Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 11.djvu/430

 J. W. NAHLOWSKY, ALLOEMEINE ETHIK. 429 fundamental relation there corresponds a typical notion or practical idea. The treatment of the original practical Ideas occupies the first book of the second part into which Nahlowsky's Etliik is divided. The second book of the same part works out in interesting detail the derived or social Ideas. The sole appropriateness of Herbart's five practical ideas is indicated in the following way. The definite individual will must either stand related to the generic image of a typical will, or to another individual will. In the former case we have the Idea of Inner or Moral Freedom ; in the latter case, the second individual will may be determined quanti- tatively only giving the Idea of Perfection or it may be qualitatively definite as well. In this case, the second will may, however, not be an active will, but only a presentation and here the Idea of Benevolence applies ; or it may be active, and in this event the contact of the two wills may be either unintentional and indirect whence the relation of conflict and Idea of Eight or it may be intentional and direct, from which results the need of recompense and Idea of Equity. The Ideas do not seem to me to have, in the way that the Herbartian Ethics admits of their being treated, that fruitful application to morality which the author supposes. The first Idea arises (it is said) from the relation in which the will agrees with practical insight or conscience, and this relation pleases unconditionally. The Idea of Freedom, therefore, is the type of a will subordinated to conscience. Freedom here does not mean psychological or political freedom, but moral freedom : " he only is morally free who follows the best reasons, that is, reasons derived from moral types ". So far the Idea remains contentless. The first determination of what is moral is through the Idea of Freedom. But Freedom means moral freedom ; and the morally free man is made to mean simply the moral man, or the man who obeys his conscience. The practical judgment is thus reduced to a fundamental form in which it has unconditioned validity and necessity, but only the necessity and the validity which belong to the analytic judgment or " trifling proposition". The difficulty of extracting moral content from the Herbartian Ideas is exhibited most clearly when we come to the fourth Idea, that of Eight. This indeed may be regarded as the crux of the whole theory. There is a generality in the notions of Perfection and Benevolence which saves them from the peculiar difficulty belonging to the two-sided idea of Eight. They may be affirmed dogmatically, by the assertion that the circumstances they apply to immediately please or displease, without it being shown how they necessarily belong to the moral consciousness. But, in the case of Conflict, the difficulty is not only in the assertion that it is immediately displeasing : although this assertion is not without difficulty, and Nahlowsky devotes considerable attention to it. There is the further difficulty involved that the " displeasing "