CHAPTER II.

THE ETHICAL STANDARD.

1. ETHICS, or Morality, is a department of Practice; and, as with other practical departments, is defined by its End.

Ethics is not mere knowledge or speculation, like the sciences of Astronomy, Physiology, or Psychology; it is knowledge applied to practice, or useful ends, like Navigation, Medicine, or Politics. Every practical subject has some end to be served, the statement of which is its definition in the first instance. Navigation is the applying of different kinds of knowledge, and of a variety of devices, to the end of sailing the seas.

2. The Ethical End is a certain portion of the welfare of human beings living together in society, realized through rules of conduct duly enforced.

The obvious intention of morality is the good of mankind. The precepts-do not steal, do not kill, fulfil agreements, speak truth-whatever other reasons may be assigned for them, have a direct tendency to prevent great evils that might otherwise arise in the intercourse of human beings.

Farther, the good aimed at by Ethics is attained by rules of acting, on the part of one human being to another; and, inasmuch as these rules often run counter to the tendencies of the individual mind, it is requisite to provide adequate inducements to comply with them.

The Ethical End is what is otherwise called the STANDARD, test, or criterion, of Right and Wrong. The leading controversy of Morals is centered in this point.

3. The Rules of Ethics, termed also Law, Laws, the Moral Law, are of two kinds :—

The first are rules imposed under a Penalty for neglect, or violation. The penalty is termed Punishment; the imposing party is named Government, or Authority; and the rules so imposed and enforced, are called Laws proper, Morality proper, Obligatory Morality, Duty.

MORAL RULES ENFORCED BY PENALTIES.

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4. The second are rules whose only external support is Rewards; constituting Optional Morality, Merit, Virtue, or Nobleness.

Moral duties are a set of rules, precepts, or prescriptions, for the direction of human conduct in a certain sphere or province. These rules are enforced by two kinds of motives, requiring to be kept distinct.

I.-One class of rules are made compulsory by the infliction of pain, in the case of violation or neglect. The pain so inflicted is termed a Penalty, or Punishment; it is one of the most familiar experiences of all human beings living in society.

The Institution that issues Rules of this class, and inflicts punishment when they are not complied with, is termed Government, or Authority; all its rules are authoritative, or obligatory; they are Laws strictly so called, Laws proper. Punishment, Government, Authority, Superiority, Obligation, Law, Duty,-define each other; they are all different modes of regarding the same fact.

Morality is thus in every respect analagous to Civil Government, or the Law of the Land. Nay, farther, it squares, to a very great extent, with Political Authority. The points where the two coincide, and those where they do not coincide, may be briefly stated:

(1) All the most essential parts of Morality are adopted and carried out by the Law of the Land. The rules for protecting person and property, for fulfilling contracts, for performing reciprocal duties, are rules or laws of the State; and are enforced by the State, through its own machinery. The penalties inflicted by public authority constitute what is called the Political Sanction; they are the most severe, and the most strictly and dispassionately administered, of all penalties.

(2) There are certain Moral duties enforced, not by public and official authority, but by the members of the community in their private capacity. These are sometimes called the Laws of Honour, because they are punished by withdrawing from the violator the honour or esteem of his fellowcitizens. Courage, Prudence as regards self, Chastity, Orthodoxy of opinion, a certain conformity in Tastes and Ūsages,are all prescribed by the mass of each community, to a greater or less extent, and are insisted on under penalty of social disgrace and excommunication. This is the Social or the Popular Sanction. The department so marked out, being distinct

from the Political sphere, is called, by Austin, Positive Morality, or Morality proper.

Public opinion also chimes in with the Law, and adds its own sanction to the legal penalties for offences: unless the law happens to be in conflict with the popular sentiment. Criminals, condemned by the law, are additionally punished by social disgrace.

(3) The Law of the Land contains many enactments, besides the Moral Code and the machinery for executing it. The Province of government passes beyond the properly protective function, and includes many institutions of public convenience, which are not identified with right and wrong. The defence from external enemies; the erection of works of public utility; the promotion of social improvements,-are all within the domain of the public authority.*

II.-The second class of Rules are supported, not by penalties, but by Rewards. Society, instead of punishing men for not being charitable or benevolent, praises and otherwise rewards them, when they are so. Hence, although Morality inculcates benevolence, this is not a Law proper, it is not obligatory, authoritative, or binding; it is purely voluntary, and is termed merit, virtuous and noble conduct.

In this department, the members of the community, in their unofficial capacity, are the chief agents and administrators. The Law of the Land occupies itself with the enforcement of its own obligatory rules, having at its command a perfect machinery of punishment. Private individuals ad

* Duties strictly so called, the department of obligatory morality, enforced by punishment, may be exemplified in the following classified summary :

Under the Legal Sanction, are included; (A) Forbearance from (specified) injuries; as (a) Intentional injury-crimes, (b) Injury not intentional-wrongs, repaired by Damages or Compensation. (B) The rendering of services; (a) Fulfilling contracts or agreements; (b) Reciprocating anterior services rendered, though not requested, as in filial duty; (c) Cases of extreme or superior need, as parental duty, relief of destitution.

