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The Justification of The Good
By Vladimir Solovyov
Editor’s Note
It may be of use to the reader approaching Solovyov for the first time if I state in an elementary form the ideas to which the Russian philosopher specially consecrated his life and energies. They were:
The universal Church, the idea of the unity of Christendom, and beyond that ultimately the conscious unity of mankind. Not a world-republic, however, but a world-church.
The evolution of the God-man, not the superman with his greater earth-sense and fierceness, but the God-man with his greater heaven-sense, mystical sense.
The Eternal Feminine, a characterisation of all humanity at one in the mystical body of the Church. Woman as the final expression of the material world in its inward passivity.
Love as the highest revelation, the gleam of another world upon our ordinary existence. Love, therefore, as the proof of immortality, the guerdon and sense of it.
Sancta Sophia, the Heavenly Wisdom, the grand final unity of praise, the wall of the city of God.
The evolution of the God-man, not the superman with his greater earth-sense and fierceness, but the God-man with his greater heaven-sense, mystical sense.
The Eternal Feminine, a characterisation of all humanity at one in the mystical body of the Church. Woman as the final expression of the material world in its inward passivity.
Love as the highest revelation, the gleam of another world upon our ordinary existence. Love, therefore, as the proof of immortality, the guerdon and sense of it.
Sancta Sophia, the Heavenly Wisdom, the grand final unity of praise, the wall of the city of God.
The Justification of the Good is the book in which Solovyov elucidates the laws of the higher idealism. It is a classical work of the utmost importance in Russian studies. All that is positive in modern Russian thought springs from the teaching of Solovyov. Time is only now coming abreast of him and he appears especially as the prophet of this era, with his vision of united humanity and the realisation of the kingdom. All students of thought and religion, both here and in America, ought to feel indebted to
Stephen Graham
Solovyov’s Preface to the Second Edition
The object of this book is to show the good as truth and righteousness, that is, as the only right and consistent way of life in all things and to the end, for all who decide to follow it. I mean the Good as such; it alone justifies itself and justifies our confidence in it. And it is not for nothing that before the open grave, when all else has obviously failed, we call to this essential Good and say, “Blessed art Thou, O Lord, for Thou hast taught us Thy justification.”
In the individual, national, and historical life of humanity,
When, in setting out on a journey, you take up a guide-book, you seek in it nothing but true, complete, and clear directions with regard to the route chosen. This book will not persuade you to go to Italy or Switzerland if you have decided to go to Siberia, nor will it provide you with money to traverse the oceans if you can only pay the fare down to the Black Sea.
Moral philosophy is no more than a systematic guide to the right way of life’s journey for men and nations; the author is only responsible for his directions being correct, complete, and coherent. But no exposition of the moral norms—of the conditions, i.e. for attaining the true purpose of life—can have any meaning for the man who consciously puts before him an utterly
I have not the slightest intention of preaching virtue and denouncing vice; I consider this to be both an idle and an immoral occupation for a simple mortal, since it presupposes an unjust and proud claim to be better than other people. What matters, from the point of view of moral philosophy, are not the particular deviations from the right way, however great they may be, but only the general, definite, and decisive choice between two moral paths, a choice made with full deliberation. The question may be asked whether every man makes such a choice. It certainly is not made by people who die in their infancy, and, so far as clear consciousness of self is concerned, many grown-up people are not far removed from babes. Moreover, it should be noted that even when conscious choice has been made, it cannot be observed from outside. The distinction of principle between the two paths has no empirical definiteness, and cannot be practically defined. I have seen many strange and wondrous things, but two objects have I never come across in nature: a man who has finally attained perfect righteousness, and a man who has finally become utterly evil. And all the pseudo-mystical cant based upon external and practically applicable divisions of humanity into the sheep and the goats, the regenerate and the unregenerate, the saved and the damned, simply reminds me of the frank words of the miller—
Long have I travelled
And much have I seen,
But copper spurs on water pails
Saw I never ne’en.
At the same time I think of the lectures I heard long ago at the University on embryology and zoology of the invertebrate.
But why, it will be asked, do I speak with regard to the moral world, of the choice between two paths only? The reason is, that
In addition to these two paths that differ in principle, some thinkers try to discover a third path, which is neither good nor bad, but natural or animal. Its supreme practical principle is best expressed by a German aphorism, which, however, was unknown both to Kant and to Hegel: Jedes Tierchen hat sein Plaisirchen. {To each his own.} This formula expresses an unquestionable truth, and only stands in need of amplification by another truth, equally indisputable: Allen Tieren fatal ist zu krepiren. {It is fatal for all animals to die.} And when this necessary addition is made, the third path—that of animality made into a principle—is seen to be reduced to the second path of death.
1 The pseudo-superhuman path, thrown into vivid light by the madness of the unhappy Nietzsche, comes to the same thing. See below, Preface to the First Edition.
It is impossible for man to avoid the dilemma, the final choice between the two paths—of good and of evil. Suppose, indeed, we decide to take the third, the animal path, which is neither good nor bad, but
What I most desired to show in this book is the manner in which the one way of the Good, while remaining true to itself,
But I have done my best to be clear. While preparing this second edition I read the book over five times in the course of nine months, every time making fresh additions, both small and great, by way of explanation. Many defects of exposition still remain, but I hope they are not of such a nature as to lay me open to the menace, “Cursed is he who doeth the work of God with negligence.”
Whilst I was engaged in writing this book I sometimes experienced moral benefit from it; perhaps this is an indication that the book will not be altogether useless for the reader also. If this should be the case it will be enough to justify this ‘justification of the good.’
Vladimir Solovyov
Moscow, December 8, 1898
Solovyov’s Preface to the First Edition
A Preliminary Conception of the Moral Meaning of Life
Is there any meaning in life? If there is, is that meaning moral in character, and is its root in the moral sphere? In what does it consist, and what is the true and complete definition of it? These questions cannot be avoided, and there is no agreement with regard to them in modern consciousness. Some thinkers deny all meaning to life, others maintain that the meaning of life has nothing to do with morality, and in no way depends upon our right or good relation to God, men, and the world as a whole; the third admit the importance of the moral norms for life, but give conflicting definitions of them, which stand in need of analysis and criticism.
Such analysis cannot in any case be dismissed as unnecessary. At the present stage of human consciousness the few who already possess a firm and final solution of the problem of life for themselves must justify it for others.
§I. Some of those who deny the meaning of life are in earnest about it, and end by taking the practical step of committing suicide. Others are not in earnest, and deny the meaning of life solely by means of arguments and pseudo-philosophic systems. I
From this point of view everything is reduced to the state of pleasure or of pain which is being actually experienced; but no
Pessimists who are in earnest and commit suicide also involuntarily prove that life has a meaning. I am thinking of conscious and self-possessed suicides, who kill themselves because of disappointment or despair. They supposed that life had a certain meaning which made it worth living, but became convinced that that meaning did not hold good. Unwilling to submit passively and unconsciously—as the theoretical pessimists do—to a different and unknown meaning, they take their own life. This shows, no doubt, that they have a stronger will than the former, but proves nothing as against the meaning of life. These men failed to discover it, but what did they seek it in? There are two types
The meaning of life obviously cannot coincide with the arbitrary and changeable demands of each of the innumerable human entities. If it did, it would be non-meaning—that is, it would not exist at all. It follows, therefore, that a disappointed and despairing suicide was not disappointed in and despaired of the
§II. “The meaning of life is to be found in the aesthetic aspect of it, in what is strong, majestic, beautiful. To devote ourselves to this aspect of life, to preserve and strengthen it in ourselves and in others, to make it predominant and develop it further till super human greatness and new purest beauty is attained, this is the end and the meaning of our existence.” This view, associated with the name of the gifted and unhappy Nietzsche, has now become the fashionable philosophy in the place of the pessimism that has been popular in recent years. Unlike the latter, it does not require any criticism imported from outside, but can be disproved on its own grounds. Let it be granted that the meaning of life is to be found in strength and beauty. But, however much we may devote ourselves to the aesthetic cult, we shall find in it no protection,
When we speak of strength, grandeur, and beauty there rises to the mind of everyone, beginning with the Russian provincial schoolmaster (see Gogol’s Inspector-General) and ending with Nietzsche himself, one and the same image, as the most perfect historical embodiment of all these aesthetic qualities taken together. This instance is sufficient.
“And it happened after that Alexander, son of Philip, the Macedonian, who came out of the land of Chittim, had smitten Darius, King of the Persians and Medes, that he reigned in his stead, the first over Greece, and made many wars, and won many strongholds, and slew the kings of the earth, and went through to the ends of the earth, and took spoils of many nations, insomuch that the earth was quiet before him, whereupon he was exalted, and his heart was lifted up. And he gathered a mighty strong host, and ruled over countries, and nations, and kings, who became tributaries unto him. And after these things he fell sick, and perceived that he should die” (Book I. of the Maccabees).
Is strength powerless before death really strength? Is a decomposing body a thing of beauty? The ancient pattern of beauty and of strength died and decayed like the weakest and most hideous of creatures, and the modern worshipper of beauty and of strength became in his lifetime a mental corpse. Why is it that the first was not saved by his strength and beauty, and the second by his cult of it? No one can worship a deity which saves neither those in whom it is incarnate, nor those who worship it.
In his last works the unhappy Nietzsche turned his views into a furious weapon against Christianity. In doing so he showed a low level of understanding befitting French free-thinkers of
Nietzsche’s polemic against Christianity is remarkably shallow, and his pretension to be ‘antichrist’ would be extremely comical had it not ended in such tragedy.
The cult of natural strength and beauty is not directly opposed to Christianity, and it is not Christianity that makes it void, but its own inherent weakness. Christianity does not by any means reject strength and beauty, but it is not satisfied with the strength of a dying invalid or the beauty of a decomposing corpse. Christianity has never preached hostility to or contempt for strength, grandeur, or beauty as such. All Christian souls, beginning with the first of them, rejoiced at having had revealed to them the infinite source of all that is truly strong and beautiful, and at being saved by it from subjection to the false power and grandeur of the powerless and unlovely elements of the world.
1 It will be remembered that after passing through a mania of greatness this unfortunate writer fell into complete idiocy.
“My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.
No one worships impotence and ugliness; but some believe in the eternal strength and beauty which are conditioned by the good and which actually liberate their bearers and worshippers from the power of death and corruption, while others extol strength and beauty taken in the abstract and fictitious. The first doctrine may be waiting for its final victory in the future, but this does not make things any better for the second; it is conquered already, it is always being conquered—it dies with every death and is buried in all the cemeteries.
§III. The pessimism of false philosophers and of genuine suicides inevitably leads us to recognise that life has a meaning. The cult of strength and beauty inevitably shows that that meaning is not to be found in strength and beauty as such, but only as conditioned by the triumphant good. The meaning of life is in the good; but this opens the way for new errors in the definition of what precisely we are to understand by the good.
At first sight there appears to be a sure and simple way of
Had life with its good meaning assumed at once, from all eternity, one unchanging and abiding form, then there would certainly be nothing to trouble about. There would be no problem for the intellect, but only a question for the will—to accept or unconditionally to reject that which has been unconditionally given. This was precisely, as I understand it, the position of one of the spirits of light in the first act of the creation of the world. But our human position is less fateful and more complex. We know that the historical forms of the Good which are given to us do not form such a unity that we could either accept or reject them as a whole. We know also that these forms and principles
As a matter of fact, if this individual or collective representative of external authority derives his significance merely from his official position, all persons in the same position have the same authority which is rendered void by their contradicting one another. And if, on the other hand, one or some of them derive their superior authority in my eyes from the fact of my confidence in them, it follows that I myself am the source and the creator of my highest authority, and that I submit to my own arbitrary will alone and find in it the meaning of life. This is the inevitable result of seeking at all costs an external support for reason, and of taking the absolute meaning of life to be some thing that is imposed upon man from without. The man who wants to accept the meaning of life on external authority ends by taking for that meaning the absurdity of his own arbitrary choice. There must be no external, formal relation between the individual and the meaning of his life. The external authority is necessary as a transitory stage, but it must not be preserved forever and regarded as an abiding and final norm. The human ego can only expand by giving inner heartfelt response to what is greater than itself, and not by rendering merely formal submission to it, which after all really alters nothing.
§IV. Although the good meaning of life is greater than and prior to any individual man, it cannot be accepted as something ready made or taken on trust from some external authority. It must be understood by the man himself and be made his own through
In its rejection of different institutions moral amorphism for gets one institution which is rather important—namely, death, and it is this oversight which alone renders the doctrine plausible. For if the preachers of moral amorphism were to think of death they would have to affirm one of two things: either that with the abolition of the law courts, armies, etc., men will cease to die, or that the good meaning of life, incompatible with political kingdoms, is quite compatible with the kingdom of death. The dilemma is inevitable, and both alternatives to it are equally absurd. It is clear that this doctrine, which says nothing about death, contains it in itself. It claims to be the rehabilitation of true Christianity. It is obvious, however, both from the historical and from the psychological point of view, that the Gospel did not overlook death. Its message was based in the first place upon the resurrection of one as an accomplished fact, and upon the future resurrection of all as a certain promise. Universal resurrection means the creation of a perfect form for all that exists. It is the ultimate expression and realisation of the good meaning of the universe, and is therefore the final end of history. In recognising the good meaning of life but rejecting all its objective forms, moral amorphism must regard as senseless the whole history of the world and humanity, since it entirely consists in evolving new forms or life and making them more perfect. There is sense in rejecting one form of life for the sake of another and a more perfect one, but there is no meaning in rejecting form as such. Yet such rejection is the logical consequence of the anti-historical view. If we absolutely reject the forms of social, political, and religious life, evolved by human history, there can be no ground for recognising the organic forms worked out by the history of nature or by the world process, of which the historical process is the direct
§V. I have indicated two extreme moral errors that are contradictory of one another. One is the doctrine of the self-effacement of the human personality before the historical forms of life recognised as possessing external authority,—the doctrine of passive submission or practical quietism; the other is the doctrine of the self-affirmation of the human personality against all historical forms and authorities—the doctrine of formlessness and anarchy. The common essence of the two extreme views, that in which, in spite of the opposition between them, they agree, will no doubt disclose to us the source of moral errors in general, and will save us from the necessity of analysing the particular varieties of moral falsity which may be indefinite in number.
The two opposed views coincide in the fact that neither of them take the good in its essence, or as it is in itself, but connect it with acts and relations which may be either good or evil according to their motive and their end. In other words, they take something which is good, but which may become evil, and they
Such are the results of the erroneous confusion of the good itself with the particular forms in which it is manifested. The opposite error, which limits the nature of the good by rejecting
There is no justification for these obvious distortions of the truth, these obvious deviations from the right way. It is as clear as day that the only thing which ought to be unconditionally accepted is that which is intrinsically good in itself, and the only thing which ought to be rejected is that which is wholly and essentially evil, while all other things ought to be either accepted or rejected according to their actual relation to this inner essence of good or evil. It is clear that if the good exists it must possess its own inner definitions and attributes, which do not finally depend upon any historical forms and institutions, and still less upon the rejection of them.
The moral meaning of life is originally and ultimately determined by the good itself, inwardly accessible to us through our reason and conscience in so far as these inner forms of the good are freed by moral practice from slavery to passions and from the limitations of personal and collective selfishness. This is the ultimate court of appeal for all external forms and events. “Know ye not that we shall judge angels?” St. Paul writes to the faithful. And if even the heavenly things are subject to our judgment, this is still more true of all earthly things. Man is in principle or in his destination an unconditional inner form of the good as an unconditional content; all else is conditioned and relative. The good as such is not conditioned by anything, but itself conditions all
If the good were not pure, if it were impossible in each practical question to draw an absolute distinction between good and evil, and in each particular case to say yes or no, life would be altogether devoid of moral worth and significance. If the good were not all-embracing, if it were impossible to connect with it all the concrete relations of life, to justify the good in all of them, and to correct them all by the good, life would be poor and one-sided. Finally, if the good had no power, if it could not in the end triumph over everything, including ‘the last enemy death,’—life would be in vain.
To be worthy of its object and of man himself, such service must be voluntary, and in order to be that it must be conscious. It is the business of moral philosophy to make it an object of reflective consciousness, and partly to anticipate the result which our reflection must attain. The founder of moral philosophy as a science, Kant, dwelt upon the first essential attribute of the absolute good, its purity, which demands from man a formally unconditional or autonomous will. The pure good demands that it should be chosen for its own sake alone; any other motives are unworthy of it. Without repeating what Kant has done so well with regard to the question of the formal purity of the good will, I have paid particular attention to the second essential attribute of the good, namely, its all-embracing character. In doing so I did not separate it from the other two attributes (as Kant had done with regard to the first), but directly developed the rational and ideal content of the all-embracing good out of the concrete moral data in which it is contained. As a result, I obtained not the
Vladimir Solovyov
Introduction: Moral Philosophy as a Science
§I. The subject-matter of moral philosophy is the idea of the good; the purpose of this philosophical inquiry is to make clear the content that reason, under the influence of experience, puts into this idea, and thus to give a definite answer to the essential question as to what ought to be the object or the meaning of our life.
The capacity of forming rudimentary judgments of value is undoubtedly present in the higher animals, who, in addition to pleasant and unpleasant sensations, possess more or less complete ideas of desirable or undesirable objects. Man passes beyond single sensations and particular images and rises to a universal rational concept or idea of good and evil.
The universal character of this idea is often denied, but this is due to a misunderstanding. It is true that every conceivable kind of iniquity has at some time and in some place been regarded as a good. But at the same time there does not exist, nor ever has existed, a people which did not attribute to its idea of the good (whatever that idea might be) the character of being a universal and abiding norm and ideal.
1 n these preliminary remarks, which are merely introductory, I intentionally take the idea of the good in its original complexity, i.e. not merely in the sense of the moral worth of our actions, but also in the sense of objects which are generally regarded as desirable to possess or to enjoy (“all one’s goods,” etc.). Some doctrines deny that there is any such distinction, and I cannot presuppose it before the matter has been subjected to a philosophical analysis.
A Red Indian who considers it a virtue to scalp as many human heads as possible, takes it to be good and meritorious, not for one day merely but
Thus even this extremely imperfect application of the idea of the good undoubtedly involves its formal universality, i.e. its affirmation as a norm for all time and for all human beings, although the content of the supposed norm (i.e. the particular answers to the question, What is good?) does not in any way correspond to this formal demand, being merely accidental, particular, and crudely material in character. Of course the moral ideas even of the lowest savage are not limited to scalped heads and stolen cows: the same Iroquois and Hottentots manifest a certain degree of modesty in sexual relations, feel pity for those dear to them, are capable of admiring other people’s superiority. But as long as these rudimentary manifestations of true morality are found side by side with savage and inhuman demands, or even give precedence to the latter, as long as ferocity is prized above modesty, and rapacity above compassion, it has to be admitted that the idea of the good, though preserving its universal form, is devoid of its true content.
The activity of reason which gives rise to ideas is inherent in man from the first, just as an organic function is inherent in the organism. It cannot be denied that alimentary organs and their functions are innate in the animal; but no one takes this to mean that the animal is born with the food already in its mouth. In the same way,
§II. In its essence moral philosophy is most intimately connected with religion, and in its relation to knowledge with the theoretical philosophy. It cannot at this stage be explained what the nature of the connection is, but it is both possible and necessary to explain what it is not. It must not be conceived of as a one-sided dependence of ethics on positive religion or on speculative philosophy—a dependence which would deprive the moral sphere of its special content and independent significance. The view which wholly subordinates morality and moral philosophy to the theoretical principles of positive religion or philosophy is extremely prevalent in one form or another. The erroneousness of it is all the more clear to me because I myself at one time came very near it, if indeed I did not share it altogether. Here are some of the considerations which led me to abandon this point of view; I give only such as can be understood before entering upon an exposition of moral philosophy itself.
The opponents of independent morality urge that “only true religion can give man the strength to realise the good; but the whole value of the good is in its realisation; therefore apart from true religion ethics has no significance.” That true religion does give its true followers the strength to realise the good, cannot be doubted. But the one-sided assertion that such strength is given by religion alone, though it is supposed to be
In order to receive the power for realising the good, it is necessary to have a conception of the good—otherwise its realisations will be merely mechanical. And it is not true that the whole value of good is in the fact of its realisation: the way in which it is realised is also important. An unconscious automatic accomplishment of good actions is below the dignity of man and consequently does not express the human good. The human realisation of the good is necessarily conditioned by a consciousness of it, and there can be consciousness of the good apart from true religion as is shown both by history and by everyday experience, and confirmed by the testimony of so great a champion of the faith as St. Paul.
Further, though piety requires us to admit that the power for the realisation of the good is given from God, it would be impious to limit the Deity with regard to the means whereby this power can be communicated. According to the witness both of experience and of the Scriptures, such means are not limited to positive religion, for even apart from it some men are conscious of the good, and practise it. So that from the religious point of view also, we must simply accept this as true, and consequently admit that in a certain sense morality is independent of the positive religion and moral philosophy of acreed.
1 ὅταν γὰρ ἔθνη τὰ μὴ νόμον ἔχοντα φύσει τὰ τοῦ νόμου ποιῶσιν, οὗτοι νόμον μὴ ἔχοντες ἑαυτοῖς εἰσιν νόμος· ἐνδείκνυται γὰρ τὸ ἔργον τοῦ νόμου γεγραμμένον ἐπὶ τὴν καρδίαν αὐτῶν, ἡ μὲν συνείδησις μαρτυροῦσα καὶ αἱ διαλογισμοὶ αὐτῶν ἐν τῷ μεταξὺ κατακατακρίνοντες ἢ καὶ ἀπολογούμενοι ἀλλήλων. (For whenever Gentiles who do not have the law naturally do the things of the law, they are a law to themselves, though not having the law. For the work of the law is written on their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them.)
2 What St. Paul says of the Gentiles of his time is no doubt applicable to men who in the Christian era were unable to accept Christianity either because they had not heard of it or because it had been misrepresented to them. And when they do good they do it according to the natural law “written in their hearts.”
3 Of course, what is here denied is dependence in the strict sense, i.e. such a relation between two objects that one of them is entirely presupposed by the other and cannot exist apart from it. All I maintain so far is that ethics is not in this sense dependent upon positive religion, without at all prejudging the question as to the actual connection between them or their mutual dependence in concreto. As to the so-called natural or rational religion, the very conception of it has arisen on the ground of moral philosophy and, as will be shown in its due course, has no meaning apart from it. At present I am only concerned with the view which has, of late, become rather prevalent, that the moral life is wholly determined by the dogmas and institutions of a positive religion and must been tirely subordinate to them.
1 One of my critics—heaven judge him!—took me to mean that that religion is true to which the greatest number of good people belong. I wish he had suggested some method for such moral statistics!
Protestants, who originally separated off from the Roman Church precisely on the ground of moral theology, claim in their turn as their essential advantage the moral loftiness and purity of their
Without going into theology or pronouncing on the value of or the need for such disputes
1 Concerning the reproach in ‘moral fratricide’ see my article in Dogmatitcheskoe Razvitic Tserkvi (The Dogmatic Development of the Church) in the Pravoslavnoe Obozrenie for 1885.
In answer to this, the Roman Catholics, for their part, would not say that ambition is a good thing or that Christian charity must be subordinate to worldly
It is clear, then, that the disputing parties stand on one and the same moral ground (which alone renders dispute possible), that they have the same moral principles and standards, and that the dispute is merely about their application. These principles do not as such belong to any denomination, but form a general tribunal to which all equally appeal. The representative of each side says in fact to his opponent simply this: “I practise better than you the moral principles which you, too, wish to follow; therefore you must give up your error and acknowledge that I am right.” The ethical standards, equally presupposed by all denominations, cannot themselves, then, depend upon denominational
But morality proves to be just as independent of the more important religious differences. When a missionary persuades a Mahomedan or a heathen of the moral superiority of the Christian teaching he evidently presupposes that his listener has the same moral standards as his own, at least, in a potential form.
This means that the norms which are common both to the Christian and to the heathen, and are ‘written’ in the latter’s heart, are altogether independent of positive religion. Besides, in so far as all positive religions, including the absolutely true one, appeal in the disputes to the universal moral norms, they admit that in a certain sense they are dependent upon the latter. Thus during a judicial trial both the right and the wrong party are equally subordinate to the law; and inasmuch as they have both appealed to it, they have acquiesced in such subordination.
§III. Moral philosophy has then a subject-matter of its own (the moral norms) independent of particular religions, and even in a sense presupposed by them; thus on its objective or real side it is self-contained. The question must now be asked whether on its formal side—as a science—moral philosophy is subordinate to theoretical philosophy, especially to that part of it which examines the claims and the limitations of our cognitive faculty. But in working out a moral philosophy, reason simply unfolds, on the ground of experience, the implications of the idea of the good (or, what is the same thing, of the ultimate fact of moral consciousness) which is inherent in it from the first. In doing this, reason does , not go beyond its own boundaries; in scholastic language its use here is immanent, and is therefore independent of this or of that solution of the question as to the transcendent knowledge of things in themselves. To put it more simply, in moral philosophy we are concerned with our inward relation to our own activities, i.e. with something that can unquestionably be known by us, for it has its source in ourselves. The debatable question as to whether we can know that which belongs to other realms of being, independent of us, is not here touched upon. The ideal content of morality is apprehended by reason which has itself created it; in this case, therefore, knowledge coincides with its object (is adequate to it) and leaves no room for critical doubt. The progress and the results of this process of thought answer for themselves, pre supposing nothing but the general logical and psychological conditions of all mental activity. Ethics makes no claim to a theoretical knowledge of any metaphysical essences and takes no part in the dispute between the dogmatic and the critical philosophy, the first of which affirms, and the second denies, the reality, and consequently the possibility, of such knowledge.
In spite of this formal and general independence of ethics of the theoretical philosophy, there are two metaphysical questions which may apparently prove fatal to the very existence of morality.
The first question is this. The starting point of every serious speculation is the doubt as to the objective validity of our knowledge:
If we cannot in relation to the existence of other selves go further than doubt, we may rest satisfied about the fate of moral principles; for theoretical doubt is evidently insufficient to undermine moral and practical certainty. It must also be remembered that critical doubt is not the final point of view of philosophy, but is always overcome in one way or another. Thus Kant draws the distinction between phenomena and noumena (appearances and things in themselves), restoring to the objects of moral duty as noumena the full measure of independent existence which as phenomena they do not possess. Other thinkers discover new and more trustworthy witnesses of the existence of the external world than sense and thought (Jacobi’s immediate faith, Schopenhauer’s Will, which is experienced as the root of our own reality, and, by analogy, of that of other beings), or they work out a system of a new and more profound speculative dogmatism which reestablishes the objective significance of all that is. (Schelling, Hegel, and others.)
But however great the force and the significance of the critical doubt as to the existence of other beings may be, it has bearing merely on one aspect of morality. Every ethical precept as such touches upon the object of the action (other men) only with its outer end, so to speak; the real root of it is always within the agent and cannot therefore be affected by any theory—whether positive or negative—of the external world. And the external aspect of the moral law which links it to the object belongs, properly speaking, to the sphere of legal justice and not of morality in the narrow sense. As will be shown in due course legal justice depends upon morality and cannot be separated from it, but this does not prevent us from clearly distinguishing the two spheres. When one and the same action, e.g. murder, is condemned
The conclusion that follows from this is clear. If the universe were merely my dream, this would be fatal only to the objective, the external side of ethics (in the broad sense), and not to its own inner sphere; it would destroy my interest in jurisprudence, politics, in social questions, in philanthropy, but it would not affect the individually moral interests or the duties to myself. I should cease to care about safeguarding the rights of others, but would still preserve my own inner dignity. Not feeling any tender compassion for the phantoms surrounding me, I should be all the more bound to refrain from evil or shameful passions in relation to them. If it be opposed to moral dignity to bear malice against a living human being, it is all the more so against a mere phantom; if it be shameful to fear that which exists, it is still more shameful to fear that which does not exist; if it be shameful and contrary to reason to strive for the material possession of real objects, it is no less shameful and far more irrational to entertain such a desire with regard to phantoms of
In view of all these considerations, the following general conclusion seems inevitable. Theoretical philosophy (namely, the critique of knowledge) may engender doubt as to the existence of the objects of morality, but it certainly cannot create a conviction of their non-existence. The doubt (which, however, is disposed of, in one way or another, by the theoretical philosophy itself) cannot outweigh the certainty which attaches to the deliverances of conscience. But even if it were possible to be certain of the non-existence of other beings (as objects of moral activity), this would only affect the objective side of ethics, leaving its own essential sphere altogether untouched. This conclusion sufficiently safeguards the independence of moral philosophy with regard to the first point raised by the critique of knowledge. The second difficulty arises in connection with the metaphysical question of the freedom of will.
§IV. It is often maintained that the fate of moral consciousness depends upon this or that view of the freedom of will. It is urged that either our actions are free or they are determined, and then it is affirmed that the second alternative, namely, determinism, or the theory that all our actions and states happen with necessity, makes human morality impossible and thus deprives moral philosophy of all meaning. If, they say, man is merely a wheel in the world machine, it is impossible to speak of moral conduct. But the whole force of the argument depends upon an erroneous confusion between mechanical determinism and determinism in general—a confusion from which Kant himself is not altogether free. Determinism in general merely affirms that everything that happens, and therefore all human conduct, is determined (determinatur—hence the name of the theory) by sufficient
Mechanical necessity is undoubtedly present in phenomena, but the assertion that it is the only kind of necessity that exists is simply a consequence of the materialistic metaphysics which would reduce all that is to mechanical movements of matter. This view, however, has nothing to do with the conviction that everything that happens has a sufficient reason which determines it with necessity. To regard man as a wheel in the world machine, one must at least admit the existence of such a machine, and by no means all determinists would agree to this. Many of them regard the material world merely as a presentation in the mind of spiritual beings, and hold that it is not the latter who are mechanically determined by real things, but that phenomena are mentally determined in accordance with the laws of the inner life of the spiritual beings, of which man is one.
Leaving metaphysics for the present on one side and confining ourselves to the limits of general experience, we undoubtedly find already in the animal world inner psychological necessity essentially irreducible to mechanism. Animals
1 In a certain sense of course the same may be said of plants and even of the different parts of the inorganic world, for there does not exist in nature pure mechanism or absolute soullessness; but in these preliminary remarks I wish to keep to what is indisputable and generally understood. Concerning the different kinds of causality or necessity in connection with the problem of the freedom of will see in particular Schopenhauer, Grundprobl. des Ethik and Wille in der Natur. I have given the essence of his views in my Kritika otvletchonnih natchal (Critique of Abstract Principles), chap. ix.
Even granting that these motives are caused
1 In the Polish language the word sam has kept only this negative sense—alone without the others (the derivative samotny = lonely); in the Russian and the German languages both meanings are possible, and if the positive (the inner, spontaneous causality) is given the negative (absence of any other cause) is presupposed, but not vice versa. Thus the word samouchka (self-taught) denotes a man who has himself been the cause of his education and who studied alone without the help of others. The two meanings are here combined as in similar words in other languages, e.g. the German Selbsterziehung or the English self-help. But when we say that a roasting-jack moves (sam) by itself (Selbst), the word has merely the negative meaning that at the present moment nothing external is pushing the object. But it is certainly not meant that the jack is the spontaneous cause of its movements; the cause is wholly contained in the previous impetus, external to the object.
But the special peculiarity which does not allow of anirhal life being reduced to mere mechanism is that, for the normal interaction between the
The psychical life as manifested in the different species and in individual animals (and in man) presents qualitative differences which enable us, for instance, to distinguish between the ferocious and the meek, the brave and the cowardly, etc. Animals are not aware of these qualities as either good or bad; but in human beings the same qualities are regarded as indicating a good or a bad nature. There is a moral element involved here, and experience unquestionably proves that good nature may develop and bad be suppressed or corrected; we already have here a certain object for moral philosophy and a problem of its practical application, though of course there is as yet no question as to the freedom of will. The final independence of ethics of this metaphysical problem is, however, to be discovered not within the sphere of psychical life which is common to man and animal, but within the sphere of human morality proper.
1 The logical right to doubt the presence of a mental life in animals must be based upon the same grounds upon which I doubt the existence of minds other than my own (see above). An exact solution of this purely theoretical problem is impossible in the domain of ethics and is not necessary for it; it is a question for epistemology and metaphysics.
§V. Just as in the animal world psychological necessity is super-added to the mechanical without cancelling the latter or being reduced to it, so in the human world to these two kinds of necessity is added the ideally rational or moral necessity. It implies that the motives or sufficient reasons of human actions are not limited to concrete particular ideas which affect the will through
Everything that is higher or more perfect presupposes by its very existence certain freedom from the lower, or, to speak more exactly, from the exclusive domination by the lower. Thus the capacity of being determined to action by means of ideas or motives means freedom from the exclusive domination by material impact and pressure—i.e. psychological necessity means
For the idea of the good as duty to become a sufficient reason or motive for action, a union of two factors is necessary: sufficient clearness and fullness of the idea itself in consciousness and sufficient moral receptivity of the subject. Whatever the
When the moral motive is defective in the one respect or the other, it does not operate; and when it is sufficient in both respects it operates with necessity like any other cause. Suppose I accept the moral law as a motive for action solely for its own sake, out of reverence for it and without any admixture of extraneous motives. This very capacity to respect the moral law so highly and so disinterestedly as to prefer it to all else is itself a quality of mind and is not arbitrary, and the activity that follows from it, though rationally free, is entirely subject to moral necessity and cannot possibly be arbitrary or accidental. It is free in the relative sense, free from the lower mechanical and psychological necessity, but it is certainly not free from the inner higher necessity of the absolute good. Morality and moral philosophy are entirely based upon rational freedom or moral necessity, and wholly exclude from their sphere the irrational unconditional freedom or the arbitrary choice.
And yet there is such a thing as an absolute freedom of choice. It is found not in the moral self-determination, not in the acts of the practical reason where Kant sought it, but just at the opposite pole of the inner life. At present I can only indicate my meaning partially and imperfectly. As already said, the good cannot be the direct object of arbitrary choice. Granted the requisite degree of understanding and of receptivity on the part of the subject, its own excellence is quite a sufficient reason for preferring it to the opposite principle, and there is here no room for arbitrary choice. When I choose the good, I do so not because of my whim but because it is good, because it has value, and I am capable of realising its significance. But what determines the opposite act of rejecting the good and choosing the evil? Is such choice entirely due to the fact that, as a certain school of ethics supposes, I do not know evil and mistakenly take it for the good? It is impossible to prove that this is always the case. A sufficient knowledge of the good in combination with a sufficient receptivity to it necessarily determines our will in the moral sense. But the question still remains whether an insufficient receptivity to the good and a receptivity to evil is merely a natural fact, or whether it depends on the will, which in this case, having no rational motive to determine it in the bad direction (for to submit to evil rather than to good is contrary to reason), is itself the ultimate cause of its own determination. For a rational being there can be no objective reason for loving evil as such, and the will therefore may only choose it arbitrarily—on the condition, of course, that there be full, clear consciousness of it; for
1 A considerable part of my theoretical philosophy will be devoted to the inquiry into the problem of free will. So far, it is sufficient for me to show that this problem has no immediate bearing upon moral philosophy which is concerned with the conception of the good, whether the good be regarded as an object of arbitrary choice or as a motive which necessarily determines the acts of rational and moral beings. In what follows I shall always mean by human freedom, individual freedom, etc., either moral freedom which is an ethical fact, or political freedom which is an ethical postulate, without any more referring to the absolute freedom of choice which is merely a metaphysical problem.
Part I. The Good in Human Nature
Chapter I. The Primary Data of Morality
§I. However convincing or authoritative a moral teaching may be, it will remain fruitless and devoid of power unless it finds a secure foundation in the moral nature of man. In spite of all the differences in the degree of spiritual development in the past and in the present, in spite of all the individual variations and the general influences of race, climate, and historical conditions, there exists an ultimate basis of universal human morality, and upon it all that is of importance in ethics must rest. The admission of this truth does not in any way depend upon our metaphysical or scientific conception of the origin of man. Whether the result of a long evolution of animal organisms or an immediate product of a higher creative act, human nature, with all its characteristic features—the most important among them being the moral features—is in any case a fact.
The distinctive character of the psychical nature of man is not denied by the great representative of the evolutionary theory. “No doubt the difference in this respect (between man and other animals) is enormous, even if we compare the mind of one of the lowest savages, who has no words to express any number higher than four, and who uses hardly any abstract terms for common objects or for the affections, with that of the most highly organised ape. The difference would, no doubt, still remain immense, even if one of the higher apes had been improved or civilised as much as a dog has been in comparison with its parent-form, the wolf or jackal. The Fuegians rank amongst the lowest barbarians, but I was continually struck with surprise how
Further on Darwin declares that he entirely agrees with the writers who hold that the greatest difference between man and animals consists in the moral sentiment,
There exists one feeling which serves no social purpose, is utterly absent in the highest animals, but is clearly manifested in the lowest of the human races. In virtue of this feeling the most savage and undeveloped man is ashamed of—i.e. recognises as wrong—and conceals a physiological act which not only satisfies his own desire and need, but is, moreover, useful and necessary for the preservation of the species. Directly connected with this is the reluctance to remain in primitive nakedness; it induces savages to invent clothes even when the climate and the simplicity of life make them quite unnecessary.
This moral fact more sharply than any other distinguishes man from all the other animals, for among them we find not the slightest trace of anything approaching to it. Darwin himself, discussing as he does the religious instinct of dogs, etc., never attempts to look to animals for any rudiments of shame. And indeed, not to speak of the lower creatures, even the highly-endowed and well-trained domestic animals are no exception.
1 Darwin, The Descent of Man (beginning of chap. iii.).
2 Ibid. chap. iii.
3 Ibid., the answer to Mill.
4 Ibid., on social virtues.
The noble steed afforded the prophet in the Bible a suitable image for depicting the shamelessness of the dissolute young men of the Jerusalem nobility; the loyal dog has of old been rightly
As it is utterly impossible to Discover shame among animals, naturalists of a certain school are compelled to deny it to man. Not having discovered any modest animals, Darwin talks of the shamelessness of the savage peoples.
1 The Descent of Man. When dealing with savages even serious scientists sometimes show remarkable thoughtlessness. The other day I saw an amusing instance of it in the writings of the anthropologist Brocke. He affirms that the aborigines of the Andaman Islands wear no clothes; for, he says, one cannot regard as such a thin belt with a piece of leather attached to it. I think one could with more ground deny the essential function of clothes to the European dress-coat.
In like manner the sacrifice
It is obvious that it would not be necessary for Darwin to use such unconvincing indirect arguments in support of his view could he produce any trustworthy facts to show the presence of even rudimentary modesty among animals. But there are no such facts, and shame undoubtedly remains, even from the external and empirical point of view, the distinguishing characteristic of man.
§II. The feeling of shame (in its fundamental sense) is a fact which absolutely distinguishes man from all lower nature. No other animal has this feeling in the least degree, while in man it has been manifested from time immemorial and is subject to growth and development.
But that which is involved in this fact gives it a further and a far deeper significance. The feeling of shame is not merely a
Even if individual cases of sexual shame were to be found among animals, it would simply be a premonition of the human nature. For in any case it is clear that a being who is ashamed of his animality in that very fact proves himself to be more than a mere animal. No one who believes the story of the speaking ass of Balaam ever denied, on that ground, that the gift of rational speech is a characteristic peculiarity of man as distinct from other animals. But still more fundamental in this sense is the meaning of sexual shame.
This fundamental fact of history and of anthropology—unnoticed or intentionally omitted in the book of the great modern scientist—had been noted three thousand years before in an inspired passage in a book of far more authority: “And the eyes of them both were opened (at the moment of fall) and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons. And they heard the voice of the Lord God…and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden. And the Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou? And he said, I heard Thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself. And He said, Who told thee that thou wast naked?”
It is by his own action and by testing his own being that man attains to moral self-consciousness. Materialistic science would attempt in vain to give, from its point of view, a satisfactory answer to the question asked of man long ago: “Who told thee that thou wast naked?”
The independent and ultimate meaning of the sense of shame would be explained away if this moral fact could be connected with some material gain for the individual or for the species in the struggle for existence. In that case shame could be accounted for as a form of the instinct of animal self-preservation—individual or social. But there is no such connection.
The feeling of shame associated with the sexual act might be useful to the individual and to the species as a preventive against the abuse of this important organic function. In the case of animals which follow their instincts we do not find any injurious excesses; but in the case of man, owing to a superior development of the individual consciousness and will, excesses become possible; and against the most dangerous of them—the abuse of the sexual instinct—a useful check is provided in the feeling of shame which develops under the general conditions of natural selection. This is a plausible argument, but it is not really valid. To begin with, it involves an inner contradiction. If the strongest and the most fundamental of instincts—the instinct of self-preservation—is powerless to prevent man from dangerous excesses, how could this be done by a new and derivative instinct of shame? And if the instinctive promptings of shame do not have sufficient influence over man, which is really the case, no specific utility can attach to shame, and it remains inexplicable from the utilitarian and materialistic point of view. Instead of checking the excesses, which are a violation of the normal order, it itself simply proves to be an additional object of such a violation—i.e. an utterly useless complication. Connected with
In truth the feeling of shame is excited not by the abuse of a certain organic function, but by the simple exercise of that function: the natural fact is itself experienced as shameful. If this is a manifestation of the instinct of self-preservation, it is so in quite a special sense. What is being safeguarded here is not the subject’s material welfare, but his highest human dignity; or rather that dignity evinces itself as still safe in the depths of our being. The strongest manifestation of the material organic life calls forth a reaction on the part of the spiritual principle which reminds the personal consciousness that man is not merely a natural fact, that he must not as a passive instrument serve the vital purposes of nature. This is only a reminder, and it rests with the personal rational will to take advantage of it. As I have already said, this moral feeling has no direct real effect, and if its promptings are in vain, shame itself gradually disappears and is at last completely lost.
It is clear, then, that even if it were true that individual persons or entire tribes are devoid of shame, this fact would not have the significance ascribed to it. The unquestionable shamelessness of individual persons as well as the questionable shamelessness of entire peoples, can only mean that in these particular cases the spiritual principle in man which lifts him above material nature is either still undeveloped or is already lost—that this
§III. Apart from all empirical considerations as to the genesis of the feeling of shame in humanity, the significance of that feeling lies in the fact that it determines man’s ethical relation to his material nature. Man is ashamed of being dominated or ruled by it (especially in its chief manifestation), and thereby asserts his inner independence and his superior dignity in relation to it, in virtue of which he must possess and not be possessed by it.
Side by side with this fundamental moral feeling determining the right attitude to the lower, material principle in each of us, there exists in human nature another feeling_which serves as a basis for a moral relation to other human, or, speaking generally, to other living beings that are like us—namely, the feeling of pity.
1 I use the simplest term, the most usual in technical works on the subject being the terms sympathy or compassion.
2 A number of facts showing this are to be found in works of descriptive zoology (particularly in Brehm’s Life of Animals), and also in the literature on animal psychology that has of late been considerably developed.
and consequently from
The close connection of the feeling of pity with the social instincts of men and animals cannot be doubted owing to the very nature of that feeling. In its essence, however, it is an individual moral state, and even in the case of animals it is not reducible to social relations, much less so in the case of man. If the need for a social unit were the only foundation of pity, that feeling could only be experienced towards the creatures that belong to one and the same social whole. This is generally but by no means always the case, at any rate not among the higher animals. Numerous facts of the tenderest love
1 Love in the purely psychological sense (apart from the materially sexual and the aesthetic relation) is firmly established, permanent pity or compassion (sympathy {ed. note empathy}). Long before Schopenhauer the Russian people identified these two things in their language: “to love” and “to pity” is one and the same for them. One need not go so far, but it cannot be disputed that the fundamental subjective manifestation of love as a moral feeling is pity.
2 It is obvious, of course, that such cases with regard to wild animals can only be properly observed when the animals are in captivity. It is very probable indeed that the sympathetic feelings in question are awakened chiefly in captivity.
The sympathetic feeling can grow and develop indefinitely, but its ultimate essence is one and the same among all living beings. The first stage and the fundamental form of all solidarity in the animal kingdom and in the human world is
§IV. The feelings of shame and of pity essentially determine our moral attitude in the first place to our own material nature, and in the second to all other living beings. Insofar as a man is modest and pitiful he stands in a moral relation ‘to himself and to his neighbour’ (to use the old terminology); shamelessness and pitilessness, on the contrary, undermine the very roots of his character. Apart from these two feelings there exists in us a third one, irreducible to the first two, and as ultimate as they; it determines man’s moral attitude not to his own lower nature and not to the world of beings similar to him, but to something different recognised by him as the higher; as that which he can be neither ashamed of, nor feel pity for, but which he must revere. This feeling of reverence (reverentia) or of awe (piety, pietas) before the higher forms in man the moral basis of religion, and of the religious order of life. When abstracted by philosophical reflection from its historic. manifestations, it constitutes the so-called ‘natural religion.’ The ultimate and the innate character of this feeling cannot be denied for the same reason that the innateness of pity is not seriously denied by anyone. In a rudimentary form both the feeling of pity and of reverence are found among animals. It is absurd to expect to find among them religion in our sense of the term. But the general elementary feeling upon which human religion is ultimately based—namely, the feeling of reverence and awe in the presence of something higher—may unconsciously spring up in creatures other than man. In this sense the following remarks must be said to be true:
“The feeling of religious devotion is a highly complex one, consisting of love, complete submission to an exalted and mysterious superior, a strong sense of dependence, fear, reverence, |35| gratitude, hope for the future, and perhaps other elements. No being could experience so complex an emotion until advanced in his intellectual and moral faculties to at least a moderately high level. Nevertheless, we see some distant approach to this state of mind in the deep love of a dog for his master, associated with complete submission, some fear, and perhaps other feelings. The behaviour of a dog when returning to his master after an absence, and, as I may add, of a monkey to his beloved keeper, is widely different from that towards their fellows. In the latter case the transports of joy appear to be somewhat less, and the sense of equality is shown in every action.” 1
The representative of the scientific evolutionary view admits then that in the quasi-religious relation of the dog or of the monkey to a higher being (from their point of view) there is, in addition to fear and self-interest, a moral element and one quite distinct from the sympathetic feelings which these animals exhibit in relation to their equals. This specific relation to the higher is precisely what I call reverence; and if one admits it in dogs and monkeys it would be strange to deny it to man, and to deduce human religion from fear and self-interest alone. These lower feelings undoubtedly contribute to the formation and the development of religion. But the ultimate basis of it is the distinctive religiously moral feeling of man’s reverent love to what is more excellent than himself.
1 Darwin, op. cit., end of ch. iii. Darwin had been speaking before of the intellectual side of religion—of the acknowledgment of an invisible cause or causes for unusual events. He finds this too among the animals.
§V. The fundamental feelings of shame, pity, and reverence exhaust the sphere of man’s possible moral relations to that which is below him, that which is on a level with him, and that which is above him. Mastery over the material senses, solidarity with other living beings, and inward voluntary submission to the superhuman principle—these are the eternal and permanent foundations of the moral life of humanity. The degree of mastery, the depth and the extent of solidarity, the completeness of the inward submission vary in the course of history, passing from a lesser to
All other phenomena of the moral life, all the so-called virtues, may be shown to be the variations of these three essentials or the results of interaction between them and the intellectual side of man. Courage and fortitude, for instance, are undoubtedly exemplifications—though in a more external and superficial form—of the same principle, the more profound and significant expression of which is found in shame,—the principle, namely, of rising above and dominating the lower material nature. Shame (in its typical manifestation) elevates man above the animal instinct of generic self-preservation; courage elevates him above another animal instinct—that of personal self-preservation. But apart from this distinction in the object or the sphere of application, these two forms of one and the same moral principle differ more profoundly in another respect. The feeling of shame necessarily involves a condemnation of that with which it is associated: that of which I am ashamed is declared by me, in and through the very act of being ashamed, to be bad or wrong. But a courageous feeling or action, on the contrary, may simply express the nature of a given individual, and, as such, contains no condemnation of its opposite. For this reason courage is found among animals, having in their case no moral significance. As the function of obtaining and assimilating food gets more complex and developed it becomes in some animals the destructive predatory instinct which may sometimes outweigh the instinct of self-preservation. This domination of one instinct over another is precisely what is meant by animal courage. Its presence or absence is simply a natural fact, not inwardly connected with any self-valuation. No one would think of saying that hares or hens are ashamed of their timidity; courageous animals when they happen to be afraid are not ashamed of it either—nor do they boast of their courage. In man, too, the quality of courage as such is essentially of that character. But owing to our higher nature and to the intervention of the intellectual elements this quality acquires a new meaning which connects it with the root of the distinctly human morality—with shame. Man is conscious of courage not merely as of the pre dominance of the predatory instinct, but as the power of the spirit to rise above the instinct of personal self-preservation. The
The inner dependence of other human virtues upon the three ultimate foundations of morality will be shown in due course.
§VI. Of the three ultimate foundations of the moral life, one, as we have seen, belongs exclusively to man (shame), another (pity) is to a large extent found among animals, and the third (awe or reverence for the higher) is in a small degree observed in some animals. But although the rudiments of moral feeling (of the second and third kind) are found in the animal world, they differ essentially from the corresponding feelings in man. Animals may be good or bad, but the distinction between good and evil as such does not exist for their consciousness. In the case of man this knowledge of good and evil is given immediately in the feeling of shame that is distinctive of him, and, gradually developing from this first root and refining its concrete and sensuous form, it embraces the whole of human conduct in the form of conscience. We have seen that within the domain of man’s moral relation to himself or to his own nature, the feeling of shame (which has at first a distinctly sexual character) remains identical in form whether it is opposed to the instinct of generic or of individual
This is the meaning of shame; conscience adds to it the analytic explanation, “if you do this wrong or unlawful thing, you will be guilty of evil, sin, crime.”
The voice of conscience, in determining as good or as evil our relations to our neighbours and to God, alone gives them a moral significance which otherwise they would not possess. And as conscience is simply a development of shame, the wholemoral life of man in all its three aspects springs, so to speak, from one root—a root that is distinctly human and essentially foreign to the animal world.
If the ultimate foundation of conscience is the feeling of shame, it is clear that animals which are devoid of this more elementary feeling cannot possess the more complex development of it—conscience. The presence of conscience in them is sometimes deduced from the fact that animals which have done something wrong look guilty. But this conclusion is based on a misunderstanding—on a confusion, namely, between two facts which, as we know from our own experience, are essentially distinct.
1 The expressions mnie stydno (‘I am ashamed’) and mnie soviestno (‘I am conscience-stricken’) are used in the Russian language as synonymous, and, indeed, from the nature of the case it is impossible to draw a sharp line of demarcation between the two mental states.
The moral state of being reproached by conscience, or the state of repentance, has an analogy in the intellectual sphere in the consciousness of mistake or miscalculation, i.e. of an act which from the utilitarian or the practical point of view is purposeless or unprofitableand is followed by a feeling of dissatisfaction with
§VII. The highest moral doctrine can be no other than a complete and correct development of the ultimate data of human morality, for the universal demands involved in them cover the whole sphere of possible human relations. But it is precisely the universality of these relations that forbids us to stop at establishing their existence as simply given in our nature and renders a further development and justification of them necessary.
The primitive, natural morality we have been considering is no other than the reaction of the spiritual nature against the lower forces—fleshly lust, egoism, and wild passion—which threaten to submerge and overpower it. The capacity for such a reaction makes man a moral being; but if the actual force and the extent of the reaction is to remain indefinite, it cannot, as such, be the foundation of the moral order in the human world. All the actual manifestations of our moral nature are merely particular and accidental in character. Man may be more or less modest, com passionate, religious: the universal norm is not given as a fact. The voice of conscience itself speaks more or less clearly and insistently, and can (in so far as it is a fact) be binding only to the extent to which it is heard in each given case.
From the ultimate data of morality we inevitably pass to the general principles which reason deduces from them, and which have in turn played the foremost part in the different ethical theories.
Chapter II. The Ascetic Principle in Morality §I.
The object of condemnation in asceticism is not material nature as such. From no point of view can it be rationally maintained that nature considered objectively—whether in its essence or in its appearances—is evil. It is usually supposed that the so-called Oriental religions, which are noted for extreme asceticism, are specially characterised by their identification of the principle of evil with physical matter, in contradistinction to true Christianity, which finds the source of evil in the moral sphere. But, strictly speaking, such identification is not to be found in any system of Oriental philosophy or religion. It is sufficient to mention the three most typical systems of India, the classical country of asceticism—the orthodox Brahmin Vedanta,
1 It assumed its present form only about the time when Buddhism disappeared from India (VIII. and XIII. c.a.d.), but the fundamental conceptions involved in it are to be found as early as the ancient Upanishads.
1 Some Hindu books determine the ‘part’ of ignorance arithmetically as forming one-fourth (or, according to others, one-third) of the Absolute. Probably in order that the relation may remain unaltered the birth of the ignorant is equalised by the enlightenment of the wise.
The paralysed man who can see (the spirit) must make use of the blind athlete (nature), on whose shoulders he can attain the end of his journey; but once the end is reached, they must part. The end of the spirit is self-knowledge—that is,
Turning from the Hindu systems to a different type of philosophy developed in {Alexandria} Egypt, we find that the striking and original form it finally received in the gnosticism of Valentine’s school, involved a conception of the natural world as mixed and heterogeneous in character. The world is, in the first place, the creation of the evil principle (Satan), secondly, the creation of the neutral and unconscious Demiurgus who is neither good nor evil, and thirdly, it contains manifestations of the heavenly Wisdom fallen from higher spheres. Thus, the visible light of our world was taken by the thinkers in question to be the smile of Sophia remembering the celestial radiance of the Pleroma (the absolute fulness of being) she had forsaken. Materiality as such was not, then, regarded by the Gnostics as evil; light is material and yet it is a manifestation of the good principle. Matter is not created by Satan because it is in itself evil, but, on the contrary, it is evil only in so far as it is created by Satan, i.e. in so far as it manifests or externally expresses the inward nature of evil—in so far as it is darkness, disorder, destruction, death—or, in a word, chaos.
The Persian system of thought (Manicheism), which is more pronouncedly dualistic, no more identifies material nature with evil than does the Egyptian gnosis. The natural world contains the
§II. In spite of Plotinus’s well-known assertion to the contrary, the normal man of the highest degree of spiritual development is not in the least ashamed of being a corporeal or material entity. No one is ashamed of having an extended body of a definite shape, colour, and weight; that is, we are not ashamed of all that we have in common with a stone, a tree, a piece of metal. It is only in relation to characteristics we have in common with beings which approach us most nearly and belong to the kingdom of nature contiguous to us, that we have the feeling of shame and of inner opposition. And this feeling shows that it is when we are essentially in contact with the material life of the world and may be actually submerged by it, that we must wrench ourselves away from and rise above it. The feeling of shame is excited neither by that part of our corporeal being which has no direct relation to the spirit at all (such as the above-mentioned material qualities which the spirit has in common with inanimate objects), nor by that part of the living organism which serves as the chief expression of the specifically human rational life—the head, the face, the hands, etc. The object of shame is only that part of our material being which, though immediately related to the spirit, since it can inwardly affect it, is not an expression or an instrument of the spiritual life, but is, on the contrary, a means whereby the processes of purely animal life seek to drag the human spirit drawn
§III. Man, like the animals, participates in the life of the universe. The essential difference between the two lies simply in the manner of the participation. The animal, being endowed with consciousness, shares inwardly and psychically in the processes of nature which hold it under their sway. It knows which of them are pleasant or unpleasant, it instinctively feels what is detrimental to itself or to the species. But this is true only with reference to the environment which immediately affects the animal at a given time. The world process as a whole does not exist for the animal soul. It can know nothing of the reasons and ends of that process, and its participation in it is purely passive or instrumental. Man,
In this case material nature is indeed evil, for it tries to destroy that which is worthy of being and which contains the possibility of something different from and better than the material life. Not in itself, but only in this bad relation to the spirit, man’s material nature is what in scriptural terminology is called the flesh.
The idea of ‘flesh’ must not be confused with the idea of ‘body.’ Even from the ascetic point of view body is the temple of the spirit; bodies may be ’spiritual,’ ‘glorified,’ ‘heavenly,’ but (‘flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven.’
1 This is a fact of our inner experience, and neither its psychological reality nor its ethical significance depend upon the metaphysical or any other view which may be taken of the essence of spirit and matter.
2 Sometimes in the Scriptures the word ‘flesh’ is used in the wide sense of material being in general: e.g. ‘The word became flesh,’ i.e. became a physical event, which did not prevent the incarnate Word from being a purely spiritual and sinless God-man. But usually the terms flesh and fleshly are used in the Scriptures in the bad sense of material nature which violates its due relation to the spirit, is opposed to and exclusive of it. Such terminology is found both in the New and in the Old Testament; e.g. “My spirit shall not dwell in these men for they are flesh.”
Flesh is excited animality, animality that breaks loose from its bounds and
At the elementary stages of his development man is a spiritual being potentially rather than actually; and it is just this potentiality of a higher spiritual life, manifested as self-consciousness and self-control in opposition to blind and uncontrolled physical nature, that is endangered by fleshly lust. Flesh, i.e. matter which has ceased to be passive and is striving for independence and infinity, seeks to attract the spiritual power to itself, to drag it in and absorb it in itself, increasing its own power at its expense. This is possible because, as incarnate, as actually manifested in the concrete man, spirit, or rather the life of spirit, is only a transformation of material existence (more immediately, of the animal soul), although in their ideal essence spirit and matter are heterogeneous. Regarded concretely, spiritual and material being are two kinds of energy which can be transformed into one another—just as mechanical motion can be transformed into heat and vice versa. The flesh (i.e. the animal soul as such) is strong only in the weakness of the spirit and lives only by its death. Therefore, for the spirit to preserve itself and to increase in power, the flesh must be subdued and transferred from the actual to the potential state. This is the real meaning of the moral law that flesh must be subordinate to the spirit, and the true basis of all moral asceticism.
§IV. The moral demand to subordinate the flesh to the spirit conflicts with the actual striving of the flesh to subject the spirit to itself. Consequently the ascetic principle has a double aspect. It requires in the first place that the spiritual life should be safeguarded from the encroachments of the flesh, and secondly, that the animal life should be made merely the potentiality or the matter of the spirit. Owing to the intimate inner connection
The three chief moments in this process are: (1) the distinction which the spirit inwardly draws between itself and the flesh; (2) the struggle of the spirit for its independence; (3) the supremacy achieved by the spirit over nature or the annihilation of the evil carnal principle as such. The first moment, which is characteristic of man in contradistinction to animals, is directly given in the feeling of shame. The third, being the consequence of the moral perfection already attained, cannot at the present stage be the direct object of the moral demand or rule. It is useless to confront even a moral man, while he is still imperfect, with the categorical imperative “become at once immortal and incorruptible!” Thus only the second moment is left for ethics, and our moral principle may be more closely defined as follows: subordinate the flesh to the spirit, in so far as it is necessary for the dignity and the independence of the latter. Hoping finally for a complete mastery over the physical forces in yourself and in nature as a whole, take for your immediate and binding purpose not to be, at any rate, the bondman of rebellious matter or chaos.
Flesh is existence that is not self-contained, that is wholly directed outwards; it is emptiness, hunger, and insatiability; it is lost in externality and ends in actual disruption. In contradistinction to it, spirit is existence determined inwardly, self-contained and self-possessed. Its outward expression is due to its own spontaneity, and does not cause it to become external or to be lost and dissolved in externality. Hence self-preservation of the spirit is, above all things, the preservation of its self-control. This is the main point of all asceticism.
The human body, in its anatomic structure and physiological functions, has no moral significance of its own. It may be the
§V. With regard to the corporeal life our moral task consists in not being passively determined by fleshly desires, especially in reference to the two most important functions of our organism—nutrition and reproduction.
By way of preliminary exercise, which in itself, however, has no moral value, it is important for the spirit to acquire power over such functions of our animal organism as are not directly related to the ‘lusts of the flesh’—namely, over breathing and sleep.
Breathing is the fundamental condition of life and the constant means of communication between our body and its environment. For the power of the spirit over the body it is desirable that this fundamental function should be under the control of the human will. Consequently there arose long ago and everywhere different ascetic practices with regard to breathing. The practice and theory of breathing exercises is found among the Indian hermits, among the sorcerers of ancient and more recent times, among, the monks of Mount Athos and similar monasteries, in Swedenborg, and, in our own day, in Thomas Lake-Harris and Laurence Oliphant. The mystical details of the matter have nothing to do with moral philosophy. I will therefore content myself with a few general remarks. A certain control of the will over breathing is required by ordinary good manners. For ascetic purposes one merely goes further in this direction. By constant exercise it is easy to learn not to breathe through the mouth either when awake or when asleep; the next stage is to learn to suppress breathing altogether for a longer or shorter time.
1 I mean normal sleep; abnormal will be dealt with further on.
2 The so-called ‘nostril breathing,’ and also complete stoppage of breathing, used to be, and in places still is zealously practised by Orthodox ascetics, as one of the conditions of the so-called ‘meditation.’
