MASTER NEGATIVE NO. 93-81594- MICROFILMED 1993 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES/NEW YORK as part of the .• r> ^j^.o*" "Foundations of Western Civilization Preservation Project NATIONAL ENDOWMENT ^OR THE HUMANITIES Reproductions may not be made without permission from ^ Columbia University Library COPYRIGHT STATEMENT other reproductions of copyrighted material. ?eJ?arch." If a user makes a reque^ for, o^^^^^f;.f would involve violation of the copyright law. A UTHOR: PAULSEN, FRIEDRICH TITLE: A SYSTEM OF ETHICS PLACE: NEW YORK DATE: 1903 [c 1899] COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES PRESERVATION DEPARTMENT Master Negative # BIBLIOGRAPHIC MICROFORM TARGET Original Material as Filmed - Existing Bibliographic Record 170 P282 System der Ethik. English* Paulsen, Friedrich, 1846-1908. A system of ethics, by Friedrich Paulsen ... ed. and tr. with the author's sanction, from the 4th rev. and enl. ed., by Frank Thilly. New York, C. Scribner's sons, 46^ /9c73 zyiii,723p. 28 cm. Restrictions on Use: 1. Ethics. I. ThUly, Frank, 1865- ed. and tr. BJ1111.P3 Library of (Congress -170 99—2144 iSOti, jj^iiiiyEj ON ftOF CWO FILM SIZE: ?b TECHNICAL MICROFORM DATA -ti REDUCTION RATIO: ''> ://; IMAGE PLACEMENT: lA 11^ IB IIB DATE FILMED: Hfiii^ INITIALS. FILMED BY: RESEARCH FUBLldATIONS. INC WOODBRIDGE. CT Master Negative # COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES PRESERVATION DEPARTMENT mm TOCR APH ^r lynrROFORM TARGET Original Material as FUmed - Existing Bibliographic Record System der Ethik. English. "1 HJl- D170 P282 D170 P28 Paulsen, Friedrich, 18U6-1908. A system of ethics. 1899. (Card 2) Oupy in Q ' Copy in Philosophy. Copy in Barnard. Restrictions on user TECHNICAL MICROFORM DATA REDUCTION RATIO:__ l(y FILM SIZE: ^5- r'T"™ t™ IMAGE PLACEMENT: lA ^IIA IB IIB / •mmr c Association for Information and Image Management 1 1 00 Wayne Avenue, Suite 1 1 00 Silver Spring, Maryland 20910 301/587-8202 Centimeter 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 mm iiMiiiiiiiiiiiiiMiMiiliiiiliiii| i[M[m| ||iiil[iiilm Inches 1 1 1 1 II I I II I I I I II T I I I 2 3 4 1.0 bi 1 28 •* u. UUU 1.4 2.5 22 I.I 2.0 1.8 1.6 1.25 I I I I I I I 5 MflNUFflCTURED TO flllM STRNDflRDS BY PIPPLIED IMflGE. INC. 'n y^^ , / Columbia ?Smberfifttp mtfteCitpofieetogorb LIBRARY GIVEN BY J. EnriqUG Z&nettl ,0 ''J ,«< iK S 4 *'* . VI TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE the fundamental questions of ethics and answers them in a manner indicating the author's clearness of vision and soundness of judgment. The third, which is full of prac- tical wisdom, applies these principles to our daily conduct and defines the different virtues and duties. The fourth book is sociological and political in its nature, and deals with the "Forms of Social Life." The healthy common- sense pervading the entire work and its freedom from exag- gerations cannot but win the admiration of the reader. Owing to a desire on the part of the publishers not to in- crease the dimensions of this volume beyond a reasonable limit, I have translated only the first three of the books, leaving out, for the present, the " Umriss einer Staats- und Gesellschaftslehre. " I have also omitted the seventh and eighth sections of the sixth chapter in Book IIL, which dis- cuss the duel^ in order still further to diminish the size of the translation, and because, in my belief, the subject does not have the same interest for us Americans as for the Germans. My translation is from the fourth German edition which has been revised and increased. I have added notes and bibliographical references whenever they seemed desirable; they will be found in square brackets. In conclusion, I cannot refrain from expressing to Pro- fessor Paulsen my sincere thanks for the encouragement and help he has given me during the progress of this work. FRANK THILLY. Columbia, Mo., March, 1899. AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION In responding to the request of my friend Frank Thilly to speed this book on its journey, I feel impelled, first of all, to express to him my hearty thanks for his kindness in presenting my Ethics to his fellow-countrymen in their native tongue, a service which he has already performed for my Introduction to Philosophy. From my earliest youth I have had the feeling that a people closely akin to us dwelt beyond the ocean. This feeling was, perhaps, first aroused by the fact that not a few of the companions of my youth had found a new home on the other side ; in my native land, Schleswig-Holstein, from which the Anglo-Saxons once sailed westward over the sea, the migration to the West still continues. Since then the years have woven many new bonds of union. And so it is now a special source of pleasure to me, also, as an author, to come into closer contact with the great nation which has shown such remarkable energy in establishing itself in the new world. It is my earnest wish that this book may also contribute a little to strengthen the ties of spiritual fellowship unit- ing the two kindred peoples. We Germans well know, and gratefully confess, that no nation of the earth more deeply appreciates and more thoroughly understands the products of German thought than the United States of North America. FRIEDRICH PAULSEN. Berlin-Steglitz, September 27, 1898. PREFACE TO THE FIRST GERMAN EDITION Ich glaube niclit dass ich viel eignes neues lehre, Noch durch meiu Scherflein Witz den Schatz der Weisheit mehre. Doch denk' ich von der Miih' mir zweierlei Gewinn ; Einmal, dass ich nun selbst an Einsicht weiter bin ; Sodann, dass doch dadurch an manchen Mann wird kommen Manches, wovon er sonst gar hatte nichts vernommen. Und auch der dritte Grund scheint wert nicht des Gelachters : Dass, wer dies Btlchlein liest, derweil doch liest kein schlechters. — RiJCKERT. FROM THE PREFACE TO THE SECOND GERMAN EDITION The second edition of this work, which has been so kindly received by a large circle of readers, embraces, in the main, the same contents as the first ; I have, however, so far as I was able, made improvements here and there. The second book, especially, has been worked over ; I hope that the fun- damental concepts have gained somewhat in definiteness, and that the entire treatment has been somewhat rounded out. Perhaps this will make it a little easier for some of the critics to understand the conception of life and its values on which my system is based. This new edition, however, is still open to the objection, which has been repeatedly urged against me, that the treat- ment of the fundamental questions is much less searching and thorough, while the questions of the day receive more attention than they deserve in a philosophical treatise. I have not been able to make up my mind to enter upon a more detailed discussion of the principles, because I do not believe that great prolixity in these matters will do any one much good. The philosophers, of course, have long ago worked out their own principles ; to the readers, however, who do not lay claim to this title, the significance and fitness of the funda- mental notions will be proved more easily by the ability of the latter to explain particular cases and to solve concrete prob- lems. I have been equally unwilling to ignore the questions which are moving our age ; the books that have nothing to say to their times, and therefore fill their pages with un- X FROM THE PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION timely logical quibbles, or with endless historical-critical discussions, are plentiful enough as it is, and there has, thus far, never been a lack of tiresome books in Germany. There are books that are timeless because they are written for all times; but there are also timeless books which are written for no time. This book does not belong to the first class, nor would it like to belong to the second. And now that I have begun to make confessions, let me confess further that this book was not written for philoso- phers at all; God forbid that I should presume to think for people who are already overburdened with thoughts. I had in mind readers who have, in some way or other, been stimulated to meditate upon the problems of life, and are looking for some one to guide them, or, if that sounds too presumptuous, for some one to discuss these questions with them. Should any such take up this book and not lay it aside disappointed, the author's ambition will have been thoroughly realized. Besides, I do not believe that a new system of moral philosophy is either necessary or possible ; the great construc- tive principles have already been so thoroughly developed by Greek philosophy that they are, in the main, satisfactory even to-day. To bring the old truth into living touch with the ques- tions which preoccupy our age, is, in my opinion, the most important function of a modern ethics. Nor do I believe that I am mistaken in the assumption that this view is some- what widespread in our times. Perhaps there has never been so little disagreement concerning the problem and principles of moral philosophy since the days of Christian Wolff as exists at present. Let me here briefly outline the conception towards which the thought of the age seems to be tending; I call it the teleological view. It is limited and defined by a double anti- thesis. On the one side, by hedonistic utilitarianism, which teaches that pleasure is the thing of absolute worth, to which virtue and morality are related as means. In opposition to FROM THE PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION xi this, teleological ethics contends that not the feeling of pleasure, but the objective content of life itself, which is experienced with pleasure, is the thing of worth. Pleasure is the form in which the subject becomes immediately aware of the object and its value. Intuitionalistic formalism is the other antithesis. This regards the observance of a system of a priori rules, of the moral laws, as the thing of absolute worth. In opposition to this, teleological ethics contends that the thing of absolute worth is not the observance of the moral laws, but the substance which is embraced in these formulae, the human historical life which fills the outline with an infinite wealth of manifold concrete forms ; that the moral laws exist for the sake of life, not life for the sake of the moral laws. This is the form which Aristotle, the founder of ethics as a systematic science, originally gave to it. This conception controlled the entire Greek thought, and modern ethics too adhered to it, until it was overthrown by Kant's great reaction in favor of a formalistic intuitionalism. Teleological ethics, however, at once found an eloquent and warm defender against formal moralism in Schiller, and in a certain sense Specula- tive Philosophy also returned to the old view. At present this science is again turning into the old channels under the influence of the modern biological conceptions. TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION Nature and Function of Ethics 1. Definition (1) — 2. Position in the System of Sciences (1)— 3. Function (4) — 4. Method (6) — 5. Moral Law and Natural Law (13) — 6. Concept of Perfection (17) — 7. In what Sense Universal Validity may be Predicated of Morality (19) — 8. Practical Value of Ethics (25). Page 1 BOOK I OUTLINE OF A HISTORY OF THE CONCEPTIONS OF LIFE AND MORAL PHILOSOPHY CHAPTER I The Conception of Life and Moral Philosophy among THE Greeks ^^ 1. The Greek People's Conception of the Value of Life (35) — 2. Socrates (39) — 3. Plato (41) — 4. Aristotle (48) — 5. Stoics (53) _ 6. Epicureans (56) — 7. Common Characteristics of Greek Ethics (58). CHAPTER n The Christian Conception of Life 1. Christianity is Supernaturalistic (65) — 2. Its Contempt for Learn- ing (67) — 3. for the Natural Virtues (68) — 4. for Courage (69) — 5. for Justice (71) — 6. Its Relation to the State (72) — 7. to Enjoyment and Art (74) — 8. to Wealth (77) — 9. to Honor (78) — 10. Mercy, the Christian Virtue (81) — 11. Christianity and 65 xiv TABLE OF CONTENTS Paok 98 Family-Life (84) -12. The Eternal Life (87)- 13. The Liberal- istic Conception of Christianity (89). CHAPTER III The Conversion of the Olp Wokld to Christianitt . . . X The Old World's Opinion of Christianity (98) -2. Cause of the Change : DecUne of Ancient Morality in the Roman Lmp.re (100) _3 The Moral Self-consciousness of the Imperial Period : tpic- tetu^, Marcus AureUus, Neo-Platonism (106) -4 Craving for a Edigiou of Redemption (110) -5. Supenonty of Chn tian ty (112)-6. Analogous Development in the Hindoo World (113). CHAPTER IV The Middle Ages and their Conception of Life .... 116 1 The Conversion of the Germanic Nations (116) -2 Mood a^d Mode of Life (118) - 3. The ^l-^y (11 ) - ^ ,f '^ f "^ Necessity on Part of the Church to Assimilate the World (121). CHAPTER V T ... 126 The Modern Conception of Life 1. Characteristics of the Modem Era (126) " 2;^I^«"f "sl^ - _ 3. Reformation (129) - 4. The Love of K°owWg^ (1«'> " 5. Francis Bacon and his Dream of the Future (137)- 6- R- De^ clrtes and his Programme of Civilization (140) - 7. The Modern Science of the Sta.. : Thomas Hobbes (143) - 8. Le^n.z (144^- 9. The Self-satisfaction of the Modern Era (115)- 10- The Nineteenth Century: Pessimism, NieUscheanism (147) - 11. Relation to Christianity (155). CHAPTER VI Medieval and Modern Moral Philosophy 1. Theological Moral Philosophy (169)- 2. Catholic Moral Theology (172) -3. Modern Moral Philosophy; Thomas Hobbes (19)- 4. Spinoza (181) -5. Shaftesbury (185) - 6. Hume Bentham Mill, Spencer (189) - 7. Leibniz, Wolff (193) - 8 Kant 194 _ ;. Goethe, Schiller (201) - 10. Speculative Philosophy (203) _ 11. Schleiermacher (205) - 12. Herbart (208) - IS. Scho- penhauer (209). 169 \ 'I , Jm TABLE OF CONTENTS BOOK II XV FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTS AND QUESTIONS OF PRINCIPLE Metaphysical and Psychological Introduction Pack . 219 CHAPTER I Good and Bad: Teleological and Formalistic Conceptions . 222 1 . Possible Conceptions (222) — 2. The Teleological Conception (224) — 3. Subjective-formal and Objective-material Judgment (226) — 4. The End Justifies the Means (233) — 5. The Importance of the Particular Act (240) — 6. Provisional Repudiation of Egoism (243) — 7. Summary (248). CHAPTER II The Highest Good : Hedonistic and Energistic Conceptions . 251 1. Critique of Hedonism : Pleasure not the End of Action (251) — 2. A Modified Form of the Hedonistic Theory (258) — 3. Signifi- cance of Pleasure from the Biological Standpoint (264) — 4. Pleasure not the Criterion of Judgments of Value (268) — 5. Positive Definition of the Highest Good (270) — 6. Histoid ical Confirmation (273) — 7. Further Remarks (275) — 8. An Objection (283). CHAPTER III Pessimism 287 1. Pessimism as a Mood and a Theory (287) — 2. Hedonistic Argu- ment (289)— 3. Moralistic Argument (297) — 4. The Historical- Philosophical Argument in the Hedonistic Sense (308) — 5. in the Moralistic Sense (314) — 6. Summary (318). CHAPTER IV The Evil, the Bad, and Theodicy 321 1. Theodicy (321) — 2. Physical Evil (322) — 3. Moral Evil (325) — 4. Consequences (332) — 5. Death (335). CHAPTER V Duty and Conscience 340 1. Origin of the Feeling of Duty (340) — 2. Relation between Duty and Inclination (346) — 3. Critique of the Kantian View (350) XVI TABLE OF CONTENTS Page 4. Further Errors of the A-prioristic-intuitionalistic Moral Phil- osophy (355) — 5. Conscience (363)— 6. Individualization of Conscience (368) — 7. Moral Nihilism (373) — 8. The Popular Usage of Language (377). CHAPTER VI Egoism and Altruism 379 1. No Absolute Opposition (379) — 2. The Effects of so-called Egoistic and Altruistic Acts (383) —3. and their Motives Overlap (386) — 4. Our Judgment of Egoistic and Altruistic Acts (391) — 5. Relation to the Evolutionistic Theory (394). CHAPTER VII Virtue and Happiness *^^ 1. Effect of Conduct on Welfare (400)— 2. Effect of Welfare on Character (407). CHAPTER VIII Relation of Morality to Reljgion 415 1. Historical Connection, its Causes and Effects (415) — 2. Neces- sary Inner Connection (421)— 3. Relation between Religion and Science (425) —4. Cause of Unbelief (433) — 5. The BeUef in Immortality (439) — 6. Objections (446). CHAPTER IX The Freedom of the Will ^^2 1. Historical Orientation (452) — 2. Presentation of the Facts (457) ^ 3. Responsibility (460) — 4. The True Meaning of Human Free- dom (467). BOOK III THE DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES CHAPTER I Virtues and Vices in General 475 CHAPTER II The Education of the Will and the Discipline of the Feelings, or Self-Control ^^3 1. Self-control (483) — 2. Temperance ; Asceticism (485) — 3. Mod- esty (491) — 4. Courage (495) — 5. Independence, Perseverance, Patience (498) — 6. Equanimity (500) — 7. Wisdom (503). TABLE OF CONTENTS XVII CHAPTER m Page Bodily Life 505 1. Its Purpose (505) — 2. Nourishment; Drunkenness (506) — 3. Domicile, Clothing (515) —4. Play and Work (519). CHAPTER IV Economic Life ^29 1. Teleological Necessity of the Calling (529) — 2. Duty to the Com- munity (533) — 3. Avarice and Prodigality (536) — 4. Poverty and Wealth (540). CHAPTER V Spiritual Life and Culture 543 1. Nature and Import of Knowledge (543) — 2. Culture, Super-cul- ture, Half-culture (547) — 3. Nature and Import of Art (556) — 4. Present Position of Art (559). CHAPTER VI Honor and the Love of Honor 569 1. Nature of Honor (569) — 2. Its Significance for Moral Develop- ment (571) — 3. The Love of Honor as Pride (573) — 4. The Love of Honor as Humility (576) — 5. Self-confidence and Self- knowledge (578) — 6. Modesty (581). CHAPTER VII Suicide 584 1. The Facts (584) — 2. How we Judge the Facts (586) — 3. The Causes (590). CHAPTER VIII Compassion and Benevolence 592 1. Compassion (592) — 2. Benevolence (599). CHAPTER IX Justice 599 1. Nature and Natural Foundation of «Tustice (599) — 2. Its Signi- ficance (602) — 3. Need of a Positive Legal Order (603) — 4. Punishment and the Right of Punishment (606) — 5. Duty to xviii TABLE OF CONTENTS Paob Defend the Eights of Other. «.d of ^^\^''^\-\^J^^^''^''^ and Forgiveness (616) -7. The Principle of B.ghW (624) -8 "congruly between Law and Morality; Necessary Wrongs (627) _9. The Law Falls short of the Demands of MoraUty (633). CHAPTER X Love OF Neighbor ' '.. «-,x 1. Definition and Limitations of the Duty (638) -2 Almsgmng (JU) _3. Selfishness (648)-4. Significance of Love "^ ^^ghbor (652) -5. Gratitude (655) -6. Love of Home, of Country, of Humanity (656). CHAPTER XI 638 664 iTegrve' Aspect': the Lie'(6'64)'-2 Why Conde>nned (666)- 3.%alum„y, Flattery, Hypocrisy Perjury (669) -4 Lie of Necessity (672)-5. Why this Rigorism ^ (681)-6. l-osiUve Snlct Veracity in Relation to the Individual (685) -7. The pE Co—i^tion of the Truth f «)-«;Jt^ ^^^^ Truths are Persecuted (690) — 9. In how far this is Necessary i^:^So. Is the Destruction of Error under aU Circumstances a Duty? (698). INDEX 713 INTRODUCTION — NATURE AND FUNCTION OF ETHICS 1. Ethics is, according to the Greek signification of the term, a science of customs or morals QSitten). There are two forms of a scientific treatment of morals : the historical-anthropological and the practical. The first we find, for example, in Herodotus and in Herbert Spencer's Descriptive Sociology/, It investigates and describes the cus- toms of different peoples and times ; we might call it etho- graphy. The second inquires into the worth of human customs and modes of behavior ; its object is to guide us in the proper conduct of life. The Greeks applied the term ethics to inves- tigations of the latter kind. It was Aristotle who gave to this science its name and systematic form. — The following introductory remarks will endeavor to define provisionally the nature of such a science. 2. All scientific discussions may be divided into two classes : theoretical and practical, theories and technologies, sciences proper and arts. The former aim at knowledge, the latter seek to control things by human action, they tell us how to make the world subservient to our purposes. According to the above definition, ethics belongs to the practical sciences ; its function is to show how human life as such must be fashioned to realize its purpose or end. Conse- quently, it stands at the head of the practical sciences, em- bracing them all in a certain measure, for all arts ultimately serve a common purpose : the perfection of human life. This is as true of the art of shipbuilding and commerce as of the art of education and government. Hence, the corresponding 1 ti 2 INTRODUCTIOX arts are subordinated to ethics, the theory of the art of life, or included as its parts. All practical sciences are based on theories. They are merely the application of theoretical truths to the solution of practical problems. The theoretical science to which ethics bears this relation is the science of man, anthropology and jjsijcliology. Presupposing a knowledge of human nature and the conditions of human life, ethics undertakes to answer the question : What forms of social life and what modes of indi- vidual conduct are favorable or unfavorable to the perfection of human nature? A comparison with another practical science will make the relation clear. The function of medi- cine is to teach men the physician's art ; and the object of this art is to aid the body in reaching its perfect development, to bring about favorable conditions, to ward off dangers, to remove disturbances ; dietetics and therapeutics together per- form this function. Physical anthropology forms the theoret- ical basis of medicine. We may, therefore, say : Ethics bears the same relation to general anthropology as medicine to physical anthropology. Based on the knowledge of corporeal nature, medicine instructs us to solve the problems of cor- poreal life, to the end that the body may perform all its func- tions in a healthy manner during its natural existence ; while ethics, basing itself on the knowledge of human nature in general, especially of its spiritual and social side, aims to solve all the problems of life so that it may reach its fullest, most beautiful, and most perfect development. We might, therefore, call ethics universal dietetics, to which medicine and all the other technologies, like pedagogy, politics, etc., are related as special parts, or as auxiliary sciences. With this view the founder of systematic moral philosophy, Aris- totle, wholly agrees. A remark will not be out of place here. It is easy to see that the arts are not really new, independent sciences. Science deals with the nature of things. The fact that objects may NATURE AND FUNCTION OF ETHICS 3 be modified by our action does not constitute a special phase of their nature. Science might, therefore, confine itself to calling attention to this in occasional interspersed remarks ; physics might, for example, in discussing the subject of steam, add the following note : Such and such particular properties of gases enable us to utilize them as motors. The technolo- gies would thus be inserted into the theories as corollaries. If human beings were essentially theoretical beings, they might, perhaps, be satisfied with such a procedure. But such is not the case ; they are, rather, pre-eminently practical or volitional beings. The practical problems are earlier and more important than the theoretical problems. The sciences, we may say, without going far amiss, have been invented to solve problems; knowledge is, at least in its first beginnings, a means to practical ends. Thus, anatomy and physiology are means to the art of healing ; geometry, as the name indicates, a means to the surveyor's art. Similarly, philosophy, or the universal theoretical science, owes its origin to the ques- tion concerning the meaning and object of life. Yes, we may go still farther and say : \The ultimate motive impelling men to meditate upon the nature of the universe will always be the desire to reach some conclusion concerning the meaning, the source, and the goal of their own lives. The origin and end of all philosophy is consequently to be sought in ethics. The priority of the practical sciences is shown in a remark- able way by the form which scientific instruction has assumed on its highest stage. Our university sciences are absolutely governed by practical ends. The medical sciences do not really form a systematic science ; they are united by a prac- tical aim : the medical faculty is a technical training school for physicians. It draws all such theoretical sciences into the sphere of its instruction as it regards essential and useful to the technical training of its students. In this way, physiology and anatomy, which, in a classification based on purely theo- retical principles, would, of course, be grouped under the 4 INTRODUCTION natural sciences, under the title biology, came into the faculty of medicine. The same is true of jurisprudence and theology. Neither of these is a special, independent science ; the fac- ulties of law and theology are technical training schools, the former for judges and officials, the latter for preachers and spiritual advisers ; and whatever knowledge is required by the members of these professions, they draw upon and make sub- servient to their goal. A purely theoretical classification of the sciences would place all these subjects either under the head of history or philosophy. The question as to what was or is the law in any particular country belongs to history, as well as the question concerning the essence or the historical development of a particular religion. The question, however, concerning the nature of law in general and its significance for human conduct belongs to practical philosophy ; the question concerning the nature of God and the constitution of the uni- verse, to metaphysics. — We have here an illustration of the truth that knowledge exists for the sake of life, not life for the sake of knowledge. 3. Let me add a few further statements concerning the function and method of ethics. It has a double function to perform : to determine the end of life, or the highest good, and to point out the way, or the means, of realizing it. It is the business of the doctrine of goods ( G-uterlehre) to establish the goal, or the highest good. It will, to forestall the contents of a subsequent chapter, regard as the highest good, stating it in a general formula, a perfect life, that is, a life leading to the complete development of the bodily and mental powers and to their full exercise in all the spheres of human existence, in close communion with other closely related persons, and fully participating in the historical and spiritual life of society at large. The term ivelfare ( Wohl- fahrt) may also be employed to designate this goal, — which would suggest the subjective element involved in it, or the I- H NATURE AND FUNCTION OF ETHICS O fact that such a life yields satisfaction {WohlgefuliT). Here, however, we must guard against the misconception that this feeling of satisfaction or pleasure is what gives life its real worth° The feeling is not the good, but the form in which the good is known and enjoyed by the subject. The other function of ethics is to show by what inner quali- ties and modes of conduct the highest good, or the perfect life, is attained and realized. This problem is solved in the doctrine of virtues and the doctrine of duties {Tugend- und Fflichtenlehre), The doctrine of duties describes in general formulae how we must conduct ourselves in order successfully to solve the problems of life, that is, attain to perfection. The doctrine of duties sets forth how we must fashion the character, or the will, in order to realize that goal : it makes clear to us that prudence, courage, justice, veracity, are quali- ties which enable us correctly to solve the problems of life, while their opposites, thoughtlessness, cowardice, and pleasure- seeking, inconsiderate selfishness and base mendacity, hinder the realization of the perfect life. Here, however, we must at once call attention to an im- portant fact. The means employed to realize the perfect life are not merely external, technical means, having no inde- pendent value, but they are at the same time parts of its con- tent. Just as the means of dietetics, work and exercise, rest and sleep, as functions of life, at the same time form constit- uents of bodily life, so the virtues and their exercise form the contents of the perfect life. Or, to use a different illus- tration: Each part in a good poem is a means of expressing and unfolding the whole, otherwise it would be a superfluous episode ; and, conversely, every means also necessarily forms a part of the poem itself and as such possesses its own poetic value. So, too, everything in moral life is both a means and a part of the end, something that exists for its own sake and for the sake of the whole. The virtues have absolute worth as phases of the perfect man, but they are at the same time /i \ Mfi 6 TNTROnUCTIOX ii !l] 'i H 11 valuable as means, in so far as the perfect life is realized through them. In both cases, however, a difference may be noted. Not all the parts of a work of art have the same value when compared with the purpose underlying it, nor are the different virtues equally important as means of realizing the perfect life. Similarly, the different duties may be graded according to their importance. 4. Let us now inquire into the method of ethics. What is the source of its knowledge ? How does it prove the truth of its propositions ? It is customary to distinguish between empirical and ra- tional knowledge. The latter, of which mathematics is the prototype, deduces propositions from definitions and axioms, and demonstrates them logically ; that is, it shows that they follow as necessary consequences from the principles. Em- pirical sciences, on the other hand, like physics and chemistry, observe facts and reduce them to general formulae, which aim to express the uniformity in the behavior of things ; such formulae we call causal laws. The proof of the truth of these propositions does not consist in showing their logical connection with certain presupposed definitions, but in point- ing out that they adequately express an observed causal connection. It seems to me to be an indisputable fact that ethics resem- bles the natural sciences, rather than mathematics, in its method. It does not deduce and demonstrate propositions from concepts, but discovers the relations which exist be- tween facts, and which may be established by experience. Such and such a mode of conduct has such and such an effect ; that is the general form of its argument. Or, to state it in the converted form in which the causal connections are expressed in all practical or technical sciences : In order to produce or prevent such and such results, such and such means are necessary. Quod in contemplatione instar causae^ id in operatione instar regulae^ says Bacon ; the causal law t *& NATURE AND FUNCTION OF ETHICS 7 becomes a practical rule. But the correctness of the rule is proved by the causal connection ; and causal connections are ascertained by experience alone. [Experience proves that cleanliness, exercise, fresh air, are means of preservmg health So, too, experience proves that prudent and rational conduct, a regular vocation, a well-ordered family life, are conducive to life ; and that indolence, shiftlessness, dis- honesty, and malice have the tendency to make life miser- able and to destroy it. The rationalistic view denies to ethics its empirical char- acter. It claims that propositions of morals are neither cap- able nor in need of empirical proof. It regards them as the expressions of an innate faculty, conscience, or practical reason, which judges and legislates a priori. It asserts that everybody knows what is right or wrong without any expe- rience. Experience decides what is advantageous or disad- vantageous in its effects, but everybody knows before all experience what is good or bad, and no experience of what human beings really do or what may be the actual effects of their action can place in doubt or correct this immediate knowledge of what they ought to do. "^ Our answer is : It is indeed true that mankind did not await the coming of moral philosophy in order to distinguish between good and bad. [ Morality is older than moral philos- ophy M^ there could be no moral philosophy without morality as its ^presupposition. It arises as the reflection on an exist- ing positive morality, which governs life and judgment, and which is not destroyed or made superfluous by its appearance. It is also true that something like an inner voice speaks to the individual : You ought to do this, you must not do that ! and that too without any reasons, in the form of an uncon- ditional imperative. This inner voice we call conscience. We shall recur to the anthropological explanation and teleo- logical interpretation of these things later on. Here, how- ever, I should like to show that it does not follow from this ^;^. . 8 INTRODUCTION NATURE AND FUNCTION OF ETHICS 9 i 1 \ that moral philosophy must be an a-prioriBtic or rational science. Let the science of dietetics again serve as an illus- tration to explain our meaning. What was said of the moral conduct of life may also be applied to bodily life. Just as men did not await the coming of moral philosophy before distinguishing between good and bad, they did not wait for the appearance of the science of dietetics in order to distinguish between the wholesome and the unwholesome. Long before medicine or any science existed, hungry men ate, the thirsty quenched their thirst, and the shivering covered themselves with skins. The ques- tion : Why do they do this, why is bread good for the hungry, and water for the thirsty ? would have seemed as strange to them as the question : Why is stealing wrong ? seems to our schoolboys. It is self-evident ; no other reason can be given for it. Here, as everywhere else, scientific investigation begins by regarding everything that has previously been accepted as self-evident, as a problem. After men had lived for untold ages according to the absolute imperatives of a naturalistic dietetics and an equally naturalistic therapeutics, which continue even to this day in the prescriptions or abso- lute imperatives of popular dietetics and medicine, what we call scientific medicine arose. Slowly and gradually, by means of observation and experiment, we have come to un- derstand the organization of the body and its relation to the external conditions of life, and have thus been gradually en- abled to prove the appropriateness of methods and cures which have long been practised, and to eliminate useless or harmful ones, and to employ new ones in their stead. Moral philosophy occupies a similar position. It, too, is confronted with a naturalistic, unscientific, traditional moral- ity. Just as bodily life was originally governed by instincts and blind habits, without physiology, so the entire human life, especially social life, was originally governed without science, by a kind of moral instincts. These moral instincts of peoples are called customs (^Sitten), I employ this term to designate all those obligatory habits and forms of life, all those customs and laws, which uniformly govern the life of every member of a community. Like the dietetic rules, these customs appear in the consciousness of the individual in the form of absolute commands, which assign no reason for their validity. Thou shalt not kill, rob, or defraud a member of thy tribe, — so conscience speaks, without grounds and conditions; to do so is bad : that is a self-evident truth, just like the truth that fire burns, and bread satisfies hunger. Is this truth really incapable of proof, can moral philosophy do nothing but collect and arrange these absolute commands and prohibitions ? To say so is to deprive it of its character as a science, for science does not consist in taking inventories, but in the discovery and proof of truths. But such is not the case. The truths of popular morality themselves suggest a different answer ; they also appear in another form, namely in the form of proverbs: Pride goeth before a fall; Lies are short-lived ; Honesty is the best policy ; A house divided against itself cannot stand. Here the imperative appears in the form of an assertion, one in which the reason is implied : Do not lie, for lies are short-lived; Do not cheat, for ill-gotten gains do not prosper. And this suggests to us the real func- tion of a philosophy of morals. It must unfold in detail the reasons, which are simply implied in popular morality, for the different value of the different modes of conduct. Like the science of dietetics, it must show that certain modes of conduct which have been followed instinctively for a long time, are suited to the nature and conditions of human life, and are therefore beneficial, while others are injurious and pernicious. It will show, for example, that it lies in the very nature of falsehood to injure the deceiver, the person deceived, and the entire community which is united by the ties of language, by destroying confidence and thereby undermining the founda- tion of social life, without which real human life is not pos- I \ Itll ll'i R Hi \ jQ INTRODUCTION sible It will Show that stealing disturbs the economic life of the injured party, and almost necessarily "ttfy destroys that of the thief, and, finally, that it endangers the hfe of he entire community by making property insecure, -^ich .s the inevitable effect of theft, and thereby undermmes the founda- tions of civilization and all human life. In this way, moral philosophy changes imtinetive custom into eonseioua purpos- '"^ But 'it may possibly do more than this. Just as medical dietetics does not merely explain, but rectifies the rules of natural dietetics, so moral philosophy does not merely justify the injunctions of natural morality, but also supplements and corrects them. Thus it may, for example, in giymg the rea- sons for a rule, at the same time define the l.mits witnn which it holds. In explaining the perniciousness of f a se hood, it at the same time helps us to decide when wilful deception may be allowable and necessary. It solves the problem of the socalled lie of necessity, which so strang^y confuses common-sense (as well as many morahsts). By showing why it is good to forgive injuries, it at the same time determines under what conditions alone forgiveness is possible, and under what conditions retaliation is necessary. Naturalistic morality with its absolute imperatives leaves us entirely in the lurch in complicated cases ; it leaves it to the individual's own instinct or to his tact, as it is usu- ally called, to settle the point. Moral philosophy cannot make tact superfluous; particular decisions, based upon con- crete circumstances, must always be left to tact ; but it may lay down rules for the guidance of tact which will accomplish more than these absolute imperatives. Such is the method of ethics in tlie doctrine of virtues and duties. It explains its propositions teleologically and caus- ally • in order to reach such and such a goal, such and such behavior is necessary. But what about the knowledge of the goal itself? From what source does ethics derive the knowl- NATURE AND FUNCTION OF ETHICS 11 edge of the perfect life ; how does it prove that its definition of the highest good is correct ? ^ Here the case is somewhat different. We may say : The nature of the highest good is in reality not determined by the intellect, but by the will. The individual has an idea of the conduct of his individual life, a life-ideal, the realization of which he feels to be his true function as well as the highest goal of his desires. It is really not the intellect from which this ideal springs, although it appears in the form of an idea ; its excellence cannot be proved to the reason ; it is nothing but the reflection of the innermost essence and the will of the individual himself in ideation. If other individuals have different ideals, I cannot prove to them the inadequacy of their ideals either by logical demonstrations or by empirical causal investigations. I may, perhaps, make them feel the value of my ideal by the mere revelation and description of it ; indeed, I may convince them that mine has greater value than theirs, and thus win them over to mine. Nevertheless, it is not the understanding, but the will which impels them to de- cide in its favor. The intellect as such knows absolutely noth- ing of values, it distinguishes between the true and the false, the real and unreal, but not between the good and the bad. Earlier ethics frequently discussed the question whether rea- son or feeling was the source of moral knowledge. We shall say that both are involved. The question : What is a good life, will in the last analysis be decided by immediate, incontro- vertible feeling, in which the innermost essence of the being manifests itself. It is as impossible to force a man by logical proofs to love and admire an ideal of life as it is to make his tongue feel the sweetness or bitterness of a particular fruit. We can arouse such feelings only by showing that an object possesses the qualities which originally produced them in him, owing to .his nature. And to a certain extent, a person's taste for the /goods of life may be changed by habit, as his taste for certain foods may be changed. In that case, a if t . h j^2 INTRODUCTION however, the change depends on the internal modification of the nature of the being. But we may when once the conception of the highest good is established, make clear to the intellect that such or such means are beneficial or injurious to its realization. It will not, therefore, be possible to give a scientific defini- tion of the highest good, which shall be valid for all,-- one, that is, which we can force every individual by logica proofs to accept ; or, at least, it will be possible only in so far as the ^^dll itself is fundamentally the same in all individuals. And we may, considering the far-reaching similarity of the powers and the conditions of life, assume that this is, in a certain de- gree, actually the case. Just as all the members of an animal species, on the whole, desire to perform the same functions, so we shall find a certain similarity of ends or aims in the human species. It would be the business of a kind of na ura - historical investigation to discover such a uniform goal. I would have to be shown, in the most general formu^ what men actually desire as the highest good, or the perfect life The purpose of the moralist would here be identical with that of the biologist : he would be obliged not to prescribe the croal of life, but to discover it. Should he, however succeed hi discovering a universal end of life, he could not, o coui^e, refuse to designate individuals absolutely deviating from the ffoal or having differently-fashioned wills (if there should be such), as abnormal forms. As is well known, there are per- verse sexual impulses. Although it is impossible to prove to those who are so afflicted that their impulses are perverse -they say: Impulses are facts; your impulse, tendmg as it does is no more and no less a mere fact than ours -the physiologist is convinced that it is abnormal, and the person so afflicted can be clearly made to see that he is an exception, and that life would not be possible if the perversity were the rule The same reasoning applies to an abnormal will. A man, for example, who is sensitive only to sensual impressions, NATURE AND FUNCTION OF ETHICS 13 say, to those of the palate, and has absolutely no appreciation of the other pleasures, the pleasures which spring from perception and knowledge, the exercise of powers, or is totally indifferent to the weal and woe of his human surroundings or uniformly enjoys their sufferings : such a being we should regard as an abnormal form, and we should not hesitate to call him per- verse, even though we could not convince him of the correct- ness of our condemnatory judgment. And it is quite possible that he would not even grant that his nature was abnormal, that is, a deviation from the average, nay, he might assert that could we but look beneath the outward appearances we should find that all others thought and felt as he did. 5. Let me here add a remark concerning the relation of "^ moral laws to natural laws. Natural laws are formulae which express the constant uniformity of natural occurrences. In the narrower sense of the term, the concept is interpreted to mean an absolute uniformity, one admitting of no exceptions. Thus, physics assumes that the law of gravitation is an exact mathematical expression of the uniform reciprocal action of all masses in the universe. In this sense, the law of causality itself is conceived as a strictly universal natural law. In a wider sense, however, we also designate as natural laws such uniform occurrences in nature as are not absolutely, but rela- tively constant. The laws of biology for the most part belong to this class ; for example, the laws which express the uniformity of structure and function of an animal or plant species. In this sense, we may evidently call the propositions of medical dietetics natural laws : As a rule such and such a method of procedure reacts upon the body in such and such a way ; Cold water ablutions harden the skin and the entire organism against changes in temperature ; The exercise of the mus- cular and nervous systems leads to an increase in strength and skill, while organs which are not used decay ; Opium and alcohol have such and such direct and such and such indi- rect effects upon the organism. All these are uniformities 14 INTRODUCTION NATURE AND FUNCTION OF ETHICS 15 ^■f which cannot be determined with mathematical exactness, and which, owing to the complexity of vital processes, do not appear with the same constant regularity as those de- scribed by physics, but nevertheless they express universal and regular tendencies. In the same sense, we may call the propositions of ethics natural laws : they, too, express the constant connections existing between modes of conduct and their effects upon life. Falsehood has the tendency to produce distrust ; dis- trust has the tendency to disturb and destroy human social life : these are generalizations of the same kind as the asser- tion that alcohol tends to impair consciousness. The proposi- tion : Idleness weakens the powers of the understanding and the will, is nothing but a universal biological law, translated into psychological language. The objection is urged : The propositions of ethics or the moral laws declare what ought to he, and not what is, as do the natural laws. Thou shalt not lie, is a law of morality, one that is universally valid in spite of all the deviations of reality. The moral laws, it is held, are closely related to the laws on the statute books, not to the laws of nature. — They are certainly related to these ; nay, perhaps we may say that the statutes merely represent a section of the moral law. But that does not hinder them from being related to natural laws. The statutory laws undoubtedly express what ought to be, and there are exceptions to them in actual practice. Still these are but exceptions ; as a rule, the law is an expression of the actual behavior of the citizens ; we should surely not reckon among the laws of the state a law that is universally violated. It is a real law, not because it is printed on a piece of paper, but because it is an expression of the uniformity of action, even though this uniformity be not absolute. Moreover, although the law of the state has its origin in the will of man, it is, in the last analysis, based -upon the nature of things, upon the causal connections exist- ing between modes of conduct and their effects upon life. 'i Thou shalt not commit forgery, shalt not steal, shalt not com- mit arson, or, as the law declares : Whoever forges, steals, or commits arson, shall receive such and such punishment : this law owes its origin to the fact that such acts have injur- ious effects upon society. Stealing has the tendency to undermine property rights, forgery has the tendency to undermine credit, and consequently to interfere with the pro- duction and distribution of commodities. This natural law is the ultimate ground of the statutory law ; the statutory law is a rule of conduct for the members of a community whose aim is the security of the conditions of social life. The same remarks apply to the moral law. A moral law declares not only what ought to be, but what is. The historian of civilization will undoubtedly declare : It is an expression of the relatively uniform behavior of the members of the group who acknowledge its validity, and it is, at all events, a principle according to which acts are universally judged. If falsehood were as common among a people as truth-telling, if falsehood were not judged differently from veracity, there would be no moral law on the subject. And should a moralist come to such a community and say : But it is an absolute law that you should not lie, he would be told : We don't understand you, and will not be bothered by your whims ! There is, of course, no such a people, not because falsehood ought not to be, but because it cannot be a universal mode of conduct. Falsehood can occur only as an exception : that is a law of nature, not a logical, but a psychological law. Lying presupposes faith in human speech, and such trust can exist only where truth- telling is the rule. And when this uniform relation between truth and confidence, falsehood and distrust, becomes fixed m conduct and finally also in consciousness, the moral law is formulated TThou shalt not lie. The causal law forms the basis of the practical rule, in morals as well as in jurispru- dence and medicine. If there were no uniform connections IG INTRODUCTION NATURE AND FUNCTION OF ETHICS 17 i ■' between causes and effects, between acts and individual and social life, there would be no moral laws. The moral law is not the product of caprice, not the arbitrary command of a transcendent despot or of an uncontrollable " inner voice," but the expression of an immanent law of human life. Human life, that is, a life with a human mental-historical content, is possible only where all individuals act with relative uniformity, in accordance with the laws of morality, hence where the moral law has the validity of a biological law. Deviations from the moral law have the tendency to produce disturbances in indi- vidual and social life ; absolute violation of the moral law would lead, first, to the destruction of human historical life, and finally also to the destruction of its animal existence. Perhaps a comparison with the laws of grammar will eluci- date the formal character of the moral laws. It is popularly supposed that the laws of grammar declare what ought to be : grammar prescribes the way in which we ought to speak. The history of language regards grammar in a different light : grammar does not prescribe the ways in which we ought to speak, but describes the ways in which we do speak. The grammarian of Gothic or Middle High German collects and describes the forms which were actually used in the past ; the paleontologist collects and describes extinct forms of life; and the grammarian of the living language does the same. But a peculiar fact is observed here. There is a difference in the language of different persons, of different writers. True, we find great uniformity, at least in the general plan of the language, in the declensions and conjugations, but even here we find exceptions, especially in the spoken word. This compels the grammarian, whose real aim is to describe the language, to choose between different forms, in order to reach universal propositions. He will be guided in his choice, either by the frequency of their occurrence or by his estimate of the linguistic powers of the writers. Certain forms are declared to be the normal ones, and grammar, therefore^ becomes a normative science after all: it decides what is correct and what is incorrect. This procedure, however, it must be confessed, is ultimately governed by teleological necessity : the purpose of the language is to communicate thoughts; deviations make this impossible, and they are therefore eliminated as disturbing elements. In the same way, popular thought regards it as the func- tion of moral philosophy to prescribe laws. But anthropology and history have a different conception of the problem. The primary aim is not to prescribe what men ought to do, and according to what principles they ought to judge, but to describe and understand the ways in which they really act and live. And to understand them means to understand the teleological necessity of their customs, laws, and institutions. Hence, here as before, a descriptive and explanatory science becomes a normative science : its propositions become prin- ciples of judgment and rules of conduct, in so far as they represent the conditions of human welfare.^ 6. Let me now make a few more statements concerning the function of ethics to define the highest good. In sec- tion 3 we used the term perfection. A perfect human life, that is, a life in which all the bodily and mental powers of man are fully developed and exercised, is the highest good for the individual. We shall have to discuss the material phase of this definition in detail later on. Here I shall simply enter upon a brief consideration of its formal side. It has been said that this is a purely formal, empty definition, which may be filled with any concrete content whatsoever. As compared with this conception, the definiteness of other views, for instance, that pleasure is the absolute good, has ft 1 Schleiermacher, whose entire ethics rests upon a parallelism between ethics and physics, the moral law and the natural law, discusses the difference between natural law and moral law in an academic treatise of the year 1825. (Complete Works, 3d Division, vol. II., p. 397.) Compare also F. J. Neumann, Natural Law and Economic Law (in the Zeitschrift fiir die gesamt. Staatsw., 1892, number 3), and Eucken, Fundamental Concepts of the Present, 2d ed., 1893, pp. I73£f. 2 18 INTRODUCTION NATURE AND FUNCTION OF ETHICS 19 ft been extolled. When we speak of pleasure, it has been claimed, we know what we are talking about. I shall have to defer the discussion of hedonism to a later time. Here, however, I should like to show that it is utterly impossible to give anything but a formal explanation of the highest good. Medical dietetics does not give us a concrete exposition of the perfect bodily life, but only a general outline, which may be filled in in many different ways. Similarly, ethics can give only a schematic outline of a mode of life, the observance of which does not necessarily make a life valuable, although it is the presupposition of the healthy development of life. The value of such a life depends upon the number of con- crete elements which it contains, and no system of ethics, not even the hedonistic, can undertake to describe them. The following illustration will make our meaning clear. We cannot speak of one perfect life. A people or a race con- sisting of totally similar copies of a perfect original pattern would strike us as an infinitely poor and empty affair. Nay, the very thought of such a thing is horrible. Imagine a mul- titude of human beings wholly alike as to their inner nature and life, differing from each other only in the numbers at- tached to them. Perfection consists, not in the similarity, but in the variety of forms. In order to give a concrete representa- tion of the perfect life, we should have to take our ideal of humanity, and show what different forms of human life are possible or necessary to realize the idea ; that is, we should have to describe a multitude of nations, tribes, families, in- dividuals, and the modes of life necessarily resulting from their natural endowments. This would be the function of an artistic or creative philosophy of history ; manifestly an im- possible task. Indeed, it is not even possible to deduce the past life of humanity, which history reveals to us, with its multitudes of peoples and its historical development, from an idea of humanity ; much less to outline the future history and its new forms. No one expects cesthetics to represent beauty in the con- crete, that is, to deduce all the real and possible beautiful pictures, statues, poems, and musical compositions from an idea of the beautiful. The production of concrete beauty is the business of the genius. -Esthetics reflects upon the products of genius, it aims to express in general formulae the conditions upon which the products depend, or at least without which they cannot arise. It cannot, that is to say, propose concrete problems to the future artist, but it can assist him in gaining an insight into his art and avoiding mistakes. The same may be said of ethics; it does not describe every possible form of good life — this the moral genius evolves out of the fulness of his nature — but under- takes to describe and to justify the rules of conduct without which a good and beautiful life cannot be realized. And ethics, too, may indulge in the hope that it can, in a measure, guide the student in discovering his peculiar life's task, and guard him against error in his attempts to solve it. ^ 7. It further follows from the above that there can be no universal morality in the concrete. The different expressions of the universal type of man demand each its own particular morality. The Englishman differs from the Chinaman and negro, and desires and ought to differ from them. Conse- quently, each one among them has a different morality. It is an undoubted fact that every nation has its own particular ideal of life and its own morality. The only question is whether **• what is " " ought to be." It is absolutely essential, so it is claimed, that the propositions of morality be valid for all mankind or, in the words of Kant, " for all rational crea- tures." If we admit that there is a different code of morals for Englishmen and negroes, then shall we not have to con- clude that there is a different code for men and women, for artists and merchants, and, finally, also, one for each par- ticular man ? Indeed, the conclusion is a logical one. But I do not see 20 INTRODUCTION NATURE AND FUNCTION OF ETHICS 21 how we can avoid it if once we grant and insist upon the assertion that differences in life are not only not an evil, but essential conditions of the perfection of mankind. If we jus- tify the different forms of human life, we shall also have to justify the different rules of conduct. Just as the dietetics of the Englishman naturally differs from that of the negro, his morality, which, according to our conception, is merely a universal dietetics, must differ from his. We shall, there- fore, be compelled to say that a mode of conduct which is suitable and essential to the former need not be so to the latter. And we find not only that the Englishman actually treats the negro differently from one of his own countrymen, but that his relations to the negro are governed by an en- tirely different code of morality ; all of which does not mean, of course, that I am willing to justify the atrocities which have been and are still being committed every day against the savages in the name of civilization, by Europeans — alas, now also by the Germans. Only in a limited sense can we speak of a universal moral- ity. In so far, namely, as there are certain fundamental sim- ilarities in the nature and life-conditions of all human beings, in so far will there be certain universally valid fundamental conditions of healthy life. Thus medical dietetics may present certain fundamental rules as universal truths: A certain amount of food, consisting, say, of such and such substances, albumen, fats, carbo-hydrates, water, etc., furthermore, a cer- tain amount of work and rest is necessary to the preservation of bodily life. In the same sense, morality can advance uni- versal propositions : The preservation of human life demands that some attention be given to the care of offspring and the rearing of the young ; and in order that this end may be reached the sexes must live together in some permanent form. Or : A tribe cannot exist without some regulations tending to hinder hostilities among its members ; the infraction of such rules tends to breed ruin; hence, murder, adultery, theft, and perjury are bad ; justice, benevolence, and veracity, the inner dispositions of the will which prevent such acts, are good. But in order that such universal rules may be directly applied, life must be adapted to the particular nature and the particular conditions surrounding it. The dietetic rule of nourishment mentioned above does not mean the same for the Esquimau as for the negro. Similarly, the rules of a universal human morality must be adapted to the special historical forms and conditions of life before they can be directly employed in determining and judging conduct. The commandment: Treat your neighbor justly and kindly, observe the rules of family and social life, does not mean the same for an African negro as for a European Christian. That monogamy is the best form of family life for a civil- ized nation does not prove that it is the best form for the entirely different conditions governing the negro tribe. We may say with perfect justice that monogamy is the higher form of family life. But that simply means that it is suitable to the higher stages of development and not that it is wrong for the lower stages to have a different form. Perhaps polyg- amy is a necessary stage in the development of the family, just as blood-revenge is a necessary stage in the development of law, and slavery in the development of society. This implies also that different times have different moral codes. That it is so is an indisputable fact, but it is hard to convince common-sense that it must be so, that it is not necessarily a sign of imperfection and perversion for an earlier age to have other customs, different acts and judg- ments, than the present. We are inclined to think that what- ever differs from our customs is all wrong. We blame the Middle Ages for burning heretics and witches, torturing sus- pects and killing criminals by the thousands. We are right in calling their methods brutal and barbarous. This, how- ever, does not prove that a brutal age did wrong in employ- \ 22 INTRODUCTION ing tbem. Perhaps it did ; perhaps, at least, these methods were frequently abused, but perhaps, on the other hand — proof, of course, is impossible from the very nature of the case — this method of procedure was suitable and necessary in that age. Perhaps the disciplining of human souls by the church was so necessary a precondition of civilization, that the Middle Ages stand justified before the tribunal of history, for suppressing, with all the means at their command, every attempt of the individual to emancipate himself from this discipline (which was the usual object of heresy). Per- haps the entire administration of justice of those days, with its brutal methods, was at least a temporarily necessary pre- condition of the complicated social life of the mediaeval towns. It is consoling that our courts and police are more efficient, and attain the same or better results by means of more humane methods, but this does not prove that the Mid- die Ages could have preserved the peace in the same way. The Middle Ages might make the following answer to our charges : You owe it to us that you are now able to get along with such mild punishments; it has taken us centuries of hard work to eradicate the elements which absolutely refused to adapt themselves to social order. To be sure, this was no agreeable task; but now that it is accomplished, it is not fair of you to censure us for having undertaken it. Besides, who knows how long your methods will prove successful ? And now we shall have to go still further and say : Even different groups of the same nation, and, finally, also, different individuals are subject to a special moral code. Different dispositions and life-conditions demand not only a different bodily, but also a different spiritual and moral diet. What is beneficial and necessary to one may be un- suitable and injurious to another. We are never in doubt about this fact when it comes to actual practice. We disap- prove and censure one man for something that we consider permissible or lovable in another. Indeed, we may say that NATURE AND FUNCTION OF ETHICS 23 it is not possible for different individuals to act exactly in the same way. If it is true that the entire nature of the agent manifests itself in every act — and we may say that it is characteristic of real human action to express not merely a particular phase of man's nature, but the whole will, the entire man — then every impulse and every act, every word and every judgment, bears the stamp of this particular indi- vidual. Conduct is only outwardly alike ; on the inner and the essential side the individuality asserts itself, and that is not a defect, but a mark of perfection. Only where true morality begins to disappear, where it approaches the domain of law, does the demand still hold that a man act, outwardly at least, according to rule. As Schiller's epigram puts it: Gem erlassen wir dir die moralische Delikatesse, Wenn du die zehen Gebote notdiirftig erf iiUst We must remember, however, that there is a reason why the moral preacher should emphasize the universality of the moral laws rather than the individuality of morality. Nature and inclination will take care that the individual receives his rights; whereas submission to a general rule is not to his taste. Indeed, the individual is very apt to demand that an exception be made in his case, on the ground of his special nature and circumstances, his temperament and his social position, and to excuse his conduct before others and before his own conscience, without, however, being justified from the standpoint of higher morality. Kant's rigorism is entirely in place against the inclinations of the natural man. f'^The main thing is that the sensuous will be subordinated to universal law. This is the beginning, the foundation, of all finer, more individualized morality. The latter is, in the words of the Gospel, not the " destruction " of the law, but the " fulfilment " (jr\rjpQ)(TL<;) of the law. Nor, as has already been said, can morality tell the individual in what the fulfilment consists. All it can do is to lay down general rules, leaving it to the 24 INTRODUCTION NATURE AND FUNCTION OF ETHICS 25 conscience and to the wisdom of the individual to adapt these to special conditions. When, however, he needs guidance in these matters, he will seek the help of a personal counsellor, a spiritual adviser, who is, perhaps, as necessary as is a medical adviser for the body. For, surely, the relations of moral life are no less complicated, its problems no less difficult, its needs no less serious, its disturbances no less menacing, than those of bodily life. Here as well as in the latter case we have a confusing mixture of inclination and aversion, fear and hope. All this seemed self-evident to an earlier age; nothing seemed more necessary than to place the individual under the official care of a wise and experienced moral and spiritual adviser, leaving it to custom and individual instinct to care for the body. Is the present increase of physicians and the corresponding relative decrease of spiritual advisers a sign that we are more solicitous of the body than of the soul ? Or are we in hopes of influencing the soul by means of the body ? Or is it because the task of caring for the soul is becoming more difficult in consequence of the growing differentiation of thought and feeling, and because our faith in its accomplish- ment is waning ? V The fact remains, on the other hand, that the rules of moral philosophy are not absolutely valid for all. We may, as was said, conceive of a universal human morality, or even of a morality for all rational creatures, but no one is able to realize it. The moral philosopher is a child of his people in thought and feelings, and is inlluenced by their morality; positively, for he has been moulded by their judgments and ideals from the days of his childhood ; negatively, for his no- tions of what ought not to be and his ideas of what ought to be are conditioned by his times. The abstract rationalism of the eighteenth century did not appreciate this truth, which Kant, too, failed to observe. The historical century, as the nine- teenth century might be called in contradistinction from the eighteenth, the sceculum philosophicum, no longer finds it possible to believe in the "universal man." Every moral philosophy is, therefore, valid only for the sphere of civiliza- tion from which it springs, whether it is conscious of the fact or not. It can have no other aim than to draw the general outlines of a mode of life which must be followed by the members of the particular sphere, in order to make possible a healthy, virtuous, and happy existence. 8. In conclusion, let me say a word concerning the practi- cal value of ethics. Can ethics be a practical science, not only in the sense that it deals with practice, but that it influences practice ? This was its original purpose. It is the function of ethics, says Aristotle, to act, not only to theorize. Scho- penhauer begins his ethics (in the fourth book of his main work) with the attempt to disprove this view. All philosophy, he says, is theoretical ; upon mature reflection, it ought finally to abandon the old demand that it become practical, guide action, and transform character, for here it is not dead concepts that decide, but the innermost essence of the human being, the demon that guides him. It is as impossible to teach virtue as it is to teach genius. It would be as foolish to ex- pect our moral systems to produce virtuous characters and saints as to expect the science of aesthetics to bring forth poets, sculptors, and musicians. I do not believe that ethics need be so faint-hearted. Its first object, it is true, is to understand human strivings and modes of conduct, conditions and institutions, as well as their effects upon individual and social life. But if knowledge is capable of influencing conduct — which Schopenhauer him- self would not deny— it is hard to understand why the knowledge of ethics alone should be fruitless in this respect. If a physician can by pointing out the causal relation existing between cleanliness and health, between the excessive use of alcohol or nicotine and the derangement of the nervous system, induce a mother to use water more freely, or a young man to be moderate, why should not a moralist have a right ^ y 'ill 26 INTRODUCTION NATURE AND FUNCTION OF ETHICS 27 to hope that the discovery of similar causal connections exist- ing between conduct and the form of life will influence con- duct ? If he can make clear that dissipation, indolence, anger, envy, falsehood, inconsiderateness, produce certain disturb- ances in life, while prudence, politeness, modesty, upright- ness, amiability, tend to produce good effects on the life of the individual and that of his surroundings, why should not such knowledge also influence the will ? Or shall we assume that everybody is perfectly well aware that the former modes of conduct are good and the latter bad, and that we need not wait for ethics to tell us these things ? And does experience really show that knowledge is unable to turn the will in the direction of the good ; is Schopenhauer right in saying, velle non discitur f — If so, I believe it is not the right kind of knowledge. A real insight^ which, of course, does not consist merely in memorizing and rattling off a lot of formulas and maxims, is bound to be as fruitful here as everywhere else. To be sure, we cannot expect such an insight to determine the will absolutely. Natural capacities, education, habit, example, praise and censure, the admiration and contempt of our sur- roundings, and other things, play their part. But knowledge, too, is a factor and a very important factor with the wise — by whom we do not necessarily mean the learned. But as for Schopenhauer's dogma that the will is something abso- lutely fixed in every life, I am inclined to regard it as one of the articles of superstition of which there is no dearth in Schopenhauer's teaching. There is no such rigid, constant will, not even in the narrower sense in which Schopenhauer uses the term : that the relation between egoism and altru- ism is unalterably determined at birth in the case of every individual. Moral instruction, however, can have no practical effect unless there be some agreement concerning the nature of the final goal — not a mere verbal agreement, to be sure, but one based upon actual feeling. It would be futile for a physician to advise a man who does not care for health and bodily welfare to do certain things and to abstain from others. Similarly, it would be useless for a moral philosopher to recommend moderation and prudence to one whose notion of a " good life " is a few years of excitement and dissipa- tion, and then a bullet through the brain. Or perhaps it would not be all in vain. Who knows but what he might finally succeed in convincing such a person that he was mistaken about himself and his will, and his conception of the highest good ; who knows but what more careful reflection might show him that such a life cannot be good and the final goal of his own will ? We can hardly deny that conversions have actually taken place. Shall we say that moral preach- ing alone can produce these results, and that moral philosophy cannot ? Well, I do not know whether it is possible to draw a sharp line of separation between them. The preacher can scarcely hope to influence any one without appealing to his insight. And why should not the impartial presentation of the relations existing between conduct and welfare prove to be an effective sermon, even though — or rather let us say, just because — it does not assume the form of moralizing exhortation ? But should any one still hold the view that moral philoso- phy is not only fruitless, but dangerous and harmful^ on the ground that the forces regulating life, custom and conscience, are weakened by speculations concerning their origin, import, and validity, we should reply : In the first place, such reflec- tions are not produced by philosophy, but, conversely, philoso- phy is produced by these inevitable reflections. Reflection on human conduct and judgment is inevitable. Whenever there is any controversy concerning a concrete case, concerning the Tightness or wrongness of an act, a judgment, or an institu- tion, we are compelled to go back to principles which will decide the case. Moral philosophy is nothing but a radical attempt to discover ultimate principles by which to determine 4. 28 INTRODUCTION NATURE AND FUNCTION OF ETHICS 29 I the value of things, in so far as these depend upon the human will. Secondly, it is especially necessary that our age reach some conclusion concerning these principles. The present is characterized by a strong desire to reject a priori all the old accepted truths. There are many symptoms of this desire : think of the avidity with which Friederich Nietzsche's ora- cular utterances concerning the necessary transformation of all values (J)ie Umwertung alter Werte) are received by the vouno-, as well as of the violent condemnation by the social democracy of all existing political and social institutions. A passionate mania for the new and unheard-of, in thought, in morals, and in modes of life, has taken hold of our times. It is utterly useless to appeal to authority and tradition ; this mania is nothing but an outbreak of free individual thought, which has been repressed so long, and made distrustful by coercion ; it is the reaction against the school, which forced men not to think, but to memorize, against the church, which asked them not to think, but to believe. These are the symp- toms of the Aufklarung, the Aufklarung which was long since reported dead ; it has come back to life and has taken hold of the masses, of the young men especially, of course ; they want to do their own thinking and mould their lives, and not to be governed blindly by the traditional thoughts and ac- tions of others. And to this they have a perfect right ; it is the fundamental right and highest duty of man to think his own thoughts and to act his own acts: independent self- determination is the royal prerogative of the mind. Nothing will avail here but free, unbiassed thought. It will be tlie business of ethics to invite the doubter and the inquirer to assist in the common effort to discover fixed principles which shall help the judgment to understand the aims and problems of life. It will not tell him : This shalt thou do, but will inves- tigate with him the question : What art thou striving after, what are thy true ideals, not merely thy temporary moods and whims ? Perhaps he will then find that much of what he was about to cast aside, as a mere command of caprice, is rooted in the very nature of things, and consequently also in his own will.^ 1 [On the Problem and Methods of Ethics, the Relation of Ethics to other Sciences, and other introductory matter, see Sidgwick, The Methods of Ethics, chap. I.-IL, pp. 1-24; Stephen, The Science of Ethics, chap. I., pp. 1-40; Schur- man, The Ethical Import of Darwinism^ chap. I., pp. 1-37 ; Muirhead, Elements of Ethics, chaps. I.-III., pp. 1-39 ; Mackenzie, Manual of Ethics, chaps. I.-II., pp. 1-31, Appendix B, pp. 324-328; Hyslop, The Elements of Ethics, ch&p. I., pp. 1-17; Seth, A Study of Ethical Principles, chaps. I.-IIL, pp. 1-35; Ho ff ding, Ethikf I.-IV., pp. 1-54; Wundt, Ethik, Introduction, pp. 1-17 (English transla- tion, pp. 1-20) ; Dorner, Das menschliche Handeln, Introduction, pp. 1-23 ; Sim- mel, Einleitung in die Moralwissenschaft, vol. I., Preface ; Miinsterberg, Ursprung der Sittlichkeit, Introduction, pp. 1-10; Runze, Ethik, vol. I., pp. 1-16, which con- tains many excellent bibliographical references ; Marion, Lemons de morale, chap. I. — Tk.] BOOK I OUTLINES OF A HISTORY OF THE CONCEPTIONS OF LIFE AND MORAL PHILOSOPHY Ita quadam non verhorum sed rerum eloquentia contrariorium oppositione seculi pulchritudo componitur. AUGUSTINUS. CHAPTER I THE CONCEPTION OF LIFE AND MORAL PHILOSOPHY AMONG THE GREEKS I SHALL precede my exposition of ethics with an historical survey of the development of the conception of life {Lehens- anschauung) and moral philosophy. I shall confine my attention to the historical phenomena which are still directly influencing the life of the Western nations. No one will reach a clear and distinct knowledge of the mixed and often confused conceptions and aspirations of our age who does not pursue the great tributaries which form the stream of our moral civilization to their sources. The previous history of our morality and theory of life divides itself into three great periods. The first embraces the development of the ancient world to its conversion ; the sec- ond, the Christian development with its two halves, the Chris- tianity of the old world and mediaeval Christianity ; the third, the development of modern times, which has not yet come to an end. The ancient world's view of life is na^ve-naturalistic : the perfection of human nature in civilization is the absolute goal. The Christian conception is supranaturalistic ; turnmg away from civilization, it demands the death of the natural man and his impulses, in order that a new, spiritual man may arise. The modern theory of life is not so consistent and self-contained ; it is influenced by both of these opposmg tendencies. The naturalistic tendency predominates ; the dawn of the modern period is marked by the revival of the ancient 3 I. / 34 •ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY THE GREEK CONCEPTION 85 m i :;' t; pagan conception of life (the so-called Renaissance). Still, the modern view of life contains many essential elements of the Christian conception of life; and the supranaturalistic tendency forms an undercurrent in it, or runs parallel with it. Three groups of moral-philosophical systems^ differing in form and contents, correspond to the different conceptions of life. Greek ethics proceeds from the fact of striving and acting. It asks: What is the final goal, and how can it be reached? The goal is the highest good ; and hence the problem is : to determine the nature of the highest good, and to indicate the way to its attainment. Inasmuch as the highest good consists in a form of human life, or presupposes it as the means of its realization, Greek ethics essentially assumes the form of a doctrine of virtues : it describes the perfect man in his differ- ent phases. Christian ethics makes the fact of moral judgment its starting- point. Human strivings and acts are objects of judgment; the predicates good and bad are applied to them. QAnd they are thus judged not only by man, but, according to the Chris- tian conception, above all by God, the highest law-giver and judge. Christian ethics, therefore, inquires : What, according to God's commandment, is duty, and what is sin ? It is a doc- trine of duty and as such does not instruct us how to pro- mote individual and social welfare, but sets up a moral law, the application of which necessitates interpretation and casuistry. ^ What was said of the modern conception of life is true of modern ethics : it is influenced by the two preceding stages of development, and does not therefore exhibit a thorough- going uniformity. It is as a whole — a few theological sys- tems apart — more closely connected with Greek ethics. Still, the Christian influence is everywhere recognizable. We notice it in the form of the science : modern ethics is largely a doctrine of duties. We notice it also in the matter ; thus. for example, duties towards others usually occupy the most important place among the duties, while in Greek etliics em- phasis is laid upon the virtues and duties which tend to the perfection of individual life. And when the highest good is discussed, the good of the individual is not first thought of, as was the case in Greek ethics, but the good of the commun- ity. The idea of the kingdom of God, which Christianity has made the keystone of its theory of the universe and life, even permeates the thoughts of those who know nothing of it or do not want to have anything to do with it. Even the men of 1789 cannot deny their relation to Christianity. They destroy the church, but the notion of a kingdom of God on earth — - altered though it be — influences them also ; for where else do these ideas of the freedom, equality, and fraternity of all men and all nations come from ? 1. The moral philosophical reflections of the Greeks ^ start from the question : What is the ultimate end of all striving (to reXo';), or what is the highest good? It necessarily 1 There is no dearth of elaborate treatments of the subject. Besides Zeller's History of Greek Philosophy, we may mention : the thorough work of K. Kostlin, Die Ethik des klassischen Altertums, Part I., 1887 (to Plato) ; Luthardt, Die antike Ethik, 1887 ; Th. Ziegler, Die Ethik der Griechen und Rdmer, 1881. An excellent work on the ethical conceptions of the Greek people is L. Schmidt's Die Ethik der aJten Griechen, 2 vols., 1882. A good survey of the history of ethics in general is given by H. Sidgwick, Outline of a History of Ethics, 1886 ; a detailed account of the most important movements, by P. Janet, Histoire de la philosophic morale et politique, 2 vols., 1885. (See also Wundt, Ethik, Part II., The Development of the Moral Conceptions of the Universe, pp. 270-433 ; English translation, vol. II. ; J. Seth, A Study of Ethical Principles, Part I., The Moral Ideal, pp. 77-249; Watson, Hedonistic Theories from Aristippus to Spencer; Hyslop, Elements of Ethics, chap. II., The Origin and Development of Ethical Problems, pp. 18-89 ; Calderwood, Handbook of Moral Philosophy, pp. 318-369 ; Eucken, Die Lehensanschauungen der grossen Denker. The first two chapters of Jodl's Geschichte der Ethik in der neuern Philosophic, vol. I., pp. 1-85, give a sur- vey of the history of ethics down to the beginning of modern times. Martineau's Types of Ethical Theory, 2 vols., discusses some of the most important systems. See also the histories of Greek and General Philosophy which are mentioned in Thilly's translation of Weber's History of Philosophy , pp. 8-16. For bibliogranhies on particular thinkers, see the standard histories of philosophy, especially Uber- weg, Erdmann, Windelbaud, Weber, all of which have been translated. — Tk.] 36 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY suggests itself to the agent when he reflects upon his con- duct. Aristotle, the founder of ethics as a systematic science, gives us the following lucid exposition of the subject, at the beginning of his Nicomachean Ethics} Every art, and every scientific inquiry, and similarly every action and purpose, aims at some good. As there are various actions, arts, and sciences, it follows that the ends and goods are also various. Thus health is the end of medicine, a vessel of shipbuilding, victory of strategy, and wealth of domestic economy. But certain arts are subordinated to other arts ; the art of making bridles works for horsemanship, the latter for strategy, and so others for others. But inasmuch as the end of the lead- ing art embraces the ends of the subordinate arts, and since .the latter are desired for the sake of the former, there must, if our desires are not to be idle and futile, be an ultimate goal or good which is not in turn a means, but is desired for its own sake, all other things being desired for the sake of it. What is this highest of all practical goods (rt to irdvT(ov uKporarov tmv irpaKTwv a^aOwv) ? As to its name, he continues, there is a general agreement. The masses and the cultured classes agree in calling it hap- piness ; it is happiness (evBaifiovla) or welfare (ro ev fr> kuI ev 7rpdTT€Lv). But in what does happiness consist? Here the views begin to diverge. The masses define it as pleas- ure, or wealth, or honor, or something similar; different people give different definitions of it, and often the same person gives different definitions of it at different times ; for when a person has been ill, health, when he is poor, wealth is the highest good. Cultivated people, however, the phil- osophers {ol x^P^€VT€^), define it as virtue and also as philosophy. We are perhaps justified in saying that Aristotle exag- gerates the differences of opinion with respect to the highest good ; in the last analysis the Greek people and their moral 1 See Welldon's translation of Aristotle's Ethics. THE GREEK CONCEPTION 37 philosophers had essentially the same conception of the nature of happiness. We are in the habit of translating the word evSaifjLovia by the term happiness (Gluckseligkeit). We thereby make it a matter of feeling. The Greek word does not connote a subjective state of feeling, but rather an objective form of life : evBaificov (with which dyadoBaifMcov, KUKoBaificov, are con- trasted) is the man who is blessed with a good BaifKov and therefore with a good lot in life, for Balfxtov signifies the god- head who apportions to men their fates. Now, what is the Greek conception of a happy lot or fate ? I cannot describe it more briefly and more forcibly than by calling to mind the well known anecdote of the meeting of Solon and Croesus which is narrated by Herodotus.^ It admir- ably contrasts the Hellenic conception of what is a good life with that of the barbarians. After showing Solon through his treasury, the king addresses him as follows : " stranger from Athens, we have heard much of your wisdom and travels, we have been told that you have visited many coun- tries, in the pursuit of philosophy, for the sake of study (deayplr}^ €V€Ka). Now, I should like to know whether you have ever seen a man whom you regarded as the happiest of all (oX^LcoraTOf;).^^ But he asked him, expecting that Solon would call him, the king, the happiest of all men. Solon, however, did not wish to flatter him, but spoke the truth : " King, the Athenian Tellos." The king was surprised, and asked: "Why do you esteem Tellos happier than all others?" Solon an- swered : " Tellos lived at a time when the city was prosper- ing ; he had beautiful and good children, and, above all, lived to see his grandchildren, and all of them were preserved to him ; he was, for our conditions, in good circumstances, and finally, he suffered a glorious death ; at Eleusis, in a battle between the Athenians and their neighbors, he succeeded in repelling the enemy after a gallant fight, and met a most 1 I., 30. 38 ORIGINS OF MORAL rillLOSOPHY beautiful death. xAnd the Athenians buried him where he fell, at public expense, and greatly honored him." But when the king received an equally unsatisfactory answer to the question whom Solon would regard as the happiest man after Tellos — Solon, as we know, mentions two unknown Argive youths, who died suddenly, after having done their mother an honorable service — Croesus could no longer re- strain himself : " And is our happiness (evhac^ovia) absolutely nothing in your eyes, that you place it after that of those pri- vate persons ? " Solon gave an evasive answer : " Envious are the gods and impatient, and many things are experienced in the long time which we do not desire ; and many sufferings. A human life may last seventy years, which makes, not counting the intercalary months, 25,200 days, but if we count these, 26,250 days. Of all these days no two are alike, there- fore I cannot call you happy until I know that your end has been a happy one." I call it an evasive answer; the well known pragmatic use which Herodotus makes of the anecdote necessitates such a reply. The true answer to the question of the king would have been as follows : King, what we Hellenes and what you here, whom we call barbarians, call happiness is not the same. You regard as a happy lot to have much and to enjoy much, while for us it means to live nobly, to act nobly, and to die nobly. When a man has our good wishes, we say to him : Act nobly {ev TrpuTTecv) ; while you would have to say : May good things happen to you {ev 7rao-%6n/). Hence I have called Tellos a happy man. He did not enjoy the luxury of a royal household, but he possessed what a citizen in a Hellenic town needs. He was a capable man, and governed his affairs wisely; he had beautiful and good children, his city honored him, and his name was not un- known to its enemies. That is our idea of a happy man. This is Avhat the story of Croesus and Solon, which cir- THE GREEK CONCEPTION 39 culated among the Hellenes, seems to me to signify; it expresses the popular Greek conception of the difference between the Hellenic and barbarian view of life. According to the latter, the value of life consists in the possession of wealth and enjoyment; according to the former, virtuous activity or active virtue alone makes life worth living. For- tune may crown it with a beautiful death. — The same idea of the difference between the Hellenic and barbaric conception of life is brought out in the legendary epitaph, transmitted in various forms, which the Greeks dedicated to the legendary King Sardanapalus : Let us eat and drink, for te-morrow we shall die. 2. Greek moral philosophy/ consists essentially in the analysis and conceptual formulation of the popular Greek ideal of a perfect life. I shall attempt to show this by em- phasizing the chief phases of its history. The real scientific treatment of moral philosophy dates from Socrates.^ Greek philosophy began with speculations upon the external world, upon the form, origin, and primal elements of the universe. Socrates refuses to consider these things, he makes the affairs of human life the objects of his reflections; these he regards as more important and more capable of investigation. The change represented by Socratic thought connects itself with the general changes in the life of the Greek people. Greek life, which was centred at Athens in the fifth century, tended away from the old simplicity and constraint towards a fuller and freer development. All the arts of civilization flourished on the soil of the new metropol- itan life. Rational arts, based upon theories, gradually took the place of the traditional handicraft ; geometry and astron- omy, music and architecture, gymnastics and medicine, strategy and rhetoric, became objects of scientific reflection and sys- 1 [For Socrates, see : Xenophon's Memorabilia^ translation in Bohn's Library ; Plato's Protufforas, Apology, Crito, Phaedo, Si/mposium, etc. ; Aristotle's 3/eta;}A^s- ics, I., 6. See also for Socrates and the following systems the references mentioned, p. 35. — Tr.] 40 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY tematic treatment. Excellence or efficiency (aperrf) in these arts now became a matter not merely of natural skill and practice, but of theoretical knowledge : whoever desires to ac- quire the former must possess the latter. — Is not this true of all excellence, is it not true also of the excellence of the citi- zen and statesman, nay, of the excellence of man in general ? According to the traditional view, civic and human excel- lence is innate: whoever comes into the world as a good man and as the descendant of good men, and is reared among the good, possesses it as a gift of the gods {evBalficov), The enlightened ones of the new period gradually convinced them- selves that all excellence, moral and political no less than technical, is the result of instruction and education : virtue can be taught, that is the new conception which the Sophists first advanced in systematic form. " If you associate with me," Protagoras promises the young man in the Platonic dialogue bearing his name, " on the very day you will return home a better man than you came." And upon being asked by Socrates in what he would become better, he adds : " If he comes to me, he will learn that which he comes to learn. And this is prudence in affairs private as well as public ; he will learn to order his own house in the best manner, and he will be able to speak and act for the best in the affairs of the state." By many of his contemporaries Socrates was looked upon as one of the Sophists. Not altogether unjustly ; he differed from the latter : he did not regard himself as a possessor of wisdom, and did not acquire money through public lectures ; but in his views he had much in common with them. Above all, he believed with them that excellence or virtue depends upon insight and may be taught. This proposition is em- phasized in all the accounts, in Xenophon, Plato, and Aris- totle, as characteristic of his point of view : Socrates, so Aris- totle declares, considered the virtues to be forms of reason.^ 1 Nic. Eth., VI., 13. THE GREEK CONCEPTION 41 The same is true of human excellence as such : without knowledge no virtue ; and conversely : right conduct neces- sarily depends upon the proper insight, no one knowingly and willingly does wrong (^ovBeU ckodv dfjuaprdvec). If a man knows the right goal and the right path, he will necessarily follow it; his going astray and also his moral trangression are always the result of error, as the Greek word dfULprdpeiv indicates. This is especially true of civic virtue; hence Socrates condemns the Athenian state. The democratic constitution rested upon the tacit assumption that political excellence was the inheritance, so to speak, of every citizen. Socrates is constantly attacking this view in arguments like the following : Do you not, when you wish to steer a ship, look around for a man who has learned and understands the art of navigation ? And when a man is sick you send for some one who understands the art of medicine ? But when it comes to governing the city or the state, you choose any one for whom the lot may decide. Hence knowledge, scientific knowledge of that which is really good, and of the means of acquiring it, is the great condition of all excellence and virtue. That is the view upon which Socrates bases himself and which places him at the head of the Greek moral philosophers. It is the funda- mental conception common to his successors. The sage alone, the man who has scientific knowledge — in this Plato and Aristotle, the Stoics and Epicureans, agree — is virtuous and happy in the full sense of the term. The wise man alone is capable of governing the state ; if we are to have a perfect state, kings must either become wise men, or wise men kings, to quote the well-known saying. 3. Socrates saw the necessity of a science of right con- duct and right government, but he did not solve the problem which he proposed ; he left it to his pupils to create the sciences of ethics and politics. Plato ^ first undertook 1 [See the Dialogues of Plato, Jowett's translation, especially, TheaetetuSt Phaedo, Philebus, Gorqias, Republic. — Tr.] 42 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY THE GREEK CONCEPTION 43 the task. Its accomplishment seemed all the more urgent, the weaker the old foundations of morality were becoming. With the entriince of the Greek people upon the period of eiiliglitenment, the old civic respectability and morality rapidly declined. The younger Sophisls — as Plato portrays them in the persons of Callicles and Thrasymachus (in the Gorgias and the Republic) — iovm\x\^iQ^ the facts into a theory: there is no objective difference between good and bad, it does not inhere in the nature of the things, but is a mere matter of convention and caprice. The sanction of cus- tom and law rests upon fear and superstition, which restrain the stronger from making use of their natural superiority ; or they are another means, in the hands of the mighty themselves, to strengthen their power. The enlightened one knows it and acts accordingly; he obeys law and custom when they are conducive to his interests, he breaks them when they thwart his plans, and when he can do so with impunity.^ Plato undertakes to overcome this enlightenment, not from without, but from within, by a deeper philosophy. This is, indeed, the only remedy: half-enlightenment, pseudo- enlightenment, can be destroyed only by complete enlighten- ment. To fetter thought, to oppose it with authorities, is utterly useless, nay, simply makes matters worse. Plato therefore explicitly places himself upon the standpoint of reason, which the Sophists, too, claim to occupy. With Socrates he recognizes the necessity of basing human and civic virtue upon knowledge. Virtue without knowledge, virtue resting solely upon education, habit, authority, correct opinion, is a blind groping; it may accidentally find the right path, but there is no certainty of its doing so. Only the scientific knowledge of the good can make man's willing correct, certain, and steady. 1 Laas has given us a good description of this sceptical-nihilistic sophistical philosophy, which had a great deal to do with producing and influencing the Platonic ethics, as its antithesis, in the introduction to the second volume of his Jdealismus und Positivismns. But is there such a thing as objective goodness and right ? This was denied by Callicles and his companions : that is good which happens to please, and that is right which we have the power of enforcing. The aim of Plato's entire philosophy, is to prove, in opposition to this, the proposition: The good and right is something absolutely independent of opinions, something determined by the nature of the things themselves. What is the good and right as such ? The Platonic philosophy gives an answer to this question that far transcends the horizon of the healthy common-sense which we find in Socrates. The good is nothing but the world, or reality itself. But, Plato immediately adds : reality as it is in itself that is, in idea. That which common-sense regards as the real reality, the sum total of these sensuous, particular things, is not the good ; the world of sense is full of imperfections. But it is not the true reality, it has no being in the real sense of the term ; its being is mixed with non-being; it is in a state of constant growth and decay. The true reality, on the other hand, of which being can really be predicated, is an absolutely existing, absolutely unitary, ideal, spiritual, being, and this is nothing but the good itself, or God. — God is both the absolutely good and the absolutely real, says scholastic philosophy, following in the footsteps of Plato. Now the question arises, What is good and right for a particular being? This will naturally depend upon his re- lation to the All-Good and All-Real ; or, stated in different language, the value of a particular element of reality can be determined only by its significance within the whole of reality. The world is not, like a bad poem, full of super- fluous episodes, but the unitary realization of an idea, the idea of the good, which unfolds itself in a variety of qualities or ideas, and so forms a cosmos of ideas, an intelligent organism in which every element of reality, like every scene in a good drama, occupies the position of a necessary I'lfi 1: 44 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY member. So, too, the idea of man must be defined by his place in the cosmos, if we are to reach a knowledge of what man is in reality, or in idea. If the philosopher, the dia- lectician, who has the gift of seeing things in their logical relations, succeeds in reaching this definition, he may say that he has objectively defined the essence of goodness and right. Thus PUxto brings ethics into the most intimate con- nection with metaphysics ; he makes it a part of the one unitary science of the real, or the good. What now is found to be the idea of man in the idea of the universal reality ? In the Tim(BU8, of which parts of the Phoidrus form the prelude, Plato has made the most elabo- rate attempt to explain man's place in the cosmos. The human soul is derived from the world-soul ; it is, like the latter, a mixture of two elements; on the one hand, it participates in the real reality, in the world of ideas, the world of existent thoughts, or the life of God ; on the other, in the world of origin and decay, in the corporeal world. With the reason (1/01)9), it belongs to the world of ideas, with the animal impulses {iTnOvtilaL) arising from its union with the body, it belongs to the corporeal world. These two dis- similar parts or phases of the soul are connected by an intermediate form : Plato calls it ^u/109 or to evfioecU^ ; it embraces the higher, nobler impulses, the affections of the heart, moral indignation, courage, the aspiring love of honor, moral awe ; perhaps the Platonic term may be best trans- lated by our word will. The organization of the inner man is made visible in the organization of the outer man ; the head is the seat of reason, the citadel of the ruler ; in the breast dwells the heart, the seat of the affections, as common sense looks at it ; it is, so to speak, the watch-house in which courage and anger dwell, ready to break forth at the beck of the ruler ; under the diaphragm, at last, are situated the organs of animal desire, the organs of nutrition and repro- THE GREEK CONCEPTION 45 duction. — The function of man is to represent a cosmos on the small scale after the pattern of the larger cosmos : as the macrocosm is fashioned into beauty and order by the ideal element, so the microcosm must be fashioned into proportion and harmony, order and beauty, by reason, the ideal element peculiar to it. The anthropological-ethical application of this metaphysical principle of the science of the good is made in the dialogue on the State. It begins with a discussion of the notion of the " just man." How shall we define a just man, a man who realizes the idea, the natural or divine vocation of man ? He is one in whom the three elements, defined above, harmo- niously co-operate to perform their special functions. We thus arrive at the scheme of the so-called cardinal virtues : wisdom (ao^ia^, courage {avhpeia), and self-control or healthj- mindedness (aco^poo-vvrj), which three combined give us justice {hcKaioavvrj}, A man is wise, in whom reason realizes its purpose, the knowledge of the true reality, and as the ruling principle regulates his entire life; he is courageous when the will does its work, assisting the reason in governing and bridling the irrational element; he is healthy-minded when the animal impulses peacefully perform their functions, without disquieting and disturbing the spirit. Such a well- regulated soul deserves to be called a just soul ; it typifies human nature, or the idea of man. In it the exercise of reason forms the real, essential content of life; reason as such consists in knowledge ; perfect knowledge, however, is philosophy, that is, the dialectical re-creation of the absolute ideal reality in concepts. The other elements and their func- tions are subordinate to it. And hence we may say : Philo- sophy is the true function, the highest content and purpose, of human life. This would answer the question concerning objective good- ness : such a life is good in itself, good for man, not accord- ing to accidental opinion and convention, but in the nature 46 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY THE GREEK CONCEPTION 47 I i 1 of things, in which philosophy forms the central purpose to which all the other functions and actions are subordinated as means. That such a " just " life is at the same time a happy and desirable life hardly seems to need proof. Just as the sound- ness of the body is subjectively experienced as good health, disease as poor health, so *' justice," which is nothing but the health of the soul, or the state expressing its true nature, necessarily procures the greatest satisfaction. And so the opposite of justice (aScKla) will necessarily be the greatest subjective evil for a man, not because of some accidental effects, like punishment and disgrace, but on account of the ugliness which characterizes an "unjust" life (wah7i' schaffen, misshapen, we might call it, employing a term peculiar to the Northern languages). With incomparable skill Plato portrays the life of such a " misshapen " soul and its inner discord in his picture of the tyrant, who satisfies all his desires and enjoys the privilege — which those illumi- nators envy him — of perpetrating all kinds of wrongs and violent deeds with impunity. Let me also briefly mention that the same fundamental traits reappear in the constitution of the just state, man on the large scale. A state is just in which the wise rule, the strong and courageous (a military nobility) disinterestedly and submissively serve the government, and finally, the producing classes peacefully and modestly perform their tasks. We see, Plato does not differ very radically in his views from the popular Greek conception of justice and happiness. It is true, he emphasizes the element of knowledge in his scheme, and the kind of knowledge which he has in mind, the speculative knowledge of the real reality, is, of course, something wholly foreign to the popular idea. We must not, however, lose sight of another fact. Our exposition of Plato's ethics has not sufficiently emphasized a phase of his conception of life which stands out quite promi- nently in many dialogues, alienation from the world ( Welt- flilchtigkeit)^ a doctrine which differs so remarkably from the old Greek mode of thought, and approximates the Christian view. Plato does not always adhere to the conception, out- lined above, of the nature of man as a spiritual-sensuous being, but often manifests a strong tendency completely to spiritualize the nature of man : reason constitutes his real essence ; the animal nature, sensuality and desire, is an acci- dental appendage, which drags down the spirit, and of which the wise man strives to divest himself. God is pure thought, free from desire ; to be like him is the highest goal of human striving. The notions of pre-existence, transmigration of souls, and immortality are connected with this idea; this mundane life is conceived as a prison-house from which the spirit seeks to escape. It is evidently, first of all, his opposition to the doctrine of pleasure which provokes these thoughts. Callicles and his followers make the satisfaction of the desires the highest good, while Plato sees in pleasure something, "a trace of which," as we read in the Fhcedrus^ " a demon has added to all bad things." Hence he looks upon life as a struggle of reason with lust, a struggle in which the nobler impulses of the heart are on the side of reason. This teaching supplies the moral preacher with a wonderful weapon, which Plato himself handles with great force and skill, and we ought to make a more extended use of his writings ; they would appeal more powerfully to our young men than the weak-kneed Cicero ; the Republic is the very thing for young people whose thoughts are preoccupied with and confused by Nietzsche's Ubermensch. But perhaps it is also possible to connect this mode of thought with Plato's personal experiences. His relations with his contemporaries were not friendly. His native city gave the philosopher no opportunity for public activity, as he understood the term. That he did not always ■A 11 48 ORIGINS OF MOKAL PHILOSOPHY bear his isolation with equanimity may be inferred from his harsh criticism of the persons who took a prominent part in public life, the statesmen, Sophists, and rhetoricians. He re- garded them as the representatives of the most unworthy art, the art, namely, of catering to the whims of the great animal, called Demos, and thus acquiring advantages and fame; whoever interferes with their schemes, and refuses to become a party to their crimes is doomed. And so the untimely philosopher, « like one who, in the storm of dust and sleet which the driving wind hurries along, retires under the shelter of a wall," withdrew from public life and sought refuge in the solitude of the Academy ; his life was enriched and blessed by the contemplation of the true reality, and he looked forward to his deliverance in peace and good-will, with bright hopes.^ Thus Plato, like every honest philosopher, utilized his own personal experiences as the key with which to interpret human life, nay, all things in general. Yet he was too much of a Greek to reject this natural-sensuous world altogether. He was a pessimist in his judgment of men, but he remained an optimist in his judgment of man. In the passage of the Republic quoted above, he adds that the solitary philosopher will not do the greatest work unless he find a state suitable to him ; for in a state which is suitable to him he will have a larger growth, and be the savior of his country as well as of himself. 4. Aristotle," in Dante's words « the master of those who know," " the eternal prince of all true thinkers " as Comte calls him in the Catechisme positiviste, was the first to stake off practical philosophy as a separate field of knowledge and to discuss it, as a systematic whole, in its three parts, ethics, politics, and economics. His works lack the wonderful charm 1 JiemUk, 496 D. , , .• „„h 2 [Nicomachean Ethics, transl. by WelWon. For other translations and bibliography, see my translation of Weber, History of Phdosoph), p. 104. uote4. — Tk.] THE GREEK CONCEPTION 49 of the Platonic expositions, but we are compensated for this loss by a wealth of great thoughts. I shall give an outline of his ethics ; in the main it follows the lines marked out by the Platonic system. He begins with the question concerning the highest good, which all agree to designate as happiness (^evSacfiovla)^ and finds, by means of one of those Socratic inductions which are so common in his writings, that it must consist in the exercise of the specific excellence of the human soul : for, as with a flute-player, a statuary, or any artisan, or in fact anybody who has a definite function and action (Jp^ov re koX irpa^i^^y his goodness or excellence (jayaOov koI to ei5) seems to lie in his function, so it would seem to be with man, if indeed he has a definite function. What, then, is this function or action of man ? Aristotle compares man with organic beings and finds that he shares with all beings the vegetative func- tions, and with all animals sensation and desire, but that he alone possesses reason (^t6 \6yov e%oz/). The peculiar func- tion of man, then, is an activity of soul in accordance with reason, or not independently of reason (^Irv^V'^ ivepyeia Kara \6yov rj fjuT) dvev \6yov). This being so, the good of man is an activity of soul in accordance with virtue, or, if there are more virtues than one, in accordance with the best and most complete virtue.