SECTION VI.

The most of historical heathen nations have indeed collections of ethical life-rules, based almost always upon religion, but before the golden age of Greek philosophy they had no ethics proper.—The ground-character of all heathen ethical consciousness and of heathen ethics is, that the starting-point and the goal of the moral is not an infinite spirit, but either the impersonal nature-entity, or a merely individually-personal being. The starting-point is not the infinite God, and the goal is not the perfection of the moral personality in a kingdom of God as resting upon the moral perfection of the individual person, and in the communion of the person with the infinite personality of God, but it is always merely a limited something,—either a merely earthly civic perfection with the rejection of a trans-mundane goal (the Chinese), or the giving-up of personal existence altogether (the Indians), or a merely individual perfection irrespective of the idea of a kingdom of God embracing the individual personality as a vital member (the Egyptians, Persians, Greeks, and Germans).—There is throughout a lack of the knowledge of true moral freedom; either it is rejected on principle, or it is ascribed only to a few specially-gifted ones, while the rest of mankind are, as barbarians, incapable of any moral freedom and perfection. Hence there is, further, a general lack of a knowledge of humanity as called, in its totality, to the accomplishing of a moral task. It is uniformly only one people, or an aristocratic class of a people, that is morally active; the slave is incapable of true morality. But where humanity itself is regarded as called to morality—with the Buddhists—there the moral task is an essentially negating one,—is directed to the annihilating of personal existence. There is throughout a lack of the knowledge of the moral depravity of the natural man, and hence of the necessity of a spiritual new-birth; morality is not so much a struggle, as rather a simple development. There is indeed a consciousness of immoral conditions of humanity, yea, of a natural unaptness for the good; but these conditions are almost always attributed to mere civic and individual degeneracy, and this unaptness is confined to barbarians and slaves. And the idea of the highest good is embraced either merely negatively, or is referred to earthly weal, or is left entirely in doubt,—at best is sought in merely individual perfection.

The heathen moral consciousness can be understood, evidently, only in the light of the religious consciousness upon which it always rests. That, of the majority of heathen nations, we possess only loosely-connected moral precepts and observations, moral adages and practical life-rules, but not ethical systems proper, is no obstacle to our knowledge of their moral consciousness, inasmuch as systems always bear in fact traces of the subjective character of their authors, whereas, the popular collections in question, based, for the most part, on divine authority, are an objective unclouded expression of the consciousness dominant in a people.

It is the essence of heathenism to possess the idea of God only under some form of limitation, to conceive of God as a being in some degree limited;

See the author’s Gesch. d. Heidentums, 1, § 11 sqq.

SECTION VII.

The obscured and only very partially developed moral consciousness of savage nations lies outside of the field of history;

Gesch. des Heident., i, p. 40 sqq., p. 163 sqq.

SECTION VIII.

The Indians, the Brahminic as also the Buddhistic, conceived morality, on the basis of their consequentially developed Pantheism, essentially negatively. All finite reality, and above all, that of the human personality, is null, untrue, and illegitimate,—either because, with the Brahmins, it is only the self-estranged divinity, or because, with the Buddhists, the essence of all existence in general is nihility; hence the ground-character of morality is self-denial, world-renunciation,—a passive endurance instead of creative activity. The moral goal, the highest good, is not a personal possession, but a surrendering of personality to the impersonal divine essence or to nihility. There is no realizing and no shaping of a moral kingdom based on personality, nor even a preserving of existing reality, but a dissolving of the same. All reality, in so far as it is a finite formation, is evil,—not, however, through the guilt of man, but in virtue of its very essence from the beginning; and there is no other redemption than its annihilation. But while, in the purely Pantheistic doctrine of the Brahmins, the thought of the development of the world out of God recognizes in fact in existence a divine and hence relatively good substratum, and regards mankind as emanated from God, as participant in this divine substance in different degrees, according as they stand at different distances from the divine proto-fountain,—the distinctions of caste,—on the other hand, the doctrine of the Buddhists annihilates, together with the divine proto-Brahma, also these concentric circles around the ungodded middle-point, and requires equal, absolutely world-renouncing morality of all men, even irrespective of the limits of nationality, and changes the positive self-torture, which appears among the Brahmins as the acme of pious morality, into a quietistic, self-denying patience resting upon hopeless grief at the nihility of all existence.

The Brahminic Indians have, in their books of law, ancient and rich collections of moral doctrines. Almost equally esteemed with the Vedas, and attributed to a divine origin, is the book of the Laws of Manu, the parts of which belong to very different ages, though the most recent belong certainly anterior to the fourth century before Christ; the moral precepts proper are as yet unseparated from the religious and civil. Also the Vedas and the later philosophical and legal writings contain much moral matter.

Basing himself, in contrast to the nature-dualism of the Chinese, upon the unity of the universe as divine, the Brahmin regards the real World merely as a, neither necessary nor strictly legitimate, but rather mere dream-like self-alienation of primitive Brahma, which is destined, after an essentially purposeless continuance, to be absorbed back into its source. Hence morality has no positive aim, but rather simply looks to an escaping from individual existence, a dissolving of personality into the impersonal. The continuance of personality through metempsychosis is punishment, not reward. Existing reality is not, as in China, good as such, but, as separate existence, is evil, and is good only in its general divine substance; only the latter, but not the former, may be held fast to. The moral subject is not manc as such; there is in fact no unitary humanity, but only different, narrower or wider, circles around the divine middle-point, classes of men differing essentially by nature both spiritually and morally, and of whom the lowest stand even below many brutes, and are absolutely incapable of the moral life; to teach to these latter the Vedas or the Laws, is a crime worthy of the deepest damnation. Only the three highest castes are capable of a knowledge of the truth, and hence also of morality. But also with these the moral duties and capacities are very different, and the Indian speaks not of the moral duties of man, but always only of the duties of the castes. The vaiçja’s highest good is riches; his virtue, industrious acquiring; the xatrija’s highest good is power, and his highest virtue, courage; and only the Brahmin is capable of the highest morality; but this morality directs itself, not transformingly and productively, upon reality, but only, disdainingly and renouncingly, away from the same,—not, however, in order to virtualize a free, self-conscious personality as over against nature, but in order to merge back the personal spirit, as illegitimate, into the impersonal essence of the universe. The highest virtue is renunciation, not indeed merely of sensuous enjoyment, of earthly weal, but of one’s own self-conscious personality; and the acme of this morality is, consequently, self-annihilation as sought through persistent self-torture, to the end that Brahma alone may exist. The highest good of the true man, that is, of the Brahmin, is to become at one with Brahma, not in the sense of a moral life-communion of the personal spirit with a personal God, but as a dissolving of the per se illegitimate personal spirit into the general, the impersonal. That which is in the present state the sum and substance of all wisdom, namely, to know that “I am Brahma,” attains to full truth by the dissolving of the ego into Brahma; the goal of morality is, “Brahma alone is, not I;” and as man, even now, while in deepest sleep,—wherein he knows nothing of the world and of himself,—is nearer to divinity than when in his waking hours, so the goal of virtue is the total falling to sleep of the personal spirit, the exhaling of the dew-drop that trembles on the lotus-leaf. The holding fast to personality is the essence of all evil. Nothing can nor should permanently endure but the divine essence alone, which tolerates nothing other than itself, and for which all reality of the world is, at best, only a dream-phantom, a transient hallucination;—even in the eyes of the deeper instructed of men, the world in general is only a false imagination of the foolish, and does not really exist at all. The Chinese aim, in morality, simply to conserve the already-existing; the higher nations aim at transforming it into a more spiritual reality; the Indians aim at dissolving it into nonentity. The West-Asiatic nations see the truth in the future, and long, hopefully, and through moral effort, for a better reality than is offered by the present; the Indians look sadly into the present, with indifference into the future, and with satisfaction only into the past, when as yet nothing else existed but unitary Brahma, and into that future which simply returns to the condition of this past. The Chinese work for the present; the higher nations, for the future; the Indians work not at all, but simply endure and perish; they aim not at implanting the free moral spirit into reality, but at tearing it away from the same,—not at transfiguring reality by the spirit, but at emancipating the spirit from the same. Indian morality is less a creative working than a sacrificing, and hence is essentially identical with the practice of religion, of which the highest phase is self-mortfication—aiming at a total annihilation of personal existence. The way which the world has traveled out from primitive Brahma, this way it must travel back again; nature herself accomplishes this by death; man accomplishes it by morally-pious self-annihilation. That which is with nature the natural goal, is with man a moral end. Even as Brahma developed himself out of his pure transparent unity into the world of plurality, so must man fold himself back out of his isolated existence again into unity; man, the highest fruit of mundane existence, must gather himself out of the dispersion of Brahma in the world, back into unity,—must give up his separate existence. Man must die away, not indeed to sin, or merely to sensuousness, but to himself,—must cease to be a real personality, must renounce every feeling, every volition, every thought, which contains any thing whatever other than Brahma alone. The fearful self-tortures of the Indians are not penance for sins, but the highest virtue-exercises of saints. A vital consciousness of guilt, the Indian is utterly devoid of; the evil of existence is not his own, is not the fault of man in general. Whatever is and transpires, is directly Brahma’s act. It is true, evil inheres by nature in all existence, but it is not to be imputed to man, and there is no other redemption from the same than the destruction of the finite, even of one’s own being. The entire scope of morality bears a negating character; the truly knowing one needs not merely not to do any positive works, but he avoids them from principle, because they belong simply to the realm of folly.

For man, even in so far as he is an object of the moral activity, the Indian has no concern; he has a higher love for nature, which stands nearer related to the nature-divinity, and constitutes the narrowest circle around the divine center-point. In nature he beholds his mother, and he loves it reverently as the most direct and most unclouded revelation of Brahma. The same Indian who can heartlessly see a pariah famish without so much as stretching out to him a helping hand, reverently avoids, as a severe sin, the breaking of a grass-blade, or the swallowing of a gnat; a Brahmin allows himself not, without ground, to break even an earth-clod.—Marriage and the family-life in general can only be a transition-stage for the, as yet, morally immature. The Brahmin who has risen to true knowledge must leave father and mother, wife and child, and, dead to the world and to himself, live henceforth only in solitary contemplation of Brahma,—standing for years, in the forest, upon the same spot, emotionless as a tree-trunk, and seeking or accepting only the scantiest food; every thing finite must have become absolutely indifferent to him, until, vegetating on like a plant, and fading away, he attains to the long-sought death. For society and politics, only those who belong to the inferior castes can have any further interest,—for the Brahmin himself these things have no attraction, and, higher than the warrior-hero and than the zealously-ruling prince, is he who exchanges a crown for the life of the hermit.

SECTION IX.

The moral consciousness of the Egyptians and of the Semitic nations, especially of the Assyrians and Babylonians, is, as yet, only very imperfectly and partially known, so that a very definite characterizing of it is not yet possible. So much appears to be reliably ascertained, that among these nations (which constitute the transition from naturalistic East-Asia to the Occidental nations among whom the divine is conceived of as a personal spirit) both the moral bases and the essence of the moral subject and of the moral task, are conceived in a higher and more spiritual manner than was the case among the earlier nations,—in a manner which brings personality to a greater validity. The Pantheistico-naturalistic character of the religious and moral world-theory is overcome, and a morally dualistic one struggles more definitely into the fore-ground. Morality passes over from the mere preserving and persisting of the Chinese, and from the self-renouncing of the Indians, into a struggle against evil, as super-humanly originated, though not exclusively dominant, and as in fact ultimately to be overcome.

Egypt stands on the dividing-line between the naturalistic and the personally-spiritual world-theory; the divine is indeed primarily and originally, as yet, a pure nature-power, but it struggles up into spiritual personality, and such a personality is recognized also in man; among the Semitic nations this consciousness comes into the fore-ground more prominently still. The presupposition of the moral is no longer the perfect and uniform goodness of existence, as with the Chinese, nor the essential evilness of the same, as with the Indians, but an inner moral antagonism of existence. Over against the personal-become good divinities, stands evil as a divine entity different from them, and which is primarily less spiritual, and expressive rather of mere nature character; and man in his moral struggle stands in the -midst of this antagonism,—has to determine himself for the divine good, and against the not less divine evil. Thus, in virtue of the contest of the antagonism dominant in the world, the moral subject becomes more nearly independent and free, than among the purely naturalistic nations; his moral task becomes, by far, more earnest and arduous,—calls far more emphatically for personal self-determination. Hence these nations have produced grander world-historical characters than the earlier ones,—have become world-historically militant nations. And the goal of the militant struggle is the ultimate victory of the good over the evil by the personal spirit, which is also itself not destined to be dissolved back into a general impersonal nature-existence, but, triumphing over mere nature, preserves its own personality.

But this breaking-forth of the rational spirit and of its moral task into greater distinctness, manifests itself otherwise among the Egyptians than among the Semitic nations. It is among the Egyptians that the personal nature of the moral spirit comes first to full self-consciousness. The spirit is a something other than nature and higher than it,—is not destined to servitude under it, but to personal, free moral self-determination and to personal immortality, over against death-dominated nature. But this antithesis of the moral personal spirit to nature does not as yet rise, in the earthly life, to complete victory. Even as Osiris succumbs to the evil divinity, Typhon, so must man ultimately succumb in the struggle with unspiritual nature,—only, however, in order to attain in the yon-side to the full enjoyment of spiritual personality. The morning-twilight of the freedom of the rational spirit dawns in Egypt, but it is not as yet day. It is only through struggle, through suffering and dying, that the spirit becomes free,—in the world of the gods as well as in the world of man. Osiris becomes a true ruler only in the next world, and so with man also; only out of death spring forth life and victory. Also over the Egyptian’s moral life a dusky vail is thrown, a melancholy breath poured out,—as with the Indians, though relieved by a brighter hope. To the Indian all moral life is but a rapidly passing meteor, vanishing away without trace; to the Egyptian it is a conflict, painful indeed, but resulting in an ultimate permanent victory of the moral person. Man has not as yet complete freedom and complete personal validity, but he will have them after death if he only struggles manfully here below; and he is conscious of entire personal responsibility for his life and his fortune after death. His personally-moral life falls not a prey to a universally-dominating nature-necessity, but to the personal decision of the first personal victor (Osiris) over nature and over death. By Osiris, the king of the yon-side world, where alone true life first begins, man’s moral life is judged—weighed in the scales of righteousness. In personal communion with Osiris, the just man lives, happy thenceforth. Osiris, the highest representative of spiritual divinity, the forerunner and pledge of immortality, the firstborn among those who have died and are now living after death, is also the highest representative of Egyptian morality, the ground-character of which is, a persistent battling for righteousness. The ostrich-feather, the symbol of truth and righteousness, is one of the highest badges of honor.—But it is only in the next world that true righteousness is realized; here upon earth rule as yet, invincibly, the powers of evil. Hence the Egyptian, in contrast to the Chinese, turns all his love and his interest to the yon-side life. The dwellings of the living were for the most part paltry huts; the dwellings of the dead are monuments of the highest art and of an unparalleled zeal for labor; the tombs hewn out the rocks, and the pyramids intended for the sepulchers of kings, belong among the wonders of the ancient world, and bid defiance to the ravages of time. The present life is, as with the Indians, lightly esteemed, not, however, because of the nullity of all existence in general, but because it is contrasted with a higher life, which, as the highest good, is a richly promising moral goal. Reminders of death attend the Egyptian wherever he turns, and the mummies and the images of the dead were an eloquent memento mori even at his most convivial banquets. “The Egyptians,” says Diodorus (i, 51), “regard the time of this life with very little esteem; the dwellings of life they designate as inns, but the graves as everlasting mansions.”

The heathen Semitic nations, especially the Assyrians and Babylonians, base themselves, in religion and morality, entirely on the ground of the subjective spirit, of the individual personality. The general unity of naturalism they have given up, but. they have not as yet risen to that of the infinite spirit. The spirit appears only in the multiplicity of single forms; hence these nations never appear in history as a unity, but always as a plurality. In religion as well as in morality there is manifested the reckless independence of the (now, for the first time, vigorously and mightily self-conscious) subjective spirit, from any and all unconditional objective authority, whether of nature or of spirit,—an untamedness and intractableness of the strong individual will, daring deeds, but also a violent wildness of the unbent will and of the passions,—a highly excited turmoil-without goal or purpose. Man, as a personal individual, comes into the fore-ground as possessed of paramount rights. Morality is devoid of any certain basis and rule; the strong individual will breaks through all barriers. It is the era of great heroes, and of great tyrants and God-despisers,—from Nimrod who began to be a mighty one upon earth, a mighty hunter before Jehovah (Gen. x, 8), to Nebuchadnezzar, who daringly exalted himself against God. The moral consciousness, as bewildered by an over-intense self-consciousness, manifests predominantly a defiance on the part of this strongly egotistical subject against all objective power, even against God; cruelty and coarse sensuousness characterize even the rites of religion, and hence much more also the moral life. Nineveh and Babylon attained, in ante-Christian times, to the culminating-point of the godless, pleasure-seeking, luxurious life. Religion and morality stand here in the most violent contrast to those of India; the rude, the violent, the tumultuous tolerates no law, no regulated order.

SECTION X.

TO a higher stand-point, though not to a higher development thereof, than the earlier nations, rise the merely transitorily world-historical Persians. The violent dualism of two mutually morally-opposed personal gods, calls also morality to an earnest moral struggle against ante-mundane, god-sprung evil; the moral personality comes much more emphatically into the fore-ground than ever before; the moral task becomes more difficult, but it has the certain promise of ultimate victory over evil, not merely in a yon-side life, but within the scope of history itself. Morality has here, for the first time in heathendom, a positive goal inside of the field of history, namely, the realizing of a kingdom of the good upon earth; and the Persians are the sole heathen people who make a definite prophecy the foundation of their religiously-moral striving. Hence the essence of Persian morality consists in a definitely hope-inspired conscious struggle against evil as potent in the world, as well as in, and upon, man himself, and which, both in its guilty origin and in its effects, appears Las a not natural but moral and utterly illegitimate corruption,—in a progressive purification of man from every thing which springs from all-invading and all-infecting evil,—in a word, in struggling against the world of Angramainyus. Man stands forth with his moral will, legitimated and victorious, over against a potently ruling divinity.

The Persians, whose world-historical significancy proper extends from Cyrus to Alexander the Great, have not been able within this short period to develop their religiously-moral consciousness into a scientifically matured form. The chief source for the same—the Avesta—is far inferior in contents and development of thought to the so-rich and deeply-suggestive sacred writings of the Indians; and yet the moral view, as a whole, is a higher one. The real world, in which man has morally to work, is here no longer the immediate divine essence itself, but it has come into existence essentially by a personal, divine act. The spirit, in its personal reality, is no longer a mere momentary phenomenon upon the alone-eternal nature-ground, as in China and India, nor is it fettered and hemmed by nature, as over-potent in this life, as is the case in Egypt; but it is already the higher creative power over nature, although not as yet a perfectly free and omnipotent Creator. Hence the world, in its relation to the moral spirit, is no longer a foreign and heterogeneous element, but as a spirit product, is unhostile and even congenial to the spirit; man begins to feel at home in the world, and hence he places no longer the goal of his moral striving merely in the yon-side, but he conceives it as to-be-attained-to within the field of history. This goal of moral effort is, however, not to be reached by a mere simple, natural development of man, but by a constant and earnest struggle against positively extant evil. Evil is no longer, as with the Buddhists and, in part already, with the Brahmins, the substance of the world,—inheres not in the essence of existence as inseparable therefrom, but has in fact become, through the moral fault of the personal spirit,—is a guilty fall from the originally good. This is a thought more strongly approximative of the Christian world-theory than we have as yet met with in our development of the history of the moral consciousness. Wherever evil is regarded as naturally necessary, there the vitality of the morally evil is paralyzed; the Chinese entertain not this view, simply because they conceive of evil in general only very superficially; the Indians conceive of it far more profoundly and earnestly, but they recognize not the moral root of the same; the Persians regard all evil as springing exclusively from personal act. This act, however, is not an historical one, but a pre-historical one; not a human act, but a divine one. The unitary divinity per se, however, cannot do evil, as is attributed to the Indian Brahma, but the good God, Ahura-Mazda, remains free of all evil; it is another no less personal god, that by free self-determination, chose the evil and now thrusts his world into the world of Ahura-Mazda, and is involved in all real evil whose proto-source he is,—namely, Angra-mainyus, that is, “the evilly disposed,” the author of death, of falsehood, of all impurity, and of all hurtful creatures,—the spirit which constantly denies the good.

