This topic carries the inquiry concerning moral law one step further than that determined in the last chapter. It being settled that that law is objectively and permanently real, for the recognition of conscience, we must yet seek some explanation of the basis of the reality. Why are some things right and others wrong? What is the reason of the difference? On what is the law of right grounded? We seek the explanation of its existence and the obligation it imposes.

It must be remembered that even those who hold the moral behests to be merely subjective, products in some way of the psychological constitution, nevertheless endeavor to account for them in some relations or forces back of themselves. These accounts, as will appear, are exceedingly varied. Inasmuch, therefore, as nearly all the differing ethical theories seek to give some explanation and ground for moral obligation, the inquiry now before us presents the point about which the chief contests of moral philosophy have been waged. The different answers have been the main determinants of the different systems.

Our examination must include three things: a clear definition of the point of inquiry; some notice of the leading theories; and a positive statement of the ground as demanded by reason and the interests of moral life.

I. Definition. This is necessary because it has sometimes been confounded with the question: What is the ground of obligation?38 We must distinguish between the "ground of right" and the "ground of obligation." The point before us is not why we are under obligation to do a right act, but why the act is right. Manifestly the rightness of the proposed action is the ground of the obligation to do it; that is, the obligation is grounded on the right. The exact inquiry is—and must be, in order to reach the real and abiding moral foundations—on what is the right, whose perception obligates, grounded? A quest after the ground of the "obligation" simply, might satisfy those who reduce conscience to a mere instinct or sentiment, and the moral standard to a mere internal product of association, education or of biological organization. To them it might seem enough to give an explanation of the felt obligation. In such case they might plausibly, as they often do, affirm that the moral bond, being thus organically insured and fixed in the moral consciousness, must remain the same, no matter what theories, even though purely materialistic, may be formed of its genesis and nature. But so soon as the ethical reality is seen in its cosmic place and transcendental character we want an explanation not only of the ground of obligation to right conduct, but also of the ground of the right which evokes the sense of obligation.

II. Leading Theories. We must include, in this review, both the theories which offer only an explanation of the phenomenon of obligation and those that seek an elucidation of the principle of righteousness as objective moral law. In the long continued discussion of the subject these theories have been immensely varied and modified, but the differences thus noted divide all explanations into two classes, viz., those which make the moral stand in something subjective and those that find it objective. In the cursory rehearsal of them, here needed, we will present them in chronological order, irrespective of their belonging to one class or the other, noting, however, their relation to this distinction which divides them. Such historical glance will give an outline of the development of thought on the subject, and help us to reach and appreciate the true conclusion.

1. Egypt's golden age was in the morning of the world's historical period, and we must look far back for its best ethical thought. With the Egyptians morality and religion were closely identified. The ethical view was united with the theological and determined by it. They, however, dealt with the subject of duty only in separate maxims and precepts, without framing a theory of obligation. But the purity and elevation of these precepts have been a wonder to many in our modern days. It is, however, easily explained. Their religion was monotheistic. God was a good and righteous Being, with power and rulership, the source of all things for man. The Egyptians connected all that was pure and good with God and recognized their dependence on Him and their duty to live according to His will. Thus their moral consciousness rose above the function of a mere subjective instinct or a feeling of responsibility to their fellow-men, and included a sense of direct amenability to divine authority. The goal of the moral endeavor, ever overcoming evil, was regarded as attained, not in this, but in a future life of blessedness under the divine approval. Their view grounded all duty objectively, and practically identified it with piety.39

2. Chinese teaching, too, was theological. The theology was essentially monotheistic, but overgrown with superstitions and idolatrous practices. It taught that man is the creature of God, and was endowed by heaven with a nature for the practice of good, a nature that, if followed properly—i. e. in the "golden mean"—invariably leads men aright. The path indicated by nature is the will of God concerning duty. "What heaven has conferred is called the nature; an accordance with this nature is called the path of duty; the regulation of this path is called instruction."40 The chief contribution to the Chinese teaching by the sage Confucius (B.C. 551–478) was his proclamation of the principle of "reciprocity," i. e. doing as we would have others do to us. Though the elements of the moral problem were thus included fairly well for ordinary conduct, they were not framed into a distinct philosophy of the ground of right.

