A sketch of morality independent of obligation or sanction

Contents

PAGE

Translator's Preface .... vii

Preface ... . . . i

Chapter I. — The Morality of Metaphysical Dogmatism . 7

i. — The Hypothesis of Optimism . . 8

-The Hypothesis of the Indifference of Nature 38 II.

i. — Morality of Practical Certitude . . 45

ii. — Morality of Faith . . ■ V-

iii. — Morality of Doubt . 64

FIRST BOOK,

On the Motive Force of Morality from a Scientific Point of View. First Equivalents of Duty.

Chapter I. — Intensity of Life is the Motive Force of Action . 71 „ II. — The Highest Intensity of Life has for its Necessary

Correlative the Greatest Expansion . 81

,, III. — To what Extent Inward Power creates a Sort of

Obligation. Power and Duty . . .89

„ IV. — The Sentiment of Obligation from the Point of

View of Mental Dynamics as Impulsive or

Repressive Force . . 98

VI CONTENTS.

PAGE

SECOND BOOK.

Last Possible Equivalents of Duty for the Maintenance of Morality.

Chapter I.— Fourth Equivalent of Duty Derived from Love of

Risk and of Struggle . . .116

II. — Fifth Equivalent of Duty, Derived from Metaphysical Risk. The Hypothesis, i. — Metaphysical Risk in Speculation . * -135

ii. — Metaphysical Risk in Action . . 147

THIRD BOOK.

The Idea of Sanction.

ChaI'TER I. — Criticism of Natural Sanction and of Moral

Sanction ... 152

i. — Natural Sanction . . 154

ii. — Moral Sanction and Distributive Justice 158 „ II. — The Principle of Penal or Defensive Justice in

„ III. — Criticism of Invi'ard Sanction and of Remorse 186 ,, IV. — Criticism of Religious and Metaphysical Sanction.

i. — Religious Sanction . . . 193

ii. — The Sanction of Love and of Fraternity 197

iii. — Conclusion . . . . 208

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.

There can be little doubt that the present moment offers a fit opportunity for introducing to a large circle of English readers this book of Guyau's, which, in his own country, is rightly considered his masterpiece. Guyau is already known in England by his remarkable and suggestive work on Education and Heredity and The Irreligion of the Future ; and another work from him, on so important a subject as Morality, may furnish a much-needed source of inspiration and encouragement, at a time when moral science is evidently entering upon a period of renewed energy and wider interest.

Stimulated by the great difficulties of an ever-increasing complexity of life, under circumstances which render many of the old creeds and religions incompetent to grapple with the problems demanding solution ; distressed by a mental chaos which threatens to retard all progressive efforts by fitful reactions ; the lovers of freedom and social amelioration turn to Morality for the support and the strengthgiving quality without which life is doomed to decay and destruction.

But, in order to make the influence of morality a living reality, instead of a shadowy and conventional dogma, the study of its principles should be approached with a deep

Vm TRANSLATORS PREFACE.

reverence for human nature and truth, and a broad-minded sympathy, which alone can achieve success in so arduous an undertaking.

In this sphere of moral science, which includes all that is of most vital importance to man, the author of Morality Independent of Sanction or Obligation is a master-spirit. He merits the study of all men and women who look for the development of the highest and best from germs which lie hidden in the human breast itself.

That Guyau is one of ourselves, born in the central life of the nineteenth century, gives all the more significance and actuality to his thoughts, and fills his writings with a convincing interest which the utterances of authors belonging to earlier times cannot possess in the same degree and intensity. For to each generation the hope and the light of the future must necessarily spring from its own present. The past may give us the eternal essence of human thought, which has an historical and unquestionable value ; but the present alone can fully express its own needs, capacities, and forces. The present must work out its own salvation.

Neither Socrates nor Christ, neither Aristotle nor Buddha, neither Luther nor Kant, can give us the keys to the problems of an age which was unknown to them. Our springs of life, the energies of our new birth, take their rise in the most highly-gifted minds of our own era. And among these finely-organized and superior natures Guyau stands one of the foremost.