^ Now, that the life which is objectively the best also pro- cures the greatest subjective satisfaction necessarily follows from Aristotle's great psychological generalization : all un- impeded, successful exercise of the powers natural to a being is accompanied with feelings of satisfaction. The limbs take pleasure in the movements, the eye in sight, the flute-player in the music, the orator in the speech, and so every being iu the exercise of its specific function : hence the most pleasura- ble thing for man is the exercise of reason. At the conclusion of the work he again takes up the sub- 1 Nic. Ethics, Book I., chap. 6. "Welldou's translatioa 50 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY ject : ^ Since reason, whether it be divine itself or the most divine part of our being, is the highest function of man, per- fect happiness will consist in the exercise of that which is peculiar to it, that is, theoretical activity. And this is a con« elusion which would seem to agree with our previous argu- ments as well as with the truth itself. For of all activities contemplation is the most continuous and the most inde- pendent of the necessaries of life ; the exercise of the other faculties is dependent upon opportunity, but the wise man is always and under all circumstances capable of speculation himself. It alone is self-sufficient, it alone has its end in itself ; all practical activities, even those of the statesman and general, which are regarded as the highest and most beautiful, have external ends ; contemplation alone is not ex- ercised for the sake of an external end. It is also admitted that there is no virtuous activity so pleasant as philosophic reflection ; at all events it appears that philosophy possesses pleasures of wonderful purity and certainty. " Hence such a life may seem too good for a man. He will enjoy such a life not in virtue of his humanity, but in virtue of some divine element in him. If then the reason is divine in com- parison with the rest of man's nature, the life which accords with reason will be divine in comparison with human life in general. Nor is it right to follow the advice of people who say that the thoughts of men should not be too high for humanity, or the thoughts of humanity too high for mortality ; for a man, as far as in him lies, should seek immortality {aOavari^eLv) and do all in his power to live in accordance with the highest part of his nature." Who does not feel in these words the emotion with which the usually so placid thinker expresses his deepest life- experiences ? To be sure, the purely theoretical life is unattainable by man ; God's life alone consists in pure thought. In man 1 B. X., chap. 7. i \ THE GREEK CONCEPTION 51 reason is inseparably connected with the functions which he possesses in common with the animals and plants, with sen- sation and desire, with nutrition and reproduction. From this it follows that human life is confronted with a number of problems, which may be characterized in general as the organization of the lower functions by reason and in harmony with the ends of reason. Thus arise the so-called ethical virtues or excellences, which are distinguished from the in- tellectual or theoretical virtues. There will therefore be as many ethical virtues as there are separate spheres of problems arising from the sensuous side of human nature. Among them we may mention: our attitude to the animal desires, our behavior with respect to economic commodities, honor, anger, fear, social and economic intercourse with men, etc. There is a virtue for every sphere. Virtuous conduct in reference to the satisfaction of animal desires is so-called healthy-mindedness {aa)(f)pop6vvp6vr^6acv is equal to rh Karh r^v W ZiOL^elaOaC), But man is endowed with reason (o X070O, besides impulse ; hence to live according to nature means for him to live according to reason (Kara Xoyov'), for reason is by nature the regulator of desire (X6709 rex^lrv^ iirLylveraLrv, opar,,:) It would be contrary to nature for man to follow irrational desire. - But in so far as the nature of each individual being is determined by the nature of the All, to live according to reason means for man : to obey the umversal law or, which is the same thing, Jupiter, the highest regula- tor and ruler — And this is eudcemonia and welfare iebpoia Tov ^lov), namely to do everything in harmony with our demon, according to the will of the universal governor and manager of all things. And the natural disposition of every being is its virtue or perfection (reXelayai,) ; and this we oucrht to seek for its own sake, without being influenced by the fear or hope of any external effects : for it is in it that happiness consists.- If now we call a man who lives accord- ing to reason a wise man, we may say : The wise man, and the wise man alone, is virtuous and happy. These thoughts may all be regarded as applications and, in part, more definite expressions of Aristotelian principles. Reference is often made to the rigorism of the Stoic ethics, which holds that virtue alone is a good, but this is, m the last analysis, exactly what Plato and Aristotle teach : that happiness does not consist in pleasure, but in the exercise of THE GREEK CONCEPTION 55 virtue. Nor is there any radical difference in their concep- tions of the value of the so-called external goods, wealth, health, beauty, fame, etc. The Stoics will not concede that these things are real goods : in themselves they are neither useful nor harmful, good or bad, but either one or the other, according to the use to which they are put, while that only is good which can never be harmful, but only useful. Yet they confess that they are not absolutely indifferent, that wealth is preferable to poverty, health to sickness {irpor^y^ieva — a'iro'7rpo7)y/ieva}. These, too, are at bottom merely systemat- ized, technical statements of Aristotelian ideas. Aristotle had used an admirable figure in defining the value of external goods: they are for life what the x^PVJ^^ is for the tragedy, hence they certainly belong to the perfect happiness of life, just as the x^PVJ^^ is necessary to the perfect production of the tragedy, without, however, forming a real part of happiness. It seems, however, that the desire gradually grew stronger in the Stoics to make happiness (evBatfiovia) absolutely inde- pendent of external goods. The freedom from passions QjrdOrf) which are aroused in the soul by the acquisition and loss, the possession and want, of external goods, the doctrine that virtue suffices for happiness, old and legitimate concep- tions of Greek ethics, are emphasized more and more as moral philosophy becomes moral preaching. The practical moralist's most thankful and fruitful task is to throw man upon his own inner resources, and this task the Stoic philos- ophy accomplished with laudable skill : nowhere shall we find more forcible exhortations to make ourselves independent of the things which are not in our power, and to depend upon ourselves with inner freedom, than in Epictetus's little Manual} With this tendency to moral preaching is connected an- other element in the Stoic philosophy : the value of theoreti- 1 See Long's translation. 56 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY cal activity is lessened, while the exercise of the ethical virtues, the field of action, especially action dealing with human relations, the family and the state, gradually becomes more prominent. But the demand that we keep ourselves free remains the chief and the highest demand. 6. Epicurus,^ too, and his disciples are in search of the highest good and find it in eudaemonia; but their defini- tion of it differs from that of the philosophers mentioned above, nay, even from the popular Greek conception: for them eudaemonia is a feeling of pleasure. This view leads to a change in the position of virtue or excellence : virtue becomes a means to the end of pleasure.^ The difference between the two standpoints is perfectly apparent. The Stoics agree with Aristotle and Plato in defin- ing happiness as an objective condition of the soul: a life that realizes the natural purpose of man, or perfectly realizes his idea, is itself the highest good. To be sure, the subjective satisfaction follows the objective constitution, as the shadow follows the body, but the satisfaction is not itself the good. The Epicureans, on the other hand, regard the feelings of pleasure which life procures as the good itself, and the con- stitution or character of which they are the effect, as the means. When we disregard this question of principle and examine the counsels which Epicurus gives to his pupils concerning their mode of life (for example in his letter to Menoikeus) ^ the difference largely disappears, yes, we might almost be tempted to view it as a purely scholastic or technical differ- ence. Epicurus by no means advises us to choose every pleasure, nay, he expressly warns us against it. "When, 1 [Diogenes Laertius, X. ; Cicero, De Jinihus ; Lucretius, De rerum natura (translated hy Munro). Bibliography in Weber-Thilly, p. 194, note 1.] 2 Kcistlin shows us in his excellent exposition of the Democritean ethics, Geschichte der Efhik, I., 196, how, even in his ethics, Epicurus was forestalled by the forceful thinker whom he followed in his physics, Demorritus. » Diogenes Laertius, translation by Yonge in Bohn's library, X., 122-125. THE GREEK CONCEPTION 57 therefore, we say that pleasure is a chief good, we are not speaking of the pleasures of the debauched man, or those who lie in sensual enjoyment, as some think who are ignorant, and who do not entertain our opinions, or else interpret them per- versely ; but we mean the freedom of the body from pain, and of the soul from confusion." By happiness, he says, he means the health of the body and the freedom from disquiet- ude of the soul {rr^v Tov (TcofiaTop6v'n(TL^), on which ac- count prudence is something more valuable than even phil- osophy, inasmuch as all the other virtues spring from it, teaching us that it is not possible to live pleasantly unless one also lives prudently, and honorably, and justly ; and that one cannot live prudently, and honestly, and justly without living pleasantly, for the virtues are connate with living agreeably, and living agreeably is inseparable from the vFrtues." And so Epicurus, too, reaches the popular Greek conception that virtue and happiness are inseparable, as the line in the poem expresses it : *Qff ayaBoi re /cm evbaificov afia ylverai dvf}p. 7. Summarizing the main features of Greek ethics, we may say : It agrees with the popular Greek view that the highest good consists in the perfection of man as a natural heing. Special stress is laid upon the development of the intellectual side. Even the popular conception recognizes the great im- portance of the intellect for human perfection, a fact to which the above mentioned work of L. Schmidt on the popular morality of the Greeks repeatedly calls attention.^ The philosophers, the specific types of the Greek people, as the prophets are of the Israelites, go still further, and make reason the root and crown of all human excellence. For them wisdom or philosophy is both the means and the content of THE GREEK CONCEPTION 69 1 De rerum natura. 2 I., 156, 230ff. eudcemonia — the former, in so far as it acquaints us with the highest good and regulates practical life to the end of realizing it, the latter, in so far as philosophy, or the scien- tific contemplation of the universe, is the highest, freest func- tion of human nature, one that is desired solely for its own sake. It is said that Anaxagoras, being once asked for what end he had been born, answered : " For the contemplation of the sun, and moon, and heaven, and the order governing the entire universe." This is really the answer which the entire Greek philosophy, and the Greek mind in general, gives to the question. At first sight, the conception strikes us as a rather strange one. We are not in the habit of attaching so much impor- tance to the intellectual function ; we neither expect that prudence or insight will always result in right action, nor are we ready to believe that the true mission of man consists in the contemplation of things, or in philosophy. Perhaps we shall understand both points better when we remember how different was the position occupied by scientific knowl- edge among the Greeks from that which it holds in modern life. In our world not only the so-called learned professions, but even scientific research itself, which has been organized by the state in universities and academies, have become branches of industry. As is the case with the manufacture of shoes and watches, a man may, at present, make his liv- ing, and a good living at that, under favorable conditions, by turning out mathematical and philological, scientific and philosophical investigations. This was not the case in Greece, at least not when philosophy first arose. The philosophers emphatically declare that scientific contemplation and pro- fessionalism are absolutely incompatible : the Sophist who attempts to combine them, thereby loses philosophy ; he is, as Plato shows with bitter sarcasm in his Sophist, a dealer in sham wisdom. Heraclitus and Parmenidcs, Plato and Aris- totle, did not engage in the contemplation of reality for the 60 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY THE GREEK CONCEPTION 61 , « n sake of acquiring money or professorships, but solely for its own sake : we work, says Aristotle, in order to have leisure, but the most beautiful way of filling our leisure is philosophy. This difference in the outward position of scientific research is intimately connected with its altered inner constitution; modern scientific research, is, as compared with Greek phil- osophy, more like labor, often like petty and arduous labor. The physical or historical investigator of our time employs an enormous apparatus of learning and technical skill, col- lections and instruments, in order to throw light upon some obscure nook of reality which is of little interest in itself, and does not even interest the investigator very much. The result of his work may at some time, in some connection or other, assist us somewhat in miderstanding reality ; often we cannot see the connection, and it is absolutely immaterial to many an investigator whether his work will contribute any- thing to our knowledge of the whole or not. The Greek philosophers, on the other hand, were happy in the belief that it was possible, and that each one of them would be able to unravel the ultimate mysteries of the uni- verse by pure contemplation. Even Aristotle, the great observer, declares that of all activities, scientific investigation is in least need of external aids; so convinced is he that the apparatus of research is a purely secondary affair. It is plain that a theoretical function which aims to solve all the great problems of the universe and of life with its world-encompass- ing thoughts, has greater significance for the personal life of a man than the investigation of Plautinic metres and the discovery of new methyls and phenyls. When the occupation with such things becomes a sport and is pursued as a sport, it may, like all sports, chess-playing or stamp-collecting, become a matter of immediate interest; but a man will hardly be inclined to regard such work, even though he fol- lows it permanently, as the real object of his existence. If, however, we could hope to unravel the mysteries of tlie world and of life by studying philosophy, who would not be inter- ested in it, who would regard it as too trivial? "Let no one," so Epicurus begins the letter quoted above, " delay to study philosophy while he is young, and when he is old let him not become weary of the study ; for no man can ever find the time unsuitable or too late to study the health of his soul. And he who asserts either that it is not yet time to philosophize, or that the hour is passed, is like a man who should say that the time is not yet come to be happy, or that it is too late." The belief in the irresistible power of knowledge, which is expressed in the Socratic statement that knowledge deter- mines conduct, for it is inconceivable that any one should do what he himself regards as wrong (a statement which reap- pears in some form or other in all the philosophers), has manifestly a great deal to do with the position which philos- ophy occupied in the intellectual life of the Greeks. We are perfectly aware that a man may know what to do and still not do it. From our earliest childhood we have been told and have known that we ought not to requite evil with evil but with good, even in the case of our enemies — but who acts accord- ingly ? But, Socrates would have asked us, what do you mean by " knowing " ? Surely not the ability to repeat a lot of words after a person ? For me only a living conviction is knowledge. — " Knowledge," as we often understand it, was something wholly foreign to the Greeks : they had no school instruction in which the memory was crammed with the " knowledge" of others, particularly no instruction in morals and religion. But whenever moral maxims and judgments were inculcated in their youth, as, for example, by the study of Homer, they embodied ethical conceptions which were thoroughly intelligible to the natural man. They did not discriminate, as we do, between a moral creed conned by rote and a morality of the heart. — When, however, his reflec- tions carried a philosopher beyond the popular conceptions 62 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY to new views; when Socrates, for example, found that it was not as disgraceful to suffer injustice as to do injustice, these were not mere empty words for school children to learn by heart, but represented the personal convictions of the thinker, which could not fail to influence him in his actions. And when Epictetus tells his pupils that the wise man is independent of fate, because everything that really concerns him is in his power, while wliatever is not in his power does not concern him, his words are not merely intended to be memorized and recited at confirmations or at final college examinations, but they stand for real experiences, and are therefore capable of arousing strong convictions. Hence 1 am inclined to believe that there was for the Greeks, and particularly for the Greek philosophers, more truth in the proposition. No one is voluntarily bad, than it seems to us to contain. Mere school and word knowledge, of course, is powerless, but real knowledge, knowledge that represents real personal convictions, cannot fail to influence life. Scientific research, therefore, or philosophy, occupied a position in the personal life of the Greek philosophers which it does not necessarily hold at present, the position, namely, of an end-in-itself . But another factor helped to make spec- ulative life valuable. For the Greek, practical life was syn- onymous with political life. He entertained a low opinion of industrial activity, it was regarded as vulgar ; even the pro- fession of the artist did not escape his contempt.^ No one 1 This is clearly shown in a little treatise of Lucian's, The Dream, a work, by the way, which is very characteristic of the Greek mode of thought. Science and Art appear in a dream before the boy Lucian ; each tries to persuade him to devote himself to her. In response to the speech of Plastic Art, who holds that she has a claim upon him, because his ancestors were followers of hers. Science answers : " You have heard from this person here what advan- tages you could hope to obtain if you were to become a stone-mason. You would eventually be nothing more than an obscure manual laborer, who depends solely upon his hands for his success, receiving not much more pay than a day-laborer, base and narrow in your mode of thought, having no influence in tho THE GREEK CONCEPTION 63 ever dreamed of doing deeds of charity, to which Christian orders devote themselves. Statesmanship, political and mili- tary leadership, was the only profession left. Now, public life in the smaller Grecian city-states had reached such a stage, since the fifth century, that it is not hard to understand why an honest man should have lost all desire to have anything to do with it. The popular assemblies and law-courts were the battle-grounds on which the party-leaders and orators waged bitter war against each other ; they strug- gled to get hold of " the latch of legislation," the decree of the people, in order that they might kill their opponents, or banish them and confiscate their property. The execution of Socrates luridly shows the horrible state of insecurity prevailing in the Greek cities ; it is as though a band of half-grown boys had obtained possession of the sword of the magistracy and were now playing havoc with it. In- deed, this is exactly the impression of Greek political life which we get from the history of Thucydides ; the cities and the parties in every city spent their time in aimless and repul- sive bickerings, they exhibited such baseness and malice, such cruelty and vindictiveness towards the vanquished, as would fill us with aversion, were it not for our deep sympathy with a nation otherwise so gloriously endowed. We can easily understand why men who scrupled against employing the means with which battles were waged and victories won in the popular assemblage, decided to have nothing whatever to do with politics; most of the later philosophers followed the example of Plato, " who, in the storm of dust and sleet state, equally incapable of making yourself useful to your friends and dangerous to your enemies. — And suppose you should become a Phidias or a Polyclet, and had created a great number of admirable works, every one who saw them would, it is true, extol your art, but surely no one among all your admirers would, so long as he was in his right mind, desire to be wliat you are. For, however great you iiii^lit become in your line, you would always be regarded as a miserable handicraftsman, who is compelled to make his living by the work of his hands." These remarks express Lucian's own view, which was evidently the fiew of all cultured Greeks. 64 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY which the driving wind hurries along, retiring under the shelter of a wall," withdrew from public life. Reflections upon the theme that the philosopher cannot be a politician (toi/ aofov fjL^ 7ro\vT€V€(T0aO are common among the later philosophers. Hence there was but one thing left to them — philosophy. CHAPTER II THE CHRISTIAN CONCEPTION OF LIFEi 1. The conversion of the ancient world to Christianitv was the greatest revolution which European humanity experienced. It meant the complete overthrow of all their theories of life, the " transformation of all values " (Die Umwertung alter Werte)^ to use Nietzsche's expression. In order to draw the lines as sharply as possible, I shall attempt, first of all, to con- trast the Christian doctrine of self-denial in its harsh grandeur with the Greek doctrine of self-preservation. The world always tends to compromises and conciliations ; they are not wanting in ancient Christianity, and in the Middle Ages they are very common, still more so in the development of the Christianity of modern times, as will be seen later on. Here I should like to accentuate the fundamental difference between the Greek and the Christian conception — sharply and one- sidedly if you please — as Christianity itself conceived it at its entrance into the ancient world. The Greek affirmation of the world ( Welthejahung') and the Christian negation of the world (Weltiiberwindung^, these are the two paths open to man.^ ^ [See, besides the works of Sidgwick, Wundt, Jodl, Janet, Eucken, mentioned on p. 35 : Gass, Geschichte der christlichen Ethih ; Bestmann, Geschichte der christlichen Sitte; Ziegler, Geschichte der christlichen Ethik ; Luthardt, Geschichte der christlichen Ethik ; Lecky, History of European Morals ; Ueberweg, History of Philosophy, vol. II., §§ 4 and 5 ; Baur, Das Christenthum der drei ersten Jahr- hunderte (Engl, transl. by Allan Menzies) ; Harnack, Dogmengeschichte ; Fisher, The Beginnings of Christianity. Consult also the standard Lives of Christ and church histories. For further bibliographical references, see the beginning of the second volume of Ueberweg ; also Weber-Thilly, p. 9, note 2. — Tr.] ^ The exposition which follows has been criticised, on the ground that it rep- resents Christianity as a weak, meek, world-weary, down-trodden, ascetic affair. That is not the impression which I intended to create. Christianity was at first 66 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY The Greeks regarded the perfect development of the natural powers of man as the great aim of life. Christianity, on the other hand, clearly and consciously sets up the opposite as the goal of life : the death of the natural, and the resurrection of a new, supernatural man. " Except a man be born again," so Christ teaches Nicodemus, "he cannot see the kingdom of God " ; the repentance QierdvoLo) which Christ demands, with John the Baptist,^ is in truth a regeneration. The old and the new man are opposed to each other as the flesh (jrdp^^ and the spirit {irvevfia)!^ Paul logically defines this antithe- sis : there is a twofold life, the life after the flesh and the life after the spirit ; the former the life of the natural man, the latter, the effect of grace ; the former intent upon perishable things and leading to death, the latter turned toward eternity and leading to eternal life : " for he that soweth to his flesh Bhall of the flesh reap corruption ; but he that soweth to the spirit shall of the spirit reap life everlasting." ^ The new life is the death of the old ; through the spirit the deeds of the hody are mortified.* This character of the new religion is expressed in its sacred acts. We enter into Christianity through baptism; it is called by Paul a likeness (o/Aotw/Lta) ^ of the death of Jesus ; certainly not a negative, but a very positive thing ; it was not characterized by feelings of depression and dejection, but by a feeling of cheerful certainty, the certainty of possessing a treasure beyond all other treasures. And from this conviction sprang the proud feeling of freedom, with which the Christian opposed the " world " and its regulations, society and its conventional values, the law and its pedantic formalism. — But my main purpose here was to contrast it sharply with the Greek conception of life and morality, and hence I first considered Christianity from its negative side, the side which distinguishes it as something entirely new in the world. Besides, Christianity now and then becomes conscious of its original negative relation to the " world" and the kingdom which is of this world, and so, in my opinion, regains some of its pristine essence and strength. A Christianity entirely reconciled and at peace with the world is a weak and powerless affair, and surely not the real and original Christianity. True Chris- tianity may always be recognized by the fact that it seems strange and danger- ous to the world. 1 Math., iv., 17. 2 John, iii., 6. * Rom., riii., 13. » Gal., vi., 8. ' Bom., vi., 5. THE CHRISTIAN CONCEPTION 67 a very intelligible symbol, so long as Christianity was at war with the world ; it was a serious reminder of the bloody bap- tism which might follow the water baptism. The other sacra- ment is no less suggestive of death ; by eating the body and drinking the blood of Jesus, the believers celebrate the mem- ory of his sacrificial death, themselves forming a community consecrated to a bloody sacrifice. It is likewise worthy of note that the new churches usually also served as burial- places, that the bones of the martyrs were interred in the altar itself. The natural man dreads contact with death ; it is a pollution, according to the Greek as well as the Jewish con- ception, even in the religious sense, while to the Christian, death is a familiar thought; it is the entrance into life. 2. The entire Christian life is permeated with this concep- tion. What the old or the natural man desires or values is regarded by the new man as worthless or dangerous; and conversely, the sufferings and privations which the former seeks to escape, the latter regards as salutary and beneficial. Let me point out the main differences between the two theories of life. The perfection and exercise of the intellectual capacities seemed to the Greeks a highly important, to their philosophers an absolutely necessary, function of human life. The attitude of primitive Christianity towards reason and natural knowl- edge is one of contempt and distrust. The poor in spirit are blessed by Jesus; the people who follow him are poor and uncultured; what is hidden from the wise and prudent is revealed to children. Nay, natural reason and wisdom are really a stumbling-block to the kingdom of God, the preach- ing of the cross is foolishness to it. " Where is the wise ? " Paul asks the congregation at Corinth,^ '* where is the scribe ? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased 1 1 Cor, l, 20. 68 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that The church did not strictly adhere to this view ; as a church she could not adhere to it. When she began to dominate the entire life of the peoples, she was compelled to press into her service the most important instrument of temporal power, knowledge. But primitive Christianity stood in no posi- tive relation to worldly, scientific knowledge. « The form of a servant, the spiritual form, disappeared in the third century when brilliant teachers of the church and even rich bishops appeared ; but in its poor form Christianity overcame the world " 1 And wc may note the after-effects of this original relation in the entire history of the Christian church life : I am thinking not merely of the Christian's distrust of scientific investigation and the law of obedience, which the intellect, too, was expected to observe - a law, it is true, which often sprang from very worldly motives — but, above all, of that simplicity of heart which always succeeded in minimizing, among all true believers in Christ, those differences of culture and knowledge, which hinder the free interchange of thought in the personal intercourse of the worldly-minded. And deeply religious natures have always shown an aversion to puffed-up learning, to the spirit of criticism and negation, which springs from arrogance and begets arrogance, to the mama for systems, and to scientific pride. ' Hence the virtues of the intellect, freedom and boldness of thought and the power to doubt, the vital principle of scien- tific research, are, in the eyes of primitive Christianity; worthless and dangerous. Faith and obedience are becoming to the Christian. 3. Like the virtues of the intellect, so are also the ethical virtues of the Greeks, which are nothing but natural impulses educated and disciplined by the reason, worthless and dan- gerous, according to the conception of primitive Christianity ; I Hase, Kirchengeschichte, 1, 258. THE CHRISTIAN CONCEPTION 69 the more dangerous because they seem good : they are splen- did vices. " Though it may seem laudable that the soul govern the body, and reason the vicious impulses, yet the soul and reason itself, cannot by any means, unless it serve God, as God himself has prescribed it, govern them in the right way. For what kind of a lord of the body and of the vices can a mind be, which, being ignorant of the true God and not sub- ject to his governance, is prostituted and corrupted by the demons polluted with all the vices ? And the virtues them- selves, if they bear no relation to God, are in truth vices rather than virtues ; for althougli they are regarded by many as truly moral when they are desired as ends in themselves and not for the sake of something else, they are, ncA^crtheless, inflated and arrogant (inflatce ac superhce)^ and therefore not to be viewed as virtues but as vices." This is St. Augustine's opinion of all purely human virtues.^ 4. In the opinion of the natural man, courage is the chief 1 De Civitate Dei, xix., 25. — In his Confessions he moralizes upon his own past life from this standpoint : everything natural and human in it was an alienation from God and therefore reprehensible. With tiresome monotony he passes from cue period of his life to the other, and shows the emptiness and baseness of all tliose acts of his which sprang from his natural impulses. That the nursling cried for the breast, that the boy took pleasure in his sports and the youth in rhetorical exercises, that he was ambitious for distinction and fame, that he was devoted to friends and followed liis natural sexual impulses, that he admired distinguished teachers and dedicated his maiden works to a revered man, that as a teacher he gathered young men about him and joyfully and zealously instructed them in knowledge and in eloquence, that he passionately searched for the truth and believed that he would find it in the philosophers : all this he now condemns from his newly acquired Christian-ecclesiastical standpoint : it was nothing but vanity, foolishness, and carnal corruption. One point alone, which the purely human judgment would perhaps regard as the blackest spot in the previous life of the Saint, he passes over without a single word of blame; his resolution, namely, to abandon a woman who had been his mistress for years, and who had borne him a son, and, at the instigation of his mother, to marry a woman of his own rank. This resolution — which his mistress prevented him from carrying out — this intended act of faithlessness to a woman whom he loved, but could not marry for social reasons, he passes over without a complaint, without a word of self-reproach, only to condemn himself violently immediately after for his in- ability to resist his longing for her even after the separation. So completely do his feelings differ from the natural human feelings. 70 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOrHY virtue ; it is, as Greek and Roman popular usage implies, the virtue or excellence as such, and its absence is equivalent to absolute unworthiness. Courage is based upon the impulse of self-preservation ; it ensures the success of the ego and its claims in the struggle with those opposing it. The Christian, .vho obeys the law of God, - resists not evil," he does not combat it, but endures it ; patience or patient waiting {vTrofiovv) is his courage. He does not wield the sword. The sword is the instrument by which to obtain one's share of the world ; the Christian has and desires no part in the world; his heritage is in the future world, it cannot be won or lost by the sword. The old church is thoroughly imbued with the thought that a Christian cannot wield the sword. Even though the times soon accommodated themselves to the necessities of life, we can hardly suppose that they did so without some misgivings. Christian soldiers were, beyond doubt, regarded as an anomaly in the congregation, during the earlier centuries. Tertullian expresses the conviction of the primitive Christian, though in a more emphatic and categorical manner, when he says : '' It is impossible to swear fealty to God and to man, to serve under the banner of Christ and under the standard of the devil, in the camp of light and in the camp of darkness ; one soul cannot serve two masters, God and the Emperor. When the Lord deprived Peter of the sword, he disarmed all." ^ It surely seemed an absolute con- tradiction for a clericus to wear the sword. Among all the sects which renew the old Christian mode of life, the dread of shedding blood at once reappears in its original strength. The same feeling asserts itself against capital punishment. How far removed the modern world is from the old Christian conception is perhaps nowhere so clearly seen as here : the fear of the sword and of bloodshed has wholly disappeared — disappeared even from the church. The great military heroes are the national saints of the modern nations, the 1 De idohhitria, chapter 19. THE CHRISTIAN CONCEPTION 71 anniversaries of victorious battles are celebrated as public holidays, the streets and squares of our cities are named after bloody battle-fields. In the schools our children learn the history of wars, which comprises the chief part of the history of mankind ; the victories of our nation over our neighbors are regarded as its most important and grandest achievements. In the churches prayers are offered every Sunday for the royal arms on water and on land. The modern Christian has no fault to find with all this — a sure sign that he differs from the primitive Christian, who proved his courage solely by his patient suffering and heroic martyrdom. ^ 5. Related to the virtue of courage is the virtue of justice, by which we mean that strong sense of justice which every- where insists upon the right, the right of others as well as of self. Not to do wrong is one side of justice ; its comple- ment is not to permit wrong to be done, cither to self or to others. This is what the Greeks and Romans understood by the duty of justice, and so Jhering has recently interpreted it in his book. The Battle for the Right? The law-suit, or the legal battle for the right, is the civil form of self-preser- vation and self-assertion, of which the sword is the military form. Primitive Christianity does not recognize justice in this sense as a virtue ; it is acquainted with only one side of it, with the duty not to do wrong, not with the duty not to per- mit wrong. It does not say : If a man injures you and tram- ples upon your rights, you ought or are allowed to resist him by lawful means ; but the law of Moses : An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, is expressly abrogated and replaced by a new law : " But I say unto you, that ye resist not evil (to) TTovrjpui), but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue thee at law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak 1 [See Herbert Spencer, Inductions of Ethics, §§ 115, 118, 192. — Tr.] 2 Der Kampfums Recht. 72 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY also, and whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain." ^ And a few verses further back we read : 2 « Agree with thine adversary (tc5 avTiBlKO)) quickly, while thou art in the way with him." Hence not only anger and hatred and private revenge, but law-suits are explicitly pro- hibited. This is also St. Paul's notion of it : he strictly for- bids the Corinthians to go to law before heathen judges, before the unjust, who arc not esteemed in the church: " Is it so that there is not a wise man among you ? no, not one that shall be able to judge between his brethren ? " And then he proceeds: "Now therefore there is utterly a fault among you, because ye go to law with one another. Why do ye not rather take wrong ? Why do ye not rather suffer yourselves to be defrauded ? " ^ Even though this law was not always observed among the old Christians, it was undoubtedly recognized as binding ; they felt the same dread of the law- suit as a means of defending their individual rights as of the sword.* In this respect, too, the difference between modern and primitive Christianity is apparent enough. We regard it as the most natural thing in the world to go to law for our rights, or to turn over to the judge for punishment a man who has damaged our body and life, our honor and property. I am not saying that this is right or wrong ; all I mean to imply is that in doing these things we are undoubtedly acting contrary to the spirit of primitive Christianity. 6. This determined the attitude of the Christian towards 1 Matt., v., 38-41. * Verse 25. « 1 Cor vi., 7. * It must be confessed, however, that a passage in the Gospel (A/a«., xviu.. 1.5-17) inclines to a more positive treatment of this side of life : " Moreover, if thy brotlier shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone : if he sliall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother. But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee .one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established. And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church ; but if he ne-lcct to hear the church, let him be unto thee as a heatlien man and a publican." However, not a smgle word is said of the law-suit and the law. THE CHRISTIAN CONCEPTION 73 the state. The Greek and Roman regarded participation in the affairs of state as the highest and most important duty of man. The primitive Christian, who did not value the fund- amental political virtues, courage and the sense of justice, looked upon the state as something alien to himself and the inner principle of his life : in the state men wrangle over the things of this world, employing the means of this world ; war and courts of justice are its two fundamental functions. The primitive Christian's attitude to this entire institution was one of forbearance. He formed a part of it, as he formed a part of the world in general, as a stranger and a pilgrim ; he had even less interest in it than the member of another state. — As a passive citizen, however, his conduct was exemplary : he was obedient in all things which were not contrary to his divine mission ; he willingly paid taxes ; he obeyed all laws which prohibited wrong-doing, not only on account of the punishment, but for conscience' sake, and in so far as the magistracy realized justice, it was recognized as the order and instrument of God. When, however, he was asked to act in vio- lation of his conscience, then, of course, he could not obey 5 he would not sacrifice to the gods or to the Emperor, nor swear in their name ; he thereby declared that there was something higher for him than the state, namely the kingdom of God, of which he considered himself a citizen, and he would allow no command of earthly rulers to turn him aside from the duties which this citizenship imposed upon him. But here, too, he rendered obedience in so far as he accepted the punishment which was inflicted upon him, without opposition and complaint. Hence the Christians were both submissive to authority and yet inwardly free in their attitude to the state, something which the ancient citizen neither could be nor cared to be. — Can a Christian be an officer of the state ? In the earlier times there was little occasion for discussing the question : it was not the powerful and the noble after the flesh who first came to the community of Christ, but the ignoble and the despised in the 74 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY eyes of the world. It would undoubtedly have been regarded as a strange contradiction to serve both the crucified one and the lord of this world. In Tertullian the spirit of primitive Christianity strongly protests against the gradual seculariza- tion of the church. " By despising the power and the glory of this world," he declares,^ "the Lord rejected it and condemned it, and reckoned it among the things which are the pride of the devil. If they were his, he would not have condemned them ; but that which is not of God can belong to no one but the devil. And this, too, may remind you that all the powers and dignitaries of this world are not only foreign to God, but hostile to him, the fact namely, that they condemn the servants of God to death, but forget the punishments which are intended for criminals." Even as late as the year 305 the synod of Elvira decreed : Whoever holds the office of duumvir must stand aloof from the church during his term of office.2 Not until the conversion of Constantino, when Christianity became a state religion, did a complete change take place : now the officers of the state became the repre- sentatives and the defenders of " Christianity," and the clergy in a sense became state officers. And at present many are perhaps inclined to believe, reversing the words of Paul ,8 that the preservation of Christianity is the especial business of the wise and powerful, the cultured and high-born, and that it would die out if the princes and lords of this world and their servants did not take care of it. 7. The fourth cardinal virtue, after wisdom, courage, and justice, is, according to the Greek conception, <7(o(t)poavp7]^ or temperance. It is the state of the healthy-minded man, who understands the art of moderate and beautiful enjoyment, and can also do without things when necessary. Greek education endeavored to cultivate this virtue : by means of the gym- 1 De idol., chap. 18. 2 Uhlhorn, Die christliche Liehesthdtiqheit in der alien Kirche, p. 356. See also Gass, Geschichte der christlichen Ethik (1881), i., 92 ff. 8 1 Cor., i. 26. THE CHRISTIAN CONCEPTION 75 nastic and musical arts, the two phases of education, it strove to inculcate in the body and the soul of the young the power of self-control and the faculty of enjoying themselves beautifully. The gymnastic and musical contests formed the climax of national pleasure ; to participate in them, as a competitor for the wreath and as a spectator, was culture (Traihevaisi). The attitude of primitive Christianity towards enjoyment was an entirely different one, and hence could not recognize this virtue, or only recognize its negative side, as in the case of justice : the ability to resist the allurements of pleasure. The Christian fled from earthly-sensuous pleasure in every form; even though it might not be sinful in itself, it was too apt to endanger the soul, by fettering it to that which is earthly and perishable, and impeding the free flight of the spirit to eternity. With fearful earnestness Jesus commands us to pluck out and cast from us every member that offends us : for it is better to enter into glory lame and disfigured and without eyes, " than that thy whole body should be cast into hell." " Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world." So the Apostle John ad- monishes the Christians in his first letter, debarring not merely coarse sensuous pleasure, but also aesthetical pleasure (the lust of the eyes) and everything that makes this life glorious and grand (aXa^oveCa tov filov) in the eyes of the children of this world. So, too, the first letter of Peter i beseeches the brethren : as strangers and pilgrims to abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul. And Paul does not weary of admonishing those who are of Christ to crucify the flesh. Nowhere, however, are we exhorted to make the body and the soul capable of enjoying the beautiful pleasures of life, or to train the physical and spiritual powers for par- 1 i\ ii., 11. 76 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY ticipation in gymnastic exercises and games, or in the cheerful play of poetry and art. The education of a Christian has an entirely different object in view from tlie education of the Greek : it must open our eyes to the vanity and transitoriness of this life, and to its awful seriousness, inasmuch as the eternal life depends upon how we live here. Musical and gymnastic arts, however, are not suited to prepare us for eternal life ; they are sown in the flesh and are raised in cor- ruption. How can a Christian who aspires to the imperish- able crown strive after the virtues by which wreaths arc won at heathen games ? Who can lind pleasure in the fables of the poets, when he can hear the words of the Lord and the apostles ? How can he strive for " culture " who is struo-crlino- for "holiness"? All this is so self-evident that it does not even have to be mentioned : in a true Christian even the desire for such things is inconceivable. Among the Christians it is not culture and eloquence that are prized, but silence. Silence is the first duty recommended by Ambrosius in his work on the duties of the clergy : ^ "It is written : By thy words thou shalt be condemned. Hence why wilt thou rush into the danger of perdition by speaking, when thou mayst be safe by keeping silence ? I have seen many fall into sin by speaking, but hardly a single one by keeping silence. Hence he is wise who can be silent." And soon after he says : ^ " There may be decent and amiable jests, but they are not compatible with the rules of the church ; how can we make use of that which does not appear in the Scriptures. We must also avoid the fables of the poets, lest they weaken the firmness of our resolutions. Woe unto you that laugh now, for ye shall mourn and weep : so says the Lord ; and shall we seek for matter to laugh at here that we may weep hereafter ? I believe we must not only avoid wanton jests, but all jests; one thing alone is proper: a mouth full of sweetness and grace." 1 De off. ministrorum, I., 2. * Li 23. THE CHRISTIAN CONCEPTION 77 8. This also determines the attitude of Christianity to earthly goods. Since wealth is, first of all, a means to sen- suous good living, and secondly, to beautiful enjoyment and culture, he who does not value these things, cannot approve of the means which make them possible. Riches have no value for the Christian ; he has enough when he possesses what suffices to satisfy his daily needs. But riches are not only worthless, they are dangerous. There is, of course, nothing sinful in possession as such, in itself it is abso- lutely indifferent; but wealth is a serious menace to the owner, in so far as it constantly tempts him to use it, and thus enslaves the soul. Nothing recurs so frequently in the Gospels as the warning against the dangers of riches. It seems almost impossible to Jesus that a rich man should enter into the kingdom of God ; it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. Wealth makes us eager for this world and careless of the hereafter, as the rich man learned when he reaped a good harvest and soon began to meditate what to do and where to bestow his fruits ; wealth sates us and makes us indifferent to the wants of our neighbors, as Dives learned before whose door poor Lazarus lay ; wealth alienates God from us, for he allows no other God beside himself: ye cannot serve God and mammon. Therefore, Jesus commanded his disciples that they should take noth- ing for their journey : no scrip, no bread, no money in their purse, when he sent them out to preach ; and it surely was not an accident that Judas, who carried the purse, most likely because he was the ablest financier of the twelve, should have turned traitor. Hence the urgent entreaty to the good young man to give up his riches : " Go thy way, sell whatever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven." Interpreters of the Gospel are in the habit of protesting against the misconception that Christ actually commanded the young man to give up his riches. Clement of Alexandria 78 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY early pointed out, in his discussion of the question, What Rich Man will be Saved? that the command to sell everything and give to the poor, did not mean, as some hastily assume, that he should abandon his possessions, but merely his false opinions with respect to them, his love and greed for them. This ingenious discovery has been made over and over again. According to the same art of interpretation, we might reason : When a mother tells her child who has taken hold of a sharp knife, to lay the knife aside, this does not mean that he should put it down, but only that he should not cut himself with it ; that he may keep the knife. — Would the young man have gone away grieved if Jesus himself had thus interpreted his saying for him ? I believe he would at once have replied : "This have I observed from my youth." Here, again, I am not deciding whether the command of Jesus ought to be obeyed, or whether it could possibly be obeyed universally ; 1 am simply defending its true and un- mistakable meaning against all sorts of interpretations which attempt to bring the Gospel into harmony with the world. We hear it said that the fulfilment of this law would destroy our entire civilized life. It is very probable that it would. But what does that prove? Where is it written that it should be preserved ? Tertullian answers the objection of those who refused to obey the law against the pursuit of handicrafts or trades relating to heathen worship, on the ground that they must live, by asking the question: Must you live ? What companionship have you with God, if you desire to live according to your own laws ? You will suffer want? But the Lord calls those that suffer blessed. You cannot support yourselves ? But the Lord says : Take no thought for your life ; consider the lilies of the field. 9. Let us now compare the Greek with the Christian view of honor. According to the Greek conception, the love of honor is a virtue : the just man desires to be the first in his sphere (irpayTeveiv), and to be esteemed as such. Noble pride, THE CHRISTIAN CONCEPTION 79 high-mindedness (fieyaXoyfrv^Ca), is the intensification of the proper love of honor. The high-minded man regards himself as worthy of high things, and is worthy of them : so Aristotle defines him, completing the picture with many delicate touches.^ The virtue of the Christian is humility. Once, when a quarrel arose among the disciples about the highest places in the new kingdom, Jesus rebuked them ; " Ye know that those which are accounted to rule over the Gentiles exercise lord- ship over them : and their great ones exercise authority upon them. But so shall it not be among you : but whosoever will be great among you, shall be your minister : and whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all." * That is the order in the kingdom of heaven, the direct opposite of the order in the earthly kingdoms. — And it is perfectly self-evi- dent that the Christian neither seeks for nor obtains the glo- ries of this world. Before the world he is nothing ; disgrace and ridicule are his glory, as Jesus declares to his disciples. And he calls them blessed for it : " Blessed are ye when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake. Rejoice and be exceeding glad : for great is your reward in heaven : for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you." * And the Gospel of St. Luke, which is still more emphatic in its opposition to the world, adds ; " Woe unto you when all men shall speak well of you, for so did their fathers to the false prophets." * This humility does not exclude, but rather has as its ob- verse, a harsh pride^ the pride which scorns and despises the world and everything that is in it and is esteemed by it. Humble before God and the weak and lowly, but proud towards those who think well of themselves and bask in the light of their glory : that too is a fundamental characteristic of the Christian. Both John the Baptist and Christ exhibit this 1 Nic. Ethics, IV., 7 ff. « Mark', X., 35 ff. 8 Matt., v., 11, 12. * vi., 26. 80 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY honest, fearless, nay, defiant pride towards the great and the respectable, the Sadducees and Pharisees, the high-priest and the Roman governor. And we also occasionally find this pride in later disciples of Jesus, who have turned their backs upon the world and now frankly tell it that they neither desire nor esteem its glory and its honor, its virtue and its grandeur ; for which the world, as is to be expected, pays them back in hatred and disgrace. So long as Christianity retained its original relation to the world, to\e disgraced in the eyes of the world was the mark of a Christian; whenever the church made her peace with the world, and sects began to separate from her, in order to live after the primitive Christian fashion, men again began to regard it as a necessary test of true Christianity to suffer disgrace in the name of Christ. A. H. Francke tells us in his autobiography that when he was a diligent and respectable studiosus theologice, intending to become a very elegant and learned man, " the world was well pleased with him. I loved the world, and the world loved me. I was entirely free from persecution then." After his conversion, however, he tells us, things changed ; then, for the first time, he dis- covered what the world was, and in what it differed from the children of God, for soon it began to despise and to hate him. It is, therefore, true that all Greek virtues are, in the light of Christianity, splendid vices; they are all rooted in the natural man's impulse of self-preservation, in the impulse of knowledge, in the impulse of revenge, in the desire for culture, in the love of honor ; they represent the perfection of his nature in perfect civilization. It is true that nothing less than the death of the old and the birth of a new man is neces- sary to transform a Greek into a Christian. Nothing that was prized among the Greeks was prized by the Christians, and conversely, nothing that was prized by the latter wa? prized by the former. It is true that the virtues of the Greek THE CHRISTIAN CONCEPTION 81 are an impediment to regeneration : the publicans and sinners, those who have failed with their natural strength and virtue, and now look back upon a wrecked life, are far more apt to suffer a great and radical change of heart than the just. Through sin and suffering leads the path to conversion. 10. For the natural virtues of the Greeks, Christianity substitutes a single new one : piti/ or mercy. To love your neighbors, to take pity upon their misery, to feed the hungry, to give drink to the thirsty, to visit the outcast, nay, not even to resist the evil, to forgive and to do good unto those that hate you and persecute you, — that is the ideal which Jesus places before his disciples, and lives out himself. By this pity we are not to understand weak-hearted dolefulness, nor by the love of enemy, tender-hearted compliance. The obverse of these virtues is a passionate anger against those who cause such misery, or at least harden their hearts against it, against the unjust and selfish lords who devour the substance of the widows and orphans, against those well-fed and self-righteous respectable persons, who see the wretchedness of the people and complaisantly say : It is their own fault ; why are they not virtuous like us, for then they would prosper as we do. Compassionate love is the great virtue which Jesus preaches, and self-righteous hardness of heart the great vice upon which he pronounces harsh judgments. For all he has a word of pity and love, the lost sons and daughters of his people he takes to his heart, the woman who has sinned much he raises up, the thief on the cross who confesses his sins he promises to meet in paradise : only for the virtuous and self-righteous Pharisee who is not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican, he has harsh words; only for the servant who cannot forgive his fellow-servant he has no forgiveness. Now, the Greeks are as unfamiliar with the vice of self- righteousness as with the virtue of pity. As the normal condition of the feeling of self-esteem the 82 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY Greek regards the consciousness of individual power and ex- cellence ; it is the necessary accompaniment of the^ thing itself. His morality warns him against arrogance (vfipc<;^y which makes a man despised before gods and men, but it warns him no less against the opposite, lowliness of mind {Taireipo^ (i>povelv). The Greek is proud of his virtues, he has acquired them himself, they are the fruits of hard labor. " In one re- spect," says Seneca,! u the wise man excels God ; the latter owes it to his nature that he fears nothing, the wise man owes it to himself." "I die without remorse," said the dying Julian, " as I have lived without sin." — On the other hand, lowliness of mind {TaTT€ivo(f>povelv) is the beginning of Chris- tianity. Conversion begins with remorse and penitence, and the feeling of powerlessness and sinfulness is one of the funda- mental moods of the Christian ; he prays every day with the publican : God have mercy upon me a sinner. A remarkable statement by the Princess A. von Galitzin expresses this mood in a somewhat morbid form, and at the same time be- trays the curious logic peculiar to Christian humility : " An important element of Hamann's spirit and teachings has clung to me, the conviction, namely, that the desire for a good con- science would be a very dangerous leaven in me, and that one of the chief features of faith must be that I suffer the thought of my nothingness and completely trust in God's mercy. I plainly saw that the feeling of complacency aroused by my dis- satisfaction with my own imperfection and weakness, would be the most concealed and dangerous hiding-place of my pride." ^ Just as self-righteousness is not one of the vices of the Greek, pity is not one of his virtues. In the list in which Aristotle enumerates ^ the qualities esteemed as virtues by the Greeks, mercy finds no place. In its stead we discover a kind of heathen counterpart to it : liberality {ekeveepiorr^^^^j 1 Epist., 53. 2 Correspondence and Diary of the Princess Galitzin, new series, 1876, p. 359. * Book IV., Nicomachean Ethics. THE CHRISTIAN CONCEPTION 83 and the intensified form of the latter, magnificence (/LteyaXo- irpiireia). He is liberal, according to Aristotle's version, who gives from a noble motive and in a right spirit, who gives the right amount, and to the right persons at the right time, and satisfies all the other conditions of right giving ; ^ he is mag- nificent who spends large sums of money with good taste, for example, upon votive offerings to the Gods, or " upon the favorite objects of patriotic rivalry, as when people consider it their duty to supply a chorus or fit out a trireme or even to give a public dinner in handsome style." ^ But here the im- portant person is not the recipient of the gift, but the giver, the object is not to alleviate suffering, but to glorify the name of the benefactor. Not a single word, throughout Aristotle's long discussion, is said of the neediness of the recipient; compassion plays no part as a motive. The climax of mag- nificence and munificence was reached in Rome; from the booty stolen from all the nations of the earth the Roman lords gave to the populace of the metropolis money and bread, theatres and baths. It is obvious that this virtue has noth- ing in common with Christian pity. The fundamental char- acteristic of Christian charity is self-denial, while liberality is a form of self-enjoyment. Pity contemplates the want of others, and makes sacrifices to help them, liberality has for its object the glorification of the giver. Pity is practised in secret; publicity is peculiar to liberality. Pity is bestowed upon the stranger, who is nothing to you in the order of nature ; liberality, on the other hand, upon relatives, clients, and fellow-citizens. Christian charity does not spring from the natural impulse to enjoy one's own superiority by giving help, nor is it rooted in the natural impulses of sympathy which grow out of gen- eric life and unite man with his neighbor. The story of the good Samaritan shows this phase. It is the answer to the question: And who is my neighbor, whom I shall 1 Book IV., chap. 2 ff . ^ Chapters 4 and 5. THE CHRISTIAN CONCEPTION 85 84 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY love ? The natural man answers : My family, my children, my parents, my wife, my relatives, the members of my house- hold, my neighbors, fellow-countrymen, and co-religionists. That must have been the opinion of the scribe also. Jesus enlightens him : Not these, but the very first man whom you happen to meet, and who is in want. For this is evidently the meaning of the somewhat perverted ending of our account. The commentary to it may be found in the verses which substitute the commandment of brotherly love for the com- mandment of Moses, in the Gospel of Matthew} Moses has commanded you to love your neighbors and hate your enemies. But what would there be so remarkable in that ? Do not even the publicans the same ? And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others ? Do not even the heathen the same ? Be ye therefore perfect as your Father which is in heaven is perfect. He makes no distinctions in his benefi- cence, hence you should not do it either, unless it be, perhaps, to give strangers preference over your friends : " When thou makest a dinner or a supper, call not thy friends, nor thy brethren, neither thy kinsmen, nor thy rich neighbors ; lest also they bid thee again, and a recompense be made thee. But when thou makest a feast call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind, and thou shalt be blessed." « The highest, however, is to do good even to your enemies ; to suffer evil for the sake of the good, and not to bear malice : that is per- fection. Savonarola once summed up Christianity in the sentence : « My son, to be good means to do good and to suffer evil, and not to weary of it to the end." 11. We may now consider the attitude of Christianity to famil?/ life. The family is the beginning of all natural charity or love of neighbor. Christianity, which never aims at the development of natural impulses, cannot, as might at first be supposed from the estimate it places on love, regard the family as a thing of absolute worth. For it the community of the flesh is far inferior to the community of the spirit. Jesus left his family and gathered around him a new family, one not united by the ties of blood, but by spiritual ties ; which caused at least a temporary estrangement from his blood- relatives. He demands that those who follow^ him likewise sever their natural ties, wherever occasion may demand : " If any man come to me and hate not his father, and mother, and wife and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple." ^ He knows that his preaching will break natural bonds: "For from henceforth there shall be five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three. The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against the father ; the mother against the daughter aild the daughter against the mother; the mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law, and the daughter- in-law against her mother-in-law." ^ Natural ties lose their importance for those who no longer live in the flesh. The ability to sever them altogether has always been regarded by the followers of Christ as a criterion of perfec- tion. The saints are often openly praised because the ties of blood have no power over them. In Hartpole Lecky's History of European Morals from Augustus to Charlemagne? we find a number of passages from the literature of the saints, which show, by way of example, the meritoriousness of absolute indifference to blood-relationship. Let me quote one of the examples. In Cassian's work, De coenohiorum institutis^^ we read the following story. A man named Mutius, accompanied by his only child, a little boy eight years old, abandoned his possessions and demanded admis- sion into a monastery. The monks received him, but they proceeded to discipline his lieart. " He had already forgotten that he was rich ; he must next be taught to forget that he was a father." His little child was separated from him, clothed in 1 Luke, xiv., 26 ; somewhat weakened in Matt., x., 34. a Luke, xii., 52 fE. » Vol. II. * IV., 27. |l 1 v., 43. 2 Luke, xiv., 12. 86 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY dirty ra-s, subjected to every form of gross and wanton liard^ ship, spurned, and ill treated. Day after day the father was compelled to look upon his boy wasting away with sorrow, his once happy countenance forever stained with tears, dis- torted by sobs of anguish. But " such was his love for Christ, and for the virtue of obedience, that the father's heart was ri^nd and unmoved. He thought little of the tears of his cirild He was anxious only for his own humility and per- fection in virtue." At last the abbot told him to take his child and throw it into the river. He proceeded without a murmur or apparent pang, to obey, and it was only at the last moment that the monks interposed, and on the very brink of the river saved the child. The story may have been invented in imitation of the sacrifice of Isaac ; but the admiration which the narrator expresses is not an invention. This conduct is, doubtless, not in accord with the views of Jesus. We must confess, however, that it may be deduced as an extreme consequence from certain passages in the Gospels. To the question of Peter: "Behold we have forsaken all and followed thee; what shall we have therefore?" Jesus answers not rebuk- ingly, but with the promise that they shall be nearest to him in his glory ; " and every one that has forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive a hun- dredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life." ^ Such a mode of thought is, of course, not conducive to the formation of family ties. Jesus himself remained unmarried, and suggests that others, too, may dispense with marriage for the kingdom of heaven's sake. ^ Although the Apostle Paul thinks highly enough of the institution of true marriage to refer to it in illustration of Christ's relation to the church, he nevertheless shows a de- cided preference for unmarried life. The church at Corinth i Matt, xix., 27 £f. « Matt, xix, 12. THE CHRISTIAN CONCEPTION 87 had asked him some questions concerning marriage. In his answer ^ he lays special emphasis upon the following sentence by placing it at the beginning : " It is good for a man (^koXov) not to touch a woman." Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife and let every woman have her own husband. " I say therefore to the unmarried and the widows : It is good for them, if they abide even as I." " He that is unmarried careth for the things that belong to the Lord, how he may please the Lord ; but he that is mar- ried careth for the things that are of the world, how he may please his wife." This, of course, is not a commandment; and those who " cannot contain, let them marry." Similarly, in the Apocalypse ^ virginity is regarded as a merit, which will also be recognized in the new kingdom. Therefore, marriage is permitted on account of the weakness of the flesh, but it is nowhere looked upon as a phase of life essential to the perfection of human nature. And this thought runs through the entire Patristic literature : virginity, the freedom from the bondage of sensuality, constitutes a fundamental part of perfection. 12. The starting-point of this radical change is the certainty that our earthly life is not the true life. The ancient Greeks knew of no other life than this, everything good and beautiful and great known to them was contained in it ; the life of the dead, which formed the subject of doubtful fables, had for them a shadowy existence. And this earthly life is good and worth living for him who knows how to live it well : it offers everything that a healthy mind can desire. — The ancient Christians are absolutely convinced that this temporal life is perishable and vain and worthless. Upon our earth the real life nnd the real goods are not to be found ; only the world to come (o alo»v fiiWoyv) will bring them to light. To this future world, which the apostolic times believed was about to be established by the return of the Lord, belonged the Christians ; in the 1 1 Cor., vii. 2 xiv., 4. 88 OKIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY earthly world they are strangers and pilgrims. A traveller does not take any active interest in the affairs of a foreign country, but bears them as best he can. So the Christians behave with respect to this world. They are in the world in the flesh only, and their spirit is not at home in it; they live in the world, but their hearts are in heaven ; they do the work which living in the world imposes upon them, but they have no interest in it. Pleasure and desire are the bonds with which the world strives to fetter their hearts; therefore the Christians constantly crucify the flesh with its lusts and desires ; the natural man loves pleasure, and flies from pain as from something evil ; the Christian, on the other hand, looks upon pain as wholesome and upon pleasure as dangerous - pleasure is the bait with wliich the devil ensnares the soul in order to chain it to the world. To be dead to the pleasures and the pains of the earth is the mark of perfection. But it would be a complete misrepresentation of the Chris- tian mood to conclude that its chief characteristics are dis- content and gloom. Nay, the fundamental feeling is rather one of deep tranquil peace, in which are mingled notes of sorrow for the vanity and nothingness of the world, notes of " divine sadness," but which also contains cheerful strains of heavenly joy and hope. World-sorrow and pessimism vanish as soon as earthly things cease to excite and to alarm the heart with fear and hope, pleasure and disappoint- ment. Hence Christianity is not essentially negative, like pessimism, but positive : the eternal life which is to come and is close at hand overshadows the temporal life. The carnal man's natural impulse of self-preservation gives way to the supernatural impulse of self-preservation of the spiritual man, in accordance with the words of Jesus : " Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it ; and whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it ; " i or " He that loveth his lite shall lose it , and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life 1 Luke, xvii., 33. THE CHRISTIAN CONCEPTION 89 eternal." ^ But the transmundane eternal life influences our earthly life : it creates a new will, which strives after holi- ness and perfection, as the Father in heaven is perfect ; it creates a new feeling of self-reliance : the feeling that we are children of God ; it creates a new form of human intercourse : the community united in brotherly love ; lastly, it creates a new relation to the earth and its goods : the Christian is the master of all things, capable of enjoying all innocent pleasures, and yet firmly attached to none. Paul often aptly describes this paradox in the life of the Christian : " As sor- rowful, yet always rejoicing ; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things." ^ 13. Many will fail to recognize in the above exposition of Christianity and its conception of life, the picture which they may have formed of it. Many believe that Christianity and Greek humanity are, if not absolutely identical, at least closely akin to each other. It is not unusual, even in our day, to find Jesus described as an amiable, cheerful, and mild moral teacher, who made it the object of his life to remove all hatred and enmity from the world, and to establish a king- dom of peace and love. He was himself capable of enjoying everything beautiful and good, and therefore did not begrudge his disciples any pure pleasure which life offered. Hase so portrays him in his Life of Christ : Jesus naively enjoyed the goods of this world, although he did not burden himself with their possession, on account of his liigher mission. Like a bridegroom he lived among his disciples ; he did not even abstain from indulging in a social cup of wine : in short, " never was a religious hero less opposed to the pleasures of life." ^ That he did not take a wife must have been due to accidental causes : " let us assume, say, that his affianced died. Or, this, too, may be conjectured : that he from whose religion the ideal conception of marriage, foreign to antiquity, was 1 John, xii., 25. 2 2 Cor., vi., 10. §53. 90 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY derived, found no one in his times whose heart was worthy of Bucli a union." ^ He speaks of the " true humanitarian spirit " which Jesus showed with respect to ascetic rules, and finds that the peculiar culture of Jesus consists "in his religious perfection, the flower of all purely human striving." 2 Similarly, Keim, in his Hlstorij of Jesus : ^ No religious re- former ever took such loving interest in all the forms of earthly life as he did, no one lived so " like a man of the world ;" * in another place he even speaks of a " comfortable, easy-going congeniality" (behagliche stillsiizende Gemuthlich- hcit) which the character of Jesus encouraged.^ In the con- flict with the Pharisees concerning the Sabbath he comes out victorious, " because he modestly and overwhelmingly unfolds the banner of humanity." ^ It is undoubtedly true that the writings of the New Testa- ment transmit features of the life of Jesus and sayings from liis teachings, which may be utilized for such a picture. Whether they indicate different stages of development in the life of Jesus itself, as Renan, for example, assumes, or whether his teachings and the conception we have of him have been distorted by tradition, say by Ebionitic inter- 1 §45. 2 § 29. 8 3d ed., 1875. [Engl, translation by Ransom and Geldart, 1876.] 4 p 165 ^ P. 145. 6 p'. 199'. David Strauss does not go so far in his Life of Jesus [tr. by George Eliot] in misrepresenting the essence of Christianity. But he, too, speaks of the " humane love of Jesus/' of " the cheerful soul at peace with God and embracmg all men as brothers," and calls this " cheerful, vigorous element, this acting from the pleasure and joyf ulness of a beautiful soul, the Hellenic element m Je^^^- Jo b. sure, he also emphasizes the fact that there are essentia defects m the human- ity " of Jesus : family, state, acquisition, art. and beautiful enjoyment do not^U within its scope. But this one-sidedness, he says, is partly ^'^^^« Jj^^^^ ^^ natiorualitv, partlv to the conditions of the times ; besides, it can easily be remedied bv different temporal, political, and educational conditions, and ;e"^«d»«^^;^ the best way only after we have come to understand the work of Jesus ^ a human achievement, hence as capalde and in need of further ^eve opment (^^e of Jesns, 4th ed., 1. 262. TT. .'^88). Tn his last work (The Old and the Ne^ Farh § 24. tr. by M. Blind), Strauss, influenced by Schopenhauer, seems to draw the iines more sharply between Christianity and the world. THE CHRISTIAN CONCEPTION 91 pretations, as Hase believes, or by the opposite, which would be more in line with the natural man's inclinations, — indeed, during his lifetime his disciples could not free themselves from the notion that he was to set up a worldly kingdom invested with all the power and glory of such a kingdom, — upon this point 1 do not venture to express an opinion. 1 share Strauss's view that it is a hopeless undertaking to write a true history of the life and development of Jesus, on the basis of the sources at our command ; and there also seem to me to be insurmountable difficulties in the way of a sys- tematic exposition of the teachings contained in his sermons. Disconnected sayings and parables are handed down to us, which cannot be comprehended into a unified philosophical system; which, of course, does not diminish their value; on the contrary, the Gospels owe their wonderful power to the fact that they do not form a theological or philosophical system. Systems pass away, concepts are tools with which an age apprehends and fashions things; and in a certain sense every age must produce its own tools, in order that it may manipulate them satisfactorily. The great poems, on the other hand, are eternal, like their content, human life itself. There is no condition in life, and no mood which will not find in the Scriptures, in the Old and New Testaments, a story or a saying to express it, from which to draw conso- lation in adversity and inspiration in prosperity. Had these books merely transmitted to us a philosophical system, they would have grown old and perished long ago ; but they por- tray human life as it is, with all its joys and sorrows, and hence they are imperishable. But of one thing there is no doubt m my mind, and that is this : The Gospels, as they have come down to us, breathe the spirit of world-denial ( Weltverleugnung) rather than that of earthly joy. In what moods do men most frequently turn to these writings ? In the exultation of victory and rejoicing, or in the sorrow of defeat, in the throes of sickness and death ? 92 ORIGINS OF MORAL THILOSOPHY No one will hesitate for an answer. Hearts bowed down by suffering and oppressed with sin, world-weary and life-weary hearts, — these have invariably sought and found consola- tion and relief in the Gospels. The powerful and victorious, the hopeful and prosperous, are more apt to find their feelings expressed in Greek philosophy and in the Odes of Horace. Nor is there any doubt in my mind that the soul of Jesus, too, was attuned, not to happiness and victory, and life of life, but to death and world-denial. And would it not have been a most remarkable confusion if Christianity had taken as its starting-point the Jesus of Hase ? Hase believes that if Jesus had been a disciple of the Essenes, they would have cursed him as an apostate : " How these gloomy pietists would have shaken their pious heads and rolled their devout eyes at this cheerful and energetic man." But how strange, then, that this man looked upon the Baptist, that powerful figure, so unique in his rugged greatness, as his forerunner, that he pro- duced a Paul, who made such a sharp distinction between the flesh and the spirit, that the apostolic church, leaning as it did towards Ebionitism, the entire primitive church, with its ethical supernaturalism, followed his banner. Was all that a single grand mistake ? It seems strange to me th^t any one should attempt to correct this living tradition by means of the scanty fragments of the great living tradition, which have been preserved in the Gospels. If the oldest communities, which counted among their number the living witnesses of the life, teachings, and death of Jesus, did not know what these things meant, then it is not probable that we of the nineteenth century shall discover it by historical investigations. This inability to understand Christianity is evidently due to the fact that it has not yet become " historic." If it, to- gether with its effects, were a thing of the past, a purely historical investigation would not long remain in doubt as to its fundamental character. But such is not the case ; we are still surrounded, on all sides, if not by primitive Ohris* THE CHRISTIAN CONCEPTION 93 tianity itself, at least by its embodied effects. Our very lan- guage betrays the influence which Christianity has exercised upon it for centuries : no one would be willing to dispense with at least the name of a Christian. This explains the tendency which every man has to interpret Christianity conformably with his ideal of life. It also explains why we discover in the writings of the New Testament the very views of life and the world which we ourselves entertain, with, at most, a few slight changes here and there. For the champion of a con- servative state church the fundamental doctrine of Christianity consists in subjecting oneself to those in power, in respecting the institutions of the state and the church, the family and property. Liberal Protestantism, on the other hand, sees in Jesus the man who preached freedom, who broke the fetters of Jewish orthodoxy, who despised the ascetic ordinances ; hence he was evidently an advocate of the principle of free research, one of the great heroes of civilization, who delivered man from the yoke of superstition and turned him in the direction of progress ; in our times he would have been a liberal professor of theology, or, according to others, a social reformer. Est liber hie, in quo quserit sua dogmata quisque ; Invenit in illo dogmata quisque sua. But; you will say, is it not true that Jesus had a low opinion of ascetic practices ? Did he not, in contrast with the Baptist, absolve his disciples of the duty of following them ? Did he not thereby give such offence to the Pharisees that they called him a glutton and a wine-bibber ? — It is true ; although he did not prohibit ascetic practices, but took for granted that his disciples would fast, which they actually did. But why does he not enforce such practices ? Perhaps, because they are a hindrance to the enjoyment of life ? Not at all ; but simply because they do not suffice ; he regards them as a part of those works which the Pharisees of all ages have 94 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY offered to God to take the place of true worship: alms and pravers and tithes of mint and anise and cumin, mstead of righteous works of justice and love of neighbor; external abstinence in lieu of the sacrifice of one's entire life. Jesus did not fail to see how prone the human heart is, even the sincere and well-meaning heart, to deceive God and itself in this manner, and hence he took it upon himself to break his disciples of the habit of prizing such things. He de- manded more, he demanded the complete separation of the heart from the world and entire devotion to God. The per- fect man needs no further preparation ; he who is imbued with the new spirit no longer needs to practise those little abstinences, he has no use for them ; which, of course does not mean that they cannot be of service and of benefit to the novice. Paul describes the life of the perfect Christian : " It remaincth, that both they that have wives be as though they had none ; and those that weep as though they wept not ; and thev that rejoice as though they rejoiced not ; and they that buy as though they possessed not; and they that use this world as not abusing it : for the fashion of this world passeth away." ^ Whoever has so thoroughly emancipated himself from the world does not stand in need of such preparation. Now, that such a state is not adapted to promote what is called civilization can hardly be doubted : he whose heart is in heaven will not be very apt to make this earthly life rich and beautiful and grand, nor will he on that account have any censure to fear from Jesus. The Gospels nowhere say : Accumulate wealth and save, care for your own and the economic welfare of your family. But they do say: "Take no thought of your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink ; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on ; lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and thieves break through and steal." We no- where read : Have a care for the development of your natural » 1 Cor., vii., 29 ft. THE CHRISTIAN CONCEPTION 95 capacities ; train the body by gymnastic exercises, make it strong and beautiful ; train the intellect and the senses, so that you may appreciate the creations of art and poetry, the products of philosophy and science. But we do read : " If one of thy members offend thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee." We nowhere read : Try to obtain honors, help your friends to achieve fame and position ; but we do read : " Blessed are ye when men shall revile you ! " We nowhere read : Go and take a wife, and rear able citizens for the state ; but we do read : " There be eunuchs which have made them- selves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake." We no- where read : Go and serve the state with thy sword or with thy counsel ; but we do read : " My kingdom is not of this world." We nowhere read : Go and labor for the happiness of the human race ; the word happiness or its equivalent does not even occur in the writings of the New Testament. But we do read : " The world passeth away and the lusts thereof." If Jesus really believed that his disciples ought to make themselves useful to the world, not by preaching the transi- torin(5s8 of everything earthly and the eternal kingdom, but by taking part in the work which the world itself regards as important and great, then, indeed, it must be confessed, he left nothing undone to be misunderstood. If, on the other hand, it was his purpose to exhort men, by his example and his teachings, to overcome the world, then we have the right to say . His preaching was as intelligible as it was effective. Indeed, no one has hitherto succeeded in wholly obscuring his meaning. Contemtus mundi and amor Christi are the inscriptions upon the two curtains enshrouding the hidden sanctuary in which dwells the community of Christ ; so Amos Comenius describes it in his Lahyrinth of the World and Paradise of the HeaH. Contemtiis mmdi alone is not Chris- tianitv ; without amor Christi it becomes Schopcnhauerian pessimism or Nietzschean tyrant-morality ; nor, on the other 96 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY THE CHRISTIAN CONCEPTION 97 hand, can there be Christianity without an admixture of con^ temtus mvndi. But the man who is unable to glean the meaning of Chris- tianity either from the sermons of Jesus himself or from the interpretations of the apostles, may learn something from the way in which it was received by the world. Had Jesiis been such an amiable preacher of human world-wisdom, his contemporaries would most likely not have considered it necessary to nail him to a cross : the amiable, proper, and charming people, who live and let live, who understand the art of combining "religion" with "culture," who incline toward " easy-going congeniality " and enjoy " the pleasures of a social cup," have never been regarded as dangerous, and nailed to crosses. If the Christianity of the early times had been what the interpreters of later ages have now and then made of it, the deadly enmity which it aroused in the world would be absolutely inconceivable. The apostles did not consider it so ; they evidently regarded the treatment they received as perfectly in order. Jesus had prophesied it : " Ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake." " If ye were of the world, the world would love his own; but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you." " The time cometh that whosoever killeth you will think that he doth God service." Nothing was prophesied oftener and more distinctly by Jesus, and none of his prophecies was ever more accurately fulfilled. — Why this hatred ? Because the Christians despised what the world conceived to be the highest good. There was no better reason for hating any one. He that did not look upon the Emperor and the Empire as the highest good, did he not deserve to be hated? He that despised culture and science, did he not deserve to be hated? He that de- spised wealth and good living and social recognition, who withdrew from society and amusements, did he not de- serve to be hated ? Was he not really scorning others, if not in words, at least by his mode of life ? He that is not for me is against me. This is the maxim which has ' always governed the feelings and actions of men.^ 1 There is no better commentary on the Gospels than the life of Savonarola as it is described in the admirable work of tlie Italian Villari [English transla- tion by L. Villari]. The life of Jesus in the Gospels is like a series of saintly pictures drawn upon a golden background, in wliich the chief figure stands out in bold relief, but without its background ; the life of Savonarola, on the other hand, resembles a great historical painting with a multicolored background. The fundamental outlines are the same ; the particular features recur with as- tonishing regularity : the preaching of the kingdom of God and the vanity of the world and its pleasures, its power and glory, its civilization and art, at first produces a strange excitement, especially in the hearts of the common people ; they applaud the great preacher and miracle-worker. Then the lords of this world, spiritual and secular, get together and deliberate how to check the scandal which is destroying peace and progress ; they convince themselves that it can only be done by removing the disturber. He is brought to trial amid the applause of all the educated ones, and is finally executed as a false prophet, swindler, and pretended miracle-worker, who cannot save himself, with the curses of the fanatical populace ringing in his ears. — Here again, moreover, we may find the word of Aristotle corroborated, that poetry is more " philosophical " than history. That the Gospels are not historical accounts like those we have of the life of Savonarola or Goethe, no one will doubt who is willing to follow a critical investigation like the one offered by Strauss. They are historical poems born of the faith that the life and death of Jesus are the absolutely important facts of history. To this day they have shown a unique and incomparable power in expressing and propagating this faith. If we had a " scientific " biography of Jesus, one based upon the most thorough research and drawn from the most reliable and copious sources, and written in the most admirable manner, like the above mentioned life of Savonarola, for example, its influence would, as com- pared with that of the Gospels, still be equal to zero. If efficacy ( Wirksamkeit) is the standard of reality ( Wirklichkeit), as the German language seems to imply, then the truth will remain that the Gospels are the greatest *' reality " {das Wirk- lichste) ever made by human hands. — It seems to me this is occasionally forgot- ten by the critics of the Gospels as well as by those who are afraid of criticism — as though the Gospels could be destroyed by it. " For the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life." CHRISTIANIZATION OF THE OLD WORLD 99 CHAPTER ni THE CONVERSION OF THE OLD WORLD TO CHRISTIANriY * 1 Among all the occurrences recorded by history none is more astonishing than the conversion of the old world to Christianity. Never was there a spiritual movement which seemed so lacking in everything calculated to conquer the world, as Christianity. When Jesus died, he left behmd a handful of followers, not a great fruit, it seemed, of such a life-work. And these followers were poor, uneducated people, without science, without wealth, without fame, without cour- a-e, except in suffering, without a single passion except a strancre fanatical enthusiasm for a kingdom in a transmundane world". This is the impression which Christianity made upon those who witnessed its birth and early growth. Originating among the most despised of all nations, the Jews,; consistmg in the worship of a man who had been ca.st out by this people as an idle dreamer and deceiver, and had died on the cross, it seemed that, weighed down with the contempt and hatred of the cultured, it would, like so many other superstitions of the age, soon sink into an inglorious oblivion. In a posthumous work of Th. Keim, Rome and Christian- ity'^ may be found references from Graeco-Roman litera- ture which describe the feelings which Christianity aroused among its contemporaries : they are contempt and hatred. " The Christians," so says the philosopher Celsus (under 1 [Leckv, History of European Morals, vol. L, chap. Ill ; '^ff^''^^l\^'' Sittengeschichte Rom's (translated into French) ; Keim. Rom und das Christen, thum ; Baur (see p. G5), Part I. ; Fisher (see p. 65.) —Tr] a Published by II. Ziegler, 1881. Marcus Aurelius), " purposely and expressly exclude all wise and educated men from their meetings, and, like the quacks having the poorest wares, turn their attention only to the un- cultured rabble. Nay, they do not, as priests usually do, appeal to the pure and sinless, but to the unfortunate and sinful, to the criminals ; as though God did not accept the sin- less, as though he were, like a weak man, influenced by the laments of the wicked, and not by the justice of his judgment. This, however, the Christians merely do because they cannot gain adherents among honest and upright people." ^ This was the opinion of the philosophers. The masses detested them as atheists, of whom it was believed that they committed the most hideous crimes in their secret gatherings.^ The states- men, who really did not begin to pay any attention to Chris- tianity until the second century — the persecutions of the first century were outbreaks of temporary moods — regarded it as an obnoxious weed, which the interests of the state and society demanded should be eradicated. Trajan gave his gov- ernors orders to this effect : '' The Christians shall not be hounded, but if they are accused and convicted, they shall suffer capital punishment. But if the offender denies Christi- anity and proves it by doing homage to our gods, he shall be pardoned for his past offence." ^ This was, in the main, the attitude of the government during the second century ; we shall have to agree with Keim that a more appropriate method of suppressing Christianity could not have been chosen. By keeping the mean between exemption from punishment and persecution, the state, on the one hand, hindered the introduc- tion of the new religion as the officially allowed or recognized form of worship, and, on the other, deprived it of that attrac- tiveness with which persecution always invests a cause : only the senseless obstinacy which expressly refused, when asked, to show any respect for the gods of the state and people, was punished. For, an age which was in the habit of looking 1 402. 2 362 ff. 8 520. 100 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY upon worship partly as the duty of the subject, partly as the satisfaction of harmless private desires, could not but regard such refusal as " mere obstinacy," as Marcus Aurehus con- temptuously calls the attitude of the Christians. And yet the incredible happened. Christianity gradually spread until it finally became the ruling religion in the great federation of nations of the Roman Empire. How was i possible for the old world to desert its religion? How did it come about that the Greeks and the Romans were converted to a religion which despised everything that no Greek and no Roman could despise without repudiating himself : science and philosophy, poetry and art, fatherland and gods? 2 Every attempt to understand this process will always find itself driven to conclusions which have often been drawn. The old world had outlived itself; the principle of its life was dying. The city-state was the form of ancient life, free sovereign citizenship was the bearer of the ancient virtues. The city-states had been ruined, internally and externa ly ; internally, by the splitting-up of the citizens into the two f ac tions of the rich and the poor, which antagonized each other in bloody conflicts ; externally, by their incorporation m the Roman Empire. The entire world was ruled by the Roman court. " Have I not," so Seneca lets the Emperor say in his work On Mercy? with which he flatteringly greeted the youthful Nero upon the latter's accession to the throne, u have I not been chosen from all mortals to govern as the representative of the gods upon earth ? Am T not judge over the life and death of nations ? Do not the fate and the position of every individual rest in my hands ? Does not Fortune proclaim through my mouth what she is willing to bestow upon every one ? Are not our decrees the cause of iubilation among nations and cities ? Can any part of the empire thrive without my will, without my favor ? These many thousand swords which are kept in their scabbards by 1 Reflections, XL, 3. ^ De dementia, I, 2. CHRISTIANIZATION OF THE OLD WORLD 101 my decrees of peace, are they not drawn at my beck and command ? Is it not at my behest that nations are exter- minated or transplanted, that freedom is given or taken away, that kings are sentenced to slavery or crowned, that cities are destroyed and built ? " And now when this supra- human power, as often happened, became the sport of freed- men and courtesans, what an awful abyss of corruption yawned before the Romans and poisoned all nations and princes with its foul odors. In such an empire there was no more room for the old virtues. Among the ancient nations all virtues and excel- lences were connected with the state, totally differing from the modern virtues in this respect. The four cardinal virtues, prudence, courage, justice, temperance, are essentially civic virtues. The destruction of the old communities deprived them of the soil upon which they flourished and were prac- tised. In place of courage and justice, subserviency and the arts of flattery, treachery and violence, became the means of acquiring wealth, power, and dignity; in the imperial period the goodness of a few emperors could not prevent these things, except to a very limited degree and within narrow circles. With the ancient manliness {virtus) and honorableness, the virtue of temperance passed away. Pomp and luxury on the one side, and proletarian wretchedness on the other, took the place of beautiful and moderate enjoyment. Friedlander has given us in his History of the Morals of Rome^ an authentic account of the life of the imperial city during the first two centuries. If I can trust my own im- pressions, no one will lay the book aside without a feeling of horror, although it was not written with the intention of producing that effect : with so much wealth and power, so much splendor and greatness, such a terribly empty and desolate life ! The chief purpose of this vast empire seems to 1 Sittengeschichte Rom*s, 102 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY ■It have been to feed and amuse the populace of the metropolis. Rome was not an industrial city, she really had no commerce and manufacture, but only an enormous import : from all parts of the world commodities were brought thither for consump- tion. The distribution of these commodities by shopkeepers constituted one of the most desired sources of revenue of the third estate. The public administration seems to have been essentially an institution for the exploitation of the provinces by the relatives of the families who belonged to good society, the senatorial and equestrian classes. The population of the city was divided into two halves : the ruling families, who drained the provinces, and the masses, who in turn lived as parasites upon these vampires. " All the people whom you see in this city," writes Pctronius, " are divided into two parties : they are either angling for something or being angled ; " or, using another figure : « You will behold a city that resembles a fierd during a pestilence, which contains nothing but corpses, and ravens which are devouring them." i The ravens were the swarms of clients, beggars, legacy-hunters, singers, actors, artists, astrologers, parasites of all kinds ; the corpses upon which they fed were the owners of large estates, the large capitalists, who squandered at Rome what their ancestors had made by administering the provinces, or what they had themselves in turn acquired through gifts, legacy-hunt- ing etc. Every noble house supported, besides its army of slaves, an army of clients, whose sole function consisted in proving by their mere presence the noble rank of the man in whose" atrium they appeared early In the morning, and whom they accompanied on his walks. They were rewarded for their services by receiving board or alimony and occasional presents ; niggardly enough, of course, in the opinion of those who received them. In addition to this, the masses of the metropolitan popula- tion were directly fed by the state, even during the latter 1 Friedlander, I., 371. CHRISTIANIZATION OF THE OLD WORLD 103 days of the Republic. According to Uhlhorn,i c. Gracchus was the first to have a law enacted, which provided for the sale of wheat to Roman citizens by the state at cost price ; soon after it was distributed gratis. Cajsar is said to have found as many as 320,000 receivers of grain in the city, and to have reduced the number to 150,000. Under Augustus it again rose to about 200,000 (for about one and one half millions of inhabitants). They also received gifts of oil, salt, meat, and money ; on all extraordinary occasions, accessions to the throne, anniversaries, testaments, there was always some- thing left over for « the people ; " Uhlhorn estimates the average amount of annual contributions in money at about six million marks. The second great object of concern of the governing classes was to amuse the masses. To this end theatres, games in the circus and amphitheatre, baths, etc., were instituted. In these matters, too, the beginning had already been made under the Republic ; the competition for the good will of the voters constantly increased the expenditures for the games which the successful candidates had to arrange. During the Empire, races, gladiatorial contests, and plays, especially the first, took the place of public business. "It is to your advantage, Csesar, that the people occupy themselves with us," a pantomime once called out to Augustus." The splendor and grandeur as well as the number of the games constantly increased under the succeeding emperors. Under Augustus they occupied sixty-six days according to the festival-calen- dar, under Tiberius the number increased to eighty-seven days, not counting the frequent gladiatorial contests ; in the middle of the fourth century it was one hundred and seventy-five days. In addition there were extraordinary games : at the dedication of the Flavian amphitheatre Titus gave a festival lasting one hundred days ; in commemoration of the second 1 Geschkhte der christUchen LiebeslhStigkeit in der alter, Kirche, pp. 10 ft. 2 Friedlander, H., 257. 104 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY Dacian victory Trajan gave a festival lasting one hundred and twenty-three days. All the greater performances be- gan at daybreak and lasted till sunset. The number of seats in the three theatres together was 49,590, in the amphitheatre 87,000, in the circus, under Caesar, 150,000, under Vespasian, 250,000, in the fourth century, 385,000. The emperor frequently also provided the spectators with re- freshments. "At a festival, which Domitian gave in the year 88, the number of young, beautiful, and richly attired imperial servants, who waited upon the people in the ami)hi- theatre was, according to Statius's account, as great as the number of spectators. Some brought costly viands in baskets and white table-cloths, others old wines. Children and women, the populace, the nobles, and the senate, everybody feasted as at a table ; the Emperor himself condescended to take part in the meal, and the poorest man felt happy in the knowledge that he was his guest." ^ The festival was held in the amphitheatre; the centre around which the large company gathered was the arena, the great slaughter-house in which criminals, slaves, and finally, above all, prisoners of war from all nations, after first having been trained for the purpose in the gladiatorial schools, killed each other for the delectation of the guests of the emperor. Under Augustus, a total of 10,000 men fought in the eight combats which he arranged; in the festival lasting four months, which Trajan gave after the conquest of Dacia, as many as 10,000 men. Thus the captives of war of all nations had the honor of fighting once more before the lord of the earth and of dying under his very eyes. With the blood of all tlie nations was mingled in the arena the blood of all the animal species of the earth. In the games of Pompey were seen IT elephants, 500 to 600 lions, and 410 other African beasts. In the 26 games alone, instituted by Augustus, about 3,500 African animals were hunted and 1 Friedlauder.ir., 277. CHRISTIANIZATION OF THE OLD WORLD 105 slaughtered ; at the dedication of the Flavian amphitheatre, imder Titus, about 9,000 tame and wild animals. New and more refined settings were invented : nocturnal combats were added, sea-fights alternated with land-battles, tlie arena being flooded with water. And around this scene of blood and horror were gathered the emperor and the senators, the people and nobility, men and women, eating and drinking, laughing and courting, shouting and roaring: a scene of horror, a city of horror, the like of which has never been witnessed upon this earth. The history of the morality of Kome is the commentary to the Apocalypse. The provinces followed the example of the capital, the governors the example of the emperor. In all the cities we find the same division of society into vampires and parasites. By distributing offices and honors, the municipalities them- selves sponged upon the wealth of the few ; in addition to this, a countless train of clients fastened itself upon the rich house- holds. In all the cities we find gladiatorial contests and animal-hunts ; " There was not a single city from Jerusalem to Seville, from England to Northern Africa, in whose arena numerous victims were not slaughtered year after year." The Greek populace alone retained a trace of its former refinement and culture, and only gradually and with difficulty found pleasure in these games ; while the cultured classes in Greece held themselves entirely aloof from them." ^ Nor is it likely that they took greater pleasure in the theatrical perform- ances with which the lords of the world were entertained, the Atellanae and mimes, the pantomimes and ballets. " By the side of the violent excitement furnished by the circus and the arena, the stage could not retain its attraction for the masses except by offering brutal enjoyments and tickling the senses : and so, instead of counteracting the pernicious in- fluence of these other spectacles, it contributed not the least part in corrupting and brutalizing Rome." ^ What an awful 1 Friedlander, II., 380 ff. « IL. 391. 106 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY CHRISTIANIZATION OF THE OLD WORLD 107 state of debauchery resulted from all this is shown with photographic exactness in a description which we have of the life of a little Italian town, dating from the time of Nero : Tfie Feast of Trimalchio by Petronius.^ The coarseness of taste and feeling displayed by the host and the guests at the table of the freedman of Cumae, who had grown rich by com- mercial speculations, most likely surpasses anything that has ever been witnessed in the circles of the parvenu and the parasite. 3. It is not strange that a feeling of profound discontent accompanied such a life. Pleasure, according to the well- known Aristotelian dictum, follows efficient action ; a life of idleness and amusement ends in pain and nausea. Philosophy is a mirror of the feelings of an age. It is not those addicted to the life we have described who philosophize — I mean seriously philosophize, for, of course, there is a « philosopher " among the parasites of every noble house- hold — but those who endeavor to fly from it and yet cannot emancipate themselves from their times. They feel the utter nothingness and emptiness of their existence ; their philoso- phy is a philosophy of redemption. The vanity of all things which everybody is running after, and the possibility of being delivered by philosophy, that is the fundamental theme of the reflections of Seneca, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius : Seek the seclusion of your own soul, do not desire what is not in your power, let the world go its way, and you will be at peace. " Seek not that the things which happen should happen as you wish ; but wish the things which happen to be as they are, and you will have a tranquil flow of life." " When a raven has croaked inauspiciously, let not the appearance hurry you away with it ; but straightway make a distinction in your mind and say, None of these things is signified to me but to my poor body, or to my small property, or to ray reputation, or to my children, or to my wife ; but to me all 1 [English translation by H. T. Peck, New York, 1898.] significations are auspicious if I choose. For whatever of these things results, it is in my power to derive benefit from it." " Remember that in life you ought to behave as at a banquet. Suppose that something is carried around and is opposite to you. Stretch out your hand and take a portion with decency. Suppose that it passes by you. Do not detain it. Suppose that it is not yet come to you. Do not send your desire forward to it, but wait till it is opposite to you. Do so with respect to children, so with respect to a wife, so with respect to magisterial offices, so with respect to wealth, and you will be some time a worthy partner of the banquets of the gods. But if you take none of the things which are set before you, and even despise them, then you will be not only a fellow banqueter with the gods, but also a partner with them in power. For by acting thus Diogenes and Heracleitus and those like them were deservedly divine, and were so called." " Let death and exile and every other thing which appears dreadful be daily before your eyes ; but most of all death, and you will never think of anything mean nor will you think of anything extravagantly." So says Epictetus.