No More Learning

1. The position of Locke with reference to these questions is still less definitely formulated than his attitude with regard to theoreti cal questions. No doubt the treatment of practical principles occupies almost the larger space in his attack upon " innate ideas," as is natural from the fact that his opposition is there directed against the Platonism of the Cambridge school. But the positive indications upon ethical subjects (and indeed there is nothing that goes beyond indications), which are found scattered through his
Chap. 2, § 36. ] Principle* of Moral* : Locke. 503
writings, do not in any important degree transcend mere psycholo gists Locke regards the moral judgment as demonstrative knowl edge, because it has for its object a relation, namely, the agreement or non-agreement of a man's action with a law [" conformity or disagreement men's voluntary actions have to a rule, to which they are referred, and by which they are judged of"]. 1 Accordingly the imperative character seems essential for ethics. The existence of such norms, however, presupposes not only a law-giver, but also his power to visit obedience to his laws with a reward, and disregard of them with punishment ; for only through the expectation of these consequences, Locke holds, can a law work upon the will.
If the philosopher was certain of not deviating from the "com mon sense " of the average man with such principles, he was equally secure in the three instances which he adduces of the law-giving authority, — public opinion, the state, and God. And in the high est of these instances he found again the point of attachment for the remnant of Cartesian metaphysics which his empiricism had preserved. For identically the same will of God is known by reve lation and by the " natural light " (according to Locke's philosophy of religion ; cf. § 35, 1). The law of God is the law of Nature. But its content is, that the order of Nature fixed by God attaches inju rious consequences to certain actions, and useful consequences to others, and that therefore the former are forbidden, the latter com manded. Thus the moral law gains a metaphysical root without losing its utilitarian content.
2. The need of a metaphysical basis of morals asserted itself also in other forms, and in part in a still stronger degree, though it was common to the whole Cartesian school to regard right will as the necessary and inevitable consequences of right insight. In this respect Cartesianism was seconded by the whole throng of Platonists, who were so hostile to it in natural philosophy — at first, Henry
More' and Cud worth,' later, especially, Richard Price. 4 They all proceeded from the thought that the moral law is given with the inmost nature of reality which has proceeded forth from God, and that it is therefore written with eternal and unchangeable letters in every reasonable being. With much enthusiasm but with few new arguments, they defended the Stoic-Platonic doctrine in its Christian- theistic transformation.
> Cf. Kssau cone. Hum. Un. , II. 28, 4 II.
1 Knchriridion Kthicum ( 1067).
* Wbone Treat it t concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality wu tint pnb-
lUn«l by Chandler, in 1731.
• Question* and Difficulties in Moral* CLond. 1768).
504 The Enlightenment : Practical Questions. [Part V.
This intellectualism, in connection with rationalistic metaphysics, took a direction that was widely removed from the Scotist recourse to the divine will which had been revived by Descartes and still more by Locke, and instead of this proceeded to determine the content of the moral law solely by metaphysical relations, and, accordingly, in the last instance, by logical criteria. Just in this appeared its contrast to all the psychologically influenced theories, which, in some form or other, always returned to feelings of pleas ure and pain as the central nerve of ethical determinations. This is clearest in the case of Clarke, who professed to find the objective principle of morals in the "fitness" of an action to its determining relations, and who claimed for the knowledge of this fitness a self- evidence analogous to the knowledge of mathematical truth, and in the Cartesian spirit was convinced that the feeling of obligation, by which the will is determined to the appropriate action, develops inevitably from such an insight into the fitness of things. Ethical inferiority, accordingly, appeared quite in the ancient fashion (cf. § 7, 6) to be the result of ignorance or of erroneous opinion. Wol- laston, stimulated by Clarke, gave to the same thought the turn, that since every action involves a (theoretical) judgment as to its underlying relations, the decision as to whether the act is right or wrong in the ethical sense depends upon the Tightness (correctness) or wrongness of this judgment.
3. Pierre Bayle takes a peculiar position with reference to these questions : he supports a rationalism without any metaphysical back ground. In his case the interest of fixing morals upon a firm basis, as opposed to all dependence upon dogmatic doctrines, was active in the strongest and most radical manner. While in declaring meta physical knowledge in general to be impossible he opposed the rational grounding of natural religion as well as that of positive dogma, he yet gave back with full hands to the " reason " in the practical domain what he had taken from it in the theoretical realm.
of knowing the essence of things, the human reason is, according to him, completely furnished with the consciousness of its duty : powerless without, it is complete master of itself. What it lacks in science it has in conscience : a knowledge of eternal and unchangeable truth.
The ethical reason, Bayle holds therefore, remains everywhere the same, however different men, peoples, and times may be in their theoretical insight. He teaches for the first time with clear con sciousness the practical reason's complete independence of the theo retical; but this, too, he is glad to bring to its sharpest point with reference to theology. Revelation and faith are regarded by him in
Incapable
Chap. 2, § 36. ] Principlet of Moral* : Clarke, Bayle. 505
the Catholic manner as essentially theoretical illumination, and just on this account they seem to him to be indifferent for morality. He admired the ethical excellence of ancient heathenism, and believed in the possibility of a morally well-ordered community of atheists. While, therefore, his theoretical scepticism might seem favourable to the Church, his moral philosophy was necessarily attacked as her most dangerous foe.
If the ethical principles were in this discussion proclaimed by Bayle also as " eternal truths," he did it in the original Cartesian sense, where interest centered not so much about the psychological question of innateness, as rather about the epistemological point of view of immediate evidence not brought about through the medium of logic. In this sense the virtual innateness of ethical truths was held of course by Leibniz, and it was in the spirit of both that Vol taire, who approached Bayle's standpoint the more in proportion as his attitude toward metaphysics became more sceptical (cf. § 35, 5), said of the ethical principles that they were innate in man just as his limbs were : he must learn to use both by experience.
