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has conquered the forces of nature because he has thought about them, because he has subjected them to critical analysis. It is to be supposed that the examination of moral forces will be equally fruitful. The discovery of an ethical criterion will surely assist us in answering troublesome ethical questions. We do not always know what is right and what is wrong; we must reflect upon our conduct, we need a standard or ideal with which to measure it. There can be no great progress in morals without reflection. Men are often ignorant of the right; they have to reason it out, they need a firm foundation on which to base it. Or they often become sceptical with regard to morals; they observe a great divergence in modes of conduct, and are apt to regard morality as a collection of arbitrary rules having no real binding force. A closer study of the moral world will easily show the falseness of this view, and establish ethical truths upon a solid basis.

I do not, of course, wish to be understood as claiming that morality is impossible without reflection upon morality, or a science of ethics. This would be like saying that there can be no seeing without a science of vision. Before there can be a science of optics men must possess the power of sight; before there can be a science of ethics men must act. But just as the science of optics greatly assists us in our attempts to see things, so the science of ethics is an aid to action.

It is held by some, however, that reflection upon

moral matters is apt to weaken a person's power of action, and that a study of ethics is, therefore, dangerous to morality. Even if this were so, it could not hinder men from theorizing on the principles of conduct. But the view is false. A careful and thorough examination of the field of morals will, it seems to me, inspire us with a greater respect for morality, and strengthen our impulses toward the good. Of course, hasty and superficial judgments upon ethical facts are, like all half-truths, dangerous. But the best way to combat them is to prove their falseness; the best cure for a half-truth is always a whole truth.

CHAPTER II

THEORIES OF CONSCIENCE 1

1. Introduction. - We pronounce moral judgments upon ourselves as well as upon others; we distin

1 For a history of ethical theories, see, besides the Histories of Philosophy: Köstlin, Die Ethik des classischen Altertums; Luthardt, Die antike Ethik; Ziegler, Die Ethik der Griechen und Römer; Gass, Geschichte der christlichen Ethik; Gass, Die Lehre vom Gewissen; Ziegler, Geschichte der christlichen Ethik; Luthardt, Geschichte der christlichen Ethik; Jodl, Geschichte der Ethik in der neueren Philosophie; Gizycki, Die Ethik David Hume's; Whewell, History of Moral Philosophy; J. H. Fichte, System der Ethik; Vorländer, Geschichte der philosophischen Moral, Rechts- und Staatslehre; Mackintosh, On the Progress of Ethical Philosophy during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries; Stephen, English Thought of the Eighteenth Century; Guyau, La morale anglaise contemporaine; Fouillée, Critique des systèmes de morale contemporains; Williams, A Review of Evolutional Ethics; Sidgwick, Outline of a History of Ethics; Janet, Histoire de la philosophie morale et politique; Paulsen, A System of Ethics, pp. 33-215; Wundt, Ethics, Vol. II; J. Seth, A Study of Ethical Principles, pp. 77-249; Watson, Hedonistic Theories from Aristippus to Spencer; Hyslop, Elements of Ethics, pp. 18-89; Martineau, Types of Ethical Theory; Calderwood, Handbook of Moral Philosophy, 16th edition, pp. 318 ff.; Eucken, Die Lebensanschauungen der grossen Denker. For a history of ethical conceptions, see also Schmidt, Die Ethik der alten Griechen; Lecky, History of European Morals from Augustus to Charlemagne, Friedländer, Die Sittengeschichte Roms; Keim, Rom und das Christentum. Sutherland's Origin and Growth of the Moral Instinct contains much valuable material. Consult also the bibliographies in my translation of Paulsen's Ethics. For bibliog

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guish between rightness and wrongness in thoughts, feelings, volitions, acts, institutions, and so forth. We insist upon the performance of certain modes of conduct and the avoidance of others; we command. categorically, Thou shalt, and thou shalt not. We regard ourselves and our fellows as morally bound or obliged to do certain things, and to refrain from others. The breach of rules which we feel ought to be obeyed is condemned by us even when we ourselves are the offenders.

Let us embrace all these facts under a general formula, and say that man pronounces moral judgments, or distinguishes between right and wrong; man has a moral consciousness or a conscience. The question naturally arises, How is this fact to be explained? We cannot solve this problem until we have carefully analyzed the phenomenon itself which provoked it. Before attempting that, however, let us consider some answers which have already been made to the question.

2. The Mythical View. The naïve thinker tries to account for things in a peculiar manner. He regards natural phenomena as the expression of hidden, mysterious forces. He collects a number of similar occurrences and conceives them as the

raphy of the History of Philosophy, see my translation of Weber's History of Philosophy, notes in § 3. For special bibliographies see the notes on particular philosophers in Weber and Paulsen. The beginner will find the works of Paulsen, Seth, Wundt, Sidgwick, and Hyslop most helpful to him in his study of the history of ethics and ethical conceptions.

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manifestation of some supernatural principle. Thus rain and thunder are produced by rain and thunder gods, disease by a god of disease. The same tendency impels him to explain the fact of moral consciousness by referring it to supernatural powers. He notices a conflict in himself between two tendencies, the one urging him in the direction of the good, the other in the direction of the evil. Behind each he places an entity, a principle, of which the different occurrences are the expressions. Conscience, he says, is the voice of God in the human soul; it is God directly speaking to us; it is something distinct from the person, something from without that tells him which way to go. Greek mythology personifies the pangs of conscience in the form of the Erinyes or Furies, who pursue the evil-doer as long as he lives; and even Socrates speaks of the dæmon within him who warns him against certain lines of conduct and urges him in the direction of the good.1 And just as the naïve consciousness places an entity behind the inner tendency toward the right, so it makes an entity of the inner tendency toward the evil. The latter is called the principle of evil or the devil, who tempts man to do wrong.

3. The Rationalistic Intuitionists. The mythological view, as we might call it, is superseded by the metaphysical view, which appears in many forms, often in combination with the preceding.

1 See Schmidt, Ethik der Griechen; Gass, Die Lehre vom Gewissen. See also Bender, Mythologie und Metaphysik.

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