Chapter XXII: Section II: is a historical sketch in four parts tracing the main (3)

1. We may notice, in the first place, that the conception of morality as a code which, if not in itself arbitrary, is yet to be accepted by men with unquestioning submission, tends naturally to bring into prominence the virtue of _obedience to authority_; just as the philosophic view of goodness as the realization of reason gives a special value to _self-determination_ and independence (as we see more clearly in the post-Aristotelian schools where ethics is distinctly separated from politics).

2. Again, the opposition between the natural world and the spiritual order into which the Christian has been born anew led not merely to a contempt equal to that of the Stoic for wealth, fame, power, and other objects of worldly pursuit, but also, for some time at least, to a comparative depreciation of the domestic and civic relations of the natural man. This tendency was exhibited most simply and generally in the earliest period of the church's history. In the view of primitive Christians, ordinary human society was a world temporarily surrendered to Satanic rule, over which a swift and sudden destruction was impending; in such a world the little band who were gathered in the ark of the church could have no part or lot,--the only attitude they could maintain was that of passive alienation. On the other hand, it was difficult practically to realize this alienation, and a keen sense of this difficulty induced the same hostility to the body as a clog and hindrance, that we find to some extent in Plato, but more fully developed in Neoplatonism, Neopythagoreanism, and other products of the mingling of Greek with Oriental thought. This feeling is exhibited in the value set on fasting in the Christian church from the earliest times, and in an extreme form in the self-torments of later monasticism; while both tendencies, anti-worldliness and anti-sensualism, seem to have combined in causing the preference of celibacy over marriage which is common to most early Christian writers.[16] Patriotism, again, and the sense of civic duty, the most elevated of all social sentiments in the Graeco-Roman civilization, tended, under the influence of Christianity, either to expand itself into universal philanthropy, or to concentrate itself on the ecclesiastical community. "We recognize one commonwealth, the world," says Tertullian; "we know," says Origen, "that we have a fatherland founded by the word of God." We might further derive from the general spirit of Christian unworldliness that repudiation of the secular modes of conflict, even in a righteous cause, which substituted a passive patience and endurance for the old pagan virtue of courage, in which the active element was prominent. Here, however, we clearly trace the influence of Christ's express prohibition of violent resistance to violence, and his inculcation, by example and precept, of a love that was to conquer even natural resentment. An extreme result of this influence is shown in Tertullian's view, that no Christian could properly hold the office of a secular magistrate in which he would have to doom to death, chains, imprisonment; but even more sober writers, such as Ambrose, extend Christian passivity so far as to preclude self-defence even against a murderous assault. The common sense of Christendom gradually shook off these extravagances; but the reluctance to shed blood lingered long, and was hardly extinguished even by the growing horror of heresy. We have a curious relic of this in the later times of ecclesiastical persecution, when the heretic was doomed to the stake that he might be punished in some manner "short of bloodshed."[17]

Benevolence.

3. It is, however, in the impulse given to practical beneficence in all its forms, by the exaltation of love as the root of all virtues, that the most important influence of Christianity on the particulars of civilized morality is to be found; although the exact amount of this influence is here somewhat difficult to ascertain, since it merely carries further a development traceable in the history of pagan morality. This development appears when we compare the different post-Socratic systems of ethics. In Plato's exposition of the different virtues there is no mention whatever of benevolence, although his writings show a keen sense of the importance of friendship as an element of philosophic life, especially of the intense personal affection naturally arising between master and disciple. Aristotle goes somewhat further in recognizing the moral value of friendship [Greek: (philia)]; and though he considers that in its highest form it can be realized only by the fellowship of the wise and good, he yet extends the notion so as to include the domestic affections, and takes notice of the importance of mutual kindness in binding together all human societies. Still in his formal statement of the different virtues, positive beneficence is discernible only under the notion of "liberality," in which form its excellence is hardly distinguished from that of graceful profusion in self-regarding expenditure (_Nic. Eth_. iv. 1). Cicero, on the other hand, in his paraphrase of a Stoic treatise on external duties (_De officiis_), ranks the rendering of positive services to other men as a chief department of social duty; and the Stoics generally recognized the universal fellowship and natural mutual claims of human beings as such. Indeed, this recognition in later Stoicism is sometimes expressed with so much warmth of feeling as to be hardly distinguishable from Christian philanthropy. Nor was this regard for humanity merely a doctrine of the school. Partly through the influence of Stoic and other Greek philosophy, partly from the natural expansion of human sympathies, the legislation of the Empire, during the first three centuries, shows a steady development in the direction of natural justice and humanity; and some similar progress may be traced in the general tone of moral opinion. Still the utmost point that this development reached fell considerably short of the standard of Christian charity. Without dwelling on the immense impetus given to the practice of social duty generally by the religion that made beneficence a form of divine service, and identified "piety" with "pity," we have to put down as definite changes introduced by Christianity--(1) the severe condemnation and final suppression of the practice of exposing infants; (2) effective abhorrence of the barbarism of gladiatorial combats; (3) immediate moral mitigation of slavery, and a strong encouragement of emancipation; (4) great extension of the eleemosynary provision made for the sick and the poor. As regards almsgiving, however--the importance of which has caused it to usurp, in modern languages, the general name of "charity"--it ought to be observed that Christianity merely universalized a duty which has always been inculcated by Judaism, within the limits of the chosen people.

4. The same may be said of the stricter regulation which Christianity enforced on the relations of the sexes; except so far as the prohibition of divorce is concerned, and the stress laid on "purity of heart" as contrasted with merely outward chastity.