^ To suffer and renounce : that is the final aim of wisdom. Still more strongly does the feeling of melancholy though calm resignation appear in the Bejleetions ^ of Marcus Aure- lius. " Of human life the time is a point, and the substance is in a flux, and the perception dull, and the composition of the whole body subject to putrefaction, and the soul a whirl, and fortune hard to divine, and fame a thing devoid of judg- ment. And, to say all in a word, everything which belongs to the body is a stream, and what belongs to the soul is a dream and vapor, and life is a warfare, and a stranger's so- journ, and after-fame is oblivion. What, then, is that which is able to conduct a man ? One thing and only one, philoso- phy. But this consists in keeping the daemon within a man 1 [See the Enchetridion or Manual, 6, 18, 15, 21, Eng. translation by Long.] ' [Eng. translation bv Long.] 108 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY free from violence and unharmed, superior to pains and pleas- ures, doing nothing without a purpose, nor yet falsely and with hypocrisy, not feeling the need of another man's doing or not doing anything ; and besides, accepting all that hap- pens, and all that is allotted, as coming from thence, wherc- evcr it is, from whence he himself came ; and, finally, waiting for death with a cheerful mind, as being nothing else than a dissolution of the elements of which every living being is compounded." ^ " Constantly consider how all things as they now are, in time past also were ; and consider that they will be the same again. And place before thine eyes entire dramas and stages of the same form, whatever thou hast learned from thy experience or from older history ; for ex- ample, the whole court of Hadrianus, and the whole court of Antoninus, and the whole court of Philippus, Alexander, Croesus ; for all those were such dramas as we now see, only with different actors." » " The idle business of show, plays on the stage, flocks of sheep, herds, exercises with spears, a bone cast to little dogs, a bit of bread into fish-ponds, laborings of ants and burden-carryings, runnings-about of frightened little mice, puppets pulled by strings. ... It is thy duty then in the midst of such things to show good humor and not a proud air ; to understand, however, that every man is worth just so much as the things are worth about which he busies himself. "» "What, then, ^ is that about which we ought to employ our serious pains? This one thing : thoughts just, and acts social, and words which never lie, and a disposition which gladly accepts all that happens, as necessary, as usual, as flowing from a principle and source of the same kind."^ "Cast away opinion, thou art saved. What then hinders thee from casting it away?"^ "Con- sider that everything is opinion, and opinion is in thy power. Take away, then, when thou choosest, thy opinion, and, like 1 II., 17. a X., 27. 8 VIL, 3. * IV., 33. » XU., 25. CHRISTIANIZATION OF THE OLD WORLD 109 a mariner who has doubled the promontory, thou wilt find calm, everything stable, and a waveless bay." ^ " Seldom, indeed," says Lecky,^ " has such active and un- relaxing virtue been united with so little enthusiasm, and been cheered by so little illusion of success." We meet the same features in the philosophy of this period. The movements which Zeller embraces under the title : Pre- cursors of Neo-Platonism, in the last volume of his History of Greek Philosophy, the Neo-Pythagoreans, the later Cynics, the Essenes, the Judaeo-Greek philosophy of Philo, all of them have their origin in the same mood of life and show the same traits ; they preach submission and resignation, absten tion from the world, supported by asceticism, a return to the suprasensuous world, to which the soul really belongs. The life in the body they regard as a life in a prison-house, death as the emancipation of the just. This last offshoot of the old trunk of philosophy, Neo-Platonism, has shown a re- markable power in utilizing the results of all previous phil- osophical investigations, and has constructed a system of the universe based upon this mood. The goal of the philosophy of Plotinus is a purely supranaturalistic ethics. By freeing itself from the sensuous impulses and sensuous knowledge, the soul is enabled wholly to give up its temporal-personal self-consciousness, and to raise itself into communion with the divine by means of ecstasy. Thus it returns to its origin and fulfills its highest mission. It is said that Plotinus re- fused to allow a painting to be made of himself, because he was ashamed of his body. — Thus philosophy came to be exactly what Socrates once called it: the study of death (fxeXeTTj Oavdrov). It would, of course, be a mistake to suppose that this philo- sophical movement reflected the general conception of the times. In the section of his work which deals with the rela- tion of philosophy to the age, Friedlander has brought to- 1 XII. 22. * History of European Morals, I., 253. 110 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY gether a mass of evidence to show that philosophy was not without its enemies and despisers. Educated and uneducated people derided the philosophers as ridiculous fools, who with their breadless art acquired neither advancement nor reputa- tion, neither money nor favor ; they at the same time hated them as men who by their words and their mode of life dis- dained and censured their fellows and their aspirations. By many the occupation with philosophy was regarded as at least improper for the statesman ; at times it was even con- sidered dangerous to the state ; during the first century the philosophers were twice driven from Rome. The relation of a philosophy to its age by no means consists in expressing that which its age possesses, but rather in expressing what it lacks; it shows what the most reflective and the most sensitive among those living at the time desire and strive after ; their ideal contains the features of the present, but only as a negative picture. But in so far as all historical progress has its origin in the feeling of want or discomfort, we may also say : The philosophers are diviners of the future ; we can learn from them not what is and what is esteemed, but what is to come. In this sense we may regard the philosophy of the Empire as a sign that a radical change is about to take place in the inner life of the ancient peoples ; their deepest longing is no longer for the development and perfection of the natural life ; exhausted by the pleasures and sufferings of this world, they are beginning to crave with secret yearnings for deliverance. 4. By offering them deliverance and, besides, an eternal life in transraundane, suprasensuous glory, Christianity satis- fied the most secret and deepest yearnings of the age. That which the philosophers brought particularly to the educated and high-born, was promised by Christianity to the poor and wretched, the weary and heavy-laden : deliverance from the bondage of earthly fear and desire, in which the soul is held by the world and outward show. The former promised deliver- CHRISTIANIZATION OF THE OLD WORLD 111 ance as the fruit of knowledge, the latter as the effect of grace; and in so far the disposition of the philosopher is radically different from that of the Christian, the old pride of conscious virtue or self-righteousness still clings to the former. But they almost entirely agree in their judgment of life and man. Christianity was not the only religion from the Orient which gained adherents at this time. The Egyptian, Syrian, and Persian gods and forms of worship also made devout and grateful converts in the Roman Empire ; likewise Juda- ism, the old and the new, as which Christianity was first regarded. Friedlander^ accounts for the reception of the foreign cults by the thorough mixture of the nations ; poly- theism, he finds, does not really exclude the gods of the newly incorporated peoples, but leaves to them their special spheres of action; the Romans in foreign lands unhesitatingly ap- pealed to the native gods. The mixture of nations was un- doubtedly the cause of the mixture of religions; but why did these Oriental cults, the worship of the Syrian Baal and Astarte, the Egyptian Isis and Osiris, the Persian Mithras, prove so attractive to the people of the Empire ? For, as J. Burckhardt properly insists in his beautiful work on the Age of Constantine the Great ^ : " The later Romans in their truly universal superstition conformed to the local worship in Gaul as well as everywhere else ; but no Gallic god was trans- ferred to Italy or Greece ; " whereas the Oriental cults really took root in Greece and Rome. The reason can surely be found only in what Burckhardt finds it : owing to their inner cliaracteristics the Oriental religions met a need of the Roman world which was no longer satisfied by the old native religion. Now, these cults are peculiar, in that the doctrine of a life after death is essential to them all. After doing severe penance and mortifying himself, the believer is promised ex- piation and purification, in virtue of which he will escape 1 in.. 4. « Section V. 112 ORIGINS OF MORAL rillLOSOPHY CHRISTIANIZATION OF THE OLD WORLD 113 the punishments awaiting the impenitent offender in the hereafter. Human sacrifices and self-mutilation are customary in many of these cults. The thought of a life after death was rather foreign to the classical age : this earthly life was the true life, the life after death a shadow of the present life. The only concern which men felt for the hereafter was to preserve a good reputation among the living.^ During the empire a change gradually took place ; the hereafter assumed greater and greater importance at the expense of this world. And now the old gods would no longer suffice. Not only to the men of the classic age, but to their gods also, the here- after was an unfamiliar thought ; they were the gods of the living, not of the dead ; they were the givers and preservers of earthly gifts ; health and beauty, victory and wealth, they bestowed upon their favorites, and were honored with cheerful festivals in return. With the dead they had nothing to do. The age showed its solicitude for the future life by seeking new gods and forms of worship, and found them in the old religions of the East. 6. The Christian religion gained the victory over her rivals. What made her victorious ? We are surely justi- fied in believing : her inner worth. Perhaps it was, first of all, the sensuous-suprasensuous conviction of the immediate return of the Lord to judge the earth and to establish the kingdom of glory, which gave the members of the church the strength to despise the world and imbued their preach- ing of the kingdom with such overpowering force. More- over, the esprit de corps was for this very reason much stronger among the professors of Christianity than among the other religious communities; they looked upon them- selves, not without a feeling of pride, as a community of saints chosen from the world, as the members of the kingdom of glory, whose sojourn here in the flesh was a mere accident. This separation from the world was encouraged by the 1 Friedlander, III., 5. jealous exclusiveness of their worship, a heritage of Jewish monotheism, which branded all adoration of other gods as of idolatry. The power of a religion to gain adherents is in inverse proportion to its tendency to mix with others. Then, again, there was more of the self-sacrificing devotion of the founder in the Christian communities than among the fol- lowers of the other cults, although all of them demanded sacrifices, and none was without its martyrs. But none of them had such a host of martyrs as Christianity. It is a wonderful fact, one that does honor to human nature, that no sermon makes a deeper impression upon it than that preached from a cross. Finally, the Christian belief also satisfied the reason in a certain sense ; the rational mono- theism of the new religion, which worshipped God as a spirit, was more acceptable than the myths of the old popular religions, which were no longer believed, or than many of the absurd superstitions of the East. 6. Perhaps the conversion of the Greeks and Romans to Christianity also admits of a further explanation. We may regard the conversion of a people to a religion of redemption as the final stage in the development of its entire spiritual life. I venture merely to suggest this view, for a knowl- edge of the laws of the evolution of a popular life, similar to that which we have of the development of an individual life, is of course utterly out of the question. Let us say, then, that the religion of redemption is the product of a nation's senility : it produces mythology and the tales of heroes in its youth, philosophy and science in its manhood, a philo- sophy of consolation and a religion of redemption in its old age. We might compare the stages of development in the world of ideas with parallel stages of development in the practical world: youth yearns for action in the chase and war ; manhood turns to work and acquisition, to commerce and industry ; old age lays aside its tasks, and feeds on the products of its former achievements ; it yearns for rest, and 8 li: 114 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY CHRISTIANIZATION OF THE OLD WORLD 115 withdraws from the present, it lives in the memory of the past and in the thought of the hereafter. The new religion, therefore, offers itself as a substitute for poetry and science, for work and conflict, hopefully transfiguring the evening of life as with a soft twilight. The same development of the great Eastern branch of the Aryan stock also seems to favor such a view of the conver- sion of the old nations to Christianity. The Hindoos, too, had once started out, under the protection of kindred martial gods, upon a career of conquest and victory, and had battled for their habitations on the banks of the Indus and the Ganges. They, too, had reached a high stage of mental and economic evolution. And among them also, at last, the desire for civilization changed into religiosity. Brahmanism, and still more Buddhism, both of them products of immanent development, are to the Orientals what Christianity was in the Graeco-Roman world. The two conceptions of life show such an astonishing similarity in their details, that the belief in the derivation of Christianity from Indian sources constantly forces itself upon us. The commands of the Dhammapadam, a collection of wise Buddhistic sayings,^ often exactly agree, in meaning and in language, with the collection of sayings of the so-called Sermon on the Mount. To exterminate the desires, to suffer wrong without anger and revenge, to be pure in heart and peaceful in disposition : these are the commands which are given to the believers in the former case as well as in the latter. The forms of life, 1 For a German translation see W. Weber's Hindoo Studies {Indische Studien), I 29-86 The able work of H. Oldenberg, Buddha, his Life, his Doctrine, his Order {Buddha, sein Leben, seine Lehre, seine Gemeinde) [English translation London 1882] (2 ed., 1890) gives the historical basis for the interpretation and understanding of these sayings. In the third volume of Dnncker's Ilistorr, of Anfinuitu we have an attempt to trace the development of the Hindoo popular spirit in which the contrast between a stage of civilization and a religious stage of development is very marked. [See the excellent little work of Paul Cams, The Gospel of Buddha and his Table of Reference, on pp. 231-241 ; alBO the bibliography given by him on pages 241-242. — Tr.] too, in which these demands are sought to be realized show the most remarkable similarity; here as well as there we find monasteries and monks, with the three vows of poverty, chastity, and humility or obedience. There are, of course, also radical differences between Budd- hism and Christianity, differences conditioned by the lives of the two founders. In Buddha, the Enlightened One, there is no passion, we might almost say, no personal will ; a gentle teaclier, he travels from place to place, communicating the truth discovered by him that life is suffering, and that the way to salvation passes through the knowledge of the essence of existence. Tlie life of Jesus is a struggle with the world and with evil, which confronts him in personal form in Satan. Buddha's death is the quiet extinction of a flame, the death of Jesus is the victorious death of a hero. The words of Jesus are flames which arouse passions, the preaching of Buddha is monotonous repetition ; we might almost say, it has a hypnotizing effect. Schopenhauer's claim that Christianity is in every respect inferior to Budd- hism, can be explained only by his a priori aversion to Christianity, or rather to the church and theology ; for other- wise he could not have failed to see how much greater is the value of Christianity, considered from the purely human and poetical standpoint, than that of Buddliism. The more highly developed the will-to-live is in the Occident, the greater is at least the dramatic interest in its conversion. But in so far as the above-mentioned differences are differ- ent expressions of the original or acquired character of the nations, we may say : Christianity and Buddhism are homologous processes of development. i THE MEDIEVAL CONCEPTION IIT CHAPTER IV « THE MIDDLE AGES AND THEIR CONCEPTION OF LIFEi 1 The Middle Ages seem, at first sight, to have been abso- lutely ruled by the Christian conception of life. The church represents the framework in which their entire spiritual life was embraced. The church doctrine governed knowledge ; the vita religiosa, the monastic life, which rests upon the principle of world-estrangement and self-denial, was unreservedly ac- cepted as the ideal of conduct. Indeed, poverty, chastitjs and obedience, the three monastic vows, meant nothing but the extermination of the three strongest impulses of the natural man : the impulses which aim at possession, family, reputation and power. In reality, the entire clergy wore amenable to the rules of the vita ,..%io«a; their mission consisted in exemplifying to the people the Christian life ; but the church never wholly succeeded in imposing monachism upon the clergy living outside of the monasteries ; celibacy alone was gradually enforced. Nevertheless, it would be an error to suppose that mediaeval life was really the same in character as the life of the old Christian communities in the Graeco-Roman world. If there is any truth whatever in the view suggested above, concerning the nature of the religion of redemption, this cannot hav^ been the case The Middle Ages do not represent the senility ot the Germanic nations, but, if we may be allowed to continue our comparison of a collective life with an individual life, their school-days ; they went to school to antiquity, learnmg 1 r^ee references in notes on pp. 35 and 65. — Tr.] language and science, philosophy and religion, useful and beautiful arts. Now, these youthful nations could no more be converted, in the real sense of the term, than a schoolboy can be converted. He alone can be converted who has lived, and now discovers that life does not keep what it seemed to promise. The old nations were converted, they made this discovery at the end of a long and brilliant career of civili- zation; after having failed to find happiness by satisfying their desires, they now sought peace through deliverance from desire. When the Germans became Christians, they had hardly entered upon the path of civilization ; they could not receive the baptism with the same feelings as the ancients. Of this the history of their Christianization does not leave us in doubt. In the old world the conversion to Christianity was absolutely spontaneous and from within. Christianity had come to the ancients, not with the force of arms, like Islam later on, nor with superior culture and science ; it possessed none of these things, nay, the lack of them constituted one of its essential traits. It triumphed not by the methods of pol- itics, but contrary to the will of the political powers. To be sure, after its establishment, after it became a power, this state of affairs soon changed ; the politicians, who make everything subserve their ends, also utilized Christianity, the state itself became Christian, or Christianity was organized into a state, and the last remains of paganism were finally eradicated by the government. All this, of course, could not fail to in- fluence the inner essence of Christianity; ever since the existence of Christian emperors, which Tertullian had de- clared to be a contradiction in terms,^ the church could no longer assume the harsh opposition to the " world " which the primitive communities assumed; a kind of compromise was made between Christianity and the world : it assimilated BO much of the world as was needed, not to overcome but to 1 ApoL, c. 21. 118 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY rule the world. In this way the church developed into a new world-power during the latter days of antiquity, not, however, without having first created a kind of refuge in the mon- asteries for an unworldly or extra- worldly Christianity ; and the high estimate which the church places upon the monastic life shows that she is still conscious of the true relation of Christianity to the world. The conversion of the Germanic peoples was a process entirely different from the original conversion of the old nations to Christianity ; they were, we might say, not really converted to Christianity, hut to the church. Politics and coercion always played a part in the reception of baptism, and often cast the deciding vote. The Germanic tribes, from whom the German people sprang, were all of them com- pelled by the force of arms to join Christianity or rather the political-ecclesiastical system of the Frankish Empire. The history of the wars and administration of Charlemagne tells bloody tales of the "conversion" of the Saxons. He that refuses baptism, so it is decreed in the capitulare of Fader- born (785), or wantonly eats meat during Lent, or burns a corpse after the custom of the heathens, shall die. Whoever cannot recite the Lord's prayer or the creed, so a later capitulare decrees, shall be punished with blows or by fast- ing, whether it be a man or a woman. 2 Just as the conversion of the Germans was different from that of the ancients, so their conceptions and mode of life differed from those of primitive Christianity. The Middle Ages were not tired of the world and sated with life, but full of energy and the desire to achieve great deeds. Individuals were not wanting in whom the true Christian mood asserted itself; in many a mediaeval church hymn the feeling of world- weariness and the yearning for deliverance from this misery and for the heavenly fatherland is pathetically expressed. But that was not the prevailing mood. By the side of the church poetry flourished the popular epic or heroic poem ; THE MEDIEVAL CONCEPTION 119 coming nearer to the hearts of the people, it was transmitted by word of mouth throughout the entire Middle Ages. It is not at all Christian in character. The virtue most admired is not resignation and patience, but ferocious courage ; the warlike hero is the ideal of the Nihelungenlied no less than of the Iliad. To love your enemies and to suffer wrong was as foreign to the German warriors as to the heroes in Homer. The true man was a strong and true friend to his friends, and an awful enemy to his enemies. The old Saxon poem of the life of Jesus (the Eeliand) makes Christ a mighty lord and the disciples his retainers ; the transformation shows how impossible it was for the Saxons to imagine the real Jesus and his followers. The lyric poetry is as little Christian in character as the epic. It sings of the pleasures and sorrows of love, the joys of spring and the love of the world. Such poetry springs directly from the hearts of the people. There is no doubt that it is a true mirror of their real life. Measured by the command of the Gospels to despise the world and its pleasures, the life of the Germanic nations during the Middle Ages was not a Christian life. The great business of the men was war ; martial games and the chase occupied the leisure of the nobles. The pleasures of the table and society were also prized, and the relations of the sexes were made the subject of an art and a study, all of which is elaborately set forth in Weinhold's Buch iiber die deutschen Frauen im Mittelalter, 3. Nor did the actual life of the clergy, as has frequently been pointed out, always wholly conform to its ascetic ideal. The Fope, who, in remembrance of the command of Christ, called himself the servant of the servants of God, was in reality the lord of the world ; the bishops were princes and rulers, many among them caring more for their lands and people, for power and wealth, than for the salvation of souls. The cloisters, in which the spirit of unworldliness ( Weltflucht, world-flight) and asceticism was supposed to thrive, were 120 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY centres of civilization, and occasionally also the scenes of luxurious and unholy enjoyment. The Benedictines and Cistercians carried handicrafts and arts, horticulture and agri- culture, wherever they went. Even the treasures of heathen science' and literature sought refuge in the monasteries, and were preserved by them for posterity, a service for which they have often been extolled. The praise is well deserved, but it is strange, nevertheless, that the brotherhoods of Christian asceticism should have sought and found praise not only for transcribing the verses of Ovid and Horace, the writings of Aristotle and Lucretius, but also for studying, explaining, imitating, and so constantly keeping them alive. And no less strange seem to us, looked at from this point of view, those military orders the members of which, as the soldiers of Christ, wore the sword and the cross, the coat of mail and the cassock, and inflicted as well as bound up wounds in his service. The intellectual life of the Middle Ages, which was directly dominated by the church, also differed from that of primitive Christianity. A strong, youthful craving for knowledge was unmistakable ; the age still distrusted its own powers, and drew upon others for its science, but it took it wherever it found it ; from the books of the heathens, Jews, and Saracens, the scholars of the mediaeval universities derived their knowl- edge of things. Scholastic theology itself is a first modest att°empt to rationalize the sacred teachings. The saying of Anselm : " I believe in order that I may understand," is char- acteristic of mediaeval theology ; the latter does not aim to create a new truth, - we have the truth ; but it desires to ap- propriate, and, as it were, to master by the natural reason the truth which was originally accepted on faith. That was the hi<^h goal of the intellectual strivings of the Middle Ages — a goal, however, which was found to be more and more unattain- able as the work progressed. We cannot say that this aim was in harmony with the spirit of primitive Christianity ; Paul, at THE MEDIEVAL CONCEPTION 121 least, in whom the " foolish preaching of the cross" was first confronted with Greek wisdom, does not dream of a com- promise between the two, or of rendering the truth of salva- tion intelligible to the natural reason ; Tertullian with his / believe because it is absurd, evidently comes nearer to his way of looking at things than Anselm. The desire to comprehend the faith is, in a certain sense, the first beginning of the desire to be emancipated from it, to rise above it. So Luther felt about the matter ; he hated scholastic theology and philosophy, because they mingled with the Christian faith the heathen wisdom of Aristotle ; he desired to restore the former in its purity. Hence mediaeval Christianity was not the same as primitive Christianity. Not only were the Germans Christianized, but Christianity was also Germanized; it appropriated the nat- ural desire for civilization of the youthful nations, and was thoroughly imbued with their spirit. Moreover, it had, as has already been pointed out, gradually assumed a more positive relation to the world and its aims, even during antiquity, and was thus prepared for the task of bringing to the new nations the elements of the old civilization along with the new faith. 4. What shall we say of this mixture of Christianity and the world ? The sects which separated from the triumphant church have always regarded it as a corruption of Chris- tianity ; they were unable to recognize in a state church the community of saints who had gathered around the word of the cross in the primitive times. The peculiar essence and strength of Christianity seemed to them to have been lost when the church divided with the state the power over the woi'ld, either ruling it, as the Catholic church always aimed to do, or being ruled by it, as in the case of Protestantism. From the standpoint of primitive Christianity it would be hard to contradict this view. Christianity was originally a battle with the world. A Christianity without battle, a 122 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY Christianity recognized by the world, approved and author- ized by the state, is no longer the same thing ; or if all men had become Christians, there would no longer be any world or state; the times would be fulfilled, history closed. — It is also certain that a type of character has been produced by the mixture of Christian forms and modes of speech with worldly manners, which is one of the most repulsive deform- ities ever suffered by the nature of man ; it is called Pfaffen- turn: haughtiness and greed for power assuming the form of Christian humility ; harshness and presumption, disguised as love and care for the soul of the brother. The ancient world was unfamiliar with this type, but it is as old as the church, and is found, moreover, not only among the servants of the church, but also among the servants of the state and science, indeed among all who have spiritual or worldly power. If we look upon the priests as the representatives of the church, we can hardly regard the church as anything but a great degeneration.^ 1 As an attempt to write a history of non-ecclesiastical Christianity, that is, the true evangelical Christianity, a work hy L. Keller, The Reformation and the Older Reform- Parties (Die Reformation und die alteren Reformparteien), 1 885, is of interest. That the author has succeeded in proving an uninterrupted, historical connection in the "evangelical communities" from the time when Christianity became a state religion under Constantine, down to the Reformation and beyond it to our times, the expert may well doubt. We must not, however, forget that not every- thing that has happened is to be found in the fragmentary records which have come down to us. — A passionate protest is raised against state Christianity from the standpoint of primitive Christianity by tlie Dane, Soeren Kierkegaard, in his later writings. In the intensely sarcastic articles published by him in the year 1 855, in a number of journals, and entitled "Moment" (German translation in • Soeren Kierkegaard, Attack upon Christianity/, edited by A. Dorner and Chr. Schremph, 1896), he again and again contrasts the original preachers of Chris- tianity, who gave up their lives for it, with the thousands of "witnesses of the truth," employed by the royal Danish government, who by preaching the passion of Christ win positions, decorations, silver table-services, gilded reclining chairs, and other glories. The true Christian is even to this day recognized by the Cross ; not by the gold or silver cross which is worn on a colored ribbon around the neck or upon the bosom and marks its wearer as a knight or a commander, but by the Cross which is imposed as a martyrdom and a disgrace by the self- appointed and official representatives of the world upon those who despise the world for Christ's sake. Indeed, it is perhaps the strangest irony of history that the cross, or, translating the Roman custom into modern language, the THE MEDIEVAL CONCEPTION 123 The judgment of history, however, can and must be a dif- ferent one. In order to become the powerful leaven which it afterward became, in order to be not merely the euthanasia of the old peoples, but a life-principle of the new society of nations now appearing upon the theatre of the world, Chris- tianity had to assume a positive relation to the world, it had to be organized into the strong and permanent form of the church, after the manner of a world-kingdom. It is, of course, an indisputable fact that it was thereby changed, but it is no less certain that this was the only condition under which it could have hoped to influence the future historical life of the modern nations. It is not probable that the old Christian communities would have succeeded in converting and educat- ino- the warlike Germanic tribes. The latter bowed down before the brilliant retinue of Christ in the church; it is more than doubtful whether they would have bowed down before the followers by whom Jesus himself was surrounded on earth. Now, unless we deny that very valuable elements have been added to the life of these nations by the church, we cannot deny that the transformation of Cliristianity into the church was an historical necessity. But there is no danger that an impartial observer will deny such a proposition, unless, of course, he is prepared to reject not only the church, but the Middle Ages themselves as one great mis- take. A fanatical prophet of the Renaissance or a passionate follower of the Reformation might perhaps have been ready to do such a thing ; at present no one will refuse to admit that the spiritual-moral life of the Middle Ages was full of peculiar beauty. And this beauty universally depends upon the eccles- iastical-Christian character of their thoughts and feelings. 1 call to mind the tender, high-minded sense of justice, which, gibbet, should be worn as a mark of honor. —A book of Leo Tolstoi, My Religion, (i':nglish translation. New York, 1899) expresses similar views with respect to the relation of Christianity to the Greek Orthodox Church. The commentary from the inner life of the poet is furnished by his wonderful Popular Stories (Reclam Library). 124 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY THE MEDIEVAL CONCEPTION 125 grafted upon the military virtues of the Germanic nations, pro- duced such a peculiar type of moral nobility in their knight- hood ; and the merciful treatment of the poor and wretched, a form of beneficence which, embodied in thousands of charit- able institutions, has come down to us, and to this day alleviates suffering and dries tears. I also call to mind their spiritualized relations to women, and their aversion to all sexual unchastity — although the latter frequently failed to prevent what is hardly repulsive to the natural man, and the former resulted in strange aberrations in the Minnedienst, yet the tenderness and rigor of the Middle Ages contrast favorably with the frivolousness and superficiality of the ancient world. I call to mind the gradual growth of the sentiment that slavery, the order of society according to the natural right of the stronger, does not agree with the commandment of love. Although the church did not abolish slavery, but permitted it to exist, like other worldly institu- tions, as an indifferent form by the side of the order in the kingdom of heaven, nay, expressly recognized it and bought and owned slaves herself, she was neither able nor willing to hinder the spirit of the Gospel, wherever it triumphed, from entirely transforming the relation between masters and slaves, so that even the legal form ultimately became impos- sible.i I finally call to mind the union of the nations in the church, which somewhat softened the national antag- onisms ; not sufficiently, it is true, to prevent wars, but yet sufficiently to rob them of the character of wars of annihila- tion, in which these antagonisms result according to the natural order of events. We cannot fail to recognize in all these things the influence of organized Christianity, which had, by assimilating elements of civilization of all kinds, become a world-power. And the glorious development of 1 See the instructive essay by F. Overbeck on the relation of the old church to slavery in the Roman Empire in his Studies on the History of the Ancient Church {Studien zur Geschichte der alten Kirche), 1875. mediaeval art, the promising beginnings of scientific study, would they have been possible without the church? The "evangelical communities," which clung to the old concep- tion concerning the relation of Christianity to the world, have always shown indifference or aversion to art and science. Hence, whoever does not regard all civilization as a mistake, or the participation of the Germanic nations in Christianity and ancient civilization as an aberration inconsistent with their own immanent development — a view which is possible, but which, of course, can neither be proved nor refuted — cannot regard the mixture of Christianity with civilization as a mere corruption of the Gospel.^ 1 The above exposition agrees in its historical conception as well as in its criti- cal estimate with the view held by Harnack in his History of the Dogma. A few passages from the first volume of this work, which gives us a clear idea of the growth of the theoretical side of ecclesiastical Christianity, may suffice to show this. " By surrounding the Gospel with a protecting shell, Catholicism at the same time obscured it. It preserved the Christian religion against acute Hel- lenization (Gnosticism), but was at the same time forced to permit a con- stantly increasing measure of secularization. In the interests of its worldly mission, it did not, indeed, exactly destroy the awful earnestness of the religion, but it made it possible for those who were less serious in their convictions to be regarded as Christians and to regard themselves as such, by permitting a less rigorous ideal of life. It allowed a church to arise which was no longer a com- munity of faith, hope, and discipline, but a political community, in which the Gospel simply constituted one of many important elements. It invested all forms which this woridly community needed, with apostolic — that is, indirectly, with divine — authority, in an increasing measure, and thereby corrupted Christianity and obscured and rendered difficult the knowledge of what was Christian. But in Catholicism the religion for the first time received a systematic form. In Catholic Christianity the formula was found which reconciled faith and science. This formula satisfied mankind for centuries, and the blessings which it brought continued even after the formula itself had become a fetter." (I., 275.) Catholicism, the product of the most intimate fusion of Christianity with antiquity, "conquered the world and became the foundation for a new phase of history in the Middle Ages. The union of the Christian religion with a particular historical phase of knowledge and civilization of humanity, may be deplored in the interests of the Christian religion, which was thereby made worldly, and in the interests of civilization, which was thereby impeded. But complaints here become presumptuous : for we are indebted for nothing less than everything we possess and prize to the union which has been formed between Christianity and antiquity, a union in which neither element has been able to overcome the other. But upon the conflicts resulting from this relation our inner and spiritual life depends to this day." (p. 284.) THE MODERN CONCEPTION 127 CHAPTER V THE MODERN CONCEPTION OF LIFE 1. The end of the fifteenth century marks a new epoch in the life of the Western world ; the modern era becomes the heir of the Middle Ages. The line of demarkation is clear and distinct ; it is defined by two powerful spiritual move- ments : by the Renaissance and the Reformation. New forms of life and a new conception of the universe were subse- quently developed. The state, the institution of the modern times, gradually supplanted the church, the dominant insti- tution of the Middle Ages : the influence of the latter declined, the individual became self-dependent in his highest relations, in his relation to God, and gradually shook off the guardian- ship of the church in matters of faith and salvation. The state, on the other hand, was constantly expanding. It deprived the church of one function after the other : the school, the promo- tion of science and art, the care of the poor and weak, legisla« tion and the administration of justice, a field which had been largely appropriated by the church. Thus the state became a comprehensive institution for the advancement of civilization; it was firmly planted in this world while the church had its deep- est roots in the transmundane world. — There is a reciprocal relation between the development of the world of institutions and the world of thoughts. The old conception of the uni- verse, based upon authorities and treating of heavenly things, was gradually overthrown by the new philosophy, which had its formal basis in the principle of rationalism, the principle of free investigation, and its material basis in the new cosmology and natural science, which deal with the things of this world. — The development of economic and social life formed the starting-point of the entire transformation. The rapid, increase and expansion of international commerce beginning in the thirteenth century gave rise to the first large cities ; the new society became more and more intent upon con- quering the earth and appropriating its wealth. The yearn- ing for the hereafter was stifled in the mad race for the things of this world. Nevertheless, from the standpoint from which we have just been considering the Middle Ages, we shall not regard the change as a radical one. We find no such revolution as followed the conversion of antiquity to Christianity. Per- haps it would be safer to say that the flames which were smouldering in the Middle Ages now burst forth ; the ten- dency to civilization which already existed in mediaeval times, but was somewhat impeded and obscured by the shell of the supranaturalistic religion in which it was encased, now over- came all resistance. The Renaissance and the Reformation represent the breaking of the shell. 2. The Renaissance} It means the rebirth of classical, that is, pre-Christian, payan^ antiquity. Pagan antiquity had perished with the conversion of the old nations to Chris- tianity. Christianized antiquity, which evolved its new form in the church, had undertaken the education of the new nations, and had thus far guided their religious, scientific, and moral life. The church had also given them the elements of the old civilization, above all philosophy and literature; 1 [For the Renaissance and Reformation see the general and modern histories of philosophy, the works mentioned p. 35, and the following: Carriere, Die philosophische Weltanschauung der Reformationszeit ; Voight, Die Wiederhelehun't des classischen Alterthums ; Burckhardt, Die Cultur der Renaissance (Engl, translation by Middleman) ; Geiger, Renaissance und Humanismus in Italien und Deufschland ; Symonds, The Renaissance in Ttaly ; Peschel, Geschichte des Zeif- altersder Entdeckungen. See particularly Knno Fischer, History of Modern Phil- osophif, vol. I.. 1, chapters V. and VI. For further bibliography, Ueberweg. vol ni., §§ 2-6 ; Weber, p. 10, note 1, p. 274, note 6. — Tr.] i 128 ORIGINS OF MOKAL PHILOSOPHY THE MODERN CONCEPTION 129 and the young nations had derived instruction and pleasure from them ; not without some misgivings, of course : they knew (the church told them so) that it was heathen philoso- phy and literature, and that it was really not proper for a Christian to enjoy them. These doubts and fears were wholly given up in the time of the Renaissance. The age emancipated itself from the old morose school and task- master, the discovery was made that antiquity had itself been young before it became old and crabbed, and the youthful heathen antiquity was found to be much more attractive and grander than Christianized antiquity. All minds were filled with a passionate admiration for antiquity; the pro- ducts of its literature, its art, its philosophy, were ardently sought after, studied, imitated, and thoroughly assimilated. The literary and artistic productions of the Middle Ages were thrown aside with the contempt with which the schoolboy casts aside his school exercises and text-books at the close of his course ; everything mediaeval was now designated as Gothic barbarism. The age was anxious to think and to feel, to make poetry and to create, to live and to enjoy, like the models placed before it by classical antiquity. The putting on of the new man received its symbolical expression in the rejection of the old and in the adoption of new Latinized or Hellenized names. — It must be confessed, however, that the Renaissance reached its highest perfection only in Italy. From J. Burckhardt's Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, we may glean what the " rebirth," the birth of the new man, signified. In Italy the evolution was a necessary one. On this side of the Alps the movement was not spontaneous, nor did it take such deep root in the hearts of the people ; here it was some- what imitative in character. And here the conflict between the old and the new culture — after the latter had just gained a foothold in the universities — was cut short by the breaking out of a new conflict, the conflict which Luther inaugurated against the church in the name of the Gospel. This struggle 80 thoroughly absorbed the attention of the German people, and soon after also of the other nations, that the Renaissance was completely overshadowed. Only after the at least provisional settlement of the conflict in the seventeenth century, after a certain equilibrium had been restored between the Catholic and Protestant powers, there arose in the middle of the eight- eenth century, and now originating in Protestant Germany, a kind of literary and artistic after-bloom of the Renaissance. The trait common to the first and the second Renaissance was 2i passionate craving for freedom on the part of the individual: he was no longer willing to be bound by established opinions and institutions, but desired the complete and free develop- ment of his particular nature, the complete and free exercise of all his impulses and powers ; in the struggle for freedom he opposed nature to convention and tradition. But this was ex- actly what the Greeks had aimed at : the freest development of the individual ; and for that reason Hellenism became the ideal of humanity. 3. The Reformation, In its origin it was quite different from the preceding movement. The deeply religious, pas- sionately truthful, thoroughly national soul of Luther re- belled against the system of dead works and dead dogmas, welded together by reason and authority, which, as he be- lieved, had, in the form of ritualism and scholastic theology, stifled the simple, living, vigorous, and happy faith of old Christianity ; it rebelled as well against the worldly, aristo- cratic life of pleasure and culture pursued by the high clergy, who were permeated with the conceptions of the Renaissance ; against the neo-paganism of Leo X. and Albrecht of Mayence, which seemed to him a mockery upon Christianity. Luther was by no means a man of modern culture and learning: these would have been much more in keeping with the Medi- cean Pope, at least with the incumbent, if not with the func- tion of the office. Nor was he a lover of enjoyment and a worshipper of civilization; these, too, were things for which Leo 130 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY THE MODERN CONCEPTION 131 showed a more refined taste and a deeper appreciation than he. Luther did not look upon the church doctrine as not ra* tional enough nor upon the church-life as not worldly enough ; nay, the reverse was the case : he absolutely repudiated reason in matters of faith, and he had only a very moderate opinion of the value of this earthly life and its civilization. He did not absolutely condemn pleasure, and he demanded that men labor to perform their earthly tasks ; but he would by no means have been willing to espouse the emancipation of the flesh and the complete devotion to the problems of civilization. Though he emphasized the positive side, he did not do this for the sake of civilization and happiness, but in opposition to the official view of the church, which characterized the monastic life as in itself meritorious and holy. Luther saw in it a false self-sacrifice, which, even when sincerely made, hindered the true sacrifice of the heart, and, when not sin- cere, encouraged a base worship of the flesh under the guise of self-denial. His attitude to the church was similar in this respect to that of Jesus towards the self-righteousness and worship of the Pharisees : he demanded not that we worship God less, but that we worship Him more and more deeply, and that we practise self-denial. The difference between the Reformation and the Renais- sance is also clearly seen in their historical relation. We can say that the Reformation robbed the Renaissance of the victory which the latter already saw within her grasp. The Reform- ation, at first in Germany and then in the other countries, forced the thoughts of men from worldly things, from literary and artistic culture, to which the higher classes of society had devoted themselves, back to religious affairs. The Humanists, who at first hailed Luther with delight, soon almost entirely deserted him again. They saw that they had been mistaken in the Wittenberg monk, that there was a different spirit in him than they had imagined. But when we examine the two movements, not merely in the form which they assumed at the outset and in the minds of their leaders, Luther and Erasmus, when we study their historical relations, the matter assumes a different aspect. We shall have to confess that they both helped to free the modern spirit from its mediaeval covering, that the Reforma- tion, too, especially when we consider its more remote ratlier than its immediate effects, furthered the development of the subjective, individual spirit, and the intellectual civilization of man. And that was surely not an accident. In a certain fiense, Luther undoubtedly agreed with Erasmus and the Renaissance: the craving of the age for freedom and indi- vidualism was alive in him also. Luther at the Diet of Worms: — that is certainly a figure deserving to be placed at the beginning of modern times, the free subject appealing from the authorities to his own reason and his own conscience. Herein lies the enormous difference between Luther and Augus- tine, with whom he has so much in common in other respects : he is wholly lacking in the humilitas towards the empirical church, the humble and obedient submissiveness to the faith of the church, which is so strongly marked in Augustine. In Luther there is a spirit of defiant independence. " My cause is God's cause " — with this he boldly and defiantly takes his stand against all authorities, and he is never afraid to draw the conclusion, and to proclaim it, with the greatest pos- sible emphasis : Hence the cause of those who are against me is the cause of the devil. And this explains the significance of the Reformation for the religious life: it makes the individual independent in his highest relation, in his relation to God ; it does away with the church as a necessary mediator, it does away with almost the entire ecclesiastical apparatus, which the centuries had constructed in order to secure the salvation of the individual by works and formulas and sacred acts. Another effect is to be noted. The church, having thus lost its raison d'etre gradually disappeared, like an organ I 132 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY that had become unnecessary. New churches were, of course, at first established, in the form of state churches ; but they did not possess the importance of the old church. They were not a great independent institution, but have always formed a kind of appendage to the state. The sovereign is the head of a state church, the clergy are officials, whose number is limited to the demand ; the mediaeval clergy, on the other hand, constituted a separate class within or rather out- side of society: their function was not to transact official business, but to glorify the name of God, for which reason there could never be too many priests, churches, and altars. This change manifests itself in all the forms of our life. A mediaeval city received its character from its churches ; the houses of the people were gathered around the houses of wor- ship, as the centres of life ; the old Rhenish cities, and the old Harz and Baltic cities, Cologne, Mayence, Hildesheim, Halberstadt, Wismar, Rostock, to this day take their impress from their church buildings. In modern cities like Berlin, Hanover, Altona, Darmstadt, Mannheim, the state-building predominates : the palace, the government-building, the court of justice, the post-office, the railway station, the barracks, the prison. Churches are not often seen, and what few there are look embarrassed and cramped in the midst of the im- mense houses which overtower them, or they stand upon great vacant places which they cannot command. But not only the architecture of our cities, our entire mode 6i life has been secularized. Asceticism has passed away with the monasteries; through marriage the clergy have become members of society. The sacramental acts, the thousand sacred customs and ceremonies, with which the entire medi- aeval life was interwoven, have, with the exception of a few survivals which are also on the point of dying out, disap- peared; the numerous holidays have been transformed into working days, and the daily divine service has been sus- pended. Only on one day of the week have we " church," THE MODERN CONCEPTION 133 as popular usage characteristically expresses it, and as the church itself proves; on the other days it is closed up and deserted. All this seems to signify that we are living on the earth, and desire to live on the earth. Formerly everything reminded us of the Beyond, now everything reminds us of the Here. It can hardly be doubted that the thoughts and feelings of the age have also been secularized with the outward forms. However artificial the religious life of many may have remained in the Middle Ages, the countless references to the hereafter and eternity could not fail to make an impression upon the hearts of men. With the disappearance of the outward ecclesiastical forms, the hearts of the majority were weaned from the thoughts of eternity ; they confined themselves more closely and exclusively to the earth. It surely was not Luther's intention to exhort them to do this. He favored the aboli- tion of ascetic institutions, but not in the interests of civiliz- ation and good living ; on the contrary, the life of the canons and monks seemed to him a form of indolence congenial to the flesh, labor and marriage more suitable to the lusts. He approved of the restriction of ecclesiastical exercises and acts, not in order to gain time for more important worldly affairs ; on the contrary, he looked upon them as a mere compromise with heaven, to which, after all, our entire life ought to be devoted. For Luther heaven remained the home, the earth a vale of tears ; and these conceptions and feelings were for a long time, if not the prevailing sentiments, at least peculiar to particular individuals, in Protestantism. Nevertheless, if we consider the total effects, we can say that the Reformation helped to turn man's life earthward, towards civilization, and away from the hereafter and salvation. However untrue monasticism may often prove to its ideal, it nevertheless contributes to keep alive in the Catholic world the feeling — weak though it may often be — that the goal of life is not an earthly one. It still retains something of the spirit of •ii 134 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY unworldliness characteristic of primitive Christianity. And those church exercises and duties, the confessional and peni- tential system, the prayers and fasts, have the same effect ; superficially though they are usually performed, and great though the danger may be of making the religious life ex- tern^l and shallow, nay of corrupting the morality, they still direct the gaze to something beyond this life and its aims. We are in the habit of saying that Luther carried Christianity from the cloisters into the world, that he exalted fidelity to the daily caUing into a divine service. This was certainly his aim, and we undoubtedly find something of this spirit even in our times. On the other hand, it would not be doing justice to the truth were we to deny that the great majority used their freedom from the duties of external worship to neglect every form of divine worship ; even Luther repeatedly com- plains that the freedom of the Gospel is abused as a free- dom of the flesh. Melanchthon praises Luther in his funeral sermon for having delivered us from the paedagogia puer- His of the old church. It is, however, not yet settled that religion can dispense with such a paedagogia puerilis, which admonishes us daily by means of petty practices. It is also a peculiar fact that men are more ready to believe in things and institutions which require something of them: they measure their value according to the magnitude of the investment. This surely has something to do with the strong attachment of the masses to the Catholic church. The Protes- tant church demands nothing, that is, nothing outwardly, but faith alone ; the conclusion which suggests itself to common- sense is : hence it has nothing to offer us, nothing at least for which we care. Just as little can we or will we deny that the Reformation furthered the development of subjective thought, of the criti- cal, rationalistic spirit. The downfall of the church shattered the great authority which had controlled the thoughts of men, not only outwardly, but inwardly, for a thousand years. The THE MODERN CONCEPTION 135 new churches had no authority ; they attempted to retain it, and even vindicated it against their opponents with the same external means employed by the latter ; but they were with- out inner authority. They owed their existence to revolution, to the destruction of the strongest human authority that the Occident had ever seen ; they could not hide their origin. Against authority they appealed to the Scriptures as the higher authority. But did not the old church first invest these writings with authority by establishing the canon? And did she not have the right of interpretation on her side, according to the practice of centuries ? The appeal to a better interpretation of the Scriptures was therefore, ulti- mately, an appeal to individual reason and conscience. The new churches could not deny any one this appeal, upon which their own title was based, and whenever they did so, their refusal was an inner contradiction, and therefore without inner force. At any rate, the emancipation of subjective thought, not only in the Protestant, but also in the Catholic countries — whether we regard it as a merit or a fault — received a mighty impetus from the Reformation. 4. The three or four centuries that have passed since the beginning of the modern era, are pitched in the same key as these preludia. The desire for civilization, which lay hidden beneath the Christian-ecclesiastical surface during the Mid- dle Ages, is now openly and unreservedly recognized as the only legitimate ideal. True, the modern epoch, too, has its heavy-laden hearts, who, in their yearning for peace seek refuge from the turmoil of the world and find rest in Christian- ity. But they by no means meet with either the formal or the actual acknowledgment that they have chosen the better part. Everything that is really characteristic of the modern period, everything with which a history of modern life, of the modern state, modern society, modern civilization, modern philosophy, modern art and literature, is accustomed to deal, belongs to the other movement. Real Christianity is some- J ' m r' ' 136 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY thing so foreign to the champions of the modern era that they are unable to understand how any one can feel and live in that way ; they regard it as extravagant idealism and enthusiasm, as a symptom of disease, which has only a pathological interest. Even the Catholic world, which has preserved the ascetic life in the cloisters, is not very out- spoken in confessing its principle. It is a noteworthy fact that the Catholic historians do not answer the charge that the Catholic countries have not kept abreast of the Protestant nations in civilization by declaring that it is to the Catholics' credit to have still some thought of eternity, — unlike the Protestants, who, being merely intent on the mundane world, naturally excel them in that world's civilization. Instead, the reproach is really felt as a reproach, and the attempt is made to show that it is not well-founded, that the church has really done the most for civilization. The estimate which it places upon scientific hnoivledge may be used as a criterion of the spirit of an age. According to the old Christian conception, the worth of a man is absolutely independent of the knowledge and culture he possesses ; in the eyes of God, faith and love, and not culture and philoso- phy, have worth. The modern era unreservedly returns to the Greek conception that the highest and most important func- tion of man is the exercise of reason in scientific knowledge. The sciences are the pride of the modern times. The Middle Ages are despised as a barbarous and benighted period, be- cause they have done nothing for science. But we also find in the modern estimate of knowledge another peculiar trait, which is lacking in the Greeks : for the Greeks, knowledge was the highest good as such and desired for its own sake ; the moderns prize it especially for its practical utility. For them physics is a practical science, nay, the practical science ; for the champions of modern civilization do not think very much of that practical philosophy of which the Greek philosophers expected so much. Morality, Buckle believes, has always THE MODERN CONCEPTION 137 been the same, it has always been very much approved and very little followed ; the progress of the human race depends upon the progress of the natural sciences. So a great many of the leaders of modern culture believe with Buckle. When our newspapers, which reflect the opinions of their readers, by pre-established harmony, let us say, desire to praise the nineteenth century, they at once begin to speak of railroads and steamships, telegraphs and electrotechnics, armor-clads and breechloaders. 5. It is worth observing how soon the modern age became conscious — instinctively, one is tempted to believe — of its peculiar character. Francis Bacon dates the beginning of the modern era from the three great inventions of the mag- netic needle, gunpowder, and printing. These achievements characterize the spirit of the new epoch of the history of humanity; its motto is: Knowledge is power. Inventions Q)pera) are now made the test of knowledge. The old science gave its possessor skill in vanquishing opponents in debate; the new science gives him the power to conquer nature by art ( vhysici est non disputando adversarium, sed naturam operando vincere). Bacon has attempted, in his two main works, to lay the foundation and to outline the method of this new science. In a little unfinished essay, which is found among his works under the title Mva Atlantis^ he has drawn a picture of the perfect civilization of the future. The undertaking has frequently been repeated since then; it is worth while, however, to cast a glance at the first attempt of this kind. The JVova Atlantis is an island in the far West. The narrator, who had been driven out of the right course and carried to its shores, tells us that the noblest institution of the entire country is a natural-scientific society founded by an ancient king and called Domus Salomonis, or the Col- lege of the Six Days' Works. " The end of the foundation," so the guide explains, " is the knowledge of causes, and the secret notions of things ; and the enlargement of the bounds I'i! fl 138 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY of human empire, to the effecting of all things possible.'' Among the great number of particular institutions which serve this purpose are large and deep caves under the earth, some of them three miles in depth ; they are used " for all coagulations, indurations, refrigerations, and conservations of bodies ; " as well as for producing natural and new arti- ficial metals, from materials which lie there for many years ; also for curing certain diseases ; and for prolongation of life in some hermits that choose to live there, and indeed live very long, and possess wonderful knowledge. There are also high towers, the highest about half a mile in height, or in- cluding the height of the hill about three miles, which are used especially for meteorological observations ; lakes both salt and fresh for the production of fish and water-fowl as well as for experiments in the water; artificial wells and fountains with all kinds of mineral waters, amongst them the so-called Water of Paradise (^aqua Faradisi), which is un- usually efficacious for the preservation of health and the prolongation of life. They have also great and spacious houses, in which the meteorological occurrences, snow, hail, rain, and thunder-storms are imitated, and all kinds of animals are produced ; large and various orchards and gar- dens, " wherein we do not so much respect beauty, as variety of ground and soil, proper for divers trees and herbs," bear- ing the richest fruit ; " we have also means to make divers plants rise by mixtures of earth without seeds." " We have also parks and enclosures of all sorts of beasts and birds, which we use not only for view, or rareness, but likewise for dissection and trials ; that thereby we may take light what may be brought upon the body of man. Wherein we find many strange effects; as continuing life in them, though divers parts, which you account vital, be perished and taken forth ; resuscitating of some that seem dead in appearance ; and the like. We also try all poisons and other medicines upon them, as well of chirurgy as physic. By art, likewise, THE MODERN CONCEPTION 139 we make them greater or taller than their kind is, and con- trariwise dwarf them, and stay their growth ; we make them more fruitful and bearing than their kind is ; and contrari- wise barren and not generative. Also we make them differ in color, shape, activity, many ways. We find means to make commixtures and copulations of different kinds ; which have produced many new kinds, and them not barren, as the general opinion is. We make a number of kinds of serpents, worms, flies, fishes, of putrefaction; whereof some are ad- vanced (in effect) to be perfect creatures like beasts or birds ; and have sexes, and do propagate. Neither do we this by chance, but we know beforehand of what matters and com- mixture what kind of those creatures will arise." Of course the most astonishing results are produced in their brew- houses, bakehouses, and kitchens, etc. : " we strive to have drinks of extreme thin parts, insomuch as some of them put upon the back of your hand will, with a little stay, pass through to the palm, and yet taste mild to the mouth." There are also places where experiments are made with lights and colors ; here lights of every strength and color are produced; they have also "glasses and means to see small objects afar off and minute bodies perfectly and distinctly, such as heavenly bodies, or the parts of small animals, or corpuscles in urine and the blood." In other places experiments are made with sounds, smells, and tastes in the same highly practical way. There are also engine-houses, where wonderful cannons, fly- ing-machines, ships and boats for going under water, machines, as well as artificial men, beasts, birds, fishes, and serpents are made ; " item some perpetual motions (nonnuUi motus perpetui}.^^ ^ We see, these are new pictures which the new age paints upon the curtain of the future. The old Christianity raised its eyes from the earth, which offered nothing and promised 1 [See Ellis, Speddiug, and Heath's edition of Bacon's works, vol. V., pp. 359' 413. — Tr.] I !■ 140 ORIGIKS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY nothing, to heaven and its suprasensuous glory. The nejr age is looking for heaven upon earth ; it hopes to attam to the perfect civilization through science, and expects that this will make life healthy, long, rich, beautiful, and happy. Bacon once called himself the herald of the new era. In- deed, it is a splendid army that follows him to the conquest of heaven upon earth. Let us hear another and still another leader of the host in regard to the goal and the methods of the enterprise. . , , ^ 6. Descartes, who has a greater claim than any other to be called the leader of modem philosophy, formulates the pro- gramme of his philosophical reforms in the little treatise on Method (1637). In the last part he tells that by his me hod he reached new notions in metaphysics and morals which pleased him greatly ; but that, owing to his hostility to writ- L books, he had not published them. « But as soon as I had acquired some general notions respecting Physics, and, be^rinning to make trial of them in various particular diffi- culties, had observed how far they can carry us, and how much they differ from the principles that have been employed up to the present time, I believed that I could not keep them concealed without sinning grievously against the law by which we are bound to promote, as far as in us lies, the gen- eral good of mankind. For by them I perceived it to be possible to arrive at knowledge highly useful in life, and m room of the Speculative Philosophy usually taught in the Schools, to discover a Practical, by means of which, knowing the force and action of fire, water, air, the stars, the heavens, and all the other bodies that surround us, as distinctly as we know the various crafts of our artisans, we might also apply them in the same way to all the uses to which they are adapted, and thus render ourselves the lords and possessors of nature. And this is a result to be desired, not only in order to the invention of an infinity of arts by which we mi^vht be enabled to enjoy without any trouble the fruits of THE MODERN CONCEPTION 141 the earth, and all its comforts, but also and especially for the preservation of health, which is without doubt, of all the blessings of this life, the first and fundamental one ; for the mind is so intimately dependent upon the condition and relation of the organs of the body, that if any means can ever be found to render men wiser and more ingenious than hitherto, I believe that it is in Medicine they must be souglit for. It is true that the science of Medicine, as it now exists, contains few things whose utility is very remarkable ; but without any wish to depreciate it, I am confident that there is no one, even among those whose profession it is, who does not admit that all at present known in it is almost nothing in comparison of what remains to be discovered ; and that we could free ourselves from an infinity of maladies of body as well as of mind, and perhaps also even from the debility of age, if we had sufficiently ample knowledge of their causes and of the remedies provided for us by Nature. But since I designed to employ my whole life in the search after so neces- sary a Science, and since I had fallen in with a path which seems to me such, that if any one follow it he must inevitably reach the end desired, unless he be hindered either by the shortness of life or the want of experiments, I judged that there could be no more effectual provision against these two impediments than if I were faithfully to communicate to the public all the little I might myself have found, and incite men of superior genius to strive to proceed farther, by contributing, each accord- ino- to his inclination and ability, to the experiments which it would be necessary to make, and also by informing the public of all they might discover, so that, by the last beginning where those before them had left off, and thus connecting the lives and labors of many, we might collectively proceed much farther than each by himself could do " And in the preface to his system (Frincipia Philosophlae, 1644) he says, speak- ing of the utility of the new philosophy as opposed to the philosophy of the school, " that it is by it we are distinguished Li, r ■.' ' 142 ORIGINS OF MOKAL PHILOSOPHY from savages and barbarians, and that the civilization and culture of a nation is regulated by the degree in which true philosophy flourishes in it, and, accordingly that to contain true philosophers is the highest privilege a state can enjoy." The philosophy, however, which he means, he describes soon after • " AH philosophy is like a tree, of which Metaphysics is the root, Physics the trunlc, and all the other sciences the branches that grow out of this trunk, which are re- duced to three principal, namely, Medicine, Mechanics, and Ethics " ^ We may say, I believe, that no age has ever had a clearer idea of its goal and of the road leading to it: the goal is heaven on earth, the road to it, natural science. Through technology and medicine, the two great applications of natu- ral science, the future will reach a state in which men wil , without work and in permanent health of body and soul, enjoy the fruits of the earth ; perhaps, as the serious Des- cartes no less than the somewhat charlatanistic Bacon antici- pates, medicine may even bring about a prolongation of hfe and an increase of all intellectual and moral powers. The fearlessness, nay we may say, the bold recklessness, with which the control and use of nature by science is planned for man, stands in remarkable contrast to the awe with which the Middle Ages contemplated nature. The Middle Ages, too, sou-ht to gain control over things, they too suspected that it mi-ht be obtained through knowledge. But they had at the same time a secret dread of this knowledge and activity ; they regarded it as an unholy business, as a black art, as the work of the devil, who as the prince and lord of this world could indeed grant sway over it. All those who had the repu- tation of possessing such efPective knowledge, were looked upon as magicians : Albertus Magnus, Roger Bacon, Pope Sylvester II. Soldan quotes a very characteristic narrative from Gregory of Tours' Eistory of the Franks in his History 1 [Translation from Veitch's 10th edition.] THE MODERN CONCEPTION 143 of the Trials of Witches,^ " The archdeacon Leonartes of Bourges suffered from a cataract, and no physician could cure him. At last he betook himself to the Basilica of St. Martin, where he spent two or three months in constant prayer and fasting. On a fast day his eyesight was restored to him. He hurried home, and sent for a Jewish physician, at whose advice he placed cupping-glasses on his neck to complete the cure. And then it happened that as the blood began to flow, his blindness began to return. Full of shame Leonartes went back to the church, prayed and fasted as before : but in vain. Let everybody, so Gregory concludes, learn from this occur- rence that when once he has been blessed with heavenly medi- cines never again to have recourse to earthly arts." This fear, from which, by the way, the Greeks and Romans were not free, the modern times have wholly lost ; nothing is proof against them ; man has a right to do what he can do. The belief in transcendent powers, good and bad, by whose help man is supposed to exercise a magic influence upon the course of nature, has been constantly waning since the beginning of the modern era ; man's confidence in his natural powers has increased in the same proportion. 7. The modern science of nature is supplemented by the modern science of the state and society/. The latter, too, is a practical science : it seeks first to construct the ideal of the perfect state and the legal order, and then to realize it in practice. Political Utopias are the counterpart of the physi- cal-mechanical Utopias; they accompany each other, being frequently connected with each other, through the entire age, from the beginning of the sixteenth century down to the socialistic Utopias of the nineteenth century. By the side of Descartes, the leader of modern natural philosophy, stands the Englishman Thomas Hobbes, the real leader in the field of political philosophy. He claims this position for himself : astronomy begins with Copernicus, physics with Galileo, 1 Geschichte der Hexenprocesse, I., 114. 144 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY THE MODERN CONCEPTION 145 physiology with Harvey, while the science of the state is no older than his own book De cive} He has the highest opin- ion of the practical value of this science. In the dedicatory epistle which accompanies his work on the state, we read : « For everything in which the present excels the barbarism of the past we are indebted to mathematical physics ; when moral philosophy will have solved its problems with the same certainty, it will be hard to see what human labor can farther accomplish for the happiness of this life." For Hobbes the state is the earthly providence; endowed with unlimited rights and powers, it bestows peace and welfare upon its sub- jects : "outside of the state there is passion, war, fear, poverty, ugliness, solitude, barbarism, ignorance, ferocious- ness ; in the state, reason, peace, security, wealth, beauty, society, elegance, science, benevolence." ^ So there is no doubt that, if to the perfect mechanics and medicine we add the perfect politics, we shall realize heaven on earth. 8. Finally, a man may be mentioned who paved the way for these views in Germany : I mean Leibniz. There was hardly a field of human thought and human action which Leibniz left untouched with his plans for the promotion of the happiness of the human race. With feverish haste he was constantly devising new projects : for the establishment of an improved German Empire, of a political system for Europe, of a peaceful church union, for the codification of all scientific and technical knowledge in encyclopedias, for the reform of the system of education, for the organization of the book trade, for the care of the poor by employing them in public workshops, for tlie improvement of mining. But one project especially occupied him during his entire life : the organiza- tion of scientific research. Leibniz endeavored to establish institutions in the North and in the East, after the pattern of the London and Paris societies. As his final goal he perhaps 1 Preface to De corpore, 1655. '^ ^« "yc, X., 1. had in view an international federation of societies into a great association, whose aim should be to preserve all the knowledge of the human race, to regulate all research, and so to extend the empire of reason on earth, as far as possible. His endeavors in regard to the invention of a philosophical calculus and a universally intelligible, international sign- language, suggest such a project. The object of all science, however, consists in its application ; not curiosity, but utility determines the value of every science. In the memorial to the Elector of Brandenburg in which he proposed the estab- lishment of a Society of Sciences at Berlin (1700), we read : " Such an electoral Society should not be governed by mere curiosity or desire for knowledge, and occupy itself with fruit- less experiments, or be content with the mere invention of useful things without applying them, as has been the case in London, Paris, and Florence : but the object should be utility in both theory as well as in practice from the very start. The aim would therefore be to combine theoriam cum praxiy and not only to improve the arts and the sciences, but also the country and the people, agriculture, manufacture, and com- merce, and, in a word, the articles of food."^ We are reminded of what the scientific society in the Nova Atlantis accomplished for the improvement of articles of food. These are the views of the leaders of thought with respect to the aim of their age : civilization ; above all, technical-scien- tific civilization, based upon scientific knowledge and secured by perfect political institutions — that is the programme of the modern era. 9. We must confess, it has labored earnestly and success- fully for the execution of its programme. As for the con- quest of nature by science, even Bacon, who was not modest in his claims, would hardly refuse to admit that astonishing results have been achieved. It is true, the elixir of life and the perjpetuum mobile have not yet been found, and the flying 1 Leibniz, German Writings, published by Guhrauer, II., 267. 10 ii! m :«. fl'P 146 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY machine and the art of makhig gold are still in the future ; but many of our inventions would make a creditable showmg by the side of those in the Atlantis. And in the field of poli- tics and law, some very serious beginnings have been made, to say the least. The entire seventeenth and eighteenth cen- turies were filled with the desire to bring about the rational State by means of the science of the state, and thereby to promote the welfare of all. The names of Frederick William II. and Frederick II., Maria Theresa and Joseph II., prove the sincerity and the earnestness of these efforts. And the French Revolution really desired the same thing, though m a different way : the state in which reason and law should rule for the common good. With unmixed feelings of satisfaction and pride the Aufkldrung contemplated its achievements, at the end of the ei-hteenth century. A few years ago a document was taken from the steeple-knob of St. Margaret's Church at Gotha, which had been placed there in the year 1784 ; this paper contains the testimonial which the modern era gave itself a hundred years ago. " Our age," it declares, " occupies the happiest period of the eighteenth century. Emperors, kmgs, and princes humanely descend from their dreaded heights, despise pomp and splendor, become the fathers, friends, and confidants of their people. Religion rends its priestly garb and appears in its divine essence. Enlightenment makes giant strides. Thousands of our brothers and sisters, who formerly lived in sanctified inactivity, are given back to the state. Sectarian hatred and persecution for conscience' sake are vanishing ; love of man and freedom of thought are gaining the supremacy. The arts and sciences are flourishing, and our gaze is penetrating deeply into the workshop of nature. Handicraftsmen as well as artists are reaching perfection, useful knowledge is growing among all classes. Here you have a faithful description of our times. Do not haughtily look down upon us if you are higher and see farther than we ; THE MODERN CONCEPTION 147 recognize rather from the picture which we have drawn how bravely and energetically we labored to raise you to the posi- tion which you now hold and to support you in it. Do the same for your descendants and be happy." ^ 10. When we compare the self-confidence of the dying eighteenth century, as expressed in these lines, with the opinion which the dying nineteenth century has of itself, we note a strong contrast. Instead of the proud consciousness of having reached a pinnacle, a feeling that we are on the decline ; instead of joyful pride in the successes achieved and joyful hope of new and greater things, a feeling of disap- pointment and weariness, and a premonition of a coming catastrophe ; in literature instead of the essential harmony of thought and feeling, a chorus of confused, excited, and dis- cordant voices, the like of which has never been heard before ; in public life, instead of the unanimity of all thoughtful and right-thinking men which we find in the age of enlightenment, such discord and vindictiveness in party strife, as has long ago discouraged all men of refine- ment and serious thought from participating in it ; but one fundamental note running through the awful confusion of voices : pessimism ! Indignation and disappointment : these seem to be the two strings to which the emotional life of the present is attuned. Schopenhauer is its philosophical choir- master, everywhere his voice is heard through the din. All 1 In Hettner, History of Literature in the Eighteenth Century, IH., 2, 170. With a similar statement a contemporaneous historian of modern philosophy, the clear-sighted J. G. Buhle, begins the exposition of the philosophy of the eight- eenth century : " We are now approaching the most recent period of the history of philosophy, which is the most remarkable and the most brilliant period of philosophy as well as of the sciences and the arts and of the civilization of liumanity in general. The seed which had been planted in the immediately preced- ing centuries began to bloom into perfection in tlie eighteenth. Of no century can it be said with so much truth as of the eighteenth that it utilized the achieve- ments of its predecessors, to bring humanity to a greater physical, intellectual, and moral perfection. It has reached a height, which, considering the limitations of human nature and the course of our past experience, we should be surprised to see the genius of future generations maintain." !!;'• W lit fl' 148 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY poets and litterateurs have studied him, and have learned from him the great truth : the obverse represents the essence of things, the f agade is mere sham and illusion. What Rousseau hurled into the face of his times as an unheard-of paradox, namely, that culture and civilization do not make men better andhappier,Schopenhauer teaches asaphilosoplncal theorem: Civilization increases our misery, civilization is one great faux ^'what is the meaning of tiiese phenomena? Is pessimism a sign that the European family of nations is nearmg its old a.e' Have the modern nations reached that pomt m their hLry which the old world had reached at the begmmng of the Roman Empire ? Are the pessimistic poets and plnlo- sophers the precursors and predicters of the end, o the dis- appearance of civilization? Is the yearning for deliverance taking possession of our age, as it took possession of the Hindoos and antiquity? Does the phrase fin de sihcle, with which our neighbors are playing, signify not only the century which is drawing to a close, but the end of this occidental world-epoch in general,— ^ms saeculi? Whoever leans to pessimism himself will affirm the qucs- tion ; every philosopher of history obtains the key for the interpretation of things from subjective feelings. He, how- ever, whose personal feelings prompt him to take the other side, will deny it ; he will see in pessimism nothing but an expression of morbid discontent on the part of particular individuals, from which no age is ever free, but which happens to strike a more responsive chord to-day, owing to certain conditions of social-economic as well as political life. A purely theoretical philosopher of history, one who does not allow his personal inclinations and moods to warp his judgment, will perhaps regard both of these interpretations of the signs of the times as too extreme. Undoubtedly, he mi-ht say, for example, many phenomena may be observed in the life of the present which remind us of the Roman THE MODERN CONCEPTION 149 Empire, in the field of art and literature as well as in the field of economic and political activity : the shallow, empty-headed virtuosity in the arts, which labors to satisfy the parvenu's craving for pomp, the romantic love of the '' old German," which bears such a curious resemblance to the Empire's romantic mania for the old Roman ; the laborious and aim- less learned research, which in reality cares absolutely noth- ing for science itself, but which does care for the rewards offered for scientific work ; the literature, which seems to indicate extreme nervous weakness in the authors as well as in the readers, — just look at the outside of our books, the covers marked with inscriptions running in all directions and showing all the colors of the rainbow, the titles hailing the reader with exclamation points and question marks ; the luxury and the proletarianism of the great cities ; the cen- tralization of our entire life, by which the strength and indi- viduality of culture is suppressed ; the constantly growing necessity of basing the existing order, which cannot always depend upon its inner purposiveness, upon political-military powers ; and the like. On the other hand, the same philosopher of history might continue, there is no lack of vital energy or of important problems to occupy the future life of the civilized nations of Europe in the most worthy manner. Perhaps, he will say, the whole phenomenon is to be interpreted as a passing stage of depression, caused by the prevailing lack of universally recognized hopes and ideals, to unite the hearts of all. Nations like individuals are kept alive by hope and yearning, not by their fulfilment ; when the ideals are realized, there comes a time of restless seeking for a new goal. And it might perhaps be shown that we are at present passing through such a period. The German people particularly, who seem to be most affected by the feelings mentioned, have had their long yearnings satisfied by enormous achievements: they at last have their emperor and empire, and parliaments I- 1' ■ In 150 ORIGINS OF MORAL THILOSOPHY in plenty ; and the year 1870 has at least freed our neighbors from a hated regime, from Caesarism and popery. Both nations are now repeating the experience, which is so common, that the hope was more beautiful than the realization. Thus our philosopher of history might reason, and add his belief that new problems, which are already beginning to announce themselves, will awaken new feelings of power and love of life : that they will bring more justice into our social institutions, more seriousness and truth, more substance and beauty, into the intellectual life even of the masses, and not merely of the masses. Nay, perhaps, so he might pro- ceed, we must regard the entire previous development of the modern nations as having been merely the prelude to an abso- lutely independent modern civilized life ; for evidently these nations, if we consider the Middle Ages as their appren- ticeship and school-days, have just left school, or rather have not even yet left it altogether, for do not all of those who are destined for the higher professions still go through the school of antiquity ? Hence, if the period of senility is not to come immediately after the period of boyhood in the modern nations, we must expect that their emancipation, which is presumably close at hand, will be followed by the period of perfect maturity. — A proof, however, so our philosopher would most likely add in conclusion, that will bind the intellect, is impossible here in the very nature of things; nations are still more in the dark concerning the future of their course than individuals. A little piece of the traversed road is faintly illuminated by history, and a dis- mal ray perhaps falls upon the steps immediately before us. But soon the path loses itself in the illimitable darkness with which eternity encompasses the present. Let me here say a word concerning another phenomenon, which has been exciting the German youth of the most recent years, Nietzscheanism, the twin brother and antipode of Schopen- hauerism. The ideas by which Friederich Nietzsche, who had , THE MODERN CONCEPTION 151 been undergoing a constant change of heart, and had already passed through many stages of thought, first attracted the attention of wider circles, are contained in his latest collections of aphorisms : Thus Spake Zarathustra ; On the Other Side of Good and Bad ; and especially. The Genealogy of Morals ; to which should be added also his last work : The Twilight of IdoU^ or How to Philosophize with the Hammer} The preface of this last little treatise bears the date of the day " on which the first book of the transformation of all values (Die Umwertung aller Werte') was finished," evidently to announce the fact that this key-stone of his work marks the dawn of a new world-era. He apparently believes that the birthday of this book will rival in importance the birthday of Christianity, which inaugurated the first transformation of all values in the Occident; that the transformation which once began with Jesus will be cancelled again by Nietzsche, and that a new evaluation will be made on the basis of a naturalistic " Tmmoralism " with individualistic-aristocratic tendencies. Nietzsche hates morality ; morality invariably seeks to thwart the instincts ; on the plea of bringing about the triumph of reason, it endeavors to make man sick and weak, in order thus to tame him more easily, or, as we say, to improve him. In Christianity, he says, this battle against the instincts appears in its most exaggerated form ; its morality is the morality of the slave, which sprang from the inveterate hatred of the oppressed Jewish nation against the victorious Romans, the morality of the weak, dependent, wicked, hence deceitful, revengeful, and malicious race, rising against the morality of the lords (^Herrenmoral) , the morality of the strong, fearless, brave, upright, high-minded, noble race. By producing Christianity and spreading it among the nations, Judaism took the most complete revenge imaginable 1 [Also sprach Zarathustra ; Jenseits von Gut und Base ; Zur Genealogie der Moral ; GOtzendammerung, oder wie man mit dem Hammer philosophiert. Translations editedbyA. TiUe. — Tb.] 152 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY nut I f: N'' upon the Romans : it poisoned them morally, so to speak, compelled them in turn to regard the strong, healthy, brave, and proud as the bad ; the weak, humble, crushed, and sub- missive as the good, with whom God was well pleased. The final deliverance of the Western mind from this infection, — that would be Nietzsche's mission. It is not my intention to criticise these thoughts ; aphor- isms cannot, in the nature of the case, be examined as to their objective validity; they do not aim to give an exhaustive explanation of the essence of the subject, but to view it, from some standpoint or other, in a startling light, — which, of course, does not hinder us from looking at it from other points of view in a different light. Had not this thinker, who was endowed with such brilliant, but dangerous talents, fallen into utter mental darkness, many symptoms of which are especi- ally discernible in his last work, he would, we may venture to believe, soon have followed different channels, since further exaggerations along the lines pursued by him were impossible. What now, we might ask, becomes of the superhuman being (^Uherme7i8ch)y after he has exhausted himself in thinking, and has realized himself ? What is his real work in this world ? It used to be regarded as the mission of heroes and great men to lead their brothers to light and life. This new superhuman being seems to despise such a task ; he holds himself aloof from the masses and considers himself superior to them, he will have nothing to do with these worthless creatures, who simply exist to make him possible. But how does he spend his time? Does he contemplate himself, write aphorisms, and marvel at the distance between himself and the masses ? Is that all he can find to do ? That would be rather trivial for a superhuman being ; and I am inclined to think that the philosopher himself would soon have shuddered at the emptiness of such an existence. And then, perhaps, he might have understood the littleness of his anti-Christ as compared with the Christ, in whom there was THE MODERN CONCEPTION 153 surely something more of the truly superhuman element than in this swaggering despiser of humanity and self-conceited boaster.^ However, let all that be as it may. The question that in- terests us is. What do these ideas signify as a sign of the times ? What makes the Ubermensch so attractive to the young? Nietzsche has become a staple article in the peri- odicals and newspapers; on the application-blanks of our public libraries the name of Nietzsche occurs more frequently , perhaps, than any other ; yes, I have been told by teachers in the gymnasium that traces of Nietzsche's spirit and writings may occasionally be found in the German compositions of their pupils, by no means of the least talented among them. What draws them to Nietzsche ? Is it his impressive style ? Is it his dazzling, blending, lightning-like, instantaneous illu- mination of things ? Or is it the fact that all the old truths have come to be regarded as trite by our youth, and that they are insanely fond of the most unheard-of paradoxes ? 1 An article bj Gallwitz has just fallen into my hands : Nietzsche as a Prepa- ration for Christianity (Nietzsche als Erzieher zum Christentum) (Preussische Jahrbiicher, February, 1896). The author admirably shows how far Nietzsche misses the mark, when he absolutely opposes his ideal of life to that of Jesus. There is a far-reaching formal agreement between them. The " gregarious im- pulse *' may frequently play a prominent part in the churches which call them- selves Christian ; no one who is acquainted with them will look for it in Jesus and his first disciples; on the contrary, primitive Christianity is really char- acterized by its extremely independent attitude towards the established and prevailing opinions and customs, and even towards conventional values and standards. Nor is it inclined to overestimate morals and morality ; on the con- trary, the really important thing is, to use Nietzsche's words, " moralinfreie " [moralin-less ?] virtue ; legality, has no value ; as the son of God, as the free child of the Father, the Son of Man knows that he is superior to the law. And Nietzsche could also have found in Jesus and his teaching the truth that to rise above the world of sense and desire is the fundamental characteristic of perfection. One thing, to be sure, he would not have been able to find there : self-adoration, haughtiness towards the people, contempt for the masses. These qualities he would have been more likely to find among the Pharisees. He found them in Schopenhauer, not in Schopenhauer the thinker, but in Schopenhauer the man. And he always remained a true follower of Schopenhauer the man, even after he had repudiated the latter's philosophy. 154 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY I : !■ Ml lii ■ The young always have a predilection for the new and un- heard-of ; it has at least the merit of being opposed to the old and established forms, under the weight of which we are groaning, to the trivial truths of the Sunday School class, the trivial truths of morals, and those upon which candidates for degrees are examined. Socrates the first Greek deca- dent ; Kant a deformed, intellectual cripple ; a good conscience the result of a good digestion; morality the castration of nature by decadence-philosophers — indeed this is saying something, something different from the old, tiresome stories which have been heard and repeated ad nauseam. Are these paradoxes intoxicating our young men, who have grown tired of the everlasting disciplining and examining ? Are we like the Athenians, can we no longer bear the customary, and have we therefore become the slaves of every newest fad?i Or has the biting sarcasm with which all the old heroes and time-honored truths are cast aside, a pleasant ring in the ears of an age that has been filled with distrust of all estab- lished institutions by the din of the penny-a-liners and the officiousness of the busybodies who are for stifling truth? Or is it the obscure prophecy of something new and great that is to come that is making an impression? Perhaps something of all of this. And the final and deepest reason is perhaps the one to which we alluded before : the lack of an ideal, of a ruling ideal, an ideal to elevate the hearts, to inspire the will, and to give the multitude a common aim. Hence the impatient unrest of the times, the feverish searching and groping after something great and unusual, after a guide to new and higher forms of life. What was it that attracted so many readers to Eembrandt as an Educator^ if not the promise to show the helpless an ideal, an ideal of a freer, richer, greater German life ? What is it that gains credu- lous hearers and adherents for the other prophets, who spring 1 £^ov\oi 6vr€s r5>v del dT(Jir«v, ^€p6Trai 8i t«v «la>$6r(»y, so Cleon calls the Athenians, in Thucydides, III., 38. THE MODERN CONCEPTION 155 I tv \l up in a single night and preach to the German people in popular meetings and pamphlets, but the deep and universal longing to learn something of the path which we now ought to follow ? What else is it that is gathering around the name of Paul de Lagarde a little community of reverent admirers ? To point out to the German people new goals and new ideals : that is the ultimate purpose of his G-erman Writings^ which contain, besides much that is strange and harsh, so much more that is good and great. If it is this, the hunger for an ideal, that brings forth all these phenomena, then they are not — however much there may be in them that is unsatisfactory — symptoms of decline, but symptoms of the unrest which precedes the birth of a new age. In that case the struggle of art and poetry for new forms and a new content will also have to be interpreted as a struggle of the new ideal to reveal itself. The young men engaged in this struggle do not like to be referred to the past : their faces are turned to the future. Nevertheless, I should like to ask the disciple of Nietzsche to peruse with care the first book of the Platonic Republic. He will meet in it a man who with great confidence and self-conceit teaches the doctrine that injustice, when on a sufficient scale, has more strength and freedom and mastery than justice ; perhaps he will be tempted to read on in this remarkable, so old and yet so modern book. And then, per- haps, he may also be induced to re-read his Goethe, the second part of Faust, the scene between Mephistopheles and the Baccalaureus, in which the eternal theme of the old men and the young men is so wonderfully worked out. 11. I cannot close this discussion on the modern conception of life, without directly adverting to a question which has already been partly answered, — the question concerning the modern spirit in its relation to Christianity. If we employ the name Christianity solely to designate a mode of life and feeling, a belief and conviction, absolutely 156 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY lU •' resembling that of the first Christian communities, then we cannot call our modern life Christian. To abstain from the world, to shrink from civilization, to turn to the Beyond: these are the characteristic traits of old Christianity ; no one will regard them as characteristic of the modern period of history. But if we do not take Christianity in this its narrowest sense, if we apply the term to the entire historical movement which begins with the life and death of Jesus — and that too we have a good historical right to do — then the case is dif- ferent. Then we shall have to confess, whether we like it or not, that the modern era is still so greatly dominated by Christianity that its history can and must be regarded as a part of the history of Christianity. David Strauss propounds the question in his Old and New Faith : ^ Are we Christians ? He answers it in the negative, and shows that the old creed no longer expresses the prevailing convictions of the modern times. Herein he is undoubtedly right. Does it not follow, then, that we are no longer Christians ? Certainly, if the creed has the force of a definition, excluding every one from Christianity whose belief it does not express,— which was indeed its original purpose. But the inference would be misleading if we were to conclude further: hence Chris- tianity has become extinct. In answer to this proposition we should have to say : Christianity is older than the creeds and is most likely destined to outlive them ; it has become a reality in the historical life of the European nations, and can never again become unreal ; it can only perish with these nations themselves. It has helped to fashion the will and the heart of these nations into what they are, and has left its mark indelibly impressed upon their character. Even those who feel decidedly opposed to Christianity cannot escape its influence ; it continues to determine their thoughts, feelmgs, and volitions. 1 Der alte und neue Glaube, translated by M. Blind. THE MODERN CONCEPTION 157 The influence of Christianity upon the life and morals of the nations which, during the Middle Ages, were being pre- pared for their future mission within the bosom of the church, has already been slightly touched upon above (page 123) ; I do not wish to recur to it.^ Here, however, I should like to call attention to some traits in our mode of feeling and our conception of life which have their origin in Christianity. Three great truths Christianity has engraven upon the hearts of men. The first is : Suf fering is an essential phase of human life. This truth really escaped the Greeks. They were familiar with suffering, but only as a fact which ought not to be. Their philosophers, at least, never got beyond this view; although the tragic poets divined its deeper meaning. Christianity has taught us to appreciate suffering ; suffering is not merely a brutal fact, but essential to the perfect development of the inner man : suffering withdraws the soul from too complete devotion to the temporal and perishable ; it is the antidote to vanity and the love of show ; it is, in Christian phrase, the great means of education by which God turns our hearts from the earthly and temporal upwards, to the eternal, to Himself. And so suffering leads to inner peace. Whoever is familiar with suffering will understand the significance of 1 Let me refer the reader to a work that shows the enormous power which Christian charity has exercised and continues to exercise even in our days, the admirable work of Uhlhorn, Histori/ of Christian Benevolence {Geschichte der christlichen Liebesthatigkeit). The third volume takes up the period from the Reformation to the present. It shows how many deeds of charity, not only money-offerings, but also personal ministrations, have been performed, especially in the nineteenth century, the like of which has j>erhaps never been seen since the days of primitive Christianity ; the Protestant world particularly, which, for a long time, has been somewhat behindhand in this respect, is now rivalling the Catholic church. — May we not see in the impartiality with which the work of both churches is here described a sign that the time will come again when they will respect and esteem each other as different forms of pure Christianity ? Protestantism undoubtedly finds less difficulty in making this acknowledgment than Catholicism ; should it ever meet with a sympathetic response from the Catholic church, then only will the former defection, which caused so much bloodshed and suffering among the German people, be wholly justified. 