sages in the writings of the early deists may have been designed simply for their homiletical value rather than also as definitions of philosophical positions. Yet they seem to have erected a theological sanction for morality which was one of the most important consequences of deism. 7. The deists also suggested in many places a hedonistic basis for their moral teachings. Those who wrote in the seventeenth century are not as frankly hedonistic as those in the eighteenth.26 But surely a strain of hedonism is to be expected in writers who were so representative of the reaction against strict Puritanism. Gildon included in The Oracles of Reason a letter which quotes with approval a long passage from Epicurus, to show that pleasure is the beginning and the end of a happy life.27 Lord Herbert certainly assumed a rather hedonistic position by an appeal to the sanction of future rewards and punishments. The rules of virtue and piety "are necessary for living well and happily here, and to all eternity hereafter." 28 Men cannot, even by lives of virtue, attain in this world the happiness for which they hope; and many blessings are here bestowed without consideration for the merits of the recipients. To be sure, conscience grants some rewards for virtue and inflicts some punishments for vice here and now. But men will not receive their full deserts until the next world.29 The rewards and punishments of the future are so important as to have a determining influence on men's conduct in the present. Hence even though the hedonistic position was not definitely and consciously adopted by the early deists, the attainment of happiness was utilized as a sanction for morality. And again the theological approach of the deists to ethics lent its color to the conclusion reached. 8. In criticism of the ethical principles of the deists, little need be said. Since their purpose was not to write treatises on moral philosophy, their fragmentary and inadequate discussion of moral problems cannot be held as a fault against them. They had greater influence on the history of ethics than they deserved. In their rationalism they were in complete harmony with the currents of thoughts in their century, and reveal the same general inadequacies of that position. Their only prominent merit, in so far as ethical theory is concerned, was their thorough-going rejection of the Scriptural sanction. Their complacently optimistic estimate of man's naturally moral character is most extravagant; and yet this error was to help later moralists make an effective denial of Hobbes's equally extreme pessimistic view. In other respects their ethical contribution was quite confused. They had no one unifying conception like the law of nature which 26 Cf. Wollaston: The Religion of Nature Delineated, pp. 58-64. 27 Gildon: The Oracles of Reason, pp. 106-110. 28 Herbert: op. cit., p. 299. 29 Idem., pp. 327-333. would serve as an ultimate criterion. Sometimes harmony with the will of God was suggested as a standard; and sometimes, the attainment of happiness, especially in the future life. To be sure, these suggestions were not developed into an explicit theory. But they serve to erect a theological background for ethics which was destined to continue for some time still in English thought. And in any case they were symptomatic of a confusion of mind which only too frequently accompanies a pious religious attitude. The deists' scientific interest stopped short with their attack on certain doctrines. When they went on into the ethical realm, their sharp definition of terms gave place to merely devotional writing. And though devotional writing would naturally have influence with such reverent minds as that of Locke, yet it is not a satisfactory substitute for a sound philosophical position. Probably it was just the equivocations in the thought of the deists which were partly responsible for Locke's wavering and unsettled explanations of the foundations of the moral law. CHAPTER III HOBBES 1. Evidence for the influence of Hobbes upon Locke is almost altogether internal, but is none the less certain. It is probably safe to say that every British moralist for a century after Hobbes was influenced by him. The course of English moral and political philosophy from the middle of the seventeenth century to the middle of the eighteenth has often been treated by historians as the persistent attempt to refute Hobbes's doctrines. No one who, like Locke, lived in close contact with practical problems of governmental administration and parliamentary strife could possible have escaped some knowledge of what Hobbes stood for. Locke, to be sure, professed that he was not "well read" in Hobbes; 1 (and when he was accused of having borrowed the thesis of The Reasonableness of Christianity from the Leviathan, he denied that he knew that his thesis was to be found in the older work. But such professions, however sincere, were probably exaggerations. They were made in the heat of controversy, in order to answer certain attempts to disparage his work by linking him with men who were popularly regarded as dangerous heretics. Hobbes and Spinoza3 he spoke of as "justly decried names; and he did not wish to be classed with them. Yet he referred to Hobbes several times in such a way as to show that he was familiar with Hobbes's general principles. He knew that Hobbes made the keeping of contracts contingent upon the power of the commonwealth to punish, based morality upon the principle of self-preservation,5 and denied the possibility of the freedom of the will. Furthermore it is difficult to believe that he was not, in certain sections of the Treatises of Government, consciously opposing the doctrines of the Leviathan. Finally the similarities between his discussion of pleasures and pains and that of Hobbes, as well as between his solution of the problem of freedom in the first edition of the Essay and that of Hobbes, 4 1 Works, Vol. IV, p. 477. 2 Idem, Vol. VII, p. 420. * Spinoza had slight influence on Locke. Locke probably never read Spinoza's Ethics; for if he had, he would hardly have referred to the possibility of a mathematical demonstration of morality as something never yet attempted. He may have seen the Theologico-Political Tractate, and been shocked by its attitude toward Scripture. He may also have read the Political Treatise, which was largely in harmony with Hobbes, except on questions of liberty of thought and of speech. But Locke's views on toleration clearly had other sources than Spinoza. 