Appendix. Excursus: On the Systems of Philosophers concerning the Foundation and Norm of Morality

Since Christian ethics, in our times indeed, is much attacked, and since modern prejudices against it, on account of the wider diffusion of culture and literature, are now carried about everywhere, it seems not useless to set forth succinctly the principal systems of adversaries. Yet we in no way intend to hand down a complete history of ethics, but to note certain things useful for the use of priests.

I. Hedonism practically exists among many in all times; but theoretically and scientifically it does not have many defenders. Protagoras (c. 480-410) and Gorgias (c. 480-375) taught moral positivism and relativism. From the fact that there is no objective difference and norm discriminating good and evil, their disciples concluded that a norm must be established relative to the subject. Whence the principle of discrimination is sensible pleasure; to procure this by all means is good. Thus the sophist Callicles first taught, and after him Thrasymachus and Polus. Aristippus the Cyrenaic (435-354) perfected the system, whose disciples led it to its ultimate evil consequences.

In modern times the Encyclopedists adhered to it, such as Helvetius (1715-1771), de La Mettrie (1709-1751), D'Holbach (1723-1789), author of the work Le Systeme de la Nature, and in Italy Melchior Gioia (1767-1829).

To these the pessimists are partially reduced, such as Schopenhauer (1788-1860) and von Hartmann (1842-1906), who say that only negative happiness is possible: the absence of misery and pain (negative eudaemonism); finally Nietzsche (1844-1900) in antipessimism, who proposes full happiness, but for eminent men alone, or supermen (Uebermensch).

Hedonism was set forth and refuted in n. 130.

II. Individual or egoistic utilitarianism. In antiquity Leucippus, Democritus (c. 460-370), Epicurus (341-270), and Lucretius taught it; among the moderns, Gassendi (1592-1655), Spinoza (1632-1677), Hobbes (1588-1679), La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680), and many followers of moral positivism, such as Bentham (1748-1832), Mackintosh (1766-1832), Stuart Mill (1806-1873); likewise (explicitly or implicitly) the materialists of the eighteenth century: de Condillac (1715-1780), Diderot (1713-1784), Feuerbach (1804-1872), economists such as Malthus, Bastiat, etc., anarchists such as Bruno Will and Kropotkine.

Among these the following deserve attention:

1. Epicurus (341-270), who does not attend to sensual pleasure alone, but also to spiritual pleasure; nor to immediate and present pleasure alone, but also to mediate and future pleasure; nor to every pleasure indiscriminately: not every pleasure is good, because sometimes it brings with itself greater pains, just as, on the contrary, from the tolerance of pains a greater delight often follows. Whence the true wise man rightly discerns among pleasures and pains; and the principal virtue is the right discernment of pleasures, but from love of pleasure! And in this he is distinguished from Aristippus, who admitted only present pleasure as the norm of morality. Epicurus judged, namely, that greater pleasure would come to man from the absence of pain and tranquility of soul than from pleasant affections and positive satiety of the senses.

2. Hobbes (1588-1679) followed Epicurus: the one good is pleasure; but it is necessary to distinguish present and future pleasure, and sometimes it is expedient to lack the present lest we be deprived of the future: thus justice is utility sanely understood, and altruism is egoism sanely understood.

3. Jeremiah Bentham (1748-1832) perfected the system spread by Hobbes; he contended that the method of experimental observation recommended by Bacon must be applied in moral matters, and he comparatively estimates things delightful and painful according to intensity, duration, nearness, certainty, extension, purity and fecundity, etc., by arithmetical computation. It is a certain moral arithmetic, for knowing that which produces the greater happiness.

4. Stuart Mill (1806-1873) perfected moral arithmetic by weighing quality rather than quantity, so that those things which are of a higher order, for example, the exercise of virtue, are more excellent and to be esteemed more than those which are of the lowest order, such as sensual pleasures: "it is better to be Socrates suffering than a satiated pig!"

We spoke of individual utilitarianism in n. 131.

