MODERN HISTORY OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY.
*For several centuries after the destruction of the Western Empire*,
philosophy had hardly an existence except in its records, and these were
preserved chiefly for their parchment, half-effaced, covered by what took
the place of literature in the (so called) Dark Ages, and at length
deciphered by such minute and wearisome toil as only mediæval cloisters
have ever furnished. For a long period, monasteries were the only schools,
and in these the learned men of the day were, either successively or
alternately, learners and teachers, whence the appellation of _Schoolmen_.
The learned men who bear this name were fond of casuistry, and discussed
imagined and often impossible cases with great pains (their readers would
have greater); but, so far as we know, they have left no systematic
treatises on moral philosophy, and have transmitted no system that owes to
them its distinguishing features. Yet we find among them a very broad
division of opinion as to the ground of right. The fundamental position of
the Stoics, that virtue is conformity to nature, and thus independent of
express legislation,—not created by law, human or divine, but the source
and origin of law,—had its champions, strong, but few; while the
Augustinian theology, then almost universal, replaced Epicureanism in its
denial of the intrinsic and indelible moral qualities of actions. The
extreme Augustinians regarded the positive command of God as the sole
cause and ground of right, so that the very things which are forbidden
under the severest penalties would become virtuous and commendable, if
enjoined by Divine authority. William of Ockham, one of the most
illustrious of the English Schoolmen, wrote: “If God commanded his
creatures to hate himself, the hatred of God would be the duty of man.”
The *earliest modern* theory of morals that presented striking
peculiarities was that of *Hobbes* (A. D. 1588-1679), who was indebted
solely to the stress of his time, alike for his system and for whatever
slender following it may have had. He was from childhood a staunch
royalist, was shortly after leaving the University the tutor of a loyal
nobleman, and, afterward, of Charles II. during the early years of his
exile; and the parliamentary and Puritan outrages seemed to him to be
aimed at all that was august and reverend, and adapted to overturn
society, revert progress, and crush civilization. According to him, men
are by nature one another’s enemies, and can be restrained from
internecine hostility only by force or fear. An instinctive perception of
this truth in the infancy of society gave rise to monarchical and absolute
forms of government; for only by thus centralizing and massing power,
which could be directed against any disturber of the peace, could the
individual members of society hold property or life in safety. The king
thus reigns by right of human necessity, and obedience to him and to
constituted authorities under him is man’s whole duty, and the sum of
virtue. Might creates right. Conscience is but another name for the fear
of punishment. The intimate connection of religion with civil freedom in
the English Commonwealth no doubt went far in uprooting in Hobbes all
religious faith; and while he did not openly attack Christianity, he
maintained the duty of entire conformity to the monarch’s religion,
whatever it might be, which is of course tantamount to the denial of
objective religious truth.(22)
Hobbes may fairly be regarded as *the father of modern ethical
philosophy*,—not that he had children after his own likeness; but his
speculations were so revolting equally to thinking and to serious men, as
to arouse inquiry and stimulate mental activity in a department previously
neglected.
The gauntlet thus thrown down by Hobbes was taken up by *Cudworth* (A. D.
1617-1688), the most learned man of his time, whose “Intellectual System
of the Universe” is a prodigy of erudition,—a work in which his own
thought is so blocked up with quotations, authorities, and masses of
recondite lore, that it is hardly possible to trace the windings of the
river for the débris of auriferous rocks that obstruct its flow. The
treatise with which we are concerned is that on “Eternal and Immutable
Morality.” In this he maintains that the right exists, independently of
all authority, by the very nature of things, in co-eternity with the
Supreme Being. So far is he from admitting the possibility of any
dissiliency between the Divine will and absolute right, that he turns the
tables on his opponents, and classes among Atheists those of his
contemporaries who maintain that God can command what is contrary to the
intrinsic right; that He has no inclination to the good of his creatures;
that He can justly doom an innocent being to eternal torments; or that
whatever God wills is just because He wills it.
*Samuel Clarke* (A. D. 1675-1729) followed Cudworth in the same line of
thought. He was, it is believed, the first writer who employed the term
_fitness_ as defining the ground of the immutable and eternal right,
though the idea of fitness necessarily underlies every system or theory
that assigns to virtue intrinsic validity.