5. Even the peculiarly Christian virtue of humility, which presents so striking a contrast to the Greek "highmindedness," was to some extent anticipated in the Rabbinic teaching. Its far greater prominence under the new dispensation may be partly referred to the express teaching and example of Christ; partly, in so far as the virtue is manifested in the renunciation of external rank and dignity, or the glory of merely secular gifts and acquirements, it is one aspect of the unworldliness which we have already noticed; while the deeper humility that represses the claim of personal merit even in the saint belongs to the strict self-examination, the continual sense of imperfection, the utter reliance on strength not his own, which characterize the inner moral life of the Christian. Humility in this latter sense, "before God," is an essential condition of all truly Christian goodness.

We have, however, yet to notice the enlargement of the sphere of ethics due to its close connexion with theology; for while this added religious force and sanction to ordinary moral obligations, it equally tended to impart a moral aspect to religious belief and worship. "Duty to God"--as distinct from duty to man--had not been altogether unrecognized by pagan moralists; but the rather dubious relations of even the more orthodox philosophy to the established polytheism had generally prevented them from laying much stress upon it. Again,--just as the Stoics held wisdom to be indispensable to real rectitude of conduct, while at the same time they included under the notion of wisdom a grasp of physical as well as ethical truth,--so the similar emphasis laid on inwardness in Christian ethics caused orthodoxy or correctness of religious belief to be regarded as essential to goodness, and heresy as the most fatal of vices, corrupting as it did the very springs of Christian life. To the philosophers (with the single exception of Plato), however, convinced as they were that the multitude must necessarily miss true well-being through their folly and ignorance, it could never occur to guard against these evils by any other method than that of providing philosophic instruction for the few; whereas the Christian clergy, whose function it was to offer truth and eternal life to all mankind, naturally regarded theological misbelief as insidious preventible contagion. Indeed, their sense of its deadliness was so keen that, when they were at length able to control the secular administration, they rapidly overcame their aversion to bloodshed, and initiated that long series of religious persecutions to which we find no parallel in the pre-Christian civilization of Europe. It was not that Christian writers did not feel the difficulty of attributing criminality to sincere ignorance or error. But the difficulty is not really peculiar to theology; and the theologians usually got over it (as some philosophers had surmounted a similar perplexity in the region of ethics proper) by supposing some latent or antecedent voluntary sin, of which the apparently involuntary heresy was the fearful fruit.

Lastly, we must observe that, in proportion as the legal conception of morality as a code of which the violation deserves supernatural punishment predominated over the philosophic view of ethics as the method for attaining natural felicity, the question of man's freedom of will to obey the law necessarily became prominent. At the same time it cannot be broadly said that Christianity took a decisive side in the metaphysical controversy on free-will and necessity; since, just as in Greek philosophy the need of maintaining freedom as the ground of responsibility clashes with the conviction that no one deliberately chooses his own harm, so in Christian ethics it clashes with the attribution of all true human virtue to supernatural grace, as well as with the belief in divine foreknowledge. All we can say is that in the development of Christian thought the conflict of conceptions was far more profoundly felt, and far more serious efforts were made to evade or transcend it.

Development of opinion in early Christianity.

Augustine.

In the preceding account of Christian morality, it has been already indicated that the characteristics delineated did not all exhibit themselves simultaneously to the same extent, or with perfect uniformity throughout the church. Changes in the external condition of Christianity, the different degrees of civilization in the societies of which it was the dominant religion, and the natural process of internal development, continually brought different features into prominence; while again, the important antagonisms of opinion within Christendom frequently involved ethical issues--even in the Eastern Church--until in the 4th century it began to be absorbed in the labour of a dogmatic construction. Thus, for example, the anti-secular tendencies of the new creed, to which Tertullian (160-220) gave violent and rigid expression, were exaggerated in the Montanist heresy which he ultimately joined; on the other hand, Clement of Alexandria, in opposition to the general tone of his age, maintained the value of pagan philosophy for the development of Christian faith into true knowledge (Gnosis), and the value of the natural development of man through marriage for the normal perfecting of the Christian life. So again, there is a marked difference between the writers before Augustine and those that succeeded him in all that concerns the internal conditions of Christian morality. By Justin and other apologists the need of redemption, faith, grace is indeed recognized, but the theological system depending on these notions is not sufficiently developed[18] to come into even apparent antagonism with the freedom of the will. Christianity is for the most part conceived as essentially a proclamation through the Divine Word, to immortal beings gifted with free choice, of the true code of conduct sanctioned by eternal rewards and punishments. This legalism contrasts strikingly with the efforts of pagan philosophy to exhibit virtue as its own reward; and the contrast is triumphantly pointed out by more than one early Christian writer. Lactantius (_circa_ 300 A.D.), for example, roundly declares that Plato and Aristotle, referring everything to this earthly life, "made virtue mere folly"; though himself maintaining, with pardonable inconsistency, that man's highest good did not consist in mere pleasure, but in the consciousness of the filial relation of the soul to God. It is plain, however, that on this external legalistic view of duty it was impossible to maintain a difference in kind between Christian and pagan morality; the philosopher's conformity to the rules of chastity and beneficence, so far as it went, was indistinguishable from the saint's. But when this inference was developed in the teaching of Pelagius, it was repudiated as heretical by the church, under the powerful leadership of Augustine (354-430); and the doctrine of man's incapacity to obey God's law by his unaided moral energy was pressed to a point at which it was difficult to reconcile it with the freedom of the will. Augustine is fully aware of the theoretical indispensability of maintaining Free Will, from its logical connexion with human responsibility and divine justice; but he considers that these latter points are sufficiently secured if actual freedom of choice between good and evil is allowed in the single case of our progenitor Adam.[19] For since the _natura seminalis_ from which all men were to arise already existed in Adam, in his voluntary preference of self to God, humanity chose evil once for all; for which ante-natal guilt all men are justly condemned to perpetual absolute sinfulness and consequent punishment, unless they are elected by God's unmerited grace to share the benefits of Christ's redemption. Without this grace it is impossible for man to obey the "first greatest commandment" of love to God; and, this unfulfilled, he is guilty of the whole law, and is only free to choose between degrees of sin; his apparent external virtues have no moral value, since inner rightness of intention is wanting. "All that is not of faith is of sin"; and faith and love are mutually involved and inseparable; faith springs from the divinely imparted germ of love, which in its turn is developed by faith to its full strength, while from both united springs hope, joyful yearning towards ultimate perfect fruition of the object of love. These three Augustine (after St Paul) regards as the three essential elements of Christian virtue; along with these he recognizes the fourfold division of virtue into prudence, temperance, courage and justice according to their traditional interpretation; but he explains these virtues to be in their true natures only the same love to God in different aspects or exercises. The uncompromising mysticism of this view may be at once compared and contrasted with the philosophical severity of Stoicism. Love of God in the former holds the same absolute and unique position as the sole element of moral worth in human action, which, as we have seen, was occupied by knowledge of Good in the latter; and we may carry the parallel further by observing that in neither case is this severity in the abstract estimate of goodness necessarily connected with extreme rigidity in practical precepts. Indeed, an important part of Augustine's work as a moralist lies in the reconciliation which he laboured to effect between the anti-worldly spirit of Christianity and the necessities of secular civilization. For example, we find him arguing for the legitimacy of judicial punishments and military service against an over-literal interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount; and he took an important part in giving currency to the distinction between evangelical "counsels" and "commands," and so defending the life of marriage and temperate enjoyment of natural good against the attacks of the more extravagant advocate of celibacy and self-abnegation; although he fully admitted the superiority of the latter method of avoiding the contamination of sin.

