"Here is the beginning of the dawn, whose sun, however, in order to become visible and impart warmth, must rise still higher. The certainty afforded in the law of Identity in positive form, in the law of Contradiction in negative form, in the law of Excluded Middle in the form of an opposition, and in the law of Sufficient Reason in conditional form, is based upon Causality, Community of Species, or Totality. For this reason, deduction and induction are only then to be relied upon when the first form of reasoning has for its middle proposition one that expresses causality, community of species, or totality, and the latter form of reasoning takes these for its point of departure. The analysis of Deduction is of worth as clarifying and confirming thought, and thus extending its field as often as the syntheses of Induction stand the proof of the process of clarification. The supernaturalism of Dualism leads to a dead, the natural character of Monism to a living, dialectic,—to the dialectic of Becoming. The concept assumes a concrete form, and, as higher and higher rising sun, enables us to conceive what it will be to us as Idea. Theunderstanding knows nothing of ideas; their realm is that of the reason; yet since the reason is but a higher development of the understanding, the commencement of this dawn must be perceptible in it. Moreover, the division which we make between the two originates in our genetic treatment of the subject, which seeks to explain the concept by showing the course of its development. Yet the distinction is no empty abstraction which may not claim life and form to a certain extent. The human being is always the whole human being; but he is not always uniformly developed, either physically or mentally. In one individual the understanding, in another the reason, manifests itself more plainly in thought. This is also true of the race, the people, and the epoch, as of the individual. Modern development has turned more and more from the ideal to material interests; we seem to be progressing towards a reaction," but what that reaction will be, we cannot say; it may be a reaction in the worst sense. The mistakes of the understanding cannot be predicted. With the point of culmination, the extreme is reached, and in Spiritualism may be found traces of a touching of extremes. Yet the influence of the understanding is to be relied on in so far as it is the clear mirror of Necessity. The understanding may err, just because it is conscious; but experience always corrects these mistakes. Nature, as gifted with mind, is no new nature; the laws of thought are the natural laws of the mind. In their mirror the will sees the accomplishment of the first mental development, and learns to comprehend this, on higher mental planes, as Common Weal.
The opposition of the individual to the rest of the world which arises with self-consciousness and individuality is greater, the greater the individuality. To the struggle for existence is added the struggle for happiness, which, separating into numberless desires that gain in attractiveness with every obstacle opposed to their satisfaction, is the origin of all the passions,—of greed, jealousy, envy, hatred, etc. Through passion, which is the exaggeration of activities that, in a normal form, are good, man is led into a struggle for false happiness, just as the concepts under which his passions arise are false. The individual against the world cannot attain happiness for himself. The greatest good, peace of soul, freedom from passion, is attained only through knowledge, by which the concepts of the individual are corrected; it is attained, not as dead incapability of emotion, but only asclear enjoyment of life after past storm. Labor and education are the path to true happiness and, through true happiness, to virtue. The passions are not separate existences; the whole man is the passion of his heart; the whole man feels, just as the whole man thinks. But just for this reason, because of the identity of will and understanding, the correction of the concept is the correction of will. This is not saying that will and understanding are never in opposition to each other; the apparent opposition is, however, merely a hesitation of the will, which does not know what it really will. It is true that one passion can be conquered only by another; we cannot will an emotion that leads to a certain course of action; but we can fix our attention on the objects which produce it, and by thus reaching a clear recognition of their actual and necessary relations, affect our own action. It is true that man does as he wills; but he wills necessarily as he does. According to the doctrine of freedom, it must be exactly those who act without knowing wherefore they act, and who are thus driven by blind impulse, who are the most fully self-determined. A real freedom and conquest of necessity can, on the contrary, be attained only by obedience. Just as, in the animal, the summation of impulses and desires reaches a focus in feeling, so in man, in proportion to his development, the summation is in consciousness, the focus of which is the point of concentration of the will's activity. Spinoza's "Will and understanding are one" means: the activity of the will is the realization of the activity of thought. Every one, the more self-sacrificing, as the less self-sacrificing man, does that which is to him the pleasantest; egoism turns the scale in both cases; only in the one case the egoism has a basis of broader love. And since we act according to our conception of things, the question of our responsibility is the question of our full possession of consciousness. The necessity of nature must take away our desert, as far as a future life and its reward are concerned; but from the standpoint of a being who desires happiness and attains to it through evolution, necessity gains a new aspect. Natural Selection is Natural Necessity.
Yet not in the understanding, as such, but in the reason, is the reconciliation of the same with will. Reason in the narrower sense is a higher development of the understanding, constitutes its completion and perfection, and presupposes a high degree of culture; though in a wider sense, as the half-unconscious modificationof the impulses by adjustment to the needs of the species, it develops early in man. By it alone man becomes man in the full sense of the word. The activity of the mere understanding is an analytical, that of the reason a synthetical one, the return of cold consciousness to warm feeling, of abstract mind to concrete nature. Truth lies, for the reason, in Totality; hence, to it, the General alone is comprehensible. It has to do, not with abstract concepts, to which nothing in the realms of the mental or physical corresponds, but with concepts of species, concrete concepts, which we call, in distinction from abstract concepts, ideas. By ideas is not meant existences in the Platonic sense, but the Typical in species.
The impulse to happiness which arises with consciousness as thought and will, calls itself "I." It is the individual who, with every nerve-cell and every drop of blood, attempts his own realization. But all individuals are alike in this, that they reach, at last, a point where they recognize the fact that their ego is but a miserable half which needs a Thou to its completion. In the union of the Thou and the I, the first I becomes a complete and perfect I. Man and woman both realize that only together do they represent the whole human being. I and Thou together constitute a We. The ego remains after, as before the union, the axis upon which the whole world turns. But the egoism of mere understanding is, by a broader thought, elevated to the altruism of reason. As the highest union of thought and will, the reason becomes Idea in and for itself, actual, absolute Idea. With the We was born the Saviour who should reconcile the sharply opposed factors of awaking consciousness. The light of his gospel spread in wider and wider circles; man and woman no longer beheld, each, merely his own happiness in the other; they saw their mutual happiness in their children, and their own and their children's happiness in friends, and their own and their children's and their friends' happiness in their fellow-men. The I of the reason is the self-conscious We.
The struggle for happiness has brought forth, out of the privileges and endeavors of individuals, civilization in its present form. Want and the necessity for labor have been the spur to endeavor and advance. Through the concepts of ends and of intention, the self-conscious will further evolved ideas, which themselves undergo a struggle in the activities to which they giverise; and this is no longer the struggle for existence, but the struggle for civilization.