4 Essay, I, 2, 5. 5 King: Life of Locke, p. 103. • Works, Vol. X, p. 255. are too striking to be dismissed as mere coincidences. Consequently it seems necessary to conclude that he knew Hobbes's philosophical position, attacked those points which he most disliked, and even accepted, when he was forced to do so by Hobbes's keen logic, some of the less objectionable features of his predecessor's system." Hence even if Locke was not acquainted with all of Hobbes's many (and largely parallel) treatises, he certainly knew the teaching and felt the influence of the older philosopher. The main points in Hobbes which bear upon Locke's ethics are here briefly outlined. 2. Hobbes designed to write a complete system of philosophy on a unified plan, in which he would treat successively of body in general, of that particular body which we call man, and finally of the body politic. The link which bound these three parts of his philosophy together was his mechanistic point of view. He resolved all the changes which go on in the world into motion. And since all of man's passions and actions involve some kind of change, they too must be explained in terms of motion. Thus Hobbes was led to a quite materialistic psychology, which, since it had important effects on his ethical and political theories, calls for special consideration. When motions from the external world are transmitted through the senses to the brain (or "some internal substance of the head"), they give rise to various "conceptions," under which term Hobbes meant to include sensations, imaginations, thoughts, emotions, etc. These conceptions are particular kinds of motions, set up from without. They are not copies or duplications of the motions which produced them, but are "apparitions" or "phantasms." 8 These motions frequently do not stop in the head, but proceed to the heart, which is the seat of the vital motions, such as the circulation of the blood, breathing, nutrition, etc., and have the effect of either furthering or hindering the vital motions. In so far as they further the vital motions they are called pleasure, and in so far as they hinder they are called pain. Thus pleasure and pain, which figure so prominently in ethical considerations, are a matter of the harmony or conflict of the internal motions of the body. Moreover, these motions which are designated as pleasures and pains are found to be respectively motions towards or motions away from the external objects which aroused them. In other words, the motion called pleasure is the same thing as appetite or desire; and the motion called pain is the same thing as aversion.9 ? Professor Curtis in his Outline of Locke's Ethical Philosophy (1890), p. 22, denies that there is "a trace of indebtedness of Locke to Hobbes." Certainly he errs if negative influence is to be regarded as indebtedness. And even it positive influence alone is meant, as seems probable, there are strong reasons for dissenting from Professor Curtis's view. 8 Human Nature, 2. Leviathan, 1. • Human Nature, 7, 1-2. Leviathan, 6. Hobbes was certainly guilty of confusion at this point in his identification of pleasure with desire. Desire is for an object yet to be attained; pleasure is often found in an object already attained. Locke later fell into this same error, probably as a result of Hobbes's influence, but finally worked his way to a sounder position. Cf. below, Book II, Chapter VI, § 4. With such a view of the constitution of man, Hobbes was logically bound to be egoistic. Man, as part of the world of material forces, naturally seeks what pleases him, and avoids what pains him. He cannot possibly do otherwise, inasmuch as his desires are all connected up entirely with those objects which by furthering the vital motions around the heart arouse pleasure. All his emotions, too, however altruistic they may seem, must be interpreted as self-regarding.10 No one can either seek or even want anything which is not bound up with his own private pleasure. This materialistic and egoistic psychology had several consequences for ethical theory which are important to note. (1) Good and bad, in order to have any legitimate meaning, must be defined in terms of pleasure and pain. Moral obligation must fall within the limits of psychological possibility. Since man is so made that he can seek only what pleases him, it cannot be said that he ought to seek anything else. Therefore all the objects which affect a man can be classified as good or bad for him according as he desires them or is repelled by them. Each man's good will be relative to himself; yet in every case it will be a matter of pleasure. And since pleasure is the phantasm of that which furthers the vital motions, the fundamental goods will be the things necessary to a man's preservation, and the secondary goods will be the things which heighten the quality of his living.11 (2) There is no summum bonum or greatest good. Since the good is the pleasant and the pleasant is a certain favorable kind of motion, the good is dependent upon continued motion. A happy life can never be found in repose. There is no utmost end which can make men permanently happy. When one desire has been satisfied, new desires will be aroused. "Felicity consisteth, not in having prospered, but in prospering."12 (3) The will is not a separate thing from the desires. It is not a mysterious faculty which interferes in the orderly sequence of bodily motions. The desires and emotions do not proceed from the will, but are the will. In those cases where a man has but one desire, that desire immediately determines his action, and hence is his will. In those other cases, where, as more frequently happens, a man has alternating and conflicting desires, a suspension of action takes place which is called deliberation. Then finally some one desire is so strong as to end deliberation and result in action. This last desire, “immediately adhering to the action," is what in such cases is meant by the will. Thus in either case, the will is not a faculty apart from desires, but is identical with that one of the desires which prevails.13 (4) The will cannot be spoken of as voluntary. For the |