the breaking out of sin and the development of its destructive power in the world on the one hand, and the entrance of Jesus, the God-man, and the historical redeeming power proceeding from him on the other. Even philosophical morality, if it would not degener- ate into inere unphilosophical abstractions, must make the moral life, considered as historical and concrete, scientilicallj- comprehensilile ; the concrete historical form of tlie moral world, however, is, for us at least, before everytiiing else. Christian, just as general his- torj^ since the time of Clnist is itself Christian.
" But, so long as we follow Schlciermacher, and, in explaining the relation between philosophical and the- ological ethics, make the religious consciousness the opposite of speculation, we shall never escape confu- sion. The religious consciousness finds its antithesis not in speculation, but in the not reVgious, and specu- lation finds its opposite not in piety, but in emjiirical reflection : empirical reflection and speculation stand in verj^ similar relations to piety. The larger number of theological writers are still of the opinion that the distinction between philosophical and tlieological eth- ics lies in the former being the universal, the abstract, the ethics of humanity, and the latter the concrete and specificall}' Christian, because it rests on history. Thus Schniid and M'uttke. These writers hold that the great facts which form the angles of the Christian theory of the world, namely, sin and redemjition by Christ, are, according to their nature, inadequate as the basis of anj' purely a pno7-i or speculative theory. Thej' lay great stress on this. But whj' reason thus ? At bottom, because thej^ start with the presupposition that there is no other necessity but the necessity of nature. But, in spite of all the confident assertions of the contrar}', we cannot doubt that from the specifical- ly Christian consciousness of God, which is tlie subject treated here, sin and redemption should be deduced as a logical necessity" (Rothe, Theolngische Ethik. i, 57).
II. Position of Ethics in Theolo(iij. — " Ethics is a part of systematic theology, which also includes dogmatics. As systematic science, it is to be distinguished from exegetical and historical theology. Its office is not merely to show wliat is the original, and thus norma- tive Christian ethics, nor what has been accepted as such, but rather to teach that Christian etliics is the genuine ethical truth." .... "On the otlier hand, ethics must be separated from the various branches of practical theology among which it has often been placed. The two sciences are different both in scope and aim. Ethics embraces the whole Christian idea oi good, and not merely the Cliurch, in which it finds only its culmination, and points away from itself to practical theologj-, the aim of which is, of course, prac- tical" (Herzog's Real-Enci/Mop. art. Ethik).
Place in Systematic TheoliKjy. — "In ancient times, and down to the Reformation, it was not independent, but held a subordinate place in the science of dogmat- ics. From the 17th century the two have been sepa- rated, and, following P. Ramus, most writers have distinguished between them as between theory and practice. In point of fact, dogmatics has practical importance, and ethics, as the science of the fpod, has a theory" (Herzog's Real-EiicyUop. art, Eiliik), "Dogmatics and ethics are as certainlj' independent disciplince as God and man are separate beings. Only a point of view like that of Spinoza, in his Ethics, which denies the existence of a real creation and a moral world separate from God, can controvert the independent position of ethics by the side of dogmat- ics" (;id('m).
These views are substantially correct. " Christian ethics has a right to an independent position in the sphere of systematic theology, and it and dogmatics are as certainly, distinct as are God and man." Still it is none the less true that, God and man conceived to be such as the}- are, ethics cannot be practically sepa- rated from religion. Ethics finds its highest sanctions
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in religion, as religion must consist largely in pro- scribing ethics. God and man being presented to the mind, ethics must cover the character of each, and also the relation between them.
III. The Ethical Faculty — Conscience. — There has been a great waste of controversj' on the question whether or not conscience is a distinct and separate faculty of the soul, or only an application of the rea- son or judgment to moral subjects. The truth is that, the mind being a unit, all its faculties are only so many powers of applying itself differently according to demand. A faculty is a power of doing or acting, and a separate faculty is the power of acting in a par- ticular direction, as distinguished from other direc- tions. The mind is as certainly and distinctly moral as it is intellectual, or imaginative, or volitional. Eacli of these expresses a distinct power of the one mind.
This fticult}'- of forming moral judgments we call conscience ; and, if the views now expressed be cor- rect, there is little propriety in discussions respecting the origin of conscience. It has no origin but that of its possessor; it is born with him, though from its na- ture it is only developed farther on in life, just as rea- son and imagination are. It has been asked, in replj"^ to this view, whether conscience is not made what it is in an}' given case by the circumstances about it — bj' teaching, by the man's own acts — in short, hj all the influences brought to bear upon him. We answer it is as to its form, but there was first conscience, a mor- al fjiculty in the man to be shaped. We concede that neither moral ideas, nor ideas of any sort, are innate ; but the capacity, nay, the constitutional necessity for moral ideas is innate.