There are three Ideas which, arising out of the extension of the I to Thou and We, are the spring of all ethical conceptions; these are Love, Humanity, and Public Spirit.[75]Love is the passion of passions and is the spring of all capacity to altruistic emotion. Love is life in its highest degree;[76]and by the manner in which a human being loves one may know what manner of man he is, and what will be the nature of his feelings towards his fellow-men in other relations of life. A man's conduct towards women is the surest test of his character. That which Spencer calls Integration, that which has created all nature, from the first germ to the perfect human being, and, as preservative cell-labor, still continues to create,—this infinite Something comes to consciousness in the human being, as Love. On the lowest plane it can appear only as simple impulse; but what, developing from stage to stage, it can accomplish, the history of Love shows us.
To these three ideas of Love, Humanity (or Benevolence), and Public Spirit correspond three outward phenomena, which bear such relation to them in the development of morality as the body bears to the soul. These are: the Family, the State-form, and the Representatives of Great Ideas. These latter, the men who have been pioneers of civilization, we do not need to pity or regard as victims, though life was to them a mighty struggle and a restless labor; in their suffering was their pleasure; and that which impelled them and compelled them to attain their end was the impulse to happiness. Therein lies the wonderful secret of the clarified impulse to happiness, that it finds its highest satisfaction in itself. Such representatives of great ideas are those in whom the species overcomes the individual, and out of the species "man" the species-man is developed. That which they express is the True, if only the True for, and in, mankind. In this lies their worth; as worth in Science also, and in the Beautiful, lies in the truth of the Idea that is therein expressed. The True becomes practical in the Good.
The reason is thus the first condition of happiness, and freedom of the will lies in the ethical ennoblement of reason, which isnothing more nor less than obedience, as the total result of all natural causes; by it the individual is lost in the species as a whole. This ethical height does not consist in impulse, but in the self-conscious activity of will. Its mental expression is an Ethical Sense, in distinction from the Moral Sense of the Intuitionists. Through it man is at one with himself as with his kind.
The Ethical Sense is not the common property of the species. Just as it has, however, reached expression in a few, so it is more and more realized in the many by the process of evolution, through which a common will, purpose, and good are necessarily finally evolved from all striving of individual wills after happiness. Ethical ideas arise as the result of experience, and in them man gradually attains reason.
For the Reason to which Love, Public Spirit, and Humanity are the natural element, the General (Common) as truth, is no empty conception, but a promise whose fulfilment is the Good and the Beautiful. The faithfulness of this Reason never swerves, since it depends on no fear, but springs from the clearest conviction, and therefore is one with the love which it feels and inspires. Its friendship is as strong as it is unselfish, for it does not call anything "friendship" that is based on other relations than those of mind. Its generosity is always strength, its mercy never weakness. As far as its power reaches, so far and no farther do its remorse and pity extend; for all passions which reduce or dim the activity of the soul are unreasonable. The way to the attainment of the ethical spirit is pleasure, which guides, though it often misguides us; fortunately, on the wrong paths we sooner or later meet with pain, while on the right path we are ever accompanied by pleasure as "transition from less to greater perfection," to quote Spinoza. The feeling of Responsibility consists in the soul's recognition of all its action and omission of action as its own, and in the courage to endure the consequences of these.
The ethical Ideal, which the ethical imagination as "scientific" conceives, is the truly happy man, the man fully in harmony with himself. This idea is to be regarded as a star by which we are to shape our course, not as an end to be fully attained. Through labor mankind approaches this ideal, attains knowledge from experience, and clarifies the concept of happiness. The "I" extends itself to an "I" of mankind, so that the individual, in making self his end, comes to make the whole of mankind hisend. The ideal cannot be fully realized; the happiness of all cannot be attained; so that there is always choice between two evils, never choice of perfect good, and it is necessary to be content with the greatest good of the greatest number as principle of action.
This is an ideal which is actually and necessarily evolved. Benevolence has become more general, and has attained a degree not conceived of in former times. The ideal of a happy humanity has gained definite outlines, and has become an earnest aim towards which we steer with filling sails. The end is not to be reached by force, which brings in its train evil that cannot be gotten rid of for generations, but must be attained within the bounds prescribed by the state, through education and increase of intelligence. Nor can the state declare and ensure happiness; the duties of the state are chiefly negative, as Bentham has said. Each individual sacrifices a portion of his happiness in order that the rest may be secured to him by the state; the first-named part comprises his duties, the rest constitutes his rights; the office of the state is to hold each to his duties and secure to each his rights. There is no perfect state, just as there is no perfectly good individual; but there is progress in states as in individuals.
The merely Useful can never furnish a full solution of the problem of Ethics, any more than Mathematics and Mechanics or Physics and Physiology can do so. The Perfect is much more than the merely Useful. Spencer finds the condition of happiness in the exercise of function. But he regards happiness as the final end of morality, while, according to our system, the latter is the product of the former.
Carneri again pleads, in this book, for the like right of woman with man to mental culture, and to labor which shall make her independent of the caprice of man; the good of the family alone to be regarded as the limiting factor.
The extent of Carneri's work on the subject of Ethics makes it impossible to consider minor points of his theory, such as are included, for instance, in his criticism of Hartmann, of Schopenhauer, Feuerbach, and others; or to define more clearly than has been done his relation to Spinoza, Kant, Hegel, etc. His book "Entwicklung und Glückseligkeit," published in 1886, is a collection of essays which first appeared separately in "Kosmos," and which, as such, do not hold to each other the relation of partsof an organic whole. They are chiefly a recapitulation of the views already expressed in the "Grundlegung der Ethik," with some extensions and possibly some modifications;—these last, however, chiefly of an extraneous character. In these essays Carneri demands a systematic moral training in the common school, to the end of the development of conscience, such training to be non-religious, though not anti-religious excepting in case the religion itself be seen to transgress the laws of right established by humane reason; he protests against the error of Materialism, as likewise against that of the Apriorists and the "Ideologists" or Idealists in the narrower sense of the word; and he reaffirms, defines, and further defends his standpoint as that of a "Real-idealist"; that is, of one to whom Kant is the point of departure in a farther evolution of theory. He reaffirms the oneness of the universe, so of man with nature, restates the self-identity of the individual in will and thought, limits the knowledge of man to nature as it is for us, but invests it with certainty within these bounds, and reasserts the necessity of the progress of the whole through the efforts of the many for happiness. He lays further stress upon the absence of morality, not only among the animals, in whom at least general ethical feelings, in distinction from those towards individuals, are not found, but also among savages; morality being not the incentive to, but the product of the state. From this standpoint, he combats Socialism as proposing impossible ideals, since it presupposes ethically perfect men as governing and being governed by the laws, and since it disposes of the freedom of the individual. The theory of compulsion reckons without the will of man as he is and must be. Man has no primordial rights (except, perhaps, the right to get and keep all he can); he has only rights that he has gained by the help of the state. There is no one commandment in which man's whole duty may be expressed, unless it be, perhaps, some such new rendering of Kant's words as this: Act always in such a manner that the maxims of thy will might be taken as the principle by which to render happy the greatest possible number of human beings. But this can never become a categorical imperative for all men. Morality lies in the Will to Good, which becomes in the moral, or according to Carneri's phrase, the ethical man, a second nature: his sense of duty is joy in duty, highest satisfaction of his desire for happiness. It might perhaps be claimedthat Carneri, in his theory of the Conscience, has in this book laid more stress on feeling than in his others; however, it is to be recollected that, with him, thought and feeling are no distinct faculties, but that conscience means less an impulse unconscious of final ends than a self-conscious attitude or readiness of the will as the result of conviction.