Ambrose.

The attempt to Christianize the old Platonic list of virtues, which we have noticed in Augustine's system, was probably due to the influence of his master Ambrose, in whose treatise _De officiis ministrorum_ we find for the first time an exposition of Christian duty systematized on a plan borrowed from a pre-Christian moralist. It is interesting to compare Ambrose's account of what subsequently came to be known as the "four cardinal virtues" with the corresponding delineations in Cicero's[20] _De officiis_ which served the bishop as a model. Christian Wisdom, so far as it is speculative, is of course primarily theological; it has God, as the highest truth, for its chief object, and is therefore necessarily grounded on faith. Christian Fortitude is essentially firmness in withstanding the seductions of good and evil fortune, resoluteness in the conflict perpetually waged against wickedness without carnal weapons--though Ambrose, with the Old Testament in his hand, will not quite relinquish the ordinary martial application of the term. "Temperantia" retains the meaning of "observance of due measure" in all conduct, which it had in Cicero's treatise; though its notion is partly modified by being blended with the newer virtue of humility. Finally in the exposition of Christian Justice the Stoic doctrine of the natural union of all human interests is elevated to the full height and intensity of evangelical philanthropy; the brethren are reminded that the earth was made by God a common possession of all, and are bidden to administer their means for the common benefit; Ambrose, we should observe, is thoroughly aware of the fundamental union of these different virtues in Christianity, though he does not, like Augustine, resolve them all into the one central affection of love of God.

Ecclesiastical morality in the "Dark Ages."

Under the influence of Ambrose and Augustine, the four cardinal virtues furnished a basis on which the systematic ethical theories of subsequent theologians were built. With them the triad of Christian graces, Faith, Hope and Love, and the seven gifts of the Spirit (Isaiah xi. 2) were often combined. In antithesis to this list, an enumeration of the "deadly sins" obtained currency. These were at first commonly reckoned as eight; but a preference for mystical numbers characteristic of medieval theologians finally reduced them to seven. The statement of them is variously given,--Pride, Avarice, Anger, Gluttony, Unchastity, are found in all the lists; the remaining two (or three) are variously selected from among Envy, Vainglory, and the rather singular sins Gloominess (_tristitia_) and Languid Indifference (_acidia_ or _acedia_, from Gr. [Greek: _akedia_]). These latter notions show plainly, what indeed might be inferred from a study of the list as a whole, that it represents the moral experience of the monastic life, which for some centuries was more and more unquestioningly regarded as in a peculiar sense "religious." It should be observed that the (also Augustinian) distinction between "deadly" and "venial" sins had a technical reference to the quasi-jural administration of ecclesiastical discipline, which grew gradually more organized as the spiritual power of the church established itself amid the ruins of the Western empire, and slowly developed into the theocracy that almost dominated Europe during the latter part of the middle ages. "Deadly" sins were those for which formal ecclesiastical penance was held to be necessary, in order to save the sinner from eternal damnation; for "venial" sins he might obtain forgiveness, through prayer, almsgiving, and the observance of the regular fasts. We find that "penitential books" for the use of the confessional, founded partly on traditional practice and partly on the express decrees of synods, come into general use in the 7th century. At first they are little more than mere inventories of sins, with their appropriate ecclesiastical punishments; gradually cases of conscience come to be discussed and decided, and the basis is laid for that system of casuistry which reached its full development in the 14th and 15th centuries. This ecclesiastical jurisprudence, and indeed the general relation of the church to the ruder races with which it had to deal during this period, necessarily tended to encourage a somewhat external view of morality. But a powerful counterpoise to this tendency was continually maintained by the fervid inwardness of Augustine, transmitted through Gregory the Great, Isidore of Seville, Alcuin, Hrabanus Maurus, and other writers of the philosophically barren period between the destruction of the Western empire and the rise of Scholasticism.