Although, according to this, man has thrown off the guilt of evil reality from himself upon the world of the gods, still he conceives of his moral nature and life-task, in regard to this evil, more highly than did the earlier nations. Man, as created good by the good god, is placed, with complete personal freedom, in the midst of the moral antagonism of the world, and has now actually to accomplish in his own person the moral task of coming constantly into closer communion with Ahura-Mazda, and to contend against Angra-mainyus and all his works. Morality is a struggle, and rests not upon mere natural feelings and impulses, but upon the distinct consciousness of the holy will of the good god,—upon the Word expressly revealed to men. By this view, morality is made to throw off all nature-character, and is placed in the purely spiritual sphere, and at the same time the subjective caprice of the Semitic nations is overcome, and, for the moral, an objective law obtained, a law that is to be received purely spiritually. The revealed holy Word is the mightiest weapon against Angra-mainyus.—This moral struggle is a much more vigorous one than in Egypt, for it is joyously and hopefully conscious of final victory, even within the sphere of history. The Egyptian regards his god—who is at the same time his moral example—as defeated for the present world, and driven to the future world; the Persian feels himself called even here to a courageous co-militancy with Ahura-Mazda, who persistently struggles against evil, and does not succumb to it, not even in the present world. The Persian regards himself as a co-worker with God, and does not mournfully long for the next world; for his moral effort, he has a high object, namely, to combat against a god and the evil creation of that god,—also a high goal, namely, the redemption of a world from evil,—and also a high confidence in victory, for there will ultimately come the Rescuer, Çaoschyanç, that is, the Helper, who will accomplish the victory. It is not by mere chance that the Persians—who usually showed themselves hostile to foreign religions, and especially to all sensuous idolatry—manifested constantly a high regard for the Jews, in whose higher idea of God they met in fact with a somewhat related element.

In correspondence to its religious presupposition, Persian morality bears primarily a negating character, though in a wholly different manner than among the Indians. While the system of the latter is directed against existence, and especially against the personal nature of man, Persian morality on the contrary directs itself, with the most complete consciousness of the validity of the personality, negatingly against every thing which belongs to the world of Angra-mainyus. Self-purification from every thing which stands really, or even merely symbolically, in relation with evil, death, or corruption,—the killing of poisonous and hurtful animals, and the like, are not merely moral requirements, but even acts of worship, and the Avesta gives, on these points, very precise and detailed directions.

But also the positive phase of the moral life is much more highly developed in the moral consciousness of the Persians than in that of the earlier nations. The Persians acquired among their contemporaries the reputation of high moral earnestness as in contrast to the luxuriousness of the Semitic nations. They were, in their prime, a very vivacious and vigorously active people; indolence springs of Angra-mainyus; labor, especially agriculture, internal improvements, etc., are required by the good god, and are sacred duties; this is somewhat as it is in Chinese morality, but from a different reason; the Chinese labor for the present, the Persians for the future.—The moral relation to other men is here kindly and noble;. a high esteem for the personality, in every respect, forms the basis of social virtue. Honesty, strict truthfulness, and a high feeling of personal honor, distinguish Persian morality very widely from East-Asiatic. It is a morality of vigor and manliness.

Where evil is no longer regarded as a merely abstract something, as a quality of existence in general, but as a concrete guilt reality, not a mere neutrum, but as borne by personality, there only can the moral struggle against the same be really earnest. The Chinaman labors quietly and busily in mechanical persistence; the Indian patiently endures; the Egyptian mourns, and longs to pass out of this world; the Shemite riots and enjoys; but the Persian battles with a manfully-moral earnestness. The defective phase of his moral consciousness is essentially this, that he throws evil off from himself upon the sphere of the gods,—that he has not recognized the evil of his own heart.

SECTION XI.

The moral consciousness of the Greeks is very different from that of the Persians; though rising above it, it yet seems to throw the approximation to the Christian view, that lay in the Persian consciousness, farther again into the back-ground.. The heathen mind could not remain stationary at Persian dualism; the Greeks endeavor to bring about a reconciliation of the antagonism of the universe, by throwing this antagonism into the past, and by regarding the present as an expression of the harmony of existence as effected at the very beginning of history by a victory of the personal spirit over the nature-powers that opposed it; the dualism of hostile antagonism gives place to a dualism of love. No evil god and no nature-power hostile to the personal spirit, offer obstruction to the moral activity. Morality is not a struggle, but a progressive development of man as lper se good and pure; by following his own inwardly harmonious nature, by enjoying the intrinsically beautiful existence of the world, and by exalting sensuous enjoyment by means of spiritual culture, and by equally developing all the phases both of his sensuous and of his spiritual life, man arrives at the harmonious perfection of his personality,—at the highest goal of moral effort. The beautiful is per se the good; in enjoying and creating the beautiful, man is moral. The battle is not against a world of evil that is to be destroyed, nor in championship of a moral idea that is to be realized; but its end is simply to develop the full personality of the hero. The Greek battles for the sake of battling; the battle is even enjoyment, is heroic play. The Greek ideal is the vigorous, youthful personality,—in the world of gods,—the youthful Apollo, in the world of heroes, Achilles, until, at the close of Grecian history, it assumes a world-historical form in Alexander the Great. But the entire ideal element inheres in the person of the hero; a permanent moral world-historical reality, the Greeks could not create; they lacked the positively world-historical purpose; Alexander’s world-conquering deeds aimed at, and were able to effect, only an exaltation of the person of the hero, and necessarily ended in anarchy at his death, and the Greeks became an easy prey to that nation which aimed with iron-persistency at the positive purpose of a unitary historical reality, and absolutely subordinated the person to the same. The moral idea is, with the Greeks, more an object of artistic enjoyment than of moral realization. For the positive basis of the higher moral life, the family, their moral consciousness is extremely defective, and the idea of man as man, has not as yet come to consciousness; only the Hellene, but not the barbarian, is regarded as a truly moral personality. Slavery is the indispensable foundation of the free state.

The precedent antagonism of existence, which comes to consciousness in all heathen religions,—primarily as an antithesis of nature and spirit, which rises with the Persians to a moral character,—is, with the Greeks, not indeed entirely overcome (heathenism in fact never rises beyond it), but in fact reduced to harmony, a harmony, however, which, as viewed from a Christian stand-point, must be regarded as delusive. The consciousness of this antagonism comes to expression in myths concerning ancient combats between the spiritual gods and Titanic nature-powers; the gods came off victorious, and the present world expresses the peaceful reconciliation of the earlier antagonisms; every-where, both in the world of gods and of men, spirit and nature are in harmonious union; there is nowhere mere spirit, and nowhere mere nature. What appears as a hostile power over the personal spirit, was already vanquished anterior to human history; no inimical, evil god disturbs the beautiful harmony of existence; the Titans have been thrust into Tartarus. The foundation of Greek morality is therefore joy in existence,—love as enjoyment; man has not to sacrifice his existence and his wishes, but only to heighten the former, and to fulfill the latter, in so far as they express the character of harmony, of the beautiful; he has not, as with the Indians, to renounce the world, but on the contrary to enjoy it, as bearing every-where the stamp of the beautiful, and to remain in genial peace therewith,—has not, as the Persian, to battle against its reality as permeated with evil, but simply to pluck from it the fruits of happiness. Greek morality is the morality of him who is complacently self-satisfied, without any severe inner struggle.

The Hellene has, in his consciousness of the harmony of existence, on the one hand a powerful stimulus to virtue; he endeavors to preserve this harmony, and hence is in general amiable, frank, and honorable; to a certain degree he shows also magnanimity toward his enemies,—respects the moral personality; but, on the other hand, he has in this consciousness also the tendency to make light with the moral; he believes himself already to have attained to the good, and not to need to undergo a severe struggle for its possession,—believes himself to have already, in his natural proclivities, also the right. Hence he is inclined to take life unseriously; even unnatural lusts pass for allowed, if they only appear under the form of the beautiful. The beauty of the manner beautifies the sin, and the worship of Aphrodite lends to sensuality itself a religious sanction. Greek effeminacy and luxuriousness—despised only by the Spartans—became even a by-word among the Romans; and even the dark passions of hate and revenge found in the Greek consciousness little condemnation; no Greek took offense at the barbarous mistreatment of the hero Hector. The most virtuous citizens were not respected, but banished; sycophants were honored, and the friends of truth hated or killed.

A high sense for beauty raises indeed the moral consciousness to a high and harmonious conception of moral beauty, and the poets sketch moral ideals with master-hand; but these ideals are more for esthetic enjoyment than for moral inmitation. Even morality becomes to the Hellene a matter of mere spectacle, and in no heathen nation is the contrast between the ideal and the real life so great, as in that one which conceived the ideal the highest. For the practical life the requirements of the moral consciousness were other than for poetry; the same people which admired female ideals, such as Penelope, Antigone, and Electra, as presented in song and upon the stage, placed womanhood and marriage, and the family-life in general, much lower in real life than did the Chinese or the ancient Germans; and it was not merely in the censured license of the frivolous world, but also in the moral views of the most highly cultured, that talented concubines (especially after the example of Aspasia, notorious for her connection with Pericles, and also honored by Socrates) stood higher than house-wives proper, and became the real representatives of female culture, and ideals of female grace. Sparta, by its legislation, overthrew on principle the proper life of the family; the penal laws against bachelors which finally became a necessity, furnish proof, how popular this anti-family legislation was.

Plato: Symp., p. 192.

However fully the moral consciousness of the worth and dignity of the personality is developed, still the dignity of true manhood is conceded only to the free Hellenes, who constituted by far the smallest number of the Greek population. (In Attica at its highest prosperity there were 400,000 slaves, in Corinth 460,000). The barbarian and the slave have no right to the full dignity of personality. Freedom without slavery is, in the eyes of a Greek, an absurdity. The generally prevalent mild treatment of their slaves was more an expression of natural kindheartedness, and of personal interest than of conceded right; the Spartan slave-massacres were the expression of an undisputed right of the State and of the free citizens; even Plato and Aristotle are unable to conceive of a State and of political freedom without the personal unfreedom of slavery. The so-called notion of “humanitarianism” limits the practice of this virtue to the possessors of slaves; and the higher the right and the might of the free citizens are placed, so much the more complete and striking becomes also the rightlessness of the slaves. That slaves are but domestic animals possessed of intelligence was a general maxim, recognized even by philosophers.

Though the reality of the moral consciousness and of the moral life of the Greek is in many respects far below that of other heathen nations, still the moral idea that underlies this reality is a higher one. That which, in the Christian worldview, forms the presupposition of all truly moral life, namely, the reconciliation of the contradiction and of the antagonism in the world of reality, the higher right and the higher power of the personal spirit over unfree nature, this is recognized by the Greeks, though indeed with heathen perversions, in a higher manner than is the case among the earlier heathen nations. Only man as redeemed by the historical redemption-act from the power of his sinful naturalness, and as now for the first having risen to a truly free moral personality, is capable, according to the Christian view, of accomplishing true morality;— also the Hellene makes the reconciliation of the antagonism, the actual harmony of human nature and of existence in general, the presupposition of morality, and conceives this reconciliation as one that falls indeed before human history, but yet is accomplished by the free act of the personal spirit; whereas with the earlier nations (where the consciousness of the inner antagonism and contradiction is also recognized) the right of the personal spirit is either rejected, or else thrown for its realization into the far future, either into the life after death, or at least toward the close of the world’s history. It is true, this thought of a reconciliation is made possible only by the fact that the consciousness of moral guilt is kept away from the antagonism that is to be reconciled, and that this antagonism is conceived rather as of a primitive cosmical character, and moreover that not man but the personal gods enter into the sphere thereof, and, battling, overcome,—so that there is left for man nothing further than the enjoyable repetition of the same in artistic play; the Olympic games are a commemoration of the battles of the Titans; and, accordingly, the entire moral life becomes to the Greek an artistic play;—nevertheless the ground-thought is still of high significancy,—the thought that only man as having become free through the reconciliation of the antagonism of real existence is capable of morality. But that the carrying-out of this thought is weakened down on all sides, that the Greek does not in his moral consciousness rise out of his esthetic play to full earnestness of life, this is in fact simply the heathen character of this consciousness. And even in the fact that to the Hellene, morality appears so easy, there lies a presentiment of the true thought, that to the morally emancipated man the moral law appears no longer as a yoke or burden, but is, on the contrary, the direct, unforced, bliss-inspired and blissful life-outgush of sanctified human nature. To no nation of heathendom does morality become so light a task as to the Hellenes. The Hellene knows no moral code of laws compelling the moral subject to obedience, with objective authority; and even the moralizing philosophers themselves, in striking contrast to the Chinese, the Indians, and even the Persians, tarry almost exclusively in the sphere of general thoughts, and give only seldom definite precepts for the details of life. The moral subject bears the law within himself, and bows himself under no foreign objective law. And this is in fact but a heathen perversion of the per se true thought, that with the spiritually-regenerated the law of God is: written in their hearts,—that to them his yoke is easy and his burden light. As the Chinese and Persian consciousness shows some resemblance to that of the Hebrews, so the Greek consciousness has analogies to the Christian, especially as the latter is presented by that Apostle who labored among the Greeks. That with the Greeks the analogical thought rests upon an untrue foundation, and worked hurtfully in its carrying-out,—that it led to sinful presumption, and created a morality actually inferior in many respects to that of the Chinese, the Indians and Persians,—this evinces not the fallaciousness of the thought per se, but only the perversity of the natural man, who turns all the truth attainable by him into the service of sin, and thus confirms the weighty utterance that only he “whom the Son makes free is free indeed.” He who is inwardly unfree, and yet imagines himself free, is morally in greater danger than he who is unfree and also knows himself as such. The Greek appears morally more responsible and more guilty than the other heathen, because he has a higher knowledge; and the Apostle’s moral sentence upon the heathen [Rom. i, 18 sqq.] falls upon the Greeks with much greater force. than upon the other heathen.

SECTION XII.

To a philosophical form,

Wehrenpfennig: Verschiedenheit d. eth. Princ. b. d. Hellenen, 1856.

The Greeks occupy themselves very early with the nature of the moral; the most ancient so-called Wise Men are, for the most part, moralists. It was very long, however, before the Greeks reduced their isolatedly-presented, and rather empirically-based, moral maxims to any sort of unity and order. Philosophy proper occupied itself primarily with purely metaphysical questions, and the moral views expressed were, with the earlier philosophers, for the most part, a mere supplement of observations and life-rules but loosely connected with their speculations proper.

Socrates was the first who, as it was said, called philosophy from heaven to the sphere of the earth; it is with him essentially moral, and, from merely metaphysical speculations, he turns away with a certain displeasure; even in his consideration of the idea of God, greater prominence is given to the moral phase of the divine activity. With him the knowledge of the good is the chief end of philosophy; but, for the simple reason that here ethics springs exclusively from philosophy, the element of knowledge far outweighs in it the element of the heart. The ethics of Socrates is a coldly rational calculating; it has not, as has Christian ethics, an historical basis and presupposition, but is invented purely à priori. Man is by nature thoroughly good,—is, in his freedom, not simply at first as yet undecided, but he has by nature a decided tendency to the good, just as reason has a natural affinity for the truth. Evil is by no means to be explained from mere volition, but only from error. The human understanding can err, and the act resulting from error is the evil; without error there would be no evil, and it is absolutely impossible that man should not also will that which he has recognized as good. It needs, therefore, only that men be brought to a knowledge of the good, and then they will also act virtuously. The motive to the moral is not love, but knowledge; to instruct is to make better; the philosopher is also the virtuous man, and only the philosopher can practice true virtue; the ignorant man is also immoral. Self-knowledge—the γνῶθι σεαυτόν—is the presupposition of all morality,—not, however, in the sense familiar to Christians, of a knowledge of the heart as inclined to sin, but only in the sense of a knowledge of the logical nature of the thinking spirit; in his dialogues, Socrates does not think of bringing men to a knowledge of their moral guilt,—he simply aims to convince them as to how little they as yet know. Hence ethics is with him a one-sided doctrine of knowledge. There is properly-speaking only one virtue, and this is wisdom, that is, knowledge; and all other virtues are only different forms of this one virtue.

Aristotle: Eth. Nic., vi, 13; iii, 6, 7; Eth. Eud., i, 5; vii, 13; Magn. Mor., i, 1, 9; ii, 6; Xen.: Mem., i, 1, 16; iii, 9, 4, 5; iv, 6, 6; Plato: Lach., p. 194 sqq. Apol., p 26; Diog. L., ii, 31.

SECTION XIII.

From Socrates there sprang up several mutually-differing schools, the peculiarity and difference of which lie especially in their ethical views.—The Cynics (through Antisthenes) develop the doctrine of Socrates as to the ethical significancy of knowledge, into one-sided prominence in its practical application. Knowledge works directly the good; virtue, as resting exclusively on knowledge, is the highest goal of human life. It manifests itself essentially in the struggle against irrational desires; desirelessness is the highest virtue.—Over against the Cynics, the Cyrenaics (through Aristippus) emphasize the other phase of the wisdom-life, namely, happiness. Happiness is the highest good, and therefore the highest goal of the moral; virtue is only a means to this end. And happiness consists in the feeling of pleasure, in enjoyment. Hence enjoyment is the goal of the moral striving; in it alone man becomes free, because in it the desires that press and disturb him come to quiet.

Both of these schools undertake to find an objective ground for the moral; in fact, however, neither of them finds any thing more than a strictly subjective one; the Cynics take their starting-point in subjective knowledge, and in the will as determined thereby; the Cyrenaics, in feeling. Both schools are equally one-sided developments of tendencies that existed in germ in Socrates. If knowledge, virtue, and happiness are essentially the same thing, then it is indifferent which of these phases is made the starting-point,—whether it be said that virtue consists in an unconditional obedience to knowledge, or in the striving after happiness; and hence the Cynic is right when he asserts, that in following knowledge we need not inquire as to the sensation of pleasure or displeasure, for true happiness follows from virtue of necessity; and if sensation should seem to contradict this, then it is simply to be despised as a false one. The Cyrenaic is likewise consequential when he asserts, that in following the feeling of happiness we need not inquire as to philosophical knowledge, for as happiness follows from virtue of necessity, hence in the feeling of pleasure we have certain proof that we are practicing virtue, and hence also that we correctly understand the good.

The Cynics give exclusive predominance to the rational tendency in Socrates; there is for the good in the widest sense of the word no other decisive criterion than knowledge. And the knowledge of the good and the manner of action that rests exclusively upon this knowledge, are the sole thing which has real worth for man. Only the good in this sense is beautiful, and only evil is deformed; whatever else is pleasant for the senses or feelings is entirely worthless; and even all knowledge that does not relate to the good is useless. True freedom consists in perfect indifference to whatever lies outside of the individual spirit. All evil rests upon error,—has its source in false impressions and ideas, but not at all in the heart. The wise man is, in virtue of his knowledge, free from all evil.—The independence of the personal spirit is here most one-sidedly conceived of, as a contemptuous turning-away from all objective reality,—as an over-confident trusting in one’s (evidently very immature and fortuitous) subjective knowledge, as a complete self-isolation of the persistently opinionated subject. Hence there result an absolute indifference to all outer existence, even to all historical reality and to social custom, a throwing off of all reverence for the objective reality of the spirit as developing itself in history. However much of truth may lie in the ground-thought of Cynicism, still its practical development on the basis of its defective presuppositions leads almost necessarily to a caricature,—to an unbridled insolence of the immature spirit, giving birth to such phenomena as that of Diogenes. There is manifested in this school the pride of easily-satisfied self-righteousness, the haughty self-isolation of the subject as breaking loose from all objective realization of the rational spirit.

