Continental ethics followed the prevailing philosophic method of rationalism; the attempt to build up a theory of conduct, individual and social, on the basis of pure reason, independent of revelation of ecclesiastic authority, or positive institutions. While the method was a priori in name, as matter of fact it drew largely upon the inheritance of generalized Roman law, at tempting to harmonize and purify it in accord ance with ideals of unity and comprehensiveness which were supposed to represent the demands of reason. Grotius (1583-1645) was the founder of this movement, and, in his De Jure Belli et Pacis, used the idea of law which is founded upon man's rational nature, which in turn is inherently social, to place international relations of comity, commerce and war upon a more hu mane and enlightened basis. His German suc cessors, Puffendorf (1632-94), Leibnitz (1646 1716), ius (1655-1728), Wolff (1679 1754), carried on with greater critical acumen and more adequate philosophic instruments, the same work, and finally developed a complete system of rights and duties (called Naturrecht after Jus Naturale) applicable to all spheres of private, domestic, civil, political and interna tional life — a code of morals, positive in effect, but supposed all to be drawn deductively from rational first principles. Upon the whole, the influence of German ethical rationalism was conservative; the result in fundamentals was the justification of the existing social order, purged of inconsistencies and reformed of abuses in detail. French rationalism took a different turn. It attempted a synthesis of the more basal notions of the newly arisen physical science with psychological ideas borrowed from Locke and his English successors. It was rationalistic not so much in attempting to deduce an ethical system from the conceptions of reason, as in subjecting the existing order of belief and insti tutions to unsparing criticism as anti-scientific. In its extreme forms it seemed to demand an abrogation of existing institutions, the erection of the same tabula rasa in social matters, that Descartes had postulated in intellectual, and a creation de novo, by sheer voluntary action, of a new social order, aiming at universal happi ness. Reason gives an ideal of society in which all men shall be free and equal, and in which economic want and misery shall be abolished, and a widely diffused intelligence and wealth shall be instituted. Pessimistic to the extreme as regards the existing order, it was equally optimistic as to the possibilities of social or ganization, culminating in the conception of the infinitely progressive perfectibility of human nature; thus Helvetius, 1715-71 (De l'esprit, 1758; De l'Homme published 1773) ; Diderot (1713-84) ; Condillac (1715-&)); D'Holbach (1723-89), especially 'Systeme (1773); Condorcet (1743-94). While German ethics had emphasized the conception of natural law which is social in nature, French thought culminated in a deification of natural rights which are individual in their import and loca tion. Certain characteristic features of not only the French Revolution but of the thought of American publicists in the latter half of the 18th century are directly traceable to this influence.
English ethical theory received its impetus from Hobbes (1588-1679). He begins with an analysis of the make-up of the individual, and resolves the latter into a bundle of egotistic im pulses, all aiming at unrestricted satisfaction. He denies the existence of any inherent social tendency, or of anything "rational" in the in dividual save as deliberation may be involved in the individual's efforts after satisfaction. The social counterpart of 'this unlimited individualism is chaos, anarchy, conflict—the war of all against all. Hence the individual's quest for happiness is self-contradictory. It is possible
of fruition only within the state of absolute power which prescribes to each individual the proper sphere of the exercise of his powers. The state is thus the author and sanction of all moral distinctions and obligations. The au thority of this state with respect to individuals is absolute; since the source of moral law, it cannot be subject to anything beyond itself. There are thus three strains in Hobbes' teaching. The psychological, which teaches pure egotism and hedonism; the ethical, which makes the state the source of moral values and relations; the political, which makes its authority un limited. Each strain evoked profound and in stant reaction. John Locke (1632-1704) taught that the individual has a natural right to a life of personal security, possession of property and social activity, subject only to limits of the similar rights of others, and that the state comes into existence to protect and secure these rights by settling cases of dispute or aggression, and hence is null and void when it goes beyond this province and encroaches upon individual rights. A succession of writers, notably Staftes bury (1671-1713) ; Hutcheson (1694-1747) ; But ler (1692-1752)) ; Adam Smith (1723-90), un dertook a re-analysis of human nature, and endeavored to justify the presence of disin terested benevolent impulses, of tendencies to regard the welfare of others. Cudworth (1617 88) ; More (1614-87) ; Cumberland (1632 1718) ; Clarke (1675-1729) ; Price (1723-91) took up the question of the origin of moral dis tinctions, and tried to show that they were based not in the state but in immutable laws of reason, or upon a science as abstract and certain as mathematics; or else were made known in in tuition, etc. But during these inquiries, new problems came to light, and led to a rearrange ment of forces. These problems were (1) the relation of happiness — the expression of the self-seeking tendencies of man—to virtue, the expression of his benevolent tendencies ; (2) the nature of the test or standard of right and wrong; (3) the nature of moral knowledge. The first problem led in Butler to the attempt to introduce °conscience° as a third and bal ancing authoritative factor in human nature; and in Smith and Hume (1711-76) to a peculiarly rich and significant theory of sym pathy as a central principle through which dis tinctively moral sentiments are generated and whose exercise is intimately bound up with individual happiness. The second and third problems taken together lead to the conflict of utilitarianism and intuitionalism, the former holding that conduciveness to the maximum of. possible happiness is the standard of right, the basis of obligation, and the source of all moral rules; this conduciveness to be determined by actual experience; the latter holding that there are moral values, which are inherently and absolutely such, without reference to conse quences. Each school has a theological and a non-theological variety. Among theological utilitarians are prominent: Gay (1686-1761), and Paley (1743-1805) ; among the non-theological Jeremy Bentham (1748-1842) outranks all the others. Without adding much that is funda mentally new to the theoretical analysis, he makes an analysis of happiness in connection' with a discussion of the various impulses '(or motives as he termed them) of human nature the basis of a thorough-going scheme of judi cial and penal reform. Through him utili tarianism became the most potent instrument of the first half of the 19th century of social reform ; conduciveness to general and equally distributed happiness being the test by which all customs, traditions and institutions were tried — and by which most of them in their ex- istent forms were condemned.