[26] This influence was not exercised in the region of ethics. Bacon’s brief outline of moral philosophy (in the Advancement of Learning, ii. 20-22) is highly pregnant and suggestive. But Bacon’s great task of reforming scientific method was one which, as he conceived it, left morals on one side; he never made any serious effort to reduce his ethical views to a coherent system, methodically reasoned on an independent basis. The outline given in the Advancement was never filled in, and does not seem to have had any effect on the subsequent course of ethical speculation.
[27] He even identifies the desire with the pleasure, apparently regarding the stir of appetite and that of fruition as two parts of the same “motion.”
[28] In spite of Hobbes’s uncompromising egoism, there is a noticeable discrepancy between his theory of the ends that men naturally seek and his standard for determining their natural rights. This latter is never Pleasure simply, but always Preservation—though on occasion he enlarges the notion of “preservation” into “preservation of life so as not to be weary of it.” His view seems to be that in a state of nature most men will fight, rob, &c., “for delectation merely” or “for glory,” and that hence all men must be allowed an indefinite right to fight, rob, &c., “for preservation.”
[29] It should be noticed, however, that it is only in his treatment of Equity and Benevolence that he really follows out the mathematical analogy (cf. Sidgwick’s History of Ethics, 5th ed., pp. 180-181).
[30] It should be observed that, while Clarke is sincerely anxious to prove that most principles are binding independently of Divine appointment, he is no less concerned to show that morality requires the practical support of revealed religion.
[31] Three classes of impulses are thus distinguished by Shaftesbury:—(1) “Natural Affections,” (2) “Self-affections,” and (3) “Un-natural Affections.” Their characteristics are further considered in the History of Ethics, p. 186 seq.
[32] In a remarkable passage near the close of his eleventh sermon Butler seems even to allow that conscience would have to give way to self-love, if it were possible (which it is not) that the two should come into ultimate and irreconcilable conflict.
[33] It is worth noticing that Hutcheson’s express definition of the object of self-love includes “perfection” as well as “happiness”; but in the working out of his system he considers private good exclusively as happiness or pleasure.
[34] Hume’s ethical view was finally stated in his Inquiry into the Principles of Morals (1751), which is at once more popular and more purely utilitarian than his earlier work.
[35] Hume remarks that in some cases, by “association of ideas,” the rule by which we praise and blame is extended beyond the principle of utility from which it arises; but he allows much less scope to this explanation in his second treatise than in his first.