The Cyrenaics pushed to its extreme the other phase. A happiness which I do not feel as pleasure, is none at all. If virtue makes happy, then I must at once also feel it. Hence that which is truly good, must at once evince itself as such in the sphere of the sensibilities; and, conversely, that which impresses me pleasurably must be good, otherwise there would be another form of happiness than that produced by virtue. Hence between one pleasure and another there can be no essential moral difference; consequently the feeling of pleasure or of displeasure is a perfectly safe guide in the sphere of the moral. Hence the chief point in practical wisdom is, to procure for one’s self the feeling of pleasure; from this principle the inquiry must first take its start. By observation, for example, I find that temperateness is a virtue, because intemperateness occasions suffering. Hence true wisdom as founded on this basis consists in the rational governing of the measure of each particular pleasure, and not in the knowledge of any general principles; such principles, other than the one just given, do not exist, but each enjoyment is governed by its own particular measure, which is discovered for the most part simply through experience.

SECTION XIV.

Plato gives to Greek ethics a deeply suggestive scientific basis and form. The world is an expression of the divine ideas, a thing of beauty. That which answers to the divine idea, namely, the god-like, is good. Man has the task, in virtue of his rational spirituality, to realize the good, consciously and with freedom; the essence of virtue is, pleasure in the good as being the truly beautiful,—love. As expressing in itself the harmony of the soul; virtue is also the condition of true happiness; not the direct pleasure-feeling, however, but rational knowledge, decides as to the good, and such knowledge works the same directly. Hence virtue is neither indifferent to pleasure, nor does it consist therein, but it produces it. However, all virtue, because of the imperfection essentially inherent in existence, remains ever imperfect in the earthly life; the corporeal nature of man itself is a hinderance.—Virtue is in its essence unitary, but because of its relation to the manifold soul-powers and life-manifestations, it manifests itself fourfoldly, as wisdom, manliness, temperateness, and justness, of which the first is the fundamental one, and dominates the others.—Morality, however, is not a something belonging merely to the individual person, but has its full reality only in the moral community-life, the State, which rests not so much on the family and on moral society, as rather constitutes, itself, the exclusive form of the moral society-life, and in fact itself produces the family and all other moral forms of communion, out of itself, and dominates them with unconditional authority. The absolutism of the State swallows up into itself every right of the moral personality and of the family, and it is not as man, nor as a member of the family, but solely as citizen, that the individual is capable of realizing true morality. But also only an inferior number are capacitated thereto; and therefore these few who are capable of true wisdom are called, by this very fact, to the unlimited governing of the others. The moral task is consequently not a general one for humanity,—is not the same for all, and is in its full truth not possible for all.

Plato, far surpassing Socrates in spiritual profundity, developed with creative originality the thoughts which his master had possessed rather only as mere presentiments, into a scheme of profound speculation, very different from the popular moralizing of the son of Sophroniscus. His ethical thoughts, which are not shaped into a rounded system, are expressed more especially in the following of his works: Protagoras, Laches, Charmides, Euthyphron, Gorgias, Menon, Philebus, Politicus, and in his work which presents the realized moral organism, the Republic or State.

In the thought of the rational spirit, which Plato conceives more deeply than was ever done before, he obtains a much more solid foundation for the moral than did the earlier philosophy. The world is in its essence, not indeed created, but formed by God, the absolute, rational spirit,—is the most perfect possible expression of his thoughts, a copy of the divine eternal ideas. The realization of an idea is the beautiful; hence the cosmos is an object of beauty.

Especially in his Timaeus.

SECTION XV.

The essential advance of the ethical view of Plato beyond earlier theories consists in this, that he emancipated the idea of the good from all dependence oil the individual pleasure-feeling, that he conceived it as unconditionally valid and lying in God himself, and that consequently he regarded morality as God-likeness, as an image of God in man, and hence as a phase of the spiritual life constituting an essential part of rationality itself, and that in consequence thereof he conceived morality as a per se perfectly unitary life, and reduced the plurality of moral forms of action to a single principle, namely wisdom.—But the characteristically heathen dualism, which (though reduced by him to its minimum) is yet not entirely overcome, rendered it impossible for him to rise to the full freedom of the personal spirit in God and in man, and hence to the full knowledge of the moral idea. The real personality is recognized neither in its rights and power; nor in its guilt. There remains in all existence, even in the most highly developed moral life, a never entirely overcomable residuum of an unfree, unspiritual, and morally spirit-trammeling matter, over which God himself is not absolutely master. But the limitation of the moral lies not in the guilt of the personal spirit, but in the unspiritual (and not by it entirely controllable) nature-ground of things. The possibility, and therefore also the requirements, of the moral are different for the different classes of men, but even the most free is not entirely free. The moral freedom of the freest, namely, the philosophers, is trammeled by the fetters of a corporeality not in harmony with the moral task, that of the rest of men by lack of knowledge and of moral capacity, and that of the free Greek citizens, additionally, by the power of the rulers as extending beyond the expressed laws, and that of the unfree Greek citizens, still additionally, by the weight of the entire mass that presses upon them from above. From this progressively and descendingly increasing unfreedom there is no redemption within the sphere of historical reality, but only yon-side of history, through death.—Morality bears, neither in its progressive realization nor in its guilty perversion, the character of historicalness,—is in no respect a power essentially modificatory of universal history, and consciously aiming at such modification as its end; and even the ideal state is and remains simply the very limited activity-sphere of a special moral virtuosity of the governing individual spirit, without a higher world-historical purpose in relation to the totality of humanity.—Also the moral consciousness itself rises not entirely above the character of the merely individual; the connection of the same with the God-consciousness is only of a loose character,—is not really based in the same.

The gain accruing to moral knowledge through the labors of Plato is not to be lightly estimated. Light and order are given to the previously dark and confused mass. There is henceforth no more question of merely isolated and not deeper-grounded moral rules, but morality has acquired a firmer basis,—has come here for the first to serious self-examination. In fact, Plato occupies himself so predominantly with the foundation-]laying thoughts that he does not reach the task of carrying out a special doctrine of virtue or duty. In these ground-thoughts there are, in so far as is possible from a heathen stand-point, some approximations to a Christianly-moral consciousness; and they would have been more marked still, had the philosopher only succeeded in severing the chain which still held the already floating ship fast anchored to the soil of naturalism, namely, by overcoming the thought of an unspiritual proto-material as offering a hinderance to the personal God,—in a word, had he succeeded in changing the μη ὀν which lies at the basis of the real world, into an οὐκ ὀν. But neither Plato nor the heathen spirit in general was able to do this. Even Aristotle was able only silently to vail the, also to him, troublesome thought of dualism, but not scientifically to master it. But wherever the rational spirit is not absolutely the ground and life of every thing, there also the full idea of morality is not possible; for only the thought of the complete mastery of the spirit over every thing unspiritual, and the confidence of untrammeled liberty, assure to morality foundation-ground and courage.

Though in the recognition of the limits of freedom there lies an approximation to the Christian thought of the natural depravity of the human race, yet there lies in it, on the other hand, also an all the greater departure from the same; for these limits are not placed in the sphere of moral guilt, and hence of moral freedom, but yon-side of morality in the sphere of a nature-substratum not to be overcome by the moral spirit. The hampering of morality has not sprung from an historical act, and hence is not to be overcome by an historical act. The consciousness of the moral imperfection of the world, which despite all the idealism of the Platonic world-view comes often to painful expression, leads not to the thought of a needed redemption. The sage emancipates himself, so far as, in view of the imperfection inherent in the essence of all existence, it is possible, from the limitations of his moral life, and he emancipates others only through philosophical instruction and through absolutistic state-guidance, but not through a sanctifying communion-grounding historical act.

In the idea of the state there lies indeed the presentiment, that-morality, in its true character, is not a merely individual quality, but, on the contrary, has an historical significancy and task, but Plato does not rise beyond the mere presentiment; and when he is on the very point of passing beyond the limits of a merely individual morality, and into the sphere of an historical one, he hesitatingly checks his step and turns back. His State forms no link in history, and has no history as its goal. As it is not sprung of history, but only of the ingenious intellect of a theoretical philosopher, so it is designed to be nothing other than the platform upon which the geniality of the individual personality of the philosophic regent may find scope for itself. Neither people nor ruler are to be the representatives of an historical idea; on the contrary, the people is only the passive material for the formative hand of the state-artist, and the ruler only the executor of a philosophic theory. The state itself is to be only an individual organism along-side of many other state-organisms, likewise ruled by individual geniality. Hence it must also be only very small; even a thousand citizens suffice. The thought of regarding the state as a vital member in an historical collective organism, lies very far from Plato. Hence, though his state is a moral organic system, yet it has no, world-historical character; it has neither behind it an historical presupposition, nor before itself an historical goal. That humanity in general is a goal of the moral striving, that it may be brought together into a moral unity, that a state of peace among all nations is to be aimed at—of all this Plato has not the remotest presentiment; rather does war appear, even for his ideal state, as in accordance with order, and as a necessary matter of course; for in fact Greeks and non-Greeks are enemies by nature.

Rep., p. 373, 469 seq.

Most manifestly appears the weakness of Platonic ethics in its relation to the religious consciousness. The beautiful conception of the God-likeness of the moral man, Plato is not able to carry out; the founding of the moral upon the divine will is foreign to him, and must have been so, for the Greek knows nothing of a revelation of this will, and the philosopher could not invent one; he was only able to refer to the rational consciousness of man himself; but to raise this consciousness to a universally-extant and valid one Plato did not venture to hope, and hence he placed simply the authority and even the strong dictatorial power of the philosophers, in the stead of the authority of a divine revelation. Also his profoundly-conceived God-idea, which far surpassed all previous results of heathenism, Plato did not venture to carry out in its entire ethical significancy, and to make it consequentially the basis of the moral. It is true he is far removed from the folly of certain modern theories, which present morality as entirely independent of piety; he in fact makes piety a very essential element of all moral life, and derives even from the idea of a divine judgment after death, a very potent motive for morality;

Gorg., p. 523 sqq.

SECTION XVI.

The completer of the Platonic philosophy, and of Greek philosophy in general, namely, Aristotle, who in many respects passed independently beyond Plato, and who was less idealistic than he, and more devoted to the study of sober reality, presented ethics for the first time as a special systematically carried-out science,—in connection with Physics on the one hand, and with Politics on the other. The greatest possible repression of the dualism of the primitive elements of existence, as still yet admitted by Plato, leads Aristotle not to a deriving of the moral idea from his more fully developed God-idea, but to a still more confident grounding of the same in the rational self-consciousness, which appears here less clogged than in Plato. A sound psychology affords for ethics a scientifically firm basis, but the repression of the Platonic antithesis of the ideal and of reality gives it a morally feebler character.

Of the three different presentations of Aristotelian ethics, only the Ethica Nicomacheia (that is, ad Nicomachum) is, in the eyes of the trustworthy results of criticism,

Spengel, in his Abhandl. d. Kgl. Baierschen Akad., philos.-philol. Klasse, 1841, iii, 2; 1846, p. 171 sqq. Brandis: Aristoteles, 1851, i, p. 111 sqq.; ii, p. 1555 sqq.

SECTION XVII.

All striving has a goal, and this goal is for the rational striving a good, and hence the highest goal is the highest good; and this highest good is a perfect felt well-being, which is not a merely passive state, but a perfect active life of the rational spirit; and hence it consists essentially in virtue, which in its turn includes per se in itself the feeling of happiness.—Virtue itself is either thought-virtue or ethical virtue, according as it relates to reason or to sensuousness. Thought-virtue is acquired by learning, ethical virtue by practice. As the good consists in harmony, and hence in a proper measure, hence the non-good consists in a too-much or a too-little. Hence virtue is always the observance of the proper mean between two unvirtues. The presupposition of all moral action is the perfect freedom of the will, a doctrine to which Aristotle,—in opposition to the view of Socrates that the knowledge of the right necessarily leads to its practice,—holds distinctly fast.

The rational spirit is not a reposing or merely passively moved entity, but an activity. The thinking spirit is at the same time a volitionating, an acting, and a working spirit. All volitionating aims at something as an end, namely, in all cases, that which appears to him, who volitionates, as a good. Hence the good (το ἀγαθον) is primarily that whereon the striving is directed in view to its attainment. Now there are many and different ends and goods, whereof some are related to others merely as co-adjutant, as means to higher ends and goods. But if the striving is a rational one, that is, a sure and consistent one, then there must be a last end, a highest good, which is not a mere means to another end, but which is aimed at for its own sake, and for the sake of which alone we aim at all other goods, and which is hence an absolutely perfect end, a τόλειον, which has its end, το τέλος, within itself. Honor, riches, knowledge, etc., are goods, though they are not sought for their own sake, but always for a higher purpose to which they are but the means,—are but the partial goods of one perfect good; and this good is the perfection of one’s own existence and life, the well-being, eb(atpovia, that is, the vitality of the life as perfect in itself, and as being its own end,—ζωῆς τέλειας ενέργεια. This well-being is not sought in the interest of another good, but for its own sake, and is hence the highest good (Nic., i, c. 1 sqq.; comp. Eud., i, 1). This “eudaemonia” is by no means one and the same with our notion of happiness, but includes the same in itself. Happiness is only the one, the subjective phase, namely, the happiness-feeling that is connected with this “eudaemonia,’” whereas the “eudaemnonia” itself has essentially and primarily an objective significancy, namely, the being well-conditioned or blessed, the possession of the all-sidedly perfect life. Hence it is not without meaning when a special examination is entered upon as to whether the pleasure-feeling is included in the “eudaemonia” (Nic., i, c. 9).—The good is accordingly by no means a mere idea never entirely realizable in the this-side, as with Plato, but it is a full reality already in the present life,—finds this reality in the actual being and life of the sage; it is not a merely abstract general something; but a definite quality inherent in individual existence; not a yon-side something transcending all special goods, but one that is realized in the totality itself of these goods (Nic., i, 4). This totality, however, is not a mere sum, for were this the case the highest good might be increased by some newly added good, but it is a unitary whole, whereof the different goods are but the special forms (Nic., i, 5).

Well-being as a purely human good is not mere life, for life exists also with plants and animals, nor yet the mere sentient life, for this exists also with animals; but it is the rationally-active life, and hence the perfectly active life of the rational spirit,—is not mere being and determinatedness, but a self-determining, an ἐνέργεια,—is not merely a good, but works the good on and on (Nic., i, 6, 7). This implies of itself that the highest good, well-being, is not outside of or merely subsequent to virtute; on the contrary, virtue itself constitutes a part of the essence of the highest good, which in fact consists in activity, though it is not per se the whole highest good; for to perfect well-being belongs also the happiness-feeling, the feeling of pleasure, which results upon the successful issuing of the virtuous activity. Hence this happiness-feeling is not a something independent of virtue, and existing outside of and along-side of it; on the contrary the virtuous life already contains happiness as its necessary constituent; for only he is virtuous who does the good gladly, who has joy in virtue. In so far, therefore, one may indeed say that the highest good consists in the practicing of virtue, and of all the virtues (Nic., i, 7-9). However, Aristotle admits that to perfect well-being belong also such goods as are not already directly given in virtue itself, such as are even independent thereof, as, e. g., earthly affluence, good descent, beauty, health, a happy close of life, etc. (Nic., i, 9-11). With this very true concession to the natural consciousness as unprejudiced by any one-sided system, the consequentiality of Aristotle’s ethical system is manifestly broken. For if there are real goods, and conditions of the highest good, which are independent of moral perfection, and if consequently the truly virtuous man may possibly be without the highest good, then there prevails no moral world-order, and morality is deprived of its assurance; and as it is a legitimate goal to strive for the highest good, hence it follows that man must strive after still other possessions outside of morality, and which do not depend thereon, and which he can consequently acquire only in extra-moral and hence immoral ways. But as Aristotle does not recognize any guilty corruption of human nature, hence the above concession involves him in an absolutely insolvable dilemma, in a violent contradiction with his own system. He prefers, however, to be in contradiction with himself, rather than, in the interests of his system, to deny manifest experience, to the true understanding of which he does not possess the key.

But wherein now consists virtue, and hence the most essential element of well-being? In man there is a two-phased life, sensuousness and reason, which are often in conflict with each other. Sensuousness, in so far as it is not purely vegetative, namely, the nutritive activity of the physical life, but sensuous desire, may be and should be governed by the reason. Virtue assumes accordingly a twofold form; in the first place it relates to the proper condition of reason itself, and in the second place to the proper condition of the sensuous nature, as consisting in the subordination of the same to reason; in the first sense it is thought-virtue, in the second ethical virtue (αρετή διανοητική and ηθική). The former is mainly wisdom; the latter includes temperateness, liberality, etc. That the former belongs among the virtues, appears from this, that we praise it in a person as his merit (Nic., i, 13). The word ethical as applied here to virtue is taken in its narrower sense, as relating to practical habits. It is clear at a glance, that this division of the virtues is entirely inadequate, unless the one or the other class of virtues is taken in a wider sense than is strictly admissible. For there are purely spiritual virtues, e. g., humility, truthfulness, fidelity, thankfulness, which are in no way connected with sensuousness, and are yet not intellectual or thought-virtues. But if we take wisdom, as in Plato, in the wide sense of an inner harmony of the rational soul in general, then very manifestly the ethical virtues which consist in the controlling of the sensuous nature, would not be co-ordinate but subordinate thereto.—The thought-virtue can be taught or learned, especially by abundance of life-experience; on the contrary, the ethical virtues are acquired by frequent repetitions of the same actions, that is, by habituation,—are essentially facilities in acting, acquired by practice. By nature we have no virtue, but only the possibility and capability thereof; and the capability becomes a real virtue only by practice and habit. Hence virtuous actions are primarily not the consequence, but the ground and presupposition of virtue. It is only by repeatedly acting virtuously that man becomes virtuous (Nic., ii, 1, 2). How it is possible to act virtuously before one has virtue, and what motive man can have to act virtuously before he is virtuous, Aristotle asks indeed, and he recognizes the difficulty of the question, but he does not solve it. The indication that we possess virtue is this, that in our virtuous acting we feel also delight. Virtue is neither a passion, such as anger, fear, love, hatred, etc., because the passions are natural movements not springing from our will, nor bearing as yet per se any moral character, nor is it a faculty, for this is given by nature, but it is a facility (ἐξις), that is, the moral manner of our bearing toward the passions; and indeed it is that particular facility whereby man becomes a good man, and his work a good work (Nic., ii, 5).

Comp. Trendelenburg: Histor. Beitr., i, pp. 95, 174.

It is very manifest that this merely quantitative distinguishing of good and evil does not touch the essence of morality at all, and in its practical application undermines all certainty of the moral judgment, which is thereby transferred from the sphere of the conscience into that of the calculating understanding. In this view evil’ is not qualitatively, that is, essentially, different from the good, but it differs only in number and degree; hence there is between the two no radical antithesis, but only a gradual transition; in fact the transition from one vice to the opposite one passes necessarily through the corresponding virtue. Aristotle himself becomes conscious of the defectiveness of his definition of virtue; he concedes that there are also actions and tempers in regard to which the notion of the too-much or too-little is not at all applicable, as, e. g., delight in misfortune, envy, murder, theft, adultery, which are all per se and in their essence wrong, and do not simply become so by rising to a certain height; there can be, for example, no permissible degree of adultery, and so of the other cases (Nic., ii, 7). And if notwithstanding this he is still unwilling to discard his definition of virtue, this only evinces the utter perplexity of the theorist; for by making this concession, his definition is completely undermined, inasmuch as it is thereby implied that the difference between good and evil is not a quantitative but a qualitative one. And the matter is made much worse still by the express admission, that virtue is often not in the actual middle between the two opposite-standing faults, but stands nearer to the one extreme than to the other,—that bravery, e. g., stands nearer to fool-hardiness than to cowardice, liberality nearer to prodigality than to niggardliness, etc., and that of two errors the one is usually less hurtful than the other (Nic., ii, 8),—for by this admission not only is the ground-principle entirely overthrown, but also all possibility of a certain judgment as to morality is cut off. By wlhat rule is one to find in the diagonal the correct virtue-point, if this point is an eccentric one? Aristotle himself feels the great difficulty which results from charging the moral consciousness of the individual with the duty of such a calculation;;and he knows no better counsel to give than that given by Circe to Ulysses in regard to his sailing between Scylla and Charybdis, namely, to steer nearer the less dangerous Scylla,—to go nearer the extreme that is less remote from the mean virtue, than to the other, and to incur the risk of the less fault of the two; and in order most easily to find the middle-way, one must sometimes deviate (ἀποκλίνειν) on the side of excess; and sometimes on the side of defectiveness (Nic., ii, 9). More patently than this, Aristotle could hardly possibly have confessed the insufficiency of his definition of virtue.

