We felt vicariously. The phrase "liberty of conscience" really § 34. The popular demand for an objective criterion is strong; but it is not at all clear, and has led to the formulation of some impossible theories, such as that the artistically valuable may be ascertained by reference to Eternal Laws, or Types, of Beauty. It is hardly necessary to enter upon a refutation of these theories, which have no longer much scientific support. But it may be remarked (a) that they are inconsistent with the claim to private judgment; (b) that no one can ever tell the world what these laws or types are; they are blank forms, like Kant's categorical imperative; (c) that even if the laws or types in their full content were laid before us, we could never determine artistic value by the mere process of comparing artistic works with them, as a tradesman compares his own yard-measure or pint-measure with the standard of the government inspector. Such a mechanical comparison would grossly misrepresent the genuine artistic judgment. And yet it is easy to see how the belief in an objective criterion has arisen. One source of it is the feeling, of which I have recently spoken, that good art has a superhuman backing. It is easy to step from this to the doctrine that you can determine by religion what good art is. This step is unwarrantable. For though we might say in Aristotelian phrase that, in the order of being, art is based on religion; yet, in the order of our knowledge, religion is based on art and on the parallel functions of our personal life. Another source is the practical disciplinary need of having a recognised standard wherewith to put down offenders against artistic good sense. We see the same thing in morals, where those in lawful authority cannot always be debating with anarchists on first principles. But this practical need must not make us forget that the recognised standard is but a systematisation of personal affirmations. We must not confuse it with the chimera of an objective criterion. VII THE FUTURE OF ETHICS: EFFORT OR ABSTENTION? By F. W. Bussell I 1. Ethics as the borderland of Philosophy; not properly within the domain of Pure Reason. 2. Depends on prejudices, and deals with the singular and not the uniform. 3. Yet it should be examined by Critical Philosophy although in all time Rational Ethics = Abstention. Ethical Law (unlike the Natural sphere) is only realised through voluntary effort of individuals. The Ethical agent (if he debates at all) makes a heroic wager. The final motive is "loyalty to a cause not yet won." 4. Present state of Ethics in Europe, confronted with the certainties of Science is there room for appeal? Becomes despairing and sentimental, or Quietistic. 5. Ethics (in a wide sense, as the conduct of life according to a certain standard) proceeds on certain assumptions which are necessary before any practical maxim can be accepted. 6. These assumptions are peculiar to European Ethics; where the criterion is popular, and the emphasis is on the moral life and on ordinary duties. The Western aristocracy, as one of effort and endeavour, not of knowledge or asceticism. 7. How arises this conviction of the dignity of the Moral Life? Not from the study of Nature, which contradicts it, but from the sense of the Value of the Individual; and from the certainty of Personal life,—our only sure experience, though beyond the reach of absolute proof. 8. Ethics as a Realm of Faith. 9. Necessary assumptions of the Ethical philosopher. II 10. Ethical systems have been mainly negative. In Greece, tend to be anti-social; where active, due to personal influences (Pythagoras and Socrates). 11. Reflection fails to give any sufficient reason for the common behaviour of men, and to confirm their convictions or prejudice, in favour of the life of striving. Quietism, and abstention due in a great measure to the Greek passion for Unity, in speculative matters. 12. Undue emphasis in search for Unity upon Nature (where man has nothing to learn except maxims of prudence and experience), instead of upon History (Narcissus). Judæo-Christian ideal transforms Europe; because interest centres on the individual soul; and (in consequence, not in spite of this) devotion to a visible commonwealth arises. 13. Abstention is the result of independent (or Naturalistic) Ethics, and the peculiar tone of European Ethics is due to various forces in the early centuries of our era. Ethics seeks to attain independence after the Reformation (mainly behind current practice, and with almost exclusive emphasis on self-interest). 14. Problem of Disinterestedness is in forefront of Ethics ever since. 15. Two divergent tendencies have marked nineteenth century; one to Quietism, viz. Science; the other to Effort; Benevolence and Social Reform, Decay of the Empire of abstractions. 16. All modern movements aim at the immediate benefit of the individual (whatever form they seem to take), his freedom and his comfort. No serious fear of abandonment, of self-determination. Emphasis on Personal Relations. Individualism alone can lead to Collectivism. 17. We fight to-day against a threatened return to Oriental monism in whatever field. Le mysticisme c'est l'ennemi; for it is fatal not merely to action, but in the end to thought itself. I § 1. THIS Essay endeavours to call attention to the somewhat anomalous position of ethical study in Europe. Two points especially seem worthy of note: (1) that Ethics, regarded in a broad sense as the 'science of conduct,' demands a larger basis of hypothesis than any other science; and (2) that the ideal, whether of social work or self-realisation, whether the extreme of Altruism or Individualism, is denied both by the earlier and still powerful systems of the East, and by the most modern "reformers" of ethical theory in our own continent. From the confessed obligation of personal effort and of social service acknowledged alike by Christian and Positivist from a religious or a secular standpoint, a reaction threatens us, in which participate philosophic temperaments so different as Schopenhauer, Von Hartmann, Renan, F. H. Bradley, Nietzsche, and last, but not least aggressive, Mr. A. E. Taylor. And first, there are peculiar difficulties in the way of those who claim for 1 Problem of Conduct, Macmillan, 1901. Ꮓ Ethics a secure place among the Sciences. Theology can no longer be termed, in the strict sense, scientific; although the criticism of theologians may be conducted scientifically, and in scientific language. The medieval Schoolmen, rationalists at heart, following the Alexandrine lead and possibly mistaking it, endeavoured to lay down rules for the advance from the lower and precarious region of Faith to the certainty of Knowledge; just as the Mystic, emotional and ecstatic though his aim, gravely enumerates the mile-stones which the traveller must pass on the road to perfection, and employs all the artifice of the intellect to silence the intellect itself. This reign of uniform (and regular) law prevailed in theologies both of formula and fruition; and no sympathy was felt for the guilty impostor who ventured to approach and to appropriate the Summum Bonum by the hasty short-cut of an unauthenticated method. The Reformation put an end to this tiresome and exacting rigour; and like the political development which ran parallel, it has issued in the freedom of the individual, solely accountable, in the matters of highest import, to the inner voice. We may note a similar disintegrating tendency in the purely moral sphere. We are all keenly alive to the distressing insecurity of the domain of Ethics. It is a debatable region or borderland of Philosophy. It may indeed be questioned if, in the strict sense, it is a province of Philosophy at all. far as concerns the inquiry into past systems, the criticism of rival doctrines, the examination into empirical psychology, it must assuredly be considered a legitimate department of the all-embracing Master-Science, which "deems nothing that is human foreign" to its survey. But from the practical side, Ethical treatises are dynamically ineffective; while from the theoretical, they do not belong to the domain of pure Reason. Viewed as constructive, Ethics is heavily weighted with prejudice and prepossession, derived mainly from tradition and religious influence; as historic or statistical, it may be impartial but can hardly be normative; but as concerned now with the present condition and future prospect of individual and race, it So |