CHAPTER IX.

"A DISCOURSE ON ETHICS."

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"In 1839," says the Memoir, "William Smith published A Discourse on Ethics of the School of Paley.' The late Professor Ferrier' (I quote from the obituary notice in the Scotsman') used to speak of this pamphlet in bulk it is nothing more-as one of the best written and most ingeniously reasoned attacks upon Cudworth's doctrine that had ever appeared.' It is interesting to find that the favorite brother, Theyre,- William's fellow-student at Glasgow, who had now for several years been a clergyman of the Church of England, and was Hulsean Lecturer in 1839-40, adopted the opposite standpoint, and in the notes to the second volume of his lectures vigorously contends against the theory put forth in the Discourse on Ethics,' while admitting, with evident satisfaction, that it had never met with a more ingenious as well as eloquent advocate.""

Could this paragraph have been read by William Smith, one fancies that a quiet smile might have played about his lips. It justly describes what the "Discourse on Ethics" purports to be, — an argument upon one side of a long-debated and familiar question: namely, Whether the sense of moral obligation in man is an original and primary instinct, or a derived and compounded principle. It is an old theme of metaphysicians; Christians and churchmen are found on both sides of the debate ; the author of this treatise ranks himself under the banner of the orthodox Paley, and professes only to develop more fully a theory whose substance is virtually implied in Paley's

avowals. If the line of his advance seems sometimes to run along perilous ground, yet his flank is always carefully protected; he is writing, so he reminds us, only about what we know by the light of nature, and leaves untouched that inner stronghold of faith which is given by the revelations and sanctions of supernatural Christianity. The author's strong confidence in his own views is expressed always with perfect modesty, dignity, and com

posure.

It is impossible in a brief epitome to reproduce even the main lines of the discussion. Its leading proposition is embodied in this paragraph:

The feeling of responsibility appears to issue at once fullformed from the recesses of the individual mind. Be happy! Be virtuous! are described as two distinct commands of nature, two great dictates of our being, which in general are in perfect harmony, but of which the second is to take precedence whenever that harmony is disturbed. Now as an account of what is immediately felt by the moral man, this is not inaccuThere are these two commands, Be happy! Be virtuous ! and the second, from its nature, domineers over the first. But, nevertheless, the second, we say, is in fact a modification of the first; and this moral sentiment, however authoritative, is but a result of the play of our desires and the exercise of our reason, under a social condition of existence.

rate.

Briefly stated: "Right and wrong are good and evil with the authoritative stamp of general approval.” In fuller words: Whatever action makes for human happiness is intrinsically good; whatever makes for human misery is intrinsically bad. The mere perception that an action makes for happiness or misery carries with it a sort of command to seek or shun; "the knowledge of what is best must bind a rational being." But this original rational impulse toward the "best," that is, toward the action which tends to produce happiness, is immensely reinforced in the individual by the voice of the

community praising or blaming him; it gets such new force and color that new terms are needful to describe it, and the choice of the better or the worse is invested with the name of "right" and "wrong," with all the tremendous associations which gather about those words. The sense of morality is thus a creation of public opinion: "This moral sentiment, however authoritative, is but a result of the play of our desires and the exercise of our reason, under a social condition of existence." But, having thus been developed by the social atmosphere, the moral sentiment acquires an independent authority, and the good man no longer governs himself by the opinions of his neighbors, but by his own conviction of right.

The essential temper in which our essayist follows his quest is instanced in these words :

There is mystery enough in and about our being, the world rolls on encompassed by it, and I am far from ranking myself with those who think there is no place and no recognition for it in a philosophic mind. But morality, which springs from and concerns the palpable business of men, ought not to be treated in a vein of mystery. Nothing is gained, even to our admiration, by endeavouring to invest our moral feelings at once in a sort of celestial panoply. The natural and true proportions of the human mind, as of the human form, contain, after all, the only beauty; it is of little use to deck the figure of humanity with painted wings that cannot fly, to the hindrance and disparagement of the natural limbs which Heaven has assigned to it.

This is the keynote of the modern search into the nature of man as revealed in the history of man. The book is pervaded by the spirit of modern science, and much of its substance is an anticipation of what has been said, not with more force and eloquence, but with wider hearing, in later days. The force of its arguments of which not even the heads can be given here lies in the explanaations they offer of broad facts of human society. We have a theory generated in an imaginative brooding upon

a few certain facts of a period long past; then we have the hypothesis tested by its adequacy to explain all the phenomena which lie within its field. It is assumed at the outset, on the ground of evidence now familiar and abundant, that mankind once existed in some primitive and savage state, whence some of its branches gradually rose to civilization. Then the student considers the elements which must be found in the lowest state of mankind we can imagine — such as the sensitiveness to pain and pleasure, the feeling of anger and of affection, the sense of social sympathy. From these elements alone, he asks, could a moral sentiment be gradually educed? In imagination he follows out such a process. Then he inquires: Does such an origin of the moral sense harmonize with what we know of the various forms and workings in which the moral sense actually displays itself among the various sorts of men? Into the wide and rich field of illustration on which our author enters, space forbids us to follow him. Nor does it lie within our province to weigh his arguments against the opposite school. But we may give illustrations of the temper which pervades his discussion, enough to show that his theory banishes neither loftiness of motive, nor imaginative grandeur.

No cramped horizon bounds his view; splendors are not lacking to his vision of humanity. Below all the changes of time stands an abiding foundation.

The only immutable morality is this, that the happiness of all be protected and cultivated. This is a precept which knows no change, an eternal truth, recognised, we may be sure, in every condition in every region wherein reasonable beings have their abode; and the spirit of benevolence which animates this precept is that unchangeable goodness which is virtue everywhere, which is gold in all climes, that goodness which has its rest in the mind of the Eternal.

There appears a singularly even appreciation of two different types of virtue, the self-sustained and the dependent :

The same power which breaks and subdues to obedience also elevates to self-respect; and the world, after having bound and tutored its pupil to its own service and allegiance, throws him back in an attitude of proud reliance upon himself.

And let me add that no man, because he views with just admiration the magnanimity of that virtue which suffices to itself, and is its own reward, ought to yield therefore a cold and reluctant praise of that humbler sentiment which clings with close dependence to the approbation of neighbours and of fellow-men. This last is the more frequent and perhaps the safer guide. He who should take his conscience altogether from the keeping of society would place it in a perilous position. His proud independence might operate for evil, as well as for good. There is a limit to the boldness of virtue, and just on the other side of the boundary lies the boldness of crime.

In the generous spirit there is apt to be a kind of impatience with any theory which finds in happiness our being's end and aim." The heart responds to Carlyle's stirring words: "There is in man a higher than love of happiness; he can do without happiness, and in place thereof find blessedness!" Yet can we accept this sentiment as sufficient for human nature's daily food? Man is a poor creature truly unless he can endure the eclipse of happiness, but must he be willing that its sun should forever disappear from the sky? To do justice to the two attitudes the defiant heroism which rises to a spiritual emergency, and on the other hand humanity's deep, persistent desire for happiness - belongs only to a rare and wellpoised mind; such a mind as speaks in these words:

To expect one tone of moral feeling from all mankind, what is it but to expect one mode of happiness, one temper of mind, one fortune, and one taste, from all the race of man? He who, after familiarizing himself with the stern morality of the Stoic school, turns his observation upon some domestic scene of civilized life, and on the manners of amiable and enlightened men, feels that the rigid fortitude and ardour of endurance, which he has been contemplating, have here no place, no meaning, no