INTRODUCTION. MODERN THEORIES OF MORALS. BEFORE entering on the consideration of the process by which man has come to recognise certain fixed principles, according to which it is necessary that his moral conduct should be guided, it is advisable to examine somewhat at large the opinions hitherto held on this subject. Prof. Whewell, in his preface to Mackintosh's "Dissertation on the Progress of Ethical Philosophy," observes that it is allowed on all sides that we have a conception of moral obligation. This is admitted by Mr Mill who says "The internal sanction of duty, whatever our standard of duty may be, is one and the same a feeling in our own mind;" and he adds, "this feeling, when disinterested, and connecting itself with the pure idea of duty, and not with some particular form of it, or with any of the merely accessory circumstances, is the essence of Conscience." Whether or not man originally had any conception of moral obligation will have to be considered hereafter. It is a weakness in the argument of most writers that they have never thought of asking this question, it being assumed that man's faculties are now the same as they have ever been. In the comparison of opposing systems however, this is of little moment, "Utilitarianism," 2nd Ed., p. 41. " 1 since it vitiates more or less all alike. All are agreed, moreover, in the recognition of certain general truths, or principles of right moral conduct. There is little difference of opinion among modern philosophers as to the moral nature of particular actions. The question on of which they differ relates, not so much to the criterion morality, as to that which gives actions their special quality. Granting that the mind recognises the moral propriety or otherwise of certain conduct, what is the ground on which that character is assigned to it? Mr Mill states this very clearly when he says that the intuitive, no less than the inductive school of ethics, recognises "to a great extent the same moral laws; but differ as to their evidence, and the source from which they derive their authority. According to the one opinion, the principles of morals are evident à priori, requiring nothing to command assent, except that the meaning of the terms be understood. According to the other doctrine, right and wrong, as well as truth and falsehood, are questions of observation and experience." 1 In this passage we have a classification of the several opinions that have been formed as to the source of the idea of morality. The eternal reason, or fitness of Cudworth and Clarke, the love of order and the love of being of Malebranche and of Edwards, the moral sense or conscience of Butler, Hutcheson, and Mackintosh, the sympathy of Adam Smith, and the intellectual recognition of moral beauty of Stewart, all are based on the notion of intuition. To the inductive school belong the several phases of the "happiness" or "utilitarian" theory held by Cumberland, Leibnitz, Hartley, Paley, and Jeremy Bentham, and by recent or living writers, as Comte, Mill, Bain, Herbert Spencer, and Darwin. Before critically examining the systems represented 1 op. cit. P. 3. by this dual series of thinkers, it may be well to consider the value of Mackintosh's oft repeated accusation, that most metaphysicians have "blended the inquiry into the nature of our moral sentiments, with that other which only seeks a criterion to distinguish moral from immoral habits of feeling and action." Mackintosh illustrates the distinction between the Criterion of Morality and the Theory of Moral Sentiments here enforced, by reference to Paley's representation of the principle of a moral sense as being opposed to that of utility. On this he observes, "it is evident that this representation is founded on a confusion of the two great questions which have been stated above. That we are endued with a moral sense, or, in other words, a faculty which immediately approves what is right and condemns what is wrong, is only a statement of the feelings with which we contemplate actions. But to affirm that right actions are those which conduce to the wellbeing of mankind, is a proposition concerning the outward effects by which right actions themselves may be recognised. As these affirmations relate to different subjects, they cannot be opposed to each other, any more than the solidity of earth is inconsistent with the fluidity of water; and a very little reflection will show it to be easily conceivable that they may be both true. Man may be so constituted as instantaneously to approve certain actions, without any reference to their consequences, and yet reason may nevertheless discover, that a tendency to produce general happiness is the essential characteristic of such actions." After referring to the fact, that Bentham contrasts the principle of utility with that of sympathy, of which he considers the moral sense as one of the forms, Mackintosh continues :-" As these celebrated persons have thus inferred or implied the non-existence of a moral sense, from their opinion that the morality of actions depends upon their usefulness, so other philosophers of equal name have concluded, that the utility of actions cannot be the criterion of their morality, because a perception of that utility appears to them to form a faint and inconsiderable part of our moral sentiments, if indeed it be at all discoverable in them."1 It is important to consider the distinction thus insisted on by Mackintosh, since it is endorsed by Whewell, who sees in it a ground on which the intuitive and the inductive schools may to a great extent be reconciled. The latter infers, that "if we could take into due account the whole happiness produced by virtuous feelings, we could commit no practical error in making the advantageous consequences of actions the measure of their morality." 2 Whewell adds, on the other hand, that if a reverence for general maxims of morality, and a constant reference to the common precepts of virtue, take the place in the utilitarian's mind, of the direct application of his principle, there will remain little difference between him and the believer in original moral distinctions; for the practical rules of the two will rarely differ, and in both systems the rules will be the moral guides of thought and conduct." 3 This would no doubt be admitted by both schools, since Mr Mill affirms, that to do as one would be done by, and to love one's neighbour as one's self, constitute the ideal perfection of utilitarian morality. But, although there may be a practical agreement between the intuitive and inductive systems, there is an essential difference between them which can be bridged over only by the adoption on the part of the latter of the fundamental idea, somewhat modified it may be, on which the former 1 op. cit. pp. 63, 64. 3 Do. p. 29. 4 |