motive, and dis- 
 missed from farther consideration. But the objective or exter- 
 nal act is different. Taken alone it can have neither merit nor 
 demerit. Its moral quality is purely relative — relative to the 
 result or end* to which it is directed. Its function is purely 
 instrumental or dynamic, namely, nothing but a means to an 
 end. Whatever value the end has, the means will have, and 
 whatever demerit the end or result, so with the means. The 
 physical movements in an act of justifiable homicide may be the 
 same as in a case of unjustifiable homicide, and yet we do not 
 place our judgments in the same attitude regarding both results. 
 The quality of the act is measured by the quality of the end, 
 and morally considered it can have no other quality. This is 
 perhaps a truism, but there have been schools of philosophers 
 who have spoken as if they meant to ascribe morality or immo- 
 rality to actions w T hich can be considered as nothing more nor 
 
148 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 less than a means to an end. They in reality spoke of the 
 whole complex phenomenon involving the purpose, action, and 
 consequence. But opponents eagerly interpreted their language 
 literally, while it has been the fault of the human race generally 
 to speak of action in the abstract as if it were discussing the 
 concrete case involving more than mere action. Hence we find 
 homicide, theft, inveracity, injustice, intemperance, imprudence, 
 etc., condemned without reference to consequences, and their 
 opposites approved without reference to the same. In fact, not 
 a single crime in the calendar of evils can be condemned without 
 reference to its consequences. Its action, apart from the voli- 
 tion of the subject, is nothing more than physical motion, from 
 which those very advocates of absolute morality are so 
 strenuous to exclude the attributes of either moral or im- 
 moral. It possesses nothing but causal or instrumental 
 quality, and is deplored or admired according as the con- 
 sequences are. 
 
 3d. The End. — The end as already defined is the result 
 aimed at. It is this alone, barring the question of freedom, 
 which determines the responsibility and the morality of the agent, 
 but not all the morality of the act, if that term is to include the 
 objective results independent of volition, and assuming that bet- 
 ter knowledge may enable all results to come within the ken of 
 the agent. Whatever the end so will the agent and the act be, 
 the agent because the end is a part of the motive, and the 
 act because the end is the result. 
 
 4th. The Result or Consequence. — So far as this is inde- 
 pendent of the end aimed at, and so far as it is not known to be 
 connected with the end, it can only determine the objective char- 
 acter of conduct, and has no reference to the morality of the 
 agent. But as long as it comes within the range of possible 
 knowledge and can be known by experience to be involved in a 
 given act, it will be subject matter for ethical discussion, as being 
 involved in the objective qualities of morality as a whole, but is 
 not a part of virtue. The function of consequences, therefore, 
 in ethical doctrine is to determine the complementary aspect of 
 
ELEMENTARY PRINCIPLES 149 
 
 the good- will in considering the complex phenomenon which 
 passes as moral or immoral. 
 
 VII. CONCLUSION.— -The conclusion of this chapter merely 
 calls fresh attention to the complexity of the phenomena with 
 which we have to deal. Morality, as understood by the common 
 mind, is not a simple thing. Now it describes only a quality of 
 will apart from consequences actually occurring, and now it 
 describes actions leading to avoidable consequences, if known, 
 and again it describes the complex whole comprehending all 
 these elements. Our duty as students is first to understand the 
 difference between the points of view involved and not to regard 
 as contradictories conceptions which are merely complementary 
 factors of a complex whole. Each point of view with its concep- 
 tion in those limits may be correct and should be accorded fair 
 consideration on that ground. 
 
 Again, we have discussed the subjects of morality and con- 
 science without reference to any particular theory about it. 
 Some conceive both as necessarily opposed to the utilitarian posi- 
 tion. This may be true, or it may not. I certainly do not 
 think it necessary, however, to define either of them as excluding 
 utilitarian conceptions. In considering conscience as a motive 
 function, I do not think it necessary to say what its object is, 
 whether pleasure, perfection, law, obedience, or what not. It may 
 have any or all of these for its object. Hence, in understanding 
 the function of conscience, in morality we may consider only its 
 mode of operation and determine its proper object afterward. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE FEEEDOM OF THE WILL. 
 
 I. INTRODUCTORY.— -The freedom of the will has been 
 affirmed to be an essential condition of morality and responsi- . 
 bility, and we mnst now consider whether this doctrine is true or 
 not, or in what sense it is true, if it be so. The controversy in 
 modern times, and especially since the acceptance of the doctrine 
 of evolution, has been a very warm one. Perhaps it was equally 
 so at earlier periods if we are to judge from the theories of men 
 like Hobbes, Collins, Hume, Spinoza, and their opponents. But 
 aside from the historical interest of the problem, it has consid- 
 erable practical importance in the affairs of every-day life, 
 individual and social. In the first place free agency, whatever 
 it may mean, is commonly accepted as conditioning responsi- 
 bility ; that is, the distribution of praise and blame, and through 
 this the right of punishment. It is believed that if we are not 
 free agents, actions can neither be praised nor blamed, but only 
 admired or disliked, and that no system of punishment is justi- 
 fiable unless we are the free causes of our own actions. In the 
 courts we are in the habit of excusing men when it is shown 
 that their conduct is compulsory and involuntary. Maniacs and 
 imbeciles are not punished for criminal actions. No measures 
 are taken to apply to them the ordinary method of discipline and 
 correction, and it is simply because we are not in the habit of 
 regarding them as responsible, while they are often spoken of as 
 not being free agents. Slaves are denied freedom, and all 
 persons in like subservience to the will of others are said not to 
 be free in their actions. Their masters or superiors are treated 
 as responsible for the conduct enjoined upon them. Reflex and 
 automatic actions are regarded as necessary or not free, and so 
 
 150 
 
THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 151 
 
 with any action connected with our physical person and not 
 willed by us, because they are initiated by antecedents which are 
 beyond our control, and which leave no other alternative in the 
 case open to choice. The person is in no way praised or blamed 
 for such actions, and punishment to prevent them is absurd. 
 Hence, to put the whole matter most briefly, wherever we use 
 the expression, " This act is not free," we mean to take it wholly 
 out of the category of moral actions, subject to punishment, and 
 to place it among those which, like physical actions, are not 
 amenable to any moral judgment whatever. The consequences 
 of denying freedom, therefore, seem to be very far-reaching. 
 They seem to involve the whole moral and social constitution of 
 society, and also even the defensive action of the individual. I 
 do not intend this statement of consequences to be taken at 
 present as an argument for freedom, because it may be that they 
 will have to be accepted, and social institutions modified to suit 
 the facts. But they may be pointed out in order to obtain a 
 clear conception of the problem before us. They are necessary 
 for the purpose of showing that we cannot take the conception 
 of freedom in the abstract, or out of all connection with its 
 concrete relations to social phenomena and institutions, and 
 decide whether it is valid or not, and at the same time imagine 
 that these implications are untouched by our conclusions. We 
 cannot give up the conditions of certain facts and yet maintain 
 the validity of those facts. We must either defend the freedom 
 of the will or give up the legitimacy of the phenomena supposed 
 to depend upon it. 
 
 But it is to be remarked, on the other hand, ihat there is a 
 great deal of excusable confusion on this subject due to the 
 equivocal meaning of the terms and propositions in the contro- 
 versy. Neither party gives sufficient attention to clearness 
 and to definition of data in the problem. One party uses freedom 
 in one sense and the other in another sense, and both parties 
 use it in different senses in different connections. It is therefore 
 no wonder that there is controversy and confusion in the matter. 
 Hence we must assert emphatically that the most important step 
 
152 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 in discussing the problem is the clear definition of the question 
 or questions at issue. This requires a careful examination of 
 what is meant by the several theories "of volition and by the term 
 freedom. The question whether we are free or not depends 
 wholly upon the sense in which we use the term, and there is no 
 use to either advocate or oppose any doctrine regarding it until 
 we understand ourselves and the conceptions involved. We 
 shall therefore proceed to state carefully the fundamental ele- 
 ments of the problem and reduce it to its simplest terms. 
 
 II. ELEMENTS OF THE PROBLEM.— There are two things 
 to be analyzed in the matter before our attention : they are the 
 conception of free action and the conception of the theories re- 
 garding it. When we have obtained a clear idea of these we can 
 then pronounce judgment upon them one way or the other. 
 
 1st. Uses of the Term Freedom. — There are three general 
 and distinct meanings of the term freedom, and all with entirely 
 different implications. We shall call them Liberty, Spontaneity, 
 and Velleity, and explain each in its order. Liberty and free- 
 dom are often used interchangeably, but there is a difference in 
 some of their connections, describing what we wish to emphasize 
 here, and hence we wish for the sake of clearness and conveni- 
 ence to use the term for a special purpose. We might use the 
 phrase " physico-political freedom " instead, which is exactly what 
 we mean to express by liberty, but it is too cumbersome, and as 
 good authority as well as frequent usage stands for the employ- 
 ment of the term to denote what can be expressed by physico- 
 political liberty, we shall do little violence to habit if we some- 
 what restrict the term for important purposes. We may seem a 
 little arbitrary, but if our definition of it is kept in mind, rather 
 than its frequent identification with freedom, there will be no 
 difficulty with it, and at the same time we shall have a clear 
 and convenient conception to be distinguished from the other 
 two kinds of freedom. We shall therefore take up and define 
 each one in its order. 
 
 1. Liberty. — Liberty, as here conceived and in its restricted 
 import, we shall define as exemption from external restraint This 
 
THE FREEDOM OF TEE WILL 153 
 
 restraint may be either physical or social, the latter being meant 
 to include all political restrictions upon human action. We call 
 a person free, or assert that he has liberty, when external forces 
 either do not determine his action or do not determine the cir- 
 cumstances limiting the alternatives between which he has to 
 choose. Thus, a man in prison is not free, or has lost his liberty. 
 A man who can do as he pleases without suffering a penalty for 
 it, is said to have his liberty, or to be free. Seasons and climate 
 limit a man's liberty in the matter of wearing clothes ; he is not 
 free to go without them in any sense that he can escape the conse- 
 quences. A slave is said not to be free, in which we do not mean 
 that he cannot possibly do as he pleases, or that he cannot help 
 obeying his master, but that he must do so at his risk, that he is 
 liable to certain consequences for following his spontaneous de- 
 sires. We give him his liberty when we remove the restrictions 
 which prevent natural and desirable action on his part, and force 
 upon him a choice which he would not otherwise make. All men 
 are hemmed in by some such restraints, either physical or social. 
 Climate, gravitation, seasons, geographical conditions, political in- 
 stitutions, economic conditions, and a thousand other influences 
 are at work to limit the satisfaction of desire. To that extent we 
 can say that we are not free, whereby we mean merely that we 
 cannot do as we please without incurring disagreeable conse- 
 quences. Hence, freedom or liberty, used to describe exemption 
 from these restraints, means only a condition in which we act ac- 
 cording to our natural desires. The term is used most frequently 
 to describe a political condition — political liberty, whereby we 
 mean exemption from the laws, customs, and restraints which put 
 one man in subjection to the will of others. But in this sense no 
 man is absolutely free, every one is under some restrictions, and 
 perhaps ought to be. They do not compel him to act in a given 
 way, but make the alternatives so unpleasant that none except 
 the permitted course will probably be chosen. In this sense 
 freedom or liberty is a privilege rather than a power, a privilege 
 to act with impunity rather than the faculty of alternative ac- 
 tion. Thus a man is not at liberty to commit murder and escape 
 
154 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 the risks of punishment, but lie has the power to commit the 
 murder and to accept the penalty, or not to commit it and thus to 
 be free from risk. Freedom, then, as liberty is simply exemption 
 from restraint or limitation. We take up next the second mean- 
 ing of the term. 
 
 2. Spontaneity. — Spontaneity may be itechnically denned 
 as subjective causation, or the origination of one's own act. It 
 might be called autonomy or self-initiative were it not that 
 sometimes these terms are used synonymously with freedom in 
 the third sense where consciousness and deliberation are involved. 
 But I do not yet wish to condition spontaneity by deliberation, 
 or even consciousness. As here used the term simply defines self- 
 motion or activity, whether conscious or not, as contrasted with 
 mechanical action which is not originated by the subject in 
 which it occurs, or at least, is never supposed to do so. All 
 physical motion or action is said .to be necessitated, because the 
 body in motion is supposed to be incapable of causing its own 
 motion. It is inert, and whatever activity it manifests is trans- 
 mitted to it from without, unless we describe its reaction and 
 resistance to its own powers. But movement and its transmis- 
 sion to other bodies cannot, so far as human experience goes, be 
 originated by matter in itself, but must be received from with- 
 out, and if any external body or cause act on another, the effect 
 is inevitable and necessary. It is neither conscious nor one of 
 two possible alternatives under the same conditions. But if the 
 agent or subject originate any action of itself and without stim- 
 ulus from the outside it would certainly be a self-initiated act, a 
 spontaneous creation of its own power, not a creation of a sub- 
 stantive thing, but of an act, event, or phenomenon. Moreover, 
 even if a stimulus does act on a subject, and the effect is wholly 
 different from a mechanical one, something must be attributed to 
 the subject rather than to the stimulus. Thus, if I see a fire and 
 run to watch the process of extinction, my action can hardly be 
 compared to the effect of one billiard-ball upon another when 
 struck. I originate the action of running, though the sight of fire 
 is necessary to explain the occasion and the motive of it. Spon- 
 
THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 155 
 
 taneity thus expresses a power in contrast with inertia, and 
 denotes capacity to originate action. This, of course, is con- 
 scious. Not to seek for analogies of it in the resistance of 
 material bodies, and their modifying influence on other bodies 
 when struck, it is probable that automatic and instinctive 
 actions are the first types of spontaneity in organic life. They 
 are certainly not caused by any agency without the person 
 or subject of them. We may claim that they have their 
 stimulus in the organism and so far must be classed with 
 ordinary mechanical actions, and I do not care to dispute this 
 view. But they are certainly not the necessary effect of ex- 
 ternal conditions as the movement of one billiard-ball by another 
 is. They belong to the subject and the conditions of its nature. 
 However, it is not necessary to push the application of the 
 term spontaneity into the field of the purely unconscious. It is 
 practically admitted to be a fact by all who grant the existence of 
 conscious action, but deny that a man's action might have been 
 otherwise than it was. Every man must be the caifse of his own 
 volitions; otherwise they are not his volitions or acts at all. 
 If I move my arm to pick up my pen, it is not the pen which 
 "caused" the act, nor is it my surroundings, the physical 
 objects about me. If they produced the effect, they should con- 
 tinue to do so as long as they are about me. There may have 
 been "reasons" in my surroundings, or in the special condi- 
 tions under which I am placed for picking up my pen, but " rea- 
 sons " are not external causes, and they may not be causes at all. 
 Similarly, if I steal, the act arises from conditions within myself, 
 not from the action of external objects; otherwise every con- 
 scious agent would be expected to steal immediately that he came 
 near the same objects, nay, would be forced to do so. It might 
 even be true that every one would steal under the same " condi- 
 tions." But these conditions would have to be internal; for it 
 is a fact that the sameness of external conditions does not issue 
 in the same results with different persons. Hence the only way 
 to explain the difference of effect is to refer it to the subjective 
 conditions and nature of the agent. This is regarding him as 
 
156 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 the cause of the effect instead of referring it to a foreign influ- 
 ence. Now, in all actions representing an end, a conscious pur- 
 pose, the subject is the cause. All other "conditions" are mere 
 circumstances or occasions, opportunities which consciousness 
 observes, weighs, and measures. In the sense, then, that a man 
 is the cause of his own actions we can ascribe to him the attri- 
 bute of spontaneity, the power of originating himself certain acts, 
 which are properly called volitions. Freedom is used to describe 
 this phenomenon in order to name a fact which must be distin- 
 guished from mechanically caused events. We may hold that 
 spontaneous actions cannot have been otherwise, if we like, but 
 they are not produced by the transmission of force, as in the 
 physical world, from one body to another. They originate with 
 the subject of them. Spontaneity is thus self-initiative, whether 
 we choose to regard it as conscious or unconscious, and is 
 opposed to foreign initiative. It is self-movement as opposed to 
 inertia, and is only a name for mental causation as contrasted 
 with mechanical causation. This will be as true under a mate- 
 rialistic as under a spiritualistic philosophy. 
 
 3. Velleity. — Velleity is the capacity of alternative choice, 
 or, as it is sometimes called, contrary choice. I have chosen 
 the term from the medieval Latin, velleitas (Latin velle, to wish 
 or to will) in order to distinguish, as nearly all writers do, med- 
 ieval or modern, between merely spontaneously caused actions 
 and actions that might have been otherwise, conditions being the 
 same. Whether there are any such remains still to be deter- 
 mined. But we certainly have a conception of them, and often 
 use the term freedom to denote them. The doctrines of responsi- 
 bility and punishment certainly assume that certain actions ought, 
 and therefore could, have been otherwise than they are, that the 
 agent could have chosen the right as well as the wrong. If they 
 could not have been otherwise, it seems unreasonable to act toward 
 the agent as if they could have been different. Punishment 
 either assumes that this is possible or that it can modify them 
 afterward and prevent this repetition. Hence it is a question 
 whether, conditions being the same, the power of alternative 
 
THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 157 
 
 choice exists. But it is this which is perhaps more frequently 
 implied by freedom than the first two meanings when speaking of 
 free will. We are not ready, however, for the argument on one 
 side or the other. Our present duty is only to fix the concep- 
 tion of freedom as velleity, and to indicate the distinction be- 
 tween this and the other conception expressed by the same term. 
 There is a peculiar relation existing between the three. In the 
 first place, liberty, as we saw, is exemption from foreign re- 
 straint ; velleity does not require any such exemption. If it 
 exist at all, it may not, must not, be influenced by any such lim- 
 itations whatever. In the second place, spontaneity, as defined, 
 is subjective causation, but velleity must include this and adds 
 to it the capacity of alternative choice. He who can act other- 
 wise than he does on any occasion must be the cause of his own 
 actions ; but he who is the cause of his own actions may not be 
 able, under similar conditions, to do otherwise. In other words, 
 velleity is a conception which includes or implies spontaneity, 
 but spontaneity does not include velleity. This is an important 
 fact bearing on the liability to illusion caused by this peculiar 
 relation. Velleity, however, will be the name for this differen- 
 tial quality, known as the power of alternative choice. It is 
 illustrated most clearly perhaps in the phenomenon of delibera- 
 tion. Whether this proves anything or not in regard to freedom 
 is not the question at present. But it does show that the agent 
 is conscious of one or more alternative volitions as presented, 
 whether he be able or not to choose any but one of them under 
 the conditions. This will explain the conception which might 
 naturally arise respecting his freedom as velleity. Responsibility 
 seems to imply much more than mere causality. A man with 
 nothing but instincts to determine his conduct would be the cause 
 of his actions, but no one would attribute responsibility to him. 
 Hence more than mere spontaneity is required to establish that 
 quality of rational beings. If, then, we could add the capacity of 
 alternative choice to subjective causation, or velleity to spontaneity, 
 we could sustain responsibility. In fact, this last is often identi- 
 fied with freedom. We shall find later a reason to distinguish 
 
158 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 them much as we have distinguished the second and third con- 
 ceptions of freedom. In the meantime, however, freedom in every 
 sense of the term can be regarded as a condition of responsibility, 
 while calling attention to the fact that the capacity of alterna- 
 tive choice implied in the latter is taken to denote freedom. 
 With this definition of the various uses of the term we may turn 
 to a statement of the real problem involved in the controversy 
 between those who affirm and those who deny the freedom of 
 the will. 
 
 2d. The Issue in Regard to Freedom.— This issue between the 
 disputants regarding free will does not concern all the meanings 
 of the term. It has in reality to do with only one of them, 
 namely, velleity. But the fact that the term has three distinct 
 meanings is very important, as showing the illusion and fallacies 
 of certain arguments, both for and against freedom. This fact 
 we shall make clear again. At present it is an excuse both for 
 the analysis we have given and for the sifting of the issue down 
 to its simplest terms. 
 
 In the first place, if freedom be taken in the sense of liberty, 
 or exemption from external restraint, there is no doubt whatever 
 that man is not free. No one, probably, would deny this fact. 
 There is, or ought to be, perfect agreement in regard to this con- 
 ception of the case. The controversy, therefore, between the two 
 schools cannot turn upon this view of the problem. Secondly, if 
 freedom be taken in the sense of spontaneity, there can be no 
 denying that man is free in all actions that can be called his 
 own ; that is, his volitions. Nothing need be implied here one 
 way or the other about reflex and automatic actions, and such 
 other movements as are connected with the physical person, but 
 not willed by the conscious agent. We are dealing only with 
 volitions, which are conscious acts, and are not anything else. 
 These must be free or self-caused as opposed to being mechan- 
 ically caused. All parties, as we have already remarked, are 
 agreed again on this issue. Hence the controversy cannot turn 
 upon the question whether spontaneity is a fact or not. This is 
 not the conception of freedom which is denied. There remains, 
 
THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 159 
 
 therefore, only the third conception, namely, velleity, or the 
 possibility of alternative choice, as the one about which the dis- 
 pute can turn. The fact is that this is the only one that can 
 present any rational ground for doubt. It is not the only con- 
 ception of it that enters into the questions of ethics or conditions 
 other characteristics of man, namely, responsibility. But it is 
 the only conception of free will that can be open to dispute ; 
 that is, of which there may be two opinions. Many of the argu- 
 ments, however, have no bearing upon this conception of it. 
 Nevertheless, in examining them as we discuss this one true 
 issue, we shall be obliged to state them as they are advanced, 
 and can then estimate their value as we perceive their relation 
 to the question. When the proper time comes we shall state 
 the arguments on both sides, but only with the understanding 
 that the issue, whether the arguments are relevant or not, is 
 only concerning velleity, and not freedom in every sense of the 
 term. In the meantime, before undertaking to consider this 
 controversy, another aspect of the issue requires to be analyzed 
 very carefully, namely, the theories of volition and the concep- 
 tions which they imply. T\ T e shall probably find as many 
 sources of confusion and equivocation in them as in the diverse 
 notions of freedom which we have examined. 
 
 3d. The Theories of Volition. — One classification of these 
 theories makes them only two which are opposed to each other. 
 They are Necessitarianism or Determinism, and Lihertarianism or 
 Freedomism. Necessitarianism or determinism, as conceived in 
 this classification, maintains that man's actions are necessitated, 
 that he cannot act otherwise than he does. Each volition is 
 conceived, by this thoery, as inevitable under the circumstances, 
 *as inevitable as the fall of an apple under the attraction of gravi- 
 tation, if it be unsuspended or unsupported. In its extreme 
 form a man is not blamed for his conduct. It is treated as the 
 necessary effect of a cause over which the agent has no control. 
 If a man steals, he cannot help it ; it is the result of his charac- 
 ter or his circumstances. If he does not steal, regard for property 
 is just as fatal in deciding his conduct as disregard for it is in the 
 
160 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 case of the thief. The difference between the two persons is in 
 their antecedent characters. They have not the same powers, such 
 as freedom supposes. On the other hand, libertarianism or free- 
 domism maintains that man is free, that he has the power of 
 alternative choice or velleity, and that his actions are not neces- 
 sitated in any sense of the term. It holds that man makes his 
 own character, so far as that is an expression of volition at all, 
 and that where it is not such a product it has no causal power to 
 determine his volitions. The antithesis or opposition between 
 this theory and that of necessity is complete, and there would 
 seem to be no choice except between the two. The terms, of 
 course, are liable to all the illusions attending their equivocal 
 meaning. But after restricting the issue to the power of alter- 
 native choice the opposition between them would seem to be clear 
 and our choice restricted to one or the other. 
 
 It is important to remark, in spite of this conception of the 
 case, that the matter is not quite so clear. Both the historical 
 treatment of free will and the arguments used for and against it 
 assume at least one more point of view, and also conceptions of 
 the problem involving more than one idea of freedom. On this 
 account it is necessary to give what we regard as a more com- 
 plete and satisfactory classification of theories, defining the vari- 
 ous possible attitudes toward the problem. The two theories 
 already mentioned seem both to admit that volitions are caused, 
 and in this view of the case the opposition must be between 
 two different kinds of causes. But all moralists have not 
 been agreed that freedomism admitted the subordination of 
 volition to the law of causation. Hence there have been at 
 least two forms of that theory, and there has also been more 
 than one form of necessitarianism. But as the argument has 
 most frequently turned upon the connection of causation with 
 volition, this principle should be the basis of a true classification, 
 and since freedom in the minds of many persons has been under- 
 stood to imply that free actions are not caused, we must recog- 
 nize a theory representing that point of view. 
 
 The most general classification of theories represented by his- 
 
THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 161 
 
 torical controversies is that which divides them into Determinism 
 and Indeterminism, or the freedom of- indifference, sometimes 
 called Indifferentism. Determinism maintains that volitions are 
 caused. We must remember, however, that usage has not 
 always opposed this idea to freedom. Kant and Leibnitz and 
 others have represented themselves as freedomists and yet 
 determinists at the same time. As we use the term here, there- 
 fore, it is not meant to oppose anything bat indeterminism, but 
 asserts only that volitions are subject to the law of causation, like 
 all other events ; but it does not say anything about the kind of 
 cause concerned. On the other hand, indeterminism does not 
 represent a single type of conception. It is only in one of its 
 senses that it is distinctly opposed to determinism as a theory of 
 caused volitions. But it represents three different forms of con- 
 dition for free action. They are (a) causeless volitions ; (h) 
 motiveless volitions ; and (c) indifferent volitions. It. is only the 
 first of these that is distinctly opposed to modern determinism, 
 but it has been held by many writers as a primary condition of 
 freedom that volitions should be uncaused or independent of the 
 law of causation. This was the claim of Hume, is the claim of 
 Spencer, and of all who use, as one writer does, the following 
 language : " Believing as the author does that change is un- 
 thinkable except in the category of causation, the affirmation 
 that the will is free, or that the self is free to will, seems thor- 
 oughly unwarranted either by fact or reason." On the other 
 hand, many medieval and some later writers have held that a 
 volition in order to be free should be motiveless. They admitted 
 that if it were caused by " motives," the strongest would prevail 
 and that this would cut off the possibility of alternative choice. 
 Hence they conceived free volition as motiveless. The famous 
 illustration of this idea was the ass between two bundles of hay 
 (asinus Buridaui). The idea was that an ass placed between 
 two bundles of hay would be equally attracted by both of 
 them, and if under this condition he could not choose to eat, 
 he must starve. The determinist said he must either starve 
 or the motives were not equal. The freedomist held that the 
 
162 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 attractions must be equal, and yet it was a fact that the ass 
 would eat of one or both bundles of hay. Both sides, how- 
 ever, agreed that if free and the two motives were equal the 
 volition of the ass had to be motiveless, because the two opposing 
 attractions neutralized each other. Such is the famous concep- 
 tion of the freedom of indifference as action without a motive. 
 The third conception of indeterminism is very much like the 
 second, though it does not affirm that free action must exclude 
 motives. It simply maintains that it should be as indifferent to 
 motives as to any other mental fact. It admits the concomitance 
 and denies the causality of motives. 
 
 But as the freedomist has often admitted that volitions 
 are caused, and only asserted that it was free as opposed to 
 necessary causation, the theory of determinism divides into 
 two forms. I shall call them objective determinism and sub- 
 jective determinism. The former would be properly named 
 also physical necessitarianism. This is the conception that 
 would refer all actions to the law of mechanical causation 
 or initiation from without. All ^physical movements are caused 
 by external impulsion or influence and do not originate 
 spontaneously or from within the subject. The stroke of a 
 ball, the fall of a stone or a tree, the expansion of matter under 
 heat, the growth of organic life, the changes of the seasons, etc., 
 are all necessitated events. Mechanical necessitarianism, if 
 seriously held by any one, would maintain that volitions are of 
 the same type of events. They might occur wholly within the 
 subject, but nevertheless be the product of the brain, which is a 
 physical force external to the volition and the subject itself only 
 of mechanical causes. This is to say that volition so conceived 
 is only one in a series of events having their point of transmis- 
 sion in the brain. If this be true the will cannot be free in any 
 sense of the term, except possibly spontaneity, because it would 
 be nothing more than the brain itself in the exercise of certain 
 functions. 
 
 On the other hand, subjective determinism, while it is opposed 
 to mechanical necessitarianism ; that is, to the theory that all 
 
THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 
 
 163 
 
 events whatsoever are the effect of causes foreign to the subject 
 in which they occur, is not opposed to the conception that 
 volitions may be quite as uniform and unalterable as if they 
 were mechanically initiated. It, therefore, divides into two 
 forms, which I shall call psychical necessitarianism and freedom- 
 ism, according as volitions are the effect of spontaneity or of 
 velleity. Psychical necessitarianism admits that volitions are not 
 externally caused, but are the product of the subject. However, 
 it opposes the conception that alternative choice is equally 
 possible. It is founded upon the prevalence of the strongest 
 motive, a phenomenon conceived after the analogy of the 
 mechanical law regarding the resultant of physical forces, and 
 upon the doctrine that a man must act in accordance with the 
 bent of his character. That is to say, it holds that whatever 
 other courses of action may be conceived by the subject only 
 one of them is^ possible to him, his nature being what it is, and 
 that our inability to tell beforehand what the subject will do is 
 due wholly to our ignorance of the complex conditions consti- 
 tuting his character. On the other hand, freedomism simply 
 affirms that man can choose equally between two alternatives, 
 and so is opposed alike to physical and to psychical necessita- 
 rianism. 
 
 The following tabular outline is a resume of the classification 
 just given : 
 
 Causeless Volitions — (Spontaneous Generation). 
 Indeterminism \ Motiveless A T olitions= (Automatism). 
 Indifferent Volitions = (Indifferentism). 
 
 Determinism 
 
 Objective Determinism 
 
 or 
 Physical 
 
 Necessitarianism 
 
 Subjective Determinism 
 
 or 
 
 Mental Causation 
 
 Absolute 
 Eelative = 
 
 : Fatalism. 
 Mechanism. 
 
 Psychical 
 
 Necessitarianism 
 
 or 
 Univolism. 
 
 Freedomism. 
 
 In stating the real issue involved in the controversy about free- 
 
164 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 dom, it is important to note the number of possible antitheses ex- 
 pressed by this classification, and to indicate, as in the conception 
 of freedom, just where the only real* and true opposition exists. 
 It must be remembered, however, that the classification does not 
 attempt in all cases to avoid cross-division, which a strictly log- 
 ical system would do. But it endeavors only to state the tradi- 
 tional conceptions and antitheses with as clear a view of them as 
 is possible in the case. Thus historically indeterminism and de- 
 terminism are opposed to each other, and it has been true also 
 historically that motiveless volitions were intended to express 
 indeterminism, but in reality they are not opposed to determin- 
 ism or caused volitions. The only real antagonism in the case 
 can be between determinism and indeterminism as causeless 
 volitions or spontaneous generation. This is an inconsistency in 
 historical thought, which can be eliminated only in either of 
 two ways — either by abandoning the term indeterminism as 
 properly describing them, or by changing the principle of oppo- 
 sition between this and determinism. 
 
 But in ascertaining the real issue between the two schools of 
 thought we have only to note that in later times it is every- 
 where admitted, with a few exceptions, that volitions can be 
 neither causeless nor motiveless, nor indifferent to a particular 
 one. On this supposition freedom has either to be denied or 
 regarded as compatible, perhaps identical, with determinism. In 
 fact, as long as determinism means nothing more than the fact 
 that volitions, like other events, must be subject to the law of 
 causation, it cannot be opposed to a doctrine of freedom affirm- 
 ing that volitions are caused by the subject If necessitarian- 
 ism, or determinism, as employed by some writers, is to oppose 
 freedom at all it must place the antithesis upon some other prin- 
 ciple than causation without any qualifications. 
 
 Again, there is a clear antithesis between objective or physical 
 and subjective or mental determinism, so that if one of them be 
 true regarding volitions the other cannot be. But as no one, 
 not even the materialist, supposes that volitions are caused by 
 external objects, the opposition to freedom cannot be made from 
 
THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 165 
 
 the standpoint of mechanical causation external to the organism. 
 All are agreed, as has been already affirmed, that man is the 
 cause of his own actions. The only remaining question is 
 whether he must choose as he does, or whether he could equally 
 choose otherwise than he does. The antitheses, then, if it is to 
 represent anything real in actual human opinion on the prob- 
 lem of free will, must be found in the distinction between free- 
 domism as defined in the above classification and psychical 
 determinism or univolism.* The real issue, therefore, sifts 
 itself down to a question between two kinds of subjective deter- 
 minism. While other antitheses logically exist, they represent a 
 wholly false conception of the real problem, and while they in- 
 dicate past and historical theories regarding volition, they do 
 not represent anything at present worth contending about. No 
 consequences to ethical doctrines are involved in any of them 
 but the last. Hence the controversy must be confined to the 
 issue between freedomism, and univolism or psycho-dynamism. 
 All arguments not tending to establish one of these and to re- 
 fute the other are absolutely irrelevant to the problem. 
 
 III. FACTS AND ARGUMENTS AGAINST FREE WILL.— 
 In stating these arguments w r e shall not have exclusive reference 
 to the issue as we have defined it really to be. There is every 
 reason to respect historical conceptions ; that is, past ideas of the 
 case, and their influence upon many thinkers to-day where a 
 little circumspection would both discover illusion and simplify 
 the issue. Consequently we shall state all the facts and princi- 
 ples which we are likely to find among present and past contro- 
 versialists, and which are used to deny freedom in some sense of 
 the term. Their relevancy can be discussed in the proper place. 
 But they will be stated in their order and as briefly as possible. 
 
 * I have deliberately coined the word " univolism " (Latin unus and volo) 
 for the convenience and economy of a single term. Besides, it has the ad- 
 vantage of expressing etymologically the singleness of the volition, or of the 
 course open to choice, so called, and contrasts very well with freedomism 
 as the theory of velleity or alternative choice. Univolism thus expresses 
 the only tenable position which can be taken by a theory calling itself 
 necessitarianism. Psycho-Dynamism might also be used for the purpose. 
 
166 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 1st. The Universality of Causation. — This argument when 
 stated is that all events are subject to the law of causation, 
 and as volition is an event it must come under that law, and as 
 causation is supposed to necessitate the event which it causes 
 volitions would appear to be necessary and not free. 
 
 2d. Man's Subordinate Place in Nature. — This argument 
 is a special application of that from universal causation, as 
 perhaps most of them are. But it is not always realized to be 
 such, and hence has a force of its own. It conceives man as a 
 dependent creature and all his conduct limited and determined by 
 powers superior to his own. It is unquestionably true that man is 
 a mere atom compared with the number and greatness of the 
 forces that subordinate him to themselves. Nothing has empha- 
 sized this more distinctly than modern astronomy and the theory 
 of evolution. The one shows the immensity of the forces in 
 space that are related to him and condition his activities, and the 
 other shows what limitations in time are in the way of attaining 
 an ideal which only slowly realizes itself. Theology again with 
 its conception of God, which only adds personality to the power 
 recognized by natural science, and retains the idea of man's 
 extremely finite capacities, illustrates the same conception. 
 Man's dependence for existence and for his capacities upon 
 these vast agencies, and the terrible limitations which they im- 
 pose upon his choice, might well frighten him in his claims 
 of freedom. Freedom seems to imply independence of limi- 
 tations, but finding that the universe subordinates man wholly to 
 its own laws and activities it is only natural that the conscious- 
 ness of such a fact should humiliate the pretensions of all creat- 
 ures. At any rate, it appears to those who are conscious of this 
 dependence that freedom would « imply superiority to the laws of 
 nature. 
 
 3d. The Prevalence of the Strongest Motive. — This argument 
 conceives the motive as determining the volition. It must be 
 the antecedent of every conscious choice and act, and we have 
 been accustomed to regard the end chosen as an alternative to 
 others as representing the strongest motive. A reason always 
 
THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 167 
 
 seems necessary for one choice rather than another, and prefer- 
 ence implies a stronger desire for the alternative chosen. Now, 
 from the supposition that motives are causes, on the one hand, 
 and from the analogy of prevailing or stronger forces in the 
 physical world with the necessary character of their effects, it is 
 very natural to infer that a man cannot will otherwise than he 
 does, that the strongest motive always prevailing, he has no real 
 alternative to the volition chosen. The argument gets much of 
 its cogency from its analogy with the law of resultant forces, 
 which is purely a mechanical and necessary law. 
 
 4th. The Influence of Character. — Character is a fixed way 
 of acting, or it is that fixed quality in the nature of an individ- 
 ual according to which we always expect to see him act. A 
 man must act according to his nature and he cannot act other- 
 wise. Not to be able to act otherwise than he does is taken 
 as a denial of freedom. As a man's nature is, so are his deeds. 
 Thus if we find a man addicted to intemperance we explain 
 his habit, not only by the strongest motive, but also by a cer- 
 tain predisposition in his constitution, physical or mental. He 
 is said to have a tendency which predetermines him to drink. 
 So with theft, homicide, vice, cruelty, and all other criminal acts 
 which manifest themselves in a permanent disposition to commit 
 them. We come to think that the criminal cannot help doing 
 what he does, and all because his character inclines him that 
 way and does not permit that intellectual balance of ideas and 
 feelings which would regulate the will either for prudence or for 
 righteousness. 
 
 Then it is a man's nature to be hungry, to be thirsty, to feel 
 sensations when touched, to think, to remember, to perform 
 reflex and automatic actions, and none of these are said to be 
 free. Why except the will and its actions? Will not the 
 nature of the subject show as much inevitableness in the field of 
 the will as in that of the intellect and the emotions ? Does not 
 character decide as necessarily a man's volitions as it does his 
 thoughts and feelings ? It certainly seems to show as much reg- 
 ularity of purpose and conduct as natural laws, and may not the 
 
168 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 fact be due to similar causes, to fixed conditions which prevent 
 alternative choice in spite of appearances to the contrary ? Im- 
 pulse and instinct show, one of them a fixed tendency to adjust- 
 ment with a variable medium, and the other an organic tendency 
 to act without regard to changes of environment. We do not 
 suspect freedom, in the latter case at least, and it is only an 
 expression of the nature of the subject. In conscious actions, 
 such as theft, vice, dishonesty, injustice, intemperance, etc., a 
 man seems either to be the victim of the strongest motive, as in 
 impulse, or the slave of his nature, as in instinct. Moreover, is 
 not character but a name for a higher instinct, a fixed tendency, 
 in spite of the presence of consciousness ? Will the fact that 
 the character is good affect the question? Is it not, whether 
 good or bad, merely a quality of natural constitution, which 
 fixes once for all the direction of the will, just as a genius for 
 mathematics or for philosophy fixes the nature of one's ideas ? 
 If thus compelled by character to adopt a given course in prefer- 
 ence to another, a man's conduct does not seem to exhibit that 
 equilibrium between two alternatives which is supposed to de- 
 fine freedom. Hence the limitations of nature and of habit, 
 which is " a second nature," are such as to give human conduct 
 all the regularity and certitude of actions which are universally 
 regarded as necessary rather than free. 
 
 5th. The Influence of Heredity. — This argument is a special 
 application of the one from character, but always appears 
 stronger to the mind because of its peculiar implications. Char- 
 acter, as we ordinarily use it, may express nothing more than 
 habit, or the uniform way in which a man does act and that 
 enables us to estimate the probabilities of future action. But 
 being itself presumably the product of will, we do not feel the force 
 of attributing volition to character as its cause unless we intend 
 to convey by it a quality which is not a product of our own 
 choice and habits. We are, or have been, accustomed to assume 
 that every individual comes into the world without any special 
 bent in one direction and that he learns to act in a special way 
 by experience. The empirical school of psychology has always 
 
THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 169 
 
 taught a doctrine that practically agreed with the traditional 
 assumptions of free will, namely, that the mind is a tabula rasa 
 and has to learn everything by experience, there being no innate 
 " practical principles " any more than there are innate theoretical 
 principles or truths. This is to say that there is no special char- 
 acter or disposition to determine the will in one direction rather 
 than another. But the school of psychology which opposes em- 
 piricism, or the derivation of everything from the experience of 
 the individual, adheres to the doctrine that the subject is natu- 
 rally endowed with certain constitutional faculties and propensi- 
 ties from which he has no escape and which determine the direc- 
 tion of his life. He has not the power to banish them from his 
 nature. The doctrine of heredity comes in to reinforce this 
 opinion. Whatever we may suppose the ancestor to have been, 
 and granting that his character was a product of his experience, 
 it does not always seem to be the case with his successor, who 
 inherits a predisposition to certain kinds of action. Here the 
 power of habit transmits itself from one generation where it 
 shows at least some instability to another where it seems to have 
 all the stability and domination of an instinct, and instinctive 
 is presumably not free action. A man is born with a he- 
 reditary tendency to drink, to theft, to vice, to criminality 
 in general, and this means that he has not the nature to 
 feel and appreciate any other alternative than the one to 
 which he is predisposed. We might say that he could 
 choose otherwise if he so desired. But it is the want of 
 any other desire that is his defect and which indicates the 
 sole possession of the one affecting his will. Had he another 
 desire he would be as much the victim of that, whether good or 
 bad, as the one disposed actually to determine his conduct. We 
 are here disposed to assume that if only the character is good 
 there is more freedom than if it is bad. But this is an illusion. 
 Heredity show T s a constitutional tendency in one direction, 
 whether good or evil, and so determines the most decided limita- 
 tions to any expectations that the agent will have free control over 
 his passions. It is a predetermination of the subject's life and 
 
170 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 action, and seems to establish an overwhelming objection to the 
 possibility of alternative choice. It is an inborn trait which pre- 
 determines the strongest motive and shuts out others from suc- 
 cessful competition with this one tendency. In every individual 
 whom we find handicapped by any marked hereditary tendencies, 
 we instinctively feel that he is to be pitied or admired according 
 to his endowment, and not according to his action. We do not 
 blame him so severely, but rather feel compassion for him, if the 
 inheritance be a bad one ; nor do we bestow as much praise upon . 
 his conduct, if we find it merely the result of a natural aptitude 
 which might yield to any change of circumstances (and we must 
 remember that even instincts are variable), as we should when 
 we know it to be rational rather than a merely hereditary and 
 instinctive following of the line of least resistance. All of these 
 facts seem to point to a limitation at least, and perhaps an 
 exclusion, of freedom from the qualities of the subject, when 
 heredity produces an unbalanced soul and fixes the direction of 
 its inclinations. 
 
 6th. The Mechanical Regularity of Habit. — The force of this 
 argument lies in the fact that it seems to attest the existence of 
 a predominant tendency to act in a given direction. It is not 
 the habit itself which is regarded as the limiting cause of voli- 
 tions that are supposed not to be free, but it is merely a fact 
 which indicates the momentum of the mind and attests the pre- 
 vailing motive and the more or less fixed character of the agent 
 which are presumed to contradict freedom. We often see habits 
 which take such possession of the individual that they seem as 
 strong as instincts and as irresistible as passions. They act in 
 season and out of season, making a mere machine of the subject 
 and exhibiting conduct thai: cannot be distinguished for regular- 
 ity and blindness from the actions and movements of physical 
 bodies. Surely such a subject cannot be free. 
 
 7th. The Predictability of Human Actions. — This argument is 
 designed to compare volitions to events which are regarded as 
 necessary because they occur with the fatuity of all physical phe- 
 nomena and cannot be prevented or made variable. Thus we 
 
THE FREEDOM OF THE Wilt 171 
 
 can predict the eclipses of the sun and moon, the exact hour and 
 minute of the tides, the return of a comet, the position of the 
 planets, the recurrence of the seasons, and even to some extent 
 the weather, our limitations in all instances being due to our 
 ignorance of the complex conditions determining the phenom- 
 enon. But where we know the conditions, such as the action of 
 gravitation, we can predict withunerring certainty the effect of 
 them. All such phenomena are invariable and necessary. There 
 is no caprice or variation about them, and this is because they 
 are under the control of natural laws, which operate without 
 either the consciousness or the possibility of alternative action. 
 The regularity of their action is an evidence of their source, 
 so that if we find human conduct showing a similar regularity 
 and predictability we would at once suspect that it was under 
 the control of a similar inevitable cause. Now, as a fact, obser- 
 vation shows a remarkable regularity in the amount of suicide 
 and other crimes in different localities and conditions of the 
 world, a regularity that enables us to predict, according to the 
 measure of our knowledge of the conditions, the amount of it 
 likely to occur from year to year. Also illegitimacy shows -about 
 the same percentage from period to period and even has its 
 sjDecial ratio for the different seasons. Vagrancy can now be cal- 
 culated to a reasonable degree of accuracy for the various coun- 
 tries, and this with suicide and illegitimacy does not greatly 
 modify its ratio with the increase of population, as we should 
 naturally expect that it would vary. The amount of poverty in 
 large cities due to intemperance shows a very striking resem- 
 blance in all cases. Now, if we only knew the conditions of all 
 conduct so well as in these cases we might be able to forecast 
 just what was likely to take place, while it is presumed that 
 there can be no foretelling of free actions. "Where any other 
 possibility exists, or any number of such possibilities other than 
 the one actually willed, it would seem that prediction would be 
 excluded from the case. "We could only wait until the event 
 occurred and register it. That is to say, predictability seems to 
 rest upon conditions which wholly contradict the possibility of 
 
172 ' % ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 alternative events, and so to contradict freedom which supposes 
 that possibility. 
 
 8th. Predestination or Foreordi nation. — This is the theo- 
 logical argument against freedom. It includes the previous 
 argument from predictability or prescience, but also contains 
 the idea of predetermination by some external agency. So 
 far as it denotes this external fixation of events the argu- 
 ment is an overwhelming one to most persons who realize 
 the limitations which such a condition imposes upon alterna- 
 tive choice. 
 
 IV. AUG UMENTS IN FA VOB OF FREE WILL.— The defense 
 of freedom involves two classes of argument which do not have 
 equal value. One of them consists merely of rebuttal of argu- 
 ments on the other side, and perhaps goes no farther than show- 
 ing a verdict of "not proven" against necessitarianism; the 
 other attempts to establish definitely the position of the fredom- 
 ist and so to distinctly refute the opposing theory. These I 
 shall call respectively the negative and the positive arguments for 
 freedom. The first class simply removes the difficulties created 
 by the arguments already considered, and the second advances 
 to direct proof. Each of these classes will have to be considered 
 in its proper order. 
 
 Before examining these arguments, however, it will be most 
 important to make some observations on the general question in 
 order to measure rightly both the strength and the weakness of 
 either side of the controversy. It is a fact which ought not to 
 be forgotten that both schools of disputants assume that what- 
 ever is proved in the case of one set of men applies to all. We 
 are in the habit of assuming that all men are. equal, an assump- 
 tion that comes partly from the history of modern political 
 institutions, partly from the social life inculcated by Christianity, 
 and partly from the medieval doctrine of freedom and responsi- 
 bility. Human equality would be a corollary of equal freedom 
 and responsibility. But there is no greater illusion than the 
 supposition that all persons are born with the same degree of 
 power in regard to their conduct. Men are not equal in their 
 
THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 173 
 
 physical strength, in their intelligence, in their disposition, in 
 their tastes or desires. They are as various in these respects 
 as the leaves of the trees. Hence it is not possible to carry the 
 conclusion drawn from one class of men to another and differently 
 endowed class, whether the conclusion regards necessitarianism 
 or freedomism. I do not mean to say that men are unequal 
 in all respects, but only that they are so generally unequal that 
 we may well ask whether they might not be unequal in regard 
 to freedom. For instance, assume that the imbecile, the insane, 
 and the irreclaimable criminal are not free, it will not follow 
 that the normal and rational man is not free unless we can 
 prove or assume that in the necessary conditions the two are the 
 same in nature. So if we prove that the' properly developed 
 man is free it does not follow that the abnormal man is equally 
 so. We see no reason to make freedom an absolutely simple 
 quality incapable of degrees. It is possible to conceive it as ex- 
 isting in all stages of development from pure determinism to 
 absolute freedom. Whether it is so or not, as a fact, probably 
 requires proof or may be left to individual opinion. But on 
 a priori grounds, considering the enormous inequalities among 
 men respecting intelligence, feelings, and desires, it is at least 
 probable that differences of will capacity should also exist. 
 Hence it is enough to say that we must not hastily conclude 
 from the presence or absence of freedom in one man or class of 
 men to the same in all others. It may be true that they are 
 all alike in this matter, but this truth cannot be assumed. A 
 valid conclusion must have the same conditions in all cases, and 
 as these vary between blind instincts and the highest intelligence 
 and power there ought to be room for various degrees of 
 freedom or of determinism in volitions. Many of the argu- 
 ments on both sides have their value modified by this fact and 
 will appear restricted in application on this account, or will 
 require additional reasons than their fitness to special cases 
 in order to secure them universal cogency. With this caution 
 we may proceed to consider the arguments favorable to freedom. 
 These as observed are negative and positive. We shall state 
 
174 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 the negative cases first, as eliminating objections, restricting the 
 issue, and clearing our path. 
 
 1st. Negative Arguments. — The formulation of the negative 
 arguments will involve the farther analysis of elements in the 
 problems which have only been stated incidentally. Moreover, 
 it is hoped that a dogmatic discussion of them may be avoided, 
 because the question is either an open one or the truth may lie 
 somewhere betweeen the two extreme theories. The first criti- 
 cism of necessitarianism begins with the oldest form of it. 
 
 1. The Distinction between Mechanical and Imma- 
 nent Causes. — By a mechanical cause we mean one that acts 
 from without the subject whose action is to be explained. It is 
 illustrated in the movements of physical bodies. A "stone fall- 
 ing to the ground, a billiard-ball struck by the cue, a cannon- 
 ball impelled by powder, the motion of an instrument by the 
 arm, are all instances of . mechanical causes. But an immanent 
 cause is one which originates with the subject alone. It is in- 
 ternal or subjective as opposed to external or objective causa- 
 tion. Thus all my conscious activities or volitions are the effect 
 of myself and not of external objects. The distinction here 
 made is designed to admit the fact that all volitions are caused 
 and yet are not subject to the law of mechanical necessity, which 
 would have to be the case were freedom impossible from the 
 point of view of causation. The argument against free will 
 from the position of universal causation assumes that freedom 
 means causeless volition. But when we admit that volition 
 must have a cause and distinguish between mechanical and 
 immanent causes referring free action to the latter, appeal to 
 the law of causation no longer avails to disprove freedom. This 
 ought to be^ apparent to every one. In fact, freedom has 
 always meant free agency, and free agency is free causation, a 
 form of thought which no one has conceived as opposed to any 
 doctrine of cause except mechanical causes. A free agent or 
 cause is one in which the power resides to originate an effect, 
 and hence the doctrine of free will in its definition and concep- 
 tion does not stand opposed to that of universal causation ; it 
 
THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 175 
 
 opposes none but the notion of external causes or necessity. It 
 may be a fact that no such power of free agency or spontaneity 
 exists, but it is no disproof of it to appeal to universal causa- 
 tion. This appeal can establish nothing except that volitions 
 are caused, but not that they are mechanically necessitated. 
 Hence the reference to the universal law of cause and effect 
 either begs the question by assuming that the only law of causa- 
 tion is a mechanical one, or it places its reliance upon an equiv- 
 ocation. Subjective causation conceives the whole problem in 
 perfect consistency with freedom and the caused nature of voli- 
 tions at the same time. 
 
 However, it should be observed that this doctrine of subjec- 
 tive determinism, though it removes the objection from the 
 general law of cause and effect, does not prove the freedom of 
 velleity or the possibility of alternative choice. It is not rele- 
 vant to that issue, except that it will be a preliminary step to 
 it. It can prove nothing but spontaneity. Subjective determin- 
 ism or exemption from mechanical causes may not go any 
 farther than spontaneous or automatic actions. But this at 
 least must be true in order to condition any farther power of 
 volition, and when it is proved, we have not only a doctrine 
 which puts decided limitations upon that of mechanical neces- 
 sity, but also a position which removes all a priori objections to 
 freedom in the true sense. If one exception to mechanical 
 causes in originating an event be found, there is nothing in the 
 nature of things to render the supposition of another exception 
 unreasonable. At the same time, we must admit that the 
 argument here does not prove anything more than the freedom 
 of spontaneity. 
 
 It is proper to call attention here to the several meanings of 
 the term cause as affecting the question. This term is some- 
 times used in a generic and sometimes in a specific sense. It is 
 the confusion between these two meanings which constitutes both 
 the plausibility and the weakness of the determinist theory as 
 usually understood. In its general sense cause denotes any 
 antecedent whatever which may be regarded as the producer of 
 
176 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 events. But specifically it has three different conceptions at- 
 tached to it : (a) An antecedent event or phenomenon which 
 conditions another event. For instance, the motion of a tree 
 caused by the wind, which in turn is caused by something else ; 
 the sound of a falling stone which has been put into motion by 
 some other agency ; the loss of property by a conflagration which 
 is caused by some other event. Here cause means the imme- 
 diate antecedent event which produces or necessitates the suc- 
 ceeding one. (b) An object, being, or force which produces an 
 effect either of itself or mediately through other agencies. For 
 example, the sun as a cause of heat, soil as the cause of growth, 
 animals as the cause of their actions, in all of which cases the 
 immediate cause is not conceived as an event determined or 
 brought into existence by another immediate event. The sub- 
 jects have a certain amount of relative permanence, (c) The 
 sum of all the conditions, whether events or things, or both com- 
 bined, that are necessary to the production of an effect. For 
 example, organization as a cause of growth, comprising various 
 kinds of matter, a specific temperature, capacity of assimilation, 
 etc. Again, the various complementary conditions which pro- 
 duce sound, as the existence of two bodies with sonorous proper- 
 ties, their impact, the action of one and the reaction of the 
 other, etc. In fact, all phenomena are probably complicated 
 with complex conditions of this kind. 
 
 But it is only the first of these conceptions that can be 
 opposed to freedom in any sense of the term, and this is iden- 
 tical with the notion of mechanical cause, which is conceived 
 either as one event producing another, or as one external force 
 determining the action of another. It is even open to serious 
 question whether this is a true conception of a cause at all.* 
 But we shall not quarrel with usage. It is sufficient to say that 
 no freedomist in admitting the causation of volitions conceives it 
 as merely the production of one event by another, except per- 
 haps those who speak of the motive as the cause. At any rate 
 
 * Philosophical Review, Vol. III., pp. 1-13. Article : Kants Third Anti- 
 nomy. 
 
THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 177 
 
 cause used in the second sense is perfectly compatible with free- 
 dom, though it does not establish anything more than the free- 
 dom of spontaneity. 
 
 2. The Distinction between the Freedom of Voli- 
 tions and the Freedom of the Will. — We constantly 
 speak of our acts as free as if they were such in the same sense 
 that the will is free. But, strictly speaking, this is not the case. 
 A volition is an event, and as such is necessitated by an antece- 
 dent. That is to say, given the antecedent the volition must take 
 place, and hence the necessity would seem to contradict its free- 
 dom. But the fact is, such freedom as volitions may be said to 
 have, is a derived or a borrowed freedom, reflected merely from 
 the freedom of the agent of whom they are the acts. This is the 
 reason that we can admit that all acts of will are " caused," and 
 as acts come from a cause external to themselves, but it is not 
 " caused ; " that is, produced or brought into existence at the time, 
 by some other event or thing. The will is more or less permanent, 
 as the subject of volitions and is a cause of them, as an ante- 
 cedent which can originate them, though they are caused with- 
 out any ability to originate themselves. We speak of their 
 freedom only in the sense that they can be prevented by the sub- 
 ject, who is not absolutely conditioned by any antecedent event at 
 the time. 
 
 This distinction between free acts and free will must be kept 
 clear under all circumstances, since it enables us, if we like, to 
 admit determinism or necessitarianism of any kind we choose in 
 regard to volition, while denying it of the will. A volition is an 
 act, an event, a phenomenon, having a beginuing in time and 
 originated by something else than itself, and so may be necessi- 
 tated to that extent. ,The will is not an event, act, or phenome- 
 non having its beginning immediately antecedent to the volition. 
 It is simply the subject or agent of the volition. It is not neces- 
 sary to regard it as a separate faculty of the mind, as probably 
 some psychologists have conceived it. It may be considered as 
 the name of the whole mind in a certain relation, or exercising 
 a certain function, namely, that of choice and volition. Hence 
 
178 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 it is the subject of actions which it causes in itself. Now, it will 
 be free when it acts independently of external forces, while a 
 volition, as such, cannot be free in the sense of spontaneously oc- 
 curring, or of spontaneously originating any other event. This 
 analysis explains the paradox we have already remarked in the 
 philosophy of Kant. It will be remembered that he said the will 
 as a phenomenon is determined, but as a noumenon or thing in 
 itself, is free. Translated into common language this is only to 
 say that volition, the will as a phenomenon, is caused by some- 
 thing external to itself, but that the will as subject, as a nou- 
 menon or thing in itself, is not caused or determined ; that is, 
 created at the time that it produces a volition. It is a free cause 
 in the sense that it spontaneously originates something, even 
 though the occasion for it is some external stimulus. The external 
 influence may make it necessary to act, or perhaps prudent to do 
 so, but it does not determine what the act shall be or the direc- 
 tion of it. This is an original spontaneity of the mind. 
 
 3. The Uniformity and Predictability of Events is 
 not a Proof of their Necessity. — The plausibility of the 
 argument for necessitarianism here criticised is derived wholly 
 from its comparison with the uniformity of nature where neces- 
 sity is unquestioned. But the comparison is illusory. It is not 
 the mere fact of uniformity in nature that proves the necessity of 
 the events so caused, but it is the nature of the causes operating. 
 Our conception of a physical cause is that of an unconscious force 
 incapable of choosing between alternatives, and hence we can 
 conceive only one effect possible in the case. Consequently, 
 when we observe what is evidently the effect of mechanical forces, 
 whether uniform or not, we adjudge it as necessary. But its 
 uniformity does not determine the nature of its cause. Physical 
 forces must produce uniform effects, but uniformity is not a 
 proof of necessity. This is to say, that necessary agencies are 
 uniform, but uniform agencies are not convertible with the neces- 
 sary. Uniform actions may exist without being necessary in any 
 sense that there could be no alternative to them. 
 
 It is true, however, that it is natural to infer necessary where 
 
THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 179 
 
 we observe uniform connection. In fact, uniformity is, in the 
 last analysis of our know-ledge, the evidence upon which we de- 
 pend for our belief in necessary connection. We probably learn 
 that matter acts through necessary causes from our observation 
 of the fact of uniformity in its conduct. But we must remember 
 that the inference drawn from uniform to necessary connection 
 is only an inductive one and at most cannot go beyond a proba- 
 bility. But it is not demonstrative proof of necessity ; and as 
 long as it is not this, it is open to conceive some other than a 
 necessary agent as the cause of the phenomenon. Hence human 
 volitions might be ever so uniform, as in rational beings they 
 would be, without entitling us to suppose that they were ne- 
 cessitated. The only necessity that is opposed to freedom is the 
 necessity of physical causation, which does not deliberate, and is 
 not conscious either of the end to which it moves or of any pos- 
 sible alternative. But the will itself, not being necessitated at 
 the time of its action, prevents the act from being necessary, how- 
 ever uniform it may be. 
 
 If asked, what then is the evidence of free will, we can only 
 say that we are not yet required to state this. Our present duty 
 is fulfilled if we show that uniform action does not exclude free- 
 dom, so that reference to habit, uniformity of conduct, as in 
 suicide, illegitimacy, etc., and predictability of human conduct, 
 as proving necessitarianism, can be repudiated as a petitio prin- 
 cipii. It is sufficient for the present to maintain a verdict of 
 " not proven " against that theory. 
 
 * 4. The Relation of Motives to Volition and to 
 the Will. — The argument against freedom from the preva- 
 lence of the strongest motive derives its plausibility and strength 
 from two facts : first, from the old beliefs that motives are the 
 causes of volition, and second, from their comparison in this 
 formula with the resultant of physical forces. If two forces com- 
 pete with each other, the stronger must prevail and determines 
 what the effect shall be. Hence, if two motives offer different 
 attractions to the will, it is very natural to resort to the compari- 
 son with conflicting physical forces in order to explain the 
 
180 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 effect. But the comparison, though a very happy one for its 
 purposes, is wholly an illusory one in regard to the central ques- 
 tion at issue. It wholly mistakes the nature of a motive and its 
 relation to volition. A careful examination of these facts will 
 modify the argument based upon* the analogy to which reference 
 has been made. 
 
 In the first place, however, it is open to the freedomist to 
 question the strict propriety of the expression "strongest 
 motive," as at once calculated to lead the mind astray. In so 
 far as motives are ideas of ends, we do not see how the attribute 
 of "strength" can be ascribed to them at all. Ideas are not 
 distinguished by degrees of strength as forces are. The term ap- 
 plies to them only in a metaphorical sense. Then, in so far as 
 motives are desires they are more properly distinguished by 
 preferences than by strength, so that again the term is metaphor- 
 ical and misleads us by a false comparison with physical forces. 
 But the convenience of the expression and the fixity of it in 
 established usage is such that it is not easy to dislodge it, and it 
 is not necessary to do so as long as we can eliminate its influ- 
 ence by showing the mistaken assumptions at the basis of it. 
 Hence we may admit, so far as the argument is concerned, that 
 the strongest motive will always prevail when we mean only 
 that the consciousness of a preferred interest or duty will deter- 
 mine, that is, decide the volition. We can then criticise the 
 doctrine assumed in it. 
 
 We said that necessitarians, in so far as they rely upon the 
 idea that the strongest motive must determine volition, assume, 
 either consciously or unconsciously, that motives are causes of 
 volition. The tendency to this assumption is inherited from that 
 period when they were regarded in no other light, and when 
 even instincts could be considered as "motives." The very 
 term is drawn from mechanical science and carries with it me- 
 chanical associations. In mechanics " motive " is a force which 
 impels machinery, and so is an antecedent cause of motion. 
 Thus steam, gas, water, electricity are " motives " or " motive" 
 forces, though recent usage, for the sake of avoiding the practice 
 
THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 181 
 
 of the moral sciences, where the term implies purpose as well, 
 inclines to adopt the phrase motor forces instead. Hence in the 
 physical sciences " motives " are causes. But in moral science 
 the term expresses, as already defined, first an idea of an end, 
 in which there is no causal force whatever, and second an ele- 
 ment of desire which expresses an order of preference rather 
 than of force or cause, though it is unquestionably very inti- 
 mately related to volition. But the question whether it is the 
 cause of it in any sense whatever depends, in the last analysis, 
 upon the farther question whether the volition can be distin- 
 guished in all instances from the motive. The term " volition " 
 is, after all, an ambiguous one. It sometimes denotes the mus- 
 cular movement of the bod}' immediately initiated by the will ; 
 again it more frequently denotes the executive or determining 
 act which results in a muscular movement. This is the concep- 
 tion of it which distinguishes it from choice, which is also an act 
 of will, and is a volition, though it is not an executive volition. 
 An executive volition is merely the act of will which mediates 
 between an internal decision and the external act necessary to 
 realize it, but it is not the only act of the will which involves 
 the question of freedom or which can be called voluntary. In 
 this respect the choice is also a volition : it is a voluntary de- 
 termination between two alternatives and employs the whole 
 function of the will as a free and moral agent. The executive 
 act is responsible only for the objective result, not for the choice 
 which determines the character of the ageut. Now, it is inter- 
 esting to observe that no one ever speaks of the motive as deter- 
 mining or causing the choice. AVe speak of the reason for a 
 choice, or of the preference which it indicates, but not of any- 
 thing that would imply a dynamic power on the part of the 
 " motive " to produce the choice, and yet it is an act of the will 
 requiring as much of a " motive " cause, if such is ever required, 
 as a volition is supposed to have. The whole question of free- 
 dom must be decided, not merely by concluding whether a man 
 can perform this or that volition or not, but also by settling 
 whether he can choose or not. If he is not free he cannot 
 
182 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS , 
 
 choose, but if he can choose between alternatives, the farther 
 question is whether the motive is the efficient or dynamic rather 
 than the final cause of the choice. The former, however, no one 
 seems inclined to assert. Unless the condition of choice be dy- 
 namic or efficient there is no ground for laying any stress upon 
 the strongest motive, simply because the whole problem of free- 
 dom has to be decided before we reach the phenomenon of ex- 
 ecutive volition. But as we seem only to have reasons, not mo- 
 tives, for choice, the only question is whether desire, which is one 
 of the two fundamental elements of motives, must issue in voli- 
 tion before a choice can be made. If it must, the argument 
 would be stronger against freedom ; if not, as is generally, if not 
 always, the case, the argument is altogether in favor of freedom. 
 Again, there is another way of considering the relation of the 
 two facts. Assuming that motives are antecedents and volitions 
 consequents, we see that there may be the same uniform order 
 and relation between them that in nature generally gives rise to 
 the supposition that the antecedent is the cause; and as the 
 motive can in no manner be eliminated from rational actions the 
 notion that they are causes seems to be very strong. But there 
 is an illusion here, due, first to a merely accidental resemblance 
 between this series of events and those in nature where the infer- 
 ence from antecedent to cause is justifiable, though we must 
 remember that it does not carry with it its own proof; and in the 
 second place, to disregarding the relation between the mind and 
 its motives and volitions. It is a very important fact in this dis- 
 cussion that the motive is as much the product of the mind as is 
 the volition. They are both phenomena or functions of the same 
 subject, so that it is at least difficult to see how one can possibly 
 be the cause of the other. If the motive were some event apart 
 from the mind and produced the volition, the supposition of 
 its causal character would be a much more tenable one. But 
 so far from this being the case, the motive is always a product 
 of the mind, and so also is the volition, the two being only in 
 the position of invariable concomitants. If the motive is to be 
 the cause we must suppose that it acts on the mind after the 
 
THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 183 
 
 mind has produced it itself, and that somehow the volition must 
 be the product of the mind or will and the effect of the motive 
 at the same time. The fact is, that the mind is the cause of 
 both phenomena, rather than one of them being the cause of 
 the other. Now, as the motive is the product of the mind and 
 not of external stimulus — that is, the whole nature and con- 
 tent of the motive is the creation of the mind — there must at 
 least be the freedom of spontaneity in originating this phenom- 
 enon itself, at least its force and character, if not the reason 
 for its occurrence, so that there is still a way open for delib- 
 eration as between the rise of desire and the occurrence of 
 volition, which, as we have seen, is the direct product of the 
 will, and this deliberation cuts off the chance of a causal nexus 
 between the motive and the volition. Consequently when the 
 mind deliberates between a desire and a volition the motive 
 cannot be a cause, and if it is not always a cause, there is no 
 reason to suppose that it is at any time of the nature of a 
 causal influence, but only an index of the mind's nature and a 
 concomitant of its volitions. Moreover, it is possible to contend 
 that the motive or desire is always the same and has the same 
 ultimate end in view with a given individual, while it is the 
 means to this end which vary and present alternatives. Conse- 
 quently if the motive be the same and is the cause of the choice 
 and volition, these latter should always be the same. But they 
 are different, so that some other power has to be invoked to 
 account for the result than the causal influence of the motive. 
 The causal agency of the mind and will in the production of 
 both events alike is this power, and it is neither created by the 
 motive nor determined causally in its action by anything except 
 its own nature, and that is all that the doctrine of freedom asks 
 for. The nature of a thing can just as well be free as it can be 
 anything else. Of course, it may require to be proved by better 
 evidence than its a priori possibility, and this may be forth- 
 coming in the positive arguments. But for the present it suffices 
 to note that the argument from the influence of stronger motives 
 does not stand in the way of the supposition of freedom, because 
 
184 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 the conception of the causality of motives, lurking at the basis of 
 it, is an illusion ; at least, any such causality as supposes a 
 direct dynamic effect on volition without supposing the inter- 
 mediate free agency of the mind or will. 
 
 5. The Equivocal Nature of the Argument from Char- 
 acter. — The generally admitted supposition that a man will act 
 according to his character gets its force wholly from an illusion 
 created partly by an equivocation in the term " character " and 
 partly by assuming the whole question in supposing that the- 
 " character " of the mind is necessarily fixed in the same sense 
 as that of material objects. Now, the term " character " can 
 mean only two things apart from its etymological import, which 
 is that of a sign or mark by which a thing may be identified. 
 First, it may denote the uniformity of my actions and purposes, 
 and second, the nature of my being as expressed in actions. In 
 the first of these meanings it is apparent that character is only a 
 name for the way in which I do act, not the name for a cause of 
 my action, or for the way I must act. In fact moral character, 
 ever since Aristotle, has expressed what the will produces itself, 
 not what either produces the will or causes volition. The will 
 gives rise to " character" in the first sense, so that even if it be 
 regarded as the cause of the volition, the freedom of the will 
 would not be interfered with by this relation. But being only 
 a name for the uniformity of actual volition, while it is regarded 
 as the product of the will, it can in no sense be said to deter- 
 mine volition, but rather perhaps to be produced by it. 
 
 The second meaning of the term to express the fixed nature of 
 the subject, as evidenced by the uniformity of volition, is much 
 more forcible in the case. We are in the habit of saying and 
 thinking that matter must act according to its nature and that 
 it cannot act otherwise, these modes of expression being taken as 
 identical with the necessity of its actions. Hence, when we 
 apply the same formula to the mind we carry with it the same 
 implication. But while it might be true that the mind must act 
 according to its nature, that " nature " might be free, and it may 
 be begging the question to assume that it is like material objects 
 
THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 185 
 
 in this respect. Freedom could be as much a part of the nature 
 or " character " of a subject as necessity, so that the mere term 
 does not carry with it any necessary limitations upon mental 
 capacity. Moreover, we may ask whether a free agent could be 
 supposed to act in any other way than according to his " charac- 
 ter " or nature. If the necessity of acting according to one's 
 nature is opposed to freedom, then to be free one must not act 
 according to his nature. Now, in the first place, while not act- 
 ing according to one's nature might prove that our nature did 
 not coerce us, this condition is not necessary to the case. The 
 proof of freedom is not a necessary condition of its existence. It 
 may exist under conditions that betray no evidence of it. Of 
 course, we require proof of it before asserting it, but the absence 
 of that specific proof does not justify us in denying the fact of 
 freedom which may exist independently of the proof of it. But 
 in the second place, not to press the first case, if a free agent does 
 not act according to his nature it must be either because he acts 
 according to the nature of something else or because his own 
 nature counts for nothing in the effect. Under the first of these 
 two conditions he certainly would not be free (objective deter- 
 minism). But every one admits that a man is the cause of his 
 own volitions, otherwise they are not volitions at all, and hence 
 no one believes that, when he causes his own volitions, he acts 
 according to any other nature than his own. On the other hand, 
 if to be free a man's nature must count for nothing in his actions, 
 then it follows either that a free nature could not conceivably be 
 the cause of its own actions, or that no nature at all is required 
 to bring about a volition, or that man does not and cannot act 
 at all. Every one of these suppositions are so manifestly absurd, 
 so contrary to fact and conception, that we can only believe that 
 action according to one's nature, and the necessity of such action, 
 does not stand in the way of freedom, because for aught that we 
 know that nature may be free. 
 
 Why, then, do we feel the force of the argument against free- 
 dom when we see the limitations of character asserted? We 
 unquestionably commiserate, and to some extent excuse, the con- 
 
186 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 firmed drunkard for his habits, the habitual criminal for his 
 temptations, and the passionate man for his explosions of feeling 
 and passion. It would seem that nature and character do im- 
 pose limitations upon choice in spite of the apparent conclusive- 
 ness of the criticism we have just advanced. But here is where 
 the illusion arises from the two meanings of the term. There 
 are two opposite propositions which can be affirmed and both of 
 which can be true at the same time, when allowance is made for 
 the equivocation of one of their terms. Thus if " character " ex- 
 presses the nature of the subject, then the necessity of acting 
 according to that nature is not opposed to freedom, and we 
 should not expect the subject to act otherwise or to be able to 
 act otherwise. On the other hand, if "character" expresses 
 nothing but one's actual habits, the necessity of action according 
 to those would limit freedom. But we expect men, at least, to 
 be able to act otherwise than they actually do, because we con- 
 ceive that it is they and not their habits (" character ") that are 
 the cause of their volitions. That is to say, a man can act other- 
 wise than according to his actual habits, though he cannot act 
 otherwise than his nature determines. The former condition 
 proves his freedom and the latter does not oppose it. The only 
 action determined by character which would not be free is that 
 which would be caused by habits. But as no one even suspects 
 this condition of things there is no excuse for the argument 
 except the illusion produced by the equivocal meaning of " char- 
 acter." 
 
 6. The Limitations of Hekepity. — The argument against 
 freedom from the fact of heredity is by far the strongest one to 
 which the necessitarian can appeal. We certainly feel that 
 inherited tendencies place limitations upon what we can expect 
 of the individual who is affected by them. Hereditary tendencies 
 to drink, to commit crime, to practice vice, to lead a life of idle- 
 ness and poverty, or to act in any other particular way, are cer- 
 tainly handicapping qualities in the struggle for existence which 
 seem to condemn the individual to a course that is not only op- 
 posed to his interests, but also appears beyond his reach and our 
 
THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 187 
 
 expectations of his capacity to realize, while the inheritance of 
 the opposite qualities makes the individual quite as much of 
 an automaton, and insures that his virtues shall be too natural 
 to deserve the credit of those which accompany a struggle and 
 involve freedom. Hence we are not disposed to slur over this 
 argument. But it is proper to define its limitations, and possibly 
 to show that it circumscribes responsibility more than it does 
 freedom. 
 
 In the first place, the strength of the argument lies in its com- 
 bination of that from the causal nature of motives and of that 
 from the necessity of acting in accordance with one's character, 
 and adds to it the notion that the specific tendency is not due to 
 the habits or will of the individual subject. This makes the ar- 
 gument from heredity rather striking. But there is a qualifica- 
 tion which weakens it somewhat when we return to the previous 
 discussions, where we attempted to show that motives are not 
 causes and that action according to one's nature is not neces- 
 sarily opposed to freedom. It all depends on what that nature 
 is. These opinions need not be restated. It is enough to limit 
 the argument from heredity by showing the doubtful character 
 of its assumptions. But there are at least two other facts bear- 
 ing upon its inconclusiveness. The first is that the general doc- 
 trine and conception of heredity does not hinder us from suppos- 
 ing that freedom itself might be inherited. Grant that some 
 persons are not free, owing to inherited disposition in special 
 directions, could not some inherit that balanced nature which 
 freedom is supposed to imply ? As for myself, I see nothing in 
 the mere fact of heredity to oppose it to freedom, but it must 
 show tendencies which are as fixed and as uncontrollable as blind 
 instincts in order to wholly dislodge freedom. The second fact 
 is more important, and it grows out of the last remark. Heredity, 
 in cases even of the worst kind, does not show impulses or ten- 
 dencies that are absolutely unmodifiable by the individual. Even 
 the so-called blind instincts are often variable with environment. 
 Hereditary deviations from normal life do not, perhaps, in any 
 cases show absolute inadjustability to environment or to condi- 
 
188 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 tions that affect the personal welfare of the subject. If they did 
 show this, if they represented an absolutely fixed impulse or 
 instinct that could not regulate the 1 time or place of its gratifica- 
 tion, we might talk about the want of freedom. But this is, per- 
 haps, never the case. Hereditary criminal and vicious tenden- 
 cies are often accompanied by as much deliberation, calmness, 
 and judicious selection of opportune times and places as the 
 sanest minds would exhibit, and this only proves that their incli- 
 nations are not wholly uncontrollable. No doubt their strong 
 temptations and the handicapping influence of persistent desires 
 against the will are palliating circumstances when we come to 
 take account of their responsibilities and the need of an environ- 
 ment which might offer competing motives with those that are 
 predominant. But they are not a disproof of the agent's free- 
 dom, because if the external environment be made sufficiently press- 
 ing at the right point hereditary inclinations will almost invariably 
 yield to it, which could never be the case if the agent had no capac- 
 ity for this adjustment. This is only to say that the retention of 
 the capacity for conscious adjustment to environment on the part 
 of those who are burdened with specifie hereditary tendencies, 
 disturbing the balance of sane and healthy functions, is all that 
 is necessary for the possession of at least a measure of freedom. 
 Moreover, granting that some are not so qualified, we cannot 
 argue from the exceptional and abnormal case to the normal, be- 
 cause it may be that freedom is the very distinction between 
 them. The argument from heredity, therefore, has very decided 
 limitations. 
 
