[13] See, for instance, Paley's Moral Philosophy, Chap. V.
[15] So Hume, Adam Smith, Thomas Brown.
[16] Jeremy Bentham, Jas. Mill, J. S. Mill, Herbert Spencer.
[17] Borden P. Bowne, Int. to Psychological Theory (Harper & Brothers, N. Y., 1887), p. 206. Prof. Bowne thinks, indeed, that this distinction, traced to its roots, depends on "a feeling of approval or disapproval in connection with the aims and principles of conduct," and that the ideal of life and the law of conduct spring out of "this basal feeling." He asserts that "we can only represent the motives and actions to ourselves, and wait for the immediate feeling of approval or disapproval to manifest itself." He maintains that nothing is gained by regarding the distinction as an intuition of the reason instead of a feeling, because, he says, "its universality depends on its content, and not upon its psychological classification." But we may well ask if it really does make no difference whether this distinction, the "ethical ideal," comes as a perception of reality, the action of a knowing power, or as a "feeling" which perceives nothing and to account for which there is no perceived ethical reality, no discernment of the elemental ideas of right and wrong, upon which approval or disapproval can arise and rest. We are entitled to ask: How can there be a feeling of ethical approval when there is no insight of the distinction between moral good and evil? The "feeling" that arises from no perception of anything to approve, or that approves without any perceived principle or law of approval, is blind. It has no standard or reason for an ethical approval. Moreover, Prof. Bowne admits: "As long as they [the aims and principles of conduct] are unrecognized there is no moral life. As long as they are unclearly perceived, there are only the germs of a moral life. When they are brought out into clear recognition, the self-conscious moral life begins."
[18] See Wuttke's Christian Ethics (Nelson & Phillips, N. Y.), Vol. II, pp. 139, 140.
[19] Borden P. Bowne's Int. to Psychological Theory (Harper & Bros., N.Y., 1887), p. 184.
[20] Theism, p. 13. Quoted from William Knight's Essays in Philosophy (Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston, 1890), p. 276.
[21] J. Stuart Mill.
[22] "The Crisis in Morals," by Jas. Thomas Bixby, Ph. D. (Boston, Roberts Brothers, 1891).