Besides his commentaries on the Aristotelian works (the Ethics included) and many other writings, THOMAS AQUINAS (1226-74) left two large works, theSumma philosophicaand the famousSumma Theologiae. Notwithstanding the prominence assigned to theological questions, the first is a regular philosophical work; the second, though containing the exposition of philosophical opinions, is a theological textbook. Now, as it is in the Summary for theological purposes that the whole practical philosophy of Aquinas is contained, it is to be inferred that he regarded the subject of Ethics as not on the same level with other departments of philosophy. Moreover, even when he is not appealing to Scripture, he is seen to display what is for him a most unusual tendency to desert Aristotle, at the really critical moments, for Plato or Plotinus, or any other authority of a more theological cast.
In the (unfinished)Summa Theologiae, the Ethical views and cognate questions occupy the two sections of the second part—the so-calledprimaandsecunda secundae. He begins, in the Aristotelian fashion, by seeking an ultimate end of human action, and finds it in the attainment of the highest good or happiness. But as no created thing can answer to the idea of the highest good, it must be placed in God. God, however, as the highest good, can only be the object, in the search after human happiness, for happiness in itself is a state of the mind or act of the soul. The question then arises, "what sort of act?" Does it fall under the Will or under the Intelligence? The answer is, Not under the will, because happiness is neither desire nor pleasure, butconsecutio, that is, a possessing. Desire precedesconsecutio, and pleasure follows upon it; but the act of getting possession, in which lies happiness, is distinct from both. This is illustrated by the case of the miser having his happiness in the mere possession of money; and the position is essentially the same as Butler's, in regard to our appetites and desires, that they blindly seek their objects with no regard to pleasure. Thomas concludes that theconsecutio, or happiness, is an act of the intelligence; what pleasure there is being a mere accidental accompaniment.
Distinguishing between two phases of the intellect—the theoretic and the practical—in the one of which it is an end to itself, but in the other subordinated to an external aim, he places true happiness in acts of the self-sufficing theoretic intelligence. In this life, however, such a constant exercise of the intellect is not possible, and accordingly what happiness there is, must be found, in great measure, in the exercise of the practical intellect, directing and governing the lower desires and passions. This twofold conception of happiness is Aristotelian, even as expressed by Thomas under the distinction of perfect and imperfect happiness; but when he goes on to associate perfect happiness with the future life only, to found an argument for a future life from the desire of a happiness more perfect than can be found here, and to make the pure contemplation, in which consists highest bliss, a vision of the divine essence face to face, a direct cognition of Deity far surpassing demonstrative knowledge or mortal faith—he is more theologian than philosopher, or if a philosopher, more Platonist than Aristotelian.
The condition of perfect happiness being a theoretic or intellectual state, thevisio, and not thedelectatio, is consistently given as its central fact; and when he proceeds to consider the other questions of Ethics, the same superiority is steadily ascribed to the intellectual function. It is because weknowa thing to be good that we wish it, and knowing it, we cannot help wishing. Conscience, as the name implies, is allied to knowledge. Reason gives the law to will.
After a long disquisition about the passions and the whole appetitive side of human nature, over which Reason is called to rule, he is brought to the subject of virtue. He is Aristotelian enough to describe virtue ashabitus—a disposition or quality (like health) whereby a subject is more or less well disposed with reference to itself or something else; and he takes account of the acquisition of good moral habits (virtutes acquisitae) by practice. But with this he couples, or tends to substitute for it, the definition of Augustin that virtue is a good quality of mind,quam Deus in nobis sine nobis operatur, as a ground forvirtutes infusae, conferred as gifts upon man, or rather on certain men, by free grace from on high. He wavers greatly at this stage, and in this respect his attitude is characteristic for all the schoolmen.
So again in passing from the general question of Virtue to the virtues, he puts several of the systems under contribution, as if not prepared to leave the guidance of Aristotle, but feeling at the same time the necessity of bridging over the distance between his position and Christian requirements. Understanding Aristotle to make a co-ordinate division of virtues into Moral and Intellectual, he gives reasons for such a step. Though virtue, he says, is not so much the perfecting of the operation of our faculties, as their employment by the will for good ends, it may be used in the first sense, and thus the intellectual virtues will be the habits of intelligence that procure the truest knowledge. The well-known division of the cardinal virtues is his next theme; and it is established as complete and satisfactory by a twofold deduction. But a still higher and more congenial view is immediately afterwards adopted from Plotinus. This is the Neo-Platonic description of the four virtues aspoliticae, purgatoriae, andpurgati animi, according to the scale of elevation reached by the soul in its efforts to mount above sense. They are called by Thomas alsoexemplares, when regarded at once as the essence of the Deity, and as the models of human perfections.
This mystical division, not unsupported by philosophical authority, smooths the way for his account of the highest ortheologicalvirtues. These bear upon the vision of Deity, which was recognized above as the highest good of humanity, and form an order apart. They have God for their object, are altogether inspired by God (hence calledinfusae), and are taught by revelation. Given in connection with the natural faculties of intellect and will, they are exhibited in the attainment of the supernatural order of things. With intellect goesFaith, as it were the intellect applied to things not intelligible; with Will go Hope and Charity or Love: Hope being the Will exercised upon things not naturally desired, and Love the union of Will with what is not naturally brought near to us.
Aquinas then passes to politics, or at least the discussion of the political ideas of law, right, &c.
Coming now tomodernthinkers, we begin with
The circumstances of Hobbes's life, so powerful in determining the nature of his opinions, had an equally marked effect on the order and number of expositions that he gave to the psychological and political parts of his system. His ethical doctrines, in as far as they can be dissociated from, his politics, may be studied in no less than three distinct forms; either in the first part of the Leviathian (1651); or in the De Cive (1647), taken along-with theDe Homine(1658); or in the Treatise of Human Nature (1650, but written ten years earlier), coupled with the De Corpore Politico (also 1650). But the same result, or with only unimportant variations, being obtained from all, we need not here go beyond the first-mentioned.
In the first part of the Leviathan, then, bearing the titleOf Man, and designed to consider Man as at once thematterandartificerof the Commonwealth or State, Hobbes is led, after discussing Sense, Imagination, Train of Imaginations, Speech, Reason and Science, to take up, in chapter sixth, the Passions, or, as he calls them, the Interior beginnings of voluntary motions. Motions, he says, are either vital and animal, or voluntary. Vital motions,e.g., circulation, nutrition, &c., need no help of imagination; on the other hand, voluntary motions, as going and speaking—since they depend on a precedent thought of whither, which way, and what—have in the imagination their first beginning. But imagination is only the relics of sense, and sense, as Hobbes always declares, is motion in the human organs communicated by objects without; consequently, visible voluntary motions begin in invisible internal motions, whose nature is expressed by the wordEndeavour. When the endeavour is towards something causing it, there is Appetite or Desire; endeavour 'fromward something' is Aversion. These very words, and the corresponding terms in Greek, imply an actual, not—as the schoolmen absurdly think—a metaphorical motion. Passing from the main question, he describes Love and Hate as Desire and Aversion when the object is present. Of appetites, some are born with us, others proceed from experience, being of particular things. Where we neither desire nor hate, we contemn [he means, disregard]. Appetites and aversions vary in the same person, and much more in different persons.