4. Bayle very likely had the support of general opinion when he ascribed to the ethical convictions a worth exalted above all change and all difference of theoretical opinions; but he was successful,
perhaps, just because he treated those convictions as something known to all, and did not enter upon the work of bringing their content into a system, or of expressing them as a unity. Whoever attempted this seemed hardly able to dispense with a principle taken either from metaphysics or from psychology.
Such a determination of the conceptions of morality by a principle was made possible by the metaphysics of Leibniz, though it was only prepared by him incidentally and by way of indications, and was first carried out by Wolff in systematic, but also in cruder forms. The Monadology regards the universe as a system of living beings, whose restless activity consists in unfolding and realising their original content. In connection with this Aristotelian conception the Spinozistic fundamental idea of the " auum esse conaervare " (cf. f 32, 6) becomes transformed into that of a purposeful vocation or destiny, which Leibniz and his German disciples designated as perfection. 1 The " law of Nature," which for this ontology also is coincident with the moral law, is the striving of all beings toward perfection. Since now every process of perfecting, as such, is con nected with pleasure, and every retrogression in life's development with pain, there follows from this the ancient identification of the ethically good with well-being or happiness.
i Leibnii, Monad. 41 If.
506 The Enlightenment : Practical Question*. [Part V.
Natural law, therefore, demands of man that he should do all that serves his perfection, and forbids all that threatens to bring him loss in his perfection. From this thought Wolff develops the whole system of duties, bringing to his aid especially the principle of mutual furtherance: man needs for his own perfecting other men, and works toward his own perfection in helping them toward the fulfilment of their vocation. In particular, however, it followed from these premises that man must know what truly conduces to
his perfecting ; for not all that is momentarily felt to be a further ance of life proves truly and permanently a step toward perfection. Hence morality is throughout in need of ethical knowledge, — of right insight into the nature of man and things. From this point of view the enlightenment or "clearing up" of the understanding appears the pre-eminent ethical task. With Leibniz this follows immediately from the conception of the monad. 1 The monad is the more perfect, —and perfection Leibniz defines in genuine scholastic fashion as grandeur de la riaUte" positive, — the more it shows its activity in clear and distinct representations ; the natural law of its develop
ment is the clearing up of its original obscure representative content (cf. § 31, 11). Wolff's circumstantial deduction takes rather the form of pointing out in experience the useful consequences of
knowledge. It remains thus quite within the setting of the homely aim which the German teacher-philosopher (Kdthederphilosoph) set before his scientific work, viz. to make philosophy usable and prac tically efficient, by clearness of conceptions and plainness of proofs.
5. This tendency Wolff had adopted from his teacher Thomasius, the father of the Enlighteners, a man who was indeed wanting in the pre-eminence that characterised the mind of Leibniz, but was given all the more an understanding for the wants of his time, a capacity for agitation, and a spirit for efforts toward the public
Intellectual movements of the Renaissance that had been checked in the seventeenth century revived again at its close. Thomasius would transplant philosophy from the lecture hall into real life, — put it into the service of the general weal ; and since he understood little of natural science, his interest turned toward criticism of public institutions. Reason only should rule in the life of the whole, as well as in that of the individual : so he fought honour ably and victoriously against superstition and narrowness, against torture and witch-trials. Enlightenment in the sense of Thomasius is hence far from having the metaphysical dignity which Leibniz gave it. It gains its value for individuals and for society first by the uses which it yields and which can be expected from it alone.
good.
1 Cf. Leibniz, Monad. 48 ft.
Chap. 2, § 36. ] Principles of Moral* : Wolff, Thomatius. 507
Perfection and utility are accordingly the two characteristics which with Wolff make Enlightenment an ethical principle. The former comes out more strongly in connection with the general metaphysical basis ; the latter in the particular building out of the system. And in the same way this duality of criteria goes through Wolff's school and the whole popular philosophy, — only, the more superficial the doctrines become, the broader the space taken by utility. Even Mendelssohn gives as the reason for turning aside from all deeper and more refined subtilty, that philosophy has to treat only just so much as is necessary for man's happiness. But because this eudse- monism of the Enlightenment had from the outset no higher point of view than that of the education and welfare of the average man, it fell into another limitation, the most jejune philistinism and sen sible, prosaic commonplace. This might be in place and most beneficial in effect in a certain stratum of popular literature, not high, indeed, but broad; but when such a success on the part of the
Enlighteners "went to their heads," when they applied the same measuring rod to the great phenomena of society and history, when this excessive pride of the empirical understanding would allow nothing to stand except what it had known "clearly and distinctly," then the noble features of the Enlightenment became distorted to that well-intentioned lack of comprehension, as type of which Friedrich Nicolai, with all his restless concern for the public good, became a comic figure. 1
6. The great mass of the German Enlighteners did not suspect how far they were wandering from the living spirit of the great Leibniz with this dry utility of abstract rules. Wolff, indeed, had already let the pre-established harmony fall metaphysically also, and so proved that the finest meaning of the Monadology had re mained hidden from him. Hence he and his Successors had no comprehension for the fact, that Leibniz's priuciple of perfection made the unfolding of the content of the individual life and the shap ing out of its dimly felt originality, the task of the ethical life, in the same degree as his metaphysics asserted the peculiar nature of each individual being in the face of all others. This side of the matter first came into power in Germany, when the period of genius dawned in literature, and the passionate feeling of strongly indi vidual minds sought its own theory. The form which it then found in Herder's treatises, and likewise in Schiller's Philosophical Letters, was, however, much more strongly determined by another doctrine
1 Cf. FlchU? , Ft. SicolaCt I. tbtn und Bonderbare Meinungen (1801), W. W. mi. i a.
608 The Enlightenment : Practical Quettiont. [Part V.
than it was by Leibniz, — by a doctrine which, in spite of the dif ference in the conceptions in which it was carried out, had in its ethical temper the closest relationship with that of the German metaphysician.
