First Principles of Ethics: Designed as a Basis for Instruction in Ethical Science in Schools and Colleges

الغلاف الأمامي
Woolworth, Ainsworth and Company, 1861 - 204 من الصفحات
"The favor with which my textbook on Intellectual Philosophy has been received, and the need which I have felt in my own classes of a similar book on Ethics, have induced me to add this to the many excellent treatises on that subject already in existence. The great enlargement of the list of studies in our schools and colleges, of late years, renders it more desirable than ever that textbooks should be brief, presenting only essential principles, to the neglect of details, which may be supplied by the teacher, or by general reading. These considerations have determined the form of the present treatise. At the same time, I have hoped to present a more orderly outline of the principles of the science, and supply a more rational foundation for them, than has usually been done in treatises on Ethics. The doctrine that right is conformity in conduct to the nature and reason of things, is not, indeed, a new doctrine, but it has been a good deal overlooked of late, and has never, perhaps, been fully and consistently carried out. Whether it has been in the present instance or not others must judge. Aiming at an orderly and consecutive development of the principles of the science, I have introduced the opinions of others but sparingly into the text. These have generally been reserved to the end, where they have been presented together, in the form of an Historical Abstract, which, it is hoped, will be found both interesting and profitable"--Préface

من داخل الكتاب

عبارات ومصطلحات مألوفة

مقاطع مشهورة

الصفحة 95 - Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear ; not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward.
الصفحة 35 - ... when we would do good evil is present with us ; if we find a law in our members warring against the law of our mind and bringing us into captivity to the law of sin in our members; Help us, we beseech thee, O our Father.
الصفحة 165 - I answer: it has been proved that man by his nature is a law to himself, without the particular distinct consideration of the positive sanctions of that law ; the rewards and punishments which we feel, and those which from the light of reason we have ground to believe, are annexed to it. The question then carries its own answer along with it. Your obligation to obey this law, is its being the law of your nature. That your conscience approves of and attests to such a course of action, is itself alone...
الصفحة 170 - And with respect to restraint and confinement : whoever will consider the restraints from fear and shame, the dissimulation, mean arts of concealment, servile compliances, one or other of which belong to almost every course of vice, will soon be convinced that the man of virtue is by no means upon a disadvantage in this respect. How many instances are there in which men feel and own and cry aloud under the chains of vice with which they are enthralled, and which yet they will not shake off? How many...
الصفحة 166 - ... what is wanting is only that he honestly attend to it ;" and, in enforcing the authority of this natural monitor, " your obligation to obey this law is its being the law of your nature. That your conscience approves of and attests to such a course of action is itself alone an obligation. Conscience does not only offer itself to show us the way we should walk in, but it likewise carries its own authority with it, that it is our natural guide— the guide assigned us by the Author of our nature....
الصفحة 165 - But allowing that mankind hath the rule of right within himself, yet it may be asked, "What obligations are we under to attend to and follow it? " I answer: it has been proved that man by his nature is a law to himself, without the particular distinct consideration of the positive sanctions of that law; the rewards and punishments which we feel, and those which from the light of reason we have ground to believe, are...
الصفحة 48 - ... those principles from which men would act if occasions and circumstances gave them power, and which, when fixed and habitual in any person, we call his character. It does not appear that brutes have the least reflex sense of actions as distinguished from events, or that will and design, which constitute the very nature of actions, as such, are at all an object of their perception. But to ours they are; and they are the object, and the only one, of the approving and disapproving faculty.
الصفحة 165 - The question, then, carries its own answer along with it. Your obligation to obey this law, is its being the law of your nature. That your conscience approves of and attests to such a course of action, is itself alone an obligation. Conscience does not only offer itself to show us the way we should walk in, but it likewise i carries its own authority with it that it is our natural guide...
الصفحة 95 - But a religion which laid down the broad rule of duty, that " all things whatsoever we would that men should do to us, we should do even so to them," could not have sanctioned slavery in any way.

معلومات المراجع