III. Social or altruistic utilitarianism. F. Bacon (1561-1626) proposed this system: the common good, or public utility, is the rule of morals. It prevailed under the influence of Lockean philosophy (Locke 1632-1704). Cumberland (1632-1719) taught: the law of mutual benevolence is the foundation of all morality; Shaftesbury (1671-1713): the true account of morality is in preserving perfect harmony between egoistic and altruistic inclinations, but egoistic propensities are to be subjected to social ones; Hutcheson (1694-1747); Reid (1710-1796); Hume (1711-1776); Smith (1723-1790); Hartley (1705-1757) and Paley, etc.; and in Germany Pufendorf (1632-1694): the Creator by His free decree implanted into human nature the law of sociality, so that all actions agreeing with the law of sociality are good, and those repugnant to it are evil. Likewise the positive school, namely, the modern positivists: Aug. Comte (1798-1857): you ought to live for others; Littre¹ (1801-1811), Sidgwick (1838-1900), Lotze (1817-1881), Laas (1837-1885), Paulsen (1846-1908), v. Ihering (1818-1892), Jodl (1849-1914), Ziegler (1846-1918), and several socialists. Finally the defenders of the system of solidarity, such as Bourgeois and Payot: since we are debtors to society for every good which we have, every good which we do is owed to society.

¹ Littre attempted to confirm this from the faculties of vegetative life. There are two functions in man: nutrition for preserving individual life, and generation for the propagation of the human species. Nutrition produces egotism; generation promotes altruism. But falsely: altruism arising from generation would be limited to a few, and often excites egotism, indeed also hatred, against strangers.

Social utilitarianism exists under a threefold form:

a) such that the social aspect is an effect of individual utilitarianism, insofar as it is necessary to the utility of the individual. Thus already Epicurus, Bentham, Stuart Mill, and Nietzsche pro parvis. But thus altruism does not constitute a special system;

b) such that the utility of others is principally regarded, secondarily the utility of the individual, insofar as it favors the good of the whole. Thus A. Comte, Hoffding, and the assertors of solidarity. Every good, they say, is from society; therefore we owe to it everything which we do. For man, in the concrete case, is a production of society; although generation is not a social but an individual act, and the man produced is a distinct, separate individual, and spiritual functions are individual;

c) such that only social utility is regarded (absolute altruism), and personality is absorbed by the State. Thus the pantheists of metaphysical monism: Fichte (1761-1814), Schelling (1775-1854), Hegel (1770-1831). Likewise Schopenhauer; and also v. Hartmann as to intermediate ends.

On altruistic utilitarianism see n. 131, B.²

² See below VI, B.

IV. A special form of altruism is affective ethics, which affirms that human nature of itself is generous and inclined to virtue, and that we spontaneously discern good and evil by a certain special sense, which is distinct from the intellect and is called the moral sense. Shaftesbury (1671-1733) first taught this, and Cumberland (1632-1723) had in some measure preceded him; Hutcheson (1694-1747), however, determined it more, positing in us egoistic and altruistic tendencies; but holding that these latter are moral as benevolences toward others. According to Hume (1711-1776), however, even egoistic tendencies can be moral, as those which can generate certain virtues, such as prudence and ability; yet they are to be subordinated to generous and altruistic affections, which are reduced to a certain affection of humanity. The system flourished in the Scottish school, which, just as it said that the fundamental criterion of truth was the instinct of truth, which is called common sense, so in moral matters it established good sense, which is called conscience. Thus Reid (1710-1796), Hamilton (1788-1856), Mansel (1820-1871), and others. Finally Smith (1723-1790) perfected the system and placed the criterion of morality, or the moral sense, in the spontaneous sympathy or antipathy which we experience toward certain actions and their authors.

The theory passed into France, where J. J. Rousseau (1712-1778), against the pure rationalists, posited that there is a voice of nature which speaks in conscience and directly reveals itself, so that there is no uncertainty of reason; but Th. Jouffroy places it in blind faith in the veracity of our faculties.

Likewise in Germany Jacobi (1743-1819) was the parent of the sentimental school. But the sentimentalists say that the moral sense consists in an internal affection or affective faith, which begets in us a firm and invincible persuasion and induces us to pursue some things and avoid others, or experiences satisfaction in good deeds and remorse in evil deeds.

