Moral Science, Alexander Bain [top non fiction books of all time TXT] 📗

that it has once been pledged to.

He goes on to distinguish between justice of men or manners, and justice of actions; whereby in the one case men are _just_ or _righteous_, and in the other, _guiltless_. After making the common observation that single inconsistent acts do not destroy a character for justice or injustice, he has this: 'That which gives to human actions the relish of justice, is a certain nobleness or gallantness of courage rarely found, by which a man scorns to be beholden for the contentment of his life to fraud, or breach of promise.' Then he shows the difference between injustice, injury, and damage; asserts that nothing done to a mail with his consent can be injury; and, rejecting the common mode of distinguishing between _commutative_ and _distributive_ justice, calls the first the justice of a contractor, and the other an improper name for just distribution, or the justice of an arbitrator, _i.e._, the act of defining what is just--equivalent to equity, which is itself a law of nature.

The rest of the laws follow in swift succession. The 4th recommends _Gratitude_, which depends on antecedent grace instead of covenant. Free-gift being voluntary, _i.e._, done with intention of good to one's self, there will be an end to benevolence and mutual help, unless gratitude is given as compensation.

The 5th enjoins _Complaisance_; a disposition in men not to seek superfluities that to others are necessaries. Such men are _sociable_.

The 6th enjoins _Pardon_ upon repentance, with a view (like the last) to peace.

The 7th enjoins that punishment is to be only for correction of the offender and direction of others; _i.e._, for profit and example, not for 'glorying in the hurt of another, tending to no end.' Against _Cruelty_.

The 8th is against _Contumely_, as provocative of dispeace.

The 9th is against _Pride_, and enjoins the acknowledgment of the equality of all men by nature. He is here very sarcastic against Aristotle, and asserts, in opposition to him, that all inequality of men arises from consent.

The 10th is, in like manner, against _Arrogance_, and in favour of _Modesty_. Men, in entering into peace, are to reserve no rights but such as they are willing shall be reserved by others.

The 11th enjoins _Equity_; the disposition, in a man trusted to judge, to distribute equally to each man what in reason belongs to him. Partiality 'deters men from the use of judges and arbitrators,' and is a cause of war.

The 12th enjoins the common, or the proportionable, use of things that cannot be distributed.

The 13th enjoins the resort to _lot_, when separate or common enjoyment is not possible; the 14th provides also for _natural_ lot, meaning first possession or primogeniture.

The 15th demands safe conduct for mediators.

The 16th requires that parties at controversy shall submit their right to _arbitration_.

The 17th forbids a man to be his own judge; the 18th, any interested person to be judge.

The 19th requires a resort to witnesses in a matter of fact, as between two contending parties.

This list of the laws of nature is only slightly varied in the other works. He enumerates none but those that concern the doctrine of Civil Society, passing-over things like Intemperance, that are also forbidden by the law of nature because destructive of particular men. All the laws are summed up in the one expression: Do not that to another, which thou wouldest not have done to thyself.

The laws of nature he regards as always binding _in foro interno_, to the extent of its being desired they should take place; but _in foro externo_, only when there is security. As binding _in foro interno_, they can be broken even by an act according with them, if the purpose of it was against them. They are immutable and eternal; 'injustice, ingratitude, &c., can never be made lawful,' for war cannot preserve life, nor peace destroy it. Their fulfilment is easy, as requiring only an unfeigned and constant endeavour.

Of these laws the science is true moral philosophy, _i.e._, the science of good and evil in the society of mankind. Good and evil vary much from man to man, and even in the same man; but while private appetite is the measure of good and evil in the condition of nature, all allow that peace is good, and that justice, gratitude, _&c._, as the way or means to peace, are also good, that is to say, _moral virtues_. The true moral philosophy, in regarding them as laws of nature, places their goodness in their being the means of peaceable, comfortable, and sociable living; not, as is commonly done, in a mediocrity of passions, 'as if not the cause, but the degree of daring, made fortitude.'

His last remark is, that these dictates of reason are improperly called laws, because 'law, properly, is the word of him that by right hath command over others.' But when considered not as mere conclusions or theorems concerning the means of conservation and defence, but as delivered in the word of God, that by right commands all, then they are properly called laws.

Chapter XVI., closing the whole first part of the Leviathan, is of Persons, Authors, and Things Personated. The definitions and distinctions contained in it add nothing of direct ethical importance to the foregoing, though needed for the discussion of 'Commonwealth,' to which he passes. The chief points under this second great head are taken into the summary.

The views of Hobbes can be only inadequately summarized.

I.--The Standard, to men living in society, is the Law of the State. This is Self-interest or individual Utility, masked as regard for Established Order; for, as he holds, under any kind of government there is more Security and Commodity of life than in the State of Nature. In the Natural Condition, Self-interest, of course, is the Standard; but not without responsibility to God, in case it is not sought, as far as other men will allow, by the practice of the dictates of Reason or laws of Nature.