*Shaftesbury* (A. D. 1671-1713) represents virtue as residing, not in the
nature or relations of things, but in the bearing of actions on the
welfare or happiness of beings other than the actor. Benevolence
constitutes virtue; and the merit of the action and of the actor is
determined by the degree in which particular affections are merged in
general philanthropy, and reference is had, not to individual
beneficiaries or benefits, but to the whole system of things of which the
actor forms a part. The affections from which such acts spring commend
themselves to the moral sense, and are of necessity objects of esteem and
love. But the moral sense takes cognizance of the affections only, not of
the acts themselves; and as the conventional standard of the desirable and
the useful varies with race, time, and culture, the acts which the
affections prompt, and which therefore are virtuous, may be in one age or
country such as the people of another century or land may repudiate with
loathing. Las Casas, in introducing negro slavery into America, with the
fervently benevolent purpose of relieving the hardships of the feeble and
overtasked aborigines, performed, according to this theory, a virtuous
act; but had he once considered the question of intrinsic right or natural
fitness, a name so worthily honored would never have been associated with
the foulest crime of modern civilization.
According to *Adam Smith* (A. D. 1723-1790), moral distinctions depend
wholly on sympathy. We approve in others what corresponds to our own
tastes and habits; we disapprove whatever is opposed to them. As to our
own conduct, “we suppose ourselves,” he writes, “the spectators of our own
behavior, and endeavor to imagine what effect it would in this light
produce in us.” Our sense of duty is derived wholly from our thus putting
ourselves in the place of others, and inquiring what they would approve in
us. Conscience, then, is a collective and corporate, not an individual
faculty. It is created by the prevalent opinions of the community.
Solitary virtue there cannot be; for without sympathy there is no
self-approval. By parity of reason, the duty of the individual can never
transcend the average conscience of the community. This theory describes
society as it is, not as it ought to be. We are, to a sad degree,
conventional in our practice, much more so than in our beliefs; but it is
the part of true manliness to have the conscience an interior, not an
external organ, to form and actualize notions of right and duty for one’s
self, and to stand and walk alone, if need there be, as there manifestly
is in not a few critical moments, and as there is not infrequently in the
inward experience of every man who means to do his duty.
*Butler* (A. D. 1692-1752), in his “Ethical Discourses,” aims mainly and
successfully to demonstrate the rightful supremacy of conscience. His
favorite conception is of the human being as himself a household [_an
economy_],—the various propensities, appetites, passions, and affections,
the members,—Conscience, the head, recognized as such by all, so that
there is, when her sovereignty is owned, an inward repose and
satisfaction; when she is disobeyed, a sense of discord and rebellion, of
unrest and disturbance. This is sound and indisputable, and it cannot be
more clearly stated or more vividly illustrated than by Butler; but he
manifestly regards conscience as legislator no less than judge, and thus
fails to recognize any objective standard of right. It is evident that on
his ground there is no criterion by which honestly erroneous moral
judgments can be revised, or by which a discrimination can be made between
the results of education or involuntary prejudice, and the right as
determined by the nature of things and the standard of intrinsic fitness.
Of all modern ethical writers since the time of Cudworth and Clarke, none
so much as approaches the position occupied by *Richard Price* (A. D.
1723-1791), a London dissenting divine, a warm advocate of American
independence, and the intimate friend of John Adams. He maintained that
right and wrong are inherent and necessary, immutable and eternal
characteristics, not dependent on will or command, but on the intrinsic
nature of the act, and determined with unerring accuracy by conscience,
whenever the nature of the case is clearly known. “Morality,” he writes,
“is fixed on an immovable basis, and appears not to be in any sense
factitious, or the arbitrary production of any power, human or divine; but
equally everlasting and necessary with all truth and reason.” “Virtue is
of intrinsic value and of indispensable obligation; not the creature of
will, but necessary and immutable; not local and temporary, but of equal
extent and antiquity with the Divine mind; not dependent on power, but the
guide of all power.”(23)
*Paley* (A. D. 1743-1805) gives a definition of virtue, remarkable for its
combination of three partial theories. Virtue, according to him, is “the
doing good to mankind, in obedience to the will of God, and for the sake
of everlasting happiness.” Of this definition it may be said, 1. The doing
good to mankind is indeed virtue; but it is by no means the whole of
virtue. 2. Obedience to the will of God is our duty; but it is so, because
his will must of necessity be in accordance with the fitting and right.
