Summa Theologiae Moralis, vol. I: De Principiis

EXCURSUS

ON THE SYSTEMS OF THE PHILOSOPHERS

on the foundation and norm of morality.

Since Christian ethics, in our times indeed, is much attacked, and since modern prejudices against it, because of the wider diffusion of culture and literature, are now spread everywhere, it does not seem unprofitable to set forth in brief the principal systems of the adversaries. We do not however intend to give a complete history of ethics; but whatever things are useful to note for the use of priests.

I. Hedonism exists in practice among many in all times; but in theory and scientifically it does not have many defenders. Protagoras (c. 480-410) and Gorgias (c. 480-375) taught positivism and moral relativism. Real, because there is no difference and objective norm distinguishing good and evil, they concluded the moral norm must be established relative to the subject. Whence the principle of discrimination is sensible pleasure; which to procure by all means is good. Thus the sophist Callicles taught earlier, and after him Thrasymachus and Polus. The system was perfected by Aristippus the Cyrenaic (435-354), whose disciples led it to the most wicked consequences.

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

To whom in part are reduced the pessimists 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 anti-pessimism, who proposes full happiness but only for the eminent men or supermen (uebermensch).

Hedonism has been expounded and refuted in n. 130.

II. Individual or egotistic utilitarianism, in antiquity was taught by Leucippus, Democritus (c. 460-370), Epicurus (341-270), Lucretius; — among 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 18th century¹: de Condillac (1715-1780), Diderot (1713-1784), Feuerbach (1804-1872), economists such as Malthus, Bastiat, etc., anarchists such as Bruno Will and Kropotkine.

Among whom attention is merited by:

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

2. Epicurus was followed by Hobbes (1588-1679): the only good is pleasure; but one must distinguish present and future pleasure, and sometimes it is expedient to forego the present so as not to be deprived of the future: thus justice is utility rightly understood, and altruism is egoism rightly understood.

3. The system spread by Hobbes was perfected by Ierenia Bentham (1748-1832), who contends that the method of experimental observations recommended by Bacon must be applied in moral matters, and comparatively estimates delights and pains according to intensity, duration, proximity, certainty, extension, purity and fecundity, etc. by an arithmetic calculus. It is a kind of moral arithmetic, for knowing what produces the greatest happiness.

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

Of individual utilitarianism we have spoken, n. 131.

III. Social or altruistic utilitarianism. This system was proposed by F. Bacon (1561-1626): 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 reason of morality is in maintaining perfect harmony between egotistic and altruistic inclinations, but egotistic propensities are to be subordinated to the social ones; Hutcheson (1694-1747); Reid (1710-1796); Hume (1711-1776); Smith Adam (1723-1790); Hartley (1705-1757) and Paley, etc.; and in Germany the Creator by his free decree implanted in human nature a law of sociality, so that all actions agreeing with the law of sociality are good, contrary ones evil. Likewise the positive school, the modern positivists: Aug. Comte (1798-1857): you must live for others; Littré¹ (1801-1881), 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 proponents of the system of solidarity like Bourgeois and Payot: since we are debtors of society for all the good we have, all the good we do is owed to society.

Social utilitarianism exists under a threefold form: a) so that the social aspect is the effect of individual utilitarianism, inasmuch as necessary for the utility of the individual. So already Epicurus, Bentham, Stuart Mill, and Nietzsche for the little ones. Thus however altruism does not constitute a special system:

b) so that the utility of others is principally regarded, secondarily the utility of the individual, inasmuch as it favors the good of the whole. So A. Comte, Höffding, and the asserters of solidarity. All good, they say, comes from society; therefore we owe to it all that we do. For man, in the concrete case, is a product of society; although generation is not a social but an individual act, and the man produced is a distinct individual separated and the spiritual functions are individual:

c) so that only social utility is regarded (absolute altruism), and personality is resolved by the State. So the monistic metaphysical Pantheists: Fichte (1761-1814), Schelling (1775-1854), Hegel (1770-1831). Likewise Schopenhauer; — and also v. Hartmann as to intermediate ends ².

Of altruistic utilitarianism see n. 131, B.