The power acquired over this organic
Sleep is a temporal break in the activity of the brain and of the nervous system—the direct physiological instruments of the spirit—and it therefore weakens the tie between the spiritual and the bodily life. It is important that the spirit should not in this case play a purely passive part. If sleep is caused by physical causes, the spirit must be able, for motives of its own, to ward it off, or to interrupt sleep that has already begun. The very difficulty of this task, which is undoubtedly a possible one, shows its importance. The power to overcome sleep and to wake at will is a necessary demand of spiritual hygiene. Moreover, sleep has another aspect, which distinguishes it from breathing and other organic functions that are in the moral sense indifferent, and connects it with nutrition and reproduction.
Like the two latter functions sleep may be misused to the advantage of the carnal and to the detriment of the spiritual life. The inclination to excessive sleep in itself shows the predominance of the material or the passive principle; a surrender to this inclination and actual abuse of sleep undoubtedly weaken the spirit and strengthen the lusts of the flesh. This is the reason why in the history of ascetic practices—for instance in Christian monasticism—struggle with sleep plays so important a part. Of course, the loosening of the bond between the spiritual and the corporeal life (or more exactly between the conscious and the instinctive life) may be of two kinds: sleepers must be distinguished from dreamers. But as a general rule a special faculty to dream significant and prophetic dreams indicates a degree of spiritual power that has been already developed by ascetic practices—struggle with the pleasure of carnal sleep among them.
§VI. In animals the predominance of matter over form is due to excess of food, as can be clearly seen in caterpillars among the lower, and fattened pigs among the higher, animals.
1 See Krasota v prirodie (Beauty in Nature) by the present author.
In man the same cause (excess of food) leads to a predominance of the animal
As to drinking, the simplest good sense forbids excessive use of strong drinks that leads to the loss of reason. The ascetic principle requires, of course, more than this. Speaking generally, wine heightens the energy of the nervous system, and, through it, of the psychical life. At our stage of spiritual development the soul is still dominated by carnal motives, and all that excites and increases the nervous energy in the service of the soul goes to strengthen this predominant carnal element, and is therefore highly injurious to the spirit so that here complete abstinence from wine and strong drink is necessary.
1 Another moral motive for abstaining from meat food is not ascetic but altruistic, namely, the extension to animals of the law of love or pity. This motive is pre dominant in the ethics of Buddhism and the ascetic one in the Christian Church.
2 According to the Biblical teaching the food of the normal human being before the Fall consisted solely of raw fruits and herbs. This is still the rule for the strictest monastic fast, both in the East and in the West (the trappists). Between this extreme and the light Roman Catholic fast for the laity there are many degrees which have a natural foundation (e.g. the distinction between the warm- and the cold-blooded animals, owing to which fish is regarded as a food to be taken during fasts) but involve no question of principle and have no universal significance.
But at the higher
The most important and decisive significance in the struggle of the spirit with the flesh in the physiological sphere belongs to the sexual function. The element of moral wrong (the sin of the flesh) is not to be found of course in the physical fact of childbirth (and conception) which is, on the contrary, a certain redemption of the sin—but only in the unlimited and blind desire (lust of the flesh, concupiscentia) for an external, animal, and material union with another person (in reality or imagination), a union taken to be an end in itself, an independent object of enjoyment. The predominance of flesh over spirit expresses itself most strongly, clearly, and permanently in the carnal union of two persons. It is not for nothing that the immediate feeling of shame is connected precisely with this act. To stifle or to pervert its testimony after many thousands of years of inward and outward development, and from the heights of a refined intelligence to pronounce good that which even the simple feeling of the savage acknowledges to be wrong—this is, indeed, a disgrace to humanity and a clear proof of our demoralisation. The actual or the supposed necessity of a certain act for other purposes cannot be a sufficient reason for judging of its essential quality as such. In some diseases it may be necessary to take poison, but that necessity is itself an anomaly from the hygienic point of view.
1 At the present moral level of humanity the mastery of the carnal desires is the rule, and the predominance of spiritual motives the exception, and one not to be depended upon; so that total abstinence from strong drinks and all other stimulants may well be preached without any practical disadvantage. But this is a pedagogical and prophylactic question involving no moral principle.
The moral question with regard to the sexual function is in the first place the question of one’s inner relation to it, of passing
If the Divine Wisdom, according to its wont, brings forth out of evil a greater good and uses our carnal sins for the sake of perfecting humanity by means of new generations,x this, of course, tends to its glory and to our comfort, but not to our justification. It treats in exactly the same way all other evils, but this fact cancels neither the distinction between good and evil nor the obligatoriness of the former for us. Besides, the idea that the preaching of sexual abstinence, however energetic and successful, may prematurely stop the propagation of the human race and lead to its annihilation is so absurd that one may justly doubt the sincerity of those who profess to hold it. It is not likely that anyone can seriously fear this particular danger for humanity. So long as the change of generations is necessary for the development of the human kind, the taste for bringing that change about will certainly not disappear in men. But in any case, the moment when all men will finally overcome the fleshly lust and become entirely chaste—even if that moment, per impossibile, came tomorrow—will be the end of the historical process and the beginning of ‘the life to come’ for all humanity; so that the very idea of child-bearing coming to an end ‘too soon’ is absolute nonsense, invented by hypocrites. As if anyone, in surrendering to the desire of the flesh, had ever thought of safeguarding thereby the future of humanity!
1 See Smysl liubvi (The Meaning of Love) and also Zhiznennaya drama Platona (The Drama of Plato’s Life).
2 I am not speaking here of the marriage union in its highest spiritual sense, which has nothing to do either with the sin of the flesh or with child-bearing, but is the pattern of the most perfect union between beings: “This is a great mystery; but I speak concerning Christ and the Church.” Concerning this mystical meaning of marriage see The Meaning of Love.
§VII. All the rules of ascetic morality in the sphere of the bodily life—to acquire power over breathing and sleep, to be temperate in food and to abstain from fleshly lust—have essentially an inward and morally psychological character, as rules for the will; but owing to the difference in their objects they do not stand in the
In this sense the ascetic attitude to the nutritive and the sexual functions belongs to the psychological and not to the physiological side of the struggle between the flesh and the spirit. The struggle in this case is not against the functions of the organism as such, but against the states of the soul—gluttony, drunkenness, sensuality. These sinful propensities, which may become passions and vices, are on a level with evil emotions such as anger, envy, cupidity, etc. The latter passions, which are evil and not merely shameful, fall within the province of altruistic and not of ascetic morality, for they involve a certain relation to one’s neighbours. But there are some general rules for the inner, morally-psychological struggle with sinful inclinations as such, whether they refer to other men or to our own material nature.
The inner process in and through which an evil desire takes
1 Ecclesiastical writers describe this rule as “dashing the babes of Babylon against the stones,” following the allegorical line in the Psalms: “O daughter of Babylon who art to be destroyed; happy shall he be that taketh and dashes thy little ones against the stones” (Babylon = the kingdom of sin; a babe of Babylon = a sin conceived in thought and as yet undeveloped; stone = the firmness of faith).
2 When one is young and has a lively imagination and little spiritual experience, the evil thought develops very rapidly, and, reaching absurd proportions, calls forth a strong moral reaction. Thus you think of a person you dislike, and experience a slight emotion of injury, indignation, and anger. If you do not immediately dash this ‘babe of Babylon’ against the stones, your imagination, obedient to the evil passion, will immediately draw a vivid picture before you. You meet your enemy and put him into an awkward position. All his worthlessness is exposed. You experience the velleitas {the weakest form of volition} of magnanimity, but the passion is roused and overwhelms you. At first you keep within the limits of good breeding. You make subtly stinging remarks which, however, soon become more stinging than subtle; then you ‘insult him verbally,’ and then you ‘assault him.’ Your devilishly strong fist deals victorious blows. The scoundrel is felled to the ground, the scoundrel is killed, and you dance on his corpse like a cannibal. One can go no further—nothing is left but to cross oneself and renounce it all in disgust.
§VIII. The supremacy of the spirit over the flesh is necessary in order to preserve the moral dignity of man. The principle of true asceticism is the principle of spiritual self-preservation. But the inner self-preservation of a separate man, of a being who, though spiritual (i.e. possessing reason and will), is nevertheless limited or relative in his separateness, cannot be the absolute good or the supreme and final end of life. The slavery of man to fleshly desires in the wide sense of the term, i.e. to all that is senseless and contrary to reason, transforms him into the worst species of animal, and is, no doubt, evil. In this sense no one can honestly argue against asceticism, that is, against self-restraint as a principle. Every one agrees that incapacity to resist animal instincts is a weakness of the spirit, shameful for a human being, and therefore bad. The capacity for such resistance or self-restraint is then a good, and must be accepted as a norm from which definite rules of conduct may be deduced. On this point, as on others, moral philosophy merely explains and elaborates the testimony of ordinary human consciousness. Apart from any principles, gluttony, drunkenness, lewdness immediately call forth disgust and contempt, and abstinence from these vices meets with instinctive respect, i.e. is acknowledged as a good. This good, however, taken by itself, is not absolute. The power of the spirit over the flesh, or the strength of will acquired by rightful abstinence, may be used for immoral purposes. A strong will may be evil. A man may suppress his lower nature in order to boast or to pride himself on his superior power; such a victory of the spirit is not a good. It is still worse if the self-control of the spirit and the concentration of the will are used to the detriment of other people, even apart from the purposes of low gain. Asceticism has been, and is, successfully practised by men given to spiritual pride, hypocrisy, and vanity, and even by vindictive, cruel, and selfish men. According to the general verdict, such an ascetic is in the moral sense far inferior to a simple-hearted drunkard or glutton or to a kind profligate. Asceticism in itself is not necessarily a good,
1 If the suppression of the flesh is taken not as a means for good or evil but as an end in itself, we get a peculiar kind of false asceticism which identifies flesh with the physical body, and considers every bodily torment a virtue. Although this false asceticism of self-laceration has no evil purpose to begin with, in its further development it easily becomes an evil: it either proves to be a slow suicide or becomes a peculiar kind of sensuality. It would be unwise, however, thus to condemn all cases of self-laceration. Natures that have a particularly strong material life may require heroic means for its suppression. One must not therefore indiscriminately condemn Stylitism, fetters, and other similar means of mortifying the flesh that were in use in the heroic times of asceticism.
Chapter III. Pity and Altruism
§I. It has for a long time been thought—and many are beginning to think so again—that the highest virtue or holiness is to be found in asceticism and ‘mortification of the flesh,’ in suppressing natural inclinations and affections, in abstinence and freedom from passions. We have seen that this ideal undoubtedly contains some truth, for it is clear that the higher or the spiritual side of man must dominate the lower or the material. The efforts of will in this direction are acts of spiritual self-preservation and are the first condition of all morality. The first condition, however, cannot be taken to be the ultimate end. Man must strengthen his spirit and subordinate his flesh, not because this is the purpose of his life, but because it is only when he is free from the bondage to blind and evil material desires that he can serve truth and goodness in theright way and attain real perfection.
The rules of abstinence strengthen the spiritual power of the man who practises them. But in order that the strong spirit may have moral worth—i.e. that it may be good and not evil—it must unite the power over its own flesh with a rightful and charitable attitude to other beings. History has shown that, apart from this condition, the supremacy of the ascetic principle, even when combined with a true religion, leads to terrible consequences. The ministers of the Mediaeval Church, who used to torture and burn heretics, Jews, sorcerers and witches, were for the most part men irreproachable from the ascetic point of view. But the one-sided force of the spirit and the absence of pity made them devils incarnate. The bitter fruits of mediaeval asceticism
This principle is deeply rooted in our being in the form of the feeling of pity which man has in common with other living creatures. If the feeling of shame differentiates man from the rest of nature and distinguishes him from other animals, the feeling of pity, on the contrary, unites him with the whole world of the living. It does so in a double sense: in the first place because man shares it with all other living creatures, and secondly because all living creatures can and must be the objects of that feeling to man.
§II. That the natural basis of our moral relation to others is the feeling of pity or compassion, and not the feeling of unity or solidarity in general, is a truth which is independent of any system of metaphysics
Human delight, pleasure, and joy may of course be innocent and even positively good—and in that case sharing in them has a positive moral character. But, on the other hand, human pleasures may be, and often are, immoral. A wicked and vindictive man finds pleasure in insulting and tormenting those near him, rejoices in their humiliation, delights in the harm he has done.
1 Such as the doctrine of Buddhism or Schopenhauer’s ‘Philosophy of the Will.’
But if a certain pleasure is in itself immoral, the participation in it by another person (co-rejoicing, co-pleasure) also receives an immoral character. The fact is that positive participation in a pleasure implies the approval of that pleasure. Thus in sharing the drunkard’s delight in his favorite pleasure I approve of drunkenness; in sharing somebody’s joy at successful revenge I approve of vindictiveness. And since these pleasures are bad pleasures, those who sympathise with them approve of what is evil, and consequently are themselves guilty of immorality. Just as participation in a crime is itself regarded as a crime, so sympathy with vicious pleasure or delight must itself be pronounced vicious. And indeed sympathy with an evil pleasure not only involves an approval of it, but also presupposes the same bad propensity in the sympathiser. Only a drunkard delights in another person’s drunkenness, only a vindictive man rejoices in another’s revenge. Participation in the pleasures or joys of others may then be good or bad according to their object; and if it may be immoral, it cannot as such be the basis of the moral relation.
The same thing cannot be said about suffering and compassion. According to the very idea of it, suffering is a state in which the will of the one who suffers has no direct and positive part. When we speak of ‘voluntary suffering,’ we mean, not that suffering is desired as such, but that the object of will is that which makes suffering necessary, in other words, that the
Participation in the pleasures of others may always have an element of self-interest. Even in the case of an old man sharing the joy of a child doubt may be felt with regard to the altruistic nature of his sentiment; for in any case it is pleasant for the old man to refresh the memory of his own happy childhood. On the contrary, all genuine feeling of regret at the suffering of others, whether moral or physical, is painful for the person who experiences that feeling, and is therefore opposed to his egoism. This is clear from the fact that sincere grief about others disturbs our personal joy, damps our mirth, that is, proves to be in compatible with the state of selfish satisfaction. Genuine compassion or pity can have no selfish motives and is purely altruistic, while the feeling of co-rejoicing or co-pleasure is, from the moral point of view, a mixed and indefinite feeling.
1 An apparent instance to the contrary is the case of a person sympathising with another who is grieved at the failure of his crime. But, in truth, even in this case in so far as sympathy arises solely out of pity it does not in the least refer to the bad cause of the grief, in no way presupposes an approval of it, and therefore is good and innocent. But if, in being sorry for the murderer who missed his aim, I also deplore his failure, the immorality will lie not in my pity for the criminal, but in my lack of pity for his victim. Speaking generally, when several persons prove to be at one in some wrong, the moral condemnation refers not to the fact of their solidarity, but only to the bad object of it.
On the one hand, then, participation in the actual joys and pleasures of others cannot from the very nature of the case contain either a stimulus for action or a rule of conduct, for in these states satisfaction is already attained. On the other hand, a conditional representation of future pleasures, which are supposed to follow upon the removal of the suffering, can only be a secondary and an indirect addition to the actual feeling of compassion or pity which moves us to do active good. Consequently it is this feeling alone which must be pronounced to be the true ground of altruistic conduct.
Those who pity the sufferings of others will certainly participate in their joys and pleasures when the latter are harmless and innocent. But this natural consequence of the moral relation to others cannot be taken as the basis of morality.
“How is it possible,” he asks, “that suffering which is not mine should become an immediate motive of my action in the same way as my own suffering does? “This presupposes,” he goes on, “that I have to a certain extent identified myself with another, and that the barrier between the self and the not self has been for the moment removed. It is then only that the position of another, his want, his need, his suffering, immediately (?) becomes mine. I no longer see him then as he is given me in empirical perception—as something foreign and indifferent (?) to me, as something absolutely (?) separate from me. On the contrary, in compassion it is I who suffer in him, although his skin does not cover my nerves. Only through such identification can his suffering, his need, become a motive for me in a way in which ordinarily only my own suffering can. This is a highly mysterious phenomenon—it is a real mystery of Ethics, for it is something for which reason cannot directly account (?!) and the grounds of which cannot be discovered empirically. And yet it is of everyday occurrence. Each has experienced it himself and seen it in other people. It happens every day before our eyes on a small scale in individual cases every time that, moved by an immediate impulse, without any further reflection, a man helps another and defends him, sometimes risking his own life for the sake of a person whom he sees for the first time, thinking of nothing but the obvious distress and need of that person. It happens on a large scale when a whole nation sacrifices its blood and its property for the sake of defending or setting free another, oppressed, nation. For such actions to deserve unconditional moral approval, it is necessary that there should be present that mysterious act of compassion or of inner identification of oneself with another, without any ulterior motives.”
1 Schopenhauer, Die beiden Grundprobleme der Ethik, 2nd ed., Leipzig, 1860, p. 230.
This discussion of the mysterious character of compassion is distinguished by literary eloquence more than by philosophic truth. The mystery is not to be found in the fact itself, but
1 Certain animals, like human mothers, have been observed to suffer from nausea a conceptu. The maternal feeling established on the physical basis may afterwards, like all feelings, be diverted from its natural object and transferred to the young of another animal that have been substituted for her own.
All that exists, and, in particular, all living beings are connected by the fact of their compresence in one and the same world, and by the unity of origin; all spring from one common mothe—nature,
Absolute separateness is merely affirmed but is not established by egoism; it neither does nor can exist as a fact. On the other hand, the mutual connection between beings which finds its psychological expression in sympathy or pity is certainly not of the nature of immediate identification as Schopenhauer takes it to be. When I am sorry for my friend who has a headache the feeling of sympathy does not as a rule become a headache. So far from my being identified with him even our states remain distinct, and I clearly distinguish my head, which does not ache, from his, which does. Also, so far as I am aware, it has never happened that a compassionate man, who jumps into the water to save another from drowning, should take that other person for himself or himself for that other. Even a hen—a creature more noted for her maternal instinct than for intelligence—clearly understands the distinction between herself and her chicks, and, therefore, behaves in relation to them in a certain way, which would be impossible if in her maternal compassion ‘the barrier between the self and the not self were removed.’ If this were the case, the hen might confuse herself with her chickens, and, when hungry, might ascribe that sensation to them and start feeding them, although in reality they were satisfied and she almost starving; or, another time, she might feed herself at their expense. In truth, in all these real cases of pity,
The removal of barriers between the self and the not self or immediate identification is merely a figure of speech and not an expression of real fact. Like the vibration of chords that sound in unison, so the bond of compassion between living beings is not simply identity but harmony of the similar. From this point of view, too, the fundamental moral fact of pity or compassion completely corresponds to the real nature of things or to the meaning of the universe. For the indissoluble oneness of the world is not a mere empty unity, but embraces the whole range of determinate variations.
§V. As befits an ultimate moral principle, the feeling of pity has no external limits for its application. Starting with the narrow sphere of maternal love, strongly developed even in the higher animals, it may, in the case of man, as it gradually becomes wider, pass from the family to the clan and the tribe, to the civic community, the entire nation, to all humanity, and finally embrace all that lives. In individual cases, when confronted with actual pain or need, we may actively pity not only every man—though belonging to a different race or religion—but even every animal; this is beyond dispute and is, indeed, quite usual. Less usual is such a breadth of compassion which, without any obvious reason, at once embraces in a keen feeling of pity all the multitude of living beings in the universe. It is difficult to suspect of artificial rhetoric or exaggerated pathos the following description of universal pity as an actual mental state—very unlike the state of the so-called ‘world-woe’ (Weltschmerz):
“And I was asked what is a pitying heart? And I answered: the glow in a man’s heart for all creation, for men, for birds, for animals, for demons, and for creatures of all kinds. When he thinks of them or looks upon them, his eyes gush with tears. Great and poignant pity possesses him and his heart is wrung with suffering, and he cannot bear either to hear or to see any harm or grief endured by any creature. And hence every hour he prays with tears even for the dumb beasts, and for |69| the enemies of truth and those who do him wrong, that God may preserve them and have mercy on them; and for all of the crawling kind he prays with great pity which rises up in his heart beyond measure so that in that he is made like to God.” 1 –The Sayings of the Holy Father Isaac the Syrian, Hermit and Ascetic, Bishop of the City of Ninety, p. 277.
In this description of the fundamental altruistic motive in its highest form we find neither ‘immediate identification’ nor ‘removing the barriers between the self and the not self.’ It differs from Schopenhauer’s account like living truth from literary eloquence. These words of the Christian writer also prove that there is no need, as Schopenhauer mistakenly thought, to turn to Indian dramas or to Buddhism in order to learn the prayer ‘May all that lives be free from suffering.’
§VI. The universal consciousness of humanity decidedly pronounces pity to be a good thing. A person who manifests this feeling is called good; the more deeply he experiences and the more he acts upon it, the more good he is considered to be. A pitiless man more than any other is called wicked. It does not follow, however, that the whole of morality or the essence of all good can be reduced, as it often is, to compassion or ‘sympathetic feeling.’
“Boundless compassion to all living beings,” observes Schopenhauer, “is the surest guarantee of moral conduct and requires no casuistry. The man who is full of that feeling will be certain not to injure anyone, not to cause suffering to anyone; all his actions will be sure to bear the stamp of truth and mercy. Let anyone say, ‘This man is virtuous, but he knows no compassion,’ or ‘He is an unrighteous and wicked man, but he is very compassionate,’ and the contradiction will be at once apparent.”
2 Die beiden Grundprobleme der Ethik, 2nd ed., p. 23.
3 It is all the more necessary for me to indicate this important error of the fashionable philosopher as I myself was guilty of it when I wrote my dissertation Kritika otvletchonnih natchal (The Critique of Abstract Principles).
1 It is curious that Schopenhauer admitted and even greatly exaggerated the importance of asceticism, but for some reason he completely excluded it from his moral teaching. It is one of the instances of the incoherent thinking of the famous writer.
§VII. The true essence of pity or compassion is certainly not the immediate identification of oneself with another, but the recognition of the inherent worth of that other—the recognition of his right to existence and to possible welfare. When I pity another man or animal, I do not confuse myself with him or take him for myself and myself for him. I merely see in him a creature that is akin and similar to me, with a consciousness like mine, and wishing, like I do, to live and to enjoy the good things of life. In admitting my own right to the fulfillment of such a desire, I admit it in the case of others; being painfully conscious of every violation of this right in relation to me, of every injury to myself, I respond in like manner to the violation of the rights of others, to the injury of others. Pitying myself, I pity others. When I see a suffering creature I do not identify or confuse it with myself, I merely imagine myself in its place and, admitting its likeness to myself, compare its states to my own, and, as the phrase is, ‘enter into its position.’ This equalisation (but not identification) between myself and another which immediately and unconsciously takes place in the feeling of pity, is raised by reason to the level of a clear and distinct idea.
The intellectual content (the idea) of pity or compassion, taken in its universality, independently of the subjective mental states in which it is manifested—i.e. taken logically and not psychologically,—is truth and justice. It is true that other creatures are similar to me, and it is just that I should feel about them as I do about myself. This position, clear in itself, becomes still more clear when tested negatively. When I am pitiless or indifferent to others, consider myself at liberty to injure them and do not think it my duty to help them, they appear to me not what they really are. A being appears as merely a thing, something
Insofar as it is a constant quality and a practical principle, pitilessness is called egoism. In its pure and unmixed form consistent egoism does not exist, at any rate not among human beings. But in order to understand the general nature of egoism as such, it is necessary to characterise it as a pure and unconditional principle. Its essence consists in this: an absolute opposition, an impassable gulf is fixed between one’s own self and other beings. I am everything to myself and must be everything to others, but others are nothing in themselves and become something only as a means for me. My life and welfare is an end in itself, the life and welfare of others are only a means for my ends, the necessary environment for my self-assertion. I am the centre and the world only a circumference. Such a point of view is seldom put forward, but with some reservations it undoubtedly lies at the root of our natural life. Absolute egoists are not to be found on earth: every human being appears to feel pity at least for someone, every human being sees a fellow-creature in some one person at least. But restricted within certain limits—usually very narrow ones—egoism manifests itself all the more clearly in other, wider spheres. A person who does not take up the egoistic attitude towards his own relatives, i.e. who includes his family within his self, all the more mercilessly opposes this widened self to all that is external to it. A person
1 Theoretical proof of the reality of the external world and of the inner conscious life of beings is offered in metaphysics. Moral philosophy is concerned only with a general consciousness of this truth, which even the extreme egoist involuntarily accepts. When for his selfish purposes he wants the help of other people not dependent on him, he treats them, contrary to his fundamental principle, as actual, independent persons fully possessed of rights; he tries to persuade them to side with him, takes their own interests into consideration. Thus egoism contradicts itself, and is in any case a false point of view.
If, then, egoism is condemned by reason as a senseless affirmation of what is non-existent and impossible, the opposite principle of altruism, psychologically based upon the feeling of pity, is entirely justified both by reason and by conscience. In virtue of this principle the individual person admits that other beings are, just like himself, relative centres of being and of living force. This is an affirmation of truth, an admission of what truly is. From this truth, to which the feeling of pity, roused by other beings akin and alike to us, inwardly bears witness in every soul, reason deduces a principle or a law with regard to all other beings: Do unto others as you would they should do unto you.
§VIII. The general rule or principle of altruism
The first, negative, rule is, more particularly, called the rule of justice, and the second the rule of mercy. But this distinction is not quite correct, for the second rule, too, is founded upon justice: if I want others to help me when in need, it is just that I, too, should help them. On the other hand, if I do not wish to injure anyone, it is because I recognise others to be living and sentient beings like myself; and in that case I will, of course, as much as in me lies, save them from suffering. I do not injure them because I pity them, and if I pity them, I will also help them. Mercy presupposes justice, and justice demands mercy—they are merely different aspects or different manifestations of one and the same thing.
1 This term, introduced by the founder of Positivism, Auguste Comte, is the exact expression of the logical antithesis to egoism and therefore answers to a real need of philosophical language (altruism, from alter, other, like egoism, from ego, self). Our violent opponents of foreign words ought to be consistent, and if they object to altruism, they should also renounce the word egoism. Instead of these terms they may use the words ‘yatchestvo’ (‘selfness’) and ‘druzhatchestvo’ (‘otherism’); the former term, I believe, has already been used. If it were a question of merely psychological definitions, the words self-love and love of others could be substituted, but including as they do the idea of love, they are unsuitable for the designation of ethical principles which are concerned not with feelings but with rules of action. One may love oneself far more than others, and yet, on principle, work for the good of others as much as for one’s own. Such a person would undoubtedly be an altruist, but it would be equally absurd to speak of him as ‘a lover of self’ or ‘a lover of others.’
2 In Hebrew tsedek means ‘just,’ and the noun derived from it, tsedeka, means ‘benevolence.’
The general rule of altruism—‘do unto others as you would they should do unto you’—by no means presupposes the material or the qualitative equality of all the individuals. There exists no such equality in nature, and it would be meaningless to demand it. It is not a question of equality, but simply of the equal right to exist and to develop the good potentialities of one’s nature. A wild man of the Bush has as much right to exist and to develop in his way, as St. Francis of Assisi or Goethe had in theirs. And we must respect this right equally in all cases. The murder of a savage is as much a sin as the murder of a genius or a saint. But this does not imply that they are, therefore, of the same value in other respects, and must be treated equally outside the scope of this universal human right. Material equality, and therefore equality of rights, does not exist either between different beings or in one and the same being whose particular and definite rights and duties change with the changes in age and position; they are not the same in children and in adults, in mental disease or in health. And yet a person’s fundamental or universally human rights and his moral value as an individual remain the same. Nor is it destroyed by the infinite variety and inequality of separate persons, tribes, and classes. In all these differences there must be preserved something identical and absolute, namely, the significance of each person as an end in himself, that is to say, his significance as something that cannot be merely a means for the ends of others.
The logical demands of altruism are all-embracing, reason shows no favours, knows no barriers; in this respect it coincides with the feeling upon which altruism is psychologically based. Pity, as we have seen, is also universal and impartial,and through
1 The question as to our moral duties to animals will be considered in a special appendix at the end of the book, in addition to special references to it in Part II. and Part III.
Chapter IV. The Religious Principle in Morality
§I. Although the moral rules of justice and mercy, psychologically based upon the feeling of pity, include in their extension the whole realm of living creatures, their intension does not exhaust the moral relations that hold even between human beings. Take, in the first place, the moral relation of children—young, but already able to understand the demands of morality—to their parents. It undoubtedly contains a peculiar, specific element, irreducible either to justice or to kindness and underivable from pity. A child immediately recognises his parents’ superiority over himself, his dependence upon them; he feels reverence for them, and there follows from it the practical duty of obedience. All this lies outside the boundaries of simple altruism, the logical essence of which consists in my recognising another as my equal, as a being like myself and in attaching the same significance to him as I do to myself. The moral relation of children to their parents, so far from being determined by equality, has quite the opposite character—it is based upon the recognition of that in which the two are unequal. And the ultimate psychological basis of the moral relation in this case cannot be the participation in the sufferings of others (pity), for the parents immediately appear to the child not as needing the help of others, but as being able to help it in its needs.
This relation is not, of course, opposed to justice, but it contains something in addition to it. The general principle of justice requires that our relation to others should be what we wish their relation to be to us. It may logically include the moral
It may be observed that parental (especially maternal) love, or pity, which is the first and the most fundamental expression of the altruistic attitude, presupposes the same inequality, but in the opposite direction. Here, however, the inequality is not essential. When parents pity their helpless children and take care of them, they know from their own experience the pain of hunger, cold, etc., which rouse their pity, so that this is really a case of comparing or equalising the states of another person with one’s own states of the same kind. A child, on the contrary, has never experienced for itself the advantages of mature age, which call forth in it a feeling of respect or reverence for its parents, and make it see higher beings in them. Parents pity their children because of their likeness to themselves, because of their being the same, though, as a matter of fact, unequal. Inequality, in this case, is purely accidental. But the specific feeling of children to their parents
If one carefully observes a child who tries to defend its mother from an actual or imaginary insult, it will be easily seen that its dominant feelings are anger and indignation at the blasphemer. It is not so much sorry for the offended as angry with the offender. The child’s feelings are essentially similar to those that animate the crowd defending its idol. “Great is Diana of the Ephesians! death to the ungodly!”
All manifestations of pity and of altruism that follow from it are essentially conditioned by equality. Inequality is merely an accidental and transitory element in them. In pitying another, I assimilate myself to him, imagine myself in his place, get, so to speak, into his skin—and this in itself presupposes my equality with him as a fellow-creature. In recognising another as equal to himself, the person who experiences pity, compares the state of that other to similar states of himself, and from the likeness between them deduces the moral duty of sympathy and help.
Non ignara mali miseris succurrere discord.
1 ‘Having known trouble myself, I learn to help those who suffer’ (the words of Dido in Virgil’s Aeneid).
Such recognition of inequality is purely negative; it severs the bond of union between beings and generates or justifies all kinds of immoral relations. A different character attaches to that positive inequality which we find in filial love or piety. The inequality between a Brahmin and a Pariah, or between a planter and a negro, destroys the unity of feeling and of interests between
§II. Since the appearance of De Brosses’s book in the last century the theory of the ‘gods-fetishes’ began to gain ground, and of late has become extremely popular under the influence of Auguste Comte’s positive philosophy. According to this view, the primitive form of religion is fetishism, i.e. the deification of material objects, partly natural (stones, trees) and partly artificial, which have accidentally drawn attention to themselves or have been arbitrarily chosen. The beginnings or the remains of such a material cult are undoubtedly found in all religions; but to regard fetishism as the fundamental and primitive religion of humanity is contrary both to the evidence of history and sociology and to the demands of logic. (Fetishism may, however, have a deeper meaning, as the founder of positivism himself began to suspect in the second half of his career.)
In order to recognise a stone, a bit of tree, or a shell as a god, i.e. as a being of superior power and importance, one must already possess the idea of a higher being. I could not mistake a rope for a snake did I not already possess the idea of the snake. But what could the idea of the deity be derived from? The material objects which are made into fetishes and idols have in themselves, in their actual sensuous reality, no attributes of a higher being. The idea, therefore, cannot be derived from them. To call it innate is not to give an answer to the question. All that takes place in man is in a sense innate in him. There is no doubt that man is by nature capable of forming an idea of a higher being, for otherwise he would not have formed it. The question is asked not about the existence of this capacity but about its original application, which must have some immediate sufficient reason. In order to pass into consciousness every idea, even when potentially present in the human intellect, and in this sense innate, requires that certain
Not in accidental fetishes and hand-made idols, not in majestic or terrible phenomena of nature, but in the living image of parents is the idea of Godhead for the first time embodied for humanity
At first Providence is embodied in the mother. At the lower stages of social development, so long as the marriage relation is not yet organised, the importance of the mother and the cult of motherhood predominate. Different peoples, like individual men, have lived through an epoch of matriarchy or mother-right, the traces of which are still preserved in history, in ancient customs, and also in the present life of certain savages.
1 There is a special literature on the subject which first arose in connection with classical archeology (Bahofen, Das Mutttrrecht), and subsequently passed into the domain of comparative ethnography and sociology.
§III. The religious attitude of children to their parents as to their living Providence, arising naturally in primitive humanity, ex presses itself most clearly and fully when the children are grown up and the parents are dead. Worship of dead fathers and ancestors unquestionably occupies the foremost place in the development of the religious, moral, and social relations of humanity. The immense population of China still lives by the religion of ancestor-worship, upon which all the social, political, and family structure of the Middle Kingdom is founded. And among other peoples of the globe—savage, barbarous, or civilised, including modern Parisians—there is not one which does not do homage to the memory of the dead in one form or another. The relation to living parents, although it is the first basis of religion, cannot have a purely religious character
It is only a subjective misanthropic mood that can reduce filial sentiments even in the primitive races to fear alone, to the exclusion of gratitude and of a disinterested recognition of superiority. If these moral elements are unquestionably present in the relation of a dog to its master in whom it sees its living Providence, they must a fortiori form part of the feelings of man to his Providence, originally embodied for him in his parents. When this interpretation is transferred to the dead ancestors, their cult also carries with it the moral element of filial love, which is in this case clearly differentiated from simple altruism and acquires a predominantly religious character.
According to a well-known theory, whose chief representative is Herbert Spencer, the whole of religion can be traced to ancestor-worship. Although this view does not express the complete truth, it is far more correct and suggestive than the theory of primitive
It is a well-known fact that among the Africans and other peoples the sorcerers are supposed to have for their chief characteristic the power of controlling atmospheric events, of producing good and bad weather. This power is ascribed in a still greater degree and more directly to the spirits of the dead sorcerers, whose living successors serve merely as their mediators and messengers. Now such a powerful spirit of a dead sorcerer, who produces at his will thunder and storm, differs in no way from a thunder god. There is no rational necessity to seek for a different explanation of father Zeus or of grandfather Percunas.
1 See, among other things, Harusin’s book on Laplanders, and my article Ostatki pervobitnago yazitchestva (The Remains of Primitive Paganism).
It is not my object here to expound and explain the history of religious development, and I will not attempt to solve the
§IV. The development of a religious idea involves a change in its extension, and also in the nature of the intellectual concepts and practical rules contained in it. But it does not affect the moral content of religion, i.e. man’s fundamental relation to what he admits as higher than himself—to what he recognises as his Providence. That relation remains unchanged in all the forms and at all the stages of religious development. The ideas of the child about its parents, of the members of a tribe about the spirit of their first ancestor, the ideas of entire peoples about their national gods, and finally, the general human idea of the one all-good Father of all that is, differ essentially from one another, and there is also great difference in the forms of worship. The real tie between father and children needs no special institutions and no mediation; but the relation with the invisible spirit of the ancestor must be maintained by special means. The spirit cannot partake of ordinary human food. It feeds on the evaporation of blood, and has therefore to be fed by sacrifices. Family sacrifices
1 I am speaking here of pietism in the direct and general sense of the term as designating the feeling of piety (pittas) raised to the rank of a moral principle. Usually the term ‘pietism’ in a special historical sense is applied to a certain religious movement among the Protestants.
Can this principle be affirmed as a generally binding moral rule, side by side with the principles of asceticism and altruism? Apparently the filial relation to the supreme will depends upon the faith in that will, and one cannot require such faith from those who have not got it; when there is nothing to be had, it is no use making demands. But there is a misunderstanding here. The recognition of what is higher than us is independent of any definite intellectual ideas, and therefore of any positive beliefs, and in its general character it is undoubtedly binding upon every moral and rational being. Every such being, in trying to attain the purpose of its life, is necessarily convinced that the attainment of it, or the final satisfaction of will, is beyond the power of man—that is, every rational being comes to recognise its dependence upon something invisible and unknown. Such dependence cannot be denied. The only question is whether that upon which I am dependent has a meaning. If it has not, my existence, dependent upon what is meaningless, is meaningless also. In that case there is no point in speaking of any rational and moral principles and purposes. They can only have significance on condition that there is a meaning in my existence, that the world is a rational system, that meaning
I can do good consciously and rationally only if I believe in the good and in its objective independent significance in the world, i.e. in other words, if I believe in the moral order, in Providence, in God. This faith is logically prior to all particular religious beliefs and institutions, as well as to all systems of metaphysics, and in this sense it forms the so-called natural religion.
§V. The natural religion gives rational sanction to all the demands of morality. Suppose reason directly tells us that it is good to subordinate the flesh to the spirit, that it is good to help others and to recognise the rights of other people like our own. Now in order to obey these demands of reason, one must believe in reason—believe that the good it requires from us is not a subjective illusion, but has real grounds and expresses the truth, and that that truth ‘is great and overcomes.’ Not to have this faith is to disbelieve that one’s own existence has a meaning—is to renounce the dignity of a rational being.
Religious morality, as all morality in general, is not a confirmation of everything that is, but an affirmation of the one thing that ought to be. Independently of all positive beliefs or of any unbelief, every man as a rational being must admit that the life of the world as a whole and his own life in particular has a meaning, and that therefore everything depends upon a supreme rational principle, in virtue of which this meaning is preserved and realised. And in admitting this, he must put himself into a filial position in relation to the supreme principle of life, that is, gratefully surrender himself to its providence, and submit all his actions to the ‘will of the Father,’ which speaks through reason and conscience.
Just as the intellectual ideas about the parents and the external practical relations to them alter according to the age of the children, while the filial love must remain unchanged, so the theological conceptions and the forms of worship of the Heavenly Father assume many forms and undergo many changes with the spiritual growth of humanity; but the religiously-moral attitude of free subordination of one’s will to the demands of a higher principle must always and everywhere remain the same.
Still more often such mistakes are made in the domain of religious morality. The higher stages of spiritual consciousness once reached, subordinate to themselves and consequently change, but by no means cancel, the demands which had force on the lower stages. A man who has a conception of the Heavenly Father cannot, of course, regard his earthly father in the same way as does a babe for whom the latter is the only higher being; but it does not follow that the first and the second commandments cancel the fifth. We cannot now render our dead ancestors the religious worship which they had in the patriarchal times; but this does not mean that we have no duties to the departed. We may well be conscious of our dependence upon the One Father of the universe, but this dependence is not immediate; our existence is, without a doubt, closely determined by heredity and environment. Heredity means the forefathers, and it is by them that our environment has been made. The supreme Will has determined our existence through our ancestors, and, bowing down before Its action, we cannot be indifferent to Its instruments. I know that if I were born among cannibals I should be a cannibal myself, and I cannot help feeling gratitude and reverence to men who by their labour and exploits have raised my people from the savage state and brought them to the level of culture upon which they are standing now. This has been
The providential men who gave us a share in the higher religion and in human enlightenment did not themselves create these in the first instance. What they gave us they had themselves received from the geniuses, heroes, and saints of the former ages, and our grateful memory must include them too. We must reconstruct as completely as possible the whole line of our spiritual ancestors—men through whom Providence has led humanity on the path to perfection. The pious memory of our ancestors compels us to do service to them actively. The nature of that service is conditioned by the ultimate character of the world as a whole, and cannot be understood apart from theoretical philosophy and aesthetics. Here one can only point to the moral principle involved, namely, the pious and grateful reverence due to the forefathers.
Such a cult of human ancestors in spirit and in truth does not belittle the religion of the one Heavenly Father. On the contrary, it makes it definite and real. It is what He put into these ‘chosen vessels’ that we revere in them; in these visible images of the unseen, the Deity Itself is revealed and glorified. A person in whose mind the concrete images of providential action incarnate in history fail to evoke gratitude, reverence, and homage will be still less likely to respond to the pure idea of
When, in the drunkenness of crime,
The crowd goes forth in violent rage,
And evil genius through the mire
Drags name of prophet and of sage,
My knees are bent in one desire,
My head is bowed towards the page
Where clear and open for all time
They wrote the message for their age.
I call up their majestic shades
In the dim church where tumult fades,
In clouds of incense learn and glean,
And forgetting the mob and its vulgar noise,
I give my ears to the noble voice
And take full breath of all they mean.
Chapter V. Virtues
§I. Each of the moral foundations I have laid down—shame, pity, and the religious feeling—may be considered from three points of view: as a virtue, as a rule of action, and as the condition of a certain good.
Thus, in relation to shame, we distinguish, first of all, persons modest or shameless by nature, approving of the former and condemning the latter; modesty, therefore, is recognised as a good natural quality or as a virtue. But by that very fact it is abstracted from particular cases and is made the norm or the general rule of action (and, through this, a basis for passing judgment on actions) independently of the presence or absence of this virtue in this or in that individual. If modesty is not sometimes good and sometimes bad (in the way in which a loud voice is good at a public meeting and bad in the room of a sleeping invalid); if modesty is a good in itself, reason requires us in all cases to act in accordance with it, namely, to abstain from actions that are shameful—i.e. that express the predominance of the lower nature over the higher—and to practise actions of the opposite character. Behaviour in conformity with this rule leads in the end to permanent self-control, to freedom of the spirit, and its power over the material existence; that is, it leads to a state which affords us a certain higher satisfaction and is a moral good.
In the same way, the capacity for feeling pity or compassion (in opposition to selfishness, cruelty, and malice) is, in the first place, a good personal quality or virtue. Insofar as it is
In a similar manner, a grateful recognition of that which is higher than us, and upon which we depend, is the natural foundation of the virtue of piety, and at the same time provides a rational rule of religious conduct. It also leads to the moral good of unity with the first causes and bearers of existence: with our forefathers, with the departed in general, and with the whole of the invisible world which conditions our life from this point of view.
Since there is an indissoluble inner connection between any given virtue, the rules of action corresponding to it, and the moral good ensuing therefrom, there is no need, in inquiring into the subject more closely, to adopt every time all the three points of view. It will be sufficient to take one only, viz. the point of view of virtue, for it logically contains the other two, and no sharp line of demarcation can be drawn between them. It would be impossible to deny that the man who invariably acted in accordance with the rules of virtue was virtuous, even though he happened to possess but a small degree of the corresponding natural faculty, or was noted, indeed, by the presence of the opposite characteristic. On the other hand, that which, in contradistinction to virtue, I call a moral good, is also a virtue, though not as originally given but as acquired—it is the norm of activity which has become second nature.
§II. A virtuous man is man as he ought to be. In other words, virtue is man’s normal or due relation to everything (for unrelated qualities or properties are unthinkable). The due relation does not mean the same relation. In drawing the distinction between the self and the not self, we necessarily posit or determine the not self in three ways: either as the lower (by nature), or as similar to us (of the same kind), or as higher than we. It is obvious that there cannot be a fourth alternative. Hence it
Thus, instead of one, we have three right or moral relations, or three kinds of virtue, corresponding to the three divisions into which the totality of objects correlated with us necessarily falls. I say necessarily, because man finds himself to be neither the absolutely supreme or highest being, nor the absolutely sub ordinate or lowest, nor, finally, alone of his kind. He is conscious of himself as an intermediate being and, moreover, one of the many intermediate. The direct logical consequence of this fact is the threefold character of his moral relations. In virtue of it, one and the same quality or action may have quite a different and even opposite significance, according to the kind of object to which it refers. Thus, belittling oneself or recognising one’s worthlessness is called humility, and is a virtue when it refers to objects of superior dignity; but in relation to unworthy objects it is considered base and is immoral.
1 In English the word humility has possibly a less conditional sense, as a state of mind or an attitude towards life. From a Christian point of view one can never be too humble. Though of course there is ‘the pride that apes humility’ and the condition of mind of Uriah Heep (Ed.).
In the same way, enthusiasm, when roused by high principles and ideals, is no doubt a virtue; in relation to indifferent objects it is an amusing weakness; and directed upon objects of the lower order it becomes a shameful mania. Virtues in the proper sense are always and in everyone the same, for they express a quality determined in the right way, and correspond to the very meaning of one or other of the three possible spheres of relation. But from these definite and determining virtues must be distinguished qualities of will and ways of action which are not in themselves morally determined, and do not permanently correspond to a definite sphere of duty. These may sometimes be virtues, sometimes indifferent states, and sometimes even vices; but the change in the moral significance is
It is clear, then, that even if we did not find in our psychical experience the three fundamental moral feelings of shame, pity, and reverence, it would be necessary on logical grounds alone to divide the totality of moral relations into three parts, or to accept three fundamental types of virtue, expressing man’s relation to what is lower than himself, to what is like him, and to what is above him.
§III. If in addition to the foundations of morality recognised by us—shame, pity, and reverence for the higher—we go over all the other qualities which have, in ancient and modern times, been considered as virtues, not a single one of them will be found to deserve that name of itself. Each of these various qualities can only be regarded as a virtue when it accords with the objective norms of right, expressed in the three fundamental moral data indicated above. Thus abstinence or temperance has the dignity of virtue only when it refers to shameful states or actions. Virtue does not require that we should be abstinent or temperate in general or in everything, but only that we should abstain from that which is below our human dignity, and from the things in which it would be a shame to indulge ourselves unchecked. But if a person is moderate in seeking after truth, or abstains from goodwill to his neighbours, no one would consider or call him virtuous on that account; he would, on the contrary, be condemned as lacking in generous impulses. It follows from this that temperance is not in itself or essentially a virtue, but becomes or does not become one according to its right or wrong application to objects. In the same way, courage or fortitude is only a virtue in so far as it expresses the right relation of the rational human being to his lower material nature, the relation, namely, of mastery and power, the supremacy of the spirit over the animal instinct of self-preservation.
1 Concerning this virtue, see above, Chap. I. p. 36.
Praiseworthy courage is shown by the man who does not tremble at accidental misfortunes, who keeps his self-control
The third of the so-called cardinal virtues,
1 From the early days of the scholastics the name of cardinal or philosophic virtues (in contradistinction to the three theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity) has been reserved to the four virtues which Plato defined in the Republic, namely, temperance, courage, wisdom, and justice. I take the names of these four virtues in their general sense, independently of the meaning they may bear in Plato’s philosophy.
The conception of justice (the fourth cardinal virtue) has four different meanings. In the widest sense ‘just’ is synonymous with due, correct, normal, or generally right—not only in the moral sphere (with regard to will and action) but also in the intellectual (with regard to knowledge and thinking); for instance,
Finally, there is a fourth sense in which the term may be used. On the supposition that the objective expression of what is right is to be found in laws (the laws of the state or of the Church), it may be maintained that an unswerving obedience to laws is an absolute moral duty, and that a corresponding disposition to be strictly law-abiding is a virtue identical with that of justice. This view is only valid within the limits of the supposition on which it is based—that is, it is wholly applicable to laws that proceed from the Divine perfection, and therefore express the supreme truth, but is applicable to other laws only on condition that they agree with that truth; for one ought to obey God more than men. Justice in this sense, then—that is, the striving to be law-abiding—is not in itself a virtue; it may or may not be that, according to the nature and the origin of the laws that claim obedience. For the source of human laws is a turbid source. The limpid stream of moral truth is hardly visible in it under the layer of other, purely historical elements, which express merely the actual correlation of forces and interests at this or that moment of time. Consequently justice as a virtue by no means always coincides with legality or judicial right, and is sometimes directly opposed to it, as the jurists themselves admit: summum jus—summa injuria. But while fully admitting the difference and the possible conflict between the inner truth and the law, many people think that such conflicts should always be settled in favour of legality. They maintain, that is, that justice requires us in all cases to obey the law, even if the law be unjust. In support of their view they quote the authority and the example of a righteous man of antiquity, Socrates, who thought it wrong to run away
So far as we know from Xenophon and Plato, Socrates was led to his decision by two different motives. In the first place, he thought that to save by flight the small remainder of life to which he, an old man of seventy, could look forward, would be shameful and cowardly, especially for him, who believed in the immortality of the soul, and taught that true wisdom was continual dying (to the material world). Secondly, Socrates thought that a citizen ought to sacrifice his personal welfare to the laws of his country, even if they were unjust, for the sake of filial piety. Socrates, then, was guided by the moral motives of asceticism and piety, and certainly not by the conception of the absolute value of legality, which he never admitted. Besides, in the case of Socrates, there was no conflict between two duties, but only a conflict between a personal right and a civic duty, and it may be accepted as a matter of general principle that right must give way to duty. No one is bound to defend his own material life: it is merely his right, which it is always permissible, and sometimes laudable, to sacrifice. It is a different matter when the civic duty of obedience to laws conflicts not with a personal right, but with a moral duty, as in the famous classical case of Antigone. She had to choose between the moral and religious duty of giving honourable burial to her brother, and the civic duty of obeying the prohibition to do so—a prohibition impious and inhuman, though legally just, for it proceeded from the lawful ruler of her native town. Here comes into force the rule that one ought to obey God more than men, and it is made abundantly clear that justice in the sense of legality, or of external conformity of actions to established laws, is not in itself a virtue, but may or may not be such according to circumstances. Therefore the heroism of Socrates, who submitted to an unjust law, and the heroism of Antigone, who violated such a law, are equally laudable—and not only because in both cases there was sacrifice of life, but from the nature of the case. Socrates renounced his own material right for the sake of the higher ideas of human dignity and patriotic duty. Antigone defended the right of another, and thereby fulfilled her duty—for the burial of her brother was his right and her duty, while it was in no sense Socrates’ duty to escape from prison. Speaking generally, pietas erga patriam, like pietas erga parentes, can only compel us to sacrifice our own right, but certainly not the right of others. Suppose, for instance, that filial piety developed to the point of heroism induced a man not to resist his father who intends to kill him. The moral worth of such heroism may be disputed, but it would certainly never even occur to anyone to justify or to call heroic that same man if, out of obedience to his father, he thought it his duty to kill his own brother or sister. The same is applicable to unjust and inhuman laws, and from this it follows that justice, in the sense of obedience to laws as such, according to the rule ‘fiat justitia, pereat mundus’ is not in itself a virtue.
§IV. The three so-called theological virtues recognised in the patristic and the scholastic ethics—faith, hope, and charity
1 According to the well-known text of St. Paul, in which, however, the term ‘virtue’ is not used.
2 St. James ii. 13.
Only
The second theological virtue—hope—comes really to the same thing. There can be no question of virtue when some one trusts in his own strength or wisdom, or indeed in God, if in the sole expectation of material gain from Him. That hope alone is a virtue which looks to God as the source of true blessings to come; and this is, again, the same fundamental religious relation, to which is added an idea of the future and a feeling of expectation.
Finally, the moral significance of the third and greatest theological virtue—love—entirely depends upon the given objective determinations. Love in itself, or love in general, is not a virtue—if it were, all beings would alike be virtuous, for they all without exception love something and live by their love. But selfish love for oneself and one’s property, passionate love of drink or of horse-racing, is not reckoned as a virtue.
‘Il faut en ce has monde aimer beaucoup de choses,’ teaches a neo-pagan poet. Such ‘love’ had been expressly rejected by the apostle of love: ‘Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world.’ (1 John ii. 15.)
This is the first, negative part of the commandment of love, and it should not be overlooked as it usually is. It is simply the expression of the fundamental principle of asceticism: to guard ourselves from the lower nature and to struggle against its dominion. For it is clear from the context that by ‘the world’ which we must not love, the apostle means neither mankind as a whole, nor the totality of the creation which proclaims the glory of God, but precisely the dark and irrational basis of the material nature which ceases to be passive and potential, as it ought to be, and unlawfully invades the domain of the human spirit. Further on it is directly said that in the world there is the lust of the flesh, i.e. the desire of immoderate sensuality, the lust of the eyes, i.e. greed or love of money, and the pride of life, i.e. vainglory and ambition.
Biblical ethics adds to the negative ‘love not the world’ two positive commands: love God with all thy heart, and love thy neighbour as thyself. These two kinds of love are rightly distinguished.
Thus the commandment of love is not connected with any particular virtue, but is the culmination of all the fundamental demands of morality in the three necessary respects: in relation to the lower, to the higher, and to that which is on a level with us.
§V. I have shown that the four ‘cardinal’ as well as the three ‘theological’ virtues can be reduced, in one way or another, to the three ultimate foundations of morality, indicated above. It can now be left to the goodwill and the intelligence of the reader to continue the analysis of the other so-called virtues. There exists no generally recognised list of them, and, by means of scholastic distinctions, their number can be increased indefinitely. But for the sake of completing what has gone before, I should like to say a few words about five virtues which present a certain interest in one respect or another, namely, concerning magnanimity, disinterestedness, generosity, patience, and truthfulness.
We call magnanimous a man who is ashamed, or finds it beneath his dignity, to insist on his material rights to the detriment of other people, or to bind his will by lower worldly interests (such as vanity), which he therefore readily sacrifices for the sake of higher considerations. We also call magnanimous the man who is undisturbed by adversities and changes of fortune, because, again, he is ashamed of allowing his peace of mind to be dependent upon material and accidental things. The words italicised are sufficient to indicate that this virtue is simply a special expression or form of the first root of morality—viz. of the self-assertion of the human spirit against the lower, material side of our being. The essential thing here is the feeling of human dignity, which, in the first instance, manifests itself in the feeling of shame.
Generosity in its external manifestations coincides with magnanimity and disinterestedness, but it has a different inner basis, namely, an altruistic one. A virtuously generous man is one who shares his property with others out of justice or benevolence (for in so far as he does it out of vanity or pride, he is not virtuous). But at the same time such a man may be attached to the property he gives away to the degree of miserliness, and in that case he cannot, in strictness, be called disinterested. It must only be said that the altruistic virtue of generosity overcomes in him the vice of cupidity.
Patience (as a virtue) is only the passive aspect of that quality of the soul which, in its active manifestation, is called magnanimity or spiritual fortitude. The difference is almost entirely subjective, and no hard and fast line can be drawn between the two. A man who calmly endures torment or misfortune will be called magnanimous by some, patient by others, courageous by the third, while the fourth will see in him an example of a special virtue—serenity (ἀταραξία) and so on. The discussion of the comparative appropriateness of these definitions can have only a linguistic and not an ethical interest. On the other hand, the identity of the external expression may (as in the case of generosity) conceal important differences in the moral content. A man may patiently endure physical or mental suffering owing to a low degree of nervous sensitiveness, dullness of mind and an apathetic temperament, and in that case patience is not a virtue at all. Or patience may be due to the inner force of the spirit, which does not give way to external influences—and then it is an ascetic virtue (reducible to our first basis of morality); or it may arise from meekness and love of one’s neighbours (caritas) which does not wish to pay back evil for evil and injury for injury—and in that case it is an altruistic virtue (reducible to the second principle—pity, which here extends even to enemies who inflict the injury). Finally, patience may spring from obedience to the higher will upon which all that
A particular variety of patience is the quality which is designated in the Russian language by the grammatically incorrect term ‘terpimost’—tolerance (passivum pro activo). It means the admission of other people’s freedom even when it seems to lead to error. This attitude is in itself neither a vice nor a virtue, but may, in different circumstances, become either. It depends on the object to which it refers (thus injury of the weak by the strong must not be tolerated, and ‘tolerance’ of it is immoral and not virtuous), and still more, on the inner motives from which it arises. It may spring from magnanimity or from cowardice, from respect for the rights of others and from contempt of the good of others, from profound faith in the conquering power of the higher truth and from indifference to that truth.
1 A more detailed discussion of it will be found at the beginning of my article Spor o spravedlivosti (The Dispute about Justice).
§VI. Among the derivative or secondary virtues truthfulness must be recognised as the most important, both owing to its specifically human character (for in the strict sense it is only possible for a being endowed with the power of speech
2 Animals may be naive or cunning, but only man can be truthful or deceitful.
The word is the instrument of reason for expressing that which is, that which may be, and that which ought to be, i.e. for expressing the actual, the formal, and the ideal truth. The possession of such an instrument is part of the higher nature of man, and therefore when he misuses it, giving expression to un truth for the sake of lower material ends, he does something contrary to human dignity, something shameful. At the same time the word is the expression of human solidarity, the most important means of communication between men. But this applies only to true words. Therefore when an individual person uses speech to express untruth for his own selfish ends (not only
All this is in direct conformity with the demands of reason and contains nothing dubious. But by abstracting the demand for truthfulness from its moral basis, and turning it into a special virtue possessed of absolute worth in itself, the scholastic philosophy has created difficulties and contradictions which do not follow from the nature of the case. If by a lie is meant the contrary of truth in the full sense of the word, i.e. not only of the real and formal, but also and chiefly of the ideal or purely moral truth (of that whichought to be), it would be perfectly correct and indisputable to ascribe absolute significance to the rule ‘do not lie,’ and to admit of no exception to it under any circumstances; for, clearly, truth ceases to be truth if there may be a single case in which it is permissible to depart from it. There could be no question of it, at any rate not between people who understand that A = A and that 2 x 2 = 4. But the trouble is that the philosophers who particularly insist on the rule ‘do not lie,’ as allowing of no exception, are themselves guilty of a falsity by arbitrarily limiting the meaning of truth (in each given case) to the real, or more exactly, to the matter of fact aspect of it, taken separately. Adopting this point of view, they come to the following absurd dilemma (I give the usual instance as the clearest and simplest). When a person, having no other means at his command for frustrating a would-be murderer in pursuit of his innocent victim, hides the latter in his house, and to the pursuer’s question whether that person is there, answers in the negative, or, for greater plausibility, ‘puts him off the track’ by mentioning quite a different place,—in lying thus he acts either in conformity with the moral law or in opposition to it. If the first, it is permissible to violate the moral command ‘do not lie’; morality is thus deprived of its absolute value, and the way is open to justify
It will be remembered that great moralists like Kant and Fichte, who insist on the absolute and formal character of the moral law, maintain that even in such circumstances a lie would be unjustifiable, and that, therefore, the person questioned ought to fulfill the duty of truthfulness without thinking of the consequences, for which (it is urged) he is not responsible. Other moralists, who reduce all morality to the feeling of pity or the principle of altruism, believe that lying is permissible and even obligatory when it can save the life or promote the welfare of others. This assertion, however, is too wide and indefinite and easily leads to all kinds of abuse.
How then are we to decide the question whether that un fortunate man ought to have told a lie or not? When both horns of a dilemma equally lead to an absurdity, there must be something wrong in the formulation of the dilemma itself. In the present case the ‘something wrong’ is to be found in the ambiguity of the words ‘lie,’ ‘false,’ and ‘lying,’ which are here taken to have one meaning only, or to combine both meanings in one, which is not really the case. Thus the main term is falsely understood at the very beginning of the argument, and this can lead to nothing but false conclusions.
I propose to consider it in detail, and let not the reader grudge a certain pedanticism of this examination. The question itself has arisen solely owing to the scholastic pedantry of the abstract moralists.
According to the formal definition of it a lie is a contradiction between somebody’s assertion
1 The general definition must include both affirmations and denials, and I therefore use the term assertion to cover both. The words ‘judgment’ and ‘proposition’ involve a shade of meaning unsuitable in the present case.
But this formal conception of a lie has no direct bearing on morality. An
The case of a man who deceives the evil-doer for the sake of preventing murder obviously does not fall within the first two kinds of immoral lie, i.e. it is neither bragging nor cheating; could it possibly be classed with the last kind, that is, with hoaxing, which is immoral in the sense of being insulting to another person? Is it not a case of despising humanity in the person of the would-be murderer, who is, after all, a human being, and must not be deprived of any of his human rights? But the right of the criminal to have me for his accomplice in the perpetration of the murder can certainly not be reckoned among his human rights; and it is precisely the demand for an accomplice and it alone that is contained in his question as to the whereabouts of his victim. Is it permissible for a moralist to have recourse to what he knows to be fiction, especially when it is a question of a man’s life? For it is sheer fiction to suppose that in asking his question the would-be murderer is thinking about the truth, wants to know the truth, and is, therefore, like any other human being, entitled to have a correct answer from those who know it. In reality there is nothing of the kind. The man’s question does not exist as a separate and independent fact expressing his interest as to the place where his victim really is; the question is only an inseparable moment in a whole series of actions which, in their totality, form an attempt at murder. An affirmative answer would not be a fulfillment of the universal duty to speak the truth at all; it would simply be criminal connivance which would convert the attempt into actual murder.