Medieval moral philosophy.

Scholastic ethics, like scholastic philosophy, attained its completest result in the teaching of Thomas Aquinas. But before giving a brief account of the ethical part of his system, it will be well to notice the salient points in the long and active discussion that led up to it. In the pantheistic system of Erigena (q.v.) (_circa_ 810-877) the chief philosophic element is supplied by the influence of Plato and Plotinus, transmitted through an unknown author of the 5th century, who assumed the name of Dionysius the Areopagite. Accordingly the ethical side of this doctrine has the same negative and ascetic character that we have observed in Neoplatonism. God is the only real Being; evil is essentially unreal and incognizable; the true aim of man's life is to return to perfect union with God out of the degraded material existence into which he has fallen. This doctrine found little acceptance among Erigena's contemporaries, and was certainly unorthodox enough to justify the condemnation which it subsequently received from Honorius III.; but its influence, together with that of the Pseudo-Dionysius, had a considerable share in developing the more emotional orthodox mysticism of the 12th and 13th centuries; and Neoplatonism (or Platonism received through a Neoplatonic tradition) remained a distinct element in medieval thought, though obscured in the period of mature scholasticism by the predominant influence of Aristotle. Passing on to Anselm (1033-1109), we observe that the Augustinian doctrine of original sin and man's absolute need of unmerited grace is retained in his theory of salvation; he also follows Augustine in defining freedom as the "power not to sin"; though in saying that Adam fell "spontaneously" and "by his free choice," though not "through its freedom," he has implicitly made the distinction that Peter the Lombard afterwards expressly draws between the freedom that is opposed to necessity and freedom from the slavery to sin. Anselm further softens the statement of Augustinian predestinationism by explaining that the freedom to will is not strictly lost even by fallen man; it is inherent in a rational nature, though since Adam's sin it only exists potentially in humanity, except where it is made actual by grace.

In a more real sense Abelard (1079-1142) tries to establish the connexion between man's ill desert and his free consent. He asserts that the inherited propensity to evil is not strictly a sin, which is only committed when the conscious self yields to vicious inclination. With a similar stress on the self-conscious side of moral action, he argues that rightness of conduct depends solely on the intention, at one time pushing this doctrine to the paradoxical assertion that all outward acts as such are indifferent.[21] In the same spirit, under the reviving influence of ancient philosophy (with which, however, he was imperfectly acquainted and the relation of which to Christianity he extravagantly misunderstood), he argues that the old Greek moralists, as inculcating a disinterested love of good--and so implicitly love of God as the highest good--were really nearer to Christianity than Judaic legalism was. Nay, further, he required that the Christian "love to God" should be regarded as pure only if purged from the self-regarding desire of the happiness which God gives. The general tendency of Abelard's thought was suspiciously regarded by contemporary orthodoxy;[22] and the over-subtlety of the last-mentioned distinction provoked vehement replies from orthodox mystics of the age. Thus, Hugo of St Victor (1077-1141) argues that all love is necessarily so far "interested" that it involves a desire for union with the beloved; and since eternal happiness consists in this union, it cannot truly be desired apart from God; while Bernard of Clairvaux (1091-1153) more elaborately distinguishes four stages by which the soul is gradually led from (1) merely self-regarding desire for God's aid in distress, to (2) love him for his loving-kindness to it, then also (3) for his absolute goodness, until (4) in rare moments this love for himself alone becomes the sole all-absorbing affection. This controversy Peter the Lombard endeavoured to compose by the scholastic art of taking distinctions, of which he was a master. In his treatise, _Libri sententiarum_, mainly based on Augustinian doctrine, we find a distinct softening of the antithesis between nature and grace and an anticipation of the union of Aristotelian and Christian thought, which was initiated by Albert the Great and completed by Thomas Aquinas.

Thomas Aquinas.