 7. Environment Limits Kesponsibility and not Free- 
 dom. — Very little needs to be said in order to dislodge the 
 argument from environment against freedom. The doctrine of 
 heredity derives its force from the fact that it refers wholly 
 to influences within the nature of the individual. But environ- 
 ment is wholly an external medium and the argument from 
 it must be confined to objective determinism, which no one 
 admits. Environment does undoubtedly impose decided limita- 
 tions upon our liberty, or physico-political freedom as defined, 
 
THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 189 
 
 and therefore limits responsibility, but it does not determine 
 volitions. If we adjust ourselves to it, the act represents our 
 choice of the prudent rather than the imprudent, but not a loss 
 of freedom. The determinist here imagines that in order to 
 be free we should be able to choose either alternative with 
 impunity, but in assuming this he has the physico-political con- 
 ception of freedom, that is, liberty, in view, and not velleity or 
 the capacity of alternative choice, which is the question at 
 issue. It is true that the subject has not the former capacity, 
 but he can choose either to adjust himself to environment, or to 
 overcome it, and this establishes his velleity so far as external 
 inflfiences are concerned. But his responsibility is very much 
 modified. 
 
 8. The Confusion of Prescience and Predestination. 
 — We shall not, in a treatise of Ethics, examine the merits and 
 demerits of the theological questions growing out of the doctrine 
 of predestination. But apart from those its relation to freedom 
 may be briefly discussed. If volitions are absolutely pre- 
 destined there can be no doubt that the will is not free, because 
 predestination of this kind is fatalism pure and simple. But 
 mere prescience of them is not opposed to freedom. It is 
 merely foreknowledge of what will take place, not the causation 
 of it. But to fix the occurrence of an event beyond any 
 prevention whatever is to destroy the freedom of any agent con- 
 nected with it, because such an agent would be the mere instru- 
 ment or medium, not the original cause of the event, which 
 he should be in order to have any form of freedom whatever. 
 However, the theological doctrine of predestination does not 
 always take this form, and it may be seriously questioned 
 whether, when it does, it has any canonic authority for its view 
 of predestined volitions. With St. Paul predestination most 
 probably was limited to the fixing beforehand of man's salva- 
 tion, or lot hereafter, conditioned on a foreknowledge of what 
 he would do. This is not the predestination of his volitions, but 
 only of the consequences of foreknown volitions, which is a very 
 different thin 2:. • 
 
190 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 2d. Positive Arguments — The negative arguments were said 
 merely to modify or remove the difficulties involved in the 
 objections to freedom, and now we come to such arguments as 
 create more positive support for the doctrine. Like the others 
 they have their limitations. They do not mean to prove, where 
 they are supposed to prove anything at all, that all persons are 
 free, or equally free, but only that where certain conditions are 
 fulfilled freedom can fairly be entitled to exist. There may be 
 many exceptions. But if any genuine cases of freedom exist, we 
 have a basis for a rational system of Ethics and practical prin- 
 ciples for the territory covered by those conditions. Nor do 
 they all apply to the same kind of freedom, as will be* re- 
 marked when discussing them. 
 
 1. The Priority of Free to Necessary Causation. — 
 The law of causation is supposed to imply necessity of some 
 kind, and so it does; but is only the necessity of the effect, 
 not the necessity of the cause. It is the effect which must 
 occur if the causes act, but there is no reason in that fact for 
 supposing that the cause must act also. If there be any neces- 
 sity about the action of the cause in the case it will be for 
 the reason that it too is an effect of some antecedent cause, and 
 not because it is an efficient agency. The necessity is thus 
 purely relative to the effect. Let us illustrate. If a stone fall 
 upon a hard surface it will very certainly make a noise and 
 probably produce some additional effects. These must occur, the 
 conditions being what they are ; there is no alternative to them. 
 They are the necessary consequence of the stone's falling. But 
 there is nothing implied in this fact to the effect that the stone 
 must have fallen. The necessity of the effect of its fall, once it 
 is set in motion, does not prove the necessity of its falling. This 
 may have its cause, of course ; but we should not seek for it if 
 we did not know that the fall was an event, an effect, which had 
 its beginning. Its necessity depends wholly upon its being 
 an effect. But perhaps the illustration will appear more forci- 
 ble if we put it in another form. If I strike the table the effect 
 will at least be a noise. This is a necessary consequence of my 
 
THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 191 
 
 act. But would any one suspect the necessity of my act other 
 than its being the effect of my will ? 
 
 All this indicates that " necessity " does not express any ab- 
 solute form of action or condition, but only the relative fixity 
 of events when their causes once act. There must be some orig- 
 inal efficiency which is not an effect in order to get events into 
 existence at all, so that necessary phenomena are subsequent to 
 something that is not necessary. In this way we indicate that 
 the law of mechanical causation is not the most universal law of 
 causal agency, for the reason that it is limited to the necessary 
 occurrence of the effect and does not apply to the action of an- 
 tecedents, unless they too are effects. But it can never apply 
 to causes that are not effects or events. Free or spontaneous 
 causation, therefore, must be prior to any other kind as a condi- 
 tion of its existence. This can be shown in the following manner : 
 . "We must suppose a beginning in time for all events or phe- 
 nomena. They are not events unless they have such an origin, 
 and it is on the ground of a beginning in time that we look for a 
 cause of events. Now, this cause must be either an antecedent 
 event or something which is not an event. There can be no 
 third alternative. If an event is caused by an antecedent event, 
 there must be a series of such events, and this series must be 
 either finite or infinite. If the series be finite it has a beginning 
 in time, and the first event of the series would either not be 
 caused at all, in which case it would have a free or non-necessi- 
 tated origin, or its cause would not be an antecedent event, but 
 something else than an event, and in this case would be necessi- 
 tated neither in its existence nor its action. On the other hand, 
 if the series is infinite it has no beginning in time and there is 
 neither a first event in the series nor an antecedent event to the 
 series to be its cause.' An infinite series, therefore, cannot have 
 an event in time for its cause, but must be conditioned by some- 
 thing which is not an event. We say nothing about the impos- 
 sibility of an infinite series composed of finite units. This may 
 be assumed as a vantage ground to prove that the series must 
 be finite, and so ultimately caused by something outside of it 
 
192 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 and not determined by an event. But we can admit, for the 
 sake of an argument at least, that an infinite series of events 
 is possible ; but it is possible only on the supposition that the 
 cause of the series is not -an event, because there can be no an- 
 tecedent to that which has no beginning in time. Hence the 
 series, w T hether finite or infinite, cannot have an event for its 
 cause. That is to say, the cause must be that which is itself not 
 caused, and so must be free or spontaneous in its action. On 
 the other hand, if the cause be that which is not an event it can- 
 not be subject to the law of mechanical causation, which would 
 make it dependent upon an antecedent, which it is not in the 
 terms of the conclusion just reached. If it acts at all, therefore, 
 it acts spontaneously, if not, there will be no event to account for. 
 But all agree that events or phenomena are admitted facts. 
 They are either caused or not caused. If caused, they ulti- 
 mately depend, as the previous argument shows, upon that 
 which is not caused, but free or spontaneous. If not caused 
 they are free again, or cases of spontaneous generation, and there 
 is no need to admit any doctrine of causation whatever. Every- 
 thing — that is, all events — would be free and not necessitated ; no 
 antecedent and no agent would cause or necessitate them, and 
 w T e should have spontaneity at the expense of the very law 01 
 causation which is supposed to nullify the claims of freedom. 
 But since the self-origination of events without a subject or 
 ground of them is either absurd or opposed to science we are left 
 to suppose them caused with the consequence previously proved ; 
 that ultimately the cause must be something which is not an 
 event, and which will not itself be caused unless it shows the 
 marks of an effect or event ; which only puts the absolute one 
 step further back. And this absolute and spontaneous cause 
 must be found either because the finite series must be originated 
 by that which is not an event or because an infinite series can 
 have no antecedent. This, of course, results in the conclusion 
 that a true cause is not an antecedent or transcendental thing or 
 phenomenon, but a subject which is contemporaneous with the 
 act or immanent in it. 
 
THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 193 
 
 It is apparent from this argument that necessity is only a 
 property of events, not of their causes, except that we apply cause 
 in an equivocal sense to denote an antecedent conditioning the 
 effect. But taken as the agent which acts, the cause is not neces- 
 sitated, as is an event which that cause produces. If it act at all 
 it must be as an originating cause, and hence the notion of free- 
 dom has both the logical and the natural priority to necessity. 
 That is to say, as a property of existence it is prior to necessity, 
 so that every theory of necessitarianism must be of the relative 
 and wholly subordinate to freedom which conditions it. It must 
 be remarked, however, that the freedom established by the argu- 
 ment is not the freedom of velleity, but only of spontaneity. The 
 whole force of the argument will be lost if we suppose that it can 
 prove the capacity for alternative choice. It does nothing of 
 the kind, and cannot be claimed to prove more than spontaneity, 
 and those who rely upon it to make out the case against deter- 
 minism or necessitarianism of every form are following a will o' 
 the wisp ; for the necessitarianism which is generally maintained 
 only opposes velleity, and may be absolutely identical with the 
 notion of spontaneity as revealed in psycho-dynamic and instinc- 
 tive actions, supposing that the latter are not reflexes, but auto- 
 matic. The real and most important issue, as we have already 
 indicated, regards velleity or the capacity of alternative choice. 
 
 But if this argument does not prove the one point desirable, 
 it removes all a priori objections to freedom from the stand- 
 point of the law of causation. It is the universality of the 
 law of causation, or rather the presumed universality of it, 
 and conceived mechanically at that, which creates the main 
 difficulty with freedom in most minds. But when we show, 
 on the one hand, that mechanical causation cannot be uni- 
 versal, that we are' obliged ultimately to accept spontaneity 
 or free agency of that kind as prior to necessity, and on the 
 other, that causation by antecedent events is not the true or 
 only conception of cause, we have proved at least one excep- 
 tion to the principle invoked by physical science, and nothing 
 after that exists in the principle to prevent us from adding the 
 
194 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 capacity of alternative choice to the idea of a first cause ; that 
 is, adding velleity to spontaneity, if only there be evidence forth- 
 coming that it is a fact as well as a possibility. Moreover, the 
 advantage of proving spontaneity in this way is, that it is not 
 conditioned upon a spiritualistic or idealistic view of things. It 
 is perfectly compatible with the materialistic theory of the uni- 
 verse : in fact, must be assumed by that theory as a condition of 
 its own account of phonomena. Materialism and mechanism, 
 therefore, cannot stand out against first causes. Whether they 
 are consistent with alternative choice or not must be determined 
 by the question whether matter is conscious or not. Its a priori 
 power, however, against freedom is thoroughly eviscerated by 
 the necessity of its assuming spontaneity and surrendering the 
 absolute universality of mechanical causation. With this con- 
 clusion we may turn to the evidence for freedom as the capacity 
 for alternative choice, although the next argument has a bearing 
 upon both kinds of psychological freedom. 
 
 2. The Fact of Deliberation. — Ever since the time of 
 Aristotle the fact of deliberative actions has played an important 
 role in the problem of freedom. It has, in fact, been made 
 essential to real freedom, for the reason that, on the one hand, 
 it is contrasted with impulse which seems to represent the type 
 of reflex actions, and presumably not free, and on the other hand, 
 it seems to imply that equilibrium between motives which the 
 indeterminist conceived as essential to freedom. It is easy to see 
 why deliberation should be a forcible fact in the case, because if 
 a volition is the effect of a " motive," it should follow immedi- 
 ately upon the occurrence of the motive. But if there is delib- 
 eration between "motives," they do not seem to have causal 
 power to initiate the volition until a prior causal power directs 
 them, and this would be the deliberating subject. It was natural, 
 therefore, when the conception of mechanical causation dominated 
 the age in which resort was made to hesitation between alterna- 
 tives, that this idea of deliberation should present an exception to 
 that way of viewing the connection of events. Whether the argu- 
 ment is conclusive or not we have yet to examine. In the mean- 
 
THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 195 
 
 time we have two things to accomplish : first, to define what is 
 meant by deliberation, and second, to examine the various kinds 
 of human actions which are concerned in the problem. We can 
 then take up the importance of deliberation as a factor in con- 
 duct. We may as well remark also that its force is not the 
 same in regard to all kinds of freedom. It may prove only sub- 
 jective determinism in the broad sense, or merely spontaneity. 
 For this reason we shall divide its functions into two kinds, and 
 so consider its relation to spontaneity apart from its relation to 
 velleity. In connection with the power of deliberation will also 
 come up the question regarding the function of inhibition or 
 arrest in mental phenomena, as an agency in the development 
 from organic and reflex activities to the rational. 
 
 (a) Definition of Deliberation. — Deliberation, so far as it 
 concerns Ethics, is reflection upon alternative courses of action 
 offered to the will. In general it is reflection about any object of 
 consciousness or delayed attention to it. In matters of conduct 
 it is hesitation about a choice or a volition, and involves a sus- 
 pension of action until the mind can come to some conclusion 
 about the proper course to be chosen. Thus if I am in a room 
 alone where a tempting plate of delicious fruit is exposed to my 
 eyes, if hungry and if the fruit were my own I might at once 
 help myself to it without any hesitation and perhaps without 
 thought of the consequences. But if the fruit be not my own, 
 my first inclination to take it may be arrested by the thought 
 that it is not my own and that I should be doing a wrong to 
 take it. Then I may think that the owner will not care, or that 
 I shall not be discovered, and the temptation returns. But 
 again I am checked by the fear that I may be mistaken again, 
 that I have no right to the fruit, etc. All the while I am simply 
 deliberating about whether I shall or shall not act. Similarly, if 
 I am not decided as to the prudent course among several possible 
 ones offered me, I reflect upon them until I am assured, and I 
 act according to the result of deliberation. All this shows a 
 certain amount of control over the direction of consciousness and 
 the will, and that there may be a delay between the inception of 
 
196 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 an idea and the effort to put it into effect. Deliberation thus 
 suspends the impulsive or hasty tendencies of feeling until the 
 more balanced functions of the mind give it control over influ- 
 ences that might make it their victim. Such is its nature, and 
 after examining the various kinds of action represented by 
 development, from the lowest to the highest stages of organization, 
 we may study the function of reflection in its relation to conduct. 
 
 (b) Reflex Actions. — Keflex action is an unconscious response 
 to stimulus. It is illustrated by such actions as the beating of 
 the heart, the peristaltic movements of the stomach and intes- 
 tines, and in a partial way, breathing and winking. There are 
 probably numerous other forms, though less manifest types of 
 it. But the few special cases mentioned are sufficient to make 
 clear that they are not consciously caused by the subject in 
 whose person they appear. The resource of explanation is sim- 
 ply to maintain that they are organic reactions to stimulus and 
 are no more free moral acts than is the fall of a stone. Now, as 
 it is generally assumed that both in the lowest types of organic 
 existence and in the earliest stages of all animal life the actions of 
 such beings are only reflex or automatic, the latter being less defi- 
 nite reflexes, we may readily ask the question how we ever get be- 
 yond such actions. We are everywhere told that all our higher 
 ideas and actions are developed from the earlier and lower, and 
 if these are only sensations and reflexes we may well ask, con- 
 sidering that reflex actions are neither conscious nor free, how 
 the conduct we call free can possibly be so when it is only a mod- 
 ified and complex form of reflex action. Throwing aside the 
 absence of consciousness in the case, the entire dependence of 
 reflex actions upon external stimulus makes them necessary 
 events under their conditions, and if our volitions are only like 
 them, with a similar kind of condition acting as the antecedent, 
 they are not free. But if our actions be free in any respect and 
 yet must be superimposed upon a basis of reflex functions, how 
 can that result be affected ? 
 
 (c) Impulsive Actions. — As already defined, impulsive actions 
 are non-deliberative volitions, and hence represent a tendency to 
 
THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 197 
 
 act on the temptation of the moment. They differ from reflexes 
 in being conscious, but they resemble the same in the prompt- 
 ness of their occurrence when suggested. They thus have a most 
 important connection with . reflexes, at least in appearances. 
 They do not require illustration, after all that has been said of 
 them under the head of motives. But it is important to note 
 that they iudicate a condition very unlike freedom to all who 
 feel that deliberation is essential to it ; and as so much of man's 
 conduct seems impulsive, it is a question how. he ever obtains any 
 control of it, or how he can be expected to gain control of it. 
 
 (cT) Rational Actions. — Rational actions are both conscious 
 and either deliberative or the result of previous deliberation, 
 while involving also right adjustment to either a constant or 
 variable environment. How they are possible in a system based 
 upon reflexes and impulses is the question. They are presumed 
 to be free actions par excellence. They are certainly peculiar 
 to the highest stages of development, and are superimposed upon 
 forms of conduct which are not free. How do they originate, 
 and how is free action possible, if evolved from elements contain- 
 ing none of it ? 
 
 (e) Inhibition and Its Functions. — The answer to the several 
 questions which we have asked about the gradual evolution from 
 reflex to rational or deliberative action is found in the part 
 played by the very interesting phenomenon known as inhibition. 
 Before stating its relation to deliberation, which it in reality 
 makes possible, we must show what it is ; that is, define it. 
 
 Inhibition is the arrest which the function of one nervous center, 
 or the existence of one set of ideas, exerts upon the spontaneous ten- 
 dency of another to dominate in action. This must be illustrated 
 in order to be made more clear. A good example of inhibition 
 is the delay or stoppage of the heart-beat by disturbances in the 
 pneumogastric nerve, or the restraint by the brain of certain 
 muscular movements mediated by the spinal cord ; the arrest of 
 intestinal movements by interferences with the splanchnic nerve, 
 and in respiration by interferences with the superior laryngeal 
 nerve. " Similarly," says Foster, " the vaso-motor center in the 
 
198 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 medulla may, by impulses arriving along various afferent tracts, 
 be inhibited, during which the muscular walls of various arteries 
 are relaxed or augmented, whereby the tonic contraction of 
 various arteries is increased." This may be called purely phy- 
 siological arrest. On the other hand, psychological inhibition 
 will be the arresting influence of consciousness in one direction 
 against the exercise either of neural or conscious action in 
 another. For instance, the concentration of attention upon 
 something in the visual field will diminish the intensity of a sen- . 
 sation in the tactual field, or the remembered experience of pain 
 will check the tendency of a present consciousness to issue in 
 muscular action. Attention upon a special object of interest 
 may inhibit the influence of impressions that otherwise would 
 serve as warnings of approaching danger. The effect of past 
 experience will operate to restrain impulse, etc. All these show 
 that the higher organisms are the seat of functions that tend to 
 balance each other, one arresting the unco-ordinated action of 
 another, so that when necessary the central direction of conduct 
 may supplant that of external stimulus and reflex action. 
 
 Now, unless we take account of this function of arrest the 
 argument for the originally determined and necessary character 
 of all our actions is very strong. It is generally assumed that 
 man begins his existence as a purely reflex organism which re- 
 sponds to various forms of stimulus. In this condition he can 
 be neither free nor responsible in the proper sense of those 
 terms. To be free the agent must be conscious, must have 
 ideational motives ; that is, possess a distinct idea of an end, 
 and have the capacity for deliberation. In reflex actions none 
 of these conditions are present. They are wholly unconscious, 
 non-reflective, and show a dependence upon some stimulus ex- 
 ternal to the organism or nerve affected. If, therefore, man is 
 purely a reflex organism his freedom is out of the question. 
 He is merely a passive being awaiting the impulse of external 
 stimulus, and for aught we should know in the case his actions 
 would be nothing but the transformation or transmission of 
 energy from without through another medium. They would, 
 
THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 199 
 
 therefore, have to be treated in terms of their external causes. 
 Remove the stimuli and the actions would not occur. There 
 is no spontaneity assumed in reflexes, any more than in the 
 motion of a falling body, and hence if all man's actions were 
 simple reflexes they would be wholly determined from without. 
 There could be no use in treating him as the cause of them, be- 
 cause he would not so act of himself, and could not help thus 
 acting if the stimulus occurred. But it is otherwise if we con- 
 sider him as the subject of states of consciousness which are 
 assumed to indicate the initiating power of the mind independ- 
 ently of reflex stimulus. States of consciousness may be awak- 
 ened by external stimuli, but neither their contents nor their 
 power are determined by that source. These are determined by 
 the mind, and are rather mere antecedents and conditions than 
 causes of volition. They represent what we call purpose, ends, 
 motives, which are not apparent in reflexes, and if man be free 
 they must show the initiative -of volition to be something other 
 than external stimulus, aud that he is capable of deliberating. 
 
 Now, man is the subject both of reflex actions and of states of 
 consciousness, which last are supposed to initiate free action. 
 But since all students of his history, both in regard to his indi- 
 vidual origin and development from a remote simple organism, 
 maintain that the first functions he exhibits are merely reflex, 
 the question may be raised, as already indicated, How does he 
 ever get beyond them ? This is especially significant when we 
 remember the very simple but striking fact that reflex-reaction 
 time, which is the interval between stimulus and reaction, is shorter 
 than cerebral-reaction time. That is, reactions of the spinal cord 
 (in sleep, for example) occupy less time than reactions of the 
 higher brain centers, the latter being supposed to exercise the 
 functions of intelligence. Hence this being the case, and if re- 
 flex centers must act at once upon the occurrence of stimulus, 
 muscular action must take place before consciousness can either 
 be awakened or influence volition. Consequently whatever 
 consciousness might be able to do after it arose, if left to reflex 
 functions the deed would be done before consciousness arose ; 
 
200 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 and any volition to the contrary would be nugatory and useless. 
 The same motor organism has to bs employed by both forms of 
 action, and if all acts were to follow external stimuli imme- 
 diately, consciousness could not be their initiative. Hence it 
 must have time to rise and to exercise its efficiency before and 
 independently of the tendencies to reflex action. 
 
 It is precisely here that inhibition or arrest, as a function of 
 complex organisms, can be invoked to check the reflexes and to 
 allow conscious states to mediate between stimulus and muscular 
 action. For instance, it has been shown by actual experiment 
 upon animals that the very presence of the cerebral mass of 
 nervous matter acts upon the reflexes of the spinal cord to re- 
 tard them ; that is, to lengthen reaction time. The normal 
 condition, therefore, of a nervous organism, including a brain 
 and a spinal cord, is one of physiological inhibition exerted by 
 the higher centers upon the lower. Again, it is known that in 
 sleep reaction time is quickened, and in the conscious state it is 
 retarded, or intellectual activity diminishes assimilation of food 
 whenever we endeavor to carry on prolonged reflection while 
 the forces of the system are required for digestion. This is a 
 case of psychological inhibition. It represents the arresting 
 power of consciousness upon lower or other centers by virtue of 
 its absorption of energy which would otherwise be expended in 
 the reflex centers. But in whatever manner it may be said to 
 act reaction time is retarded, the energy and promptness of re- 
 flex action are diminished, and other forces are called into ex- 
 istence than the mechanico-physical agencies of stimulus and 
 reaction. This effect might not be sufficient to overcome or to 
 compensate for the difference between reaction and cerebral 
 events; but on the other hand it often is sufficient, and in 
 highly organized beings is always so for any muscular actions 
 connected with deliberative consciousness. The question, how- 
 ever, is not how consciousness can ever usurp the functions of 
 the organic system, but how it can ever find a chance to exer- 
 cise motive efficiency, or enable the mind to do so, before 
 some form of muscular response has made its action useless, 
 
THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 201 
 
 Hence the first thing to be accomplished by the facts mentioned 
 is to show the very wide influence exerted by every form of 
 arrest which tends to equilibrate and co-ordinate the reactions 
 of the organism, so that the subject may become more than a 
 merely reacting agent. 
 
 The same principle operates when we come to consider the 
 inhibitions.of the higher intellectual centers upon the tendencies 
 of sensation and emotion to issue in action immediately upon the 
 occurrence of stimulus. This is the case with the impulses or 
 impulsive actions. In a being disposed to follow the temptations 
 of the moment, or to act under sudden passion, the trouble is that 
 his emotions act much like reflexes, and he is the victim of 
 every external circumstance that exposes him to their occur- 
 rence. Unless inhibition from some source can check such a 
 tendency, a man seems to be cut off from the possibility of alter- 
 native choice for the lack of deliberative resources. He may be 
 conscious, but not conscious of all the consequences involved in 
 the action, prompted by a more or less reflex tonicity of his mus- 
 cular system at the time. Hence this explosive tendency needs 
 to be curbed, if he should seem to possess anything like freedom. 
 Now we are told by modern psychologists that it is of the very 
 nature of sensational and emotional states to influence the mus- 
 cular system. Instance suggestion, sudden pains, intense anger or 
 fear, etc. This is the so-called law of psycho-genesis, or the 
 tendency of emotional consciousness to issue in volition, by suppo- 
 sition, without reflection. But it is also a fact that such con- 
 ditions do not always prevail. The natural tendencies of sensation 
 and emotion are often, if not always, brought under control. 
 Some influence succeeds in arresting their spontaneities. It is, of 
 course, the ideational, and reflective consciousness which inhibits 
 them and introduces the rational type of mental action. For 
 instance, pain has an inhibitory influence on muscular action, and 
 so also the idea of a prospective pain will serve as a restraint, not 
 perhaps functionally, but through the will. The child putting its 
 hand unwittingly into the fire is an instance of the effect of present 
 pain. The consequent action is often called reflex ; but I do not 
 
202 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 think it is wholly such. Consciousness is too much a part of it 
 to be purely reflex in all cases, if it is ever so. Then if the child 
 be tempted a second time to try the same experiment out of curi- 
 osity, the memory of the past experience, or the idea of the past 
 pain, with the consciousness of its imminent reoccurrence, will 
 arrest all tendencies to movement caused by the curiosity 
 of the previous moment. One state of consciousness sup- 
 presses the motor tendency of the other in the case, and the 
 subject becomes a deliberative being. In this and all similar, 
 cases the natural difference between the occurrence of the stimu- 
 lus and the reaction, if it were reflex, is overcome, and a balance 
 established between the various functions of the system, so that 
 the higher states of consciousness may take possession of the field 
 and interrupt the natural influence of external forces and the 
 temptation to adjustment without regard to remoter conse- 
 quences. 
 
 The function of inhibition in this is perfectly clear. It is an 
 organic influence to break up the pure mechanism of the system 
 and to enable the higher mental states to supplant the reflex 
 and impulsive tendencies of the subject. When it thus over- 
 comes both forms of influence opposed to free action, the mechan- 
 ical tendencies of reflex action, and the spontaneity of impulse, 
 it hands the field over to deliberative and rational agencies. It 
 does not constitute freedom, and may not be any element of it in 
 a perfectly developed being. But in all such as are exposed to 
 the limitations of organic reflexes, the temptations of present im- 
 pulse, and the fixities of hereditary desire, it is a powerful agent 
 for enabling reason to obtain command. It is the function 
 which makes deliberation possible, and shows both the complex- 
 ity of the conditions of freedom and the graduated character of 
 that attribute. We should remember also that it Avill operate to 
 make choice deliberative as well as to modify muscular action 
 and volition. It remains, then, only to see how deliberation 
 serves as evidence of the fact. 
 
 (/) Deliberation as a Proof of Spontaneity. — Inhibition shows 
 that our actions are not simple reflexes, and that they contain 
 
THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 203 
 
 elements which cannot be developed out of reflexes of the uncon- 
 scious kind. But it does not stand in the way of an immediate 
 connection between external stimulus and volition through the 
 idea which may supplant sensation and emotion of the impulsive 
 sort. To establish the first condition of freedom, then, we must 
 wholly elimiuate the determining influence of stimulus, that is, 
 environment. This can be done in the following manner : 
 
 If a man's action be in any way determined by environment, 
 that is to say, if volition be the necessary consequence of his en- 
 vironment, caused by it, the act must follow immediately the 
 influence of stimulus. The causal nexus between stimulus 
 and volition must not be interrupted or modified by any other 
 cause. The law of mechanical causation requires this immediate 
 connection between antecedent and consequent. There may be 
 an interval between the first and the last number of a series 
 of events so connected, but each effect is the immediate and 
 necessary consequence of its antecedent cause, and the ultimate 
 result follows without any deliberation regarding it or regarding 
 any number of the series. Now, the connection between stimulus 
 and volition must be either an immediate one, without interven- 
 ing steps, or a series of steps directly connected, if volition is to 
 be necessitated by external influences. Take the first of these 
 alternatives. If I am suddenly pricked with a sharp instrument 
 my movements will be directed to getting rid of the sensation or 
 pain produced by the stimulus. If the volition be the mechan- 
 ical effect of the stimulus, the movement must follow it at once, 
 as a sound follows immediately upon the impact of two bodies ; 
 and nothing could hinder it from doing so but a cause from some 
 other source. There would be no deliberation possible where the 
 connection was immediate. But it is a fact that the subject 
 does sometimes deliberate in such emergencies. The sensation 
 and the stimulus do not always issue at once in a volition 
 designed to remove them. The agent may permit the stimulus 
 to continue without a volition for self-defense at all, so that 
 the natural and presumptive effect does not occur at all. What 
 this deliberation shows, then, is that the supposed mechanical 
 
204 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 nexus uetween stimulus and volition is interrupted and that we 
 must look to something else than the antecedent stimulus for the 
 true cause of the volition. Where the nexus was uninterrupted 
 there would be no direct objective evidence that any other cause 
 existed, though it might be present. But when an interval of 
 time exists, involving deliberation, between stimulus and volition, 
 supposing them the only two members of the series in which we 
 are interested, it is decided proof that the stimulus is not the 
 only or true cause of the result. 
 
 On the other hand, if there are more members than two 
 in the series, and as a fact there are several, which may be 
 summed up in stimulus, sensation, perception, desire, volition, 
 it might be said that an interval could be involved here while 
 the whole series represented a mechanical one in which each 
 member was the necessary effect of its antecedent and the 
 necessary cause of its consequent. But if this view of it 
 be taken there could be no deliberation between any two links 
 in the chain, while each event would be supposed immediately to 
 produce the following. But it is a fact that we do deliberate 
 between either the stimulus and the volition or between 
 desire and volition, and in either case the mechanical nexus 
 of external influences with the final effect is cut off and we have 
 to look to the subject of volition for the true cause of it. As 
 long as deliberation is a fact, therefore, objective determinism 
 must be denied. In other words, the objective determinist is in 
 a dilemma. If he reduces all causation to the purely mechanical 
 form he must deny the fact of deliberation, because the law of 
 cause and effect requires an immediate nexus between the two 
 terms. On the other hand, if he admit the fact of deliberation, 
 he must surrender his theory, because he assumes that the nexus 
 between the presumed cause and its effect is not an immediate 
 one, so that some other agent must be invoked to account for 
 the result. Consequently, as no one has the foolhardiness to 
 deny the fact of deliberation, the theory of objective determinism 
 or mechanical necessitarianism is thrown out of court, and at 
 least the freedom of spontaneity proved beyond a doubt. This 
 
THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 205 
 
 wholly removes the time-honored argument from environment 
 against freedom in the second and third senses of the term, and 
 shows that we must go to the subject for the cause of volition, 
 and if the theory of mechanical necessity is thus proved to be in- 
 sufficient to account for the effect, at least spontaneity of some 
 kind must be assumed, and this fact removes all a priori objec- 
 tions to freedom of a more important kind by implying, first, 
 that mechanical causation is not universal, and second, that 
 there may be possibly two exceptions to it as well as one. 
 
 But as there is practically no dispute about the fact that a 
 man is the cause of his own volitions, and that they are not 
 strictly determined objectively, it is not enough to disprove me- 
 chanical necessitarianism. Yet there is one important point 
 gained by it, and it is that we have found the evidential signifi- 
 cance of deliberation while establishing at least the freedom of 
 spontaneity. The possibility of velleity from the same fact has 
 still to be considered. 
 
 (g) Deliberation as Evidence of Velleity. — Though delibera- 
 tion may disprove a causal nexus between external stimulus and 
 volition, it will be said that it does not interfere with the final 
 prevalence of the strongest motive or of character, and hence 
 does not stand in the way of denying the possibility of alterna- 
 tive choice. That is to say, the necessitarian will admit both 
 the fact of deliberation and the falsity of objective determinism, 
 and yet deny the capacity for alternative choice, holding that 
 deliberation does not interfere with this limitation, that the 
 strongest motive must finally prevail in spite of deliberation, 
 which only delays the issue. 
 
 The force of this position lies in the fact that motives, prop- 
 erly conceived, are purely subjective events, and yet are used in 
 the argument as if they were objective and did not involve the 
 subject at the same time. In other words, the argument is sup- 
 posed to carry with it no other implication than is involved in 
 the conception of mechanical " motives," and being stated in 
 the same form, creates an illusion of the identity between 
 subjective and objective determinism, for the explanation of 
 
206 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 which we have only to refer to what has already been said 
 about the import and causal efficiency of motives. For under- 
 standing the relation of deliberation to their causative power 
 we can examine the following, where argument from reflection 
 shows much the same evidential character for velleity as it has 
 shown for spontaneity. 
 
 The force of the denial that deliberation alters the case de- 
 pends wholly upon the supposition that motives determine voli- 
 tion and that the strongest must prevail after the manner of 
 mechanical causes. It is assumed that deliberation only delays 
 the final issue, and that when it is past the existence of equal 
 alternatives is past and the person has no real choice but to fol- 
 low his character or the strongest motive. There are two, per- 
 haps several, replies to be made to this. The first consists of the 
 argument already advanced in regard to both the causality of 
 motives and the relation of "character" to volition. It does 
 not require to be repeated, as the student may refer to it for the 
 purpose. The second is an application of the fact of delibera- 
 tion and will repeat the argument for spontaneity with the sub- 
 stitution of motives for stimulus. 
 
 Motives are either the cause of volition or they are not. In 
 the latter alternative their presence is not opposed to freedom, 
 as the very nature of the case would imply. For if they did not 
 cause it, and yet the volition takes place and objective deter- 
 minism is excluded, there is nothing but the subject to account 
 for the effect, this not being determined by motives, according to 
 the supposition. On the other hand, if we conceive motives to 
 be the cause of volition, this effect must occur immediately upon 
 their occurrence in consciousness ; for there is no third step, 
 except deliberation, between them and the volition, and they 
 cannot be the cause of it as long as deliberation intervenes. 
 Deliberation interrupts the supposed causal nexus between the 
 two terms. But if the motive be the cause, this deliberation is 
 impossible. We might assert either or both of two assumptions : 
 first, that deliberation is an equilibrium from the conflict of equal 
 and opposing motives, or second, that there are distinct kinds 
 
THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 207 
 
 of motives, which are differently related to the law of causation. 
 But this would not help us any in the case. If motives are dif- 
 ferent in kind and differently related to the law of causation, the 
 whole case of determinism, subjective and objective, is lost for 
 the lack of a single principle to explain the result. On the 
 other hand, if deliberation is only an equilibrium between equal 
 and opposing motives, then either no volition can take place at 
 all, or when it does take place the strongest motive prevails and 
 causes it, assuming, of course, that motives can cause it at all. 
 But if the conflict be between unequal motives and the strongest 
 must prevail, it must do so immediately and deliberation cannot 
 occur. But it is a fact that deliberation occurs and that voli- 
 tions take place, which they could not do if it denoted an equi- 
 librium, and hence deliberation is either not an equilibrium 
 between equal motives, or it occurs in connection with the 
 so-called stronger motives. If it occurs with the latter it either 
 produces an equilibrium and volition occurs without being caused 
 by either motive, or it interrupts all supposed causal agency in 
 the strongest motive, and in both alternatives something else 
 than the motive has to be the cause of the volition, and the case 
 of every form of necessitarianism is lost. Hence the necessitarian 
 may choose between affirming the mechanical law of causation 
 of motives as well as of stimuli and the fact of deliberation. He 
 cannot hold to both at the same time. The strongest motive 
 either does not exist or does not prevail ; that is, has no causal 
 efficiency, if deliberation takes place and interrupts its immediate 
 issue in volition. It will not help matters to say that after the 
 deliberation has occurred the strongest motive must then prevail, 
 because whatever strength it may then be supposed to have has been 
 derived from the deliberate choice and decision of the agent outside 
 the series of events assumed to determine the volition. We do not 
 care what takes place after reflection. The whole question of 
 freedom is proved by the fact of deliberation while it exists, and 
 nothing is gained by talking about the strongest motive after- 
 ward, because deliberation is said to be hesitation between 
 motives already existing, and if they do not effect the proper 
 
208 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 result at once, whether equal or unequal, it is for the reason that 
 they have no causal efficiency at all in their constitution, and 
 this agency must come from the reflecting subject, independently 
 of the series of phenomena with which it is concerned. It pro- 
 duces the motives, weighs them, and if one be stronger than 
 another, determines that strength by a spontaneous act of its 
 own. In fact, motives have no strength whatever except what 
 the mind gives them, so that deliberation is only a proof that 
 there is no causal nexus between the mental events which make 
 up life and that it must be sought outside the series, and once 
 outside the series freedom is guaranteed, no matter what is said 
 about the result of " character," as has been already shown. 
 
 But the argument of the necessitarian has both its strength 
 and its weakness in the equivocal import of the term " motive. " 
 In so far as " motive " denotes an end, or an idea of several ends 
 there seem to be several alternatives offered the will, and this 
 notion will give rise to the conception of a conflict, where pre- 
 sumably the stronger will prevail. But in so far as " motives " 
 are only ideas of ends, they have neither strength nor causal 
 efficiency. No one for a moment attributes initiative power to 
 simple ideas or cognitions. They never move the will, and not 
 having " motive " power, causally conceived, cannot exhibit any 
 moral, bat only a logical, conflict. Such thing as a struggle be- 
 tween them and the prevalence of the stronger is not possible. 
 On the other hand, if the term " motive " denotes the emotional 
 side of the assumed condition of volition, there is more reason 
 for supposing it to have causal efficiency. But in this case there 
 may be only one motive, and if so a struggle is also impossible, so 
 that a competition between " motives, " which the necessitarian 
 admits to occur, is absurd. In fact, therefore, his whole case rests 
 upon his making out that there, is only one " motive " in volition, 
 and that on the causal side there is no alternative impulse to the 
 one antecedent to the act. Strange to say, however, the necessi- 
 tarian has never asserted this view of the case. But it is not 
 only the sole conception of the problem which will bear criticism, 
 but it is, in the present writer's view, the truer conception of the 
 
THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 209 
 
 facts. " Motive," so far as it means impelling power, denotes a 
 desire, and it is reasonable to claim that man can ultimately 
 have but one desire, and this- is the ultimate object of his pursuit, 
 pleasure, perfection, wealth, power, etc. Assuming this for the 
 moment, what we mean by desires, then, is merely many objects 
 of a single kind of mental state. Desire does express both an ob- 
 ject of consciousness and an attraction toward it. Now, there 
 may be many objects of desire, but only one feeling or impulse 
 regarding them, and there can be only one ultimate object of it. 
 Deliberation is, therefore, about the means to this one end. 
 What is called a conflict of " motives " is only hesitation about 
 the choice of means, the choice of the end already having been 
 made, and in fact predetermined by the nature of the subject. 
 The deliberation, then, is not between " motives," considered as 
 desire, which is only one in kind, but about ideas and means. 
 This is precisely the doctrine of Aristotle, and it is not a little 
 surprising to see his analysis neglected on all sides. But it means, 
 if accepted, that a new conception of the whole problem is re- 
 quired, and it is a couception which corresponds, on the surface 
 at least, to the necessitarian doctrine. 
 
 Analyzing "motives" into ideas of end and emotional im- 
 pulse, and assuming that they have causal efficiency, we find 
 that this quality must belong to the emotional element, because 
 ideas per se are inert. But this emotional element or desire, 
 minus its cognitive aspect, can be only of one kind considered as a 
 psychological cause, and with that cognitive aspect can ultimately 
 have but one object. There is, then, no comparison of impulses 
 possible, but only of the means for gratifying the one funda- 
 mental desire of our being. In this case there is only one 
 "motive" to ace, and it must prevail, no matter what the choice 
 of means. That is to say, a man cannot evade his ultimate 
 choice and volition. This way of describing his condition is 
 identical with the terms of necessitarianism. 
 
 If this view of the case were not the true one, and we could 
 speak strictly of a conflict of desires,, the argument already pre- 
 sented would have to be repeated. But accepting the conception 
 
210 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 as the true one, it would seem that deliberation does not affect 
 desire or the true motive, and that it can be only about ideas of 
 ends which have no " motive " efficiency. Nevertheless freedom- 
 ism has two resources of escape which it will be interesting to 
 examine. 
 
 First, the theory of freedom does not require that a man be 
 able to choose for himself the ultimate end which his nature pre- 
 scribes, but only that he be able to choose whether he shall real- 
 ize it or not, and to choose between the objects presented as pos- 
 sible means to that end. That he does deliberate regarding those 
 and that he does choose between them is a fact which can hardly 
 be denied. Certainly they have no immediate effect upon volition 
 when presented, as the law of causation would require, and since 
 there is complete indifference toward them during deliberation 
 the subject must first determine their value and relation to the ul- 
 timate end of desire before they can be supposed to have any power 
 at all ; and this supposed power is derived wholly from the desire 
 within whose scope they happen to fall. But it requires a choice 
 of mind to decide this fact, which is an act of will prior to the one 
 supposed to follow the desire whose realization is suspended for the 
 time. Not to urge this view too persistently, however, it is only 
 necessary to observe that the capacity to choose among possible 
 means to an end not chosen by the will is all that is absolutely 
 necessary for freedom, because this is all that it may mean, and 
 probably every one admits that such a choice is possible, while 
 puzzled with the fact that a man finds the ultimate end of his 
 life fixed for him by his nature and that it must represent a sin. 
 gle desire. 
 
 The second argument is quite as effective. It is that a desire 
 is not a " motive " when it expresses the passive or probable ten- 
 dency of the subject's nature, but only when it is actively present 
 in consciousness. That is to say, that man desires food means 
 either that his nature is such as to need it at the proper time, or 
 that there is a specific craving for it present in consciousness ; for 
 instance, a condition of positive hunger. In the former sense it 
 can be neither a motive nor a cause of volition. That all will 
 
THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 211 
 
 admit. Hence, only in the latter sense can desire ever be a 
 " motive," or be supposed to cause a volition. Now, assuming 
 that tbe ideational aspect of the motive or desire can have no 
 efficiency for the purpose, we are left to the emotional aspect for 
 this desideration, and the only question that remains is whether 
 it has such efficiency or not, and whether inhibition and delib- 
 erative influence it or not. Here Ave return to the same argu- 
 ment as before. If desire have, per se, motive efficiency it must 
 produce volition immediately. The nexus must be direct be- 
 tween it and its effect while it is active. But this is not always 
 the case, and may very seldom be the case. An active desire is 
 often suspended for various reasons. But it matters not what 
 the reasons are, it does not have immediate causal efficiency when 
 present, but is wholly subject to the conclusion of deliberation. This 
 is only to say that deliberation applies as much to desire as it 
 does to ideas, and along with its arrest of the assumed efficiency 
 of desire when present, only proves that under any conception of 
 it, we cannot suppose that desire is the real cause of the volition 
 or the choice. The necessitarian relies upon the involuntary and 
 necessary occurrence of the desire as a mere expression of the 
 subject's nature prior to any possible freedom, and then its causal 
 efficiency when it arises. But arrest and deliberation destroy 
 all such supposed agency or indicate that it is not present, and 
 simply prove that mental phenomena, whether they are ideas or 
 desires, are not the real or true causes of volition. Certainly, if 
 the desire is not, which is the only event suspected of being the 
 cause, we are left to consider the subject as actually engaged in 
 deliberate choice between alternatives, either between various 
 means to an end or between the realization and non-realization 
 of a given end. In both cases we have velleity or the capacity 
 of alternative choice. The case is much stronger if we suppose 
 that more than one desire be possible at the same time, because 
 the fact would show either that a desire per se has no causal 
 efficiency or that the prevalence of the stronger would contra- 
 dict the fact of deliberation, or that no volition would occur at 
 all, as the argument before has gone to show. But the fact of 
 
212 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 both volition and deliberation leaves us with the same conclusion 
 as in the first case, that mere mental events are never the cause 
 of choice and volition. 
 
 The importance of the fact of deliberation, therefore, comes 
 from its furnishing evidence to much the same relation between 
 desire or motives and volition as that which objective determinism 
 would suppose exists between stimulus and volition. The reason 
 that man is not the victim of objective influences is that he is the 
 spectator of them. They can determine nothing except through 
 the consciousness of the subject which has originating power, as 
 is universally admitted, the only thing denied being the suppo- 
 sition of alternative choice. But man is also a spectator of his 
 own states. This involves self-consciousness, or self-reflection, 
 and in a measure makes the events of the mind objective to 
 him, not external to the subject, as environment must be, but 
 under the same control and limitations that we find in external 
 influences. This, of course, is testimony to the fact and impor- 
 tance of both inhibition and deliberation, and from them we 
 have the conclusion already enunciated. We may turn next to 
 the third argument. 
 
 3. Consciousness. — The consciousness of freedom has quite 
 universally been the argument which seems to carry the most 
 weight with the laymen's mind, and philosophers of the free- 
 domist school have given it perhaps the most important place 
 among the various proofs advanced for freedom. So strong has 
 it seemed, or so convincing at least to those who were biassed in 
 favor of freedom, that the necessitarian has felt obliged to 
 weaken or refute it in some way. It seems the clearest of all 
 appeals that can be made, and where there is no misunderstand- 
 ing about the terms of the case, it is probably a universal feeling, 
 or nearly so universal as to make all other cases abnormal ex- 
 ceptions to be accounted for as such. But in order to avoid 
 any possible confusion which might be incident to different 
 conceptions of freedom as we have defined it, we must explain 
 that by the consciousness of freedom we do not mean either that 
 the agent is either always or ever conscious of it in all its senses, 
 
THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 213 
 
 or that he is conscious that he is free every time he makes a 
 choice. But we mean merely that if he interrogates himself at 
 the moment of choice, or is asked to state what his power is at 
 that time, he would uniformly express consciousness of ability to 
 have chosen the rejected alternative. This fact implies freedom. 
 Consciousness of freedom, then, does not mean that we are 
 always thinking of that freedom, but that, when asked about 
 our ability to .choose, we assert our consciousness of a condition 
 that implies freedom ; and that condition is the ability to choose 
 otherwise than we have done, or to choose equally between 
 alternatives. This fact, if it be true and unimpeachable, is 
 everywhere admitted to prove a man's freedom. 
 
 Mr. Sidgwick, after admitting " the formidable array of 
 cumulative evidence offered for determinism," asserts that " there 
 is but one opposing argument of real force, namely, the imme- 
 diate affirmation of consciousness in the moment of deliberate 
 action." But after this statement Mr. Sidgwick admits that this 
 consciousness " may be illusory." This is the objection always 
 raised by the necessitarian. Mr. Balfour, again, admits the 
 universality and even the necessity of this belief in the ability 
 to elect between alternatives, but then asserts that it is an illu- 
 sion. Here is his language : " In fact, no doubt remains that 
 every individual while balancing between two courses is under 
 the inevitable impression that he is at liberty to pursue either, 
 and that it depends upon ' himself and himself alone — ' himself 
 as distinguished from his character, his desires, his surroundings, 
 and his antecedents — which of the offered alternatives he will 
 elect to pursue. I do not know that any explanation has been 
 proposed of this singular illusion." Mr. Balfour then goes on 
 to explain it in the following way : " I venture with some dif- 
 fidence to suggest as a theory provisionally adequate perhaps for 
 scientific purposes, that the phenomenon is due to the same cause 
 as so many other beneficent oddities in the organic world, 
 namely, to natural selection. To an animal with no self-con- 
 sciousuess a sense of freedom would evidently be unnecessary, if 
 not, indeed, absolutely unmeaning. But as soon as self-con- 
 
214 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 sciousness is developed, as soon as man begins to reflect, however 
 crudely and imperfectly, upon himself and the world in which 
 he lives, deliberation, volition, and the sense of responsibility 
 become wheels in the ordinary machinery by which species- 
 preserving actions are produced ; and as these psychological 
 states would be weakened or neutralized, if they were accom- 
 panied by the immediate consciousness that they were as rigidly 
 determined by their antecedents as any other effects by any 
 other causes, benevolent Nature steps in and by a process of 
 selective slaughter makes the consciousness in such circum- 
 stances practically impossible." * 
 
 As this argument is a typical one of the necessitarian, it may 
 be prudent to give it the most searching examination. It is a 
 charge of illusion against the consciousness of freedom and an 
 attempt to prove the beneficent character of that illusion. But 
 it is astounding that any one making the slightest pretension to 
 philosophic intelligence, would resort to the kind of argument 
 here used, not to say anything of the deficiency in the sense of 
 humor betrayed by it. Had Mr. Balfour contented himself with 
 charging the possibility of illusion against consciousness, as the 
 skeptic would do, he might have left the burden of proof for its 
 validity upon the freedomist. But to attempt to prove the 
 charge when he has to accept the testimony of consciousness in 
 that proof, shows a great lack of logical acumen, and then to 
 prove the beneficence of an illusion is worse still. Now, it may 
 be true that consciousness is an illusory guide, but this is noth- 
 ing in favor of necessitarianism, as most persons intend it shall 
 be, when they attempt to throw discredit upon the testimony 
 of consciousness. If it be illusory, argument on either side 
 of the question is perfectly futile ; for I have nothing but 
 the testimony of consciousness to the cogency of the argu- 
 ment for necessitarianism. But if that authority be im- 
 peached, I am as much in the dark about that theory as 
 I can possibly be about freedomism. We must, therefore, 
 charge an illusion against Mr. Balfour, in attaching any 
 * International Journal of Ethics, vol. iv., p. 421-422. 
 
THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 215 
 
 weight to the argument for necessitarianism after rejecting the 
 testimony of consciousness. Again, why be so defective in the 
 sense of humor as to impeach the authority of consciousness, 
 while treating the purely logical or ratiocinative argument 
 against freedom as if it were free from illusion, when the fact is, 
 that reasoning is perhaps a hundred-fold more exposed to illu- 
 sion than immediate perception ? An argument is exposed to the 
 whole category of fallacies, and yet the author does not seem to 
 suspect that fact, and as a consequence to see that the cumulative 
 argument for determinism is exposed to more weaknesses than 
 the consciousness of freedom. This is the second illusion found 
 in his view of the matter. But there is another. When he 
 talks about man "as distinguished from his character," he is de- 
 luded again by the equivocal nature of the term " character." 
 No one ever distinguishes himself from his " character " taken as 
 his nature, but only as his habits. The latter, we have shown, is 
 never a cause, never necessitates volition, but may be changed ; 
 the former does not conflict with freedom. Again, the illusion to 
 " surroundings " shows that he is introducing the conception of 
 liberty or physico-political freedom into the case, which, what- 
 ever is said about it, has no relevancy whatever to the question 
 about velleity or alternative choice. This is another illusion. 
 Then again, why would not the sense of freedon be as beneficent 
 for beings that are not self-conscious as for those that are ? It is 
 true that it could have no meaning to such beings. But how 
 could it have any meaning to. self-conscious beings, when it is 
 false and illusory ? Is not the fact that it is an illusion the very 
 thing that takes away its meaning ? Still worse is the supposition 
 that the illusion has a beneficial influence on life, because, being 
 an illusion, this conclusion can only mean that there is not the 
 power of alternative choice, so that the sense of freedom cannot 
 alter the course of volition. If it were not an illusion, it might 
 do so, but the course of a man's conduct is so fixed by his 
 nature, according to the supposition that an illusory belief in 
 his freedom is only another name for events which have no in- 
 fluence upon choice. Moreover, what becomes of the illusion 
 
216 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 and its beneficence when its nature is discovered? It is no 
 longer an illusion to the man who . discovers the fact. On the 
 contrary, Nature has played a trick upon him in making him 
 believe he is free, and then robbed the belief of its supposed 
 beneficence by the philosophic revelation of its illusory char- 
 acter. Still again, what sort of beneficence can any man attrib- 
 ute to what is false ? Would Mr. Balfour encourage the belief 
 in the philosophy of any man because he believed it beneficent 
 though false? And yet his ethics would require him to pre- 
 serve the beneficent as opposed to the maleficent at all hazard, 
 especially as Nature, according to his own view, has valued 
 falsehood more highly than the truth. To illustrate again, if a 
 man's nature inevitably inclined him to the wrong, how much 
 could his belief, that he was able to do the right, affect his con- 
 duct? By supposition only the bad is possible in the case, so 
 that a belief to the contrary is not only false, illusory, and in- 
 effective, but it is not beneficent. To assert the beneficence of 
 an illusion is the last resort of a desperate case, to say nothing 
 of the ridiculous plight in which Nature is placed by the per- 
 petual liability of having her purposes foiled by man's discovery 
 of her illusions. The strangest thing of all, however, is to find 
 men so confident that so universal, persistent, and firm a feeling 
 as the consciousness of freedom should be probably illusory, 
 while there is not the slightest suspicion of either the opinion or 
 the argument asserting that illusion. One would think that 
 men acquainted with the pitfalls of logic and with the liability 
 of individual opinion to errors of conception and judgment 
 would exhibit a little more modesty and humility in attacking a 
 conviction which they practically admit cannot be dislodged, 
 and would rather suspect that thorough scientific patience and 
 analysis would discover a truth in it and illusion in the reason- 
 ing that seeks to impeach so firm a conviction. 
 
 We admit frankly, however, that the argument from the con- 
 sciousness of freedom has its weakness ; but it is not the fact that 
 it may be illusory. Such a supposition, as already remarked, 
 simply puts a stop to all discussion on one side or the other. 
 
THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 217 
 
 The real weakness of the appeal to consciousness is that it can 
 never have more than a subjective or individual value. It could 
 not prove anything except for the individual who has it, and 
 others might not possess any such a power. Nor with the com- 
 plex elements entering into the idea of freedom and the evidence 
 for it could any except the persons professing consciousness of it 
 be absolutely assured as to what the consciousness contained. We 
 could only say, that if it be the same for all persons, or for the 
 majority, or even for any number of mankind, it will have its 
 value determined by its extent, but not beyond the number hav- 
 ing it. But I do not think that its testimony can be either 
 proved or impeached. It is itself the last court of resort for 
 such truths as we actually believe, and it proves too much to 
 discredit it and then accept other beliefs which it attests. I 
 should prefer to accept it where it honestly attests its deliverances 
 and where we have reason to believe that it is normal and 
 healthy. If abnormal or unhealthy we simply know nothing 
 about it one way or the other, for we cannot tell its contents. 
 Its value even in normal cases depends upon the assumption that 
 the consciousness of others is like our own where we feel forced 
 to accept its testimony or give up all convictions whatever. It 
 is, perhaps, the weakness of that assumption that impairs its 
 objective testimony but not its subjective value. Moreover, in 
 regard to it objectively it might not exist at all in some individ- 
 uals, and it is even conceivable that consciousness might in some 
 cases assert that the agent was not able to do otherwise than he 
 did. That is, the person might be conscious of actions which he 
 did not originate. These, of course, are what are called autom- 
 atisms, such as twitching, automatic writing, and involuntary 
 movements generally; which are not volitions at all. I would 
 also admit the conceivability of volitions, of which consciousness 
 might attest the impossibility of alternative choice. But this 
 fact would not impeach the consciousness of any one else to the 
 contrary regarding himself. It could not extend its value 
 beyond the person having it, and if I had reason to believe that 
 such a consciousness were sufficiently normal I should accept it, 
 
218 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 while I would accept the contrary testimony of any other normal 
 consciousness. This, of course, unfits the appeal to consciousness 
 for objective proof, which, after all, is the one thing needed. But 
 where it has been the invariable and, as Mr. Balfour says, the 
 "inevitable" belief of all men in all ages, circumstances, and 
 condition of development, its testimony cannot be set aside until 
 the logical argument can be purified of all possibility and sus- 
 picion of fallacy. We turn next to an argument that has 
 objective weight. 
 
 4. The Sense of Duty. — This is the famous argument of 
 Kant for the fact of freedom. It has objective value because 
 whoever admits that it exists in any person will find that he 
 must choose between making the idea of duty useless or invalid 
 and admitting the fact of freedom. Now, it is everywhere ad- 
 mitted that the sense of duty, " the categorical imperative/' is a 
 very widespread phenomenon, as general as rational beings in 
 the wider import of that term. What it implies when it exists 
 or can be appreciated at all is that the act enjoined by it is a 
 possible one and yet might not be performed. If all men did 
 what is right there would be no need of such an imperative. 
 But there are constant deviations from the path of virtue, and 
 where temptation may lead the agent aside the sense of duty 
 comes in to command the pursuit of the ideal and assumes that 
 the agent can obey. But if he cannot do so, this feeling is 
 powerless to effect anything. If the will be inevitably set in 
 any direction, it is impossible for the opposite alternative to be 
 chosen, according to necessitarianism, and the sense of duty with 
 the implied ability of alternative choice is an illusion, and it 
 would seem a rather maleficent one at that, judging from the 
 amount of pleasure of which it is supposed to cause the sacrifice. 
 Moreover, an obligation to do the impossible is one of the 
 absurdest suppositions ever entertained by a person professing 
 to be rational. If the sense of duty were assumed to coincide 
 always with the direction of the will we might sustain the thesis 
 of necessitarianism. But such a conception equally proves its 
 uselessness, because the individual's nature is sufficient to 
 
THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 219 
 
 accomplish the result by supposition without the presence of 
 such a phenomenon. It would simply be a fifth wheel to the 
 coach and more likely a useless incumbrance than an aid. 
 Moreover, we know as a fact that it more often opposes natural 
 inclination instead of coinciding with it, and in fact mental 
 economy seems to have intended it to perform this very func- 
 tion, whatever else it may be supposed to do, and if the course 
 opposed to natural inclination be impossible, as necessitarianism 
 must assert, the sense of duty is quite as useless again as in the 
 first case, as being unable to determine the will in a direction 
 opposed to what it must go. The only possible resource left to 
 the necessitarian is to deny the validity of obligation and to 
 declare it an illusion, the ultima Thule of every man who finds 
 himself cornered by logic and fact. The better way, however, 
 is to frankly admit the validity and influence of the sense of 
 duty and to accept what it implies, because the consequence of 
 denying it is such a redudio ad absurdum of necessitarianism as 
 to astonish rational men that the theory could ever have been 
 proposed. By asserting necessitarianism we are obliged to 
 assert the illusory character of consciousness and the sense of 
 duty. By admitting freedom ©f some kind no such arduous 
 task is imposed upon us, but the various facts of our rational 
 nature are completely reconciled. 
 
 V. CONCLUSION.— In concluding the discussion of free-will it 
 is most important to remark that the object of sustaining it has 
 been to furnish a basis for our practical attitude of mind and 
 conduct toward men. If the doctrine of freedom be declared an 
 illusion our business is to eliminate it, its vocabulary, and all its 
 implications from the provinces of philosophy and practical 
 life. It has no business there unless it be true, or at least con- 
 tains important elements of truth. On the other hand, if we 
 adopted the position of the necessitarian without qualification we 
 should find ourselves much embarrassed for a reason for certain 
 institutions which we still insist upon maintaining, namely, pun- 
 ishment and the -distribution of praise and blame. If in deny- 
 ing a man's freedom we mean to say that he is not the cause of 
 
220 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 his own actions it is perfectly absurd to use any measures 
 against him to prevent his conduct, because they could not be 
 effective and because every method of removing an effect must 
 divert or remove the cause. If, then, man is the cause of his own 
 volitions, there is some need for the idea of freedom, if ouly in 
 the sense of spontaneity, in order to determine and to justify our 
 treatment of him. The fact is that there is territory for both 
 doctrines regarding action. Many actions in the world — physical, 
 reflex, automatic, and perhaps some others — are undoubtedly 
 necessitated, beyond all possibility of being free in any sense, as 
 not being caused by the subject in which they occur. But 
 when the subject is a cause of action we require a theoretical 
 position, not only to account for them, but also to serve as a basis 
 for institutions and habits conditioned by it. Hence I contend 
 that there must be room for freedom of some kind, if corrective 
 discipline is to be rational at all. If a man can act only in one 
 w T ay, according to a fixed character, it is useless to try to make 
 him act in any other way. To do so assumes that his nature is 
 not fixed beyond modification by his own capacity of adjustment. 
 There is no use to reply that a change of environment creates a new 
 motive, because by supposition the agent is not capable of 
 any other motive, his character and tendency being fixed or 
 inflexible. A being who is capable of having more than one 
 kind of motive is not only intelligent, but must have the power 
 to. decide between this and the natural one. Otherwise what- 
 ever adjustment he shows must be merely passive. "With this 
 passive adjustment given, of course, nothing can be said or done, 
 because it w T ould be necessitated. But man's conscious adjust- 
 ment to environment is a different thing. Had he no power 
 to act in any but a fixed way, as determined by his ancestry, or 
 by a nature of only one impulse, he could not adjust himself even 
 if he could feel a new motive. The capacity of conscious adjust- 
 ment admitted by all thinkers practically is freedom of the 
 highest type, and it is astonishing that men admitting it cannot 
 get away from the illusions about the necessity of action accord- 
 ing to character and its supposed opposition to the idea of freedom. 
 
THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 221 
 
 Take a practical illustration. We usually say that self-pres- 
 ervation is instinctive, and probably it is. No doubt the largest 
 number of our ordinary actions have reference to the continu- 
 ance and protection of our lives. We seem to have a perfectly 
 uniform and fixed tendency to maintain life as long as it is pos- 
 sible for us to do so. But shall we say that our nature or char- 
 acter is so absolutely fixed that we cannot take our own lives ? 
 Yet this must be the consequence of any necessity for preserving 
 them. But it would be replied that at the moment of suicide 
 the agent could no more help committiug that act than he could 
 preserving his life before. Both are equally necessitated. But 
 what becomes of the idea of the subject's nature or character in 
 the case ? By supposition his character predestines or prede- 
 termines him to preserve life and he cannot destroy it. On the 
 other hand, if suicide attests what his character is, why did it 
 not necessitate the act of self-destruction before? Are we to 
 suppose two opposite characters in the same subject existing side 
 by side and one of them wholly ineffective until a certain 
 moment ? But if character can be ineffective for so long a time, 
 as is usually the case with suicides, why attribute necessary 
 causation to it at all ? In fact such an illustration only proves 
 the absurdity of arguing about the question in terms of " char- 
 acter" until we have determined what we mean by it, and after 
 pointing out the equivocation in it, as we have done, we should 
 perceive that it is no longer serviceable for clear thinking in a 
 problem like free will. Moreover, the case also shows that we 
 are obliged to make room for freedom in some sense in order to 
 prevent our minds from becoming entangled in a mass of ab- 
 surdities ; and this is all . that needs to be effected, though it is a 
 fact that the idea performs other services at the same time. 
 
 But it is not necessary, in sustaining a doctrine of freedom, to 
 hold either that all men are free, or that, if free, they are all 
 equally free, or even that the same man is equally free at all 
 times in regard to all actions connected with his will. For we 
 may be confronted with the doubtful cases involved in insanity 
 and those of imperfect development. So far as the theory and 
 
222 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 conception of freedom are concerned, there may be many indi- 
 vidual exceptions to it without interfering with it as a principle 
 for sane and rational beings. The first object is to show the 
 conditions and nature of freedom. It is another thing to show 
 how many possess it. As defined it is possible over a very wide 
 range of conscious life. The conception of it is not even limited 
 to man, and it may be a question whether it is to be excluded 
 wherever consciousness is found. But in thus admitting the 
 possibility of its very wide prevalence we must not confuse it 
 with responsibility, which we have still to define and discuss. 
 We must keep distinctly in mind the conception to which free- 
 dom is limited, in so far as it is of practical importance to 
 Ethics, and that is the capacity for alternative choice. In this 
 capacity we do not necessarily include either the tendency or 
 the habit of deliberation. For freedom may exist without de- 
 liberation, though we may lack the desired evidence for it. 
 Hence it is not the tendency to think of alternatives and 
 hesitate about them that constitutes freedom, but the con- 
 sciousness that there are alternatives and the capacity for choice. 
 Nor is it indifference to one or the other of the various courses 
 offered to the will. There may be as many of these as possible, 
 and the inclination for a particular one may be as decided as we 
 like, if only in the consciousness of another and the feeling of duty 
 toward it we find the capacity to choose it. Velleity, thus, is 
 not mere equilibrium mechanically or morally conceived, which 
 is the notion often entertained, but it is the capacity for active or 
 voluntary adjustment to environment. This exists without a 
 doubt to all who take care to analyze the problem correctly. 
 But it could not be a fact if man were the mere puppet of that 
 influence, or if his nature were so inflexible that he had capacity 
 for only one kind and direction of his conduct. Once admit the 
 capacity for conscious adjustment to a changing environment, 
 which we described as a quality of rational beings, and the 
 whole case, of freedom is proved. It may not be so with respon- 
 sibility, but that we have still to consider. We have, however, 
 to establish its first and indispensable condition, which is the 
 
THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL 223 
 
 possibility of choice or of alternative choice, and if the facts pro- 
 duced do not prove it as defined, it will have to remain un- 
 solved until better arguments can be produced. But if the case 
 is made out in its favor, we have a basis for responsibility and 
 punishment as applied in the course of history, and that is a 
 very important desideratum in the theory of Ethics. The 
 extent of this importance will be seen when we take up those 
 problems which are now to follow. 
 
 References. — Aristotle : Nichomachean Ethics, Book III. ; Calderwood : 
 Handbook of Moral Philosophy, Part III., pp. 170-205 (Fourteenth 
 Edition) ; Mackenzie : Manual of Ethics, Chap. VIII. ; Alexander : Moral 
 Order and Progress, Book III., Chap. III., Sec. II., pp. 336-341 ; Martineau : 
 Study of Religion, Vol. II., Book III., Chap. II. ; Murray : Introduction 
 to Ethics, Chap. III. ; Dewey : Outlines of Ethics, Chap. III., pp. 158-166 ; 
 Carpenter : Mental Physiology (Preface to the Fourth Edition) ; Hazard 
 (Rowland G.) : Freedom in Mind and Willing, and Causation and Free- 
 dom in Willing ; Sidgwick : Methods of Ethics, Book I., Chap. V. ; Fowl- 
 er and Wilson : Principles of Morals, Vol. II., Chap. IX. ; J. S. Mill : 
 Logic, Book VI., Chap. II. ; Hume : Treatise of the Passions, Part III., 
 Sees. I.- II. ; Bowne : Principles of Ethics, Chap. VI. ; Sully : The Human 
 Mind, Vol. II., Chaps. XVII.-XVIIL, especially pp. 292-295 ; Huxley : 
 Essays, Methods, and Eesults, pp. 199-251; Spencer: Principles of 
 Psychology, Vol. I., Part IV., Chap. IX., pp. 495-506 ; Philosophic Re- 
 view, Vol. III., pp. 1-13, 278-288, 385-411; Psychological Review, 
 Vol. L, pp. 217-229; T. H. Green: Prolegomena to Ethics, Book I., 
 Chap. III., and Book II., Chap. I. ; Leslie Stephen : Science of Ethics, 
 Chap. VII., pp. 278-293 ; see same author, An Agnostic's Apology, 
 pp. 18-25. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 RESPONSIBILITY AND PUNISHMENT. 
 
 I. INTRODUCTION. — Freedom, Responsibility, and Punish- 
 ment are questions that go together in Ethics, and the first con- 
 ditions the second, and the second the third, and all of them 
 are very complex conceptions. We have found how complex 
 that of freedom is, and responsibility is much more complicated, 
 though usually identified with freedom. Punishment, strictly 
 considered as a process or defined as a mode of inflicting pain, 
 seems very simple. But in its object and methods it appears 
 quite complex and is determined accordingly by various condi- 
 tions. The important general principle to be kept in mind here, 
 however, is that both responsibility and punishment must go 
 overboard if freedom in some sense is not true, while the inno- 
 vation which we shall introduce into the doctrine is that an 
 additional element must be added to freedom in order to create 
 responsibility in its full extent, or in the sense in which Ethics 
 usually employs the term. This is to say, that freedom may 
 exist and yet responsibility not be realized at all, though the 
 converse is not true. Let us examine the question. 
 
 II. RESPONSIBILITY. — We have remarked that freedom 
 and responsibility are very often confused with each other, and 
 that the controversy centering about the former properly per- 
 tains to the latter. Moreover, k is much more complex than 
 the notion of freedom and is conditioned by every form of it. 
 That is to say, a man's responsibility is very much affected by 
 the influence of environment, confirmed habits, hereditary incli- 
 nations, and the peculiarities of character, while his freedom as 
 capacity for adjustment may not be. We shall be told, then, 
 
 224 
 
RESPONSIBILITY AND PUNISHMENT 225 
 
 * 
 that the long argument for freedom has very little importance, 
 
 if the claim of the necessitarian against freedom be admitted to 
 apply against responsibility. It will be said that this is only 
 admitting the case under another name, that after all, what the 
 necessitarian meant is true. If responsibility is to be subjected 
 to all sorts of limitations from both internal and external influ- 
 ences, and if it is admitted to be absent in cases where there is 
 perfect freedom, it will be said we have not proved w T hat we seem 
 to have proved, and that the necessitarian has the right concep- 
 tion of the problem in spite of his language and of the arguments 
 we have directed against him. 
 
 This, we grant, would be a fair w T ay of putting the matter as 
 long as our analysis remains incomplete. But when we have 
 shown what enters into responsibility as usually understood, 
 and what freedom without responsibility conditions in existing 
 social and moral institutions, which would be w T holly unjustifiable 
 without freedom, the force of that criticism will be entirely 
 lost. What we complain of is, that philosophers have confused 
 two wholly distinct things, one conditioning the other, by iden- 
 tifying them ; and then by denying one have denied the other 
 by implication, responsibility implies freedom of some kind, 
 and in its proper form contains much more at the same time. 
 But many of the arguments employed against freedom have no 
 relevancy whatever to any question of the capacity of alternative 
 choice, but only to responsibility, and in showing man's limita- 
 tions in regard to responsibility, while assuming it to be the same 
 as freedom, the necessitarian cuts away the foundations of institu- 
 tions which neither he nor the freedomist will surrender. Hence, 
 so far from admitting in effect the claim of the necessitarian the 
 position here defended only makes it possible to be consistent in 
 theory and practice, while it points out a new and humane conse- 
 quence involved in the partial truth represented by necessitarian- 
 ism and w T hich its advocates seem not to have suspected. This 
 is because they have not analyzed their problem. The impor- 
 tance of this will appear in the proper place. We must before 
 discussing its practical meaning further define and analyze the 
 
226 ELEMENTS OF*ETHICS 
 
 < 
 
 conception, remembering, however, that we shall have a direct 
 reference to the methods of Punishment. 
 
 1st. Definition of Responsibility. — The conception is too com- 
 plex to be stated adequately in brief terms. But it will be helpful 
 to indicate that its primary element is imputability ; indeed this 
 term is often taken as identical with it. Etymologically re- 
 sponsibility means a reply to a charge. In ancient law courts 
 the accused had to answer to the charge made against him, 
 and this was called his "responsibility." But the idea w T as 
 transferred to him as the guilty party and came to denote 
 that he had not only to "answer for," but also "to account 
 for," the crime, which meant that he should pay the fine or 
 penalty. The crime was imputed to him as its cause. From 
 the imputation of crime, the term finally came to denote in 
 Ethics the imputation of any act, good or bad, to the indi- 
 vidual, and so denoted causal capacity, with the possibility of 
 alternative choice. From this it passed to the idea that the 
 agent was morally praiseworthy or blameworthy in his voluntary 
 acts, a conception wholly distinct from freedom, but conditioned 
 by it. But as the term has several loose significations the 
 broadest meaning which we can give covering all of them is 
 immutability, or the reference of certain qualities to the agent 
 which make him liable to the consequences of his actions. But the 
 dfetinct senses in which this is true, and the limitations under 
 which it can be practically applied, must be determined before 
 defining it more fully. We often use the term responsibility in 
 a metaphorical sense, and often as identical with freedom, when 
 in fact it is simple imputability which we have in mind. We 
 must, therefore, examine the three forms of imputability as the 
 generic idea of freedom and responsibility. 
 
 2d. Forms of Imputability. — There are three forms of this 
 conception in the common usage of language, though the term 
 which does duty for them is responsibility, which we wish here 
 to give its proper definite meaning distinct from freedom. The 
 three forms of imputability which are to be separately dis- 
 cussed are causal, elective, and moral imputability. The last is 
 
 
RESPONSIBILITY AND PUNISHMENT 227 
 
 synonymous with responsibility. Let us take up each one in 
 its order. 
 
 1. Causal Imputability. — This is nothing but the refer- 
 ence of an act to its cause, and in the application of the term 
 responsibility to describe it, as is done at times, there is nothing 
 but a metaphorical sense given to it. Thus we say " the weather 
 is responsible for the floods," or "the moonlight is responsible for 
 much sentimental poetry," or " Bruin is responsible for his good 
 behavior," etc. But probably very little confusion in Ethics is 
 occasioned by an application so distinct from the proper sense of 
 responsibility. Such a use does not distinguish at all between 
 necessary and free causes. It applies equally to physical 
 events and to spontaneous actions, like automatic, instinctive, and 
 possibly impulsive movements. But rejecting the application 
 of responsibility to the subjects of such actions does not re- 
 move the value of using the phrase causal imputability ; for 
 this expression means to imply a certain method of dealing with 
 such causes or agents in the economy of social order. The 
 organization of society requires that certain events and actions 
 be prevented, if possible, and this can be effected only by treat- 
 ing their causes. If we can remove the causes we reasonably 
 expect to get rid of the effects. In the application of methods to 
 this end there is no consideration of rights or duties — that is, there 
 are no limitations to our choice of methods — until we come to 
 sentient beings, where we are supposed to treat, at least the 
 higher and more harmless order of them, with due respect and 
 compassion. If they can be said to have any rights at all, we 
 have to treat them accordingly ; and the same can be said of ir- 
 rational members of the human race, such as the insane, 
 imbeciles, etc. Throwing out physical causes as not involving 
 any limitations of method whatever, causal imputability, as 
 representing spontaneity in the agent, will determine its own 
 method of treating such agents, of permitting their liberty when 
 their spontaneous actions do. not conflict with social welfare, and 
 of preventing them when they do so conflict. There is, there- 
 fore, an important place for the idea of causal imputability 
 
228 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 in ethical doctrine, since it enables us to use the freedom of spon- 
 taneity for the justification of a certain policy toward individuals 
 having it and having nothing else. 
 
 2. Elective Imputability. — This is the imputation of 
 actions to beings who possess elective choice or velleity. It is 
 identical with freedom as w T e have defended it in the course of 
 our discussion, and it probably exists to some extent wherever 
 consciousness is found, and certainly in its full extent wherever 
 reflective or deliberative consciousness exists. Here again the 
 term responsibility is purely metaphorical in its application to 
 the case, because this form of imputability does not necessarily 
 require a moral nature to. be present. The capacity for alter- 
 native choice is all that is necessary for it. This will cover all 
 the voluntary actions of at least the higher order of animal ex- 
 istence, and such of the insane and imbecile as can reasonably 
 be supposed to have retained their elective power over alterna- 
 tives. This condition will determine distinct methods of treat- 
 ing such agents in the social economy, as compared with those 
 who possess nothing but spontaneity. Freedom, as we have de- 
 fined it, is possessed in the full measure by agents to whom 
 elective imputability is applicable, because they are the same 
 thing in different relations, freedom or velleity being looked at 
 as a capacity of the subject and elective imputability as a 
 liability to certain consequences for his conduct. No punish- 
 ment, strictly speaking, can be applied to such agents, nor re- 
 wards of an opposite kind. They are amenable only to such 
 methods as will either do nothing but prevent their conflict 
 with social order, or will both prevent it and modify conduct so 
 that the agent can have his liberty. But there is no attribution 
 of praise or blame to such agents, for they require more than 
 mere freedom to be moral. That is an indispensable condition, 
 but it is not the only one. 
 