Shaftesbury had given to the idea of perfection a form that was less systematic but all the more impressive and clear to the imagi nation. The ancient conception of life, in accordance with which morality coincides with the undisturbed unfolding of man's true and natural essence, and therefore with his true fortune, was directly congenial to him and became the living basis of his thought. Hence, with Shaftesbury, the ethical appears as the truly human, as the flower of man's life, as the complete development of his natural endowments. In this is fixed at the outset Shaftesbury's attitude toward Cumberland and Hobbes. He cannot, like the latter, regard egoism as the sole fundamental characteristic of the natural man ; he rather agrees with the former in recognising the altruistic incli nations as an original inborn endowment. But neither can he see in these inclinations the sole root of morality ; to him morality is the completion of the entire man, and therefore he seeks its principle in symmetrical development and in the harmonious interaction of the two systems of impulses. This theory of morals does not demand the suppression of one's own weal in favour of that of others ; such a suppression appears to it to be necessary only in the lower stages of development : the fully cultivated man lives as truly for himself as for the whole,1 and just by unfolding his own individual charac ter does he set himself as a perfect member in the system of the universe. Here Shaftesbury's optimism expresses itself most fully in his belief, that the conflict between the egoistic and the altruistic motives, which plays so large a part in the lower strata of humanity, must be completely adjusted in the ripe, mature man.
But for this reason the ethical ideal of life is with this thinker an entirely personal one. Morality consists for him, not in the control of general maxims, not in the subordination of the individ ual's will to norms or standards, but in the rich and full living out of an entire individuality. It is the sovereign personality which asserts its ethical right, and the highest manifestation in the ethical realm is the virtuosoship, which allows none of the forces and none of the lines of impulse in the individual's endowment to be stunted,
1 Pope compared this relation with the double motion of the planets about the sun and their own axes {Essay on Man, III. 314 ff. ). Moreover, it was through i' e same poet that Shaftesbury's theory of life worked on Voltaire, while
liiilerot (in his work upon the Inquiry concerning Virtue and Merit) attached himself directly to Shaftesbury.
Chap. 2, § 36. ] Principlet ofMorals : Shaftesbury, Hutcheson. 509
but brings all the manifold relations into harmony in a perfect con duct of life, and thus brings about both the individual's happiness and his most efficient working for the welfare of the whole. Th as the Greek ideal of the kalokagathia finds a new expression in the
Weltanschauung of the Monad ology (cf. § 7, 5).
7. While the moral principle has thus with Shaftesbury already
received an aesthetical colouring in its contents, this colouring ap pears consistently in a yet stronger degree when he deals with the question as to the source of knowledge for ethical tasks. This source, by metaphysicians and sensualists alike, was found in rational knowl edge either of the nature of things or of the empirically useful : in both cases principles resulted that were capable of demonstration and universally valid. The morals of virtuosoship, on the contrary, must take its individual life-ideal from the depths of the individual nature ; for it morality was grounded upon feeling. The ethical judgments by which man approves those impulses which Nature has implanted within him to further his own and others' weal, or, on the other hand, disapproves the " unnatural " impulses that work against those ends, — these judgments rest on man's ability to make his own functions the object of study, i. e. upon "reflection" (Locke); they are not merely, however, a knowledge of one's own states, but are emotion* of reflection, and as such they form within the " inner sense " the moral sense.
Thus the psychological root of the ethical was transplanted from the field of intellectual cognition to the feeling-side of the soul, and set in the immediate vicinity of the aesthetic. The good appeared an the beautiful in the world of will and action : it consists, like the beautiful, in a harmonious unity of the manifold, in a perfect devel opment of the natural endowments ; it satisfies and blesses as does the beautiful ; it is, like the beautiful, the object of an original a/yirveal fixed in man's deepest nature. This parallel ruled the literature of the eighteenth century from Shaftesbury on: "taste" is the fundamental faculty ethically as aesthetically. This was perhaps most distinctly expressed by Hutcheson, but with a turn which to some degree led away again from Shaftesbury's individual ism. For he understood by the " moral sense " — in the purely psychological meaning of "innateness" — an original faculty, essen tially alike in all men, and with the function of judging what is ethically to be approved. The metaphysical accessories of the
l'latonists and Cartesians were gladly thrown overboard, and in their stead he held fast the more eagerly — especially in opposition to the "selfish system" — to the principle that man possesses a natural feeling for the good as for the beautiful, and declared the analysis of this feeling to be the business of philosophy.