Morality presupposes the freedom of the will; only that which takes place from free self-determination is morally imputed to a man, is praised or blamed. Virtue belongs exclusively to the sphere of freedom; that is unfree which is either forced or which is done from ignorance; passionate movements of feeling, such as anger or sensuous desire, do not destroy the freedom of the will, for man can and should control them by reason; even in case of moral violence, by the excitement of fear, etc., the freedom of volition remains; involuntary is only the forced action which takes place with inner resistance (Nic., iii, 1-3; comp. Eud., ii, 6). From willingness as the more comprehensive notion, the resolution is, as the narrower, to be distinguished, namely, the will as deliberately directed to a definite and possible-regarded goal (Nic., iii, 4, 5). A resolution is free also in regard to the recognized good or evil. Every resolution is, it is true, directed to a good,—with the sage always to the truly good, but with others to that which to them seems to be good; from this it does not follow, however, that men always sin simply from error, and that where there is a real knowledge of the good, the resolution must necessarily be directed to this, as is taught by Socrates and Plato. Such a view is contradicted even by the general moral judgment both of individuals and of the State, which makes man, as soon as he has come to understanding, responsible for all the evil which he does, and imputes it to him as guilt. It is- true, many do evil simply from the error of their moral judgment or from the worthlessness of their character, but both that error and this worthlessness are their own fault, and do not excuse them; in fact man can even purposely do what he has recognized as evil, namely, by inquiring not after the good, but only after the agreeable; and the opinion that no one does evil voluntarily and consciously, conflicts with undeniable experience and with the essence of will-freedom (Nic., iii, 6, 7; v, 12; vii, 2, 3). In this connection Aristotle makes the significant and almost surprising observation, that the character which has become evil by guilt can just as little he thrown off again at mere volition, as the person who has made himself sick by his own fault, can become well again at mere volition; once become evil or sick, it stands no longer within his discretion to cease to be so; a stone when once cast cannot be caught back from its flight; and so is it also with the character which has become evil. This thought might have led further; Aristotle, however, does not follow it out, and he leaves unanswered the closely related question, as to how, then, a reformation in character is possible. Moreover, he does not concede to evil any other than an individual effect,—knows nothing of any natural solidarity of evil in self-propagating, morally-degenerated races. Every man, at least the. free-born Greek, is, on the contrary, perfectly good by nature, and the sensuous nature with which every one is born has, in reason, its perfectly sufficient counterpoise.

SECTION XVIII.

In carrying out his system into details Aristotle treats first the ethical virtues, and as their chief representatives: courage, temperateness, liberality, magnanimity (from which the love of honor is, as of a lower quality, to be distinguished), the proper control of temper, and, as predominantly social virtues: amiability, truthfulness, readiness in good-natured wit, shame, but especially justness and, as closely-related therewith, fairness or equity. As intellectual or thought-virtues are examined, more largely, prudence and wisdom; and their significancy is more closely defined than in Socrates and Plato. As considered under another phase, namely, in respect to the degree of the moral power virtualizing itself in the doing of the good, the moral character is distinguished, into virtuousness in the narrower sense, into temperateness, and into heroic or divine virtue.

The carrying-out of the ethical matter proper, though rich in suggestive thoughts and observations, is devoid of a general scientific development from one central principle; nor do we find as yet any strict organic classification. The Platonic division of the virtues (§ 14), though made the basis, is neither strictly observed nor further developed. Differing from Plato, Aristotle does not first discuss wisdom as the root of all the other virtues, but, on the contrary, manliness or courage (ἀνδρία) which stands mid-way between fool-hardy daring and cowardice. It relates not to all the evils that are to be assailed, but essentially to death; and also not to every mortal danger, but more especially to the most honorable of these dangers, danger upon the battle-field, and besides also to mortal danger by sea and in sickness (Nic., iii, 9-12). This limitation, though explainable from the warlike national character, is not based in the moral idea; and for courage in the full sense of the word in the face of all evils, Aristotle finds no place at all in his system of virtue. The motive to courage is not the thought of an eternal crown,—for death is for the virtuous man the most fearful of all evils, for precisely for him life has the greatest worth,—but this motive is only a delight in duty and in the beautiful (Nic., iii, 12).—The second virtue is temperateness or moderation (σωφροσύνη), which consists in the observance of the right mean in regard to sensuous pleasure, even as, on the other hand, courage relates to evil, that is, pain. The extending of this virtue to other than the sensuous, and that too the lowest sensuous feelings of taste and of sensibility, is expressly disallowed; and hence there remain moral phenomena, both virtues and vices, which find no place whatever in the classes of virtue admitted by Aristotle. As to the question, by what rule the proper measure is to be judged, we are not answered; virtue is simply placed in the middle between the immoderation which surrenders itself passionately to sensuous pleasure, and which sinks man to the brute, and an entire desirelessness or insensibility to sensuous pleasure, which, however, only rarely or in fact strictly speaking never exists,—for then man would be no longer human (Nic., iii, 13-15); in which case the finding of the virtuous mean between the two faults would be a rather difficult matter.—Liberality or generosity, as the third virtue, is the observance of the middle-way in the use of property. It gives cheerfully, out of delight in the beauty of the action, but only to such as deserve it; that it rests on love is not stated. As especially important, is extensively discussed, liberality for public and generally useful ends, for theatrical entertainments, for popular diversions, for the feasting of the collective citizenship, for the outfitting of war-ships, and for the keeping up of a state of luxury in the interest of the dignity of the person,—the virtue of μεγαλοπρέπεια (Nic., iv, 1-6). Of the moral dangers of riches for the moral disposition itself, aside from the two errors of prodigality and niggardliness, nothing is said; on the contrary, riches is regarded as a high and much to be desired good.—Magnanimity (μεγαλοψυχία) belongs only to men of high gifts, and is, as opposed to empty pretense, on the one hand, and to self-disparaging pusillanimousness, on the other, the proper respecting of self, the moral pride of the great man,—while the proper self-respect of the ordinary person is not magnanimity, but only modesty; the former virtue stands higher than the latter. Only he can be magnanimous who is adorned with all the virtues, that is, the truly great man; and he puts this virtue into practice, in that he strives after true honor, that is, after the esteem of the great and noble, as the highest of external goods, while he disdains the honor and reproach which come from unimportant men. But proper magnanimity is only possible when, with the inner virtue-merit there is associated also an outwardly happy and eminent condition, such as rich possessions, a highborn family, power, etc., for this brings honor; hence the magnanimous man will seek, though not primarily and chiefly, after these things, not so much for their own sake, as simply for the honor associated with them. In less great souls the virtue of magnanimity gives place to the love of honor which looks only to inferior degrees of honor, and which holds the mean between immoderate ambition and pusillanimity (Nic., iv, 7-10).—The virtue of equanimity or gentleness, (πραότης) occupies the mean between irascibility and phlegmatic insensibility, and hence consists in the proper tempering of anger, and is practically of difficult observance. Not to indulge in anger at all is stolidity, and not to defend one’s self against offenses is dishonorable and cowardly. It is advisable not to repress wrath, but to let it come to expression; the indulging of vengeance stills wrath. Aristotle regards revenge as a something entirely legitimate, and simply warns against over-indulgence. More specific limitations of this dangerous virtue he regards as impracticable, holding that feeling decides this best in each particular case, and that minor deviations from the right mean are here not to be censured (Nic., iv, 11).

Without any strict logical connection, Aristotle now passes to treat of the social virtues. Between the vices of a fawning seeking for approbation and a yielding to the wishes of every one, on the one hand, and an unsocial abruptness, on the other, stands the virtue of friendly and polite amiability, a virtue which (in distinction from personal love) relates not to definite loved persons, but to all with whom we come into association, and does not rest on love (Nic., iv, 12). Between vain-boastfulness and ironical self-disparagement, lies the virtue of truthfulness of discourse, especially in relation to the speaker himself, in other words, straightforwardness and honesty. But inasmuch as too strong self-praise is more offensive to others than self-disparagement, hence it is advisable to speak rather too humbly than too highly of one’s self (Nic., iv, 13). A third social virtue relates to social intercourse and jesting, and is, in contrast to buffoonery and excessive irony, on the one hand, and sardonic moroseness on the other, cheerful facetiousness and gracious aptness in wit (εὐτραπελία) (Nic., iv, 14; comp. Eud., iii, 7). Aristotle speaks here merely incidentally of shame, that is, the fear of disgrace, which is indeed not per se a virtue, but only an instinct; it becomes a virtue only under special circumstances, namely, when a mature person has really done something of which he must feel ashamed, and also in youth, because here the passions are violent, and shame is a check against them. The morally matured man, however, is never to have occasion to feel ashamed, for he is not by any means to think of himself as being so constituted as to be capable of doing anything shameful (Nic., iv, 15). Of the true moral significancy of shame, which is so suggestively indicated in Gen. iii, 7, Aristotle has no conception.

The most important social virtue, the one which in fact includes all the others in so far as they relate to our conduct toward others, is justness, which consists in respecting the laws of the State and the rights of others, so that every man is treated as he deserves and as he has a right to claim. In a narrower sense justness relates only to the “mine” and the “thine,” to property and earnings. The principle of the just mean is here of difficult application, as there is manifestly no immoral form of conduct which can contain too great an observance of the rights of others (Nic. v, 1-14.)

SECTION XIX.

The idea, already so strongly emphasized by Plato, of a moral community-life, is developed by Aristotle further still, and more judiciously, without his being able, however, fully to divest it of the one-sidedness of the general Graeco-heathen world-view. The idea of humanity as a moral whole is entirely wanting to him also; individual morality has absolute, predominance. The family is indeed somewhat more highly conceived of than in Plato, because the reality of life is more impartially observed, but yet it is not recognized as the basis of the moral whole, but only as a subordinate manifestation-form of morality as bearing upon the moral community-life. Wedlock-love and family-love in general is only a special form of friendship as expressive of individual morality. Friendship, however, is not so much a duty as an expression of the striving after individual well-being,—bears not an objective but a subjective character.—But also friendship forms neither the basis nor the transition to a moral community-life; the community-life, on the contrary, is based directly upon the laws as expressive of the moral idea, and as constituting the state, the task of which is, under the guidance of the morally higher-gifted, to tutor and direct the great multitude of the morally-immature, and to habituate them to the good.

To the examination of friendship Aristotle devotes two entire books of his Ethics, in great detail. Friendship is indeed virtue, but not a special virtue along-side of the others; it is rather a special manifestation-form of virtue in general. Its definition is more comprehensive than is usual in modern times, and includes in itself love in general, but it is by no means identical with the Christian idea of love; it has not an objective and general, but only a subjective and individual significancy; it loves not for the sake of the loved one, but for the happiness of the lover,—seeks primarily not the weal of the other, but its own, loves not man as man, but only this or that person according to individual election, to the exclusion of others. The idea of general love to man, as a duty, is to Aristotle also as well as to the Greek in general, utterly foreign. The highest attainment consists in true friendship to one or to a few chosen ones. Toward the rest of mankind there is shown only a very feeble and luke-warm good-will, a justness and fairness which respect essentially only particular rights,—humaneness in the usual sense of the word. Aristotle connects the examination of friendship directly and expressly with that of pleasure, and places it before the more particular development of the latter, and considers it also under such a phase as that it appears not so much as duty as rather as a virtualization of the striving after happiness. Friendship seeks indeed also the weal of the other, but first of all it seeks reciprocal love, and can exist only where it finds this; nevertheless, that friendship which loves only for the sake of the pleasure and the benefit, is not the true and lasting love, but only that which exists between those who are good and resemblant in virtue, inasmuch as here the per se lasting good and the person himself are loved; in the friend I love, at the same time, that which is for myself a good; such true friendship, however, is seldom, and can never exist at the same time with many persons (Nic., viii, 1-7; ix, 4, 5). Friendship in the narrower sense presupposes a certain moral similarity between its subjects; but in a wider sense it may also exist between the dissimilar, especially where the one person has a spiritual preeminence over the other, and where consequently the kind of the love is with each party a different one. Under this category belongs the love between husband and wife, parents and children, and between the higher and the lower in rank. The higher of two persons will, and ought to, be more loved in this relation, than he himself loves, because loving is measured by the worth of the beloved object (Nic., viii, 8, 9). This feature is characteristic of the predominantly individual and subjective character of love, in Aristotle’s system. Even parents and children stand to each other only in this individual relation,—they adapt the degree of their love according to the individual worth of the other; the family has not an objective character which is to be held sacred under all circumstances, and which is superior to all individual choice; the degree of love diminishes with the increase of the worth of the subject as compared with the worth of the object; and for self-sacrificing maternal love, Aristotle, although he observes it, has no just appreciation.

Of wedlock and of sexual love, Aristotle speaks on the whole only incidentally and very inadequately. Wedlock is the most natural of all friendships, and has for its end not merely the generation of children, but also the aiding and complementing of each other in all the relations of life (Nic., viii, 14; comp. Oecon., i, 3). The husband, as the stronger, has the duty of protecting the wife and remaining faithful to her (Oecon., i, 4), and the right to rule over her,—not absolutely, however, but only in the sphere belonging to him (Nic., viii, 12). Children stand to their parents in a permanent debt-relation,—cannot divest themselves of their obligation to them, though the father may cast off his son (Nic., vii, 16). The obligation of children to fulfill the will of the parents is not, however, unlimited, because other obligations may modify it; the chief duty of children is to show reverence to their parents, and when they need it, to assure them sustenance (Nic., ix, 2).

In his further discussion of friendship Aristotle makes many ingenious observations. Those to whom one has shown benefits, one is accustomed to love more than those from whom one has received benefits, because every one esteems especially highly that which himself has done, whereas he feels the debt-relation as in some sense disagreeable (Nic., ix, 7). It is true, Aristotle does not exactly praise this feeling, but he finds it very natural, and has for it no blame. The truly good man loves himself perfectly, but this legitimate self-love is not an enjoyment-seeking selfishness, for he loves in himself only the better part, and he promotes his own weal, in that he loves and works the good; and even when he makes sacrifices for others, he wins for himself the higher good (Nic., ix, 9).

In conceiving of the essence of the family as a mere friendship, it is natural that Aristotle should not make it the basis of the wider community-life, the State, but that he should place it rather in the sphere of individual morality, and that he should make the transition to the discussion of the state, neither from friendship nor from the family, but rather derive the thought of the state immediately from the general thought of morality, and transfer all the moral significancy of the family to the thus self-based state. This transition Aristotle makes thus: the teaching of virtue suffices not for the great multitude to induce them to virtue, seeing that they are guided almost exclusively by fear and not by knowledge. The multitude must be trained to virtue and constantly guided, and hence stand in need of laws; the training of a father suffices not for this, because it lacks the necessary authority and coercive power; only the rationally-governed state has both of these, and is hence the necessary condition of a more general realization of morality (Nic., x, 10).

Aristotle is too judicious an observer of reality, idealistically to expect all salvation from mere instruction, and not to admit the moral unimpressibility of the great multitude; he speaks thereof in the strongest expressions; “the great multitude obeys force rather than reason, and punishment rather than morality;” “the majority abstain from evil not because it is disgraceful, but because they fear punishment; guided only by their passions they aim at nothing but sensuous pleasure, and shun nothing but the pains that are contrary thereto; but of the morally beautiful, and of the true joy therein contained, they have not the least notion, seeing that they have never tasted it” (Nic., x, 10); and this moral incapability he expressly refers to the nature that is inborn in them, and only a few happy ones are free of this innate imperfection; “this nature itself lies evidently not within our own power, but is by some kind of divine causality conferred on the truly happy.” To explain this broad difference of natural endowment, he does not make the least attempt, and in this he stands far below Plato, who derives the imperfection of human nature (which he also admitted, but conceived of as universal), from a previous guilt in a life antecedent to the earthly life. Aristotle renounces also all hope of radically bettering the morally unreceptive multitude, as indeed he knows of no possibility of doing it; he contents himself with keeping them in check, and with placing them under the discipline of an objective moral reality, the state, or at least with accustoming them, by force and by potent custom, to order and to obedience, and with restraining them from the outbreaks of inborn passion; to be truly free in moral respects, however, is the exclusive privilege of the few who are naturally-gifted.

Aristotle recognizes thus the necessity of a moral community-life, which, as upheld by the pre-eminent moral spirit of the few specially-endowed individuals, furnishes, itself, the basis of the morality of individuals in general, and develops, and guides, and keeps it in bounds. This is a weighty thought far transcending the shallowness of modern rationalistic liberalism, which recognizes no other objective form of the moral community-life, than that which has grown up on the broad basis of the morality of the great multitude,—a merely abstract product without any power and effectiveness of its own. Aristotle regards it as absurd to base a moral community-life upon the disposition and the spiritual sovereignty of the masses; he calls for the sovereignty of the spiritual and moral heroes,—the exclusive authority of the most highly gifted personalities; but he is, as yet, too deeply involved in the peculiarities of the heathen world-view, to penetrate to the bottom of the defectiveness of human nature, as partially recognized by him, and to find the true solution of the enigma, and to divine the nature of the true remedy; he knows only man’s outward phase, but not the depths of the human heart. He ventures not to entertain any doubt as to the moral nature of the state-sages and philosophers, and he knows no other redemption, than (as in contrast to the profound spiritual blindness and the moral stupidity of the masses) in an immeasurable exaltation of the insight and the moral strength of the state-leaders and the sages.—Aristotle sees, in the state, not a remedial institution actually realizing true morality, but only a police-organism acting outwardly, checking the evil, and restoring outward discipline. The state can only ameliorate, but not radically cure; true wisdom and morality are not imparted by it to those who are by nature incapable thereof. This view throws light upon the decided preference of Aristotle for a contemplative life, uninvolved in any political activity. The highest goods can fall to the lot only of the few; the fact is not, that many are called while but few are chosen, but that only a few are called and chosen; there prevails here an absolute predestination, not, however, from a monotheistic, but from a fatalistic ground.

SECTION XX.

The State is related to the individual citizens of the state and to the smaller social organisms—the household-life and the local community—as the absolutely determining and enlivening whole to the members,—is not so much the product as rather the ground of all morality. The threefold gradation of dependence in the household-life, and above all, the relation of master and slave, as resting upon a primitive nature-destination, is the presupposition of the state. Placing a higher worth upon the natural social relations than Plato, and confining himself more fully to historical reality, Aristotle escapes the unpractical idealism of Plato, but also attains to less definite results, and furnishes rather a criticism than a self-consistent theory of the nature of the state. Emphasizing the development of the individual citizen to free self-determination more strongly than Plato, he modifies the despotic absolutism of the latter, and presents as the moral chief-task of the state the moral disciplining of the free citizens. But the state-idea attains to a universally-human significancy neither in its outward nor its inward relation; humanity both in the barbarian and in the slave, is of an imperfect grade, and capable of no moral emancipation.

Of the Politics of Aristotle we have to do only with the more strictly ethical contents. He does not connect this work directly with his Ethics, but treats of its subject-matter from a more practical stand-point; hence he gives, on the one hand, in his Ethics, the more general thoughts of the doctrine of the state, and, on the other, he repeats in his Politics some of the thoughts of his Ethics.