 3. Moral Imputability, or Kesponsibility. — This is a 
 much more complex conception than the others and must be 
 considered very fully, because we wish to distinguish it quite 
 radically from freedom, with which it is too often confused. 
 
RESPONSIBILITY AND PUNISHMENT 229 
 
 To define it, therefore, we have : Responsibility is that form of 
 imputabilitij which involves the existence of conscience and free- 
 dom. Conscience is here taken as equivalent to a moral nature, 
 or the capacity for distinguishing between right and wrong, and 
 of feeling a sense of obligation. Freedom also is taken in every 
 sense of the term, including liberty, spontaneity, and velleity. 
 The difference between responsibility and freedom, as defended 
 above, is apparent from this definition, and it explains why we 
 regarded the freedom of velleity as conditioning responsibility 
 and yet as possibly existing without it. The importance of the 
 distinction will appear when w T e come to consider the methods 
 of punishment. We must first examine the nature, conditions, 
 and limitations of responsibility as it has been defined. 
 
 3d. Nature and Conditions of Responsibility. — The nature 
 of responsibility is stated generally in the definition of it. 
 What we are to remember and make clear before entering into 
 its conditions is the manner in which it is to be distinguished 
 from freedom as the capacity of elective choice. This is simply 
 the capacity of voluntary adjustment to environment and may 
 not be more, though it includes the power to elect independently 
 of external influences. But responsibility is the capacity for 
 electing both freely and righteously. The former may exist 
 perfectly in non-moral and irrational beings, taking the latter to 
 include the insane, imbecile, and certain classes of criminals, 
 while the latter can exist only in moral agents. The constitu- 
 tion and conditions of moral agency or responsibility, therefore, 
 will appear in the following important data. 
 
 1. Psychological Freedom. — This means that the agent 
 must have both spontaneity and velleity ; that is, be the cause of 
 his volitions and capable of alternative election. A man who is 
 not the cause of his actions is certainly not one to whom we 
 could impute them, though he would not yet be properly respon- 
 sible if we could say nothing more than that he is the cause of them. 
 An illustration is found in instinctive, automatic, and probably 
 certain forms of insane actions. The agent is not regarded as 
 responsible in such cases because the element of rationality is 
 
230 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 excluded from them. Rationality is essential to responsibility, 
 whatever else may be included. Again, a man who cannot pos- 
 sibly elect a volition other than a fixed one is an automaton, if 
 he acts at all, and cannot be responsible, because responsibility 
 implies elective capacity at least. No one disputes this, though 
 it may contain more. But we certainly exclude it from actions 
 not involving that capacity for the reason that we expect such 
 a possibility with rational beings. Deny it and whatever else 
 the agent may possess he cannot be responsible. 
 
 2. Physico-political Freedom, or Liberty. — This, as 
 already defined, is exemption from restraint, and is a very im- 
 portant condition of responsibility, because we have pointed out 
 that psychological freedom — that is, both spontaneity and velleity 
 — may exist in spite of all conceivable restraints. It may not be 
 effective in producing any result where compulsion may arrest 
 the physical movements of the body. But the choice and voli- 
 tion may be executed without regard to restraints. Responsi- 
 bility, however, can exist only to the extent to which the sub- 
 ject is exempt from restraints determining the conditions under 
 which he must act. Hence it is proper to say that liberty is a 
 condition of responsibility, but not of spontaneity nor of velleity. 
 An illustration will make this clear. The best example will be 
 that of the slave. We are accustomed to saying that the slave 
 is not a free agent. This is not because he cannot disobey his 
 master, or cannot act in any other way than a fixed or pre- 
 scribed one, but because his course of action is under restraint, 
 is determined for him. The master has laid down the conditions 
 under which the slave shall choose with impunity. Hence free- 
 dom in this sense means choice with impunity, or non-liability 
 for consequences that are voluntarily accepted ; it does not mean 
 choice absolutely considered. The slave is placed between what 
 he must do and what he must accept as a consequence, not be- 
 tween alternatives of his own making. Hence he is not respon- 
 sible for the act, the necessity of which has been fixed by his 
 superior. The law and common sense have always treated this 
 class as exempt from responsibility in all obligations which are 
 
RESPONSIBILITY AND PUNISHMENT 231 
 
 not imposed by their own wills, and in all actions which are pre- 
 scribed under penalty by the master. Yet they are free in the 
 psychological sense, as free as any one else could be who is not 
 under a master. It is precisely the same with all agents under 
 similar limitations. The officers of the law, for instance, are not 
 responsible for their duties or for the acts made necessary to 
 fulfill those duties. The law is an expression of other wills than 
 their own, and the officer after election to his position, or the 
 acceptance of it, has no responsibility for the acts prescribed by 
 the law, because he has not himself determined the alternatives 
 between which he must choose. If the law be wrong, and the 
 officer knows or is capable of knowing that it is wrong, he may 
 then be indirectly responsible, where other considerations do not 
 interfere, for accepting a position which involves a wrong 
 that he can prevent. But if no act or choice of his can prevent 
 the fulfillment of the law, and if he be liable to punishment for 
 not fulfilling it, he has no responsibility in the case. This rests 
 upon the law-makers. But it is not necessary to follow a mat- 
 ter of this kind into all its details. The main point to be illus- 
 trated is that a man's responsibility for an act depends upon the 
 alternatives between which he is placed quite as much as it 
 depends upon his capacity of electing between them. This is 
 why there must be at least a certain measure of liberty or ex- 
 emption from restraint, as well as freedom or velleity, in order 
 to secure responsibility, and it does not matter from what source 
 the restraint or limitation comes, provided only that it is a 
 superior power which subjects the agent to limitations that affect 
 his personal welfare, perfection, rights, or other immunities. 
 The nature and extent of those limitations will be considered 
 presently. For the moment it is enough to know that external 
 influences or a restriction of liberty that does not affect the ab- 
 stract capacity of elective choice may interfere with responsibility, 
 and that, other things being equal, with the possibility of volun- 
 tary adjustment to environment, this responsibility will coincide 
 with the liberty here indicated, or appear to be identical with it. 
 It is this which has given rise to the confusion between freedom 
 
232 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 psychologically considered and responsibility, and consequently 
 the denial of freedom, the moment that responsibility was found to 
 be limited by external influences. It grew out of an ordinary 
 illusion of identity in regard to two things denoted by the same 
 term, and then a fallacy of equivocation in the argument which 
 the controversy about free will involved. 
 
 One thing to be remarked under this topic is the relation of 
 responsibility to the subject's rights and duties, a relation which 
 is not involved in free will, though conditioned by it. We 
 assume that a man has the right of self-preservation, of self-real- 
 ization and culture within certain limits, and that he has certain 
 duties resting upon him. These duties, and therefore the subject's 
 responsibilities, are dependent, not only upon the possibility of 
 his electing for them, but also upon the possibility of performing 
 them when he does elect ; that is, upon his " freedom " from an 
 alternative which conditions his welfare in another more impor- 
 tant aspect. Thus I may say that it is a man's duty to exercise 
 the right of the elective franchise, and he is responsible for not 
 so doing. But this is wholly dependent upon its relation to the 
 risks of health, life, or property involved, even though he have 
 the power to perform in the case. And so with a man's rights. 
 If external influences impose an alternative that conflicts with 
 the subject's rights, though free to choose or reject this alter- 
 native, he is not responsible for it, because he is not responsible 
 for or has not determined the conditions under which he must 
 choose in the case. This is the most important condition of the 
 responsibility, while it has nothing to do with the capacity of 
 elective choice. It is not a condition existing in any absolute 
 degree, but is subject to indefinable limitations. It is only to say 
 that responsibility will exist in the proportion in which man has 
 the opportunity to determine the alternatives from which he 
 shall choose. If they are determined for him he requires nothing 
 more than freedom for adjustment and survival. But if he can 
 determine them himself, if he can propose a moral ideal whose 
 realization is not excluded by the necessity of consulting lower 
 ends for survival, and if his own personality is not at stake in 
 
RESPONSIBILITY AND PUNISHMENT 233 
 
 the case, while his freedom, psychologically considered, is not 
 affected one way or the other, his responsibility is so affected, 
 because it depends more on the power to act independently than 
 in spite of environment. Or, to put the same thought in a way 
 that shows how freedom and responsibility have been confused, 
 we can say that freedom of will depends on capacity for elective 
 choice, and responsibility upon the opportunity of action without 
 objective limitations. 
 
 3. Conscience or Moral Capacity. — Kesponsibility is a 
 characteristic that is not attributed either to the animals or to 
 irrational men, such as the insane, the imbecile, and certain 
 classes of criminals. The main reason for the fact is that moral 
 reason is excluded from these classes. The principal distinctive 
 feature of man, compared with animal life, is the fact that he 
 has a well-developed moral nature, and it is often supposed that 
 there is no connecting link between the two classes because of 
 this fact. AVe shall not go so far. as to determine this question, 
 as it has no bearing upon the theory of responsibility, but only 
 upon its application. The present purpose is gained if we can 
 insist upon the enormous distance between the typical species of 
 both classes of existence, and note that it is marked by the pres- 
 ence in man of what goes by the name of a moral nature. This is 
 the chief factor of responsibility because it is determined by the 
 matter of praise and blame, or merit and demerit. It involves 
 all that is still to be examined more carefully in the study of 
 conscience, but which may here be summed up in intelligence, 
 moral feeling, and the sense of duty. Conscience is simply the 
 mind acting as a determinant of the ideal, of the choice de- 
 manded for its realization, and the monitor of the will in its voli- 
 tions. Man is responsible in proportion as it is present and 
 active in his life. To show this we have only to see how we ad- 
 judge the conduct of children, of savages, of the illiterate, of the 
 passionate, of the defective classes, in all of which the moral 
 faculties either do not exist or are less developed and active in 
 their lives. We do not think them less free than mature and well- 
 developed species of the race, because their power of choice is the 
 
234 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 same as those ; but their responsibility differs because it is so 
 much more dependent upon the power to determine the values 
 of alternatives than upon the power to elect from them. 
 Conscience is the power which effects this estimation, and until it 
 does this, and imposes an obligation, true moral responsibility 
 does not exist. The term can only be used metaphorically to 
 describe any other action, no matter how free it may be. Re- 
 sponsibility is thus conditioned much more by the range of 
 knowledge, as applied to moral distinctions, than upon merely 
 conative capacity or elective choice. Freedom requires knowl- 
 edge, consciousness ; but it requires only to know what the par- 
 ticular alternatives are from which the choice is made, while- 
 responsibility requires, in addition, to know the moral quality of 
 the alternatives. It is thus the hind of knowledge which effects 
 responsibility, and w T e may contrast it with freedom by saying 
 that the primary element of freedom is power to do, while that of 
 responsibility is morality. This is clearly illustrated by the 
 large class of persons who are exempt from praise or blame on 
 the ground that they do not know the character of their conduct, 
 and who, from the existence of moral and intellectual defects, 
 cannot be expected to know it. Even animals may have power 
 to elect, but not to distinguish right and wrong. 
 
 Still another way exists to show the distinction between free- 
 dom and responsibility. We do not attach praise or blame to 
 actions unless the agent is capable of knowing their character. 
 He may know what the alternatives of choice are, and have the 
 power of choice, but unless he knows or can be made to know 
 that one of them is morally preferable to another we do not 
 praise or blame him for them. Praise and blame attach only to 
 moral agents, and not to those who are nothing more than free 
 agents. The former quality involves the existence of conscience, 
 and the latter does not, though it is a condition and element of 
 the effectiveness of conscience when it does exist. 
 
 It is also important to remark that responsibility exists in dif- 
 ferent degrees, according to the degree of development possessed 
 by conscience. It is not an absolute quality existing in the 
 
RESPONSIBILITY AND PUNISHMENT 235 
 
 same degree in all persons or not at all. It has all varieties of 
 degrees according, on the one hand, to the influence of environ- 
 ment, and on the other, to the extent of moral development. But 
 throwing aside the influence of external agencies, the modifying 
 influence of developmeDt is shown in two different ways. First, 
 responsibility is absolutely conditioned by the capacity for know- 
 ing that there is a right and wrong, and second, its degrees are 
 conditioned by the extent of actual knowledge regarding the 
 nature of particular actions. There can be no responsibility 
 whatever unless the agent can appreciate or be taught to appre- 
 ciate what is meant by right and wrong, but it is not completed 
 by this merely general distinction. The extent of it depends 
 upon the agent's kDowledge of the particular acts that are con- 
 nected with the distinction. Hence there are two different forms 
 of responsibility which determine degrees of punishment to be 
 examined presently. The first requires that the agent have 
 the capacity for estimating moral values, and the second that he 
 know what actions agree or disagree with them. In other words, 
 the first and absolute condition of responsibility is the capacity 
 to know a moral end, and the second is actual knowledge of the 
 means to it. Thus I require in a child that it be able to know 
 that cruelty is wrong, that it is a bad' end to pursue, before I 
 can think of holding it responsible for such an act. On the 
 other hand, even if it knows that cruelty is condemnabie it is 
 not responsible for that result if it does not know that given 
 actions terminate in it. This is the distinction between the 
 intention as applied to ends and intention as applied to acts. 
 It everywhere holds good, and is reckoned with both in courts of 
 law and the judgments of practical life. Exemption can be pur- 
 chased only by proving ignorance either of moral distinctions or 
 of the character of the acts involving them. To summarize the 
 conditions of the two different degrees of responsibility, the first 
 depends upon the capacity for moral knowledge and the second 
 upon the extent of it. 
 
 4. Rational Equilibrium and Supremacy. — By this con- 
 dition of responsibility I mean subjective control corresponding 
 
236 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 to objective freedom or liberty. t The less perfectly developed 
 species of men undoubtedly are influenced by passion, instinct, or 
 hereditary evil inclinations to an extent that may well handicap 
 them in a struggle requiring a strong moral nature to survive 
 in it. They may be able to choose, to resist these forces, and 
 actually may elect for the wrong, conscious that the opposite 
 course is the one enjoined by the social organism. But the 
 better elements of reason and moral inclination may be kept 
 down so that neither prudence nor conscience operate effectively, 
 and in all such cases humane minds act indulgently in the 
 distribution of praise and blame or responsibility. Where the 
 organic nature of the subject, whether physical or mental, keeps 
 up before consciousness a craving desire for some object without 
 interference of the subject's will, there is a force that may pro- 
 duce an act that we regard as wrong and yet we shall have to 
 limit the agent's responsibility, mainly because the act may not 
 be a deliberate choice or volition at all, but a mere automatism, or 
 it may be a mixture of both. Organic cravings for which the 
 agent is not responsible, with their predisposition to check de- 
 liberation, do much to determine the alternatives between which 
 the agent has to choose before he has time to reflect on their 
 character, and though he is perfectly free he will be responsible 
 only to the extent in which reason and conscience enter into the 
 determination of the choice. If impulse, passion, instinct, and 
 hereditary inclinations act dynamically alone, there will be no 
 responsibility and also no freedom but that of spontaneity. But 
 if they are accompanied by consciousness, they will be free 
 in proportion to its influence on the result, and responsible 
 in proportion to the activity of conscience and its power to effect 
 an equilibrium against natural appetites. It is here again that 
 freedom and responsibility have been confused, and the former 
 conceived as indifference to motives. Now, responsibility does 
 require somethiug like indifference, balance, or equilibrium. 
 But it is not indifference to motives, but to organic tendencies, 
 which act as restraints upon deliberation much as objective 
 restraints limit the opportunities of free choice, as it is called. 
 
RESPONSIBILITY AND PUNISHMENT 237 
 
 There can be no indifference to motives in the last analysis, 
 for reason must have its own motives ; nor must the indifference 
 be freedom from incliuation and emotional desire altogether. It 
 must be exemption from their impulsive, reflex, or automatic 
 effect upon action. The equilibrium here considered, therefore, 
 is not a motiveless consciousness, but a deliberative consciousness, 
 which can make the subject's own feelings and natural desires an 
 object of restraint and control ivithout a resort to limitations of 
 objective freedom or liberty. This is only another way of saying 
 that moral perception is more or less a condition of responsi- 
 bility, but not of freedom as capacity for elective choice. The 
 inhibition of all the reflex, impulsive, and automatic forces of the 
 system, whether physical or mental, is necessary to give deliber- 
 ative reason^ control of the field, and the balance, indifference, or 
 equilibrium of which we speak, is only the subject's exemption 
 from the play of mechanical and organic impulses which would 
 prevent his actions from being strict volitions, and more par- 
 ticularly from being volitions with an accompaniment of moral 
 consciousness. Action under the motivation of reason will 
 condition freedom ; under the motivation of moral reason or 
 conscience it will determine responsibility. 
 
 4th. Limitations of Responsibility. — After what has been said 
 of the conditions of responsibility its limitations require to 
 be little more than enumerated. They are respectively the 
 opposite of its conditions and may be dismissed briefly as 
 follows : 
 
 1. The Influence of Environment. — This limitation is not 
 due to the mere presence of external agencies, but their power 
 to render impossible the realization of anything but self-pres- 
 ervation. Thus, where economic conditions involve the expen- 
 diture of the subject's whole time and energies in bare self-support 
 he is not responsible for the failure to realize any higher good. 
 He will be responsible only to the extent to which he is not com- 
 pelled to act in self-defense, assuming that he has the right to it, 
 and to wmich he can determine as well as choose his end for him- 
 self. 
 
238 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 2. Inherited Impulses. — It is not heredity per se that 
 limits responsibility, because even this might be inherited. But 
 it is the inheritance of organic tendencies which reflect a defec- 
 tive conscience, or which more or less predetermine the alterna- 
 tives from which the subject is to choose. We make a man 
 responsible for his habits because we assume that he originates 
 them and that he is aware of their character. But he is not 
 responsible for — that is, neither originated nor knew the nature 
 of — the cravings which offer his will an object of volition. To the 
 extent, therefore, to which moral balance or the sovereignty of 
 reason and conscience are subordinated to irrational instincts, 
 the agent will be limited in his responsibility, though not in his 
 capacity of choice, under the necessity of adjustment. 
 
 3. Defective Knowledge. — Ignorance, if it can be proved, 
 is always a legitimate plea of defense against responsibility. 
 The agent may know what is right and wrong in the abstract, 
 the ultimate end which he ought to seek and that which he 
 should avoid ; but he may not be sufficiently conscious, owing to 
 no fault of his own, of the particular conduct which is causally 
 connected with that end, and hence not being involved in his 
 intentions, the connection cannot be a basis of responsibility in 
 the case. 
 
 4. Defective Moral Capacity. — A man may have a 
 good intellect and a wide knowledge of facts and of the relation 
 between means and ends, but if he lacks the capacity to estimate 
 or feel the value and imperativeness of moral ends, if he lacks 
 that conjunction of social, intellectual, and moral instincts, so 
 called, which determine the value of certain ends to be realized, 
 he cannot be regarded as completely responsible. His conduct 
 can only be prudential, not moral, and his responsibility will 
 extend only so far as his moral nature is developed. 
 
 The only criticism likely against all this will be the charge of 
 the necessitarian, that we practically admit his whole argument 
 by granting these important limitations to responsibility. This, 
 as we have already admitted, appears very fair. But it wholly 
 mistakes the issue, while as a matter of fact we do not suppose 
 
RESPONSIBILITY AND PUNISHMENT 239 
 
 the limitations as universal as the necessitarian does the absence 
 of freedom. "We have merely shown the conditions under which 
 responsibility must be limited or absent, and probably the pro- 
 portion of mankind wholly without it is very small, while if 
 we admit that it may exist, as we think it does, in indefinite 
 degrees, there is room for selecting typical instances for illustrat- 
 ing and justifying moral and social policy in its manner of deal- 
 ing with men. But the issue which the necessitarian mistakes 
 is, whether man can choose between two alternatives of which he 
 is conscious, while the arguments which he produces against this 
 possibility are drawn almost wholly from questions of morality 
 and responsibility, which are much more limited than freedom. 
 Freedom, as here defined, is as universal as consciousness, at 
 least the deliberative consciousness, which is not limited even to 
 man ; but responsibility can be found only where we find moral 
 capacity. Hence, though we admit limitations to this, we rely 
 upon a more universal freedom as the very condition of moraliz- 
 ing man by education and discipline, while the necessitarian in 
 denying freedom, which he himself defines as capacity for elec- 
 tive choice, cuts off every possibility of this result and with it 
 the basis of every institution aiming to accomplish it. This is 
 apparent in the system of Mr. Spencer. On the one hand, he' 
 says that the primary influences which have given rise to moral 
 consciousness have been religious, political, and social restraints, 
 and on the other, he denies the freedom of the will. But if man 
 is not free and cannot choose any other course than that pre- 
 scribed by his character, then his character is either not that of 
 a free agent or he cannot modify it by any submission to restraint. 
 Political, social, and religious restraints can do nothing with a 
 man who cannot freely and voluntarily adjust himself to them. 
 It is precisely because he is free that we impose restraints and 
 inflict punishment upon man in order to moralize him. Other- 
 wise we could not expect to modify him or his conduct. Hence 
 as a condition of developing moral capacity, or at least moral 
 habits in the agent, we must have freedom or velleity, which is 
 a more universal quality of intelligence than moral conscious- 
 
240 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 ness, and with the dawn and growth of moral consciousness will 
 come responsibility in its appropriate degree. 
 
 III. PUNISHMENT. — Punishment, again, is a term used in 
 more than one sense, and, like freedom and responsibility, re- 
 quires to be analyzed. This will be done by considering its 
 definition and divisions. 
 
 1st. Definition of Punishment. — Punishment, strictly speak- 
 ing, is the infliction of pain for wrongdoing. This, however, does 
 not fully state its object, while modern writers Avish to distinguish 
 its proper object from that which is too often connected with the 
 infliction of pain, namely, vindictiveness. Etymologically the 
 term denotes the infliction of pain, and remotely is taken from 
 a root which implies that the object of it was to produce peni- 
 tence for wrongdoing. It is synonymous with penalty or con- 
 sequences imposed upon action to prevent its recurrence. At 
 first this penalty or punishment was inflicted with the purpose 
 of avenging the wronged party. It was done by the process of 
 requital in kind (eye for eye, tooth for tooth), but in course of 
 time an equivalent was demanded and received as a substitute, 
 and quit money was accepted as adequate compensation for in- 
 jury in most cases. The term punishment took on the new 
 .meaning and retains it still, though it has not lost the significa- 
 tion of the infliction of pain for the sake of satisfying vindictive- 
 ness or moral indignation. But it is precisely this mental 
 attitude which a high civilization wishes to eliminate from its 
 methods of punishment, and hence, though it retains the inflic- 
 tion of pain in its policy, it does not inflict it for pain's sake, but 
 only as a means to the moralization of the individual, when the 
 penalty can be removed. Thus pain is not the object' but an 
 incident of its existence. Hence in its broadest sense to denote 
 what modern practice and conceptions would have it mean, 
 punishment is the imposition of restraints with the infliction of 
 pain because of wrongdoing and for the purpose of prevention 
 and correction ; rarely, if ever, for retribution. This is a very 
 complex conception and comprehends several objects which are 
 distinct from each other and depend upon different conditions. 
 
RESPONSIBILITY AND PUNISHMENT 241 
 
 But it is noticeable that it aims to eliminate the original, conception 
 and object of punishment. We may, therefore, take up the kinds 
 and conditions of punishment as comprehensively understood. 
 
 A fundamental feature in determining the conception of 
 punishment is the fact that no one applies the term to processes 
 attempting to affect the conduct of animals or of imbeciles and 
 the insane. Punishment denotes a method of treating free and 
 responsible agents. We may inflict pain upon animals and men 
 whom we do not regard as rational, but we never mistake this 
 for punishment. We inflict it either out of malice or for the 
 purpose of preventing certain irregularities of conduct detri- 
 mental to human welfare. Often the pain is nothing but a 
 necessary incident of our object. But punishment in no case 
 expresses either the nature or the object of the process. It 
 can properly apply only to moral beings and is an incident of 
 responsibility. 
 
 2d. Kinds and Objects of Punishment. — What are called 
 the kinds and objects of punishment are expressed in the same 
 terms. They cover every means employed by man in his social 
 capacity, or in the capacity of exercising legitimate authority, 
 to regulate human conduct and to protect the order which he 
 endeavors to establish. But they can all be resolved into three 
 forms. 
 
 1. Prevention, or Preventive Restraints. — Prevention, 
 strictly speaking, is not a form but an object of punishment. 
 This was practically made clear by the fact that punishment can 
 strictly apply only to free and responsible beings, freedom here 
 expressing the capacity of alternative choice. But a policy of 
 preventing wrongdoing can apply to beings who are without 
 these qualities and yet be an object of the treatment applied to 
 those who have them. This matter aside, however, what we 
 wish chiefly to remark is the condition of applying even preven- 
 tive restraint. It is the fact that even prevention cannot be 
 applied to the conduct of beings who are not the cause of their 
 own volitions. Necessitarianism of the objective sort, which 
 magnifies the determining influence of environment, cannot even 
 
242 ELEMENTS OE ETHICS 
 
 apply or justify the application of preventive methods to agents 
 who do not originate their own acts. Prevention must, to be 
 rational, always apply to causes and not to effects. If man's 
 conduct be bad, we can prevent its recurrence only by removing 
 its cause, and if man does not cause it, he cannot be the subject 
 of preventive restraint. The only thing amenable to such a sys- 
 tem is the cause of the act, and hence man must at least have 
 the freedom of spontaneity before we can morally justify any 
 method of imposing restraints or inflicting pain upon him. But 
 preventive methods do not go beyond this. They do not stop 
 to consider whether the agent is free and responsible in the 
 higher sense. They only consider his value in the social and moral 
 economy, and subordinate his existence, rights, and liberties to 
 that economy. Thus if an insane man commit a murder, we do 
 not punish him. We confine him under restraint to prevent 
 similar deeds in the future on his part. We do not attempt 
 either to reform him or to make his restraint an example to 
 others, for the reason that he is not responsible. We may 
 attempt to cure him of his disease, but not to correct his will. It 
 is the same with animals and all agents that may be considered 
 simply as the causes of their actions, and nothing more. We re- 
 strict their liberties ; that is, confine them, and aim to do nothing 
 but prevent the evils they are capable of producing. But we do 
 so only upon the supposition that objective necessitarianism 
 is false, and that the agents are free to the extent of sponta- 
 neity ; that is, of being the causes of their own actions. This 
 is one practical count against the unqualified adoption of necessi- 
 tarianism. 
 
 2. Correction, or Corrective Discipline. — Correction, 
 like prevention, expresses an object rather than a form of punish- 
 ment. It involves the infliction of pain or the imposition of 
 restraint for the purpose of modifying the subject's character and 
 his restoration to liberty. This is not the object of prevention, 
 which cannot change character, or at least never expects to do 
 so, for the reason that it is not founded upon that possibility. It 
 is perfectly compatible with subjective necessitarianism. But 
 
RESPONSIBILITY AND PUNISHMENT 243 
 
 not so with corrective discipline. This is a method which cannot 
 be applied to agents who are nothing more than the causes of 
 their actions. It assumes that character is not a fixed and unal- 
 terable quality, but that it is modifiable by voluntary adjustment 
 to circumstances ; that is to say, it assumes that a man can act 
 otherwise than he does, or that he can choose between alter- 
 natives which, as we have seen, would be impossible under neces- 
 sitarianism. Correction, therefore, assumes that a man is a free 
 agent, that this freedom goes beyond spontaneity and includes 
 velleity. Otherwise the whole system is absurd. A man who 
 cannot modify his conduct under discipline, and hence who is 
 not free, is not a subject for any kind of punishment : he is fit 
 only for a madhouse. He must have the capacity of voluntary 
 choice, elective volition, before he is amenable to reproof or cor- 
 rection, for the simple reason that a fixed character is not capa- 
 ble of change. If the agent be insane he may be cured, but not 
 corrected or reformed. Correction depends wholly upon the 
 capacity of free adjustment to circumstances. It is no answer to 
 say that his environment, external influences, modifies his con- 
 duct, because, if this determines it, we have seen that the subject is 
 not the cause of his own actions and is not even amenable to pre- 
 ventive methods. A being who can consciously adjust himself to 
 environment is not the subject of a blind instinct that goes on in 
 its momentum and shows no adjustment to change, but has the 
 capacity of elective choice as the one condition of correction. 
 It is fatal to the method to suppose that the modification of hab- 
 its, which every one admits to be a fact in many, perhaps the 
 majority of cases, is merely a passive response to external influ- 
 ence, because, if it were so, the old character would return to the 
 control as soon as restraint was removed. If not permanently 
 modified by corrective punishment, the subject would have to be 
 permanently confined. But the fact that his character becomes 
 modified in many cases sufficiently to restore his liberty is 
 proof that it is not unalterable by himself, that the agent's will 
 and free choice count for much in the result ; nay, are the pri- 
 mary condition of it. 
 
244 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 The effect of all this is to propose a dilemma for the necessita- 
 rian. He must abandon either his 'theory of the will or his 
 theory of punishment. It is the necessitarian who has always 
 advocated most strenuously the restriction of punishment to the 
 purposes of prevention and correction. If he confined himself 
 to prevention there would be no quarrel with him. But when 
 he admits that punishmeDt is designed to correct and reform the 
 will, and that it actually avails to produce this effect, he aban- 
 dons the fundamental assumption of his theory of volition, which 
 must hold that character is an unalterable datum. Otherwise 
 there is absolutely no difference between freedomism and neces- 
 sitarianism. But as long as he insists upon the antithesis be- 
 tween these two theories of volition he must either abandon his 
 own doctrine of it and accept the fact of freedom or confine his 
 theory of punishment to prevention. He cannot hold to both of 
 them at the same time. 
 
 The relation of corrective punishment to responsibility is a 
 complicated one. While moral responsibility is not necessary 
 in any degree to the modification of habits, the application of 
 this method to man invariably assumes a measure of it and aims 
 to increase it. So far as mere change of habits is concerned 
 this can be effected more or less wherever there is free choice, 
 and is not limited to the human race. But among animals the 
 effects of discipline are soon obliterated, if the individual's nat- 
 ural condition is restored, and since the value of animals is not 
 measured in moral terms, whatever discipline is applied to them 
 is designed to mold habits in accordance with economic consid- 
 erations. It is only in man and among those of the race of 
 whom no suspicion of insanity, intellectual and moral, can be 
 entertained, that discipline is applied for the purpose of improv- 
 ing personal character and preparing him for the right enjoy- 
 ment of social rights and civil liberties. Hence it assumes a 
 measure of responsibility, if only of the slightest degree. If the 
 man who does a wrong to society can draw the distinction be- 
 tween right and wrong at all, he is liable to corrective discipline 
 either as a mode of instructing him regarding his specific duties, 
 
RESPONSIBILITY AND PUNISHMENT 245 
 
 or as a lesson in the formation of better habits. But lie is re- 
 sponsible to the extent of his knowledge in the case. Not that 
 ignorance of the law w T ill excuse him before the courts, unless it 
 can be proved, but that he is required to prove this ignorance 
 and freedom from bad intentions. This limitation aside, how- 
 ever, it is a fact that defective knowledge and defective moral 
 capacity will exempt a man from full responsibility for his ac- 
 tions, so that the measure of his punishment is graduated to this 
 fact as well as to the amount of injury inflicted, while it is 
 made solely corrective in its object, the design being to develop 
 conscience from a passive to an active, from a static to a dynamic, 
 function in the economy of the individual's life. Corrective 
 punishment respects personality and aims to fit the individual 
 for his liberty, and not merely to get satisfaction out of the in- 
 fliction of pain. It assumes that conscience and respect for 
 duty are either not dominant among the motives of the subject, 
 or are defective in their development, and hence it endeavors to 
 give them the place which deliberation upon unpleasant conse- 
 quences for disregarding them is expected to produce. It makes 
 allowance for all the limitations of responsibility which we have 
 enumerated and tempers the severity of the punishment accord- 
 ingly. It assumes a certain degree of it and the capacity under 
 pressure to adjust oneself to environment and to form habits in 
 which conscience and respect for public welfare shall predomi- 
 nate. It aims also to increase that responsibility by making the 
 reasons for its limitation less cogent and by increasing the re- 
 spect for law, which is a function of conscience. 
 
 It is important to remark a confirmation of this position in the 
 recent doctrine that imprisonment for crime should be for an in- 
 definite period, its expiration to be determined by the degree of de- 
 velopment in character and self-control. This view abandons the 
 notion of compensation for wrongdoing altogether and conditions 
 restraint and discipline wholly upon the degree of responsibility 
 possessed by the subject, he being confined until he can volunta- 
 rily modify his will and habits, when he may be allowed to have 
 his liberty again, It has a purely humanitarian object, the very 
 
246 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 opposite of the system founded upon the exaction of satisfaction 
 for wrong, is governed by compassion for mental and moral 
 weakness that handicap the individual in the struggle for exist- 
 ence, and aims to establish the supremacy of rational functions 
 in the life of the individual by promoting prudence and self- 
 sacrifice, which are rendered absolutely necessary by the severe 
 pressure of environment represented by restraints. 
 
 3. Retribution, or Retributive Punishment. — This is 
 punishment proper in both form and object. It is what is 
 often called punitive justice, which follows the old conception 
 of rendering satisfaction for crime in terms of pain. Retributive 
 expresses this idea, denoting a return for ill done, which is 
 supposed to be the equivalent of the wrong. It was a mode 
 of satisfying the person supposed to have the right of revenge. 
 In the earliest stages of life the individual wronged was granted 
 the right and power to avenge himself. Society handed the crim- 
 inal over to the injured party, or permitted that party to decide 
 the mode of punishment. The next step was to assume the 
 function of executing the revenge itself, as more likely to 
 temper the punishment to the crime and to control or eliminate 
 the mere desire for revenge. This transfer of the right of 
 revenge to society was a decided advance in civilization and 
 humanity, in that it restrained vindictiveness and encouraged a 
 judicial treatment of wrongdoing by employing the judgment of 
 more disinterested parties in making the award. The progress of 
 civilization has been gradually moving away from the notion of 
 pure retribution in punishment, although the conception of pun- 
 ishment and the feelings of man toward wrongdoing retain some 
 of their original import and intensity. It is hard to eradicate 
 from man and his institutions the notion of desert in the infliction 
 of punishment, and the fact is decidedly in favor of retribution, 
 if not in its motive, certainly in the measure of pain inflicted, 
 because it is a criterion of the degree of responsibility supposed 
 to characterize the subject. But the ground upon which it is 
 placed is not the worth of personality, but the amount of injury 
 done by wrong. When applied in its pure form it pays as little 
 
RESPONSIBILITY AND PUNISHMENT 247 
 
 attention to the correction of the individual as does the policy of 
 prevention. Indeed it is practically nothing but prevention plus 
 the satisfaction of revenge, at least in its original form, while its 
 later form, though eliminating the right of the injured party to 
 decide the punishment, endeavors to determine the amount of 
 desert more calmly and judicially, but nevertheless gives some 
 respect to offended morality in the severity of its measures; 
 whether justly or not it is unnecessary to say at present. 
 
 It is superfluous to say anything about the relation between 
 necessitarianism and retributive punishment, for they are ab- 
 solutely opposed to each other. Necessitarians must suppose 
 that moral indignation, with its tendency to inflict punishment 
 vindictively, is absurd, because a man's actions, if necessitated, 
 are no more to be blamed than the falling of a stone, and as- 
 suming this, the satisfaction of revenge can accomplish nothing 
 either in the way of compensation or correction. They must 
 think so in regard to retribution, though they grant that it can- 
 not be helped and that it is as much necessitated as the volitions 
 which they account for in their way. They can only regard it 
 as one of the many inconsistencies of nature which does not 
 square with their theory and their humanity. Hence they must 
 oppose all legislative attempts to adopt retribution as a motive 
 of punishment, though their sense of humor apart from the fatal 
 necessity of their own action might teach them that it was use- 
 less to do that. 
 
 But whatever the relation between necessitarianism and re- 
 tributive theories of punishment, it is important to observe that 
 retribution assumes perfect responsibility for conduct. Inas- 
 much as it has not been identified, and could not consistently 
 be identified, with indefinite periods of restraint, it assumes 
 equality of criminal character as well as criminality of conduct, 
 and shapes the penalty to suit its view of the supposed fact, and 
 that is that there are no palliating circumstances in human 
 weakness and defects. It assumes that crime is committed in 
 cold blood, with, perfect consciousness of its nature, its conse- 
 quences and heinousness, and without any palliation in bad 
 
248 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 education, environment, habits, and heredity, and for this reason 
 supposes all men equal. But in spite of this assumption com- 
 mon sense has been too strong to follow out the theory consist- 
 ently. Concessions have been made, consciously and uncon- 
 sciously, from time to time in the course of progress to the 
 feeling that men are not morally equal and that they are not 
 equally responsible. This opinion has been too well confirmed 
 by the doctrine of evolution, whose chief value lies, not in any 
 new end which it discovers for the moral life, nor in any new 
 principles which it might enable us to apply, but in the decided 
 limitations which it proves to exist regarding responsibility 
 and the moral equality of men. In this it has dealt a useful 
 blow to the theory of retributive punishment, if not in wholly 
 eliminating its principle of desert, certainly in showing the 
 caution with which it should be applied. If necessitarianism 
 were only a theory of limited responsibility, which it is not, the 
 humanitarian movement for the rational treatment of criminals, 
 which has been associated with it, might have saved it from 
 much hostility. But it has so thoroughly antagonized the 
 doctrine of free will as to make its humanitarianism absurd, 
 showing once more that men are usually better than their 
 theories where they are serious at all. But even if the theory 
 has its weakness, the conception of man and his limitations 
 which has been associated with it has been more correct perhaps 
 than that of the freedomist who in advocating freedom has 
 assumed or asserted a doctrine of responsibility which was as 
 untrue as the necessitarian's denial of freedom. Probably both 
 parties equally misconceived the issue, and the consequence has 
 been a useless controversy on both sides. The reconciliation of 
 both of them by the admission of freedom and the denial of 
 perfect and equal responsibility in all men, confirmed and con- 
 ditioned as this latter is by the unequal moral development of 
 men, prepares the way for modifying or abandoning retributive 
 punishment and substituting corrective discipline for it. Cor- 
 rection is the only motive that can keep down passion and set 
 up reason in the administration of punitive justice. More- 
 
RESPONSIBILITY AND PUNISHMENT 240 
 
 over, with indefinite periods of restraint, this system can adapt 
 itself more readily to man's limited responsibility and make his 
 moralization, rather than retributive satisfaction, the main object 
 of his discipline. This, after all, is the process of nature with 
 man. It is one of development into higher degrees of responsi- 
 bility, and social institutions should imitate it in their methods. 
 It does not assume that men are equal, but aims to make them 
 so. Corrective discipline, therefore, is the only policy consistent 
 with men's unequal responsibility, and it effects its purpose by 
 the modification of their environment and the application of all 
 influences that can affect their habits. This is the method of 
 nature, though it shows more patience, mercy, and long suffering 
 than man himself in the administration of its laws. The his- 
 tory of man's whole growth in responsibility is the history of 
 evolution and of education. All the complex arrangements of 
 environment, political and social institutions, education, penal 
 discipline, religious sanctions, and conditions meant to arrest the 
 first impulses of the will, are agencies which presuppose moral 
 inequalities and therefore limited responsibility, but aim, by 
 directing man's habits, to secure him the right to a larger 
 liberty. All punishment should aim to imitate this system of 
 moralizing forces. It should make the life of the criminal one 
 of probation instead of retributive suffering, and it proceeds 
 upon a mistaken conception of responsibility, if it does not allow 
 for ignorance, passion, heredity, and similar influences. The 
 responsibility of scholasticism is an ideal, not a reality, and 
 punishment while assuming its limited character should be 
 directed to the development of it into a higher degree. 
 
 Note. — There is a question as to what determines the degree as well as 
 the kind of punishment, and the doctrine of indefinite periods of confine- 
 ment would seem to imply that it depends upon the degree of responsi- 
 bility. If " degree of punishment" be synonymous with indefinite periods 
 of restraint, this would be true ; but it is not altogether so. As above pre- 
 sented, the less the responsibility the longer the restraint, and the greater 
 the responsibility the shorter the restraint, assuming in the former case 
 that the punishment requires this to be effective, and in the latter that it 
 does not. But when it comes to punishment other than merely the pre- 
 
250 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 ventive form, the greater the responsibility the severer the punishment, 
 and the less the responsibility the milder the punishment. This is 
 especially applicable to retributive forms of punishment. But the kind 
 and degree of penalty is not wholly determined by the degree of responsi- 
 bility- It is also affected by the character of the act apart from the 
 responsibility of the agent, or rather in addition to it. Punishment of 
 every kind can be applied only to actions in which social welfare is in- 
 fringed ; that is, it applies only in matters of justice, and this is determined 
 solely by objective morality. Responsibility being the same the degree of 
 punishment will be proportioned to the amount of injury done, and the 
 amount of injury being the same, the period of restraint will be proportioned 
 to the degree of responsibility possessed by the agent. This is determined 
 solely by subjective conditions. But the fact that objective morality may 
 vary with the same degree of responsibility makes it necessary to vary the 
 pressure exerted by penalties in order, on the one hand, to strengthen the 
 motives against temptation, and, on the other, to compensate for the 
 amount of injury done in a crime. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE NATURE OF CONSCIENCE. 
 
 I. INTRODUCTORY.— The discussion of the preceding chapter 
 revealed the fact that the existence of conscience was necessary 
 to responsibility. It implies that freedom, being given responsi- 
 bility and conscience, must stand or fall together. If we hold 
 that man is responsible we must also assume that he has a con- 
 science. On the other hand, if he has a moral nature he must 
 be responsible. The two conceptions are in fact practically iden- 
 tical and connected with the same social interests. It remains 
 now, after having stated the relation between conscience and 
 responsibility, to investigate the nature of conscience and to dis- 
 cuss the various problems involved in the history of controver- 
 sies about it. Thus far we have only alluded to conscience as a 
 sense of duty and as a motive to volition of a special kind. 
 But we took no account of its peculiar character as a distinguish- 
 ing trait of man, farther than to regard it as offering the highest 
 motive to the will. We have now to examine its constitution, 
 development, and authority, all of which enter into the questions 
 regarding its function in the economy of life. This process will 
 involve the study of several matters of interest which will be 
 comprehended in the history of the idea expressed by the term, 
 the history of the term, the philosophic conception of conscience, 
 its analysis, and its development. They might all of them be 
 comprehended under its definition, but this will appear too broad 
 a use of the term to embrace the question of the analysis and 
 origin of conscience, and hence we shall confine the definition to 
 the other topics. 
 
 231 
 
252 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 II. THE DEFINITION OF CONSCIENCE.— A complete defi- 
 nition of what is expressed by the term conscience involves a 
 rather elaborate process. It is not enough to know that it may 
 be regarded as a particular moral faculty, because so many con- 
 ceptions of it have been held that we should pre-empt the value 
 of many of them by forestalling all interest in their meaning. 
 Hence the definition of what we shall finally regard as a very 
 complex function must be preceded by a study of the growth of 
 the idea expressed by the term conscience. As a preliminary 
 definition, however, we can adopt the notion that conscience is a 
 name for the consciousness of moral distinctions and of the obliga- 
 tion to respect them. In this conception we have not identified it 
 with moral nature, because that expression is often taken to 
 denote various functions which may regulate right conduct with- 
 out involving the sense of duty. This may be a wrong concep- 
 tion, but it nevertheless exists and assumes that morality may 
 be purely objective and our disposition to realize it nothing 
 more than prudence and instinct, which will go by the name 
 moral because they happen to be directed to what is called a 
 moral order. Conscience, however, may be a reflective capac- 
 ity concerned with the consciousness of man's relation and duties 
 to this moral order, and requires to be examined as such, though 
 w T e shall often find it identified with the general notion of a 
 moral nature. 
 
 1st. History of the Conception. — The conception of conscience 
 is much older than a term to denote it specifically. It was not 
 clear and well defined at first, because no conception ever becomes 
 so until philosophic analysis is applied to it. But the conscious- 
 ness of a peculiar function in man's moral life and nature appeared 
 probably as early as he began to respect social feelings and to 
 mark conduct or desires in conflict with them. Perhaps if we 
 were to push inquiries back into the lore and legends of savage 
 life we should find traces of the idea in the social institutions there 
 adopted and the behavior of those who respected or violated 
 them. But we need not go so far back as all this. We can be 
 content with the ordinary limits of occidental history, with 
 
THE NATURE OF CONSCIENCE 253 
 
 which the philosophic interest of modern times is more particu- 
 larly connected, including herein a brietf allusion to Judaistic 
 development, but confining the most of our attention to Hellenic 
 thought. 
 
 The first trace of the idea of conscience, showing a high grade 
 of civilization, is probably found in the mythological conception 
 of the Furies. At first these were, of course, external divinities 
 whose business it was to avenge crime, and no element of con- 
 science as an internal faculty would appear to have been present. 
 But aside from the testimony to a moral nature which such a 
 myth represents, when the rationalistic age appeared it utilized 
 the idea to express the revenge which a man's own remorse in- 
 flicted upon him for his wrongdoing. This was the natural 
 result of a desire to obtain a useful meaning or truth out of 
 what men were forced to admit was literally a legend. In 
 many of the Greek poets the spiritual, that is, moral concep- 
 tion of the Furies, coupled with their well-known disbelief in the 
 external existence of such beings, can only be interpreted as evi- 
 dence that they found in man's nature an avenger of wrong, the 
 reaction of his own nature against the violation of better 
 instincts. This was a limited conception, it is true, but, though 
 it goes no farther than to express the feeling of remorse and pen- 
 itence for wrong already done, it goes as far as many a popular 
 use of the term still goes, which in fact is due to that very 
 usage and conception. Some writers, as Benn, for instance, dis- 
 pute the right to consider the Furies as in any way representing 
 the idea of conscience, for the reason that the term does not involve 
 any premonitory distinction between right and wrong, but only 
 a dread of consequences after the act. But this wholly depends 
 upon the question whether we shall limit the conception of con- 
 science to a cognitive power or allow it to include the retro- 
 spective emotions. Usage is not always the same in this matter. 
 Sometimes conscience seems to be merely an intellectual power to 
 show man the path of duty and sometimes it is the retrospect 
 of consciousness upon its own course of conduct, and nothing hin- 
 ders us from supposing that the two may go together, while we 
 
254 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 assume that mythology, with the moral interests of the age 
 which it represented, emphasized the emotional element as show- 
 ing the most distinct traces in man of a capacity for respecting 
 the rights of his fellows, even if they appeared only after the 
 deed was done. Besides, all students of human nature have 
 recognized in the various features of the Furies the reflection of 
 what is popularly called conscience, and thus the representation 
 of a literary analysis. Whether we choose to regard it as repre- 
 senting the whole of what is thought of as conscience depends 
 upon the definition, but it certainly indicates the belief in a 
 function of mind which is more than mere prudence or regard 
 for self, and displays the social element of man's nature, which 
 becomes absorbed in the later notion of morality and its sanc- 
 tions. That function seemed unique to the primitive mind, and 
 the power which it did have, or should have, might well be per- 
 sonified in the conception of deities who were to be the avengers 
 of wrong. 
 
 A passing allusion to the stoiy of Cain and the curse he was 
 to suffer for the murder of his brother Abel, suffices to show that 
 Judaistic thought had recognized the same peculiarity in man, 
 though the intellectual fortunes of that people did not give rise 
 to so elaborated a view as Hellenic literature. The idea, too, 
 seems not to have survived nor to have been needed after the 
 establishment of " cities of refuge," which were a protection to 
 the criminal from too much license in the exercise of revenge, 
 though beyond their limits this passion seems to have enjoyed 
 free development. This political arrangement to punish wrong, 
 with its slight limitations seems to have made the. moral appeal, 
 found in Hellenic thought, either unnecessary or ineffective. 
 At any rate, little more than a hint of what the rationalistic 
 mind finds in the idea of the Furies of Greek mythology ever 
 appears in Jewish legend and law. But if it did not discover 
 the retrospective and emotional element of conscience, it found 
 asocial conception equally important in its notion of faithful- 
 ness or fidelity of will to a principle of righteousness, which was 
 only another name for conscience as a director of man's conduct 
 
THE NATURE OF CONSCIENCE 255 
 
 toward his fellows and in his relation to the moral law. In the 
 Old Testament this conception is very prominent, and it repre- 
 sents to the moralists, the prophets of that time, the conception 
 of that peculiarity in man which distinguishes him as a moral 
 being and which now goes by the name of conscience. 
 
 To return to Hellenic thought, the " daemon "(tf^zyuoVzoy) of 
 Socrates has often been regarded as the equivalent of con- 
 science, and it is even supposed that Socrates intended his view 
 of it to be a doctrine of conscience. This we regard as a mis- 
 taken view of it, reflected rather from the admirable and consci- 
 entious character of Socrates than from what he meant by his 
 doctrine. There are three characteristics in his doctrine of the 
 "daemon," governing him and his conduct, which shut it out 
 from being conceived as denoting conscience in any proper sense 
 of the term. They are : (a) It was an external, not an inner, 
 monitor of his conduct ; (6) it was a warning not to act, and 
 never an imperative to do the right ; (c) it was a supernatural 
 influence advising Socrates against certain things that were 
 imprudent and whose consequences he could not foreknow. All 
 these shut it out from being anything like what we call con- 
 science, except in one accidental feature of being to some extent 
 a guide to conduct. But whatever the resemblance in this 
 respect, it was too far removed from the cognitive and emotional 
 ideas of conscience to be included among the representatives of it. 
 
 Plato's conception of reason regulating desire was much 
 nearer the later doctrine of conscience than the " daemon " 
 of Socrates. It represents in the mind a higher power than 
 desire and passion, a power which has the highest good for 
 its object and which keeps the other two in subordination to 
 itself, or moderates them to a due mean in their satisfaction. 
 The latter is the truer conception of its function, and shows why 
 Plato did not reach so radical a distinction between desire 
 and reason as many modern writers make between desire and 
 conscience. With Plato both may have the same object in 
 kind, but not in degree or rank. Desire was likely to be irra- 
 tional and intemperate in its pursuit of good, while reason kept 
 
256 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 this impulse under control and directed the will to a remoter 
 end, which, though the good of desire, was adjusted to the perfec- 
 tion and virtue of the individual subject. But the modern doc- 
 trine of conscience often wholly rejects the good of desire as its 
 object, and sets up another of a different kind by radically 
 distinguishing between the good and virtue, the good being hap- 
 piness and virtue action according to law, or a quality of will. 
 The distinction is one which probably cannot be clearly made in 
 the last analysis in any sense that would wholly separate the 
 good from virtue, but its motive has been to separate desire and 
 conscience sufficiently to prevent the confusion of moral objects 
 of volition with that of merely natural desires. But in so far 
 as reason was a power subordinating all other impulses to a 
 higher law, it represented at least one function of conscience as 
 universally understood. 
 
 Aristotle and the Stoics followed in the same general line of 
 thought, the former, however, being less ascetic than the latter, 
 and in that respect does not develop the antithesis between 
 desire and reason so emphatically as Plato and the redoubtable 
 Stoics. Moreover, the use of the term reason to denote the gen- 
 eral cognition of truth apart from morality was likely to confuse 
 its meaning with that of a power supreme over impulse and 
 which was not cognitive at all, and hence the Stoics seem to 
 have been the first to employ a term which denoted the con- 
 sciousness of right as opposed to the consciousness of fact or truth, 
 and which ultimately came to denote consciousness in general. 
 It was a term for " concomitant knowledge " (Gweidrjais) and 
 in later philosophers was often distinctly used for conscience. It 
 denoted reflective knowledge on matters of conduct. It was the 
 idea of a power to perceive the right prior to its performance, as 
 the mythological conception was that of self-judgment posterior 
 to the act, and so was an attempt to distinguish duty from truth, 
 though the distinction became clear with time and under the in- 
 fluence of another type of thought. There was also in the Stoic 
 philosophy the consciousness of man's entire subordination to 
 nature, the dutv to live in obedience to the law of nature and 
 
THE NATURE OF CONSCIENCE 257 
 
 reason, which, if it was not a doctrine of conscience, represented 
 much the same conceptions as that doctrine. The sacrifice of 
 desire to this higher law with its stern resistance_to the pursuit of 
 pleasure resembles and may even be said to have given the 
 coloring to the asceticism associated with the modern idea 
 of conscience. The idea but not the name was there, though it 
 did not reach so well-defined a development as under Christian 
 thought. 
 
 The Epicureans had no place for the idea, and the Neo-Platon- 
 ists absorbed it in a doctrine of religious ecstasy, which did not 
 distinguish, as the. modern doctrine of conscience does, between 
 the moral and the religious. This distinction, however, is due to 
 an age that w T as more skeptical in regard to the divine, and yet 
 retained its conviction of the importance of social order and law> 
 to which it confined the function of conscience. The Neo-Pla- 
 tonists make the moral and the religious objects of volition the 
 same, and with them Christianity agreed, while following the as- 
 ceticism of Plato, the Stoics, and the Neo-Platonists. 
 
 In spite of the lofty conceptions of Stoicism and Keo-Platonism, 
 Greek life generally did not approach a doctrine of conscience in 
 its conception of the right. Before the Stoics the resemblance is 
 lost in the conception of prudence, wisdom, and the highest 
 good, which, w T hile they involved the control of natural desires 
 and passions, nevertheless represented an attraction of reason 
 which was less exacting and required less of the notion of sac- 
 rifice than the modern conception of conscience. The. Greek 
 always interpreted the object of volition as a good, even when he 
 called it virtue, and drew the distinction only when he wanted to 
 lower the rank of pleasure and to elevate that of perfection, 
 though he always admitted that pleasure was its accompaniment. 
 He did not think that the attainment of the good involved any 
 struggle except with himself. A life according to nature was at 
 the basis of all Greek consciousness, inasmuch as it looked upon 
 nature as an ideal system of realit} T . The antithesis between 
 nature and God had not yet been raised. The world was organ- 
 ized in the interests of man, and he had only to regulate the 
 
258 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 anarchic tendencies of his own impulses in order to attain the 
 good. The sacrifice involved was not regarded as a sacrifice, 
 inasmuch as it was compensated by a higher good, and hence the 
 object of volition to the Greek consciousnsss was always pre- 
 sented as an attraction, a fascinating good, if only the individual 
 could be made to see it. Even the submission of the Stoic was 
 not a surrender of self to the insatiable demands of law, but was 
 only a rational adjustment to an order which brought ineffable 
 peace and contentment with it. But in Christianity, and later 
 thought, with their opposition between nature and God, added to 
 that between desire and reason, there was the sense of a struggle 
 against opposing influences in the pursuit of virtue which was 
 seldom if ever felt by the Greek. The modern notion of con- 
 science was born of struggle against nature, not for adjustment 
 to it. It appears most distinctly in Christianity, especially in 
 St. Paul, where it denotes a life of sacrifice and struggle, of op- 
 position to the world and the flesh, external nature and passion, 
 wholly repudiating pleasure as an object of true volition, and 
 ever since, the conception has retained more or less of that color- 
 ing, as is clearly indicated in the prevalent notion that duty is 
 always opposed to interest. It also adds more distinctly the 
 notion of self-judgment to that of conscientious direction of the 
 will, while distinguishing more clearly than even the Stoics the 
 conflict between the law of reason and of desire. 
 
 Scholastic and mediaeval thought simply developed what 
 Christianity inaugurated, namely, the sense of struggle with the 
 world and with desire in the process of regeneration, and defined 
 conscience as the oracle of God in the human breast, command- 
 ing inflexible obedience to His will and intensified the sacrifice 
 of natural pleasures to the attainment of salvation. But when 
 the Renaissance, with its revival of Greek ideals, the Protestant 
 Reformation, with its inherent tendencies to Rationalism, and the 
 industrial development, with its purely economic and social ideals, 
 appeared, the notion of conscience became secularized, losing its 
 religious import, though retaining all the inflexibility and abso- 
 luteness of its traditional signification. But with the confluence 
 
THE NATURE OF CONSCIENCE 259 
 
 of so many streams of thought, it has gathered into its folds most 
 of the conceptions that have been affiliated with the morality of 
 all ages and has become too complex to be described by a single 
 epithet, though it is distinguished from ancient thought by the 
 sublime and unbending adhesion to law which it commands 
 against the allurements of passion and pleasure. 
 
 2d. History of the Term "Conscience." — The history of the\/ 
 term conscience partly coincides with the history of the idea, but 
 not altogether so. The Stoics seem to have been the first to 
 adopt the Greek equivalent of the Latin conscientia, namely, 
 (DweidrjGis, and w T ere followed in its employment by the Neo- 
 Platonists and New Testament writers, principally St. Paul. 
 Its earliest meaning was self-consciousness as opposed to mere 
 knowledge of the unreflective sort, and did not denote conscien- 
 tiousness as conscience does to-day. It was to denote a more 
 distinct conception of responsibility and moral character that 
 the term was adopted, to indicate, not only that the agent was 
 conscious in his action, but that he was conscious of this con- 
 sciousness and could control his action by deliberation. Hence 
 the first conception was self- consciousness as distinguished from 
 conscientiousness, though it involved a conception of right as 
 distinct from truth. St. Paul's usage of the term gives it a more 
 modern coloring, though it is possible in most cases to substitute 
 consciousness for it. With the development of Christianity the 
 term began to differentiate from the primary meaning of the 
 term from which it was taken until mere consciousness is not 
 enough to indicate its meaning and the two ideas are quite dis- 
 tinct in all but the French language where conscience and con- 
 sciousness are denoted by the same term (conscience). To con- 
 sciousness the idea of conscience now adds the conception of 
 conscientiousness or the sense of duty, submission to a law of 
 reason, often, if not always, in antagonism with interest and 
 desire. But in the course of its history it absorbed all the asso- 
 ciations and implications involved in morality and the influences 
 designed to make it effective. This can be illustrated by exam- 
 ining some of the current definitions of the term. 
 
260 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 3d. Current and Other Meanings of the Term The vari- 
 ous definitions of conscience have taken their coloring from the 
 general philosophy of the men giving them, now having a theo- 
 logical import, and now an ethical as distinct from the purely 
 cognitive function of the mind. This will be apparent from the 
 examination of several of them. 
 
 Bishop Butler defined conscience as " the principle in man by 
 which he approves or disapproves of his heart, temper, and 
 actions." This conception makes conscience wholly an emotional 
 capacity of estimating the value of objects of will. If judgment 
 be even implied in it, that function is so remote from the notion 
 of cognition that it does not require to be taken into account. 
 But certainly the prominent element is emotion both of the pros- 
 pective kind, which forecasts the ideal and obligatory object of 
 volition, and of the retrospective kind, which expresses the satis- 
 faction or dissatisfaction of the subject with his conduct after it 
 is done. Yet there is nothing in this definition which expresses, 
 more than by implication, the sense of imperativeness so gener- 
 ally associated with the conception of conscience. 
 
 Dugald Stewart says : " Conscience coincides exactly with 
 moral faculty, with the difference that the former refers to our 
 own conduct, while the latter expresses the power by which we 
 approve or disapprove the conduct of others." This is a very 
 interesting definition, inasmuch as it distinguishes between the 
 mental states involved in self -judgment and those in the judg- 
 ment of others. For instance, penitence and remorse can only 
 be felt in reference to self. We cannot feel remorse, but only 
 grief, for others. Remorse is self-condemnation, and in so far as 
 conscience is the power of reflection on our own personal re- 
 sponsibility, it cannot be identified with the feelings that pro- 
 nounce judgment on others. Hence Stewart reflects the influ- 
 ence of the popular mind upon his conception of conscience, and 
 thus makes its limits narrower than moral faculty. He seems, 
 however, to make it wholly emotional in its functions. 
 
 Schopenhaur is quite emphatic in the same limitation. He 
 does not identify it with moral faculty at all. He defines it 
 
THE NATURE OF CONSCIENCE 261 
 
 simply as " the satisfaction or dissatisfaction, approval or disap- 
 proval, of ourselves." What the judgment of the conduct of 
 others would be, this view does not say. 
 
 Wuttke defines conscience as " the revelation of God given in 
 rational self-consciousness." This is a purely theological con- 
 ception which does not even imply a judgment of conduct, and 
 comes from that early period of thought when conscience was 
 supposed to be the only trace of the divine in man. But in- 
 stead of reflecting the moral in man as divine, it indicates noth- 
 ing more than a revelation of what could not be found in 
 nature. It expresses no faculty to perceive right and wrong 
 apart from external authority, which virtually dispenses with 
 the need of conscience altogether, as it is ordinarily understood. 
 We require to know whether in man moral faculty is anything 
 more than mere intellectual acumen for perceiving distinctions 
 which it cannot enforce. 
 
 Martineau, in accordance with his peculiar theory, regards 
 conscience as the power to judge of the relative value of compet- 
 ing springs or motives in consciousness at the same time. This 
 is interesting only as making it purely cognitive in its nature 
 and adjusted to tha purely relative character of moral distinc- 
 tions in a developing creature. Neither its merits nor demerits 
 can be considered here without going into Martineau's general 
 ethical theory, which cannot be done in this treatise. We can 
 only allude to it as a unique definition. 
 
 Dorner is more comprehensive in his conception. " Con- 
 science," he says, " is a knowledge of moral good and combines 
 the functions of a cognitive, a legislative, and a judicial power." 
 This view most distinctly recognizes the several and complex 
 elements entering into its constitution. It represents, first, the 
 power of perceiving that there is a right and a wrong, the con- 
 sciousness of moral distinctions in general and in particular, 
 which is a peculiarity of moral faculty. Theu, it recognizes 
 that most important function of conscience which represents it 
 as legislating for the will, imposing a law for its guidance and 
 constraining it to obedience. Lastly, it includes the judgment 
 
262 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 or verdict pronounced upon conduct ; it denotes, in its judicial 
 functions, the sense of approval or disapproval of conduct, the 
 emotional estimation of it before or after its performance. 
 These involve a combination of all the elements recognized 
 separately by the other definitions and make it truer than they 
 to the various uses of common life. It will conduce to practical 
 purposes only when it can be made thus comprehensive. 
 
 The definition of Dorner cannot be easily improved upon, for 
 it recognizes precisely the elements which predominate in the 
 fully developed conception of conscience. But in order to 
 express the comprehensiveness of it, on the one hand, and the 
 intimacy of its connection with general consciousness, on the 
 other, we shall define the sense in which we shall understand the 
 term in our present discussions. Instead of regarding it as a 
 separate faculty of the mind in the old sense, when it was thought 
 that it was a sort of external addition to intelligence in general, 
 we shall consider it as a complex function embracing this and 
 other aspects of mind as well. Those definitions which make it 
 purely cognitive in nature treat it as a simple faculty ; so also 
 those which make it merely judicial or merely legislative, and 
 they very greatly confuse the problem of its development, as well 
 as that of its authority and power. "We shall, therefore, treat it 
 as a complex organism, and define it in the most comprehensive 
 terms possible. Conscience, as here understood, is the mind occu- 
 pied with moral phenomena. This conception of it does not treat 
 it as a special faculty distinct from the others as emotion is dis- 
 tinct from cognition. Were it a unique simple power, we might 
 define it with such limitations. But we regard it as too com- 
 plex, as comprehending too many functions in the unity of sev- 
 eral relations to a common end, for us to treat it as a simple 
 power. Hence it is best to regard it, so far as it is a power, as 
 the mind exercising any and every function related to moral 
 objects. The importance of this comprehensive view will be 
 apparent when we come to analyze its full contents. At present 
 we wish only to emphasize the fact that it is not a simple faculty. 
 
 One thing to be noted in this definition is that it does not 
 
THE NATURE OF CONSCIENCE 263 
 
 involve the supposition of anything different in nature about 
 conscience from other mental activities as such, but only in the 
 objects to which those activities are applied. The advantage of 
 this will appear in discussing the evolution of conscience. We 
 are in the habit of distinguishing the various capacities of the 
 mind and maintaining that one of them cannot be a modification 
 or derived quality from the others. This is true of such states as 
 cognition and emotion, sensation and memory, etc. If, then, we 
 regarded conscience as a faculty in this sense it would seem to be 
 unique and underived. But by speaking and thinking of it as 
 the mind in one of its relations we put it on the level of such 
 conceptions as " scientific capacities," " artistic capacities," " me- 
 chanical genius," etc., all of which merely denote the operation 
 of the same functions either in different proportions of combina- 
 tion or as applied to different objects. Thus " scientific capac- 
 ity " does not employ any different functions from the " artistic." 
 Consciousness, perception, feeling, will, are involved in both of 
 them. But the direction of them is not the same. In scientific 
 activity perception is the passive observation of facts and their 
 causal order ; in art it is the consciousness of an ideal order. In 
 scientific employments emotion is curiosity and its satisfaction ; 
 in art it is aesthetic enjoyment of order, harmony, color, and the 
 pleasing incidents of life. In science the will is attention and 
 the direction of observation ; in art it is both attention and the 
 executive act of producing something. But we see in both the 
 same functions with only a change of object and direction. The 
 main object of science is truth ; that of art is beauty. But art 
 cannot disregard truth and the emotions to which it gives rise, 
 and science cannot wholly eliminate emotion from its pursuits, 
 though it modifies the mode of their application. The same 
 general truth holds good for conscience or moral capacity. It is 
 not a new and distinct function compared with the others of the 
 mind. It is only their combination in different proportions and 
 with a different object, unless we except the unique and inde- 
 pendent character of the sense of duty, the " categorical impera- 
 tive." But apart from this peculiarity it is certainly nothing 
 
264 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 but the mind employed in a certain way, just as science is the 
 mind employed in its way. That the sense of duty or moral con- 
 straint is not wholly indigenous to Ethics might be maintained 
 from its resemblance or identity with the sense of logical neces- 
 sity, the constraint of truth. 
 
 There is one important fact to be observed in giving such a 
 definition as is here proposed. It is that in philosophic usage 
 the term conscience has a very interesting ambiguity in connec- 
 tion with the traditional and current discussions about it. The 
 definition adopted endeavors to avoid it. But sometimes the 
 term conscience is used to denote merely a power or capacity 
 which may or may not manifest itself but yet exists. This we shall 
 call the transcendental import of the term, but meaning no more 
 thereby than that there is something more conceived by it than 
 the mere mental states which are illustrations of its activity and 
 proofs of its existence. There is the second meaning, which 
 applies to any one or all of the mental states which represent it. 
 This we shall call the phenomenal import of the term, and shall 
 mean thereby the manifestations of the mind which show moral 
 perception and feeling. The first or transcendental meaning 
 denotes a capacity, power, or faculty ; the second denotes a phe- 
 nomenon or group of phenomena. 
 
 The importance of this distinction will be discussed when we 
 come to consider the evolution of conscience. At present we 
 require only to understand the meaning of such statements as 
 that a certain man "has no conscience." This may mean that 
 he has no capacity for appreciating moral distinctions of any 
 kind whatever, or it may mean only that he does not exhibit 
 certain feelings and sympathies which we should expect of him. 
 Thus a man commits a peculiarly cruel crime and we describe 
 him as without a conscience, though not necessarily implying 
 that there is nothing in him to be trained to know and feel the 
 right, but only that he has not shown and does not show it. 
 This is only to say that although the faculty may exist, it is not 
 active or effective. The definition which we have given is 
 designed to cover both conceptions, so that we can be at liberty 
 
THE NATURE OF CONSCIENCE 265 
 
 to use it in either sense as occasion may require. It is no doubt 
 most general to employ it to denote a certain group of phe- 
 nomena as effective influences molding the life and conduct of 
 the individual. But the other meaning lurks in the background 
 often enough to make the affirmation and the denial of con- 
 science less contradictory than the statements are intended to be. 
 This will appear in its proper place. We must now proceed to 
 the analysis of conscience. 
 
 III. ANALYSIS OF CONSCIENCE.— -The definition of con- 
 science has shown us that it is not a simple faculty with only 
 one single function, but a complex set of functions connected 
 with the mind as a general agent and differing from the same 
 functions otherwise employed only in the objects about which it 
 is concerned. The analysis of it will further show this com- 
 plexity. But it is a complexity of functions rather than a 
 complexity of agents. This is already evident enough. But in 
 analyzing it we are to remember that we are not intending to 
 analyze it as a faculty ; that is, transcendentally, but phe- 
 nomenally. We shall separate the various elements that com- 
 pose it as a name for a group of phenomena, so as to find what 
 it is that gives conscience its complexity. In this analysis we 
 shall find that it is not quite coincident with what is called 
 moral faculty at large, which includes autonomy and volition ; 
 that is, conative functions, while conscience seems to be confined 
 to intellectual and emotional functions preceding the action of 
 the will as an effort to realize morality externally considered, 
 though aside from this limitation it may contain elements of will 
 subjectively regarded. The will enters into conscience only in 
 so far as it is represented in attention, interest, and good disposi- 
 tion. Hence our analysis while taking account Oi the fact will 
 lay the most stress upon the intellectual and emotional elements. 
 1st. The Intellectual Element. — By the intellectual or cogni- 
 tive element of conscience we mean the consciousness of some 
 ideal object to be attained and the judgment of discrimination 
 between what is right and what is wrong. Those who limit 
 conscience to approbation and disapprobation of conduct do not 
 
266 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 ascribe cognitive power to it at all, and yet we require to know 
 not only the ultimate end which is called good or bad, right or 
 wrong, but r.lso the particular actions which lead to it. Moral 
 judgment is the name for the process of distinguishing right 
 from wrong, and it is simply the cognitive clement of conscience 
 which enlightens, leads, and guides the emotional and impulsive 
 functions to the right end. It gives the knowledge of virtue, 
 but not its power. It is the cognition of the good as distinct 
 from the perception of truth. No matter how correct our feel-, 
 ings may be, moral judgment is required to determine for us 
 7/hen we shall act rightly ; not when the will is correct, but 
 when it is rightly directed. Conscience determines its ideal, and 
 moral judgment is the element of it which decides when a par- 
 ticular act agrees or disagrees with that ideal. The criminal 
 who knows what is right, but does not feel the constraint of 
 duty sufficiently to obey it, has the cognitive element of con- 
 science sufficiently to establish his responsibility. In fact, what- 
 ever feelings of constraint or approbation a man might feel they 
 would be of little avail, in establishing responsibility, if they 
 were not accompanied by intelligence as to the end to which 
 they were directed. The principal function of conscience in de- 
 termining responsibility is knowledge of the end and of the 
 means to attain it, and knowledge of its character. Moral 
 judgment is governed by this cognition in discriminating be- 
 tween right and wrong actions as means to an end. 
 
 2d. The Emotional Element. — This represents in general 
 the feeling attending our judgments of conduct. We may call 
 it the feeling of right and wrong as distinguished from the mere 
 perception of truth. It is this peculiarity which has given rise 
 to the idea that conscience is unique in its nature and excludes 
 cognition proper. It comprehends more or less of the sense of 
 obligation or the feeling of constraint that a certain thing ought 
 to be done and a certain opposite thing ought not to be done. 
 Perception is an element of this complex, but it is not the dis- 
 tinguishing element. It is the emotional element of apprecia- 
 tion or depreciation that distinguishes the act from purely 
 
THE NATURE OF CONSCIENCE 267 
 
 scientific judgments of fact and truth, and both gives the phe- 
 nomenon greater complexity and endows it with greater power 
 than mere knowledge. It is the first condition of its influence 
 on the will, and distinguishes morality from the satisfaction of 
 truth, on the one hand, and from the feeling of beauty on the 
 other. Science and art have their own emotional accompani- 
 ments, but they are different in their quality from those of 
 morality, at least in respect of the object which awakens them. 
 The emotional aspect of conscience is social and personal, 
 directed to the value of man as a personal being, while that of 
 science and art is impersonal, directed to truth and beauty as 
 objects of contemplation. The feeling of right and wrong is 
 thus connected with personal worth, whether in self or others, 
 and respects all conditions affecting that worth. It shows itself 
 in a variety of ways and relations, now in the contemplation of 
 actions and ideals still to be realized, now in the contemplation 
 of actions already performed, and again as an impulsive feeling 
 in the direction of approved actions. But we can resolve them 
 into two general kinds, the judicial and the legislative functions 
 of conscience. 
 
 1. The Judicial Feelings. — These represent the mental 
 verdict pronounced upon the character of conduct, the judgment 
 of its worthiness or unworthiness. It is illustrated when we 
 look at an act of honesty or contemplate it as beautiful or good, 
 approving of it as an object of will. The mental satisfaction or 
 tone of elevation felt when planning a course of virtue, or ex- 
 horting it upon others, is another illustration of it, and it is 
 again prominent in looking back upon actions already per- 
 formed. Hence these feelings may take two forms, the prospec- 
 tive and the retrospective. The prospective are the reflexes of 
 what appears as ideal and moral to us, the sense of rightness 
 and wrongness antecedent to a volition, the approval and dis- 
 approval of possible acts. The retrospective are the same feel- 
 ings after the act, the satisfaction and dissatisfaction in regard 
 to conduct already realized. They are especially prominent in 
 the elevated feeling of self-approval, or consciousness of recti- 
 
268 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 tude, and the opposite feelings of remorse, penitence, self-con- 
 demnation, grief for wrongdoing, etc. It is in these feelings 
 that we get the most distinct evidence of personal responsibility, 
 inasmuch as we cannot produce or prevent the volitions of 
 others. We can only approve or condemn them. But where 
 the satisfaction for righteousness and dissatisfaction for sin, or 
 self-approval and self-condemnation, appear we have distinct 
 traces of conscience or a feeling of more than mere prudence 
 and interest in the results involved. This is the reason that 
 conscience has so often been identified with the retrospective 
 emotions. But it is just as much evident in the prospective 
 which serve to give motive power or efficiency to the cognition 
 of virtue and to eliminate or inhibit it in the case of vice. 
 
 2. The Legislative Feeling. — This is also a prospective 
 emotion in the sense that it usually antecedes volition. But it is 
 not of the nature of approval or disapproval. It is rather an 
 injunctive or imperative feeling, the sense of constraint or neces- 
 sity which the idea of duty expresses, and represents a sort of 
 sovereignty over the unregulated and irrational impulses of the 
 subject. It is the most important and distinctive of all the ele- 
 ments of conscience. It is this which Kant expressed by the 
 "categorical imperative," a sense of unconditional obligation 
 which allows no liberty to the will in the pursuit of desire, 
 and wherever it exists it excludes all other alternatives of 
 legitimate choice. It is the moral law issuing its commands, 
 and exacts either unconditional obedience or the acceptance 
 of the consequences of disobedience. Where it is present the 
 highest degree of responsibility is possible, assuming that the 
 right and wrong are known correctly. It is not necessary to con- 
 ceive this sense of duty as essentially in conflict with desire. It 
 may be in perfect conformity with it. But it expresses neverthe- 
 less the feeling of necessity attaching to the conduct commended 
 by conscience as ideal and imperative. It merely indicates that 
 the moral law can obtain satisfaction in no other way. Though 
 it does not necessarily conflict with the desires, it keeps them in 
 subordination to its own end, and sets them aside only when 
 
THE NATURE OF CONSCIENCE 269 
 
 they fail to conduce to the same object or purpose. Hence 
 it may be opposed to them, though not always. It is the ele- 
 ment which gives moral quality to the act, while the other 
 elements serve more as guides to the right choice of ends. They 
 insure knowledge and feeling of what is right, the sense of the 
 imperative exercises more motive efficiency in the firmness of its 
 demand upon the will. It is most distinctly the moral as 
 compared with the intellectual element of conscience and lies 
 very closely to the will in its function and importance. 
 