Born in 1856, a typical offspring of the second part of our century, we find in him a personality specially endued with a genius for reflecting the intellectual and moral evolution of the age. His are the very doubts and negations which we experience, and his are the very hopes and ideals translator's preface. ix

which shall lift us out of the depths of mechanical materialism. Exclusive attention to physical and external phenomena has occupied our minds, and shut us out from the sphere of reflective and emotional activity, which is none other than the sphere of morality.

Guyau, in no way hampered by an antiquated education, found himself, from the very beginning of his intellectual life, at the point which even now a great many enlightened minds only reach after a severe struggle. He possessed the great advantage of which Emerson speaks in his essay on "Worship ": " For a great nature it is a happiness to escape a religious training — religion of character is so apt to be invaded." We should like to add : Religion of thought — that is to say, the loyalty to truth — is so apt to be lost. From this danger Guyau escaped, his first and only religion having been the ideaUsm of a Plato and a Kant. These were the masters from whose lofty conceptions he gradually evolved the standpoint whence the royal road to human self-direction lies open before his vision and his efforts. And his nature was such as to unite the qualities of the thinker and moralist with those of the artist and poet. While acting as the mirror of all the conflicting tendencies and characteristics of his age, it remained a witness to the higher unity which underlies all existence.

The great discoveries of modern science, the works of Darwin and Spencer, only half understood or wrongly applied by many of their would-be followers, found in Guyau an intelligence capable of recognising their golden grains of truth, a mind open to accept some of their fundamental verities, but also a mind aware of their limitations and shortcomings. It was given to this young and aspiring poet-philosopher to add to the sound and healthy naturalism.

X TRANSLATOR S PREFACE.

of his day an idealism without which moral evolution lacks its vital spring and its fullest meaning. In him lived, from him went forth, an idealism which, while rooted firmly in nature, could nevertheless soar upwards into the higher regions of thought and imagination. He believed in the doing of goodness for its own sake ; in virtue free from any material or outward obligation or sanction ; in duty relying solely upon its own incentives and forces ; in a morality living and growing from its own seeds. This belief was inspired by the expansion and development of life itself. This new faith, freed from the bonds and chains which but too often doom lower conceptions of morality or religion to sterility, opened up the prospect of a future in which it should become possible to realize the ideal of a sane, healthy, and strong race directing its powers and capacities to their highest use. Instead of the external authority of a God, or the equally external authority of categorical imperatives imposed upon our freedom (as even the great Immanuel Kant still more or less conceived morality), Guyau constructed a kind of natural determinism of impulses and sentiments, which, disciplined through reflection and experience, are a law unto themselves.

Morality is thus conceived as a natural, internal energy for good, translating itself into action by its own exuberance of vitality. It is an abundance of force in natural overflow, and thus the life of a moral agent is mingled with that of its fellow-creatures. Instead of an outer law of restraint, which incessantly struggles with an unwilling individual (and it is this which forms the basis of ordinary morals), we here find a moral power, which may be so trained and increased as to subdue evil tendencies far more successfully than is possible under categorical imperatives or apodictic rules.

TRANSLATOR S PREFACE. XI

The great merit of the book is that it unfolds this ideal of the loveliness of the natural moral ideal, and renders it so vivid as to create the desire for its realization. The display of this ideal as a possibility is an invaluable service in a period which is threatened on the one side by moral dissolution, and on the other by a return to mental chaos and superstition. Guyau perceived that the situation was critical. Morality must justify itself, or it must cease to exist. The latter alternative was not possible to a soul such as his, which loved virtue, and therefore already believed in it, and in the possibility of its realization on earth.

If no ready-made theory, no system, no dogmas, can be got out of this book, there remains the great merit of its bringing home to us the conviction that to our time belongs the task of creating a new mental and moral guidance, which shall enable the individual and the race to steer a happier course.