3. India's sacred books abound in moral maxims and counsels. Brahmanism is substantially a philosophy of life rather than a religion. But its pantheism and doctrine of the pre-existence and transmigration of souls have distorted and misdirected the moral idea. Its pantheism confounds the human with the divine, both in its origin and destination. Its belief in transmigration, with its perpetual succession of rebirths into conditions of woeful individual life unless the soul's unhappy agitations and unrest should be composed by virtue, shapes the moral task mainly, not only into restraint of the appetites and passions, but into such austerity and stern self-abnegation as may prepare the soul, on the death of the body, to attain the perfect repose of Nirvana the complete extinction of human passions, or, as Buddhism represents, annihilation of conscious individuality in reabsorption into the absolute existence. In this system the aim of morality is not "the right," but the desired good of tranquil happiness, or the final goal of merging self-conscious personality back again into the Great All from which it arose. The ground of the moral striving—it can hardly be called obligation—is the adaptedness of it to secure this result.41

4. Zoroastrianism (MazdÆism), from about B.C. 1500–1000, confessedly presents an ethical teaching that, among oriental views, is second only to that of the Hebrews. Its theological dualism, which seems to have encroached upon an earlier purer monotheism, of two eternal principles or powers, Ormuzed (Ahura Mazda) the good power, and Ahriman (Angra Mainyou) the evil power, manifestly arose from the effort to solve the dread problem of evil in the world. Zoroastrian teaching represents Ormuzed as the all-knowing and the holy creator of the world. He cannot create evil. He is the source of all purity, order and righteousness. Wrong and misery have come into the world from Ahriman, the opposite contending power in the universe. Zoroastrianism thus gives the world-system a moral foundation and law of order. The moral life is a holy conflict with the forces of evil within human nature and assailing it. The supreme end of life is to increase the ascendency of righteousness and establish its everlasting reign of truth and goodness. The goal of it comes in a future life of blessedness. The ground of righteousness is thus placed in the nature and will of the eternal creator, to whom obedience is due, against the influences of the malign power of evil.42

5. Among the Greeks ethical philosophy began with Socrates. Their earlier writers dealt with the subject of duty but little in a speculative way. When the philosophy of it came to be sought the theories mainly connected it closely with "the good" or "the highest good," the summum bonum of life. This designation was ambiguous. "The good" (t? ??a???, t? ??a?? [Greek: to agathon], [Greek: ta agatha]) might be conceived of as either intellectual or sensuous good, as consisting in one's intrinsic state or in outward condition, as either happiness or personal well-being. And because this method failed to distinguish clearly and fully between this indefinite "good"—having at best no more authority than "the beautiful"—and "the right" which forms the true essence of the ethical principle, their explanations failed to become clear, and stopped short of being actual explanations of the ground of right. Hence their theories, though not always consistently exhibited, and variously interpreted by expounders of them, were substantially eudÆmonistic43 and utilitarian. Specifically:

(1) Socrates made all virtue consist in knowledge, especially self knowledge or wisdom, leading men to proper self-regulation and happiness. He put emphasis upon man's rational nature as essentially good, and to this rational nature belonged the office of self-mastery and control of all appetites, dispositions, and passions. The life in knowledge became the good and happy life. Though this great sage maintained that the world is governed by a supreme intelligence, he failed to connect clearly and closely the moral law with this high source, and rested the moral life simply subjectively.

(2) Plato developed his view substantially on the basis of that of Socrates. He identified the highest good with the intellect rather than the sensibility, and looked upon all virtues as united in knowledge, not only as guiding the soul in acting out its proper destination, but, according to some statements, even as in itself all-sufficing. Though Plato's speculative view of the universe contains the elements for the construction of a sublime immutable ethical standard, and he even suggests God-likeness as the goal of man's moral life,44 the implications of his view are not consistently carried out; and when he comes to apply his ideas to life in his ideal Republic he lapses into what seems a caricature of his better thought, and is content to rest morality simply on the authority and laws of the state.45

