Moral Science by Alexander Bain (top 20 books to read txt) 📖

Aversion. These very words, and the corresponding terms in Greek, imply an actual, not--as the schoolmen absurdly think--a metaphorical motion. Passing from the main question, he describes Love and Hate as Desire and Aversion when the object is present. Of appetites, some are born with us, others proceed from experience, being of particular things. Where we neither desire nor hate, we contemn [he means, disregard]. Appetites and aversions vary in the same person, and much more in different persons.

Then follows his definition of _good_,--the object of any man's appetite or desire, as evil is the object of his hate and aversion. Good and evil are always merely relative, either to the person of a man, or in a commonwealth to the representative person, or to an arbitrator if chosen to settle a dispute. Good in the promise is _pulchrum_, for which there is no exact English term; good in the effect, as the end desired, is _delightful_; good as the means, is _useful_ or _profitable_. There is the same variety of evil.

His next topic is Pleasure. As sense is, in _reality_, motion, but, in '_apparence_,' light or sound or odour; so appetite, in reality a motion or endeavour effected in the heart by the action of objects through the organs of sense, is, in 'apparence,' delight or trouble of mind. The emotion, whose _apparence_ (_i.e._, subjective side) is pleasure or delight, seems to be a corroboration of vital motion; the contrary, in the case of molestation. Pleasure is, therefore, the sense of good; displeasure, the sense of evil. The one accompanies, in greater or less degree, all desire and love; the other, all aversion and hatred. Pleasures are either of _sense_; or of the _mind_, when arising-from the expectation that proceeds from the foresight of the ends or consequence of things, irrespective of their pleasing the senses or not. For these mental pleasures, there is the general name _joy_. There is a corresponding division of displeasure into _pain_ and _grief_.

All the other passions, he now proceeds to show, are these _simple_ passions--appetite, desire, love, aversion, hate, joy, and grief, diversified in name for divers considerations. Incidental remarks of ethical importance are these. _Covetousness_, the desire of riches, is a name signifying blame, because men contending for them are displeased with others attaining them; the desire itself, however, is to be blamed or allowed, according to the means whereby the riches are sought. _Curiosity_ is a lust of the mind, that by a perseverance of delight in the continual generation of knowledge, exceedeth the short vehemence of any carnal pleasure. _Pity_ is grief for the calamity of another, arising from the imagination of the like calamity befalling one's self; the best men have, therefore, least pity for calamity arising from great wickedness. _Contempt_, or little sense of the calamity of others, proceeds from security of one's own fortune; 'for that any man should take pleasure in other men's great harms, without other end of his own, I do not conceive it possible.'

Having explained the various passions, he then gives his theory of the Will. He supposes a _liberty_ in man of doing or omitting, according to appetite or aversion. But to this liberty an end is put in the state of _deliberation_ wherein there is kept up a constant succession of alternating desires and aversions, hopes and fears, regarding one and the same thing. One of two results follows. Either the thing is judged impossible, or it is done; and this, according as aversion or appetite triumphs at the last. Now, the last aversion, followed by omission, or the last appetite, followed by action, is the act of _Willing_. Will is, therefore, the last appetite (taken to include aversion) in deliberating. So-called Will, that has been forborne, was _inclination_ merely; but the last inclination with consequent action (or omission) is Will, or voluntary action.

After mentioning the forms of speech where the several passions and appetites are naturally expressed, and remarking that the truest signs of passion are in the countenance, motions of the body, actions, and ends or aims otherwise known to belong to a man,--he returns to the question of good and evil. It is _apparent_ good and evil, come at by the best possible foresight of all the consequences of action, that excite the appetites and aversions in deliberation. _Felicity_ he defines continual success in obtaining the things from time to time desired; perpetual tranquillity of mind being impossible in this life, which is but motion, and cannot be without desire and fear any more than without sense. The happiness of the future life is at present unknown.

Men, he says at the close, _praise_ the goodness, and _magnify_ the greatness, of a thing; the Greeks had also the word [Greek: makarismos], to express an opinion of a man's felicity.

In Chapter VII., Of the Ends of Discourse, he is led to remark on the meaning of _Conscience_, in connection-with the word _Conscious_. Two or more men, he says, are conscious of a thing when they know it together (_con-scire_.) Hence arises the proper meaning of conscience; and the evil of speaking against one's conscience, in this sense, is to be allowed. Two other meanings are metaphorical: when it is put for a man's knowledge of his own secret facts and thoughts; and when men give their own new opinions, however absurd, the reverenced name of conscience, as if they would have it seem unlawful to change or speak against them. [Hobbes is not concerned to foster the moral independence of individuals.]

