THE FUNDAMENTAL ANTITHESIS AS IT EXISTS IN THE MORAL WORLD.
1. We have hitherto spoken of the Fundamental Antithesis as the ground
of our speculations concerning the material world, at least mainly.
We have indeed been led by the physical sciences, and especially by
Biology, to the borders of Psychology. We have had to consider not only
the mechanical effects of muscular contraction, but the sensations
which the nerves receive and convey:--the way in which sensations
become perceptions; the way in which perceptions determine actions. In
this manner we have been led to the subject of volition or will[297],
and this brings us to a new field of speculation, the moral nature of
man; and this moral nature is a matter not only of speculative but
of practical interest. On this subject I shall make only a few brief
remarks.
2. Even in the most purely speculative view, the moral aspect of man's
nature differs from the aspect of the material universe, in this
respect, that in the moral world, external events are governed in
some measure by the human will. When we speculate concerning the laws
of material nature, we suppose that the phenomena of nature follow a
course and order which we may perhaps, in some measure, discover and
understand, but which we cannot change or control. But when we consider
man as an agent, we suppose him able to determine some at least of the
events of the external world; and thus, able to determine the actions
of other men, and to lay down laws for them. He cannot alter the
properties of fire and metals, stones and fluids, air and light; but he
can use fire and steel so as to compel other men's actions; stone-walls
and ocean-shores so as to control other men's motions; gold and gems
so as to have a hold on other men's desires; articulate sounds and
intelligible symbols so as to direct other men's thoughts and move
their will. There is an external world of Facts; and in this, the Facts
are such as he makes them by his Acts.
3. But besides this, there is also, standing over against this external
world of Facts, an internal world of Ideas. The Moral Acts without are
the results of Moral Ideas within. Men have an Idea of Justice, for
instance, according to which they are led to external acts, as to use
force, to make a promise, to perform a contract, as individuals; or to
make war and peace, to enact laws and to execute them, as a nation.
4. Some such internal moral Idea necessarily exists, along with
all properly human actions. Man feels not only pain and anger, but
indignation and the sentiment of wrong, which feelings imply a moral
idea of right and wrong. Again, what he thinks of as wrong, he tries to
prevent; what he deems right, he attempts to realize. The Idea gives
a character to the Act; the Act embodies the Idea. In the moral world
as in the natural world, the Antithesis is universal and inseparable.
It is an Antithesis of inseparable elements. In human action, there is
ever involved the Idea of what is right, and the external Act in which
this idea is in some measure embodied.
5. But the moral Ideas, such as that of Justice, of Rightness, and
the like, are always embodied incompletely in the world of external
action. Although men's actions are to a great extent governed by the
Ideas of Justice, Rightness and the like; (for it must be recollected
that we include in their actions, laws, and the enforcement of laws;)
yet there is a large portion of human actions which is not governed by
such ideas: (actions which result from mere desire, and violations of
law). There is a perpetual Antithesis of Ideas and Facts, which is the
fundamental basis of moral as of natural philosophy. In the former as
in the latter subject, besides what is ideal, there is an Actual which
the ideal does not include. This Actual is the region in which the
results of mere desire, of caprice, of apparent accident, are found. It
is the region of history, as opposed to justice; it is the region of
what _is_, as distinct from what _ought_ to be.
6. Now what I especially wish here to remark, is this;--that the
progress of man as a moral being consists in a constant extension of
the Idea into the region of Facts. This progress consists in making
human actions conform more and more to the moral Ideas of Justice,
Rightness, and the like; including in human actions, as we have said,
Laws, the enforcement of Laws, and other collective acts of bodies of
men. The History of Man _as_ Man consists in this extension of moral
Ideas into the region of Facts. It is not that the actual history of
what men do has always consisted in such an extension of moral Ideas;
for there has ever been, in the actual doings of men, a large portion
of facts which had no moral character; acts of desire, deeds of
violence, transgressions of acknowledged law, and the like. But such
events are not a part of the genuine progress of humanity. They do
not belong to the history of man as man, but to the history of man as
brute. On the other hand, there are events which belong to the history
of man as man, events which belong to the genuine progress of humanity;
such as the establishment of just laws; their enforcement; their
improvement by introducing into them a fuller measure of moral Ideas.
By such means there is a constant progress of man as a moral being.
By this _realization of moral Ideas_ there is a constant progress of
Humanity.
7. I have made this reflection, because it appears to me to bring
into view an analogy between the Progress of Science and the Progress
of Man, or of Humanity, in the sense in which I have used the term.
In both these lines of Progress, Facts are more and more identified
with Ideas. In both, there is a fundamental Antithesis of Ideas
and Facts, and progress consists in a constant advance of the point
which separates the two elements of this Antithesis. In both, Facts
are constantly won over to the domain of Ideas. But still, there is
a difference in the two cases; for in the one case the Facts are
beyond our control. We cannot make them other than they are; and all
that we can do, if we can do that, is to shape our Ideas so that they
shall coincide with the Facts, and still have the manifest connexion
which belongs to them as Ideas. In the other case, the Facts are, to
a certain extent, in our power. They are what we make them, for they
are what we do. In this case, the Facts ought to come towards the
Ideas, rather than the Ideas towards the Facts. As we called the former
process the Idealization of Facts, we may call this the Realization of
Ideas; and the analogy which I have here wished to bring into view may
be expressed by saying, that the Progress of Physical Science consists
in a constant successive Idealization of Physical Facts; and the
Progress of man's Moral Being is a constant successive Realization of
Moral Ideas.
8. Thus the necessary co-existence of an objective and a subjective
element belongs not only to human knowledge, as was before explained,
but also to human action. The objective and the subjective element are
inseparable in this case as in the other. We have always the Fact of
Positive Law, along with the Idea of Absolute Justice; the Facts of
Gain or Loss, along with the Idea of Rights. The Idea of Justice is
inseparable from historical facts, for justice gives to each his own,
and history determines what that is. We cannot even conceive justice
without society, or society without law, and thus in the moral and in
the natural world the fundamental antithesis is inseparable, even in
thought. The two elements must always subsist; for however far the
moral ideas be realized in the world, there will always remain much in
the world which is not conformable to moral ideas, even if it were only
through its necessary dependence on an unmoral and immoral past. As
in the physical world so in the moral, however much the ideal sphere
expands, it is surrounded by a region which is not conformable to the
idea, although in one case the expansion takes place by educing ideas
out of facts, in the other, by producing facts from ideas.
I shall hereafter venture to pursue further this train of speculation,
but at present I shall make some remarks on writers who may be regarded
as the successors amongst ourselves of these German schools of
Philosophy.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 297: _Phil. of Biol._ c. v.]