Then follows his definition ofgood,—the object of any man's appetite or desire, as evil is the object of his hate and aversion. Good and evil are always merely relative, either to the person of a man, or in a commonwealth to the representative person, or to an arbitrator if chosen to settle a dispute. Good in the promise ispulchrum, for which there is no exact English term; good in the effect, as the end desired, isdelightful; good as the means, isusefulorprofitable. There is the same variety of evil.
His next topic is Pleasure. As sense is, inreality, motion, but, in 'apparence,' light or sound or odour; so appetite, in reality a motion or endeavour effected in the heart by the action of objects through the organs of sense, is, in 'apparence,' delight or trouble of mind. The emotion, whoseapparence(i.e., subjective side) is pleasure or delight, seems to be a corroboration of vital motion; the contrary, in the case of molestation. Pleasure is, therefore, the sense of good; displeasure, the sense of evil. The one accompanies, in greater or less degree, all desire and love; the other, all aversion and hatred. Pleasures are either ofsense; or of themind, when arising-from the expectation that proceeds from the foresight of the ends or consequence of things, irrespective of their pleasing the senses or not. For these mental pleasures, there is the general namejoy. There is a corresponding division of displeasure intopainandgrief.
All the other passions, he now proceeds to show, are thesesimplepassions—appetite, desire, love, aversion, hate, joy, and grief, diversified in name for divers considerations. Incidental remarks of ethical importance are these.Covetousness, the desire of riches, is a name signifying blame, because men contending for them are displeased with others attaining them; the desire itself, however, is to be blamed or allowed, according to the means whereby the riches are sought.Curiosityis a lust of the mind, that by a perseverance of delight in the continual generation of knowledge, exceedeth the short vehemence of any carnal pleasure.Pityis grief for the calamity of another, arising from the imagination of the like calamity befalling one's self; the best men have, therefore, least pity for calamity arising from great wickedness.Contempt, or little sense of the calamity of others, proceeds from security of one's own fortune; 'for that any man should take pleasure in other men's great harms, without other end of his own, I do not conceive it possible.'
Having explained the various passions, he then gives his theory of the Will. He supposes alibertyin man of doing or omitting, according to appetite or aversion. But to this liberty an end is put in the state ofdeliberationwherein there is kept up a constant succession of alternating desires and aversions, hopes and fears, regarding one and the same thing. One of two results follows. Either the thing is judged impossible, or it is done; and this, according as aversion or appetite triumphs at the last. Now, the last aversion, followed by omission, or the last appetite, followed by action, is the act ofWilling. Will is, therefore, the last appetite (taken to include aversion) in deliberating. So-called Will, that has been forborne, wasinclinationmerely; but the last inclination with consequent action (or omission) is Will, or voluntary action.
After mentioning the forms of speech where the several passions and appetites are naturally expressed, and remarking that the truest signs of passion are in the countenance, motions of the body, actions, and ends or aims otherwise known to belong to a man,—he returns to the question of good and evil. It isapparentgood and evil, come at by the best possible foresight of all the consequences of action, that excite the appetites and aversions in deliberation.Felicityhe defines continual success in obtaining the things from time to time desired; perpetual tranquillity of mind being impossible in this life, which is but motion, and cannot be without desire and fear any more than without sense. The happiness of the future life is at present unknown.
Men, he says at the close,praisethe goodness, andmagnifythe greatness, of a thing; the Greeks had also the word [Greek: makarismos], to express an opinion of a man's felicity.
In Chapter VII., Of the Ends of Discourse, he is led to remark on the meaning ofConscience, in connection-with the wordConscious. Two or more men, he says, are conscious of a thing when they know it together (con-scire.) Hence arises the proper meaning of conscience; and the evil of speaking against one's conscience, in this sense, is to be allowed. Two other meanings are metaphorical: when it is put for a man's knowledge of his own secret facts and thoughts; and when men give their own new opinions, however absurd, the reverenced name of conscience, as if they would have it seem unlawful to change or speak against them. [Hobbes is not concerned to foster the moral independence of individuals.]
He begins Chapter VIII. by defining Virtue as something that is valued for eminence, and that consists in comparison, but proceeds to consider only the intellectual virtues—all that is summed up in the term of agood wit—and their opposites. Farther on, he refers difference of wits—discretion, prudence, craft, &c.—to difference in the passions, and this to difference in constitution of body and of education. The passions chiefly concerned are the desires of power, riches, knowledge, honour, but all may be reduced to the single desire of power.
In Chapter IX. is given his Scheme of Sciences. The relation in his mind between Ethics and Politics is here seen. Science or Philosophy is divided into Natural or Civil, according as it is knowledge of consequences from the accidents of natural bodies or of politic bodies. Ethics is one of the ultimate divisions of Natural Philosophy, dealing with consequences from thepassionsof men; and because the passions arequalitiesof bodies, it falls more immediately under the head of Physics. Politics is the whole of the second main division, and deals with consequences from the institution of commonwealths (1) to the rights and duties of the Sovereign, and (2) to the duty and right of the Subject.
Ethics, accordingly, in Hobbes's eyes, is part of the science of man (as a natural body), and it is always treated as such. But subjecting, as he does, so much of the action of the individual to the action of the state, he necessarily includes in his Politics many questions that usually fall to Ethics. Hence arises the necessity of studying for his Ethics also part of the civil Philosophy; though it happens that, in the Leviathan, this requisite part is incorporated with the Section containing the Science of Man.
In Chapter XIII., he deals with the natural condition of Mankind, as concerning their Felicity and Misery. All men, he says, are by nature equal. Differences there are in the faculties of body and mind, but, when all is taken together, not great enough to establish a steady superiority of one over another. Besides even more than in strength, men are equal inprudence, which is but experience that comes to all. People indeed generally believe that others are not so wise as themselves, but 'there is not ordinarily a greater sign of equal distribution of anything than that every person is contented with his share.'
Of this equality of ability, the consequence is that two men desiring the exclusive possession of the same thing, whether for their own conservation or for delectation, will become enemies and seek to destroy each other. In such a case, it will be natural for any man to seek to secure himself by anticipating others in the use of force or wiles; and, because some will not be content with merely securing themselves, others, who would be content, will be driven to take the offensive for mere self-conservation. Moreover, men will be displeased at being valued by others less highly than by themselves, and will use force to extort respect.
