Christianity and Ethics | Page 9

is apt to limit its consideration to merely selfish and material ends.
V. While Ethics is thus closely connected with the sciences just named, there are two departments of knowledge, pre-supposed indeed in all mental studies, which in a very intimate way affect the science of Ethics. These are Metaphysics on the one hand and Psychology on the other.
1. Metaphysics is pre-supposed by all the sciences; and indeed, all our views of life, even our simplest experiences, involve metaphysical assumptions. It has been well said that the attempt to construct an ethical theory without a metaphysical basis issues not in a moral science without assumptions, but in an Ethics which becomes confused in philosophical doubts. Leslie Stephen proposes to ignore Metaphysics, and remarks that he is content 'to build upon the solid earth.' But, as has been pertinently asked, 'How does he know that the earth is solid on which he builds?' This is a question of Metaphysics.[7] The claim is frequently made by a certain class of writers, that we withdraw ourselves from all metaphysical sophistries, and betake ourselves to the guidance of commonsense. But what is this commonsense of which the ordinary man vaunts himself? It is in reality a number of vague assumptions borrowed unconsciously from old exploded theories--assertions, opinions, beliefs, accumulated, no one knows how, {18} and accepted as settled judgments.[8] We do not escape philosophy by refusing to think. Some kind of theory of life is implied in such words, 'soul,' 'duty,' 'freedom,' 'power,' 'God,' which the unreflecting mind is daily using. It is useless to say we can dispense with philosophy, for that is simply to content ourselves with bad philosophy. 'To ignore the progress and development in the history of Philosophy,' says T. H. Green,[9] 'is not to return to the simplicity of a pre-philosophic age, but to condemn ourselves to grope in the maze of cultivated opinion, itself the confused result of these past systems of thought which we will not trouble ourselves to think out.' The aim of all philosophy, as Plato said, is just to correct the assumptions of the ordinary mind, and to grasp in their unity and cohesion the ultimate principles which the mind feels must be at the root of all reality. We have an ethical interest in determining whether there be any moral reality beneath the appearances of the world. Ethical questions, therefore, run back into Metaphysics. If we take Metaphysics in its widest sense as involving the idea of some ultimate end, to the realisation of which the whole process of the world as known to us is somehow a means, we may easily see that metaphysical inquiry, though distinct from ethical, is its necessary pre-supposition. The Being or Purpose of God, the great first cause, the world as fashioned, ordered and interpenetrated by Him, and man as conditioned by and dependent upon the Deity--are postulates of the moral life and must be accepted as a basis of all ethical study. The distinction between Ethics and Philosophy did not arise at once. In early Greek speculation, almost to the time of Aristotle, Metaphysics and Morals were not separated. And even in later times, Spinoza and to some extent Green, though they professedly treat of Ethics, hardly dissociate metaphysical from ethical considerations. Nor is that to be wondered at when men are dealing with the first principles of all being and life. Our view of God and of the {19} world, our fundamental Welt-Anschauung cannot but determine our view of man and his moral life. In every philosophical system from Plato to Hegel, in which the universe is regarded as having a rational meaning and ultimate end, the good of human beings is conceived as identical with, or at least as included in the universal good.
2. But if a sound metaphysical basis be a necessary requisite for the adequate consideration of Ethics, Psychology as the science of the human soul is so vitally connected with Ethics, that the two studies may almost be treated as branches of one subject. An Ethic which takes no account of psychological assumptions would be impossible. Consciously or unconsciously every treatment of moral subjects is permeated by the view of the soul or personality of man which the writer has adopted, and his meaning of conduct will be largely determined by the theory of human freedom and responsibility with which he starts. Questions as to character and duty invariably lead to inquiries as to certain states of the agent's mind, as to the functions and possibilities of his natural capacities and powers. We cannot pronounce an action morally good or bad until we have determined the extent and limits of his faculties and have investigated the questions of disposition and purpose, of intention and motive, which lie at the root of all