Carneri's latest book, "Die Lebensführung des modernen Menschen" (1891), is practical rather than theoretical, a consideration of general problems and rules of action.
FOOTNOTES:[65]Wirklich.[66]Stofflichkeit; by this word Carneri designates "das Gemeinsame aller Gegenständlichkeit."[67]An sich autonom, unterwirft sich das Leben den Cesetzen, die aus der allgemeinen Entwicklung sich ergeben.[68]Daseinstrieb.[69]Pp. 112, 113.[70]Dunkle Triebe.[71]Affecte.[72]Widerspruchslosigkeit.[73]Entsprechend.[74]Gedankenloses Denken.[75]Gemeinsinn oder Gemeingeist, pp. 340, 410. Carneri explains this word as equivalent to the English "common-sense," but defines the latter as feeling for the general, the universal.[76]Potenz.
[65]Wirklich.
[65]Wirklich.
[66]Stofflichkeit; by this word Carneri designates "das Gemeinsame aller Gegenständlichkeit."
[66]Stofflichkeit; by this word Carneri designates "das Gemeinsame aller Gegenständlichkeit."
[67]An sich autonom, unterwirft sich das Leben den Cesetzen, die aus der allgemeinen Entwicklung sich ergeben.
[67]An sich autonom, unterwirft sich das Leben den Cesetzen, die aus der allgemeinen Entwicklung sich ergeben.
[68]Daseinstrieb.
[68]Daseinstrieb.
[69]Pp. 112, 113.
[69]Pp. 112, 113.
[70]Dunkle Triebe.
[70]Dunkle Triebe.
[71]Affecte.
[71]Affecte.
[72]Widerspruchslosigkeit.
[72]Widerspruchslosigkeit.
[73]Entsprechend.
[73]Entsprechend.
[74]Gedankenloses Denken.
[74]Gedankenloses Denken.
[75]Gemeinsinn oder Gemeingeist, pp. 340, 410. Carneri explains this word as equivalent to the English "common-sense," but defines the latter as feeling for the general, the universal.
[75]Gemeinsinn oder Gemeingeist, pp. 340, 410. Carneri explains this word as equivalent to the English "common-sense," but defines the latter as feeling for the general, the universal.
[76]Potenz.
[76]Potenz.
Ethical judgments contain an estimate of the worth of human actions. Every such estimate presupposes the existence of a need, a feeling which spurs us on to the judgment of the action, as also the existence of a standard, an ideal, according to which we judge. The motive to the ethical judgment may be called the basis of Ethics. The standard involved in the ethical judgment determines the content of Ethics, in that it decides which actions, which directions and modes of life, are to be called good in the ethical sense. The ethical basis is the subjective, the standard the objective, principle in Ethics; the character of an ethical conception depends upon this presupposed basis, the applied standard, and the relation between the two.
The feelings and impulses of the individual are not only influenced by his own experience, but bear also a character derived from the experience of the whole species; hence the ethical judgments delivered by the individual are the result of the whole experience of his kind. It is by virtue of this circumstance that the ethical system of the individual gains its power; as ethics of the species, it is a condition of the health and vitality of human life.
This actual working Ethics of the species and of life has been named Positive Morality. Such Positive Morality manifests itself in the every-day judgments and principles of men, often in the form of proverbs, and may express either the enduring worldly wisdom of a nation, a tribe, or a religious society, or the less enduring "public opinion" of a century or an epoch.
Is it well to treat such Positive Morality to a criticism, which,arousing, as it must, doubts and questions, will interfere with the certainty and energy of action that characterize unreflecting instinct? Is it well to examine the principles of such a system from a scientific standpoint? We may answer: Life itself leads naturally to such questionings; only where the view is narrow and the problems simple is there full security from doubt. With the growth of experience begins a comparison of the different laws and ideals, the differing institutions of different epochs and peoples of which one learns; or new experience presents problems which cannot be solved by means of the system handed down; or the individual seeks some orderly arrangement of the great multiplicity of ethical judgments which he himself pronounces or hears others pronounce, for the purpose of distinguishing between the more and the less important ones. It is certainly a serious point in an individual's or a nation's development when reflection and criticism begin; but where life leads naturally to such questionings, we must either find some answer to them or else some reason why they shall not be answered. Moreover, it is to be noticed that certainty and force of action are not absolute Goods. The greatest energy may take a most disastrous direction, and must then be checked. To a new and better insight, when attained, one must endeavor to secure all the energy possible. All evolution consists in the diversion of energy from lower to higher ends.
A scientific system of Ethics does not, and cannot, take the place of Positive Morality; it only supplies the latter with a basis of reason, broadens, and develops it. Such a scientific system only endeavors to discover in accordance with what principles we direct our life, and to secure for these, when ascertained, greater clearness and inner harmony. In the mental life of the human being, a continuous action and reaction of the conscious and the unconscious takes place, as well as of perception, feeling, and will. What is won in the one province may profit the others also.
Two tasks of Scientific Ethics, as Historical Ethics and as Philosophical Ethics, are to be distinguished. Historical Ethics has to do with the description and explanation of the development of Positive Morality. Philosophical Ethics has to decide upon the worth of the various forms assumed by the latter. Philosophical Ethics is a practical science, and is based upon the supposition that we set ourselves ends which may be reached through humanaction. Every ethical judgment presupposes such an end, for feeling is set in motion by the sight or the thought of an act only when the latter promotes, or stands in the way of something, the existence and success of which are desired by us. Not all that is developed as practical morality can be pronounced good. On the other hand, customs which were at first assumed from motives which must be condemned by Philosophical Ethics, may yet prove themselves good, and may be practised, later, from higher motives; and such customs cannot then be condemned on account of their origin. Hence, Philosophical Ethics is both conservative and radical; it respects nothing simply because it exists; but since it endeavors to furnish guidance beyond present standards, it attempts to show how that which has been developed historically may be given new forms and thus used for further progress. It is difficult, from a broader view, to distinguish perfectly between Historical and Philosophical Ethics; the historian has an ideal which he applies more or less in his researches; and the philosopher in Ethics is more or less ruled by the prevailing opinions of his time. This necessitates a continual re-discussion of problems. Yet it does not prevent the existence, in any system, of lasting principles among the less enduring ones.