Thus, he finds three principal causes of quarrel in the nature of man—competition, diffidence(distrust), andglory, making men invade for gain, for safety, and for reputation. Men will accordingly, in the absence of any power to keep them in awe, be in a constant state of war; by which is meant, not actual fighting, but the known disposition thereto, and no assurance to the contrary.
He proceeds to draw a very dismal picture of the results of this state of enmity of man against man—no industry, no agriculture, no arts, no society, and so forth, but only fear and danger of violent death, and life solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. To those that doubt the truth of such an 'inference made from the passions,' and desire the confirmation of experience, he cites the wearing of arms and locking of doors, &c., as actions that accuse mankind as much as any words of his. Besides, it is not really to accuse man's nature; for the desires and passions are in themselves no sin, nor the actions proceeding from them, until a law is made against them. He seeks further evidence of an original condition of war, in the actual state of American savages, with no government at all, but only a concord of small families, depending on natural lust; also in the known horrors of a civil war, when there is no common power to fear: and, finally, in the constant hostile attitude of different governments.
In the state of natural war, the notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice, have no place, there being no law; and there is no law, because there is no common power. Force and fraud are in war the two cardinal virtues. Justice is no faculty of body and mind like sense and passion, but only a quality relating to men in society. Then adding a last touch to the description of the state of nature,—by saying of property, that 'only that is every man's that he can get, and for so long as he can keep it,'—he opens up, at the close of the chapter, a new prospect by allowing a possibility to come out of so evil a condition. The possibility consists partly in the passions that incline to peace—viz., fear of death, desire of things necessary to commodious living, and hope by industry to obtain them; partly in reason, which suggests convenient articles of peace and agreement, otherwise called the Laws of Nature.
The first and second Natural Laws, and the subject of contracts, take up Chap. XIV. First comes a definition ofJus Naturaleor Right of Nature—the liberty each man has of using his own power, as he will himself, for the preservation of his own nature or life. Liberty properly means the absence of external impediments; now a man may externally be hindered from doing all he would, but not from using what power is left him, according to his best reason and judgment. A Law of Nature,lex naturalisis defined, a general rule, found out by reason, forbidding a man to do what directly or indirectly is destructive of his life, or to omit what he thinks may best preserve it. Right and Law, though generally confounded, are exactly opposed, Right being liberty, and Law obligation.
In the natural state of war, every man, being governed by his own reason, has a right to everything, even to another's body. But because thus no man's life is secure, he finds the First and fundamental law of nature, or general rule of reason, to beto seek peace and follow it, if possible: failing which, we may defend ourselves by all the means we can. Here the law being 'to endeavour peace,' from this follows the Second law, that a man be willing, when others are so too, as far forth as for peace and self-defence he shall think it necessary, tolay down this right to all things; and be contented with so much liberty against other men as he would allow other men against himself. This is the same as the Gospel precept, Do to others, &c.
Laying down one's right to anything is divesting one's self of the liberty of hindering another in the exercise of his own original right to the same. The right isrenounced, when a man cares not for whose benefit;transferred, when intended to benefit some certain person or persons. In either case the man isobligedorboundnot to hinder those, in whose favour the right is abandoned, from the benefit of it; it is hisdutynot to make void his own voluntary act, and if he does, it isinjusticeorinjury, because he acts nowsine Jure. Such conduct Hobbes likens to an intellectual absurdity or self-contradiction. Voluntary signs to be employed in abandoning a right, are words and actions, separately or together; but in all bonds, the strength comes not from their own nature, but from the fear of evil resulting from their rupture.
He concludes that not all rights are alienable, for the reason that the abandonment, being a voluntary act, must have for its object some good to the person that abandons his right. A man, for instance, cannot lay down the right to defend his life; to use words or other signs for that purpose, would be to despoil himself of the end—security of life and person—for which those signs were intended.
Contractis the mutual transferring of right, and with this idea he connects a great deal. First, he distinguishes transference of right to a thing, and transference of the thing itself. A contract fulfilled by one party, but left on trust to be fulfilled by the other, is called theCovenantof this other, (a distinction he afterwards drops), and leaves room for the keeping or violation of faith. To contract he opposesgift, free-gift, orgrace, where there is no mutual transference of right, but one party transfers in the hope of gaining friendship or service from another, or the reputation of charity and magnanimity, or deliverance from the merited pain of compassion, or reward in heaven.
There follow remarks on signs of contract, as either express or by inference, and a distinction between free-gift as made by words of the present or past, and contract as made by words past, present, or future; wherefore, in contracts like buying and selling, a promise amounts to a covenant, and is obligatory.
The idea ofMeritis thus explained. Of two contracting parties, the one that has first performed merits what he is to receive by the other's performance, or has it asdue. Even the person that wins a prize, offered by free-gift to many, merits it. But, whereas, in contract, I merit by virtue of my own power and the other contractor's need, in the case of the gift, I merit only by the benignity of the giver, and to the extent that, when he has given it, it shall be mine rather than another's. This distinction he believes to coincide with the scholastic separation ofmerilum congruiandmerilum condigni.
He adds many more particulars in regard to covenants made on mutual trust. They are void in the state of nature, upon any reasonable suspicion; but when there is a common power to compel observance, and thus no more room for fear, they are valid. Even when fear makes them invalid it must have arisen after they were made, else it should have kept them from being made. Transference of a right implies transference, as far as may be, of the means to its enjoyment. With beasts there is no covenant, because no proper mutual understanding. With God also none, except through special revelation, or with his lieutenant in his name. Anything vowed contrary to the law of nature is vowed in vain; if the thing vowed is commanded by the law of nature, the law, not the vow, binds. Covenants are of things possible and future. Men are freed from them by performance, or forgiveness, which is restitution of liberty. He pronounces covenants extorted by fear to be binding alike in the state of mere nature and in commonwealths, if once entered into. A former covenant makes void a later. Any covenant not to defend one's self from force by force is always void; as said above, there is no transference possible of right to defend one's self from death, wounds, imprisonment, &c. So no man is obliged to accuse himself, or generally to give testimony where from the nature of the case it may be presumed to be corrupted. Accusation upon torture is not to be reputed as testimony. At the close he remarks upon oaths. He finds in human nature two imaginable helps to strengthen the force of words, otherwise too weak to insure the performance of covenants. One of these—pridein appearing not to need to break one's word, he supposes too rare to be presumed upon. The other,fear, has reference either to power of spirits invisible, or of men. In the state of nature, it is the first kind of fear—a man's religion—that keeps him to his promises. An oath is therefore swearing to perform by the God a man fears. But to the obligation itself it adds nothing.
