247. We have now considered in a perfunctory way those rights which are antecedent to the state, which are not derived from it but may exist where a state is not, and which it is the office of the state to maintain. We have inquired what it is in the nature of man that renders him capable of these rights, what are the moral ends to which the rights are relative, and in what form the rights should be realised in order to the attainment of these ends. In order to make the inquiry into rights complete, we ought to go on to examine in the same way the rights which arise out of the establishment of a state, the rights connected with the several functions of government; how these functions come to be necessary, and how they may best be fulfilled with a view to those moral ends to which the functions of the state are ultimately relative. According to my project, I should then have proceeded to consider the social virtues, and the 'moral sentiments' which underlie our particular judgments as to what is good and evil in conduct. All virtues are really social; or, more properly, the distinction between social and self-regarding virtues is a false one. Every virtue is self-regarding in the sense that it is a disposition, or habit of will, directed to an end which the man presents to himself as his good; every virtue is social in the sense that unless the good to which the will is directed is one in which the well-being of society in some form or other is involved, the will is not virtuous at all.
248. The virtues are dispositions to exercise positively, in some way contributory to social good, those powers which, because admitting of being so exercised, society should secure to him; the powers which a man has a right to possess, which constitute his rights. It is therefore convenient to arrange the virtues according to the division of rights. E.g. in regard to the right of all men to free life, the obligations, strictly so called, correlative to that right having been considered (obligations which are all of a negative nature, obligations to forbear from meddling with one's neighbour), we should proceed to consider the activities by which a society of men really free is established, or by which some approach is made to its establishment ('really free,' in the sense of being enabled to make the most of their capabilities). These activities will take different forms under different social conditions, but in rough outline they are those by which men in mutual helpfulness conquer and adapt nature, and overcome the influences which would make them victims of chance and accident, of brute force and animal passion. The virtuous disposition displayed in these activities may have various names applied to it according to the particular direction in which it is exerted; 'industry,' 'courage,' 'public spirit.' A particular aspect of it was brought into relief among the Greeks under the name of ἀνδρεια. [1] The Greek philosophers already gave an extension to the meaning of this term beyond that which belonged to it in popular usage, and we might be tempted further to extend it so as to cover all the forms in which the habit of will necessary to the maintenance and furtherance of free society shows itself. The name, however, does not much matter. It is enough that there are specific modes of human activity which contribute directly to maintain a shelter for man's worthier energies against disturbance by natural forces and by the consequences of human fear and lust. The state of mind which appears in them may properly be treated as a special kind of virtue. It is true that the principle and the end of all virtues is the same. They are all determined by relation to social well-being as their final cause, and they all rest on a dominant interest in some form or other of that well-being; but as that interest may take different directions in different persons, as it cannot be equally developed at once in everyone, it may be said roughly that a man has one kind of virtue and not others.
[1] [Greek ἀνδρεια (andreia) = manliness Tr.]
249. As the kind of moral duties (in distinction from those obligations which are correlative to rights) which relate to the maintenance of free society and the disposition to fulfil those duties should form a special object of inquiry, so another special kind would be those which have to do with the management of property, with the acquisition and expenditure of wealth. To respect the rights of property in others, to fulfil the obligations correlative to those rights, is one thing; to make a good use of property, to be justly generous and generously just in giving and receiving, is another, and that may properly be treated as a special kind of virtue which appears in the duly blended prudence, equity, and generosity of the ideal man of business. Another special kind will be that which appears in family relations; where indeed that merely negative observance of right, which in other relations can be distinguished from the positive fulfilment of moral duties, becomes unmeaning. As we have seen, there are certain aggravations and perpetuations of wrong from which husband or wife or children can be protected by law, but the fulfilment of the claims which arise out of the marriage-tie requires a virtuous will in the active and positive sense—a will governed by unselfish interests—on the part of those concerned.
250. What is called 'moral sentiment' is merely a weaker form of that interest in social well-being which, when wrought into a man's habits and strong enough to determine action, we call virtue. So far as this interest is brought into play on the mere survey of action, and serves merely to determine an approbation or disapprobation, it is called moral sentiment. The forms of moral sentiment accordingly should be classified on some principle as forms of virtue, i.e. with relation to the social functions to which they correspond.