" This is a great task, and it is our task." So ends a book which gives to the serious and open-minded student many suggestions as to the best way of fulfilUng this task. It is thus both a call and a sign-post. Guyau threw light on whatever problem he touched, and, by virtue of his large-hearted sympathy and singularly gifted nature, his soul realized the possibiUty of ultimate harmony and peace between those conflicting tendencies in human nature which give rise to the riddles of existence.

As an artist he felt, as a thinker he discovered, as a moralist he taught, that only the harmonizing of the different spheres of human thought, emotion, and will could banish sorrow and pain. In him the aesthetic and moral qualities were so mixed that his conception of

XU TRANSLATOR S PREFACE.

morality was lit up by the ardour and enthusiasm of art, and his conception of art was strengthened by steadfast moral aspiration. The intensity of his life-impulse and force drove his nature to go out towards others, thus exemplifying that action and re-action of the individual and his surroundings which may solve the problem of conflicting altruism and egoism.

No nobler task than the one set by Guyau could be given to the twentieth century ; and to those who believe in its mission he should no longer be a stranger. In Guyau, who has not unjustly been called " the Spinoza of France," they will find the inspiration needed for the carrying on of all social efforts and reforms. His high-souled sincerity and his ceaseless striving after truth and virtue mark him out as a standard-bearer in the struggle for the emancipation of humanity.

Gertrude Kapteyn.

ERRATA.

Page 44 ; six lines from bottom. For " antagnostic " read " ant^onistic."

Page 135 ; middle of page. For "kivSvtjos" read " Kii/Swos." Page 172 ; eleven lines from top. Delete "guilty."

MORALITY INDEPENDENT OF OBLIGATION OR SANCTION.

Preface

An ingenious thinker has said that the aim of education was to give to man "a bias towards goodness."* This saying clearly shows the foundation of morality as generally accepted. To the philosopher, on the contrary, there may not be in conduct one single element for the presence of which the mind cannot account, one obligation which does not explain itself, one duty the necessity for which is not clearly shown.

We intend, therefore, to investigate the character and extent of a conception of morality in which " bias " should have no part ; in which everything would be supported by reason, and appreciated at its true value, whether with regard to certainties or with regard to merely probable opinions and hypotheses. If the majority of philosophers — even those of the utilitarian, evolutionist, and positive schools — have not completely succeeded in their task, this is because they wanted to put forward their rational moral philosophy as nearly adequate to the ordinary moral philosophy, as having the same scope, and also pretending to have rendered it as imperative in its precepts. This is not

possible. When Science has overthrown the dogmas of the different religions, she has not pretended to replace them all, nor to immediately supply a distinct object, a definite food, for the religious need; her position with regard to morality is the same as with regard to religion. Nothing indicates that a conception of morality which is purely scientific — that is to say, based solely on that which is known — must agree with the general conception of morality, composed for the most part of feelings and prejudices. To make these two conceptions of morality coincide, Bentham and his followers have too often violated facts. They were wrong. One can, moreover, understand very well that the sphere of intellectual demonstration does not equal in range the sphere of moral action, and that there are cases in which a definite and rational rule happens to fail. Till now, in cases of that kind, habit, instinct, sentiment, have guided man ; these may still be followed in the future, provided it is done with clear knowledge, and that, in following them, one is conscious of obeying, not some mysterious obligation, but the most generous impulses of human nature, together with the most just necessities of social life.

One does not undermine the truth of a science- — for instance, of moral science — by showing that its object as a science is limited. On the contrary, to limit a science is often to give a greater stamp of certitude ; chemistry is but alchemy limited to observable facts. Likewise we believe that a purely scie»tific morality should not pretend to embrace everything, and that, far from wanting to exaggerate the extent of her domain, it should endeavour to settle its limits itself. It must consent to say, frankly: In such and such a case I am unable to prescribe imperatively in the name of duty. Thus the sense of obligation

PREFACE.