510 The Enlightenment : Practical Question*. [Pakt V.
The carrying over of this principle into the theoretical domain led in the Scottish School (cf . § 33, 8) to making the True parallel with the Good and the Beautiful, as the object of original approval, and thus assuming in " common sense " a kind of " logical sense. " Bat the principle of feeling as source of knowledge was proclaimed in afar more pronounced manner by Rousseau, who based bis deism upon the uncorrupted, natural feeling ' of man, in opposition to the cool intellectual analysis with which the purely theoretical Enlighten ment treated the religious life. This feeling-philosophy was carried out in a very indefinitely eclectic manner by the Dutch philosopher, Franz Hemsterhuys (of Groeningen, 1720-1790), and with quaint singularity by the talented enthusiast, Hamann, the " Wizard of the North. " *
8. It was, however, in the fusion of ethical and aesthetic investiga tions that the above theory of the feelings, prepared by Shaftesbury and Hutcheson, made its influence most felt The more the eudae- monistic morals was treated in a manner intelligible to the common mind, the more convenient it was for it to be able to invest the moral commands, as the object of a natural pleasure, with the garb of grace and attractiveness, and to be permitted to commend the good to the taste as something akin to the beautiful. The Scottish School, also, was not far from this mode of view, and Ferguson developed Shaftesbury's ideas in this manner with especial reference to the Leibniziau fundamental conception of perfection. The effect of this complication of thought for aesthetics, however, was that the beginnings toward a metaphysical treatment, which Shaftesbury had brought to the problems of the beautiful from the system of Plotinus, became completely overshadowed by the psychological method. The question asked was not, what the beautiful is, but how the feeling of the beautiful arises ; and in the solution of this question the explanation of the aesthetic was brought into more or less close connection with ethical relations. This shows itself, too, in the case of those writers upon aesthetics who stood closer to the sensualistic psychology than did the Scots. Thus Henry Home conceives of the enjoyment of the beautiful as a transition from the purely sensuous pacification of desires to" the moral" and intellectual joys, and holds that the arts have been invented for that refine ment of man's sensuous disposition which is requisite for his higher
1 Cf. the creed of the Savoyard Vicar in fimile, IV. 201 ff.
* Johann Georg Hamann (of Konigsberg, 1730-1788 ; collected writings ed. by Gildemeigter, Gotha, 1867-73) combines this line of thought with a pietism not far removed from orthodoxy in his thoughtful, but illogical and unclear form of expression.
Chap. 2, §36. ] Principles of Morah : Home, Burke. 511
destiny. He seeks, therefore, the realm of the beautiful in the higher senses, hearing and especially sight, and finds as the basis, a taste common to all men for order, regularity, and combination of the manifold into a unity. When he then further distinguishes between the "intrinsic" beauty which is immediately an "object of sense," and the beauty of " relation," these relations look essen tially toward what is for the common good ethically, in the ser vice of which beauty is thus placed. 1 Even Edmund Burke, in his effort to derive the aesthetic from elementary states of sensation in accordance with the method of associational psychology, is very strongly dependent upon the form given to the problems by contem porary moral philosophy. His attempt to determine the relation of the beautiful to the sublime — a task at which Home, also, had laboured, though with very little success * — proceeds from the antithesis of the selfish and the social impulses. That is held to be sublime which fills us with terror in an agreeable shudder, "a sort of delightful horror," while we are ourselves so far away that we feel removed from the danger of immediate pain : that is beau tiful, on the contrary, which is adapted to call forth in an agreeable manner the feelings either of sexual love or of human love in general.
In a manner similar to that of Home, Sulzer placed the feeling of the beautiful midway between that of the sensuously agreeable and that of the good, forming thus a transition from the one to the other. The possibility of this transfer he found in the intellectual factor which co-operates in our apprehension of the beautiful : it appeared to him — following the view of Leibniz (cf. § 34, 11) — as the feeling of harmonious unity in the manifold perceived by the senses. But just by reason of these presuppositions, the beautiful was for him valuable and perfect only when it was able to further the moral sense. Art, also, is thus drawn into the service of the morals of the Enlightenment, and the writer on aesthetics, who was so long celebrated in Germany, shows himself but a mechanical handicrafts man of Philistine moralising in his conception of art and its task. How infinitely freer and richer in esprit are the " Observations " which Kant instituted " concerning the Feeling of the Beautiful and the Sublime," at the time when he, too, pursued, from the psycho logical standpoint, and with admirable knowledge of the world, the
« For more detailed treatment, we the art. Home (Karnes) by W. Windel- band in Srtrh und (trubrr't Knc, Vol. II. 38, 213 f.
1 According to Home the beautiful U sublime if it is great. The anlltheai* between the qualitatively and the quantitatively pleasing aeems to lie at the
i of hia unclear and wavering characterisations.
512 The Enlightenment : Practical Question*. [Part V
fine ramifications of the ethical and aesthetic life in individuals, families, and peoples !
Finally these thoughts gave occasion in Germany to a change in psychological theory that was rich in results. Before this it had been the custom to divide the psychical activities according to the Aristotelian example into theoretical and practical. But now the feelings, which became thus recognised in their various significance, seemed incapable of being brought either into the group of knowing, or into that of willing, without disadvantage ; it seemed rather that the feelings, as a peculiar mode of expression, in part lay at the basis, and in part followed, both of the above functions of the soul. Here, too, the suggestion came from the Leibnizian Monadology. Sulzer, in his Berlin lectures,1 seems first to have pointed out that the obscure, primitive states of the monad should be separated from the developed forms of life seen in completely conscious knowing and willing, and he already found the distinguishing characteristic of these obscure states to be the conditions of pleasure and pain given with them. This was done also, in a similar way, from Leibnizian presuppositions by Jacob Friedrich Weiss. 1 Mendelssohn (1755) first named these states Empfindungen i [sensations], and later the same author designated the psychical power, which lies at their common basis, as the faculty of approval (BUligungsvermogen). * But the decisive influence on terminology was exercised by Tetens and Kant. The former substituted for sensations (Empfindungen) the expression feelings (Fiihlungen or Gefiihle),* and Kant used the latter almost exclusively. It was he, too, who later made the triple divis ion of tlie psychical functions into ideation, feeling, and willing ( Vor- stellen, Fiihlen, und Wollen) the systematic basis of his philosophy,6 and since then this has remained authoritative, especially for psychology.