Could we conceive of Omnipotence commanding what is intrinsically unfit
and wrong, the virtuous man would not be the God-server, but the
Prometheus suffering the implacable vengeance of an unrighteous Deity. 3.
Though everlasting happiness be the result of virtue, it is not the ground
or the reason for it. Were our being earth-limited, virtue would lose none
of its obligation. Epictetus led as virtuous a life as if heaven had been
open to his faith and hope.—Paley’s system may be described in detail as
Shaftesbury’s, with an external washing of Christianity; Shaftesbury
having been what was called a free-thinker, while Paley was a sincere
believer in the Christian revelation, and contributed largely and
efficiently to the defence of Christianity and the illustration of its
records. The chief merit of Paley’s treatise on Moral Philosophy is that
it clearly and emphatically recognizes the Divine authority of the moral
teachings of the New Testament, though in expounding them the author too
frequently dilutes them by considerations of expediency.
*Jeremy Bentham* (A. D. 1747-1832) is Paley _minus_ Christianity. The
greatest good of the greatest number is, according to him, the aim and
criterion of virtue. Moral rules should be constructed with this sole end;
and this should be the pervading purpose of all legislation. Bentham’s
works are very voluminous, and they cover, wisely and well, almost every
department of domestic, social, public, and national life. The worst that
can be said of his political writings is that they are in advance of the
age,—literally Utopian;(24) for it would be well with the country which
was prepared to embody his views. But, unfortunately, his principles have
no power of self-realization. They are like a watch, perfect in all other
parts, but without the mainspring. Bentham contemplates the individual man
as an agency, rather than as an intellectual and moral integer. He must
work under yoke and harness for ends vast and remote, beyond the
appreciation of ordinary mortals; and he must hold all partial affections
and nearer aims subordinate to rules deduced by sages and legislators from
considerations of general utility. Bentham’s influence on legislation,
especially on criminal law, has been beneficially felt on both sides of
the Atlantic. In the department of pure ethics, there are no essential
points of difference between him and other writers of the utilitarian
school.(25)
* * * * *
In *France* there has been a large preponderance of sensualism,
expediency, and selfishness in the ethical systems that have had the most
extensive currency. There was a great deal of elaborate ethical
speculation and theory among the French philosophers of the last century;
but among them we cannot recall a single writer who maintained a higher
ground than Bentham, except that Rousseau—perhaps the most immoral of them
all—who was an Epicurean so far as he had any philosophy, sometimes soars
in sentimental rhapsodies about the intrinsic beauty and loveliness of a
virtue which he knew only by name.
*Malebranche* (A. D. 1638-1714), whose principal writings belong to the
previous century, represents entirely opposite views and tendencies. He
hardly differs from Samuel Clarke, except in phraseology. He resolves
virtue into love of the universal order, and conformity to it in conduct.
This order requires that we should prize and love all beings and objects
in proportion to their relative worth, and that we should recognize this
relative worth in our rules and habits of life. Thus man is to be more
highly valued and more assiduously served than the lower animals, because
worth more; and God is to be loved infinitely more than man, and to be
always obeyed and served in preference to man, because he is worth
immeasurably more than the beings that derive their existence from him.
Malebranche ascribes to the Supreme Being, not the arbitrary exercise of
power in constituting the right, but recognition, in his government of the
world and in his revealed will, of the order, which is man’s sole law.
“Sovereign princes,” he says, “have no right to use their authority
without reason. Even God has no such miserable right.”
At nearly the same period commenced the ethical controversy between
*Fénélon* (A. D. 1651-1715) and *Bossuet* (A. D. 1627-1704), as to the
possibility and obligation of disinterested virtue. Fénélon and the
Quietists, who sympathized with him, maintained that the pure love of God,
without any self-reference, or regard for one’s own well-being either here
or here-after, is the goal and the test of human perfection, and that
nothing below this—nothing which aims or aspires at anything less than
this—deserves the name of virtue. Bossuet defended the selfish theory of
virtue, attacked his amiable antagonist with unconscionable severity and
bitterness, and succeeded in obtaining from the court of Rome—though
against the wishes of the Pope—the condemnation of the obnoxious tenet.