IV. A special form of altruism is Affective Ethics, which affirms human nature to be by itself 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. Which was first taught by Shaftesbury (1671-1733), to whom Cumberland (1632-1723) had in some measure preceded; but Hutcheson (1694-1747) determined it more, positing in us egotistic and altruistic tendencies; these last however are moral inasmuch as of benevolence toward others. According to Hume (1711-1776) however, even egotistic ones can be moral, inasmuch as they are worth some virtues such as prudence and ability; they are however to be subordinated to generous and altruistic affects which are reduced to a certain affect of humanity. The system flourished in the Scottish school, which just as it said the fundamental criterion of truth is the truth-instinct, which is called common sense, so in moral matters it asserted the good sense, which is called conscience. So 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 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 it is the voice of nature which speaks in conscience and reveals itself directly, so that there is no uncertainty of reason; Th. Jouffroy however places it in a blind faith in the veracity of our faculties.

Likewise in Germany Jacobi (1743-1819) was the parent of the sentimental school. The sentimentalists say 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, remorse in evil deeds.

Herbart (1776-1841) however established moral taste, so that good is the object of correct taste, and the moral subdivision which indicates the value of actions is aesthetic, inasmuch as good and bad things arouse pleasure or displeasure. Thus he confused the aesthetic order with the moral.

The system of the moral sense adopted by many moderns, such as Schuppe, Höffding, Martineau, has been sufficiently refuted in n. 137, B.

Specifically as to the theory of Herbart, let it be noted

a) that it is an artificial systematization of ideas; in particular

b) that it superficially asserts the identification of the aesthetic and ethical order. Although a moral action can procure aesthetic delectation, it is not however moral because it procures it; nor is the aesthetic sense the criterion or norm of morality. In us there is a sense, — or rather a judgment about the moral goodness and malice of actions, — but it is entirely foreign to any delectation arising from admiration;

c) that it contradicts facts, for sometimes we approve actions as moral, without any appearance of aesthetic delectation;

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

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

V. To primitive social utilitarianism succeeded a special form: Evolutionistic utilitarianism or utilitarian evolutionism; which theory of evolution is accommodated to Ch. Darwin (1809-1882), and he applies it to the moral problem of the origin of moral conscience, and intends to harmonize individual and social utility. Which they explain by a twofold process:

1. by the sole psychological process or association of moral experiences formerly had, even those which pertain to past generations; whence it comes about that customs are slowly generated, and the experiences, causes and motives of them being forgotten, the actions conformable to them or not are already held as good or bad in themselves. So Stuart Mill, Comte, Littré, Bain (1818-1903), Huxley (1825-1895), Tyndall (1820-1893), Clifford (1843-1879), Lotze, Paulsen, Gizycki (1851-1895), etc.

2. by the biological process of adaptation of individuals to external circumstances and to the environment in which we find ourselves and the conditions of social life; which also appeals to the laws of the universe (e.g. the persistence of virtue, continuous evolution, and final equilibrium), so that moral science is as it were a part of the mechanical science of the material universe. So especially H. Spencer (1820-1904).

At first men, scarcely distinct from brutes, imitated the manners of brutes, and sought nothing but their own advantage. Then, living in groups, they gradually understood that they must help and protect one another and cannot seek their own pleasure with the harm of others; for those who are harmed do not hesitate to seek revenge; to avoid which 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 is born altruism i.e. an inclination to promote the happiness of others; indeed to procure the general good into which man is impelled by a social instinct.

By which now can be explained the origin of the ideas of good and evil. Men first notice that some actions are useful for society and for preserving and augmenting life, others however harmful; the former are praised and sometimes rewarded, the latter however are reproved and punished. Hence is born the idea that some actions are truly praiseworthy and worthy of reward, others however blameworthy and punishable as worthy of punishment: the idea namely of merit and demerit. From this finally follows the idea of good and evil: good namely is declared the action that is praiseworthy and useful for society, evil the action that is demeritorious and harmful to society. — Those ideas, once born, are rooted and fixed by heredity and education.

How however and why some actions are useful, others however more harmful, they try to explain scientifically by means of evolution. Since indeed all nature tends toward the evolution of life, those actions are truly useful and good which promote the expansion and delectation of life in every physical, biological, psychological and social order, or which are rightly ordered to the end: to foresee the evolution of life; harmful and evil however are those which more or less oppose this end.