Of the other Laws of Nature, treated in Chap. XV., the third,that men perform their covenants made, opens up the discussion ofJustice. Till rights have been transferred and covenants made there is no justice or injustice; injustice is no other than the non-performance of covenants. Further, justice (and also property) begins only where a regular coercive power is constituted, because otherwise there is cause for fear, and fear, as has been seen, makes covenants invalid. Even the scholastic definition of justice recognizes as much; for there can be no constant will of giving to every man his own, when, as in the state of nature, there is noown. He argues at length against the idea that justice,i.e., the keeping of covenants, is contrary to reason; repelling three different arguments. (1) He demonstrates that it cannot be reasonable to break or keep covenants according to benefit supposed to be gained in each case, because this would be a subversion of the principles whereon society is founded, and must end by depriving the individual of its benefits, whereby he would be left perfectly helpless. (2) He considers it frivolous to talk of securing the happiness of heaven by any kind of injustice, when there is but one possible way of attaining it, viz., the keeping of covenants. (3) He warns men (he means his contemporaries) against resorting to the mode of injustice known as rebellion to gain sovereignty, from the hopelessness of gaining it and the uncertainty of keeping it. Hence he concludes that justice is a rule of reason, the keeping of covenants being the surest way to preserve our life, and therefore a law of nature. He rejects the notion that laws of nature are to be supposed conducive, not to the preservation of life on earth, but to the attainment of eternal felicity; whereto such breach of covenant as rebellion may sometimes be supposed a means. For that, the knowledge of the future life is too uncertain. Finally, he consistently holds that faith is to be kept with heretics and with all that it has once been pledged to.
He goes on to distinguish between justice of men or manners, and justice of actions; whereby in the one case men arejustorrighteous, and in the other,guiltless. After making the common observation that single inconsistent acts do not destroy a character for justice or injustice, he has this: 'That which gives to human actions the relish of justice, is a certain nobleness or gallantness of courage rarely found, by which a man scorns to be beholden for the contentment of his life to fraud, or breach of promise.' Then he shows the difference between injustice, injury, and damage; asserts that nothing done to a mail with his consent can be injury; and, rejecting the common mode of distinguishing betweencommutativeanddistributivejustice, calls the first the justice of a contractor, and the other an improper name for just distribution, or the justice of an arbitrator,i.e., the act of defining what is just—equivalent to equity, which is itself a law of nature.
The rest of the laws follow in swift succession. The 4th recommendsGratitude, which depends on antecedent grace instead of covenant. Free-gift being voluntary,i.e., done with intention of good to one's self, there will be an end to benevolence and mutual help, unless gratitude is given as compensation.
The 5th enjoinsComplaisance; a disposition in men not to seek superfluities that to others are necessaries. Such men aresociable.
The 6th enjoinsPardonupon repentance, with a view (like the last) to peace.
The 7th enjoins that punishment is to be only for correction of the offender and direction of others;i.e., for profit and example, not for 'glorying in the hurt of another, tending to no end.' AgainstCruelty.
The 8th is againstContumely, as provocative of dispeace.
The 9th is againstPride, and enjoins the acknowledgment of the equality of all men by nature. He is here very sarcastic against Aristotle, and asserts, in opposition to him, that all inequality of men arises from consent.
The 10th is, in like manner, againstArrogance, and in favour ofModesty. Men, in entering into peace, are to reserve no rights but such as they are willing shall be reserved by others.
The 11th enjoinsEquity; the disposition, in a man trusted to judge, to distribute equally to each man what in reason belongs to him. Partiality 'deters men from the use of judges and arbitrators,' and is a cause of war.
The 12th enjoins the common, or the proportionable, use of things that cannot be distributed.
The 13th enjoins the resort tolot, when separate or common enjoyment is not possible; the 14th provides also fornaturallot, meaning first possession or primogeniture.
The 15th demands safe conduct for mediators.
The 16th requires that parties at controversy shall submit their right toarbitration.
The 17th forbids a man to be his own judge; the 18th, any interested person to be judge.
The 19th requires a resort to witnesses in a matter of fact, as between two contending parties.
This list of the laws of nature is only slightly varied in the other works. He enumerates none but those that concern the doctrine of Civil Society, passing-over things like Intemperance, that are also forbidden by the law of nature because destructive of particular men. All the laws are summed up in the one expression: Do not that to another, which thou wouldest not have done to thyself.
The laws of nature he regards as always bindingin foro interno, to the extent of its being desired they should take place; butin foro externo, only when there is security. As bindingin foro interno, they can be broken even by an act according with them, if the purpose of it was against them. They are immutable and eternal; 'injustice, ingratitude, &c., can never be made lawful,' for war cannot preserve life, nor peace destroy it. Their fulfilment is easy, as requiring only an unfeigned and constant endeavour.
Of these laws the science is true moral philosophy,i.e., the science of good and evil in the society of mankind. Good and evil vary much from man to man, and even in the same man; but while private appetite is the measure of good and evil in the condition of nature, all allow that peace is good, and that justice, gratitude,&c., as the way or means to peace, are also good, that is to say,moral virtues. The true moral philosophy, in regarding them as laws of nature, places their goodness in their being the means of peaceable, comfortable, and sociable living; not, as is commonly done, in a mediocrity of passions, 'as if not the cause, but the degree of daring, made fortitude.'
His last remark is, that these dictates of reason are improperly called laws, because 'law, properly, is the word of him that by right hath command over others.' But when considered not as mere conclusions or theorems concerning the means of conservation and defence, but as delivered in the word of God, that by right commands all, then they are properly called laws.
The views of Hobbes can be only inadequately summarized.
I.—The Standard, to men living in society, is the Law of the State. This is Self-interest or individual Utility, masked as regard for Established Order; for, as he holds, under any kind of government there is more Security and Commodity of life than in the State of Nature. In the Natural Condition, Self-interest, of course, is the Standard; but not without responsibility to God, in case it is not sought, as far as other men will allow, by the practice of the dictates of Reason or laws of Nature.
II.—His Psychology of Ethics is to be studied in the detail. Whether in the natural or in the social state, the Moral Faculty, to correspond with the Standard, is the general power of Reason, comprehending the aims of the Individual or Society, and attending to the laws of Nature or the laws of the State, in the one case or in the other respectively.
On the question of the Will, his views have been given at length.
Disinterested Sentiment is, in origin, self-regarding; for, pitying others, we imagine the like calamity befalling ourselves. In one place, he seems to say, that the Sentiment of Power is also involved. It is the great defect of his system that he takes so little account of the Social affections, whether natural or acquired.
III.—His Theory of Happiness, or the Summum Bonum, would follow from his analysis of the Feelings and Will. But Felicity being a continual progress in desire, and consisting less in present enjoyment than inassuringthe way of future desire, the chief element in it is the Sense of Power.
IV.—A Moral Code is minutely detailed under the name of Laws of Nature, in force in the Natural State under Divine Sanction. It inculcates all the common virtues, and makes little or no departure from the usually received maxims.