Theological Ethics is directly opposed to Historical Ethics as well as to Philosophical Ethics. It builds upon tradition, upon truth as something historically revealed. So far, it might appear as if Theological Ethics were related to Historical Ethics. But the system of the former does not recognize the method of scientific research, since the revelation on which it is based is due, according to its doctrine, to an interposition of supernatural forces not to be explained by the physical, psychological, and social laws that serve as the foundation of historical science. It demands a unique position for its historical basis, and asserts that this must be looked at in an entirely different light from that in which the rest of the history of the world is regarded. It appears to approach Philosophical Ethics in instituting an examination of the worth of historic acts and modes of life. But it undertakes this examination, not according to any principle that can be found in nature, but from the point of view of a supernatural revelation of an ideal. Its foundation is an absolute principle of Authority; its good is that which is God's will. But how is the individual to be sure as to what, in the single case, is God's will? By the inwardtestimony? How is he to distinguish certainly between such and his own natural thoughts and feelings; what means of distinction can be applied? In passing thus to the province of Psychology, we assume a human means of distinction, and the principle of Authority loses its force. Or if it be said that we should receive this principle of Authority because it answers to a need of our nature, we may ask how we know that the need is one that should be satisfied? Its mere existence cannot guarantee that. Or how, then, are we to distinguish which of other wishes and needs of our nature should, and which should not, be gratified? Is the principle of Authority to decide this? Then we argue in a circle.
A similar circle is adopted by such theologians as attempt to combine the two assertions: "The good is good because God wills it"; and "God wills it because it is good." If the good is identical with God's will, this means that he wills it because it is his will; if he, however, first recognizes something as good, and therefore wills it, then his will bows to a law and rule, and is not, in itself, the cause whereby the Good is good.
Have we not, as a fact, already broken with the absolute principle of Authority as soon as we begin to reflect, to endeavor to bring the various commandments of Authority into harmony with each other, thus applying the measure of our own reason to them?
But it is not these inner contradictions alone which hinder Philosophical Ethics from making use of theological assumptions; that which has called Philosophical Ethics into existence and lends it interest, is the conviction that the ultimate reason of the ethical must lie in man himself. However lofty may be the ideal, it can become man's ideal only through his own recognition of it as ideal. For this reason Socrates was the founder of Ethics by the command: "Know thyself!" In this command is expressed the principle of free investigation, the opposite to that of blind obedience. The desire to make Ethics as far as possible independent of assailable assumptions is likewise active in the establishment of a system of Philosophical Ethics.
In the great, sometimes too great, regard paid to the distinction between the subjective and the objective worth of actions, and the contest as to the relative importance of the two factors, the fact is often overlooked, that the standard by which ethical judgment is pronounced is itself of subjective nature. The question arises as to wherefore we seek a general and objective standard.
It is a fact that human beings reflect upon their own acts, pronouncing them, according to the result of this reflection, good or bad. How are such judgments as these possible?
We will suppose, first, the simplest conceivable case, namely, that the acting subject pronounces judgment on his own act without consideration of the existence of other beings. Such a judgment must presuppose memory; but it presupposes something more, namely pain or pleasure through memory; an end is aimed at only because the thought of a result causes pleasure. In the simple case supposed, the feeling which determines the end can be only that of the individual himself, and the latter will judge the act as good or bad according as it has affected his own life. The character and significance of the judgment will depend on whether the feeling of pain or pleasure is determined only by the single moment or has reference to the life of the individual as a whole. The lower the life of consciousness, the more isolated and independent are the single moments of time in relation to each other, and the less is the significance of the memory and the thought of the ego as a whole embracing the single moments with their content. Only a half-unconscious instinct hinders the individual from losing himself in the moment; the instinct of self-preservation leads him to consider the future and to make use of the experience of the past. The more he loses himself in the moment, the less is the power of judgment, since comparison and action and reaction of the different states cannot take place. The single moment bears to all others the relation of an absolute egoist, who does not wish to relinquish any part of its satisfaction for their advantage.
And here we may perceive the possibility of a standpoint upon which all judgment is dispensed with. Such a standpoint is represented by Aristippus of Cyrene, who asserts the sovereignty of the moment. It is not without its justification. Ethics itself must show cause for the relinquishment of the satisfaction of the moment in favor of other moments.
If the principle of the sovereignty of the moment could be practically carried out, no reasoning could overthrow it. However, there can scarcely be a conscious individual in whom there are not instincts and impulses which reach beyond the moment. When a momentary state of feeling, as the effect of an act of the subject, comes together in consciousness with the feeling determinedby the conception of the life as totality (the result of memory and comparison), a new feeling arises which is either one of harmony or one of discord. The standard by which judgment is pronounced is determined by this feeling. The capacity for such feelings is conscience, as this may manifest itself in entirely isolated individuals. Conscience, in the broadest sense of the word, is a feeling of relations, and requires only a relation between central and peripheral feelings,—feelings of wider, and feelings of narrower thought-connection. The single moment and the single act are judged according to their worth as parts of the individual life as totality.
And here the individual is confronted by the necessity of bringing the single parts of his life into harmony. The problem is certainly never solved by any individual involuntarily. The estimation of earlier acts according to the assistance they give in this task is, therefore, at this point, of great importance to the individual. The judgment pronounced is thus not only made possible through the central feeling which corresponds to the life as totality, but is determined by it. An acute sense for that which benefits the individual life whose single members are the moments, is a condition of the continuance and development of the life; it is a higher sort of instinct of self-preservation, and need not be confined to the continuance of physical life, but may also refer to the ideal needs.
And here we come upon the standpoint of Individualistic Ethics. From such a standpoint, the problem is to determine, not only how much energy may be used in the single moments of time, but also in what manner it should be used in order to secure as great variety and many-sidedness as may be consistent with the interests of the life as totality. Nor are the interests of the life to be summed up in physical self-preservation; the individual acquires, in the natural course of things, interests of increased ideality and complexity, through which the life gains in content.
The ethical law, from the standpoint of Individualism, is expressed by a formula which requires harmonious relation between the interest of the life as totality and the impulse of the moment; it consists of two chief mandates: (1) The single instant should have no greater independence than corresponds to its significance in the life as totality; (2) but, on the other hand, the single moments should be as richly and intensely lived as is consistent with the preservation of the life's totality.
Of Individualism, or the principle of the Sovereignty of the Individual, the same is true as of the sovereignty of the moment, that no reasoning can overthrow it; if the individual recognizes no end but his own life, there is no logical way of transition to another standpoint. A change of aim can take place only through such a change in the central feelings which determine the standard of the individual that a wider circle of conceptions enter into his reflections. Until this takes place, there is no use in appealing to conscience.