On the other hand it is historically clear that the human race constantly progresses in every order, and especially altruism, or the sense of solidarity, prevails day by day. Today private good and common good still often fight against each other and therefore only a relative morality is possible, from a certain compromise between egotism and altruism; by evolution however men will adapt themselves to social conditions so that egotistic inclinations will perfectly subserve the common good. Which evolution and adaptation being accomplished, everyone following his egotistic inclinations by that very fact will promote the common good, and so there will be perfect harmony between egotism and altruism. Which will be done through sympathy, by which we feel the happiness or pain of others as our own; and thus altruistic actions will become delectable. And then morality will be absolute, and by perfect solidarity men will become most good and most happy.

Against this system in particular the following can be opposed:

1. It is founded on a false mechanical concept of the universe, in which no place is left for liberty, and therefore there is no good and evil moral in the true and proper sense; but * all * things are physically good inasmuch as they necessarily concur to the evolution of life. In the physical-mechanical evolution all inclinations are of the same value; nothing is of greater or lesser esteem, but all are nothing but phenomena of nature.

2. The moral however is opposed to the physical-mechanical and the spontaneous-instinctive. The moral namely is that which is justified before reason. Therefore the moral as moral is not that which is excited or satisfied by instinct or appetite of happiness, or of expansion of life. Expansion of life is not always good, but sometimes unuseful and full of cruelty. Another must therefore be the norm of morality.

3. That the system of evolution might be applied in practice, it would be necessary that everyone knew the necessary laws of the evolution of life which would be the criterion of morality; in particular a) that he knew the definite state or final equilibrium which humanity is to attain; which certainly is sufficiently complex; b) that there was no more than one way of acting toward the realization of that state, or at least that what among diverse means was always better would always be known; c) that he would so wish to act and attain that state out of delectation or utility. Which three we may hope for in vain.

4. For each one has the right to subject to examination, and to reject (or admit) that conclusion on account of the motive, for example delectation or utility. And thus we already return to another criterion either of pleasure and egotism, or of rational good.

5. Hence the system does not give a rule for the institution of morals and actions, which cannot be legitimized by experience. Whence it has no empirical basis, but rather an agnostic one: which is against the very principles of the system. To reconcile egotism and altruism is perhaps a utopia; in fact egotism appears as strong now as before.

6. Nor would it suffice to explain how from utility we arrive at the idea of good, since between useful and good there is the greatest difference; nor how self-denial (to undergo harmful effects) is held so high, if the useful effects and happy outcome are the cause of the idea and conscience of morality; nor why obedience extorted by force is of lesser morality, although the same effect is obtained.

VI. To Utilitarianism and Evolutionism can be reduced:

A. The ethics of vital vigor, arising from Darwinism and natural monism, which sets before all else the intensity and expansion of life, or natural life fully possessed. Against:

1. the principle of "struggle for life" is introduced into moral life; and a dangerous and illicit apology is established for sexual love. Which contradicts every more delicate refinement of culture; whence it comes about that purity, kindness, and charity are esteemed less;

2. it overthrows the very foundations of ethics: in place of free will it puts blind tendency, in place of conscience instinct, in place of moral debt physical necessity;

3. the end it proposes, namely fullness, vigor, and beauty of physical life, cannot be attained by many who are infirm or weaker, by others can be attained very limitedly. And the fuller ever more life of the human race and the help of the higher man is uncertain and fantastic;

4. it neglects the quality 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 nature and superiority, which obtains its nobility from the higher ends it pursues.

B. The ethics of progressive culture or progressivism, which places the last end and good not precisely in earthly happiness and private or common utility, but in culture or objective abundance of all human goods and especially in intellectual perfection; or or in the continuous progress of humanity toward ideal culture. Progressivism is proposed in a twofold way: a) one is private, which arose in the Leibnizian-Wolffian school in reaction against mere eudaemonism, in Wolff (1679-1754), Fergusson (1724-1816), Ulrici (1806-1884), etc. Actions are morally good or evil according as they promote or diminish man's perfection both in himself and in others;

b) another social: good is whatever promotes the progress of general culture, they say, or the continuous progress of humanity. So 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. So also in some sense von Hartmann, according to whom the last end is the absolute liberation from the miseries of existence through a certain self-annihilation (IX, 2); but the intermediate end is the progress of culture by which this is known.

