History as past ethics; an introduction to the history of morals

by P. V. N. Myers

[741] When in 1654 matches for cockfighting were forbidden in England the reason for the prohibition was not that it was cruel to the birds, but for the reason that the matches were “commonly accompanied with gaming, drinking, swearing, quarreling, and other dissolute practices” (Pike, A History of Crime in England (1873), vol. ii, p. 186). Consult further, Lecky, Rationalism in Europe (1890), vol. i, pp. 307 f.

[742] Evolutional Ethics and Animal Psychology (1898), p. 18. Darwinism has without doubt also aided the vegetarians in their crusade against the use of animal flesh for food, and in conjunction with the influence of Eastern ideas and convictions may cause ultimately a great change in the ethical feelings of the Western peoples respecting this practice. They may come to regard it with the same deep moral reprobation as is now felt by Eastern moralists. “For my part,” says the Japanese writer Nitobé, “the surprising thing is that European ethics can be so atavistic as to stoop to a sort of cannibalism” (Fifty Years of New Japan (1909), vol. ii, p. 462).

[743] See Frederic W. H. Myers, Human Personality (1903), 2 vols.; Sir Oliver Lodge, The Survival of Man (1909); James H. Hyslop, Enigmas of Psychical Research (1906); W. F. Barrett, Psychical Research (1912).

[744] The Survival of Man (1909), p. 341.

[745] George William Knox, “Religion and Ethics,” International Journal of Ethics for April, 1902.

[746] George Harris, Moral Evolution (1896), p. 392.

[747] Christian Ethics (1892), p. 11. Lecky makes a similar observation: “Generation after generation the power of the moral faculty becomes more absolute, the doctrines that oppose it wane and vanish, and the various elements of theology are absorbed and recast by its influence” (History of Rationalism in Europe (1890), vol. i, pp. 351 f.).

[748] “It is because the ethical ideals of Christendom have become so wonderfully enlarged and perfected within the last half century that the character of God has taken on such new and glorious forms. The God whom Christian people generally believe in and worship is a very different being from the one they were thinking about and praying to when I began my ministry.”—Washington Gladden (in report of address).

[749] See above, pp. 35, 164 and 187.

[750] Cf. Borden Parker Bowne, The Essence of Religion (1910), chap. iv, “Righteousness the Essence of Religion.”