discussion relative to the laws of nature taken from the epochmaking work of Hugo Grotius upon "The Rights of War and Peace." From Hobbes' "Leviathan" are taken those chapters wherein the rules of society which men ought to observe are established upon the dictates of right reason, proceeding necessarily from the nature of man. Cudworth, the most distinguished of the English Platonists, sets forth through his "Eternal and Immutable Morality" the essential and eternal distinctions of right and wrong. More, in his "Enchiridion Ethicum," lays down certain noemata into which he believes all moral doctrine may be resolved; and Cumberland, in his "Laws of Nature," becomes the precursor of modern utilitarianism by his one general proposition of benevolence or universal love. In the history of continental morals, from Spinoza's "Ethics" are given the doctrines of his one eternal substance, his three kinds of cognition, and his intellectual love of God. And from Malebranche's "Treatise of Morality" is taken his theory that virtue consists in submission to an immutable and necessary order. Locke, the founder of English empiricism, in his celebrated "Essay on the Human Understanding," refutes here the existence of innate practical principles, and interprets good and evil as pleasure and pain, but nevertheless regards a divine law as "the true touchstone of rectitude." Samuel Clarke's "Discourse on Natural Religion," in the sections reproduced, places ethics among the sciences capable of demonstration from propositions which are as incontestable as those of mathematics. In the "Inquiry concerning Virtue and Merit" the eloquent Shaftesbury insists on the naturalness of man's social affections, and defines virtue as "a conformity of our affections with our natural sense of the sublime and beautiful in things." A brief section from Mandeville's "Fable of the Bees" is included, since it stimulated deeper inquiries on the part of those who opposed his theory, that moral virtue is alien to the natural man. Wollaston, a disciple of Clarke, in the "Religion of Nature Delineated," bases the distinction of good and evil on the respect which men's actions bear to truth. The "Three Sermons" of Bishop Butler printed in this work clearly reveal a fundamental difference between the two great ethical periods, the Greco-Roman and the English. In the former the one regulative principle of reason of the "wise" man is opposed to the uncultivated impulses of the unwise; in the latter period "conscience," or the reflective self-estimate, is opposed to all unreflective tendencies, whether good or bad. Hutcheson's "Inquiry Concerning Moral Good and Evil" is perhaps best known for the doctrine reproduced in the present text that moral distinctions are made known by a special capacity of the soul designated as the "moral sense." Hartley's "Observations on Man," as stimulated by Gay, makes the first systematic application of the laws of association to the explanation of moral phenomena, and is thus the source of modern ethical psychology. In Hume's "Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals," and Adam Smith's "Theory of Moral Sentiments," alike, sympathy is regarded as the sufficient basis of moral approbation, without recourse to a "moral sense," and the trend of later utilitarianism is thereby in no small degree anticipated. Brief chapters from Helvétius' "De l'Esprit" and Paley's "Moral and Political Philosophy" foreshadow Benthamism in the identification of probity or virtue with action productive of happiness. From Bentham's "Morals and Legislation" are printed the fundamental principles of the first really complete and thoroughgoing system of utilitarianism. Price, in his "Review of the Principal Questions in Morals," maintains the existence of other ultimate moral principles, in addition to the utilitarian principle of general benevolence; and Reid, in his "Active Powers of Man," appeals to common sense as the final arbiter of moral evidence. In German ethics, Kant's exposition. of the sublime moral law, or categorical imperative, has been taken from "The Metaphysic of Morals," more particularly because the "Modern Classical Philosophers" already contains his "Critique of Practical Reason." Fichte's deduction of the principle of morality is reproduced from his "Science of Ethics"; and Hegel's conception of the universal will as objectively presented in the state is reproduced from his "Philosophy of Right." Pessimism finds expression in the glowing utterances from Schopenhauer's "World as Will and Idea." The trans lation from Beneke's "Natural System of Morals" offers a psychological basis for ethics, in his distinctions of worth subsisting among psychical functions. Classical extracts illustrating Mill's utilitarianism, Spencer's ethics of evolution, and Sidgwick's philosophical intuitionism or universalistic hedonism, clearly reveal the development of later utilitarianism. Similarly, vital chapters setting forth Bradley's self-realization, Green's development of the moral ideal, and Martineau's idiopsychological ethics present in a cumulative way the most fundamental principles of the recent ethics of intuitionism. The foregoing sketch traces the attempt made in this work to give for the first time in a single volume, selections which may serve to exhibit nearly in chronological order the chief doctrines of the classical moralists, alike in ancient, mediæval, and modern ethics. Numerous texts will be found in the work, that are dispersed in books either difficult of access or belonging to expensive sets. Translations of the ancient classics and of the continental moralists have, so far as is possible, been obtained from writers who have won recognition for accuracy and literary merit. In this book appear also for the first time translations from the Latin, in part, of Abelard's "Ethics, or Know Thyself" and of More's "Enchiridion Ethicum," for which the author is much indebted to the courtesy of his colleague, Professor Edward Kennard Rand, of the classical department in Harvard University. An important chapter from the German of Beneke's "Natural System of Morals" has been translated by the editor, with the desire to secure more serious study of a moralist who deserves much greater recognition than he has heretofore received. His thanks for permission to reprint selections of moralists are also due various publishers and translators, whose names will be found at the beginning of the respective chapters accompanying the titles of the works employed. The book will serve its highest end if its representative selections shall inspire the perusal of the complete works of the classical moralists. BENJAMIN RAND. EMERSON HALL, HARVARD UNIVERSITY. Book III. CHAP. IX. 20 |