Herbart (1776-1841), however, establishes a moral taste, so that the good is the object of right taste, and morals, which judges concerning the value of actions, is a subdivision of aesthetics, insofar as good and evil arouse pleasure or displeasure. Thus he confuses the aesthetic order with the moral.

The system of moral sense, which many moderns adopt, such as Schuppe, Hoffding, Martineau, was sufficiently refuted in n. 137, B.

Especially as to the theory of Herbart, it should be noted:

a) that the systematization of ideas is artificial; in particular

b) that it establishes a superficial identification of the aesthetic and ethical order. Although a moral action can procure aesthetic delight, nevertheless it is not moral because it procures this; nor is the aesthetic sense the criterion or norm of morality. In us there is a sense, or rather a judgment concerning the moral goodness and malice of acts, but it is altogether foreign to any delight whatever arising from admiration;

c) that it contradicts the facts, for sometimes we approve actions as moral without any kind of aesthetic delight;

d) that thus morality is exclusively reduced to the affective life; and the ideal or rational element is excluded, although it is primary. For all, in his system, say that this is the norm of morality which they have as rational;

e) finally, that the system is illogical. Pleasure arising from a noted comparison or conformity of the will and the judgment of reason is the first form of moral estimation; and yet in the moral judgment itself that estimation is already fully present. Therefore it does not arise from a comparison of the inclination of the will and the judgment of reason. And therefore the pleasure arising thence is other than the estimation approving the goodness or disapproving the evil of the action.

V. A special form succeeded primitive social utilitarianism: evolutionary utilitarianism, or utilitarian evolutionism; this is accommodated to the theory of evolution of Ch. Darwin (1809-1882), and applies it to the moral problem concerning the origin of moral conscience, and intends harmonically to compose individual and social utility. They explain this by a twofold process:

1. by the psychological process alone, or the association of moral experiences once had, even those which pertain to past generations; whereby it comes about that customs are slowly generated, and, the experiences, causes, and motives of them having been forgotten, actions conforming or not conforming to them are now held as good or evil in themselves. Thus Stuart Mill, Comte, Littre, Bain (1818-1903), Huxley (1825-1895), Tyndall (1820-1893), Clifford (1843-1879), Loue, Paulsen, Gizycki (1851-1895), etc.

2. by the biological process of adaptation of individuals to external circumstances and to the medium in which we are found and to the conditions of social life; which also appeals to the laws of the universe (for example, the persistence of force, continuous evolution, and final equilibrium), so that moral science is, as it were, a part of the mechanical science concerning the material universe. Thus especially H. Spencer (1820-1904).

In the beginning men, scarcely distinct from brute animals, imitated the morals of brutes, and sought nothing except their own advantage. Then, living in herds, little by little they understood that they must help and protect one another, and that they cannot seek their own pleasure with harm to others: for those upon whom harm is inflicted do not hesitate to seek penalties; to avoid this it is better to suffer something or to abstain from some pleasure. Thus under the influence of the society in which men are united, from egotism altruism is born, that is, an inclination to promoting the happiness of others; indeed, to procuring the general good into which man is impelled by social instinct.

By these things the origin of ideas of good or evil can now be explained. Men first notice that certain actions are useful to society and to the preservation and increase of life, while others are truly harmful; the former are praised and sometimes repaid with a reward, but the latter are reproved and punished. Hence is born the idea that certain actions are truly praiseworthy and worthy of reward, but others to be blamed and punished as worthy of punishment: namely, the idea of merit and demerit. From this finally follows the idea of good and evil: namely, an action praiseworthy and useful to society is declared good, an action demeritorious and harmful to society, evil. Once arisen, those ideas are rooted and fixed by heredity and education.

But how and why certain actions are useful, while others are pernicious, they attempt to set forth scientifically by help of evolution. For since all nature tends toward the evolution of life, those actions are truly useful and good which promote the expansion and delight of life in any order whatever, physical, biological, psychological, and social, or which are rightly ordered to the end: the evolution of present life; but those are pernicious and evil which more or less obstruct this end.

