In short, in the words of Wellhausen, “Morality is that for the sake of which all other things exist; it is the alone essential thing in the world.”[7] The really constructive and regulative forces in history are in truth moral ideas and convictions. And there is vast significance in this—that the ethical motive, never absent and always active, is constantly becoming more and more dominant in the processes of the historical evolution. As the ages pass there enters into history—we shall see this to be so later—an ever larger ethical element. Conscience becomes ever more and more involved in the personal, national, and international affairs of the world.
The history of morals in the main a record of the expansion of the circle covered by the moral feelings
Moral progress consists not so much in changes in the quality or intensity of the moral emotions, although these gain in diversity, purity, and refinement as time passes, as in the successive enlargements of the circle of persons embraced by the moral feelings.[8] “It is not the sense of duty to a neighbor, but the practical answer to the question, Who is my neighbor? that has varied.”[9] As we shall see when we come to examine the morality of primitive man, the moral feelings embrace at first only kinsmen, that is, the members of one’s own family, clan, or social group. All others are outside the moral pale. But gradually this circle grows larger and embraces in successive expansions the tribe, the city, the nation, and lastly humanity.
This expansion of the area covered by the moral feelings is the dominant fact in the moral history of mankind. It is the overlooking of this fact that has caused writers like Buckle to make their strange misreading of history and to maintain that though man during historic times has made immense progress on material and intellectual lines, he has made little or no progress in morality. The truth is, as we shall learn, that in no domain has progress been greater, the gains larger or more precious, than in the moral. From clan morality, based on physical kinship, mankind has advanced or is advancing to world morality, based on the ethical kinship of men. This is the one increasing purpose running through all history—the creation of a moral order embracing the whole human race.
Sources for the history of morals
The facts for a history of morals must be sought chiefly outside the literature of ethical theory and speculation. They must be looked for in the customs, laws, institutions, mythologies, literatures, maxims, and religions of the different races, peoples, and ages of history.[10] In all these there is always an ethical element; often this forms their very essence. “In every sentence of the penal code,” as the moralist Wilhelm Wundt remarks, “there speaks the voice of an objective moral conscience.” In truth all law codes, whether civil or criminal, are essentially nothing more nor less than the embodiment of man’s conceptions of what is just and unjust. Mythologies, literatures, and philosophies are charged with moral sentiment. In religion there struggle for utterance the deepest moral feelings and convictions of the human soul.
The moral ideal
The moral life fulfills itself in many ways. Every age and every race has its own moral type or ideal.[11] This, as we shall use the term, may be defined as a group of virtues held in esteem by a given people or a given age. It is the accepted standard of conduct, of excellence, of character. This ideal may be a very simple thing, embracing only a few rudimentary virtues, as in the case of peoples on the lower levels of culture; or it may be a very complex thing, embracing many and refined virtues, as in the case of civilized societies in which the mutual relationships of the members are many and various.
The history of morals is in the main an account of moral ideals or types.[12] Indeed so large is the part that these have played in the growth and decay of races and civilizations that universal history may be defined quite accurately as “the paleontology of moral ideals.”[13]
There is one thing about a moral ideal which sets it apart from all other ideals. It possesses a unique dynamic force. All ideals, it is true, have in them the impulsion to their embodiment in reality. But in a moral ideal there is the added imperative of conscience. There speaks from it the majestic voice of duty, demanding that the ideal be made actual in the life of the individual and of society. It is this that has made moral ideals such molding and constructive forces in history.