158 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY THE MODERN CONCEPTION 159 1 ' ' 1 m Christianity. Wherever sorrows are borne, a craving and seeking for Christianity usually soon manifests itself ; a healthy, vigorous, and active life is more apt to cling to the Greek conception of life. But, inasmuch as no life is wholly free from suffering, there will be times in every life when the heart is susceptible to the influences of Christianity. The second great truth which Christianity has impressed upon humanity is this : Sin and guilt are essential phases of human life. This truth, too, the Greeks did not see, or at least not in its entire force. They were familiar with the ugly and the base ; their comic poets ridicule tliese, and their philos- ophers show how men err with respect to the highest good, and how they miss the right road to happiness. For Christianity it is the most serious and most awful truth that the incli- nation to evil is deeply rooted in the essence of the natural man. Theology has formulated this conception in the doc- trine of original sin, whether happily or not need not con- cern us here ; but it is an undoubted truth that human nature contains, besides beautiful and good capacities and impulses, inclinations which justify the harsh remark that man is the wicked animal, V animal mechant, par excellence. Man is born with two venomous teeth which are wanting in the other ani- mals : they are called envy and malice. The Greeks, too, were skilled in their use, as the horrible picture proves which Thucydides gives of the self-laceration of this nation. But with the exception of particular personalities like Thucydides and Plato, the ancients were not conscious of the awfulness of the thing; it did not seem to be incompatible with their demands upon human nature. Christianity has raised the standard; it measures man by the justice and holiness of God, which have become incarnate in Jesus. This way of feeling, too, has been indelibly impressed upon us. It is impossible for us to accept evil as complacently as did the Greeks, to contemplate our lives with such self-satisfaction as was possible to the Greeks and Romans. Occasionally, at some neo-humanistic funeral, the Horatian Integer vitce sceler- isque purus, is sung ; I am inclined to believe that the song would sound oppressive to the dead man, if he could hear it ; perhaps it would remind him of the beginning of that prayer of the Pharisee : God, I thank thee that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this pub- can ! And would the concluding lines of the song about the sweetly laughing Lalage be likely to have a pleasant ring in his ears at such a time ? Perhaps the old Good Friday hymn would be more to his taste : " Christ, thou lamb of God, thou who bearest the sins of this world, have mercy upon us." The proud words of the dying Julian — "I die without remorse, as I have lived without sin " — we too might possibly utter before an earthly tribunal, but can we utter them before the tribunal of our own conscience, before the tribunal of God? The third great truth which Christianity has impressed . upon us is : The world lives hy the vicarious death of the just I and innocent Whatever system-loving theology may have made of it, it remains the profoundest philosophical-historical truth. The nations owe their existence to the willingness of the best and the most unselfish, the strongest and the purest, to offer themselves for sacrifice. Whatever humanity pos- sesses of the highest good has been achieved by such men, and their reward has been misunderstanding, contempt, exile, and death. The history of humanity is the history of martyr- dom ; the text to the sermon which is called the history of mankind is the text to the Good Friday sermon from the fifty-third chapter of the Prophet Isaiah. According to an old legend, an innocent life must be walled up in the founda- tions of a building if it is to endure. This belief might have been taken from history ; history, too, immures innocent lives in the foundations of its structures. Among the institutions of the Western world, the church has thus far proved to be the most enduring; its foundation is laid in the vicarious death of / 160 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY THE MODERN CONCEPTION 161 ;:^ lH.''l hs'i Christ ; for which reason the old church followed the sugges- tive custom of placing the symbol of the eternal sacrifice in the centre of the religious church life. — The question has often been debated : What is the secret of the power of the Catholic church, which has often been reported dead and regarded as dead ? The superstition and ignorance of the masses ? Their childish fear of things which do not exist ? Or the firmness of the church organization? The prudence of its leaders ? The support which it receives from the lords of this earth? Perhaps all of these contribute something, although we might also say these are the very things which more than once brought the church to the verge of ruin. The real secret most likely is that men and women have always found in it the strength to sacrifice their lives. Even though their number was not great, yet so precious and effective is sacrifice that it has been able to counteract the debasing and pernicious influence of the many who used the church as a means of good living. — Protestantism, too, owes what living force it possesses to this fact. And so it will also be in the future. Christianity will not be preserved by privy counsel- lors and professors, it can only be preserved by those who are ready to work, to suffer, and to die for it. That is the eternal meaning of the belief in the divinity of Jesus. Paganism endows its gods with happiness, beauty, splendor, and honor ; the kings and lords of the earth are most like them. Christianity recognizes God in the form of the lowliest of all the children of men ; He was the most despised and most unworthy among them, full of suffering and sickness. This form God chose when he became flesh. Whoever wishes to imagine God as man, says the Christian faith, let him not think of the victor on the field of battle, of the king in his purple, of a wise and honored man whom every one admires, but let him picture to himself a man who suffers everything and endures everything, who bears the sin of the whole race upon his shoulders, and who remains con- stant in all his sufferings, who exhibits infinite patience and kindness, who turns even upon his tormentors a look of infinite love and pity. That is the picture of the all-good in human form, that is God himself. " To be good is to do good, and to suffer evil, and to persevere therein to the end." Joined with these three elements is a fourth : the longing for the transcendent. Antiquity was satisfied with the earth ; the modern era has never been wholly free from the feeling that the given reality is inadequate. Something of the mood which Christianity introduced into the Occident — the feeling that the real home of the soul is not on earth, that this life is a pilgrimage in a foreign land — constantly confronts us in the poetry and in the life of the modern age, and not only among those who accept the teachings of primitive Christianity, but also among the children of the world. There are people who believe that the time for transcendent religion has passed, that a religion of morality will take its place. I do not believe tliat the future will bear them out. The old theoloff- ical metaphysic of the dogma may indeed pass away, and I fondly hope with the friends of ethical culture that religious living will more and more take the place of religious believ- ing ; but I do not believe that the Western nations will ever be wholly free from the need of creating, with prophetic long- ing, a reality of a higher order beyond the given world. Even for a man like Goethe, who stands firmly upon the earth and joyfully appropriates it with his entire being, it has always been the deepest yearning of his heart to gaze into a bound- less, purer realm, in which everytliing that the hazy atmo- sphere of our narrow earthly existence encompasses dissolves and vanishes. After all this, we may say : Tlie mixture, antagonism, and reconciliation of Christian and Greek elements is character- istic of the modern conception of life and the world. There are times when t)ie former, and there are times when the latter, preponderates ; the time for which Paul Gerhardt sang 11 ■ " t- ¥i 162 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY felt otherwise than the age of enlightenment, and the genera- tion for which Wilhelm Meister and the Eoman Elegies were written. But even here hearts have never been wanting that have sought and found consolation and deliverance from earthly so°rrow in the harsh sublimity of the church hymns. And not only do these contrasts exist together in the same age : they also exist together in the same heart. Friederich Lange, the author of the History of Materialism, who was a thorough-going disciple of the modern conception of the uni- verse Tnd life, once, so we are told in his biography ,i had a conversation with the philosopher tjberweg concerning the future of religion or the religion of the future. Lauge demanded that there be added to the cheerful modern build- ing in the Greelc temple style, at least a Gothic chapel for troubled hearts, and to the national worship certain festivals, during which the happy mortal, too, might learn to plunge in- to the abyss of misery and again find that he was as needy of salvation as the unhappy and even the wicked. In our modern Christianity misery and contrition are the rule, the feelmg of cheerful exaltation and the joy of victory the exception : he desired to reverse this order, but " not to ignore the gloomy shadow which, after all, accompanies our entire life." The church hymns, too, he wished to adopt into the new worship ; and to tTberweg's protesting question : « Which one, for example?" he at once replied: Haupt voll Blut und Wunden. It seems to me, we may regard Lange as a typical repre- sentative of the modern man in his attitude to the opposition between Hellenism and Christianity, as a more typical repre- sentative than the somewhat one-sided Uberweg, who mcl.ncs to a harsh logical dogmatism. For the intellectually-trained logician the differences are irreconcilable, and he sees in the attempt to reconcile them a lack of consistency ; the psycholo- gist and sociologist, to whom nothing human is alien, sees the 1 By Ellison, 214. THE MODERN CONCEPTION 163 predisposition to both tendencies in the human soul, and ex- periences them himself in his own heart. Indeed, if man were a purely logical being, then he woi Id have to draw the line sharply between these extremes ; the affirmation and the negation of this earthly life, Hellenic love of life and Christian yearning for deliverance from all that is transitory, would be regarded by him as contradictory opposites, between which there can be no middle ground. But man is not mere intelligence, his inner life' is not a logi- cal mechanism which rejects everything contradictory ; he is also and primarily a willing and feeling being, a being that experiences pleasure and pain, hope and fear, love and hate, admiration and contempt. The judgments, too, which he pro- nounces as such a being he endeavors to comprehend into a system ; thus arise the different conceptions of life, and the interpretations of the world based upon them, the religious systems. The greatest opposition which exists between them is that obtaining between culture-religions, or world-affirm- ing religions, and religions of redemption. But extremes do not exclude each other here as in scientific systems. In cosmology one accepts either the Ptolemaic or the Coper- nican system. When, however, we deal with systems of world-conceptions and life-conceptions, which have their deep- est roots in feeling, the case is different ; here the lines are not so sharply drawn, there is more inconsistency, mixture, approximation, — nay these are in a certain sense natural and necessary. Every man experiences the great extremes of pleasure and pain, health and sickness, youth and old age, life and death ; he suffers good and evil from men, he arouses and feels love and hatred, trust and distrust, admiration and contempt. No one, therefore, is absolutely unfamiliar with the ex- tremes of happiness and worldly joy, and disappointment, disgust, world-weariness, and satiety of life. Inasmuch as every mood is absolute while it lasts, and steeps the whole 164 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY world and all life in its color, we may say that the tendency is temporarily present in every man to produce these two systems, the optimistic and the pessimistic. Every one has in his own experiences, the fundamental conditions at least for understanding both systems. It will depend upon his temperament and his experiences, which of them will gain the supremacy, and finally become habitual with him. But in some form or other both will be present ; in some form or other he will employ them both to universalize his tem- porary mood. To men like Goethe and Wilhelm von Hum- boldt, who were able beautifully to develop and happily to exercise healthy and remarkable natural powers, under happy and appropriate conditions, the Hellenic conception of life, a worldly optimism, was becoming and natural. But moments were not wanting even in Goethe's life when he entertained other feelings towards Christianity than aversion to the cross, for did he not once call Saint Filipo Neri his saint ? And perhaps Humboldt was not always in the mood which once prompted him to write that even in the hour of death a few verses from Homer, even though they be taken from the cata- logue of ships, would be more consoling and elevating than anything in the world. On the other hand, whoever is endowed with a gloomy temperament and has suffered great misfortunes, whoever has been disappointed and ill-treated by men, whoever has erred much and sinned much, or perhaps looks back upon a wrecked life, will be more in- clined to seek and find rest in a view that absolutely repudiates this temporal life, and looks forward to deliver- ance and the hereafter ; Hamann and Schopenhauer were natures of this kind. But their lives, too, were not devoid of experiences which enabled them to appreciate the Hellenic conception of the universe. In the representations of art at least, Schopenhauer contemplates reality with pleasure and love. Moreover, the same mixture of opposites is not wanting in THE MODERN CONCEPTION 165 the earlier civilizations. The Greeks, too, were not unfamiliar with the feeling of the transitoriness and nothingness of the earthly. How often the feeling of world-sorrow and weari- ness of life strikes a responsive chord in their poetry, in Homer, in the tragic poets! And so, conversely, a naive love of nature is not wanting in the Gospels ; Jesus in the parables lovingly contemplates the life of nature ; and with what love and pleasure his gaze rests upon the children ! And Saint Augustine surely did not always think, in his direct daily intercourse with men, of the system according to which the natural virtues are splendid vices. We shall therefore have to say, the systems of ethical nat- uralism and supranaturalism, carried out consistently, are logical schemes, that do not, like natural-historical defini- tions, directly express the life, thoughts, and feelings of the actual man. They mark a relation of the soul to reality as it would be if certain experiences and moods were the only ones. The real life oscillates between extreme moods, and the judgment on life and reality correspondingly wavers be- tween these extreme formulae. This is true of the life of indi- viduals as well as of the life of nations and times. The theoretical value of such conceptual schemes consists in this, that they are an indirect means of understanding and deter- mining reality. They have the significance of artificial lines, of co-ordinate axes, by which we may determine for the infinite variety of living forms their place in the historical -moral world. It is the same here as with the definitions of the temperaments or the forms of the state, which do not, as we know, immedi- ately express or describe the concrete reality, but serve, as logical schemes, indirectly to comprehend and describe it. More important than the theoretical value of these schemes is the practical value of the two great forms of life and their self-expression in poetry and art. They supply the modern nations with the spiritual forms for the great modes and moods of life. In the history of the Gospel, in the life of the 166 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY saints, the sister of charity finds the models which elevate and strengthen her in her calling ; from the songs of Paul Gerhardt the sick and troubled soul derives consolation and comfort. I wonder how a Greek consoled himself when he was sick and weak. Or were the Greeks never sick ? And, conversely, in the great figures of Greek and Roman history, in the vigorous eloquence of Demosthenes, the Germans sought and found the means to revive the courage of a vanquished people, and to direct it towards the goal of free- dom and greatness. And so even now the poems of Homer may inculcate in the souls of our boys the first examples of youthful love of honor and prudence, manly vigor and dig- nity. The advantage of this long and varied preliminary his- tory is that it offers us clearly defined conceptions, according to our different natures and talents, our different fortunes and life-experiences. And we are therefore unquestionably justified in introducing our young men to both worlds, to that of antiquity and that of Christianity, not merely in order to give them historical knowledge, but to enable them to contemplate the different lots of life, so that each one may prudently select that which is fitting for him. But for that very reason we should not obliterate and dull the opposition between those great historical forms of life, but should clearly define it. Each of them can supply us with figures of inner greatness and perfection, which, as typical examples, will forever preserve their power of attraction. So much for the subjective compatibility of the two types of a perfect life. It is really possible to admire Saint Francis and at the same time to feel a hearty and grateful sympathy with a nature like Goethe's, however far apart their ideals of life may be, objectively considered. Only we must not desire to canonize Goethe or look for philosophy and culture in the saint, — rather we should see the positive elements in both. Yes, we shall be compelled to say that a world composed of nothing but holy beggars would be as tiresome as it is impos- THE MODERN CONCEPTION 167 sible ; the saints need the children of the world as a foil to set them off. In conclusion, let me say a word concerning an objective approximation, which becomes apparent when we compare the two types with a third, to which they are both opposed. We may distinguish between three conceptions of a good life, and accordingly between three forms of conduct. The first seeks the good in sensuous enjoyment; the second finds it in the exercise of human-spiritual powers in a varied civili- zation ; the third, at last, transcends the earth and discovers the goal of life in the blessedness of the hereafter^ which is here enjoyed in anticipation. The first view is, according to the Greek belief, the ideal of the Asiatic barbarians; the second, that of the Greeks ; the third, that of the Christians. It is plain that the second and third views make common cause against the first. The rule of reason, the limitation and discipline of the sensuous desires, is demanded by both as the precondition of perfection. So far as that goes, an ascetic element is by no means wanting even in Greek morality ; it is strongly enough emphasized by Plato, the Stoics, and still more by the later philosophers. Indeed, the word asceticism is derived from the Greek language, — it signifies, first of all, the discipline of the animal nature, which was practised in the gymnasia, and also that of the inner life, which was practised in the philosopher-schools. It is well known that even Paul is familiar with the figure. — Of course, Christi- anity with its demand of self-denial and holiness, goes much further than Greek asceticism, which always remained more or less a form of self-preservation ; the development and exer- cise of the spiritual powers in philosophy and science formed the positive content of life, for the sake of which the discipline of the senses was demanded. On the other hand, however, we also find attempts at a positive treatment of the mundane world in Christianity; among them, for example, the governance of human life ac- 168 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY cording to the principle of brotherly love, the perfection of a kingdom of God on earth. The love of neighbor becomes a definite and tangible thing only in case an earthly goal is pre- supposed, which it is the function of love to assist in attaining. And a Christian doctrine, a kind of science, also existed even at the beginnings of Christianity; and blessedness consists in contemplating God. When Christianity began to develop as a permanent historical form of life, when the expectation of an early end of the world failed to be realized, the positive elements were unfolded ; in the church a universal form of life was produced, in theology a Christian science, in wor- ship a motive and tendency to art. That the Graeco-Roman example exercised a highly important influence in all this was natural and inevitable ; living in the world and attempt- ing to pervade the world, Christianity adopted some of the forms of the world. Thus we have an approximation of the extremes from both sides. The inner fundamental opposition remains, the ideal of perfection is quite different in either case ; but still there are approximations and agreements, not only in minor points. And this made it possible, when the church abandoned its original exclusiveness as a community of saints, for a broad stratum to be formed, within the church, between pure Greeks and pure Christians, composed of such as sought to combine in their lives Christian and Hellenic elements, holiness and worldly beauty and culture, faith and philosophy. We can readily understand why such persons should have felt inclined to minimize, as much as possible, the differences between the two elements of their souls. Whoever looks at things histori- cally will, it is true, deny the similarity between Hellenic humanity and Christian holiness, but he will not doubt the subjective sincerity of conviction in those who do minimize the differences, and he will recognize the subjective possibility of reconciling these opposites in human nature, as well as its objective possibility in the two great historical forms of life. CHAPTER VI MEDIAEVAL AND MODERN MORAL PHILOSOPHY i 1. The theological moral philosophy* The supranaturalistic-religious conception of life and con- duct, representing, as it does, one of the two possible courses of life, is of very great interest to every thinking man. Not so great is our interest in the attempts of the theologians to construct a systematic ethics upon this view. These attempts lack the fundamental precondition of theoretical interest: the desire to solve, by means of an unprejudiced investigation, the problems which life propounds to the acting and judging man. Theology finds an answer for all questions in revela- tion ; the Sacred Scriptures determine with absolute authority not only the faith, but also the rules of life. The problem is, therefore, simply to establish, to understand, and to arrange the given content, to defend it against pagan and heretical errors, and finally and above all to make it fruitful for life. The moral sermon, the edifying interpretation, puts a check upon scientific research. The possibility of a really scientific ethics, an independent theory of action, is absolutely precluded by the fundamental principle of church Christianity. Greek ethics tries to dis- cover by what conduct the goal of all human striving, eudae- monia^ can be naturally realized. The Christian, too, strives for happiness, if we take this term in the widest sense, but ^ [For mediaeval ethics see the references on pp. 35 and 65 ; also the works of Stockl, Haureau, and liousselot on the history of scholastic philosophy. — Tr.] 170 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY he finds it not in this earthly life, but in transmundane blessedness, of which, it must be confessed, he already re- ceives a foretaste in this life, in the happy feeling of peace with God. Eternal blessedness is not, however, like Greek eudacmonia, the natural effect of a certain mode of life, but is bestowed by God as an act of grace upon those who do His will. His will, however. He has declared in the Sacred Scriptures. The function of the moralist is therefore not scientifically to investigate the conditions of happiness which are necessary in the very nature of things, but to interpret and systematize the existing divine commands. If the will of God is posited as the final and sole cause of the differ- ence between good and bad, then there is no recognizable natural connection between the goal of life and the conduct of life. The final consequence of this conception is drawn in the doctrine of predestination. I shall confine myself to mentioning a few of the most im- portant phenomena in this group of literature. We may regard as the first attempt at a systematic ex- position of Christian ethics the treatise of St. Ambrose on the duties of the clergy {de offieiis ministrorum). In form he follows Cicero's work on duties ; the new content is, so far as possible, inserted into the scheme of the four cardinal virtues. The author candidly declares that he cares very little for the form of the investigation ; to the objection that he docs not proceed systematically in his construction of ethics, he an- swers : " But that is the business of the art of logic, first to define the concept of duty and then to divide it into its kinds : we, however, shun theory (nos autem fugimus artem) ; we bring to view the examples of the ancestors, in order thereby most effectually to urge others to imitate them." ^ The ex- amples are mostly taken from the writings of the Old Testa- ment. This is quite natural ; the New Testament does not aim at the establishment of a worldly order ; far from it. In- 1 L, 25. MEDIAEVAL AND MODERN SYSTEMS 171 deed, an ethics that adapts itself to a life in this world will find it hard to handle. The Old Testament is indispensable to a church that endeavors to regulate our daily conduct by means of moral legislation. Still, it remains a curious fact that Ambrose, himself a Roman, now finds it possible to refer the Romans to the patriarchs and kings of the Jews as their ancestors. The later moralists, and first among them Augustine, add to the four cardinal virtues the three theological virtues, faith, love, and hope, thus completing the sacred number seven. Corresponding to these seven virtues are seven fun- damental forms of sin : pride, avarice, anger, gluttony, licen- tiousness, melancholy, dullness (acedia, aKtjSeca, satiety of life would perhaps be the most appropriate translation). The expositions are fond of describing the Christian life as a battle against these powers of darkness which obstruct the entrance to the kingdom of God. " Forces and counter- forces are arranged, the dangers are brought to light, a speci- fied number of virtues and sins are opposed to each other, seven to eight fundamental names on both sides, and the spiritual gifts of Isaiah besides ; this entire apparatus, which was capable of still greater elaboration, served to keep before the mind the thought of the constant conflict going on be- tween the two forces." ^ The rules of monachism were formulated according to the same principles. Their aim was to fashion the entire sur- roundings so that the realization of Christian perfection might be facilitated to the greatest possible degree. The state of holiness might also be attained outside of the cloister, it did not consist in the observance of the rules of monastic life ; but this life was supposed to be the easiest road to per- fection ; all obstacles and hindrances which life in the world placed in the way of the Christian were here removed, so far 1 Gass, nistory of Christian Ethics, I., 192. The two volumes of this work give a detailed account of theological morals. 172 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY as was possible. The monastery was the citadel in which the warriors of Christ defended themselves, under the most favor- able conditions, against the attacks which Satan directed against them in the form of the flesh and the world. "^The monastic rules circumscribed the life of Christian per- fection, while a lower limit was reached for the average Chris- tian life in the confessional and the penitential system, which were gradually more definitely formulated. When the church became state, and entire nations were received into Christianity, it was of course no longer possible to carry out the demand of a separation from the world. As the world became less objectionable, especially on account of the dis- appearance of idolatrous sacrifices, the church grew less timid in recognizing the institutions and aspirations of the world. Worldly feelings and a worldly mode of life became more and more compatible with membership in the church. On the other hand, a minimum of righteousness was demanded from all members as a new law, and ecclesiastical penalties were imposed upon unlawful acts and omissions. In the penance-books, which became necessary, especially when Christianity was transplanted to Germanic soil, we have the origin of a church morality in the form of a legal system. 2. It is not my purpose, nor am I able, to give even an outline of the history of theological ethics during the Middle Ages and modern times. I shall content myself with indi- cating the nature of this science. It was, as a rule, character- ized by the desire to combine Christian holiness and human perfection. Both the lex divina, the divine law, given by revelation and authentically interpreted by the church, and the lex naturce, the law of perfection impressed upon the things by the Creator and recognized by the reason, were accepted as sources of knowledge. The universal human duties might be deduced even from the latter; here the attempt of Aristotle served as the pattern ; besides, this law was the subsidiary source in all cases where revelation failed MEDIAEVAL AND MODERN SYSTEMS 173 to give express commands. The specifically Christian-relig- ious duties, on the other hand, were derived from the Scrip- tures and the laws of the church. Within the Catholic church this form of moral theology has continued without change down to the present time. When we take up one of the more modern works in this field — for example, the widely-read and much admired book of the Jesuit P. Gury ^ — what first surprises one not acquainted with this literature is its impersonal-juristical character ; the author presents a legal system, giving proofs and motives, interpre- tations and precedents. The second surprising fact is that time seems to have made no impression upon such works. A number of authorities, continuing without interruption from the beginnings of scholastic theology down to the present, accompany the entire exposition ; writers of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries are quoted by the side of those of the seventeenth and eighteenth, as living and recognized authori- ties. It is as though history had left no trace upon this sys- tem ; only occasionally do we notice that we are dealing with a work of the nineteenth century : namely, when an institu- tion or a defect of the present gives rise to a question and a response. — This branch of science owes its origin to the con- fessional and the penitential system. It is necessary for the father-confessor to know what is duty, what sin, what is the degree of the sin, and where on the other hand the domain of the allowable begins. This determines the form : sharply defined definitions, their logical consequences, finally the solu- tion of problems and difficulties. The formal principle of authority in this system is the will of God, as expressed in the ten commandments and the Sacred Scriptures in general. The aforesaid lex naturce is recognized as a subsidiary source. There is manifestly a serious danger in such an exact jurist- ical formulation of morality : it tends to make our entire moral life artificial. The natural inclination is apt to inter- 1 Compendium theolvrjine moralis, ed. vi., Romae, 1880, 2 vols. 174 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY pret the system and its application in the confessional to mean that the fulfilment of the requirements will permit the agent to make the most of the allowable. And since, owing to the nature of morality, the lines cannot be drawn as sharply as in the case of the positive law, a wide margin is left for those inclined to extend the boundaries of the permissible, to evade the real demands by making fine distinctions and in- terpretations, and to rest satisfied with mere appearances. A large part of the Jewish formalism, which Jesus opposed with the true and spiritual worship has again found its way into the Catholic church. It cannot fail to act according to the tendency peculiar to it : and this tendency is to entice such natures as are not protected by an original sincerity of heart to deceive God and themselves with a "statutory pseudo- worship" (^Afterdiensf), to use Kant*s expression. The section in P. Gury's work on the duty of Heariiig Mass may serve as a sample of this moral theology's method of treatment. Three things are necessary for the performance of this duty: (I) Bodily Presence; (II) Attention of the Spirit; (III) The Appropriate Place. As for the first point, two things arc demanded, (1) The Moral, and (2) The Uninterrupted Pres- ence. (1) Moral Presence ; that is, the person must be present in such a way that he can be regarded as one of the partici- pants in the sacrifice ; it suffices, however, that he be in a place from which he can follow the mass in its three main parts, either as a spectator, or as an auditor, or by watching the signs made by the other participants. (2) Uninterrupted Presence ; that is, from beginning to end, so that he commits a serious sin who misses a considerable part of the mass, a small sin who misses an inconsiderable part, unless excused by a good reason. — Now follow solutions of doubts : (1) The presence at the mass is valid even when the person does not see the priest, or hear his words, but still distinguishes the parts of the sacred act by the sound of the bell, the song of the choir, and the movements of the participants, and MEDIJDYAL AND MODERN SYSTEMS 175 *' morally " joins them, even though he stand outside of the church because there is no room inside. 2. There is also a greater probability (est prohahilius) that he, too, lawfully hears the mass who is staying in a neighboring house from which he can see the altar or the assistants through the window or the door, or can distinguish the parts of the mass, provided the intervening space is but small; in case there is a large space or a street between, he cannot be said to be " morally " present. Some fix the limit at thirty steps. Then follow answers to doubts and questions in refer- ence to the Uninterruptedness of the Presence, with an exact definition of the degree of guilt, which the omission of each particular part involves. I omit these items, and pro- ceed to the second point, the Attention of the Mind. A dis- tinction is made between two kinds of attention : (1) Inner Attention, in which a person really observes what the priest is doing; (2) Outer Attention, which consists in avoiding QWQry external act that hinders the mind from paying attention, as for example, talking, drawing, etc. The Inner Attention in turn is threefold : (a) that which is directed upon the words and acts of the priest; (b) upon the meaning of the words and mysteries; (c) upon God himself in prayer and pious contemplation. The definitions and distinctions are now followed by the principles of application : (1) For the valid hearing of the mass (ad Mlssam valide audiendam) external attention at least is absolutely necessary. So all authorities. (2) Some inner attention is also requisite, at least the will to hear the mass. (3) But any one of the three forms of inner attention suffices (sufficit). (4) Loud prayers are not abso- lutely necessary, but commendable. And now come again questions (quoesita} and answers (responsa). Is the inner attention necessary in order to avoid grievous sin {suh gravi) ? The answer is in dispute : the affirmation is prohahilior^ but the negation too is prohabilis (that is, sanctioned by good authority), since the presence with voluntary, though merely 176 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY external, attention is an actus sufficienter religiosus. In prac- tice, the author adds, the difference is not great. For even according to the stricter view, a moderate attention {attentio in yradu remisso) suffices, that is, if directed upon the main parts of the mass. But according to the other, the requisites are : (1) a pious emotion, or the real intention to honor God ; (2) such attention that the participant can say to himself that he is a real participant, and consequently that he pays attention to the main parts, at least confusedly (in co^ifuso). Hence, believers should not be lightly accused of a lack of attention while attending mass, but should rather be admon- ished lovingly, devoutly, and diligently to turn their minds to the divine mysteries. — It is evident that all this is not much unlike a code of etiquette : for a social call a black coat, a high hat, and gloves are requisite, but one or the other may be dispensed with under certain circumstances. The entire field of duties is gone through in the same way : the duty of justice, which is really susceptible to this treat- ment, likewise the duty of love of enemy, the duty of charity, the duties of married life; everywhere we find the same attempt to stake off exactly the boundaries of that which is required (requiritur) ; everywhere the unfortunate sufficity according to the probable or more probable^ or according to the opinion of all. The advice, too, concluding the examina- tion of the obligations in regard to the mass, is not infrequently repeated: Do not interrogate punctiliously and frighten the conscience, but admonish lovingly. But, on the whole, this juristical treatment of morality will leave a painful impression on one not accustomed to it, not on account of the harshness of its demands — on the contrary, the sufficit often comes surprisingly soon — but on account of its entire method of fixed prescriptions and outward compliance, and its attempt to appraise the most spiritual things in the world.^ 1 It is customary to criticise such text-books severely on account of their treatment of the seventh commandment. Well, the perusal of this portion is cer- tainly not an edifying task, and I am also of the opinion that the prescription and MEDIEVAL AND MODERN SYSTEMS 177 Such a moral theology is, of course, a necessary conse- quence of the entire confessional and penitential system: it was necessary to furnish the father-confessor, who did not himself have the experience or the ability to settle such difficult matters, with the most careful possible instructions for his guidance. But it is undoubtedly well that the Prot- estant churches are relieved of this necessity by the abolition of the entire system. The individual confession is, of course, theoretically, the only real confession ; but the regular en- forcement of the individual confession was an awfully dan- gerous step. The power of the church over souls may have been strengthened by the practice and perhaps it also helped to establish external obedience and discipline; but it is more than doubtful whether inner piety and conscientious- ness have been promoted by it. And one thing surely has not been promoted by the confessional — that is, man's truthful- ness to himself and to his God. Moreover, two things must not be forgotten here : first, that these moral books are not intended for the layman as text-books and books of devotion; their object is to give instructions to the father-confessor. Secondly, this morality does not formulate the ideal, but the minimum of what is demanded of every one on pain of punishment. The ideal to which the sermon constantly refers is the life of the saints. The Imitation of Christ by Thomas a Kempis describes it : a book of such simplicity and such deep knowl- edge of the heart, and withal of such plainness and vigor of speech, as have scarcely been equalled in any work of its kind ; there is genuine inner monachism in it, and monachism of that sort surely contains a large element of real Christianity. presumably also the practice of the confessional here enters upon a subject which had better not be discussed, for some agreement might surely be reached with- out such discussion. On the other hand, it must be said that those who have in charge the care of souls cannot ignore these things ; if medicine and jurisprudence are compelled to deal with them, moral theology and the confessional will liave to look them square in the face. 12 178 ORIGmS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY Moreover, that the type of true, inner monachism has not yet become extinct in the Catholic church the reader will learn from a book in which he may perhaps not look for it, in Kenan's Souvenirs de jeunesse. Renan was educated in theological seminaries ; he remembers the teachers and edu- cators of his youth with the deepest respect ; in four things, he says, they remained his models— in unselfishness and poverty, in modesty, in politeness, and in the preservation of morality. Besides, moral-theological works are not wantmg m Catholic theology which conceive and present the Christian- moral life in a freer and deeper spirit. As such I mention J. M. Sailer's Handbook of Christian Morals^ and J. B. Hirscher's Christian Morals.'^ Within the Protestant churches, moral theology was over- shadowed by dogmatics and also lacked the logical con- sistency of an ecclesiastical system. Though it still followed the old scheme : lex divina and lex naturce, the desire for a juristical treatment of the subject gradually diminished with the decline of church discipline. Moreover, the devel- opment of the Protestant principle of faith also led to a deeper conception of morality, but, of course, likewise tempted the new church to engage in theological speculations to the ne-lect of practical problems. On the other hand, owing to th^ absence of an external binding authority, Protestant moral theology entered into closer relations with philosophi- cal ethics; since the middle of the last century, it has successively fallen under the influence of Wolff, Kant, and Speculative Philosophy. Schleiermacher, to whose system I shall return later on, betrays the influence of the latter. R. Rothe has constructed a very comprehensive theological ethics,3 which is overburdened with an immense amount of 1 Handbuch der chrtstlichen Moral, 3 vols., 1817. « Die christliche Moral, 3 vols., 1835. 8 Second edition, 1867-71, 5 vols. MEDIEVAL AND MODERN SYSTEMS 179 reading matter, upon Schleiermacher's principles. In addi- tion we may mention, Dorner, St/stem of Christian Ethics i and the work of the Danish bishop, Martensen, Christian Ethics.'^ 3. llodern moral philosophy/. The following exposition, which expressly disclaims being a history of modern moral philosophy, simply desires to give a few typical examples of the chief modes of treatment of this subject in modern times.^ At the head of modern moral philosophy we may place Thomas Hobbes.* The fundamental idea upon which he bases his practical philosophy is the concept of self-preserva- tion. He thus returns to the Greek mode of treatment. Although he does not always emphasize the fact, he is uni- versally conscious of his opposition to the system of ethics which demands self-denial. It seems that Hobbes derived this conception of human conduct from the science in which his age was pre-eminently interested: from mechanical physics. Galileo had based 1 System der christUchen Sittenlehre, 1885 [English translation, 1887]. 2 [Fourth edition, 1888, 2 vols. (English translation in 3 vols., 1873-83). See also N. Smyth, Christian Ethics, New York, 1892.— Tr.] 8 I refer the reader to Fr. Jodl's History of Ethics in Modern Philosophy (Geschichte der Ethik in der neueren Philosophie), 2 vols., 1882-89, an admirable work which gives the first connected account of the history of modern moral pliilosophy. G. von Gizycki's work on the Ethics of David Hume (1878) is also valuable ; it contains, besides a detailed account of Hume, an outline of the entire development of moral philosophy in England. An elaborate and thorough exposition of the history of ethics and jurisprudence in the eighteenth and nine- teenth centuries, especially of the Speculative School in Germanv, is given by J. H. Ficlite in the first, historico-critical part of his S,/stem of Ethics (1850). [Consult the references on p. 35, note; also Whewell, Histor,/ of Moral Phitosoph, ; Vorlander, Geschichte der philosophischen Moral, Rechts-und Stantslehre; Mackin- tosh, On the Progress of Ethical Philosophy during the 11 th and I8th Centuries- Stephen, English Thought of the Eighteenth Century; Lecky, Histor,/ of European Morals, chap. I. ; Guyau, La morale anglaise contemporaine ; Fouille'e, Critique des systhnes de morale contemporains ; Williams, A Review of Evolutionary Ethics. See also the histories of modern philosophy, especially Kuno Fischer's able work* and for bibliographies on particular authors, Ueberweg and Weber-Thilly. — Tr j * [For bibliography, see Weber, p. 301, note 1 ; also Tonnies, Hobbes* Leben und Lehre. and Sneath's Selections from Hobbes's etliical writings. — Tr.J 180 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY modern physics upon the new fundamental law of the con- servation of motion. Hobbes expressly places himself by the side of Galileo, the founder of natural philosophy, as the founder of the philosophia civilis, the science of the state. He bases the latter upon the corresponding principle of ani- mal life : the law of self-preservation. Just as all physical processes are subject to the law of the conservation of motion, so all the processes in the living world are subject to the nat- ural law of self-preservation. Every living creature strives in everything that it does to preserve its life ; it desires what furthers this and shrinks from what hinders it. However, its acts do not always make for preservation ; it constantly aims at the latter, but does not always hit the mark. This is es- pecially true in the case of man. Hence arises the antithesis between good and bad acts. Man always desires what is good for him, but not infrequently does what is bad and pernicious. The cause is a false opinion of what is good and bad. Good action is therefore identical with prudent action, and to do wrong is to act imprudently, or against " right reason." Hobbes did not construct a system of ethics upon this basis, but his politics rests upon it.i Man does not attain to what he strives after, that is, self-preservation, outside of society ; on the one hand, because his powers do not suffice to subject nature to his will, on the other, because individuals come in conflict with each other, and all therefore live m a state of continual insecurity. The natural state is a uni- versal state of war {helium omnium contra omnes). Since, m such a state, no one can obtain that which he desires, the preservation and perfection of individual life, right reason demands the organization of society ; its form is the state, which we may therefore designate as an institution for uni- versal self-preservation. In the status civilis are peace, security, wealth, welfare, in short, self-preservation. The state pre- supposes the absolute submission of the individuals to its 1 De clve, 1642 ; Leviathan, 1650. MEDLEVAL AND MODERN SYSTEMS 181 will which prescribes to them by means of laws what to do and what to refrain from doing. To act contrary to the law is of course wrong, for it is contrary to the necessary means of self-preservation, hence contrary to right reason. But this does not at all mean, as some have misinterpreted Hobbes, that good and bad are wholly synonymous with in accor- dance withj or contrary to^ law. The laws of the state may themselves be good or bad, according as they promote or retard welfare and hence are in accordance with or contrary to right reason. The agent as such cannot, of course, judge of this, but the philosopher as such can. 4. Spinoza ^ constructs a system of ethics upon this con- ception in the work, Ethica?' which did not appear until after his death (1677). The starting-point of the truly ethical por- tion of the book is the sixth proposition of Part III : " Every- thing, in so far as it is in itself, strives to persist in its own being." This is true of the body as well as of the soul. Now, the essence of the mind consists in ideation. But ideas differ from each other ; we have active and passive ideation ; the former is scientific thinking, the latter, sensation and feeling, — the former gives us adequate, the latter, fragmentary and confused ideas, that is, ideas of which the causes do not, or do not wholly, lie within the soul itself, but in the things outside of it. Self-preservation is, therefore, for the mind, activity in scientific thinking ; self-denial and weakness, tlie suffering of things in sensation and feeling ; the former represents the freedom, the latter, the bondage of man. Hence, in so far as the soul is really master of itself, in so far as its striving is guided by the proper insight into that which agrees with its essence, it strives to preserve itself in pure thought, and to remove everything that is contrary to it. And so we are brought back again to the old proposition of Greek ethics : Philosophy^ or scientific knowledge^ is the function of life and the highest good, 1 [For bibliography, see Weber-Thilly, 323, note 1.] 2 [Translations by White and FuUerton.] , I 182 ORIGINS OF MOllAL PHILOSOPHY Spinoza shows the twofold value of knowledge : it is, on the one hand, the highest, freest, most perfect activity of life, the absolute end in itself; on the other hand, it is a means of freeing us from the bondage to which the irrational man is subjected by his affections. The fourth book of the Ethia regards reason as the means of self-preservation. There are two great sciences, physics and psychology, corresponding to the two phases of reality, the world of bodies and the world of ideas ires-tde It? It ^ philosopher in the admirable monograph : Auguste Comte and Positivism} Besides utilitarianism there is another school of English moral philosophy, which is usually called intuitionalism. The former explains the distinctions in value between human modes of conduct by their effects, while for the latter good and bad are absolute qualities of human acts, which cannot be explained, but can only be immediately perceived and determined. Cudworth 2 and Clarke ^ advocate this theory against Hobbes, Whewell * against Mill. I shall consider the truth and falsity of this view later on. Moral philosophy has received a new impetus from the most recent development of the biological sciences. The theory of evolution carries us beyond the superficial reflec- tions of analytical psychology to the biological-historical conception : the preservation and development of life is the goal at which the will aims, not pleasure or the feeling of satisfaction. It likewise shows the insufficiency of the rigid individualism of the older psychology : morality represents the experiences of the race, not the experience of the individ- ual, with respect to what is good and bad, beneficial and harmful. Charles Darwin^ has made an attempt at moral philosophy in the fourth chapter of The Descent of Man. 1 Volume IX. of the collected works. [Other adherents of this school are : A. Bain, Mental and Moral Science, 1868; A. Barratt, Physical Ethics, 1869; Hodgson, Theory of Practice, 1870; Fowler, Progressive Morality, 1884; Fowler and Wilson, Principles of Morals, 1886-1887. — William Paley, The Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy, 1785, is a theological utilitarian: "Virtue is the doing good to mankind, in obedience to the law of God, and for the sake of eternal happiness." — Tr.] 2 [Treatise concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality, 1688. — Tr.] « [Discourse concerning the Unalterable Obligations of Natural Religion, 1708. ^Tr.] * [Elements of Morality, 1848 ; last edition, 1864. To the same school belong siholl.CaUerwood, Ilandbookof Moral Philosophy, 1872; 14th edition, 1890; Mar- tineau. Types of Ethical Theory, 1885 ; Porter, Elements of Moral Science, 1885. — T».] 6 [For an exposition and criticism of Darwin's ethical view, see Schurman, The Ethical Import of Darwinism. See also in this connection, Huxley, Evolution and Ethics, 1893. — Tr.] Herbert Spencer gives a systematic exposition of the evolu- tionistic view in his Principles of Ethics, Henry Sidgwick {The Methods of Ethics, fourth edition, 1890), Leslie Stephen (The Science of Ethics, 1SS2), and S. Alexander (iI[foraZ Order and Progress, 1889) have also been influenced by this theory. T. H. Green {Tlie Prolegomena to Ethics, 1883) and J. Macken- zie (^Manual of Ethics, 1891, second edition, 1895) approxi- mate the Kantian view.^ 7. The new philosophy was introduced into Germany by Leibniz, and formulated into a system by Wolff. It obtained the mastery in German science and culture in the course of the eighteenth century, driving out and supplanting scholas- tic philosophy, which, in the form which it had received from Melanchthon, became the prevailing system in the German universities after the days of Humanism and the Reformation. Wolff's entire philosophy is characterized by its opposition to the scholastic-theological treatment of things ; this antag- onism is already indicated by the title which he gives his first works on philosophical subjects ; he calls them Rational Thoughts, o. name by which he defies the entire past. The same spirit manifests itself in his ethics, the first systematic edition of which was published under the title, Rational TJioughts on the Actions of Men for the Promotion of their Happiness ^ (1720). At the very beginning, the fundamental concept of modern philosophy, the concept of self-preservation, is introduced in a somewhat modified form as self-perfection, and the definition given : That is good " which makes our inner as well as our outer state perfect ; " the opposite is bad. And emphatically rejecting a theological substructure for morals, he adds : " Inasmuch as the free acts of men are good and bad 1 [With these two may also be classed ; Bradley, Ethical Studies, 1876 ; Dewey, Outlines of a Critical Theory of Ethics, 1891; Muirhead, Elements of Ethics, 1892, second edition, 1895 ; J. Seth, A Study of Ethical Principles, 1 896. B. P. Bowne, Principles of Ethics, 1893, is a follower of Lotze. — Tr.] 2 Verniinflige Gedanken von der Menschen Thun und Lassen zur Beforderung ihrer Gluckseligkeit. 18 tit 'iW 194 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY MEDIEVAL AND MODERN SYSTEMS 195 «. because of their effects, and what follows from them must necessarily follow and cannot fail, they are good or bad in and for themselves, and are not first made so by the will of God/' In § 12 the most general formula of duty is then stated : "Do that which makes you and your state and that of others more perfect, refrain from that which makes it more imperfect ; " and in § 21 follows the very objectionable state- ment that an atheist, if only he is not foolish, and clearly understands the nature of free acts, can easily be a virtuous man. — A system of duties is then deduced from the above formula in more than a thousand paragraphs. 8. The reign of Wolffian philosophy lasted till about the end of the eighteenth century. Its place was taken by the philosophy of I. Kant.^ He presents his system of mo- rality in the Foundation of the Metaphi/sica of Morals (1785) and in the Critique of Practical Reason (1788) ,2 which was followed, at the beginning of his old age, by the Metaphysics of Morals (1797). Kant's place in the history of ethics may be determined by a comparison with the English intuitionists : his ethics is a reaction against utilitarian eudaemonism, in which Wolff and Hume, the rationalistic and empiristical schools, concurred. Kant himself was at first an eudaemonist ; as late as the year 1765 he spoke of Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, and Hume as authors who had made the greatest progress in the dis- covery of the first principles of morality, and to whose inves- tigations he would give the necessary precision and supple- mentation in his lectures ; and he expressly promised to base morality upon anthropology. Just as his critical theory of knowledge was a reaction against his own empiricism, which had almost carried him to Hume's standpoint, so his critical ethics was a reaction against his own empirical eudaemon- 1 [Cohen, Kant's Begriindung der Ethtk ; Zeller, tiber das Kantische Moralprin- dp; Schurman, Kantian Ethics and the Ethics of Evolution ; Porter, Kant's Ethics; Forster, Der Entwicklungsgang der Kantischen Ethik ; Paulsen, A'rt7J^— Tr.] 2 [See the translation of Abbott, fourth edition, London, 1889. — Tu.] ism. The complete similarity of treatment in the moral- philosophical and epistemological problems, which by the way proved fatal to Kant's ethical writings, cannot leave us in doubt about this matter. The fundamental conceptions are as follows. — Chief among them is the principle, which repudiates all eudaemonism or utilitarianism, that the moral worth of acts is absolutely in- dependent of their effects, that it is determined solely by the disposition. " Nothing can possibly be conceived in the world or even out of it, which can be called good without qualifica- tion, except a good will." " A good will is good not because of what it performs or effects, not by its aptness for the attainment of some proposed end, but simply by virtue of the volition ; that is, it is good in itself." With these propo- sitions Kant begins his first ethical work, which we men- tioned above. But what will is good ? Kant answers : A will is good when it is determined not by a material purpose, but solely by respect for duty : " the pre-eminent good which we call moral can therefore consist in nothing else than the concep- tion of law in itself, which certainly is only possible in a rational being, in so far as this conception, and not the ex- pected effect, determines the will." And what is duty ? What does the moral law command ? — It commands, stated in the most general formula : " So act that the maxim of the act may conform to universal law." That is, if the realm of human conduct or freedom were governed by universal laws, like the realm of nature or causality, then this maxim would have to be regarded as one of these laws. An example will make the matter clear. A man finds himself forced by necessity to borrow money. He knows that he will not be able to repay it, but sees also that nothing will be lent to him, unless he promises stoutly to repay it in a definite time. Is it lawful for him to make the promise ? He can tell at once ; all he has to do is to ask 196 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY MEDIAEVAL AND MODERN SYSTEMS 197 II himself the question : What would be the maxim of this action expressed as a universal law ? Somewhat as follows : When a man is in want of money and cannot obtain it except by making a promise which he knows to be false, he may do so. Then he asks himself the question : Is this maxim suited to be a natural law in the domain of human action ? He will at once see that it could never hold as a universal law of nature, but would necessarily contradict itself. For sup- posing it to be a universal law that every one when he thinks himself in a difficulty should be able to promise what- ever he pleases, with the purpose of not keeping his promise, the promise itself would become impossible, as well as the end that one might have in view in it, since no one would believe that anything was promised to him, but would ridicule all such statements as vain pretences. Hence falsehood can only occur as an exception, not as a rule or law of nature : if it were a law of nature that every one could, every time it were to his advantage, tell a falsehood, then no one would believe any one else, and lying would defeat itself. The same may be said of theft : if it were a law of nature for every one to take what he liked, there would be no property, and theft would, if it became universal, de- stroy both itself and property. Basing himself upon this process of logical generalization as the criterion, Kant next attempts to determine particular duties, or rather to show that they are included in the formula. It has often been pointed out that he accomplishes his pur- pose only by the most violent method of procedure, — in spite of the fact that he afterward makes the principle somewhat more elastic: Act so that thou canst will as a rational creature that thy maxim become a universal law of nature for conduct. By means of barren and often sophistical arguments he finally succeeds in bringing all the customary moral laws, including the duty to strive for the perfection of self and the happiness of others, under the formula. — His undertaking would have proved more successful had he changed the formula as follows : The moral laws are rules which are adapted to a natural legis- lation of human life, that is, rules which, if they governed conduct as natural laws, would lead to the preservation and perfection of human life. And in a certain sense this is Kant's meaning. In the Critique of Practical Reason the notion of a " kingdom of ends" is introduced by the side of the kingdom of natural causality ; all rational creatures are to be regarded as members of this kingdom of ends and the moral laws as its laws of nature. These are Leibnizian notions : the kingdom of nature is governed by physical- mechanical laws, the kingdom of grace by teleological-ethical laws. Had Kant made these notions the cornerstones of his system, his ethics would have been more fruitful. After all, ethics has not a very serious function to perform, according to Kant. It is not its business to prescribe what ought to be done, for every one knows in every case, without all science, what duty is. Nor must it give reasons for duties ; there is absolutely no reason why we should act thus or so ; the commands are categorical, not hypothetical ; if there were a reason for them, tliey would be conditionally true. All that ethics has to do is to collect the commands of duty, to arrange them, and to embrace them under a univer- sal formula. When a reviewer censured Kant for not set- ting up a new principle, but only a new formula, the latter did not regard this as a fault : " Who," he says in his preface to the Critique of Practical Reason^ " would think of intro- ducing a new principle of all morality, just as if the whole world before him were ignorant what duty was ? But who- ever knows of what importance to a mathematician a formula is, will not make little of the value of my moral formula." Only, Kant should have compared his formula with the max- ims of the jurists, for the moral formula by no means accom- plishes what, according to the statements in the preface, the mathematician's formula accomplishes, which defines accur- ately what is to be done to work a problem. •II 198 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY MEDLEVAL AND MODERN SYSTEMS 199 5 1^ How did Kant reach this formalistic view ? In the first place, he was undoubtedly influenced by the analogy of a-prioristic rationalism in his theory of knowledge. The schema of natural philosophy — that the reason prescribes laws to nature, which possess absolute universality, regardless of the matter of sense-perception — is carried over into moral philosophy : the practical reason prescribes laws to the will which possess absolute universality, regardless of the matter of sensuous desire. — But we may, perhaps, also discover material reasons, reasons based on feeling, which had some- thing to do with his view. Two facts may be mentioned, one positive, the other negative ; the former, the degeneration of eudaemonism into a weakly sentimental praise of virtue; the latter, the influence of Rousseau. One of the numerous moral periodicals of the preceding century — it had been published in Leipsic since 1745 under the title, Ergetzungen der vernunftigen Seele aus der Sit- tenlehre und der Gelehrsamkeit uberhaupt — contained in its fifth volume, which was dedicated to the Prime Chancellor Cocceji, an essay entitled : Proof that the Virtues are Pleasant and Charming. In this we read : " Proper satisfaction with one's self is the greatest happiness which a thinking being can procure. Unless a man be a monster, he will feel how charming is a virtuous deed which springs from love of humanity ; I at least have so tender a soul that I do not possess the power to suppress my feelings even when I resolve not to give way to them. When I read books which vividly describe a virtuous act inspired by the love of human- ity, my soul is often carried away by such emotions, against its will." The author gives examples from Marianne of Marivaux, and then continues : " If the narrow space at our command permitted us to consider the particular virtues in detail, we should find how pleasant and charming each one is. How charming is affability ! Nothing is more pleasant than humility," etc. In the same way it is shown that the vices are ridiculous, unpleasant, troublesome, and detestable. In conclusion, the author asks the clergy to exhort their congrega- tions to perform virtuous acts by showing how charming they are, and anticipates great results from such a method. These are the thoughts of English moral philosophy in tasteless popular form. Moreover, even Hutcheson, in his elaborate text-book, a German translation of which appeared in 1756 under the title. System der Moralphilosophie, often mani- fests an alarming tendency to speak in this strain ; he, too, has much to say of the pleasure of being happy. And so Gellert hopes, in his lectures on moral philosophy, as the introductory lecture declares, to be able to assist his hearers in realizing virtue, that is, their highest welfare. " Would that I might feel this zeal keenly as often as I appear before you, and would that it might make me eloquent in represent- ing to you the duties of morality as the most charming and most sacred laws of our welfare." ^ Let us suppose that Kant read the aforesaid essay in the Ergetzungen der vernunftigen Seele, or a similar one. In that case we can readily understand his emphatic repudiation of those who desired to serve as " volunteers of duty," and his sharp accentuation of the opposition between the moral law and the inclinations. A passage like the celebrated apos- trophe to duty — " Duty, thou sublime and mighty name that dost embrace nothing charming or insinuating, but requirest submission, what origin is there wortliy of thee, and where is there to be found the root of thy noble descent which proudly rejects all kindred with the inclinations ? " — such a passage sounds like an answer to that sentimental praise of the charms of virtue which Kant could not but regard as a repulsive prostitution. — And this is surely a merit of Kant's which ought not to be underestimated. He revived in the hearts of the moral preachers the strong consciousness of the law of duty, which they had almost lost by their I Collected Works, 1770, vol. VI., p. 3. t 200 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY MEDIEVAL AND MODERN SYSTEMS 201 III I f I I efforts to allure and to charm, and thereby rendered a ser- vice, not to the science of ethics, it is true, but towards the education of his people. The second impetus was positive in character; it came from Rousseau. It is well known in what high esteem the latter was held by Kant. What attracted Kant to Rousseau ? He himself tells us in a passage that reads like a note from a diary : " I am myself an investigator from inclination. I feel the intensest craving for knowledge, and the eager im- patience to make some progress in it, as well as satisfaction with every step in advance. There was a time when I believed that all this might redound to the honor of mankind, and I despised the rabble which knew nothing. Rousseau has set me right. This boasted superiority has vanished ; I am learning to respect mankind, and I should regard myself as much more useless than the common laborers, did I not believe that this reflection [occupation ?] could give a value to all other occupations [namely scientific-literary works,] that is, re-establish the rights of huraanityr To re-establish the rights of mankind, then, of the common people— this he regards as his true mission and his work. The worth of a man depends on his will, not on his knowledge, as aristocratic and self -conceited cul- ture believes ; — that is the cardinal doctrine upon which Kant's entire philosophy really turns. And here Rousseau helped him ; he taught him — and for this he was thankful — not to overestimate culture, science, in short, civilization ; he showed him that goodness of heart and purity of thought were not confined to the most educated and most aristocratic, that simple and strong dutifulness might be found just as often, perhaps oftener, among the lowliest. Kant is following Rousseau when he speaks " of the masses who are worthy of our respect." In this way alone his scientific activity, which he had formerly regarded as possessing absolute worth, re- ceived its true value in his eyes : he could preach this great truth and thus assist in establishing the rights of mankind, the rights of the masses, who are commonly despised as the rabble, on account of their lack of education. And here we are also reminded of the fact that Kant himself once belonged to these masses by birth, however far he may have risen above them; his parents were small tradespeople, without educa- tion; but his father was a true and upright man, and his mother a woman full of practical piety. Kant's democratic views — not his political creed, but his love of the people were evidently rooted in the memories of his youth and the admiration which he felt for his parents. With all this his opposition to eudaemonistic morality had something to do. It is the latter which gives rise to those false standards, when for instance, as in Wolff's system, it sets up self-perfection as ihQ absolute goal. According to Wolff, a man's worth depends upon his perfection, upon his culture, learning, and taste. This view, which by the way was not peculiar to the eighteenth century, but is presumably more common in our days than at any former time — for when has education counted for so much as at present? — ^ his view, which Kant had once accepted as a follower of Wolffian ethics, now alienated him from all eudasmonism and carried him to the other extreme : nothing in this world is good except the good will alone. To have emphasized this was also a great merit of Kant's, not so much, however, a merit of the moral philosopher as of the moral preacher. It was the renewal of the great truth of Christianity, that before God man is judged not for what he has, but for what he is : a truth which every one should make it his daily task to learn. 9. The revolution in moral philosophy caused by Kant coincided with a change in the German conception of life. The ideal of the illumination — utility for society — was superseded by the ideal of Goethe's age, perfection of the personality. In classical poetry, especially in the poetry of Goethe, this ideal was everywhere at work as the goal and the ''■ l,«l 1 I! ' I M ■ifll 202 ORIGINS OF MOKAL PHILOSOPHY standard. Here, too, Rousseau's influence was felt. The in- dividual shall not be the slave of conventional circumstances nnd views, his education shall not, as is now actually the case, consist in training him for the r6le which he has to play iu society ; the natural capacities must be developed from within and freely exercised according to the needs of the indi- viduality -that was the gist of the sermon which Rousseau, especially in the £mile, preached to his contemporaries with such passionate force. Goethe, too, and Herder and Schiller and all of the strongest and freest minds gave heed to his warning. Another sermon was preached, that of l.reek antiquitv ; neo-Humanism, as opposed to the older classicism also called the age back to freedom and to nature. And the Greek ideal of life, which was now revived, is an aesthet- ical rather than a practical ideal ; not general utility, but the perfection and the manifestation of the personality is the function of the free man ; a slave serves merely by his work and the products of his work. This view reached its climax in Romanticism ; its programme was to despise utility and prose, to worship the individual and poetry, in literature and in life Kant bears a dual relation to this movement : he is bo h friendly and hostile to it. He agrees with it in rejecting utili- tarianism and eudamonism. On the other hand, the worship of the individual, which always leads to a contempt for com- mon morality, would undoubtedly have been extremely dis- tasteful to him; he was not at all attracted to the gemus who will acknowledge no law as binding upon himself. These two phases plainly appear in Schiller's relation to Kant. The matter is clearly and distinctly brought out in the treatise Vher Anmuth und Wurde, in the passage in which Schiller develops the notion of the beautiful soul He first emphasizes as the great merit of the immortal author of the Kritik that he has again restored the healthy reason by separating it from the (falsely) philosophizing reason, and has made duty and morality wholly independent of inclination MEDIEVAL AND MODERN SYSTEMS 203 and interest. " However," he continues, " though I am thor- oughly convinced that the association of inclination with a free act proves nothing in regard to the pure dutifulness of that act, I believe that we can infer from this very fact that the moral perfection of man depends solely upon the part which inclination plays in his moral conduct." Kant became the " Draco of his age, because his age did not seem to him to be worthy of a Solon or capable of receiving him. But what had the children of the household done that he cared only for the servants ? " The children of the household, however, are those beautiful souls " in whom the moral sense has gained such control over all the feelings that it may without fear abandon to the affections the government of the will, and never run the danger of contradicting its decrees. Hence it is not really this or that particular act which is moral in a beautiful soul, but the entire character." The correction which Schiller makes in the Kantian ethics is in itself admirable and necessary, but it is doubtful whether it can be reconciled with the principles of the system. At any rate, it would have been much easier to deduce Schiller's views from Shaftesbury's presuppositions. It is certainly not according to the Konigsberg philosopher's way of looking at things, for he has a keener sense for the correctness and exactness of the jurist than for the freedom and beauty of the poet. 10. Now as for the progress of ethics in Germany after Kant, we cannot but regard Kant's reaction in favor of in- tuitionism as a disturbance, the effects of which have not yet been overcome in philosophy ; from that time on the Ger- mans have been constantly experimenting with new prin- ciples, often completely neglecting the results of historical development. Everybody's first and chief concern was to produce a new system, for to have one's own system was the mark of a philosopher. Speculative Philosophy was the direct historical successor of « I II ill .1. I? '" t3 ■ii ...Mi 204 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY the Kantian philosophy, although, in many respects, it com- pletely contradicted its source: the scientific arrogance which Kant regarded it as his mission to overcome, m order to establish the rights of humanity," never flourished so luxuri- antly as in the systems of Schelling and Hegel. In ethics Speculative Philosophy abandons all previous con- ceptions. Ethics had arisen as the science of right conduct. For such a practical discipline Speculative Philosophy sub- stitutes the theoretical contemplation and conceptual con- struction of mental-historical life. Ethics becomes mental science or philosophy of history ; it becomes a companion- piece to natural philosophy. Just as the latter, fo lowing the Kantian conception that the laws of nature are laws of our understanding, constructs nature or the sphere of causality a priori, so the former constructs history or the sphere of free- dom a priori. Of recent years, men who are far from accepting its prin- ciples, as, for example, Wundt and Jodl, have shown a high regard for Speculative Philosophy, not usual in former times. Wundt expresses the opinion, in the preface of his Mhos, that the attempts which he makes to approximate the funda- mental notions of Speculative Philosophy in his ethics, will also be made in other fields of philosophical inquiry. Per- haps we may see herein, first of all, a sign that this phil- osophy has almost become historical in Germany. If instead of leading a retired life in dusty books, it were an active living rival for the control of our thoughts, the attitude of these thinkers would presumably be an entirely different one Nor is that which meets their approval in these systems what the systems themselves extolled as their peculiar merit: namely, the method of « scientific " deduction and demonstra- The idealistic-monistic conception of the universe is an old philosophical heritage, and not merely a product of the Spec- ulative Philosophy and its method. Nay, perhaps it might be MEDIEVAL AND MODERN SYSTEMS 205 shown that this method has contributed, in no small degree, to the contempt in which that conception has been held in Germany during the last half of the century. The peculiar characteristic of the Hegelian philosophy is its contempt for the causal investigation of things, and its substitution of the conceptual-logical method ; which is equivalent to despising science itself, for all science, with the exception of mathe- matics, which is not a science of facts, aims at the discovery of causal connections. The same may be said of practical philosophy ; its method of investigation is the teleological method, the inversion of the causal investigation. And exactly the same unfruitfulness which characterizes specula- tive physics characterizes speculative ethics. Take Hegel's Naturrecht ^ (1821) and its empty juggling with concepts ; the investigation of institutions and forms from the stand- point of their effects upon human life is ridiculed as a shallow argumentation of the understanding ; instead, the reader receives the simple assurance: It follows from the concept of the state, or of the right, or of the monarchy. And with this is connected the extreme reverence which these thinkers have for the forms of historical life, for the state, for the right : as though these forms and not the concrete personal life which thrives in them were the thing of absolute worth ! The underrating of what Kant regards as the truly moral element, the good will, likewise connects itself with this. 11. Instead of giving a detailed account of Hegel, let me set forth the fundamental principles of the ethics of Schleier- macher, so far as that can be done briefly .^ 1 [Selections from this work translated by Sterrett under the title, The Ethic* of Hegel. For bibliography see Weber-Thilly, pp. 496-7.— Tr.] 2 Entwurf eines Systems der Stttenlehre (Sketch of a System of Morals), edited from his literary remains by A. Schweitzer, 1835 ; a few academic treatises in the second volume of the philosophical writings. Die christliche Sitte nach den Grnndsdtzen der evangel ischen Kirche (Christian Morals according to the Prin- ciples of the Ei'angelical Church), edited by L. Jonas, 1843, discusses the same topics, often more concretely and fruitfully than the philosophical ethics [Die philosophische Ethik^ edited by Twesten], iff "''' i. I-: :%. i V, ■< Bl 1 > 11: 206 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY In a treatise discussing the difference between the natural and the moral law, Schleiermacher advances the view that the theory is inadequate which regards the moral laws as merely prescribing what ought to be, for xn that case ethics would be a science of the non-existent; but just as the natural law is the expression of the behavior of somethmg real, the moral law must represent an actual occurrence - This real thing is the effect of reason upon nature Nature and reason, so the Sittenlehre teaches, material and spiritual being, constitute the greatest antithesis within the sphere of universal reality ; the former is the object of all natura - scientific, the latter the object of all mental-scientific, knowl- edge. All knowledge is twofold in form: speculative or contemplative, and empirical or observational. Thus Schlei- ermacher obtains the fourfold classification : contemplative knowledge of nature, or doctrine of nature (physics) ; obser- vational knowledge of nature, or natural history ; contem- plative knowledge of the action of reason, or the science of morals (ethics) ; and observational knowledge of the action of reason, or the science of history. Ethics, therefore, bears the same relation to history as speculative physics to the science of nature or cosmography : it defines in general the action of reason upon nature, which the science of history investigates in detail.^ The action of reason upon nature may be regarded as two-f old : as organizing and sr/mholizing. By acting upon thin-s reason makes them the instruments of new effects. But In so far as it gives a thing form by means of every effect, reason makes the thing its symbol, in which it ex- presses itself and through which it is recognized.^ There is another antithesis : reason exists and acts in individuals as one and the same and on the other hand as a pecuhar and individually distinct reason. This antithesis runs parallel with the one mentioned above, and so we again have the 1 §§ 58 ff. * §§ 124 ff. MEDIEVAL AND MODERN SYSTEMS 207 favorite fourfold division : the activity of reason is identical and individual ; it is identical and differentiated organization and likewise symbolization.^ But these antitheses are not mutually exclusive, but so many points of view from each of which everything moral may be viewed. Now, in so far as identical organization takes place, those goods arise which each one may employ as the instruments of the activity of reason in the same manner: they constitute the sphere of intercourse ; this is the field ruled by the law and the state. — In so far as the formative activity is individual or peculiar, it gives rise to property^ not to juridical property, which also embraces exchangeable commodities, but to real property, which cannot be separated from the person who has pro- duced it without losing its value. The narrowest sphere of property in this sense is one's own body ; the next the encircling home, which includes the objective environment belonging to the person, and is the more valuable the more individual and inalienable it is. In so far as the home is opened to others for participation, hospitality arises, corre- sponding to intercourse in the sphere of identical organization. The symbolizing activity, in so far as it occurs under the character of identity, is knowledge^ which manifests itself in language. The social form in which it is produced is the academy. The place of intercourse is the school. The sym- bolizing activity, in so far as it occurs under the character of differentiation or individuality, \s feeling. It at first mani- fests itself in gestures and in intonation ; it expresses itself in a general way in the work of art. Art bears the same relation to religion that language bears to knowledge ; the social form in which religion, the manifestation of the uni- verse in feeling, is communicated, is the church, — In the same manner the entire field of morality is then defined as the doctrine of virtue and the doctrine of duty^ while the part just discussed is called the doctrine of goods. 1 § 133. 208 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY The wonderful skill with which Schleiermacher, not unlike a far-seeing chess virtuoso, moves his concepts around, until the whole of reality is surrounded and checkmated as it were, has something fascinating in it when one follows his moves with credulous and patient attention: it is really wonderful to see how apparently the most remote things, obedient to the will of the master, readily submit themselves to the most surprising arrangements and relations which the magic wand of his dialectics assigns to them. But after turning one 8 back upon the game and again looking at the real world, one is apt to feel that no permanent gain results from the labor put forth : the whole thing is merely an ingenious game. Lotze concludes his exposition of Schleiermacher' s esthetics with the words : « If it be praised as a model of acute dia- lectics, I hope that the predilection for this sort of perforni- ances, which take no real interest in the essence of the subject, but become logical exercises, and portray anamorphotically distorted pictures from their obstinately chosen secondary standpoints, will gradually disappear in Germany. This hope was realized even before it was expressed. 12 The moral philosophy of J. F. Herbart, presented in outline in the General Practical Philosophy^ (1808), forms a complete antithesis to the speculative treatment of the sub- ject, in 80 far as it wholly separates ethics from the theoreti- cal sciences, from metaphysics and anthropology. However, it also agrees with the speculative method in that it wholly abandons the old form of investigation ; it makes ethics sub- sidiary to aesthetics. Herbart assumes the standpoint of the pure observer : human acts and motives arouse in the specta- tor feelings of pure aesthetic pleasure and displeasure ; these are absolutely independent of his interest: be may as a spectator be pleased with the act which from the standpoint of his interest he despises ; in so far he calls it morally good ; 1 History of Esthetics, p. 166. 2 Allgemeine praktische Philosophic. MEDIJEVAL AND MODERN SYSTEMS 209 and he may, conversely, call bad what pleases and tempts him as an appetitive being. — General aesthetics has further con- vinced Herbart that particular elements as such never please or displease, but always as relations. And so he comes to ask the question which constitutes the problem of ethics : What relations of the will please or displease us ? He discovers five such fundamental relations : (1) The harmony between the will and the moral judgment of the same person ; (2) The greater by the side of the smaller, the stronger will by the side of the weaker ; (3) The harmony between the wills of two persons, — all these relations please us. (4) The conflict between two wills displeases us, while (5) The requiting of good with good and evil with evil pleases us. Herbart then adorns these pleasing relations with the name of ideas : ideas of inner freedom, of perfection, of benevolence, of law, of justice, and bases upon them the forms of collective life : the legal order, the wage system, the administrative system, the system of civilization, the animated society. I shall refrain from criticising tliis conception of the moral phenomena. In my opinion, it is as futile in its general aspects as it is forced and laborious in the details. Herbart's in- ability to appreciate the real and the living, liis incapacity for constructing a unified system of thought, which, by the way, is partly due to his aversion to the speculative philosophy of his contemporaries and their extreme monistic tendencies, is nowhere so pronounced and intolerable as in his attempt to break up ethics into this conglomeration of so-called ideas. 13. A. Schopenhauer 1 presents his conception of life in the fourth book of the World as Will and Idea ; ^ he makes an attempt to construct a moral philosophy in his essay on the Foundation of Morals, which, together with the treatise on the Freedom of the Will, was published in 1841 under the title : The Two Fundamental Problems of Fthics. The first 1 [For bibliography see Weber-Thilly, p. 544.] 2 [Translation by Haldane and Kemp.] 14 \ II m 210 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY volume of the Parerga and Faralipomena contains Aphorisms on Worldly Wisdom, which, though full of acute observations, is not in accord with the principles of his system. The system rests upon the pessimistic view of life. Life is sin and suffering, and not to live is therefore better than to live. Selfishness, intensified in malice, is the characteristic of the natural will. This mode of conduct is overcome in compas- sion. In so far as pity is the motive of action, it has moral worth. An act is called good when it has as its motive compassion for the sufferings of others, bad, when the agent rejoices at the woe of others, or at least attempts to promote his own welfare at the expense of that of others. The disappearance of the impulses which aim at individual welfare consequently is favorable to moral progress. In the saints of Christianity and Buddhism the selfish impulses are entirely suppressed, and their hearts thus opened to pity ; they themselves are unaffected by suffering, disappomtment, fear, anxiety, and want; with deep sympathy they view their brothers who are still fighting the useless battle for the vain goods of this world. I do not wish to enter upon a criticism of this theory at this point ; we shall find an opportunity for that later on. But I should like to say a few words with respect to Schopen- hauer's personal relation to the morality of his system. It has often been pointed out that there is no harmony between Schopenhauer's system and his life. The system recommends renunciation of the world and negation of the will-to-live ; his life shows nothing of the kind ; he does not lead the life of an ascetic saint but ot an Epicurean, who makes a study of good living; look at the list of good thmgs which he placed before his will as motives when, after leav- in- Berlin, he was casting about for a permanent place of residence, and was wavering between Frankfort and Mann- hcim.i In his system he praises compassion ; but he seems 1 Gwinner. Schopenhauer's Life, 2d edition, p. 391. MEDIEVAL AND MODERN SYSTEMS 211 to have been rather devoid of this feeling himself. No one ever pursued his literary opponents more unmercifully than did Schopenhauer. We may say he was actuated by the love of truth, and regarded his adversaries as the enemies of truth. Let us grant it, let us say that this was one of the motives, although it does not justify the aspersions which he cast upon their characters. But think of his behavior towards his mother and his sister, when they were in danger of losing their fortune, whereas he saved his, showing more skill in the matter than, in his opinion, geniuses are wont to have; — he was, to say tlie least, very cool. During his entire life he was as careful as he was successful in guarding against sharing others' losses and sufferings. Then is not his philosophy of life one great lie ? It would be a mistake to say so. It is true, Schopen- hauer did not live the life which he praises as the best ; but he deeply and sincerely appreciated the value of such a life. Schopenhauer is a very transparent character ; the dualism of human nature, in which reason and desire form the two opposite poles, becomes unusually, nay, alarmingly discord- ant, in him. In so far as he is will, he lives an unhappy life. From his father he inherited a melancholy tempera- ment ; he invariably sees things in the wrong light ; little things, too, annoy him very much. He is full of violent desires, impetuous, high-tempered, ambitious, sensuous, and withal very diffident: he is constantly plagued by all kinds of vague fears of trouble, losses, diseases, which his sen- suous ego might suffer; he is extremely suspicious of all men without exception — in truth, a series of qualities, any one of which would have been sufficient to make his life unhappy. That is the one side of his life. And now look at the other ; he is also an intellect, nay a genius, endowed with a remarkable power of objective intuition. He has experienced 'I hi 212 ORIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY the blessedness of the life of pure knowledge as purely and deeply as any thinker before him, nay perhaps more deeply than any other one, on account of the contrast between the intellectual side of his being and his restless, unhappy, volitional life. He can describe the tranquillity, the peace, and the joy of solitary contemplation, of the quiet commu- nion with thoughts, in the most affecting manner. Durer has pictured this state of blessedness in a wonder- ful painting : Saint Jerome is seated in a quiet, wainscoted chamber, the cheerful sunlight falling through the round panes upon the wall of the deep window-niche. The companions of the Saint, the lion and the dog, anger and desire, are lying side by side, peacefully sleeping upon the floor ; we hear their deep, quiet breathing. A gourd, which is sus- pended from the ceiling, a skull, which is lying on the window-sill, diffuse about them the stillness which proceeds from things perfectly matured and removed from the turmoil of the world. A happy thought has just seized the Saint, and he bends forward, in order to set it down in writing ; soon he will lean back again and lose himself in contemplation. A picture producing a remarkable effect upon the thoughtful observer ! — it shows the wonderful power of real art to ex- press a world of thoughts and feelings in a single perception. ^ How poor by the side of it seems that art which feeds on imitation, which, when it has the task of portraying solitude, silence, and philosophy, hits upon the plan of representing a more or less aged, allegorical female figure ! Schopenhauer might have sat as Durer's model for this picture. Freed from all desires and cares, pursuing his own thoughts, he enjoyed happy hours, without hurry and worry, without fear and hatred. But then came other times ; the beasts which seemed to have been entirely tamed rose up again, destroyed his peace, and filled his life with trouble and anxiety. And he was helpless against them ; he often Bays so himself: it is a curious but undoubted fact that the MEDIEVAL AND MODERN SYSTEMS 213 clearest knowledge of the perverseness of the will can produce no change in it. This enables us to understand his ethical system : it is the confession of his failings and sins, it is the yearning of his better self for deliverance from the companion to whom it finds itself yoked. All this is neither surprising nor unusual. From what should a man seek to be delivered if not from himself? Petrarch writes De contemptu mundi and praises the freedom and simplicity of the shepherd and peasant life in the remote valley: he lives at the courts of the spiritual and secular lords, purchasing participation in their luxurious pleas- ures with flattery ; he wanders through the cities of France and Italy in order to intoxicate himself with the fragrance of his fame. He praises pure love and unselfish friendship : he lives with beautiful women, and his friends are the heralders of his fame, or assist him in his chase for benefices. He inveighs against envy, and cannot pronounce the name of Dante, because he hates him as a rival. — Is he a liar ? Not at all ; he thoroughly appreciates the value of the things which he praises, he really feels a yearning for them, but he is likewise attracted to the vanities of life. G. Voight, from whose masterly characterization I have taken the above elements, presents us with a delicate and faithful picture of him in his History of the Revival of Classical Antiquity, " The gaze which he turned inward was keen enough to penetrate the abyss of vanity to its very depth. Then he shuddered at his own soul, and yet could not tear his love away from it. He desired to bring it into harmony with its ideals, and began the fierce struggle with himself; but he never got beyond the determined mien and the angry word; he could not turn the sharp weapon which seeks the heart of the opponent against his beloved self. He imagined that he was doing penance in thinking and writing, but all his thinking and writing simply intensified his self- Fill' !!«!| 214 OBIGINS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY love. This vain soul, which he desired to hate, he finally loved all the more on account of its remorse and its painful struggles." . So Rousseau : he preached against the corruption of morals, and pointed out the way to natural education : he lived w,th a concubine and sent his children to a foundling asylum, never to hear of them again. Was he a liar ? Certainly not. His passion for natural and pure human relations was perfectly sincere ; he really felt the degradation of unnatural relations, in which he had waded up to his knees ever since his youth, more keenly than any one of his contemporaries. A man that has never been sick does not know what health is. The hunchback is the most sincere admirer of a straight back the bashful man of frank openness, the coward of martial courage. Was ever a man more in love with bravery than John Falstaff? Did ever a man prate more of princely virtue and royal duties than Carl Eugen of Wlirtemberg? And what nation speaks more of civic virtue and republican sentiments than the French ? I once heard a proverb full of profound meaning: The man who rings the bell cannot march in the procession. 14 The age of Speculative Philosophy was followed in Germany by an age of absolute contempt for philosophy. Historicism, the devotion to details, dominated science for a few decades. Metaphysics and ethics were forgotten. Of late the interest in these subjects is reviving. It is being centred on ethics from two sides. The modern biological theory propounds the question : How did custom and moral- ity arise, and what is their import in the economy of the nations and the individual ? On the other hand, the new social sciences invite us to take up the ultimate problems concerning the vocation of man and the conditions of its realization. Hence it happens that even jurists and political economists, physiologists and anthropologists, are beginning to philosophize again in our days. MEDLEVAL AND MODERN SYSTEMS 215 I shall content myself with mentioning a number of titles of the rapidly increasing modern literature.* ^ E. Duhring, Der Wert des LebenSfSth ed., 1894; M. Carri&re, Diesitdiche Weltordnung, 1877, 2d ed., 1890 ; J. Baumaun, Handbuch der Moral, 1879 ; E. von Hartmann, Phdnomenologie des sittlichen Bewusstseins, 1879, 2d ed., 1886 ; W. Schnppe, GrundzUge der Ethik und RecAtsphilosophie, 1881 ; E. Laas, Idealismus und Positivismus, vol. II., 1882; G. von Gizycki, GrundzUge der Moral, 2d ed., 1889; H. Steinthal, Allgemeine Ethik, 1885; P. Re'e, Die Entstehung des Gewissens, 1885; Th. Ziller, Allgemeine philosophische Ethik, 2d ed., 1886; W. Wundt, Ethik, 2d ed., 1891 (translated into English) ; Chr. Sigwart, Vorjragen der Ethik, 1886; Fr. Nietzsche, Zur Genealogie der Moral, 1887; H. Hijffding, Ethik, 1887 (German translation, 1889) ; F. Tonnies, Gemeinschafl und Gesellschaft, 1887 ; A. Diiring, Philosophische Gitterlehre, 1888 ; P. Viktor Cathrein, Moral- philosophie, 2 vols., 1890-91 ; Th. Ziegler, Sittliches Sein und sittliches Werden, 2d ed., 1890 ; H. Gallwitz, Das Problem der Ethik in der Gegenwart, 1891 ; G. Runze, Ethik, vol. I.: Praktische Ethik, 1891; G. Simmel, Einleitung in die MoraU wissenschajl, 2 vols., 1892; A. Doiaei, Das menschliche 3andeln, Phibsophische Ethik, 1895. Finally I also mention here A. von Ottingen, Moralstatistik, 4th ed., 1887 ; and R. von Jhering, Der Zweck im Recht, 2d ed., 1884-86, 2 vols. T3 BOOK II FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTS AND QUESTIONS OF PRINCIPLE If any man is able to convince me and sJiow me that I do not tJiink or act right, I will gladly change; for I seek the truth, by which no man was ever injured. But he is injured who abides in his error and ignorance. — Marcus Aurelius. METAPHYSICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL INTRODUCTION I BELIEVE it will be wise to preface the following discussions with a summary of the metaphysical and psychological con- ceptions upon which they are based. A more detailed ac- count of some of these problems will be found in my Intro- duction to Philosophy,^ 1. Reality manifests itself in two phases. Seen from with- out, by the senses, it manifests itself as a corporeal world ; seen from within, in self-consciousness, as psychical life. 2. The two sides are co-extensive. Every psychical process has its equivalent in the physical world, and, conversely, every physical process has a psychical equivalent. 3. Body is a phenomenon and the symbol of psychical life, which is the true reality, or reality in itself. 4. Psychical life is immediately experienced only in our own inner life, of which our body is the phenomenon. 5. We reason by analogy from the form and movement of bodies, and so come to assume the existence of psychical life in things outside of us. But we reach an adequate and penetrating knowledge of the inner human processes only, and therefore regard the psychical world as co-extensive with his- torical human life. 6. The unity of all mental life we call God. God's essence transcends our knowledge. We conceive God by means of the highest human psychical life. This explains the anthro- pomorphic symbolism of all religions. 1 [Fourth edition, 1896 ; English translation by Frank Thilly. — Tr.] 220 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 7. Psychical life has two phases, will and intelligence. The will manifests itself in strivings and feelings, the intelligence in sensation, perception, and thinking. 8. Biological and evolutionistic reflections reveal the will as the primary and radical element of psychical life. Life originally consists in blind striving, without presentation of ends and means. The intelligence manifests itself as a sec- ondary development, as a growth, like its physiological phe- nomenon, the nervous system and brain. 9. Psychology also shows the will to be the primary ele- ment. A specific will, aiming at a particular form of life, manifests itself as the inner essence of man as well as of every living being. The will-to-live, the will to live a specific life, is not the result of previous knowledge or of the experi- ence which we gain of its worth through feeling. 10. The development of the will may be characterized by three stages: impulse, desire, and will in the narrower sense. The goal at which it aims in each of the three stages is the preservation and promotion of individual and generic life. 11. The original form of the will is blind impulse ; in con- sciousness it appears as a felt striving. In case the craving is satisfied, the successful activity is accompanied by pleasur- able feelings ; in case it is obstructed, pain ensues. 12. Sensuous desire is impulse accompanied by the percep- tion of the object or idea of the movement at which it aims. It presupposes a certain development of intelligence and a fusion of will and idea. The satisfaction or inhibition of the desire is likewise accompanied by pleasurable or painful feelings. 13. Will, in the narrower sense, or rational will, is desire determined by purposes, principles, and ideals. It arises in man as the highest development of the will, when the intelligence develops into rational, self-conscious thought. The will be- comes conscious of itself in the practical ideal of life. Feel- INTRODUCTION 221 ings of satisfaction accompany conduct which conforms to the ideal, while acts out of harmony with the ideal arouse feelings of dissatisfaction. 14. The rational will, governed by an ideal, subjects the lower forms of will, impulse, and desire, which persist even in man as natural predispositions, to constant criticism and to a process of selection. This criticism we call conscience. The faculty of educating and disciplining the natural will by means of the rational will is called freedom of the will. A being who thus controls his inner life is called a personal being. 15. The relation of will to feeling may be expressed as follows : Every act of will is originally also an emotion, and conversely, every emotion is at the same time positive or negative willing. In feeling, the will becomes conscious of itself, of its aim, and of its condition. Feeling is not the cause of the act of will, the will is already present in feeling as in its manifestation. 16. In the higher stages of development, the relation is somewhat different. Here we have volitions which are not at the same time feelings. A resolution or decision to do some- thing may take place without being accompanied by feeling ; indeed, it may be opposed to the immediate feeling. Con- versely, we have feelings, especially aesthetic feelings, which are no longer motives of the will, although the will i» still mirrored in them. GOOD AND BAD 223 CHAPTER I GOOD AND BAD. TELEOLOGICAL AND FORMALISTIC CONCEPTIONS 1 1. As was said before (p. 34), two problems formed the original starting-point of ethical reflection; the same two problems must invariably carry the thinking man back to ethics again. The first springs from the function of moral judgment : What is the ultimate ground of moral distinctions ? The second has its origin in the volitional and active nature of man : What is the ultimate end of will and action f The first question, as our historical review has shown, gives rise to two theories, the teleological and the formalist ic. The former explains the difference between good and bad by the effects which modes of conduct and acts of will naturally produce upon the life of the agent and his surroundings. Acts are called good when they tend to preserve and promote human welfare ; bad, when they tend to disturb and destroy it. Formalistic ethics, on the other hand, claims that the concepts good and bad, taken in their moral sense, designate an absolute quality of the will, without any regard to the effects of acts or modes of conduct; that this quality can- not be further explained, but must be accepted as a fact. 1 [For the teleological view: Mill, Utilitarianism, chap. II.; Spencer, Z)a fa of Ethics, chaps. I.-III. ; Sidgwick, Methods of Ethics, 420 £f. ; Stephen, Science of Ethics, chaps. IV., V. ; Hoffding, Ethik, chap. VII. ; Ethische Principienlehre, IV.; also Int. Journal of Ethics, 1890 (October); Jhering, Der Zweck im Recht, vol. II., pp. 95 ff. ; Wundt, Ethik, Part III., chap. II.-IV. Against the teleologi- cal view : Abbott's translation of Kant's Ethics, pp. 9 ff . ; Lecky, Htstorj/ of European Morals, chap. I.; Bradley, Ethical Studies; Martineau, Types of Ethi^ cal Theory, vol. II. ; Gallwitz, Das Problem der Ethik in der Gegenwart. — TR.] « That will is good," says Kant, " which is determined by respect for duty ; that will is bad which is determined by the opposite." — I am an advocate of the teleological view. The second question : What is the end of all willing ? has also given rise to different answers, which may be reduced to two fundamental forms: the hedonistic and the energistic The former asserts that the will is universally and invariably bent upon pleasure (or avoidance of pain), and, hence, that pleasure is the highest or absolute good, which is not desired for the sake of anything else. The energistic view, on the other hand, holds : The will does not aim at pleasure, but at an objective content of life, or, since life consists solely of action, at definite concrete activities, I regard the latter conception as the correct one. My view may, therefore, be characterized as teleological energism. Our principle would then be : Such modes of conduct and volitions are good as tend to realize the highest goal of the will, which may be called welfare. I mean by it the perfection of our being and the perfect exercise of life. The two following chapters will set forth the reasons which seem to me to support this view. But first let me say a word concerning the terminology which I have chosen. It is customary to use the term utilitarian instead of teleo- logical. What induced me totally to discard the former ex- pression in the later editions of my book has been, aside from philological objections, the impossibility of guarding it against misconception. It originated in Bentham's school; John Stuart Mill confesses, in his Autobiography/, that he coined the term. It is, in its origin, inseparably connected with hedonism ; hence the critics who have had time for nothing but a superficial glance at the terminology employed in my ethics have insisted on confusing it with Bentham's system. In order to prevent the recurrence of this error, I have sub- stituted for the term utilitarian the term teleological. The latter has the additional advantage of suggesting the general 224 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES GOOD AND BAD 225 theory of the universe from which this form of ethics takes its rise, the Platonic-Aristotelian pUlosophy. Its fundamental idea is that every being and, hence, also man, has a purpose in the universe. This purpose, and the forms and functions of life arising therefrom, it is the business of ethics to ascertain. I have coined the term energism, in order to bring my view into sharp contrast with hedonism : the end of the will is not feeling, but action. Its resemblance to Aristotle's €V€>76ta may also serve to remind us of the origin of the con- cept. The word welfare, finally, seems suited to designate the highest good in its twofold aspect : it shows, first, that the highest good is an objective content of life, consisting in the perfect exercise of all human psychical powers ; then it also suggests that such a life is accompanied with pleasure, and hence that pleasure is not excluded from the perfect life, but included in it. 2. I shall first attempt to show what the teleological theory means, and give reasons for it. Popular opinion inclines more to the f ormalistic view : Acts are not morally good or bad according to their effects ; they are good or bad in them- selves. The disposition determines the moral worth of the act, not the effects.^ Even if the compassion of the good Samaritan in the Gospel had not saved the man who fell among thieves, nay, even if it had caused his death, that is, if the thieves had attacked and killed the rescuer and had then put to death the wounded traveller in order to destroy all evi- dence of their crime ^ this would not in the least affect our judgment of the moral worth of the act. Or, suppose that a slanderous remark, instead of finding ready acceptance, as is usually the case, is repudiated and simply deprives the calum- niator of the confidence which he has hitherto undeservedly enjoyed. And suppose that the episode causes a greater interest to be taken in the injured party and greater con- fidence to be reposed in him. Nevertheless, however desir- i [See Abbott's Kant, pp. 9 ff.; Martineau, vol. II., pp. 53 f. — Tr.] able such effects may be, they do not alter the baseness of calumny. We should answer : The statement is true, but it is not an objection against the teleological theory. The theory does not, of course, claim that the value of the particular acts is to be judged by their actual results, but that acta and modes of conduct are good or bad in so far as they naturally tend to produce favorable or unfavorable effects. It lies in the very nature of slander to deprive the victim of his good name and the confidence of his surroundings. In the case mentioned it was not the fault of the calumniator that the effect did not appear, it was due to the conscientiousness, vigilance, and knowledge of human nature of the person who saw through the trick. The slanderous remark, one might say, adapting the terminology of Aristotle, was causa per accidens, not causa per se, an accidental occasion, but not the cause of the favorable results. Morality, however, has to do not with the actual consequences, but with the effects flowing from the very nature of the act. Physics has to do with the law of gravitation and not with the infinitely variable actual move- ments of falling bodies ; it investigates the law of gravitation, ignoring the fact that the tendency to gravitation is not the sole cause of the actual movement of a body. Similarly, medicine seeks to determine the natural tendency of a remedy or a poison to act upon the organism, knowing full well that a thousand other causes may diminish, modify, or even counteract its effects in a particular case. In the same way, ethics seeks to determine the natural tendencies of modes of conduct and not the innumerable, variable, actual results of the particular acts. It asks: What would be the effect of calumny upon humanity if it alone determined the result ? and judges its worth according to the answer. Similarly, to take tlie other example, benevolence naturally tends to diminish human misery, and is therefore good. Or is this a mistake ? Is benevolence good in itself, regard- 15 226 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES less of its effects, and malevolence bad in the same sense ? Would not the Samaritan have been what he was if he had been wholly unable to render aid, if he had been compelled to remain at home, poor, sick and in need of help himself ? Certainly; but the teleological view, rightly understood, does not dispute it. Here, again, it is a pure accident that a virtue does not realize its effects ; its tendency remains the same, and the tendency is what we judge. But suppose that it were impossible, in the nature of things, for one man to help another, suppose that each individual inhabited his own planet and could see the misery of the inhabitant of a neigh- boring planet without being able to help him in any way ? Then would compassion be good ? Should we not say : It is not good for him to feel pity, it simply doubles the sorrow ; it would be much better if he lacked the power to see the wretchedness of others ? Nevertheless, he would be a good man, you say. Very true ; but it is tacitly assumed that if he were near and could render aid, his being there would be a benefit. We have here an instance similar to what we find in the theoretical field ; we ignore a relation which is con- stantly and necessarily presupposed. We say. The stars are bright points, and believe that we are thereby attributing to them an absolute quality. Epistemological reflections first convince us that such a judgment presupposes a point of re- lation, namely, an eye that is sensitive to light. Here, too, common-sense would say : But the stars would surely shine even if all eyes were closed. Certainly ; but that simply means that if an eye were again opened, it would see them. If there were no eyes at all, there would be no shining points. Similarly, if men did not produce effects upon men, if they were metaphysically isolated from each other, like Leibnizian monads, it would be utterly absurd to say that malevolence was bad and benevolence good. The words malevolence and benevolence would be devoid of meaning. 