73. THOUGHTS ON THE SABBATH BY BISHOP WHATELY 225 74. MARRIAGE: Authority; Law . 85. UNION OF CAPITAL; UNION OF LABOR. 86. THE UNION AS A REGULATOR OF WAGES PART FIRST. DIVISION I. INTRODUCTORY PRINCIPLES. I. GROUND-PRINCIPLE.-Most people are content with any doctrine or theory of morals and religion, provided, as they say, the practice be good. Doctrine is nothing; theory nothing; practice is all in all. Yet, in truth, it is the act that follows the thought not the thought the act. We must think right if we would do right. All great events and fruitful judgments, right or wrong, have first been generated in thought. Locke's theory of sense-knowledge, or of sensation as the ground of knowledge, gave occasion for David Hume's skeptical philosophy; that is, for Hume's questioning the certainty of any and all knowledge, for this was the logical result of Locke's erroneous theory, though Locke practically was no skeptic. Immanuel Kant' at once saw the necessity for quite a different origin as the ground-principle of knowledge, and in his famous Critique established this ground-principle within the mind — not, like Locke, outside of it. Just as in the science of intellect we stand in need 'This word Kant and others thus noted refer to Explanatory Notes. of a ground-principle that insures certitude - such certitude as is assured by the reference of Kant's categories of thought to a subjective, innate, or à priori origin; just so in the science of morals we must look for a ground-principle that lies wholly within the constitution of the soul, else we find ourselves at sea upon the great problems of life. 2. CICERO IN DE OFFICIIS.-Cicero' in De Officiis2 notices that in philosophy there are many weighty and useful matters critically and copiously discussed, especially upon questions of duty as traditional, and as taught by the philosophers. For, says Cicero, there is no part of life, neither public nor private, ' whether you would deal with yourself or whether you would transact business with another, from which it is possible to exclude duty. In the culture of duty there are builded all the virtues of life; in its neglect is all baseness. But there are some schools that, when the domain of morals is surveyed, pervert all duty; for whoever so institutes the chief-good" that he has nothing conjoined with virtue, and measures it by his own profit-not by what is honest-he, if he is consistent with himself, and is not meanwhile bound by the excellency' of nature, can cultivate neither friendship nor justice nor liberality. Surely in no manner is he able to be truly brave who judges pain to be the greatest evil; nor can he be truly temperate who sets up pleasure as the chief-good. These philosophical systems, then, if they would be consonant with themselves, can say nothing about duty; nor can any stable principle of duty conjoined to nature be put on record, except by those who say that honesty is to be sought on account of itself alone. Cicero's Division of the Question: "The whole question of duty is twofold: One kind pertains to the Chief-good; the other is placed in Precepts, to which in every relation the course of our lives must be conformed. Examples of the higher kind are of this sort, namely: Can all duties be perfected? Is one duty greater than another? As to the preceptive duties, they indeed pertain somewhat to the chief-good; yet this is less apparent because they seem rather to regard the regulation of ordinary life." This division by Cicero of the "Question of Duty" into two kinds is of great value. It is the same as that attempted by all ethic writers--a division into Principles and the Practical. It is a generic distinction that marks the limit between what we know in the domain of duty by prudential considerations and wise conclusions drawn from experience and what we know through the moral and religious sensibilities. enlightened by the logic of the understanding and the reasoning faculties. The great search was and is for an underlying principle as the ground of duty, having the character of certitude.' In his enrapt, sublime contemplation of honesty, truth and virtue, Cicero eloquently exclaims: You may see, O son Marcus', the very form, and, as it were, the features" of virtue, which, could they |