If we are to talk of truthfulness, truthfulness demands, in the first place, that we should take a case as it really is, in its actual completeness and its proper inner significance. Now the words and actions of the would-be murderer in the instance we are considering are held together by, and derive their actual meaning solely from, his intention to kill his victim; therefore it is only in connection with this intention that one can truly judge of his words and actions, and of the relation to them on the part of another person. Since we know the criminal intention, we
The upholders of the pseudo-moral rigorism may still seek refuge on religious ground. Although no human right is violated by putting the murderer on the false track, perhaps the divine right is violated by it. If there existed a commandment from above ‘do not lie,’ we should be bound to obey it unconditionally, leaving the consequences to God. But the fact is that there exists in the word of God no abstract commandment
1 The commandment ‘do not bear false witness against thy neighbour,’ i.e. do not slander, has no bearing on this question, for it forbids not lying in general but only one definite kind of lie, which is always immoral.
It might however be thought that from the mystical point of view a means might be found to carry out the chief commandment with regard to love, and yet
Put briefly, our long argument may be expressed as follows. An assertion which is formally false, that is, which contradicts the fact to which it refers, is not always a lie in the moral sense. It becomes such only when it proceeds from the evil will which intentionally misuses words for its own ends; and the evil character of the will consists not in its contradicting any fact but in its contradicting that which ought to be. Now that which ought to be is of necessity determined in three ways—in relation, namely, to that which is below us, on a level with us, and above us—and amounts to three demands: to submit the lower nature to the spirit, to respect the rights of our fellow-creatures, and to be wholly devoted to the higher principle of the world. An expression of our will can be bad or immoral only if it violates one of these three duties, that is, when the will affirms or sanctions something shameful, or injurious, or impious. But the will of the man who puts the would-be murderer off his victim’s track does not violate any of the three duties—there is nothing either
One of the disputants maintains: since this is a lie, this bad means ought not to have been used even to save another person’s life. The other side answers: although it is a lie, it is permissible to use this bad means to save the life of another, for the duty to save another person’s life is more important than the duty to speak the truth. Both these false assertions are cancelled by the third, true one. Since this is not a lie (in the moral sense), the recourse to this innocent means, necessary for the prevention of murder, is morally binding on the person.
1 Although in this question Kant sides with the rigorists, in doing so he is really inconsistent with his own principle that an action, to be moral, must be capable of being made into a universal rule. It is clear that in putting the would-be murderer off the place where his victim is, I can, in reason and conscience, affirm my way of action as a universal rule: everyone ought always thus to conceal the victim from the intending murderer; and if I put myself into the latter’s place, I should wish that I might, in the same way, be prevented from committing the murder.
§VII. To make truthfulness into a separate formal virtue involves, then, an inner contradiction and is contrary to reason. Truthfulness, like all other ‘virtues,’ does not contain its moral quality in itself, but derives it from its conformity to the fundamental norms of morality. A pseudo-truthfulness divorced from them may be a source of falsehood, that is, of false valuations. It may stop at the request that our words should merely be an exact reflection of the external reality of isolated facts, and thus lead to obvious absurdities. From this point of view a priest who repeated exactly what he was told at a confession would satisfy the demands of truthfulness. Real truthfulness, however, requires that our words should correspond to the inner truth or meaning of a given situation, to which our will applies the moral norms.
The analysis of the so-called virtues shows that they have
This moral conception of right or truth could certainly not have arisen were not the feelings of shame, pity, and reverence, which immediately determine man’s rightful attitude to the three fundamental conditions of his life, present in his nature from the first. But once reason has deduced from these natural data their inner ethical content and affirmed it as a duty, it becomes an in dependent principle of moral activity, apart from its psychological basis.
1 See Kritika otvletchonnih natchal (The Critique of Abstract Principles).
But does the consciousness of duty or of right possess such a decisive power? If righteousness from natural inclination is an
When reason dwells exclusively or mainly on this aspect of the case, the moral end is understood as the highest good (summum bonum) and the question assumes the following form: Does there exist, and what is the nature of, the highest good, to which all other goods are necessarily subordinate as to the absolute criterion of the desirable in general?
Chapter VI. The Spurious Basis of Moral Philosophy
A Critique of Abstract Hedonism in its Different Forms
§I. The moral good is determined by reason as truth (in the wide sense), or as the right relation to everything. This idea of the good, inwardly all-embracing and logically necessary, proves in fact to be lacking in universality and necessity. The good as the ideal norm of will does not, in point of fact, coincide with the good as the actual object of desire. The good is that which ought to be, but (1) not everyone desires what he ought to desire; (2) not everyone who desires the good is able to overcome, for its sake, the bad propensities of his nature; and finally (3) the few who have attained the victory of the good over the evil in themselves—the virtuous, righteous men or saints—are powerless to overcome by their good “the wickedness in which the whole world lieth.” But in so far as the good is not desired by a person at all, it is not a good for him; in so far as it fails to affect the will, even though it may be affirmed as desirable by the rational consciousness, it is only an ideal and not a real good; finally, in so far as it fails to empower a given person to realise the moral order in the world as a whole, even though it may affect the will of that person by making him inwardly better, it is not a sufficient good.
This threefold discrepancy between the moral and the real good seems to render the idea of the good self-contradictory. The definition of the good as that which ought to be involves, in addition to its ideal content, a real demand that the moral
This eudaemonic principle (from the Greek εὐδαιμονία,—the condition of blessedness, well-being) has the obvious advantage of not raising the question Why? One may ask why I should strive for the moral good when this striving is opposed to my natural inclinations and causes me nothing except suffering; but one cannot ask why I should desire my welfare, since I desire it naturally and necessarily.This desire is inseparably connected with my existence, and is a direct expression of it. I exist as desiring, and I desire only that, of course, which satisfies me or what is pleasant to me. Everyone finds his welfare either in
§II. When that which ought to be is replaced by that which is desired, the end of life or the highest good is reduced to pleasure. This idea, clear, simple, and concrete as it appears to be, involves insuperable difficulties when applied in the concrete. It is impossible to deduce any general principle or rule of action from the general fact that everyone desires that which is pleasing to him. The assertion that the final end of action is directly or indirectly pleasure, i.e. satisfaction of the subject desiring, is as indisputable and as pointless as the assertion, e.g., that all actions end in something or lead to something. In concrete reality we do not find one universal pleasure, but an indefinite multitude of all kinds of pleasures, having nothing in common between them. One person finds the highest bliss in drinking vodka, and another seeks “a bliss for which there is no measure and no name”; but even the latter person, when extremely hungry or thirsty, forgets all transcendental joys, and desires above all things food and drink. On the other hand, under certain conditions, things which had given enjoyment or seemed pleasant in the past cease to be attractive, and, indeed, life itself loses all value.
In truth the idea of pleasure refers to a variety of accidental desires which differ according to the individual taste and character, the degree of mental development, age, external position, and momentary mood. No definite expression can be given to pleasure as a universal practical principle, unless it is to be ‘Let everyone act so as to get for himself, as far as possible, what is pleasing to him at the given moment.’ This rule, on the whole firmly established and more or less successfully applied in the animal kingdom, is inconvenient in the human world for two reasons: (1) the presence in man of unnatural inclinations, the satisfaction of which, though yielding the desired pleasure, leads at the same time to clear and certain destruction, i.e. to what is highly undesirable for everyone; (2) the presence in
§III. A simple striving for pleasure cannot be a principle of action because in itself it is indefinite and devoid of content. Its actual content is wholly unstable and is to be found solely in the accidental objects which call it forth. The only universal and necessary element in the infinite variety of pleasurable states is the fact that the moment of the attainment of any purpose or object of desire whatsoever is necessarily experienced and is
There is another circumstance which does not permit of identifying the good with the fact of pleasure. Everyone knows from experience that the degree of the desirability of an object or a state does not always correspond to the actual degree of pleasure to be derived from the attainment of it. Thus, in the case of strong erotic attraction to a person of the opposite sex, the fact of possessing this particular person is desired as the highest bliss, in comparison with which the possession of any other person is not desired at all; but the actual pleasure to be derived from this infinitely desirable fact has certainly nothing to do with infinity, and is approximately equal to the pleasure of any other satisfaction of the instinct in question. Speaking generally, the desirability of particular objects or their significance as goods is determined
But although pleasure is not the essence of the good or the desirable as such, it is certainly its constant attribute. Whatever the ultimate reasons of the desirability of the objects or states that appear to us as good may be, at any rate there can be no doubt that the achieved good or the fulfilled desire is always accompanied by a sensation of pleasure. This sensation, in separably connected with the good as the necessary consequence of it, may then serve to determine the highest good as a practical principle. The highest good is from this point of view a state which affords the greatest amount of satisfaction. This amount is determined both directly through the addition of pleasant states to one another, and indirectly through the subtraction of the unpleasant states. In other words, the highest good consists in the possession of goods which, in their totality, or as the final result, afford the maximum of pleasure and the minimum of pain.
1 Apart from any pessimistic theories, freedom from pain is from the hedonistic point of view of more importance than the positive fact of pleasure. The pain of an unsatisfied and strongly individualised sexualpassion, which not unfrequently drives people to suicide, is incomparably greater than the pleasure of the satisfaction. The latter can be pronounced to be a great good only in so far as it gives relief from the great pain of the unsatisfied desire.
A follower of this doctrine will not ‘wallow in the mire of sensuous pleasures,’ which destroy both body and soul. He will find his
§IV. In spite of its apparent plausibility, prudent hedonism shares the fate of hedonism in general: it too proves to be an illusory principle. When the good is determined as happiness, the essential thing is the attainment and the secure possession of it. But neither can be secured by any amount of prudence.
Our life and destiny depend upon causes and factors beyond the control of our worldly wisdom; and in most cases the wise egoist simply loses the opportunities of actual, though fleeting pleasure, without thereby acquiring any lasting happiness. The insecurity of all pleasures is all the more fatal because man, in contradistinction to animals, knows it beforehand: the inevitable failure of all happiness in the future throws its shadow even over moments of actual enjoyment. But even in the rare cases in which a wise enjoyment of life does actually lead to a quantitative surplus of the painless over the painful states, the triumph of hedonism is merely illusory. It is based upon an arbitrary exclusion of the qualitative character of our mental states (taking quality not in the moral sense, which may be disputed, but simply in the psychological or, rather, in the psychophysical sense of the intensity of the pleasurable states). There is no doubt that the strongest, the most overwhelming delights are not those recommended by prudence but those to be found in wild passions. Granted that in the case of passions also the pleasure of satisfaction is out of proportion to the strength of desire, it is at any rate incomparably more intense than the sensations which a well-regulated and carefully ordered life can yield. When prudence tells us that passions lead to ruin, we need not in the least dispute this truth, but may recall another:
All, all that holds the threat of fate
Is for the heart of mortal wight
Full of inscrutable delight.
No objection can be brought against this from the hedonistic point of view. Why should I renounce the ‘inscrutable delight’ for the sake of dull well-being? Passions lead to destruction,
It is only in the presence of something higher that the voice of passions may prove to be wrong. It is silenced by the thunder of heaven, but the tame speeches of good sense are powerless to drown it.
The satisfaction of passions which lead to destruction cannot of course be the highest good; but from the hedonistic point of view it may have distinct advantage over the innocent pleasures of good behaviour which do not save from destruction. It is true that intellectual and aesthetic pleasures are not only innocent but noble; they involve limitations, however, which preclude them from being the highest good.
(1) These ‘spiritual’ pleasures are from the nature of the case accessible only to persons of a high degree of aesthetic and intellectual development, that is, only to a few, while the highest good must necessarily be universal. No progress of democratic institutions would give an ass the capacity of enjoying Beethoven’s symphonies, or enable a pig, which cannot appreciate even the taste of oranges, to enjoy the sonnets of Dante or Petrarch or the poems of Shelley.
(2) Even for those to whom aesthetic and intellectual pleasures are accessible, they are insufficient. They cannot fill the whole of one’s life, for they only have relation to some of our mental faculties, without affecting the others. It is the theoretic, contemplative side of human nature that is alone more or less satisfied by them, while the active, practical life is left without any definite guidance. The intellectual and aesthetic goods, as objects of pure contemplation, do not affect the practical will.
Whilst we admire the heavenly stars
&emspWe do not want them for our own.
When a person puts the pleasures of science and of art above everything from the hedonistic point of view, his practical will remains without any definite determination, and falls easy prey to blind passions. And this shows that prudent hedonism is unsatisfactory as a guiding principle of life.
(3) Its unsatisfactoriness is also proved by the fact that hedonism is powerless against theoretical scepticism, which undermines the
(4) Now, suppose that our epicurean is free from such scepticism, and unreflectively gives himself up to the delights of thought and of creative art, without questioning the ultimate significance of these objects. To him these ‘spiritual goods’ may appear eternal; but his own capacity for enjoying them is certainly far from being so; it can at best survive for a brief period his capacity for sensuous pleasures.
And yet it is precisely the security or the continuity of pleasures that is the chief claim of prudent hedonism and the main advantage it is supposed to possess over the simple striving for immediate pleasure. Of course if our pleasures were abiding realities that could be hoarded like property, a prudent hedonist in his decrepit old age might still consider himself richer than a reckless profligate who had come to premature death. But since, in truth, past pleasures are mere memories, the wise epicurean—if he remains till his death true to the hedonistic point of view—will be sure to regret that for the sake of faint memories of the innocent intellectual and aesthetic pleasures he sacrificed opportunities of pleasures far more intense. Just because he never experienced them, they will now evoke in him painful and fruitless desire. The supposed superiority of prudent hedonism to a reckless pursuit of pleasure is based upon an illegitimate confusion between two points of view. It must be one or the other. Either we mean the present moment of enjoyment, and in that case we must give up prudence which is exhibited even in animal behaviour, or we are thinking of the future consequences of our actions, and in that case the question must be asked: What precise moment of the future is to be put at the basis of our reckoning? It would be obviously irrational to take any moment except the last, which expresses the total result of the whole
§V. The possession of external goods—whether they be pleasures of the moment or the more lasting happiness supposed to be secured by prudence—proves to be deceptive and impossible. Is, then, true welfare or the highest good to be found in freedom from external desires and affections which deceive and enslave man and thus make him miserable? All external goods either prove to be not worth seeking, or, depending as they do upon external causes beyond the control of man, they are taken away from him before their essential unsatisfactoriness has even been discovered; and man is thus made doubly miserable. No one can escape misfortune, and therefore no one can be happy so long as his will is attracted to objects the possession of which is accidental. If true welfare is the state of abiding satisfaction, then that man alone can be truly blessed who finds satisfaction in that of which he cannot be deprived, namely, in himself.
Let man be inwardly free from attachment to external and accidental objects, and he will be permanently satisfied and happy. Not submitting to anything foreign to him, fully possessing himself, he will possess all things and even more than all things. If I am free from the desire for a certain thing, I am more master of it than the person who possesses it and desires it; if I am in different to power, I am more than the ruler who cares for it; if I am indifferent to everything in the world, I am higher than the lord of all the world.
This principle of self-sufficiency (αὐτάρκεια), though expressing an unconditional demand, is in truth purely negative and conditional. In the first place, its force depends upon those very external goods which it rejects. So long as man is attached to them, freedom from such attachment is desirable for his higher consciousness and gives a meaning to his activity. Similarly, so
1 The principle of self-sufficiency in its practical application partly coincides with the moral principle of asceticism; but the essential difference between the two is in their starting-point and their ultimate motive. Asceticism seeks to attain the mastery of the spirit over the flesh, or the right attitude of man to what is lower than he. The demand for self-sufficiency springs from a desire for happiness, so that the principle of αὐτάρκεια may be rightly described as hedonistic asceticism.
§VI. The individual finds no final satisfaction or happiness either in the outer worldly goods or in himself (i.e. in the empty form of self-consciousness). The only way out seems to be afforded by the consideration that man is not merely a separate individual entity but also part of a collective whole, and that his true welfare, the positive interest of his lifej is to be found in serving the common good or universal happiness.
This is the principle of Utilitarianism, obviously corresponding to the moral principle of altruism, which demands that we should live for others, help all so far as we are able, and serve the good of others as if it were our own. In the opinion of the utilitarian thinkers their teaching must coincide in practice with the altruistic morality or with the commandments of justice and
1 J. S. Mill, Utilitarianism, 2nd ed., London, 1864, pp. 24-25.
But Mill does not see that the distinction between these two principles, the utilitarian and the altruistic, consists in the fact that the command to live for others is enjoined by altruism as the expression of the right relation of man to his fellow-creatures, or as a moral duty which follows from the pure idea of the good; while, according to the utilitarian doctrine, man ought to serve the common good and to decide impartially between his own interest and those of others simply because, in the last resort, this course of action (so it is contended) is more advantageous or useful to himself. Moral conduct thus appears to stand in no need of any special independent principle opposed to egoism, but to be a consequence of egoism rightly understood. And since egoism is a quality possessed by everyone, utilitarian morality is suited to all without exception, which, in the opinion of its followers, is an advantage over the morality of pure altruism, whether based upon the simple feeling of sympathy or upon the abstract conception of duty. Another advantage of utilitarianism is, it is contended, to be found in the fact that the utilitarian principle is the expression of the actual historical origin of the moral feelings and ideas. All of these are supposed to be the result of the gradual extension and development of self-interested motives, so that the highest system of morality is simply the most complex modification of the primitive egoism. Even if this contention were true, the advantage that would follow therefrom to the utilitarian theory would be illusory. From the fact that the oak tree grows out of the acorn and that acorns are food for pigs, it does not follow that oak trees are also food for pigs. In a similar manner, the supposition that the highest moral doctrine is genetically related to selfishness,
The view that morality develops out of individual selfishness is sufficiently disproved by the simple fact that at the early stages of the organic life, the chief part is played not by the individual but by the generic self-assertion, which, for separate entities, is self-denial. A bird giving up its life for its young, or a working bee dying for the queen bee, can derive no personal advantage and no gratification to its individual egoism from its act.
1 Concerning the primitive character of self-surrender or ‘struggle for the life of others,’ see, in particular, Henry Drummond, Ascent of Man. The fact that self-sacrifice of the individual for the species is based upon real genetic solidarity does not in the least prove that such sacrifice is the same thing as self-interest.
§VII. “Everyone desires his own good; but the good of each consists in serving the good of all; therefore everyone ought to serve the common good.” The only thing that is true in this formula of pure utilitarianism is its conclusion. But its real grounds are
It is not true that everyone desires his own good, for a great many persons desire simply what affords them immediate pleasure, and find that pleasure in things which are not in the least good for them, or, indeed, in things that are positively harmful—in drinking, gambling, pornography, etc. Of course the doctrine of the common good may be preached to such people also, but it must rest upon some other basis than their own desires.
Further, even persons who admit the advantages of happiness or of lasting satisfaction over momentary pleasures, find their good in something very different from what utilitarianism affirms it to be. A miser is very well aware that all fleeting pleasures are dust and ashes in comparison with the real lasting goods which he locks up in a strong safe; and utilitarians have no arguments at their command whereby they could induce him to empty his safe for philanthropic purposes. They may say to him that it is in his own interests to bring his advantage into harmony with the advantage of others. But he has fulfilled this condition already. Suppose, indeed, that he obtained his riches by lending money at interest; this means that he has done service to his neighbours and helped them, when they were in need, by giving them loans of money. He risked his capital and received a certain profit for it, and they lost that profit but used his capital when they had none of their own. Everything was arranged to mutual advantage, and both sides judged impartially between their own and the other person’s interests. But why is it that neither Mill nor any of his followers will agree to pronounce the behaviour of this sagacious money-lender to be a true pattern of utilitarian morality? Is it because he made no use of the money he hoarded? He made the utmost use of it, finding the highest satisfaction in the possession of his treasures and in the conscious ness of his power (see Pushkin’s poem The Avaricious Knight); besides, the greater the wealth hoarded, the more useful it will be to other people afterwards, so that on this side, too, self-interest and the interest of others are well balanced.
The reason that utilitarians will not admit the conduct of a prudent money-lender to be the normal human conduct is simply
Actual cases of self-sacrifice are due either (1) to an immediate impulse of sympathetic feeling—when, for instance, a person saves another from death at the risk of his own life without any reflections on the subject; (2) or it may be due to compassion as the dominating trait of character, as in the case of persons who from personal inclination devote their life to serving those who suffer; (3) or to a highly developed consciousness of moral duty; (4) or, finally, it may arise from inspiration with some religious idea. All these motives in no way depend upon considerations of self-interest. Persons whose will can be sufficiently influenced by these motives, taken separately or together, will sacrifice themselves for the good of others, without feeling the slightest necessity for motives of a different kind.
But a number of people are unkind by nature, incapable of being carried away by moral or religious ideas, lacking in a clear sense of duty, and not sensitive to the voice of conscience. It is precisely over this type of person that utilitarianism ought to show its power, by persuading -them that their true advantage consists in serving the common good, even to the point of self-sacrifice. This, however, is clearly impossible, for the chief characteristic of these people is that they find their good not in the good of others, but exclusively in their own selfish well-being.
By happiness as distinct from pleasure is meant secure or lasting satisfaction; and it would be utterly absurd to try and prove to a practical materialist that in laying down his life for others or for an idea he would be securing for himself an abiding satisfaction of his own, that is, of his material interests.
1 A fifth possible motive is the thought of the life beyond the grave, the desire to obtain the eternal blessings of paradise. Although this motive is a utilitarian one in the broad sense, it is connected with ideas of a different order, which the modern utilitarian doctrine rejects on principle.
The various modifications of the utilitarian formula do not make it more convincing. Thus, starting with the idea of happiness as abiding satisfaction, it might be argued that personal happiness gives no abiding satisfaction, for it is connected with objects that are transitory and accidental, while the general happiness of humanity, in so far as it includes future generations, is lasting and permanent, and may, therefore, give permanent satisfaction. If this argument is addressed to ‘each person,’ each can reply to it as follows: “To work for my personal happiness may give me no abiding satisfaction; but to work for the future happiness of humanity gives me no satisfaction whatever. I cannot possibly be satisfied with a good which, if realised at all, would certainly not be my good, for in any case I should not then exist. Therefore, if personal happiness does not profit me, general happiness does so still less. For how can I find my good, in that which will never be of any good to me?”
The true thought involved in utilitarianism as worked out by its best representatives is the idea of human solidarity, in virtue of which the happiness of each is connected with the happiness of all. This idea, however, has no organic connection with utilitarianism,
Universal solidarity is a natural law, which exists and acts through separate individuals independently of their will and conduct; and if, in thinking of my own good only, I unwillingly contribute to the good of all, nothing further can be required from me from the utilitarian point of view. On the other hand, universal solidarity is a very different thing from universal happiness. From the fact that humanity is essentially one, it by no means follows that it must necessarily be happy: it may be one in misery and destruction. Suppose I make the idea of universal solidarity the practical rule of my own conduct, and, in accordance with it, sacrifice my personal advantage to the common good. But if humanity is doomed to perdition and its ‘good’ is a deception, of what use will my self-sacrifice be either to me or to humanity? Thus, even if the idea of universal solidarity could, as a practical rule of conduct, .be connected with the principle of utilitarianism, this would be of no use at all for the latter.
In utilitarianism the hedonistic view finds its highest expression; if, therefore, utilitarianism be invalid the whole of the practical philosophy which finds the highest good in happiness or self-interested satisfaction stands condemned also. The apparent universality and necessity of the hedonistic principle, consisting in the fact that all necessarily desire happiness, proves to be purely illusory. For, in the first place, the general term ‘happiness’ covers an infinite multiplicity of different objects, irreducible to any inner unity, and secondly, the universal desire for one’s own happiness (whatever meaning might be ascribed to this word) certainly contains no guarantee that the
So far then we are left with two demands—the rational demand of duty and the natural demand for happiness—(1) all men must be virtuous and (2) all men want to be happy. Both these demands have a natural basis in human nature, but neither contains in itself sufficient grounds or conditions for its realisation. More over, in point of fact the two demands are disconnected; very often they are opposed to one another, and the attempt to establish a harmony of principle between them (utilitarianism) does not stand the test of criticism.
These demands are not of equal value, and if moral philosophy compelled us to choose between the clear, definite, and lofty—though not sufficiently powerful—idea of the moral good and the equally powerless but also confused, indefinite, and low idea of welfare, certainly all rational arguments would be in favour of the first.
Before insisting, however, upon the sad necessity of such a choice, we must consider more closely the moral basis of human nature as a whole. So far we have only considered it with reference to the particular development of its three partial manifestations.
Part II. The Good is From God
Chapter I. The Unity of Moral Principles
§I. When a man does wrong by injuring his neighbour actively or by refusing to assist him, he afterwards feels ashamed. This is the true spiritual root of all human good and the distinctive characteristic of man as a moral being.
What precisely is here experienced? To begin with, there is a feeling of pity for the injured person which was absent at the actual moment of injury. This proves among other things that our mental nature may be stirred by impulses more profound and more powerful than the presence of sensuous motives. A purely ideal train of reflection is able to arouse a feeling which external impressions could not awake; the invisible distress of another proves to be more effective than the visible.
Secondly, to this simple feeling of pity, already refined by the absence of the visible object, there is added a new and still more spiritualised variation of it. We both pity those whom we did not pity before, and regret that we did not pity them at the time. We are sorry for having been pitiless—to the regret for the person injured there is added regret for oneself as the injurer.
But the experience is not by any means exhausted by these two psychological moments. The feeling in question derives all its spiritual poignancy and moral significance from the third factor. The thought of our pitiless action awakens in us, in addition to the reaction of the corresponding feeling of pity, a still more powerful reaction of a feeling which apparently has nothing to do with the case—namely, the feeling of shame. We not only regret our cruel action, but are ashamed of it, though there might be
§II. The thought of having violated any moral demand arouses shame, in addition to the reaction of the particular moral element concerned. This happens even when the demands of shame in its own specific sphere (man’s relation to his lower or carnal nature) have not been violated. The action in question may not in any way have been opposed to modesty or to the feeling of human superiority over material nature. Now this fact clearly shows that, although we may distinguish the three roots of human morality, we must not separate them. If we go deep enough they will be seen to spring from one common root; the moral order in the totality of its norms is essentially a development of one and the same principle which assumes now this and now that form. The feeling of shame most vitally connected with the facts of the sexual life transcends the boundaries of material existence, and, as the expression of moral disapproval, accompanies the violation of every moral norm to whatever sphere of relations it might belong. In all languages, so far as I am aware, the words corresponding to our ‘stid’ (shame) are invariably characterised by two peculiarities: (1) by their connection with the sexual life (αἰδώς ἁἰδοῖα, pudor—pudenda, honte—parties honteuses, Scham—Schamteile), and (2) by the fact that these words are used to express disapproval of the violation of any moral demands whatsoever. To deny the specific sexual meaning of shame (that is, the special shamefulness of the carnal relation between the sexes), or to limit shame to this significance alone, one must reject human language and acknowledge it to be senseless and accidental.
The general moral significance of shame is simply a further
§III. The essence and the chief purpose of the animal life undoubtedly consists in perpetuating, through reproduction, the particular form of organic being represented by this or by that animal. It is the essence of life/or the animal and not merely in him, for the primal and unique importance of the genital instinct is inwardly experienced and sensed by him, though, of course, involuntarily and unconsciously. When a dog is waiting for a savoury piece, its attitude, the expression of its eyes, and its whole being seem to indicate that the chief nerve of its subjective existence is in the stomach. But the greediest dog will altogether forget about food when its sexual instinct is aroused—and a bitch will readily give up its food and even its life for its young. The individual animal seems in this case to recognise, as it were, conscientiously that what matters is not its own particular life as such, but the preservation of the given type of the organic life transmitted through an infinite series of fleeting entities. It is the only image of infinity that can be grasped by the animal. We can understand, then, the enormous, the fundamental significance of the sexual impulse in the life of man. If man is essentially more than an animal, his differentiation out of the animal kingdom, his inner self-determination as a human being must begin precisely in this centre and source of organic life. Every other point would be comparatively superficial. It is only in this that the individual animal becomes conscious of the infinity of the generic life, and, recognising itself as merely a final event, as merely a means or an instrument of the generic process, surrenders itself without any struggle or holding back to the infinity of the genus which absorbs its separate existence. And it is here, in this vital sphere, that man recognjses the insufficiency of the generic infinity in which the animal finds its supreme goal. Man, too, is claimed by his generic essence, through him, too, it seeks to perpetuate itself—but his inner being resists this demand. It protests ‘I am not what thou art, I am above thee, I am not the genus, though I am of it’—I am not ‘genus’ but ‘genius.’ ‘I
The enormous significance of sexual shame as the foundation both of the material and the formal morality is due to the fact that in that feeling man acknowledges as shameful, and therefore bad and wrong, not any particular or accidental deviation from some moral norm but the very essence of that law of nature which the whole of the organic world obeys. That which man is ashamed of is more important than the general fact of his being ashamed. Since man possesses the faculty of shame, which other animals do not possess, he might be defined as the animal capable of shame. This definition, though better than many others, would not make it clear, however, that man is the citizen of a different world, the bearer of a new order of being. But the fact of his being ashamed above all and first of all of the very essence of animal life, of the main and the supreme expression of natural existence, directly proves him to be a super-natural and super-animal being. It is in this shame that man becomes in the full sense human.
§IV. The sexual act expresses the infinity of the natural process, and in being ashamed of the act man rejects that infinity as unworthy of himself. It is unworthy of man to be merely a means or an instrument of the natural process by which the blind life-force perpetuates itself at the expense of separate entities that are born and perish and replace one another in turn. Man as a moral being does not want to obey this natural law of replacement of generations, the law of eternal death. He does not want to be that which replaces and is replaced. He is conscious—dimly at first—both of the desire and the power to include in himself all the fulness of the infinite life. Ideally he
We call man a genius when his vital creative force is not wholly spent on the external activity of physical reproduction, but is also utilised in the service of his inner creative activity in this or that sphere. A man of genius is one who perpetuates himself apart from the life of the genus and lives in the general posterity, even though he has none of his own. But if such perpetuation be taken as final, it obviously proves to be illusory. It is built upon the same basis of changing generations which replace one another and disappear, so that neither he who is remembered nor those who remember him have the true life. The popular meaning of the word genius gives only a hint of the truth. The true ‘genius’ inherent in us and speaking most clearly in sexual shame does not require that we should have a gift for art or science and win a glorious name in posterity. It demands far more than this. Like the true ‘genius,’ i.e. as connected with the entire genus though standing above it, it speaks not to the elect only but to all and each, warning them against the process of bad infinity by means of which earthly nature builds up life upon dead bones—forever, but in vain.
The law of animal reproduction of which we are ashamed is the law of the replacement or the driving out of one generation by another—a law directly opposed to the principle of human solidarity. In turning our life-force to the procreation of children we turn away from the fathers, to whom nothing is left but to die. We cannot create anything out of ourselves—that which we give to the future we take away from the past, and through us our descendants live at the expense of our ancestors, live by their death. This is the way of nature; she is indifferent and pitiless, and for that we are not responsible. But our participation in the indifferent and pitiless work of nature is our own fault, though an involuntary one—and we are dimly aware of that fault beforehand, in the feeling of sexual shame. And we are all the more guilty because our participation in the pitiless work of nature, which replaces the old generations by the new, immediately affects those to whom we owe the greatest and special duty—our own fathers and forefathers. Thus our conduct proves to be impious as well as pitiless.
If the special moral charm of children upon which their aesthetic attractiveness is based depends upon a greater possibility open to them of a different way of life, ought we not, before bearing children for the sake of that possibility, actually to alter our own bad way? Insofar as we are unable to do this child-bearing may be a good and a salvation for us; but what ground have we for deciding beforehand that we are unable? And is the certitude of our own impotence a guarantee for the future strength of those to whom we shall pass on our life?
§VII. Sexual shame refers not to the physiological fact taken in itself and as such morally indifferent, nor to the sexual love as such which may be unashamed and be the greatest good. The warning and, later, the condemning voice of sexual shame refers solely to the way of the animal nature, which is essentially bad for man, though it may, at the present stage of human development, be a lesser and a necessary evil—that is, a relative good.
But the true, the absolute good is not to be found on this path, which begins, for human beings at any rate, with abuse. Sexual human love has a positive side, which, for the sake of brevity and clearness, I will describe as ‘being in love.’ This fact is of course analogous to the sexual desire of animals and develops on the basis of it, but clearly it cannot be reduced to such desire—unless man is to be altogether reduced to animal. Being in love
1 See my article Smysl liubvi (The Meaning of Love).
§VIII. The feeling of shame is the natural basis of the principle of asceticism, but the content of that feeling is not exhausted by the
We are touching here upon the domain of metaphysics; but without entering it or forsaking the ground of moral philosophy, we can and must indicate this positive aspect of the fundamental moral feeling of shame, indubitable both from the logical and from the real point of view.
Shame in its primary manifestation would not have its peculiar vital character, would not be a localised spiritually-organic feeling, if it expressed merely the formal superiority of human reason over the irrational desires of the animal nature. This superiority of intellectual faculties is not lost by man on the path against which shame warns him. It is something else that is lost—something really and essentially connected with the direct object of shame; and it is not for nothing that sexual modesty is also called continence.
1 The word translated by ‘continence’ is in the Russian tselomudrie, which, by derivation, means ‘the wisdom of wholeness’ (from tselost—wholeness, and mudrost—wisdom).—Translator’s Note.
Man has lost the wholeness of his being and his life, and in the true, continent love to the other sex he. seeks, hopes, and dreams to reestablish this wholeness. These aspirations, hopes, and dreams are destroyed by the act of the momentary, external, and illusory union which nature, stifling the voice of shame, substitutes for the wholeness that we seek. Instead of the spiritually-corporeal inter-penetration and communion of two human beings there is simply a contact of organic tissues and a mingling of organic secretions; and this superficial, though secret, union confirms, strengthens, and perpetuates the profound actual division of the
§IX. The centrifugal and the disruptive force of nature which strives to break up the unity of man both in his psychophysical and in his social life, is also directed against the bond which unites him to the absolute source of his being. Just as there exists in man a natural materialism—the desire to surrender slavishly, with grovelling delight, to the blind forces of animality; as there exists in him a natural egoism—the desire inwardly to separate himself from everything else and to put all that is his own unconditionally above all that appertains to others—so there exists in man a natural atheism or a proud desire to renounce the absolute perfection, to make himself the unconditional and independent principle of his life. (I am referring to practical atheism, for the theoretical often has a purely intellectual character and is merely an error of
Horror sacrilegii (in the classical sense) disappears as man grows up spiritually, but the fear of God remains as the necessary negative aspect of piety—as ‘religious shame.’ To have fear of God, or to be God-fearing, does not of course meanto be afraid of the Deity, but to be afraid of one’s opposition to the Deity, or of one’s wrong relation to Him. It is the feeling of being out of harmony with the absolute good or perfection, and it is the counterpart of the feeling of reverence or piety in and through which man affirms his right or due relation to the higher principle—namely, his striving to participate in its perfection, and to realise the wholeness of his own being.
§X. If we understand shame rooted in the sexual life as the mani festation of the wholeness of the human being, we shall not be surprised to find that feeling overflowing into other moral spheres.
Speaking generally, it is necessary to distinguish the inner
The roots of all that is real are hidden in darkest earth, and morality is no exception. It does not belong to a kingdom where trees grow with their roots uppermost. Its roots too are hidden in the lower sphere. The whole of morality grows out of the feeling of shame. The inner essence, the concrete expression, and the formal principle or law of morality are contained in that feeling like a plant in a seed, and are distinguished only by reflective thought. The feeling of shame involves at one and the same time a consciousness of the moral nature of man which strives to maintain its wholeness, a special expression of that wholeness—continence,—and a moral imperative which forbids man to yield to the powerful call of the lower nature, and reproaches him for yielding to it. The commands and the reproaches of shame are not merely negative and preventive in meaning. They have a positive end in view. We must preserve our inner potential wholeness in order to be able to realise it as a fact, and actually to create the whole man in a better and more lasting way than the one which nature offers us. ‘That’s not it, that’s not it!’ says the feeling of shame, thus promising us the true, the right thing, for the sake of which it is worth while to renounce the way of the flesh. This way, condemned by shame, is the way of psychophysical
But realisation of complete wholeness, of which continence is merely the beginning, requires the fulness of conditions embracing the whole of human life. This realisation is complicated and delayed, though not prevented by the fact that man has already multiplied, and that his single being has been divided into a number of separate entities. Owing to this new condition which creates man as a social being, the abiding wholeness of his nature expresses itself no longer in continence alone that safe guards him from natural disruption but also in social solidarity which, through the feeling of pity, reestablishes the moral unity of the physically divided man. At this stage the difference between the moral elements, merged into one in the primary feeling of shame, becomes more clear. The feeling of pity expresses the inner solidarity of living beings, but is not identical with it, and it preserves its own psychological distinctness as compared with the instinctive shame. The formally moral element of shame which at first was indistinguishable from its psychophysical basis, now develops into the more subtle and abstract feeling of conscience (in the narrow sense). Corresponding to the transformation of the carnal instinct into egoism, we have the transformation of shame into conscience. But the ultimate and fundamental significance of shame shows itself here also, for, as already pointed out, the words ‘conscience’ and ‘shame’ are interchangeable even in the case of actions that are purely egoistic and have nothing to do with sex. Morality is one, and being fully expressed in shame, it reacts both against the works of the flesh and (implicite) against the bad consequences of these works—among them, against the egoism of the man already made multiple. The specific moral reaction against this new evil finds its psychological expression in pity, and its formally-moral expression in conscience—this ‘social shame.’
But neither the moral purity of continence preserved by shame, nor the perfect moral solidarity which inspires our heart with equal pity for all living beings, empowers us to realise that which chaste love and all-embracing pity demand. And yet conscience clearly tells us ‘you must, therefore you can.’
And yet it is obvious that the task of gaining immortal and incorruptible life for all is above man. But he is not divided by any impermeable barrier from that which is above him. In the religious feeling the hidden normal being of man reacts against human impotence as clearly as in the feeling of shame it reacts against carnal desires, and in pity against egoism. And conscience, assuming the new form of the fear of God, tells him: all that you ought to be and have the power to be is in God; you ought and therefore you can surrender yourself to Him completely, and through Him fulfill your wholeness—gaining the abiding satisfaction of your chaste love and your pity, and obtaining for yourself and for all immortal and incorruptible life. Your impotence is really as anomalous as shamelessness and pitilessness; this anomaly is due to your separation from the absolute principle of right and power. Through your reunion with Him, you must and can correct it.
1 In the Church prayer human impotence is put side by side with sins and trans gressions: “Lord, cleanse our sins; God, forgive our transgressions; Holy One, visit and heal our frailties.” Frailties is here used especially in opposition to holiness.
The supreme principle to which we are united through the religious feeling is not merely an ideal perfection. Perfection as an idea is possible for man. But man is powerless to make his perfection actual, to make his good the concrete good. Herein is the deepest foundation of his dependence upon the Being in whom perfection is given as an eternal reality, and who is the indivisible and unchangeable identity of Good, Happiness, and Bliss. Insofar as we are united to It by the purity and the whole-heartedness of our aspirations, we receive the corresponding power to fulfill them, the force to render actual the potential wholeness of all humanity.
This is the reason why we are so ashamed or conscience-stricken
Shame and conscience and fear of God are merely the negative expressions of the conditions that are indispensable to the real and great work of manifesting God in man.
§XI. The moral good then is from its very nature a way of actually attaining true blessedness or happiness—such happiness, that is, as can give man complete and abiding satisfaction. Happiness (and blessedness) in this sense is simply another aspect of the good, or another way of looking at it—there is as much inner connection and as little possibility of contradiction between these two ideas as between cause and effect, purpose and means, etc. One ought to desire the good for its own sake, but the purity of the will is not in the least marred by the consciousness that the good must itself necessarily mean happiness for the one who fulfills its demands. On the other hand, the circumstance that it is natural to desire happiness does not in any way prevent us from understanding and bearing in mind the empirical fact that all happiness which is not fictitious or illusory must be conditioned by the good, i.e. by the fulfillment of the moral demands.
If the law of blessedness or of true εὐδαιμονία is determined by the moral good, there can be no opposition between the morality of pure duty and eudaemonism in general. The good will must be autonomous; but the admission that right conduct leads to true happiness does not involve the heteronomy of the will. Such an admission bases happiness upon the moral good, subordinates it to the latter, and is therefore in perfect agreement with the autonomy of the will. Heteronomy consists, on the contrary, in separating happiness from what is morally right, in subordinating the desirable not to the moral law, but to a law foreign to morality. Thus the fundamental opposition is not between morality and eudaemonism as such, but between morality and eudaemonism which is abstract or, more exactly, which
Why then does the fulfillment of duty so often fail to give complete satisfaction? I so little wish to avoid this objection that I would make it stronger, and urge that human virtue never gives complete satisfaction. But is this virtue itself ever complete, and is there anyone born ‘ἐκ θελήματος σαρκός’ ‘ἐκ θελήματος ἀνδρός’ who has ever perfectly fulfilled his duty? It is clear that the perfect good has never been realised by any individual human being; and it is just as clear that a superhuman being, capable of realising the perfect good, will find complete or perfect satisfaction in doing so. It follows also that the autonomy of the will, that is, the power to desire the pure good for its own sake alone, apart from any extraneous considerations, and to desire the complete good—is merely a formal and subjective characteristic of man. Before it can become real and objective, man must acquire the power actually to fulfill the whole good, and thus obtain perfect satisfaction. Apart from this condition, virtue has a negative and insufficient character, which is not due to the nature of the moral principle itself. Thus when, in the first place, the moral principle demands that the spirit should have power over the flesh, this demand involves no external limitations. The norm is the perfect and absolute power of the spirit over the flesh, its complete and actual autonomy, in virtue of which it must not submit to the extraneous law of carnal existence—the law of death and corruption. In this respect, then, immortal and incorruptible life is alone a perfect good, and it also is perfect happiness. Morality which does not lead to a really immortal and incorruptible life, cannot in strictness be called autonomous, for it obviously submits to the law of material life that is foreign to it. Similarly, with reference to altruism the moral demand to help everyone puts no limit to that help, and obviously the complete good here requires that we should obtain for all our fellow-beings perfect blessedness or absolute happiness. Our altruism does not fulfill this demand; but the insufficiency of our good is due not to the moral law, whose requirements are unlimited, but to the law of limited material being that is alien to it. Consequently, altruism which obeys this foreign law cannot in the strict sense be called an expression of autonomous morality, but proves to be heteronomous.
The ultimate question as to the meaning of life is not then finally solved either by the existence of good feelings inherent in human nature, or by the principles of right conduct which reason deduces from the moral consciousness of these feelings. Moral sentiments and principles are a relative good, and they fail to give complete satisfaction. We are compelled both by reason and by feeling to pass from them to the good in its absolute essence, un conditioned by anything accidental or by any external limitations, and consequently giving real satisfaction, and true and complete meaning to life as a whole.
§XIII. That the pure moral good must finally be experienced as blessedness, that is, as perfect satisfaction or bliss, was admitted by the stern preacher of the categoric imperative himself. But the method whereby he sought to reconcile these two ultimate conceptions can certainly not be pronounced satisfactory.
The great German philosopher admirably defined the formal essence of morality as the absolutely free or autonomous activity of pure will. But he was unable to avoid in the domain of ethics the one-sided subjective idealism which is characteristic of his philosophy as a whole. On this basis there can only be a fictitious synthesis of good and happiness, only an illusory realisation of the perfect moral order.
Subjectivism, in the crude and elementary sense, is of course excluded by the very conception of the pure will, of a will, that is,
This formula is in itself (i.e. logically) perfectly objective; but wherein does its real power lie? Insisting upon the unconditional character of the moral demand, Kant answers only for the possibility of fulfilling it: you must, therefore you can. But the possibility by no means warrants the actuality, and the perfect moral order may remain altogether unrealised. Nor is it clear from the Kantian point of view what is the ultimate inner foundation of the moral demand itself. In order that our will should be pure or (formally) autonomous it must be determined solely by respect for the moral law—this is as clear as A = A. But why should this A be necessary at all? Why demand a ‘pure’ will? If I want to get pure hydrogen out of water, I must of course take away the oxygen. If, however, I want to wash or to drink I do not need pure hydrogen, but require a definite combination of it with oxygen, H2O, called water.
Kant must undoubtedly be recognised as the Lavoisier of moral philosophy. His analysis of morality into the autonomous and the heteronomous elements, and his formulation of the moral law, is one of the greatest achievements of the human mind. But we cannot rest satisfied with the theoretical intellectual interest alone. Kant speaks of practical reason as the unconditional principle of actual human conduct, and in doing so he resembles a scientist who would demand or think it possible that men should use pure hydrogen instead of water.
Kant finds in conscience the actual foundation of his moral point of view. Conscience is certainly more than a demand—it is a fact. But in spite of the philosopher’s sincere reverence for this testimony of our higher nature, it lends him no help. In the first place, the voice of conscience says not exactly what according to Kant it ought to say, and secondly, the objective significance of that voice remains, in spite of all, problematic from the point of view of our philosopher.
“Willingly serve I my friends, but I do it, alas, with affection,
Hence I am plagued with the doubt, virtue I have not attained.”
“This is your only resource, you must stubbornly seek to abhor them,
Then you can do with disgust that which the law may enjoin.”
In truth, conscience simply demands that we should stand in the right relation to everything, but it says nothing as to whether this right relation should take the form of an abstract consciousness of general principles, or directly express itself as an immediate feeling, or—what is best—should unite both these aspects. This is the question as to the degrees and forms of moral development and, though very important in itself, it has no decisive significance for the general valuation of the moral character of human conduct.
Apart, however, from the circumstance that Kant’s ethical demands are at variance with the deliverances of conscience to which he appeals, it may well be asked what significance can attach to the very fact of conscience from the point of view of ‘transcendental idealism.’ The voice of conscience bearing witness to the moral order of the universe filled Kant’s soul with awe. He was inspired with the same awe, he tells us, at the sight of the starry heaven. But what is the starry heaven from Kant’s point of view? It may have had some reality for the author of The Natural History and Theory of the Heavens,
1 The chief work of Kant’s pre-critical period.
The starry heaven, like the rest of the universe, is merely a presentation,
Kant’s ‘idealism’ deprives the mental as well as the visible world of its reality. In his criticism of Rational Psychology he proves that the soul has no existence on its own account, that in truth all that exists is the complex totality of the phenomena of the inner sense, which are no more real than the events of the so-called external world. The connection between the inner (as between the ‘outer’) phenomena is not due to the fact that they are experienced by one and the same being, who suffers and acts in and through them. The connectedness or the unity of the mental life depends entirely upon certain laws or general correlations which form the definite order or the working mechanism of psychical events.
If we do happen to find in this mechanism an important spring called conscience, this phenomenon, however peculiar it may be, takes us as little beyond the range of subjective ideas as does the ring of Saturn, unique of its kind, which we observe through the telescope.
§XIV. Kant suffered from his subjectivism in moral philosophy quite as much as he prided himself on it in theoretical philosophy; and he was well aware that the fact of conscience is not in itself a way of escape. If conscience is merely a psychological phenomenon, it can have no compelling force. And if it is something more, then the moral law has its foundation not in us only, but also independently of us. In other words, this unconditional law presupposes an absolute lawgiver.
At the same time Kant, who in spite of the influence of
Thus, notwithstanding his critical philosophy, Kant wanted to find God behind the starry heaven above us,—and behind the voice of conscience in us an immortal soul in the image and likeness of God.
He called these ideas postulates of practical reason and objects of rational faith.
No certainty can attach, from Kant’s point of view, to these two metaphysical ideas themselves, but they must be admitted as valid truths, since the reality of the moral law demands the reality of God and immortality. Every sceptic or ‘critical philosopher’ has, however, a perfect right to turn this argument against Kant. Since pure morality can only be based upon the existence of God and of an immortal soul, and the certainty of these ideas cannot be proved, pure morality dependent upon these ideas cannot be proved either, and must remain a mere supposition.
If the moral law has absolute significance, it must rest upon itself and stand in no need of ‘postulates,’ the object of which has been so systematically put to shame in the Critique of Pure Reason. But if, in order to have real force, the moral law must be based upon something other than itself, its foundations must be independent of it and possess certainty on their own account. The moral law cannot possibly be based upon things which have their ground in it.
1 I confine myself here to these two postulates only, for the question of the freedom of will belongs to a different order of ideas.
Kant rightly insisted that morality is autonomous. This great discovery, connected with his name, will not be lost for
The fact that the good is not finally and universally realised for us, that virtue is not always effective and never, in our empirical life, wholly effective, does not disprove the fact that the good exists and that the measure of good in humanity is, on the whole, on the increase. It is not increasing in the sense that individual persons are becoming more virtuous or that there is a greater number of virtuous people, but in the sense that the average level of the universally binding moral demands that are fulfilled is gradually raised. This is a historical fact, against which one cannot honestly argue. What then is the source of this increase of good in humanity as a collective whole, independently of the moral state of human units taken separately? We know that the growth of a physical organism is due to the superabundance of nourishment which it receives from its actual physico-organic environment, the existence of which precedes its own. In a similar way, moral growth, which cannot logically be explained by the physical (for such explanation would in the long run mean deducing the greater from the lesser, or something from nothing, which is absurd), can also only be explained by a superabundance of nourishment, that is, by the general positive effect of the actual moral or spiritual environment. In addition to the inconstant and, for the most part, doubtful growth of separate human beings, traceable to the educative effect of the social environment, there is a constant and undoubtful spiritual growth of humanity, or of the social environment itself—and this is the whole meaning of history. To account for this fact we must recognise the reality of a superhuman environment which spiritually nourishes the collective life of humanity and, by the superabundance of this nourishment, conditions its moral progress. And if the reality of the superhuman good must be admitted, there is no reason to deny its effect upon the individual moral life of man.vIt is clear
Chapter II. The Unconditional Principle of Morality
§I. Neither the natural inclination to the good in individual men, nor the rational consciousness of duty, are in themselves sufficient for the realisation of the good. But our moral nature contains an element of something greater than itself.
Even the first two foundations of morality—shame and pity—cannot be reduced either to a certain mental condition of this or that person, or to a universal rational demand of duty. When a man is ashamed of desires and actions that spring from his material nature, he does more than express thereby his personal opinion or the state of his mind at the given moment. He actually apprehends a certain reality independent of his opinions or accidental moods—the reality, namely, of the spiritual, super-material essence of man. In the feeling of shame the fundamental material inclinations are rejected by us as foreign and hostile to us. It is clear that the person who rejects and the thing which is rejected cannot be identical. The man who is ashamed of a material fact cannot himself be a mere material fact. A material fact that is ashamed of and rejects itself, that judges itself and acknowledges itself unworthy, is an absurdity and is logically impossible.
The feeling of shame which is the basis of our right relation to the material nature is something more than a simple psychical fact. It is a self-evident revelation of a certain universal truth,—of the truth, namely, that man has a spiritual super-material nature. In shame, and in ascetic morality founded upon it, this spiritual essence of man manifests itself not only as a possibility but also as an actuality, not as a demand only but also as a certain reality.
In a similar manner, the feeling of pity or compassion which is the basis of man’s right relation to his fellow-beings expresses not merely the mental condition of a given person, but also a certain universal objective truth, namely, the unity of nature or the real solidarity of all beings. If they were alien and external to one another, one being could not put himself into the place of another, could not transfer the sufferings of others to himself or feel together with others; for compassion is an actual and not an imagined state, not an abstract idea. The bond of sympathy between separate beings, which finds expression in the fundamental feeling of pity and is developed in the morality of altruism, is not merely a demand, but a beginning of realisation. This is proved by the solidarity of human beings, which exists as a fact, and increases throughout the historical development of society. The defect of the social morality is not that it is not realised at all, but that it is not fully and perfectly realised. The feeling of shame gives us no theoretical conception of the spiritual principle in man, but indubitably proves the existence of that principle. The feeling of pity tells us nothing definite about the metaphysical nature of the universal unity, but concretely indicates the existence of a certain fundamental connection between distinct entities, prior to all experience. And although these entities are empirically separate from one another, they become more and more united in the empirical reality itself.
§II. In the two moral spheres indicated by shame and pity, the good is already known as truth, and is realised in fact, but as yet im perfectly. In the third sphere of moral relations, determined by the religious feeling or reverence, the true object of that feeling reveals itself as the highest or perfect good, wholly and absolutely
In true religious experience the reality of that which is experienced is immediately given; we are directly conscious of the real presence of the Deity, and feel Its effect upon us. Abstract arguments can have no force against actual experience. When a man is ashamed of his animal desires, it is impossible to prove to him that he is a mere animal. In the very fact of shame he is aware of himself as being, and proves himself to be, more and higher than an animal. When in the feeling of pity we are affected by the sufferings of another person, and are conscious of him as of a fellow-being, no force can attach to the theoretical argument that perhaps that other, for whom my heart aches, is only my presentation, devoid of all independent reality. If I am conscious of the inner connection between myself and another, that consciousness testifies to the actual existence of the other no less than to my own. This conclusion holds good of the religious feeling as well as of pity and compassion. The only difference is that the object of the former is experienced not as equal to us but as absolutely superior, all-embracing, and perfect. It is impossible that a creature which excites in me a living feeling of compassion should not actually live and suffer. It is still more impossible that the highest, that which inspires us with reverence and fills our soul with unutterable bliss, should not exist at all. We cannot doubt the reality of that which perceptibly affects us, and whose effect upon us is given in the very fact of the experience. The circumstance that I do not always have the experience, and that other people do not have it at all, no more disproves its reality and the reality of its object than the fact of my not seeing the sun at night, and of persons born blind never seeing it at all, disproves the existence of the sun and of vision. Moreover, many people have a wrong conception of the sun, taking it to be small and to move round the earth, and this, indeed, was the universal belief in former days. But neither the existence of the
Abstract theoretical doubts had arisen in the past and still arise, not only with regard to the existence of God, but to all other existence. No one at all familiar with philosophical speculation can imagine that the existence of the physical world, or even of our neighbours, is self-evident to the intellect. A doubt of that existence is the first foundation of all speculative philosophy worthy of the name. These theoretical doubts are disposed of in one way or another by means of various epistemological and metaphysical theories. But however interesting and important these theories may be, they have no direct bearing upon life and practice. Such direct significance attaches to moral philosophy, which is concerned with the actual data of our spiritual nature and the guiding practical truths which logically follow from them.
The parallelism between spiritual and physical blindness is also borne out by the following consideration. It is well known that people blind from birth are perfectly sound in other respects, and have indeed an advantage over the persons with normal sight in that their other senses—hearing, touch—are better developed. In a similar way persons lacking in receptivity to the divine light are perfectly normal in all other respects, both practical and theoretical, and, indeed, they generally prove superior to others in their capacity for business and for learning. It is natural that a person who is particularly drawn to the absolute
§III. The reality of the Deity is not a deduction from religious experience but the content of it—that which is experienced. If this immediate reality of the higher principle be taken away, there would be nothing left of religious experience. It would no longer exist. But it does exist, and therefore that which is given and experienced in it exists also. God is in us, therefore He is.
However complete the feeling of our inner unity with God may be, it never becomes a consciousness of mere identity, of simple merging into one. The feeling of unity is inseparably connected with the consciousness that the Deity with which we are united, and which acts and reveals itself in us, is something distinct and independent of us—that it is prior to us, higher and greater than we. God exists on His own account. That which is experienced is logically prior to any given experience. The
My compassion for another person does not in the least imply that I am identical with that other. It simply means that I am of the same nature as he is and that there is a bond of union between us. In the same way, the religious experience of God in us or of ourselves in God by no means implies that He is identical with us, but simply proves our inner relationship to Him—‘for we are also His offspring.’ The relation is not brotherly, as with our fellow-beings, but filial—it is not the bond of equality, but the bond of dependence. The dependence is not external or accidental, but inward and essential. True religious feeling regards the Deity as the fulness of all the conditions of our life—as that without which life would be senseless and impossible for us, as the first beginning, as the true medium, and as the final end of existence. Since everything is already contained in God we can add nothing to Him from ourselves, no new content; we cannot make the absolute perfection more perfect. But we can partake of it more and more, be united with it more and more closely. Thus
A further analysis of what in religious feeling is given as a living experience of the reality of Godhead shows that we stand in a threefold relation to this perfect reality, this absolute or supreme good, (1) We are conscious of our difference from it; and since it contains the fulness of perfection, we can only differ from it by negative qualities or determinations—by our im perfection, impotence, wickedness, suffering. In this respect we are the opposite of the Deity, its negative other; this is the lower earthly principle out of which man is created (his ὕλν or causa materialis) that which is called in the Bible ‘the dust of the ground’ (gaphar haadam). (2) But although we are nothing but a complex of all possible imperfections, we are conscious of
The religious attitude necessarily involves discriminating and comparing. We can stand in a religious relation to the higher only if we are aware of it as such, only if we are conscious of its superiority to us, and consequently of our own unworthiness. But we cannot be conscious of our unworthiness or imperfection unless we have an idea of its opposite—i.e. an idea of perfection. Further, the consciousness of our own imperfection and of the divine perfection cannot, if it be genuine, stop at this opposition. It necessarily results in a desire to banish it by making our reality conform to the highest ideal, that is, to the image and likeness of God. Thus the religious attitude as a whole logically involves three moral categories: (1) imperfection (in us); (2) perfection (in God); and (3) the process of becoming perfect or of establishing a harmony between the first and the second as the task of our life.
§IV. The logical analysis of the religious attitude into its three component elements finds confirmation both from the psycho logical and the formally moral point of view.
Psychologically, i.e. as a subjective state, the typical religious attitude finds expression in the feeling of reverence, or, more
From the formally moral point of view, the consciousness (involved in the religious feeling) that the supreme ideal actually exists and that we are out of harmony with it compels us to become more perfect. That which excites our reverence, affirms thereby its right to our devotion. And if we are conscious of the actual and absolute superiority of the Deity over ourselves, our devotion to it must be real and unlimited, i.e. it must be the unconditional rule of our life.
The religious feeling expressed in the form of the categorical imperative commands us not merely to desire perfection but to be perfect. And this means that, in addition to having a being honest, well-behaved and virtuous, we must be free from pain, immortal and incorruptible, and must, moreover, make all our fellow-beings morally perfect and free from pain, deathless, and incorruptible in their bodies. For, indeed, true perfection must embrace the whole of man, must include all his reality—and of that reality other beings, too, form part.
1 This subjective basis of religion is best rendered by the German Ehrfurcht, chrfurchtsvolle Liebe. It may also be called an ascending love, amor ascendent. See the conclusion of this book.
If we do not want
But what can the demand mean? It is clear that by willing alone, however pure and intense the will may be, we cannot even—contrary to the claim of ‘mental healing’—save ourselves or our neighbours from toothache or gout, let alone raise the dead.
The imperative ‘be ye perfect’ does not refer, then, to separate acts of will, but puts before us a life-long task. A simple act of pure will is necessary for accepting the task, but is not in itself sufficient for fulfilling it. The process of becoming perfect is a necessary means to perfection. Thus the unconditional demand ‘be perfect’ means, in fact, ‘become perfect’?
§V. Perfection, i.e. the completeness of good, or the unity of good and happiness, expresses itself in three ways: (1) as the absolutely real, eternally actual perfection in God; (2) as potential perfection in human consciousness which contains the absolute fulness of being in the form of an idea, and in human will which makes that fulness of being its ideal and its norm; (3) as the actual realisation of perfection or as the historical process of becoming perfect.
The adherents of abstract morality put at this point a question, the answer to which they prejudge from the first. They ask what need is there for this third aspect—for perfection as concretely realised, for historical doing with its political problems and its work of civilisation. If the light of truth and a pure will is within us, why trouble about anything further?
But the purpose of historical doing is precisely the final justification of the good given in our true consciousness and our good will. The historical process as a whole creates the concrete conditions under which the good may really become common property, and apart from which it cannot be realised. The whole
Just as the spirit of man in nature requires for its concrete expression the most perfect of physical organisms, so the spirit of God in humanity or the Kingdom of God requires for its actual manifestation the most perfect social body which is being slowly evolved through history. Insofar as the ultimate constituents of this historical process—human individuals—are more capable of conscious and free action than the ultimate constituents of the biological process—the organic cells—the process of evolving the collective universal body is more conscious and voluntary in character than the organic processes which determine the evolution of our corporeal being. But there is no absolute opposition between the two. On the one hand, rudiments of consciousness and will are undoubtedly present in all living beings, though they are not a decisive factor in the general process of perfecting the organic forms. On the other hand, the course and the final
The significance of the historical, as distinct from the cosmical, process lies in the fact that the part played in it by individual agents is always increasing in importance. And it is strange that at the present day, when this characteristic fact of history has become sufficiently clear, the assertion should be made that man must renounce all historical doing, and that the state of perfection for humanity and for all the universe will be attained of itself. ‘Of itself’ does not, of course, in this connection mean through the play of blind physical forces which have neither the desire nor the power to create the Kingdom of God out of themselves. ‘Of itself’ here means by the immediate action of God. But how are we to explain from this point of view the fact that hitherto God has never acted immediately? If for the realisation of the perfect life two principles only are necessary—God and the human soul, potentially receptive of Him—then the Kingdom of God might have been established with the advent of the first man. What was the need for all these centuries and millenniums of human history? And if this process was necessary because the Kingdom of God can as little be revealed among wild cannibals as among wild beasts, if it was necessary for humanity to work up from the brutal and formless condition of separateness to definite organisation and unity, it is as clear as day that this process is not yet completed. Historical doing is as necessary to-day as it was yesterday, and will be as necessary to-morrow, until the conditions are ripe for the actual and perfect realisation of the Kingdom of God.