3. But another objection is urged. Your theory does not GOOD AND BAD 227 meet the facts after all. The moral judgment is not con- cerned with acts and modes of conduct, but with the disposi- tion of the agent. The act is good when its motive is good, that is, when it springs from the sense of duty, be its effect what it may.^ Nor is this statement untrue. It is a fact that the moral judgment of a particular act first considers the disposition of the agent. We try to ascertain the moral worth of the per- son, which manifests itself in the act, and therefore inquire into his motives. A physician performs a dangerous operation, and the patient dies from it. The public now pronounces judg- ment. Did the physician do it from a sordid motive ? No, the patient was unable to pay. Was it ambition that prompted liim ? Hardly, for he had successfully performed the opera- tion a hundred times, and this was a desperate case. Well, then, he must have been extremely careless ! No, it took him a long time to make up his mind to do it. He simply felt that it was his duty to make a final attempt to save the patient's life. — When that conclusion has been reached, it means that the act was morally unassailable. But it does not necessarily follow that the operation was justified by the facts. This is a point that must be settled by the physicians ; and if they find that the outcome of the case could have been foreseen, they blame the physician and say : He should not have done it. And, hence, it is not the dis- position, but the result that decides after all. That is, not the actual, particular result — no one can be held accountable for an accident — but the result which was to be expected from the nature of the case. The same thing meets us everywhere : a distinction is made between a personal and an objective judgment aroused by the same act. .Evert/ act gives rise to two judgments, a subjective^ formal judgment of the disposition of the person and an objective^ material judgment of the act itself. * [Kant, ibid. ; Martineau, vol. II , Part II. ; Bradley, Ethical Studies. — Tb.J 228 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES GOOD AND BAD 229 In the former case, we inquire into the motive, in the latter, into the effects following from the nature of the case.^ It is of the utmost importance that we clearly understand this difference, and also that we see that these two judgments are independent of each other and may even contradict each other. An act may be objectively wrong, and yet the agent may be personally irreproachable. It is said of St. Crispin that he stole leather to make shoes for the poor. Does that make Crispin a thief and a rascal ? We shall hardly be will- ing to say so. He would surely never have taken the mean- est thing for himself. But when he saw poor children with sore and half frozen feet, his heart was grieved, and having nothing himself he took a piece of leather from the rich merchant in order to help them. Not without some reluc- tance, we may imagine ; for he, too, had learned the com- mandment, " Thou shall not steal." But so great was his pity that he risked the danger of the gallows. Of what use, he may have thought, is his wealth to the rich usurer ? It will merely lead to his damnation. Perhaps, God in his mercy will credit him with the act of charity which he will thus involuntarily perform. And so Crispin went and took with a good conscience as much as he needed. If pity and good will are absolutely good, they are certainly good in this case also. The subjective formal judgment must be: The will of Crispin, who served others with a clear conscience and by sacrificing his own interests, was a good will. But this judgment is not the only one to which the act gives rise. The act itself is made the object of a judgment which is formed on the basis of the effects naturally belong- ing to it. Objectively considered, the act is undoubtedly theft : depriving a man of his property without the consent of 1 [''An act is materially good when in fact it tends to the interest of the sys- tem, so far as we can judge of its tendency, or to the good of some part consistent with the svstem, whatever were the affections of the agent. An action is formally good when it flowed from good affection in a just proportion. (HutchesonJ — Tr.] the owner. Such a mode of conduct has, from the very nature of the case — whatever may be the motive — effects which are extremely dangerous to human welfare. If such conduct became general, if everybody were to act according to the maxim : If in your opinion you can do more good by taking a commodity from its owner and giving it to another, then it is your right or your duty to make the transfer, re- gardless of the owner's wishes, what would be the result ? Evidently, the complete abolition of the institution of prop- erty, and with it, the disappearance of the desire to acquire more than momentary needs call for, and the destruction of human life. Hence, the effects which follow from the nature of such an act are ruinous, and the act is bad. And so uni- versal is this belief that such acts are prohibited and pun- ished as stealing. Had Crispin been brought before a judge, the latter would have been compelled to condemn him with- out hesitation. Not only because the law required it; nay, even if he had made the law himself, he could not have acted otherwise. He would not have been willing to insert a clause into the code in favor of Crispin's theft, to wit : But every encroachment upon the property of another shall go unpun- ished, provided a third party thereby receives a benefit exceeding the damage done to the owner. No, the formula : Interference with the property rights of others is punishable, holds unconditionally. The most that the judge could have done would have been to take into account extenuating cir- cumstances. And he might, perhaps, have told the accused privately how sorry he was to have been compelled to sen- tence him. I know that your intentions were good, he might have said, but I should like to show you that your mode of procedure was not the proper one, so that you may not con- sider yourself unjustly treated. And he might then have proved to him that his act, innocent though it may have seemed, was absolutely incompatible with the general welfare. The historian will frequently find himself placed in a 230 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES I 'I similar position. He will condemn an act without therefore condemning the character of the agent, and conversely. So far as we are able to judge from his letters and the testimony of his friends, K. L. Sand, the murderer of Kotzebue, acted in the firm belief that he was sacrificing himself for his country. He believed that it was his duty to destroy the enemy who was corrupting the soul of his people. And if it is harder to die on the scaffold than on the field of battle, we cannot underrate Sand's devotion to what he felt to be his duty. But the same act was, objectively considered, highly reprehensible. If every man were allowed to sit in judg- ment upon the life of his neighbor, and to kill him in case he considered him a menace to the community, all law and order would disappear, and the war of all against all would become inevitable. There is hardly a man, at least not in public life, whose activity is not regarded by some one in the community as a curse, and whose death some one would not welcome as a blessing to humanity. Hence, the sentence of death pronounced upon the murderer of Kotzebue was en- tirely just and necessary. The inquisitors persecuted her- etics and brought them to the stake. It is conceivable and probable that some of them at least did what they did with a heavy heart : not because they rejoiced in the sufferings of others — nay, they suffered themselves — but because they felt it to be their duty, because they were firmly convinced that it would be better for a heretic to die than that a whole people should be tempted and corrupted by him. Subjectively con- sidered, their conduct was without blame, no less so than that of the judge who sentenced poor Sand. The difference is a material difference only : we are no longer convinced that the safety of a people demands the persecution and execution of those who differ from us in matters of religion. The inability to keep these two views apart causes much confusion. Whoever condemns the act believes that he must assume an evil motive in order to justify his disapproval of GOOD AND BAD 231 the character, that he must attribute love of power and cruelty to the inquisitors, vanity and a craving for notori- ety to Sand. Conversely, whoever approves and under* stands the character of the agent feels bound to approve of the act, and gives it an innocent or even praiseworthy name. The moralizing party-eloquence of the historians finds au excellent field here. Such names and motives are selected for acts as arouse the love and admiration or the hatred and indignation of the reader. As a rule, writers of this class do not care so much for the truth as to make things appear good or bad in the eyes of the reader. We now come back to our question. It is clear that the objective, material judgment is justified teleologically : the value of acts and modes of conduct depends upon their ability to solve the problems of life, or upon their effects upon the conduct of life. But the same may ultimately be said of the subjective, formal judgment. First, however, let me say that it is the real business of ethics to determine the objective value of modes of action and conduct, not to decide upon the subjective, personal value of the disposition of the agent. It is manifestly not the function of the science to deter- mine the motive and disposition in a particular case ; and it is not its function, or at least only to a very small degree, to establish the principles underlying this judgment. The prin- ciple of the subjective, formal judgment is : An act is good in so far as it springs from a will determined by the con- sciousness of duty. In saying this we say everything that can be said upon the subject. It is morally right to act conscientiously, it is morally wrong to act contrary to one's conscience, be the content of conscience whatever it may. But there never was an ethics that stopped here ; it has in- variably attempted to find an answer for the other question also : What is it that duty really enjoins ? For no ethics can, without ignoring the most patent facts, get around the fact that conscience commands and permits different persons to 232 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLED) GOOD AND BAD 233 tt> act differently in the same case ; nay, that its dictates are not infrequently different for the same person at different times. Now, it is surely not the object of ethics merely to command the individual to obey his conscience, but above all to guide his conscience, that is, to teach him to decide what is the content of a normal conscience. And if scientific ethics cannot follow the example of theological ethics and appeal to the commands of a transcendent law-giver, or to the absolute decisions of an infallible court, and if it cannot, with- out renouncing its scientific character, do what Herbart and Lotze show an inclination to do, that is, appeal to the categor- ical formula — My, the moralist's, conscience, the normal con- science, decrees as follows — then it has no other course than to measure the content of the conscience or of the duties which it enjoins by an objective standard ; and this objective standard, again, can only be the value which modes of action and conduct derive from their relation to an ultimate and highest good. Finally, however, the subjective, formal conception itself is reduced to the teleological view. To act from respect for duty, from conscientiousness, is morally good. Why is con- scientiousness good ? Or is this an absurd question ? I do not believe it. Conscientiousness is objectively good, the moral philosopher will find, because conscience tends to determine the conduct of the individual to the end that he may promote the welfare of the agent and his surroundings. Inclinations are variable and untrustworthy ; conscience is, on the whole, the same in all the individuals of a people, and there- fore makes their conduct uniform in so far as it has power over them. Even this formal point is a gain. Moreover, the con- tents of the individual conscience represent positive morality, the objective morality of the people, which is inculcated in the individual during his entire life, by example, by praise and blame. But the general moral code, in turn, contains the cus- toms {Sitten) and laws of a people or an entire sphere of civili- zation. Customs, however, so anthropology tells us, are to be regarded as a kind of social instinct, by which all the individ- uals of a particular, historical society are impelled to perform acts tending to the preservation of individual and social life. Hence, conscience, thus interpreted, would have to be re- garded as a principle which impels the individual to promote his own most vital interests and the interests of the commu- nity of which he is a member. Let this suffice, for the pres- ent, upon this point. I shall return to it in the fifth chapter of the second book.^ The principle of teleological energism then would be : The objective value of human conduct is ultimately de- termined by its relation to a final and highest end or good, which consists in the perfect development of being and the exercise of vital functions ; and the worth of a good will, of a will actuated by a feeling of duty, ultimately depends upon its power to influence action for the highest good. 4. Before entering upon a more detailed definition of the highest good, I should like to answer a few objections which might be urged against my view. In the first place. Is not this principle identical with the oft-quoted maxim which, in spite of their protestations, we are in the habit of attributing to the Jesuits: The end justi- fies the means f If the value of a mode of conduct depends upon its effects, must we not also grant it of a particular act? Indeed, I do not see how teleological ethics can deny the proposition. But I see no reason why it should wish to deny it. When rightly understood, the proposition is harmless and necessary. When misconstrued, of course, it becomes absurd and damnable. If we mean by it : So long as the end is per- missible or good, any means may be employed to realize it, — then, indeed, there is not a crime which might not be justi- fied by it. It is lawful and good to acquire money for one's 1 [See Stephen, Science of Ethics, chap. IV., § 4. — Tk.] 234 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES self and one's family. Now, if the proposition be interpreted in the sense just indicated, then it would be right not only to work for wages, but even to hire out as an assassin, pro- vided it were done for the sake of the good end. It is good to help your neighbor in need ; if the proposition were entirely true, it would be right to perjure one's self in order to acquit a good friend in court. This is evidently the interpretation which the opponents of the Jesuits accuse them of having put upon the maxim. The idea is : The Jesuits act according to the principle that any means, as for example, the murder of heretical kings, breach of faith, perjury, where heretics are concerned, etc., which furthers any end which the Jesuits themselves consider good, say the increase of papal power and the advancement of their own order, or the annihilation of Protestantism, is right. It is easy to understand why the Jesuits are unwilling to acknowledge the proposition either as the actual maxim of their acts, or as the principle of their morality. If, on the other hand, we interpret the proposition to mean : Not any lawful end you please, but only the end justifies the means; and there is only one end which determines all values, namely, the highest good, the welfare or perfection of humanity, then it is not only harmless, but inevitable. An act that realizes this purpose is not only permissible, but good and necessary. Everybody, with perhaps the exception of a few philosophers who have a principle to defend, will acknowledge this. There can be no controversy on the point whether it is right to do what is proved to be neces- sary to realize this end ; the only question is, whether an act that violates a universal law may, under certain condi- tions, produce such an effect. If that were proved, every- body would admit the objective goodness of such an act. If an intentional falsehood had and could have only beneficial effects, it would not be a reprehensible lie. If by depriving a man of his property, we should and could injure no one, GOOD AND BAD 235 neither the owner nor the community, by the bad example, nor the thief, by creating a habit in him — if the act resulted in the greatest good, it would not be theft. When a physi- cian removes a patient's eye in order to save the other eye, or cuts off his leg to save his life, his act is not criminal as- sault and battery, but a means justified by the end. Should the same physician yield to the fervent entreaties of an absolutely hopeless patient afflicted with an incurable and highly contagious disease contracted in a foreign land, and give him a fatal poison, and then bring the matter to the attention of the authorities, it would not be murder. The physician would, of course, be culpable before the law, and it is obvious why the law which punishes such offenses could not be suspended. But, morally considered, the case is the same as when an officer, after the necessary formalities, shoots down the ring-leader of a riot. How else could we justify the latter act if not by the end which it subserves, that is, the maintenance of public order ? If the killing of a man were in itself bad, a command of the state could not make it good, for a command cannot make black white, or change the nature of things. Then shall we say that falsehood, deceit, and murder are justifiable, or even meritorious, provided they have nothing but beneficial effects upon the welfare of humanity ? There are two reasons why it is impossible to affirm this question without further comment. In the first place, on account of the contradictions involved in the meaning of the terms. The words, murder and falsehood, signify not merely an objective fact, intentional killing or deception, but likewise imply condemnation. The judgment, Murder is wrong, is an " analytical " judgment ; it means an act of homicide that is legally and morally wrong. Hence, in order to obtain a pure judgment, we must eliminate the condemna- tion expressed in the term, and pronounce judgment upon the objective fact alone, that is, upon the intentional act of 236 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES homicide. Now homicide can unquestionably be a lawful and even dutiful act ; indeed it is enjoined by statute, the execution of which is enforced. — Very true, we hear the objector say; nevertheless, the individual as such is prohibited from killing any one except in self-defense ; the killing of a foreigner or a native for the sake of the welfare of the people would be punished as murder. And yet, even such killing would be justifiable according to the principle, provided we were thoroughly convinced that it is essential to the welfare of humanity. Our answer is : The mere conviction is by no means suffi- cient to justify the act ; nothing but the actual impossibility of a different effect can do that. This brings us to the second reason why we cannot accept the above proposition. We may say, the proposition : The welfare of humanity is an end which justifies, without exception, every act that is a means to that end, is in theory wholly unobjectionable, but cannot be applied in practice We can never figure out whether an act of this kind, for example the killing of a corruptor of the people, a revolutionist, or a tyrant, by a private person, will have only favorable or approximately favorable effects upon the welfare of humanity, or even upon the permanent welfare of a particular people. When Napoleon I. trampled upon the nations of Europe many a brave man must have felt a desire to kill him and so to free his oppressed people. Let us suppose that such a person had succeeded in assassinating the Emperor at Erfurt, in 1808, at the sacrifice of his own life. Would he have rendered humanity, the oppressed and down-trodden, a service ? Many of his contemporaries would probably have believed it. We of the present day, however, should feel inclined to say : It is well that such a thing did not happen. It is well that the nations of Europe were compelled to win their freedom in open, honorable battle. Had Napoleon fallen by the hand of an assassin, the bad example might have GOOD AND BAD 237 corrupted the moral judgment of men for centuries, it might have had a pernicious influence upon the relations existing between the different nations, the German people would not have experienced that inner regeneration which gave back to them their national consciousness and made possible their political existence in the new Empire. True, we cannot absolutely prove it. — Some one may reply : If the tyrant had been killed in time, much bloodshed would have been avoided, there would have been no Holy Alliance of notori- ous fame, and the feeling of national pride which has taken such hold upon the nations of Europe, and is now terrorizing them with tlie fears of war and weighing them down with armaments, would not have gained such an unfortunate as- cendency over the feeling of universal brotherly love, and so on. This view too, may be true, and we cannot prove by any form of reasoning that it is false. Nay, we cannot even prove that the battle of Sedan was a blessing for the German people. All that we can do is to believe these things, and faith rests upon the will. It is just as impossible to make an absolute calculation of the effects of a movement in physics, because every effect continues ad infinitum^ as it is to determine the objective value of a particular act from its relation to the highest human end, in moral philosophy. Here, as in the former case, we are dealing with infinite quantities. We can merely estimate the general tendencies of motion in physics, and the tendencies of modes of action to further or retard welfare in morals. Still, we must confess that circumstances may arise under which the end justifies exceptions to the rule, just as poisons may sometimes be used as remedies. It is the same in morals as in politics. No statesman, no historian, will refuse to grant that a breach of positive law may, under certain cir- cumstances, become a necessity. But no one will dare to claim, unless he is a partisan and not a theorist, that he can strictly prove the necessity of a particular revolution. Such things 238 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES can be believed, but not proved. No one can ever estimate all the consequences of a violation of law, especially not the more remote ones. A revolution as such invariably tends to destroy the legal order, and to weaken the authority of law. To what extent this actually occurs no one can tell. The feeling of insecurity produced by the example of such a vio- lation of law may continue for centuries after its occur- rence. We can no more calculate the unfavorable effects than we can calculate the favorable ones ; we can never prove that the sum of the latter exceeds that of the former. The same may be said of infractions of the moral laws. There may be cases in which these become necessary, but we can never prove it in a particular instance. It will never be pos- sible to prove that the sum of all the evil effects which a breach of law may directly and indirectly produce in one's own life and that of others, is overbalanced by the im- mediate good effects which are aimed at. Consequently, whoever breaks the law, always does so at his own peril. The man who remains within the bounds of the law can make no mistake. Of course, energetic natures do not care chiefly for their own safety. The men who have brought about great crises in history have, as a rule, in some way or other, departed from the safe course of universal morality and law. The most serious thing about our proposition is its tendency to make us forget the more remote consequences, and empha- size the immediate ones. The end justifies the means, says the partisan to himself, when he attempts to secure the victory for his party at an election by slandering the opposing can- didate. The end justifies the means, says the politician who strives to gain an advantage for his country by fraud or by force. The end justifies the means, says the churchman who calumniates and disgraces an honest man because he docs not accept the "sound doctrine." The maxim in its evil meaning finds the freest scope in partisan activity. Party GOOD AND BAD 239 morality is always and everywhere inclined to identify the advantage of the party with the welfare of the people or humanity. The cause of the party is, of course, the good cause, hence whatever conduces to it is lawful I Did the Society of Jesus innocently employ this mode of reasoning ? It is commonly assumed that it did, and indeed the proposition, extra ecclesiam nulla salus, suggests the conclusion : Whatever tends to increase the power of the church, to shatter the power of its enemies, or to advance the power of its friends — among whom we are the most faithful and the most zealous — is good, whether it be brought about by the suppression of truth or the circulation of falsehood, by the assassination or the public burning of human beings. We may presume that the history of the order shows acts which were performed according to this principle, and that some of its members thought and acted in accordance with it. It is but fair to say, however, that such persons exist in every party. Indeed, we may say that every party, be it merely a literary sect or a school of philology, in a certain sense ac- cepts the motto : There can be no salvation except in us. But, we must also add, the order surely contained members whose consciences did not permit them to draw such a con- clusion. Most likely the Society of Jesus, like other societies, was neither made up of saints only, nor yet of scoundrels or " men in wickedness " (Manner an Bosheit), as a Protestant historian calls them, but of human beings. And, a defender of the order might add, there is a very obvious reason why such a maxim should have come to be regarded as their special property. The stronger a party, the more trouble- some it is to its opponents ; and the greater and more sur- prising its victories, the more surely will they be attributed by its opponents to the employment of dishonest means.^ 1 I call the reader's attention to a book written by a Jesuit, Father B. Duhr, Jesuit Fables (Jesuitenfabeln), 2d edition 1892, which gives a long list of ex- amples, extending to the present, to show that the enemies of the order have themselves acted in accordance with the principle that the end justifies the 240 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 5. Another objection to the teleological moral philosophy is the following. It is contended that the teleological view can- not explain the absolute importance attached to particular acts by genuine ethical feeling. If the violation of the moral laws is to be avoided solely on account of the effects, why should an offence whose effects are manifestly utterly insignificant, pro- duce such violent emotional reactions in the agent and the spectators. Pestalozzi tells us an interesting story in his Lienhard and Gertrude. The oldest son of the mason's starving family takes a few potatoes from the field of a rich neighbor, bakes them in ashes, and shares them with his brothers and sisters. His old grandmother, who is on her death-bed, becomes alarmed and excited at the discovery of the theft ; she cannot die in peace until the boy confesses his sin to the neighbor and obtains his forgiveness. Now, if the teleological theory is correct, how shall we explain the dis- proportion between the intensity of the emotion and the insignificance of the harm done ? The neighbor will not miss the few potatoes, and it is somewhat fantastic to fear that a boy might, by taking them, undermine the institution of property. Hence, the objector might continue, making a practical application, if the theory were to become universal, it would result in shaking the authority of the moral laws, or lessen the fear of violating them. I shall not attempt to offer a psychological explanation of the emotional reactions following the infraction of the moral law until I reach the chapter on Duty} All I can say here is that they do not result from a computation of the damage done or feared, and that it is hardlv to be supposed that this will ever be the case. I shall simply endeavor to justify the means. The annihilation of the Jesuits is a consummation devoutly to he wished, hence everything that is ralcnlated to lower them in the eyes of men is a priori believahle ; at all events it is unnecessary to make any investij^ation, and one is doing the world a service hy circnlating the slanders about them. [For some of the literature on the subject see Runze's Ethik, p. 208. — Tr.] 1 Chapter V. GOOD AND BAD 241 intensity and absoluteness of the feelings of aversion and re- morse, which are aroused by intended or accomplished offences, from the standpoint of teleological ethics. It is said that a Greek sage, when asked by a friend why he had punished his son so severely for some trivial offense, re- plied : And do you regard habit as trivial ? His words con- tain the answer to the objection urged against our theory. If the particular act were an isolated act, it might, indeed, be of little moment. The important thing, however, is that it tends to form a habit, from which similar acts afterwards result. I once read a striking remark made by a Frenchman : Conse- quences would not be so important if they did not in turn become causes. It is true, the trivial act of the boy in our ex- ample may not have injured the neighbor, indeed, it may not have harmed any one, no one might ever have heard of it. But one person it would certainly have injured, the boy him- self, had not the damage been averted by penitence and punishment. He would have remembered how he once suc- ceeded in overcoming want, and if he had ever found himself in trouble again with the same opportunities of getting out of it, he would have recalled his past experience and acted in the same way. Having stolen once, he would have become an habitual thief, and then a professonal thief. Perhaps, it would not have come to this. Nevertheless, the first, apparently harm- less, transgression was the first step in that direction. No one ever stole anything for the first time with the intention of becoming a thief ; certainly not, he simply wanted this one thing, this so desirable, so absolutely necessary thing ; but the result was inevitable. — No one ever told his first lie intending to become a liar ; no drunkard ever began as a drunkard, — he began with a single spree, and with the firm resolve to guard against its recurrence in the future. And every subsequent state of drunkenness began with the first glass and the firm resolve that it should be the last. But the second glass and the second spree and the second lie and the second theft came 16 242 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES of their own accord, finding the door wide open to admit them. Innocence is a negative term, but a positive thing. The first trangression breaks down the barrier which separates the good path°from the evil one. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the sphere of sexual life, as the term innocence ( Unschuld) in the narrower sense implies. With the first false step we enter upon the downward path which leads to an abyss. You will be careful and not fall down ? That is what the thou- sands believed who were dashed to pieces at the bottom of the pit. " The first is free to us ; we 're governed by the second," ^ is the law of the evil spirits. And of the good ones too. After the first temptation has been overcome, the danger of the second is only half as great. The first victory which we win over ourselves is the hardest, every ensuing struggle becomes easier, until at last we do the right without eft'ort. This is the first reason why each particular act has such great moral influence. In performing it, we are not merely deciding the case at hand, but somehow determining our whole course of life. This is true not only of the first decision, although it is of especial importance, but of every subsequent one. Each decision leaves a deeper imprint upon our nature, until it becomes absolutely impossible to counteract it.^ But there is another reason. Not only does every act tend to create a habit in the agent, but it likewise tends to produce a similar habit in the surrounding individuals, and thereby to make the habit of the individual a characteristic of the race. This is brought about in two ways: by imitation and retaliation. Everybody knows how great is the force of example. Cer- tain plants produce germs which are carried through the air until they fall upon fertile soil and grow. Similarly, we may say, good and evil deeds produce germs which permeate the moral atmosphere until, passing through the eyes and ears of men into human souls, they fall upon rich ground and thrive. 1 Faust. ^ [See James's chapter on Habit.] GOOD AND BAD 243 This mode of dissemination is peculiar to acts which do not immediately affect the agent himself, but others. An attempt is made " to get even," first, with the person who has done the good or evil deed, and then with any one who may happen to come along. Darwin tells us of an Australian whose wife died, and who could find no rest until he had killed a woman of another tribe, in retaliation for her death, so to say. This seems to be a very unnatural method of pro- cedure, and yet it is practised, to some extent, by all Imman beings. When a man has been injured or treated unkindly, and cannot revenge himself upon the responsible party, either because the latter cannot be reached or is not known to him, he usually visits his anger upon the first individual who happens to cross his path. We all know this, and get out of such a person's way. Some one or other has palmed off a counterfeit half-dollar on a man. You may wager ten to one that, however honest he may be, he will attempt to pass it on. The " public " has swindled him, it is a lawful act of self- defence to return to the public its counterfeit coin. But acts of politeness and kindness are no less contagious. A stranger does me a favor ; I have forgotten my pocketbook and he pays my car-fare ; I feel impelled not only to thank him, but also to be kind to other strangers. Nowhere are good and evil more easily transmitted than in the family ; nowhere is the power of example more effective, and retribution more sure to follow. What we receive from our parents we pay back to our children. Good training and bad training are both hereditary. Hence, an examination of the moral judgments pro- nounced upon human acts and qualities universally leads to the conception of universal welfare as the principle which governs all determinations of value. 6. Let me supplement these reflections by briefly showing that the other path which moral philosophy can pursue and has pursued leads to the same goal. The question : What is 244 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES i 1 1. I •t* I the ultimate end of willing? likewise suggests the answer: The welfare of the individual and of his surroundings. There is a view which claims in opposition to this that the will naturally aims, not at universal but at egoistic or indi- vidual welfare. Everybody strives for what is agreeable or useful to him, regardless of whether it hinders or furthers the welfare of others. This idea formulated into a theory is egoistic or individualistic utilitarianism. Hobbes is the first modern representative of the view that the will of every animal is directed towards self-preservation ; that self-preser- vation is the law of its nature ; that whatever benefits it is good, and whatever is good for others is good for it only in so far as it is a means to its own preservation. I do not believe that we can maintain this theory without flying in the face of the facts. The egoistic, self-preservative impulse undoubtedly plays an extremely important part in life ; and only too frequently does it assert itself at the expense of others' interests. But no one is an egoist in the sense of caring exclusively for his own weal and woe, and of being utterly regardless of the welfare of others. There are at least a few persons in his immediate surroundings whose good is as dear to him as his own, whose welfare he is ready to pro- mote, at least if it can be done without endangering his own interests. Indeed, most persons will, in a measure at least, even be ready to sacrifice their own interests for the sake of a small group ; they will be willing to give up some of their comforts in order to help it. Some men, finally, are so deeply interested in the weal and woe of others, not only of those closely related to them, but even of utter strangers, as to be governed by sympathy in their entire conduct. We also notice that individuals are directly interested in the wel- fare of society as a whole. Whenever an individual betrays his country for gain, the indignation aroused shows how violently the instincts of the masses resent it. Hence, we may say in general : The will universally aims at individual GOOD AND BAD 245 and general welfare, in quite different combinations, it is true, but yet so that neither element is ever entirely lacking. We call those persons unselfish who, in an unusual degree, sub- ordinate their own interests to those of others ; we call those egoistic whose regard for the interests of others falls consider- ably below the average. The union in one will of selfish and social impulses, of idiopathic and sympathetic feelings, is an expression of the biological truth that the individual is not an independent individual being, but a member of a collective whole. This objective relation appears subjectively in the constitution of the will and the feelings. Even in the animal world the impulse of self-preservation is invariably accom- panied by the generic impulse, the impulse to produce and preserve offspring even at the sacrifice of individual life. In human life, the generic impulse, if we may so designate all will-impulses that are rooted in the relation of the individ- ual to the species, is expanded and intensified. The individual is conscious of forming a part of the whole ; he regards him- self as belonging to a family, a community, a people; he adopts their purposes into his own will ; his interests are so closely interwoven with the general interests as to be insepar- able from them in his consciousness. We may therefore designate, as the goal of his willing, the universal welfare inclusive of individual welfare, or individual welfare within universal welfare. There are, it is true, certain persons whose social impulses are so poorly developed as to be almost entirely absent, persons who are indifferent to the weal and woe of their surroundings, nay, who delight in the injury of others' interests. But this is no more an objection to the view than the existence of idiots is a contradiction to the truth of the proposition that man possesses reason and speech. Physicians and anthropologists agree that an in- dividual incapable of sympathetic feelings is as much of a monstrosity as an idiot. So much, for the present, in reply to the theory of individ- 246 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES i ualistic egoism. After the concept of welfare has been more clearly defined, I shall come back to the antithesis between egoism and altruism. Here I should simply like to state that I^'cannot ascribe the importance to the matter which many moral philosophers ascribe to it. Schopenhauer and his fol- lowers regard it as the cardinal question in morals. The natural man is absolutely egoistic and therefore without moral worth; only such acts are moral as have for their sole motive the weal and woe of others. But since such moti- vation is really impossible in nature — for how can the will be influenced by what does not concern it ? — all morality is really supernatural. 1 do not believe that the world in which we live is so mys- teriously arranged. There is a place for the will even within the natural order. Only so pessimistic a judge of empirical human nature as Schopenhauer can regard compassion as supernatural. Schopenhauer somewhere says in one of those climaxes by which he loves to dazzle credulous readers : "The natural man would, if forced to choose between his own de- struction and that of the world, annihilate the whole universe merely for the sake of preserving himself, this drop in the ocean, a little while longer."-! do not know whether any one would make such a choice on the spur of the moment. But T do know that there is not a man living who would not regret his choice immediately after the destruction of the world, and who would not wish to be freed from a useless and unbearable existence. Even the greatest egoist would then see that he was not intended by nature for complete isolation. He would need other beings if only to be admired, feared, or envied by them. But the individual hardly exists whose relations to humanity are completely exhausted by these feelings, who has not some one whose weal and woe is not altogether immaterial to him or merely fills him with antipathy. And we may say that the welfare of the overwhelming majority is so closely interwoven with the welfare of others, of their relatives, GOOD AND BAD 247 friends, and people, that they cannot fare well, either objec- tively or subjectively, without these. Such absolute egoists exist only in theory and not in reality ; they are mere speci- mens, so to speak, prepared by moral philosophers to prove a theory, and a false theory at that. In a certain sense, of course, egoism is inevitable. Even the most unselfish man desires the welfare of others because their welfare is not immaterial to him. The furtherance of the weal of others or the alleviation of others' woe is a source of satisfaction and relief to him. Indeed, if it were not so, if the welfare of others did not concern him, it could not become an object of his willing. My will can be moved only by mt/ feelings ; I cannot have and feel the feelings of others. In this sense the ego remains the centre of things. It will not, however, be necessary to show that this is not what we mean when we speak of selfishness or egoism in the usual acceptation of the term. These words mean the inability to feel the misfortunes of others, or to rejoice at their welfare. Only an abstract moral philosopher, one who regards the con- tradiction of the natural will as the essential characteristic of duty, or the exclusion of all satisfaction as the condition of moral worth, will be troubled by the fact that the promotion of others' welfare is invariably accompanied by a feeling of selfish satisfaction. These are fruitless quibbles indulged in by an intellect that no longer deals with the things themselves, but merely endeavors to uphold a system. Let me add another statement. It has been said that tlie teleological moral philosophy cannot explain self-sacrifice, that a man like Regulus in the Roman legend contradicts the theory. I can see no difficulty here, provided we do not regard absolute egoism as a part of the theory. Regulus, who returns to his Carthaginian captivity after having warned his friends against concluding a peace which would have given him his freedom, may be explained as easily by the teleological 248 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES as by the formalistic theory of ethics. He was undoubtedly actuated by a grand purpose, a purpose that bore him up and gave him strength ; he desired to give to his people a glorious and never-to-be-forgotten example of heroic sacrifice of private interests for the public weal, and at the same time to show the enemy the proud dignity and grandeur of his country in his own person : Behold, such sons arc begotten by Kome, who know how to die for the glory of the city, not only on the field of battle, but under the hands of the torturers ! The consciousness of such a purpose, the conviction that such glorious effects will follow, produces heroes. I do not regard it as proved that the dry consciousness of duty : One must not break one's word, can do the same. Besides, it might be added, every real sacrifice is at the same time self-preservation, namely, preservation of the ideal self. What did Regulus want, what was the real aim of his willing ? His life ? Why, of course, but that does not mean the preservation of this particular physiological mechanism, but action in peace and in war, in the service of his country. To increase the greatness and glory of the Roman people: that was all that life meant to him, that alone would satisfy his will-to-live. And how could his purpose have been better realized than in the way marked out by fate — than by glori- fying his people and himself in bravely and proudly choosing to die. 7. Let me sum up. The conduct of a man is morally good when it tends to further the welfare or the perfection of the agent and his surroundings, and is accompanied by the con- sciousness of duty. It is, on the other hand, morally repre- hensible when It lacks both of these characteristics of goodness, or at least one of them. In case the objective quality is absent, it is called wicked {schlecht), and in case the agent is conscious that it is contrary to duty, it is called bad (bose), especially if it tends to injure the welfare of others. We call a man good when he fashions his own life in GOOD AND BAD 249 accordance with the ideal of human perfection, and at the same time furthers the welfare of his surroundings. We call him bad when he has neither the will nor the strength to do anything for himself or for others, but, instead, disturbs and injures his surroundings. Virtues and vices, then, are to be explained as the different aspects of the good and bad man. Corresponding to the different problems of life we have a number of different capa- cities or virtues, which represent so many forces of the will tending to solve them. Opposed to them are the vices which express so many incapable wills. The concept good, therefore, always presupposes a relation ; it means good for something. According to common usage, a thing is good when it is capable of doing its work properly, of realizing its purpose. Similarly, when applied to man, the term signifies the ability to accomplish something. A good manager, a good soldier, a good citizen, a good friend, a good father, is one who efficiently performs the functions of a father, citizen, friend, soldier, or manager. The word good means the same in morals : a good man is a man who effi- ciently solves the problems of individual and social human life. The term loses its relative character only when applied to the whole ; the perfect life of society, perfect reality in gen- eral, is not good for something else, but good in and for itself. But every individual thing is good for something ; every par- ticular act or virtue, every particular human being, is good for something ; they have a purpose or object in the whole, and are therefore good in so far as they realize it. ^ But we must add : In so far as, in the moral world, the individual thing is not an indifferent means of realizing an external end, in so far as the individual man is himself a member of the moral whole, he forms a part of the highest good, and is, as such, an end in himself, like the highest 1 [See Spencer, Data of Ethics, chap. III. — Tb.] 250 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES :i good. And the same may be said of the virtues : In so far as they represent aspects of the good man, they are not merely external means to an external end, but themselves a part of the perfect life and highest good. Similarly, moral acts, the expressions of virtues, are at the same time realizations of the purpose, and not merely external means. As in a work of art or fiction everything is both a means and an end, so it is in the moral world. In neither case are the means external : they are always also parts of the end. In both cases, however, the whole is the absolute end, and the worth of the parts depends upon their usefulness for the whole. We show the necessity of a verse or scene in a drama by proving that it is indispensable to the whole. So, too, we prove the necessity of a virtue or a duty by showing that it is indispensable to life, to the perfect life of the individual and society. It must be observed, however, that the individual need not be conscious of this relation in order that his conduct have moral worth. The good old mother mentioned above, who despised theft simply because it is against the eighth com- mandment, is as moral in her willing as the philosopher who understands the teleological necessity of the institution of property for human life. For, after all, it is not his insight that keeps him from stealing, but his inherited and acquired, instinctive aversion to theft. CHAPTER II THE HIGHEST GOOD. HEDONISTIC AND ENERGISTIC CONCEPTIONS 1 1. In the preceding chapter we were led to the notion of welfare. By that term we meant the highest goal of the will and the ultimate principle underlying our moral judgments. It is also called the highest good. In what does welfare or the higliest good consist ? We have already declared that the highest good of an indiv- idual as well as of a society consists in the perfect development and exercise of life. This, of course, is a purely formal defin- ition, but we cannot make it more specific. It is as impossible to define the perfect life as it is to define a plant or animal species. We can simply give a description of it : this it is the business of the doctrine of virtues and duties to do. Before giving a more detailed account of this conception, however, 1 deem it wise to discuss another view of the nature of the highest good. An influential ethical school contends that welfare or the highest good does not consist in the objective 1 [For criticism of hedonism, see : Plato's Philebus and Bk. IX. of the Republic / Aristotle, Ethics ; Kant ; Lecky, chap. I. ; Darwin, Descent of Man, chap. IV. ; Sidgwick, Methods of Ethics, Pleasure and Desire ; Bradley, Ethical Studies, Essays III. and VII. ; Green, Prolegomena to Ethics, Bk. II., chap. II., Bk. III., chaps. Land IV., Bk. IV., chaps. III. and IV.; Martineau, vol. II.; Murray, Handbook of Ethics, Bk. II., Part I., chap. I. ; Simmel, Einleitung in die Moral- wissenschajl, vol. I. chap. IV. ; Hyslop, Elements of Ethics, 349-385 ; also the ethical works of Calderwood, Bowne, Muirhead, Mackenzie, J. Seth. For hedon- ism, see Democritus ; Cvrenaics ; Epicurus ; Locke, Essay, Bk. II., chap. XX., §§ 1 ff ., chap. XXL, §§ '42 ff. ; Bk. L, chap. III., § 3 ; Bk. II., chap. XXVIIL, §§ 5 ff. ; Ilutcheson ; Paley ; Hume ; Beutham ; James Mill ; J. S. Mill ; Sidg- wick ; Barratt ; Bain ; Hodgson ; l^owler ; Gizycki ; all of whom are mentioned in the Iiistorical part of this work. See also Santayana, The Sense of Beauty, 1896. — Tr.] 252 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES i content of life^ but in the feeling of pleasure which life pro- cures ; that pleasure is the thing of absolute worth, and that everything else has value only in so far as it conduces to pleasure. This view is commonly called hedonism ; the theory opposed to it we have called energism. The antagonism between these two schools is of long stand- ing; it runs through the entire Greek philosophy. On the one side are the Cyrenaics and Epicureans; on the other, the followers of Plato and Aristotle and the Stoics. The same antithesis appears in modern philosophy. On the one side we have the empirical psychologists ; on the other, the older rationalistic thinkers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and the German philosophers who follow Kant. According to the former, the subjective feeling of pleasure, regardless of how it is produced, is the absolute good ; accord- ing to the latter, it is the objective development of individ- ual and social human life, regardless of whether it yields pleasure or not. Of course, they add, such a life is actually experienced with inner satisfaction. I do not regard it as superfluous to preface my examination of hedonism with the statement that the question at stake here is : Is the hedonistic view true or false ? and not. Is it good or bad ? The attempt to prove the falseness of this theory by calling it immoral is old. In an old maxim of the Stoic school both hedonism and atheism are repudiated in this way.^ That is not a legitimate argument. Theories are bad only in so far as they are false. The orator will hardly be willing to abandon the method of proving their falsehood by their immorality, but philosophy cannot afford to employ it. Let me add that pure and moral men have never been wanting among the representatives of this view. Epicurus lived a blameless life, while Bentham and Mill battled zealously and 1 'HSov^j T€Xoy, ie6pin\s 96yfia' oi/K tffri icpovoia, ow8i wdpmis h6yiia. A Gellius, IX., 5. THE HIGHEST GOOD 253 energetically for the realization of practical ideas, and have a better claim to the title of idealists, if that is a title of honor, than many of those who arrogate it to themselves. How can the assertion that pleasure is the thing of absolute worth be proved ? It seems to me, only by showing that human beings actually prize it as such. Here, at least, the function of the moralist is not that of a lawgiver, but that of an interpreter of nature. It would be absurd to say : True ; human nature does not esteem pleasure of absolute worth, but it ought to do so. And as a matter of fact all hedonists assert that all men, nay, that all living beings, invariably and universally strive after pleasure ; and that pleasure (or freedom from pain) is the only thing which is desired abso- lutely ; that all other things are desired not for their own sake, but as a means to the end of pleasure or freedom from pain. I do not believe that this view is substantiated by the facts. Let me first attempt to point out that the will does not aim directly at pleasure, but at a particular content of life, which in man is a human and at best a spiritual-moral content.^ What is the evidence of self -consciousness on this point ? Does it reveal pleasure as an end and everything else as a means ? Let us first make clear to ourselves what we mean by ends and means. I am cold and desire to get warm. I can accomplish my end in different ways. I can take exer- cise, I can put on warmer clothes, or I can light a fire. For the latter I can use wood or turf or coal. Here we have a pure relation of means to end : the end is warmth, and I desire it for its own sake. The means I desire only for the sake of the end ; in themselves they are totally indifferent ; I 1 [For the psychology of willing see the standard works on psychology; especially, Hiiffdiug, pp. 308-356 ; James, ch. XXVI., esp. pp. 549-551 ; Ladd, Descriptive Psychology, chaps. XI., XXV., XXXVI. ; Baldwin, vol. II. Bain is the chief advocate of psychological hedonism: Emotions and the Will, pp. 304-504 ; Mental and Moral Science, Bk. IV., chap. IV. See also Jodl, Lehrbuch der Psychologic, chap. XII. — Tr.] 254 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES n choose that one among them which will help me to realize my purpose in the quickest manner possible and at the least expense. Now, does the same relation obtain between all human activities and pleasure ? We sit down at a table hungry. Is pleasure our end, and is eating related to it as an absolutely indifferent means, like the coal in our example ? The lover of music goes to a concert. Is pleasure his end, and music the means? Did Goethe — applying Bentham's formula that "the constantly proper end of action on the part of every individual at the moment of action is his real greatest happiness from that moment to the end of his life " — select as the means to his greatest happiness poetry and prose, amours with girls and women, business affairs and travels, scientific and historical investigations ? — Well, that is manifestly absurd, and no one will make such a claim. No, impulses and powers slumbered in him which craved for exer- cise and development, just like the forces dwelling in the seed of a plant. And when these powers were exercised and unfolded, pleasure ensued, but this pleasure did not pre-exist in con- sciousness as an end of which the other things were the means. The impulse and the craving for activity preceded all conscious- ness of pleasure. The consciousness of pleasure did not exist before the impulse, and produce or arouse it. Only the blas^ and worn-out idler first experiences a desire for pleasure, and then looks about him for some means of procuring it. Healthy men do not act that way. Or must we ignore this apparent absurdity and boldly say that all desires actually aim not at the thing or action, but at pleasure ? James Mill, a bold and acute thinker, claims that we must. In the nineteenth chapter of his Analysis of the Phenomena of Human Mind, he teaches that desire is solely another name for the idea of pleasure. There is an am- biguity, however, he points out, caused by a process of asso- ciation ; the term desire is also applied to the ideas of the causes of our pleasures and pains. We have a desire for THE HIGHEST GOOD 255 water to drink ; that is, strictly considered, a figure of speech. Properly speaking, it is not the water we desire, but the pleasure of drinking. The illusion that we desire to drink is merely the result of a very close association. This reminds me of an anecdote which appeared in the Fliegende Blatter, An Englishman is seated on the bank of a lake, fishing. A native approaches him and informs him that there are no fishes in the stream. Whereupon, the Englishman stolidly replies that he is not fishing for fish, but for pleasure. This man had evidently dissolved the asso- ciation, and regarded fishes, fishing, and pleasure in the light of means and end. Do other people do the same ? It seems to me that the mirth occasioned by his answer is a sufficient reply. Indeed, so far as I know, the will or desire is never directed upon a quantum of pleasure, but always and immediately upon the thing itself, the action, the change of condition. An idea of the thing frequently precedes the desire, but I never find in consciousness an idea of the pleasure as such, to which the thing is related as a mere means. Moreover, we may even say that, as a rule, the desire produces the idea of the thing. The following argument also seems to make for the view that the idea of pleasure does not set the will in motion. If it were so, we should have to expect that the more vivid and distinct the pleasure in consciousness, the greater the im- pression which it makes. Now, the pleasure is usually intensest immediately after the enjoyment. Hence, the desire for pleasure ought to be most intense at that time. The reverse is obviously the case. After the meal the idea of the enjoyment does not excite the will at all, which plainly shows that the impulse precedes the pleasure. The idea of pleasure is not the cause of the impulse or desire, but the impulse becomes the cause of the pleasure when it realizes its objective end. Consequently, hedonism would at least have to modify its claim and say : Although pleasure is not the conscious aim^ I 256 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES it is the actual goal which, unbeknown to consciousness, acting like a concealed weight, really sets the machine in motion. The things which appear in consciousness as the ultimate ends — food, honor, riches — are therefore mere pre- texts deluding the intellect, while the will in reality always pursues one thing alone, and that is pleasure. A lover leaves his home to attend to some business. Much to his own surprise he comes to a place where there is a chance of meeting his sweetheart. And now he sees that his business was a mere pretence on the part of his desires to anticipate the objections of his reason. Does the same hold true of the case in hand ? Is pleasure the mistress of the will, so to speak, whom the will incessantly strives to meet, deluding the understanding with all kinds of pretexts.^ I know of no other way of proving this assertion than by showing that the will invariably realizes not the pretended but the real end, as happened in our example, in which the lover's hidden yearning was revealed by the actual attain- ment of the goal secretly desired by him. Can that be done? I do not believe it. Nay, it would be easier to claim the reverse : it is not the alleged secret end that is realized, but the ostensible one. The miser may acquire wealth, but the pleasure and satisfaction which he promised himself fail to appear. The ambitious man succeeds in obtaining rank and honor, decorations and titles, but the sum-total of pleasure procured is meagre, his desires always exceed the satisfaction. The reproductive impulse may lead to the propagation of the species, but its satisfaction brings disappointment and trouble to the individual. But, some one may say, perhaps all that is so ; neverthe- less the fact remains that whatever we do or strive for, we do or strive for because it yields or promises satisfaction. If it were not so, should we do it ? If there were no satisfac- tion and its opposite, all striving would cease, everything 1 [See Sidgwick, Methods, pp. 53 f. — Tr.] THE HIGHEST GOOD 257 would be indifferent to us. — But what else does this mean than that feelings of pleasure ultimately determine all dis- tinctions of value ? Indeed, of that there can be no doubt ; if there were no feel- ings of satisfaction and tlieir opposites, there would be no distinctions of value. Good and bad would be meaningless words, or rather we should never use them. The proposition : That is good which satisfies a will, is so true that we may call it an identical one. But the proposition : Pleasure or sat- isfaction is the end for the sake of which all things are desired, does not seem to me adequately to express it. It is not satisfaction or pleasure that is desired, but pleasure is a sign that the will has realized wliat it wills. It is pure tautology to answer the question. What is the final goal of the will ? by saying that satisfaction is the goal, — as much so as to answer the question, How is the will ultimately satisfied ? by saying : By satisfaction. Of course, that is true ; but the information will hardly satisfy the questioner. What he wants to know is : What is the objective content that satis- fies the will ? Aristotle long ago discovered the true relation obtaining between pleasure and the will : Pleasure is not the goal, but a uniform accompaniment of the will, a sign, as it were, that the end has been realized. In pleasure the will becomes conscious of itself and its realization ; but to call this consciousness the good itself is as tautologous as to say : Not the thing, but the value which it has is valuable, not the activity or the sport, but the satisfaction which it yields, is satisfactory. The hedonistic theory appears in another phase, that is, in a negative form. What uniformly prompts living beings to action is not the idea of pleasure, but the pain or discomfort experienced by them. Freedom from pain is, therefore, the final and universal aim of all striving.^ 1 [This is the view of Hegesias, the Cyrenaic, and of Schopenhauer. See the chapter on Pessimism, pp. 291 ff. of this work ; also Rolph, Biologlsche Prob- lertie. — Tr.] 17 258 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES i' But this form of the theory likewise seems to me unable to explain the facts. Pain and discomfort doubtless frequently appear in consciousness as spurs to action. The burning wound impels the sufferer to seek relief; tedium {Langeweih) consumes the idler and compels him to seek diversion or troubles. But is this universally the case ? Is it always an actual or anticipated feeling of discomfort that urges us to action ? Was it a feeling of discomfort that compelled Goethe to make poetry, and Diirer to paint ? Is it pain that forces the child to play ? I do not believe we can say so. No, the impulse is at first painless ; the pain ensues only in case the impulse is not satisfied ; very often there is no sign of pain even at the moment when the impulse begins to act itself out. The peasant does not wait until hunger impels him to cultivate his fields ; he sees the sun rise, he breathes the air of spring, and can hardly wait for the time to go to work. Is this a feeling of pain ? It may become so when obstacles are placed between the desire and its satisfaction, but it is not pain. On the contrary, the hopeful impulse is a joyful feeling ; to look forward to something with pleasure is not to experience pain. Hence, I do not believe that a feeling, be it a conscious pain or an anticipated pleasure, is the invariable cause of striving and action. Nay, the reverse is the case : Impulse or will is primary ; feeling, on the other hand, secondary. Pleasure accompanies the realization of the objective end ; pain, its obstruction or failure. This is what biology teaches, as I shall show presently. 2. The hedonistic theory also presents its thesis in a slightly modified form : It is not pleasure in the abstract that is uni- versally desired, but a pleasurable activity or a pleasure- giving good. Every creature at every moment decides to strive for and to do that of which it happens to have the most pleasurable idea at the time. This notion undoubtedly comes much nearer to the truth than the other. And yet I cannot THE HIGHEST GOOD 259 accept the statement as a satisfactory explanation of the facts, because it lays too much stress on presentation. I believe, Schopenhauer is right in saying that the will does not originally presuppose presentation. Certainly not in animal life, where action is originally governed by blind striving. Nor does ideation play such a very prominent part in human life. It neither creates the original goal of the will, nor does it always guide the will in action. Habit is the greatest guide of action. Perhaps it would be safer to say : Man invariably does that which agrees with his purposes and wishes and at the same time meets with the least resistance from the con- stitution of his inner life and his external circumstances. This naturally yields him satisfaction, but whether it gives him the greatest amount of satisfaction possible for him at that moment cannot, of course, be proved. He may decide in favor of a life of ease ; and it is at least doubtful whether that would give him the maximum of pleasure. Moreover, I should say, the formula is apt to obliterate the distinction between wishing and willing. We may will what does not appear in presentation as pleasant or pleasurable, and may, conversely, reject that which, for the moment, has the greatest attraction for our desires. I will not deny that such cases may also be explained from the hedonistic stand- point. Nevertheless, the difference between sensuous fear and the respect for duty, between animal desire and moral voli- tion, between the pathological feeling of pleasure and the feeling of satisfaction with a noble deed, is so great that we can easily understand why many moralists regard it as a generic difference, which will not allow us to embrace these feelings under a common head. This is the view of Kant and Herbart, with which Steinthal agrees when he distin- guishes between formal and pathological pleasure. Finally, it must also be added that pain and painful activity are indispensable to human life. Hence, the notion of pleas- ure or satisfaction would, in a measure, have to be extended 260 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES 1'4 SO as to include the painful. We cannot, in my opinion, doubt it. If a god were to offer to eliminate from our lives all pain and everything that causes pain, we should most likely at first be strongly tempted to accept the offer. When we are overburdened with work and care, when pain lays hold upon us and we are transfixed with fear, we feel as though nothing could be better than a life of rest and security and peace. But I believe a trial would soon cause us to regret our choice, and make us long for our old life with all its troubles and sorrows and pains and fears. A life absolutely free from pain and fear would, so long as we are what we are, soon become insipid and intolerable. For if the causes of pain were eliminated, life would be devoid of all danger, conflict, and failure, — exertion and struggle, the love of adventure, the longing for battle, the triumph of victory, all would be gone. Life would be pure satisfaction without ob- stacles, success without resistance. We should grow as tired of all this as we do of a game which we know we are going to win. What chess player would be willing to play with an opponent whom he knows he will beat ? What hunter would enjoy a chase in which he had a chance to shoot at every step he took, and every shot was bound to hit ? Uncertainty, diffi- culty, and failure are as necessary in a game, if it is to interest and satisfy us, as good luck and victory. Well, the same holds true of life. The lion in the desert, suffering from hunger and thirst, frost and heat, may perhaps think : How happy I should be if only I could dwell in a safe cave with game enough about me to satisfy my daily needs. Before he knows it, he is lodged in a most comfortable house in a beautiful garden, where he receives the best possible treat- ment. Even his lioness has not been forgotten. At first he likes the arrangement. But soon he finds his beautiful cage, which is constructed according to all the rules of lion-hygiene, somewhat narrow and tiresome. His keeper observes his dissatisfied mien, so a large park is placed at his disposal THE HIGHEST GOOD 261 with the finest game for him to prey upon. But he soon wearies of the ease and certainty of the chase. He has every- thing, but he does not feel at ease. What is lacking ? Well, he is without the very things which he desired to get away from ; what he wants is to prowl around and to be hungry, the excitement of the real chase and the fight ; he misses the desert. — Who knows but what the sons of the desert who fell in the battles of Mohammed yearned for the desert and the strife, after enjoying the pleasures of Paradise for three days ? Poetry is a mirror of human life and of the will which manifests itself in it. What productions do we like best? Those which portray a life of ease and peace, comfort and universal benevolence ? Wieland's Aristippus is one of the few books of this kind. Aristippus and Lais, Cleonidas and Musarion, and whatever the names of the characters in the novel may be, have everything that the heart can desire. They are rich, they live in beautiful mansions and villas, equipped with everything that nature and art can supply. They are beautiful and strong, they are intelligent and witty, possessing such powers of observation and expression as never to be at a loss for the best sort of amusement. They have the happiest temperaments in the world, being equally willing to entertain others and to be entertained themselves ; they love each other tenderly but without passion, and therefore look upon what would excite pangs of jealousy in others with the equanimity of the sage, who is no more affected by the alteration of love than by an interesting event in nature. Finally, both Lais as well as Aristippus have constructed a system of philosophy adapted to their lives : " It is my natural mission," thus Lais philosophizes in a letter to her friends,^ "to make men happy without being married to them. It would be foolish modesty on my part were I to deny that I understand the art of making happy whomever I please, and 1 Vol. III., fragment 26. 262 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES u that nature was not niggardly in bestowing upon me the gifts necessary to accomplish this. I am also willing to confess that the consciousness of having made a worthy man happy may, for a short time, arouse in me the pleasant illusion that I am happy too. But that both the pleasure which I give and the pleasure which I receive in return is indeed a mere illusion, — of that the few persons with whom I have experi- mented are as convinced as I am. This must seem unnatural to you honest housewives, but it is nevertheless a fact, and I would not have it otherwise. Nature, who, like a good mother, takes care that none of her children shall be treated too niggardly, has arranged things so that no one would vol- untarily exchange his ego for another's. So it is with me ; being what I am, I gracefully yield to Cleonis and thank her for having taken from me the burden of making my friend Aristippus the happiest of men." Accompanying the letter is a casket of pearls : " You will be somewhat frightened, but I am so rich in such trifles that you need not worry about their value. The pearls are absolutely alike in purity, size, and form. You will therefore simply have to count them and divide them among yourselves in a sisterly fashion. You can cast lots for the casket." ^ Why is Aristippus such a tiresome book ? Because it is 1 Some biographies remind us of Wieland's Aristippus; for instance, J. C. Bluntschli's autobiography {Denkwiirdigkeiten aus ineinem Leben, 3 vols., 1882). Bluntschli was a talented and amiable man, a healthy optimistic politician and philosopher. He took part in everything : he was grand master of the Masons, founder of the Protestant Society, member of the congress for the codification of international laws, he was First Speaker and honorable President in all the meetings of both societies, President of the Rhenish Credit Bank, a member of the Upper House in Baden, a famous Professor at the Heidelberg University, a celebrated writer on jurisprudence and politics, a member of seven academies, an honorary doctor of five universities (Vienna, Moscow, Oxford, Lahore, and member of the University of St. Petersburg), knight of eight or more orders, he was honored and congratulated on numerous anniversaries, his works were translated into eight languages, he was successful in everything, he met with only one little disappointment : in spite of repeated attempts, he never succeeded in becoming Prime Minister; but he bore this disappointment gracefully. — A happy life in truth, and an enviable one. And yet — THE HIGHEST GOOD 263 untrue ? Perhaps. But why, aside from the trivial senti- mentalities of Lais, are we not gratified at the illusion of such perfect happiness? I think it is because we ourselves should find such a life unbearable. It would fail to exercise and satisfy the most powerful impulses of our nature. Who would care to live without opposition and struggle? Would men prize truth itself as they do, if it were attained without effort and kept alive without battle ? To battle and to make sacri- fices for one's chosen cause constitutes a necessary element of human life. Carlyle states this truth in a beautiful passage in his book on Heroes and Hero- Worship : " It is a calumny to say that men are roused to heroic actions by ease, hope of pleasure, recompense, — sugar-plums of any kind in this world or the next. In the meanest mortal there lies some- thing nobler. The poor swearing soldier hired to be shot has his ' honor of a soldier,' different from drill, regulations, and the shilling a day. It is not to taste sweet things, but to do noble and true deeds, and vindicate himself under God's heaven as a God-made man, that the poorest son of Adam dimly longs. Show him the way of doing that, the dullest day-drudge kindles into a hero. They wrong man greatly who say he is to be seduced by ease. Difficulty, abnegation, martyrdom, death, are the allurements that act on the heart of man." To be sure, they are not the only influences, we must add ; yet they influence all. And that is why Wieland's novel is tiresome, why epics and dramas which deal with passions and conflicts, with victory and death, irresistibly attract and move the hearts of men. Here they find their life's ideal portrayed and not in the idyllic and the bucolic. Aristotle discusses the question why the contemplation of the painful and horrible in the tragedy pleases us. He thinks it is because it arouses feelings of fear and compassion. These emotions, too, must be exercised, and, by affording an opportunity for this, the tragedy gives us relief. To tell the whole truth, Aristotle m 264 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES should have added that the tragedy also excites other power- ful emotions — anger and indignation, love of power and revenge, remorse and despair, love and sacrifice, magnanimity and mercy, triumph and courage ; in short, all the deep feel- ings and impulses which slumber in the heart of every human being. Nature, which yearns for the realization of these feel- ings and impulses in actual life, finds relief when they are sympathetically aroused by the poem. Then shall we say that even fear and pity may, at times at least and under certain circumstances, be pleasurable feel- ings ? And is the sorrow which we feel at the death of a beloved one, and which the heart would not exchange for all the treasures of the world, not a feeling of pain, but a feeling of pleasure? I believe that would be a rather curious notion. No, if we may accept the evidence of self-conscious- ness, a maximum of pleasurable feelings or a minimum of painful feelings is not the goal which attracts the will of man ; what he strives after is to live his life in accordance with his ideal. Pleasure and pain are not revealed by introspection as the positive or negative ends of life, but as states of conscious- ness which accompany actions and in which the will becomes aware of itself and its bent. 3. The testimony of self-consciousness concerning the significance of pleasure and pain is confirmed by biology. The naturalist has little trouble in explaining the part which pleasure and pain play in the economy of life. As for pain, we may say that it originally accompanies the destruction of vital processes, which may be caused by violent injuries or by the disturbance of the inner equilibrium. Its significance is obvious : it tends to preserve life by impelling the animal to seek safety in flight or defence. Let us suppose that two living beings resemble each other in every respect, except that one is sensitive to pain, the other not. The former would evidently stand a much better chance of being preserved, provided, of course, the conditions of life were THE HIGHEST GOOD 265 . equal. The latter animal would be surprised by danger and perish, while the former would be warned by pain and strive to escape from the disturbing cause. Insensitiveness to pain would have the same effect as the absence of a sense-organ. — Pleasure seems to be the original concomitant of two animal functions, nutrition and reproduction. In more highly developed animals, the pleasurable feeling extends to allied functions. Thus the movements which precede the taking of food, the chase, using the term in its broadest sense, includ- ing the scent, the pursuit, the seizure, the laceration of the prey, are also accompanied by feelings of pleasure. The pleasure which accompanies the function of reproduction also extends to the care of offspring. The significance of both these functions in the animal economy is very plain. They are the immediate conditions of preservation ; in the former case, of the preservation of the individual, in the latter case, of that of the species. Organic life consists in a continuous process of disintegration and reparation. Waste material is constantly given off, and new elements are taken up and assimilated. In case the latter process does not take place, death soon ensues. The social life of the species reveals a similar behavior: the waste material is constantly passing out, — that is, individuals die ; but the equilibrium is main- tained by the reproduction of offspring; otherwise the species would soon disappear. What, then, is the significance of pleasure ? The biologist will not hesitate for an answer. Just as pain serves as a warning, pleasure serves as a bait. In pain the will becomes aware of danger, in pleasure it becomes aware of the further- ance of life. The former warns it to seek safety in flight, the latter, to continue on its path. Pain and pleasure are, we might say, the most primitive forms of the knowledge of good and evil. The will or impulse as such does not presuppose the pres- ence of feelings or of intelligence. The newly-hatched chick m IV. HV 266 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES immediately begins to pick up grains of wheat. It surely does not bring along with it into its new stage of existence a feeling of painful hunger, or an idea of the pleasure produced by the introduction of food. Impulses govern action just as other natural forces govern the falling of a stone, or the formation of a crystal, or the growth of a plant. The same may be said of the sexual impulse. The individual who has just arrived at the age of puberty is driven by a blind impulse to exercise the functions which result in the preser- vation of the species, without knowing beforehand the feelings that will arise. Perhaps, scarcely any feeling accompanies the function in the lower stages of animal life. But as life develops, the sensibility increases ; in the higher animals and in man every activity is accompanied by a specific feeling. This feeling has either a painful or a pleasurable tone, accord- ing as action is retarded or furthered, according as it impedes or'^promotes life. The division of the feelings into painful and pleasurable is as unsatisfactory to the biologist as the classifi- cation of plants as herbs and weeds. Pleasures and pains are merely characteristic tones of feeling, which correspond to the different functions, or in which the functions first become conscious of themselves. In a higher stage of mental evolution intelligence rises from feeling and above it. Its original purpose is merely to accom- plish more perfectly what feeling accomplishes, that is, to in- struct the will concerning what is wholesome or unwholesome. Sensations may be characterized sls anticipations of feelings. The sense of touch anticipates the pain occasioned by bodily injuries. Taste is a kind of predigestion ; it decides, before the object is taken into the body, whether it is wholesome or not. Taste is the specific feeling which accompanies the function of nutrition, and depends upon the peculiar nature of the food, or to be exact, upon the process of assimilation which begins on the tongue. It is always either pleasant or unpleasant, and consequently either excites or inhibits the , THE HIGHEST GOOD 26T i will. Smell is a kind of preliminary taste, a taste acting at a distance. From the minutest particle emitted by an object, it tells whether the object can be assimilated or not, as well as whether it is friendly or hostile. The eye and the ear do not have to come in contact with matter ; they recog- nize the nature of the distant object from its slightest move- ments. Originally they, too, are a means to the knowledge of what is wholesome and unwholesome; hence, their sen- sations still have feeling-attachments, pleasure and pain. These, however, are not very prominent ; the sensations of the objective senses, as the eye and ear have aptly been called, can hardly be regarded as direct motives of the will ; they guide the will by furnishing it with more remote signs of what is beneficial or dangerous. The understanding, finally, or the faculty of deducing the unknown from the data of perception, is almost entirely without feeling. Its primary purpose, however, is to assist the will in obtaining what is beneficial and avoiding what is harmful. The biologist, therefore, will not regard pleasure as the ab- solute end of life, but will consider both pleasure and pain as means of guiding the will. In the feeling of pleasure the will becomes conscious of the furtherance of life by the exercise of a function. Hence, pleasure is not a good in itself, but a sign that a good has been realized. Indeed, it is hard to un- derstand why the question. What is the significance of pain ? did not prevent the hedonistic conception of the significance of pleasure. , Both of these feelings evidently belong to the same category. Now, if pleasure is an absolute end, what is pain V Something with absolutely no purpose? Manifestly not. Pain is evidently a very purposive means of warning the an- imal against the harmful. Pleasure will, therefore, have to be explained similarly. Finally, the biologist might also point out how decidedly opposed nature is to being interpreted in the hedonistic sense. When the impulse is satisfied, the pleasure ceases. After the 268 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES food needed for preservation has been eaten, the feelings of pleasure cease, and opposite feelings soon arise. Pleasure can be aroused to a certain degree, only by stimulating the oro-ans which are secondarily connected with nutrition. The same may be observed in the impulse which tends to the preservation of the species. But whenever the organs of preservation are used as instruments of pleasure, nature pun- ishes the abuse with disturbances and disease, and in case her hints are not followed, with the destruction of the organs and ultimately of the individual who obstinately persists in mis- understanding their purpose. 4. Pleasure, then, is not the absolute goal of the will. Nor does the evaluating judgment of the impartial spectator seem to me to make pleasure in itself, regardless of its cause, the thing of absolute worth. Let us suppose that we could distil a drug like opium, capable of arousing joyful dreams, without, however, producing harmful effects in the intoxicated one or his surroundings. Should we recommend the use of the drug, and praise the discoverer as having made life more valuable ? Perhaps not even a hedonistic moral philosopher would do that. Why not ? Because the pleasure is illusory ? But pleasure is pleasure, whatever be its cause. Or, because the philosopher has found out by computation that the pleas- ures of our sober waking life are still greater ? It would not be easy to prove it in the example assumed. The simple rea- son is that such pleasures would be " unnatural," and a life composed of them would no longer be a "human" life. How- ever rich in pleasure it might be, it would be an absolutely worthless life for a human will and human standards. Perhaps the philosopher will reply : Yes, but that is simply because a person addicted to such pleasures would neglect his duties to others, and consequently decrease the maximum of pleasure, even though he might greatly increase his own pleasure. Well, then, let us change the example a little ; let us suppose that the drug will, without expense and trouble, 1: m ■I THE HIGHEST GOOD 269 arouse in an entire people a permanent state of pleasurable dreams. Should we celebrate the discoverer as a benefactor of the human race ? Perhaps it might be shown to our sat- isfaction that a nation's best means of realizing permanent happiness would be to submit absolutely to an absolutely be- nevolent government. Let us suppose that a man, the Pla- tonic philosopher for example, had discovered the secret of making a nation absolutely obedient. Should we be willing to place our people in his power ? The Jesuits are said to have thought and acted for their native subjects in Paraguay in every regard, and to have guided them, daily and hourly, and according to all the rules of hygiene, in their labors and in their enjoyments, in their waking and sleeping. Let us sup- pose that they succeeded, as we are told that they did, in absolutely satisfying the governed. Will the hedonistic philosopher grant that such a regime is the most perfect and desirable solution of social and political problems, and that the life of these well-behaved and contented Indians repre- sents the highest goal of human striving ? If so, he will most likely also regard German statesmanship as having performed its mission when the entire German people shall have been transformed into a lot of well-behaved and obedient Philis- tines, who drink their mug of beer every morning and play their little game of Skat, and in the evening play their little game of Skat and again drink their beer, in the meantime reg- ularly attending to their duties in the bureau or the work- shop, and sleeping soundly at night. And, finally, he will also be compelled to recognize the sorceress Circe, who changed the visitors of her island into swine, into well-fed and thoroughly contented swine, as a benefactress of humanity, and deem it as the greatest blessing for any one to have been cast on her shores. Unless he is willing to acknowledge this, he must, it seems to me, confess that pleasure or satis- faction is not the thing of absolute worth. It is valuable only in so far as it follows as the result of virtuous activity ; we 270 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES m regard it as base, when it is obtained bj stimulating the lower, sensuous side of our nature and bj suppressing our higher spiritual capacities. 6. Now that we have rejected the hedonistic theory, let us attempt to give a positive definition of the highest good. We may say in a most general way that the goal at which the will of every living creature aims, is the normal exercise of the vital functions which constitute its nature. Every animal desires to live the life for which it is predisposed. Its natural disposi- tion manifests itself in impulses, and determines its activity. The formula may also be applied to man. He desires to live a human life and all that is implied in it ; that is, a mental, historical life^ in which there is room for the exercise of all human, mental powers and virtues. He desires to play and to learn, to work and to acquire wealth, to possess and to enjoy, to form and to create ; he desires to love and to ad- mire, to obey and to rule, to fight and to win, to make poetry and to dream, to think and to investigate. And he desires to do all these things in tlieir natural order of development, as life provides them. He desires to experience the relations of the child to its parents, of the pupil to his teacher, of the ap- prentice to the master; and his will, for the time being, finds the highest satisfaction in such a life. He desires to live as a brother among brothers, as a friend among friends, as a com- panion among companions, as a citizen among citizens, and also to prove himself an enemy against enemies. Finally, he desires to experience what the lover, husband, and father experience — he desires to rear and educate children who shall preserve and transmit the contents of his own life. And after he has lived such a life and has acquitted himself like an honest man, he has realized his desires ; his life is complete ; contentedly he awaits the end, and his last wish is to be gathered peacefully to his fathers. — This outline, however, receives its concrete content from the historical life of the people. Hence we may also say: Man's will seeks to ex- THE HIGHEST GOOD 271 press the life of his people in an individual form, and thus at the same time, to preserve and enrich the life of the people. In this way, it seems to me, the impartial anthropologist and biologist would look at the matter. The will of a living being is nothing but a system of impulses, the exercise of which constitutes the life of the species. Every individual shares the desire of the species to preserve and promote its life, or rather, the species merely exists in the individuals, wJiich live and act as its members. The same holds true of man. In his case, however, an ideal self-preservative impulse grows out of the primitive animal impulse of self-preservation. The will-to-live, which in sub-human creatures appears as blind impulse or striving, becomes conscious of itself in man. Man has a conscious idea of the life aimed at by his will ; the type which his life desires to express and to realize hovers before him as an ideal. This he strives after, this is the standard by which he measures himself and his activity. The ideal of perfection assumes a different form in different human beings. The ideal is different for the Greek, Roman, and Hebrew ; different again at Athens and at Sparta ; it is not the same for man as for woman, for the warrior as for the scholar, for the sailor as for the peasant. Only in certain fundamental features is it the same in all, just as the funda- mental anatomical-physiological type of the human body is common to all men. The higher the development of mental life, the more differentiated and individualized the inner life becomes ; just as the outward form, corresponding to the inner development, becomes more and more individualized. The ideal is also conceived with different degrees of clearness by different individuals. Individuals also differ in the power and certainty with which they guard their ideals against the action of particular momentary impulses, and govern their lives according to their ideals. But in some form or other such an ideal is present and active in every man ; the will has before it some picture or other of what his innermost nature desires, 272 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES it .i\ a picture which reveals itself in his mode of life and in his judgment of himself. Vor jedem steht ein Bild des, das er werden soil ; So lang er das nicht ist, ist nicht sein Friede vol!.* Not only the individual, but the nation too has an ideal of what it desires to be. The ideal expresses itself in its religion and poetry. The gods and heroes represent the types of per- fection. At a later stage of development historical recollec- tions are added, and paint a comprehensive picture of the nation's past, a picture which forms a poetical ideal in the popular consciousness. But the historical collective life of an entire period of civilization and of the aggregate of nations is also governed by ideas. Types of character and life spring up, gain possession of all hearts, move the thoughts of men, and, at last, control affairs. Think of the Humanistic move- ment in the fifteenth century and its new ideal; of the Reformation and its new type of Christian faith and life ; or of the age of Louis XIV. and its ideal of power and dignity, of the French Revolution and its new ideal of a natural and rational mode of life. New ideas of human culture realized themselves in these great historical epochs, and seizing the individual wills, forced them into harmony with it. Here we plainly see that the will unconditionally strives to realize the idea or the type. A people desires freedom, or power or honor, or whatever catch-word may designate the cherished ideal, and desires it absolutely, not for the sake of something else, say pleasure or happiness. True, all action tending towards the realization of the ideal yields satisfaction. But no one cares whether this represents the greatest amount of pleasure obtainable by the whole. A nation does not reckon the cost of its ideal, it does not compute how much happiness may be won or lost in a war for its freedom or its honor, or even for its position among other nations. In order to realize its controlling ideal, it recklessly sacrifices the 1 Buckeit. THE HIGHEST GOOD 273 interests and lives of individuals. And the individuals them- selves desire it ; even though they dread the sacrifice as indi- viduals, as members of the nation they desire that their country remain true to itself and its ideal. The historical judgment, like the historical will, is deter- mined by this goal. A nation does not judge its own past by the standard of pleasure ; it judges historical persons and events by the ideal which it happens to have at the time, and determines their worth accordingly. Thus our judgment of Frederick the Great and his wars is not based on a computa- tion of the pleasures and pains which they caused, but upon the honor and dignity which the German people achieved through them. We ask ourselves, has the nation made any advance towards its objective goal ? Our age answers the question in the affirmative ; the prevailing notion of the objec- tive end is the German Empire on a Prussian basis. The scientific historian follows the same plan. It never enters his head to balance pleasures and pains against each other. Indeed, this notion is a mere fancy in the heads of a few philosophers. But, so far as 1 know, not one of them has ever tried to apply it in practice. 6. The view here advanced of the final goal of the human will and the ultimate standard of our judgments of value is not new. It was thought out and definitely formulated long ago, by Greek moral philosophy. Indeed, we may say that all great ethical systems, with the single exception of hedon- ism, advocate it. Plato and Aristotle expressly state : The highest good is life and action in harmony with the idea ; the eudaemonia of a man consists in the possession and exercise of all human virtues and capacities. The Stoa teaches the same : Life according to nature is the end of every being ; for man, therefore, a life conforming to human nature, that is, to reason, is the absolute end ; in it he finds his welfare (evpoia piov), Thomas Aquinas teaches the same : Every being seeks its perfection in accordance with its nature ; rational creatures 18 274 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES ■ > It seek it through the rational will, sensible creatures through the sensuous impulse, insensible ones through the natural impulse. The same conception reappears in Hobbes and Spinoza. According to them, self-preservation is the goal ; only, a living being preserves itself by living and acting, and a thinking being, Spinoza insists, by thinking. Similarly, Shaftesbury and Leibniz declare that the harmonious devel- opment of capacities and powers is the law of man as well as of the universe. Kant, too, might be called as a witness for this theory : The real and innermost essence of man expresses itself in a will, determined by the practical reason or the consciousness of duty, and acts in accordance with its nature. Likewise Hegel and Schleiermacher regard the great histori- cal content of human life as a thing of objective value ; in so far as the individual participates in it he gives a meaning and value to his life and at the same time satisfies the deepest longings of his nature. Darwin, who in a certain sense continues the attempt of Speculative Philosophy to reach an historical conception of the entire universe, and tries to solve the problem by new methods, reaches a similar conclusion from the biological standpoint. In the fourth chapter of his work on The Descent of Man, he examines the hedonistic theory and flatly contradicts it. Pleasure-pain, he concludes, is neither the motive nor the end of all action. I quote the passage in question : " In the case of the lower animals it seems much more appropriate to speak of thei;* social instincts as having developed for the general good than for the general happi- ness of the species. The term, general good, may be defined as the rearing of the greatest number of individuals in full vigor and health, with all their faculties perfect, under the conditions to which they are subjected. As the social in- stincts both of man and the lower animals have no doubt been developed by nearly the same steps, it would be advis- able, if found practicable, to use the same definition in both , THE HIGHEST GOOD 275 cases, and to take as the standard of morality, the general good or welfare of the community rather than the general happiness."^ Finally, I should like to mention that John Stuart Mill, unconsciously, so closely approximates the thoughts developed above that there is no longer an essential difference between the two views. By assuming qualitative differences in pleasures besides quantitative differences he at last reaches the following formula : " It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied." ^ It seems to me that Mill thereby tacitly abandons the principle that pleasure and satisfaction are the only absolutely valuable things. It is no longer pleasure as such that is valu- able, but the functions to which it is attached. When Mill speaks of the different kinds of enjoyment, he really means the different functions, the exercise of which is accompanied by different feelings in different creatures. Hence, the old Aristotelian definition of the final goal or the highest good seems to me to be as satisfactory to-day as it ever was : I^udoemonism or welfare consists in the exercise of all virtues and capacities, especially of the highest.^ 7. But, some one may say, has not this entire discussion been moving in a circle ? At first it was said that the value of virtue consisted in its favorable effects upon the development of life. And now it is held that the value of life consists in the nor- mal performance of all functions, or in the exercise of capac- ities and virtues. Is not the exercise of virtue thus made an ultimate end again, after having first been conceived as a means ? I repeat what was said before : the statement is true. But the same relation everywhere confronts us in the organic 1 [Part L, chap. IV., Concluding Remarks, p. 120. — Tr.] 2 [Utilitarianism, 11th ed., p. 14. — Tr.] 2 [See also Stephen, Science of Ethics, chaps. IV., IX., X. ; Jhering, vol. II., pp. 95 ff. ; Wundt, Ethik, pp. 493 ff . ; HofEding, Ethik, VI. ; Williams, Review of Evolutional Ethics, Part II., chap. IX.; Ziegler, Sittliches Sein und sittliches Werden. ^Tr.] 276 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES THE HIGHEST GOOD ill' i\ sphere ; here everything is both a means and an end, or a part of the end. Heart and brain, hands and eyes, muscles and bones, are means of preserving bodily life; but they are at the same time parts of the body. The body docs not exist apart from its organs or the means of its self- preservation ; it is composed of these. The functioning of each organ is a means of preserving life, and life at the same time consists in the functioning of all the organs. The same remarks apply to a work of art. The particular scenes in a drama are essential to the whole, otherwise they would be mere superfluous episodes, but they are at the same time necessary parts of the whole, which is simply made up of all its parts. So, too, in the moral sphere, every excel- lence or virtue is an organ of the whole, and at the same time forms a part of life : it is therefore, like the whole, an end in itself. The mental-moral life is an organism in which every power and every function is both a means and an end ; everything is valuable in itself, but everything receives additional importance from its relation to the whole. Courage has value for life as a means of solving certain problems ; it cannot be conceived as an isolated element, any more than the eye can exist for itself, but only as the organ of a living body. Just as sight, however, is valuable in itself, so is the exercise of courage in battle, from which no life can be free, for, as the poet says : ^in MenscJi sein, heisst ein Kdmirfer sein. The same may be said of all virtues, that is, of all positive virtues, for the negative virtues, if we may call them so, the virtues of not-lying, not-stealing, and not-committing- adultery, are valuable solely as means. To refrain from such acts is not good in itself, but merely a means to the goods which they subserve : truth and property and marriage. The positive virtues, on the other hand, the love of truth, the sense of justice, and the domestic virtues, are all both means or instruments of the perfect life and parts of its content. Virtues or capacities which are exercised in the acquisition of 277 knowledge and in the service of the truth, in labor and in the accumulation of wealth, in the regulation of social affairs, in family life and in the rearing of children, are means to life and at the same time constitute important parts of it. The Stoics long ago observed this truth. They divided goods into three classes — goods which have absolute worth, goods which have value as means, and, finally, goods which have value both as means and ends (tcjv dya0wv ra fih ehac reXcKa, ra Be TronjTLKa, ra Be ireXiKa koX ttoctjtcko),^ All external goods are efficient goods (TroirjTCKa). All kinds of actions done according to virtue and the accompanying feelings of sat- isfaction are final goods. Virtues are both efficient and final ; for inasmuch as they produce perfect happiness (evBatfiovla), they are efficient, and inasmuch as they complete it by being themselves part of it, are final.2 And now, we may go on and say : All virtues and excel- lences are both means and ends in themselves, but not all of them are so in the same degree. Not all the members or or- gans of a living body are equally necessary, just as some scenes in a drama more nearly express the leading thought or idea of the play than others. Similarly, some functions in moral life occupy a more central, others a more peripheral, position ; some are secondary means, while others have their purpose in themselves. Aristotle recognized this truth. The central purpose of a creature is the exercise of its specific nature or power. Now, man's peculiar characteristic is the exercise of reason. Hence, the function of scientific knowledge, that is, philosophy, con- stitutes the central purpose of human life. The exercise of the ethical virtues, all of which are based on practical reason, comes next ; further down in the scale comes the exercise of the economic and finally of the animal functions ; they are 1 [Ot goods some are final, some are efficient, and some are both final and efficient.] 