and of sanction can no longer exist. Consult your deepest instincts, your most vivid sympathies, your most normal and most human aversions; after that you may make metaphysical hypotheses about the foundation of things, about your own destiny, and that of your fellow-creatures. Starting from this precise point, you are left to yourself— in other words, to your " self-government." This is freedom in morals — consisting, not in absence of rule, but in absence of scientific rule, wherever such cannot justify itself with ■ sufficient rigour. Here begins in morality the part of philosophic speculation which positive science can neither suppress nor entirely replace. In climbing a mountain there comes a certain moment when we are wrapped in clouds, which hide the summit ; we are lost in darkness. It is the same on the height? of thought : one part of morality, which is mingled with metaphysics, may be forever hidden in clouds, but there must also be a solid basis, and we must know with precision the points where man should resign himself to enter cloudland.

Among recent works on morality, the three which, for different reasons, have appeared to us to be the most important are : in England, " The Data of Ethics," by Spencer ; in Germany, " The Phenomenology of the Moral Conscience," by Hartmann ; in France, " The Criticism of Contemporary Moral Systems," by M. Alfred Fouillee. It seems to us that by the reading of these works, so different in character, two points are brought forward at the same time. On the one hand, the conception of morality of the Naturalist and Positivist schools furnishes no unchangeable principles, either in the way of obligation or in the way of sanction ; on the other hand, if an idealistic conception of morality can provide any, it is of a purely hypothetical and not of an assertive nature. In other words, what comes within the order of facts is not universal, and whatever is universal is a speculative hypothesis. The result is that the imperative, in so far as it is absolute and categorical, disappears on both sides. We accept, on our own account, this disappearance ; and, instead of regretting the moral variability, which is the result of it within certain limits, we consider it, on the contrary, as the characteristic of the future conception of morality. In many respects this conception will not only be " autonomous," but " anomos." In contrast with the transcendent speculations of M. de Hartmann on the folly of the will to live and on the nirvana imposed logically by reason as a duty, we admit, with Spencer, that conduct has for motive power the most intense, the fullest, the most varied life ; whereas our conception of the conciliation of individual and social life is other than of Spencer. On the other hand, we recognise, with the author of the " Critique des Systemes de Morale Contemporains " (M. Alfred Fouill^e), that the English school and the Positivist school, which admit an " unknowable," have been wrong in expelling every individual hypothesis from this subject ; but we do not think, as does this author, that the unknowable itself can contribute a "principle practically limiting and restricting conduct," a principle of mere justice, which would be, as it were, a medium between the categorical imperative of Kant and the free metaphysical hypothesis. The only admissible " equivalents " or " substitutes " of duty, to use the same language as the author of " La Libert^ et le Determinisme," appear to us to be : —

I. The consciousness of our inward and superior /ozc;^?- to which we see duty practically reduced.

PREFACE. 5

2. The influence exercised by ideas over actions.

3. The increasing fusion of the sensibilities, and the increasingly social character of our pleasures and sorrows.

4. The love of risk in action, of which we will show the importance hitherto ignored.

5. The love of metaphysical hypothesis, which is a sort of risk in thought.

These different incentives combined are, for us, all that a conception of morality, reduced to facts only and to hypotheses founded upon them, would be able to offer in the place of the categorical obligation of past times. As to the moral sanction, so called, distinct from social sanctions, it will be seen that we purely and simply suppress it, because as " atonement " it is fvinda,menta.lly immoral Our book, should, therefore, be regarded as an attempt to determine the compass, the extent, and also the limits of an exclusively I scientific conception of morality. Its value, therefore, existsj independently of any opinions which may be held as to the' absolute and metaphysical basis of morality.

INTRODUCTION.

CRITICISM OF THE DIFFERENT ATTEMPTS TO JUSTIFY OBLIGATION FROM THE META- PHYSICAL POINT OF VIEW.

CHAPTER I,

The Morality of Metaphysical Dogmatism. I.— The HjTpothesis of Optimism. II.— The Hypothesis of Pessimism. III.— The Hypothesis of the Indifferenee of Nature.

