RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
moralists
idea of church autonomy as entirely distinct from the idea of political freedom. The two spheres, the ecclesiastical and political, had to be isolated from one another. As to the moral ideal of Puritanism, it had massed together State and law, war and politics, property and trade, trying to control them and the individual in his private life through the conception of a God-serving and God-fearing people. But the leaders of Puritanism soon realized that these various elements could not be developed in such a combination. Cromwell became an opportunist and gave up his idealistic religious international policy for a realistic commercial policy. Milton allowed that true Christian morality could be practised only by the select few, not by the whole people. Among the masses the problem was solved in quite a different way. There the various religious convictions led to the foundation of numerous sects, some with extravagant political ideals like those of the Fifth Monarchy Men (q.v.), or like those of the Quakers and Ranters, who were indifferent to political forms and secular ordinances. In this confusion there came a severe crisis to a purely Christian ethics. Traditional elements had to be sacrificed, ethical problems in their practical shape were reconsidered, and, in the Restoration, the ethical consciousness was investigated objectively and scientifically, Christian and secular aims were surveyed under new relations, and the opposition, combination, or compromise between the two was treated from the scientific point of view. (Cf. on this section the literature under Cromwell, Oliver; and Puritanism.)
This scientific reconstruction of ethics depends first of all on a psychological analysis which leaves aside all metaphysical assumptions of the essence of the soul and the action of God upon 7. The it, and devotes itself to discovering New Psy- the laws of its own action and nature etiological from a study and classification of its Basis. peculiar processes. This marks a distinct separation from the old theologizing ethics. Psychological analysis of a sort entirely different from its form in the scholastic theological system assumes the chief role, different, too, from the old psychology, which was a compromise between the religious language of the Bible and the scientific psychology of Greek philosophy. The old system insisted on the eternal worth, the unity, and the isolation of the soul from things of sense; transcendent causes were introduced as its influences— God, angels, and demons — just as all extraordinary natural processes were referred to the immediate activity of divine or diabolic power. This naive psychological supernaturalism had been transmitted as a part of the traditional system of revelation, which worked upon the soul in a miraculous way through its association with the means of revelation in the sacraments and ecclesiastical ordinances. Ancient psychology was brought in as its support, and place was made for immanent psychological explanation, which, however, played a very subordinate role. The chief concern of both Roman and Protestant ethics was with the processes of salvation, and revelation and the power of grace. The opposition to this system started back
as far as the thirteenth century. It had two sources, the Stoic study of the emotions and temperament and the free poetical and artistic analysis of man as found in the literature and art of the Renaissance. It ended in the principle of universal psychological analysis, based on historic induction and supported by the achievements in the study of nature. Especially original in this respect is Machiavelli, with his psychological analysis, his historical comparison, and his empirical generalization. Men like Descartes, Gassendi, Malebranche, and Bayle contributed also by their study of the emotions and passions. But the chief impulse came from Hobbes, the founder of a purely psychological analysis, intended to build up an original conception of morality. Along with Hobbes must be placed Spinoza, the creator of the mechanical method of treating the emotions and passions. These were the tendencies that were popularized by English thinkers. One of the effects of this method was a change in the view of history. The matter of history had been studied only in relation to conceptions about the character and purpose of a world derived from the revelation of the Church and the Bible. A causal determination of facts in themselves had not been attempted; but with this new view of psychology there came a causal explanation of history, with its study of historical characters on the basis of psychological analysis. Nothing consistent could be achieved here, however, unless there were a new foundation of ethical rules inductively derived from social and historical facts. This was really an extension of the principle of the consensus of mankind acknowledged to be valid by theological ethics. So there came from this psychological foundation a so-called natural system of intellectual sciences, in which the eighteenth century produced the most original work, just as the seventeenth century holds the first place in scientific analysis of the natural sciences. Even when a distinction was made between natural and supernaturally caused processes, the fixed point of departure was the results of psychological analysis founded on the assumption of regularity and normality in the phenomena under review. Morality was no longer regarded as a miracle of grace, the moral law was no longer identified with the revealed law. All of the old dogmatic scholastic problems either disappeared or became of subordinate interest, and an entirely new set of fundamental problems were treated as of primary importance.
First in order came psychogenetic problems. In these are discussed the sources of moral phenomena, whether they have grounds outside of their own sphere, as utilitarianism declares; or 8. Problems whether their source is exclusive and Presented, independent, according to the standpoint of idealistic intuitionism. This is a crucial question for Christian morality as a whole; all others, such as the connection of morality with grace and its dependence on revelation, are concerned ultimately with this. Another primary classification arises from the question of determinism; not determinism in the old sense of divine predestination, but that scheme which brings morality within a fixed causal nexus of psychological laws.
Moralist*