Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 07.djvu/271

* ETHICS. 239 ETHICS. characteristic of nil mental processes. We begin by saying to ourselves, 'Do this, because you want that,' and we end by saying shortly, 'Do this.' Ami not only may we tail tci give a reason, but, as often happens in other reasoned proce-MS, we may come to forget that we have hail a reason. Then the command appeals as self-evidently rea- sonable. That this process actually takes place cannot he denied. But it is perhaps nol the strongest influence at work in producing categor- ical imperatives. For this we must perhaps loo] to another principle well recognized in psychol- ogy, though not as yet, so far as the writer know-, ever applied to explain the consciousness of unconditional obligation. The principle in its simplest, form appears in hypnotism (q.v.). It is well known that a hyp- notic subject feels constrained to follow almost all the commands of his hypnotizer. Ordinarily he unhesitatingly obeys, and does not question the latter's right to issue orders. He may begin to do something else, but feels a restraining force. If he stops short of full performance he will say to himself, as one of Ochorowiez's patients is re- corded to have said, 'I have something yet to do' (Ochorowicz, Mental 8uggestion,-'English transla- tion, page 03: New York, iSOl). This suscep- tibility to the word of command is not a phenom- enon peculiar to hypnosis. We all know how strong is often the impulsion to do what a man with 'strong personality' orders us to do. We say he has 'personal magnetism,' and can make everybody do what he wants. We are also coming to say sometimes that he hypnotizes us. Now if we reflect that there are certain com- mands that have been issued to us from our in- fancy up, by those who in our childhood imposed themselves upon our will; if we remember that every time we were caught disobeying them we were made to feel the inexorable resolution in all our friends to hold us up to the law laid down: if we consider how our counter-tendencies were stern- ly cheeked while the 'suggestive' force of the com- mand was allowed free swing, can we wonder that in presence of such a constant, uninterrupted imposition of commands upon us, even the most stubborn of us have come to feel, when we fail to live up to those laws, as the hypnotic subject above alluded to felt — that we 'have something yet to do' ? Gradually the very thought of acts contrary to these commands calls up in our con- sciousness the momentous words, 'Thou shalt not,' and the long habit of acknowledging their author- ity accords them, when thus revived, not by rep- etition of outward injunction, but by the psychic law of association, the same recognition of right- ful claim over us as they had when enforced by parent, and teacher and preacher and exacting neighbor. The outer law of man becomes now the inner law of 'conscience,' and under the influence of current conceptions may be referred to some daimon, as by Socrates, or to some ministering angel, or to God's voice in man's soul. All these explanations are but attempts to explain the fact. easily explicable by psychological laws, that "when Duty whispers low 'Thou must,'" Duty is only a reverberating echo of old commands so indefatigably inculcated on us by all the per- sonal agencies that have taken part in our moral education. Reason has no part to play in this process. The most absurd commands may lie im- posed and be loyally accepted as unconditionally binding, as the history of the moral ness shows. Ian a inn., comes in the history oi some indi- viduals when the spell of the woid of command is broken. They begin to ask, 'Why must J be moral? 1 They challenge the authority. bitrary despotism, ami demand a reason > moral law. This i- a critical moment, big with possibilities of progress or downfall. In default of wide experience a man may at such a juncture di ote him eli to w ha1 lie calls plea jun H. however, ii can !»• shown him that (he law did not enter that offense might abound, but, in large measure, that invaluable I an ends might be realized, the desire he may naturally have tor these ends may turn into conditional, teleologic al imperatives tl bligations heretofore blindly accepted but now questioned. Open-eyed -ub- mission may take the place of tin' blind hypnotic control, now spurned: and 'in the confidence of reason' he may come to yield himself a loyal subject to the law as a law of liberty. When the change takes place it nuM. he ex pected that the contents of the law will not re- main wholly unchanged. Of the many exactions made in the name of morality, it would he -t range if some are not found useless or even mischievous. In the nature of the ease this discovery can never be the work of any one man or age. The problem is too complex, and the complexity is increased by a constant shifting of values (Nietzsche's Umiceriung). A teleological moral- ity is that system of conduct that most complete- ly meets human needs and realizes human aspira- tions. As needs and aspirations vary, so teleo- logical morality must vary. Thus the partial solution of the moral problem of one age mean- a change in terms of the problem for the next; for every partial solution creates a new -it nation giving a new outlook, and the exact attitude of new beings, to a new situation with a new outlook can never be foretold by human prophecy. This, however, is no reason for despair; for only those who look forward with ecstasy to stagnation could wish to have the problem of morality definitely solved with one flash of insight. But while the problem is never solved definitely, it is progressively solved. Adapting Hegel's words we may say. Die Siftengeschichte ist das Bitten- gericht — The history of morals is the judgment of morals. And the greater the part that intel- ligence plays in directing the cause of moral development, the more nearly does the historical solution of the problem correspond to the right answer for the time. We thus see that morality can be described in terms of neither categorical obligation nor hypothetical obligation, but these two forms of obligation represent two stages of morality. Teleological ethics and duty ethics each haves, therefore, out of account a large part of the moral phenomena. The rival schools ought to join hands in recognizing that each is true to certain facts of the moral life, while neglecting others upon which its rival has concentrated its atten- tion, in this article, however, duty ethics needs no further specific treatment. Teleological ethics cannot yet be dismissed. Tt is not enough to know that morality tends to become teleological. We must discover what end it, comes to recognize as imposing the obligation to be moral. Is there any single object the desire for which is supreme