Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/434

420 tion of physical power has remained quite pronounced. It was strikingly characteristic of the heroes in Homer's poems and of the Greek gods. A little later in the aesthetic history of Greece the element of symmetry, of proportion, came to have a recognized and important place in the ideal. Later still, to strength, magnitude, and symmetry, as objective factors, were added the subjective factors of courage and cunning. The latter was not long after ruled out of the æsthetic ideal. The point we desire to call attention to here is that the ruling out of cunning was due, not to the recognition of its social disutility, but to the feeling of its contradiction with the elements of courage, size, and strength; and it should be noted, further, that the elements of magnitude and strength have not been chosen on account of their social value.

But ere craftiness had fallen so completely in disfavor, it had given birth to prudence and moderation, through its union with courage. The later æsthetic ideal, especially in some civilizations as in Brahmanism, has consisted chiefly of the passive and subjective virtues. The continued evolution of the æsthetico-moral element has been, in spite of some arrests and regressions, gradually away from the objective to the subjctive, as in Buddhism and Stoicism, and as in the philosophy of Descartes and of Kant. But the æsthetico-moral ideal should include in a comprehensive synthesis of courage and force of mind, of moderation and temperance, of intelligence and science, also strength, health and beauty of body, the harmony of which last three gives, in a certain measure, an internal harmony. Such is the conception of morality that seems to be gaining recognition.—, "Les éléments et l'évolution de la moralité," in Revue philosophique, July, 1903. [To be continued.]

The Nature of Morality.—The sentiment of approbation or disapprobation which inspires such and such conduct is the starting-point of moral value. Any judgment assumes some standard. The moral law, like the civil law, may be defined as the expression of the general will. In any group there is a general spirit (âme) consisting of the traditional beliefs and ways of acting, common sentiment and accepted evaluations, general precepts and formulas of conduct, reasonings familiar to all, judgments of conventionality, etc. Such might be put under the general head of customs (mœurs). But not all that conforms to custom is moral. Only the observation or violation of customs expressly imposed and sanctioned by the public will have moral value. The moral may be defined as the body of customs formulated in prohibitions and precepts (défenses et prescriptions) having an expressly coercive sanction and imposed by the public will of a group.

The ideas of the moral expressing the exigencies of the collective will necessarily vary; also the class of facts to which importance in morals attaches changes with the times and conditions. "The altruistic sentiment," says Durkheim, "presents the moral character in a manner most marked, but there was a time, not long ago, when the religious, domestic, and a thousand other traditional sentiments had exactly the same effect;" but at present we see no other criterion of moral value than the collective will (volonté collective).

Individual morality is the estimation of the acts of the individual by the public eye. Moral conscience is only a secondary fact, is only the echo of the judgments and precepts of social morality. The morality of the individual then, as his religion and his language, changes with that of the group, of the race, and of the epoch to which he belongs. The welfare of the group is the origin and external sanction of morality. Acting for the welfare of the group becomes organized back into the individual and his moral conscience, but reflects the demands of the exterior sanction. The action of the individual may have an affective element, varying according to the vitalness of the occasion and the degree of habituation. Acting in a way that is moral agreeing with the external restraint and therefore with the moral conscience of the individual may become so habitual as to be unconscious. Such action is automatic and non-moral, though not immoral. This "downward drift," this putting moral acts into the habitual, frees more energy for the performance of new moral acts. This, together with the inheritance of moral dispositions, in the same way as temperaments are inherited, is the possibility of moral progress.