Introductory: What Is Ethic?
Ne feature of the teaching of our Lord about
which there can be no mistake is, that He was an ethical teacher. This lies on the very surface; for, let the reader open the record of His words where he will, it is on an ethical matter that he comes. The Sermon on the Mount, for example, is filled with this element from beginning to end. If there be matter of a different kind in the words of Jesus, it has to be sought for, and does not lie on the surface. Of course it is possible that the element which is the less conspicuous may be the more important; in which case we shall have to seek for it as for hidden treasure. But the element which is the more copious has a claim of its own on this very account; and we may begin with some attempt to define its character and scope.
In looking about for a clue to guide us in arranging the vast mass of the ethical teaching of Jesus, it is natural to try, first, the division of this kind of matter adopted by systematic thinkers in the ethical sphere. Now, from of old it has been under-THE ETHIC OF JESUS
stood that the science of Ethics is concerned with three subjects — the Highest Good, Virtue and Duty — and, by a brief consideration of these ancient philosophical terms, or their modern equivalents, we may obtain some preliminary notion of the extent of the field within which Jesus is to be our teacher, and we may find a clue for the arrangement of our materials.
First, then, let us consider which topics come within the range of the Highest Good.
In speaking of the Highest Good as the theme of Ethics, Aristotle observes: “Every art and every kind of inquiry, and likewise every act and purpose, seems to aim at some good; and, since there are many kinds of actions, and many arts and sciences, it follows that there are many ends also. E.g ., health is the end of medicine, ships of shipbuilding, victory of the art of war, and wealth of economy. But, when several of these are subordinated to some one art or science, as the making of bridles and other trappings to the art of horsemanship, and this in turn, along with all else that a soldier does, to the art of war, and so on, then the end of the master-art is always more desired than the end of the subordinate arts, since these are pursued for its sake. And, if in what we do there be some end which we wish for on its own account, choosing all the others as means to this, this will evidently be the best of all things.
And surely from a practical point of view it much more concerns us to know this good; for then, like archers shooting at a definite mark, we shall be more likely to attain what we want.” *
When, in the Middle Ages, the teaching of Aristotle was revived, it was in the Latin language that men taught and learned; and the term employed to express Aristotle’s ideal was summum bonuniy which, accordingly, became a constant topic of discussion among moralists. Pursuing the same line of reflection as Aristotle, we may say that in life there are thousands of good things. There may be a separate one for every day and for every situation; but the smaller ones run up into the larger, and the lower into the higher; and there must be at the top one supreme good, to the attainment of which all the rest serve as means. To determine what this is may seem to require a great effort of abstract thought; but it is, indeed, a very practical question. No human being ought to be willing to live and die without tasting the very best which life can afford. The very humblest may, in moments of meditation, inquire, With what purpose has my Maker sent me into the world? what is the object, which, if secured, will make life a success but, if missed, will make it a failure? This, however, is nothing else but the ultimate problem of Ethics.
* Nicomachean Ethics (Peters’ translation), i. i, 2. Some sentences omitted.
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In the foregoing extract from Aristotle, it may be observed that the word “end” is sometimes employed as an equivalent for the substantive “good”; and “chief end” has sometimes been used in English as a synonym for “highest good,” with the result that the idea involved has been made familiar to sections of the population not generally conversant with philosophical speculations. Especially has this been the case in Scotland, where the first question of the Shorter Catechism, u What is man’s chief end?” has for centuries been nearly the first thing learned in the home or the school. It will bear a great deal of reflection why this should have been the first question proposed for every young mind to ponder. It seems to imply at least that the chief end or highest good is something which profoundly concerns everyone; so that even the youngest should, at the earliest opportunity, have their attention directed to it. It is true, there are questions which ought to be asked and answered at the very commencement of life but, in the majority of cases, are not put till its close; and this may be one of them. In point of fact, those who have reflected with any earnestness on the subject may be few in number. Yet it is the prerogative of a thinking being to know for what end he has been sent into the world, and why he is now alive; and those who have ever reflected deeply on such questions at all will probably reflect on them with growing interest a§ the years go by, and be found still brooding on them even in old age. The saying of Thomas Carlyle, in later life, is well known, that he was often thinking of the first question he had learned out of the Shorter Catechism and of the wonderful answer to it.