The Pope remarked, with well-turned antithesis, that Fénélon might have
erred from excess in the love of God, while Bossuet had sinned by defect
in the love of his neighbor.
Among the recent French moralists, the most distinguished names are those
of *Jouffroy* and *Cousin*, who—each with a terminology of his own—agree
with Malebranche in regarding right and wrong as inherent and essential
characteristics of actions, and as having their source and the ground of
their validity in the nature of things. The aim of Cousin’s well-known
treatise on “The True, the Beautiful, and the Good,” is purely ethical,
and the work is designed to identify the three members of the Platonic
triad with corresponding attributes of the Infinite Being,—attributes
which, virtually one, have their counterpart and manifestation in the
order of nature and the government of the universe.
* * * * *
In *Germany*, the necessarian philosophers of the Pantheistic school
ignore ethics by making choice and moral action impossible. Man has no
distinct and separate personality. He is for a little while detached in
appearance from the soul of the universe (_anima mundi_), but in reality
no more detached from it than is a boulder or a log of drift-wood from the
surface on which it rests. He still remains a part of the universal soul,
the multiform, all-embracing God, who is himself not a self-conscious,
freely willing being, but impelled by necessity in all his parts and
members, and, no less than in all else, in those human members through
which alone he attains to some fragmentary self-consciousness.
According to *Kant*, the reason intuitively discerns truths that are
necessary, absolute, and universal. The theoretical reason discerns such
truths in the realm of ontology, and in the relations and laws that
underlie all subjects of physical inquiry. In like manner, the practical
reason intuitively perceives the conditions and laws inherent in the
objects of moral action,—that is, as Malebranche would have said, the
elements of universal order, or, in the language of Clarke, the fitness of
things. As the mind must of necessity contemplate and cognize objects of
thought under the categories intuitively discerned by the theoretical
reason, so must the will be moved by the conditions and laws intuitively
discerned by the practical reason. This intuition is law and obligation.
Man can obey it, and to obey it is virtue. He can disobey it, and in so
doing he does not yield to necessity, but makes a voluntary choice of
wrong and evil.
* * * * *
It will be perceived from the historical survey in this and the previous
chapter, that—as was said at the outset—*all ethical systems resolve
themselves into the two classes of which the Epicureans and the Stoics
furnished the pristine types,*—those which make virtue an accident, a
variable, subject to authority, occasion, or circumstance; and those which
endow it with an intrinsic right, immutableness, validity, and supremacy.
On subjects of fundamental moment, opinion is of prime importance. Conduct
results from feeling, and feeling from opinion. We would have the youth,
from the very earliest period of his moral agency, grounded in the belief
that right and wrong are immutable,—that they have no localities, no
meridians,—that, with a change of surroundings, their conditions and laws
vary as little as do those of planetary or stellar motion. Let him feel
that right and wrong are not the mere dicta of human teaching, nay, are
not created even by revelation; but let their immutable distinction
express itself to his consciousness in those sublime words which belong to
it, as personified in holy writ, “Jehovah possessed me from the beginning
of his way, before his works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from
the beginning, or ever the earth was. When He prepared the heavens, I was
there. When He appointed the foundations of the earth, then was I by Him.”
This conception of the Divine and everlasting sacredness of virtue, is a
perennial fountain of strength. He who has this does not imagine that he
has power over the Right, can sway it by his choice, or vary its standard
by his action; but it overmasters him, and, by subduing, frees him, fills
and energizes his whole being, ennobles all his powers, exalts and hallows
all his affections, makes him a priest to God, and a king among men.
INDEX.