V.—The relation of Ethics to Politics is the closest imaginable. Not even Society, as commonly understood, but only the established civil authority, is the source of rules of conduct. In thecivil(which to Hobbes is the only meaning of thesocial) state, the laws of nature are superseded, by being supposed taken up into, the laws of the Sovereign Power.
VI.—As regards Religion, he affirms the coincidence of his reasoned deduction of the laws of Nature with the precepts of Revelation. He makes a mild use of the sanctions of a Future Life to enforce the laws of Nature, and to give additional support to the commands of the sovereign that take the place of these in the social state.
Among the numberless replies, called forth by the bold speculations of Hobbes, were some works of independent ethical importance; in particular, the treatises of Cumberland, Cudworth, and Clarke. Cumberland stands by himself; Cudworth and Clarke, agreeing in some respects, are commonly called theRationalmoralists, along with Wollaston and Price (who fall to be noticed later).
Cumberland's' Latin work,De Legibus Naturae, disquisitio philosophica contra Hobbium instituta, appeared in 1672. The book is important as a distinctly philosophical disquisition, but its extraordinarily discursive character renders impossible anything like analysis. His chief points will be presented in a fuller summary than usual.
I.—The STANDARD of Moral Good is given in the laws of Nature, which may all be summed up in one great Law—Benevolence to all rational agentsor the endeavour to the utmost of our power to promote the common good of all. His theory is hardly to be distinguished from the Greatest Happiness principle; unless it might be represented as putting forward still more prominently the search for Individual Happiness, with a fixed assumption that this is best secured through the promotion of the general good. No action, he declares, can be called 'morally good that does not in its own nature contribute somewhat to the happiness of men.' The speciality of his view is his professing not to make an induction as regards the character of actions from the observation of their effects, but to deduce the propriety of (benevolent) actions from, the consideration of the character and position of rational agents in nature. Rules of conduct, all directed to the promotion of the Happiness of rational agents, may thus be found in the form of propositions impressed upon the mind by the Nature of Things; and these are then interpreted to be laws of Nature (summed up in the one great Law), promulgated by God with the natural effects of actions as Sanctions of Reward and Punishment to enforce them.
II.—His Psychology of Ethics may be reduced to the following heads.
1. The Faculty is the Reason, apprehending the exact Nature of Things, and determining accordingly the modes of action that are best suited to promote the happiness of rational agents.
2. Of the Faculty, under the name ofConscience, he gives this description: 'The mind is conscious to itself of all its own actions, and both can, and often does, observe what counsels produced them; it naturally sits a judge upon its own actions, and thence procures to itself either tranquillity and joy, or anxiety and sorrow.' The principal design of his whole book is to show 'how this power of the mind, either by itself, or excited by external objects, forms certain universal practical propositions, which give us a more distinct idea of the happiness of mankind, and pronounces by what actions of ours, in all variety of circumstances, that happiness may most effectually be obtained.' [Conscience is thus only Reason, or the knowing faculty in general, as specially concerned about actions in their effect upon happiness; it rarely takes the place of the more general term.]
3. He expressly leaves aside the supposition that we haveinnate ideasof the laws of Nature whereby conduct is to be guided, or of the matters that they are conversant about. He has not, he says, been so happy as to learn the laws of Nature by so short a way, and thinks it ill-advised to build the doctrine of natural religion and morality upon a hypothesis that has been rejected by the generality of philosophers, as well heathen as Christian, and can never be proved against the Epicureans, with whom lies his chief controversy. Yet he declines to oppose the doctrine of innate ideas, because it looks with a friendly eye upon piety and morality; and perhaps it may be the case, that such ideas arebothborn with us and afterwards impressed upon us from without.
4. Will, he defines as 'the consent of the mind with the judgment of the understanding, concerning things agreeing among themselves.' Although, therefore, he supposes that nothing but Good and Evil can determine the will, and that the will is evennecessarilydetermined to seek the one and flee the other, he escapes the conclusion that the will is moved only by private good, by accepting the implication of private with common good as the fixed judgment of the understanding or right reason.
5. He argues against the resolution of all Benevolence into self-seeking, and thus claims for man a principle of disinterested action. But what he is far more concerned to prove is, that benevolence of all to all accords best with the whole frame of nature, stands forth with perfect evidence, upon a rational apprehension of the universe, as the great Law of Nature, and is the most effectual means of promoting the happiness of individuals, viz., through the happiness of all.
III.—Happiness is given as connected with the most full and constant exercise of all our powers, about the best and greatest objects and effects that are adequate and proportional to them; as consisting in the enlargement or perfection of the faculties of any one thing or several. Here, and in his protest against Hobbes's taking affection and desire, instead of Reason, as the measure of the goodness of things, may be seen in what way he passes from the conception of Individual, to the notion of Common Good, as the end of action. Reason affirms the common good to be more essentially connected with the perfection of man than any pursuit of private advantage. Still there is no disposition in him to sacrifice private to the common good: he declares that no man is called on to promote the common good beyond his ability, and attaches no meaning to the general good beyond the special good ofallthe particular rational agents in their respective places, from God (to whom he ventures to ascribe a Tranquillity, Joy, or Complacency) downwards. The happiness of men he considers asInternal, arisingimmediatelyfrom the vigorous exercise of the faculties about their proper and noblest objects; andExternal, themediateadvantages procurable from God and men by a course of benevolent action.
IV.—His Moral Code is arrived at by a somewhat elaborate deduction from the great Law of Nature enjoining Benevolence or Promotion of the Common Good of all rational beings.
This Common Good comprehends the Honour of God, and the Good orHappiness of Men, as Nations, Families, and Individuals.
The actions that promote this Common Good, are Acts either of the understanding, or of the will and affections, or of the body as determined by the will. From this he finds thatPrudence(including Constancy of Mind and Moderation) is enjoined in the Understanding, and, in the Will,Universal Benevolence(making, with Prudence,Equity),Government of the Passions, and the Special Laws of Nature—Innocence, Self-denial, Gratitude, &c.
This he gets from the consideration of what is contained in the general Law of Nature. But the obligation to the various moral virtues does not appear, until he has shown that the Law of Nature, for procuring the Common Happiness of all, suggests a natural law ofUniversal Justice, commanding to make and preserve adivisionof Rights,i.e., giving to particular persons Property or Dominion over things and persons necessary to their Happiness. There are thus Rights of God (to Honour, Glory, &c.) and Rights of Men (to have those advantages continued to them whereby they may preserve and perfect themselves, and be useful to all others).
For the same reason thatRightsof particular persons are fixed and preserved, viz., that the common good of all should be promoted by every one,—twoObligationsare laid upon all.
