And when it is said: “Love God above all else” (and Aristotle also says that God is much rather to be called the best than the world as a whole),[67] here also there is a special application of the law of summation. For how else do we think of God than as the sum of all that is good raised to an infinite degree?
And so the two propositions: that we should love our neighbour as ourselves, and love God above all else, are manifestly so closely related that we are no longer surprised to find added the words that the one law is like unto the other. The law that we are to love our neighbour, it should be carefully noted, is not subordinated to that of love of God, and derived from it, it is, according to the Christian view, not right because God has required it, rather he requires it because it is by nature right;[68] and this rightness is made manifest in the same way, and with the same clearness by means, so to speak, of the same ray of natural knowledge.
Sufficient testimony has perhaps been offered to the shaping operation of those factors which have been separately set forth by us, and so we have, on the one hand, a strengthening of our theory while, on the other hand, we have in essentials the explanation of that paradoxical anticipation of philosophical results.
[45.] We are not to suppose, however, that all has now been said. Not every opinion regarding law and morality holding good in society to-day, and which has also the sanction of ethics, flows from these pure and noble sources which, even when hid, have none the less discharged their waters in rich abundance. Many such views have arisen in a way quite unjustifiable from a logical point of view, and an inquiry into the history of their origin shows that they take their rise in lower impulses, in egoistic desires through a transformation due, not to higher influences, but simply to the instinctive force of habit. It is really true, as so many utilitarians have pointed out, that egoism prompts men to make themselves agreeable to others and that such conduct continually practised, develops finally into a habit which is blind to the original ends. The chief reason for this is the limits of our mind, the so-called “narrowness of consciousness,” which does not allow of our always keeping clearly before us the more remote and final ends side by side with what is immediately in question. In such a way many a one may be frequently led, by the blind force of habit, to have regard also for the well-being of others with a certain self-forgetfulness. Further, it is true, as some have particularly insisted, that in history it must often have happened that a powerful person has selfishly reduced to subjection a weaker individual, and transformed him by force of habit more and more into a willing slave. And then in this slave-soul an αὐτὀς ἒφα comes in the end to operate with a blind, but none the less powerful force, an impelling “you ought,” as though it were a revelation of nature regarding good and bad. On every violation of a command he feels himself, like a well-trained dog, uneasy and inwardly tormented. When such a tyrant had, in this way, reduced many to subjection his prudent egoism would cause him to give commands helpful to the maintenance of his horde. These orders would in the same slavish manner become habitual, and as it were, natural to his subjects. And so regard for the whole of this community would gradually become for each subject something into which he felt himself driven in the manner above described. At the same time, we may easily recognize how, owing to the constant care exercised towards his subjects, habits must be formed in the tyrant himself favourable to a regard for the welfare of the community. It may even happen at last that, just as in the case of the miser, who sacrifices himself for the sake of his gold, the tyrant may be ready to die for the maintenance of his people. Throughout the whole process thus described ethical principles do not exercise the slightest influence. The compulsion which in this way arises, and the opinions which as a result approve or disapprove of a certain procedure have nothing whatever to do with the natural sanction and are devoid of all ethical worth. It may, however, be easily understood—especially if one considers how one tribe enters into relations with another and considerations of friendliness begin here too to prove advantageous,—how this kind of training may lead, indeed one may venture to say must, sooner or later, lead to opinions in agreement with the principles springing from a true appreciation of the good.
[46.] Thus also the blind, purely habitual expectation of similar events under similar circumstances which animals, and also we ourselves, practise in countless instances, often coincide with the results which a complete induction according to the principles of the calculation of probability would, in the same case, have brought about. The very similarity of result has led people even with a psychological education,[69] to regard the two processes as exactly identical, although they stand wide as the poles asunder, the one completing itself by means of a purely blind instinct, while the other is illumined by mathematical evidence. We ourselves should, therefore, be well on our guard against supposing in such pseudo-ethical developments the concealed influence of the true ethical sanction.
[47.] Great, however, as is the contrast, still even these lower processes have their worth. Nature—and this has been often insisted on[70]—frequently does well in leaving much which concerns our welfare to instinctive impulses like hunger and thirst rather than leave everything to our reason. This, also, is confirmed in our case.
In those very early times in which, as I conceded to Ihering, (why you will, perhaps, now be better able to see,) nearly every trace of ethical thought and feeling was absent, much nevertheless was done which was a preparation for true virtue. Public laws, however much in the first instance established under the influence of lower motives, were yet preliminary conditions for the free unfolding of our noblest capacities.
Nor is it a matter of no consequence that, under the influence of this training, certain passions became moderated and certain dispositions implanted which made it easier to follow the true moral law in the same direction. Catiline’s courage was assuredly not the true virtue of courage if Aristotle is right when he says that they only have such who go to danger and to death “τοῦ καλοῦ ἔνεκα,” “for the sake of the morally beautiful.”[71] Augustine might have made use of this instance when he said: “virtutes ethnicorum splendida vitia.” But who will deny that if such a man as Catiline had been converted, the dispositions he had acquired earlier would have made it easier for him to venture to extremes in the service of the good too? In this way, the ground was made receptive for the admission of truly ethical impulses and therein lay a powerful encouragement to the propagation of truth on the part of those who were foremost in the discovery of ethical knowledge, and first to hear the voice of a natural sanction. It is in this sense that Aristotle observed that it is not every one who can study ethics. He who is to hear about law and morality, must be already well conducted by dint of habit. In the case of others, he thinks, it is but a waste of pains.[72]
Indeed, still more may be said in praise of the services rendered to the recognition of natural law and morality by these pre-ethical, though not pre-historical, times. The legal ordinances and customs formed in this time, owing to the reasons previously assigned, approached so closely to what ethics demands, that this peculiar kind of mimicry blinded many to the absence of a more thorough going affinity. What, in the one case, a blind impulse and in the other, knowledge of the good exalts into a law, is often completely the same in substance. The legislative moral authority found therefore in these already codified laws and customs the rough drafts, as it were, of laws, which with a few changes, it could sanction without more ado. These were the more valuable because, as seems required from a utilitarian point of view, they were adapted to the special circumstances of the people. A comparison of the one constitution with the other made this noticeable, and early helped to lead to the important knowledge of the real relativity of natural right and of natural morality. Who knows whether otherwise, it would have been possible, even for an Aristotle, to succeed to the degree in which he did in steering clear of all cut and dried doctrinaire theories?
So much, therefore, concerning the pre-ethical times, in order that these may not be denied the acknowledgment which they deserve.