Under the Popular Sanction are created duties on such points as the following: (1) The Etiquette of small societies or coteries. (2) Religious orthodoxy; Sabbath observance. (3) Unchastity; violations of the etiquette of the sexes, Immodesty, and whatever endangers chastity, especially in women. (4) Duties of parents to children, and of children to parents, beyond the requirements of the law, (5) Suicide: when only attempted, the individual is punished, when carried out, the relatives. (6) Drunkenness, and neglect of the means of self-support. (7) Gross Inhumanity. In all these cases the sanction, or punishment, is social; and is either mere disapprobation or dislike, not issuing in overt acts, or exclusion from fellowship and the good offices consequent thereon.

MORAL RULES SUPPORTED BY REWARDS.

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minister praise, honour, esteem, approbation, and reward. In t a few instances, the Government dispenses rewards, as in the bestowal of office, rank, titles, and pensions, but this function is exceptional and limited.

The conduct rewarded by Society is chiefly resolvable into Beneficence. Whoever is moved to incur sacrifices, or to go through labours, for the good of others, is the object, not merely of gratitude from the persons benefited, but of approbation from society at large.

Any remarkable strictness or fidelity in the discharge of duties properly so called, receives general esteem. Even in matters merely ceremonial, if importance be attached to them, sedulous and exact compliance, being the distinction of the few, will earn the approbation of the many.*

5. The Ethical End, or Morality, as it has been, is founded partly on Well-being, or Utility: and partly on Sentiment.

The portions of Morality, having in view the prevention of human misery and the promotion of human happiness, are known and obvious. They are not the whole of Morality as it has been.

* Optional Morality, the Morality of Reward, is exemplified as follows:

(A) A liberal performance of duties properly so called. (a) The support of aged parents; this, though to a certain extent a legal duty, is still more a virtue, being stimulated by the approbation of one's fellows. The performance of the family duties generally is the subject of commendation. (b) The payment of debts that cannot be legally recovered, as in the case of bankrupts after receiving their discharge.

These examples typify cases (1) where no definite law is laid down, or where the law is content with a minimum; and (2) where the law is restrained by its rules of evidence or procedure. Society, in such cases, steps in and supplies a motive in the shape of reward.

(B) Pure Virtue, or Beneficence; all actions for the benefit of others without stipulation, and without reward; relief of distress, promotion cf the good of individuals or of society at large. The highest honours of society are called into exercise by the highest services.

Bentham's principle of the claims of superior need cannot be fully carried out, (although he conceives it might, in some cases), by either the legal or the popular sanction. Thus, the act of the good Samaritan, the rescue of a ship's crew from drowning, could not be exacted; the law cannot require heroism. It is of importance to remark, that although Duty and Nobleness, Punishment and Reward, are in their extremes unmistakably contrasted, yet there may be a margin of doubt or ambiguity (like the passing of day into night). Thus, expressed approbation, generally speaking, belongs to Reward; yet, if it has become a thing of course, the withholding of it operates as a Punishment or a Penalty.

Sentiment, caprice, arbitrary liking or disliking, are names for states of feeling that do not necessarily arise from their objects, but may be joined or disjoined by education, custom, or the power of the will. The revulsion of mind, on the part of the Jews, against eating the pig, and on our own part, as regards horse flesh, is not a primitive or natural sensibility, like the pain of hunger, or of cold, or of a musical discord; it is purely artificial; custom has made it, and could unmake it. The feeling of fatigue from overwork is natural; the repugnance of caste to manual labour is factitious. The dignity attached to the military profession, and the indignity of the office of public executioner, are capricious, arbitrary, and sentimental. Our prospective regard to the comforts of our declining years points to a real interest; our feelings as to the disposal of the body after death are purely factitious and sentimental. Such feelings are of the things in our own power; and the grand mistake of the Stoics was their viewing all good and evil whatever in the same light.

It is an essential part of human liberty, to permit each person to form and to indulge these sentiments or caprices; although a good education should control them with a view to our happiness on the whole. But, when any individual liking or fancy of this description is imposed as a law upon the entire community, it is a perversion and abuse of power, . a confounding of the Ethical end by foreign admixtures. Thus, to enjoin authoritatively one mode of sepulture, punishing all deviations from that, could have nothing to do with the preservation of the order of society. In such a matter, the interference of the state in modern times, has regard to the detection of crime in the matter of life and death, and to the evils arising from the putrescence of the dead.

6. The Ethical End, although properly confined to Utility, is subject to still farther limitations, according to the view taken of the Province of Moral Government, or Authority.

Although nothing should be made morally obligatory but what is generally useful, the converse does not hold; many kinds of conduct are generally useful, but not morally obligatory. A certain amount of bodily exercise in the open air every day would be generally useful; but neither the law of the land nor public opinion compels it. Good roads are works of great utility; it is not every one's duty to make them.

The machinery of coercion is not brought to bear upon