Against: 1) man would be an end in himself, or humanity;

2. the rule is vague and indeterminate: for what in fact contributes to one's own perfection? What namely perfection is must be determined, and the culture of man is something indeterminate. Whence it is a subjective and variable norm; nor a supreme rule;

3. it does not hold for all: for the concept of culture on the one hand is too difficult; on the other hand the progress of earthly culture is impossible for many and in many circumstances, e.g. for the infirm, the weaker, the criminal, who yet must govern life according to moral principles; — indeed some peoples can omit all culture, and therefore morality among them will have no meaning!

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

C. Sociological ethics also in some way is reduced to evolutionism and has moral dictates as products under the influence of the social medium, as Levy-Bruhl and Durkheim have said. They wish to base themselves on the scientific experience of sociological factors, because it is established not only that man wills to live in society, but also that at the same time an ideal social exemplar appears, which is the rule according to which man becomes fit to live in society for the various social medium and different circumstances of places and times. And this is the whole of moral life.

Against: the fundamental judgments for all times and places are the same; they are therefore not subject to the fluctuations of different societies. On the contrary, the very different causes, such as fear of evils, hope of goods, public opinion, laws, heredity, education, etc. cannot explain the origin of the same fundamental ideas ³.

Specifically 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 synthetically collected according to a certain convention. Whence sociological ethics does not immediately rest on experience, but must needs have recourse to reason.

2. It does not give the reason for the speculative or theoretical value of morality. Because it does not appear how from contingent experiences of factors or from merely experimental associations of ideas, absolute moral obligation can arise.

3. Nor can it found the practical value of morality, because to be unwilling to live in society is not the supreme or unique rule or reason of morals: the ideal exemplar of society, like society itself, does not have the reason of itself in itself, nor is it the reason of being for the individual. And indeed:

a) This rule has merely relative value, because it obliges individuals only as to social duties. Society however is not the whole of the individual and the individual does not have the whole reason of being in society.

b) For to be unwilling to live is fundamental: for the individual does not will to live in society except because he wills to to life, and indeed to live for his last end or for his perfection and complete good.

c) The last end of society is for the individuals, and therefore it is not understood that the individual conscience in morality, whether exclusively or ultimately, is bound 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. So William James (1842-1910), Schiller, and others.

Against this system can be opposed what is opposed to utilitarianism. Whence just as utilitarianism is variable, so in pragmatism morality would be variable and changeable.

VII. Rational eudaemonism was founded by Socrates (470-399), who posited its essential principles in a kind of reaction both against subjectivist sophists and against empirical physicists. Ethics is founded on rational cognition of the universe, which however itself rests on the knowledge of the nature of things, especially of human nature and of psychology. Thus reason can and must rule man and so make him happy.

Which Plato (427-347) perfected, showing happiness to be in assimilation with God the Supreme Good through the contemplation of the eternal Ideas. To which we can arrive through virtues, whose principal ones are wisdom, fortitude, temperance, justice, and religion.

Aristotle (384-322) completed it. He says that acts, to be good, must be conformed to reason, and moreover must be the means by which we tend to the supreme good, beatitude. And this is principally acquired by the means of 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 the condition or suitable disposition 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 is to be pursued by all and thus attained.

Which system Albertus M. and S. Thomas, joining Plato and Aristotle, under the influence of the light of Christian faith perfected and drew out to the ultimate consequences. Specifically

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

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

3. they show the eminence of contemplation and that it is the perfection of human nature from this that it unites us with our principle, inasmuch as it is the contemplation of the very divine essence and infinite truth, which not possessed does not satiate;

4. finally they note: the supreme good or happiness is to be sought not on account of delectation and pleasure but on account of the perfection of human nature; nor is the possession of infinite truth to be principally intended but rather the infinite truth itself possessed.

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

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

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

To this materialistic conception can be opposed: a) in such a system no place is left for free will, but all things are done by ineluctable fate, and therefore 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 civil state ought to be the same for all.