9. The counter-current, which proceeded from Hobbes and declared the profit or injury of the individual to be the sole possible content of the human will, maintained itself in the face of all these develop ments.
In this theory, the criterion of ethical action was sought in a purely psychological manner in the consequences of such action
1 1761 f. Printed in the Vermischten Schriflen (Berlin, 1773).
* J. F. Weiss, De Natura Animi et potissimum Cordis Humani (Stuttgart,
1761).
* In this Mendelssohn, with his Letters concerning the Sensations, refers
directly to Shaftesbury.
♦ Cf. Mendelssohn, Morgenstunden, 1785, ch. 7 (W. I. 362).
6 Cf. Tetens, Versuche, X. pp. 626 ff.
• In the article written between 1780 and 1790 designed at first as an intro
duction to the Critique of Judgment which has passed over into his writings under the title Ueber Philosophic iiberhaupt. Cf. Pt. VI. ch. 1.
Vrat. 2, § 36. ] Principles of Moral* : Utilitarianism. 513
for the advantage of our fellow-men. Morality exists only within the social body. The individual, if by himself and alone, knows only his own weal and woe ; but in society his actions are judged from the point of view of whether they profit or injure others, and this alone is regarded as the standpoint of ethical judgment This conception of the ethical criterion corresponded not only to the common view, but also to the felt need of finding for ethics a basis that should be destitute of metaphysics, and rest purely on empiri cal psychology. Cumberland and Locke even acceded to it in the last resort, and not only the theological moralists like Butler and Paley, but also the associations! psychologists like Priestley and Hartley, attached themselves to it. The classical formula of this tendency was gradually worked out. An action is ethically the more pleasing in proportion as it produces more happiness, and in proportion as the number of men who can share this happiness becomes greater : the ethical ideal is the greatest happiness of the greatest number. This became the watch-word of Utilitarianism.
This formula, however, suggested the thought of determining quantitatively the ethical values for individual cases and relations. The thought of Hobbes and Locke, of grounding a knowledge of a strictly demonstrative ethics upon the utilitarian principle, seemed thereby to have found a definite form, welcome to the natural-science mode of thinking. This enticement was pursued by Bentham, and in this consists the peculiar element of utilitarian thought as carried out by him, — a work which he performed with a warm feeling for the public good, and which was later much referred to. The point is to find exact, definite points of view, according to which the value of every mode of action for the weal of the actor himself and of the community to which he belongs, can be determined, — partly in itself,
partly in its relation to other modes of conduct; and Bentham in this table of values and their opposites, with an extensive consid eration of both individual and social relations and needs, sketches a scheme of a pleasure and pain balance for reckoning the useful and injurious consequences of human activities and institutions. As with Hume (cf. below, No. 12), the reckoning of the ethically val uable falls to the province of the measuring intellect ; but the factors with which it operates in this process are solely the feelings of pleasure and pain.
10. The close connection in which this utilitarianism stood his torically after Hobbes with the selfish system — that is, with the assumption of the essentially egoistic character of human nature — led necessarily to the separation of the question as to the criterion of morality and the kind of knowledge by which it is apprehended,
514 The Enlightenment: Practical Questions. [Part V.
from that as to the sanction of the moral commands and the motives for obeying them. For the metaphysical theories, the sanction of the ethical commands lay in the eternal truths of the law of Nature : and psychologically, also, there seemed to be no further and especial motive needed for the effort toward perfection, for the living out of the personality, for the following of innate ethical inclinations; morality was self-explaining under such presuppositions. But he who thought more pessimistically of man, he who held him to be a being determined originally and in his own nature solely by regard to his own weal or woe, — he must ask with what right an altruistic way of acting is required of such a being, and by what means such a being can be determined to obedience to this requirement. If morality was not of itself inherent in man's nature, it must be declared how it comes into him from without.
Here, now, the principle of authority, already adduced by Hobbes and Locke, performed its service. Its most palpable form was the theological; it was carried out with more finely wrought conceptions by Butler, and in a crude manner, intelligible to the common mind, by Foley. Utility is for both the criterion of ethical action, and the divine command is for both the ground of the ethical requirements. But while Butler still seeks the knowledge of this divine will in the natural conscience — his re-interpretation of Shaftesbury's emotions of reflection, for which he himself uses also the term " reflection " — for Paley, it is rather the positive revelation of the divine will that is authoritative ; and obedience to this command seems to him explic able only because the authoritative power has connected its com mandment with promises of reward and threatenings of punishment. This is the sharpest separation of ethical principles, and that perhaps which corresponds most to the " common sense " of the Christian world. The criterion of the moral is the weal of one's neighbour; the ground of our knowledge of the moral is the revealed will of God ; the real ground which supplies the sanction is the will of the Supreme Being ; and the ethical motive iu man is the hope of the reward, and the fear of the punishment, which God has fixed for obedience and disobedience.