The morality of realistic metaphysics admits a '■'■good in itself" (un Men en sot), a natural good distinct from pleasure and from happiness, a possible hierarchy of what is good in nature, and, for that very reason, a hierarchy of the different beings. It returns to the old maxim, " To conform one's self to nature.'' Is it not illusive thus to seek in nature a type of good to be realized by us, and to which we are under obligation ? Is it possible to know the basis of things, and the true meaning of nature, so as to work in the same direction ? Has nature, scientifically considered, any meaning at all ? There are three hypotheses before us — optimism, pessimism, the indifference of nature. Let us examine them in turn, to see if they, from the point of view of metaphysics, justify the absolute, imperative, and categorical obligation of moral philosophy as ordinarily accepted.

THE HYPOTHESIS OF OPTIMISM. PROVIDENCE AND IMMOR- TALITY.

I. Such men as Plato, Aristotle, Zeno, Spinoza, Leibnitz, have supported optimism, and have tried to found an objective morality in conformity with this conception of the world. One knows all the objections to which this system has given rise. In reality, absolute optimism is rather immoral than moral, for it involves the negation of progress. When once it has penetrated the mind, it produces, as correspondent sentiment, satisfaction with things as they are : from the moral point of view, justification of everything ; from the political point of view, respect for all authority, passive resignation, voluntary stifling of every feeling of right, and consequently of every feeling of duty. If all that exists is good, no change is wanted ; there must be no interference with the work of God — that great artist. Likewise, everything that happens is equally good ; every event justifies itself, since it is part of a divine work, complete in all its details. In the end this brings about, not only the exculpation, but the deification, of all injustice. To-day we are astonished at the temples which the ancients raised to men such as Nero and Domitian ; not only did they refuse to understand crime, but they adored it. Are we doing anything else, if we shut our eyes to the reality of evil here below in order afterwards to declare this world divine and bless its author? The worshipping of the Caesars was with the Romans the sign of an inferior moral state ; reacting on that very state, it debased and degraded it still more. As much can be said of the worship of a creative god, who should be responsible for everything, and who, in reality, is irresponsibility itself. Devout optimism is a state analogous to that of the slave, who is happy — of the sick man, who is not conscious of his illness ; the latter, at least, does not attribute a divine character to his illness.

Charity itself, in order to exist, needs to believe in the reality and indignity of the miseries which it relieves. If poverty, if sorrow, if ignorance (blessed are the poor in spirit !), if all the evils in this world are not real evils, and are, at bottom, wrongs and absurdities of nature, how will charity be able to keep the rational character which is the condition of existence of every virtue ? And if charity, like a flame without food, is extinguished, what will be the value of your world, which you imagine as a work of absolute charity, of absolute and all-powerful goodness ?

Even pessimism can often be superior in moral value to exaggerated optimism : it does not always fetter effort in the direction of progress ; if it is painful to see everything in black, it is sometimes more useful than to see everything in rose colour. Pessimism may be the symptom of an unhealthy over-excitement of the moral sense greatly hurt by the evils of this world ; optimism, on the contrary, too often indicates an apathy, a numbness of all moral feeling. Whoever does not reflect, and is actuated merely by habit, has a strong tendency to optimism ; the people, being ignorant, taken in a mass, are — especially in the country — pretty nearly satisfied with the present state of things ; they live by routine ; the greatest evil in their eyes is change. The more inferior a population is, the more blindly conservative it is : this is the political form of optimism. Nothing is more dangerous than the desire to give to optimism a religious and moral sanction — to thus make it a guiding principle of thought and of conduct ; the human mind may thus be paralyzed in all its activities — man may be demoralized by his God. Permit me to relate a dream. One night — had some angel or seraph taken me on his wings to transport me to the paradise of the Gospels, near the " Creator " ? — one night I felt myself soaring in heaven, far above the earth. As I rose higher and higher, I heard a sad and weary sound ascending from the earth, a sound similar to the monotonous song of the torrents heard amid lO MORALITY INDEPENDENT OF OBLIGATION OR SANCTION.