(3) Aristotle, in whom Plato's theistic view of the world receded into the background, made the "chief good" consist in happiness or felt well-being, which depends on man's living according to his rational nature. Such living includes both the activities of the mind and habitual conduct. The reason must not only develop its own energies, but rule the lower powers and passions. On this double requirement he founded two kinds of virtue, the intellectual (dianoetic) and the practical. The one consists in "knowledge" or "wisdom," the other in formed "habits" or "character." The moral life, therefore, consists in the true use, without abuse, of our rational nature. The rule for it, as taught by Aristotle, is to avoid extremes and pursue the golden mean. The theory thus rests morality wholly on subjective good and identifies it with the calculations of prudence. It is simply secularistic, without religious element or appeal.46

(4) In Epicurus (B. C. 341–270) and his followers eudÆmonism descended into hedonism. The supreme good is happiness in the sense of personal enjoyment, pleasure. The universe, without theistic ground, was regarded as eternal, forever evolving in fortuitous concourse of atoms. It is without rational order, design, or government. The human soul is material, and at death men cease to be. The good of life consists in the avoidance of pain and the securing of pleasure. The pleasure may be intellectual or sensuous and gross, as men may prefer. The pursuit of it is the highest virtue and best wisdom. Enjoyment is the end of life. The whole question of ethics thus came to be a calculation and balancing of pains and pleasures, and the cardinal virtue prudent selfishness. It was complete subjectivism.

(5) In Stoicism (founded by Zeno of Citium, about 308 B. C.) we have a view that, in its principal features, was in strong contrast with Epicureanism. It arose in close relation to the teaching of Socrates. But it taught that "happiness" was not necessary, and should never be made the end of endeavor. Virtue itself was the highest good, and to be sought for its own sake. Itself was sufficient for happiness—not because it could make men insensible to pain or pleasure, but because it made them superior to it. Virtue was immutably excellent in itself, a permanent reality for man's realization, and subordinated everything else. It consisted essentially in living "according to nature,"47 i. e. not simply in harmony with one's self, but with the nature of the universe, with the whole constitution of the world as ordained and ruled by God, of which a man's own nature forms a part. The stress was not at all to be laid on self, but upon the great total of being. Man exists for society, and virtue is impossible apart from the social state. So Stoic teaching inculcated subordination of self to more general interests—to family, country, mankind. It taught that all creatures are "children of one father,"48 and duty was owed to all. We may hardly, however, speak of this as "altruism," in the sense of unselfish benevolence or self-sacrificing goodness; since, in the general Stoic philosophy, not the sentiment of sympathetic helpfulness, but of victorious superiority to pain, was the temper fostered. Love was almost submerged in the stern spirit of duty. The blessedness of virtue was to stand independent of the sufferings which befell men. In fact the dreadful inexorableness of fate (e?a???? [Greek: heimarmenÊ]), conceived by the Stoic philosophy as eternally embracing the life of both God and nature, gave to virtue, not so much the temper of free, loving obedience to either God or righteousness, as the sternness of a proud intellectual resoluteness in yielding, for virtue's sake, to the inevitable in the fate-bound universe. Under this conception the Stoic moral obedience could never rise to the free joyousness that belongs to the obedient life under the light of the Christian truth that God is love—eternal love, ruling in absolute freedom and desiring to exalt His children to the perfect holiness to which alone happiness forever belongs.

All these Greek theories, except the Stoic, are thus seen to have been marked by two features. First, they dissolved "the right," which alone has direct authority and forms moral law, into "the good," which is simply something offered to us as an object of desire, but which has no "imperative" for the conscience, and may be innocently foregone. Secondly, despite the clear better implications supplied to them in their accepted theistic conceptions of the world, they failed to define distinctly any grounding of the moral law on anything higher or more permanent than the subjective elements of the human constitution. For, even Plato's objective basing of it, for citizen duty, on the law of the state, assumed only a subjective basis in the person of the ruler himself. The Stoic theory, however, had glimpses of some higher and broader ground, though it failed to see it truly.

6. The Roman moralists adopted substantially the doctrine of the Greek Stoics. This was finely exhibited and commended, especially by Seneca, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius. But we have no new theory among the Roman philosophers.