Both the Highest Good and Man’s Chief End may be phrases from which the modern man has grown away; but the idea expressed by them is one that can never grow old and for which every generation will have to find substitutes of its own. In modern phraseology, perhaps, the commonest phrase for the same notion would be the Ideal of Human Life. At present the need of ideals is widely recognised. Though the majority may have none which they have avowed to themselves, yet all have them who have thought seriously about life. It is no easy matter, indeed, to keep hold of an ideal; it slips away amidst the excitements of society and the pre¬ occupations of business; it is compromised amidst the onsets of temptation and the accesses of passion; but it must be recaptured and set up as the signal and standard of everyone who has not abandoned the struggle for a life which is more than mere existence. Now, he who has an ideal ought to be able to name it; and to do so correctly is the purpose of Ethics.
Secondly, let us consider the range of topics which would be embraced under a discussion of Virtue.
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Virtue was a great word in the ancient world; and in modern times also it has sometimes held a prominent place in discussions of this nature. Of late, however, it has rather lost popularity, for reasons which we need not stop at present to investigate; and other terms would now be substituted in its room. Of these the commonest is Character; and everyone would understand what was meant by the statement that the formation of character was the theme of Ethics. Indeed, two books on Ethics bearing this title have been published within the last few years.* Not only, however, would Character be now preferred, as a name, to Virtue, but the modern mind would assign it a more sacred position and a higher value. To Aristotle the welfare of the State was the supreme object, and, in his philosophical scheme, Ethics formed a branch of politics. To him personal character was important, but only as a means to an end — as the means of producing an effective citizen. To the modern mind, on the contrary, character is an ultimate good, sacred above all other objects and deserving of pursuit for its own sake. To the ancient mind virtue appeared desirable in citizens, because a state composed of virtuous citizens is strong; by the modern mind every political arrangement is tested by the kind of man it produces.
* One of these, Maccunn’s The Making of Character, is, I can vouch, well worth reading.
Character is the one possession that is elevated above the vicissitudes of fortune. Everything else may be lost; but, if this remain, he to whom it belongs has still the best of life. To an ancient Greek, success in life was inconceivable without a certain amount of good fortune; but, the moment character is recognised in its absolute worth, it becomes evident that what is called misfortune may be no less advantageous than good fortune; be¬ cause character is developed by losses and crosses no less than by prosperity. Indeed, while prosperity tempts to the relaxation of moral effort, adversity makes the foolish not infrequently consider; and the very finest developments of character are rarely attained without a considerable amount of suffering. This places the whole of the less fortunate side of experience in a new light and breaks the force of merely worldly considerations.
Life is simply everyone’s chance of obtaining character; and the life of everyone will, at its close, be pronounced a success or a failure, not on account of the material objects he has accumulated or the pleasant sensations he has enjoyed, but on account of that which he has become. By this, we have reason to believe, his station and degree will be fixed in the eternal world; but, at any previous stage, it will always, to a person gifted with sufficient reflection, seem to be a question of supreme moment to ask, “Am I a good man or a bad?” and especially,
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“Am I becoming better or worse?” The answer to this question, given from point to point in any one’s career, is his real history.
Still, the ancient way of thinking and speaking of character as virtue had its advantages, and among these this one especially, that the term Virtue suggested the virtues of which it was composed. These were the elements which go to the formation of a good character; and in classical times they were reckoned to be four — namely, wisdom, temperance, courage and justice. Ancient systems of Ethics largely consist of the definition and description of these virtues, with illustrations of their action in the lives of the heroes of Greek and Roman history. Later, the three Christian virtues — faith, hope and love — were added to the pagan ones; and human excellence was believed to consist in the harmonious blending of all seven. This is, for example, the scheme of the great ethical work of Thomas Aquinas, which forms the second half of his Sumnia; and extraordinary ingenuity is shown by this greatest of the schoolmen in bringing the whole circle of human life within this survey.
While, however, the details of character require to be exhibited one by one, it is still more necessary to trace back the virtues to virtue itself. There is a unity of character as well as a multiplicity of characteristics. And here our modern term has the advantage. Philosophers have discussed the ques* tion, whether virtue or the virtues be the prius, and they have leaned towards the latter alternative; but Christian philosophy would incline in the opposite direction, for it lays supreme stress on motives; and there must be at work one motive, simple, pure and commanding, in the formation of any character entitled to be reckoned good or great.
