THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
ciety or of his own nature. Ethics assumes the harmony, internal and external, between nature and man. But there is no connection in the system either ethically or metaphysically with positive religion. The power of reflection and the content of consciousness were clearly and powerfully analyzed by Bishop Joseph Butler (q.v.). The natural impulses, the feelings of self-love and benevolence, are distinguished by the different objects to which they are referred. Moral judgments arise only after reflection has established their relation to one another and their place in the economy and constitution of man. From these thoughts arises the authority of conscience, which acts as a governor over the interplay of the feelings. The central idea of the conscience is love to one's neighbor, or the ideal of the harmony of society as a whole, in which the individual ego forms a part. The idea of God is included in the idea of morality, but the power of morality is strengthened by revelation and salvation as developed in Christianity. Locke practically kept the field in England, Shaftesbury influenced both German and Scottish thought. The purely human basis of his system was never recognized in England, or in any case it received narrow limitations and applications. At the head of the Scotch school stands Francis Hutcheson (1694-1746), with his development of the life of the soul from the principle of self-love. He distinguishes moral principles from sensual feeling. An instinctive tendency admires benevolence wherever it is seen, and man's conduct is controlled by this feeling of admiration. The approval of altruistic acts is seen by further reflection not to exclude a just type of self-love. This reflection is worked out in a casuistical and mathematical formulation of moral judgments in general, on which family life, private life, the society, and the State are ordered. By the same standard historical diversities in morality are accounted for. There is no difference in feeling itself, variations are produced solely by reflection on the feeling, or the conquest of the moral sense through egoistic passions.
It is this intuitive moral sense that David Hume opposes (q.v.; and see Deism, I., § 8). As an empiricist he desires to introduce nothing except the sensations and the feeling of pleasure and pain for the establishment of moral principles. Imagination, sympathy, association, habit, and 6. Hume custom are the foundation of all ethand Adam ical acts and judgments. Man can Smith. place himself in a sympathetic attitude toward the action of others even when that action does not personally concern him, and can arrive at an average conception of the kind of action that benefits the individual and society. This attains the character of an objective ideal which he uses as a standard for his own conduct. A common norm is thus attained for all types of conduct. By education, culture, tradition, and positive law, this ideal has an objective power, either as law or in the instinct of conscience; its origin is forgotten. It will thus be seen that sympathy does not aim at the satisfaction of common self-love as such, but at attaining what is useful to
men as a whole. So Hume ends with the humanity idea of Shaftesbury and his morality takes on a utilitarian character. Hume's system has nothing to do with positive religion or Christianity, for morality is destroyed by superstition; theism or pantheism would form a better combination with it. Hume's theory of sympathy was further developed and applied by Adam Smith (1723-90), who made the foundation of society enlightened self-interest. Ethics constituted only one part of a whole; the significance and action of ethics on that whole h-i to be determined. Moral ideas can arise only through association with others. By reflecting on the judgments of others sympathetically, there arises the idea of an impartial observer sympathizing with us with whom we also can sympathize; this makes up the corporate common consciousness, giving a necessary character to morality. The rules for man's conduct are at the same time the rules for attaining happiness and the harmony of society. Accordingly ethics, while not created by considerations of happiness, yet has its power increased by being brought into living relation with the harmonious organization of the whole of nature. So the idea of sympathy was transferred to the sphere of social psychology, and its individual basis was virtually abandoned. This social philosophy is regarded as coinciding with Christian altruism.
So arose the conception of modern scientific ethics. Great continental teachers such as Kant and Schleiermacher were making their several contributions, contemporaneous with the progress of
English ethical thought. But the im- 7. Results, pulse of the whole current came from
English sources. Through the effects on theology, a new religious philosophy, dependent on moral psychology, came into existence. Theological ethics was established as a new form of study, made independent of dogmatic theology with a far wider sphere of interest than the old; laying down the lines of Christian ethics by analytical processes without sacrificing supernatural impulses, it tried to unite Christian determination of ethical value, originating in an other-worldliness, with a human " in-the-worldliness." See Ethics; Morality, Moral Law. (E. Troeltsch.)
Bibliography: L. A. Selby-Bigge, British Moralists, 2 vob.. Oxford, 1897; Leslie Stephen, History of English Thought in the 18th Century, London, 1881; C. F. Staudlin, Geschichte der christlichen Moral, Gottingen, 1808; W. Gass, Geschichte der christlichen Ethik, Berlin, 1881-1887; F. Jodl, Geschichte der Ethik in der neuren Philosophic, Stuttgart, 1882; V. Cousin, Cours d'histoire de la philosophic morale au ISieme siecle, Paris, 1840-1841; I. H. Fichte, System der Ethik, vol. i., Leipsic, 1850; H. T. Buckle, History of Civilization in England, 3 vols., London, 1869; J. Tulloch, Rational Philosophy and Christian Philosophy in England during the 17th Century, Edinburgh, 1874; C. de Remusat, Histoire de la philosophic en Angletem depuis Bacon jusqu'a Locke, 2 vols., Paris, 1875; P. Janet, Histoire de la science politique dans ses rapports avec to morale, Paris, 1887; C. E. Luthardt, Geschichte der chrittr lichen Ethik, Leipsic, 1888-93, Eng. trans]., Edinburgh, 1889 sqq.; J. H. Overton, The Church in England, 2 vols, 1897; M. Guyau, La Morale anglaise contemporaine, Paria, 1900; J. H. Overton and F. Relton, The English Church, 1714-1800, London, 1906.
MORALITIES. See Religious Dramas. *'