Recent Modern. (From the French Revolu tion.)— The last 20 years of the 18th century signalize a turning point in the history of thought. Bentham's and Kant's chief works are dated in this period. The French Revolution, carrying into effect the naturalistic rationalism and its optimistic faith in the possibilities of the individual, compelled a reconsideration of the intellectual premises from which it set forth. The problem of 19th century ethics was to get back from the individual to the social whole which includes him and within which he func tions ; but to do this in a way which should take due account of the deepened significance given to individual initiative and freedom — without, that is, a return to pure institutional ism, or to arbitrary external authority. The following schools or main tendencies are easily distinguishable : (a) English Liberalism.— In Bentham, utili tarianism, as we have seen, became a program of social reform. The attempt to stretch an in dividualistic hedonism which taught that the end of desire is always the agent's own pleasure into a theory which taught that the individual should always judge his motives and acts from " the standpoint of their bearing upon the happi ness of all beings, brought out all the weaknesses of the theory. James Mill (q.v.) (1773-1836) strove valiantly to overcome these weaknesses by a systematic use of the principle of associa tion, in virtue of which individual states be come indissolubly connected, through punish ment or commerce, with the welfare of others — the theory of °enlightened selfishness," for which Hartley (1705-57) had previously pro vided the psychological machinery. His son, John Stuart Mill (1806-73) while extending the same idea, introduced into utilitarianism two innovations, which were seized upon by his intuitional opponents as virtual abandonments of the entire hedonistic position. These were that quality of pleasure is more important than quantity and that the individual is naturally social and so instinctively judges his own wel fare from the standpoint of society, instead of vice versa. J. S. Mill also severely criticised the other utilitarians for their neglect of the ideal elements in education, and for neglect of the culture element in historical development. With out abandoning the individualistic basis he was much influenced by schools (b) and (c) below. From (b) came the influence of Coleridge (1772-1834) ; Maurice (1805-72), and Sterling (1806-43). Bain (1818-1903) belongs to the same empirical and utilitarian school. Sidgwick (1838-1900) in his 'Methods of Ethics) at tempted a fusion of the utilitarian standard with an intuitional basis and method.
(b) German rationalism culminated in Kant (1724-1804), who reduced the function of moral reason in man• to a single principle; the consciousness of the moral law as the sole and sufficing principle of action. Since the claims of this principle are opposed by those of self-love the desire for personal happiness — the pres ence of moral reason in us takes the form of a °categorical imperative,° or the demand that duty alone, without any influence from inclina tion, desire or affection, be the motive of con duct. Upon the consciousness of duty are built the ideas of freedom, God and immortality— that is, by moral action is opened to us a sphere of reasonable faith in transcendental realities which are shut to scientific and philosophic cognition. Kant brought rationalism to a turn much as Bentham had affected empiricism. Sub sequent German thought attempted to overcome the formalism of Kant's bare reason, making it self known only in a consciousness of obligation. Hegel (1770-1831) attempted a synthesis of the Kantian idealism with the ideas of Schiller, of Spinoza (especially through the medium of Goethe), and of the rising historical school founded by Savigny. He endeavored to show that the social order is itself an objective em bodiment of will and reason, and that the regions of civil law, of family life, social and commercial intercourse and above all the state, constitute an ethical world (as real as the physi cal) from which the individual must take his cue. He anticipated in many particulars from the standpoint of a different method and termin ology, doctrines of recent anthropology and social psychology. German moral influence has been felt in English thought chiefly through Coleridge, Carlyle (who was mainly affected by Kant's successor, Fichte, 1762-1814), and more recently, T. H. Green (1836432). The New
England Transcendentalists were also affected by this school of thought, Ralph Waldo Emer son (q.v.) (1803-82) giving a highly original version of it, blending it with factors of his own personality and with ideas drawn from Puritan ism.
(c) In France, the reaction from the indi vidualism of the Revolution was most marked. At the head of the reaction stands Comte (1798-1857), who attempted to build up a theory of ethics upon an organized social basis, similar in many respects to that of Hegel, but relying upon a systematization of sciences rather than upon philosophy, for method, his system ac cordingly being termed positivism. Comte sought to show how such an ethical-sodal science could replace metaphysics and theol ogy, the latter in the form of a religion of humanity. He influenced G. H. Lewes and the latter's wife, George Eliot, and also John Stuart Mill.
(d) In the latter half of the 19th century the theory of evolution has been dominant in ethical as well as in other forms of philosophic and scientific thought. Herbert Spencer's appli cation is the best known to English readers. It is, however, generally recognized that his funda mental ethical conceptions were worked out before he became an evolutionist, and that the attachments between his ethics and the theory of evolution are of a somewhat external character. Indeed, it is now clear that the further develop ment of the science of ethics waits upon the more thorough clearing up of the evolutionary ideas themselves, and upon more complete appli cation to biology, psychology and sociology (in cluding anthropology and certain phases of the history of man) in order to supply the auxiliary sciences necessary for ethical science. Through the conception of evolution it is probable that ethics, will .be emancipated from the survival of the idea that it is an art whose business is to lay down .rules. The practical aspect of the theory of ethics will necessarily remain (since it is theory of practice or conduct), but it will take the form of providing methods for analyzing and resolving concrete individual and social situations, rather than of furnishing injunctions and precepts. The coincidence of the evolution ary tendency with the growth of democracy will relieve ethics in its philosophic aspects from its dependence upon fixed values, ideals, stand ards and laws, and constitute ethics more and more a working method for the self-regulation of the individual and of society.
Every period of ethical theory has been associated, as we have seen, with some corre sponding epoch of human development, having its own characteristic problem. Upon the whole, however, ethics has not as yet adequately outgrown the conditions of its origin, and, the supposed necessity they imposed of finding something as fixed and unchanging as custom. Consequently, philosophic inquiry has been de voted to finding the good, the law of duty etc.; that is, something unchanging, all inclusive. Even the empirical school, in its emphasis upon pleasure, has tried to find something free from conditions of development, something fixed in the sense of being.everywhere and at all times the same single unchanging standard and end. Even Spencer distinguishes present ethical codes as merely relative, and anticipates a period in which evolution will reach its goal —a period in which an unchanging set of rules shall be uniformly binding. But as ethical writers be come more habituated to evolutionary ideas, they will cease setting up ideals of a Utopian millennium, with only one end and law ; and will devote themselves to studying the condi tions and effects of the changing situations in which men actually live.
Consult the works of the authors already men tioned and also Clifford, W. K., 'The Scientific Basis of Morals) (New York 1884) ; Croce, B., (Philosophy of the Practical) (London 1913); Davey and Tufts, (Ethics) (New York 1908); Mackenzie, J. S., (Manual of Ethic.$) (New York 1901) ; Mezes, S. E., (Ethics) (London 1901) ; Palmer, G. H., (The Field of Ethics) (Boston 1901) ; Paulsen, F., (System of Ethics) (New York 1899) ; Royce, J., (Philosophy of Loyalty) (New York 1908) ; Sorly, R., (Recent Tendencies in Ethics) (Edinburgh 1904); Stephen, Sir Leslie, (The Science of Ethics) (2d ed., New York 1907) ; Thilly, Frank, (Introduction to the Study of Ethics) (New York 1900) ; Wundt, W. M., (Ethics) (London 1E07-1901 ) .