251. For the convenience of analysis, we may treat the obligations correlative to rights, obligations which it is the proper office of law to enforce, apart from moral duties and from the virtues which are tendencies to fulfil those duties. I am properlyobligedto those actions and forbearances which are necessary to the general freedom, necessary if each is not to interfere with the realisation of another's will. Mydutyis to be interested positively in my neighbour's well-being. And it is important to understand that, while the enforcement of obligations is possible, that of moral duties is impossible. But the establishment of obligations by law or authoritative custom, and the gradual recognition of moral duties, have not been separate processes They have gone on together in the history of man. The growth of the institutions by which more complete equality of rights is gradually secured to a wider range of persons, and of those interests in various forms of social well-being by which the will is moralised, have been related to each other as the outer and inner side of the same spiritual development, though at a certain stage of reflection it comes to be discovered that the agency of force, by which the rights are maintained, is ineffectual for eliciting the moral interests. The result of the twofold process has been the creation of the actual content of morality; the articulation of the indefinite consciousness that there is something that should be—a true well-being to be aimed at other than any pleasure or succession of pleasures—into the sentiments and interests which form an 'enlightened conscience.' It is thus that when the highest stage of reflective morality is reached, and upon interests in this or that mode of social good there supervenes an interest in an ideal of goodness, that ideal has already a definite filling; and the man who pursues duty for duty's sake, who does good for the sake of being good or in order to realise an idea of perfection, is at no loss to say what in particular his duty is, or by what particular methods the perfection of character is to be approached.
Some Quotations rendered into English.
From Sect. 32.Tractatus Politici, II. 4 ('Per jus itaque'). 'By right of nature (natural right) I understand … the actual power of nature.' 'Whatever an individual man does by the laws of his nature, that he does with the highest natural right, and his right towards nature goes just as far as his power holds out.'
'Jus naturae' = 'natural right.' 'Potentia' = 'power.' 'Jus' = 'right.' 'Jus humanum' = 'right of man,' or 'rightquahuman.'
Ib. II. 5 ('Homines magis'). 'Human beings are led more by blind desire than by reason; and hence their natural power or right should be marked out not by reason but by any inclination by which they are determined to act, and by which they endeavour after their own preservation.'
'Jus civile' = 'civic right or law.'
Ib. II. 14 ('Quatenus homines'). 'In as far as human beings are troubled by anger, jealousy, or any emotion of hate, so far they are drawn in different directions and are antagonistic to one another, and therefore they are more to be feared in so far as they are more powerful, and more shrewd and astute, than the other animals; and because human beings are in the highest degree liable by nature to these emotions, therefore they are natural enemies (to one another).'
Ib. 15 ('Atque adeo'). 'And so we conclude that natural right can hardly be conceived unless where human beings have laws in common, (human beings) who have power at once to assert possession of the lands which they are able to inhabit and to till, and to defend themselves, and to repel all violence, and to live in accordance with the common sentiment of all. For (by art. 13 of this chapter) the more that thus come together into one, the more right they all together possess.'
Ib. 16 ('Ubi homines'). 'Where human beings have laws in common and all together are guided as by one mind, it is certain (by art. 13 of this chapter) that each of them has so much the less right as the rest are together more powerful than he; that is, that he in fact has no right over nature beyond that which the common (social) law concedes him. But whatever is enjoined upon him by common consent, he is bound to perform, or (by art. 4 of this chapter) he is compelled to it by law.'
Ib. 17 ('Hoc jus'). 'This law (or right), which is coextensive with the power of the plurality, is usually called 'imperium' ('authority,' 'government').
Ib. III. 2 ('Multitudinis quae'). 'Of a number or plurality, which is guided as if by a single mind.' 'Status civilis' = 'civic, or social, condition.'
Ib. III. 3 ('Homo ex legibus'). [In the civic condition as well as in the state of nature] 'man acts from the laws of his own nature and consults his own interest.' 'Sui juris' = 'in its own right,' 'autonomous.'
Sect. 33 (1).Ib. III. 7 ('Civitatis jus'). 'The right of the state is coextensive with the power of the plurality which is guided as if by one mind. But this oneness of minds is inconceivable, unless the state has for its main intention what sound reason shows to be for the interest of all men.'
(2).Ib. III. 8 ('Subditi eatenus'). 'Subjects are not in their own right, but under the right (or law) of the state, so far as they fear its power or threats, or so far as they love the social condition (by art. 10 of preceding chapter). From which it follows, that all those acts to which no one can be impelled by rewards or threats lie outside the right (or law) of the state.'
(3).Ib. III. 9 ('Ad civitatis jus'). 'That belongs to the right of the state in a less degree, which causes indignation in a greater number.' ('Sicut'). 'Like the individual citizen, or the man in a state of nature, the state is less in its own right in proportion as it has greater cause for fear.'
Sect. 34.Ib. III. 11 ('Nam quandoquidem'). 'For seeing that (by art. 2 of this chapter) the right of the supreme power is nothing but the actual right of nature, it follows that two governments are to one another as two men in the state of nature, except that the state can defend itself against external aggression in a way impossible for man in a state of nature, inasmuch as he is overcome daily by sleep, often by disease or distress, and in the end by old age, and besides this is exposed to other inconveniences, against which the state can protect itself.'