After the establishment of Christianity, whose progress thenceforward determined and marked the intellectual activity and advancing philosophy and culture of mankind, the discussion of ethics became simply a part of theology. And according to the spirit and method of theology in the early Church and during the middle ages, even down to modern times, the discussion was not philosophical, but biblical. It was concerned simply to set forth human duty, especially the duties of the Christian life, as taught in the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. Resting the moral law upon revealed divine authority, it paid small attention to the question of its metaphysical validation. But when modern philosophy began its investigations, it of necessity soon came upon this point, and inquired after the natural basis or ultimate ground of the great law whose unique authority both the sacred Scriptures and the moral consciousness of men agreed in asserting.

7. Modern theories begin with that of Divine absolutism—making the moral law, like physical laws, only a product of God's will. It makes it rest absolutely optional in His sovereignty of choice. It not only seeks no ulterior reason, or logical prius, for his choice, but distinctly disconnects it from any. God's will is not the expression or revelation, but the originator, of the moral distinction, constituting it, with its obligatoriness, as He has done, when He might have constituted it otherwise, even the very contrary. He determined "the right" according to no norm, but as creating and establishing a norm. Whether there should be any moral distinction and what it should be, was a matter of the divine choice. The view is a one-sided conception of God's sovereignty. It was set forth by Hugo Grotius (1583–1645) and RenÉ Descartes (1596–1650), and has found prominent advocacy frequently since. But it collides with both sound theology and an adequate moral philosophy.

(1) It fails to recognize any eternal essential moral character in God Himself. The interests of both morality and religion require faith in Him as Himself eternally the righteous and holy creator and moral ruler, in His immutable nature. The morally good can not be something "contingent," but must be absolute, irrepealable and irreversible even by God. We need for both religion and character, to hold fast to the great truth which represents God in His moral will as choosing righteousness as righteousness, loving the "morally good as good"49—not as by mere will originating the moral distinction and fixing a code of conduct upon arbitrary ordination. For real moral character in God we must go even further and regard Him as loving righteousness, not simply as good in Himself, but as good in itself, good by the immutable quality of its own nature. For a moral government we must have a moral governor. And God can be such, not by enforcing responsibility to an arbitrary code, but by ruling according to distinctions that are per se supreme in eternal reason—enforcing not a mere rule of power but of essential rightness.

(2) Further, the action of the conscience itself, in discerning right and wrong where it has received no information as to the will of God, implies that the distinction is rationally based. To discern it is not always conditioned on such information. Reason itself—the human in the image of the divine—in some degree reveals the right. So clear is this discernment, and so independent of all "contingency" does the right appear, that even pagan writers have been wont to make virtue superior even to the displeasure of the gods, nobly standing self-approved.50

(3) The true relation between the will of God and the ethically good must be conceived of as, indeed, involving a profound and indissoluble identity—what He wills being always and necessarily right, though He wills it in perfect freedom—but yet as moving in the logical order of thought, that right is not made right by His willing it, but that He wills it because it is right.

8. Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679), holding the natural state of man as utterly selfish and a state of war, gave to civil government, as necessary to the social order, supreme authority, and asserted that the basis of all moral obligation was positive law issued by the sovereign. Duty rested on the legal statute, whose direction was final. It knew no higher law. The theory was a repetition of the travesty of ethics in Plato's Republic. It has had no following, and needs no confutation.

But a theory that thus ignored individual conscience and essential right, reducing morality to civic obedience, with no other foundation than the positive enactment of a monarch, at once and strongly re-acted in strengthening the conviction of the necessity and truth of the intuitional view of the moral faculty, and of the importance of finding a better basis for the ethical principle, both in the constitution of mankind and in the author of nature.

9. The Sympathetic Theory is naturally associated with that conception of conscience which makes it consist fundamentally, not in intellect, but in instinct or feeling. Taking the suggestion from Hume, the theory was elaborated by Adam Smith (1723–1790). It explained moral obligation as produced by the special action of our nature in which we spontaneously sympathize with certain intentions or conduct of our fellow-men—this sympathy taking the form of approval. The bond to duty was viewed as thus formed by these instinctive sentiments pointing out what is morally good and obligating to corresponding behavior. Of course the individual's sympathetic appreciation had to be broadened and trained by the standard of general sentiment. And the explanation was helped out by noting the adaptation of this rule of conduct to promote personal and social happiness. But a theory resting duty on a basis so thoroughly subjective, and so uncertain and changeful as are men's unguided feelings, likely often to be in sympathy with evil, could not commend itself to wide acceptance. It presented neither the ground of right nor a safe rule.