The moral philosophy of Aquinas is Aristotelianism with a Neoplatonic tinge, interpreted and supplemented by a view of Christian dogma derived chiefly from Augustine. All action or movement of all things irrational as well as rational is directed towards some end or good,--that is, really and ultimately towards God himself, the ground and first cause of all being, and unmoved principle of all movement. This universal though unconscious striving after God, since he is essentially intelligible, exhibits itself in its highest form in rational beings as a desire for knowledge of him; such knowledge, however, is beyond all ordinary exercise of reason, and may be only partially revealed to man here below. Thus the _summum bonum_ for man is objectively God, subjectively the happiness to be derived from loving vision of his perfections; although there is a lower kind of happiness to be realized here below in a normal human existence of virtue and friendship, with mind and body sound and whole and properly trained for the needs of life. The higher happiness is given to man by free grace of God; but it is given to those only whose heart is right, and as a reward of virtuous actions. Passing to consider what actions are virtuous, we first observe generally that the morality of an act is in part, but only in part, determined by its particular motive; it partly depends on its external object and circumstances, which render it either objectively in harmony with the "order of reason" or the reverse. In the classification of particular virtues and vices we can distinguish very clearly the elements supplied by the different teachings which Aquinas has imbibed. He follows Aristotle closely in dividing the "natural" virtues into intellectual and moral, giving his preference to the former class, and the intellectual again into speculative and practical; in distinguishing within the speculative class the "intellect" that is conversant with principles, the "science" that deduces conclusions, and the "wisdom" to which belongs the whole process of knowing the sublimest objects of knowledge; and in treating practical wisdom as inseparably connected with moral virtues, and therefore in a sense moral. His distinction among moral virtues of the justice that renders others their due from the virtues that control the appetites and passions of the agent himself, represents his interpretation of the _Nicomachean Ethics_; while his account of these latter virtues is a simple transcript of Aristotle's, just as his division of the non-rational element of the soul into "concupiscible" and "irascible" is the old Platonic one. In arranging his list, however, he defers to the established doctrine of the four cardinal virtues (derived from Plato and the Stoics through Cicero); accordingly, the Aristotelian ten have to stand under the higher genera of (1) the prudence which gives reasoned rules of conduct, (2) the temperance which restrains misleading desire, and (3) the fortitude that resists misleading fear of dangers or toils. But before these virtues are ranked the three "theologic" virtues, faith, love and hope, supernaturally "instilled" by God, and directly relating to him as their object. By faith we obtain that part of our knowledge of God which is beyond the range of mere natural wisdom or philosophy; naturally (e.g.), we can know God's existence, but not his trinity in unity, though philosophy is useful to defend this and other revealed verities; and it is essential for the soul's welfare that all articles of the Christian creed, however little they can be known by natural reason, should be apprehended through faith; the Christian who rejects a single article loses hold altogether of faith and of God. Faith is the substantial basis of all Christian morality, but without love--the essential form of all the Christian virtues--it is "formless" (_informis_). Christian love is conceived (after Augustine) as primarily love to God (beyond the natural yearning of the creature after its ultimate good), which expands into love towards all God's creatures as created by him, and so ultimately includes even self-love. But creatures are only to be loved in their purity as created by God; all that is bad in them must be an object of hatred till it is destroyed. In the classification of sins the Christian element predominates; still we find the Aristotelian vices of excess and defect, along with the modern divisions into "sins against God, neighbour and self," "mortal and venial sins," and so forth.

From the notion of sin--treated in its jural aspect--Aquinas passes naturally to the discussion of Law. The exposition of this conception presents to a great extent the same matter that was dealt with by the exposition of moral virtues, but in a different form; the prominence of which may perhaps be attributed to the growing influence of Roman jurisprudence, which attained in the 12th century so rapid and brilliant a revival in Italy. This side of Thomas's system is specially important, since it is just this blending of theological conceptions with the abstract theory of the later Roman law that gave the starting-point for independent ethical thought in the modern world. Under the general idea of law, defined as an "ordinance of reason for the common good, promulgated by him who has charge of the community," Thomas distinguishes (1) the eternal law or regulative reason of God which embraces all his creatures, rational and irrational; (2) "natural law," being that part of the eternal law that relates to rational creatures as such; (3) human law, which properly consists of more particular deductions from natural law particularized and adapted to the varying circumstances of actual communities; (4) divine law specially revealed to man. As regards natural law, he teaches that God has implanted in the human mind a knowledge of its immutable general principles; and not only knowledge, but a disposition, to which he applies the peculiar scholastic name _synderesis_,[23] that unerringly prompts to the realization of these principles in conduct, and protests against their violation. All acts of natural virtue are implicitly included within the scope of this law of nature; but in the application of its principles to particular cases--to which the term "conscience" should be restricted--man's judgment is liable to err, the light of nature being obscured and perverted by bad education and custom. Human law is required, not merely to determine the details for which natural law gives no intuitive guidance, but also to supply the force necessary for practically securing, among imperfect men, the observance of the most necessary rules of mutual behaviour. The rules of this law must be either deductions from principles of natural law, or determinations of particulars which it leaves indeterminate; a rule contrary to nature could not be valid as law at all. Human law, however, can deal with outward conduct alone, and natural law, as we have seen, is liable to be vague and obscure in particular applications. Neither natural nor human law, moreover, takes into account that supernatural happiness which is man's highest end. Hence they need to be supplemented by a special revelation of divine law. This revelation is distinguished into the law of the old covenant and the law of the gospel; the latter of these is productive as well as imperative since it carries with it the divine grace that makes its fulfilment possible. We have, however, to distinguish in the case of the gospel between (1) absolute commands and (2) "counsels," which latter recommend, without positively ordering the monastic life of poverty, celibacy and obedience as the best method of effectively turning the will from earthly to heavenly things.

Duns Scotus.

William of Occam.

