and his meaning of conduct will be largely determined by the theory of human freedom and responsibility with which he starts. Questions as to character and duty invariably lead to inquiries as to certain states of the agent's mind, as to the functions and possibilities of his natural capacities and powers. We cannot pronounce an action morally good or bad until we have determined the extent and limits of his faculties and have investigated the questions of disposition and purpose, of intention and motive, which lie at the root of all conduct, and without which actions are neither moral nor immoral. It is surely a mistake to say, as some do, that as logic deals with the correctness of reasoning, so Ethics deals only with the correctness of conduct, and is not directly concerned with the processes by which we come to act correctly.[10] On the contrary, merely correct action may be ethically worthless, and conduct obtains its moral value from the motives or intentions which actuate and determine it. Ethics cannot, therefore, ignore the psychological processes of feeling, desiring and willing of the acting subject. It is indeed true that in ordinary life men are frequently judged to be good or bad, according to the outward effect of their actions, and material results are often regarded as the sole {20} measure of good. But while it may be a point of difficulty in theoretic morality to determine the comparative worth and mutual relation of good affections and good actions, all surely will allow that a certain quality of disposition or motive in the agent is required to constitute an action morally good, and that it is not enough to measure virtue by its utility or its beneficial effect alone. Hence all moralists are agreed that the main object of their investigation must belong to the psychical side of human life—whether they hold that man's ultimate end is to be found in the sphere of pleasure or maintain that his well-being lies in the realisation of virtue for its own sake. The problems as to the origin and adequacy of conscience, as to the meaning and validity of voluntary action; the questions concerning motives and desires, as to the historical evolution of moral customs, and man's relation at each stage of his history to the social, political and religious institutions amid which he lives—are subjects which, though falling within the scope of Ethics, have their roots in the science of the soul. The very existence of a science of Ethics depends upon the answers which Psychology gives to such questions. If, for example, it be decided that there is in man no such faculty or organ as conscience, and that what men so designate is but a natural manifestation gradually evolved in and through the physical and social development of man: or if we deny the self-determining power of human beings and assume that what we call the freedom of the will is a delusion (or at least, in the last resort, a negligible element) and that man is but one of the many phenomena or facts of a physical universe—then we may continue, indeed, as some evolutionary and naturalistic thinkers do, to speak of a science of Ethics, but such a science will not be a study of the moral life as we understand it and have defined it.

Ethics, therefore, while dependent upon the philosophical sciences, has its own distinct content and scope. The end of life, that for which a man should live, with all its implications, forms the subject of moral inquiry. It is {21} concerned not merely with what a man is or actually does, but more specifically with what he should be and should do. Hence, as we have seen, the word 'ought' is the most distinctive term of Ethics involving a consideration of values and a relation of the actual and the ideal. The 'ought' of life constitutes at once the purpose, law, and reason of conduct. It proposes the three great questions involved in all ethical inquiry—whither? how? and why? and determines the three great words which are constantly recurring in every ethical system—end, norm, motive. Moral good is the moral end considered as realised. The moral norm or rule impelling the will to the realisation of this end is called Duty. The moral motive considered as an acquired power of the acting will is called Virtue.[11]

[1] Cf. Mackenzie, Manual of Ethics, p. 32; also Wuttke, Christian Ethics (Eng. Trans.), vol. i. p. 14.

[2] Metaph. of Morals, sect. i.

[3] Mackenzie, Manual of Ethics, p. 8. See also Muirhead, Elements of Ethics.

[4] Hyslop, Elements of Ethics, p. 1.

[5] Schiller, Über Anmuth und Würde. Cf. also Ruskin, Mod. Painters, vol. ii.; Seeley, Natural Religion, and Inge, Faith and its Psychology, p. 203 ff. See also Bosanquet Hist. of Aesthetic. We are indebted to Romanticism, and especially to Novalis in Germany and Cousin in France for the thought that the good and the beautiful meet and amalgamate in God.

[6] Browning.

[7] Cf. Newman Smyth, Christian Ethics, p. 8.

[8] See Author's History of Philosophy, p. 585.

[9] Introduction to Hume's Works.

[10] Mackenzie seems to imply this view. Ethics, p. 25.

[11] Cf. Haering, Ethics of the Christian Life, p. 9.

{22}

CHAPTER II

THE POSTULATES OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS

We now proceed to define Christian Ethics and to investigate the particular postulates, philosophical and theological, upon which it rests.

Christian Ethics presupposes the Christian view of life as revealed in Christ, and its definition must be in harmony with the Christian ideal. The prime question of Christian Ethics is, How ought Christians to order their lives? It is therefore the science of morals as conditioned by Christian faith; and the problems it discusses are, the nature, meaning and laws of the moral life as dominated by the supreme good which has been revealed to the world in the Person and Teaching of Christ. It is based upon an historical event, and presupposes a particular development and consummation of the world.

I

The Relation of Christian to Philosophical Ethics.—Christian Ethics is a branch of general Ethics. But it is something more; it is Ethics in its richest and fullest expression—the interpretation of life which corresponds to the supreme manifestation of the divine will. For if the revelation of God in Christ is true, then that revelation is not merely a factor, but the factor, which must dominate and colour man's whole outlook and give an entirely new value to all his aims and actions. In Christianity we are confronted with the motive-power of a great Personality who has entered into the current of human history and {23} given a new direction to the moral life of man. Man's life at its highest can only be interpreted in the light of this supreme revelation, and can only be accounted for as the creation of the dynamic force of this unique Personality.

But while this truth gives to Christian Ethics its distinctive character and pre-eminent worth it does not throw discredit upon philosophical Ethics, nor indeed separate the two departments by any hard and fast lines. They have much in common. A large domain of conduct is covered by both. The so-called pagan virtues have their value for Christian character and are in the line of Christian virtue. Even in his natural state man is constituted for the moral life, and, as St. Paul states, is not without some knowledge of right and wrong. The moral attainments of the ancients are not to be regarded simply as 'splendid vices,' but as positive achievements of good. Duty may differ in content, but it is of the same kind