The state is the highest moral communion, and hence realizes the highest of all goods. Its type is the household-life; its task is not merely to afford protection and help for the life of the individuals, but essentially to found and promote the true life, that is, the spiritually moral life, of the whole. The state is not itself the product of the already developed moral life of the individuals, but it is the presupposition thereof; outside of the state there is no moral development; only he who belongs to the state can be moral; the whole is antecedent to the parts, and the rational man is a part of the state; the state is the first, the citizen of the state the second; outside of the state lives only the animal or God (Pol., i, 1, 2). Hence the moral relation of the household-life is a presupposition of the state only in so far as it is a constituent element of the same, but not in such a sense as to imply that it already existed before the state and independently of the same. It is peculiarly characteristic that of the threefold foundation of the household-life, as stated by Aristotle, namely, the relation of man to wife, of father to children, and of master to slave, he treats of the first two only merely incidentally and briefly, but of the third chiefly, and very thoroughly. Aristotle furnishes for the first time, and in its entirety, a formal theory of slavery,—a phenomenon very significant for the history of ethics.

The opinion that slavery is not a something entirely natural, but is based only upon violence and arbitrary laws, Aristotle emphatically rejects. A household-life without possessions and without serving instruments is not conceivable, and hence also not without slaves, which are in fact living instruments and possessions. Even as the artist and artisan stand in need of instruments, so the housefather, of slaves, which are consequently absolutely his property, and subject to his discretion; this is a natural, and not a merely legal relation, strictly analogous to the relation of soul and body,—the former as the absolutely dominating, the latter as the absolutely dominated factor. And reality corresponds to the want. Men differ in fact from each other in such a manner that the ones, as being really rational, possess themselves, and represent the soul of humanity, whereas the others represent the body of humanity,—are corporeally strong, and adapted for bodily toil, but are spiritually unfree and ignoble, and, though distinguished by reason from the brute, are yet not governed by reason but by sensuous desires. These are destined by nature to be slaves, and it is well for them that, as the property of others, they are spiritually dominated (Pol., i, 3-5). And Aristotle expressly says that those who are destined by nature to slavery are the non-Greeks, the barbarians. Greek prisoners-of-war are slaves not indeed by nature, but by law, and hence legitimately.—What the significance of slavery is, appears clear from the fact that it is a characteristic of a slave that he may be injured with impunity (Nic., v, 8),—that the notion of justness holds good only between such persons as have rights, and hence not between master and slave; that the legitimate and uncensurable manner of ruling over slaves is the tyrannical, the end of which is simply the profit of the master (Nic., viii, 12; Pol., i, 8, 9), and that to a slave as such a relation of love or friendship can as little have place as to a horse or ox,—in which connection, however, it is to be observed, that in so far as the slave is also a human being a certain inferior form of love is admissible. The slave has indeed also a degree of virtue, for he is required to obey and to be modest and -temperate, but his morality differs from that of the master, not merely in degree but in essence; while the master is capable of all virtue, the slave is utterly incapable of the power of deliberation (το βουλευτικόν) and hence evidently of the thought-virtues—prudence and wisdom (Pol., i, 9). The more humane directions as to the treatment of slaves (Oecon., i, 5; of questionable authenticity) are to be interpreted in the light of these principles.

Aristotle subjects the Platonic state to a very keen and sound criticism; the community of goods and of wives he rejects, as both unnatural and morally corrupting, and even impossible (Oecon., ii, 2 sqq.). Of his own views Aristotle is more reticent than Plato, and he gives rather merely general thoughts than specific details. Only that one should take active part in political life who possesses all civic virtue, and especially far-seeing insight; but such virtue can exist only where there is leisure for its development, that is, in such persons as are free from the necessity of laboring for the common wants of life,—and hence not in day-laborers, artisans, or farmers (Oecon., iii, 5; vii, 9). The soil must be cultivated by slaves. Leisure stands higher than labor, and is indeed per se happiness. A proper state-constitution must have for its end the weal of all the free citizens constituting the state; it may be equally well monarchic, or aristocratic, or republican (the latter being that wherein all the truly free citizens take part), and over against these stand as their perversions: tyranny, oligarchy, and democracy, all of which look to the good, not of the whole, but only of individual persons, or of classes in society (Oecon., iii, 6-8; iv, 1 sqq.). It is best for the State when the best citizens bear rule; and the best one is not to be bound by trammeling laws, but stands free above the law, although in general Aristotle places the validity of the law higher than Plato, and is not hopeful of finding such “best” ones very frequently. The mass of free citizens are indeed to have part in deliberating upon the laws and in promoting justice, but not in actually governing (Oecon., iii, 9 sqq.). Aristotle inclines most strongly to a monarchy limited by laws, and, in this, has his eye manifestly upon Alexander the Great.

The state provides for the public worship and for the moral culture of the citizens; hence it prescribes, in order to the obtaining of a vigorous population, the institution of marriage. Maidens are to marry at their eighteenth year, and men at about the age of thirty-seven, in order that the children may stand in a proper relation to the age of the parents, and in order that the differing duration of the productive period of the two sexes may stand in some degree of harmony, and the children be robust. The laws are to prescribe the manner of life of the woman while pregnant, and the physical and spiritual training of the children. In relation to the exposing of children, the maxim holds good, “that no physically imperfect (πεπηρωμένον) child is to be raised.” Where, however, the traditional usages forbid the exposing of children, there the excessive increase of the population is to be prevented by forbidding the procreating of more than a legally fixed number, and the fetus is to be destroyed before the period of sensation and quickening (Oecon., vii, 15, 16). The education of the children stands, as a matter of high importance, under the care of the state; overseeing this education up to the seventh year, the state then actually undertakes it itself; for the citizens belong not to themselves, but to the state. The boys—and the question is only as to these—are to be instructed in grammar and drawing, because of the utility of these sciences, and in gymnastics in order to the development of courage, and in music in order to the employment of the leisure which becomes the free citizen (labor being confined to the slave), and in order to the awakening of the sense for harmony (Oecon., viii, 3-7).

Though Aristotle presents numerous forms of state-constitution as possible, and as good and appropriate according to existing circumstances, yet to the state of true human freedom he is not capable of rising. Even his most free and most democratic constitution rests absolutely on the basis of slavery, and on the antithesis of the Greeks, as true men, to the slave-like barbarians. The education of the citizens is, in Aristotle, quite similar to the education of a cavalier in the age of Louis XIV. and XV. It is easy enough to be liberal-minded when all the labor falls to the lot of those who, as unfree, have no share in political life. The fact that a so-called anti-Christian “humanistic” culture of modern times regards the Greeks as the champions of true humanity, of humanitarianism in the broadest sense of the word, and their age and their world-theory as “the paradise of the human mind,” from which we of modern times have to learn and receive true humanitarian notions,—is no striking evidence of great impartiality of view. Though Aristotle concedes to the different classes of citizens in the state a somewhat greater freedom and independency of development than Plato, in that he does not attribute all right exclusively to the absolutism of the state, still this recognition of a relatively free self-development does not by any means reach down to the laboring classes; the laborers are absolutely passive and for the most part personally rightless members of the state,—are but the immovably soil-bound roots of the tree whose richly-developed branches and leaves wave freely in the air above. The distinction and the classification of the ranks in society are not a moral ordinance, but a merely natural and hence unfree one,—rests not upon a moral self-subordination to a moral idea, but upon the compulsory necessity of extra-moral nature-differences,—springs not from a like moral dignity and task; but from the naturally different moral nature of the different classes of mankind. The slave and the laborer are morally entirely different and inferior beings, and have neither the task nor the capability of even comprehending the full moral idea, much less that of realizing it; this is the privilege of the higher classes of free citizens. A moral redemption of the great multitude from this ban of moral unfreedom and incapacity is an utterly foreign thought even to the philosopher; nay, he would feel called upon, should he conceive of even the possibility of such a redemption, to assail and prevent it with all his might, for with it would fall to the ground, for the Greek, not merely all reality of the state, but also all possibility of a social community-life. It is only among the rudest barbarians that he can conceive of a moral equality of the individuals; and the Christian idea of humanity, as moral, must have appeared to the Greek as well as to the Roman as a falling back into rude barbarism; and the war of life and death as carried on against Christianity by the otherwise so tolerant Romans, had, at bottom, not so much a religious as rather a social motive; it was the perfectly correct consciousness, that Christianity, although essentially a purely religiously-moral power, would inevitably radically undermine the foundation-principles of the heathen state, and shatter to pieces the entire absolutely slave-based social fabric. The thought of recognizing the slave and the barbarian as morally equal to the freeman, and as called to equal moral dignity and eternal glory, appeared to the Greek, no less than to the Roman, as a treason to human society, as a high crime against the solely possible foundations of a rational state. Beyond this world-theory Plato and Aristotle did not rise.

As in relation to those within the Greek state, so also in relation to the non-Greeks, is the thought of humanity, in Aristotle, radically defective. The non-Greeks belong only in a very loose sense to humanity at all,—are really but half-men, destined by nature to be dominated over by the Greeks, as born for ruling. War upon them is treated of by Aristotle, unhesitatingly, under the head of the legitimate occupations of life, and more specifically under that of the chase: “War is, in its very nature, a branch of industry; for the chase is a form of the industrial activity, which comes to application as well in relation to wild beasts, as also in relation to those men who are destined by nature to be ruled over (πεφυκότες ἀρχεσθαι) but are not willing thereto,—so that consequently such a war is a just one ” (Oecon., i, 8). War is regarded by no means as an evil, but as a normal life-manifestation of the nations, as a necessary condition of the virtualizing of one of the most essential of the virtues. The relation of the moral community-life to the rest of mankind is consequently in no sense one which looks to the realizing of a moral communion, but is a purely negating and destructive one. Ethics proclaims not peace but war,—aims not at emancipating and redeeming, but at subjugating; non-Greek humanity is not an object of moral influencing, but of violent subjugating. The Greek knows no mission of the word, but only of the sword.

SECTION XXI.

The form of Grecian and heathen ethics which attained in Aristotle to its highest perfection, is that of the natural man as contented in and with himself; it lacks the consciousness of the historical reality and of the historical development of sin,—of the antagonism of the reality of natural man, as sprung from an historical act, to the moral idea, and of the earnestness of the moral struggle against sin; instead thereof we find the introduction of a proud distinction between a multitude incapable by nature of true morality, and an elect minority of free-born men capable of all wisdom and virtue, and among the latter a lofty virtue-pride of man as having attained without severe inner struggle to an easily-won self-satisfaction. Humility is not a virtue of a free sage, but only of the slave and plebeian, as born unto serving obedience.—Morality rests only upon the knowledge (independent of the religious consciousness) of the per se good, but not upon love,—neither upon love to God nor upon love to man; love is not the ground, but only a co-ordinate manifestation-form of virtue. Hence also the solely true moral community-life is only a product of wise and rational calculation, but not of love; and the primitive community-life of moral love, namely, the family, is not the basis, but only one phase of the state-life. The moral view of Aristotle, and indeed of the Greeks in general, is consequently not merely manifoldly different from the Christian view, but indeed radically opposed thereto.

SECTION XXII.

After the time of Aristotle, philosophy declined with accelerating rapidity, degenerating more and more into a shallow popular moralizing, loosely grouped around a few superficial foundation-thoughts, and consisting, for the most part, simply in unconnected observations on isolated topics. The decline of thought manifests itself in a constantly growing inappreciation of the objective significancy and validity of the moral idea, which latter assumes more and more an individually-subjective character, even in cases where it seemingly subordinates the subject to itself, as in Stoicism,—or subordinates the same to nature, as in Epicureanism,—and the decline reaches its lowest point in the total doing away with all general and objective significancy of the moral idea, in Skepticism.

The moral theories that rise after Aristotle are in no sense vigorous and truly philosophical products of thought; they are but feeble out-shoots of the antecedent, more vigorous spirit-life, without bloom and without fruit. Moreover they stand less closely connected with Plato and Aristotle than with certain other tendencies of thought that sprang from the influence of Socrates. On the basis of the Cyrenaics sprang up Epicureanism; on that of the Cynics, Stoicism; while the last form of Greek philosophy, also in the sphere of ethics, namely, Skepticism, may be regarded as a further development of the tendency of the Sophists.

By Socrates this much was gained, that the moral, rational subject was recognized in his freedom and rights, that the moral idea in general had come to consciousness. With Plato and Aristotle, however, this freedom and this idea are not of a merely individual, subjective character, but they are brought into relation to the living whole of rational reality. A course of action is not good for the reason that I regard it as such, but I must regard it as good because it is good per se; the moral has essentially a general and objective validity. The later philosophy holds one-sidedly fast to the position. gained by Socrates,—makes of the subjective consciousness the highest criterion of truth, even in moral things, and that too in its individual, absolutely self-dependent character, apart from any organic union with the rational whole. The good is good because I recognize it as such. In this subjectivistic tendency, philosophy turns away from Aristotle and falls into the channel rather of the earlier schools, but with a still stronger emphasizing of the subject. Hence also the interest for general and for natural philosophy grows less, and attention is concentrated on the subjective, on morality, and this consists now essentially in subjective opinions; lacking in fundamental ideas, it becomes feeble, lax, shallow; it comes into the hands of the masses, and, in this marsh-like out-spreading, it becomes stagnant and spiritless; in the place of philosophical schools proper we find hostile parties, as it were, confessional sects of the mass of the cultured, a party spirit which supplies for these sects the place of their already-vanished religion; every cultured person sought to belong to some such philosophical. sect, and he selected and molded it according to his own taste, and. the choice itself of the school became really simply a matter of taste.—The original antithesis of Greek philosophy, as Materialism and Spiritualism, as Ionic and Eleatic philosophy, which appeared later as the antithesis of the Cyrenaics and the Cynics, repeats itself, especially in the sphere of ethics, as Epicureanism and Stoicism; the former regards the spirit as determined by nature; the latter, nature as determined by the spirit.

SECTION XXIII.

The doctrine of the Epicureans,—which was widespread among the mass of the cultured, and which subsequently became even the dominant spirit of the age, but which still remained without any scientific development, as, in fact, it was incapable of such,—is the consequential unfolding of the individual pleasure-principle, the theoretical expression of irreligion and immorality. The subjective pleasure-feeling is the highest criterion of truth and of the good; the yielding to natural proclivities, even the sensuous, and the greatest possible enjoyment of the present, are the highest virtue,—prudent calculating for prolonged pleasure, the highest wisdom,—anxious concern as to a future retribution and a divine world-government, the greatest folly; our striving an& thinking should regard only this life.

Epicurus, (ob. 271 B. C., see Diog. L., x, 1 sqq.), who stood most closely related with the school of the Cyrenaics, obtained very soon for his doctrine—which has so much to recommend itself to worldlings—a wide acceptance; and while the solid thinking of Aristotle became almost forgotten, this thought-sparing, self-styled philosophy continued to spread wider and wider,—formed, in fact, by far the most numerous of the sects, and sustained itself until long after the advent of Christ. The more superficial the wisdom, so much the greater the party that clings to it. This doctrine, as comprehended in a very few thoughts and forms of expression, soon became fixed and stationary and received no further development, but nevertheless an all the wider practical application. From the so wide-spread sect there have not come down to posterity even the names of self-styled philosophers of any great eminence, to say nothing of systems of thought.

Happiness is the highest good, and hence to strive after it the highest wisdom and morality; all cognition looks to it as its end. For man only that is true which he feels, which he becomes acquainted with through the senses, namely, concrete sensuous reality. Whatever transcends this is at least doubtful, and to fear the doubtful and supersensuous disturbs happiness. Fear of the gods and of a life after death must vanish away, for of them we have no knowledge. Sensuous feeling, and hence the individual pleasure-feeling, is the highest criterion of all truth, and hence also of the morally-true, the good.. But we feel only the sensuous, the corporeal, hence only this is for us true and real. Individual being, and hence multiplicity, is the solely true existence,—and hence, first of all, the individual subject; consequently to carry out the rights of the subject is the moral task. This task looks in no sense whatever to the realizing of a something transcendent to the individual,—of an idea; man is not to follow an all-prevalent law, but, on the contrary, his individual nature,—is not, in any sense whatever, to deny himself, but in fact to cling to and assert this his particular existence, such as it is. Alan is not an upholder of a spiritual world, on the contrary, he is himself absolutely supported and guided by nature,—should merge himself harmoniously into nature, should therein feel himself well. This feeling of one’s self-well is the chief end of life, and therefore the solely true measure of the good. Enjoyment is the end; the yielding of one’s self over to one’s own naturalness, is the means.

Now, for this manner of life there was of course no great degree of wisdom requisite; nevertheless direct unconscious desire may lead astray, and hence it must be guided by considerateness. Man must consider in each separate case whether an immediately inviting pleasure is not connected with a subsequent greater pain, and in this case he must avoid it, or at least confine it within the necessary limits, and that simply in order to render the pleasure-feeling a lasting one. The pleasure of the soul is greater than that of the body, because it is more lasting, and hence it is more to be sought after; however, the difference is not essential, inasmuch as the soul itself is but a refined body. Higher than the pleasure which consists in the present gratifying of a natural impulse, is the pleasure of being satisfied, that is, when desire and the soul are in a state of comfortable repose; for this reason a certain degree of temperateness and moderation are among the conditions of happiness. Hence virtue is indeed an element of a wise life, not for its own sake, however, but as a means to a higher pleasure-enjoyment,—even as one takes medicine as a means to health. Right and wrong, to which the virtue of justness relates, are nothing per se; right is only the contents of mutual compacts that are entered into for reciprocal benefit; their violation is the wrong. Where there are no compacts there is neither right nor wrong, and hence also no justness or righteousness. Moreover, only so far as it redounds to my utility, have I to practice justness; and the evil of unjustness is simply the damage I incur,—especially through judicial infliction. Friendship is of much value, wedlock-love properly of none at all. From offices of state the wise man keeps himself aloof; he acquires for himself wealth as far as practicable, and thus provides for his future.

An essential condition of happiness is the being free from all fear of spiritual powers—of the gods and their displeasure, of death and a retribution in the “yon-side.” Gods there may indeed be, but as they are to be conceived of as in a state of bliss, hence they cannot possibly have any concern for the world and for men. Death does not fall within the scope of feeling, and hence does not exist for us at all,—does not concern us in the least. So long as we have feeling, death does not exist, and when death does exist, then we have no feeling; hence it disturbs our happiness only when we foolishly harbor a fear of it. But, that with death, all is over with man, is a matter of course, as in fact the soul also is but a fortuitous combination of manifold atoms which, at death, again fall apart. In order to get rid of the tormenting superstition of a life after death, one needs but to study physics. The all-comprehending and dominating chief-condition of happiness is, therefore, prudence,—which in each particular case chooses and determines the proper measure and the proper means of pleasure. Man is, consequently, lord of his own fate, and herein consists his freedom; fortune, as mere chance, has but a minor share in our destiny. But that perfect happiness is not to be reached in the way recommended Epicurus knew very well, and he himself depicts the miseries of humanity in very dark colors; he does not, however, throw the blame for them upon man, but upon the imperfectness of the fortuitously-arisen universe itself; and, by this course, he does not fall out with his system, but in fact finds for it a fresh justification; the more numerous the miseries to which man, without his own fault, is exposed, so much the stronger stimulus, and so much the greater right has he, to strive after the enjoyment of life.

SECTION XXIV.

The subjectively-idealistic Stoicism which took its start from Zeno, teaches a morality of conflict,—of struggle on the part of the rational spirit (as being alone of worth, and as being absolutely a law unto itself) against sensuousness, of thought against pleasure, as belonging to a lower sphere. Virtue is the solely true good, and all other seeming goods are either indifferent or irrational. But this struggle rests simply on the thought of an unreconciled and irreconcilable antagonism of existence,—knows not the higher thought of the inner unity of all veritable existence,—rests on the pride of the subjective understanding and of the absolutely self-legislating individual will, over against all objective reality, even over against a moral commonalty with laws binding on the individual subject. Stoicism leads, therefore, on the one hand, to an unbounded virtue-pride, and on the other, to a querulous despising of reality, also to a disregarding of caprice-checking custom, nay, even to a suicidal non-esteeming of one’s own temporal life,—pretending to an inner peace, but really betraying evidence of un-peace. Any moral significance, and any even slight presentiment of absolute ethical truth, ore to be found only in the more general thoughts of the Stoics; but all the more dubious, arbitrary, nay, even perverted, is the particular application of these thoughts to definite life-relations.