11. Paley thus explained the fact of ethical action by the hypoth esis that man, in himself egoistic, is brought at last by the agency of the equally egoistic motives of hope and fear, and by the round about way of a theological motivation, to the altruistic mode of action commanded by God. The senmtalistic psychology substituted for the theological agency the authority of the state and the con straining forces of social life. If the will of man is in the last resort always determinable only by his own weal and woe, his altru
Chat. 2, § 36. ] Principle* of Morals : Butler, Paley. 515
istic action is comprehensible only on the supposition that he sees in it the surest, simplest, and most intelligent means under the given relations for bringing about his own happiness. While, there fore, the theological utilitarians held that the natural egoism should be tamed by the rewards of heaven and punishments of hell, it seemed to the empiricists that the order of life arranged by the state and society was sufficient for this purpose. Man finds himself in such relations that when he rightly reflects he sees that he will find his own advantage best by subordination to existing morals and laws. The sanction of ethical demands lies, accordingly, in the legislation of the state and of public morality which is dictated by the principle of utility, and the motive of obedience consists in the fact that each one thus finds his own advantage. Thus Man- devitte, Lamettrie, and HelvHius developed the " selfish system " ; La- mettrie, especially, with tasteless cynicism that savoured of a desire for admiration, seeking to exhibit " hunger and love " in their lowest sensuous meaning as the fundamental motives of all human life — a wretched, because artificial, imitation of ancient Hedonism.
Morality, accordingly, appears to be only eudaemonistic shrewd ness, the polished egoism of society, the refined cunning of the man who is familiar with life, and has seen that to be happy he can pursue no better path than to act morally, even if not to be moral. This view frequently finds expression in the Enlightenment philos ophy as the governing principle of " the world " of that day : whether it be as the naive, cynical confession of a writer's own dis- jmsition, as in Lord Chesterfield's well-known letters to his son, — or in the form of moralising reflections, as in Labruyere's " Charac- tkres" (1680), and in La Rochefoucauld's " Reflections" (1690), where the mask is unsparingly torn off from man's ethical behaviour, and naked egoism is disclosed as the sole impelling motor every where, — or finally as bitter satire, as with Swift, where the true nature of the human beast is finally discovered by Gulliver among the Yahoos.
Hand in hand with this gloomy conception of the natural mean ness of man the view goes through the age of the Enlightenment that man's education to ethical action has to appeal to just this low system of impulses, working through power and authority, with the aid of fear and hope. This shows itself characteristically even with those who claim for the mature and fully developed man, a pure morality raised above all egoism. So, for example, Shaftesbury finds positive religion with its preaching of rewards and punish ments quite good enough for the education of the great mass. So,
616 The Enlightenment : Practical Question*. [Part V.
too, Prussia's philosophical king Frederick the Great,1 who for him self had a consciousness of duty so strict and pure and free from all selfish considerations, and declared such to be the highest ethical good, yet thought that in the case of the education which the state gives to men it should start with their closest interests, however low these might be ; for he granted to the Encyclopaedists that man as a genus is never to be determined by anything else than by his own personal interests. In this respect the French Enlighteners, especially, sought to analyse the motives, by awakening which the state can win the citizens to care for the interests of the whole. Montesquieu showed with fine psychology how different the forms are which this relation takes under different forms of constitution. Lamettrie pointed, as Mandeville had already done, to the sense of honour or repute as the most powerful factor in the social sentiment among civilised peoples, and Helvetius carried out this thought farther.
But if the sensualistic psychology thus looked for man's ethical education from the state alone, the degree of success with which this was accomplished must serve as a standard for estimating the value of public institutions. This consequence was drawn by Holbach, and the most winning feature of this dry book is perhaps the honourableness and energy with which it tries to show how little the rotten conditions of the public life of that time were adapted to raise the citizen above the meanness of selfish endeavours.
12. Hume's moral philosophy may be regarded as the most com plete embodiment of this movement, and as the most refined consid eration of the motives that contend within it. It, too, stands completely upon the basis of the psychological method : man's ethical life is to be understood by a genetic investigation of his passions, feelings, and volitions. The most significant element in Hume's teaching is the separation of utilitarianism from the selfish system. The criterion of ethical approval and disapproval for him, too, the effect which the quality or action to be judged adapted to produce in the form of feelings of pleasure and pain, and, like the ancients and Shaftesbury, he interprets this in the widest sense, inasmuch as he regards as objects of ethical pleasure, not only the " social virtues," such as justice, benevolence, etc. , but also the " natural abilities," such as prudence or sagacity, fortitude, energy, etc. But we feel this approval, even when these qualities
Cf. especially what adduced by E. Zeller, F. d. Q. alt PhUosoph, pp. 67 ft\, 106 ff. , and also especially Frederick's "Antimacchiavelli. "
Here, too, the old ambiguity of virtus (virtue) = moral virtue, and also ability or excellence, plays part.
a
is
'
21
is, is
Chaf. J, § 36. ] Principles of Moral* : Hume, Smith. 517
are completely indifferent to our own welfare, or indeed even inju rious to the same; and this cannot possibly be traced back to egoism through the medium of mere psychological association. On the other hand, the relation which these judgments sustain to the complicated relations of experience forbids the assumption of their inuatenes8. They must rather be reduced to a simple, elementary form, and this is sympathy,1 i. e. primarily our capacity to feel with another his weal or woe as our own, at least in a weakened form. Such sympathetic feelings, however, are not only the impulsive grounds of moral judgments, but also the original motives of moral action, for the feelings are the causes of the decisions of the will. Still, these original impulses alone are not adequate to explain ethical judgment and action. For the more complicated relations of life, there is need of a clarification, ordering, and com parative valuation of the factors of feeling, and this is the business of reason. From the reflection of reason arise, therefore, in addition to the natural and original values, derivative " artificial" virtues, as the type of which Hume treats justice and the whole system of standards of rights and law — in this, evidently, still dependent upon Hobbe8. But in the last resort these principles, also, owe
their ability to influence judgment and volition, not to rational reflection as such, but to the feelings of sympathy to which this appeals.