But how far is man able to attain either natural or Christian perfection? This is the part of Thomas's system in which the cohesion of the different elements seems weakest. He is scarcely aware that his Aristotelianized Christianity inevitably combines two different difficulties in dealing with this question: first, the old pagan difficulty of reconciling the proposition that will is a rational desire always directed towards apparent good, with the freedom of choice between good and evil that the jural view of morality seems to require; and, secondly, the Christian difficulty of harmonizing this latter notion with the absolute dependence on divine grace which the religious consciousness affirms. The latter difficulty Thomas, like many of his predecessors, avoids by supposing a "co-operation" of free-will and grace, but the former he does not fully meet. It is against this part of his doctrines that the most important criticism, in ethics, of his rival Duns Scotus (c. 1266-1308) was directed. He urged that will could not be really free if it were bound to reason, as Thomas (after Aristotle) conceives it; a really free choice must be perfectly indeterminate between reason and unreason. Scotus consistently maintained that the divine will is similarly independent of reason, and that the divine ordering of the world is to be conceived as absolutely arbitrary. On this point he was followed by the acute intellect of William of Occam (d. c. 1347). This doctrine is obviously hostile to all reasoned morality; and in fact, notwithstanding the dialectical ability of Scotus and Occam, the work of Thomas remained indubitably the crowning result of the great constructive effort of medieval philosophy. The effort was, indeed, foredoomed to failure, since it attempted the impossible task of framing a coherent system out of the heterogeneous data furnished by Scripture, the fathers, the church and Aristotle--equally unquestioned, if not equally venerated, authorities. Whatever philosophic quality is to be found in the work of Thomas belongs to it in spite of, not in consequence of, its method. Still, its influence has been great and long-enduring,--in the Catholic Church primarily, but indirectly among Protestants, especially in England, since the famous first book of Hooker's _Ecclesiastical Polity_ is to a great extent taken from the _Summa theologiae_.

Medieval mysticism.

Partly in conscious antagonism to the schoolmen, yet with close affinity to the central ethico-theological doctrine which they read out of or into Aristotle, the mystical manner of thought continued to maintain itself in the church. Philosophically it rested upon Neoplatonism, but its development in strict connexion with Christian orthodoxy begins in the 12th century with Bernard of Clairvaux and Hugo of St Victor. It blended the Christian element of love with the ecstatic vision of Plotinus, sometimes giving the former a decided predominance. In its more moderate form, keeping wholly within the limits of ecclesiastical orthodoxy, this mysticism is represented by Bonaventura and Gerson; while it appears more independent and daringly constructive in the German Eckhart, advancing in some of his followers to open breach with the church, and even to practical immorality.

Casuistry.

The Jesuits.

In the brief account above given of the general ethical view of Thomas Aquinas no mention has been made of the detailed discussion of particular duties included in the _Summa theologiae_; in which, for the most part, an excellent combination of moral elevation with sobriety of judgment is shown, though on certain points the scholastic pedantry of definition and distinction is unfavourable to due delicacy of treatment. As the properly philosophic interest of scholasticism faded in the 14th and 15th centuries, the quasi-legal treatment of morality came again into prominence, borrowing a good deal of matter from Thomas and other schoolmen. One result of this was a marked development and systematization of casuistry. The best known _Summae casuum conscientiae_, compiled for the conduct of auricular confession, belong to the 14th and 15th centuries. The oldest, the _Astesana_, from Asti in Piedmont, is arranged as a kind of text-book of morality on a scholastic basis; later manuals are merely lists of questions and answers. It was inevitable that, in proportion as this casuistry assumed the character of a systematic penal jurisprudence, its precise determination of the limits between the prohibited and the allowable, with all doubtful points closely scrutinized and illustrated by fictitious cases, would have a tendency to weaken the moral sensibilities of ordinary minds; the greater the industry spent in deducing conclusions from the diverse authorities, the greater necessarily became the number of points on which doctors disagreed; and the central authority that might have repressed serious divergences was wanting in the period of moral weakness[24] that the church went through after the death of Boniface VIII. A plain man perplexed by such disagreements might naturally hold that any opinion maintained by a pious and orthodox writer must be a safe one to follow; and thus weak consciences were subtly tempted to seek the support of authority for some desired relaxation of a moral rule. It does not, however, appear that this danger assumed formidable proportions until after the Reformation; when, in the struggle made by the Catholic church to recover its hold on the world, the principle of authority was, as it were, forced into keen, balanced and prolonged conflict with that of reliance on private judgment. To the Jesuits, the foremost champions in this struggle, it seemed indispensable that the confessional should be made attractive; for this purpose ecclesiastico-moral law must be somehow "accommodated" to worldly needs; and the theory of "Probabilism" supplied a plausible method for effecting this accommodation. The theory proceeded thus: A layman could not be expected to examine minutely into a point on which the learned differed; therefore he could not fairly be blamed for following any opinion that rested on the authority of even a single doctor; therefore his confessor must be authorized to hold him guiltless if any such "probable" opinion could be produced in his favour; nay, it was his duty to suggest such an opinion, even though opposed to his own, if it would relieve the conscience under his charge from a depressing burden. The results to which this Probabilism, applied with an earnest desire to avoid dangerous rigour, led in the 17th century were revealed to the world in the immortal _Lettres provinciales_ of Pascal.

The Reformation. Transition to modern ethical philosophy.

In tracing the development of casuistry we have been carried beyond the great crisis through which Western Christianity passed in the 16th century. The Reformation which Luther initiated may be viewed on several sides, even if we consider only its ethical principles and effects. It maintained the simplicity of Apostolic Christianity against the elaborate system of a corrupt hierarchy, the teaching of Scripture alone against the commentaries of the fathers and the traditions of the church, the right of private judgment against the dictation of ecclesiastical authority, the individual responsibility of every human soul before God in opposition to the papal control over purgatorial punishments, which had led to the revolting degradation of venal indulgences. Reviving the original antithesis between Christianity and Jewish legalism, it maintained the inwardness of faith to be the sole way to eternal life, in contrast to the outwardness of works; returning to Augustine, and expressing his spirit in a new formula, to resist the Neo-Pelagianism that had gradually developed itself within the apparent Augustinianism of the church, it maintained the total corruption of human nature, as contrasted with that "congruity" by which, according to the schoolmen, divine grace was to be earned; renewing the fervent humility of St Paul, it enforced the universal and absolute imperativeness of all Christian duties, and the inevitable unworthiness of all Christian obedience, in opposition to the theory that "condign" merit might be gained by "supererogatory" conformity to evangelical "counsels." It will be seen that these changes, however profoundly important, were, ethically considered, either negative or quite general, relating to the tone and attitude of mind in which all duty should be done. As regards all positive matter of duty and virtue, and most of the prohibitive code for ordinary men, the tradition of Christian teaching was carried on substantially unchanged by the Reformed churches. Even the old method of casuistry was maintained[25] during the 16th and 17th centuries; though Scriptural texts, interpreted and supplemented by the light of natural reason, now furnished the sole principles on which cases of conscience were decided.

