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MORALS IN EVOLUTION
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
MIND IN EVOLUTION.
Price 10s. net.
MACMILLAN & CO.
THE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE:
A contribution to some problems of Logic and Metaphysics.
Price 10s. 6d. net.
METHUEN & CO.
27:0
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
LONDON
CHAPMAN AND HALL, LTD.
1906
34362
ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS
THE BASIS
CHAPTER I
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.
(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.
V