Thus the crude conception of a "moral sense" is refined by Hume's investigation to a finely articulated system of moral psy chology with its carefully differentiated conceptions, as the centre of which we find the principle of sympathy. A farther step in carrying out this same theory was taken in the ethical work of Adam Smith. As against the externality with which ordinary utilitarianism had placed the criterion of ethical judgment in the pleasurable or painful consequences of the act, Hume had energet ically directed attention to the fact, that ethical approval or disap proval concerns rather the disposition manifesting itself in the action, in so far as this aims at the consequences in question.
Hence Smith found the essence of sympathy, not only in the capacity of feeling these consequences with the one who experiences them, but also in the ability to transfer one's self into the disposi tion or sentiment of him who acts, and to feel his motives with him. And extending farther and farther the thought of transfer through sympathy, the judgment which the individual pronounces upon him self in the conscience is then conceived as a reflex, mediated through
> Cf. Treati**, II. I. II. wid II. 2, 6.
518 TJte Enlightenment : Practical Question*. [Part V.
feelings of sympathy, of the judgment which he receives from others and exercises upon others.
All phenomena of the ethical life are thus rooted, according to Hume and Smith, in the social life, whose psychological basis is sympathy, and the founder of political economy, with his great philosophical friend, sees in the mechanism of sympathetic transfers of feeling an adjustment of individual interests similar to that which he believed himself to have discovered in the realm of the exchange of external goods, which is conducted with reference to the strait- ness of the conditions of life, in the mechanism of supply and demand in connection with the competition of labour. 1 But with these insights into the thoroughgoing dependence of the individual upon a social body, which he does not create, but in which he finds himself actually placed, the philosophy of the Enlightenment is already pointing beyond itself.
§ 37. The Problem of Civilisation.
The fundamental thought, which the philosophy of the Enlight enment would hold as to the great institutions of human society ami its historical movement, was prescribed for it in advance, partly by its dependence upon natural-science metaphysics, and partly by its own psychological tendency. This was to see in these institutions the products of the activities of individuals; and from this followed the tendency to single out those interests whose satisfaction the individual may expect from such general social connections when once these exist, and to treat them in a genetic mode of explanation as the motives and sufficient causes for the origin of the institutions in question, while at the same time regarding them from a critical point of view, as the standard for estimating the value of the same. Whatever was regarded as having been intentionally created by men should show also whether it was then really fulfilling their purposes.
1. This conception was guided into the political and juristic track primarily by Hobbes. The state appeared as the work of individuals, constructed by them under the stress of need, when in a condition of war with each other and in fear for life and goods. With its whole system of rights, it was regarded as resting upon the compact which the citizens entered into with each other from the above motives. The same Epicurean compact-theory, which had revived in the later Middle Ages, passed over with Nominalism into modern philosophy
1 Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations fLond. 1770).
Chap. 2, § 37. ] Problem of Civilisation : Compact-Theory. 519
and extended its influence over the whole eighteenth century. But the artificial construction of absolutism, which Hobbes had erected upon it, gave place more and more in consequence of political events to the doctrines of popular sovereignty. This lay at the basis of the English Constitution of 1688, as well as at that of the theoretical shap ing which Locke gave the same in his doctrine of the separation and equilibrium of the three departments of the state, the legislative, executive, and federative. It controlled, also, as an ideal require ment, the writings of Montesquieu, who, in considering the rotten administration of law at his time, would have complete independ ence given to the judicial power, while he thought of the executive and federative departments (as administration within and without, respectively) as united in the one monarchical head. It was finally carried out to a complete system of democracy in Rousseau's Con trol Social, in which the principle of transfer and representation was to be limited as much as possible, and the exercise of the sov ereignty also to be assigned directly to the whole body of the peo ple. In all these transformations of the doctrine of Hobbes, the influence of the realities of historical politics is obvious, but the antithesis between Hobbes and Rousseau has also its theoretical background. If man is regarded as by nature essentially egoistic, he must be compelled to keep the social compact by the strong arm of the state : if he is regarded as originally good and social in his feelings, as by Rousseau, it is to be expected of him that he will of himself always take part in carrying out, in the interest of the
whole, the life prescribed by the compact.
It is interesting now to see that the compact-theory in the
eighteenth century communicated itself also to those theories of the philosophy of right which did not have a merely psychological basis. The " natural right " of this time proceeds also from the right of the individual, and seeks to derive from this the rights of individuals in their relation to each other. Yet in carrying out this principle two different tendencies show themselves in German phil osophy, leading to results that were extremely characteristic in their differences. Leibniz had derived the conceptions of right (or law) from the most general principles of practical philosophy, fol lowing the example of the ancients. 1 Wolff followed him in this respect also, but made it on this account the end of the political compact to secure the mutual furtherance of individuals in behalf of their mutual perfecting, enlightening, and happiness ; according
1 Cf. his introduction to the Codex JurU Gentium Diplomatics (1OT3), Works (Erd), 118 ff.
520 The Enlightenment : Practical Question*. [Part V.
to hiin, therefore, the state has to care, not merely for external safety, but also for the general welfare in the broadest extent The consequence of this is that Wolff assigns to the state the right and duty of a thorough tutelage of the great mass of unenlightened men who are controlled by error and passion, and of intermeddling even in their private relations in the way of education. Thus Wolff gave the theory for that " paternal " despotism of the benevolent police-state under which the Germans of his time lived with very mixed feelings.