Aristotle has some penetrative remarks on the mode in which virtue is acquired and perfected. “None of the virtues,” he observes,” is implanted in us by nature; for that which is by nature cannot be altered by training. For instance, a stone naturally tends to fall downwards, and you could not train it to rise upwards, though you tried to do so by throwing it up ten thousand times; nor could you train fire to move downwards, nor accustom anything which naturally behaves in one way to behave in any other way. Where we do things by nature, we get the power first, and put this power forth in act afterwards; as we plainly see in the case of the senses; for it is not by constantly seeing and hearing that we acquire these faculties; but, on the contrary, we had the power first and then used it, instead of acquiring the power by use. But the virtues we acquire by doing the acts, as is the case with the arts also. It is by harping that good harpers and bad harpers are produced; and so with builders and the rest; by building well they will become good builders, and bad builders by building badly. And it is just the
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same with the virtues also. It is by our conduct in our intercourse with other men that we become just or unjust, and by acting in circumstnnces of danger and training ourselves to feel fear or confidence that we become courageous or cowardly. So, too, with our animal appetites and the passion of anger; for, by behaving in this way or that on the occasions with which these passions are concerned, some become temperate and gentle, and others profligate and ill-tempered. In a word, acts of any kind produce habits or character of the same kind. Hence we ought to make sure that our acts be of a certain kind, because the resulting character varies as they vary.” *
Although instinct with wisdom, these remarks raise many questionable points, which go down to the very foundations; but on the discussion of these I need not now enter, the mere words of the passage being sufficient to indicate the vast scope of the inquiry; and this is all at which I am at present aiming.
Thirdly, we come to the topics embraced in the notion of Duty.
This is undoubtedly the mode of conceiving Ethics which falls in most with popular habits of thought. In even the rudest states of society, long before any such ideas as the Highest Good and Virtue have formed themselves in the public mind, there exist
* Nicomachean Ethics, ii. I. Some sentences omitted. certain impressions of things that ought not to be done; and the earliest attempts at legislation are designed to fix these firmly in the public mind. Laws like those of the Twelve Tables at Rome or those of Solon at Sparta are hung up in the market¬ place, that they may wear themselves into the minds of the citizens through constant repetition; or the world is put in possession of a code like the Ten Commandments, which, when lodged in the memory, easily suggests a hundred details of duty.
Duty always presupposes a table of laws which have to be fulfilled; but it is one of the most difficult tasks of Ethics to determine whence such a table is derived. Is it a primitive writing on the conscience, which experience is, indeed, needed to reveal, but which exists in all mankind alike from their birth? is it a positive revelation like that at Mount Sinai, where the voice of the Almighty thundered forth the law and His finger inscribed it on tables of stone, and has it been propagated from the people of Jehovah to the other races of the earth? or is it the slowly accumulated experience of the race, which, having in the course of time tested every alternative of conduct, has thereby made up its mind as to the benefits resulting from certain acts and the disadvantages flowing from others, and has so steadily rewarded the one class and punished the other, that its convictions now pass almost unconsciously from one generation to another,
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invested with religious awe? This question as to the origin of the moral law and the nature of the sanction by which it is supported is the one which has especially attracted the English mind, and our native ethical writers have discussed it so zealously that they have, as a rule, paid comparatively little attention to the task of enumerating the duties in detail which the moral law sanctions or arranging these in systematic form.*
This blank has, however, been admirably filled up by the ethical thinkers of other countries, who have pursued Duty into every secret corner and constructed the whole map of life,f showing what has to be done and what avoided in every conceivable situation. With this in view, all the different relations into which the individual can enter — such as the family, the State, the Church — have been comprehensively canvassed, for it is in these that the duties of the individual come to light; and every position which the individual can occupy in relation to others — such as that of superior, inferior and equal — has been considered. Thus does the scope of Ethics
* An exception ought, however, to be recognised in Richard Baxter, who is deserving of a more prominent place than he has received in the history of philosophy. His Christia?i Directory, divided into Christian Ethics, Christian Economics, and Christian Politics, discusses with the skill of a practised casuist innumerable details of conduct.
t The Map of Life is the happy title of a recent work on Ethics from the pen of Mr. Lecky, the historian. expand on every hand; for, in connection with the family, such problems as love, marriage, divorce and the like have to be treated; and, in connection with the State, the still more difficult problems of war, legislation, capital and labour and the like. To the ordinary mind morality appears a simple affair, and it is often said that a man can be in no situation in which he cannot easily discover what his duty is, if he has an honest desire to know it; * but, when the relations of Church and State, of capital and labour, of nation and nation are recognised as included within the scope of Ethics, the subject becomes exceedingly intricate, and, although the guidance supplied by a good conscience is by no means to be disparaged, yet it has to be recognised that morality is a region in which both the race and the individual still stand in dire need of instruction.
From whatever source, however, the knowledge of duty may be derived, there is, in every case, at last an alternative presented to the will — to act in accordance with the law or in defiance of it — and, when the choice is made and the moment of decision past, there is left in the mind either the satisfaction of duty done or the sense of guilt on account of
* “Let any plain, honest man, before he engages in any course of action, ask himself, ‘ Is this I am going about right, or is it wrong? Is it good, or is it evil?’ Ido not in the least doubt but that this question would be answered agreeably to truth and virtue, by almost any fair man in almost any circumstances.” — Bishop Butler: Third Ser?no7i on Human Nature.