From another side, it is historically clear that the human race constantly progresses in every order, and especially that altruism, or the sense of solidarity, prevails more from day to day. Today private good and common good still often fight against each other, and therefore only a certain relative morality is possible, from a certain compromise between egotism and altruism; but as evolution proceeds, men will so adapt themselves to social conditions that egoistic inclinations will perfectly serve the common good. Once this evolution and adaptation is completed, anyone by following egoistic inclinations will by that very fact promote the common good, and thus there will be perfect harmony between egotism and altruism. This will happen through sympathy, from which we feel the happiness or punishment of others as our own; and thus altruistic actions will become delightful. And then morality will be absolute, and by force of perfect solidarity men will become very good and happy.

Several things can especially be opposed to this system:

1. It is founded upon a false mechanical concept of the universe, in which no place is left for liberty, and therefore there is not given moral good and evil in the true and proper sense; but all things are physically good insofar as they necessarily concur toward the evolution of life. In physico-mechanical evolution all inclinations are of the same value; nothing is of greater or lesser estimation, but all things are nothing but phenomena of nature.

2. But the moral is opposed to the physico-mechanical and spontaneous-instinctive. Namely, the moral is that which is justified before reason. Therefore the moral as moral is not that which excites or satisfies the instinct or appetite of happiness, or the expansion of life. The expansion of life is not always good, but sometimes full of injustices and cruelties. Therefore there must be another norm of morality.

3. In order that the system of evolution could avail to be applied in practice, it would be necessary that each one know the necessary laws of the evolution of life which would be the criterion of morality; in particular a) that he know the definitive state, or final equilibrium, to which humanity is going to arrive, which surely is complex enough; b) that there be only one means of acting for the realization of that state, or at least that what is better among diverse means always be known; c) that he so will to act and attain that state from delight or utility. We could hope for these three things in vain.

4. For to anyone there belongs the right of subjecting that conclusion to examination, and of rejecting (or admitting) it on account of a motive, say of delight or utility. And thus we now return to another criterion, either of pleasure and egoism, or of rational good.

5. Hence the system does not hand down a rule for the institution of morals and actions, because it cannot be legitimated by experience. Whence it does not have an empirical basis but rather an agnostic one, which is against the very principles of the system. Namely, perhaps it is a utopia to reconcile egotism and altruism; in fact egoism appears as strong now as before.

6. Nor can it sufficiently explain how from utility we arrive at the idea of good, since between the useful and the good there is the greatest distinction; nor how self-denial (for undergoing harmful effects) is extolled so highly, if useful effects and a happy outcome are the cause of the idea and consciousness of morality; nor why obedience extorted by force is of lesser morality, when nevertheless the same effect is obtained.

A. The ethics of fuller life, arisen from Darwinism and natural monism, which sets before all things the intensity and expansion of life, or natural life fully possessed. Against it:

1. it introduces the principle of the "struggle for life" into moral life, and institutes a dangerous and unlimited apology of sexual love. This contradicts every more delicate and exquisite culture; whence it comes about that purity, benignity, and charity are esteemed less;

2. it overturns the very foundations of ethics: in place of free will it posits a blind tendency, in place of conscience an instinct, in place of moral debt a physical necessity;

3. the end which it proposes, namely, fullness, vigor, and beauty of physical life, cannot be attained by many who are infirm or weaker, and can be attained by others only in a very limited way. And the ever fuller life of the human race and the advent of a superior man is uncertain and fantastic;

4. it neglects the duality of human life, which consists in the opposition of spirit and sense. For it considers only the fullness of vegetative and sensitive life, which necessarily leads to the domination of sense, nor does it truly understand spiritual life in its proper character and superiority, which obtains nobility from the higher ends which it pursues.

B. The ethics of progressive culture, or progressivism, which places the ultimate end and the good not precisely in earthly happiness and private or common utility, but in culture, or the objective abundance of all human goods, and especially in intellectual perfection; or in the continual progress of humanity toward ideal culture. Progressivism is proposed in two ways:

a) one is private, which came forth in the Leibniz-Wolffian school from a reaction against mere eudaemonism, among Wolff (1679-1754), Fergusson (1724-1816), Ulrici (1806-1884), etc. Actions are morally good or evil insofar as they either promote or diminish man's perfection, both in himself and in others;

b) the other is social: good is whatever promotes the progress of general culture, they say, or the continual progress of humanity. Thus many pantheists: Hegel, Schelling, Krause (1781-1832), Schleiermacher (1768-1834), Ahrens (1808-1874); especially Wundt (1832-1920), Carus, Tiberghien (1819-1901), Windelband (1848-1915), Bergemann. Thus also in some sense von Hartmann, according to whom the ultimate end is absolute liberation from the miseries of existence through a certain annihilation of self (IX, 2); but the intermediate end is the progress of culture by which this is known.