The science of Ethics has often claimed to be a science of pure reason. This claim is opposed to its character as a practical science, since action can be judged only according to the ends it had in view, and ends presuppose feelings of pain and pleasure. On the other hand, there is, in the mere capacity for pain and pleasure, no limitation of the extent of the circle of conceptions with which the feelings of pain and pleasure are connected.
Individualism can be carried out in practice only approximately; the individual has his origin in the species, and lives his whole life as a part of the life of his kind, with an organization in which the results of the action and passion of earlier generations are inherited, and in a mental atmosphere which has induced the development of his species. And just as the instinct of self-preservation did away with the isolation of the single moments of the individual life, becoming, thus, the basis of feelings determined by the interests of the life as totality, so the sympathetic instincts do away with the isolation of the single individuals and determine the conditions of the life of the species in the minds of its individuals. The most primitive form of the sympathetic instincts is exhibited in the family. Here, however loose and variable the relation of man and wife may be, that of mother and child cannot, by its nature, be done away with or essentially changed. In this case, the sympathetic feeling springs immediately from the natural instinct, and the relation is the nucleus which makes possible the higher forms of family life. In the family circle, the sympathetic feelings are cultivated, and arrive at such strength that they come to include ever wider and wider circles of human beings. Indeed, the mother-love remains forever the image and criterion of all sympathy, as well in respect to strength as to purity.
When sympathy has reached full purity, it is a feeling of painor pleasure determined by the fact that other beings feel pain or pleasure. The most important point of its development was when it so broadened as to include all mankind. The Peripatetic and the Stoic schools of Greek philosophy led to this idea of love to all humanity and the natural union of all men in one great society. But this idea acquired greater historic importance when it became a chief commandment of a great religion,—of Christianity. To this sympathetic feeling the criterion of good and evil is no longer to be found in the individual life, but is dependent on the life of the whole society of which the individual is a member.
Yet sympathy is not, from this standpoint, identical with the ethical feeling, conscience. Conscience is here, too, a feeling of relations determined by the relation between the ruling or central feeling of the individual and the results of action. When the individual feels his own interests subordinate to the good of the whole of which, through sympathy, he regards himself as a part, the ethical feeling appears as the feeling of duty. A feeling of duty may be spoken of, likewise, from the standpoint of pure Individualism, for the concept of duty expresses only the relation of a lower, narrower consideration to a higher; and this is represented, in Individualism, by the relation of the single moments to the life as a whole.
From another point of view, the ethical feeling appears, in its higher development, as the feeling of justice, which, while regarding the good of the whole as the chief end, considers also the peculiarities of individuals. Sympathy in its active form is impulse to share. This sharing must be carried out according to fixed principles; where sympathy is universal, differences of division can be justified only by the fact that the Goods divided, if otherwise divided, would not be in so high a degree Goods to those to whom they reverted, or would not conduce to so great progress of the society as a whole. The ethical law upon this standpoint, the standpoint of Humane Ethics, can be no other as to content, than that action shall conduce to the greatest possible welfare and the greatest possible progress of the greatest possible number of conscious beings; and this law includes two chief mandates, a negative and a positive mandate: (1) The individual may not receive more than befits the position which, in consequence of his peculiar qualities, he occupies among his kind; (2) but, on the other hand, the capacities and impulses of every individualshall be as fully and richly developed and satisfied as is consistent with the demands of the life of the species as a whole. These two mandates follow with logical necessity from the concept of society as a multiplicity of conscious beings united into one whole. It is contrary to the unity of society, that an individual, or that individuals, should be wilfully preferred to others; every exceptional position must be justified by the demands of the general conditions of life; on the other hand, a society is the more perfect the more freely and more independently the single members move, and the larger the number of different possibilities it realizes, if, at the same time, unity is preserved and attains an ever higher character and ever increasing validity.
When the ethical feeling develops, upon the basis of sympathy, to the feeling of duty and justice, the principle included in the above law becomes the standard according to which the individual judges his own actions as well as those of others, and pronounces them good or bad. The good is that which preserves and develops the welfare of conscious beings.
The ethical principle now arrived at applies to the deeds of conscious beings, presupposing an end in view. Unconscious nature affects man's life, but its workings have no ethical character. The ethical judgment is itself determined by the principle on which it is pronounced, and hence it serves to produce greater welfare. This is especially to be seen where the judging and the acting individual are one and the same person; in other cases, it becomes a special problem to bring the acting individual to the recognition of the principle; this is a problem of psychologic-pedagogical nature.
The word "welfare" is used in preference to utility or happiness in order to prevent misunderstanding, and may be defined as including all that serves to satisfy the needs of man's nature. Ethics must take into consideration all the gradations of life, and cannot, therefore, distinguish in the beginning between outer and inner, higher and lower, welfare. Such a distinction is already an ethical judgment, and can be made only after determination of the ethical criterion. Another mistake is the stress often laid upon momentary feelings of pain and pleasure. Pain signifies, it is true, the beginning of the disintegration of life, and pleasure its normal and harmonious development; yet each must be considered in its relation to the whole consciousness, the wholecharacter, and the whole social state. So-called utilitarianism has injured its own cause by resolving consciousness into a sum of feelings, and society into a collection of individuals. The significance of single feelings of pain and pleasure for the welfare of society cannot be determined as if the problem were a simple arithmetical one.
The reasoning of Philosophical Ethics must not be confused with practical reflection. In the last we are led by instincts and impulses, by motives of which we are, for the most part, wholly unconscious, by thoughts and feelings the first origin of which we cannot designate. We follow the "positive morality" to which we have accustomed ourselves and which is, in part, an inheritance of our species. Ethics as an art precedes Ethics as a science; the aim of the latter is partly to show by what principles the former is guided, and partly to correct these principles.
The ethical principle broadens out, thus, from the single moment of the individual life until it embraces the whole of mankind; but there are many points in the course of the development at which we can make a stand, and there may, therefore, be as many philosophical systems as there are larger or smaller totalities. The position of the man who holds fast consistently to a principle that determines the criterion by the family, the caste, the nation, a sect, as highest totality, is as unassailable as we have seen that of the individualist to be. The psychologic-historical evolution alone can bring us, through the changes which it produces in the feelings, beyond these criterions. In other words, every criterion has a psychologic-historical basis. He who is to recognize and carry out practically the principle of the greatest possible welfare, must be no egoist or individualist, no fanatical patriot or sectarian; this is the subjective condition necessary to the objective principle. The conscience which is to be regulated by the objective principle is always itself the condition of the recognition of this principle. A system which leaves this fact out of consideration takes on a dogmatic character. The basis of all ethical judgments is feeling. By this is not meant, however, that the standpoint of an individual cannot be influenced by argument; the feelings are always connected with concepts, and discussion of these concepts is both possible and must react upon them even if only very gradually.