 3d. The Desiderative Element — -The element of conscience 
 which comes nearest to containing the will, and which certainly 
 interpenetrates its functions, is the desiderative or element of de- 
 sire. It is very closely related to the legislative. Indeed, the two 
 merge into each other. But the desiderative function is not dis- 
 tinctly marked by constraint and excludes all conscious conflict 
 with lower desires. It represents an ideal which conflicts with 
 the exclusive gratification of such desires as avarice, voluptuous- 
 ness, lust, inordinate appetites, selfish ambition, etc., but it does 
 not feel their competition. In this relation and function it is it- 
 self a predominant desire sanctified and transfigured by a tone 
 of solemnity and self-consciousness which gives it all the force of 
 a command, and indeed often involves it. It takes the various 
 forms of reverence, conscientiousness, and good-will; of reverence 
 when it is religious, or respect for God, of conscientiousness when 
 it is respect for law or virtue, and of good-will when it is re- 
 spect for man. This element of conscience expresses less constraint, 
 or may even be devoid of it, than unconditional obligation, but 
 only because it does not imply a conflict with competing inclina- 
 tions. It therefore represents the highest development of con- 
 science, and represents the feeling of what is imperative without 
 the temptations which constraint has to overcome. It is illus- 
 trated in the person who does his duty because he loves it, and 
 who does not desire any other course of action. This aspect of 
 conscience only needs enlightenment in order to secure freedom 
 from error, while duty in competition with desire and interest 
 requires strength in addition to enlightenment. 
 
270 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 The various elements recognized in this analysis of conscience 
 show that it is a very complex organ as defined in the present 
 treatise. Every one is, of course, at liberty to limit it to any one 
 of the elements, but in so doing he should not quarrel with common 
 sense and usage which has made no attempt to confine its appli- 
 cation. If any contradiction be asserted of it after so limiting 
 the term, it is a contradiction of the philosopher's own making, 
 because he has arbitrarily chosen to give it a restricted applica- 
 cation, and then imagined that some other usage of common life 
 reflects an inconsistency, when the fact is that the conception is a 
 general one, including many elements. No doubt it would 
 conduce to philosophic simplicity if we could adopt but a single 
 conception for the term ; but while this might eliminate some 
 questions connected with conscience in common life, it would only 
 create the need of other terms to denote either our moral nature 
 as a whole or the various elements composing it. But it seems 
 best to the present author to use the term to express the whole 
 of our moral functions, except the initiative acts or choice and 
 volition, and in this way we can best comprehend the doctrine of 
 evolution, and reconcile the many controversies that in reality 
 center about different instead of the same meanings of the term. 
 If conscience can be a comprehensive term for several elements 
 and functions of moral consciousness, it affords a point of indiffer- 
 ence for all the questions involved in traditional discussions, 
 while it permits the separation of individual problems from a 
 connection which it is wrong to suppose they possess. With 
 this fact in view we can take up some of these problems under the 
 functions of conscience. 
 
 IV. THE FUNCTIONS OF CONSCIENCE— -By the functions 
 of conscience, as distinct from its elements, we mean what it does 
 rather than what it is in life. The two facts are closely related, 
 but this topic intends to express what it does as a whole, rather 
 than what any of its specific elements may do. Each one of 
 these elements will have its own psychological and moral func- 
 tion or influence, but will not represent the faculty as a whole. 
 We have now to see what conscience, as the sum or complex of 
 
THE NATURE OF CONSCIENCE . 271 
 
 these elements, effects for the organization of conduct in the direc- 
 tion of morality. We shall recognizethree functions, namely, 
 motivation, authority, and moralization. 
 
 1st. Motivation. — The fact that conscience may furnish a mo- 
 tive to the will has already been indicated in the discussion about 
 motives. We require at present simply to examine the oft-dis- 
 cussed relation between conscience and desire, as motives to voli- 
 tion. We accept as admitted the fact that conscience can move 
 the will, or is a capacity which indicates the direction of volition 
 when that capacity is properly active. But it is a question 
 whether its motivation is opposed to or independent of desire. 
 Many conceive conscience as in conflict with natural desire, and 
 thus set it up as the only process of moral motivation, and more 
 distinctly imply or assert that moral action can occur only when 
 there is the sense of conflict or struggle with natural impulses. 
 Others, again, hold that conscience cannot be stronger than desire. 
 
 There are several differences between the two which should 
 always be kept in mind. First, desire is indifferent to either the 
 good or the bad ; it may include both good and bad inclinations. 
 It expresses only inclination for an object, and does not distin- 
 guish the kind of inclination. Thus it is a name for the love of 
 vice, of ambition, of wealth, of power,_of goodness, and of any crav- 
 ing whatever which is a natural prompting of the individual. 
 On the other hand, conscience is not indifferent to the distinction 
 between right and wrong. It means always to express a direc- 
 tion of the mind toward the good, whether it is successful in at- 
 taining it or not. In the second place, desire is a name for 
 spontaneous cravings, as opposed to the deliberative and self-con ; 
 scious activity of conscience. Desire is called natural in that it 
 is supposed to be an organic craving for some satisfaction, and 
 its object has usually been regarded as pleasure, while conscience 
 is treated as moral and with virtue as its object. The third 
 difference is found in the limitation of desire to the lower organic 
 impulses which arise in consciousness without any purposive 
 effort, while conscience, with its deliberative and self-conscious 
 action, is distinguished by rational consciousness of its end, and 
 
272 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 desire primarily is not, though we afterward become conscious of 
 the meaning that its cravings express, and at once associate it 
 with their occurrence. 
 
 It is important always to take these differences of import and 
 implication into account when discussing their relation, but we 
 should not confuse them with the idea of their opposition. 
 Conscience is not in its nature opposed to desire at large. It is 
 opposed only to the wicked desires as good is opposed to bad. 
 It represents itself an inclination, or the conscious want and de- 
 mand for a good of some kind, even when it has to struggle with 
 some other desire. In its character of a motive, therefore, it is 
 desiderative in its nature, and the conflict between it and desire, 
 which is so often made absolute, is nothing more than the con- 
 flict between good and bad desires, conscience being a name for 
 the former. Moreover, in the contrast between lower and 
 higher desires conscience is the name for the higher. But this 
 is a difference in quality rather than in the function of motivation, 
 so far as desire moves the will at all, and hence we are mainly 
 concerned with this function. This is to say, that the distinction 
 between them is moral, not psychological. It is well to remark also 
 that the term desire is not always consistent in either common 
 or philosophic usage. It sometimes denotes a natural or spon- 
 taneous craving of the organism, such as hunger, thirst, and 
 sex, which, as a state of the body or mind, is not at first con- 
 scious of its object. Then again it denotes every conscious lik- 
 ing for an object and Avill include such promptings to action as 
 voluptuousness, malice, love of wealth, of fame, of power, affec- 
 tion, parental, filial, and social, and every inclination that seeks 
 some satisfaction in attaining an end. It is only the first of 
 these that can in any way be opposed to conscience, which is 
 not only conscious of its end, but is reflective and rational. 
 But then such desires as the first class are not properly motives 
 to volition at all, inasmuch as they can only give rise to reflex 
 actions, until consciousness and purpose are superimposed upon 
 them to discover and direct to the end to which they, as blind 
 cravings, seem to point. But in the wider sense of conscious 
 
THE NATURE OF CONSCIENCE 273 
 
 desire, aware of its end, conscience is not opposed to it in princi- 
 ple. It is only a name for one class of such desires. In this 
 wider application there can be as much conflict between desires 
 as is supposed to exist between conscience and desire, and in 
 fact conscience in this relation is but a name for the desire that 
 should prevail. Thus we solve the vexed question about the 
 relation between duty and interest, which are often supposed to 
 be in irreconcilable antagonism. It assumes that virtue is not 
 possible without feeling the sense of duty and its antagonism to 
 prudence and interest. The fact is that the constraint of duty 
 is the same as the constraint felt in the conflict between two 
 desires, as between the love of wealth and the love of a spend- 
 thrift's pleasures, and hence, as constraint, can be felt as much 
 in matters of prudence as in matters of virtue. The only 
 difference is that duty expresses the constraint of the desires 
 that are not morally indifferent in their nature. It is thus not 
 opposed to interest of every kind, but may coincide with the 
 interest of the highest kind, or with an end which may concern 
 us as an interest if we would only see it so. 
 
 In its relation to the will, therefore, conscience is like desire 
 of the conscious sort. It affords motivation and can differ from 
 it only in the quality which it expresses and the right of superi- 
 ority. It is simply a desire with the notion of reflection and 
 control added to it in the interest of harmonious development, and 
 the realization of an end higher than mere instinct or that which 
 the love of unregulated pleasure might produce. The opposition 
 exists only where the contrast between conscience and desire is 
 denned to be that between irrational impulses and the conscious 
 pursuit of ends under the sense of duty, and where desire is sup- 
 posed to express organic and natural cravings as opposed to the 
 constraint which controls them. But where desire expresses a 
 conscious and developed inclination, an inclination reinforced 
 and more or less rationalized by experience, as the desire of 
 power for the sake of benefiting the public, or the desire of 
 knowledge for the sake of personal usefulness, there is no differ- 
 ence between it and conscience that is worth considering, and so 
 
274 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 it is often used to express the necessary antecedent of any voli- 
 tion, as indicating that we could not will to realize any object 
 without desiring the result, even if the volition costs the mind a 
 severe struggle with some special temptation. Conscience in that 
 sense is a desire, though it may be reasonable to call it more at the 
 same time. But it is not opposed to desire at large ; it conflicts, 
 if it conflicts at all, only with some other particular desire. This 
 conclusion prepares us to discuss the authority of conscience as 
 the second of its qualities or functions. 
 
 2d. Authority. — This characteristic is known as the right to 
 supremacy among the springs of conduct. It does not mean that 
 the sense of duty is in fact always the strongest in man, but that 
 it ought to be, or has the right to the first place in the initiation 
 of volition. We must appeal to it to know what is right and 
 wrong, and to make the right effective against the competition of 
 sin and vice. If the reflective character of conscience and the 
 high sense of duty which it expresses cannot be called into ser- 
 vice, implying the social rights of all persons in the world's 
 order, we are left to the prey of a lot of unregulated impulses, 
 and hence we require a common arbiter of the claims presented 
 in that conflict. Conscience is the only power which can assume 
 this function. The right to this supremacy is secured on either 
 claim as to its character. If it is simply the highest desire it 
 should have authority on that ground. If it be simply a name 
 for the moral as opposed to immoral desires its legitimacy is 
 established on that account. If, again, it be in conflict with all 
 desire and represent the rational as opposed to the irrational, it 
 may be weaker than its competitor, but it has the right of 
 authority. 
 
 But in assigning conscience the attribute of supremacy and 
 authority over all other influences affecting conduct we must 
 not mistake its meaning. It is not an external power, which has 
 the right to coerce the subject into obedience against his will, but 
 is an internal source which is itself the expression of legitimacy 
 and right rather than mere power. It is well to recall the origin 
 of the term authority as applied to conscience in order to see 
 
THE NATURE OF CONSCIENCE 275 
 
 just what value it has in the economy of morals. We found it 
 a contribution of the reaction against medieval thought where 
 the individual was subject to the external authority of the 
 church, which regulated his life and conduct without regard to 
 the scruples of his own conscience. The subject possessed no 
 liberty or right of private judgment in matters of morals. They 
 were determined for him by an external authority which made 
 his life merely one of passive obedience. It virtually exempted 
 him from all personal responsibility for his actions. But 
 whether it intended to do this or not, it certainly expressed the 
 claim of an external power to authorize what a man should and 
 should not do. Authority was' thus the exertion of mere power 
 to coerce other wills into obedience. It may have been associated 
 with some legitimacy in the actual duties it imposed, but it made 
 power the standard of right, denied the right of private judgment, 
 and dispensed with the need of conscience everywhere except 
 in the person of the head of the church. The Reformation 
 reversed all this. It was the re-establishment of the rights of 
 conscience and the need of an inner guide for the direction of 
 each individual. But the habit of appealing to authority was 
 strong enough to demand of the Protestant some equivalent of it, 
 on the ground that men differed in their ideals and were 
 depraved in their desires. His appeal was then made to the 
 authority of revelation, with a secondary resort to conscience as 
 the revelation of God in man. But when rationalism estab- 
 lished its claims to recognition there was nothing left but to 
 make conscience its own authority, the final court of appeal for 
 the distinction between right and wrong. It was in this way 
 that it became possessed of that attribute. But it is often for- 
 gotten that this transfer of authority from an external to an 
 internal power deprives it of all the meaning and implications 
 Avhich it possessed before. Such a thing as determining the right 
 apart from the consciousness of the individual upon whom it 
 rests as a duty, and as coercion against the will and private 
 judgment of the subject, is impossible. It makes the notion of 
 authority either a mere metaphor or a synonym for legitimacy, 
 
276 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 which latter it in fact usually is in modern parlance. Indeed, 
 outside the uses of dogmatic religion which seeks an external au- 
 thority in revelation for the judgments of conscience, or for the 
 rules of life, there is no need for the notion of authority at all in 
 any other sense than the final court of appeal for legitimacy and 
 the right of supremacy. Any attempt to impart into it its old 
 meaning is simply an abandonment of the need of conscience 
 and a resort to arbitrary power for the guidance of the indi- 
 vidual, and this is contrary to the whole intellectual and moral 
 tendencies of modern times. The authority of conscience, there- 
 fore, can only mean for us that the sole guide to the right can 
 be its deliverances instead of impulse, instinct, and personal 
 interest. If it is a question as to what our duty is, as compared 
 with the many claims made upon the will, conscience is the 
 " authority," guide, or court of appeal. It is the inner source of 
 legitimacy, and if man is depraved or fallible we must seek else- 
 where for qualities that will avoid these defects. But if these 
 qualities cannot be found, we have no resource but to rely upon 
 the best authority we possess, and this is conscience. Its author- 
 ity is not the right of something external to restrain, direct, and 
 coerce the subject, but an inner power which consists with the 
 subject's liberty and puts responsibility where it ought to rest. 
 
 But scholasticism and many modern theologians have insisted 
 that conscience is a fallible guide, and that man needs some 
 infallible authority to direct his life and conduct. In the medi- 
 aeval period this was found in the church, and Protestantism 
 transferred it from the church to the Bible, and ration alism to 
 conscience. It was everywhere assumed that fallible man 
 needed an infallible guide, and hence it was sought outside of 
 him. But in saying that conscience is infallible, rationalism 
 simply abandoned the dogmatic doctrine that man's nature was 
 wholly fallible and found in it consciousness and, conscience, to 
 which it attached that attribute in response to the demand for 
 such a guide to insure certitude, which was assumed to be neces- 
 sary for obtaining obedience at all. By supposition a man will 
 not act until he is certain that he is right or can attain his end, 
 
THE NATURE OF CONSCIENCE 277 
 
 and as conscience was asserted to be fallible by one party it 
 could never be absolutely assured of the correctness of its judg- 
 ments and the subject could not act for fear of doing wrong. 
 This was the source of appeal to the church or to the Bible as 
 an unfailing instrument of certitude. But giving up all confi- 
 dence in these, the rationalist could only meet the demand for 
 infallibility and certitude by placing them in conscience and 
 facing the difficulties created by supposing an infallible author- 
 ity to be possessed by a fallible agent. 
 
 The controversy on the subject has been hotly waged ever 
 since. The religious interests have asserted the fallibility of 
 conscience and supplemented it by the infallibility of an exter- 
 nal authority, and the skeptic not being satisfied to accept either 
 the beliefs of the theologian or the paradoxes of the rationalist 
 has been content to deny the positions of both of them and to 
 remain in doubt and incertitude about the whole question. 
 Other writers, like Kant, flatly affirmed the infallibility of con- 
 science and treated the belief to the contrary as an illusion. 
 But it has not occurred to either party to test the question by 
 reference to the various conceptions of conscience. This . we 
 may do. 
 
 Kant says that an erring conscience is a chimera. This view 
 seems to flatly contradict such facts as the evident conscientious- 
 ness of the Hindu mother and the still more evident wrong of 
 her act in casting her child in the Ganges, or the case of the 
 man who claims conscientiously to murder some one in the in- 
 terests of the world. Men supported slavery conscientiously, and 
 there is scarcely a crime which has not sought its salification at 
 the bar of conscience. Kant, therefore, seems to have asserted 
 what no mind of common sense can admit, namely, that action 
 according to the dictates of conscience can never be wrong. 
 Nothing would seem clearer in such cases than the claim that 
 we need some other guide than conscience to keep us from com- 
 mitting crimes under its sanction, and hence Kant's view has 
 been the object of ridicule by all who have felt that approval 
 and self-satisfaction obtained in this way were dangerous to mo- 
 
278 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 rality. But criticism of this kind against Kant wholly mistakes 
 his conception of conscience and that of those who agree with 
 him, and it fails to see that his doctrine either does not apply to 
 such illustrations as have been mentioned, or does not mean to 
 supply the desideratum which is demanded in order to secure 
 coincidence between conscientiousness and good conduct. Now, 
 Kant's view of conscience did not include iutellectual and moral 
 judgment in it. Its sole contents were the " categorical impera- 
 tive " or the sense of duty, and morality did not extend beyond 
 the good-will. His conception of morality did not contain re- 
 sponsibility for the character of any results outside of the inten- 
 tion of the subject. It consisted only in the right motive. Any 
 man who acted according to this did his full duty. Morality 
 aims, Kant held, in entire consonance with the traditional prin- 
 ciple of Christianity, at the regeneration of the will, and all that 
 is needed for this is action according to the categorical impera- 
 tive, which an ignorant man can do as well as the wise man. 
 He was good, and did all that the moral law could demand of 
 him, who obeyed the sense of duty whatever the consequences. 
 We may not agree that this is the wholly correct view of the 
 case, but .if it be advanced we can judge of it only according to 
 the standard of consistency, and Kant was perfectly consistent 
 in asserting infallibility of conscience and limiting morality to 
 motives. He may be wrong, both in his conception of morality 
 and in "supposing that infallibility is the correct description of a 
 function whose sole character is emotional, but he cannot be im- 
 peached from the standpoint of a different conception of morality 
 and of conscience. Hence he could say of the Hindu mother 
 that she was quite as moral as one whose affection for her child 
 made her revolt against taking its life ; that the man who com- 
 mitted murder conscientiously was as good morally as the' man 
 who respected human life. Where morality is merely a matter 
 of good-will or intentions the consequences are irrelevant to the 
 case. Of course, so blank a statement will only reveal the de- 
 fects of a doctrine which does so much violence to the common 
 notion of morality, but it cannot be charged with inconsistency. 
 
THE NATURE OF CONSCIENCE 279 
 
 In Kant's view, conscience was purely an emotional function and 
 was not intended to sanctify anything but the will or intention 
 which it expressed, and hence the very definition of it, as the 
 highest desire, or the power superior to desire, the name for the 
 goodness of the mind's impulses, made it necessarily inerrant, if 
 we may use that term. All action, subjectively considered, must 
 be good, which conscience expresses or motivates. We can 
 invariably trust it for being right as compared with non- 
 conscientious motives, though the only righteousness which it 
 covers is that of character. 
 
 But it is pertinent to remark that the term " infallibility " is 
 not the proper one to describe an emotional function. It can 
 describe nothing but an unfailingly correct connection between 
 ideas and things. Thus my perception would be infallible if 
 every time that it had a sensation of color it was correct as to 
 the character of the substance from which it came. Again, I 
 should be infallible if judgment as to the morrow's weather coin- 
 cided with the fact of it when it came. A machine is infallible 
 in the sense that it acts without variableness or shadow of turn- 
 ing. But the term is applied in this case probably only as a 
 metaphor. It properly implies the correctness of judgment 
 regarding the occurrence of events or the existence of facts 
 beyond the production of the subject. Hence fallibility or 
 infallibility can properly apply only to intellectual functions, 
 and not to emotional, which are either mere reflexes of con- 
 sciousness or are expressions of the character of the will. What 
 is intended by Kant in describing conscience as infallible may 
 be admitted, and this is the absolute reliance we can place upon 
 it for satisfying the demands of the moral law, subjectively 
 considered, namely, that we always act conscientiously, and that 
 no other action can have moral character apart from its con- 
 sequences. Or, put in another form, no agent can be moral who 
 does not respect the law of conscientiousness, good- will, or the 
 categorical imperative. Conscience may always be right in 
 this sense and so be entitled to unfailing reliance as a guide 
 to internal righteousness. But infallibility can be applied to 
 
280 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 it only by sufferance and on condition that it does not mean 
 what it denotes when applied to judgment. 
 
 But the very revolt of the mind against Kant's paradox is tes- 
 timony to the fact that the general conception of conscience is 
 broader than his and includes intellectual functions as well as 
 emotional. The common notion of morality, as we have seen in 
 analyzing it, includes both motives and consequences, subjective 
 and objective elements, and makes it necessary to secure perfect 
 uniformity of connection between the one and the other in order 
 that any claim to infallibility may be sustained. But wherever 
 intellectual functions are involved it is known that the mind is 
 exposed to error both from illusions of perception and falla- 
 cies of reasoning, so that conscience, if it contains cognitive ele- 
 ments, must be exposed to error. As we have defined it, con- 
 science contains just, those elements which expose it to error 
 and which are the elements most directly connected or concerned 
 with objective facts. To be objectively correct in our conduct, 
 to attain the good or results which constitute the goodness of the 
 external order of the world, the conditions most conservative of 
 human welfare and development, intellectual and moral judg- 
 ment is required, which is quite distinct in its nature and quali- 
 fications from the sense of duty and good- will. It is liable to 
 error, and must make that fallible of which it is a part. Hence 
 wherever conscience is conceived as intellectual, or as containing 
 intellectual elements, it must be admitted to be fallible. 
 
 But the criticism of this conclusion will always be that we 
 cannot safely follow a guide which is so liable to error, and 
 hence must require some infallible authority to secure correct 
 conduct. All that it is necessary to say in reply to this claim 
 is that it is not true. There is a natural temptation to make this 
 claim, but it is one which is made nowhere except in speculative 
 philosophy. Conscience is fallible, but it may be the only guide 
 we have, and if it be not followed we must either be inert 
 or without any qualities of virtue at all. If we cannot secure 
 an infallible authority in a revelation or some qualified agents 
 deputed for the purpose, we must be content to accept such 
 
THE NATURE OF CONSCIENCE 281 
 
 guidance as we have, whether fallible or infallible. Moreover, we 
 do not demand infallibility of judgment in any other affairs of 
 life and yet we act as promptly as we should with it, accepting 
 the consequences of error and generally attaining a reasonable 
 amount of success. We transact business and undertake all the 
 various risks of life and yet never ask to have an infallible 
 judgment before acting. Experience shows us that we are often 
 enough correct to enable us to follow securely such guidance as 
 we have, and though this may be fallible, action is not paralyzed 
 by it. It is the same with conscience. It might be a great 
 advantage to have its judgments free from error, so far as objec- 
 tive consequences beyond the ken of knowledge are concerned, 
 but since its responsibilities do not extend beyond good-will and 
 such consequences as experience reveals, it is not hindered from 
 being a safe guide. Infallibility is not required in order either 
 to insure action or to secure the first object of moral law, which 
 is good- will or personal righteousness Obedience to the emo- 
 tional dictates of conscience attains this, and we may leave to 
 insight, education, and experience the task of strengthening the 
 judgment against error, responsibility for character being ful- 
 filled by obedience to the moral law whatever the consequences 
 beyond the ken of knowledge. Hence, while admitting the falli- 
 bility of conscience in its intellectual resources, we may insist 
 upon the inviolability of its emotional functions. In fact, this is 
 the quality we should properly attribute to it rather than in- 
 fallibility. This last is neither true nor necessary, while invio- 
 lability is both, and expresses the impossibility of satisfying the 
 claims of virtue until conscience as a categorical imperative 
 is accepted and obeyed. We may without it do what is right in 
 the same sense that a machine or an animal, or a merely prudent 
 man, may do that which is objectively good, affecting the condi- 
 tions of life ; but it will not be morality of the highest sort, and 
 in the subjective sense it will not be morality at all. Hence in 
 the effort to attain virtue as an expression of the agent's moral 
 character, conscience must be inviolable and its authority h\ 
 that sense accepted beyond question. Had moralists presented 
 
282 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 this as its quality rather than infallibility there would have been 
 less dispute about its nature and relation to morality. It is 
 necessary only to insist upon its supremacy in order to secure it 
 the proper place in the direction of life, and we can then dismiss 
 the question of its fallibility or infallibility as not being relevant 
 to the issue. Supremacy and inviolability secure the quality that 
 entitles it to the first place among the motives to conduct, and 
 that is all that we should require of it. The next function of 
 conscience which follows from this is moralization. 
 
 3d. Moralization — What is meant by this function of con- 
 science has practically been indicated in the discussion immediately 
 preceding. The only object in asserting the authority of conscience 
 is to give the source from which truly moral conduct must come. 
 Objective morality is, of course, not concerned with it except as 
 experience and knowledge may extend the range of respon- 
 sibility. But subjective morality is conditioned by the presence 
 and exercise of conscience as the sense of right or of those 
 characteristics supposed to determine the good-will. No agent 
 can be moral without it. Not only can conscience serve to mo- 
 tivate volition as a competitor of other impulses, but it deter- 
 miues the quality of that volition. In other words, it moralizes 
 conduct within the limits of knowledge and of the will. The 
 individual who respects it reaches the highest degree of personal 
 worth possible for him. He may be defective in the knowledge 
 of circumstances and thus commit many grave errors. But he 
 deserves all the credit of a good will and intentions, so that if 
 anything be wanted to improve his conduct it must be supplied 
 by education of the intellect and not by discipline of the will. It 
 is the character of law and a fixed rule of action which it gives, 
 while it enables us to place more reliance upon the person who 
 possesses it. It is the principle which will make sacrifices for social 
 order and resist the undue influences and temptations of envi- 
 ronment to pursue self-interest, and in every way insures the 
 highest ideals, so that wherever there are varied conditions to 
 take account of, there must be either the constraint of duty or 
 the reverence for a moral ideal in order to give conduct that 
 
THE NATURE OF CONSCIENCE 283 
 
 moral quality which Ethics seeks to explain and to encourage. 
 Conscience is thus the primary condition of moralizing man, 
 partly as the repository of principles which may counteract the 
 influence of bad instincts and desires, and partly as the source 
 of moral ideals that sanctify the will whether it is exposed to 
 temptation or not. It is the conscientious man that approaches 
 perfection, or serves as a personal embodiment" of virtue, con- 
 science being the faculty which conditions and moralizes the 
 character of his life as ideal and divine. In other words, it is 
 the transfiguring force in conduct, and determines all that is 
 described by ethical merit. 
 
 References. — Mackenzie : Manual of Ethics, pp. 52-57 ; Muirhead : 
 Elements of Ethics, pp. 70-78; Alexander: Moral Order and Progress, 
 pp. 156-160 ; Fowler and Wilson : Principles of Morals, Vol. II., pp. 180- 
 224, 274-285 ; Martineau : Study of Keligion, Vol. II., Book II., Chap- 
 ter II., Section 3 ; Seat of Authority in Eeligion, pp. 76-79 ; Calderwood : 
 Handbook of Moral Philosophy, pp. 64-91 (Fourteenth Edition); Maurice : 
 On Conscience ; Leslie Stephen : Science of Ethics, Chapter VIIL, pp. 
 311-352 ; Barratt : Physical Ethics, Part II., Chapter I., Section 1 ; Mar- 
 tensen : Christian Ethics, Vol. I., pp. 356-368 ; Smyth, Christian Ethics, 
 Pait II., Chapter I., pp. 293-326 ; Bain : Emotions and the Will ; The 
 Emotions, Chapter XV., pp. 268-293; Porter: Elements of Moral Science, 
 pp. 243-259. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE OEIGIN OF CONSCIENCE. 
 
 I. INTRODUCTORY. — From the earliest period of philosophic 
 reflection the question how we came to have moral ideas has 
 been a disputed one. We found in the history of ethical prob- 
 lems that they were first referred to the gods and then to con- 
 vention and afterward to reason. In modern times the theory 
 of evolution took up the question with a new method and has 
 almost absorbed ethical speculation in the enthusiasm of its 
 method and discoveries. It has been usual since its introduction 
 to try to determine the nature of cod science from its origin. 
 But apart from the equivocal import of the term origin, which 
 we shall note again, it is most important to keep in mind that 
 the proper order of procedure is first to determine its nature and 
 then to discuss its origin. If men could only be brought to see 
 it, they would acknowledge that it is essentially absurd to inves- 
 tigate the origin of anything until they have decided its nature. 
 It is probably assumed -by most persons that the conception ox 
 conscience is clear and well understood. If this were so we 
 might well proceed to discuss its origin. But the previous chap- 
 ter shows very clearly that this assumption is an illusion and 
 that every theory of its origin must take account of a very com- 
 plex set of phenomena. We require, therefore, first to know 
 exactly what it is whose origin we are seeking. Having deter- 
 mined that, we can proceed to the problem of evolution. 
 
 The method of procedure to be here adopted will involve a 
 clear conception of the theories regarding the origin of conscience 
 and a criticism of some current forms of evolution, which will 
 be followed by an analysis of the proper conception of evolution. 
 We shall first classify the theories regarding the way man came 
 
THE ORIGIN OF CONSCIENCE 285 
 
 to have such a faculty. We shall not distinguish at first the 
 transcendental from the phenomenal use of the term, but shall 
 find before reaching our conclusion that one set of theories 
 applies to the former and the other to the latter conception of it. 
 Let us see in how many ways the problem may be viewed. 
 
 II. CLASSIFICATION OF THEORIES.— There have been two 
 
 * 
 
 general theories in regard to the origin or existence of conscience. 
 One of them is called Nativism and the other Empiricism. The 
 former opposes the latter as natural opposes acquired. The full 
 meaning of each theory will be brought out by farther definition 
 and analysis. 
 
 1st. Nativism. — In its broad sense this theory regards con- 
 science as a natural endowment of man. It does not wholly ex- 
 clude the idea that it had an origin, but it does not admit that it 
 has originated by human experience. It holds that it is as old, 
 or coeval with the creation of the individual ; that it is as much a 
 natural part of his constitution, organic or mental, as is his rea- 
 son, his memory, or his emotions, although it may not give clear 
 evidence of its existence until long after other faculties have 
 manifested themselves. But it takes three forms — Theism, 
 Naturalism, and Intuitionalism. 
 
 1. Theism. — This is the theory which holds that conscience 
 has a divine origin, that it is divinely created. It is nativistic 
 in holding that it is a part of man's nature as a whole, and is not 
 produced by his experience. But it opposes every supposition 
 that it is either eternal or a necessary part of intelligence or con- 
 sciousness as such. It conceives that beings might exist without 
 conscience. In fact, it originated with a view to explaining the 
 difference between man and animals. Animals were admitted to 
 have at least a certain measure of intelligence, and to that ex- 
 tent could not be distinguished in their nature from man. It was 
 also apparent that man's moral nature presented a most striking 
 difference between him and lower orders of existence. The re- 
 ligious mind everywhere seized upon the fact to prove that this 
 additional factor in man could not have had what is called a 
 natural, as opposed to a supernatural, origin, and hence made 
 
286 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 this new and distinguishing quality a divinely implanted power. 
 This view antagonized both the doctrine of conventionalism, as 
 expounded by the Sophists, and the theory that it was a contin- 
 gent product of experience in pleasure and pain. One of its 
 main objects was to give a religious meaning to conscience, and 
 to sustain the supernatural at the point where the character of 
 the divine showed its highest degree of idealization. But it was 
 also concerned to show that there .was a divinely implanted 
 power in man which makes all persons responsible for their 
 conduct, while empiricism was supposed to be inconsistent 
 with that idea, on the ground that experience was not the 
 same in all individuals, and so could not give rise to the 
 same capacity. 
 
 2. Naturalism. — By this theory we mean simply that con- 
 science is a strictly natural, as opposed to a supernatural, endow- 
 ment of man. It regards the faculty as original, but does not 
 accord it any particular derivation different from other faculties. 
 It is not inconsistent with theism in all its aspects, but only in the 
 one respect, that it does not appeal to miracles to explain con- 
 science, unless it appeals to them to account for everything, which 
 is in effect the abandonment of the supernatural altogether. This 
 doctrine has not been widely held. It merely represents the atti- 
 tude of mind which would not agree with empiricism, on the one 
 hand, nor accept the miraculous or occasional interference of 
 deity in the course of things, on the other. 
 
 3. Intuitionalism. — This theory is consistent with both of 
 the others, and is only opposed to empiricism. Its fundamental 
 characteristic is that moral ideas are known directly and immedi- 
 ately, and not by the slow and precarious process of experience. 
 It is important to remark, however, that it does not concern con- 
 science transcendentally ; that is, as a capacity, but 'phenomenally ; 
 that is, as actual conceptions. It may assume either the theistic 
 or the naturalistic point of view in regard to conscience as an en- 
 dowment, but in regard to the ideas of right and wrong, it asserts 
 that they are universal elements of rational consciousness, and can 
 be immediately known and perceived by all persons possessing it. 
 
THE ORIGIN OF CONSCIENCE 287 
 
 The theory takes two different forms, which I shall call General 
 Intuitionalism and Particular Intuitionalism. 
 
 (a) General Intuitionalism. — This view holds that the only 
 element of moral consciousness which is immediately and uni- 
 versally known is the mere distinction between right and w T rong ; 
 that is, the consciousness of moral imperatives, or the general and 
 abstract conception of morality. Not that we are originally con- 
 scious that this conception is abstract and general, but only of 
 an idea which is general and abstract. We must not misunder- 
 stand the theory at the outset. It pretends only to assert an 
 original basis upon which experience may work, and it finds 
 moral conceptions not only so universal, but appearing so early 
 in the life of the individual that it would account for them by 
 supposing an intuitive tendency of consciousness to make the dis- 
 tinction between right and wrong too early for experience to 
 account for it. 
 
 (6) Particular Intuitionalism. — This theory goes farther, and 
 maintains that man can intuitively know what particular acts 
 are right or wrong, agree or disagree with the standard of 
 morality. That is, it asserts not only that he has a natural 
 knowledge of moral distinctions in general, the moral as distin- 
 guished from the true or the beautiful, but that he has the same 
 knowledge of the character of the particular virtues and vices, 
 namely, murder, theft, adultery, honesty, charity, veracity, respect 
 for human life, justice, benevolence, etc. This practically leaves 
 no room for the influence of experience in any form, and is the 
 most exaggerated form of nativism that is possible. 
 
 2cL Empiricism. — This theory is based upon experience. 
 The name is taken from the Greek term i}i7teipia, w r hich 
 means experience. But we must remark the ambiguity of the 
 term in modern usage. First, it means the realization in con- 
 sciousness of any fact whatever, as to have a sensation, to feel a 
 pain, to suffer an accident, to perceive an object, or to have any 
 mental state or occurrence whatever. The second meaning is 
 quite different from the first. It denotes a series of events in 
 consciousness, with an increment at the end which was not 
 
288 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 found in the beginning. This was the old Greek meaning of 
 the term. It implied repetition with the conception of a result 
 when looking at the whole which would not be suggested by the 
 first incident realized. The two conceptions, therefore, are, first, 
 of isolated individual events, and second, of a collective series of 
 events in consciousness, the former having the whole contents of 
 the thing derived in each event, and the latter with an incre- 
 ment not contained in the original element of the series. The 
 latter is the only meaning that can oppose the theory to Intui- 
 tionalism or Nativism. Hence empiricism as a theory denotes 
 the derivation of ideas and powers from elements each of which 
 do not contain the product as a whole. It is even conceived as 
 denoting the origin of something from that which does not con- 
 tain it, which is a bolder form of statement than the one we 
 have given. But usually it is defined as the theory which de- 
 rives conscience and all our abstract conceptions from experi- 
 ence or by experience. Thus our conception of the sin of lying, 
 of cheating, of murder, of stealing, of cruelty, or of the virtues 
 of honesty, of justice, of truthfulness, etc., is not known by the 
 individual until he has been educated to it in some way either 
 by the influence of social discipline or by the more formal pro- 
 cess of instruction. He requires gradually to learn their char- 
 acter and relation to social welfare. This experience, however, 
 has been supposed to be of two kinds, the experience of the 
 individual and the experience of the race. This gives rise to 
 two distinct forms of the theory, which we shall call Experien- 
 tialism and Evolutionism. 
 
 1. Expeeientialism. — This theory limits the development 
 of conscience to the experience of the individual who has moral 
 capacity, the experience of others not being supposed to count 
 for anything in his endowments. The individual man as we 
 know him is supposed to start in life perfectly indifferent to 
 moral distinctions and with no inherent moral conceptions what- 
 ever and no tendency whatever to appreciate them, but must 
 learn them by contact with social life and by the various forms 
 of education. It is to be remarked, however, that historically 
 
THE ORIGIN OF COXSCIEXCE 289 
 
 this theory has been almost wholly confined' to the phenomenal 
 conception of conscience. It has not discussed the question of 
 capacities in any metaphysical sense, but only the existence of 
 positive moral ideas. Hence it is supposed to explain the 
 origin of conceptions, not of faculties. 
 
 2. Evolutionism. — This theory holds that conscience is the 
 result of a process of development, but does not limit the process 
 to the life or experience of the individual. It extends this ex- 
 perience to the race. It admits that conscience is native or an 
 inborn capacity in the rational man of to-day, but holds that it 
 was not true of the earliest ancestors from whom the present 
 generations have descended. It supposes that earlier individ- 
 uals accumulated a certain amount of experience and moral 
 knowledge, the result of which as a habit or acquired capacity 
 was handed down by inhemtance to the successors of that indi- 
 vidual. "What was due to direct experience in the ancestor was 
 an inherited capacity by posterity and so is natural in the latter 
 rather than acquired. Experience again added to this endowment 
 and was handed on in the shape of higher powers in the next 
 generation. Natural selection was added to this influence to 
 eliminate those who did not acquire or possess the desideratum 
 of conscience and to secure the survival of those who did possess 
 a qualification so necessary to the social organism. The gradual 
 selection ofathe best developed individuals of the species secured 
 the fixity of conscience in the race and multiplied the tenden- 
 cies to development in the direction of perfecting moral con- 
 sciousness. It therefore hastened the attainment of the existing 
 condition of things. 
 
 It should be remarked in this theory, however, that it 
 accounts for more than the origin of the specific moral ideas 
 which the experience of the individual determines. It also 
 undertakes to account for conscience as a capacity,, and there- 
 fore explains its genesis in the transcendental sense. It uses 
 the result of experience as not being wholly lost w T ith the 
 death of the individual, but passed on as an inherited ten- 
 dency to subsequent generations, appearing there as natural 
 
290 
 
 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 when it was purely an acquired habit in the ancestors. Indi- 
 vidual experience in this theory counts for nothing except the 
 subject's habits, which appear as predispositions in the next and 
 following generation, where it represents capacity of a certain 
 degree, more easily developed and with the momentum of that 
 from which it came. Hence while the theory admits the native 
 character of conscience in the rational man of to-day, experience 
 is yet the basis of it, being distributed over an indefinite period 
 of time and beginning with individuals that possess no traces of 
 the faculty, representing as it does now the accumulated re- 
 sults of so many generations. 
 
 The following table will summarize the classification of the 
 theories on the origin of conscience, as they have already been 
 defined. They are not all of them mutually exclusive in all their 
 aspects. They oppose each other only in certain particulars. 
 
 f Theism 
 
 Nativism 
 
 Empiricism 
 
 Naturalism 
 Intuitionalism 
 Experientialism 
 Evolutionism 
 
 f General 
 X Particular 
 f General 
 X Particular 
 
 III. EXAMINATION OF NATIVISTIC THEORIES— -The three 
 theories grouped under this general heading have both their 
 merits and demerits. As already remarked, they are not mutu- 
 ally exclusive in all of their characteristics and associations, 
 but have represented merely slight differences of points of view 
 in the development of ethical speculation, each one being de- 
 signed to effect a certain purpose in the age in which it arose. 
 Some of them may be dismissed very briefly. 
 
 1st. The Theistic Theory. — This theory had its use in the 
 controversy with Greek philosophy and received a new impetus 
 in the controversy with evolution. It was designed to sustain 
 and vindicate the supernatural in the order of the world, and to 
 establish a basis of divine authority for morals. Greek philoso- 
 phy endeavored to explain all phenomena^ both of the natural 
 
THE ORIGIN OF CONSCIENCE 291 
 
 and the moral order, without an appeal to a personal deity as 
 understood by the early Christians, and the consequence was 
 that the distinction between man and animals was not drawn in 
 the interest of a doctrine which ascribed an immortal soul to one 
 and denied it of the other. But the manifest difference of moral 
 capacity between them offered an opportunity both to seek an 
 explanation outside the natural order for so peculiar a phenom- 
 enon and to prove the personal character of the being from 
 whom man's moral nature originated, while at the same time 
 establishing a principle of authority which was presumably a 
 necessity for social order. We shall briefly summarize the char- 
 acteristics which were involved in the position thus taken and 
 their relation to the wants of ethical theory. These will include 
 both the merits and defects of the doctrine. 
 
 1. The theory of theism proves both too much and too little. 
 In maintaining that conscience must have a divine origin on the 
 ground that there are no traces of it in the lower order of nature, 
 the theist must hold either that this nature is not a creation of 
 the divine, or that if it is so created there is no ethical advantage 
 in the theory. To admit the existence of everything else without 
 the interposition of the supernatural is to create a strong pre- 
 sumption against an exception and in favor of further attempts 
 to reduce the phenomenon to the natural order. If all but one 
 event in the world's history be natural, it will require some 
 hardihood to demand an exception to the law of parsimony, 
 which requires as few causes as possible for the explanation of 
 thiugs, and ultimately but one of them to accord with the unity 
 of the world. Hence the supernatural theory of conscience must 
 be at the expense of the divine elsewhere in the economy of the 
 world, unless we make everything supernatural and due to the 
 same cause. On the other hand, to make everything supernatu- 
 ral and divine is to eliminate the whole effect of the supposed 
 authority of conscience by giving the natural equal weight and 
 importance in the order of things with the divine. This is 
 not a refutation . of theism, but only a statement to show that 
 it does not solve the problem as scientific ethics would have 
 
292 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 it solved. Ultimately we must trace all phenomena to the same 
 cause to account for their existence and with them that of con- 
 science. But it is not the explanation of the existence or genesis 
 of conscience that gives it its validity and authority. These 
 qualities must be derived from what it is, not from the manner 
 of its origin. Theism pretends only to explain how man ob- 
 tained a moral nature, and not the derivation of its character 
 and supremacy. Hence it does not effect what is demanded of a 
 theory, though it may be true. 
 
 2. A second difficulty of the theistic doctrine of the origin of 
 conscience is that it shifts the whole problem over to theology. 
 Theism must assume the existence of God as given in order to 
 refer conscience to His creative power. If it does not assume 
 this fact, either it must surrender the right to use the principle 
 for the purposes of explanation, for the reason that we cannot 
 rationally resort to causes whose existence is not yet admitted, 
 or it must shift the controversy over to the theological question 
 of God's existence, and this would make all ethics wait upon the 
 issues of theology, which seem less near a solution than ethics, 
 and would discourage the attempt to get a practical basis for 
 the authority of conscience until the skeptic could be converted 
 to theology. On the other hand, if the theist means only that 
 conscience is the revelation of God's existence and character, it 
 is to be remarked that whatever relation God must sustain to 
 conscience as creator, this faculty must first be accepted and its 
 authority granted before its testimony can be admitted, and this 
 is to make its value independent of every question of its origin. 
 In any case, therefore, the theistic theory, whether true or not, 
 is irrelevant to the issue raised by ethics, which is the ground of 
 morality rather than the origin of the function of it. 
 
 3. In spite of the conclusion just announced the question of 
 genesis comes up in ethical speculation. But it is the genesis of 
 the mental phenomena which are the expression of conscience 
 rather than the faculty of them. Now, the utmost that the 
 theistic theory has ever claimed to do was to explain the crea- 
 tion of conscience in the transcendental sense; it has not in- 
 
THE ORIGIN OF CONSCIENCE 293 
 
 tended to explain conscience i^henomenally ; that is, to assign 
 the cause or causes of the particular phenomena, cognitive, leg- 
 islative, and judicial, whose domination of life has given them 
 together the name of conscience. It has gone no further than 
 to explain how man can possess this qualification when it is sup- 
 posed that animal existence is without it and without the germs 
 of it. But the real problem of ethics is the influences which 
 have given rise to the persistency and predominance of moral 
 consciousness in the economy of rational life, and these can be 
 sought, though they may be secondary causes, without either 
 assuming or denying theism. A direct appeal to a supernatural 
 origin for them as mental states would prove more than theism 
 either desires or needs to prove. It is the condition or condi- 
 tions of conscience as a phenomenon that scientific ethics seeks 
 to establish. Theism has not aimed to do this, but it does not 
 conflict with this object and hence will be irrelevant to the real 
 issue.* 
 
 4. A fact which has done much to invite opposition to the 
 theistic theory has been its association with the attempt to estab- 
 
 * If it be said that theism is in conflict with evolution on the ground 
 that both theories aim.' to explain the origin of conscience in the tran- 
 scendental sense it can be replied that this will depend wholly upon the 
 retention and the legitimacy of the distinction between the natural and 
 the supernatural. Theism is supposed to depend wholly upon the super- 
 natural and evolution upon the natural. But for philosophic purposes I 
 must deny the legitimacy of the distinction unless it is made to coincide 
 with that between subject and phenomena, in which there is no conflict, 
 but only a difference. Moreover, apart from this no distinction can be 
 assigned between them that has any importance for the philosophic ques- 
 tion, because in explaining the origin of anything the " natural" can only 
 be the continuous or regular action of that which the notion of the "super- 
 natural" makes only occasional. The nature of the force must be the 
 same. Hence in refusing to recognize any distinction of character be- 
 tween the " natural " and " supernatural " we simply indicate that theism 
 and evolution may either be two sides of the same shield or one is only a 
 doctrine of creatio occasionalis and the other of creatio continua. This dis- 
 tinction may be an interesting one, but it has no importance for ethics be- 
 cause the nature of the agency in both cases must be the same. It is only 
 a question of its law. 
 
294 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 lish an external authority for the deliverances of conscience. 
 This view might satisfy an age when individual liberty and the 
 right of private judgment were denied, but whenever these came 
 to be affirmed the philosophic aspects of the theory would natu- 
 rally pay the penalty of its practical weakness. Hence since 
 the Protestant Reformation the importance of the theory has 
 diminished everywhere except under conditions in which the 
 value of external authority was still retained as a counter- 
 agent to the irresponsibilities of ignorance and impulse. The 
 general revolt against the principle of authority has carried 
 with it a marked diminution in the power and influence of the 
 theistic theory, while showing also that ethics is less interested 
 in the origin than the character of conscience. 
 
 5. There is another fact of some interest. Whatever criti- 
 cisms may be made against certain features of theism it has 
 the very great merit of being associated usually with very high 
 ideals of duty and of God. In fact the theory has done much 
 to idealize either our conception of conscience or our conception 
 of God. Some would say that the moral nature of God is only 
 a reflection of the particular age that placed a high value upon 
 conscience, God being given no other character than power as 
 long as the idea of authority prevailed. Others would say that 
 conscience derived its ideal and moral character from the divine 
 agent who created it.* But without dwelling on the differences 
 between these two modes of thought it remains true that the 
 theory has the merit of being associated with that sense of the 
 idealization and sanctity of conscience which gave it more 
 power in the economy of individual life than if it had been re- 
 duced to the lower level of irrational desires. 
 
 2d. Naturalism. — This theory has many of the defects of the 
 
 * There is no necessary contradiction between these two points of 
 view. The character of conscience may be the evidence (ratio cogno- 
 scendi) of God's nature, while God's nature may be the cause (ratio fiendi) 
 of the character of conscience. Hence the morality of conscience may be 
 the means of our knowing what God is, while he may be the cause of what 
 conscience is in its character. 
 
THE ORIGIN OF CONSCIENCE 295 
 
 theistic view. Indeed it is only the obverse side of the same doc- 
 trine and provokes the same controversies, while it is perhaps 
 quite as irrelevant to the real issues of ethics. It has also the 
 obverse merit of theism. It has been more distinctly associated 
 with the idea of individual liberty, responsibility, and the right 
 of private judgment, and so with the notion of only an internal 
 authority over conduct. 
 
 3d. Intuitionalism. — As has already been stated this theory 
 concerns the origin of moral ideas rather than the origin of 
 moral faculty. It is therefore wholly unrelated to the transcen- 
 dental conception of conscience. But its meaning is not clear in 
 its application to the phenomenal conception. It is generally 
 supposed to be opposed to every form of empiricism. But this 
 assumption will hardly bear investigation, as the equivocations of 
 the term will show. It is true that in some of its meanings it is 
 opposed to the empirical theory, but not in all of them. Hence 
 before discussing the theory directly, we should clearly understand 
 the various meanings of the term. 
 
 1. Meaning of the Teem Intuition. — There are at least 
 three distinct significations of this term bearing upon the contro- 
 versy at hand. They are (<x) immediate cognition, (6) necessary 
 cognition, and (c) universal cognition. The first of these de- 
 notes simply directness of perception, or direct consciousness of a 
 fact without the accompaniment of repeated experiences to prove 
 or confirm an impression. Thus I intuitively perceive my sensa- 
 tions in the sense that I do not need to repeat an experiment 
 with them in order to know that they are mine. Again, I intu- 
 itively perceive that two and two make four in the sense that 
 when I do perceive or suspect the fact at all, I do not require to 
 have the phenomenon repeated over and over again in order to 
 be convinced of its truth. In this sense of the term, it is 
 identical with the first meaning of "experience," which is 
 realization in consciousness as a fact of consciousness. This 
 conception of it has no implications whatever about the time in 
 the life of the individual when the act of perception may occur, 
 nor does it involve any theory about the way the intuitive power 
 
296 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 came into existence. It may be natural or acquired. In either 
 case its function is supposed to be one of immediate insight 
 when it acts. 
 
 The second meaning of the term implies that an intuitive truth 
 must necessarily be known or assumed by all rational beings. 
 Hence to assert that right and wrong are necessary cognitions 
 means that they must be known by every being who is sane 
 at all, and that we should have to eliminate the reason or con- 
 sciousness of such beings in order to expel their knowledge 
 of moral conceptions or their capacity for them. 
 
 The third meaning of the term is that intuitive truths are 
 cognized as a fact by all rational beings. It does not involve the 
 necessity of such knowledge, but only the fact that it is 
 universal. It is taken to imply that the capacity for such per- 
 ception is an inborn function of the subject. Thus intuitive 
 moral perceptions would be the universal recognition of the 
 character of murder, theft, disobedience of conscience, ingrati- 
 tude, cruelty, etc., or the possession of general moral ideas, a sense 
 of right and wrong somewhere, if only of the most primitive kind, 
 as resistance to injury, love of parents, etc. They are called 
 intuitive because all men are supposed to be able to have such 
 knowledge. 
 
 Now, intuitionalism, as a theory of conscience or of moral ideas, 
 implies the simultaneous possession of all three forms of cognition as 
 necessary to its purposes, namely, that moral distinctions, either 
 general or particular, must be immediate, universal, and neces- 
 sary. It is a peculiarity of mental processes that they may 
 be immediate without being either universal or necessary, 
 and necessary without being immediate and universal without 
 being either immediate or necessary. If they are necessary, how- 
 ever, they must be universal. All this will be apparent to the 
 most superficial. But the test of an intuitive truth has 
 been that it should have all three qualifications. The impor- 
 tance of this to the theory will be evident from the object 
 of the theory itself. 
 
 2. The Object or Motive of Intuitionalism ,— The funda- 
 
THE ORIGIN OF CONSCIENCE 297 
 
 mental object of this theory, without which the doctrine would 
 never have been proposed, was to supply a basis for universal re- 
 sponsibility. We have already seen that at least the capacity 
 for moral distinctions is necessary before any degree of responsi- 
 bility whatever can be admitted, and that the actual consciousness 
 of the distinction will affect the degree of responsibility, and that 
 a man is exempt from punishment or discipline in proportion to 
 the absence of the actual consciousness of wrong in his conduct. 
 In order, therefore, to justify the application of responsibility to 
 all persons alike, it had to be assumed that they were capable of 
 moral conceptions. Conscience had thus to be made universal 
 and necessary as a condition of amenability to rewards and punish- 
 ment. It was therefore only natural to make its actual knowl- 
 edge all that could be attributed to inherent and inborn 
 capacities ; namely, intuitive, universal, and necessary cognition. 
 Otherwise morality and responsibility would have to be sacrificed 
 to the same extent to which these qualities were sacrificed, and as 
 the age which originated the doctrine was very strict in its 
 application of equal responsibility, its theory was very stanchly 
 defended, and for the sake of social order men were very chary 
 about admitting any limitations to it. This is the secret of the 
 strong antagonism to empiricism which breaks down the very 
 principle of universal responsibility and can admit it only where 
 conscience happens to have been developed. In the light, there- 
 fore, both of this fact and the definition of the term we may 
 examine the two theories. 
 
 3. General Intuitionalism. — As defined this theory holds 
 that the principle of moral distinctions is known before the full 
 measure of its application to particular acts is known and even 
 conditions the possibility of such an application. For instance, 
 in order to know that a particular act is murder the subject 
 must know what murder is, .and to know the sin of murder he 
 must know how it affects the welfare of others. To know that 
 stealing is wrong he must have a notion of the sacredness of prop- 
 erty, and this he will obtain from the native sense of possession 
 or right to one's own product and labor. In short,' to judge of 
 
298 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 the character of any particular act whatever, the individual 
 must have a prior conception of that which determines its 
 character, and the particular act must be that which determines 
 the nature of other events which are causally connected with it. 
 Now, the difficulty of proving that men have any such prior 
 consciousness of the ultimate principle of right and wrong 
 grows out of two facts : (a) the possibility that some one of the 
 three necessary qualifications of intuitive truth may be wanting, 
 and (b) the fact that the doctrine of intuitionalism has not 
 always made it clear whether by intuitive ideas it meant implicit 
 or explicit knowledge ; that is, consciousness of a fact which is 
 moral, or the consciousness that it is moral. 
 
 (a) In regard to the first of these difficulties it is easy to 
 indicate so many differences of opinion respecting morality 
 among men, and so many cases where the very conception of 
 morality as accepted by rational men is or seems to be wanting, 
 that the universality and therefore the necessity of moral dis- 
 tinctions would seem to be justifiably denied. Savages do not 
 revolt against cruelty, chastity seems not to be known in some 
 stages of culture, lying is a qualification to be cultivated by 
 some people, and actions generally are only the pursuit of per- 
 sonal interest in which it is supposed that morality is not latent. 
 These and thousands of similar illustrations might be adduced to 
 show that there is no single conception of morality common to 
 mankind and that the sense of duty, the fundamental character- 
 istic of conscience, is wanting. 
 
 The first reply to this argument would be that it is not 
 necessary for the intuitive character of moral principles that 
 they everywhere take the same concrete form ; cruelty, un- 
 chastity, and injustice might be very common, not from the 
 lack of any conception of right and wrong, but only from the 
 lack of perceiving that certain known ideas are applicable to 
 the case at hand. The germ of morality may be recognized in 
 some case, but not its application to another. For instance, 
 regard for the welfare of the tribe may be known and appre- 
 ciated, and yet neither chastity nor justice may be recognized 
 
THE ORIGIN OF CONSCIENCE 299 
 
 toward those not in the tribe. Indeed, there are instances where 
 even chastity is respected within certain limits and not in others. 
 This is even true in modern times. A man may insist upon the 
 chastity of his own household, and yet not regard it himself in 
 the person of others. This is a contradiction, but it does not 
 disprove his consciousness of moral distinctions. It only shows 
 that he is not consistent in the application of them. A man 
 may know and respect a thing which has the qualities — that is, 
 the intension — of morality, but neither recognize them as such 
 nor their application to other concrete cases ; that is, their exten- 
 sion. A man may feel a constraint to defend the tribe, his 
 family, or the state, and yet not perceive that this duty, with its 
 implied respect for the individuals of the family or community, 
 involves a great many other virtues. It is this extension of a 
 given law to particular cases which has to be learned by experi- 
 ence, but this fact does not involve the use of experience for the 
 principle itself. And it is to be remarked that some forms of 
 empiricism are even based upon the assumption of a general con- 
 sciousness which makes possible the development of common 
 conceptions by experience. Of this more again. At present it 
 suffices to note the fact as proof of the general principle of in- 
 tuitionalism. 
 
 A second fact in the same direction is that intuitionalists have 
 only claimed that their doctrine applies to rational beings, in 
 whom they could evidently find traces of immediate and univer- 
 sal conceptions of right and wrong. But it is a manifest 
 weakness of the theory that it has no criterion of rationality to 
 determine where and when the line shall be drawn between 
 rational and irrational members of the human race. This is to 
 say that its conception of man is broader than that of rational 
 man, and the empiricist might well admit the fact and use it in 
 his own favor. 
 
 A third reply to the empiricist's argument would be that all 
 men do recognize the value of pleasure and the evil of pain, and 
 that this is the basis of moral distinctions. This reply must 
 have great force with the utilitarian, who asserts both that all 
 
800 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 men draw this distinction instinctively and that pleasure is the 
 highest good and pain the ultimate eyil. To say that pleasure 
 is the highest good implies either that it must be intuitively 
 known or that utilitarianism is not true. If the goodness of 
 pleasure is not a native perception, it must be acquired by ex- 
 perience, which would make it improbable that all men would 
 have the same idea of it, since their experience varies and the 
 utilitarian principle is broken down on that side. On the other,, 
 if it is not the highest good the doctrine is again abandoned. 
 Hence as long as utilitarians, and empiricists, who are invariably 
 utilitarians, maintain both that pleasure is universal and that it 
 is the highest good, they must admit the intuitive, universal, and 
 necessary character of something which conditions the applica- 
 tion of their own theory of morality and the development of 
 conscience. When they resolve morality into the pursuit of 
 pleasure and make this an organic element of consciousness, they 
 admit the whole method of intuitionalism, though they may not 
 admit the object of it. 
 
 It is a fact that intuitionalism has often made -some other end 
 than pleasure the ultimate object of volition, but this is neither 
 a necessary part of its method nor a universal accompaniment of 
 the theory. The aesthetic school of morality admitted a moral 
 sense though making its object happiness or pleasure. Happi- 
 ness is not the exclusive property of the empiricist. All that 
 intuitionalism ultimately requires is some such universal object 
 of volition which conditions survival in order to maintain that 
 the fundamental distinction of morality is innate or natural as 
 opposed to what is acquired. In that case empirical morality- 
 is only a more highly developed pursuit of this object, whose 
 relation to the particular virtues is lost by the process of ab- 
 straction which goes on in the formation of all complex ideas. 
 
 It can be farther said, also, that a conception of moral obliga- 
 tion is actually more general than the empiricists admit and 
 than their theory will permit them to concede. In savage 
 tribes, notably among the Indians of this continent, whose social 
 life is as simple as it can well be, we often find a sense of right 
 
THE ORIGIN OF CONSCIENCE 301 
 
 as clear and distinct as among the most highly civilized. The 
 Egyptian who showed distinct signs of gratitude when his 
 life was spared by his English captors, though he had never 
 seen such clemency before, manifested a consciousness of nobility 
 which has very great possibilities in it. The Indian's fidelity 
 to his promises and the revenge he takes for the infractions 
 of treaties with him, though they may show great callousness of 
 heart in regard to cruelty, are proof of a clear knowledge of 
 what is right in one relation. The Australian savage whose 
 desire to kill was so strong that he could not walk behind a 
 stranger without an almost irresistible temptation to slay him, 
 and who asked to walk in front of him in order to quell the 
 desire, showed as clear a seuse of right and wrong as any one 
 could be expected to have. Thousands of similar illustrations 
 might be chosen to the same effect. They show the existence of 
 moral consciousness where it is least to be expected, though the 
 instances may be so casual as to render the detection of it very 
 rare and difficult. The general habits of the individual do not 
 regard the distinction, and we imagine it and the capacity for it 
 wholly absent, when it is merely latent and ineffective. The 
 trouble with the savage may not be the absence of all ideas of 
 right and wrong, but only their inefficiency among the tempta- 
 tions of personal interest. But we should not deny their existence 
 on the ground that they are not supreme. In fact it is the 
 assumption that savages are redeemable, to some extent at least, 
 and that under experience, discipline, and education they may 
 learn moral habits, which justifies all efforts to accomplish this 
 result. Such attempts would be very foolish if the assumption 
 were not true. Development and experience assume that a 
 recognized principle is given and that it is the business of these 
 processes to extend, not to create, it. Hence we must not confuse 
 the inefficiency of moral principles with their absence. On the 
 other hand, intuitionalists require to be warned against assuming 
 more than is true and more than is necessary for their method. 
 They require only enough to condition a certain amount of 
 responsibility, and not the equality which scholasticism taught 
 
302 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 and which is still the echo of intuitive doctrine. But its general 
 principle is not only not opposed to some forms of empiricism, 
 but is the condition of them, in that a common experience is not 
 possible without a common consciousness of some kind. 
 
 (b) In regard to the second difficulty, which was that the 
 theory did not make clear always, whether the intuitive ideas 
 which it claimed were implicit or explicit, it must be said that 
 the fact is a source of weakness. We shall grant also that if 
 intuitionalism is conditioned upon the explicit consciousness 
 of morality as such, even of the most general form, it cannot be 
 sustained. Experience is the only influence which can develop 
 this aspect of moral consciousness. But when the theory is 
 properly understood and explained, it affirms only the implicit 
 consciousness of morality as ultimate and intuitive; that -is, the 
 consciousness of a fact which is imperative before the consciousness 
 that it is an imperative fact of a moral order. Thus the savage 
 even may feel a constraint to defend the social order of his tribe, 
 and it may be a moral duty to do so, though he has not yet 
 formed an abstract conception of this obligation. This " uncon- 
 scious " morality, as it is often called, meaning morality of the 
 unreflective non-self-conscious form, is the primitive stage of all 
 highly developed and conscious morality, and in fact conditions 
 it. There will be found in it often all the elements of the 
 mature conscience, though so distorted and misdirected as 
 to make them unrecognizable. Thus the savage whose wife had 
 died, and who pined away for a year or more from remorse 
 at not having killed some woman according to the law of his 
 tribe, and returned to his master after a year's absence, hearty, 
 hale, and happy, after effecting the murder of a woman in a dis- 
 tant tribe, showed as much conscience as the civilized man, 
 though it was terribly distorted. It is not the correctness of the 
 object which makes conscience, but the presence of the mental 
 elements we have described. Conscience may be badly educated, 
 but the worst distortions of its functions do not disprove its exist- 
 ence, but only its infallibility. Hence the worst specimens of man- 
 kind may have it with its moral distinctions implicit in their 
 
THE ORIGIN OF CONSCIENCE 303 
 
 consciousness, though not developed to its full extent or properly 
 enlightened in regard to its application to human life. If 
 intuitionalism bases itself upon this fact it may be a tenable 
 theory, or at least it may have the merits of a working hypoth- 
 esis, and by acting upon it we shall generally see that wisdom is 
 justified of her children. Speaking of the most degenerate and 
 unpromising, one writer says : " How are we to see their 
 good possibilities if there are no signs of them or none that we 
 can see? Well, it is our business to look till we do see, to 
 search till we find. But, for practical guidance in case of 
 despair, I would suggest the rule, even when there are no signs 
 of goodness or ability, still believe in both ; no one is so hopelessly 
 bad or hopelessly stupid that your faith will not prove in itself a 
 cause of cure. The rational conviction left in my mind, indeed, 
 after some experience of success and of failure, is that, so far as 
 my knowledge of means of influence go, this simple practical faith 
 in every individual's worth, and in one's power of bringing that 
 worth to light, is best of all." This, of course, is but the popular 
 statement of a belief that turns out true, to some extent at least, 
 whenever tried, and confirms the assumption both of latent ca- 
 pacities and of recognized principles upon which morality can be 
 developed. Intuitionalism explains that assumption and serves 
 as the basis of that responsibility or degree of it which every 
 moralist, whether an empiricist or not, must assume, or wholly 
 abandon morality and its demands upon the individual members 
 of society. Experience can do absolutely nothing to develop a 
 common moral consciousness unless there is a common principle 
 to work upon, and hence general intuitionalism must be accepted 
 as a condition of giving any meaning to the empiricist's conclu- 
 sion about a common morality, though the theory must be based 
 upon the implicit rather than the explicit knowledge of moral 
 conceptions. 
 
 4. Particular Intuitionalism. — This form of the theory 
 maintains that we intuitively know the character of the particu- 
 lar virtues and vices, such as murder, theft, cruelty, injustice, 
 honesty, purity, veracity, etc. This is to say, that we should 
 
304 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 know the sin of cruelty without any experience, but immediately 
 when a case of it is brought to our notice ; that we should recog- 
 nize the virtue of veracity without being told it. This, however, 
 is an exaggerated form of the theory, which, we admit, cannot be 
 maintained for a moment. The particular virtues and vices are 
 nothing more than means to ends, causes of effects, and no 
 human mind can tell by a priori processes the particular causes of 
 an effect. Man must await the judgment of experience, though 
 the principle of cause and effect be a priori and intuitive. For 
 example, cruelty is a particular act which produces pain to some 
 other person. We can only tell by experience that such an act 
 causes pain and that it will always do so. There is no way 
 to tell the fact a priori. The same is true of all the actions 
 which represent the special virtues and vices. We only learn 
 by experience that they are means to ends, and for all that w T e 
 know to the contrary the same actions might have produced 
 pleasure until we learn their nature by observation and frequent 
 experience. Moreover, it is conclusive against this form of the 
 theory that there is no such uniformity of belief and knowledge 
 regarding special actions as must follow the supposition of that 
 doctrine. Nothing is clearer than the fact that some men do not 
 know the duty of chastity ; children are slow to learn what 
 cruelty is ; savages are ignorant of many of the virtues even 
 when conscience may be clear as to one or two of them. In 
 short, the differences of civilization, culture, opinion, and practice, 
 the world over and in all ages of history, make it impossible to 
 suppose that men are equally informed as to the extent of their 
 duties, without supposing an inefficiency in those duties, which is 
 highly improbable. Hence in the present writer's opinion, how- 
 ever desirable it might be to have a greater uniformity of 
 insight into the specific virtues, if only in the interests of a 
 theory which conditions the higher degrees of responsibility, it is 
 a fact that it cannot be borne out by observation and experience, 
 and it only results in inhumanity to assume it. The only form 
 of intuitionalism that will bear a moment's examination is the 
 general one, assuming an implicit knowledge of moral law, 
 
THE ORIGIN OF CONSCIENCE 305 
 
 while we must leave to experience the development of an explicit 
 knowledge of it and its full extension. Only its intension can 
 be given in original knowledge. Its extension represents just 
 those influences which it is vain to deny in life, namely, educa- 
 tion and discipline, which are the instruments of experience. The 
 only object in defending any form of the doctrine at all is the 
 necessity of supporting the very responsibility which the empiri- 
 cist admits, and must admit, if he does not hold to the absolute 
 relativity of all knowledge, which would mean that no two per- 
 sons were sufficiently alike to justify the application of the same 
 moral law to them. But this is too extravagant for any one to 
 take seriously. Hence when empiricists admit the common con- 
 sciousness which conditions a common experience and a common 
 development, we may well concede that the variations which we ' 
 observe in moral development are the product of experience ; 
 especially when it serves to explain and condition the humanity 
 that is obligatory in a state of unequal responsibility. This will 
 be seen in the sequel of the discussion of empiricism. In the 
 meantime we can, grant that particular intuitionalism has no 
 claims to stand upon, supporting, meanwhile, that form of it which 
 does not oppose empiricism, while it serves as a basis for apply- 
 ing the same principles to all men in a social organism, though 
 modified by the conditions that affect the degrees of responsibil- 
 ity, but not the existence of it. With this we may turn to the 
 next class of theories. 
 
 IV. EXAMINATION OF EMPIRICAL THEORIES.— It will 
 not be necessary here to follow out the analysis of theories far- 
 ther than the two general forms, experientialism and evolu- 
 tionism. Though we might discuss both general and particular 
 experientialism with the same conception of the two terms as 
 was applied to intuitionalism, we should find that it would not 
 serve any useful purpose. The nature of the arguments is such 
 that the distinction does not require to be made, though it 
 would result in denying the empirical character of the ultimate 
 principles upon which morality rests and the affirmation that 
 particular empiricism is true. This will be the conclusion that 
 
306 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 we shall adopt, while the discussion of the question involves 
 problems that are not peculiar to one of them alone, but to both 
 alike. The first matter of importance will be to repeat a cau- 
 tion about the double meaning of the term " experience," and 
 the effect of it upon the controversy. Only one of its significa- 
 tions opposes it to intuitionalism, while the other is at least 
 partly identical with it, so that we must not allow the forma- 
 tion of our opinions to create any illusions due to not observing 
 the equivocation to which we have alluded. 
 
 1st. Experientialism. — The definition of this form of empir- 
 icism limits it to two conceptions — (a) the origin of moral ideas, 
 not faculties; that is, conscience phenomenally, not transcen- 
 dentally, understood ; and (6) the limitation of this origin to 
 the experience of the individual, not the race. We shall discuss 
 the theory by examining the arguments for it and then those 
 against it. 
 
 1. Arguments in Favor of Experientialism. — The as- 
 sumptions which are made in the argument are generally the 
 same in both forms of the theory, though they are not always 
 explicitly understood. The importance of a better understand- 
 ing of them will appear in the sequel of our criticism. But in 
 the meantime we can simply state and explain the cogency of 
 the claims made in favor of the theory. The arguments upon 
 which its advocates rely are as follows : 
 
 (a) The Association of Conduct with Pleasure and Pain. — 
 This argument was proposed after Hartley's rediscovery of 
 association as a fundamental law of mind. The utilitarians 
 seized upon it to combat the doctrine which claimed, or seemed 
 to claim, that the nature of moral rules about honesty, veracity, 
 justice, theft, homicide, etc., were directly known without refer- 
 ence, near or remote, to pleasure and pain. Then again what- 
 ever the ultimate end of life, it was apparent that the particular 
 virtues were but means to attain it, and the vices but means of 
 losing it. Then the problem was to explain how we came to 
 adopt such rules ; how we came to connect them with the ulti- 
 mate object of life. Inasmuch as the utilitarian maintained 
 
THE ORIGIN OF CONSCIENCE 307 
 
 that pleasure or happiness is the highest good and pain the only 
 evil, his problem was to explain how we came to attach the 
 predicate of morality to rules and actions which led to this re- 
 sult. His argument, therefore, was that whatever the source of. 
 our idea of the highest good, the rules for obtaining it came 
 from the association of pleasure with the actions which led to it 
 and of pain with those which led away from it. Thus if we 
 came to set up honesty as a virtue it was because we found it 
 uniformly associated with pleasure, and dishonesty with pain, 
 just as we learned that putting our hands into the fire would 
 cause pain. The desire to do anything immediately recalled 
 previous experience with a similar act, and according as it had 
 been accompanied by pleasure or pain there was inclination or 
 restraint regarding it, and those actions were called good which 
 conduced to pleasure and those were called bad which conduced 
 to pain. At first the pleasures and pains, being concerned with 
 the self-interested actions, would give rise to egoistic conduct 
 which would not be strictly moral unless there was no conflict 
 with the interests and rights of others. But the pleasures of 
 sympathy and the pains of antipathy would give rise to conduct 
 of' a higher order, which we call altruistic and which is moral 
 par excellence. Thus the whole range of morality is supposed to 
 be covered by the influence of association. 
 
 (b) The Influence of Authority. — The association of conduct 
 with pleasures and pains does not account for all the elements of 
 morality or conscience. The sense of duty is a mental datum 
 which the empiricist admits to be a form of constraint, that seems 
 to oppose the pursuit of pleasure, and hence cannot be accounted 
 for by association of pleasures and pains with the actions which 
 it prompts, inasmuch as it often enjoins the sacrifice of a pleas- 
 ure and the endurance of a pain. Hence in order to explain 
 the origin of this feeling the empiricist appeals to the influence 
 of authority which operates as some external force to limit the 
 natural choice of the individual. It is a demand that the in- 
 dividual conform his conduct to the will of a superior power 
 or an external order whether he desires to do so or not. The 
 
308 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 application of such restraints as this authority implied was de- 
 signed to obtain results which ought to come from sympathy, 
 social instinct, and regard for higher powers. But since the 
 individual is not always governed by these prompting agencies, 
 the only resource was to apply the principle of rewards and pen- 
 alties to enforce a course of action more in harmony with gen- 
 eral interests than the egoistic instincts. This authority is of 
 three kinds — political, social, and religious. They operate in the 
 same way and to the same effect, but differ in their mode of 
 application. Thus political authority and restraint prohibits 
 certain actions like theft, murder, cheating, frauds, and injustice 
 generally under appropriate penalties. Public opinion holds a 
 man under condemnation who does not respect social welfare 
 and ostracizes him socially for his disregard of others, so as to 
 make it his interest to adjust his conduct to suit his social envi- 
 ronment. Religious sanctions appeal to the pleasure and dis- 
 pleasure of a divine being with certain rewards and penalties 
 here and hereafter to influence the individual's actions. All of 
 these restraints operate to place a man in a struggle between his 
 own natural desires and what is demanded by these external 
 forces. From this conflict between what one must do and what 
 he would do arises the sense pf duty which is the constraint 
 or necessity of obeying a law other than one's own desire or 
 personal interest. In this way authority is supposed to pro- 
 duce the element of conscience, which is more than the mere 
 pursuit of pleasure, and represents enforced adjustment to an 
 order to which the individual would not spontaneously conform. 
 The hope of reward and the fear of punishment are the motives 
 to which authority appeals, so that duty is the unwilling pursuit 
 of an object which it is dangerous to neglect and which the 
 individual would like to disregard with impunity. 
 
 (c) The Influence of Reason. — If authority accounts for the 
 feeling of constraint, it does not explain the voluntary obedience 
 of the will out of respect for law after the restraints of power are 
 removed. Thus parental authority may be necessary to obtain 
 obedience and to form correct habits in the child, but there 
 
THE ORIGIN OF CONSCIENCE 309 
 
 comes a time when the momentum of habit continues after the 
 force of authority has been removed. The same is true of polit- 
 ical, social, and religious forces. A period arrives when they are 
 no longer needed to induce right action and when the individual 
 chooses it voluntarily and without compulsion. The individual 
 has learned by this ^time to respect the object for which the 
 various forms of external sanctions were applied. He has be- 
 come reconciled to this purpose and given up the struggle 
 against external forces to accept the right as the only rational 
 thing to be desired. Disobedience is no longer a temptation 
 to him. He has learned to love the right and to do it without 
 constraint or resistance. Reason has taught him the right, and 
 duty no longer means constraint or necessity, but reverence for 
 its law, so that he now has a developed conscience and sense of 
 morality with which he did not start in life. The highest motives 
 now take the place of the conflict between duty and interest, 
 and obedience to the former becomes an act of love and respect. 
 
 To illustrate this important development we may take a few 
 examples. The child first obeys the parent because he fears his 
 . authority, and afterward when mature he sees for himself that 
 the course enforced by authority is the right one and pursues it 
 without resistance or the need of restraint. The citizen at first 
 obeys the law under penalties and out of fear of them, but grad- 
 ually learns that it is easier to obey willingly and to respect its 
 commands than it is to be perpetually working under friction. 
 At first the religious man follows the precepts of the divine 
 ruler from motives of fear and afterward respects the law which 
 at first constrained his obedience. Reason is the. main factor 
 here in providing enlightenment and in inducing the individual 
 to pursue a course of voluntary righteousness. The influence of 
 authority is lost and no longer necessary. The subject becomes 
 independent of external restraint and dependent only upon con- 
 science thus developed. 
 
 2. Arguments against Expementialism. — The criticism 
 of empiricism will involve a very careful analysis of the various 
 conceptions entering into the controversy, and which create 
 
310 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 much confusion on both sides. It will also seem to offer a much 
 larger number of objections than the three arguments in the 
 defense of the theory. But this is only because there is much 
 confusion as to its real meaning and in regard to the terms 
 employed in discussing it. This fact will be brought out in its 
 place. We must proceed with the criticism. 
 