The exactly opposite result attached itself theoretically to the separation of the philosophy of right from morals, for which the way had already been prepared by Thomasius, with his sharp parting of the justum and the honestum. In this line the disciple of Tho masius, Gundling (1671-1729), maintained that right or law teas to be treated solely as the ordering of the external relations of individuals, that it has for its end the preservation of peace without, and there fore its decrees can be enforced only as to outward relations. This limitation of the state's activity to the external protection of law evidently corresponded most fully to the dualistic spirit of the Enlightenment. If the individual has conformed to the political compact only from need and want, he will evidently be inclined to make as few concessions to the state as possible, and will be willing to sacrifice to it of his original " rights " only so much as is uncondi- ditiohally requisite for the end which it is to fulfil. This was not
merely the thought of the Philistine citizen, who is indeed ready to call for the police at once when anything is the matter, but privately regards the order of the laws as an enemy that must be kept from his throat as much as possible ; it was also the feeling of the En- lightener of high intellectual development, who had for his rich inner life only the interest of being able to devote himself unmo lested to the enjoyments of art and science. In fact, the petty spirit of the small German states, with its lack of ideals, must necessarily produce the indifference toward public life which thus found its theoretical expression. The lowest stage which the de preciation of the state reached in this respect among the cultured classes is perhaps best characterised by William von Humboldt's " Ideas toward an Attempt to determine the Bounds of the Operation of the State. " ' Here every higher interest of man is carefully ex cluded from the province of the state's authority, and the task of public government is restricted to the lower service of protecting the life and property of the citizen.
1 Written 1792, published 1851 by E. Cauer.
Cbai*. 2, $ 37. ] Problem of Civilisation : Voltaire. 521
2. If in this respect German philosophy remained quite indif ferent toward the actual political condition, on the other hand there appeared in it also the general tendency of the Enlightenment to order the life of society, as that of the individual, according to the principles of philosophy. If it is glory enough for this period to have successfully cleared away much historical lumber that had accumulated in the house-keeping of European peoples, Thoinasius and Wolff, Mendelssohn and Nicolai, certainly deserve credit for their share in the work (cf. § 36, 5). But this side of the matter came forward in an incomparably more powerful and efficient degree with the French Enlighteners. It is enough here to recall
Voltaire, who appeared as a literary power of the first rank, work ing unweariedly and victoriously for reason and justice. But the contest which he carried on to a certain extent before the bar of public opinion of all Europe was taken up in detail by his fellow- countrymen, in a criticism of social institutions and by proposals for their improvement : in a broad and often passionate discussion philosophical reflection proceeds to the task of reforming the state. And here the weakness of the Enlightenment at once appears side by side with its strength. As always, it takes the standards of its criticism for existing institutions, and of its proposals for their change, from the universal, eternal nature of man or of things; thus it loses from sight the authorisation and vital force of histori cal reality, and believes that it is only needed to make a tabula rasa of the existing conditions wherever they show themselves contrary to reason, in order to be able to build up society entire in accordance
with the principles of philosophy. In this spirit the literature of the Enlightenment, especially in France, prepared for the actual break icith history, — the Revolution. Typical in this was the pro cedure of Deism which, because none of the positive religions with stood its " rational " criticism, would abolish tbem all and put in their place the religion of Nature.
So then the French Revolution, too, attempted to decree the abstract natural state of "liberty, equality, and fraternity," the realisation of " human rights " according to Rousseau's Social Contract. And numerous pens of very moderate quality hastened to justify and glorify the procedure. 1 It is for the most part a superficial Epicureanism standing upon the basis of Condillac's positivism that acts as spokesman. Thus Volney seeks, with the System* de la Nature, the source of all the evils of society in the
1 The preference for the catechism, a form designed fur education in the Church, is characteristic of this literature.
522 The Enlightenment : Practical Question*. [Past V.
ignorance and covetousness of man, whose capacity for perfection has hitherto been restrained by religions. When all " illusions " shall be frightened away with these religions, then the newly organised society will have as its supreme rule of conduct, that "good" is only what furthers the interests of man, and the cate chism for the citizen is comprehended in the rule "Conserve toi — instruis toi — modere toi — vis pour tes semblables, ahn qu'ils vivent pour toi. " ' Still more materialistic is the form in which the theory of the Revolution appears with 6V. Lambert, from whom the defini tion that was much discussed in later literature comes : " L'homme est une masse organisee et sensible ; il recpit ^intelligence de ce qui l'environne et de ses besoins. "* With the most superficial con sideration of history, he celebrates in the Revolution the final victory of reason in history, and at the same time this Epicurean deduces that the democratic beginnings of this great event will be completed in Caesardom ! The extreme pitch of self-complacent
boasting in this aspect of parliamentary dilettantism was reached by Garat and Lancelin?
In contrast with these glittering generalities and declamations over the welfare of the people and the reign of reason, the earnest reality with which Bentham sought to make the utilitarian principle useful for legislation, appears in an extremely favourable light. This work he sought to accomplish by teaching the application of the quantitative determination of pleasure and pain values
J 36, 9) to the consideration of the ends of particular statutes, with a careful regard to the existing conditions in every case. 4 Just in this he showed his insight into the fact that in the political move ment the question at issue is not merely that of political rights, but above all that of social interest, and along just this line an enthu siastic and successful champion of the Revolution arose in Qodicin,* who was not uninfluenced by Bentham. But along other lines, too,
1 Volney, at the close of the Catechisme, (Euvr. , I. 310.
1 St. Lambert, Catech. Introd. , (Euvr. , I. 63. For the characterisation of this literature it should not remain unmentioned that in St. Lambert's cate chism the Analyse de Vhomme is followed in a second book by an Analyse de
la —femme.
* The organ of this movement most worthy of esteem was the Decade Philo-
sophique, which saw and defended in the Revolution the triumph of the philoso phy of the eighteenth century.