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

He also admits the categorical imperative and a priori synthetic judgments which express better ideal norms and from that obligatory, whose obligatory force he draws from human reason abstract and universal. In two things he departs from Kant:

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

b) consequently he does not disapprove those who act not from the sole motive of duty, but also in view of happiness honestly.

Formalism, specifically under the Stoic or Kantian form, has been sufficiently expounded and refuted, above n. 132-133.

IX. Immense influence has been exercised by Kant, and several of his principles exert force in all modern philosophy. Now from the influence of Kantian philosophy have arisen several systems.

1. On the one hand: Transcendental or absolute Idealism was logically born from Kantian principles, which comes to Pantheism. Fichte (1762-1814) professes a pantheistic monism and ethical idealism; absolute ego which is not being but action which thinks itself and realizes itself, pure ego. Hence the principle: act according to your destination. But 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 more return to the pure ego.

Almost similar things has Schelling (1785-1854): 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 absolute unity or in absolute reason. Hence moral virtue is a constant tendency from the absolute or progressive union with absolute reason.

Hegel (1770-1831) however, evolving the principle of identity dialectically, holds to panlogism, and says that morality consists in the subjection of the individual or of the subjective spirit to the objective spirit or supra-individual reason of the genus whose State is the expression and form: so that the individual is absorbed in the State.

Of this system has been said above, n. 137, C.

2. On the other hand some of the Kantian disciples fell into Pessimism. According to them the noumenon is of voluntary and free nature ⁴; because all things in themselves are tendency, striving or will to live. There is one absolute and unconscious will, which manifests itself in phenomena fatally and is limited in individual wills.

The will however is evil, because every desire, every striving imports pain. For it tends to happiness and pleasure as its end, and yet the possession of the desired object does not procure it. Positive happiness cannot be obtained. Because therefore the will is evil itself, we must act against it in its effects and in itself:

a) in its effects. The miseries of this life are to be mitigated by a certain affect of compassion toward others. Hence the only good actions are those which out of an affect of compassion and without any egotistic motive serve the common good and lessen the misery of others;

b) in itself. Since the cessation of miseries cannot be obtained, one remedy remains: the annihilation of oneself and one's own will. Not by suicide, which only suppresses life, but does not suppress the will to live; but by renunciation of every desire and abdication of every will. Which is done by perfect chastity which prevents the propagation of evil, and by asceticism or flight from delectation and the tendency toward self-annihilation, even to the renunciation and extinction of the very will to live and the entrance into nirvana of Buddhism. So Schopenhauer (1788-1860), but his disciple, von Hartmann (1842-1906) judges the renunciation of the will to live impossible, and therefore prophesies a collective cosmic suicide, by which with all the forces of wills united, the universe would return to the night of unconsciousness.

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

b) posits mere hypotheses or contradictions, e.g. that every striving is the manifestation of absolute will, this is unconscious and at the same time free, is unconscious and tends to the end, the striving is from a free will and is fatal, the end of every striving is nothing but delectation and happiness, and happiness cannot be attained;

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

Which Nietzsche (1844-1900) saw, who professed sensualistic Anti-pessimism, simultaneously with Pessimism. Two, he says, are the kinds of men: the former, eminent, learned, superior, who are called supermen (uebermensch), are bound by no law and can freely follow their propensities, whatever they be. Good for them is all that leads to the perfect evolution of their activity. For they are the manifestation of absolute will, which is not evil, but the essential cosmic force which in supermen must be amply evolved. The latter or uncultured must restrain their inclinations and passions, so as humbly to serve the former; they themselves need the rules of morality, namely altruistic, as pessimism teaches. Which as of individuals, so also of nations. Whence a twofold ethics is given different: one of "masters" and the strong, another of "slaves" and the weak.

3. From a certain reaction against Kant and his aprioristic system, there arose the historical school to which belong Stahl (1802-1861), v. Savigny (1779-1861), v. Ihering (1818-1892), etc., and the sociological in Durkheim. Against the immutable and universal principles posited a priori they object the very notable variations and modifications of ethics. A purely rational and a priori doctrine cannot be applied to contingent things except by adapting principles, for which also psychological and historical inductions and the experience of life must be consulted. But these conceal all rational principles and have recourse to experience alone. And so we return to moral positivism, of which n. 122.