Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 8.djvu/631

Rh ETHICS 609 universally and solely governed by self-love, the so-called moral judgments are really the common judgments of any Bociety as to its common interests; that it is therefore futile on the one hand to propose any standard of virtue, except that of conduciveness to general happiness, and on the other hand useless merely to lecture men on duty and scold them for vice ; that the moralist s proper function is rather to exhibit the coincidence of virtue with private happiness; that, accordingly, though nature has bound men s interests together in many ways, and education by developing sym pathy and the habit of mutual help may much extend the connexion, still the most effective moralist is the legislator, who by acting on self-love through legal sanctions may mould human conduct as he chooses. These few simple doctrines give the ground plan of Bentham s indefatigable and life-long labours. So again, in the modified Benthamism which the per suasive exposition of J. S. Mill recently made popular in England, the influence of a French thinker, Auguste Comte (Philosophic Positive, 1829-42, and Systeme de Pditique Positive, 1851-4) appears as the chief modifying element. This influence, so far as it lias affected moral as distinct from political speculation, has been exercised primarily through the general conception of human progress; which, in Comte s view, consists in the ever-growing preponderance of the distinctively human attributes over the purely animal, social feelings being ranked highest among human attri butes, and highest of all the most universalized phase of human affection, the devotion to humanity as a whole. Accordingly, it is the development of benevolence in man, and of the habit of &quot; living for others, which Comte takes as the ultimate aim and standard of practice, rather than the mere increase of happiness He holds, indeed, that the two are inseparable, and that the more altruistic any man s sentiments and habits of action can be made, the greater will be the happiness enjoyed by himself as well as by others. But he does not seriously trouble himself to argue with egoism, or to weigh carefully the amount of happiness that might be generally attained by the satisfaction of egoistic propensities duly regulated ; a supreme unquestion ing self-devotion, in which all personal calculations are sup pressed, is an essential feature of his moral ideal. Such a view is almost diametrically opposed to Bentham s concep tion of normal human existence ; the newer utilitarianism of Mill represents an endeavour to find the right middle path between the two extremes. It is to be observed that, in Comte s view, devotion to humanity is the principle not merely of morality but of religion ; i.f., it should not merely be practically pre dominant, but should be manifested and sustained by regular and partly symbolical forms of expression, private and public. This side of Comte s system, however, and the details of his ideal reconstruction of society, in which this religion plays an important part, have had but little influence either in England or elsewhere. It is more im portant to notice the general effect of his philosophy on the method of determining the particulars of morality as well as of law (as it ought to be). In the utilitarianism of Faley and Bentham the proper rules of conduct, moral and legal, are determined by comparing the imaginary con sequences of different modes of regulation on men and women, conceived as specimens of a substantially uniform and unchanging type, It is true that Bentham expressly recognizes the varying influences of climate, race, religion, government, as considerations which it is important for the legislator to take into account; but his own work of social construction was almost entirely independent of such considerations, and his school generally appear to have been convinced of their competence to solve all important ethical and political questions for human beings of all ages and countries, without regard to their specific differences But in the Comtian conception of social science, of which ethics and politics are the practical application, the know ledge of the laws of the evolution of society is of funda mental and continually increasing importance ; humanity is regarded as having passed through a series of stages, in each of which a somewhat different set of laws and institu tions, customs and habits, is normal and appropriate. Thus present man is a being that can only be understood through a knowledge of his past history ; and any effort to construct for him a moral and political ideal, by a purely abstract and unhistorical method, must be necessarily futile ; whatever modifications may at any time be desirable in positive law and morality can only be determined by the aid of &quot;social dynamics.&quot; This view extends far beyond the limits of Comte s special school or sect, and, indeed, seems to be very widely accepted among educated persons at the present day. When we turn from French philosophy to German, we German find the influence of the latter on English ethical thought influence almost insignificant until a very recent period. In the 17th ng- century, indeed, the treatise of Puffendorf on the Zazo of ^^ Nature, in which the general view of Grotius was restated with modifications, partly designed to effect a com promise with the new doctrine of Hobbes, seems to have been a good deal read at Oxford and elsewhere. Locke includes it among the books necessary to the complete education of a gentleman. But the subsequent develop ment of the theory of conduct in Germany dropped almost entirely out of the cognizance of Englishmen ; even the long dominant system of Wolff (d. 1754), imposing in its elaborate and complete construction, was hardly known to our best informed writers. Nor did the greater fame and more commanding genius of Kant (1724-1804) procure him any English disciples of note, or even lead to the serious study of his ethical system by English moralists, until the second quarter of the present century. We find, however, distinct traces of Kantian influence in Whewell and other recent writers of the intuitional school ; and the continually increasing in terest in the products of the German mind which English men have shown during the last 40 years has caused the works of Kant to be so widely known that it would hardly be fit to close the present article without some account of his ethical doctrines. The English moralist with whom Kant has most affinity Kant. is Price ; in fact, Kantiem, in the ethical thought of modern Europe, holds a place somewhat analogous to that occupied by the teaching of Price and Reid among ourselves. Kant, like Price and Reid, holds that the reason declares the imme diate obligation of certain kinds of conduct, or (to use his phrase) issues &quot;categorical imperatives.&quot; Like Price he holds that an action is not good unless done from a good motive, and that this motive must be essentially different from natural inclination of any kind ; duty, to be duty, must be done for duty s sake ; and he argues, with more subtlety than Price or Reid, that though a virtuous act is no doubt pleasant to the virtuous agent, and any violation of duty painful, this moral pleasure (or pain) cannot strictly be the motive to ths act, because it follows instead of preceding the recognition of our obligation to do it. 1 1 Singularly enough, the English writer who approaches most nearly to Kant&quot; on this point is the utilitarian Godwin, in his 1 oliticalJustice. In Godwin s view, reason is the proper motive to acts conducive to general happiness : reason shows me that the happiness of a number of other men is of more value than my own ; and the perception of this truth affords me at least some inducement to prefer the former to the latter. And supposing it to be replied that the motive is really the moral uneasiness involved in choosing the selfish alternative, Godwin answers that this uneasiness, though a &quot; constant step &quot; in the process of volition, is a merely &quot; accidental &quot; step, &quot; I feel pain in tho VIII. --77