Conscience is not infallible in its application of the objectiveprinciple; a wider experience may show it to have erred. Conscience is highest authority, but still an authority which may continually perfect itself. The objective principle makes possible the mutual correction of different consciences and the self-correction of the conscience of the individual through self-judgment.
The difference between Subjective Ethics and Objective Ethics, as here explained, does not coincide with the difference between Individual Ethics and Social Ethics. Objective Ethics includes both the latter, since it recognizes individual peculiarities. It has yet to be decided whether, within the bounds of Objective Ethics, Individual Ethics and Social Ethics are dependent upon each other, or whether one, and if one then which one, determines the other. It has to be decided whether, according to the principle of welfare, the free self-development of the individual is to be limited by the conditions of social life, orvice versa. Within the limits of Objective Ethics, there may arise an Individualism of another sort than that before mentioned, founded, not upon the sovereignty of the individual, but upon the principle of welfare, which demands as many independent and peculiar points of departure for action as possible. The like is true, also, of the question of smaller organizations within larger ones.
The history of Ethics shows us that the ethical judgment of actions at first regarded the outer act itself and its results, but was gradually extended to include the motive, the disposition, the character of the acting subject. It is perfectly natural that regard should first be attracted to that which is the object of sense-perception. Moreover, action at an earlier stage of development is essentially reflex action, and the expression of instinct; the motives are simple and transparent, and interest does not linger long with them. The great revolutions in Ethics appear as essentially progress with regard to the importance accorded, in ethical judgment, to the inner factors of action. This greater inwardness is combined with a generalization; for the rejection of a motive is the rejection of all action occasioned by it, and the ethical acceptance of a motive the acceptance of all action springing from it. Hence the transference of regard to inner conditions represents a great simplification of the ethical law. Examples of such a transference may be found in the rupture between Christianity and Judaism, and between Protestantism and Catholicism.
In this way, too, Objective Ethics leads to Subjective Ethics. The objective judgment not only presupposes a subjective basis, but also finds some of its best objects in actions which spring from the same mental constitution which is the basis of the judgment. Here, the basis of mental constitution and the motive coincide; the ethical law demands the existence of the moral disposition by which it itself exists in the species. This Kant expresses in the assertion that it is a duty to possess conscience. Since the recognition of duties presupposes the existence of conscience, it might seem as if here were an argument in a circle. But that this is an illusion may be seen from the fact that the basis of ethical judgment and the motive do not necessarily coincide and that it is not necessarily an imperfection when they do not coincide. It may be necessary in some cases, in accordance with the principle of welfare, that other motives than the sense of duty shall guide the action; it may be necessary and healthful, for example, that in some cases man should be led by the instinct of self-preservation, or by an immediate sympathy, to labor for the welfare of others, and that conscience should not be aroused in every single act. It may even be a sign of perfection when actions that demand exertion and sacrifice are carried out without the intervention of a sense of duty. Indeed, mental drill in the end renders that which at first took place by means of a long psychological process of reflection and will, direct and without special consciousness of its reason.
All Ethics is practical Idealism. All systems assume an end, and an end is not anything at present existing, but something which ought to be. All systems assume, therefore, strong feeling, impulse, and endeavor, combined with the image of that which is the object of the endeavor. But the ideal must have points of contact with actuality, so that at least an approach to it is practicable; it must be physically, psychologically, and historically possible.
Ethical ideals deviate from the actual in three ways. In the first place, there is often in actual willing and doing something directly opposed to the principle of welfare. In this case, the office of Ethics is to restrain and forbid. To this function corresponds, in the practical life of the will, the hemming by which involuntary, original, or acquired impulses and inclinations are repressed. Again, actual willing and doing often exhibit onlya weak and imperfect realization of that which Ethics demands. Here there must be an increase in the degree as well as in the extent of the realization. To this corresponds, in the practical life of the will, effort and attention, the power of the will, through its influence upon conceptions and feelings, to react upon itself. And finally, there may be, in willing and doing, a lack of unity and harmony; various opposed tendencies and impulses may make themselves felt. Here a process of harmonizing and concentration is necessary. And to this corresponds, in the practical life of the will, a drilling in connected action and trains of thought, and in the power to make an end of reflection by decision. In all three cases, the principle of welfare is to be followed; and the three processes are to be applied not only in the development of the individual but also in that of societies, and of the species.
That which manifests itself in conscience is a species-instinct. In the feeling of judgment, the relation between central and peripheral factors finds expression, neither of which, and least of all the central factors, are developed by individual experience, but both of which are, on the contrary, the product of the experience of the species. What Kant called the Categorical Imperative is, in fact, an instinct; and every instinct speaks unconditionally, categorically, gives no reasons and admits of no excuse.
No instinct finds expression without the existence of conditions which call it forth; but all manner of individual and social circumstances may furnish such conditions.
When conscience begins to be conscious of its office, it manifests itself as an Impulse.[77]The thought of actions which the instinctive judgment has recognized, or to the performance of which it has perhaps incited, is combined with pleasure, the conception of actions of the opposite nature with pain. The tendency arises to linger with the former and to repeat them, and to turn from the latter, if no stronger impulses of another sort make themselves felt.
Conscience may develop, without losing entirely its instinctive or impulsive character, to practical reason. This takes place through the development of the conceptions which determine the conscience as impulse, to greater clearness and distinctness. When conscience acts as instinct, the individual does not know what he does. If it acts as impulse, he has a dawning consciousnessof his acts. And when it becomes practical reason, there arises a clear consciousness of ethical laws and ethical ideals. In different individuals, conscience may appear in very different forms and degrees, as instinct, impulse, practical reason, sense of duty, sense of justice. Sometimes it appears as mainly negative and restraining, sometimes again as chiefly positive, partly harmonizing and partly increasing. Here it appears as enthusiastic devotion, there as quiet and continuous tendency. It would be impossible to name even the principal forms in which it may manifest itself, but it is of great importance to call attention to the fact of these individual differences, since we suffer at present from a dogmatism that has but one measure for all these different manifestations.
We must go a step farther still. There may be men who possess no strictly ethical feeling and who do not need it. Such men do what they can with their whole heart without applying any reflective standard to their own or others' acts. They entirely absorb themselves with unflagging zeal in a work that perfectly corresponds to their capabilities and impulses, without any doubt of its rightfulness and import. They may devote themselves to art and science, to the service of society, or to their family. Or they belong to the class of happy natures who spread light and joy by their mere existence. They act in accordance with the law, without being in possession of the law, and what objection can Ethics have to offer to this? Ethics is for the sake of life, not life for the sake of Ethics.