Abstinence, when to be preferred to temperance, 175
Academy, the New, 205
Action, defined, 1
springs of, 10
governing principles of, 30
Affections, the, 22
Anger, 26
Anonymous publications, 123
Appetites, the, 10
Aristotle, character of, 197
Beneficence, 143
Bentham, Jeremy, 215
Bossuet, controversy of, with Fénélon, 217
Brotherhood, human, in its ethical relations, 56
Butler, 212
Capital punishment, 66
Casuistry, 187
Children, duties of, 121
Christianity, a source of knowledge, 55
exhibiting moral perfection in the person of its Founder, 68
compared, as to its ethics, with other religions, 59
as a motive power, 81
Cicero, philosophical relations of, 206
Clarke, Samuel, 210
Conscience, a judicial faculty, 41
educated by use, 44
relation of knowledge to, 45
Contracts, 128
Courage, defined, 158
physical, 159
moral, 160
Cousin, 218
Cudworth, 209
Desire, defined, 12
of knowledge, 13
of society, 15
of esteem, 17
of power, 18
of superiority, 19
Duties, conflict of, 190
Duty, limit of, 189
Enemies, love of, possible, 149
Envy, 27
Epictetus, character of, 203
Epicureanism, 198
Example, ethical value of, 111
Expediency, an insufficient rule of conduct, 31
when to be consulted, 33
Extreme cases in morals, 125
Falsehood, 151
Family, duties of the, 118
Fénélon, controversy of, with Bossuet, 217
Fitness, the ground of right, 36
Foreknowledge, Divine, consistent with human freedom, 8
Freedom of the will, arguments for, 2
objections to, 4
Government, the essential function of, 180
obedience to, how limited, 182
when to be opposed, 184
Gratitude, 24
Habit, 84
Hatred, 28
Hobbes, 208
Home-life, order requisite in, 169
Homicide, justifiable, 64
Honesty, 134
Horace, the poet of Epicureanism, 200
Ignorance, sins of, 39
Immortality, ethical relations of, 57
Intemperance, 170
Jouffroy, 218
Justice, 113
Kant, ethical system of, 219
Kindness, 25
Knowledge, attainment of, a duty, 102
Law, the result of experience, 50
an educational force, 51
Liberty, the right to, 69
Love, 22
Lucretius, philosophy of, 201
Malebranche, 216
Manners, a department of morals, 177
Marcus Aurelius, character of, 204
Marriage, 120
Measure, duties appertaining to, 170
Military service, 68
Moral philosophy, defined, 34
Motive, 79
Oaths, 129
Observation, a source of ethical knowledge, 46
Order, 164
Paley, 215
Pantheism, ethics of, 218
Parents, duties of, 121
Passion, 82
Patience, 152
Pauperism, 144
Peripatetics, the, 193
Piety toward God, 113
Pity, 25
Place, duties appertaining to, 168
Plato, as a teacher of ethics, 193
Politeness, 178
Positive duties, 117
Price, Richard, 214
Promises, 126
Prudence, 98
Punctuality, 167
Resentment, 27
Revenge, 28
Reverence, 23
Revolution, when justifiable, 185
Right, the, 35
absolute and relative, 37
Rights, defined, 61
how limited, 62
personal, 64
of property, 72
of reputation, 76
Sabbath, the, 16
Sceptical school of philosophy, 204
Schoolmen, ethics of the, 207
Self-control, 106
Self-culture, moral, 109
Self-preservation, 99
Seneca, writings and character of, 203
Shaftesbury, 210
Slavery, 70
Smith, Adam, 211
Socrates, as a teacher of ethics, 195
Speculation in business, when legitimate, 138
when dishonest, 140
Spinoza, 209
Stoics, philosophy of the, 201
eminent Roman, 203
Submission, 155
Sympathy, 25
Taxation, 75
Temperance, 173
Time, duties appertaining to, 165
Usury, 142
Veracity, 122
Virtue, defined, 88
connection of, with piety, 91
Virtues, the, 94
cardinal, 96
Worship, public, 115
Zeno, character of, 202
FOOTNOTES
_ 1 Compassion_ ought from its derivation to have the same meaning with
_sympathy_; but in common usage it is synonymous with pity.
2 “Ignorantia legis neminem excusat.”
3 The theory that Seneca was acquainted with St. Paul, or had any
_direct_ intercourse with Christians in Rome or elsewhere, has no
historical evidence, and rests on assumptions that are contradicted
by known facts.
_ 4 Virtutes leniores_, as Cicero calls them.
