Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 12.djvu/302

W. WUNDT, ETHIK. 289 in theories of what the course of English thought, or the views of English thinkers, ought to be according to some historical scheme, partly in the occasional use of terms in senses for which the reader is not prepared. When, for example, egoism is described as tra- ditional in English ethics, we may be disposed to protest. The protest becomes needless when we discover that to seek the happiness of another person, or of any number of other persons, is, in Prof. Wundt's opinion, just as " egoistic " as to seek one's own happiness (p. 428). Utilitarianism is only an " enlarged egoism ". There is no escape from egoism except in work for social aims, which are realised in no assignable individual or sum of individuals. For the rest, the "greatest happiness principle can furnish no motive to action. Self-sacrifice " for another," or for "ideal ends," such as "Fatherland," is conceivable, but "it has never come to pass, and will never come to pass, that anyone gives up anything in order that the sum of happiness that there is in the world may become greater " (p. 339). In the concluding chapter of this historical section, ethical systems are classified " according to motives," and " according to ends ". The last named classification, which the author regards as the more important, may be transcribed. The ethical systems are thus divided : I. The Authoritative Moral Systems ; these, again, fall into two kinds, viz., political and religious " heteronomy " ; the ultimate end of these systems may be identical with the end of one of the " autonomous " systems. II. The Autonomous Moral Systems : (1) Eudaemonism, (a) Individual Eudaemonism or Egoism, (6) Universal Eudaamonism or Utilitarianism ; (2) Evolutionism, (a) Individual Evolutionism or Perfectionism, (b) Universal Evolutionism or Historicisni (p. 353). The moral precepts of religion, as well as the political order, Prof. Wundt remarks in discussing this classification, although themselves products of moral ideas, are in the earlier stages of civilisation "indispensable general means of education to morality," and remain so to a certain extent, perhaps perma- nently. Yet scientifically it is an inversion of the true order of causation to place them first in the human consciousness (p. 355). The first chapter of section iii. (" The Moral Will ") begins with some theoretical preliminaries on will and consciousness in general. " Development of consciousness " is declared to be essentially " development of will" (p. 375). " Feelings and desires " are movements of will that do not arrive at their full expression in external activity. Will is incapable of resolution into anything simpler. Voluntary movements cannot arise out of reflex and automatic movement ; on the contrary, mechanical reflex movements arise out of voluntary movements. Accord- ingly, in the lowest animals there are unmistakable voluntary actions before there are reflexes of clearly purposive character. Prof. Wundt calls his own theory of the will " the autogenetic theory," opposing it to " the ordinary or heterogenetic theory". 19