Ib. III. 13 ('Duae civitates'). 'Two states are natural enemies. For men in the state of nature are enemies. Those, therefore, who retain the right of nature, as not being in the same state, are enemies.'
Ib. III. 14 ('Nec dici potest'). 'Nor can it be said to act with craft or perfidy in that it dissolves its promise as soon as the cause of fear or hope is removed; because this condition was the same for both contracting parties, that whichsoever is first enabled to be free from fear should be in its own right, and should use its right according to the sentiment of its mind; and, moreover, because no one contracts for the future except on supposition of the circumstances under which he contracts.'
Sect. 35.Ib. II. 18 ('In statu'). 'In a state of nature there can be no transgression, or if one transgresses, he does so against himself, not against another; … nothing is absolutely forbidden by the law of nature, except what no one has power to do.'
'Commune decretum' = 'the common (or social) behest.'
Ib. V. 1 ('Non id omne'). 'Not everything which we say is done rightfully, do we affirm to be the best to be done. It is one thing to till a field within your right, and another thing to till it in the best way; it is one thing, I say, to defend yourself, preserve yourself, give judgment &c. within your right, and another thing to do all these acts in the best way; and accordingly it is one thing to govern and manage a state within its rights, and another thing to do this in the best way. Thus, now that we have treated in general of the right of every state, it is time to treat of the best condition of every state.'
'Finis status civilis' = 'the end or aim of the civic or social condition.'
Ib. V. 2 ('Homines enim'). 'Men are not born of civic temper, but become so. Moreover, the natural dispositions of men are everywhere the same.'
Ib. V. 4 ('Pax enim'). 'Peace is not absence of war, but a virtue which arises from fortitude of mind; for obedience is a constant will to perform that which the common behest of the state requires to be done.'
Ethics, III. 59, Schol. (in footnote on preceding passage) ('Omnes actiones'). 'All the actions which follow from the affects which are related to the mind, in so far as it thinks, I ascribe tofortitude, which I divide intostrength of mindandgenerosity. Bystrength of mindI mean the desire by which each person endeavours, from the dictates of reason alone, to preserve his own being. BygenerosityI mean the desire by which, from the dictates of reason alone, each person endeavours to help other people and to join them to him in friendship.'
('Quae maxime'). 'Which is mainly coextensive with reason, the true virtue and life of the mind.'
('Quod multitudo libera'). [An authority which] 'a free plurality institutes, not one which is acquired against the plurality by the right of war.'
Sect. 36. 'Suum esse conservare' = 'to preserve his own being.'
'Homini nihil' = 'nothing is more useful to man, than man.'
'Homo namque.' See on sect. 32.
'Constans voluntas.' See on sect. 35.
'Vitam concorditer transigere' = 'to live in harmony.'
Footnote on 'Libera multitudo,' II. 11 ('Hominem eatenus'). 'The sense in which at all I call a manfreeis in so far as he is guided by reason; because thus far he is determined to action by causes which can be adequately understood out of his nature alone, although by them he be necessarily determined to action. For freedom of action does not deny but affirms necessity.'
On Sect. 37. II. 15 ('Jus naturae'). See on sect. 32.
On Sect. 39. πόλις (polis) = state, including much that we mean by 'society.'
τέλος (telos) = end, aim, final cause.
πολίτης (polites) = citizen.
φύσει πολιτικός (phusei politikos) = social, or civic, by nature.
πολίτης μετέχει τοῦ ἄρχειν καὶ τοῦ ἄρχεσθαι (polites metechei) 'The citizen takes his share both in governing and in being governed.'
On Sect. 40. Footnote,Eth. IV.Appendix, xxxii ('Ea quae'). 'We shall bear with equanimity those things which happen to us contrary to what a consideration of our own profit demands, if we are conscious that we have performed our duty, that the power we have could not reach so far as to enable us to avoid those things, and that we are a part of the whole of nature, whose order we follow. If we clearly and distinctly understand this, the part of us which is determined by intelligence—that is to say, the better part of us—will be entirely satisfied therewith, and in that satisfaction will endeavour to persevere; for, in so far as we understand, we cannot desire anything excepting what is necessary, nor absolutely can we be satisfied with anything but the truth. Therefore, in so far as we understand these things properly will the efforts of the better part of us agree with the whole order of nature.'Eth. IV.Preface('Per bonum'). 'By good, therefore, I understand in the following pages everything which we are certain is a means by which we may approach nearer and nearer to the model of human nature we set before us…. Again, I shall call men more or less perfect or imperfect in so far as they approach nearer and nearer to the model of human nature we set before us.'
On Sect. 41. 'Nihil positivum in rebus in se consideratis' = 'nothing positive in things considered in themselves.'
In all the quotations from Spinoza's_ Ethics_ Mr. Hales White's translation has been followed.