10. The theory of Utilitarianism had its prototypes in the teachings of Socrates, Aristotle, and the Epicureans. Its modern forms have been greatly varied, but they all agree in founding the morally good in utility. That which experience shows to be useful, as promotive of personal or social interests and happiness, becomes thereby right, or the norm of moral choices and conduct. The theory, in all its modifications, is a "goods" theory,51 interpreting obligation as simply the behest to conform life to the attainment of the various forms of good, even the chief, as happiness or enjoyment, provided for in man's nature and condition. Named from the object or objects sought, it is eudÆmonism; named from the way or means of its attainment, it is utilitarianism. Sometimes the good is simply happiness, sometimes personal well-being, sometimes social welfare. Sometimes it is purely selfish, sometimes altruistic or in some sense benevolent. But a few examples will make plain both its general character and chief variations.

(1) William Paley (1743–1805), adopting eudÆmonistic principles, rested all obligation to duty on its tendency to secure everlasting happiness. He says: "Actions are to be estimated by their tendency. Whatever is expedient is right. It is the utility of any moral rule alone, which constitutes the obligation to it."52 "The will of God" is accepted as "the rule of virtue," seemingly not, however, as the direct ground of it, but rather as the sure guide as to what has the "tendency" to gain for us "everlasting happiness." For, Paley explains: "Such is the divine character that what promotes the general happiness is required by the will of God." This view makes the spirit of duty, even in religion, supreme selfishness. It places the self-regarding impulses on the throne.

(2) Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832), the chief apostle of modern utilitarianism, gave it great popularity by making it distinctly altruistic. Adopting suggestions in this direction by Shaftsbury (1713), Hutcheson, Butler, and Hume, he measurably lifted its aim above the individual's care of his own interests, and made the principle of right authoritative because promotive of "the greatest happiness of the greatest number." This seemed to subordinate, without excluding, the individual's advantage to that of the many, and the selfish instinct to the higher and nobler aims of love. It developed a rule by which the brotherhood of man could have place, and character could rise and broaden into magnanimity and worth. It gave an objective standing and broadly human aim to the principle of obligation. James Mill, J.S. Mill and Alexander Bain have been conspicuous recent representatives of this general view, while modifying some particular features of it.

It must be added, however, that this modern "altruism," when analyzed to its final view, does not become "disinterested benevolence." For the greatest general good is viewed as conditioning the best good of each individual, and the individual is to include it for the sake of his own share. So this so-called "altruism," after all, is still ruled by the self-regarding aim, and stands only for the broadest and most successful utilitarianism.

(3) Evolutionist Utilitarianism. This is its recent and present most characteristic form. The variety of types of evolutionism, however, has prevented the bringing of it, thus far, into a definite universally accepted formulation. Although, as already stated,53 monistic evolutionism, whether materialistic or pantheistic, by excluding freedom from the universe, leaves no place for moral action or responsibility, it still continues to speak about obligation and the reality of personal character. In this case the "obligation" can be only acquiescence in the fatalistic onward evolution of nature with its inevitable events. Theistic evolution, however, holding itself as only the mode of the divine creation, though it has difficulties in explaining the genesis of an authoritative conscience, maintains both its existence in some sense and a ground for the obligation which it urges. Its utilitarianism differs from earlier forms in substituting an historical and biological explanation of the origin and force of the moral sentiments for the purely psychological one. These sentiments are declared to be "the results of accumulated experiences of utility, gradually organized and inherited."54 In its better forms of statement this process of organizing a guiding instinct or intuition is represented as the divine work of transferring the moral law over us into our subjective consciousness—a process, however, that moves on the principle of utility and is always incomplete.55

Against the whole utilitarian theory, as a widely urged explanation of the ground of right and the sense of obligation, the following considerations are decisive:

First, the idea of right is generically distinct and different from that of happiness or utility. However closely related they refuse to be identified and must not be confounded. In reference to any particular act or to any general course of conduct, beyond the question of pleasure or advantage arises the further question: Is it right? Every day of their lives men are required to forego enjoyment and the forwarding of what appears to be their interests, in order to do right and follow their conscience. Perceived adaptations to happiness are not the same as the obligation to right. Utilitarianism stands apart from the moral idea, in a by-play with the idea of profit.56