Against it: 1. man, or humanity, would be an end in itself;

2. the rule is vague and indeterminate: for what is it that in fact contributes to one's own perfection? Namely, what perfection is must be determined, and the culture of man is something indeterminate. Whence it is a subjective and variable norm, and not the supreme rule;

3. it does not avail for all: for the concept of culture on the one side is too difficult; on the other side the progress of earthly culture for many and in many circumstances is impossible, for example, for the infirm, the weaker, criminals, who nevertheless must rule life according to moral principles; indeed, certain nations could omit all culture, and therefore morality among them would have no sense!

4. but if culture were the end, virtue would necessarily grow with culture.

C. Sociological ethics is also in some way reduced to evolutionism, and regards moral dictates as products under the influence of the "social milieu," as Levy-Bruhl and Durkheim said. They will to rest upon the one scientific experience of sociological facts, by which it is clear not only that man wills to live in society, but also at the same time that an ideal social exemplar appears, which is the rule according to which man becomes fit to live in society, according to the varied social milieu and the diverse circumstances of places and times. And this is the whole moral life.

Against it: fundamental judgments are the same in all times and places; therefore they are not subjected to the fluctuations of diverse societies. On the contrary, very diverse causes, such as fear of evils, hope of goods, public opinion, laws, heredity, education, etc., cannot explain the origin of the same fundamental ideas.1

Especially: 1. the sociological fact as such does not exist in the concrete, but is a mere mental construction, obtained by abstraction from several individual facts gathered into a synthesis according to a certain convention. Whence sociological ethics does not rest immediately upon experience, but must have recourse to reason.

2. It does not render an account of the speculative or theoretical value of morality. For it does not appear how from experiences of contingent facts or from merely experimental associations of ideas, absolute moral obligation can arise.

3. Nor can it found the practical value of morality, because to will to live in society is not the supreme or only rule or reason of morals: the ideal exemplar of society, just as society itself, does not have the reason for itself in itself, nor is it the reason for being of individuals. And indeed:

a) This rule has a merely relative value, because it obliges individuals as to social offices alone. But society is not the whole individual, and the individual does not have his whole reason for being in society.

b) For to will to live is more fundamental: for the individual does not will to live in society except because he wills to live, and indeed to live toward his ultimate end, or toward his perfect and complete good.

c) Society ultimately is for individuals, and therefore it is not understood that individual conscience in morality, whether exclusively or ultimately, is obliged to society.

D. Finally, pragmatism, which teaches that the ideal of morality is known by internal experience in the collective conscience, and is nothing but a function of the utility which it procures. Thus William James (1842-1910), Schiller, and others.

To this system those things can be opposed which are opposed to utilitarianism. Whence, just as utilitarianism is variable, so in pragmatism morality would be variable and mutable.

1. Concerning the system of sociological ethics cf. Deploige, Le conflit de la morale et de la sociologie, and M. St. Gillet, La morale et les morales.

VII. Rational eudaemonism was founded by Socrates (470-399), who posited its essential principles from a certain reaction both against the subjectivist sophists and against the physical empiricists. Ethics is founded upon universal rational knowledge, which nevertheless itself rests upon knowledge of the nature of things, especially of human nature and psychology. Thus reason can and ought to rule man and so render him happy.

Plato (427-347) perfected this, by showing that happiness is in assimilation with God, the Supreme Good, through contemplation of the eternal Ideas. We can arrive at this through the virtues, of which the principal are wisdom, fortitude, temperance, justice, and religion.