He begins Chapter VIII. by defining Virtue as something that is valued for eminence, and that consists in comparison, but proceeds to consider only the intellectual virtues--all that is summed up in the term of a _good wit_--and their opposites. Farther on, he refers difference of wits--discretion, prudence, craft, &c.--to difference in the passions, and this to difference in constitution of body and of education. The passions chiefly concerned are the desires of power, riches, knowledge, honour, but all may be reduced to the single desire of power.

In Chapter IX. is given his Scheme of Sciences. The relation in his mind between Ethics and Politics is here seen. Science or Philosophy is divided into Natural or Civil, according as it is knowledge of consequences from the accidents of natural bodies or of politic bodies. Ethics is one of the ultimate divisions of Natural Philosophy, dealing with consequences from the _passions_ of men; and because the passions are _qualities_ of bodies, it falls more immediately under the head of Physics. Politics is the whole of the second main division, and deals with consequences from the institution of commonwealths (1) to the rights and duties of the Sovereign, and (2) to the duty and right of the Subject.

Ethics, accordingly, in Hobbes's eyes, is part of the science of man (as a natural body), and it is always treated as such. But subjecting, as he does, so much of the action of the individual to the action of the state, he necessarily includes in his Politics many questions that usually fall to Ethics. Hence arises the necessity of studying for his Ethics also part of the civil Philosophy; though it happens that, in the Leviathan, this requisite part is incorporated with the Section containing the Science of Man.

Chapter X. is on Power, Worth, Dignity, Honour, and Worthiness. A man's _power_ being his present means to obtain some future apparent good, he enumerates all the sources of original and acquired power. The _worth_ of a man is what would be given for the use of his power; it is, therefore, never absolute, but dependent on the need and judgment of another. _Dignity_ is the value set on a man by the state. _Honour_ and _dishonour_ are the manifestation of value. He goes through all the signs of honour and dishonour. _Honourable_ is any possession, action, or quality that is the sign of power. Where there is the opinion of power, the justice or injustice of an action does not affect the honour. He clearly means a universally accepted opinion of power, and cites the characters of the pagan deities. So, too, before times of civil order, it was held no dishonour to be a pirate, and even still, duels, though unlawful, are honourable, and will be till there be honour ordained for them that refuse. Farther on, he distinguishes _Worthiness_, (1) from worth, and (2) from merit, or the possession of a particular ability or desert, which, as will be seen, presupposes a right to a thing, founded on a promise.

Chapter XI. bears the title, Of the difference of Manners; by manners being meant, not decency of behaviour and points of the 'small morals,' but the qualities of mankind that concern their living together in peace and unity. Felicity of life, as before, he pronounces to be a continual progress of desire, there being no _finis ultimus_ nor _summum bonum_. The aim of all men is, therefore, not only to enjoy once and for an instant, but to assure for over the way of future desire. Men differ in their way of doing so, from diversity of passion and their different degrees of knowledge. One thing he notes as common to all, a restless and perpetual desire of power after power, because the present power of living well depends on the acquisition of more. Competition inclines to contention and war. The desire of ease, on the other hand, and fear of death or wounds, dispose to civil obedience. So also does desire of knowledge, implying, as it does, desire of leisure. Desire of praise and desire of fame after death dispose to laudable actions; in such fame, there is a present delight from foresight of it, and of benefit redounding to posterity; for pleasure to the sense is also pleasure in the imagination. Unrequitable benefits from an equal engender secret hatred, but from a superior, love; the cheerful acceptation, called _gratitude_, requiting the giver with honour. Requitable benefits, even from equals or inferiors, dispose to love; for hence arises emulation in benefiting--'the most noble and profitable contention possible, wherein the victor is pleased with his victory, and the other revenged by confessing it.' He passes under review other dispositions, such as fear of oppression, vain-glory, ambition, pusillanimity, frugality, &c., with reference to the course of conduct they prompt to. Then he comes to a favourite subject, the mistaken courses whereinto men fall that are ignorant of natural causes and the proper signification of words. The effect of ignorance of the causes of right, equity, law, and justice, is to make custom and example the rule of actions, as with children, or to induce the setting of custom against reason, and reason against custom, whereby the doctrine of right and wrong is perpetually disputed, both by the pen, and by the sword. Again, taking up ignorance of the laws of nature, he is led on to the subject of natural Religion, and devotes also the whole of Chapter XII. to Religion and kindred topics.

In Chapter XIII., he deals with the natural condition of Mankind, as concerning their Felicity and Misery. All men, he says, are by nature equal. Differences there are in the faculties of body and mind, but, when all is taken together, not great enough to establish a steady superiority of one over another. Besides even more than in strength, men are equal in _prudence_, which is but experience that comes to all. People indeed generally believe that others are not so wise as themselves, but 'there is not ordinarily a greater sign of equal distribution of anything than that every person is contented with his share.'

Of this equality of ability, the consequence is that two men desiring the exclusive possession of the same thing, whether for their own conservation or for delectation, will become