 (a) The Assumption of Association in any Case.— The associa- 
 tion of pleasures and pains with conduct must be assumed in 
 any theory, and on this account cannot be made a special plea in 
 favor of empiricism. No one has ever affirmed that pleasure is 
 not the proper accompaniment and resultant of virtue and pain 
 of vice. They may not be the immediate consequence, but they 
 are sure to follow at some time and in some way, though we 
 may not be able to establish the connection between a right act 
 and some subsequent pleasure, or between a wrong act and 
 some subsequent pain. Moreover, general intuitionalism, which 
 we have defended, depends as much as experientialism upon the 
 association of pleasures and pains with conduct for the determi- 
 nation of the proper means to ends, so that association and ex- 
 perience do not determine the rightness of actions leading to an 
 ideal end, but only their causal connection with it, a very neces- 
 sary procedure under any theory. 
 
 (6) The Non-moral Character of mere Authority. — Authority 
 can do nothing but appeal to the motive of fear, and this is 
 not a moral feeling nor an element of conscience. Conduct 
 from obedience to authority cannot have more than an objec- 
 tively moral character. It does not reflect the slightest trace of 
 subjective morality, and hence can effect absolutely nothing in 
 producing the fundamental element of conscience, though it 
 may develop the habit of deliberation. Conscience acts either 
 from the constraint of duty or from the reverence of right, 
 neither of which is found in the motive of fear, to which every 
 form of authority appeals. Authority may have a place in the 
 attainment of morality externally considered, but it is not the first 
 nor the most important factor, if it effects anything at all in the 
 moralization of man. It is this which must be realized in order 
 
THE ORIGIN OF CONSCIENCE 311 
 
 to produce conscience and its moral conceptions. Empiricism is 
 under the delusion that authority is more than mere power. 
 The term, in fact, is ambiguous. Xow it denotes mere power 
 which is able to enforce its will, and again it denotes legiti- 
 macy. If the empiricist uses it in the first sense, he fails 
 to establish the genesis of conscience or moral ideas. If he 
 uses it in the second sense he begs the question by reasoning 
 in a circle. Legitimate authority contains the very morality 
 which the empiricist is endeavoring to account for, while the 
 theory requires that it shall not. On the other hand, if it be 
 the sense of authority which external restraints create, the case 
 is no better. For, if authority is taken as mere power, able to 
 make itself effective, the sense of it is only the sense of power 
 that the individual feels and he obeys out of fear. If it be the 
 sense of legitimacy which the subject feels, then that quality 
 either exists in the authority unaccounted for and prior to its 
 effect on the individual, or it cannot be produced by merely 
 enforced obedience, and simply reflects the prior and indepen- 
 dent existence of that which authority is supposed to produce. 
 At every turn, therefore, the argument from authority breaks 
 down, no matter whether the authority be political, social, or 
 religious, dynamic or legitimate. 
 
 (c) The Irrelevance of Benevolent Instincts. — Sympathy and 
 benevolence may be good impulses, and it may be desirable to 
 have them rather than the selfish. But as long as they are 
 mere instincts they do not enter the field of conscious and 
 rational morality, which is the phenomenon to be explained. In 
 fact, if instincts of the benevolent kind were the whole of moral- 
 ity, there would be no need whatever of conscience. Moral and 
 rational ideas must be superadded to them before they can be 
 regarded as moral. If this is not true, they are moral and the 
 phenomenon of morality is not accounted for by referring it to 
 them. The theory requires that they shall not contain the ele- 
 ments of conscience in order that it may sustain the claim of 
 its origin from their exercise, and we shall find that this assump- 
 tion, too, is fatal to the doctrine. The problem is to know 
 
312 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 whether moral impulses are modifications of natural impulses 
 without the addition of a quality which the latter does not 
 account for by derivation. 
 
 (d) The Inconvertibility of Conscience with that from which 
 Empiricism originates it. — A theory of the genesis of conscience 
 usually assumes that the source from which it is derived con- 
 tains none of it. Indeed we can hardly be said to have ex- 
 plained its origin at all, unless we have named an antecedent 
 which does not contain it. On the other hand, if it does contain 
 it, we have either not found its origin or it is not what it is 
 assumed to be. Now, empiricists have quite generally admitted 
 that conscience or moral ideas contain elements which are not 
 found in the sources to which they appeal for an explanation of 
 it. If this assumption be true, there is reason to suppose that 
 they can give it an origin later in the life of the individual than 
 other and more primitive mental states. By supposition, if 
 native, moral ideas must be as old, that is, coeval with con- 
 sciousness, either implicitly or explicitly. But if they are not, 
 their later appearance puts them on a level with the acquired 
 ideas, and hence to show that morality is felt only long after ex- 
 periences in pleasure and pain, and under the pressure of 
 authority, is to show that it is subsequent to elements containing 
 none of it, and its origin thus seems to rob it of its natural char- 
 acter. But the dilemma involved in this assumption is clear. 
 On the one hand, if the elements from which morality is sup- 
 posed to originate contain none of it, it is impossible to give it 
 this derivation, and if they do contain it, either its origin has 
 not been determined or its nature is the same as its source and is 
 not what it is supposed to be, namely, different from its causes. 
 
 This criticism applies fully to the first two arguments ad- 
 vanced in favor of experientialism. In the first place, if associa- 
 tion of pleasures and pains with particular acts originates the 
 idea of right and wrong, then right and wrong can be nothing 
 else than the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain, or it 
 must be the reflex reaction of a moral faculty which represents 
 more than this quality, and which has been set into action by 
 
THE ORIGIN OF CONSCIENCE 313 
 
 the influence of those experiences. But the latter supposition is 
 nativism, and the former contradicts the admitted fact that 
 conscience is more than the desire of pleasure. Moreover, if 
 this association of pleasures and pains is sufficient to account for 
 conscience, it is absurd to appeal to the influence of authority, 
 which must either assume that other motives are necessary or 
 wholly abandon its argument. In the second place, the same 
 dilemma appears in the argument from authority. Power, 
 such as authority is, either contains the morality which it origi- 
 nates or it does not. If it contains it, the origin of it is not 
 determined ; if it does not contain it, then morality cannot be 
 derived from it, though elicited by it, and the mystery of its 
 origin is as great as ever. 
 
 It should be again remarked that morality must lie at the 
 basis of all authority or no other motive can be evoked by it 
 than fear, inasmuch as it is, without this moral basis, nothing 
 but the exercise of sheer power. In the former case its origin is 
 not proved, and in the latter it does not exist. Conscience must 
 exist behind authority or it cannot evoke moral obedience, and 
 if it is not rendered legitimate b} r a moral purpose there can 
 never arise the moral obligation to obey it. We might submit 
 to it as to a superior power, but we should never feel that its 
 commands deserved respect. The sense of duty arises only 
 when we see that the authority is moral, and if it be moral that 
 quality already exists before its exercise and before it is sup- 
 posed to originate in the consciousness of those w T ho obey it. 
 In other words, moral consciousness has to exist before author- 
 ity can originate it in any one else, and hence authority does 
 not absolutely originate it. On the other hand, if it does not 
 exist with the exercise of authority there can be no absolute 
 duty to obey it. Prudence might dictate submission to its 
 power, but conscience would never recognize its legitimacy and 
 the sense of duty would have no reason for existence. The fact 
 is that conscience is a precondition of knowing the legitimacy 
 which reason comes to respect, and cannot be originated by that 
 which is its object. 
 
314 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 (e) The Incompatibility of the Third with the First and Sec- 
 ond Arguments. — The introduction of reason to supply the sense 
 of respect for law, which is a most important element of con- 
 science, is an admission that neither the association of pleasures 
 and pains nor the influence of authority can produce conscience. 
 What the empiricist fails to see here is the distinction between 
 subjective and objective morality, the latter of which may be 
 attained by any motive whatever, and the former only by con- 
 scientiousness or good will, which involves the existence of con- 
 science to begin with. The association of pleasures and pains 
 with particular actions, and the exercise of authority which 
 appeals to these very motives, may effect the realization of ex- 
 ternal morality, but they cannot produce internal morality, and 
 it is an admission of the fact to resort to reason for the purpose 
 of obtaining an element in conscience which they cannot supply. 
 But this appeal to reason, as finally acquiescing in the regula- 
 tions of political, social, and religious authority, is a petitio 
 principii if it is meant to oppose intuitionalism. For reason is 
 precisely the source to which the nativist resorts, and as long as 
 this is admitted to be a natural function of the subject we may 
 say what we please about its relation to moral conceptions. 
 They will be quite as native as the faculty whose function they 
 are, and to use it as the final resort of empiricism is a subrep- 
 tion of the worst kind, involving the assumption of intuition 
 without admitting it. Moreover, the reverence for moral law 
 and authority, which is undoubtedly an element of conscience, 
 but cannot be produced by any external influence, is more 
 than the instinctive desire for pleasure and aversion to pain. 
 For this reason it cannot be the expression of anything but 
 natural powers of the individual, and as intuitionalism does not 
 depend for its truth upon the time when conscience manifests 
 itself, or when the sense of duty becomes effective, it is clear 
 that experience cannot originate it in any but the first sense of 
 the term, not being able to produce any increment that is not 
 found in the proper exercise of reason. 
 
 (/) The Equivocal Import of the Term " Origin" — The di- 
 
THE ORIGIN OF CONSCIENCE 315 
 
 lemma of empiricism, which has already been discussed, is 
 created largely by the equivocation lurking in the term 
 " origin," which has two distinct meanings. The first of these 
 denotes a beginning in time and refers the event or phenomenon 
 having an initium to a cause containing none of it This is the 
 efficient cause (causa efficiens, ratio fiendi) and is external to 
 the event produced. An illustration of such a cause is sunshine 
 causing the growth of vegetation, the stroke of a hammer caus- 
 ing an indenture in some substance, the death of an individual 
 by a bullet, the destruction of an object by a cannon-ball or ex- 
 plosion, the effect of cold air upon the clouds to cause a rainfall, 
 etc. The second meaning is that of derivation or dependence of 
 a fact upon something containing it. This is logical participa- 
 tion or metaphysical origin, and the antecedent or condition of 
 the thing whose nature and derivation is desired is called the 
 material cause (causa materialis, ratio essendi). As illustrations 
 we may instance the " origin " or derivation of benevolence 
 from sympathy, of personal interest from the pursuit of pleasure, 
 of murder from inhumanity, geometrical figures from space re- 
 lations, particular from general truths, etc. Or, again, the 
 morality of honesty, of earnestness, of truthfulness originates in 
 the end which they subserve, and the policy of a government 
 originates from the motives which it has in serving the people. 
 All these and many other similar cases show how the character- 
 istics of any particular fact are derived, or as we may say, 
 have their "origin," from the general class of phenomena of 
 which the particular act is a species or an illustration. 
 
 It is the difference between these two meanings which gives 
 rise to much of the confusion of the problem and its discussion. 
 In examining the origin of conscience we have two problems. 
 The first is its historical origin in time, subsequent to events 
 without which presumably it would not appear, and the second 
 is the derivation of its contents, the general psychological phe- 
 nomena which constitute it. In order to prove its claims empir- 
 icism must show that conscience is a new event in the course of 
 development, that it has not been simultaneous with or ante- 
 
316 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 cedent to certain other events presumably natural and yet not 
 containing conscience. Now, it finds the association of pleasures 
 and pains with conduct and the influence of authority prior to 
 any voluntary recognition of moral law, and intimately con- 
 nected with the appearance of it, and hence it assigns con- 
 science, phenomenally considered, of course, an " origin " in 
 time later than the primary elements of consciousness. This is 
 probably true. AYe can go farther and say that we think it is 
 true. But it is no answer to the claim of the intuitionist whose, 
 position does not rest upon the innateness of conscience (tran- 
 scendentally considered), though he is privileged to maintain 
 this while also holding that the manifestation of it may be late 
 in the history of consciousness, but it rests more especially upon 
 the .immediacy, the universality, and the necessity of its judg- 
 ments when it is manifested. Experience, pleasure, and pain, 
 and authority could not have a common effect were there not a 
 common consciousness to appreciate them. It is apparent from 
 this mode of argument that experientialism and intuitionalism 
 are not opposed to each other in this - the first sense of the term 
 origin. Experientialism simply refers to the conditions of the 
 manifestation of conscience and intuitionalism to the character- 
 istics of it and the mode of its manifestation. 
 
 In regard to the second meaning of the term " origin," empir- 
 icism utterly fails to give the derivation of conscience, as its own 
 argument practically confesses, unless it means to dissolve it 
 into the pursuit of pleasure and the fear of authority. This 
 would be an " origin " for it which could be disproved only by 
 showing that as a matter of fact conscience contained other 
 elements than the two mentioned. But empiricism helps at its 
 own destruction by admitting that conscience contains elements 
 which are not found in the phenomena from which it is 
 presumably derived. Nothing" is clearer than the general 
 maxim that an object or thing cannot be evolved from that 
 which contains none of it, unless we are going to admit 
 the special creation theory, which the empiricist never does. 
 Xow, if conscience can be derived from elements not con- 
 
THE ORIGIN OF CONSCIENCE 317 
 
 taining it, there is no reason to limit them to pleasure and 
 fear, and if it cannot be so derived, there is also no reason 
 to resort to these elements, and we are left to certain mental 
 functions to explain its " origin " or manifestation. The only 
 remaiuing question is whether the faculty exhibitiug moral 
 phenomena is a natural one or not, or whether these phenomena 
 are creations of empirical causes or not. No one is so hardy as 
 to maintain this. The faculty exists and circumstances have 
 only stimulated it into activity. The phenomena of conscience 
 are thus natural with the characteristics claimed for them by 
 the general intuitionalist, though the empiricist be right in the 
 claim that they do not appear until instigated by the causes to 
 which he refers them. We find, then, by this analysis, that the 
 two theories occupy two entirely distinct fields wholly unopposed 
 to each other, and they only appear so when their advocates are 
 under the illusion occasioned by the equivocation of the term 
 " origin." Empiricism correctly surmises a set of influences which 
 do not contain conscience or moral phenomena, but which act 
 as instigating causes of their historical appearance, but decides 
 nothing about their nativity, which is not dependent wholly 
 upon an existence coeval with elementary consciousness. On the 
 other hand, intuitionalism demands an " origin " from elements 
 containing what conscience represents, but is not concerned with 
 its historical genesis, the two theories coming into conflict only 
 when one assumes to perform the functions of the other. Be- 
 sides this, empiricism, as already remarked, is wholly correct in 
 its explanation of particular moral conceptions, the explicit 
 knowledge of them and of general principles and of the exten- 
 sion of morality, while intuitionalism must surrender this field. 
 Beyond this, however, the intuitionalist is as unquestionably 
 correct in regard to the underived character of general moral 
 principles and the impossibility of giving them an empirical 
 " origin." 
 
 (g) Confusion from the Conception of Experience. — Many 
 persons are the victims in this discussion of the etymological 
 import of the term " a priori " Intuitive knowledge is often 
 
318 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 called a priori because it can be determined from premises al- 
 ready <known and without waiting until the facts take place in 
 " experience." Thus I may infer a priori from the law of grav- 
 itation that a stone will fall to the ground, if unsupported, 
 without waiting to see it fall. This is called a priori knowledge 
 because it anticipates the perception (experience) of its actual 
 occurrence, though it may not anticipate all "experience" 
 whatsoever. But it is often defined as if it were prior to every 
 form of experience, though it is prior to only one form of it. The 
 two meanings to which we have already referred are primary 
 perceptions or any realization in consciousness, and collective 
 events with an increment at the end not found at the beginning. 
 The former is a direct perception of a fact requiring but one 
 trial to determine its truth, such as a burn, a sound, a sensation 
 of color, occurrence of an accident, or the consciousness of any 
 event whatever; the latter involves repetition under various 
 conditions to verify a supposition made, or to establish the gen- 
 eral character of a law or truth, as the merits of a democracy, 
 the correct judgment of size and distance, the law of the tides, 
 the uniformity of connection between any given act and a cer- 
 tain effect, the effect of wet weather upon the state of vegetation, 
 etc. Now, it is evident that an a priori or intuitive truth cannot 
 be perceived prior to " experience " in the first sense of that 
 term, because they are identical in their meaning. Realization 
 in consciousness and intuition are the same, and a priori denotes 
 the same, with also at times, especially in the Kantian sys- 
 tem, the added idea of subjective and necessary action of the 
 mind. In this sense it expresses what is a law of thought, a 
 condition of experience, and so prior to every form of it. But 
 as applied to the act of mind perceiving a truth it is not 
 prior to experience as an immediate perception. But as ap- 
 plied to the elementary mental perceptions it is and must be 
 prior to "experience" in the second sense, which was the only 
 meaning given the term by Aristotle and probably Greek thought 
 generally, while the phrase " antecedent to experience," which 
 has figured so generally as a definition of " a priori," has been 
 
THE ORIGIN OF CONSCIENCE 319 
 
 intended either for this meaning alone or for those conditions 
 of experience which are merely the laws or capacities rather 
 than the actions of consciousness. Hence it was only after the 
 Aristotelean conception of experience had been changed, prob- 
 ably from the influence of Locke, to include immediate percep- 
 tion not requiring repetition or verification, that the notion of 
 " antecedence to experience," as applied to a positive state of 
 consciousness, came to seem absurd. But those cognitions which 
 carry their own evidence with them when once perceived, such 
 as every cause must have an effect, or vice versa, two and two 
 make four, things equal to the same thing are equal to each 
 other, etc., will always antecede the repeated or various " experi- 
 ences " which may illustrate them, or such " experiences " as 
 afford no positive conviction of any truth other than the facts of 
 consciousness themselves. Now, moral convictions belong to 
 this class of cognitions and perceptions ; that is, the subjective, 
 not the objective, elements of morality. They do not require 
 repetition to verify them or to determine their value and imper- 
 ativeness, while the objective -do require it. Hence empiricism 
 may explain the origin of our conception of the particulars of 
 objective morality by showing the gradual growth of them in 
 consciousness, but does not explain by the same process the 
 appearance, tenacity, firmness, and universality of the subjective 
 elements. 
 
 (7i) Contradiction of Its Anti-theological Argument — This ob- 
 jection is only ad hominem and applies only to the skeptical 
 empiricist. Experientialists are usually skeptics in regard to 
 the theory which refers the origin of morality to the will of 
 God. In criticising this doctrine they emphasize the absurdity 
 of having morality dependent upon mere will, or the fiat of 
 arbitrary power, which is the same as authority. But then 
 when proposing its derivation from experience the same persons 
 appeal to authority, political and social, to account for it. This 
 contradiction is very noticeable in the system of Mr. Spencer. 
 He ridicules the doctrine of Jonathan Dymond, who thought 
 that God could have reversed the character of virtue and vice 
 
320 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 had He chosen to do so, and then proposes political, social, and 
 religious restraints as determining influences in the production 
 both of morality and moral consciousness. These restraints are 
 nothing but the exercise of authority, which, as we have already 
 shown, must be either nothing but the exercise of power — that 
 is, superior strength — or legitimate power. The last of these, as 
 we have seen, begs the question and the former contradicts the 
 criticism of the theological doctrine. One or the other claim 
 must be given up. We cannot reject the authority of God in 
 one relation and set it up to do the same thing in another, and 
 much less can we reject divine authority to substitute human 
 authority for effecting what the will of God cannot do. 
 
 There may be empiricists, however, who do not deny the pos- 
 sibility of the theological theory, and against them this criticism 
 will not apply. The previous argument is all that is relevant to 
 their claims. 
 
 (i) General Facts of Human Experience. — All the objections 
 to experientialism have been designed to apply only to the 
 experience of the individual, though some of the arguments in 
 favor of the theory are used in support of evolution. Whether 
 relevant or not to evolution we do not care to say at present. 
 We wish only to emphasize the fact that we are now only crit- 
 icising the supposition that moral conceptions and conscience can 
 be produced by the experience of the individual and do not 
 require the experience of the race for the effect. This doctrine 
 w T as the universal one among empiricists until evolution was 
 advanced. It is sufficient to observe that it is now quite as 
 universally abandoned for that of development, which admits the 
 nativity of conscience and moral distinctions for the rationally 
 developed man of to-day, but distributes the experience that 
 produces them over the history of the race. This abandonment 
 of it simply confirms the force of the objections above made to 
 it, and the justification of that abandonment is found in the evi- 
 dence of natural morality and of the existence of conscience 
 among even the most degraded specimens of the human race. 
 Conscience appears so quickly in many individuals, and so often 
 
THE ORIGIN OF CONSCIENCE 321 
 
 appears where there has been no experience worth mentioning, 
 that it is easier to suppose it merely latent and inefficient than 
 to invoke the precarious influence of association and the fear of 
 authority to account for it. It is so universal in some measure 
 of its exercise where experience is very slight, and so variously 
 developed and ineffective where experience, association, and 
 authority have been abundant, that it is easier to- suppose it a 
 native function, and that it is only the range of its application 
 and efficiency which are influenced by experience. 
 
 2d. Evolutionism. — As we have already remarked, this theory 
 endeavors to account for the faculty of conscience as well as its 
 mode of action, inasmuch as it assumes that it is developed 
 from an order of beings who were wholly without it. It is a 
 deliberate attempt to bridge the chasm between man and the 
 animals, morally as well as physically. It is thus much more 
 radical in its empirical character than simple experientialism 
 and has the advantage of appealing to periods of time which 
 might account for much and whose influence an opponent is 
 powerless to confute for the lack of data, and of the possibility 
 of obtaining them, to make out a case. The arguments for it 
 are the same as those for experientialism, though they receive 
 appropriate and supplementary additions. For this reason it 
 Avill not be necessary to cover the ground so exhaustively, but 
 only to examine the additional facts upon which it depends, and 
 in a general topic give our own conclusions regarding the doc- 
 trine. In the meantime an examination of Spencer and Darwin 
 may serve for criticism. The following will be the arguments 
 for evolution in addition to those for experientialism, which is 
 confined to the life of the individual, and are here summarized 
 without comment : 
 
 1. Facts in Support of Evolution. — These refer to in- 
 fluences which first affect the life and thought of the individual 
 and are through him transmitted to the race and become perma- 
 nent elements in the constitution of developed individuals in the 
 later periods of history. 
 
 (a) Adjustment to Environment. — This is adaptation to all the 
 
322 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 external influences which may impose any limitations upon the 
 liberty and caprices of the individual, and comprises the effect 
 of association of pleasures and pains, obedience to authority, 
 political, social, and religious, and rational acquiescence in these 
 limitations. Man finds himself in a universe where he must 
 adjust himself to its conditions of climate, temperature, food, and 
 his own physical wants. Then others demand equal rights with 
 himself and political and social restraints are imposed in order 
 to make each individual respect those rights. All these require 
 very careful adjustment, physical, political, social, and moral, on 
 the part of each individual. They impress a certain uniformity 
 of conduct, such as environment may require for survival or for 
 the attainment of welfare, and bring the individual will under 
 law and order, subjecting it to other ends than its own caprices. 
 The effect is the attainment of objective morality. 
 
 (V) The Influence of Habit — This fact is the first that distinc- 
 tively favors the doctrine of evolution. Habit is persistency in 
 a certain course of conduct, and however it may be explained, it 
 takes on a quasi-mechanical character. It always represents, 
 after it is formed, the line of least resistance, and seems to effect 
 a sort of organic or constitutional change in the nature of the 
 subject, such as prompts him to act in that direction rather than 
 in a new one. Thus the man who has been in the habit of reg- 
 ularly attending to his business becomes so fixed in his ways that 
 he will continue to frequent his old places of activity long after 
 he has retired from the life requiring it, and when there is no 
 reason but habit to account for it. The habits of city life often 
 render it very difficult, if not impossible, to draft off the inhab- 
 itants into a rural enviroument. Those thoroughly accustomed 
 to the country feel out of place in the city. Habits of commer- 
 cial business unfit a man, in some cases, for an intellectual life, 
 and vice versa, and always make it more difficult. Intemper- 
 ance becomes a fixed habit which scarcely any influence can 
 overcome. Voluptuousness may so enslave an individual that he 
 will commit suicide in a reverse of fortune rather than adjust him- 
 self to a new environment. These are all special and clear ill us- 
 
THE ORIGIN OF CONSCIENCE 323 
 
 trations of the organic effects of habit. The effects are probably 
 the same for every form of habit, good or bad, though they may 
 not be so marked nor so fixed. They always render action along 
 their line more easy and in that way create physical and mental 
 tendencies in the individual that are very like a faculty and 
 certainly strengthen and give supremacy over others to those 
 which are specially active, while inactive impulses fall into dis- 
 use and decay. Moral habits' in this way acquire efficiency to 
 suppress the lower impulses and to keep them in subjection, 
 while making it easier to adjust oneself to environment and 
 strengthening their tendency to rule life and to become a perma- 
 nent constitutional element of the subject. 
 
 (c) The Influence of Heredity. — Habit can do nothing but 
 create a more or less permanent tendency to act along the line 
 of least resistance and to give strength and supremacy to some 
 particular impulse in the individual. But this capacity dies 
 with the individual and is lost, unless there be some means 
 of handing it on to the next generation. Well, heredity accom- 
 plishes this feat. The qualities of offspring are acquired from 
 the parent. This is evident in the apparent permanency of the 
 species. If any modifications take place they are very gradual, 
 as evolutionists admit. But the passage from parent to offspring 
 is so fixed that the same form, structure, capacities, wants, and 
 actions are always expected and found from generation to gener- 
 ation, with only such changes as may be accounted for by 
 adjustment, habit, and inherited increments. This is only the 
 general fact, and it remains to ascertain whether the influence of 
 habit on the individual can be inherited, whether the fixed way 
 of acting, which Carlyle calls habit, in the ancestor, can become a 
 predisposition or line of least resistance in posterity. The evolu- 
 tionist holds that it can, and it does not matter here whether we 
 hold with Weissmann that acquired characters are not inherited 
 or whether we affirm that they are inherited. For we have only 
 to suppose that the exercise of a function as shown in habit in- 
 creases the power of the capacity connected with it, as an 
 inherent quality of the individual, and reduces the action of 
 
324 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 others in order to conform to Weissmann's demands. On the 
 other hand, if habit as an acquired activity can appear in 
 posterity as a predisposition in the same direction, the case 
 is also made out. It is only a question whether habit expresses 
 only an acquired character or both an inherent capacity ren- 
 dered more efficient and an acquired character, and it does not 
 require us to settle which it means. In either instance we can 
 expect an increment from generation to generation which may 
 result in wide divergencies after the lapse of long periods and 
 variations of environment and experience. In this way habits 
 of adjustment may become fixed tendencies in one generation and 
 a predisposition of an organic character in the next, with a 
 tendency to greater supremacy and the atrophy of competing 
 impulses and functions. Moral qualities may gradually arise 
 as they become useful and dominant in the consciousness of the 
 subject, their tendency to development and permanence increas- 
 ing with their exercise and their efficiency in supplanting non- 
 moral instincts. 
 
 (d) The Influence of Natural Selection. — Natural selection ex- 
 presses the tendency to survive of those individuals who best 
 adjust themselves to environment, and who cultivate those 
 qualities which are most useful in the struggle for existence. 
 For instance, a due regard to the incidents of pleasure and pain 
 will produce or favor the best physical conditions for competing 
 with external forces. Obedience to authority will favor the 
 individual who obeys, by giving him various advantages con- 
 nected with improved living, and every habit which serves to per- 
 fect a man will tend to secure him survival against less favored 
 competitors, just as the supremacy of one impulse secures its sur- 
 vival against others. Hence, the utility of moral conceptions 
 would show itself in securing them supremacy and survival. 
 The man who practices prudence would outbid the self-indulgent 
 man and leave behind him more and better progeny for the next 
 generation, with fewer handicapping tendencies. Then higher 
 moral conceptions with the superior advantages conferred by 
 them, with the attractions of character which they present to all 
 
THE ORIGIN OF CONSCIENCE 325 
 
 who admire them, and with everything to encourage the selection 
 of the individuals possessing them for building up the social or- 
 ganism, would tend to propagate themselves more readily than 
 those which are less adjusted to environment. Those possessing 
 lower impulses would tend to disappear, and there would finally 
 be left only those who showed the" most prudence and the best 
 conscience, indicating their adjustment to the conditions which 
 will encourage nothing else. In this way that process of elimi- 
 nation of the bad and selection of the good goes on, which results 
 in the universality of moral consciousness as it is observed to-day, 
 except in those cases which are reversions to more primitive 
 types. But natural selection tends to confer all the rewards of 
 existence upon the best and strongest individuals, and to pro- 
 duce that uniformity of character which seems so much in favor 
 of intuitionalism. It adds to the influence of heredity a discrim- 
 inating tendency in favor of the. best, and against the worst, thus 
 economizing and improving the resources of nature, and accom- 
 plishing the progress which evolution represents. Moral concep- 
 tions are only one of the many factors represented in this 
 survival, but are the best and ripest fruit of that mysterious 
 process which we are only beginning to fathom and in which, in 
 his reverence for them, man has thought to find traces of the di- 
 vine workmanship. 
 
 2. Darwin's View of Conscience and its Evolution. — 
 Darwin's account of the origin of conscience is interesting as 
 showing the weakness of the whole doctrine, as it is usually pre- 
 sented, though he deserves the credit of implying that it is a com- 
 plex faculty or group of phenomena. But his analysis is very 
 imperfect, and his explanation of its genesis exposes his doc- 
 trine to all the criticisms of which the opponent of evolution 
 is so eager to avail himself. We shall state and examine his 
 theory. 
 
 Darwin regards conscience as a modified social instinct. Duty 
 and respect for law are but impulses directed by that instinct. It 
 develops into the form known as conscience in the following 
 manner : First there is the exercise of mutual sympathy among 
 
326 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 animals, due to incipient, social instincts, as illustrated in gre- 
 gariousness, tribal solidarity, and natural affections. The devel- 
 opment of the mental faculties in the same connection would be 
 accompanied by the memory of past actions, with the satisfaction 
 that social impulses would yield, and the dissatisfaction yielded 
 by the less social instincts. These would avail to encourage the 
 social impulses and to give them the efficiency and supremacy 
 which favor survival. Then when language was perfected pub- 
 lic opinion could add its influence to social agencies of the 
 natural kind. Sympathy and authority would supplement each 
 other to overcome purely egoistic influences. Habit would 
 strengthen sympathy and overcome the resistance implied in the 
 fear of authority, and gradually give rise to respect for the end 
 to which it was adjusted. By these processes the altruistic in- 
 stincts would conquor the egoistic and become more permanent. 
 The sense of duty arises in the struggle for supremacy between 
 these two different impulses, though it is not found in the order 
 of existence until we reach man. 
 
 This doctrine is very clearly stated by Darwin, along with con- 
 fessions which very much mar its consistency. The criticism of 
 it will bring out its defects and show more clearly what the real 
 problem is, which will be found to differ very much from the 
 conception of Mr. Darwin. 
 
 In the first place, conscience gets its name from the fact that 
 it is more than a social instinct, more than both instinct and so- 
 ciality, and it would not get the name were it not more than this. 
 Hence its origin is not accounted for until this new element is 
 derived. In order to derive it from elements found in the lower 
 order of existence, Darwin should specify more than social in- 
 stinct there, and that might be to merely abandon the question of 
 origin. Social instincts, as instincts, may give rise to objective 
 morality, but they can do nothing more. It is only when they 
 are rationalized that they can be called moral, and they cannot 
 be rationalized until reason is already in existence. But the 
 fatal criticism to Darwin's theory is his admission that the essen- 
 tial element of a moral sense is the comparison of past and future 
 
THE ORIGIN OF CONSCIENCE 327 
 
 actions and motives, and that animals do not show any traces of 
 a disposition to make such a comparison. If conscience is devel- 
 oped from animal intelligence, we should find the elements of it 
 there, and if animals do not show any traces of them, they either 
 do not exist there or are a new character in man not referable 
 to the process of evolution. The use made of language and pub- 
 lic opinion is wholly irrelevant, as they can only render more 
 efficient the functions already existing, but cannot originate them. 
 Indeed the very reference to them as agents in the result proves 
 his entire misunderstanding of the problem and his tendency to 
 confuse " origin " with evolution. This is still more evident in the 
 admission that the essential element of conscience is not found 
 among animals, but is distinctly human, which only makes it a 
 new factor, whose origin is either wholly unaccounted for or 
 must be referred to the theory of special creation, which is the 
 very doctrine Darwin would set aside. 
 
 In discussing Darwin's theory of the origin of moral sense and 
 conscience, however, we must remember that it does not profess 
 to be exhaustive, but is only a tentative effort to account for the 
 very factor which opponents of the general doctrine maintained 
 was sufficient to make an impassable chasm between man and 
 brute. Had it not been that he tacitly conceded their main con- 
 tention, the use of social instincts and the struggle between al- 
 truistic and egoistic impulses, with the consequent sense of duty 
 incident to that conflict, would have rendered a very fair account 
 of the matter by minimizing the distance between the two orders 
 of existence, upon which the opponents of evolution relied in or- 
 der to make out their case. But that concession was a fatal 
 weakness, and the w T hole argument is an illustration of the need 
 of more careful analysis of conscience, and of stating the various 
 causes of it, so that their real influence could be understood. We 
 shall turn next to the view of Mr. Spencer. 
 
 3. Spencer's Theory of the Evolution of Conscience. 
 — Mr. Spencer has worked out his doctrine much more systemat- 
 ically. With him conscience and moral consciousness are the 
 same, and sometimes he identifies moral consciousness with the 
 
328 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 sense of obligation, though at others he seems to treat the latter 
 as only one mode of the former. But he starts with the element 
 that distinguishes moral consciousness and proceeds to explain 
 its genesis. " The essential trait in moral consciousness," says he, 
 " is the control of certain feelings by certain other feeling or feel- 
 ings." In the first place, it is noticeable that this conception of 
 it is wholly emotional. But such as it is, Mr. Spencer pro- 
 ceeds to show how this superior feeling obtained its power. This 
 he says was due to the influence of religious, political, and social 
 restraints, which effected a disposition to relinquish immediate 
 good and to seek the more distant aud general good. But while 
 these restraints supplant moral control, according to Mr. Spencer, 
 he is aware of the fact that they do not " constitute it, but are 
 only preparatory to it." What the truly moral feeling is, Mr. 
 Spencer regards as different from the mental state corresponding 
 to these three forms of restraint and control. " The truly moral 
 deterrent from murder," he says, " is not constituted by a repre- 
 sentation of hanging as a consequence, or by a representation of 
 tortures in hell as a consequence, or by a representation of the 
 horror and hatred excited in fellow men ; but by a representation 
 of the necessary natural results — the infliction of death agony on 
 the victim, the destruction of all his possibilities of happiness," 
 which, Mr. Spencer might add, the man inherently feels is wrong. 
 " One who is morally prompted to fight against a social evil," he 
 continues, " has neither material benefit nor popular applause 
 before his mind ; but only the mischiefs he seeks to remove and 
 the increased well-being which will follow their removal." 
 Moral feeling is thus an estimate of the intrinsic worth or evil of 
 certain things, and not mere constraint or coercion. This is un- 
 questionably a correct analysis of the case, except that the intel- 
 lectual element is here surreptitiously introduced into moral con- 
 sciousness, but was excluded from it in the definition. But he 
 is right in making moral feeling essentially different from that 
 produced by the three forms of restraint, and yet after this ad- 
 mission one wonders how he expects to account for its genesis by 
 reference to these restraints. In fact, as already observed, they 
 
THE ORIGIN OF CONSCIENCE 329 
 
 can produce nothing but objective morality, while leaving subjec- 
 tive morality wholly unexplained. When he comes to stating 
 the genesis of the latter, it is apparent from his whole argument 
 that he establishes nothing but its efficiency, not its origin. He 
 assumes the capacity for estimating right and wrong, and possibly 
 the actual consciousness of what right and wrong are, which is 
 the phenomenon to be accounted for, while the argument only 
 goes to show how the feeling of right and wrong conquers that 
 which tempts the individual to disregard it. But conceding that 
 this criticism is not accurate, which we have no space to examine 
 in detail, the fatal incident in his theory is the flat statement 
 that " the restraints properly distinguished as moral are unlike 
 the restraints out of which they evolve." This is a very strange 
 assertion after admitting that political, social, and religious re- 
 straints do not constitute moral feeling, because it implies that 
 something can be evolved out of that which contains none of it. We 
 have already indicated how necessary it is to the case of empiri- 
 cism that this principle be assumed, and also how fatal it was to 
 assume it. Mr. Spencer here states it in a very bold and offen- 
 sive form, a form which practically admits the creation of new 
 elements. After what has been said about the impossibility of 
 deriving anything from that which contains none of it, without 
 admitting the theory of special creation, which Mr. Spencer is 
 opposing, it is not necessary to examine this statement more 
 fully. It suffices to show the contradiction between the state- 
 ment that political, social, and religious restraints do not originate 
 restraints that are properly moral, but are only parallel and co- 
 incident with them, and the statement that moral 1 restraints are 
 unlike those from which, they are evolved. This view reflects 
 the same fatal conception of the problem that we found in Dar- 
 win's theory and in empiricism generally, due, of course, to the 
 feeling that we must select a set of phenomena not containing 
 conscience, in order to prove its comparatively later origin, and 
 then assuming that it is derived from them. No doctrine of evo- 
 lution can be sustained on such a postulate, except such as repre- 
 sents no opposition to the theory of special creation. This is 
 
330 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 made sufficiently clear by the criticism of the same postulate in 
 experientialism. 
 
 One interesting proof of the defect in Mr. Spencer's theory is 
 a fact which represents considerable merit in it at the same 
 time, but reflects the uselessness of supposing any material in- 
 fluence from the various restraints in the development of moral 
 consciousness. This is his doctrine of the sense of obligation. 
 Mr. Spencer considers this phenomenon as equivalent to moral 
 consciousness or conscience, though he seems to intend that it 
 shall be narrower and less complex. But he ascribes to it all 
 the qualities that are in fact attributed to moral consciousness in 
 general, namely, authority and coerciveness. He intends the latter 
 attribute to be added to conscience as an accident of its nature. 
 The sense of obligation, he claims, is developed from two influ- 
 ences. The first is the accumulated experiences which produce "the 
 consciousness that guidance by feelings, which refer to remote 
 and general results, is usually more conducive to welfare than 
 guidance by feelings to be immediately gratified." These higher 
 feelings have the characteristic of " authority," which with Mr. 
 Spencer can mean nothing else than legitimacy, because the 
 notion of power is introduced to describe the second element of 
 obligation. " Authority," as legitimacy, can only mean respect 
 for some end felt as a moral good, which we shall here call rev- 
 erence to distinguish it from the associated notion of mere 
 power which the term " authority " always suggests, and which 
 the context of Mr. Spencer shows he does not mean. This is 
 the element which he regards as the truly moral feeling, and 
 which is not constituted by the three forms of external con- 
 trol. The second characteristic of obligation as defined by Mr. 
 Spencer is coerciveness, or the feeling of constraint, the necessity 
 of pursuing a course against one's natural inclinations. This, he 
 maintains, is produced by the political, social, and religious re- 
 straints that bring the individual will under subjection. Now, 
 as this feeling is not the true deterrent of wrong and prompter 
 of the right, Mr. Spencer holds that it is the sign of a defective 
 moral consciousness, and that it must " diminish as fast as morali- 
 
THE ORIGIN OF CONSCIENCE 331 
 
 zation increases." The sense of obligation, therefore, he holds is 
 transitory, assuming that an ideal condition is possible or prob- 
 able where coerciveness or the fear of " authority " (as power) 
 is no longer needed. "We shall not dwell upon the fact that his 
 conclusion proves too much considered from the point of view of 
 his own definition. If he had said that the feeling of coercive- 
 ness is transitory he would be both consistent and correct. But 
 this is not the only element of obligation according to his own 
 definition, which includes " authority," or reverence, as an 
 essential characteristic. To make this transitory is to make 
 moral consciousness transitory, and he does this by speaking of 
 obligation rather than the feeling of coerciveness. He is per- 
 haps true in this slip of the tongue to the common conception of 
 it, but in that case he should have omitted the element of 
 " authority " from it. But not to dwell upon this incident, the 
 important fact to be noted is, that the elimination of coercive- 
 ness as a transitory element of moral consciousness goes to show 
 that the several forms of restraint can be no factor in the pro- 
 duction of moral consciousness, but only of a phenomenon which 
 is not moral at all. Common sense even asserts that the fear 
 of "authority" (as power, and in any other sense the "fear" 
 can only be reverence) is not a moral incentive to action, and 
 Mr. Spencer's elimination of it only coincides with that convic- 
 tion. But it shows, first, that he had not realized that the only 
 thing effected by these restraints was objective morality, and not 
 moral consciousness properly defined, and second, that if the 
 element of " authority " or reverence could exist independently 
 of these restraints, they could not be the conditions of it in any 
 sense that they were necessary to its character. That is to say, 
 political, social, and religious restraints are designed only to pro- 
 duce coerciveness and are of no use when reverence or respect for 
 the right exists independently of them, and as moral restraints 
 cannot be evolved from the fear of power without disappearing 
 with it, there is no reason to suppose that the restraint exer- 
 cised by power ever had anything to do with the creation of 
 this respect. 
 
332 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 The criticism of Mr. Spencer sums itself up in the weakness 
 of the position that morality can be evolved out of that which 
 contains none of it. If he had maintained that the causes which 
 invoke it or which act as efficient causes to produce its manifes- 
 tation contain none of it, there would be less to say in the way 
 of objection. But this would not be opposed to nativism, while 
 the bald creatio ex nihilo doctrine involved in the evolution of a 
 thing not containing it, though it favors empiricism, does so at 
 the expense of the very principle for which evolution is supposed 
 to stand. The question, then, remains whether w T e can sustain a 
 doctrine of evolution at all, if the systems we have noticed are so 
 vulnerable and defective. 
 
 V. CONCLUSIONS IN REGARD TO EVOLUTION— Previous 
 criticism would seem to imply that the doctrine of evolution 
 would have to be rejected. But this conclusion would be a hasty 
 one and must depend wholly upon the conception we take of the 
 process. In fact, our entire criticism has been intended to bring 
 out the need of more careful definition of the problem before tak- 
 ing one side or the other. The one great difficulty is that both 
 opponents and advocates of the doctrine have not distinguished 
 adequately between citation and evolution. Both have assumed 
 that the doctrine of evolution is a theory of creation, a theory to 
 account for the introduction of absolutely new qualities and 
 functions without any appeal to extra-natural causes. On the 
 one hand, the advocate of special creation had two facts to start 
 from upon which he based the presumably impossible task of ac- 
 counting for progress and different effects without the existence 
 of supernatural causes. They are («) the apparent fixity of 
 species, and (b) the enormous chasm between different species 
 which cannot be bridged by what we know of ordinary hered- 
 ity. Inasmuch as it was admitted that all species had an 
 origin, it was urged that the type was created supernaturally at 
 the outset and left to continue its existence without any essential 
 variation, while the differences between the various species w T ere 
 supposed to be so marked that the higher could not be evolved 
 out of the lower, the differential characteristic or characteristics 
 
THE ORIGIN OF CONSCIENCE 333 
 
 being wholly new data, whose explanation was not referable to 
 those of lower orders. The creationist's position, then, was, there- 
 fore, identified with the notion of miraculous, occasional, and 
 supernatural interference with an order which could only explain 
 invariability, inertia, or the absence of change. It accounted for 
 the origin of life and for its modification in the same way, and 
 even the origin of matter. But it has usually discussed the ques- 
 tion as if it were only the origin of life and its modification that 
 were concerned, and took the ground that the various increments 
 and differences which we observe between the lower and higher 
 orders of existence could not be explained by the supposition that 
 the latter were evolved out of the former. On the other hand, 
 the evolutionist denies the supernatural, denies the fixity of species, 
 minimizes the differences between species, and attempts to account 
 for the origin of everything by the sufficiency of natural cause's- 
 But his misfortune has been that he has supported evolution upon 
 creationist postulates. First, he has admitted that there are new 
 elements to be accounted for in the scale of existence which con- 
 sistency required him to deny, and which the facts used in the 
 argument required him to deny. Second, he assumed that nat- 
 ural causes could do what his own definition of them maintains 
 that they cannot do, namely, the work of the supernatural. He 
 assumed that something could be developed from that which con- 
 tained none of it, while " natural " causes were supposed incapa- 
 ble of any such effect. If they were capable of producing this 
 effect it would not be necessary to look for any law in the world 
 at all, or for the limitation of any species to a like ancestry. 
 Such a thing as sterility ought not to exist under any conception 
 of the world which identifies evolution with the origin of things 
 from that which contains none of them. It could only be an 
 order in which things originated either spontaneously, that is, 
 without a cause, or by supernatural agency. Hence the only re- 
 source for consistent evolution is to abandon the concession 
 made to creationism and to analyze more carefully the phenom- 
 ena which it tries to explain. 
 
 With this statement of the misunderstanding between the two 
 
334 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 positions and of the weaknesses which have attended the usual 
 defence of evolution we may proceed to show how the true con- 
 ception of it applies to the problem of conscience. We have, 
 then, first to consider the nature of the process. 
 
 1st. The Nature of Evolution. — The proper conception of 
 evolution is that of the expansion of capacities or the elicitation 
 of latent poivers into exercise and predominance over others. In 
 other words, it is development, not creation. Any other concep- 
 tion of it is sure to give trouble. Nor is it at all necessary to 
 conceive it as opposed to creationist theories. It will confine 
 itself to the task of showing how complex phenomena originate 
 from the combination of elements whose "origin" does not con- 
 cern it, and how certain phenomena become able to supplant the 
 influence of others, but not how they originate from those con- 
 taining none of them. It can leave the " origin " of elements 
 and latent capacities to creationist doctrines. If there are any 
 new elements introduced into the world order from time to time 
 it can concede a place to creation ; if not, it may go about the 
 work of showing how the complex and progressive order of the 
 world represents a modification of relations and combination 
 among these elements ; that is, showing the derivation of complex 
 phenomena without discussing the origin either of the elements or 
 of the process. The vulnerability of creationist theories lies in 
 the facts that they have generally distinguished wrongly be- 
 tween natural and supernatural causes, ignored or denied the 
 law of continuity, and assumed the simplicity and underivabil- 
 ity of phenomena that were or are complex and derived from 
 the union of simpler elements. Their strength lies in their 
 ability to account for factors which the evolutionist conceded 
 were not found in the antecedents of the phenomena to be ex- 
 plained, and had they, on the one hand, been more adept in 
 proving the simplicity of the new factors under dispute they 
 might have won their case, and had they, on the other, confined 
 their argument to the fact that all phenomena must have some 
 other causes than phenomena alone they would not have come 
 into conflict with evolution. Had the evolutionists, on the 
 
THE ORIGIN OF CONSCIENCE 335 
 
 other hand, observed that they had endowed natural causes with 
 creative powers, limited by the creationist to supernatural 
 causes, as is indicated by their concession that natural causes 
 could produce what was new and not contained in them- 
 selves, they would have abandoned an antagonism to theories 
 which was based upon a false antithesis between natural and 
 supernatural causes, and confined their task to showing how ex- 
 ternal influences elicit the exercise and development of latent 
 capacities and functions, whether native or acquired. This 
 would have left them free to discuss evolution without condition- 
 ing it upon the truth of metaphysical empiricism. It would have 
 made the doctrine the complement of general nativism and the 
 mere expression of orderly progress, which is more the result of 
 combining existing forces and functions than it is the addition of 
 new data to lower orders of nature. The total result may 
 appear new, but its elements may not be new. This is only to 
 say that evolution may give new form to its products, but not 
 new matter. The importance of this conception will appear in 
 the sequel. 
 
 Now, the comprehensive definition of conscience which we have 
 adopted conduces to this view of the problem, because, instead of 
 limiting it to a simple phenomenon like constraint or reverence, 
 we make it the whole mind in relation to moral objects, compris- 
 ing intellectual, emotional, and desiderative elements in a certain 
 combination and application. Mr. Spencer has a clear conception 
 of this in his general doctrine of evolution, and at the outset of 
 his genesis of moral consciousness, but he spoils the whole effect of 
 this by virtually conceding the unique and simple nature of the 
 phenomenon, and by admitting the creationist postulate. But if 
 we adhere closely to the true conception of evolutions that it is 
 merely the expansion of latent capacities, or the combination of 
 them to produce an apparently new datum, we shall understand 
 how conscience may, on the one hand, gain an efficiency which 
 gives it supremacy among the impulses to action, and on the 
 other, be on the whole a new capacity compared with lower or- 
 ders where the combination of its elements does not exist. Keep- 
 
336 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 ing this limitation of the problem in view, we may restate the 
 process of evolution and show just what influence is exercised by 
 the agencies invoked by the empiricists in general. 
 
 In the first place, association of pleasures and pains, and the 
 imposition of various restraints on the individual, do tend to 
 develo]), but not to create, conscience, leaving for the present the 
 question how the individual came to have it. But taking the 
 individual early in his life, or early in the stage of civilization 
 when there seems to be no conscience present, and certainly none 
 that prevails in directing the will, these influences elicit mental 
 states ; they do not create them, but elicit them, as the expression 
 of existing capacities, which states exercise an influence among 
 the others. The memory of a past pain with a particular act avails 
 to inhibit the repetition of the act, of a pleasure, to initiate its 
 reoccurrence. Elementary restraint is involved in this, even when 
 no arbitrary restrictions from other wills are supposed. It is the 
 restraint or constraint of more long-sighted adjustment. This 
 feeling would not occur but for the consciousness of two alterna- 
 tives between which the choice must be made. The prevalence 
 of the alternative involving the remoter good is so much in favor 
 of its future prevalence until habit may overcome the feeling of 
 constraint by removing the competition of the more proximate 
 good. This constraint is more evident when political, social, and 
 religious authority is used to limit liberty and restrain desire. 
 They produce a conflict between alternatives that nature might 
 not effect. It is quite as natural a phenomenon as any that 
 may have been prior to it, but as long as no dangerous conse- 
 quences, near or remote, are involved in the course of action first 
 suggested, there is no need" for the existence and influence of re- 
 straint, and it can be elicited only by the consciousness of con- 
 flict between two alternatives with the necessity of choosing for 
 protection, or for realizing an ideal, that one which involves the 
 least sacrifice. This constraint, which takes the name of obliga- 
 tion when there is any appreciation of the value and importance 
 of its object, is quite as natural as any desire opposed to it. It is 
 that function of consciousness which expresses the necessity of ad- 
 
THE ORIGIN OF CONSCIENCE 337 
 
 justinent as against a free desire, and external influence only in- 
 cites it to act ; it does not create it, but only offers it an opportunity 
 to become efficient. Habit, again, in adjustment to the altered 
 environment sustains this efficiency until its momentum wholly 
 suppresses the temptations of immediate good, and conscience 
 thus becomes the expression of reason, the voluntary and willing 
 service of duty. 
 
 This description of the growth of conscience seems only to be 
 a repetition of the argument for experientialism, and so would 
 seem merely to reinstate the very position we criticised. But in 
 reply to this intended objection it is most important to remember 
 that the difference between the two doctrines is very great. Ex- 
 perientialism is a theory of the " origin," genesis, the creation 
 of conscience, as a new function of human consciousness, but 
 what we are here defending is not its " origin," but the occasion of 
 its acquiring efficiency, which is voluntary though the alternatives 
 offering the occasion are externally produced. There is a vast 
 difference between the " origin " or genesis of conscience, espe- 
 cially when that phrase will be taken to imply the " origin " of 
 the faculty (transcendentally) rather than the " origin " of the 
 specific consciousness of right and wrong (phenomenally), and the 
 creation of an emergency where the efficiency of conscience is 
 necessary for protection or self-realization. The latter position 
 evades all the confusion, entanglements, and controversies of cre- 
 ationist metaphysics, while neither denying nor affirming its doc- 
 trine, and leaves external influences to the limited function of 
 creating conditions for the manifestation and increased efficiency of 
 conscience, and not for producing either its capacity or its phenom- 
 ena. For where the capacity does not exist external restraints 
 will act in vain, so far as the elicitation of conscience is con- 
 cerned, and if this exists its phenomena are its own production 
 though the occasion for them is or may be of foreign origin. They 
 become more or less permanent through exercise, as habit estab- 
 lishes the line of least resistance until less moral impulses are 
 atrophied and suppressed. The tendency thus becomes moral 
 with its reflected elements of moral consciousness, though it is 
 
338 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 only their efficiency and not their functional character which ex- 
 ternal agencies condition. 
 
 Now, the process of evolution, as applied to the race, simply 
 takes whatever efficiency a function may have acquired through 
 experience, and transmits it as a native propensity to the next 
 generation, where it will require less influence from the outside 
 to incite it to action. The process of strengthening it may thus be 
 continued instead of beginning the work, as in the prior gener- 
 ation. The advantage from the process is that the whole of the 
 work does not have to be done over again, and each successive 
 generation begins where the last left off, until finally the order of 
 supremacy among the impulses is reversed from the non-moral 
 to the moral, the former being as inefficient as the latter were 
 in the beginning. This is what is meant by the " origin " of con- 
 science, the development of efficiency in mental states little dis- 
 posed or qualified at the outset to compete vigorously with egois- 
 tic and non-moral feelings. It is the creation of a condition or 
 emergency where the better functions of consciousness must ex- 
 ert themselves in behalf of the individual's protection, and welfare, 
 then the formation by habit of a permanent and fixed tendency, 
 its transmission by heredity to the next generation, and the estab- 
 lishment of its universality by natural selection and the survival 
 of the fittest. This assumes, however, that all the elements are 
 given, and* that evolution has only to give them efficiency and 
 permanency. 
 
 We have distinguished between experientialism and evolu- 
 tionism by saying that the former pretends only to explain the 
 origin of the phenomena, the latter the faculty of conscience. 
 This implies that the faculty is given in the individual, at least 
 as he is known to-day. But evolution intends to account for 
 what we now find in the individuals of the race, and the ques- 
 tion is now raised whether new faculties can be originated by 
 the influences mentioned any more than states of consciousness. 
 The answer to this will depend upon the conception we take of 
 conscience as a faculty. If it be a simple faculty limited, say, 
 to the sense of duty, regret for error, or reverence for law, and 
 
THE ORIGIN OF CONSCIENCE 339 
 
 the capacity for feeling what either of these express, then we 
 affirm that even evolution could not originate it, assuming that 
 it was not given primordial^, as a germ at least, in the funda- 
 mental data of consciousness. But if we conceive it as a complex 
 faculty or set of co-operating functions its case may be very dif- 
 ferent. Take it as defined, namely, as the mind in its relation 
 to moral phenomena, the mind conscious of and moved by moral 
 objects, as intellect is a name for mind as conscious of phenom- 
 enal events, and we may well admit the possibility that there 
 could be latent in this general consciousness a number of capac- 
 ities which experience and heredity might, if given time, unite 
 in efficiency and value so as to give an apparently new power. 
 Suppose the cognitive, emotional, and desiderative elements to 
 exist among lower orders of creation, but only in an isolated 
 condition, each directed to an object of its OAvn, and never com- 
 bined upon an object known as moral, then conscience can be 
 said not to exist though its components exist in solution. Thus, 
 a being might cognize a series of acts which were cruel and yet 
 not have those feelings which accompany or constitute a sense of 
 cruelty ; or a being might have a sense of cruelty from acts 
 injurious to self and yet not realize associated feeling or connec- 
 tion with the same act upon others, or even cognize its similarity. 
 Its sympathies or social instincts may not be called into co-opera- 
 tive action, and hence the complex idea of right and wrong, in- 
 volving intellectual, emotional, and social elements of a high order, 
 combined to produce a certain direction to consciousness, would 
 not exist. If external influences ever produced a condition in 
 which these proper elements entered into conjoint action and con- 
 tinued so, and reflection with association occupied itself with this 
 condition, a nascent habit of action diverted in the direction of 
 morality might very w T ell originate, and once initiated the various 
 interests, subjective and objective, might increase its momentum 
 and efficiency until the cohesion of the several elements received 
 that consistency which looks like a simple faculty, and which, 
 from the prominence and value of one of its functions, like duty, 
 might be confused with it. If we assume, therefore, that in man 
 
340 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 this cohesion has reached the required fixity, as well as complex- 
 ity, and that it is absent in the animals, we can well say that 
 there is a difference in kind between them ; that man has a con- 
 science and the animals have not. The difference, however, is not 
 in the elements, but in their mode of action. In man they are 
 conjoined for a common object and are conscious of themselves. In 
 animals they are either not co-operative at all, or if co-operative 
 as instincts, they are not conscious or reflective. Hence con- 
 science becomes a name for a group of co-operative functions 
 which, so far from being evolved from that which contains none ' 
 of it, is evolved from elements, each of which does not contain it 
 as a whole, but which compose it. Evolution thus does not pro- 
 duce these elements, but it produces their complex and harmoni- 
 ous action. It produces the faculty as a complex whole as well 
 as its efficiency, but without adding any new function to exist- 
 ence. Its influence is to consolidate existing functions, not to 
 create them. But in consolidating them it produces a whole 
 which is not found in lower orders, though we may find various 
 imitations in the partial organization of it casually and perhaps 
 temporarily. It is only in the consolidation of existing elements, 
 however, that we can, on the one hand, maintain a true concep- 
 tion of evolution and, on the other, suppose that the resultant is 
 in any way like a new quality. We may thus draw a qualita- 
 tive distinction between different orders of existence which 
 enables us to satisfy our feelings about the vast difference which 
 morality establishes between man and animals ; but as already 
 remarked, it is a qualitative difference in the total, and not in 
 the elements, and this is the only sense in which evolution can be 
 said to originate conscience as a faculty. 
 
 2d. The Importance of the Theory of Evolution. — To many 
 minds the doctrine of evolution has seemed to be destructive of 
 ethics. This was no doubt due partly to the reaction against 
 creationist theories with their theological associations, and partly 
 to its affiliations with purely empirical principles and their latent 
 nullification of responsibility. But this feeling after all has been 
 a prejudice, which could not justify itself except by rejecting 
 
THE ORIGIN OF CONSCIENCE 341 
 
 the whole significance and value of education, which is a develop- 
 ing process upon the same scale as that we have described, and is 
 everywhere lauded for that very consequence. Evolution is 
 nothing but education, and education is nothing but evolution, 
 while nativism is not opposed to either of them. All parties have 
 appreciated the value of education and the theory of it, and 
 should not take umbrage at evolution which only explains for 
 the race what education does for the individual. But the propo- 
 sition of it came when it gave a rude shock to certain preju- 
 dices and seemed to threaten the very foundations of morality. 
 It is true that it does modify the theory of responsibility, as 
 defended in the age of scholasticism. But this is precisely its 
 merit. It does not wholly eliminate responsibility; it merely 
 modifies the strictness and severity of its application to practical 
 life, and this is a most important function in the development of 
 human conduct. Let us examine how it does this. 
 
 We have seen two facts in regard to responsibility. First, the 
 existence of it in any form whatever is conditioned upon the 
 presence of the faculty of conscience at least, and the degree of it 
 upon the extent of moral knowledge and feeling. Second, re- 
 sponsibility exists in different degrees with different men, accord- 
 ing to the fact just mentioned. Now, in order to treat man as in 
 any way morally responsible (not causally " responsible ") we 
 must assume that all individuals of the class have a capacity for 
 moral distinctions and moral feelings. Moreover, we treat him 
 as he is, not as he was in the earliest period w T hen conscience 
 did not exist as we know it. We may take him as evolutionists 
 concede he is, wdiatever his origin or the orgin of his conscience. 
 This assumes that he now has moral faculty. Hence to that ex- 
 tent we consider all men responsible, limiting the quality, how- 
 ever, to the rational stage of his development. But we have 
 already admitted that all men are not equally responsible. On 
 this matter scholasticism was too severe and rigid. The doctrine 
 of salvation and of eternal punishment were in its favor, and these 
 influences were reinforced by the democratic spirit of Christianity, 
 which made all men equal. It did not see that the only equality 
 
342 ELEMENTS OF ETHIC 3 
 
 that was defensible was the equality of his relation to objective 
 morality, and not his equality in subjective capacities and merits. 
 Hence, not distinguishing between these the doctrine of equal re- 
 sponsibility was everywhere the only view taken of man, with the 
 exception of imbeciles and the insane. All men of any aver- 
 age sanity and rationality were adjudged as equally responsible, 
 and it was supposed that any weakening of the doctrine meant 
 the overthrow of all responsibility. But we have already shown 
 that there are two stages of responsibility, one based upon the 
 capacity for moral distinctions, and the other upon the degree of 
 knowledge and moral sensibility, the last condition varying in all 
 degrees. Now, evolution shows how these differences arise, and 
 so explains why we should not treat all persons alike in the appli- 
 cation of praise and blame. It is, of course, the fact of these 
 differences rather than that of evolution which affects the degree 
 of responsibility, but the theory of evolution shows how the facts 
 come to be as they are, rather than determines their value and 
 implication. With the vast differences of original endowment 
 which might be expected in a world like the present, with the 
 differences of experience, differences of heredity, of natural selec- 
 tion, of survival, and reversion to primitive types, and differences 
 of condition and environment added to abnormal development — 
 with all these sources of variation, we could only expect equal 
 differences of responsibility, and it is the limitations upon this 
 characteristic which evolution shows that give it its sole value 
 to ethics. Wherever it is accepted with its implications there 
 must be decidedly more humanity in our consideration and treat- 
 ment of men, less adulation of them for their merits, and less re- 
 proach for their delinquencies. But it will not alter the correc- 
 tive method of discipline, except in the matter of the length of 
 time for applying it. Every consideration of evolution points to 
 the importance of making the period of punishment indefinite 
 and the time of conferring liberty upon the subject of it depend- 
 ent upon his moral development under discipline. But it will 
 neither tolerate the retributive methods of the past nor encourage 
 the substitution of purely preventive measures, except in the worst 
 
THE ORIGIN OF CONSCIENCE 343 
 
 forms of criminal offence. In all cases, however, its voice is in 
 favor of humanity, provided, of course, that we retain morality 
 at all, and as the nature and validity of morality does not in the 
 least depend upon the fact or truth of evolution, we may well 
 suppose that the limitations of responsibility which it shows are 
 its title to respect in our judgment of men, and this effect is its 
 only value. It is a matter of considerable wonder that its advo- 
 cates have not seen this feature of it, but have wholly passed it 
 by and concentrated interest upon the doctrine, as if the validity 
 of moral principles depended upon its issue. But the only perti- 
 nence which it possesses relates to responsibility, and even this is 
 only indirect. 
 
 3d. Relation of Evolutionism to Ethics. — There is a wide- 
 spread feeling that the doctrine of evolution is one of great im- 
 portance to Ethics and that there is even an evolutionistic 
 Ethics, or that the whole problem of morality is and must be 
 transformed by the conception of development. This thesis we 
 shall absolutely deny. At the same time it is not to be denied 
 that the discussions and speculations of evolution have as a 
 matter of fact very greatly influenced recent ethical controver- 
 sies. In fact, the doctrine created so many apprehensions when 
 it was first proposed that one of the first effects was to begin a 
 thorough reconstruction of Ethics. The activity in this field has 
 been very remarkable during the last two decades. More, per- 
 haps, has been written upon the subject of Ethics than for two 
 centuries previous. But the enthusiasm of the evolutionist and 
 the belief that a new principle of Ethics was discovered were 
 wholly misdirected. There is not a particle of reason to suppose 
 that the real problem of Ethics has been in the least altered by 
 evolution and evolutionistic theories. The causes for the actual 
 influence exercised by <it upon moral speculations were mainly 
 outside the real problem of development. They were two : (a) 
 the immense extension of the natural, and (6) the influence of 
 the doctrine of the struggle for existence. The first of these 
 influences has always been a matter of contention in the problem 
 of Ethics and is not peculiar to the theory of evolution. The 
 
344 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 question regarding how much place shall be given to natural 
 conditions, mental or extra-mental, is merely the problem of how 
 far we are to act independently of them and to keep them under 
 due control, and is not materially affected by the discovery of 
 the fact and of the mode of evolution. The theory of develop- 
 ment has done no more than to emphasize and extend our con- 
 ception of the conditions and limitations under which obligations 
 exist. But it has added no new conditions or limitations except 
 that of heredity, and this affects only the problem of responsibility 
 and not the grounds of morality. The basis of morality remains 
 the same whether evolution be true or not, so that the doctrine 
 can only intensify the old controversy as to man's responsibility 
 by its vast extension of the natural limitations under which he 
 acts. But it is absolutely unrelated to the one fundamental 
 question as to what is right and why it is right. The second 
 cause is more interesting. This, as we saw, was the doctrine of 
 the struggle for existence. Evolution referred the whole progress 
 of the world to this one law with the survival of the fittest and 
 the inheritance of their qualities, while moralists had been in the 
 habit of referring it to growth in morality. The struggle for 
 existence as everywhere exhibited was only a warfare between 
 contending parties. It represents the ghastly spectacle of uni- 
 versal destruction, the triumph of mere force, and the embodi- 
 ment of everything which is opposed to the ideal. Under it the 
 universe seems one vast system of shambles for the destruction 
 of the weak and the preservation of the strong. The only right 
 respected in such a system is might or power. But it is appar- 
 ent to every one at a glance that if any morality is to be main- 
 tained at all, it cannot come from an imitation or application of 
 the struggle for existence and the indiscriminate warfare which 
 it exhibits. Morality consists rather in putting limits to the 
 struggle for existence, and hence cannot be derived from it. Mr. 
 Huxley has finally admitted this in a lecture which has created 
 a widespread interest for the very reason that it concedes all that 
 moralists had ever charged against the capacity of evolution to 
 furnish a foundation for Ethics in the only principle which the 
 
THE ORIGIN OF CONSCIENCE 345 
 
 doctrine needed for its special purpose, namely, the struggle for 
 existence and the survival of the strong. If the idea represented 
 by this fact, as we observe it in the various orders of existence, 
 be the one from which duty and obligation are to be derived 
 we should certainly find no reason for justice and benevolence. 
 The struggle for existence is worse than a travesty of morality. 
 It is the very antithesis of it. If we should change the concep- 
 tion of this struggle so that it did not represent a savage conflict 
 between the weak and the strong, there would be less objection 
 to it as a principle. But this would be to admit more in the 
 lower stages of development than the doctrine had dared to sup- 
 pose in its effort to show the evolution of the moral from the 
 non-moral. It would assume that the process was more than a 
 struggle between the strong and the weak and thus undermine 
 the efficiency of the very principle upon which evolution was 
 founded, except that we so changed the conception of it as to 
 render perfectly absurd all the noise that has been made about 
 the necessity of reconstructing Ethics. There can certainly be 
 no objection to this result. But it justifies the critic of evolution 
 and removes all right to place morality where it would be subject 
 to the struggle for existence as that has hitherto been conceived 
 and represented. Hence the evolutionist must either change his 
 conception of the process of evolution to suit morality or he must 
 admit that the notion of right and wrong cannot be deduced 
 from the process. In either case he cannot suppose that morality 
 depends for its basis upon evolution, which in reality has to do 
 only with the causes of survival and growth, but not with the 
 contents or nature of that whose survival and development it 
 explains. If he changes the conception of the process to suit 
 the nature of morality, he must admit that the problem of Ethics 
 remains as it was before evolution was proposed. On the other 
 hand, if the struggle for existence, conceived as a conflict 
 between the weak and the strong, be the highest principle of 
 evolution, then he must either deny that morality is anything 
 more than this or admit that it has no foundation in the prin- 
 ciple of evolution. The former alternative is so evidently ab- 
 
346 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 surd and contrary to fact that not even the evolutionist ven- 
 tures to maintain it and he is left to choose either the latter or 
 the position that the struggle for existence contains more than 
 has been represented of it. Either one of these is suicidal to 
 the claim that Ethics is affected in the least by evolution, except 
 in the application of the theory of responsibility. 
 
 The primary and fundamental problem of Ethics is the nature, 
 grounds, and validity of morality, not its " origin " or genesis his- 
 torically considered. The latter is a help, but not a condition of 
 its analysis, and aside from this may be thrown aside in the solu- 
 tion of the one problem for which the science exists. Ethics 
 asks and answers two questions : " What is right ? " and " Why 
 is it right ? " Ultimately the answer to both questions must be 
 the same, because whatever particular actions are decided to be 
 right must have their character determined by the ground upon 
 which they rest, the ultimate end which they serve. Hence the 
 primary object of scientific Ethics is the highest good, the ideal 
 condition or end which it is a duty to realize. After this it is inter- 
 ested in determining the particular course of conduct necessary 
 for obtaining this end. It is perfectly clear that evolution has 
 nothing to do with either of these problems. No matter how I 
 may have been evolved, my duty remains the same, my nature 
 being what it is, and also it remains what it is whether I have 
 been evolved or not. Duties and the ideal are independent of 
 that issue. It is no use to say that my duties would have been 
 different had the course of evolution been different, for this 
 might very well be admitted. But if any duty whatever remains 
 under any imaginable process of evolution, it not only proves 
 that a given course of it has not originated the duty, but also 
 that morality must be independent of the process. Moreover, 
 evolution cannot be conceived without reference to a goal or end. 
 We cannot imagine it as creating the very end toward which it 
 moves. Moral conduct derives its character from the end which 
 it serves to attain, and this must exist as an object of conscious- 
 ness before any process of conscious action can aim at it. Now, 
 evolution must be either a conscious or an unconscious process. 
 
THE ORIGIN OF CONSCIENCE 347 
 
 If it be unconscious it- can have no end in view, but only a con- 
 sequence can occur as the sequel of it, and no morality whatever 
 is possible in the case. On the other hand, if it be conscious the 
 ideal end in view is not a creation of the process, and the deter- 
 mination of it must be independent of evolutionistic methods, 
 except that we take evolution to mean what its most strenuous 
 advocates seem to imply that it is not. We may talk about the 
 evolution of the ideal, if we mean by it the development of its 
 efficiency and the domination of it in consciousness. But this is 
 not the creation or origination of it. The ideal only begins with 
 the conception of morality in its quality or intension, and leaves 
 to evolution the process of developing its quantity or extension, 
 increasing its efficiency and enlarging the conscious range of its 
 application. But the whole question as to what constitutes 
 morality, its grounds, and validity remains absolutely untouched 
 by the method of development. . We have already found that 
 morality must be given in some degree as a datum before evolu- 
 tion can do anything for it or with it. We have to determine 
 the ideal end of conduct in order even to know whether evolution 
 involves progress or not. The process evolves both good and 
 evil alike, and if we were to condition morality upon the prin- 
 ciples of such a process we should have to abandon it for the 
 lack of a criterion to distinguish between right and wrong. 
 Hence the value of the ideal, which is the ground for justifying 
 special actions, must be determined by some other means than 
 the fact- and the method of evolution. 
 
 Mr. Sidgwick aptly distinguishes between three different 
 problems, only one of which the method of evolution represents. 
 They are : (a) the existence, of moral judgments, which is a psy- 
 chological question of fact and must be determined by direct in- 
 trospection supplemented by observation of similar phenomena in 
 others as language and signs may indicate them ; (b) the origin 
 of moral judgments, which he calls a " psychogonical " question, 
 involving the application of purely historical methods ; and (c) 
 the validity of moral judgments, which is the ethical question and 
 which must be determined in the same way that the validity of 
 
348 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 any truth is determined. " Indeed, it seems clear," says Mr. 
 Sidgwick, " that the question as to existence ought to be settled 
 before raising the question of origin, since it is premature to 
 inquire into the origin of anything before we have ascertained 
 that it actually exists." Then it is just as true that validity is 
 independent of " origin," because if it were not, we should have 
 to say that the theory of gravitation, of Copernican astronomy, 
 of the tides, and of any other set of phenomena could not be true 
 until we knew how it originated. The matter of origin is inter- 
 esting as establishing the time when responsibility can be applied, 
 but it does not condition the truth or the value of that which is 
 originated. Hence the doctrine of evolution has but a very sub- 
 ordinate value in important questions of Ethics, and all the noise 
 made about its revolutionizing the subject is simply sound and 
 fury, signifying nothing, and conceals a most astonishing igno- 
 rance behind the mask of knowledge, while the only service of 
 the doctrine, its relation to the application of responsibility, 
 goes absolutely unnoticed. 
 
 References. — Muirhead : Elements of Ethics, pp. 125-150 ; Murray: In- 
 troduction to Ethics, pp. 43-58 ; Bowne : Principles of Ethics, pp. 124-163 ; 
 Darwin : Descent of Man, Chapters IV. and V. ; Spencer : Principles of 
 Ethics, Vol. L, pp. 64-150 ; Calderwood: Handbook of Moral Philosophy, 
 pp. 95-130 (Fourteenth Edition) ; Alexander : Moral Order and Progress, 
 pp. 297-316, 353-368 ; Martineau : Types of Ethical Theory, Vol. II., pp. 
 360-424 ; Leslie Stephen : Science of Ethics, Chapter III., pp. 93-130 ; 
 Fiske : Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy, Vol. II., Part II., Chapter- XXIL, 
 pp. 324-366 ; Wundt : Ethik, pp. 88-231, 369-372 ; Schurman : The Eth- 
 ical Import of Darwinism ; Andover Review, November, 1886, pp. 449-466 ; 
 April, 1888, pp. 348-366 ; New Englander and Yale Review, April, 1888, 
 pp. 260-280; September, 1890, pp. 2G0-275 ; Christian Thought, August, 
 1891, pp. 14-38; Mind, Vol. I., pp. 334-345. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE THEORIES AND NATURE OF MORALITY. 
 
 I. INTRODUCTORY. — The definition of terms has thrown 
 much light upon what the human mind means by morality, but 
 it has not determined anything in regard to the nature of the 
 highest good or ideal end of conduct. It was merely assumed 
 that there was such an ideal. We have now, however, to enter 
 more carefully into the analysis of morality in reference to its 
 grounds, or the reasons for its being what it is and for our obli- 
 gations to respect it. In determining its nature, we have said 
 that two questions have to be answered, and a third question in 
 regard to our knowledge of it. They are : (a) What is right? (6) 
 Why is it right ? and (c) How do we hioiv it is right ? The an- 
 swer to the first question gives the particular actions which are 
 right, or are considered as right, such as respect for life, honesty, 
 purity, benevolence, courage, etc. The answer to the second 
 question gives the reason in some proximate or ultimate principle 
 or end for their morality, the ground upon which they rest, and of 
 course ultimately the one principle to which they are reducible. 
 The answer to the third question gives the process of experience 
 or knowledge by which I am made aware of this morality. It is 
 only the latter two questions that give rise to any theories about 
 morality. The answer to the first is merely a statement of 
 matters of fact or matters of belief. But the structure of the 
 human mind has never been satisfied with a mere assertion of 
 what is regarded as right. Interests, both scientific and social, 
 demanded that we know why such conceptions were accepted 
 and how we came to have them. On the one hand, the scien- 
 tific impulse asks to have a reason for all the various duties 
 
 349 
 
350 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 imposed by men on each other, if for no other purpose than to 
 satisfy curiosity about their reduction to unity. On the other 
 hand, social interests demand that no obligation be imposed arbi- 
 trarily and without any recognized principle in the nature, rights, 
 and knowledge of the person upon whom it is placed. Hence 
 arises some theoretical explauation of what morality is and how 
 we come to know it. But there has not been any unanimity of 
 opinion on the matter. The attempt to explain why the various 
 duties of common life are binding, or why the practice of them is 
 a virtue, has resulted in a great variety of theories, each compet- 
 ing for acceptance and supremacy, and very much unsettling the 
 problem of the nature of morality. In order, therefore, to under- 
 stand the complexities of the question and trj^e relation of these 
 various theories to each other, before undertaking any direct solu- 
 tion of the problem itself, we must classify the theories that have 
 attempted to assign the ultimate principle of morality. 
 
 II. CLASSIFICATION OF THEORIES— We shall undertake 
 in this section nothing but a classification of the various ways in 
 which the question, why certain actions are right, or why they, 
 should be clone, has been answered, and leave the discussion of 
 them until afterward. We shall be obliged to state the method 
 or principle upon which each theory rests, which will be in a 
 measure a definition of it. But it will not be necessary in the 
 classification to go farther. 
 
 The most comprehensive division of theories which can be 
 recognized, is that which we shall call the Subjective and the Ob- 
 jective theories. This division coincides with Mr. Martineau's 
 division into psychological and unpsychological theories. 
 
