V. The conception of Law enters largely into Kant's theory of morals, but in a sense purely transcendental, and not as subjecting or assimilating morality to positive political institution. The Legality of external actions, as well as the Morality of internal dispositions, is determined by reference to the one universal moral Imperative. The principle underlying all legal or jural (as opposed to moral or ethical) provisions, is the necessity of uniting in a universal law of freedom the spontaneity of each with the spontaneity of all the others: individual freedom and freedom of all must be made to subsist together in a universal law.

VI.-With Kant, Religion and Morality are very closely connected, or, in a sense, even identified; but the alliance is not at the expense of Morality. So far from making this dependent on Religion, he can find nothing but the moral conviction whereon to establish the religious doctrines of Immortality and the Existence of God; while, in a special work, he declares further that Religion consists merely in the practice of Morality as a system of divine commands, and claims to judge of all religious institutions and dogmas by the moral consciousness. Besides, the Postulates themselves, in which the passage to Religion is made, are not all equally imperative, Freedom, as the ground of the fact of Duty, being more urgently demanded than others; and he even goes so far as to make the allowance, that whoever has sufficient moral strength to fulfil the Law of Reason without them, is not required to subscribe to them.

The modern French school, that has arisen in this century under the combined influence of the Scotch and the German philosophy, has bestowed some attention on Ethics. We end by noticing under it Cousin and Jouffroy.

VICTOR COUSIN. [1792-1867.]

The analysis of Cousin's ethical views is made upon his historical lectures Sur les Idées du Vrai, du Beau et du Bien, as delivered in 1817-18. They contain a dogmatic exposition of his own opinions, beginning at the 20th lecture; the three preceding lectures, in the section of the whole course devoted to the Good, being taken up with the preliminary review of other opinions required for his eclectical purpose.

He determines to consider, by way of psychological analysis, the ideas and sentiments of every kind called up by the spec

FUNDAMENTAL ANALYSIS.

741

tacle of human actions; and first he notes actions that please and displease the senses, or in some way affect our interest: those that are agreeable and useful we naturally choose, avoiding the opposites, and in this we are prudent. But there is another set of actions, having no reference to our own personal interest, which yet we qualify as good or bad. When an armed robber kills and spoils a defenceless man, we, though beholding the sight in safety, are at once stirred up to disinterested horror and indignation. This is no mere passing sentiment, but includes a two-fold judgment, pronounced then and ever after; that the action is in itself bad, and that it ought not to be committed. Still farther, our anger implies that the object of it is conscious of the evil and the obligation, and is therefore responsible; wherein again is implied that he is a free agent. And, finally, demanding as we do that he should be punished, we pass what has been called a judgment of merit and demerit, which is built upon an idea in our minds of a supreme law, joining happiness to virtue and misfortune to crime.

The analysis thus far he claims to be strictly scientific; he now proceeds to vary the case, taking actions of our own. I am supposed entrusted by a dying friend with a deposit for another, and a struggle ensues between interest and probity as to whether I should pay it. If interest conquers, remorse ensues. He paints the state of remorse, and analyzes it into the same elements as before, the idea of good and evil, of an obligatory law, of liberty, of merit and demerit; it thus includes the whole phenomenon of morality. The exactly opposite state that follows upon the victory of probity, is proved to imply

the same facts.

The Moral Sentiment, so striking in its character, has by some been supposed the foundation of all morality, but in point of fact it is itself constituted by these various judgments. Now that they are known to stand as its elements, he goes on to subject each to a stricter analysis, taking first the judgment of good and evil, which is at the bottom of all the rest. It lies in the original constitution of human nature, being simple and indecomposable, like the judgment of the True and the Beautiful. It is absolute, and cannot be withheld in presence of certain acts; but it only declares, and does not constitute, good and evil, these being real and independent qualities of actions. Applied at first to special cases, the judgment of good gives birth to general principles that become rules for judging other actions. Like

other sciences, morality has its axioms, justly called moral truths; if it is good to keep an oath, it is also true, the oath being made with no other purpose than to be kept. Faithful guarding as much belongs to the idea of a deposit, as the equality between its three angles and two right angles to the idea of a triangle. By no caprice or effort of will can a moral verity be made in the smallest degree other than it is.

But, he goes on, a moral verity is not simply to be be lieved; it must also be practised, and this is obligation, the second of the elements of moral sentiment. Obligation, like moral truth, on which it rests, is absolute, immutable, universal. Kant even went so far as to make it the principle of our morality; but this was subjectivizing good, as he had subjectivized truth. Before there is an obligation to act, there must be an intrinsic goodness in the action; the real first truth of morality is justice, i.e., the essential distinction of good and evil. It is justice, therefore, and not duty, that strictly deserves the name of a principle.