§VI. The historical process is a long and difficult transition from the bestial man to the divine man. No one can seriously maintain that the last step has already been taken, that the image and likeness of the beast has been inwardly abolished in humanity and replaced by the image and likeness of God, that
The unconditional principle of morality cannot be a deception. But it is obvious deception for a separate individual to pretend that his own impotence to realise the ideal of universal perfection proves such realisation to be unnecessary. The truth which, on the basis of genuine religious feeling, our reason and our conscience tell us is this:—
I cannot alone carry out in practice all that ought to be; I cannot do anything alone. But, thank God, there is no such thing as ‘I alone’; my impotence and isolation is only a subjective state which depends upon myself. Although in my thoughts and my will I can separate myself from everything, it is mere self-deception. Apart from these false thoughts and this bad will nothing exists separately, everything is inwardly and externally connected.
I am not alone. With me is God Almighty and the world—that is, all that is contained in God. And if both these exist, there is positive interaction between them. The very idea of Godhead implies that things to which God stands in a purely negative relation, or things to which He is unconditionally opposed, cannot exist at all. But the world does exist, therefore there must be the positive activity of God in it. The world cannot, however, be the end of that activity, for it is imperfect. And if it cannot be the end, it must be the means. It is the system of conditions for realising the kingdom of ends. That in it which is capable of perfection will enter that kingdom with full rights; all the rest is the material and the means for bringing it about. All that exists, exists only in virtue of being approved by God. But God approves in two ways: some things are good as a means and others as a purpose and an end (shabbath). Each stage in the world creation is approved of from above, but the Scriptures distinguish between simple and enhanced praise. Of all things created in the first six days of the world it says that
Man is dear to God, not as a passive instrument of His will—there are enough of such instruments to be found in the physical world—but as a voluntary ally and participator in His work in the universe. This participation of man must necessarily be included in the very purpose of God’s activity in the world. Were this purpose thinkable apart from human activity, it would have been attained from all eternity, for in God Himself there can be no process of becoming perfect, but only an eternal and unchangeable fullness of all that is good. Just as it is unthinkable for an absolute being to increase in goodness or perfection, so it is unthinkable for man to attain perfection at once, apart from the process of becoming perfect.
This will reveals itself to the individual—not of course as he
§VII. The moral duty of religion demands that we should unite our will with the will of God. The will of God is all-embracing, and in being united to it, or in entering into true harmony with it, we obtain an absolute and universal rule of action. The idea of God that reason deduces from what is given in true religious experience is so clear and definite that we always can know, if we want to, what God demands of us. In the first place, God wants us to be conformable to and like Him. We must manifest our inner kinship with the Deity, our power and determination to attain free perfection. This idea can be expressed in the form of the following rule: Have God in you.
A man who has God in him regards everything in accordance with God’s thought or ‘from the point of view of the absolute.’ The second rule, then, is Regard everything in God’s way.
God’s relation to everything is not indifference. Inanimate objects are indifferent to good and evil, but this lower state cannot be attributed to the Deity. Although, according to the words of the Gospel, God lets the sun shine on the just and the unjust, it is precisely this single light which, in illuminating different persons and actions, shows the difference between them. Although, according to the same words, God sends His rain to the righteous and to the sinners, yet this one and the same moisture of God’s grace brings forth from the different soil and different seed fruits that are not identical. God cannot be said either to affirm evil or to deny it unconditionally. The first is impossible, because in that case evil would be good, and the second is impossible, because in that case evil could not exist at all—and yet it does exist. God denies evil as final or abiding, and in virtue of this denial it perishes. But He permits it as a transitory condition of freedom, i.e. of a greater good. On the one hand, God permits evil inasmuch as a direct denial or annihilation of it would violate human freedom and be a greater evil, for it would render perfect (i.e. free) good impossible in the world; on the other hand, God permits evil inasmuch as it
The unconditional principle of morality can therefore be expressed as follows:—
In complete inner harmony with the higher will and recognising the absolute worth or significance of all other persons, since they too are in the image and likeness of God, participate, as fully as in thee lies, in the work of making thyself and everyone more perfect, so that the Kingdom of God may be finally revealed in the world.
1 I must content myself here with a general logical reflection. A real solution of the question must be based upon a metaphysical inquiry into the nature of God and the origin of evil in the world.
§VIII. It will be easily seen that the unconditional principle of morality includes and gives expression to all positive moral principles, and that at the same time it completely satisfies the natural demand for happiness in the sense of possessing the highest good.
In demanding that man should be a friend and helper of God, the unconditional principle of morality does not cancel the particular moral demands. On the contrary, it confirms them;
In the first place, it refers to the religious basis of morality, of which it is the direct development and the final expression. The higher demand presupposes the lower. A babe at the breast naturally cannot be his father’s friend and helper. In the same way, a man spiritually under age is inwardly precluded from standing in the relation of free and immediate harmony with God. In both cases authoritative guidance and education is necessary. This is the justification of external religious institutions—of sacrifices, hierarchy, etc. Apart from their profound mystical significance, which makes them an abiding link between heaven and earth, they are undoubtedly of the first importance to humanity from the pedagogical point of view. There never was, and never could be, a time when all men would be spiritually equal to one another. Making use of this inevitable inequality, Providence has from the first elected the best to be the spiritual teachers of the crowd. Of course the inequality was merely relative—the teachers of savages were half-savage themselves. Therefore the character of religious institutions changes and becomes more perfect in conformity with the general course of history. But so long as the historical process is not yet completed, no one could in all conscience consider unnecessary for himself and for others the mediation of religious institutions which connect us v/ith the work of God that has already found concrete embodiment in history. And even if such a man could be found, he would certainly not reject the ‘external’ side of religion. Indeed for him it would not be merely external, for he would understand the fulness of the inner meaning inherent in it and its connection with the future realisation of that meaning. A person who is above school age and has reached the heights of learning has certainly no reason to go to school. But he has still less reason to reject schools and to persuade the schoolboys that their teachers are a pack of idle swindlers, and that they themselves are perfect men or that educational institutions are the root of all evil and ought to be wiped off the face of the earth.
The true ‘friend of God’ understands and cares for all manifestations of the divine both in the physical world and, still more so, in human history. And if he stands on one of the upper
Religious feeling raised to the level of an absolute and all-embracing principle of life lifts to the same height the other two fundamental moral feelings, as well as the duties that follow from them—namely, the feeling of pity which determines our right relation to our fellow-creatures, and the feeling of shame upon which our right attitude to the lower material nature is based.
§IX. Pity which we feel towards a fellow-being acquires another significance when we see in that being the image and likeness of God. We then recognise the unconditional worth of that person; we recognise that he is an end in himself for God, and still more must be so for us. We realise that God Himself does not treat him merely as a means. We respect that being since God respects him, or, more exactly, we consider him since God considers him. This higher point of view does not exclude pity in cases when it would naturally be felt—on the contrary, pity becomes more poignant and profound. I pity in that being not merely his sufferings but also the cause of them—I regret that his actual reality falls so short of his true dignity and possible perfection. The duty that follows from the altruistic sentiment also acquires a higher meaning. We can no longer be content with refraining from injuries to our neighbour or even with assisting him in his troubles. We must help him to become more perfect, so that the image and likeness of God which we recognise in him might be actually realised. But no human being can alone realise either in himself or in anyone else that absolute fulness of perfection in seeking which we are likened to God. Altruism at its highest religious stage compels us, therefore, actively to participate in the universal historical process which brings about the conditions necessary for the revelation of the Kingdom of God. Consequently it demands that we should take part in the collective organisations—especially in that of the state as inclusive of all the others—by means of which the historical process is, by the will of Providence, carried on. Not everyone is called to political
In the domain of religion the unconditional principle of morality leads us to accept ecclesiastical institutions and traditions as educational means whereby humanity is led in the end to ultimate perfection. In a similar way in the domain of purely human relations inspired by pity and altruism the unconditional moral principle demands that we should give active service to the collective organisations, such as the state, by means of which Providence prevents humanity from material disruption, holds it together, and enables it to become more perfect. We know that only in virtue of that which has been and is being given to humanity by the historical forms of religion can we truly attain to that free and perfect union with the Divine, the possibility and the promise of which are contained in our inner religious feeling. Similarly, we know that apart from the concentrated and organised social force which is found in the state we cannot give all our neighbours that help which we are bidden to give both by the simple moral feeling of pity for their sufferings and by the religious principle of respect for their unconditional dignity which demands to be realised.
In both cases we connect our allegiance to the ecclesiastical and the political forms of social life with the unconditional principle of morality, and in doing so we recognise that allegiance as conditional, as determined by this higher truth and dependent upon it. Institutions which ought to serve the good in humanity may more or less deviate from their purpose or even be wholly false to it. In that case the duty of man true to the good consists neither in entirely rejecting the institutions in question on the ground of the abuses connected with them—which would be unjust—nor in blindly submitting to them both in good and in evil, which would be impious and unworthy. His duty would be to try and actively reform the institutions, insisting on what their function ought to be. If we know why and for what sake we ought to submit to a certain institution, we also know the form and the measure of such submission. It will never become unlimited, blind, and slavish. We shall never be passive and senseless instruments of
When I make use of physical force and move my arms in order to save a drowning man or to give food to the hungry, I do not in any way detract from my moral dignity; on the contrary, I increase it. Why then should it be a detriment, rather than a gain, to our morality to take advantage of the spiritually-material forces of the state and use them for the good of nations and of humanity as a whole? To submit to material powers is shameful, but to deny their right to existence is perilous and unjust. In any case the unconditional principle of morality extends to the domain of matter also.
§X. The natural feeling of shame bears witness to the autonomy of our being, and safeguards its wholeness from the destructive intrusion of foreign elements. At the lower stages of development, when sensuous life predominates, special significance attaches to bodily chastity, and the feeling of shame is originally connected with this side of life. But as moral feelings and relations are developed further, man begins to form a wider conception of his dignity. He is ashamed not only of yielding to the lower material nature, but also of all violations of duty in relation to gods and men. The unconscious instinct of shame becomes now, as we have seen, the clear voice of conscience which reproaches man not for carnal sins alone but also for all wrong doing—for all unjust and pitiless actions and feelings. At the same time there is developed a special feeling of the fear of God, which restrains us from coming into conflict with anything that expresses for us the holiness of God. When the relation between man and God is raised to the level of absolute consciousness, the
This consciousness no longer reproaches him for doing what is bad and injurious, but for feeling and acting as an imperfect being, while perfection is his duty and his goal. Instead of the demon
Chapter III. The Reality of the Moral Order
§I. The unconditional principle of morality, logically involved in religious experience, contains the complete good (or the right relation of all to everything) not merely as a demand or an idea, but as an actual power that can fulfill this demand and create the perfect moral order or the Kingdom of God in which the absolute significance of every being is realised. It is by virtue of this supreme principle alone that the moral good can give us final and complete satisfaction, can be for us a true blessing and a source of infinite bliss.
We experience the reality of God not as something in definitely divine—δαιμόνιόν τι, but we are conscious of Him as He really is, all-perfect or absolute. And our soul too is revealed to us in our inner experience not merely as something distinct from material facts, but as a positive force which struggles with the material processes and overcomes them. The experience of physiological asceticism does more than support the truth that the soul is immortal—a postulate beyond which Kant would not go; it also justifies the hope of the resurrection of the body. For in the triumph of the spirit over matter, as we know from our own preliminary and rudimentary experience, matter is not destroyed but is made eternal as the image of a spiritual quality and an instrument of the activity of the spirit.
We do not know from experience what matter is in itself; this is a subject for metaphysical investigation. The psychical and the physical phenomena are qualitatively distinct so far as knowledge is concerned: the first are known by direct introspection
The chief concrete stages of this process, given in our experience, bear the traditional and significant name of kingdoms. It is significant because it really is applicable only to the last and highest stage, which is usually not taken into account at all. Counting this highest stage there are five kingdoms altogether: the mineral (or, more generally, the inorganic) kingdom, the vegetable kingdom, the animal kingdom,, the human kingdom, and God’s kingdom. Minerals, plants, animals, natural humanity and spiritual humanity—such are the typical forms of existence from the point of view of the ascending process of universal perfection. From other points of view the number of these forms and stages might be increased, or, on the contrary, be reduced to four, three, and two. Plants and animals may be grouped together into one organic world. Or the whole realm of physical existence, both organic and inorganic, may be united in the one conception of nature. In that case there would be a threefold division only, into the Divine, the human, and the natural kingdoms. Finally, one may stop at the simple opposition between the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of this world.
Without in the least rejecting these and all other divisions, it must be admitted that the five kingdoms indicated above represent the most characteristic and clearly defined grades of existence from the point of view of the moral meaning realised in the process of manifesting God in matter.
Stones and metals are distinguished from all else by their extreme self-sufficiency and conservatism; had it rested with them, nature would never have wakened from her dreamless slumber. But, on the other hand, without them her further growth would have been deprived of a firm basis or ground. Plants in unconscious, unbroken dreams draw towards warmth,
Each preceding kingdom serves as the immediate basis of the one that follows. Plants derive their nourishment from inorganic substances, animals exist at the expense of the vegetable kingdom, men live at the expense of animals, and the Kingdom of God is composed of men. If we consider an organism from the point of view of its material constituents we shall find in it nothing but elements of inorganic substance. That substance, however, ceases to be a mere substance in so far as it enters into the plan of the organic life, which makes use of the chemical and physical properties of substance but is not reducible to them. In a similar way, human life on its material side consists of animal processes, which, however, have in it no significance on their own account as they do in the animal world. They serve as a means or an instrument for new purposes and new objects which follow from the new, higher plan of rational or human life. The sole purpose of the typical animal is satisfaction of hunger and of the sexual instinct. But when a human being desires nothing further he is rightly called bestial, not only as a term of abuse, but precisely in the sense of sinking to a lower level of existence. Just as a living organism consists of chemical substances which cease to be mere substances, so humanity consists of animals which cease to be merely animal. Similarly, the Kingdom of God consists of men who have ceased to be merely human and form part of a new and higher plan of existence in which their purely-human ends become the means and instruments for another final purpose.
The stone exists, this is clear from its sensible effect upon us. A person who denies it can easily convince himself of his error, as has been observed long ago, by knocking his head against the stone.
1 Kant rightly points out that this argument is insufficient for theoretical philosophy; and when dealing with the theory of knowledge I propose to discuss the question as to the being of things. But in moral philosophy the above argument is sufficient, for in all conscience it is convincing.
2 It will be remembered that in Hegel’s Dialectic pure being passes into pure nothing. In answer to a learned critic, I would like to observe that although I regard the stone as the most typical embodiment and symbol of unchanging being, I do not in the least identify the stone with the category of being and do not deny the mechanical and physical properties of the concrete stone. Everyone, for instance, takes the pig to be the most typical embodiment and symbol of the moral category of unrestrained carnality, which is on that account called ‘piggishness.’ But in doing so no one denies that a real pig has in addition to its piggishness four legs, two eyes, etc.
3 I am speaking here of the stone as the most characteristic and concrete instance of inorganic bodies in general. Such a body taken in isolation has no real life of its own. But this in no way prejudges the metaphysical question as to the life of nature in general or of the more or less complex natural wholes such as the sea, rivers, mountains, forests. And indeed, separate inorganic bodies too, such as stones, though devoid of life on their own account, may serve as constant mediums for the localised living activity of spiritual beings. Of this nature were the sacred stones—the so-called bethels or bethils (houses of God) which were associated with the presence and activity of angels or Divine powers that seemed to inhabit these stones.
1 The usual ways in which an animal becomes conscious of his environment are closed in sleep. But this does not by any means exclude the possibility of a different environment and of other means of mental correlation, i.e. of another sphere of consciousness. In that case, however, the periodical transition of a given mental life from one sphere of consciousness into another would prove still more clearly the general conscious character of that life.
One fact of comparative anatomy ought alone to be sufficient to disprove this crude error. To deny consciousness to animals means to reduce the whole of their life to the blind promptings of instinct. But how are we to explain in that case the gradual development in the higher animals of the organ of conscious mental activity—the brain? How could this organ have appeared and developed if the animals in question had no corresponding functions? Unconscious, instinctive life does not need the brain. This is shown by the fact that the development of instinct
Man differs from animals not by being conscious, since the same is true of them also, but by possessing reason or the faculty of forming general concepts and ideas. The presence of consciousness in animals is proved by their purposive movements, mimicry, and their language of various sounds. The fundamental evidence of the rationality of man is the word, which expresses not only the states of a particular consciousness, but the general meaning of all things. The ancient wisdom rightly defined man not as a conscious being—which is not enough—but as a being endowed with language or a rational being.
The power inherent in the very nature of reason and of language to grasp the all-embracing and all-uniting truth has acted in many different ways in various and separate peoples, gradually building up the human kingdom upon the basis of the animal life. The ultimate essence of this human kingdom is the ideal demand for the perfect moral order, i.e. a demand for the Kingdom of God. By two paths—of prophetic inspiration among the Jews, and of philosophic thought among the Greeks—has the human spirit approached the idea of the Kingdom of God, and the ideal of the God-man.
1 Both these paths—the Biblical and the philosophical—coincided in the mind of the Alexandrian Jew Philo, who is, from this point of view, the last and the most significant thinker of antiquity.
Parallel to this double inner process, but naturally more slow than it, was the external process of bringing about political unity and unity of culture among the chief historical peoples of East and West, completed by the Roman Empire. In Greece and Rome natural or pagan humanity reached its limit. In the beautiful sensuous form and speculative idea among the Greeks, and in the practical reason, will, or power among the Romans, it has affirmed its absolute divine significance. There arose the idea of the absolute man or man-god. This idea cannot, from its very nature, remain abstract or purely speculative. It demands embodiment. But it is as impossible for man to make
§III. At the period when the pagan world contemplated its spiritual failure in the person of the supposed man-god—the Caesar impotently aping the deity, individual philosophers and earnest believers were awaiting the incarnation of the Divine Word or the coming of the Messiah, the Son of God and the King of Truth. The man-god, even if he were lord of all the world, is but an empty dream; the God-man can reveal His true nature even in the guise of a wandering rabbi.
The historical existence of Christ, as well as the reality of His character recorded in the Gospels, is not open to serious doubt. It was impossible to invent Him, and no one could have done it. And this perfectly historical image is the image of the perfect man—not of a man, however, who says, ‘I have become god,’ but of one who says, ‘I am born of God and am sent by Him, I was one with God before the world was made.’ We are compelled by reason to believe this testimony, for the historical coming of Christ as God made manifest in man is inseparably connected with the whole of the world-process. If the reality of this event is denied, there can be no meaning or purpose in the universe.
When the first vegetable forms appeared in the inorganic world, developing subsequently into the luxurious kingdom of trees and flowers, they could not have appeared of themselves, out of nothing. It would be equally absurd to suppose that they had sprung from the accidental combinations of inorganic elements. Life is a new positive content, something more than lifeless matter; and to reduce the greater to the lesser is to assert that something can come out of nothing, which is obviously absurd. The phenomena of vegetable life are continuous with the phenomena of the inorganic world; but that of which they are the phenomena
The fact that the higher forms or types of being appear, or are revealed, after the lower does not by any means prove that they are a product or a creation of the lower. The order of reality is not the same as the order of appearance. The higher, the richer, and the more positive types and states of being are metaphysically prior to the lower, although they are revealed or manifested subsequently to them. This is not a denial of evolution; evolution cannot be denied, it is a fact. But to maintain that evolution creates the higher forms out of the lower, or, in the long-run, out of nothing, is to substitute a logical absurdity for the fact. Evolution of the lower types of being cannot of itself create the higher. It simply produces the material conditions or brings about the environment necessary for the manifestation or the revelation of the higher type. Thus, every appearance of a new type of being is in a certain sense a new creation. But it is not created out of nothing. The material basis for the appearance of the new is the old type. The special positive content of the higher type does not arise de novo, but exists from all eternity. It simply enters, at a certain moment in the process, into a different order of being—the phenomenal world. The conditions of the appearance are due to the natural evolution of the material world; that which appears comes from God.
1 The primordial relation of God to nature lies outside the boundaries of the world-process and is a subject for pure metaphysics, which I will not touch upon here.
§IV. The interrelation between the fundamental types of being—which are the chief stages in the world-process—is not exhausted
The vegetable world does not abolish the inorganic world, but merely relegates it to a lower, subordinate place. The same thing happens at the further stages of the world-process. At the end of it, the Kingdom of God does not, when it appears, abolish the lower types of existence, but puts them all into their right place, no longer as separate spheres of existence but as the spiritually-physical organs of a collected universe, bound together by an absolute inner unity and interaction. This is the reason why the Kingdom of God is identical with the reality of the absolute moral order, or, what is the same thing, with universal resurrection and ἀποκατάστασις τῶν πάντων {“the restoration of all things.”–Acts 3:21}.
§V. When the God-man who begins the Kingdom of God is described as ‘an ideal,’ this does not mean that he is thinkable only and not real. He can only be called ideal in the sense in which a man may be said to be an ideal for the animal, or a plant an ideal for the earth out of which it grows. The plant is more ideal in the sense of possessing greater worth, but it has a greater and not a lesser reality or fulness of existence as compared with a clod of earth. The same must be said of the animal as compared with the plant, of the natural man as compared with the animal, and of the God-man as compared with the natural man. On the whole, the greater worth of the ideal content is in direct proportion to the increase in real power: the plant has concrete powers (such as the power to transmute inorganic substances for its own purposes) which the clod of earth has not; man is far more powerful than the ape, and Christ has infinitely more power than the Roman Caesar.
The natural man differs from the spiritual not by being utterly devoid of the spiritual element, but by not having the power to realise that element completely. To obtain this power the spiritual being of man must be fertilised by a new creative act or by the effect of what in theology is called grace, which gives the
The divine man differs from the ordinary man not by being a represented ideal but by being a realised ideal. The false idealism which takes the ideal to be non-existent, and thinks its realisation unnecessary, is not worth criticising. But there is another question involved here which must be reckoned with. While admitting
1 It will be remembered that Auguste Comte, in some letters he wrote shortly before his death, declared Ignatius Loyola to be higher than Christ. But this judgment, as well as other similar opinions and actions of the founder of the Positivist philosophy, prove to all unprejudiced critics that the thinker in question, who had in his youth suffered for two years with brain disease, was in the last years of his life once more on the verge of insanity. See my article on Comte in the Brockfiaus-Efron Encyclopaedia.
The meaning of history in its concrete development compels us to recognise in Jesus Christ not the last word of the human kingdom, but the first and all-embracing Word of the Kingdom of God—not the man-god, but the God-man, or the absolute individual. From this point of view it can be well understood why He first appeared in the middle of history and not at the end of it. The purpose of the world-process is the revelation of the Kingdom of God or of the perfect moral order realised by a new humanity which spiritually grows out of the God-man. It is clear, then, that this universal event must be preceded by the individual appearance of the God-man Himself. As the first half of history up to Christ was preparing the environment or the external conditions for His individual birth, so the second half prepares the external conditions for His universal revelation or for the coming of the Kingdom of God. Here once more the general and logically certain law of the universe finds application: the higher type of being is not created by the preceding process but is phenomenally conditioned by it. The Kingdom of God is not a product of Christian history any more than Christ was a product of the Jewish and the Pagan history. History merely worked out in the past and is working out now the necessary natural and moral conditions for the revelation of the God-man and the divine humanity.
§VII. By His word and the work of His whole life, beginning with the victory over all the temptations of the moral evil and ending
1 The least attention on the part of the reader will convince him that I have not given any ground for serious critics to reproach me with the absurd identification of the Kingdom of God with historical Christianity or the visible Church (which one?). I reject such identification both implicitly and explicitly; nor do I recognise every scoundrel who has been baptized as a ‘spiritual’ man or ‘a son of God.’
The true foundation of the perfect moral order is the universality of the spirit of Christ capable of embracing and regenerating all things. The essential task of humanity, then, is to accept Christ and regard everything in His spirit, thus enabling His spirit to become incarnate in everything. For this incarnation cannot be a physical event only. The individual incarnation of the Word of God required the consent of a personal feminine will: “Be it unto Me according to Thy word.” The universal incarnation of the Spirit of Christ or the manifestation of the Kingdom of God requires the consent of the collective will of humanity, that all things should be united to God. In order that this consent should be fully conscious, Christ must be understood not only as the absolute principle of the good, but as the fullness of good. In other words, there must be established a Christian (and an antichristian) relation to all aspects and spheres of human life. In order that this consent should be perfectly free, that it should be a true moral act or a fulfillment of the inner truth and not the effect of an overwhelming superior force, it was necessary for Christ to withdraw into the transcendental sphere of the
Part III. The Good Through Human History
Chapter I. The Individual and Society
§I. We know that the good in its full sense, including the idea of happiness or satisfaction, is ultimately defined as the true moral order which expresses the absolutely right and the absolutely desirable relation of each to all and of all to each. It is called the Kingdom of God. From the moral point of view it is quite clear that the realisation of the Kingdom of God is the only final end of life and activity, being the supreme good, happiness, and bliss. It is equally clear, if one thinks of the subject carefully and concretely, that the true moral order or the Kingdom of God is both perfectly universal and perfectly individual. Each wants it for himself and for everyone, and is onjy able to attain it together with every one. Therefore there can be no essential opposition between the individual and society; the question which of the two is an end and which is merely a means cannot be asked. Such a question would presuppose the real existence of the individual as a self-sufficient and self-contained entity. In truth, however, each individual is only the meeting-point of an infinite number of relations with other individuals. To abstract him from these relations means to deprive his life of all its concrete filling-in and to transform a personality into an empty possibility of existence. To imagine that the personal centre of our being is really cut off from our environment and from the general life which connects us with other minds is simply a morbid illusion of self-consciousness.
When a line is chalked before the eyes of a cock, he takes that line to be a fatal obstacle which he cannot possibly overstep. He is evidently incapable of understanding that the fatal,
The self-deception in virtue of which a human individual regards himself as real in his separateness from all things, and presupposes this fictitious isolation to be the true ground and the only possible starting-point for all his relations—this self-deception of abstract subjectivism plays terrible havoc not only in the domain of metaphysics—which, indeed, it abolishes altogether —but also in the domain of the moral and political life. It is the source of many involved theories, irreconcilable contradictions, and insoluble questions. But all of them would disappear of themselves if, without being afraid of authoritative names, we would grasp the simple fact that the theories and the insoluble problems in question could only have arisen from the point of view of the hypnotised cock.
§II. Human personality, and therefore every individual human being, is capable of realising infinite fulness of being, or, in other words, it is a particular form with infinite content. The reason of man contains an infinite possibility of a truer and truer knowledge of the meaning of all things. The will of man contains an equally infinite possibility of a more and more perfect realisation of this universal meaning in the particular life and environment. Human personality is infinite: this is an axiom of moral philosophy. But the moment that abstract subjectivism draws its chalk line before the eyes of the unwary thinker the most fruitful of axioms becomes a hopeless absurdity. Human personality as
Social life is not a condition superadded to the individual life, but is contained in the very definition of personality which is essentially a rationally-knowing and a morally-active force—both knowing and acting being only possible in the life of a community. Rational knowledge on its formal side is conditioned by general notions which express a unity of meaning in an endless multiplicity of events; real and objective universality (the general meaning) of notions manifests itself in language as a means of communication, without which rational activity cannot develop,
Instead of an insoluble contradiction between two mutually exclusive principles—between two abstract isms,—we really find two correlative terms each of which logically and historically requires and presupposes the other. In its essential signification society is not the external limit of the individual but his inner fulfillment. It is not an arithmetical sum or a mechanical aggregate of the individuals that compose it, but the indivisible whole of the communal life. This life has been partly realised in the past and is preserved in the abiding social tradition, is being partly realised in the present by means of social service, and finally, it anticipates in the form of a social ideal, present in the best minds, its perfect realisation in the future.
Corresponding to these three fundamental and abiding moments of the individually-social life—the religious, the political, and the prophetic—there are three main concrete stages through which human life and consciousness pass in the course of the historical development, namely, (1) the stage of organisation based upon kinship, which belongs to the past though it is still preserved in a changed form in the family; (2) the national state, prevalent at the present time; and finally (3) the universal communion of life, as the ideal of the future.
At all these stages society is essentially the moral fulfillment or the realisation of the individual in a given environment. But the
§III. Each single individual possesses as such the potentiality of perfection or of positive infinity, namely, the capacity to understand all things with his intellect and to embrace all things with his heart, or to enter into a living communion with everything. This double infinity—the power of conception and the power of striving and activity, called in the Bible, according to the interpretation of the Fathers of the Church, the image and likeness of God—necessarily belongs to every person. It is in this that the absolute significance, dignity, and worth of human personality consists, and this is the basis of its inalienable rights.
1 This meaning of the image and likeness of God is essentially the same as that indicated in Part II. It is clear, indeed, that an infinite power of conception and understanding can only give us the image (‘the schema’) of perfection, while an infinite striving, having for its purpose the actual realisation of perfection, is the beginning of our likeness to God, who is the real and not only the ideal perfection.
In this sense it may be said that
The world purpose is not to create a solidarity between each and all, for it already exists in the nature of things, but to make each and all aware of this solidarity and spiritually alive to it; to transform it from a merely metaphysical and physical solidarity into a morally-metaphysical and a morally-physical one. The life of man already is, both at its lower and its upper limit, an in voluntary participation in the developing life of humanity and of the whole world. But the dignity of human life and the meaning of the universe as a whole demand that this involuntary participation of each in everything should become voluntary and be more and more conscious and free, i.e. really personal—that each should more and more understand and fulfill the common work as if it were his own. It is clear that in this way alone can the infinite significance of personality be realised or, in other words, pass from possibility to actuality.
But this transition itself—this spiritualisation or moralisation of the natural fact of solidarity—is also an inseparable part of the common work. The fulfillment of this supreme task depends not upon personal efforts alone, but is also necessarily conditioned by the general course of the world’s history, or by the actual state of the social environment at a given moment in history. Thus the individual improvement in each man cannot be severed from the universal, nor the personal morality from the social.
§IV. True morality is the rightful interaction between the individual and his environment—taking the term environment in the wide sense to embrace all spheres of reality—the higher as well as the lower—with which man stands in the practical relation. The true personal dignity of each undoubtedly finds expression and embodiment in his relations to his surroundings. The infinite possibilities inherent in the very nature of man gradually become realised in this individually-social reality. Historical experience finds man as already having his completion in a certain social milieu, and the subsequent course of history is nothing but a
As the lower forms of the collective life pass into the higher, the individual, in virtue of the infinite potentiality of understanding and of striving for the better latent in him, appears as the principle of progress and of movement (the dynamic element in history), while the social environment, being a reality already achieved, a completed objectification of the moral content in a certain sphere and at a certain stage, naturally represents the stable, conservative principle (the static element of history). When individuals who are more gifted or more developed than others begin to be conscious that their social environment is no longer a realisation or a completion of their life, but is simply an external barrier and obstacle to their positive moral aspirations, they become the bearers of a higher social consciousness which seeks embodiment in new forms and in a new order of life that would correspond to it.
All social environment is the objective expression or embodiment of morality (of right relations) at a certain stage of human development. But the moral agent, in virtue of his striving towards the absolute good, outgrows a given limited form of morality embodied in the social structure and takes up a negative attitude towards it—not towards it as such, but towards the given lower stage of its embodiment. It is obvious that such a conflict is not an opposition of principle between the individual and the social element, but is simply an opposition between the earlier and the later stages of the individually-social development.
1 I am speaking of kinship in the wide sense and have in mind a group of persons forming one self-contained community, united by the blood-tie and intermarriage, whether the connection between them takes the form of mother-right or of father-right.
Thus in this primitive circle of human life the moral dignity of the person is in all respects realised by the community and in the community. How can there be any contradiction and conflict here between the individual and the collective principle and what expression can it assume? The relation between the two is direct and positive. The social law is not extraneous to the individual, it is not imposed upon him from without contrary to his nature; it merely gives a definite, objective, and constant form to the inward motives of personal morality. Thus the person’s inner religious feeling (rudiments of which are already found in certain animals) impels him to hold in reverence the secret causes and conditions of his existence—and the cult of ancestor worship merely gives an objective expression to this desire. The feeling of pity, equally inherent in man, inclines him to treat his relatives with fairness—the social law merely confirms this personal
What concrete form, then, could the principle of the opposition of the individual to society and of his superiority to it take at this early stage? Perhaps the supposed champion of the rights of the individual would desecrate the tombs of his ancestors, insult his father, outrage his mother, kill his brothers, and marry his own sisters? It is clear that such actions are below the very lowest social level, and it is equally clear that true realisation of absolute human dignity cannot be based upon a simple rejection of a given social structure.
§VI. The moral content of social life as determined by kinship is permanent; its external and limited form is inevitably outgrown
There is no reason why the consciousness of social solidarity, extended to a group of clans, should stop at the limits of the tribe. The widening of the moral outlook on the one hand, and the recognised advantages of common action on the other, induce many tribes to form first temporary and, later, permanent alliances with one another. Thus the tribe of Seneca, together
The union of tribes, especially of those that have reached a certain degree of culture and occupy a definite territory, is the transition to a state, the embryo of a nation. The Iroquois, like most Red Indian tribes who remained in the wild forests and prairies of North America, did not advance further than such an embryo of a nation and state. But other representatives of the same race, moving southwards, fairly rapidly passed from the military union of tribes to a permanent political organisation. The Aztecs of Mexico, the Incas of Peru founded real national states of the same type as the great theocratical monarchies of the Old World. The essential inner connection between the original social cell—the group united by kinship—and the wide political organisation is clearly expressed in the word fatherland, which almost in all languages designates the national state. The term fatherland, implying as it does a relation of kinship (patria, Vaterland) etc.), indicates not that the state is an expansion of the family—which is not true—but that the moral principle of this new great union must be essentially the same as the principle of the narrower union based upon kinship. In truth, states have arisen out of wars and treaties, but this does not alter the fact that the purpose or meaning for which they came into being was to establish in the wide circle of the national, and even the international, relations the same solidarity and peaceable life as had existed of old within the limits of the family.
The process of the formation of states and the external changes in the human life connected with it do not concern us here. What is of interest to ethics is the moral position of the individual with regard to his new social environment. So long as the only higher forms of social life, in contradistinction to
§VII. Neither the tribe, nor the union of tribes, nor the national state—the fatherland—destroys the original social cell; it only alters its signification. The change may be expressed in the following short but perfectly correct formula: the state order transforms the clan into the family. Indeed, until the state is formed, family life, strictly speaking, does not exist. The group of individuals held together by a more or less intimate blood-tie, which in primitive times forms the social unit, differs from the real family in one essential respect. The distinguishing characteristic of the family is that it is a form of private, in contradistinction to public, life: ‘a public family’ is a contradiction in terms. But
Now this transformation of the clan, i.e. of the political and social union, into the family, i.e. into an exclusively social, private, or home union, could be looked upon in two ways. It might be regarded as involving the purification of the tie of kinship which thus acquires greater inward dignity, or as involving its external lessening and degradation.
1 This double point of view may be brought out by an analogous example from quite a different sphere of relations. The loss by the Pope of his political power, or the abolition of the Church-state, may be regarded even by good and genuine Roman Catholics in two different and, indeed, opposite ways. It may be taken to be either a favourable condition for the increase of the inward moral authority of the Pope, or a lamentable detraction and decrease in the scope of his political activity.
In the social group determined by kinship with its moral conditions and institutions, the human individual can realise his inner dignity better than in the state of brutal isolation. History
All the things whereby our spiritual nature is nurtured, all that lends beauty and dignity to our life in the sphere of religion, science and art, has sprung from the foundation of ordinary civilised life, conditioned by the order of the state. It has all been created not by the clan but by the fatherland. When the clan life still predominated, the men who took their stand with the fatherland, which till then was non-existent or only just dawning on their own inner vision, were bearers of a higher consciousness, of a better individually-social morality. They were benefactors of humanity and saints of history, and it is not for nothing that the grateful city-states of Greece and other countries did homage to them as their heroes—the eponyms.
Social progress is not an impersonal work. The conflict of individual initiative with its immediate social environment led to the foundation of a wider and more important social whole—the fatherland. The bearers of the super-tribal consciousness, or, more exactly, of the half-conscious striving towards a wider moral and social life, felt cramped in the narrow sphere of the clan life, broke away from it, gathered a band of free followers round themselves, and founded states and cities. The pseudo-scientific criticism has arbitrarily converted into a myth the fugitive Dido who founded Carthage, and the outlaw brothers, founders of Rome. In quite historical times, however, we find a sufficient number of instances to inspire us with legitimate confidence in those legends of antiquity. Personal exploit breaking down the given social limits for the sake of creating new and higher forms of political and social life, is a fact so fundamental that it is bound to be met with at all periods of human development.
1 The same poet, however, ‘with reverence’ dedicates one of his more mature works to the historian of the Russian Empire.
2 The absurdity of the point of view generally assumed by the negative historical criticism escapes general ridicule simply owing to the ‘darkness of time,’ which conceals the objects upon which it is exercised. If its favourite methods and considerations were applied, e.g., to Mahomet or Peter the Great, there would be as little left of these historical heroes as of Dido or Romulus. Everyone who has read Whateley’s admirable pamphlet on Napoleon will agree that the solar significance of this mythological hero is proved in it, in accordance with the strict rules of the critical school, and is worked out with a consistency, clearness, and completeness not often to be found in the more or less famous works of the negative critics, although the latter wrote without the least irony but with the most serious intentions.
§VIII. A given narrow social group (say, a clan) has a claim upon the individual, for it is only in and through it that he can begin to realise his own inner dignity. But the rights of the community over the individual cannot be absolute, for a given group in its isolation is only one relative stage of the historical development, while human personality may pass through all the stages in its striving for infinite perfection, which is obviously not exhausted or finally satisfied by any limited social organisation. In other words, in virtue of his inner infinity the individual can be absolutely and entirely at one with the social environment not in its given limitations, but only in its infinite completeness, which becomes gradually manifest as the forms of social life, in their interaction with individual persons, become wider, higher, and more perfect. It is only in a community that personal achievement is fruitful, but in a community which develops. Unconditional surrender to any limited and immovable form of social life, so far from being the duty of the individual, is positively wrong, for it could only be to the detriment of his human dignity.
An enterprising member of the clan is, then, morally right in rebelling against the conservatism of the clan, and in helping to create
“I owe a longer allegiance to the dead than to the living, in that world I shall abide forever. But if thou wilt be guilty of dishonouring laws which the gods have stablished in honour”...
To Creon’s question, “And thou didst dare to transgress the law?” she answers not by referring to her personal feeling but to the absolute supremacy of the eternal moral order which cannot be cancelled by civil laws:
“For it was not Zeus that had published me that edict:
As for Creon, he certainly does not represent the principle of the state, the moral basis of which is the same as that of the family, though with the advantage of a fuller realisation. He is the representative of the state that has become perverted or has put itself into a false position—of the state that has forgotten its place. But since such perversion does not form part of the essence or the purpose of the state, it can only arise from the evil passions of its representatives—in this case, of Creon. It would then be right to say, in direct opposition to the popular view, that Antigone stands for the universal and Creon for the individual element. Both statements, however, would be incorrect and inexact. It is clear that the opposition between the individual and society, the particular and the general, does not as such ever correspond to reality. The true opposition and conflict is not sociological but purely moral; it is the conflict between good and evil, each of which finds expression both in the individual and in the social life. Cain killed Abel not because he represented the principle of individuality as against the family union—for in that case all developed ‘personalities’ would have to kill their brothers; he killed him because he stood for the principle of evil, which may manifest itself both individually and collectively privately or publicly. Creon in his turn forbade the citizens to fulfill certain religiously-moral duties, not because he was the head of the state, but because he was wicked and followed the same principle which was active in Cain previously to any state. Every law is of course a state enactment, but Creon’s position is determined not by the fact that he enacted a law, but that he enacted an impious law. This is not the fault of the state-power but of Creon’s own moral worthlessness; for it could hardly be maintained that the function of the state consists precisely in enacting impious and inhuman laws.
Creon then does not stand for the principle of the state but for the principle of evil which is rooted in the personal will, though it also finds expression and embodiment in the life of the community—in the present case in the form of a bad law of the state.
All human conflict is in the last resort reducible not to the relative sociological oppositions but to the absolute opposition of the good and the self-asserting evil. The inmost essence of the question is always one and the same; but it does not follow that the various historical situations in which it is revealed again and again are therefore devoid of interest and importance of their own even from the ethical point of view. The inner essence of good and evil can only be clearly known through their typical manifestations. Thus, the evil which expresses itself as the perversion of the idea of the state, or as putting the law of the state above the law of morality, is quite a specific form of evil. It is a higher grade of evil than, for instance, a simple murder or even fratricide; but precisely because it is more complex and subtle, it is more excusable from the subjective point of view and is less blame worthy than the cruder crimes. Therefore Creon, for instance, though socially he is more pernicious, is personally less guilty than Cain.
There is another important shade of meaning in this profound tragedy. Speaking generally, the state is a higher stage of historical development than the clan. This higher stage had just been attained in Greece. The memory of how it came to be established, of the struggle and the triumph, is still fresh in the minds of its representatives. This recent victory of the new over the old, of the higher over the lower, is not merely accidental. In view of the obvious advantages of the state union over the feuds of the clans, its triumph is recognised as something necessary, rightful, and progressive. Hence Creon’s self-confidence at the beginning of the play. The bad law proclaimed by him, putting as it does the loyalty to the new state above the original religious duties, is not merely an abuse of the power of the state, but an abuse of victory—not of the local victory of the Thebans over the Argives, but of the general victory of the state order—of the city state—over the clan. Creon cannot therefore be looked upon simply as a tyrant, or a representative of personal arbitrariness and
“If any makes a friend of more account than his fatherland, that man has no place in my regard.”
The ethico-psychological basis of the bad law lies of course in Creon’s bad will. This will, however, is not merely senseless and arbitrary but is connected with a general although a false idea according to which the power of the state and the laws of the state are higher than the moral law. Creon formulates this false idea with perfect clearness:
“Whomsoever the city may appoint, that man must be obeyed, in little things and great, in just things and unjust.”
This idea, outrageously false as it is, has been and still is the inspiration of men who have not even Creon’s excuse, namely, intoxication with the recent victory of the state order over the tribal anarchy. In those half-historical times no clear protest—such as Sophocles puts into the mouth of his Antigone—may have been raised by the better; consciousness against this idea, but, at the epoch of Sophocles himself, the best minds were well aware that historical progress in bringing about new forms of society cannot possibly supersede the essential foundations of all social life. They understood that although such progress is both important and necessary, it is relative and subordinate to a higher purpose, and that it loses all justification when it is turned against the unconditional moral good, the realisation of which is the sole object of the historical development.
1 It will be remembered that the Greek word τύραννος did not originally have a bad meaning, but designated every monarch. In the same trilogy of Sophocles, the first play is called Οἰδίπους Τύραννος {Oedipus Tyrannus}, which is rightly translated Oedipus Rex; and the word ought to be translated in the same way in the Antigone in reference to Creon.
And however highly we
Chapter II. The Chief Moments in the Historical Development of the Individually-Social Consciousness
§I. With the establishment of the national state the moral outlook of the individual is no doubt considerably widened and a greater field is opened for the exercise of his good feelings and of his active will in moral conduct. The conception of the deity becomes higher and more general, a certain religious development takes place. Altruism, or moral solidarity with other human beings, increases quantitatively or in extension and becomes qualitatively higher, losing its dominant character of natural instinct and being directed upon invisible and ideal objects—the state, the fatherland. These ideal objects are sensuously realised in the unity of language, customs, in the actual representatives of authority, etc., but, as is clear to everyone, they are not exhausted by these concrete facts. The nation does not disappear with the change of its customs, the state does not cease to exist when its particular rulers pass away. The spiritual nature and the ideal significance of objects such as the nation and the state are preserved in any case, and the individual’s moral relation to them, expressing itself as true patriotism or civic virtue, is in this sense, other conditions being equal, a higher stage of morality than the simple feeling of kinship or of the blood-tie. On the other hand, however, it is often pointed out that as the range of moral relations or the social environment becomes wider, the inner personal basis of morality loses its living force and reality. It is urged that the intensity of moral motives is in inverse ratio to their objective extension; that it is impossible to love one’s country as sincerely and immediately as one’s friends or
Leaving aside for the moment the question of humanity, it must be admitted that the argument concerning the inverse relation between the intensity and the extension of moral feelings has a foundation in fact. But to be correctly understood it requires the following three reservations:
(1) Independently of the relation of individual persons, taken separately, to the more or less wide social whole, there exists collective morality, which embraces these persons in their totality— as a crowd or as a people. There is such a thing as the criminal crowd, upon which the criminologists have now turned their attention; still more prominent is the senseless crowd, the human herd; but there is also the splendid, the heroic crowd. The crowd excited by brutal or bestial instincts lowers the spiritual level of individuals that are drawn into it. But the human mass animated by collectively-moral motives lifts up to its level individuals in whom these motives are, as such, devoid of genuine force. At the kinship-group stage, the striving of the best men for a wider collective morality conditioned the appearance of the state or the nation, but once this new social whole, real and powerful in spite of its ideal nature, has been created, it begins to exert direct influence not only upon the best, but also upon the average and even the bad men that form part of it.
(2) Apart from collective morality, the quantitative fact that most men taken separately are bad patriots and poor citizens, is qualitatively counterbalanced by the few high instances of true patriotism and civic virtue which could not have arisen in the primitive conditions of life, and only became possible when the state, the nation, the fatherland had come into being.
(3) Finally, whether the moral gain obtained by the widening of the social environment in the national state be great or small, it is in any case a gain. The good contained in the tribal morality is not annulled by this extension but is merely modified and made more pure as it assumes the form of family ties and virtues, which are supplemented and not replaced by patriotism. Thus, even from the individual point of view, our love
§II. The moral principle which demands from man subordination to the higher and solidarity with his neighbours, requires him to dominate physical nature as the basis upon which reason works. This domination has for its immediate object the body of the individual himself—hence the ascetic morality in the narrow sense of the term. But the material life of the single individual is only a portion of the general material life that surrounds him, and to separate this portion from the whole is neither logically legitimate nor practically possible. So long as the outer nature completely overwhelms man, who, helpless and lost in virginal forests among wild beasts, is compelled to think of nothing but the preservation and maintenance of his existence, the thought of the mastery of the spirit over the flesh can hardly even arise, let alone the attempt to carry it out. Man who starves from necessity is not given to fasting for ascetic purposes. Suffering all kinds of privations from his birth onwards, living under the constant menace of violent death, man in the savage state is an unconscious and involuntary ascetic, and his marvellous endurance has as little moral worth as the sufferings of small fish pursued by pikes or sharks.
The manifestation of the inner moral power of the spirit over the flesh presupposes that man is to a certain extent secure from the destructive powers of external nature. Now such security cannot be attained by a single individual—it requires social union. Although ascetic morality in some of its aspects seeks to sever the social ties, it is clear that such a striving could only have arisen on the basis of an already existing society. Both in India of the Brahmins and in Christian Egypt ascetic hermits were the
At the early beginnings of social life—at the kinship-group stage—ascetic morality is purely negative in character. In addition to the regulation of the sexual life by marriage, we find prohibitions of certain kinds of food (e.g. of the ‘totemic’ animals, connected with a given social group as its protecting spirits or as the incarnation of its ancestors), and also the restriction of meat foods to sacrificial feasts (thus, among the Semitic peoples especially, the flesh of domestic animals was originally for religious uses only.
But in the conditions of the tribal life asceticism could not from the very nature of the case go beyond such elementary restrictions. So long as personal dignity finds its realisation in a social organisation determined by kinship, or, at any rate, is conditioned by it, there can be no question of the ideal of complete continence or of the moral duty to struggle with such passions upon which the very existence of the tribe depends. The virtuous tribesman must be distinguished by vindictiveness and acquisitiveness, and has no right to dream of perfect purity. The ideal representative of tribal morality is the Biblical Jacob, who had two wives and several concubines, who begat twelve sons, and increased the family property without troubling about the means whereby he did it.
1 See Robertson Smith’s The Religion of the Semites.
The formation of the state had an enormous, though indirect,
Speaking generally, in order to rise above the compulsory form of social morality, savage humanity had to pass through it—in order to outgrow despotism it had to experience it. More particularly, three considerations are undoubtedly involved here.
1 The so-called ‘military settlements’ were villages in which every peasant was compelled to be a soldier and to live under military discipline. Minute regulations with regard to the home life, work, dress, etc., were enforced with ruthless severity and made the life of the settlers intolerable. The idea of establishing military settlements belonged to Alexander I. and was carried out by Araktcheev, his favourite, who founded the first settlement in 1810. Military settlements were finally abolished by Alexander II. in 1857.—Translator’s Note.
2 I would like especially to mention the interesting work by Leon Metchnikov, La Civilisation et les grands fleuves. See my article about it, “Iz istorii philosophii” (Concerning the philosophy of history), in the Voprosi Philosophii (1891), and also Professor Vinogradov’s article in the same magazine. One worthy critic imagined that in speaking of the military theocracy as the historical school of asceticism I was referring to the personal intentions of the Egyptian Pharaohs and Chaldean kings!!
(1) The harder the original struggle with primitive nature was, the more necessary it was for men to be united into wide but
(2) The compulsory character of this collective achievement prevents us from ascribing ideal worth to it, but does not altogether deprive it of moral significance. For compulsion was not merely material. It rested in the last resort upon the faith of the masses themselves in the divine character of the power which compelled them to work. However imperfect in its form and content that faith might be, to subordinate one’s life to it, to endure at its behest all kinds of privation and hardship, is in any case a moral course of action. Both its general historical result and its inner psychological effect upon each individual composing the mass of the people had the character of true, though imperfect, asceticism—that is, of victory of the spiritual principle over the carnal. If the innumerable Chinese genuinely believe that their Emperor is the son of the sky; if the Hindus were seriously convinced that the priests sprang from the head of Brahma and the kings and princes from his arms; if the Assyrian king really was in the eyes of his people the incarnation of the national deity Assur, and the Pharaoh truly was for the Egyptians the manifestation of the solar deity—then absolute submission to such rulers was for these peoples a religiously-moral duty, and compulsory work at their command an ascetic practice. This, however, did not apply to slaves in the strict sense—prisoners of war to whom their masters’ gods were strange gods. And even apart from this national limitation the whole structure of these primitive religiously-political unions was essentially imperfect because the
(3) The primitive forms of the religiously-political union were so imperfect that they made further progress inevitable, and at the same time they naturally produced the external conditions necessary for that progress. Within the limits of the tribal life each member of a given social group was both physically and morally compelled to prey, plunder, and kill, to fight wild beasts, breed cattle, and produce numerous offspring. Obviously there was no room there for the higher spiritual development of the human personality. It only became possible when, with the compulsory division of labour in the great religiously-political organisations of the past, there arose, in addition to the masses doomed to hard physical work, the leisurely, propertied class of free men. By the side of warriors there appeared professional priests, scribes, diviners, etc., among whom the higher consciousness was first awakened. This great historical moment is recorded in the Bible in the significant and majestic story of the best representative of the patriarchal order, Abraham, with the crowd of his armed dependants, bowing down before the priest of the Most High, Melchizedek, who was
While by the sword of the great conquerors the hard collective work of the masses was gradually made to extend over a wider and wider area, securing the external material success of human culture, the inner work of thought among the leisured and peaceful representatives of the nationally-theocratic states was leading human consciousness to a more perfect ideal of individual and social universalism.
1 I am referring here, of course, simply to the historical meaning of the fact, and not to its mystical significance.
§III. In the course of the world-history the first awakening of human self-consciousness took place in the land where its sleep had most abounded with fantastic and wild dreams—in India. To the overwhelming variety of Indian mythology corresponded a confusing variety of religious, political, and customary forms and conditions of life. Nowhere else had the theocratic order been so complex and burdensome, so full of national and class exclusiveness. Not from Egypt or China, not from the Chaldeans, Phoenicians, or the Greco-Roman world, but from India have we borrowed conceptions expressive of the extreme degree of separation between the classes of men
2 Although the word caste is Portuguese and not Indian, it had arisen (in the sense in question) precisely for the designation of the social relations of India.
A subtle
All is deception except three things that are worthy of belief: (1) the spiritually-awakened man; (2) the word of awakening; (3) the brotherhood of those who are awake. This is the true essence of Buddhism which still nurtures millions of souls in distant Asia.
1 It should be noted, by the way, that after the fashion set by Schopenhauer, who was prejudiced in favour of Buddhism, the number of Buddhists is usually exaggerated beyond all measure; one hears of 400, 600, 700 million followers of this religion. These figures would be probable were China and Japan wholly populated by Buddhists. In truth, however, the teaching of Buddha in its various modifications is the religion of the masses only in Ceylon, Indo-China, Nepal, Tibet, Mongolia, and among the Bouriats and Kalmucks; this amounts at most to 75 or 80 millions. In China and Japan Buddhism is simply one of the permitted religions which is more or less closely followed by the educated people, who do not, however, give up their national cult; in a similar manner in Russia, for instance, under Alexander I. many Orthodox people used to frequent the meetings of the Freemasons.
This is the first lasting stage of human universalism
Born in the country of caste, Buddhism did not in the least reject the division of society into castes, or seek to destroy it; its followers simply ceased to believe in the principle of that organisation, in the absolute hereditary inequality of the classes. Appearing in the midst of a nation with a distinct character of its own, it did not reject nationality, but simply transferred human consciousness into the domain of other, universal and super-national ideas. In consequence of this, this Indian religion, the outcome of Hindu philosophy, was able, when finally rejected in India, to take root among many various peoples of different race and different historic education.
The negative infinity of human personality had been apparent to individual philosophers before the time of Buddhism.
1 Many fantastic ideas used to prevail with regard to the antiquity of the Hindu philosophy, but they are beginning to disappear in the light of the more scientific . inquiry. Most of their philosophic wealth the Hindus acquired in later times, partly under the direct influence of Greeks after Alexander the Great, and partly later still with the help of the Arabs who brought Aristotle to the East no less than to the West. But, on the other hand, there is no doubt that even the Greeks—not to speak of Arabs—on their first acquaintance with India found there a peculiar local philosophy of the ‘naked wise men’ (Gymnosophisti) as a typical and traditional institution of ancient standing. From their outward appearance these Indian adamites cannot be identified with the followers of Buddhism; most probably they were adepts of ascetic mysticism—Yoga, which existed before the time of Buddha. Still more ancient was the pantheism of the Upanishads. There is ground to believe that the immediate forerunner of Sakya-muni was the author of the system of spiritualistic dualism (expounded in Sankya-Karika), although the person and even the name of this sage—Kapila—are somewhat doubtful.
The theoretical conceptions of the first Buddha and the
The moral essence of Buddhism as an individually-social system has, during the two and a half thousand years of its historical existence, evinced itself as the feeling of religious reverence for the blessed master, who was the first to awake to the true meaning of reality, and is the spiritual progenitor of all who subsequently became awake; as the demand for holiness or perfect absence of will (the inner asceticism in contradistinction to the external mortification of the flesh which had been and still is practised by the ‘Gymnosophists,’ and which did not satisfy Buddha Sakya-muni); and, finally, as the commandment of universal benevolence or kindly compassion to all beings. It is this latter, the simplest and most attractive aspect of Buddhism, that brings to light the defects of the whole doctrine.
§IV. What, from the Buddhistic point of view, is the difference between the man who is spiritually awake and the man who is not? The latter, influenced by the delusions of sense, takes apparent and transitory distinctions to be real and final, and therefore desires some things and fears others, is attracted and repelled, feels love and hate. The one who has awakened from these dream-emotions understands that their objects are illusory and is therefore at rest. Finding nothing upon which it would be worth his while to concentrate his will, he becomes free from all willing, preference, and fear, and therefore loses all cause for dissension, anger, enmity and hatred, and, free from these passions, he experiences for everything, without exception, the same feeling of benevolence or compassion. But why should he experience precisely this feeling? Having convinced himself that all is empty, that the objective conditions of existence are vain and illusory, the awakened sage ought to enter a state of perfect impassibility, equally free both from malice and from pity. For both these opposed feelings equally presuppose to begin with a conviction of the reality of living beings; secondly, their
Active self-sacrifice out of pity for all living beings, so characteristic of Buddhist morality, cannot be logically reconciled with the fundamental principle of Buddhism—the doctrine that all things are empty and indifferent. To feel equal pity for everyone, beginning with Brahma and Indra, and ending with a worm, is certainly not opposed to the principle of indifference; but as soon as the feeling of universal compassion becomes the work of mercy, the indifference must be given up. If instead of a dog with worms, Arya-Deva had met a man suffering from vice and ignorance, pity to this living creature would require from him not a piece of his flesh, but words of true doctrine—
The principle of active pity to all living beings, however true it is in itself, can, from the Buddhist point of view, have
1 See above.
§V. The significance of Buddhism in the world-history lies in the fact that in it the human individual was for the first time valued not as the member of a tribe, a caste, a state, but as the bearer of a higher consciousness, as a being capable of awakening from the deceptive dream of everyday existence, of becoming free from the chain of causality. This is true of man belonging to any caste or nationality, and in this sense the Buddhist religion signalises a new stage in the history of the world—the universal as opposed to the particular tribal or national stage. It is clear, however, that the universality of Buddhism is merely abstract or negative in character. It proclaims the principle of indifference, rejects the importance of the caste or the national distinctions, gathers into a new religious community men of all colours and classes—and then leaves everything as it was before. The problem of gathering together the disjecta membra of humanity and forming out of them a new and higher kingdom, is not even contemplated. Buddhism does not go beyond the universalism of a monastic order. When the transition is effected from the clan to the state, the former independent social wholes—the clans—enter as subordinate parts into the new and higher whole, the organised political union. Similarly, the third and highest stage of human development—the universal—demands that states and nations should enter as constituent parts into the all-embracing new organisation. Otherwise, however broad the theoretical principles might be, the positive significance in concrete life will entirely remain with the already existing national and political groups. ‘All men’ and,
The personality manifests here its infinite worth in so far as the absolute self negates all limitation, in so far as it asserts, “I am not bound by anything, I have experienced all things, and know that all is an empty dream and I am above it all.” Negation of existence through the knowledge of it—this is in what, from the Buddhist point of view, the absolute nature of the human spirit consists. It lifts man above all earthly creatures and even above all gods, for they are gods by nature only, while the awakened sage becomes god through his own act of consciousness and will: he is an auto-god, a god self-made. All creation is material for the exercise of will and of knowledge, by means of which the individual is to become divine. Single individuals who have entered upon the path that leads to this end form the normal society or brotherhood (the monastic order) which is included in the Buddhist confession of faith (I take my refuge...in the Sangha). But this society obviously has significance temporarily only, until its members attain perfection; in Nirvana communal life, like all other determinations, must disappear altogether. Insofar as the absolute character of the personality is understood in Buddhism in the negative sense only, as freedom from all things, the individual stands in no need of completion. All his relations to other persons simply form a ladder which is pushed away as soon as the height of absolute indifference is attained. The negative character of the Buddhist ideal renders morality itself, as well as all social life, a thing of purely transitory and conditional significance.
The religiously-moral feeling of reverence (pietas) has in Buddhism no true and abiding object. The sage who knows all things and has become free from everything finds no longer anything to worship. When Buddha Sakya-muni attained to the supreme understanding, not only Indra with the host of all the Vedanta deities, but the supreme god of the all-powerful priests, Brahma, came like a humble listener to hear the new doctrine,
The altruistic part of morality also disappears at the higher stages of the true way, for then all distinctions are seen to be illusory, including those which evoke in us a feeling of pity towards certain objects, events, and states. “Be merciful to all beings,”proclaims the elementary moral teaching of the Sutras. “There are no beings, and all feeling is the fruit of ignorance,” declares the higher metaphysics of Abhidhamma.
1 The Buddhist doctrine is divided into three sections of the Holy Law, called, therefore, ‘he three baskets’ (Tripitaka): Sutra contains the moral doctrine, Vinâya the monastic rules, and Abhidhamma the transcendental wisdom.
It is very remarkable
§VI.
Human reason, having discovered its own universal and absolute nature by rejecting everything finite and particular, could not rest content with this first step. From the consciousness that the material existence is illusory it was bound to pass to that which is not illusory, to that for the sake of which it rejected deceptive appearance. In Indian Buddhism the personality finds its absolute significance in the rejection of being that is unworthy of it. In Greek thought, which found its practical embodiment in Socrates, and was put into a theoretical form by his pupil, the absolute value of personality is justified by the affirmation of being that is worthy of it—of the world of ideas and ideal relations. Greek idealism no less than Buddhism realises that all transitory things are illusory, that the flux of material reality is only the phantom of being, is essentially non-being (τὸ μὴ ὄν). The practical pessimism of the Buddhist is entirely shared by the Greek consciousness.
“Whoso craves the ampler length of life, not content to desire a modest span, him will I judge with no uncertain voice: he cleaves to folly. For the long days lay up full many things nearer grief than joy; but as for thy delights, their place shall
Although there is here involved the conception of measure so characteristic of the Greek mind, reflection does not stop at this. Not only a disproportionately long life, but all life is nothing but pain.
