MORALS IN EVOLUTION

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

MIND IN-EVOLUTION.

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MACMILLAN & CO.

THE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE:

A contribution to some problems of Logic and Metaphysics.

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METHUEN & CO.

A STUDY IN COMPARATIVE ETHICS

BY

L. T. HOBHOUSE

LATE FELLOW AND ASSISTANT TUTOR OF CORPUS CHRISTI COLLege, oxford,
FORMERLY FELLOW OF MERTON COLLEGE

PART II

UNIVERSITY

LELAND STANFORD JJU
LIBRARY

NEW YORK

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY

1906

ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS

PART II

THE BASIS

CHAPTER I

PAGE

THE EARLY PHASES OF THOUGHT

(1) The subject of this part is the history of ideas concerning the

grounds of morality, and of the religious, scientific and

other conceptions interwoven therewith. (2) The general

characteristics of Animism. (3) The forms of Magic. (4)

The relation between magic and animism. (5) Both arise

from certain confusions incidental to primitive thought.

(6) On the whole animism and magic appear to be the

dominant beliefs among the lower races. (7) Spirits and

Gods. (8) Religions of the early civilizations-Egypt; (9)

Babylon; (10) Greece.

CHAPTER II

ETHICAL CONCEPTIONS IN EARLY THOUGHT

(1) Breaches of custom may have magical penalties, (2) which are

an externalization of ordinary feeling about such conduct.

(3) Or they may incur the resentment of spirits. (4)

Transition from the resentful spirit to the spirit interested

in the moral order, (5) which may be identified with a just

God. (6) Retribution in a future life often held by savages

and tends to be systematized in the higher polytheism.

(7) But punishment is often averted by non-moral means,

(8) for instance, by repudiation of sins. (9) Emergence of

the ethical element as a distinct factor in rules of conduct

and religious conceptions. (10) The double character of

group morality in the higher barbarism, (11) and in the

early civilizations.

CHAPTER III

THE WORLD AND THE SPIRIT

(1) What is common to the spiritual religions is the attempt to

render an articulate account of things and to connect there-

with an ideal of human life and character. (2) The Vedic

religion. (3) The creed of dualism. (4) Brahmanism-the

Ego and the World-Spirit. (5) The ethics of Brahmanism.

(6) The Law of Love. (7) Selflessness and Quietism.