Stoicism stands on the one hand incomparably higher in spiritual vigor and dignity than Epicureanism, and forms a direct antagonism thereto, but, on the other hand, it passes far beyond the truth in the direction of the opposite extreme, and its one-sided unnaturalness manifests even more clearly than Epicureanism the insufficiency of heathen principles for arriving at true moral wisdom.—Zeno, a contemporary of Epicurus, illustrated the teachings of his system (see Diog. Laert. viii) by moral strictness of life, and by the commission of suicide at an advanced age; his writings are lost. His school, which collected within itself the nobler class of minds, and which, while less numerous than that of the Epicureans, yet exhibited far more spiritual activity than the latter, continued to exist until the downfall of paganism,—especially among the Romans, where, though much toned-down and transformed, it was represented not only by the rather eclectic Cicero, but also by Seneca,

From him are extant numerous moral writings in popular rhetorical style.

SECTION XXV.

Epicureanism and Stoicism are two diametrically opposed but also mutually requiring and complementing phases of the Greek spirit; both are equally one-sided, both are equally remote from the Christian ethical idea;—both refer all moral truth back to the individual subject. In the place of Christian morality, the Epicureans offer joyous voluptuousness; the Stoics offer the high-minded pride of complete self-righteousness; neither party feels the least need of redemption, of divine grace; for the Epicureans regard the per se sinful as right, while the Stoics imagine themselves to have overcome the same through their pee se pure individual will.

Epicurean ethics emphasizes the nature-phase in man; Stoic the spirit-phase; the former teaches an unresisting, voluptuous giving-over of self to sensuous nature, the latter an earnest but only partially successful resisting of the same; the former is absolutely indifferent as to moral knowledge,—natural instinct supplies the place of knowledge; the latter manifests a busy seeking after knowledge, and esteems it as a virtue; the former is a crude realism,—in all essential features a materialistic naturalism; the latter is a one-sided idealism,—in all essential features a ploddingly-calculating spiritualism; the former bears a feminine character,—is passive, yielding, lax; the latter bears a masculine character,—is active, earnest, rigorous; the former suited better the effeminate Ionic tribe and the Orient, the latter rather the stern Doric tribe and the Romans.

The Epicurean seemingly gives sway to the universal, namely, to nature, to which the individual subordinates himself; in reality, however, the individual subject is set free from the bonds of the universal, of the spiritual, of rationality; the Stoic also seemingly subordinates the individual subject to a general thought, namely, the moral idea; in reality, however, also here the universal is made to yield to the individual subject; in the place of a general moral idea we find, strictly speaking, only the calculating opinion of the individual; it is the self-will of the subject in the face of the spiritual objective world, namely, history, that asserts itself as rational freedom. According to both systems, therefore, the truth is found only within the subject; nature and existence in general have value for the Epicurean only in so far as they can be enjoyed, that is, in so far as they are for the individual subject,—in every other respect existence is indifferent; in the eyes of the Stoic, existence is truth only in so far as it appears in the subject; the sage is the embodiment of the moral order of the universe, which, apart from him, exists but very imperfectly. In both systems the higher thought of Plato, namely, that, by the moral, the real harmony of existence, the harmony between nature and spirit, is realized, is one-sidedly perverted; the Epicurean effects this harmony only by sacrificing the rationally-personal spirit to nature, the Stoic by sacrificing nature to the individual personal spirit; it is no longer a harmonizing, but a giving up, of one of the two phases of existence.

Though Stoic ethics is in many respects graver, and more worthy of man than Epicurean, nevertheless both systems are equally remote from the Christian view. The Epicurean does not recognize the spiritual personality as the highest factor; the Stoic does not recognize the rights of objective reality; but Christianity recognizes both as absolutely belonging to each other. In both systems, the natural man, the individual subject, thrusts himself in his fortuitous reality into the foreground, as having the highest claims; in both the subject is of himself perfectly competent to attain to all perfection,—as no need, in this work, either of God or of history; neither has even the faintest presentiment of the moral significancy of history, of humanity as a unity. In both, therefore, there is absolutely no humility of moral self-denial, but either a mere lustful devotion to world-enjoyment, or a haughty contempt of the external world,—and hence in neither of them is there the least felt need of redemption; the sole redemption from the burden, not of guilt but of an evil world of reality, is, suicide with the Stoic, and sensuous intoxication with the Epicurean. In neither system is there manifest the least approximation to the Christian principle,—no progress beyond Plato and Aristotle, but rather simply the moral consciousness of heathenism in its incipient dissolution,—which is consummated in Skepticism.

SECTION XXVI.

The subjectivism that predominated in Epicurean and Stoic ethics finds its consequential and scientifically-rigorous carrying-out,—and at the same time Greek and heathen ethics in general, its dissolution and honorable self-destruction,—in Scepticism, which declares all judging of good and evil as futile, and all modes of action as indifferent.—Neo-Platonic philosophy, which seeks to rescue heathenism as against Christianity, and which perverts Christian ideas to heathen purposes, presents in its but partially developed ethics little more than a dreamy mysticism—a quietistic self-merging into the one universal divine essence; and it is only for non-philosophers that there is need of a, not scientific but, practical code of morals.

Roman philosophy made no original contributions to ethics. Apart from a but slightly independent adoption of the doctrines of Stoicism, it presents nothing more than a feebly eclectic character, and does not rise beyond superficial calculating observations and opinions.

Skepticism has often been misunderstood not only in its scientific, but also in its world-historical significancy; it arose gradually and, as it were, spontaneously, without any one specially prominent founder, as a protest of the general rational consciousness against the self-sufficiency and presumption of the previously existing philosophies,—and, in the sphere of ethics, as the scientific conscience of heathenism. Subjectivism, when consequentially carried out, leads inevitably to skepticism. Socrates had contended with moral earnestness against the subjectivism of the Sophists, and had attempted to find a solid basis also for ethical philosophy; in this commendable effort, however, he succeeded as little as did, after him, Plato and Aristotle and the Stoics. In these efforts they did not rise beyond mere formal definitions of the moral, and were obliged to derive the material contents of the same from the primarily merely fortuitously-determined essence of the individual subject. The sole thought that leads to a true basing of the moral consciousness, namely, that the moral is the will of God, was only dimly caught sight of, and could not in fact, from the heathen stand-point, be carried out with any degree of certainty. That, now, the vail was torn off from the false method of taking the finite subject as the criterion and the infallible source of universally-valid and objective truth, and of attributing to subjective opinion an absolutely valid objective significancy, and that subjectivism was exposed in all its nakedness and invalidity,—this was the scientific service of Skepticism,—which, having shown traces of itself as early as in the age of Aristotle (Pyrrho), attained to greater prevalence in the century before Christ (Ænesidemus of Alexandria), and fully developed itself in the second century after Christ (Sextus Empiricus), and thus like a devouring rust gradually undermined the last self-confidence of heathen philosophy, save in so far as it did not seek refuge. behind the mystical nebulae of Neo-Platonicism.

Skepticism is in fact simply the product of the antithesis between Epicureanism and Stoicism. The former said: the feeling of pleasure and displeasure alone decide as to the morally-good; the latter said: not feeling but thinking decides; Skepticism lets the two cancel each other, and says: neither feeling nor thinking is capable of any real decision as to what is good. Man cannot at all know what is per se good; all our feelings, experiences and thoughts have merely and exclusively a subjective significancy,—furnish no truth in regard to things per se. This is not a mere feeble courting of doubt, not a mere, “I know not whether this or that is good,” but a decisive, “I know positively that I cannot know it, and I know also that there is nothing that is per se good;” and this knowledge of the lack of knowledge is the true wisdom and the true virtue. What is good or not good is determined solely by civil law and by adopted custom, and there is no occasion for seeking for another or higher basis therefor. Nothing is per se, and in its essence good or evil. This consideration furnishes the basis for true soul-repose and happiness,—seeing that we then need no longer be disturbed by feelings of desire or of disgust, but that we look upon every thing with calm indifference. The true and highest good consists therefore in this, that we be absolutely indifferent toward all things that are usually regarded as goods. As, on one occasion, during a storm, Pyrrho saw some swine very unconsciously devouring their food, he is said to have exclaimed: “The wise man must also be equally imperturbable!” If there were any thing that is good or evil per se, all men would be found to see it; whereas in fact the judgments of men differ in all things, and the opposing philosophic schools proclaim the most opposite things as good or evil. The truth is, that in every case, the judgment as to good or evil is determined by the spiritual or bodily peculiarity of the person judging, and hence gives no certainty as to the essence of the thing per se, but is always simply indicative as to what chances to seem good or evil to him. Hence a science of the moral, a system of ethics, is absolutely impossible, and all teaching as to the moral is futile. But, as now, notwithstanding this, it is necessary to live and act in some manner, so it is most advisable to act according to the existing laws and customs,—not, however, because they are good, but because this course is most advantageous.—Though Sextus Empiricus,—who has said most on this head,—does not show his best powers on the field of ethics, yet it is not to be denied that his attacks against the results of all previous ethics contain much truth, and that from the heathen stand-point the Skeptics were, on the whole, justified in their doubts. Their skepticism gives evidence of a significant self-consciousness in heathen science; and even though its results were unsatisfactory, still there was need of just such a radical sifting and exposure in order to bring to sober reflection the falsely-secure and self-deluding spirit of heathenism, and to render it more receptive for a better-founded world-theory.

Neo-Platonic ethics can hardly be regarded as a genuine phase of Greek thought proper. Entering the lists in antagonism to the new world-power of Christianity for the purpose of rescuing heathenism, mingling together into a nebulous conglomerate all the fragmentary notions of Oriental and Occidental religions and philosophies, and supplementing them with Christian thoughts, Neo-Platonic philosophy manifests also in its but crudely-formed ethics little more than the distressful features of a spirit slowly and painfully dying of the mere senility of age,—a spirit which, without considerate choice of its means, is feverishly possessed with the one desire of arousing up by artificial nerve-stimuli its already half-dead life-forces to one last desperate up-flickering into life,—a tragically-grand desperation-effort of a mortally-wounded combatant,—the titanic rebounding of the spirit of antiquity when pierced through the heart by the arrow of a higher form of truth; (Plotinus, the greater disciple of Ammonius Saccas, the founder of the school, living mostly in Rome, ob. A. D. 270; his disciple Porphyry, ob. A. D. 304; Proclus, who lived mostly at Athens, ob. A. D. 485—the last philosopher of Occidental heathenism.)

Deviating from all previous Greek philosophy, the Neo-Platonists place the idea of God in the fore-ground, and deduce from it, and bring in relation to it, all principles of morality. But this God-idea itself is further remote from the Biblical idea of God than is even that of Plato and Aristotle. God is no longer the infinite personal Reason, but the absolutely undetermined abstract Unity, which unfolds itself, in Pantheistic emanation, into the world of multiplicity,—which world is consequently not a separate reality different from God, but simply the shadow of God himself,—the reverse-side of the divine, the fading-away of the pure divine light, and hence of essentially negative essence.—Now as all knowledge must aim at beholding all things in God and God in all things, hence also all moral activity is directed exclusively to this one end, namely, to unite one’s self with God, to press one’s self out of the world of plurality, to renounce one’s self as an individual being, to wish to be and actually to be nothing more than a transient phase of the alone truly-existing unitary divine essence. The moral activity aims not at the producing of a real world of the good different from God,—aims not at realizing any thing which is not already real and perfect from eternity, but, on the contrary, aims at reducing back the soul from its immersion in the world of reality into the solely and the alone-existing good, that is, into God. God is not merely the highest good, but in fact the absolutely sole good; and whatever is different from God is, in so far as it is so, not truly good. Hence the sole path of salvation is the return from plurality to unity, and the first and most essential condition thereto is the beholding of God, an indulging in a mystical speculation, which is possible only in that one forgets one’s self,—spiritually dies away,—so as to permit God alone to prevail. The more I am a particular self-hood claiming personality, so much the more remote am I from God. Morality consists, therefore, not in a developing of this personality, but in a suppressing of it, not in a becoming like God, but in fact in becoming God himself. The self-conscious personality is not the God-like, but the God-foreign; for God himself is not a personality—is not this or that—has no manner of determinateness, but is that which is sublime above all determinateness, all quality, and hence also above spiritual personality; whatever is in any manner determined is not God, but has gone out from God, and hence is, in so far, extra-divine; and the same path which reality has traversed in passing firom undetermined unity to manifoldly-determined plurality, morality traverses again in the’ opposite direction,—passes back from plurality and determinateness to the unitary and undetermined. In all these phases of thought, an Indian influence is unmistakable.

As true cognizing is not dialectical but contemplative, namely, a spiritual beholding of God, so also true morality is not an outward-going activity, but rather a non-acting, a restraining of active volition, a dissolving of all particular personal volitionating into the one divine essence. Whoever has the highest good needs and wishes for no other good. But the highest good exists in no sense whatever apart from God, in the world, but solely in the reality-transcending and indeterminate God. For such an outward working, such a creating of a real kingdom of the good, there is no occasion whatever; for all that really exists is good already in so far as it is the divine essence, and hence cannot be an object of change or resistance; and in so far as it is the divine essence as self-estranged, it is evil, and hence should not be loved and confirmed; there remains, therefore, for the moral activity no other work than simply to withdraw itself from the world and, not so much into itself as much rather, into God. Hence there is no need of striving, of combatting, and of laboring, but only of reposing; to the eternal keeping-silence, the eternal repose, of God, corresponds the silent repose of the sage and moral man. Active virtue is not the highest form of morality, but is only a praiseworthy moral quality of such as have not yet risen to the stage of true wisdom,—Such are the chief fundamental thoughts of this Neo-Platonic philosophy, the influence of which made itself felt as late as in the Christian mysticism of the Middle Ages. On the whole, we could not properly expect from this last attempt of heathen philosophy at self-preservation, any rigorous consequential carrying-out of fundamental principles; and hence we in fact often find thoughts in it which but imperfectly harmonize with it as a system. Still, the most of these seemingly irreconcilable views are doubtless to be accounted for in the light of the distinction which it made between wisdom proper (which is attainable only for the elect few) and the moral instruction of the populace at large. For the latter there is in fact need of other moral precepts, seeing that men at large are not yet in such a condition as to be able, through beholding and yielding, to merge themselves into the absolutely One.

Roman philosophy, though enjoying high repute in the Middle Ages, and even as late as in the last century, has, however, for the philosophical development of the science of ethics scarcely any significance. The Stoic Romans did little more than indulge in general popular discussions on the philosophy they had adopted from the Greeks; the Epicurean Romans simply applied their views practically. Cicero is simply a discreet Eclectic, though without speculative genius. He discusses moral questions in clear but superficial processes of reasoning, without finding for them a firm philosophical ground, or a really scientific solution. The rhetorical form of his ethico-philosophical writings does not redeem them from that tediousness which inheres in any verbose display of unprofound observations. Zealously opposing Epicureanism, Cicero holds fast in general to the Stoic system, modifying it with Platonic, Aristotelian and other elements, and this too not without many instances of misunderstanding. His most important ethical work is his De officiis, which is based mostly on the Stoic Panaetius. In this work he examines, first, the notion of the morally-good (honestum), then that of the useful (utile), and the mutual relation of these so often conflicting principles. The “useful” he finds to be only seemingly different from the good; the fact is, whatever is good is also useful, and whatever is truly useful is also good, not, however, for the reason that it is useful, but the converse; hence to strive after the good renders necessarily at the same time also happy. Of the other writings of Cicero, belong also here the Quaestiones academ., the Disputationes Tusculanae, and his essays: De senectute, De amicitia, De legibhus, De finibus.—Cicero blames, in the Stoics, that they conceive of the good only partially, that they regard not the entire man, but only his spiritual phase, and lightly esteem the corporeal, so that in fact while professing to follow nature they do not do her justice,—that they place on an equal footing all the virtues as well as all the vices, and admit no intermediate gradations, and also that because of their one-sidedness they involve themselves in many contradictions. Though finding the source of the moral consciousness in reason,—which is an efflux from the divine reason, and by which therefore we become like God,—he yet derives ethics only in a very slight degree from the essence of reason itself, but rather from the experience of life. From this lack of a firm philosophical foundation, we can understand why Cicero placed an especially high value on his discussion upon the collision of duties. On the condition of a real deduction of the various forms of duty from one fundamental principle, there would be no possible place for such a discussion; but to the moralist who takes his starting-point from empirical observation, this field appears as of especial difficulty and importance. The question: Which of several morally good actions which cannot be reconciled with each other is to be chosen as the better? Cicero answers very unsatisfactorily and unphilosophically, on the mere ground of the social comfortableness resulting therefrom (De off., i, 43 sqq.). Nor does he succeed in all his sonorous periods on universal benevolence, etc., in rising beyond the narrow views characteristic of heathen ethics.—Plutarch, a Greek with Roman education (about A. D. 100,) furnishes in his numerous moral writings many good observations on the moral lifes and gives evidence of a noble disposition of soul, though he does not rise beyond popular essays and observations, relating for the most part to particular moral topics,—gives neither a system, nor rigorous, clear principles. In general he follows Plato, and rejects the extremes both of Epicureanism and Stoicism.

SECTION XXVII.

The ethics of the Old Testament presents, in its entire essence, a direct contrast to all heathen ethics. Without systematic form and without scientific development, it is yet perfectly self-consistent in its ground, its essence and its end. In harmony with the idea of God as a spirit absolutely independent of nature, and himself omnipotently conditioning the whole sphere of nature, the ground of all morality is absolutely and exclusively God’s holy will as revealed to the free personal creature; the essence of the moral is free, loving obedience to the revealed divine will; the ultimate end of morality is the realizing of perfect God-likeness, and hence also of perfect God-sonship and bliss, not merely for the individual, not merely for the people Israel, butt for all humanity,—and hence the realization of a humanity-embracing kingdom of God; the most immediate historical end, however, is to impart a knowledge of the need of redemption from depravity as incurred by the sin of man himself. Hence the law appears in fact predominantly, not as an inner natural one, but as a purely positive, objective, historically-revealed one, in order that man may become conscious of his natural estrangement from the truth. In this form it does not have an ultimately definitive, but a transitory and essentially disciplinary end; and the realization of the kingdom of God can only be prepared for, but not fully accomplished, by the Israelitic people; it is a morality of hope.

As in the presentation of Christian ethics, further on, we shall have to glance in considerable detail also at its historical antecedent, namely, Old Testament ethics, hence we need here give only the general characteristics of the latter.

In addition to general works on Old Testament theology, which treat mostly of the ethical phase only incidentally, and to the works mentioned in § 5, may be cited, G. L. Bauer: Bibl. Moral des A. T., 1803, 2 vols.,—extremely Rationalistic; (Imm. Berger: Prakt. Einl. ins A. T., continued by Augusti, 1799-1808, 4 vols.)