“Not to be born is, past all prizing, best; but when a man hath seen the light, this is next best by far, that with all speed he should go thither, whence he hath come.
“For when he hath seen youth go by, with its light follies, what troublous affliction is strange to his lot, what suffering is not therein?—envy, frictions, strife, battles, and slaughters; and last of all, age claims him for her own—age, dispraised, infirm, unsociable, unfriended, with whom all woe of woe abides.
It was as clear to the Greek higher consciousness as to the Hindu that human will blindly striving for material satisfaction cannot find it under any material conditions, and that therefore the real good from this point of view is not the enjoyment of life but the absence of life.
“The Deliverer comes at the last to all alike—when the doom of Hades is suddenly revealed, without marriage song, or lyre, or dance—even Death at the last.”
1 The Oedipus Coloneus.
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid.
This pessimistic conception expressed by poetry was also confirmed by Greek philosophy in sentences which have become x the alphabetic truths of all idealistic and spiritualistic morality: sensuous life is the prison of the spirit, body is the coffin of the soul, true philosophy is the practice of death, etc. But although the Greek genius appropriated this fundamental conception of Buddhism, it did not stop there. The non-sensuous aspect of reality revealed to it its ideal content. In the place of Nirvana the Greeks put the Cosmos of eternal intelligible essences (Platonic Ideas) or the organism of universal reason (in the philosophy of the Stoics). Human personality now affirms its absolute significance not by merely denying what is false, but by intellectually participating in what is true. The personal bearer of this higher universal consciousness is not the monk who renounces the illusion of the real being, in accordance with the principle of indifference, but the philosopher who shares in the fulness of the ideal being in the inner unity of its many
And yet there is something accidental about this conflict. Socrates condemned Athenian customs all his life long but he was not persecuted for it until he was an old man of seventy; the persecution was obviously due to a change in political circumstances. The irrationality of the Athenian political order was a local peculiarity; the customs of Sparta were better. The great est of Socrates’ pupils, Plato, went later on to Sicily in order to found there, with the help of Dionysius of Syracuse, an ideal state in which philosophers would receive the reins of government instead of a cup of poison. He did not succeed, but on returning to Athens he was able to teach in his academy without hindrance, and lived undisturbed to a profound old age. The disciples of Socrates, as well as other preachers of idealism, never suffered systematic persecution; they were disliked but tolerated. The fact is that idealism by the nature of the case has its centre of gravity in the intelligible world. The opposition it establishes between the normal and the abnormal, the right and the wrong, though comparatively definite, remains essentially intellectual and theoretical. It touches upon the reality it condemns but does not penetrate to the heart of it. We know how superficial were the practical ideals of Plato, the greatest of the idealists. They come much nearer to the bad reality than to what truly is. The realm of Ideas is an all-embracing, absolutely-universal unity; there are no limitations, dissensions, or hostility in it. But Plato’s pseudo-ideal state, though involving some bold conceptions and a general beauty of form, is essentially connected with such limitations of which humanity soon freed itself not in idea only but in reality. His state of philosophers is nothing more than a narrow, local, nationally Greek community based upon slavery, constant warfare, and such relations between the sexes as remind one of stables for covering. It is clear that the political problem is not in any inner connection with Plato’s main interest and that he
The dying Socrates rejoiced at leaving this world of false appearance for the realm of what truly is. Such an attitude obviously excludes in the last resort all practical activity; there can in that case be neither any obligation nor any desire to devote oneself to the changing of this life, to the salvation of this world.
§VII.
And yet it is clear that the dominion of death in the world of the living is the same kind of disorder, the same distortion of degrees, as the mastery of blind passions in the rational soul or the
All the world—not merely the mental and political, but the physical world as well—suffers from the violated norm and stands in need of help. And it can be helped not by the will-lessness of the ascetic, renouncing all life and all social environment, not by the intellectual contemplation of the philosopher who lives by thought alone in the realm of Ideas, but by the living power of the entire human being possessing absolute significance not negatively or ideally only, but as a concrete reality. Such a being is the perfect man or the God-man, who does not forsake the world for Nirvana or the realm of Ideas, but comes into the world in order to save it and regenerate it and make it the Kingdom of God, so that the perfect individual could find his completion in the perfect society.
The Nirvana of the Buddhists is external to everything—it is negative universalism. The ideal cosmos of Plato represents only the intelligible or the thinkable aspect of everything—it is incomplete universalism. The Kingdom of God, revealed by Christianity, alone actually embraces everything, and is positive, complete, and perfect universalism. It is clear that at the first two stages of universalism the absolute element in man is not developed to the end, and therefore remains fruitless. Nirvana lies outside the boundaries of every horizon; the world of Ideas, like the starry heaven, envelops
1 “Its power is whole when it turns to the earth.” (Tabula smaragdina {Emerald Tablet}).
We have seen that Buddhism, unable to satisfy the unconditional principle of morality and bring about the fulness of life or the perfect society, is destructive, when consistently worked out, of the chief foundations of morality as such. The same thing must be said with regard to Platonism. Where is a consistent idealist to find an object for his piety? The popular gods he regards sceptically, or at best with wise restraint. The ideal essences, which are for him the absolute truth, cannot be an object of religious worship neither for his mortal ‘body,’ which knows nothing about them, nor for his immortal spirit, which knows them too intimately and, in immediate contemplation, attains complete equality with them. Religion and religious morality is a bond between the higher and the lower—a bond which idealism, with its dual character, breaks up, leaving on the one side the divine incorporeal and sterile spirit, and on the other, the material body utterly lacking in what is divine. But the bond thus severed by idealism extends farther still. It is the basis of pity as well as of reverence. What can be an object of pity for a consistent idealist? He knows only two orders of being—the false, material, and the true, ideal being. The false being, as Anaximander of Miletus had taught before Plato, ought in justice to suffer and to perish, and it deserves no pity. The true, from its essence, cannot suffer, and therefore cannot excite pity—and this was the reason why the dying Socrates did nothing but rejoice at leaving a world unworthy of pity for a realm where there is no object for it. Finally, idealism provides no real basis for the ascetic morality either. A consistent idealist is ashamed of the general fact of having a body, in the words of the greatest of Plato’s followers—Plotinus, but such shame has no significance from the moral point of view. It is impossible for man so long as he lives on earth to be incorporeal, and, according to the indisputable rule ad impossibilia nemo obligatur, the shame of one’s corporeality
If instead of taking Buddhism and Platonism to be what they really were, viz. necessary stages of human consciousness, we regard either the one or the other as the last word of universal truth, the question is, what precisely had they given to humanity, what did they gain for it? Taken in and for themselves they have neither given nor promised anything. There had been from all eternity the opposition between Nirvana and Sansara—empty bliss for the spiritually awake, and empty pain for the spiritually asleep; there had been the inexorable law of causal actions and caused states—the law of Karma, which through a series of innumerable rebirths leads a being from painful emptiness to empty bliss. As it was before Buddha, so it remained after him, and so it will remain for all eternity. From the point of view of Buddhism itself, not one of its followers capable of critical reflection can affirm that Buddha had changed anything in the world order, had created anything new, had actually saved anyone. Nor is there any room for promise in the future. The same thing must in the long-run be said of idealism. There is the eternal realm of intelligible essences which truly is and the phenomenal world of sensuous appearance. There is no bridge between the two; to be in the one means not to be in the other. Such duality has always been and will remain forever. Idealism gives no reconciliation in the present and no promise of it in the future.
1 Plato’s thought rose for a moment to the conception of Eros as the bridge between the world of true being and the material reality, but did not follow it out. In enigmatic expressions the philosopher indicated this bridge, but was incapable of crossing it him self or leading others across it.
Christianity has a different message. It both gives and promises to humanity something new. It gives the living image of a personality possessing not the merely negative perfection of indifference or the merely ideal perfection of intellectual contemplation, but perfection absolute and entire, fully realised, and therefore victorious over death. Christianity reveals to men the absolutely perfect and therefore physically immortal personality. It promises mankind a perfect society built upon the pattern of this personality. And since such a society cannot be created by an external force (for in that case it would be imperfect),
Chapter III. Abstract Subjectivism in Morality
§I. At the historical stage reached by human consciousness in Christianity, moral life reveals itself as a universal and all-embracing task. Before going on to discuss its concrete historical setting, we must consider the view which, on principle, rejects morality as a historical problem or as the work of collective man, and entirely reduces it to the subjective moral impulses of individuals. This view arbitrarily puts such narrow limits to the human good as in reality it has never known. Strictly speaking, morality never has been solely the affair of personal feeling or the rule of private conduct. At the patriarchal stage the moral demands of reverence, pity, and shame were inseparably connected with the duties of the individual to his kinsmen. The ‘moral’ was not distinguished from the ‘social,’ or the individual from the collective. And if the result was a morality of rather a low and limited order, this was not due to the fact of its being a collective morality, but to the generally low level and narrow limits of the tribal life, which expressed merely the rudimentary stage of the historical development. It was low and limited, however, only by comparison with the further progress of morality, and certainly not by comparison with the morality of savages living in caves and in trees. When the state came into being, and the domestic life became to a certain extent a thing apart, morality in general was still determined by the relation between individuals and the collective whole to which they belonged—henceforth a wider and a more complex one. It was impossible to be moral apart from a definite and positive relation to the state;
Christianity as the ‘Gospel of the Kingdom’ proclaims an ideal that is unconditionally high, demands an absolute morality. Is this morality to be subjective only, limited to the inner states and individual actions of the subject? The question contains its own answer; but to make the matter quite clear, let us first grant all that is true in the exclusively-subjective interpretation of Christianity. There is no doubt that a perfect or absolute moral state must be inwardly fully experienced or felt by the subject—must become his own state, the content of his life. If perfect morality were recognised as subjective in this sense, the difference would be purely verbal. But something else is really meant. The question is, how is this moral perfection to be attained by the individual? Is it enough that each should strive to make himself inwardly better and act accordingly, or is it attained with the help of a certain social process the effects of which are collective as well as individual? The adherents of the former theory, which reduces everything to individual moral activity, do not reject, of course, either the social life or the moral improvement of its forms. They believe, however, that such improvement is simply the inevitable consequence of the personal moral progress: like individual, like society. As soon as each person understands and reveals to others his own true nature, and awakens good feelings in his soul, the earth will become paradise.
§II. The insufficiency of the subjective good and the necessity for a collective embodiment of it is unmistakably proved by the whole course of human history. I will give one concrete illustration.
At the end of Homer’s Odyssey it is related, with obvious sympathy, how this typical hero of the Hellenes reestablished justice and order in his house, having overcome at last the enmity of gods and men and destroyed his rivals. With his son’s help he executed those of his servants who, during his twenty years’ absence, when everybody had given him up for dead, sided with Penelope’s suitors and did not oppose the latter making themselves at home in Odysseus’s house:
“Now when they had made an end of setting the hall in order, they led the maidens forth from the stablished hall, and drove them up in a narrow space between the vaulted room and the goodly fence of the court, whence none might avoid; and wise Telemachus began to speak to his fellows, saying: ‘God forbid that I should take these women’s lives by a clean death, these that have poured dishonour on my head and on my mother, and have lain with the wooers.’ With that word he tied the cable of a dark-prowed ship to a great pillar and flung it round the vaulted room, and fastened it aloft, that none might touch the ground with her feet. And even as when thrushes, long of wing, or doves fall into a net that is set in a thicket, as they seek to their roosting-place, and a loathly bed harbours them, even so the women held their heads all in a row, and about all their necks |251| nooses were cast, that they might die by the most pitiful death. And they writhed with their feet for a little space, but for no long while. Then they led out Melanthius through the doorway and the court and cut off his nostrils and his ears with the pitiless sword, and drew forth his vitals for the dogs to devour raw, and cut off his hands and feet in their cruel anger” (Odyssey, xxii. 457-477).
Odysseus and Telemachus were not monsters of inhumanity; on the contrary, they represented the highest ideal of the Homeric epoch. Their personal morality was irreproachable, they were full of piety, wisdom, justice, and all the family virtues. Odysseus had, into the bargain, an extremely sensitive heart, and in spite of his courage and firmness in misfortune, shed tears at every convenient opportunity. This very curious and characteristic feature attaches to him throughout the poem. As I have not in literature come across any special reference to this peculiar characteristic of the Homeric hero, I will allow myself to go into some detail.
At his first appearance in the Odyssey he is represented as weeping: “Odysseus…sat weeping on the shore even as aforetime, straining his soul with tears and groans and griefs, and as he wept he looked wistfully over the unharvested deep” (v. 82-84; also 151, 152, 156-158).
In his own words: “There I abode for seven years continually, and watered with my tears the imperishable raiment that Calypso gave me” (vii. 259-260).
He wept at the thought of his distant native land and family, and also at remembering his own exploits: “The Muse stirred the minstrel to sing the songs or famous men.…The quarrel between Odysseus and Achilles, son of Peleus.…This song it was that the famous minstrel sang; but Odysseus caught his great purple cloak with his stalwart hands, and drew it down over his head, and hid his comely face, for he was ashamed to shed tears beneath his brows in presence of the Phaeacians” (viii. 73-86).
Further: “This was the song that the famous minstrel sang. But the heart of Odysseus melted, and the tear wet his cheeks beneath the eyelids. And as a woman throws herself wailing about her dead lord, who hath fallen before his city and the host, warding from
He weeps on being told by Circe of the journey—though a perfectly safe one—he has to make to Hades: “Thus spake she, but as for me, my heart was broken, and I wept as I sat upon the bed, and my soul had no more care to live and to see the sunlight” (x. 496-499).
It is no wonder that Odysseus weeps when he sees his mother’s shadow (xi. 87), but he is affected just as much by the shadow of the worst and most worthless of his followers, of whom “an evil doom of some god was the bane and wine out of measure” (xi. 61).
“There was one, Elpenor, the youngest of us all, not very valiant in war, neither steadfast in mind. He was lying apart from the rest of my men on the housetop of Circe’s sacred dwelling, very fain of the cool air, as one heavy with wine. Now when he heard the noise of the voices and of the feet of my fellows as they moved to and fro, he leaped up of a sudden and minded him not to descend again by the way of the tall ladder, but fell right down from the roof, and his neck was broken from the bones of the spine, and his spirit went down to the house of Hades” (x. 552-561).
“At the sight of him I wept and had compassion on him” (xi-55). He weeps, too, at the sight of Agamemnon: “Thus we twain stood sorrowing, holding sad discourse, while the big tears fell fast” (xi. 465-466).
He weeps bitterly at finding himself at last in his native Ithaca (xiii. 219-221), and still more so on beholding his son: “In both their hearts arose the desire of lamentation. And they wailed aloud, more ceaselessly than birds, sea-eagles or vultures of crooked claws, whose younglings the country folk have taken from the nest, ere yet they are fledged. Even so pitifully fell the tears beneath their brows“ (xvi. 215-220).
Odysseus shed tears, too, at the sight of his old dog Argus: “Odysseus looked aside and wiped away a tear that he easily hid from Eumaeus” (xvii. 304-305).
He weeps before assassinating the suitors, he weeps as he em braces the godlike swine-herd Eumaeus, and the goodly cow-herd
The last two chapters of the Odyssey also have, of course, an abundant share of the hero’s tears: “…in his heart she stirred yet a greater longing to lament, and he wept as he embraced his beloved wife and true” (xxiii. 231-232). And further: “Now when the steadfast goodly Odysseus saw his father thus wasted with age and in great grief of heart, he stood still beneath a tall pear tree and let fall a tear” (xxiv. 233-235).
So far as the personal, subjective feeling is concerned Odysseus was obviously quite equal to the most developed and highly-strung man of our own day. Speaking generally, Homeric heroes were capable of all the moral sentiments and emotions of the heart that we are capable of—and that not only in relation to their neighbours in the narrow sense of the term, i.e. to men immediately connected with them by common interests, but also in relation to people remote and distant from them. The Phaeacians were strangers to the shipwrecked Odysseus, and yet what kindly human relations were established between him and them! And if, in spite of all this, the heroes of antiquity performed with a clear conscience deeds which are now morally impossible for us, this was certainly not due to their lack of personal, subjective morality. These men were certainly as capable as we are of good human feelings towards both neighbours and strangers. What then is the difference and what is the ground of the change? Why is it that virtuous, wise, and sentimental men of the Homeric age thought it permissible and praiseworthy to hang frivolous maid-servants like thrushes and to chop unworthy servants as food for the dogs, while at the present day such actions can only be done by maniacs or born criminals? Reasoning in an abstract fashion one might suppose that although the men of that distant epoch had good mental feelings and impulses, they had no conscious good principles and rules. Owing to the absence of a formal criterion between right and wrong, or a clear consciousness of the distinction between good and evil, morality was purely empirical in character, and even the best of men, capable of the
Men of antiquity, just like ourselves, both had their good and bad qualities as a natural fact, and drew the distinction of principle between good and evil, recognising that the first was to be preferred unconditionally to the second. In those same poems of Homer which often strike us by their ethical barbarisms, the idea of moral duty appears with perfect clearness. Certainly Penelope’s mode of thought and expression does not quite coincide with that of Kant; nevertheless the following words of the wife of Odysseus contain a definite affirmation of the moral good as an eternal, necessary, and universal principle:
“Man’s life is brief enough! And if any be a hard man and hard at heart, all men cry evil on him for the time to come, while yet he lives, and all men mock him when he is dead. But if any be a blameless man and blameless of heart, his guests spread abroad his fame over the whole earth, and many people call him noble” (xix. 328-334).
§III. The form of moral consciousness, the idea, namely, of the good as absolutely binding and of evil as absolutely unpermissible, was present in the mind of the ancients as it is in our own. It might be thought, however, that the important difference between us and them in the moral valuation of the same actions is due to the change in the actual content of the moral ideal. There can be no doubt that the Gospel has raised our ideal of virtue and holiness and made it much higher and wider than the Homeric ideal. But it is equally certain that this perfect ideal of morality, when it has no objective embodiment and is accepted purely in the abstract, produces no change whatever either in the life or in the actual moral consciousness of men, and does not in any way raise their practical standards for judging their own and other people’s actions.
It is sufficient to refer once more to the representatives of mediaeval Christianity, who treated the supposed enemies of their Church with greater cruelty than Odysseus treated the enemies of his family—and did so with a clear conscience, and even with
I. I. Dubasov’s Historical Sketches of the Tambov District contain an account of the exploits of K., a landowner in the district of Yelatma, who flourished in the ‘forties of the present century. The Commission of Inquiry established that many serfs (children especially) had been tortured by him to death, and that on his estate there was not a single peasant who had not been flogged, and not a single serf-girl who had not been outraged. But more significant than this ‘misuse of power’ was the relation of the public to it. When cross-examined, most of the gentry in the district spoke of K. as ‘a true gentleman.’ Some added, “K. is a true Christian and observes all the rites of the Church.” The Marshal of Nobility wrote to the Governor of the province: “All the district is alarmed by the troubles of Mr. K.” In the end the ‘true Christian’ was excused from legal responsibility, and the local gentry could set their hearts at rest.
1 Ocherki in istorii Tambovskago Kraia, by I. I. Dubasov, vol. i., Tambov, pp. 162-167.
2 Ibid. p. 92.
Some three thousand years elapsed between the heroes of Homer and the heroes of Mr. Dubasov, but no essential and stable change had taken place in the conduct and the moral consciousness of men with regard to the enslaved part of the population. The same inhuman relations that were approved of by the ancient Greeks in the Homeric age were regarded as permissible by the American and Russian slave-owners in the first half of the nineteenth century. These relations are revolting to us now,
There has been and there could have been nothing of the kind. No ideal can be conceived higher than that revealed eighteen hundred years ago. That ideal was known to the ‘true Christians’ of the American States and the Russian provinces. They could learn no new idea in this respect; but they experienced a new fact. The idea restricted to the subjective sphere of personal morality could not during thousands of years bear the fruit which it bore in the course of the few years when it was embodied as a social force, and became the common task. Under very different historical conditions the organised social whole invested with power decided, both in America and in Russia, to put an end to the too glaring violation of Christian justice—both human and divine—in the life of the community. In America it was attained at the price of blood, through a terrible civil war; in Russia—by the authoritative action of the Government. It is owing to this fact alone that the fundamental demands of justice and humanity, presupposed by the supreme ideal though not exhaustive of it, were transferred from the narrow and unstable limits of subjective feeling to the wide and firm ground of objective reality and transformed into a universally binding law. And we ,see that this external political act immediately raised the standard of our inner consciousness, that is, achieved a result which millenniums of moral preaching alone could not achieve. The social movement and the action of the Government were of course themselves conditioned by the previous moral preaching, but that preaching had effect upon the majority, upon the social environment as a whole, only when embodied in measures organised by the Government. Owing to external restraint, brutal instincts were no longer able to find expression; they had to pass into a state of inactivity, and were gradually atrophied from lack of exercise; in most people they disappeared altogether and were no longer passed on to the
Let it be granted that the heroes of Mr. Dubasov’s chronicle, whom the Tambov gentry defended simply from class interests, were really below the average of the society around them. But apart from them there was a multitude of perfectly decent men, free from all brutality, who conscientiously felt they had a right to make full use of the privileges of their class—for instance, to sell their serfs like cattle, retail or wholesale. And if such things are now impossible even for scoundrels,—however much they might wish for them,—this objective success of the good, this concrete improvement of life cannot possibly be ascribed to the progress of personal morality.
The moral nature of man is unchangeable in its inner subjective foundations. The relative number of good and bad men also, probably, remains unchanged. It would hardly be argued by anyone that there are now more righteous men than there were some hundreds or thousands of years ago. Finally, there can be no doubt that the highest moral ideas and ideals, taken in the abstract, do not as such produce any stable improvement in life and in moral consciousness. I have referred to an indisputable and certain fact of history: the same and even worse atrocities which were committed by a virtuous pagan of the Homeric poem with the approval of the community were done thousands of years after him by the champions of Christian faith— the Spanish inquisitors, and by Christian slave-owners, also with the approval of the community, and this in spite of the fact that a higher ideal of individual morality has meanwhile been evolved. In our day such actions are only possible for lunatics and professional criminals. And this sudden progress is solely due to the fact that the organised social force was inspired by moral demands and transformed them into an objective law of life.
The demand for such harmony deprives moral subjectivism, based on the wrongly conceived view of the autonomy of the will, of all justification. The moral will must be determined to action solely through itself; any subordination of it to an external rule or command violates its autonomy and must therefore be recognised as unworthy—this is the true principle of moral autonomy. But the organisation of social environment in accordance with the principle of the absolute good is not a limitation but a fulfillment of the personal moral will—it is the very thing which it desires. As a moral being I want the good to reign upon earth, I know that alone I cannot bring this to pass, and I find a collective organisation intended for this purpose of mine. It is clear that such an organisation does not in any sense limit me but, on the contrary, removes my individual limitations, widens and strengthens my moral will. Everyone, in so far as his will is moral, inwardly participates in this universal organisation of morality, and it is clear that relative external limitations, which may follow therefrom for the individual persons, are sanctioned by their own higher consciousness and consequently cannot be opposed to moral freedom. For the moral individual one thing only is important in this connection, namely, that the collective organisation should be really dominated by the unconditional principle of morality, that the social life should indeed conform to moral standards—to the demands of justice and mercy in all human affairs and relation—that the individually-social environment should really become the organised good. It is clear that in subordinating himself to a social environment which is itself subordinate to the principle of the absolute good and conformable to it, the individual cannot lose anything. Such a social environment is from the nature of the case incompatible with any arbitrary limitation of personal rights and still less with rude violence or persecution. The degree of subordination of the
As to the autonomy of the bad will, no organisation of the good can prevent conscious evil-doers from desiring evil for its own sake and from acting in that direction. The organisation of the good is concerned merely with external limitations of the evil reality—limitations that inevitably follow from the nature of man and the meaning of history. These objective limits to objective evil, necessarily presupposed by the organisation of the good but not by any means exhaustive of it, will be discussed later on in the chapters on punishment and on the relation between legal justice and morality.
Chapter IV. The Moral Norm of Social Life
§I. The true definition of society as an organised moralitydisposes of the two false theories that are fashionable in our day—the view of moral subjectivism which prevents the moral will from being concretely realised in the life of the community, and the theory of social realism, according to which given social institutions and interests are of supreme significance in and for themselves, so that the highest moral principles prove at best to be simply the means or the instrument for safeguarding those interests. From this point of view, at present extremely prevalent, this or that concrete formof social life is essential per se, although attempts are made to give it a moral justification by connecting it with moral norms and principles. But the very fact of seeking a moral basis for human society proves that neither any concrete form of social life nor social life as suchis the highest or the final expression of human nature. If man were defined as essentially a social animal (ζῶον πολιτικόν) and nothing more, the intension of the term ‘man’ would be very much narrowed and its extensionwould be considerably increased. Humanity would then include animals such as ants, of whom social life is as essential a characteristic as it is of man. Sir John Lubbock, the greatest authority on the subject, writes: “Their nests are no mere collections of independent individuals, nor even temporary associations like the flocks of migratory birds, but organised communities labouring with the utmost harmony for the common good.”
1 Ants, Bees, and Wasps, by Sir John Lubbock, 7th ed., p. 119.
These communities sometimes contain a population so numerous that, in the words of the same naturalist,
With regard to the first point, if division of labour be the characteristic feature of civilised life, it is impossible to deny civilisation to ants. Division of labour is in their case carried out very sharply. They have very brave soldiers armed with enormously developed pincer-like jaws by which they adroitly seize and snap off the heads of their enemies, but who are in capable of doing anything else. They have workmen remarkable for their skill and industry. They have gentlemen with opposite characteristics who go so far that they can neither feed themselves nor move about and only know how to use other ants’ services. Finally, they have slaves (not to be confused with workmen
1 Ants, Bees, and Wasps, by Sir John Lubbock, 7th ed., p, 119.
2 Working ants (like working bees) do not form a distinct species; they are descended from the common queen but are sexually under-developed.
3 Ibid. p. 73.
Some of these domestic insects carefully brought up by ants serve for food (in particular the plant-lice aphidae, which Linnaeus
At the present time many large and well-populated communities of ants live chiefly on the large stores of vegetable products they collect. Crowds of working ants skilfully and systematically cut blades of grass and stems of leaves—reap them, as it were. But this semblance of agriculture is neither their only nor their original means of subsistence. “We find,” writes Lubbock, “in the different species of ants different conditions of life, curiously answering to the earlier stages of human progress. For instance, some species, such as Formica fusca, live principally on the produce of the chase; for though they feed partly on the honey-dew of aphides, they have not domesticated those insects. These ants probably retain the habits once common to all ants. They resemble the lower races of men, who subsist mainly by hunting. Like them they frequent woods and wilds, live in comparatively small communities, and the instincts of collective action are but little developed among them. They hunt singly, and their battles are single combats, like those of the Homeric heroes. Such species as Lassius flavus represent a distinctly higher type of social life; they show more skill in architecture, may literally be said to have domesticated certain species of aphides, and may be compared to the pastoral stage of human progress, to the races which live on the produce of their flocks and herds. Their communities are more numerous; they act much more in concert; their battles are not mere single combats, but they know how to act in combination. I am disposed to hazard the conjecture that they will gradually exterminate the mere hunting species, just as savages disappear before more advanced races. Lastly, the agricultural nations may be compared with the harvesting ants. Thus there seem to be three principal types, offering a curious analogy to the three great phases—the hunting, pastoral, and agricultural stages in the history of human development.”
1 Ants, Bees, and Wasps, by Sir John Lubbock, 7th ed., p, 91.
In addition to the complexity of social structure and the
§II. Social life is at least as essential a characteristic of these insects as it is of man. If, however, we do not admit that they are equal to ourselves—if we do not agree to bestow upon each of the in numerable ants living in our forests the rights of man and of citizen, it means that man has another and a more essential characteristic, one that is independent of social instincts and, on the contrary, conditions the distinctive character of human society. This characteristic consists in the fact that each man, as such, is a moral being—i.e. a being who, apart from his social utility, has absolute worth and absolute right to live and freely develop his positive powers. It directly follows from this that no man under
The human dignity of each person or his nature as a moral being does not in any way depend upon his particular qualities or his social utility. Such qualities and utility may determine man’s external position in society and the relative value set upon him by other people; they do not determine his own worth and his human rights. Many animals are by nature far more virtuous than many human beings. The conjugal virtue of pigeons and storks, the maternal love of hens, the gentleness of deer, the faithfulness and devotion of dogs, the good nature of seals and dolphins, the industry and civic virtues of ants and bees, etc., are characteristic qualities adorning our younger brothers, while they are by no means pre dominant in the majority of human beings. Why is it then that it has never occurred to anyone to deprive the most worthless of
If the common good or the general happiness is to have the significance of a moral principle, they must be in the full sense general, i.e. they must refer not merely to many or to the majority of men but to all without exception. That which is truly the good of all is for that very reason the good of each—no one is excluded and, therefore, in serving such a social good as an end, the individual does not thereby become merely a means or an instrument of something extraneous and foreign to himself. True society which recognises the absolute right of each person is not the negative limit but the positive complement of the individual. In serving it with whole-hearted devotion, the individual does not lose but realises his absolute worth and significance. For when taken in isolation he is only potentially absolute and infinite, and becomes so actually only by being inwardly united to all.
The only moral norm is the principle of human dignity or of the absolute worth of each individual, in virtue of which society is determined as the inward and free harmony of all.
1 See above, Part III., Chapter I., ‘The Individual and Society.’
2 This position is logically established in moral philosophy in its elementary part, which, thanks to Kant, became as strictly scientific in its own sphere as pure mechanics is in another.
If now we take the family, it cannot be denied that the family too may or may not be moral, both in individual cases and in the whole given structure of society. Thus the family of ancient Greece had no moral character. I refer not to the exceptional heroic families in which wives murdered their husbands and were killed by their sons, or sons killed their fathers and married their mothers, but to the usual normal family of a cultured Athenian, which required as its necessary complement the institution of hetaeras and worse things than that. The Arabic family (before Islam), in which new-born girl babies, if there were more than one or two of them, were buried alive, had no moral character either, though it was stable in its way. {Women have no rights under Islam.} The very stable family of the Romans in which the head of the house had the right of life and death over his wife and children, also cannot be said to have been moral. Thus the family, like religion, has no intrinsically moral character, and, before it can become the norm for anything else, must itself be put upon a moral basis.
As to property, to recognise it as the moral foundation of normal society, i.e. as something sacred and inviolable, is neither logically nor, in my own case (and I think in that of my contemporaries), psychologically possible. The first awakening of conscious life and thought in our generation was accompanied by the thunder of the destruction of property in its two fundamental historical forms of serfdom and slavery. And this abolition of property, both in America and in Russia, was demanded and accomplished in the name of social morality. The alleged inviolability was brilliantly disproved by the fact of so successful a violation, approved by the conscience of all. It is obvious that property is a thing which stands in need of justification, and so far from containing a moral norm, demands such a norm for itself.
All historical institutions—whether religious or social—are of a mixed character. But there is no doubt that the moral norm can only be found in a pure principle, and not in a mixed fact. A principle which unconditionally affirms that which ought to be is something essentially inviolable. It may be rejected and disobeyed, but this is detrimental not to the principle but to the person who rejects and disobeys it. The law which proclaims ‘you ought to respect the human dignity of each person, you ought to make no one a means or an instrument,’ does not depend upon any fact, does not affirm any fact, and therefore cannot be affected by any fact.
The principle of the absolute worth of human personality does not depend upon anyone or anything; but the moral character of societies and institutions depends entirely upon it. We know in ancient and modern heathendom of highly civilised great national bodies in which the institutions, of family, of religion, of property were extremely stable, but which nevertheless were devoid of the moral character of a human society. At best they resembled communities of wise insects in which the mechanism of the good order is present, but that which the mechanism is to subserve—the good itself—is absent, for the bearer of it, the free personality, is not there.
§III. A vague and distorted consciousness of the essence of morality and of the true norm of human society exists even where the moral principle has apparently no application. Thus, in the
In the civic communities of the classical world the fulness of rights was the privilege not of one man but of a few (in the aristocracies) or of many (in the democracies). This extension was very important for it rendered possible, though within narrow limits only, independent moral interaction of individuals, and consequently personal self-consciousness, and realised, at any rate for the given social union, the idea of justice or equality of rights.
1 In the despotic monarchies of the East there could be no question of any equality of rights—there was only the negative equality of general rightlessness. But equal distribution of an injustice does not render it just. The idea of equality taken in the abstract is mathematical only, not ethical.
This structure of life has more than merely a historical interest for us: in truth, we have not outlived it yet. Consider, indeed, what it was that limited the moral principle and prevented
1 Hospitality to peaceful strangers is a fact of very ancient date, but can hardly be said to be primitive. In Greece its founder was supposed to be Zeus—the representative of the third generation of gods (after Chronos and Uranus). Before being a guest in the sense of simply a friendly visitor, the stranger was a ‘guest’ in the sense of ‘merchant,’ and earlier still he was only regarded in the sense of the Latin hostis (enemy). In times still more ancient, accounts of which have been handed down in classical tradition, a good guest was met with still greater joy than in the later, hospitable times, but only as a savoury dish at the family feast. Apart from such extremes, the prevalent attitude to strangers in primitive society was no doubt similar to that observed by Sir John Lubbock among ants. When a stranger ant belonging to a different community, though one of the same species, came to an ant heap, ants would drag it about for a while by its antennae till it was half-dead, and then either finish it off or drive it away.
All these facts—war, slavery, executions—were legitimate for the ancient world, in the sense that they logically followed from
This point of view, however, came to be changed. The development of ethical thought first among the Sophists and in Socrates, then among the Greco-Roman Stoics, the work of Roman lawyers and the very character of the Roman Empire, which embraced many peoples and nations, and therefore inevitably widened the theoretical and practical outlook,—all this has gradually effaced the old limits and established a consciousness of the moral principle in its formal universality and infinity. At the same time, in the East the religiously moral teaching of the Jewish prophets was evolving a living ideal of absolute human dignity. And while a Roman in the theatre of the eternal city proclaimed, by the mouth of the actor, the new word ‘homo sum’ as the expression of the highest personal dignity, instead of the old ‘civis Romanus’ another Roman in a remote Eastern province and at a scene more tragic completed the statement of this new principle by simply pointing to the actual personal incarnation of it: Ecce homo!
The inner change which took place in humanity as the result of the interaction of the events in Palestine and the Greco-Roman theories ought, it would seem, to have been the beginning of an entirely new order of things. Indeed, a complete regeneration of the physical world was expected; and yet the social and moral world of heathendom still stands essentially unchanged. This will not be an object for grief and wonder if the problem of the moral regeneration of humanity is considered in its full scope. It is clear from the nature of the case, and is foretold in the Gospels,
1 In the parables of the leaven, of wheat and tares, of the mustard seed, etc.
The process of such preparation is not yet completed, but is being carried on, and
§IV. When men of different nationality and social position wore spiritually united in worshipping a foreigner and a beggar—the Galilean who was executed as a criminal in the name of national and class interests—international wars, rightlessness of the masses, and executions of criminals were inwardly undermined. Granted that the inner change took eighteen centuries to manifest itself even to a small extent; granted that its manifestation is becoming noticeable just at the time when its first mover—the Christian faith—is weakened, and seems to disappear from the surface of consciousness—still, man’s inner attitude towards the old heathen foundations of society is changing, and the change shows itself more and more in his life. Whatever the thoughts of individual men may be, advanced humanity as a collective whole has reached a degree of moral maturity, a state of feeling and consciousness, which is beginning to make impossible for it things which to the ancient world were natural. And even individual men, if they have not renounced reason altogether, hold, in the form of rational conviction if not in the form of religious faith, the moral principle which does not permit the legalisation of collective crimes. The very fact of the remotest parts of humanity coming into contact, of getting to know one another and becoming mutually connected, does much to abolish the barriers and estrangement between men, natural from the narrow point of view of the ancients, for whom the Straits of Gibraltar were the extreme limit of the universe, and the banks of the Dnieper or the Don were populated by men with dogs’ heads.
International wars are not yet abolished, but the point of view with regard to them has changed in a striking degree, especially of late. The fear of war has become the predominant motive of international policy, and no Government would venture to confess
This principle is essentially universal, the same for all. Now, religion as such need not be universal, and all religions of antiquity were strictly national. Christianity, however, being the embodiment of the absolute moral ideal, is as universal as the moral principle itself, and at the beginning it had this character. But historical institutions, which in the course of history came to be connected with it, ceased to be universal and therefore lost their pure and all-embracing moral character. And so long as we affirm our religion, first, in its denominational peculiarity, and then only as universal Christianity, we deprive it both of a sound logical basis and of moral significance, and make it an obstacle in the way of the spiritual regeneration of humanity. Further, universality expresses itself not only by the absence of external, national, denominational and other limitations, but still more by freedom from inner limitations. To be truly universal, religion must not separate itself from intellectual enlightenment, from science, from social and political progress. A religion which fears all these things has obviously no faith in its own power and is inwardly permeated with unbelief. While claiming to be the sole moral norm of society, it fails to fulfill the most elementary moral condition of being genuine.
Property as such has no moral significance. No one is morally bound either to be rich or to enrich other people. General equality of property is as impossible and unnecessary as sameness in the colouring or in the quantity of hair. There is one condition, however, which renders the question as to the distribution of property a moral question. It is inconsistent with human dignity and with the moral norm of society that a person should be unable to support his existence, or, that in
All human society, and especially society that professes to be Christian, must, if it is to go on existing and to attain to a higher dignity, conform to the moral standard. What matters is not the external preservation of certain institutions, which may be good or bad, but a sincere and consistent striving inwardly to improve all institutions and social relations which may be good, by subordinating them more and more to the one unconditional moral ideal of the free union of all in the perfect good.
Christianity put forward this ideal as a practical task for all peoples and nations, answered for its being realisable—given a good will on our part—and promised help from above in the execution of it—help, of which there is sufficient evidence both in personal and in historical experience. But just because the task Christianity sets before us is a moral and therefore a free one, the supreme Good cannot help man by thwarting the evil will or externally removing the obstacles which that will puts in the way of the realisation of the kingdom of God. Humanity as represented by individuals and nations must itself outlive and overcome these obstacles, which are to be found both in the individual evil will and in the complex effects of the collective evil will. This is the reason why progress in the Christian world is so slow, and why Christianity appears to be lifeless and inactive.
Chapter V. The National Question From the Moral Point of View
The collective evil as a threefold immoral relation: between different nations, between society and the criminal, between different classes of society.
The work of embodying perfect morality in the collective whole of mankind is hindered, in addition to individual passions and vices, by the inveterate forms of collective evil which act like a contagion. In spite of the slow but sure progress in the life of humanity, that evil shows itself now, as it did of old, in a threefold hostility, a threefold immoral relation—between different nations, between society and the criminal, between the different classes of society. Listen to the way in which the French speak of the Germans, the Portuguese of the Dutch, the Chinese of the English, and Americans of the Chinese. Consider the thoughts and feelings of the audience at a criminal trial, the behaviour of a crowd using lynch law in America, or settling accounts with a witch or a horse-stealer in Russia. Hear or read the remarks exchanged between socialist workmen and representatives of the propertied classes at meetings, and in the newspapers. It will then become evident that apart from the anomalies of the personal will we must also take into account the power of the super-personal or collective hostility in its three aspects. The national, the penal and the socially economic questions have, independently of all considerations of internal and external policy, a special interest for the moral consciousness. To deal with them from this point of view is all the more essential, because a new and worse evil has been added of late to the calamity of the hereditary disease—namely, the rash attempt to cure it by preaching new forms of social violence on the one hand, and a passive disintegration of humanity into its individual units on the other.
It is at once apparent that neither view expresses the right attitude towards the fact of national difference. The first ascribes to this fact an absolute significance which it cannot possess, and the second deprives it of all significance. It will be easily seen also that each view finds its justification solely in the negative aspect of the opposite view.
No rational believer in cosmopolitanism would, of course, find fault with the adherents of nationalism for loving their own country. He would only blame them for thinking that it is permissible, and in some cases even obligatory, to hate and despise men of a different race and nationality. In the same way the most ardent nationalist will not, unless he is altogether devoid of reason, attack the champions of cosmopolitanism for demanding justice for other nations, but will accuse them of being indifferent to their own. So that in each of these views even its direct opponents cannot help distinguishing the good side from the bad, and the question naturally arises whether these two sides are necessarily connected. Does love for one’s own people necessarily imply the view that all means of serving it are permissible, and justify an indifferent and hostile relation to other nations? Does the same moral relation to all human beings necessarily mean indifference to nationality in general, and to one’s own in particular?
The first question is easily solved by analysing the content of
When we really love some one, we wish and strive to obtain for them both moral and material good,—the latter, however, only on condition of the former. To everyone whom I love I wish, among other things, material prosperity, provided, of course, that it is attained by honourable means and made good use of. But if, when my friend is in need, I were to assist him in making his fortune by fraud, even supposing that he would be certain to escape punishment—or, if he were a writer, and I advised him to increase his literary fame by a successful plagiarism, I should be rightly considered by everyone to be either a madman or a scoundrel, and certainly not a good friend.
It is clear then that the goods which love leads us to desire for our neighbours differ both in their external character and in their inner meaning for the will. Spiritual goods exclude, by the very conception of them, the possibility of being attained by bad means j one cannot steal moral dignity, or plunder justice, or appropriate benevolence. These goods are unconditionally desirable. Material goods, which, from the nature of the case, admit of bad means, are on the contrary desirable on condition that such means are not used, i.e. on condition that material ends are subordinate to the moral end.
Up to a certain point everyone will agree with this elementary truth. Everyone would grant that it is wrong to enrich oneself at the cost of a crime, or to enrich a friend, one’s own or his family, or even one’s town or province at the cost of a crime. But this elementary moral truth which is as clear as day suddenly becomes dim and altogether obscure as soon as we get to one’s country. Everything becomes permissible in the service of its supposed interests, the purpose justifies the means, the black becomes white, falsehood is preferred to truth, violence is extolled as a virtue. Nationality here becomes the final end, the highest
§II. The division of humanity into definite and stable groups possessing a national character is a fact which is neither universal nor first in the order of time. Not to speak of savages and barbarians, who are still living in separate families, clans or nomadic bands, division into nations did not exclusively pre dominate even in the civilised part of humanity when the tribe was finally superseded by the ‘city’ or ‘country.’ The country and the nation, though more or less closely associated, do not altogether coincide. In the ancient world we find hardly any clear division into nations at all. We find either independent civic communities, i.e. groups smaller than the nation and united politically only and not by the bond of nationality—such as the cities of Phoenicia, Greece and Italy—or, on the contrary, groups larger than the nation—the so-called ‘world empires’ which included many peoples, from the Assyro-Babylonic down to the Roman. In these crude precursors of the universal unity of mankind national considerations had merely a material significance and were not the determining factor. The idea of nationality as the supreme principle of life found neither the time nor
But, Rome, ‘tis thine alone, with awful sway,
To rule mankind and make the world obey,
Disposing peace and war thy own majestic way,
To tame the proud, the fetter’d slave to free.
Roman citizenship soon became accessible to all, and the formula ‘Rome for the Romans’ appealed to no one on the banks of the Tiber: Rome was for the world.
While Alexanders and Caesars were politically abolishing in East and West the vague limits of nationality, cosmopolitanism as a philosophical doctrine was developed and disseminated by the representatives of the two most popular schools of thought—the wandering Cynics and the dispassionate Stoics. They preached the supremacy of nature and reason, the unity underlying all existence and the insignificance of all artificial and historical limitations and divisions. They taught that man by his very nature and therefore every man had a supreme destination and dignity, consisting in freedom from external affections, errors and passions, in the steadfast courage of the man who “if the whole world were dashed to fragments, would remain serene among the ruins.”
1 Si fractus illabatur orbis | Impavidum ferient ruinae.
2 For confirmation of these statements see last chapter of Part I. of Natsionalny Vopros (The national question}, by the present author.
1 Although the Stoic philosophy originated in Greece, independently of Rome, it developed only in the Roman era, was particularly prevalent among the Romans, and manifested its practical influence chiefly through Roman lawyers.
§III. At the beginning of the Christian era the Jewish people were the only one within the civilised world of antiquity who had a strong national consciousness. But in their case it was intimately associated with their religion, with the true feeling of its inner superiority and a presentiment of world-wide historical destiny. The national consciousness of the Jews had no real satisfaction; it lived by hopes and expectations. The short-lived greatness of David and Solomon was idealised and transformed into a golden age. But the vital historical instinct of the people who were the first to evolve a philosophy of history (in the book of Daniel on the world empires and on the kingdom of truth of the Son of man) did not allow them to stop at the glorified image of the past and made them transfer their ideal into the future. This ideal, however, had from the first certain features of universal significance, and when, by the inspiration of the prophets, it was transferred to the future it became finally free from all narrow nationalistic limitations. Isaiah proclaimed the Christ as the banner that is to gather all nations round Himself, and the author of the book of Daniel entirely adopted the point of view of universal history.
This universalistic conception of the Messiah, expressing the true national self-consciousness of the Jews as the finest ideal flower of the spirit of the people, was held only by the elect few. When the banner for all the peoples was, as foretold by the prophets, raised in Jerusalem and Galilee, the majority of the Jews with their official leaders (the Sadducees), and partly with their unofficial teachers (the Pharisees), proved to be on the side of the
It would, however, be an obvious mistake to associate Christianity with the principle of cosmopolitanism. There was no occasion for the Apostles to preach against nationality. The dangerous and immoral aspect of national divisions, namely, mutual hatred and malignant struggle, no longer existed within the limits of the ‘universe’
1 Two souls live in my breast, | They struggle, and long to be parted.–Goethe
2 That the best among the Pharisees took no part in the persecution of Jesus Christ, and were favourable to primitive Christianity, isshown in Professor Hvolson’s excellent article in the Memuari Akademii Nauk (Proceedings of the Academy of Sciences), 1893.
3 Οἰκομένη (i.e. γῆ), the Greek name for the Roman Empire.
4 In speaking of the opposition between Judaism and paganism, I am referring, of course, not to the teaching of Moses and the prophets and sages—they all recognised in principle that the pagans had human rights—but to the spirit of the crowd and its leaders.
This is the reason why St. Paul had to proclaim that in Jesus Christ there is neither Jew
1 St. Paul’s expression.
Actual adoption of the true religion containing the unconditional principle of morality must sweep away a great deal from the national as well as from the individual life. But that which is in compatible with the unconditional principle and has therefore to be destroyed does not constitute a positive characteristic or peculiarity. There is such a thing as collective evil will, as historical sin burdening the national conscience, as a wrong direction of the life and activity of a nation. From all these wrongs a nation must set itself free, but such freedom can only strengthen it, and increase and widen the expression of its positive character.
1 This is brought out by the fact that the only rational way of accounting for the genesis of a stable national character, such as the Jewish—which is not affected by the external influences of climate, history, etc., is to suppose that it is the inherited, personal character of the national ancestor. The inner truth of the Biblical characteristic of Jacob—the ancestor of the Jews—and also of Ishmail, the ancestor of the Northern Arabs, will be recognised by any impartial reader, whatever his attitude to the historical side of the narrative may be. Even granting that the man named Jacob, who did all that in the book of Genesis he is said to have done, never existed at all, anyway the Jews, or at any rate the chief tribe of Judah, must have had a common progenitor; and starting with the national character of the Jews we must conclude that that progenitor had precisely the typical peculiarities which the Bible ascribes to Jacob. See S. M. Solovyov’s Nabludeniya nad istoricheskoiu zhizmnyu narodov (Observations on the historical life of nations), and also my Filosofia Bibleiskoi Istorii (The Philosophy of the Biblical History) in the Istoria Teokratii (History of Theocracy).
The first preachers of the Gospel had no reason to occupy themselves with the national question which the life of humanity had not yet brought to the fore, since there were hardly any distinct, independent nations conscious of themselves as such on the historical arena of the time. Nevertheless we find in the New
“I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost, that I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh: who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises; whose are the fathers, and of whom, as concerning the flesh, Christ came. …Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved.” 5
1 St. John iv. 22.
2 St. Matthew x. 6.
3 St. Matthew xxviii. 19.
4 The words in the Acts of the Apostles (i. 8), “Ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth,” show still more clearly that the Saviour of the world recognised a definite, local and national starting-point for His world-wide work.
5 Romans ix. 1-5, x. i.
§IV. Before they could realise the ideal of universal humanity, nations had first to be formed as distinct independent bodies. Let us consider this process with special reference to Western Europe, where it is finally completed. The Apostles’ successors, to whom the command to teach all nations was handed down, soon came to deal with nations in their infancy, standing in need of elementary upbringing before they could be taught. The Church nurtured them conscientiously and with self-sacrificing devotion,
For reasons sufficiently obvious Italy was the first of European countries to attain to national self-consciousness. The Lombard League in the middle of the twelfth century clearly indicates national awakening. The external struggle, however, was only an impetus that called to life the true forces of the Italian genius. At the beginning of the next century the newly-born Italian language was used by St. Francis to express ideas and feelings of universal significance that could be understood by Buddhists and Christians alike. At the same period began Italian painting (Cimabue), and at the beginning of the fourteenth century appeared Dante’s comprehensive poem, which would alone have been sufficient to make Italy great. From the fourteenth to the seventeenth centuries Italy, torn asunder by the hostilities between the cities and the podestas, the Pope and the Emperor, the French and the Spanish, produced all for which humanity loves and values her, all, of which Italians may justly pride themselves. All these immortal works of the philosophical and scientific, poetical and artistic genius had the same value for other nations, for the world as a whole as for the Italians themselves. Men to whom Italy’s true greatness was due were no doubt real patriots. They set the greatest value upon their country, but it was not in their case an empty claim leading to false and immoral demands—they em bodied the lofty significance of Italy in works of absolute value. They did not consider it true and beautiful to affirm themselves and their nationality, but they directly affirmed themselves in
The Spanish nation developed under very peculiar conditions. For seven centuries Spain was the vanguard on the right flank of the Christian world in its struggle with Mohammedanism. And just when the left flank—Byzantium—was overthrown by the enemy, on the right flank Spaniards won a final and decisive victory. This long and successful struggle was justly regarded as
1 At one time the Moorish culture in Spain was not inferior, and in some respects it was superior to the Christian culture of the period. But history clearly proves how short-lived all Mohammedan culture is. The end with which it met in the Middle Ages in Damascus, Bagdad and Cairo would no doubt have been repeated once more in the West. There too it would have been replaced by stable barbarism, such as the Turkish. And if the Bashi-Bazouks were to overrun London, and Saxony were to be constantly raided by the Kurds, what would become of the British Museum and the Leipzig Press? This is an argument ad homines. But speaking quite seriously and wholly admitting the comparative merits of Mohammedanism and the historical tasks it still has to accomplish in Asia and Africa, it must be remembered that this religion professedly renounces the absolute moral ideal, i.e. the principle of the perfect manifestation of God in man, and has no right therefore to dominate Christian peoples. To repulse the Mohammedan invasion of Europe was therefore both a historical necessity and a historical merit for the Christian nations which took a leading part in the struggle.
2 Chiefly, but not exclusively, for Spain too had some truly spiritual champions of Christianity. Such, e.g., was Raymond Lullius, who devoted his life to spreading the true religion by means of rational persuasion. He worked out a special method, which he thought could render the dogmas of the faith as self-evident as the truths of pure mathematics and formal logic. Later on he became a missionary, and was assassinated in the Bastarian Colonies for peaceful preaching of the Gospel.
it created both
The struggle of Spanish knights with the bellicose Mohammedan invaders was a gain to Christianity and the source of the greatness of Spain. The work of the ‘spiritual sword’ against the conquered Moors and defenceless Jews was treason to the spirit of Christ, a disgrace to Spain and the first cause of its downfall. The bitter fruits of the fatal historical sin did not ripen at once.
1 It is a curious coincidence that in both the East and the West the first persecution for religious beliefs—namely, the persecution of the Manichean heresy in the fourth century—was due to a Spaniard—Theodosius the Great. It is curious too that the heresy of the Albigenses, against which the Dominican inquisition was originally intended, was a direct development of Manicheism, on account of which the Emperor Theodosius had appointed his ‘inquisitors’ ten centuries before. Shortly before that time the deplorable part which the Spanish nation was to play with regard to religious persecutions was foreshadowed by the fact that the first execution for religious belief (viz. that of the Priscillian heretics) was due to the instigation of two Spanish bishops. This unheard-of action called forth protests both in Italy (St. Ambrose of Milan) and in France (St. Martin of Tours).
In following its old path of external service to the Christian faith Spain did one good thing more for the common cause—namely, she spread Christianity beyond the
1 For an impartial statement of the facts see A. Réville’s book on the religion of Mexico and Peru.
It was a false and untenable universalism, but its champions sincerely believed in it and served it disinterestedly
The highest development of the English national spirit may, for the sake of brevity, be designated by five names: Bacon, Shakespeare, Milton, Newton, and Penn. These five names have nothing to do with the demands and pretensions of exclusive nationalism. They stand for what is of importance and value to all mankind, and express the common debt of humanity to England. The men who created the national greatness of England never thought of nationalism as such. One was concerned with the true knowledge of nature and of man, and was occupied with the problem of a new and better scientific method; another sought artistically to represent the human soul, human passions, characters
A broadly conceived world of scientific experience, open on all sides to the intellect; profound artistic humanism; high ideas of religious and political freedom and a grand conception of the physical unity of the universe—this is what the English nation produced through her heroes and men of genius. ‘England for the English’ was not enough for them; they thought that the whole world was for the English, and they had a right to think so, because they themselves were for the whole world. The wide diffusion of the English race was in close correlation with the good qualities of the national character. British merchants, of course, always observed their own interests; but it is not any merchants who could succeed in colonising North America and forming a new great nation of it. For the United States were built up, not by the Redskins or Negroes, but by English people and English political and religious ideas—ideas of universal significance. Nor is it any merchants who could take firm possession of India and build a civilised Australia on a perfectly virginal soil.
1 Hindus taught in English schools begin to complain—in the English and their own newspapers, after the English style—that the English yoke is burdensome and to say that their nation must be united and obtain freedom for itself. Why is it that this had never occurred to them before? The fact is that they obtained ideas, such as that of nationality, national spirit, national dignity, patriotism, solidarity, development, exclusively from the English. Left to themselves they had not been able to arrive at them during the two and a half thousand years of their history, in spite of their ancient wisdom.
The culminating point in the national history of France is the epoch of the great Revolution and of the Napoleonic wars, when
Having first shown the greatness of her national spirit in the Reformation, Germany has in modern times (from the middle of the eighteenth to the middle of the nineteenth century) occupied the foremost place in the domain of higher culture, intellectual and aesthetic—the place which Italy had held at the end of mediaeval and at the beginning of modern history. The universal character and significance of the Reformation, of the poetry of Goethe, of the philosophy of Kant or Hegel, stands in no need of proof or demonstration. I will only observe that for Germany, as for Italy, the period of the highest development of the spiritual forces of the nation coincided with the period of political weakness and disruption.
The broad idealism of the Polish spirit, receptive of foreign influences to the point of enthusiasm and devotion, is only too obvious. The universalism of the Poles caused the narrow nationalists to reproach them of ‘treason to the cause of the Slavs.’ But those who are familiar with the shining lights of Polish thought—Mickiewicz, Krasinski, Tovianski, Slowacki—know how greatly the power of the national genius showed
Without enumerating all the other nations, I will only mention Holland and Sweden. The national glory and prosperity of the first were due to her struggle for the faith against Spanish despotism. As a consequence of it, the little country did not shut itself up in its dearly bought independence, but became the abode of free thought for all Europe. Sweden manifested her national greatness when, under Gustavus Adolphus, she devoted herself to the service of the common cause of religious freedom against the policy of compulsory uniformity.
1 The well-known remark of Dostoevsky, who at his best was himself equally all-embracing.
The history of all nations which have had a direct influence upon the destinies of humanity in ancient and modern times teaches one and the same thing. At the period when their powers were unfolded to the utmost, they took the greatness and the value of their nationality to lie not in itself taken in the abstract, but in something universal, super-national that they believed in, that they served and that they realised in their creative work—a work national in its origin and means of expression, but wholly universal in its content and in its objective result. Nations live and act not for their own sakes, nor for the sake of their material interests, but of their idea, i.e. for the sake of what is most important to them and can be of service to the world as a whole—they live not for themselves only, but for all. That which a nation believes in and does in faith it is bound to regard as unconditionally good—not as its own good, but as good in itself and therefoie as
The creative work of a nation, i.e. that which a nation concretely realises in the world, is universal; the object of true national self-consciousness is universal also. A nation is not aware of itself in the abstract, as of an empty subject separate from the content and the meaning of its life. It is conscious of itself in relation to that which it does and wants to do, in relation to what it believes in and what it serves.
It is clear from history that a nation does not regard itself, taken in the abstract, as the purpose of its life. In other words, it does not set an absolute value upon its material interest apart from its supreme ideal condition. But if this be so, the individual too has no right in his love for his nation to separate it from the meaning of its existence and to put the service of its material advantages above the demands of morality. A nation in and through its true creative work and self-consciousness affirms itself in the universal—in that which is of value for everyone and in which all are united. How then can a true patriot, for the sake of a supposed ‘advantage’ to his nation, destroy its solidarity with other nations, and despise or hate foreigners? A nation finds its true good in the common good; how then can a patriot take the good of his nation to be something distinct from and opposed to everything else? It will clearly not be the ideal moral good which the nation itself desires, and the supposed patriot will prove to be opposed not to other nations but to his own in its best aspirations. National hostility and opposition no doubt exist, just as cannibalism once existed everywhere; they exist as a zoological fact, condemned by the best consciousness of the peoples themselves. Made into an abstract principle this zoological fact hangs over the life of nations, obscuring its significance and destroying its inspiration—for the significance and the inspiration of the
As against false patriotism or nationalism, which supports the predominance of the animal instincts of a people over its higher national self-consciousness, cosmopolitanism is right in demanding that the moral law shall be unconditionally applied to all, apart from all difference of nationality. But it is the moral principle itself which, when consistently worked out, prevents us from being satisfied with the negative demand of cosmopolitanism.
Let it be granted that the immediate object of the moral relation is the individual person. But one of the essential peculiarities of that person—direct continuation and expansion of his individual character—is his nationality (in the positive sense of character, type, and creative power). This is not merely a physical, but also a psychical and moral fact. At the stage of development now reached by humanity the fact of belonging to a given nationality is to a certain extent confirmed by the individual’s self-conscious will. Thus nationality is an inner, inseparable property of the person—is something very dear and close to him. It is impossible to stand in a moral relation to this person without recognising the existence of what is so important to him. The moral principle does not allow us to transform a concrete person, a living man with his inseparable and essential national characteristics into an empty abstract subject with all his determining peculiarities left out. If we are to recognise the inner dignity of this particular man this obligation extends to all positive characteristics with which he connects his dignity; if we love a man we must love his nation which he loves and from which he does not separate himself. The highest moral ideal demands that we should love all men as we love ourselves. But since men do not exist outside of nations (just as nations do not exist apart from individual men), and since this connection has already become moral and inward as well as physical, the direct logical deduction is that we must love all nations as we love our own. This commandment affirms patriotism as a natural and fundamental feeling, as a direct duty of the individual to the collective whole immediately above him, and at the same time it frees that feeling from the zoological properties of national egoism or nationalism, and makes it the basis of and the standard for a positive relation
The demand to love other nations as our own does not at all imply a psychological identity of feeling, but only an ethical identity of conduct. I must desire the true good of all other nations as much as that of my own. This ‘love of benevolence’ is identical if only because the true good is one and indivisible. Such ethical love involves, of course, a psychological understanding and approval of the positive characteristics of other nations. Once the senseless and ignorant national hostility has been overcome by the moral will, we begin to know and to value other nations—we begin to like them. This ‘approving love,’ however, can never be identical with the love we feel for our own people, just as the sincerest love to our neighbours (according to the commandment of the Gospel) can never be psychologically identical with the love for oneself, although it is ethically equivalent to it. One’s own self, just as one’s own nation, always retains the priority of a starting-point. When this difficulty is cleared away, no serious objections can be raised against the principle: love all other nations as your own.
1 I cannot regard as serious the objection made by one of my critics that it is impossible to love one’s own and other nations equally, because in war it is necessary to fight for one’s own people against the others. I would have thought it obvious that the moral norm of international relations must be deduced from some other fact than that of war. Otherwise we might be driven to take as the norm for personal relations such facts as, e.g., a furious fight between an actor and a Government clerk, which recently engaged the attention of the newspapers.
Chapter VI. The Penal Question From the Moral Point of View
Statement of the Question. Having accepted the unconditional principle of morality as the standard of all human relations we shall find no real inner difficulty in applying it to international morality, i.e. to the question as to how we ought to regard foreigners as such; neither the characteristics of this or that people nor the general fact of belonging to a foreign nation contain any moral limitation in virtue of which we might a priori regard a given foreigner as a worse man than any of our compatriots. There is therefore no moral ground for national in equality. The general demand of altruism—to love one’s neighbour as oneself and another nation as one’s own—remains here in full force. The fact of international hostility must be unconditionally condemned as directly opposed to the absolute norm and as essentially anti-Christian.