(1) Of GIVING: We are to contribute to others such a share of the things committed to our trust, as may not destroy the part that is necessary to our own happiness. Hence are obligatory the virtues (a) in regard to Gifts,Liberality, Generosity, Compassion, &c.; (b) in regard to Common Conversation or Intercourse,Gravity and Courteousness, Veracity, Faith, Urbanity, &c.
(2) Of RECEIVING: We are to reserve to ourselves such use of our own, as may be most advantageous to, or at least consistent with, the good of others. Hence the obligation or the virtues pertaining to the various branches of a limited Self-Love, (a) with regard to ouressential parts, viz., Mind and Body—Temperancein the natural desires concerned in the preservation of the individual and the species; (b) with regard togoods of fortune—Modesty, Humility, and Magnanimity.
V.—He connects Politics with Ethics, by finding, in the establishment of civil government, a more effectual means of promoting the common happiness according to the Law of Nature, than in any equal division of things. But the Law of Nature, he declares, being before the civil laws, and containing the ground of their obligation, can never be superseded by these. Practically, however, the difference between him and Hobbes comes to very little; he recognizes no kind of earthly check upon the action of the civil power.
VI.—With reference to Religion, he professes to abstain entirely from theological questions, and does abstain from mixing up the doctrines of Revelation. But he attaches a distinctly divine authority to his moral rules, and supplements earthly by supernatural sanctions.
Cudworth'sTreatise concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality, did not appear until 1731, more than forty years after his death. Having in a former work ('Intellectual system of the Universe') contended against the 'Atheistical Fate' of Epicurus and others, he here attacks the 'Theologick Fate' (the arbitrarily omnipotent Deity) of Hobbes, charging him with reviving exploded opinions of Protagoras and the ancient Greeks, that take away the essential and eternal discrimination of moral good and evil, of just and unjust.
After piling up, out of the store of his classical and scholastic erudition, a great mass of testimony regarding all who had ever founded distinctions of Right and Wrong upon mere arbitrary disposition, whether of God or the State of men in general, he shadows forth his own view. Moral Good and Evil, Just and Unjust, Honest and Dishonest (if they be not mere names without any signification, or names for nothing else butWilledorCommanded, but have a reality in respect of the persons obliged to do and to avoid them), cannot possibly be arbitrary things, made by Will without nature; because it is universally true that Things are what they are not by Will, but by nature. As it is the nature of a triangle to have three angles equal to two right angles, so it is the nature of 'good things' to have the nature of goodness, and things just the nature of justice; and Omnipotence is no more able to make a thing good without the fixed nature of goodness, than to make a triangular body without the properties of a triangle, or two things like or equal, without the natures of Likeness and Equality. The Will of God is the supremeefficientcause of all things, but not theformalcause of anything besides itself. Nor is this to be understood as at all derogating from God's perfection; to make natural justice and right independent of his will is merely to set his Wisdom, which is a rule or measure, above his Will, which is something indeterminate, but essentially regulable and measureable; and if it be the case that above even his wisdom, and determining it in turn, stands his Infinite Goodness, the greatest perfection of his will must lie in its being thus twice determined.
By far the largest part of Cudworth's treatise consists of a general metaphysical argument to establish the independence of the mind's faculty of Knowledge, with reference to Sense and Experience. In Sense, according to the doctrine of the old 'Atomical philosophy' (of Democritus, Protagoras, &c.—but he thinks it must be referred back to Moses himself!), he sees nothing butfanciesexcited in us by local motions in the organs, taken on from 'the motion of particles' that constitute 'the whole world.' All the more, therefore, must there exist a superior power of Intellection and Knowledge of a different nature from sense, a power not terminating in mere seeming and appearance only, but in the reality of things, and reaching to the comprehension of what really and absolutely is; whose objects are the immutable and eternal essences and natures of things, and their unchangeable relations to one another. TheseRationesor Verities of things areintelligible. only; are all comprehended in the eternal mind or intellect of the Deity, and from Him derived to our 'particular intellects.' They are neither arbitrary nor phantastical—neither alterable by Will nor changeable by Opinion.
Such eternal and immutable Verities, then, the moral distinctions of Good and Evil are, in the pauses of the general argument, declared to be. They, 'as they must have some certain natures which are the actions or souls of men,' are unalterable by Will or Opinion. 'Modifications of Mind and Intellect,' they are as much more real and substantial things than Hard, Soft, Hot, and Cold, modifications of mere senseless matter—and even so, on the principles of the atomical philosophy, dependent on the soul for their existence—as Mind itself stands prior in the order of nature to Matter. In the mind they are as 'anticipations of morality' springing up, not indeed 'from certain rules or propositions arbitrarily printed on the soul as on a book,' but from some more inward and vital Principle in intellectual beings, as such whereby these have within themselves a natural determination to do some things and to avoid others.
The only other ethical determinations made by Cudworth may thus be summarized:—Things callednaturallyGood and Due are such asthe intellectual natureobliges to immediately, absolutely, and perpetually, and upon no condition of any voluntary action done or omitted intervening; thingspositivelyGood and Due are such as are in themselves indifferent, but the intellectual nature obliges to them accidentally or hypothetically, upon condition, in the case of a command, of some voluntary act of another person invested with lawful authority, or of one's self, in the case of a specific promise. In a positive command (as of the civil ruler), whatobligesis only the intellectual nature of him that is commanded, in that he recognizes the lawful authority of him that commands, and so far determines and modifies his general duty of obedience as to do an action immaterial in itself for the sake of the formality of yielding obedience to lawfully constituted authority. So, in like manner, a specific promise, in itself immaterial and not enjoined by natural justice, is to be kept for the sake of the formality of keeping faith, whichisenjoined.
Cudworth's work, in which these are nearly all the ethical allusions, gives no scope for a summary under the various topics.
I.—Specially excluding any such ExternalStandardof moral Good as the arbitrary Will, either of God or the Sovereign, he views it as a simple ultimate natural quality of actions or dispositions, as included among the verities of things, by the side of which the phenomena of Sense are unreal.
II.—The general Intellectual Faculty cognizes the moral verities, which it contains within itself and brings rather than finds.
III.—He does not touch upon Happiness; probably he would lean to asceticism. He sets up no moral code.
IV.—Obligation to the Positive Civil Laws in matters indifferent follows from the intellectual recognition of the established relation between ruler and subject.
V.—Morality is not dependent upon the Deity in any other sense than the whole frame of things is.
Clarke put together his two series of Boyle Lectures (preached 1704 and 1705) as 'A Discourse, concerning the Being and Attributes of God, the Obligations of Natural Religion and the Truth and Certainty of the Christian Revelation,' in answer to Hobbes, Spinoza, &c. The burden of the ethical discussion falls under the head of the Obligations of Natural Religion, in the second series.