 1st. Objective Theories. — Objective theories of right are those 
 which seek the ground of morality outside of the person upon 
 whom it is binding. They represent some form of external 
 nature or authority and place the reason for right outside of all 
 control, acceptance, or consent of those who must obey. But they 
 take two forms, the Ontological and the Nosological. 
 
 1. Ontological Theories. — These theories represent the 
 foundation of morality as found in the nature of being, the con- 
 
THE THEORIES AND NATURE OF MORALITY $51 
 
 stitutiou of ultimate reality, and again appear in two forms, ac- 
 cording as they are theistic or naturalistic. We shall call them 
 the Theological and the Cosmological theories. 
 
 (a) The Theological Theory. — This theory places the founda- 
 tion of right in the nature of God. Its chief object by those who 
 have supported it has been to give it a firmer and more lasting 
 character and greater authority than if it were founded in 
 human nature, which seems to be constituted by so many conflict- 
 ing impulses as to make it of doubtful value as a judge or basis 
 of right. Hence, assuming that God represents the Absolute, it 
 was designed in that way to give absoluteness and eternity to 
 moral law, while also indicating the personality of its authority. 
 The theory is metaphysical in its character and is apt to con- 
 ceive morality as a thing apart from the intelligence which is to 
 accept and obey it. Instances of it are Hodge and many scholas- 
 tics. 
 
 (b) The Cosmological Theory. — This doctrine places the foun- 
 dation of right in the nature of things. This view is contrasted 
 with the theological theory in the attempt to give moral law an 
 impersonal source and authority. It arose in opposition to 
 sophistic doctrine, and endeavors to hold that moral distinctions 
 are eternal and binding even upon God. It avoids the phrase- 
 ology of the theological theory in order to avoid any implica- 
 tions that might connect moral law with arbitrary power. It is 
 not essentially opposed to that theory, but hopes to give a more 
 impersonal expression to the basis of morality. The best illus- 
 trations of the theory are Plato, Cudworth, and some minor 
 writers, probably including Price and Clarke. 
 
 2. Nomological Theories. — Nomological theories of moral- 
 ity found it in some way upon the flat of power, the arbi- 
 trary creation of will. They refer morality directly to mere 
 authority, while the theory referring it to the nature of God only 
 invokes authority indirectly. In the nosological theories moral 
 distinctions are supposed to have a beginning in time and that 
 the nature of the world might have been without any relations 
 or phenomena that we call moral. Hence they subject morality 
 
352 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 to the fiat of arbitrary power, and are divided into two classes, 
 according as this power is divine or human. We shall call them 
 Theo-volitional and Political or Conventional theories. 
 
 (a) The Theo-volitional Theory. — This theory refers the ground 
 and authority of morality to the will of God, as distinguished 
 from His nature and in its pure form admits or rather affirms 
 that this will has supreme power to create and uncreate moral 
 distinctions. It opposes the power of man to do the same on 
 the ground that it is finite and that whatever he is able to do 
 must be traced to the creative will of the Deity. The doctrine 
 arose in pre-sophistic times, when there was the habit of tracing 
 everything to the gods and has been continued by men who 
 hoped thereby to exalt the divine by refusing to admit any 
 limitations to divine power. The exponents of it are Jonathan 
 Dyniond, some scholastics, and pre-sophistic writers. 
 
 (b) The Political Theory. — This theory founds moral distinc- 
 tions upon the will of man ; not upon the will of every man, but 
 upon that of the ruling power, with "or without the consent of 
 the subject. It was a doctrine designed originally to explain 
 the origin and authority of positive laws and institutions, and not 
 to assign the abstract foundation of right and wrong. But the 
 irresponsibility of the monarch or ruler made it practically an 
 account of the ultimate source and authority of morality, this 
 being interpreted as not having any obligations beyond the 
 power of the executive to enforce it. It was maintained by the 
 Sophists, Machiavelli, and Hobbes. 
 
 2d. Subjective Theories. — This class of theories traces the 
 foundation of moral distinctions to the nature of the reason in 
 the person upon whom morality is binding. They are, therefore, 
 contrasted with the objective point of view in this important 
 particular, that the subject's own nature is the first thing to be 
 taken into account in order to establish any responsibility what- 
 ever, or the liability to praise and blame. They wholly elimi- 
 nate the idea of authority as external power, or if they retain it 
 at all do so under the idea of legitimacy. They are also 
 opposed to the objective theories as psychological are opposed to 
 
THE THEORIES AXD NATURE OF MORALITY 353 
 
 metaphysical doctrines, and are divided into two subordinate 
 classes according as right is determined by the end which it at- 
 tains or by the way it is known. They are the Teleological and 
 the Gnosiological theories. 
 
 1. Teleological Theories — Teleological theories measure 
 right and wrong by the ends sought. Reference to an end is the 
 meaning of the word teleological, and hence we intend by it to 
 describe all those views which estimate conduct with reference, 
 not to external powers or authorities, nor to the nature of ex- 
 ternal existence, but to the ends and consequences of it. They 
 do not look at conduct merely as action in the abstract and as 
 something having intrinsic moral qualities apart from its relation 
 as a means to something else, but only as an intermediate agency 
 for attaining or preventing the attainment of the good. If the 
 end be good, the act is right ; if the end be bad, the act is 
 wrong. But teleological theories divide upon the question as to 
 what the good is. Some make it pleasure or happiness (excel- 
 lence of feeling), others virtue or perfection (excellence of being). 
 Hence there are two classes of teleological theories, Hedonism and 
 what I shall venture to call Moralism. 
 
 (a) Hedonism. — Hedonism (Greek rjdovrj — pleasure) de- 
 notes the theory which makes pleasure the ultimate end of con- 
 duct. Sometimes the term is used to denote only that view which 
 makes the end sensuous pleasure, and hence contrasts with Eu- 
 dcemonism, which is sometimes used to denote the theory based 
 upon intellectual pleasures. But this distinction serves no other 
 purpose than a historical one. It merely describes the contro- 
 versy that turned partly upon what was presumed to be the 
 original meaning of the Greek term for pleasure (}}3ov/j), which 
 many of the philosophers of the early period, not having carried 
 analysis very far, limited to the pleasure of sense, and partly 
 upon the distinction between Aristotle's doctrine and the Ethics 
 of the Sophists. But Aristotle meant ivelfare by ivdaijiovioc 
 and not pleasure or happiness as feeling, and we should not con- 
 fuse his distinction between moral and intellectual pleasures, 
 with the ultimate conception of his system, though it includes 
 
354 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 both elements. Moreover, even in Greek usage, pleasure 
 (f/dovjj) had a general meaning, very noticeable in Plato, 
 broader than mere sensuous feeling, and might denote any- 
 mental elation or emotion of that type, though probably the 
 most frequent use of the term was the sensuous. And again, 
 modern usage, both in regard to the generic meaning of the term 
 pleasure and that of " hedonic " and " hedonism," justifies the 
 application which we intend to make of the term to denote 
 every form of theory which applies to pleasure as the criterion 
 and end of morality. Hence we shall mean by Hedonism the 
 whole class of theories which appeal to pleasure, whatever its 
 kind or degree, and in this way contrast it with the class of 
 theories which deny the morality of pursuing mere pleasure. 
 
 But the pleasure sought may refer either to that of the subject 
 or to that of the object, to the individual himself, or to others 
 comprising the family, tribe, or society at large. On this basis 
 Hedonism takes two forms according as the pleasure is individu- 
 alistic or universalistic, egoistic or altruistic. Hence there are 
 two subdivisions of the theory, which we may call Egoism and 
 Altruism, or Individualism (ethical) and Socialism. Utilita- 
 rianism may be added as combining both of them. Egoism 
 or Individualism asserts that all conduct must be judged as 
 good or bad according to the consequences to the individual 
 subject. Altruism or Socialism, on the other hand, includes 
 the pleasure or happiness of others and may require the sacri- 
 fice of some happiness on the part of individuals, perhaps 
 the minority, to that of others, the majority. The question of 
 kinds of pleasure here does not enter into the definition or 
 division of the theory. 
 
 (6) Moralism. — Moralism is the type of theories which deny 
 that pleasure is the highest good, and substitute some other form 
 of excellence which is often expressed by the term virtue as con- 
 trasted with pleasure. This virtue or excellence may take two 
 forms, excellence of being and excellence of will. Accordingly 
 we find two forms of Moralism, which we shall call Perfectionism 
 and Formalism. Perfectionism is the theory which makes per- 
 
THE THEORIES AND NATURE OF MORALITY 355 
 
 fection the highest good and foundation of all virtue instead of 
 pleasure. Formalism is the theory which makes good-will the 
 highest good instead of pleasure. It demands nothing but 
 obedience to the sense of duty or categorical imperative and the 
 keeping of consequences out of view. The theory was held in 
 its purest form by Kant. 
 
 2. Gnosiological Theories. — The term gnosiological is de- 
 rived from two words (yiyvooaKoo, to know, and \oyo$, dis- 
 course), and is here used to denote that class of theories which are 
 concerned, not with the nature, but with the knowledge, of mo- 
 rality, namely, with the origin of our ideas of it. These theories 
 divide upon the question whether our conception of morality is 
 native or acquired, a priori or a posteriori, intuitive or empirical. 
 Hence there are two forms of gnosiological theories, which we 
 shall call Intuitionism and Empiricism. They are in effect the 
 same as those which were discussed under the problems of Con- 
 science. Intuitionism holds that moral ideas are native and im- 
 mediate objects of perception to all rational minds. Empiricism 
 holds that they are derived by experience. 
 
 The following is a tabular review of this classification : 
 
 Objective 
 
 Subjective 
 
 Ontological 
 
 Nomological 
 
 Teleological 
 
 Gnosiological 
 
 Theological = The Nature of God. 
 Cosmological = The Nature of Things. 
 Theo-volitional = The Will of God. 
 Political = The Will of Man. Convention. 
 
 {Egoism or Individualism. 
 Altruism or Socialism. 
 Utilitarianism. 
 Perfectionism. 
 Formalism. 
 General. 
 Particular. 
 
 Moralism 
 
 Intuitionism 
 
 E m pi ri ci Sm {«— ar _ 
 
 It will be observed in this classification that we have made no 
 place for evolution. After what has been said about the rela- 
 tion of that doctrine to Ethics it should be apparent why we 
 have not given it a distinct place in the scheme. In the first 
 place, however, as usually maintained, the theory is a complex 
 
356 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 one involving several of the points of view in this classification. 
 It is partly cosruological in its' conception of the problem ; partly 
 teleological, being usually utilitarian, but sometimes perfection- 
 istic, and sometimes both, and partly gnosiological in that it is 
 always empirical. In the second place, after defining it as 
 properly occupied with the origin of morality and of moral con- 
 ceptions, we must shut it out of a place in all but the last class 
 of theories which recognize only the origin of the conceptions of 
 morality, not its nature. Hence, evolution as a general theory 
 cannot stand in this scheme, but it is partly represented by em- 
 piricism. 
 
 We have also to remark the place given to utilitarianism, 
 which may have its individualistic or egoistic and its socialistic 
 or altruistic side. We have here made it co-ordinate with the 
 other two. This is not because it necessarily excludes both, but 
 because its historical character has been altruistic, while admitting 
 that utility, the great principle of this theory, may apply to the 
 individual as well as to society. But the fact that utilitarian- 
 ism has always stood opposed to the selfish view of life, which is 
 the only conception that can oppose egoism to altruism, justifies 
 our setting aside what may be called individualistic utilitarian- 
 ism and using the terms " utility " and " utilitarian " as refer- 
 ring to the good of the whole, including the individual, and not 
 to the good of the individual alone, nor to the good of the ma- 
 jority alone. We shall see farther reasons again for this 
 procedure. 
 
 As the classification stands, however, it is intended to compre- 
 hend all the existing points of view in regard to morality. We 
 have not divided them in any way to make them mutually ex- 
 clusive, but only as historical development has defined them, 
 and may discover something about their various relations as the 
 discussion continues. We shall give but a brief examination to 
 the first two great classes of theories and reserve the most of the 
 discussion for Hedonism and Moralism, while referring students 
 and readers to the chapter on the origin of conscience for the 
 treatment of gnosiological theories, 
 
THE THEORIES AND NATURE OF MORALITY 357 
 
 III. EXAMINATION OF GENERAL THEORIES.— In this 
 discussion we shall take up only the Ontological and the Nomo- 
 logical theories, and dispose of them as briefly as possible. We 
 must find what place they occupy in the discussion of Ethics and 
 determine their merits and demerits. 
 
 1st. The Ontological Theories — As already explained, the 
 theories bearing this characteristic are concerned with the ulti- 
 mate foundation of morality in the very nature of the Absolute, 
 whether it be regarded as personal or impersonal. They oppose 
 all suppositions that moral distinctions are merely accidents in 
 the course of the world and capable of being asserted and nulli- 
 fied at pleasure. In that sense both the theological and the cos- 
 mological points of view may be true at the same time. Ulti- 
 mately all things that are a constitutional part of the world and 
 ineradicable in it, are and must be referred in some way to the 
 Absolute ; and it makes very little difference whether we regard 
 it as personal or impersonal, so far as the mere reference of 
 morality is concerned. This is only to say that both of these 
 theories must be true in some sense in all cases, no matter what is 
 said about other theories. The criticism to be made against both, 
 however, is that neither of them solves the problem of scientific 
 Ethics, which is rather to provide the end of conduct which will 
 subordinate all other things to its attainment than to settle the 
 metaphysical ground of morality, which at all hazards must be 
 found in the Absolute. This is apparent in the fact that skepti- 
 cism of the divine existence simply shatters all power in the theo- 
 logical theory, while it leaves untouched the natural desire to 
 determine the highest good. Ethics has to do with the summum 
 bonum, and not with the moral nature, of the Absolute, and 
 hence though it is true that its metaphysical affiliations, as those 
 of all the sciences, connect it with the Absolute and with the 
 metaphysics of the Absolute, the question of the highest good 
 does not. Moreover, to insist on adopting the theological theory 
 prior to the formulation of any practical rules for life, is to shift 
 the whole controversy over into theology, requiring the settle- 
 ment of both God's nature and existence before we could talk 
 
358 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 about the possibility of inducing skeptical men to be righteous. 
 There is a ground upon which moral theory can stand without 
 contradicting the theistic view and yet without conditioning 
 morality upon the acceptance of it. This is the only rational 
 course to be taken where the main object of Ethics is, first, 
 to settle the highest good, and second, to furnish a practical, 
 rather than a metaphysical, basis for morality. Precisely the 
 same remarks can be made in reference to the cosmological 
 theory. It has the same merits and defects as the theological 
 view, and must be treated in the same way. It evades equally 
 with the theological position the real issue of the question, 
 though it is also true, and hence it may be dismissed without 
 controverting it. 
 
 2d. The Nomological Theories. — As already defined, these 
 theories base morality upon the arbitrary agency of creative 
 power, namely, upon will of some kind. The one objection to 
 such theories is that morality cannot be a creation of will without 
 involving a denial of the moral character of the will or agent 
 who thus creates it. The universal conception of will is that 
 it is subject to moral law, and what is not so subject to it is 
 not will or personal at all. To make God independent of 
 moral law, and able to make anything, even wrong, moral, is 
 not only monstrous, but is a distinct abandonment and con- 
 tradiction of theism. Nor is it any help to such a theory to 
 make God's will perfect or an expression of his nature. For 
 this may be true ; but it abandons the nomological for the onto- 
 logical doctrine, which it is the purpose of the nomological to set 
 aside. Moreover, to make his will perfect is to admit that this 
 moral quality is not a creation of the will ; for it cannot create 
 itself. Hence it is essentially absurd to suppose that will, 
 whether finite or infinite, can serve as the basis of morality. In 
 addition to fatal criticisms of this kind, nomological theories are 
 encumbered with the objectionable implications of arbitrary 
 authority exerted to coerce obedience against the dictates of rea- 
 son and conscience. They were put forward in times of political 
 or ecclesiastical tyranny in order to frighten men into subjection 
 
THE THEORIES AND NATURE OF MORALITY 359 
 
 to bad government, and nothing remains to support them but a 
 desire to do God a false honor, on the one hand, and justify 
 despotic government, on the other. 
 
 But while the theories are not an adequate explanation of the 
 moral law and of its origin, they may have an important thought 
 concealed in them and not even detected by their advocates. 
 Taking up the theo-volitional doctrine first we can say, that 
 while the will of God is not the ground of morality, it may be a 
 good reason for obeying it. Assuming that God exists and that, 
 according to the moral law which He recognizes, He commands 
 respect for it, then that command is a reason for obeying, but 
 not a ground for the nature of the law. If this is what the 
 theory wishes to express there can be no objection to it. But 
 unfortunately this has not been its language or its intention. It 
 has sought to exalt the power of God upon the assumption of a 
 false notion of infinite power, and can deceive none but small 
 thinkers. Then taking up the political or conventional theory 
 the argument against the capacity of the human will to create 
 or serve as the basis of morality is an a fortiori one. No one but 
 the advocate of the most absolute despotism, whether monar- 
 chical or democratic, could seriously make such a claim. Indeed, 
 we may safely leave to the overwhelming revolt of mankind 
 against arbitrary power the refutation of such a theory, and not 
 give it any serious attention. But while convention cannot 
 originate morality or moral distinctions, it can do much to make 
 them effective. Convention always appeals to reason, rightly or 
 wrongly, to justify the application of power to enforce a certain 
 course of conduct, and thus acknowledges a prior moraHaw to 
 its own positive enactments and determining their character. 
 But it does not create that law. Will may enforce the moral 
 law, but it cannot create it. It may render it efficient, but it 
 cannot be the basis of it. This determines the limitations of all 
 nomological theories. 
 
 IV. CRITICISM OF HEDONISM.— As already defined hedon- 
 ism is the theory which bases morality upon pleasure. It takes 
 its various forms according to the object which gives the pleasure. 
 
360 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 and hence this may be high or low in character. -But since the 
 only form of hedonism which has received any special develop- 
 ment is utilitarianism we may give the most attention to that 
 conception of it. A few observations, however, preliminary to 
 that view are necessary in order to clear the ground. We shall, 
 therefore, notice briefly the theory of egoism. 
 
 1st. Egoistic Hedonism. — -It will not be the hedonistic aspect 
 of this theory, but the egoistic, that will receive present attention. 
 There is a striking ambiguity about the term "egoism" which 
 must be cleared up before contrasting the theory by that name too 
 distinctly with utilitarian hedonism. The term may denote (a) 
 exclusive reference to self in conduct, or (b) reference to self 
 while not conflicting with the happiness of others. The former 
 conception if legitimated would lead to the sacrifice of society or 
 others to the individual, and means that selfishness is the crite- 
 rion of morality. This is so palpably absurd that the theory can 
 have no footing whatever in that sense and is universally con- 
 demned because what is moral involves the conservation of social 
 order and a sacrifice on the part of the individual of all that 
 does not admit equal liberty and rights on the part of others. 
 On the other hand, it is quite as absurd to insist that a man 
 should have no reference to himself whatever in the attempt to 
 attain the ideal, and hence moralists admit that a man should 
 have reference to himself in his conduct, but assert that he 
 should not have reference to himself alone; and if egoism 
 meant merely "reference to self" without implying anything 
 about sacrifice, either of others or of self, it would not con- 
 flict with utilitarianism. But it is only in the selfish sense 
 that the term describes a theory opposed to all conceptions of 
 morality whatever, and as this point of view is universally 
 condemned there is no use in giving it any serious attention. 
 The only form of hedonism about which any controversy cen- 
 ters is that of utilitarian hedonism, which intends to avoid 
 the distinction between egoism and altruism altogether as op- 
 posing conceptions and to comprehend the proper aspects of 
 both. 
 
THE THEORIES AND NATURE OE MORALITY 361. 
 
 2d. Altruistic Hedonism. — This conception also has an 
 equivocal import. It may denote action (a) exclusively in refer- 
 ence to others and with the sacrifice of self, or (b) in reference to 
 others without any sacrifice of self. The absurdity of the former 
 demand, namely, that the individual must sacrifice always and 
 everything in order to be moral, is so apparent that the only 
 form of altrusism which can be recognized as rational is the sec- 
 ond, which insists that a man should include a reference to oth- 
 ers in his conduct. But this will not shut out a direct or indi- 
 rect reference to himself, and hence the egoistic and altruistic 
 position can be united by shutting out selfishness, on the one 
 hand, which involves an unfair sacrifice of others, and unfair 
 sacrifice of self, on the other. We might even say that the 
 only difficulty with the two theories is found in taking either of 
 them in its exclusive sense. That is, conduct exclusively egoistic 
 and exclusively altruistic does not come up to the ideal standard 
 of morality, where all individuals must reap the same rewards 
 and have the same obligations. The only conception, therefore, 
 which can satisfy the mind is that of universal hedonism, which 
 we shall intend to be expressed by the theory of utilitarianism. 
 This conception shall be intended to express the common points 
 of merit in both the others, so that the question of the reference of 
 conduct to personality may be disposed of and we can turn 
 attention wholly to the element of pleasure in it. 
 
 3d. Arguments for Utilitarian Hedonism. — As utilitarianism 
 should be defined, it is the theory which makes utility the crite- 
 rion and end of conduct, while utility is to be measured in terms 
 of pleasure. AVe here assume that the reference to persons is 
 understood and that the only utilitarianism which can stand any 
 criticism at all must be that which tries to lay down rules for 
 the good of the whole, and not for the good of the individual at 
 the expense of others, nor for the good of the majority at the ex- 
 pense of the individual. This question once disposed of we have 
 left only the more important matter, whether the hedonistic posi- 
 tion, or the pursuit of pleasure, can be an adequate determination 
 of morality. The supreme question is whether the hedonistic end 
 
>362 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 of conduct is the true one or not. We must examine carefully 
 both sides of it. 
 
 1. The Fact that all Men Seek Pleasure as a Good. — 
 The extent to which men seek pleasure and avoid pain is an un- 
 questionable fact, and it would seem to have no exceptions even 
 in the case of martyrs and self-irumolators, who in spite of their 
 protestations seem to have some other than the immediate pleas- 
 ures of the present world. They endure pain for some other 
 reward which can only be called pleasure or happiness of some 
 kind, if only for the satisfaction of living and dying for a princi- 
 ple. But apparent exceptions like these aside, it is a fact that 
 happiness is so universally regarded, whatever our theories about 
 it, that it would seem to be the one end to which all men subor- 
 dinate everything else. 
 
 We use " pleasure " and " happiness " rather synonymously ; 
 not because a distinction between them cannot be drawn for 
 certain purposes, but because the theory does not require it. 
 " Pleasure " is often used to denote the agreeable emotion of the 
 moment, following any particular action, while " happiness " is 
 supposed to denote the calm and general satisfaction of life as a 
 whole, which will be made up of adjusted and rational pleasures. 
 But as happiness can only be the " sum of pleasures " or a series 
 of adjusted satisfactions, it is still essentially " pleasure " in its 
 nature, and we do not require at present to distinguish between 
 present or momentary and deferred or permanent pleasures. 
 Consequently the question here regards only the kind of thing 
 desired, not the time, durability, or amount of it. Happiness 
 and pleasure may, therefore, be used interchangeably. 
 
 It hardly requires proof that men are largely influenced, if not 
 wholly so, by pleasure in their conduct. It is so apparent to 
 the most cursory observation that a denial of it, or an apparent 
 exception, at once appears as a paradox. We have only to look 
 around us, appeal to the experience and observation of every one 
 we meet, and examine the ideals which men pursue, to see that 
 pleasure is at the bottom of it all. Men seek wealth, honor, fame, 
 power, knowledge, and cultivate art all for pleasure. Did these 
 
THE THEORIES AND NATURE OF MORALITY 363 
 
 possessions not conduce to happiness they would be scorned. It 
 is only because they are indispensable means to a desired form of 
 happiness that they prove attractive to man. Even the miser, 
 who seems to seek wealth on its own account, does it for pleasure, 
 only his pleasure is not found in spending and consuming it in 
 vain show and waste, but in the consciousness of security and 
 power against certain kinds of misfortune. The contest of life is 
 for security against pain, and mankind looks ever to the resources 
 which obtain the most satisfaction and prevent the most pain. 
 "Nature," says Bentham in an eloquent passage, "has placed 
 mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and 
 pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, 
 as well as to determine what we shall do. On the one hand, the 
 standard of right and wrong, on the other, the chain of causes 
 and effects, are fastened to their throne. They govern us in all 
 we do, in all we say, in all we think ; every effort we can make to 
 throw off our subjection will serve but to demonstrate and con- 
 firm it. In other words, a man may pretend to abjure their em- 
 pire ; but in reality he will remain subject to it all the while." 
 
 The argument throughout is intended to be more than a state- 
 ment of the mere fact that man pursues pleasure or is under its 
 dominion. It assumes or asserts also that everything else is 
 subordinated to it. . At the same time it is true that the utilita- 
 rian too often fails to distinguish between two distinct things in 
 this connection, namely, the question of fact (de facto) and the 
 question of right (de jure). He does not distinguish between the 
 question regarding what man does pursue, and what it is ideal 
 for him to pursue ; between what he does and what he ought to 
 do. But in showing what a constitutional place pleasure has in 
 his life, and assuming that its nature, as a good, will not be de- 
 nied, he simply goes on' to discuss the question as if actual prac- 
 tice decided for us the ideal goal of human endeavor, and so in- 
 tends to recognize, by his description of man's actual conduct 
 and the subordination of all ordinary ends to happiness, the 
 ideal and ultimate nature of pleasure as the good. The argument, 
 then, is that experience so reflects the direction of all man's subor- 
 
364 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 diDate ends to pleasure that we cannot but recognize it as the one 
 end which determines the merit of conduct related to it. That 
 is to say, men, rational men, pursue wealth, or fame, or honor, not 
 for their own sake, but for the happiness or contentment which 
 they bring, either directly or indirectly. It is only the irrational 
 man that will make wealth an end in itself. In fact, such a 
 man only appears to do so. His real object is also pleasure, 
 and except for the means used he could not be distinguished 
 from the spendthrift. Wherever we turn we find all paths of 
 human endeavor leading to the same goal, happiness, and this 
 end does not seem to serve any remoter purpose. On this ac- 
 count the utilitarian contends that it must be the highest good 
 and standard of virtue, or of the quality of conduct. 
 
 2. The Commensur ability of Pleasures. — One fact es- 
 sential to utilitarian hedonism is the supposition that pleasures can 
 differ only in quantity or intensity, and not in quality or inten- 
 sion. Bentham and Epicurus both held that pleasures are all of 
 the same kind, and that the differences we remark on the occasion 
 of them are differences in the objects that cause them and not in 
 the feelings themselves. That this is essential to the theory will 
 be made clearer when we come to criticise it, but for the present 
 we must remark that unless they are the same in their ultimate 
 quality there is no possibility of measuring and comparing them 
 so as to determine when one is to be sacrificed for another, involv- 
 ing a greater amount of good. The utilitarian must admit that 
 there are actions bringing pleasure which he must avoid and con- 
 demn, and hence the fact raises the question whether it is possible 
 under such conditions to regard pleasure as a criterion at all. But 
 the utilitarian saves his position here by remarking that pleasure 
 has various degrees of intensity, purity, duration, certitude, propin- 
 quity, and fecundity, all of which enable us to compare one pleasure 
 with another and to reject that of the lesser degree for the 
 greater. Thus the reason that intemperance is condemned in 
 spite of the pleasures connected with it, is that these pleasures are 
 not pure, or productive of future pleasure. They are mixed with 
 pains either present or future, or are less intense than the pleas- 
 
THE THEORIES AND NATURE OF MORALITY 365 
 
 ures of temperance. On the other hand, the pleasures of temper- 
 ance are purer, more intense, more durable and more prolific of 
 future pleasure than intemperance. In the same way theft, mur- 
 der, unchastity, inveracity, and any other wrong may be treated. 
 Whatever pleasure they give is offset by the superior, intenser, 
 purer and more prolific pleasure of their opposite virtues, which 
 condemns them on that ground. The right lies in the direction 
 of the purer and more intense pleasure, and all actions can be 
 compared in this respect. They can be measured in terms of the 
 quantity of pleasure in which they result, and this being the 
 only common element of the various objects of desire, and deter- 
 minable in its degrees, it offers the one scientific explanation and 
 end of conduct. 
 
 3. The Effect of Pleasure and Pain on Life. — The 
 effect of pleasure and pain on life has received a new form of 
 statement and significance from the doctrine of evolution, though 
 the general character of it is as old as speculation upon their im- 
 portance. This can be brought out by a glance at the various 
 conceptions of pleasure and pain. Plato and his contemporaries 
 generally regarded pleasure as an incident in the harmony of 
 healthy functions, or the index of healthy activity and pain the 
 accompaniment of the opposite kind of action. We have here the 
 general conception that pleasure is the result of healthy and ad- 
 justed action and pain of unhealthy and unadjusted action. Aris- 
 totle adopted the same general notion, and it was followed up by 
 general acceptance until we find it again in writers like Spencer 
 and Hamilton. The latter defines pleasure as " the reflex of un- 
 impeded and pain the reflex of impeded energy." Spencer holds 
 that "pleasure increases life and pain decreases it." In all 
 these there is the same notion, that pleasure results from right 
 and pain from wrong / action, so that they can very well be in- 
 dices of what is proper and improper. What Mr. Spencer shows 
 in his exposition of evolution is the enormous influence exercised 
 by pleasure and pain upon the development and the perfection of 
 life. Pleasure is a condition which conduces to higher and better 
 exercise of function ; pain represses it. Experiments seem to 
 
366 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 show this effect, and every one is familiar with the fundamental 
 maxim of the physician, which is that the patient must be kept, 
 not only from physical pain and in pleasant physical condition, 
 but also from mental pain and in a condition of cheerfulness and 
 hopefulness. This is employing pleasure as a curative agent and 
 shows how important a place it occupies in the economy of life. 
 Illustrations might be multiplied indefinitely, but they would all 
 have the same import, while the generalizations mentioned are 
 sufficient to mark the value of pleasure and pain as objects of 
 consciousness and to strengthen the claim of the utilitarian that 
 they are the criteria and ends of conduct. 
 
 4. The Practical Efficiency of Pleasure and Pain as 
 Motives to Conduct. — The practical importance of taking 
 pleasure and pain into account is very apparent in the use which 
 is and can be made of them to affect right conduct. Even the 
 opponents of utilitarianism concede that the most effective way 
 to get duty performed is to reconcile it with happiness. If a man 
 can be made to see that duty is less hard than he imagines ; that it 
 will compensate him in the attainment of more and better pleasure 
 than the sacrifice of the moral law, he will be more easily induced 
 to follow it. It is in this way that moralists, no matter of what 
 school, always endeavor to secure right action, and in doing so, 
 concede the superior power of the utilitarian ideal as a practical 
 agent in the attainment of what is right. But whether they con- 
 cede this or not, every day observation reveals the extent to 
 which it is true, that pleasure and pain may be appealed to as in- 
 centives to right action, the one of pursuit and the other of aver- 
 sion, the pursuit of the right and aversion to wrong. The whole 
 social fabric rests upon this principle. Rewards and punishments 
 would mean absolutely nothing and be wholly inefficient if this 
 principle were not true. The adjustment of pleasures and pains 
 by law to meet the various conditions of character, temper, and 
 habit is only the regulation of conduct by the hedonistic measure 
 as opposed to any other conception of moral influence. In fact, 
 the utilitarian conception of morality is simply that it conceals 
 this reference to pleasure and pain by being too often identified 
 
THE THEORIES AND NATURE OF MORALITY 367 
 
 with the supposed conflict between duty and interest, which is 
 in reality but a conflict between two interests of a different de- 
 gree or order. However this may be, the whole social and 
 political organism is based upon the infirmity of every other mo- 
 tive to action than pleasure and pain, and shows that what we 
 call morality must be expressed in terms of happiness before any 
 strong inducements can be felt to realize it. 
 
 5. The Inconsistencies of Opponents to the Theory. — 
 Among the first of these inconsistencies is the extent to which 
 the bitterest antagonists of utilitarianism are influenced by the 
 love of pleasure and fear of pain in the common affairs of life. 
 A man eats an apple and is governed by its agreeable or dis- 
 agreeable taste in selecting it. If he goes to a picnic, on an ex- 
 cursion or a holiday vacation, he takes no account of anything 
 but the pleasure which he expects. If such actions resulted in 
 pain to himself or to others, he would condemn them and never 
 think of taking into account any conception but pleasure and 
 pain. Everywhere but in our theory of morality we thus show 
 a supreme regard for pleasure and aversion to pain. We never 
 think of the inconsistency between our practice and what our 
 transcendental theory demands or seems to demand of us, and 
 if called upon to make ourselves consistent the theory would be 
 the first thing sacrificed. All the little affairs of life, too often 
 supposed to be outside the sphere of morality, are so involved in 
 judgments regarding pleasure and pain, that once their deter- 
 mination by that quality, and at the same time their morality, 
 are conceded, they become too much identified with the criterion 
 of happiness to escape dependence upon the utilitarian code. 
 
 Another inconsistency supports the same conclusion. The 
 most uncompromising opponents of utilitarian hedonism in 
 modern times have been the religious and theological minds. 
 The majority of them, however, and we might say religious lay- 
 men universally, while speaking with contempt of the pursuit of 
 pleasure, have quite uniformly regulated their lives by the hopes 
 of happiness hereafter. Their opposition to pleasure turns out 
 to be only an opposition to certain pleasures of this world and 
 
36$ ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 not to pleasure in itself. They love the pleasures of the next 
 world as much as any one could the pleasures of this. To oppose 
 utilitarianism they would have to' insist that pleasures differ in 
 kind and not merely in degree, and that the pleasures of the 
 hereafter are wholly unlike those of the present world in kind. 
 But this would wholly shut off a comparison and practically 
 imply that the term " pleasure " could not apply to the two 
 states at the same time, while the manifest conclusion from 
 applying the same term to the two conditions would be that the 
 pleasures were the same in kind, and this would only conceal 
 their utilitarianism in their doctrine of immortality while in- 
 veighing against it in language. This inconsistency, however, is 
 not chargeable to the religious mind previous to Bentham and 
 Mill, because it was identified with the utilitarian principle. 
 But ever since utilitarianism came to be the property of the 
 skeptics, the antagonism developed in the religious field was 
 carried over to the moral, and this inconsistency appeared with 
 it. Happiness of the hereafter was exchanged for that of the 
 present, while the identity of principle involved in both was 
 concealed in the difference of conditions, but not in the state of 
 consciousness to be realized. Hence the supreme value placed 
 by the religionist upon eternal happiness, and his unwillingness 
 to sacrifice it at the behest of any theory of virtue demanding a 
 disregard for immortality, were only proofs that the moral ideal 
 was that of the utilitarian ; only that it embraced eternity 
 rather than the present, and purchased at the expense of the 
 present in most cases. Moreover, if most men were asked what 
 their ideal object in existence was or would be, they would no 
 doubt spontaneously answer with the religious mind that it 
 would be a condition of supreme happiness or bliss of some kind. 
 They would differ in regard to the objects that would produce it. 
 The old Norseman would long for Valhalla with its mead and 
 phantom battles, in which phantom heroes are forever hewing 
 down shadows which only rise again to renew their ceaseless 
 and bloodless conflicts. The mythological Greek would have 
 the return of the golden age, or the enjoyment of the garden of 
 
THE THEORIES AXD XATCRE OF MORALITY 309 
 
 Hesperides, or some Elysium which would be free from care and 
 toil aud pain. The Christian would have the New Jerusalem, 
 paved with gold aud enriched by every adornment that ever 
 fascinated an Oriental imagination, or he might refine this purely 
 materialistic conception into a spiritual communion with God, 
 the bliss of a mind wholly at peace with its maker. The Indian 
 would express it in the happy hunting-ground beyond the grave, 
 and the Australian savage, according to Mr. Spencer, realizing 
 the value of English money and the beauty of English complexion, 
 would desire " to w T ake up in the resurrection a white man and 
 to have plenty of sixpences." But in all of these there is one 
 common element which measures for each individual and class 
 involved the value of his ideal, and that is the magnified and 
 purified happiness which all would expect to realize in that 
 state. The utilitarian principle is at the basis of all of them, 
 and any supposition of different motives is only an illusion. 
 
 4th. The Arguments against Utilitarian Hedonism. — The 
 criticism of utilitarianism will involve the consideration of some 
 views which were not considered in the arguments for it, notably 
 the views of Mill and his school, because their position, while in- 
 tended for the defense of the doctrine, were really an abandon- 
 ment of it. This will be brought out in the proper place. 
 Moreover, we must also remark an important fact in the discus- 
 sion which has considerable bearing upon our mode of treating 
 the subject. It is the difference between the demands of science 
 and those of " common sense " in the question whether pleasure 
 is the highest good or not. There is often a feeling, fostered by 
 utilitarians themselves, that there is some prejudice, religious, 
 moral, or aesthetic, against the doctrine of utility, presumably on 
 account of its low and materialistic associations. This is, no 
 doubt, true in many cases, even deplorably true when utilitarians 
 are not to blame for it. But it is only an accident of the contro- 
 versy, not any essential part of it. The scientific question, which 
 can be conducted with the utmost calm and freedom from preju- 
 dice one way or the other, is simply whether it is a fact that 
 pleasure or happiness is the only ultimate end of human action. 
 
370 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 The practical value of taking it into account will always remain, 
 no matter what decision we come to about the above question. 
 Science wishes to know exactly what is true in the case, and 
 after this is determined it may give its attention to the various 
 practical interests and sympathies involved or affiliated with the 
 general question. Careful analysis may show truth on both 
 sides, and for that reason we ask dispassionate attention to the 
 arguments against the doctrine, not necessarily with a view to an 
 ignominious overthrow of it, but with the object of showing just 
 what is tenable and what is not tenable in the theory. The 
 main purpose or sequel of our criticism, therefore, will be analysis. 
 The scientific question, besides the general analysis which it 
 demands, also asks for a careful discrimination between several 
 distinct problems in the case, which are too often confused with 
 each other. These can be expressed in the following manner : 
 (a) Do men as a fact always seek pleasure or happiness and 
 avoid pain as the sole object of volition? (b) Granting that 
 pleasure is the universal object of pursuit, does this fact prove 
 that it is an object of obligation or that it ought to be sought ? 
 
 (c) Assuming that happiness is the object which ought to be de- 
 sired, can any such a criterion of right be applied in practice ? 
 
 (d) Assuming, finally, that it can be applied in practice, does the 
 conception yield any such a code of morality as civilized man 
 has actually adopted ? 
 
 All that requires to be said of these propositions is, that if the 
 first be affirmed, additional proof is required for the second. 
 Every theory of ethics must determine the ideal, what ought to 
 be, not merely the real or what is. If men universally seek 
 happiness only, and if happiness be the ideal end of action, then 
 there is no use in laying down an obligation to pursue it, because 
 a duty implies either the possibility or an inclination not to seek 
 a given end. If men actually seek it, there is nothing for ethics 
 to do. On the other hand, to deny the first question is to cut up 
 the utilitarian theory by the roots. For if pleasure is not the 
 only end pursued by man, it is not the only ideal, and may be 
 purely subordinate to something else. The coexistence of any 
 
THE THEORIES AND NATURE OF MORALITY 371 
 
 other object of volition than happiness, actually pursued, must 
 nullify utilitarianism, because it is conditioned upon the ideality 
 of pleasure alone, whether acturlly sought or not. The second 
 proposition also shows that much more has to be done than to 
 show that men universally seek happiness. They may do this 
 and yet may not seek the morally ideal. The utilitarian must 
 prove the morally ideal nature of happiness and not merely the 
 universality of man's pursuit of it. The third question brings 
 up a problem that we have to consider, and it is whether pleasure 
 is a practical criterion of virtue, even if we assume that it is an 
 ultimate good, or a necessary element of it. The conception 
 may be so abstract as to prevent it from having any direct appli- 
 cation to concrete and individual cases. The last question 
 implies that even if the previous assumptions are proved in the 
 second and third questions it is still open to consider whether 
 they coincide with the actually existing code of morality. The 
 question is not whether happiness ic ideal and practical as a cri- 
 terion of virtue, but whether it is the sole element of the code 
 which we recognize as moral. All these various points of view 
 show that there is a very complex problem before us, and not to 
 be solved merely by pointing to universal practice. 
 
 There is another difficulty which the critic of utilitarianism 
 has to meet, and it may as well be frankly acknowledged. It 
 must not be shirked by any one. Opponents of the theory have 
 always admitted that happiness is a necessary accompaniment of 
 virtue. While they have spoken very firmly about the duty to 
 disregard consequences, they have readily enough granted that 
 the reward of virtue included a happiness much higher and bet- 
 ter than the reward of vice, and even when proclaiming that 
 virtue is its own reward they would not deny that it is necessa- 
 rily, or at least in a ' perfect world, accompanied by pleasure. 
 Now, if happiness always be a concomitant of virtue, if it always 
 be the natural consequence of morality, it is impossible to give 
 any objective disproof of utilitarianism. As long as pleasure in- 
 variably accompanies any other fact we cannot prove that it is 
 not the object of volition. It might not be the real object of 
 
372 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 desire and choice, but its presence with that object would leave 
 nothing but the testimony of the individual consciousness to 
 prove what the true object was. In the majority of cases this 
 testimony would undoubtedly favor pleasure, while those who 
 denied it would be open to the suspicion either of illusion, of 
 ignorance, or of obstinacy in favor of a pet theory. The only 
 absolute proof of moralism as opposed to utilitarianism would be 
 the existence of an ideal condition, or the ultimate issue of duty, 
 without any accompaniment of pleasure. This being the case, 
 and all persons acknowledging that happiness is the natural con- 
 sequence of duty, the only arguments against utilitarian hedonism 
 are those which are more or less indirect and which appeal to 
 the individual moral sense for evidence as to what the real moral 
 ideal is, and as to what satisfies reason and conscience in the 
 matter of the highest good. With this understanding of the 
 problem, and of the fact that the main object of the criticism 
 must be analysis, we may proceed to give the arguments against 
 utilitarianism. 
 
 1. The Indefinite and Abstract Nature of Pleasure 
 as A Conception. — One of the main difficulties with pleasure 
 as an object of volition is that the term has become so general 
 and abstract as to describe the consequences of actions without 
 regard to their moral quality. No one is ever certain what 
 pleasure we mean when we undertake to measure conduct by it. 
 The term applies equally to the consequences of vice and virtue 
 in many cases. Intemperance as well as temperance may have 
 its pleasures, and perhaps it is only an a priori opinion that pain 
 must inevitably result from an act of intemperance. But, how- 
 ever this may be, pleasure is so indefinite in its meaning, even 
 when supposing that it is always the same in kind, that as a cri- 
 terion of right we cannot distinguish between the merits of eat- 
 ing and the merits of patriotism, or the merit of taking a holiday 
 and of saving some one from drowning. We distinguish between 
 the worth of noble statesmanship and the enjoyments of a picnic, 
 but the mere word pleasure will not enable us to determine that dis- 
 tinction. It describes the same phenomenon in both cases. The 
 
THE THEORIES AND NATURE OF MORALITY 373 
 
 pleasure qua pleasure is the same in each of them, and we have to 
 specify some added quality or qualification of pleasure in order 
 to explain our preference of one over the other of these acts. 
 The term is purely an abstract one. It describes a feeling or set 
 of feelings without regard to the incidents, causes, or objects con- 
 nected with it, while morality cannot lose sight of the concrete 
 conditions connected with happiness. If pleasure is to be taken 
 into account at all, it must be in connection with the particular 
 act or object which causes it. It is not any and every pleasure, 
 so to speak, but the pleasure of certain actions that we must take 
 into account. For instance, it is not the pleasures of malice that 
 I can indulge with moral impunity or approval, but only the 
 pleasures of respecting human life and rights. Hence the moral 
 ideal requires to reckon with more than pleasure in the abstract. 
 We have to include the incidents or objects of it as part and par- 
 cel of the criterion demanded. They may express some added 
 quality other than pleasure, or such a qualification of it as pre- 
 vents the term from having any practical application to life as 
 we know it. Nor is it any defense to say that the utilitarian 
 theory is not based upon pleasure in the abstract, but that it 
 means pleasure of a certain purity, fertility, durability, and propin- 
 quity, because this only makes the matter more dubious and in- 
 definite. These qualities of pleasure are not definable at all. 
 No one can say when a pleasure will be pure or fertile or dur- 
 able. While this may save the theoretical consistency of the 
 doctrine, it only renders it all the more impracticable by adding 
 greater indenniteness to the idea upon which it is based, and 
 hence does not furnish a specific conception for making the doc- 
 trine intelligible and satisfying the demands of morality. Pleas- 
 ure is at most the name only for the end or consequence of con- 
 duct, not for the means to it, and morality cannot lose sight of 
 the means. In taking account of the means to an end, morality 
 keeps its attention upon the idea of law, moral law, or a uniform 
 mode of action without regard to immediate consequences when 
 more important remoter consequences are at stake. Pleasure 
 without qualification will not distinguish between them, being so 
 
374 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 indefinite and abstract as to connote the consequences of any act 
 whatever. The moral ideal, therefore, cannot be expressed by 
 that term without qualification. ' The utmost that can be main- 
 tained is that the highest good must at least contain happiness 
 whatever else is necessary to meet the claims of morality. This 
 may be true, but it wholly nullifies utilitarianism, which must 
 stand upon pleasure alone and without qualification other than 
 purity, fertility, durability, etc., which only conceals the aban- 
 donment of the one thing necessary to make morality intelligible ; 
 namely, a specific conception equal to the quality expressed by 
 it. In brief, pleasure or happiness is so indefinite and abstract a 
 conception as to supply no practical criterion of virtue, and 
 hence requires to be supplemented by some other element in 
 order to make the highest good intelligible and practical. 
 
 2. The Incommensurability of Pleasures and Pains. — 
 As we have seen, utilitarianism asserts that pleasures differ only 
 in degree or quantity and that they are commensurable. On the 
 contrary, it may be maintained that, even if they differ only in 
 degree of intensity and purity, they are not commensurable in 
 any sense that would make happiness a criterion of right and 
 wrong. How is it possible to measure the pleasure which one 
 man takes in eating with the pleasure another takes in upholding 
 the laws? Which will be the more intense or the purer? Ac- 
 cording to the utilitarian standard the intenser, purer, and more 
 fertile pleasure is to be chosen rather than that with less of these 
 characteristics. Well, it may give one man more pleasure to 
 steal than to act honestly, and intensity being the criterion there 
 is nothing to be said against it. The man who desires it is the 
 supreme judge. Nor is it any reply to say that the laws of 
 society prevent stealing from being an intense or pure pleasure, 
 because these laws have no right to existence until they have 
 conformed to the principles which the utilitarian lays down. 
 Pleasure being the standard, the laws must not countermine it, 
 but must conform to it. Laws depend upon morality for their 
 authority and legitimacy, and do not make it, and hence have 
 no right to determine the pleasure which is to be their basis. 
 
 
THE THEORIES AND NATURE OF MORALITY 375 
 
 Consequently, if pleasure or feeling is to be the standard of what 
 is right, it would seem that every man must be his own judge of 
 it, because he can be the only judge of what gives him pain or 
 pleasure. The gratification of the physical appetites may give 
 one man more pleasure than the study of science or art, and vice 
 versa. A may prefer vagabondage to honest labor, and B hard 
 work and wealth to a life of leisure or idleness. One man's 
 pleasure cannot be measured in terms of another's. What gives 
 one pleasure will give another pain. Scarcely any two persons 
 can be made to agree upon their choice on this account. This 
 would indicate that, pleasure being the object of volition and 
 standard of right and wrong, every man would be a law to him- 
 self, and such a thing as morality binding upon all persons alike 
 would be impossible. The fundamental characteristic of moral- 
 ity is that it shall be universally binding upon rational beings, 
 but with the incommensurable nature of pleasures, as compared 
 in different persons, this condition is flatly impossible. Nor is 
 the case helped by saying that each man can compare his own 
 feelings and determine the purer and higher pleasures, for even 
 if this be true, it is not an objective mensuration of pleasures, 
 which is the condition demanded. It leaves every individual a 
 law to himself, when each man differs from every other, which is 
 the very opposite of morality. We can determine the degree or 
 quantity of any phenomenon when it displays a given uniformity 
 with the causes or objects which produce it, such as the pressure 
 of steam, the pressure of the air, the force of gravity, the force of 
 impact, the intensity of sensation to some extent, and any other 
 result definitely related to its antecedents. But it is not so with 
 pleasures, which, besides varying between individuals, are compli- 
 cated with all sorts of subjective difficulties if we come to ask 
 each man to tell their comparative amounts. No commensura- 
 tion is possible which science can respect. The utmost that we 
 can do is to describe the choice of one rather than another as a 
 preference which is quite as consistent with a difference of kind as 
 a difference of degree, and we should not mistake that description 
 for an implication of commensurability. It is all a question 
 
376 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 whether there is any measure for pleasures which can definitely 
 determine their rank in comparison with each other; whether 
 there is any means apart from individual caprice and taste for 
 deciding how pleasures compare with each other. Until there is 
 such, the commensurability of feeling is impossible and the utili- 
 tarian standard goes by default of ability to meet the demands 
 which it makes itself upon ethical theories. 
 
 3. The Fatality of Admitting Qualitative Differ- 
 ences between Pleasures. — Bentham did not admit that 
 pleasures differed in kind. On the contrary, he asserted that 
 they differed in degree only. But mankind have so uniformly 
 maintained that the distinction between right and wrong was 
 one of kind, and not merely of degree, that Mill, Stephen, and 
 other later utilitarians have tried to save the theory by hold- 
 ing that pleasures differ in quality as well as in quantity. 
 Says Mr. Stephen, " even an infant distinguishes between its 
 love for its cousin and its love for jam tart." This is a flat con- 
 tradiction of Bentham, who quite as clearly and acutely observes 
 that so far as the pleasure is concerned there is no difference 
 between pushpin and poetry. But this conception was so far 
 from coinciding with the qualitative distinction between right 
 and wrong, that Mill and Stephen thought to satisfy the mind 
 by affirming qualitative as well as quantitative distinctions be- 
 tween pleasures. Mill's direct language is as follows : 
 
 " It is quite compatible with the principle of utility to recog- 
 nize the fact that some kinds of pleasure are more desirable 
 and more valuable than others. It would be absurd that while, 
 in estimating all other things, quality is considered as well as 
 quantity, the estimation of pleasures should be supposed to de- 
 pend on quantity alone. 
 
 " If I am asked what I mean by difference of quality in pleas- 
 ures, or what makes one pleasure more valuable than another, 
 merely as a pleasure, except its being greater in amount, there is 
 but one possible answer. Of two pleasures, if there be one to 
 which all or almost all who have experience of both give a de- 
 cided preference, irrespective of any feeling of moral obligation 
 
THE THEORIES AND NATURE OF MORALITY 377 
 
 to prefer it, that is the more desirable pleasure. If one of the 
 two is, by those who are competently acquainted with both, 
 placed so far above the other that they prefer it, even though 
 knowing it to be attended with a greater amount of discontent, 
 and would not resign it for an- qa^titv o? ^frroLhti p$f"*^fe 
 which their nature is capable of, we a.e justified in ascribing to 
 the preferred enjoyment a superiority in quality, so far out- 
 weighing quantity as to render it, in comparison, of small ac- 
 count." 
 
 Put plainly, this is simply saying that the pleasures of appe- 
 tite are different in kincUas well as degree from the pleasures of 
 knowledge, so that the merit of pursuing the latter compared 
 with the former depends wholly upon the difference of quality 
 in the pleasures. Similarly the moral difference between malice 
 and respect, theft and honesty, avarice and generosity, deceit and 
 veracity, selfishness and conscientiousness, is the difference in 
 quality of the pleasures that accompany them. According to 
 this it is not the difference in quantity, but the difference in 
 quality of pleasure that distinguishes between the character of 
 lying and the character of truthfulness. This seems a very 
 plausible solution of the problem, but it is nevertheless an entire 
 abandonment of utilitarianism and its principles. The name, of 
 course, is retained, but the thing itself is abandoned. We must 
 make this clear. 
 
 First, all utilitarianism previous to Mill was based upon the 
 notion that pleasure was the same in kind and that the forms of 
 it differed only in degree. The adoption of Mill's doctrine of 
 qualitative differences was an abandonment of this position. 
 Second, in Bentham's theory " pleasure " was a generic term 
 comprehending qualitatively every case of its occurrence, and 
 actions did not differ in their quality, but only in the degree of 
 pleasure and pain incident to them. But in Mill's doctrine 
 " pleasure " is not only a generic term, but that " pleasure " which 
 determines the right is specific and denotes a quality which is 
 not found in the same term generically taken. Now, this view of 
 it is a contradiction. If " pleasure " can denote the satisfaction 
 
378 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 or agreeable feelings that follow actions without distinction of 
 kind, then it is not the pleasure that makes the distinction. On 
 the other hand, if it be the pleasure that determines the distinc- 
 tion between right and wrong, then this term cannot apply to 
 tc ( e agreeable ife.Urgs that accompany wrong actions. In other 
 words, pleasures cannot have differences of kind. Again, if 
 pleasure denotes agreeable feeling wherever it occurs, and with- 
 out regard to distinction between moral and immoral conduct, 
 then the quality that determines that distinction is other than 
 pleasure. On the other hand, if that quality is pleasure, there is 
 no difference in kind, and those are not pleasures which accom- 
 pany wrong actions. We cannot play fast and loose with the 
 term pleasure. We cannot give it a generic and a specific use 
 at the same time. We only succeed in duping ourselves and 
 others into the bargain. No theory can stand upon an equivoca- 
 tion, and this is precisely what utilitarianism attempts to do when 
 it talks about the " kinds of pleasure." As a loose and popular 
 phrase it may be well enough. But it can only serve as an inac- 
 curate substitute for a desired term which shall express pleasure 
 plus a quality other than pleasure, if pleasure is to express -the 
 whole class of species included under its usual application. The 
 true meaning of the term is generic in which it expresses the 
 common qualities of a class whose differentiae are other than the 
 genus (conferentia). This is putting the case technically, but 
 the same may be expressed by saying that pleasure expresses 
 what is similar in all the cases in which it occurs, while the so- 
 called differences in kind express something other than the pleas- 
 ure in order to determine the qualitative distinctions of the 
 species. Mr. Martineau expresses this conception of the case 
 very clearly and pertinently. His language is worth quoting. 
 " If there are sorts of pleasure," he says, " they must be some- 
 thing more than pleasure ; each must have its differentia added 
 on to what suffices for the genus ; and this addition cannot be 
 pleasurable quality, else it would not detach anything from the 
 genus; to mark a species at all, it must be an extra-hedonistic 
 quality, and each sort must have its own ; and so far as one is 
 
THE THEORIES AND NATURE OF MORALITY 379 
 
 j:>referable, as a kind, to another, it is so in virtue of what has 
 other than pleasure; and the comparison of them all inter se, 
 considered as different kinds, must turn upon their several extra- 
 hedonistic qualities. All that they have from the genus is 
 quantitative ; and till you get beyond the pleasurable as such, 
 quality does not exist." 
 
 4. The Qualitative Natuee of Moeal Distinctions. — 
 We have seen that qualitative distinctions between pleasures 
 cannot be admitted without giving up utilitarianism, and it re- 
 mains to be seen whether moral distinctions can be determined 
 merely by quantitative differences between pleasures and thus 
 save utilitarian doctrine. If pleasure be the same in kind, as it 
 must in order to describe agreeable feeling wherever experi- 
 enced, the only differences which can give rise to moral distinc- 
 tions, the difference between virtue and vice, must be those of 
 degree ; namely, of purity, of intensity, of fecundity, of dura- 
 bility, and of propinquity. But it was precisely the conviction, 
 so strongly intrenched in the consciousness of mankind, that 
 morality represented a qualitative distinction from immorality, 
 which induced Mill and others to proclaim a difference in kind 
 in pleasures, in order to meet the demands of an overwhelming 
 belief. We think this belief is correct and ineradicable. It 
 may not be easy to prove, but it has in its support such a degree 
 of unanimity as must make any one pause who wishes to deny it. 
 Moreover, since pleasure and pain differ in degree and not in 
 kind, and since the distinction between morality and immoral- 
 ity does not coincide absolutely with this difference,- as it ought 
 to do in a consistent theory making pleasure the criterion of 
 right and pain of wrong, the impossibility of making different 
 quantities of pleasure determine that which ought to be deter- 
 mined by pain should be quite apparent to every one. The 
 distinction between pleasure and pain must be quite as qualita- 
 tive as that between the moral and the immoral, and if so, it is 
 impossible to make pleasure and pain their criteria, and at the 
 same time to reduce the distinction to differences of quantity in 
 pleasure. Nor will it avail to fall back upon the mixed and 
 
380 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 impure character of the pleasures in some cases, because there 
 are instances in which both acts, as the gratification of appetite 
 and the pursuit of knowledge, may give pure pleasures, and yet 
 a qualitative difference of merit may exist Hence there is noth- 
 ing to do but to maintain the utter incompatibility between the 
 qualitative distinctions of morality and the purely quantitative 
 differences of feeling upon which utilitarianism relies to establish 
 them. This conclusion does not exclude the presence of pleas- 
 ure as an element of the ideal, but it does exclude that datum 
 from being the only and most important constituent of it. That 
 is all that it is necessary to establish in order to show tho de- 
 ficiency of utilitarian hedonism as an ethical theory. 
 
 5. The Subordination of Pleasure and Pain to 
 other Ends than Themselves. — We referred to Mr. Spen- 
 cer's doctrine of pleasure and pain in the economy of evolution 
 as a fact in favor of utilitarianism, though we were careful to 
 indicate that it was rather in favor of taking them into account 
 than of making them ultimate ends. Mr. Spencer, however, 
 intends his doctrine, that pleasure increases life and pain de- 
 creases it, to support utilitarianism. This is an illusion on his 
 part. For he wholly forgets that utilitarianism is conditioned 
 wholly by the conception that pleasure is the end, the highest 
 end of conduct, and not merely a means to an end. But in 
 showing that pleasure as a phenomenon of consciousness in- 
 creases life, or develops and perfects the organism, physical or 
 psychical, and that pain decreases it, he abandons the notion 
 that pleasure is the end, and set? up life, the organism, or per- 
 fection as the end, while pleasure is a mere means to it. Pleas- 
 ure becomes a purely subordinate event in the economy of 
 nature ; it may be an important one and to be taken into 
 account as an index to the right goal, but it is in that concep- 
 tion no part of the goal or end to be sought. It happens to be 
 a natural phenomenon which only points the way to an end 
 not itself, and which serves to direct the subject when his reason 
 may not have informed him of the right. However this may be, 
 we cannot consider pleasure and pain as instruments to an effect 
 
THE THEORIES AND NATURE OF MORALITY 381 
 
 without giving up the notion that they are the ultimate objects 
 of volition. The truth of Mr. Spencer's position is purchased at 
 the expense of utilitarianism. Pleasure cannot be both the 
 ultimate end of conduct and a means to some other result than 
 itself. It can be only one or the other. 
 
 6. General Defects. — There are several difficulties in the 
 utilitarian theory which are either corollaries and incidents of 
 those alread} T mentioned, or are less important and too general to 
 be classified separately and may as well be comprehended as 
 general defects. In the first place, while the appeal to pleasure 
 or happiness has considerable practical efficiency when duty and 
 interest coincide, it gives rise to much casuistry and tampering 
 with conscience whenever we are made to feel that its pursuit 
 is harmless under all circumstances. Nothing so weakens the 
 monitions of conscience as the belief that concessions may or 
 must always be made to pleasure in choosing our course of con- 
 duct. It is equivalent to offering us two guides who do not 
 always go the same way. Then again, this practical efficiency of 
 utilitarianism can be very much exaggerated. It has the effect 
 of concentrating attention upon the feelings to be satisfied 
 rather than upon the way they are to be satisfied ; namely, 
 upon the functions of reason and deliberation and the conditions 
 of the highest good. When pressed, the theory recognizes these 
 elements, but they do not appear upon the surface. Consequently 
 it has very little place for what is known as moral insight and 
 duty, unless they coincide with happiness, while moralism 
 emphasizes these and leaves happiness to be attained without 
 aiming at it as the only end to be achieved. 
 
 Still another objection is that utilitarianism diverts attention 
 from the conditions of happiness to the feelings, which avails to 
 create the tendency to seek pleasure by whatever means it may 
 be attained and so to encourage short-sightedness. This is 
 apparent from an illustration which will test the theory of 
 utilitarianism to the uttermost. It is quite evident that the 
 appeal to the individual's happiness is a strong one. But this is 
 in constant danger of degenerating into egoism, which no utilita- 
 
382 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 rian will admit. Even Bentham, in spite of Lis strong individu- 
 alistic tendency, insisted that the happiness which should be the 
 measure of right must be of the greatest number, and all later 
 utilitarianism has been emphatically altruistic in its principles. 
 Besides having less practical efficiency than the egoistic form, so 
 far as obtaining obedience is concerned, unless the altruistic 
 instincts predominate, this form of the doctrine can only mean 
 that we should aim at the happiness of others as well as our 
 own. This sounds very well and falls into line with our social 
 and sympathetic instincts. But both its theoretical and practical 
 defects are clearly seen iu modern sentimental charity. The sole 
 aim of much modern, as nearly all earlier, charity, was to make 
 the beneficiary happy, and it succeeds. But it does not moralize 
 the recipient, as all scientific students of the problem have to 
 confess. If happiness, however, be the standard of right, there is 
 no disputing the morality of indiscriminate charity; for the 
 donor is altruistic and the recipient is made happy. Indeed, it 
 will not do to say that remoter pain and evil follow such con- 
 duct, because the vagabond never is so happy as when he gets all 
 he wants without labor, and never so unhappy as when he must 
 work. The giver of alms is fulfilling all the conditions of utili- 
 tarianism when he aims at others' happiness, and he attains his 
 own, whether selfishly sought or not, when he does an act of 
 charity. But it is interesting to note that all students of this 
 problem, and among them utilitarians themselves, have to 
 condemn actions of this kind, and not merely because pain some- 
 where and sometime follows from foolish benevolence, but because 
 such a course violates the conditions of perfect life. No better 
 illustration could be chosen to show that unselfish happiness is 
 the end of the agent, and yet has to be condemned as an unmiti- 
 gated evil. The fact is that true charity must aim, not at the 
 happiness of the person to whom benevolence is granted, but at 
 the establishment of conditions under which happiness can be 
 won and earned by the beneficiary himself, arid if he will not 
 live up to those conditions the pain which follows, so far from 
 being an evil, is a good. However this may be, it is not happi- 
 
THE THEORIES AND NATURE OF MORALITY 383 
 
 ness wliicli we should aim at, but a certain order which is the 
 condition of it to those whose conduct deserves it, and the moral 
 judgment in regard to charity is the best illustration of this 
 doctrine. 
 
 Utilitarians have often shown an unconscious tendency to 
 accept this point of view and to abandon their principles by a 
 doctrine which they avow without the slightest trace of their 
 knowing what it means. This is another of their defective 
 claims. For instance, Mill, Spencer, and Sidgwick agree in 
 affirming that although happiness is the ultimate end of conduct, 
 we should not directly aim at it. They hold that it can best be 
 attained in an indirect manner. In this view virtue consists, 
 not in directly aiming at happiness, but in aiming at certain 
 forms of conduct and conditions which naturally result in happi- 
 ness. This Mr. Sidgwick calls the paradox of hedonism, and 
 Mr. Spencer defends it with much care and earnestness. But it 
 ought to be apparent to every one that it is a very queer ideal 
 or end at which men should not aim, and yet which is the con- 
 dition of virtue. All morality supposes that men should aim at 
 the highest good ; the moral ideal exists to be sought, to be the 
 object of all our aims, and hence it is certainly very curious to 
 tell us that happiness is the highest good, and yet should not be 
 the immediate object of volition. A good which should not be 
 aimed at, but which is to be attained by turning away from it, is 
 certainly an anomaly in speculation, and it is certainly a very 
 humorous piece of unconscious irony to call such a doctrine a 
 paradox ; for it is a great deal more than a paradox. It is an 
 absurdity. The highest good is to be directly sought or it is 
 not the highest good at all. The trouble with the utilitarians 
 at this point is that they are reluctant to abandon the considera- 
 tion of happiness, and yet they see that true moral purpose aims 
 at something else than happiness, though it does not sacrifice it 
 in the last analysis. In asserting this " paradox " the utilitarian 
 is becoming aware of the fact that morality has to do with a cer- 
 tain order of the world which is accompanied by happiness, but 
 is more than happiness at the same time ; but he has not seen his 
 
384 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 way clear to abandoning the traditional formula of his theory. 
 He is too anxious to hug the associations of pleasure while recog- 
 nizing the value of aiming at something else. Indirection in 
 morality is worse than an anomaly. It is an abandonment of 
 the very principle which ethics endeavors to establish ; namely, 
 the constant and earnest pursuit of the ideal which is to be held 
 directly before the eye of conscience and. pursued on its own 
 account, not as an end to be gained by stealth and circumambu- 
 lation. A target which is to be hit by not aiming at it is either 
 not a target at all or it is a bad reflection upon the character 
 and condition of the marksman. And yet utilitarians can be 
 found who do not detect the illusion in this conception of their 
 case. In spite of it, however, their position is a tribute to their 
 natural moral insight which is in most cases better than their 
 theory, and which in this instance points to a standard of 
 morality quite different from that of pleasure. 
 
 It is at this point that another distinct weakness of the theory 
 appears. When we ask a man who is conscientious, who is gov- 
 erned wholly by his sense of duty, what his motive is, he will 
 be the last person in the world to avow a love of pleasure as his 
 passion. He will name anything except pleasure. No doubt 
 the consciousness of many, if not the majority of mankind, would 
 testify that the motives of their conduct were for happiness, but 
 this would be when they were not concerned about the moral or 
 immoral nature of their conduct, or when they did not feel the 
 pressure of conscience. Persons without any specific moral 
 purpose would invariably avow this. But the moment we come 
 to a strictly conscientious mind we should find pleasure or hap- 
 piness retreating into the background, and the sense of duty, 
 which however much it may be accompanied by self-satisfaction 
 in the form of happiness, points sternly to an end that keeps 
 pleasure out of sight. Hence the consciousness of the normal 
 person who is striving to attain morality betrays no traces of a 
 direct influence from happiness alone, but shows an ideal order 
 of things which, however much it results in pleasure, does not 
 have that factor as the only element of its constitution. 
 
THE THEORIES AND NATURE OF MORALITY 385 
 
 V. EXAMINATION OF M ORAL ISM— The very common 
 feeling that utility and morality are not convertible terms re- 
 quires that we try some other couception than hedonism for an 
 ethical theory, and the term " Moralism " supplies this want; as 
 expressing a unique and distinct idea, embodying all that the 
 human mind has endeavored to denote by ideas claiming a line- 
 age superior to mere pleasure. Whether the point of view can 
 be justified is another question. But there is certainly need for 
 a descriptive name for that attitude of mind which is not satis- 
 fied with utilitarianism, and the term " Moralism " is the only 
 one which will suit the emergency. 
 
 But, as we have already seen, there are two forms of the the- 
 ory which are in some respects distinct from each other and 
 possess different merits and demerits. We shall, therefore, have 
 to treat the subject in terms of these two points of view. They 
 are Perfectionism and Formalism. 
 
 1st. Criticism of Perfectionism. — The peculiar nature of 
 perfectionism as a theory is that it proposes, on the one hand, 
 an end distinct from mere feeling, and on the other hand, an end 
 apart from the mere feeling of duty. It shuts out utilitarian 
 hedonism by proposing excellence of being as the proper object 
 of moral volition. This excellence means the perfection of 
 every function of man's nature which is necessary to an orderly 
 and ideal world, and thus describes an objective end, while utili- 
 tarianism seems rational or plausible only when the end is sub- 
 jective, since we found objective happiness as an end to be absurd. 
 But perfectionism proposes excellence which may be either sub- 
 jective or objective or both, and satisfies the mind's notion of an 
 ideal condition which is more than happiness while including it 
 at the same time. So much for what the theory is. The exam- 
 ination of it must follow. 
 
 1. Difficulties of Perfectionism. — It can be charged that 
 the conception of perfection is so indefinite and abstract that it 
 is no better than pleasure as a standard of right and wrong. 
 This criticism is undoubtedly true, to some extent at least. It is 
 possible to conceive ourselves speaking about the perfection of 
 
386 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 this or that function or tendency which on examination proves 
 to be wholly evil. Then as the term does not specify what per- 
 fection, or the perfection of any ' particular function, it seems 
 to comprehend within its range the perfection of good and evil 
 instincts and qualities alike. Apart from what the term usually 
 means this is an undoubted difficulty. But the abstractness and 
 indefiniteness of the term can be very much exaggerated. So 
 far as its meaning is concerned it is not so necessary to specify 
 particulars in the case, because when used it applies not to some 
 specific junction, but to all functions acting in harmony. This 
 makes it a very different term from pleasure, which denotes 
 only one element of being or consciousness. Taken in reference 
 to any specific function of being, alone, it would be quite as 
 objectionable as pleasure. But its real import is not only an 
 ideal condition of being, whether of self, of others, or of the 
 world, but also includes definitely the notion of a harmonious 
 adjustment of all functions in the agent or order concerned. It 
 is only the etymological and loose sense of the term that gives 
 any trouble ; the historical and logical import of it, as found in 
 those who define and maintain the theory, is perfectly clear, and 
 that is the realization of an order, subjective or objective, which 
 satisfies the sense of the ideal in all the functions of being. We 
 admit that the conception still has its indefiniteness, but it is 
 only such as must belong to all theories, which require explana- 
 tion and definition in detail in order to develop their full mean- 
 ing. Nor, in presenting perfection as a superior standard to 
 pleasure, do we mean to exclude pleasure from a place in the 
 complex object of volition. It is possible to maintain that 
 pleasure has criterial (ratio cognoscendi) and perfection ideologi- 
 cal (ratio agendi) meaning in the complex matter of conduct, 
 and that the two are complementary functions of the same ideal. 
 This would save unnecessary antagonism between the two theo- 
 ries, and at the same time do justice to the common feeling that 
 a state or quality of being is a better representative of the ideal 
 than feeling, while not excluding it. 
 
 2. Merits of Perfectionism. — Whatever the difficulties of 
 
THE THEORIES AND NATURE OF MORALITY 387 
 • 
 the idea of perfection as an ethical standard, it has some impor- 
 tant merits which commend it very highly in comparison with 
 pleasure. They may be summed up in two characteristics, (a) 
 Ideality and (6) Objectivity. Expressed in less technical terms, 
 they are purity of value and a worth which may be more 
 than individual and personal interest. The importance of the 
 first of these lies in the fact that no one, not even the utilitarian, 
 can object to perfection as an unworthy end to pursue. The 
 utmost that the utilitarian can claim is either that perfection 
 must be a means to happiness or that happiness is the standard 
 by which we determine perfection. But he cannot claim that 
 perfection is in any case an unworthy object of volition as can be 
 asserted against pleasure without qualification. It stands as an 
 unquestioned ideal, and it only remains to show that it is ulti- 
 mate and not a mere means to some other end. That it is not a 
 mere means to happiness is evident from Mr. Spencer's position 
 in regard to pleasure increasing life. In fact, the whole doctrine 
 of evolution lays the stress upon development of function, organ- 
 ism, or perfection of structure and of tyj3e rather than upon the 
 realization of merely ephemeral feelings. It is founded upon 
 excellence of being rather than any other end. Happiness is an 
 inevitable concomitant of this effect, but it is not the end of it. 
 It is one of the incidents of that condition, just as the other 
 functions of consciousness are, and which would be better in that 
 state than without it, and yet are not the only elements of the 
 highest good. Again, however plausible it may seem to say that 
 perfection exists for the sake of happiness, and is thus subor- 
 dinated to it, it is much more clear that our sense of ideality 
 would not be satisfied by happiness without perfection, which 
 goes to show that perfection is not merely a means to pleasure, 
 but a coexistent element of the ideal, which is made up of neither 
 perfection nor happiness alone, but of both of them. We should 
 probably not care for either of them without the other. Certain 
 it is, however, that the moral ideal would not be complete with- 
 out perfection, which only proves the insufficiency of happiness. 
 In regard to the second characteristic little needs to be said. 
 
388 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 Pleasure, we found, could only be a phenomenon experienced 
 either by the subject of the act, in which case there is the con- 
 stant danger of egoism, or by the person upon whom the act falls, 
 in which case the moral ideal is incomplete. But perfection 
 involves a condition of things that is not necessarily limited to 
 persons, although only persons can have an interest in it. But 
 its extra-personal character as a part of the ideal deprives it of 
 the exposure to egoism and satisfies the sense of the moral ideal 
 by an end which is either wholly disinterested or involves the 
 development of the individual so closely with the solidarity of 
 the race that there is a perpetual check upon the abuse of this 
 point of view. Hence perfectionism is free from the most 
 important difficulties of hedonism, while it admittedly presents 
 a moral ideal to be attained. 
 
 2d. Criticism of Formalism. — Formalism is expressed in 
 the formula " duty for duty's sake," " duty without regard to 
 consequences," " obedience to law," etc. In all these it demands 
 obedience to the categorical imperative as sufficient to meet the 
 requirements of morality. It seems to disregard every other 
 end than conformity to the formal law of duty. This law is the 
 right direction of the will and does not require aiming at any end 
 external to the will itself. Kant was the most celebrated advo- 
 cate of this theory, though it has also been the property of most 
 intuitionalists and all who make morality to consist wholly in the 
 motive of conduct. But Kant states the case as clearly as it can 
 be stated. The only absolute good which he would recognize 
 was the good will. " Nothing can possibly be conceived," he 
 says, "in the world or out of it, which can be called good with- 
 out qualification except a good will." What this means is 
 apparent when he goes on to show that the will is not good be- 
 cause of what it effects outside of itself; that is, not because of 
 any end outside of itself, but because of its conformity to the cat- 
 egorical imperative or action from the sense of duty. This was 
 the reason that he wholly excluded pleasure from the place of a 
 moral good. Besides being a necessary object of desire it was 
 held to be an end foreign to the will ; that is, not an end which 
 
THE THEORIES AND NATURE OF MORALITY 389 
 
 could be freely determined by the subject. Hence it could not 
 be an object of moral volition. But the only thing which could 
 be a motive to moral action after asserting this limitation was the 
 naked moral law, " the idea of law itself," or action from the 
 sense of duty alone. No end is to be aimed at but this right 
 direction of the will, and Kant expressed his abstract law of duty 
 in the formula : "So act that the law of your will can be valid 
 as a universal law of legislation." This conception was modified 
 as the development of the system progressed, but its earliest 
 enunciation was in this abstract form which, when applied, indi- 
 cates no material end to be realized except self-consistency. This 
 is the reason that the law is purely a formal one and gives rise 
 to the point of view as we have denominated it. 
 
 1 . Difficulties of Formalism. — The fundamental difficulty 
 with which this theory has to contend is its one-sidedness. It 
 seems wholly to ignore every material and practical end of con- 
 duct. That the moral law, without regard to happiness, perfec- 
 tion, or other object, should be its own end seems worse than a 
 paradox and to propose an end only in appearance. That we 
 should wholly disregard consequences seems a travesty upon 
 moral law. The popular feeling about making morality merely 
 a question of motives and nothing else has been very tersely em- 
 bodied in the adage that " hell is paved with good intentions ; " 
 and it must be confessed that it hardly suffices for our notion of 
 morality that a man should do no more than mean well. Good 
 will cannot cancel a debt or pay damages for an injury. It may 
 be a condition of effecting such action where civil law does not 
 act, but merely good intentions will not absolve the agent from 
 obligations involving material considerations. Taking human 
 life, destroying property, or committing theft under cover of duty 
 does not receive much favor from any one, even from the de- 
 fender of formal morality. We long ago learned that conduct to 
 be moral must have an end in view, and it does not satisfy us to 
 say that good motives are the only end to be sought. They are 
 desirable, but they are not the whole matter of morality. We 
 naturally expect some object other than good will to be attained 
 
390 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 at the same time. Moralit}^ has an object besides self- consistency 
 and right feelings. These may be very good qualities, but they 
 do not secure objective right and justice. They evidence noth- 
 ing but the goodness of the person or agent, not the goodness of 
 his acts externally considered, which is one of the important ele- 
 ments of morality. The world is constructed with a view to 
 results as well as motives, and hence a formal good will, valu- 
 able as it is, does not supply the whole contents of that of which 
 morality treats. 
 