Humanism.

In the 17th century, however, the interest of this quasi-legal treatment of morality gradually faded; and the ethical studies of educated minds were occupied with the attempt, renewed after so many centuries, to find an independent philosophical basis for the moral code. The renewal of this attempt was only indirectly due to the Reformation; it is rather to be connected with the more extreme reaction from the medieval religion which was partly caused by, partly expressed in, that enthusiastic study of the remains of old pagan culture that spread from Italy over Europe in the 15th and 16th centuries. To this "humanism" the Reformation seemed at first more hostile than the Roman hierarchy; indeed, the extent to which this latter had allowed itself to become paganized by the Renaissance was one of the points that especially roused the Reformers' indignation. Not the less important is the indirect stimulus given by the Reformation towards the development of a moral philosophy independent alike of Catholic and Protestant assumptions. Scholasticism, while reviving philosophy as a handmaid to theology, had metamorphosed its method into one resembling that of its mistress; thus shackling the renascent intellectual activity which it stimulated by the double bondage to Aristotle and to the church. When the Reformation shook the traditional authority in one department, the blow was necessarily felt in the other. Not twenty years after Luther's defiance of the pope, the startling thesis "that all that Aristotle taught was false" was prosperously maintained by the youthful Ramus before the university of Paris; and almost contemporaneously the group of remarkable thinkers in Italy who heralded the dawn of modern physical science--Cardanus, Telesio, Patrizzi, Campanella, Bruno--began to propound their Aristotelian theories of the constitution of the physical universe. It was to be foreseen that a similar assertion of independence would make itself heard in ethics also; and, indeed, amid the clash of dogmatic convictions, and the variations of private judgment, it was natural to seek for an ethical method that might claim universal acceptance from all sects.

Grotius.

C. _Modern Ethics._--The need of such independent principles was most strongly felt in the region of man's civil and political relations, especially the mutual relations of communities. Accordingly we find that modern ethical controversy began in a discussion of the law of nature. Albericus Gentilis (1557-1611) and Hugo Grotius (1583-1645) were the first to give a systematic account. Natural law, according to Grotius and other writers of the age, is that part of divine law which follows from the essential nature of man, who is distinguished from animals by his "appetite" for tranquil association with his fellows, and his tendency to act on general principles. It is therefore as unalterable, even by God himself, as the truths of mathematics, although its effect may be overruled in any particular case by an express command of God; hence it is cognizable _a priori_, from the abstract consideration of human nature, though its existence may be known _a posteriori_ also from its universal acceptance in human societies. The conception, as we have seen, was taken from the later Roman jurists; by them, however, the law of nature was conceived as something that underlay existing law, and was to be looked for through it, though it might ultimately supersede it, and in the meanwhile represented an ideal standard, by which improvements in legislation were to be guided. Still the language of the jurists in some passages (cf. _Inst. of Justinian_, ii. 1, 2) clearly implied a period of human history in which men were governed by natural law alone, prior to the institution of civil society. Posidonius had identified this period with the mythical "golden age"; and such ideas easily coalesced with the narrative in Genesis. Thus there had become current the conception of a "state of nature" in which individuals or single families lived side by side--under none other than those "natural" laws which prohibited mutual injury and interference in the free use of the goods of the earth common to all, and upheld parental authority, fidelity of wives, and the observance of compacts freely made. This conception Grotius took, and gave it additional force and solidity by using the principles of this natural law for the determination of international rights and duties, it being obvious that independent nations, in their corporate capacities, were still in that "state of nature" in their mutual relations. It was not, of course, assumed that these laws were universally obeyed; indeed, one point with which Grotius is especially concerned is the natural right of private war, arising out of the violation of more primary rights. Still a general observance was involved in the idea of a natural law as a "dictate of right reason indicating the agreement or disagreement of an act with man's rational and social nature"; and we may observe that it was especially necessary to assume such a general observance in the case of contracts, since it was by an "express or tacit pact" that the right of property (as distinct from the mere right to non-interference during use) was held by him to have been instituted. A similar "fundamental pact" had long been generally regarded as the normal origin of legitimate sovereignty.

The ideas above expressed were not peculiar to Grotius; in particular the doctrine of the "fundamental pact" as the jural basis of government had long been maintained, especially in England, where the constitution historically established readily suggested such a compact. At the same time the rapid and remarkable success of Grotius's treatise (_De jure belli et pacis_) brought his view of Natural Right into prominence, and suggested such questions as--"What is man's ultimate reason for obeying these laws? Wherein exactly does this their agreement with his rational and social nature consist? How far, and in what sense, is his nature really social?"

Hobbes.