5 The duty of society to inflict capital punishment on the murderer
has been maintained on the ground of the Divine command to that
effect, said to have been given to Noah, and thus to be binding on
all his posterity. (Genesis ix. 5.) My own belief—founded on a
careful examination of the Hebrew text—is, that the _human_ murderer
is not referred to in this precept, but that it simply requires the
slaying of the beast that should cause the death of a man,—a
precaution which was liable to be neglected in a rude state of
society, and was among the special enactments of the Mosaic law.
(Exodus xxi. 38.) If, however, the common interpretation be
retained, the precept requires the shedding of the murderer’s blood
by the _brother_ or nearest kinsman of the murdered man, and is not
obeyed by giving up the murderer to the _gallows_ and the _public
executioner_. Moreover, the same series of precepts prescribes an
abstinence from the natural juices of animal food, which would
require an entire revolution in our shambles, kitchens, and tables.
If these precepts were Divine commandments for men of all times,
they should be obeyed in full; but there is the grossest
inconsistency and absurdity in holding only a portion of one of them
sacred, and ignoring all the rest.
6 Latin, _virtus_, from _vir_, which denotes not, like _homo_, simply
a human being, but a man endowed with all appropriate manly
attributes, and comes from the same root with _vis_, strength. The
Greek synonyms of _virtus_, ἀρετή, is derived from Ἀρης, the god of
war, who in the heroic days of Greece was the ideal man, the
standard of human excellence, and whose name some lexicographers
regard—as it seems to me, somewhat fancifully—as allied through its
root to ἀνήρ, which bears about the same relation to ἄνθρωπος that
_vir_ bears to _homo_.
7 In the languages which have inherited or adopted the Latin _virtus_,
it retains its original signification, with one striking exception,
which yet is perhaps an exception in appearance rather than in
reality. In the Italian, virtu is employed to signify taste, and
_virtuoso_, which may denote a virtuous man, oftener means a
collector of objects of taste. We have here an historical landmark.
There was a period when, under civil despotism, the old Roman
manhood had entirely died out on its native soil, while
ecclesiastical corruption rendered the nobler idea of Christian
manhood effete; and then the highest type of manhood that remained
was the culture of those refined sensibilities, those ornamental
arts, and that keen sense of the beautiful, in which Italy as far
surpassed other lands, as it was for centuries inferior to them in
physical bravery and in moral rectitude.
8 It is obviously on this ground alone that we can affirm moral
attributes of the Supreme Being. When we say that he is perfectly
just, pure, holy, beneficent, we recognize a standard of judgment
logically independent of his nature. We mean that the fitness which
the human conscience recognizes as its only standard of right, is
the law which he has elected for his own administration of the
universe. Could we conceive of omnipotence not recognizing this law,
the decrees and acts of such a being would not be necessarily right.
Omnipotence cannot make that which is fitting wrong, or that which
is unfitting right. God’s decrees and acts are not right because
they are his, but his because they are right.
9 From _cardo_, a hinge.
10 It is virtually Cicero’s division in the _De Officiis_.
11 The points at issue with regard to sabbatical observance hardly
belong to an elementary treatise on ethics. I ought not, however, to
leave any doubt as to my own opinion. I believe, then, the rest of
the Sabbath a necessity of man’s constitution, physical and mental,
of that of the beasts subservient to his use, and, in some measure,
even of the inanimate agents under his control, while the
sequestration of the day from the course of ordinary life is equally
a moral and religious necessity. The weekly Sabbath I regard as a
dictate of natural piety, and a primeval institution, re-enacted,
not established, by Moses, and sanctioned by our Saviour when he
refers to the Decalogue as a compend of moral duty, as also in
various other forms and ways. As to modes of sabbatical observance,
the rigid abstinences and austerities once common in New England
were derived from the Mosaic ceremonial law, and have no sanction
either in the New Testament or in the habits of the early
Christians. I can conceive of no better rule for the Lord’s day,
than that each person so spend it as to interfere as little as
possible with its fitting use by others, and to make it as availing
as he can for his own relaxation from secular cares, and growth in
wisdom and goodness.
12 It was the malignity displayed toward the children of divorced wives
by the women who succeeded them in the affections and homes of their
husbands, that in Roman literature attached to the name of a
stepmother (_noverca_) the most hateful associations, which
certainly have no place in modern Christendom, where the stepmother
oftener than not assumes the maternal cares of the deceased wife as
if they were natively her own.