2 [Diogenes Laertius, VII., 57. Engl, translation by C. D. Yonffe pp. 294 f. — Tr.] 278 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES m the necessary pre-conditions or natural foundations of real human life. The naturalistic view is confirmed by the direct testimony of feeling : man finds the greatest satisfaction or evBacfjLovla in a life consisting of the exercise of the theoretical and practical reason. The evolutionistic theory, with its principle that the later form is at the same time the higher one, suggests a similar arrangement. In the lowest stages of animal life, action consists solely in the search for food and the endeavor to es- cape unfavorable external conditions. Gradually the repro- ductive functions, with the care of offspring in rudimentary form, and, on the other hand, intelligence, at first in the form of sense-perception, are added. The foundations of social and intellectual life are now laid. They reach their highest de- velopment in man. Their evolution forms the chief content of the only part of the history of progress of which we have some direct knowledge, — namely, through historical recollec- tion, — that is, the history of humanity. Now, what has taken place in the historical life of humanity, what is its essential content ? We have reached a more comprehensive and deeper knowledge of reality, and we have developed a more compre- hensive and more complicated social organization. Corre- sponding to this growth of function we necessarily have a perfection of powers: reason, the function by which the knowledge of things is attained and the will is guided in the kingdom of ends, and social virtues, the functions upon which the family, the state, and society depend, constitute the essence of man as a historical being. That human life will therefore be the most valuable which succeeds best in developing the highest powers of man and in subordinating the lower functions to the higher. A life, on the other hand, in which the vegetative and animal functions, sensuous desires and blind passions, have control, must be re- garded as a lower or abnormal form. A perfect human life is a life in which the mi7id attains to free and full growth, and THE HIGHEST GOOD 279 in which the spiritual forces reach their highest perfection in thought, imagination, and action. This is, of course, possible only in human-historical surroundings. Hence, we must in- clude among the essential faculties of life the social virtues, whose purpose it is to create peaceful and mutually beneficial relations between the agent and his immediate and remote human environment. Wisdom and kindness, so says common- sense, are the two sides of perfection. Yet we must guard against a false spiritualization. The sensuous and even the animal side have their rights. The pleasures of perception and play which throw such a glamour around childhood, also belong to life ; nay, we shall not exclude the pleasures of eating and drinking and kindred functions from the perfect life ; only they must not presume to rule it. We may now extend this conception of means and ends be- yond the limits of individual life. A perfect human life is an end in itself. But it is at the same time a part, and hence, a means of a larger whole, a national life, a sphere of civiliza- tion. In his Republic, Plato conceives the state as a human being on a larger scale, and discovers in it the same general functions and powers. The individual is related to the com- munity as means to end, as a means, however, which is, at the same time, a part of the end, for the whole merely exists in the totality of individuals. We now obtain a new standard of value for the individual : the greater and higher the services which he renders to the whole, the more he contributes to tlie mental-historical life of his people by providing it with good institutions, by honoring it with noble deeds, by enriching it with true and good thoughts, by adorning it with beautiful and elevating works and symbols, the greater is his value and the more highly will lie be appreciated by history. Moral worth in the narrower sense does not depend upon this ; it is deter- mined by the faithfulness and devotion with which the indi- vidual fulfils his mission, be it great or small. Here the good will is the standard of measurement, and this even the poor N (■ 280 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES in spirit may fully possess. Here, again, we must guard against a false spiritualization. We are not to understand that the value of a nation is to be judged solely by what it achieves in science and philosophy or in art and poetry. Our times are perhaps inclined to overestimate these things. A nation likewise needs its warriors and statesmen to defend it and to advance its external interests, its merchants and sailors to open up new countries and oceans to commerce and to create fruitful relations with foreign nations, its inventors and arti- sans to discover and practise their countless arts, its peasants and laborers to till the fields and to feed the steeds, and its mothers to rear its children in love and faith, and the children themselves who play about the streets. All these belong to the nation ; they are not merely the external basis without which there could be no spiritual life, but form a part of its life. Indeed, this perfect spiritual life is produced by them as well as for them. The creative leaders and the receptive masses exist for each other. We may, finally, also regard the nations themselves as members of a higher unity. Mankind, the concrete expres- sion of the idea of humanity in the infinite variety of the peculiar and beautiful forms of which the latter is capable, is the ultimate goal in our empirical conception of the highest good. Perfect humanity, or, in Christian phraseology, the kingdom of God on earth, is the highest good and the final end to which all nations and all historical products are related as means, not as indifferent means, it is true, but as organs or parts of the end. This will also furnish us with the highest criterion for judging the nations and different stages of civilization : their value is measured by the degree in which they serve to realize and express the idea of humanity. Although no nation and no stage of civilization is absolutely worthless, they nevertheless differ in value and importance according as the development of their social-political, mental- moral, artistic and religious life approximates this idea. THE HIGHEST GOOD 281 It is not hard to see, of course, that we have now reached a concept which we cannot realize. We cannot give a con- crete exposition of the idea of humanity ; all we can do is to outline it by means of the general concepts of a historical- mental life. All anthropological and historical investigations furnish us with materials, but we cannot construct the idea : we cannot form an idea of the contents of the humanity-life in which the contents of the lives of all races and peoples, of the Greeks and Romans, Egyptians and Babylonians, Chinese and Japanese, of the countless Negro and Indian tribes, shall be included as teleologically necessary means of realizing the idea. The divine poem, as the history of humanity has been called, surpasses our comprehension; we observe isolated fragments and compare them, but we cannot grasp the unity of the poem, the idea of the whole, which will explain the necessity of the members or frag- ments. The so-called philosophy of history has attempted to gather the fragments into a whole, and to interpret them from the standpoint of the whole. It has, however, not succeeded in doing more than making a schematic arrange- ment of them ; taking the narrow circle of civilization em- bracing antiquity and the Middle Ages and the beginnings of modern times, it has at most been able to point out a historical connection here and there which may, to a certain extent, be regarded as teleologically necessary. And there is evidently little hope that this science will ever attain to greater perfection in the future. Even the history of the past is highly fragmentary ; literature, which Goethe once called the fragment of fragments, is apparently the best preserved portion of historical tradition. But even if we had a clear and complete survey of the entire past history of the human race, we should probably possess but a very insignifi- cant fragment of the whole : the future would be lacking. Perhaps the history of humanity is in its first beginnings ; perhaps the historical life of particular nations and civiliza- 282 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES tions is but a prelude to the real historical life of a united humanity, for which the modern era is preparing, and which in our age, with its enormously developed means of com- munication, seems so close at hand. Perhaps the centralized world-market and the universal postal system are the fore- runners of the coming unification of the mental-historical life of humanity. Under these circumstances, how can we presume to understand the plan of universal history which shall enable us to assign to each particular element of his- torical life its place within the whole, as we understand the particular parts and verses of a poem, which are essential means of realizing the idea of the whole ? It is still more difficult to give a concrete conception of the ideal when we insert the life of humanity into another greater and more comprehensive reality, and characterize it as a part of a total life of the All-Real, Here we are dealing entirely with schematic concepts which absolutely transcend the imagination. The inconceivable and ineffable we can express only symbolically ; in so far as we desire to char- acterize the All-Real as the highest good we call it dod. And its manifestation in a world of mental-historical life, which is embraced in the unity of its spiritual essence, we call the kingdom of God. These concepts do not, like the concepts of science, comprehend reality as it is given to us in perception. Nay, they do not really belong to the domain of knowledge ; they merely indicate the direction in which we, as feeling and willing beings, are moving when we attempt to complete our conception of reality. They express our belief that all reality tends to some highest end. If the idea of a divine plan in the history of humanity already transcends our comprehension, how much more must this be the case with the divine world-plan! All attempts to define it theoreti- cally result either in the trite enumeration of a few empiri- cal facts and the reversal of the causal order, as in the teleology of the last century, or in the barren logical con- THE HIGHEST GOOD 283 struction of general concepts, as in Hegel's philosophy. The understanding can never grasp the contents of the highest good. The symbols of religion and art endeavor to render it accessible to the feelings; by means of the finite and comprehensible, they suggest the infinite and incomprehensible. ' Im Innern ist ein Universum auch ; Daher der Vdlker lobliclier Gebrauch, Dass jeglicher das Beste, was er kennt, Er Gott, ja seinen Gott benennt, Ibm Himmel und Erden iibergiebt, Ihn fiirchtet und wombglich liebt. 8. G. von Gizycki has entered a protest against the views expressed in this chapter, in the name of the hedonistic theory.! I confess that his remarks have not changed my opinion ; nor do I dare to hope that my reply will induce any one to give up his theory. There is something like habit even in our thinking ; whoever has become accustomed to look at things in a certain way will regard different concep- tions as a mechanic regards a tool to which he is not used, and will reject them as unsatisfactory. I am, of course, like other people in this respect. It is impossible for me to think that the thing of absolute worth is not the objective content of life, but the feeling of satisfaction with which it is expe- rienced, and that the former is merely an indifferent means to the latter. The value seems to me to lie in the thing itself and not in the recognition of the value by the feeling of satisfaction. By the objective content of life I do not at all mean the vegetative organic processes constituting bodily life, as another somewhat too hasty critic has as- sumed. I mean by it, above all, the mental life, which ap- pears in human beings as rational thinking and rational willing and acting, plus the feelings which are attached to all 1 In an elaborate review of this book in the Sunday supplement of theVossische Zeitung, February, 1889. 284 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES conscious processes. I deny that this feeling element is the thing of absolute worth; it belongs to the phenomena of inner life, but not as their absolute end. However, 1 do not desire to repeat what has already been said ; I simply wish to say a word on one point. Gizycki con- tends that my system of ethics has no criterion for measuring the worth of acts and qualities, since it rejects the only pos- sible one : the feeling of pleasure or happiness. Hence, he declares, it has no right to speak as it does of higher and lower powers and actions. I believe, however, that it possesses such a standard : the standard is what has been called the normal type, or the idea, of human life. To be sure, this type cannot be defined as accurately as a mathematical concept, and yet it exists and has its function. Our judgment of the symmetry and beauty of the bodily form is based upon the fact that we uncon- sciously compare it with a normal type. Similarly, our judg- ment of the mental-moral form rests upon comparison with a normal type of the inner man. The same is true of the conscience, which pronounces upon one's own life ; its judg- ments are based upon the comparison of actual life with an ideal. So far as I can see, we never measure the value of a life, be it an individual or a social life, by employing a method which might be designated as the method of computing the balance of pleasure. The same fact may be observed in practical affairs. In choosing his remedies, the physician does not first consider the balance of pleasure, but inquires into their effect upon the functions of life. What, he asks, is the effect of bodily exercise, of baths, opiates, etc., upon the functions of life and upon the organs ? Nor does the educator ask whether such and such methods of discipline or instruction will give the pupil the greatest possible amount of pleasure, but whether they will develop his intellectual and moral capacities. The politician does the same. A measure is discussed in a legislative gathering; one party favors it; THE HIGHEST GOOD 285 the other opposes it ; neither party bases its conclusions upon a computation of pleasures, but upon the supposed favorable or unfavorable effects of the measure upon the development of the people along the line of their ideal. Is this a defect ? Is such comparison with a normal type a crude and merely provisional method, and must philosophy substitute for it the more perfect method of the balance of pleasures ? It appears to me that if this is so, then the problem of phi- losophy is a rather hopeless one. Our means of finding such a balance of pleasure are, in my opinion, exceedingly poor, and I do not look for any great improvement along these lines in the future. Bentham's scheme of measuring the quantum of pleasure is still waiting for some one to apply it, and will, I believe, have long to wait and in vain. What ethics actually and universally does is this : it at- tempts to analyze and describe the normal type of which we have spoken. The doctrine of virtues, the fundamental part of ethics, gives such an analysis, and the doctrine of duties differs from it only in form ; it gives us a general description of the function of the virtuous character. Just as dietetics describes the normal functions of the body, and points out their importance for life, so moral philosophy describes the normal functions of man as a rational, volitional being, and shows their value for individual and collective life, calling at- tention, at the same time, to disturbances and deviations, and indicating how they may be avoided and counteracted. It like- wise distinguishes between the more and the less important phases of life, between the controlling and the subordinate functions. Dietetics is satisfied, without entering upon a computation of pleasures, that the spinal column is a more important part of the body than a finger or a tooth, that the action of the heart has a greater significance for life than the tear gland, that the proper care of the functions of nutrition is more important than the cut of one's hair. Similarly, 286 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES ethics, considering the conditions and relations of human his- torical life, is convinced, without calculations of this kind, that self-control and justice are more important than polite man- ners, that the functions of the teacher and judge are worth more to a people than those of an opera singer or acrobat. In his Ethics Gizycki modifies the hedonistic theory as fol- lows : The highest subjective goal of life, he says, is the sat- isfaction produced by the consciousness of having done the right, or the feeling of a good conscience. Doring agrees with him when, in his Gilterlehre^ he defines the highest good as the proper regard for self, or the satisfaction of the desire for indi- vidual worth. — We see thus that the difference between the various conceptions of morality may be practically insignificant or may entirely vanish. The question is a purely theoretical one. But for this very reason it seems proper to me to say : Life itself and its healthful, virtuous, and beautiful activity is the absolutely desirable and valuable thing, not the isolated feeling-reflex accompanying it. Feelings, of course, exist and belong to life, but not as the absolute good ; they are not the final motives of the agent's will, nor the truly valuable ele- ments in the judgment of the spectator. The difference between Gizycki's conception and my own has, as he himself assumes, its ultimate root in psychology. He attributes my error to a false psychology, and corrects it by referring me to Bain and others. Well, I confess, despite all my respect for the English thinkers, I do not believe that the analytical psychology has said or will say the last word on this subject. A mere analysis of conscious processes — which, moreover, fails to confirm the hedonistic view — does not go to the root of the discussion. It must be supplemented by biological reflections, and these do not show us that the will is primarily determined by pleasures and pains, and is their product, as it were, but favor the view advocated by Schopen- hauer : that a particularly determined will, a specific will (^ein Wesenwille)^ to use Tonnies's term, is the fundamen- tal fact of all psychical life. CHAPTER III PESSIMISM 1 1. Before taking up the second fundamental concept of ethics, the concept of duty, I should like to consider a theory which occupies an important place in the thoughts and delib- erations of the present: pessimism. Pessimism opposes the view advanced in the foregoing chapter, that life itself, or the normal exercise of all vital functions, is the thing of absolute worth, and asserts : Life has no value ; or, if it contains valu- able elements, their sum is so far exceeded by the worthless ones that the total value falls below zero, and hence, it is better not to live than to live. The Italian poet Leopardi pathetically expresses this mood in the lines " To Myself ^^ Let me quote them : " Rest forever heart ; enough Hast thou throbbed. Nothing is worth Thy agitations, nor of sighs is worthy The earth. Bitterness and vexation Is life, and never aught besides, and mire the world. Quiet thyself henceforth. Despair For the last time. To our race fate Has given but death. Henceforth despise Thyself, nature, the foul Power which, hidden, rules to the common bane, And the infinite vanity of the whole." ^ ^ [Sully, Pessimism, A FTi'sfori/ and a Criticism; Som raer, Z)«r Pessimismus und die Sittenlehre ; Pliimacher, Der Pessimismus in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart. (History and Criticism.) — Tr.] 2 f I have taken this translation from Sully's Pessimism, p. 27. — Tr.] 288 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES In SO far as these lines represent the real feelings of the poet, they are, of course, incontrovertible, — just as incon- trovertible as the lines of Matthew Arnold; ** Is it so small a thing To have enjoyed the sun, To have lived light in the Spring, To have loved, to have thought, to have done ; To have advanced true friends, and beat down baffling foes ? " » Feelings are not true or false ; they are facts which can be analyzed and explained, which may be considered praise- worthy or detestable, but not refuted. The case is different where pessimism aims to be a phil- osophical theory. Schopenhauer does not merely desire to express the feeling that he finds nothing in life, but he tries to prove that there is nothing in it, and that whoever finds anything in it deceives himself. He gives reasons, and reasons, unlike feelings, can be examined, and may, if false, be refuted. The argument will not necessarily change the per- sonal mood of the pessimist, but it will destroy the validity of his theory. Such an examination I propose to place before the reader. Unless I mistake its value, it will show that philosophical pessimism is not a proved theory, whose propo- sitions can lay claim to universal validity, but the expression of individual feelings, and as such can be merely subjectively true.^ We may divide the attempts which have been made to prove pessimism into two classes : the sensualistic-hedonistic and the moralistic. By the former I mean the argument which en- deavors to show that life yields more pain than pleasure, and concludes from this that it is worth less than nothing. ^ Poems, IT., 32 : Empedocles on Etna. ^ {For philosophical pessimism see : Schopenhauer, Tlie World as Will and Idea, vol. I., Book IV. ; vol. II., Appendix to Book IV. ; Parerga, chaps. XL, XIT., XIV. ; Mainlander, Die Phihsophie der ErlSsung ; Hartmann, Die Philo- sophie des Unhewussten ; Zur Geschichte und Begrundung des Pessimismus, etc. — Tb.] PESSIMISM 289 The latter adds that life, considered objectively and morally, has no value, and that it is therefore not only unhappy, but deserves to be unhappy. I also mention a third form : the proof from the philosophy of history^ which tries to show that as life develops, especially with the progress of civilization, pain and immorality increase. 2. The hedonistic argument contends that human life yields more and greater pains than pleasures. It is evident from the very nature of the case that such an assertion can be proved only by statistics. A phrase frequently used by the most recent pessimistic writers would seem to imply that such an argument can really be made; they speak of a balance of pleasure^ which is against the value of life. The term is borrowed from commercial language. The merchant adds up the debit and credit accounts of his ledger, and strikes the balance. It would appear from the phrase that the pessimistic philosopher employs a similar method, that he keeps books, as it were, entering on opposite sides, under the headings, pleasure and pain^ the respective amounts yielded by life ; that some day he posts his books, and finds that the total of the pain-columns exceeds the total of the pleasure- columns. I do not know whether such an attempt has ever been made ; I have discovered nothing of the kind in the writings of the philosophical pessimists with which I happen to be acquainted. And yet it seems to me no method could furnish 80 convincing a proof that the thing is possible as the attempt to post the items even of a single day of a human life. Imagine the average day of an average human life treated according to such a scheme ! We might have an account like the following : A. Receipts in Pleasure : 1. Slept well — equal so many units; 2. Enjoyed my break- fast — ; 3. Read a chapter from a good book — ; 4. Received a letter from a friend — ; etc. B. Pain : 1. Read a disagree- able story in the paper — ; 2. Disturbed by a neighbor's 19 290 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES PESSIMISM 291 piano — ; 3. Received a tiresome visit — ; 4. Ate burnt soup — • etc. — The philosopher is requested to insert the amounts in the proper places. But that is an absurd and childish demand, you say ! I certainly agree with you that it would be an absurd under- taking. But the demand itself does not seem to be absurd. If it is wholly impossible to make a statistical estimate of the pleasure and pain quanta, how can the assertion be proved that the pains exceed the pleasures ? If it is impos- sible to fix a definite value for the separate items, how can the value of the totals be compared ? If we are utterly unable to handle the simplest cases, if we cannot even say whether the pleasure yielded by a good breakfast is greater or less than the pain occasioned by burned soup, how can we make even the faintest conjecture in more difficult cases ? How can we, if we are unable to compute the results of a single day, dare to assert anything concerning the results of an entire life, and then not of a single individual life, mind you, but of all human lives ? In his novel, Four Germans^ Melchior Meyer gives the his- tory of two young men who grow up together under the same conditions, with the same prospects and demands on life. They study together, they are friends, and hold essentially the same views. At the end of their college days, the differ- ences in their natures begin to manifest themselves. The one enters the government-service ; he becomes an affable and capable official, and soon discards such notions as are considered objectionable in high circles. He begins to rise more rapidly ; he enters the Cabinet, becomes the son-in-law of the Prime Minister, and finally Prime Minister himself. His friend, who has a more reflective nature, follows a uni- versity career ; he becomes a privat-docent and a writer. Caring only for his own convictions, he refuses to be gov- erned by the prevailing opinions. Before knowing it, he becomes unpopular, the orthodox thinkers begin to shake their heads. His influence wanes, his books are not read, as is natural, for he has written them for himself. At the age of thirty and thirty-five, he is still living in destitute circum- stances. His father grows impatient, his mother grieves ; then comes the year 1848, and places both young men in new circumstances, — which we need not mind now. What shall we say of the balance of pleasure in these two lives up to this point ? I do not believe that these are particularly difficult cases ; and yet who would dare to decide which life had yielded the most happiness ? Who can measure the ratio, in the life of the former, between the pleasures following the satisfaction of ambition and the pain inseparable from the fears and hopes of preferment, the disappointment accom- panying tlie attainment of vain goods ; and who can compute the relation, in the other life, between the quiet joys of the thinker and the pains caused by neglect and outward failure ? The pessimists, therefore, have never even attempted to prove their assertions, as demanded by the nature of the case. They offer us general phrases instead. Listen to some of them. First we are told the old story that pleasure is in the last analysis nothing hut freedom from pain ; that it invariably arises only when a desire is satisfied, when a disease is cured or a fear removed. Pleasure, so it is held, is therefore nega- tive in its character, while pain alone is positive; there are in reality no figures in the pleasure-column of our imagi- nary ledger ; one hour differs from another merely in the amount of pain suffered. — Now if this were really true, if we really regarded as pleasure what is only freedom from pain, would that in the least alter the fact that pleasure and pain are positive feelings ? And is not the feeling, after all, the final and absolute judge ; would it not be absurd to claim that pleasure is nothing but freedom from pain ? All that we could say would be that it never arises except when preceded by a painful desire. This statement, however, 292 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES I would be obviously false. Is appetite pain? Is it not rather an anticipation of pleasure, and is it not felt as such by the healthy man ? With eager eyes the child watches his mother baking cakes; does he experience pain, and is this silenced only after he has eaten the cake ? Does he, after waking from a healthy sleep, soon experience painful tedium, and does he get rid of the feeling only after it has forced him to play ? No one can believe such a thing unless he ignores the facts and makes up his mind to see nothing but the pro- positions of his system. — Besides, the falsity of the view may be shown in another way. If pleasure were freedom from the pain of desire, it would have to be the greater, the greater the desire has been. That is by no means always the case. On the contrary, the individuals who have the strongest desires experience the least pleasure after realizing them. The people who wait most patiently enjoy the purest and intensest pleasures, when they obtain what they neither asked for nor expected. We see this in children; I believe it always happens that the greater the desire, the less pleasure its satisfaction yields. Schopenhauer proves pessimism by reference to the nature of the will^ which per se is unintelligent, aimless striving. It is not originally moved by the idea of an end, but appears as a blind will-to-live. Hence, he says, there can be no state, no good, which can give the will definite satisfaction. This determines the nature of the feelings : pain and misery, dis- appointment and tedium are the inevitable result. The pain which is caused by need urges the will to action; in case it does not realize its end, the pain becomes torture. If it realizes its end, the relief is momentarily felt as pleasure. But soon this disappears; possession, which from a dis- tance promised permanent satisfaction, soon fails to arouse feelings of pleasure ; hence the end of all pleasure is disap- pointment. In case the will endeavors to put an end to this restless striving, tedium soon goads it into preferring misery PESSIMISM 293 and torture to a state of rest. These are the feelings between which the will constantly oscillates. We might, therefore, compare life to a foot-path running between two thorny hedges, a path so narrow that when the wanderer attempts to avoid one of the hedges, he is invariably torn by the other. Impartial judges will regard this view as extremely one- sided. Perhaps no life is absolutely free from suffering and tedium, but many an existence will, for some days, be almost entirely without them. The path between the hedges is not so narrow as to make it impossible for any one but an unusually awkward man to pursue it without serious injury. A healthy child, reared in simple, healthy surroundings, will not know very much about distress and tedium when leaving the parental home. And if the conditions of life continue half-way favor- able, he may not experience them to any great extent for many years to come. The peasant does not wait for want to urge him to his work. In the daytime he rejoices at what he has accomplished, and at night he enjoys his rest. It would be a vain undertaking to make him believe that the former is pain and the latter tedium. And so work-days and holidays, summer and winter may come and go, year in and year out, without bringing great troubles and without leaving much opportunity for tedium. Of course, some sorrows will come, but we also find that sorrows turn into blessings. Hence, we might perhaps quote, at the end of such a life, the words of the Psalmist, in a slightly modified form : The days of our years are threescore years and ten ; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, and if their strength be labor and sorrow, yet they have been sweet. — Are such lives mere isolated exceptions ? Inasmuch as we have no statistics on the happy and unhappy lives, the successes and failures, I am for the present inclined to put as much faith in the judgment of a plain man of the people as in the eloquence of a pessimistic philosopher. The plain man would 294 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES most likely argue somewhat as follows : If an honorable and healthy life is not an exception, then a happy life is not an isolated exception either. The will, as described by the phi- losopher of pessimism, is not the will of a healthy human being, but that of a moody and spoilt child, and such a will may perhaps experience the things mentioned. But, Schopenhauer replies, it may be that some lives are fairly successful in avoiding collisions ; but does that change the fact that life as a whole is an empty, aimless striving? We may, he believes, compare life to the struggles of a shipwrecked mariner, who for a few moments struggles with all his might to save himself from drowning, only to be en- gulfed by the waves at last. Life is a ceaseless battle with death, to which we are approaching nearer and nearer every day. And the hopelessness of this futile business is increased by the cruel irony of nature, which deludes us with the con- stant promise : " To-morrow there will be a change for the bet- ter ! " If only I were a man, sighs the unhappy schoolboy ; if only my examinations and apprenticeship were over, and I had an independent position and fortune, says the youth chafing under restraint ; if only I were a millionaire or a privy coun- sellor, cries the troubled man, how I should enjoy life ! And all these wishes are ultimately fulfilled, but the satisfaction never comes. Yet the illusions continue, until old age car- ries the last ones into the grave. But long before this, the cycle has begun anew in children and grandchildren. Does not the will-to-live play us a miserable trick ? The tortures described by Greek mythology, the Sisyphus stone, the barrel of the Danaides, the wheel of Ixion, represent life itself, not the exceptionally unhappy life, but the average life of all mor- tals, whose absolute futility is experienced every day and yet remains forever new. Indeed, it is true that the will-to-live is aimless in the sense of never attaining to a state of absolute satisfaction ; it is true that it daily looks forward to the morrow, expecting from it PESSIMISM 295 what to-day has failed to bring ; it is true, also, that death comes at last, and that life does not produce as a recompense for its troubles an absolutely permanent good that may be possessed and eternally enjoyed or bequeathed to others. — But does that not prove the worthlessness of life ? — It seems to me that an error has crept into the argument. Life is here conceived as a function which has its end, not in itself, but external to it. This is an inadequate conception. It is customary to compare life to a journey. We regard the latter as futile when the purpose for which it was under- taken fails to be realized, and we look back upon our fruitless troubles with dissatisfaction. But does life resemble a busi- ness trip ? I do not think so. It has not, like the latter, an external end, an end of which it is the means. Nay, life is not a means, but an end in itself. We could, with much better right, compare it to a pleasure trip. The latter too, we may say, is aimless, and yields no lasting gain. We may also say that we are never satisfied while it lasts, in the sense of being willing to remain at one place forever. The desire is always in advance of the traveller, fixating a point in the dis- tance, and when this is reached, new desires arise. Even before setting forth he thinks of the remote summit, and when he ascends the mountain, groaning and perspiring, his longing eyes, deceived by many a projecting ridge, are turned in the direction of the goal. But hardly has he reached his destina- tion, when his desires again temptingly point to the inn with its promise of rest and recreation and final satisfaction. Tired, exhausted, and foot-sore, the traveller at last reaches his abode, and hardly enjoying a few moments of the hoped-for rest, begins to make plans for the morrow. So it goes day after day, until he comes back to his home, and rests his weary limbs under his own roof. Now, was the entire journey merely one continuous torture, and will our trav- eller swear never to enter upon such a foolish undertaking again ? No, indeed ; he has had an excellent time ; he joy- 296 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES I' ! r (i nil fully remembers every part of his travels, especially the most dangerous and difficult parts, and enjoys the pleasure of mak- ing plans for another trip next year. Well, the arguments against the value of life prove no more than the same arguments against the value of a pleasure trip. In spite of its aimlessness, in spite of its illusions and disap- pointments, in spite of its pains and exertions, in spite of the fact finally, that we never reach a stopping-place where we could bear to abide permanently, it may be a very enjoy- able affair on the whole. So long as it is full of action and change in work and in play, full of care for self and others, the mind will delight in recalling the memories of the past, lingering with special satisfaction upon the dangerous and tempestuous, troublesome and difficult parts of the traversed journey. In achieving this the will realizes the goal at which it aims : an honorable human life with all the experiences belonging to it. Old people delight in narrating incidents from their lives, either by word of mouth to their friends, or to the world at large in printed autobiographies. Would they feel inclined to do so if life were a Sisyphean labor ? They evidently re- gard it in a different light, as an interesting drama, perhaps, full of action and excitement for both actor and spectator, which, in spite of its troubles and conflicts, its happy and dangerous crises, at last comes to a peaceful ending. The excitement is over, the actor in the play breathes more freely ; as a spectator he now rehearses the contents of the drama in his mind. — Would he be willing to play the role again ? Schopenhauer believes that if we were to ask the dead in their graves whether they would be willing to live again, they would shake their heads. Perhaps he is right ; who would be willing to witness a play once more, immedi- ately after having seen it performed ? But that surely does not prove anything against the value of the drama. We should not be willing even to repeat the experiences of the PESSIMISM 297 most delightful journey, immediately after having reached home. — Besides, is it so rare a thing to hear old people expressing the wish to be young again ? The mature man does not desire to be a youth again, the youth does not wish to be a boy again, the boy does not wish to be a child again ; but many an old man wishes to be young again. Is it not because he has enjoyed his rest, and now has the courage to begin the journey afresh ? I cannot, therefore, convince myself that the statement: Life uniformly brings more pain than pleasure, more disap- pointment than satisfaction, — the subjective evidence of feel- ing declares it to be valueless, — is proved by these reflections of the philosophers of pessimism. 3. Tlie moralistic argument asserts that life is as worth- less as it is unhappy, that it is absolutely devoid of any- thing that, objectively considered, can make it worth living. Virtue and wisdom are the exception, wickedness and fool- ishness the rule. Schopenhauer does not weary of abusing mankind in this strain. Nature, he is fond of saying, produces human beings in bulk, like worthless factory wares, and throws them away in bulk, in accordance with the maxim of wholesale production, as cheap and bad. Malice and ignorance are the two characteristic qualities of the average man. Mediocrity is more conspicuous among the masses; the many are poverty-stricken wretches, with no higher spiritual desires, intent only upon eking out their miserable existence to the very last. Their sole aim is to procure food, and perhaps to produce progeny for the same unhappy lot. Grovelling in the dirt, they live on, and when they are gone the very trace of their existence is wiped out. Nor are they free from an admixture of malice : they look with envy and hatred upon those who excel them in mental and physical gifts, or in wealth and rank. Only with great ef- fort can the police keep them from attacking each other. As wild beasts must be kept apart by cages, men must be pro- 298 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES PESSIMISM 299 i ■ li tected against each other by criminal laws, cages whose bars are forged by fear. Whenever an opportunity is offered of cheating a fellow sufferer or inflicting damage upon an envied one, without danger of punishment, it is immediately embraced. Even their so-called virtues are, when rightly viewed, made of the same stuff. They are sociable from van- ity, compassionate from self-love, honest from fear, peace- loving from cowardice, benevolent from superstition. — There is a small minority among whom malice preponderates over ignorance, and since greater intelligence is usually connected with a stronger will, the laws are invariably powerless to re- strain them from pouncing upon the others, like beasts of prey. The many are like sheep, cowardly, stubborn, and nar- row ; the few like wolves and foxes, ferocious and deceitful. — Wisdom and virtue, on the other hand, are rare products. Nature scarcely succeeds in producing two or three geniuses in a century, and saints are equally few and far between. Thus Schopenhauer, the despiser and accuser of the human race, describes, with passionate eloquence, its moral and intel- lectual shortcomings. He is not the only man who entertains this opinion. Ever since the old Greek sage declared that "the most are worthless," the sentiment has been con- stantly repeated. Hobbes holds the same view of man, and La Kochefoucauld has given us, in his Reflections and Maxims^ a kind of hand-book of philosophical Wc?i8aw5 koI o\(yov koL iroAuv XP^^°^ /3i«iX'n<0 the notions of piety, philanthropy, and divine favor are inseparably interwoven. We discover the same fundamental note in the historical and poetical books of the Old Testament. The historical books show how the Lord makes good the promises and threats with which He accompanied the laws, in the lives of the in- dividuals and of the people. In the Psalms, too, the righteous- ness, faithfulness, and truth or trustworthiness of God are a subject of praise : He does not forsake the righteous who keep His commandments, but rewards their children and their children's children for their obedience. The righteous man, too, suffers, but the Lord does not forsake him, nay, the sufferings themselves turn into blessings; the ungodly, on the other hand, perish; the wages of sin is death. The theoretical development of this thought forms the con- tent of Greek moral philosophy. Virtue and happiness are connected, not merely accidentally, through the mediation of the gods, but in the very nature of things. The concep- tion of happiness, however, is spiritualized ; not external happiness or good fortune (evrvx^a), but internal happiness, peace and repose of spirit, is directly joined with the exer- cise of virtue, or follows as its necessary effect. External welfare does not always fall to the lot of the wise and vir- tuous man ; but virtue tends to realize this also ; and in case he does not obtain it he is sure of finding happiness in his own heart. This is also the prevailing sentiment in modern ethics. Hobbes and Spinoza, Leibniz and Wolff, 26 402 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES Shaftesbury and Hume, all attempt to point out the neces- sary connection between righteousness and welfare. They, too, regard as their cardinal doctrine the proposition that good conduct has welfare, bad conduct, misfortune as its natu- ral consequence. Virtue, welfare, honor, and inner peace go together as well as vice, misery, disgrace, and inner dis- cord. This is especially true of the two extremes : virtue and inner peace, vice and inner discord. The two middle terms of the series are not so constant. A pessimistic conception runs parallel with this view of the relation of virtue and happiness which may be called the optimistic view : The evil-doer is the very one who fares well ; fortune favors him ; while the good man fares ill. It would not be difficult to gather a considerable number of examples from the literature and the proverbs of nations, all of which aim to show that the wicked man succeeds better in the world with his evil arts than the man who pursues the path of truth and justice. Strategy and vio- lence, the latter against the weaker, the former against the stronger, are the means by which men rise and maintain themselves. The old fable of Renard the fox, which Goethe once called a profane world-bible, illustrates this : the lion and the fox, violence and strategy, control affairs, they are the king and the chancellor; the honest ram and the innocent hare, the straightforward bear and the inexperienced wolf, always get the worst of the bargain. — And the other bible, that is, the Bible of the New Testament, does not seem to contradict this farcical animal bible. It is one of the fundamental con- ceptions of primitive Christianity that the just must suffer much for the sake of justice and truth. Like the master, the disciples must endure many sufferings, disgrace, and persecution. Which of these two views is the correct one ? Is the truth of the first overthrown by that of the second? I do not think so. The sporadic pessimistic moods which now and then take VIRTUE AND HAPPINESS 403 possession of every nation and every individual, may perhaps be explained as follows, and reconciled with the optimistic view. It is, of course, an undeniable fact that the good do not always fare well outwardly. A man may become sick, even though he is temperate and prudent, and, con- versely, a man who has no regard for his health may re- main hale and hearty. An able and honest man may fail in spite of all his exertions, and a scoundrel may accumulate wealth by dishonest means. Frankness often draws upon us the hatred of the mighty, and flattery gains their favor. — But the very fact that such occurrences attract so much at- tention and arouse such indignation seems to indicate that they are not the rule, but the exception. No one is surprised to hear of the ruin of a frivolous and reckless fellow ; we say it is as it should be, and forget the incident. But when a sensible and honest man is destroyed by all kinds of misfortunes, while the former prospers, it seems to be contrary to the nature of things, and we console our- selves with the general statement that ill weeds grow apace ; or, fools are lucky. When an honest man wins the confi- dence of his surroundings, and the scoundrel is unmasked and disgraced, everybody regards it as a matter of course. When, however, a man grazes the penitentiary and gets his millions into a safe place, we become excited, and the matter is discussed for months. Everybody recalls similar cases, and so at last the verdict is rendered : " Well, that 's the way of the world ! " Here, too, the exception proves the rule. These cases would not cause such excitement if they were not contrary to the nature of things. It is the rule that honest labor is a surer road to economic welfare than fraud and dishonesty ; that sincerity and truthfulness arouse confidence ; that false- hood and deception are poor means of making friends ; in short, that virtue is approved before God and man, and that vice is despised and condemned. 402 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES Shaftesbury and Hume, all attempt to point out the neces- sary connection between righteousness and welfare. They, too, regard as their cardinal doctrine the proposition that good conduct has welfare, bad conduct, misfortune as its natu- ral consequence. Virtue, welfare, honor, and inner peace go together as well as vice, misery, disgrace, and inner dis- cord. This is especially true of the two extremes : virtue and inner peace, vice and inner discord. The two middle terms of the series are not so constant. A pessimistic conception runs parallel with this view of the relation of virtue and happiness which may be called the optimistic view: The evil-doer is the very one who fares well ; fortune favors him ; while the good man fares ill. It would not be difficult to gather a considerable number of examples from the literature and the proverbs of nations, all of which aim to show that the wicked man succeeds better in the world with his evil arts than the man who pursues the path of truth and justice. Strategy and vio- lence, the latter against the weaker, the former against the stronger, are the means by which men rise and maintain themselves. The old fable of Renard the fox, which Goethe once called a profane world-bible, illustrates this : the lion and the fox, violence and strategy, control affairs, they are the king and the chancellor; the honest ram and the innocent hare, the straightforward bear and the inexperienced wolf, always get the worst of the bargain. — And the other bible, that is, the Bible of the New Testament, does not seem to contradict this farcical animal bible. It is one of the fundamental con- ceptions of primitive Christianity that the just must suffer much for the sake of justice and truth. Like the master, the disciples must endure many sufferings, disgrace, and persecution. Which of these two views is the correct one ? Is the truth of the first overthrown by that of the second? I do not think so. The sporadic pessimistic moods which now and then take VIRTUE AND HAPPINESS 403 possession of every nation and every individual, may perhaps be explained as follows, and reconciled with the optimistic view. It is, of course, an undeniable fact that the good do not always fare well outwardly. A man may become sick, even though he is temperate and prudent, and, con- versely, a man who has no regard for his health may re- main hale and hearty. An able and honest man may fail in spite of all his exertions, and a scoundrel may accumulate wealth by dishonest means. Frankness often draws upon us the hatred of the mighty, and flattery gains their favor. — But the very fact that such occurrences attract so much at- tention and arouse such indignation seems to indicate that they are not the rule, but the exception. No one is surprised to hear of the ruin of a frivolous and reckless fellow ; we say it is as it should be, and forget the incident. But when a sensible and honest man is destroyed by all kinds of misfortunes, while the former prospers, it seems to be contrary to the nature of things, and we console our- selves with the general statement that ill weeds grow apace ; or, fools are lucky. When an honest man wins the confi- dence of his surroundings, and the scoundrel is unmasked and disgraced, everybody regards it as a matter of course. When, however, a man grazes the penitentiary and gets his millions into a safe place, we become excited, and the matter is discussed for months. Everybody recalls similar cases, and so at last the verdict is rendered : " Well, that 's the way of the world ! " Here, too, the exception proves the rule. These cases would not cause such excitement if they were not contrary to the nature of things. It is the rule that honest labor is a surer road to economic welfare than fraud and dishonesty ; that sincerity and truthfulness arouse confidence ; that false- hood and deception are poor means of making friends ; in short, that virtue is approved before God and man, and that vice is despised and condemned. 404 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES There is, however, an important exception to the last rule : among the vicious virtue does not beget love, but hatred. The shameless strumpet hates the virtuous maiden ; the very existence of the latter is a reproach to her, she seeks her re- venge in ridicule, calumny, and whatever her hatred may prompt her to do. It is the greatest source of satisfaction to her to drag her innocent sister down to her own disgraceful level, for it sUences reproach. This explains the awful impulse to lead others into temptation which is so common to vice. So, too, the flatterer and place-hunter hates the honest and truthful man, who goes through life with his head erect ; he imagines that the latter watches, sees through, and despises him. Should vice ever gain the ascendency in society, virtue would no longer be attractive ; it would arouse among most men, if not contempt, at least hatred and aversion. And since the vices cannot make those who possess them agree- able in the sight of men — for virtue is agreeable to the vir- tuous, but vice is not esteemed by the vicious, especially not social vice — a feeling of universal hatred would take pos- session of society. Such a condition is foretold in the re- markable lines of Hesiod's pessimistically-colored poem, Works and Days : Nor sire with son, with brethren brethren blend, Nor host with guest, nor friend, as erst, with friend: Reckless of heaven's revenge, the sons behold The hoary parents wax too swiftly old ; ' And impious point the keen dishonoring tongue, : With hard reproofs and bitter mockeries hung : Nor grateful in declining age repay The nurturing fondness of their better day. Now man's right hand is law : for spoil they wait, And lay their mutual cities desolate : Unhonored he by whom his oath is feared ; Nor are the good beloved, the just revered : With favor graced the evil-doer stands, Nor curbs with shame nor equity his hands ; With crooked slanders wounds the virtuous man. And stamps with perjury what hate began. VIRTUE AND HAPPINESS 405 Lo ! ill-rejoicing Envy, wing'd with lies, Scattering calumnious rumors as she flies, • The steps of miserable men pursue With haggard aspect, blasting to the view.^ We have here a description of hell on Grecian soil. This will help us to understand the Christian conception of the worldly success of virtue. The old Christian view of the world was very much like Hesiod's description. Compare with the latter the picture of the Graeco-Roman world in the first chapter of the Epistle to the Romans : " Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness ; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity ; whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenant-breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful, who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same but have pleasure in them that do them." Entering the world with such notions of the world, which they made no endeavor to conceal, the old Christians could not, of course, expect to please the world ; they could not hope for anything but hatred and persecution, which did not fail to overtake them. The old Christians expected something else besides: the end of the world. They felt that such human beings could not live, and did not deserve to live. They were right: a world like the world described by Hesiod and St. Paul could not possibly exist. But the world did not come to an end; nay the unexpected has happened, and the world, after ex- hausting all the means of persecution at its command, has in a certain measure accepted Christianity and preserved it to the present day. Hence we are justified in assuming that the picture which was painted of humanity could not have been an exact likeness. Moreover, primitive Christianity is 1 [Banks's translation, Bohn's Library, lines 239 ff., p. 345. — Tr.J 406 CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES not always so hopelessly pessimistic: Christians are not infrequently exhorted to do good, " that they may see their good works and glorify their Father which is in Heaven." And in another place we even read that "godliness is profit- able unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come," ^ a passage which, it must be confessed, would, so far as the promise of this life is con- cerned, have surprised us less in the Old Testament. We must add, moreover, that afflictions and persecutions are not evils for the Christian ; they are essential to his per- fection ; nay, they cannot disturb his peace of mind, his godli- ness, even for a single moment. Persecution gives him the blessed conviction that he is not of this world, but a child of the eternal kingdom of God. And so for him too, and for him especially, virtue and outward happiness, or at any rate piety and inner blessedness, are most intimately connected, nay they are one and the same, as the word evai^eia ( Qott- seligJceit") indicates. Here, too, then, we reach the conclusion that for the truly good man, for one whose will is completely ruled by virtue, virtuous action is always the greatest blessing, even though it should not bring external happiness, and should prove hard for his sensuous nature. Spinoza's maxim applies to him: Beatitudo non praemium virtutis, sed virtus ipsa. He, how- ever, whose will is not ruled by virtue, who does good from fear or calculation, may feel disappointed, when the outward success which he hoped to realize from his honesty, temper- ance, and benevolence, does not appear. To such a person vir- tue seems to be an unprofitable, or at least uncertain, means of happiness, and he utters pessimistic complaints, holding that the evil-doers fare well and the good fare ill. This, however, does not mean that he would have been better satisfied if he had reached by crooked means the goal which he complains of having missed by fair means. — Hence the fact remains that 1 1 Timothy, IV., 8. VIRTUE AND HAPPINESS 407 there is a universal inner relation between virtue and success or prosperity or happiness, while the connection between wicked- ness and unhappiness is equally necessary. We may perhaps imagine a man who satisfies his desires without fear and scruple, who enjoys without pangs of conscience everything that fortune offers him, and whom fortune favors during his entire life; but can there really be such a man? At all events, it would not be wise for any one of us, constituted as we are, to follow his example. Even though he should suc- ceed in everything, the hour may come when he would give up all that he has achieved to wipe out the past. 2. The second question is : What is the effect of happiness upon character? By happiness QGlilcJc') we here mean ex- ternal happiness (eurux^a) : wealth, power, success, fame, honor, health, strength, victory. What effect has the pos- session or pursuit of these things on character ? Observation of human affairs has convinced all the more highly civilized nations of the second great fundamental truth that happiness, or prosperity, or good fortune, is a menace to character, and finally also to welfare. We mentioned above, as the first maxim of Greek wisdom, the proposition that the good fare well and the wicked ill. We may add as the second: Eutuchia is not identical with eudcemonia; un- alloyed happiness is not happiness. Prosperity produces satiety, a fat heart, as the Psalmist says. Such souls are filled with pride, and pride leads to iniquity, which calls down upon its head the wrath of God, and destruction. That is, according to the conception of the Greeks, as expressed by their poets and historians, the natural course of events. Only an unusual amount of good sense will enable a man to bear prosperity.^ The view is 1 Theognis, 153: TiKTfl rOl K6pOS S$piV, ^'TCtV KttKff 6\$05 flTriTM. 'Av6p(i>va>, Koi 8t

po(rvp7j, healthy-mindedness. 'A(f)pa)v, senseless, foolish, is the man whom fear, anger, and desire, control, causing him to act irrationally and to ruin himself; aco^pwvj healthy-minded, rational, on the contrary, is the man who keeps his wits even in difficult situations, and acts in ac- cordance with the law of self-preservation.^ 1 [Aristotle. Bk. II., chs. VII. ff. ; Bk. III., chs. IX. ff. ; Bk. VIL ; Paley, Moral Philosophy, Bk. IV. ; Sidgi?vick, Bk. III., chs. IX., X. ; Spencer, Inductions of Ethics, chs. XII., XIII. ; Porter, Moral Science, Part II., chs. II., V. ; Runze, §§ 20 ff. ; Smytli, Christian Ethics, Part II., ch. II. ; Dorner, pp. 356-378 ; Fowler and Wilson, Part II., ch. I. — Tr.] * It is a well-known fact that no virtue was more universally recognized and extolled by the Greek poets than self-control. Perhaps, however, it would be a delusion to suppose that the predisposition to aaxppoavvri was a particular trait ! 484 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES Self-control ^ assumes different phases, corresponding to the different forms of impulsive life. As its two fundamen- tal aspects we may, with the Greek moralists, des:gnate tem- perance Qr^KpdT€La) and courage. Temperance may be defined as the moral power to resist desires attracted by of the Greek national character. Perhaps Lessing's celebrated remark also applies to nations : we talk most of the virtues which we least possess, and whose value we have learned to appreciate because we have felt their lack. The Greeks were gifted with fine sensibilities and high intelligence, which especially fitted them for and made them keenly alive to all kinds of play and art, dial- ectics and philosophy; but they were somewhat lacking in energy and per- severance. That is the way the Romans regarded tliem ; in comparison with their own natural seriousness and gravity (gravitas) the Greeks seemed sanguine and mobile, cunning and fickle : the Frenchmen of antiquity. They had a poor opinion of their talents for politics and war. However, it is this very thing that made the Greeks the great teachers of the virtue of self-control. The Stoics became the moral preachers of the world, directly or indirectly. Their entire system of morality, however, is a guide to the discipline of the emotions. Among modern authors may be mentioned the physician Feuchtersleben, who has written a widely read Dietetics of the Soul {Dielatik der Seele). An excellent little book is Harriet Beecher Stowe's (the authoress of Uncle Tom's Cabin) Little Foxes. Two good books of the last century are B. Franklin's Autobiography and Campe's Theophron. Everybody is familiar with Goethe's mag- nificent Siyriiche in Prosa und Versen. Lagarde's writings (3d edit., 1891 ) have the form of public moral sermons, addressed to the German people. They remind us of Fichte's Reden. The book of the Swiss Hilty, G/iiek (4th edit., 1895), is making many friends. The Addresses of the American W. Salter also con- tain moral sermons. — These addresses were delivered before " Societies for Ethical Culture," which exist in several American cities. The idea of such a society, of a united ethical party regardless of nationality and creed, had already attracted the attention of B. Franklin (see his Autobiography). « Ethical Societies " have of late been transplanted to Germany ; whether they wiU take root here, remams to be seen. The universal love of morality is not a strong bond of union between men ; a particular purpose, even accidental hatred or superstition, has greater binding force. These ethical societies are, first of all, opposed to church morality ; moral sermons based upon dogmatics they regard as ineffectual. There is cer- tainly room for much improvement here : and if the ethical societies succeed, m the slightest degree, in bringing ethical culture to those who have turned their backs upon the church, they deserve not hatred and contempt, but gratitude and recognition. They may, perhaps, even help Christianity in gaining a foothold in these circles. For it is certainly true that no more important moral events ever occurred upon this earth than are reported in the New Testament ; and we shall search in vain for more effective moral sermons than those in the Gospels and Epistles. [Blackie's Self-Culture deserves a place in the list of books mentioned here. — Tr.] 1 [See also Runze, §§ 9 f • — Tr.] SELF-CONTROL 485 tempting enjoyment, when the gratification of such desires tends to endanger an essential good. Courage is the moral power to resist the natural fear of pain and danger, when the preservation of an essential good demands such resistance. 2. Temperance or moderation, ^ the ability to resist temp- tation to sensuous pleasure, is the precondition of humaniza- tion. The animal is essentially blind impulse, in the satis- faction of which its life consists. Man, too, is endowed with an animal nature, but its purpose is to serve as the soil for a higher, spiritual life ; this soil is prepared by the discipline of the natural impulses. The latter are not to be eradicated, that would mean insensibility and finally death, but their satis- faction is to be so regulated that they will not only not disturb the development of higher life, but rather assist it. The rela- tion is reversed in the opposite habit, intemperance (aKoXao-la) ; intemperance is not merely a relapse into an animal state : nay, the higher powers and gifts of man are here subordinated to sensuous desire. So in gluttony and the worship of the belly ; all the arts of civilization are here employed to excite and satisfy sensuous desires. So pleasure-seeking and also sexual dissipation have drawn into their service an entire industry of exquisite enjoyments. Even the most superficial examination of the facts cannot leave us in doubt as to the value and effects of these two con- trary modes of action. Intemperance, dissipation, inordinate love of pleasure, first of all destroy our sense and capacity for higher things ; the will and the intellect are exhausted by excesses ; finally the sensibility is blunted until at last even the faculty for enjoyment is lost. All passive enjoyments deaden the sensibilities ; stronger and more refined excitations are constantly needed to procure feelings of pleasure through the exhausted organ, until at last the chronic state of dulness which is characteristic of the roue is reached ; the powers of 1 [Spencer, Inductions, XII. ; Stephen, ch. V., 3 ; Seth, Part II., ch. L — Tr.] 486 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES SELF-CONTROL 487 the organism and its irritability are exhausted; nothing is left but the repulsive dregs of life. — Temperance has the opposite effect ; it makes the entire man healthy and vigorous, capable of action and enjoyment. This virtue, like all habits, is acquired by experience. The foundation is laid by a good education. The best way to pre- vent the growth of excessive desires is to satisfy the natural needs in an appropiate and orderly manner. This can easily be done in a well-regulated household, but is extremely diffi- cult under conditions of luxury as well as of poverty. Per- haps we can still agree with John Locke that an honest farmhouse is the best place for rearing a child. Gradually the child may be encouraged to give up little things of its own accord ; we cannot begin too soon in teaching the child the great art of life : to sacrifice to-day for to-morrow. The child then educates itself. The sense of honor may be ap- pealed to as an ally against desire. The ability to bear priva- tion with equanimity is so closely related to courage that the boy too sees the connection : it is weak and cowardly to yield to desire. Greek ethics is full of excellent moral advice on this very subject. How disgraceful, it says, to be compelled to obey the animal or child in us, which is full of needs and desires ; how beautiful and praiseworthy and in keeping with man's dignity, on the other hand, is the freedom and inde- pendence which is not disturbed by privation and want! Whoever succumbs to his desires is a slave to objects ; they draw him now hither, now thither, through pleasure and fear. The gods are without needs, and therefore without fear and desire ; the fewer our needs, the nearer we are to the gods. These are sentiments which the youth of all ages can under- stand. When the sense of honor works in the opposite direc- tion, as happens, to a large extent, in our times, the relation is an unnatural one. There are perhaps two essential reasons for such perverseness. The first is the wish of the youth to show that he has the means, the second, that he has the power and the courage to indulge himself. The latter motive exercises a particularly strong influence upon the young man. He is afraid of being looked upon as a baby, standing in awe of the rod, or as a *' goody-good " boy, who is afraid of hell and the devil. He demonstrates his independence as a man, and freedom of mind, by an open violation of the law. The lad who has just been confirmed proudly struts up and down the village street with a pipe in his mouth and " shows off." In the same way, the satisfaction of other cravings becomes a matter of show. We are ashamed, to use Augustine's expres- sion, of not being shameless. The reaction of the years of indiscretion (Flegeljahre ^) against the compulsion of educa- tion will, to some extent, make its appearance everywhere. Perhaps our methods of instruction contribute largely to make the reaction so acute among us. The type of the libertine is, like the type of the priestling (Pfaffe)^ a form of degeneracy which thrives upon Christian soil. It was not known to the classical world. The most fruitful method of counteracting the growth of cupidity and the inordinate love of pleasure is to train the individual to efficient action. All successful exercise of nat- ural powers and skill in labor and in play is, as Aristotle teaches, accompanied by pleasure. And this pleasure is superior to the pleasure of passive enjoyment. It can be procured without the sting of desire. It is more independ- ent of external conditions; enjoyment consumes, activity creates commodities. It is intensified by repetition ; for while passive pleasure increases the intensity of the desire but dulls the faculty of enjoyment, action increases our efficiency ; and the greater the skill, the greater the pleasure of exercis- ing it. As in all cases, the better is here the enemy of the good : the pleasure which we derive from action, especially that resulting from play, is the most effective means of sup- pressing the pleasures of passive enjoyment. The Greeks 1 [The puppy-dog stage.] Ilif '' 488 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES SELF-CONTROL 489 fci possessed a powerful antidote against the love of pleasure among the youth in their gymnastics and military exercises and games. Since it was impossible to attain to proficiency in them and be dissipated and effeminate, the sense of honor operated in the right direction. — We, too, have our military exercises, but, apart from other unfavorable conditions under which they take place, they come a little too late. Between the school days and the time of military service a long period of freedom intervenes which is but too often spent in dissipa- tion. For this reason, too, it would evidently be desirable gradually to advance a part of the general military training to an earlier age. To be sure, this change should not be brought about by a police regulation, which might simply make mat- ters worse, but by a change in popular custom. Perhaps the old Germanic love of athletic sports will be revived among us, as indications seem to show. A word concerning asceticism ^ may not be out of place here. An ascetic life is characterized by the habitual renunciation even of moderate and legitimate pleasures. Modern moral- ists, as a rule, reject it as an aberration ; and, indeed, the principle on which it rests seems to be the exact opposite of the principle of welfare. The three vows of monachism signify the renunciation of wealth, or material culture; of fame and power, or ideal culture ; and finally, of family life, that is, the preservation of the species, or the precondition of all human culture. Nevertheless, it is undoubtedly true that genuine asceticism arouses not contempt and aversion, but respect and admiration, even among pronounced " chil- dren of the world," that is, when they have no principle to defend. The phenomenon may perhaps be explained as fol- lows. The tendency to go to the other extreme of excess is natural and universal ; incontinence causes the ruin of many. Excessive temperance, therefore, does not seem to be ^ [Lecky, History of European Morals, I., 113, 130; II., 101 fE. ; Harnack, Das Mdnchthum ; Runze, § 11. — Tk] dangerous, but meritorious ; for two reasons : The incon- tinence of some is, in a certain sense, directly compensated, by the extreme continence of others. The doctrine of the good works of the saints finds a natural support in this view ; the people forms a whole, the good and evil acts of its mem- bers are placed to its account. And absolute continence is indirectly meritorious in so far as it shows, by great and striking examples, that the impulses which often lead to ruin- ous excess can be mastered. Gratitude for this educative effect assumes the form of admiration. This at the same time explains why asceticism and a love of the world go hand-in-hand. We may find occasional examples of intemperance among a poor and uncivilized people, but not radical continence. Philosophical asceticism first appeared in the Hellenic world when the art of good living reached a high state of perfection. The Roman Empire was the soil on which Christianity found favorable conditions of development. The more sensuous a nation, the greater its admiration for the ascetic life. It is surely not accidental that the excitable Romance nations cling to Cath- olicism and celibacy and monachism, whereas temperance societies are common among the Germanic peoples, who are addicted to drink. — Moreover, even in particular individuals, an intensely sensuous nature is apt to seek refuge in asceti- cism. The man who is not exposed to temptation needs no heroic antidotes. From this it also follows that asceticism cannot become a universal ethical rule. It would defeat itself witli both physical and psychological-aesthetical necessity : without its opposite there would be neither sense nor merit in it. The value of absolute continence and the admiration shown for it are conditioned by the fact that there are others who have not received the donum continentice, even in a moderate degree. The ascetic himself must recognize this; he cannot expect everybody to imitate him, nay, he cannot even say or 490 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES intimate that his mode of life is better than that of others. He may, at most, deem himself fortunate for having escaped such task-masters as most persons constantly have near them in their impulses. A stern and haughty puritanism is not edifying ; it arouses antagonisms. A man, however, who is gentle and humble in spirit, who asks nothing for himself but desires others to have everything that is good, even that which he denies himself, will gain the respect and confidence of all, especially of children of the world. Since he does not enter into competition with the world, he may become the repository of very worldly secrets, like Friar Lorenzo in Romeo and Juliet. In his novel, / Fromessi Sposi, Man- zoni has drawn for us, in the person of Cardinal Borromeo, a wonderful picture of a man who renounces everything, and thereby obtains the greatest influence over others.— Moral preachers, spiritual as well as secular, are in the habit of complaining that no one will listen to them and give heed to their counsels. Man's hardness of heart has been the subject of their lamentations from the days of the old prophets down to the present. Perhaps the fault does not lie entirely with the hearers. If these preachers would only examine themselves as closely as others, they would perhaps occasionally find that it is not only their zeal for saving souls that actuates them ; the things which they cannot or dare not or do not wish to enjoy, they begrudge others, and so revenge themselves upon them for their own privations. He alone has a right to preach morality who is in tlie safe possession of a good that absorbs his whole soul, and is entirely without envy; he that cannot without bitterness bear the sight of others enjoying what he desires to convince them is worthless, should first preach to himself.^ 1 The Imitatio Christi admirably describes the true moral preacher and his opposite, the habitual moral grumbler, in the chapter " Of a Good and Peaceable Man." " First keep thyself in peace, and then shalt thou be able to make peace among others. A peaceful man doth more good than he that is well learned. A passionate man draweth even good into evil, and easUy believeth the worst SELF-CONTROL 491 3. Unpretendingness or modesty is a modification of temper- ance, its inner form, as it were. It is moderation of desire as such, the moderation of the desire for wealth and fame, posi- tion and pleasure. Unassuming modesty consists in habitu- ally lowering one's pretensions to the level of one's fortunes. Its effect is contentment ; and hence it is the safest guide to happiness, just as its opposite, covetousness, or cupidity is the surest means to unhappiness. Everybody is complaining of the rarity of contentment and of the prevalence of discontent. Although the conception of a past golden age of universal happiness is an optical illusion, the growing discontent among the European peoples of the present is not an illusion. Dis- content increases in direct proportion with inordinate desire, for the development of which the conditions are unusually favorable in our age. We no longer have a settled population ; everybody is on the move. Several generations ago it was the rule for a person to remain in the surroundings into which he was born, during his entire life. Now everybody is en- gaged in fortune-hunting. The large cities are the centres of the chase, they excite and tempt everybody, and everybody visits them or lives in them, at least in the imagination ; every inhabitant of every little village has relatives in the city, a son in the army and a daughter at work. The metropolis is a large bazaar, in which thousands of desirable things constantly excite desire. These wares are intended for all ; it is purely accidental that not everybody can buy them ; you and I could own them and make use of them just as well as some one else who has accidentally drawn a prize in the lottery or won a fortune on the stock exchange. Class pride and class customs A good and peaceable man turneth all things to good. He that is in peace, is not suspicious of any. But he that is discontented and troubled is tossed with divers suspicions ; he is neither quiet himself, nor suffereth others to be quiet. He often speaketh that which he ought not to speak ; and leaveth undone that which it were more expedient for him to do. He considereth what others are bound to do, and neglecteth that which he is bound to do himself. First, there- fore, have a careful zeal over thyself, and then thou mayest justly show thyself zealous also of thy neighbor's good.*' Ki ' 492 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES SELF-CONTROL 493 have disappeared in the " anonymousness " of metropolitan life. The equality of the masses, manifested in the similarity of dress and appearance, gives all the same rights. Hence, since every one constantly sees before him the things which others possess and which he must do without, for no good reason whatever — horses, servants, drawing-rooms, villas, clothes, jewels, articles of food — why should not everybody be discontented ? — In addition to this, the dam which religion formerly erected against covetousness, has been as good as washed away in our times. The thought of the transitoriness of everything earthly and the promise of eternity have lost their hold upon mankind. This is as true of the cultured classes as of the masses. Formerly, the hope of a future life, though it was not very inviting to the rich and the pleasure-seekers, consoled mankind in general for the hardships of this life. But what can console men now who have no hope of a future reward, when fortune fails to give them what it bestows upon others ? Is there no cure for this disease ? We are referred to the church and the restoration of its power. If by this we mean, not external power, but an inner frame of mind, humility and piety, then there can be no doubt that the remedy would prove effective. Perhaps nothing but true inner religiousness can give us perfect peace in regard to earthly things. And I am fully convinced that the church has had and still continues to have a salutary influence. I know of nothing that has greater power to raise the heart above the vain and transitory things of life than the Gospels with their simple and grand facts, teachings, and symbols. A proper interpretation of them will not fail to move the hearts even of our age ; and it certainly is a misfortune that a constantly increasing portion of our population is becoming farther and farther removed from the influences of these teachings. The Greek philosophers, too, suggested a remedy to their times, which suffered from the same disease : Abandon your false conceptions, above all, the false view that happiness de- pends upon prosperity. What is troubling you is not the lack of certain things, but the belief that you cannot be happy without them. Are you really sure that their possession would make you happy ? But certain it is that it makes you unhappy to desire them and not to get them. Now, since it is in your power not to desire them, but not in your power to obtain them, how foolish you are for resolving to get them instead of resolving not to desire them. — Yes, you say, but it is not in my power not to desire them. — Have you ever really and earnestly made the trial ? Have you, who have devoted so much attention and energy to so many things, ever devoted your attention and energy to this art ? Have you reflected upon it and practised it ? Have you em- ployed the aids at your disposal? Have you ever turned your gaze away from the things which excite desire ? Have you studied others, who do without the same things and others besides, and still are of good cheer? Look at Socrates: he passes through the market-place and enjoys the sight of all the beautiful things because he does not need them. Have you ever appealed to your pride to help you against vanity ? Some one has been promoted, and you have been passed by ; you have not been invited to a dinner ; have you, Epictetus asks, paid the price ? Of course, the price is flattery and sub- serviency. Well, then, pay the price at which these things are sold, if you deem it wise ; but if you are unwilling to pay, well, then, is it not shameless in you still to wish to have them? — And if theories alone will not help you, try practice, try asceticism : in order to break your own vanity and cupidity, voluntarily give up such things as you have. Strength grows with exercise ; you must merely give the will an opportunity to feel its power against desire. You are fighting for the best seat in the theatre, or on the train, and you become extremely angry because some one has beaten you ; now try to let the other man have it of your own free I' 494 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES SELF-CONTROL 495 i i: will, and note whether you have fared worse than usual, and then make the application to greater things. —And, above all, have you torn envy from your heart, the ugly weed, which poisons and tortures both body and soul ? If not, do it at once ; and do not believe that you have done anything for your happiness so long as you have failed in this. It is pain- ful to desire and not to obtain; but much more painful is it to desire to have more than others and to be unable to bear the thought of others having anything. Again ; if you have children, help them. There are two ways of looking at life, one of which will certainly make it happy, the other unhappy. The first is the habit of regarding everything good that life yields as surpassing your expecta- tions, and every misfortune as falling below them ; the sec- ond is the reverse of this. You have it in your power to give your child either mood. Grant all his wishes, give him everything he sees, let him choose what he ought to eat and drink, what he ought to do and to leave undone, remove all obstacles from his path, bear his burdens for him, praise his ability and goodness ; in short, be all tenderness and devo- tion ; and you may be sure that he will, upon entering the world, find it hard and niggardly ; that he will be discon- tented and unhappy. If you are unwilling that this should happen, steel your own heart, and do not be afraid of being called an unnatural mother by all educated mothers. Not long ago I witnessed the following little incident : Once there were two little girls, perfectly healthy and cheerful, and blessed with the best of appetites. They went to visit an aunt, who loved them very much, and did everything she could to please them. She used to ask them before each meal what they liked to eat, and when the meal was served, what they preferred to have. Before two weeks had passed, these two little girls no longer enjoyed their food ; one of them could n't eat this, the other could n't eat that ; their plates were always half full, and at the end of every meal they were discontented and in tears. " How is it," asked the aunt, when the mother of the two girls came to see her, " that things are so different at home ? " "I will tell you," she answered ; " at home I never ask them what they want, and never give them as much as they call for." Happy the man whom Fate treats in the same way. He that is able to choose each day what to do and what not to do, he that can have as much as he desires to have, will soon tire of life. — Hence, be thankful that you do not get every- thing you ask for ; learn to desire, so Marcus Aurelius coun- sels you, not that things govern themselves according to your wishes, but that your wishes govern themselves according to the things. 4. By the side of temperance Greek philosophy places courage^ the ability to resist painful, dangerous, and terrible impressions by means of a rational will. The former is the normal conduct in respect of pleasure ; the latter, of pain and danger. We may, with Aristotle, define both virtues as a mean between two vices : temperance is the proper mean between insensitiveness to sensuous enjoyment and licen- tiousness ; courage the mean between abject cowardice and blind foolhardiness. When an animal finds itself threatened by a hostile attack, we may notice one of two things : either the attack arouses fear and impels it to flight ; or it produces rage and rouses it to defend itself. The latter behavior is peculiar to beasts of prey, the former to their victims. Both forms of action are evidently adapted to the animal's nature and mode of life; the defenceless animal, whose body and temperament do not fit it for attack, strives to preserve itself by flight and con- cealment. Fear, which scents the danger from afar and impels the animal to rapid flight, is for it a useful natural en- dowment. The other quality, rage and ferociousness, is equally well suited to the beast of prey, which can defend 1 [Stepheii, chap. V., 2.— Tr.] V I li 'li h 'f 496 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES itself ; it must constantly be on its guard, externally and inter- nally, against surprises and attacks ; its preservation depends upon the success with which it solves this problem. Both modes of conduct are also found among men. There are men who run away like sheep at the first sign of danger. There are others, on the contrary, who, like beasts of prey, are straightway impelled to blind and ferocious attacks, when threatened or injured. Both modes of conduct are condemned by men, the former as cowardice, the latter as blind rage or foolhardiness. A different kind of behavior is required of man, and that is courage. That man is brave who, when attacked and in peril, neither blindly runs away nor rushes into danger, but retaining his composure, carefully and calmly studies the situation, quietly deliberates and decides, and then carries out his resolution firmly and energetically, whether it be resistance and attack, or defence and retreat. Prudence, therefore, constitutes an essential part of valor. A significant custom is said to have prevailed among the Spartans. Before the battle the king first offered sacrifices to the Muses, " presumably," says L. Schmidt,^ " to implore them that his army might, even during the battle, retain the pure ApoUinic freedom from wild passion." — The origin of this virtue might be explained biologically, as follows. The most dangerous enemy of man is man. In battle with this ad- versary courage has been acquired ; it is the means of de- fence against the most fearful weapon of attack, the intellect. Against this, neither blind flight nor blind aggression will avail, as is seen in the battle of man with animals. Fear carries the fleeing ones into his net, while rage brings the ferocious ones within range of his sword or gun. Such an enemy can be resisted only by means of the same weapon, the intellect, that is, by courage, by presence of mind in battle. The nature of courage is somewhat obscured in popular speech. According to the above explanation, courage 1 Ethik der Griechen, II., 37. SELF-CONTROL 497 may be exhibited in retreat as well as in resistance or attack. Popular usage is inclined to regard retreat under all circum- stances as incompatible with bravery. Perhaps the cause of this one-sided conception may be sought in the following. The battle of man with man is uniformly not a battle of the individual with the individual, but a battle of one collective body against another. It is evidently an essential condition of the strength of a company of fighters that the individual persevere in the struggle, at all hazards, and rather fall than r\y ; the power of the collective body depends on the confi- dence which each individual has in the trustworthiness of the other. Courage is a social virtue. Martial courage is the first form in which this quality receives recognition, perhaps the very first virtue which wins admiration. Courage is originally the virtue, cowardice the vice, as the Greek and Roman usage of language attests. And youth has no sincerer regard for any virtue than for stern and shrewd, and especially magnanimous courage. As civilization advances, its importance diminishes. Civi- lization makes for peace. The individual does not have to protect himself by his own strength and courage, he enjoys the protection of the laws and the police. The Indian con- stantly carries his life in his hands. Even during the Middle Ages everybody bore arms, at least outside of the city walls. We have laid down our arms because we no longer need them. It is not improbable that we have thereby lost our inner readiness to defend our lives with the weapon in our hands. The average European could hardly dare to compete, individually, with the individual Indian or Bedouin in personal bravery. He is also inferior to them in bearing hardships. But what gives him his superiority is, besides the instruments of war, organization and discipline. These are the things which turn the scale in the great battles of civilized nations. The personal bravery of the individual soldier does not count for very much. Our entire civil and military education is 32 498 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES SELF-CONTROL 499 J !i;t I r r','. k rii- r' little adapted to produce it; its main object is to develop discipline: obedience, however, is, to a certain extent, the opposite of courage. 6. As civilization advances, other forms of resistance come to surpass martial courage in importance. Chief among these I mention what might be called civil courage, independence of thought, characterful self-assertion against the great pressure exerted by superior and inferior forces. Civilization has the tendency to create relations of dependence ; dependence upon men takes the place of dependence upon nature : dependence upon superiors and patrons, friends and fellow-partisans, customers and voters, society and public opinion. Depen- dence has the tendency to pervert the will : it inclines the individual to accommodate himself, to let things take their course, to obsequiousness, to cowardly self-denial, to falsehood in every form. So the moral duty arises to develop the inner power of resistance which calmly and firmly opposes every attempt to subject the individual to established customs and authority, which serves and remains loyal to truth and justice, regardless of whether such conduct brings favor and popularity or disfavor and contempt. To remain true to oneself, that is the aim of such ideal courage. No one can have it, the centre of whose life does not lie within himself ; whoever makes external things his ultimate goal cannot attain to inner freedom. Spinoza was, in his life and teach- ing, a great preacher of this doctrine of freedom. Another form of courage is perseverance or persistence^ the power of the will to accept and continuously to endure all kinds of hardships and exertions, which are necessary to realize one's ends. It is the virtue of the working man. Martial courage was the virtue of the heroic age, persever- ance is the courage of the industrial age. It is in this virtue that the civilized man so immeasurably surpasses the savage. The savage is capable of great momentary exertions, but not of making a continued effort to overcome the small obstacles in which all work consists. A partial reason for this is his inability to conceive far-reaching aims. Hence, as soon as the momentary pressure of want or of the natural impulse ceases, he yields to the law of inertia, which also governs living bodies. The love of order may also be regarded as a phase of perseverance, the habit of doing everything with business- like regularity : a very valuable quality, which procures for us freedom and tranquillity. The consequence of disorder is confusion, which begets fear and trouble. This is especially true of the tendency to procrastinate. When our work is done, we feel at peace, but when we put off our tasks, we are constantly fretting about them, and are finally forced to per- form them hastily and unsatisfactorily at an inopportune time. The man who is fifteen minutes late, suffers torture during the rest of the day. Patience, too, is related to perseverance. It is the ability to bear pain and suffering without being overcome by them. We may distinguish two aspects of patience : a somewhat passive patience, which bears sufferings without complaint and opposition, and the more active power of the soul, the ability to survive defeats, disappointments, and losses, and to begin life anew. — Patience is feminine courage. Both forms, especially the former, are more characteristic of women than of men ; women not infrequently display a remarkable capacity for enduring pain. This fact is evidently due to the natural difference of the sexes ; women are more experienced in all kinds of suffering than men. A man's nature is im- pelled to attack and defence : hence he finds it more difficult to yield to the inevitable. But active patience, too, the elastic resistance of the soul, is one of the most beautiful and valu- able qualities of the woman. It is harder for a man to get up again after he has met with misfortunes. A woman generally finds less difficulty in beginning anew ; she soon begins to hope and fear again, to work and strive ; she has a more flexible m p.. b 600 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES SELF-CONTROL 501 b; 1 Bl^i 5; k nature. Man's strength is more unbending and brittle. A woman is also better able to battle with long-continued troubles and obstacles ; when the man impatiently sinks beneath the load, she retains her equanimity and even her cheerfulness. For that reason woman is the born guardian of youth, the nurse of the sick, and the counsellor of old age.^ Great patience in suffering is the invariable mark of a noble character ; courage and perseverance may belong even to a selfish and malicious will. Patient resignation in suffering is a sign that the violent natural impulse to life, which rebels against suffering, has been broken and silenced by a higher will. This is why sufferings which are accepted by the heart and patiently borne are expiatory : think of the thief on the cross. 6. A third form of self-control is calmness, the ability to control, by the rational will, such emotions as result from disturbances in our relations with our fellow-men : e.g., anger, vexation, ill -humor. To the lack of this virtue, and to envy and pride, are due most of the disagreeable annoyances which wear out the lives of so many men. Without the ability to overcome the inevitable petty collisions, intercourse with human beings becomes a constant torture. A man moves into an apartment house. On the floor above him lives a family with half-a-dozen children, who are making diligent use of the first right of man to use his hands and feet. The noise annoys him, he loses his temper and in his anger sends up a servant to say that the noise is intolerable, and that the gentleman downstairs insists upon greater quiet. What is the effect ? The familv thus addressed resents such inter- ference, and henceforth lets the children make more noise ^ In a certain sense the greater capacity of women for bearing sufferings and misfortune is statistically shown by the smaller number of suicides among i/vomen. According to statistics, four times as many men commit suicide as women. Hence, if suicide is due to the person's inability to endure life any longer, we can say that the power of the woman to bear suffering is four times as great as that of the man. than before. And now the battle is on : our friend begins to storm around himself, slams the doors, stamps with his feet, sends for the landlord and the police, and becomes an- grier and more displeased every day. In this way his house becomes a perfect hell. His mind is filled with venomous discontent ; and, like a vessel full to the brim, overflows with bitterness and poisonous malice at the slightest contact. And in the meanwhile he is deploring the baseness of man in general. And yet, no one, evidently, is to blame but himself, he is annoying and tormenting himself. He is reaping what he sowed ; wie der Gruss, so der Bank. Had he, instead of sending his servant, put on his best coat and called upon the mother of those children, whose feet are ruining his brain, had he confessed to her that he had an unfortunate failing, that he was extremely sensitive to sounds, and had he begged of her, to have a little regard for his feelings if she could ; had he likewise not forgotten, upon leaving, to praise the beauty and good behavior of her children and to admire her taste in furnishing her home: everything would have been so different. In at least nine cases out of ten — and such a probability makes it worth a trial — he would have been kindly received, and one-half or three-fourths of the disturbance would have been removed. He might then have prescribed for himself a little Stoic philosophy, to enable him to endure the remaining fraction. " If you are going to bathe," Epictetus admonishes us, " place before yourself what happens in the bath : some splashing the water, others push- ing against one another, others abusing one another, and some stealing: and thus with more safety you will under- take the matter, if you say to yourself, I now intend to bathe, and to maintain my will in a manner conformable to nature." So it is here: when you move into an apartment house, think of what will happen there ; the neighbor's dog will bark, his boys will romp around, his daughters will play 1 ' '' |l >: tug; I lii i V 1 I n i I 602 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES on the piano ; if you cannot endure these things, do not move in, but build yourself a house outside of the city, be it ever so modest. But if you must move in, tell yourself before- hand that you must, and yield to the inevitable. To do all this you need not even have any love for human- ity — that, of course, would make it easier for you; it is simply a matter of prudence. However righteous your anger may be, suppress it; anger will destroy your life and happiness. When people try to make you angry, say: I shall not allow myself to be made angry, for I shall be the one to suffer for it. Indeed, it is very strange : we know that we must always adapt ourselves to the nature of the things which we desire to subject to our purposes; only when it comes to human beings do we seem to forget it. A stone is in my way, I do not scold it, but walk around it or push it aside. A watch or a machine is out of order ; we do not beat it, but inquire into the cause, or hand it over to an expert to mend the defect. But when a human being fails to do our bidding, when a neighbor displeases us, or a friend acts in a manner which we do not consider right, when a pupil does not know his lesson, or the soup does not taste right, we get angry and scold. As though abuse and anger were the panacea for governing human souls ! A human soul is of all things in the world the most complicated and most difficult to handle ; and hence the art of governing souls is the hardest of all arts. And since it is the most important art for our happi- ness, it surely deserves to be studied with greater care. The most important thing in this art, however, is the ability to retain one's composure ; only calm and prudent investigation will succeed in discovering the causes of the trouble, and not until these have been found can the proper attempts be made to remedy it. However this may be brought about, whether by instruction, example, counsel, encouragement, assistance, admonition, entreaty, threats, punishment, — under all cir- SELF-CONTROL 503 cumstances, Bacon's word will hold good that he alone can rule nature who obeys her. Any one, of course, can get angry and scold, but this is merely a confession of helpless- ness, and does not tend to improve matters ; nay, it is apt to make them worse. Even where punishment is the proper remedy, it will be all the more effective, if administered calmly and firmly.^ 7. The fruit of self-control, which reaches its completion in the virtues of temperance and unpretendingness, courage and perseverance, patience and tranquillity, is inner peace and cheerfulness of mind, Democritus's e'Trt^u/i/a, the tranquUitas animi of the Stoics. This is not only in itself the greatest part of human happiness, but also the source of real human pleasures. The calm and cheerful soul is capable of the quiet pleasures of reflection : the forms of things are mir- rored best in the tranquil lake. The social duties thrive in the contented heart, - justice, veracity, tenderness, benevolence, faithfulness ; and from these in turn spring the joys which friendship and domestic happiness yield. This is the path which leads to self-preservation and wel- fare. Wisdom is needed to find and follow it. Hence all peoples praise wisdom as the great guide of life. The royal sage of the Hebrews mingles his praises with those of the Greek philosophers: "Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding. For the mer- chandise of it is better than the merchandise of silver, and the gain thereof than fine gold. She is more precious than rubies : and all the things thou canst desire are not 1 C. G. Gordon, the hero of Khartoum, who quelled the great Taiping in- surrection in China, one of the greatest tamers of men that ever lived onc^ wrote : The older we grow the hetter we learn to treat human beings as though they were lifeless objects ; that is, to do for them what we can without canng whether they will thank us or not. So God acts towards us He lets the ram fall on the just and the unjust, he seldom meets with gratitude he is most often forgotten. (In an anonymous biography, C. G. Gordon^ the Hero of Khartoum, 1885, p. 178.) [I have not been able to obtain the book, and cannot therefore quote tlie passage exactly. — Tr.] K 604 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES to be compared unto her. Length of days is in her right hand; and in her left hand riches and honor. Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her : and happy is every one that retaineth her. The Lord by wisdom has founded the earth ; by understanding hath he established the heavens." ^ 1 [Proverbs, HI., 13-19.] CHAPTER III THE BODILY LIFE^ 1. The function of the body is to serve as the or^an and symbol of the soul. There is no difference of opinion concern- ing this practical estimate of the two phases of man's nature. Even the materialist, who regards the soul as a passing func- tion of matter, will accept our proposition ; for him too the body is the servant of the soul. Every one is likewise agreed as to what constitutes a good servant. To accomplish and endure much and to demand little, — these are the qualities which we all consider valuable in a servant. These also determine what is desirable in a body ; the healthy, strong, and hardened body endures much and wants little : the sickly, weak, and pampered body does little and makes great demands. Hence follows the rule of duty : Do what is suited to preserve and increase the health and strength of the body ; avoid what impairs and weakens it. — The other function of the body is to express or symbolize psychical life. Beauty and grace are the visible corporeal manifestations of a good and beautiful soul. Grace is acquired beauty ; the quiet se- curity of the soul which is master of itself, is reflected in quiet, steady, and appropriate movements. Hence follows the rule of duty : Educate the body, so that it may appear in this visible world as a pleasing expression of the invisible beauty of the soul. 1 [Rousseau, ^mik; Porter, Part IL, ch. III. ; Hoffding, XI. ; W \xnAt, Ethik, Part I., ch. III., 2, 3; Fowler and Wilson, Part II., ch. I. ; Uunze, §§ 9 f. ; Dorner, pp. 336-356. — Tb.] i,.r !l Mil [Wehrgeld] — a system in which an officer of the law as the representative of the king, who is the guardian of order, co-operated — and at last self-help and personal revenge were entirely done away with. 4. This also explains the right of the community to com- pel lawful behavior on the part of the individual by force and punishment. It has a right to compel and punish because it has a right to preserve itself. And this right is at the same time a duti/, because self-preservation is the first and almost only duty of the community. The explanation of the penal right forms the subject of endless debate.^ Here as everywhere in practical philosophy we have the two opposing views which we have termed the teleological and intuitional-formalistic. The latter attempts to justify punishment as the immediately necessary, ethical- logical consequence of the crime ; the former explains it by its effects upon human welfare. Here, too, Kant is responsible for the reaction against the teleological conception. " The penal law," he says," is a cate- gorical imperative." " Judicial punishment can never be in- flicted merely as a means of promoting another good for the criminal himself or for civil society, but must always be im- posed because he has broken a law ; " — and he cries " woe " upon all such as go through the serpentine windings of the eudaemonistic theory .^ And Hegel adopts the same view, adding the usual statements concerning the superficiality and triviality of those who employ their "understanding" in these matters, which is inadequate, because the "con- cept" is what we are after. He deduces punishment as the logical abrogation of the violation of right: "The violation of right as right is, indeed, a positive, external 1 [See in addition to the works already mentioned : Spinoza, Preface to Part IV. ; Bentham, chs. XIII.-XVII. ; Maine, Ancient Law, ch. II. ; Hoffding, XXXIX. ; Bowne, ch. X. ; Wundt, Part III., ch. III., 5 ; Nietzsofce, Genmlogie, 70 ff. ; Runze , §§ 76 ff. ; Proal, Le crime et la peine ; Criminal Statistics in Oettingen, §§ 37, 38, 39, 57. — Tr.] 2 liechtslehre, § 49. affair, but it is naught in itself. The manifestation of its nullity is the annihilation of that violation, which likewise appears in external form. This brings out the reality of right; its form of necessity is mediated by the abrogation of its violation." Offering violence to the criminal will is " the annulling of the crime, which otherwise would main- tain its own validity, and the restoration of the right. "^ It is one of the strangest psychological riddles that the turbid profundity of such reflections should have been mis- taken by many of Hegel's contemporaries as the solution of the problem ; as though plays upon words and ambiguities, like nullity and abrogation, were thoughts ! For can we affect the past and make naught what has been done ? And if ab- rogation and negation cannot mean this, what do they mean ? That even if a thing did happen, it ought not to have happened ? And are criminals being hung and beheaded, im- prisoned and deported, simply in order to bring this out ? — But here, too, the intuitional-formalistic theory receives support from common-sense. The latter, too, will answer the ques- tion, Why is the criminal punished? by saying: Well, of course, because it is right, and because he deserves punish- ment ; what is there so remarkable in that ? So say also Kant and Hegel : There is nothing remarkable in this ; punishment is demanded by the categorical imperative ; punishment is the logically-necessary consequence of wrong ! It would be futile to attempt to dissuade philosophers who are in love with their formula from believing that it contains the answer to all the problems of the universe and of life. But it will perhaps be possible to convince healthy common- sense that this answer does not entirely settle the matter. So the criminal is punished because he deserves punishment ? Admirable, and undoubtedly true ! But would there be pun- ishment if it had absolutely no effect and could have none in 1 Naturrecht, §§ 90 ff. [Translated in part by J. M. Sterrett, The Ethics of Hegel, 1893, pp. 94 ff. — Tb.] % . 608 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES JUSTICE 609 PI'; the very nature of things ? Would thieves be lodged in jails and penitentiaries if that did not prevent them from stealing, either during their imprisonment or afterwards, or at least, if no one else were thereby deterred from theft ? That is hardly probable ; society would scarcely undertake to build prisons and penitentiaries if the existence of such institu- tions had absolutely no influence upon the annual number of robberies and burglaries. The victim of the criminal might, perhaps, still desire punishment to be inflicted, provided he considered confinement in the penitentiary as an evil ; other- wise, he would have no interest in the matter; the mere "manifestation and abrogation of the wrong" would not relieve his anger. The " retrospective '* theory of punishment, then, seems to be inadequate. Punishment is inflicted because a crime has been committed (quia peccatum esf); very true, but this because is not really the ground, but only the occasion of the punishment. The ground is to be sought in the effect, and the effect is not in the past but in the future : punishment is an evil which is inflicted upon the criminal by the authori- ties of the state in order that crime may not be committed in the future {ne peccetur). People cover up a well because a child has fallen into it, and in order that it may not happen again ; they build dams because the river inundates the fields, and in order that it may not happen again. If it were not for the in order that, the because would not determine them to act in the manner indicated. If there were no future, there would be absolutely no effects and no acts ; although it may be con- ceded that a tendency to do afterwards what ought to have been done before, even though it can do no more good, occa- sionally expresses itself in attempts at action. When the maid has broken the dish, she puts the pieces together again, and says, This is the way it was ! It is encouraging to note that the science of criminal juris- prudence is beginning to abandon the purely formalistic con- ception of Speculative Philosophy, and is turning to the teleo- logical view. It seems to me that the influence of Hegel with his contempt for the "intelligible," i.e., the causal-teleological view, was particularly bad in this field. It led to a total neglect of the question concerning the effect of punishment ; science, it was held, had solely to determine the right. The main thing was to ascertain the number of years and days in jail or prison which ought to be imposed for each particular delict. No one ever inquired whether these punishments were suitable means for preventing crimes. The legislator fixed certain general penalties, the judge applied them to the particular cases, and this settled the matter, justice was satisfied, the crime expiated. The criminal was then turned over to the authorities whose business it was to execute the sentence. And from this quarter came the opposition to the theory. It could not escape the notice of sharpsighted and conscientious men that especially the short terms of imprison- ment — though they might satisfy " the idea of the right " and serve to '' make manifest " the wrong — were by no means particularly fitted to hinder crime, nay, were wholly ineffective in many cases; that they did the very opposite. Short terms of imprisonment, without special physical priva- tions or inconveniences, hardly deter the habitual criminal, who has no social position to lose; nay, he frequently seeks tem- porary refuge in the penitentiary. For the accidental crimi- nal, on the other hand, who violates the law in consequence of poverty, opportunity, temptation, or ignorance of the law, the prison often becomes a school for crime. Here, in the com- pany of old and experienced criminals, he loses his reverence for custom and law, he forms acquaintances who afterwards cling to him and initiate him into all kinds of crimes; he loses his self-respect, his civil honor, and his ability to make an honest living. In this way his ability to resist crime is weakened on all sides ; he begins to develop into an habitual criminal. ..^ 09 610 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES JUSTICE 611 The teleological theory, which was applied to the entire field of jurisprudence by Jhering in his work, Der Zweck im Eecht,^ and particularly to the penal law by F. von Liszt in his Lehrhueh des Strafrechts,^ calls attention to the causes of crime on the one hand, and to the efficacy of punishment on the other, and will, it is to be hoped, prove more success- ful in coping with crime. For we surely all agree that our system of criminal jurisprudence by no means satisfies all just demands. A system that enables thousands of profes- sional criminals to commit the same crimes over and over again, which, with the assistance of an army of police offi- cers, captures them each time, grants them long and tedious trials, convicting them after endless sessions and at great expense, and finally imprisons them for a few months or years, only to release them again at the expiration of their terms, for a few months, permitting them to take up their calling where they left it off, and to propagate their kind — such a system, I say, can hardly be designated as a satisfac- tory institution for the protection of society against crime. ^ And it is equally hard to understand the calmness with which our criminal authorities contemplate the fact that four hundred thousand persons are sentenced to prison in Prussia annually ; that is, that one out of every seventy has been in prison ! How many of the population are not punished ? 