Secondly, as a matter of fact, clear in our consciousness, we do not, in deciding the right or wrong of purposes and conduct, go through the process of first determining the question of utility or adaptedness to secure the greatest happiness to the greatest number or even our own greatest happiness. In actual moral experience, the first fact is the notion of right and duty. Even when pleasure or advantage is making an appeal, duty is decided by the further question: Is it right? If it be claimed that the process of calculation has become largely unnecessary through the experience which has been teaching lessons and training into judgments so spontaneous as to seem almost intuitive, there are still cases enough where the right is a distinct issue, irrespective of advantage, and where it is chosen in the face of loss and suffering. This fact shows that right is a distinct principle and higher than pleasure. To do right rather than seek sensitive good is the noblest exaltation of character.

It is especially in evolutionist utilitarianism that the absence of such conscious calculating of advantage in questions of duty, is supposed to be explained. The enjoyment of the useful is represented as gradually organized and transformed into moral approbation, and through hereditary descent appears, as Herbert Spencer says, in "certain emotions responding to right and wrong, which have no apparent basis in the individual experiences of utility." But philosophy fails to explain how the idea of the useful can thus become identical with the idea of the right, or even explanatory of it. If a lifetime's experience of utility does not suffice to transmute the idea of one into the other, why should we think a longer time would do it? If duty does not become the same as happiness or as the tendency of conduct to promote it, in the ascending steps of individual evolution, what warrant have we to assume that it did so in some period far back of the consciousness of the present individuals of the race?

Thirdly, utilitarianism is inconsistent with the authority which belongs to right, as witnessed in the moral consciousness. It is the distinctive peculiarity of conscience that it reveals a law or principle of obligation, not of our own making, and which our wills cannot displace. Manifestly this authority is not of the faculty itself, but belongs to the law of right which it discloses. It is right, therefore, that is authoritative, with and through the conscience, because right is a revelation of that absolute authority not ourselves which makes for righteousness in the world and the whole universe. It represents the perfections and will of God. No theory of obligation is adequate which does not square with this fact of unique authority in right, as recognized and enforced by the moral imperative. But neither happiness nor the utilities that tend to promote it, possess it. They are not obligatory in the peculiar sense in which the ethical behest binds to righteousness. They are offered to our enjoyment, as sensitive good, but we may forego them or neglect to seek them, without direct criminality. Duty may, and often does, require us not to make them a controlling object of desire.

Among pleasures, some are higher or larger than others, and appeal to some persons more strongly than to others. We can innocently choose between them. To seek the greater instead of the smaller, or indeed to neglect them all, is a prudential characteristic, not a moral one. Where a person has simply foregone pleasure, he may regret it as an error, but not repent of it as a sin. Considered with respect to the individual alone, and free from relations that may incidentally involve other points than his own personal pleasure, a man's happiness may be regarded as his own free concern. If he chooses to neglect its pursuit, or sacrifice it to other aims, so far as it is only and purely a question as between greater or less enjoyment, his choice cannot be challenged as guilty, but only as poor economy. Unquestionably it ought to be believed that God desires men to be happy, and has provided the needful conditions for happiness, but its enjoyment is an offer of His love, and not a requirement of law. Happiness is a thing to be gratefully appreciated; right is a thing we are bound to. Happiness is a thing the less likely to be enjoyed the more covetously it is sought after; right claims our unforgetful and completest loyalty. Utilitarianism, therefore, assuming to ground right, which has direct authority in the moral consciousness, upon happiness which in itself has none, necessarily falls short of being an adequate theory of the ethical reality. It attempts to deduce the moral from the non-moral.

This difference between questions of right and questions of utility easily solves a supposed difficulty in the moral freedom of the will. If choices were simply between greater or less degrees of pleasure or advantage, it might easily be imagined that the will would be necessarily determined by the greater pleasure. As between inducements of the same kind, the larger would prevail. But the ethical choices have their place in the presence of motives of different kinds, between right and enjoyment, duty or gain; and here there is unquestionable room for free ethical choices. The question of freedom in moral life is at once relieved by taking it out of the utilitarian view into the clear atmosphere where the profitable is no longer confounded with the right.

