Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XI.djvu/825

MOEAL PHILOSOPHY 807 former extends to all moral qualities ; the lat- ter is limited to the virtue of justice, 'since no written law can enjoin gratitude or generosity. Moral law is imposed by the conscience ; civil law, by the decree of the legislator. Eight is what a man may lawfully or morally do. Duty is what he must morally do. Crime is what he lawfully must not do. Vice is what he morally must not do. The law of nature, or the law of God, embracing' the law of nations, is some- times used as comprehending the whole of mo- rality, the whole theory of conduct, and some- times as containing only those unwritten rules of justice which are enforced by punishment in civilized countries, and at the breach of which it would be generally thought, if there were no government, that men might defend themselves by violence. Positive law, natural law, and moral law have been termed the three ascending degrees in the whole science of duty. The first inquiry in moral science is after an ultimate rule, a supreme principle of life, which shall be of imperative and universal authority, and around which shall be grouped all the mo- tives and maxims of action. From this central principle every ethical system receives its char- acter. These systems may be ranged in two classes, according as the ultimate moral rule is objective or subjective, dependent on something without or within the mind. The most promi- nent objective theories are those which adopt as the ultimate principle and basis of morality : 1, the authority of the state; 2, the revealed will of God ; 3, something inherent in the nature of things ; 4, the greatest happiness. Hobbes maintained the first, and Descartes the second. To the third division belong Dr. Samuel Clarke's theory of the fitness of things, "Wollaston's of the truth of things, Wayland's of the relations of things, and President Ed- wards's of the beauty in the union or consent of one mind with the great whole of being, in the love of being in general. To the fourth division belongs the Epicurean theory of per- sonal pleasure, which was made to coexist with virtue by Aristotle, to which Paley gave a more religious aspect by weighing future eternal happiness against present self-renunciation, and which Bentham advanced with reference to public utility and the greatest good of the greatest number. The principal subjective theories find the essence and test of morality in : 1, natural susceptibility to pride, gratified by flattery ; 2, an inner reciprocal sympathy ; 3, an inner sense, which gives moral distinc- tions ; 4, an immediate intuition. Mandeville defined virtue as the offspring of flattery be- gotten upon pride, its motives being vanity, and its object praise. Adam Smith urged that the ground of morality was a reflex sympathy, by which the observer changes place in imagina- tion with the actor, and affirms the action to be right or wrong according as it receives or repels his sympathy. Shaftesbury and Hutche- son maintained a distinct and specific moral sense, which immediately apprehends moral distinctions, and is to each man the source of obligation and the measure of virtue. Dr. Brown modified this theory by denying the existence of virtue and vice in the abstract, and claiming that a universal sentiment, by reason of the original conformation of the hu- man mind, approves certain intentions and af- fections as right, disapproves others as wrong, and is the ultimate source of all moral truth. Friedrich von Schlegel regarded this moral sense or universal sentiment as an inward reve- lation, which is in us but not of us, which is a divinely awakened awe of the Supreme Being, and which enjoins obedience to every form of God's commandments. Those who claim an immediate intuition of moral truth suppose in the human mind a higher reason for the appre- hension of universal and necessary principles. The reason immediately beholds the right, and is of ultimate and conclusive authority. Its affirmation, founded on intellectual intuition, is the sufficient sanction of duty. Such, with various modifications, is the theory of Cud- worth, Kant, and Coleridge. Ethics is not, like mathematics or metaphysics, an indepen- dent science. It rests upon philosophical or theological principles, only the application or operations of which it deals with. It takes a dynamical and not a statical view of the ele- ments of life. It presupposes human liberty, the power to employ our mental and physical capacities as we will, and to determine the end toward which they shall be directed ; for other- wise the sentiments of duty and of responsi- bility would be without foundation, would at most be mere phenomena of consciousness, and moral philosophy could be only the natural his- tory of human actions. Its distinctive quality would be lost, destiny taking in it the place of duty. The supremacy of the conscience, how- ever .it be defined, whose mandate is duty, is also presupposed, since a moral nature is pre- requisite to the science of moral action. Con- science implies a supreme law, having reference to a general end, and constituting an ultimate rule of right, the determination of which, and its application to all departments of conduct, are the tasks of moral philosophy. A complete moral system states the supreme good of man, the supreme moral principle which should guide his action, and his particular duties to himself, to mankind, and to God. Christian ethics is the doctrine of Christian life, embracing so much of dogmatics as pertains not to knowledge but action. Schleiermacher, Rothe, and others have regarded it as identical with dogmatics, on the ground that Christian faith and morals, thought and purpose, knowledge and action, are not separable. It differs from philosophical ethics in its subject, which is not man, but Christians ; in its principle, founded on the rec- ognized relation between man and God ; in its source, being derived not from the reason, but from the teaching of Christ and the^apostles; and in our perception of it, which is not by any analytical process, but by the Christian