It was the answer which Hobbes (1588-1679) gave to these fundamental questions that supplied the starting-point for independent ethical philosophy in England. The nature of this answer was determined by the psychological views to which Hobbes had been led, possibly to some extent under the influence of Bacon,[26] partly perhaps through association with his younger contemporary Gassendi, who, in two treatises, published between the appearance of Hobbes's _De cive_ (1642) and that of the _Leviathan_ (1651), endeavoured to revive interest in Epicurus. Hobbes's psychology is in the first place materialistic; he holds, that is, that in any of the psycho-physical phenomena of human nature the reality is a material process of which the mental feeling is a mere "appearance." Accordingly he regards pleasure as essentially motion "helping vital action," and pain as motion "hindering" it. There is no logical connexion between this theory and the doctrine that appetite of desire has always pleasure (or the absence of pain) for its object; but a materialist, framing a system of psychology, will naturally direct his attention to the impulses arising out of bodily wants, whose obvious end is the preservation of the agent's organism; and this, together with a philosophic wish to simplify, may lead him to the conclusion that all human impulses are similarly self-regarding. This, at any rate, is Hobbes's cardinal doctrine in moral psychology, that each man's appetites or desires are naturally directed either to the preservation of his life, or to that heightening of it which he feels as pleasure.[27] Hobbes does not distinguish instinctive from deliberate pleasure-seeking; and he confidently resolves the most apparently unselfish emotions into phases of self-regard. Pity he finds to be grief for the calamity of others, arising from imagination of the like calamity befalling oneself; what we admire with seeming disinterestedness as beautiful (_pulchrum_) is really "pleasure in promise"; when men are not immediately seeking present pleasure, they desire power as a means to future pleasure, and thus have a derivative delight in the exercise of power that prompts to what we call benevolent action. Since, then, all the voluntary actions of men tend to their own preservation or pleasure, it cannot be reasonable to aim at anything else; in fact, nature rather than reason fixes this as the end of human action; it is reason's function to show the means. Hence if we ask why it is reasonable for any individual to observe the rules of social behaviour that are commonly called moral, the answer is obvious that this is only indirectly reasonable, as a means to his own preservation or pleasure. It is not, however, in this, which is only the old Cyrenaic or Epicurean answer, that the distinctive point of Hobbism lies. It is rather in the doctrine that even this indirect reasonableness of the most fundamental moral rules is entirely conditional on their general observance, which cannot be secured apart from government. For example, it is not reasonable for me to perform my share of a contract, unless I have reason for believing that the other party will perform his; and this I cannot have, except in a society in which he will be punished for non-performance. Thus the ordinary rules of social behaviour are only hypothetically obligatory; they are actualized by the establishment of a "common power" that may "use the strength and means of all" to enforce on all the observance of rules tending to the common benefit. On the other hand Hobbes yields to no one in maintaining the paramount importance of moral regulations. The precepts of good faith, equity, requital of benefits, forgiveness of wrong so far as security allows, the prohibition of contumely, pride, arrogance,--which may all be summed up in the formula, "Do not that to another which thou wouldest not have done to thyself" (i.e. the negative of the "golden rule")--he still calls "immutable and eternal laws of nature"--meaning that, though a man is not unconditionally bound to realize them, he is, as a reasonable being, bound to desire that they should be realized. The pre-social state of man, in his view, is also pre-moral; but it is therefore utterly miserable. It is a state in which every one has a right to everything that may conduce to his preservation;[28] but it is therefore also a state of war--a state so wretched that it is the first dictate of rational self-love to emerge from it into social peace and order. Hence Hobbes's ideal constitution naturally comes to be an unquestioned and unlimited--though not necessarily monarchical--despotism. Whatever the government declares to be just or unjust must be accepted as such, since to dispute its dictates would be the first step towards anarchy, the one paramount peril outweighing all particular defects in legislation and administration. It is perhaps easy to understand how, in the crisis of 1640, when the ethico-political system of Hobbes first took written shape, a peace-loving philosopher should regard the claims of individual conscience as essentially anarchical, and dangerous to social well-being; but however strong might be men's yearning for order, a view of social duty, in which the only fixed positions were selfishness everywhere and unlimited power somewhere, could not but appear offensively paradoxical.

There was, however, in his theory an originality, a force, an apparent coherence which rendered it undeniably impressive; in fact, we find that for two generations the efforts to construct morality on a philosophical basis take more or less the form of answers to Hobbes. From an ethical point of view Hobbism divides itself naturally into two parts, which by Hobbes's peculiar political doctrines are combined into a coherent whole, but are not otherwise necessarily connected. Its theoretical basis is the principle of egoism; while, for practically determining the particulars of duty it makes morality entirely dependent on positive law and institution. It thus affirmed the relativity of good and evil in a double sense; good and evil, for any individual citizen, may from one point of view be defined as the objects respectively of his desire and his aversion; from another, they may be said to be determined for him by his sovereign. It is this latter aspect of the system which is primarily attacked by the first generation of writers that replied to Hobbes. This attack, or rather the counter-exposition of orthodox doctrine, is conducted on different methods by the Cambridge moralists and by Cumberland respectively. Cumberland is content with the legal view of morality, but endeavours to establish the validity of the laws of nature by taxing them on the single supreme principle of rational regard for the "common good of all," and showing them, as so based, to be adequately supported by the divine sanction. The Cambridge school, regarding morality primarily as a body of truth rather than a code of rules, insist on its absolute character and intuitive certainty.

The Cambridge moralists, Cudworth.