1 The Teleology of Law. a Handbook of Criminal Law, 3d edition, 1888. 8 In the FeuiUeton of a Berlin paper I once read the following : " A comical scene may frequently be witnessed in the streets during these Christmas holidays. The pickpocket ia now diligently engaged in shadowing his victims, who gather around the show-windows of the stores. But we may regularly notice, not far from him, a man of the law, who keeps a sharp watch upon him, and catches him by the collar as soon as he puts his hands into people's pockets." The writer evidentlv intended to remind the citizen of Berlin how well his pocket was being guarded : behind every pickpocket stands the detective, who is simply watching his chance ' — Would the burgomaster or the aldermen of a medieval town have regarded this scene as so comical ? Would they not rather have declared with an angry oath : Such a system of having one thousand policemen watch one thousand professional thieves seems to be the most flagrant madness, even though there is method in it ! Half of those who are old enough to serve time ? And what influence have these conditions upon the sentiments of the masses in reference to their relation to the state ? Punishment is efficacious in many ways: it may reform the criminal by bringing him to his senses and reconciling him with the injured person and society ; it acts as a deter- rent, — in extreme cases by eliminating the criminal, that is, by killing or deporting him ; it also deters all others who may show an inclination to similar crimes, for offences com- mitted with impunity invite imitation, and everybody would feel that he had been cheated if he did not follow suit. All this is perfectly self-evident. It would be awkward, of course, to regard these things as separate, independent ends of punishment; the purpose of punishment is one: to pre- serve peace and security, the condition of human life. The reform of the convict by education is not included in the purpose of punishment as such. It can easily be combined with the execution of a certain kind of punishment, namely, with incarceration; it is not, however, one of the real effects of punishment, but one of the effects of benevolence connected with it. The care of discharged criminals be- longs in the same category. Capital punishment is a subject of especial controversy. Some thinkers, following Beccaria's ^ example, have denied to the state the right to deprive any one of the right to life, because it cannot be assumed that any one would have con- sented, upon making the state contract, to be deprived of that right. And Schleiermacher holds that society should not inflict upon the individual any punishment that he would not inflict upon himself.2 Kant rejects Beccaria's argument as sophistry and as a perversion of justice ; he says it springs from the sympathetic sentimentalism of an affected hu- 1 [De delitti e delle pene, 1764. — Tr.] * [Ckristliche SiUenlehre, p. 248. Victor Hugo is a violent opponent of capital punishment. See his Le dernier jour d'un condamne'. — Tr.] 612 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES JUSTICE 613 ir*^ Wffi] manism.^ Indeed, we might ask with Justus Moeser whether the state has any right to permit the professional murderer to live, first, in view of the relatives of the victim, whom the state has deprived of the possibility of revenge; secondly, in view of those who are compelled to provide for the main- tenance of the prisoner; thirdly, in view of the future pos- sible victims of his criminal impulse. Let us suppose that a man makes a regular business of abducting, robbing, and murdering servant girls in search of employment: there can be no doubt that the people's sense of justice will be sat- isfied with nothing less than the death of such a monster ; they would simply regard it as an absurd outrage to keep and to support him for life at public expense. I confess, the fact that the Liberal party regards the abolition of capital punishment as one of its chief political aims, has always seemed to me to prove how little it understands the real sentiments of our people. And I further confess that I do not deem it impossible that the future will again make a more extended use of the process of extermination. That modern nations, which have for so many centuries relent- lessly exterminated worthless individuals, have for a few generations succeeded in discarding these methods does not at all prove that such a thing is permanently possible. There can hardly be a doubt that the fear of crime, which was formerly kept alive in the popular consciousness by so many death-sentences, is not so great to-day as it was one hundred years ago. I also call attention to the fact that compulsion is not con- fined to the criminal law. We find it in civil law as well ; especially where the state compels the discharge of obliga- tions based upon contract. Here, too, the reason for coer- cion is apparently a teleological one. Two persons make a contract calling for a particular service or a specific payment. The obligation is not met. Why docs the law compel the 1 [Rechtsletire, Hartenstein's edition, 149 ff.] individual to keep his contract ? Why docs it not say : That is a bargain which does not concern me ; why were you so reckless as to trust that man or to lend him money ? Evi- dently, because it is not immaterial to the state ; because it has a very essential interest, not in this particular case as such, it is true, but in the keeping of contracts in general Without a guarantee that contracts will be kept, there coulc? be no intercourse except in the form of exchange or cash barter, and no personal service except in the form of slavery. If, then, higher civilization is made possible only by a de- veloped system of intercourse, the perfection of legal forms and legal protection becomes a teleological necessity for intercourse. 5. From this standpoint we can also understand the duty of the individual to co-operate in supporting the positive right and in battling against injustice. He is in duty bound to resist breaches of the law, even when they do not directly affect him. This duty is recognized by the state : I am com- pelled to resist attacks upon the right by serving as a wit- ness, juror, soldier, or official. But the individual is also morally bound to protect against injustice the injured right in general, even when it is not protected by the law. It is the virtue of the chivalrous man to defeat by personal inter- vention, or to call to account before the courts, every possible form of injustice that interferes with the right, especially the rights of the defenceless, either by violence, strategy, or temptation. We must, of course, exercise due care in this regard : for injustice and self-caused misery are fond of giving themselves the air of injured innocence. The absence of this virtue forms one of the most painful omissions in the morality of the New Testament. To work and suffer for others it recognizes as a virtue, but of the battle against injustice and violence for the protection of others it says almost nothing. What ought the Samaritan to have done had he reached the spot a quarter of an hour V w 614 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES earlier and had found the rohbers still at work, and had he seen only one way of rescuing their victim, that is, by attacking and killing them ? I confess, I do not know how to answer this question in the spirit of the Gospel. Moses, who strangled the Egyptian, gave us an unambiguous answer by his example; does the New Testament give us the same answer? It does not seem so: Peter's experience with the servant Malchus seems to point to a difPerent solution; the moral to be drawn from it is evidently this, Resist ye not evil neither that which is done to yourselves, nor that which is done to others. So, too, the old Christian com- munities present us with many examples of heroic suffer- ing, but not with examples of chivalrous battles against the oppressors and persecutors of innocence. Such a type of conduct was first developed by mediaeval Christianity. No one in our times will doubt that it is a duty to resist and battle against the injustice done to others. But how about the wrong inflicted upon myself f Is it a duty to offer resistance to this also, and even to oppose it with force, should occasion demand ? Or is the defence of one's own rights merely a matter of inclination, and not a commandment of justice ? The ethics of the Gospel favors the latter view ; it nowhere insists that we assert our own rights, while it often admonishes us not to judge, not to go to law, not to take re- venge, but to forgive transgressions and to love our enemies. ' There has perhaps never been a time when a community calling itself Christian strictly obeyed such a command. It is to be assumed that Christians have always — at least in extreme cases -though perhaps with some misgivings, ap- pealed to the law for protection and for the punishment of evil. We know that Paul appealed to his Roman citizenship for protection against violence and injustice. Now, espe- cially, that Christian states have been established, the evan- gelical injunction, "Love and forgive your enemy," does not hinder any one from going to law and causing punishment JUSTICE 615 to be inflicted by due legal process. Is this merely a human weakness, which cannot resist one of the strongest impulses, the love of revenge, or does the command not hold, at least not without limitation ? There is no doubt in my mind that the latter is the case. If the public measures which are taken to hinder injustice are necessary for the establishment of order and security, and hence make for welfare, then it will be the duty of the individual to do all in his power to support them and to carry them out. Whoever permits his rights to be inter- fered with without making legal resistance, to that extent weakens the barriers erected against injustice. Every act of injustice is directed not only against me, but against the entire legal system, and, if allowed to go unpunished, dimin- ishes the latter's power of resistance. Good-natured or cowardly compliance invites repetition and imitation; it also tempts those to do wrong who would otherwise be de- terred by fear ; and thereby endangers the rights of others. A legal community resembles a dike-union. Duty towards the community demands that even the smallest break in the dike be taken notice of and stopped up. So, too, it is the duty of every member to see to it that no breaches are made in that part of the universal defence against the tur- bulent floods of injustice which is placed under his charge, that is, in his own rights. R. von Jhering ably develops this view in his thoughtful little treatise: Der Kampf urns EechO The right, he says, is acquired and kept alive by struggle. To flee in this battle is to abandon one's moral dignity as a legal subject, and at the same time to injure one's fellow soldiers by making a breach in the ranks for the enemy to enter. The strength of the public legal system depends upon each individual's willingness to insist upon his rights as representing the universal right, and upon the universal right as represent- 1 [The Struggle for the Right. 1 616 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES m ing his own rights, and, if need be, to fight for them. An English traveller, says Jhering, remains in a town for days and days to resist the exorbitant demands of a hotel-keeper or coachman, and spends ten times the sum involved in the dispute, in order, so it appears, to defend the rights of old England. " The people laugh at him, and do not know what it all means — it would be better for them if they understood him. For in the few guldens for which the man is here fighting, there is, indeed, a piece of old England ; at home in his own country everybody understands him, and hence takes good care not to overcharge him. Imagine an Austrian of the same social rank and wealth in a similar situation, how would he act ? If I may trust my own experiences, not ten out of one hundred would follow the example of the Englishman. They would dread the inconvenience arising from the trouble, the notoriety, the danger of being misun- derstood, which an Englishman in England need not fear and which he calmly accepts abroad, — in short, they would pay. But there is more in the gulden which the Englishman refuses to pay, and which the Austrian pays, than we are apt to believe; there is a piece of England in it, and a piece of Austria, and it represents centuries of their re- spective political evolution and social life." ^ Very true; the energy with which each individual in a nation resists wrong, and the amount of wrong committed, stand exactly in inverse proportion to each other. In free nations this active side of justice, the sense of right, de- velops. In nations that are not free, the individual expects leniency, privileges, favors, mercy; here mendicancy, the tipping-system, bribery, and corruption thrive. 6. The jurist properly emphasizes the duty to respect and protect others' as well as our own rights by lawful means, and even by violent means if necessary. The moralist, on the other hand, will insist, with equal propriety, that this 1 §44. u. JUSTICE 617 duty is not absolute, that the duty to respect and protect the right must be limited and supplemented by the demands of equity and magnanimity. Equity demands that we voluntarily resign claims and acts to which we have an undoubted formal right, so that our own interests may not be advanced at relatively greater damage to those of others. This is a demand, not of the law, but of morality, which, it must not be forgotten, is rooted in the very nature of justice: my regard for others and their inter- ests, which are just as important as my own, will hinder me from exacting from others all that the law allows. To insist rigorously on one's rights would be violating the very spirit of justice, for justice really demands that the different interests be fairly apportioned, but it cannot, on account of its mechanical nature, wholly adapt itself to the individual cases, and hence can realize its end only imperfectly. It appeals to the fair-mindedness of the interested parties for help, and now and then expressly authorizes the judge to make revisions in the interests of equity. Magnanimity is the virtue which does not requite personal injuries, but overlooks them, and does not embrace the opportunity for revenge, even though it present itself. Christianity goes so far as to demand love of enemies : Love him who sins against you, as a brother, and not only bear him no grudge, but forgive him with all your heart, and return good for evil. The command of the Gospel seems difliicult and almost unnatural. The natural man deems it right and proper to love his friends and to hate his enemies. Would it not be unjust to the former if we should treat the latter in the same way ? What would there be left for my friends if I were to treat my enemies with pure benevolence and beneficence ? And shall I endure every injury, every attack against myself and my interests without exception, and do nothing but good in return ? Would that not be encouraging and provoking r. I P I*' W w. 618 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES wickedness ? Has not nature herself taught all living crea- tures to resist attacks so that they may defend themselves and have peace ? Certainly, we must admit it ; and resist- ance and resentment, both private and public, are justifiable in their proper place. But they are not in every case the proper means of establishing and ensuring peace, and hence the command. Resist every infraction of the law by all law- ful means, cannot have absolute validity. A neighbor in- sults me with a frivolous remark, or treats me unkindly. Shall I summon him before court ? Shall I obtain satisfac- tion by private means ? The opportunity will surely pre- sent itself, owing to the closeness of our relations. What would be the effect ? Would he be more careful in future ? Perhaps. But another effect would surely follow: my retaliation would leave a sting in him ; he would consider himself the affronted party : For such a trifle, on account of a mere word 1 he would say. He would make up his mind to pay me back at the next opportunity, and to show me at the same time that he was not afraid of me. The moment arrives when he can play me a trick or do me a favor, protect me against damage. He makes use of his chance by scorn- fully reminding me of my former conduct. And now it is my turn again. I simply defended my good rights before ; his present treatment of me is an intentional injury : this I shall not forget. And so we move our revenge back and forth, intensifying it as we go, making our enmity deeper each time. Here the "struggle for the right" did not bring peace, as it should have done, but the bitterest, most per- nicious war, sapping the strength of both of us. How differ- ent it would have been, had the first act of revenge been omitted, had the first act of injustice been met with com- plete, free forgiveness! Perhaps the insulting remark, which inaugurated the war of revenge, might have formed the starting-point of a lasting friendship. An opportunity was afforded for requiting the wrong; I did not embrace it, JUSTICE 619 but was sincere and kind, polite and obliging. He was sur- prised and perplexed; he felt as though I were heaping coals of fire upon his head, and resolved to wipe out the remembrance of that first occurrence. The first act of injury and forgiveness became the basis for a firm friendship be- tween us; my forgiveness and his acceptance of the same are guarantees of our mutual good will. Thus, to speak with the Apostle, evil has been overcome with good. There is no grander and more beautiful art than this; Jesus does not forget it in the beatitudes : Blessed are the peacemakers. Spinoza furnishes us with the psychological formula for it : " Hatred is increased by hatred, and can, on the other hand, be destroyed by love. Hatred which is completely vanquished by love passes into love; and love is then greater than if hatred had not preceded it. " ^ Hence " the wise man (qui ex ductu rationis vivit) endeavors, so far as he can, to render back love or kindness for other men's hatred, anger, and contempt." And with a warmth not usual to him the mathematical judge of human affairs adds : " He who chooses to avenge wrongs with hatred is assuredly wretched. But he who strives to conquer hatred with love, fights his battle in joy and confidence; he withstands many as easily as one, and has very little need of fortune's aid. Those whom he vanquishes yield joyfully, not through fail- ure, but through increase of their powers. " ^ If, then, both modes of conduct are justifiable, the ques- tion arises: How are we to limit the command of forgiveness and the command of retaliation? When is the former, when the latter, in place ? It will not be hard to give a general answer : That form of conduct is always appropriate and duti- ful which in each case tends to realize the ultimate end, the avoidance of further injustice and lasting peace. If to forget and to forgive were the means of hindering theft and of preserving the institution of property, we should undoubt- 1 Ethics, III., 43, 44. 2 Ethics, IV., 46. 'M 620 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES JUSTICE 621 ft' r^'-. it. s edly make exclusive use of this means. If retaliation and punishment were the sole and surest means of making him peaceful and kind who treats us impolitely, unkindly, and uncivilly, we should also know what to do. The trouble is, different cases require different treatment, and it will often be impossible to determine with certainty what is the most effective, and, hence, most appropriate, method of procedure in a particular instance. It certainly cannot be indicated by moral philosophy in universal propositions or categorical imperatives. Only experienced moral tact, which takes into account all the concrete circumstances, can discover the proper course to pursue in each particular case, which, how- ever, does not exclude the possibility of error. Moral phi- losophy can perhaps merely indicate the general points of view from which each case must be considered. We may mention the following: — (1) Forgiveness is possible when the offence is directed against a particular person ; punishment is necessary when the offence is directed not so much against a particular per- son as against custom and law in general. Theft, for ex- ample, is not a crime against the particular person as such, but against the owner as such, hence, against the institution of property. To overlook it is therefore less possible than to overlook an insult which is aimed solely at myself, and does not show a general tendency to such offences. The case is different when it comes to insulting an official in the exercise of his duties, — for which reason retaliation is more in place Tiere. The criminal law takes account of these facts in so far as it distinguishes between delicts which are prosecuted ex officio and such as are prosecuted solely upon complaint. (2) It is a fact that we are apt to be reconciled and in- clined to forgiveness by remorse. And justly so. Remorse is a sign that the offence was not the expression of the offender's permanent will, that it was the result of error, accident, haste, or carelessness. If no attention is paid to his re- morse, if we react by punishing him or taking revenge, a revulsion of feeling is likely to ensue. His remorse vanishes, he has expiated his wrong, nay, he is apt to feel that he has more than expiated it, and he now has, instead of a debt to pay, a claim which he will take up as soon as opportunity offers. Punishment may, of course, be appropriate even in cases of genuine remorse, as, for example, in education; the punishment may prove the remorse, and genuine remorse may even demand punishment as an expiation, in order, however, at the same time to obtain forgiveness thereby. And if the remorse is not deep, punishment may be necessary to strengthen the memory of the will: punishment is then a reminder, an admonition. — When, however, remorse is lack- ing, when a conscious and stubborn will, when impudent malice, commits the wrong and boasts of it and rejoices in its iniquity, punishment is necessary to terrify and to break the wicked will; perhaps the nature of the will may even be transformed in this way, for it is an undoubted fact that there have been genuine conversions among crim- inals sentenced to death. — The criminal authorities too, endeavor to take these things into account, but they cannot, in the very nature of things, easily adjust themselves to the particular circumstances, and to this is due the inadequacy of public punishment as compared with that employed in educa- tion. It necessarily somewhat resembles the mechanical process of nature, which does not consider the intention, but merely the objective facts. Then, again, the judge, as a rule, has no means of testing the genuineness of remorse. If this factor were taken into consideration, the criminals would, of course, all simulate remorse, as universally happens in pen- itentiaries and other places where a remorseful demeanor is regarded as a sign of good behavior. Nevertheless, the judge is induced by a remorseful confession to assume extenuating circumstances. (3) The third item is the following : Wherever persons live 622 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES JUSTICE 623 together in permanent relations^ as husband and wife, brother and sister, inmates of the same house, relatives, neighbors, etc., the command of Jesus, not to forgive your brother seven times, but seventy times seven, will be especially in place. Slight collisions are always inevitable where persons live close together. Whoever insists upon his rights in every instance, makes life intolerable for himself and his surround- ings. A certain measure of toleration is an absolute precon- dition of peaceful intercourse. " Be not righteous overmuch," the word of the Preacher, applies here ; that is, be careful to give everyone his just dues, but do not always rigorously insist upon your own rights. And also remember the ninth commandment and the interpretation put upon it : Speak well of thy neighbor and turn all things to good ! To good ! This is excellent advice. Your brother is close and rather fond of money, — say he is economical and a good manager ; he has a tendency to express his views somewhat strongly and with- out regard for the feelings of others, — say he is sincere and loves the truth ; he is fonder of enjoyment and social pleasures than you deem necessary, — say he is cheerful and light- hearted. The man who cannot see the good in things, who always looks at them from the worst side, who is constantly finding fault, cannot live with men, and will do well to avoid contact with them as much as possible. Schopenhauer un- questionably acted wisely when he withdrew from the world and absolutely refused to enter into close personal relations with his fellows, such as, marriage, friendship, society. In his exclusiveness he enjoyed a tolerable peace, which other- wise would have been impossible. Dogmatic, distrustful, and revengeful as he was, he would have embittered his own life and that of others had he mingled with the world. Where, however, no permanent relations exist, where men come in contact with each other occasionally only, as is the case in business, it will be much less objectionable for one to insist upon his rights. To overlook acts of injustice and to let them go unpunished would be apt to be misunderstood. It might he regarded as a sign of ignorance or indolence, fear or cowardice, and would invite repetition, perhaps on a larger scale. It is well known that persons who are ashamed of insisting on their rights, especially in little things, encourage that tendency to fraud which is found wherever great lords and rich people are in the habit of squandering their money. The same may happen in social intercourse. It is at times as meritorious sharply to call to account inquisitive impu- dence, insolent arrogance which boasts of despising morals, as it is to bring thieves and scoundrels to justice. But we cannot regard it as a universally binding duty to bring such offences to justice in every case. It is evidently not only right but even necessary for one to consider his own interests in such instances. The behavior of the English- man mentioned above may be the result of a praiseworthy habit, but this does not make it rational and dutiful in each particular case. A man goes to Russia ; he is cheated by a high or a low official. Is it his duty to prosecute the offender, at the risk of being compelled to carry on a hopeless and expensive law-suit, and of finally being sent to Siberia with- out any trial whatever ? It seems to me he might well con- tend that it was not his business to improve the morals of the Russian officials, at least not at such a cost. The case may be different for a Russian. And so it can not be my auty to avenge every insult to which I am subjected. A street Arab makes faces at me, or throws mud at me ; surely I may pass along without turning around, and say with Epictetus, That is none of my business. A reviewer says all sorts of evil things against me, all of them being lies ; it is surely my privilege to decide whether I shall call him to account or shall console myself with Solomon's wise saying: Noli re- spondere imprudenti ad imprudentiam ejus, ne similis illi fias. For, indeed, the only possible answer which one can give is often simply to pay no attention to the matter. At 624 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES JUSTICE 625 I Hi times, of course, it may be highly meritorious to inflict ex- emplary punishment upon a literary highwayman, that is, in so far as this will tend to protect other wayfarers, and help to develop a public conscience along these lines. 7. The Principle of Eights. Right in the subjective sense was characterized above as that sphere of interests which a person can justly command others to respect ; wrong, as an offensive encroachment upon this field. The question now arises : According to what principle is the line to be drawn which separates the spheres of the different members of a legal community from each other ? If the actions of in- dividuals were perfectly independent and did not conflict with each other, if their interests were absolutely isolated from each other, it would be the function of the right simply to protect this relation against arbitrariness and violence. But the case is different. The actions of each individual cross those of others, their spheres of interests intersect. We might say, with Hobbes : Originally, in a fictitious natural state, every man had and insisted on his right to have every- thing and to do anything he liked. Hence arose a collision of interests and actions, which led to " the condition of war of every one against every one." The system of rights pre- vents such a state ; it limits the activity or the liberty of each individual to a particular sphere, and at the same time de- fends him in this against the encroachments of others. Or, with Hobbes : The legal order consists in each individual's resigning his right to everything (jus in omnia), and receiv- ing in return a limited and protected sphere. According to what principle shall the lines be drawn between the conflict- ing rights and interests ? The principle of equality seems to suggest itself as the most immediate and natural principle : Each man shall count for one ; the interests of each man are as important as those of every other one. This is the principle with which the advo- cates of natural rights antagonized the positive and historical system of law prevailing in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Starting from the hypothesis of the natural equality of individuals, they demanded equal rights for all. The con- clusion would be correct if the premises were true. Equality of natural capacities and powers demands equality of rights in perfecting and exercising them, as well as equal rights to the means of their realization. Positive law has, however, never acknowledged this prin- ciple of the absolute equality of all individuals ; and even the upholders of natural rights have always accepted certain restrictions as self-evident. There never has been equality of rights between adults and children, and it has never been de- manded. Children, it is true, are recognized as having rights, e. ^., property-rights, but they are hindered from exercising them, and so, too, their personal freedom is subjected to the most decided limitations. The positive law universally shows the same differences between the rights of the sexes : women are restricted in the exercise of certain rights, at least married women, while they are almost entirely devoid of other rights, like public rights. It is true, some of the most modern advocates of natural rights demand the abolition of the legal inequalities between the sexes: equal rights in public and private law are claimed for women. And we may undoubt- edly say that our previous development has been tending towards equalization. Yet the majority of persons to-day, women as well as men, do not regard it as probable or desir- able that the rights of men and women be made absolutely equal. — Why not ? Is the vis ijiertice of institutions the only reason ? Hardly. Nay, the inequality of rights corresponds to an inequality of natural powers and natural spheres of action, and so long as this exists, the inequality of rights seems to be natural and necessary. To the military and political functions of the man — and here we are not to think chiefly of speech- making and voting — correspond certain political rights; to his economic position corresponds liis right to be the exter- 40 ."■ ; ■*■■ ■.H 1. f 626 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES nal economic representative of the household. Woman's most important function, on the other hand, still is -however great the changes of these latter days may have been — the management of the home, and it will continue to be so, as long as the life-conditions of man himself remain essentially what they are. The rights of woman are determined by this relation : it is her privilege to rule the home, a right which is vouchsafed her not only by custom, but by law. Beside the legal differences based on age and sex, the his- torical legal systems always show other differences which rest upon class distinctions. Freemen and slaves or serfs, nobles and citizens, property holders and the propertyless always had different rights. This now was the point against which the upholders of natural rights directed their real attacks, and here they were essentially successful in enforc- ing their claim of equal rights. Ever since the great revolu- tion, on the eve of the nineteenth century, which affected all relations of right, there have been no real class rights in the European states ; these have entirely disappeared from private law, and are being gradually eliminated from public law ; a few remnants, e. g,, in the form of a property qualification for voters or of privileges conceded to certain classes with regard to certain offices, are all that is left of the old system. — Vhy has the equality of rights prevailed here? Surely because the differences in capacity and the corresponding differences of function and duty have gradually disappeared : the classes themselves have been gradually dissolved and with them the legal class-distinctions. Natural differences still exist between men, differences in mental and moral endowment and education, differences in inclination and skill, but they are no longer incorporated in classes, as was largely the case in former times. This, then, would be the principle which seems, on the whole, to have governed the development of positive right : the spheres of rights of the different members of the legal JUSTICE 627 community are staked off according to the spheres of action corresponding to their natures and powers. Equality of rights extends as far as there is general natural equality; corresponding to the great and essential differences inherent in the nature of things, we have differences in rights. Perhaps the upholders of the theory of natural rights can also adopt this principle. The most desirable thing would be for each individual to exercise, with absolute freedom and an unlimited control of all the means, all the functions of life which lead to and are included in the perfection of his natural capacities. This ideal of individual perfection would at the same time be the ideal fulfilment of duty towards the community : the richer and more varied the individual life, the richer would be the collective life. But since such absolute freedom and such unlimited rights are impossible where many live together, and since it becomes necessary to limit the liberty of each individual conformably with the freedom of all the rest, such restrictions must be made for the general good that the greatest possible amount of power and action may be realized in the community. This will be the case when the spheres of right are marked out according to the powers and capacities of the individuals. And such an arrangement could not, as it seems, be opposed from the standpoint of the individual: the apportionment would be equitable. Or, if we consider the functions of the in- dividuals from the standpoint of the community, as duties, we can say that rights are to be apportioned according to duties. 8. Incongruity between Law and Morals.^ If the fullest and freest development and exercise of human powers and cap- acities is the highest good of human life, the legal order may, according to the above, be defined as a mechanism in the service of the good, whose function it is to harmonize many individual forces^ with the least expenditure of energy, or to balance many partially crossing spheres of interest, with the 1 [See also Hr.fPding, XXXVIL — Tit.] 628 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES JUSTICE 629 : ^.' 11 ■ ft I. I Ltt.. least injury to those interests. The more perfectly a posi- tive legal order accomplishes this result, the more closely it realizes the purpose of the law, or what ethics demands and expects of the law. But the legal system can never absolutely realize this end. It lies in the nature of a mechanism to act mechanically, that is, according to general laws, and not according to the re- quirements of a particular case. The legal system acts in the same way: individual cases are decided according to general rules. We may conceive of a system deciding indi- vidual cases only ; we may conceive of a legal community which, either as a collective body, or through some organs or other, without binding itself or its judicial organs in any way, finds and determines the right from case to case, by free deliberation. There is in reality no such law ; every- where the law has the form of universal rules ; the right of the individual case is ascertained by subsuming it under one of these rules. The reason for this is obvious : only when there are general rules or laws, can the individual know and do the right with certainty and ease, and only in this way, too, can the law be protected against the arbitrariness of those administering it. If the right were ascertained from particular decisions only, then the individual who is in doubt about the limits of his own rights and those of others, would have to judge according to analogous cases — an uncertain method — while the subjective notions and inclinations of the judge would furnish boundless opportunities for error and partiality. The safety of the law depends upon its uni- formity. The legal order here resembles the natural order •, a nature without uniformity, in which all events occurred without rule, say according to absolute caprice, would be unknowable, and practical adaptation to its workings would be impossible. The uniformity of the process of nature is teleologically necessary for us as acting and knowing beings ; and the uniformity of law is necessary for the same reason. But this very uniformity of nature is fatal to our purposes in particular instances. All our movements presuppose that there are no exceptions to the law of gravitation, and their certainty depends upon the fact that our body univer- sally obeys it, like everything else. At times, however, it causes injury and death. Precisely the same may be said of the legal order : as a rule it tends to preserve and produce what is by nature right, but cases occur in which, owing to its necessary mechanical operation, the moral law is violated and broken by the positive law. The particular cases exhibit countless individual differences, while the law it- self is general, conceptual, schematic. The transition from childhood to maturity is, as a matter of fact, a continuous process of development, which differs for different individ- uals. The law, however, determines in a rigid formula, that a person is not of age until he is twenty-one years old. Even if on the day before he reaches his majority the guardians, against the will of the ward, take the most serious and ruinous measures affecting his rights, these will have legal force and will be upheld by the courts. The law protects contracts which were made in legitimate business, without regard to whether their provisions still conform to justice or not. Owing to unforeseen circumstances, things may so have changed as to cause the ruin of one of the contracting I)arties should the contract now be carried out, perhaps with- out substantially benefiting the other party. The law is not concerned about that. It pitilessly orders the eviction of a tenant who has unsuspectingly signed a ruinous con- tract, or the eviction of a debtor who has been robbed of his patrimony by a usurer who has remained within the pale of the law. It proceeds on the assumption that everybody always acts with a complete knowledge of the law and with a full understanding of his interests, an indispensable hypoth- esis which, however, as we all know, is false. The same is true of criminal law. It embraces under 630 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES JUSTICE 631 the same formula two acts which are, subjectively or morally considered, infinitely different from each other. Murder is the intentional killing of a man with malice aforethought, and is punishable with death. This definition includes the open and honest killing of a dishonorable and base scoundrel who has ruined the honor and happiness of my family through some dastardly act, without having rendered himself amenable to the criminal law, as well as the most heinous deed of the poisoner and assassin. It is true, the criminal law attempts to make itself more elastic where the discrepancy is greatest, in order to adapt itself to the individual case : the discre- tionary powers of the judge in reference to the punishment to be inflicted, the consideration of extenuating circumstances, and the possibility of pardon are means to this end. But it is clear that these safeguards are not sufficient to counteract the errors caused by the mechanical operation of the law. Hence it happens that the positive law at times demands and does what contradicts the idea of justice in a particular case: summum jus summa injuria, — an inevitable conse- quence of the universality and uniformity of the law. Absolute adaptation of the law to the particular instance is possible only when the law appears in the form of a personal will, as is the case in home education. From this it follows that it may, under certain circum- stances, be morally possible for a person to do what the law docs not allow. It is legally wrong for a man to dispose of a thing entrusted to his care, to the detriment of the owner ; such an act is punishable as a breach of faith. And yet it may be morally right. In case he can avert a great calamity from himself and others only by appropriating the thing entrusted to him, he may perhaps do so without com- punction. He may be guilty and punishable before the law, but before the tribunal of conscience and morality he is with- out blame. It ie worthy of note that the law itself, in a certain sense, recognizes the possibility of such cases, in that it exempts from punishment criminal acts " when the act was committed in consequence of a condition of necessity, for which the agent was not responsible, and which could not have been averted in any other way, and in order to save the body or life of the agent or one of his family from an imminent danger." ^ Hence, when a man on the verge of starvation appropriates and consumes what belongs to another, or when he is in danger of freezing to death, and burns his neighbor's fence, he is exempt from punishment. In practically defeating itself the law evidently aims to avoid a conflict with morality or the idea of justice. And this is right, for it would simply destroy the faith in its own justice and necessity if it were to treat such cases according to the formula: Whoever ap- propriates anything belonging to another in violation of the law, will be punished with imprisonment for theft. Berner^ considers the definition of the term condition of necessity (^Notstand) in the Imperial Criminal Code too narrow. He is right. If a man in serious danger of losing his entire for- tune sliglitly encroaches upon the rights of another, say by tearing down his neighbor's fence or by entering a dwelling or garden against the will of the owner, in order to save his house from fire or flood, it is evidently not possible to punish him for destruction of property or trespass. Or let us suppose a man compels an unwilling third party, by threats or force, to do or leave undone a trifling act in order to save a total stranger's life. It is not morally possible to condemn him for interfering with the personal liberty of another. Berner thinks it would be wise not to define the concept of necessity at all, but to leave the matter entirely to the discretion of the judge. In this respect, too, I agree with him. In order to have sufficient universality the definition could hardly read otherwise than as follows: In case it is possible to preserve my own or 1 Reichsstrafgesetzbuch, Imperial Criminal Code of Grermany, § 54. 2 Strafrecht, § 57. 632 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES JUSTICE 633 others' vital interests only by doing less damage to the rights of others, a condition of necessity exists, which renders the infringement of others' rights exempt from punishment. It is obvious that no legislature could enact such a law. Its indefi- niteness would make all other laws uncertain : for how shall we define a vital interest ? What a field such a definition would open to the artifices of the lawyer ! If we leave the matter to the judge, without tying him to a definition or con- fusing him with a vague principle, we may, I believe, assume that he will hit upon the right with the tact peculiar to a healthy common-sense that has been sharpened by judicial experience. On the other hand, I cannot agree with Berner when he de- fends the notion of an actual Notrecht {right of necessity), which the Imperial Criminal Code avoids. It may be morally justifiable to do what is contrary to the juridical right, but this cannot, as it seems to me, be defined juridically as right. That would mean a right to violate the right. The law can grant exemption from punishment only under certain circum- stances. Perhaps it would be better to speak of a NotunrecU (necessary unright or wrong) in analogy with the Notliige (lie of necessity), a wrong which, objectively considered, is un- doubtedly a wrong, but which cannot be judged and treated as a wrong under the existing objective and subjective conditions. Hence, the law itself recognizes in the notion of necessity and its influence upon the legal estimate of an act, that it may, owing to its logical-mechanical character, actually result in doing wrong, that is, decide contrary to the idea of justice. The idea of justice demands that equal interests be treated as equal, unequal interests as unequal. As a rule, the law takes no account of the relative value of conflict- ing interests : it simply decides according to general formal rules, and is obliged to do so. But under totally abnormal circumstances it goes back even to the very source of the decision : wherever there is an absolute discrepancy between the interests involved, the larger ones take precedence over the smaller ones, without regard to the formal law. Inasmuch as such corrections are, and can be, made only in extreme cases, it follows that the enforcement of the law must in many instances result in decisions which do not satisfy the idea of justice. 9. This is one incongruity between law and morality : it may be morally possible to do what is legally impossible. More frequent and more important is the other case : it may be legally possible to do what is morally impossible ; a man may be guilty of the most serious violations of the moral duty of justice and yet remain strictly within the limits of the law. The positive law defines, we may say, only a part of the actual right. The mechanical nature of the legal order makes such a limitation necessary. A legal system attempting to enforce the complete realization of the idea of justice in the acts of men would, as may readily be seen, necessarily lead to a most intolerable state of insecurity and tyranny. Hence the legal order confines itself to enforcing that minimum of riffhteous acts without which human social life would not be possible. It thereby, of course, leaves a wide margin for injuries and the unjust assertion of individual interests at the expense of those of others. It does not enforce the payment of a just wage, but simply of the stipulated one ; it does not punish the delivery of goods inferior to those which the con- tract calls for, but only fraud ; it does not compel a man to give to every one the honor which is due him, but merely pun- ishes affronts. A general survey of all the spheres of rights Avill bring out this discrepancy between the demands of the law and the demands of morality. The legal spheres, as we noticed before, correspond to the great spheres of action or the circles of interests, for the pro- tection of which the legal order exists. The first and narrow- est sphere of interests is that which we may embrace under the heading, body and life. Encroachments upon this domain 634 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES are made by homicide, isfi urement, assault and battery, and all attacks upon life and health. Protection against such crimes forms an important part of all law; in the oldest legal systems it occupies the most conspicuous place. The laws of the ancient Germanic races, for example, consist largely in the determination of the amount of blood-money to be paid for every kind of injury against body and life. If we mean by encroachments upon this domain only physical assaults, then the law seems to leave no room for infractions. In fact, however, every hurt is directed against body and life, and so boundless opportunity is offered for unpunishable offences against others: such as causing them annoyance, arousing their anger or grief, exploiting and defrauding them. This is what the Gospel has to say in the matter : " Whoso- ever hateth his brother is a murderer." A second sphere of interests is bounded by the family^ the expanded individual life. Encroachments upon this domain are made by adultery, abduction, substitution of children, seduction, and similar crimes. The more pronounced and tangible forms of such offences are reached by the criminal law; the more subtle forms of disturbing the peace of the home and the family, tale-bearing, intriguing, by which hus- bands are estranged from their wives and parents from their children, do not come within the reach of the law ; think of Othello's friend, lago ! A third sphere of interests is defined by property^ which includes the sum-total of external means of self-preservation and voluntary action. Encroachments upon this field are made by robbery, theft, blackmail, fraud, forgery, embezzlement, usury, and all such offences as come under the head of crimes against property. Here again the criminal law cannot reach the more subtle methods by which property is illegitimately acquired at others' expense. In spite of the efforts of the law to punish the offenders, the inventive genius of the lower and higher criminal classes always outwits the law. JUSTICE 635 As a fourth sphere of interests may be mentioned honor^ or ideal self-preservation. Encroachments upon this domain are made by insults, false reports, slander. In these cases, much more than in the preceding ones, the criminal law can reach only the more flagrant and careless, but not the more subtle and shrewd violations, which are not the less injurious. There are a thousand anonymous, indirect, undiscoverable ways of blasting a man's reputation for which a penal formula never can be found. The fifth sphere of interests is the/ree exercise of volition. Attacks upon the liberty of others are made by kidnapping, illegal arrest, compulsion, threats. Breaches of domestic peace may also be placed in this list. In the primitive legal codes protection was afforded against this class of offences by threatening with punishment every one who made a slave of a fellow, contrary to the law. Legal slavery and serfdom no longer exist among us. Yet even in our day forms of depend- ence are not wanting which closely resemble actual slavery. We may regard the laws which have been enacted for the pro- tection of labor during the last half century as a continuation of the legislation in defense of individual liberty against new forms of slavery. No one enjoys freedom in the full sense of the term whose life and strength are utilized merely as means to others' ends. Hence, whoever uses men in this way, or attempts to reduce them to such a state or to keep them in it, acts contrary to the law of justice, which demands that the freedom of others be respected. Finally, we may also add a sixth sphere of interests, which is closely connected with the fourth and fifth, the spiritual life^ which expresses itself in convictions, views, beliefs, religion, morality, and habits of life. Persecutions, aspersions, open or concealed signs of contempt, scornful neglect, importunate attempts at conversion, are some of the forms of interfer- ence with this field. The inner state which tends to such forms of injustice, we are in the habit of calling intolerance* II 636 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES It has its natural roots partly in man's dependence and need of society, the gregarious instinct, partly in his arrogance and the conceited belief in his own infallibility. The majority of men are sure of their ground only when their fellows are going in the same direction, thinking the same thoughts. Hence, they demand that everybody accommodate himself to them. Deviations from the common rule are regarded as disturbances and give offence, and hence all means are em- ployed that seem suited either to bring the dissenter into har- mony with his fellows or to remove him from view, and to deter others from imitating his example. Arrogance has the same effect upon the leaders of the masses. They regard it as an intolerable presumption on the part of an individual to refuse to follow their leadership, for does he not thereby tacitly accuse the appointed authorities of error ? What would happen if everybody were to dare such a thing ? An example must therefore be made. The opposite habit of mind is called toleration ; liberality/ of mind would perhaps be a more appro- priate term. A liberal education shows itself in the ability to understand and to recognize what is strange and different. It is acquired only by frequent contact with the extraordi- nary, be it personal, literary, or historical. In narrow spheres the mind remains narrow ; nations, classes, scholas- tic sects, religious communities, which live for themselves and scarcely come in contact with the customs and opinions of others, are universally conspicuous for their intolerance. This is a field in which the law is most powerless. It can reach violations only when they can be construed as libels, which is not always the case. And yet such offences may cause serious injury ; even mere intrusive attempts at conver- sion ultimately become unbearable. The law is powerless against them. Nevertheless, toleration is not a favor, but a right : morally, every one has the right to demand that we do not interfere with his habits, his convictions, and his thoughts if he is determined to adhere to them ; and it is a duty to JUSTICE 637 respect this right, provided, of course, the individual's be- havior does not violate the rights of others. I have the right to win over others to my ways of thinking and acting, only by example and by means of persuasion, and in the latter case I must respect the rights of others to their own opinions. — The difficulty arises with the question : To what extent have tastes, habits, assertions, opinions, of which we cannot morally approve, a claim to toleration, that is, to what extent shall we concede to them equal rights ? It is obvious that I have not the right to censure or to express my contempt for every statement which cannot be justified morally, or which does violence to my moral sense or taste. And it is equally obvious that I am not bound in duty to allow everything to pass with- out contradiction : it may be in the highest measure justifi- able to express my contempt openly. Here again no formula can be given which will enable us to decide each particular case. We must leave it to tact to discover what is proper under these circumstances. |i I CHAPTER X LOVE OF NEIGHBOR! 1. Beside justice, the negative side of benevolence, we have love of neighbor, the complementary, positive side. We may define it as that habit of the will and mode of conduct which assists those in want, and strives to promote the wel- fare of others by active sympathy. — t is the great command- ment of Christianity. In the last judgment man's worth will be measured by this standard. " Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand,— I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat : I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink : I was a stranger, and ye took me in : naked, and ye clothed me : I was sick, and ye visited me : I was in prison, and ye came unto me." Three times more these works of mercy are enumerated, — a sermon powerful in its grand simplicity. The commandment is so simple and clear that no doubt can arise as to its meaning. I meet a hungry man ; what shall I do? — Give him what you have. — Very well. Ten and a hundred others come; shall I give to each ? Shall I give until I have nothing left for myself ? And shall I not await their coming — shall I seek them out ? I hear that my neighbor is sick and in want ; I visit him, I help and console him, as 1 [Paley, Bk. III., Part II. ; Sidgwick, Bk. III., ch. IV. ; Spencer, Inductions, chs. VII., VIII; Ethics of Social Life, Pts. V. VI; Porter, Part II., chs. VII.. XI.-XIII. ; HOffding, XIL a, XXXIV., XXXV. ; Wundt, Part III., ch. IL, 3, 4 ; ch. IV., 3, 4 ; Dorner, pp. 395-403, 605-624 ; Runze, § 79, § 60 ; Statistics. Oettingen, § 36.— See also Lecky, Hisfnrj/ of European Morals, II., 85-101, and references under ch. VIII. supra. — Tr.] LOVE OF NEIGHBOR 639 well as I can. Shall I go farther ? Shall I hunt up the sick and the needy everywhere ? I am sure that there are always hundreds of them in this city, and that they need help and consolation ; shall I always be on the road from one to the other ? And what is to become of my own affairs in the meanwhile ? Shall I calmly neglect them and always look out for others ? There are hundreds of families in the land whom I might assist, by word and by deed, in bettering their conditions: shall I visit all of them, shall I look for them, advise them and help tliem ? Is this the meaning of the commandment of love of neighbor? It is easy to see that in that case I should have neither time nor strength left for myself and my own business. The commandment would defeat itself. If it were a duty, always and under all circumstances, first to look after the affairs of others, before attending to one's own, the perfect fulfilment of the law by all would lead to a complete confu- sion of all human things, to an absurd interchange of duties. If every one would follow Jesus's advice to the rich young man and " sell whatsoever he hath and give to the poor," the result would be a ceaseless circulation of commodities, or rather there would be no one left to buy and receive them. The law taken universally destroys itself. It presupposes that there are others wlio desire to buy and receive, regard- less of the law. This commandment must, therefore, be somewhat re- stricted, or more narrowly defined, if it is to hold as a uni- versal moral law. We may perhaps consider the matter from the following points of view. (1) The duty to care for the welfare of others is limited, first, by the duties which grow out of one^s own life. The individuars first duty is to develop and exercise the capacities and powers which are given him, and to make his own life beautiful and good. His own individual life is the field which it is his special mission to cultivate. For this work he is 640 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES especially fitted by natural inclination and insiglit. In the last analysis, every man knows what is good for him better than anybody else. Care for the welfare of others should therefore not prevent the performance of this most immediate duty. This principle undoubtedly governs our actual behavior and judgment. If a rich and talented young man, alarmed by the command of the Gospel, were to sell his small inheritance and give to the poor, if he were to abandon his studies and nurse the sick in their homes or in the hospitals, without being specially qualified for such work, we should not approve of his course. We should praise his self-sacrifice and humility, but we should not applaud his conduct and set it up as an example for others to follow, nay, we should even say that he could and ought to have put his talents to better use. Had he quietly continued his studies, had he become an able physician, preacher, or teacher, his own life would have been richer and more beautiful, and he could have done more for others. And so we shall be obliged to say : Each person does the most for himself and others when he makes the most of himself. Raphael and Goethe benefited humanity simply by unfolding the inborn capacities of their natures. _ „ . . v i. •• u* Wenn die Rose selbst sich schmuckt, Schmiickt sie auch den Garten. We cannot question the validity of the universal propoLv tion. The difficulty lies in its application to concrete condi- tions. Is a particular act which I do for others compatible with my own duties ? My friend is sick, I devote my entire time to his cure, without hesitation. But he remains an invalid; the physicians send him to a different climate; shall I, can I, accompany him, sacrifice my education, my life for him ? This cannot be decided by the general for- mula of duty, but only by a consideration of the concrete cir- cumstances; it will ultimately be decided not by the reason LOVE OF NEIGHBOR 641 but by the heart. And, as a rule, we shall feel inclined to applaud the man who obeys his heart more than his reason in these things. We admire the heroism of a woman who resolves to follow her husband into solitude, into exile, or into imprisonment. We respect the sister of charity who sacri- fices her life and gives up everything to nurse strangers upon their sick-beds during the long weary days and nights. We say it is altogether possible that such a nature develops and exercises the gifts with which it is endowed, a warm heart, a skilful and tender hand, a consoling courage, most perfectly in such a calling, and so realizes the fullest and most beau- tiful form of life possible. But — what is good for one is not good for all. (2) The duty of caring for the welfare of my neighbor must be limited in another way ; I must guard against destroying his independence. My act must not weaken his indepen- dence ; otherwise it ceases to be beneficent, nay, it may become an evil, for self-reliance is a general precondition of a healthy and normal life. The object of all help is, after all, to make help superfluous. The matter is self-evident when it comes to systematic and permanent aid. In education we have an example of the most comprehensive and deliberate care for others. It is governed solely by the consideration that we must train the pupil so that he can take care of himself. We call a mother irrational who cannot resist her child's entreaties to prepare his lessons for him, we cannot praise a father who constantly undertakes to solve the prob- lems for his young son which life is beginning to put to him. Not to solve problems, but to put the proper problems, that is the real function of the educator. In no human relation has true beneficence a different function, —it realizes its end only when it succeeds in making the person self-sustaining. This is especially true of all economic assistance : the problem is to remove the need for help. (S) There is finally a third restriction, or, rather, narrower 41 642 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES LOVE OF NEIGHBOR 643 'H determination, of the universal duty of love of neighbor : that made necessary by our special duties toward special neighbors. Every man is related to persons who have special claims upon his benevolence and active sympathy, — to children and parents, relatives and friends, servants and laborers, neighbors and inmates of the same house. His strength and possessions belong to these first of all. If any one were to give away his fortune to strangers and beggars or to all kinds of chari- table enterprises, and were to let the members of his own household suffer want, or if a mother were to accept the presidency of seven benevolent associations, and shamefully to neglect her own children, we should not be very lenient in our judgment of them. We should say : first duty, then the super- erogatory ; first perform your particular duties and then search for further problems to solve. By these special con- ditions the virtue of charity or love of neighbor is confined to a fixed channel, as it were, through which it flows as a per- manent stream and fructifies its banks. Here, too, everybody knows with some degree of certainty what is good for those nearest to him, but it is much more difficult and often impos- sible to tell how to help strangers. And here, too, we must think of the collective bodies to which the individual belongs. The community and the nation have legitimate claims upon him, and their permanent charitable institutions supply him with a safe channel in which to exercise his sympathy with others' welfare. The formula of the love of neighbor. Care for the welfare of others, must therefore be limited and supplemented as follows : In so far as this can be done without neglecting the problems of your own life, without violating the special duties which arise from your special relations to individuals and collective bodies, and finally, without weakening the self- reliance of others. 2. Common-sense, by beneficence, means above all so-called almsgiving, and popular opinion is to this day somewhat in- clined to regard almsgiving as absolutely meritorious ; hence a word about it will not be out of place. Moral philosophy cannot subscribe to this view, except to a very limited extent. Promiscuous almsgiving perhaps results in more evil than good. It is particularly apt to violate the second of the above mentioned provisions : it has neither the intention nor the eifect of making the recipient economically independent; only too often does it educate parasites, who are a pleasure neither to themselves nor to others. We give a beggar an alms. The direct effect is that the man's hunger is satisfied. But another effect necessarily follows : the recip- ient is taught to expect that the next time he is hungry some one will feed him again. The gift will therefore encourage him to believe that there is another, perhaps more successful and at any rate more convenient, means of gaining a liveli- hood than labor, that is, begging. If a beggar's life is not a good life, then almsgiving, which promotes beggary, is not beneficence. — We frequently hear people complaining of the impudence of mendicants : Here comes the same young beg- gar who was here yesterday ; but won't I give him a piece of my mind ! — It seems to me the beggar might say : I see nothing impudent in my behavior ; I was hungry yesterday and you gave me money to satisfy my hunger ; conditions are pre- cisely what they were yesterday ; why do you want to behave differently to-day ? I am not impudent, but you are incon- sistent. I trusted in your tacit declaration that you would support me in case of need ; consequently I have come back, and now you want to abuse me ? — I do not see what answer the almsgiver could make, except this : I did not clearly see what I was doing yesterday, and therefore beg your pardon for having raised expectations which I cannot or will not fulfil. And perhaps he might, to be thoroughly honest, say to himself: When I gave the alms, nothing was really further from my thoughts than the welfare of the stranger; it was simply a way of getting rid of him. Habit, convenience, or I! 644 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES perhaps the fear of a wicked face, prompted me to put my hand into my pocket. Indeed, true charity acts differently. It tries, first of all, to find out what is the cause of the trouble ; without a knowledge of the causes of the distress it is absolutely impos- sible to render assistance. Promiscuous almsgiving is like quackery, which, without investigating the disease, prescribes a cure-all. If the trouble is due to an unhappy accident, causing temporary embarrassment, the philanthropist will help to overcome it by word and by deed. If it is due to permanent disability, he will endeavor to assist the person in obtaining permanent support. If aversion to work is the reason for mendicancy, he will refuse to recognize and foster this branch of industry by alms. Of course, it is much easier to give the beggar a nickel and to dismiss him than to take an interest in him, which latter indeed may not always be possible, owing to the " anonymousness " of metropolitan life. But whoever cannot or will not help has no right to dabble in the affairs of a fellow-man. Of late years, the authorities have repeatedly prohibited the giving of alms to mendicant vagabonds ; a measure which is justifiable in principle. Care- less beneficence is really maleficence, a crime against the beggar, whom it encourages, as well as against others, who arrtempted by the example to follow the same life, and finally also against those who are overrun by the army of tramps which owes its existence to such negligence. If the flooding of a country with beggars is a plague, it is evidently an offence against the welfare of the country to encourage the thing. To be sure, the prohibition of mendicancy and almsgiving ought simply to be the other side of organized public charity, which finds work for the unemployed and helps those in need. Moreover, we must not imagine that almsgiving to beggars and tramps is the only form of careless charity. There are, beside these vulgar forms, also elegant forms of begging, LOVE OF NEIGHBOR 645 which are no less dangerous to welfare. How many a great house scatters the germs of ruin among its clients in the shape of presents, gifts, and favors! They are pampered, made covetous, shameless, beggarly, envious, mendacious, thiev- ish, and the consequence is their benefactors usually grow tired of them, and, if possible, get rid of them by referring them to some public charity. In such houses much is said of the wickedness and ingratitude of the human race. The story is told that Max Joseph, the first King of Bavaria, received from the general treasurer one thousand guldens every morning for " charity." When this sum was spent — and it did not last very long, for beggars and needy persons of every rank and station crowded around him as soon as he made his appear- ance, — "he gave orders upon the bankers, the sinking-fund, the lottery-fund, the war-economy-treasury. His mania for giving was carefully nourished by those who benefited by it, and he grew indignant at every measure of economy, regard- ing it as an encroachment upon his rights. While money was wanting for the most urgent needs, and the officials had to wait for their salaries for months, the beggars lived in luxury." ^ This form of " charity " was evidently a perversion of the duties of the royal office, a crime against the subjects from whose pockets the money was taken, and against the parasites whom it raised. It is a proof of the multitude's weakness for show, that kings and lords of this kind enjoy their favor and are loved and praised for their " goodness." There is a good Italian proverb : Si buon che vol niente, so good that he is good for nothing. It can hardly be denied that Christianity has fostered this kind of beneficence. Passages are not wanting in the New Testament which suggest such a confusion of love of neigh- bor with almsgiving, and at the same time seem to recom- 1 Perthes, PoUt. Persmen und Zustdnde zur Zeit der franzosischen Revolution, L, 2, 448. i ' 646 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES mend almsgiving as promising future retribution. A passage from Chrysostom, which I quote from Uhlhorn's work, Die Liebesthdtigkeit in der alien Kirche,^ shows this perversion in a marked degree. He praises charity : " She is the queen among the virtues, who swiftly raises man into the heavens, and is the best mediator. Charity has mighty wings ; she pierces the air, lifts herself beyond the moon, rises above the beaming sun, and extends to the heights of heaven. But she does not rest there; she penetrates the heavens, hastens through the hosts of angels and the choir of the archangels and all the higher hosts, and places herself before the throne of the King himself. Learn this from the Holy Scripture, which says : ' Cornelius, thy prayer is heard, and thine alms are had in remembrance in the sight of God.' This means : Though you have many sins, if you have alms for your inter- cessor, fear not ; they call for the payment of the debt and bear the signature in their hands." In another place he com- pares almsgiving to the prices at the fair : " Here we buy justice cheaply, for a piece of bread, a worn-out coat, a drink of cold water. So long as the fair lasts let us buy our sal- vation with alms." It is plain, here the object is no longer the welfare of others, but one's own good — whether in this world or in the world to come is immaterial. And there can be no doubt that the welfare of others cannot be promoted by such charity, which is solely intent upon purchasing rewards or exemption from punishment. Still, I am far from believ- ing that the charity practised by the Christian church always exhibited this trait of calculating speculation. Though the hope of reward was apt to be mingled with it, it was not often the only effective motive. And perhaps Christianity did more good, on the whole, in its educative influence, than harm. A particularly deplorable form of almsgiving has been developed of recent years: the charity-craze. Misfortune, 1 P. 272. LOVE OF NEIGHBOR 647 poverty, and misery are made the pretexts for entertainments of all kinds, such as concerts, theatrical performances, balls, bazaars at which elegant and beautiful ladies bargain, play, and flirt with elegant and rich gentlemen, all for sweet charity's sake. We smoke, we breakfast, we gamble, we dance, all for charity ; new-fashioned mendicant orders are founded, with priors, decorations, and honors, — all for the sake of the poor, of course, but at the same time we enjoy the thought of how kind-hearted we are, which is no more than right, and get a little pleasure for ourselves, according to the formula in the second part of Faust : Hoch ist der Doppelgewinn zu schiitzen : Barmherzig sein und sich zugleich ergetzen.^ I must confess that this union of amusement and " charity " seems to me an extremely sad sign of the times. This play- ing with distress shows how insensitive certain social classes have become to the seriousness and wretchedness of life. We may say the same of many of the associations which make a specialty of collecting alms. A committee is ap- pointed to feed poor children ; the ladies X, Y, Z, have warm hearts, and it is so interesting to belong to a com- mittee, to hold meetings, and to read one's name in the news- papers. A circular is issued, collectors are employed and equipped with receipt-books, for much money is needed for charity. And now the charity begins. Three collectors work four hours each day, for the great families who are visited are late risers and, besides, they do not like to be disturbed at their meals. At the end of the year the books are balanced : five thousand marks have been contributed by three thousand subscribers ; from this sum subtract three thousand marks for the collectors, printing of the report, and advertisements, and you have a sum-total of two thousand marks for charity. — The collectors proved a veritable plague to those who were [1 Lo, now ! what double gains your deed requite ! You show compassion, and you take delight,] 648 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES appealed to. Have the poor children been benefited ? I have not much faith. The sympathy of one individual for another is really helpful, and the systematic help of the community can at least keep the wolf from the door. On the other hand, I am afraid that such collection-charity, which expects others to do the contributing, like the charity-craze, never yields blessings, but simply rears greedy beggars. It may serve as an excuse that the metropolis destroys all other personal re- lations between the rich and the poor, and yet the rich desire to ease their consciences by doing something for those m want, so they help in the manner indicated. However, I am not of the opinion that societies for the organized distribution of charity are not good and useful. ^^ association which combines freedom of movement with order and permanency is undoubtedly an entirely suitable form of charitable activity. And there are doubtless excel- lent and helpful societies. Nor can we altogether disapprove of the method of inducing larger circles to make financial contributions. But instead of angrily and moodily throwing a few nickels at every collector who presents himself, the givers should make up their minds to become active mem- bers of some organization, of whose usefulness they have convinced themselves. If they could only take an active in- terest in these enterprises, their sympathy would be really helpful, and their own lives would be enriched thereby. 3 The opposite of love of neighbor is heartlesB selfishness, which seeks its own advantage, regardless of others or even at the expense of others. The intensification of it is malice, which takes pleasure in the distress and sufferings of others even without advantage to self. As cruelty it causes physical or mental sufferings, simply in order to feed upon them. This habit does not commonly express itself in those brutal attacks upon the persons and interests of others which the criminal law pursues, but in the thousand little inconsiderate, malicious acts which are observed in our daily intercourse LOVE OF NEIGHBOR 649 with men. Four or five persons are sitting in a railroad coup^ ; a new traveller enters, they all stare at him with angry and hateful looks, each one seeming to say : Don't come near me ! No one dreams of offering him a seat, or of removing his baggage ; we merely wait until the intruder threatens to sit upon our things, then we grumblingly shove them aside, or begin to quarrel with the man. And so these people will sit together, side by side, in the narrow com- partment making themselves as disagreeable to each other as possible, in the meanwhile boiling over with rage. If, instead, one of the passengers had politely made room for the new-comer, a pleasant feeling would have been aroused at once, and perhaps a friendly conversation might have been begun, bringing into the tiresome railroad journey sociability and good cheer. These are little things, but life is made up of little things, and our moods are determined much more by such countless daily trifles than by the great and unusual occurrences. There are persons who are always waiting for an opportunity to perform some great and heroic act of charity, who even believe that they would be ready to sacri- fice themselves if need be; and in the meantime they arc wearing away their own lives and those of their fellowmen with their petty troubles and malicious remarks. Besides, it can hardly be doubted that the plain people treat each other with much more consideration than the members of so-called good society. Among the latter an accidental collision soon leads to a bitter discussion ; while the matter is at once passed off with a jest among the former. The general inclination to take life easy is manifested in intercourse by the tendency to make the life of others easy and cheerful. Among the so-called educated the fear of lowering one's dignity is always alive. Politeness and civility are regarded as a sign of self-debasement, as a lowering of one's dignity. A repellent nature says to others : Come on, I am not afraid of you ! There is a kind of starched-linen 650 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES haughtiness which is always on the look-out lest some one should become too familiar or presume to be somebody. Per- sons may even be found, who will, with a kind of secret pleasure, observe others doing what they can interpret as offences against their own persons, so that they may after- wards have the satisfaction of becoming angry and of holding it up to them. Yes, if you ask them beforehand whether they approve of a certain course or not, they will lead you astray, simply that they may afterwards grumblingly and ill-humoredly complain of the suffered wrong. It is arrogance which in- spires such conduct ; we do not like to appear in the role of needing considerate treatment and of asking for it ; it looks more lordly and more elegant first to act indifferently and to become angry afterwards. And hence haughtiness does not deserve the last place among the plagues of humanity. The church is right in reckoning it among the seven deadly sins. A field in which cold-heartedness and malice are particu- larly common, deserves mention here : the habit, namely, of sitting in judgment upon one's neighbor. Everything that the latter says or does is misconstrued and spitefully exposed to the ridicule and ill-will of his fellows. An evil or a base motive is always imputed to him, his prosperity is attributed to evil means, his misfortune is regarded as his own doing. He belongs to the Liberal party : of course he receives Jewish money. He votes the Conservative ticket : why, to be sure, he is fawning upon his superiors. He is successful in business, he becomes rich : he is certainly a swindler, and owes his suc- cess to crooked methods. He meets with literary success : all those who are not so fortunate at once agree that it is because he appeals to people who have no judgment ; why, of course, if we desired to cater to the vulgar tastes of the public, or to flatter the intellectual indolence and superficiality of the reader, we could be famous too, — if we were not above such things ! A girl makes a good match ; all those who were striving for the same good fortune at once begin to tell how LOVE OF NEIGHBOR 651 she encouraged the man, what means she employed to catch him. — As a rule, it is envy that pronounces judgment upon our dear brother and then with lynx eyes discovers the rea- sons for his fault. But pure malice also suffices ; nothing in this world affords the malicious man greater pleasure than the sight of the stains upon the honor of his fellow. It is this base tendency in human nature which the Gospel attacks with such zeal. Even if your opinion is correct, it is not your mission to sit in judgment upon your neighbor. He is not accountable to you but to God, and in His sight you are no less guilty than he. Hence, " Judge not that ye be not judged, condemn not that ye be not condemned." The opposite of unfeelingness is love, as Paul describes it : " It suffereth long and is kind, envieth not and vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, it doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil, rejoicetli not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth ; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things." The thirteenth chapter of Corinthians has been called the Song of Love Qiohe Lied der Liehe). Perhaps we may more properly call it the simplest description of love in its most modest form, of the little workaday, homespun love of neigh- bor, the love which does not vaunt itself, which does nothing extraordinary and grand and sensational, which does not give its body to be burned, or give its possessions to the poor, but simply consists in taking and bearing the neighbor as he is, which does not court favors from him but meets him every day with the same and greater kindness. This is the real, true love of neighbor, and when it enters a house it brings happiness, not the great happiness of which people speak, but the little workaday happiness, the true happiness. And this love and happiness as gladly abides in modest homes as in proud palaces, or much rather ; at any rate it desires to dwell in modest hearts alone, not in haughty and covetous souls. ;, I 652 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES LOVE OF NEIGHBOR 653 3-1 4. The significance of love of neighbor for human conduct hardly needs further comment after all we have said : it diminishes suffering and want, it increases welfare and happiness, it unites hearts in affection and trust. The immediate effect of active benevolence is that it lightens, elevates, and promotes the life of him upon whom it is bestowed. It also inspires him with courage and confi- dence for the future. It at the same time fills him with kindly feelings, not only towards the benefactor but towards the whole world ; charity wants to be passed along, to go from hand to hand, without end. Even when the helping hand does not succeed in removing the misery, the bitterness of the pain is assuaged by sympathy and condolence. The heart that would pine away and famish in solitude and neg- lect again revives, patience and hope or resignation enter the soul, and make life bearable. When, on the other hand, the unfortunate one is repelled and meets with harshness, it fills his heart with the bitterest feelings, it ultimately hardens it, making it misanthropic and wicked. How many a criminal may trace the beginning of his career to unkind, repellent treatment in misfortune! If a helping hand had been extended at the right moment, it might have saved a human soul from destruction. It was not offered, the first step upon the wrong path was taken and drew all the others after it, until the road ended in the peni- tentiary. Want and bitterness over their helplessness, in the opinion of an experienced official in the criminal service, brings one half of all criminals to the .penitentiary.^ " From the cradle to the grave, the sun of life does not smile upon them, they see only the rough side of life. So long as they can remember, they have suffered this undeserved lot ; they, the serfs of misery and neglect, look with envy upon their unde- servedly happier fellows. And to their envy are joined feelings 1 H. von Valentiui, Das Verbrechertum im Preusstschen Staate (1869), a book which contains many suggestive facts. of hatred on account of the harshness and pride of the latter, a hatred which is quite natural in view of the superciliousness with which these regard them, — as though their respective stations in life were the result of individual merit or individual demerit." It is made easy for those reared in love on " the sunny side of life " to believe in eternal love, but how shall these children of the night attain to faith, hope, and love ? There is only one way, charitable love. Harshness will not avail : it simply hardens them and makes them morose. But even love cannot heal with tenderness and softness : it must wield the strong rod of discipline. Active benevolence, however, also enriches and blesses the life of him who practises it. We are not made poorer by giving, says an old proverb ; ^ certainly not, we are made richer, if not in outward, at least in inner blessings. There is no purer, no more beautiful and lasting joy than that acquired by beneficence. The poorest little favor or service which you unselfishly offer the stranger whom you meet upon the street, has the power to yield you lasting pleasure in memory. And the pleasure is the intenser and the more lasting, the more you suppress your sensuous selfish inclinations in doing the deed. The triumph of our selfish inclinations, on the contrary, over the wishes and purposes of others always leaves a bitter after-taste, the bitterer, the greater the sacrifice of others' welfare at which it w as bought. It has therefore been said, not unjustly, that the straight way to one's own happiness is to work for the happiness of others. A benevolent heart that is free from envy is the best endowment even so far as one's in- dividual happiness is concerned. The pleasure which it arouses in its surroundings is reflected back upon it, and calls forth sympathetic emotions. Perhaps, the only time you share in the happiness of others, wholly without envy, is when you have 1 [Compare the verse in Proverbs, XI., 24 : "There is that scattereth and yet increaseth ; and there is that withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth to poverty." " The liberal soul shall be made fat." — Tr.] 654 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES helped to make it. Benevolence wins confidence and affec- tion ; there is no commodity which bears greater interest and makes one so happy as this, and it may be acquired anew every day. And do not believe that you must be a rich man or a great lord in order to do good. No one is too poor or too weak to do good ; the kind word, the little favor, is a hun- dred times more desirable and not rarely infinitely more valuable than great favors or rich gifts. No man need be deprived of the blessing and pleasure of doing good. When you feel utterly miserable and in desperate straits, I once heard a preacher say, ask yourself whether there is not a single person in the world whom you can make happy. And the reverse is also true. There is no surer way to unhappiness than a selfish heart. Intent solely upon his own happiness or what his momentary desires picture to him as such, the egoist sees nothing but rivals around him who are making for the same goal and endeavoring to outstrip him. In his breathless haste he is constantly goaded by fear and hatred to exert his utmost efforts. And notwith- standing all this, some one outstrips him, and now envy is tearing his vitals, the bitterest of all feelings, the grief aroused by the success of others, poisoned by the pain of his own defeat. Contentment can never find a place in a man of pronounced selfishness: envy, hatred, and fear constantly harrow his soul and never give him peace or let him enjoy what he has achieved. — In addition to this, selfishness arouses distrust and aversion in the surround- ings, feelings which manifest themselves in unkind deeds and malicious joy. Let the tyrant attempt to deceive him- self with the saying, I care not whether they hate me so long as they fear me : — the day will come when the hatred will triumph in spite of the fear. Therefore : benevolence brings peace and joy ; selfishness arouses enmity and unhappiness; love is life; selfishness, death. LOVE OF NEIGHBOR 655 5. Let me say a word about gratitude. Thankfulness is the feeling aroused in a healthy soul by benevolence and beneficence ; the permanent state is devotion or piety. Grati- tude naturally tends to encourage benevolence, while in- gratitude discourages it: it is the declaration, so to speak, that assistance and good will have been wasted upon the recipient, for otherwise how could he fail joyfully and grate- fully to acknowledge the kindness ? Wasted also so far as the benefactor is concerned : frequent disappointments of this kind can change a philanthropist into a misanthrope. The complaint of the ingratitude of man is a common theme of pessimistic eloquence. And we shall have to con- fess that human nature, in general, has a better memory for injuries than for benefits. The psychological explana- tion is that gratitude does not flatter our vanity like re- venge. Gratitude seems to express inferiority ; revenge, on the contrary, is so sweet because it is connected with an intensification of self-love. I was down when he wounded me and defeated me ; now I have shown him what I can do. When gratitude has the same effect, when it can show itself by retaliation, we may count upon it much more readily than when it can be expressed only by devotion. But this re- lation is often obscured by feigned gratitude, which is ready with words, but not with deeds. La Rochefoucauld's remark applies to feigned gratitude : " Gratitude is mostly nothing but the declaration of a man's willingness to accept further benefits." Besides, we might also offer as a defense of human nature against the charge of ingratitude the fact that pure and un- selfish benevolence, benevolence which is rational and really beneficent, is not very common either. Perhaps ingratitude is just as common as selfish and irrational "beneficence." When the apish love of sentimental mothers reaps ingrati- tude, it is a just retribution for spoiling the child; they deserve no other reward, for what they sought was the satis- 656 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES faction of their own impulses. If an extravagant and importu- nate patron is forsaken as soon as he has nothing more to give, what else does he deserve ? He has as much right to complain of ingratitude, as Rousseau delicately puts it, as a fisherman has of accusing the fish of ingratitude for hav- ing devoured the bait and not having swallowed the hook. For this reason, too, it is always absurd for nations to accuse each other of ingratitude. Perhaps, then, we may say that sincere gratitude is just as common as genuine benevolence. Truly unselfish benevo- lence, which is not working for gratitude, will readily receive gratitude. This is particularly apparent in all permanent relations that are founded upon benevolence : the immediate natural effect of true and rational beneficence is affectionate piety. Parents who have trained their children to be honest, able, and upright men, will have no reason to complain of ingratitude. Teachers who faithfully fulfil their mission to develop human souls will not fail to arouse affectionate reverence in their pupils. A government that remains true to its high mission to administer justice upon earth may count upon the obedience and the loyalty of its subjects. 6. Benevolence is chiefly concerned with the relation of the individual to the individual. It appears in a new form in affection for and devotion to collective bodies. Let me add a few remarks in reference to this phase of it. Feelings of good will (efJi/ota) for collective bodies are mani- fested in three fundamental forms — aside from the family union, where the feeling of affection is still essentially an individual affair, — as love of home, love of country, and love of humanity. The tie that binds us to these collective bodies is woven of many threads. We discover in it, first, feelings of affec- tion and piety for particular persons ; these are transferred from the individuals to the communities of which the latter are members and representatives. Our parents and ances- LOVE OF NEIGHBOR 667 it. tors, our brothers and sisters and playmates, our friends and our neighbors, attach us in gratitude and love to our homes and the home-folks. The memories of our joys and sorrows, of the games and dreams of our childhood, the hopes and longings of our youth, are interwoven with the native heath and the native skies ; the home customs are inseparable from the home-country. Thus the heart is bound with a thousand threads to the home ; the farther away it is in space and time, the nearer it is to the heart, the more longingly our thoughts turn back to it. Through the home we are united with the people and the fatherland ; the community of spirit- ual life, as it is immediately expressed in language, the com- munity of historical life, the common reverence of the heroes and leaders of the people in war and victory as well as in the works of peace, bind us together in common feelings, thoughts, and beliefs. The life of the people is the soil on which the individual life grows; from it the latter absorbs whatever of life and strength, mental and moral excellence it possesses. Hence the individual is bound to his country by ties of gratitude, reverence, love and affection. To these are added pride ; a common honor binds the individual to his home and his people; it even continues where the bond of love has been severed. The exile who leaves his home full of anger and hatred discovers in strange lands that his heart cannot forget his native heath. In foreign parts he learns to appreciate the value of his home, which forms an inalien- able endowment of his soul. The respect for his own people comes back to him, and prepares the soil for new feelings of attachment and love. The home and the people, finally, also unite the individual to humanity. The nation with its historical life appropriates the great spiritual goods of humanity, assimilating them in its own peculiar way, and each member of the people participates in the life of human- ity, and thankfully acknowledges his membership in the great kingdom of spirits and of God upon earth. 42 658 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES We are accustomed to regard our relations to our own peo- ple as the most important of these relations, and this is most likely the truth. We call the subjective relation of the individual to his people patriotism^ and this is at present reckoned among the highest virtues of man. The word is not yet old, and it is worthy of note that it is of foreign extraction. It was borrowed from the French during the last century, a sign that the thing itself is not old and not of native origin. If I am not mistaken, the word patriot did not come into general use until the French revolution. The Jacobins called themselves patriots in distinction from the Royalists. A patriot was one who endeavored to make the state an affair of the " people " or to make the people the subjects of the state, in distinction from those who regarded the state as belonging to the dynasty. The word patriotism, therefore, to this day, has especial reference to the state. It is used to characterize the proper attitude of the individual not so much to the people as to the state. Political ortho- doxy is always prone to claim patriotism for itself alone and to deny it to its opponents. The Jacobins monopolized the name patriot in revolutionary France, as did the advocates of absolutism in Prussia during the fifties. It is plain that the relation of the individual to his people is somewhat one-sidedly defined by this term, not to speak of its misuse by parties. A man may be deeply attached to his people, he may love it and live for it without exactly living for the state. Nay, a certain indifference to and even estrangement from the state and politics may go together with a deep feeling of affection for the people and all that concerns it. Goethe was cei-tainly a sincere child of his people, and was devotedly attached to everything German ; and Luther was a thorough German. Nevertheless, we should hardly call these men patriots : it was not the state for which they lived, which they loved, but the people. Indeed, we are forced to say : We cannot love the state as such, we can only LOVE OF NEIGHBOR 659 love a being ; the state, however, is not a being, but an institu- tion, a function. A people is a being that we can love ; the state we may esteem, respect, be proud of, but we cannot love it. This one-sided accentuation of the individual's relation to the state, moreover, apparently depends upon the con- dition of our times. The life of the European nations is governed by the ideal of nationality, that is, the desire to construct national states. For three generations passionate attempts have been made to realize this ideal. I am cer- tainly far from wishing to deny or to lessen the value of these aspirations. The state is the natural form of a nation's existence. Without the state it is in danger of losing even its nationality, and hence no individual should be indifferent to the state as such. But the one-sided conception of the relation of the individual to his people prepares the way for certain abuses which were hardly known to former ages. Patriotism is now frequently used both as an advertisement for party fanaticism and as a cloak for chauvinism. National arrogance and hatred of foreigners hide behind its name, and abuse every one who does not agree with them. When it comes to French or Bohemian patriotism we have no trouble in recognizing the ugliness and absurdity of the thing ; but it is no more becoming to us Germans than to other nations. If patriotism continues to develop in this direction, it will become a morbid degenera- tion and a serious menace to the life of the European nations. If the instincts of those nations whose history and geographi- cal position make it advisable for them to live together in peace, continue, instead, in the direction of hatred and de- struction, they will, to speak with the Apostle, devour one another. Do not say that it is a necessity for the particular nation to cherish such " patriotic " feelings in view of its hostile neighbors. Are national pride, hatred, and contempt for neighboring nations, if not virtues, at least useful quali- 660 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES ties in the struggle for existence ? I think not. Hate impels men to seek quarrels, and pride turns their heads. But pride goes before the fall: this is as true of nations as of indi- viduals. Now, whoever does not believe that it is desirable for a nation to hate and be hostile to its neighbors, cannot regard such a disposition as a desirable endowment. A people must have a feeling of self-respect ; it cannot live with- out it. But there is a calm and firm self-reliance, which understands and respects what is foreign and yet is wholly conscious of its own value, which desires to be and to remain what it is, and does not bow down before the foreign either in imitation or in consequence of force. Such a healthy feeling of self-respect is wholly compatible with respect for and justice to foreigners, in the case of individuals as well as nations. Nay, arrogance and hatred are really always the signs of an irritable, diseased self-consciousness; that is, one that has no confidence in itself. The Germans used to pride themselves on their readiness to recognize and their ability to understand the spiritual life of foreigners. We have often and justly boasted that no nation has equalled us in assimilating the literature and poetry of other nations, and that none therefore has participated in the history of the past centuries in so universal a spirit as we. Freedom from selfish, arrogant, vain, and narrow-minded self-conceit, which the flatterers of popular passion call pa- triotism, has enabled the German people to do this. Have we still the right to boast of such freedom ? One thing we may say : Thus far the German people, or at least their political leaders, have borne the honors of their new position of power among the European nations with great and unusual modesty. But perhaps there is ground for adding: The German nation has reason to be on its guard, that it may not forfeit this mental freedom. The question concerning the function of education and par- ticularly of the school, in arousing patriotism, has been much LOVE OF NEIGHBOR 661 discussed. The main thing, in my opinion, is to guard love of country against degenerating into a false patriotism. Love and affection for one's own people and its great leaders in war and peace is a natural feeling, which arises spontaneously in the healthy mind reared under healthy conditions. Why should not a person borne and reared by a German mother, taught by German teachers, nurtured by German poets, be German in his feelings and thoughts ? And why should he not lovingly and faithfully cling to his people? And why should he not be proud of its virtues and achievements? But respect for and justice to the foreign do not arise of their own accord. On the contrary, contempt and hatred are the natural feelings here. To suffer and understand the foreign is culture. It is a beautiful mission for our higher schools to offer such culture. The masses of the people hardly see beyond the boundaries of their own nation ; in war only do they come into closer contact with the foreign. The gymnasium in its old and in its new form makes the acquisition of foreign lan- guages the chief factor in its instruction. This is to enable the future governors and leaders of the people to understand and to preserve the historical connections of their own race. Such instruction assumes that the spiritual life of our people is not isolated and cannot thrive in isolation, — that our people is a member of the European family of nations, which contains other members of equal worth, by which its own life is sup- plemented and enriched. The ultimate goal of a humanistic education would be to enable the individual to participate more freely in the spiritual life of his own people, by teaching him to understand human life in its historical unity. That would be humanistic education in the highest sense of the term ; in it the love of country and appreciation of humanity would be fused. If the propagation of such humanistic culture were to weaken the feelings of enmity pervading the leading classes among the European nations, if it would in a measure prepare 662 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES the way for the " eternal peace " which the eighteenth century foretold, and which seems to be so infinitely remote to the nineteenth century, it would be no small gain. The European nations will have to accustom themselves to the thought that, inasmuch as providence has decreed that they must live to- gether, it will be best for them to settle their differences otherwise than by war. The spirit of brotherly love already prevails among them to such an extent that none of the great civilized nations would be willing to see any of the others annihilated, or to bring about such a result itself. Wars of extermination are no longer carried on among them ; quarrels are settled by forcible means at present, merely because a new and different method has not yet been discovered. It is to be hoped that the future will bring back enough of the humane cosmopolitanism of earlier times to restrict and supplement patriotism. It is also to be hoped that it will give back to us some of our old love of home. This, too, has been somewhat stifled by the present evolution of state and national patriotism. " Local patriotism," like cosmopolitan^ ism, has for a long time been an object of contempt and abuse. We can understand why this is so. Germany was formerly split up into a lot of little states, until the establish- ment of a German united state became a necessity in order to enable the German people to act as a political subject among other nations, after having for centuries been nothing but a political object. But now that our legitimate and passionate yearning for political unity has been satisfied, let us hope that our people's deeply rooted love of home will again assert itself. It is evidently not desirable that we interest ourselves and participate solely in the public affairs of the Empire, or, what is worse, that we waste our efforts in political discussions and patriotic manifestations. The sphere of political life, in which the individual can find regular and fruitful employment, is for most persons circumscribed by the communities in which they live. The community is the proper place for the most LOVE OF NEIGHBOR 663 essential functions of collective life ; the school, the church, charitable institutions, public enterprises of all kinds, offer the public-spirited man ample opportunity for exercising his capacities. Here even the plain man of the people can labor freely and fruitfully for the public weal, whereas in the natu- ral course of events he can hardly do anything for the state at large except what he is commanded to do. CHAPTER XI VERACITY I 1. Veracity may be regarded as a form of benevolence ; it is benevolence manifested in the communication of thoughts. We may, as in the case of benevolence, distinguish two phases of veracity : a negative side and a positive side. The former, corresponding to justice, is expressed by the formula of duty : Thou shalt not lie ; the latter, corresponding to love of neighbor, is expressed by the formula of duty : Serve thy neighbor with the truth. Let us first discuss the negative side. To lie, as we are accustomed to define it, means willingly and wittingly to tell an untruth in order to deceive others. Perhaps it will not be unnecessary to make the definition a little narrower by taking account of the fact that falsehood sometimes shelters itself behind formal excuses. In the first place, of course, words, be they spoken or written, are not essential to falsehood. We can lie without words, by acts and gestures, or even by keeping silent. An absent one is slandered in your presence ; you know that what is said is not true, but you have not the courage to contradict it ; it might cause you to be disliked or to be evilly spoken of, so you are 1 [Sidgwick, Bk. III., ch. VII. ; Stephen, ch.V. (IV.); Jhering, II., pp. 578 ff • Porter, Part II., ch. X.; Hoffding, XII. b ; Spencer, Inductions, ch. IX.; Smyth, Part II., ch. III.; Dorner, 387-393 ; Runze, §§ 69 ff . - Kant. Uber ein vermemt. hches Recht aus Menschenliebe zu lUgen, 1797; Metaphysik der Sitten (Harten- Btein) VII., 234-241 ; Nietzsche, Jenseits von Gut und BOse ; Nordau, Conven- tional Lies; J. Uorley, On Compromise. — Tr] VERACITY 665 silent, or smile knowingly. That is lying. Or you wish an evil report concerning a third party to be circulated, but you are not willing to shoulder the responsibility, and so you begin : " Have you heard what is being said of So-and-so ? " The newspapers, as well as gossiping women, are in the habit of lying in this way : " It is said . . . ; " "In circles which are usually well informed it is rumored. . . ." To be sure ; how many things are there not rumored ? Equivocation is another favorite trick of the liar. L. Schmidt ^ gives a few examples from Greek life. The Locrians made a compact with the Siculians, and swore that they would keep it so long as they trod the same earth and carried their heads upon their shoulders. Previously, how- ever, they had put earth into their shoes, and had placed garlic heads upon their shoulders under their garments. Another favorite method of procedure, developed to an art by politicians and historians, is to let the facts themselves lie. In discussing one side of a question, an historian chooses the most venomous speeches and deeds of its ex- treme supporters, and the criticisms and self-reproaches of the moderate wing ; in presenting the other side he selects the most satisfactory tenets, the most commendable or tolerable acts of its friends. Thus by skilfully selecting and arranging we can make anything out of everything. This, too, is the method of the reviewer who does not like a book ; he tears out a handful of phrases or sentences, sur- rounds them abundantly with quotation marks, occasionally inserts a word or two, and places the stuffed monster before the eyes of the reader, thereby arousing his righteous in- dignation. There is no absurdity that cannot be drawn from a book in this way. A particularly favorite trick of recent years is to lie by arranging the figures. Figures never lie, it is said. This is not true ; they will prove whatever is expected of them. A series of figures is given : " Since the year 1872, 1 Ethik der Griechen, II., 5. 666 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES when such and such an official took charge of the school system, the number of youthful criminals has increased in the following progression . These figures are suggestive ! " Of course, says the harmless reader to himself, who is not trained in the art of rhetoric, and for him alone leading articles are written, this is the result of such a mode of government. All these things then come under the head of falsehood : To lie means to influence others to accept views which you do not regard as true yourself, by means of speech or silence, by simulation or dissimulation, and by the selection and arrangement of facts. 