The next element is liberty. Obligation implies the faculty of resisting desire, passion, &c., else there would be a contradiction in human nature. But the truest proof of liberty is to be sought in the constant testimony of consciousness, that, in wishing this or that, I am equally able to will the contrary. He distinguishes between the power of willing and the power of executing; also between will and desire, or passion. In the conflict between will and the tyranny of desire lies liberty; and the aim of the conflict is the fulfilment of duty. For the will is never so free, never so much itself, as when yielding to the law of duty. Persons are distinguished from Things in having responsibility, dignity, intrinsic value. Because there is in me a being worthy of respect, I am bound in duty to respect myself, and have the right to be respected by you. My duty (he means, of course, what I owe to self) is the exact measure of my right. The character of being a person is inviolable, is the foundation of property, is inalienable by self or others, and so forth.

He passes to the last element of the phenomenon of morality, the judgment of merit and demerit. The judgment follows, as the agent is supposed free, and it is not affected by lapse of time. It depends also essentially on the idea that the agent knows good from evil. Upon itself follow the notions of reward and punishment. Merit is the natural right to be rewarded; demerit, paradox as it may appear, the right to be punished. A criminal would claim to be punished, if

he could comprehend the absolute necessity of expiation; and are there not real cases of such criminals? But as there can be merit without actual reward, so to be rewarded does not constitute merit.

If good, he continues, is good in itself, and ought to be done without regard to consequences, it is no less true that the consequences of good cannot fail to be happy. Virtue without happiness and crime without misfortune are a contradiction, a disorder; which are hardly met with in the world, even as it is, or, where in a few cases they are found, are sure to be righted in the end by eternal justice. The sacrifice supposed in virtue, if generously accepted and courageously undergone, has to be recompensed in respect of the amount of happiness sacrificed.

But

Once more, he takes up the Sentiment, which is the general echo of all the elements of the phenomenon. Its end is to make the mind sensible of the bond between virtue and happiness; it is the direct and vivid application of the law of merit. Again, he touches the states of moral satisfaction and remorse, speaks of our sympathy with the moral goodness of others and our benevolent feeling that arises towards thememotions all, but covering up judgments; and this is the end of his detailed analysis of the actual facts of the case. he still goes on to sum up in exact expressions the foregoing results, and he claims especially to have overlooked neither the part played by Reason, nor the function of Sentiment. The rational character of the idea of good gives morality its firm foundation; the lively sentiment helps to lighten the often heavy burden of duty, and stirs up to the most heroic deeds. Self-interest too is not denied its place. In this connexion, led again to allude to the happiness appointed to virtue here or at least hereafter, he allows that God may be regarded as the fountain of morality, but only in the sense that his will is the expression of his eternal wisdom and justice. Religion crowns morality, but morality is based upon itself. The rest of the lecture is in praise of Eclecticism, and advocates consideration of all the facts involved in morality, as against exclusive theories founded upon only some of the facts.

Lectures 21st and 22nd, compressed into one (Ed. 1846) contain the application of the foregoing principles, and the answer to the question, what our duties are. Duty being absolute, truth becomes obligatory, and absolute truth being known by the reason only, to obey the law of duty is to obey

The

reason. But what actions are conformable to reason? characteristic of reason he takes to be Universality, and this will appear in the motives of actions, since it is these that confer on actions their morality. Accordingly, the sign whereby to discover whether an action is duty, is, if its motive when generalized appear to the reason to be a maxim of universal legislation for all free and intelligent beings. This, the norm set up by Kant, as certainly discovers what is and is not duty, as the syllogism detects the error and truth of an argument.

To obey reason is, then, the first duty, at the root of all others, and itself resting directly upon the relation between liberty and reason; in a sense, to remain reasonable is the sole duty. But it assumes special forms amid the diversity of human relations. He first considers the relations wherein we stand to ourselves and the corresponding duties. That there should be any such duties is at first sight strange, seeing we belong to ourselves; but this is not the same as having complete power over ourselves. Possessing liberty, we must not abdicate it by yielding to passions, and treat ourselves as if there were nothing in us that merits respect. We are to distinguish between what is peculiar to each of us, and what we share with humanity. Individual peculiarities are things indifferent, but the liberty and intelligence that constitute us persons, rather than individuals, demand to be respected even by ourselves. There is an obligation of selfrespect imposed upon us as moral persons that was not established, and is not to be destroyed, by us. As special cases of this respect of the moral person in us, he cites (1) the duty of self-control against anger or melancholy, not for their pernicious consequences, but as trenching upon the moral dignity of liberty and intelligence; (2) the duty of prudence, meaning providence in all things, which regulates courage, enjoins temperance, is, as the ancients said, the mother of all the virtues,-in short, the government of liberty by reason; (3) veracity; (4) duty towards the body; (5) duty of per fecting (and not merely keeping intact) the intelligence, liberty, and sensibility that constitute us moral beings.

But the same liberty and intelligence that constitute me a moral person, and need thus to be respected even by myself, exist also in others, conferring rights on them, and imposing new duties of respect on me relatively to them. To their intelligence I owe Truth; their liberty I am bound to respect, sometimes even to the extent of not hindering them from