He enounces this all-comprehensive proposition: 'The same necessary and eternal different Relations that different Things bear one to another, and the same consequent Fitness or Unfitness of the application of different things or different relations one to another, with regard to which the will of God always and necessarily does determine itself to choose to act only what is agreeable to Justice, Equity, Goodness, and Truth, in order to the welfare of the whole universe—ought likewise constantly to determine the Wills of all subordinate rational beings, to govern all their actions by the same rules, for the good of the public, in their respective stations. That is, these eternal and necessary differences of things make it fit and reasonable for creatures so to act; they cause it to be their duty, or lay an obligation on them so to do; even separate from the consideration of these Rules being the positive Will or Command of God, and also antecedent to any respect or regard, expectation or apprehension of any particular private and personal Advantage or Disadvantage, Reward or Punishment, either present or future, annexed either by natural consequence, or by positive appointment, to the practising or neglecting of these rules. In the explication of this, nearly his whole system is contained.
His first concern is to impress the fact that there are necessary and eternal differences of ail things, and implied or consequent relations (proportions or disproportions) existing amongst them; and to bring under this general head the special case of differences of Persons (e.g., God and Man, Man and Fellow-man), for the sake of the implication that to different persons there belong peculiarFitnessesandUnfitnessesof circumstances; or, which is the same thing, that there arises necessarily amongst them a suitableness or unsuitableness of certain manners of Behaviour. The counter-proposition that he contends against is, that the relations among persons depend uponpositive constitutionof some kind, instead of being founded unchangeably inthe nature and reason of things.
Next he shows how, in the rational or intellectual recognition of naturally existent relations amongst things (he always means persons chiefly), there is contained an obligation. When God, in his Omniscience and absolute freedom from error, is found determining his Will always according to this eternal reason of things, it is very unreasonable and blameworthy in the intelligent creatures whom he has made so far like himself, not to govern their actions by the same eternal rule of Reason, but to suffer themselves to depart from it through negligentmisunderstandingor wilfulpassion. Herein lies obligation: a manoughtto act according to the Law of Reason, because he can as little refrain fromassentingto the reasonableness and fitness of guiding his actions by it, as refuse his assent to a geometrical demonstration when he understands the terms. The original obligation of all is the eternal Reason of Things; the sanction of Rewards and Punishments (though 'truly the most effectual means of keeping creatures in their duty') is only a secondary and additional obligation. Proof of his position he finds in men's judgment of their own actions, better still in their judgments of others' actions, best of all in their judgment of injuries inflicted on themselves. Nor does any objection hold from the ignorance of savages in matters of morality: they are equally ignorant of the plainest mathematical truths; the need of instruction does not take away the necessary difference of moral Good and Evil, any more than it takes away the necessary proportions of numbers. He, then, instead of deducing all our several duties as he might, contents himself with mentioning the three great branches of them, (a) Duties in respect ofGod, consisting of sentiments and acts (Veneration, Love, Worship, &c.) called forth by the consideration of his attributes, and having a character of Fitness far beyond any that is visible in applyingequalgeometrical figures to one another, (b) Duties in respect of ourFellow-creatures:(1) Justice and Equity, the doing as we would be done by. Iniquity is the very same in Action, as Falsity or Contradiction in Theory; what makes the oneabsurdmakes the otherunreasonable; 'it would be impossible for men not to be as much (!) ashamed ofdoing Iniquity, as they are ofbelieving Contradictions;' (2)Universal Love or Benevolence, the promoting the welfare or happiness of all, which is obligatory on various grounds: the Good being the fit and reasonable, the greatest Good is themostfit and reasonable; by this God's action is determined, and so ought ours; no Duty affords a more ample pleasure; besides having a 'certain natural affection' for those most closely connected with us, we desire to multiply affinities, which means to found society, for the sake of the more comfortable life that mutual good offices bring. [This is a very confused deduction of anobligation.'] (c) Duties in respect to ourSelves, viz.,self-preservation, temperance, contentment, &c.; for not being authors of our being, we have no just power or authority to take it away directly, or, by abuse of our faculties, indirectly.
After expatiating in a rhetorical strain on the eternal, universal, and absolutely unchangeable character of the law of Nature or Right Reason, he specifies the sense wherein the eternal moral obligations are independent of the will of God himself; it comes to this, that, although God makes all things and the relations between them, nothing is holy and good because he commands it, but he commands it because it is holy and good. Finally, he expounds the relation of Reward and Punishment to the law of Nature; the obligation of it is before and distinct from these; but, while full of admiration for the Stoical idea of the self-sufficiency of virtue, he is constrained to add that 'men never will generally, and indeed 'tis not very reasonably to be expected they should, part with all the comforts of life, and even life itself, without any expectation of a future recompense.' The 'manifold absurdities' of Hobbes being first exposed, he accordingly returns, in pursuance of the theological argument of his Lectures, to show that the eternal moral obligations, founded on the natural differences of things, are at the same time the express will and command of God to all rational creatures, and must necessarily and certainly be attended with Rewards and Punishments in a future state.
The summary of Clarke's views might stand thus:—
I.—The STANDARD is a certain Fitness of action between persons, implicated in their nature as much as any fixed proportions between numbers or other relation among things. Except in such an expression as this, moral good admits of no kind of external reference.
II.—There is very little Psychology involved. The Faculty is the Reason; its action a case of mere intellectual apprehension. The element of Feeling is nearly excluded. Disinterested sentiment is so minor a point as to call forth only the passing allusion to 'a certain natural affection.'
III.—Happiness is not considered except in a vague reference to good public and private as involved with Fit and Unfit action.
IV.—His account of Duties is remarkable only for the consistency of his attempt to find parallels for each amongst intellectual relations. The climax intended in the assimilation of Injustice to Contradictions is a very anti-climax; if people were only 'as much' ashamed of doing injustice as of believing contradictions, the moral order of the world would be poorly provided for.
V.—The relation of Ethics to Politics is hardly touched. Society is born of the desire to multiply affinities through mutual interchange of good offices.
VI.—His Ethical disquisition is only part of a Theological argument; and this helps to explain his assertion of the Independence as well as of the Insufficiency of Morality. The final outcome of the discussion is that Morality needs the support of Revelation. But, to get from this an argument for the truth of Revelation, it is necessary that morality should have an independent foundation in the nature of things, apart from any direct divine appointment.