Aristotle (384-322) completed it. He says that acts, in order that they be good, must be conformable to reason, and besides must be means by which we tend toward the highest good, beatitude. It is acquired principally by the mean virtues, by which all parts of man are subjected to reason; also, in some measure, by temporal goods possessed in a certain measure, because they are a condition or suitable disposition so that happiness can be full. Thus man is prepared for the contemplation of wisdom by which he is assimilated to God. This is happiness such as can be attained by man. It is an intelligible good, which by common effort in society must be pursued for all and thus attained.

This system Albert the Great and St. Thomas, joining Plato and Aristotle, perfected under the influence of the light of the Christian faith and led to its ultimate consequences. In particular:

1. they establish more firmly the foundation of morality and obligation, by binding ethics to metaphysics, and they show that the order of things and human reason are nothing but the realization of the very eternal reason of divine wisdom, or of the eternal law;

2. they do not limit happiness, as Aristotle does, to the present life, in which, as experience testifies, full happiness is not always possible even for men acting from a right intention and according to the rule of reason; indeed, without interruption it does not belong even to the wise and perfect themselves. Whence happiness will be full in the future life;

3. they manifest the eminence of contemplation, and that it is the perfection of human nature, from this, that it joins us to our principle, as being contemplation of the divine essence itself and infinite truth, by which we cannot fail to be satisfied;

4. finally, they notice that the highest good, or happiness, must be sought not on account of delight and pleasure, but on account of the perfection of human nature; and that the very possession of infinite truth is not principally to be intended, but rather the infinite truth itself possessed.

VIII. Formalism, or pure rationalism, first came forth in Greece from a certain reaction to the intellectualism of Socrates: namely, in the Cynic school, whose author is Antisthenes the Athenian (444-369), and to which Diogenes (414-324), Crates, and Menippus pertain. It flourished especially in the Stoic school of Zeno (342-270), who was a disciple of Crates, and many from Greece adhered to it: Cleanthes, Chrysippus, Antipater, Panaetius, Dardanus, Posidonius; and Romans: Persius Flaccus, Seneca, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius.

Good and virtue are to be conceived without any relation to delight and happiness; they consist in the sole effort of the will. Whence one must abstract from conventions and culture, and live according to nature, namely rational nature, that is, according to reason.

But by the name of nature the Stoics understood not only individual human nature but also the universal nature of the whole world, which man participates. The individual nature of man is only a part of the well-ordered universal nature; therefore, by living congruently with our nature, we consent to universal nature, or to the universal reason and spirit which orders the whole world so that all things happen by fatal necessity. But lest, on hearing reason and spirit, you think of an immaterial principle: for all things are bodies, even spirit, indeed also God; and the intelligent matter of which they consist is not inert but dynamic, because a force is intrinsic to them which is called the intelligent soul of the world.

To this materialistic conception it can be opposed: a) that in such a system no place is left for free will, but all things are carried out by ineluctable fate, and consequently there is no place for morality; b) if there is one intelligent reason of the universe, morality will be impersonal, which contradicts experience: thus the moral law, right, and the civil state ought to be the same for all.

Stoicism, with materialism excluded, was followed in some way by Reid (1710-1796), and especially by Kant (1724-1804), whose system was set forth at greater length above, n. 132. Several followed him as to the substance, among whom Renouvier (1815-1903) can be noted.

He too admits the categorical imperative and synthetic judgments a priori, which express better ideal norms and thence obligatory ones, whose obligatory force he derives from abstract and universal human reason. He departs from Kant in two things:

a) he says that facts also must be considered, and especially the history of the human race, which is a fallen race, to which therefore principles are to be adapted, and the ideal law cannot be imposed in all its purity, although one must tend toward that purity by slow progress;

b) consequently he does not reprove those who act honorably not from the motive of duty alone, but also with a view to happiness.

Formalism, especially under the Stoic or Kantian form, was sufficiently set forth and refuted above, n. 132-133.

IX. Kant exercised an immense influence, and several of his principles exerted force upon the whole of modern philosophy. Now from the influence of Kantian philosophy several systems arose.

