tion, fails as duty and as satisfaction. The mother, who with much self-denial waits upon her sick babe merely because, should the babe die from neglect, she could never forgive herself and would suffer the pangs of remorse, that mother is an egoist, and not the mother we adore. She may escape the pain, yet is unhappy, for this is not the outcome of maternal love. Self-seeking in any form is foredoomed to failure, for it lacks the perfect virtue which, forgetful of self, strives for the welfare of others. Living for one's own happiness is living for one's self; and living for one's self is sure to be a failure. Living for loving service is living for others; and living for others is the sure and only road to welfare, both theirs and ours, that welfare whose correlate is happiness, both theirs and ours.1 1 Aristotle's eudemonistic theory makes happiness, evdarovia, the highest good and ultimate end of human endeavor. He holds that happiness depends on the rational or virtuous activity of the soul continuously exercised, defining it to be the energy of the soul according to the best virtue in a complete life, and saying that with normal activity pleasure is joined as its blossom and natural culmination. Yet he hardly distinguishes happiness from virtue, saying, in the Politica, vi, 9, 3, that it consists in an active exertion and perfected habit of virtue, ἀρετῆς ἐνέργεια καὶ χρῆσίς τις τέλειος. Nowhere does he seem to have a conception of the higher demand of moral law, that dutiful service must be loving service. See Grote, Aristotle (Second Edition, 1880), ch. xiii, Ethica, for a critical examination of the doctrine. The Stoics did not surpass the Stagirite. They taught that the end of man is to live agreeably to the natural constitution of man, πέλος εἶναι τὸ ζῆν ȧKoλoú◊ws Tŷ TOû ȧvěρúπоν кαTаSKEV. Self-conservation is virtue, and virtue is sufficient for happiness; not that it renders one insensible to pain, but because by it one rises superior to pain. - SENECA, Epistola, 9. See Ueberweg, Hist. Phil., § 55. The doctrine of these cultured but heathen Greeks, which for many centuries exerted a powerful influence upon the European thought, has not a breath of the charity that suffereth long and is kind, and that never faileth. Spinoza, with a like view of virtue, and no thought of charity, taught identity, saying, Virtue is happiness. His dictum is, Beatitudo non est virtutis præmium, sed ipsa virtus. Kant teaches that "All the elements which belong to the notion of happiness are altogether empirical" (— trans. p. 49), and the hope to attain it § 96. Involved in the notion of welfare is the notion of good, a term so very ambiguous that its use has thus far been avoided. Good things are relatively or absolutely good. The relatively good are those not good in themselves, but only as a means to something beyond; as, riches. We seek them in order to attain those absolutely good, that is, such as are good in themselves, and not good for aught else; as, luxuries. What is good for something else has value; what is good in itself has worth. An end good in itself is an absolute end.1 Absolute ends are altogether subjective, found only in certain mental states of sentient beings, more especially of persons, who habitually seek some one end, and only occasionally others, as desirable. lence, as good, better, best. Ends vary in degrees of excel- human activity, is termed the summum bonum. The determination of the absolute, the ultimate good, the summum bonum, as the end of all moral endeavor, was the primal problem of ancient ethics.2 The Hedonists found it in pleasure, the highest enjoyment of the present passing moment. The Epicureans also found it in pleasure, but posited the maximum of enjoyment extending throughout life, and called this happiness. Plato solved the problem grandly by declaring that the highest ultimate good is not in any measure depends on our following the dictates, precepts or counsels, consilia, of prudence, the hypothetical imperative, quite distinct from the intuitive categorical imperative or moral law. See supra, § 44, note. This sets happiness entirely apart from morality. His fundamental doctrine that "Respect for the moral law is the only and undoubted moral motive" (—trans. p. 243), is fatally defective in this exclusion of all sanction, as well as in ignoring the very essence of duty, the love that perfects service, that at once consummates and dissolves obligation. 1 See supra, § 40, note. 2 This method of procedure is criticised by Kant in the Analytic of Pure Practical Reason; see Abbott's trans., p. 219 sq. See also Sidgwick's Methods of Ethics, bk. i, ch. 9, and bk. iii, ch. 14. pleasure, nor wealth, nor knowledge, nor power, but is the greatest possible likeness to God, as the absolutely good. He taught that happiness depends on the possession of this moral beauty and goodness.1 Aristotle's ultimatum is happiness, but with a definition, already noted, that distinguishes it from pleasure, and is hardly exceptionable. The Stoics taught that the supreme end of life, the ultimate good, is virtue, that is, a life conformed to nature, the agreement of conduct with the all-regulating law of nature, the human with the divine will, whereby the sage combines in himself all the essential perfections of deity. We remark that each of these several doctrines is egoistic, finding the summum bonum, the ultimatum of moral endeavor, to be an attainment of the moral agent for and within himself.? § 97. In modern ethics investigation of the summum bonum is less prominent, and various and conflicting views are entertained. The utilitarians teach the right aim and end to be happiness, which is variously and hazily defined. This doctrine divides into egoism and altruism, according as the agent regards his own happiness as the end of his endeavor, or makes that of related persons its object. If the good of a particular person, himself or some other or others, be the aim, it is called individualism; if the good of a community at large be the aim, it is called universalism, which has as many forms as there are kinds of community; for instance, social, national, or humanistic universalism. In 1 See Symposium, pp. 202 e, 240 e; and Gorgias, p. 508 b, Step. Cf. Matthew, 5: 48. 