13 When Jesus forbids swearing by heaven, because “it is God’s throne,”
and by the earth, because “it is his footstool,” the inference is
obvious that, for still stronger reasons, all direct swearing by God
himself is prohibited. The word μήτε, which introduces the oaths by
inferior objects specified in the text under discussion, not
infrequently corresponds to our phrase _not even_. With this sense
of μήτε, the passage would be rendered, “But I say unto you, Swear
not at all, not even by heaven,” etc.
I find that some writers on this subject quote in vindication of
oaths on solemn occasions the instances in the Scriptures in which
God is said to have sworn by Himself. The reply is obvious, that no
being can swear by himself, the essential significance of an oath
being an appeal to some being or object other than one’s self.
Because God “can swear by no greater,” it is certain that when this
phraseology is used concerning Him, it is employed figuratively, to
aid the poverty of human conceptions, and to express the certainty
of his promise by the strongest terms which human language affords.
In like manner, God is said by the sacred writers to repent of
intended retribution to evil-doers, not that infinite justice and
love can change in thought, plan, or purpose, but because a change
of disposition and feeling is wont to precede human clemency to
evil-doers.
14 The odious meaning of _excessive_ interest, as attached to _usury_,
is of comparatively recent date. In the earlier English, as in our
translation of the Bible, it denotes any sum given for the use of
money.
15 In this country usury laws are fast yielding to the growth of
intelligence in monetary affairs. Wherever they exist in their
severer forms, they only enhance the rate of interest paid by the
major portion of the class of borrowers, as the lender must be
compensated, not only for the use of his money, and for the risk of
his creditor’s inability to repay it, but also for the additional
risk of detection, prosecution, and forfeiture.
16 The reader need not be told that _patience_ and _passion_ are
derived from different participles of the same verb. _Patience_
comes from the present participle, and fittingly denotes the spirit
in which present suffering should be met; while _passion_ comes from
the perfect or past participle, and as fittingly denotes the
condition ensuing upon any physical, mental, or moral affection,
induced from without, which has been endured without protest or
resistance.
17 From _punctum_, a point.
18 Ἡδονή.
19 Στοά.
20 The words employed by the Stoics to indicate specific duties, as
presented to the common understanding, recognize intrinsic fitness
as the ground of right. These duties are termed in Greek, καθήκοντα,
that is, _be-fitting_, and in Latin, _officia_, from _ob_ and
_facio_, that which is done _ob aliquid_, for some assignable
reason.
21 How far Seneca’s character was represented by his philosophy is, we
believe, a fairly open question. That the beginning and the close of
his career were in accordance with his teachings, is certain. That
as a courtier, he was in suspicious proximity to, if not in
complicity with, gross scandals and crimes, is equally certain. The
evidence against him is weighty, but by no means conclusive. He may
have lingered in the purlieus of the palace in fond memory of what
Nero had been in the promise of his youth, and in the groundless
hope of bringing him again under more humane influences. This
supposition is rendered the more probable by the well-known fact,
that during his whole court life, and notwithstanding his great
wealth, Seneca’s personal habits were almost those of an anchorite.
22 Spinoza’s ethical system was closely parallel to that of Hobbes. He
denied the intrinsic difference between right and wrong; but he
regarded _aristocracy_ as the natural order of society. With him, as
with Hobbes, virtue consists solely in obedience to constituted
authority; and so utterly did he ignore a higher law, that he
maintained it to be the right of a state to abjure a treaty with
another state, when its terms ceased to be convenient or profitable.
23 Price’s theory of morals is developed with singular precision and
force in one of the Baccalaureate Addresses of the late President
Appleton, of Bowdoin College.
24 Εὐτόπος.
25 The reader who is conversant with the literature of ethics in
England and America will miss in this chapter many names which merit
a place by the side of those that have been given. But within the
limits proposed for this manual, the alternative was to select a few
writers among those who have largely influenced the thought of their
own and succeeding times, and to associate with each of them
something that should mark his individuality; or to make the chapter
little more than a catalogue of names. The former is evidently the
more judicious course. Nothing has been said of living writers,—not
because there are none who deserve an honored place among the
contributors to this department of science, but because, were the
list to be once opened, we should hardly know where to close it.