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failure or transgression. These are among the most peculiar and august feelings of our nature, and they have a momentous part to play in the regulation of conduct and the deepening of experience.
The oftener either the right or the wrong choice is made, the easier is it to repeat the same; that is to say, the ability to do right is strengthened by practice, and, by the same psychological law, the heart is hardened in a guilty course. Gradually, to act either on the side of conscience or in the opposite direction becomes a habit, and the general drift of the life is determined accordingly. But may this current become so strong so as to leave no room for choice? In other words, is the will free? This is the most fundamental question of Ethics, and it has given rise, not only to enormous quantities of speculation, but to no little confusion of thought. The freedom of the will has been denied in the interest of theological orthodoxy by those holding strong views of the depravity of human nature and the absolute sovereignty of God in the work of redemption; it has been denied in the interest of humanitarianism by persons so impressed by the heavy burden of heredity transmitted by criminals to their offspring that they have yearned to relieve the latter from the weight of responsibility; it is denied in the interest of materialism by those who look upon nature — human life and individual action included — as an uninterrupted series of causes and effects, flowing on with mechanical and inexorable regularity. But, while it is acknowledged that the exact definition of liberty is difficult, on the whole the testimony of consciousness to the reality of moral choices is too clear and universal to be contravened; all men’s judgments of one another are built upon it, and without it no science of Ethics would be possible.
Thus have I given a bird’s-eye view of the scope of Ethics, and of the different fields into which its vast territory is divided; although careful ethical philosophers are wont to point out that the three ideas of the Highest Good, Virtue and Duty do not designate different portions of the territory so much as different ways of viewing the same subject. The entire field of Ethics can be surveyed from each of these points of view. Yet there is a wide difference between the three things. The Highest Good is the end of moral action; Virtue or Character is the animating force by which this goal is to be attained; and Duty prescribes the path along which the end must be sought.*
* A penetrative discussion of the Highest Good, Virtue and Duty, as the three main ethical conceptions, will be found in a work of the younger Dorner, Das menschliche Handeln, pp. 28 7- 329. Those disposed to think out the subject further for them¬ selves may, with advantage, try these three conceptions in the opposite order — Ethics, first, as the doctrine of Duty, or conformity to law and custom; second, as Virtue, the power of doing duty acquired by long and conscientiously doing it; third, as the Highest Good, which is the reward of well-doing. There
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The reason why I have considered it desirable to dwell so long on a description of the ethical field is because this is the territory in which Jesus as a teacher moves; and the different questions suggested are those on which guidance from Him is received. To this it may be objected, that our Lord was no philosopher or systematic teacher, but a preacher to the people, who moved from subject to subject without constraint, and whose words have all the freedom and naturalness generally lacking in schemes of philosophy. Nothing could be more true; and yet at the back of the mind of Jesus there must have been, consciously or unconsciously, a connection between thought and thought — in short, a view of the universe, and especially of human life, to which it is the task of science to work back through the close and connected study of His words.
In the sequel we shall frequently have to emphasize the contrast between the teaching of Jesus and that of philosophy, but all the more on this account may we commence with recognising the fundamental identity. If Jesus was Supreme Master in the ethical
has been frequent discussion about the propriety of applying this threefold division to Christian Ethics in general; and opinion has of late been rather going against it. Schleiermacher, though employing it in his Philosophical Ethics, did not make use of it in his great (posthumous) work on Christian Ethics, Die Christliche Sitte, but Rothe reverted to it in his Theologische Ethik. I do not remember to have seen it applied before to the ethical teaching of Jesus. domain, His ideas will be found to fit into the map of this domain made by science, provided science has been successful in her own task of delimiting and dividing the field. In point of fact, it will, I believe, be found that the answers proceeding from the Great Teacher are directed to the very problems on which the human mind has always been pondering. I have no intention of crushing into an artifical frame¬ work the unconstrained teaching of Jesus; but His words will arrange themselves, without any force, under the headings of the Highest Good, Virtue and Duty. These conceptions will enable us to classify the subjects with which His mind and teaching were occupied; and, by keeping this scheme before us, we shall be able to obtain a comprehensive grasp of His doctrine as a whole. It is not my intention to stick anxiously to this division; to do so would be out of harmony with the nature of the subject. I will use it as a clue, not as a fetter; but, I am satisfied, it will be a distinct advantage to keep it in view and to recur to it from time to time.