Chapter I: Preface

This work completes the series of historical textbooks which I began more than thirty years ago. It is an expansion of a course of lectures given for several years to my advanced classes in history, and is designed as a brief introduction to the history of morals. In treating the science of morals as a branch of history my thought is, without trenching in the least upon the domain of the philosophy of morals, to make the work of the department of history more helpfully introductory than it has hitherto been to that of the department of moral philosophy. The book is the outgrowth of a conviction that the philosophy of ethics, if it shall become a stimulus and guide to social service and humanitarian effort,--especially if it shall bring reënforcement to that ethical idealism which so largely motives the present-day movement for world peace,--must be based on a knowledge of the facts of the moral life of the race in all the various stages of the historic evolution, and that to gather and systematize these facts is a part of the task of the historian, indeed the most important part of his task. It is my hope that teachers of both history and ethics may find the book helpful, whether made the basis of classroom discussion or of lecture comment.

P. V. N. M.

COLLEGE HILL
CINCINNATI, OHIO

Ethics gives to History its rational goal; and all morality has the
perfect shaping of universal history as its ultimate end. A real
understanding of history is not possible without ethics; universal
history is the realization of the moral ... within humanity.--ADOLF
WUTTKE.

The real advance made by Thucydides consists, perhaps, in this,
that he perceived the motive forces of human history to be in the
moral constitution of human nature.--LEOPOLD VON RANKE.

Ethics, if it is to become truly a science, must shun the path of
speculation and follow closely the historical method.... Range in
fancy over the whole circle of the sciences, and you will find
there no place for ethics save as a branch of human history....
Given the earliest morality of which we have any written record, to
trace from it through progressive stages the morality of to-day;
that is the problem, and the only problem which can fall to a
truly scientific ethics.... Ethics as the comparative history
of universal morality is the vestibule to the temple of moral
philosophy.--JACOB GOULD SCHURMAN.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. INTRODUCTION 1

II. THE DAWN OF MORALITY: CONSCIENCE IN THE KINSHIP GROUP 12

I. INSTITUTIONS, IDEAS, AND CONDITIONS OF LIFE
DETERMINING THE RULES OF CONDUCT 12

II. ESSENTIAL FACTS OF KINSHIP OR INTRATRIBAL MORALITY 15

III. THE BEGINNINGS OF INTERTRIBAL MORALITY 22

III. THE MORAL LIFE IN ANCIENT EGYPT: AN IDEAL OF SOCIAL
JUSTICE 30

I. CIRCUMSTANCES AND IDEAS WHICH MOLDED AND MOTIVED
MORALITY 30

II. THE IDEAL 33

IV. THE BABYLONIAN-ASSYRIAN CONSCIENCE 45

V. CHINESE MORALS: AN IDEAL OF FILIAL PIETY 53

I. IDEAS, INSTITUTIONS, AND HISTORICAL CIRCUMSTANCES
DETERMINING THE CAST OF THE MORAL IDEAL 53

II. THE IDEAL 60

III. EFFECTS OF THE IDEAL UPON CHINESE LIFE AND HISTORY 69

VI. JAPANESE MORALS: AN IDEAL OF LOYALTY 77

I. FORMATIVE AND MODIFYING INFLUENCES 77

II. THE IDEAL 80

III. SOME SIGNIFICANT FACTS IN THE MORAL HISTORY OF JAPAN 87

VII. THE ETHICAL IDEALS OF INDIA 95

PART I. THE ETHICS OF BRAHMANISM--A CLASS MORALITY 95

I. HISTORICAL AND SPECULATIVE BASIS OF THE SYSTEM 95

II. THE VARIOUS MORAL STANDARDS 101