Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 11.djvu/282

This page needs to be proofread.

H. STEINTHAL, ALLGEMEINE ETHIK. 281 grows out of it by organisation of its parts. In the same way moral relations grow out of ordinary feelings by refinement of them. The feelings or impulses or volitions become limited and modified so as, in their connexion, to constitute the human end. And the truth contained in the notion of "formal feelings " seems to me to be this, that in each new trial as to what the end is, or where perfection lies, the test is a feeling that the act really does further development, a feeling therefore of satisfaction. The moral relations are not over and above the actual relations of will, but give value to them because contained in them. Through- out the abstractor parts of Prof. Steinthal's work his reverence for Kant induces him to speak of morality as something which indeed gives value and character to feelings, but yet itself derives no value from them. This dualism is often suppressed, and it is because the separation of Ideas from Feelings is not made there, that the Second Part is so instructive. (The difficulty reappears in his purely metaphysical doctrine in Part iv. On p. 408 perception as a chaos is contrasted with conception and law, and on p. 396 thing, quality, &c., are described as only ideas, whereas on p. 409 it is implied that even sensible knowledge is rational. These two views are never reconciled.) This separation creates many difficulties. It is not easy to see in the first place whether the object of the formal feeling is the Idea itself or the Idea as modified by its peculiar psychological surroundings. The description of the Ideas as categories of formal feeling implies the latter, but if the feeling apprehends pure relations there seems no room left for modifications, which however appear to be assumed by Herbart. 1 The effect of the separation is most apparent in the psychological theory of action, where the group of ethical ideas is distinct from other groups of ideas suggested by ordinary feelings. Here the Ideas, which are intelligible, are themselves ideas (Vorstellungen) and therefore have force (Kraft) by which they act upon other ideas and domi- nate them. But the ethical group does not exist apart from the latter but in them : we do not have first a feeling, then an idea of right, and then a right feeling, but the feeling is itself right in being of a certain quality or degree. In Prof. Steinthal's psycho- logical view, moreover, the distinction of Mac/it and Kraft disap- pears, for the Ideas seem to have Macht only so far as the ethical group has superior Kraft, so that the Macht seems useless except so far as it can translate itself into Kraft. 'Authority,' to use Butler's word, was described (Part i.) as greater the less force it needed to use, that is, the less antagonism there was to overcome ; but in the psychological explanation this is seen to be really the dominance of the ethical ideas, and therefore the relative expendi- 1 Allgemeine Praktische Philosophic, p. 28. Herbart however regards them (with doubtful justice) as merely differences of degree : he speaks of " mehr oder weniger stark ausgepragte Nachbildungen der Ideen ". 19