the solitude and silence of the mountain summits. I distinguished human voices — sobs, mingled with thanksgiving ; groans, interrupted by benedictions ; I heard despairing supplications, the sighs of the dying, rising with the fumes of incense. All this melted into one intense groan — into a symphony so heart-rending that my soul filled with pity. The sky seemed obscured by it, and I no longer saw the sun, nor the joy of the earth. I turned round to him who was with me. "Do you not hear?" I asked him. The angel looked at me with a serene and peaceful look. " These are," he said, " the prayers of' men, ascending from the earth to God." While he spoke, his white wing glittered in the sun ; but it seemed to me quite black, and full of horror. "What tears I should shed were I that God!" I exclaimed ; and I began, indeed, to cry like a child. I loosened the hand of the angel, and let myself fall down again to the earth, thinking there remained in me too much humanity to make it possible for me to live in heaven.

If optitnism, instead of considering the world as actually good, tried to re-establish the notion of a continual progress, regulated by a Divine law, would it succeed better in solving the problems of this world, and in laying the foundation of human morality ? We do not believe it.

If, with the optimists, one postulates a remote aim, which should be the same for all beings, the means of attaining this aim are so opposite in character that the moralist will be unable to deduce from the knowledge of the aim a practical rule of conduct. All roads lead to Rome; perhaps many roads lead to the universal ainu, and injustice may serve the same purpose as justice. Even for humanity strife is sometimes as sure a means of progress as agreement ; and, from a universally optimistic point of view, it is not evident why the human good will should be more conformable than the evil will to the hidden ends of nature or of God. All conscious will is often even useless, and good seems to be able to work itself out — at least partially—

THE HYPOTHESIS OF OPTIMISM — PROVIDENCE. II

without the intervention of man. A rock on which a child has just split its forehead may be of more service to the future well-being of this globe than that child, since the rock has been concentrating in itself, during thousands of years, a portion of the solar heat, and thus helps in some degree to retard the cooling of the earth.

The morality of optimist dogmatism commands us to contribute to the good of the whole; but there are too many possible ways. Everything can be useful. The teacher of gymnastics, who placed in the same room a portrait of Jesus Christ and of himself, believed that he was doing as much as Jesus for humanity. Perhaps he was not wrong with regard to universal and providential evolution. The greatest nations have been those whose people were strongest and had the most robust appetite. The Romans astonished the world by their gluttony ; the EngUsh, the Germans, the Russians (who will have so very important a part to play in the future), are great eaters ; even the egoist himself can work for universal perfection — he can produce a healthy, vigorous, hardy generation. Egoism has made the English race great. In many respects Erasmus Darwin was a naive egoist — the genius of his grandson has justified it. Everything becomes merely relative, when viewed with regard to the total results for the whole universe. Which point of the Christian teaching do travellers tell us has most strongly impressed the minds of the negroes ? The religious law, with which one wanted to inspire them ? No ; but the propriety of the Sunday. And the African and Asiatic people, what did they adopt from Mohammedanism ? The drinking of water.

In the great organism of the universe the microbe of typhoid fever and cholera has a duty to perform, which it cannot, and dare not, cease to perform ; man, also, has special functions — the man of evil as well as the man of good. Seen from a certain distance, good comes out of evil. It is thus that great defects, great sacrifices of men, are often useful to ajiation. It is told that Spinoza, when ill, laughed at the sight of his favourite spider devouring the flies which he threw at him. Perhaps then, applying it to himself, he thought of the internal complaint which was destroying him ; perhaps he smiled to feel himself likewise enveloped in some invisible spider's web, which paralysed his will, silently devoured by a multitude of infinitely small monsters.

Once more, in the immensity of the universe, the paths and roads followed by each being, instead of running parallel or of being concentric, cross one another — intersect in every way. He who finds himself, by chance, at the point of intersection is naturally bruised. Thus there is at the root of nature — which it is pretended is " as good as possible '' — a fundamental immorality, which is caused by the opposition of functions between living beings, by the quality of space and matter. In absolute optimism the universal good is an end which employs and justifies all means.