Since all ethical judgments have conscience for their psychological basis, conscience is highest authority, highest law-giver, in comparison with which every other authority is subordinate and derived. To wish to go beyond one's conscience is to wish to go beyond oneself. When I yield to another human being whose judgment I trust more than my own, this can be justified only as it takes place through my conscience. Conscience is infallible, if one understands by infallibility that it is, at every instant, the highest judge; this infallibility does not mean, however, that it does not err. Every earnest conviction takes the form of conscience; the truth is not, however, secured by the mere form. Was it not from conviction that Aristotle asserted the right of slavery, and Calvin, with Melancthon's approval, sent Servetus to the stake?
Not less dogmatic than Fichte's assertion that conscience never deceives us, is the view which regards a system of Ethics as merely the science of the forms of society and of outward acts, and thus declares conscience to be without authority in comparison with outer circumstances and their demands. The law which we obey must always express itself in the form of conscience. The light which illumines for us all other things must be within ourselves.
Here we perceive the possibility of a conflict between Subjective Ethics and Objective Ethics, between the two principles upon which Ethics is founded. There can be no other solution to the problem than that we shall follow the command of conscience, provided it speaks clearly and after sufficient deliberation. It may be added that conscience can correct and control itself, the later and more experienced conscience criticising the earlier. As long as the individual acts according to his best conviction, he is morally healthy; hence, from an ethical point of view, a pernicious action carried out under the conviction that it is good is to be preferred to a good action performed with the conviction that it is bad. In the former case, the spring is pure; in the latter it is corrupt. Only he who has courage to make mistakes can accomplish anything great. It is not the cold and narrow, but those who are zealous for the true and good, who thus err.
The power of self-correction can be developed only when some definite principle or criterion may be found. Such a principle is that of welfare. The problem of the application of this principle to action is, however, like that of the application of the principle of causality to actual phenomena, an endless one.
In close relation to the concept of Authority stands that of Sanction. The Authority commands or forbids, the Sanction enables the command or prohibition to remain in force. The sanction consists in the pain or pleasure connected with the observation or transgression of the command, in the reward or punishment which one brings on oneself through one's action, in the heaven or hell which one approaches by the action. It is only, however, when the authority itself is an outward one that the sanction holds this outward relation to the action. In this outward form it has no immediate ethical significance. The ethical character of an action is dependent, in subjective regard, on its origin in the intention of the performer, in objective regard, on its harmony with the principle of welfare. Whatethical significance could it have that here a feeling of pain or pleasure not arising from the action itself, is added to it? The outer sanction of reward and punishment is thus but an educating sanction. The inner sanction consists in a feeling of harmony and unity with one's own highest convictions, of consistency between one's ideas and one's actual willing. Thus arises an inner peace that may be stronger than all contradiction and opposition from without.
Such an inner sanction is not only an effect of the action, but a feeling already present before the action. It was the preservation and full development of this feeling that led to the decision and made it possible. Blessedness, says Spinoza, is not the reward of virtue, but virtue itself.
The manner in which the ethical is so often made dependent upon certain fixed religious or speculative assumptions must be, from an ethical point of view, matter for great solicitude. In the first place, it is easy to suppose that the man who no longer respects these dogmas may have emancipated himself also from the ethical maxims dependent upon them, and would be most consistent if he acted in accordance with the principle: "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." In the second place, action is reft of its ethical character when the attention is directed to things outside its essence and origin, and considerations of reward and punishment are declared to be a necessary motive. Not even a belief in progress within the world of experience can have any absolute worth for Ethics. It may be theoretically difficult to maintain such a belief; and even if the victorious direction of evolution were shown to be unfavorable to Ethics, ethical principles would not be destroyed. Simply the problems would be different; pity and resignation would acquire greater importance. Wherever the ethical disposition were present, it would take the side of the conquered and remain upon that side though the gods themselves were with the conquerors. Ethical worth does not depend upon mere might.
The birth-hour of conscience is the time when, through the difference between ideal and actuality, a certain feeling arises. Its death-hour would be the instant in which the difference forever disappeared. Such a disappearance might occur in two ways, either through the conquest of the ideal by actuality or through that of actuality by the ideal. The objection has been made tothe theory of evolution that it fulfilled the first of these possibilities, and so left no room for Ethics. But the very fact of the existence of ethical impulses as the actual result of evolution would seem to belie this theory. And indeed, we see that evolution is not physical growth alone, but mental as well; and that the important feature of man's development consists in his aspiration through desires and impulses, which act as moving forces in his life. Aspiration is necessary to his evolution, and indifference and lack of sensibility an obstacle to it. The theory of evolution leads directly to Ethics, in that it shows that the struggle for existence becomes, in its higher forms, a common struggle for the continuance and development of human life. The theory of evolution takes us, indeed, not only to, but beyond, Ethics; for, according to Spencer, the ethical sense is but an intermediate condition in a development toward a state of "organic morality," where right-doing will be involuntary and natural, and a special ethical sense no longer existent or necessary. Such a state would constitute the realization of the second alternative mentioned above, with which Ethics would come to an end. This state is conceivable, and Ethics could have no objection to offer to it. Yet we are still far from such a condition, and though we may strengthen our courage and hope with the thought of a continual progress of human nature, yet the assumption of such an end to evolution cannot have an essential influence upon the method of Ethics.
We must, in fact, suppose that progress will bring us new problems and new ideals, that, as the Ethics of the civilized man includes whole provinces unknown to the savage, so many relations will certainly present themselves in the future whose ethical significance our present thick-skinned condition, our ignorance and egoism, prevent us from comprehending.
Can one do more than one's duty? From the standpoint of ethical systems which are founded on authority or any outward principle, this question may be answered in the affirmative. The Roman Catholic Church distinguishes, for instance, between that which is commanded and that which, beyond the command, is merely advised. But he who follows an inward sanction cannot but feel that he has done no more than his duty when he has done all that lies in his power for the welfare of mankind. It may be right, from a pedagogical standpoint, to give especial praise to actions that tower above the usual; he who performs them, however,only then possesses the right spirit when he feels that he has done no more than his duty, and could not have done otherwise. Even from a pedagogical standpoint, the difference between duty and merely counselled action, beyond the duty commanded, can be only a relative one; that which is, upon a lower plane of development, merely advised, becomes, upon a higher plane, one of the most elementary duties; mercy to the conquered may be a high virtue in a savage, but to the civilized man it is a primary rule of morals.
It is of the highest importance to keep in mind the fact that conscience itself is a cause, and that ethical judgment, arising as a feeling, takes part, by its influence upon the will, in the ethical evolution towards highest welfare. Keeping this in mind, it is easy to see that Ethics not only calls for no limitation of the law of Causality, but that such a limitation would be pernicious, even destructive, to Ethics.
There are at least six different significations in which the expression "freedom of the will" may be used.
It may be used to denote absence of outward constraint; but this might rather be called a freedom of action than a freedom of the will.