The antagonism of the moral idea of the Old Testament to the views of collective heathenism, is radical and fundamental; there is here no shadow of a transition from the latter to the former. Pre-Christian revealed ethics dld not, however, have a scientific, systematic form, and indeed could not have it, inasmuch as the key to its correct understanding was to be given only in the days of the Messiah, and as the Hebrews were not to be a perfect, independently-developed nation, but to find their full truth only in Christianity.—The Hebrews do not undertake to find the ground of the moral consciousness in the human spirit itself, for the man whom they know as real is no longer the pure image of God,—has no longer the unobscured natural consciousness of God and of the moral,—and even unfallen man needed to be awakened to this consciousness by the revelation of Gold. The entire ground of the moral consciousness is therefore sought in God’s positive revelation to man, as indeed the ground of the moral on the whole is absolutely the holy will of God,—not as an abstract law immanent in, though partially hidden from, human reason, but as an express command of the personal God and made known to man by a historical act of revelation. God speaks and man hearkens; and the moral activity is in its entire essence a child-like obeying of the divine command made upon man. Here there is no longer any room for a doubt, unless it be a sinful one,—no need of a philosophical analysis. In case there is need in particular conjunctures for a more definite decision, then God gives it himself, either directly, as with the patriarchs and the divinely-called and enlightened prophets, or, mediately, through the sa-me, or indeed also through specific signs, such as the lot [Num. xxvi, 55, 56; xxxiii, 54; xxxiv, 13; Josh. vii, 14 sqq.; xiii, 6; xiv, 2; xviii, 6 sqq.; xix, 1 sqq.; xxi, 4 sqq.; 1 Sam. x, 20 sqq.; Prov. xvi, 33; xviii, 18], the high-priestly Urim and Thummim [Ex. xxviii, 30; Num. xxvii, 21; 1 Sam. xxiii, 6 sqq.; xxviii, 6; xxx, 7, 8; comp. 2 Sam. ii, 1; v, 19, 23 sqq.], and others [1 Sam. xiv, 8 sqq., comp. Gen. xxiv, 12 sqq.]. The command of God to man presents itself in a strictly positive definite form: “thou shalt,” “thou shalt not,” “thou mayest.”’ For any other reason than God’s will, man has no right to ask; he is simply to believe the word of God—this alone leads him to righteousness. To personal free self-determination and maturity, man is to attain simply and solely through child-like faith-obedience to the word of the Father. He who questions and hesitates where God speaks, cannot possibly be moral, since he is lacking in faith. Unhesitating, unreluctant, joyous submission to God’s definite command, is the beginning, the end and the essence of all morality. Types of such faith-obedience are Noah [Gen. vi, 22; vii, 5], Abraham [xii, 4], Jacob, Moses, Samuel, David, and others. The simple fact that God wills it, is the absolutely sufficient reason; the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. The antecedent condition of the moral, as lying in the bosom of man himself, is, however, the image of God—the pure knowledge and the untrammeled will of moral freedom. Man should, but he is not compelled; his salvation is placed within his own hand; the thought, “If thou hearkenest to my word, it shall go well with thee,” pervades the entire Old Testament from beginning to end. Between God and man there subsists an absolutely personally-moral relation. Even as God, as the true and perfect personality, is the holy prototype of all morality, and as the simple thought of this God is directly presented as the perfectly sufficient ground for all moral life: “Ye shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy” [Lev. xi, 45; xix, 2], “I am the almighty God, walk before me and be thou perfect” [Gen. xvii, 1],—so also is man’s complete personality recognized and respected by God even in the already sin-corrupted race. God does not himself immediately work all willing and acting in man, does not force him to obedience, but He makes a covenant with man, with his people,—comes as a holy personality into moral relation to man as a free moral personality. The fulfillment of the covenant-promise is conditioned on the covenant-fidelity of man.

The purpose, the goal of the moral is not the merely individual perfection of the moral subject, but it is, on the one hand, the salvation and perfection of the whole human race,—a thought entirely unknown to heathendom—and, on the other, the full and blissful life-communion of the person with God; “I will be your God, and ye shall be my people” [Lev. xxvi, 12; Jer. vii, 23];—not merely the individual subject but the moral community, the people of God (entire humanity is to become this people), is to be received into this communion with God.

Immediately upon the creation of man the thought of the moral presents itself clearly and definitely [Gen. i, 26-ii, 24]. (1.) The objective presupposition of the moral is presented, namely, the living personal God as the prototype of man and of his life, and nature as good and normal and as existing independently over against man,—and, then, the subjective presupposition, namely, man as a personal spirit like unto his Creator.—(2.) The goal of morality as a task, a duty, namely, the realizing and completing of the divine image, is expressed under one of its phases, as the dominion of man over nature; this implies the realization of free personal spirituality in likeness to God—the legitimate “being as God.” In the strong emphasizing of this dominion over nature, (so utterly in contrast to all actual experience,) there is plainly indicated the ideal essence of the moral task; its full realization however is not to be attained to at once, but is the final goal, and lies in the future. In striking contrast to all heathen views, according to which man is either absolutely subject to nature, or at least has nature before him as a cramping, and never-entirely-to-be-overcome power, we have here the true relation of the rational spirit to nature, namely, his complete freedom, his destination to entire mastery over it, that is, we have the full personality of man as the key-stone of the collective morally-religious world-theory. That this dominion of the spirit over nature is not to be a childish magical interfering with nature, is evident from the simple fact that man is called to it only as being an image of the nature-dominating God, and that immediately before and after his call thereto the God-established permanent regularity of nature is alluded to as in some sense a right of nature, and that man is at once directed to the orderly and conserving culture of nature [ii, 15]. The dominion over nature is not the entire goal of the moral striving, it is, however, a very expressive suggestion of, the same, and is within the comprehension of the child-like and as yet immature spirit.—(3.) The legitimate freedom of choice and its enjoyment are guaranteed to man as a right, in the sphere of the discretionary [i, 28-30; ii, 16].—(4.) The unambiguous declaration is made that morality is not a something belonging merely to the individual person, but that on the contrary man can accomplish his task only as a member of a moral community; it is not good that man should be alone; he ought not to remain in isolation, but should form a part of a family, should enter into association with moral humanity, and it is only on this condition that the good is truly realizable for the subject.—(5.) In the anticipatory allusion to the observance of the Sabbath as based on the divine example [ii, 2, 3] is presented the ideal phase of human activity,—the re-collecting of the personal spirit from the distractions of the outer life into the calm of meditation; man is not at liberty completely to merge himself into earthly temporal cares,—should constantly have before him, in all his temporal activity, also the eternal as the true and highest good. The heathen either buries himself up in temporal activity and enjoyment, or contemptuously turns himself entirely away from the same; the saint of the Old Testament lives and acts in God’s good-created world, but does not merge himself into it,—withdraws himself from it into the Sabbath repose of a heart in communion with its God. In the simple feature of Sabbath observance itself, Old Testament morality presents itself in sharp and definite contrast to all heathen ethics, and places the moral task of man higher than the latter.

Hebrew ethics, however, does not linger, as was almost exclusively the case with heathen ethics, in the purely ideal sphere,—in the consideration of the good per se,—does not conceive of evil as a mere possibility or as a merely exceptional or isolated reality, or as a nature-necessity back of all human guilt (which are all, in fact, heathen views)—but looks evil earnestly and squarely in the face, and regards it as a sad, all-prevalent reality, the guilt of which lies in the free act of man, and is participated in by all without exception. The morality of the chosen people of God looks, therefore, not merely to a warding off and an avoiding of evil as a something as yet external to our heart, and merely threatening us, but to a zealous, constant combating of the same, not outside of us in an originally defective world, but within in the inmost guilt-laden heart of the subject himself. Sin is of historical origin,—an historical reality and power; and morality, the nature of which presents itself now quite predominantly as a vigorous combating against sin, appears also itself in a uniformly historical character,—is promoted and guided by a divine history-chain of ever richer-unfolding gracious guidances, and gives rise to a moral history, to a redemption-history, to a kingdom of God here upon earth inside of humanity,—at first, in faith and hope, and afterwards (after it has reached the goal promised by God from the very start, and embraced by the people with pious confidence, and kept constantly in view) in full, blissful reality. Heathenism knows indeed evil, knows vice, but it does not know sin, for sin is of a morally-historical character; hence it knows also of no historical overcoming of the same, no expecting, no preparing for, nor realization of, a kingdom of God in humanity; the Persians alone have an obscure presentiment thereof, perhaps not without a ray of light received from the people of God, with whom they were in contact, and whom, from their residence among them, they learned highly to esteem.

On the entrance of sin into the world there arises at once a separation among men between those who permit themselves to be fettered by sin and those who retain God and his salvation in view, between the children of the world and the children of God; God, however, looks in compassionate love also upon the former and plans for them a redemption, the world-historical preparation of which is confided to that people which He separates out from among the men of sin, and paternally guides; God separates to himself the man of faith,—him who trusts in God with rock-like firmness and cheerfully and unconditionally obeys his word even where he is unable to comprehend it and where it diametrically contradicts his own natural consciousness. God places before Abraham, from the very start, not a merely personal, but a world-historical goal: “In thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed” [Gen. xii, 3], and he repeats this promise again and again in progressively more definite features; as in Adam all die, so in Abraham are all nations to be blessed and to be brought to the Accomplisher of Salvation. For the first time in the history of humanity we find here, and in contrast to all heathendom, a definite world-historical goal of the moral life; not man, but God has established it in compassionating grace, and has sealed it in successive and progressively richer promises; and an individual man is elected to co-operate in the fulfilling of this promise, which is not given to him as an individual but to humanity,—to cooperate in such a sense as that this man, that this people itself, may become capable of really participating in the fruit of the redemption accomplished by the act of grace,—by becoming the maternal womb which is to bear and give birth to the Saviour. But the individual has part in this moral work only when he accepts the promise in faith, and it is only when he accepts the promise in faith, and only on the basis of this faith, that he is able to attain to true obedience of life.

This people, so strictly cut off from all the rest of the race, this people hated, oppressed, down-trodden by the rest of mankind, becomes thus, from the very beginning, of world-historical significance, in a much higher sense than any other pre-Christian people. The heathen nations which actively entered into and shaped history sought only themselves but not humanity; the Israelitic people, shut up exclusively to the promise and to faith,—a people already spiritually developed and molded into a moral organism before it had as yet where to lay its head, and which was as yet seeking its earthly home,—a spiritual people without any nature-basis, and which received its earthly home only as a gracious gift of God, conferred on moral conditions [Lev. xxv, 23],—this people, in its God-willed and commanded separation from all heathen nations, in its so often, even up to the present day, reproached “particularism,” was, after all, absolutely the only people which had in view, from the beginning, the true “universalism,” (namely, the salvation of collective humanity), as its highest goal, and which sought to do nothing else than to prepare the way for this salvation of humanity [Gen. xii, 3; xviii, 18; xxii, 18; xxvi, 4; Deut. xxxii, 43; 1 Chron. xvi, 23, 28; Isa. ii, 2 sqq.; xi, 10 sqq.; xxv, 6 sqq.; xlii, 1, 6; xlv, 20, 22, 23; xlix, 6; lii, 15; liv, 3; lv, 5; lx; lxi, 11; lxii, 2; lxv, 1; lxvi, 18 sqq.; Jer. iv, 2; xvi, 19; Amos ix, 11, 12; Hag. ii, 7 (8); Zech. ii, 11; vi, 15; viii, 20 sqq.; xiv, 16; Micah iv, 1 sqq.; Mal. i, 11; Psa. ii, 8; xviii, 49; lxvii, 2; lxxii, 8 sqq.; lxxxvi, 9, 10; xcvi, 7, 10; cii, 15; cxvii, 1]. The Israelites had therefore, from the very beginning, the deepest interest for history, and for the goal of history as clearly presented by prophetic promise; the divine prophetic benedictions upon the patriarchs relate much less to their own person than to the history of humanity as proceeding from them; the Hebrew is clearly conscious that all his moral striving contributes to conduct the God-guided current of history to the God-promised realization of salvation; instead of the gloomy, despairing tragic consciousness of the most highly cultured of all the heathen nations, we find here a full confidence in the ultimate fulfillment of the redemption longed-for by man and promised by God.

The Israelites have and could have this high world-historical mission only because they were made to conceive of themselves from the very beginning as, not a nature-people, but as a spiritual people which obtained for itself its natural prosperity only through moral fidelity. As the people of God, they name themselves not Hebrews, from their natural descent, nor yet from Abraham, nor from Isaac, nor indeed from Jacob’s first name, but from his later God-given name, Israel, which he received after he had wrestled with the angel [Gen. xxx, 24 sqq]. From Abraham and Isaac descend also other tribes, which do not belong to the people of God; only Jacob’s descendants belong all thereto. Nor is Jacob the progenitor of the people of God in his earlier self-willed and self-confiding life, but solely in his spiritually-transformed life, after that, praying and beseeching, he had wrestled, in bitter repentance, with Jehovah as offended at his many sins and deceits, and after that, in self-denying humility having put off all self-righteousness, he had thrown himself child-like at the feet of God and confided all his well-being to His blessing. It becomes the people of Israel, as a spiritual people, to have also a spiritual and not a merely natural man as their father, and the true bearing of this father to God is expressed in the words: “I will not let thee go unless thou bless me.” Whoever would belong to this spiritual people of God must divest himself of all his mere naturalness; this is symbolized by the covenant-token of the people with God, circumcision.

The Israelite, in his moral strivings, has the highest good hopefully and confidently in view, and not for the individual person alone, but for humanity.— The idea of the highest good, the fundamental thought of all morality, has, in the Old Testament history, a very distinct development. It appears in God’s promises, on the one hand, as a grace, and, on the other, as a reward for trusting fidelity,—neither of which is by any means to be separated from, or regarded as contradictory to, the other. In the first blessing after the creation, as we have already seen, the thought of the highest good is already indicated; by sin, however, the blessing is changed into a curse, the highest good is thrown into the far distant, and is only obscurely alluded to in the promise of the ultimate victory of the seed of the woman over the seed of the serpent [Gen. iii, 15], and henceforth the thought of the highest good is associated with the victory over evil, with redemption. And though mankind,—originally destined to possess the whole earth [Gen. i, 28; Matt. v, 5],—receive now merely in small numbers, as members of the people of God, only a very small space of the earth for their possession, yet is also this typical foretaste of the possession of the highest good associated at the same time with promises of victory over the sin-symbolizing heathen inhabitants thereof; the highest good even in its feeblest foretastes is conditioned on trustful struggle and victory. In the blessing upon Noah [Gen. ix] there are indicated as the highest good, in the first place, the multiplication of the human race through Noah, and the dominion over nature (now, after thle fall into sin, under a somewhat changed form), and, then, in the express covenant of God with Noah, the full personal communion of believing man with God. To Abraham, the prophetic benediction is essentially enlarged, including the multiplication of his family under God’s guidance, the guaranteeing of an earthly father-land as a gift of God, and the blessing of entire humanity through the people of God as springing from him. God had expressly called Abraham away from his natural father-land; he is to receive another one in its stead, one that is morally acquired from God’s hand through believing submission to God; all earthly good is to bear also a spiritual character, is to be an outgrowth from spiritual good; even the most natural earthly good, the home, is to be obtained as a grace in reward of faith. Homeless upon earth for several centuries, the people Israel are to find, first, their eternal home, so as, then, after having been trained by God’s hand, and ripened for his service through sufferings and submission, to receive an earthly one as a gift of grace; and this home is to be for them a symbol of the eternal one, a shadow of the highest good. Even in the first promise to Abraham, there beams out through this earthly good a faint gleam of the heavenly one: “in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed;” Abraham is to be, not merely by his example of faith, but also really, by his family, the beginning of a kingdom of God for entire humanity; to be himself in this kingdom of blessing, and this kingdom in him, this is, for him, the highest good. Exactly similar promises of temporal and likewise spiritual goods, God gives to Isaac and to Jacob [Gen. xxvi, 3-5; xxviii, 13-15; comp. xxxv, 9-11; xlviii, 4]; Isaac’s blessing upon his son Jacob relates, it is true, primarily only to temporal good [xxvii, 28, 29]; xxviii, 3, 4], but nevertheless with allusion to the higher good. It is true, temporal well-being [Gen. xxxix, 2, 3, 5, 23; Lev. xxvi, 3 sqq.; Deut. v, 29; vi, 3, 18, 24; vii, 13 sqq.; viii, 6 sqq.; xi, 9 sqq., 21 sqq.; xii, 28; xv, 4-6, 10; xxviii, 1 sqq., comp. Psa. lxxxi, 13, 14], and a continuance in the land, and long life [Exod. xx, 12; xxiii, 26; Deut. iv, 40; v, 33; vi, 2; xxx, 2 sqq.; xxxii, 47], are very often presented,—not indeed with reference merely to the individual, but also to the nation, as a divine blessing for pious fidelity,—as a high good and end; but as early as at the time of the actual conclusion of the covenant of God with the people on Sinai, the highest good appears as of a spiritual character: “If ye will obey my voice indeed and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people; for all the earth is mine; and ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” [Exod. xix, 5, 6]; the highest blessing is the peace of God [Num. vi, 26; Psa. xxix, 11], the love of God, the compassion of God, and his covenant with men [Deut. vii, 9, 12, 13; xiii, 17, 18], so that they “may live long” [Deut. v, 33] and that God might be their “righteousness” [vi, 25]; and in the first commandment: “I am the Lord thy God, thou shalt have no other gods before me” [Exod. xx, 2, 3], the objective phase of the highest good is definitely expressed; any thing else, save God, that man might regard as the highest good, is in fact but a worthless idol; and hence the rejection of the covenant of grace works an everlasting rejection of him who rejects it [1 Chron. xxviii, 9].

In view of this high spiritual conception of-the highest good, it appears as in the highest degree a surprising fact that the thought of a life after death is not directly brought to bear upon the moral life,—is not presented as a motive of action, or as a phase of the highest good,—a peculiarity that is all the more striking when we consider that the children of Israel had lived for four centuries in Egypt, and that Moses had been educated in the wisdom of this country, where precisely this thought of immortality very powerfully shaped the entire moral and religious life, and when we further consider that this thought itself was most unquestionably recognized among the children of Israel [Gen. v, 24; xv, 15; xxv, 8; xxxvii. 35; xlix, 26, 29, 33; Deut. xxxi, 16; xxxii, 50; 1 Sam. xxviii; Job xxvi, 5; 2 Kings ii; Psa. xvi, 10; xlix, 15; Prov. xv, 24], as it would also be naturally presumable that a people which places so high a value upon the personality, could not be ignorant of this thought, which so largely prevailed throughout heathendom. This manifestly intentional placing in the back-ground of the thought of immortality as bearing upon the moral life, is to be explained from the peculiarity of the purpose which God had with this nation, in view of the salvation of mankind.—(1.) The people of Israel is a world-historical one as no other ante-Christian people was; the entire hopes and striving of the nation are directed toward the ultimate salvation of the human race as the highest goal; the primarily feeble, but constantly more definite-growing Messianic thought throws temporarily into the back-ground the interest in future life of the individual person. The entire hope of Israel looks forward to the highest good, the true salvation, but this highest good consists, even for the pious Israelite, only in the future redemption that is to be accomplished by a world-historical divine act; the Redeemer had first to spring from the line of David before the life after death could have real worth for the saint, or be his highest good; before this event, the transmundane life was a beclouded one, not only for the consciousness, but also per se,—was not as yet a truly blissful life in the presence of God [Psa. vi, 5; xlix, 15 sqq.; lxxxviii, 10-13; cxv, 17; Isa. xxxviii, 18]. As Abraham rejoiced that he should see the day of the Lord [John viii, 56], so also longed Abraham’s seed for this day, from which time forth, only, the life after death could be a truly blessed one. The saints of the Old Covenant did not pass their lives as having no hope, but their hope was primarily an historical one,—was fixed upon the historical fulfillment of the promises, and aspired toward a heavenly home only from, and on the basis of, this fulfillment.—(2.) Though for the redeemed Christian the thought of a future life is a very important element of his moral consciousness, nevertheless for the as yet not truly regenerated man there lies in the same no inconsiderable danger, namely, the danger of selfish reward-seeking, of a narrow-hearted directing of his moral striving exclusively toward his personal well-being instead of toward the salvation of humanity. Though the saints of the Old Covenant participated in many gracious gifts, so that they cannot be regarded as merely natural men, still, they were not as yet in the highest sense spiritually regenerated; and, in fact, in the necessary redemption-preparing requirement of strict obedience to the objectively-given law, they stood all the more exposed to this danger of regarding their future salvation as a reward for good works, as is actually evinced by the rise of Pharisaism. From this danger God preserved the Hebrews, in that while He indeed promised them a gracious reward for their fidelity, He yet presented as such reward, on the one hand, only such goods as most evidently could not be, for the pious, the highest good, and, on the other hand, the fulfillment of the divine promises within the sphere of history, namely, redemption, so that they were necessarily brought to the consciousness that the highest good was not the reward of their own works, but the fruit of a future divine act of grace.