Fourthly, utilitarianism inverts the true relation between right and utility. Unquestionably the connection between them is very close. In a moral system true happiness belongs to righteousness. Man cannot attain his true welfare in sin. Whatever uncertainties and inequalities the abuse of free agency may bring temporarily into human enjoyment, in the long run right in its very nature promotes the happiness which has been intended for us. But the logical order of relations is, not that an act is right because it is useful, but useful because right. Under a moral government happiness, in the highest and fullest sense, comes as the legitimate fruit of righteousness, as wrong-doing, also, brings its true consequences in suffering, pain and misery. Right is the quality of highest rank, and all blessedness comes into unity and harmony under it. Their rightness gives to actions their quality of usefulness, which cannot, therefore, ground the right. Utilitarianism inverts the real relation.

This true relation explains how it is that the right stands the very highest in the grade of values, without its becoming right by its profitableness. It is of supreme worth, the greatest good, but it is so by what it is in itself. Its good consequences spring from its nature. But while utilitarianism is thus utterly inadequate as a statement of the ground of right, it nevertheless, especially in its altruistic form, brings to view some genuine and profound principles of the philosophy of duty. This has given it its plausibility and wide acceptance. It is proper, therefore, to mark and recognize the truth that belongs to the theory.

(1) The tendencies of conduct to promote true happiness, or the contrary, furnish, in fact, a valuable practical rule in questions of right and duty. For, by the moral constitution of the world, right-doing, despite the disorders that temporarily obstruct and confuse the real law of consequences, is the way of true welfare. Happiness, in the true, though not hedonistic sense, is an end of our being, and virtue is conducive to it. "The way of the transgressor is hard," under the law of natural cause and effect. The utilitarian theory therefore justly appeals to the great lessons of experienced utility to show the way of duty and guide conduct into righteousness. So that while utility does not explain why an act is right, it becomes, if correctly interpreted, a principle of great value in determining the right.

(2) It is unquestionably true that the altruistic principle of "the greatest good to the greatest number" presents a principle of genuine moral authority. It opens to view the whole realm of obligation to beneficent activity and self-sacrifice. It points to deeds that are noblest in life and highest in ethical character. It even gives a reason for their obligatoriness. In this form the theory no longer bases duty simply on one's own personal enjoyment or advantage, identifying morality with supreme selfishness, but lifts it into the sphere of benevolence and doing good. For, in altruism individual enjoyment and interests are necessarily subordinated to the well-being of the many. And when utility is thus put into the service of love or good-will, it carries the quality of right into wide ranges of purpose and conduct. It will be observed, however, that the theory thus obtains its appearance of explaining the foundation of right and duty only after "utility" has been itself changed and identified with the virtue of active good-will or beneficence which, of course, is right and obligatory to the degree of every man's ability. In other words, only when it ceases to be purely and really a utilitarian theory, and stands in the name and rights of benevolence—getting ethical authority surreptitiously from the quality of love instead of "profitableness"—does it also get the plausibility that it seems to possess.