It may be used to denote absence of inner constraint; the will which springs from pain or fear is often called unfree in distinction from the will which springs from pleasure or hope.
It may refer to energy and vitality of the will. Here the stress is laid upon the amount which the will can accomplish, not, however, upon its independence of causes. One can be a determinist and yet concede that the will plays an important part in the world; or one can be an indeterminist and yet assume that free will plays but a small part in the world.
By freedom of the will is often meant the power of choice. This freedom is not opposed, however, to causality, but to blindness of action, subjection to momentary impulses. "Free will" denotes, in this case, self-conscious will.
Or the word "freedom" may refer to the will as ruled by ethical motives. In this sense, only the good man is free. This significance of the word is the oldest, comes down to us from Socrates, and is used by Augustine, Spinoza, and many others.
But the sense of the word "freedom" with which the strife between Determinism and Indeterminism has to do is that inaccordance with which a free will is not subject to the law of Causality, is not, like other phenomena, a link in the chain of causes, but is, on the contrary, a cause, without being an effect. To be free in will is, according to this definition, to will without cause,—independent of all that has gone before.
Indeterminism destroys the bond between the individual and his kind, between the individual and the rest of existence. Indeterminism is hence unable to regard existence as a totality. Every deeper philosophical or religious conception becomes, thus, impossible; the only religious conception consistent with Indeterminism is Polytheism, since every being that can form the absolute beginning of a chain of causes is a little god, an absolute being. This fact is to be noted, for the reason that Determinism is sometimes designated as a godless doctrine.
The assertion that the will is without cause, and the assertion that we ourselves are the cause of our willing, are two different assertions. The last finds a cause in our nature. Thoughts and feelings, tendencies, instincts, and impulses arise in us, and in these the origin of the acts of the will is to be sought.
If the will, or a part of it, is not subject to the law of Causality, it stands in relation to the whole personality as something isolated and accidental. The Indeterminist who asserts that Determinism makes man a mere machine, himself makes of him something much meaner, something incoherent and accidental. Ethical judgment is based upon the assumption that my action is mine; it is, therefore, clear and certain only when motives and the decision they cause are known. The less my actions can be understood by knowledge of my character, the more easily I may be regarded as irresponsible. Although law regards, by its nature, action and not motive, yet even the judge must gain an insight into the motives, the outer and inner relations from which the deed originated, both in order to determine the degree of punishment necessary, and in order even to be fully persuaded that the action really took place.
Many recent Indeterminists designate the freedom of the will as exceedingly small. They thus extend the dissolution of the unity of existence and of the unity of personality to the act of willing itself. Moreover, if responsibility depends upon freedom, it is impossible to see how reward and punishment are to be justified upon this standpoint; since the individual can say withreason that he is not guilty with respect to the whole, but only with respect to a very small part of his act.
The words Responsibility, Guilt, Accountability, are taken, like so many other ethical expressions, from Jurisprudence, or rather they come to us from a time when the distinction between the province of Jurisprudence and that of Ethics had not yet been recognized. That I am made accountable for my action means that I stand as the one to whom reward or punishment for the deed is meted out.For what reasonthe action is rewarded or punished is a question by itself.
In relation to Ethics, the feeling of guilt, of responsibility or accountability, signifies that my act is subjected to the judgment of conscience. If I find discord between my act and that which I recognize as good, remorse arises,—a feeling of inner disharmony, unworthiness, and self-contempt which may increase until it becomes the greatest psychical pain. This feeling may be defined, from a deterministic standpoint, as dissatisfaction with oneself because one has not acted otherwise, and the wish that one had done so. This wish arises in the moment of reflection, when one weighs one's act. From the present wish is not, however, to be concluded that one could just as well have acted otherwiseat the moment the act took place. Such an illusion dates the experience dearly bought with mistake and remorse back to an earlier period. According to the theory of retribution, remorse must be greatest in him who has committed the greatest crime. This is not so, however; since remorse arises from a contrast between ideal and act, which contrast can take place only when the conception of the ideal is strong; the purest and best characters often have the strongest feelings of remorse.
Remorse first arises when a new attitude of mind is attained different from that which ruled at the time of the action. Time is necessary for this new feeling to replace the old, if it is to be more than a momentary passion, and during this interval the two feelings are both active in consciousness. This is the time of the birth-pains by which the new character comes into being. The significance of remorse lies in the fact that it urges forward, that it gives birth to impulse and endeavor after a higher plane. Only because remorse is amotive, is it of ethical nature.
If the law of Causality were not active in the realm of the psychical, this ethical endeavor would be hopeless. Only whereorder reigns can the will accomplish anything. Only as we know the law of outer nature, and know what conditions must be produced in order to bring about a certain result, can we serve our own ends in this province; and the like is true in our relation to human nature. Here the problem is to find motives of the right sort and of sufficient strength. Of what use were all possible exertion if, under given conditions, the same motive were followed by now this, now the other entirely different decision. I am master of my future willing only in so far as a causal relation exists between my present and my future will. We find, therefore, that the reason why responsibility goes no further back in the causal chain than the will, is this: that it is the will which is to be acted on and altered. That which precedes the act of the will interests us, ethically, only in so far as it influences the will.
It is a strange assertion, sometimes made, that the consistent Determinist must be a mere spectator of his own and others' lives. As if one could feel no pain or pleasure and no desire to interfere, because one believes life to be subject to law. It is true that theoretical study may weaken practical interest; but Indeterminism is a theory as well as Determinism.
What the ethically bad is follows from what has already been said. It consists of a more or less conscious isolation of the single moment in the life of the individual, or of the single individual in the life of the species, such that not only a hindrance to the welfare of individual or species arises, but also a relaxation of energy and a diminution of the coherence of individual or species. In most such cases, inertia is at work. The one moment demands to be lived without any consideration of others, the individual will not move outside the circle of his own interests. Such a resistance to influence may be unconscious. It may be authorized in so far as it is a condition of the development of real willing that action shall not immediately respond to impression. In this resistance lies, therefore, the germ of the ethical as well as the non-ethical life of the will. The clearer consciousness becomes, the more this inertia takes on the character of defiance. Or the discord felt through consciousness of the good may be so painful that the individual desires to free himself at any price. In this case, no remorse is felt; on the contrary, the individual seeks to dull the awakened consciousness, or to get rid of it.
It is important to note that conceptions develop, in this connection, faster than feelings. And as long as the former do not find points of connection with the existing feelings, they will have no practical influence. The bad consists in the persistence, from inertia or defiance, upon a lower plane of development after the consciousness of a higher has arisen. Evil is the animal in man, the remains of an earlier plane of life. From the instincts of self-preservation and self-propagation in their most primitive forms, the ethically bad is produced, and offers fierce resistance to harmonizing influences.