Although the law had essentially also the purpose of awakening the consciousness of the antagonism of the sinful nature of man against the holy will of God, thus implying that the full consciousness of the sinful perversion of human nature was a state that had as yet to be attained to, nevertheless this consciousness exists from the very beginning, and that too very vividly, as we shall hereafter see; and it is especially noteworthy that notwithstanding the high reverence which the Israelites had for their patriarchs and for the prophets of God, still they were very far from regarding them as moral ideals. It is true, there are mentioned pious and just men, such as Enoch and Noah; and the faithfulness of Abraham shines forth typically even into the New Covenant; but they are never presented as real holy types of morality, (not even in Gen. xxvi, 4, 5; 2 Chron. vii, 17; Mal. ii, 15); on the contrary, the historical records relate, even of the most revered characters, manifold sins, and sins which the Israelites unquestionably regarded as such; thus, for example, of Abraham [Gen. xii, 11 sqq.; xx, 2 sqq.], and of Jacob [xxvii, 14 sqq.; xxxi, 20], and of Reuben, of Simeon and Levi [xxxiv, 14 sqq.; xxxv, 22; xlix, 14 sqq.]; and of the other sons of Jacob [xxxvii]; and of Judah, the ancestor of the kings, there is recorded scarcely any thing but evil; he even begets Pharez—from whom David, and hence also the Messiah, were to descend—in unconscious incest and conscious whoredom [xxxviii]; Moses slays the Egyptian and buries him secretly, and this was also certainly regarded as a crime [Exod. ii, 11 sqq.]; he resists faint-heartedly the divine call, [Exod. iii and iv] and subsequently wavers in his faith, and is, for that reason, shut out from the Land of Promise [Num. xx, 7 sqq.; Deut. xxxii, 49 sqq.]; and that which is said to him holds good in another sense of all the saints of the Old Covenant, namely: “thou shalt see the land before thee, but thou shalt not enter into it;” and however pre-eminent David and Solomon are in courageous faith and in wisdom, still they were- not pure examples even for the Israelites; the Israelites knew of only one Servant of God who was perfect and pure and holy, namely, the longed-for Anointed of the Lord. And accordingly the saints of the Old Covenant kept themselves far from all self-glorification, and aspired to a higher goal. The undevout self-righteousness and work-holiness of the later Pharisaism is totally repugnant to the spirit of the Old Covenant; for the law requires most certainly not merely the outward work, but above all and essentially also a morally-pious disposition,—bears, in contradistinction to the later Jewish outward legality, a very positive character of inwardliness. The basis and essence of all morality are the requirement, that man “should love God with all his heart, with all his soul, and with all his might” [Deut. vi, 5; x, 12; xiii, 3]; he is to take the divine law to his heart, and to observe it with his whole heart and his whole soul [Deut. v, 29; vi, 6; xi, 13; 18 sqq.; xxvi, 16; xxx, 2; Josh. xxii, 5]; God desires not merely the external works, he requires our heart [1 Chron. xxii, 19; Prov. xxiii, 26]; the saint not only fulfills the law, but “his delight is in the law of the Lord” [Psa. i, 2; cxii, 1; cxix, 24, 35, 70; Job xxii, 22, 26; Deut. xxviii, 47]; and all obedience is simply joyous thankfulness for God's gracious guidance [Exod. xx, 2 sqq.; Deut. iv and v; vi, 20 sqq.; viii, 3 sqq.; x, 19 sqq.; xi, 1; xv, 15; xvi, 12; 1 Chron. xxix, 9 and others]; and therefore not merely the sinful act, but equally also the lust to evil, is sinful and damnable [Exod. xx, 17; Prov. vi, 25].

Old Testament morality has essentially a preparatory character,—refers forward to a higher and as yet to be acquired morality; hence it bears in part a symbolical form,—expressing by external signs, that, the full realization of which, was possible only after the time of the accomplishment of redemption, and thereby constantly keeping before the eyes of the people what the ultimate moral purpose of the divine economy with Israel was,—although this purpose could not as yet be fully realized. In order to keep constantly awake and to intensify the moral consciousness of the antagonism of the divine will to the sinful nature which had now become natural to actual man, the antagonism of the “clean” and the “unclean” is rigorously insisted upon and carried out, and that too not merely in the sphere of the purely spiritual and moral, but also in that of nature, where the moral is only symbolically prefigured. Man is required to learn, in free obedience, to distinguish and choose between the godly and the ungodly, and that too not according to his natural impulses and feelings, nor by the merely reflective observation and examination of things, but solely by the minutely-particularizing positive divine law. To man, as not yet actually redeemed and sanctified, but as yet involved and entangled in the bonds of sinfulness, the law presents itself, and properly so, as of an objectively-revealed character, as foreign to his natural state, and to which there is nothing correspondent in his inner nature unless it be a loving willingness to unconditional obedience. Educative disciplining to obedience is the essential end of many of the positive laws, which must consequently appear to the truly emancipated and redeemed as a. yoke, whereas, for him who is only as yet struggling toward freedom, they are a wholesome discipline.

Old Testament morality presents a moral task not only to the individual person, but it also keeps in view, from the very start, the necessity of moral communion. It conceives of the moral significance of the. family more highly than any of the heathen systems; in giving to reverence for parents a religious ground, it guarantees at the same time the moral rights of children as against sinful parents; and if it is not as yet able to raise marriage to the height of the Christian view, inasmuch as only the truly spiritually-regenerated are in a condition to appreciate and fulfill its full significance [Matt. v, 31; xix, 8], nevertheless it does give to it the truly religious and moral basis. It changes the slavery of Israelites into a very mild service-relation, and protects, by extremely humane regulations, that of non-Israelites from arbitrary and severe oppressiveness. The differences among mankind are no longer natural, but spiritually-moral; even foreign slaves have part in the worship and in the blessings of the people of God. The moral organization of society into the state is presented in the Old Testament, from the very start, in its highest moral significancy, as a unity of church and state—as a theocracy—in which the entire moral community-life of the people rests on a religious basis,—in which Jehovah alone is king, and the God-called and enlightened prophets the organs of his will,—organs to whom the people submit themselves in believingly joyous obedience. But here also, as well as in the case of marriage, God gives simply the unambiguous idea, and, because of the hardness of the hearts, concedes another state-organization more correspondent to the sinful circumstances of the people, namely, the purely human institution of an earthly monarchy,—reserving the full realization of the higher idea, for the future. But even this earthly kingdom is to be an image of the divine kingdom, and the kings, the faithful instruments of the holy will of God-kings “after God’s own heart;” the Old Testament recognizes neither despotic nor democratic caprice-domination as morally admissible. Of all this we must speak again further on.

As Old Testament redemption-history presents essentially an educative preparation for the historical accomplishing of the redemption-act, hence it is clearly manifest that this preparation must be a historically-progressive one, and that consequently Old Testament ethics itself must have an historical development. This, as yet, very unsatisfactorily-treated portion of Biblical theology cannot, however, be fully presented in the brief space to which the plan of our historical Introduction confines us; we therefore remark here only two points, (1), that the essential character of the moral view (and the question is here simply as to essential features) is contradictory to the heathen view, and different from the Christian, and, throughout all the writings of the Old Testament, self-consistent and the same: and, (2), that the prophetic redemption-history is closely connected with the legislative, seeing that Moses himself was the greatest among the prophets. The prophets, in the narrower sense of the word, do not give an essentially new moral revelation, but, on the contrary, uniformly proceed on the basis of that of Moses,—referring, on the one hand, exhortingly to its requirements, and rebuking the unfaithfulness of the people to its spirit, but, on the other, directing attention with constantly greater distinctness to the goal of this moral development-process of the people of Israel, that is, to their world historical destination,—and, above all, they seek to ward against the danger of legal holiness and self-sufficiency, the danger of the selfish contentment of the single moral subject with his own individual development,—which lies in every strictly-developed system of laws,—that is, against the danger of a merely external performing of the works of the law, as was at a later period actually presented in Pharisaism; they earnestly urged to the inner purity of the heart, and bring to an increasingly clearer consciousness the morality that transcends that of the mere individual, namely, the general moral task of the totality, of the people of God. While the earlier ethics has more the character of a doctrine of laws and duties, the ethics of the prophets bears rather that of a doctrine of goods.—The Proverbs of Solomon, in contrast to the Mosaic Laws which present themselves as direct revelations from God, consist predominantly in rules of practical life-wisdom and life-prudence, drawn from the rich life-experience of a heart pious, though indeed often erring, and strengthened and ripened in the true fear of God; they appeal therefore less to a believing submission to an express divine command than rather to the free spontaneous assent, natural to a pious God-consciousness; they aim not at the disciplining of a, as yet, morally immature spirit by a legal yoke, but at the purifying, ripening and moral strengthening of the spirit as already consciously dwelling in God; they are not the sternly demanding voice of a prophet, but the witness of a preacher; it is not directly Jehovah, but it is the pious servant of God, who speaks to the pious, In Moses the question is every-where as to obedience; with Solomon the constant theme is wisdom, a quality which is scarcely mentioned by Moses, and for the simple reason that the discipline of the law needed to precede and prepare the way, before the free subjectivity of wisdom could come to realization. This coming into the fore-ground of the thought of wisdom evinces the progress of the moral consciousness out of the child-like condition of subjection to an objective law, to the riper manhood of a freer self-determination on the basis of personal moral knowledge. Wisdom is here by no means mere worldly prudence, but its beginning and essence is the “fear of the Lord” [Prov. i, 7], and complete, hearty, God-confiding is its life-spring [iii, 5; xvi], and soul-repose and God’s approbation its fruit [iii, 12, 18, 22 sqq.; viii, 17, 35; xv, 24; xxviii]; and hence for individual man it is the highest good [iii, 13 sqq]. This wisdom is very far removed from the “magnanimous” wisdom of the Greeks; it takes cognizance above all things of the sinfulness of the natural heart, and requires watchfulness over the same [iv, 23] and humility before God and man [iii, 34; xi, 2; xvi, 18; xviii, 12; xxvii, 2; xxix, 23]. While in the Solomonic Proverbs there is a manifest elevating of Mosaic legality toward the personal freedom of the pious sage, still it is not to be overlooked that there lies in the stand-point they assume, as in contrast to the Mosaic, also the danger that the subjective presumption of the individual person may rise to an unwarranted height, and work detriment to the true heart-humility that springs from a consciousness of one’s own want of conformity to the law. And it is not unworthy of note that the Christian consciousness of the Apostles found much less occasion to appeal to the wisdom of man; they discourse far preferably of self-denying, humbly loving faith.—The Ecclesiastes of Solomon, after referring to the comfortless experience of a heart temporarily immersed in world-enjoyment, totally overthrows all world-pleasure and the vain hope of finding in the finite any real good; the mere negative knowledge that “all is vanity” prepares the way for a seeking after the true, the highest good, which, however, is but remotely suggested [Eccles. xii, 7, 13] but not fully presented; the skepticism, at first sight so seemingly wide-reaching and so entirely despairing of satisfaction, has a back-ground of very profound educative wisdom.

In the fact that the moral is not derived from the natural conscience of man, seeing that the conscience is no longer the pure expression of the original God-consciousness, but that, on the contrary, the historically-revealed will of God is the exclusive source of the moral command, there lies an essential reason why Hebrew ethics did not develop itself into a philosophy; the very thought of such a philosophy conflicts with the fundamental presuppositions of the Old Testament consciousness. The time had not yet come when the conscience, and human knowledge in general, had so far become free as to derive truth also from within themselves. As yet man was called simply believingly to obey, but not freely and philosophically to create.

SECTION XXVIII.

The Old Testament Apocryphal Books,

Comp. Stäudlin: Gesch. der Sittenl. Jesu, i, 358; Cramer: Moral der Apokr., 1814; (also in Keil and Tzschirner’s Analekten, 1814, ii, 1, 2,); Räbiger: Ethica libe apocr., 1838; Keerl: Die Apokr. d. A. T., 1852, somewhat unfair; comp. Hengstenberg: Für Beibehaltung der Apokr.

The moral thoughts of the Apocrypha give clear evidence of some degree of obscuration of the consciousness of redemption-history, both in respect to its presupposition, namely, the fall and its consequences, and in regard to its true nature in the Ancient Covenant, and also in regard to its historical goal—the expected redemption-act by Christ. With the obscuration of this thought go naturally enough hand in hand a manifest coming into the fore-ground of a certain holiness by works, in the manner of the heathen moralists [comp. Sirach iii, 16, 17 (14, 15), 33 (30); xxix, 15-17 (12, 13); xvii, 18 (22) sqq.], a one-sided laudation of wisdom and righteousness in obliviousness of the question whether indeed there are any such wise and righteous persons to be found, and also in many respects a proud self-satisfaction with one’s own wisdom and virtue, together with a censorious and contemptuous looking-down upon the unwise and unrighteous many,—a certain coldly-rational self-complacent tone, especially in Sirach,—a suspicious complaining and an almost bigoted abstaining from true love-communion with others [comp. Sirach xi, 30 (29) sqq.; xii; xiii; xxv, 10 (7); xxx, 6; xxxiii, 25; sqq.],—a zealous cautioning against the wickedness and falseness of others instead of a warning against the wickedness and deceptiveness of one’s own heart; and there is frequently a manifest lack of the proper humility of the truly self-understanding conscience; and the obtaining of personal happiness is often presented too one-sidedly as a direct motive to virtue, so that the ethical view is sometimes tinged with a shallow utilitarianism [comp. Sirach xiv, 14 sqq.].—The book of Wisdom, showing traces of Alexandrino-Piatonic influences, and accordingly containing the four Greek virtues [viii, 7]. does not keep far clear of work-holy boasting [ e. g. vii and viii]; and though it admits the sinful corruption and weakness of all men [ix; xii, 10 sqq.; xiii, 1 sqq.; ii, 24], it yet brings them into a false connection with theories from other sources [viii, 19, 20; ix, 15; e. g., pre-existence of the soul, and dualistic relation of the body as an essential trammeling of the soul]. The book of Sirach gives expression both to a deep piety and to a rich practical life-experience, and though in the eyes of Rationalism it is the most valuable book of the Old Testament, it is still very far superior to modern Rationalistic shallowness [comp. xxv, 32 (24); xl, 15, 16; xli, 8 (5), sqq.; viii, 6 (5)]; it manifests, however, on the other hand, also a want of depth in its view of sinfulness and of the need of redemption [comp. xv, 15-17; xxxii, 27 (Septuagint, xxxv, 23); xxxvii, 17 (13); li, 18 (13) sqq.], and often places the outward ungenerous prudence-rules of a distrustful understanding in the stead of higher moral ideas [e. g. viii, 1 sqq.; xlii, 6, 7], and, as differing from the book of Wisdom, alludes to no supernatural goal of morality in a transmundane life; it may indeed teach the spiritually regenerated much moral life-wisdom and prudent rational foresight, but it cannot bring the natural man to self-acquaintance and humility. From the stand-point of Christian ethics, this book is very far remote; the essence of love is unknown to it. The book of Judith presents in narrative form a highly questionable morality [ix, 2 sqq.; comp. Gen. xxxiv; xlix, 5-7].

As in Sirach the vigorously-growing tree of Old Testament ethics begins to show signs of failing vitality, so in the Talmud (A. D. 200-600) we find the dead and decayed or petrified trunk.

Mishna translated by Rabe, 1760, 6 vols.—Talmud Babli, the Babylonian Talmud, by Pinner, 1842.—Schulchan Aruch by Löwe, 1836, 4 vols.—Fassel: Die mosaisch-rabbin. Tugend-u. Pflichtenl., 2 ed., 1842.

Observation. Islamism,—which finds its place in the history of the religious and moral spirit not as a vital organic member, but as violently interrupting the course of this history, and which is to be regarded as an attempt of heathenism to maintain itself erect, under an outward monotheistic form, against Christianity, and to arm the entire unbroken essence of the natural man against the spirit of an inner new-birth,—has indeed given rise to a peculiar ethical system, though one which has so little of depth peculiar to itself, that we need here only allude to it in passing.

Imm. Berger: Ueber die Moral des Koran in Stäudlin’s Beiträge zur Phil., v, 250, (1799), superficial.—Weil: Mohammed, 1843.—Sprenger: Leben u. Lehre des Moh., 1862.

SECTION XXIX.

In Christianity alone morality and ethics are enabled to reach their perfection,—the former being perfected in the person of Christ himself, the latter being in process of self-perfection in the progressive intellectual activity of the church.—The subjective and the objective grounds of morality are given, in Christianity, in full sufficiency. On the one hand, the moral subject has attained to a fill consciousness of sin, of its general sway, of its historical significancy, and of its guilt; on the other, he has, by redemption, become free from his bondage under sin. and risen again to moral freedom,—has again attained to the possibility of accomplishing his moral task. On the one hand, the objective ground of the moral—God—is now for the first, perfectly, personally and historically revealed to man, and God’s will not merely manifested in unclouded clearness in his Word and through the historical appearance of the Redeemer himself, but also, by the holy, divine Spirit as imparted to the redeemed, written into their hearts; on the other, this God stands no longer in violent antithesis to the sin-estranged creature, but is in Christ reconciled with him, and, as a graciously loving Father, is present to him and in constant sanctifying and strengthening life-communion with him.

The goal of morality has become an other,—has risen from the state of hope to a constantly-growing reality. God-sonship is not placed simply at the remote termination of the moral career, but is from the very beginning already present; the Christian strives not merely in moral aspiration toward it, but lives and acts in it and as inspired by it; he cannot possibly live or act morally if he is not already God’s child; he has his goal already from the very beginning as a blessed reality, and his further goal is in fact simply fidelity in this God-sonship,—a sinking deeper into it, a strengthening and purifying of it by a constantly greater triumphing over the sinfiul nature which yet clings to the Christian, namely, the “flesh” which lusts against the spirit; and for collective humanity the moral goal is and has been realizing itself from the beginning in ever increasing fullness, namely, in the fact that all nation-separating barriers progressively fall away, and that the Word of life increasingly assumes form in the God-fearing of all nationalities,—constituting the kingdom of God in its gradual rising to full historical reality in a universal Christian church.

The essence of morality has risen from the stage of the obedience of a faithful servant to that of the loving, confiding freedom of the children of God. Man has the command no longer as a merely outward, purely objective one, uncongenial to his subjective nature, but as an inward one dwelling within him, and as become his personal possession, and hence as no longer a yoke, a burden, but as an inner power at one with his personality itself. Man lives and acts no longer as a mere individual subject, but he lives and acts in full life-communion with the Redeemer, and through him with God,—by virtue, on the one hand, of the love of faith, and, on the other, of the gift of the Spirit: I live, and yet not I, but Christ lives in me. Tile moral idea is not a mere revealed Word, it is the Son of God as become man, the personal Redeeter himself, not merely in his truth-unvailing doctrine, not merely in his truth-revealing Spirit, but pre-eminently in his person itself, both as the historical, pure example of all holiness, as also as the One who is with us always even to the end of the world.—Love to that God who is manifested in redemption as himself the highest love, is the motive of the moral life—its essence and its power; it is a life of holy communion in every respect,—a life in and with God, a life with the children of God and in the communion of the redeemed.—The morality of hope has passed over into a morality of the joyous victory-consciousness,—is rather an actual manifestation of the already-attained, grace-awarded highest good, than a mere longing, aspiring after it. The ideal goal of morality is not in the least of a doubtful character, but is absolutely assured. While the fundamental feeling of the heathen virtue-sage is that of a proud self-consciousness of personal merit, the fundamental feeling of the Christian is the feeling of grace-accepting, thankful, loving humility; while the fundamental virtue of the Greeks is self-acquired wisdom, that of Christian morality is child-like faith in God’s loving revelation both in Word and in historical act.