II.--His Psychology of Ethics is to be studied in the detail. Whether in the natural or in the social state, the Moral Faculty, to correspond with the Standard, is the general power of Reason, comprehending the aims of the Individual or Society, and attending to the laws of Nature or the laws of the State, in the one case or in the other respectively.

On the question of the Will, his views have been given at length.

Disinterested Sentiment is, in origin, self-regarding; for, pitying others, we imagine the like calamity befalling ourselves. In one place, he seems to say, that the Sentiment of Power is also involved. It is the great defect of his system that he takes so little account of the Social affections, whether natural or acquired.

III.--His Theory of Happiness, or the Summum Bonum, would follow from his analysis of the Feelings and Will. But Felicity being a continual progress in desire, and consisting less in present enjoyment than in _assuring_ the way of future desire, the chief element in it is the Sense of Power.

IV.--A Moral Code is minutely detailed under the name of Laws of Nature, in force in the Natural State under Divine Sanction. It inculcates all the common virtues, and makes little or no departure from the usually received maxims.

V.--The relation of Ethics to Politics is the closest imaginable. Not even Society, as commonly understood, but only the established civil authority, is the source of rules of conduct. In the _civil_ (which to Hobbes is the only meaning of the _social_) state, the laws of nature are superseded, by being supposed taken up into, the laws of the Sovereign Power.

VI.--As regards Religion, he affirms the coincidence of his reasoned deduction of the laws of Nature with the precepts of Revelation. He makes a mild use of the sanctions of a Future Life to enforce the laws of Nature, and to give additional support to the commands of the sovereign that take the place of these in the social state.

Among the numberless replies, called forth by the bold speculations of Hobbes, were some works of independent ethical importance; in particular, the treatises of Cumberland, Cudworth, and Clarke. Cumberland stands by himself; Cudworth and Clarke, agreeing in some respects, are commonly called the _Rational_ moralists, along with Wollaston and Price (who fall to be noticed later).


RICHARD CUMBERLAND. [1632-1718.]

Cumberland's' Latin work, _De Legibus Naturae, disquisitio philosophica contra Hobbium instituta_, appeared in 1672. The book is important as a distinctly philosophical disquisition, but its extraordinarily discursive character renders impossible anything like analysis. His chief points will be presented in a fuller summary than usual.

I.--The STANDARD of Moral Good is given in the laws of Nature, which may all be summed up in one great Law--_Benevolence to all rational agents_ or the endeavour to the utmost of our power to promote the common good of all. His theory is hardly to be distinguished from the Greatest Happiness principle; unless it might be represented as putting forward still more prominently the search for Individual Happiness, with a fixed assumption that this is best secured through the promotion of the general good. No action, he declares, can be called 'morally good that does not in its own nature contribute somewhat to the happiness of men.' The speciality of his view is his professing not to make an induction as regards the character of actions from the observation of their effects, but to deduce the propriety of (benevolent) actions from, the consideration of the character and position of rational agents in nature. Rules of conduct, all directed to the promotion of the Happiness of rational agents, may thus be found in the form of propositions impressed upon the mind by the Nature of Things; and these are then interpreted to be laws of Nature (summed up in the one great Law), promulgated by God with the natural effects of actions as Sanctions of Reward and Punishment to enforce them.

II.--His Psychology of Ethics may be reduced to the following heads.

1. The Faculty is the Reason, apprehending the exact Nature of Things, and determining accordingly the modes of action that are best suited to promote the happiness of rational agents.

2. Of the Faculty, under the name of _Conscience_, he gives this description: 'The mind is conscious to itself of all its own actions, and both can, and often does, observe what counsels produced them; it naturally sits a judge upon its own actions, and thence procures to itself either tranquillity and joy, or anxiety and sorrow.' The principal design of his whole book is to show 'how this power of the mind, either by itself, or excited by external objects, forms certain universal practical propositions, which give us a more distinct idea of the happiness of mankind, and pronounces by what actions of ours, in all variety of circumstances, that happiness may most effectually be obtained.' [Conscience is thus only Reason, or the knowing faculty in general, as specially concerned about actions in their effect upon happiness; it rarely takes the place of the more general term.]

3. He expressly leaves aside the supposition that we have _innate ideas_ of the laws of Nature whereby conduct is to be guided, or of the matters that they are conversant about. He has not, he says, been so happy as to learn the laws of Nature by so short a way, and thinks it ill-advised to build the doctrine of natural religion and morality upon a hypothesis that has been rejected by the generality of philosophers, as well heathen as Christian, and can never be proved against the Epicureans, with whom lies