1 The question of war is historically connected with the fact of international hostility but is not exhausted thereby. Apart from international wars there have been, and may be in the future, intestine wars—social and religious. The problem of war must be considered separately, and one of the subsequent chapters will be devoted to it.
The connotation and the denotation of this idea vary with regard to detail according to time and place. Much that was formerly regarded as criminal is no longer recognised as such. The very fact of criminality which had once extended to the
§I. When one man is doing injury to another, e.g. when the stronger man is beating the weaker, a person witnessing the injury—if he takes the moral point of view experiences a double feeling and an impulse to a twofold course of action. In the first place, he wants to defend the victim, and in the second, to bring the injurer to his senses. Both impulses have the same moral source—the recognition of another person’s life and the respect for another person’s dignity, psychologically based upon the feeling of pity or compassion. We experience direct pity for the being
This deduction from the moral principle, demanding that in the case of crime, i.e. of injury to man by man, we should take up a moral attitude to both parties, is far from being universally recognised. It must be defended against two kinds of adversaries. Some—and they are in the majority—recognise only the right of the victim or of the injured person (or community) to be defended and avenged. The wrong-doer or the criminal, once his guilt has been proved, they regard, at any rate in practice, as a rightless, passive object of retribution, i.e. of more or less complete crushing or extermination—‘hanging is too good for him,’ ‘to the dog a dog’s death,’ is the popular sincere expression of this point of view.
1 This is shown, among other things, by the fact that among the people, at any rate among the Russian people, criminals are called the unfortunate.
§II. The doctrine of retribution admits of a very real explanation and of fictitious proof, and when dealing with it, it is very important not to mix the one with the other. When an animal is attacked by another about to devour it, the instinct of self-preservation urges it to defend itself with its claws and teeth, or, if these are not strong enough, to seek safety in flight. No one would look for moral motives in this case any more than in the physical self-defence of man, whose natural means of defence are replaced or supplemented by artificial weapons. Even the savage, however, does not as a rule live by himself, but belongs to some social group—a family, a clan, a band. Therefore when he encounters an enemy the affair does not end with their single combat. Murder or any other injury inflicted upon a member of a group is felt by the group as a whole and rouses in it a feeling of resentment. Insofar as that feeling includes pity for the victim, we must recognise the presence of a moral element in it. But no doubt the predominant part is played by the instinct of collective self-preservation, like among bees and other social animals. In defending one of its members, the clan or the family is defending itself; in avenging one of its members, it is avenging itself. But for the same reasons the aggressor too is defended
It is curious that philosophers and jurists, from ancient times and almost down to our own day, made a priori theories with regard to the origin of the state, as though all actual states had arisen in some remote prehistoric times. This is due, of course, to the extremely imperfect state of historical science. But what may be permissible to Hobbes and even to Rousseau cannot be allowed on the part of modern thinkers. The kinship-group stage through which all nations have passed in one way or another is not anything enigmatic: the clan is a direct consequence of the natural blood-tie. The question is, then, as to the transition from the stage of kinship to that of the state—and this can be an object of historical observation. It is sufficient to mention the transformation
Hence arises the distinction, which did not exist before, between private and public right. With regard to blood-vengeance and other important matters, the interests of the collective group were identical with the interests of the individual. This was all the more natural as in a small social group such as the clan or the tribe all, or at any rate most, of its members could know each other personally, and thus each was for all, and all for each—a concrete unit. In the state, however, the social group embraces hundreds of thousands or even millions of men, and the concrete personal relation between the parts and the whole becomes impossible. A clear distinction is drawn between
At this stage of social development the only capital offences are, strictly speaking, political crimes;
Such elementary opposition between public and private rights could not be stable. Money-fine for every kind of injury to a private person does not satisfy the injured party (e.g. the family of the murdered man), nor does it deter the wrong-doer, especially if he be rich, from committing further crimes.
1 The denotation of this idea differed in accordance with the historical circumstances. In the Middle Ages, when the capital character of simple murder was not yet clear to the legal consciousness, coining false money was punished by painful death, as a crime detrimental to society as a whole, infringing upon the privileges of the central authority and, in this sense, political.
Under such conditions blood-vengeance for private offences, abolished by
§III. The legal doctrine of retribution has then a historical foundation in the sense that legal punishments still in use in our day are a historical transformation of the primitive principle of blood-vengeance. Originally, the injured person was avenged by a more narrow social union called the cl,an, then by a wider and more complex union called the state. Originally, the criminal lost all human rights in the eyes of the clan he injured; now he became the rightless subject of punishment in the eyes of the state, which revenges itself on him for the violation of its laws. The difference consists chiefly in the fact that at the patriarchal stage the act of vengeance itself was accomplished very simply—the aggressor was, at the first opportunity, killed like a dog—but the consequences were very complex, and took the form of endless inter-tribal wars. In the state, on the contrary, the act of vengeance, which the public authorities took upon themselves, was performed slowly and with all sorts of ceremonies, but no
But can the unquestionable fact that legal executions are a historical transformation of blood-vengeance be used as an argument in favour of the executions themselves, or in favour of the principle of retaliation? Does this historical basis justify us in determining our attitude towards the criminal by the idea of vengeance, the idea, i.e., of paying evil for evil, pain for pain? Speaking generally, logic does not allow us to make such deductions from the genetic connection between two events. Not a single Darwinian, so far as I am aware, drew the conclusion that because man is descended from the lower animals he ought to be a brute. From the fact that the urban community of Rome had been originally established by a band of robbers, no historian has yet concluded that the true principle of the Holy Roman Empire ought to have been brigandage. With regard to the question before us, it is clear that since we are dealing with the evolution of blood-vengeance there is no reason to regard this evolution as completed. We know that the relation of society and of law to the criminal has undergone great changes. Pitiless blood-vengeance was replaced by money-fines, and these were replaced by ‘civil executions,’ extremely cruel at first, but, beginning with the eighteenth century, getting more and more mild. There is not the slightest rational ground to suppose that the limit of mercy has already been reached and that the gallows and the guillotine, penal servitude for life, and solitary confinement must for ever remain in the penal code of civilised countries.
But while historical progress clearly tends to eliminate the principle of vengeance or of exact retaliation from our treatment of criminals, and finally to abolish it altogether, many philosophers and jurists still continue to urge abstract arguments in defence of it. These arguments are so feeble that no doubt they will be an object of astonishment and ridicule to posterity, just as Aristotle’s arguments in favour of slavery, or the ecclesiastical proofs of the flatness of the earth, are a source of wonder to us now. The pseudo-arguments used by the champions of the doctrine of retribution are not in themselves worth considering.
“Crime is a violation of right; right must be reestablished; punishment, i.e. equal violation of the criminal’s right, performed in accordance with a definite law by public authority (in contradistinction to private vengeance), balances the first violation, and thus right is reestablished.” This pseudo-argument turns on the term ‘right.’ But concrete right is always somebody’s right (there must be a subject of rights). Whose right is then here referred to? In the first place, apparently, it is the right of the injured person. Let us put this concrete content in the place of the abstract term. Peaceful shepherd Abel has no doubt a right to exist and to enjoy all the good things of life; but a wicked man, Cain, comes and deprives him of this right by murdering him. The violated right must be reestablished; to do so public authority comes on the scene and, against the direct warning of Holy Writ (Genesis iv. 15), hangs the murderer. Well, does this reestablish Abel’s right to live? Since no one but an inmate of Bedlam would affirm that the execution of the murderer raises the victim from the dead, we must take the word ‘right’ in this connection to mean, not the right of the injured person, but of somebody else. The society or the state
1 In this connection either term may be used indifferently.
2 In the opinion of one of my critics, I am wrong in supposing that a crime must necessarily be the violation of somebody’s right. Apart from any subject of rights—individual or collective, private or public—and also apart from the moral norm or the absolute good, there exists, it is urged, right as such,—an independent objective essence, and the proper object of punishment is the satisfaction of this self-existent right. The critic is mistaken in thinking that I am ignorant of this metaphysical impersonation of |309| the ancient Moloch. But there is no need for me to go into it, since no serious criminologist has for a long time past upheld it. It is obvious that ‘right’ is by its very meaning a relation between subjects, conditioned by certain moral and practical norms, and that therefore a subjectless and unrelated right is an Unding—a thought that has no content.
What justice this argument contains has nothing to do with the case. There is no doubt that once laws exist, their violation must not be overlooked, and that it is the business of the state to see to it. But we are not dealing here with the general question of the punishability of crime, for in this respect all crimes are identical. If a law is sacred in itself as proceeding from the state, this is true of all laws in an equal degree. They all equally express the right of the state; and the violation of any law whatever is the violation of this supreme right. Material differences between crimes have to do with the particular interests which are infringed; but on its formal side, in relation to what is universal, that is to the state as such, and to its law and power, every crime, if, of course, it is committed by a responsible agent, presupposes a will opposed to the law, a will that sets it at nought and is therefore criminal—and from this point of view all crimes ought logically to require the same punishment. But the difference in punishments for the different crimes exists in all legal codes, and it obviously presupposes, in addition to the general principle of punishability, a certain other specific principle which determines the particular connection between this crime and this punishment. The doctrine of retribution discovers this connection in the fact that the right violated by a particular criminal action is reestablished by a corresponding or equal action—for instance, a murderer must be killed. There can, however, be no real correspondence or equality. The most famous champions of the doctrine conceive of the matter as follows: Right is something positive, say a + (plus); the violation of it is something negative, − (a minus). If the negation in the form of crime has taken place (e.g. a man has been deprived of life), it must call forth equal negation in the form of punishment (taking the murderer’s life). Then such double negation, or the negation of the negative, will once more bring about a positive state, i.e. reestablish the right: minus multiplied by minus makes plus. It is difficult to take this ‘play of mind’ seriously; it should be noted, however, that the idea
1 It is obvious that we cannot in this case go further than addition (of the material results). The corpse of the murdered victim may be added to the corpse of the hanged murderer and then there will be two corpses—i.e. two negative quantities.
§IV. The inherent absurdity of the doctrine of retribution or ‘avenging justice’ is emphasised by the fact that, with a few
In modern times the doctrine of reestablishing right by means of equal retribution was, if I am not mistaken, defended by abstract philosophers more than by jurists. The latter understand the equalisation of crime with punishment in the relative and quantitative sense only (the measure of punishment). They demand, i.e., that a crime more grave than another should be punished more severely, so that there should be a scale of punishments corresponding to the scale of crimes. But the basis and, consequently, the apex of the penal ladder remains indefinite, and therefore the punishments may be either inhumanly cruel or extremely mild. Such a scale of penalties has existed in the penal codes in which all, or almost all, simple crimes were punished by a fine: a larger fine was paid for the murder of a man than for the murder of a woman, for a serious bodily injury than for a slight one, etc. On the other hand, codes in which the penalty for theft was hanging punished more heinous crimes by capital punishment accompanied by various degrees of torture. What is in this case immoral is the cruelty of the punishments, and not, of course, their graduated character.
This principle can hardly be said to be wholly valid even from the utilitarian and empirical point of view. No doubt fear is an important human instinct, but it has no decisive significance for man. The perpetually increasing number of suicides proves that, in many, death itself inspires no fear. Prolonged solitary confinement or penal servitude may in themselves be more terrible but they do not produce an immediate intimidating effect. I will not dwell upon these and other well-known arguments against the theory of intimidation, such as the contention that the criminal always hopes to avoid detection and escape punishment, or that the enormous majority of crimes are committed under the influence of some passion which stifles the voice of sagacity. The relative force of all these arguments is open to dispute. In disputable refutation of the deterrent theory is only possible from the moral point of view. It is refuted, first, on the ground of principle, as directly opposed to the fundamental law of morality, and, secondly, by the fact that this opposition compels the champions of intimidation to be inconsistent and gradually to relinquish, on the strength of moral motives, the most clear and effective demands of their own theory. It is understood, of course, that I am referring here to intimidation as a fundamental principle of legal justice and not merely as a psychological fact, which naturally accompanies any method of dealing with crime. Even supposing it were intended to reform criminals by means of moral exhortation alone, the prospect of such tutelage, however mild and rational, might intimidate vain and self-willed men and deter them from criminal actions. Obviously, however, this is not what is meant by the theory which regards intimidation as the essence and the direct object of punishment, and not as an indirect consequence of it.
In point of fact the theory of intimidation finally lost its sting from the time when all civilised and half-civilised countries abolished cruel corporal punishments and capital punishment accompanied by torture. It is clear that if the object of punishment is to intimidate both the criminal and others, these means are certainly the most effective and rational. Why then do the champions of intimidation renounce the true and the only reliable means of intimidation? Probably because they consider these means immoral and opposed to the demands of pity and humanity. In that case, however, intimidation ceases to be the determining factor in punishment. It must be one or the other: either the meaning of punishment is intimidation—and in that case execution accompanied by torture must be admitted as preeminently intimidating; or the nature of punishment is determined by the moral principle—and in that case intimidation must be given up altogether, as a motive essentially immoral.
1 In the eighteenth century, when the movement against the cruelty of penal laws was at its height, several writers sought to prove that torturing prisoners is both inhuman and useless as a deterrent, for it does not prevent anyone from committing crimes. If this contention could be substantiated it would deprive the theory of intimidation of all meaning whatever. It is obvious that if even painful executions are insufficient to intimidate criminals, punishments more mild are still less likely to do so.
The circumstance that the most consistent forms of retribution and intimidation have disappeared from modern penal codes, in spite of the fact that from the first point of view such forms must be recognised as the most just, and from the second as the most effective, is sufficient to prove that a different, a moral point of view has penetrated into this sphere and made considerable progress in it. This undoubted and fairly rapid progress has failed to affect the penal codes of savage or barbarian peoples alone—such as the Abyssinians or the Chinese; and even they, indeed, are about to enter into the general life of civilised humanity. Nevertheless, our own penal systems—I mean those of Europe and America—still retain much unnecessary violence and cruelty, which can only be explained as a dead legacy of the defunct principles of retribution and intimidation. Among these vestiges of the past are capital punishment, which is still being obstinately defended though it has lost its grounds; indefinite deprivation of liberty; penal servitude; exile into distant countries with unbearable conditions of life, etc.
All this systematic cruelty is revolting to the moral feeling and brings about a change in our original attitude towards the criminal. Pity to the injured person and the impulse to defend him set us against the injurer (the criminal). But when society, which is incomparably stronger than the individual criminal, turns upon him its insatiable hostility after he has been disarmed, and makes him undergo prolonged suffering, it is he who becomes the injured party and excites in us pity and a desire to protect him. Although the legal theory and the legal practice have decidedly renounced consistent application of the principles of retribution and intimidation, they have not given up the principles themselves. The system of punishments that exists in civilised countries is a meaningless and lifeless compromise between these worthless principles on the one hand and certain demands of humanity and justice on the other. In truth, what we find are simply the more or less softened vestiges of the old brutality, with no uniting thought, no guiding principle involved. The compromise cannot
The extremely unsatisfactory condition of this important question, the frivolous attitude to the life and destiny of men are revolting to the intellect and conscience, and produce a reaction of the moral feeling. Unfortunately, however, this reaction leads many moralists to the opposite extreme, and induces them to reject the idea of punishment in general, i.e. in the sense of real opposition to crime. According to this modern doctrine, violence or compulsion towards anyone is never permissible, and therefore the criminal may only be dealt with by rational persuasion. The merit of this doctrine is the moral purity of its purpose; its defect is that the purpose cannot be realised in the way advocated. The principle of taking up a passive attitude towards criminals not only rejects retribution and intimidation (which is the right thing to do), but also excludes measures intended to
It is only in extremely rare, exceptional cases that men who are depraved and capable of deliberate crime are affected by words of rational persuasion. To ascribe beforehand such exceptional power to one’s own words would be morbid self-conceit; to be content with words without being certain of their success when a man’s life is at stake would be inhuman. The victim has a right to all the help we can render him, and not to verbal intercession only, which, in the vast majority of cases, can be nothing but comical. In the same way, the aggressor has a right to all the help we can give to restrain him from a deed which is for him even a greater disaster than for his victim. Only after having stopped his action can we with calm conscience address words of exhortation to him. If I see the criminal’s arm raised to murder his victim and I seize hold of it, will this be a case of immoral violence? It will no doubt be violence, but so far from being immoral, it will be conscientiously binding, and will directly follow from the demands of the moral principle. In restraining a man from murder I actively respect and support his human dignity, which is seriously menaced by his carrying out his intention. It would be strange to believe that the very fact of such violence—i.e. a certain contact of the muscles of my arm with the muscles of the murderer’s arm, and the necessary consequences of the contact—contains an element of immorality. Why, in that case it would be immoral to pull a drowning man out of water, for it too cannot be done without much physical exertion and some physical pain to the person who is being saved. If it is permissible and a moral duty to pull a drowning man out of the water, even if he resists, it is all the more permissible to pull a
It must be one or the other. Either the criminal whom we restrain has not yet lost all human feeling, and then he will, of course, be grateful for having been saved in time from sin—no less than the drowning man is grateful for having been taken out of the water; in that case, the violence which he suffered was done with his own tacit consent, and his right has not been violated, so that, strictly speaking, there has been no violence at all, since volenti non fit injuria.
Were the fact of physical violence, i.e. of the application of muscular force, in itself bad or immoral, it would, of course, be wrong to use this bad means even with the best of intentions—it would be admitting the immoral rule that the purpose justifies the means. To resist evil by evil is wrong and useless; to hate the evil-doer for his crime and therefore to revenge oneself on him is childish. But there is no evil in restraining the evil-doer from crime for the sake of his own good and without any hatred of him. Since there is nothing bad in muscular force as such, the moral or the immoral character of its application depends in each case upon the intention of the person and the circumstances of the case. Physical force rationally used for the real good of others, both moral and material, is a good and not a bad means, and such application of it, so far from being forbidden, is directly prescribed by the moral principle. The dividing line between the moral and immoral use of physical compulsion may be a fine one, but it is perfectly clear and definite.
1 What, however, if in restraining the murderer we may in the struggle unintentionally cause him grave injuries and even death? It will be a great misfortune for us, and we will grieve over it as over an involuntary sin; but, in any case, unintentionally to kill a criminal is a lesser sin than deliberately to allow an intentional murder of an innocent person.
2 ‘There is no injury to the willing,’ i.e. an action which is in accordance with the will of the person who suffers it cannot be a violation of his right.
The whole point is the attitude
The moral principle forbids to make a human being merely a means to extraneous purposes, i.e. to ends which do not include his own good. If, therefore, in resisting crime we regard the criminal simply as a means for the defence or the satisfaction of the injured person or society, our action is immoral, even though its motive might be unselfish pity for the victim and genuine anxiety for public safety. From the moral point of view this is not sufficient. We ought to pity both the victim and the criminal; and if we do so, if we really have the good of them both in view, reason and conscience will tell us what measure and what form of physical compulsion is necessary.
Moral questions are finally decided by conscience, and I confidently ask everyone to turn to his own inner experience (imaginary, if there has not been any other) and say in which of the two cases does conscience reproach us more: in the case when, being able to prevent a crime we had callously passed by, saying a few useless words, or when we had actually prevented it even at the expense of inflicting certain physical injuries.
It is difficult to understand how men of a different stamp from
Suppose, for instance, that for motives of abstinence a man stayed away from a public-house. But had he not resisted his inclination and gone, he would on his way back have found a half-frozen puppy. Being in a condition when one is inclined to be sentimental, he would have picked up the puppy and warmed it back to life. The puppy, upon growing up into a big dog, would have saved a little girl from drowning in the pond; and the little girl would eventually become the mother of a great man. Now, however, the misplaced abstinence has interfered with the plans of Providence. The puppy was frozen, the little girl drowned, and the great man is doomed to remain for ever unborn. Another person, given to anger, felt inclined to slap in the face the man he was arguing with, but thought that this would be wrong, and restrained himself. And yet, had he not controlled his anger, the injured person would have taken the opportunity to turn him the other cheek, and would have thus softened the heart of the aggressor. Virtue would have doubly triumphed, while, as it was, their meeting ended in nothing.
The doctrine which absolutely rejects all forcible resistance to evil, or all defence of one’s neighbours by means of physical force,
Our actions or refusal to act must then be determined, not by the consideration of their possible indirect consequences unknown to us, but by impulses directly following from the positive demands of the moral principle. This is true not only from the ethical but also from the mystical point of view. If everything be referred back to Providence, it is certainly not without Its knowledge that man possesses reason and conscience, which tell him in each concrete case what direct good he can do, independently of all indirect consequences. And if we believe in Providence, we certainly believe also that It cannot allow that actions conformable to reason and conscience should ultimately lead to evil. If we know that it is immoral or opposed to human dignity to stupefy oneself with strong drink, our conscience will not permit us to consider whether in the state of intoxication we might not do something which would subsequently lead to good results. Similarly, if from a purely moral motive, apart from any malice or revenge, we prevented a brigand from killing a man, it will never occur to us to argue that this may perhaps lead to some evil, and that it might have been better to let the murder take place.
Through our reason and conscience we know for certain that carnal passions—drunkenness or profligacy—are bad in themselves and ought to be restrained. The same reason and conscience tell us with equal certainty that active love is good in itself and that one must act in the spirit of it—to help our neighbours, to defend
Providence certainly extracts good from our evil, but from our good it derives a still greater good. And what is of especial importance is that this second kind of good comes about with our direct and active participation, while the first, that derived from our evil, does not concern us nor belong to us. It is better to be a helper than a dead instrument of the all-merciful Providence.
§VI. Punishment as intimidating revenge (the typical instance of which is capital punishment) cannot from the moral point of view be justified, for it denies the criminal his human character, deprives him of the right of existence which belongs to every person, and makes him a passive instrument of other people’s safety. No more, however, can we justify from the moral point of view an indifferent attitude to crime, the attitude of not does not take into account the right of the injured party to be protected nor the right of the whole society to a secure existence, and makes everything depend upon the arbitrary will of the worst people. The moral principle demands real resistance to crimes, and determines this resistance (or punishment in the wide sense of the term, as distinct from the idea of retribution) as a rightful means of active pity, legally and forcibly limiting the external expressions of evil will) not merely for the sake of the safety of the peaceful members of society, but also in the interests of the criminal himself. Thus the true conception of punishment is many-sided, but each aspect is equally conditioned by the universal moral principle of pity, which includes both the injured and the
Protection of individuals, public safety, and the subsequent good of the criminal, demand in the first place that the person guilty of a crime should be for a time deprived of liberty. In the interests of his relatives and his own, a spendthrift is rightly deprived of freedom in the administration of his property. It is all the more just and necessary that a murderer or a seducer should be deprived of freedom in his line of activity. For the criminal himself deprivation of freedom is especially important as a pause in the development of the evil will, as an opportunity to bethink himself and repent.
At the present time, the criminal’s fate is finally decided by the court, which both determines his guilt and decrees his punishment. If, however, the motives of revenge and intimidation are consistently banished from penal law, the conception of punishment as of a measure determined beforehand and, in truth, arbitrarily, must disappear also. The consequences of the crime for the criminal must stand in a natural and inner relation with his real condition. The law court, having established the fact of guilt, must then determine its nature, the degree of the criminal’s responsibility and of his further danger to society, that is, it must make a diagnosis and a prognosis of the moral disease. But it is opposed to reason to prescribe unconditionally the means and the length of the period of treatment. The course and the methods of treatment must differ according to the changes in the course of the illness, and the court must leave this to penitentiary institutions, into the hands of which the criminal should pass. A short time ago this idea would have been thought an unheard-of heresy, but of late attempts have been made to realise it in a few countries (e.g. in Belgium and Ireland), in which conditional sentences may be passed. In certain cases the criminal is sentenced to a definite punishment, but undergoes it only if he repeats his crime. If he does not, he remains free, and his first crime is regarded as accidental. In other cases, the sentence is conditional with regard to the length ofimprisonment, which
§VII. There had been a time when men suffering from mental disease were treated like wild beasts, chained, beaten, etc. Less than a hundred years ago it was considered to be the right thing; but now we remember it with horror. Since the rate of progress is continually increasing, I hope to live to a time when prisons and penal servitude of the present day will be looked upon in the same way as we now look upon the old-fashioned asylums with iron cages for the patients. Although the penal system has undoubtedly progressed of late, it is still largely determined by the old idea of punishment as torment deliberately inflicted on the criminal, in accordance with the principle, ‘The thief deserves all he gets.’
In the true conception of punishment its positive end, so far as the criminal is concerned, is not to cause him physical pain, but to heal or reform him morally. This idea has been accepted long ago (chiefly by theologians, partly by philosophers, and by a very few jurists), but it calls forth strong opposition on the part of jurists and of a certain school of anthropologists. From the legal side it is urged that to correct the criminal means to intrude upon his inner life, which the state and society have no right to do. There are two misconceptions involved here. In the first place, the task of reforming criminals is, in the respect we are here considering, merely an instance of the positive influence which the society (or the state) ought to exert upon such members of it as are in some respects deficient, and therefore not fully possessed of rights. If such influence is rejected on principle as intrusion into the individual’s inner life, it will be necessary to reject also public education of children, treatment of lunatics in public asylums, etc.
And in what sense can it be said to be an intrusion into the inner world? In truth, by the fact of his crime the criminal has bared or exposed his inner world, and is in need of influence in the opposite direction which would enable him once more to withdraw into the normal boundaries. It is particularly surprising that although the argument recognises the right of society to put a
The second misunderstanding consists in imagining that reformation of the criminal means forcing upon him ready-made principles of morality. But why regard incompetence as a principle? When a criminal is capable of reformation at all, it consists, of course, chiefly in self-reformation. External influences must simply put the man into conditions most favourable for it, help him and support him in this inner work.
The anthropological argument is that criminal tendencies are innate and therefore incorrigible. That there exist born criminals and hereditary criminals, there is no doubt. That some of them are incorrigible it is difficult to deny. But the statement that all criminals or even the majority of them are incorrigible is absolutely arbitrary and does not deserve to be dwelt upon. If, however, all we may admit is that some criminals are incorrigible, no one can or has a right to be certain beforehand that this particular criminal belongs to that group. All therefore ought to be put into conditions most favourable for possible reformation. The first and the most important condition is, of course, that at the head of penal institutions should stand men capable of so high and difficult a task—the best of jurists, alienists, and men with a religious calling.
Public guardianship over the criminal, entrusted to competent persons with a view to his possible reformation,—this is the only conception of ‘punishment’ or positive resistance to crime compatible with the moral principle. A penal system based upon it will be more just and humane than the present one, and will, at the same time, be certainly more efficient.
Chapter VII. The Economic Question From the Moral Point of View
§I. If individuals and nations learnt to value the national peculiarities of foreign peoples as much as they value their own; if within each nation individual criminals were, as far as possible, reformed by reeducation and rational guardianship, from which all vestige of legal ferocity were eliminated,—this moral solution of the national and the penal questions would still leave untouched an important cause both of national hostility and of criminality, namely, the economic cause. The chief reason why Americans hate the Chinese is certainly not that the Chinese wear plaits and follow the moral teaching of Confucius, but that they are dangerous rivals in the economic sphere. Chinese labourers in California are persecuted for the same cause for which Italians are ill-treated in southern France, Switzerland, and Brazil. In exactly the same way the feeling against the Jews, whatever the inmost causes of it may be, clearly rests upon and is obviously due to economic considerations. Individual criminality is not created by environment, but it is largely kept up and encouraged by pauperism, excessive mechanical labour, and the inevitable coarsening that follows therefrom. The influence of the most rational and humane penal system upon individual criminals would have but little general effect so long as these conditions prevailed. The bad effect of the economic conditions of the present day upon the national and the criminal questions is obviously due to the fact that these conditions are in themselves morally wrong. Their abnormality is manifested in the economic sphere itself, since
For a man who takes the moral point of view it is as impossible to take part in this socially-economic struggle as to participate in the hostility between races and nations. But at the same time it is impossible for him to remain indifferent to the material position of his neighbours. If the elementary moral feeling of pity, which has received its highest sanction in the Gospel, demands that we should feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, and warm the cold, this demand does not, of course, lose its force when the cold and hungry number millions instead of dozens. And if alone I cannot help these millions, and am not therefore morally bound to do so, I can and must help them together with others. My personal duty becomes a collective one—it still remains my own, although it becomes wider in so far as I participate in the collective whole and its universal task. The very fact of economic distress proves that economic conditions are not connected with the principle of the good as they should be, that they are not morally organised. A whole pseudo-scientific school of conservative anarchists in economics directly denied, and still denies, though without the old self-confidence, all ethical principles and all organisation in the sphere of economic relations. The prevalence of this school had much to do with the birth of revolutionary anarchism. On the other hand, the many varieties of socialism, both radical and conservative, do more to detect the presence of the disease than to offer a real cure for it.
The defect of the orthodox school of political economy—the liberal or, more exactly, the anarchical school—is that it separates on principle the economic sphere from the moral. The defect of socialism is that it more or less confuses or wrongly identifies these two distinct, though indivisible, spheres.
§II. All practical affirmation of a thing apart from its due connection or correlation with everything else is essentially
To regard man as merely an economic agent—a producer, owner, and consumer of material goods—is a wrong and immoral point of view. These functions have in themselves no significance for man, and do not in any way express his essential nature and worth. Productive labour, possession and enjoyment of its results, is one of the aspects of human life or one of the spheres of human activity. The truly human interest lies only in the fact as to how and with what object man acts in this particular domain. Free play of chemical processes can only take place in a corpse; in a living body these processes are connected and determined by organic purposes. Similarly, free play of economic factors and laws is only possible in a community that is dead and is decomposing, while in a living community that has a future, economic elements are correlated with and determined by moral ends. To proclaim laissez faire, laissez passer is to say to society ‘die and decompose.’
No doubt economic relations as a whole are based upon a simple and ultimate fact, which cannot as such be deduced from the moral principle—the fact, namely, that work, labour, is necessary to the maintenance of life. There has never been, however, a stage in the life of humanity at which this material necessity was not complicated by moral considerations—not even at the very lowest stage. Necessity compels the half-brutal savage to procure means of livelihood; but in doing so he may either think of himself alone or include in his need the need of his mate and his young. If the hunt has been unsuccessful he can either share his scarce booty with them, hardly satisfying his own hunger, or can take everything for himself, leaving them to fare as best they can; or, finally, he may kill them so as to satisfy his hunger with their flesh. Whichever course he adopts, even the most orthodox devotee of political economy would not be likely to ascribe his action to the effect of inexorable economic ‘laws.’
The necessity to work in order to obtain the means of livelihood is indeed a matter of fate and is independent of human will.
Take the most elementary and the least disputable of these so-called laws, namely, the law that the price of goods is determined by the relation between supply and demand. This means that the more demand there is for a particular article and the less there is of it, the more it costs—and vice versa.
Suppose, however, that a rich but benevolent trader who has a constant supply of some article of the first necessity decides, in spite of the increased demand for that article, not to raise his prices or even decides to lower them for the good of his needy neighbours. This will be a violation of the supposed economic ‘law,’ and yet, however unusual the case may be, certainly no one would think it impossible or supernatural.
Let us grant that if everything depended upon the good will of private individuals, we might, in the domain of economics, regard magnanimous motives as a negligible quantity, and build everything upon the secure foundation of self-interest. Every society, however, has a central government, a necessary function of which is to limit private cupidity. There are a good many historical instances in which the state made the habitual and—from the point of view of self-interest—the natural order of things un natural and unusual, sometimes indeed rendering it altogether impossible, and transforming the former exceptions into a universal
It should be noted that notwithstanding the difference between the two conceptions of the law of nature and the man-made law of the state, the latter resembles the former in that within the sphere of its application it has a universal force and admits of no unforeseen exception.
1 Direct violation of the law by the evil will is foreseen by the law itself and is treated as a crime which calls forth a corresponding punishment.
In earlier days, J. S. Mill, anxious to preserve to political economy the character of an exact science
Freedom of the individual and society from the supposed natural laws of the materially-economic order stands, of course, in no immediate connection with the metaphysical question of free will. When I say, e.g., that Petersburg landlords are free from the supposed law which determines the price by the relation of supply and demand, I am far from maintaining that any one of these landlords whatever his character may be can at any given moment lower the rent of his flats in spite of the increased demand for them. I only urge the obvious truth that given a sufficiently strong moral impulse, no alleged economic necessity can prevent the individual, especially in his public capacity, from subordinating material considerations to the moral in this or in that instance. Hence it logically follows that in the realm of economics there exist no natural laws acting independently of the individual will of the given agents. I do not deny the presence of law in human activity; I only argue against a special kind of materially-economic necessity invented a hundred years ago, and taken to be independent of the general conditions that determine volition through psychological and moral motives. The character of objects and events which fall within the province of economics is on the one hand due to physical nature, and is therefore subject to material necessity (to the mechanical, chemical, and biological laws), and on the other hand is determined by human activity, which is subject to the moral and psychological necessity. And since no further causality, in addition to the natural and the human, can be found in the phenomena of the economic order, it follows that there can be in that domain no independent necessity and uniformity of its own.
§III. Subordination of material interests and relations in human society to some special economic laws acting on their own account is the fiction of a bad metaphysic, and has not the least foundation in reality. Therefore the general demand of reason and conscience remains in force—the demand, namely, that this province too should be subordinated to the supreme principle of morality, and that in its economic life society should be the organised realisation of the good.
There are not and there cannot be any independent economic laws, any economic necessity, for economic phenomena can only be thought of as activities of man who is a moral being, and is capable of subordinating all his actions to the pure idea of the good. There is only one absolute and independent law for man as such—the moral law, and only one necessity, namely, the moral. The peculiarity and independence of the economic sphere of relations lies, not in the fact that it has ultimate laws of its own, but in the fact that from its very nature it presents a special and peculiar field for the application of the one moral law. Thus earth differs from other planets, not by having an independent source of light all to itself, but by receiving and reflecting the one universal light of the sun in a special and definite way, dependent upon its place in the solar system.
This truth is fatal both to the theories of the orthodox economists and to the socialist doctrine which seems at first sight to be opposed to them. When the socialists denounce the existing
The inmost essence of socialism has for the first time found expression in the remarkable doctrine of the followers of St. Simon, who proclaimed as their motto the rehabilitation of matter in the life of humanity. There is no doubt that matter has its rights, and the less they are respected in principle the more they assert themselves in practice. The nature of these rights, however, may be interpreted in two different and, indeed, directly contradictory ways. According to the first meaning—a perfectly true and an extremely important one—the sphere of material relations (more immediately of the economic ones) has a right to become the object of man’s moral activity. It has a right to have the supreme spiritual principle realised or incarnate in it—matter has a right to be spiritualised. It would be unjust to maintain that this meaning was entirely foreign to the early socialistic systems. But they did not dwell upon it or develop it, and very soon this glimmer of a higher consciousness proved to be merely a deceptive light over the quagmire of carnal passions which gradually sucked in so many noble and inspired minds.
The other and more prevalent meaning given to the principle of the rehabilitation of matter justifies the degradation of the St. Simonists, and indeed makes it into a principle. The material life of humanity is not regarded as merely a special province of human activity or of the application of the moral principles. It is said to have an entirely independent material principle of its own, existing in its own right both in and for man, namely, the principle of instinct or passion. This element must be given full scope so that the normal social order should naturally follow from personal passions and interests supplementing and replacing one another (Fourier’s fundamental conception). This ‘normal’ order neither need nor can be moral. Alienation from the higher spiritual interests becomes inevitable as soon as the material side of human life is recognised to have an independent and
In truth, the morally abnormal condition of the civilised world at the present day is due, not to this or that particular institution, but to the general conception and trend of life in modern society. Material wealth is becoming all-important, and social structure itself is distinctly degenerating into a plutocracy. It is not personal and hereditary property, division of labour and capital, or inequality of material possessions that is immoral.
The two hostile parties mutually presuppose one another and cannot escape from the vicious circle until they acknowledge and adopt in practice the unquestionable truth, forgotten by them, that the significance of man, and therefore of human society, is not essentially determined by economic relations, that man is not primarily the producer of material goods or market values, but is something infinitely more important, and that consequently society, too, is more than an economic union.
1 A remarkably characteristic specimen of plutocratic hypocrisy is an article by the well-known Jules Simon (now deceased) which appeared some years ago without attracting notice. The article deals with the three chief evils of modern society: the decline of religion, of family, and of…rentes! The treatment of religion and family is dull and vague, but the lines dealing with the fall of interest on capital (from 4 percent to 2½ percent, if I remember rightly) are written with the blood of the heart.
2 The contention that socialism and plutocracy are based upon one and the same materialistic principle was put forward by me eighteen years ago (in chapter xiv. of the Kritika ovuletchonnih natchal (Critique of Abstract Principles), first published in the Russky Viestnik in 1878) and led my critics to accuse me of having a wrong conception of socialism and of misjudging its value. I need no longer answer these criticisms, for they have been brilliantly disproved by the history of the socialistic movement itself, the main current of which has decidedly evinced itself as economic materialism.
§IV. For the true solution of the so-called ’social question’ it must in the first place be recognised that the economic relations contain no special norm of their own, but are subject to the universal moral norm as a special realm in which it finds its application. The triple moral principle which determines our due relation towards God, men, and the material nature is wholly and entirely
The realm of economic relations is exhaustively described by the general ideas of production (labour and capital), distribution of property, and exchange of values. Let us consider these fundamental ideas from the moral point of view, beginning with the most fundamental of them—the idea of labour. We know that the first impulse to labour is given by the material necessity. But for a man who recognises above himself the absolutely perfect principle of reality, or the will of God, all necessity is an expression of that will. From this point of view labour is a commandment of God. This commandment requires us to work hard (‘in the sweat of thy face’) to cultivate the ground, i.e. to perfect material nature. For whose sake? In the first place for our own and that of our neighbours. This answer, clear at the most elementary stages of moral development, no doubt remains in force as humanity progresses, the only change being that the denotation of the term ‘neighbour’ becomes more and more wide. Originally my neighbours were only those to whom I was related by the blood tie or by personal feeling; finally it is all mankind. When Bastiat, the most gifted representative of economic individualism, advocated the principle ‘each for himself’ he defended himself against the charge of selfishness by pointing to the economic harmony in virtue of which each man in working solely for himself (and his family), unconsciously, from the very nature of social relations, works also for. the benefit of all, so that the interest of each harmonises in truth with the interest of all. In any case, however, this would be merely a natural harmony, similar to that which obtains in the non-human world where certain insects, seeking nothing but sweet food for themselves, unconsciously bring about the fertilisation of plants by transferring the pollen from one flower to another. Such harmony testifies, of course, to the wisdom of the Creator, but does not make insects into moral beings. Man, however, is a moral being and natural solidarity
To take selfishness or self-interest as the fundamental motive of labour means to deprive labour of the significance of a universal commandment, to make it into something accidental. If I work solely for the sake of my own and my family’s welfare, then as soon as I am able to attain that welfare by other means I must lose my only motive for work. And if it were proved that a whole class or group of persons can prosper by means of robbery, fraud, and exploitation of other people’s labour, no theoretically valid objection could be urged against this from the point of view of unrestrained self-interest. Is it for the natural harmony of interests to abolish such abuses? But where was the natural harmony in the long ages of slavery, feudalism, serfdom? Or perhaps the fierce intestine wars which abolished feudalism in Europe and slavery in America were the expression—though somewhat a belated one—of natural Harmony? In that case it is difficult to see in what way such harmony differs from disharmony, and in what way the freedom of the guillotine is better than the restrictions of state socialism. If, however, natural harmony of interests, seriously understood, proves to be powerless against economic abuses due to the unrestrained selfishness of individuals and classes whose freedom in this respect has to be restricted in the name of higher justice, it is unfair and unpermissible to appeal to justice in the last resort only, and to put it at the end and not at the beginning of social structure. In addition to being unfair and unpermissible it is also quite useless. For such morality ex machina has no
When the principle of the individualistic freedom of interests is adopted by the strong, it does not make them work more but gives rise to the slavery of ancient times, to the seigniorial right of the Middle Ages, and to modern economic slavery or plutocracy. When adopted by the weak, who, however, are strong as the majority, as the masses, this principle of unrestrained selfishness does not make them more united in their work, but merely creates an atmosphere of envious discontent, which produces in the end the bombs of the anarchists. Had Bastiat, who was fond of expressing his ideas in the form of popular dialogues, lived to our day, he might have played the chief part in the following conversation:
Anarchist. Out of especial friendliness for you, Mr. Bastiat, I warn you take yourself away from here, as far as ever you can—I am just going to blow up all this neighbourhood, for there are lots of tyrants and exploiters about.
Bastiat. What a terrible position! But consider: you are doing irreparable damage to the principle of human liberty!
Anarchist. On the contrary—we are putting it into practice.
Bastiat. Who has put these devilish ideas into your mind?
Anarchist. You yourself.
Bastiat. What an absurd slander!
Anarchist. It is perfectly true. We are your pupils. Have you not proved that the root of all evil is the interference of public authority with the free play of individual interests? Have you not ruthlessly condemned all intentional organisation of labour, all compulsory social order? And that which is condemned as evil must be destroyed. We translate your words into practice and are saving you from dirty work.
Bastiat. I struggled only against the interference of the state in the economic life, and against the artificial organisation of labour advocated by socialists.
Anarchist. Socialists are no concern of ours j if they are deluded by fancies, so much the worse for them. We are not deluded. We fight against one organisation only—one which really exists and is called social order. Towns and factories, stock |340| exchanges and academies, administration, police, army, Church— all these did not spring from the ground of themselves j they are the product of artificial organisation. Therefore on your own premisses they are an evil and ought to be destroyed.
Bastiat. Even if this were true, things ought not to be destroyed by violent and disastrous means.
Anarchist. What is disaster? You have yourself beautifully explained that apparent calamities lead to the real good of all, and you have always very subtly distinguished between the unimportant things that are evident and the important that cannot be seen. In the present case what is evident are the flying sardine boxes, demolished buildings, disfigured corpses—this is evident but unimportant. And that which is not seen and which alone is important is the future humanity which will be free from all ‘interference’ and all ‘organisation’—since the persons, classes, and institutions which might interfere and organise will be ex terminated. You preached the principle of anarchy, we carry out anarchy in practice.
Bastiat. Policeman! policeman! seize him quick before he blows us up. What are you thinking about?
Policeman. Well, I was wondering whether, from the point of view of self-interest, which I too have adopted after reading your eloquent arguments, it is of more advantage to me to seize this fellow by the scruff of the neck or to make haste and establish a natural harmony of interests between us.
§V. In opposition to the alleged economic harmony, facts compel us to admit that starting with private material interest as the purpose of labour we arrive at universal discord and destruction instead of universal happiness. If, however, the principle and the purpose of labour is found in the idea of the common good, understood in the true moral sense—i.e. as the good of all and each and not of the majority only—that idea will also contain the satisfaction of every private interest within proper limits.
From the moral point of view every man, whether he be an agricultural labourer, a writer, or a banker, ought to work with a feeling that his work is useful to all, and with a desire for it
“We watch the kriuchniks at work: the poor half-naked Tatars strain every nerve. It is painful to see the bent back flatten out all of a sudden under a weight of eight to eighteen puds (2, cwt. and 5f cwt.; the last figure is not exaggerated). This terrible work is paid at the rate of five roubles per thousand puds (16 tons). The most a kriuchnik can earn in the twenty-four hours is one rouble, and that if he works like an ox and overstrains himself. Few can endure more than ten years of such labour, and the two-legged beasts of burden become deformed or paralytic” (Novoe Vremya, N. 7356). Those who have not seen the Volga kriuchniks are sure to have seen the porters in big hotels who, breathless and exhausted, drag to the fourth or fifth floor boxes weighing several hundredweight. And this in our age of machines and all sorts of contrivances! No one seems to be struck by the obvious absurdity. A visitor arrives at an hotel with luggage. To walk up the stairs would be a useful exercise for him, but instead he gets into a lift, while his things, for which, one would have thought, the lift was expressly meant, are loaded on the back of the porter, who thus proves to be not even an instrument of another man but an instrument of his things—the means of a means!
Labour which is exclusively and crudely mechanical and involves too great a strain of the muscular force is incompatible with human dignity. But equally incompatible with it and equally immoral is work which, though in itself not heavy or degrading, lasts all day long and takes up all the time and all the forces of
“Let us not, however, dwell on the impression which individual facts susceptible of observation produce upon us, even though such facts be numerous. Let us turn to statistics and inquire as to how far wages satisfy the necessary wants of the workers. Leaving aside the rate of wages in the different industries, the quality of food, the size of the dwelling, etc., we will only ask of statistics the question as to the relation between the length of human life and the occupation pursued. The answer is as follows: Shoemakers live on the average to the age of 49; printers, 48.3; tailors, 46.6; joiners, 44.7; blacksmiths, 41.8; turners, 41.6; masons, 33. And the average length of life of civil servants, capitalists, clergymen, wholesale merchants, is 60-69 years.”
1 Tram conductors in Petersburg work more than eighteen hours a day for twenty-five or thirty roubles a month (see Novae Vremya, N. 7357).
2 The author quoted refers here to Hanshofer’s book, Lehrbuch der Statistik. All the figures quoted are apparently for the countries of Western Europe.
3 A. A. Isaev, Natchala polititcheskoi economii (Principles of Political Economy), 2nd ed. pp. 254-255.
Hence the following true conclusion is deduced: ‘If a workman is not
The absolute value of man is based, as we know, upon the possibility inherent in his reason and his will of infinitely approaching perfection or, according to the patristic expression, the possibility of becoming divine (θέωσις). This possibility does not pass into actuality completely and immediately, for if it did man would be already equal to God—which is not the case. The inner potentiality becomes more and more actual, and can only do so under definite real conditions. If an ordinary man is left for many years on an uninhabited island or in strict solitary confinement he cannot improve morally or intellectually, and indeed, exhibits rapid and obvious regress towards the brutal stage. Strictly speaking, the same is true of a man wholly absorbed in physical labour. Even if he does not deteriorate he is certainly unable to think of actively realising his highest significance as man. The moral point of view demands, then, that everyone should have the means of existence (e.g. clothes and a warm and airy dwelling) and sufficient physical rest secured to him, and that he should also be able to enjoy leisure for the sake of his spiritual development. This and this alone is absolutely essential for every peasant and workman; anything above this is from the evil one.
1 A. A. Isaev, Natchala folititcfieskoi economii (Principles of Political Economy), 2nd ed. p. 226.
Those who are opposed to improving the social and economic relations in accordance with the demands of morality urge the following consideration. They maintain that the only way in which the working people can, in addition to a secured material existence, have leisure to pursue their moral and intellectual development, is by reducing the number of hours of work, without
The hackneyed philippics, prompted by low envy, that socialists indulge in against the rich are perfectly sickening; demands for equalisation of property are unreasonable to the point of absurdity.
1 The diametrical opposition between socialism and Christianity has often been noted, but the essence of it is generally wrongly understood. The popular saying that socialism demands that the poor should take from the rich, while Christianity wants the rich to give to the poor, is more witty than profound. The opposition is far deeper than this, and lies in the moral attitude towards the rich. Socialism en-vies them and Christianity pities them—pities them because of the obstacles which connection with Mammon puts in the way of moral perfection: it is hard for the rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. But socialism takes that kingdom itself—i.e. the highest good and blessedness—to consist in nothing other than wealth, provided it is differently distributed. That which for Christianity is an obstacle, for socialism is an end; if this is not an antithesis I do not know what else to call by that name.
But it is one thing to attack private wealth as though that in
Apart from the false conclusions which the opponents of the moral regulation of economic relations deduce from their funda mental assertion, they are wrong in that assertion itself. Regulation of the hours of work and of the amount of wages need not necessarily curtail the production at all (not even of the articles of luxury) or cause corresponding losses to the factory owners. This would be the case if the quantity—not to speak of quality—of the production entirely depended upon the number of hours expended upon it. No thoughtful and conscientious economist would, however, venture to maintain such a crying absurdity. It is easy to see that a worker exhausted, dulled, and embittered by excessive labour can produce in sixteen hours less than he can produce in eight hours if he works zealously and cheerfully, with a consciousness of his human dignity and a faith in his moral connection with the society or the state which looks after his interests instead of exploiting him. Thus a moral adjustment of economic relations would at the same time make for economic progress.
§VI. In considering the organisation of human relations—in this case, of the economic ones—moral philosophy is not concerned with the concrete particular forms and determinations. These are dictated by life itself, and find realisation through the work of specialists and of men endowed with authority—men of theory and men of practice. Moral philosophy is only concerned with the immutable conditions which follow from the very nature of the
We already know under what conditions social relations in the domain of material labour become moral. The first general condition is, that the sphere of economic activity should not be isolated or affirmed as independent and self-contained. The second, more special condition is that production should not be at the expense of the human dignity of the producers; that not one of them should become merely a means of production, and that each should have secured to him material means necessary for worthy existence and development. The first demand has a religious character: not to put Mammon in the place of God, not to regard material wealth as an independent good, and the final purpose of human activity,
1 The recognition of material wealth as the end of economic activity may be called the original sin of political economy, since it dates back to Adam Smith.
2 The Hebrew words, laobod ef gaadama לַעֲבֹדאֶת-הָאֲדָמָה (Gen. iii. 23) literally mean ‘to serve the earth’—not, of course, to serve in the sense of areligious cult (although the word obod is used in this sense also) but in the sense in which angels serve humanity or a teacher serves the children, etc.
To
Man’s relation to material nature may be of three kinds: passive submission to it as it now exists; active struggle with it, its subjugation and the using of it as an indifferent instrument; and finally, the affirmation of it in its ideal state—of that which it ought to become through man. The first relation is wholly unjust both to man and to nature—to man, because it deprives him of his spiritual dignity by making him the slave of matter; to nature, because, in worshipping it in its present imperfect and perverted condition, man deprives it of the hope of perfection. The second, the negative relation to nature is relatively normal, as a transitory and temporary stage; for it is clear that in order to make nature what it ought to be, we must first condemn it as it is, as it ought not to be. But absolutely normal and final is of course only the third, the positive relation, in which man uses his superiority over nature for the sake of uplifting it as well as of raising himself. It will be easily noted that man’s threefold relation to earthly nature is a repetition, though on a wider scale, of his relation to his own material nature. Here, too, we necessarily distinguish the abnormal (passive) and the normal (positively
§VII. The efficient or producing cause of labour is found in the needs of man. This cause holds good for all the factors of production which appear now as the subjects and now as the objects of needs. The worker, as a living being, has need of the means of livelihood, and, as labour, he is the object of need to the capitalist, who in his turn, as employer, is an object of need to the worker, and in this sense is the immediate efficient cause of his labour. The same persons, as producers, stand in a similar relation to consumers, etc.
The material (and instrumental) cause of labour and production is found on the one hand in the forces of nature, and on the other in the various faculties and forces of man. But these twofold (efficient and material) economic causes, studied by political economy and statistics from different points of view, are physically unlimited and morally indefinite. The needs may increase in number and complexity ad infinitum; both needs and faculties may be of different worth, and, finally, the forces of nature may be used in the most various directions. All this leads to practical questions to which political economy, as a science limited to the material and existent aspect of things, can give no answer. Many persons have a need of {appetite for} pornography. Should this need be satisfied by the production of indecent books, pictures, immoral spectacles? Some demands, as well as some faculties, are obviously perverted in character; thus in the case of many persons certain positive qualities of intellect and will degenerate into a peculiar capacity
For political economy labour is an activity of man ensuing from his needs, conditioned by his faculties, applied to the forces of nature, and having for its purpose the production of the greatest possible wealth. From the moral point of view labour is interaction between men in the material world; it must, in accordance with the moral demands, secure to each and all the necessary means of worthy existence, enabling man to bring to perfection all his powers, and is finally destined to transfigure and spiritualise material nature. Such is the essence of labour from the point of view of the higher causality—of the formal and final cause—apart from which the two lower causes remain practically indefinite.
Further conditions of the normal economic life become clear in analysing the conceptions of property and exchange.
§VIII. All the acute questions of the economic life are closely connected with the idea of property, which in itself, however, belongs to the sphere of jurisprudence, morality, and psychology rather than to that of economic relations. This fact alone clearly
The ultimate basis of property, as all serious philosophers of modern times rightly recognise, is to be found in the very nature of man. Even in the contents of inner psychical experience we necessarily distinguish ourselves from what is ours: all our thoughts, feelings, desires, we regard as belonging to us, in contradistinction to ourselves as thinking, feeling, desiring. The relation is twofold. On the one hand, we necessarily put ourselves above what is ours, for we recognise that our existence is not by any means exhausted by or limited to any particular mental states—that this thought, this desire may disappear while we ourselves remain. This is the fundamental expression of human personality as formally unconditional, quite apart from the metaphysical question of the soul as substance. On the other hand, however, we are aware that if we are deprived of all mental states altogether we shall become a blank; so that for the reality and fulness of being it is insufficient to be ‘oneself,’ but it is necessary to have ‘one’s own.’ Even in the inner psychical sphere that which belongs to the self is not always the absolute property of the person and is not always connected with him to the same extent.
Some mental states express by their content in the most inti mate, direct, and immediate way that which is essential and fundamental to the given individual, and are in a sense inseparable from him. Thus, for instance, when a person has an implicit steadfast faith in God, such faith is his unalienable property—not in the sense that he must always actually have in mind a positive thought of God with corresponding thoughts and impulses, but only in the sense that every time the idea of God actually arises in his mind, or that he is faced with a question concerning God, a definite positive answer accompanied by corresponding states of feeling and will is bound to follow. Other mental states are, on the contrary, merely superficial and transitory reactions of the person to external influences—accidental both in content and in origin, though conditioned by a more or less complex association of ideas and other mental and bodily processes. Thus when a person happens to think of the advantages or disadvantages of cycling, or to wish for a drink of beer, or to feel indignation at some lie in the newspapers, etc., it is obvious that such accidental states are
Thus even in the sphere of the inner psychical life we find that property is but relative and different in degree, beginning with the ‘treasure’ in which man ‘puts his very soul’ and which may nevertheless be taken from him, and ending with states which prove to belong to him in an utterly fictitious sense. Similar relativity obtains with regard to external property. The immediate object of it is man’s own body, which, however, belongs to man only more or less. This is true, first, in the natural sense that the individual himself cannot regard as equally his own those organs or parts of the body without which earthly life is altogether impossible (e.g. the head or the heart), those without which it is possible but not enjoyable (e.g. ‘the apple of the eye’), and those the loss of which is no misfortune at all (e.g. an amputated finger or an extracted tooth, not to speak of nails, hair, etc.). If, however, the real connection of the person with his body is thus relative and unequal, there is no natural ground for regarding the body as his absolute property or as absolutely inviolable. And from the point of view of the un conditional moral principle the bodily inviolability of a person is not anything distinct and on its own account, but is connected with universal and generally binding norms, and is therefore
If, on the other hand, property is understood in the strict sense as the ‘jus utendi and abutendi re sua’ (the right to use and to abuse of one’s own thing), such a right is not absolute so far as one’s body is concerned. On this side too it is limited by just considerations of the common good which have found expression in legal codes of all epochs and nations. If the whole of man’s physical powers are needed, for instance, for the defence of his country, even so slight an ‘abuse’ of one’s body as cutting off a finger is recognised as criminal. And even apart from such special conditions, not by any means every use that man may make of his body is regarded as permissible.
But whatever the moral and social limitations of man’s rights over his own body may be, in any case it unquestionably belongs to him, just as his mental states do, in virtue of a direct and natural connection, independent of his will, between himself and what is his. As to external things, the ground upon which they belong to this or that person, or are appropriated by him, is not immediately given and calls for explanation. Even when there appears to be the closest connection between a person and a thing, as for instance between necessary clothing and the person who is wearing it, the question as to property still remains open, for the clothes may not be his own but may have been stolen from somebody else. On the other hand, a person living in Petersburg or London may have immovable property in East Siberia which he has never seen nor ever will see. If, then, the presence of the closest real connection between a person and a thing (as in the first case) is in no sense a guarantee of property, while the absence of any real connection (as in the second instance) is no obstacle to property, it follows that the real connection is altogether irrelevant and that the right of property must have an ideal basis. According to a current philosophical definition, property is the ideal continuation of the person in things or the extension of the person to things. In what way, however, and upon what ground is the self thus extended to
Work thus remains, in the general opinion, the essential basis of property. The product of one’s work and effort naturally becomes one’s own, one’s property. This ground, however, also proves to be insecure. If it were sufficient, children would have to be recognised as the property of the mother who brought them into the world with no little labour and effort. Reservations have to be made and human beings must be a priori excluded from the class of objects of property; and this can only be done in virtue of principles utterly foreign to the economic sphere as such. At this point, however, a new and more important difficulty arises. It has been granted that things alone can be objects of property, and that the ground of property is labour which produces them. This would be all very well if labour could produce things; but in truth labour produces not things but utility in things. Utility, however, is a relation and not a thing and cannot therefore be the object of property. In common parlance, dating from primitive times, it is usual to speak of workmen making things; but even persons ignorant of political economy understand that workmen merely produce in the given material changes which communicate to it some relatively new qualities corresponding to certain human needs. There is no doubt that they work for their own sake as well as for other people’s, and that their work must give satisfaction to their own needs. “The workman is worthy of his meat,”
1 ‘Meat’ should, of course, be understood in the wide sense explained above.
The question, however, is what can be the ground of the workman’s
Thus there exists no real ground why the product of labour should be the property of anyone, and we must therefore turn to the ideal grounds.
§IX. In virtue of the absolute significance of personality every man has a right to the means of a worthy existence. Since, however, the individual as such has this right potentially only, and it depends upon society actually to realise or to secure it, it follows that the individual has a corresponding duty towards society—the duty to be useful to it or to work for the common good. In this sense work is the source of property: the worker has an unquestionable right of property over what he has earned. Within certain limits demanded by the moral principle, wages may be regulated by society—i.e. by the central authority or the Government—and not be allowed to fall below a certain minimum, but they cannot be prescribed with absolute exactness. On the other hand, the needs and the conditions of a worthy existence are even in a normal society only an approximately constant and definite quantity. Hence it becomes possible for individual persons to save or to accumulate material means, i.e. to form capital. There is, of course, still less visible and real connection between capital and the person who has saved it than there is between the workman and the thing he has made, but the close and complete ideal connection is obvious. Capital as such, in its general nature—apart from the circumstances owing to which it may in individual cases have been built up—is a pure product of human will, for originally it depended upon that will to save a part of the earnings or to use it too for current needs. Capital, therefore, ought in justice to be recognised as property par excellence.
1 I have indicated the source of capital in the simplest normal scheme. But whatever anomalies may accompany the formation and growth of capital in actual life, the part played by the will or the strength of spirit remains in any case essential. Since there is no doubt that all wealth may be squandered, the mere fact of saving it is an obvious merit of will on the part of the saver; it is null in comparison with merits of a different and higher order, but in their absence it undoubtedly has an importance of its own.
The only question is as to what we are to understand by misuse that calls for the intervention of the state. Socialism recognises as misuse all transfer of earned property to another person by legacy or testament. This transference of economic advantages to persons who have not personally deserved them is alleged to be the main wrong and the source of all social evils. But although inheritance of property has some real drawbacks, they disappear in the face of the positive side of this institution, which necessarily follows from the very nature of man. The continuous chain of progress in humanity is kept together by the conscious successiveness of its links.
1 Even Roman law, thoroughly individualistic as it was in this respect, introduced an important reservation into the formula quoted above: proprietas est jus utendi et abutendi re sua quatenus juris ratio patitur property is the right to use and to abuse of one’s thing in so far as it is compatible with the meaning (or the rational basis) of justice. But the meaning of justice demands precisely that private caprice should be limited by the common good.
While the all-embracing unity of the future is still in the making, the very
When dealing with an institution which is not immoral and is based upon ideal foundations though it corresponds only to the medium level of morality, no serious moralist ought to forget the unquestionable truth that it is far more difficult for society to rise above this level than to sink below it. Even if socialism and theories akin to it did intend to turn every human being into an angel, they would certainly fail to do so; but to bring the human mass down to the brutal stage is not at all difficult. To reject in the name of the absolute moral ideal the necessary social conditions of moral progress means, in the first place, in defiance of logic, to confuse the absolute and eternal value of that which is being realised with the relative value of the degree of realisation as a process in time. Secondly, it means a thoughtless attitude towards the absolute ideal which, apart from the concrete conditions of its realisation, becomes for man an empty phrase. Thirdly, this pseudo-moral uncompromising
Inherited property is the abiding realisation of moral interaction in the most intimate and the most fundamental social group—namely, in the family. Inherited wealth is, on the one hand, the embodiment of pity, reaching beyond the grave, of the parents for their children, and, on the other, a concrete point of departure for a pious memory of the departed parents. With these two is connected, at any rate with regard to the most important kind of property—the property in land, a third moral factor, viz. man’s relation to the external nature, i.e. to the earth. For the majority of men this relation can become moral only on condition of their having inherited landed property. To understand earthly nature and to love it for its own sake is given to a few only; but everyone becomes naturally attached to his own native spot, to the graves of his fathers and the haunts of his childhood. It is a moral bond, and one which extends human solidarity to material nature, thus making a beginning of its spiritualisation. This fact both justifies the institution of inherited property in land and serves as a basis for making it more conformable to the demands of morality. It is not sufficient to recognise the ideal character which obviously attaches to such property: it is necessary to strengthen and develop this character, protecting it from the low and selfish motives which are natural enough at the present stage of human progress and may easily gain the upper hand. Decisive check must be put upon the treatment of the earth as a lifeless instrument of rapacious exploitation; the plots of land handed down from one generation to another must, in principle, be made inalienable and sufficient to maintain in each person a moral attitude towards the earth. It will be said that, with the population constantly increasing, enough land cannot be found both to preserve to each what he has got, or even a part of it, and to give some to those who have not got any. This objection appears to be a serious one, but is in truth either thoughtless or unfair. It would certainly be very absurd
As to the unlimited increase of population, it is not ordained by any physical, and, still less, by any moral law. It is understood, of course, that normal economics are only possible in connection with the normal family, which is based upon rational asceticism and not upon unchecked carnal instincts. The immoral exploitation of land cannot stop so long as there is immoral exploitation of woman. If man’s relation to his inner house (this is the name applied by the Scriptures to the wife) is wrong, his relation to his external house cannot be right either. A man who beats his wife cannot care for the earth as he should. Speaking generally, the moral solution of the economic question is intimately connected with the whole problem of life in the individual and the race.
