Page:The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885).djvu/154

Rh it, since the origin of this belief, as of any other mental phenomenon, is a matter to be dealt with by science; and my thesis is that (negatively speaking) scientific truth alone cannot serve as a foundation for a moral system; or (to put it positively), if we have a moral system at all, there must be contained in it, explicitly or implicitly, at least one ethical proposition, of which no proof can be given or required.”

The reader may ask: Is all this the loftiest idealism, or is it simply philosophic skepticism about the basis of ethics? We may leave the reader to examine for himself Mr. Balfour’s very ingenious discussion, but one or two very obvious and simple consequences may be quoted from the rest of the essay, and these will serve well enough to show here the drift of the discussion.

“An ethical proposition is one that prescribes an action with reference to an end.” Every such proposition “belongs to a system.” “The fundamental proposition of every such system states an end, which the person who receives that system regards as final — as chosen for itself alone.” “When two such systems conflict, their rival claims can only be decided by a judgment or proposition not contained in either of them, which shall assert which of these respective fundamental ‘ends’ shall have precedence.” “If revenge against a particular individual is for me an end-in-itself, a proposition which prescribes shooting him from behind a hedge may be one of the dependent propositions belonging to that particular system.” “Though under the name ethical are