 2. Merits of Formalism. — The fundamental difficulty of 
 formalism grows out of the ambiguous import of the term 
 " morality," which, as we have shown, is sometimes used objec- 
 tively and sometimes subjectively. If we cast aside the objective 
 import of the term ; that is, its power to denote objective good, 
 like order, perfection, others' peace and happiness, etc., we shall 
 find a meaning which eludes the criticism that we have just 
 made against the formal conception of morality. If morality 
 means only the personal and volitional side of conduct, then 
 Kant and the formalists are correct, and good will constitutes 
 the whole of right action. The doctrine would then be consist- 
 ent, whatever we thought of its completeness. But even when 
 we concede that morality has to do with the objective as well 
 as the subjective, formalism has certain merits which it is worth 
 our while emphasizing. 
 
 The first of these merits is the personal side of morality. We 
 found in the analysis of a moral act that no act could be 
 strictly called moral which did not issue from conscious volition 
 and intention. The mere accomplishment of a desired result is 
 not sufficient, because, if it were, inanimate and physical move- 
 ments might be called moral, and so might unconscious (reflex 
 and automatic) actions of the person himself. The same objec- 
 tive good may be realized by such actions as by the intentional 
 volitions of the subject. But no one for a moment would re- 
 gard such actions as moral. All are agreed that to be moral an 
 act must be initiated by intelligence and represent conscience 
 in some form. This only shows how necessary motives, voli- 
 
THE THEORIES AND NATURE OF MORALITY 391 
 
 tion, and good will are to morality. It may be true, as it is, that 
 morality is not complete until some end is attained, be it happi- 
 ness, perfection, or other object, but it is no less incomplete when 
 the good will is absent. So incomplete is it without intelligence 
 and good will that it would not receive the name of morality at 
 all unless they were present. Formalism, therefore, expresses the 
 primary condition of morality. It embodies the whole contents 
 of virtue as distinguished from the good, and so indicates why we 
 praise an act of good will whatever the consequences, while we 
 do not praise an act with good consequences which was not initi- 
 ated by good will. It is the personal element of moral conduct 
 that determines its characteristic worth. Formalism calls atten- 
 tion to that fact. It is perhaps unfortunate and one-sided in ignor- 
 ing the importance of consequences, but it is right in maintain- 
 ing the personal nature of all moral action and insisting that it 
 is the subjective side of conduct which constitutes virtue and 
 morality in the highest sense. Motives and volitions are purely 
 internal events, though they are directed to the external. But 
 as the causal connection between them and external events is 
 not invariably the same, and as no man is morally responsible 
 for consequences which he does not aim at and which he is not 
 conscious of, there is nothing left but to judge the culpability 
 and inculpability of conduct wholly from the subjective side, 
 though we are justified in taking measures to prevent the mis- 
 carriage of motives and to regulate the adjustment of inner and 
 outer relations. It is personal agents or personal actions that 
 we praise or blame, though we may welcome or deplore the oc- 
 currence of others according as the consequences are agreeable or 
 disagreeable to us. Praise and blame, however, are accorded 
 only to voluntary actions, so that the most important sphere of 
 morality lies within the limits of motives and the good will. As 
 long as this is the case we shall find the human mind emphasizing 
 this side of conduct, especially because there can be no morality 
 at all without it, while subjective morality or character can exist 
 without regard to consequences or to the question whether the 
 objective world is ideal or not. 
 
392 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 The second merit of the theory is that it establishes a personal 
 law for conduct. The attempt to make pleasure without qualifi- 
 cation the law of volition will create in the actions of man all 
 the caprice which we find in the occurrence of external events. 
 Now an act would be permitted by the promise of pleasure, and 
 now the same act would be prevented by the prospect of pain. 
 It might be safe to steal to-day and dangerous to-morrow. But 
 moralism insists that the law of a man's action shall be found in 
 his own will. The individual should make duty his guiding 
 principle whatever the attainable object at the time: Hence the 
 notion of law, regularity, obligation, which the doctrine main- 
 tains represents a person of stable character, one whose tenden- 
 cies can be relied upon and in whom confidence can be placed. 
 We can calculate just what to expect, namely, conscientiousness 
 in all his doings, the constant pursuit of an ideal which is inde- 
 pendent of the vicissitudes of the world and represents the uni- 
 formity of nature in its persistency. We admire such a being be- 
 cause of the intrinsic worth of his will. His judgment may be bad 
 in the material application of the moral law to individual cases, 
 but the most important element is present, namely, conscience 
 and good will. When a man aims rightly, when his intentions 
 are good, it is an easier matter to inform his intellect as to the 
 manner of his actions, than it is to create the good will when the 
 judgment is clear and conscience seared. The education of the 
 intellect is much easier than that of the will, and is quite differ 
 ent in its method. The greater power of the will to resist the 
 right than of the intellect to evade the truth attests the greater 
 difficulty of moralizing a man than of educating him. But 
 when he has once decided to make the moral law an object of 
 his will and lives up to it his moral character is settled whatever 
 be the mishaps of a fallible judgment, and he has fulfilled the 
 main requirement for which morality exists. Merit is personal, 
 and in its highest development represents a law of the will 
 rather than a law of things, and moralism must have the credit 
 of maintaining the primary importance of this element and the 
 purely secondary nature of consequences, though they are not to 
 
THE THEORIES AND NATURE OF MORALITY 393 
 
 be ignored. It is the morality of character with which ethics 
 has to do rather than results. We want regularity, consistency, 
 and nobility of purpose in the will as the chief object of moral- 
 ity, and when that is attained there will be less difficulty in 
 accomplishing that for which utilitarianism stands. One of the 
 difficulties of concentrating attention wholly upon the end or 
 result of conduct is that we are apt to forget that it can often be 
 attained as easily by the wrong as by the right means. We 
 may not be far-sighted enough in applying the utilitarian stand- 
 ard, and hence if we can show the value of adopting a regular 
 form of conduct, as in the long run most free from miscarriage, 
 . we emphasize the importance of also keeping the means in view 
 as well as the end. This is precisely what moralism effects, and 
 the fact establishes its right to a supplementary rank with utili- 
 tarianism, if not to a superior place in comparison. 
 
 VI. CONCLUSION. — The criticism of the various theories 
 with their merits and demerits suggests the propriety of sum- 
 ming up their relations to each other and perhaps of combining 
 them. This we think can be done so as to show how each posi- 
 tion supplies an important element in the complex result known 
 as morality. We concede that pleasure or happiness is a good, 
 and it might be even the highest good taken in the abstract. 
 But it is not a sufficient guide of itself in the world constructed 
 as it is; and, moreover, it is not the only element of the ultimate 
 end of conduct. It is rather a criterion of adjustment than a 
 measure of the whole good to be ultimately attained. But it is 
 nevertheless a datum which the healthy man cannot ignore. 
 Utilitarianism is thus justified in the recognition wliich it gives 
 to happiness. On the other hand, perfectionism is equally justi- 
 fied in maintaining that perfection is an ultimate good. It is 
 one-sided when it wholly repudiates pleasure, though right when 
 it asserts the primary character of development of function and 
 excellence of being rather than merely phenomenal feeling. 
 The two positions, however, . should be united. As we have 
 already indicated, neither perfection nor happiness, taken alone, 
 is the highest good, Both of these combined represent the true 
 
394 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 state of the case much better, and serve in practice to correct 
 the aberrations naturally incident to dependence upon either 
 of them. The fact is that the moral ideal is synthetic or com- 
 plex, made up of elements which alone cannot satisfy the con- 
 ception of morality. Combined in this way the two theories get 
 all the advantages and have none of the defects which charac- 
 terize them separately. 
 
 But there is still another important element in the problem. 
 Theories of ethics usually assume that the whole question regard- 
 ing the nature of conduct is determined solely by the end or 
 consequence to be realized. This is particularly the position of 
 utilitarianism, and is probably quite as true of perfectionism ; 
 namely, that the merit of conduct is supposed to be determined 
 solely by the end, pleasure, or perfection. This, however, is a 
 mistake, which is tacitly admitted when any concession is made 
 to the value of motives. If morality were purely a question of 
 objective results this w T ould be true. The nature of an act would 
 be determined wholly by the consequences and without regard 
 to motive. But morality is not wholly a matter of consequences. 
 It concerns personality and character. It expresses personal 
 worth as well as a condition of things related to that worth. 
 "We praise or blame an act only when it originates from an intel- 
 ligent source. It must be personal, free, and conscientious in 
 order to be moral, and the act, so far as it is personal, is adjudged 
 as moral and responsible only in relation to the end or conse- 
 quence aimed at, not any consequence outside the intention of 
 the subject. Further than this, even when the right end is 
 sought the merit of the act is very much affected by the manner 
 of seeking it. If the pursuit be instinctive or merely the nat- 
 ural and spontaneous prompting of the agent without any con- 
 sciousness of the value of the end, or without any reverence for 
 it as a moral ideal, however correct the act nmy be objectively, 
 it has not the moral merit of an act which represents the rational 
 and conscientious volition of the subject. Thus, not only the end 
 sought is involved, but also the manner of seeking it affects the 
 nature of morality. We have shown this in the analysis of the 
 
THE THEORIES AND NATURE OF MORALITY 395 
 
 conception of morality where it appeared that there were degrees 
 of merit involved. First, there is the consequence affecting the 
 act in its objective relations. Then there is the conscious and 
 intentional pursuit of an end under the variety of motives known 
 as instincts, desires, or natural promptings and without thought 
 of the moral imperativeness of it. This is the second degree 
 of moral worth. Then the third is action under the moral im- 
 perative or sense of absolute duty, which Kant made the 
 sole element of morality. "We regard it as only one, but the 
 highest and most important of the three elements in it, treat- 
 ing morality as a complex and not as a simple product. But 
 it is the first essential in it where rationality of the highest 
 type is involved and represents a manner of action, the motives 
 as the only determinant of character, whatever effect the end or 
 result may have upon the matter objectively considered. To 
 put the case briefly, therefore, utilitarianism and perfectionism 
 assign correctly the objective or teleological determinant of 
 morality, w T hile moral ism supplies the subjective element of it, 
 the element of personal equation in the case, which, considering 
 that morality has mostly to do with personality, must always be 
 deemed the most important. Motives and character, the law of 
 reason and personal reverence for such a law, are the starting- 
 point of moral action and must receive a share of the merit dis- 
 tributed by the conception of morality, and hence the manner 
 as well as the matter, the form as well as the contents of the moral 
 law, enters into our estimate of it. In this w r ay formalism is the 
 complementary aspect of the other two theories, the obverse of 
 which they are the reverse side of conduct. No one theory, 
 therefore, is complete, but taken alone is one-sided, and requires 
 the others to supply its deficiencies. This is in accord with 
 common sense, which judges of particular cases about as described 
 and only gets into difficulty when some theorist unjustly asks it 
 to explain its consistency, presuming that there should be but a 
 single simple criterion of morality, when in fact it is synthetic or 
 complex. 
 
 A general agreement with the position here taken is embodied 
 
396 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 in Professor Dewey's statement of the case. He also shows how 
 hedonism and formalism supplement each other. " The funda- 
 mental error of hedonism and Kantianism," he says, "is the 
 same — the supposition that desires are for pleasure only. Let it 
 be recognized that desires are for objects conceived as satisfying 
 or developing the self, and that pleasure is incidental to this ful- 
 fillment of the capacities of self, and we have the means of escap- 
 ing the one-sidedness of Kantianism as well as of hedonism. We 
 can see that the end is neither the procuring of particular pleasures 
 through the various desires, nor action from the mere idea of ab- 
 stract law in general, but that it is the satisfaction of desires ac- 
 cording to law. The desire in its particular character does not 
 give the law ; this, as we saw in our criticism of hedonism, is to 
 take away all law from conduct and to leave us at the mercy of 
 our chance desires, as they come and go. On the other hand, the 
 law is not something'wholly apart from the desires. This, as we 
 shall see, is equally to deprive us of a law capable of governing 
 conduct. The law is the law of the desires themselves — the har- 
 mony and adjustment of desires necessary to make them instru- 
 ments in fulfilling the special destiny or business of the agent." 
 Apart from peculiarities of expression this language is that reason 
 and desire, rational law, and the object of desire, hedonism and 
 formalism, and we might add perfectionism, which is recognized 
 in the above language, must be combined to represent rightly 
 the conception of morality as a whole. 
 
 There is one final fact of much interest and importance in the 
 case. It is that no other view will satisfactorily solve the so- 
 called paradox of hedonism. We found Mill, Stephen, Spencer, 
 and Sidgwick defending the strange doctrine that pleasure is the 
 highest good and yet cannot be attained by directly seeking it. 
 This position was taken in deference to the actual fact that the 
 direct suit of pleasure, rather than action according to law or in 
 pursuit of perfection, often defeats its own object. Instead of 
 seeing in this fact evidence of weakness in the theory, they de- 
 fend an ethical contradiction. But as no one denies the right to 
 pleasure as a reward of virtue and a concomitant of perfection — - 
 
THE THEORIES AXD NATURE OF MORALITY 397 
 
 nay, rather all affirm that this is the ideal order of things — we 
 may see in the fact a way to recognize in perfection and formal- 
 ism combined an end which can be directly sought while attain- 
 ing happiness indirectly as a result. What these writers, there- 
 fore, asserted in regard to the proper way to attain happiness 
 was correct, but it unconsciously sacrificed utilitarianism and 
 confirmed the claims of opponents that the primary element and 
 end of morality is something else. and pleasure a desirable in- 
 cident of virtue ; that even if it is sought, it must not be the sole 
 end of volition, and that it is more properly a concomitant and 
 result of good will and the pursuit of perfection. Thus the par- 
 adox of hedonism when properly solved turns out to be a proof 
 of other theories, while they still accord it a place in the ideal 
 of ethics as a complementary element of it. 
 
 References. — On the classification of theories there are but few references 
 to be given. Martineau : Types of Ethical Theory, Vol. I., Introduction ; 
 Sidgwick : Methods of Ethics, Book L, Chapter VI. ; Murray : Introduc- 
 tion to Ethics, Book II., Chapters I. and II. ; Wundt : Ethik, pp. 349-370. 
 
 On the discussion of theories and the nature of morality authorities are 
 more numerous. Martineau : Types of Ethical Theory, Vol. II., Book I. 
 and Book II., Chapters I. and II. ; Dewey : Outlines of Ethics ; Mackenzie : 
 Manual of Ethics, Chapters VI, and VII. ; Bowne : Principles of Ethics, 
 Chapters I., II., and III. ; Spencer : Principles of Ethics, Vol. I., Part I. ; 
 Social Statics (Last Edition), pp. 7-62 ; J. S. Mill : Essay on Utilitarian- 
 ism ; Leslie Stephen : Science of Ethics, Chapters IV. and IX. ; Calder- 
 wood : Handbook of Moral Philosophy (Fourteenth Edition), Part L, pp. 
 30-95 ; Grote : Examination of the Utilitarian Philosophy (the whole 
 work has a most important bearing upon the problem of morality) ; Green : 
 Prolegomena to Ethics, Book II., Chapter II., Book III., Chapter I. ; 
 Book IV., Chapters III. and IV. ; Hume : Treatise of Morals, Part I., 
 Sections I. and II ; Fowler and Wilson : Principles of Morals, Vol. II., 
 Chapter VI. ; Fowler : Progressive Morality ; Aristotle : Xicomachean 
 Ethics, Books I. and II., Book VIL, Chapters VL-XIV., and Book X. ; 
 Kant : Metaphysic of Morals ; Abbott's Translation, Sections I. and II. ; 
 also The Pure Practical Eeason, Book I. ; Alexander : Moral Order and 
 Progress, Chapter V. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 MORALITY AND RELIGION. 
 
 I. INTRODUCTION.— One of the most perplexing questions of 
 recent times has been the relation between morality and religion. 
 As long as theological influences prevailed, as they did until the 
 modern scientific tendencies against theology made themselves 
 felt, there were no difficulties and little difference of opinion. 
 But the intellectual and religious changes of the past century 
 have greatly modified the needs of thought and practice, and 
 consequently with skepticism in the ascendant against the tradi- 
 tions of theology, and practical life demanding other than the 
 older sanctions for morality, there has been some confusion and 
 much effort to reconstruct ethics to suit the intellectual condi- 
 tion of the age. On the one hand, we have the religious mind 
 telling us that morality depends wholly upon religion, and that 
 it cannot exist without the religion. On the other hand, we have 
 those who have abandoned theological beliefs, and who yet feel 
 the springs of duty as clearly and strongly as others, maintaining 
 that morality is wholly independent of religion and may exist 
 when religion has been dissolved. A third party reverses the 
 order of dependence and makes religion depend upon morality, 
 or at least the natural consequence of morality, and a fourth 
 party identifies the two, not making either of them dependent 
 upon the other, but regarding their true contents as the same. 
 This view rejects anything more than morality in the case as un- 
 warranted and illegitimate, while the third party holds that the 
 relation between the two is such that the man may never go 
 beyond morality, but that he cannot be religious until he does. 
 These four different conceptions make it very difficult to treat 
 
MORALITY AND RELIGION 399 
 
 the question without joining in the heat of the general contro- 
 versy. Views so radically opposed to each other are not easily 
 reconciled. Yet in spite of this fact I do not believe that the 
 current confusion on the subject comes from the difficulty men- 
 tioned. It is due to very different facts. It originates from the 
 failure at analysis of the problem to be solved. There are two 
 perspicuous defects in all the discussions which have come under 
 my notice. They are : (a) The constant failure to define care- 
 fully the nature and contents of both morality and religion before 
 comparing them, and (b) the failure to distinguish between the 
 historical and the logical, the actual and the necessary relation 
 of morality to religion. In regard to the first of these derelictions 
 it is remarkable that nearly all moralists leave religion wholly 
 undefined in discussing its relation to morality. They assume 
 that everybody is clear about its contents, an assumption that is 
 wholly unwarranted. The fact is that there are few terms so in- 
 definite and ambiguous in their meaning as the term religion. 
 There is scarcely any unanimity of opinion in regard to its range 
 of application. Sometimes it is not distinguished from theology, 
 which is a theoretical and systematic construction of doctrines per- 
 taining to the supernatural. Sometimes it is made as distinct from 
 theology as actual morality is distinct from the theory of ethics. 
 Then, again, even when clearly distinguished from theology, 
 sometimes it is conceived as a system of beliefs and sometimes as a 
 cult, which, although it implies beliefs of some kind, does not lay 
 the stress upon them, but upon worship and ritual. There is in 
 these several meanings material enough for an enormous amount 
 of confusion, not to say anything of the double confusion caused 
 by similar difficulties in the use of the term morality. In dis- 
 cussing the relation between this and religion there is often a 
 confusion of Ethics as a science with morality as a habit of life, 
 when in point of fact the two are as different as the science of 
 physics and the practice of engineering. Then again even when 
 these are distinguished there is the confusion of the subjective and 
 the objective aspects of morality. All these ambiguities are 
 sources enough of -difficulty in dealing with the problem. But 
 
400 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 they are not all. The second defect referred to above in most, if 
 not all, discussions of the question very much complicates the 
 confusion. It is the failure to distinguish between the actual and 
 necessary or the historical and the logical connection between 
 morality and religion, and the fallacious tendency to argue from 
 the former to the latter. Nothing can be better established than 
 the fact that religion and morality, however either or both of 
 them may be conceived, have been intimately connected in the 
 beliefs and practices of various ages. But this mere fact is no 
 proof that they should be connected ; nor does it prove that the 
 conceptions in one field are dependent upon those in the other. 
 This dependence may be a fact, but it requires more proof than 
 the mere circumstance of their historical connection to show 
 that one depends on the other. Moreover, also, some illusion is 
 caused by the tendency to confuse the dependence of one of them 
 upon the other with their mere connection. Coincidence of con- 
 tents, however, does not prove that either of them conditions the 
 other, while it will be found in the sequel that they do not ex- 
 actly coincide in contents. Hence it is no wonder that there is 
 so little clear thinking on this question, when the analysis re- 
 quired is not even attempted. In the following discussion some 
 effort will be made to correct these errors. 
 
 II. CONCEPTION OF RELIGION— In forming our conception 
 of religion we have several facts to keep in mind. The first one 
 is the various uses of the term ; the second is the difference 
 between defining what is or has been, and defining it as it should 
 be apart from the incidents which confuse its import ; and the 
 third is the question of its origin and development with the con- 
 tents of it in this process of evolution. Hence we must resolve 
 the matter into the simplest question of which it is possible and 
 keep all these various conceptions independent of each other. 
 Its definition therefore will involve a careful analysis. 
 
 1st. Theology and Religion. — These two things are too often 
 confused with each other, though they are perfectly distinct. 
 Theology is a theory about the world and its causes as objects of 
 religion, while religion is simply an attitude of mind toward 
 
MORALITY AND RELIGION 401 
 
 them involving emotional elements. Theology is purely scien- 
 tific, philosophic, and intellectual, and excludes all emotional 
 considerations from its object. But not so with religion, though 
 it contains and implies beliefs of some kind. It is a concrete 
 attitude of mind involving both intellectual and emotional ele- 
 ments, the latter probably predominating. Theology, however, 
 is a form of philosophy, differing only from that subject in gen- 
 eral in the conception of personality which it places at the basis 
 of all phenomena, and it is perfectly compatible with the non- 
 existence of religion altogether. A religion also may exist 
 without any theology, though it contains the material out of 
 which a theology may be developed. Theology is a reasoned 
 system of doctrines, religion is a spontaneous belief and act of 
 reverence for the divine, and hence the two things are as dis- 
 tinct as speculative philosophy and the common beliefs of man- 
 kind, though we often find men contending for theological 
 theories as if they had all the value and efficiency of concrete 
 religious beliefs and practices, when the fact is that a man may 
 be ever so religious without having a theology at all (except 
 ev $vva/,iei) and may have a well-developed theology without 
 being religious. The relation between theology and religion is 
 the same as that between ethics and morality. Ethics is a 
 science, morality is life or conduct. The former is the product 
 of pure reason, the latter is tinged with emotion, the concrete 
 expression of the whole of a man's moral nature. So with the^ 
 ology ; it is the product of reason, with the same objects as 
 religion, but eliminating the very element that makes religion 
 what it is. 
 
 2d. Definition of Religion. — After eliminating the scientific 
 and philosophic element as denoting reflection upon religion, we 
 shall define religion to be both a creed and a cult in regard to 
 divine and supernatural things, taking supernatural here to mean 
 whatever is transcendental to direct human experience. It is, 
 therefore, both a belief and a mode of worship ; not necessarily a 
 ritualistic or external form of worship, but at least a reverential 
 attitude of mind involving respect and obedience to a supreme 
 
402 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 power. It is not enough that there should be a mere belief in 
 the divine existence, or in any other dogma, in order to be a 
 religion. There may be any amount of intellectual assent to 
 truth and the essential element of religion may be wanting. 
 The belief must have an influence on life and thought, and it 
 must be accompanied by a certain amount of positive reverence 
 and respect for the nature and authority, or the power, of the 
 being who is the object of belief. It, of course, assumes the 
 truth and reality of the objects which it reveres, but it does not 
 necessarily give any reason for this belief, nor attempt to ration- 
 alize it. It is mainly an emotion with a sufficient background 
 of intellectual element to give it a definite and pertinent object. 
 As Mr. Martineau puts it : " The essence of religion lies in com- 
 munion between the finite and the infinite mind, between the 
 individual soul and the universal." 
 
 The definition here is made as broad as possible, to cover every 
 possible form of belief and reverence for the supernatural, from 
 fetichism to modern theism. This is the only way to recognize 
 the common elements in all those creeds and cults which go by 
 the name of religion. We have to remember, however, that this 
 merely defines religion as it is and has been, and does not define 
 it with that differential element which is supposed to characterize 
 the true religion. In fact we cannot undertake in a general dis- 
 cussion to define the true religion. It is not the place to do so. 
 But the dissatisfaction which many will feel at the failure to 
 describe religion more suitably to the modern complex concep- 
 tion of it is a reason for noting another ambiguity of the term. 
 In speaking of the relation between religion and morality most 
 persons have in mind, not the comprehensive and elaborated or 
 formal definition of either one of them, but the concrete beliefs 
 and practices of their own time. Religion to them will mean 
 the concrete religions of their age. In many cases, general as 
 the term is, it means only Christianity. In all such cases the 
 question of the relation of religion and morality is decided by the 
 facts. But when we undertake to determine that relation scien- 
 tifically we must seek the fundamental conception of both and 
 
MORALITY AND RELIGION 403 
 
 solve the problem accordingly. The problem is a manifold one. 
 First, what is the relation between actual religions and the 
 actual codes of conduct ? Second, what is the relation between 
 actual religions and ideal or true morality ? Third, what is the 
 relation between true religion and ideal or true morality ? The 
 first of these questions is answered by the facts of observation 
 and history. The second shows a tendency to define religion in 
 the concrete and morality in the abstract, and is the favorite 
 conception of the skeptic, who can easily find discrepancies 
 between concrete or actual religion and abstract or ideal moral- 
 ity, discrepancies which make it advisable to separate them or to 
 purify religion. The third question represents the true concep- 
 tion of the problem, and the only one which is capable of a 
 proper and philosophic answer. We require carefully to define 
 the essential elements of religion and morality both as they are 
 and as they ought to be, and then to compare them on the same 
 level, and not to compare the concrete conception of one with 
 the abstract conception of the other. 
 
 Now, the logical definition of religion involves a statement of 
 its essential and necessary elements, without which that term 
 would not be applied to it, except by sufferance. Hence we 
 have defined it as a belief and a cult, a belief in supernatural 
 agencies and existence, and a cult or mode of worship, involving 
 a certain measure of respect and obedience to these agencies as 
 having power over us. The differential element in the concep- 
 tion here is the idea of the supernatural. The creed and cult 
 must be regarding this or it will not constitute a religion. 
 What connection this has with morality will be seen when moral- 
 ity has been defined in the proper way. Enough, however, has 
 been determined to suggest certain differences which separate 
 them, whatever points of conjunction may be found at another 
 time. 
 
 But while this definition indicates what is essential, and all that 
 is essential to a religion, it does not represent all the concrete 
 elements that are often comprehended in the term and constitute 
 the common understanding of its meaning. To make its com- 
 
404 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 plex and concrete conception clear it will be necessary to exam- 
 ine briefly the evolution of religion and of the conception of it. 
 This takes us over all forms of it, and indicates the elements not 
 expressly noted in the definition. 
 
 3d. Development and Contents of Religion — We shall here 
 have to do with religion or religions in the concrete. The sub- 
 ject must be dealt with very briefly and with as little allusion as 
 possible to the contents of the numerous religions of history. 
 The chief practical interest in Western civilization is the relation 
 between Christian conceptions and morality. But these concep- 
 tions are very complex and take up into themselves the total re- 
 sults of history. 
 
 It is probable that the first stage of the religious conscious- 
 ness was a mere belief in the existence of supernatural forces, 
 such as the universal existence of souls in nature. This would 
 be the belief described by the term animism, and might also in- 
 clude the belief in ancestral souls and ghosts. But the latter 
 does not require notice, though it represents a religious belief of 
 an interesting kind connected often with peculiar ceremonies 
 and sacrifices for appeasing the will of such agencies. The be- 
 lief in animism, however, is the immediate precursor of polytheism, 
 which represents a more anthropomorphic conception of super- 
 natural existence and lays less stress upon the animistic nature 
 of everything. It represents a stage of generalization reducing 
 supernatural agencies of any importance for man to a smaller 
 number than animism implies. 
 
 The second stage or element of the earliest form of religion 
 was that of the propitiation of supernatural agencies. This was 
 done in various ways, sometimes by sacrifices, vegetable, animal, 
 or human, or by the performance of certain rites. The concep- 
 tion here was not only of the existence of supernatural beings, 
 but also of their power to interfere with mundane affairs and to 
 command the services of man. Here begins the notion of a 
 providential system though characterized by the peculiar ideas 
 of the time, which did little or nothing to idealize the beings who 
 bad so much power. Fear could be the only attitude of mind 
 
MORALITY AND RELIGION 405 
 
 towards agencies enjoying so much arbitrary power and without 
 any moral character. They were to be propitiated only by some 
 form of self-mutilation or sacrifice. The religion of this stage 
 was only a religion of fear and terror. But the belief in super- 
 natural existence and the propitiation of such agencies represent 
 together the creed and cult elements of early religion, later de- 
 velopments simply adding new elements or modifying the old 
 ones. 
 
 The polytheistic stage was largely mythological in its concep- 
 tions and so represented the deification of natural forces. The 
 transition to the next higher stage, which we shall call monothe- 
 ism, was characterized by a philosophic movement of the cosmo- 
 logical type. The unification of the forces of nature in a single 
 all-pervading substance was the signal for reducing the gods to 
 unity also. This was done by exalting one of them to the su- 
 preme place of authority and power and the reduction of all the 
 others to his subjects or vassals. Monotheism was thus estab- 
 lished, and it carried with it corresponding elements of intellec- 
 tual culture. There arose a tendency to idealize God ; that is, 
 to attribute certain moral perfections to him. The notion of 
 propitiation remained, and remains still in theology, but it was 
 softened by the moral advances of the age. There were three 
 elements in this stage. They were : (a) The personality of the 
 divine ; (b) the providential agency of the divine ; and (c) the 
 idealization of the divine. The notion of personality existed in 
 the polytheistic stage, but the other elements were absent. Re- 
 ligion went no further than a belief and a cult in behalf of per- 
 sonal interests. But under monotheism the religious conceptions 
 of the world at large reflected the new and higher social condi- 
 tions and ideas, representing, on the one hand, moral character in 
 the divine, and on the other, a providential government for other 
 interests than those of the divine alone. 
 
 The next stage represents the highly organized religions of 
 the present age, though their origin extends back into earlier 
 times. The only one to be considered here is Christianity. 
 This had its rise in a purely social and moral scheme, but soon 
 
406 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 after its founder's death assumed a theological form and rapidly 
 developed into a most elaborate system. It took up the cosmo- 
 logical elements of earlier philosophies and transformed them by 
 the introduction of purely theological doctrines. The various 
 elements constituting Christianity are as follows : (a) The person- 
 ality of God ; (b) providential government of the world ; (c) 
 the immortality of the soul ; (d) the divinity of Christ, the 
 founder of it ; (e) a scheme of redemption involving propitiation 
 by vicarious atonement and good works ; (/) the inspiration of 
 the Scriptures ; (g) the cultivation of humanity and personal 
 righteousness as a condition of realizing " the kingdom of God," 
 which covers the moralization of the present life and salvation 
 in the next, and (A) a form of worship. 
 
 The theological development of Christianity contains all these 
 elements as essentials, and it is clear that social and ethical con- 
 ceptions are very important parts of it, having adhered to it from 
 the first, when it was solely an organized effort to moralize the 
 individual will, partly by religious sanctions and partly by in- 
 voking the natural affections and sympathies. It contained 
 only one element of religion at the outset, as we have defined it, 
 and this was a belief in the divine, which was spontaneous, and 
 not reflective or philosophic. A mode of worship soon became 
 a part of it, both from the example of the founder and the relig- 
 ious needs of its devotees. 
 
 This complex mass of beliefs and enjoined practices shows us 
 religion in the concrete as we see and know it about us. That 
 it has a very intimate relation to morality, as a fact, ought to be 
 unquestioned. A large element of its demands upon the indi- 
 vidual are moral demands, and they have been sanctioned upon 
 religious grounds. But whether there is any absolute necessity 
 for a resort to these sanctions is another question. The social 
 and religious history of the last eighteen centuries has largely 
 identified Christianity with morality. But while this is a histor- 
 ical fact, it does not prove the dependence of that morality upon 
 Christian sanctions, which is the common illusion of mankind, 
 when asked to give a reason for this morality. It is noticeable 
 
MORALITY AND RELIGION 407 
 
 also that there are many theological elements in this concrete 
 conception of religion which are not any part of it in the com- 
 prehensive sense of our definition. The further connection of it 
 with morality, however, can be discussed only when we have 
 recapitulated the conception of morals. 
 
 III. CONCEPTION OF MORALITY— Morality is good will 
 and good conduct, and hence is action with reference to man as an 
 end in himself. This definition comprehends both the subjective 
 and objective aspects of it. It limits the purpose (reXo3) of 
 conduct to man and may or may not extend its range of impor- 
 tance beyond the present state of existence. But in determining 
 the contents of morality we have a wide field of phenomena to 
 cover. It comprehends every form of conduct from simple self- 
 preservation to self-sacrifice. But we must classify its forms and 
 develop their meaning. 
 
 1st. Adjustment to Environment. — This involves the virtue of 
 protection against injury of all kinds, or the preservation of 
 personal and physical integrity. It takes these forms, physical, 
 political, and social adjustment, involving the three duties of 
 self-preservation, civil justice, and social equity. This is purely 
 an objective element of morality and represents the external 
 forces which impose limitations on human liberty. Conformity 
 to them is necessary as a condition of realizing any other de- 
 sired end. 
 
 2d. Realization of an Ideal Order. — Besides mere adjustment 
 to external forces, whether physical or personal, there is a 
 field in which the human will can exert itself to modify those 
 forces themselves. Hence its virtues or duties are not limited to 
 submission, but extend to aggressive measures for establishing 
 better physical and moral conditions in the world, as well as 
 perfecting the agent's own powers. The duties here are those of 
 education, including the culture of science and art and the ex- 
 penditure of one's powers and resources in modifying the social 
 and physical conditions of life. A better human order is the 
 object of such duties and efforts. This is also an objective feature 
 of morality. 
 
408 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 3d. The Exercise of Good Will. — This is the subjective as- 
 pect of morality, and represents the demand made upon con- 
 science whether a man is able to, adjust himself to environment 
 and to realize a better order of the world or not. Morality here 
 means volition from the sense of duty or its rigldness. The con- 
 sequences may be what they please ; the will must aim rightly. 
 Man must look upon himself as an end, as having rational worth 
 in the order of existence, and seek to preserve that worth. Or 
 if we wish to put the matter upon a lower plane, we can express 
 the ultimate end as welfare, happiness, or perfection. But as we 
 are expressing it in terms of the will we prefer to formulate the 
 subjective side of morality so that it shall represent life accord- 
 ing to law, or the ideal will, seeking to transfigure all its voli- 
 tions with the sense of duty, so that the manner of action may 
 be right whatever mishap may occur to its matter. Conscien- 
 tiousness is its content, and while it may extend to any object 
 whatever, it does not require more than obedience to the moral 
 imperative, which may not demand more than the perfection of 
 the individual will. 
 
 Morality, then, being represented by good will and good con- 
 duct, which may be determined in many, if not in all, cases, 
 without the aid of religion, the only question that remains is to 
 ascertain their relation to each other, whether it is one of de- 
 pendence, independence, or identity. 
 
 IV. THE RELATION BETWEEN RELIGION AND MORAL- 
 ITY. — The definition and analysis show us the contents of both 
 religion and morality, and now the more difficult problem is to be 
 solved. More than one aspect of it will have to be taken into 
 account. But first as to contents. 
 
 The definition of religion shows that there must be a belief in 
 the supernatural and some regard for it as a condition of the 
 very existence of religion. This is not the case with morality so 
 far as its objective aspect and contents are concerned. The be- 
 lief in the supernatural is not necessary to it. Its object is man 
 and his welfare, and not the propitiation or satisfaction of divine 
 power. The fact also is that it may not seek a hereafter as its 
 
MORALITY AND RELIGION 409 
 
 primary justification or sanction, while religion usually includes 
 as one of its objects a regard to immortality as a principle of 
 conduct. When it does not it is a cult. There is nothing to 
 prevent .morality from thus taking iuto account the future 
 after death as well as the whole scope of the present life. In 
 fact, it may be admitted that the highest morality will do so, 
 seeking adjustment to the eternal as well as the temporal. But 
 conduct may be moral or immoral without either a belief in a 
 hereafter or adjustment with reference to it, but with reference 
 only to the present. There is even danger that an eye to a 
 transcendental existence, of whose conditions we know nothing 
 by experience, may obscure and divert us from many duties in 
 the present. Hence while morality may have a meaning for 
 eternity, this is not its only import. Morality has a value and 
 an obligation when its purpose does not extend beyond the 
 moralization of the present existence. Hence its contents do 
 not necessarily include a supernatural reference. 
 
 This position can be reinforced by an admission of religionists 
 themselves. The strictest religious orthodoxy always tells us 
 that morality w T ill not save a man, but that faith, grace, and 
 atonement are essential to this end. In fact, the amount of 
 emphasis laid upon the insufficiency of morality for redemption 
 is astonishing when we consider that immorality alone is uni- 
 versally regarded as a sufficient reason for damnation. The 
 confession, however, only proves that morality may exist, that 
 meritorious conduct and character may exist without any ac- 
 companiment of the religious Consciousness necessary to spir- 
 itual salvation, and that is sufficient proof that religion is not 
 the only condition of an ethical life. The real motive for 
 asserting the insufficiency of morality for eternal redemption 
 came from the logical exigencies of the controversy between 
 Greek and Christian thought, and from the hard and fast line 
 drawn by theology between the redeemed and the lost. On the 
 one hand, Greek philosophy asserted the adequacy of natural 
 morality, and the Christian inferred from the supposed truth of 
 this claim that there would be no need for the distinctly Chris- 
 
410 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 tian scheme on that supposition. Faith, atonement, and grace 
 were supposed to be purely supererogatory, if the same end could 
 be attained by moral volition. On the other hand, the failure of 
 theology to recognize degrees of redemption and damnation, or of 
 conditions expressed by them, cut itself off from admitting any 
 redemptive agency in morality, though it was inconsistent in 
 asserting the damning agency of immorality. If faith, grace, and 
 atonement are necessary to salvation, or are the primary condi- 
 tion of it, then the rejection of these, or infidelity, should be the 
 only proper condition of damnation. However this may be, the 
 one motive for asserting the insufficiency of morality was the fear 
 that men might be saved without the need of admitting Christian- 
 ity ; but in asserting that religion is a condition of morality, theol- 
 ogy forgot the independence of the latter implied in its insufficiency 
 for redemption. 
 
 In their essential contents, therefore, religion and morality are 
 wholly independent of each other. Religion, as we have seen, is 
 a creed and a cult, a belief and form of worship, directed to the 
 supernatural ; morality is good will and conduct directed to the 
 welfare of man ; in some cases is nothing more than right social 
 relations. Thus God is the object of one and man the object of 
 the other. This single fact stamps them as distinct provinces. 
 But nevertheless it does not solve the whole of the problem 
 before us. The relation between them is not altogether one 
 which can be decided by a comparison of their contents and 
 objects. The traditional claim of the theologian has been that 
 religion is essential to morality ; that morality has its foundation 
 in religion and religious postulates. It has always been under- 
 stood to mean either that unless the doctrines of theism are true, 
 morality is not obligatory, or that unless a man is religious, he 
 will not be moral. Hence we are required to study the problem 
 from the standpoint of its ground, as well as its contents and 
 objects. 
 
 The theological position seems to be a very simple one, and is 
 taken to be such by nearly all disputants. But this is not the 
 case. It involves two totally distinct questions as it is usually 
 
MORALITY AND RELIGION 41 1 
 
 discussed. They are the question of the ground and the 
 question of the sanctions of morality. These two aspects of the 
 problem are wholly independent of each other. The ground of 
 morality must be either the nature of the Absolute, or the end to 
 which volition is directed, or it may be both. Under the first 
 conception of the case we must undoubtedly find an ultimate 
 basis for morality in the postulates or conclusions of metaphysics, 
 and it does not matter whether we regard the Absolute as 
 personal or not, so that the theological or religious view has no 
 more claims than any other point of view. But if it be the end 
 of volition that determines the ground of morality, metaphysics 
 and theology may both be shut out from being the only court of 
 judicature in the case, unless they are called upon to decide the 
 end of conduct. Moreover, the end is the only datum which 
 can determine the contents of morality, and if theology cannot 
 assign the end of conduct, or if this end can be decided inde- 
 pendently of theology, morality will not depend wholly upon the 
 postulates of metaphysics. But the chief illusion of those who 
 assert an exclusively religious basis for morality is that they 
 confuse the condition of its validity with the condition of our 
 knowledge of its validity. They discuss the whole question as if 
 we had to believe the theory of virtue before we could be virtu- 
 ous ; as if we had to believe the ground of it before we could be- 
 lieve it binding or practice it. There is no more absurd illusion. 
 It may be true that all morality has its ground in some ultimate 
 truths, metaphysical or theological, or the condition of things 
 represented by those truths. But it does not follow either that 
 we would not know or that we could not practice morality until 
 we admit those truths. The fact is that we know and practice 
 morality before we think of seeking its grounds anywhere. 
 Hence, while the nature of morality, as a phenomenon in the 
 world, may well have a basis in the Absolute which is an object 
 of metaphysical study, the knowledge of it has no such basis, and 
 all that is required for morality to exist is that' a man have a 
 knowledge of its end and to pursue that end conscientiously, 
 whether he possesses a belief aud a cult regarding the super- 
 
412 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 natural or not. Morality comes from the springs of character, 
 from good will and insight as to the moral end, and not from a 
 knowledge of metaphysical or theological postulates; nor any 
 more from religious beliefs and practices. This should be evi- 
 dent to that whole school of moralists who have defended the 
 natural and implanted character of conscience as a part of man's 
 endowment, while maintaining the revealed nature of religion 
 and Christianity. 
 
 In regard to the second question, we must remark the fact that 
 the sanctions of morality bear no necessary relation to its 
 grounds. They are not the basis of right, but are only reasons 
 for doing it. These reasons for doing right do not necessa- 
 rily constitute its nature in all cases, but may represent motives 
 independent of the nature of morality itself. The theologian too 
 often confuses this problem with that of the grounds of right. 
 Now, we frankly admit that religion may be a sanction of moral- 
 ity : it may be the highest sanction. But it is not the only sanc- 
 tion. The religious mind makes the mistake of supposing that 
 religion is the only sanction, and the anti-religious mind the mis- 
 take of supposing that it cannot be a genuine sanction at all. 
 
 The problem in Ethics is a twofold one. It seeks, first, to de- 
 termine the nature, contents, and ground of morality (ratio es- 
 sendi). Ultimately this can be only one principle. Then as a 
 second object it endeavors to find reasons for doing what is right, 
 arguments that may make it effective (ratio movendi). The 
 latter does not necessarily coincide with the former. The ulti- 
 mate ground of morality, or its intrinsic worth, is always a rea- 
 son for realizing it, but it may not present an effective motive to 
 the will. The ideal may have no efficiency. Hence we may 
 resort to any other incidents in its nature or connections to induce 
 conformity to it. Thus we may assert that morality is a part of 
 the will of God, a part of His revelation, in order to obtain all 
 the motive force attaching to the acceptance of those facts for 
 securing conduct whose inherent character is not a sufficient mo- 
 tive to effect the will. In that case we are only appealing to a 
 recognized authority for obtaining at least self : consistency on the 
 
MORALITY AND RELIGION 413 
 
 part of the agent. If he admits the existence and ideal nature 
 of God, and appreciates the religious consciousness at all, he 
 must naturally feel that God's character and commands, though 
 they do not make morality, may be a reason for obedience and 
 for doing the right. To such a person religion must be the 
 highest sanction for morality. And when we come to recognize 
 that the conception of God is the highest ideal man can know, 
 and that He represents the highest sovereign of the universe, His 
 character and authority, taken with His assumed omniscience, 
 omnipresence, and omnipotence, must form the most important 
 and effective of all sanctions. 
 
 But the religious mind w T holly forgets that the effectiveness of 
 this sanction depends upon the agent's admitting the existence of 
 God and the truth of religion. Unless they are admitted it is 
 useless to contend for them as reasons for doing what is right. 
 When a man does not admit the truth of religion and religious 
 doctrines, or does not feel their value, any attempt to make moral- 
 ity and its obligations depend wholly upon them, must issue in 
 shifting the controversy aAvay from the nature and validity of 
 morality to the truth of religion, and in the meantime Ethics 
 must pay the forfeit. Now, there are many minds that are skepti- 
 cal in matters of religion, that either deny the supernatural and 
 affiliated beliefs or are too uncertain about them to base their 
 conduct upon so insecure a foundation, and yet feel the springs 
 of conscience and duty quite as forcibly as the religious mind. 
 They feel the value and imperativeness of moral law as fully as 
 anybody else, and yet know that if its validity depends upon the 
 acceptance of religion, they must be exempt from its obligations, 
 because to them religion is wholly an uncertain quantity. They 
 are entirely within their rights, therefore, when they seek extra- 
 religious sanctions for morality. What they stand for is the idea 
 that religious consciousness, in so far as it represents a belief in 
 the supernatural, and a form of worship, is not a precondition of 
 knowing what is moral and feeling its imperative worth. They 
 can be as earnest and self-sacrificing as religious persons, and de- 
 sire in some way, not only to identify their lives with the world's 
 
414 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 regeneration, but also to give effective reasons for morality with- 
 out engulfing themselves in the swamps of theological contro- 
 versy. They would avoid this and seek independent reasons for 
 virtue, so that it may be saved, whatever the issue in religious 
 questions. Now, there may be any number of sanctions for mo- 
 rality outside of religion, and this without denying that religion, 
 if true, furnishes the most valuable of all sanctions. They are 
 utility or happiness, self-consistency, perfection, the value of the 
 ideal, social order, public opinion, law, and any influence which 
 exists in favor of morality, and which may be employed to move 
 the mind. The ground of morality, the ultimate object of voli- 
 tion is the true and most universal of the sanctions for it. But 
 it is not always effective, especially when personal interest con- 
 flicts or seems to conflict with it. Hence much importance of a 
 practical kind attaches to securing a fact which will show an 
 agreement between duty and interest in the particular case. This 
 will be a reason for doing it when the ideal itself is ineffective. 
 The attainment of a practical reason for being moral is the great 
 object of practical Ethics, and of those who feel that the religious 
 sanction loses its efficiency with the extension of skepticism. We 
 conclude, therefore, that religion is not the only sanction of 
 morality, and is not even the most universal or effective sanc- 
 tion, for the reason that its nature and validity is still an open 
 question with many of our most earnest minds, whose co-operation 
 is too much needed in morality to shut them out from sympathy, 
 by turning the whole problem into a theological dispute about . 
 the existence of God and the importance of ritual worship. These 
 have their place and value ; but their difficulties are greater than 
 those of the moral law, and hence the validity and security of 
 the latter should not be weakened by the uncertainties of the 
 former. 
 
 Mr. Martineau * states the whole case very clearly to prove 
 
 what has just been maintained. " If we start from our own 
 
 psychological experience alone," he says, " without assumption 
 
 or speculation respecting the universe around, we meet there, at 
 
 * Study of Keligion, Vol. L, Introduction. 
 
MORALITY AND RELIGION 415 
 
 a very early stage, with ethical elements, involving the idea and 
 furnishing the rule of duty. Childhood itself, small as are its 
 concerns, is full of its moral enthusiasms and indignations, quick 
 with its shame and compunction, bright with its self-approval ; 
 and with all its heedlessness betrays every day the inner work- 
 ing and the eager growth of Conscience. This order of feeling, 
 personal and sympathetic, does not wait for the lessons of the 
 religious instructor and the conception of the universe as under 
 Divine administration ; on the contrary, it is the condition on 
 which such teaching depends for its efficacy, and is present where 
 no theological sequel is ever appended to it. The profound 
 sense of the authority and even sacredness of the moral law is* 
 often conspicuous among men whose thoughts apparently never 
 turn to superhuman things, but who are penetrated by a secret 
 worship of honor, truth, and right. Were this noble state of 
 mind brought out of its impulsive state and made to unfold its 
 implicit contents, it would indeed reveal a source higher than 
 human nature for the august authority of righteousness. But it 
 is undeniable that the authority may be felt where it is not seen, 
 felt as if it were the mandate of a Perfect Will, while yet there 
 is no overt recognition of such will ; i.e., conscience may act as 
 human before it is discovered to be divine. To the agent him- 
 self its whole history may seem to lie in his own personality and 
 his visible social relations ; and it shall nevertheless serve as his 
 oracle, though it may be hid from him who it is that utters it. 
 The moral consciousness, while thus pausing short of its complete 
 development, fulfills the conditions of responsible life and makes 
 character real and the virtues possible. Ethics, therefore, have 
 practical existence and operation prior to any explicit religious 
 belief ; the law of right is inwoven with the very tissue of our 
 nature and throbs in the movements of our experience, and can- 
 not be escaped by any one till he can fly from himself. Did we 
 even imagine that we came out of nothing, and went back into 
 nothing, and had ties only with one another ; still, so long as we 
 are what we are, our life must take form from its own germ, and 
 grow and ramify into moral commonwealths." 
 
416 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 After showing that religion is in no sense the ground of mo- 
 rality, and that it is not the only, though it may be the highest, 
 sanction of it, it may be well to call attention to certain inci- 
 dents in which they are closely related. Both religion and mo- 
 rality have an emotional element. This emotional element is the 
 same in its nature. It is reverence for an ideal. The difference 
 is in the nature of the object to which the reverence is directed. 
 In the case of religion it is the person, the perfections, and the 
 providence of a Supreme Being ; in the case of morality it is 
 either the moral law as an ideal condition of will, or it is an 
 ideal order which the will owes it to itself to realize, or it is the 
 ideal man. God may be an object of moral as well as religious 
 reverence. Not so with man ; he can be an object only of 
 moral, but not of religious, reverence. This is a most radical 
 difference between them. The reverence in each case affects 
 action. But religious reverence will not affect moral action un- 
 less the individual consciousness has connected its morality with 
 its religion as an element in the total of its mental objects, as 
 is generally the case in the most important religions. It avails 
 only to secure adjustment to the authority and pow T er of deity, 
 and unless God is idealized or made to reflect the moral charac- 
 ter which a developed consciousness naturally reveals from its 
 very constitution, reverence for him never affects the moral life. 
 But it is a peculiarity of all the ethnic religions that they have 
 in some way permeated the whole moral life of their devotees in 
 some way. This may have been from their power to invoke the 
 fear of men or to invite their love and affections. Whatever 
 the motive they excite, they have affected the customs and con- 
 duct of whole nations. This is simply a historical fact not to be 
 disputed and shows a very important influence upon morality, as 
 that defines the actual habits of men. But while the sentiment 
 of reverence, on the one hand, and the conception of moral per- 
 sonality in ■ the Divine Being, on the other, unite to affiliate 
 moral and religious feelings, the material objects of the two re- 
 main entirely distinct ; that is, the ends which they are designed 
 to serve. At the same time the coincidence of the two prov- 
 
MORALITY AND RELIGION 417 
 
 inces is effected by the tendency of religion to appropriate every 
 ideal element of consciousness, which it has a right to do, but in 
 doing so often mistakes the appropriation for the right to deter- 
 mine or condition the existence of morality. 
 
 We remarked above that "in their essential contents" religion 
 and morality are independent of each other, while the admissions 
 just made would seem to make them interpenetrate and to con- 
 tain much of the same object matter. Both views, however, are 
 correct. It is only in their essential and distinctive contents — 
 that is, as strictly defined — that they are independent of each 
 other. We have indicated the true mark by which religion is to 
 be recognized, and that is the belief and worship of the super- 
 natural, which is not any part of morality, though this may be 
 sanctioned by it. But it is the characteristic of common and un- 
 scientific thought, not to use the term " religion " in its strict 
 meaning. To this, religion means, besides what we have defined 
 it, almost anything else covered by great moral earnestness, or 
 sanctioned by religious authority. From the very fact that 
 religion may sanction morality, it has a tendency to bring 
 every object of reverence and admiration under the shelter of its 
 wings. The emotions of the two fields being of the same nature 
 augments this tendency, and hence the objects which define the 
 field of morality, such as personal worth, the sense of duty, pub- 
 lic welfare, and all the social and moral ideals, such as veracity, 
 justice, honesty, chastity, benevolence, etc., are naturally enough 
 absorbed by the religious frame of mind. But they are no part 
 of its elements as a religion, defined as above. If they are to be 
 regarded so, it must be on the ground that we have not correctly 
 defined religion, and that it is more than a creed and a cult re- 
 garding the supernatural. If it be more than this we do not see 
 how it can be defined at all without identifjung it and morality, 
 which would prevent it from being either the ground or the 
 sanction of morals, and contradict all human experience in the 
 fact that men can be moral without being religious. This could 
 not be if they were identical in their contents. Morality may be 
 transfigured and rendered nobler, more constant, and self-sacrific- 
 
418 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 ing by the influence of religion. This, however, is not because 
 they are of the same nature, but only because the sentiment of 
 reverence and the moral character attributed to the divine 
 power ruling the world are so closely identified with the emo- 
 tional element of morality and the qualities of man which are en- 
 titled to moral reverence, that they interpenetrate with morality 
 and absorb as incidental contents matters which are not essen- 
 tial and distinctive features of religion scientifically defined. 
 This is simply to say that the emotional elements of religion and 
 morality are so nearly or so distinctly the same, that it is only 
 natural for them to interpenetrate in some of their connections, 
 s and more especially since both have personality as an object and 
 involve a cosmological reference in the determination of conduct. 
 The divine is regarded as the sovereign of nature, and man must 
 adjust himself to this system, and hence, whether he admits a per- 
 sonal ruler of the world or not, his conduct must be the same in 
 kind and character. The nature and worth of his volitions must 
 remain the same under all circumstances, and religion can only 
 increase the sanctions for them. It does not condition them nor 
 determine their w r orth. It adds efficiency, not value, to them. 
 Consequently, notwithstanding the personal and cosmological re- 
 lations of the two sets of phenomena, in the intersection of their 
 interests, the only way to maintain a necessary connection be- 
 tween them is to stretch the meaning of religion so that it can 
 denote whatever has happened historically to get the sanction of 
 religious minds. What we have to learn, however, is the great 
 difference between religion and religious minds. The former is a 
 definite and definable thing; the latter, beyond the distinctive 
 element which makes it religious, is not definable at all, but may 
 include anything whatever among the objects of its reverence. 
 In a scientific treatment of the question we must rely upon strict 
 definition, and this will show not only the distinctness of the two 
 classes of phenomena in all but their psychological and subjec- 
 tive elements, but also the probability that religion could secure 
 its survival only by the afterthought of connecting itself with 
 morality, a view which is amply sustained by the history of Greek 
 
MORALITY AND RELIGION 419 
 
 intellectual development, and by the superior power of all relig- 
 ions which have been fortunate enough to ingraft morality upon 
 them. But in the process of absorbing morality religion has run 
 away from its original object, and although it has purified itself 
 in doing so, it can give an efficacy to moral law which that seems 
 not to possess without the inspiration of religious consciousness. 
 The relation of the two, therefore, in their scientific conception, 
 seems to be that of a product conjoining religious power with 
 moral objects; which is simply to say that the distinctively re- 
 ligious element is not the condition of morality, but only adds 
 enthusiasm and efficacy in qualities which can exist independ- 
 ently of it. 
 
 The last topic confirms this general conclusion while admit- 
 ting a close connection between them. But it shows that if any 
 relation of dependence exists at all it is the reverse of what the 
 theologian claims. Eeligious advocates usually tell us that 
 there can be no morality without religion. On the contrary, 
 several facts show that, if there be any dependence at all, moral- 
 ity must condition religion, at least in all those characteristics 
 which affect social and moral life. 
 
 In the first place, we have seen that the most orthodox de- 
 fenders of the supremacy of religion tell us that morality will 
 not save a man from perdition, which, as observed, admits its 
 possible existence without religion. But the same persons tell 
 us that we cannot be saved without morality, which is to partly 
 condition redemption upon a moral life, and so to supplement 
 its deficiencies by adding to it the sanctifying influences of re- 
 ligion, which is the most important of the two redemptive agen- 
 cies, as maintained by its defenders. But even morality is not 
 necessary for salvation, as judged from the standpoint of death- 
 bed repentances. This latter theory is inconsistent with the one 
 just stated, though it has seemed necessary in order to retain any 
 argument for the value of religion. However, not to persist in 
 emphasizing this weakness, which is rather logical than moral, 
 because the healthy moral mind revolts against so extreme a 
 conception of the problem, we would remark that in so far as 
 
420 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 religion is supposed to supplement the inadequacy of morality 
 for redemption it canuot condition it, but would more probably 
 be itself conditioned by morality. 
 
 Confirming this conclusion is a second fact of great signifi- 
 cance. It is that the moralization of human consciousness has 
 preceded the conception of moral personality and character in 
 the divine, which has been supposed to authorize or even create 
 morality. If anything is clear in the history of religion gener- 
 ally, it is that the first conception of God was that of mere 
 pow T er, superior or omnipotent power, to be feared and propi- 
 tiated, not loved. Greek mythology and polytheism reflect 
 nothing else, and even its monotheism is often darkened by the 
 shadows from the earlier and mythological view. Indeed the 
 immense power of skepticism in the hands of the Sophists was 
 due to the utterly immoral character of the gods as conceived by 
 the uncritical and traditional beliefs of Greece. They were the 
 embodiment of arbitrary power, and religion was only a night- 
 mare of fear and propitiation directed to satisfy the caprices and 
 cruelties of these beings, whose character after all was but the 
 reflection of political life, on the one hand, and of the concep- 
 tion of physical nature, on the other. But wherever moral con- 
 sciousness rose above the notion that might could make right, 
 and wherever it conceived social relations as involving respect 
 for humanity, it began at once to idealize the divine agencies 
 which had been placed at the helm of the universe, and religion 
 was purified by the previous realization of moral conceptions. 
 While religion as a mere unintelligent belief in divine agency 
 and a cult of propitiation might and did exist prior to moral 
 consciousness of any kind that affected this religion, the refined 
 and nobler conceptions sheltered by modern Christianity were 
 determined and conditioned by the higher conception of moral- 
 ity which transfigured it. The idealization of the divine was a 
 consequence of moral consciousness, not a condition of it. As 
 man's moral consciousness developed and felt more and more the 
 impulse of the ideal and the enthusiasm of humanity, it began 
 to reflect its attainment in the conception of God. The old 
 
MORALITY AXD RELIGION 421 
 
 Greek dramatists and moralists, the Hebrew prophets, and the 
 founder of Christianity transfigured the divine by changing the 
 conception of it from that of a mere sovereign whose wrath was 
 to be appeased by sacrifices to that of a merciful and righteous 
 power benevolently interested in the welfare of man. In brief, 
 the character of the divine, which is an object of worship to re- 
 ligion, is a reflection of the moral development of the age. Re- 
 ligion does not get beyond the fear of power when morality is 
 nothing but the reluctant adjustment to forces that compel 
 obedience, but do not invite respect. It becomes an embodi- 
 ment of love and reverence when morality has been sufficiently 
 developed to dispel the belief and respect for the divine unless it 
 can reflect the ideal. Hence we find in this fact a proof that 
 moral consciousness conditions the religious, as it appears in the 
 concrete religion of the day. It may not condition religion as 
 abstractly defined, but it does condition the concrete system of 
 beliefs and practices which go by that name in current usage, 
 and that is what is usually meant by the term. Hence theology 
 seems to be in a dilemma. If religion be strictly defined it 
 either wholly separates morality from itself or it identifies the 
 two. In neither case can it be a condition of morality. On the 
 other hand, if religion be defined in concrete terms representing 
 the moralized conception of the divine as reflected in prevailing 
 religious views, morality or moral consciousness is a condition 
 of religion, and not the reverse, and this simply because the his- 
 tory of religion does not show the incorporation of morality 
 among its sanctities until it became a part of the revelation of 
 consciousness independent of that religion. 
 
 In the general conclusion, therefore, taken in their scientific 
 definition, religion and morality are independent of each other, 
 both in conception and contents. But taken in the popular 
 sense where religion is conceived to mean anything which comes 
 under its sanction, the two fields of phenomena intersect and in- 
 terpenetrate ; but religion is not a condition of morality, while 
 the latter conditions the idealization of the divine as a product 
 of metaphysical inquiry into the explanation of nature. Nor 
 
422 ' ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 does this view reflect on the value of the religious consciousness. 
 There is no necessity in the world's economy that religion should 
 condition morality. On the contrary, the necessity seems the 
 other way. Religion is properly the crown and flower of moral- 
 ity, and the very fact that it is this, that it represents the high- 
 est development of human consciousness, as comprehending ear- 
 nestness and reverence toward the totality of a man's relations to 
 the world and its Maker, the last and mature product of human 
 reason, establishes its dependence for purity and rationality 
 upon the right ordering and development of all the lower func- 
 tions which it takes up and appropriates. It is only mistaking 
 the sanction of morality for the condition of it that reverses the 
 true order of conception. But it is a false honor to claim for 
 religion a consideration which puts morality at the mercy of 
 skepticism in theology, and casts every man outside the fold of 
 righteousness who cannot agree with us in religious matters. 
 The moral interests of the world require harmony instead of dis- 
 sension, and this can be obtained by uniting on the certainties 
 of moral consciousness instead of resorting to the old methods of 
 authority and appealing to conceptions whose validity is still in 
 court. 
 
 We may summarize the complex relations which we have con- 
 sidered between religion and morality, and in this way obtain a 
 more comprehensive view of them, (a) The object of religion is 
 the supernatural, that of morality is human welfare and con- 
 formity to the sense of duty, (b) Religion is not the ground, 
 but the sanction, of morality, and is, moreover, not the only sanc- 
 tion of it. (c) The psychological or subjective elements of relig- 
 ion and morality are the same or closely related, but the objec- 
 tive elements are different, (d) The two fields of phenomena 
 intersect and interpenetrate, but only in the popular and con- 
 crete use of the term religion, (e) The ideal character of the 
 divine is a reflection of a previously developed moral conscious- 
 ness, and not the reverse. All these show that the problem of 
 the relation between religion and morality is a very complicated 
 one, and requires a method for its solution quite different from 
 
MORALITY AND RELIGION. 423 
 
 the usual .procedure. We only trust that in attempting it we 
 have met with at least a measure of success, and at the same 
 time have committed no offense against the sanctities of the 
 question. 
 
 References. — Martineau : Study of Beligion, Vol. I., Introduction ; Types 
 of Ethical Theory, Vol. II., Book I., Chapter VI., \ 9 ; Essays, Keviews and 
 Addresses, Vol. IV., pp. 293-317; Mackenzie: Manual of Ethics, Chap- 
 ter XVII., pp. 302-320 ; Stuckenberg : Introduction to the Study of Phi- 
 losophy, Chapter IX., especially p. 342 ; Fiske : Cosmic Philosophy, Vol. 
 II., pp. 357, 465 ; Smyth : Christian Ethics, Introduction, more especially 
 pp. 13-26 ; Fowler and Wilson : Principles of Morals, Vol. II., Chapter 
 X. ; Martensen : Christian Ethics (General), Introduction, especially pp. 
 13-22 ; Wundt : Ethik, Erster Abschnitt, Zweites Capitel, pp. 33-84 ; 
 Janet : Theory of Morals, Chapter XII. ; Dorner : Christian Ethics, pp. 
 134-141, and Introduction ; Pollock: Essays in Jurisprudence and Ethics, 
 Chapter XL ; Schurman : Belief in God, Lecture III. ; Barratt : Physical 
 Ethics, pp. 330-387 ; Caird : The Critical Philosophy of Kant, Vol. II., 
 Book IV., Conclusion; Knight: Christian Ethic; Gizycki: Moral Phi- 
 losophic, pp. 329-495 ; Translation by Coit, pp. 208-276 ; Bowne : Prin- 
 ciples of Ethics, Chapter VII. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 THEORY OF EIGHTS AND DUTIES. 
 
 L INTRODUCTORY.— The doctrine of rights and duties has 
 some complications which require careful consideration. In 
 some connections the two conceptions seem to be dependent on 
 each other, and in other instances they seem to be wholly unre- 
 lated. On the one hand, wherever a duty exists, a right seems 
 to be involved. This, of course, means that an individual duty 
 involves the right of the person to freedom of conscience and 
 action in that particular. On the other hand, a right is often 
 claimed for actions which do not involve duties of any kind, ex- 
 cept in other persons than those who have the right in the case. 
 Then again my rights determine others' duties toward me, but 
 they may have duties toward me which do not affect any rights 
 in me or add to them. This is a complication which it is well 
 worth while to carefully analyze and explain. 
 
 Man is said to be the subject of both rights and duties, and 
 the problem of theoretical Ethics is to ascertain whether one de- 
 termines the other and which does so, or whether both of them 
 may not have a common ground upon which to rest. Some 
 writers, as Trendelenburg, condition all rights upon moral prin- 
 ciples or duties ; others condition duties upon rights, and so 
 seem to condition morality upon data which are purely optional 
 with the human will. This is because the term " rights " often 
 expresses privileges whose enjoyment does not seem to involve 
 morality, but only ethically indifferent conduct. Thus a man 
 may be said to have the right to take a bath, to laugh at a joke, 
 to talk to his neighbors, to look out of his window, to live on a 
 vegetable diet, etc., but not to be unconditionally obliged to per- 
 
 424 
 
THEORY OF RIGHTS AND DUTIES 425 
 
 form any of these acts. By supposition in these cases there is no 
 duty to act, but only the liberty to act or not, as we please. The 
 right, however, carries with it the duty of others to respect it, 
 although the right does not originate presumably in any duty of 
 the subject. If duty were thus limited to the correlation with 
 rights it would have nothing more than a social meaning and 
 eontent, and so not apply outside of social relations. But the 
 main problem suggested by the fact is the question whether 
 duties are always relative and whether rights are founded upon 
 morality in its last analysis, or whether they depend upon what 
 is implied in the idea of personality. We are in the habit of 
 regarding duty as absolute, at least in its application to the high- 
 est good. But if it be only relative to the existence of rights, 
 and these represent only optional conditions, duty seems to have 
 no other foundation than an alterable set of circumstances, and 
 may be evaded by abandoning the claim to rights, unless we can 
 find a basis for these which is not optional. On the other hand, 
 there is the question whether " rights " express merely an immu- 
 nity against the interference of others, which would give both 
 rights and duties nothing but a social content, so that the indi- 
 vidual apart from his social conditions would be exempt from 
 the obligations to morality. On account of the complexities in- 
 volved in these questions it is important to examine the nature 
 and kinds of both rights and duties, with the implications they 
 contain and the full contents of their meaning. 
 
 II. NATURE OF RIGHTS.— -The most important general ob- 
 servation to be made about " rights " is the fact that we are not 
 here dealing with a property of actions, but of persons. "We 
 have already seen that " right " can be taken to describe the 
 moral quality of conduct and denotes either its correctness as a 
 means to an end, or its intrinsic worth and claim to approbation, 
 wrong denoting the opposite. But as here considered, in the 
 plural, or spoken of as " a right," the term denotes nothing of 
 the kind. We have to speak and think of rights as belonging 
 to persons and as describing certain immunities possessed by 
 them. 
 
426 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 1st. Definition. — The shortest definition of a right would be 
 that it is a claim to the forbearance and protection of others in 
 certain specific cases. Another account would make it express 
 a privilege which exempts the subject from blame or censure in the 
 exercise of it. The latter view is probably more comprehensive 
 than the former, which implies at least the social conditions deter- 
 mining the " right." But in order to be more clear and definite 
 we shall call the former social and the latter individual or moral 
 rights. The difference between them is that the violation of 
 social duties is punishable, of individual or moral duties, censur- 
 able. The social right is a claim against violence ; a moral 
 right is a claim against reproach. Both, of course, represent 
 what is censurable, but the evasion of the latter duties is only 
 censurable, while that of social rights is more. In both senses, 
 however, rights only express that which the agent is at liberty to 
 pursue, and which others must respect. But in all cases it indi- 
 cates a defensible claim against aggression, interference, or re- 
 straint. This claim is wholly for liberty of actios, or of control- 
 ling possessions. Where a right is denied, we prohibit, either 
 legally or morally, the actions which would be protected by it. 
 Hence the idea practically resolves itself into a legitimate de- 
 mand for freedom or liberty of action, which implies the duty 
 of others to respect it. Its full meaning, however, can be de- 
 termined only by an examination of its limitations and its 
 correlates. 
 
 2d. Limitations of Rights. — Rights cannot be predicated of 
 man without certain limitations. If they could, they would 
 mean unrestricted liberty, sanctified by all the sacredness which 
 attaches to both conceptions. But as a matter of fact the welfare 
 of both the individual and of society requires very decided re- 
 strictions upon individual liberty, and so upon individual rights. 
 This doctrine requires assertion because of the ambiguity latent 
 in the term " rights," which is often taken to imply the legiti- 
 macy of an act, as well as the liberty to perform it, nothing being 
 implied as to its character in the latter case. This sacredness 
 attaching to it is too often assumed to imply that rights are un- 
 
THEORY OF RIGHTS AND DUTIES 427 
 
 limited and unconditional. But this can easily be shown to be 
 wholly false. The conception has most decided limitations. 
 
 1. Man has no Eights in Relation to Nature. — Nature 
 here represents the physical and external world, or all imper- 
 sonal forces whatsoever. Against them man has no rights, but 
 only powers. Between man and nature it is simply and only a 
 struggle for supremacy ; it is a contest between two powers or 
 forces, in which the stronger must prevail ; and if man be the 
 weaker and is crowded to the wall he cannot assert any charges of 
 injustice, nor if the stronger and successful, can he claim that his 
 victory is a triumph of justice. If man has any rights at all, 
 therefore, they must be determined by some other fact than a rela- 
 tion to impersonal forces. This is clear by making the attempt 
 to imagine a man as having rights in a state of solitude. 
 Placed face to face with nature alone he can have no rights for 
 the simple reason that rights imply a duty on the part of others 
 to respect them, and nature cannot be charged with any duties. 
 Only personal agents can have duties; impersonal forces can 
 only have powers. Rights are purely relative, and hence are 
 limited to the sphere of social and moral conditions. They are 
 not an attribute of man conceived as an individual being, but 
 only of his social relations. If, then, he can be said to have 
 duties independently of his social relations, in its last analysis 
 duty and morality are not determined by rights. But not to an- 
 ticipate, the fact that he has no rights in relation to nature 
 shows that the claim to them is limited and that they are not a 
 possession of him as an individual,' but only as a member of a 
 social organism, as one among equals. 
 
 We do, nevertheless, often speak of a man as having a right 
 to perform a certain act when he seems to be related only to 
 nature. Thus a man has a " right " to look at the stars, to eat 
 food, to hunt game, to take exercise, etc., even in a solitary 
 state when a social organism does not exist, or when others can- 
 not make any claims upon his forbearance or assistance. This 
 conception has been alluded to before and it is undoubtedly the 
 most comprehensive use of the term. It denotes, not so much a 
 
428 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 claim against the will of others as exemption from censure or 
 reproach for one's course of action, or exemption from the in- 
 cumbency of obligation. This same notion holds of the term as 
 expressing a claim against legitimate interference from others. 
 But in spite of this common characteristic such a right is not 
 determined by the man's relation to nature, but solely by the 
 exemption from duty which possesses a resemblance to exemp- 
 tion from the legitimate interference of others. In the broadest 
 sense of the term, "rights" express liberty. But it is, on the 
 one hand, liberty from social restraint, and on the other liberty 
 or exemption from moral censure. The difference, however, is 
 not in favor of man's having rights in relation to nature. It is 
 only transferring a conception of social limitations over to the 
 relation between a man and his own conscience, so that where 
 duty is not binding the man can possess the same liberty of 
 action as he possesses when others can make no claims upon his 
 sacrifices. Hence it is not the relation to nature that determines 
 these rights, so that the dictum announcing the limitations of 
 rights to social and moral conditions still holds true. 
 
 2. Eights are Limited by Reciprocity. — This is a most 
 important restriction upon the claim to rights. It is embodied 
 in the modern practice and institutions of social life, and is 
 expressed as an axiom that no man can claim that which he 
 would not grant to another under the same conditions. A man 
 cannot claim the right or privilege to do injury to others without 
 granting to them the same immunity. If this claim ever be 
 advanced in favor of one and not of another, it must reduce 
 social organization to chaos. It would be tantamount to a 
 declaration of social inequality, and place all but the incumbent 
 under restraints which would not be endured. Moreover, one 
 man cannot claim, in the nature of things, more than he will 
 concede to others under like circumstances, without endanger- 
 ing his own claim. Again, the reason for claiming a right will 
 be the same in all normally and rationally constituted persons, 
 and hence if legitimate in one instance will be legitimate in all 
 such. Consequently the admission of rights in one involves that 
 
THEORY OF RIGHTS AND DUTIES 429 
 
 of equal rights with the others. Moreover, where one man has a 
 right, the fact excludes the right of others to infringe it, so that 
 the formula for the limitation of rights will be that a claim to 
 rights must consist with the equal rights of all others, conditions 
 being the same. This principle imposes very distinct limitations 
 upon free action, by requiring the suppression of all claims that 
 conflict with social welfare and the conformity of the individual 
 will to this end. The strict application of this principle in social 
 life assumes that all men are equal, and hence the doctrine that 
 all men have equal rights. In practice, however, the principle 
 requires qualification to suit the various conditions and charac- 
 ters of men. But wherever men are equal in endowments and 
 disposition, they have equal rights, so that the only limitation 
 which they can possess under these conditions is that of the same 
 rights in others. The individual is subordinated to the whole, 
 or each person is required to adjust his claims to freedom of 
 conduct to those conditions in which he must surrender all 
 superiority and advantage over others, his equals. If men are 
 unequal the case is different. 
 
 3. Rights are Limited by the Degree of Responsi- 
 bility. — If all men were equal in their endowments, physical, 
 intellectual, and moral, their responsibility would be the same 
 and the abstract principle announced in the preceding section 
 would be applied without qualification. But men are not con- 
 stituted equal. They vary in their several characteristics, and 
 more particularly in the intellectual and moral. The latter 
 especially affect their responsibility, as we have already seen in 
 a previous chapter. Their rights must be modified in the same 
 proportion. Perfect freedom of action can be accorded to the 
 intellectually and morally sane, but must be restricted in the 
 defective classes. This principle is applied to the criminal, the 
 pauper, the imbecile, and the insane, and with a less degree to 
 children. The fact is, of course, a mere truism. But it is 
 referred to in order to show that rights are not absolute posses- 
 sions, but are subordinated to some other fact in man's moral 
 nature. This limitation requires that they be deduced or deter- 
 
430 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 mined from the principle upon which they depend, or by which 
 they are conditioned. 
 
 3d. Correlatives of Rights. — It has been established that 
 rights are purely relative to the claims of others upon us, or to 
 the sphere of indifferent actions affecting the welfare of ourselves 
 and others. This implies that they have an object which may 
 be called their correlative. A correlative is that which is im- 
 plied or implicitly expressed in a given datum. Rights involve 
 this and derive their whole meaning from it. They may be 
 summarized as follows, as they define the sphere of conduct. 
 
 1. Social Conditions and Duties. — We have seen that a 
 man does not strictly possess rights in a state of isolation or soli- 
 tude, but only when he is placed in a moral relation to his fel- 
 lows having duties to him. Hence duty is the correlative of 
 rights. This conception is expressible by the formula that the 
 rights of A involve the correlative duty of B to respect them. 
 A social order is the recognition of this fact. But it is not nec- 
 essary that society be definitely organized before these rights and 
 duties come into existence. All that is required is a relation 
 between persons expressed by a common nature, a common rela- 
 tion to the world, common ends, and competition for the means 
 of subsistence. Rights may exist even before the social organism 
 has been formed, though they may not be enforced. Moreover, 
 the converse is also true ; namely, that the existence of society 
 or of social relations necessarily involves the existence of rights 
 and duties. In these cases we are justified in supposing that 
 duties are determined by rights, and within the sphere expressed 
 by them would not exist but for those rights. This sphere is 
 that of justice, which is still to be considered. For instance, the 
 duty to respect property, to avoid theft, is determined wholly by 
 the previous existence of the right to property. In fact a viola- 
 tion of property claims would be impossible until the right was 
 admitted. Hence such duties have no existence except under 
 the condition of existing rights. If all duties are such as these, 
 they have only a social- and not a personal or private object. 
 