§X. Just as there can be no physiological life without the interchange of substances, so there can be no social life without the interchange of things (and of signs representing them). This important section of human material relations is studied on its technical side by political economy, financial and commercial law, and falls within the scope of moral philosophy only in so far as exchange becomes fraud. To judge economic phenomena and relations as such—to affirm, e.g., as some moralists do, that money is an evil, that there must be no commerce, that banks ought to be abolished, etc.—is unpardonable childishness. It is obvious that objects which are thus condemned are morally indifferent or neutral, and become good or evil only according to the quality and direction of the will that uses them. If we are
The root of evil in this case, as in the whole of the economic sphere, is one and the same, namely, that the material interest is made dominant instead of subservient, independent instead of dependent, an end instead of a means. From this poisonous root three noxious stems spring in the domain of exchange—falsification, speculation, and usury.
A modern text-book of political economy gives as a current definition of commerce that it is a trade “consisting in the buying and selling of goods with the object of gain.” The description of commerce as the buying and selling of goods is purely verbal; the important thing is the purpose which is here said to consist entirely in the gain of the trader.
1 I do not, of course, hold the author of the book responsible for this definition, since he only gives expression to the popular idea.
From this point of view the economic anomalies indicated can only be abolished if their immoral root is destroyed. But everyone understands that the unchecked growth of a plant strengthens its roots and extends them in breadth and in depth, and that if the roots are very deep, the stem must be cut down first.
Falsification of goods, especially of the objects of necessary consumption, is a menace to public welfare and is not merely immoral but positively criminal. In some cases it is regarded as such even at the present day, but this view must be worked out more consistently. When the whole legal procedure and system of penalties
Financial operations with fictitious values (the so-called ‘speculations’) are certainly a social disease rather than a personal crime, and the first remedy is absolute prohibition of institutions whereby this disease is nurtured. As to usury, the only sure method of abolishing it is, obviously, universal development of normal credit, not with the object of gain but as a charitable institution.
In discussing economic relations which ought to hold in the domain of labour, property, and exchange, I have spoken throughout of justice and right, conceptions which have also been presupposed in the treatment of the penal question. For the most part the terms ‘justice’ and ‘right’ carry the same meaning. The idea of justice, however, expresses a purely moral demand, and therefore belongs to the ethical sphere, while right determines a special sphere of relations—namely, the legal one. Is this distinction merely a misunderstanding or, if it is well grounded, what is the meaning and the degree of it?
1 See above, Part III., Chap. VI.
Turning now to the question as to the relation of morality and legal justice or right, we may note, without prejudging the content of our inquiry, that the question
Chapter VIII. Morality and Legal Justice
§I.
At each stage the relative is connected with the absolute as a means for concretely bringing about the perfection of all; and this connection justifies the lesser good as a condition of the greater. At the same time it justifies the absolute good itself, which would not be absolute if it could not connect with itself or include in one way or another all concrete relations. And indeed, nowhere in the world accessible to us do we find the two terms in separation or in their bare form. Everywhere the absolute principle is clothed with relative forms, and the relative is inwardly connected with the absolute and held together by it. The difference lies simply in the comparative predominance of one or the other aspect.
When some two species of concrete relations or some two domains within which they are exemplified are separated from and opposed to one another, one being regarded as absolute and another as purely relative in meaning, we may be certain that the opposition itself is purely relative. Each of the two domains is simply a special instance of the relation between the absolute and the relative,—relation different in form and degree, but identical in nature and supreme purpose. And it is in this relation of both to the absolute that the positive connection or the unity of the two consists.
Within the limits of the active or practical life of humanity there is apparent opposition between the moral sphere in the strict sense and the sphere of legal justice. From ancient times, beginning with the pagan Cynics and the Christian gnostics, and down to our own day, this opposition has been taken to be unconditional. Morality alone has been regarded as absolute, and legal justice, as a purely conventional phenomenon, has been rejected in the name of the absolute demands. One immediately feels that this view is false, but moral philosophy compels us to disregard this feeling which may, after all, be deceptive, and to consider the true relation between morality and legal justice from the standpoint of the absolute good. Is this good justified by its relation to justice? A person interested in etymology may note that the answer is already contained in the terms of the question. This philological circumstance will be discussed
§II. In his lectures on Criminal Law Professor N. S. Tagantsev quotes, among other things, the following Prussian enactment of the year 1739: “If an advocate or a procurator or any similar person ventures to present any petition to his Royal Majesty, either personally or through somebody else, it is the pleasure of his Royal Majesty that the aforesaid person should be hanged without mercy, and a dog be hanged by the side of him.”
Of the legality or conformity to law of the enactment in question there can be no doubt; and there can be equally no doubt of its being opposed to the most elementary demands of justice. The opposition seems to be intentionally emphasised by extending the punishment of the advocate or procurator to the perfectly innocent dog. Similar, though not such glaring cases of disagreement between morality and positive right, between justice and law, are frequently met with in history. The question must then be asked, how is this fact to be regarded, and which or the two conflicting principles are we to adopt in practical life? The answer appears to be clear. Moral demands have an inherent character of being absolutely binding, which may be entirely absent from the enactments of positive law. Hence the conclusion seems legitimate that the question as to the relation between morality and legal justice is settled by a simple rejection of the latter as a binding principle of action. All human relations must accordingly be reduced to purely moral interaction, and the sphere of the legal or juridical determinations and relations must be entirely rejected.
This conclusion is very easily thought of, but is also extremely thoughtless. This ‘antinomy,’ or the absolute opposition between morality and law, has never subjected its fundamental assumption to any consistent or far-reaching criticism.
That a formally legal enactment, such as the edict of the king of Prussia, quoted above, is opposed to the demands of morality is only too obvious. But it may well be that it is also opposed to
It was reported in the papers a little while ago that a woman suspected of causing the illness of a boy by means of a bewitched apple was terribly injured and almost killed by the crowd in the centre of Moscow—near St. Panteleimon’s Chapel in Nikolsky Street. Now these people acted independently of any interested motives or external considerations; they had no personal enmity to the woman and no personal interest in beating her; their sole motive was the feeling that so outrageous a crime as the poisoning of an innocent babe by means of sorcery ought to meet with just retribution. Thus it cannot be denied that their behaviour had a formally moral character, though everyone will agree that it certainly was essentially immoral. If, however, the fact that revolting crimes may be committed from purely moral motives does not lead us to reject morality as such, there is no reason why such essentially unjust, though legal, enactments as the Prussian law of 1739 should be regarded as sufficient ground for rejecting legal justice. In the case of the crime in Nikolsky Street it is not the moral principle that is at fault, but the insufficient development of the moral consciousness in the half-savage crowd; in the case of the absurd Prussian law it is not the idea of legal justice or law that is at fault, but only the small degree to which the idea of justice was developed in the consciousness of King Friedrich-Wilhelm. It would not be worthwhile to discuss the subject were it not for the bad habit, which has become established of late, especially with reference to legal questions, to deduce, contrary to logic, general conclusions from concrete particular instances.
§III. It is not legal justice and morality that conflict and are incompatible with one another, but the different states both of the legal and the moral consciousness. Apart from these states and their concrete expressions, there exist, however, in the domain of legal
All rights and laws are still transmitted
Like an eternal sickness of the race,—
From generation unto generation fitted
And shifted round from place to place.
Reason becomes a sham, Beneficence a worry:
Thou art a grandchild, therefore woe to thee.
The right born with us, ours in verity
This to consider, there’s, alas! no hurry.
Even Mephistopheles recognises this natural right, and merely complains that it is ignored.
1 Apart from the direct meaning of this remark, it may be regarded as a kind of prophecy of the persecution which, a quarter of a century after Goethe’s death, the idea of the natural right suffered in jurisprudence. There are signs which show that this persecution is coming to an end.
I contend that this edict itself meant unquestionable progress in comparison with the state of things which had once prevailed in Brandenburg and Pomerania, as in the rest of Europe, when every powerful baron could calmly put peaceful people to death for motives of personal
This difference of degree, this actual progress in legal justice, the steady advance of the legal enactments towards legal norms, conformable to, though not identical with, the moral demands, sufficiently proves that the relation between the two principles is not merely negative. It shows that it is unpermissible from the point of view of morality itself to dismiss the whole range of legal facts and problems by a simple and meaningless rejection of them.
§IV. The relation between the moral and the legal sphere is one of the fundamental questions of practical philosophy. It is really the question as to the relation between the ideal moral consciousness and the actual life. The vitality and the fruitfulness of the moral consciousness depends upon this relation being under stood in a positive sense. Between the ideal good on the one hand and the evil reality on the other lies the intermediate sphere of law and justice, whose function is to give concrete embodiment to the good, to limit and to correct the evil. Justice and its embodiment—the state—condition the actual organisation of the moral life of humanity. Moral preaching which takes up a negative attitude towards justice as such could have no objective basis or means of expression in the real environment that is foreign to it, and would remain at best an innocent pastime. If, on the other hand, the formal conceptions and institutions of legal justice were completely severed from the moral principles and purposes, legality would lose its absolute basis and become purely arbitrary.
There is not a single moral relation which could not be correctly and intelligibly expressed in terms of right. One would think that nothing could be more remote from the juridical order of ideas than love for one’s enemies. And yet if the supreme moral law proclaims it my duty to love my enemies, it is clear that my enemies have a right to my love. If I deny love to them, I act unjustly, I sin against what is right. Here we have a term which alone embodies the essential unity of the juridical and the moral principles. 1 For rights are nothing more than the expression of what is right, and, on the other hand, all virtues 2 are reducible to the idea of right or justice, i.e. to what is right or due in the ethical sense. This is not a case of accidental similarity of terms, but of essential homogeneity and inner connection of the ideas themselves.
1 In all languages, moral and juridical conceptions are expressed either by the same terms or by terms derived from the same root. The Russian dolg, like the Latin debitum (hence the French devoir) and the German Schuld have both a moral and a juridical meaning; in the case of δική and δικαιοσύνη, jus and justitia, of the Russian pravo and pravda, the German Recht and Gerechtigkeit, the English right and righteousness, the two meanings are distinguished by the use of suffixes. Cp. also the Hebrew tsedek and tsedakah.
2 See above, Part I., Chapter V.: “Virtues.”
It does not, of course, follow that the sphere of legal justice and morality coincide, or that the moral and the juridical conceptions
§V. The fact that we speak of moral right and moral duty, on the one hand proves the absence of any fundamental opposition or incompatibility of the moral and the juridical principles, and, on the other, indicates an essential difference between them. In designating a given right (e.g. the right of my enemy to my love) as moral only, we imply that in addition to the moral there exist other rights, i.e. rights in a more restricted sense, or that there exists right as such, which is not directly and immediately characterised as moral. Take, on the one hand, the duty of loving our enemies and their corresponding right to our love, and on the other, take the duty to pay one’s debts, or the duty not to rob and murder one’s neighbours and their corresponding right not to be robbed, murdered, or deceived by us. It is obvious that there is an essential difference between the two kinds of relation, and that only the second of them falls within the scope of justice in the narrow sense of the term.
The difference can be reduced to three main points:
(1) A purely moral demand, such, e.g., as the love for one’s enemies, is unlimited or all-embracing in nature; it presupposes moral perfection, or, at any rate, an unlimited striving towards perfection. Every limitation admitted as a matter of principle is opposed to the nature of the moral commandment and undermines its dignity and significance. If a person gives up the absolute moral ideal as a principle, he gives up morality itself and leaves the moral ground. Juridical law, on the contrary, is essentially limited, as is clearly seen in all cases of its application. In the place of perfection it demands the lowest, the minimum degree of morality, that is, simply, actual restraint of certain manifestations of the immoral will. This distinction, however, is not an opposition leading to real conflict. From the moral point of view it cannot be denied that the demand conscientiously to
(2) The unlimited character of the purely moral demands leads to another point of difference. The way in which such demands are to be fulfilled is not definitely prescribed, nor is it limited to any concrete external manifestations or material actions. The commandment to love one’s enemies does not indicate, except as an example, what precisely we ought to do in virtue of that love, i.e. which particular actions we ought to perform and from which to abstain. At the same time, if love is expressed by means of definite actions, the moral commandment cannot be regarded as already fulfilled by these actions and as demanding nothing further. The task of fulfilling the commandment, which is an expression of the absolute perfection, remains infinite. Juridical laws, on the contrary, prescribe or prohibit perfectly definite external actions, with the performance or non-performance of which the law is satisfied and demands nothing further. If I produce in due time the money I am owing, and pass it to my creditor, if I do not murder or rob anyone, etc., the law is satisfied and wants nothing more from me. This difference between the moral and the juridical law once more involves no contradiction. The demand for the moral inner disposition, so far from excluding external actions, directly presupposes them as its own proof or justification. No one would believe in the inward goodness of a man if it never showed itself in any works of mercy. On the other hand, the request to perform definite
(3) This second distinction involves a third one. The demand for moral perfection as an inner state presupposes free or voluntary fulfillment. Not only physical but even psychological compulsion is here, from the nature of the case, both undesirable and impossible. External realisation of a certain uniform order, on the contrary, admits of direct or indirect compulsion. And in so far as the direct and immediate purpose of legal justice is precisely the realisation or the external embodiment of a certain good—e.g. of public safety—in so far the compelling character of the law is a necessity; for no genuine person could seriously maintain that by means of verbal persuasion alone all murders, frauds, etc., could be immediately stopped.
§VI. Combining the three characteristics indicated we obtain the following
The question has now to be asked, what is the ground for such
All this would be perfectly true were the moral problem a theoretical one and were the perfect good compatible with selfish impassibility or indifference to the sufferings of others. But since the true conception of the good necessarily includes the principle of altruism, which demands corresponding behaviour on our part, i.e. demands that compassion for the ills of others should prompt us actively to save them from evil, moral duty certainly requires us to do more than simply to profess the perfect ideal. In the natural course of things, which ought not to be approved of or acquiesced in, but which it is childish not to take into account, what would happen is this: whilst some would be freely striving towards the supreme ideal and grow perfect in impassibility, others would exercise themselves, unhindered, in every conceivable crime and would certainly exterminate the first before they could attain a high degree of moral perfection. But even supposing that men of good will were by some miracle saved from extermination by the bad ones, these good men themselves would obviously prove to be insufficiently good if they would be content with pious conversations about the good, instead of actively helping their neighbours and protecting them against the extreme and destructive forms of evil.
Moral interest demands personal freedom as a condition apart from which human dignity and higher moral development is impossible. But man cannot exist, and, consequently, cannot perfect his freedom and his moral nature apart from society. Moral interest therefore demands that personal freedom should not conflict with the conditions which render the existence of society possible. This demand cannot be carried into effect by means of the ideal of moral perfection, which the individual is to attain by his own free efforts. For the essential practical
The moral law has been given to man ‘that he might live thereby’; and if human society did not exist, morality would remain merely an abstract idea. The existence of society, however, depends not on the perfection of some, but on the security of all. This security is not guaranteed by the moral law, which is non-existent for persons in whom anti-social instincts predominate, but it is safeguarded by the compulsory law which has actual power over everyone. To appeal to the gracious power of Providence to restrain and exhort lunatics and criminals is sheer blasphemy. It is impious to lay upon the Deity that which can be successfully performed by a good legal system.
Let it be granted that the highest morality, on its ascetic side, demands that I should be indifferent to the prospect of being killed, mutilated, or robbed. But the same supreme morality on its altruistic side does not permit me to remain indifferent to the fact that my neighbours may, without interference from anyone, become murderers or be murdered, robbers or the robbed, and that society, apart from which the individual cannot live and develop, should run the risk of
The demand for personal liberty presupposes for its realisation the restriction of that liberty to the extent in which, at the given state of humanity, it is incompatible with the existence of society or with the common good. From the point of view of abstract thought there appears to be an opposition between these two interests, both of which are equally binding morally. In reality, however, they coincide, and legal justice is the offspring of their union.
§VII. The principle of legal justice may be considered in the abstract, and in that case it is simply a direct expression of moral justice. I affirm my freedom as my right in so far as I recognise the freedom of others as their right; but the conception of right necessarily involves, as we have seen, an objective element, or a demand to be realised. Right must be capable of realisation: that is, the freedom of others, whether recognised by me or not, must, independently of my personal feeling of justice, restrict my freedom within limits equally binding upon everyone.
It would be a fatal confusion of ideas to believe that justice has for its purpose material equalisation of private interests. Justice as such has nothing to do with this. It is concerned only with the two main factors of human life—the freedom of the individual and the good of society. When legal justice
The harmony of the two moral interests is still more obvious in the case of the penal law. It is clear that the freedom of the individual, or his natural right to live and to strive for perfection, would be an empty sound if it depended upon the whim of every other individual who might want to murder or to cripple his neighbour, or to deprive him of the means of subsistence. It is our moral right to defend our freedom and safety from the attacks made upon it by the evil will of others, and it is our moral duty to help other people to do the same. This common duty is discharged for the benefit of all by the penal law.
Legal compulsion in this sphere secures the freedom of peaceful citizens, but it leaves sufficient room for the exercise of evil propensities and compels no one to be virtuous. A malicious man may, if he likes, give vent to his malice in evil-speaking, intrigues, slander, quarrels, etc. It is only when the evil will attacks the objective public rights of the individuals, and threatens the security of society itself, that it becomes necessary for the sake of the common good, which coincides with the freedom of peaceful citizens, to limit the freedom of evil. In the interests of freedom, legal justice allows men to be wicked, and does not interfere with their free choice between good and evil. But in the interests of the common good it prevents the evil man from becoming an
Such premature hell has threatened and, to a certain extent, still threatens humanity on two sides. The normal society, that is, a society that leads a secure and worthy existence and progresses towards perfection, is conditioned by the proper balance being maintained between the individual and the collective interest. Hence, anomalies perilous to society may arise either from the excess of individual power, breaking up the social solidarity, or, on the contrary, from the excess of social control crushing the individual. The first anomaly menaces humanity with the burning hell of anarchy; the second, with the icy hell of despotism, i.e. of the same anarchy or arbitrariness concentrated at one point and pressing upon society from without.
In actual history the balance between free individual powers and the collective power of the social organisation is, of course, movable and variable, made up of a number of particular deviations and rectifications. But the very fact that we note these variations is sufficient to prove that above them lie the abiding norms of social and individual relations—the eternal boundaries which spring from the very nature of morality, and cannot, without fatal consequences, be overstepped by society either in the one direction or in the other. The most universal and in this sense the most important of these boundaries is that which limits the compelling power of social organisations to the domain of the objective or practical good, leaving all the rest, i.e. all the inner or spiritual world of man, to the entire responsibility of individuals and of free associations. To defend the life and property of everyone against the attacks of external and internal enemies, to secure to all the necessary education, food, medical assistance, and all that is connected therewith (means of communication, post, etc.),—this is the practical good which can and ought to be realised by the organised power of the society. For this end society must inevitably impose certain restrictions or liabilities. The compulsory character of these restrictions is specific only, for it is clear that a person who, for instance, voluntarily abstains from crimes does not experience any personal inconvenience from
The essential characteristic of the good which is conditioned by the organisation of legal justice in society is not its compulsory character—which is merely a possible consequence of it—but the direct objectivity of its aim. What is above all things important is that certain things should and certain things should not exist as a fact. It is important that there should be protection against savage peoples, so that they should not burn and destroy towns and villages; it is important that evil men should not rob and murder the wayfarers; it is important that the population should not be exterminated by diseases; it is important that everyone should have access to intellectual education and enlightenment.
These necessary goods are external in character, and the way to obtain them is also external, admitting of compulsion where it is inevitable. To the immediate, essential work of the law courts, hospitals, schools, it makes no difference whatever whether they are supported by voluntary subscriptions or by compulsory taxation. The same thing, however, cannot be said of spiritual goods, which from their very nature cannot be compulsory. There are, in the last resort, two such goods for man: virtue, i.e. inner inclination of our will to the good as such, and truth or right belief, i.e. inner agreement of our reason with truth as such. It is clear from these definitions alone that freedom or spontaneousness forms an essential part of both the spiritual or inward goods. Therefore all compulsory external action in this sphere is, in the first place, a fraud. The purpose of externally compelling or forcing a man to have an inner, i.e. an inwardly determined, disposition for the good, or an inner receptivity for the true, cannot possibly be achieved, and is indeed a logical contradiction or absurdity; and to use compulsion to no purpose is obviously an evil. Hence, all compulsory measures with regard to spiritual things in the supposed interests of truth and virtue are nothing other than the use of evil means for a false purpose—an abuse in the fullest sense.
There are three kinds of violence in our world: (1) brutal violence, such as is committed by murderers, highwaymen,
§VIII. From the nature of legal justice, which serves the external or the objective good, it follows that truth and virtue must always remain a private concern, and one which is perfectly free. In addition to the principle of unlimited religious tolerance, certain other consequences follow from this.
In the domain of the penal as well as of the civil law the freedom of the individual is limited, not by the private or subjective interest of other individuals taken separately, but by the good of all. Many vain and self-conscious people would rather be plundered or even crippled than suffer secret abuse, slander, and heartless condemnation. If, therefore, legal justice aimed at the protection of private interest as such, it would in cases of this kind have to limit the freedom of slanderers and evil-speakers even more than the freedom of robbers and men of violence. But it does not do so, for verbal insults are not so detrimental to the safety of society, and do not indicate so menacing a degree of evil will as the crimes against person and property. Even if the law intended to cope with such actions, it would be impossible for it to take into account all the forms and degrees of individual sensibility to insults. And if it could do so, it would be unjust, for it is impossible to prove that the guilty person intended to cause the high degree of suffering which he did cause in reality. Common law may only be guided by definite intentions and objective actions which can be verified by everyone. Besides, in the cases which do not fall within the scope of penal law, the injured person may, if he likes, avenge himself on the injurer by the same means. His freedom in this respect is respected as much as that of his adversary. And if he is morally superior to the latter, and thinks that he ought not to avenge
§IX. Since the essence of legal justice consists in maintaining the balance between two moral interests—that of individual liberty and of the common good, it is clear that though the latter interest may limit the former it may not under any circumstances abolish it. For in that case the balance would obviously be disturbed and disappear through the destruction of one of the terms of the relation. Therefore measures against the criminal should never go so far as to deprive him of life or to take away his freedom for ever. Laws which permit capital punishment, lifelong penal servitude, or lifelong solitary confinement cannot be justified from the legal point of view—they contradict the very nature of legal justice. Besides, the contention that in certain cases the common good requires that a given person should be completely done away with, involves a logical self-contradiction. Common good is common just because in a certain sense it contains the good of all individual persons without exception; if it did not, it would be the good of the majority. It does not follow that it therefore is a mere sum of private interests, or that it allows of unlimited individual freedom. This would be another contradiction, since the unlimited freedom of one individual may, and actually does, conflict with the liberty of others. But the conception of the common good implies with logical necessity that in restricting particular interests and activities within common bounds it cannot do away with a single bearer of such interests
With reference to this point, too, we see that the demands of morality entirely coincide with the essence of legal justice. Speaking generally, although legal justice in exercising compulsion to secure the minimum of good differs from morality in the strict sense, yet in its exercise of compulsion it observes the demands of morality, and must on no account conflict with it. If, therefore, some positive law is opposed to the moral consciousness of the good, we may be a priori certain that it does not satisfy the essential demands of justice either. So far as such laws are concerned, it is not in the interests of justice that they should be retained, but that they should be lawfully repealed.
1 After what has been said in Chapter VI. on the penal question, I need not explain that the moral principle not only permits but in certain cases actually demands that the criminal should for a time be deprived of liberty, both for his own good and for the sake of public safety. But it is morally impossible to inflict the penalty of death, or to pass a sentence depriving a man of liberty for the rest of his life.
§X. External compulsion is one of the essential characteristics of the norms of legal justice as distinct from moral norms in the strict sense. Hence, justice from its very nature requires guarantees, i.e. sufficient power to enforce the realisation of its norms.
Every person in virtue of his absolute moral worth has an inalienable right to exist and to strive for perfection. This moral right would, however, be an empty word were its actual realisation to depend entirely upon external happenings and the arbitrary will of others. To be real, a right must contain within itself the conditions of its own realisation, i.e. it must be safe guarded from violation. The first and essential condition of this is communal life, since a solitary man is obviously powerless against the forces of nature, wild beasts, and brutal men. But
The definite limitation of personal freedom in given conditions of time and place, in accordance with the demands of the common good, or, what is the same thing, a certain balance or a constant harmony between these two principles, is a positive right or law in the strict sense.
Law, as such, is a universally recognised and impersonal—i.e. independent of personal opinions and desires—determination of right, or an expression of a proper balance (under given conditions and in certain respects), between individual liberty and the good of the whole. It is a definition or a general notion which finds concrete realisation through particular judgments in the individual cases or instances.
Hence the three necessary characteristics of law are: (1) its publicity; an enactment that is not made generally known cannot be universally binding, i.e. cannot be a positive law; (2) its concreteness; it is the norm of some particular definite relations in a given real environment and not the expression ofany abstract
In order that the sanction might not remain an empty threat the law must be supported by some real power sufficient to carry its demands into execution. In other words, justice must have its actual bearers or representatives in society who would be sufficiently powerful to give a binding force to the laws they publish and to the sentences they pass. Such actual representatives of justice or agents of the law are called authorities.
I am bound to demand that the social whole should safe guard my natural rights in a way in which I myself am unable to safeguard them, and in doing so I am bound in reason and conscience to recognise the positive right of this social whole to use means and methods of action without which it could not fulfill this necessary and desirable task. Namely, I must leave to the social whole, (1) the power to issue generally binding laws; (2) the power to judge, in accordance with these laws, private affairs and actions; and (3) the power to compel each and all to fulfill the legal verdicts and all other measures necessary for general security and welfare.
It is clear that these three different powers—the legislative, the judicial and the executive, though necessarily distinct, cannot be separate, and ought on no account to conflict with one another: they all have one and the same purpose—to serve the common good in accordance with the law. Their unity finds its real expression in their being equally subordinate to one supreme authority, invested with all the positive rights of the social whole as such. This central power finds immediate expression as legislative authority. Judicial authority is conditioned by the first, since a court of justice is notautonomous, but acts in accordance with a law that is binding upon it.
1 Certain law-codes still preserve—on paper—enactments which require that people should abstain from drunkenness, be pious, honour their parents, etc. But such spurious laws are merely a vestige of the primitive state in which the moral and the juridical conceptions were confused or merged into one.
2 The pious wishes of the lawgiver referred to in the last note are not accompanied by any sanction, which fact sufficiently proves that they are spurious laws.
The first
The social body with a definite organisation, containing in itself the fulness of positive rights or the one supreme authority, is called the state. In every organism it is necessary to distinguish the organising principle, the system of the organs or of the instruments whereby the organisation is carried out and the totality of elements to be organised. Corresponding to this, we distinguish in the collective organism of the state, taken in the concrete, (1) the supreme authority; (2) its different organs or subordinate authorities; (3) the substratum of the state, i.e. the mass of the population of a given territory, consisting of individuals, families and other more or less broad private unions subordinate to the authority of the state. In the state alone does justice find all the conditions necessary for its concrete realisation, and from this point of view the state is the embodiment of justice.
Without dwelling here upon the question as to the actual historical origin and the supreme sanction of the state authority,
1 See above, Part III., Chapters I. and VI., and below, Chapters IX. and X.
Compulsion is exercised by the state only in the last extremity, the extent of it is determined beforehand in accordance with law, and it is justified by the fact that it proceeds from a common
Chapter IX. The Significance of War
§I. No one, I fancy, doubts that, speaking generally, health is a good thing and disease a bad one, that the first is normal and the second anomalous. The only way to define health, indeed, is to call it the normal state of the organism, and disease ‘the deviation of the physiological life from its normal condition.’ This anomaly of the physiological life, called disease, is not however a meaningless accident or an arbitrary product of external evil forces. Not to speak of the inevitable diseases of growth or development, the opinion of all thoughtful medical men is that the true cause of all disease lies in the inner deep-lying changes of the organism itself, and the external immediate causes of illness (e.g. catching cold, exhaustion, infection, etc.) are merely the occasions for the inner cause to manifest itself. Similarly, the abnormal phenomena which ignorant people usually identify with the disease itself (e.g. fever and shivering fits, cough, various pains, abnormal secretion) in truth simply express the successful or the unsuccessful struggle of the organism against the destructive effect of the inner disturbances in which the disease really consists; their ultimate nature for the most part remains unknown, though they undoubtedly exist as a fact. Hence follows the practical conclusion that medical art must have for its main object not the external symptoms of a disease but its inner causes. At any rate it must detect their presence and then assist the healing work of the organism itself, by hastening and encouraging the natural processes and not doing violence to them.
In strictness, we ought to ask with regard to war three different questions instead of one only. In addition to the moral value of war in general, there is another question, namely, its significance in the history of humanity—a history which is not yet completed, and there is a third personal question as to how I (that is, how any human being), recognising with reason and conscience the binding character of moral demands, must regard here and now the fact of war and the practical consequences that follow from it. The confusion or the wrong division of these three questions—the generally moral or theoretical, the historical, and, finally, the personally-moral or the practical—is the chief cause of all misunderstandings and misconceptions with regard to war which have of late become particularly prevalent.
Theoretical condemnation of war has long been a common place among civilised people. Everyone agrees that peace is a good and war an evil. Our tongue automatically speaks of the blessings of peace and the horrors of war, and no one would venture to say the opposite—‘the blessings of war’ or ‘the horrors of peace.’ In all churches prayers are offered for peaceful times and for deliverance from the sword or wars, which are placed along with fire, famine, pestilence, earthquake and flood. With the exception of savage paganism all religions condemn war in principle. The Jewish prophets had preached the coming of peace among men and peace in the whole realm of nature. The Buddhist principle of compassion to all living beings requires the same thing. The Christian commandment of loving one’s enemies excludes war, since a loved enemy ceases to be an enemy and cannot be made war upon. Even the bellicose religion of Islam regards war only as a temporary necessity and
§II. Thus to the first question with regard to war there exists only one indisputable answer: war is an evil. Evil may be either absolute (such as deadly sin, eternal damnation) or relative, that is, it may be less than some other evil, and, as compared with it, may be regarded as a good (e.g. a surgical operation to save a patient’s life).
The significance of war is not exhausted by the negative definition of it as an evil and a calamity. There is also a positive element in it—not in the sense that it can itself be normal, but in the sense that it may be actually necessary in the given conditions. This way of regarding abnormal phenomena in general is not to be avoided and must be adopted in virtue of the direct demands of the moral ideal and not in contradiction to it. Thus, for instance, everyone will agree that, speaking generally, it is godless, inhuman, and unnatural to throw children out of the window on to the pavement. Yet in case of a fire, if there were no other means of extricating the unfortunate babes from the burning house, this terrible action would become permissible and even obligatory. It is obvious that the rule to throw children in extreme cases out of the window is not an independent principle on a level with the moral principle of saving those in danger; this latter moral demand still remains the only motive of action. It is not a case of deviation from the moral norm but of actual realisation of that norm in a way which, though dangerous and irregular, proves from real necessity to be the only possible one under given conditions.
It may be that war too depends upon a necessity which renders this essentially abnormal course of action permissible and even obligatory under certain conditions. This question can only be settled by an appeal to history. Sometimes, however, it is mistakenly treated from the wider naturally-scientific point of view, and the necessity of war is connected with the alleged universal principle of struggle for existence.
Just as the struggle for existence is independent of war and carried on by methods which have nothing in common with fighting, so, on the other hand, war has grounds of its own distinct from the struggle for the means of livelihood. If the latter were the only ground of war, the primitive epoch of history would have been the most peaceful of all. For men were then few in number, their demands were of the simplest, and each had ample room for satisfying them. Fighting and mutual extermination would in that case involve great risks and bring no advantages. In this respect the normal issue of all quarrels suggested itself naturally. “And Abraham said unto Lot, Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between me and thee, and between my herdmen and thy herdmen; for we be brethren (ki anashtm achim anachnu). Is not the whole land before thee? Separate thyself, I pray thee, from me: if thou wilt take the left hand, then I will go to the right; or if thou depart to the right hand, then I will go to the left. And Lot lifted up his eyes, and beheld all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered everywhere, before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, even as the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt, as thou comest unto Zoar. Then Lot chose him all the plain of Jordan; and Lot journeyed east: and they separated themselves the one from the other” (Genesis xiii. 8-11).
§III. The predominance of such feelings at a time when the human race, multiplying slowly as compared with the majority of other animals, was small in number, would have menaced it with speedy extermination were not the war of all against all counterbalanced from the first by the tie of kinship. This tie has its root in the maternal instinct, is developed by means of family feelings and relations, and receives its final sanction in the religion of ancestor-worship. The kinship-group organisation (in the wide sense
1 See above, Chap. X.
This state of things, however, could not be permanent. It was only in rare cases that war between clans ended in the extermination of the weaker. Given a certain
At the period with which continuous historical records begin for us, a considerable part of humanity was already organised into states. There were two fundamental types of state: the Western or Hellenic republic, i.e. a small city commune, and the Eastern despotic monarchy, an extensive organisation embracing either one (as in Egypt) or many nations (the so-called world empires).
Without the state there could be no progress in human culture, based upon a complex cooperation of many forces. Such co operation was impossible to any large extent for disconnected tribes, at constant blood-feud with one another. In the state we find human masses for the first time in history acting in concord. War has already been banished from within these masses and transferred to the wider circumference of the state. In the primitive social group all grown-up men are always under arms. In the state warriors either form a special caste or profession, or, in the case of conscription, military service is merely a temporary occupation of the citizens. The organisation of war by the state is the first great step towards the establishment of peace. This is particularly clear in the history of large states built up by conquest—the so-called world empires. Each conquest meant in this case the spreading of peace, that is, a widening of the circle within which war ceased to be a normal event and became a criminal feud—a rare and reprehensible accident. ‘The world empires’ undoubtedly strove, though only half consciously, to give peace to the world by subjugating all nations to one common power. The greatest of the states founded upon conquest, the Roman Empire, directly described itself as peace—‘pax Romano.’
But the older monarchies also aimed at the same thing. Inscriptions of the Assyrian and Persian kings, discovered in the nineteenth century, leave no doubt that these conquerors considered it their true vocation to subdue all nations for the sake of establishing peace on earth, though their conception of the task
But Rome! ‘tis thine alone, with awful sway
To rule mankind and make the world obey.
Disposing peace and war thy own majestic way
To tame the proud, the fetter’d slave to free—
he returns to it at every opportunity in his Aeneid, as the inspiring motive of the whole poem. Thus, for instance, he represents Jupiter as saying to Venus about her descendants:
“The people Romans call, the city Rome.
To them no bounds of empire I assign,
Nor term of years to their immortal line.…
Then dire debate, and impious war, shall cease,
And the stern age be softened into peace.
Then banish’d faith shall once again return,
And Vestal fires in hallow’d temples burn;
And Remus with Quirinus shall sustain
The righteous laws, and fraud and force restrain.”
–Aeneid i. 278-294.
The same god tells Mercury that the ancestor of the Romans, Aeneas, is destined to conquer Italy throbbing with war, and to install in power the noble line of the Teucre, who ‘shall on the conquered world impose the law’ (Aeneid iv. 229-231).
In comparing the four ‘world empires’ we find that as they succeeded one another they gradually approached the ideal of universal peace both from the point of view of their extension and of their inner principles. The first empire, the Assyro-Babylonian, did not extend beyond near Asia, was supported by constant devastating wars, and its legislation was limited to military decrees. The second empire, that of Cyrus and the Achaemenides, added to the near Asia a considerable part of Central Asia on the one hand and extended to Egypt on the
War unites more powerfully than anything else the inner forces of each of the warring states and at the same time proves to be the condition for subsequent coming together and mutual interpenetration of the opponents themselves. This is most clearly seen in the history of Greece. It was only three times in the course of their history that the majority of independent Greek tribes and city-states united for the sake of a. common cause and manifested their inner national unity in a practical way—and every time it was due to a war: the Trojan war at the beginning, the Persian wars in the middle, and the expedition of Alexander the Great as the culminating achievement, owing to which the creations of the national genius of Greece finally became the common property of humanity.
The Trojan war established the Greek element in Asia Minor, where, nurtured by other civilising influences, it blossomed out for the first time. It was on the shores of Asia Minor that Greek poetry was born (the Homeric epos) and that the most ancient school of their philosophy arose and developed (Thales of Miletus, Heracleitus of Ephesus). The quickening of the united national forces in the struggle with the Persians gave rise to another and a still more rich manifestation of the creative genius of the Greeks. And the conquests of Alexander, throwing as they did these ripe seeds of Hellenism on to the ancient soil of civilised Asia and Egypt, produced that great Hellene-oriental synthesis of religious and philosophical ideas which, together with the subsequent unity established by the Roman Empire, was
Thus all the wars in which ancient history abounds served to increase the sphere of peace. The heathen ‘kingdoms of the beast’ prepared the way for the messengers proclaiming the kingdom of the Son of man.
Apart from this, however, the military history of antiquity shows important progress in the direction of peace in another respect. Not only did war serve the purposes of peace; as time went on, lesser and lesser numbers of active military forces were required for the attainment of these purposes, while the peaceful results became, on the contrary, more and more important and far-reaching. This paradoxical fact is beyond dispute. In order to take Troy it was necessary for almost all the Greek population to be under arms for a period of ten years,
1 The number of Greek forces given in the Iliad cannot, of course, be taken as literally exact, but as an approximate estimate. This number (110,000 men) seems to be entirely probable. It should be noted with reference to the Iliad generally that recent excavations have reestablished the historical value of the poem, allowing, of course, for its mythological setting.
If we compare the results and, on the other hand, take into account the total population of Greece and Macedon under Alexander and the
§IV. When the Roman world—and peace—came to be replaced by the Christian, the problem of war remained essentially unchanged on its externally historical side. True, by its absolute condemnation of all hatred and enmity, Christianity abolished the principle, the moral root of war. But cutting down the roots does not mean felling the tree; and indeed the preachers of the Gospel did not wish to fell this Nebuchadnezzar’s tree, for they knew that the earth needed its shade until out of the small seed of true faith there would grow up, to replace it, ‘the greatest of plants,’ under the boughs of which there would be secure shelter both for men and beasts of the field.
The teachers of Christianity did not reject the state and its destination to ‘bear the sword against the wicked,’ and therefore they did not reject war. The followers of the new faith saw great triumph in the fact that two victorious wars allowed
The Christian world (tota christianitas, toute la chrétienté), which in the Middle Ages took the place of the ancient Roman Empire, was considerably wider than it. True, there were frequent wars within it—just as in the Roman Empire there had been insurrections of peoples and mutinies of military leaders; but the representatives of the Christian principles looked upon these wars as upon lamentable feuds, and in every way tried to put a stop to them. As to the constant struggle between the Christian and the Mahommedan world (in Spain and the Levant), it undoubtedly was in the interests of progress and culture. The defence of Christianity against the advance of Islam preserved for historical humanity the possibility of higher spiritual development which was in danger of being submerged by the comparatively lower religious principle.
In modern history three general facts have the most important bearing upon the question we are considering—namely, (1) the development of nationality; (2) the corresponding development of international relations of all kinds; and (3) the extension of the unity of culture to the whole of the globe.
1 See above, Part III., Chap. V.
Having freed themselves from the tutelage of the Roman Church, and rejected the impotent pretensions of the holy Roman
And civilised humanity tends more and more to become the whole of humanity. When at the beginning of modern history Europeans extended their activity on all sides, taking America in the West, India in the Southeast, and Siberia in the Northeast, the greater part of the globe proved to be in their power. Now this power may be said to have extended to the whole of the globe. The Mahommedan world is surrounded and permeated through and through with European culture, and it is only in the tropical deserts of the Sudan that it can, and that without any hope of success, maintain its primitive independence (the kingdom of the Dervishes). The whole of the African coast has been divided between European Powers, and now the centre of the black continent has become the arena of their rivalry. Mongolian Asia—China and Japan—had alone remained outside the boundary of European influence, but this last barrier between human races is being removed before our eyes. With astonishing success and rapidity the Japanese, in the course of a quarter of a century, acquired all the material and positively scientific side of European civilisation and then at once proceeded to prove to their Mongolian brethren, in the most convincing way possible, the necessity or following their example. The Chinese, who had already been shaken in their self-confidence by the English, but were still rather slow at understanding these foreigners, understood a fellow-nation at once: and henceforth the famous wall of China is no
We must now consider what bearing this curious process of ‘gathering together of lands’ by means of a single material culture had upon war. On the one hand, war played an active part in it. The wars of the Revolution and the Napoleonic wars are well known to have had a powerful influence upon the advance and the dissemination of universally-European ideas which conditioned the scientific, technical, and economic progress of the nineteenth century and thus brought about the material unification of humanity. In a similar way the final act of that unification—its extension to the last stronghold of isolated barbarism, China—began, in our eyes, with war and not with peaceful persuasion. On the other hand, the universality of material culture, realised partly through means of war, itself becomes a powerful means and ground of peace. At the present time the enormous majority of the population of the globe constitutes one connected body, between the parts of which there is physical, if not moral, solidarity. This solidarity shows itself in the sphere from which none can escape—the economic sphere. Some industrial crisis in New York immediately makes itself felt in Moscow and Calcutta. The body of humanity has evolved a common sense-organ (sensorium commune) owing to which every particular stimulus sensibly produces a general effect.
Every prolonged and serious war is inevitably accompanied by profound economic disturbances which are bound to be worldwide, now that the different parts of the earth have become so closely connected. This state of things was being evolved throughout the nineteenth century, though it became clear to all only at the end of it. It is a sufficient foundation for the fear of war, completely unknown in earlier times, which has now taken possession of all civilised nations. During the first half of the century wars became shorter and more rare. Between Waterloo and Sebastopol, Europe had forty years of peace—a thing which had not happened during the whole of its previous history. Later on, special historical causes brought about several comparatively short European wars in 1859, 1864, 1866, and 1870; the Russo-Turkish war of 1877-78 could not be made
It would be irrational, however, to think and to act as though that approaching end had already come. Although the common economic sensorium does at present unite all the parts of the earth with a tie of which the people themselves are conscious, yet this tie is not everywhere of the same strength and the parts are not all equally sensitive. There are still some nations left which in the case of a world war risk little—and there are some which are prepared to risk a great deal. The introduction of the Mongolian race into the sphere of the material European culture has a twofold significance. This race, the chief representatives of which, the Chinese people, number at least two hundred million souls, are noted for great racial pride and extreme contempt for life, both their own and other people’s. It is more than probable that the now inevitable acquisition of the technique of European culture by the yellow race will only serve it as a means for proving in a decisive struggle the superiority of its spiritual powers over the spiritual powers of Europe. This forthcoming armed struggle between Europe and Mongolian Asia will certainly be the last war, but it will on that account be all the more terrible. It will indeed be a world war, and it is not a matter of indifference to the destinies of humanity which side will prove victorious.
1 The three last half-European wars do not contradict this statement. The Servo-Bulgarian war of 1885, the Greco-Turkish of 1897, and the Spanish-American of 1898 all came to an end before they had really begun.
§V. There is a wonderful system and unity in the general history of human wars, the chief moments of which I have
And streaming afar the light that came
Out of the East arose,
And glimmering with portent and celestial power
It reconciled East and West.
But the old material and cultural union proved to be unstable, and the spiritual is still awaiting its final realisation. True, in the place of the political unity of the Roman Empire, modern humanity has evolved another unity—the economic one, which, like the first, puts great external obstacles in the way of armed struggle. But these obstacles which have of late saved us from a European war are unable to prevent the last and the greatest struggle between the two worlds—of Europe and of Asia. These now are no longer represented by separate peoples, such as the Acheans and the Trojans, or even the Greeks and the Persians, but appear in their true proportions as the two great and hostile halves into which the whole of humanity is divided. The victory of one side or another will indeed give peace to the whole world. There will be no more struggle between nations; but the question still remains whether this political peace, this
The matter appears as follows: “Whatever the historical significance of war may be, it is in the first place murder of men by men. But our conscience condemns murder, and there fore we ought conscientiously tp refuse to take any part in war, and ought to persuade others to do the same. To spread such a view by word and example is the true and the only certain means of abolishing war, since it is clear that when everyone refuses to do military service, war will become impossible.” In order that this argument might be convincing, it would have in the first place to be proved that war and even military service is the same as murder. But this is not the case. Military service means only a possibility of war. During the forty years between the wars of Napoleon I. and Napoleon III. several million men in Europe underwent military training, but only an insignificant part of them had actual experience of war. Even when war does break out, however, it cannot be reduced to murder, that is, to a
It might be said, however, that it is better to avoid the very possibility of accidental murder by refusing to do military service. This is undoubtedly true if it is a question of free choice. A man who has attained a certain level of moral consciousness, or one whose feeling of pity is strongly developed, will certainly not choose the army as a profession, but will prefer to follow a peaceful calling. But so far as compulsory military service required by the state is concerned, it must be admitted that so long as it exists a refusal on the part of the individual to submit to it is a greater evil than the institution itself, however much we may disapprove of the modern system of universal military service, the disadvantages of which are obvious and the efficiency doubtful. The person who refuses to serve his time in the army knows that the requisite number of recruits will in any case be gathered and that somebody else will be called in his stead. Therefore he consciously forces his neighbour, who would otherwise be free, to all the hardships of military service. Besides, the whole meaning of such a refusal satisfies the demands neither of logic nor of morality, since this is what it comes to. For the sake of avoiding a remote future possibility of accidentally killing an enemy in a war which will not depend upon me, I myself declare war to the state now and compel its representatives to take a number of violent measures against me at once, in order that I might save myself from committing problematic and accidental violence in the unknown future.
The purpose of military service is defined in our law by the formula ‘to defend the throne and the fatherland,’ that is, the political whole to which a given individual belongs. The
Theories which take up an absolutely negative attitude towards war and maintain that it is the duty of everyone to refuse the demand of the state for military service, altogether deny that the individual has any duties towards the state. From their point of view the state is simply a band of brigands who hypnotise the crowd in order to keep it in subjection and to use it for their own purposes. But seriously to believe that this account exhausts or in the least expresses the true nature of the case would be altogether too naive. This view is particularly ill-founded when it appeals to Christianity.
Christianity has revealed to us our absolute dignity, the unconditional worth of the inner being or of the soul of man. This unconditional worth imposes upon us an unconditional duty—to realise the good in the whole of our life, both personal and collective. We know for certain that this task is impossible for the individual taken separately or in isolation, and that it can only be realised if the individual life finds its completion in the universal historical life of humanity. One of the means of such completion, one of the forms of the universal life—at the present moment of history the chief and the dominant form—is the fatherland definitely organised as the state. This form is not, of course, the supreme and final expression of human solidarity, and the fatherland must not be put in the place of God and of His universal kingdom. But from the fact that the state is not everything, it by no means follows that it is unnecessary and that it would be right to aim at abolishing it.
Suppose that the country in which I live is visited by a calamity such as famine. What is in this case the duty of the individual as an unconditionally moral being? Both reason and conscience clearly say that he must do one of two things—either feed all the hungry or himself die of starvation. It is impossible for me to feed millions who are starving, and yet my conscience
But, it will be said, the rates and taxes collected by the state may be expended upon things which appear to me to be useless, and even pernicious, instead of upon obviously useful work. In that case it will be my duty to expose such abuses, but certainly not to deny, by word and deed, the very principle of taxation by the state, the recognised destination of which is to serve the general welfare.
Now the military organisation of the state is really based upon the same principle. If savages such as the Caucasian mountaineers of the old days, or the Kurds and the Black Flags of the present times, attack a traveller with the obvious intention of murdering him and his family, it is no doubt his duty to fight them—not out of hostility or malice against them, not to save his life at the expense of his neighbour’s life, but to save the defenceless beings entrusted to his protection. To help others in such circumstances is an absolute moral duty, and it cannot be limited to one’s own family. But successfully to defend all the weak and innocent against the attacks of evil-doers is impossible for isolated individuals or even for groups of many men. Collective organisation of such defence is precisely the destination of the military force of the state, and to support the state in one way or another in this work of pity is the moral duty of everyone, which no abuses can render void. Just as the fact that ergot is poisonous does not prove that rye is injurious, so the burdens and the dangers of militarism are no evidence against the necessity of armed forces.
The military or indeed any compulsory organisation .is not
§VII. Between the historical necessity of war on the one hand, and the abstract denial of it on the other, lies the duty of the individual to the organised whole—the state—which, down to the end of history, conditions both the existence and the progress of humanity. The unquestionable fact, however, that the state possesses the means both for preserving human society in its present condition, and also for moving it forward, imposes upon the individual other duties with regard to the state than a mere fulfillment of its lawful demands. Such fulfillment would be sufficient were the state a perfect embodiment of the normal social order. But since in truth it is only the condition and the means of human progress, and is itself gradually becoming more perfect in different respects, it is the duty of the individual to take, so much as in him lies, active part in this general political progress.
The evil of war is in the extreme hostility and hatred between the disjecta membra of humanity. In personal relations bad feelings are not justified by anyone, and it is useless to denounce them. In the case of international hatred, however, the bad feeling is usually associated with false opinions and erroneous reasoning, and is indeed often created by them. To struggle against this deception is the first duty of every man who truly desires to bring humanity nearer to a good peace.
As to the future decisive struggle between Europe and Asia, probable as it is, it does not threaten us as an unavoidable impending doom. The future is still in our hands. The first condition which could render the peaceful inclusion of the Mongolian race within the circle of Christian culture possible—though not very probable—is that the Christian nations should themselves become more Christian, and that in all relations of the collective life they should be more guided by moral principles than by shameful selfishness and evil economic and religious hostility.
Not long ago at the world congress of religion in Chicago some Asiatic men—Buddhists and Brahmanists—addressed the Europeans with the following words, expressive of the popular opinion of the East: “You send to us missionaries to preach your religion. We do not deny its merits, but having got to know you during the last two centuries we see that your whole life is opposed to the demands of your faith. You are moved, not by the spirit of love and truth which your God revealed to you, but by the spirit of greed and violence, natural to all bad people. It must then be one of two things: either your religion, in spite of its inner excellence, cannot be practically realised, and therefore is of no use even to you who profess it; or you are so bad that you do not want to fulfill the demands which you can and you ought to fulfill. In either case you have no advantage over us and you should leave us in peace.” The only convincing answer to this criticism are deeds and not words. Asia would be neither justified in fighting nor capable of conquering a Europe that was inwardly united and truly Christian.
Chapter X. The Moral Organisation of Humanity as a Whole
§I. The natural organisation of humanity consists in the fact that different individuals and groups are compelled by nature to inter act in such a way that their private needs and activities lead to results of universal significance and to comparative progress of the whole. Thus from ancient times the needs of the shepherds and the agriculturists, the warlike spirit of the chieftains, and the self-interested enterprise of the merchants created material culture and were the means of historical progress. This natural arrangement, owing to which private interests lead to the common good, expresses a certain real unity of the human race. But this unity is both inwardly and outwardly imperfect. It is outwardly imperfect because, as a fact, it is incomplete; it is imperfect inwardly because it is not the object of the conscious will of the individuals and the groups which enter into it. Such unconscious and involuntary solidarity is already found in the pre-human world in the unity of the genus and the development of organic species. To advance no further is unworthy of man in whom the objective and generic reason—the universal predicate of nature—becomes the individual subject. What is needed is a moral, conscious, and voluntary organisation of humanity for the sake of, and inspired by, the all-embracing good. It became the direct object and purpose of life and thought from the moment when, in the middle of the historical development, this good was revealed as absolute and complete. Unity in the good means not only a coexistence of private interests and actions and a harmony between them in the general result, but a direct
The purpose of the moral organisation of human life is to realise the absolute norm of the good or of the active (practical) perfection, and the life as morally organised may be defined as the process of growing perfect. This logically involves the question, Who is growing perfect? i.e. the question as to the subject of the moral organisation. We know that isolated individuals do not exist and therefore do not grow in perfection. The true subject of the moral progress—as well as of the historical progress in general—is the individual man together with and inseparably from the collective man or society. Not every configuration of molecules forms a living cell, and not every conglomeration of cells forms a living being. Similarly not every gathering of individual men or of social groups constitutes a true and living bearer of the moral organisation. In order to possess such a significance, i.e. in order to be an organic complement of the moral personality, the collective whole must be no less real than the individual, and, in this sense, must possess the same worth and the same rights as the latter.
The natural groups which actually widen the life of the individual are the family, the nation, and humanity—the three abiding stages in the development of the collective man. Corresponding to them we have in the historical order the kinship-group stage, the nationally-political stage, and the spiritually universal stage. The latter may only be revealed on condition that the first two become spiritualised.
It will be asked whether the family is to form part of the final and universal organisation of morality or whether it is simply a transitory limitation in the development of human life. But the individual person in his given condition and in his selfish striving for exclusive separateness is also only a transitory stage, just like the nation or even humanity itself. It is not a question of idealising and preserving for all eternity the corruptible aspect of this or that living subject, but of discovering and setting aglow the spark of divinity hidden under the corruption, of finding the absolute and eternal significance inherent in the conditional and the temporal, and of affirming it not as a fixed idea only, but
§II. Family religion is the most ancient, deeply rooted, and stable institution of humanity. It has survived the patriarchal stage and all the religious and political changes. The object of family religion is the older generation, the departed fathers or forefathers. According to the most ancient ideas, the forefathers must necessarily be dead; this was so inevitable that, by a natural process of thought, all the dead, independently of their age and sex, were called forefathers (the Lithuanian and Polish dziady—a relic of remote antiquity). If a real grandfather happened to live too long, it was out of order, it violated the religiously moral norm, which, however, was easily reestablished by the voluntary sacrifice of the old man. This barbarous practice really contained a true idea, or, rather, two true ideas—in the first place that a being who is on the same level as man and has the same needs and faculties cannot be the true object of reverence and worship, and, secondly, that in order to have a powerful and beneficial influence in the earthly sphere, such as is characteristic of a higher being, one must withdraw from that sphere and sever one’s immediate physical connection with it. If family worship of the older generation was to be maintained in the epoch when force predominated, it could not be allowed to be associated with the
“My day is drawing to its close,” the Konung thus began,
“Mead does not taste sweet to me, my helmet weighs me down.
“Make then two mounds for us, O sons,
On the banks of the bay, by the wave-beaten shore,
“When the rocks are white with the light of the moon,
And wet our graves with the dew,
We shall rise from the hills, from the waters, O Thorsten,
And whisper of the days to be.”
Even in the heathen ancestor-worship the natural bond between the successive generations tended to acquire a spiritual and moral meaning. A complete realisation of this religious bond with the forefathers is made possible through the revelation of the absolute significance of life in Christianity. Instead of the material sacrificial feeding of the departed who on their side help the living in affairs of this world, there is established a spiritual interaction in prayer and sacrament. Both sides pray for one another, both help one another in attaining an eternal good. Both are concerned with an unconditional good—the salvation of the soul. Eternal memory,
1 The prayer for granting ‘eternal memory’ to the departed forms an important part of the funeral and the requiem services in the Orthodox Church.—Translator’s Note.
Eternal memory does not mean, of course, that people on earth will eternally remember the dead as those who have been and are no more. To begin with, it would not be of much importance for the dead, and, secondly, it is impossible, since earthly humanity itself ought certainly not to expect an eternal continuation of its temporal existence—if there is any meaning in the world. We ask eternal memory of God and not of men, and
We shall rise from the hills, from the waters, O Thorsten,
And whisper of the days to be.
Eternal rest is not inactivity. The departed remain active, but the character of the activity is essentially changed. It no longer springs from an anxious striving towards a distant and uncertain end. It proceeds on the basis and in virtue of the already attained and the ever-abiding connection with the absolute good. Therefore in this case activity is compatible with serene and happy rest. And just as the beneficial influence of the departed expresses their moral connection with their neighbours in nature, their living posterity, so in their blessed rest they are inseparable from their neighbours in God and in eternity. It is rest with the saints.
This is the ideal. If it is not attained by all, if the departed are not all at rest, if not all to whom ‘eternal memory’ is sung deserve it of God, this fact in no way affects our religious attitude to the ‘orefathers,’ which is the foundation of the family morality, and, through it, of all morality. For in the first place the actual destiny of each of the departed remains for us, after all, problematical only. Secondly, even if the unfavourable supposition
On the other hand, the fulness of life for the forefathers, even when they are eternally remembered by God and are at rest with the saints, depends upon the work of their descendants who bring about the earthly conditions under which the end of the world process may come, and, with it, the bodily resurrection of the departed. Each of the departed is naturally connected with the final humanity of the future through the blood tie of successive generations.
1 I cannot enlarge upon the details of this connection and upon other cognate questions without passing into the sphere of metaphysics and mystical aesthetics. But the general necessity of resurrection as the fulness of the spiritual and bodily existence is sufficiently clear from the point of view of the absolute moral principle and of the moral order of reality.
It is only when the purpose shall have been reached that man’s work of spiritualising his body and the earthly nature in general will be reflected backwards and exercise its beneficial influence upon the past. It is only in the future that the past will attain the fulness of reality. But until this task is accomplished, until the perfection of life is attained in which the spiritual and the corporeal being will entirely interpenetrate one another, until the gulf between the visible and the invisible world is bridged and
1 See above, Part I. Chapter II., “The Ascetic Principle of Morality.”
§III. It is not for nothing that the relation, which appears to be so simple, and the physical basis of which is found in the animal and even in the vegetable kingdom, is called ‘a great mystery,’ and is recognised as the abiding symbol, sanctified by the word of God, of the union of the God of Israel with His people, of Christ crucified with the earthly church, and of Christ the King of Glory with the New Jerusalem. Reverence for the forefathers and religious interaction with them connects man with the perfect good through the past; true marriage has the same significance for the present, for the central period of life. It is the realisation of the absolute moral norm in the vital centre of human existence. The opposition of the sexes, which in the world of pre-human organisms expresses simply a general interaction between life as giving, and as receiving, form, between the active and the passive principles, acquires a more definite and profound meaning in the case of man. Woman, unlike the female of animals, is not merely the embodiment of the passively receptive aspect of the material reality. She is the concentrated substance of nature as a whole, the final expression of the material world in its inward passivity, as ready to pass into a new and higher kingdom and be morally spiritualised. And man in his relation to woman does not merely represent the active principle as such, but is the bearer of the purely human activity, determined by the absolute meaning of life, in which woman comes to participate through him. And
The highest morality, proceeding from the absolute principle and determined by it (that which in theology is called grace) does not annihilate nature but imparts true perfection to it. The natural relation between man and woman involves three elements: (1) the material, namely, the physical attraction, due to the nature of the organism; (2) the ideal, that exaltation of feeling which is called being in love; and, finally, (3) the purpose of the natural sexual relation or its final result, namely, reproduction.
In true marriage the natural bond between the sexes does not disappear but is transmuted. Until, however, this transmutation becomes a fact, it is a moral problem, for which the elements of the natural sexual relation are the data. The chief significance belongs to the intermediate element—the exaltation or the ecstasy of love. In virtue of it man sees his natural complement, his material other—the woman,—not as she appears to external observation, not as others see her, but gains insight into her true essence or idea. He sees her as she was from the first destined to be, as God saw her from all eternity, and as she shall be in the end. Material nature in its highest individual expression—the woman—is here truly recognised as possessed of absolute worth; she is affirmed as an end in herself, an entity capable of spiritualisation and ‘deification.’ From such recognition follows the moral duty—so to act as to realise in this actual woman and in her life that which she ought to be. The highest form of love in woman has a corresponding character. The man whom she has chosen appears to her as her true saviour, destined to reveal to her and to realise for her the meaning of her life.
Marriage remains the satisfaction of the sexual want, which, however, no longer refers to the external nature of the animal organism, but to the nature that is human and is awaiting to become divine. A tremendous problem arises which can only be solved by constant renunciation. To be victorious in the struggle with the hostile reality the soul has to pass through martyrdom.
