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  ELEMENTS OF MORALS:

  WITH

  SPECIAL APPLICATION OF THE MORAL LAW TO THE
  DUTIES OF THE INDIVIDUAL AND OF
  SOCIETY AND THE STATE.


  BY PAUL JANET,

  MEMBER OF THE INSTITUTE, OF THE ACADEMY OF MORAL AND POLITICAL
  SCIENCES, AUTHOR OF THEORY OF MORALS, HISTORY OF MORAL
  AND POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY, FINAL CAUSES, ETC., ETC.


  TRANSLATED BY
  MRS. C. R. CORSON.


  A. S. BARNES & CO.,
  NEW YORK AND CHICAGO



_Copyright, 1884, by A. S. Barnes & Co._




PREFACE.


The _Elements de Morale_, by M. Paul Janet, which we here present to the
educational world, translated from the latest edition, is, of all the
works of that distinguished moralist, the one best adapted to college and
school purposes. Its scholarly and methodical arrangement, its clear and
direct reasonings, its felicitous examples and illustrations, drawn with
rare impartiality from the best ancient and modern writers, make of this
study of Ethics, generally so unattractive to young students, one
singularly inviting. It is a system of morals, practical rather than
theoretical, setting forth man's duties and the application thereto of the
moral law. Starting with _Preliminary Notions_, M. Janet follows these up
with a general division of duties, establishes the general principles of
social and individual morality, and chapter by chapter moves from duties
to duties, developing each in all its ramifications with unerring
clearness, decision, and completeness. Never before, perhaps, was this
difficult subject brought to the comprehension of the student with more
convincing certainty, and, at the same time, with more vivid and
impressive illustrations.

The position of M. Paul Janet is that of the _religious_ moralist.

"He supplies," says a writer in the _British Quarterly Review_,[1] in a
notice of his _Theory of Morals_, "the very element to which Mr. Sully
gives so little place. He cannot conceive morals without religion. Stated
shortly, his position is, that moral good is founded upon a natural and
essential good, and that the domains of good and of duty are absolutely
equivalent. So far he would seem to follow Kant; but he differs from Kant
in denying that there are indefinite duties: every duty, he holds, is
definite as to its _form_; but it is either definite or indefinite as to
its application. As religion is simply belief in the Divine goodness,
morality must by necessity lead to religion, and is like a flowerless
plant if it fail to do so. He holds with Kant that _practical faith_ in
the existence of God is the postulate of the moral law. The two things
exist or fall together."

This, as to M. Janet's position as a moralist; as to his manner of
treating his subject, the writer adds:

"... it is beyond our power to set forth, with approach to success, the
admirable series of reasonings and illustrations by which his positions
are established and maintained."

M. Janet's signal merit is the clearness and decision which he gives to
the main points of his subject, keeping them ever distinctly in view, and
strengthening and supplementing them by substantial and conclusive facts,
drawn from the best sources, framing, so to say, his idea in time-honored
and irrefutable truths.

The law of duty thus made clear to the comprehension of the student,
cannot fail to fix his attention; and between fixing the attention and
striking root, the difference is not very great.

C. R. C.




TABLE OF CONTENTS.


  CHAPTER                                                           PAGE

     I.--Preliminary Notions                                           1

    II.--Division of Duties.--General Principles of Social
         Morality                                                     33

   III.--Duties of Justice.--Duties toward Human Life                 50

    IV.--Duties Concerning the Property of Others                     63

     V.--Duties toward the Liberty and toward the Honor of
         Others.--Justice, Distributive and Remunerative.--
         Equity                                                       93

    VI.--Duties of Charity and Self-Sacrifice                        111

   VII.--Duties toward the State                                     139

  VIII.--Professional Duties                                         157

    IX.--Duties of Nations among themselves.--International Law      182

     X.--Family Duties                                               190

    XI.--Duties toward One's Self.--Duties relative to the Body      223

   XII.--Duties relative to External Goods                           244

  XIII.--Duties relative to the Intellect                            260

   XIV.--Duties relative to the Will                                 281

    XV.--Religious Morality.--Religious Rights and Duties            299

   XVI.--Moral Medicine and Gymnastics                               315

         Appendix to Chapter VIII                                    341




ELEMENTS OF MORALS.




CHAPTER I.

PRELIMINARY NOTIONS.

    SUMMARY.

    =Starting point of morals.=--Notions of common sense.

    =Object and divisions of morals.=--Practical morality and theoretical
    morality.

    =Utility of morals.=--Morals are useful: 1, in protecting us against
    the sophisms which combat them; 2, in fixing principles in the mind;
    3, in teaching us to reflect upon the motives of our actions; 4, in
    preparing us for the difficulties which may arise in practice.

    =Short resume of theoretical morality.=--Pleasure and the good.--The
    useful and the honest.--Duty.--Moral conscience and moral
    sentiment.--Liberty.--Merit and demerit.--Moral responsibility.--Moral
    sanction.