 The principle thus determined can be expressed in the for- 
 
THEORY OF RIGHTS AND DUTIES 431 
 
 mula : the rights of the subject imply the correlate duty in the object 
 when that is a person, and now the question remains whether the 
 rights cf the subject imply any correlative duties in himself. 
 They do not, except as they imply equal rights in others, and thus 
 involve their correlates. Duties in the subject may imply rights, 
 but rights will not imply his duties. Animals and irrational 
 beings are supposed to have rights, but not duties. On the 
 other hand, wherever duties are supposed to exist in rational be- 
 ings, they determine rights against foreign infringement. This 
 means that liberty must always be subordinated to duty. In- 
 different actions, or such as are claimed to be indifferent, must 
 be made to yield to the demands of moral law, and hence duty 
 is superior to rights and not the correlate of them in the sub- 
 ject. 
 
 2. The Appeal to Force in their Defense. — The exist- 
 ence of a right justifies the use of force to maintain it. If such 
 force could not be exerted, the right would be practically nuga- 
 tory. The use of force against another must always be regarded 
 as an injury unless it is in defense of a right, and unless, when a 
 right is conceded, we admit the legitimacy of an appeal to force 
 in its defense, the right can only be claimed, but not made effec- 
 tive. Government is founded upon this postulate, and public 
 opinion operates to substitute reason for that appeal. But when 
 it fails, and when the interests of society are great enough to de- 
 mand it, force must step in to accomplish what reason and pub- 
 lic opinion fail to do. Rights are sacred, more sacred than the 
 use of force is objectionable, and this because they are compli- 
 cated with a system of duties which command the highest attain- 
 ments possible in the individual. Hence in order to maintain 
 them the employment of force must be the correlative of their ex- 
 istence. On any other terms the use of force is an evil to be re- 
 pressed. 
 
 4th. Divisions of Rights. — Rights are divided into two great 
 classes, Natural or Personal, and Acquired or Political rights, 
 according as they represent conditious fixed by nature, or condi- 
 tions determined by society. Natural rights are those possessed 
 
432 
 
 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 against others, and acquired rights are those obtained from others. 
 The former has fewer limitations than the latter, dej>ending less 
 upon the degree of responsibility possessed than upon the organic 
 nature of the subject. They might also be called individual in 
 contrast with social rights. Bat probably the terms adopted 
 are better. By natural rights, however, we do not mean any- 
 thing like the doctrine of Rousseau and the eighteenth-century 
 philosophers who talked so effectively about " the rights of man " 
 and "natural rights." These writers were individualists, pure 
 and simple, and maintained that rights were endowments belong- 
 ing to man by nature and not a mere expression of what was 
 implied in his social relations. But by natural rights we mean 
 here nothing more than claims upon others, which are conferred 
 by nature, if you like, but are wholly the product of social con- 
 ditions and must vanish with them. They are called "natural" 
 because they are not conferred by convention or legislation, but 
 arise from relations which exist independently of the conven- 
 tional relations of society. They are natural in the sense that 
 they are not conferrable by law, but exist by virtue of the indi- 
 vidual's relation to his own nature and actions. The acquired 
 rights are conferred by social action on the ground of certain 
 qualifications. They are more distinctly subordinated to the 
 will and wants of public welfare. The following is a tabular 
 view of rights, without distinction between social and individual 
 or moral : 
 
 lie -i 
 
 s 
 
 Natural 
 
 (Personal) 
 
 Acquired 
 (Political) 
 
 j ./. f Personal Security. 
 
 \ Self-defense. 
 
 Labor. 
 
 Enjoyment, etc. 
 Material Products = 
 Wealth. 
 Intellectual Products = 
 Knowledge. 
 Moral Products = Char- 
 acter. 
 
 Natural Property = Natural Kesources or Land = A 
 Trust. 
 
 Elective Franchise = Sovereign Powers. 
 
 Public Office = Representative Powers. 
 
 Personal Existence 
 Personal Activity = Liberty 
 
 Personal Property = Prod- 
 ucts of Will 
 
THEORY OF RIGHTS AND DUTIES 433 
 
 This classification may not be exhaustive in regard to partic- 
 ular rights, but it contains them by implication. The right to 
 justice, for instance, will be included in the various rights to 
 security, wealth, knowledge, character, and 'liberty, they being 
 forms in which it is realized. Indeed, we might even summa- 
 rize all natural rights in the conception of justice, but it is best 
 to differentiate them in the manner represented by the table. 
 We may now consider each class by itself. 
 
 1. Natural Eights. — By natural rights we mean those 
 which are determined by the constitution of the subject, its neces- 
 sary demands, and their relation to others. Man is an organic 
 whole consisting of physical and mental characteristics, each of 
 which demand certain supplies of energy in their support and 
 development. His appetites and capacities seeking for develop- 
 ment are impulses which are not of his own making, and in 
 order to maintain his own self-preservation and to accomplish 
 the end of his existence he must be granted the opportunity to 
 meet his necessary wants. They are not of his own creation. 
 His duties lie in the direction of perfecting himself, not to say 
 anything of the interest to do so, which is the same in all persons. 
 Hence with a nature and wants not of his own making and a 
 demand for self-realization, he can claim from others the recog- 
 nition of powers and liberty which he accords to them. This 
 claim is his right by nature, not a right against nature and in 
 relation to the physical world alone, but a right fixed by his own 
 nature in relation to his equals. For instance, the right to per- 
 sonal existence is determined by the demands of duty and inter- 
 est upon self-protection. Were his personal existence indestruc- 
 tible he would have no right to preserve it, because there would 
 be no possibility of annihilating it. A right is the privilege of 
 defense against injury and of liberty in action ; or we might say 
 that it is an indispensable means to the maintenance of an end 
 w T hich cannot produce itself. Hence, wherever man's nature 
 makes it necessary to do certain acts protecting his physical and 
 moral integrity, he will have a claim upon the respect and toler- 
 ation of others to the extent of granting equal rights to them. 
 
434 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 They are all claims against interference or censure from others, 
 with the limitations already discussed. But there is one impor- 
 tant limitation still to be considered. It is the forfeiture of a 
 right by the violation of it in others. Eights are not so absolute, 
 even if they are natural, that they cannot be forfeited. They 
 are all forfeitable when they are claimed or usurped against the 
 equal rights of others. Hence they are not so sacred as the 
 object for which man exists and are wholly subordinated to it. 
 They exist as consequences of man's nature, and must harmonize 
 with the ultimate object of that nature, though they are socially 
 determined as we have already shown. Each of them may be 
 considered briefly, with the particular principle upon which it 
 depends. 
 
 (a) The Right to Personal Existence or Self-preservation. — It 
 is clear that this is not a right against nature, because no man 
 has the power to maintain it, except for a time. But it is de- 
 termined negatively by the consideration that if it is not 
 granted, social order is impossible. We have to choose between 
 social order and denying the right of self-preservation. As long 
 as the former is a desirable object, not to say anything of the 
 continuance of the species, the right of self-preservation must be 
 conceded as a condition of its attainment. The positive defense 
 of the right is the duty to realize the best possible objects with- 
 in the reach of the will, assuming, of course, that there are 
 duties of any kind. It is a right, however, too generally ad- 
 mitted and too well fortified by the necessities of life to require 
 any fuller justification. This is not so true of the next two 
 rights. 
 
 (b) The Bight to Personal Activity or Liberty. — This right is 
 a corollary of the first. Self-preservation and the attainment of 
 the objects of life require such immunity in conduct as will 
 make them possible. The imposition of unfair restrictions upon 
 the will must defeat them, and hence that liberty must be guar- 
 anteed which will enable the subject to pursue the highest aims 
 of life, be they happiness, perfection, or other ends. This will 
 be a condition both of his doing it and of being virtuous out of 
 
THEORY OF RIGHTS AND DUTIES 435 
 
 his own volition. The only limitation is the equal rights of 
 others and the duties of the subject. Its sphere is all moral and 
 indifferent actions, individual and social. Man has some end to 
 realize whether it be obligatory or indifferent. In case it is 
 obligatory, nothing can be clearer than his right to pursue it 
 untrammeled by foreign infringement. He has faculties ad- 
 justed to certain desirable or imperative ends, and hence it is 
 either his duty or his interest to exercise them. That it is his 
 duty to exercise them is apparent from the fact that what we 
 call punishment or evil consequences attach to the neglect of 
 that exercise. "But the fulfillment of this duty (or interest) 
 necessarily presupposes freedom of action. Man cannot exercise 
 his faculties without certain scope. He must have liberty to go 
 and to come, to see, to feel, to speak, to work; to get food, 
 raiment, shelter, and to provide for each and all of the needs of 
 his nature." His right, therefore, is only a legitimate claim 
 upon others' forbearance and protection, provided he accords 
 the same to them. 
 
 Aside from this general deduction of liberty as an abstract 
 right there are other considerations that enhance its value and 
 justify its protection. Among the most important is the fact 
 that, with due prevention of crime, endowment of personal lib- 
 erty not only insures better moral character when attained at 
 all, and even conditions it, but it also opens the way to a larger 
 voluntary supply of the world's wants in goods. Every man 
 works harder, produces more, and is more content when his 
 activity is free and voluntary. A labor of love always effects 
 more than one of drudgery, and hence apart from its abstract 
 necessity for the sake of consistency it comes to us justified by 
 expediency. It supplies the largest possible amount of human 
 wants whether they be expressed in terms of happiness, perfec- 
 tion, or material wealth. It is the best condition for meeting 
 the demands of natural selection and directing the natural in- 
 clinations in the channel in which they will be most useful and 
 productive. Hence it applies with equal force to every form of 
 activity, physical, intellectual, and moral. Its corollaries, 
 
436 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 therefore, are freedom of labor, freedom of avocation or employ- 
 ment, freedom of trade, freedom of opinion, freedom of con- 
 science. All these have vindicated themselves by the results 
 of experience, though they have been of slow growth. They 
 mark the efforts to secure justice and equality and are condi- 
 tions of them, assuming the proper circumstances. 
 
 But there are limitations to the granting of the right to lib- 
 erty which are distinct from the equal rights of others. This 
 latter is a formula which applies strictly to a world in which all 
 are equal in powers, desires, and character. But the fact is that 
 we find very great inequalities in men. They are unequal in 
 their physical, mental, and moral endowments. They are par- 
 ticularly unequal in moral character, which makes the conferal 
 of liberty upon them dangerous. Consequently there is no 
 definite criterion of the amount of liberty which it is safe to 
 confer, except what the degree of power, culture, and morality 
 may justify. The right, therefore, has degrees, or must be de- 
 termined by the probabilities of its use or abuse. It is forfeit- 
 able as are all others, and requires certain stages of individual 
 perfection and social development to secure it against easy for- 
 feiture. Criminals and the insane are illustrations of its for- 
 feiture, the one for moral and the other for natural defects. 
 But besides forfeiture for defects, it may be limited by age and 
 education, even when there are no traces of criminality or in- 
 sanity. Thus it is a right wholly subordinated to the ethical 
 ends of society, and determines duties in others only in propor- 
 tion as the subject respects it as a moral qualification and oppor- 
 tunity to serve those ends of his own will. 
 
 (c) The Right to Personal Property. — By personal property 
 I shall mean that which is the product of a man's own effort or 
 labor. It is illustrated in man's implements and all objects of 
 manufacture in which the value is increased over and above its 
 raw or natural worth by the labor bestowed upon them. I shall 
 therefore distinguish sharply between personal and what I shall 
 call natural property. The distinction is usually between per- 
 sonal and real property, in which " real " property denotes im- 
 
THEORY OF RIGHTS AND DUTIES 437 
 
 movable objects, including tenements as well as land or natural 
 resources. But in the conception here advanced "personal" 
 property includes houses and tenements as products of human 
 labor, and so represents a value derived therefrom. Lands or 
 natural resources, however, do not ^derive their properties or value 
 from human labor in the first instance, and hence must stand upon 
 a different footing in the doctrine of rights. The distinction in 
 positive law, affecting matters of transfer and criminality, is be- 
 tween movable and immovable property. But in ethics the doc- 
 trine of rights requires us to draw it at another point, and hence 
 an extension of the term " personal " and the substitution of 
 " natural " for "real." By " natural " property, however, I shall 
 not mean that what a man has by nature, but only that the 
 objects represented by it are natural in contrast with artificial 
 objects, " personal " referring to the latter, and the former denot- 
 ing what are called natural resources, such as lands, mines, water- 
 power, forests, etc. AVith this distinction made clear in this man- 
 ner, we may turn to the consideration of personal property and 
 its possession as a natural right. The question of land will come 
 up under political rights. 
 
 That personal property is held by a natural as opposed to a 
 political right, and without any claims of society upon it, except 
 under limitations to be considered again, will be apparent from 
 the law of desert in human conduct and the corollary implied by 
 it. This is the deepest law of the moral world. It asserts or 
 implies that every man ought to receive the benefits and to bear the 
 evil of his own actions. The organization of rewards and penal- 
 ties in civil society proceeds wholly upon this principle. Moral- 
 ity and its judgments of approval and disapproval do the same. 
 Indeed, morality could not exist without it. Now, it is simply a 
 special application or corollary of this law T to say that every man 
 is entitled to the benefits or results of his own labor. To deny 
 this is to deny the law of desert, which denial would defeat all 
 morality. Hence, on the principle of desert, we can affirm that 
 a man has a natural right to the results of his own activity or 
 labor. If he has not this right, social order is not possible, and 
 
4:36 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 no claim whatever can be made to the products of will, though 
 we have supposed in the interest of self-preservation and self-reali- 
 zation that a man has a right to liberty. Unless a man can be 
 entitled to the results of his labor or activity, the right to liberty 
 is wholly useless and nugatory. The use of what a man produces 
 by his own exertion is essential to every object imposed by obli- 
 gation and legitimate self-interest, so that a man must come by 
 it on the ground of natural rights. It is not anything which 
 can be wholly separated from the man, even when the public 
 good requires the abridgment of the right. Support and pro- 
 tection are still claimable, and must be substituted for the re- 
 strictions upon the abuses of it. But where incapacity does not 
 unfit the subject for liberty, the right is wholly exempt from lim- 
 itations, except those that are most general. It simply follows 
 from the assumed liberty of volition and carries with it the claim 
 to every intended result of that act. 
 
 To illustrate, a man who makes a hoe, a shovel, a reaper, or 
 implement of any kind whatever, a house, a piece of cloth, or 
 produces articles of food, has an unquestioned right to their 
 ownership and use. No one else can claim them, though human- 
 ity may require the sacrifice of them ; not on the ground of 
 rights, but on the ground of duties. They are simply the mate- 
 rialized or objective will of the subject and as much his ow T n as 
 his volitions. The whole social and economic fabric is founded 
 upon the principle, and to infringe it is to destroy that fabric by 
 discouraging or nullifying the springs of activity and to grant to 
 the non- workers and indolent freedom to enjoy what they do not 
 produce. It is, therefore, absolutely indispensable to civilization, 
 which is the survival of the morally fittest, even if that moral 
 quality does not extend beyond the possession and exercise of 
 prudence. 
 
 But there are two important considerations in connection with 
 this right which modify the naked and absolute assertion of it. 
 The first is a limitation to the use or exchange of such property, 
 governed by the right of the community to security against un- 
 fair treatment in trade. The right to the ownership of such 
 
THEORY OF RIGHTS AND DUTIES 439 
 
 goods and their use for personal purposes may be granted to 
 almost any extent, but the right to prey upon others' necessities 
 by unfair enhancement of values must be abridged. That is, 
 monopolies, even of such products, are inconsistent with the equal 
 rights of others. But this is because of the second consideration. 
 The second fact, therefore, is that the value of every product is 
 compound, a union of the natural and the artificial values. 
 Every article of 'a material kind represents the value which na- 
 ture supplies and that which labor creates. It is difficult to fix 
 absolutely the proportions of these, but the fact that both exist 
 and are at least approximately determinable fixes a limit to the 
 individual's control over the product of his labor. He is abso- 
 lutely entitled only to the value which his labor creates, and that 
 is not always easily assignable, while the value which nature 
 and human wants give it are not his individual property at all. 
 In character, and perhaps knowledge, the whole value belongs to 
 the producer. In objects of physical manufacture this is not so, 
 and hence monopolies either of natural or manufactured prod- 
 ucts are subject to social regulation and only the results of the 
 individual's labor can be claimed as his own. The only practical 
 difficulty is to determine how much this is. 
 
 It will be apparent from the principles here presented that 
 current discussions about the right to private property too fre- 
 quently fail to distinguish between personal and natural property, 
 and also to recognize the effect of natural values complicated 
 with the artificial in modifying the right to personal property in 
 the concrete, where the product is conceived to have been wholly 
 created by the subject's action. Hence there is much confusion 
 on both sides of the controversy about Socialism. This doctrine 
 generally appears opposed to private property, and is so in regard 
 to land or natural resources. This antagonism is construed as 
 an opposition to all private property. But in fact Socialism 
 cannot stand without admitting the right to what I have called 
 personal property. This is essential to its very existence. But 
 what the Utopian in that field never perceives is that his theory 
 is too broad to be ethical and so contradicts itself, and takes no 
 
440 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS - 
 
 account of those moral, intellectual, and physical qualities in men 
 which affect the values of their productions and prevent the 
 equality of possession and control which it is the aim of an ideal 
 society under ideal conditions to establish. 
 
 2. Political Eights. — Political rights are characterized by 
 more distinct limitations than personal rights. The reason is 
 that they are claims from others on the ground of moral qualifi- 
 cations for performing social duties, instead t)f claims against 
 others on the ground of liberty in actions not affecting others. 
 This peculiar difference between the two classes has already been 
 mentioned. But there is also the fact to be noticed that political 
 rights are based upon two characteristics : the first is man's duty 
 to the commonwealth and the second his capacity for serving it. 
 The absence of either characteristic puts an end to the enjoyment 
 of the right, the conditions of incapacity being determinable by 
 law. They are all conferred upon individuals only upon the 
 condition of fitness to use them, and the criterion for this is pri- 
 marily the age of majority, but modified by other considerations 
 as the trust involved is more important. Each of them may be 
 briefly considered. 
 
 (a) The Right to Natural Property. — We have already dis- 
 tinguished between private property in land or natural resources 
 (land being the economic term for the latter) and property in 
 one's own productions, and it remains to show that the two rights 
 are different from each other, the latter being subject to more de- 
 cided limitations than the former, if not in actual law, certainly 
 in the ethics of the matter. The one reason that the individual 
 cannot claim the right to property in land is that he has not 
 created its utility, which is mainly the measure of its social value. 
 The principle that a man is entitled to the intended result of his 
 own action involves also the fact that a man cannot claim a 
 value which he has not produced. If he could claim this, there 
 would be no security for even personal property. Hence a man 
 can lay no personal claim to natural resources beyond that which 
 his social relations procure for him. All natural property or 
 land belongs to society ; that is, men as an aggregate of persons, 
 
THEORY OF BIGHTS AND DUTIES 441 
 
 and no one individually has more right to it than another. The 
 fact that all have an equal right to it takes it out of the category 
 of personal property, where only the producer has a legitimate 
 claim upon it, and makes it the joint possession of society, and 
 dedicates it to the moral ends of the race rather than of the in- 
 dividual against the race. 
 
 This doctrine would seem to be the socialistic view. But such 
 an interpretation of it would be a mistaken one. Socialism gen- 
 erally assumes that land, at present, is not in possession of the 
 state, and maintains that it should be transferred to the state. 
 The doctrine here advanced is that it is at present fully owned 
 by the state as a natural right, but granted to the individual as a 
 political right, as a measure of expediency for securing the great- 
 est possible amount of production. The proofs that the state 
 actually owns all natural resources consist in the following facts : 
 (a) The right of confiscation for public purposes ; * (6) the 
 reversion of intestate lands to the state; (c) the existence of 
 common lands which no one can appropriate ; (d) state control 
 and distribution of unappropriated lands, as the homestead law in 
 the United States. These facts show that natural resources are 
 actually owned and controlled by the state at present rather than 
 absolutely by the individual. What we call private property in 
 land is in reality simply a social policy by which the state dis- 
 tributes the responsibility for production among its citizens instead 
 of assuming all of it to itself. This policy represents several char- 
 acteristics, which constitute all that the institution of private 
 property in land practically means : (a) Security of tenure ; (6) 
 encouragement and protection of improvements; (c) exemption 
 from political responsibility for poverty ; (d) the distribution of 
 political and social pressure in determining the amount of pro- 
 
 *The fact that personal property in the form of houses, etc., can 
 be confiscated is no objection to the force of this argument, because it is 
 the fact of immobility that necessitates the taking of it when land is 
 taken. Were houses and tenements movable, like implements, they would 
 not be confiscable. Chattels, knowledge, and character, all personal prop- 
 erty, are not confiscable, showing that the principle holds good. 
 
442 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 duction. Private property in land is simply a political expedi- 
 ent for accomplishing these ends, and some such measures would 
 have to be adopted no matter what'term we employed to express 
 the abstract rights of the system, and hence the controversy 
 should not be regarding Socialism or the nationalization of land, 
 because it is necessarily that already, but regarding the best means 
 of realizing the moral purposes of society. The right is purely 
 subordinate to these. 
 
 (b) The Right to the Elective Franchise. — This right can be 
 disposed of very briefly. It is the right to participate in the 
 functions of government. That it is a political and not a natural 
 right is proved by the facts, (a) that it is conditioned by the age 
 of majority ; (Jf) that a period of residence is imposed upon 
 foreigners before obtaining the right ; (c) that it is forfeited by 
 crimes when this forfeiture is not a necessary consequence of pun- 
 ishment ; (d) that it is limited to one sex. Its political character is 
 so evident that there would be no reason to mention it, except for 
 the very common tendency to speak of it as a natural right, and 
 to distribute it without reference to the welfare of society. Ques- 
 tions like that of universal suffrage and that of its extension to 
 women are to be settled solely by questions of political expedi- 
 ency. They should be limited or extended according to qualifi- 
 cations. Fitness to fulfill social duties and to aid in government 
 should be the criterion of the right. 
 
 (c) The Bight to Office. — This is the right to perform the 
 functions of government, and its determining principle ethically' 
 is fitness, but politically it is the choice of the electorate. It has 
 more distinctive limitations than the other political rights. The 
 three rights are differently distributed, that to property in land 
 having the widest distribution, being conferred in the interest of 
 economic production. The right to the franchise is limited to those 
 qualified by supposition to participate in government indirectly, 
 and is conferred in the interest of defense against arbitrary power. 
 The right to office, or to exercise the direct functions of govern- 
 ment, is limited to the fewest possible individuals in order to 
 avoid the inconvenience of democratic abuses, and supposes 
 
THEORY OF RIGHTS AND DUTIES 443 
 
 higher moral qualifications than either of the other political 
 rights. 
 
 III. THE GROUND OF RIGHTS.— In determining the ground 
 of rights we intend to consider more than the mere relation of one 
 person to another with their common relation to nature. We 
 have to consider the nature of the subject of them at the same 
 time. A right when possessed is the property of the man, and the 
 question is whether there is any peculiar element of his nature 
 other than his equality with others that determines the existence 
 of his rights. We have supposed that B's duties are determined 
 by A's rights, and that wherever a right exists in one person it 
 indicates a correlative duty in others to respect it. This seems 
 to make rights prior in nature to duties, so that moral obligation 
 does not seem to extend beyond the social claims of others upon 
 the subject, and thus rights seem to be without an ethical ground. 
 There is reason to think, however, that the problem is not so 
 simple, and that the ultimate ground of rights is either a duty 
 somewhere or the value of personality. It cannot be a mere 
 relation between two living beings, because if it were, all animal 
 life could be said to have the same rights as man, both in rela- 
 tion to man and in relation to each other. Hence, we must seek 
 some more fundamental principle as the determining basis of 
 rights. 
 
 In order to accomplish this most effectively we must turn again 
 to the divisions of rights and reconsider them briefly, adding a 
 class which has not been mentioned, but which it is important to 
 notice. We shall, therefore, divide all rights into animal and 
 human rights. It is the latter class which w T e have considered, 
 and which were divided into natural and acquired rights. We 
 shall now need to take account of the division of natural into 
 social and individual or moral rights. Social rights cover actions 
 that are socially indifferent, actions that are not in conflict with 
 the welfare of others. Individual or moral rights cover actions 
 that are either individually indifferent or are personal duties. 
 We have, then, four classes of rights to consider in determining 
 whether duties are the basis of all or of only a part of rights, or 
 
444 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 whether they condition any rights at all. This difference in the 
 kind of rights will make some difference in the statement of the 
 case, as they are somewhat differently related to the fundamental 
 principles which determine them. We have, then, to repeat, 
 four divisions of rights to consider in ascertaining their rela- 
 tion to morality. They are animal rights, and of human rights 
 there are the social, the individual, and the political. Now for 
 their relation to duty and morality. 
 
 1st. Relation of Rights to Morality. — We take, first, the polit- 
 ical rights. These undoubtedly have a moral basis, in the broad- 
 est sense of that term ; for they depend upon the possession of 
 certain moral qualifications, though these are or may be nothing 
 more than mature intelligence and prudence. They are not 
 claims which the individual can assert on the ground of his mere 
 humanity. A man must be sane and capable of self-control in 
 order to secure political rights. This is because a political right 
 carries with it or implies a duty to others. The ability__tojper- 
 form these duties, which is only to say that the moral capacity 
 for doing certain services to others and protecting oneself is a 
 condition to the conferal and enjoyment of political rights. If 
 this capacity does not exist, then such -rights are not granted ; 
 instance imbeciles, the insane, and criminals. Hence it is appar- 
 ent that duty to society and to self, which exists only where 
 there is capacity or the moral nature to realize it, is the condi- 
 tion of one class of rights. 
 
 The actual practice of politics may confer them upon certain 
 individuals who do not deserve them. But men are quick to 
 perceive that such persons ought not to receive them. This is 
 only an indirect proof of the claim here made, and an ideal 
 society would define their limitations more strictly in order to 
 meet the case. But even in our defective social organization we 
 draw the line somewhere and recognize the moral qualifications 
 conditioning political rights, though we are somewhat lax in our 
 judgment as to what constitutes moral qualifications. 
 
 The deduction of individual or moral rights is not so easy. 
 We have defined them as denoting exemption from censure. 
 
THEORY OF RIGHTS AND DUTIES 445 
 
 Broadly speaking, we are in the habit of saying that a man has 
 a right to do what is not wrong, and we include both social and 
 individual actions. But limiting ourselves to individual conduct, 
 that which is not wrong includes two distinct classes of actions, 
 duties and indifferent actions. Hence, to affirm a right is to 
 assert the claim to liberty in the case of indifferent actions, free 
 choice without censure for either alternative, and the claim to 
 immunity in the exercise of duty, though not the liberty of 
 exemption from obligation which we possess in the case of 
 indifferent actions. The one is the right to perform person- 
 ally indifferent actions, and the other is the right to perform 
 personal duties. Each of these must be considered separately 
 as the term " right " has not exactly the same import in both 
 cases. 
 
 First, the right to perform personal duties is beyond dispute 
 founded upon the possession of these duties. It is primarily a 
 right against the infringement of conscience by others. If the 
 duties did not exist, the right to perform them would not exist, 
 unless the actions were socially indifferent. How far and in 
 what sense socially indifferent actions exist and condition rights 
 will be determined again. But it is clear that an individual 
 duty carries with it a right of performance against all claims of 
 society, though no individual duties exist which can conflict with 
 others' rights. This, however, is because others can have no 
 rights where the individual has personal duties. If they had 
 such rights then the sacrifice of personal duties could be com- 
 manded. The whole doctrine regarding the freedom of conscience 
 is an embodiment of the principle that a certain class of rights 
 are dependent upon obligations. The right is a twofold one ; 
 first, a claim for liberty against infringement, and second, a 
 claim of the rightness of the action involved, which is one of the 
 implications of the term rights, though applicable only where 
 duties exist and because of those duties. This is one of the 
 peculiar and significant ambiguities of the term, which connects 
 it with duties, on the one hand, and impedes the reduction of its 
 meaning to morality, on the other, unless an indirect connection 
 
446 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 with duty can be ascertained. This will be determined by the 
 answer to the question whether rights covering indifferent actions 
 are conditioned by duties." 
 
 It must be frankly conceded that the moral deduction of 
 rights in indifferent actions is not so easy. We shall have to dis- 
 tinguish between those that are socially and those that are person- 
 ally or individually indifferent in order to conduct the argument 
 more effectively, though some statements may be made without 
 the distinction. In the first place, indifferent actions are sup- 
 posed to be without moral quality and unaccompanied by an 
 obligation to perform them. They receive their name for this 
 very reason. But it is to be remembered that the extent of this 
 field may be very much exaggerated. In the first place, it may 
 be questioned whether there are any indifferent actions. It may 
 be a name for merely imaginary actions. Some have main- 
 tained that all conduct must be either good or bad, and that 
 every man has to choose between duty and sin. If this be true, 
 rights can exist only in the sphere of duties ; for wrong excludes 
 rights of all kinds, so that the term rights covers the negative of 
 all that is wrong, and if there were any indifferent actions they 
 would be included in it. The denial of indifferent actions is cer- 
 tainly more defensible in the case of the individual than in that 
 of society, for every action exercises more or less influence upon 
 the individual agent, but may often be wholly unrelated to others. 
 In the second place, if there are any actions indifferent to the 
 welfare or interests of others than those who do them, this is a 
 fact which eliminates all claims of others to interfere with liberty 
 of volition, as by supposition no duty exists in others to interfere 
 with them. In looking at both aspects of the problem we do not 
 think it necessary to wholly deny the existence of indifferent 
 actions. We believe that many actions are socially indifferent I 
 that is, involve neither good nor evil consequences upon others, 
 though in this highly complex civilization they are much less 
 numerous than in the earlier ages of history. Economic and 
 political solidarity, caused by the present industrial system, with 
 its railways, telegraphs, marine service, division of labor, large 
 
THEORY OF RIGHTS AND DUTIES 447 
 
 and concentrated capital, and the mutual dependence upon each 
 other involved in them, have given many actions a consequence 
 which they would not possess in the earlier ages of man's devel- 
 opment. The sphere of indifferent actions, therefore, socially 
 considered, and hence of rights independent of duties, has been 
 very much abridged. 
 
 Now, assuming that there are no indifferent actions socially 
 considered, the sphere of duties and rights would coincide, and it 
 might be asserted that others' rights are conditioned by my 
 duties toward them growing out of my relation to them, instead 
 of making my duties the correlative of their rights. This po- 
 sition is quite as rational as to condition my duties upon their 
 rights, and the same principle might hold true to that extent to 
 which I can be said to have duties toward others, whether there 
 are indifferent actions or not. In fact it is possible, if not neces- 
 sary, to maintain that the only reason for making rights appar- 
 ently prior to duties — that is, conditional of duties in others — is 
 that it is a convenient way to justify the application of force for 
 sustaining them, while apart from legal and political necessities 
 my duties to others and their moral personality may be the real 
 ground of their rights. But the admission of socially indifferent 
 actions and the supposition that rights exist with these when the 
 subject has no duties regarding them, would do much to nullify 
 all attempts to deduce rights from the existence of duties, and 
 hence if successful at all we must turn elsewhere for an ethical 
 deduction of rights. 
 
 While it may be true that there are many socially indifferent 
 actions, the same assertion may not be made of individual 
 actions, or such as have their consequences for the subject alone. 
 It is at least possible to maintain that every action has a nearer 
 or remoter interest for the subject, so that none can be wholly 
 indifferent to his good. If this be true, the choice can only be 
 between the. right and the wrong, so that the sphere of rights and 
 duties would coincide, the former being determinable by the 
 latter, or at least possibly so. It is true that some, or even 
 many, actions may ' be indifferent to certain ends, assumed to be 
 
448 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 paramount to all others. But this does not make them wholly 
 indifferent to the moral personality of the subject, to whom all 
 actions must ' have some reference for good or ill, directly or 
 indirectly, proximately or remotely, so that the moral life is 
 concerned in them and must determine rights to the extent to 
 which that personality can make claims upon the respect of 
 others. The duties of that personality — that is, his debts to the 
 moral law — will depend somewhat upon the subject's nature and 
 environment, and hence a grant of liberty involving rights will 
 be necessary on the ground of personal worth to the extent to 
 which they do not conflict with the equal rights of others. But 
 as long as we are supposing that the actions are socially indiffer- 
 ent, the question of social limitations will not enter, and the 
 concession of both moral and social rights must be made on the 
 ground of personality with its implied duties, which may be 
 of both a superior and inferior imperativeness. If, then, we find 
 that there are really no actions that are personally or individ- 
 ually indifferent, but only of varying degrees of importance to 
 the person concerned, we are obliged to take account of that 
 importance in considering his rights, which will be determined 
 wholly by the moral value w T e attach to him as a man and 
 as a part of the social system to which he belongs. While 
 a man's social duties, therefore, are determined by the rights of 
 others, at least as construed by the body politic, both his social 
 and moral rights may be determined by his own duties, not 
 to others, but to the moral law T , so that rights in the last analysis 
 would have an ethical basis.* 
 
 It must be granted, however, that this conclusion will not 
 appear so clear, if it be supposed that there are such things as 
 
 * The difficulty in supposing that rights are ever founded upon duties 
 comes wholly from the tendency to give the idea of duty nothing but 
 a social content. It is true that it has this meaning in the majority of 
 the incidents of life, but it also expresses the absolute imperative implied 
 by the highest good, and so gives the notion of moral necessity priority to 
 that of rights, which are purely social in the sense that only duties exist 
 in a state of isolation. Distinguish, then, between personal and social 
 duties and an ethical basis of rights becomes possible. 
 
THEORY OF RIGHTS AND DUTIES 449 
 
 absolutely indifferent actions, both personally and socially con- 
 sidered. For, if absolutely indifferent actions exist and rights 
 cover them, as they cover all that is not wrong, duty would 
 not seem to be their ground. This is clear from an analysis of 
 the two conceptions. Rights imply liberty, impunitive choice; 
 duties imply moral necessity, non-impunitive choice (freedom 
 of will still consisting with it). The distinction, then, would 
 seem to be that while duties may condition rights against others' 
 infringement, rights may still exist where specific duties in 
 reference to the same actions do not exist. The same conclusion 
 is confirmed by the doctrine of animal rights and the rights of 
 the defective classes among men, such as the insane and im- 
 becile. Neither animals nor the insane and imbecile can be 
 said to have duties, and yet they are said to have rights. The 
 fact in this instance is very strong for a non-ethical basis for 
 rights. 
 
 But an argument may be forthcoming which is of considerable 
 significance. If it can be made out that irresponsible beings 
 obtain their rights from the relation which their superiors sus- 
 tain to the moral law, it would seem that they are thus indirectly 
 traceable to duty, though not the duty of the subject of those 
 rights. It might be maintained that the rights of animals and 
 irresponsible persons are not strictly rights at all, and if this be 
 admissible the relation of rights to moral personality would be 
 quite definitely settled. But usage is too well established to 
 evade the issue in this way and such rights must have a deduc- 
 tion. We have already alluded to the possibility of deducing 
 all rights from the duties of one person to another, reversing the 
 order of dependence usually assumed, which grows or may grow 
 out of the political necessity of enforcing a duty in protection of 
 a right where that duty is not appreciated or efficient. At the 
 same time such a doctrine must assume certain qualities in 
 the subject of rights which are equally their condition along 
 with the duties that others owe them. But it does not admit 
 that rights can originate wholly apart from a relation to duty 
 somewhere. At any rate, it must be clear, that irresponsible 
 
450 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 beings, whether animal or human, can have no rights except in 
 relation to rational beings ivho have duties. They have no rights 
 in relation to each other, and it is equally true that rational be- 
 ings have, strictly speaking, no rights, but only power against 
 all non-moral and irresponsible forces ; that is, no rights in any 
 sense that they can exact a duty of irrational agencies. Hence 
 in both of these it is apparent, first, that whatever rights are at- 
 tributed to animals and non-rational beings, are determined by 
 their relation to those who are subject to the moral law, and 
 second, that personality is the condition of such rights as rational 
 beings can claim against each other. If, then, a duty in the sub- 
 ject of rights does not always determine them, a relation to duty 
 in moral agents will be indispensable to their existence at all. 
 Such a conclusion will apply to indifferent actions, social or per- 
 sonal. If they are personally indifferent, their value as condi- 
 tions of personal freedom, which is important in self-development, 
 establishes a right against others on the ground of their general 
 duty belonging to the personality of the subject. This is more 
 especially true of socially indifferent actions, which may never be 
 personally indifferent. Though such rights are borrowed, as it 
 were, from the duties of others to the subject of them, they prove 
 that there is no possibility of rights without rationality and 
 moral law somewhere, and that suffices to give rights an ethical 
 basis. We may, therefore, examine the specific characteristics 
 with their implied relation to moral beings, which determine the 
 existence of rights. 
 
 2d. Specific Grounds or Basis of Rights. — The establishment 
 of a general moral basis for rights was accomplished only by as- 
 suming different points of view for the various kinds of rights. 
 We found that the duties of the subject did not determine all 
 of his rights, and that if they existed without the presence of 
 duties some other ground would have to be determined unless 
 we could find a relation to the duties of others as a basis for 
 rights. This necessitated the recognition of more than one ele- 
 ment in the problem, and implied that the ground for some 
 rights might be found in the nature of the subject, and some in 
 
THEORY OF RIGHTS AND DUTIES 451 
 
 the nature of the person who is called upon to respect them ; 
 always, however, in some relation to the moral law as a funda- 
 mental condition of them. Hence in selecting the particular 
 characteristics w T hich determine rights, or are one element of 
 them, we must recognize the complex or synthetic nature of 
 their ground and distinguish between the subjective and the 
 objective conditions of rights. Each of these will be briefly 
 considered. 
 
 1. Subjective Conditions of Eights. — By subjective con- 
 ditions of rights we mean those characteristics which are found 
 in the subject of rights and which are their primary conditions. 
 Beings having these characteristics, other things being equal, 
 will be entitled to rights of some kind, though they are 
 variously related to the moral law. These characteristics are 
 as follows : 
 
 (a) Sensibility. — Sensibility entitles the subject of it to such 
 rights as exemption from unnecessary pain or cruelty. Beiugs 
 possessing this alone have not the rights w T e attribute to rational 
 creatures, because they seem in no way an end to themselves, and 
 yet the moral law commands that they be respected to the ex- 
 tent that they are subjects of pain. This represents the field of 
 animal rights, and it applies to the sensible sphere of all beings. 
 The moral ground, of course, is the duty of others to avoid caus- 
 ing unnecessary pain. Hence it is not the mere possession of sen- 
 sibility that determines them, but this in relation to the moral 
 personality of others. But without this characteristic no rela- 
 tion to the moral law in others would determine them. But 
 wherever we find sensibility to pleasure and pain with 'this rela- 
 tion, we affirm the existence of rights as a mode of protection 
 against unpunished infringement. Hence the term applies to 
 animals to w T hom duty does not apply. 
 
 (6) Personality. — By personality we mean those distinctive 
 qualities which constitute the higher nature of man and elevate 
 him above the mere brute. We may summarize them in intel- 
 lectual and moral capacity or rationality in the highest and 
 most comprehensive sense of the term. This is usually assumed 
 
452 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 to constitute a person who 'is entitled to respect on account of in- 
 trinsic qualities, not usable merely as a means to an end. The 
 completion of personality will involve both intelligence and 
 moral capacity, the latter being required to condition all rights 
 above the grade of the animal and defective classes. What we 
 have called moral rights will be absolutely conditioned by this 
 characteristic. The conditioning power of personality is peculiar 
 when compared with sensibility, in the fact that it produces that 
 worth in the subject which determines the existence of moral 
 rights, not merely the right to others' respect, but the right to 
 the impunities of conscience and the right, in the sense of the 
 righteousness, of protection against the aggression of foreign 
 forces, whether personal or impersonal. But aside from this, it 
 is a characteristic which places in the subject the same reason 
 for the existence of rights as is found in other personalities for 
 the existence of duties. That is to say, personality determines 
 duties, and these will determine rights more conclusively than 
 mere sensibility, and determine them in a way in which they are 
 not merely a reflex of others' duties to the moral law. 
 
 2. Objective Conditions of Rights. — The relative im- 
 port of the term rights in every application except that denoting 
 the rightness of the actions coming under the protection of that 
 idea, makes it necessary to recognize other conditions besides the 
 sensibility and personality of the subject. Inasmuch as rights 
 are claims against the interference of others who are presumably 
 able and obliged to respect them, they cannot strictly be said to 
 exist unless those conditions exist which make that duty possible. 
 Hence, conditions independent of the subject are necessary for the 
 existence and determination of rights. There are two of these 
 conditions. 
 
 (a) Relation to Moral Personality. — Before any being, whether 
 rational or irrational, can properly be said to have rights, there 
 must exist moral persons or agents to whom it is related. The 
 two must exist in a social relation, or in some relation involving 
 more or less of a common reference to nature and its resources. 
 As rights are claims of immunity against foreign infringement, 
 
THEORY OF RIGHTS AXD DUTIES 453 
 
 some agent must exist of whom it is rational to expect a regard 
 to such a claim. If that agent does not exist, if there are no 
 rational beings other than the subject of the rights supposed, 
 there is no reason to speak of rights at all. There are only 
 creatures with powers under this assumption and the only rela- 
 tion is that of physically superior and inferior. Hence, in spite 
 of being either sensible or rational, quite as important a condi- 
 tion to the subject is the fact that there should be moral per- 
 sons to whom that subject shall be related in some way. This 
 is clear from the fact that the animals have no rights in relation 
 to each other, and that man has no rights in relation to animals. 
 But as soon as either of them come into a social relation to 
 man, or other men, the possession of rights originates. The 
 duty or duties which such persons owe either to those of their 
 own kind or to the moral law which condemns all unnecessary 
 infliction of pain, or waste of life, even when nothing but the 
 lower animals are involved, comprehends the right of others 
 to protection against aggression, not necessarily on account of 
 their own inherent worth, but on account of the worth of the 
 moral law. 
 
 (b) The Liberty and Responsibility of Such Persons. — It is not 
 enough that other persons than the subject should exist and be 
 in a certain relation to those who are supposed to have rights ; 
 that is, a territorial or social relation ; but those who are sup- 
 posed to have rights must not in any of their relations and con- 
 duct endanger the life or stand in the way of the legitimate de- 
 velopment of those who are supposed to owe them duties. The 
 persons who are to confer and respect these rights must have a 
 duty to the beings concerned and must not have their liberty 
 infringed by circumstances which make defensive action neces- 
 sary against possible or actual aggression. In this way we find 
 a relation to moral law somewhere absolutely necessary to 
 rights ; a basis is gained for making man's duties more than a 
 hypothetical obligation to respect rights which without such a 
 basis would at best represent nothing but an optional end and 
 emancipate conscience the moment that it discovered such lib- 
 
454 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 erty as making rights ultimate would imply. We next take up 
 duties. 
 
 III. THE NATURE OF DUTIES.— The doctrine of rights has 
 shown us that duty is not merely a correlative of them, but may 
 also express moral imperatives beyond the sphere of rights and 
 representing moral claims upon conscience which would be valid 
 independent of social conditions. We have now to examine the 
 nature and ground of such obligations. They represent those 
 actions which the moral law makes necessary, and hence in the 
 idea will be found the full import of ethics and its distinction 
 from the object of all other sciences and interests. If duties do 
 not exist, there can be no such a thing as ethics and morality ; 
 only liberty to do as we please could be the result of denying 
 the legitimacy of duty and its ultimateness. If it exist, how- 
 ever, and is prior to the existence of rights, and is not resolvable 
 into the merely conditional necessity of adopting a particular 
 means to an optional end, it determines a moral imperative, or is 
 that imperative, which represents one of the sublimest objects of 
 human contemplation, carrying in its contents and meaning the 
 Avhole destiny of man. 
 
 1st. Definition of Duty. — We have already seen that the ety- 
 mological import of the term is that of a debt. This implies that 
 the duty must always be to some one, and Mr. Martineau thinks 
 the idea has no meaning except as expressing this relation to 
 another person, divine or human. This may be true for all the 
 social relations of life and for the religious consciousness which 
 involves a relation of man to his Creator, a relation somewhat like 
 that of subject to sovereign. But if we limit its contents to 
 social relations, unless we accepted the existence of God, there 
 would be no reason to suppose a moral imperative binding upon 
 a man apart from a definite social relation to another person. 
 And yet we instinctively feel that a man in his individual 
 capacity ought to do certain things whether he accepts religious 
 postulates or not, and without any relation to others; that 
 is, in a state of isolation. To be sure, his responsibilities 
 in such a condition would not be great, because outside the 
 
THEORY OF RIGHTS AND DUTIES 455 
 
 social state the possibilities of moral attainment might not 
 be very great. But such as they would be, they would have all 
 the imperativeness of duties to others, whether or not there were 
 "any influences, internal or external, to make them efficient. 
 That the religious postulate is not absolutely necessary to feeling 
 this imperative is proved by the fact that many feel it who do 
 not accept such a postulate. You may say that the whole objec- 
 tive meaning of duty is lost unless this religious condition be 
 accepted, and this claim may be true. But it does not effect the 
 subjective or psychological presence of duty which is not condi- 
 tioned by any theoretical ideas whatever. Where it exists at 
 all it is a constitutional part of the subject prior to any theolog- 
 ical conception of its ground and meaning, and it is the nature of 
 it as a fact of human consciousness that we are trying to deter- 
 mine, not the object of it or its import relative to other beings. 
 Moreover, to condition its existence upon that of rights would be 
 to eliminate it altogether where rights were not possible, and to 
 make the person a libertine for the lack of a principle to assert 
 the claims of morality. And, again, there could be no individ- 
 ual morality with reference to the subject's own perfection and 
 welfare, if we gave the notion a purely social content. Hence, 
 concluding that it applies in a state of isolation from our fellows 
 and without the prior admission of theological postulates, we 
 must define it as an absolute datum of rational intelligence, not 
 a mere correlate of something that may or may not exist. The 
 widest possible meaning of the term, therefore, is the feeling 
 of oughtness, that feeling of constraint or respect, necessity or v~~ 
 imperativeness, which makes a man responsible for the choice of the 
 ideal. It is here that it most distinctly contrasts with the idea 
 of rights. Rights imply liberty and impunity in choice, exemp- 
 tion from infringement and censure. Not so the idea of duty. 
 It admits of no exemption from consequences that are not de- 
 sired by the subject. It permits of no alternatives that will free 
 the conscience from culpability. It holds up but one possibility 
 to the will without suffering for deviation from a moral selec- 
 tion. The will is free to choose under it, but not free to escape 
 
456 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 the consequences which it may desire to escape. It is constrained 
 by the ideal to respect it, or to accept certain disagreeable con- 
 sequences. Hence it expresses no indifference of choice, but 
 imposes a law upon the will which must be either one of respect 
 for the ideal and contempt for its opposite, or one of conflict 
 against natural inclinations. One conception of the term limits 
 it to the notion of a struggle with interest, but another and higher 
 conception of it involves respect for the ideal without any tempta- 
 tion of interest. The former represents a less developed morality 
 and the latter the most highly developed moral consciousness. 
 However, the common conception is that of conflict with in- 
 terest, and hence it is only in philosophic parlance that it 
 has come to denote reverence for law, where it takes on the 
 proper ethical meaning. It thus expresses moral necessity 
 and limitations, but without the notion of restraint. In other 
 words, it is the sense of moral law, though it assumes two 
 forms, the higher and the lower, reverence for right and the 
 fear of the wrong. 
 
 2d. The Ground of Duty. — The definition of duties, though 
 it makes them absolute, is only formal and does not indicate the 
 end which completes their true meaning. Moreover, the abso- 
 luteness of duty, as mentioned, does not imply that no reason 
 can be given for its existence or validity, but only that the idea 
 can not be reduced or resolved into the necessity of choosing 
 certain means to an optional end ; as, for instance, the duty to 
 pay for a coat, if I buy it. But it expresses the absence of all 
 alternatives to impunitive selection. Its absoluteness is merely 
 its limitation of the subject to the moral choice in volition. 
 This conception of its absoluteness, therefore, does not prevent us 
 from giving a reason or ground for its existence and validity. 
 As a state of consciousness affecting conduct it always points 
 to an end, and hence it remains to show what object or end 
 gives it the sacredness and imperativeness which it always 
 
 In determining the ground of duty, or all the duties of man, 
 some respect must be paid to the several theories of morality, 
 
THEORY OF RIGHTS AND DUTIES 457 
 
 which in reality are attempts to assign this very basis. When 
 we ask why such and such an obligation is binding we give some 
 end which the act is to realize, some principle which the act 
 embodies, or the authority of some power over the subject of the 
 duty. Hence we may answer with the utilitarian that this end 
 is happiness, with the formalist that it is conformity to the law 
 of rationality, and with the theologian that it is obedience to 
 the will of God. But we think an answer can be given which 
 evades these several controversies and possibly reconciles them. 
 The ground of obligation, therefore, is one which is identical 
 with perfectionism, though not expressed in the terms of that 
 theory, and is the principle by which Kant supplemented the 
 formal character of his own moral law. This ground we ex- 
 press in the maxim, Every man should treat his own and the person 
 of others as an end in itself, and not merely as a means. Person- 
 ality may be a means to an end, but if conduct be moral it can 
 never use man merely as a means. Hence moral law requires 
 respect for the intrinsic worth of rational personality, as an end 
 which need not look beyond itself to some remoter end. That 
 this form of stating the ground of duty is better than that which 
 is expressed in terms of utility or happiness is evident from the 
 fact that we cannot make the happiness or pleasure of others our 
 object without doing more injury than good. We may aim to 
 produce conditions by which they may win their own happiness. 
 But to produce the happiness directly and without their co-oper- 
 ation is simply to multiply inertia and indolence. Hence the 
 proper end of our action toward others, whatever we accept as 
 the motive of our own, is to look at their personality as a whole, 
 not to produce in them mere good feeling. They are to be treated 
 not merely as means to our own ends, but as ends on their own 
 account. We may be influenced by their happiness, but not by 
 that alone. Its complement, perfection, and their person as an 
 end in itself must be considered. On the other hand, this object 
 does not conflict with the theological doctrine. We may refer 
 to the will of God as a reason for obedience, and this will may 
 be one of the sanctions, but not the ground, of morality. We 
 
458 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 may still ask on what ground we should obey this will, and the 
 only final answer that can be given in the case would be the 
 ultimate end which such conduct realized. And we could 
 hardly suppose the will of God to be just unless it aimed, in its 
 injunctions, at the perfection and happiness of man ; that is, 
 intended that man should treat himself and be treated as an end 
 in himself. Thus the theological point of view in its last analy- 
 sis would be resolved into the position just maintained, and gets 
 its value solely from being a motive efficient in morality with 
 religious minds where the abstract philosophic statement in 
 which the theological doctrine culminates would present no such 
 power over the will. Hence the only way to state the ultimate 
 ground of duty, free from the confusion of controversy, is to put 
 it in terms of man's intrinsic worth as a person and an end in 
 himself. 
 
 3d. The Divisions of Duty. — The divisions of duty will mani- 
 fest the necessity of asserting some such ground for morality as 
 is here presented, while they at the same time evince the fact 
 that the contents of morality are not wholly social. As long as 
 we conceive man as an end in himself, and not merely a means, 
 we are obliged to consider duty as valid outside of social rela- 
 tions, even though many of its contents would be eliminated by a 
 state of individual isolation. But the ultimate principle of duty 
 would still apply by virtue of the moral consciousness of oneself 
 as an end. As in fact, however, we are not independent of social 
 relations,, we cannot discard them in our recognition of the na- 
 ture and extent of obligation. But the two conditions give rise 
 to two distinct classes of duties. One of them is duties to self, 
 often called individual duties, but which I prefer to call personal 
 duties ; the other is duties to others, generally called social duties. 
 The former I shall subdivide into duties of self-preservation and 
 duties of self-development. The first of them may be called de- 
 fensive and the second progressive duties, the latter being farther 
 divided into self-culture and self-control. Social duties may be 
 divided into those representing a regard to rights and those rep- 
 resenting a regard to personality apart from rights. I shall dis- 
 
THEORY OF RIGHTS AND DUTIES 
 
 459 
 
 tinguish these two forms as Justice and Benevolence, 
 ing table summarizes this classification : 
 
 The follow- 
 
 Personal 
 
 Social 
 
 Life. 
 
 Liberty. 
 Property. 
 
 f The True = Science 
 
 Self-culture Th ^Si = A* 
 
 [ ^Esthetics. 
 _ Self-control = The Good = Morality, 
 f Legality. 
 \ Equity, 
 f Friendship. 
 Benevolence -I Magnanimity. 
 [ Charity, etc. 
 
 Defensive 
 
 Progressive 
 
 Justice 
 
 In this classification we must not mistake the true meaning of 
 the distinction between personal and social duties. Personal or 
 individual duties express the subject of obligation, but social 
 duties do not imply that society is the subject of them, because 
 society is only an abstraction and is not a person. It is only a 
 name for a collective whole of individuals or persons exercising 
 certain social functions. This being the case it is apparent that 
 all duties are individual or personal in respect of the subject of 
 them, and hence the distinction between the two classes is not 
 between the subjects, but between the objects, of duty. In per- 
 sonal duties the subject is also their object ; in social duties the 
 person having them is the subject and other persons or beings are 
 the objects of them. In personal duties the subject and ob- 
 ject are the same ; in social duties they are different. This con- 
 ception of the matter is important in order to obtain a correct 
 view of the methods of moralizing man. In the last analysis the 
 individual subject of duty must be the unit of morality, and any 
 attempt to consider it otherwise only hypostasizes an abstraction. 
 
 In this classification also Benevolence has a very comprehen- 
 sive import. I intend it to express good will beyond the mere 
 province of rights. Its full meaning will be made clear in the 
 brief examination of the grounds of social duties. 
 
 4th. The Import of Personal Duties. — The general ground of 
 duties has been shown to be personality. Of personal duties it 
 
460 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 can be expressed in the formula that every man should treat his 
 own person as an end in itself and not merely as a means. This 
 conception secures the existence of duty apart from social rela- 
 tions and conditions, and bases it upon the constitutional nature 
 of the subject. Morality thus has a profounder basis than mere 
 rights which may express nothing but the liberty to perform 
 indifferent actions, supposing them to exist. It provides a 
 necessary course of action and ends, while rights imply the choice 
 of any alternative and immunity from infringement or censure. 
 
 The only farther question raised by the assertion of personal 
 duties is whether there are any duties which are only personal. 
 The fact is that in a social order self-defense and self-develop- 
 ment also involve the interests of others to a greater or less 
 extent. This is especially true in our highly complex civiliza- 
 tion with its intellectual, social, political, and industrial soli- 
 darity of interests. Self-preservation, therefore, is not always a 
 mere duty to self as an end, but may be a duty to others either 
 dependent upon us by virtue of obligations we have ourselves 
 assumed, or for whom we are capable of performing a benevolent 
 service. Self- culture and control may redound both to the ben- 
 efit of the community and to posterity, who may inherit the 
 results of it. Such being the case personal duties may have a 
 double ground : the first by virtue of a man's duty to his own 
 person, and second, by virtue of the extent to which the welfare 
 of others is involved in the development of the subject's own 
 personality. 
 
 5th. The Import of Social Duties. — The same general ground 
 applies to social as to personal duties, but it would be formulated 
 with reference to the object of them; thus, every man should 
 treat the person of others as an end in itself, and not merely as 
 a means. There is, however, an additional fact which helps to 
 distinguish the ground of social from that of personal duties. 
 Social duties are based upon rights, personal duties upon per- 
 sonality. There is a still further distinction between the grounds 
 of justice and benevolence which will be considered in its place. 
 
 1. Justice. — The conception of justice is a complex one. It 
 
THEORY OF RIGHTS AND DUTIES' 461 
 
 is not always used in the same sense. It will, therefore, be neces- 
 sary to examine it briefly and to determine the exact scope of its 
 meaning. 
 
 (a) Definition of Justice. — The meaning of the term was at 
 first quite identical with right or moral. This is especially 
 noticeable in early Greek writers and Plato. The reason for this 
 was the fact that the sphere of morality did not extend beyond 
 social customs and duties, and though Plato proposed a higher 
 foundation for morality than custom, he did not distinguish be- 
 tween personal and social duties, and hence the content of all mo- 
 rality was expressed by justice (SiKOLioGvvrj), which denoted 
 equally personal righteousness and right social conduct or obe- 
 dience to the laws. Aristotle drew the distinction between civil 
 and moral justice, by which he meant mere conformity to the law, 
 in the one case, and voluntarily righteous conduct toward others, 
 in the second case. This was practically the distinction between 
 objective or external and subjective or internal morality, though 
 he did not carry the doctrine so far as to recognize personal 
 duties independent of the social. All morality was still social 
 with Aristotle. But the distinction between justice that was en- 
 forced by law and justice that was voluntarily done was the in- 
 ception of the distinction between morality and mere conformity 
 to law, and did much to limit the notion of justice to its modern 
 import of merely correct social conduct. 
 
 There is, however, another meaning of the term which has all 
 along accompanied the development of the one just mentioned. 
 It is that which identifies the term with retributive punishment. 
 The same general import is at the basis of this as of the former 
 conception, but it is not noticeable on the surface.. But a com- 
 prehensive definition must include it. Hence the broadest defi- 
 nition of justice will be that it is the maintenance of desert. This 
 comprehensive conception includes respect for rights and the de- 
 fense of them when violated. The former involves conformity to 
 law and the latter the punishment of its violation. This distinc- 
 tion gives rise to the divisions of justice, which may be briefly con- 
 sidered. 
 
462 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 (6) Divisions of Justice. — The distinction between justice as 
 respect for rights, whether enforced or voluntary, and the inflic- 
 tion of penalties for infringing rights, is expressed by the divis- 
 ion of justice into Positive or Tributive justice and Negative or 
 Punitive justice. The former concerns the doing of such actions 
 as others may demand of us, the latter concerns the treatment of 
 wrong actions. The formula for covering both forms of it may 
 be expressed as follows and given the character of a maxim : 
 Every man should respect and protect rights, so that social wrong 
 may neither be done nor suffered, and that social right may pre- 
 vail. Each of these divisions has its sub-divisions according as 
 the justice is determined by forms of conduct, or by forms of 
 punishment. Positive or tributive justice we divide into Le- 
 gality and Equity. Legality is mere conformity to positive laws, 
 supposed to express the rights of men, and exempts the subject 
 from legal penalties. Equity is respect for rights apart from 
 and without legal requirement, and represents moral motives in 
 social conduct. It is interesting to observe that there may be a 
 conflict between legality and equity, considered in their objective 
 aspects. Objectively legality is presumptively based upon 
 equity, but positive laws may conflict with strict equity, and 
 hence when this is the case the latter has the binding quality, 
 though there may be nothing to make it effective. They are 
 distinguished, however, in the following manner. Legality ex- 
 empts from civil, and equity from moral, penalties. Moreover, 
 legality cannot be more than objectively right conduct, equity 
 will be subjectively as well as objectively right conduct. Equity 
 is, of course, the object of law, but the casuistry of life and its 
 conditions often makes mere legality a shield for manifold 
 forms of injustice. Hence the value of equity as the basis of 
 justice, or the ideal at which legality is supposed to aim. 
 
 The divisions of negative or punitive justice are Corrective 
 and Retributive punishment. Preventive " punishment " is not 
 included here because it is not when taken alone so much a 
 means of maintaining justice as of defense against injury from 
 every source whatsoever, whether personal or impersonal. Since 
 
THEORY OF RIGHTS AND DUTIES 463 
 
 it is a measure to protect men against irrational as well as 
 rational beings, it would comprehend more than the maintenance 
 of justice, strictly so called, which is defended in behalf of rights, 
 while rights cannot exist, except in persons, or in a relation to 
 persons. Purely preventive measures, therefore, do not secure 
 justice, but merely protection against injury from superior power. 
 We consequently recognize only two forms of punitive justice. 
 The following table summarizes the divisions of justice : 
 
 {Legality = Conformity to 'positive law. 
 Equity = Conformity to moral law. 
 
 Positive 
 
 Punitive 
 
 {Corrective punishment = Eeformative discipline. 
 Retributive punishment = Compensatory discipline. 
 
 (c) General Principles of Justice. — There is a peculiarity in 
 connection with every form of justice which cannot be over- 
 looked. It is based somehow upon the idea of equality, at least, 
 equality of some kind, and yet the recognized inequality of men 
 creates some curiosity to know what equality it is that is embod- 
 ied in the notion of justice and its implications. The usual doc- 
 trine is that all men are equal before the law, and justice is 
 spoken , of as regarding all men as equal. The statement, how- 
 ever, is misleading. It is not true that all men are equal either 
 intellectually, morally, or physically, though the law must treat 
 them as equals, if not in one sense, certainly in another. The 
 reason for this is found in the following facts. 
 
 Justice is founded upon rights and the duty to respect them. 
 It, therefore, deals with the social relations between men and 
 such actions as affect the welfare of society. Consequently its 
 subject matter is objective morality, which is purely a question of 
 external results to men, and is not concerned with motives. To 
 establish and maintain justice is to see that each man's rights are 
 secured and social order preserved, and it matters not what the 
 motives of the agent are in effecting this end. It is the result 
 which is desired, and though it would be morally better if it 
 could be obtained by respect to equity, it is sufficient if it is ac- 
 complished only by legality. Now, the attainment of objective 
 
464 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 morality does not require equality between men. It is the nat- 
 ural consequence of certain actions without regard to motives or 
 the degree of intelligence. Thus the payment of a debt, the per- 
 formance of honest conduct, the telling of the truth, or the ful- 
 fillment of a promise can each be done by persons of all degrees 
 of moral, intellectual, or physical inequality, though the effects 
 of their actions are equal. It is, therefore, the equality of the 
 effects of men's actions that determines their equality before the 
 law, and no differences can be justly permitted on the ground of 
 social, moral, or other differences. Thus an act of embezzlement 
 by a rich man causes as much evil, or the same consequences, as 
 by a poor man ; the effect of not paying a debt is the same what- 
 ever the motive, social standing, or commercial ability of the 
 agent ; the right to equal wages is determined by equal produc- 
 tion or equal services ; where services vary wages must vary. 
 The penalties for crime are the same for all persons without dis- 
 tinction of wealth or character, because the injustice done is not 
 affected by these considerations. As an illustration of the same 
 principle it is uniformly recognized that, in theory as least, piece 
 wage is more just than a time wage, because it rewards accord- 
 ing to economic services. On the other hand, it no more hinders 
 injustice by the laborer than time wages, as he can " scamp " his 
 work under both systems. In piece wages he can exert himself 
 to increase the quantity of production at the expense of quality 
 and thus increase his wages. This and all industrial phenomena 
 show that the standard of justice iu the economic world is equal- 
 ity of services, and injustice is inequality of services, the effect 
 upon individuals not being determined by motives or any other 
 considerations of character whatsoever. Hence the problems of 
 justice, whether positive or punitive, turn about objective moral- 
 ity and are based upon it, where volitions are equal, without 
 regard to conditions of character. 
 
 An exception to this is apparent in the case of capital pun- 
 ishment and perhaps a few other penalties, where the distinction 
 of severity is based upon motives and not upon the consequences. 
 Also the modern theory of indefinite periods of confinement for 
 
THEORY OF RIGHTS AND DUTIES 465 
 
 crime would seem to disregard the criterion of objective conse- 
 quences altogether and treat men as unequal before the law. 
 Moreover, public and private opinion often proceeds upon dis- 
 tinctions of personal character and merit in the feelings that it 
 exhibits and the distribution of rewards and penalties which it 
 favors. From these facts it would appear that justice, positive 
 and punitive, was not based wholly upon objective consequences. 
 In reply to this objection, however, it is to be noted that in all 
 instances of economic justice equality of services or of injury is 
 the theoretical and practical standard of judgment. The penal- 
 ties for every form of dishonesty are the same without distinc- 
 tion of motive, standing, or intelligence. It is the same for every 
 form of ordinary personal injury, and any application of an 
 unequal standard on the ground of wealth, social position, or 
 other qualification is universally condemned as unjust. In the 
 second case we must distinguish between the basis and the object 
 of justice. If rewards and penalties were purely compensatory 
 in their object, they would never appear to conflict with the 
 equality demanded in their basis. But they are preventive and 
 corrective as well as compensatory, and this fact complicates 
 them with the principles of benevolence, which disregards exter- 
 nal considerations, or may do so, and takes account of distinc- 
 tions in personal worth, or of future possibilities in this respect. 
 Hence the degree of punishment, or of limitations to the will, 
 depend upon the extent of the subject's responsibility and the 
 possibility of his regeneration by discipline, but the kind of pun- 
 ishment will depend upon the form of injustice committed ; that 
 is, the kind of objective conduct and consequences. The same 
 principle is true of rewards. They must be measured by respon- 
 sibility and capacity to appreciate and use them rightly, though 
 the right to bestow them depends upon objective social relations. 
 This view ought to be apparent from the single fact that no pun- 
 ishment is justifiable unless a social wrong has been committed, 
 no matter what the motives or character of the subject in his 
 conduct. The basis of justice, therefore, will be objective 
 morality, though the object of it will be the reward of personal 
 
406 ELEMENTS OF ETHICS 
 
 merit, on the one hand, and the reformation of the criminal, on 
 the other, a fact which shows that justice has its connections 
 with benevolence though its subject matter and ground are rights 
 and objective morality. 
 
 2. Benevolence. — After what has been said of justice little 
 needs to be said of benevolence. The comprehensive import of 
 the term, however, as here used and more or less contrasted with 
 justice, requires a little attention. 
 
 Ordinarily the term is synonymous with charity or kindness to 
 the poor. But we here take it in its broader etymological import 
 to denote good will toward man and beast. The term humanity 
 exactly expresses its meaning and is often associated in the same 
 way with the notion of justice. It is, therefore, that respect for per- 
 sonality and sensitive beings which carries moral law and good will 
 beyond the strict limits of either legality or equity and endeavors 
 to overcome some of the inequalities of nature. It is the virtue 
 that characterizes the magnanimity and pity of the strong for the 
 weak, and is a universal duty of those who can avoid the unnec- 
 essary infliction of pain, benefit the weak and helpless, or culti- 
 vate social relations with equals. It is the one condition of all 
 the higher life of man, and lies at the basis of whatever progress 
 he has ever made in the course of his history. 
 
 The ethical principle represented by it is found in those duties 
 which are both independent of duties to self and supplementary 
 to those founded upon the rights of other persons. Benevolence, 
 therefore, is founded upon the rights of all creatures as deter- 
 mined by man's duty to the moral law. This, however, is only a 
 way of indicating that it has no foundation except its own worth, 
 and that its object is respect for rights determined by the moral 
 law, rather than by any moral personality in the subject of those 
 rights. In other words, benevolence is not bound by any equality 
 of its objects with the subject of it. And it is farther character- 
 ized as a duty which cannot be legally, but only morally, exacted 
 of the individual. The object of it cannot claim any natural 
 right to it. It is a gratuity bestowed according to merit, or ac- 
 cording to the subject's capacity and duty to do more for his fel- 
 
THEORY OF RIGHTS AND DUTIES 467 
 
 lows, when prudent, than social rights may demand. It is, there- 
 fore, consistent with every form of inequality and endeavors by 
 good will and sympathy to alleviate the ills and burdens of life. 
 While justice deals with objective data, benevolence deals with 
 the subjective, and acts accordiug to personal worth or merit, or 
 according to the principle of humanity, which endeavors to lessen 
 pain, so far as possible, and to distribute more evenly such as can- 
 not be prevented, while it promotes happiness, or rather the 
 conditions of it, as a means of reducing life's inequalities, espe- 
 cially such as are artificial and due to the complexities of the 
 social organism. 
 
 IV. CONCLUSION.— The examination of rights and duties 
 leaves us with an interesting result. They are found to have a 
 very complicated relation. On the one hand, the correlation of 
 duties with rights seemed to leave us with a foundation of duty 
 which represented nothing but an optional end to sanctify them, 
 which is equivalent to eliminating moral obligation altogether. On 
 the other hand, duties seemed to have a range of sanctity and 
 urgency that place them above mere impunitive actions, and to 
 represent an imperative function of consciousness that is valid 
 for man when he has no social relations to respect. Then, inas- 
 much as rights could not exist at all except in relation to 
 personality, which must be the basic principle of ethics, we 
 found a way to place duty, in its most comprehensive import, at 
 the basis of rights, and thus to give them an ethical import which 
 otherwise they would not possess. Duty became the prior and 
 conditioning principle of rights, first of the rights of the subject, 
 and second of the object, or others. Consequently justice and 
 benevolence, as well as the personal virtues, obtained a moral 
 rather than a conventional foundation. 
 
 References. — Trendelenburg: Naturrecht; Spencer: Social Statics, 
 pp. 36-68 ; id., Principles of Ethics, Vol. II. ; Sidgwick : The Elements 
 of Politics, Chapters VIII. and XIII. ; Kant: Metaphysik der Sitteu ; 
 Godwin : Inquiry Concerning Political Justice, Vol. I., Book II. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Abelard, 58 
 
 Act, 115,117,119,147 
 
 ^Esthetics, 9 
 
 ^Esthetic school, 83-86 
 
 Altruism, 354, 361 
 
 Ancient ethics, 19 
 
 Anthropology, 11 
 
 Appetites, 29 
 
 Aristotle, 32-38, 256 
 
 Authority of conscience, 274-282 
 
 Automatic actions, 110, 307, 310 
 
 Bad, 93 
 
 Benevolence, 464 
 Bentham, 364, 376 
 Berkeley, 69 
 Butler, 260 
 
 Categorical imperative, 6. Also 
 
 see Duty 
 Causality and cause, 174-176, 190 
 Character, 167, 185 
 Christianity, 50-59, 258 
 Clarke, 82 
 Conscience, 106, 112, 144, 233-235, 
 
 251-283, 284-349 
 Conscientiousness. See Duty 
 Consciousness, 110, 212 
 Consequences. See End 
 Conventional theory, 352 
 Corrective discipline, 242, 462 
 Cosmological theory, 351 
 Cudworth, 83 
 Cumberland, 83 
 
 Darwin, 325-327 
 Deliberation, 35, 194-212 
 Descartes, 59, 62-64 
 Desire, 23, 29, 271-274 
 Determinism, 42, 159, 163-172 
 Dorner, 261 
 Dugald Stewart, 260 
 Duty, 103-105, 454-467 ' 
 
 Egoism, 354, 360 
 
 Emotion, 106 
 
 Empiricism, 287, 305-321, 355 
 
 End, 120, 148 
 
 English ethics, 78-88 
 
 Environment, 188, 237, 321 
 
 Epicureanism, 43-48 
 Epicureans, 25, 38, 43-48, 257 
 Epicurus, 43 
 Ethics, definition of, 1-4 ; divisions 
 
 of, 13; scope of, 14-17 
 Eudsemonism. See Hedonism 
 Evolution, 289, 334, 340 
 Evolutionism, 321-348 
 Experience, 317-319 
 Experientialism, 288, 306 
 
 Formalism, 354, 388-393 
 
 Freedom of will, 35, 42, 65, 67-68j. 
 
 70, 75, 111, 150-223, 229-233 
 Freedomism, 159, 163, 172-224 
 Furies, 253 
 
 Genesis of moral ideas, 14 
 Gnosiological theory, 355 
 God, 50, 76, 77 
 Good, 15, 93-97 
 
 Habit, 170, 322 
 Happiness, 362 
 Hedonism, 353, 359-384 
 Heredity, 168, 186, 238, 323 
 Hobbes, 79-81 
 Hume, 6, 69, 84-86 
 Hutcheson, 83 
 
 Ideal and the actual, 5 
 Idealism, 64 
 
 Imperative, categorical. See Duty 
 Impulse, 29, 106, 125-130, 238 
 Immutability, 226-229 
 Indifferent actions, 443-450 
 Indifferentism, 161, 163 
 Indeterminism, 161, 163 
 Individualism, 354 
 Inhibition, 197-202 
 Instinct, 106, 130-136, 311 
 Intellectualists, 81-83 
 Intuition, 295 
 
 Intuitionalism, 286, 295-305 
 Intuitionism, 355 
 
 Judaism, 54-56 
 
 Justice, 31, 36, 85, 460-466 
 
 Kant, 6, 52, 68-78, 388 
 Knowledge, 29, 36, 41, 106 
 
 469 
 
470 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Leibnitz, 67-68 
 Libertarianism, 159 
 Liberty, 152, 434 
 Locke, 81 
 Logic, 8 
 Lotze, 4 
 
 Martineatt, 261, 378, 402 
 Mechanical laws, 174 
 Mediaeval ethics, 50 
 Metaphysics, 12 
 Mill, J. S., 376 
 Modern ethics, 59-88 
 Moral, 101-103 
 Moralism, 354, 385-393 
 Morality, 101-103, 110, 407 
 Morality and religion, 398-423 
 Moralization, 282 
 Moral responsibility, 228-237 
 Moral rights, 426 
 Moral sense, 83-86 
 Motivation, 271-274 
 Motives, 106, 115, 119, 121-147, 179- 
 184 
 
 Nativism, 285 
 
 Natural and moral virtue, 33, 72 
 Natural rights, 433-440 
 Natural selection, 324 
 Naturalism, 286, 294 
 Necessitarianism, 159 
 Neo-Platonism, 48-50, 53, 257 
 Nomological theory, 351, 359 
 
 Objective morality, 116, 463-466 
 Obligation. See Duty 
 Ontological theories, 350, 357 
 Origin, 314 
 
 Passions, 106, 108 
 
 Perfectionism, 32, 354, 385-388 
 
 Personality, 451, 457, 460 
 
 Physical science, 12 
 
 Plato, 25-32, 255 
 
 Pleasure, 20-21, 26, 44, 362, 364, 
 
 372, 374, 376 
 Politics, 10, 37 
 Predestination, 172, 189 
 Predictability, 170, 178 
 Preventive punishment, 241 
 Propertv, 435, 440 
 Protestantism, 60-62, 258 
 Prudence, 143 
 
 Psychology, 7 
 Punishment, 240-250, 462 
 
 Ration ab actions, 197, 235-237 
 Reason, 29, 106, 136-147, 308 
 Reflex actions, 110, 196 
 Reformation, 60 
 Religion, 13, 19, 400-407 
 Responsibility, 118, 188, 224-240 
 Result, 115, 119, 148 
 Retribution, 246-249, 463 
 Right, 97-101 
 Rights, 98, 424-454 
 Rights, ground of, 441-452 
 
 Sanction, 41 0-415 
 
 Schopenhaur, 260 
 
 Self-control, 459 
 
 Shaftesbury, 83 
 
 Sidgwick, 27 
 
 Social rights, 426 
 
 Sociology, 11 
 
 Socrates, 21-24, 255 
 
 Sophists, 19-20 
 
 Spencer, 327-332, 365/_380 
 
 Spinoza, 65-67 
 
 Spontaneity, 154, 202 
 
 Stewart, Dugald, 260 
 
 Stoics, 39-43, 256 
 
 Subjective morality, 116 
 
 Supremacy of conscience, 274-282 
 
 Teeeoeogicab theory, 353 
 Theism, 285, 290-294 
 Theological theory, 351 
 Theories of morality, 349-397 
 Theo-volitional theory, 352 
 Trendelenburg, 424 
 
 Univobism, 165 
 Utilitarianism, 45, 354, 361-384 
 
 Vabidity, 15 
 Velleity, 156, 205 
 Vice, 90 
 
 Virtue, 30, 34, 40, 90 
 Volition, 106, 159, 177 
 Voluntary, 35 
 
 Wibb, 106, 150-223 
 
 Wrong, 97 
 Wuttke, 261 
 
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