WILLIAM WOLLASTON (1659-1724), author of the 'Religion of Nature Delineated,' is usually put into the same class of moralists with Clarke. With him, abadaction (whether of commission or omission) contains the denial of a true proposition. Truth can be denied by actions as well as by words. Thus, the violation of a contract is the denial by an action that the contract has been concluded. Robbing a traveller is the denial that what you take from him is his. An action that denies one or more true propositions cannot be good, and is necessarily bad. Agoodaction is one whose omission would be bad or whose contrary is bad, in the above sense. Anindifferentaction is one that can be omitted or done without contradicting any truth. Reason, the judge of what is true and false, is the only faculty concerned; but, at the same time, Wollaston makes large reference to the subject of Happiness, finding it to consist in an excess of pleasures as compared with pains. He holds that his doctrine is in conformity with all the facts. It affirms a progressive morality, that keeps pace with and depend upon the progress of Science. It can explainerrorsin morals as distinct from vice. An error is the affirmation by an action of a false proposition, thought to be true; the action is bad, but the agent is innocent.
Locke did not apply himself to the consecutive evolution of an Ethical theory; whence his views, although on the whole sufficiently unmistakeable, are not always reconcileable with one another.
In Book I. of the 'Essay on the Understanding' he devotes himself to the refutation of Innate Ideas, whether Speculative or Practical. Chap. III. is on the alleged Innate Practical Principles, or rules of Right and Wrong. The objections urged against these Principles have scarcely been added to, and have never been answered. We shall endeavour to indicate the heads of the reasoning.
1. The Innate Practical Principles are for the most part not self-evident; they are, in this respect, not on an equal footing with the Speculative Principles whose innate origin is also disputed. They require reasoning and explanation in order to be understood. Many men are ignorant of them, while others assent to them slowly, if they do assent to them; all which is at variance with their being innate.
2. There is no Practical Principle universally received among mankind. All that can be said of Justice is thatmost menagree to recognize it. It is vain to allege of confederacies of thieves, that they keep faith with one another; for this keeping of faith is merely for their own convenience. We cannot call that a sense of Justice which merely binds a man to a certain number of his fellow-criminals, in order the more effectually to plunder and kill honest men. Instead of Justice, it is the essential condition of success in Injustice.
If it be said in reply, that these men tacitly assent in their minds to what their practice contradicts, Locke answers, first, that men's actions must be held as the best interpreters of their thoughts; and if many men's practices, and some men's open professions, have been opposed to these principles, we cannot conclude them to be Innate. Secondly, It is difficult for us to assent to Innate Practical Principles, ending only in contemplation. Such principles either influence our conduct, or they are nothing. There is no mistake as to the Innate principles of the desire of happiness, and aversion to misery; these do not stop short in tacit assent, but urge every man's conduct every hour of his life. If there were anything corresponding to these in the sense of Right and Wrong, we should have no dispute about them.
3. There is no Moral rule, that may not have a reason demanded for it; which ought not to be the case with any innate principle. That we should do as we would be done by, is the foundation of all morality, and yet, if proposed to any one for the first time, might not such an one, without absurdity, ask a reason why? But this would imply that there is some deeper principle for it to repose upon, capable of being assigned as its motive; that it is not ultimate, and therefore not innate. That men should observe compacts is a great and undeniable rule, yet, in this, a Christian would give as reason the command of God; a Hobbist would say that the public requires it, and would punish for disobeying it; and an old heathen philosopher would have urged that it was opposed to human virtue and perfection.
Bound up with this consideration, is the circumstance that moral rules differ among men, according to their views of happiness. The existence of God, and our obedience to him, are manifest in many ways, and are the true ground of morality, seeing that only God can call to account every offender; yet, from the union of virtue and public happiness, all men have recommended the practice of what is for their own obvious advantage. There is quite enough in this self-interest to cause moral rules to be enforced by men that care neither for the supreme Lawgiver, nor for the Hell ordained by him to punish transgressors.
After all, these great principles of morality are more commended than practised. As to Conscience checking us in these breaches, making them fewer than they would otherwise be, men may arrive at such a conscience, or self-restraining sentiment, in other ways than by an innate endowment. Some men may come to assent to moral rules from a knowledge of their value as means to ends. Others may take up the same view as a part of their education. However the persuasion is come by, it will serve as a conscience; which conscience is nothing else than our own opinion of the rectitude or pravity of our actions.
How could men with serenity and confidence transgress rules stamped upon their inmost soul? Look at the practices of nations civilized and uncivilized; at the robberies, murders, rapes of an army sacking a town; at the legalized usages of nations, the destruction of infants and of aged parents for personal convenience; cannibalism; the most monstrous forms of unchastity; the fashionable murder named Duelling. Where are the innate principles of Justice, Piety, Gratitude, Equity, Chastity?
If we read History, and cast our glance over the world, we shall scarcely find any rule of Morality (excepting such as are necessary to hold society together, and these too with great limitations) but what is somewhere or other set aside, and an opposite established, by whole societies of men. Men may break a law without disowning it; but it is inconceivable that a whole nation should publicly reject and renounce what every one of them, certainly and infallibly, knows to be a law. Whatever practical principle is innate, must be known to every one to be just and good. The generally allowed breach of any rule anywhere must be held to prove that it is not innate. If there be any rule having a fair claim to be imprinted by nature, it is the rule that Parents should preserve and cherish their children. If such a principle be innate, it must be found regulating practice everywhere; or, at the lowest, it must be known and assented to. But it is very far from having been uniformly practised, even among enlightened nations. And as to its being an innate truth, known to all men, that also is untrue. Indeed, the terms of it are not intelligible without other knowledge. The statement, 'it is the duty of parents to preserve their children,' cannot be understood without a Law; a Law requires a Lawmaker, and Reward or Punishment. And as punishment does not always follow in this life, nothing less than a recognition of Divine Law will suffice; in other words, there must be intuitions of God, Law, Obligation, Punishment, and a Future Life: every one of which may be, and is, deemed to be innate.
It is incredible that men, if all these things were stamped on their minds, could deliberately offend against them; still more, that rulers should silently connive at such transgressions.
4. The supporters of innate principles are unable to point out distinctly what they are.[18] Yet, if these were imprinted on the mind, there could be no more doubt about them than about the number of our fingers. We well know that, if men of different sects were to write out their respective lists, they would set down exactly such as suited their several schools or churches.
There is, Locke remarks, a ready, but not very material, answer to his objections, namely, that the innate principles may, by Education and Custom, be darkened and worn out of men's minds. But this takes away at once the argument from universal consent, and leaves nothing but what each party thinks should pass for universal consent, namely, their own private persuasion: a method whereby a set of men presuming themselves to be the only masters of right reason, put aside the votes and opinions of the rest of mankind. Thus, notwithstanding the innate light, we are as much in the dark as if it did not exist; a rule that will warp any way is not to be distinguished amidst its contraries. If these rules are so liable to vary, through adventitious notions, we should find them clearest in children and in persons wholly illiterate. He grants that there are many opinions, received by men of different countries, educations, and tempers, and held as unquestionable first principles; but then the absurdity of some, and the mutual contradiction of others, make it impossible that they should be all true. Yet it will often happen that these men will sooner part with their lives, than suffer the truth of their opinions to be questioned.