All sciences have for their starting-point certain elementary notions
which are furnished them by the common experience of mankind. There would
be no arithmetic if men had not, as their wants increased, begun by
counting and calculating, and if they had not already had some ideas of
numbers, unity, fractions, etc.; neither would there be any geometry if
they had not also had ideas of the round, the square, the straight line.
The same is true of morals. They presuppose a certain number of notions
existing among all men, at least to some degree. Good and evil, duty and
obligation, conscience, liberty and responsibility, virtue and vice,
merit and demerit, sanction, punishment and reward, are notions which the
philosopher has not invented, but which he has borrowed from common sense,
to return them again cleared and deepened.

Let us begin, then, by rapidly enumerating the elementary and common
notions, the analysis and elucidation of which is the object of moral
science, and explain the terms employed to express them.

=1. Starting point of morals: common notions.=--All men distinguish the
_good_ and the _bad_, _good_ actions and _bad_ actions. For instance, to
love one's parents, respect other people's property, to keep one's word,
etc., is right; to harm those who have done us no harm, to deceive and
lie, to be ungrateful towards our benefactors, and unfaithful to our
friends, etc., is wrong.

To do right is _obligatory_ on every one--that is, it _should_ be done;
wrong, on the contrary, _should_ be avoided. _Duty_ is that _law_ by which
we are held to do the right and avoid the wrong. It is also called the
_moral law_. This law, like all laws, _commands_, _forbids_, and
_permits_.

He who acts and is capable of doing the right and the wrong, and who
consequently is held to obey the moral law, is called a moral agent. In
order that an agent may be held to obey a law, he must _know it and
understand it_. In morals, as in legislation, _no one is supposed to be
ignorant of the law_. There is, then, in every man a certain knowledge of
the law, that is to say, a natural discernment of the right and the wrong.
This discernment is what is called conscience, or sometimes the _moral
sense_.

Conscience is an act of the mind, a _judgment_. But it is not only the
mind that is made aware of the right and the wrong: it is the heart. Good
and evil, done either by others or by ourselves, awaken in us emotions,
affections of diverse nature. These emotions or affections are what
collectively constitute the _moral sentiment_.

It does not suffice that a man know and distinguish the good and the evil,
and experience for the one and for the other different sentiments; it is
also necessary, in order to be a _moral agent_, that he be capable of
_choosing_ between them; he cannot be commanded to do what he cannot do,
nor can he be forbidden to do what he cannot help doing. This power of
choosing is called _liberty_, or _free will_.

A free agent--one, namely, who can discern between the right and the
wrong--is said to be responsible for his actions; that is to say, he can
answer for them, give an account of them, suffer their consequences; he is
then their _real cause_. His actions may consequently be attributed to
him, put to his account; in other words _imputed_ to him. The agent is
responsible, the actions are _imputable_.

Human actions, we have said, are sometimes good, sometimes bad. These two
qualifications have degrees in proportion to the importance or the
difficulty of the action. It is thus we call an action _suitable_,
_estimable_, _beautiful_, _admirable_, _sublime_, etc. On the other hand,
a bad action is sometimes but a simple mistake, and sometimes a _crime_.
It is _culpable_, _base_, _abominable_, _execrable_, etc.

If we observe in an agent the _habit_ of good actions, a _constant
tendency_ to conform to the law of duty, this habit or constant tendency
is called _virtue_, and the contrary tendency is called _vice_.

Whilst man feels himself bound by his conscience to seek the _right_, he
is impelled by his nature to seek _pleasure_. When he enjoys pleasure
without any admixture of pain, he is _happy_; and the highest degree of
possible pleasure with the least degree of possible pain is _happiness_.
Now, experience shows that happiness is not always in harmony with virtue,
and that pleasure does not necessarily accompany right doing.

And yet we find such a separation unjust; and we believe in a natural and
legitimate connection between pleasure and right, pain and wrong.
Pleasure, considered as the consequence of well-doing, is called
_recompense_; and pain, considered as the legitimate consequence of evil,
is called _punishment_.

When a man has done well he thinks, and all other men think, that he has a
right to a recompense. When he has done ill they think the contrary, and
he himself thinks also that he must atone for his wrong-doing by a
chastisement. This principle, by virtue of which we declare a moral agent
deserving of happiness or unhappiness according to his good or bad
actions, is called the principle of merit and demerit.

The sum total of the rewards and punishments attached to the execution or
violation of a law is called sanction; the sanction of the moral law will
then be called _moral sanction_.

All law presupposes a legislator. The moral law will presuppose, then, a
_moral_ legislator, and morality consequently raises us to God. All human
or earthly sanction being shown by observation to be insufficient, the
moral law calls for a religious sanction. It is thus that morality
conducts us to the _immortality of the soul_.

If we go back upon the whole of the ideas we have just briefly expressed,
we shall see that at each of the steps we have taken there are always two
contraries opposed the one to the other: _good_ and _evil_, _command_ and
_prohibition_, _virtue_ and _vice_, _merit_ and _demerit_, _pleasure_ and
_pain_, _reward_ and _punishment_.

Human life presents itself, then, under two aspects. Man can choose