The concept of duty.
IV. A classical example of the disputes as to the principle of the Philosophy of the practical, arising from the consideration of this principle in its empirical formulations, can be furnished from the polemic of Herbart against Kant on the subject of duty. Herbart demonstrated that duty is not an original but a derived concept, and that it appears only when there is disagreement between the practical ideas and the will.[15] But it would be possible to demonstrate with the same method that the practical ideas are derived concepts, because they do indeed presuppose the moral will, from the manifestations of which they are constituted by means of abstraction. Herbart was in the right against Kant, but he afterwards let the axe fall on his own feet. The hard formula of the imperative preferred by Kant had already been combated by Frederick Schiller, who accentuated the moment of pleasure, sympathy and enthusiasm in the good action.
Repentance and remorse.
As to the other concepts and to the disputes to which they gave rise, it will be opportune to mention repentance and remorse. Spinoza does not see that it has value as a necessary negative moment, for he declared: Poenitentia virtus non est, sive ex ratione non oritur; sed is qui facti poenitet bis miser, seu impotens est. Nam primo prava cupiditate, dein tristitia vinci se patitur; and he concludes by assigning to it value for altogether empirical motives. Men rarely live (he says) ex dictamine rationis; and yet repentance and other similar affections do more good than harm, and if it be necessary to sin in istam partem potius peccandum. Terret vulgus, nisi metuat.[16] But it was Hegel who instituted a regular persecution of the concept of repentance and remorse. There are certain passages in his works that should be read in connection with this question, in order that we may clearly see how he had an eye to contingent and historical events in his criticism. "In the Christian world in general (he writes) there is in force an ideal of the perfect man, who cannot exist as multitude in a people; and if this ideal is found realized in monks, quakers, and such-like pious folk, it must be remarked that a mass of these sad creatures does not constitute a people, just as lice and parasitic plants cannot exist by themselves, but only on an organic body. In order to constitute a people, it would be above all desirable to destroy that lamblike gentleness of theirs, that vanity which is occupied solely with their own persons, the caring for them and holding them dear, and has always before it the image and consciousness of its own excellence. For life in the universal and for the universal demands, not such vile and listless gentleness, but an energetic gentleness, not a thinking of oneself and one's own sins, but of the universal and of what should be done for it. To him who nourishes so false an ideal, men must always appear to be affected with weakness and corruption, and that ideal to be so constituted that it can never be translated into reality. They attribute importance to trifles, to which no reasonable person pays special attention, and believe that such weaknesses and defects exist, even when they are not remarked. Nor should we admire their greatness of soul, but note rather that their corruption lies precisely in standing still and looking at that which they call weaknesses and errors, and in making out of nothing something that exists. A man with such weaknesses and defects is immediately quit of them, if he do not attach to them importance." The observations that Hegel makes in his Æsthetic, regarding the type of the Magdalen in Italian art, are in this respect especially curious. "In Italian painting the Magdalen appears, both within and without, as the beautiful sinner; sin in her is as seductive as conversion. But here neither sin nor sanctity are to be taken too seriously. She was pardoned, because she had loved much; she sinned through love and beauty; and the affecting element lies in this, that she has scruples about her love, and beautiful and sensible as she is, sheds torrents of tears. But her error is not that she has loved so much; her beautiful and moving error is precisely that she believes herself to be a sinner, whereas her sensitive beauty gives the impression that she could not have been otherwise than noble and of lofty senses in her love."[17]
The doctrine of the passions.
V. The relation between the passions or desires and the will has rather been studied at the moment of strife between the will and the passions, than for itself and within its two terms, although Aristotle had already begun an analysis as to the diversity of appetites or βούλησις in respect to the intention or προαίρεσις, observing that the intention relates only to what can be done, whereas the appetition relates also to things that are impossible.[18] The opposed schools of the Cynics and Cyrenaïcs, Stoics and Epicureans, and others such, were chiefly concerned with the antithesis of the passions and the rational will; but the formulæ of all these schools, if they have some empirical value as precepts of life more or less suitable for definite individuals, classes and times, possess none or very little for philosophy. Cynics and Cyrenaïcs, Stoics and Epicureans, they seem rather to be monks following this or that rule than philosophers. The question as to the mode of freeing oneself from the passions and of dominating them, which lingered till the treatises of Descartes and Spinoza, has also a chiefly empirical character. G. B. Vico took up a position opposed to the two opposed degenerations arising from those practical tendencies, that of "quenching the senses," and of "making a rule of them." He despised both Stoics and Epicureans as "monastic or solitary philosophers," and maintained as "a philosopher politician," that it is needful "not to tear away his own nature from man, nor to abandon him in his corruption," but "to moderate the human passions and to make of them human virtues."[19] Rarely has the defence of the passions enjoyed an equally limpid philosophical enunciation; as a rule, and even in Hegel, it has been directed chiefly against certain social tendencies, rather than against philosophical doctrines.[20] The absolute abandonment to the passions or their absolute destruction, are theories that have not had true and proper representatives.—The confusion between the various meanings of the word "passion," understood now as appetition, or concrete and actual passion, now as a state of the soul (joy and sorrow), now as volitional habit, is to be found in the various treatises that we have already had occasion to record. It is natural that their character of indifference when understood as habits should have often been observed. Thus for Descartes, elles sont toutes bonnes de leur nature et nous n'avons rien à éviter que leurs mauvais usages ou leur excès.[21]
Virtues and Vices.
On the other hand, the erroneous form of the defence of the passions, consisting of making them the preparation or cause of the virtues, is already to be found in the English philosophers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (More, Shaftesbury, etc.); and in the celebrated Fable of the Bees of Mandeville, it assumes the aspect of a paradoxical theory, in which the vices are looked upon as promoters and factors of progress, morality as inefficacious and harmful for this purpose. And La Rochefoucauld had written: "Les vices entrent dans la composition des vertus comme les poisons dans la composition des remèdes."[22]
The doctrine of individuality: Schleiermacher.