2. Why is lying wrong ? Intuitional ethics answers with common sense : Because it is inherently wrong and disgrace- ful. Kant reckons veracity among the duties to self ; he regards falsehood as the abandonment of one's dignity as a man, and places it on a level with suicide : as the latter destroys the physical life, so the former destroys moral life. This view is well fitted for the practical-rhetorical treat- ment of the subject. Indeed, Kant is often an admirable moral preacher. But it is the business of moral philosophy to discover the objective ground of morality, and this we shall again have to seek in the effects which falsehood natur- ally tends to have upon the conduct of human life. They are not hard to find. Falsehood directly injures the deceived party in so far as false ideas lead to false acts. As a rule, this is the purpose of the lie : the deceiver, the flatterer, the slanderer, wishes to gain some advantage over another by deception. Thus falsehood is a means of injustice, and there- fore shares in the judgment pronounced upon the latter. But falsehood has a specific effect besides. So far as it can, it destroys faith and confidence among men, and consequently undermines human social Zife, the foundation of all real human, of all mental-historical life. And this explains its particular reprehensibleness. We may illustrate the influence of false- VERACITY 667 hood by counterfeiting. The counterfeiter damages not only the individual upon whom he palms off the spurious coin and who cannot pass it; he also injures society, by destroying public confidence in all money : the existence of spurious coin brings the good money into disrepute. Should spurious coins become so numerous as to make it necessary to test every piece before accepting it, this would be equivalent to the abolition of money as such, for its purpose is to relieve tlie individual of the necessity of testing its value. Lying has the same effect. It falsifies the intellectual medium of exchange, so to speak. Lies invalidate the truth, and the outcome is universal distrust and isolation. The parties immediately concerned are directly affected. The deceived person first becomes distrustful of the liar, and, in case he has been deceived by many, of all human beings in general, and sep- arates himself from them. The liar fares similarly. He is isolated from his surroundings, first, owing to the distrust of those whom he deceives, which hardly ever fails to appear ; for one lie may pass undiscovered, but habitual falsehood can- not remain concealed, if for no other reason than that it lies in the very nature of untruths to contradict each other, whereas consistency is peculiar to truth. When the liar loses the confidence of others, he also loses confidence in them : it is psychologically necessary for the man who lies to expect others to do the same. There can be no doubt that this dual distrust is not a favorable condition of life : like a poisoned stratum of air it envelops a life and excludes it from fellowship with human beings ; the honest and sincere men, especially, are repelled, for they cannot breathe an atmosphere of falsehood and distrust. The corroding and poisonous character of falsehood becomes most apparent when it invades permanent social relations, family-life, friendship, education. A pupil lies to his teacher. Some misdemeanor has been committed in the class, the guilty party lies out of it, as the saying is. The result is 668 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES mutual distrust. The teacher begins to hold Wmsdf Joof from his pupils, the frank relations between him and them are atTn enS he begins to observe them stealthily, to spy upon hem Se pupils notice it ; they begin to make concealmen^; fo "dence and openness, the conditions of a happy relat on be ween teacher and student, are gone When occ^-- this kind become frequent, something of the P^f^^^;;; pervades the school, which «f ^ ;^;^ ^f^ J /^^^ [^I; Honce nothino; is more important than to preserve iue p ff ;i and confidence within its walls. This however, can be kept alive only where the spirit of freedom dwells. Hence it follows from the very nature of fal-»;o°^.tha t poisons speech, undermines confidence, destroys collec - 1.^^ and so attacks the very fibres of human existence. I cannot deny myself the pleasure of quoting a beautiful V^^^J^ Luther's commentary on the Psalms which I find in Herder s zZsfor the Promotion of mmanUy. "It seems to me fhtrire is no more pernicious vice on earth than falsehood and faithlessness, which divide all human societies. For lehood and faithlessness first divide hearts; when hea te are divided, hands also separate, and when hands separate, are aivm , „^„™piiah ? We Germans still have a what can we do or accompnsn . "c . 4.r,„ „ij spark -may God keep it alive and strengthen it - of the old virtue: we are still a little ashamed of ourselves and do not like to be called liars; we do not laugh abou it as do the French and the Greeks, or make a jest of it. And although French and Greek vices are making ^''^^^/'^.^ "^l nevertheless we have retained so much of the old spirit that no one can utter or hear a more severe and abusive epithet than that of liar." Another factor helps to make the lie still more reprehen- sible; it is a sign of cowardice. It steals upon its victim, nsteld of vanquishing him in open battle. A brave man will not lie. The accusation of falsehood always carries with it the charge of cowardice, hence it wounds a man VERACITY 669 more deeply than almost any other charge. You lie, means at the same time : You are a cowardly knave. 3. Everything that makes the lie despicable and base is included in calumny. We might rhetorically define it as the murderous attack of the assassin upon the ideal self of an- other. In Othello, Shakespeare portrays the natural history of calumny with awful faithfulness and cruelty. lago stran- gles the innocent wife with the hands of her husband. Had lago killed Desdemona with his own hand and robbed her as a pirate, he would have been an honest man beside the real lago. The fact that he cannot even be called to account be- fore a human judge makes the matter all the worse — for what did he do but act in good faith in calling Othello's attention to the dangers threatening his honor; well who never made a mistake ? Moreover, we must not forget that two persons are always necessary to make a slander possible. Just as the thief needs the receiver of stolen goods, the calumniator needs a person to accept his words and to put them in circulation. And just as stealing would be impossible on the large scale with- out receivers of stolen goods, the business of calumny would be impossible if there were not so many to delight in it and encourage it. In a letter written during the period of his banishment (1811) Freiherr von Stein bitterly reproaches this base tendency of human nature. " When once a man is marked as the victim of slander, his past life, his established character, the probability of the truth of the accusation, are not taken into account; the question simply is whether the charge will answer the intended purpose. In a short time the calumny is circulated everywhere; it triumphs, the enemies of the victim are active, the great multitude maliciously credulous, his friends pretending to be impartial are base ; they are silent, where they ought to take a firm stand. Finally one after the other goes over to the opposite party from pure love of virtue, from a sense of duty, and 670 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES delicacy of feeling. All passions which he has insulted, all presumptuousness which he has wounded, now revive; all wish to celebrate the day of revenge and to feast on the fat of the victim."^ Another modified form of the lie is jlattery. It is so re- pulsive because it creeps in under the guise of friendship to defraud its victim. However, here again two people are necessary : one to do the flattering and one who allows him- self to be flattered. As a plaster draws blisters, so self- conceit provokes flattery. Hypocrisy is a form of flattery. Religious hypocrisy used to be common : we may define it cs an attempt by the exact fulfilment of the ceremonies of the church to insinuate oneself into the good graces of God and to draw His attention from less agreeable phases of one's life. Religious hypocrisy has well-nigh died out in our world, at least among the Protestants ; nowadays it appears solely as a part of political hypocrisy, which tries to insinuate itself into the graces of earthly rulers. With shrewd zeal the hypocrite enters into the views, inclinations, and tastes of great or little lords, particularly into their ecclesiastical and religious opinions, and seeks and gains favor thereby. Nothing flatters a human being more than to be an authority ; authority, however, must be acknowledged by imitation. The effect of hypocrisy is the same as that of all lying: as forgery makes us suspect the genuine, hypocrisy brings re- ligion into hatred and contempt. Hence all truly religious natures hate hypocrisy, and all sincere persons hate assumed " orthodoxy " like death. Falsehood raised to the highest power is perjury. It is the lie accompanied by the formal and solemn assurance that it is the truth. Perjury has everywhere and always been re- garded as one of the greatest crimes, as a sign of extreme viciousness and baseness. We can defend ourselves againpt violence by violence, strategy we meet with strategy : these 1 Pertz, Stein's Leben, I., 449. VERACITY 671 are the means of war, which may be followed by an honor- able peace after the matter has been fought out. But perjury cuts off all possibility of a return of friendship. There is no defence, no weapon against perjury ; helplessly and with a feeling of horror man appeals to the gods, when he has been deceived by perjury, to punish such an enormous crime. L. Schmidt ^ calls our attention to the fact that the Iliad, con- trary to its leading ideas, does not regard death as the final punishment of perjury ; fidelity to oaths is universally looked upon by the Greeks as the most essential and, in a measure, most elementary part of justice, perjury as the most heinous crime. The necessity of absolutely proving evidence before court has led to the preservation of the oath in our judicial prac- tice. The legal prosecution of organized bands of perjurers every now and then shows beyond a doubt that with the weakening of the transcendent sanction the oath has lost some of its efficacy and has become a dreadfully dangerous weapon in the hands of unscrupulous men. This state of affairs evidently suggests the advisability of abolishing the oath from legal practice, a useless survival. At all events, it demands that the greatest care be taken in employing it. We must particularly restrict the right of doubtful char- acters to make oath by imposing severe punishments for its violation. And can we justify the practice of forcing the oath ? 2 1 Ethik der Griechen, II., 3 ff. 2 Au able judge, von Valentini, Das Verbreckertum in Preussen, p. 112, ex- presses the opinion that the administration of the oath by the courts, its employ- ment as a " technical requisite," greatly encourages perjury. Indeed, how, in view of the fact that forty to fifty oaths are administered at a single session of a sheriff's court, mostly in farcical and trivial cases, can the oath preserve its es- pecially sacred character ? The ceremony with which the thing is surrounded almost makes matters worse. Besides this, the judges are by no means obliged to regard the sworn testimony as worthy of belief, and do not regard it as such : it really makes an extremely painful impression upon one, when the judge, after having just sworn a witness, straightway admonishes him, not always in the gentlest manner, to keep to the truth. We are similarly impressed by the attitude 672 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES iffi; 4. The Lie of Necessity. A problem that has given the moralists the greatest trouble is the lie of necessity. Is deception under all circumstances morally wrong, or can conditions arise under which it is permissible or even morally necessary? In our actual judgments and actions we experience no diffi- culty in answering this question; everybody acknowledges the possibility of the "necessary lie." There is not a phy- sician in the whole world who does not at times give decep- tive answers to the questions of his patients, who does not arouse hopes which he does not share. He does not reproach himself for doing so, neither do others blame him. Indeed, everybody does the same thing under similar circumstances. Suppose that, without knowing it, a man should be in an extremely dangerous position and that his rescue depended upon his being deceived for a minute, would any one in the slightest hesitate to encourage him in his delusion ? The newspapers recently reported a case analogous to this. Fire broke out during a performance in a theatre at Zurich. When the stage manager discovered it, he appeared before of the ta'x-officials with respect to the " self-asaessment " : after the person ha^ made his returns, certifying that they are true, " according to his best knowl- edge and belief," he is informed that the authorities are inclined not to believe his statements, but merely regard them as valuable material for further investigations. If this is not an invitation to withhold returns, not to say to ignore the " to the best knowledge and belief " clause in the assessment-blank, I know nothing of psvcholo-v. Is not what the authorities presuppose permissible ? —Many of the so-called promissory oaths also tend to make persons careless in swearing oaths. Think of the academic oaths. The medical doctor's oath, which is cus- tomarv in Berlin, begins: « I, John Doe, swear that I will not practise medicine for the sake of personal gain, but for the glory of God, for the welfare of man, and for the promotion of scientific knowledge," etc. But this is evidently a survival protected by the Latin language : the thing would be impossible in Ger- man -Ts it not possible that the prohibition against swearing in tlie Gospel is chieflv aimed at promissory oaths ? The reasons given seem to indicate it : You are not master of things, and of the future, you cannot make one hair white or black ; and vet you will sell your soul by an oath and bind yourself to do certam things. With what ease the church evades this explicit prohibition against swearing, and how tenaciously she adheres to the law of the Sabbath, in spite of its abolition ! VERACITY 673 the scenes and announced that, owing to the sudden illness of an actor, the performance would have to be suspended. The theatre was emptied without any trouble, and then burned to the ground. Will any one dare to condemn this happy idea as a lie ? And it is not even necessary that the deception be in the interest of the person deceived. It may also be practised in one's own interest, without the slightest hesitation, and meet with universal approval. An old woman is at home alone; a couple of tramps break into her house; she has presence of mind enough to call out the name of her husband, thereby deceiving the burglars. She will not herself suffer remorse for her behavior, nor will any one else reproach her for it. Nay, even the tramps themselves would not be so rigoristic as to blame her. The story is told that Columbus entered a smaller number of miles in the log-book during his first voyage of discovery than he actually traversed each day, in order to make the distance from home seem shorter to his timid crew. Will any one condemn the brave sailor's strategy as a moral fault ? Only among moral philosophers do we still find persons who regard the matter as serious. Kant declares: False- hood, that is, intentional untruthfulness, is under all cir- cumstances, '^ by its mere form, a crime of man against his own person, and a baseness which must make a man despi- cable in his own eyes."^ When a man misdirects a mur- derer in search of his victim, and dexterously turns him into the hands of the police, we cannot excuse him: he has told a lie, and has therefore forfeited his dignity as a man. And Fichte once said, with his usual rhetorical fanaticism, "I would not break my word even to save humanity. "^ Let us apply this principle in practice. Suppose that I had promised some one to call for him at ^\\q o'clock for a walk, and that on my way to his house I saw a child fall into the river. If I followed Fichte, I should say to myself: 1 Tugendlehre, § 9. * Life, II., 57. 43 674 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES " If you pull it out, you will have to go home and change your clothes, which will make it impossible for you to keep your engagement; hence you must hurry on, sorry though you may be." Or would it be right for me to assume that my friend would give his consent in such a case, and, acting on this belief, to break my engagement ? But suppose I could not assume that he would consent. I have made a promise ; now I see what I could not have known before, or what is simply the result of new conditions; a third party, or I myself, might be seriously damaged by fulfilling the prom- ise, I beg to be released from my word, I am willing to pay any amount of indemnity; in vain. May I break my word? Under no circumstances. I should have to say, according to Fichte's view: Let the world perish, that is not my concern; but it is my concern not to destroy my moral dignity as a human being by a lie! — Other moralists are somewhat more yielding, or have not the courage to draw the consequences of their views. Thus Martensen holds in his Theological Ethics:^ Lies of necessity are, under certain circumstances, permitted on account of the weakness of human nature ; but it must be confessed that "there is some sin in every such falsehood;" a conclusion which surely is not in accord with the words of the Gospel • "Let your communication be yea, yea, nay, nay." Practice not only contradicts the theory here, but is even theoretically correct in its opposition to these theorists. It may be that the lie of necessity does not fit into the system of a moralist, but that merely proves the inability of his system to comprehend moral things. A teleological ethics finds no difficulty in explaining the phenomenon in question. Intentional deception is objectively reprehensible, as was shown above, because it tends to destroy confidence, and thus to lead to the disintegration of ih^ social organism. In cases where this effect cannot possibly occur, owing to the 1 II., 264. VERACITY 675 very nature of things, it is not reprehensible. Let us take an example. No relation of confidence can be destroyed by deceiving a burglar, because absolutely none exists, neither a special relation, nor a universally-human one. In so far and so long as such lawbreakers follow their calling, they stand outside of the pale of confidence, and thereby forfeit all claims to the truth, nor will they expect to receive it. The case is somewhat similar in war. No soldier has ever scrupled against deceiving the enemy as to his own plans, tactics, or numbers. Strategy is one of the arts of war ; it would be absurd to show your hand in war. It is said that the most honest man cheats in a horse-trade ; it is one of the rules of the game to keep your eyes open. The etymological relation between the words tauschen (to exchange) and tduschen (to deceive) seems to indicate that these rules are also applied to other branches of commerce. Well, decep- tion is likewise one of the rules of war : everybody practises it and expects the enemy to do the same. The rules, how- ever, apply only to the game. Whenever in war an individ- ual comes in contact with another individual not as a foe but as a human being, then the universal rule of human in- tercourse again demands its rights. The same is true when- ever the game of war is temporarily suspended by mutual agreement : to break an armistice, to ambush the bearer of a flag of truce, is disgraceful and dishonorable. The case is peculiar in diplomacy/. In a certain sense the rules of war seem to hold here : Keep your eyes open ! No one shows his hand, and everybody will, to say the least, regard it as legitimate not to "disillusionize" a fellow- player under certain circumstances, nay, perhaps even to encourage him a little in his false belief. This is apparently because it is tacitly assumed in international intercourse that every state will be solely and unconditionally guided in its dealings with others by the regard for its own vital in- terests; that it will, so far as it can safely do so, assert 676 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES i.'fl these even at the expense of other nations. There is no law governing the intercourse of states which can secure them against encroachments ; there is no power which can medi- ate between them or call the breaker of the peace to account. Hence a constant potential state of war exists between states. The rules of diplomatic intercourse show that in so far as war, in which force and strategy are absolutely permitted, is possible at any moment, the parties are reticent and distrustful of each other; they conceal their measures and agreements, their plans and intentions. But in so far as the real object of diplomacy is to maintain peace, to settle by negotiations what would otherwise have to be settled by the arbitrament of war, a certain measure of mutual confi- dence is required. If diplomats needed language merely to conceal their thoughts, it would evidently be wiser for nations not to speak to each other at all. — Besides, there seems to be the same tendency here as in commerce. At- tempts are being made in the latter field gradually to stamp out fraud, at least the coarser phases of it, as an unsuitable form of intercourse. So, too, in the diplomatic intercourse of nations : the closer they are drawing to each other, the more intimate their relations are becoming, the more the conviction seems to be growing that the straight course is better than the crooked course in the long run. And per- haps we may see in this an evidence that the European nations are approaching a condition of permanent peace, remote though it may seem at present. For evidently the probability of war and the measure of openness in diplomatic intercourse are in inverse proportion to each other. Hence, the fewer the relations of trust which can be dis- turbed, the more of its dangerous and objectionable character intentional deception loses, and the more openly it is actually practised, until it ultimately appears as an altogether legiti- mate means of warfare in the actual state of war. Where VERACITY 677 all ties are broken, where even the killing of others is de- sired, it can do no more harm ; things are so bad that decep- tion will not make them worse. Another case which may make intentional deception per- missible or necessary is the inability of the other party to understand or to bear the truth. It may, for example, under circumstances, have a quieting effect upon insane persons to enter into their delusions. It is also necessary to accom- modate oneself to the weakminded. This is true of old people who have grown weak-minded; they have lost the faculty of seeing and judging things in their true relations, but not the faculty of becoming excited by occasionally mis- interpreting them. We are compelled, for example, to make certain arrangements, contrary to the wishes of our old parents. Is it right to conceal our plans, or to deny them ? It is a hard thing to do ; it seems like a breach of old confi- dential relations. And yet every one will at times decide to pursue such a course, and justly so, for what good would it do to tell them ? We could not make them see the neces- sity of our action ; the information would therefore simply grieve them, while the deception, if not detected, would be harmless. The case is different in our intercourse with children ; and here we are often too ready to have recourse to the most convenient form of deception that happens to pres- ent itself. The deception persists in memory; when the intelligence develops and recognizes it as such, it may after- wards seriously undermine the child's faith. Besides, an- other means of escape is always at hand ; we can refuse to answer the child's questions by saying, "You do not under- stand these things yet," or, " They do not concern you." It would, however, be wholly impossible to treat old people in this way, even if it were proper. Here, then, we must make use of language, as the physician occasionally pre- scribes a pretended remedy, simply in order to quiet the patient. ;i 678 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES But, some one might ask in troubled tones, Where, then, shall we draw the line ? The transition to childish old age is a gradual one. Where may one begin to deceive ? And if I may deceive a weak-minded person, then why not a stupid blockhead? And where shall this end? And who is to decide how to classify the individuals in question ? Only one answer can be made to such questions. Such fixed boundaries do not exist in morals. The law draws hard and fast, and therefore arbitrary, lines, while morality has every- where to do with gradual transitions. The particular case must necessarily be decided by the individual's own insight and conscience, and with a view to the concrete conditions. Morality cannot give him a scheme which shall enable him to settle the matter with mechanical certainty. It can merely indicate the general points of view from which the decision is to be rendered. The case is not essentially different for the physician in his intercourse with patients. Here, too, we have a rela- tion of trust, and deception is not without its dangers. Perhaps we are all a little incredulous in reference to what the physician says, both when he tries to quiet us and when he warns us. He does it, we believe, simply for effect. Nevertheless, we cannot expect absolute openness from the physician in every case. If, in order to assist his art, he skilfully and quietly deceives the patient and his friends as to the magnitude of the danger, he does not de- serve blame but praise. It is a part of his art to keep up courage and hope ; to that end he also makes use of speech, even at the risk of subsequently disappointing the patient and of weakening the latter's faith in his word as well as in the word of physicians in general. It was shown above ^ that the violation of formal right is under all circumstances an evil, but that it may become permissible or necessary in order to ward off a greater evil from oneself or others. The 1 Pp. 630ff. w VERACITY 679 I same is true here. The lie of necessity, like the law of necessity, may become a moral duty, — a duty which even the most truthful man cannot always evade, however wil- . ling he may be to forfeit his right to deceive. Confidence in human speech is a great good, but it is not the only good thing in the world. Everybody meets with similar cases in life. A man has had some trouble ; he has been undeservedly abused ; a crisis threatens to overtake his business. He comes home, deter- mined not to say anything about the matter. But he looks pale ; his family ask him, what has happened ? Is it right to say, " Nothing, it is warm, I have a headache ? " I believe the conditions may be such that no one would hesitate to practise deception here. The man in our example does not like to tell the truth, he does not wish his friends at home to hear anything about the matter ; why should they worry over it ? To evade their questions may be worse than to tell the truth. — Here, too, relations of confidence exist, and deception is not without danger. In case they should hear of his troubles from others who will not spare their feelings, they may not only be more greatly disturbed, but their con- fidence may receive a serious shock. And yet a man may make up his mind to add dissimulation to intentional deception. Or, is dissimulation absolutely wrong, according to these " rigorous " moralists ? That it belongs to the category of deception cannot be denied. When a man with his heart full of care and bitterness seems cheerful and calm in the circle of his family, so that no one notices it, he has cer- tainly deceived them in the most complete manner possible. Is that not allowed either ? Has he no right to look cheerful when he is inwardly sad, or calm when he is in trouble ? Is this, too, an abandonment of his dignity as a man ? These moral philosophers should have made clear to themselves the consequences of their assertion. Or is it possible only to 680 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES deceive by means of the tongue and not with the eyes and face ? Or ought we always to show everything we feel ? Ought I then to tell a friend who has an unfortunate leaning to art, when he presents me with a picture as a birthday gift : " My dear friend, your intentions are undoubtedly good, but I wish you would spare me ? " Or shall I declare, when he expects me to say something about the present : " Unfortu- nately, I cannot tell you anything, for if I told you the truth, you would be angry, but if I did n't tell the truth, this would be contrary to the moral law ? " Of course, it may be my duty to say to my friend frankly and distinctly, in case his hobby is making him ridiculous, or is causing him to neglect his duties : " Stop it, you will never accomplish anything, and you are simply hurting yourself." The good-natured praise of questionable achievements may grow into base flattery. But all this will not shake any one but an extremist in the belief that it may, under circumstances, be right and proper to tell a man what will give him harmless pleasure, even though this does not express one's real opinion, instead of telling him things which it will neither please him nor benefit him to hear. To the same category belong the conventional half-truths and untruths of social intercourse. We welcome a visitor who comes at an inopportune time; at the end of a letter we assure a man whom we do not know, or whom we look upon as a thorough villain, of our high esteem. The neces- sity and justification for this lies in the fact that smooth and peaceful intercourse is not possible among men as they are constituted, without the exercise of some constraint. The customary politeness is the oil which prevents, so far as possible, the creaking and pulling of the machine. The angels in heaven do not need it. Where there are no inner discords and outer obstacles, perfect openness is possible; human beings as they are constituted cannot endure it. It is for this reason that Goethe delicately and truthfully says : VERACITY 681 Fragst du nach der Kunst zu leben ? Lern* mit Narr und Bosem leben. Mit den Weisen, mit den Guten, Wird es sich von selbst ergeben.* Of course, where is the boundary between necessary polite- ness and repulsive flattery and falsehood? No system of morals can draw the line: moral tact alone must decide. And the thing is not without its dangers. A person who lives much in society easily forms the habit of lying, his conscience gradually becomes seared, it becomes a second nature and finally a necessity for him to lie. We are there- fore ready to suspect a man who exhibits great skill in the art of polite speech. We are more apt to trust one who is somewhat awkward and backward in speaking conventional untruths. Hence our conclusion would be : Be truthful ; this holds unconditionally; but Speak the truth does not hold uncon- ditionally. 5. How shall we account for this strange " rigorism " of the moralists, which is everywhere contradicted by life? Are they perhaps influenced by the curious notion that the "stricter" their systems, the better it will be for the moral- ity of mankind ? It almost seems so. If our moral systems, they seem to think, leave the smallest loophole for falsehood, man's inclination to lie will gradually enlarge it, and he will always find an excuse for not speaking the truth. In case, however, these systems absolutely prohibit falsehood, and threaten it with the most awful punishments, — loss of human dignity and self-respect, — then he will be on his guard. As though men always first referred to a handbook of morals before opening their mouths ! ^ These lines, by the way, might be taken as the translation of a passage in the Imitation of Christ : " It is no great matter to associate with the good and gentle ; for this is naturally pleasing to all, and every one willingly enjoyeth peace, and loveth those best that agree with him. But to be able to live peace- ably with hard and perverse persons, or with the disorderly, or with such as go contrary to us, is a great grace, and a most commendable and manlv thing." (n, 3.) I* 682 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES But perhaps this rigorism has still another ground. It is surprising that we do not find it among the Greek moral philosophers. Intentional deception is not only permitted by them under certain circumstances, but even demanded. According to Plato, the authorities in the ideal State must employ deception as a means of the welfare of the gov- erned. Socrates and the Stoics are of the same opinion. Is our sense of truth more finely developed than theirs? Are we so much superior to them in veracity ? In my opinion, the matter might be explained differently. I have repeat- edly referred to the fact that we, to quote Lessing, speak most of the virtues which we least possess, and also, that we condemn those vices most to which we are most inclined. The Greek philosophers — Schopenhauer is right in this — exhibit a measure of openness and straightforwardness in the presentation of their thoughts which we seldom find in the philosophical literature of modern times. Among the mod- erns there is a tendency to compromise and extemporize, to accommodation, to weaken the logical consequences of views, to embellishment, to ambiguity, to intentional obscurity, which contrasts unfavorably with the openness and transpar- ency of the ancients. Kant once confessed that though he would never say anything he did not believe, he believed many things which he would never say. A Greek might have replied to him : In that case I do not care very much for what you have to say, for I desire to know not what you are allowed to think with the consent of the high author- ities, but what you actually think yourself ! We can hardly doubt that church affairs have something to do with this attitude. Intellectual veracity, sincerity in matters of thought and faith, consistency in thinking, is not one of the virtues encouraged by the church. Primitive Christianity had nothing whatever in common with theoreti- cal knowledge ; although it practically demanded veracity of the highest kind, that is, martyrdom. When the church 1 VERACITY 683 became triumphant, and it was no longer the confession of the creed but non-conformity to it that entailed martyrdom, and when the faith was reduced to a kind of scientific sys- tem in theology, the spirit of humility and obedience, which the church and Christianity both fostered, stifled the theoret- ical love of truth : the spirit of obedience which the individual manifested towards the church and the authorities in his whole mode of life characterized his entire philosophy. L. Wiese states in his Autobiography that he has frequently observed a certain lack of openness in his intercourse with educated Catholics, even among persons who are otherwise honest and upright. This lack of openness may be found not only among Catholics, but also among Protestants, although the fact that the individual is freer in his relations to the church and the doctrines of the church may perhaps lessen the fault in the latter case. It is an historically necessary effect of church life as such, in so far as the demand that we submit to the church law and the creed follows inevitably from the nature of the church. So long as authoritative doctrines concerning all things in heaven and earth are formed and adhered to on the one side, and scientific and historical research con- tinue to develop new conceptions of things on the other, the conflict will be inevitable. Under such conditions the aver- age nature strives, for the most part, to move on the diagonal between the creed and knowledge. Historical faith and new insight simultaneously influence the mind and urge it, in accordance with the law of the parallelogram of forces, in the median direction. Examine the commentaries on the Gospels or the Lives of Christ: the impulse to save what can be saved of the old time-honored conceptions and inter- pretations, and, on the other hand, to concede as much to scientific research as must be conceded in order that one may be regarded as an enlightened and progressive man, determines their content. Or think of the attempts which have been made to read into G-enesis the conceptions of mod- ;j •r i 684 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES ern geology. It is to be presumed that Darwinism will be discovered there before very long. This perversion of the intellect is not necessarily accom- panied by a perversion of the will ; a frank and honest heart may exist side by side with these diagonal tendencies of the intellect. A man may hesitate to depart from the faith of the church, without being necessarily inspired by the fear of man and the desire to get along in the world. Still it cannot be denied that the lack of a theoretical love of truth, the tendency to accommodation, is often connected with quite worldly considerations and intentions. When Kepler lost his position and his income at Prague, after the downfall of Rudolph's Empire, there was a prospect of his being called to a professorship in his home university at Tubingen. The place was in all respects a desirable one; but he felt himself obliged, as an honest man, first to inform the Duke that his views on the doctrine of transubstantiation were not quite orthodox, that he had not been able to con- vince himself of the ubiquity of the body of Christ. Well, Kepler was not called. His biographer Reuschle adds, in reporting this episode, that Kepler belonged to that class of honest men, to be one of whom, as Hamlet says, is to be one man picked out of ten thousand. Indeed, no one will claim that Kepler represents the modern type of scholar in this respect. Leibniz would be a more fitting example. He was never in want of a system of thought to show the similarity between his thinking and that of some other person, were it an atheistic philosopher or a church believer, a Protestant or a Jesuit, an advocate of imperial unity or of the sover- eignty of the princes in Germany. With this status of affairs, it seems to me, the inclination to inveigh against falsehood and to stigmatize deception as absolutely reprehensible and disgraceful, has something to do. We feel the need, in the face of our constant danger, of em- phasizing to ourselves and to others, often in the strongest ^ 11 VERACITY 685 terms, the value of truthfulness and the disgrace of lying and of trifling with the truth. The Greek philosophers did not feel this need so much, because they were less exposed to temptation. Schopenhauer, whose proud, harsh, and incon- siderate temperament protected him against the tendency to accommodation, occasionally accuses Kant of affectation on account of his violent repudiation of every form of deception. Others are of different opinion ; they admire Kant's system precisely because of the harsh rigor of its formulae of duty, which exclude all exceptions. They also praise Luther as a hero of truth, and heap all kinds of abuse upon Erasmus on account of his tendency to accommodation and conciliation. Will the initiated conclude from this that the tribe of Erasmus has died out, and that our theologians and histori- ans are all little Luthers ? 6. We now turn to the positive side of veracity. It corre- sponds to love of neighbor, and is expressed in the formula of duty : Serve thy neighbor with the truth. Since the con- duct of man is, to a considerable extent, dependent upon ideas, true ideas are of prime importance to his welfare. The universal duty of love of neighbor, therefore, includes the duty to assist one's neighbor in ridding himself of false ideas and of acquiring true ones. This phase of the question has been too much neglected by moralists, a fact which accounts for their meagre treatment of veracity and also explains their inability to do justice to the lie of necessity. Whoever lives a life of truth in the main, will have no trouble in settling the question of decep- tion, whenever it may become necessary or expedient. But the person whose truthfulness consists solely in refraining from telling lies, will be afraid of totally destroying his repu- tation in case he should ever happen to say what is not true. Such purely negative veracity is, of course, a rather paltry thing; it easily degenerates into the mere art of avoiding direct falsehood. Had the disciples of Christ, after the . ii ! li n j 686 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES death of the Master, merely refused to deny Him directly, had they returned to their former callings, and, obeying the commands of the authorities and the dictates of prudence, locked up the memories of the past in their own hearts, had they in pursuance of the maxim that it is not our duty to say everything we believe, carefully evaded every discussion of their experiences, they certainly could have escaped the re- proach of falsehood, but they would surely never have become what they now are : witnesses of the truth, whose testimony is shaping the destiny of the centuries. Positive veracity, which first gives to negative veracity its real meaning and value, manifests itself, first, in the personal intercourse with individuals, where it assumes the form of advice, instruction, admonition, and correction ; sec- ondly, in the public communication of the truth, where it takes the form of research, teaching, and preaching. According to the first form, it is my duty to help the indi- vidual whom I find in search of the right path, or following the wrong path, according to my better lights. This duty, too, must be qualified. Just as the duty of love of neighbor cannot mean that every one is constantly to offer his aid to everybody he meets, the duty of veracity cannot mean that we are at all times obliged to instruct and advise people, to admonish and set them right. In addition to the limitations placed upon this duty by the same considerations which were indicated above in respect to love of neighbor in general, we must take into account other special features depending upon the special nature of this kind of charity. The duty to instruct and set right presupposes two things : first, that I am myself sure of the right path ; secondly, that the interested party is inclined to profit by my advice. We are essentially governed by these considerations in our ac- tual practice. I see a stranger in the mountains turning into a road that leads nowhere; I do not hesitate to call to him and to direct him. When, on the other hand, I find VERACITY 687 a person on the point of embarking upon a mercantile or literary venture, which I regard as sure to fail, I seriously deliberate before advising him. If the man is a stranger to me, I let him alone. I do not know enough of his situation, his powers, his resources, to know what he can do ; nor can I assume that he has confidence enough in my judgment to accept my advice : perhaps it would simply confuse him or anger him. I therefore, at least, wait until I am asked, and even then it will often be doubtful whether I ought to give the desired information. There are people who ask others' advice and then do as they please, simply in order to shift the blame upon them in case of failure, whether they have advised for or against the project. Whenever these difficulties are not in the way I shall be more inclined to communicate my views of the matter. The better I know the person and the circumstances, and the more interest I take in his welfare because of my particular relations to him, the more willing I shall be to advise him. The ability to judge where and when it is proper to aid others with advice and instruction, may be called discre^ tion. The opposite, indiscretion, the inability to keep from advising and instructing people, is a quality that will make a person disliked by his fellows sooner than anything else, especially when it appears in young men. It is particularly necessary for one to be on one's guard when it comes to rep- rimanding or blaming people. Uncalled-for blame angers a man and strengthens him in his perverseness. The habit of finding fault and speaking evil is a real vice. Here the pur- pose is not to serve the neighbor with the truth, but to flat- ter one's self-love and vanity. The Gospel does not warn us so earnestly against fault-finding for nothing. Insinuat- ing itself into our hearts in the guise of sincerity and love of truth, this habit becomes a soul-destroying vice. It extin- guishes brotherly love : we naturally hate a man whom we have wronged, even though it be in secret. It leads to ITH 688 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES flattery and falsehood : we try to make the interested person believe that we will not pronounce a similar judgment upon him when his back is turned. It prevents us from being true to ourselves: the man who is always beholding the mote that is in his brother's eye, at last cannot see the beam that is in his own eye. Hence the rule is: Speak of evil only when the good is promoted thereby ; and, for the rest, turn all things to good.^ 7. The other phase of the problem, the public communica- tion of the truth, demands a somewhat more elaborate treatment. To know the truth as a whole, as contained in philosophy and science, is not a function of the individual mind as such ; a people, or, in the last analysis, humanity, is the bearer of the truth, the individual shares in it as the member of a people. The little fraction which he possesses, he possesses as the heir of the past; he thinks with the logical and metaphysical categories which the popular mind has devel- oped in the course of thousands of years, and has incor- porated into grammatical forms. He sees things through the ideas and notions which his age places at his dis- posal, he labors upon the solution of the problems which it suggests to him. On the other hand, it is no less true that 1 In Wackernagel's Treasury of German Poetry and Wisdom {Edehteine deutscher Dichtung und WeisheU), vol. XIIL, is found a sermon of Brother David of Augsburg, which offers a piece of advice which we ought to take to heart • " Ziuch din gemuete von allem, das dich niht anget. Laz einen jeglichen sin dine ahten unde sinen siten halten unde schaf dft mit gote din dine. Swes aber du maht gebezzert werden, des nim alleine war ; das ander laz hin g§n. Bekumber din herze niht mit urteile, wan dft niht wizzen kanst, umbbe welhe Sache Oder in welhem sinne daz geschiht, daz d(i urteilst ; wan als wir (izen ofte missesehen einez fur daz ander, also misseraten wir ofte ein guotez fur em boesez als der schelhe, der zwel siht fur einez und ist daran betrogen. Maht duz aber niht zu guote keren, dennoch bekiimber dich niht da mite. Ez ist vil unverrihtunge in der kristenheit. der d(i aller niht verrihten maht. Lid emez mit dem andern. Des dft niht trftwest gebezzern, da uebe din gedult an. Swa aber von diuem swigen iht ungevelliges wahsen miihte. daz von diner rede mac gebezzert werden, da sprich zuo, senfteclichen, ernstliche, ane strit, daz da dich da mite unschuldigest, daz duz iht teilhaftic slst, des man dich anspreche." VERACITY 689 the collective mind exercises the functions only through individual minds as its organs. Here a notable difference may be observed: individuals do not all stand in the same relation to this function. The masses always participate in the truth in a rather receptive, passive manner, while nature chooses only a few distin- guished minds as bearers and increasers of knowledge. If we designate the latter with the old term of clergy (clerus), which includes all spiritual leaders of the people, its inves- tigators and teachers, its thinkers and poets, we may say: The public communication of the truth is the true life-calling of the cleruB, and veracity is the specific duty, as it were the professional virtue of the clericus. But we may again distinguish two phases in this virtue : we may call them sincerity and the love of truth. The former is the universal and elementary virtue of the clericus : it consists in this, that he simply and clearly, conscien- tiously and faithfully, employs the truth in teaching and preaching, in theory and in practice. It is the fundamental precondition of his power to do good in so far as the latter depends upon the confidence which the laymen have in him. But confidence is gained only by simplicity and sincerity of heart and intellect. Inquisitive love of truth, on the other liand, is the special duty of the true investigator and path- finder ; it is the passionate impulse which incites the historical or natural-scientific investigator to discover new facts and to penetrate more deeply into their relations. It is the im- pulse which, urging the thinker constantly to test the estab- lished views and theories, is forever on its guard against error even in the form of established opinions. It is the love of truth which inspires the poet and thinker who seeks to comprehend and express the secret meaning of life and the universe in new thoughts and symbols. It is the love of truth, finally, which impels the great leaders of mankind, the prophets and reformers, to discover new, untrodden paths of 44 690 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 1 'i life. Plus ultra, that is the watchword of these pathfinders of the future, who are laboring for the civilization of hu- manity. They are restrained by no authority, by no preju- dice, be it ever so sacred, they follow the light which burns in their hearts. The love of truth finds its highest expression in martyr- dom. We should expect the nations to turn to their great leaders and pathfinders in thankful admiration. And so they do, but it is only after their death that mortal men are reck- oned among the gods. Martyrdom is the great purifier by which humanity tests the genuineness of new truths ; it is the narrow portal through which heroes pass into immor- tality. This has been the method of humanity from times immemorial, and it is not hard to see the historical necessity of this fact, which is so surprising at first sight. 8. Let me first try to show the psychological necessity. The conceptions and truths of a people become — and that is their true function — the ideal basis of its institutions, of the state and the law, of the church and the school. All kinds of arts and practices depend upon our views and ideas of the nature of things and of men, their relations to each other and to the universe. Originally the entire life of every nation and all its institutions were based upon religion. Every religion, however, contains a philosophy of history and a metaphysic, — the precipitate of all the experiences of a people with the world and its relations to the world. Hence it follows that every attempt at a radical change of views is regarded as a menace to the entire life ; the weaken- ing of the theoretical foundations will result in the shatter- ing of all the institutions founded upon them. And this is not an illusion. All great revolutions in the world of institu- tions had as their starting-point revolutions in the world of thoughts. Nowhere is this more clearly seen than in the most recent events of European history. The long series of revolutions which fill the pages of modern history are the VERACITY 691 after-effects of the changes in the world of ideas which, after the fifteenth century, undermined the mediaeval conception of the universe which had been systematized in the dogmas of the church. The great historical and geographical, cosmical and physical discoveries, which were made in surprising numbers in the neighborhood of the sixteenth century, first made possible the ecclesiastical revolutions, then the eco- nomic and political revolutions, which since then have shaken Germany, England, and Prance, and which have not yet come to an end. Wherever, however, the world of thought remains stable, as was the case in China, the world of institutions persists in its old forms. It is for this reason that the institutions resist every at- tempt that may be made to change the conceptions. They defend tradition as the basis of their existence. We might imagine them arguing as follows : The welfare of a people depends upon the stability and trustworthiness of its in- stitutions. A revolution that affects any important part of its institutions is always a serious, nay, a dangerous crisis. The stability of these, however, depends upon their authority, hence it cannot be permitted to question their theoretical foundations. Every criticism against the funda- mental conceptions upon which the institutions rest, under- mines the ground upon which the security and welfare, nay, the very life, of the people depend. Criticism must there- fore stop short of the principles which underlie the church, the state, and society. — Though this applies to all, it applies particularly to the clerus. For their function is to serve so- ciety by preserving and defending the truth. Things would be in a bad shape if any one could at any time set up his own notions and private opinions, and sit in judgment upon these fundamental truths. The institutions themselves are supported by the private interests which are intertwined with them. Institutions do not exist in the abstract, but in human beings, who have i, 692 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES VERACITY 693 adapted their entire lives to them. In the stability of the educational institutions, the military institutions, the polit- ical and ecclesiastical systems, those are particularly and directly interested who are employed as teachers and officers, as state and church officials. I mean interested not merely in the vulgar sense that they and their families depend for their support upon the permanence of the institutions — which is often no longer the case in consequence of our pres- ent pension system — but interested especially in the ideal sense, for whoever denies the necessity or the value of these institutions, deprives these persons of the ideal basis of their existence ; he seems, by demanding a change of system, to declare that their functions and their lives are futile. A schoolmaster of the eighteenth century, who had reached an honorable old age in the practice of his profession, instructing the young in Latin composition, could not but have regarded the reforms of the innovators who repudiated these things as exploded errors and desired to introduce others — mathe- matics and natural science, German and French — as an abandonment of something that had been tried by experience, of something hallowed by tradition. Should that which he and his father and his grandfather had learned and practised and admired as a masterpiece of human culture and erudition, be now set aside ? And should things be put in its place which he did not possess and did not need,— quite unnecessary things, no doubt; for had he not been educated and learned, respected and happy without them ? Impossible ; only crim- inal carelessness and ignorance of the true value of things can lead to such perverse thoughts ! In the same way, the clergy- man will meet all attempts to change the church institutions or the creed ; the general, attacks upon the military organization or the army-ration ; the privy councillor, changes in the state constitution and administrative practice. All of them will feel inclined to look upon the demanded changes at least as quite unnecessary innovations, usually, however, as the beginnings of an obnoxious and ruinous revolution. Should they really be introduced, the ruin of the country, the destruction of the army, the overthrow of religion, would be the inevitable result. Thus our learned school authorities have for the last three hundred years prophesied the return of the barbarism of the Middle Ages every time they were disturbed in their obsolete pedantry. In order to guard against all such calamities from the very outset, all author- ities are agreed that the best and safest, and therefore most advisable thing to do is to deal rigorously with the unbridled criticism to which youthful, inexperienced, or malicious heads are unfortunately always inclined. The opposition of the authorities finds support in the in- stinctive aversion of all privileged and propertied classes to changes, and in the inertia of the masses. The propertied classes are always conservative; they are " saturated, " and therefore intent upon preservation and peace. Happy and contented are those in possession — thus we might translate the old maxim of the jurists ; they do not crave for the new, but fear it. But the masses^ too, are conservative by nature. The established order is the habitual order ; we have adapted ourselves to it; the new is, under all circumstances, strange and inconvenient, apt to be ridiculous and forbidding. How many sighs may not have been caused during the seventies by the new weights and measures and the new coins I Things did n't fit, the litre did n't suit the pot nor the metre the body. We feel uncomfortable in a new house; nothing is in its place, no cozy nook reminds us of pleasant hours. New institutions affect a nation in the same way, and therefore it shuns change. And for the same reason the masses have an instinctive fear of all criticism; they, too, feel that this undermines the ground upon which the institutions rest which have become endeared to them or endurable through habit. Bitter experiences or strong pressure are required to arouse in them a strong desire for change. I m r; -111 >-:,: 694 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES We might at last also speak of the inertia of the old concep- tions themselves. When the Copernican theory of the celes- tial motions was first advanced, it was regarded by the authorities as an unfruitful or absurd hypothesis, which did not deserve serious consideration, except, perhaps, to be refuted so that the devil might not play his tricks with it and use it to deride the word of God. They did not find the new view in any way suited to explain the phenomena; the old geocentric idea explained things so naturally that, in comparison with it, the new one seemed awkward, nay, absurd and nonsensical. For, do we not feel that the earth is fixed, do we observe even the slightest evidence of this fabulous motion which is falsely ascribed to it ? The new theory was developed by Kepler and Galileo, and the age of ridicule was followed by the age of refutation and persecu- tion. The old ideas really began to appreciate their peril, which was not yet the case in the sixteenth century. Now they reacted with all the means at their command ; what these were we may learn from the biographies of Kepler and Galileo. The discovery of the circulation of the blood by Harvey met with a similar fate. The physicians who had for so many centuries looked at things and treated men according to the Galenian theory could not see what advan- tacres were to be derived from the new hypothesis, either theoretically or practically. And how unreasonable to de- mand that one should repudiate one's own past, and over- throw the authorities of the centuries on account of this queer-headed fellow ! In the same way the authorities re- jected Darwin's biological theories and Strauss's researches in evangelical history, in a later century, as untrue, useless, and dangerous. Thus the old truths are protected by a mighty dam of con- servative interests against the flood of new thoughts. No new truths shall come into the world ; in this the authorities and the masses, the established order and the prevailing VERACITY 695 truths, are agreed. That is, no important and great truths, no new ideas and fundamental conceptions ; expositions and elaborations, supplementations and corrections, applications and adaptations of the recognized theories and opinions, — these are permitted, and not only permitted, but welcomed and publicly rewarded. Perhaps there never was a time which was so liberal in rewarding such work as the present. And this is perfectly proper and commendable : the great truths would have made their way even without the rewards. Al- though Truth is, to quote Bacon, a bride without a dowry, she has never wanted for suitors. Petty and laborious tasks, on the other hand, the investigation of manuscripts and the description of fungi and bugs, the entire work of scientific registration, which, too, is necessary, possibly lack inner attractiveness, and it is therefore right that the efficient performance of such duties should be publicly rewarded. The consequence of the opposition of the combined con- servative interests is, then, that new ideas are invariably presented to the world by martyrs. A peculiar custom is ascribed to the Locrians : whoever introduced a measure for altering the Existing laws, was compelled to appear in the popular meeting in which he argued for it with a rope around his neck, by which he was hung up if he did not succeed in convincing his fellow-citizens. An ingenious custom ! History acts in the same way, with the difference, however, that she first uses the rope and convinces herself afterwards. 9. Thus the attitude of mankind to new truths is psycho- logically necessary. But it is also teleologically necessary. Historical life is evidently not possible without fixed and permanent institutions ; they are the means by which collec- tive reason determines and governs the life of the individual. The many, we might say, somewhat modifying a remark of Heraclitus, although they believe they are living according to their own insight, are in reality governed by the common iir I 696 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES reason. Now institutions could not acquire stability, if new ideas were to rush through the heads of men, meeting with no resistance, like the wind over a stubble-field. Permanent conceptions are the preconditions of permanent institutions. Hence, in order that historical life may be possible, it is necessary that the thoughts become fixed and take firm root in the minds of men, and offer resistance to new thoughts which seek to push them out. Perhaps they cannot be estab- lished firmly enough, at first, without a transcendent sanc- tion. This would explain the teleological necessity of a religious metaphysic, which we actually find everywhere, as the original foundation of the faith and the life of a people, of its morals and laws, and which usually offers such great resistance to the introduction of new truths. Nay, we can manifestly form no conception whatever of a mental-historical life in which we should not have to battle for the truth against error and prejudice; of what would it consist ? Without friction no motion. Nor need we expect these pathfinders and martyrs of truth to quarrel with fate on this account. Lessing's words re- garding the possession and pursuit of truth are well known. He surely would not have desired that truths be acquired otherwise than by struggle. Not all of those who have battled for the truth were as fond of struggle as Lessing. Yet it is doubtful whether any one among them would have been willing to change the order of nature, had it been in his power to do so. That constitutes the special glory of a witness of the truth, an inner voice might have whispered to him, in case the tempter had approached him, to be slan- dered and persecuted by the present. If, instead of this, the discoverers and pioneers of new truths were honored during their lives, as they are honored by posterity, these honors, too, would be taken away from them by the skilful and the ambitious. Then the vain and self-conceited would be eternally pushing themselves to the front with new opin- VERACITY 697 ions. Owing to this beneficent arrangement, the spiritual leadership of humanity is finally reserved for men of great, earnest, and unselfish hearts. That would be impossible if the truth flattered their contemporaries. And, therefore this inner voice may have concluded, it is good that the stones intended as corner-stones of the future should be rejected by the builders of the present. Wenn das Gute wiirde vergolten, So ware es keine Kunst es zu thun ; Aber Verdienst ist es nun Zu thun, wofiir du wirst gescholten. Thus all those may console themselves with Riickert who are abused for truth and justice' sake, — if, indeed, they need any consolation. For it is worthy of note that the great martyrs of truth did not leave the world with hatred and bitterness. Jesus prayed upon the cross for his persecutors : "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." They did not intend to persecute the truth, but error, destructive error. Nay, they themselves had to serve the truth as unconscious organs. "Must not the Son of man suffer and die in order that all things might be fulfilled ? " How could the victory be won without the last battle ? A paradoxically-inclined person might even reason as fol- lows : It is really to be deplored that so little zeal is shown in persecuting new truths in our times. The result is that great characters are no longer formed, as of old, when wit- nesses of the truth and pioneers of thought were crucified and burned. Take the life of Carlyle. Beyond doubt, he was by nature and temperament made of the stuff of witnesses of the truth, prophets, and martyrs: what might he not have be- come if he had lived three centuries earlier ! In this weak nineteenth century he was partially overwhelmed by paltry troubles, — troubles with reviewers and publishers of period- icals, troubles with his neighbors' cocks and dogs. These were his battles, battles of no very elevating nature, how- 698 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES ever honestly and valiantly he may have fought them. This state of affairs, too, makes it hard for men to recognize what is truly great and enduring. Whether a man is thoroughly in earnest with a cause will be perfectly evident only in case he is willing to offer his life for it. However, I do not deem it superfluous to add a remark to these entire reflections. Universal affirmative propositions cannot, as is known, be converted simply. From the propo- sition. All great new truths were persecuted and rejected as heresies at their first appearance, it does not follow that all heresies and paradoxes are great new truths. Writers who are despised and repudiated by their contemporaries are in the habit of reasoning thus, and of appealing from the pres- ent to posterity. But posterity does not accept all such appeals. Not all those who are called are chosen; there are false prophets and even false martyrs. Great and extraordinary powers are needed to bear the overthrow of recognized truths. When common natures are driven by accident and circumstances to battle against recognized truths and established authorities, they become empty blatherskites. Are these more common in our age than formerly ? If so, we may perhaps attribute it to the fact that serious persecutions no longer occur in our times; minds were winnowed by martyrdom. 10. I shall close this entire discussion with a considera- tion of the question : Does the duty of communicating truth universally demand the destruction of error wherever and in whatever form it may appear ? It is one of the great con- troversies which have always moved mankind. We may de- fine it as the controversy/ between the will and the intellect^ between the practical and speculative sides of human nature. The will, turned towards self-preservation, demands, as was shown above, stability of institutions, and therefore also of the conceptions upon which they are grounded. The spiritual and temporal authorities, which we may term the VERACITY 699 representatives of the will in history, therefore always incline to the demand that certain things be fixed once and for all, which criticism should not be permitted to disturb. The intellect, on the contrary, refuses to close the debate; to hinder the continuation of the investigation means for it the perpetuation of error. The end of all research is the absolute accommodation of knowledge to reality. But this goal is infinitely remote, and hence the attempt better to adapt the conceptual system to reality must be constantly renewed. Nor are the fundamental principles excepted; they, too, must be subjected to progressive changes, if only for the reason that the constant extension and intensification of particular knowledge ultimately demands a rearrange- ment of the facts. The antagonism between these two tendencies, formulated as a conflict of principles, turns upon the question : Is truth under all circumstances good and error harmful f Or may the preservation of error at times be necessary, and its destruc- tion harmful ? The politicians, if we may designate the rep- resentatives of the will by this term, affirm the latter, the philosophers, the representatives of the intellect, the former question. If the question is asked absolutely and universally, it will be impossible to answer it otherwise than with the philoso- phers : Truth is good, error harmful. Since things do not govern themselves according to our opinions, we must govern our opinions according to things. Things, says Bishop Butler, are what they are, and their effects will be what they are ; why should we wish to deceive ourselves ? A negro attempts to make rain or to cure diseases by magic. He is doubly harmed ; he wastes his energies, while disease and drouth remain. On the other hand, it seems to be impossible to deny that the destruction of an erroneous idea does not, under all cir- cumstanceSy promote the welfare of him who harbors it 700 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES P" H Hence an inadequate idea may be better than none at all; and the conditions may be such as to make it possible to undermine the false conception without establishing the true one. It may be possible to deprive a negro of his faith in the fetich, without at the same time giving him true ideas of the natural connection of things. Would he then be bene- fited by being freed from error ? Fetiches are employed by negroes for the protection of property; the thief fears the magic, and it frequently happens that stolen goods are re- turned in consequence. It may be a very imperfect police force, but it is perhaps better than none at all. A wooden leg, says Schopenhauer, is better than none at all, and any religion better than none. We must remember that truths are not ready-made things, which pass from hand to hand like coins ; truths are living functions, and do not exist in any other form. Hence they cannot really be communicated. A person may assist me in creating thoughts, but he cannot transfer his thoughts to me ; I can only think the thoughts which I myself produce. And the assistance which he renders me herein does not always consist in his repeating to me the thoughts with which he is familiar. The straightest path is by no means always the shortest in history. At the beginning of the thirteenth cen- tury the Middle Ages became acquainted with the natural- scientific writings of Aristotle. Our natural scientists will hardly see in them anything but a more or less subtle web of errors. And yet these books were undoubtedly of great value to the thirteenth century, perhaps of much greater value than the most perfect text-books of the present could have been to it. If the best handbooks of physics, chemistry, and astronomy, which the nineteenth century has brought forth, had fallen from the skies, in the thirteenth century, they would most likely have been thrown aside, after a brief examination, as utterly unintelligible and useless things. The thinkers of those davs would not have known what to do VERACITY 701 with them, any more than we know what to do with books full of cabalistic symbols and formulae. Hence, if any one in his zeal for the truth, if, for instance, that omnipotent being of Descartes, had interfered, not in order to deceive, but to prevent deception, and had destroyed the Aristotelian books and sent the others down from heaven, what would have been the result ? Evidently the development of natural science among the Western nations would have been, if not prevented, at least retarded for several centuries. Without the assistance of a teacher adapted to their needs, these nations would have had to enter upon the long road to knowledge alone, and who knows whether they ever would have found it ? Had the solution of the riddle — if we are bold enough to regard the text-books of the present as such — been communicated to them, it would scarcely have helped them. It is well known that investigators for centuries tried to find the philosopher's stone, which was supposed to be able to turn everything it touched into gold. They did not find the stone, but the science of chemistry. The stone was a fiction, but the fiction led to the truth after all : for does not chemistry turn everything into gold ? Now the different stages of development are not only suc- cessive, but also simultaneous. The electrical arc light and the tallow candle exist side by side ; and each may be appro- priate in its place. So, too, different physical and meta- physical conceptions and fundamental principles exist side ^ by side ; the investigator and thinker and the little mother in the remote mountain nook, cannot think the world with the same thoughts. Truth is one, the conception of things projected upon the perfect intellect ; but the real in- tellects are more or less imperfect, and therefore require different methods of conceiving things. From this point of view the controversy between the poli- ticians and the philosophers, it seems to me, may be settled. The philosophers are right in this: no limits are to be set W: 702 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES to research. Whatever new thoughts a nation produces, will be suitable and good for it. We may cherish the belief that nature, here as everywhere, brings forth at the proper time what is appropriate and necessary. Every advance in knowl- edge, viewed from the standpoint of the total development of a popular life, is a genuine advance. The investigator as such can therefore be concerned with no other question than this : What is true ? But since there can be no research with- out communication, we must say further that no limit shall be set to the communication of knowledge. The scientific writer has but one concern : How shall I most clearly and definitely present the things as I see them ? Whoever allows himself to be governed by considerations and purposes of a different kind, whoever is thinking, first and last, how he may please this man and avoid displeasing that one, does not serve the truth, and therefore the truth also despises him. Truth gives herself only to him who seeks for her alone. The inconsiderate and " unintentional " books are the endur- ing books. The author ought not even to think of the good of the reader but only of the subject itself; the more he is wrapped up in this, the better he will write. " With philosoph- ical systems," the old Wandshecker Bote once said, "which are invented by their authors for others, and are constructed as fig leaves or for the sake of controversy or for show, sensible people will have nothing to do. But in philoso- phers who seek for light and truth to satisfy their own needs, and to remove the load of untruth oppressing their hearts, other people have the deepest interest." So far the philosophers are right. The politicians, on the other hand, are right in this, that when it comes to imparting knowledge by instruction, which is designed for particular persons, we must be guided not only by a regard for the sub- ject but by a regard for the person. This consideration — we may call it the pedagogical consideration — may prevent the teacher from saying everything he thinks, and from saying VERACITY 703 what he thinks just as he thinks it in his own mind. We do not tell the simplest experience to two different persons in the same way; we take into account the person, and govern our narrative and voice, the selection and arrange- ment of the facts, accordingly. How could we speak of greater things, how could we speak of God and the world, to persons of different age, education, inclinations, and views in the same words ? It is the same history of mankind which is taught in the Volksschule, in the gymnasium, and the university; and yet how different must be the method of treatment in order that it may be good, instructive, and edifying in each place. The same also applies to ultimate principles: the world is one and the same, and so is the truth; but it cannot reflect the same countenance in every mirror. What is true of the teacher in the school is true also of the preacher in the pulpit. To him, too, the pedagogical law is applicable: Discuss the truth in such a way that these par- ticular hearers before you may be instructed and edified thereby. Let us suppose that his congregation lives in an out-of-the-way village on the moor, to which not even the faintest rumor of the things which have occurred in theology and literature during the last hundred years has penetrated, where the names of Strauss and Renan are as little known as those of Kant and Schleiermacher. Here the Bible is still accepted in the literal sense as the word of God, which has been transmitted to us by the holy men to whom it was entrusted. Our clergyman, however, has been convinced by higher criticism that the Sacred Scriptures were made in a very human way, like other writings, that different concep- tions, contradictions, and even errors are contained in them, not to speak of the uncertainties of tradition. Ought this to keep him from speaking to his congregation of the Bible as the word of God ? Or ought he, for example, to lecture on the results of higher criticism, in order to free them of their f 704 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES 5' »■;. k time-honored prejudices and errors ? What would he accom- plish by that ? If he succeeded in taking from the peasants their old faith, what could he give them in return ? Strauss 's Life of Christ or Kant's Religion within the Bounds of Mere Reason ? By that, he would simply succeed in bringing into contempt the only book which hitherto served them as a guide and a light, as a poetical pleasure in life and a consolation in death. For they would surely be apt to say, in case they believed him : So, then, we have been deceived by this book ; we thought it was God's word, and now we see it is the word of man, and hence we had better cast it aside and read what the wise men of to-day write. That is what educated people do : they accept the conclusion of criticism that the Bible is not God's word, and therefore cease reading it. Hence if our preacher does not wish that to happen, if he desires, as in fact he does, the Bible to be the first, the most important, nay, perhaps the only book needed by his moor-peasants, and perhaps also by other human beings, which it will do them more good to read every day than the most widely-circulated daily newspaper with its three edi- tions a day, and the most cultured weekly and monthly jour- nal besides : if he believes this, he will without scruple and hesitation speak of the book in the language in which the peasants on the moor are accustomed to hear it spoken of. Is he telling them the untruth ? What does it mean to say that the Bible is God's word ? Is it a falsehood ? Is it a literary-historical notice like the statement that Gutzkow is the author of the Magician of Rome ? No, it is a metaphor which expresses a judgment of value in the most emphatic form. It means that its contents are so grand and true that it is a divine book, and comes from God. The same preacher might, if he were transferred to different surroundings and now had to speak to readers of Strauss and Kant, change his language without changing his view, and without proving false to the truth in either case. He would, entering into VERACITY 705 their conceptions, say to them : All that you have read or heard or even written about these books is certainly highly interesting, and some of it perhaps also true. But now for- get all that for a moment, and consider with me what is said in these books, which originated in such and such a way. Very serious things are said, it seems to me, — things which are often told with wonderful and unique simplicity and power ; so that I am in a certain sense brought back to the view that this book, like no other book in the world, con- tains divine words and a revelation of God, — a view which Goethe and Herder held, whom my hearers will perhaps be more inclined to believe in these matters than a modern the- ologian. — If to build up (oUoBo/jLelp) and not to tear down is the real business of the preacher as well as of the teacher, he must, it seems to me, take this position. This would be, as the Apostle says, speaking the truth in love and not in anger The same preacher might, finally, if, as a scholar, he pub- lished philological-historical investigations of the sacred Scriptures, also speak in still another strain. Here he would again, in order to fulfil the duty of veracity, avoid the very thing that he cannot and should not avoid as a preacher, that is, accommodation to the thoughts and language of others. And he would likewise avoid the attempts at concil- iation, the makeshifts, and the weak excuses, employed to save a theory, the squinting at orthodoxy, the haggling for the truth, the circumvention of the confession that a thou- sand things remain riddles to him, in fact everything that makes many commentaries on the Gospels so unbearable to every truthful man. Here, indeed, we need a new Luther who will make short work of the commentaries and controversies. 2 1 Ephesians, IV., 15. 2 Objections have been raised against this view. A sincere and truthful nature, it is contended, cannot do this. I confess the difficulty without controversy, but I believe it is not due to the thing itself but to the conditions in which our 45 f 706 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES VERACITY From this point of view the duties of a church and school administration are to be determined. No man should be in- terfered with in his calling as a teacher on account of his dissenting opinions, but only on the ground of pedagogical blunders. The preacher and the teacher is not employed as a hireling to present "correct" views, it is his business to express his faith, his convictions, and his soul. In case he exhibits a lack of skill, he should receive advice from the more experienced ; but if he does not wish to accept it or cannot understand it, he must choose another calling; not everybody is called to preach or to teach. Nor is everybody qualified to criticise another's method of teaching, surely not one whose chief claim to distinction is " correctness of thought " and an ability to write official documents. Harsh attempts clergymen find themselves placed at present. If the village were, as was assamed, absolutely isolated, if it contained only the peasants with their faith and the clergyman with his faith and his knowledge, one diflBculty would still remain : how are people to understand each other who do not think the same thoughts ? But the moral difficulty would not exist. The latter is due to the fact that the preacher lives in an environment in which positions and promotions are open to the professors of the creed, whatever may be their real attitude to it ; a proud and upright nature may find it impossible to tolerate even the appearance of being in- fluenced by such considerations. And besides, where shall we find a village into which the disconnected elements of the new ideas have not been carried, say by a soldier returning home from the capital or by a social-democratic pamphlet ? Under such circumstances I can easily understand the painfulness of the situa- tion, and I am far from blaming a man who cannot endure it any longer. I simply say : A man can assume a different attitude without deserving to be accused of insincerity. — The case is different so soon as he is asked by the people : Do you really believe that God is the author of the Bible ? The question suggests doubt, and doubt is an indication of a desire for knowledge, obscure though it may be ; and this calls for instruction, instruction in the real history of the origin of the Bible, in which case it will perhaps be discovered that this is a difficult problem, probably much more difficult than the inquirers surmised. And to the over-curious he may reply : My dear friend, if you would keep the word, you would find out whether it was of God or not. On the other hand, to repel an honest doubter would be to prove false to the truth. And the so wide- spread distrust of the clergy and their sincerity is a mortifying proof that this has often been done. Nor will the distrust disappear so long as the conditions continue to which it owes its origin : that is, so long as the good positions are given to those who know how to profess and to be silent. The martyrs had no difficulty in convincing men of the genuineness of their faith. 707 at levelling make men bitter and dull. This office more than any other requires wisdom and self-control, acuteness of vision and leniency of judgment, and, above all, a wealth of knowledge and experience with respect to the things upon which mental power depends, to enable us not only to judge but also to give help. Lichtenberg's advice is admirable, and all those who belong to the spiritual regime should take it to heart every day: "Train your mind to doubt and your heart to toleration. " And a word of Goethe ought also to be borne in mind: "If older persons were only willing to adopt true pedagogical methods, they would not prohibit a young man from doing what gives him pleasure, whatever it may be, nor set him against it, unless they could at the same time give him something in place of it. " Besides, I do not wish to hide the fact that we have, in my opinion, magnified the difficulties existing in this field in a manner not warranted by the nature of the case. In a certain measure public instruction will always be behind the times. The school will, in the main, always be concerned with transmitting the stock of recognized truths. Now new truths never make their appearance in the world as recog- nized truths, but as heterodox ones. They cannot, even for this reason, gain admission to the schools. Then, again, the teachers have, for the most part, been educated by the older generation. This made it impossible for the Copernican theory to become a branch in the curriculum of the sixteenth century; nor can the Darwinian theory gain entrance into the schools of the nineteenth century ; — although I am not of the opinion that the teacher who desires to speak of it and can do it intelligently and tactfully should be prohibited from doing so. On the contrary, it is much wiser that a learned and reliable man should point out the significance and bear- ing of the new conception, which has spread so rapidly and has had such great influence upon our times, than that we should leave the matter to the accidental and perhaps very 708 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES VERACITY 709 I u % inadequate treatment of the first penny-a-liner who happens along. But be this as it may, it will at some future time seem very strange that our age has so placidly adhered to a system of religious instruction which arose many centuries ago under entirely different conditions of intellectual life, and which is, in so many respects, decidedly opposed to the facts and ideas which are regarded as firmly established outside of the school and church. It is a secret to no one, not even to the pupils of our gymnasia, that much of what our present religious instruction obliges teachers and pupils to accept as literal truth — think of the Old Testament — is not regarded in that light anywhere in the world, not even by our school directors or ministerial councillors, who in their role of supervisors insist upon the " correctness " of the teaching. Our philological-historical and natural-scientific investigators are so utterly out of line with the dogmatic doctrine of our creed that they pay absolutely no attention to it, that they do not even take the trouble to contradict it. And everybody knows how little the great poets and thinkers of the epoch which we teach our pupils to regard as the classic age of our spiritual life, cared for the teachings of the church, nay, in part, also for the Christian religion. I cannot help thinking that religious instruction which overlooks this fact, or simply mentions it in order to deplore it and to accuse these men of infidelity and perhaps also of frivolousness, cannot, as a rule, produce the effects which we expect and desire: appreciation of Christianity as an historical phenomenon and reverence for its founder. If the instruction is imparted by a one-sided young theologian, who has great faith in the correctness of his dogmatic views, and combines with this little capacity for guiding souls, the opposite effect is apt to ensue : distrust and aversion, feelings which spread from their source to everything connected with it. A book recently fell into my hands which I was unable to read without some reluctance; Max Nordau's Conventional Liea^ This book is conspicuous neither for its literary merit nor for the depth of its views; it is not even amusing. It contains nothing but the assurance, a hundred times repeated, that our entire life is one great falsehood ; religion and the church, the monarchy and the parliament, liberalism and con- servatism, marriage and the family, sociableness and society, — everything is a lie, particularly religion. We pretend to regard it as the most sacred and certain thing, while in reality it is the most indifferent thing to us in the world. This book has passed through sixteen editions in the course of a few years, and must therefore have been bought and read. I asked a bookseller, Who reads the book ? and re- ceived the answer, Why, everybody. That means, of course, everybody who goes to the book-store ; that is, all educated people, all those who have attended the gymnasium and the university. We may think what we choose of the judgment shown by these readers; it remains a highly significant fact that such a book has met with such success. What makes the work so attractive ? I can discover no reason for it except this, that it declares openly and forcibly what a great many of its readers think and feel. An age is characterized more by the books which it reads than by those which it writes. And this book of Lies docs not stand alone ; there is an entire literature which deals with the same tlicme. What attracted the readers of Strauss's Old and New Faith^ or Biichner's Force and Matter,^ if not the openness with which these writers repudiated the old faith ? What is it that in- spires Diihring and Nietzsche but the desire to unmask false- hood. What impels the modern novel writers and dramatists 1 Die konventionellen Liigen der Kulturmenschheit. * Der alte und neue Glaube, translated by M. Blind. • Translated hy CoUingswood. w 710 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES w but the desire to analyze the falseness and the inner rottenness of the times, and to expose them to the microscopic gaze of the reader ? An entire literature which makes a business of un- masking falsehood, —this, beyond doubt, is the trait which the history of literature of a later age will regard as highly charac- teristic of the spirit of the dying nineteenth century. That the conflict between what we really think and believe, and what we teach our youth to say or to believe in our church and school instruction, is partially to blame for this, no one who has eyes to see will deny. In almost every life this reaction appears sooner or later, with more or less violence ; and since it usually happens at an age which other conditions also help to make critical, it often leads to a serious crisis in which many a young man receives permanent injury, and many a one is ruined for life. With the church faith, moral- ity becomes an object of suspicion, and the enlightenment leads to an ostensible repudiation of morality. When indo- lence, regard for others, or cowardice keeps others from professing their thoughts, or from confessing their doubts to themselves, hypocrisy or inner falsehood utterly destroys the moral life.^ I see but one way out of this difficulty. During the for- tics and the fifties many indulged in the hope that the conflict might be overcome by a more rigorous use of authority in favor of the old orthodoxy. Even governments, in a large measure, followed the advice that science be forced to a 1 Fr. Jodl admirably points out the danger in a thoughtful lecture on the Nature and Aims of the Ethical Movement in Germany (1893) [Wesen vnd Ziele der ethischen Bewegung in Deutschland] : « Year after yenr the highest and most sacred things, ethical convictions and ideals, are imparted to the younger generation, mixed with dogmatic propositions, which absolutely contradict the mental tendency which all other forces in life and education aim to deveh>p. And thus a double evil is eternally produced which- like a cancer eats away our spiritual life : inwardly the ethical principles and ideals break down with the weak supports to which they have been artificially attaclied. outwardly they are adhered to, often with conscious hypocrisy, on account of the attitude of the state. Religion becomes the state dress for our Byzantinism. behind which inter- nal shallowness, nay, rottenness, with difficulty conceals itself." \\ VERACITY 711 change of front, or at least that instruction be governed, so far as possible, by the old formulae. The result is apparent : they have thereby created these readers of the literature men- tioned above. Hence only one way is left : to accommodate the church dogma to the theoretical thoughts and conceptions which are possible to our time. In this way Christianity would not be given up as a practical life-principle, but freed from bonds which impede its progress. What robs the Gos- pel of its efficacy in our times is its amalgamation with the old church dogma. If it were offered us as something purely human and historical, it would even now move the hearts of men. The formulae of the longer and shorter catechisms stifle and kill it. It looks as if this view were making some headway within theological circles, at least upon Protestant soil. If the movement were to lead to a real and permanent peace be- tween religion and science, I should regard it as a blessing for the European nations. Nations cannot live without re- ligion; religion, however, cannot live permanently if it is in conflict with philosophy and science. But the possibility of the peace lies in the direction in which Kant sought it and believed himself to have found it a hundred years ago. Let scientific research proceed as far as possible upon her course, regardless of the objections of the dogma ; the entire historical and natural realm is absolutely open to her investi- gations. But the relation of the human mind to reality is not exhausted by scientific knowledge. It cannot help con- structing thoughts concerning the meaning of the whole; these thoughts, however, are not a matter of demonstration, like physical theories or historical facts; they are based upon the soul's participation in things, upon the selective judgment of value ; they rest upon the volitional side of man's nature. In their unity they make up the faith of the human soul. There will therefore be unity of faith between all those who recognize the same highest good. But the dogma, m 712 DOCTRINE OF VIRTUES AND DUTIES as the formula of the faith, would be an expression of the conception of reality from the point of view of the highest good. A dogma in this sense could never come in conflict with science, because it would never make any assertions concerning that aspect of things which is accessible to science. It would bind the will, but not the understanding. INDEX [The letter n. stands for note, ant places.] Asterisks are inserted to assist the reader in finding import* Abbott, 194 n. 2, 222 n. 1, 224 n. 1, 321 n. 1, 584 n. 1. Advice, 686. ^schylus, 411. ^Esthetics, 19. Albee, 185 n. 2, n. 3. Alexander, S., 193. Almsgiving, 642 ff. Altruism and egoism, 379 * fi. ; how judged morally, 391 fF. Ambition, 574 ff. Ambrose, 76, 170 ♦ f . Amor Dei, Spinoza's, 183. Anaxagoras, 59. Angelus Silesius, 441. Anselm, 120 f. Anthropology, 2. Antiquity contrasted with Middle Ages, 119 ff. Anzengruber, 375 n. 1. Apocalj'pse, 105. A priori method in ethics, 6 ff. Aristotle, 39 n. 1, 60, 224, 251 n. 1, 257, 273 ff., 374, 407 n. 1, 426, 430 f ., 454 n. 2, 475 n. 1, 478, 483 n. 1, 495, 534, 536 n. 1, 569 n. 1, 599 n. 1; his detinition of ethics, 1 ; his ethical system, 48 * ff. ; his conception of ethics as a practical science, 25 ; his conception of highest good, 36 f. ; and Spinoza, 52 ; his con- ception of the tragedy, 263 f. Arnold, M., 288. Art, 283, 432, 556 * ff. ; affectation of, 560 f. ; its effects on human soul, 558 f. ; and life, 559 ff.; in Middle Ages, 125, 562; modem, 563 ff.; foreign elements in modem, 563 ff. Asceticism, 488* ff.; in Greek and Chris- tian ethics, 167 ff.; Jesus's attitude towards, 93 ff. ; in Middle Ages, 119 f , 171 f. ; in Plato, 47 f. ; and Reformation, 132 f. I Atheism, 425, 430. Athletics, 519 ff., 526. Atomism and religion, 423 ff. Auerbach, B., 306. Aufklarung, 28, 40, 140 f. Augustine, 32, 321 n. 1, 454 n. 3,487; his ethical system, 171*; his conception of evil, 332; his conception of virtues, 69; and Luther, 131. Authoritativeness of conscience, 342 ff., 363 ff. Avarice, 530 ff. Bacon, 379 n. 1, GD5; on atheism, 430; on causalitv, 6 f. ; his modern ideals, 137 * ff. Bad, 321* ff.; defiuition of the, 248 f.; good and, 222 ff. Baer, 507 n. 1. Bain, 192* n. 1, 251 n. 1, 253 n. 1, 340 n. 1, 346 n. 1, 379 n. 1. Baldwin, 253 n. 1, 340 n. 1, 341 n. 1, 343 n. 1, 405 n. 1, 452 n. 1. Barbarian conception of life, 37 ff. ; con- trasted with Greek and Christian ideals, 167 ff. Barratt, 192 * n. 1, 251 n. 1. Bauraann, 215 n. 1, 452 n. 1. Baumgartner, 592 n. 2. Baur, 65 n. 1, 98 n. 1. Bayle, 327 n. 1. Beccuria, his theory of capital punishment, 611. Beneficence, 596 ff. Benevolence, 592* ff., 599, 638* ff., 664. Bentham, 190 *, 223, 251 n. 1, 340 n. 1, 354, 380 n. 4, 382, 606 n. 1. Berner, 610, 631 f. Bestmano, 65 n. 1. Bias of Priene, 336. Bildung, 554 f. Bismarck, 531. 714 INDEX INDEX 715 Blackie, 483 n. 2. Blind, 90 n. 5, 709 n. 2. Bluntschli, 262 n. 1, 550. Bodily life, 605 ff. Bowne, 193 * n. 1, 416 n. 1, 599 n. 1, 606 n. 1. Bowring, 190 n. 1 . Bradley, 193 * n. 1, 227 n. 1, 251 n. 1, 350 n. 1. Brentano, 340 n. 1. Brillat-Savarin, 506 n. 1. Brinckmann, 324 n. 1. Biichner, 709. Buckle, 136 f. Buddha, 114 f. Buddhism and Christianity, 114 f. Buhle, 147 n. 1. Burckhardt, 111, 127 n. 1, 128, 372. Butler, 340 n. 1, 379 n. 1, 699. Byron, 303, 444 n. 1. Calderwood, 35 n. 1, 192* n. 4, 340 n. 1. Calling, 530 «E. Culumuy, 669 f. Calvin, 454 n. 4; on free-will, 455. Campe, 484 n. 2. Capital, 533 ff. Capital punishment, 611 f. Cardinal virtues, 45. Carlyle, 375, 697 ; his conception of highest good, 263 ; his conception of evil, 331 n. 1; his estimate of suicide, 588 n. 1. Carrl^re, 127 n. 1, 215 n. 1. Carus, P., 114 n. 1. Cassian, 85 f. Catholic ethics, 169 ff. Catholicism, 125 n. 1, 136, 160 f., 169 ff. Cathrein, 215 n. 1. Causality and free-will, 460 n. 1. Celsus, his criticism of Christianity, 98 f. Certainty of moral law, 356 ff. Chamfort, 523. Chamisso, 413. Character, influence of prosperity upon, 407 ff. Charity, 638 ff.; Christian, 83 f., 157 n. 1.; in Middle Ages, 124. Charity-craze, 646 ff. Charlemagne, 118. Christianity, 157 ff., 402, 613 ff., 638 ff. ; and Buddhism, 114 f . ; and charity, 83 f. ; and courage, 69 ff. ; and earthly goods, 87 ff. ; and family-life, 84 ff. ; and honor, 78 f. ; and humility, 79 ; and immortality, 444 f. ; and justice, 613 ff. ; and knowledge, 67 f. ; and liberality, 82; and miracles, 435 ff.; and the modern spirit, 155 ff. ; its moral ideal, 65 ff. ; contrasted with barbarian ideal, 167, ff., with Buddhism, 114 f ., with Greek ideal, 65 ff ., with other ideals, 33 ff. ; Nietz- sche's criticism of, 150 ff.; and pessi- mism, 405 f.; and pity, 81 f . ; and pleasure, 74 f.; and Romans, 98 ff.; and self-esteem, 81 f. ; and silence, 76 ; and the sUte, 72 ff. ; its triumph, 112 ff. ; and the Greek virtues, 67 ff.; and wealth, 77 f. Chrvsostom, 646. Church, 116 ff., 123 ff., 126, 131 f., 409, 436, 682 ff., 700 ff. Christianization of antiquity, 98 ff. ; of the Germans, 117 ff. Cicero, 47, 53 n. 1, 56 n. 1. Civilization, and art, 559 ff. ; Christianity and, 91 ff.; and morality, 314 ff.; and success, 314 ff. ; and wars, 395 ff . Clarke, 192* 340 n. 1. Classical education and patriotism, 661 f. Clement of Alexandria, 77. Clergy, 119 f., 132, 689. Clothing, 517 ff. Cohen, 194 n. 1. Coit, 415 n. l,447n. 1. Collingwood, 709 n. 3. Columbus, 673. Comenius, 95. Compassion, 592* ff.; Christian, 81 f. Compulsion in law, 604 ff. Comte, 48 n. 1, 191 ; and altruism, 379 f. Confidence, 66G f . Conscience, 340* ff . ; authority of, 363 ff. ; individualization of, 368 ff. ; infallibility of, 357 ff. ; origin of, 340 ff. ; its tran- scendent sanction, 366 f . ; Kant's theory of, 350 ff . ; Shaftesbury's view of, 186 ff. ; Socrates and, 371 n. 1. ; utility of, 232 f. Conservatism and liberalism, 690 ff. Conversion, of Germans to Christianity and antiquity, 563 ff.; of Old World to Christianity 98 ff. Coulanges, Fustel de, 416 n. 1. Courage, 484 f ., 495* ff. ; Greek and Chris- tian estimates of, contrasted, 69 ff.; Plato's conception of, 45. Cowardice, 495 ff.; 668 f. Creed, religion and, 434 ff. Crime, charity and, 652 ff . ; poverty and, 541 n. 1. Criminal characters, 371 ff. Crispin, 228 f. Criticism, higher, 703 ff. Cruelty, 648 ff. Cudworth, 192* 340 n. 1. Culture, 543 ff. Culture-religions and religions of redemp- tion, 163 ff. Cumberland, 185*, 379 n. 1. Cupidity, 491 ff. Custom and duty, 343* ff.; and instinct, 8 f.; law, morality, and religion, 415 ff.; and will, 343 ff. Cynics, 109. CjTenaics, 251 n. 1. Dante, 48 n 1. Darwin, 251 n. 1, 274 f., 340 n. 1, 344 n. 2, 379 n. 1, 433; his ethical theory, 192 * f . ; his theory of conscience, 341 f. David of Augsburg, 688 n. 1. Death, 335 * ff. ; Epicurus's attitude to- wards, 57 f. ; Greek and Christian con- ceptions of, 67. Deception, 664 ff. Democritus, 56 n. 2, 251 n. 1. Descartes and the modern spirit, 140 ff. Desire, impulse, and will, 220 f. Determinism, 452 ff. Dewe.v, 193 * n. 1. Diogenes Laertius, 53 f., 56 n. 1, 277 n. 2, 337 n. 1. Diplomacy, 675 ff. Discretion, 687. Dishonor, 573. Disposition of agent and worth of act, 224 ff. Distrust, 666 ff. During, 215 n. 1. Dorner, A., 29 n. 1, 122 n. 1, 215 n. 1, 475 n. 1, 483 n. 1, 505 n. 1, 529 n. 1, 509 n. 1, 599 n. 1, 638 n. 1, 664 n. 1. Dorner, [. A., 179. Dostoievski, 375 n. 1. Dress, 517 ff. Drobisch, 464 n. 1. Drunkenness, 479, 507 * ff., 590. Duhr, 239 n. 1. Diihring, 215 n. 1, 584 n. 1. Duncker, 114 n. 1. Duns Scotus, 454 n. 4. DUrer, his conception of art, 558 n. 1. Duties, 47i; ff. Duty and Conscience, 340 * ff. ; and cus- tom, 343 f . ; and inclination, 346 ff. ; and merit, 377 f. Dwelling, 515 ff. ECKERMANN, 431, 580. Economic life, 529 ff. ; virtues, 536 ff. Education, 543 ff.; bodily, 505 ff.; intel- lectual, 543 ff.; moral,' 476 ff., 483 ff., 498 ; religious, 708 ff. Effects of acts and disposition of agent, 224 ff. Egoism, criticism of, 244 ff. Egoism and altruism, 244 ff., 379 * ff . ; how judged moralh', 391 ff.; in Hobbes and Spinoza, 380; in Shaftesbury and Hutcheson, 186. Einjahrigenschein, 551 f. Eliot, George, 90 n. 5, 305. Emerson, 522. Empiricism and rationalism in ethics, 6 ff. End justifies the means, 233 ff. Ends and means, 253 ff., 275 ff. Enemy, love of, 616 ff. Energism, 223 f., 251 * ff., 270 ff. Enlightenment, 28, 40, 146 f., 336, 554; ethical conceptions of, 201 f. Ennui, 532. Epictetus, 55, 62, 106* f., 493, 501, 624. Epicureans, 587. Epicurus, 56 * ff., 251 n. 1 ; his conception of philosophy, 61. Equality, 624 ff. Equanimity, 500 ff. Equity, 616 ff. Equivocation, 665. Erasmus and Luther, 131. Erdraann, J. E., 35 n. 1, 519 n. 1. Error, harmfulness of, 699 f. Essenes, 109. Ethics, aesthetics and, 19 ; Aristotle's con- ception of, 1; Christian, 33 f., 167, 169 ff. ; definition of, 1 ff.; function of, 4 ff. ; Greek, 33 ff. ; Greek conception of, 1; history of, 33 ff. ; intuitional and teleological, 222 ff.; media;val, 169 ff.; metaphysics and, 44 f .; method of, 6 ff. ; modern, 179 ff.; natural science and, 6 ff. ; nature of, 1 ff.; as a practical science, 1 ff . ; practical value of, 25 ff . ; relation of, to ps^'chology and anthro- pology, 2; rationalistic and empirical, 6ff.; theological, 169 ff. Ethical societies, 483 n. 2. Ethical virtues, Greek and Christian con- ceptions of, contrasted, 68 f. Eudi£monia, 36 ff.; Aristotle's comcption of, 49; Stoic conception of, 54. Eudsemonism, 194 ff., 251 ff. Eucken, 17 n. 1, 35 n. 1. Eutuchia and eudaemonia, 407 ff. Everett, 475 n. 1. Evil, 321 * ff. ; physical and moral, 322 ff.; responsibility and, 461 f. Evolution, 278; egoism, altruism and, 394 ff. ; ethics and, 214 f. Evolutional ethics, 192 f. Evolutionistic view of conscience, 364 f. Examinations, 549 f. Exercise, 519 ff. Expediency and truth, 672 ff. Extravagance, 536 ff. no INDEX Faith and creed, 434 ff.; and life, 421 ff. Falsehood, 664 ff. Fame, 569 ff. Family-life and primitive Christianity, 84 ff. Famil\'-rights, 634. Fashion, 518 f. Faultfinding, 650 f., 687. Faust, 408 f. ; and conscience, 372. Fechner, 339 n. 1, 427. Feeling, as source of moral knowledge, 11 f.; and will, 221. Fetichism, 417 f. Feuchtersieben, 483 n. 2. Fichte, J. G., 340 n. 1, 353, 483 n. 1; his altruism, 380 n. 2 ; and the lie of neces- sity, 673 f. Fichte, J. H., 179 n. 3. Fischer, K., 127 n. 1, 179 n. 3. Fisher, 65 n. 1, 98 n. 1. Flattery, 670, 681. Forgiveness, 616 ff. Formal and material judgments of acts, 227 ff. Forster, 194 n. 1. FouillpO(TVVT), 483 fl^. Specialism, religion and, 434. Speculative Philosophy, 204 ff., 429. Speech, Christian estimate of, 76. Spencer, 1, 71 n. 1, 193 *, 249 n. 1, 507 n. 2, 340 n. 1, 346 n. 1, 379 n. 1, 427, 483 n. 1, 485 n. 1, 506 n. 1, 519 n. 1, 529 n. 1, 543 n. 1, 592 n. 1, 599 n. 1, 638 n. 1, 664 n. 1 ; on egoism and altruism, 395 ff. Spener, 420. Spinoza, 274, 307, 354, 384, 401, 406, 426, 428, 598, 606 n. 1, 619 ; and Aristotle, 52; his egoism, 380; his ethical system, 181 * ff . ; his conception of evil, 332 ; on free-will, 456. Spiritual life and culture, 543 ff. State, church and, in Middle Ages, 120 ; Greek and Christian estimates of, 72 ff. ; modern theory of, 143 f . Statius, 104. Stiiudlin, 584 n. 1. Stein, Freiherr von, 577, 669. Steiner, 371 n. 1. Steinthal, 215 n. 1, 259, 415 n. 1, 452 n. 1. Stephen, 29 n. 1, 179 n. 3, 193 *, 222 n. 1, 233 n. 1, 275 n. 1, 340 n. 1, 379 n. 1, 452 n. 1, 485 n. 1, 495 n. 1, 592 n. 1, 599 n. 1, 664 n. 1. Sterrett, 205 n. 1, 607 n. 1. Stirner, 373 n. 1. Stockl, 169 n. 1. Stoics, 273, 321 n. 1, 492 ff., 587, 698, 682 ; their ethical system, 53*ff.; their con- ception of goods, 277 ; Roman, 106 ff . Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 483 n. 2. Strauss, 709 ; his conception of character of Jesus, 90 n. 5, 91 f. ; his opinion of Christianity, 156. Striimpell, 481 n. 1. Stupidity, ignorance and, 549 ff. Subjective and objective judgments of acts, 227 ff. Subjective morality, 370 ff. Success and virtue, 400 fF. Suffering, 163 f., 259 ff., 321 ff., 410 ff. ; Christian notion of, 157 f. Suicide, 584 * ff.; causes of, 590 ff.; civili- zation and, 584 ff. ; how judged morally, 586 ff. Sully, 287 n. 1, 341 n. 1, 343 n. 1, 452 n. I. Sulzer, 300. Superciliousness, 578 ff. Supernaturalism and naturalism, 165 f. Superstition, 435. Symonds, 127 n. 1. Sympathetic pain and pleasure, 593 ff. Sympathy, 248, 278, 592 * ff., 638 ff. Taine, 299. Taylor, B., 328 n. 1, 329 n. 1, n. 2, n. 3. Taylor, T., 599 n. 1. Tedium, 532. Teleological and intuitionalistic ethics, 222 ff. Temperance, 484 * ff. ; Greek and Christian conceptions of, contrasted, 74 ff. Tenement-houses, 516 f. Tertullian, 117, 121; his estimate of cour- age, 70 : on temporal power, 74. Thackeray, 304. Theatre in Rome, 105 f. Theism, 422 f . Themistocles, his suicide, 588 ff. Theodicy, 321* ff. Theognis, 407 n. 1. Theological ethics, 169 ff. Theology and free-will, 454 f. Theoretical knowledge, 545 ff. Theories of life, 33 ff. Theory and practice, 1 ff. Thillv, 35 n. 1, 219 n. 1, 415 n. 2, 452 n. 1. Thomas Aquinas, 273 f., 431, 454 n. 3. Thomas a Kempis, 490 n. 1, 681 n. 1. Thucydides, 154 n. 1. Tille, 151 n. 1. Tipping, 541. Tobacco, 513 ff. Tunnies, 179 n. 4, 215 n. 1, 590 n. 1. INDEX 723 I Toleration, 635 ff. Tolstoi, 122 n. 1, 514 f., 524 f. Trajan, 97, 104. Tranquilitas animi, Spinoza's, 183. Transcendent, 161 ff., 447 f. Truth, 664* ff. ; and expediency, 672 ff. Truthfulness, 664 ff. Turg^'nev, 373 n. 1. Twesten, 205 n. 2. vPpii, 407 f., 411, 579. Uebermensch, 152 f. Ueberweg, 35 n. 1, 162 f. Uhlhorn, 74 n. 2, 103, 157 n. 1, 646. Uniform, 518. Universal morality, 19 ff. University, 548. Unpretendingness, 491 ff. Utilitarianism, 191 f., 222 ff. Utopias, 137 ff., 143 f. Valentin I, 541 n. 1, 652 n. 1, 671 n. 1. Vanity, 574 ff. Vegetarianism, 515. Veitch, 142 n. 1. Veracity, 664* ff. ; among the Greeks, 682 ; among the modems, 682 f . ; nega- tive, 664 ff. ; positive, 685 ff. Villari, 97 n. 1. Vilmar, 371 n. 1. Virtue, Aristotle's definition of, 52; and happiness or success, 400 ff.; can it be taught ? 40 f., 478 ff.; and vice, 249. Virtues, 475 * ff. ; classification of, 481 f . ; Greek and Christian estimate of, 68 f. ; and vices, 475 fl^. Voight, 127 n. 1, 213 f. Volksschule, 548. Voltaire, 376. Vorlander, 179 n. 3. Wackernagkl, 686 n. 1. Waitz, 416. War, 395 ff., 675. Ward, 454 n. 1. Watson, 35 n. 1. Wealth, Christian estimate of, 77 f.; and the economic virtues, 540 ff. Weariness of life, 171, 376. Weber, A., 35 n. 1, 48 a. 1, 56 u. 1, 324 n. 1. Weber, W., 114 n. 1. Weinholdt, 119. Welfare, 4 f., 10 ff., 223 f., 251 ff. Welldon, 36 n. 1. Wellington, Duke of, 549. Whewell, 179 n. 8, 192 *. White, 181 n. 2. Wieland, 261 ff. Wiese, 475 n. 1, 683. Will, custom and, 343 ff.; education of, 483 ff. ; and feeling, 221; freedom of, 452 ff. ; impulse, and desire, 220 f . ; and intellect, 220 f.; Schopenhauer's theory of, 292 f . Williams, 179 n. 3, 275 n. 3, 320 n. 1, 379 n. 1. Wilson, see Fowler and Wilson. Windelband, 35 n. 1. Wisdom, 45, 503 f. Wolf, F. A., 438. Wolff, Christian, 401, 456; his ethical system, 193 * f . Woman, disposition of, 499, 598; education of, 522 ff. Women's rights, 625 f. Work, Greek estimate of, 62 ff . ; and play, 519 ff. Wundt, 29 n. 1, 35 n. 1, 204, 215 n. 1, 222 n. 1, 275 n. 3, 340 n. 1, 344 n. 1, 415 n. 1, 416 n. 1, 452 n. 1, 505 n. 1, 506, 529 n. 1, 543 n. 1, 569 n. 1, 592 n. 1, 599 n. 1, 606 n. 1, 638 n. 1. Xenophon, 37 n. 1. YoNGE, 56 n. 3. York, General, 361 f. Zeller, 35 n. 1, 109, 194 n. 1, 215 n. 1. Ziegler, H., 98 n. 1. Ziegler, T., 35 n. 1, 65 n. 1, 215 n. 1, 275 n. 3. Zollner, 365 n. 1. Zola, 508 n. 1. * I' i . » k COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARY This book is due or the dp* ir,dicated below, or at th- expiration " ' ^^' ro V »« ^f* H JUL 5 1940