(3) It is true, too, that a person's opportunities to promote his own happiness and true interests involve a degree of obligation to do so, as far as this may be consistent with other duties. A proper self-regard is right. In general, on the one hand, we may justly make, as we have done, a distinction between enjoyment, which is offered to our option, and right, which is required by moral law. Were there no considerations involved but that of one's own happiness, this distinction would be unqualified. On the other hand, it must, at the same time, be confessed that the moral consciousness of mankind often condemns the conduct of men reckless of their own happiness or well-being, not simply as "poor economy," but also as morally wrong. Except in benevolent sacrifice no man can innocently throw away his own happiness. The explanation of this is easy. There are other considerations involved than his own happiness. To understand the whole truth at this point the underlying fact must be borne in mind, that man is created for two great ends, primarily for excellence of character, secondarily and consequently for happiness. In moral order the way to the latter is in and through the former. Character stands as the irrepealable condition of reaching man's proper and true happiness. And it is, therefore, true that in throwing away his happiness a man may be guilty of more than "poor economy," but only in case he does this by violating the law of right in surrendering his nature to vice. It is not the consent to surrender enjoyment in itself that involves guilt. For, one may innocently and virtuously forego this for the sake of doing right. He may sacrifice pleasure or present happiness to serve the good of others. In such disregard and sacrifice of enjoyment to do good, there is no sin against the law of right; for we are not bound to enjoyment as we are to right. Nor is there in it any sin against the divine provision for happiness in our own nature; for under the rule of moral order righteousness and happiness must finally coincide. While, therefore, there is a sense in which to throw away one's happiness is morally wrong, as well as bad policy, it is only when it is thrown away by conduct that is first a violation of the law of right. There are two other profound ethical facts which help to explain how men are bound to regard their own happiness, although right is not grounded in it. One is, that every man sustains relations to the welfare of his fellow-men, being a unit in the solidarity of social humanity, making it impossible to separate his own happiness from the well-being and rights of others. The other is that he sustains also relations to an intended possible personal destiny. In the first of these he is bound in duty to his fellow-men. In the second he is obligated in duty to God. In the former case, he cannot wantonly trifle with his own interests without wrong and injury to those to whom he is bound in the relationships of life. In this way a moral wrong comes in. In the latter case, as God has rights in His plan for each man's worthy and happy destiny, it is a sin against Him when men make their own welfare inferior by failure to observe the moral principle which conditions true happiness in righteousness. Sacrifice of happiness by such disregard of moral principle is not to be confounded with sacrifice of it through loyalty to right and holy self-denial in doing good.

It thus, however, becomes evident, even in this discussion and exhibition of the truth which utilitarianism has in its favor, that the theory fails to present the real ground of right. For in its primary and fundamental form, viewing conduct as right because promotive of our personal interests and happiness, it plainly resolves morality into mere calculation of selfishness. It presents supreme egoism. And in its altruistic form it either maintains its selfish character, by explaining that only by the rule of "the greatest good to the greatest number" can the common interest, and consequently each man's share be fully secured, implying that he is to contribute to the common welfare for the sake of his own larger portion; or by subordinating the idea of "utility" to that of "good-will" actively seeking the interests of others, it practically confesses that it must seek some other ground than mere utility or the consequences of conduct, in which to find the principle of right. And this good-will, benevolence or love, thus added, also fails. For since good-will is a virtue, it cannot be placed as the ground of virtue, both in itself and in all virtues. The moral law is by no means exhausted in benevolence; it must include also justice, purity, veracity and many other duties. A benevolence that would be unaccompanied by condemnation of the evil-doer and his wrongs, might quickly go astray. It has often been pointed out that good-will itself throws no light as to the right methods of realizing even itself. Itself needs a guide as to how it may proceed—the very principle of right after whose basis we are inquiring. Love, unless united with reprobation of evil-doing, is as likely to act immorally as morally. Benevolent endeavor, however excellent in itself, must subject its methods to the fundamental principles of right. And not until we find the relations that require both benevolence and its utilities, do we reach the ground of right and obligation.

11. The Theory of Relations is variously modified. As expressed by Dr. Samuel Clarke, right is based on "the fitness of things." Wollaston grounded it on "the truth of things," wrong action being in all cases out of harmony with the realities of existence. Jouffroy found it in the demands of "universal order," the particular good and duty of each man being elements or parts of an absolute good and universal order appearing to reason as obligatory. Dr. Wayland makes right rest upon "conformity of action to the relations which man sustains in life."57

We shall come upon the essential features of this theory in our next chapter, in our positive account of the development and basis of right.

12. As defined by Dr. Hickok: "The ground in which the ultimate rule of right is seen, is the intrinsic excellency of spiritual being."... "Every man has consciously the bond upon him to do that and that only which is due to his spiritual excellency."57 But it is a plain matter of fact that men do not go through a process of correlating their proposed conduct with the spiritual excellency of their nature, before deciding on its moral character. And even if they did so, it would give them but a self-centred rule. Dr. Gregory well says of this attempt to put one's own spiritual excellency as the principle of right: "It is only by a self-deification, by making man a god to himself, that it can be made a supreme end."58

13. Some writers search for no ground beyond the immediate intuition. This view forbears to seek for any basis behind the immediate affirmation of the moral sense. Right is ultimate in its own intuition. "The intuition creates law." This seems to be the teaching of Cudworth, Kant, Coleridge, Calderwood, and others.