life in the perfect independence of the Sage, rather than in the activity of the good citizen. A similar tendency appears in the schools of the Epicureans and Sceptics. It was only with the advent of Christianity that it again became possible to conceive of an ideal kingdom, of which all are members, and in which even the humblest citizen may participate by faith, though unable to understand with any fulness the nature of the unity within which his life is passed.

§ 6. MEDIEVAL ETHICS.-Mediæval ideas on Ethics' were much influenced by those of Plato and Aristotle, but partly also by those of the Stoics and by conceptions derived from Christianity. The more religious aspects of morals were specially developed; and a good deal of attention was also given to the application of ethical ideas to the guidance of the individual life. Casuistry owed its origin to the efforts that were made. in the latter direction.

§ 7. SCHOOLS OF ETHICS IN MODERN TIMES.-The development of Ethics in modern times is considerably more complex, and we can only indicate some of its main lines. Descartes is generally regarded as the founder of modern philosophy; but his interests were mainly metaphysical. In Ethics he and his school did little more than develop the ideas of the Stoics, to which they were specially attracted in consequence of the opposition between mind and body involved in their metaphysics. In the meantime, however, a more materialistic school of thought was growing up, led by Gassendi and Hobbes, and the members of this school allied themselves rather with the Epicurean school of

1 These are dealt with pretty fully in Sidgwick's History of Ethics.

ancient times. Gassendi was definitely a disciple of Epicurus. Hobbes worked out a more independent line, regarding the attainment of power as the great aim of human life. Hobbes was opposed by the Cambridge Platonists and by Cumberland, who endeavoured to bring out the more social, and at the same time the more rational, side of human nature. Out of their position was developed what came to be known as the Moral Sense School, represented by Shaftesbury and Hutcheson. According to these writers we have an intuitive perception of the distinction between right and wrong, similar to the æsthetic perception of the distinction between the beautiful and the ugly; but at the same time this perception is capable of explanation. It depends on the social nature of man. What is beneficial to society strikes one naturally as good; what is harmful is instinctively regarded as bad. This point of view forms a sort of watershed, from which several streams of tendency in ethical speculation emerge. Some writers tended to emphasise exclusively the fact that there is an intuitive perception of right and wrong. Out of this came the Intuitionist School of Reid and his followers. Others were specially struck by the fact that the distinction between good and bad rests on a reasonable consideration of the results of action. Hence arose the rational school, represented by Locke, Clarke, Wollaston, &c. This line of thought may be said to have culminated in Kant; and, in the works of his immediate successors, it gave rise to a point of view approximating to those of Plato and Aristotle. This view afterwards passed into English thought in the school of modern Idealism represented by Green and others. Finally, some of those who were impressed

by the teaching of the Moral Sense School were led to attach special importance to the fact that the good is that which is beneficial to society, or that which promotes human happiness. From this consideration the school of modern Utilitarianism was developed. These three schools-the Intuitionist, the Rational, and the Utilitarian, were the main lines of modern ethical thought, until the school of the modern Evolutionists

arose.

CHAPTER II.

THE TYPES OF ETHICAL THEORY.

§ 1. GENERAL SURVEY.-We are now able to take account of the leading types of ethical thought that have occurred throughout the history of speculation. In details there is wide diversity, but in their broad outlines the types are few and simple. Two types, in particular, come up again and again in the course of ethical thought as opposing points of view-the types represented by Heraclitus and Democritus, Antisthenes and Aristippus, Zeno and Epicurus, Descartes' and Gassendi, Cudworth and Hobbes, Reid and Hume, Kant and Bentham. This antithesis may be roughly expressed as that between those who lay the emphasis on reason and those who lay the emphasis on passion; but, as we go on, we shall have to endeavour to define it more precisely. Besides these opposing schools, however, we find throughout the course of ethical speculation another point of view which may be described as that which lays the emphasis on the concrete personality of man, rather than on any such abstract quality as reason or passion. This point of view does not usually appear in opposition to the other two, but rather as a view in which they are reconciled and transcended. It appears chiefly in the great specula

1 Geulinex and Malebranche represented the more ethical aspect of the Cartesian School somewhat more definitely than Descartes himself.

I

tive thinkers who rise above the oppositions of the schools-such as Plato and Aristotle, Hegel, and one or two others. In recent times, however, it has come out more distinctly as one school (or perhaps we should say two schools) side by side with the others-the school which may be broadly characterized as that of development. Besides these main positions there are a number of others that are more transitory and less recurrent-such as the aesthetic school, represented chiefly by the Moral Sense writers and Herbart; the school of sympathy, represented by Adam Smith; and one or two others.

We must now try to make the main lines of contrast a little clearer.

§ 2. REASON AND PASSION.-It has already been indicated that the main line of opposition may be said to consist in the antithesis between reason and passion. We have seen that the human consciousness may be described as a Universe or system, consisting, when we regard it from the active point of view, of various desires placed within a more or less fully co-ordinated group. Now it is possible to direct special attention either to the separate desires existing within this whole or to the form of unity by which it coheres as a system. We may regard human life as essentially a struggle between desires seeking gratification, or as the effort to bring those desires into subjection to the idea of a system. The antithesis between the two schools arises,

1 Spinoza should on the whole be classed with them. Though a Cartesian, he fully recognises the element of truth in the point of view of such a writer as Hobbes, and his final view of the highest good as being found in the "Intellectual Love of God," is to a large extent a reproduction of the teaching of Plato and Aristotle wtth regard to the Speculative Life.