2 See Cicero, De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum; and Augustine, De Summo Bono. Also supra, § 25, note. 3 On the matter of this section, which is necessarily very brief, see Martineau's Types of Ethical Theory, Sidgwick's History of Ethics, Külpe's Introduction to Philosophy, §§ 27-30, Janet's Theory of Morals, bk. i, chs. 3, 4, and Wundt's Ethical Systems. seeking the good of a community the aim should be the greatest good of the greatest number.1 The dominant form of philosophical ethics at the present day seems to be evolutionism, which affirms that development, progress, prosperity, is the end of moral endeavor. According to Spencer, that is good, in the widest sense, which serves to accomplish some purpose; and the ultimate 1 Bacon struck the keynote of utilitarianism when he made the common weal the end of moral endeavor. He was followed by Hobbes, Cumberland, Hutche Locke and Paley, and later by Bentham, Comte and J. S. Mill. son, in his Inquiry (1725) p. 177, says: “That action is best which produces the greatest happiness for the greatest number; and that worst which in like manner occasions misery." The phrase here italicized has become famous, and is still the recognized principle of the utilitarians and humanitarians. Hutcheson anticipated Bentham, to whom the phrase is usually attributed, by at least three-fourths of a century. To it other schools object that happiness is indeterminable, and that what actions would reach the greatest number is even more indeterminable. By utility is meant that property in any object whereby it tends to produce happiness, and the doctrine in morals is that an action which produces utility is a right action because utility produces happiness. See Bentham's Principles of Morals and Legislation, ch. 1, and J. S. Mill's Utilitarianism. To this it is objected that useful action can be known to be such only from observation extending over a vast range of facts through a vast period of time, which renders it impossible for any except the learned and wise to jndge what is right, especially in any new combination of circumstances. See Wayland's Moral Science, p. 38 sq.; Grote's Utilitarianism; Lecky's History of European Morals, ch. 1. ness. Furthermore we object that an action proving useful does not make it right, which reverses the order of production, but can only logically show it to be right. The utility is causa cognoscendi, not causa essendi, of rightAn action that conforms to the law, is right, regardless of consequences. When the application of the law to a case is obscure, we may forecast from experience the consequences, and if we regard these as tending to welfare, we may infer the action to be morally right; since we have already judged that all right action, and it only, has this tendency. Thus its consequences help us to know what action is right, but do not make it right. Let it be remarked that in the proposition, an action is right because it is useful, the word because is ambiguous and misleading. It may mean either efficiently producing cause, or logically informing cause, ie., a The utility of an action is the latter only. reason. conscious purpose of all vital activity is the production or retention of pleasure, or the avoidance or removal of pain. According to Wundt there is a series of ethical ends, beginning with self-contentment and self-improvement, rising to social ends in public well-being and general progress, and terminating in humanistic ends, chiefly intellectual, which consist in the continuous improvement of mankind.1 1 In opposition to the foregoing empirical doctrines, is the extreme intuitionism of the Kantians, who make the absolute ethical end to lie in obedience, pure and simple, to the objective moral law.2 Less extreme are the perfectionists, who make the supreme good to lie in excellence of moral character, which excellence they fail to define clearly, but hold that it is attained by the active exercise of the intellectual and sensitive nature under the presidency of reason.3 The present treatise teaches that the aim and end of life is the harmonious and complete development of the man, individually, socially, politically and religiously, each one 1 See Spencer's Data of Ethics, and Wundt's The Facts of the Moral Life. Also Williams's A Review of the Systems of Ethics founded on the Theory of Evolution, and Darwin's Descent of Man, ch. 3. See also supra, § 6 note; § 20; and § 21, note. 2 According to Kant, "Virtue is not the entire, complete good as an object of desire to reasonable, finite beings; for, to have this character it should be accompanied by happiness, not as it appears to the interested eyes of our personality, which we conceive as an end of itself, but according to the impartial judgment of reason, which considers virtue in general, in the world, as an end in itself. Happiness and virtue, then, together constitute the possession of the sovereign good in an individual, but with this condition, that the happiness should be exactly proportioned to the morality, this constituting the value of the individual, and rendering him worthy of happiness. The sovereign good, consisting of these two elements, represents the entire or complete good, but virtue must be considered as the supreme good, because there can be no condition higher than virtue; whilst happiness, which is unquestionably always agreeable to its possessor, is not of itself absolutely good, but supposes as a condition, a morally good conduct." From Fleming's Vocabulary, ad verb., p. 68. 8 See Janet's Theory of Morals, particularly bk. i, ch. 3. |