1 D. P. Yurkevitch, Professor of Philosophy, now deceased, told me that a young scholar, son of an evangelical pastor in Moscow, was present once at the marriage ceremony in the Russian Church, and was very much struck by the fact that in the service the bridal crowns are compared to crowns of the martyrs. This profound idea affected him so deeply that it caused a complete revolution in his mind. As a result of it, the young philologist gave up worldly learning and the university chair he was going to occupy, and, to the distress of his relatives, went into a monastery. He was the well-known Father Clement Sederholm, of whose life and character the late K. N. (Leontyev) wrote so excellent an account.
It is obvious, of course, that in a perfect marriage in which the inner completeness of the human being is finally attained through a perfect union with the spiritualised material essence, reproduction becomes both unnecessary and impossible. It becomes unnecessary because the supreme purpose has been achieved, the final goal attained. It becomes impossible, just as it is impossible that when two equal geometrical figures are placed one upon the other there should be a remainder that does not coincide. The perfect marriage is the beginning of a new process which does not reproduce life in time but recreates it for eternity. But we must not forget that perfect marriage is not necessarily the original condition of, but only the final means for, the moral union of man and woman. One cannot assume this higher stage from the first, just as one cannot begin to build a house by making a roof, or call the roof a real house. The true human marriage is one which consciously aims at the perfect union of man and woman, at the creation of the complete human being. So long, however, as it merely aims at this and has not yet actually realised the idea, so long as there still is a duality between the idea and the empirical material reality opposed to it, so long external, physical reproduction is both the natural consequence of the perfection not yet attained and the necessary means for its future attainment. It is clear that so long as the union of man and woman is not wholly spiritualised, so long as it is complete in idea and subjective feeling only, and in objective reality continues to be superficial and external like that of animals, it can have no other result. But it is equally clear that in the present imperfect condition this result is of supreme importance, for the children will do what the parents failed to accomplish. The external, temporal succession of generations exists because marriage has not yet
For the moral organisation of humanity the connection with the past through heredity alone, through the fact of descent, i.e. from a particular line of ancestors, is insufficient; there must also be an abiding moral bond, and this is found in the family religion. Further, so far as the present is concerned, the natural fact of the sexual relation is also insufficient for that organisation; the relation must be raised to the spiritual level, which is done in true marriage. Finally, from the point of view of the future, it is not enough for the moral organisation of the collective man that the children should be simply a new generation, with an unknown future before it; in addition to the fact of external succession there must be the inner moral succession as well—the parents must not merely produce the children for the future, but are in duty bound to bring them up so. that they could work in the future for the realisation of their world-wide historical task.
§VI. The natural moral feeling of pity which does not permit us to injure our neighbours and compels us to help them is naturally concentrated upon those of them who are most intimately related to us and at the same time need our help most—that is, on the children. This relation has a moral character when the family is simply an empirical factor in the natural life of man; it acquires an absolute significance when the family becomes the basis of a new, spiritually-organised life.
The moral significance of marriage consists in the fact that
In a spiritually-organised family the relation of the parents to children is chiefly determined by the conception of the supreme destiny of man. The purpose of education is to connect the temporal life of this future generation with the supreme and eternal good which is common to all generations, and in which the grand parents, parents, and children are indivisibly one. For it is only through abolishing the temporal disruption of humanity into generations that exclude and expel one another from existence that the Kingdom of God can be revealed and the resurrection of life accomplished. But until the perfection is reached, the moral bond between generations and the absolute supertemporal unity of man is maintained by reverent regard for the forefathers on the one hand, and by the bringing up of children on the other.
There is a great argument going on in man between Time and Eternity as to who is the stronger—the Good or Death. “Your fathers,” says the Prince of this world to man, “those through whom you have received everything you possess, were and are no more, nor ever shall be; but, if so, where is the Good? You are reconciled to the death of your fathers, you sanction it by your consent, you live and enjoy yourself, whilst those to whom you owe your existence are gone forever. Where, then, is the good, where is the very source of piety—gratitude, where is pity, where is shame? Have they not been completely conquered by selfishness, self-seeking, sensuality? Yet do not despair. This condemnation of your life has meaning only from the point of view of the Good, only on the supposition that the Good exists. But this is just where the fundamental error lies: there is no Good. If there were, either your fathers would not have died, or you could not have been reconciled to their death.
When tradition is put in the place of its object—when, e.g., the traditional conception of Christ is preserved in absolute purity, but the presence of Christ Himself and of His spirit is not felt—religious life becomes impossible, and all efforts artificially to evoke it only make the fatal loss more clear.
But can the life of the future grow out of a past that is really dead? If there is no real connection between the parts of time, what is the meaning of progress? Who is it that progresses? Could a tree actually grow if its roots and trunk existed in thought only, and its branches and leaves alone
It is on this basis alone that true education is possible. If we are indifferent to the future of our forefathers, we can have no motive for caring about the future of the new generation. If we can have no absolute moral solidarity with those who died, there can be no ground for such solidarity with those who certainly will die. Insofar as education mainly consists in transferring moral duty from one generation to another, the question arises what duty and in relation to whom are we to hand down to our successors, if our own bond with our ancestors be severed. It would be a mere play of words to say that it is the duty to move humanity forward, for neither ‘forward’ nor ‘humanity’ have in this case any real meaning. ‘Forward’ must mean to the good, but there can be no good if we start with evil—the most elementary and unquestionable evil of ingratitude to the fathers, acquiescence in their disappearance, callous separation and estrangement from them. And what is the humanity which our pupils and successors are to move forward? Do last year’s leaves, scattered by the wind and rotten on the ground, form part, together with the new leaves,
If this external relation, which is constantly passing away, is to be replaced by the real and abiding moral tie, this obviously must be done in two directions. The form of time, in itself morally indifferent, cannot really determine our moral relations. Compromise here is impossible—there cannot be two absolute principles of life. The question whether we attach absolute significance to the temporal order of events or to the moral order, that is, to the inner bond between beings, must be settled finally and once for all. If the first alternative be adopted, humanity, irremediably broken up in time, is devoid of real unity; there can be no common task and therefore no duty to bring up future generations that they might carry it on further. In case of the second alternative, however, education inevitably involves reverence for the past, of which it is the natural complement. This traditional element in education conditions its progressive character, since moral progress can only consist in a better and more far-reaching fulfillment of the duties which follow from tradition.
The absolute worth of man—his capacity to be the bearer of eternal life and to participate in the divine fulness of being—which we religiously revere in the departed, we morally educate in the coming generation by affirming that the two are connected by a bond that triumphs over time and death. Special problems, the technique of education, belong to a sphere of its own which I need not touch upon here. But if pedagogy is to be based upon a positive universal principle, indisputable from the moral point of view and bestowing absolute worth upon its aims, it can find it only in the indissoluble bond between generations which support one another in furthering one common task—the task of preparing for the revelation of the kingdom of God and for universal resurrection.
§VI. Reverence for the forefathers and family education based upon it overcome the immoral separateness and reestablish the moral solidarity of men in the order of time or in the succession of existence.
The linear infinity of the family can only become morally complete in another wider whole—just as a geometrical line becomes real only as the limit of a surface, which has the same relation to the line as the line itself has to a point. The moral point—the single individual—has actual reality only as the bearer of generic succession. The whole line of this succession becomes truly real only in connection with a multitude of collectively coexisting families which constitute a nation. We received all our physical and moral possessions from our fathers, and the fathers had them only through the fatherland. Family traditions are fractions of the national traditions; the future of the family is inseparable from the future of the nation. Therefore reverence for the fathers necessarily passes into reverence for the fatherland or into patriotism, and family education is linked with national education.
The good which is in its essence inexhaustible and ungrudging bestows upon every subject of moral relations, whether individual or collective, an inner dignity and absolute worth of its own. For this reason the moral bond and the moral organisation differs essentially from every other by the fact that in it the subject of the lower, or, more strictly, of the narrower order in becoming the subordinate member of a higher or a wider whole, is not absorbed by it, but preserves its own individual peculiarity. Indeed, it finds in this subordination both the inner condition and the external environment for realising its highest dignity. Just as the family does not blot out its individual members, but gives them, within a certain sphere, the fullness of life, and lives not by them only, but also in and for them, so the nation absorbs neither the individual nor the family, but fills them with living, content
The multiplicity of languages is in itself something as positive and normal as the multiplicity of grammatical elements and forms in each of these languages. What is abnormal is mutual lack of understanding and the alienation that follows therefrom. According to the sacred story of the tower of Babel, the divine punishment for, and at the same time the natural consequence of seeking external and godless unity, consists in the loss of the inner unity and solidarity and in being unable to understand one another’s speech(which is possible even when the vocabulary is identical). Had not the inner moral unity been lost, the difference of languages would not have mattered; one might have learnt them, and there would have been no need to scatter upon the face of the earth. The important point was not the creation of new languages, but confusion of them. “Go to, let us go down, and there confound (nabla) their language (safatam), that they may not understand one another’s speech. So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth” (Genesis xi. 7-9). It is clear that the story does not refer to the origin of the many languages, for in order that they might be confused they must have existed already.
The profound significance of this remarkable ancient revelation can be fully understood only by comparing the book of Genesis with the New Testament book of the Acts of the Apostles.
“And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues, like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every |426| nation under heaven. Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together, and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language. And they were all amazed, and marvelled, saying one to another, Behold, are not all these which speak Galilaeans? And how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born? Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judaea, and Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia, Phrygia, and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes, Cretes and Arabians, we do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God” (Acts ii. 1-11).
True unity does not annul multiplicity but finds its realisation in it, setting it free from the limitations of exclusiveness. One language inspired by the Spirit of God means communicability and understanding between many distinct languages, which are divided but do not divide. This is not the idea of the inventors and adherents of various Volapucs and Esperantos, who consciously or unconsciously imitate the builders of the Tower of Babel.
The normal relation between languages is at the same time the normal relation between nations (in Slavonic the two conceptions are expressed by the same word). The true unity of languages is found not in a single language but in an all-embracing language, that is in an interpenetration of all languages which would make them equally understandable to all while the peculiarity of each would be preserved. Similarly the true unity of nations does not mean a single nationality, but an all-embracing nationality, that is, interaction and solidarity of all nations for the sake of each having an independent and full life of its own.
1 The inner relation and contrast between the confusion of Babel and the meeting of the Apostles in Sion, as the violation and the restitution of the norm, are clearly indicated in the Church anthems sung at Pentecost.
§VII. When, having learnt a new language, we understand a foreigner whose language it is, when we not only understand the meaning of words he speaks but by means of them enter into a
What ground is there for regarding nationality as a real power and a nation as a real unit rather than a mere conglomeration of human entities? With regard to the family the question is answered by pointing out the evident physical bond. With regard to the nation three grounds are indicated.
1. The supposed physical bond, or the unity of descent.—This supposition, however, has equal and, indeed, far greater force in reference to humanity as a whole than to distinct nations. The original unity of mankind is a dogma of three monotheistic religions and the prevailing opinion of philosophers and naturalists—while a direct unity of physical descent within the limits of a nation is, in the vast majority of cases, obvious fiction.
2. Language.—Identity of language unites those who speak it, but we know that difference of language does not prevent men from being of the same mind, thinking the same thoughts, and even using the same words. For such difference does not abolish but makes manifest the one inner language undoubtedly common to all men, who can under certain conditions understand each other whatever their particular tongue may be. This is not a superficial result of external interaction, for that which is here mutually understood refers not merely to accidental objects but embraces the inmost contents of the human soul. This fundamental
Language is the deepest and most fundamental expression of character. But just as differences of individual character do not destroy the unity of the nation which includes all the different people, so differences of national character cannot destroy the real unity of all nations in humanity, which is also a ‘character.’
3. History.—If national history is the basis of national unity, universal or world-history is the basis of a wider, but not less stable, all-human unity. Moreover, national history is altogether unthinkable except as an inseparable part of world-history. Try to think of Russian history from the exclusively national point of view. Even if the Scandinavian origin of our state could somehow be explained away, it cannot be denied that the introduction of Christianity into Russia by the Greeks at once brought our nation into the sphere of the supernational life of the world. Christianity as such or in its content is an absolute truth and is therefore superhuman, and not merely supernational. Even from the purely historical point of view, however, it cannot be traced to any one particular nationality. It is impossible to separate the Jewish nucleus from the Chaldean and Persian, Egyptian and Phoenician, Greek and Roman setting. And yet without this national nucleus and this national setting there could have been no Christianity as positive revelation, and the foundation for the world-wide Kingdom of God would not have been laid. But whatever the significance of the national elements in the historical formation of the world religion may be, new nations such as Russia, which appeared after Christianity became established and accepted it in its crystallised form as the final revelation of the supreme and absolute good, cannot look to themselves for the true source of their life. Their history can only have meaning as a more or less perfect acquisition of the given, as
Just as the individual man finds the meaning of his personal existence through the family, through his connection with his ancestors and posterity, just as the family has an abiding living content in the nation and national tradition, so the nation lives, moves, and has its being only in a supernational and an international environment. Just as the whole series of successive generations live in and through the individual man, just as the whole nation lives and acts in and through the totality of these series, so the whole humanity lives and works out its history in the totality of nations.
If nation be a real fact and not an abstract general idea, if the inward organic nature of the bond which unites nations with one another in the universal history be a fact also, humanity as a whole, too, must be recognised as a fact. Real living organs can only be organs of a real living organism, and not of an abstract idea. The absolute moral solidarity in the good, uniting man with his ancestors and his descendants, and thus forming the normal family, also unites him, by means of this elementary and immediate bond of liberation, to the world-whole concentrated in humanity. Humanity
The good embraces all the details of life, but in itself it is indivisible. Patriotism as a virtue is part of the right attitude to everything, and in the moral order this part cannot be separated from the whole and opposed to it. In the moral organisation not a single nation can prosper at the expense of others; it cannot positively affirm itself to the detriment or the disadvantage of others. Just as the positive moral dignity of a private person is known from the fact that his prosperity is truly useful to all others, so the prosperity of a nation true to the moral principle is necessarily connected with the universal good. This logical and moral axiom is crudely distorted in the popular sophism that we must think of our own nation only, because it is good, and therefore its prosperity is a benefit to everyone. It either thoughtlessly over looks or impudently rejects the obvious truth that this very alienation of one’s own nation from others, this exclusive recognition of it as preeminently good, is in itself evil, and that nothing but evil can spring from this evil root. It must be one or the other. Either we must renounce Christianity and monotheism in general, according to which “there is none good but one, that is, God,” and recognise our nation as such to be the highest good—that is, put it in the place of God—or we must admit that a people becomes good not in virtue of the simple fact of its particular nationality, but only in so far as it conforms to and participates in the absolute good. And it can only do so if it has a right attitude to everything, and, in the first place, to other nations. A nation cannot be really good so long as it feels malice or hostility against other nations, and fails to recognise them as its neighbours and to love them as itself.
The moral duty of a true patriot is then to serve the nation in the good, or to serve the true good of a nation, inseparable from the good of all, or, what is the same thing, to serve the nation in humanity, and humanity in the nation. Such a patriot will discover a positive aspect in every foreign race and people, and by means of it will seek to relate this race or people with his own for the benefit of both.
When we hear of a rapprochement between nations, of international
§VIII. The right or the due relation of man to the higher world, to other men, and to the lower nature is collectively organised in the forms of the Church, the state, and the economic society or the zemstvo.
Individual religious feeling finds its objective development and realisation in the universal Church, which thus may be said to be organised piety.
From the point of view of religious morality, man lives in three different spheres: the worldly or the conditional (this world), the Divine or the unconditional (the Kingdom of God), and the sphere which is intermediary between the two, and binds them together—the religious sphere in the strict sense (the Church).
To stop at a direct opposition between the world and the Deity, between earth and heaven, is contrary to sound religious feeling. Even supposing that we are genuinely prepared to regard the universe as worthless dust, that dust does not fear our contempt—it remains. On whom or what? To say that it
Sound religious feeling demands not that we should reject the world and seek to abolish it, but only that we should not accept the world as an absolutely independent principle of our life. Being in the world we must become not of the world, and in this capacity influence the world so that it too should cease to be on its own account and become more and more from God.
The essence of piety at the highest stage of universal consciousness consists in ascribing absolute worth to God alone and in valuing all else only as related to Him and as capable of having absolute worth not in itself and of itself, but in and through God. Everything acquires worth through the fixing of its positive relationship with the one worthiness.
If all men and nations were truly pious, that is, identified their own good with the one absolute good and blessedness, that is, God, they would obviously be united among themselves. And being at one in God, they would live in God’s way; their unity would be holiness. The present humanity, however, which is not brought together and elevated by the one exclusive interest in God, is following its own will, and is divided between a multitude of relative and disconnected interests. The result is alienation and disruption; and since good actions cannot spring
Perfect unity and holiness is in God, sin and division in the worldly humanity, union and consecration in the Church which harmonises and reconciles the divided and sinful world with God. But in order to unite and consecrate, the Church must itself be one and holy, that is, it must have its foundation in God, independently of the divided and sinful men who are in need of union and consecration, and therefore cannot obtain it of themselves. The Church, then, is in its essence the unity and holiness of the Godhead, not, however, of the Godhead as such, but as abiding and acting in the world. It is the Godhead in its other, the true substance of God-in-man. The unity and the holiness of the Church are expressed in space as its universality or catholicity, and in time, as apostolic succession. The meaning of catholicity (καθ’ ὂλον—according to or in conformity with the whole) is that all the forms and activities of the Church unite individuals and nations with the whole of the divine humanity, both in its individual concentration the Christ, and in its comprehensive form—the world of the incorporeal powers and the departed saints living in God, and of the faithful who are still fighting the battle here on earth. Insofar as everything in the Church is catholic, conformable to the absolute whole, all exclusiveness of racial and personal characteristics and of social position disappear in it. All divisions or separations dis appear, and all the differences are left—for piety requires that unity in God should be understood not as empty indifference and bare uniformity, but as the absolute fulness of every life. There is no division but there is difference between the invisible and the visible Church, since the first is the hidden moving power of the second, and the second the growing realisation of the first. The two are one in essence but different in condition. There is no division but there is difference in the visible Church between the many tribes and nations to which, in their unity, the one spirit speaks in different tongues of the one identical truth, and communicates by different gifts and callings one and the same good. Finally, there is no division but there is difference between the Church as teaching and as taught, between the clergy and the
§IX. The catholicity of the Church—the fundamental form of the moral organisation of humanity—is the conscious and intentional unity between all the members of the universal body in relation to the one absolute purpose of existence, a unity, accompanied by complete division of ‘spiritual labour,’ of gifts and services, by which that purpose is expressed and realised. This moral unity essentially differs by its voluntary and conscious character from the natural unity of the organs in the body or the members in the various natural groups. It forms a true brotherhood which gives to man positive freedom and positive equality. The individual does not enjoy true freedom when his social environment weighs upon him as external and alien to him. Such alienation is abolished by the conception of the universal Church alone, according to which each must find in the social whole not the external limit but the inward completion of his liberty. Man in any case stands in need of such completion by his ‘other’; for in virtue of his natural limitations he is necessarily a dependent being, and cannot by himself or alone be a sufficient ground of his own existence. Deprive man of what he owes to others, beginning with his parents and ending with the state and the world-history, and nothing will be left of his existence, let alone his freedom. It would be madness to deny this fact of inevitable dependence. Man is not strong enough and he needs help in order that his freedom might be a real thing and not merely a verbal claim. But the help which man obtains from the world is accidental, temporal, and partial, whilst the universal Church promises him secure, eternal and all-sufficient help from God. It is with that help alone that he can be actually free, that is, have sufficient power to satisfy his will. Man obviously cannot be truly free so long as that which he does not want is inevitable, and that which is demanded by his will is impossible. Every object of desire, every good is only possible for man on condition that he himself lives, and those whom he loves live also. There is therefore one
The natural dissimilarity of people is as inevitable as it is desirable. It would be very regrettable if all men were spiritually and physically alike, and in that case the multiplicity of men would have no meaning. Direct equality between distinct particular men is altogether impossible. They can be equal not in themselves, but only in their common relationship to something other, supreme and universal. Such is the equality of all before the law, or equal civic rights. This equality of rights, important as it is in the order of worldly existence, remains essentially formal and negative. The law fixes certain general limits to human activity, equally binding upon all and each, but it does not form the content of anyone’s life, secures to no one the essential goods of life, and indifferently leaves to some their helpless nothingness, and to others the superabundance of all possible advantages. The world may recognise as an abstract possibility or a theoretical right the unconditional significance of each human being, but the realisation of this possibility and this right is given by the Church alone. It initiates each into the wholeness of the Divine life made manifest
§X. Since we live in time, the bond of our dependence upon the divine principle as manifested in history must also be preserved in time and handed down through it. In virtue of that bond our present spiritual life begins not of itself, but springs from the earlier or older bearers of the grace of God. The one holy catholic Church is of necessity an apostolic Church. Apostleship or messengership is the opposite of imposture. Messengership is a religious basis of activity and imposture—an anti-religious one. It is precisely with reference to this point that Christ indicates the opposition between Himself and the antichrist. “I am come in My Father’s name and ye receive Me not; if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive.” The primitive basis of religion, namely, the pious recognition of one’s dependence upon the progenitor, attains its perfect expression in Christianity. “The Father sent Me.” “I do the will of Him Who sent me.” The only-begotten Son is preeminently a messenger, is essentially the apostle of God, and, strictly speaking, the profound and eternal meaning of calling the Church ‘apostolic’ refers to Him—and the other, the direct historical meaning, depends upon that. “As My Father has sent Me, even so send I you”—the apostles born of Christ by the word and the spirit are sent by Him to give spiritual birth to new generations so that the eternal bond between the Father and the
Filial relationship is the archetype of piety, and the only-begotten Son of God—the Son by preeminence—is the individual embodiment of piety itself. The Church as the collective organisation of piety must be entirely determined by Him in its social structure, in its doctrine and holy practices. Christ as the incarnation of piety is the way, the truth, and the life of His Church.
The way of piety for all that exists (with the exception, of course, of the First Beginning and the First Object of all piety) consists in starting not with oneself or with what is lower, but with the higher, the senior, the preceding. It is the way of hierarchy, of holy succession and tradition. Therefore whatever external forms the order of the Church government might assume under the influence of historical conditions, the strictly ecclesiastical religious form—ordination through the laying on of hands—always proceeds in the hierarchical order, from above downwards. Lay men may not ordain their spiritual fathers, and indeed the clergy themselves must necessarily be arranged in order of degrees so that those of the highest degree—the bishops—alone represent the active principle itself, and transfer the grace of consecration to the two other orders.
The truth of the Church depends upon the same piety, though in another way, or in another, theoretic respect. The truth of the Church, revealing to us the mind of Christ, is neither scientific nor philosophical, nor even theological—it contains nothing but dogmas of piety. This fact is the key to the understanding of Christian dogmatism, and of the Councils that were engaged in formulating it. With regard to religious teaching the interest of piety is obviously concerned with the fact that our conceptions of the Deity should not in any way detract from the fulness of our religious attitude to it, given once for all in Christ as the Son of God and the Son of Man. All ‘heresies’ from which the Church protected itself by its dogmatic definitions denied, in one way or another, this religious fullness or the entirety and completeness of our adoption by God through the perfect God-man. Some regarded Christ as a half-god, others as a half-man; some put a kind of double personality in the place of the one God-man, others limited His nature as God-man to the intelligible side
The lawful way of the hierarchical order, as well as the truth of faith, finds its fulfillment and justification in the life of the Church. Human life must be inwardly collected, united, and consecrated by the action of God and thus transformed into a divinely-human life. The nature of the case and the principle of piety demand that the process of regeneration should begin from above, from God, that it should be founded upon the effects of grace and not upon the natural human will alone—it demands that the process should be divinely-human and not humanly-divine. This is the meaning of sacraments as the special foundation of the new life. The moral significance of sacraments in general consists, from the point of view of religious morality or piety, precisely in this—that in sacraments man adopts his proper attitude of absolute dependence upon a perfectly real and yet perfectly mysterious, sensuously unknowable good which is given to him and not created by him. In the presence of the sacrament the human will renounces all that is its own, remains in a state of perfect potentiality or purity, and in virtue of it becomes capable, as pure form, of receiving superhuman content. Through sacraments the one and holy essence, which is the Church in itself (the Ding an sich or the noumenon of the Church, to use philosophic language), actually unites to itself or absorbs into itself the inner being of man and renders his life divine.
1 The profound and important significance of the dogmatic disputes dealing with the very essence of the Christian religion or piety I have more definitely indicated elsewhere. See, e.g., Veliki spor i christianskaya politika (The Great Dispute and Christian Policy) (1883), Dogmatitcheskoe razvtie tserkvi (The Dogmatic Development of the Church) (1886), La Russie et l’Êglise universelle (1889). This significance is particularly clear in the dispute concerning the ikons which in the Christian East completed the circle of the dogmatic development.
This life, supernatural so far as the other kingdoms of nature, including the rationally-human, are concerned, but perfectly natural for the kingdom of God, has its regular cycle of development, the chief moments of which are signalised by the Church in the seven sacraments especially so called. This life comes to birth (in baptism), receives the beginning of a right organisation and the power to grow and develop (in confirmation), is healed from accidental im perfections (in penitence), nurtured for eternity (in Eucharist); it
1 This is discussed more fully in my Duhovnia osnovi zhizni (The Spiritual Foundations of Life) and La Russie et l’Êglise universelle (last chapter).
§XI. The real and mysterious tokens of the higher life or the Kingdom of God, received in the sacraments of the Church, do not in their origin and their essence depend upon the will of man. But since this higher life is the divinely-human life, our part in it cannot be merely passive. It demands a conscious and voluntary cooperation of the human soul with the supreme Spirit. The positive strength for such cooperation is from the very first given by the grace of God (disregard of this truth leads to the dangerous errors of semi-Pelagianism), but it is received by the will of man, which formally differs from the divine will; and it is manifested in actions which spring from the human will. Disregard of this second truth, which is as important as the first, found expression in the Monothelite heresy, so far as Christology is concerned, and in Quietism in the sphere of the moral doctrine.
The specifically-human actions conformable to the grace of God (and caused by its preliminary influence) must obviously express man’s normal relation to. God, men, and to his own material nature, in accordance with the three general foundations of morality—piety, pity, and shame. The first concentrated active expression of the religious feeling or piety—its chief work—is prayer; in the same way, the work of pity is almsgiving, and the work of shame is abstinence or fasting.
2 These three religiously moral works are dealt with at length in the first part of the Duhovnia osnovi zhizni.
This is depicted with wonderful clearness and simplicity in the holy narrative about the devout centurion Cornelius, “which gave much alms to the people, and prayed to God alway.” In his own words, “I was fasting until this hour: and at the ninth hour I “…to make the world obey,
And it was not for him an abstract conviction. In Palestine, where his band was stationed, it was Roman arms alone that put a stop, for a time at any rate, to the fierce intestine wars between different dynasties and parties, accompanied by savage slaughter. And it was only under the aegis of the Roman power that the neighbouring clans of the Edomites and the Arabs gradually emerged out of the condition of continual wars and crude barbarism.
§XIII. “A peasant goes forth into the fields to his husbandry; a Polovets falls upon him, slays him, and drives away his horse. Then in a crowd the Polovtsi come out against the village, kill all the peasants, set fire to the houses and lead the women away into captivity, while the princes are taken up with feuds among themselves.” The troubles of anarchy or of a weakly-developed state, that called forth the pity of Vladimir Monomakh and of Dante, can If, however, pity be admitted in principle, it is logically inevitable to admit also the historical organisation of social forces and activities,, which raises pity from the stage of a powerless and limited feeling and gives it actuality, wide application, and means of development. From the point of view of pity it is impossible §XIV. It is urged that the stern and often cruel character of the state obviously contradicts the definition of it as organised pity. But this objection is based on a confusion between the necessary and sensible severity and useless and arbitrary cruelty. The first is not opposed to pity, and the second, being an abuse, is opposed to the very meaning of the state, and therefore does not contradict the definition of the state—of the normal state, of course—as organised pity. The supposed contradiction is based upon grounds as superficial as the argument that the senseless cruelty of an unsuccessful surgical operation and the sufferings of the patient in the case even of a successful operation are in obvious contradiction to the idea of surgery as a beneficent art helpful to man in certain bodily sufferings. It is obvious that such representatives of state authority as Ivan the Terrible are as little evidence against the altruistic basis of the state, as bad surgeons are against the usefulness of surgery. I am aware that an educated reader may well feel insulted at being reminded of such elementary truths, but if he is acquainted with the recent movement of thought in Russia he will not hold me responsible for the insult.
With regard to the first point, I mean not that human freedom is never unconditional, but that it is not unconditional Insofar then as legality is determined by justice it is essentially related to the moral sphere. All definitions of law which try to separate it from morality leave its real nature un touched. Thus, in addition to the definition already mentioned, Iering’s famous definition declares that Maw is a protected or safeguarded interest. There can be no doubt that law does defend interest, but not every interest. It obviously defends only the just interests or, in other words, it defends every interest in so far as it is just. What, however, is meant by justice in this connection? To say that a just interest is an interest safe guarded by law is to be guilty of the crudest possible logical circle which can only be avoided if justice be once more taken in its essential, i.e. in its moral, sense. This does not prevent us from recognising that the moral principle itself, so far as the inevitable conditions of its existence are concerned, is realised in different ways, and to a greater or lesser degree. For instance there is the distinction between the external, formal, or strictly-legal justice and the inner, essential, or purely-moral justice, the supreme and ultimate standard of right and wrong being one and §XVI. The connection of right with morality makes it possible to speak of the Christian state. It would be unjust to maintain that in pre-Christian times the state had no moral foundation. §XVII. The pagans erred not in ascribing positive significance to the state, but only in thinking that it possessed that significance on its own account. This was obviously untrue. Neither the individual nor the collective body of man has life on its own account but receives it from the spirit that inhabits it. This is clearly proved by the fact of the decomposition both of the individual and of the collective bodies. The perfect body is that in which dwells the spirit of God. Christianity, therefore, demands not that we should reject or limit the power of the state, but that we should fully recognise the principle which alone may render the significance of the state actually complete—namely, its moral solidarity with the cause of the Kingdom of God on earth, all worldly purposes being inwardly subordinated to the one spirit of Christ.
§XVII. The question as to the relation of the Church to the state, which has arisen in Christian times, can be solved in principle from the point of view here indicated. The Church is, as we know, a divinely-human organisation, morally determined by piety. From the nature of the case the Divine principle decidedly pre dominates in the Church over the human. In the relation between them the first is preeminently active and the second pre eminently passive. This obviously must be the case when the human will is in direct correlation with the Divine. The active manifestation of the human will, demanded by the Deity itself, is only possible in the worldly sphere collectively represented by the state, which had reality previously to the revelation of the Divine principle, and is in no direct dependence upon it. The XIX. It is generally believed that the purpose of the economic activity is the increase of wealth. But the purpose of wealth itself—unless one adopts the point of view of the ‘avaricious knight’—is to possess the fulness of physical existence. This fulness no doubt depends upon man’s relation to the material nature, and here two ways are open before us. We can either selfishly exploit the earthly nature or lovingly cultivate it. The first way has already been tried, and although it has been of some indirect benefit to the intellectual development of man and to the external human culture, the main purpose cannot be attained by it. Nature yields to man on the surface, gives him the semblance of dominion over her, but the fictitious treasures, won bv violence, bring no happiness and scatter in the wind like burnt-up cinders. By means of external exploitation of the powers of the earth man cannot secure that which is essential to his material welfare,—he cannot, that is, heal his physical life and render it immortal. And he cannot possess nature from within, for its true substance is unknown to him. But in virtue of his reason and conscience he knows the moral conditions, lying within his own control, which may place him in the right relation to nature. Reason reveals to him that every real fact or event is subject to the undefeasible law of the conservation of energy. Carnal desires seek to bind the soul to the surface of nature, to the material things and processes, and to turn the inner potential infinity of the human being into the evil external boundlessness of passions and lusts. Conscience even in its elementary form of shame condemns this path as unworthy, and reason shows that it is perilous. The more the soul expends itself outwardly, upon the surface of things, the less inner force it has left for penetrating to the inmost substance of nature and taking possession of it. It is clear that man can truly spiritualise nature, that is, call forth and develop its inner life, only by his own overflowing spirituality; and it is equally clear that man himself can only The individual factor is, from the nature of the case, inevitably involved in the social or the collective aspect of the moral organisation of humanity. It is only in and through the activity of the individual bearers of the supreme principles of life that humanity increases in perfection, or is morally organised in the various aspects of its existence. The unity, the completeness, and the right direction of the general moral progress depend upon a harmonious cooperation of the leading or ‘representative’ individuals. The normal relation between the state and the Church would find its essential condition and visible real embodiment in the abiding harmony of their supreme representatives, the high priest and the king. The power of the king would be consecrated by the authority of the priest, and the authoritative will of the latter would only find expression through the fulness of the power of the former. The high priest of the Church, the direct bearer of the Divine
This typical narrative is still more remarkable for what it does not contain. Neither the angel of God nor Peter the apostle of Christ’s peace, nor the voice of the Holy Spirit Himself, suddenly revealed in the newly converted, told the centurion of the Italian band that which, according to the recent interpretation of Christianity, was the most important and urgently necessary thing for this Roman soldier. They did not tell him that in becoming a Christian he had first of all to lay down his arms, and was bound to give up military service. This supposed necessary demand of Christianity is not even hinted at in the narrative, although it is concerned with a soldier. Refusal to do military service does certainly not form part of the New Testament idea of what is required of a warrior of this world in order that he might become a citizen with full rights in the kingdom of God. In addition to the things the centurion Cornelius was already doing, namely, prayer, almsgiving, fasting,—he had “to call Simon, whose surname is Peter:…he shall tell thee what thou oughtest to do.”And when Peter came, Cornelius said to him, “Now therefore are we all here present before God, to hear
I am dwelling upon the story of Cornelius the centurion, not because I want to raise once more the question of military service,
To tame the proud, the fetter’d slave to free.”
Cornelius then did not err in thinking highly of his vocation, and in considering the state and its chief organ, the army, a power necessary for the common good. Ought he to have changed his judgment when he became a Christian? A new, higher, and purely spiritual life was revealed in him, but this fact did not abolish the evil outside of him. The pity which justified his military calling referred precisely to those who were suffering from the external evil, which remained what it was. Or perhaps the higher life revealed in him, ought, without abolishing the external evil, to have abolished the inward good in him—the pity or charity which was ‘remembered by God,’ and to have replaced it by indifference to the sufferings of others. Such indifference or unfeelingness, however, is the distinctive mark of the stone—of
Those who affirm that everyevil-doer may be all at once converted to the good and restrained from crime by the immediate effect of the inner power of grace alone, do not in the least realise the meaning of what they are saying. So far as the inward, purely-spiritual power of the good is concerned, its distinctive characteristic lies precisely in the fact that it does not work like a mechanical agency which inevitably produces external physical changes, but that it acts only on condition of being inwardly received by the person upon whom it acts—a truth which, one would have thought, the case of Judas made obvious to the blind.
The power of the grace of Christ affected men who were sinful owing to the infirmity of the flesh and not owing to the firmness of the evil will— men who were not happy in their sins, but suffered from them and felt the need of a physician. It was of these sick ready to be healed Christ said that they will enter the kingdom of heaven before the self-righteous, and this precisely was the reason why the latter hated Him and reproached Him for condescending to mix with publicans and sinners. But even His enemies could find no pretext to accuse Him of condoning bloodthirsty murderers, impious blasphemers, shameless seducers, and professional criminals of all kinds, enemies of human society. But, it will be said, He left them in peace. There was, however, no occasion for Him to deal with them
According to both the spirit and the letter of the Gospel we must not appeal to the powers that be for enforced defence of ourselves against attacks on our person or property. I ought not to drag into the law court and prison the man who strikes me or walks away with my fur coat. I ought with all my heart to forgive the wrong-doer for the wrong which he does me, and not to offer any resistance to him so far as I alone am concerned. This is clear and obvious. It is clear, too, that I must not give way to evil feeling against the person who wrongs my neighbours—him, too, I must forgive in my heart and regard him as a fellow-man. What practical duty, however, does the moral principle impose upon us in that case? Can my duty be actually the same in the case of my own injury and that of another? To allow injury to myself means to sacrifice myself, and is a moral act; to allow injury to others means sacrificing others, and this can certainly not be called self-sacrifice. The moral duty towards others, psychologically based upon pity, must not in practice give rights to violent men and evil-doers alone. Peaceful and weak persons also have a right to our active pity or help. And since, as individuals, we are unable to give continual and sufficient help to all the injured, we must do this in our collective capacity, that is, through the state. Political organisation is a naturally-human good, as necessary to our life as our physical organism is necessary to it. In giving us a higher spiritual good Christianity does not deprive us of the lower, natural goods—it does not pull from under our feet the ladder which we are mounting.
With the coming of Christianity and the good news of the Kingdom of God, the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms did not disappear. And if they have not been abolished, there is no reason why the naturally-human kingdom, embodied in political organisation, should be abolished either, since it is just as necessary in the historical process as the others are in the cosmical. Nothing could be more absurd than to maintain that although we cannot cease to be animals we ought to cease being citizens.
The fact that the purpose of Christ’s coming to the earth could not consist in creating a kingdom of this world or a state—which had already been founded long ago—in noway proves that
But, it will be urged, the grace and truth manifested in Christ made the law void. Now, when exactly did this happen? Was it when Judas betrayed his master, or when Ananias and Sapphira deceived the Apostles, or when the deacon Nicolas introduced sexual laxity under the pretext of brotherhood, or when a Christian of Corinth was guilty of incest? Or was it when the Spirit wrote through the prophet of the New Testament to the Churches and said to the representative of one of them, “I know thy works, that thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead” (Rev. iii. i); and to another, “I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth” (Rev. vv. 15, 16).
If then, from the time grace and truth first appeared and to this day, they have not taken possession either of the whole nor even of the majority of Christian humanity, the question is how and in whom has the law been made void. Could the law have been made void by grace in those who have neither law nor grace? It is obvious that for them, that is, for the majority of mankind, the law must, according to the word of Christ, remain in full force as the external limit of their liberty. And in order to be such a limit, the law must possess sufficient power of compulsion, that is, must be embodied in the organisation of the State with its law courts, police, armies. And in so far as Christianity did not abolish the law, it could not abolish the State. This necessary and rational fact does not, however, by any means prove that the
When, in another country, the greatest of her poets exclaimed with profound grief, which he showed not in words only:
<> Ahi, serva Italia dei dolor* ostello,
Nave senza nocchiero in gran tempesta!
—the same pity directly incited him to call from beyond the Alps a supreme representative of state authority, a strong protector from incessant and unbearable acts of violence. The pity for the actual calamities of Italy, expressed in many passages of the Divine Comedy, and the appeal for a state invested with the fulness of power as a necessary means of salvation took the form of a definite, well-thought-out conviction in Dante’s book On Monarchy.
Just as the Church is collectively organised piety, so the state is collectively organised pity. To affirm, therefore, that from its very nature the Christian religion is opposed to the state is to affirm that the Christian religion is opposed to pity. In truth, however, the Gospel not merely insists upon the morally binding character of pity or altruism, but decidedly confirms the view, expressed already in the Old Testament, that there can be no true piety apart from pity: “I will have mercy and not sacrifice.”
The definition of the state (so far as its moral significance is concerned) as organised pity can only be rejected through misconception. Some of these misconceptions must be considered before we go on to deal with the conception of the Christian state.
But, it will be maintained, even the most normal state is inevitably pitiless. In pitying peaceful people whom it defends against men of violence, it is bound to treat the latter without pity. Such one-sided pity is out of keeping with the moral ideal. This is indisputable, but again it says nothing against our definition of the state, for, in the first place, even one-sided pity is pity and not anything else; and secondly, even the normal state is not by any means an expression of the moral ideal already attained, but only one of the chief means necessary for its attainment. The ideal condition of mankind, or the Kingdom of God, when attained,
Such an amoral and even anti-moral principle is to be found in the first place in might or force: Macht geht vor Recht. That in the order of history relations based upon right follow those based upon force is as unquestionable as the fact that in the history of our planet the organic life appeared after the inorganic and on the basis of it—which does not prove, of course, that inorganic matter is the specific principle of the organic forms as such. The play of natural forces in humanity is simply the material for relations determined by the conception of right and not the principle of such relations, since otherwise there could be no distinction between right and rightlessness. Right means the limitation of might, and the whole point is the nature of the limitation. Similarly, morality might be defined as the overcoming of evil, which does not imply that evil is the principle of morality.
We shall not advance any further in the definition of right ir we replace the conception of might, derived from the physical sphere, by the more human conception of freedom. That individual freedom lies at the basis of all relations determined by law there can be no doubt, but is it really the unconditional principle of legality? There are two reasons why this cannot be the case. In the first place, because in reality it is not unconditional, and, secondly, because it is not the determining principle of legality.
It is then irrelevant to speak of unconditional freedom in this connection, since it belongs to quite a different sphere of relations. Legality is concerned only with limited and conditional freedom, and the question is precisely as to what limitations or conditions are lawful. The liberty of one person is limited by the liberty of another, but not every such limitation is consistent with the principle of legality. If the freedom of one man is limited by the freedom of his neighbour who is free to wring his neck or chain him up at his pleasure, there can be no question of legality at all, and in any case such a limitation of freedom shows no specific characteristics of the principle of legality as such. These characteristics must be sought not in the mere fact of the limitation of freedom, but in the equal and universal character of the limitation. If the freedom of one is limited to the same extent as the freedom of the other, or if the free activity of each meets with a restriction that is common to all, then only is the limitation of freedom determined by the conception of law.
The principle of legality is then freedom within the limits of equality, or freedom conditioned by equality—consequently a conditional freedom. But the equality which determines it is not an absolutely independent principle either. The essential characteristic of the legal norms is that, in addition to equality, they should necessarily answer, too, the demand for justice. Although these two ideas are akin, they are far from being identical. When the Pharaoh issued a law commanding to put to death all the Jewish new-born babes, this law was certainly not unjust on account of the unequal treatment of the Jewish and the Egyptian babes. And if the Pharaoh subsequently gave orders to
Equality, then, can be just or unjust, and it is the just equality or, in the last resort, justice that determines the legal norms. The conception of justice at once introduces us into the moral sphere. And in that sphere we know that each virtue is not in a cage by itself, but all of them, justice among them, are different modifications of one or, rather, of the threefold principle which determines our rightful relation to everything. And since justice is concerned with man’s moral interaction with his fellow-beings, it is merely a species of the moral motive which lies at the basis of inter-human relations, namely of pity: justice is pity equally applied.
Iering’s definition undergoes a change in the formula according to which law discriminates between interests in contradistinction to morality which values them. There can be no doubt that legal justice discriminates between people’s interests and, equally, that it defends them. But this fact alone gives as yet no idea of the essence of legality. There may be discrimination of interests on grounds which have nothing to do with legality, and the definition thus proves to be too wide. Thus if robbers in a wood attack the travellers and leave them their life but seize all their property, this will no doubt be a case of the discrimination of interests, but to see in it anything in common with legal right is only possible in the sense in which all violence is the expression of the right of the fist, or the right of brute force. In truth, legality is determined not of course by the fact of the discrimination between interests, but by the constant and universal
If morality then be defined as the valuation of interests, legal justice forms an essential part of morality. This is by no means contradicted by the fact that the standard of value in morality in the strict sense and in the legal sphere is not the same. This difference, the necessity, namely, for recognising legal relations apart from the purely -moral ones, is itself based upon moral grounds—upon the demand, namely, that the highest, the final good should be realised apart from any external compulsion, and that, consequently, there should be some possibility of choice between good and evil. Or, to put it in a paradoxical form, the highest morality demands a certain freedom to be immoral. This demand is carried out by legal justice which compels the individual to do the minimum of good necessary to the social life, and, in the interest of the truly moral, that is, of free perfection, safe guards him from the senseless and pernicious experiments in compulsory righteousness and obligatory holiness.
Thus if the state is the objective expression of right, it necessarily forms part of the moral organisation of humanity, which is binding upon the good will.
In paganism it was the conservative task of the state that was exclusively predominant. Although the state furthered historical progress, it did so involuntarily and unconsciously. The supreme purpose of action was not put by the agents themselves, it was not their purpose since they had not yet heard ‘the gospel of the kingdom.’ The progress itself, therefore, although it formally differed from the gradual perfecting of the kingdoms of the physical nature did not really have a purely-human character: it is unworthy of man to move in spite of himself to a purpose he does not know. God’s word gives a beautiful image of the great heathen kingdoms as powerful and wonderful beasts which rapidly
The normal relation, then, between the state and the Church is this. The state recognises the supreme spiritual authority of the universal Church, which indicates the general direction of the goodwill of mankind and the final purpose of its historical activity. The Church leaves to the state full power to bring lawful worldly interests into conformity with this supreme will and to harmonise political relations and actions with the requirements of this supreme purpose. The Church must have no power of compulsion, and the power of compulsion exercised by the state must have nothing to do with the domain of religion.
The state is the intermediary social sphere between the Church on the one hand and the material society on the other. The absolute aims of religious and moral order which the Church puts before humanity and which it represents, cannot be realised in the given human material without the formal mediation of the lawful authority of the state (in the worldly aspect of its activity), which retains the forces of evil within certain relative bounds until the time comes when all human wills are ready to make the decisive choice between the absolute good and the unconditional evil. The direct and fundamental motive of such restraint is pity, which determines the whole progress of legal justice and of the state. The progress is not in the principle, but in its application. Compulsion exercised by the state draws back before individual freedom and comes forward to help in the case of public distress. The rule of true progress is this, that the state should interfere as little as possible with the inner moral life of man, and at the same time should as securely and as widely as possible ensure the external conditions of his worthy existence and moral development. The state which chose on its own authority to teach its subjects true theology and sound philosophy, and at the same time allowed them to remain illiterate, to be murdered on the high-roads, or to die of famine and of infection, would lose its raison d’être. The voice of the true Church might well say to such a state: “It is I that am entrusted
§XVIII. Just as the fundamental moral motive of piety, determining our right attitude to the absolute principle, is organised in the Church, and the other ultimate moral principle, that of pity, determining our right attitude to our neighbours, is organised in the state, so with reference to the third essential aspect of human life our moral relation to the lower nature (our own and that of others) is organised objectively and in a collective form in society as an economic union or zemstvo.
The moral duty of abstinence based as a fact upon the feeling of shame inherent in human nature, is the true principle of the economic life of humanity and of the corresponding social organisation, so far as its own specific task is concerned. The economic task of the state which acts from motives of pity, is compulsorily to secure for each a certain minimum of material welfare as the necessary condition of worthy human existence. This is the right
What form must, then, the good assume in the materially-economic society as such? It is understood, of course, that moral philosophy can do no more than indicate what the informing principle and the final end of such a society ought to be. This principle is abstinence from the evil of inordinate carnality; this end is the transmutation of the material nature, both of our own and of that external to us, into the free form of the human spirit, a form which does not limit it from without, but unconditionally completes its inward and external existence.
But what is there in common, it will be asked, between these ideas and the economic reality whose principle is the infinite multiplication of wants and whose end is an equally infinite multiplication of things that satisfy these wants. Shame and shamelessness, spiritualisation of the body and materialisation of the soul, resurrection of the flesh and death of the spirit, certainly do have something in common, but the common element is purely negative. This, however, is of no importance. The fact that a moral norm is rejected does not abolish, but, on the contrary, brings out its inner significance. There is no rational ground for supposing that the economic life corresponds to the ideal from the first in a way in which neither the Church nor the state in their empirical reality correspond to it. There undoubtedly is a certain op position between the feeling of shame and the operations on the stock exchange, but the opposition is certainly not any greater, and perhaps is even less than that between real Christian piety and the policy of the mediaeval Church. There is a lack of correspond ence between the principle of abstinence and money speculations,
This complete separation of the economic life from its own moral purpose is unquestionably a fact, but from our point of view it can be satisfactorily explained. The moral organisation of humanity, the principle of which was given in the Christian religion, could not be equally realised in all its parts. A certain historical successiveness followed from the very nature of the case. The religious task, the organisation of piety in the Church, was bound to occupy the foremost place, both because it was the most essential and, in a sense, the simplest thing, and the least conditioned by man. Indeed, man’s relation to the unconditional principle revealed to him cannot be determined by any thing other than that principle itself, since nothing can be higher than it; the relation rests upon its own foundation, upon what is given. The second task of the moral organisation—the task of the Christian state—is, in addition to the motive of collective pity, also conditioned by the supreme religious principle which liberates that worldly pity from the limitations it had in the heathen state. And we see that the political task of historical Christianity, more complex and conditioned than the religious one, comes on the scene subsequently to the latter. There was a period in the Middle Ages when the Church acquired definite organic forms, while the Christian state was in the same condition of apparent non-existence as the Christian economic life is today The right of the fist, which was predominant in the Middle Ages, no more corresponded to the ideal of the state than modern banks and stock exchanges correspond to the ideal of economic relations. Practical realisation of the latter is naturally the last in the order of time since the economic sphere is the furthest limit for the application of the moral principle. Its rightful organisation, i.e. the establishment of the moral relation between man and material nature, is inevitably conditioned in two ways: first, by the normal religious attitude of humanity organised in the Church j and, secondly, by the normal inter-human or altruistic relations organised in the state.
It is no wonder, therefore, that the true economic problem to
But however indefinite the last practical task may be, the changes in the moral sentiments that predominated in the history of the Christian world point with sufficient clearness to three main epochs. The epoch of piety was characterised by its exclusive interest for the ‘divine,’ its indifference and distrust of the human element, its hostility and fear of the physical nature. This first epoch, in spite of its stability and long duration, contained in itself a seed of destruction: the spirit of the one-sided, intolerant piety of the Middle Ages was regarded as the absolute norm. When this contradiction found its direct and extreme expression in the inhuman and pitiless religious persecutions inspired by ‘piety,’ there was a reaction which found its first expression in idealistic humanism, and then showed itself in works of practical pity and mercy. This movement of human morality characteristic of the second epoch of the Christian history—from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century inclusive—began to pass in the course of that century into a third stage. Two preliminary truths appeared in the living consciousness of mankind. The first is that if mercy is to be fully carried out it must include the domain of the material life, and the second is that the norm of the material life is continence. To the philosophers this truth was clear in times of antiquity, but it has not yet -shed its light upon the general consciousness for which it is but vaguely beginning to dawn. A glimmer of it can unquestionably be seen in the nineteenth century in such phenomena as the ascetic morality of the fashionable philosopher Schopenhauer, the spread of vegetarianism, the popularity of Hinduism and Buddhism which, though badly understood, are taken precisely on their ascetic side; the success of the ‘Kreuzer Sonata’ the fear of the good people lest the preaching of continence might lead to a sudden cessation of the human race, etc.
Economic relations and asceticism are the two apparently wholly heterogeneous orders of facts and ideas, which, in the beginning of the nineteenth century, were brought together in a perfectly crude and external way by Malthusianism. The inner and essential connection
What is required is not that man should give up externally acting upon nature and carrying on the work of civilisation, but that he should change the purpose of his life and the centre of gravity of his will. External objects which most men passionately seek as ends in themselves, expending upon them their inner powers of feeling and will, must entirely become the means and the instruments, while the inner forces gathered and concentrated within must be used as a powerful lever to lift the weight of the material being which crushes both the scattered soul of man and the divided soul of nature.
The normal principle of the economic activity is economy—the saving, the collecting of psychical forces by means of transmuting one species of mental energy (the external orextensive) into another kind of energy (the internal or the intensive). Man either scatters his sensuous soul or he gathers it together. In the first case he achieves nothing either for himself or for nature, in the second he heals and saves both himself and it. Speaking generally, organisation signifies that the means and instruments of the lower order are coordinated for the attainment of one general purpose of a higher order. Therefore the principle of economic activity that has hitherto been dominant—the indefinite multiplication of the external and particular wants, and the recognition of the external means of satisfying them as ends in themselves—is the principle of disorganisation, of social decomposition, while the principle of moral philosophy—the collecting and the drawing in of all the external material purposes into one inward and mental purpose of the complete reunion of the human being with the substance of nature, is the principle of organisation and universal resuscitation.
It must be remembered, however, that this task is third in the order of time in the general moral organisation of humanity, and that the real solution of it is conditioned by the first two. The practice of personal asceticism can be normal and rational only on
Moral organisation of the human race or its regeneration into the divine humanity is an indivisible threefold process. Its absolute purpose is laid down by the Church as the organised piety, collectively receptive of the Divine grace; its formal means and instru ments are supplied by the purely human, free principle of just pity or sympathy, collectively organised in the state; and it is only the ultimate substratum or the material body of the God-in-man that is found in the economic life, determined by the principle of continence.
XX. récis. Individual representatives of the moral organisation of humanity.—The three supreme callings—that of the priest, the king, and the prophet.—Their distinctive peculiarities and mutual dependence.
The authority of the high priest, as well as the power of the king, are, however, inevitably connected with external advantages, and are open to temptations that may prove too strong. Disputes, encroachments and misunderstandings are bound to arise, and they obviously cannot be finally settled by one of the interested parties. All external limitations are, as a matter of principle or of ideal, incompatible with the supreme dignity of the pontifical authority and of the royal power. But a purely moral control over them on the part of the free forces of the nation and society is both possible and extremely desirable. In the old Israel there had existed a third supreme calling, that of the prophet. Abolished by Christianity in theory, it practically disappeared from the stage of history, and came forward in exceptional cases only, for the most part in a distorted form. Hence all the anomalies of mediaeval and modern history. The restoration of the prophetic calling does not rest with the will of man, but a reminder of its purely moral significance is very opportune in our day, and is appropriate at the end of an exposition of moral philosophy.
Just as the high priest of the Church is the highest expression of piety, and the Christian monarch the highest expression of mercy and truth, so the true prophet is the highest expression of shame and conscience. This inner nature of the prophetic calling determines its external characteristics. The true prophet is a social worker who is absolutely independent, and neither fears, nor submits to, anything external. Side by side with the representatives of absolute authority and absolute power there must be in human society representatives of absolute freedom. Such freedom cannot belong to the crowd, cannot be an attribute of democracy. Every one, of course, desires to have moral freedom, as everyone, perhaps,
The high priest is the coping-stone of a numerous and complex hierarchy of the clergy, through which he comes into contact with the whole of the laity; the king carries out his work among the people through a complex system of civil and military institutions represented by individual men; in a similar manner the free followers of the supreme ideal realise it in the life of the community through a number of men who more or less fully participate in their aspirations. The three services can be best distinguished by the fact that the office of the priest derives its main force from pious devotion to the true traditions of the past; the office of the king—from a correct understanding of the true needs of the present and the office of the prophet, from the faith in the true vision of the future. The difference between theprophet and the idle dreamer lies in the fact that in the case of the prophet the flowers and fruits of the ideal future do not hang in the air of personal imagination, but are supported by the visible stem of the present social needs and by the mysterious roots of religious tradition. And it is this same fact that connects the calling of the prophet with the office of priest and king.
Conclusion: The Final Definition of the Moral Significance of Life
and the Transition to the Theoretical Philosophy
Our life acquires moral worth and significance when, through striving after perfection, it becomes related to the perfect good. It follows from the very conception of the perfect good that all life and all existence are connected with it. There is meaning in the animal life, in its functions of nourishment and reproduction. But this meaning, important and unquestionable as it is, expresses only an involuntary and partial connection of a particular being with the universal good, and cannot satisfy the life of man; his will and his reason, being forms of the infinite, demand something more. The spirit is nurtured by the knowledge of the perfect good and is propagated by doing good, by realising, that is, the unconditional and universal in all the particular conditions and relations. In inwardly demanding a perfect union with the absolute good we show that that which is demanded by us has not yet been given us, and that, therefore, the moral significance of our life can only consist in approaching the perfect association with the good or in rendering perfect our actual inner connection with it.
The demand for moral perfection involves the general idea of the absolute good and of its necessary attributes. It must be all-embracing, that is, it must be the criterion of our moral relation to all things. All that exists or may exist is from the moral point of view exhausted by three categories: it is either above us, or on a level with us, or below us. It is logically impossible to find a fourth relation. Our inner consciousness testifies that is the absolute good or God and that which already is in perfect union with Him, a union we have not yet attained; on a level with
The true beginning of moral progress is contained in the three fundamental feelings which are inherent in human nature and constitute natural virtue: the feeling of shame which safe guards our higher dignity against the encroachments of the animal desires, the feeling of pity which establishes an inner equality between ourselves and others, and, finally, the religious feeling which expresses our recognition of the supreme good. Inseparable from these feelings is the consciousness, even though it be a dim one, that they are the norm, and express what is good, while the opposite of them is bad—the consciousness that one ought to be ashamed of immoderate physical desires and slavery to the animal nature, that one ought to pity others, ought to do homage to the Divine. These feelings, representing the good nature which strives from the first towards that which ought to be, and the testimony of conscience that accompanies them constitute the one or rather the three-in-one foundation of moral progress. Conscientious reason generalises the impulses of the good nature and makes them into a law. The content of the moral law is that
With regard to our lower nature the moral law, generalising the immediate feeling of modesty, commands us always to dominate all sensual desires, admitting them only as a subordinate element within the limits of reason; morality at this stage no longer takes the form—as in the elementary feeling of shame—of the mere instinctive rejection of the hostile element or recoiling before it, but demands actual struggle with the flesh. With regard to other human beings, the moral law gives to the feeling of pity or sympathy the form of justice, and demands that we should recognise each of our neighbours as having the same absolute significance as ourselves, or that we should regard others as we could consistently wish them to regard us, independently of this or that particular feeling. Finally, in relation to the Deity the moral law affirms itself as the expression of Its law-giving will, and demands that that will should be unconditionally recognised for the sake of its own dignity or perfection. But when this pure recognition of God’s will as the all-embracing and all-sufficient good has been attained, it must be clear that the fullness of this will can only be revealed through its own inner effects in the soul of man. Having risen to this level, the formal or rational morality enters the domain of the absolute morality—the good of the rational law is completed by the good of the Divine grace.
According to the usual teaching of true Christianity, which correctly represents the position, grace does not abolish nature and natural morality but ‘perfects’ it, that is, brings it to perfection; in like manner grace does not abolish law, but fulfills it, and only in so far as it does so, renders it unnecessary.
The fulfillment of the moral law, whether instinctive or deliberate, cannot, however, be limited to the personal life of the individual—for two reasons, a natural and a moral one. The natural reason is that the individual taken separately does not exist at all. From the point of view of practice this reason is quite sufficient, but strict moralists who care not for what is but for what ought to be will attach greater weight to the moral
Constant interaction between personal moral effort and the organised moral work of collective man finally justifies the moral significance of life—that is, it justifies the good, which thus appears in all its purity, fullness, and power. The system of moral philosophy worked out in the present book is a conceptual reproduction of this process in its totality; it follows history in what has been attained already, and anticipates it in what is still left to be done. In reducing its contents to one formula we shall find that the
When this universal justification of the good, its extension to all the relations of life, is clearly seen as a historical fact by every mind, the only question for the individual will be the practical question of will—to accept this perfect moral significance of life for oneself, or to reject it. But as long as the end has not yet come, as long as the rightness of the good has not become self-evident in all things and to all, further theoretical doubt is still possible. That doubt cannot be solved within the limits of moral or practical philosophy, although it in no way detracts from the binding character of its maxims upon men of good will.
If the moral significance of life in the last resort consists in the struggle with evil and in the triumph of good over evil, there arises the eternal question as to the origin of evil itself. If evil springs from the good, struggle with it seems to be based upon a misconception; if it arises independently of the good, the good cannot be unconditional, since the condition of its realisation will be external to it. And if the good is not unconditional, wherein does its essential superiority consist, and what is the final guarantee of its triumph over evil?
Rational faith in the absolute good is based upon inner experience, and upon that which with logical necessity follows from it. But inner religious experience is a personal matter, and, from the external point of view, is conditional. When,
The question as to the origin of evil is purely intellectual, and can be solved by a true metaphysic alone, which, in its turn, presupposes the solution of the question as to the nature, the validity, and the means of knowing the truth.
The independence of moral philosophy in its own sphere does not prevent it from being inwardly connected with theoretical philosophy—the theory of knowledge and metaphysics.
It least of all befits believers in the absolute good to fear philosophical investigation, as if the moral significance of the world could lose by being finally explained, and as though union with God in love, and harmony with His will, could leave us no part in the Divine intellect. Having justified the good as such in moral philosophy, we must, in theoretical philosophy, justify the good as Truth.
Vladimir Solovyov
1853–1900
(Alternately Soloviev)
Russian philosopher, theologian, poet, and literary critic, who played a significant role in the development of Russian philosophy and poetry at the end of the 19th century and in the spiritual renaissance of the early 20th century.
Quote
If the faith communicated by the Church to Christian humanity is a living faith, and if the grace of the sacraments is an effectual grace, the resultant union of the divine and the human cannot be limited to the special domain of religion, but must extend to all Man’s common relationships and must regenerate and transform his social and political life.
–Vladimir Solovyov
Reference
Solovyov, Vladimir. The Justification of The Good: An Essay on Moral Philosophy, Nathalie A. Duddington, trans. London: Constable and Company Ltd. 1918.