1. On the one side, transcendental or absolute idealism was logically born from Kantian principles, and it arrived at Pantheism. Fichte (1762-1814) professes pantheistic monism and ethical idealism: the absolute ego, which is not a being but an action which thinks and realizes itself, the pure ego. Hence the principle: act according to your destination. But the destination is not individual but impersonal: subject yourself to the Whole, to the end of the community, so that in the experimental ego you may return more to the pure ego.

Schelling (1785-1854) has almost similar things: he proceeds from Fichte as to doctrine, proposing the system or principle of identity between object and subject, reality and ideality, matter and spirit, in the unity of the absolute, or of absolute reason. Hence moral virtue is a constant tendency toward the absolute, or progressive union with absolute reason.

But Hegel (1770-1831), developing the principle of dialectical identity, holds panlogism, and says that morality consists in the subjection of the individual, or subjective spirit, to the objective spirit, or supra-individual reason of the race, of which the State is the expression and form, so that the individual is absorbed in the State.

Concerning these systems it was said above, n. 137, C.

2. On the other side certain of the Kantian disciples fell into pessimism. According to them the noumenon is of a volitive and free nature;1 because all things in themselves are tendency, effort, or will to live. There is one absolute and unconscious will, which manifests itself in fatal phenomena and is limited in individual wills.

But the will is evil, because every desire, every effort, imports pain. For it tends toward happiness and delight as the end, and yet possession of the desired object does not procure it. Positive happiness cannot be obtained. Therefore, because the will is evil itself, one must act against it in its effects and in itself:

a) in its effects. The miseries of this life are to be mitigated through a certain affection of compassion toward others. Hence the only good actions are those which, from an affection of compassion and without any egoistic motive, serve the common good and diminish the misery of others;

b) in itself. Since the cessation of misery cannot be obtained, one remedy remains: annihilation of oneself and of one's will. Not through suicide, which only suppresses life, but does not suppress the will of life; but through renunciation of any desire whatever and abdication of every will. This is done through perfect chastity, by which the propagation of evil is impeded, and through asceticism, or flight from delight and tendency toward self-annihilation, even to the renunciation and extinction of the very will to live and entrance into the nirvana of the Buddhists. Thus Schopenhauer (1788-1860), but his disciple von Hartmann (1842-1906) judges renunciation of the will to live impossible, and therefore says that there will be a future collective cosmic suicide, by which, with the powers of all wills united, the universe would return into the night of unconsciousness.

The system a) supposes the false principles of Kantian philosophy, materialistic evolution, and pantheism;

b) posits mere hypotheses or contradictions, for example, that every effort is a manifestation of the absolute will, that this is at once unconscious and free, that it is unconscious and tends to an end, that effort is from a free will and is fatal, that the end of every effort is nothing but delight and happiness, and that happiness cannot be attained;

c) concludes without necessity to altruism, since it could equally lead to Epicureanism and egoistic utilitarianism.2

Nietzsche (1844-1900) saw this, who professed sensualistic antipessimism, and at the same time pessimism. There are two kinds of men, he says: the former, eminent, learned, superior, who are called super-human (Uebermensch), are bound by no law and can freely follow their propensities, whatever they may be. Good for them is everything which leads to the perfect evolution of their activity. For they are a manifestation of the absolute will, which is not evil, but the essential cosmic force which must be amply evolved in the super-human. The latter, or uncultivated, must restrain inclinations and passions, so that they may humbly serve the former; they need rules of morality, namely altruistic ones, as pessimism hands down. This holds of nations as of individuals. Whence there is given a twofold diverse ethics: one of "masters" and of the stronger, the other of "slaves" and of the weak.

3. From a certain reaction against Kant and his aprioristic system, there was born the historical school, to which Stahl (1802-1861), v. Savigny (1779-1861), v. Ihering (1818-1892), etc., pertain, and the sociological school in Durkheim. Against immutable and universal principles established a priori they object the very notable variations and modifications of ethics. Purely rational and a priori doctrine cannot be applied to contingents except by adapting principles; and for this, psychological and historical inductions and the experience of life must also be consulted. But they reject all rational principles and have recourse to experience alone. And thus we return to moral positivism, concerning which n. 122.

1. Thus from a certain reaction against Hegel, according to whom it is essentially idea.

2. Concerning this see Fouillee, Critique des systemes de morale contemporaine.