assume some truths as ultimate, because we want for our reasonings starting-points which shall be independent of reasoning.1 Such independent truths we call intuitive. Their validity is guaranteed by merely looking at them, by simple inspection. We know that two straight lines cannot enclose a space, and that every event must have a cause, without experience and without deduction. And it is further guaranteed by the agreement of the results deduced from them with our general experience.

§ 2. Relation between Intuitionism and Hedonism.

It is now obvious that the ordinary and convenient distinction between intuitionism and hedonism is not a perfectly logical one. There are two fundamenta divisionis. The intuitionist, as such, is simply committed to the view that the ultimate standards or criteria of conduct cannot be guaranteed by any process of inference, and must therefore rest on intuitions. The hedonist, as such, merely asserts that pleasure is the ultimate good. But the hedonist may have arrived at this result by intuition; may be able to reach it in no other way.

The antithesis, however, is not without justification. With the average intuitionist the important fact is not what he discovers by intuition, for his results are "Outlines of Psychology," p. 283; "Human Mind,”

1

Sully,

vol. i.,

usually in close agreement with common sense morality; but how he reaches them. For on this how he usually bases their claim. His principles commend themselves to general acceptance; what he has to do is to theoretically justify their acceptance. On the other hand, the hedonist is advancing a new basis of morality more or less at variance with common sense and naturally dwells more on the principle itself, showing its meaning, its limitations, its results, than on the process by which he arrived at it. The content of the principle is the matter of chief importance with him; and in nine cases out of ten he does not know by what logical method it can be adequately demonstrated.

The student must then remember that some intuitionists may be hedonists, and that some hedonists may be intuitionists. He must remember that some intuitionists are deductive and some inductive in their methods; and so with non-intuitionists, if indeed we can assume that any method which entirely excludes an intuitional starting-point is possible.

§ 3. Intuitionism.

We have already explained what is usually meant by intuitionism. The name is given to any theory which assumes that there are certain ethical propositions of a more or less general character, the truth of which is perceived on mere inspection, without any process of reasoning, or which assumes that the rightness of

action is a quality which exists in it without reference to any end, and may be immediately cognized. An action is known to be right because it is shown to come under one of these rules of conduct, or because its rightness is immediately apprehended; and not because it tends to the realization of some end. Hence intuitionism is called an independent theory of ethics; while hedonism, with which it is usually contrasted, is described as a dependent theory. However, there are several theories which, while not hedonistic, are certainly dependent. These are often called intuitionalist, though without adequate reason, since they do not regard the goodness of the action as inherent to the action itself, nor do they accept a number of ethical principles as self-evident, like the axioms of mathematics.

As Professor Sidgwick says, intuitionists are divided as to

(1) What it is that is intuitively apprehended.

(2) The reason for doing what is intuitively ascertained to be right.

To begin with the former ground of distinction :— There are intuitionists who hold the "ultra-empirical" view. They regard morality as resting on quasipercepts, or immediate judgments of right and wrong; which are indeed occasionally liable to mistakesthough this is not allowed by every one--but can only be corrected by an appeal to the same faculty of immediate knowledge. These judgments, according to popular opinion, refer to the quality of actions ;

but Dr. Martineau has developed a variety of the theory which makes them refer to the quality of motives.1

This doctrine of immediate apprehension of moral qualities naturally gives rise to the moral sense doctrine in its crudest form-viz., that there exists a special faculty which apprehends moral quality as the nose apprehends smells, and with just as little concurrence of reason.

§ 4. Dogmatic Intuitionism.

The doctrine that what we intuitively perceive is the truth of general moral principles, or the rightness of rules of conduct, has been the favourite one with theologians and moralists. We do not immediately recognize a given action as wrong in itself; what we perceive immediately is the wrongness of stealing in general, and not until we can bring the given act under the term stealing do we recognize the act as wrong. The quality of wrongness is in the act all

1 No act is right in itself or wrong in itself. What constitutes the moral character of an act is the motive which stimulates us to perform it. There is a hierarchy of motive impulses, and the relative positions of the different members of it is known infallibly by the conscience. Men inevitably arrive at the same estimate of its value or height of motives. "Every action is right which in the presence of a lower motive follows a higher; every action is wrong which in the presence of a higher principle follows a lower." See Martineau, "Types of Ethical Theory," vol. ii., pp. 17-282; Sidgwick, "Methods,” bk. iii., chap. xii.

the time; but we do not intuite it, we only infer its existence.

What then are the ultimate principles which are intuitively recognized? There is considerable difficulty in arriving at any definite statement. Allusion is constantly made to such principles in conversation, in serious and informal treatises, but they are seldom cited for inspection. There is no acknowledged table of ethical axioms to which one can appeal. For instance, the ten commandments are obviously something more and something less than such a list. They contain truths or rules which are theological rather than ethical, and which are clearly not intuitive. They need expansion and generalisation; for instance, all theologians are agreed that mere abstention from murder and from adultery does not cover all that is meant by commandments six and seven. Nothing can, of course, be called an ultimate moral principle which is capable of having a reason given for it; but even if we do not insist very rigidly on this condition, there is a difficulty in finding any agreement. we are not to take the property of others by force or fraud, that we are not to injure their person, that we are not to take away their life, and that we must not take away our own life,-such are among the rules generally put forward as ultimate.

That

Reid, who may be taken to represent ethical orthodoxy, gives an extended list of "some of the first principles of morals.”

A. Relating to "virtue in general” :—